The whole premise of this article if false. Poverty doesn't produce crime, crime produces poverty. Thomas Sowell discussed this in detail. He destroys commie drivel wherever it rears its ugly head.
I am a conservative, but I have no membership in any political party.
I became a conservative after some decades of passing through socialist political life, but became concerned along that way that socialism was no answer to solving the ills of our societies and economies because, among other things, it did not change human nature and had too much prior baggage.
I found that socialism, at least in Canada and other places I knew, also subsumed within its zeitgiest or the thinking patterns of its adherents, an admiration of "experts" (like Fauci, for example), such as well-educated and trained specialists in sciences and pseudo-sciences (such as psychology, sociology, etc.) whose opinions, ideas and proposed policies were sacrosanct and so far above the 'ignorance' of the "masses" that deviation from that collection of opinions, ideas and policies was not only heretical, but not to be tolerated and allowed. Democracy, free speech, freedom of thought, etc. were not cherished or valued.
Socialism merely substituted another way to govern the means of production and the redistribution of money and wealth that was as corrupt and flawed as the system dominated by the owners of the vast wealth derived from the benefits inheritance, or of monoploy capitalism as described in this interview.
Once the so-called workers became the wielders of power, they became as corrupt, autocratic, fascistic and arrogant, tribalistic and intolerant of ideas, and the people that held those ideas, that did not accord with their own ideological predelictions or dogmas, as today's Wokeists or as the aristocracies and the dominant religious powers of past centuries, such as the RC Church.
What disturbs me about Mr. Collins exposition is to be found in this statement: "If you don’t have broad worker ownership or a real stakeholder society where others share, then you do have to redistribute." If I have ever heard such an idea once, I have heard it hundreds of times.
As well, as I've read, real, competitive capitalism, might be tolerable, but who is to decide and judge what is or is not "competitive capitalism". It cannot be the politicians and their hand-servants in the bureaucracies, for their record heretofore is not envious or admirable. So what are we really talking about?
I wonder if you have abandoned the dogmas and thinking patterns you learned in your earlier years. I certainly have. I do not know you Ms. Henley, so I cannot be certain of that.
Via "The Scroll", published daily for free by Tablet Magazine(which you should check out as it may arguably be one of the very best magazines today)....this excerpt from the link below:
"There’s a bipartisan effort by members of Congress to get rich by trading stocks while in office, often in sectors directly affected by pending legislation. In 2021, 105 sitting members of Congress conducted more than 3,500 stock transactions worth an estimated $290 million, according to a report compiled by the website Unusual Whales, which tracks high-volume transactions in the financial markets. Last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the practice, telling reporters, “We’re a free market economy,” and saying that federal lawmakers “should be able to participate in that.” Pelosi’s statement followed a report from the publication Insider that found 52 lawmakers and 182 senior congressional staffers had violated the Obama-era STOCK Act designed to prevent insider trading and conflicts of interest......"
Getting a bit nervous. I thought this platform was going to be balanced and look especially at the sudden political emergence of critical theory and its various manifestations including cancel culture and wokeism. I know it’s early days, but this is beginning to feel like just another left-leaning echo chamber.
Great interview. IMO you are hitting on a very important topic. Is it a huge issue, Yes. We need to be very careful here not to create a new enemy “Evil Rich People”. Is the increasing wealth divide the root cause. I don’t think so. We need to think deeper. I believe it is our monetary system and human nature that is causing this. This problem has manifested over many decades. We are at a critical state in our history and a significant change is required. Taxing the wealthy I don’t think will work. Making the economic system fair for everyone and immutable to change? Now there’s an interesting idea. I don’t have the answer, but if we keep working together we can find it.
Interesting read, however a key point not raised in this interview is the US estate tax laws. The highest impact is the law that allows the estate to pass stock shares to beneficiaries WITHOUT pay and tax on the increase in value since the original purchase. What this means is Bezos' estate will pass 100% of wealth of Amazon shares to his kids without paying any tax. The price of the stock is adjusted to the "new owner" to reflect the price at the time the estate was settled. An example of this is Bezos buys Amazon stock option at $100. When he dies and stock is transferred to his kids, the value is reset at $1,000 (assuming this is stock price at the time) for the new owner and NO income tax is paid on the capital gain of $900 per share. This allows for 100% of wealth transfer intergenerationally with no taxes paid. The beneficiary will have to pay capital gains tax on the stock only when they sell it and their cost is $1,000, not the original value of $100.
Dear Tara. It is a good interview. But we have all already been reading these cranky American Liberals. It would be really great to speak with cranky Canadian leftists. Please consider.
People who talk about the super rich never understand the situation.
The United States has a private central bank. It has loaned out 30 trillion dollars to the US government. It doesn't have 30 trillion dollars.
The US national debt doubles every 8 years regardless of who is president, and it's done this since 1971 - when the US left the gold standard. It was 398 billion dollars in 1971. I'll leave the calculation up to you. Actually, I won't because nobody will do it:
1971 398 billion
1979 796 billion
1987 1.592 trillion
1995 3.184 trillion
2003 6.368 trillion
2011 12.736 trillion
2019 25.472 trillion
2027 50.944 trillion
2035 101.888 trillion
Our debt is right this second: $29.8 trillion - https://usdebtclock.org/ - there are SLIGHT variations, but on average, doubles every 8 years. You can see how closely with today's current debt in early 2021.
You want to find out who the REALLY rich are? Find out who owns the unaudited Federal Reserve. Be careful though, they are the world's most powerful mafia. They fund what they want to do, and do not fund what they want to kill and they have unlimited resources because they are literally the bank - they make money at will.
Material inequality is a fact of human existence and as long as it does not become excessive, it is probably healthy for society's evolution as it motivates growth. Extreme wealth is quite another matter and those engaged in various strategies to hide it do not have society's best interests in mind. Our current political system's dependence on power derived from wealth is the primary reasons for the prolongation of the lack of redress. I don't see any substantive change on the horizon until a critical mass of informed voters demand systemic change. Ridding ourselves of a Party System would be a good place to start. I strongly suspect that are more places to hide and minimize corruption within the Party System then there are within the castle walls of the wealthy.
If you ever follow up on this topic, I'd be curious if you could address inequality vs. absolute poverty. Clearly the standard of living of poor Canadians is today is well above the standard of living of e.g. a middle class person two centuries ago.
Presumably no one would advocate for a solution where e.g. a tyrant takes action to lower everyone's standard of living to that of the poorest member of society. I'd be curious if someone could address why inequality matters more than people having their material needs met, and if there's a "tipping point" where the normally tolerated inequality becomes intolerable.
I'm curious to know your response to Steven Pinker's critique of the inequality question. I find his argument persuasive: that although inequality correlates to the outcomes Richard Wilkinson discusses, the cause may be elsewhere and, more to Pinker's point, inequality means little so long as we end poverty. The main problem with inequality may be with the human propensities toward insufficiency ("why do they get so much when I get so little??") and coveting ("I want it because they have it").
Because the billionaires do not relinquish their wealth readily, plugging the taxation loopholes (which has seemed like a no-brainer to me) may well lead to unintended but terrible outcomes, with the poor worse off. I believe billionaires will go to war before they allow any government to limit their wealth.
Since the root causes are greed and inadequacy, we need to address those to actually solve the problem. These are psychological and spiritual problems; taxation alone cannot solve this meaningfully.
A quote from an excellent article published by Politico titled;
The Fed’s Doomsday Prophet Has a Dire Warning About Where We’re Headed.
Thomas Hoenig knew what quantitative easing and record-low interest rates would bring.
"The Fed’s policies encouraged or discouraged things like Wall Street speculation that could lead to ruinous financial crashes.
But it also did more than that — encouraging speculation and rising asset prices also shifts money between the rich and the poor because the rich own the vast majority of assets in the United States. Hoenig was worried that a decade of zero-percent interest rates would have the same effect."
The wealth tax is not so rare in the US. If you own a house, you pay taxes on the value of the home, every year. It would be fine to have a 0.1% tax on publicly traded stock market assets. That is $1,000 for every $1M.
I'm seeing many "deletions"...some of which were mine. In particular, my deletions were critical of left-wing posts with nothing to say but disparagement. If this is a trend--shooting only selected messengers--the post space will be wasted and subscriptions lost.
The whole premise of this article if false. Poverty doesn't produce crime, crime produces poverty. Thomas Sowell discussed this in detail. He destroys commie drivel wherever it rears its ugly head.
I am a conservative, but I have no membership in any political party.
I became a conservative after some decades of passing through socialist political life, but became concerned along that way that socialism was no answer to solving the ills of our societies and economies because, among other things, it did not change human nature and had too much prior baggage.
I found that socialism, at least in Canada and other places I knew, also subsumed within its zeitgiest or the thinking patterns of its adherents, an admiration of "experts" (like Fauci, for example), such as well-educated and trained specialists in sciences and pseudo-sciences (such as psychology, sociology, etc.) whose opinions, ideas and proposed policies were sacrosanct and so far above the 'ignorance' of the "masses" that deviation from that collection of opinions, ideas and policies was not only heretical, but not to be tolerated and allowed. Democracy, free speech, freedom of thought, etc. were not cherished or valued.
Socialism merely substituted another way to govern the means of production and the redistribution of money and wealth that was as corrupt and flawed as the system dominated by the owners of the vast wealth derived from the benefits inheritance, or of monoploy capitalism as described in this interview.
Once the so-called workers became the wielders of power, they became as corrupt, autocratic, fascistic and arrogant, tribalistic and intolerant of ideas, and the people that held those ideas, that did not accord with their own ideological predelictions or dogmas, as today's Wokeists or as the aristocracies and the dominant religious powers of past centuries, such as the RC Church.
What disturbs me about Mr. Collins exposition is to be found in this statement: "If you don’t have broad worker ownership or a real stakeholder society where others share, then you do have to redistribute." If I have ever heard such an idea once, I have heard it hundreds of times.
As well, as I've read, real, competitive capitalism, might be tolerable, but who is to decide and judge what is or is not "competitive capitalism". It cannot be the politicians and their hand-servants in the bureaucracies, for their record heretofore is not envious or admirable. So what are we really talking about?
I wonder if you have abandoned the dogmas and thinking patterns you learned in your earlier years. I certainly have. I do not know you Ms. Henley, so I cannot be certain of that.
Via "The Scroll", published daily for free by Tablet Magazine(which you should check out as it may arguably be one of the very best magazines today)....this excerpt from the link below:
"There’s a bipartisan effort by members of Congress to get rich by trading stocks while in office, often in sectors directly affected by pending legislation. In 2021, 105 sitting members of Congress conducted more than 3,500 stock transactions worth an estimated $290 million, according to a report compiled by the website Unusual Whales, which tracks high-volume transactions in the financial markets. Last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the practice, telling reporters, “We’re a free market economy,” and saying that federal lawmakers “should be able to participate in that.” Pelosi’s statement followed a report from the publication Insider that found 52 lawmakers and 182 senior congressional staffers had violated the Obama-era STOCK Act designed to prevent insider trading and conflicts of interest......"
https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate/full
Getting a bit nervous. I thought this platform was going to be balanced and look especially at the sudden political emergence of critical theory and its various manifestations including cancel culture and wokeism. I know it’s early days, but this is beginning to feel like just another left-leaning echo chamber.
Great interview. IMO you are hitting on a very important topic. Is it a huge issue, Yes. We need to be very careful here not to create a new enemy “Evil Rich People”. Is the increasing wealth divide the root cause. I don’t think so. We need to think deeper. I believe it is our monetary system and human nature that is causing this. This problem has manifested over many decades. We are at a critical state in our history and a significant change is required. Taxing the wealthy I don’t think will work. Making the economic system fair for everyone and immutable to change? Now there’s an interesting idea. I don’t have the answer, but if we keep working together we can find it.
Interesting read, however a key point not raised in this interview is the US estate tax laws. The highest impact is the law that allows the estate to pass stock shares to beneficiaries WITHOUT pay and tax on the increase in value since the original purchase. What this means is Bezos' estate will pass 100% of wealth of Amazon shares to his kids without paying any tax. The price of the stock is adjusted to the "new owner" to reflect the price at the time the estate was settled. An example of this is Bezos buys Amazon stock option at $100. When he dies and stock is transferred to his kids, the value is reset at $1,000 (assuming this is stock price at the time) for the new owner and NO income tax is paid on the capital gain of $900 per share. This allows for 100% of wealth transfer intergenerationally with no taxes paid. The beneficiary will have to pay capital gains tax on the stock only when they sell it and their cost is $1,000, not the original value of $100.
Dear Tara. It is a good interview. But we have all already been reading these cranky American Liberals. It would be really great to speak with cranky Canadian leftists. Please consider.
People who talk about the super rich never understand the situation.
The United States has a private central bank. It has loaned out 30 trillion dollars to the US government. It doesn't have 30 trillion dollars.
The US national debt doubles every 8 years regardless of who is president, and it's done this since 1971 - when the US left the gold standard. It was 398 billion dollars in 1971. I'll leave the calculation up to you. Actually, I won't because nobody will do it:
1971 398 billion
1979 796 billion
1987 1.592 trillion
1995 3.184 trillion
2003 6.368 trillion
2011 12.736 trillion
2019 25.472 trillion
2027 50.944 trillion
2035 101.888 trillion
Our debt is right this second: $29.8 trillion - https://usdebtclock.org/ - there are SLIGHT variations, but on average, doubles every 8 years. You can see how closely with today's current debt in early 2021.
You want to find out who the REALLY rich are? Find out who owns the unaudited Federal Reserve. Be careful though, they are the world's most powerful mafia. They fund what they want to do, and do not fund what they want to kill and they have unlimited resources because they are literally the bank - they make money at will.
Material inequality is a fact of human existence and as long as it does not become excessive, it is probably healthy for society's evolution as it motivates growth. Extreme wealth is quite another matter and those engaged in various strategies to hide it do not have society's best interests in mind. Our current political system's dependence on power derived from wealth is the primary reasons for the prolongation of the lack of redress. I don't see any substantive change on the horizon until a critical mass of informed voters demand systemic change. Ridding ourselves of a Party System would be a good place to start. I strongly suspect that are more places to hide and minimize corruption within the Party System then there are within the castle walls of the wealthy.
Hi Tara - can you please cover why you would rather women no longer be categorized by biology and instead by feeling?
If you ever follow up on this topic, I'd be curious if you could address inequality vs. absolute poverty. Clearly the standard of living of poor Canadians is today is well above the standard of living of e.g. a middle class person two centuries ago.
Presumably no one would advocate for a solution where e.g. a tyrant takes action to lower everyone's standard of living to that of the poorest member of society. I'd be curious if someone could address why inequality matters more than people having their material needs met, and if there's a "tipping point" where the normally tolerated inequality becomes intolerable.
I'm curious to know your response to Steven Pinker's critique of the inequality question. I find his argument persuasive: that although inequality correlates to the outcomes Richard Wilkinson discusses, the cause may be elsewhere and, more to Pinker's point, inequality means little so long as we end poverty. The main problem with inequality may be with the human propensities toward insufficiency ("why do they get so much when I get so little??") and coveting ("I want it because they have it").
Because the billionaires do not relinquish their wealth readily, plugging the taxation loopholes (which has seemed like a no-brainer to me) may well lead to unintended but terrible outcomes, with the poor worse off. I believe billionaires will go to war before they allow any government to limit their wealth.
Since the root causes are greed and inadequacy, we need to address those to actually solve the problem. These are psychological and spiritual problems; taxation alone cannot solve this meaningfully.
A quote from an excellent article published by Politico titled;
The Fed’s Doomsday Prophet Has a Dire Warning About Where We’re Headed.
Thomas Hoenig knew what quantitative easing and record-low interest rates would bring.
"The Fed’s policies encouraged or discouraged things like Wall Street speculation that could lead to ruinous financial crashes.
But it also did more than that — encouraging speculation and rising asset prices also shifts money between the rich and the poor because the rich own the vast majority of assets in the United States. Hoenig was worried that a decade of zero-percent interest rates would have the same effect."
The wealth tax is not so rare in the US. If you own a house, you pay taxes on the value of the home, every year. It would be fine to have a 0.1% tax on publicly traded stock market assets. That is $1,000 for every $1M.
I'm seeing many "deletions"...some of which were mine. In particular, my deletions were critical of left-wing posts with nothing to say but disparagement. If this is a trend--shooting only selected messengers--the post space will be wasted and subscriptions lost.
Tara. Your desire to demonize the wealthy is evident in your choice of guest. It you bring in a guest with opposing views and expertise, I will have more respect for you are a journalist. I recommend that you try to get Dr. Robert Murphy on your show to discuss the issue of wealth inequality. His personal email is bob.murphy.ancap@gmail.com. Here is his profile. Robert P. Murphy https://g.co/kgs/devr79 His podcast is https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/bob-murphy-show/id1441789978?i=1000547501036