>> ^jjw001:

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?


War.

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?

When I first heard this, I cringed. It sounds like he's sort of improvising and the line they pulled out was indelicately delivered. However, anyone who actually thinks that their success is completely independent of the rest of us is a classic ingrate. One person's success depends on interaction with others. If you have a product, you need people to buy it. That means you need people to have access to money and to the product, which means you need banks and bankers, roads and truckers, rails and train operators, boats and boat crews. In order to convince people to buy it, you need advertising space - billboards, newspapers, websites, television programs and all of them are staffed by still more people. Without security, your success is meaningless, so that's police and firefighters, the entire judicial branch of government. A lot of this infrastructure is subsidized by the public.

No one does it alone. You have to be a special kind of disconnected to convince yourself that's not true. If we govern with the attitude that successful people should not be expected to give back, it will cripple those who are emerging successes. We need to create an environment where people can buy things, and super rich people can afford to pitch in to keep that happening even if they refuse to see that they're included in the list of people who benefit.

holyshitrant

Must be nice being super rich and being able to shit all over people whenever you feel like it. Makes the pool of people you need to be nice to very small.....that pool being people richer than you.

Sorry but you obviously don't understand anything about Medicare fraud, because virtually 100% of Medicare fraud is perpetuated by the Doctors themselves NOT the patients.

Don't believe me look at your last hospital bill and ask them why it cost you $100 for a pillow $300 for a blanket $1000 for a pair of forceps, $500 for a meal.

I get shots at my doctor for pain that cost me $2500 a shot I asked the insurance company why they cost so much and they said they were listed as "experimental" so I asked my Doctor what they were and he told me they were just normal lidocaine shots like a Dentist uses, they probably cost the Doctor $20 bucks each.

And last time I checked Doctors don't need welfare.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Just Medicare fraud costs us 60 billion dollars a year. A YEAR. And no one seems to give a damn. Do you? So yeah, the "poor" with their two cars, appliances, 3 tvs, and most owning their own homes should be paying more than ZERO. Maybe they'll be less tolerant of their brethren grifting the system.






>> ^rottenseed:
That's kind of silly. I mean, here is a person that would be affected negatively by the tax adjustments he's proposing for the cause of aiding the US...and yet here you are, a nobody, with no money, nobody knows who the hell you are telling him that he's wrong. He's telling you that nobody in the super rich community is paying enough. He knows. He knows a lot better than any one of us. I don't get why people like you side with the uber-rich that don't want to pay more in taxes, unless you are a wealthy miser yourself. To be honest I don't even have a problem paying the taxes I pay. And increasing my tax bracket certainly isn't going to keep me from trying to make more money. The only thing I care about is where the money goes. That's where my distrust kicks in. Spending on a country's needs is fine, but squandering is not.
I do agree with you on the point that it shouldn't all be going toward social programs. Especially ones that have no way or desire to stop people milking the system. >> ^quantumushroom:
Ah, Gates. Another zillionaire apparently unaware the wealthy already pay the most in taxes, and at higher tax rates.
It's the 'bottom' 50% presently paying no income tax but gobbling up plenty of "free services" that should be chipping in.

"What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice." ---T. Sowell

That's kind of silly. I mean, here is a person that would be affected negatively by the tax adjustments he's proposing for the cause of aiding the US...and yet here you are, a nobody, with no money, nobody knows who the hell you are telling him that he's wrong.

As an American, I am free to tell anyone they are wrong, even the current President who is wrong 98% of the time. No one seems to have a problem telling me I'm wrong.

Do you think I'm a "nobody" because I have "no" money? DEMOCRAT Thomas Jefferson died broke. Was he a nobody?

He's telling you that nobody in the super rich community is paying enough. He knows.
He knows a lot better than any one of us. I don't get why people like you side with the uber-rich that don't want to pay more in taxes, unless you are a wealthy miser yourself.

No, I would say most of the sifters make more than me, for now. My beef is what you and apparently Gates think the guvmint is going to do with the "extra" cash, since the bastards already make and borrow on their own, at our peril. Remember that magical trillion Obama spent with no results?

To be honest I don't even have a problem paying the taxes I pay. And increasing my tax bracket certainly isn't going to keep me from trying to make more money. The only thing I care about is where the money goes. That's where my distrust kicks in. Spending on a country's needs is fine, but squandering is not.

Just Medicare fraud costs us 60 billion dollars a year. A YEAR. And no one seems to give a damn. Do you? So yeah, the "poor" with their two cars, appliances, 3 tvs, and most owning their own homes should be paying more than ZERO. Maybe they'll be less tolerant of their brethren grifting the system.












>> ^rottenseed:

That's kind of silly. I mean, here is a person that would be affected negatively by the tax adjustments he's proposing for the cause of aiding the US...and yet here you are, a nobody, with no money, nobody knows who the hell you are telling him that he's wrong. He's telling you that nobody in the super rich community is paying enough. He knows. He knows a lot better than any one of us. I don't get why people like you side with the uber-rich that don't want to pay more in taxes, unless you are a wealthy miser yourself. To be honest I don't even have a problem paying the taxes I pay. And increasing my tax bracket certainly isn't going to keep me from trying to make more money. The only thing I care about is where the money goes. That's where my distrust kicks in. Spending on a country's needs is fine, but squandering is not.
I do agree with you on the point that it shouldn't all be going toward social programs. Especially ones that have no way or desire to stop people milking the system. >> ^quantumushroom:
Ah, Gates. Another zillionaire apparently unaware the wealthy already pay the most in taxes, and at higher tax rates.
It's the 'bottom' 50% presently paying no income tax but gobbling up plenty of "free services" that should be chipping in.

"What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice." ---T. Sowell

Ah, liberalsift. Well, I've got no one to blame but me. First, I have to CLARIFY my own wisdom.

Ah, Gates. Another zillionaire apparently unaware the wealthy already pay the most in taxes, and at higher tax rates.

OK, so the liberalsift assumption is Gates KNOWS the wealthy already pay the most in taxes, and at higher tax rates. What does Gates think the government is going to do with even more tax money? Suddenly become efficient? Pay down debts and cut up the credit cards? BTW, when taxes go up, they don't just go up on the rich. YOU will be paying for the tax hike in the prices of goods and services YOU purchase. Not even the super-rich live in a vacuum. Google "Microsoft layoffs."

It's the 'bottom' 50% presently paying no income tax but gobbling up plenty of "free services" that should be chipping in.

I didn't say tax the poor at 50%, I said they should be "chipping in". At what rates, I don't know, but I know it should be more than f--king ZERO.

That's kind of silly. I mean, here is a person that would be affected negatively by the tax adjustments he's proposing for the cause of aiding the US...and yet here you are, a nobody, with no money, nobody knows who the hell you are telling him that he's wrong. He's telling you that nobody in the super rich community is paying enough. He knows. He knows a lot better than any one of us. I don't get why people like you side with the uber-rich that don't want to pay more in taxes, unless you are a wealthy miser yourself. To be honest I don't even have a problem paying the taxes I pay. And increasing my tax bracket certainly isn't going to keep me from trying to make more money. The only thing I care about is where the money goes. That's where my distrust kicks in. Spending on a country's needs is fine, but squandering is not.

I do agree with you on the point that it shouldn't all be going toward social programs. Especially ones that have no way or desire to stop people milking the system. >> ^quantumushroom:

Ah, Gates. Another zillionaire apparently unaware the wealthy already pay the most in taxes, and at higher tax rates.
It's the 'bottom' 50% presently paying no income tax but gobbling up plenty of "free services" that should be chipping in.

"What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice." ---T. Sowell

Just because one clip focuses on it doesn't mean that the entire movement is fixated on one stat.

All I ever see from the liberal left's ProgLibDytes are clips that focus on the 'wealth disparity' between the rich and poor. I've never seen the ProgLibDyte clip that focuses on something like median income. That's because focusing on median income tells a completely opposing story. The point is that ProgLibDytes and and left as a whole focus only on a narrow band of stats that drives thier agenda-based narrative. They ignore huge vistas of other facts, studies, research, thought, and evidence because it cuts the legs out from under thier world view and makes them look like idiots.

Barak Obama himself is a CLASSIC example of this narrow-minded kind of agenda-driven cherry-picking of reality. Every time that specimen opens his mouth it is to say, "The experts I have spoken to agree with me..." And what about the bazillions of experts he DIDN'T speak to which all disagree with him, or contradict him? Of course is his empty noggin such people don't exist - or don't matter. The same issue plagues neolib leftists across whole spectrums. Global Warming, Abortion, Economics - you name it - the left picks a tiny slice of carefully selected grain of sand to tell a story, and ignores whole beaches of sand that says the opposite.

Not that the right doesn't suffer from the same problem. It is not an issue limited to only the left. However, the left is more aggressively self-important, pious, and arrogant about their narrative - and far more inclined to try to base bad legislation on it.

How is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points "communist" or even "socialist" on an objective scale?

The US tax rate (both corporate and private) is already one of the highest in the world. I counter your question with another. "What good is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points going to do?" You could confiscate every penny the top 10% of America has and it would not get America's government out of the red even for one year - let alone for the 15 trillion we have in debts - and the SIXTY-FOUR TRILLION we have in 'unfunded liabilities' such as Social Security. There isn't enough money in the entire economy to pay for all the spending the government is doing and/or proposing with its leftist big-government agendas. The economic problem is one of spending - not taxation.

But you're pretending that the income gap between super rich and poor is static, which misses the entire point. It's not static. It fluctuates.

Irrelevant. The gap between the top 1% and the bottom 5% means nothing. It is immaterial statisitically speaking. If I earn a million a year compared to a guy that earns 30K then he makes 3% of what I do. A year later I am earning 1,050,000 a year and he is earning 28K for a new adjusted difference of 2.66% of what I earn. Head for the hills, Ma Barker! Since when is this -0.34% shift of any value. Or let's go the other way and now I'm only earning 950,000 and he's earning 32,000 for a 3.25% How is that helping either the rich guy OR the poor guy? Or let's take the real world situation that Barak Obama brought us and BOTH of them go down while the government's income skyrockets. Wow - that's really benefiting society isn't it?

The wealth gap is utterly irrelevant - static or dynamic. And for the record - I never assume ANY economic stat is static except for one. Government growth. Government baseline budgeting has created an untenable economic drag on the nation because it continues to grow at 8% to 10% Year over Year no matter what the economy is doing. That's the only static economic stat out there - and it is not a good one.

(BTW, what a good person you are to say whose jobs are of value and whose aren't!)

Right back at you Clyde. Who are you to decide what an inside-trader's job should or shouldn't be worth? The IT generates real profit for his company, and they compensate him to keep him doing it. Who are you - or Cunk - or any other ProgLibDyte to come along with the cheek to say they don't deserve it?

I'm advocating the gov't make it moderately more equal by raising the rich's taxes, and ease up on the poor and middle class.

The mistake you and the left make is that for some reason you think that 'taxes' make things 'more equal'. They don't except in one way... Taxes make everyone equally miserable. Money goes into government and dissappears. Taxing the rich doesn't make things better for the poor or the middle class. It only gives government more power - which is the last thing our bloated federal system needs right now. The poor pay virtually no income taxes - so it is quite impossible to 'ease up' on them except at the state & sales tax level. The middle class? Hey - anything helps but in the average budget we're talking a few hundred bucks a year. I don't have a problem with the rich paying thier 'fair share' (as leftists so vaguely love to put it). But the rich already ARE paying thier fair share and then some. If they jacked 'the rich' tax rate up to 90% it wouldn't do jack-squat for 'the poor' or the middle class.

Tax capital gains like it's income, subject to the same brackets, etc.

America's captial gains taxes are already the #2 highest in the world. Gapital gains are treated differently for a reason. This is another thing that most leftists prove themselves woefully ignorant about whenever they talk about it. And again - even if we did that how exactly is that going to 'help' anyone? All that does is provide you lefties with an ephemeral, meaningless sense of shadenfruede which you can suckle on as you trudge back to your government-mandated hovels - properly pacified with the meaningless knowledge that a rich guy is getting taxed some more. That is until you realize he's still rich, you're still poor, and only the government got something out of the deal. How leftists can be so stupid on the subject of economics I will never know, but I can only tip my hat to the depths of human gullibility.

They're not just focusing on income inequality or ownership of resources. Just because one clip focuses on it doesn't mean that the entire movement is fixated on one stat. There are a lot of stats the left are focused on, such as unemployment to name another. And it's not a stupid statistic to focus on. If there is too much stratification of wealth, and there is such a thing, then what other statistic would illustrate that it's gotten out of hand?! For the good of the economy, for everyone across the income range, if the rich possess too much wealth, there won't be enough people with money to purchase goods and services being produced. This hasn't a thing to do with the little orphans you helped in Mexico.

Is it being trumped to the point it's being played like an emotional dagger instead of being analyzed rationally? Of course. But come on, if you're gonna sit there and say that only the left is guilty of that, then you're being partisan. How is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points "communist" or even "socialist" on an objective scale? Or even using those words to elicit a knee jerk reaction by people to say it's bad just because of the word instead of rationally discussing the policy? Or when anyone suggests raising taxes on the rich, it's automatically "class warfare"? Or you using derogatory terms like "NeoProgLibNaziCommunistSocialist" blah? Give me a break.

And yes, some wealth stratification is good. You want the people who work hard or are more talented to have more income. It keeps incentives in the system. I have no problem with that. But you're pretending that the income gap between super rich and poor is static, which misses the entire point. It's not static. It fluctuates. We're too the point now where it's getting absurd to the point that it's hurting the economy. You're also pretending that the stats only illustrate the gap between the super-rich and the poor, and that's not the case. The stats are showing the gap between the rich and everyone else, including middle class, which is being decimated.

You have very little patience when you hear a college-age son's of yuppies whining about they only earn $30K/yr for their liberal art major degree? What about me, the son of a solid middle class family who got one of those horrible liberal art degrees (Master's in Education, Bachelor's in History, Minor in International Studies) and got a "fake job" as a history teacher in a public school? Are you kidding me with this? (BTW, what a good person you are to say whose jobs are of value and whose aren't!) What I did for a living for four years combined produced less value than a commodities trader did in one year, whose job is essentially speculation that artificially drives up prices on the things they trade? You don't find something extremely absurd about that?

Let's do the math. At those salaries, a public school teacher is producing less than 10% of the value of what a commodities trader does, and a commodities trader isn't even required to have a college degree, and we're not even including the better benefits and bonuses. I'm not naive enough to think a public school teacher would ever be paid that well, but when the gap is getting wider, and wider, and wider, and you're seeing a public school teacher's benefits getting reduced, particularly retirement, I'm sorry, but something is horribly wrong here. The market is failing to address a basic societal problem. I'm not advocating a state controlled economy (aka Communism) to even it out. I'm advocating the gov't make it moderately more equal by raising the rich's taxes, and ease up on the poor and middle class. Tax capital gains like it's income, subject to the same brackets, etc.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Or is that a typo for "ProgLibDytes"
As with "neolibs" it is a word of my own creation which I used to describe the crazed, hardcore, insane left-wing liberal denizens of the world. Neolib was my default for a long time, but lately the vitriol of the left has gotten so prone to hate, anger, and insanity that I have moved to defaulting with "ProgLibDyte" to describe them. It is perfect because it is so close to "Troglidyte" (cave dweller) and covers "Progressives" and "Liberals" together. ProgLibDytes. Cave dwelling political liberals and progressives. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Which one should we obsess over?
How about not picking just one, and looking at all of them - or at least a LOT of them? Regardless, examining only the gap between the ultra-rich and the poor is about one of the stupidest metrics one could examine when it comes to economics. It means absolutely nothing in terms of either real income, economic trending, or any other meaningful metric. Such a myopic stat serves only one purpose, and that is to angry up the blood of the lower class.
There are always going to be really rich people who have so much money that they could eat gold bricks and crap diamonds. These guys are always going to exist in the same nation as people so poor they scrape the very bottom of the economic barrel. The difference between the top 0.1% and the bottom 5% is utterly meaningless. It is pure nonsense to get mad about the difference between Bill Gates and the guy who pumps gas. It tells nothing about anything.
I personally donate my time to help the poor. I've helped the poorest of the poor in US cities and I thought I knew what 'poor' was. Then I volunteered to help little towns in Mexico. When kids and widows weep in your arms just because you came to them with a few bags of cement to put a small concrete slab in thier one room dirt-shanty then you know you've hit the real thing.
In the US, even those who live in so-called 'poverty' have cars, TVs, homes, cable, internet, clothes, and money to spend at McDonalds on a lark. So I have very little patience when I hear college-age son's-of-yuppies whining about the fact that they only earn $30K a year (with benefits) for thier liberal-art's major compared to Wall-Street guys (who are actually performing a real job) earning 300K plus cash bonuses. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Yeah, why wouldn't they just ad lib an entire film about a super-rich oil magnate dictator?

Maybe because it wouldn't work and it wouldn't be funny? Or perhaps they just didn't think of it.

>> ^quantumushroom:

These occupoopers have no idea how wealth is created or basic economics, but that's the genius of Progressivism, creating ignorant, reactionary sheep.
BTW, how is 4 more years of the kenyawaiian a "win"? Hurry up and ask him before he goes on vacation again.


They don't need to know (but I'm sure many of them have as good idea as anyone else)


Fact is there protest is legitimate , wealth is not spread proportional to social impact of work , the super rich are not taxed fairly and Reaganomics don't work and have been catagoricaly proven not to work.


Even though the protesting will likely not achieve many direct results and allot of the protesters will be clueless what it has done is to get middle america to pay attention to the economical exploitation and wealth inequality that exist , where as before the protests there wouldn't even be a conversation.

father more The protests have made transparent to many people that america is accentually 90% Corporatocracy and 10% democracy.

"omics, but that's the genius of Progressivism, creating ignorant, reactionary sheep. "

If things progress for the better how is progressivism bad ?

How can progressivism lead people to be reactionary sheep more than any other idoiligy . The only thing that's creating sheep In USA is mindless media like fox news , the pore quality of education , some aspects of religoin and a total lack of critical thinking + scepticisum.

I'll check out the documentries. I agree, not everyone in the movement is like those people, but it really just seems like a mess. The coverage I've seen is a bunch of people slumming around, hawking their pet causes. I also don't see any coherent solution being offered. Do they want us to put all the rich people on a boat and sink it? I've seen people marching with communist flags and other who seem to think socialism is a good idea, which it isn't. Capitalism has flaws, that is undeniable, but it also has done a lot to spread personal freedom around the world. Capitalism is flawed, just like other system, because people are flawed. Anytime you have people entrusted with money and power, they find a way to screw it up, and good people get punished while bad people get rewarded. It's not the system which is the problem. It's the human heart:

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

>> ^westy:
A couple of crazies does not invalidate an argument , I have yet to see these hippie/anarchist type people repress anyone to the extent that the banks/cooperate owners and mega rich have (even if intentional or not) .
"I can't get behind a bunch of whiny entitled anarchists"
Don't then I certainly am not behind Whiny entitled anarchists. I think the whiny entitled types are very much in the minority in these protests , the main point of the protests is to draw attention to the fact that the super rich are controlling the policy and are affectively steeling from the majority of people and getting away with it.
Another affect the protests have had is that people are FINALY talking about how fundamental aspects of capitalism are flawed and its not necessaries 1 political party or another that's at fault ( although you can attribute deregulation of the markets to some people more than others)
If you have not seen it already and want a good over view of things watch these documentaries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt-FyuuWlWQ
http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_PandorasBox
http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap

A couple of crazies does not invalidate an argument , I have yet to see these hippie/anarchist type people repress anyone to the extent that the banks/cooperate owners and mega rich have (even if intentional or not) .

"I can't get behind a bunch of whiny entitled anarchists"

Don't then I certainly am not behind Whiny entitled anarchists. I think the whiny entitled types are very much in the minority in these protests , the main point of the protests is to draw attention to the fact that the super rich are controlling the policy and are affectively steeling from the majority of people and getting away with it.

Another affect the protests have had is that people are FINALY talking about how fundamental aspects of capitalism are flawed and its not necessaries 1 political party or another that's at fault ( although you can attribute deregulation of the markets to some people more than others)


If you have not seen it already and want a good over view of things watch these documentaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt-FyuuWlWQ

http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_PandorasBox

http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap



>> ^shinyblurry:

Does the sift actually support these people? I mean I know you're all liberals..but I didn't think you were that liberal..Check out some highlights:





I know our government is corrupt and corporations run the world, but I can't get behind a bunch of whiny entitled anarchists..not to mention the utterly bizzare drone like behavior and the crazies doing drugs in the street and defecting on police cars. The spirit behind this thing is an ugly one indeed.