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SolemnMime's Replies
I don't recall any taxing of the "middle-class and up" in general by implementing the VAT in a certain industry. How so?
It isn't to "toy with social programs" but use a tax system only in a very particular type of market(s) to kickstart the backing of UBI funding. Everyone or specific people aren't just randomly going to have to pay more taxes in general to fund this (outside specific industries/business structures themselves).
I don't really understand how you see it that specific way. The middle class will be getting the UBI as well anyways -- same with upper-class, lower-class, poor, elite, and etc. No one group of people ("class" or money-wise) in general will really lose from this (in any way I can picture). The idea for having a VAT in certain sectors/industries anyways can be justified: they take away jobs so less people can work. It only seems fair to do something about the rise of machines/automation/AI and the lack of humans that will be able to work for a living due to the ways things will go.
The price being low mostly. For renting or something much cheaper (movie-wise) I'm usually not one to consider buying those releases that can be ~$20 (even if I really liked it) when just hitting the markets/etc. You could rent or watch through a streaming service for way less than even half that and even $0 if someone else pays for it/it becomes available on cable/demand for free or etc.
I think buying physical media stuff will probably become obsolete in not that much time. With everything becoming cheaper and digital, there'd be less and less incentive to sell much more expensive versions of the same thing you'd pay to stream or even buy/download digitally and technically own in the same way. Even video games are getting more and more like this too, which shows it's a slow but sure trend that physical media is becoming less productive/necessary slowly (movies, games, books, etc.).
Just look at what happened to Blockbuster, which'll probably follow with book stores and places like GameStop eventually too. The only reason book stores remain is probably because they integrate with digitization/other services just how GameStop holds on with hardware because they sell devices/peripherals which games depend on that can't be digitally delivered yet.
But I realize this is just me ranting -- just wanted to weigh in. Not saying physical media's obsolete yet, but it seems it's going that way.
Honestly I don't see much of a difference in a flat tax system.
I don't have enough research on the topic, but I can't see how a national flat tax is comparable to an UBI-like system in terms of it benefiting everyone.
Not saying it wouldn't be with its pros in some cases, but wouldn't see how it would be in any way beneficial as an ideal basic income system would be (when it comes to economic growth potential and fighting poverty and such).
Factoring in taxation for (presumably) income tax seems to be irrelevant when we look to the fact that there may be no income in the first place for many in the coming years (unemployment; in between jobs; can't find any jobs).
We should worry more about the means of work potential than the (income specific) taxation policies which only apply after the former.
And it should be clear that "trickle down" economics is far from ideal. A lot of money evened out across the spectrum of different income classes and etc. rarely ever significantly benefits those struggling the most or any in a fairer sense overall.
"Low skilled" workers still mostly get garbage pay, whereas the "rich keep getting richer" mantra about the utmost, top% "elite" seems to hold true. Given this I have little faith that a flat tax system would make any difference when trickle down theory seems to mostly remain that -- a theory.
Exactly the reason he stands out to me from the other candidates. Not that any others in the race are necessarily bad choices, but Yang seems to give a unique touch in my view. He is definitely more clear and oriented when it comes to debating and explaining things compared to many. His focus on subjects in discussions is also pretty sharp. Until him I had never really considered any candidates as any different much from one another.
In politics there is so much talking but so little difference. Yang really makes me think that he could make changes fairly quickly with his UBI and healthcare propositions specifically. At least he seems centered more strongly on bigger things and clearly details them/how they'd work, whereas others just use the "feel good promises" tactic more and don't go much deeper than surface level claims usually.
He has other plans, but UBI is just his main selling point.
At least he is more direct with it as other candidates provide vaguer selling points that span different areas of interest/politics. UBI and Yang are at least clearer on what their aims and goals are together, but UBI isn't only what Yang is proposing -- check his site for more.
And the affordability/practicality of UBI doesn't seem to be a big issue, given how he plans on doing it.
But I agree -- they didn't do the debate fairly at all. Giving tons of questions to only one candidate and then nearly none to another is just wrong. They seemed to have rigged it to mostly cater to fewer candidates ahead of time.
I'm leaning toward Andrew Yang still.
He got so little debate time on round two that it wasn't a fair evaluation of him; waiting to see more.
I've been interested in him/his ideologies for some time though.
Well, to be fair, almost anyone can purchase and own shares/stock of low prices (it's actually really easy these days with apps like Robinhood -- all you need is any smartphone, some pocket change in a bank account and you can invest in something at least).
The main takeaway is that S&P's performance going up reflects only big companies. The biggest benefits would come in strides for those who are holding on to a large amount of shares of said companies that have raising stock prices.
This is why the metric doesn't mean too much all around. Just because S&P or any other indexes show some rising prices in some company stocks doesn't mean everyone all around benefits in the investment world, as many people don't/can't have massive, diversified portfolios of blue chip stocks and can't see any significant gains (or none at all really).
This usually doesn't mean much for non blue chip stocks though (my interpretation -- not speaking with certainty here).
S&P's performance rising/falling has the biggest affect on mega brands -- not necessarily anything much outside of that. My portfolio did gradually go up not long ago, but has fallen again (this happens regardless of who is president anyways).
I wouldn't attribute Trump's presidency to either the rise/fall of my portfolio because I don't really invest in blue chip stocks or anything in the S&P 500. This may be good news for those in really deep with certain index funds/shares, but probably nothing grand or significant to average investors who aren't wealthy to any degree.
Plus I've said before that better performance in the S&P doesn't really mean that much socially/politically/financially/etc. when it comes to the country as a whole. Some blue chips gaining valuation/etc. temporarily doesn't create any breakthroughs. It is a weak marker of economic success or other success overall just by relying on how good already established, mega companies are doing.
My guess was "stupid + Uber" or something of that nature.
If it isn't a portmanteau with Uber then I have no idea.
I think it will at least be a decent comedy.
Not noticing it being advertised as much anymore, but it has an okay plot for a comedy of its sort (buddy-variety).
Exactly. And I'm not saying at all that who is in a movie has no impact -- it obviously does to a variable extent. What matters more is looking past that and seeing it as a whole -- not just "X is in it so I'm seeing it" and nothing else. You are basically paying to see a person to gawk over/etc. than judging a movie more "overall" in that case I think.
While actors do make up a lot of movie time, there are plenty of examples you can find where big name actors have been in flops/profit loss films/etc. This tells you that even the biggest names cannot save every movie -- so it's not something to only go by if you want some preconceived idea of whether a movie is good or not.
If you want to pay to just see or gawk at the actors, that's one thing -- but as far as the entirety of a movie, it's less significant of a measure to just include so and so big names in hopes to make up for a poor script/film execution overall (which has been done).
And I know this a troll breeding ground board so these posts will probably just be swept away anyways.
Kind of disagree with this idea. If producers/casting directors/etc. for so many movies/shows/anything only cast big names, what happens to the smaller ones? We'll create only a tiny sphere of mega stars and never reach out and find newer talent more often.
It's like only hiring your brother or friend for a job and then leaving plenty of potentially able-bodied people with less work opportunities because you fill them with only the "in" people. Is this really a good thing?
I get that people would probably like to see actors they recognize, but this concept is kind of flawed for the reasons mentioned before. You need to scout and find new talent/work more often -- or at least leave the doors open -- rather than only using a few elite actors/celebrities in all roles and block off anyone else. This shuts the door for many would-be actors like it would any other work environment/etc.
Plus I personally have nothing against hiring "no names" for bigger films/productions. If a movie is good, it doesn't really matter to me much if it's Tom Cruise starring in it or Tse Crom. People should consider the movie as a whole -- not merely which actor is in it as a basis for quality overall. Just because a big name is in a movie doesn't make me think I'd like it more than not -- there's a lot more to consider, like the subject, genre and so on.
A good actor doesn't need to be popular, and a popular actor doesn't need to be good either.
But isn't the notion of "overpaid" more nullified in a capitalistic sense?
Not saying some of those big actors are inherently deserving of massive million dollar paydays, but if they're being given those massive amounts it must be due to the capability and means of doing such.
I feel that lots of people in general should be paid more or have good means of getting more income sources somehow in society. But arguing for "overpaid" or not can be tricky when pay varies and can depend on multiple factors like skill, industry, experience, presentability and etc.
Not to make this political, but only using "overpaid" doesn't seem sufficient. For those same reasons we can say that doctors or lawyers or agents or some scientists or business owners or etc. are overpaid to if they are pretty wealthy while most of us are obviously not at all currently.
Probably thought it was too good to be true/some scam. A lot of people might be skeptical to something like this.
A lot of "new" opportunities to do things than were previously known are met with scorn/disbelief/negativity at first. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since people are wise to be cautious, but it can also limit yourself. I guess it could also be due to the fact that it wasn't presented in an appealing/serious way (think like an ad leading to a landing page with a good design and lots of info talking about this vs. just a random email marketing showing up in spam likely with big letters saying, "GET BIG BUCKS WATCHING MOVIES!") or something like that.
The promotion of things/advertising/appeal can be a bigger necessity in conversion/buying/trust than the actual service/product/work.
You mean you want to be someone who actually pays people to watch movies and give reviews directly to you?
I'm pretty sure you won't have any trouble finding workers/people interested. I'd maybe interested in being a part of this club at some point -- it sounds unique. There is no such way I've ever heard of someone being able to significantly earn fair money solely from watching a movie specifically -- it's usually in the advertising; running a review site or some other business around it; etc.
Getting paid decent money just to watch a movie and give a simple and direct review/interview would probably appeal to many.
$20 is a very decent price point for something like this -- almost nothing/no one will top that for just watching a single movie and then doing a short follow-up/review/interview. I might even consider being an early tester if such a thing existed/was legit.
It's pretty good. Honestly I don't think I've tried any ethnic/variant of food from around the world that I've thought to be flat out bad tasting or such. There is way too much salt in some foods though (fried or more processed variants), but that's always changeable usually and another topic altogether.
This doesn't imply that I like all foods from all cuisines or backgrounds, but there's usually always something that's good if you try different stuff (from a specific place/type of food). I've tried Cuban, Italian, Mexican, French, Korean, Chinese, Indian and probably some others -- not too much disappointment overall.
Hopefully the setup/format isn't too identical to that show (not saying it's bad).
I do get that vibe though -- it's almost like a rehash-type sitcom or such that focuses on an older woman in another "stage" of life like with that Old Christine show (didn't really watch it much).
It's kind of like how people have said (on the boards) that The War At Home is just a rehash or newer copy of a show like Grounded For Life in ways.
Not the impression I get.
I get more of an entitled or insensitive vibe that portrays a demeanor of his insistence that he is automatically innocent or that he doesn't need to explain himself either way.
Some people who feel they're guilty might actually go out of their way to deny what they're accused of than to sidestep. Just him being a bit of a jerk/ass in ways doesn't guarantee the statements or claims against himself to be true.
What I'm saying in another way of words is that someone not admitting to not doing something doesn't mean they are absolutely guilty of it.
Well I agree that "not my type" is kind of a weird response to a rape accusation questioning or maybe even rebuttal, but I don't think that alone proves much of anything else. He just really worded it in an insensitive way I guess.
He could've said, "I don't rape" or etc., but probably the implication of him was that he didn't need to make it clear he didn't/doesn't, whether or not he does/doesn't in any general sense of understanding.
I mean I'm no Trump fan or supporter to add, but that doesn't mean I have anything against him or solely dislike him.
I know, but they might. I think a 4 door design would allow it to keep the same overall sporty-feel but with a body length increase and more seating/cabin room.
Some other Mustang fans might agree with this. Going by images/illustrations I think 4 door Mustangs look really nice -- at least some of them.