I don't know about you but I am getting sick of the wealthy in this country

[Stargazer99]

they whine about a tax cut and the common people are hurting. apparently the wealthy are suffering from "affluenzia," poor babies with the best medical care, homes, medicines, etc. I think the world would be better off without you, where no one has to suffer under your capitalistic failure system
and if we ever have an other country invasion I think giving them your bunker location might be interesting as you are the richest ones to plunder. Oh I see you think using the poor and middle class to fight and die for you will work. We know how important and "special" you are.

[sop]

1. "When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

[Dave Bowman]

3. Eat the Rich.

?si=FglXdIyvVOfwKTdJ

[C Moon]

50. Did you see some of the comments on YouTube. :O

We're definitely in a class war.

[Dave Bowman]

51. Absolutely. And greed is a nasty addiction which is making people suffer . 🙁

[TheProle]

25. and when we've had our fill of the rich, we'll turn our appetites to the peasants - robespierre, paraphrased

[ret5hd]

2. just remember...

when they retreat to their gated enclaves…

we only have to keep them from getting back out, and the gates can be locked from the outside also.

[justsomeguy01]

24. unfortunately

In the age of telecommunications and internet they can do great damage without ever leaving their mansions/bunkers

[ret5hd]

26. the rich get hungry fast. (nt)

[usonian]

4. It's God's swill!

[Ponietz]

12. The stock market is an elemental spirit, a hungry ghost captured and enslaved by capitalism's witch doctors

[OGBuzz]

5. But why must the rich pay any taxes?

It's not like they use any public services such as roads, airports, water, electricity, waste management, police, firefighting, EMS, etc., etc., etc. The nerve of us to ask the rich to pay their fair share to maintain everything that keeps society going. Shame on us all!

[dave99]

7. sarcasm ?

[OGBuzz]

9. Oh yes, I'm dripping with it but I couldn't find the emoji to attach to the post.

[ColoringFool]

6. "GETTING"?! (Caps mine) I'm WAAAY PAST Mme Defarge Time!

🧶🧶🧶🧶 1️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣

[Figarosmom]

19. With the ballroom and redecorating

We ARE way past the HALL OF MIRRORS.

[sop]

28. With the proper cuts...

[ChicagoTeamster]

8. And recently the House Republicans proposed a Capital Gains tax cut to stimulate the economy because the extremely

wealthy are doing great in their stock portfolios and we can't let the government get more of their measly 15% tax that they'll be paying on all of this after all of their other tax breaks

[OldBaldy1701E]

10. 'Getting'??

Where have you been for the last 50 years or so?

(I am joking around.)

It is not a question of 'thinking' the world would be better off, it is the truth. The fact that we have convinced so many other countries that this corrupted version of capitalism is anything other than a rich person scam is what is the most horrifying aspect of the 'legacy' of the United States.

We are going to be historically seen as no different than any other two-bit conquerors at the rate we are going. That is partly due to what I just said. Our desire to make the entire planet a capitalistic nightmare so we can control it all.

History is not going to be kind about it.

[Bluetus]

23. My thoughts exactly.

OK, if a person is just getting out of high school and only now coming to the realization that the rich have been exploiting this count since -- well since forever, welcome aboard. But if a person is an adult who has ostensibly living in the real world, for a decade or two, it is way past time to wake the fuck up.

We don't need "course corrections." We don't need a "return to normal". We don't need "solutions ar the margins".

We need to be thinking in revolutionary terms. And let's give the MAGA people some credit. They aren't very good at processing information to arrive at clear understandings and appropriate solutions, but dammit, they DO understand this system is really fucked up and we are all in big trouble if we can't overthrow this class of oligarchs

We actually have a lot more in common with the MAGA people than we do with the "moderates" and "Institutionalists" who have enabled this fascist machine to establish itself over the past 45 years. Talarico, Platner, AOC are talking to these people in terms they can understand. Trump is losing this crown. We need to take this opportunity to educate them and bring them to our side. I am not talking about the Confederate flag-waving racists and gun-totin' nut cases. They are lost causes. But there are many who have felt an affinity with MAGA because they sense just how fucked up the system is and nobody else was acknowledging that.

Eat the Rich.

[Ilikepurple]

54. A lot of MAGA, like prosperity gospel, is founded on the idea that you can join their ranks.

I do agree that there exists a fed-up but malinformed demographic that has voted for Trump 1-3 times because of dissatisfaction with the current economic structures, but many more feel that Trump is going to raise their chances at grabbing the brass ring by lowering taxes, electrifying the economy, and handicapping the marginalized.
I’ve talked with a lot of younger males recently that are convinced they just one bit of knowledge away from the right hustle or market trade hack before joining the wealthy. There are day trader, stonks, prediction trader, influencer, and crypto success stories, but they by necessity involve concentrations of wealth which of course keeps more $$ off the table for the rest of us, including their fellow wishful traders. There’s a lot of people fed up with the system, but there’s also a lot of people who believe that higher taxes on the wealthy will come just at the time their investment in Fabiocoin or some MLM&Ms or real estate bogus purchase scheme pays off. We are now offering cash for older homes.
I know people in their 70s that still oppose progressive tax structures because they may hit the figurative or literal lottery. I guess the thought for all ages is if your dream is to have more than your fair share, why would you want a fairer distribution of wealth?

[Stargazer99]

11. It looks like a few have it figured it out and used their critical thinking skills-congratulations

the training did not work on you, I conclude you must be more intelligent than the average citizen

[VanceFan]

13. Billionaires should not exist

Mangione had the right solution.

[MichMan]

32. A vigilante like Luigi should assassinate someone like Pritzker?

That's fucked up. No normal person would advocate for something like that.

[Skittles]

47. Mangione is a deranged, gun humping POS MURDERER

you're for gunning people down in the streets without due process? WTF

[Grim Chieftain]

14. Good, decent people share the wealth

The others, not so much.

I'm reminded of an encounter my husband had a few months ago when the lottery was very high. He was at the liquor store and several people buying lottery tickets were discussing what they would do with the money if they won. An elderly gentleman turned to my husband and said "I'd walk up and down Main Street and give $1,000 to each person I pass". That pretty much says it all. Some people are about "ME", but the truly good among us are about "WE".

[cksmithy]

30. At my husband's office, he would talk to the custodians when they were in the office.

A married couple, who started their own company, worked hard and were good people, lived in a working class neighborhood. Well, once when the lottery was really high, Mrs. Custodian, said she would buy up a lot of houses and help get homeless people back on their feet. They had adult children, married, doing the best they could, but when the conversation turned to the lottery, she wanted to help truly desperately poor. She didn't say she was going to spend the money on herself or her family.

[Grim Chieftain]

31. Good people

Thank heaven for them. Thanks for sharing this, cksmithy.

[jmbar2]

15. Obscenely wealthy people become emotionally stunted, at high risk for committing "Social Murder"

Social murder (German: sozialer Mord) is a concept used to describe an unnatural death that is believed to occur due to social, political, or economic oppression, instead of direct violence. Originally coined in 1845 by German philosopher Friedrich Engels, it has since been used by left-wing politicians, journalists, and activists to describe deaths attributed to larger social forces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder

Extreme wealth isolates people, and shields them from exposure to life outside of their bubbles.

They don't fill their gas tanks, shop for groceries, cook, raise their own children, maintain a house, garden, clean, wander around a fair or festival without a phalanx of guards, create household budgets, go to potlucks, help out a neighbor, comfort someone who has just been laid off, or injured on the job.

They have NONE of the life experiences or exposure that would help them care about, or even think about other human beings. Their spawn grow up in the same bubble and never leave.

Let them wallow inside their bubble, but NEVER give them power over other people's lives.

[PCB66]

55. With 330 million people living in this country

We have some of them that have power over us.

It is unfortunate but a reality of life.

Anybody that is voted into a government office has power over us.

A tremendous number of people that work in the government have power over us.

People that either vote with us or vote against us indirectly have power over us.

The Judiciary and law enforcement have power over us.

People that control economic institutions have power over us.

Fair or unfair it is a reality of life. We can never shake it. In previous times we may have been able to find a remote location and live our lives without anybody having power over us but those times are long gone.

[Fil1957]

16. They prove the old adage "Money can't buy happiness". Maybe there should be a new one like: "Excessive wealth turns you

into a selfish, power hungry, psychopathic fascist".

[Skittles]

40. it must kill them that they have to eventually die

hey, is that a pun?

[tetedur]

18. The main problem in this country is the rich don't have enough money.

They will not be happy until they have it all. That is the source of all struggles today.

[Skittles]

41. I think that every time I see an A-list celebrity in a fucking commercial

do these people EVER have enough fucking money?

[lastlib]

20. Shakespeare amended:

"the first thing we do, let's kill all the billionaires."

I approve this message......

[Skittles]

42. huh?

what is that, some kind of Mangione thing?

[lastlib]

45. It can be applied figuratively.

however you want to interpret it.

[displacedvermoter]

21. They are a lot sicker of all of us, I imagine...

[lastlib]

22. I've been seeing rich people get their taxes cut for almost 50 years.....

...and I have YET to see one use their tax cut to improve the levees around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

[BlueTsunami2018]

27. There are hundreds of millions of us and a few thousand of them.

And yet, somehow, we’re allowing them to rule everything and return nothing to the People. We get nothing for our tax money. No healthcare, education, food security, housing, jobs…..nothing.

They’ve managed to convince huge swaths of the country that not only is this acceptable but it’s desirable. This is how it should be, which is absurd. We’re allowing the greediest, most self-centered wealth hoarding scumbags to present themselves as victims. I mean, what the fuck are we doing?

We need a complete overhaul of this entire system.

[misanthrope]

29. Friend, I have been sick of them for over a half-century

And they aren't getting any more tolerable.

[gulliver]

33. Being anticapitalist is being antihuman.

Capitalism is as inevitable as DNA, gravity, and an oxygen-containing atmosphere. The only choice you have is how you regulate capitalism. The human species is natively capitalistic, even in intangible values.

[Haggard Celine]

52. I agree.

Capitalism is hard to avoid. It's a far-from-perfect system, but nobody's come up with anything better yet. Just about every country has capitalism to some degree, but they regulate it in different ways. How you regulate makes all the difference in the world. Capitalism in the U.S. needs to be regulated more. Some people seem to think that the few safeguards we have will keep the stock market from crashing again and causing a depression. It can happen, and it probably will happen. We probably won't do any serious adjustments to our economy until we have another depression. Seems we can't get anything done until we have a catastrophe.

[harumph]

56. At some degree of unregulation when does capitalism become something else?

In other words, is it just a "undesirable form" of capitalism we have or is it something else? When does quantitative decline in regulation amount to a qualitative difference. Isn't totally unregulated capitalism merely anarchism or the law of the jungle?
One of the basic aspects of capitalism is the willingness to commit capital to take on risk. What happens when risk is eliminated for the very wealthy? I would say that is a type of fraud that I have no name for - maybe some type of rent seeking - but not capitalism.

[GoodRaisin]

34. I want a government that will take all their money.

That is how bad I hate them. I’m to the left of Bernie on this issue. I want to tax these greedy people out of existence.

[PCB66]

35. I have never had a problem

with anybody making more money than me.

I don't like Bill Gates. To me he is an asshole. However, he created a company that employs tens of thousands of very high paying jobs. He also pays more in taxes in one day than I will in my entire life.

I'm also using his products to type this post.

I live in a neighborhood where almost everybody is richer than me. I get along with them. I want them to continue to make money so they can pay Social Security and Medicare for my wife and me.

I have a lot of problem with many kinds of injustice but hating on the rich ain't one of them.

[AZ8theist]

37. You don't have to hate them while still wanting a fairer system.

[MichMan]

38. Post # 13 wants them all murdered

[Quanto Magnus]

36. The uber wealthy in this country

are mostly made up of sociopathic leeches.....

[somsai]

39. Who are the rich? The 1%? That would include a lot of Democrats,

Democratic politicians too.

I'd say the 10% at least, more likely the 20%. We've become so anti tax that no one wants to pay anymore. We've cut out our social insurance to the point of almost a million homeless. No one, including many in our party, want to pay taxes. Taxes are how we build roads and clean the environment. We've cut the incomes of the working class to the point where they'll vote for Trump.

[modrepub]

43. I'm Just Surprised How Fast Normal Folks Roll Over

Like there's nothing we can do to reverse this. We outnumber them. If we don't like what's going on we can change it but we seem resigned to our fate.

As someone else put it, we're being "managed".

[LogDog75]

44. What standard is used to define who is wealthy?

Don't get me wrong, but we too often use ambiguous terms like "rich," "wealthy," "uber rich," to describe those whose assets run into the millions or billions. What we don't do is quantify what it means to be "wealthy." For example, I live and owned a home in a small city where the average housing price is over $2 million; does that make me "wealthy" or "rich?" For me, someone who is wealthy are those who assets exceed $10 million and who make over $500,000.

We, supposedly, have a tax system that is progressive so those who earn more pay more in taxes but in reality the tax laws are written to protect those with tens of millions/billions of dollars and not the average or lower income earners. I believe those should and must pay more in taxes since they tend to use their wealth to influence government officials at all levels to benefit themselves and others like them. So, if they're going to use their wealth to unduly influence government then the price for that influence is higher taxes on them. I'm in favor of the federal tax rate of 45-50% with few deductions for those making over $500,000.

I know there's been talk of a billionaire's tax that is, IMO, unrealistic. The problem is how do you identify the assets of a billionaire? Does anyone actually think they'll tell the government all their assets? For me, it would be best to raise the tax rate on these people with few deductions and at the state level, impose a 1 - 5% increase in state tax rate. That way, the tax wouldn't be a one-time tax and the federal and state governments would receive more money to address the needs of their citizens.

[moondust]

46. USA: Land of Predators

(Feel free to disagree. I think it explains a lot.)

In all, 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration owned slaves.

The Founders opposed democracy or any form of majority rule. They instead created a republic, based on the model provided by Plato[1]. Plato argued that only a small minority had the required virtue to govern. This small minority would be protected by a second class--the soldiers. Both the rulers and the soldiers would be supported by the largest class--the workers. This was the model for Athens, which was a slave-based society[2].

The key Founders and eight of the first ten presidents were slave owners[3]. Contrary to popular belief, the Founders did not think that "all men are created equal." This phrase comes from John Locke[4]. It omits the key part of Locke's claim--that men are only equal if they are of the same class and species.
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_and_the_United_States_Founding_Fathers

"required virtue to govern"?

The Tech Bros would seem to be the latest gang of predatory control freaks who want to own and control everything.

[Ford_Prefect]

48. "I think it's a mercy we haven't hung them all."

[proud patriot]

49. I just rewatched "Capitalism a love story"

I'm so sick of their greed and utter lack of social responsibility.

[Buns_of_Fire]

53. There are a few notable decent ones. This one, for example:

He sold his company for $1.7 billion -- then handed $240 million to the 540 workers who stuck with him
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221231194

Notable because they're so rare.