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Pool_Shark t1_j6inm7p wrote

Reply to comment by mmmmyeahhlumberg in Mayor Adams plows ahead with plan to privatize health benefits for 250,000 NYC municipal retirees by mowotlarx

Good. They can use all the help they can get.

Unless you are making over $1 million a year their is no point in defending the current system as is. It’s set up to benefit the richest few over the masses

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mmmmyeahhlumberg t1_j6ip2ll wrote

What does it mean when you say the private sector is "so extremely top heavy with salaries"? Private companies are private companies. I can see if you were concerned about how much public employees make, if you were a taxpayer, but what a private company pays its workers is really their business. They are free to set their own salaries. We're still capitalists last I checked.

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Pool_Shark t1_j6iqpd3 wrote

Pretending the private and public sectors are not intertwined is foolish at best.

In the 60s CEO pay was 20x higher than the average employee. Now it is closer to 400x higher. Our country is healthiest (for the average American) when the government regulations provide a healthy balance to our systems. Instead we have spent the last 50 years promoting unchecked greed and stacking the deck to high for the wealthiest.

Pure unadulterated capitalism is a terrible system, stop drinking the kool aid.

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mowotlarx OP t1_j6ird6x wrote

>"Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor."

I think about this quote from the musical 1776 a lot. It explains American conservative voters pretty well. How else to explain how people living in impoverished states were pushing to end the Estate tax when Trump took office.

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manateefourmation t1_j6m271v wrote

I hate when I have to disagree with someone who I think I fundamentally agree with. But this is that case.

We live in a country far from “unadulterated capitalism.” The sheer number of regulatory agencies whose sole job is to regulate capitalism is astounding. We have social programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. In NYC, we tax people making even $200k a year (not exactly wealthy in this city) almost 50% between federal, payroll, state and city taxes. Again - not exactly unchecked capitalism.

That said, I absolutely agree with you that the wealth disparity in this county is unsustainable. The difference between the bottom 99% and top 1% is greater than at the time of the French Revolution. Federal tax cuts under the GOP mostly go to corporations and the ultra rich. Taxing passive income different than W2 income is a scam. But as long as the GOP has their base fooled to vote against their economic interests - this is not changing any time soon.

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mmmmyeahhlumberg t1_j6j6uy8 wrote

We don't have pure, unadulterated capitalism. We have plenty of government regulation. We're also top five in the world for median income and median wealth. The average American is doing fine.

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Pool_Shark t1_j6j9cnh wrote

Median income is a worthless stat if it’s not weighted by cost of living

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