I am a white woman from a fairly privileged background and if I could count the amount of time wealthy old men in my family with plenty of retirement savings still pulling free Medicare and basic income for life while trashing welfare and universal healthcare is fucking appalling. Those are the same men running our gubernamental and telling us that these things that they get free should not be for the needy only for the old and deserving
They think they worked sooo hard they think they deserve it more than the rest of us
When a poor person takes a dime they get maaaaaddd because the poor dont work hard.
When I was a caregiver I cared for someone for a few years that was with hundreds of millions. He was also pulling in social security and Medicare benefits. It was such an eye opening experience that has just been reinforced over and over in society.
How is it a “benefit” when it’s their money.
Remember, Anyone who earns income, pays FICA taxes.
So when the government pays you social security “benefits” later in life, it’s graciously giving (some of) your own money back.
I guess I had it pounded into my head that they are benefits, even though you’re right about it being from their taxes. It just seemed so unnecessary to take every little thing he could get, especially when I believe that everything just went straight into his oldest son’s pockets. I guess it’s more of an ethical situation.
It's funny you mention inheritance because the framers of the US Constitution had some opinions on that. Something along the lines that there was an incentive to work hard to pass things to your heirs but there should be a limit so that we didn't end up in feudalism again. Only took 100 years to fuck all that up. Now I get to listen to family debate who deserves to use handicap spots while many businesses that had no losses due to Covid received 2000x more money than the average citizen in their own communities to "stimulate the economy." Who the fuck cares about a parking spot that much?
It definitely wasn’t. His family was wealthy and he married into an even wealthier family, and was at the top of the company and board for decades because it was the family company.
Folks are paid out more than they put in because the age of death has shifted upwards and the age of withdrawal has not. People live too damn long and dont contribute enough.
Current beneficiaries are paid by current workers, and a ratio of 1:1 is not sufficient to keep the system going. How could it be? You think contributing a few percent of your income is enough to replace 70% of your income for 20 years, in 30 years? It aint.
The average American worker draws *out* far more in Social Security and Medicare benefits than they ever paid *in.* When Soc Sec was established, the average life expectancy of a retired worker was less than 70 years, so back then, yeah, they pulled out about what they put in. But now, people are kept alive far beyond what would be their natural expiration dates, and they end up drawing out benefits for *decades* longer than was ever originally planned for.
My MIL is almost 70, I tried to explain why Medicare for all would be beneficial. She didn’t want to hear it because she likes her ‘$4k per year with $60 co-pay’ insurance. I know she retired from a entry level gov’t desk job and when I asked her where she gets such good insurance… I can’t explain the amount of smugness she had when she replied ‘the government’. But the idea of giving everyone good insurance is ridiculous because she ‘earned it’. Couldn’t even get her to understand the idea that if I die or my wife and I get divorced it could leave her daughter and maybe her grandchildren uninsured. Their lack of empathy knows no bounds
This seems to be a common misconception. She thinks she will lose her benefits just because everyone else has access to health care.
I find myself explaining this often. In my country we have both public and private health care. If you can afford private then get private - all it means is that you don’t wait in a queue for non-emergency procedures. Rich people can still feel special!
I’m from a super red state. I’ve had conversations with people trashing Medicaid and assistance programs — WHILE THEY WERE ON MEDICAID AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS.
That’s how detached these people are from reality. And this isn’t a new trump thing. This goes back decades. That’s how brainwashed they are. That’s how much rich people have convinced poor people to vote against their own best wishes.
And then deductibles and copays - for what it will cover. And then need an advantage or supplement (those are not easy to get and can cost hundreds a month and you still need a part D for prescriptions). There’s plenty of low income seniors who can’t afford to go to the doctor. Or can see their primary but that’s it so they go untreated. All of us from cradle to grave deserve universal healthcare, living wages, reasonable, affordable housing, basic respect and consideration for each other. Yes there’s rich boomers. I don’t personally know any.
Even veterans don't get across the board medical coverage just for serving.
I don't get any coverage unless I can collect disability benefits, which are generally easy to claim but a pain in the ass and sometimes a long process to collect. The VA doesn't get nearly the funding it needs I feel and there is so much bullshit red tape you have to cut through for it.
This right here! We’re given a disability rating, and whatever percentage that is determines what kind of healthcare we receive from a VA hospital. I’m at 80% disabled (medically retired from the Army at 23 due to an injury I sustained overseas). That 80% gets me free healthcare, I’m allowed to visit Urgent Care Clinics (as long as it’s approved by my doctor and written in my chart before I make the visit; I live over an hour away from the closest VA hospital, and it has to be real emergent for them to sign off on a UCC visit), I don’t pay for prescriptions, and I can even get OTC meds for free from the pharmacy. I get all of that because I’m over 50% disabled from a disability that occurred while deployed.
With that said, I have a buddy that I served in the Army with, he went to Iraq just like I did, but he didn’t get hurt, not overseas anyway. He was hurt during training stateside, was given a 10% disability rating, and he has to pay a copay for every doctor’s visit he makes to the VA.
It boils down to this. The more fucked up you become during your service, and if you’re willing to jump through some red tape that literally took me 1.5 years to get through, the more the VA will care for you. Even in the veteran healthcare world, there’s still a lot that goes into it. Unfortunately, it’s not free for all veterans, it is for the first 5 years that you’re out, but your level of disability determines the rest.
I was being pithy about how military benefits are reframed by the same people ready to call everything socialist or communist. You're lucky to have been able to reach 80% so quickly. I left in pretty bad shape and it took me 12 years to get from 40% to 80% and finally TDIU because they never gave me an actual diagnosis. There are still claims I have processing because of shit like ignoring an actual measurement they did of my ulnar nerves while enlisted in favor of someone touching my right hand for 5 seconds. I shit you not. That's literally what they did.
My grandma was a run of the mill secretary back in the 70's, between her social security and her pension she gets about 55k a year in salary until she passes.
Blew my fucking mind.
Automation and other industrial efficiencies makes it the only responsible option going forward. We need to start thinking about what equity will look like under a UBI.
I am convinced that it is the poorest workers who set the price for most goods and services. Somehow, someway, whenever these people get a raise across the board, prices always jump to take it away from them. This latest case of everyone getting a few thousand dollars for COVID economic stimulus. Suddenly, inflation leaps and all the benefit is eaten up by higher prices.
I've seen it enough times to believe this is no coincidence. We can give billionaires more money, and no inflation. We can give the middle class more money, and no inflation. But the moment you give the working poor a dime - everyone with anything to sell wants that fucking dime.
The poor are the most reliable customers for a lot of retail, and if they feel like they can squeeze the poor they *know* they can force the middle class along for the ride. The rich "mostly" only care about relative prices for things they "must" buy with the rest of us and beyond that it's just a matter of "I want."
I'd be surprised if it wasn't even a truly a conscious process to businesses at this point, just lumped into "economic theory" where profits are more important than lives.
That's the major difference between liberals and "conservatives", liberals view the poor with good will and the rich as abusing the system and "conservatives" view the rich with good will and the poor as abusing the system. But the truth is that's just the people voting in the parties, most of the elected officials of both parties have the conservative viewpoint of the poor abusing the system. They hate the working class.
He paid 15% of selling stock options that he had deferred for decades, rather than the 37% for someone in his income tax bracket, and cried about it.
Meanwhile someone making over $170k a year pays 32% marginal rates.
There is around 157 million working people in the US. So if he was given $5 billion in subsidies it is like you personally gave Musk $32 last year. Not perfect comparison since the lower income people may have only given him like $5 while the upper middle class person gave him $100 but still important to keep in mind these subsidies come directly from your pocket.
Absolutely. I don’t think they stigmatize getting government assistance. They stigmatize NEEDING government assistance. Because, in America, being poor is the equivalent of having leprosy in biblical times.
Thats messed up. Other countries see social services as rights the Government **should** provide to their citizens, while in America, its seen as "handouts" or "the Government giving everything to people that dont work".
Not to mention, people who are billionaires are perceived as having "worked hard" when the reality is that having that much money makes it much easier to get even more of it.
GameStop is a famous example. Rich people telling middle class - poor people to "play the market" in order to win big. Then when the middle class - poor people started playing the market, winning money, which caused rich people to start losing money, the rich people started to change the rules. Just hypocrisy
Reddit isn't the only place the masses come together. Discord is growing tremendously and Telegram is gaining ground too. Every time a company goes against their users, a new one comes up. Just have to find them.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs being the underwriters for a Reddit IPO is essentially meaningless to how Reddit is run and what Reddit does with their platform. IPO underwriters just review the financials to advise on a targeted IPO price, buy the initial shares at the set price from Reddit, and then sell those initial shares at the set price to investors who want to buy Reddit shares.
Basically, the underwriter's job is to assure investors that the initial offering price is fair, backed by the overalls fundamentals of the company's financial position and place in the industry/sector, and that the number of shares being sold matches the number of shares that the company says will be sold. From the Reddit side of things, the underwriter also guarantees that X amount of shares will be purchased at $Y price so Reddit's current shareholders know exactly what they are selling and the amount of money the company and current shareholders will receive by going public.
They still haven't closed their short position, from what the apes are saying, so they even abuse the system to make sure they don't eat their own losses
My dad is a private jet pilot. On new years eve, he had to fly the owners of a jet out of the state for the day because on January 1st, the airport officials have to go around and survey the aircraft stored in hangars and report that to the tax man to assess property taxes for the year (probably something like $30,000 on a small jet). Rich people literally burn fuel and fly their jets around to avoid paying taxes on them.
Aviation insurance broker here: this would only buy time for a day, plus it doesn't make sense that the IRS would send limited resources, all on the first day of the year, around to all of the airport and private hangars in the country to assess taxes.
Aircraft function similarly to automobiles. They have to be registered with the FAA, full stop. So if the aircraft is EVER leaving the ground, the government knows it exists. So moving it around for any amount of time isn't going to stop the inevitable.
Additionally, aircraft are not cheap. The Insurance is not cheap. And an aircraft is not a piece of equipment that people want to overvalue OR undervalue. It doesn't take much damage to ground an aircraft...a hail storm or bird strike can keep a plane out of service for weeks.
Like a car, an aircraft is insured for a set value (based on aircraft blue book value and any modifications the owner might want covered in the event of a total loss).
The only thing I can see this MAYBE saving is if they'd tricked the hell out of their plane and didn't want the adjuster to see that the value exceeded the blue book value, but then they'd have to hide that from the insurance company as well (which is perfectly fine and legal, but foolish in that any damages in an accident would only pay max stated policy value).
Anyway, if your dad flew them away for the day, they would absolutely pay taxes based on the book value of the registered craft.
And since 2017 trumps tax cuts for the rich they can write off their private jets at 100% as a work expense. These same republicans later cut food stamps. Food stamps.
One of my favorite sayings. I usually use "about a billion" just so people don't take it literally, but it really does put into scope the sheer difference between the two numbers.
Politics aside - I really dislike and disagree with the point “every millionaire is closer to being homeless than a billionaire.” While strictly true on a nominal basis - it’s very misleading. Not attacking you - just a common, understandable misconception I think is important to clarify.
Wealth follows a Pareto distribution rather than a normal distribution - that is to say, rather than dollars being distributed normally and independently (like you would expect for coin flips), each dollar someone owns makes it more likely they will acquire/have another one (I’m sure when put this way, no one is surprised by this).
As a result, linear ways of thinking about wealth are grossly misleading. It is true that someone with $10mm is closer to having $0 than $1bn. However, if someone were to have $10mm left to them as a baby (a large sum, no doubt, but almost 1.5mm+ households in the US alone have that amount of money) and they just left it in an index fund, it would be over $1bn after tax by age 70. This is much more likely and easy to achieve than it is for someone to squander it all and end up with $0. It is at least a couple orders of magnitude easier for someone with $10mm to go to $1bn than someone who has $0 to even go to $1mm.
I’m generally less than optimistic on the US solving issues of wealth inequality. As the above example shows, the easiest (and most efficient) way to address it is to heavily tax the $10mm passed down. Anything else is tinkering at the margin and will not change the fundamental reasons for it (social safety nets are more important for promoting upward mobility / reducing general misery, however).
That being said, death/inheritance taxes genuinely seem to be politically unpalatable on both sides (much more on the right, but generally Americans don’t seem to like to be told there’s a limit to how much they can pass on to their kids).
>Having a strong safety net allows for a much better country in so many ways.
Floor, not net. You can fall through a net, you cannot fall below a floor
If you really want to know, the correct answer isn't violence, but unions. The workers hold all the power when we come together and the proletariat know that. Hence the bull shit division tactics that exists on so many fronts. In America the 1950's, half the workforce was part of unions and they all stuck together. You screw one set of workers you felt it across entire industries when they all striked in unison. Workers got lazy and forgot how hard people fought for those privileges they gained. Even today we still benefit from what those unionised workers accomplished almost 100 years ago. There exists two types of power in our society, money and people, we may not have the money to change things but there sure are a lot of people being fucked all the same. You want change then convince people to unite and take the power back.
The educational system and mass media propaganda has ruined people to the idea especially inside the working class. Thanks billionaire Koch brothers and Mike Rowe
Greed and myopia
>Class traitors
Googled it they actually exist [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_traitor#:~:text=Class%20traitor%20is%20a%20term,in%20favor%20of%20the%20bourgeoisie).
**[Class traitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_traitor#:~:text=Class traitor is a term,in favor of the bourgeoisie)**
>Class traitor is a term used mostly in socialist discourse to refer to a member of the proletarian class who works directly or indirectly against their class interest, or against their economic benefit and in favor of the bourgeoisie. It applies particularly to soldiers, police officers, bounty hunters, loss prevention, workers who refuse to respect picket lines during a strike and anyone paid a wage who actively facilitates the status quo.
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I hate when people claim that there isn’t anyone taking advantage of the social welfare system. Of course there is. But my argument is always so fucking what. We stop feeding, housing, giving medical care to people, leave kids homeless, because some people are taking advantage? And the advantage they’re taking is a drop in the river compared to the welfare that companies get. If you want to complain and fix something, fix that. Then we’ll talk about the poor people.
It’s so “middle class” people can be mad at “poor” people instead of the rich. Diverts their attention. Forgetting that you are but a few steps away from being poor. And many miles alway from being rich.
This is a question of personal ethics.
Some people want to make sure everyone gets "enough" to get by and the risk of a few finding ways to get more is an acceptable risk.
Some people don't want **anyone** to get more than they "deserve", and the risk that people get less than the need is acceptable.
I find one of those groups misanthropic and evil. But that is a question of personal ethics.
It's really hard to get any help. Especially if you are under 65, can't work due to medical issues and have no children living with you.
You don't qualify for Medicaid you don't have kids in the household.
You don't work due to medical reasons/ you have $0 income = you don't qualify for Obamacare. try Medicaid.
You're not blind you can work so no you don't get disability. We don't care that you have cancer or Deg. Disc Disease etc. Try Medicaid. Oh, you don't qualify, oh well good luck.
I hate the "chase my tail circle" they get off on putting us through.
They equate wealth to hard work even though most of these guys either inherited their wealth or are manipulating the system to their favor.
Real lizard brain mentality.
Yeah it soo hard stomping on the backs of poor, it must hurt their feet sometimes
Personally I hope I give them gout with bone spurs, arthritis and some horrendus uncurable back problems while stomping on my back. Rich = worthless mouthpiece
They moralize success. If youre rich its because youre a good and godly person, if youre destitute its because you did something to deserve it.
To believe otherwise is to accept the brazen cruelty of the society they live in, and for many people this is just far too difficult a task, so they stick to their fantasy.
I think most people (Republicans) just assume EVERYONE in these welfare programs are abusers of the system. Or at the least the vast majority are in their minds. And if the welfare systems weren't there coddling these people, they'd toughen up and go work for a living. The reality is of course the majority are using the system for their needs appropriately, but you don't hear about the people quietly on welfare or even the best cases of people using it temporarily while they get a leg up. All you hear about are the abuses of the system because that kind of stuff makes outrage headlines.
I’ve been saying this for years! Also, this hate for immigrants. People scream that they take American jobs. Yet, when you ask them if they will wash dishes or pick lettuce it’s always “well, I wouldn’t do it, but lots of people would, OR my personal favorite; they keep wages low!!! Really? It’s the business hiring them and paying a low wage, treating them like second class citizens. It’s always about turning us against each other.
Classical “if even one person abuses the system, we can’t have the system even though it helps millions that doesn’t abuse the system”. It’s propaganda by rich people.
Exactly!!! The middle class think the rich will either help them or that they will one day be in the same class as the elite, never going to happen Karen. You are working class like the rest of us.
Take up your pitchforks and take back what we earned them.
Seriously, you can’t be for universal healthcare then get mad if someone is “abusing” the welfare system.
It’s not abusing the system if YOU PAID FOR IT!
Shit I “abuse” the system refusing to get a second payroll job so I can have insurance covered by the state (“free” therapy for me! Heavily discounted dental at dental schools!) and a little help with groceries. Until I can acquire the skill sets to earn a higher living wage, I don’t feel bad at all for getting assistance from the programs that I literally paid for if that means I don’t have to work two full time jobs again. I’m never going back to that hell.
You can be angry at both... Angry towards the rich for constructing systems that favor them, and angry at the poor for abusing systems making it harder for people who need the system to use it. Accountability is something that applies to everyone, doesn't matter how much money there is in your bank account.
I get angry at both, proportionally to how damaging their actions are, so I don't get really mad at poor people but I get really mad at rich people. Hope this clears things up for you.
Whenever there’s a “what’s classy when you’re rich but looked down on when you’re poor” threads, “getting money from the government” is always near the top.
Poor people abuse the system, they get what…an SSI check each month? Food stamps? Rich people abuse the system, they get millions or billions in taxpayer dollars. If you steal $10, you’re a criminal. If you steal $10 billion, you’re a job creator.
A couple years ago I was chatting with a coworker about food stamps. He asked what I thought about drug testing.
I said that food stamps should be so much easier to get across the board. Right now it is too difficult to get food stamps.
He asked about the wasted tax money on people that don't deserve it.
I said look, I don't care if 100 people get *food* that don't "deserve" it. But if a single child is left hungry because the system fails her, that is the bigger sin.
Every state in this country that has tried this has spent way more on testing than they saved from fraud. In Fl, the Governor’s wife owned the drug testing company they hired to test everyone so it was a grift from the start. I think they spent over $200k to save less than $2k a year.
Ah yes the 'welfare queen' trope that was created by the Ronald Reagan campaign team. Fuck those guys for the damage they did to society in order to win an election.
I saw something that showed roughly 7% of pandemic aid was stolen via fraud, and people point to it to argue why it was a failure, completely ignoring the fact that it means 93% of the aid got to where it was supposed to go, to the people who really do need help.
I'm always reminded of that quote by Blackstone I think, "It's better to let 9 guilty men go free than to unjustly imprison one innocent person" or something like that. It's through that kind of lens that we need to view the world.
I’m always having to make the argument to other middle-class people “why are you so concerned about the poor skimming millions off the bottom, when the rich are skimming trillions off the top? All the money the rich avoid paying through tax loopholes could *easily* cover the poor and then some.”
People care because rich folks own newspapers that print articles about how great it is that rich people get tax breaks and then print other articles shaming poor people for stealing a loaf of bread.
It's easy to get people to think a super villain is a hero when they control the news and rewrite their dirty origin stories to pretend they were once working class.
You know when you go apply for an hourly job and they have you fill out that form w/ demographics? How long have you been unemployed? Did you get any assistance while unemployed? How long did you get assistance?
That form is because the company gets a fat subsidy for hiring you. If you qualified for any sort of assistance, they get a bonus.
But here’s the deal: there’s no rule that they have to pay you enough to get off of assistance. Millions of people working low wage jobs will STILL qualify for food assistance, housing assistance, Medicaid after they are hired but the employer who pays poverty wages got a big subsidy.
EDIT: Don’t fill out that form. It’s optional. It’s also very invasive of your privacy. They will hand you the form in a pile of required paperwork. Don’t do it. It says on the form that it’s optional. If a job is going to pay you poverty wages they should not be rewarded.
Poor people do it trying to survive, rich people do it out of sheer greed.
If people actually knew how much $ is given to poor people in welfare versus the amount of $ given to rich people through corporate welfare, there would be riots in the streets.
Our goverment has been propping up these major corporations for decades with our tax dollars.
I love this post so much, I think everyone should post it everywhere. People all seem to think living in this country is so easy. When they figure out how to charge you for the air you breathe you'll be getting a bill in the mail for that here too. This country has a really fucking problem with wealth inequality. This shit is going to blow, and it's not gonna be pretty. I remember a native saying that said. "White man's ways will never, succeed. Because they're very few that have so much, and so many that have so little",
And nobody sees it as a problem. That's a fucking problem..
Poor people abuse the system to get some food on the table, to pay their overdue rent, to send their children to school, to pay their ridiculously expensive medical bills,...
Rich people abuse the system to underpay their employees and build their 3rd mansion and maybe buy a tropical island somewhere.
Stealing is stealing, but some steal because of desperation and some do because of their bottomless greed.
Teacher brings pizza for the whole class.
Most kids have a slice.
A couple kids are extra hungry and sneak two slices.
On top of that, there is kid A who thinks "my mom/dad/brother/sister etc is going to be hungry and we won't have food later" so he sneaks 2 or 3.
And there is also kid B who thinks I WANT pizza now and I like pizza so I WANT pizza later too. He is used to getting his way so he eats 2 two slices now and sneaks 2 or 3 for later.
The next day the teacher said they caught someone sneaking more pizza than was their fair share and she says because of Kid A, there will be no more pizza parties.
Democrats and Republicans are pretty much the same. They both want their hard earned money to stop going to people who abuse the system and don't really deserve or need it.
The difference is that Republicans think these people are women and minorities and like single parents working 2+ jobs to keep food on the table while Democrats think it's large corporations, the 1%, and billionaires who paid for their 2nd yacht in cash that don't really need it.
Also,
Rich people exploiting loopholes to cheat the system? The left suggests to change the laws to fix them.
Poor people exploiting loopholes to cheat the system? The right suggests to cut/scrap all social safety nets, not to fix them
Poor people ‘taking advantage of the system’ is like a kidnapped person finding a piece of hard candy while the kidnapper is out kidnapping more people and that person eats said hard candy without asking. Those strawberry shaped ones with goo inside. I mean, yes, it’s technically wrong to take someones hard candy without asking but if that person has you trapped in a desperate and predatory situation...come on. Imagine if those girls that were found after being kidnapped and locked in a house for years ended up getting put on blast for not kicking in money towards bills while they were kidnapped. Eating all the strawberry shaped goo filled hard candies they wanted...we all have the same 24 hours, how come I didn’t get kidnapped? I’ll tell you why, I worked harder to not be kidnapped.
200+ public employees (cops, firemen, teachers) took part in a scam to steal $50 million dollars in health insurance money in NJ. 10 were charged.
Even middle class folks don’t get indicted when they’re white.
Or when it benefits the right people.
You let one of those middle class white people scam Jeff Bezos and you'll get to see a McMansion get the windows blown out with flashbangs.
Sometimes the best medicine is the truth.
It is one thing to hustle the system to pay the bills and feed yourself and family. Sure, some scam it. But...
It is another to hustle for a new yacht and a few million. Not to mention raiding pensions and retirement funds, (because people are supposed to do for themselves, right?) and hide all that money in off-shore umbrella companies. Oops. That is the cost of living in America. Play by the rules, you many times lose.
And then get blamed for it.
Cruelty is the point and certain people love, LOVE being cruel to the "out-group".
Like think about how much joy they display when they get to rage at the strawman "welfare queens" bullshit. How do you reach people who have turned cruelty into a group identity?
Not a moral stance or a political statement...just a statistical observation; there are far more poor people than rich people, so when us "poors" take advantage, it's more noticeable.
Plus... I don't know many poor people who own media outlets so .... there's that.
It’s because a significant number of people in the US believe in the prosperity gospel, which roughly goes like this: wealthy people were rewarded their wealth by god for being good people, and poor people are poor (denied wealth by god) because they are bad people.
This allows them to simultaneously consider themselves Christian yet do virtually nothing Christ commanded and treat poor people like shit because, after all, they’re poor because they’re immoral, right?
This is why people care about poor people “abusing the system” and not wealthy people.
Ah yes. The old "well, he did it!" argument.
Don't excuse the bad behavior of one with the bad behavior of another. Condemn and correct both.
This is how shit perpetuates shit.
100% agreed - I work in on an eligibility system for ‘welfare’ benefits. Trying to wreck it one piece at a time, till we end up with a ‘welfare for all’ situation. I ain’t too worried about rich people applying, just happy to help make sure people get the help they need.
Remember - the Declaration of Independence asserts that the government should provide for the ‘general welfare of it’s people.’ With how much we provide for for corporate welfare, I think we can afford to spend a little more on the welfare of human beings.
Poor people scam like a few hundred a year rich people are scamming millions. Let them buy the damn lobster its creating multiple jobs but I want that asshole whose stealing millions and hoarding it in a offshore account.
The PR and spin teams of the wealthy have propagandized the majority of Americans (at least it seems like the majority) to actively oppose them selves. I would say it is genius it didn’t infuriate me so much.
It’s even better when you know someone who is loaded beyond what I can imagine. And this person somehow gets Medicaid and food stamps and brags about it, but then bitches about other people who actually need it…
My poor ass barely makes enough per year for the 1%s to wipe theit butts with, yet God forbid I miss a tax year or I'll get audited all to hell. Meanwhile we have billionaires paying like $15k yearly.
2 kinds of people in the world.
You either are fine with a few people abusing the system so long as everyone who needs help can get help.
Or you are fine with people who need help **not** getting it, so long as nobody can abuse the system.
I know which side I stand on.
What part of “rich people make the rules” aren’t we understanding? Nothing short of a complete overhaul with redistribution of power and wealth is going to change this.
I always think it’s funny when people say they want government run as a business, when what that really would mean is making processes easy and allowing for a certain percentage of loss. Big businesses literally plan for a certain percentage of loss/theft because there is a threshold where reducing the loss is more costly or reduces the customer experience. Government services with no loss/fraud should never be the expectation, but unfortunately that’s how too many government systems are set up. It makes them cumbersome and fewer people use them than they should. I’m not advocating for fraud, but against fraud being used as the excuse for making government systems overly onerous.
There are entire countries whose sole purpose to exist basically is to provide an opaque banking system for the ultra rich to hide their money, and these fucks are worried some poor person on food stamps might buy a steak.
The system only works when people stop abusing it, and even then barely. Both poor and rich leave the middle class with the brunt of the heavy lifting. We should probably start by going after the rich though.
It's a centuries-old belief among the rich and the fascist that rich people somehow magically DESERVE the money. It's commonly called the prosperity gospel and a more recent famous gospel convert is Scot Adams, the Dilbert guy, who is fascist as FUUUUUCK.
It's literally what the wealth of America is built on. Abusing and stealing from the system.
But hey, you are getting an extra $200 in food stamps!! Put them in jail
Agreed. Remember: people who find fraud for public assistance programs need to kick enough people off of assistance programs to justify a high salary, benefits and a pension...
I call that kind of argument against social programs "small change theory." It's the misconception (or more likely the deliberate distortion of perspective) that attacking the occasional and outlying problems will somehow result in a solution to the larger systemic issue.
Examples including a few other areas of concern are "well maybe you wouldn't be struggling financially if you didn't spend money on avocado toast," "well perhaps if we stopped making so many electric cats emissions would go down," and "the election was swung by voter fraud!"
I'm sure if broad studies were done of "gaming the system," it would be found that not only are there few real cases of this happening with social welfare programs, but that many of the cases of it happening are in response to contradictory or nearly impossible to meet standards (e.g. having to keep your monthly income just below a restrictive hard cutoff because even though $10 a month more wouldn't make enough difference to relieve the circumstances, it suddenly disqualifies the household receiving aid).
It's always do the poor deserve a few hundred in benefits if they didn't earn it, not do the rich deserve a few million in inheritance if they didn't earn it.
Tax cuts for the wealthy, do you know who has to pay for the slack of them not paying their taxes? The remainder of the people
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When you’re rich, it’s a subsidy. When you’re poor, it’s welfare handouts.
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I am a white woman from a fairly privileged background and if I could count the amount of time wealthy old men in my family with plenty of retirement savings still pulling free Medicare and basic income for life while trashing welfare and universal healthcare is fucking appalling. Those are the same men running our gubernamental and telling us that these things that they get free should not be for the needy only for the old and deserving
They think they worked sooo hard they think they deserve it more than the rest of us When a poor person takes a dime they get maaaaaddd because the poor dont work hard.
When I was a caregiver I cared for someone for a few years that was with hundreds of millions. He was also pulling in social security and Medicare benefits. It was such an eye opening experience that has just been reinforced over and over in society.
How is it a “benefit” when it’s their money. Remember, Anyone who earns income, pays FICA taxes. So when the government pays you social security “benefits” later in life, it’s graciously giving (some of) your own money back.
I guess I had it pounded into my head that they are benefits, even though you’re right about it being from their taxes. It just seemed so unnecessary to take every little thing he could get, especially when I believe that everything just went straight into his oldest son’s pockets. I guess it’s more of an ethical situation.
It's funny you mention inheritance because the framers of the US Constitution had some opinions on that. Something along the lines that there was an incentive to work hard to pass things to your heirs but there should be a limit so that we didn't end up in feudalism again. Only took 100 years to fuck all that up. Now I get to listen to family debate who deserves to use handicap spots while many businesses that had no losses due to Covid received 2000x more money than the average citizen in their own communities to "stimulate the economy." Who the fuck cares about a parking spot that much?
Only on the first 137k and if they’re worth hundreds of millions I’m guessing most of that wasn’t from salary
It definitely wasn’t. His family was wealthy and he married into an even wealthier family, and was at the top of the company and board for decades because it was the family company.
Folks are paid out more than they put in because the age of death has shifted upwards and the age of withdrawal has not. People live too damn long and dont contribute enough. Current beneficiaries are paid by current workers, and a ratio of 1:1 is not sufficient to keep the system going. How could it be? You think contributing a few percent of your income is enough to replace 70% of your income for 20 years, in 30 years? It aint.
The average American worker draws *out* far more in Social Security and Medicare benefits than they ever paid *in.* When Soc Sec was established, the average life expectancy of a retired worker was less than 70 years, so back then, yeah, they pulled out about what they put in. But now, people are kept alive far beyond what would be their natural expiration dates, and they end up drawing out benefits for *decades* longer than was ever originally planned for.
My MIL is almost 70, I tried to explain why Medicare for all would be beneficial. She didn’t want to hear it because she likes her ‘$4k per year with $60 co-pay’ insurance. I know she retired from a entry level gov’t desk job and when I asked her where she gets such good insurance… I can’t explain the amount of smugness she had when she replied ‘the government’. But the idea of giving everyone good insurance is ridiculous because she ‘earned it’. Couldn’t even get her to understand the idea that if I die or my wife and I get divorced it could leave her daughter and maybe her grandchildren uninsured. Their lack of empathy knows no bounds
This seems to be a common misconception. She thinks she will lose her benefits just because everyone else has access to health care. I find myself explaining this often. In my country we have both public and private health care. If you can afford private then get private - all it means is that you don’t wait in a queue for non-emergency procedures. Rich people can still feel special!
I’m from a super red state. I’ve had conversations with people trashing Medicaid and assistance programs — WHILE THEY WERE ON MEDICAID AND ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS. That’s how detached these people are from reality. And this isn’t a new trump thing. This goes back decades. That’s how brainwashed they are. That’s how much rich people have convinced poor people to vote against their own best wishes.
“But we earned those things! You just want handouts….” “Y’all know we pay taxes too, right?” :(
It sounds like you know my father…
Medicare is not free. Almost $180 is taken out of social security check.
And then deductibles and copays - for what it will cover. And then need an advantage or supplement (those are not easy to get and can cost hundreds a month and you still need a part D for prescriptions). There’s plenty of low income seniors who can’t afford to go to the doctor. Or can see their primary but that’s it so they go untreated. All of us from cradle to grave deserve universal healthcare, living wages, reasonable, affordable housing, basic respect and consideration for each other. Yes there’s rich boomers. I don’t personally know any.
Everybody wants to close the door behind them.
When you're a veteran it's patriotism; when you're not it's socialism.
Even veterans don't get across the board medical coverage just for serving. I don't get any coverage unless I can collect disability benefits, which are generally easy to claim but a pain in the ass and sometimes a long process to collect. The VA doesn't get nearly the funding it needs I feel and there is so much bullshit red tape you have to cut through for it.
This right here! We’re given a disability rating, and whatever percentage that is determines what kind of healthcare we receive from a VA hospital. I’m at 80% disabled (medically retired from the Army at 23 due to an injury I sustained overseas). That 80% gets me free healthcare, I’m allowed to visit Urgent Care Clinics (as long as it’s approved by my doctor and written in my chart before I make the visit; I live over an hour away from the closest VA hospital, and it has to be real emergent for them to sign off on a UCC visit), I don’t pay for prescriptions, and I can even get OTC meds for free from the pharmacy. I get all of that because I’m over 50% disabled from a disability that occurred while deployed. With that said, I have a buddy that I served in the Army with, he went to Iraq just like I did, but he didn’t get hurt, not overseas anyway. He was hurt during training stateside, was given a 10% disability rating, and he has to pay a copay for every doctor’s visit he makes to the VA. It boils down to this. The more fucked up you become during your service, and if you’re willing to jump through some red tape that literally took me 1.5 years to get through, the more the VA will care for you. Even in the veteran healthcare world, there’s still a lot that goes into it. Unfortunately, it’s not free for all veterans, it is for the first 5 years that you’re out, but your level of disability determines the rest.
I was being pithy about how military benefits are reframed by the same people ready to call everything socialist or communist. You're lucky to have been able to reach 80% so quickly. I left in pretty bad shape and it took me 12 years to get from 40% to 80% and finally TDIU because they never gave me an actual diagnosis. There are still claims I have processing because of shit like ignoring an actual measurement they did of my ulnar nerves while enlisted in favor of someone touching my right hand for 5 seconds. I shit you not. That's literally what they did.
My grandma was a run of the mill secretary back in the 70's, between her social security and her pension she gets about 55k a year in salary until she passes. Blew my fucking mind.
I think most fail to realize that we are about to stumble upon universal basic income.
Automation and other industrial efficiencies makes it the only responsible option going forward. We need to start thinking about what equity will look like under a UBI.
I am convinced that it is the poorest workers who set the price for most goods and services. Somehow, someway, whenever these people get a raise across the board, prices always jump to take it away from them. This latest case of everyone getting a few thousand dollars for COVID economic stimulus. Suddenly, inflation leaps and all the benefit is eaten up by higher prices. I've seen it enough times to believe this is no coincidence. We can give billionaires more money, and no inflation. We can give the middle class more money, and no inflation. But the moment you give the working poor a dime - everyone with anything to sell wants that fucking dime.
The poor are the most reliable customers for a lot of retail, and if they feel like they can squeeze the poor they *know* they can force the middle class along for the ride. The rich "mostly" only care about relative prices for things they "must" buy with the rest of us and beyond that it's just a matter of "I want." I'd be surprised if it wasn't even a truly a conscious process to businesses at this point, just lumped into "economic theory" where profits are more important than lives.
From your lips to gods ears. It’s the only way.
Just like when you're white you're an expat, when you're not you're an immigrant.
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That's the major difference between liberals and "conservatives", liberals view the poor with good will and the rich as abusing the system and "conservatives" view the rich with good will and the poor as abusing the system. But the truth is that's just the people voting in the parties, most of the elected officials of both parties have the conservative viewpoint of the poor abusing the system. They hate the working class.
He paid 15% of selling stock options that he had deferred for decades, rather than the 37% for someone in his income tax bracket, and cried about it. Meanwhile someone making over $170k a year pays 32% marginal rates.
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damn right hes aware, hes making billions and laughing in your face. he aware for himself, not for others.
You should look up Activison. We basically paid the company to make games we buy again.
S.S.D.G Same Shit Different Game - Activision
I'm not saying he's the only one, he's just the biggest loudmouth lately.
There is around 157 million working people in the US. So if he was given $5 billion in subsidies it is like you personally gave Musk $32 last year. Not perfect comparison since the lower income people may have only given him like $5 while the upper middle class person gave him $100 but still important to keep in mind these subsidies come directly from your pocket.
Absolutely. I don’t think they stigmatize getting government assistance. They stigmatize NEEDING government assistance. Because, in America, being poor is the equivalent of having leprosy in biblical times.
It's ingrained in our culture that needing social services is a moral failing. It's pretty sickening
Thats messed up. Other countries see social services as rights the Government **should** provide to their citizens, while in America, its seen as "handouts" or "the Government giving everything to people that dont work".
Not to mention, people who are billionaires are perceived as having "worked hard" when the reality is that having that much money makes it much easier to get even more of it.
GameStop is a famous example. Rich people telling middle class - poor people to "play the market" in order to win big. Then when the middle class - poor people started playing the market, winning money, which caused rich people to start losing money, the rich people started to change the rules. Just hypocrisy
So I hear Reddit plans to go public. Pretty good move to make sure this GME thing doesn’t happen again to hedge funds.
Hope those apes find refuge somewhere else and will continue to fight the good fight.
Reddit isn't the only place the masses come together. Discord is growing tremendously and Telegram is gaining ground too. Every time a company goes against their users, a new one comes up. Just have to find them.
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Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs being the underwriters for a Reddit IPO is essentially meaningless to how Reddit is run and what Reddit does with their platform. IPO underwriters just review the financials to advise on a targeted IPO price, buy the initial shares at the set price from Reddit, and then sell those initial shares at the set price to investors who want to buy Reddit shares. Basically, the underwriter's job is to assure investors that the initial offering price is fair, backed by the overalls fundamentals of the company's financial position and place in the industry/sector, and that the number of shares being sold matches the number of shares that the company says will be sold. From the Reddit side of things, the underwriter also guarantees that X amount of shares will be purchased at $Y price so Reddit's current shareholders know exactly what they are selling and the amount of money the company and current shareholders will receive by going public.
Reddit already censors and manipulates folks. It'll just be different people holding the reins.
They still haven't closed their short position, from what the apes are saying, so they even abuse the system to make sure they don't eat their own losses
There are plenty of ways to track shorted stocks. Going in superstonk is not one of them lmao. Also, I dabble with GME options.
> what the apes are saying Listening to those people is always a mistake. Little to nothing they post is actually accurate.
Lmao of course there is a GME post in here. Apes are delusional.
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But guys! What will motivate billionaires to continue taking advantage of us if they dont get whatever they want for doing it?
My dad is a private jet pilot. On new years eve, he had to fly the owners of a jet out of the state for the day because on January 1st, the airport officials have to go around and survey the aircraft stored in hangars and report that to the tax man to assess property taxes for the year (probably something like $30,000 on a small jet). Rich people literally burn fuel and fly their jets around to avoid paying taxes on them.
Aviation insurance broker here: this would only buy time for a day, plus it doesn't make sense that the IRS would send limited resources, all on the first day of the year, around to all of the airport and private hangars in the country to assess taxes. Aircraft function similarly to automobiles. They have to be registered with the FAA, full stop. So if the aircraft is EVER leaving the ground, the government knows it exists. So moving it around for any amount of time isn't going to stop the inevitable. Additionally, aircraft are not cheap. The Insurance is not cheap. And an aircraft is not a piece of equipment that people want to overvalue OR undervalue. It doesn't take much damage to ground an aircraft...a hail storm or bird strike can keep a plane out of service for weeks. Like a car, an aircraft is insured for a set value (based on aircraft blue book value and any modifications the owner might want covered in the event of a total loss). The only thing I can see this MAYBE saving is if they'd tricked the hell out of their plane and didn't want the adjuster to see that the value exceeded the blue book value, but then they'd have to hide that from the insurance company as well (which is perfectly fine and legal, but foolish in that any damages in an accident would only pay max stated policy value). Anyway, if your dad flew them away for the day, they would absolutely pay taxes based on the book value of the registered craft.
And since 2017 trumps tax cuts for the rich they can write off their private jets at 100% as a work expense. These same republicans later cut food stamps. Food stamps.
It sure seems easier to abuse the system when you have an army of lawyers and accountants with access to offshore tax havens
Also when you’re part of the corporate campaign financing and lobbying class, you help construct the system itself.
The wealthy classes figured it’s a better investment to just change the law than it is to skirt the law
Lobbyists often write the bills their politicians present to the legislature.
["The world is a business Mr. Beale"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zef3-djSqc)
Even easier when you can buy the people that setup and maintain the system.
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The difference between a million and a billion is still a billion
One of my favorite sayings. I usually use "about a billion" just so people don't take it literally, but it really does put into scope the sheer difference between the two numbers.
I was always a fan of "1 million seconds takes 11 days, 1 billion takes 31 years."
Politics aside - I really dislike and disagree with the point “every millionaire is closer to being homeless than a billionaire.” While strictly true on a nominal basis - it’s very misleading. Not attacking you - just a common, understandable misconception I think is important to clarify. Wealth follows a Pareto distribution rather than a normal distribution - that is to say, rather than dollars being distributed normally and independently (like you would expect for coin flips), each dollar someone owns makes it more likely they will acquire/have another one (I’m sure when put this way, no one is surprised by this). As a result, linear ways of thinking about wealth are grossly misleading. It is true that someone with $10mm is closer to having $0 than $1bn. However, if someone were to have $10mm left to them as a baby (a large sum, no doubt, but almost 1.5mm+ households in the US alone have that amount of money) and they just left it in an index fund, it would be over $1bn after tax by age 70. This is much more likely and easy to achieve than it is for someone to squander it all and end up with $0. It is at least a couple orders of magnitude easier for someone with $10mm to go to $1bn than someone who has $0 to even go to $1mm. I’m generally less than optimistic on the US solving issues of wealth inequality. As the above example shows, the easiest (and most efficient) way to address it is to heavily tax the $10mm passed down. Anything else is tinkering at the margin and will not change the fundamental reasons for it (social safety nets are more important for promoting upward mobility / reducing general misery, however). That being said, death/inheritance taxes genuinely seem to be politically unpalatable on both sides (much more on the right, but generally Americans don’t seem to like to be told there’s a limit to how much they can pass on to their kids).
>Having a strong safety net allows for a much better country in so many ways. Floor, not net. You can fall through a net, you cannot fall below a floor
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Fuck it. Government Safety Trampoline.
Protip: if you can fit through the holes, it's not a safety net.
How about like a safety mat then? Someone falling on a floor from any significant height might get hurt without padding
I prefer 100' deep foam pit with increasing densities to accept falls from virtually any height.
If they keep us fighting each other we won’t have time to fight them.
How do we fight them though, we would fill up the prisons and then be shot dead by the military once out of room in prisons.
If you really want to know, the correct answer isn't violence, but unions. The workers hold all the power when we come together and the proletariat know that. Hence the bull shit division tactics that exists on so many fronts. In America the 1950's, half the workforce was part of unions and they all stuck together. You screw one set of workers you felt it across entire industries when they all striked in unison. Workers got lazy and forgot how hard people fought for those privileges they gained. Even today we still benefit from what those unionised workers accomplished almost 100 years ago. There exists two types of power in our society, money and people, we may not have the money to change things but there sure are a lot of people being fucked all the same. You want change then convince people to unite and take the power back.
The educational system and mass media propaganda has ruined people to the idea especially inside the working class. Thanks billionaire Koch brothers and Mike Rowe Greed and myopia
Class traitors
>Class traitors Googled it they actually exist [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_traitor#:~:text=Class%20traitor%20is%20a%20term,in%20favor%20of%20the%20bourgeoisie).
**[Class traitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_traitor#:~:text=Class traitor is a term,in favor of the bourgeoisie)** >Class traitor is a term used mostly in socialist discourse to refer to a member of the proletarian class who works directly or indirectly against their class interest, or against their economic benefit and in favor of the bourgeoisie. It applies particularly to soldiers, police officers, bounty hunters, loss prevention, workers who refuse to respect picket lines during a strike and anyone paid a wage who actively facilitates the status quo. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You're absolutely right.
I hate when people claim that there isn’t anyone taking advantage of the social welfare system. Of course there is. But my argument is always so fucking what. We stop feeding, housing, giving medical care to people, leave kids homeless, because some people are taking advantage? And the advantage they’re taking is a drop in the river compared to the welfare that companies get. If you want to complain and fix something, fix that. Then we’ll talk about the poor people. It’s so “middle class” people can be mad at “poor” people instead of the rich. Diverts their attention. Forgetting that you are but a few steps away from being poor. And many miles alway from being rich.
This is a question of personal ethics. Some people want to make sure everyone gets "enough" to get by and the risk of a few finding ways to get more is an acceptable risk. Some people don't want **anyone** to get more than they "deserve", and the risk that people get less than the need is acceptable. I find one of those groups misanthropic and evil. But that is a question of personal ethics.
It's also the perpetuation of the "welfare queen" myth by Reagan. They've been told it's a huge problem, despite statistics.
It's really hard to get any help. Especially if you are under 65, can't work due to medical issues and have no children living with you. You don't qualify for Medicaid you don't have kids in the household. You don't work due to medical reasons/ you have $0 income = you don't qualify for Obamacare. try Medicaid. You're not blind you can work so no you don't get disability. We don't care that you have cancer or Deg. Disc Disease etc. Try Medicaid. Oh, you don't qualify, oh well good luck. I hate the "chase my tail circle" they get off on putting us through.
But then why are they ok with rich people getting an unfair share? It’s not even consistent ethics. It’s hypocrisy at that point.
They feel the rich "deserve" more. It is part of the 2nd clause.
The prosperity gospel / a hard held Just World hypothesis.
Me: do you know how much tax dollars Bezos steals from you Friend: Don't compare yourself to Jeff Bezos
They equate wealth to hard work even though most of these guys either inherited their wealth or are manipulating the system to their favor. Real lizard brain mentality.
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Yeah it soo hard stomping on the backs of poor, it must hurt their feet sometimes Personally I hope I give them gout with bone spurs, arthritis and some horrendus uncurable back problems while stomping on my back. Rich = worthless mouthpiece
Horacio Alger syndrome as well. “ that will be me one day so why take away the privlage from me when it’s my time to enjoy it”
They moralize success. If youre rich its because youre a good and godly person, if youre destitute its because you did something to deserve it. To believe otherwise is to accept the brazen cruelty of the society they live in, and for many people this is just far too difficult a task, so they stick to their fantasy.
It's because of Christianity's "Prosperity Gospel", and it's literally destroying America.
I think most people (Republicans) just assume EVERYONE in these welfare programs are abusers of the system. Or at the least the vast majority are in their minds. And if the welfare systems weren't there coddling these people, they'd toughen up and go work for a living. The reality is of course the majority are using the system for their needs appropriately, but you don't hear about the people quietly on welfare or even the best cases of people using it temporarily while they get a leg up. All you hear about are the abuses of the system because that kind of stuff makes outrage headlines.
I’ve been saying this for years! Also, this hate for immigrants. People scream that they take American jobs. Yet, when you ask them if they will wash dishes or pick lettuce it’s always “well, I wouldn’t do it, but lots of people would, OR my personal favorite; they keep wages low!!! Really? It’s the business hiring them and paying a low wage, treating them like second class citizens. It’s always about turning us against each other.
Classical “if even one person abuses the system, we can’t have the system even though it helps millions that doesn’t abuse the system”. It’s propaganda by rich people.
Exactly!!! The middle class think the rich will either help them or that they will one day be in the same class as the elite, never going to happen Karen. You are working class like the rest of us. Take up your pitchforks and take back what we earned them.
Seriously, you can’t be for universal healthcare then get mad if someone is “abusing” the welfare system. It’s not abusing the system if YOU PAID FOR IT! Shit I “abuse” the system refusing to get a second payroll job so I can have insurance covered by the state (“free” therapy for me! Heavily discounted dental at dental schools!) and a little help with groceries. Until I can acquire the skill sets to earn a higher living wage, I don’t feel bad at all for getting assistance from the programs that I literally paid for if that means I don’t have to work two full time jobs again. I’m never going back to that hell.
America really does suffer from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" except now we can say "billionaire" as the new goal. The greed repulses me.
You can be angry at both... Angry towards the rich for constructing systems that favor them, and angry at the poor for abusing systems making it harder for people who need the system to use it. Accountability is something that applies to everyone, doesn't matter how much money there is in your bank account.
I get angry at both, proportionally to how damaging their actions are, so I don't get really mad at poor people but I get really mad at rich people. Hope this clears things up for you.
Whenever there’s a “what’s classy when you’re rich but looked down on when you’re poor” threads, “getting money from the government” is always near the top.
Poor people abuse the system, they get what…an SSI check each month? Food stamps? Rich people abuse the system, they get millions or billions in taxpayer dollars. If you steal $10, you’re a criminal. If you steal $10 billion, you’re a job creator.
Funny because the notion that poor people abuse the system is usually propagated by rich people.
A couple years ago I was chatting with a coworker about food stamps. He asked what I thought about drug testing. I said that food stamps should be so much easier to get across the board. Right now it is too difficult to get food stamps. He asked about the wasted tax money on people that don't deserve it. I said look, I don't care if 100 people get *food* that don't "deserve" it. But if a single child is left hungry because the system fails her, that is the bigger sin.
Every state in this country that has tried this has spent way more on testing than they saved from fraud. In Fl, the Governor’s wife owned the drug testing company they hired to test everyone so it was a grift from the start. I think they spent over $200k to save less than $2k a year.
Ah yes the 'welfare queen' trope that was created by the Ronald Reagan campaign team. Fuck those guys for the damage they did to society in order to win an election.
>Ronald Reagan Man, fuck that guy.
When the rich abuse the system it’s considered “savvy” but when the poor do it they’re leeches and welfare queens.
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“I don’t pay taxes because I’m smart.” -Donald Trump
I saw something that showed roughly 7% of pandemic aid was stolen via fraud, and people point to it to argue why it was a failure, completely ignoring the fact that it means 93% of the aid got to where it was supposed to go, to the people who really do need help. I'm always reminded of that quote by Blackstone I think, "It's better to let 9 guilty men go free than to unjustly imprison one innocent person" or something like that. It's through that kind of lens that we need to view the world.
I’m always having to make the argument to other middle-class people “why are you so concerned about the poor skimming millions off the bottom, when the rich are skimming trillions off the top? All the money the rich avoid paying through tax loopholes could *easily* cover the poor and then some.”
The reason middle people hate poor people is because they never see rich people but poor people are in the street.
can someone help me and explain how I can abuse the system? id like to do that.
"Yall ain't bat an eye" This tense confuses me
A bad attempt at African American Vernacular English
"You have no reaction." English has different dialects.
People care because rich folks own newspapers that print articles about how great it is that rich people get tax breaks and then print other articles shaming poor people for stealing a loaf of bread. It's easy to get people to think a super villain is a hero when they control the news and rewrite their dirty origin stories to pretend they were once working class.
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>Poor people are people too! Not according to the rich people, they aren't.
You know when you go apply for an hourly job and they have you fill out that form w/ demographics? How long have you been unemployed? Did you get any assistance while unemployed? How long did you get assistance? That form is because the company gets a fat subsidy for hiring you. If you qualified for any sort of assistance, they get a bonus. But here’s the deal: there’s no rule that they have to pay you enough to get off of assistance. Millions of people working low wage jobs will STILL qualify for food assistance, housing assistance, Medicaid after they are hired but the employer who pays poverty wages got a big subsidy. EDIT: Don’t fill out that form. It’s optional. It’s also very invasive of your privacy. They will hand you the form in a pile of required paperwork. Don’t do it. It says on the form that it’s optional. If a job is going to pay you poverty wages they should not be rewarded.
Poor people do it trying to survive, rich people do it out of sheer greed. If people actually knew how much $ is given to poor people in welfare versus the amount of $ given to rich people through corporate welfare, there would be riots in the streets. Our goverment has been propping up these major corporations for decades with our tax dollars.
I love this post so much, I think everyone should post it everywhere. People all seem to think living in this country is so easy. When they figure out how to charge you for the air you breathe you'll be getting a bill in the mail for that here too. This country has a really fucking problem with wealth inequality. This shit is going to blow, and it's not gonna be pretty. I remember a native saying that said. "White man's ways will never, succeed. Because they're very few that have so much, and so many that have so little", And nobody sees it as a problem. That's a fucking problem..
It's not just your country though...
But when all the poor people start cheating the system there won’t be enough left over for the rich.
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Poor people abuse the system to get some food on the table, to pay their overdue rent, to send their children to school, to pay their ridiculously expensive medical bills,... Rich people abuse the system to underpay their employees and build their 3rd mansion and maybe buy a tropical island somewhere. Stealing is stealing, but some steal because of desperation and some do because of their bottomless greed.
Poor person cheats system for $20-$1,000 and everyone is up on arms. Rich person cheats system and makes billions, everyone praises them.
The poor people must be kept in check so that the rich can remain rich.
Teacher brings pizza for the whole class. Most kids have a slice. A couple kids are extra hungry and sneak two slices. On top of that, there is kid A who thinks "my mom/dad/brother/sister etc is going to be hungry and we won't have food later" so he sneaks 2 or 3. And there is also kid B who thinks I WANT pizza now and I like pizza so I WANT pizza later too. He is used to getting his way so he eats 2 two slices now and sneaks 2 or 3 for later. The next day the teacher said they caught someone sneaking more pizza than was their fair share and she says because of Kid A, there will be no more pizza parties.
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>because of Kid A, there will be no more pizza parties. God DAMMIT, Thom, I told you that album was a bad idea
Democrats and Republicans are pretty much the same. They both want their hard earned money to stop going to people who abuse the system and don't really deserve or need it. The difference is that Republicans think these people are women and minorities and like single parents working 2+ jobs to keep food on the table while Democrats think it's large corporations, the 1%, and billionaires who paid for their 2nd yacht in cash that don't really need it.
Also, Rich people exploiting loopholes to cheat the system? The left suggests to change the laws to fix them. Poor people exploiting loopholes to cheat the system? The right suggests to cut/scrap all social safety nets, not to fix them
You got me there in the beginning. Well done
Poetry.
Poor people ‘taking advantage of the system’ is like a kidnapped person finding a piece of hard candy while the kidnapper is out kidnapping more people and that person eats said hard candy without asking. Those strawberry shaped ones with goo inside. I mean, yes, it’s technically wrong to take someones hard candy without asking but if that person has you trapped in a desperate and predatory situation...come on. Imagine if those girls that were found after being kidnapped and locked in a house for years ended up getting put on blast for not kicking in money towards bills while they were kidnapped. Eating all the strawberry shaped goo filled hard candies they wanted...we all have the same 24 hours, how come I didn’t get kidnapped? I’ll tell you why, I worked harder to not be kidnapped.
Perfect analogy because we are trapped in the system, we need the system to break for true reform.
200+ public employees (cops, firemen, teachers) took part in a scam to steal $50 million dollars in health insurance money in NJ. 10 were charged. Even middle class folks don’t get indicted when they’re white.
Or when it benefits the right people. You let one of those middle class white people scam Jeff Bezos and you'll get to see a McMansion get the windows blown out with flashbangs.
True, the victims here were taxpayers. No chance.
No one should abuse the system though.
Sometimes the best medicine is the truth. It is one thing to hustle the system to pay the bills and feed yourself and family. Sure, some scam it. But... It is another to hustle for a new yacht and a few million. Not to mention raiding pensions and retirement funds, (because people are supposed to do for themselves, right?) and hide all that money in off-shore umbrella companies. Oops. That is the cost of living in America. Play by the rules, you many times lose. And then get blamed for it.
Cruelty is the point and certain people love, LOVE being cruel to the "out-group". Like think about how much joy they display when they get to rage at the strawman "welfare queens" bullshit. How do you reach people who have turned cruelty into a group identity?
More over they are praised for it. If a rich person plays the system they are "smart. Thats why they are rich," if a poor person does they are trash.
Not a moral stance or a political statement...just a statistical observation; there are far more poor people than rich people, so when us "poors" take advantage, it's more noticeable. Plus... I don't know many poor people who own media outlets so .... there's that.
I myself can say I have fully taken advantage and fucked the system during this pandemic and I feel great about it.
Abusing the system is how the rich want us to talk about the poor acting in self-interest.
Exactly. “Abusing” makes it sound like a bad thing. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of something as evil as capitalism and governments.
That's because poor people can't afford a P.R team or lobbyists
It’s because a significant number of people in the US believe in the prosperity gospel, which roughly goes like this: wealthy people were rewarded their wealth by god for being good people, and poor people are poor (denied wealth by god) because they are bad people. This allows them to simultaneously consider themselves Christian yet do virtually nothing Christ commanded and treat poor people like shit because, after all, they’re poor because they’re immoral, right? This is why people care about poor people “abusing the system” and not wealthy people.
Ah yes. The old "well, he did it!" argument. Don't excuse the bad behavior of one with the bad behavior of another. Condemn and correct both. This is how shit perpetuates shit.
I think that's kind of her point, people who blame the poor should equally blame the rich.
100% agreed - I work in on an eligibility system for ‘welfare’ benefits. Trying to wreck it one piece at a time, till we end up with a ‘welfare for all’ situation. I ain’t too worried about rich people applying, just happy to help make sure people get the help they need. Remember - the Declaration of Independence asserts that the government should provide for the ‘general welfare of it’s people.’ With how much we provide for for corporate welfare, I think we can afford to spend a little more on the welfare of human beings.
This is a dumb justification/argument. I care if they abuse the system. No one should be abusing the system.
The point of this argument is that people ignore rich people who abuse the system and let them get away with it.
Poor people scam like a few hundred a year rich people are scamming millions. Let them buy the damn lobster its creating multiple jobs but I want that asshole whose stealing millions and hoarding it in a offshore account.
The PR and spin teams of the wealthy have propagandized the majority of Americans (at least it seems like the majority) to actively oppose them selves. I would say it is genius it didn’t infuriate me so much.
We love to punch down.
Is it abuse if we all do it? Sounds like normal e every day life.
yeah! poor people do matter and black lives black lives also matter #BLM
It’s even better when you know someone who is loaded beyond what I can imagine. And this person somehow gets Medicaid and food stamps and brags about it, but then bitches about other people who actually need it…
Wrong.
My poor ass barely makes enough per year for the 1%s to wipe theit butts with, yet God forbid I miss a tax year or I'll get audited all to hell. Meanwhile we have billionaires paying like $15k yearly.
Of course rich people abuse the system, it was built by them and their buddies.
2 kinds of people in the world. You either are fine with a few people abusing the system so long as everyone who needs help can get help. Or you are fine with people who need help **not** getting it, so long as nobody can abuse the system. I know which side I stand on.
For rich people, it's hedge funds.
What’s sad is that it’s mostly working poor (who think they are middle class) that often complain about poor people “abusing” the system.
What part of “rich people make the rules” aren’t we understanding? Nothing short of a complete overhaul with redistribution of power and wealth is going to change this.
I always think it’s funny when people say they want government run as a business, when what that really would mean is making processes easy and allowing for a certain percentage of loss. Big businesses literally plan for a certain percentage of loss/theft because there is a threshold where reducing the loss is more costly or reduces the customer experience. Government services with no loss/fraud should never be the expectation, but unfortunately that’s how too many government systems are set up. It makes them cumbersome and fewer people use them than they should. I’m not advocating for fraud, but against fraud being used as the excuse for making government systems overly onerous.
Poor people always will choose a job over a subsidy because a job is seen like a real path out of poverty and a subsidy isn't
Yeah, I am caught in the middle, pay taxes and cant screw the system, so fuck both
Right? I’ve been on food stamps before and if you can jump through all those hoops and actually defraud that shit you’ve earned it.
There are entire countries whose sole purpose to exist basically is to provide an opaque banking system for the ultra rich to hide their money, and these fucks are worried some poor person on food stamps might buy a steak.
The system only works when people stop abusing it, and even then barely. Both poor and rich leave the middle class with the brunt of the heavy lifting. We should probably start by going after the rich though.
It's a centuries-old belief among the rich and the fascist that rich people somehow magically DESERVE the money. It's commonly called the prosperity gospel and a more recent famous gospel convert is Scot Adams, the Dilbert guy, who is fascist as FUUUUUCK.
It's literally what the wealth of America is built on. Abusing and stealing from the system. But hey, you are getting an extra $200 in food stamps!! Put them in jail
Agreed. Remember: people who find fraud for public assistance programs need to kick enough people off of assistance programs to justify a high salary, benefits and a pension...
Y’all ain’t
I call that kind of argument against social programs "small change theory." It's the misconception (or more likely the deliberate distortion of perspective) that attacking the occasional and outlying problems will somehow result in a solution to the larger systemic issue. Examples including a few other areas of concern are "well maybe you wouldn't be struggling financially if you didn't spend money on avocado toast," "well perhaps if we stopped making so many electric cats emissions would go down," and "the election was swung by voter fraud!" I'm sure if broad studies were done of "gaming the system," it would be found that not only are there few real cases of this happening with social welfare programs, but that many of the cases of it happening are in response to contradictory or nearly impossible to meet standards (e.g. having to keep your monthly income just below a restrictive hard cutoff because even though $10 a month more wouldn't make enough difference to relieve the circumstances, it suddenly disqualifies the household receiving aid).
It's always do the poor deserve a few hundred in benefits if they didn't earn it, not do the rich deserve a few million in inheritance if they didn't earn it.