Who's Interested In Conscious Politics?

[InfinitePotential]

Universal basic income, yea or nay? (Specifically, Andrew Yang’s freedom dividend policy proposal, $1,000 a month for everyone).

Also, resource based economy, yea or nay? (Is this how an enlightened society would operate? Will it someday be feasible for humanity?)

 

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, InfinitePotential said:

Universal basic income, yea or nay? (Specifically, Andrew Yang’s freedom dividend policy proposal, $1,000 a month for everyone).

Nay if it involves VAT taxes, cutting welfare programs, and eating into welfare benefits.

Nay if it means no free college, no Medicare For All, no $15 minimum wage.

Yea if it is done properly taking all the above into account.

[CreamCat]

48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nay if it means no free college, no Medicare For All, no $15 minimum wage.

• I think minimum wage and UBI can work in tandem. Instead of raising minimum wage, raise the amount of UBI. I think minimum wage is a lesser substitute for UBI as long as UBI is stable. Also, after AIs take over jobs, minimum wage is going to be meaningless. Even by the most conservative estimates, it will take less than 200 years for AIs to obliterate the labor market.
• What do you mean by free college? Free harvard? Free stanford?
  • By the way, I think college is becoming worse day by day. You don't get much by getting a dysfunctional education for free. It has run its course.

48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nay if it involves VAT taxes, cutting welfare programs, and eating into welfare benefits.

• Do you think americans can fund UBI without cutting welfare programs? How much do you think they can pour into UBI without cutting welfare? or without cutting military budgets? Do you suggest starting with a small amount such as 100 USD per month?
• I don't care much where UBI comes from. VAT can turn out to be a good stable source of UBI in practice although it can be bad in theory because the rich don't spend much.
  • I think we better focus on how to stabilize UBI rather than on where UBI comes from. Trying to optimize as much as possible prematurely can significantly delay or kill UBI.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[InfinitePotential]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Nay if it involves VAT taxes, cutting welfare programs, and eating into welfare benefits.

Nay if it means no free college, no Medicare For All, no $15 minimum wage.

Yea if it is done properly taking all the above into account.

I would ask ~how do we pay for it then~ but when the top 3 wealthiest American families have as much combined wealth as the bottom 160 million Americans, not to mention the US spending more on military than like the next 20 or so nations combined, that question seems ridiculous. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by InfinitePotential

[Leo Gura]

How do you pay for UBI? Easy:

• Wealth tax on people with net worth over $10M
• Raise taxes on people with income over $1M/year
• Raise capital gains tax
• Raise taxes on passive income
• Wall Street tax
• Real estate speculation tax
• Much higher taxes on real estate that is a 2nd or 3rd home.
• Raise taxes on corporations with cash reserves over $1 billion
• High taxes on yatchs and private jets and luxury cars

No VAT, and people who earn over $200k/yr do not get a UBI at all since they don't need it.

[CreamCat]

26 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

people who earn over $200k/yr do not get a UBI at all since they don't need it.

• It could easily cost more to find those people and update their status over time than to just give UBI to everyone.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[CreamCat]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Much higher taxes on real eatate that is a 2nd or 3rd home.

Taxing a 5th home or a big house more is better because many middle-class people who are actually working-poor own up to 3 small houses just to defend against inflation and pay for end-of-life medical bills which serve as inheritance tax on middle class. A million dollars can evaporate within a few years if one spends the money in wrong ways. I saw a man burn through 5 million dollars and become a working poor within a decade. There's really not much gravity to single-digit million dollars. Taxing two-digit million dollars more makes more sense.

It seems you give more rooms to corporations than to individuals.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[Zigzag Idiot]

9 hours ago, Shiva said:

From god's perspective this may be true. But do you have god's perspective 24/7? I don't. So I really prefer having jesus around instead of Hitler.

A memorable quote from Ken Wilber's 10 cd set Kosmic Consciousness -- "Here in the relative world. If you're in a bar and you see Hitler and you happen to have a baseball bat,,,, whack the boy!"

 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, CreamCat said:

• It could easily cost more to find those people and update their status over time than to just give UBI to everyone.

It costs the IRS zero to know your income. You report it to them! If you report over $200k, no UBI for you the next year. If your income drops below $200k/yr a few years later, then you start getting it again. So you always have a safety net but you don't need to use it when you are kicking ass.

The actual dollar limits aren't so important. Those can be tweaked to find a good sweet spot.

Very profitable corporations like Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Walmart should be taxed significantly more. They are getting away with robbery.

Small biz should be taxed less. Anything under $1M should have low tax so more people are starting small businesses. In fact there should be government rewards for starting a small biz.

The point is that people do not need more than a few mil to live extremely well. Anything beyond that is actually unhealthy for society and selfish.

[CreamCat]

29 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It costs the IRS zero to know your income. You report it to them! If you report over $200k, no UBI for you the next year. If your income drops below $200k/yr a few years later, then you start getting it again. So you always have a safety net but you don't need to use it when you are kicking ass.

The actual dollar limits aren't so important. Those can be tweaked to find a good sweet spot.

It seems to me that not giving UBI to the rich will make less than one percent difference because there are less than 1% who make 200K per year.

I am curious as to whether it actually makes real tangible difference. Perhaps, some experiments can reveal counter-intuitive insights.

29 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The point is that people do not need more than a few mil to live extremely well.

I guess a few millions are enough for most people. Give me a few millions, and I'll prove it.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[Leo Gura]

@Shiva It's very important for gov to distinguish between small biz and medium biz and gigantic biz.

The rules must be very different for all 3.

Gigantic biz needs the most oversight because of how much damage they can do if allowed to roam free.

[CreamCat]

1 hour ago, Shiva said:

At the same time it is very expensive and bureaucratic to start a business. We have almost the least favorable conditions for small businesses in Europe.

That's because big corporate players don't want you to create businesses and compete with them. They want to create monopolies.

You make drug illegal, and you keep competitors out of business. Making it difficult to create a new business is similar to making drug illegal.

Throw as much bullshit as possible toward competitors.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[Shadowraix]

@Leo Gura Was discussing politics and I thought of something that really struck with me. This idea of individual vs collective thinking has really resonated with me as of late. I see a lot of conflicts arise from thinking of either side. Stage orange is very individual, stage green is very collective. And balancing and understanding both sides is nearing stage yellow territory yeah?

I started thinking about how anyone who opposes the policies of say Bernie Sanders are a lot of the time advocating for more individual perspectives. They likely have a lot of orange traits. Bernie is introducing more collective thinking. Constraining the min and max of capitalism. The green are largely gonna be for him since they have a greater emphasis on collective and it provides a bigger sense of balance. (Although the green might want to take it too far collective)

Then I started thinking of capitalism vs communism which has this same individual vs collective idea. (What I mean is paper communism if humans weren't so corrupt.)

This duality between individual and collective seems to be a huge source of conflict between people who can't find balance between the two. Do you think this is a big part of it?

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by Shadowraix

[CreamCat]

4 hours ago, Shiva said:

I was in NZ recently. There, starting a small business is almost as easy as sending one email.

Also in Germany, my native country, starting a business is a lot easier and better incentiviced than in Spain.

I want to create a one-man company where my money is protected from the forces that are trying to censor the internet. Where can I create such a protected one-man company with a minimum hassle?

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[CreamCat]

22 minutes ago, Shiva said:

I'm no expert, but I know that in Estonia you can get e-residency and start a LTD company with only about 2,000 EUR, all without physically having to be there.

I don't know much more about the details or the pros and cons, I just know that a friend of mine did it. So, maybe this could be something for you to read up about?  

You might want to check this out: https://e-resident.gov.ee/

I researched into creating a company in estonia. I am not totally sure, but I read that the estonian banks are eager to close foreigner bank accounts and take money from foreigners because the estonian government closed banks for allowing foreigners to participate in shady financial transactions.

Estonian government had egoic survival agenda to exclude shady foreign investors. Estonian banks had egoic survival agenda to survive government crackdown by closing foreigner bank accounts. Estonian banks usually don't like to open up bank accounts for foreigners, and they are eager to close foreigner bank accounts.

I don't think it's safe to open a bank account as a foreigner in estonia.

I also had to have a physical mail address in estonia in order to avoid reporting tax to my home country. That meant I had to pay for a private agency in estonia for receiving my business mails and scanning them for me. I was not comfortable with the idea of allowing strangers to open up my business mails and scan them.

Edited June 15, 2019 by CreamCat

[InfinitePotential]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

How do you pay for UBI? Easy:

• High taxes on yatchs and private jets and luxury cars

Removing incentives to buy yachts!! 

https://youtu.be/7txygGSM4OY

 

[Myegolikestacos]

On 7/6/2019 at 3:25 AM, Leo Gura said:

On 7/6/2019 at 1:07 AM, Norbert Lennartz said:

Oh yes, one country forbids discussing the details of the Holocaust, one country forbids discussing the details of 9/11, one country communitizes the production of bread, one country communitizes the production of shoes, in one country women are not allowed to drive a car, in one country they are not allowed to drive diesel through the city. You cannot know what is happening.
But whatever happens: What is certain is that all this is a systemic continuation of the survival strategy of the state idea of each individual.

The fundamental basis of any "good policy" or "good government" is that you are able to participate voluntarily. It is an offer that you can refuse gratefully. But that would violate the definition of a state. 

Enough of your libertarian foolishness. You clearly don't understand or appreciate how society works. You are defending an ideological position. Don't bother denying it, I spotted you from day 1.

Haha so true, from day one!

[Myegolikestacos]

On 7/6/2019 at 4:13 AM, Leo Gura said:

On 7/6/2019 at 3:42 AM, Norbert Lennartz said:

You have in front of you a picture of a society that is sceptical about any voluntary cooperation and hostile if necessary.

There is no voluntary choice about being in a society. You are part of society whether you like it or not. You're living in a libertarian fantasy land where you think that ants have a say about whether they are part of an ant colony. They do not have such a luxury and neither do humans.

Without society you are dead. It's as simple as that. So you have no choice unless you want to die. In which case, feel free to go off and starve in the forest alone by yourself. That is your choice. The rest of us must figure out better ways of living together.

Cooperation is mandatory on this planet. You can refuse cooperation but you may be killed for it. So expect much worse than a ban if you actually stick to your ideology. Of course you are a hypocrite and you do not stick to your ideology because it is impossible. Otherwise you'd already be dead. You are only alive thanks to society. But in your mind you think it's all you just being independent. This is delusion and arrogance of the highest order.

Dang now that is a BURN!!

[Myegolikestacos]

On 8/6/2019 at 4:25 AM, Leo Gura said:

On 8/6/2019 at 3:40 AM, Norbert Lennartz said:

Don't tell me that I am not alowed to enslave you. Who are you to take away my might?

Unlike you, I don't subscribe to "rights" or childish notions of freedom. Me and every other sane person will get together and limit your ability to be a devil precisely because we don't like devils running loose. So we will physically prevent you from enslaving others. And you'll have to deal with that or die.

That's life.

While you talk childish nonsense we will create a better government and better world for the majority of us. You will end up benefiting from our work even though you sit there and make a mockery of it.

Thank you!

[Myegolikestacos]

On 8/6/2019 at 11:01 PM, Joseph Maynor said:

On 8/6/2019 at 10:53 PM, Leo Gura said:

Improving education to make it more conscious

• Reducing waste on military-industrial complex
• Making it easier for all people to vote without discrimination
• Eliminating corporate lobbying and money corrupting politics
• Retraining the police so they don't shoot unarmed black folks
• Protecting the environment from destruction and toxic pollution
• Ending the drug war and for-profit prison system
• Regulating the banks so they don't crash the economy
• Regulating giant monopolistic companies like Amazon from dominating everyone else
• Making medical care affordable for everyone

Now we're talkin'.  Good list.  Now you're gonna do something about these problems yourself Leo?  This is what you think you're gonna solve with your time and efforts?

Dang man, you can be really passive aggresive b***h Jose