(no subject)

[mcity]

GOLD: Don't believe me? It's all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there's been a
conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people.
JC DENTON: Do you have a single fact to back that up?
GOLD: Number one: In 1945 corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay
about 5 percent. Number two: In 1900 90 percent of Americans were self-employed;
now it's about two percent.

This is dialogue from the end of the first "level" of the award winning game Deus Ex, and when I got to it, I was struck by the similarity of the terrorist leader's rhetoric to that of Occupy Wall Street. The NSF even claims to represent everyone, and attempt a little "wealth redistribution" by redirecting medicine toward people who can't afford it and away from the rich. Oddly prophetic for a game from 2000.

There's a talking point of Occupy that says that the rich pay less taxes than the amount of wealth they have. Like many rallying cries, it is concise, punchy, and factually wrong.

There was a thread in JREF discussing taxes. It went something like this.

A: The 99% of the US pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes. Here's a link.
B: Uh, one of those dozens of charts says that the rich actually pay more taxes than the amount of the wealth they have, while everyone else pays slightly less.
A: Of course they pay the most taxes! They have the most money!
B: It's not just "most", it's disproportionately large.
A: That's not important! It makes perfect sense that the people who have the most money have to pay the most taxes?
B: So you only care about disproportionate taxes when it's not rich people being affected?
Can you even admit you were wrong?
A: Stop trying to change the subject!

Kind of weird how people who are perfectly sane in certain parts of that forum will become completely illogical in that section. On at least one occasion, I was arguing with someone who actually knew more about the subject than I did, but was not thinking logically about the matter. Bizarre.

PROTIP: If you don't want to waste multitools disabling alarm panels, and don't want to sneak around, then just stick a mine on the wall under it, then lure the mooks to you and wait for them to reach for the alarm. Alternately, just stick it on the wall in a random corridor and let the guard see you, then run around the corner and giggle.

Comments

[degraine.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've seen the video 'Eat The Rich', but if not it takes this line of thinking to its logical conclusion and summarises why it's stupid pretty well.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

This one?

[degraine.livejournal.com]

Yes, that'd be the one.