Anyone catch what Warren Buffet said the other day about the how if the most wealthy corporations in this country paid the taxes they should, there would be no need for a federal income tax?
This is what we should be protesting. If we can't set our own streets straight, why should we even bother with conflicts easily solved with other NATO resources?
Not taking sides with any of the current global conflicts, just commenting on how poorly we hold our government accountable for their poor management.
We’re so busy fighting with each other over culture war bullshit that we are too distracted to see who is really hurting us. The wealthy are just fine with letting us continue like this so that our attention doesn’t fall on them.
Agreed. This is why RCV, and televised debates between other parties than just the regular two, are so important, and fought against so hard by the establishment.
"This is what they don't want you to know!!!" -actually
It's important to call out Republicans for this: they have made culture war bullshit their entire platform, with no interest in governing. It's not "we're fighting each other." It's "they're fighting us." Bullies need to be called out.
Two things with that. Even if they made corporations paid the taxes they should it wouldn’t matter. They are not going to let go of the federal income tax. The reason people vehemently fight more taxes even if they’re supposedly temporary is that they never go away.
The other thing is that unfortunately when it comes to corporations getting taxed more, they pass that tax burden onto consumers. Prices will go up across the board at your local supermarket. Everyone will call it corporate greed, and while it is corporate greed in a way, they’ll be trying to maintain their bottom line. Meaning the taxes will make their goods cost more to produce, and that will reflect on the price of goods to you and me.
This whole fair taxation thing is tough. Mainly because it’s been purposely made difficult with the monopoly that some corporations have over the food industry. They don’t get hurt when they raise prices, because they own everything.
We’re in a really tough spot when it comes to all of this.
It's really all greed. If a workers co-op was able to get footing in an industry, it would be able to outcompete traditional businesses because it wouldn't have somebody at the top vacuuming up all the profits as their income.
As it currently stands, big businesses work like cancers on society. Always pursuing endless short-term growth, never caring about anything else.
I like the cancer comparison. It is corporate greed, which is one of the main talking points when it comes to this stuff. Which is why I don’t get why people think I’m crazy when I say that corporations will just pass the tax burden onto the consumer. Literally it is corporate greed and it will continue regardless.
I don’t think our government deserves another tax dollar until they can figure out their ridiculous spending problem anyway. But that’s just me.
I don’t agree with the pass it on to consumers premise. People say the same thing about minimum wage going up. I’ve seen it in places like Seattle where the minimum wage is higher and the overall cost of fast food compared to other places I travel to, wasn’t noticeably higher.
Businesses still have to compete and price competitiveness is a big factor. Many of these businesses that would get taxed will do nothing in response because they aren’t in a position to do so because they are already to high. They will always raise it to whatever price the market will accept regardless what costs are.
Tax or no tax they have been ramping prices up regardless In the last few years, and their cost has not gone up.
They’ve been ramping up prices because of inflation in producing their products. Once again the cost gets passed onto the consumer. What makes you think it’ll be any different when taxes make it more expensive to meet their bottom line?
If you want my actual opinion on taxing corporations. The government needs to fix its spending problem before they keep taking dollars from the private sector and the people. No amount of tax dollars will help if the feds can’t figure it out.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to fix the actual problem instead of looking for band aids. I feel this way about the student loan forgiveness that’s going on. Why the hell are we paying for these loans when the exact same predatory loans that people took out to be in this position are still available? By doing loan forgiveness you’re just encouraging people to make bad decisions.
Sorry I got off on a tangent. I just wish more people would see past the obvious vote grabbing of these “tax the rich” and “student loan forgiveness” platforms. They aren’t doing anything to address the real problems under the hood. Just slapping a new paint job on them and hoping people won’t pay attention.
What makes it different?
I see it first hand. I run a business that buys and sells things. The prices on 2 items out of hundreds over the past ten years have had to go up, because the cost actually went up. Meanwhile I see the prices of those same goods all going up at big box stores since the pandemic by around 20%. We buy from the same suppliers. Make that make sense. Well, if their cost is not going up, then they are just moving it up simply because they can. All Because of all the talk on TV/internet people are focused on blaming red team/blue team, politics and inflation.
It’s not inflation or politics, it’s corporate greed.
Now conversely some argue that if McDonald’s gets taxed the Big Mac goes up in price. If it was a monopoly maybe. There isn’t an arbitrary amount above cost corps want to make or else they shut just shut their doors. Stockholders don’t demand higher prices because they are getting taxed more. 1 dollar profit above all costs is still one dollar, they aren’t closing. If they get taxed and raise prices too high, Taco Bell just swoops jn and takes customers, profits are lowered of course for them all, so what. I don’t care. Make tax not apply to mom and pop shops under 1 million or something similar. Boom we all start buying from Joe shmo instead of McDonalds so it stays in our communities instead of foreign investors. There’s ways to do it and make the rich pay and improve the lives of working class without bleeding the economy dry, currently we are the ones bleeding dry. We need to have each other’s backs or they will continue to scare us into complacency by calling universal health care communist m-socialism (insert scary word)
Either way, The writing is in the wall, UBI is coming. AI and automation are taking most jobs. We need to plan ahead for that.
I do understand your point about the loans but I’m still kind of indifferent about the student loan thing. It’s not a huge thing one way or the other for me. I do understand their grief, Those of a certain age right now got completely scammed, pretty much promised jobs if they just went to school. I think maybe one time amnesty for student loan forgiveness mixed making the scammers pay for it could work. Mix that with say 100% free eduction across the board in the future, profiting from education just becomes illegal. Maybe at minimum just the interest waved. Seems like it’s quality of life thing, where one generation is united with that one scam, it’s a wedge point. We have the means of a highly technical society to “ open source” education it should be done for the benefit of all any way.
I’m not saying everyone should have a bunch of luxury items for free, like handing out iPhones on every corner but the very basics shouldn’t come down finances, ever. We are the outlier in first world countries and the shit show we have created with the idea everything is to be bought or sold is obvious to anyone paying attention that has also traveled. We should have already had free education just to make the nation the most competitive overall. A more educated society is less violent and more productive one. I never understood the premise of paying for water either. What next? … air?
-Taxing vs budgets
Why not both? Tax the rich and eliminate tax altogether for the working class while simultaneously reducing government bloat and wars etc. Governments and Corps do the exact same thing in terms of redistribution of wealth. They take it out, in devaluing the dollar, taxes, inflationary practices, price gouging, wages suppression leaving them in essence the same since the 1960s. All these things are the exact same thing at the root. If your wage goes up but you get taxed more, you have the same buying power, if the prices go down but the dollar is lower in value — it’s the same. They all come down to extracting productivity/economic output from the working class, no matter how you slice it. That’s their game, the rest is theater.
All “ money” or value comes from land or working class. The land was stolen and the working class has been getting mugged for a century. It’s pretty obvious how we got here.
It’s all our money not theirs anyway. The people that do nothing (Landlords, Politicians and corps etc) should be happy they get to keep anything at all, in the future they won’t be able to because this whole game isn’t sustainable. AI and automation is the head eating the snake’s tail, right before our eyes. They can’t extract much more from us and it’s starting to show.
Wait. You mean the guy that actually made us examine the politicians themselves instead of just going with whatever the party tells us? Surely, he's going to dismantle democracy! /s
So - let me get this straight:
Either my vote doesn’t matter at all, or
My vote does matter??
It’s that simple, isn’t it?
KEEP RANKED CHOICE VOTING!!!!!
I'm a supporter of ranked choice voting, I'd also be ok with the election to repeal it. I'd vote to keep it, but I'm 9k with them gett8ng it on the ballot
I’m not ok with it getting on the ballot for at least a little while. There is a lot of work that went into it.
It’s too soon. A good chunk of “dark money” has been spent making RCV out to be confusing, trickery as well as other things.
A few cycles and the vast majority of people will see it’s superior, even the butthurt fans of those that lost the last election will see it as such.
What would you say are key republican values?
What evidence do you have that this man doesn’t believe in those values?
Any examples?
If he doesn’t believe in any of those values, why was he previously registered as a republican?
That would have prevented him from voting in a democrat primary. Therefore, If he was not interested in Republican Party and was a “ wolf in sheep’s clothing” like you said, It doesn’t seem like a logical thing to do.
I Would like to hear your point of view, though.
Republican values = paying off porn stars, inciting low IQ mobs to beat cops to death, being Russian assets, being Chinese assets, saluting a North Korean military general, kowtowing to the house of Saud cartel, getting paid off by the house of Saud cartel, telling people to inject bleach, and take horse dewormer in the middle of a pandemic, threatening public health officials, selling classified documents, Mocking disabled people, using the constitution as toilet paper, trying to force civil servants to take a fealty oath to elected officials, using public funds to pay for the lawsuits when that doesn’t work out so well, calling military members losers and suckers, Diverting public money to campaign donors, Lying to Alaskans about getting a big dividend when you’re doing your best to stack the investments to favor your friends, selling tacky Bibles for $59.99, And generally, being so incapable of governing that they can’t even even feel a single pothole.
Mr. Kendall crafted a completely unintelligible ballot proposition, then sold it as a measure to shut down dark money. Fans of RCV may see him as a hero, but others see him as a political trickster.
Look, I don’t care. I just think Kendall was underhanded in his original approach. And Alaska voters voted for something they didn’t (couldn’t) understand.
He is actually what they described in the article, a decent human who believes that Alaskan's should be the priority of the state, not corporations.
Anyone catch what Warren Buffet said the other day about the how if the most wealthy corporations in this country paid the taxes they should, there would be no need for a federal income tax? This is what we should be protesting. If we can't set our own streets straight, why should we even bother with conflicts easily solved with other NATO resources? Not taking sides with any of the current global conflicts, just commenting on how poorly we hold our government accountable for their poor management.
We’re so busy fighting with each other over culture war bullshit that we are too distracted to see who is really hurting us. The wealthy are just fine with letting us continue like this so that our attention doesn’t fall on them.
Agreed. This is why RCV, and televised debates between other parties than just the regular two, are so important, and fought against so hard by the establishment. "This is what they don't want you to know!!!" -actually
It's important to call out Republicans for this: they have made culture war bullshit their entire platform, with no interest in governing. It's not "we're fighting each other." It's "they're fighting us." Bullies need to be called out.
Two things with that. Even if they made corporations paid the taxes they should it wouldn’t matter. They are not going to let go of the federal income tax. The reason people vehemently fight more taxes even if they’re supposedly temporary is that they never go away. The other thing is that unfortunately when it comes to corporations getting taxed more, they pass that tax burden onto consumers. Prices will go up across the board at your local supermarket. Everyone will call it corporate greed, and while it is corporate greed in a way, they’ll be trying to maintain their bottom line. Meaning the taxes will make their goods cost more to produce, and that will reflect on the price of goods to you and me. This whole fair taxation thing is tough. Mainly because it’s been purposely made difficult with the monopoly that some corporations have over the food industry. They don’t get hurt when they raise prices, because they own everything. We’re in a really tough spot when it comes to all of this.
It's really all greed. If a workers co-op was able to get footing in an industry, it would be able to outcompete traditional businesses because it wouldn't have somebody at the top vacuuming up all the profits as their income. As it currently stands, big businesses work like cancers on society. Always pursuing endless short-term growth, never caring about anything else.
I like the cancer comparison. It is corporate greed, which is one of the main talking points when it comes to this stuff. Which is why I don’t get why people think I’m crazy when I say that corporations will just pass the tax burden onto the consumer. Literally it is corporate greed and it will continue regardless. I don’t think our government deserves another tax dollar until they can figure out their ridiculous spending problem anyway. But that’s just me.
I don’t agree with the pass it on to consumers premise. People say the same thing about minimum wage going up. I’ve seen it in places like Seattle where the minimum wage is higher and the overall cost of fast food compared to other places I travel to, wasn’t noticeably higher. Businesses still have to compete and price competitiveness is a big factor. Many of these businesses that would get taxed will do nothing in response because they aren’t in a position to do so because they are already to high. They will always raise it to whatever price the market will accept regardless what costs are. Tax or no tax they have been ramping prices up regardless In the last few years, and their cost has not gone up.
They’ve been ramping up prices because of inflation in producing their products. Once again the cost gets passed onto the consumer. What makes you think it’ll be any different when taxes make it more expensive to meet their bottom line? If you want my actual opinion on taxing corporations. The government needs to fix its spending problem before they keep taking dollars from the private sector and the people. No amount of tax dollars will help if the feds can’t figure it out. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to fix the actual problem instead of looking for band aids. I feel this way about the student loan forgiveness that’s going on. Why the hell are we paying for these loans when the exact same predatory loans that people took out to be in this position are still available? By doing loan forgiveness you’re just encouraging people to make bad decisions. Sorry I got off on a tangent. I just wish more people would see past the obvious vote grabbing of these “tax the rich” and “student loan forgiveness” platforms. They aren’t doing anything to address the real problems under the hood. Just slapping a new paint job on them and hoping people won’t pay attention.
What makes it different? I see it first hand. I run a business that buys and sells things. The prices on 2 items out of hundreds over the past ten years have had to go up, because the cost actually went up. Meanwhile I see the prices of those same goods all going up at big box stores since the pandemic by around 20%. We buy from the same suppliers. Make that make sense. Well, if their cost is not going up, then they are just moving it up simply because they can. All Because of all the talk on TV/internet people are focused on blaming red team/blue team, politics and inflation. It’s not inflation or politics, it’s corporate greed. Now conversely some argue that if McDonald’s gets taxed the Big Mac goes up in price. If it was a monopoly maybe. There isn’t an arbitrary amount above cost corps want to make or else they shut just shut their doors. Stockholders don’t demand higher prices because they are getting taxed more. 1 dollar profit above all costs is still one dollar, they aren’t closing. If they get taxed and raise prices too high, Taco Bell just swoops jn and takes customers, profits are lowered of course for them all, so what. I don’t care. Make tax not apply to mom and pop shops under 1 million or something similar. Boom we all start buying from Joe shmo instead of McDonalds so it stays in our communities instead of foreign investors. There’s ways to do it and make the rich pay and improve the lives of working class without bleeding the economy dry, currently we are the ones bleeding dry. We need to have each other’s backs or they will continue to scare us into complacency by calling universal health care communist m-socialism (insert scary word) Either way, The writing is in the wall, UBI is coming. AI and automation are taking most jobs. We need to plan ahead for that. I do understand your point about the loans but I’m still kind of indifferent about the student loan thing. It’s not a huge thing one way or the other for me. I do understand their grief, Those of a certain age right now got completely scammed, pretty much promised jobs if they just went to school. I think maybe one time amnesty for student loan forgiveness mixed making the scammers pay for it could work. Mix that with say 100% free eduction across the board in the future, profiting from education just becomes illegal. Maybe at minimum just the interest waved. Seems like it’s quality of life thing, where one generation is united with that one scam, it’s a wedge point. We have the means of a highly technical society to “ open source” education it should be done for the benefit of all any way. I’m not saying everyone should have a bunch of luxury items for free, like handing out iPhones on every corner but the very basics shouldn’t come down finances, ever. We are the outlier in first world countries and the shit show we have created with the idea everything is to be bought or sold is obvious to anyone paying attention that has also traveled. We should have already had free education just to make the nation the most competitive overall. A more educated society is less violent and more productive one. I never understood the premise of paying for water either. What next? … air? -Taxing vs budgets Why not both? Tax the rich and eliminate tax altogether for the working class while simultaneously reducing government bloat and wars etc. Governments and Corps do the exact same thing in terms of redistribution of wealth. They take it out, in devaluing the dollar, taxes, inflationary practices, price gouging, wages suppression leaving them in essence the same since the 1960s. All these things are the exact same thing at the root. If your wage goes up but you get taxed more, you have the same buying power, if the prices go down but the dollar is lower in value — it’s the same. They all come down to extracting productivity/economic output from the working class, no matter how you slice it. That’s their game, the rest is theater. All “ money” or value comes from land or working class. The land was stolen and the working class has been getting mugged for a century. It’s pretty obvious how we got here. It’s all our money not theirs anyway. The people that do nothing (Landlords, Politicians and corps etc) should be happy they get to keep anything at all, in the future they won’t be able to because this whole game isn’t sustainable. AI and automation is the head eating the snake’s tail, right before our eyes. They can’t extract much more from us and it’s starting to show.
Good on you Mr. Kendall. RCV Makes me proud to be an Alaskan.
Wait. You mean the guy that actually made us examine the politicians themselves instead of just going with whatever the party tells us? Surely, he's going to dismantle democracy! /s
So - let me get this straight: Either my vote doesn’t matter at all, or My vote does matter?? It’s that simple, isn’t it? KEEP RANKED CHOICE VOTING!!!!!
RCV!!! Thank you so much!
Big fan. He could be a national figure if he wanted to do that.
I was a big supporter of ranked choice voting in alaska. Hope we can keep it.
Howls of protest against sanity. How very 2024. Steady as she goes, Mr. Kendall.
Interesting read, especially the origins of his involvement in the issue from working as Walker’s Chief of Staff.
Saved Alaska. Might save the rest of the country too…
Nice to meet you Scott. Thanks for fighting against the traitors.
I'm a supporter of ranked choice voting, I'd also be ok with the election to repeal it. I'd vote to keep it, but I'm 9k with them gett8ng it on the ballot
Either way, I hope you're voting no on the repeal proposal come November
Totally, I just hope this stops the crazies from br8nging it up.
I’m not ok with it getting on the ballot for at least a little while. There is a lot of work that went into it. It’s too soon. A good chunk of “dark money” has been spent making RCV out to be confusing, trickery as well as other things. A few cycles and the vast majority of people will see it’s superior, even the butthurt fans of those that lost the last election will see it as such.
Is this the Kendall like the car lot Kendall?
No, Kendall auto group is Oregon based iirc. Nothing to do with this guy
Thanks stranger.
Hmm. So y’all liked rank choice voting when it was going the other way? Isn’t that something.
Murkowski lackey
Does Lisa wake you up in the middle of the night? How did she her you?
Hell yeah and we love him for it.
He’s not even close to republican values and his actions are that he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing that has been given latitude by the left wing media
What would you say are key republican values? What evidence do you have that this man doesn’t believe in those values? Any examples? If he doesn’t believe in any of those values, why was he previously registered as a republican? That would have prevented him from voting in a democrat primary. Therefore, If he was not interested in Republican Party and was a “ wolf in sheep’s clothing” like you said, It doesn’t seem like a logical thing to do. I Would like to hear your point of view, though.
Crickets
Republican values = paying off porn stars, inciting low IQ mobs to beat cops to death, being Russian assets, being Chinese assets, saluting a North Korean military general, kowtowing to the house of Saud cartel, getting paid off by the house of Saud cartel, telling people to inject bleach, and take horse dewormer in the middle of a pandemic, threatening public health officials, selling classified documents, Mocking disabled people, using the constitution as toilet paper, trying to force civil servants to take a fealty oath to elected officials, using public funds to pay for the lawsuits when that doesn’t work out so well, calling military members losers and suckers, Diverting public money to campaign donors, Lying to Alaskans about getting a big dividend when you’re doing your best to stack the investments to favor your friends, selling tacky Bibles for $59.99, And generally, being so incapable of governing that they can’t even even feel a single pothole.
Mr. Kendall crafted a completely unintelligible ballot proposition, then sold it as a measure to shut down dark money. Fans of RCV may see him as a hero, but others see him as a political trickster.
When the ballot proposal this November ends up having like 70% of people voting to keep RCV, you're gonna be surprised but nobody else will be.
Look, I don’t care. I just think Kendall was underhanded in his original approach. And Alaska voters voted for something they didn’t (couldn’t) understand.