Accurate except for the “instead” part. Road maintenance comes from local taxes, whereas military aid comes from federal taxes.
Except the feds also feed money back to the states to be used on things like roads.
Unless you have the wrong drinking age in your state.
Underrated comment here. Federal road funding in the US was used to strong arm States into having a common drinking age.
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Sorry about all the broken veterans with TBIs. We could have invested in better healthcare infrastructure, TBI treatment research even better armor and helmets for our troopers dealing routinely with IEDs. But instead we got experimental tanks with active camo, a shitty plane which we’re phasing out and aid to Israel to perpetuate their ancient religious genocide program.
It’s just that US soldiers are poor and expendible and people with money tell us who and what is important.
And there are literal laws of nature that would prevent that from ever changing.
I mean, potholes in my area get fixed pretty quickly, because the local government takes its job relatively seriously.
Really hoping self-healing asphalt tech advances quickly in the next decade.
That must be nice.
Well if you really want to get technical about it… No programs or spending are really funded by taxes anyway, the government just says “OK” and the numbers in the bank accounts of the companies implementing said program go up. Taxes funding things is just a myth. Taxes just delete money. So technically, nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void.
Edit: People seem to be down voting because they think this is tinfoil hat BS or something. It’s not. Look up modern monetary theory. Governments with fiat currency don’t need to collect money to pay for things. They just invent and issue more currency. See this video: https://youtu.be/75udjh6hkOs?si=dVpp9V5f96kLDV4-&t=1628
the wikipedia page says:
MMT is controversial, and is actively debated with dialogues about its theoretical integrity, the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics. MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory and has been criticized heavily by many mainstream economists.
i don’t think your comment properly highlights how controversial MMT is. i’m not an economist, but i don’t think it’s fair to use language like “taxes funding things is a myth” and “technically nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void”, when those claims rely on such a controversial theory.
It’s not worth your time to refute one giving youtube link as a backing reference.
Yes this is all true, MMT is a theory. It’s in the name. Yes, it’s controversial.
But those points have nothing to do with the validity of the statements I made, including the ones you quote. It’s a very broad economic theory covering how things should be done etc etc.
My point is not founded on MMT, I referred to it as a “look this stuff up by starting here”. That’s why it’s only mentioned in the edit. The mere fact that this is an even remotely acceptable implies the statements I made is valid - otherwise MMT would fall apart at its seams.
Taxes funding things is indeed a myth, and they’re essentially a money void. Go read up on those specifics if you want to get into it. The video I linked has a literal explanation of this like 30 seconds later. When congress approves programs, they just allocate new funds to it, and move on. There’s no digging up taxes to point towards it.
You could begin making an argument it has implications for the validity and reliability of the sovereign currency, but it has no real relationship to taxes. That’s just not how modern economics work anymore.
has been criticized heavily by many mainstream economists.
In other words… it upsets the rich people that got us into this mess.
I mean this is a cute clever thing that sounds smart that isn’t.
The government pays for things. The government funds that through monetary policy that includes printing money, as well as raising money via taxes. Whether the government deletes a dollar you give them and prints another dollar vs transferring the dollar you gave them into their spending budget is super irrelevant.
It’s functionally the same and either way, your tax dollar, whether “deleted” and replaced or transferred is still your proportional allocation of funding.
This is real “I am very smart” vibes.
Same could be said about your post. It’s very “haha I have a gotcha” vibes.
Yes the government deletes money. And they also create money. That doesn’t mean they do or have to do the same amount of each. They can and do create more than they delete. They’re not funding programs and then making sure they delete the same amount in your taxes. That’s not how modern economics work.
Of course not. But none of that changes the fact that your taxes, in part, pay for what the government spends money on.
For state taxes, where the states don’t control monetary policy, it’s even less true. But it’s not really true for the federal government either.
Everyone who is paid in USD or pays in USD, in addition to people who pay taxes, pay for whatever we spend money on in one way or another.
It’s not a gotcha. Nothing was got. It’s just an absurd thing on the face of it. That while technically correct (in the sense that dollars are fungible) your dollars given in taxes will make up a percentage of total dollars spent this year by the federal government, and thus, you are paying for whatever they are doing. Along with other people.
That has real sovcit vibes.
Not at all. Look up MMT. Modern monetary theory and economics are well beyond “spend taxes to fund programs”. Governments that issue debts in their own made up currency don’t need to “spend” money, they just give money to the programs they support.
So money goes in and gets deleted, and then they create money and they give it away?
When I think of it, I do the same thing every time I buy something.
The money in my bank account doesn’t get transferred, the bank just deletes it on their servers and then they create money and give it to the store.
Yes, they both create and delete money. That doesn’t mean that the two processes need to be equal or balanced.
Your purchases do, or someone is owed their portion of the transaction. That’s not the case when the government is writing bonds or appropriating funding to programs. They can create money freely, regardless of the tax they collect. Taxes serve a different purpose.
That would increase inflation drastically, which is something governments absolutely don’t want.
They want inflation to be around 1-2%. Less is no good, because rich idiots would just hoard money instead of investing it. More is also no good because saved money would just disappear quickly.
Tell that to Japan. One of the highest spenders. Still stuck in perpetual de flation for over 20 years at this point.
It’s not that simple.
As far as I understand that’s the definition of fungibility, right? Every dollar is interchangeable and identical?
So there’s no functional difference between deleting $1 and creating $1 except semantics, compared to moving $1, as long as the total value doesn’t change.
The government just deleting money and printing money to pay for whatever it wants suggests that those things aren’t equal, which would be the problem if it were true.
That’s what causes inflation. When you print more than you delete, at a rate faster than total economic growth.
You are aware of the fact that central banks are usually independant institutions and whenever the government meddles with them, that countries currency gets fucked by the market?
Also in todays interconnected financial and real economy there is only so much control any government canexert iver its currency, because the currencies values is significantly determined by the exchange from imported and exported goods.
While both points are true, that still doesn’t change whether taxes fund these programs.
Sure there are other complexities like “how much is too much? Can we just keep doing it forever?” but those questions have more to do with the labor force of said country and their exports, and almost nothing to do with their tax rates.
The central banks control the amount of money based on the tasks they were given for their operation. That does not relate directly to the way the government is spending or taking money.
It is simply not the governments taxes and spending that is making or deleting money. It is the system of how the private banks can borrow or deposit money at the central bank with a certain interest rate,that is making or deleting money.
And youll have noticed that it is not the central bank granting loans to the government but bonds being sold on the market for the government to take debt.
MMT is techbros just trying to say, “don’t look behind the microvaluation curtain, it doesn’t matter.” But in the amounts that they’re trading on, it absolutely does matter.
It’s actually anarchocommunists mostly.
It’d be way more effective if the road pictured wasn’t absolutely perfect and pothole free
For the meme, maybe, but IRL maybe the road is no as nice as that one section.
This isn’t a problem if your thought process is slightly more sophisticated than an 8 year old’s.
Someone can’t take a joke
Can’t imagine what about the subject matter would fill anyone with anything less than the giggles.
Please, not fixing potholes have been around longer than the current Palestinian/Israeli and also a completely stupid reduction of the complexity of this whole fucked up situation.
not fixing potholes have been around longer
They haven’t been fixing potholes since 1949? Those potholes must be huge.
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LOL! Let me rephrase, then…
They haven’t been fixing potholes since the 1970s? Those potholes must be huge.
To think… you wasted all that energy to achieve so little. Ho hum.
To think… you wasted all that energy to achieve so little. Ho hum.
While you may boast about valuing ignorance over knowledge, there are others on this site that might appreciate learning a little history. So my time may have been wasted on you, but not wasted for the others people on this site.
Being proud over being a waste of other people’s time LOL.
Let me rephrase that for the terminally bewildered, then…
To think… you wasted all that energy to achieve so little.
Ho hum.
Ok keyboard warrior, maybe you should turn off your computer and go outside.
Not actually all that good at OSINT, are you?
Try thousands of years bc. This didn’t “start” in 1949.
No, it started in 1949.
The idea that there’s anything coherent about Zionist justifications for a modern-day Israel based on thousands-year old scripture is pure and absolute white supremacist and antisemitic hogwash.
Yeah, but the money that should be fixing potholes, and paying teachers, and providing healthcare has been going to war for as long as the USA has been around.
TBH, The US pays more for healthcare than defense. Hell social security is the number 1 expense.
There’s nothing complex about it. Israel imprisons an entire people and every time the UN tries to do something about it the US vetoes it.
The “it’s complex” excuse is used to have people look the other way by turning it into a hopeless situation.
If there were some psychopaths that were insanely dedicated to killing you wouldn’t you want there to be a fence between you and them? It’s indeed not all that complex. Israel built a fence as a barrier between them and the psychopaths Palestinians elected to be their government. Seemed a better option than sending in the IDF to attempt a regime change. But apparently the fence wasn’t effective, so not many options left other than regime change now.
Hamas has always been the problem. How would you protect people from these psychopaths?
Love the false equivalence. Your city taxes can’t fix the potholes because your federal taxes pay for a military.
Those federal taxes cannot be allocated to state funds which cannot then be allocated to city funds to maintain roads?
No because they must be spent to kill Palestinian children. Get your Merican priorities straight.
You’re not wrong, but original point could still be right, depending in the road. There are many federal highways and interstates, where this equivalence makes sense. However most other roads are state, county or city owned.
Federal tax funds the maintenance of the Interstate Highways.
Where do you see an interstate highway in the pic?
Mobile billboards go where people are. I saw a Pro-Life billboard on a similar truck, where it was parked was not linked to the content on the sign.
and the interstate highways aren’t that bad in terms of shape tho?
We send $5,000,000,000 in outright charity to Israel, not including what our legislators are about to fork over as soon as they get their stock portfolios situated in the best ways to profit from it.
That’s $100,000,000 per state that could be used to fix potholes or help Americans in other ways, but we’re silly geese who 100% support neglecting our own people in favor of war, so we’re getting what we voted for.
It’s been a closer to 3B for a while. Against a budget of $1.7T. It’s not even a rounding error.
It’s always cute how warmongers pretend that those billions wouldn’t make a huge difference for struggling Americans.
I don’t know what in that sentence gives you the confidence to call me a warmonger.
And also, no, it wont really. Unless you redefine “huge difference”. We spend $522B on social/economic assistance programs at the federal level. So a
0.005%0.5% increase? Hardly a huge difference.how did you get 0.005%? 3 x 100 / 522 is a 0.575 percent increase
3/522, no reason to multiply by 100. Not sure why you are.You’re right my bad.
that’s how percentages work lol. if you have 100 usd, 100.5 usd would be a 0.5% increase not a 0.005 percent increase (which you would get by dividing 0.5/100, right?)
You’re quite right, I’m a dummy.
Yeah, just that 3 billion comes out to $60,000,000 if divided equally between all 50 states. Instead it’s being pissed away on other countries’ wars.
By any stretch that is huge.
You’re absolutely using the warmonger’s logic to support your position here, so no need to clutch your pearls.
Except that it’s half a percent. It’s another half a penny on every dollar.
It’s not huge by any stretch.
Exactly. Israel already received tremendous amount of money way before the conflict. And yet, US Congress voted to allow more military aid package to Israel. The money could have gone to those who need them more, both to domestic and to Ukraine who are still fighting the Russians.
Israel already received tremendous amount of money way before the conflict.
The conflict has been ongoing since 1949.
US sends money to Palestine, too. So does much of Europe.
Isn’t this a photoshop? Boring Dystopia is a lot more poignant when the content it shows has some reality to it.
While the point the image is trying to make does have quite a bit of reality behind it, the shopping is to its detriment.
All children in Gaza are terriosts! Or potential terriosts! Isreal NEEDS to bomb ambulances, hospitals and water wells because that is where all the terriosts are! ya see?Any amount of infrastructure supports terriosism! Bombing is a nessecity!
It’s outright ghoulish.
“Anyone who runs is Viet Cong. Anyone who stands still is well disciplined Viet Cong.”
How can you shoot women and children?!?!
Easy, you just don’t lead them as much
Well, it‘s actually true that Hamas uses civil infrastructure and civilians as shields, you can’t deny that. Of course that doesn‘t mean that Israel can just bomb everything.
Somebody should tell Israel
in an area where the population density is 5,300 people/km2 “human shields” is a quite weak argument. It is practically impossible to seperate civillian and military infrastructure in such densely populated areas.
For comparision the Netherlands has about 500 people/km2 and it is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.
There is a difference between the close proximity of military and civilian infrastructure because of a high population density and actively choosing hospitals as military bases.
Another great way of not getting your civilians targeted is to wear identifying uniforms.
It’s almost like Hamas doesn’t want to prevent civilian casualties.
Well that totally justifies killing everyone in sight
No, but it does justify telling all civilians to evacuate weeks before launching an actual full scale attack, increasing their odds of survival from 0% to 90%. War is ugly.
War is ugly.
Supporting white supreamcist settler-colonialism is ugly, too.
You are right. Hamas is not acting responsible leave alone lawful in where they put military installations. But that is used by Israel to just bomb anything they feel like bombing, and for that it is a weak arguement. Especially since we have nothing but Israels pinky promise that there were military targets in whatever they bombed.
Given how Israel extensively attacked civillian and ambulance convoys fleeing on the routes designated by Israel to flee to the south, as demanded by Israel, i cannot help the feeling that they are just shooting at random to instill more fear and destruction.
For that again i find it weird, how Israel was entirely unprepared for the terror attacks of Hamas on the 7. October but immediately claimed to know exactly where Hamas is having what installations in Gaza. I remember how the Russian preparations for the Ukraine invasion have been discussed for months and the question remaining was, whether Putin is that insane or not. Now with Hamas that question was moot, so how the fuck did Israel both know exactly where all of Hamas is, but didnt notice any preparations for the attacks?
I cannot shake the feeling that Israel has much less knowledge about Hamas positions than they claim.
Or, that they do know what’s going on, but let the attack happen because Israeli civilians are nearly as expendable as Palestinian civilians, at least to the people who profit from the war machine…
Israel does appear to value its civilians a lot more than Hamas. There have been prisoner swaps where Hamas will hold out swapping one Israeli until Israel agrees to literally hundreds of Palestinians.
What a bargain!
it‘s actually true that Hamas uses civil infrastructure and civilians as shields
Riiight… there’s a Hamas “terrorist” hiding behind every Palestinian child… and if you can’t see them, it just proves how sneaky they are, amirite?
Who said this?
its a straw man, but only just, people more or less say this through implications when you hear “What else do you expect Israel to do”
Israel’s actions did
The dude in my garden who scares away birds does.
a straw man
Whichever Hasbara the wheel lands on usually. Some are better than others though.
Said no one. Ever. Except you.
Just put the babies in the potholes.
Baby bones don’t have a high enough density and material integrity for that to be an appropriate solution.
You’re not using enough. You’ve gotta re-pack the hole once compacted a bit.
Exactly. It’s like he has no idea how to build a road at all.
What if we reinforce them with rebar?
Mr. Swift over here…
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One of my favorite facts (factoids?) is that if everyone in the world stood shoulder to shoulder we’d all fit inside the single city of Paris.
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Also, to billions would likely die due to the enduing infrastructure crisis.
You’ve clearly never been to Wyoming.
Sweet Photoshop champ.
The u.s destroyed half my country, killed tons of my people, bought up the wreckage and now owns us. But none of you gave a shit, cause the news didn’t tell you to care
Yeah that doesn’t really narrow it down.
You poor soul, you must be a citizen of a nation on planet earth.
And what country is that?
According to his comment history, the US.
Sounds about right
That’s true for a lot of the states, let alone other extant sovereign nations.
How are we supposed to know if the news doesn’t tell us?
What country
Tupac cares if don’t nobody else care
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True and also because people today lack empathy for what the real horrors of war actually put people through. I do give a shit -but it’s like tossing a turd into the ocean of hate and thinking it will somehow sparkle. I hate war and the horrible inhumanity of war, but when I say that people accuse of me being on a “high horse of moral superiority.” If it’s superior to dislike war - I’m all too happy to agree with them.
This is 100% how it works for most of the people here in America.
It’s why they’re rooting for another hundred billion of our tax dollars to be sent to other country’s wars even though they’re living with a 30-50% cost of living increase under Biden, who has no intention of sending us our own money in the form of aid.
Sorry to hear you did not get the option to become a vassal state and a US military base like so many others. It did give us a few good years at the cost of corrupting our societies and souls.
Big daddy if you’re watching I’m only joking, I love you with all my heart and bow at your magnificence!
Nah, they didn’t care because it didn’t give them a chance to be Anti Semitic. All of these from the river to the sea chants are explicitly calling for a fucking genocide and people are proudly lining up to scream it.
Wild times we live in. There are significant human loses happening in Yemen, China, and a host of places right now but this group of terrorists in Gaza with their supporters in Iran have figured out the tik tok algorithm a whole lot better the poor people of Yemen or the Uyghurs ever did so those people are simply forgotten.
Well gotta spend money to make money I guess
This is literally true; heads are comfy in pits of sand.
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It draws attention to the fact that we are paying money to shoot missiles at innocent Palestinian children.
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Not everything is about you.
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People are always mad about pot holes and military spending where have you been?
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Perhaps the frustration is exacerbated by the lack of progress relative to the amount of money spent and time since these issues have manifested. It’s also particularly visible in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
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Awe, look at you using all of this weeks vocabulary words in a sentence. A++
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Ain’t that the truth. Not to mention the Israeli children gutted and beheaded by Hamas back on Oct 7th. Our tax dollars didn’t pay for that, but they sure are going toward ensuring more kids and regular civilians are turned into worm food for some nonsensical war over a strip of land neither side really wants to be stuck with.
Well, you forgot to mention the gas and oil field that UK companies and Shell would love to have access to.
With gas coming from Russia is not a sustainable option, this gas field is what they really want.
“Energy Ministry says a total of 12 licenses have been given to six companies, four of which are new players in the exploration of natural gas off the country’s Mediterranean coast”
This happens last week.
Literally last week October 27.
Is it fake news? Well the one reported this is “Times of Israel” https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-ongoing-war-bp-and-eni-among-firms-awarded-gas-exploration-licenses-in-israel/
How much money in there? UN published a report in 2021 June estimated value for the last 10 years to be around 400 billion.
More details from the UN website: https://unctad.org/publication/economic-costs-israeli-occupation-palestinian-people-unrealized-oil-and-natural-gas
This is not “Isreal vs Hamas” or “Jews vs Muslims” or as some would love to say is a “historical religious war”
This is US and UK companies vs indigenous people masked by layers of “confusion” but their ultimate goal is greed.
The more you look for news it becomes clear what the goals are.
Here are some headlines:
2019 November: Cyprus signs $9 billion gas extraction deal with Israel’s Delek, other firms
2023 February: Israel exports crude oil for first time, with shipment heading for Europe
2023 February: Lebanon and Israel’s historic maritime border deal P.S. this to allow gas exploration… P.S Lebanon government controlled hizballh and Iran.
2023 March: Israel’s Offshore Gas Attracts Foreign Energy Giants
2023 September: Benjamin Netanyahu holds his map of the “The New Middle East” as he addresses the U.N. General Assembly
P.S. “Netanyahu took out his red marker and drew a diagonal line from Dubai along the Persian Gulf, through Israel and toward the ports of southern Europe. He hailed the supposed advent of a “corridor” of prosperity that threaded together these Arab countries and Israel at the heart of a new axis of global trade connecting Asia to Europe.”
2023 October: Netanyahu says Israel’s response to Gaza attack will ‘change the Middle East’
While the conflict seeems a bit confusing looking into it from US imperialist poont view things make sense.
There are four powers that would stop this exploration. Sadam Iraq, most likely, will attack Isreal and claim it a religious war to have access to this new wealth.
Qaddafi Libya, he was already in dispute with turkey over gas in the area https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/02/gaddafis-prophecy-comes-true-as-foreign-powers-battle-for-libyas-oil
Syria as Russia allies will never leave a piece of the cake either directly or throu distablization in the region. This cut russia market to eroupe.
And finally, the indigenous people of the land…
Oh for fucks sake. I wish we’d transitioned to renewable, maybe even nuclear, a lot sooner.
How many future doctors, writers, craftsmen and families have been lost in the wind, all for that damnable black gold
Back in the 70s the government funded a study which showed that America was already pretty much ready to transition to nuclear or renewable energy with a minimal investment in infrastructure (minimal by government spending standards). Here we are 50 years later still heavily dependent on oil and gas extraction from increasingly depleted sources. We CAN rely on other sources of energy and make them work - it’s the big oil and gas companies that are standing in everyone’s way unable to look or care beyond their own greed.
That is definitely a huge factor and should have been mentioned at the very start. Greed is always the motivational factor in what humans do to each other. Munitions dealers get fat and rich off of war so have a vested interest in keeping it going. I totally agree with all the points you’re making - I wish this wasn’t the world we live in - but that’s exactly what we’re dealing with. And good luck going up against big oil or gas companies.
nonsensical war over a strip of land
I’ve struggled to understand why civilians on either side have wanted to continue residing in that specific zone after decades of clashes/violence. I know it’s not as simple as just uprooting your family to move elsewhere, but as a parent I know I’d rather any other option than living in constant fear of unbridled violence erupting at any moment in a highly volatile area.
Well, a part of it is that the people of Gaza are not allowed to leave.
There are only a handful of crossings out of Gaza and Israel controls all but one. The Egyptian crossing leads out into a desolate desert with no services.
Want to hop on a boat and flee that way? Israel will torpedo you. Want to walk up to the wall to see the boundary of your prison? Israel will machine gun you down, no questions asked, no warnings given.
A large portion of the population of Gaza started out as refugees, forced out of their homes and off of their land so that Zionist settlers could have it.
I’ve heard that they aren’t allowed to leave, but the strip of land we’re talking about isn’t all that small either. I know that Israel has confined Palestines to that area for decades which is not just oppression, it’s akin to running a death camp. I believe there’s enough room in that region for Palestinians to live comfortably beside the Jewish people - so why not concede this land to them? And stop forcing people to remain there if the wish to leave.
Even given the option, most if not all will choose to not leave. Since 48 the Palestinians have been chanting “from the river to the sea” and not taking lots of peace treaties offered by Israel and other nations, based on the premise that they’ll stay in their current 67 border.
Not to mention lots of Jews also don’t wanna live in a non-jewish state of fear of prosecution, pogroms and antisemitism, which you can see examples of happening right now in Europe.
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The photos on Google Maps you shared look pretty desolate…
An Israeli I know was given benefits from the government to settle near that area. Luckily he went to his in laws house the second the war started. But the government paying people to live there might have something to do with it
I was a bit harsh but from the footage I’ve seen (and mind you it’s almost all footage of war torn areas) I’m not understanding why there’s a conflict over it at all. I do understand the history of Palestinian repressing by the country of Israel and I do understand the horrors that Hamas has unleashed - but as you say why favor living in a land of unbridled hostility and volatility. And what’s to lose by giving Palestinians their land back and maybe a little more besides? Israel is a big place. There IS room for both muslims and jews. We all either learn to live in peace or we destroy each other until nothing is left.
