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Post by jdredd on May 6, 2019 13:54:54 GMT -5
Changed the name of this thread from “Freedom Equals Inequality and Inequality Equals Freedom”. I think my point was confusing. I know I was.
I say it both ways because I think it makes a difference which comes first. Many people who love freedom might be willing to put up with inequality, if that's what it takes. But others may think of inequality as an indicator of their level of freedom. And you say "so what?". Well, as we argue about inequality I think it might be important to know where people are coming from.
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Post by jdredd on May 12, 2019 0:58:24 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/business/argentina-economy-macri-populism.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri’s tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become a gateway back to populism." "The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion rescue from the International Monetary Fund, a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s, turning an economic downturn into a depression. For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The promised benefits of his reforms — a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs — could take years to materialize, leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past." Do investors care about inequality? Why should they?
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Post by jdredd on May 15, 2019 2:11:50 GMT -5
The issue of homelessness could also go in here.
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Post by jdredd on May 15, 2019 22:29:27 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/arts/jeff-koons-rabbit-smashes-record-for-work-by-a-living-artist.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"A shiny stainless steel sculpture created by Jeff Koons in 1986, inspired by a child’s inflatable toy, sold at Christie’s on Wednesday night for $91.1 million with fees, smashing the record at auction for a work by a living artist, set just last November by David Hockney. Robert E. Mnuchin, an art dealer and the father of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, made the winning bid for Mr. Koons’s 1986 “Rabbit” from an aisle seat near the front of the salesroom. He was seated near Peter Brant, the collector and private museum-owner, and Jeffrey Deitch, the dealer. It was the ultimate prize among six works offered at Christie’s from the collection of the magazine publisher S.I. Newhouse Jr., who died in 2017. Estimated to raise at least $50 million, this sculpture, made in an edition of three and one artist’s proof, was the last example left in private hands, according to Christie’s." While millions of Americans can't come up with $400 in an emergency, the 1% are buying $91M small pieces of steel. Does it matter? Apparently not.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 5, 2019 16:51:13 GMT -5
Here is a quote from a Russell Kirk book from 1957 I read in this month's NR: "For the conserving of freedom of any sort, then, the economy must be free in considerable measure". I think that means he was an "inequality equals freedom" acolyte.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 9, 2019 23:23:23 GMT -5
So what about the ultimate in inequality, that is, slavery? Southern slaveowners went to war to preserve their "freedom" to own slaves. Which shows that even freedom is in the eye of the beholder.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 22, 2019 12:45:28 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/us/wilks-brothers-fracking-business.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=US"In recent years, longtime timber and fossil fuel investors have been joined by newer types of buyers in the region. Brokers say the new arrivals are driven in part by a desire to invest in natural assets while they are still abundant, particularly amid a fear of economic, political and climate volatility. “There is a tremendous underground, not-so-subtle awareness from people who realize that resources are getting scarcer and scarcer,” said Bernard Uechtritz, a real estate adviser. Among the nation’s top landowners are Mr. Malone, with 2.2 million acres in New Mexico, Colorado and other states; the media mogul Ted Turner, with two million acres in Montana, Nebraska and elsewhere; Peter Buck, a founder of Subway; Charles and David Koch, who run cattle outside of Lubbock, Tex.; and Jeff Bezos, who operates his space company from a West Texas outpost. William Bruce Harrison, the scion to an oil fortune, now owns 19 mountains in Colorado." Yes, the super-rich own millions of acres in the West. Is that wrong? I won't argue that, but some of the conservative reading I've been doing would say that that kind of inequality equals freedom. I'll buy that, but my question is not should people rise up against that kind of inequality, but can people rise up. I suspect the answer is no, not only because the rich own the politicians, courts, law enforcement, banks, media etc etc but what people really want is to be rich themselves.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 11, 2020 0:50:02 GMT -5
We've been told that freedom and Capitalism go hand in hand. But Capitalism is built on debt, and debt is the opposite of freedom. On the other hand, Capitalism means the freedom to go into debt. Is debt a scam?
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Post by jdredd on May 18, 2020 11:32:02 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/inequality-american-dream.html"Indeed, the size of the income gap — income inequality — is not high on my list of economic and social challenges facing the United States. Of course, the most immediate concern is the coronavirus pandemic and the economic policy and public health responses to it. But the longer-term trend in inequality is not nearly as important to economic prosperity and the health of society as some other critical problems. Those include the relatively slow rate of productivity growth the U.S. has experienced for many years, challenges in imparting education and skills to all Americans, the long-term decline in male employment and reduced economic dynamism, to name a few. And they include the absolute condition of low-income Americans, regardless of the size of the gap between them and households at the top." Should we worry about income inequality? In a perfect world, probably not. But as the lifestyles of the rich and famous is rubbed into everyone's noses through the corporate media, can you really expect the "losers" in our dog-eat-dog nation not to get a little resentful? (Not that it really matters since those people are powerless, and what they really want is to JOIN the upper crust) When CEO's are getting hundreds of times more than those in the bottom of the corporate ladder, how does it feel to know you considered to be hundreds of times less valuable then the big shots? As for the "long-term decline in male employment", when it has become obvious that men are expected to work hard for little gain, that their enthusiasm might wane.
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Post by jdredd on Jul 26, 2020 14:24:24 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/opinion/coronavirus-evictions-rent.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"By failing to contain the coronavirus, the United States is allowing what began as a temporary disruption of economic life to do lasting damage to the nation’s prosperity and prospects. With little chance of an imminent economic rebound , millions of Americans who have lost their jobs during the pandemic are now in grave danger of losing their homes, too.Twenty-two percent of households say that they don’t expect to be able to make their next monthly rent or mortgage payment, according to a Census Bureau survey. Temporary limits on evictions, imposed in the early weeks of the U.S. crisis, are gradually ending, and a growing number of lenders and landlords are seeking to evict those who cannot pay." I remember a week or two ago perusing the real estate section of the WSJ appropriately titled "Mansion", and it was talking about people buying multi-million dollar vacation homes.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 31, 2021 0:03:45 GMT -5
So the right wants you to accept that ever-increasing inequality is a simply a consequence of "freedom". I won't argue with that, but then they are appalled when people start turning to Socialism as a remedy.
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Post by jdredd on Jul 7, 2021 12:05:48 GMT -5
www.newsmax.com/newsfront/crime-sanfrancisco-police-left/2021/07/06/id/1027711/"San Francisco Police Lt. Tracy McCray blamed District Attorney Chesa Boudin for increased thefts in the area, saying that ''[W]hat happened in that Walgreens has been going on in the city for quite a while. I’m used to it. I mean, we could have a greatest hits compilation of people just walking in and cleaning out the store shelves and security guards, the people who work there, just standing by helplessly because they can’t do anything. The ‘criminals first’ agenda from the district attorney [is to blame] because he's not prosecuting any of those crimes as felonies [or] as a commercial burglary. [Criminals realize,] ‘This is going to get slapped down to a misdemeanor.' " Is it logical that as inequality continues to rise this will be the outcome? What is the alternative? Continuing to fill more and more prisons with the desperate?
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Post by jdredd on Aug 27, 2021 12:08:52 GMT -5
Looks like the eviction moratorium will expire. Will that put a lot more people on the street? What solution will motormouth Larry Elder have?
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Post by jdredd on Oct 22, 2021 14:16:43 GMT -5
More solitary semantic games on this useless thread: inequality may equal freedom, and freedom may equal inequality, but while freedom may cause inequality, I doubt inequality causes freedom. Also, can inequality be an impediment to freedom? Does this thread rise or fall on the interpretation of equal?
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Post by jdredd on Nov 27, 2021 1:25:51 GMT -5
Ha-ha! Watching videos of smash and grab mobs looting stores. So where is the thin line between freedom and chaos? These guys are solving the problem of inequality in their own way.
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