The Democratic Party's Slide Into Irrelevance
Attaching a poll ... Dems unfavorability rating increased from 45% to 57% during the Biden Administration.
If I wanted to summarize the transition succintly .... we would be moving out of a mode which caters to our desires and into a mode which caters to our needs.
Humanity has made a great deal of progress in these centuries of the Industrial Revolution. The trend has been toward longer and healthier lives.
We would do well to consolidate those gains and preserve the advances that we can. It would be a shame to piss it all away.
I'm grateful for a tiny little corner of the internet where I shared my observations and hypotheses freely. I'm grateful for people to debate with and reason with.
I'm a human being who is struggling to find some leverage points through which to reach people and connect them to something meaningful.
The truth is that I don't really know if my existence has any meaning or purpose. But it satisfies a certain romantic sense to have a purpose. It feels good in my heart to care about people and wish for their happiness. I have children. I'm wired to want to protect them from brutal upheaval.
I'm not a "good" person. I'm just like everyone else... following my survival programming.
A Tale of Two Boomer Households:Model 1: Saver BoomersBorn: 1945Median incomeBought median home: 1970 for ~$23,400Had 2 kids: 1970sBegan saving 10% of income: 1995 (when kids turned 25)Savings invested at 6% annual returnDied: 2025Outcome:Home value in 2025: ~$263,400Savings accumulated: ~$418,600Total estate value: ~$682,000Inheritance per child: $341,000
No one's parents can sink them. Why would anyone expect to get an inheritance?
Personally, I don't care about who owns the houses. If someone doesn't want to live most of their life in the same spot it's very inefficient for them to own a house. The only reason it made financial sense for the majority of people in the past is because of the (also inefficient) mortgage interest deduction.
With recent tax restructuring there is far less reason for young people to own a house. A lot of the reason they want to is that it's still considered some kind of status symbol, which it shouldn't be.
The real problem is the accumulation of wealth in particular families, not in what form that wealth is held.
My ideal solution would be to have a 100% inheritance tax, which would likely make all other taxes unnecessary. Of course Luciom has pointed out that irrational people who want to leave lots of money to their adult children don't like this idea. Even though their children are generally of retirement age by the time of the inheritance and so can't really do much useful with it.
So we now have all the resources being hoarded by older and older people who are less and less able to enjoy it.
The second best solution would be a large wealth tax so that we no longer have billionaires using income tax loopholes to pay almost no taxes.
Focusing on who owns houses in particular is really just obscuring the real problem.
Are you OK with government subsidies for rich people to buy residential real estate above and beyond their primary residence ? That's what interest and depreciation deductions embedded in the Internal Revenue Code are ..... subsidies for the wealthy. Do you approve of that kind of government intervention ?Edit: If you're against socialism ... it stands to reason that you are ag
I don't want gvmnt subsidies for capital, but capital shouldn't be taxed at all except land (not the building, land only). And the corporate income tax shouldn't exist so, allowing deduction is reducing something that is obscene and shouldn't exist in the first place, not a subsidy.
Federal and local taxes should be on land, sales, and a poll (capitary) tax. No income or corporate or capital taxation. About 5-6% of gdp at most federal, 2-3% local, to cover defense, judiciary, law enforcement, border control, embassies and a few other things.
A complete ban on any form of direct or indirect redistribution in the constitution.
It's quite obscene to call a reduction in something that shouldn't exist in the first place "a gvmnt intervention".
Correct me if I'm wrong Lucifer, but I think this may be the place where we encounter some cognitive dissonance in people who have been brainwashed in a particular fashion. They are brainwashed by the compulsive wealth aggregators who own the media to believe that socialism is evil as it pertains to helping the poor. But they are completely silent about the socialism they have
It is not socialism to get back your stuff. Once a system that syphons off 5x or more what it should exist, OF COURSE it is not only moral but imperative to try to suck back from it as much as you can.
Ofc it would be far worse to starve the beast and make it unconstitutional to redistribute anything and to subsidize any corporation as well. I don't make the rules though.
I definitely do not want to look at "the whole of humanity" as a single tribe lol because it isn't.
Every constitution that targets citizens as the beneficiaries of it and not the entire humanity is *explicitly exclusionary* and exists to benefit citizens over everyone else in any 0 sum game that might arises. And it should be high treason for any elected politician to ever consider the utility function of non citizens in any choice.
I don't know what grinch is, but i do know that you don't only ask us to "wish well" to others. You ask us to sacrifice ourselves for complete strangers that aren't even part of our polity. That's something i fully morally reject as horrific and extremely immoral, in my system, simple as that.
I'm grateful for a tiny little corner of the internet where I shared my observations and hypotheses freely. I'm grateful for people to debate with and reason with. I'm a human being who is struggling to find some leverage points through which to reach people and connect them to something meaningful. The truth is that I don't really know if my existence has any meaning or purpos
And the solution to the bold is to install a system that stops new parasitic entrants to become a part of it right now, and starts explicitly targeting the rest.
Like let's say USAID estimates are correct and stopping it makes it so that 10M africans per year die instead of being saved. How is that anything but positive for everyone IN YOUR MODEL? in your model we are going to face worldwide resource scarcity so everytime everyone dies anywhere, unless he had qualities and talents to produce more than he consumed even in the apocalyptic world you envision will come, your children are literally better off.
You should actively promote pre-emptive starvation in poor countries, embargo them if they are food importers and so on.
If you actually believe your claims about climate breakdown the corollary is that of novels and movies where the evil environmentalist guy tries to kill 20-50-80% of the world population ASAP so that at least the rest can live in the far future.
So ... it seems that there is no dispute that the tax code codifies socialism for rich people.
That’s largely an incoherent rhetorical punch line for late night talk show hosts.
There’s no dispute that certain tax codes:
(a) benefit the rich by allowing them to reclassify income, defer taxes, and deduct investment losses, and
(b) benefit the poor by allowing them to reduce or eliminate tax liability through credits, exemptions, and refundable benefits.
If the point is that people living in glass house (a) shouldn’t throw stones at those in glass house (b), I agree it’s hypocritical, since both are using the powers of the government to the benefit of their socio-economic class.
I didn't argue that the lack of the latter causes the former. The "spenders" are sinking their kids by using ever increasing credit to drive up housing prices.
Personally, I don't care about who owns the houses. If someone doesn't want to live most of their life in the same spot it's very inefficient for them to own a house. The only reason it made financial sense for the majority of people in the past is because of the (also inefficient) mortgage interest deduction.
With recent tax restructuring there is far less reason for young people to own a house. A lot of the reason they want to is that it's still considered some kind of status symbol, which it shouldn't be.
Yeah, thinking what is essentially a depreciated asset is an investment is basically the modern version of the tulip bulb craze.
The real problem is the accumulation of wealth in particular families, not in what form that wealth is held.
My ideal solution would be to have a 100% inheritance tax, which would likely make all other taxes unnecessary. Of course Luciom has pointed out that irrational people who want to leave lots of money to their adult children don't like this idea. Even though their children are generally of retirement age by the time of the inheritance and so can't really do much useful with it.
So we now have all the resources being hoarded by older and older people who are less and less able to enjoy it.
Wealth doesn't exist to be enjoyed, ie, spent on consumption. Wealth is basically accrued income that hasn't been spent on consumption. Instead it's (loosely) spent on the means of production via the stock market. That's why the markets keep going up and up; it's just a reflection of our country's even deepening capital pool.
In other words, not spending income on consumption inflates the stock market. Redirect all that accrued income and gains towards the people to spend and enjoy in the consumer economy, better get out the wheel barrows because that won't cause the production of more goods. In fact, pulling it out or not allowing it to enter the capital markets would reduce the output of consumer goods.... with ever increasing dollars chasing it, aka, economic suicide.
There's nothing inherently good about an ever-increasing stock market, and I don't think more people having some of the wealth would result in constant hyperinflation.
No idea why you think it would lead to lower production.
There's nothing inherently good about an ever-increasing stock market, and I don't think more people having some of the wealth would result in constant hyperinflation.
Agree. We could evenly distribute the 1%er’s wealth to the 99% and that alone wouldn’t cause inflation. It’s only when that wealth is liquidated and spent on consumption that inflation occurs.
The same dynamic existed in socialist economies like the USSR. People technically held a share of national wealth through collective ownership, but the system didn’t allow them to sell or exchange it for personal consumption. That’s what kept demand artificially suppressed, and as a result, prices were kept low relative to wages, despite large capital accumulation, i.e., more/better factories.
There's nothing inherently good about an ever-increasing stock market, and I don't think more people having some of the wealth would result in constant hyperinflation.
No idea why you think it would lead to lower production.
If you hate pensioners and everyone saving for a pension, maybe there is nothing inherently good.
If instead you think it's positive if people can retire, then it's absolutely ESSENTIAL that asset prices rise with time.
Agree. We could evenly distribute the 1%er’s wealth to the 99% and that alone wouldn’t cause inflation. It’s only when that wealth is liquidated and spent on consumption that inflation occurs.The same dynamic existed in socialist economies like the USSR. People technically held a share of national wealth through collective ownership, but the system didn’t allow them to sell or
The poorer you are the higher your marginal consumption rate is going to be.
Rich people will sell off less wealth than poorer people to consume, so yes redistributing wealth toward the bottom does DEFINITELY increse consumption (and so inflation).
That's uncontroversial. Just google "marginal rate of consumption by income"
The poorer you are the higher your marginal consumption rate is going to be.
Rich people will sell off less wealth than poorer people to consume, so yes redistributing wealth toward the bottom does DEFINITELY increse consumption (and so inflation).
That's uncontroversial. Just google "marginal rate of consumption by income"
Yeah, higher marginal consumption at lower incomes is well-established. But demand isn’t driven by income alone. It’s shaped by culture, policy, and exposure.
Take the USSR. They didn’t just suppress consumption through pricing or scarcity; they banned advertising as we know it altogether. Advertising manufactures both real and artificial wants, fuels dissatisfaction, encourages overconsumption, and undermines collective priorities like healthcare, housing, and public infrastructure.
I’ve worked in that space (still do to some extent), and it’s all about positioning a product in the consumer’s mind as newer, better, faster, and a source of social validation. Consumer psychology is scary when you see how easy it is to push the right buttons and get people to pull out their credit cards. Not as scary as the political propaganda machine, but close and no less engineered. So I don’t really blame the 'spenders' for their behavior; they're just looking for a little dopamine rush like everyone else, .
Just engineer yourself to have the best dopamine rushes from saving.
There are entire culture that had unprecedented, historical, generational success doing just that (the jews, northen italians, some indians sub-demographics, some other asian subdemographics). It's a recipe for long term success.
Ofc it requires willpower and the ability to delay gratification, it would be terrible if those things where highly inheritable... we could try to engineer some studies i don't know, let me talk at random, maybe they could include marshmallows
No i don't.
Do you deny we have measurably differing very important ways among existing human groups?
We absolutely do have measurably different important ways.
Poor people have very small carbon footprints.
Rich people have very large carbon footprints which are killing everyone including themselves. The 80/20 rule applies. 80% of pollution comes from 20% of the population.
Do you deny that the fates of all are intertwined ?
Agree. We could evenly distribute the 1%er’s wealth to the 99% and that alone wouldn’t cause inflation. It’s only when that wealth is liquidated and spent on consumption that inflation occurs.The same dynamic existed in socialist economies like the USSR. People technically held a share of national wealth through collective ownership, but the system didn’t allow them to sell or
I believe you that there would be some inflation, but it wouldn't last forever and it wouldn't be 'push your wheelbarrow to the corner store to buy a jug of milk' hyperinflation.
If you hate pensioners and everyone saving for a pension, maybe there is nothing inherently good.
If instead you think it's positive if people can retire, then it's absolutely ESSENTIAL that asset prices rise with time.
People could still save money for retirement. Buying stocks is a risky investment even now. The idea of saving with a wide based mutual fund is relatively new.
Yeah, higher marginal consumption at lower incomes is well-established. But demand isn’t driven by income alone. It’s shaped by culture, policy, and exposure.Take the USSR. They didn’t just suppress consumption through pricing or scarcity; they banned advertising as we know it altogether. Advertising manufactures both real and artificial wants, fuels dissatisfaction, encourages
This may be about the only thing he USSR did right. Advertising is such a waste of money and productivity with no real return. Companies have to do it because other companies are doing it resulting in higher prices for everything.
Just engineer yourself to have the best dopamine rushes from saving.There are entire culture that had unprecedented, historical, generational success doing just that (the jews, northen italians, some indians sub-demographics, some other asian subdemographics). It's a recipe for long term success.Ofc it requires willpower and the ability to delay gratification, it would be terri
Right, just engineer yourself to get dopamine from spreadsheets and delayed gratification. Train your brain to light up at the thought of dividend reinvestment. Heck, maybe if you visualize compound interest hard enough, you’ll forget you’re broke.
And sure let’s reorganize society by who'll wait for two marshmallows at age five. That’s clearly the gold standard of cultural development.
Sorry, that sort of rigid ideological obedience is for the dull-witted or mentally lazy.
Back to the title of the thread, the disconnect between the author of the thread and actual americans is very wide.
According to the author of the thread the democratic party is irrelevant because it too closely resembles the republican party.
According to 45% of american adults, the democratic party is already too radical the way it is today
Right, just engineer yourself to get dopamine from spreadsheets and delayed gratification. Train your brain to light up at the thought of dividend reinvestment. Heck, maybe if you visualize compound interest hard enough, you’ll forget you’re broke.And sure let’s reorganize society by who'll wait for two marshmallows at age five.
Yes it is. The gold standard is a society where people participate in a project knowing (if it's the start) fully well it's almost certain they will die before the project is complete.
Like Cathedrals. Or mapping the human genome. Or reversing Roe v Wade. Or developing artificial intelligence that passes the Turing test.
"maybe if you visualize compound interest hard enough"... you could understand why some cultures had stories about it. Remember the chessboard and the rice (1, 2, 4 beans...) ? or i dunno, the grasshopper and the ant by Aesop?
How strange that actual gold standard cultures in history, those far superior to almost everyone around them at their time, have those sort of fables in their cultural narrative...
It has nothing to do with "rigid ideological obedience". It's just about the fact that delaying gratification and planning long term are crucial and existential for humanity actual progress. Not changing moral rules.
If you want actual *progress* you need a society that is ruled by people who think long term, dislike abrupt change and understand how key consistency through the centuries is, love above almost anything else accumulation (of knowledge and technology in particular) and refuse syren songs when they hear them, every single time.
