Vivek-sectomy Labotomy

  I caught Vivek Ramaswamy on ABC news today.  He is running for President this upcoming cycle.  He said some interesting things about “wokism” that I completely agreed with.  He defined “wokism” as “seeing everyone through the lens of ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’, victim and perpetrator, and sort of viewing things through a sort of ‘wokist’ caste system.  I agreed with all that.

Where he lost me was when he suggested we all need to go “work harder”, to “Grow the economy”, and “Get back to God.”  That terrifies me.  Super multi-denominational, plenty-of-religions ‘God’ is doing just fine on the back burner here in non-theocracy USA.  For all of the USA’s problems, I really believe that it is going to be the USA that gets its shit together in a few years and delivers us into a Star Trek-y, Orville-ish version of the future.  I really believe that version of the future is our best goal.  Our inspiration, really.  

Continuing down this road of constant ‘growth’ is now approaching madness.  Only the recklessly negligent pursuit of limitless wealth could be blind to that now.  As the temperatures soar worldwide, and trash has polluted vast areas of the globe, these madmen want to make a bigger number in a bank account.  And they want you helplessly toiling your life away to make it happen; trapped in the workforce by inflation, utilities, and forced adherence to social structure.

We don’t need to work harder giving our wealth to the wealthy ANY LONGER.  We don’t need any more of these guys with limitless wealth. I read yesterday, “A person making $100,000 a year tax free will have earned $1 million dollars after 10 years.  To make even $1 Billion though, would take 10,000 years.  My god.  That is staggering.  That is ONE decade VS. THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF MANKIND.  

STAGGERING, is not the word.  I don’t think Staggering would cover the difference between 10 years and 1000 years.  While so many suffer, some people are so good at shifting a tiny portion of earnings away from ‘normal’ people, that they have amassed an eternity's worth of wealth, relatively early in their life.  We know the names of the best at this; Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc.  Does this make what they did right?  Not at all.  We need to have limits set in place that force this money back into our infrastructure.  Even exceptionally reasonable limits would net billions for state and local government programs to help ‘give back’ to us, all the schlubs that these guys robbed over the years.  Their wealth exists surely by having been strung together through the theft of time, wealth, labor, intellectual property, health, and all manner of other conceivable commodities.  

A tax that grows exponentially past the first 100,000$ personal income could do a lot of good.  $25,000 on the first, $35,000 additional on the second, $45,000 additional on the third $100,000.  Anything over $1 million in a year would be taxed @ 70%, approaching 100% by $2 million.

Of course, most businesses would not foolishly part with their money this way.  With this tax rate instead simply serving as a hedge against massive one time spikes in income that would make a single individual wealthier than a midsize nation.  While still allowing for massive personal wealth accumulation up near the top of the food chain.  It could even one day become a social caste system with some wealthy people taking home 1.5 million a year, paying 3.5 million in taxes to get it.  

We would need laws for companies to be able to spend on all manner and type of development.  Imagine if Elon Musk had been shackled by such laws, and he was unable to build space-x.  That would be a nightmare.  But then imagine a world where Elon has an estimated worth of 230 Billion dollars and INSISTS that his workers all log big overtime numbers, for him, TO GROW HIM MORE WEALTH.  Ridiculous.  You need to hire some more people, man.  You greedy hypocrite.  You never worked those hours for anyone but yourself Elon.  You too Bezos, and Zuckerberg.  Acting like people need to “work super hard like you did”, to “get ahead like you did.”  No, they need to QUIT WORKING FOR YOU, and launch a business with either their inheritance or their stolen IP if they want to “Get ahead like you did.”  Are there Crazy workers that LOVE doing what they do and want to spend more time on it per week?  Sure, and we can make some rules that function to form a healthy symbiotic relationship for these guys.  We can make sure everyone stays healthy, happy, and properly compensated.

The last thing we need right now is to just blindly keep manufacturing our planet to death, making trash goods in the name of fiduciary responsibility and record profits.  It’s time for the rest of us to start taking responsibility, for our responsibilities.