I'll admit that I laughed harder at this than I should have.

The other 9 out of 10 should be locked out as well. Frankly, it wouldn't be the end of the world if everyone regardless of age were also barred, but legal adults can make their own choices and engage in unhealthy lifestyle behaviors if they want.

I can only wonder in horror at what kind of even worse mind-rot shit the next generation will complain about their youth spending all day on.

In early Soviet Union, there was indeed a maximum salary, called a partmaximum.

Wesley Lloyd representing the State of Washington proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have limited annual incomes to $1 million

Another colleague John Snyder introduced another amendment proposal that would have limited personal wealth to $1 million.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a maximum income of $25,000 Also proposed a 100 percent tax on income over 40,000, yeah, I know those two numbers don't add up quite right, probably after the 25,000 was taxed.

Until it was fixed, people in Sweden occasionally faced a tax of 102 percent. Talk about a positive feedback loop. Astrid Lindgren was an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So there are plenty of people who demand a tax rate of 100 percent on any income over (x), which is exactly a maximum wage.

I think people call it a better distribution of wealth, that doesn't need a level field but when there is too much concentration of wealth there is also too much concentration of power (capitalism by definition?).

Well, I do suspect that if you create a maximum wage, and just give that money to everyone else, and keep doing it until there is a standard salary. That's a level playing field, where everyone makes the same wages. And then the question becomes, If I make the same mopping floors as I would in stressful dangerous jobs, what would be the reason to do those jobs?

What help was that, since you appear to be claiming I am dissembling? My family told me that I was on my own after graduating high school. And what kind of background makes for success. We lived on surplus food (no food stamps at that time) I wore clothing from second hand stores, or hand me downs from relatives. The only "help" I got was marrying a woman with similar values. Which means she didn't overspend by nature.

Sigh. If there is one thing I detest, it is people playing victim. No, I'm no victim. I find people pulling out replies like you just did rather unbecoming. and really, like uno reverse victim claims.

I hear people working very very hard to cast me as the mortal enemy. If you noted, I support the social programs we have her to help the poor people in teh country - but kind sir, I see this all the time. You need an enemy, someone to be everything that you believe is wrong. Your hatred noted, may it serve you and your narrative well.

I know, right? Success for me is having enough money to do the things that make life worthwhile. Money in and of itself is very boring. And many people on both sides of what was once classed as class warfare are consumed with money.

I even enjoy paying it forward. Success is living well, So I take vacations pretty often. I live in a decent but not ostentatious house. Now to paying it forward. When I go out to eat with the wife or friends, I tip 75 to 100 percent. My woodworking "hobby" allows me to donate a lot of rather fine bowls and flatwork to various charities that have auctions and they generate a lot of money for them. I’ve been the CEO of two 501(c)3 charitable organizations, one youth sports oriented, and the most recent one a public education and public service organization. Wife and I contribute to food banks. Do I have money? Sure. But my definition of success isn't just the number of dollars in my checking savings, and investment accounts.

In stark reality, all of the eat the rich people are just practicing their own version of hatred. And your narrative is just an attempt to cast me as that privileged class, who leech off of society, while stomping everyone else.

Regardless, since you have already accused me of lying, you. are likely just going to be saying all the other things I say do that don't align with your narrative are just some rich person lying.

I thought we might have a fruitful conversation. I was completely wrong about that part.

I do not know that what I have posted qualifies as any "least" situation. What is your solution, tovarisch? A real solution, just not more of the incitement to eat the rich.

Never said it was, you just saw something you didn't like, and stopped taking input. to clarify, I'll repeat - I wrote:

"Well, to clarify, since we're. worried about communism versus capitalism, the US is in no way shape or form capitalism. It is a mixture of corporatism and (cover the kid's ears folks!!) socialism."

We have quite a few socialism based benefits for people of low income. I already pointed that out, but by that time, you were freaking out.

There is a reason why section 8 exists. That reason is the failure of the so called "projects", where apartment buildings were built for low income people. Ironically, one of the reasons they failed was that they would not take working class families, but only the poorest, most needy, and oftentimes most troubled. They were also built in the poorest urban areas. They also had rent control caps, so maintenance often couldn't be made - there was no money for it.

Section 8 is not perfect and has its issues, but it does a couple things the projects did not. Section 8 has mixed income housing, the poor are living in the same places as middle income people not on section 8, and mixed social integration.

People make the decisions. Money indeed does play into it.

That said, with your apparent desire for the poor to make decisions, we do have to deal with some unfortunate truths. Wealth, or the lack of it, does not translate to worth. Some people are born to wealth, some achieve it via hard work, some achieve it through unethical means. It is a mix.

And the poor - it is very similar, some is bad luck - think the handicapped, some of the mentally challenged. Some is drive - not all people have drive. This is also a mix.

We have other things in the mix. Wealthy people who believe all poor are deserving of it, and poor people who believe that worthiness and ethics are inversely proportional to the amount of money a person has. Both are abysmally brain dead ideas, and leave the believer in a highly manipulable state.

I might have a viewpoint based on my personal experience of starting out in poverty, and working my way many rungs up the social and wealth ladder.

Asshats and good people are on each level.

And I do judge. I do it based on character, not the contents of the wallet or amount of melanin in the skin, or country of origin.

Pissed off a comrade, did I?

This is only in the context of programming/computer related queries, but honestly, the AI search results from Google are better than their non-AI results. It's probably better than (or at least on par with) their non-AI results from a decade ago as well. That's mostly because their regular results degraded so badly, but they're probably never going to fix that. The citations for the AI answer to most technical questions are the page I was looking for. They probably don't make money from those searches though.

I know of no one who uttered the word that "capitalism is the root of all problems"

However, is that an actual point making the many posts speaking of end stage capitalism, or is from OP "With capitalism we are rushing off the side of a cliff."

not If you demand specific wording, no - I saw no such exact wording. But unless you are new here, there is a lot of hate heaped on "capitalism" Especially towards one particular country where there is a narrative that said country is run by capitalism. It isn't

Well, let's look at the country in question. Here in the USA we are not living under capitalism. We have a combination of corporatism, with a lot of socialism effects tossed in.

There are many benefits for people of low economic means. Free phones, free laptops, Heating oil assistance, low cost internet, section 8 housing (if you are not an American, Section 8 is a program where a low income person pays a small amount, perhaps a couple hundred dollars a month for their apartment and the Government picks up the rest) WIC- Women, Infants, & Children program giving free food. Medicaid for children and many adults. Medicare, Social Security disabled benefits for adults, and children, even Social Security benefits for children of older parents. We have food Stamp programs, we have free transportation for poor and retired people, including personal pickup and delivery for people living in areas not served by regular public transportation.

This does not sound to me like Capitalism in any shape or form.

These are things that don't get mentioned much. At one point in the past, I provided cites and links to all of this. It varies by state, but even deep red states have these programs.

You tell me. Should there be a maximum allowable salary? How do we make a completely level playing field? Force the driven not to work?

I have to note, I was born in poverty, and worked myself up to around top 10 percent. Zero help. Put myself through college, built a salable skillset. Doing 6 figures in retirement. So I'm probably in the group who need penalized for success.

So how do we deal with the driven vs the non-driven? How do we deal with those who build something? I built my money through frugal living and saving while young and then at around 50, really hit my stride. Waited until interest rates were down, then bought a house that's below what I was approved for, and paid it off in less than 15 years. Kept saving and investing. Don't want to turn this into Ol's financial classes though.

And I'm astute enough to know that not everyone is going to do that. But in the modern parlance, I am the bad person, and they must have the same economic resources as I do. So yes, I've been told I was part of the problem.

Now I might not be the brightest person in the room, but my experience has been that while some are whining about how bad it is that only some people have money, that the proper gestalt is a level playing field, I would propose that it really isn't possible to make that level playing field. Mainly because of different abilities and individual drives.

What do we do with the "obscene" rich, and the poor that are not driven or mentally capable on the other end. I've personally shown that with drive, a very poor person can work their way up that ladder. Takes hard work and financial smarts. No, not everyone has that combo. And here in the land people love to hate we have a way to help the people that might be stuck on the lower end of the economic scale, and don't really care about rising any further. I support such a system.

Now your solution for a level playing field?

Well, to clarify, since we're. worried about communism versus capitalism, the US is in no way shape or form capitalism. It is a mixture of corporatism and (cover the kid's ears folks!!) socialism. Don't believe it? Tax dollars, quite a few of them in fact, go to things like free laptops and smartphones for the low income, subsidized fuel oil, medicare, medicaid, free food for Women, Infants and Children as well as Food stamps, Section 8 housing, where low income people pay a very small amount per month, while the Government pays the rest. When you are in a 2000 dollar apartment and paying 200 dollars a month, government is picking up the tab. Free or very reduced internet. Free buses for the poor and retired people. If you live in an area without bus service, you can call and get a free ride and return. May older and poor use this service to get back and forth to doctors and other appointments. This even in some very red states.

Doesn't sound much like capitalism to me. I am not opposed to such things. I am not claiming that there are not some economic issues we have. But it creates cognitive dissonance in people that get their facts from our adversaries.

But yeah - there is a middle ground. Collective ownership can work as long as people understand there has a be a group of business savvy people running the business. That said, what I have seen in life is that many to most people don't actually have that savvy.

If vi was any good, they wouldn't need to improve it.

Not that filthy EMACS users are any better. Both should be purged. Nano master race raise up!

the germs to punish humanity for allowing transgender Muslims to practice Sharia law while eating your pets! Repent, heathens, or you'll end up with a brainworm like RFK's and low testosterone!

for the New Horizons probe to explore, like they did with the "snowman asteroid"*, but the area of space it can reach is rather limited, as it can change its path by only about a degree with the fuel it has left.

It's still amazing something going that fast can change its path by a whole degree. Due to luck, it didn't have to use much of its onboard fuel to get to its last 2 big targets. I hope it gets a chance to use it on something important.

* Found the by the Hubble scope, actually. They keep changing the rock's name, so I just call it by its nickname.

...one way

There are other options besides QWERTY and DVORK.

"Plutocrat 'A' grew too big for their britches, so lets give some of the business to Plutocrat 'B'."

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, how bow the communist revolution? Howbow Chairman Mao, Uncle Joe Stalin, Pol Pot. The revolution of the proletariat. Ha's that workin out for ya Comrade? The were some of teh best humanitarians amirite?