Political ideology and investing

Who Killed More: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao?
Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia

When I was studying Economics in the 1970s, we were told that Stalin was responsible for about 60 million deaths (I see today that number has been refuted once Russian archives have been made available). I didn't read about Mao, we didn't have access to China at that time. Something else I discovered was that the Socialism in Scandinavia seemed pretty good to an impressionable young Aussie about to start voting. I came to that conclusion myself, we were not told what to think. Last week I was viewing a Doco on SBS about East Germany in the post war period, and even that didn't seem too bad. There are pros and cons to each kind of economics. I would suggest the typical Aussie doesn't know the difference between Politics and Economics and uses the vocabulary interchangeably.

 

The notion of privilege is one decided to divide people based on class, gender, race and any other way one wish to divide society, doesn't bring people to together. The concept has no respect for the sovereignty of the individual. It sets up identity politics where the mob gangs up on the individual and creates hatred and victim hood narratives.

 

Most people don't own 10 Ferrari's and dine on Grange and cavier yet, that is a very extreme example.

 

When I was studying Economics, we used the USA as the example for Capitalism. I agree with Lizzie's comments about Capitalism - the pursuit of a dog-eat-dog society where the disadvantaged are not cared for. Australia is a good mix of the two. I have recently seen a US politician or speaker refer to Australia as a socialist country (I dont recall who it was).

Europeans pay very high taxes, being predominantly Socialist countries. Individuals do not need to create their own wealth as the State is prepared to care for its elderly and ill. I must add that I have no idea how this is working for them.

 

Yes. Because you are using the language of extremity yourself. That to have more than you need, someone must go without. Perhaps it's a simple case of those at the high end having slightly less for the good of all.

It's not a or/either, but rather an and

Most people do not understand how the tax system works. Perfect example today is a repubs ex senator spouting that Cortez's 70% tax suggestion is 70% on every dollar earned for everyone, whereas her suggestion is only for people earning over 10mil, for those earnings over 10mil.

 

... okay ... let's look at a more close to home example.

On hubby's income, he currently pays around 30% in tax in total. Earning the same in the USA he would pay 22% in tax in total.

We seem to be doing very nicely on 30% taxed income. It doesn't have to be an extreme tax to make a difference to the welfare of the country.