Yes, no doubt about it in my mind! Before the Democratic so-called debates started last year I posted that the fix was already in by the DNC and Bernie had no chance for the Democratic nomination for POTUS as they had already selected the Biden/Harris ticket and if I knew it Bernie also had to know that the Democratic debates were nothing but a dog and pony show for the naive American electorate to make them believe Bernie had a chance of being nominated.
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A Bernie dictatorship is what this country really needs right now.
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Of course a pipe dream; nevertheless, I have to agree with your dream but with the caveat that if Bernie somehow became an American, Dictator…he would no doubt be assassinated in a heartbeat!
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After, who was it, Blankfein, that called Bernie something like the world’s most dangerous man, I worry about Bernie’s well being even now as a progressive socialist. We should be reminded that many of these capitalists that hate Bernie are psychopaths. Bernie is extremely wise not to be confrontational in a direct way.
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Did he do the same under Bush jr and Obama?
I remember reading that a benevolent dictatorship is a very decent form of government
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Anyone still wondering why M$NBC et al gave Bernie less than 10% of the coverage that they gave Korporate Stooges Hideous Hilliary in 2016 and Sleepy/Creepy O’BiDunce in 2020???
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Please get a copy of Deficit Myth by Kelton, and read it a couple times. Interesting, thought provoking, and full of facts. The system as it is, has been rigged for a long time. We need new ideas to consider. I had to read it twice as I was dubious of some of her claims, but upon another reading and checking on the statements as best I could, I have come to accept a lot of it. Worth the time. Be well.
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If you are the dictator.
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy has been a Blue Light Special for the Corpse and Rich since the late 60s early 70s. The Corpse followed the Powell Memo to a T and has bought our govt, media, and electorate. The impact has been horrific as income inequality and income concentration have soared, leaving working Americans in the dust. Take a look at this NYT tax study, stunning, ~https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html
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A benevolent dictatorship is a government in which an authoritarian leader exercises absolute political power over the state but is perceived to do so with regard for benefit of the population as a whole, standing in contrast to the decidedly malevolent stereotype of a dictator who focuses on their supporters and self- …
Benevolent dictatorship - Wikipedia
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Yes, I know what they are, thank you. But they are few an far between and when the benevolent one passes the danger is who the next one will be. But I do agree Bernie would be a good one for his lifetime.
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I just read one review (of many), and I get the main idea. This book has apparently made a lot of waves, and many big names have reviewed it, including Foreign Affairs magazine.
But I will pass - for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I was a stockbroker for a little less than a year right after the crash in '87 - I came - I saw - and I left.
In the ‘global policy’ review of the book that I just read - I was struck by the assertion that tax revenues are not necessary for government spending.
I understand this point, and much is apparently made of Keynesian thinking as well in the book.
In a democracy, or better yet, in any functioning society, be it a tribe in the old days, or a modern nation state, you are dealing with people, how they feel about their world. If people ever come to believe that their contributions are unimportant - for me that is the end of that society as a functional human construct.
People need to work - and they need to know that their work is valuable. Taxes are just one way people contribute to their society of course, but it is I think a key one - especially in a world where money is necessary to live.
So no - we have up is down - an Orwellian world, and you are quite right I think, in asserting that the fix has been in for a long time. I’d say since the first city states and their rural support system, i.e., since the dawn of civilizations.
I believe it is a forest and trees problem.
Civilization has been around for so long, is so dominant, that it is near impossible to gain an outside perspective.
Money lenders and money borrowers - and leverage - a toxic combination - a giant casino - and the house never loses in the long run - but the casino can always burn to the ground - that is possible - and then there will be hell to pay.
We are creating another fiction with this thinking - but fictional entities have a long pedigree in human affairs, dating further back even than civilization.
We invent creation stories at will and without evidence, until very recently, with the advent of modern science. We have done this god and goddess thing - or Creator if you adopt an aboriginal perspective, for at least fifty or sixty thousand years, and I think much longer, give it 400,000 years, since the Neanderthals started burying their dead.
I know this is al very confusing - and a few lines here will not make a difference, so let me just say this:
The real economy has always depended on fresh water, clean food, shelter, and a circular system of extraction, where as much is returned to the land as is taken from it.
Do you think that describes our modern economists take on what an economy is - or is it a glorified magpie bauble collection system - and he, or she, with the most baubles wins ?
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You should put “civilization” in quotes
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I prefer Herman Melville and Moby Dick:
“Long exile from Christendom and civilization restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e., what is called savagery. Your true whale hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owing no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.”
Note the mixed metaphors, the inconsistencies, the allusion to God as a real entity -
And since at least the time we left Africa, ca sixty thousand years ago - we have destroyed the Megfauna on every island and continent we invaded. So it wasn’t even a circular economy even then - but now - now it is past ridiculous - it is insanity passing as wisdom.
@Dallas_Eggers
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I know - the Gandhi quote !
But for me - civilization does not mean better morals - it means simply massive hierarchy. Abe Lincoln saw this clearly:
“it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue.”
- Abraham Lincoln (see my post #20 for source)
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You see that container ship stuck in the mud in the Suez canal ? Is there anything in those containers that couldn’t have been made better and cheaper here in America ?
The answer depends on your beancounter.
Now modern economists are in fact just bean counters - and very selective beancounters at that - we call it cherry-picking beancounting -
The count is done in dollars, American dineros usually.
What about that extra 140 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere - what about the Sixth Mass Extinction underway - what about the unresolvable nuclear wastes and released now and forever into the environment synthetic chemicals, numbering in the tens of thousands - or the grief and pain and suffering of millions of dead, displaced and maimed human beings - the mental costs of permanent and debilitating moral injury - or PTSD in its myriad manifestations ?
What about robots & AI replacing humans - we are being quickly rendered not only irrelevant - but a costly externality - best disposed of.
On that super sized container ship - registered in Panama, owned in Japan, with an all Indian crew - what about that beancounters - how do you square that circle ?
What about that beancounters - where is all that in your magic Harvard Business School spreadsheets ??
I’ll quote a poet, a man named H.W. Longfellow (maybe a clue to the way forward ?)
"I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers - that ‘nothing but nature’ can qualify a man for knowledge."
A writer by the name of Robert Louis Stevenson once said, or is it wrote:
"My mistress still - the open road and the bright eyes of danger"
Skin in the game - the only game worth playing.
@Beli_Tsari
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A $3.5 million threshold for the estate tax is way too low. $10 million sounds about right. More than 10% of households are worth $1 million or more but only about 1% are worth $10 million or more.
I don’t see a problem with people paying a tax on estates at 3.5 million. What’s important is the rate. If a home is a domicle AND an investment, then in my opinion, anyone who has the ability to purchase a domicile and/or investment worth 3.5 million should be willing to pay a small tax for the benefit of the masses.
The proposed tax is 45%.