So if your children aren’t gods, they’re “bad”? This is your logic? Seriously?
The thinking among the conservatives of my acquaintance is that the government tends to look out for minorities of various types while basically taxing everyone else to do so. There’s a definite feeling that they already pay far more in than they see value for, outside of defense and the normal infrastructural stuff that we all benefit from.
There’s also a huge element of personal choice involved- they like the idea that they have the option to take one of a few employer-offered health plans, go it on their own, or not have insurance at all. They feel like it’s their choice to do so or not, and the fact that others don’t have insurance has no bearing on whether they even need to have it, or how much they’ll pay.
Which is more or less part and parcel their objection to a lot of the Democratic party’s social programs- they don’t like the idea at ALL that they are going to be legally compelled to pick up someone other person’s slack, especially when they’re not living the lifestyle they might want, and when it appears to them like the other person’s problems are self-inflicted.
I think a lot (but not all) people tend to get a little more liberal as they get wealthier and a little bit of extra taxation isn’t going to make a material difference in their lifestyles/ability to provide. But until then, they’re going to tend to look at tax increases, or potential tax increases/mandated things with a lot of hostility and skepticism because they will view them as taking money out of their pockets, and they feel like they don’t have money to spare, especially not for people they don’t know, who don’t live near them, and who appear to them to have self-inflicted problems.
I think it’s the ‘repent’ he’s having problems with, not the ‘worship’. Using a religious term implies he, and his children, are guilty of some not-well-specified sin (a new version of Original Sin, perhaps). Sinners are bad, therefore it is calling his kids bad.
Sure, and they were paid a (presumably) fair wage to do so.
That’s the thing that keeps getting overlooked around here(SDMB) is that Musk and his investors basically took a huge risk in building the factory, hiring all the people, designing the cars, marketing the cars, and keeping the whole enterprise going until they could make a profit. That costs a LOT of money, and its success is a long way from being a foregone conclusion. In other words, they took a colossal risk with their money in expectations of a reward.
The workers on the other hand took minimal risk. They may have chosen Tesla over some other employer willing to hire them, but the assumption is that something is better at Tesla- the wages, the working conditions, etc… And they get paid as long as they do an adequate job, regardless of the company performance- right up to the point when the company goes bankrupt (if it comes to that).
The tradeoff for working for a wage or salary is that your compensation is not tied into the company’s performance. So if the company takes off and is wildly successful, you keep making the same wage. But if the company has a downturn, you keep making the same wage for the work you do. Musk’s position doesn’t work like that- he gets to keep a proportion of the excess money commensurate with his ownership percentage.
Look at it this way- if I inherit a plot of land, and I think it might have some gold on it, I can dig myself, I can hire someone to dig for a percentage of any gold we find, or I can hire someone to dig for a hourly wage. Let’s say that the mine doesn’t pan out- that guy got hired regardless, and I’m out that money plus the shovels, excavator rental, etc… If the mine turns out to be moderately lucrative, I may or may not turn a profit, but that guy got paid either way. Only if it’s very profitable, do I make a lot of money, and that guy still gets paid the same. In a sense, he’s getting paid to dig, and that’s regardless of WHAT he digs, or what I do with what he digs. I mean, I might bury the gold in my backyard and never realize a dime in profit. But that guy gets paid either way.
He’s not entitled to the gold he digs, just because he’s the guy doing the work- he’s already being paid to dig a hole to specifications. Why should he get more? He didn’t do anything above and beyond what he would have done if there was no gold, or a minimal amount of gold.
That’s not the impression I am getting from his posts. It looks like he is equating not being worshiped with being bad and/or evil.
But the assumption on the right is that they would not have done so if they paid a few percent more in taxes.
I disagree with this assumption. Back when taxes were far higher than they are now, people took risks and opened companies. If they succeeded, then they would pay a bit extra tax on their earnings. If they failed, then they would get to write off huge sums of money on their taxes. During the process, they would usually get tremendous tax breaks and incentives for their investment.
If Musk and his investors are paying more in taxes on their profits, that’s not going to deter the sort of innovation that they have done.
There is a point where that is the case, if we tax 100% of their profits, then sure, there’s not going to be much growth and innovation, but we are nowhere near that.
They still invest their time and their skills. They take the risk that working for Tesla is going to be a better investment than working somewhere else, or starting their own company.
I’m a bit reminded of the scene from Braveheart where the nobles are sitting around, pointing at their wealth and their lands, and complaining that the soldier on the battlefield has less to lose than they do.
Not necessarily. You may see your hours or wages cut. You may even be laid off.
And he will still be pretty well off. He’s not investing his life savings here. If Tesla failed, he’d still be incredibly wealthy.
The problem here is when you do strike it rich. Then you buy up all the other land, and anyone wants to mine for gold has to do it on your terms, for your wages.
Well, this is actually more to the point as to why trickle down economics doesn’t work than anything else. If your gold mine is operating, and you have your taxes reduced on the profits that you are making, why should the person doing the digging get more? You are profiting off of their labor, and you are getting to pay less taxes on that profit.
And if you are not going to pass your tax savings onto your workers, then what benefit does society get from giving them to you?
I am a business owner, and I did invest my life savings. If things didn’t work out, I’d probably have ended up homeless. For the first couple years, I didn’t profit off of anyone’s labor, as the work was done entirely by myself and the other owner. When I was able to hire people, they did take a risk, a risk that I may not be able to keep them employed, that I would not be able to give them raises to pay them for the value that they contributed. As I have become more profitable, I have passed a substantial amount of that onto my employees.
But, even though I took a much bigger risk than Musk and his investors did, as they would have only ended up with one less home if Tesla had failed, I still pay a higher effective tax rate than they do on my profits from the risk and labor that went into building my business. If I end up doing well enough to keep expanding, opening other locations, and hiring more people, then my effective tax rate will be even lower. The less risk, the less personal risk of bankruptcy, insolvency, and homelessness that I am at, and the more profit I make off the work of other people, the less I have to pay, proportionally, on that profit.
Now, I didn’t open a business because of tax reasons. I opened one because I didn’t want to work for anyone else anymore, and I also didn’t want to starve. In your gold digger analogy, I wanted to dig my own holes to my own specifications. I managed to find a bit of “land” that no one else was in, and started digging, and found enough gold to support myself and hire a couple of other diggers, even buy a little bit more land. I would have done the same had taxes been 90% on people making millions of dollars a year.
If I get to where I am making millions a year, then I would not begrudge returning the lion’s share of that to the society that allowed me to do so.
More than this: if we taxed people more heavily, we would also offer greater benefits accordingly.
Take a middle class couple like my wife and I. Right now we both have solid jobs and live comfortably on the income.
Sometime soon we are planning on having kids, at which point my wife will need to take years off of the workforce (between late pregnancy and early childcare for a few kids). To afford this, I can’t spend the next few years moving between jobs (unless I’m offered an extremely enticing pay bump). I can’t go back to school to get another degree. Not unless we want to delay having kids by multiple years.
(for example, I am an accountant. In school I learned bookkeeping, journal entries, etc and this has been helpful despite the fact I don’t do any of those things - I use a computer program that does it for me, and I’d love to get into the guts of how this software works. I picked up some programming on the job but I find myself wishing I’d majored in Computer Science).
I’m much better off staying where I am, even though long term if I could learn to program I could be a much more productive accountant.
Now imagine a society where my wife can stay home for a couple of years without me needing to double my salary first, because the government recognizes that childcare is extremely important and labor intensive and so supports us financially when my wife stays home. Meanwhile, I could cut my working hours for the next year while going back to night school without losing the ability to pay the mortgage.
In 10 years, when we’ve got a few kids, our household would be much more financially secure and we could give our kids a better start. I could invest in my dad’s business, or open my own.
And we are EXTREMELY fortunate. We are in our late 20s with all of our stydent loans totally paid off, we both have cars that are 8 years old or younger that are fully in our name and paid for, we have retirement accounts and savings. But that’s all because we were lucky enough to be born into families where our parents could pay for our college, or where an aunt left us enough inheritence to pay off a loan. I have no idea how we would have saved up enough to do what we did without that sort of aid. In fact, I know we would not have been able to; most of our married friends our age are ass deep in student debt, and we are about 8 years younger than the youngest couple we’ve met that’s been able to buy a house here in California.
Eta: and by the way, the Trump “tax cuts” took away every deduction we used in prior years and left us paying 2k more in federal tax than the year prior. Thanks, Donald!
Ha ha ha!
No.
If the company has a downturn, your ass is thrown out into the street. Ask the laid off workers in the oil patch how the CEO’s are doing (hint; quite fine). In some cases, your company pension plan has also been looted, so you end up with nothing.
You know, that I think about this, it’s only partially true.
You may also be thrown out onto the street even if the company is doing well. And the CEOs and shareholders will profit off of your loss.
I believe that is called “right-sizing” these days.
Talking to my wife’s conservative family, they all seem to agree that “someone” should pay to educate people, particularly some of these minorities in disadvantaged communities. I have to point out to them that “someone” is basically “government”. A lot of conservatives, in principle, aren’t in disagreement with a lot of liberal or Democratic positions. But they still vote Republican.
The rest of the conversation ended up being a lot of random talking points and non sequiturs.
Yes, I’ve run into that one. On specific positions, often on a number of specific positions, and sometimes to some extent depending on how it’s phrased: agreement with Democratic and/or liberal positions; sometimes on quite liberal positions. But on the ballot: voting Republican.
I’ve had people say that once the candidates get elected, they’ll do different things than they said they would, anyway. (Which is not entirely false.) But I think some of it may be not understanding which candidates are actually taking which positions, and some of it may be weighing the issues on which they disagree with Democrats more heavily than the issues on which they agree with them.
Trying to catch up with this thread, so haven’t yet read all entries. (I’m at post 44 or so) So far, there have been many well-reasoned and well-worded (possible) explanations for the thinking of the Right, to paint with a very broad brush. Like the 5 blind guys and the elephant, they’re all right, but probably don’t cover all the reasons for the positions held. Still very relevant and very enlightening, for me. I wanted to point out this entry by @begbert2 as one that struck me, of their starting with the premise that they’re right, and going from there. Questioning their stance is, for them, about as nonsensical as questioning why they don’t have two right arms instead of a right and left.
At least in my experience, it’s that feeling that the Democrats are looking out for everyone else, and not white middle and working class people that drives them away, even if they agree in theory with the policies. In essence, they don’t like the feeling that it benefits them as a side-effect of benefitting someone else, and prefer the party/candidates who may not have the same policies in mind, but who purports to stand up for them, and NOT for other people.
Personally, I think it’s a consequence of making politics about one’s identity in a group, rather than on the issues themselves. They perceive themselves as a group, and stick with the party that they perceive is catering to their group.
I am surprised by the scary bogie man conservative created by liberals. All Muslims are terrorists? No one l know believes that.
Lucky you.
I’ve heard it from people many times. My father was expressing that opinion the week after 9/11. I hear it online from right-wingers all the time. What kind of sheltered life do you lead that you haven’t heard that once since 9/11?
Sorry, I deleted my post.
Remember, we are trying to find common ground. Please take as a good faith statement that I know no one who has such an ill informed view of Muslims.
It is wrong that some people you know only have 18 feet paint brushes.
Can we exclude the fanatics at the extremes?
I’ve heard and read that opinion far too many times to dismiss it as “fanatics at the extremes.” Some substantial number of Americans believe that Muslims should not be allowed in the United States. What that percentage is, I don’t know, but it isn’t a tiny fringe.
Fair enough. I am just trying to let you guys know that demonizing a whole group of people doesn’t lead to easy diplomacy.
How about you ask me what I think instead of making up things?