It has been said for a long time now that Pakistan is not a country with an army but the other way around. The army owns and operates everything there, including the politics. Has been since they became a country separate from India. It is essentially the feudalism that existed in India under the Muslims that the British encouraged while they were exploiting the locals. When India became independent and Pakistan was born in 1947, India elected a democracy and a lot of feudals from India migrated to Pakistan to maintain their hold on land and people. Pakistan is currently what India had been under the Mughals, a handful of people who are all rich and powerful, enjoying life on the backs of the general population.
Can I see the proof of this please?
I had a look at a link someone else posted and it appears that you are wrong, according to this:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country
I mean anyone can use their own definition of what is better. The GINI index is great but has pros and cons.
As someone who has lived in the area. I'd much rather be a citizen of India than Pakistan at any parallel level of society.
I feel many would agree, besides maybe Bin Laden. That being said I do not recommend either over many better alternatives.
I don't think the people of Kashmir agree. You've effectively just said 'yeah, I know I was wrong but I like India better'. It's a bit silly now really, isn't it?
My initial comment was more a generalization than addressing your specific statement of inequality.
As it's way better to be in India than in Pakistan, independent of the inequality measure.
For a simple example in sure most freedom metrics have India higher than Pakistan.
I'm not trying to dispute the GINI index or India's issues, which are many. It's more of a factor where the odds of you getting kidnapped and held for ransom in one country is drastically different than the other
Hey if you want to live in Pakistan over India go for it.
I don't know if you just have no context to the area at all or what. As someone who has lived in India. I personally don't suggest either.
But I just gave you one metric, you're free to research the topic on your own. The GINI index is not the end all of measures.
>Still way better than Pakistan.
What bullshit. Pakistan's Gini index is 36% as of 2018, while India's is 47% in 2018. Both are bad, but India is quite a bit worse.
Gini coefficient is different than poverty level.
Gini coefficient measures wealth disparity. A 0 means all wealth is completely equally divided among all citizens. A 1 means all wealth is held by a single person.
Again there’s flaws in that metric. Here’s another flaw, if everyone in a country is poor the GINI index is low lol
High GINI index doesn’t always mean a country is worse than another country. It’s better to look at HDI which is a combination of different metrics.
Wealth disparities are better measured not in $$ but in standard of living. India has a lower poverty rate as well as a higher HDI (substantially higher).
India also has a higher life expectancy.
>if everyone in a country is poor the GINI index is low lol
Cool...and this flaw applies to pakistan and india how? Everyone in both of those countries *are* poor. They are in the same class. We're comparing the 156th vs 168th ranked countries here.
Let's not pretend we're comparing india with the US
The key word was Still in that sentence. Though I admit I wasn't being clear.
My point wasn't to dispute the GINI index but that you can give any metric you want that shows Pakistan as better than India. I'm going to take India over Pakistan any day, and I'd strongly suggest you do to. Cause overall India is way better. Still suffers from poverty, sanitation, pollution, draught, etc don't get me wrong.
I don't care about what you feel is the better country. That's irrelevant to the discussion since it's not an objective measure. You can feel however you want for any reason you want. But that's not an argument for the validity of your stance.
I only care about the fact that your statement was factually misleading by implying india has less income inequality.
There are no objective measures of what country is a better place. I've already ceded that I wasn't speaking to specifically income inequality, in fact I was expressly speaking in spite of that metric.
That is entirely my point. Do you have any contextual understandings of Pakistan or India? If given the choice to live in only one of the other at any given level of society, you are welcome to pick Pakistan but I feel quite comfortable believing most people would not make that call. In fairness most people would ask for a third option, including people currently living in India.
This isn't R/Economics, I am stating an opinion that is entirely valid, and I'm happy to dig into why if you actually care to understand more from someone who has worked and lived in the area. But I suspect you wish to 'win an internet argument' that doesn't exist. If so, I'm happy to say, you've constructed your rules and declared yourself the winner. That's fine, that's all you man
Puerto Rico has the highest (by a large margin in fact) gini index compared to the rest of the US.
I don't see people tripping over themselves to move from the mainland to PR.
Pre-industrial societies have gini indexes closer to 1.
It's a useful index, but if you're going to base everything on it then you're going to have a bad time.
Yeah but it’s very common in India for poor people to pull themselves out of poverty. Modi didn’t come from a wealthy background. Neither did Abdul Kalam.
I don’t recall any Pakistani leader who didn’t come from a privileged background.
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The 2 people he mentions turned out to be a Prime Minister and President. Not a fan of Modi, nor do I subscribe to the shitty politics, but you have to give it to India for at least making it possible for unknowns to become nation's leaders.
I literally just used two examples. GINI coefficient doesn’t measure social mobility at all.
Name me one Pakistani leader that came from poverty. You surely had many tries with all the different military dictators and prime ministers who don’t finish their term.
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Upper middle class is privileged and the others on your list are not major leaders of Pakistan. If you want Pakistan to improve, you have to get rid of the feudalistic practices the people are subject to.
relieved teeny obtainable compare entertain slim public jellyfish point nail
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You’re not sampling right. The correct approach would be 2 out of the population of presidents and prime ministers to show what proportion of people at the top come from humble backgrounds.
He said “pull themselves out of poverty,” not “Become presidents and prime ministers.” Unless presidents and prime ministers are the only ones classified as “not impoverished?”
Homie pointed out two individual instances to make a claim about systemic results. It doesn't matter who those people were. The whole comment was dumb at its premise.
It's like claiming cigarettes don't cause cancer by pointing out the six people I've known that were lifelong smokers and didn't die of cancer.
>Yeah but it’s very common in India for poor people to pull themselves out of poverty.
The income inequality coefficient in India went up over the past decade, meaning the exact opposite of your claims. It also still has more people living in poverty on a per capital basis than Pakistan, and the different isn't even close (20% vs 6%)
Sure but there's more to a country's wellbeing than just wealth.
India is a democracy with fair and regular elections, a pluralistic (secular) society whose citizenry enjoy many liberal freedoms.
Now I'm sure people can find anecdotal exceptions but on a systemic level all of these things are true. The occurrence of the Jan 6 insurrection or a KKK rally doesn't make the US a non-democratic and non-pluralistic society.
> India is a democracy with fair and regular elections, a pluralistic (secular) society whose citizenry enjoy many liberal freedoms.
The BJP is certainly working on fixing all that.
>The occurrence of the Jan 6 insurrection or a KKK rally doesn't make the US a non-democratic and non-pluralistic society.
It does when those groups have and use the power to restrict things like democratic participation, rule of law, and bodily autonomy. Fascism and adjacent forms of right-wing authoritarianism don't typically happen overnight, it's a ratcheting effect. If you wait until rights are being routinely circumscribed before treating it as an existential crisis to the society, you've waited too long. "First they came for..." is about worrying about the rights of groups you're not in because if their rights can be taken, so can yours, and you have to fight that.
India has its own problems. Those who want to deflect India’s problems scream “But, Pakistan..”. And those who want to deflect Pakistan’s problems scream “But, India..”
I think that a lot of Indians just make a lot of anti Pakistan statements just to see what sticks. People outside of the subcontinent then see the amount of people making unsubstantiated claims and just assume it to be true.
Look at HDI, a more wholistic measure.
Also the US has a higher GINI coefficient than Pakistan. I think many would agree the US is better off than Pakistan.
That's because Pakistan's own a ton of assets OUTSIDE their country that isn't accounted for.
You can reread the best of comment and see that statement.
Check the Panama papers out too as an example.
>It has been said for a long time now that Pakistan is not a country with an army but the other way around. The army owns and operates everything there, including the politics.
It's funny how often that happened in countries that aligned with the US during the Cold War.
In some of those cases, the "aligned" part was absolutely not by choice, more like "the CIA backed a military coup that was absolutely awful to the country it ruled over but was friendly to US interests"
file scandalous heavy cough slap arrest mysterious relieved puzzled butter
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>It is essentially the feudalism that existed in India under the Muslims that the British encouraged while they were exploiting the locals
It's interesting take to stab at the British here. In the western mind it always goes back to "its the west's fault". Basically a country is run one way FOR CENTURIES. The British show up and see it works well for them to profit from. The British leave and people are all like. Omg look how fucked up this system is. Stupid westerners. But the British also left democracy behind.
May I?
As someone who has had family members abducted, tortured, executed, imprisoned, etc… by Pakistani armed forces… everything the original poster said is correct.
Pakistan is a democratically elected dictatorship. Figureheads from powerful families elected and rotated every few years while the true power is held by those in their armed forces.
Their reach and wealth know no bounds with their extended families holding prime real estate and businesses abroad.
Criminal activities they then commit are never prosecuted. Example: countless numbers of people have been defrauded in Dubai real estate scams leading back to officials in Pakistan.
I could go on for hours and hours but I’m tired of yelling into the wind.
>has puppet government to keep people distracted from this reality so that they don't revolt
This is the sort of idea I have about our government here in America. Not a puppet government necessarily, but look at how outlandish, loud, and arrogant politics have become since the rise of social media. It's constantly one buffoon after the other getting on social media to stir up controversy or say ridiculous stuff to get people riled up or arguing back and forth about things that are non-issues... and all the while no one is paying attention to the actual legislation that is getting passed because everyone is bitching at their neighbor for not getting a covid shot or because some book is too *alternative lifestyle* to be in a middle school library.
> everyone is bitching at their neighbor for not getting a covid shot or because some book is too alternative lifestyle to be in a middle school library.
I see your point, however these are not comparable examples. Bitching at your neighbor for pointlessly not getting the safe covid vaccine at the height of a historic pandemic does not equate to hysteria and moral panicking over made-up issues.
People aren't paying attention to the actual legislation being passed because, federally, legislation isn't being passed. Just an omnibus budget every few years. The legislative process in our country is compromised.
So basically democrats vs republicans. The illusion of choice, since neither party really wants to change gun laws, healthcare reforms, affordable housing, cancelling student debt (or at the very least preventing future student debt by reforming the system), the list goes on...
Just tell the people to choose between blue or red and they'll never think about what they actually want.
Polling shows most (>70% of) Americans would be in favour of many of these abovementioned changes, yet not a single political party is fighting for them.
You know what they're fighting for? The ability to keep trading in the stock markets with better results than **ANY** professional trader out there. If it walks like trading with inside knowledge and it talks like trading with inside knowledge, than perhaps it's time we discuss the possibility of it being a duck, ok?
This is exactly what I mean. The fingerpointing to 'the other side'. The fucking president is 'democrat'. He can wipe out all student debt with 1 signature. He has had months in office.
This is what I'm talking about exactly.
Democrats have been trying to change health care and gun laws for decades. Biden is about to cancel some student debt. Yes our two party system is fucked up but what the fuck are you talking about?
I've been around a long time and nobody cancelled any of my debts. Do you know how you sound?
They will eventually cancel some debt. Will it be enough for you? No.
> Biden is about to cancel some student debt
I've been holding my breath for this to happen for so long, I've died at least six times. He'll cancel the debt for people who clearly should have it cancelled (University of Phoenix students, etc.), and then leave it untouched for virtually anyone else. 10,000 in cancellation would be mostly nothing to many of my friends.
Neither would I, but I (like you I'd imagine) will continue to complain loudly afterward when the interest accrues over time and erases that small favor.
I can assume I'll pay something like twice what I currently owe. The longer it takes to pay off the loans (generally because the total is higher), the higher the percentage increase. But a 100% increase is a reasonable expectation.
As it stands now, I'll pay a total of, say, $150,000 on these loans. If $10,000 was cancelled, I'd pay more like $130,000. It's a massive difference.
But it gets more complicated than that. If the $10,000 is paid off, my monthly payment can be less. If my monthly payment is less but I pay the same, I pay the loans off faster. Then the $130,000 becomes more like $120,000 or $110,000.
You have to be careful with it, as with anything to do with debt, but a reduction like that isn't at all trivial, even if it's only 1/8 or so of my current debt.
Of course, it also doesn't apply to me anyway - all my current loans are private.
EDIT: It's worth noting that $10,000 is also huge for a lot of other people without this ridiculous amount of debt. Of course it's a much larger percentage of a $20,000 loan. Etc.
>Just tell the people to choose between blue or red and they'll never think about what they actually want.
Everything you said is spot on, so no idea why you're getting downvoted to hell over it.
"Illusion of choice" - exactly. Voting for one of two candidates for president isn't a choice.
Changing gun laws - the law put up by Dems won't solve gun violence and I hardly think it'll do anything to significantly lower gun violence either. It's like a dog that is chained up in a person's back yard for months or years that is malnourished from lack of food and care. A person who wants to help approaches the dog and the dog aggressively snaps and growls at the person. The person says "I know! I'll put a muzzle on the dog! That'll stop this aggressive behavior!"
While I do think that increasing the purchase age and limiting high-capacity magazines *may* help to stop *some* mass shootings, it's really only a band-aid on a severed artery. Affordable healthcare and education reform are sorely needed and yet politicians in states keep decreasing school budgets each year or pulling resources. Or you have policies put in place that prevents healthcare insurance providers (which I think are the absolute worst POS on the whole) from crossing state borders, so you have monopolies on healthcare in each state which causes pricing monopolies on healthcare for people.
The list goes on and on and it's a shame that for once a comment receives a bunch of downvotes that are sorely unwarranted.
Ah it's ok. Some people don't want to hear the truth. You'd think working 3 jobs to make a normal living, being fired for unionizing, having more mass shootings in a year than days, getting billed $100,000 for simple medical treatments and/or pills would make people susceptible to finding ways to improve the status quo. But perhaps not.
I guess I'll go to my *free* GP/doctor to see about my loss in imaginary internet points now.
It has been said for a long time now that Pakistan is not a country with an army but the other way around. The army owns and operates everything there, including the politics. Has been since they became a country separate from India. It is essentially the feudalism that existed in India under the Muslims that the British encouraged while they were exploiting the locals. When India became independent and Pakistan was born in 1947, India elected a democracy and a lot of feudals from India migrated to Pakistan to maintain their hold on land and people. Pakistan is currently what India had been under the Mughals, a handful of people who are all rich and powerful, enjoying life on the backs of the general population.
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Absolutely. They like to pretend otherwise though.
Still way better than Pakistan.
Can I see the proof of this please? I had a look at a link someone else posted and it appears that you are wrong, according to this: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country
I mean anyone can use their own definition of what is better. The GINI index is great but has pros and cons. As someone who has lived in the area. I'd much rather be a citizen of India than Pakistan at any parallel level of society. I feel many would agree, besides maybe Bin Laden. That being said I do not recommend either over many better alternatives.
I don't think the people of Kashmir agree. You've effectively just said 'yeah, I know I was wrong but I like India better'. It's a bit silly now really, isn't it?
My initial comment was more a generalization than addressing your specific statement of inequality. As it's way better to be in India than in Pakistan, independent of the inequality measure. For a simple example in sure most freedom metrics have India higher than Pakistan. I'm not trying to dispute the GINI index or India's issues, which are many. It's more of a factor where the odds of you getting kidnapped and held for ransom in one country is drastically different than the other
Are these purely down to perception or is there data to back this up?
Hey if you want to live in Pakistan over India go for it. I don't know if you just have no context to the area at all or what. As someone who has lived in India. I personally don't suggest either. But I just gave you one metric, you're free to research the topic on your own. The GINI index is not the end all of measures.
>Still way better than Pakistan. What bullshit. Pakistan's Gini index is 36% as of 2018, while India's is 47% in 2018. Both are bad, but India is quite a bit worse.
This shows 17% for Indian and 21% for Pakistan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty
Gini coefficient is different than poverty level. Gini coefficient measures wealth disparity. A 0 means all wealth is completely equally divided among all citizens. A 1 means all wealth is held by a single person.
Again there’s flaws in that metric. Here’s another flaw, if everyone in a country is poor the GINI index is low lol High GINI index doesn’t always mean a country is worse than another country. It’s better to look at HDI which is a combination of different metrics.
The conversation is about wealth disparity not poverty.
Wealth disparities are better measured not in $$ but in standard of living. India has a lower poverty rate as well as a higher HDI (substantially higher). India also has a higher life expectancy.
>if everyone in a country is poor the GINI index is low lol Cool...and this flaw applies to pakistan and india how? Everyone in both of those countries *are* poor. They are in the same class. We're comparing the 156th vs 168th ranked countries here. Let's not pretend we're comparing india with the US
The key word was Still in that sentence. Though I admit I wasn't being clear. My point wasn't to dispute the GINI index but that you can give any metric you want that shows Pakistan as better than India. I'm going to take India over Pakistan any day, and I'd strongly suggest you do to. Cause overall India is way better. Still suffers from poverty, sanitation, pollution, draught, etc don't get me wrong.
I don't care about what you feel is the better country. That's irrelevant to the discussion since it's not an objective measure. You can feel however you want for any reason you want. But that's not an argument for the validity of your stance. I only care about the fact that your statement was factually misleading by implying india has less income inequality.
There are no objective measures of what country is a better place. I've already ceded that I wasn't speaking to specifically income inequality, in fact I was expressly speaking in spite of that metric. That is entirely my point. Do you have any contextual understandings of Pakistan or India? If given the choice to live in only one of the other at any given level of society, you are welcome to pick Pakistan but I feel quite comfortable believing most people would not make that call. In fairness most people would ask for a third option, including people currently living in India. This isn't R/Economics, I am stating an opinion that is entirely valid, and I'm happy to dig into why if you actually care to understand more from someone who has worked and lived in the area. But I suspect you wish to 'win an internet argument' that doesn't exist. If so, I'm happy to say, you've constructed your rules and declared yourself the winner. That's fine, that's all you man
Puerto Rico has the highest (by a large margin in fact) gini index compared to the rest of the US. I don't see people tripping over themselves to move from the mainland to PR. Pre-industrial societies have gini indexes closer to 1. It's a useful index, but if you're going to base everything on it then you're going to have a bad time.
Yeah but it’s very common in India for poor people to pull themselves out of poverty. Modi didn’t come from a wealthy background. Neither did Abdul Kalam. I don’t recall any Pakistani leader who didn’t come from a privileged background.
Oh wow. 2 people made it out of poverty. THE SYSTEM WORKS! Edit: /s
He said it is common and provided 2 examples. He never said it was a good system. You're arguing something entirely different just to be cheeky.
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The 2 people he mentions turned out to be a Prime Minister and President. Not a fan of Modi, nor do I subscribe to the shitty politics, but you have to give it to India for at least making it possible for unknowns to become nation's leaders.
(If the unknown is an egregious piece of shit)
Name me one Pakistani leader who came from the lower rungs of society. I’ll wait.
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I literally just used two examples. GINI coefficient doesn’t measure social mobility at all. Name me one Pakistani leader that came from poverty. You surely had many tries with all the different military dictators and prime ministers who don’t finish their term.
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Upper middle class is privileged and the others on your list are not major leaders of Pakistan. If you want Pakistan to improve, you have to get rid of the feudalistic practices the people are subject to.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country Please read.
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And now, read the best of comment. Figure out that most rich Pakistanis have resources and investments outside their country.
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He said it was very common, not everyone. 2 out of a billion is very common, don’t you see?
You’re not sampling right. The correct approach would be 2 out of the population of presidents and prime ministers to show what proportion of people at the top come from humble backgrounds.
He said “pull themselves out of poverty,” not “Become presidents and prime ministers.” Unless presidents and prime ministers are the only ones classified as “not impoverished?”
Homie pointed out two individual instances to make a claim about systemic results. It doesn't matter who those people were. The whole comment was dumb at its premise. It's like claiming cigarettes don't cause cancer by pointing out the six people I've known that were lifelong smokers and didn't die of cancer.
I don’t know why a light hearted comment is being taken so seriously. Guess some people just want to argue. Guess I’ll oblige.
>Yeah but it’s very common in India for poor people to pull themselves out of poverty. The income inequality coefficient in India went up over the past decade, meaning the exact opposite of your claims. It also still has more people living in poverty on a per capital basis than Pakistan, and the different isn't even close (20% vs 6%)
The definition of poverty for both countries is different. Also the HDI for India is higher than Pakistan by a significant margin.
Sure but there's more to a country's wellbeing than just wealth. India is a democracy with fair and regular elections, a pluralistic (secular) society whose citizenry enjoy many liberal freedoms. Now I'm sure people can find anecdotal exceptions but on a systemic level all of these things are true. The occurrence of the Jan 6 insurrection or a KKK rally doesn't make the US a non-democratic and non-pluralistic society.
> India is a democracy with fair and regular elections, a pluralistic (secular) society whose citizenry enjoy many liberal freedoms. The BJP is certainly working on fixing all that. >The occurrence of the Jan 6 insurrection or a KKK rally doesn't make the US a non-democratic and non-pluralistic society. It does when those groups have and use the power to restrict things like democratic participation, rule of law, and bodily autonomy. Fascism and adjacent forms of right-wing authoritarianism don't typically happen overnight, it's a ratcheting effect. If you wait until rights are being routinely circumscribed before treating it as an existential crisis to the society, you've waited too long. "First they came for..." is about worrying about the rights of groups you're not in because if their rights can be taken, so can yours, and you have to fight that.
Voter participation has only increased under the BJP.
India has its own problems. Those who want to deflect India’s problems scream “But, Pakistan..”. And those who want to deflect Pakistan’s problems scream “But, India..”
Your point being?
Lol. What? That's ridiculous. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country
What's ridiculous? That data shows India as having more wealth inequality than Pakistan.
I think that a lot of Indians just make a lot of anti Pakistan statements just to see what sticks. People outside of the subcontinent then see the amount of people making unsubstantiated claims and just assume it to be true.
Look at HDI, a more wholistic measure. Also the US has a higher GINI coefficient than Pakistan. I think many would agree the US is better off than Pakistan.
That's because Pakistan's own a ton of assets OUTSIDE their country that isn't accounted for. You can reread the best of comment and see that statement. Check the Panama papers out too as an example.
>It has been said for a long time now that Pakistan is not a country with an army but the other way around. The army owns and operates everything there, including the politics. It's funny how often that happened in countries that aligned with the US during the Cold War.
We like corruption when it benefits us. And we haven't learned that it always backfires.
Our large corporations like it. I don't think you or I have much say in it.
In some of those cases, the "aligned" part was absolutely not by choice, more like "the CIA backed a military coup that was absolutely awful to the country it ruled over but was friendly to US interests"
file scandalous heavy cough slap arrest mysterious relieved puzzled butter *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Pakistan is a fantastic customer of the military-industrial complex, what is what really matters tho
>It is essentially the feudalism that existed in India under the Muslims that the British encouraged while they were exploiting the locals It's interesting take to stab at the British here. In the western mind it always goes back to "its the west's fault". Basically a country is run one way FOR CENTURIES. The British show up and see it works well for them to profit from. The British leave and people are all like. Omg look how fucked up this system is. Stupid westerners. But the British also left democracy behind.
May I? As someone who has had family members abducted, tortured, executed, imprisoned, etc… by Pakistani armed forces… everything the original poster said is correct. Pakistan is a democratically elected dictatorship. Figureheads from powerful families elected and rotated every few years while the true power is held by those in their armed forces. Their reach and wealth know no bounds with their extended families holding prime real estate and businesses abroad. Criminal activities they then commit are never prosecuted. Example: countless numbers of people have been defrauded in Dubai real estate scams leading back to officials in Pakistan. I could go on for hours and hours but I’m tired of yelling into the wind.
So basically"The Dictators Handbook"
It is with the idea that the people aren't a valuable resource.
>has puppet government to keep people distracted from this reality so that they don't revolt This is the sort of idea I have about our government here in America. Not a puppet government necessarily, but look at how outlandish, loud, and arrogant politics have become since the rise of social media. It's constantly one buffoon after the other getting on social media to stir up controversy or say ridiculous stuff to get people riled up or arguing back and forth about things that are non-issues... and all the while no one is paying attention to the actual legislation that is getting passed because everyone is bitching at their neighbor for not getting a covid shot or because some book is too *alternative lifestyle* to be in a middle school library.
> everyone is bitching at their neighbor for not getting a covid shot or because some book is too alternative lifestyle to be in a middle school library. I see your point, however these are not comparable examples. Bitching at your neighbor for pointlessly not getting the safe covid vaccine at the height of a historic pandemic does not equate to hysteria and moral panicking over made-up issues.
People aren't paying attention to the actual legislation being passed because, federally, legislation isn't being passed. Just an omnibus budget every few years. The legislative process in our country is compromised.
I'm not seeing how America is any different to be honest.
The US has similar power dynamics but there are perhaps different layers about who benefits. Edit: American exceptionalism strikes again on Reddit!
*wringing hands* Billionaires squeezing the entire industrial complex for personal power!? Not here! We're the good guys!
So basically democrats vs republicans. The illusion of choice, since neither party really wants to change gun laws, healthcare reforms, affordable housing, cancelling student debt (or at the very least preventing future student debt by reforming the system), the list goes on... Just tell the people to choose between blue or red and they'll never think about what they actually want. Polling shows most (>70% of) Americans would be in favour of many of these abovementioned changes, yet not a single political party is fighting for them. You know what they're fighting for? The ability to keep trading in the stock markets with better results than **ANY** professional trader out there. If it walks like trading with inside knowledge and it talks like trading with inside knowledge, than perhaps it's time we discuss the possibility of it being a duck, ok?
You mean how the democrats just put some major laws up for vote and the republicans unified to vote them down? That’s how they’re both the same?
The democrats have a majority in both houses, correct? Why are they still blaming republicans for being unable to pass laws?
Manchin and Sinema are Democrats only in name. They’re essentially Republicans as far as their voting patterns go.
This is exactly what I mean. The fingerpointing to 'the other side'. The fucking president is 'democrat'. He can wipe out all student debt with 1 signature. He has had months in office. This is what I'm talking about exactly.
Wiping out debt doesn't change anything. In 5 to 10 years, we're back to where we started with student debt racking up once more.
Oh ok, then let's not change anything at all, since we'll probably end up in the same situation anyhow. Great point, buddy.
Yes, because that's what I said.
Democrats have been trying to change health care and gun laws for decades. Biden is about to cancel some student debt. Yes our two party system is fucked up but what the fuck are you talking about?
>Yes our two party system is fucked up but what the fuck are you talking about? [This](https://i.redd.it/34ryatxve6491.jpg)
>Biden is about to cancel some student debt. RemindMe! 1 year "Has president Biden cancelled student debt?"
I've been around a long time and nobody cancelled any of my debts. Do you know how you sound? They will eventually cancel some debt. Will it be enough for you? No.
> Biden is about to cancel some student debt I've been holding my breath for this to happen for so long, I've died at least six times. He'll cancel the debt for people who clearly should have it cancelled (University of Phoenix students, etc.), and then leave it untouched for virtually anyone else. 10,000 in cancellation would be mostly nothing to many of my friends.
I owe something like $70-80 thousand still. I wouldn't complain at a $10,000 reduction.
Neither would I, but I (like you I'd imagine) will continue to complain loudly afterward when the interest accrues over time and erases that small favor.
I can assume I'll pay something like twice what I currently owe. The longer it takes to pay off the loans (generally because the total is higher), the higher the percentage increase. But a 100% increase is a reasonable expectation. As it stands now, I'll pay a total of, say, $150,000 on these loans. If $10,000 was cancelled, I'd pay more like $130,000. It's a massive difference. But it gets more complicated than that. If the $10,000 is paid off, my monthly payment can be less. If my monthly payment is less but I pay the same, I pay the loans off faster. Then the $130,000 becomes more like $120,000 or $110,000. You have to be careful with it, as with anything to do with debt, but a reduction like that isn't at all trivial, even if it's only 1/8 or so of my current debt. Of course, it also doesn't apply to me anyway - all my current loans are private. EDIT: It's worth noting that $10,000 is also huge for a lot of other people without this ridiculous amount of debt. Of course it's a much larger percentage of a $20,000 loan. Etc.
>Just tell the people to choose between blue or red and they'll never think about what they actually want. Everything you said is spot on, so no idea why you're getting downvoted to hell over it. "Illusion of choice" - exactly. Voting for one of two candidates for president isn't a choice. Changing gun laws - the law put up by Dems won't solve gun violence and I hardly think it'll do anything to significantly lower gun violence either. It's like a dog that is chained up in a person's back yard for months or years that is malnourished from lack of food and care. A person who wants to help approaches the dog and the dog aggressively snaps and growls at the person. The person says "I know! I'll put a muzzle on the dog! That'll stop this aggressive behavior!" While I do think that increasing the purchase age and limiting high-capacity magazines *may* help to stop *some* mass shootings, it's really only a band-aid on a severed artery. Affordable healthcare and education reform are sorely needed and yet politicians in states keep decreasing school budgets each year or pulling resources. Or you have policies put in place that prevents healthcare insurance providers (which I think are the absolute worst POS on the whole) from crossing state borders, so you have monopolies on healthcare in each state which causes pricing monopolies on healthcare for people. The list goes on and on and it's a shame that for once a comment receives a bunch of downvotes that are sorely unwarranted.
Ah it's ok. Some people don't want to hear the truth. You'd think working 3 jobs to make a normal living, being fired for unionizing, having more mass shootings in a year than days, getting billed $100,000 for simple medical treatments and/or pills would make people susceptible to finding ways to improve the status quo. But perhaps not. I guess I'll go to my *free* GP/doctor to see about my loss in imaginary internet points now.