@ Johnson85

1. It is controversial. I can't tell you how many family members I've heard say incorrectly that "the minimum wage was not meant to be a livable wage." It's too damn many. The "reality ignoring" is an argument both sides use to belittle the other. I'll agree to not follow-up with where the conservative conglomerate does the same because we won't agree and that will ruin any potential positive discourse we can have. Deal?

2. This zero sum of work is a misinterpretation. Working shouldn't be a zero sum game. It's not saying that if there's 100 hrs of work need be done between two of us, that I only wanna do 40 and you gotta do 60. I'm questioning that if there really is 100 hrs of work to do.

Question for anyone to weigh in, how many meaningful hours do you put in at your office job? I'd say I'm effective for maybe 15-20 of the 45+ I'm in office. If need be I could get my work done in two 10 hour days for the week and then coast the next three days.

Taxes are not flat. If you make (numbers made up) $50k, you are taxed 25% on the first 40k and 40% on the next 10k. You aren't taxed a solid 40%. Hence tax returns. So being the guy who makes 40k and being in the "25%" tax bracket would in theory net you the same 30k that the 50k gets if they were flat taxed 40%; however, that's not how it's ever worked or it's proposed to work. That would be a bad system. The 50k guy gets 36k after taxes. The higher the income, the higher that bracket should be taxed isn't a controversial take. I guarantee you the average retail employee works harder than Jeff Bezos.

3. What do you call the 2008 Bank Bailouts if not Trickle-Down Economics? Yes it's origin was out of humor, but what should I call that ****ing disgrace of a policy then if not that?

4. We can just have a difference of opinion here because the velocity of money is better served flowing from the bottom upward in my estimation than from the top downward. Stipulating an economy is best done by the people having it change hands with one another, not by having high score chasers flick numbers on a screen. What ever you want to call that velocity of money you can combine into conversation 3/4. It's at its core not sending money through the everyday person's hand. Because how many of these investments are even American anymore.

5. Workers are destroyed because (see John Deere) we tied healthcare to employment and now actively let companies threaten our healthcare legally to keep working. We're too civilized of a nation to have this problem. Canada figured it out. Why can't we?

6. You can sell me on the left fetishizing certain creeds and races and treating them almost as trophies / pets. But that's low on the priority pole for what's important.