Who do these marxist frauds think they're fooling?

The vermin looted the Treasury and were unable to create jobs or anything else. Money is less a problem than the theft which took it by force from the productive who earned it.

Even if you left the Bush tax cuts intact, they'll barely dent the slew of new taxes from the obamateur's commiecare, already beginning to negatively the economy.

@quantumushroom

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?

Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.

To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income

Taxes = Income.

Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.

Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.

The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.

Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.

That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.

Nothing like getting a tax cut larger than 75% of the population's entire annual income.

What's sad is that no one is talking about letting ALL of the tax cuts expire, maybe not in the middle of a recession, but soon thereafter.

The government has spent 30 years borrowing to inflate our standard of living beyond what we actually produce. It's time that we start paying for all the services that we consume. Even republicans scream and howl when anyone talks about cutting medicare, social security, or defense. The programs they talk about cutting barely cover 10% of our yearly deficit, if that.

No one was overburdened by Clinton era tax rates. We still had the highest standard of living of any large country. Everyone who makes enough money to actually pay taxes can afford to buy a little less plastic crap from China and help pay our way out of this hole.

I don't know what's more depressing: the fact that our politicians are too cowardly to ask even the smallest sacrifice from us, or the fact that we keep voting for people who tell us everything's okay, just grab your credit card and head for the mall.

Please share this with everyone everywhere in America!

It is short, visual, factual.

Tell them to call their congresspeople.

Dang, I can't believe this is even being debated.

Actually, I agree with Mikus.

But if you are going to let some expire, let it be on the super rich.

We are babies in this country, wanting something for nothing.

I stumbled across an internet posting by a tax client (I do taxes), railing at someone because they supported the healthcare reform. He railed about how he had to pay for it.

Well, I do his taxes. I happen to know that he hasn't paid doodly squat in taxes on the federal level for several years -- in fact, got huge rebates due to having kids.

He also works for a state government -- his income is 100% taxpayer funded.

Maybe his healthcare premiums did go up. But he has paid jack sh*t to the federal government.

The hypocrisy of it astounds me.

I agree 100%. I would add to it that it doesn't trickle down either. They go out and buy a private jet and a second local mansion, meanwhile to support that lifestyle they fire over 300 employees and deny the rest raises. They talk about how taxing is the redistribution of wealth, while ignoring the fact that to keep their high salaries and excessive lifestyles they have to take that money from the workers down the line which is true redistribution of wealth.
It's not like people making that kind of money would even feel the tax anyhow.
Sadly I fear that since the Democrats seem to lack any sort of courage or conviction that the Republicans will just let the whole thing expire, or eventually to protect the poor and middle class the the Democrats will grovel and give in and let the rich keep their extra 3%...

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/quantumushroom" title="member since June 22nd, 2006" class="profilelink">quantumushroom
Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?

Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.

To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income

Taxes = Income.

Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.

Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.

The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.


Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.

Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.

Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.

The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.

Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.

Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.

The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.

November 2nd. Change is coming.

I love this idea, and I really hope they continue with it as a series. However, I take one very strong issue with this video; specifically their absolute failure in communication design. The use of circles is borderline offensive to anyone even loosely schooled in the subject.

"We got a ruler and measured out the size of the tax cut, is how big the circle is [sic]". Cool. Corresponding to what? How big the tax cut is by percentage? Dollar amount? What?

The ruler was used for what? Diameter? Area? How are you representing the % or $ amount?

People trained in advertising & marketing seem to believe that bar charts are boring to the populace. Well, if you're representing a linear data set, your representation should be linear. That's not boring, that's good, accurate representation.

To quote Tufte [from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information]: "Another way to confuse data variation with design variation is to use area to show one-dimensional data."
And later: "The number of information-carrying (variable) dimensions depicted should not exceed the number of dimensions in the data."

The fact that the White House is not read up on Tufte, someone who has written numerous books on statistics in politics and who remains the foremost thinker on information design, is disheartening at best.

Sorry to geek out on this, but I expect better. You're trying to take steps forward by speaking in plain English to the general public, & I salute you for it. But you need to come correct.

Is there even any need to defend the expiration of the bush tax cuts?

Anyone who defends it is obviously a little piece of shit, with absolutely no common sense.

The Bush tax as initially proposed were estimated by the CBO to increase the deficit and they did. Massively. Extending them for everyone, as opposed to to everyone but the top 2 tax classes is estimated to add $2 trillion dollars to the deficit over the next decade by the CBO.

Source: http://www.fwdailynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9057:Both-parties-unwilling-to-face-budget-realities&catid=84:brian-howey

Health Care reform is estimated by the CBO to reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion over 20 years.

Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/cbo_health-care_reform_bill_cu.html

---

Explain how as someone who is purportedly in favor of reducing the deficit, you can be against health care reform but for extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Don't dodge the question, don't go on a tangent, don't resort to using superlatives or comparing Obama to dictators to mischaracterise reality.

If you can't, or do any of the aforementioned, I will assume that are simply hold an illogical partisan position.>> ^quantumushroom:

Who do these marxist frauds think they're fooling?
The vermin looted the Treasury and were unable to create jobs or anything else. Money is less a problem than the theft which took it by force from the productive who earned it.
Even if you left the Bush tax cuts intact, they'll barely dent the slew of new taxes from the obamateur's commiecare, already beginning to negatively the economy.

Oh and this guy is totally angling for Glenn Beck's job.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.


Whoa whoa whoa. STEALING? Bullfuckingshit. Of course there are a lot of corrupt motherfuckers out there, but I have no trouble believing that many people make more money than the average bear without being unscrupulous. People who have used their smarts and/or luck to become successful have every single right to write themselves a big fat paycheck. If some snotty piece of shit working under them is unhappy that they're not making as much money, well that's just too fucking bad.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Who do these marxist frauds think they're fooling?
The vermin looted the Treasury and were unable to create jobs or anything else. Money is less a problem than the theft which took it by force from the productive who earned it.
Even if you left the Bush tax cuts intact, they'll barely dent the slew of new taxes from the obamateur's commiecare, already beginning to negatively the economy.


Who do you think you're fooling? With all of information available to anyone who bothers to look for themselves, what kind of moron falls for that propaganda you're spouting?

For example, your propaganda wants to blame Obama for the increased number of people liable for the alternative minimum tax. Funny how it doesn't mention that people have seen this issue coming for years and nobody, including Bush and the Republican Congress bothered to fix it.

A brief issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) (No. 4, April 15, 2004), concludes:

"Over the coming decade, a growing number of taxpayers will become liable for the AMT. In 2010, if nothing is changed, one in five taxpayers will have AMT liability and nearly every married taxpayer with income between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe the alternative tax. Rather than affecting only high-income taxpayers who would otherwise pay no tax, the AMT has extended its reach to many upper-middle-income households. As an increasing number of taxpayers incur the AMT, pressures to reduce or eliminate the tax are likely to grow."

April 2004. Before Obama was even elected to the Senate. Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency, they had the report, and did nothing. But that's Obama's fault now? That's one of his "new taxes?" By the way, every year Congress simply ups the minimum (even under Obama).

There's absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing Obama for his policies. There's enough there that you shouldn't have to resort to distorting reality, name calling, or outright lies.

See, the only problem I have with that is..

How many individuals do you think consistently earn a million based purely on the value they themselves generate?

Say you're an electrical engineer who comes up with a brilliant solution that saves multiple cities thru out California a million dollars a year each.

You went to University. Studied diligently. Paid for all your books out of pocket. Got your masters.

I would agree that you rightly deserve at least a million in compensation.
~~~

Now say, instead of glorious engineer. You were one of the 2100 workers on Toyota's San Antonia, TX assembly line in 2007

Do you think you'd make that same million dollar salary? Mostly like, no.

Tho if you look at the numbers:
That plant made one Tundra per minute starting in 2007. 60x24x7x52= 524160 Tundras

Average MSRP for an '07 Tundra = $32070 x524160= $16,809,811,200 in value.

Let's say the retailers make 5 Million and that half of the 16 Billion is break-even cost for Toyota.

$8,402,405,600/2100= $4,001,145 of suggested value per worker

The average auto worker makes 18 to 30 so we'll say hourly wage is $24.
Times an 8 hour shift 6 times per week. 24x8x313 = $60,096 yearly earnings.

Remember $4 Mill of profit per worker at $60k year compensation means those workers on retained 1.5% of the value they generated.
~~~

That example was one factory. In one industry.

Think of the millions of businesses that aren't so generous as to allot their employees 1.5% of the profits they themselves produce individually.

And then compare that to the number of CEOs of those businesses that pay themselves a million or more, plus bonuses.

And then compare that to the number of self made millionaire that rightfully earn 7 figure salaries.

Considering wages haven't risen much for thirties, I think the majority of those workers have a right to be unhappy.

Sorry for the rambling. It was just my way of putting things in perspective.

>> ^Xax:


Whoa whoa whoa. STEALING? Bullfuckingshit. Of course there are a lot of corrupt motherfuckers out there, but I have no trouble believing that many people make more money than the average bear without being unscrupulous. People who have used their smarts and/or luck to become successful have every single right to write themselves a big fat paycheck. If some snotty piece of shit working under them is unhappy that they're not making as much money, well that's just too fucking bad.

Kill the rich! Cut their balls off! YAY! We hate that they have money! We should steal more of it!

"The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself."

Explain how as someone who is purportedly in favor of reducing the deficit, you can be against health care reform but for extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Two separate issues. If you can name any endeavor that government interference has made cheaper and more efficient, I'm all ears. The reality is obamacare is making health care MORE expensive and taking power away from the consumer. You don't seriously think we're going to save money with 159 new bureaucratic agencies to monitor this new zombie, do you? And the slew of new job-killing taxes will be in effect four years before any "benefits" are realized.

Tax cuts/increases on the wealthy? A moral issue. If you're not a socialist/communist then you see the money belonging to the wealthy as THEIR money, they're not just "holding it for a friend" aka government.

If there were a flat tax rate then the wealthy would still pay more than the middle class. Under our communist progressive system, the wealthy pay a LOT more and are paying the lions' share of the taxes now, while 50% of the population pays NO income tax. And only one-third of Americans are working, and support the other two-thirds.

Because the left believes in equality at any cost, it wants to especially penalize the wealthy, who, contrary to leftist opinion, do create jobs and invest, providing opportunities and lending for the "little guy". And if the wealthy aren't "giving" to the left's satisfaction, remember that government creates NOTHING, and can only use whatever it takes from the people first.

The reality the left refuses to face is that if you taxed all the wealthy at 90% nothing would be solved. Our federal mafia costs 3 trillion dollars a year to operate, and will still spend more than it takes in.

Why is this even debatable? Money won't solve this. Obamatron and friends looted the Treasury of a trillion dollars, yet even with that amount they have failed to create jobs (except government jobs, which cost taxpayers).

Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.

The higher someone's income, the lower their MPC, ergo tax cuts for the rich would actually be more likely to cause a recession due to the opportunity cost (e.g. tax cuts for the non-rich).

Deficit spending to support huge tax cuts for the rich is even worse, because federal borrowing distracts money from private investments. All they'd have to do to balance the budget is raise the top rate by 9%, which would still be less than what it was for most of the last 70 years.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.



Because life for the underclass was so good in the Gilded Age.

You really are a fucking tool, you know that?

Tax cut is a Bullshit term. It's my money keep your F-in hands off my money. Dont take it adn then give some bask and call it a tax break.

If the FED and State are in such a bind do what all of us do which is STOP F-in spending.

The tax system is unconstitutional. A flat tax would be.

>> ^blankfist:

Kill the rich! Cut their balls off! YAY! We hate that they have money! We should steal more of it!


C'mon Blank. You get more, you PAY more. Society doesn't work because a guy tells his staff to buy low and sell high. People acting like the rich get picked on so badly really get my blood boiling.

^GenjiKilpatrick:

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.



The only thing you seem to understand is that for as far as you binge, that's how equally austere you have to become to reverse it. We can't just break even in terms of producing and consuming, we have to start producing MORE than we consume. Which is virtually impossible for any generation to vote at this point, so you are going to see a destruction of the currency almost certainly (informal default).

Government is a burden we have to bear. You may want to have a world empire, but that Soldier stationed in Japan is consuming a lot of stuff without producing. Citizens must sacrifice so that he may exist. The same goes for most of government and a huge percentage of the population works for the government now, and they retain their voting rights despite that conflict of interest.

The main thing that you're missing is that tax revenue from production goes up when production goes up, and taxes affect the incentive to produce. How does a state collect a 100% tax on someone's income when that income flees the state or just throws in the towel as a result of that tax increase? You could have had more tax revenue at a lower percentage, no? Clearly, there is a point at which the rate negatively affects the revenue since "rich" people can just sit on their money for lack of incentive in trying to produce more, a portion of which would have been paid to people helping produce it.

>> ^quantumushroom:

"The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself."


Both parties have an incentive to do this. Yet even with the Republicans with providing the figures, this is what the CBO had to say about the 2001 Bush tax cuts:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that H.R. 1836 would decrease governmental receipts by $70 billion in 2001, by $512 billion over the 2001-2006 period, and by $1.26 trillion over the 2001-2011 period.

Source: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=2867&type=0

Let's recap. CBO estimate for bush tax cuts under Republicans. Massive increase in deficit. History says, massive deficit. CBO estimate for health care reform under Democrats. Reasonable decrease in deficit. How is that not crystal clear, and not entirely indisputable?

Oh you think growth was great? It was consistently less than under Clinton. See how it averages about 4% under Clinton and averages roughly 2.5% on the graph at the bottom of the page?

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/gdp_real_growth_rate.html

And you know what, you'd probably be thinking right now that uncertainty over the debt is hampering investment. You bet it is. You know what is going make much more difference than taxing wealthy consumers several percentages more? Increasing the likelihood that US public bond interest rates skyrocket once people realise the US cannot pay back its debt.

History has shown that the original Bush tax cuts did this. Estimates under Democratic AND Republican administrations have shown this.

Which begs the question of why you are pushing an ideology that we know will do damage and is clearly going to damage to the economy?

If not, dispute my facts directly, and prove me wrong. All your claims about government efficiency, ideology and morality do nothing to address these simple numbers.

By the way, everything beyond that initial paragraph has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I can rant about Republicans wanting to reduce working class income to slave labour and how some of them think that Obama is a secret muslim. The fact is though, nobody rational seriously belives that or your assertions that progressives want to destroy the economy through ramming through equality.

The only people who believe this nonsense are those who get suckered into believing the ranting of demagogues before elections.

What? No *LIES or *PROPAGANDA? How about *BULLSHIT

Invocations (lies) cannot be called by pavel_one because pavel_one is not privileged - sorry.

What part?>> ^pavel_one:

What? No LIES or PROPAGANDA? How about BULLSHIT

The Tea Party needs to understand tax is not to penalize the citizens but its a source of income for the country, and their dearly beloved America is in debt.

How much are they willing to go to save their country?

But I'ma guess they're going to just say "God will save this country so I don't have to"

The scale of the x-axis is probably misleading for the casual viewer. One side always likes to paint the picture using whole numbers and ignoring the original income value, and the other side always to paint the picture using fractions of the original income and ignoring the actual dollar value.

>> ^blankfist:

Kill the rich! Cut their balls off! YAY! We hate that they have money! We should steal more of it!

>> ^quantumushroom:


Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.

>> ^Xax:

Whoa whoa whoa. STEALING? Bullfuckingshit. Of course there are a lot of corrupt motherfuckers out there, but I have no trouble believing that many people make more money than the average bear without being unscrupulous. People who have used their smarts and/or luck to become successful have every single right to write themselves a big fat paycheck. If some snotty piece of shit working under them is unhappy that they're not making as much money, well that's just too fucking bad.


What would top 2% salaries/benefits/bonuses have to get to before you guys would step in? Would you ever step in? If so, how would you intervene? (short term/long term) If not, how do you justify the relative enslavement of the working class to facilitate the further grab of cash, and just as directly, power?

When should we finally equate the existence of the "invisible hand" to that of any other supernatural being? I propose we let the Flying Spaghetti Monster(FSM) run the markets. It is all knowing and all loving.

>> ^quantumushroom:
the slew of new taxes from the obamateur's commiecare, already beginning to negatively the economy.


I honestly try to give you the benefit of the doubt, QM. Everytime I do it never surprises me that you spew a load of bullshit mixed with misconstrued and twisted facts. I decided to check out the website you linked in the quoted text and just realized it was another partisan website that uses talking points and political thinktank terms to push a certain point of view.

The website you linked to is run by the "Americans for Tax Reform", an advocacy group that lobbied against healthcare reform. Their president, Grover Glenn Norquist, who was involved in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal is also on the board of directors for the American Conservative Union, the oldest conservative lobbying group in the nation.

Also, the website was designed by Brayard Group Inc., a one-man consulting company run by Matt Braynard, a conservative that has made political contributions to Republicans such as McCain and Romney.

Are you intentionally spouting these partisan views or is it just by accident that every post you've ever made that had to do with politics is based solely on biased sources?
>> ^quantumushroom:
Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.


Do you realize that the government is actually a coalition of real people? You might as well have said this:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to people and they urinate it away.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^blankfist:
Kill the rich! Cut their balls off! YAY! We hate that they have money! We should steal more of it!

C'mon Blank. You get more, you PAY more. Society doesn't work because a guy tells his staff to buy low and sell high. People acting like the rich get picked on so badly really get my blood boiling.


Society doesn't work because a guy tells his staff to buy low and sell high? What does that mean? I never understood why people who work to make more should be punished. It's not like the government is working harder for that person. It's not like he gets more services from the government whether he pays a little or he pays a lot.

Stop being greedy, I say. And I like how his chart stops at 1 million. Why doesn't he show what they'd do to people who make more than 1 million? What about people who make ten million? Or 100 million? Because this is just theater.

>> ^blankfist:

And I like how his chart stops at 1 million. Why doesn't he show what they'd do to people who make more than 1 million? What about people who make ten million? Or 100 million? Because this is just theater.


Presumably that's because that demographic is a tiny fraction of the US population and not exactly the target group here.

That said,

>> ^handmethekeysyou:


The fact that the White House is not read up on Tufte, someone who has written numerous books on statistics in politics and who remains the foremost thinker on information design, is disheartening at best.
Sorry to geek out on this, but I expect better. You're trying to take steps forward by speaking in plain English to the general public, & I salute you for it. But you need to come correct.


I find it difficult to believe any player who makes it to the White House is inept enough to do this by accident. I suspect the diameter (if I was feeling really cynical, I'd say the radius) of the circles is what the ruler was used to measure out, quite intentionally.

Capital begets capital and debt begets debt. Even a totally useless moron who's born with $10 million can quintuple his money, adjusted for inflation, by the time he dies, using safe investments. Being born rich is like being born a slave-owner, and being born poor is like being born a slave.

>> ^handmethekeysyou:

I love this idea, and I really hope they continue with it as a series. However, I take one very strong issue with this video; specifically their absolute failure in communication design. The use of circles is borderline offensive to anyone even loosely schooled in the subject.
"We got a ruler and measured out the size of the tax cut, is how big the circle is [sic]". Cool. Corresponding to what? How big the tax cut is by percentage? Dollar amount? What?

Fair, point, but it's all too rare for liberals to try to make a simple, easy to understand case for what they're doing. I don't want them to spend a lot of time talking about x and y axes when they're just trying to drive home the difference in policy priorities.

That said, I suspect it's similar to this chart, and in that one, it's the area of the circle that's proportionate to the raw number of dollars a person with the stated income would save under each proposal, compared to the baseline tax code.

>> ^blankfist:

And I like how his chart stops at 1 million. Why doesn't he show what they'd do to people who make more than 1 million? What about people who make ten million? Or 100 million? Because this is just theater.


More likely, it's because it wouldn't be fair to keep going. The Obama circles stay the same size as you go up from this point (hence the "Let the tax cuts expire on income over $250,000" thing), and the Bush circles keep getting bigger at ever-faster rates. I'm not gonna try and estimate at what income level the Bush circle would be bigger than the whole board, but I wouldn't be surprised if $10 million was close.

I honestly try to give you the benefit of the doubt, QM. Everytime I do it never surprises me that you spew a load of bullshit mixed with misconstrued and twisted facts. I decided to check out the website you linked in the quoted text and just realized it was another partisan website that uses talking points and political thinktank terms to push a certain point of view.

You don't have to give ME the benefit of a doubt. You're more than welcome to prove my sources are incorrect. Why would you be shocked to find others have a point-of-view? Because liberals are astonished others actually have different points-of-view?

The AIR isn't making this stuff up about new taxes, they're simply reporting what's actually in this new atrocious socialist legislation no one read before passing.

SRSLY, you're going to lecture me about bias when 90% of "journalists" vote Taxocrat?

Are you intentionally spouting these partisan views or is it just by accident that every post you've ever made that had to do with politics is based solely on biased sources?

Either these new taxes are lies made up by the Right or they're actually in the obamacare-strosity.

Do you realize that the government is actually a coalition of real people?

Government (aka organized force) creates nothing. It's made up of people with no incentive to increase efficiency or turn a profit. They are immune to real-time market changes as well as their own laws that burden individuals. The less they're involved the better.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^blankfist:
Kill the rich! Cut their balls off! YAY! We hate that they have money! We should steal more of it!

C'mon Blank. You get more, you PAY more. Society doesn't work because a guy tells his staff to buy low and sell high. People acting like the rich get picked on so badly really get my blood boiling.

Society doesn't work because a guy tells his staff to buy low and sell high? What does that mean? I never understood why people who work to make more should be punished. It's not like the government is working harder for that person. It's not like he gets more services from the government whether he pays a little or he pays a lot.
Stop being greedy, I say. And I like how his chart stops at 1 million. Why doesn't he show what they'd do to people who make more than 1 million? What about people who make ten million? Or 100 million? Because this is just theater.


I think it means that people have to get over the idea that the money they make is directly proportional to the amount they work. Some people are more successful than others but we all live in the same society and we all use its resources and structure.

Bill Gates earns more money a year than I could spend in a lifetime. It's not because he's worth a billion times more than me as a human. It's because he got lucky. And actually, if you look a little bit closer at his story, it's because he was a fucking dick to everyone he ever dealt with. Bill Gates didn't invent the operating system. He took everyone's ideas together and called the whole his own. Is that the way to make a ton of money? Sure. But I think you should give something back to the society you took from. And I don't think I'm crazy for seeing it that way.

Am I the only person who was in kindergarten on the day we learned how to share?

Oh... and "stop being greedy" you say? How much does a person need before they give the rest back to society? Jesus fucking christ.

While I like your argument and your logic, I am forced to point out that the numbers are a bit off.

Toyota earns a profit of around $1700 per vehicle (it's higher for hybrids, lower for others). This means that their 524,160 Tundras will earn about $898,934,400 in profit. The value per worker would be closer to $400,000 than $4 million.

Either way, I agree with you that this is not necessarily fair - someone is making a lot of money with a lot less effort.


>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

See, the only problem I have with that is..
How many individuals do you think consistently earn a million based purely on the value they themselves generate?
Say you're an electrical engineer who comes up with a brilliant solution that saves multiple cities thru out California a million dollars a year each.
You went to University. Studied diligently. Paid for all your books out of pocket. Got your masters.
I would agree that you rightly deserve at least a million in compensation.
~~~
Now say, instead of glorious engineer. You were one of the 2100 workers on Toyota's San Antonia, TX assembly line in 2007
Do you think you'd make that same million dollar salary? Mostly like, no.
Tho if you look at the numbers:
That plant made one Tundra per minute starting in 2007. 60x24x7x52= 524160 Tundras
Average MSRP for an '07 Tundra = $32070 x524160= $16,809,811,200 in value.
Let's say the retailers make 5 Million and that half of the 16 Billion is break-even cost for Toyota.
$8,402,405,600/2100= $4,001,145 of suggested value per worker
The average auto worker makes 18 to 30 so we'll say hourly wage is $24.
Times an 8 hour shift 6 times per week. 24x8x313 = $60,096 yearly earnings.
Remember $4 Mill of profit per worker at $60k year compensation means those workers on retained 1.5% of the value they generated.
~~~
That example was one factory. In one industry.
Think of the millions of businesses that aren't so generous as to allot their employees 1.5% of the profits they themselves produce individually.
And then compare that to the number of CEOs of those businesses that pay themselves a million or more, plus bonuses.
And then compare that to the number of self made millionaire that rightfully earn 7 figure salaries.
Considering wages haven't risen much for thirties, I think the majority of those workers have a right to be unhappy.
Sorry for the rambling. It was just my way of putting things in perspective.
>> ^Xax:

Whoa whoa whoa. STEALING? Bullfuckingshit. Of course there are a lot of corrupt motherfuckers out there, but I have no trouble believing that many people make more money than the average bear without being unscrupulous. People who have used their smarts and/or luck to become successful have every single right to write themselves a big fat paycheck. If some snotty piece of shit working under them is unhappy that they're not making as much money, well that's just too fucking bad.

@NetRunner: thanks for the WP link, seems my cynicism was unwarranted.

Truckchase:

What would top 2% salaries/benefits/bonuses have to get to before you guys would step in? Would you ever step in? If so, how would you intervene? (short term/long term) If not, how do you justify the relative enslavement of the working class to facilitate the further grab of cash, and just as directly, power?

While nothing is simple, it's a damned good idea to let the people who make the money keep the lion's share of it. Who is more likely to invest wisely and stretch a dollar, the person who earned it or the government?

Altho no liberal believes it, when you lower the tax rate, tax revenues increase. Government didn't take a larger slice of the pie, the pie itself got larger.

If government is whining it doesn't have enough tax revenue, it's because it's spending too much.

Now now, there's no need for fking profanity.

If you're shoveling manure for 10 dollars, and some government official takes 5 dollars "to help people" every time you get paid, how hard will you be shoveling manure tomorrow?

This left-wringer class envy warfare can't work forever.

>> ^StukaFox:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.


Because life for the underclass was so good in the Gilded Age.
You really are a fucking tool, you know that?

>> ^quantumushroom:

If you're shoveling manure for 10 dollars, and some government official takes 5 dollars "to help people" every time you get paid, how hard will you be shoveling manure tomorrow?

As for how hard the guy would work, I suspect shoveling shit wasn't really his lifelong desire in life, and that he's only taken the job out of extreme economic necessity. What would make him work even harder would be to pay him less, and remove opportunities for him to move to a line of work that's got more dignity and less manual labor.

What would be better is for him to have more liberty to make his living doing what he really wants to do and not be unduly bound by economic necessity.

There are practical limits to how much help can reasonably be given, but making the worst jobs on the market better paying and less dangerous, while providing free (to him) quality education seem like good starts.

So, liberals would want to cut this guy's taxes, and give him better government benefits, like subsidized education, healthcare, paid time off, guarantee the company he works for is providing him good equipment and protection from the health hazards of being around shit all day, and oh yes, a higher minimum wage.

To pay for the above, we would tax the billionaire who's making $10,000 profit for each $800 paycheck he cuts for the shit-shoveler.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.
Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.
The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.
The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.
November 2nd. Change is coming.



And the right that borrows money to aviod tax-cuts, or avoids cutting defense when it is needed? And before it is said, ALL of the right is debt-lovers but deniers... 1/1000 at least. "Cut this program, cut that program, but NEVER, ever My programs..."

Hey so qm, since you're still replying and haven't responded to me, can I assume that you agree that extending the tax cuts to the rich will increase the deficit and discourage jobs and economic growth?

So here's Goolsbee on the original plan.

Here's the Washington Post with an updated graphic on the Obama "compromise" plan:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/12/08/GR2010120807047.html

*promote

Self promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 6:27pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter NetRunner.

Jesus, NetRunner. What a depressing reminder.

How bout this: Flat Tax, 30 %.