Are We Wasting Money?

[@Kumquat57]

What if the government just made more gold?

[@dracomight]

Get this guy on congress ASAP

[@NOVAZ3N]

Holy shit based

[@Apocobat]

Full metal alchemist

[@Apocobat]

Full metal alchemist

[@Vici0uSquirrel]

Yeah just bring back Alchemy

[@sakaraist]

People throwing a fit when you mention cutting military spending is wild. I had to order a $48,000 socket. Not even a smart socket or anything, just a big piece of metal that I could have done up in an hour with some angle iron, plate, and a welding rod or two. It wasn't some special steel, just a typical impact socket with a fancy piece of paper saying that it was special. Also broke that socket a couple weeks later.

[@4purs]

They think he’s saying to cut spending as in cut innovation and guns and tanks, but he literally just means cut all the bloat and stop letting themselves get fucked over by contracts and prices

[@joshuawhite9876]

Contract stuff is just wild. If the prices aren't juiced for corruption, I have literally no idea what they're so high for

[@gwop827]

@@joshuawhite9876 its a nice cycle. These companies take money, then "donate" it back to congress, who charge the average person more

[@mattbenz99]

I am not in favour of cutting military spending. I'm in favour of leaning up the military and spending more on R&D. R&D is truly how America keeps their military advantage.

[@gwop827]

@@mattbenz99 wdym? Our country spends triples china in military spending and is 9x of Russia. The reason we spend this much is the amount of waste, with people taking joyrides of 100m dollar jets. Then private contractors will come in, charge billions more than it would cost the military to do it themselves, bribe Congress into accepting everything they charge, and then give that money to the billionaires who own them.

[@papasalvo]

Bro I just saw a video the other day which was some court hearing where a dude holds up a bag of Bushings and asks the miltary higher up "How much do you think the airforce spends on this." Turns out its $90,000!!!!! and the crazy part...THE BAG WASNT EVEN FULL ITS 90 GRAND AND THEY ONLY GIVE YOU LIKE 20% OF THIS BIG ASS BAG

[@tyler.walker]

The awesome thing is that government contracts are free to be filled by whoever wants them. If you find out a way to supply empty bushing bags to the military, you could literally become a millionaire.

[@Bagel920]

Those bushings better be made of the highest quality Japanese 1000 Fold Steel to be worth $90,000 a bag

[@charlesyoung3444]

​@@Bagel920better be made of fucking forged titanium and diamond dust😂

[@SYLin-rs8ob]

@@tyler.walker cave johnson moment

[@tyler.walker]

@@SYLin-rs8ob The world needs more Cave Johnson’s

[@-Sai]

she marketing on my monday till i atrioc

[@electron6825]

frfr 😩😩😤

[@flacka156]

damn. truth

[@simplychaff1875]

“I think we’re gonna need less human beings” -Brandon “Glizzy Davos WEF” Ewing

[@goose9515]

Brandon "Thomas Malthus troc" Ewing

[@Drdslyr]

I miss Glarketing mondays

[@Dreg-dd4nq]

Doesn’t he still have them

[@tommylugaresi7431]

Estate tax would have to get wildly harsh on the rich, because most of the money gets passed down via permanent life insurance policies that get paid into family trusts, to avoid estate taxes. Potentially you could tax life insurance, however, they *supposedly* did a study on it back in the 90s and found that every dollar gained from taxing life insurance, it would result in $4 needed in extra social benefits in the future. There's also some weird charity loopholes that need to be fixed too.

[@madnessman1520]

Do you mean how charities can sometimes only give like a cent of every euro and class that as charity

[@tommylugaresi7431]

@@madnessman1520 that's sounds like a problem. What I was referring to is the ability for people (usually rich) to avoid taxes when selling real estate (usually homes) by creating something called a "charitable remainder trust". Or, at least that's what I remember it being called.

[@SomethingBAD27]

Yup. But I’m with Atrioc 1000000% on the idea of *something* needed to be done. Absolutely no reason for Sam Walton’s great great grandchildren to be billionaires for simply spawning out of the right vagina.

[@Sentralkontrol]

The main thing this video has taught me is that atrioc is unbelievably based for a capitalist

[@Babigoldfish]

He's one unequal exchange from turning

[@PeidosFTW]

Basically a social democrat

[@2Links]

He's literally said "I do think the best economic system would be some kind of democratic socialism" iirc. But yes, for someone so into finance and marketing he is way further to the left, even if he isn't very political.

[@Babigoldfish]

@2Links if it has socialism at the end, it means worker owns the capital. Social democrat is also a misleading word, but democratic socialist is always incorrect

[@2Links]

@@Babigoldfish How is it incorrect?

[@nicholasgilbert9844]

Hey Atrioc, I'm studying Economics & Philosophy and I just wanted to say your takes are great! You clearly understand a lot of the issues around things like UBI and automation, even the bits most people overlook like how automation drives jobs out of a market that might not ever be replaced. Very glad to be a Big A Stan when I see you educate your viewers in a slightly judgmental but understanding way

[@chocolatetobi]

Automation deleting jobs makes sense when to develop it you need money and it's the people with the money who are creating problems.

[@Ohbanky]

2:21 don’t worry Atrioc. I am an enlightened chatter and downvoted both posts from that guy. Doing work that Burgzy would have been proud of O7

[@mesook8953]

“I’m married!” Flex 💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾

[@WHITEPERSUAS1ON]

United States Dynasty is over. Its time to hit the rebuild. Instead of being the Bulls, we need to be the Thunder. America just needs an SGA to build around

[@JushTv283]

We just need to build a solid infrastructure like the Texans and then get lucky in the draft with CJ Stroud

[@RandomNumber6598]

But OKC has hundreds of draft picks, US has none!

[@Kitajima2]

@@JushTv283 Texas does not have good infrastructure, and their cities are urban design nightmares, both functionally and aesthetically. My sister is moving out of Houston to CO this year

[@JushTv283]

@@Kitajima2 my friend u did not get the joke

[@Kitajima2]

@@JushTv283 ohh my bad. I looked up CJ stroud. I got lost with the transition from NBA to NFL bc I don't watch football as much

[@AutarchKade]

Big thing Atrioc touched on is Social Mobility. That's how easily someone poor can become rich, and vice versa. Countries with less intergenerational wealth have higher social mobility. UBI, safety nets, estate taxes, and tuition free colleges could all improve people's ability to get themselves rich.

[@gamesguy]

Europe has more intergenerational wealth than the US.

[@Potatotenkopf]

Not just military spending the same thing happens in the medical field where Americans spend more than anyone else for essentially the same medicines Europe gets for 5 or 10 times cheaper.

[@Prodigial]

As someone in the medical field, one big reason is because those countries get their medical research essentially for free. The US funds 50% of all medical research which other countries can just read a journal article about lol. Hospitals also don't have the huge profit margins people imagine; the reason they charge you specifically so much is because you likely have insurance. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who don't pay a cent while getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of meds and care.

[@DNeonLamp]

​​​@@Prodigial Medical research is not medical practice. People around the world aren't getting medicine invented a century ago cheaper because they didn't pay to research it. It's also not like the rest of the world doesn't have the US exceptionalism to research things. But when pharmaceutical companies and other aspects of the medical industry make more money in the US than they do elsewhere it's no fucking surprise that they draw researchers to the US. But most importantly: you're judging research by money spent and not output, which will always favour the country with extortionate wealth to spend. There's bloat in US medical spending much like there is in the US military, judging the effectiveness by cost is fucking stupid. Secondly, it's not about the hospitals, it's about the tertiary industries like insurance, suppliers and pharmaceuticals who do have the most insane profit margins.

[@Prodigial]

@@DNeonLamp This is so blatantly wrong I'm disappointed in the thumbs up. First off, I'm judging research in studies published, not in shekels spent. Second, the pharmaceutical companies charge more for meds here to recoup their research expenses. Other countries can make slight alterations to the drug in question (it is impossible to legally protect against this) and then can sell the same thing without the hundreds of millions spent on researching it. So, yeah, the world DOESN'T have the US exceptionalism when it comes to researching things; we fund and publish an overwhelming amount compared to them. There is definitely bloat, but the US does not get insane amounts of credit for what we've done for healthcare across the world. As far as effectiveness goes in medicine, if you have a LIFE THREATENING condition, your best odds of success are in America, cost aside. Our hospitals are better outfitted, doctors trained for longer, and no expense spared. The only reason health outcomes aren't better in the US is due to lack of primary care and a much "sicker" population (70% of our population is overweight or obese which causes diabetes, heart conditions, and numerous other co-morbidities that physicians and hospitals in other nations don't encounter at half the rate). I could go on about this for hours; I wrote a thesis on this prior to medical school, but suffice to say that I know what I'm talking about here whereas you are talking in broad generalizations that everyone does when it comes to healthcare costs.

[@chocolatetobi]

Once again it's bloat. Too many clerks reading the same sheet just to move it down for an approval for payout. Learned in my communication in the healthcare workplace that 1/3 the price of healthcare is now administrative bloat.

[@Shlant]

I played with one of those websites that let you balance the defecit like he mentioned, and the results turned out good. I uncapped the Social Security payroll tax, raised taxes on upper-middle and 1% earners, introduced a wealth tax, and brought back the corporate tax to what it once was. Alongside decreasing the military budget, I was also able to increase TANF, SSI, EPA, CDC, infrastructure, and humanitarian aid funding while filling in the deficit gap by 105%. Nice.

[@mattbenz99]

Those websites aren't accurate. You played a video game. There is a well known economic phenomenon that shows that tax revenue doesn't scale linearly with tax rate. This is because the increase in taxes changes economic incentives and often leads to a decrease in revenue due to money flowing elsewhere to legally avoid the tax. This is why France actually saw an increase in tax revenue when they lowered their taxes about 2 decades ago.

[@jonas1015119]

9:45 got *this* close to explaining market socialism (the actual equivalent of society being the nfl owners club, instead of an actual owners club who the rest of society desperately tries to tax while being lobbied by said owners)

[@YourAverageReviews]

I couldn't even imagine having 1 Billion dollars. That would literally set me and my child up for life and there are some people out here with multiple billions. It's mind blowing.

[@julesvandenbrand3817]

You have singlehandedly had an enormous impact on my general life, im stoned as shit, thanks bog a

[@RandomNumber6598]

I know at my company, when the supply chain issue was going on the understanding of the customers was taken advantage of to increase margin, and I know that’s what most large companies did.

[@ArgzeroYT]

Biggest problem with the multiple failures idea is that hyperregulation has overstrained innovation in regulated industries in order to prevent large companies taking advantage of people. There needs to be tiered regulation to prevent making innovation prohibitively expensive without being bought out or taking on ridiculous quantities of debt/leverage just to be able to afford translating products into real standalone-capable products. Small companies just cannot compete with economies of scale.

[@ghosty-fr2sj]

I didnt realize how much I missed big A glad you're back big bro

[@DJTiredBoy]

Atrioc hit that “imagine a society” speech like he’s about to run for president

[@Landshark583]

9:20 "The government isnt spending our tax dollars properly and to fix this there should be a massive inheritance tax."

[@sordid_]

I swear a lot of people think socialism is when we tax more and have safety nets. Do people even know what socilaism is anymore. Has american capitalism broken their brain that much?

[@anoukk_]

I mean socialism is a pretty broad concept which encompasses some of the things proposed. Americans aren't brain broken because they don't know what is and isn't socialism they are brain broken because they view socialism as inherently bad.

[@sordid_]

​@@anoukk_ What makes socialism socialism is owning the means of production. Just having safety nets and taxation doesn't actually make a country socialist. People view socialism as inherently bad because we havent gotten a example of it actually working.

[@testacals]

@@sordid_ "What makes socialism socialism is owning the means of production. " None of the used definition of socialism actually agree with this.

[@ItsActuallyTJ_]

tbf all those things originate from socialist principles, people just are decontextualized and misinformed about the definitions. Like all the alt right and conservatives that get afraid of the word gender or pronoun without realizing those are regular old English terms for basic things that have nothing to do with poltics.

[@sordid_]

@captainsuckbutt3917 how am i wrong? to have socialism you need to own the means of production. im not saying its the only thing, just thats its vital for something to be called socialism.

[@xmhkillz]

One thing that can be put in place is a law saying any sales and services to the government must be at or below the market rate, no more $90.000 bushings for the air force worth $200

[@SYLin-rs8ob]

I like the idea but I have some questions about it. What happens if the government want to buy something that doesn't exist. Like a naval base? Or a new stealth fighter design? Or what if they want to purchase something that has no market rate like MREs or hand grenades? Also, what method do can we use to determine whether the cost isn't artificially inflated when there is no market rate to compare it to?

[@xmhkillz]

@@SYLin-rs8ob Clearly it can not catch everything but its a big start, as far as MRE's just because they do not sell them to the public does not mean the products they contain have nothing to compare to.

[@ogge8375]

@@SYLin-rs8ob I mean your standard MRE or grenade does have a marketrate, but theoretically you could require open and transparent books of the military supplier and limit mark-up % to a fair rate and increase accountability with those responsible.

[@strongmaniac44]

Thanks ædish

[@ayoCC]

VAT is easy to not get avoided, and it can be shaped to be progressive. Put it on lucury goods, excempt it from healthy foods, put it on high sugar foods, put it at half strength on gatekeeper fast food, redistribute it as ubi instead of rolling it into the military.

[@pauljones9150]

Back in the good old days..... Glarketing monday was a thing Now all we have is smart, wise atrioc

[@nnumbers]

sometimes i think that people who don't believe that ubi is needed have never thought about someone less well off than themselves

[@okbuddy__]

I did some work on u.s politics when i had to do a campaign speech in english about why I should be u.s president, and when I did some research, it turned out that most of the high spending came from the fact that every market is privatised. There's no government control compared to other western countries in for example the drug market, which would otherwise keep the prices down. If you want to cut costs, you'd need a more government-controlled market. But I don't think that will ever happen/be allowed in the u.s unless some major mindset changes happen. Also the fact that you pay much more in both wages and administrative costs, as well as becoming a doctor being much more expensive (strictly talking on your high healthcare spending). So to put it simple, you've got to change from being ultra-capitalistic by taxing the rich more and having a more government controlled market in some areas (but again none of that probably won't happen). Can list more/explain further and better as well but this is just one short facet

[@ayoCC]

Run this through chatgpt for and ask it to summarize your post in 150 words or less

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

AND STILL NO STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS! And we can't go back to the Gold Standard there is no more gold in Fort Knox

[@quinnbrosseau3217]

did you even watch the video man the US is desperate for money rn

[@Eliano55]

UBI - how is that not just a inflation driving mechanism.

[@ItsActuallyTJ_]

he quite literally explains this 5:06

[@Eliano55]

@@ItsActuallyTJ_ yep, pull the trigger on that comment. still, he says that their should be a direct tax just to give people the UBI. As he explains, it has to be a direct tax, without it UBI becomes an inflation engine. And I dont belive in a goverment that will use money in a direct way, just to transfer it from point Wealthy to Point everybody. I get he is talking about automatization, but still its just about big companies that produce things to the normal folks. Historically this never worked.

[@psychogenical1419]

God i love these videos the most hes so educational and interesting

[@vivavitae]

I’ve argued this a thousand times, socialism is when the means of production are controlled by workers not capitalists. It is not capitalism

[@DiktatGame]

Best take i've ever eard about global economi. This vid should be shown in higher economical and political classes.

[@davidjacobson6791]

…Well that and every time there was a new vein to gold found it destabilized currencies. Thats the problem when you base the value of your currency on a mineral. There IS a set amount of gold in the world, and you don’t actually know where it all is.

[@Jankyito]

4:48 where do you think the money is going to come from?? We are already in a deficit, Ubi will 100% just be paid through printing more money. If we had a UBI for every adult of 8k, that would be over 2 trillion a year. Litteraly half of total revenue in 2023. That is an entire extra 1.3 US militaries. Just taxing rich people more doesnt seem like a viable answer in the slightest.

[@daybrake2]

from taxing rich people he says that 10 seconds later

[@Jankyito]

@jakebrown1066 is reading more than a sentence that difficult? My point is that taxing rich people more isn't going to generate anywhere near that kind of money

[@Darkcamera45]

@@Jankyito ye thats why i think it has to be simply a tax on automation like take a chunck of profits out of companies that are automated

[@russ2120]

He is so cogent and on it starting at 7:35 immediately after not understanding how VAT works.

[@kevinpiala6258]

He is right that a completely undirected VAT is regressive, but so is just saying "more tax", its not a useful framing. The question is whether to VAT instead of income of profit based taxes, and the answer is yes.

[@christopherthompson5400]

How does vat work?

[@russ2120]

@@kevinpiala6258 Not sure exactly what you mean by undirected, but VAT is not inherently regressive at all. VAT is an alternative to a sales tax.

[@kevinpiala6258]

@@russ2120 Sales taxes are regressive - the poor have to spend a larger portion of their income. You can deal with that by targeting your VAT - which basically every country with a VAT does - but thats exactly why focusing on this real regressive aspect is so tempting for people, its like a tax strawman. People get distracted by the oversimplified bad idea version of a reasonable VAT implementation.

[@H0uxdubxston]

Id love to have a conversation with Big A about the death tax. That can be a messed up tax for small business

[@johndoe-is2fw]

nordic EU Citizen here, our systems are failing too - everybody my age (30's) has a private retirementplan because we already can see the writing on the wall. Our Pentions will be averaged and everybody will be paided the same, because there arent enough young people, thus the social pention is critical underfunded, with ongoing deterioraton.

[@user-cz3sl5gr3n]

After doing the budget balancing exercise, it's hilarious how easy it is to not only balance the budget, but to increase spending towards every social program AND end up with extra left over. America's rich pay pennies in income tax. In my country, the _middle class_ pays about 30% in income tax. According to the balancer I was trying, America's _wealthy_ pay like 12%?? Wtf 🤣 Using: 50% for $500,000+ 40% for $150,000+ 30% for $100,000+ 5% for $50,000 + 0% for $30,000+ -5% for

[@Yorgos56]

you know an atrioc vid is good when you pause it 10 times to go on a political rant to yourself. This one video has significantly increased my opinion of you. Thank you, for being a creator I can truly trust.

[@analogmike1534]

This clip is GOATED

[@321blastoff6]

My wish has been granted

[@Shadow-vd8ss]

The better question should be how much money are we not wasting

[@darr915]

short answer: yes. long answer: yes.

[@connorferguson2269]

There not wasting money, there printing more of it.

[@Sjorry]

I want you to know these videos are directly proportional to how much Cardio I do at the gym.

[@ata.cordarrelle]

well theres different VAT rates, its 0% on essential goods, and around 20% on luxuries. Thats where the subway bread scandal came from, they're taxed at luxury rates in Ireland because their bread has too much sugar in it.

[@Spoon80085]

I feel like it's important to note that none of what Atrioc is advocating for in this video falls under the guise of Socialism, or Communism. Although, for instance a Universal Basic Income, would be supported by Socialists, it is also not inherently contradictory to Capitalism as an economic theory. (It's all about how we handle *ownership,* you can have free healthcare, housing, whatever, and still be entirely Capitalist.) Also, in regards to the Inheritance Tax, it's what's known as Perfectly Inelastic. Basically, no matter how much you tax it, people will still go through with the transaction. If my Grandpa leaves $1,000,000 dollars to me, and it's taxed 90%, I'm still going to take the money- there's literally no losers in the transaction.

[@benis3473]

who let glizzy boy cook

[@charlespinman]

Atrioc speaking pure facts this video, go off king

[@TheMarslMcFly]

1:30 okay but how much of the US Military Budget goes to the Global Defense Agency?

[@SL89999]

Salute comrade!

[@freddiepatterson1045]

Big A not properly understanding Vat is unfortunate

[@chef_moquin9535]

7:35 I hear about this a lot about we had higher taxes but the opposition I hear says the taxes were higher on paper but the effective tax rate was about the same because of tax loopholes. I have no idea if this is true and curious if anyone knows more about it

[@redhawk3385]

I'm a government contractor and got hired in feb and I still haven't wrote a single line of code.

[@asherscott3151]

Good takes 😫

[@eloC]

I have a question regarding your belief about estate taxes. If the estate tax is already able to be 40% in some cases what do you suppose changes. Also life insurance introduces additional complex issues.

[@ayoCC]

Life insurance aside, I think as for intergenerational wealth, it should be limited to a maximum of 100 years median gdp per capita with 4% inflation built in. So if someone has 100 million to inherit, first check if 40% still leaves them above 100 years of national median. I can still see loopholes here which probably can be fixed, it could also probably be fine tuned, hey maybe you want 200 years of median instead. That would be like 15 million maximum

[@WaifuEndMyLaifu]

Indie games should show that middle men trying to will create better products than rich men

[@hexcodeff6624]

Indie Games don't have big marketing budgets, so you're only going to find the stuff that is in some way special and noteworthy, meanwhile established AAA developers can put out the biggest piece of garbage and you'll still know about it. No Indie Publisher could have ever made Demon's Souls in 2009 or developed Titanfall 2 to put it out against its biggest competitors.

[@lollypop00p]

It’s because indie devs HAVE to make better games than the rich. If an indie dev makes a bad game, it ain’t going anywhere and that indie dev stays poor living with their parents and starving. If a rich person makes a bad game, it’s getting advertised by lots of money, and even if it ends up failing, the rich person is still rich. This goes for all fields, poorer people have to work harder just to survive while the rich skate by on their pre-existing wealth. Wealth is anti-competitive. It’s just a super small percent of poors may become rich by luck, so everyone just accepts it thinking they will be the one who strikes it when they won’t.

[@WaifuEndMyLaifu]

@hexcodeff6624 you're right, they couldn't. Major companies get complacent though and release the same shit every yearBut indies come up with those one month hit games that make major companies try to come up with their own ideas or copy-paste

[@hexcodeff6624]

@@WaifuEndMyLaifu Yeah, cause there's been a soulsborne game every year since 2009 and people have been drowning in titanfall games lately. I'm not here to defend all AAA developers, I just think you're exaggerating the quality of the indie scene.

[@absfocused]

​@@WaifuEndMyLaifu literally google "steam annual game releases by developer type 2023". Indie games accounted for 99% of games released on steam, while AAA and AA games COMBINED counted for the rest. Out of the roughly 14k games released 13,800 were indie, and 181 AAA+AA, if we say 2023 had in total 100 AAA games, Id bet you $100 that on average a AAA game was SUBSTANTIALLY better than an average indie game. Obviously out of 13,800 piles of shit theres bound to be 1 good game like an undertale or stardew valley, but good indies are the exception.

[@dakotaaesoph]

I tried the Debt Fixer game he mentioned and I dropped spending from the military, taxed the hell out of billionaires and corporations, and raised the quality of living for everyone making under 120k and it was under budget. I can't stand these politicians.

[@0rbnotacus]

You think you're laying it on super thick, but it's so dry I start questioning if I'm acoustic, lmao.

[@Somerled_Pox]

Listening to this as an European is like listening to a Neandertal explaining how they hang on from becoming extinct

[@patrickmcpartland1398]

Trillions of dollars couldnt be found, so 3800 billion.

[@CuddleCuttlefish]

It is honestly kind of insane that I can listen to some express economical opinions that are so incredibly reasonable, logically, and with basic empathy. Yet someone feel impressed with how "forward thinking" it is, as if it shouldn't be the base level understanding of how things should work. We really live in such a shit system, the bar is so low at this point...

[@dueller29]

i feel like Atrioc would love to live in scandinavia, if it wasn't for the weather. Or just yoink most things.

[@derekpapin2181]

A bag of bushings for military craft made by people without a highschool diploma cost 500,000 dollars

[@enginelol]

inheritance tax is the biggest scam ever imagined. NO BRO

[@dronemachine4694]

Imagine the low costs if we got rid of 90% of consulting

[@tengahhidup]

4:59 bron exist

[@noThankyou-g5c]

the gold standard wouldnt eliminate inflation. that isn’t how inflation works. it isnt that simple. Just look at Japan. Huge economy (i.e comparable to the US), even bigger deficit to gdp ratio than the US, and their biggest issue is deflation. I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the gold standard but my point is that inflation is incredibly complicated and more importantly, unintuitive. A lot of the things we think contribute to inflation are just intuitive simplified models but really don’t mean anything.

[@gingertew9249]

what if our currency was glizzys instead of gold? asking the real questions here.

[@DesmaraisChris]

You should run for office you’d be a viral congressman. For real

[@Lujeca]

Certified JDPON classic

[@autious]

"Will UBI cause inflation?" In my view, only if it makes people not work and produce a surplus of goods that people need and want. If UBI has a massively negative effect on _actual_ productivity, then things that there's less of will be more expensive. Now. if those things aren't stuff people need to live, I wouldn't sweat it. If it's food, heat and healthcare. That would suck. Fundamental question is. Do we still need mechanisms to force people to do things they don't want to do? And to what degree? I'd argue the screws are set tighter than our economy needs. Effort, resources and energy spent on unnecessary luxury resources for the slimmest segment of the population could be spent on more useful things. If someone is struggling and near death working construction on a megayacht that noone really needs, that's a really dire society.

[@kayfire92]

Dis mans is spittin' nothing but facts

[@ArnarF]

9:20 just come to Scandinavia we chillin' (except for Sweden, they are fighting a war on their streets)

[@AeynYT]

Great takes. Thanks for the based perspectives Big A.

[@aidanbagshaw3411]

that inheritance tax thing makes too much sense to me. We pretend like we have moved away from "royalty" and "bloodlines" but its like we still work on primogeniture with extra steps.

[@mattbenz99]

There is a Chinese saying that goes "Wealth never lasts 3 generations." I think you are extremely wrong when you say rich people are "royalty" because there is actually a massive amount of churn amongst rich people. At the moment, roughly 88-91% (depending on the study) of people with a net worth above 1 million dollars from 1900-2010 were self made, and by self made, I mean no inheritance or an inheritance under 10k-100k (again depends on the study). Now, what is genuinely incredible about this statistic is that this means that if most millionaires are self made and this is continuous, that means that the majority of people inheriting their money must lose it some how. Otherwise the math wouldn't make sense. I think people get way too caught up with worrying about a few very small rich families, but they miss the overall picture. Most people who inherit money are dogshit at managing it because they didn't earn it and don't understand the value. For this reason, I think it is a fair assumption that this is a self correcting problem. We don't need to tax rich children because they will blow their money anyways within 2 generations and the problem will be solved. Maybe a couple grow into the Walton's (Walmart), but the vast majority of people who inherit money won't end up like them.

[@gamepro0167]

@@mattbenz99Does the inheritance there only count direct money or does it include assets as well?

[@mattbenz99]

@@gamepro0167 Depends on the study, but generally it is the total value of all inherited assets. But keep in mind, often assets are split between more than 1 child. So if the home is worth 200k and they have 3 kids, the value gets split 3 ways and each one gets 66k before expenses.

[@erod425]

He is spitting

[@gusvanwes6192]

I'm against estate tax, inherentance is income and should be taxed as income.

[@PigSummoner]

Kinda crazy that Sweden has no estate tax

[@PhilfreezeCH]

To be serious for a second: Since we got off the gold standard the amount of financial crisis has dropped significantly. The gold standard has some very serious disadvantages and problems, especially as you decouple more and more resource utilization from economic growth (ie via services or digital stuff). It is not just that politicians didn‘t like that they couldn‘t spend infinite money, getting off the gold standard was a good decision.

[@Tyc9909]

mfw the video becomes my macroeconomics class

[@freddiepatterson1045]

Inflation was significantly higher unstable (huge deflation) on the gold standard. Although this was before modern economic policy but still, inflation was much worse on the gold standard. Just Google an inflation graph from 1800 to 2024

[@AtriocClips]

OK fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=ek0K Interesting...

[@Garaa9900]

one thing I always struggle with about all these ideas about actually taxing the uber rich at a fair rate is the idea that they could hire enough lawyers and move their money around to get around this, I'm sure before Reagan without all this current globalisation made possible through the internet and things it was feasible to actually tax them, but with how many tax havens there already are it feels very possible that it would be way cheaper for the uber rich to hire a team of lawyers to figure out a way round this method of taxing than them actually getting taxed

[@Ludumm]

These tax havens exist because our tax laws allow them too. If we had new tax laws, the loopholes could potentially close. Essentially we created the problem of tax havens, and that can be remedied.

[@NickCorruption]

The reason for all of this is corruption though. You can't lessen the Military budget as it is right now, and NOT have it affect the capability of our Armed Forces, if you don't drastically clamp down on corruption before doing so. This is the same reason why Russia's military was so bad at the start of the Ukraine war. Corruption had hollowed out the organization to the point that is wasn't very combat effective. Our military however, has such a high budget that there is enough money for corrupt officials to take their cut, and at the end of it all, still have enough left over for actually effective systems. It sucks but that's how it is right now, before we start reducing budgets, we need to fight corruption first so that the institutions that we fund with that money don't become ineffective because we have reduced the budget without also reducing the corruption.

[@TheRealLiark]

From what I understand, when you talked about the implementation laws, that wasn't socialism, but then you gave a thought process to why we should implement them and that was the socialism, although I could be wrong. Also, for taxing the wealthy, how do we make sure that they don't avoid the taxes?

[@testacals]

Some people use socialism to just means policies to meet social goals, so, ig it's socialism if you look it at that way.

[@peterkistler3537]

I don't think you have VAT quite right. taxing value added would relieve end consumers by taxing every step of the production process, instead of slapping a sales tax on right at the end that only consumers ever pay.

[@ayoCC]

Usually vat is refunded when you are a producer, so that the end product only has vat on it once. The real key is to shape VAT so that it excempts necessities and hits luxuries, and you purpose bind the funds for example directly distributing it to low earners, or funding low earners ability to get training into something new, like paying a stipend and fully funding some vocational schools or so, as well as their housing but only up to 30% of gdp per capita.

[@sragveesatluri4961]

UBI is universal basic income incase anyone was wondering. It's the idea that everyone gets a set income from the government.

[@SmoothSeal]

Who is this crazy screaming in the void guy, bring back the glizzy.

[@CoachJohnMcGuirk]

My politics are pro me getting money. Ill vote for whoever promises to give me money. UBI? Yang gang all day. Biden wants to forgive my loans? Biden all day. If trump came out tomorrow and said "ill do another round of stimulus checks" id vote for him. I am entirely self interested. I am too poor to be allowed to have a political stance.

[@quinnbrosseau3217]

Based on

[@Watburnt]

youre a prime example why america is so far behind in economic support peopel keep voting in people who make short term gains then we realize afterword's how awful they were and how much damage they did like Reagen Its not your fault but dont just think of the immediate benefits because thats how you get a terrible system (though your kinda fucked for choices this elction but please dont vote trump hes just going to make life worse for you guys)

[@CoachJohnMcGuirk]

@@Watburnt thinking long term doesn't pay this months bills.

[@Watburnt]

@coachmcguirk6297 No president will pay your bills for you you're still gonna be broke under any president that's why voting for one who will actually try and put good bills to support people with no money in place are important to vote in

[@greenblob2105]

Oof now im unaware of what ive learned through atrioc was sarcasm or not 😭

[@Me-ui1zy]

There are quite a few problems with the gold standard lmao. Not just that one

[@ZZWWYZ]

USA used to have gold standard until they lit the gold reserve on fire trying to beat the Vietnamese

[@SCORPAIN88isme]

Atrioc said billions when it was over 2 Trillion…

[@wickathou]

Not billions, trillions.

[@JFrancoe]

My take on taxing the rich is that 10 million dollars is worthless. When you get to 10 million dollars there is nothing you can spend that money on without wasting it. 5 million dollars is more than you an conceivably spend in a lifetime, so to me, if you have more than 5 million dollars, you are not losing any value by sending that money to the state. I don't think people quite understand how much money even $100k is. Having 10 million dollars is so overkill it's actually incredible there even can exist a billionaire class. I understand why certain people don't like taxing the rich, because it's easy to feel sympathy for the winners when you imagine yourself as the winner. But you're not going to win. There's a 99% chance of you NOT winning. Get real.

[@blueso5351]

bro i can spend 10 mil in a day

[@anoukk_]

@@blueso5351 without wasting it?

[@testacals]

Even if you win, You have certain obligations when you win.

[@Eval999]

5 million dollars is not very much money.

[@_Matchu]

im confused, we live in a society? or we live in a worldwide football league?

[@freddiepatterson1045]

Damn atrioc the tax rates before 1980s were not properly enforced, the US effective tax rates were basically the same