Yeah he embarrasses her with his stupidity, as he embarrasses me. So fake news picks a naive college student to debate, and when she starts putting her thoughts together to make a point he interrupts her like the condescending asshole that he is.

I'm sorry, but you wouldn't need the top 1% to pay nowhere near 90% in taxes to cover education. Just a made up number to make her look stupid as she didn't know how to answer it.

With a higher percent of more educated people, they as a whole would be making more money to contribute to the tax fund, increasing revenue.

And really Neil, rich people would leave the honey hole because we taxed them more? How about we start taxing and putting tariffs on companies that go into these third world countries for cheap labor to export products back here. Fuck em if they want to leave, they will no longer be "hoarding" the money and it would allow other companies to fill the void and thrive.

And her point that was so rudely interrupted was spot on, "There is a population that is doing nothing to contribute to the progression of society"

And lastly, these are all moot points if we just quit dumping all our money into the military, and it's not even going to benefit our veterans, but to the select few who own these government contracts. Why do they NEVER Talk about that? Why do we have to continuously be engaged in some kind of war? Oh, that's right to convince people we need a bigger military budget, more spying...blah blah blah...unpatriotic if you don't agree...blah blah...scare people into some kind of threat..

I'm sorry this particular girl wasn't ready for this debate, she probably had a speech prepared they told her she could give.

Indeed! Must ... be .... careful >hoarding runs in the family<

Again, I totally disagree. The 'road tax' is the same kind of social program as SS and Medicare. If you don't understand that not having hoards of indigent elderly, uneducated, and infirmed on those streets is a good thing, we'll never see eye to eye.

Per dollar per family? That makes no sense to me...it's either one or the other.

The law of Jante is a derogative term from the 1930's. If it applies today and most people dislike it, it's incredibly odd that a democratic country didn't change by now. What I read said the term now refers to people trying to 'climb the social ladder'. (a thing that would be impossible if the original 'law of Jante' was reality and everyone was the same status)

I'll await comment from someone who lives there, like @BicycleRepairMan, because I'm far more interested in what he thinks about this than what you or I think about it.

It's just somewhere new.

Once you see it (or find it) the first time, you will know where it is.

It's out of the way, not participating in the hoarding going on on the rest of the page. In that regard it makes sense. It's like the admin toolbar in WordPress. No need to sprinkle all your administrative tools all over the bloody content ffs.

But that's just me.

QE certainly isn't perfect. Giving liquidity to banks in theory should give them an incentive to loan it out (they earn more by doing that rather than sitting on it or putting it in super safe assets like Treasuries). However, they have generally erred on the conservative tack, partly also because their capital requirements (how much cash/equity they have to sit on) was raised. Companies that have done well and not received bailouts have also hoarded cash rather than invest because of uncertainty around the economy.

Meanwhile stock market valuations have soared because of a lack of other assets to put it in. Many of these cash holdings from corporations and banks have been dumped in Treasuries. This has reduced the return from Treasuries to a miserable amount. Meanwhile commodity prices have also tanked. That pretty much left stocks, which are arguably now inflated in price (and historically overvalued) largely as a result of the QE money handed out to banks.

What oritteropo says is very correct, if any poor or middle class person had opened a brokerage account and dumped their money in an S&P or Nasdaq tracking fund at or near the bottom of the 2009 market, they would have tripled their money or more. The option was certainly available and affordable to anyone.

The problem was that there were arguably limited alternatives. What the Australian government here did, which was far more effective (and completely avoided any recession) is simply gave out cash to everyone. Unlike QE money which just sat around in safe assets this got spent (largely to pay off debts, but this would have to happen anyway and sped up a recovery).

The issue was, this was fiscal policy, and we could easily afford it because we had (and still have) very low debt levels. A country like the UK could not so easily do this, certainly not many of the troubled European countries. The US arguably could have because with the USD being such a crux global currency, there is virtually no chance it would have led to a currency crash or brought about serious worries about being able to service their debt levels (even if they are high).

Thanks for the Power Points - I'll spend them wisely.

Aahhh who am I kidding, I'm going to hoard them! They're mine... mine mine mine I tell you!

I tell you, the bloody orcs are ruining this country. You go for a walk in the hills, suddenly there's a hoard of the bastards trying to kill you.

And don't even talk to me about eagles... always showing up 10 minutes after they would have been really useful...

Yet another example of capitalist raking in hoards of money and not sharing it. Stiffing bill collectors. Just plane evil.

Why cant we just stop this nonsense and dive right into socialist and let the government take care of everyone?

shveddy, dude I think you're over-reacting. Perhaps you've been watching too many Piers Morgan shows.

Yes, the US has a gun culture. The problem with guns is not that people are hoarding them, the problem is that too many people who own them have no respect for other people's lives...that's the black youth culture, which is born out by the number of them who lose their lives every day.

Gun collectors keep their firearms locked up 99% of the time. But to a black youth, a gun is a great equalizer to defend his machismo. It's in their music but there are too many cowards who refuse to address it.

There's no such memo.

"He's talking about people with more money than they can possibly spend looking for more tax breaks so they can accumulate even more wealth that they're never going to spend."

This is just stupid. Sorry to say. People don't just hoard billions of dollars under the mattress.They spend it. They buy bonds, stocks, assets, goods, services, investments, start businesses or expand existing ones, advertise, do all sorts of things with it.

"unlike those billions sitting in off shore account."

In the case of money sitting in off shore accounts, first, it is being spent by the banks that are storing it. Second, it is also invested in overseas businesses, like Apple stores in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe or paying dividends. And third, it would not be there moving so slowly if not for government taxation which incentivizes a lack of flow. To the extent that it does not circulate (and I contend it flows much more than you allege), the stagnation is the result of yet more government-caused distortions.


What specific corporation or individual do you claim does not invest its surplus money? Name one.

For starters, corporations need to either invest their profits or pay dividends.
So, again, who are you referring to specifically?

Even if they have some money in the bank, the banks are investing that money, lending it out, etc. So again, who specifically are you referring to?

As I've said before, ignorance may be bliss, but thankfully, we don't all have to be as ignorant as the least informed among us.

The top 85 people in the world own as much as the poorest half.

3.5 billion people...

Minimum wage needs to go way up, unions need better regulation to help them and give them government backing and the rich need to start paying their share.

A billionaire has no appreciable increase in happiness or well-being if his income doubles. To people on the bottom end of the economic spectrum even a 25% increase in their income makes a huge difference.

Why should we let insanely rich people hoard more money when they don't even know what to do with the money they already have? Many studies have shown that even the ultra-rich live better lives when there is greater income equality in a society.

now that I am watching the video, I will say he didn't respond very well to the that one pundit. The biggest thing he ignored is the huge strawman the pundit constructed where labor makes everything and there is no profit. Bullshit. At no time did he argue that companies will be making no profit and labor will get everything. Huge strawman.

You could probably triple or quadruple the minimum wage and a lot of these companies would still be making money hand over fist.

they keep ignoring the fundamental issue. You give poor people more money...THEY WILL SPEND IT!! = huge boost to the economy. If you give rich people more money that they don't even need, THEY HOARD IT AND TAKE IT OUT OF THE ECONOMY!!. The republicans have it backwards, it's not trickle down economics, it's trickle UP economics. Where do you think businesses get their money in the first place.....the people at the bottom buying their products.

If you fuck over the poor, you interrupt the cycle and you've got no one buying your shit.

Inheritance is exponential - if you're born with a million dollars it's a lot easier to make a million dollars than if you're born with nothing. So the families that obsess about gold, rent seek and hoard wealth selfishly rule by default after a few generations, and the ones that share wealth with the disadvantaged and think about other things (arts, science, philosophy, engineering, humanitarian action or just a fair days work for a fair days pay) are left increasingly poor.

Charitable giving as a proportion of income is an INVERSE CURVE- the more you have the less you give.

Every 3 or 4 hundred years the shit hits the fan and the system is reset through widespread bloodletting. This has been true for ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY. Why would would this time be different?

You reflect a lot of peoples opinions with this. Those who are terrified of terrorist attacks and let themselves get whipped up into a panic state anytime they push the propaganda button.

Oh those aren't happy natives those are blood thirsty psychos redskins we have to destroy to feel safe.

Those aren't nice Chinese laundrymen they're trying to kill us, we need to launch a chemical attack against mainland China (true story).

Those aren't black slaves we're keeping under our boots, they want to rape your daughters we can't give them freedom!

Those aren't peaceful villagers they're Red Communist bastards that are coming for us like a HOARD!

And so on and so on and so on. This country is terrified of everything, and usually the boogie man it makes up is the very people or country that we have under our boot. If we take our boot away for even a second they'll destroy us and everything we hold dear. There were people arming themselves and wearing Camo during the FIRST Gulf War because they were terrified of Saddam Hussein showing up on our doorsteps.

This culture of fear is what they use to justify everything, it's all about Security. Guess what, it doesn't have anything to do with security, because they know very well what they can do to make us more secure, even more than our magical country already is. They're not doing it, they have never done it...they're not protecting us, they only protect themselves FROM US.

This isn't an attack or anything you bring up a very good point which tons of people do during these debates. I'm getting really tired of the most protected society in the world not responding to those who actually pose a threat to not just our survival, but humanities as a whole.

Here's the long-list from a famous -hacked-to-bits and otherwise forgotten document's grievance rider which seems a poignantly appropriate reason enough to want to shove a vote up someone's ass and rotate it:

Of King George:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Someone needs perhaps to revise the list and start hoarding ammunition and conscripting, because methinks the "vote" be fast-resembling, fuck-all. I don't vote and I am damn sure not going to be quiet any time soon...Average Joe and Jane voters have already effectively been "opted out."