alvvayson @ alvvayson @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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2 yr. ago

I think you are being a bit too harsh.

The point is that a PAC that used to raise money for, and support, Nikki Haley now supports Harris.

Which conceivably indicates that some of the Haley voters will switch to Harris.

That is newsworthy and it doesn't mean that Haley endorses Harris.

No more billionaires, but everyone can be a millionaire.

The shortest path to equality is to greatly reduce taxes on the middle class and increase them on the wealthy.

It puzzles me why leftist parties don't all embrace lower taxes for the middle class.

Fair enough. The old nature vs nurture strikes again.

As a counterpoint, DNA gets very diluted very quickly, so someone like Prince Andrew has basically zero DNA in common with the earliest English kings.

On the other hand, that's one of the most f-d up family trees in the world, so just the inbreeding could explain a lot.

A lot, I dare even say most, of these people are born into wealth though.

The more rags to riches type of people tend to be more normal.

I know, but we were having a conversation about 2016 and the voters didn't pick Clinton then.

At least, not enough of them in certain swing states.

I think the latest insights are showing that it is more than just that though.

Extreme wealth also leads to mental health issues. Paranoia (leading Zuckerberg to build a $260M bunker in Hawaii), god complexes (people like Trump and Bloomberg running for president) and just general anti-social tendencies, like Musk buying twitter and impregnating SpaceX employees.

Pedophilia also deserves a special mention. Look a level deeper at the Epstein situation. Note that they were mostly after post-pubescent young girls, so it wasn't the "I am attracted to pre-pubescent kids" type of pedophilia, but the "I am so powerful, I'm going to eat the forbidden fruit" type of pedophilia.

There should definitely be a cap on wealth.

Dude, I have talked to AI bots that are more intelligent than this

Tax collection is very effective. Extremely effective, even.

That's my whole point.

You could also say, if the Democrats had nominated a more likeable candidate in 2016, we wouldn't be here.

Clinton got less votes than Obama in 2012 and 2008, even though the population had grown during that time.

And it wasn't the Bernie bros who stayed home. Polling revealed that the Bernie bros showed up.

Blaming the voters is like having your bakery go bankrupt and trying to blame people for not buying your shitty cake.

First, bake a better cake.

I am not proposing any new solution. Tax collection agencies across the European Union already audit businesses and it's a revenue generating activity.

Exactly. Democrats are falling in line and that's to be expected. They already voted for her as VP, so they should have no objection to her as President.

But independents and swing voters should still be undecided on her. Some might lean slightly towards her because she is younger and not a senile fascist, but overall, it should not be expected that they will support her at this stage.

Polling in September will be more accurate.

You weren't asking anything. You were just lumping things together.

To audit tax fraud, just audit the books. If a restaurant is full on a Friday night, but the books show few sales, then you have your evidence.

If someone buys a new car and has a nice house, but claims their business is hardly making profit, then the tax authority can demand they explain the source of their income.

Again, this is how they got Al Capone 100 years ago.

Money laundering is much more difficult and it's the opposite. Because the laundering restaurant can just write in the books that they sold 100 more cocktails on a Friday night, paid by cash. And they also pay the required tax on it.

To combat money laundering, you need to audit the customers of the establishment, which is why they want to reduce the usage of cash.

But instead of turning the EU into East Germany, we should just stop criminalizing vices and regulate that, which is the main source of dirty money.

Dude, tax collection has been optimized for hundreds of years before we even had electronic money.

They even got Al Capone.

Money laundering is the opposite of tax evasion. If you don't understand that those two things are not the same, then I can't really help you.

Tax evasion is a thing, yes. But it's also relatively easy to prosecute by auditing.

Money laundering requires a source of illegal money. And, what you may not realize, money laundering schemes always pay tax. They actually overpay taxes by faking non-existent economic activity in order to make the illegal money legal.

Take away the source of illegal money and money laundering disappears.

Criminals make most of their money from drugs. And most law enforcement resources are allocated to fighting drugs.

It's our failed "war on drugs" that is creating a rich criminal class in society.

Legalize and regulate drugs, alcohol, prostitution and gambling and then there won't be a huge criminal economy. What remains can then be easily squashed by law enforcement.

The humiliation of losing to a black woman.

The past months the mood in America has been: not these two old geezers again.

I am honestly optimistic that it's going to be a landslide for the Democrats without Biden. Americans are just sick of Trump and they didn't want Biden to run again.

So the Democrats are giving the people what they want, while the Republicans are trying to force feed them something they don't want.

Let's see how this plays out.

I have read research that conservatives are high on fear and low on empathy, while progressives are high on empathy and low on fear.

And that just always clicks. It's also quite universal, in all countries.

It also really explains why Republicans only change when it happens to them: suddenly their low empathy finally gets activated and the fear goes away because it is now familiar.

Kamala Harris was born October 20th, 1964.

Gen X starts at 1965 and Baby boomers end in 1964.

You were this close Gen X....

I am not a lawyer, but what is clear is that each State sets its own laws. By the constitution, States are in charge of elections.

What I have heard is that Biden has to release his delegates, who are already bound to him. Many states have already had their primaries completed with the Biden/Harris ticket winning.

Sending those electors to the Convention and letting them choose someone else is going to be a grey area.

If they choose Harris, it's pretty sound. When a president steps down, the VP becomes president, so there is definitely precedent and a legal basis.

But if Biden releases his delegates and lets them vote for anyone? That will be challenged and it will go to the supreme court. And SCOTUS is corrupt enough to find some flimsy legal excuse that helps Republicans.

So yeah, that's what I've heard. But I am not an expert.

Well, to be fair, he should have stepped down a year ago, or at least 3 months ago. I vaguely remember him saying he was going to be a 1 term candidate in 2020.

Anyway, I respect Biden. I honestly think he was a better president than Obama, Bush, Trump and Clinton. Perhaps the best since Carter or JFK.

Correct.

And Kamala is the most logical choice, because there will be the least amount of legal hurdles, since she was already on the ticket.

And the Republicans already said they are going to mount legal challenges, which can easily lead to SCOTUS deciding the election. So I expect Sanders, AOC and progressives to strongly push for Kamala.

But I fully expect the DNC to push forward some corporate candidate like Bloomberg.

It's going to be interesting.