daoneandonly wrote:pancakes3 wrote:daoneandonly wrote:
Hey Bonscott, first & foremost, happy new year! Not that you asked, but if I could offer any advice, don't waste your knowledge, character, and time on this far-left board. The vast majority just want freebies at the higher earner's expense. They run when they see the word accountability. Hence their support for student loan wipeout, lessening prison times, universal healthcare, legalizing all drugs, and abortion. I mean, why own up to one's own responsibilities when someone else can cover it for you or make it go away, right?
don't you think that the "higher earners" are the ones who are running from accountability? they don't want regulations, they don't want to pay their workers a fair wage, and they don't want to contribute to the costs of educating their labor force. I mean, why distribute earnings in a fair and responsible manner when nobody can make you, right?
I don't, at all. Nobody is owed anything in life. I don't think any company is obligated to pay for their staff's education; if they do, great, added benefit, but nothing that should be enforced. If a company isn't paying fair wages, find one that will and prove yourself. My second employer was garbage when it came to compensation. They hid under the guise of wanting to promote internally when, in reality, it was so they would not have to pay the existing person more money when they took on more work. I, like many people who were annoyed by it, sought and accepted employment elsewhere.
And what does this have to do with wiping off student loans? Nothing; it shouldn't be a thing. Pay what you owe. Universal healthcare? Free for all? When the tax system is broken beyond belief, there are folks who literally pay nothing in taxes each pay period and then get refunds after filing. No thanks
"nobody is owed anything in life" is not necessarily true. we live in a society, where we can choose to determine what things can be "owed" to each other. we can dictate that we are all "owed" the right that other people are not going to assault us randomly. we are owed that when we show up to a workplace, that it is adequately safe. we are "owed" that when businesses are selling us goods, the goods are real, and works as advertised.
these are all existing terms and conditions, as enforced by the government, that as a society, we have democratically agreed upon - even if you personally disagree.
so when the "high earners" see this, and they use money and influence to lobby for changes to these terms and conditions, that undermine the will of the people, pushing for things like deregulation so they can pollute more easily, or make more exaggerated claims about the efficacy of their product, or any number of things that help their profit margins at the expense of the consumers, i see that as "running from responsibility"
to your point about workers' rights and compensation, not to get too marxist about it, you have the company and the laborer working together to sell things to the consumer. the consumer makes payment to the company, and the company distributes the money to the laborer. obviously the company has the upper hand in negotiations in how the profits are distributed, the same as if it was flipped and the consumers paid the laborers directly, and the laborers decided how much to leave the company.
the capitalistic invisible hand notion that a worker can freely leave to find a better company is flawed because of this leverage - no matter where they go next, they're reliant on the benevolence of the company to treat them fairly. so to combat this uneven bargaining power, laborers should have the right to unionize, and level the playing field. opposing this right to unionize is the company "running" from their responsibility.
like AFM i'm coming from this as a former libertarian and small business owner myself. i certainly don't think that "high earners" means people making $250k, I mean literal billionaires. the amount of wealth that individual billionaires and corporate trillionaires are able to accumulate is wrong. by wrong, i mean, that it's contrary to the societal terms and conditions that as a society, we've agreed to. if you don't think it's contrary, then alternatively, maybe it's time to reconsider the societal terms and conditions that we're currently subject to, and see if we can change those terms and conditions to one that is more fair and beneficial for all members of society.
just to wrap a bow on it, for student loan forgiveness, it is another example of an unfair bargain. children, literally underaged children, are told that if you want to get a good paying job, you need to attend higher education, and if you want higher education, you need to enter into this contract with a university, and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. the universities, having this leverage over the students, and having tax benefits that are operating as a nonprofit, have leverage in setting their tuition. similar to the workers who can't just use the free market to "go to another university." Choosing a college is not like choosing breakfast cereals - the difference between the name brand and the generic ones are massively different.
So you have employers who require their workforce to be university-educated, a tax-advantaged higher ed system that has leverage over the students in how much they can charge for tuition, all dependent on 17 year old kids to agree to participate in this system. How do these 17 year olds negotiate? Can they unionize? Not really. So what's the remedy? Governmental intervention in the form of placing tuition ceilings, tax code reform to disallow schools from retaining profits in massive endowment funds, pell grants, and student loan forgiveness.
And yeah, to echo AFM's point, these discussions are much better when viewed through the lens of "what works and what doesn't"
