What a horribly misleading title to that article. I would expect nothing less from thinkprogress.org.
The actual quote:
When the Germans were crushed by World War I, the allies put a very strong settlement on that. They lost their meaning in life. And if you look at the rise and fall of the Third Reich … what happens is a fascist comes in and offers them an opportunity.
He added that similar patterns were seen in “Lenin and Stalin Russia” and Mao in China.”
He got it right, bchad.
Just to be clear of any confusion, I was not being serious.
I had a feeling, but thanks for the clarification. 
(EDIT, on rereading, my “get it right” sentence sounded more bristly than I intended. I should have put a smiley after it.)
one comment on minimum guaranteed income.
minimum guaranteed income is the worst possible solution. a minimum guaranteed income erects an extreme disincentive to work and if the minimum income is anywhere near a basic living wage, a minimum income becomes an incredibly robust welfare system that pays people well to not work and provides ample incentive to never look for work ever again, at least in the white and gray markets. many, if not all low skill people would accept their minimum income from the government and then partake in some black market activity to supplement their income to buy iPhones, cigarettes and cable. incentivizing people to become drug dealers or theives is probably the worst idea ever.
the only benefit of a minimum guaranteed income is that it simplifies the tax system. but there are huge benefits to a complicated tax system. as it stands, in most western countries with basic income writeoffs, child subsidies, food stamps, etc, the effective marginal tax rate for low income folks with kids is somewhere between 80-90%. in Canada the effective marginal tax rate for low income families with kids is 80-90% up to about $35,000. most low income couples with kids don’t realize that they’re giving back about 80-90% of their income by working at the current minimum wage, thus they keep working thinking they are doing much better than they would if they just sat at home. i’m positive that most people in this income bracket think their marginal tax rate is the 20% tax that their employer takes off their paycheque. they don’t see the other 60-70% vanish that they would’ve otherwise have gotten from the government. if you enact a minimum guaranteed income that is anywhere near the annual expected income from a minimum wage job, you’re outright telling these folks that their marginal tax rate on all of their income is 100%. none of them will ever work again. the complicated tax system tricks low income people into working while providing for the needs of those who actually need it.
a minimum guaranteed income is terrible and the only workable version is already in place in most places. modest welfare, say 1/2-3/4 of a family’s living wage, combined with a minimum wage at the living wage and that’s the best you can hope for.
bchad as always with a wonderfully worded comment that explains beautifully how a large portion of people in this country feel. I am basically with you on all points, there is a natural end game with a system like ours and people are sure to rebel at some point before it reaches that stage if a better system is not designed.
^ no homo?
l know, let’s give the government more power to intervene in and regulate the economic lives of individuals. that will surely level the playing field. everyone knows the cure for a hangover is more alcohol.
it’s quite an accomplishment actually to successfully pin all man’s woes on capitalism. politicians have done a masterful job at it, to their benefit. The whole time the economy looks less and less like capitalism. Yet it takes the blame for everything, and the people eat it up. Dam it must be good to be a politician leading the sheep to slaughter. I picked the wrong career for sure. Short capitalism.
imo, people are lazy and not even playing. There’s a ton of people in the United States who say that the system has screwed them over and they are poor for every reason but their own. Yet there are people who would risk their lives to come here, people who started with absolutely nothing and made a name for themselves. They all worked very very hard, rarely by chance. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Why take anything from them and give to those who don’t? We have libraries full of computers and books and knowledge. Yet people are sitting at home stating at their tv, keeping up with sports and celebraties. If you have a very large group of people spending every waking hour pushing 100% focusing on their success and failing, I might have some compassion. But I’ll never have any for people who work less, sleep more, vacation more, and have more leasure time than I do.
Today I Learned: I’m a socialist alcoholic
you’ve smartened up. i’m right behind you buddy. time to start greasing the local politicians to get my projects approved, hire their mistress’s son to do the landscaping, fund the re-election of the guy who can get me state funds to redevelop my building. now mind you, this is all in the best interest of ‘the people’. just ask the city councilmen and they’ll tell you.
EDIT: luckily there are plenty of techno-dweebs (well represented on here) who are making the case for me that more government dollars are needed to help the simple folk. Thanks for carrying my water for me.
This is the typical response to any questions of capitalism and its ridiculous. It is not a black and white issue at all, its all shades of gray. There are completely valid criticisms of capitalism that one can address (as bchad did) and that does not instantly mean you have to be this socialist society. Capitalism is incredibly good at doing what it does, but it does have some obvious ill effects and it seems perfectly valid for people ask if the return may not be worth the costs.
That being said your second part is totally true, being a politician is the way to go as long as you have a perfect past that can’t be exploited.
f this dude
well that’s the whole point isn’t it? once people lose site of the ideal, the slow creep of ever bigger government is unstoppable. ultimately it’s the ability of politicians to play on the people’s fear of an uncertain future that continually pushes us in that direction.
it’s a question of ideals. Sure capitalism has its difficulties, but it is ideal because it is the only 100% moral system, provided that goverment sticks to its job of defending individual property rights (including defense of ‘the environment’), prosecuting fraud, and arbitrating disputes. Therefore, everyone should strive to achieve as close to pure capitalism as possible and to let individuals continually tinker with ways to achieve desirable outcomes on their own. Yes that takes time. There are too many people who want a quick fix, so they turn away from capitalism and towards government interference toforce an (usually well intentioned) outcome. The problem is that you can’t correct a wrong with another wrong. It just never works. Once people learn how to get something for nothing, the snowball starts rolling downhill.
I’m in favor of locally set minimum wage, but I’d like to ask Turd, is it not an equally impressive accomplishment to pin all of one’s individual shortcomings on government? I do agree that temporarily embarassed millionaires have it harder than ever these days with the historically low tax rates, but I guess I find it hard to harbor so much ill will towards a guy making $8 an hour sweeping the aisles at a ball game.
???
I think he’s referring to things like the chart on this page:
https://www.savantcapital.com/blog/tax-rates-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow/
^I am not sure how they expect me to believe the marginal tax rate was every above 90% for earnings over 250k in any legitimate manner.
i have no ill will towards a guy who puts in honest work and expects an honest pay in return. I just don’t believe doing more of the same of a system that unfairly created many many millionaires is going to help anyone but the millionaires and politicians.
What are you saying? That you don’t believe that marginal tax rates were ever 90%, or just that 90% seems crazy to us today and could not be considered “legitimate”.
If the former, it’s pretty well documented, though probably there were a number of ways to shelter income, as there are today.
Those numbers are presumably inflation adjusted earnings, and the 90% figure presumably applied only to the highest tax bracket (which I’ve seen elsewhere to be more like $3MM+ in todays dollars).
In any case, the case still holds that current tax rates are low by historical standards (though if I had time, I’d like to know what the AMT does to that chart).
i’m been harping on this point for the last year on this forum. lower tax rates = higher inequality. the best time in american history, the much celebrated 50s and 60s, had some of the highest global tax rates outside of wartime ever. thus, tax rates will go up to appease the middle and lower classes, as everyone yearns to “Make America Great Again”. to “Make America Great Again”, you need to adopt Bernie Sanders policies not Donald Trump policies.
there is no good reason to not punitively tax incomes above a certain threshold. to maintain a balanced society, you don’t want to promote the accumulation of rentiers or misers. the only problem in today’s world is that people can easily move from country to country to avoid this higher taxation. the only good solution is for countries to get together to tax wealth, no matter where it resides, as piketty proposed. taxing wealth, likely above a certain threshold, is harder to avoid and ensures that wealth is allocated efficiently, rather than sitting in cash or gold or yachts or some other unproductive use.