• CainTheLongshot@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    My somewhat conservative brother told me the other day that if we tax billionaires, they will be forced to lay off employees.

    I just don’t have enough time and dry erase markers to break down how to effectively setup a BETTER economy where we can tax billionaires and still have a low unemployment rate, and not be beholden to fake job creators who were going to do layoffs anyways because line needs to always go up.

    • KokoSabreScruffy@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      My somewhat conservative brother told me the other day that if we tax billionaires, they will be forced to lay off employees.

      My dad is the same “If we do X that benefits us something bad will happen” and then… the bad thing happens anyways… either it be increasing prices or laying employees off

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I’ve tried to phrase it as “as much as we are taxed”. Some of them understand “tax billionaires” as “tax the hell out of them”. While people here may think that’s reasonable, how about we start with “as much as we are taxed”?

      While I dont want to pay taxes any more than anyone else, I can’t really object to paying a higher rate than people with less income. But why aren’t wealthy people taxed at least as much?

      Everyone (US) is at least somewhat familiar with different tax brackets even if they don’t understand them, so it should put it in better perspective that billionaires have at some point much lower effective tax rates than the rest of us, and it should be more clear how unfair that is. Not that it helps so far

    • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They’re listening to the talking heads of nazi propaganda, who always give their listeners two ways to fight people calling out nazi propaganda.

      Billionaires can afford to pay people!

      nazi: No, they can’t, it’ll increase unemployment!

      nazi: Jobs other than billionaire jobs suck!

      You’re right, you don’t have enough time and dry markers to counter all their bullshit. Even if you did, they’d deflect to something else.

      Nobody’s “a little conservative” anymore, that’s another nazi lie.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I have started calling this administration and any diehard supporter of them Nazis, but I really don’t find it helpful to call literally all of them Nazis – particularly those with idiotic economic attitudes. They’re already saying “Nazi” just means you disagree, stupid leftist!

        No, Nazi means you support a racist authoritarian inhuman government. Not that you’re stupid when it comes to economic policy.

      • CainTheLongshot@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I only say somewhat because he doesn’t actually support (or voted for) this admin. He only voted for him in 16, and quickly realized how stupid he is. He has voted Democrat the last few elections, but differs in how we actually fix things.

        So basically your average centrist right now.

        What’s strange is that he was a huge Bernie supporter back in 16, and that was the reason he flipped to R that election. So it’s odd he’s deepthroating billionaire propaganda now. He also doesn’t watch any news outlets, and mostly gets his info from TikTok, which his feed is probably all Joe Rogan clips at this point.

        • Soggy@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          That’s not “strange” that’s just contrarian anti-establishmentarianism. No positive stances, only negarive ones.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Yeah, unfortunately that is sort of the core of what actual conservatism is. “Don’t change ANYTHING, that’s SCARY!”

      And then what “conservatism” has become today, also leads to the same result: “Let us all protect the vulnerable billionaires! At ANY cost!”

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Interesting video. Thanks for that. I wasn’t saying that conservatives actually ever lived up to what they used to say they were striving for, though. I was speaking in a hypothetical sense, granting them the benefit of doubt, admittedly undeservedly.