zlacker

>>tedsan+(OP)
This is so much money with which we could actually solve problems in the world. maybe even stop wars which break out because of scarcity issues.

maybe i am getting to old or to friendly to humans, but it's staggering to me how the priorities are for such things.

>>deknos+6a1
For less than this same price tag, we could’ve eliminated student loan debt for ~20 million Americans. It would in turn open a myriad number of opportunities, like owning a home and/or feeling more comfortable starting a family. It would stimulate the economy in predictable ways.

Instead we gave a small number of people all of this money for a moonshot in a state where they squabble over who’s allowed to use which bathroom and if I need an abortion I might die.

>>CSSer+xk1
Repaying student loans makes a lot of people a little richer. The current initiative makes a few people a lot richer. If you ask some people, the former is a very communist/socialist way of thinking (bad), while the latter is pure, unadulterated capitalism (good).

>>buran7+ql1
One of the more destructive situations in capitalism is the fact that (financially) helping the many will increase inflation and lead to more problems.

When a few people get really rich it kind of slips through the gaps, the broader system isn't impacted too much. When most people get a little rich they spend that money and prices go up. Said differently, wealth is all relative so when most people get a little more rich their comparative wealth didn't really change.

>>_heimd+K02
you can redistribute real resources - every person spending their life working on a rich persons yacht rather than helping educate the next generation due to the price system, for instance, is a real distribution of resources. this is why consumption taxes are modern and valuable

>>whimsi+A92
If we have to have taxes, I'm very much in favor of a consumption tax. It doesn't work for our current system though, capitalism kind of hits a wall when spending money is disincentivized (compared to saving money or simply not trying to earn more).

Redistribution of wealth is tricky and almost certainly runs into the same wall I mentioned in my last comment. When everyone competing with each other (financially) see a similar bump in income they didn't really change anything. Redistribution is more helpful when targeting the wealth gap and not very useful when considering how wealtht the majority of people "feel".

That said, I 100% agree people shouldn't be working their entire life on a rich person's boat. That's a much bigger, and more fundamental, problem though. That gets to the core of a debt-based society and the need for self reliance. The most effective way to get out from under someone else's boot (financially) is to work towards a spot where you aren't dependent on them or the job's income.

>>_heimd+xY2
there are lots of redistributions that are net beneficial even when you account for the incentive hit. marginal increases in the estate tax, for instance, almost certainly fall under this umbrella

i don't agree that debt is the problem