evince
Truthmatters
good for you
most right leaning people try to demonize any socialistic ideas in this country
pretending that the founders didnt use it themselves
Do You Think The Rich Should Be Taxed More?
- Thread starter PoliTalker
- Start date
good for you
most right leaning people try to demonize any socialistic ideas in this country
pretending that the founders didnt use it themselves
Irish Exit
Verified User
Unfortunately so do I. I would do everything soaking it with insecticide, pruning it back to sticks, completely replacing the dirt and nothing worked. One year I hung like a dozen fly strips all around it. It was just too big and cumbersome anyway to have in the house. I did my happy dance when it came the, "Well we can put it outside now that it is warm and maybe it will come back out" day cause I knew there was zero chance it was just dormant LOL.
They were not facts. They were predictions by the DOJ which turned out to be completely false since voter turnout actually increased in the next election.
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
It would support your contention that it is easier to vote than ever before (which is untrue in many red states.)
As voting has been made easier by Democrats and some Republicans, other Republicans have realized that these changes have brought more Democratic voters out, and so they have embarked on numerous State campaigns to make voting more difficult. It is an oversimplification to say that voter turn-out has declined. It has actually increased to a high in 2008 of 58.2% of voting age population. It generally has increased over the years, but has recently decreased. Since the Obama high point, Trump represents a low point on the generally rising curve. Many blacks were prevented from voting in 2016 directly due to Republican voter suppression.
Wiki: Voter turnout in United States presidential elections
Those increases are the result of voter registration drives by Democrats in response to Republican gerrymandering. Because of their success, Republicans have responded with anti-voter measures making it more difficult for those of limited means to vote. Early voting periods have been cut, voting hours cut, precincts cut, and the number of voting machines reduced. Voter purge lists have targeted blacks.
No, the decline is due to Republican voter-suppression efforts.
That would be the period you are overlooking.
You may be forgetting who won the popular vote.
It would support your contention that it is easier to vote than ever before (which is untrue in many red states.)
As voting has been made easier by Democrats and some Republicans, other Republicans have realized that these changes have brought more Democratic voters out, and so they have embarked on numerous State campaigns to make voting more difficult. It is an oversimplification to say that voter turn-out has declined. It has actually increased to a high in 2008 of 58.2% of voting age population. It generally has increased over the years, but has recently decreased. Since the Obama high point, Trump represents a low point on the generally rising curve. Many blacks were prevented from voting in 2016 directly due to Republican voter suppression.
Wiki: Voter turnout in United States presidential elections
Those increases are the result of voter registration drives by Democrats in response to Republican gerrymandering. Because of their success, Republicans have responded with anti-voter measures making it more difficult for those of limited means to vote. Early voting periods have been cut, voting hours cut, precincts cut, and the number of voting machines reduced. Voter purge lists have targeted blacks.
No, the decline is due to Republican voter-suppression efforts.
That would be the period you are overlooking.
You may be forgetting who won the popular vote.
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello and welcome goldkam,
Which is why it is absurd to use these as examples to support a theory that socialism doesn't work. Those who give examples such as Venezuela and Greece are overlooking that much of Europe has more socialism than the USA, and is doing fine. Their people are happier and live longer than Americans do.
Thank you. And that is the important point so often overlooked. It is inapplicable to our nation to argue whether socialism or capitalism is best. We have a mixture of capitalism and socialism. We simply need to get the balance right for the needs of our nation.
I believe that entails taxing the rich more to pay for government social programs to try to mitigate the social destruction wrought by American capitalism. Simply stated, the richest capitalists need to pay for the poverty they have caused.
Which is why it is absurd to use these as examples to support a theory that socialism doesn't work. Those who give examples such as Venezuela and Greece are overlooking that much of Europe has more socialism than the USA, and is doing fine. Their people are happier and live longer than Americans do.
Thank you. And that is the important point so often overlooked. It is inapplicable to our nation to argue whether socialism or capitalism is best. We have a mixture of capitalism and socialism. We simply need to get the balance right for the needs of our nation.
I believe that entails taxing the rich more to pay for government social programs to try to mitigate the social destruction wrought by American capitalism. Simply stated, the richest capitalists need to pay for the poverty they have caused.
The chart in your link is for percent of total population which is not how turnout is usually measured or how the table below the chart measures turnout. Most turnout measures percent of eligible, registered, or voting age population. The numbers in the chart show:
1840s-1896 turnout ranged from 69.6%-81.8%
1900-1948 48.9%-73.2%
1952-2000 49.0-62.8%
2004-2016 54.9%-55.7%
Each period the level of turnout dropped. If we drew a line graph using these numbers (from your link) we would see a steady decline. I have attached another link showing these same approximate numbers.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php
How do I make the graph larger?
Last edited:
Socialism is working fine in many countries. They have fairer countries with better safety nets and universal heath care. They all have high coefficients of happiness than we do.
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
Our data comes from the same sources. The wiki page I referenced used the data from the source you posted.
You are attempting to use the data to support your theory that no Republican voter suppression has taken place.
Republican voter suppression has taken place regardless of the turnout data.
It is well known that big turnouts tend to elect Democrats and low turnouts tend to elect Republicans. That's why Republicans seek to suppress voting.
There are a lot of rich Republicans who don't want to be taxed more, who ignore that we do not collect enough revenue to pay for the country, and want to elect officials who will keep their taxes as low as possible with no consideration what-so-ever to balancing the budget.
Republicans tend to blame the poor for their own condition, do not want to help them, do not want to pay for helping the poor, and contend that they way to balance the budget is to let the poor starve to death.
Republicans seek to make it increasingly difficult for the poor to vote because the poor might vote for programs to help the poor which would raise the expenditures of the government, and calls for the rich to be taxed more to pay for it.
The rich have squeezed the poor out of good jobs, extracted every bit of wealth possible from the poor, have no more need of the poor, and simply wish they would just go away. The rich often see the Republican party as the best way to get what they want; and what they want is all the wealth they can gather.
The Republican obsession with wealth exceeds their compassion for their fellow Americans who are not as well off. It's disgusting selfishness, and it needs to stop.
Our data comes from the same sources. The wiki page I referenced used the data from the source you posted.
You are attempting to use the data to support your theory that no Republican voter suppression has taken place.
Republican voter suppression has taken place regardless of the turnout data.
It is well known that big turnouts tend to elect Democrats and low turnouts tend to elect Republicans. That's why Republicans seek to suppress voting.
There are a lot of rich Republicans who don't want to be taxed more, who ignore that we do not collect enough revenue to pay for the country, and want to elect officials who will keep their taxes as low as possible with no consideration what-so-ever to balancing the budget.
Republicans tend to blame the poor for their own condition, do not want to help them, do not want to pay for helping the poor, and contend that they way to balance the budget is to let the poor starve to death.
Republicans seek to make it increasingly difficult for the poor to vote because the poor might vote for programs to help the poor which would raise the expenditures of the government, and calls for the rich to be taxed more to pay for it.
The rich have squeezed the poor out of good jobs, extracted every bit of wealth possible from the poor, have no more need of the poor, and simply wish they would just go away. The rich often see the Republican party as the best way to get what they want; and what they want is all the wealth they can gather.
The Republican obsession with wealth exceeds their compassion for their fellow Americans who are not as well off. It's disgusting selfishness, and it needs to stop.
You are completely wrong. My post had nothing to do with voter suppression or anything else in your post. My entire post dealt with long-term trends in voter turnout. You claimed turnout had been increasing but using your data from the chart (not the line graph) and every other source it showed voter turnout has declined since the 1840s from 70-80% to about 50-60% today. My point is that as voting got easier and easier voter turnout has still gone down. I was attempting to refute the idea that if we make voting easier more people would vote.
Any difficulty of getting a photo ID is certainly much less restrictive than past obstacles to voting. These include:
1. Age, race, and gender restrictions
2. Requirement to register in person with proof of citizenship
3. Registration limited to as few as a 2 months in a two-year period
4. Literacy requirement
5. White primary
6. No early voting
7. No mail-in ballots
8. Poll tax
9. Residency requirements (currently limited to about 30 days or less)
10. Good character test
11. Grandfather clause
If people could vote in higher numbers with all these obstacles a photo ID should be relatively easy to obtain; however, I never claimed in-person voter fraud is a problem so I don't think a voter ID would solve any problem, but neither do I think it actually suppresses any votes.
Most of your arguments are based on a partisan Democratic viewpoint. I am not partisan and see no difference between the parties as far as methods used. Republicans control most of the states and make the rules today. When Democrats controlled most of the states they sought to suppress Republican votes. Until the 1980s-1990s there were very few Republican voting precincts for the Republican primary making it difficult for people to vote in the Republican primary. Democrats refused to redistrict so those in urban areas had no voting power. When they had to redistrict (by court order) they gerrymandered the districts to protect Democratic incumbents. So both parties use the rules to benefit their side.
When it comes to government spending on social programs, they have grown just as fast under both parties so claims about Republicans wanting to "starve" people is just rhetoric.
What makes you think they're being taxed at all. Because they tell you they are?
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
I think we've worn out the voting bend.
There are two ways to balance the budget.
Reduce spending or raise taxes.
Reducing spending would negatively impact the economy so we don't do that.
Raising taxes is never popular but that is the only alternative.
Since we can't raise taxes on the poor and the middle without negatively impacting the economy, then we must raise taxes on the rich enough to balance the budget.
The only reason that is not done is because of Republican crony capitalism.
We need to vote in a Democratic Socialist majority which will raise taxes on the rich.
Then we can balance the budget with the increased revenue.
That is the most practical way to reduce the Debt/GDP ratio.
I think we've worn out the voting bend.
There are two ways to balance the budget.
Reduce spending or raise taxes.
Reducing spending would negatively impact the economy so we don't do that.
Raising taxes is never popular but that is the only alternative.
Since we can't raise taxes on the poor and the middle without negatively impacting the economy, then we must raise taxes on the rich enough to balance the budget.
The only reason that is not done is because of Republican crony capitalism.
We need to vote in a Democratic Socialist majority which will raise taxes on the rich.
Then we can balance the budget with the increased revenue.
That is the most practical way to reduce the Debt/GDP ratio.
I do not agree with everything you said here, Poli...but I gave you a "thank you" for efforting in the right direction...which, to my mind, is any direction other than where the American conservatives are going on this issue.
the wealthy are getting richer and richer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-in-the-past-50-years/?utm_term=.5d9bdad2dd35 This cannot go on forever. Top 1 percent have 40 percent of the wealth.,
evince
Truthmatters
the 20/80 rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
In economics[edit]
The original observation was in connection with population and wealth. Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population.[7] He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.
A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called "champagne glass" effect,[8] was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which showed that distribution of global income is very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's income.[9]
Distribution of world GDP, 1989[10]
Quintile of population
Income
Richest 20%
82.70%
Second 20%
11.75%
Third 20%
2.30%
Fourth 20%
1.85%
Poorest 20%
1.40%
The Pareto principle also applies to taxation. In the US, the top 20% of earners have paid roughly 80% of Federal income taxes in 2000 and 2006,[11] and again in 2018.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
In economics[edit]
The original observation was in connection with population and wealth. Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population.[7] He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.
A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called "champagne glass" effect,[8] was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which showed that distribution of global income is very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's income.[9]
Distribution of world GDP, 1989[10]
Quintile of population
Income
Richest 20%
82.70%
Second 20%
11.75%
Third 20%
2.30%
Fourth 20%
1.85%
Poorest 20%
1.40%
The Pareto principle also applies to taxation. In the US, the top 20% of earners have paid roughly 80% of Federal income taxes in 2000 and 2006,[11] and again in 2018.[12]
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
evince
Truthmatters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (Italian: [vilˈfreːdo paˈreːto]; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher, now also known for the 80/20 rule, named after him as the Pareto principle. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis.
He introduced the concept of Pareto efficiency and helped develop the field of microeconomics. He was also the first to discover that income follows a Pareto distribution, which is a power law probability distribution. The Pareto principle was named after him, and it was built on observations of his such as that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by about 20% of the population. He also contributed to the fields of sociology and mathematics, according to the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson:
His legacy as an economist was profound. Partly because of him, the field evolved from a branch of moral philosophy as practised by Adam Smith into a data intensive field of scientific research and mathematical equations. His books look more like modern economics than most other texts of that day: tables of statistics from across the world and ages, rows of integral signs and equations, intricate charts and graphs.[1]
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (Italian: [vilˈfreːdo paˈreːto]; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher, now also known for the 80/20 rule, named after him as the Pareto principle. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis.
He introduced the concept of Pareto efficiency and helped develop the field of microeconomics. He was also the first to discover that income follows a Pareto distribution, which is a power law probability distribution. The Pareto principle was named after him, and it was built on observations of his such as that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by about 20% of the population. He also contributed to the fields of sociology and mathematics, according to the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson:
His legacy as an economist was profound. Partly because of him, the field evolved from a branch of moral philosophy as practised by Adam Smith into a data intensive field of scientific research and mathematical equations. His books look more like modern economics than most other texts of that day: tables of statistics from across the world and ages, rows of integral signs and equations, intricate charts and graphs.[1]
evince
Truthmatters
Fascism and power distribution[edit]
Benoît Mandelbrot writes:
One of Pareto's equations achieved special prominence, and controversy. He was fascinated by problems of power and wealth. How do people get it? How is it distributed around society? How do those who have it use it? The gulf between rich and poor has always been part of the human condition, but Pareto resolved to measure it. He gathered reams of data on wealth and income through different centuries, through different countries: the tax records of Basel, Switzerland, from 1454 and from Augsburg, Germany, in 1471, 1498 and 1512; contemporary rental income from Paris; personal income from Britain, Prussia, Saxony, Ireland, Italy, Peru. What he found – or thought he found – was striking. When he plotted the data on graph paper, with income on one axis, and number of people with that income on the other, he saw the same picture nearly everywhere in every era. Society was not a "social pyramid" with the proportion of rich to poor sloping gently from one class to the next. Instead it was more of a "social arrow" – very fat on the bottom where the mass of men live, and very thin at the top where sit the wealthy elite. Nor was this effect by chance; the data did not remotely fit a bell curve, as one would expect if wealth were distributed randomly. "It is a social law", he wrote: something "in the nature of man".[citation needed]
Pareto's discovery that power laws applied to income distribution embroiled him in political change and the nascent Fascist movement, whether he really sided with the Fascists or not. Fascists such as Mussolini found inspiration for their own economic ideas[citation needed] in his discoveries. He had discovered something that was harsh and Darwinian, in Pareto's view. And this fueled both the anger and the energy of the Fascist movement because it fueled their economic and social views. He wrote that, as Mandelbrot summarizes:
At the bottom of the Wealth curve, he wrote, Men and Women starve and children die young. In the broad middle of the curve all is turmoil and motion: people rising and falling, climbing by talent or luck and falling by alcoholism, tuberculosis and other kinds of unfitness. At the very top sit the elite of the elite, who control wealth and power for a time – until they are unseated through revolution or upheaval by a new aristocratic class. There is no progress in human history. Democracy is a fraud. Human nature is primitive, emotional, unyielding. The smarter, abler, stronger, and shrewder take the lion's share. The weak starve, lest society become degenerate: One can, Pareto wrote, 'compare the social body to the human body, which will promptly perish if prevented from eliminating toxins.' Inflammatory stuff – and it burned Pareto's reputation.[citation needed]
Pareto had argued that democracy was an illusion and that a ruling class always emerged and enriched itself. For him, the key question was how actively the rulers ruled. For this reason he called for a drastic reduction of the state and welcomed Benito Mussolini's rule as a transition to this minimal state so as to liberate the "pure" economic forces.[13]
To quote Pareto's biographer:
In the first years of his rule Mussolini literally executed the policy prescribed by Pareto, destroying political liberalism, but at the same time largely replacing state management of private enterprise, diminishing taxes on property, favoring industrial development, imposing a religious education in dogmas.[14]
Karl Popper dubbed him the "theoretician of totalitarianism",[15] but there is no evidence in Popper's published work that he read Pareto in any detail before repeating what was then a common but dubious judgment in anti-fascist circles.[16]
It is true that Pareto regarded Mussolini's triumph as a confirmation of certain of his ideas, largely because Mussolini demonstrated the importance of force and shared his contempt for bourgeois parliamentarism. He accepted a "royal" nomination to the Italian senate from Mussolini. But he died less than a year into the new regime's existence.
Some fascist writers were much enamored of Pareto, writing such paeans as:
Just as the weaknesses of the flesh delayed, but could not prevent, the triumph of Saint Augustine, so a rationalistic vocation retarded but did not impede the flowering of the mysticism of Pareto. For that reason, Fascism, having become victorious, extolled him in life, and glorifies his memory, like that of a confessor of its faith.[2]
But many modern historians reject the notion that Pareto's thought was essentially fascistic or that he is properly regarded as a supporter of fascism. Renato Crillo concluded that Pareto was a radical libertarian to the end. Renato Crillo writes: Some have seen in his sociological works the foundations of fascism. This is not correct. Even fascist writers did not find much merit in these works, and definitely condemned his economic theories.
Benoît Mandelbrot writes:
One of Pareto's equations achieved special prominence, and controversy. He was fascinated by problems of power and wealth. How do people get it? How is it distributed around society? How do those who have it use it? The gulf between rich and poor has always been part of the human condition, but Pareto resolved to measure it. He gathered reams of data on wealth and income through different centuries, through different countries: the tax records of Basel, Switzerland, from 1454 and from Augsburg, Germany, in 1471, 1498 and 1512; contemporary rental income from Paris; personal income from Britain, Prussia, Saxony, Ireland, Italy, Peru. What he found – or thought he found – was striking. When he plotted the data on graph paper, with income on one axis, and number of people with that income on the other, he saw the same picture nearly everywhere in every era. Society was not a "social pyramid" with the proportion of rich to poor sloping gently from one class to the next. Instead it was more of a "social arrow" – very fat on the bottom where the mass of men live, and very thin at the top where sit the wealthy elite. Nor was this effect by chance; the data did not remotely fit a bell curve, as one would expect if wealth were distributed randomly. "It is a social law", he wrote: something "in the nature of man".[citation needed]
Pareto's discovery that power laws applied to income distribution embroiled him in political change and the nascent Fascist movement, whether he really sided with the Fascists or not. Fascists such as Mussolini found inspiration for their own economic ideas[citation needed] in his discoveries. He had discovered something that was harsh and Darwinian, in Pareto's view. And this fueled both the anger and the energy of the Fascist movement because it fueled their economic and social views. He wrote that, as Mandelbrot summarizes:
At the bottom of the Wealth curve, he wrote, Men and Women starve and children die young. In the broad middle of the curve all is turmoil and motion: people rising and falling, climbing by talent or luck and falling by alcoholism, tuberculosis and other kinds of unfitness. At the very top sit the elite of the elite, who control wealth and power for a time – until they are unseated through revolution or upheaval by a new aristocratic class. There is no progress in human history. Democracy is a fraud. Human nature is primitive, emotional, unyielding. The smarter, abler, stronger, and shrewder take the lion's share. The weak starve, lest society become degenerate: One can, Pareto wrote, 'compare the social body to the human body, which will promptly perish if prevented from eliminating toxins.' Inflammatory stuff – and it burned Pareto's reputation.[citation needed]
Pareto had argued that democracy was an illusion and that a ruling class always emerged and enriched itself. For him, the key question was how actively the rulers ruled. For this reason he called for a drastic reduction of the state and welcomed Benito Mussolini's rule as a transition to this minimal state so as to liberate the "pure" economic forces.[13]
To quote Pareto's biographer:
In the first years of his rule Mussolini literally executed the policy prescribed by Pareto, destroying political liberalism, but at the same time largely replacing state management of private enterprise, diminishing taxes on property, favoring industrial development, imposing a religious education in dogmas.[14]
Karl Popper dubbed him the "theoretician of totalitarianism",[15] but there is no evidence in Popper's published work that he read Pareto in any detail before repeating what was then a common but dubious judgment in anti-fascist circles.[16]
It is true that Pareto regarded Mussolini's triumph as a confirmation of certain of his ideas, largely because Mussolini demonstrated the importance of force and shared his contempt for bourgeois parliamentarism. He accepted a "royal" nomination to the Italian senate from Mussolini. But he died less than a year into the new regime's existence.
Some fascist writers were much enamored of Pareto, writing such paeans as:
Just as the weaknesses of the flesh delayed, but could not prevent, the triumph of Saint Augustine, so a rationalistic vocation retarded but did not impede the flowering of the mysticism of Pareto. For that reason, Fascism, having become victorious, extolled him in life, and glorifies his memory, like that of a confessor of its faith.[2]
But many modern historians reject the notion that Pareto's thought was essentially fascistic or that he is properly regarded as a supporter of fascism. Renato Crillo concluded that Pareto was a radical libertarian to the end. Renato Crillo writes: Some have seen in his sociological works the foundations of fascism. This is not correct. Even fascist writers did not find much merit in these works, and definitely condemned his economic theories.