Exactly what popped into my head. LOL

It's this simple. In modern capitalism we:

1. Bid up the assets of the wealthy
2. Cut the taxes on the passive income the wealthy make from their assets
3. Divest from public goods

It's a way to engineer similar to historical rates of return for the wealthy as the population ages and educational attainment increases among "middle class" young people. The latter would empower workers if they weren't kept precarious by debt, underemployment, and unaffordable public goods. A ten year old could figure it out.

@WilyRickWiles You are far out in left field, that’s all I need to say

@WilyRickWiles

That has the function of hiding the hyperinflation of printed money for social programs. It dampens overall consumption. All those zeros behind the transferred "wealth". The poor have no money to engage in hyper consumption and the rich are not numerous enough to break the system.

You can tax the rich all you want it doesn't create real wealth. Wealth only comes from labor, energy and industry. Two of which you liberal thinking geniuses have always been against. Labor that until Trump both the Democrats and the Republicans ignored. In the modern economy the only thing transferring money to the rich does as a practical matter is dampen consumption and give them political power. There are only so many yachts, Llamborghinis, and vacation homes the rich will want.

Everything your type wants is promoted by transfer to the rich. Lower consumption, less use of fossil fuels, it creates demand for the development of all the extras of civilization such as medical care, the arts, education etc.. What gets ignored is energy production, infrastructure, non service labor, flood control, mineral exploration, so on and so forth. If you transfer money to the "working class" the necessity for all the "evil" things you hate would go up. I would think you would be happy.

@wolfhnd "Wealth only comes from labor, energy and industry." Yes, and as the study showed, GDP was the same regardless of policy. So the question is who benefits from that production via tax and social policy.

@WilyRickWiles

Because of complexity who benefits becomes fairly subjective.

The important thing is that money and wealth are not the same thing. Money isn't even power as proven by Clinton's presidential run. The early history of Rome shows that virtue is more powerful even than wealth. It was again proven during the Vietnam war when ethnocentrism proved more powerful than wealth. The Vietnamese proved it again a few years later when they defeated the Chinese. The virtue in question is however clearly subjective.

What is insane is thinking the little guy is more virtuous than the powerful. There are cheaters all the way up and down the social economic scale. The little people are just confined by the rules. They still find ways to cheat but with less latitude. You can turn the common equation around and say the powerful that don't cheat are more virtuous than the less powerful that don't cheat. It comes down to temptation. In U.S. mythology it is personified by Washington stepping away from power.

In the civilized state you cannot build a morality on equity, diversity and inclusion because civilization is too dependent on competency. Our greatest sin is allowing the incompetent to gain power. I think Pelosi and McConnell illustrate that. Political hacks in power for decades. By the failures of Obama and the successes of Trump. It's why people with common sense hate crony capitalism and socialism equally.

Because of complexity morality is defined by how you play the game as much as the rules. By any means necessary is corruption itself and it is tearing apart the establishment especially the Democratic Party.

@WilyRickWiles

And you never will address the role of agency in social failure.