So, basically his idea is that these people don't know actual work or hardship and that these poor humble corporations (as if they're actual people) are the saviors of our modern world. What bullshit.

Here is my response.

Even if you work one or two jobs, it wont make much of a difference because workers' wages are at an all time low and corporate profits are at an all time high. That destroys his "work hard and win" argument right there for the majority of Americans.

Since 1980, corporations have started to take their profits and reinvest them and buy out competition instead of increasing the pay for their workers (that's in the link too). Basically, screw over the working class and benefit the upper class.

I found these lyrics to a song posted in the comment stream where I found this:

I'm upper, upper class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom The event is never small
the social papers say I've got the biggest balls of all

CHORUS
I've got big balls I've got big balls
And they're such big balls fancy big balls
And he's got big balls, And she's got big balls,
But we've got the biggest balls of them all!

And my balls are always bouncing
My ballroom always full
And everybody comes and comes again
If your name is on the guest list No one can take you higher Everybody says I've got great balls of fire!

CHORUS

Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they're held for pleasure,
They're the balls that I like best.
And my balls are always bouncing,
To the left and to the right.
It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night.

CHORUS

I hope the OWS crowd doesn't count her as one of them. It would mean the message is "I made a bunch of bad financial decisions and now I don't want to deal with the consequences".

Taking out student loans you can't pay off is as much the fault of your underpaid HS teachers that told you University was the best way to go as any Wall Street trader. Mostly though, it was your own decision, take responsibility for it.

Buying an overpriced home you couldn't afford was as much the fault of your real estate agent as any Wall Street trader. Mostly though, it was your own decision, take responsibility for it.

Seriously, the Wall Street upper class have done an awful lot to create an uneven playing field to enrich themselves at the expense of others. They have made an environment were people who have made GOOD financial decisions, paid off their debts, and started investing are the ones getting hurt. Their investments are getting devalued, or more often just growing much slower than that of the ultra rich.

I'm sorry, but people like this reporter are flattering themselves to try and claim their lot in life is Wall Street getting them down. People like her have failed themselves, no help from Wall Street required.

@Creature

I think that argument is cherry picking the least social upper class jobs and comparing them against the most social lower class jobs.

There are just as many non-social low-end jobs as their are social low-end jobs... construction workers, dish washers, agriculture workers, factory workers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers... all non-social jobs.

However, if the difference really is just that upper class jobs are less social by nature, than the scientists are merely measuring a gap between social and non-social jobs, rather than some quality about being rich itself. So the study would more accurately be called: "Manual laborers and some rich people have less empathy than wealthy salesmen and some poor people."

$150k a year is upper class to me, especially if it's an individual's income. I think the video meant to say it's household income.

Because the $30,000 a year for the black area would be pretty decent for an individual. It sucks for a household though.

Also a recent CNN article said that white households have ten times net worth than black households.

The tax cuts helped, but not enough. The middle class got about two thousand per year in tax cuts, and that helped the middle class. The upper class got 10 times that,

Unfortunately, at least 3 million jobs were lost to China, millions more jobs to India, Philippines, Korea, etc.

Then Wall St. started taking profits, siphoning off profits into the financial sector (dollars never leave there).

Closing-
Raising taxes isn't going to help the middle class. Only reversing the flow of jobs, and Wall St. profit taking will help the middle class. (and Obama's income tax isn't going to tax Wall St.)

Read The end of the middle class by Rober Borosage

My problem with this is that the same people who want to have tax deductions and lower rates and are extremely rich also seem to push for taking away the benefits of people who don't make 400k a year after all costs. And they aren't able to drop 200k on "feeding their family".

So they are taking from lower class people, while pushing for saving themselves a bundle of money on taxes and other things.

Where in the hands of the government, if it were working properly the money gotten in taxes from both the rich and poor would benefit both and hopefully make it cheaper and/or more productive for any companies those rich folks may run and allow their employees to get there more efficient/safely/etc. Productivity would be more roadways in better condition making travel easier, less wear on vehicles, less damage to tires, more convenient for customers, public transportation offerings, beautification of areas where they have the money to attract tourists and visitors.

But somehow if you say "We're creating jobs" it bypasses all the history we have that demonstrates that the upper class is taking in more now than ever and it shouldn't be an issue of tax deductions for them to have the money to spend. They are already making A LOT MORE than they ever were in the past compared to middle and lower class. If they were truly "creating jobs" with that extra money they have, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's a bullshit excuse to bleed even more money from the working stiffs by cutting their benefit packages and other offerings to create the "surplus" they'd need to reduce the taxes on the rich.

This is the sort of thought process that needs to be discouraged because when enforced you have people that begin seeing it as justified. "See, they can handle it, we can just fuck them over some more! They've already accepted it!" The reason the other classes are struggling is because of policies and business strategies put in place by the upper-class. They fucked our economy, they fuck our pockets, consequently fucking our overall health, liberty & "pursuit of happiness" just so they can keep immense profits for themselves.

Never compare the USA to Africa - Africa is so full of injustice, genocide and cruelty it is just unbelievable. Although, America is covert with their militaristic corruption supposedly as a nation we are peaceful with liberties & freedoms. America is better than our current trajectory but by giving up on the "niceties" of the lower & middle classes & not supporting real living wages you may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of even more injustice & cruelty in the US of A. The war in America is of the mind - when they get you thinking the way they want they will be able to exploit everything under the sun... sort of like what they've already done & luck plays no part of their agenda.

>> ^robbersdog49:

JiggaJonson, while your life may be harder than that of others around you it's a whole world apart from the poor of Africa. How far do you and your kids have to walk each day to collect enough contaminated water to survive? What? You get clean water piped right to your house? Yeah. Poor. I see.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be helping those less fortunate than ourselves in our own societies, but I also think those people should appreciate quite how lucky they were to be born where they were born...

Dude, Denmark isn't the US. Your government provides many goods and services to your people that we must pay for out of our own pocket, most notably health care. Wealth in Denmark is also far more evenly distributed in the US because your economy is far more mixed/socialist than the US's is.

In the US, you have thousands of people who were upper-middle class, bought an upper class priced home, then lost their jobs, or had to take massive pay cuts just to stay employed. Many of these people already lost their houses.

Our economy would collapse if we put a min 37-40% flat tax on everyone. No prayer that it would work.

>> ^gwiz665:

I'm in the lowest bracket of tax in Denmark and I pay 37 %. It would be fine. The loop holes for the super rich should of course be removed completely too, then all in all more tax would be collected. 40 % was, I'll admit, a little high when you look at the current tax rates, but say 25-30 % for all then.
>> ^heropsycho:
You'd cause a new economic collapse as the middle class and poor, the majority of the market for goods and services, would have all dispensable income and more for the poorer vaporized overnight, causing a massive drop in demand, which would destroy the US economy.
>> ^gwiz665:
Flat tax. 40 % income tax for everyone. End just one of the wars you're all fighting, and you'll be out of the economic crisis in 5 years.

Warren Buffet is saying that people who make more than a $1000K a year need to pay more than 15%. He advocates returning to the Clinton tax rates. And he thinks that job creation occurs when the rich are taxed and the middle class is supported by a lower tax rate.

You should read his NY Times article. It is really easy to fall into the trap of believe the philosophy of trickle down economics, but as Warren says the facts have never born this out. The truth is the economy grows more when the middle class (incomes less than $500K) are taxed at a lower rate than the upper class (greater than $500K). Buffet believes that there should be two or three more levels to the tax code and that capital gains taxes should be graduated to appropriately tax the super rich who make money with money.

Like him or not, Clinton's economic policies navigated our country to tremendous economic prosperity. We need to tax the rich. It is our only hope along with leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. Two wars were never economically sustainable. Sometimes doing the right thing means doing something unpleasant.

>> ^pyloricvalve:

Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?

it's not that all corporate stuff is good or bad. it's a big shade of grey.

i think a better question is whether we'd be better off with a different legal framework for large entities other than the corporate charter, which often operates at the expense of the public good.
An executive in a corporation only has a fiduciary duty to maximize the earnings of the shareholders. There is no duty to public trust.

right now corporations generally:

a. are mainly owned by the upper class
b. mainly employ the lower class
c. mass produce second rate goods
d. Dominate smaller and emerging markets/
undercutting emerging technologies and competitors in order to monopolize markets. Once competition is squashed, they can price control, insuring profit.
e. Carefully protect their trade secrets in order to maximize profits. In other words, they don't share.
f. due to a history of conservative US judicial decisions, are treated "legally" as people for purposes of "free speech" and unlimited political access (money), but are not treated like people when it comes to liability for their actions.
g. Wield enormous financial political power that incredibly undermines the democratic idea of one person, one vote.
h. Mega-corporations are almost always multi-national - operating in different countries and "forum" shopping for the cheapest labor, best tax benefits, cheapest resources, easiest military dictator to support, and crappiest environmental standards. And as multinationals - they often operate outside of ANY laws, since jurisdiction becomes such a complicated issue.

to really fix the problems with corporations, the legal framework on an international level needs to be addressed, and soon.

and before any of you right wing dipshits start jabbering about liberal bias, know this:
I'm an ex-lawyer and a critical, independent thinker, so think twice and read carefully before emailing me your bullshit.

This sheltered prick doesn't like it when the poor take their oppression to the streets ; but he's fine with the fact that white collared criminals are systemically stealing all of the money out from under everyone and reinvesting it into the upper-class & multi-national corporations thereby bankrupting nearly everyone's futures.

It's funny how the people of the other side of the coin like to say they are for smaller government & deregulation like they go hand in hand. Basically, mergers are a right-wing cause. Thank the republicans for fucking your futures, outsourcing your jobs, deregulating to an extent that corporations have the rights (if not more) of an individual and are able to create monopolies thereby screwing the middle class more and more every single day.

What we need is strict regulation, new laws and a new labor movement. I used to be alright with rich folk (like my parents) but now that I've seen the upper-class piss and shit all over the middle & lower classes I am all for CLASS WAR. Fuck them.