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What are rich liberals?
- Thread starter mutantmagnet
- Start date
The fabled "elites" that you hear so much about from right wing crackpots.
The desperation comes from the feeling that we're in an economic bubble right now, and there's a crash coming soon. From what I can tell this sentiment is shared by the left-left (fishhook theory) and center-left (Dems fix the economy Repubs destroy it). While wages have "finally started to rise" now while in previous cycles wages actually rose throughout the boom periods. Years of flat wages plus increasing costs of essentials like housing, healthcare, and education keep people from building savings to weather a crash.
That's Capitalism working properly. You put the profit back in to keep the business growing, and by growing that means looking out for the welfare of your employees and paying the fair share of taxes for any future employees to have had a decent education from the state.
The drive for shareholder profits is what is buggering it all up. Making money for the shareholders means the workers are squeezed, management are having to streamline the workforce. Paying the minimum, skimping the work.
If the players don't play the capitism game fairly inequality grows.
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing the massive amount of cognitive dissonance that has been happening in these threads.
Any of you personally worth 500 Million or more? If not, You're more than likely A-OK in my book.
Success is great and everything you're saying about how your business is run is fantastic and how it's supposed to be.
Edit: I want to clarify that I'm not against wealth or hate the rich, exorbitant wealth is the problem for me, I'm speaking 1% or 0.1% type people. Can't speak for whatever OP is talking about.
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The king has done more for people than 99% of the US politician whether they be liberal or conservative.
I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with how far left this board is getting. Are we sure the Russians didn't infiltrate Era?
Absolutely, his school is straight up one of the best things an athlete has ever done. Hopefully my sarcasm wasn't lost
I think it's a million times easier to decide how to spend or distribute someone else's money. But when the arrow comes back around to yourself or a lot of the people who claim they want to eat the rich and it's their turn to "pay up" or point out all they could be doing with their "wealth" their tune starts to change or the goal post get moved.
Are you joking? Stalinist Russia was an abomination and modern Russia is a despotic mess.
You need to recalibrate your left stick.
People like Buffett and Gates are using the thing they are best at, making money, to amass a fortune large enough to help a staggering amount of people. They are holding onto it until they die because as long as they are alive they can use that money to make more money, which will then ultimately help more people.
Your thinking on this issue needs some reevaluation.
I was referring to Russia and their recent history of starting shit on social media in order to divide the American left and right even further. Bad joke, sorry
And yet he has done more for the poor than anyone on this board. Crook indeed lmao
ur sarcasm wasn't lost
People with enough empathy to feel bad about inequality and oppression, but not enough empathy to stop feeding into the systems that create it.
I disagree with the characterization that the NYT is a "right center" lean. Increasingly, from the more progressive left anything that isn't "leftist progressive" is being categorized as "center right," it isn't. The NYT is center left by American standards. Sure, by say, the standards of the Netherlands or something, it may be center right, but it's an American newspaper and judged by that American standard it represents a coastal, center-left perspective. When other "impartial" organizations try to take a birds-eye look at American media and classify it into left/center/right, like the Pew Charitable Trust for instance or academic studies from the University of Michigan, they almost always classify the NYT and most other mainstream American urban-center newspapers in this left-of-center area. The only places that routinely criticize the NYT as being a right-leaning publication are places on the ideological poles, it's never well researched, it's never exhaustive, and they make that statement to justify a narrative, not because it's factually true. It's unfounded and incorrect.
When it comes to op-eds, I don't necessarily agree with "equal treatment," but the majority of OpEds in the NYT are left of center, about a 8/2 or 7/3 ratio in a given Sunday Times where the Op Eds are much larger. For the daily op-eds it's usually 13:3 left:right. It's just that every time that Jonah Goldberg or Larry Kudlow has an OpEd in the NYT, it ends up making rounds in more progressive circles, while the 6 or 7 mainstream center-left or further progressive left OpEds in that same issue aren't remarkable. Further, I think there's a tendency to take someone like Goldberg -- a neoconservative anti-Trumper who certainly enabled the military adventurism when neoconservatives controlled the Republican party and likely led to a world where Trumpism could take over the GOP -- and convey him as a paragon of the far right, but in American politics, he's not, he's genuinely conservative but he's not far right or populist right. Now, I'm using Goldberg as an example because he's someone who frequently appears on NPR or in the Washington Post or Meet the Press to represent "the congenial conservative." I'm sure that there are other more extreme conservatives who also appear in the NYT OpEd section, but I don't read their OpEds and have little interest in them... Some Goldberg is typically the guy I fall back on. I'm sure there may be some more extreme editorialists that they feature, but I don't read them because I have a brain and can choose for myself. Generally, the readership of the New York Times tends to skew liberal, generally tends to skew more informed, generally tends to skew more educated, and we all have brains and we can decide if someone is stanning for Trump in a particular OpEd page, that we can read the 5 or 6 OpEds that are critical of Trump on that same page instead.
You're right that the NYT takes a non-confrontational approach to reporting the news, but I don't think that news organizations dedicated to reporting should take a confrontational approach to reporting the news. That's why we have modern tabloids like the Daily Beast, the Atlantic, or Slate (and I don't mean 'tabloid' in a negative way, it's actually how the Editor in Chief refers to the latest incantation of the Daily Beast: the modern broadsheet, A respected publication that is willing to be confrontational, do a deep-dive, and call someone out in flowery language). There is a place for confrontation, but there is a greater need for deep investigative journalism, embedded journalists, and people working the daily beat of reporting -- which is something that the Daily Beast cannot afford to do, and so they don't do it. I saw a lot of criticism of, for instance, Maggie Habberman from the NYT for her daily coverage of Trump, as she was assigned to the TRump campaign and is the White House press reporter, and she has surprisingly strong access to a president who is openly hostile to news organizations like the Times. People have said like, "How can you defend Maggie Habberman?" in the past, and it's like, well, I shouldn't have to: She's won two Pulitzer Prizes covering the Trump Administration and campaign; so much of what we have the president on record saying has come from Habberman and her colleagues (most of whom, admittedly, I don't know their names), and so much of the reporting that other outlets like the Daily Beast or what have you can use to tear this administration down comes from the embedded reporters at the NYT, WaPo, and those other outlets that are committed to funding embedded journalists. Today, we've got an over-abundance of confrontation, and over the last 20 years, a perpetually dwindling dearth of non-confrontational committed reporting, reporting facts and reality, instead of appealing to ideology and emotion. Trump has, of course, reversed the trend in the decline of journalism and we're in the midst of this ~4 year window where organizations like the TImes and WaPo can reverse their economic forecast, but that's probably not a longterm trend, and there's a likelihood that national reporting organizations like the NYT and WaPo could go the way of local reporting organizations, and become like the thousands of local newspapers that have had to shutter and close... or be gobbled up by conservative media companies and turned into daily smut. If that happens, our democracy will be in much worse shape than it is today.
I'm open to the argument about how newspaper press can be harmful when covering a candidate like Trump, because when Trump dominates the collective American psyche for a year, they end up writing far more articles about Trump in a given news cycle than other candidates. And, for sure, the NYT profits off the Trump presidency like CNN does, but... so do you, so do I, so does this forum, so does far left Reddit, or whatever our preferred community is. Every day this forum is filled with a dozen fresh threads about Trump, thousands of posts, hundreds of thousands of views of those posts a week. You and I, critics of Trump, are likely to see our posts quoted, and nodded along to. For sure, nobody is paying us for these takes on Trump, but our egos get that little boost anytime we say something about Trump that other people agree with, a little social equity to boost our spirits. Trump is a lightning rod and always has been, and it's tough to criticize a reporting outlet like the NYT for covering Trump and profiting off of that coverage without also criticizing ourselves for being as obsessed with the daily machinations of Donald Trump. If Trump weren't profitable and the NYT couldn't profitably cover him, almost everything that we know about the TRump/Russia relationship, the Trump ORg's shady business dealings, where the Trump family got their money from, the hush payments, and all else, wouldn't be known, because it's those dogged outlets like the NYT, WaPo, or what have you, putting the money into hiring journalists to dig into that and report on that. WHatever our preferred Subreddit, or podcast, or very ideologically polar source, wouldn't have anything to write about or cover without the major investigators putting the funding into investigative journalism.
Where I completely agree with you on is highlighting more people of color. The New York Times is committed to that, and they're aheead of most news organizations in the US, but it's not enough. They publish a yearly report on that, they still only employ something like 30% people of color, but in the last year they've now become a majority woman staffed organization, and among leadership positions, they're nearing 50/50 male:female ration, where just 4 years ago it was closer to 60/40. With race and ethnicity, this is something that needs to be more reflective of New York City as a whole, but the NYT is committed to that, and the numbers have been improving every year since they started tracking it.
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My take from this thread is that barely anyone knows what liberal / conservative means, not liking something means you can paint it with a broad "that's conservative" brush, and many unironically espouse the edgy teenage rhetoric of "people with money are evil", which has nothing to do with what the thread is asking for
That's a terrible take. They could've bought off every single politician in Congress to do their bidding and it would've eased the suffering of billions and still have money leftover for their current pet projects. They can get fucked.
While I agree with everything you said almost to the letter, I also know that viewpoint doesn't fly with a lot of people here.
There is an idea with some that it's always someone's fault, always someone to blame. The better things are, the harder that gets and the more edgy people get in making their claims.
Haha, no worries. The joke wasn't as bad as my attempt to make the chat gaming relevant with the tip to recalibrate your left stick.
I think it's a million times easier to be wealthy than it is to be poor.
The point is that Capitalism has a profit motive above all things, it has fuck all to do with morality, pardon my french. If you want to create a society that is better for as many people as possible then you (the government) needs to decide how to spend and distribute "other people's money" for the betterment of laborers because Capital owners generally will not do it on their own. Trickle down economics doesn't work.
...are you actually suggesting they are bad people for not engaging in immoral and illegal acts that would undermine our democracy?
That's a new one.
We're talking Billions of dollars that can help people now and the reason they're holding it is to make more money in the future to solve future problems they won't be alive for? Cool. All the people suffering now are excited for these hypothetical future people im sure.
This thread is embarrassing. Liberals can't be rich LOL
True equality is not and will never be a thing. Access to cheap healthcare, good education, high quality public transportation and equal rights can be.
True equality is not and will never be a thing. Access to cheap healthcare, good education, high quality public transportation and equal rights can be.
Well, I'm black and I go to work and making informed investment decisions to help create generational wealth for my family.
And I still want to get taxed at the appropriate rate to ensure that we have safety nets, resources, and opportunities for all individuals in our society.
Lol hell, I even made my employer provide free AI services to non-profits I care about.
And I still want to get taxed at the appropriate rate to ensure that we have safety nets, resources, and opportunities for all individuals in our society.
Lol hell, I even made my employer provide free AI services to non-profits I care about.
How do you think they got their fortunes? Gates is notorious for being absolutely cutthroat in business and Buffet has a ton of money in predatory lending.
As for illegality and immorality, what do you think lobbying and PAC's are? If you want to cripple yourself for appearance's sake, that's on you. As for me, I'm gonna support bringing rocket launchers to a gun fight if "allies" are too scared to get dirty.
There are billions of people...hundreds of millions of children right now that are living that could use that help. I stand by my initial statement about Gates and Buffet getting fucked.
I agree and you put it better than I did, thank you. My conclusion to the feeling of desperation is that it's resulting in something that is unhinged and more destructive. For me, I went to the extreme of a Cambodian-esque revolution where we, the children of the revolution, have to eat our parents and think its okay because that's the only way to bring about this new dawn of progress. I was definitely being extreme, but trying to reflect what I think is a growing, tangible extremity in these threads about how disgusting liberals are.
They are donating billions now, and the fortunes they leave will do more good for more people than the acts of almost any other individual in history.
The idea that they are being attacked for trying to do the most good for the most people possible is...I don't even know. Even if you think they should be donating the money now and not later for whatever reason, that they are bad simply because they are not helping people in the way you would most prefer is pretty egocentric.
User Banned (1 Week): Inflammatory Generalizations
This is why there is a stereotype that call "poor people is stupid"
Rich people often rich because they give more than they take, they work harder than average joe.
Take lottery winners and star athletes case (many of them) as example, rich quick but lost it all quick too without doing anything useful at all.
But those who rich with skill and such has a ground a foundation and roots to keep them rich and produce many benefit to society, hate that throwing on them are like pure envy.
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I don't disagree with your post. I'm mainly pointing out the hypocrisy that usually comes with those that tend to be more vocal about the "dirty evil rich" but wouldn't be willing to give up some of their creature comforts to help those below themselves who might view them as privileged.
Bottom line is that wages are lagging far behind worker productivity and have been since the 1970s, that money that is no longer going to laborers has directly contributed to the creation of this mega multimillionaire and billionaire class. Reagan and Thatcher did a lot to make that happen. French Economist Thomas Piketty discusses this very well that in developed first world countries, wealth inequality has gotten worse and worse to the point that it could get back to the levels of Victorian England. When places like America in particular are offering, in many ways, a worse living experience for poor and middle class than they had several decades ago, it's a problem. Soft solutions like the ones that a lot of the rich liberal types propose don't seem good enough.
If that's what you think, you've got some serious misconceptions about how our own government works if you think it's so dissimilar.
They are not "doing the most good for the most possible people". They are pushing nice sounding surface level improvements which appeal to people who want to believe the world is getting better, that mask and paper over deeper problems. The reduction of philanthropy to "charity is good, any amount of charity is preferable to non-charity" fails to address more fundamental problems with market economy that contributes to global inequality.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/12/18215534/bill-gates-global-poverty-chart
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2014/08/29/exposing-the-great-poverty-reduction-lie/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-...4/jul/22/africa-rescue-aid-stealing-resources
CitationsNeeded podcast had a good episode about this that had a thread a while back:
https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst...lopment-shaming-the-global-south-cf399e88510e
Why do we keep going back to the same handful and not the vast majority who aren't doing the same thing or close to? Generally speaking the ones at the top are not, because if they were they wouldn't be exorbitantly rich.
We're almost assuredly not going to agree on this, but I'm not sure why I'm egocentric for thinking my way is better but they aren't.
Bill Gates: I KNOW what they need, so I will amass the wealth and then decide to give it away once I no longer need it.
That's both selfish and egocentric. They could change lives every day if they wanted with that amount of money.
1) thanks for the insult, really conductive to conversation.
2) This is patently false because inheritances and generational wealth is a thing. It's also insulting to everybody not rich. The lazy poor recontextualized. Nice.
I'm quoting again because I Didn't want to edit my post ~20mins or whenever after posting it... Took me a min to read through this link. (I skipped the Vox one, again... I like Vox sometimes, but ... eh, that's a topic for another thread)
I like reading TNR, and this was a good article, but I think it demonstrates my point (multiple times), that the further left takes the handful of instances where the NYT does not follow the ideological perspective of the further left -- as you put it in a good way, is not ideologically confrontational -- and then castigates the Times as a right leaning publication -- which it factually is not, and I think that is the conclusion of this piece.
Regarding your edit, you're right that we disagree on that. I wouldn't say I think news media shouldn't be ideologically informed, but that news media should not be ideologically expressive. I think that's the place for Editorials/OpEds, to confront someone or something ideologically, but that the journalistic outlet of the paper should be dogged and objective. I think it's impossible, of course, to avoid ideology because ultimately these investigative journalists are human and we all allow our ideology to influence us in some way. When it comes to reporting, I think I hold truth and objectivity at the highest level, and then ideological bent somewhere below that. Ultimately, I think that a more informed society becomes a more progressive society, and if you put truth and objectivity below ideological expression, then ultimately you become less informed, and -- in my opinion -- less progressive.
*edit*
I also want to say I'll likely be gone most of the weekend, so if I don't reply ever, it's likely because I've been away too long, but I Always appreciate the perspective you share. Sometimes I disagree, but I always get a good perspective from your posts.
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This is why I recommended people to read the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - the conditions the people lived in in 1910 in the book are not a million miles away today.
Here's the first chapter, in that chapter alone it shows how we've ended up with things like Brexit and Trump.
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Ragged_Trousered_Philanthropists/Chapter_1
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauras...times-the-wealth-of-a-black-one/#70f64b6d1f45
The Racial Wealth Gap: Why A Typical White Household Has 16 Times The Wealth Of A Black One
There's a generational component to wealth accumulation and inequality that can't be denied though it is rarely addressed in the public or in policy. When some leftists denigrate "rich liberals" as low-key conservatives, it's because of attitudes like these.
To deny this is to assert that poor black households don't work as hard as rich white households. Setting aside how ludicrous this sounds when most of the White American South built their material wealth, for which they have much to thank for what they have in the modern day, on the back of chattel slavery, it is a fundamentally racist idea.