This is my 2 cents’ worth, in response to riversedge’s point…forgive me for long-winded response in advance…
Are you surprised? He, and his ilk, are (or have been) following (or trying to) Ayn Rand policies for a long time. Business Owners are their gods. No wonder Paul Ryan, and fellow republicans , as well as Trump, get along together. They believe in Ayn Rand policies in that they should pay no taxes what-so-ever, or at the most, a very minimal percentage, since they are the job creators, and give the rest of us the privilege to make money too (and if we don't take advantage of that ability to make money, regardless of our circumstances, then tough).
The Ayn Rand concepts, in the past, have had no supporting rationale in reality, on their viability. What we are seeing now, is exactly the opposite (they are failing), in several areas:
-wages have failed to keep up, for the majority of us, basically since the early 1980s. I guess no one is thinking that in order for an economy to function, that people need a decent amount of money to live and spend, eh? Henry Ford knew that back in the early 1900s, and gave his workers such wages.
-the effective tax rate of businesses and owners of capital in this country has continued to drop, and now is among the lowest than anywhere else in the world. Efforts are underway to reduce this percentage even lower, by elimination of the estate/death tax, and reduction of other taxes on the top 1%. What’s ironic about this, is that if you follow the Ayn Rand policies to the fullest, estate/death taxes would be 100%, or similar amount, since each and every person is responsible for themselves, including surviving relatives of the 1%.
-anything that contributes to the 1% higher tax rates must be abolished so they (business owners) can continue to create jobs, thus this is why the Paul Ryan crowd continues to push for elimination of such taxes that Obamacare imposes, or for that matter, social security, medicare, and other such taxes that we all pay, based upon our earnings.
-concentration of wealth and accumulation of earnings to the top 1% in this country now equal 50% of all American wage earners...when is enough, enough???
-an increasing number of Americans no longer trust the stock markets, and other such markets, as thy are skewed so much in favor of the top 1%, that in fact, this is a danger to anyone else trading in these markets. Since a large part of us no longer have trust in these institutions, this is why the stock markets and the like haven’t really ‘popped’, in effect, it is millionaires and billionaires trading against each other.
-there is a country in either South America or Latin America (I forget which country, I'm having a senior moment here) that they implemented Ayn Rand policies and once that happened, everything started going downhill. Roads, infrastructure, etc. all suffered greatly, basically, because no one would take responsibility for these items, fixing potholes, etc.
-this list could go on and on, but I'll stop here.
Society, in many areas, must work together in order to accomplish things/tasks/etc. that are bigger than all of us individually. As a society, working together, we can do so much more than one person.
We all know personally the value of individualism and desire to maintain it, and we value it tremendously in this country, but we also know that it takes all of us working together to advance in those things that are greater that each of us individually.
How can we, as individuals, change things for the better?
-don’t trust the likes of those like Donald Trump, they have too many conflicts of interest to be impartial, so anything they say, should be taken w/ a grain of salt;
-don’t support businesses that are owned by millionaires or billionaires, and instead, support your neighborhood coops, or small Mom-and-pop businesses. Main street did have something going for it, now that we think on it in hindsight. Evidence of the power of not buying goods and services (in effect a boycott) has been proven, after the crash of 2007-2008-2009, in that Obama and others were extorting us as consumers to buy stuff, remember?
-vote, no excuses.
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