[slashdev]

> Thanks for the compliment. I guess you must know better than Picketty (he doesn't exactly say what i said

Yes, he didn't say anything remotely like you said. It's disingenuous to cite Picketty as if he would support your position.

> has been debunked time and time again that for individuals, fleeing a country because of taxes is minimal.

Because the difference in taxation is minimal. I used to live in Panama, I've personally meet people who fled tax rates in their home country. The low taxes was also my favorite thing about living in Panama. Personal anecdotes aside, what you're proposing is drastic enough that the emigration won't be minimal, it will be a mass exodus of the wealthy - you know the people paying for 40% of the services you benefit from.

> You realize that my arguments were communist-ish? You're not gonna scare me off pointing at these countries! Obviously things went bad because the liberals virtually control the world, so these countries had to fight for everything, which breaks at some point.

I don't know where to start with that without violating site guidelines and being uncivil to your intellect. Actually are you trolling me? I have trouble believing you could be serious right now.

There's a lot of bigger reasons communism failed. Your proposal would fail for much the same reasons. This comment of yours is so ignorant of history it is mind boggling.

[whydoibother]

You are quick to insult people's intellect while spouting western propaganda.

People love to trot out the USSR as a failure, ignoring that a major part of that failure was due to Perestroika and Gorbachev.

As for Cuba, the US has waged terrorist campaign against them for 70ish years. Venezuela has had to deal with US interference and attempted coups as well.

You can't talk about communist/socialist societies and completely ignore the external forces acting against them.

[slashdev]

If you believe communism works, how is that not an indictment of your intellect after a century of examples to the contrary - and not just a few, there had been a 100% failure rate. The only communist counties they did well essentially embraced capitalism. Either you are totally ignorant of history and arguing out of your depth or you are probably not that bright.

[whydoibother]

You didn't even address what I said, and instead resorted back to black and white thinking. All while telling me I am the stupid one. Okay.

P.S. Cuba and Vietnam are still around and still socialist.

Edit: Actually, looking at all your arguments here, you just scream about how socialism doesn't work and if you disagree then you're dumb. Get better, please.

[slashdev]

Both Cuba and Vietnam only improved once they (partially) embraced capitalism. Up to that point they've been a scathing indictment of communism.

Note I said communist, not socialist, which might include Scandinavian counties, and works just fine.

If you disagree, you don't know your history. Get educated.

[whydoibother]

How did Cuba and Vietnam improve? What was wrong to begin with? What is the difference between communism and socialism?

[slashdev]

Those are things you can literally Google.

I visited Cuba recently. It's improving now that they're embracing capitalism, partially.

But I still saw people plowing fields with oxen. I've seen very poor people in developing countries, but I haven't seen that first hand. The level of poverty in Cuba is pretty bad still.