Seems like a win/win for them.

“Terminally online” is, indeed, an undesirable state to exist in, but so is the urban hellscape in which public transportation operates. The screen is a far lesser evil.

Wait, whales are bees?

There were times between the robber baron era and Reagan when families lived comfortably on the income of a single blue collar worker. That fact tells me that we were once able to effectively suppress the robber barons.

That’s twice a week for 7 years.

Inheritance isn’t the root problem. The problem is that the only people with any money are people who were able to save it decades ago. And that problem is because labor has been devalued, wages stagnated, and cost of living soared.

And all of that is because for the past 40 years or so, there has been more benefit to taking profits out of business than spending money within the business.

When you reach the top-tier income tax bracket, and the IRS starts taking 91% of your income beyond that level, $10,000 of business income is only worth $900 to you.

When your best employee wants a $10,000 raise, that money comes straight out of your “excess” earnings. It is $10,000 of your earnings that are not subject to taxation. Paying that $10,000 raise only costs you $900 once you reach that tax bracket.

But we don’t have a 91% top-tier income tax bracket anymore. We had a punitively high top tier rate for most of the 20th century, but it got cut down in the 70’s and slashed in the early 80’s. Now, the top tier income tax bracket is just 37%. When you reach that bracket, giving your best employee a $10,000 raise takes $6700 out of your pocket, instead of just $900.

Reagan’s views on the Laffer curve were correct: raising the tax rate beyond a certain point will actually reduce tax revenue. But tax revenue is not why we need the high rates. The benefit of high marginal tax rates comes from what business does to avoid them. We need to restore the business incentives that come with a punitively high top-tier income tax rate. We need businesses to increase their labor expenses to avoid that tier. Businesses should benefit the whole economy, not just the ownership class.

For similar reasons, we need taxes on registered securities, payable in shares of those securities. The shares collected as taxes will be liquidated in small lots over time, comprising no more than 1% of total traded volume, to limit their effect on the market. Exempt the first $10 million held by a natural person; tax everything above.

Ketchup is for the fries, never the dog.

It’s not genocide. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.

–JD Vance, probably.

“Protesting” isn’t what we need. We need them running for office, whether that is president, senator, congressperson, or even for the local school board: a lot of those lower officers will move up over time.

Just like the remnants of the Tea Party took over the GOP, we need a “Guillotine Party” to redirect the Democrats to focus on the robber baron billionaire class.

I’m hoping for a massive stroke on December 18th. Anything between December 17th and January 6th will have interesting results. We could theoretically get a Harris/Vance or Vance/Walz administration.

The Democrats won’t have absorbed the Guillotine Party by 2028.

Guillotine Party!

Universal healthcare, securities tax, punitive top-tier income tax. We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons, or we can do it like the French got rid of their first and second estate.

True, true. Today, there is entirely too much silicon in their circuitry. Copper was - and is - a far more reliable means of delivering power to compressor.

The urban states greatly outnumber the rural states in the house, and California has fewer than the optimal persons per congressional district, meaning they are slightly overrepresented. The fact that 52 > 1 tells me that Montanans are not dictating policy to California.

I understand what you’re trying to say, but the fact is that even if Montana were able to build a coalition of the 26 smallest states, they would not be able to enact law without support from several of the larger states. Especially if California opposed the measure.

My mom’s deep freezer has been in her garage for 30+ years, reaching ambient temperatures as low as -30C.

Send it.

Replying here again to take the discussion a different direction… What if instead of each representative casting a single vote, they instead acted as a proxy, and cast one vote for each member of the district they represent? The Wyoming representative at large would cast 584,057 votes on every issue in the house. The Delaware representative would cast 989,948 votes. Vermont, 643,077 votes in the house.

Right, like “democracy”.

What is the form of government of the fictional nation of Panem?

I would not describe Panem as a democracy, as the satellite districts have no effective voice in their own governance. Panem is missing anything resembling a Senate. There is no means for the satellite districts to limit or reject the imposition of the capitol district.

Where the direction is chosen by what theajority of people want.

You are confusing “Populism” for “Democracy”. The two are not the same. Populism is the idea that political power flows from the majority. Democracy is the idea that political power flows from the people. The difference is subtle, but significant to the issue at hand.

Where the people are not in agreement on a particular direction, populism says that if 50%+1 want to go left, everyone goes left. Democracy is the idea that we collectively take both paths.

Currently we have a system where a minority of the people tell the rest what to do…

That is absolutely false. California is free to establish law for Californians, regardless of what Montana has to say about it. California doesn’t have to listen to Montana.

Would you consider that more “republican”?

Not at all. A government where the senate is eliminated, and California is free to impose itself against the will of Wyoming and Montana would be “populist” at best, and there are much more fitting terms. Not Democratic; Not a Republic. Eliminate the Senate, and you have Panem.

Populism is two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Democracy is what keeps the sheep off the ballot.

The vast majority of human history disagrees…

The vast majority of human history involved dictatorial regimes imposing their will on the unwilling. Democracy is a fairly recent development.

You certainly can establish a government without the consent of the governed, but you cannot reasonably describe such a government as “democratic”.

Trying to fix our original system of government and update it for modern day iis like trying to turn a race horse into a Formula 1 racecar…

Democracy is government by consent of the governed. That means if you want to govern Wyoming and Montana, you have to get a majority of Wyoming and Montana residents to agree to your plan. And if every decision is going to be made by California, regardless of their local opposition, why the hell would they agree to be unilaterally ruled from afar? Why wouldn’t they maintain their own sovereignty and independence from you, and govern themselves?

California certainly has no problem establishing laws for itself that the rest of the country broadly reject.