Sorry to hear about your girlfriends job. I’d be upset about that as well. Though I’d say the point about covid is opinion no one could have really stopped this. IMO there was an agenda behind it and whether he was involved or not I don’t think he could have prevented the damage done by it. I believe that was out of his hands. Of course he changed business laws to benefit himself we could have seen that coming from miles away though it does suck.
I agree we need to think long term we only actually consider these things as a country during election time then all is forgotten. There’s a lot of flaws in our system though,
do you have any suggestions on what needs to change in order for this country to run in a way that is satisfactory for you? I’m just curious to see someone’s opinion that probably has different views than myself
It's all good man, I appreciate the kind words. Thankfully I make good money so we are doing alright. I am fortunate that the company I work for is run by people who realize it is wise to have a pretty large amount of cash holdings on the balance sheet--so when times like this come and revenue drops off a cliff they don't have to fire anyone (and actually, besides a minor hiring freeze, are still hiring/expanding).
I agree for sure, COVID was going to do a lot of damage regardless of who was in charge. The US is simply too big a country for it not to.
As far as beneficial changes to help the country, personally I think a few of the big things that need to be done are:
1. Changes to campaign finance/lobbying laws. Currently, the way lobbying works it is basically legalized corruption. There are several reasons why this would be beneficial for everyone (except perhaps big businesses, which as I write this you may realize I am not a big fan of). The first thing I believe needs to be done is that campaign contributions should be entirely anonymous.
This would prevent politicians from seeing special interest group X donated $X million to my campaign, I better make sure I take care of them good so they donate again next election cycle. This is a HUGE problem on both sides of the fence and a big reason why we see laws introduced that blatantly hurt The People of the USA while directly benefiting big businesses. It would force the politicians to take action on issues for a wider spectrum of issues for a broader/more diverse potion of the American population.
There are several different ideas as to how to reform the actual structure of campaign finance. None of them are
perfect. Personally, I like the "Voting with dollars" one recommended by a couple professors at Yale Law School. Basically each American voter gets $50 publicly-funded dollars to put towards political campaigns. $25 goes to president, $15 to senate, and $10 to House campaigns. They then allocate that money to the representative/campaign of their choice and it is routed through the FEC anonymously.
Some people argue this would cost too much money, but to put it in perspective we have 200 million registered voters in the USA. That means this program would cost $10 billion. We spend $100 billion on
corporate welfare each year alone. That is $100 billion dollars in tax breaks, subsidies, money grants, and other incentives to already profitable, massive corporations that regularly perform stock buybacks, layoffs, and give out massive executive bonuses. I think we can reduce that and afford to improve the overall election process and, by extent, the entire political process. We need to get our politicians working for US again, not for Super PACs and big businesses.This is why the libertarian free market can never work: corporations will tread on and fuck over everyone they can in an effort to make more money. They will destroy small businesses using shady practices and they will destroy the environment cutting corners to save money. It could work if we were a small business driven society, but with all the monopolies we have there is just no way it would work. It would help the top richest, but hurt pretty much everybody else.
2. Tax Reform. This is the the key to how we pay for the things that will lift up the entire society and everyone in the US, making the country as a whole better and more successful. It is a tough pill to swallow and to be honest I empathize with a lot of people on this. The problem dates back to the Reagan tax cuts, which honestly is a massive part of what got us to the insane wealth gap we have today. Yes, it grew the economy, so maybe it works out in the end. It temporarily boosted the middle class, created jobs, and increased wealth for everyone. But it didn't work out long term. Maybe we needed that tax cut to grow, but now that we are where we are, running a $27.5 trillion deficit, we need reform.
If we can increase the top tax brackets and raise the corporate tax rate, we can stop cutting social programs, scientific research, environmental agencies, etc. Those are the things that make America great. Warning, these are pretty arbitrary numbers: we should increase the top tax bracket back to 50% and make a new capital gains bracket for over $2 million in long term gains up to 35% AND raise the corporate tax rate back to 35% (which Trump cut for no reason then these corporations just
gave executive bonuses and performed more stock buybacks, which led us to the massive layoffs of 2020). We need a Value-Added Tax, which every developed country has except the US. I think the Automation Tax was a great idea from Andrew Yang.
3. Increase programs to help people who need it. Personally, I want a country with a government that works for everyone. Right now, I am lucky to be upper-middle class. I worked hard to get where I am, but I was also born into it. I was lucky to have been born into a wealthy-ish family (although my dad was really bad with money) who made sure my fuck-ups didn't ruin my life. If I hadn't been born into my family, I surely would've been in and out of "the system," in a ton of debt, making shit money with no benefits. I would be the person today who is choosing between paying rent, healthcare, or buying food. I see people get fucked over because a business decides to put wastewater into the river that goes through their poverty-stricken town. I see people exposed to cancer-causing and endocrine disrupting chemicals daily because the government doesn't have strict enough regulations around pesticides and other poisons we spray into our air and all over our food and into our water.
We need to increase funding to communities that need it, we need to stop cutting and actually
increase funding for social programs. We need to take the corporate welfare we hand out and give it to The People instead. We need to stop letting multi-millionaires and billionaires
hoard money like mentally ill people, which
damages the economy and slows down the velocity of money. We need to make
stock buybacks illegal again (which the SEC under Reagan made legal in 1982, prior to that they were considered stock manipulation and I believe they are).
I have already written a ton. This is a subject that I, and many people, get passionate on. I don't identify with Democrats or Conservatives. I really don't give half a shit about what "party" someone is a member of. The ONLY THING I WANT is for the government to work for me! And not just for me, but for my neighbor, and for the people across town living in the low-income housing projects, and the person uptown in the fancy apartment. I believe the country can work for everyone.
It will be tough. The top 1% and especially the top 0.1% have gotten so accustomed to paying low taxes, having ridiculously high incomes, and not having to share, that most of them will fight to prevent change. I get it, you are used to making X and taking home Y amount of dollars, if now you have to take home Z because your taxes increased, it sucks. I get it! But that is literally THE ONLY way that we can make positive change. We can't keep running a deficit forever.
Personally, I think we need to put the social arguments about abortion, religion, gay marriage, etc., aside for a while. I have a libertarian mindset about that stuff: just let people do what they do. Let them make their own decisions. If someone wants to get an abortion or marry another guy/girl/trans person, let them! Who cares? The exception is I think letting children transition sexes is not right. We need to hold off on that. Everyone here understands the severity of exogenous hormones and what they can do to our bodies. But we need to focus on the real, dire problems. IMO we should drop EVERYTHING ELSE and focus on:
1. Climate change. It is real, it is happening, and it is going to fuck us all in the ass long term. We are talking massive famines, droughts, new diseases/pandemics far worse than COVID, insane natural disasters. This is the number 1 threat to humanity over the next 100 years. We need to 100% wean off of fossil fuels. We need to limit use of pesticides and herbicides. We need to have more stringent regulations on building dams and hydro plants, as they have devastating effects on marine wildlife.
2. Campaign finance reform.
3. Tax reform (campaign finance reform probably needs to come first because no politician today would raise taxes for the people who are giving them massive donations).
4. Expanding programs to provide support for people who need it. I am a big fan of some of Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang's ideas around healthcare, college, police reform. I think we need to invest in low income communities. Build community gardens, make it so food stamps buy
actual food and not hamburger helper and kraft mac n cheese.
5. Justice system reform. The people who do the
real damage need to go to prison. I'm talking about the executives of these corporations that took massive payroll relief payouts during COVID, then subsequently went and laid off thousands of employees. I'm talking about the politicians who sold stock right before the collapse in March. I'm talking about the cops that abuse and kill innocent civilians. Drug policy needs to be reformed. In general, drugs should be decriminalized, we should expand support programs. We need to have "second chance" programs everywhere for kids who fall in with the wrong crown, but have massive potential. Like I said, if I wasn't given a second chance, I'd probably be a dope addicted homeless person. Instead I am a homeowner that paid around $25k in taxes last year and spent over 250 hours of my free time doing volunteer work!
6. Education system reform. School sucks. Teachers need to be paid more, given better benefits. They are raising the future of America. Why do we treat them like shit? We need a massive change to have a better educated society. I also think in school we should be teaching kids about how to manage their money, how to save money, how to eat healthy and take care of themselves. Fuck learning about Christopher Columbus, give them REAL SKILLS that will benefit everyone.
Alright, I'm done now. That was a massive brain dump. I wonder if that is the longest post ever on Meso?! Don't feel the need to respond to everything, that's just my brain dump. Took me a solid 45 minutes to write it, but hopefully it helps. I hope it helps provide some insight into the mind of a gun-loving liberal landlord with both libertarian and minorly socialist views. IMO, Democrats and Republicans need to come together to demand change that benefits everyone. Solve the real, massive problems now. Then they can sort out the minor things they disagree on later (abortion, gay rights, whatever else).
Feel free to ask any questions you'd like.
