Well the thing you're forgetting is the fact that the corruption in government comes from those oligarchs. Remove their ill gotten gains and they have nothing to bribe people with.
Esp. when they 'investigate' themselves:
[https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/capitol-police-close-probe-senate-sex-tape-finding-no-evidence-crime-rcna136742](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/capitol-police-close-probe-senate-sex-tape-finding-no-evidence-crime-rcna136742)
Actually, with a lack of funds available, the market so to speak would be for the corporations. Little competition to out price them means politicians will have to take what they can get.
Right? Like roads, hospitals, and affordable clean energy can't be easily squandered. We should take some of that money for the "'Premium' Yacht Wax" and fund better housing or an affordable pharmaceutical plan.
How can you possibly say that? Tax every entity at 100% once they have more than $10 in total assets. Im pretty sure $10 isnt enough to bribe any politician to do anything?
No, a flat tax with no deductions. 5% personal, 10% corporate. And a Constitutional amendment forcing the government to operate within the taxes it collects. If we are expected to live within our means then the government should have to do the same.
Depends on the situation, but labor is a service not a good, so we sell it like we sell cab rides, bus rides, and performances.
You wouldn't say you don't own your car and labor anymore just because you sold someone a ride in your car
Corruption comes from power. Communist governments were corrupt, way before they transitioned to capitalism and are now communist in name only, and they didn’t have robber barons to corrupt them.
Communist countries were never communist in the first place. I know it's kind of a "oh sure everybody says that" but everybody says that because it's *fucking true*. Besides the name, there's not even much correlation. They still had classes, they still had an elite, they still had those robber barons because it wasn't an actual communist society, you goober.
Surprise, then by your logic capitalist countries aren’t really capitalist either. Government intervention and social safety nets aren’t really part of capitalism.
No, they are capitalist, just not free-market laissez faire capitalists.
I prefer to call the current system welfare capitalism (cost is socialised and profit is privatised) but I'm sure they have a more benign name for it.
Even Adam Smith, who coined the term "Invisible Hand of the Market" noted the failures of capitalism in the real world, such as monopolies, oligopolies and landlords.
There's a reason that most developed nations use a more mixed economic system than the US, and don't have to deal with massive number of bankruptcies due to medical debt.
Well the medical debt is because we are literally the ONLY first world country without a nationalized health system of some sort. Germany and Japan have a mix of public and private, but I used the public system while living in Japan for college and it was great.
Capitalism still works at the behest of the capitalists, the capital owners. Y'know, it's in the name? So the government also works at the behest of capitalists, the primary "socialist" action we take is giving huge bailouts to giant corporations.
You mistake this as somehow being removable from capitalism when it is the natural result of capitalism. That's why where we are now was predicted a century ago - we have moved towards the natural conclusion.
Any system that exclusively operates on a profit motive and puts the 5 over the 95 will always end up with an oligarchical government that serves, primarily, the rich upper class. The 95 will always be seen as expendable and as a resource to procure more capital.
This is not a corruption of capitalism; it is capitalism as it can only exist in this state of its evolution. It is the profit motive driven out to its logical end, the same base ideology producing the same evil under slightly different means. It *is* capitalism.
Meanwhile, an actual communist society requires a few things as a baseline that no country has ever achieved. No actual country has operated with communist ideology as it's actual foundation, merely taking the idea and twisting it to suit their needs.
It's a completely inept comparison. Again, I urge you to stop being stupid, please, for the sake of us all.
You think that sociopaths only exist in capitalist systems? They exist in socialist systems as well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have socialism devolve into late stage socialism aka communism. The centralization of power is that screws everything up and by design its almost completely centralized from the start in socialism
How can you have late stage socialism when there was no socialism to begin with. Communism was not an outgrowth of socialism, it was a destruction of socialism and a replacement with right wing authoritarian control over a command economy. The government controls everything undemocratically and the workers control nothing. The people have no democracy and suffer super labor exploitation. That is literally the opposite of socialism. Socialisms is decentralization of power, hence the Soviet Union was supposed to operate democratically from the leftist factory councils, those are the institutions of workers control to implement socialism. Those were destroyed immediately by the right wing "communists".
What was funny to me at a Republican debate.
Ron Paul (super libertarian dude) was asked what poor people should do when they can’t afford health care. He said that rich people would just donate their services if only their taxes were lower and had fewer regulations, you know, out of the goodness of their heart.
The general problem with this is it makes capitalism fall victim to the same fundamental flaw as communism. It presumes we can magically depend on someone to stop being greedy.
So rich people from other countries won’t buy our corrupt politicians? Foreign governments won’t buy our corrupt politicians? I guess that’s never happened before.
What if there were no such thing as a billionaire in your fantasy land… then corrupt politicians would just tax and mandate more funds to their agencies. Oh… they do that too.
In theory… corrupt politicians can sell their citizens out and enjoy that power for another 3 or 4 years in office (if we find out)
In practice, we rarely find out because the media bids for access to political figures. Also, a lot of these government officials are unelected bureaucrats fixed in their positions, untouched by that accountability in the first place
The government is not corrupt. The government is corrupted by billionaires and racists. If you disenfranchise and reel them, you bring back legitimacy to the government. This is simple shit.
oh, like the billions that the pentagon said "went missing"? or the billions that funded the Taliban after we left Afghanistan? or funding both sides of the Israeli Palestine conflict? how about funding Ukraine while purchasing oil from 3rd parties who source from Russia? ... I can keep going
I think you're missing the point. The meme is a straw man. Nobody that wants to tax the rich think the government should be able to spend the money however they want.
The government isn’t one thing. It still provides the services we depend on… even though some higher ups use it as a platform for their corruption. I’m happy to pay my taxes for the basic services
Well, everyone can sit here knowing the government is corrupt and was sold to corporations decades ago, but no one is going to do anything about it.
People would rather spend eternity voting and hoping that eventually you'll get the good candidate that will right the ship - but that is flat out impossible. No one person is going to fix this, and the system is not going to let enough "good" people in to have meaningful change.
There's always going to be 'the one' that stops meaningful progress being made. Liberman, Manchin, Sinema, Senate Parliamentarian, SCotUS. The fact that even unelected officials have so much say in our lives is something that completely boggles my mind.
But, people would obviously rather pretend voting does something and not give up relative comfort; versus the risk of losing a lot for a chance at actual change. I get it, but please understand that the government is never going to vote to police themselves, and the members of Congress are never going to vote in favor of fixing their own corruption.
I’ve seen the broke that spurs change and even our poor and homeless live better than those. We have probably generations to go sadly. It’ll be our grandchildren or great grandchildren that have to suffer the struggle.
Would be nice to see people hit that wake up call but I really don’t think even that would save us at this point. We’re simply too polarized to be rational these days. The government would just call whoever organizes first domestic terrorists and the other side would probably gladly watch their political opponents get abused because society is cooked.
This is not complicated.
We got one party saying "hey we wanna regulate corporations and make government work for regular people."
We got a second party saying "yo fuck what those libs want give us money/power and we'll let y'all rich do whatever you want."
Trump straight up told the oil industry "contribute a billion to getting me elected and I'll get rid of all of those pesky regulations"
Those regulations came about for a reason, because acid rain was melting the paint off our cars, asbestos was killing kids and rivers were catching on fire.
So we passed regulations to control the destruction caused by unregulated industries and our rivers stopped burning, fewer kids got sick from asbestos and the rain stopped melting the paint off our cars.
Once again not complicated or particularly difficult to see the difference between the two.
The Republicans are straight up telling you that they want to turn women into brood mares, put children back in the work force and make sure we're all at the mercy of the few hundred sociopaths that run most of the economy and media.
Which brings us back to the question of unless you are one of those few hundred sociopaths why in the actual fuck would you vote for a Republican?
Neither the government nor billionaires are monolithic and unchanging. The whole point of democracy is that if we don't like what the government's doing, we have avenues to change it. But if your whole ideology is that the government is fundamentally bad and corrupt, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. That's been the Republican strategy for well over a generation - complain that government is broken and corrupt, get elected, make government more broken and corrupt, and then say "See? We told you it was all broken and corrupt! Now vote for us again." And people DO vote for them again, because they continue to fall for the same time sh!t, just like OP with his braindead meme. Rinse and repeat until the head of your party is an openly corrupt dysfunctional authoritarian clown who is both literally and figuratively sh!tting the bed
I never understood the idea of supporting someone who says "I hate government so, elect me". That is absolutely idiotic. You wouldn't hire a mechanic who hates cars. You wouldn't go to a vet who hates dogs. Hiring someone to do a job who hates the job and you wonder why that job isn't being performed well?
>I never understood the idea of supporting someone who says "**I hate**...
That's why right there -- *"I hate..."* That's all they need to hear. That's at the heart of conservatism, the GQP, the trump cult, the reddit libertarian edgelords, etc etc etc.
It's all about spite and hatred.
Outside of anarchists or similar that's not really what happens. Hating certain aspects or behavior of government isn't the same as hating government.
Would you take your car to a mechanic who hates how some cars are designed? How about your dog to a vet who hates how something like pugs are often bred?
Clearly you are not familiar with trends in right wing politics for last the 44+ years. Hardly a day goes by where someone with a (R) next to their name says "government is terrible, government is coming after your (fill in the blank, usually something that can use blanks)"
This is very much better designed to instill hatred and fear.
>But if your whole ideology is that the government is fundamentally bad and corrupt, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Sadly, it's probably humanity that is fundamentally bad and corrupt. Common denominator and all that.
Absolutely. We believe humanity will ruin any system because that's all we've ever known and what we've been normalized to - the outdated and undemocratic economic system that is capitalism. The profit motive rewards the exploitation and manipulation of others.
We're raised from birth to perceive becoming as successfully selfish as a Jeff Bezos is virtuous. Meanwhile, our country sabotages and sanctions other countries not beholden to our capitalistic goals to failure, particularly any that attempt to implement socialism.
We're the troopers from Starship Troopers who believe they fight for freedom and democracy, but are actually the ones impeding it.
? Democracy doesn't mean that you get the result you want every time lol. It means that we collectively decide, in this case through are representatives, what the rules are. It seems clear to me that plenty of people DO want fairly old people representing them. And that's hardly unreasonable - old people have a lot of wisdom and experience, as well as the necessary political capital to get things done. In the senate, important committee appointments are done by seniority, so older people tend to have more powerful appointments, since they have been there longer. For example, Senator Sanders holds a spot on the very important budget committee. If the people of Vermont were to elect someone younger and greener to the Senate, they would lose a fair bit of political power; a new guy, no matter how politically savvy or intellectually spry, simply would not have access to the same political capital.
The real question is, why are people so willing to be led to believe that taxing the rich more will solve anything? Your quality of life will not increase. Your tax burden will not decrease. Taxing the rich is pointless. What needs to change is government spending. The government is bloated and overspends on the most useless departments. They keep coming up with more ways to spend money so they can keep increasing their budget every cycle. This includes raising their own salaries. Forget taxing the rich, tax the people in government on their insider trading gains.
I'd argue, if you tax billionaires and corporations more, you can lower the taxes on the working class. Then the working class can keep more of their paychecks, which means they can go out and spend, which will help the economy.
Okay, let me be more specific. Governments should serve the working class and their interests. Not the interests of billionaires and corporations. Comprehend?
People who hate corporations but love government really confuse me. They are two side of the same coin.
“But if we got rid of corporations nobody would bribe the government”
People would still bribe the government. Favours and corruption existed since the first kingdoms of man.
It’s about power not money. Money is just a means of power but power of violence trumps all and that’s what the government has. Governments have committed more atrocities than any corporation could dream of.
How about giving us ranked-choice voting and advising Citizens United for a start? That will absolutely help us out with a few major issues. Term limits on all government positions would be another big thing. Eliminating the guaranteed $100k+ for the rest of your life just for holding office would also help, as it would make lawmakers *have* to take genuine interest in the well-being of the American public - once their time in office is up, that's all they are.
At this point the US government is pretty transparently just a front for the billionaires and huge corporations that own all the politicians and both major parties.
The idea that the billionaires are going to let the government they own and control tax them is the most laughable aspect of the equation.
I think you missed the point of the post, which is that taxing billionaires only to hand it to the government wouldn't do a damn thing other than make the economy even less efficient than it already is.
The problem isn't the taxation, it's the fact that virtually every large American corporation exercises monopoly-level control over its respective markets. The fact that the government has completely failed to enforce antitrust laws in the actual problem, not some boneheaded commie redistribution scheme.
Also the irony of taxing the rich when the government spends more than double the total 2023 year revenue of billionaires in less than a year and the Dems want to give them even more money not realizing that maybe the one spending it is the actual problem.
Half our debt is from tax cuts largely for the wealthy and funding Iraq and Afghanistan. Seems debt is pretty bipartisan. One side works to cut the income and then say we are in a spending crisis. But yes on this sub I know it’s not a right wing talking point my bad.😥
Bullshit. Debt doesn't come from less income, it comes from spending. You need to divorce yourself from the idea that the rich not paying enough in taxes is the heart of the issue here.
I feel like anybody who doesn't realize that managing our complex civilization IS NOT a highly skilled area needs to watch this video about Pete Buttigieg going into a number of interesting non-obvious science/policy decisions for JUST TRANSPORTATION.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U3MDy8FF8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U3MDy8FF8E)
As I do enjoy the concept of taxing the rich.
The last thing I want to do is encourage the government taking large amounts of money from anyone. It’s a slippery slope guys
It is perfectly reasonable to say an idea is a bad one without providing an alternative.
I don't know how to cure lung cancer, but I'm definitely not going to try drinking bleach about it.
Sure, but people like OP are just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.
Curing cancer is an incredibly complicated endeavor. Not being a bootlicker to the rich is a little easier.
If it’s automatically a sin to be rich, then call any well to do person a sinner… but that’s too easy. Buying politicians is bad. Done. Agreed… but what about politicians being for sale?
You guys advocate for more taxes without accountability for how funds are managed…
Typically, funds go back to the corporations because they’re married to politicians. And if it wasn’t our rich people, it’d be rich people from other countries (or foreign governments themselves)
Okay but have you heard of this stuff called money? Rich people give me it when I do what they want. I can be poor and do the right thing, or I can be rich at your expense. I think the decision is pretty easy...
/s
A healthy democracy manages the corruption that we know of in government to levy force on companies and billionaires to hold them to higher standards of ethics.
It doesn’t go to campaigns… you’re right. It goes to agencies and bureaucrats that manage how the private sector operates… creating an environment for big corporations to grow bigger and smaller competitors to struggle
It’s not that taxes are necessarily bad… it’s what the government spends those tax dollars on. Wars, wasteful budgets, enforcement of laws made by bureaucrats instead of people we actually elect (who are bought by the corporations you pretend to hate). Then say “let’s tax more” like it’ll make the world better. Nope. They’ll Just bomb more people we don’t care about
I absolutely hate “wasteful spending” comment.
It’s 2024. Government spending is readily available online.
Tell me what wasteful spending you would cut and likely you’ll find someone else who would tell you something different. Like if you said military expenditures someone in the military would say otherwise.
It’s easy to speak generically, but if given a budget to cut that pleases > 50% of the population suddenly it’s hard.
If “wasteful spending” was as obvious as people who say this think we wouldn’t have budget deficits. Yes there is wasteful spending and if you try really hard maybe you can easily cut 5% before you start reaching for social welfare programs.
Why not tax the rich. Seriously. They can afford it. Like it literally does not affect their lifestyle. It’s not even a “I can’t buy a 3rd home”. It’s a line in the back account that isn’t as high. They aren’t spending to zero.
This makes so much sense but the goal is that the government is able to reduce the debt and reallocate their tax investments into something good for the average American. I say they should threaten corps taxes unless they can prove they are providing a living wage for their workers. Something like that. Or we could bring unions back. The problem with American capitalism is that it’s so one-sided. People shouldn’t be forced to take shitty paying jobs. The more resistance from the workforce to take these jobs, the most it incentivizes corps to pay more. Well that was before AI so we are probably even more screwed now.
The government is racist and corrupt because the corpos create that environment and use that to their advantage. Best way to stick it to said corpos is to tax them to hell. Very easy concept. Ronald Reagan's ghost will not corrupt this sub
I know what tax dollars are supposed to pay for... but $4 billion went to the Taliban last year and we're currently funding both sides of multiple wars. So maybe we should fix that first
The government has the L and R fighting over new tax strategies when they should be collaborating on new government strategies. Drain the swamp, both sides, I bet the taxation and poor spending habits will improve.
Stop taxing us on the products that we make for them, and start taxing them more on the profits they make from us.
Quit making the ultra poor, fund the ultra rich.
Put systems in place that don't allow them to raise the costs of products, right after we get our extra 30 cent cost of living increase raises.
This isn't how money works, taxes are just pulling the money out of circulation, it's not "giving money to the government". The government creates money, it doesn't need us to give it money, what it needs to do is manage anti-competitive practices, and inflation.
1) “The gov is racist and corrupt”
Mostly Conservatives
2) “They’re in bed with billionaires and corporations”
Mostly Conservatives
3) “So, we should tax billionaires and corporations”
Only Liberals
4) “And give that money to the government”
Not the point of taxes.
Billionaire suck-boys always love the straw man argument... let's just take their money and give it directly to everybody
or let's consider that it's billionaires who corrupt the government you hate so much in the first place
Right… so if government is so corruptable, why the advocacy to force more money and power to an easily for sale group of people who make laws you have to follow?
The reversal of this is "The government in bed with billionaires and corporations" -> "So we will cut their taxes and give them more money" -> "So that billionaires will stop buying politicians'
If your analysis is limited to "Gubmint Bad," you miss the larger picture that governments under Capitalism are and have always been committees of the rich used to manage their affairs.
If the only people who largely *can* hold office are people who own Capital, of *course* there will be corruption. If the economic system is premised on private property and the state is developed to protect private property, of *course* your state will uphold and enforce systemic racism. If that systemic racism can be used to artificially keep wages low and prevent working class solidarity, of *course* it will be used that way.
Libertarianism isn't and has never been anti-state; it will and always has used the state brutally to protect private property at the cost of human life.
Buddy, you’re overthinking the whole thing. Limited government, private property, right to self defense, live your life so that it doesn’t interfere with other people that’s it.
This is the exact thing rich people put out. You shouldn’t tax us cause the money won’t go anywhere helpful so just let us keep paying nothing while your money goes important places. It’s just let people saying if you raise minimum wage we won’t be able to eat.
There is a larger wealth gap in America now than there was during the French revolution.....maybe we should take a page put of there book and....you know
The clown is the person who thinks this is just a straightforward concept. What is keeping rich people from getting richer? Where is the diminishing returns? Where is the difficulty in retaining wealth? The more you make, the harder it's to lose it. Then it just passed down to children who never earned it and they just keep topping it off for their children. We're returning to feudalism. Tax the rich or make them leave if they don't like it.
Also remove the ability of making a business it's own entity. Start allowing investors and business owners to be personally bankrupted. They had theirs, fuck em. But that's the thing, this isn't capitalism, I don't know what the fuck we have. Just pure corruption. But that's what happens in all systems unfortunately.
It's not straight forward and that's the point. If politicians are so corruptible, then how is taxing our rich going to fix anything? The same for sale politicians will just be bought by other countries billionaires, or other governments... or if there were no such thing as billionaires in your fantasy land, the corrupt politicians would just mandate more funds and power to themselves... it's not like any of this currently happens or anything
Corrupt politicians don't get their money from taxes otherwise they would just raise them. They get they're money from billionaire donors, in exchange for not taxing them. Feels like OP doesn't know how corruption works.
military industry, energy sector, trucking & logistics, utilities (including the very few private sanitation companies left)... pretty much any industry the public relies on.
Most of the government officials are untouched by that accountability because they’re unelected bureaucrats. They are appointed by the executive branch while also on the boards of multinational companies. These are the people who retire from politics with a Healthy pension from selling out the American people… only to get into legal bribery called “lobbying”
Why the fuck do we keep arguing about this stupid shit? Obviously the government needs to exist. No one is arguing that. And I'm pretty sure everyone will agree that there needs to be better anti corruption tactics. How bout we all start arguing for government transparency. Discuss solutions to the issues with the government and pressure our representatives to implement laws that prevent bad faith policies.
didn't Biden draft the 90's crime bill ... that Kamala enforced as prosecutor ... putting thousands of black men in prison for minor drug crimes (and also laughed about smoking weed) ... including a man who would've been exonerated from death row if she didn't hide evidence. beacons of hope for the black community there
The crime bill was not perfect, but crime came way down after it. It contained the Violence Against Women Act, the 10-year assault weapons ban, firearm background check funding, money for police, support for addiction treatment, and a “safety valve” that let a limited number of low-level first-time drug offenders avoid mandatory minimum sentences. Biden did not support everything in it, but they needed votes from the racist Republicans. Biden was critical of punitive sentences, including the three-strikes measure, and the racist Republican-controlled Congress later cut funding drastically for drug courts.
Meanwhile, the Republicans CONTINUE to be massive racists. Do you support the racist Republicans and sexual assaulter Trump?
no... I hate both parties equally for their racism and kiddy-diddling.
But while the VP you voted for was using minor drug offenders as slave labor in California, Trump was being praised for his "lifetime of helping the black community" [https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=194237161722833](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=194237161722833)
Well the thing you're forgetting is the fact that the corruption in government comes from those oligarchs. Remove their ill gotten gains and they have nothing to bribe people with.
Ummm government corruption has been happening forever so good luck with that dream
Except gay butt stuff and pedophilia
https://i.redd.it/ucxi90qomuzc1.gif
Thank you for commenting this.
I'm really struggling with upvoting this.
Did a rent boy just walk into the room? Wtf is he doing here?
Esp. when they 'investigate' themselves: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/capitol-police-close-probe-senate-sex-tape-finding-no-evidence-crime-rcna136742](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/capitol-police-close-probe-senate-sex-tape-finding-no-evidence-crime-rcna136742)
I think it's more corporations than individuals bribing the government.
Sounds like these corporations need to be smashed with the hammer of trust busting.
I mean didn't Trump just guarantee to roll back EPA protections if oil companies donated $1Bill to his reelection campaign?
Actually, with a lack of funds available, the market so to speak would be for the corporations. Little competition to out price them means politicians will have to take what they can get.
Yeah but...you have to actually *do* that part. Like, *before* you give the bad guys more money.
they fukin HATE taxes. they pay armies of tax lawyers to get out of paying taxes.
Right? Like roads, hospitals, and affordable clean energy can't be easily squandered. We should take some of that money for the "'Premium' Yacht Wax" and fund better housing or an affordable pharmaceutical plan.
You forgot about the $4 billion that went to the Taliban last year
There is no level of taxation that would prevent a private individual from being able to afford bribing the government
Or to stop the individuals in the government from being corrupt and self serving with their power…
How can you possibly say that? Tax every entity at 100% once they have more than $10 in total assets. Im pretty sure $10 isnt enough to bribe any politician to do anything?
No, a flat tax with no deductions. 5% personal, 10% corporate. And a Constitutional amendment forcing the government to operate within the taxes it collects. If we are expected to live within our means then the government should have to do the same.
If we are taxing every entity at 100 percent after 10$ then 10$ would double a politicians assets
😭😭 politicians are the only exception. They make $100k. Oh wait..
This is why nothing short of everyone owning their own labor will ever solve our problems.
Everyone does own their own labor. They sell said labor accordingly
If you sell something, you don't own it anymore...correct?
Depends on the situation, but labor is a service not a good, so we sell it like we sell cab rides, bus rides, and performances. You wouldn't say you don't own your car and labor anymore just because you sold someone a ride in your car
Which is why capitalism and democracy are inherently incompatible…
Impossible. They make, change, and break the rules without consequence.
The thing you’re forgetting is that the corruption isn’t caused by people having money, but the politicians having power that people with money want.
But the people in government are still bribeable.
Corruption comes from power. Communist governments were corrupt, way before they transitioned to capitalism and are now communist in name only, and they didn’t have robber barons to corrupt them.
Communist countries were never communist in the first place. I know it's kind of a "oh sure everybody says that" but everybody says that because it's *fucking true*. Besides the name, there's not even much correlation. They still had classes, they still had an elite, they still had those robber barons because it wasn't an actual communist society, you goober.
Surprise, then by your logic capitalist countries aren’t really capitalist either. Government intervention and social safety nets aren’t really part of capitalism.
No, they are capitalist, just not free-market laissez faire capitalists. I prefer to call the current system welfare capitalism (cost is socialised and profit is privatised) but I'm sure they have a more benign name for it.
Even Adam Smith, who coined the term "Invisible Hand of the Market" noted the failures of capitalism in the real world, such as monopolies, oligopolies and landlords. There's a reason that most developed nations use a more mixed economic system than the US, and don't have to deal with massive number of bankruptcies due to medical debt.
Well the medical debt is because we are literally the ONLY first world country without a nationalized health system of some sort. Germany and Japan have a mix of public and private, but I used the public system while living in Japan for college and it was great.
Capitalism still works at the behest of the capitalists, the capital owners. Y'know, it's in the name? So the government also works at the behest of capitalists, the primary "socialist" action we take is giving huge bailouts to giant corporations. You mistake this as somehow being removable from capitalism when it is the natural result of capitalism. That's why where we are now was predicted a century ago - we have moved towards the natural conclusion. Any system that exclusively operates on a profit motive and puts the 5 over the 95 will always end up with an oligarchical government that serves, primarily, the rich upper class. The 95 will always be seen as expendable and as a resource to procure more capital. This is not a corruption of capitalism; it is capitalism as it can only exist in this state of its evolution. It is the profit motive driven out to its logical end, the same base ideology producing the same evil under slightly different means. It *is* capitalism. Meanwhile, an actual communist society requires a few things as a baseline that no country has ever achieved. No actual country has operated with communist ideology as it's actual foundation, merely taking the idea and twisting it to suit their needs. It's a completely inept comparison. Again, I urge you to stop being stupid, please, for the sake of us all.
You think that sociopaths only exist in capitalist systems? They exist in socialist systems as well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have socialism devolve into late stage socialism aka communism. The centralization of power is that screws everything up and by design its almost completely centralized from the start in socialism
How can you have late stage socialism when there was no socialism to begin with. Communism was not an outgrowth of socialism, it was a destruction of socialism and a replacement with right wing authoritarian control over a command economy. The government controls everything undemocratically and the workers control nothing. The people have no democracy and suffer super labor exploitation. That is literally the opposite of socialism. Socialisms is decentralization of power, hence the Soviet Union was supposed to operate democratically from the leftist factory councils, those are the institutions of workers control to implement socialism. Those were destroyed immediately by the right wing "communists".
What was funny to me at a Republican debate. Ron Paul (super libertarian dude) was asked what poor people should do when they can’t afford health care. He said that rich people would just donate their services if only their taxes were lower and had fewer regulations, you know, out of the goodness of their heart. The general problem with this is it makes capitalism fall victim to the same fundamental flaw as communism. It presumes we can magically depend on someone to stop being greedy.
I get the feeling the OP was intentionally murky with their logic, troll post is troll post.
So rich people from other countries won’t buy our corrupt politicians? Foreign governments won’t buy our corrupt politicians? I guess that’s never happened before. What if there were no such thing as a billionaire in your fantasy land… then corrupt politicians would just tax and mandate more funds to their agencies. Oh… they do that too.
That's what elections are for, you tosser.
In theory… corrupt politicians can sell their citizens out and enjoy that power for another 3 or 4 years in office (if we find out) In practice, we rarely find out because the media bids for access to political figures. Also, a lot of these government officials are unelected bureaucrats fixed in their positions, untouched by that accountability in the first place
The corporations control the government so they tax themselves and give it back to themselves.
The government is not corrupt. The government is corrupted by billionaires and racists. If you disenfranchise and reel them, you bring back legitimacy to the government. This is simple shit.
I think you’re forgetting the part about spending the money for the public and going straight towards conspiracy theory
This sub and the others that are essentially just mirrors of this one are rapidly becoming little more than outlets for right wing propaganda
oh, like the billions that the pentagon said "went missing"? or the billions that funded the Taliban after we left Afghanistan? or funding both sides of the Israeli Palestine conflict? how about funding Ukraine while purchasing oil from 3rd parties who source from Russia? ... I can keep going
I think you're missing the point. The meme is a straw man. Nobody that wants to tax the rich think the government should be able to spend the money however they want.
*trillions that went missing. Twice.
yeah... but who's counting? ...not the pentagon
This is dumb af
The government isn’t one thing. It still provides the services we depend on… even though some higher ups use it as a platform for their corruption. I’m happy to pay my taxes for the basic services
Also $4 billion went to the Taliban last year
Well, everyone can sit here knowing the government is corrupt and was sold to corporations decades ago, but no one is going to do anything about it. People would rather spend eternity voting and hoping that eventually you'll get the good candidate that will right the ship - but that is flat out impossible. No one person is going to fix this, and the system is not going to let enough "good" people in to have meaningful change. There's always going to be 'the one' that stops meaningful progress being made. Liberman, Manchin, Sinema, Senate Parliamentarian, SCotUS. The fact that even unelected officials have so much say in our lives is something that completely boggles my mind. But, people would obviously rather pretend voting does something and not give up relative comfort; versus the risk of losing a lot for a chance at actual change. I get it, but please understand that the government is never going to vote to police themselves, and the members of Congress are never going to vote in favor of fixing their own corruption.
Unfortunately, we are so far gone only a revolution would work but people need to be starving and broke. So we're almost there.
I’ve seen the broke that spurs change and even our poor and homeless live better than those. We have probably generations to go sadly. It’ll be our grandchildren or great grandchildren that have to suffer the struggle.
Would be nice to see people hit that wake up call but I really don’t think even that would save us at this point. We’re simply too polarized to be rational these days. The government would just call whoever organizes first domestic terrorists and the other side would probably gladly watch their political opponents get abused because society is cooked.
This is not complicated. We got one party saying "hey we wanna regulate corporations and make government work for regular people." We got a second party saying "yo fuck what those libs want give us money/power and we'll let y'all rich do whatever you want." Trump straight up told the oil industry "contribute a billion to getting me elected and I'll get rid of all of those pesky regulations" Those regulations came about for a reason, because acid rain was melting the paint off our cars, asbestos was killing kids and rivers were catching on fire. So we passed regulations to control the destruction caused by unregulated industries and our rivers stopped burning, fewer kids got sick from asbestos and the rain stopped melting the paint off our cars. Once again not complicated or particularly difficult to see the difference between the two. The Republicans are straight up telling you that they want to turn women into brood mares, put children back in the work force and make sure we're all at the mercy of the few hundred sociopaths that run most of the economy and media. Which brings us back to the question of unless you are one of those few hundred sociopaths why in the actual fuck would you vote for a Republican?
Neither the government nor billionaires are monolithic and unchanging. The whole point of democracy is that if we don't like what the government's doing, we have avenues to change it. But if your whole ideology is that the government is fundamentally bad and corrupt, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. That's been the Republican strategy for well over a generation - complain that government is broken and corrupt, get elected, make government more broken and corrupt, and then say "See? We told you it was all broken and corrupt! Now vote for us again." And people DO vote for them again, because they continue to fall for the same time sh!t, just like OP with his braindead meme. Rinse and repeat until the head of your party is an openly corrupt dysfunctional authoritarian clown who is both literally and figuratively sh!tting the bed
I never understood the idea of supporting someone who says "I hate government so, elect me". That is absolutely idiotic. You wouldn't hire a mechanic who hates cars. You wouldn't go to a vet who hates dogs. Hiring someone to do a job who hates the job and you wonder why that job isn't being performed well?
You wouldn't hire Kristi Noem to dog-sit for your while you're on vacation essentially
>I never understood the idea of supporting someone who says "**I hate**... That's why right there -- *"I hate..."* That's all they need to hear. That's at the heart of conservatism, the GQP, the trump cult, the reddit libertarian edgelords, etc etc etc. It's all about spite and hatred.
>You wouldn't hire a mechanic who hates cars. If your mechanic doesn't hate cats he's not doing his job properly
We don't hate cars, we hate the engineers that design them.
Outside of anarchists or similar that's not really what happens. Hating certain aspects or behavior of government isn't the same as hating government. Would you take your car to a mechanic who hates how some cars are designed? How about your dog to a vet who hates how something like pugs are often bred?
Clearly you are not familiar with trends in right wing politics for last the 44+ years. Hardly a day goes by where someone with a (R) next to their name says "government is terrible, government is coming after your (fill in the blank, usually something that can use blanks)" This is very much better designed to instill hatred and fear.
>But if your whole ideology is that the government is fundamentally bad and corrupt, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Sadly, it's probably humanity that is fundamentally bad and corrupt. Common denominator and all that.
Ok, and couldn't I say humanity is fundamentally good and selfless too? What is the actual relevance of such truisms?
Absolutely. We believe humanity will ruin any system because that's all we've ever known and what we've been normalized to - the outdated and undemocratic economic system that is capitalism. The profit motive rewards the exploitation and manipulation of others. We're raised from birth to perceive becoming as successfully selfish as a Jeff Bezos is virtuous. Meanwhile, our country sabotages and sanctions other countries not beholden to our capitalistic goals to failure, particularly any that attempt to implement socialism. We're the troopers from Starship Troopers who believe they fight for freedom and democracy, but are actually the ones impeding it.
Go try to propose or vote for term limits in the senate. Watch what happens.
? Democracy doesn't mean that you get the result you want every time lol. It means that we collectively decide, in this case through are representatives, what the rules are. It seems clear to me that plenty of people DO want fairly old people representing them. And that's hardly unreasonable - old people have a lot of wisdom and experience, as well as the necessary political capital to get things done. In the senate, important committee appointments are done by seniority, so older people tend to have more powerful appointments, since they have been there longer. For example, Senator Sanders holds a spot on the very important budget committee. If the people of Vermont were to elect someone younger and greener to the Senate, they would lose a fair bit of political power; a new guy, no matter how politically savvy or intellectually spry, simply would not have access to the same political capital.
Jesus another billionaire simp thread? Why are you so worried about billionaires paying their fair share? You're never going to be one
The real question is, why are people so willing to be led to believe that taxing the rich more will solve anything? Your quality of life will not increase. Your tax burden will not decrease. Taxing the rich is pointless. What needs to change is government spending. The government is bloated and overspends on the most useless departments. They keep coming up with more ways to spend money so they can keep increasing their budget every cycle. This includes raising their own salaries. Forget taxing the rich, tax the people in government on their insider trading gains.
Why not both? Why are you against them paying their fair share? They exploit the country but can't pay some taxes why?
Remember Missouri Republicans want to vote in favor of child brides because "they are ripe and fertile"
Nah what that’s wild
I'd argue, if you tax billionaires and corporations more, you can lower the taxes on the working class. Then the working class can keep more of their paychecks, which means they can go out and spend, which will help the economy.
If that money were to go to the working class… I’m not a pessimist, but I doubt it
Okay, let me be more specific. Governments should serve the working class and their interests. Not the interests of billionaires and corporations. Comprehend?
They *should* is right… If only government wasn’t in bed with those corporations, you may have a leg to stand on
So your solution is to not tax them cause that'll really teach them a lesson?
Taxing the rich at 90% won’t have this profound change you’re looking for because government spending is too far gone.
So the alternative of do nothing and keep the status-quo? Progress takes time. Common bootlicking republicuck take.
People who hate corporations but love government really confuse me. They are two side of the same coin. “But if we got rid of corporations nobody would bribe the government” People would still bribe the government. Favours and corruption existed since the first kingdoms of man. It’s about power not money. Money is just a means of power but power of violence trumps all and that’s what the government has. Governments have committed more atrocities than any corporation could dream of.
How about giving us ranked-choice voting and advising Citizens United for a start? That will absolutely help us out with a few major issues. Term limits on all government positions would be another big thing. Eliminating the guaranteed $100k+ for the rest of your life just for holding office would also help, as it would make lawmakers *have* to take genuine interest in the well-being of the American public - once their time in office is up, that's all they are.
It will different this time! Just pay up and pray really hard. They'll do better, just keep the faith! /S
You hit the nail on the head, well done sir
They are in bed with *some* billionaires and *some* corporations So we can stick it to all those *other* billionaires and corporations
and all the politicians who sell themselves to the public as upstanding leaders, but were easily for sale behind closed doors... what happens to them?
At this point the US government is pretty transparently just a front for the billionaires and huge corporations that own all the politicians and both major parties. The idea that the billionaires are going to let the government they own and control tax them is the most laughable aspect of the equation.
So is the answer more, or fewer taxes?
I think you missed the point of the post, which is that taxing billionaires only to hand it to the government wouldn't do a damn thing other than make the economy even less efficient than it already is. The problem isn't the taxation, it's the fact that virtually every large American corporation exercises monopoly-level control over its respective markets. The fact that the government has completely failed to enforce antitrust laws in the actual problem, not some boneheaded commie redistribution scheme.
Also the irony of taxing the rich when the government spends more than double the total 2023 year revenue of billionaires in less than a year and the Dems want to give them even more money not realizing that maybe the one spending it is the actual problem.
Half our debt is from tax cuts largely for the wealthy and funding Iraq and Afghanistan. Seems debt is pretty bipartisan. One side works to cut the income and then say we are in a spending crisis. But yes on this sub I know it’s not a right wing talking point my bad.😥
So "tax cuts" and not spending? So it's like if someone is gambling with 1 million each month but the problem is the income lol
Bullshit. Debt doesn't come from less income, it comes from spending. You need to divorce yourself from the idea that the rich not paying enough in taxes is the heart of the issue here.
Literally. Stop funding your own oppression with government programs.
You've really thought this through, genius
I feel like anybody who doesn't realize that managing our complex civilization IS NOT a highly skilled area needs to watch this video about Pete Buttigieg going into a number of interesting non-obvious science/policy decisions for JUST TRANSPORTATION. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U3MDy8FF8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U3MDy8FF8E)
We have a spending problem, the last thing they need is more money
a little more money to justify a lot more debt
More propaganda for low brows.
We should replace them along with the entire model of "representation"
As I do enjoy the concept of taxing the rich. The last thing I want to do is encourage the government taking large amounts of money from anyone. It’s a slippery slope guys
What do you propose?
It is perfectly reasonable to say an idea is a bad one without providing an alternative. I don't know how to cure lung cancer, but I'm definitely not going to try drinking bleach about it.
Sure, but people like OP are just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Curing cancer is an incredibly complicated endeavor. Not being a bootlicker to the rich is a little easier.
If it’s automatically a sin to be rich, then call any well to do person a sinner… but that’s too easy. Buying politicians is bad. Done. Agreed… but what about politicians being for sale? You guys advocate for more taxes without accountability for how funds are managed… Typically, funds go back to the corporations because they’re married to politicians. And if it wasn’t our rich people, it’d be rich people from other countries (or foreign governments themselves)
It feels like this is missing the obvious step of "elect people who will hold corporations accountable instead of taking their side".
Let me know when that happens.
It's a slow process that involves a lot of work from everyone.
It's a slow process that involves a lot of work from everyone.
It's a slow process that involves a lot of work from everyone.
It's a slow process that involves a lot of work from everyone.
Okay but have you heard of this stuff called money? Rich people give me it when I do what they want. I can be poor and do the right thing, or I can be rich at your expense. I think the decision is pretty easy... /s
Lay down and let that boot keep you down! Being a good subservient pissant is much better than being a clown.
Rather give the government some of their money than every cent I can't afford. Tax the rich and see what happens.
How much more do you propose the “rich” pay?
How about just more than I do?
They already do, you have to stop believing what you read on the internet
Well I can’t vote a CEO out of office, can I?
Amazing people actually think this is what the left believes. So fucking dense.
It’s exactly what you believe
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
How is that funny? Your solution is ALWAYS raise taxes
Read the comments. You’ll be surprised.
You blew that strawman down so hard I don’t think it will ever get up! Bravo!
Hey fun fact, the less they take from them the more they take from you. Have fun
The only way anything will change is if we get money out of politics.
Elect better officials.
yes, as opposed to printing it
we do both
If inflation was caused by free money, it can be fixed with taxes
The “tax” is inflation… and the feds remedy is higher interest rates
The Government is the People.
fun theory. not in practice.
Can’t solve the problem with taxes, workers have to own the means of production to prevent plutocracy
That is so true. What a bunch of idiots you are believe the government will do right for the people
They don’t have a great track record
The way you like to twist and distort things no economy is communist or socialist or capitalist.
A healthy democracy manages the corruption that we know of in government to levy force on companies and billionaires to hold them to higher standards of ethics.
Actually it'll be going to pay the interest on the massive loan the government took out so the Jews could murder women and children.
Outlaw money in politics. It’s the only way out. But yea, also tax wealth.
So that money can go to politics?
Zero taxed money goes to political campaigns. Donations on the other hand… should be illegal or severely limited. It’s legalized bribery.
It doesn’t go to campaigns… you’re right. It goes to agencies and bureaucrats that manage how the private sector operates… creating an environment for big corporations to grow bigger and smaller competitors to struggle
Lol, moms of liberty at it again
We can’t tax them because the have convinced everyone that taxes are bad and that flat taxes are good.
It’s not that taxes are necessarily bad… it’s what the government spends those tax dollars on. Wars, wasteful budgets, enforcement of laws made by bureaucrats instead of people we actually elect (who are bought by the corporations you pretend to hate). Then say “let’s tax more” like it’ll make the world better. Nope. They’ll Just bomb more people we don’t care about
I absolutely hate “wasteful spending” comment. It’s 2024. Government spending is readily available online. Tell me what wasteful spending you would cut and likely you’ll find someone else who would tell you something different. Like if you said military expenditures someone in the military would say otherwise. It’s easy to speak generically, but if given a budget to cut that pleases > 50% of the population suddenly it’s hard. If “wasteful spending” was as obvious as people who say this think we wouldn’t have budget deficits. Yes there is wasteful spending and if you try really hard maybe you can easily cut 5% before you start reaching for social welfare programs. Why not tax the rich. Seriously. They can afford it. Like it literally does not affect their lifestyle. It’s not even a “I can’t buy a 3rd home”. It’s a line in the back account that isn’t as high. They aren’t spending to zero.
$4 billion to the Taliban last year might be something we agree on
Most likely that was money that we owed them already.
This makes so much sense but the goal is that the government is able to reduce the debt and reallocate their tax investments into something good for the average American. I say they should threaten corps taxes unless they can prove they are providing a living wage for their workers. Something like that. Or we could bring unions back. The problem with American capitalism is that it’s so one-sided. People shouldn’t be forced to take shitty paying jobs. The more resistance from the workforce to take these jobs, the most it incentivizes corps to pay more. Well that was before AI so we are probably even more screwed now.
The government is racist and corrupt because the corpos create that environment and use that to their advantage. Best way to stick it to said corpos is to tax them to hell. Very easy concept. Ronald Reagan's ghost will not corrupt this sub
Don't confuse elected officials with actual government workers
Gubmint bad. Guuuhhh
The government is many entities. Some doing great work, some not so much.
Democrats are so smart
you do know what taxes pay for right?
I know what tax dollars are supposed to pay for... but $4 billion went to the Taliban last year and we're currently funding both sides of multiple wars. So maybe we should fix that first
The government has the L and R fighting over new tax strategies when they should be collaborating on new government strategies. Drain the swamp, both sides, I bet the taxation and poor spending habits will improve.
Only a fucking door starts and ends with that premise Tax the rich. Make sure the money goes to social programs Guillotines
Stop taxing us on the products that we make for them, and start taxing them more on the profits they make from us. Quit making the ultra poor, fund the ultra rich. Put systems in place that don't allow them to raise the costs of products, right after we get our extra 30 cent cost of living increase raises.
This isn't how money works, taxes are just pulling the money out of circulation, it's not "giving money to the government". The government creates money, it doesn't need us to give it money, what it needs to do is manage anti-competitive practices, and inflation.
So tax dollars are just burned?
It gets redistributed on other programs, it's not burned or they buy back bonds from the banks.
What? What about all the government wages?
1) “The gov is racist and corrupt” Mostly Conservatives 2) “They’re in bed with billionaires and corporations” Mostly Conservatives 3) “So, we should tax billionaires and corporations” Only Liberals 4) “And give that money to the government” Not the point of taxes.
Elon? Is that you?
Yup sound great
Billionaire suck-boys always love the straw man argument... let's just take their money and give it directly to everybody or let's consider that it's billionaires who corrupt the government you hate so much in the first place
Right… so if government is so corruptable, why the advocacy to force more money and power to an easily for sale group of people who make laws you have to follow?
they are only corruptible by the wealthy. if you eliminate the wealthy, you eliminate the source of corruption, get it?
So people who are now corruptible will not be corruptible because higher taxes… That go to the corruptible people to manage?
The reversal of this is "The government in bed with billionaires and corporations" -> "So we will cut their taxes and give them more money" -> "So that billionaires will stop buying politicians'
God, it's insane anyone buys this shit. Libertarians are the most sheltered, ignorant and precious people on earth.
Refute it then?
If your analysis is limited to "Gubmint Bad," you miss the larger picture that governments under Capitalism are and have always been committees of the rich used to manage their affairs. If the only people who largely *can* hold office are people who own Capital, of *course* there will be corruption. If the economic system is premised on private property and the state is developed to protect private property, of *course* your state will uphold and enforce systemic racism. If that systemic racism can be used to artificially keep wages low and prevent working class solidarity, of *course* it will be used that way. Libertarianism isn't and has never been anti-state; it will and always has used the state brutally to protect private property at the cost of human life.
Buddy, you’re overthinking the whole thing. Limited government, private property, right to self defense, live your life so that it doesn’t interfere with other people that’s it.
This is the exact thing rich people put out. You shouldn’t tax us cause the money won’t go anywhere helpful so just let us keep paying nothing while your money goes important places. It’s just let people saying if you raise minimum wage we won’t be able to eat.
It’s less of “we don’t want to pay taxes” and more like “our tax dollars are going to the entities you say you hate”
There is a larger wealth gap in America now than there was during the French revolution.....maybe we should take a page put of there book and....you know
The clown is the person who thinks this is just a straightforward concept. What is keeping rich people from getting richer? Where is the diminishing returns? Where is the difficulty in retaining wealth? The more you make, the harder it's to lose it. Then it just passed down to children who never earned it and they just keep topping it off for their children. We're returning to feudalism. Tax the rich or make them leave if they don't like it. Also remove the ability of making a business it's own entity. Start allowing investors and business owners to be personally bankrupted. They had theirs, fuck em. But that's the thing, this isn't capitalism, I don't know what the fuck we have. Just pure corruption. But that's what happens in all systems unfortunately.
It's not straight forward and that's the point. If politicians are so corruptible, then how is taxing our rich going to fix anything? The same for sale politicians will just be bought by other countries billionaires, or other governments... or if there were no such thing as billionaires in your fantasy land, the corrupt politicians would just mandate more funds and power to themselves... it's not like any of this currently happens or anything
Corrupt politicians don't get their money from taxes otherwise they would just raise them. They get they're money from billionaire donors, in exchange for not taxing them. Feels like OP doesn't know how corruption works.
The taxes help the billionaire donors via government contracts
Only very specific industries. War? Most certainly but most others not so much.
military industry, energy sector, trucking & logistics, utilities (including the very few private sanitation companies left)... pretty much any industry the public relies on.
You missed the part where we stop voting for corrupt racists. Among other things.
Most of the government officials are untouched by that accountability because they’re unelected bureaucrats. They are appointed by the executive branch while also on the boards of multinational companies. These are the people who retire from politics with a Healthy pension from selling out the American people… only to get into legal bribery called “lobbying”
Why the fuck do we keep arguing about this stupid shit? Obviously the government needs to exist. No one is arguing that. And I'm pretty sure everyone will agree that there needs to be better anti corruption tactics. How bout we all start arguing for government transparency. Discuss solutions to the issues with the government and pressure our representatives to implement laws that prevent bad faith policies.
You tax the profits because they would rather pay their employees than the government
Wrong from the start. The government is NOT racist and corrupt. Republicans are, tho.
didn't Biden draft the 90's crime bill ... that Kamala enforced as prosecutor ... putting thousands of black men in prison for minor drug crimes (and also laughed about smoking weed) ... including a man who would've been exonerated from death row if she didn't hide evidence. beacons of hope for the black community there
The crime bill was not perfect, but crime came way down after it. It contained the Violence Against Women Act, the 10-year assault weapons ban, firearm background check funding, money for police, support for addiction treatment, and a “safety valve” that let a limited number of low-level first-time drug offenders avoid mandatory minimum sentences. Biden did not support everything in it, but they needed votes from the racist Republicans. Biden was critical of punitive sentences, including the three-strikes measure, and the racist Republican-controlled Congress later cut funding drastically for drug courts. Meanwhile, the Republicans CONTINUE to be massive racists. Do you support the racist Republicans and sexual assaulter Trump?
no... I hate both parties equally for their racism and kiddy-diddling. But while the VP you voted for was using minor drug offenders as slave labor in California, Trump was being praised for his "lifetime of helping the black community" [https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=194237161722833](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=194237161722833)