Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
My response to you was regarding your assertion I’ve no love for the dirt poor. Neither of us does. Your charity is largely performative. For us to make real redistributions that would help the truly poor and middle, people like us would have to seriously downgrade our lifestyles. The economy would have to be radically altered.
|
Not really sure what you are talking about. There are a bunch of things I would do if I were charge that I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do, and I think they would help average people. If we were to talk about the specifics, you would adopt a jaded attitude, and explain how it would never work or never happen. I would try, and you wouldn't.
eta: You seem to think that it's pointless to help people on the margin, and I don't. If I had my way, I would, for example, spend lots more money on public education and mass transit, because I think those are goods that make life better for those who need to use them. Pretty sure you will now scoff at the inadequacy of anything one could try in that regard.
Quote:
|
I think it’s beyond policy solutions, and impossible.
|
See, there it is. You don't want to do anything because it's "impossible."
Quote:
|
You employ the performative act of addressing the desperate with crumbs from the state via tax hikes that cost you at the margin in the moment but keep in place an economic system that makes you 100x that over the long term.
|
I'd be game to do more than crumbs, but people like you tell me it's impossible.
Quote:
|
You get to feel good without really doing anything that causes you to acquire skin in the game. Same here. I talk a good game, and I did bet against this country in 2008 (and lost on it), but when the bailout lost on first vote and an apocalypse looked real, I dropped my libertarian shtick real quick.
|
Look, friend, you know where I went when I left BIGLAW and what it did for my earnings. If I just wanted to make money, there are a lot of other things I could be doing.
Quote:
|
I don’t like being called selfish by the selfish. We’re all in the club to some degree. (Look up the parasitic effects of the upper middle and affluent classes on the poor... Giridharadas does a great job.) Stop bullshitting yourself. Welcome to Self-Interested Club.
|
He does a great job, by focusing on what people actually do. You, on the other hand, are shooting blanks.
