And cut aid and foreign military adventures. A lot of countries would be fine with us cutting aid as long as it meant we got out of their hair at the same time.

Only working and middle really have income. The top brackets make their money on their ownership/stock/options

May I ask what a VAT is?

Value-Added Tax

@phinami Florida does that. A modest corporate income tax, moderate sales taxes, and no personal income taxes.

@ian, it is like a sales tax but takes place all through the supply chain, not just at retail

^ What @phinami said.

I'm not an economist, but wouldn't raising taxes on companies just cause them to jack up their prices to equalize it out

corporations were taxed heavily during the New Deal era yet prices didn't mysteriously explode

I agree that is likely what happens Immune to Coochie, which is why I favor the sales tax, but because of that, they are essentially the same thing. Probably easier to sell VAT as it is 'going after the corporations'

Matt I think there are other factors to pricing in the depression. The Youtuber Academic Agent made some vids on that recently

I'm not talking about just the Depression but the New Deal Coalition era in general: 1932 to 1980

prices didn't inflate in the 1940's or 1950's in response to high corporate taxation

I don't think VATs lead to inflation

given that most of the big companies are multinationals now with their corporate HQs in other countries (Apple is based in Ireland, for example), there are a myriad of ways they could be dealt with

Inflation is more a monetary phenomenon

there's also a social element to these kinds of arguments

Again though, I don't really have a big problem with VAT

corporations that jack up their prices in response to increased taxation could be labeled "unpatriotic" and be boycotted

corporations are birthed by the government and can be punished or killed by that same government

shaming corporations and businessmen into serving the nation was big in the 1930's and 1940's: "price gouging" and the like were powerful accusations

I don't see companies as evil and don't want the US to turn into like doing business in Europe which is a pain in the ass, and in general then favors big companies

I don't see them as inherently evil but they should be reminded who butters their bread

I'd personally go a step further and abolish corporate personhood

which is one of the most retarded things ever

one thing for sure is they really deserve to get stuck with high taxes

all they do is abuse workers and push globohomo shit

another bullshit ad from gilette and "the taxes just got 10% higher" motherfuckers

that inventory robot video on twitter i saw earlier is scary

walmart

opened the browser this morning at work and had a giant fat "women in the workplace" on the homepage of our intranet

also high taxes on luxury items like expensive cars and stupid fashion shit women buy

gucci bags and BMWs at 80%

@mattforney and @Bechtloff should fight each other on the Yang stuff

yes voting for yang is accelerationist but your other choice is boomer trump who is betraying us for israel

we're in the same position we were in 2016: we have a known quantity vs. an unknown one

Yang MAY not be able to implement his platform, but Trump DEFINITELY won't

Yang should be shilled in order to drive a wedge in the dem party. They either coopt his platform or go full intersectionality and crumble. I'm hoping for the latter

Yep

an ideal scenario that could play out is that Yang gets the nomination but loses in the general, and in the meantime it scares trump away from a few of his shitty policies