Lurker > pistachio12

Shablagoo posted...

true dat playa 70% of Chinese millennials are homeowners

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-39512599

https://www.insider.com/meet-the-typical-chinese-millennial-income-housing-ambitions-2021-7

For someone who slurps so much, you should probably learn more about policies in China. It is absolutely great that so many millennials own their own home, but it is through the assistance of family: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/?sh=76511259a3ce

Many parents outright buy property for their children at a young age as a future investment and many are afforded that opportunity due to things like the one-child policy.

He's great. He decided to fly embrace who he is and not let the public dictate how he should act.

El Mexicano Texano posted...

Mainstream garbage musician who is trying really hard to come of as unique, daring and edgy to try and get as much attention as possible mostly negative to play the victim. In other words a regular CEmen here

And he triggers this type of reaction too, which is fun.

There are far too many questions that are similar in nature while there are other important topics that are ignored.

darkstar4221 posted...

It's toxic. It's just people showing off their wealth, and then you go to comments section and it's like another forum people flaming each other over nothing. It's useless there is no benefit to it, it's pure negativity.

Here is a good article on instagram and the negative side effects it creates.
https://orge.medium.com/instagram-beware-of-the-toxic-culture-behind-it-7ecff96108b4

I'm not saying instagram can't be toxic. Certainly many people use it to flaunt wealth, and there is a huge psychological affect to using it.

But on Twitter, you have actual fake media being shared that also alter the viewpoints of the people reading it.

On YouTube you have people even more absurd than influencers in many ways as they flaunt wealth or draw in attention through some strange talent. Your viewing algorithm can lead you into only seeing specific types of videos to help engrain any world views you currently have.

Facebook has been used to assist countries in genocide. There is so many other things that can be said about Facebook, but that one pretty much seals the deal.

All three of those platforms also have absolutely horrible comment sections that are just as bad if not worse than Instagram.

Any social media you look at will have problems, but I don't think instagram sniffs the top 3 for negative affects.

darkstar4221 posted...

Instagram has to be most evil social network service ever created. Even more evil than facebook and all the other social media platforms.

Not even close. What makes you even think that?

1337toothbrush posted...

Those giving the commands already don't need to look at the people getting killed. At least with robots I don't have to worry about one having a mental breakdown and going on a shooting spree just because or having to worry about pillaging and raping.

Yeah, but the commanders do get to skip a step with actual human beings. I do get your point on pillaging and raping, but there are other consequences too. If America had robotic military, would we ever leave a place like Afghanistan?

1337toothbrush posted...

Except drone strikes are still controlled by people.

He's making a flow of the evolution of warfare for you:

1) Boots on the ground, soldiers see the people they are shooting
2) Soldiers operating drones, seeing only people from a zoomed out lens (and in many ways built to be like a video game)
3) Drones given a command by someone higher up that doesn't even need to look at the people getting killed.

g980 posted...

There werent any fallacies, you just whined that things werent fair

Presenting facts to your baseless claims = whining

Yeah, you're a joke poster who can't even argue.

Samurontai posted...

Yes, which would require more funding.

Entirely false.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens

While they find serious crimes fall after the average city expands its police force, the economists find that arrests for serious crimes also fall. The simultaneous reduction of both serious crime and arrests for serious crime suggests it's not arrests that are driving the reduction. Instead, it suggests merely having more police officers around drives it. These findings are consistent with other research that finds concentrating police in "hotspot" crime areas appears to be an effective way to reduce crime.

Interesting how you ignored these paragraphs:

But, at the same time, Williams and his coauthors also find adding more police officers to a city means more people getting arrested for petty, low-level, victimless crimes, like disorderly conduct, drinking in public, drug possession, and loitering. Black people are disproportionately the target of these low-level arrests, saddling them with crippling court fees and forcing many kids sometimes unnecessarily into the criminal justice system.

More Police May Leave Some Cities Worse Off
The economists also find troubling evidence that suggests cities with the largest populations of Black people like many of those in the South and Midwest don't see the same policing benefits as the average cities in their study. Adding additional police officers in these cities doesn't seem to lower the homicide rate. Meanwhile, more police officers in these cities seems to result in even more arrests of Black people for low-level crimes. The authors believe it supports a narrative that "Black communities are simultaneously over and under-policed." The economists don't have a solid explanation for why bigger police forces appear to lead to worse outcomes in these cities, and they plan to investigate these findings more deeply in future research.

The whole defund the police movement is complicated and far more nuanced than people on both sides will admit.

Samurontai posted...

I feel like most people arguing for defunding the police are privileged white suburban dudes.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/315962/americans-say-policing-needs-major-changes.aspx

They don't have a category for privileged white dudes though.

Frolex posted...

The GOP has spread Trump's election conspiracy. When one of their members spoke out against these conspiracies, they removed her from power. They're now funding further sham audits of the 2020 election. They refused to investigate a terrorist attack and attempt to against the seat of the United States government to protect Trump. Which of these did CNN do?

Election lies are perfectly reasonable things to cover - did I say they weren't? Again I will reiterate that there are most certainly news stories that deserve to be told about Trump, but covering everything he does is purely used to drive up ratings and fuel the outrage.

Frolex posted...

For the people who are crying about how Trump is no longer relevant, I'd love to hear your thoughts on who is the most likely person to earn the republican nomination in 2024

With the continual free coverage CNN and other news companies, it could definitely be Trump. We know Trump's shtick. We know his views. We know his tactics. Getting outraged over something stupid he says at a rally only gives him that free press he solely needs and wants. The idea is not to feed the narcissist...

I mostly agree with Burr here, and I usually roll my eyes at his takes. There are certain things that should be covered now with respect to Trump like his legal case in New York or his former attorneys getting slapped around by judges. They do not need to get outraged at every stupid thing he says or does on a normal basis.

monkmith posted...

yes, lets ignore him like everyone tried to do in the 2016 primary, that'll work out real well...

You think news channels ignored Trump in 2016? They didn't think he'd win, but they gave him so much free press its absurd.

Vicious_Dios posted...

Bill Burr, as usual, is spot on.

Even when he equates Trump to Darth Vader?

The Shield >>

g980 posted...

Then dont work at amazon, load boxes at your own warehouse

Unless maybe labor isnt the only ingredient in wealth creation?

Funny you keep coming back to this topic to make dumb posts when you can't even address your earlier fallacies.

MajesticFerret posted...

Ok, then show his actual liquidable assets to scale and not this monsterous sum of money that it would quite literally be impossible for him to cash in all at once without it massively depreciating in value.

A lot of people worth a whole lot less than 185B own houses in the 100M range.

I'm not arguing he could cash out 100+ billion dollars right now. But you're pretending that he somehow doesn't have a vast amount of money on hand. He can still access absurd amounts of money without blanking out his entire set of stocks and still be the wealthiest individual. You bringing up how other wealthy people own homes as expensive does not counter these claims.

MajesticFerret posted...

Still doesn't represent the absurd wanking that his "wealth to scale" represents. It would actually be interesting to see the exact amount of people MacKenzie's donations helped given a lot of charity money is lost to bullshit beauracracy.

People are trying to point how even small fractions of his wealth to scale would benefit huge amounts of people.

And if we're so concerned about her charitable donations (and I hope that also means you're concerned about others charitable donations), then let's have the government take that money through taxes instead.

MajesticFerret posted...

To not tank Amazon's stock price, he has to liquidate in reasonable sums...and when he does this, he is taxed...

And this is what you seemingly are missing here: people like Bezos are able to leverage their wealth to live the life of the upper class without spending money. Propublica did a whole series about it, but most bootlickers dismiss it as either 1) "duh, we already knew this," or 2) any of the talkong points used in this topic which don't even acknowledge what is being addressed here.

We don't have to liquidate all of Bezos's stocks. But when the man can pay 0 in taxes by working our tax system, it's absolutely absurd. The focus only on income versus wealth is a poor one in the US and needs to be properly addressed.

sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...
sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...

Taking a break after Rebels season 3 by re watching the sequel trilogy.

I just finished the 3rd season and I feel like this show is the best non OT material in the Star Wars universe. Hope the fourth season can finish strong.

Now why are we using spoiler tags for a trilogy released years ago?

-Bringing back Palpatine instead of Plagueis

Most fans would be left confused with that. Better to just have a new character (and not Palpatine).

-Ghosts interacting with the physical world

Eh. Force ghosts were only manifested between the prequel and original trilogy, so I don't have a problem that their powers developed further. Plus other force welding creatures are able to far more extraordinary things.

-Not allowing George Lucas to help

He could have had some involvement (his plotting for the prequel trilogy was actually pretty good), but I think it's better to keep him far removed from the rest.

1337toothbrush posted...

Who isn't aware of this? Jeff Bezos's greatest asslickers rush to every discussion on the internet about this to bring this up. That doesn't change much in terms of how wealthy he is. If it did, he wouldn't have been able to set up a hobby space company which is the kind of thing that used to be exclusively the domain of governments who could print their own money.

Completely agree.

And on top of what you say, people completely disregard that he uses those stocks as leverage for so many other things like buying a house for $165 million. Look what his imaginary stock did!

Oh and what about MacKenzie Scott's donations in the past year. That imaginary stock has sure been used to help so many people!

Either Bezos (and all the ultra wealthy like him) is the richest man in the world or he's a figment of his stocks. Interestingly, places like Forbes choose to include stocks in a person's worth...

g980 posted...

If a wealthy person wanted to donate 100% of their income to good causes rather than 40% to government programs of society's choosing, i would be fine with that

That's easy when all these people take a salary of $1. Now they've donated 100% of their income! Find me an ultra wealthy person who has donated even 40% of their wealth to good causes. You can @ me when you do.

365 posts and I can see a total of 7 posts on pages 7 and 8...

g980 posted...

I hope we can all appreciate how dumb this is

A) bezos's wealth is largely based on how Amazon is valued. Just because the market agrees his shares are worth $X does not mean he magically has taken $X from someonr

B) the wealthy pay plenty of taxes (a disproportionately high amount). They should probably pay a bit more, but it is untrue to say they pay none

C) they arent hiding stacks of cash under their mattresses. Invested money funds businesses, it pretty much all continues to move through the economy.

Its annoying that i have to defend someone like Bezos - who has some very shitty business practices - but some of you guys are just so far off the mark someones gotta inject a little bit of reality into the convo

Well this is a shit take that's been left to fester too long.

A) While I don't agree with the statement that wealth is finite, I believe the greater argument lends itself to the notion that the increase in wealth over the past quarter of a century (or longer) has disproportionately gone to the Uber wealthy. Therefore while over wealth does increase, the sharing (uh oh socialist boogey word) of said wealth has not been allocated in a way fair to society as a whole.

Also the value of these stocks start becoming cyclical in nature. And while tech businesses were not on the verge of collapse in the past year, it's clear the American government while dump vast sums of money into companies to stop them from failing.

B) The wealthy do pay their fair share of taxes. The ultra wealthy do not even pay close to their fair share of taxes. The corporations they work for also do no pay their fair share of taxes. I don't know how you escaped these facts, but your head must have been buried deep somewhere.

C) Oh they most certainly hide their money away. Consider off-shore accounts in tax havens. Consider forms of wealth that are not taxable such as paintings that get purchased and stored in shipping containers. Their money is not being circulated through the typical means that all other tiers of Americans use and spend their money.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

i will never let anyone forget this

This topic: clowning on Rogan for giving white supremacists a platform.

Broseph: Bernie Sanders!

I've already said this in another topic, but I don't get how people like the emotional aspects of the last episode. It will be forgotten in the next episode and have little impact on the future. This show hits hard for comedy but does a poor job when it tries to do emotion like this.

The show went the traditional trope of angsty teen railing against his mom and didn't find a way to subvert it. Morty has seen plenty of death. Morty has been in love before. Why was this situation special?

DJquackquack posted...

Also I hate when R&M gets all melodramatic, with licensed music and stuff. Just stick to comedy.

I mostly agree. Watching the end of the episode and then seeing the writers talk about it, if felt very much like "we're so smart" outlook. They are much better with comedy and working against tropes, so they should work with what they're good at.

Shezarr posted...

Good for him. Fuck Bozo. Idk, though, Brazilian friends are worried that only Lula can beat Bozo

He's in the same party so I'm thinking the hope he is chosen to represent his party over Bolsonaro.

codey posted...

Why? What is it about the penis that makes it offensive?

You can't even associate it with an organ that signifies attraction to women, because there's plenty of lesbians in locker rooms and spas everywhere.

That's what gets me about this crowd that doesn't want trans people in their bathrooms or locker rooms based on them saying they could be predators. News flash: predators already use the same bathrooms as everyone else. What they really want is for trans people to never feel comfortable.

Its reasonable for you to argue this point, but you should know that you're arguing for all bathrooms/changing rooms/saunas to be mixed genders. That's a perfectly fine opinion to argue for, just making sure it's logically consistent.

Ming-na Wen

Shablagoo posted...

What are your thoughts on the 30 million cows and 130 million pigs that suffer under these conditions and worse in the U.S. every year, being artificially impregnated over and over until their bodies wear out and they are finally killed too, living in terrible conditions where dead animals will just be left to lie there in the stalls, etc.? The whole world needs to take a lesson from these activists (and others like them) and start treating all these sentient beings better.

What about... You do know China purchases meat from the US and other countries. China also participates in factory farming.

Tyranthraxus posted...

"China's dog meat festival" when it's really just Yulin but okay.

Yeah that's a very disingenuous title. This is a very limited thing in China and the stereotype of Chinese people eating dogs is super harmful.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


This isn't meant as a food source for poor people - it's a festival. I see no problem with people eating anything they have access to if poor and hungry. Or if they are wild dogs/cats. But that's not the full picture here.

kingdrake2 posted...

china is the one with the bad vaccine. think it's closer to 30% protection.
it's almost worthless.

First dose is potentially 30%, second dose bumps it up to between 60 and 70 percent.

I'm also quite sure the "differences" between metabolism levels are super minor. People place too much emphasis on their metabolism rather than calorie intake and/or level of exercise.

ROOTFayth posted...

wtf they don't have billions in cash man

So answer this basic question - are people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk billionaires?

Squall28 posted...

I'm not most people. "Fair share" is just a political talking point. It doesn't mean jack shit.

I guarantee you the people in this topic you'd argue "fair share" with all belive progressive taxes are fair share. Meaning your point was arguing against itself.

pure_temper posted...

that janitor could've done basically the same type of thing if he wanted to leverage his millions into assets. anyone can do it.

No that janitor cannot. The janitor does not have the option to forgo his income for a high percentage of shares in a successful company while then using said wealth to create other assets. He couldn't get that 1.5% mortgage Zuckerberg got because that janitor is not a multi-billionaire.

Squall28 posted...

It's called being unbiased. Just because you support a particular viewpoint doesn't mean you drink the Kool aid on whatever shit your side comes up with.

Its more that your point contradicts itself. Most people would consider a progressive tax someone paying their fair share.

ROOTFayth posted...

i read a story about a janitor who worked his whole life and didnt pay a whole lot of taxes because his salary was low, but he invested all the extra money and ended up dead with 8 millions networth, whoever inherited that didnt pay taxes on these millions, janitor managed to avoid paying taxes on 8 million dollars, how unfair is this?

Do you actually have this story or is it one of those dumb hypothetical that conservatives love to use to help demonstrate the concept of bootstraps?

And again - this hypothetical janitor is not a billionaire. Bringing up the gains a regular person has through stocks or property does not counter any of these points.

Squall28 posted...

"Fair share" is a stupid buzzword. Imagine if you go to a store, and you have to pay $10 for a burger while someone else only has to pay $1. Why should you have to pay more for the same service?

Progressive taxes are great because they take from people who have extra, and less from people who need it. The government needs money, and this is the best way to do it. I'm completely fine with taxing the rich more via a wealth tax after a certain limit. I just don't get riled up by these emotional arguments because they're stupid. Articles like the one you posted are there solely to mislead people into getting angry.

This is the worst post in the whole fucking topic. You're for progressive tax, but when confronted with evidence that shows the super wealthy avoid the same tax rate other upper income people have to pay, you instead get into an argument about "fair share."

Anyway, I read the first two pages and skimmed the last two pages.

1) Yes this is nothing new - except we know have specific details on how the ultra wealthy avoid paying taxes each year.

2) Some people may argue for it, but I believe most people upset here are only targeting the super wealthy. Upper income individuals that make mid to high 6 figures pay a very high amount in taxes and can't do most of the things billionaires can to avoid paying taxes. The super wealthy skirting taxes is more unfair to those individuals as opposed to the lower or middle class.

3) No one here seems to be arguing that every person's wealth should be taxed - rather, the super wealthy should be taxed on that wealth as they use it to avoid having to take an income or have other gains that increase their taxable income.

4) Lastly, are people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Michael Bloomberg billionaires? Or are they "unrealized" billionaires?

SK8T3R215 posted...

IRS data shows the top 1% paid an effective federal income tax rate of about 25%.

The lower class had an effective federal income tax rate of about 3%.

https://taxfoundation.org/federal-income-tax-data-2021/

For fuck's sake, read the propublica article that starts to detail how the Uber-rich avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Our definition of "income" is outdated and improper with the current slate of billionaires.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax#1071196

g980 posted...

can't you make your point without saying things that are demonstrably untrue

He's not entirely wrong:

In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the worlds richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.

Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.

Solid Snake07 posted...

I don't need to acknowledge it because it doesn't change or discredit anything I said.

You said the poor pay a disproportionate amount of income taxes. That is factually false and it's easily obtainable public record how much every income bracket pays. So you should stop going around saying misinformed nonsense.

I never said that to you. I was agreeing with your statement that the upper class pay a majority of the collected taxes in the US. I was pointing out that the top 1% don't pay anywhere close to what the lower class pays, and their contributions would make a significant impact on government funding.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

My personal opinions do not matter. What you want out of a country is totally subjective, most of the countries in Europe I enjoyed the most generally rank pretty low by most metrics, while I would never want to live in a place like Norway that generally ranks very high.

You've just spouted a lot of information here and in other topics about other countries without sharing data or long-term personal experiences to support it. The latter is important, since someone like ssjveot is preferring to live in Japan despite the US's higher income while you said you'd never live in Norway.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Only one of us is using basic reading comprehension I'm afraid.

You're right, I missed that post of his.

Since he is continuing the conversation with you about that very topic, let me ask a different question: what other countries have you lived in or spent significant time in to make such a judgment about living in those places?

Broseph_Stalin posted...

He made a claim that the US doesn't do anything better than other countries and then when I gave him a list he ignored it and said wages don't matter.

Learn what a rebuttal is.

That's not what he said at all. Using basic reading comprehension, he's stating that most other first world countries give their citizens a better life overall than the US does.

Solid Snake07 posted...

Income tax isn't based on your net worth, it's based on your income. And the top 1% of income earners pay nearly half of the income tax revenue in the US.

You're literally ignoring the propublica article that discusses and goes into detail how the top 1% avoid paying their share of taxes. Taking a salary of $1 a year sounds so generous from afar unto you realize they do that to lower their income tax. Saying a person's stock is not apart of their income until they cash it out makes sense until you realize they leverage that stock into far greater wealth that remains locked out of taxation.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

One of the "problems" with being such an affluent country is that we're starting to produce a generation of extremely naive people who've never faced any real conflict in their lives and struggle to put all this stuff in context.

Another topic, another post where Broseph makes assumptions about other places in the world without having any experience about them. Luckily ssjevot has done a great job rebutting him.

Solid Snake07 posted...

You are sorely mistaken if you think the lower and middle class pay the majority of income taxes

The wealthy do pay much more - such as families taking in something like 500k. The ultrawealthy pay almost nothing in taxes when compared to their worth.

Lairen posted...

Ever since i became woke i stopped using it.

"Stop policing my speech!" says person who's speech is never policed.

joe40001 posted...

But statistics, accounting, and finance all largely fall under the M in STEM.

Crazyman93 posted...

CPA is all money, so I'd say that falls into Math, which is the M in STEM

Business degrees are not STEM. The M for mathematics does pertain to accounting or finance.

pure_temper posted...

you have not provided data to support your generalization, and you are not even addressing the point I made which is that we do not arrest people in America for this. re-read the post more carefully.

Did you provide data to support your original statement?

ncsonic posted...

Even in China where it supposedly originated they opened back up last year BEFORE the vaccine!!!

That's because they, like other places such as New Zealand, have super strict requirements for reentry, have 14 to 21 day quarantines when reentering, country-wide tracking of cases, and immediate lockdowns when a domestic case is discovered.

TommyG663513 posted...

Dude, understand a basic contradiction. You're trying to play the superiority card by saying you have empathy and I don't. You clearly have absolutely no clue what empathy actually is. Caring for people who mourn a celebrity death is not exactly the pinnacle of empathy.

Who said it was the pinnacle of empathy? What does it even mean to be at the pinnacle of empathy?

If you can recognize how someone can be upset about a person dying (or hell, a pet fish dying), you are empathizing with that person.

bobbaaay posted...

I'm not empathetic because I don't care about a celebrity I never fucking met. ooookay.

You should probably learn what empathy is before discussing it.