While the yuan is tentatively pegged to the dollar, it's hard to argue anything has changed.

A currency needs years, decades even to gain reserve currency status. With the current debt instability in the Euro area, this has become a very unlikely proposition. The yuan is even less likely, partly because currently it is still essentially pegged to the dollar and partly because it still far, far from being the pre-eminent power with massive income disparity comparing the cities to the countryside, unstable regions, and even purely festering structural issues like water shortage and pollution. What's more likely is it being replaced also in the medium to long term by the IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR), basically an amalgamated currency with proportionate representations by major economic world power currencies.

The thing is though if the US were gradually replaced by other (or combination of) currencies it would be quite beneficial to the US economy.

The main effect would be a depreciation of the US dollar. The US dollar is in excessive demand because it is used in trade internationally, something that hurts US export competitiveness. A currency depreciation would make imports less competitive and exports more competitive. Less incentive to overconsume Chinese manufacturing, more incentive to export products thus improving the US trade balance and foreign debt.

Slight inflationary pressure. Currently deflation is a bigger worry, especially if it becomes entrenched as in Japan.

Public debt? Largely wouldn't be affected because it is predominantly denominated in US currency (Treasury bills) thus currency value does not play into the equation.

Point is, it's largely a good thing.

Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas.

Feel free to peruse Wastebook 2010 compiled by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

One of my favorites:

The Internal Revenue Service paid out $112 million in undeserved tax refunds to prisoners who filed fraudulent returns, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Should be required reading for anyone pushing for still-higher taxes.

Feel free to peruse Wastebook 2010 compiled by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

One of my favorites:

The Internal Revenue Service paid out $112 million in undeserved tax refunds to prisoners who filed fraudulent returns, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Should be required reading for anyone pushing for still-higher taxes.

---
I can only work with proven results, not what others want things to be or theorize is possible. Obamanomics has failed to deliver prosperity, and this may be because increasing prosperity is not what it's designed to do. It could be working beautifully if its goal is to increase dependency on government and curtail American influence worldwide.

REAL American unemployment is currently 18%, not the BS that D.C. is spouting. 2 to 3% more wouldn't even register with the crew in D.C.
---

You cannot 'prove' anything in a social science. What you can do is historically look at past crises and see what worked and what didn't.

Financial crises historically have high levels of unemployment following them. This is because as in this case for the US, consumers have overspent and must spend years rebuilding their savings levels. As they rebuild them, demand is low, the demand for employees is low, and there is relatively higher unemployment.

This is historically accurate for Latin America's debt crisis in 1982, the 1990 asset bubble bust in Japan and so far entirely consistent for the financial crisis in the US.

The way you label fiscal stimulus as Obamanomics leads me to believe you think that his policies are idiosynchractic and unique. They are not. Virtually every country in the world hit by the global financial crisis has enacted the same combination of direct spending, lower taxes and looser monetary policy. You would be well advised to be aware of this.

Also, despite what you may claim, the fact that unemployment is high and has risen under Obama is not evidence that his policies have not worked. In fact again there is historical evidence to suggest the US has fared better than other countries. See the first graph below:

http://www.economist.com/node/17041738

Unemployment is measured by virtually all countries as the number of unemployed out of the proportion actively seeking work. Yes, this is not an accurate measure when previous employees have been discouraged from looking for work and have dropped out, but it is consistent with most measures used internationally.

---
Though the government obviously denies it, the origins of this financial crisis were largely the fault of government policies and meddling.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

----Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury

Keynesian economic theory does not work. It mistakes action for results. Despite enormous spending (which began as Bush was sunsetting) Obamanomics hasn't created any jobs, unless you count the temporary kick of the useless Census.

The American people have the wealth and are indeed holding onto it. There are 2 trillion dollars in assets waiting to rejoin the economy. So why don't people jump in again?

No sane business is going to invest heavily or hire workers with our leftists in power, threatening to tax everything in sight and "punish" profits. This current govt--even with the coming Republicans in January--also offers no stability or confidence, and I don't expect this to change anytime soon.

The current US Secretary of the Treasury is a tax cheat, and well before they installed the SOB they knew he was a tax cheat. Does it get any more obvious the lack of integrity and disdain for the public harbored by the crew in DC.
---

I agree that the financial crisis has much to do with government meddling. Policymakers in the US have historically encouraged the quintessential notion of homeownership frivolously and irresponsibly. At the other end equally though, predatory lending exacerbated the issue. Left to their own devices, banks knew full well that they could generate huge returns by lending, and then selling off those financial assets to wipe themselves clean of risk. They also knew that if worst came to worst, the government would bail them out as they were too integral to the functioning of the world economy. Both less intervention and more regulation was necessary to prevent what happened.

Either of these 2 factors in and of itself would have led to a crisis sooner than later, would you not agree?

I can't take a quote seriously that skips over text 3 times in 4 lines. For all you know, the original intent has been completely manipulated. For all you know (based on previous experience) this wasn't even SAID by who it's claimed to have been said by.

Besides, there is no evidence there. It is someone's opinion, without any facts, without any figures. Nothing to substantiate what is being said. I genuinely hope you don't rely on people's pure opinions as gospel and factcheck what you read.

Again, you are simply wrong the stimulus has not created jobs. It has created both permanent jobs by giving subsidies to industries, and temporary jobs to prevent skills loss from unemployed workers:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-stimulus30_CV_N.htm

Read the title of the article above.

Frankly, how is it POSSIBLE that you think it hasn't created any jobs? Where do you think the money goes? Do you think it's laundered into people's bank accounts and shipped overseas? How can you possibly think that a stimulus has not created any jobs? That the only jobs it has created are for the census is a typical right wing talking point from what I hear. Again, I implore you to consult some less idealogical sources without absolutist views.

Not to go on a tangent here, but how often have these sources you rely on information for actually lauded something that Obama has done? Do you really think it is possible that Obama has done nothing good, or let alone nothing that ideologically they would agree on? Take for example the increased drone strikes in Pakistan, relative to even Bush. This seems like a clear cut policy that right wing pundits and blogs would laud. Why is there no one mentioning this?

Or do you think that possibly, just possibly, they have an agenda or an absolutist view with which they perceive the Democrats and the left-wing that blinds them to anything that doesn't conform to their predisposed views that Democrats = bad?

Why would you want to emulate and follow the opinions of someone who cannot look at things at face value?

For your comment on why investors are not investing, they are not investing because of the debt which will worsen if taxes fall - this is historically proven as fact. But let's say for argument that taxes were drastically reduced. Demand is still low in the US though. People are still rebuilding their balance sheets. What will the multinational and wealthy corporations do with this excess revenue?

They will invest it overseas in developing markets with high growth rates. Lower taxes will be paying for growth in foreign countries. Since the money will be invested elsewhere, even less of it will be reaped back in tax revenue. Growth overseas will be rising while the US is falling further and further into debt default.

I am curious where exactly you don't agree with this logic.

I have nothing cogent to say against your notion that Democrats want to punish profits.

It does not make sense.

The buy-up of bank and auto industry stocks is being relinquished. Citibank recently bought back some of these shares, and the government made a profit. The auto industry is making a profit. There is simply no evidence that Obama wants to nationalize anything. There is no public option. The independent review committee to trim Medicare will MINIMIZE government involvement, something the right quite hypocritically, is against.

How is it not obvious that punishing profits would be bad politics? How is it not obvious that doing this would not win votes? Where is your evidence that he intends to do this? The health care plan is deficit neutral. Financial reform will reduce risk.

Will taxes have to rise? Sure, because without that, the budget will never return to neutral. This is fact. Cutting social policies by that much is not feasible. Why do you blame Obama for this and not Bush who allowed this to fester during prolonged periods of economic growth? Would you rather the problem fester while taxes are kept low and imperil the whole economy in the process? There are only those two options.

Also, I think I laid out, what is a pretty simple and logical explaining of fiscal policy, and why it works.

Where do you disagree with it?

---
Well, like you or anyone else, I'm just as likely to vote to stop the other side as promote my own. Where you live, govt is seen as a benevolent force for good. And as you can probably attest, you pay through the nose for the government services provided.

Individual > State = America

State > Individual = everywhere else

If the Republicans don't repeal or de-fund obamacare they are finished.
---

The funny this is, if I were making the same as I am not in the US, I would be paying nearly the same in taxes.

I'm a recent university grad and make 60K/year.

I pay 15% between 6-35k, and 30% between 35-60k. (4350 + 7500 = $11850)

The US income brackets are very similar.

For me they would be, 10% between 0 - $8375, 15% between $8376 - $34,000 and 25% between $34,000 - $60,000. (838 + 3844 + 6500 = 11182)

So let's see. I'm paying roughly $700 more (a bit more actually, say $1000 for argument considering the exchange rate of 0.95, but close enough) for free universal access to hospital treatment and subsidized out of hospital expenses; for generous unemployment benefits if I ever lose my job. For university cost assistance, despite the fact that I could easily pay off my university debt if I lived at home with minimal expenses in one year (It's ~25k from 5 years of study with nothing paid back yet). I hear that in the US for Ivy league schools it can be 20-30K US A YEAR. I mean that last point alone MORE THAN makes up for the difference. Frankly any of those do by themselves. I also have great job prospects being in an economy that never officially went into recession (only one quarter of negative growth) with a private sector one lined up for next year.

To sum up, I'm actually paying only 1.7% more in taxes for a WHOLE HEAP of benefits.

How is that a bad deal?

Incidentally much of our (Australia's) economic success can be attributed to good bank regulation than anything else. If you are curious I can elaborate on this.

I think you're on to something there dag. With that, though, comes the QM's of clenched teeth. The birthing pains of this kind of order might be great indeed, which I fear.

Information has consequences. Just as you would not be thrilled if your home address, account numbers and SS number/other national equivalent appeared on billboards about town, so you should be concerned about rogues exposing classified national security documents, which assange the anarchist attention whore did.

The "Truth" never set anyone free. For fks sake, the US Treasury is now headed by a tax cheat, and they knew he was well BEFORE he was appointed. Then you've got criminal prcks like democrat charlie rangel getting 'censured' instead of thrown in prison.

Put another way Dag, would you like China to have all the specs on Australia's defense capabilities? Would you really feel better because the Australian government had been "kept honest?"

No. It's not a crime. Manning committed the crime. Then he blabbed about it and is getting what he deserves.

Not until he hangs will Manning 'get what he deserves'. But I doubt we have the balls to hang traitors anymore.

Assange's crime is taking those classified documents as well as classified diplomatic cables and making them available to a wider audience, including America's enemies. Corporate espionage and the rest is another matter and another set of crimes.

Uncovering secrets is what real journalism is all about.

The American mainstream libmedia gave up journalism long ago. Now the useful idiots just carry water for taxocrats and the left.

What's going on here is pure fucking evil perpetrated by the incestuous marriage of business and politics.

Which has been going on since the beginning of human history. And really, how much of THE TRUTH changes things? It was known well before Tim Geithner was made Secretary of the Treasury he was a m0therfcking TAX CHEAT. Did anyone care? Apparently not.

When it comes to shining a light on the truth that none of you fucks are free, the cables, the collateral murder video and all the rest is nothing compared to the reaction to them, by business and politics.

It's the people screaming "You are not free" who have even more tyrannical plans for the human race. There's nothing more common than "revolutionaries" adopting the same tactics and principles of the "oppressors" they overthrow. And so: yawn.

It used to be common sense that to maintain freedom and order, things like military operational readiness, technology and war plans and even diplomatic secrets should be hidden from the prying eyes of our enemies. I'm sure the Germans wished for American "transparency" about D-Day and the Japanese (Happy December 7th!) about our atom bomb programs.

For attacking the USA the wikiclown should be considered fair game. He claims to be an "anarchist" so I'm sure he'll enjoy his fate.

As far as using VideoSift as a model, I'd actually eliminate the legislature and have the sift sifting policies.

You'd need to let people be able to rescind votes, and you'd need to put some sort of cap on the overall number of votes people can express at any given time, and make promote and quality cost something like 1% of GDP (with the money going into the national treasury)...

>> ^gwiz665:

If we could vote on politicians like we vote on VideoSift videos, the system would be much fairer.

@BansheeX I think anyone who promotes the idea of a return to a gold standard has to realize that deflation is just as bad, if not worse than inflation.

What we're seeing right now in the economy is the effect of mere disinflation (i.e. a drop in the rate of inflation), and the result is lots of unemployment, and very low investment in actual economic activity because it's far too attractive to hoard cash (or more accurately financial assets so safe they're as good as cash).

Part of how you break out of that cycle is to create an expectation of inflation, and you have no hope of that under a gold standard, because you can't increase the money supply. In fact, you're guaranteed to see a steady rate of deflation whenever your population grows, or your economy tries to expand and that will put a drag on growth.

I don't think there's much of a case to be made that the Fed is unconstitutional (and what case there is rests on the word "coin" carrying a lot more weight than the phrase "regulate the value thereof" which follows it). Even if some SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional, you'd see an amendment to the Constitution passed before you can say the phrase "the Senator from Goldman Sachs". Like Cenk said, our government is nothing but quick and efficient when it comes to serving the interests of the rich and powerful.

Which ultimately is what I think Cenk said that carries the most weight -- the problem isn't that the Fed exists and has the power to do things like this, it's that the actions it takes are quick and decisive when banks and investors are in trouble, but regular people not so much.

In this case, the Fed bought a lot of toxic assets at face value. I like this a lot more than Congress authorizing treasury to do the same thing, because unlike Treasury and Congress, the Fed can just print the money rather than borrow it. We don't have to pay interest on those dollars to anyone, and we don't need to collect them back with taxes, either. We might see inflation, but right now inflation would be good for the economy.

What the Fed could have done instead is print up money and give it to people to pay off their mortgages. In effect it could still do this by just writing off the toxic assets it holds, and not foreclosing on the mortgages it has on its balance sheet. It may still do this, and I suspect it will have to for some percentage of them. I also expect right-wing people to bitch about "moral hazard" and lazy parasites mooching off the producers in society if/when it happens.

Ultimately, the only downside to any of what the Fed is doing is that it might lead to inflation. But so far nothing it's done has created even the slightest increase in the year-over-year inflation rate, which is already well below the 2% target. Furthermore, all market indicators are predicting inflation of essentially 0% as far out as 7 years, even though the scale of the Fed's actions are public knowledge.

Isn't a common trope from neolibs and Videosifters a lament that the American public is "too stupid" to vote? Wouldn't restricting sufferage rights to property owners increase the average intellectual level of the voter? Isn't that a good thing?

Look - there is no evidence from this 30 second selection that the guy was seriously suggesting removing sufferage. He may have just been making an exaggerated example within the context of a completely different point. Regardless of whether or not this is contextually challenged or not, the guy is accurate. The FF's did in fact recommend that voting rights be restricted to property owners specifically because property owners were more likely to be informed, educated, and qualified to render an intelligent vote. They were the ones with 'skin in the game'.

There is a very solid argument that giving voting rights in a Republic to people who have no 'skin in the game' is a long-term fuse on a bomb that ultimately results in the collapse of civilizations. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

The argument the guy is making appears to be rooted in this perception. The bottom 50% of our wage-earners contribute less than 5% of our tax revenue, and their only voting interests are driven by using the public treasury for benefits. That kind of voting mentality will result in loose fiscal policy (we see this), and will be followed by a dictatorship. Want to stop a dictatorship from rising? Then just maybe you'll have to consider the possiblity that some things you don't like may be necessary to prevent fiscal collapse.

I love how they imply that devaluation of the dollar is an unforeseen consequence of printing money, such as when it says Bernanke assures Obama that quantitative easing will result in a strong dollar.

No, devaluation is the goal. Multiple countries (such as China) intentionally keep their currencies low so their exports cost less. Cheaper exports mean more people buying them... more demand leads to more jobs. Same here... devaluing the dollar is, in part, an attempt to reduce unemployment.

The video also implies that Obama is afraid countries will stop buying US treasuries. In truth he wants the opposite. When China buys US treasuries it raises the value of the dollar relative to China's currency, which is what Obama wants to stop. It makes our exports more expensive, therefore reducing demand for our products overseas. China does not want their currency value to go up because it would cause civil unrest if demand for their products dropped (or at least that is what they seem to believe).

This doesn't mean that devaluing the dollar is the best course. It really sucks for people who have savings in dollars and/or rely on a fixed income (elderly) because it will begin reducing how much they can buy with that money (assuming prices rise as a result of dollar devaluation, which hasn't really happened yet). On the other hand, a weaker dollar is great if you have fixed-rate debt in dollars (such as student loans). If the debt is variable-rate then a weaker dollar could lead to higher interest rates on the loans.


I'm not endorsing the practice of quantitative easing, but the video is setting up a pretty big straw-man in what I can only assume is an attempt to scare people into either buying gold or supporting the Tea Party. People are free to do either of those things, but hopefully it isn't because they misunderstand the situation.

I can only say this to GM: Fuck you.

You ran a failed business model and should've went bankrupt without a failout.

"The government committed nearly $50 billion to GM (and received a 61 percent ownership stake for U.S. taxpayers); $14 billion to Chrysler (a 10 percent ownership stake), $17 billion to GMAC (the car and home loan arm of GM), and $5 billion to auto parts suppliers. Last month, the Federal Reserve estimated taxpayers would recoup all but $17 billion of that $86 billion."

Gee, we only lost 17 billion? What a bargain!

If any of this is too complicated, all you need to remember is a tax cheat runs the US Treasury.

Try reading this:

http://www.economist.com/node/17520102

In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
I sincerely appreciate the correction. While the source was incorrect, the quote yet remains 100% true. You will never tax your way to prosperity and you'll achieve nothing by demonizing the wealthy.

Here's another quote you're sure to enjoy. Google it to your hearts' content.

FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"


If only the left and Odumbo could prove me wrong with jobs and prosperity instead of empty rhetoric and blame, I'd gladly admit to being wrong. Until then, I voted the bastards out November 2nd and it felt great. Expect it again in 2012.

I really don't understand why Ameri-marxists don't vote with their feet and move to already-socialist Europe...just try to avoid Greece...they're having a bit of trouble.

QM, instead of reading whatever right wing blog all these slogans are coming from (Ameri-marxists? HAH GOLD!), can you take the trouble to pick up a copy of The Economist one week? This week's edition will do you quite well. They're economically right and socially left.

I think what you'll find is that most pragmatists regardless of their economic persuasion have realized 3 things about the current economic situation in the US:

1) Keynesian monetary policy works and that no sensible economist believes that the stimulus has not helped to reduce unemployment from the much higher level 12/13%+ it would have reached otherwise.

2) Spending will have to be trimmed in social security/medicare/medicaid/pensions and defense, and the retirement age will no doubt rise.

3) The Bush tax cuts were the single biggest contributors to the expansion of the federal debt from a balanced budget before the global financial crisis hit. Over time, taxes will have to rise to cope with the costs of medicare/pensions because of an ageing population.

>> ^quantumushroom:

I sincerely appreciate the correction. While the source was incorrect, the quote yet remains 100% true. You will never tax your way to prosperity and you'll achieve nothing by demonizing the wealthy.
Here's another quote you're sure to enjoy. Google it to your hearts' content.
FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

If only the left and Odumbo could prove me wrong with jobs and prosperity instead of empty rhetoric and blame, I'd gladly admit to being wrong. Until then, I voted the bastards out November 2nd and it felt great. Expect it again in 2012.
I really don't understand why Ameri-marxists don't vote with their feet and move to already-socialist Europe...just try to avoid Greece...they're having a bit of trouble.

@ QuantumMushroom

Your Mr. T internet character was mildly amusing at first, but I have come to realize the reason I don't ever hear Mr. T use his silly persona to do anything more than Shout or Shoot at people, or hell advertise for WoW is because it would be annoying.

It's clear that you have very little knowledge when it comes to the topics you debate. I think this is the second or third time I've seen you use a FDR's treasury secretary quote, and randomly giving credit of quotes to very respected people (Lincoln), that really come from people nobody has respect for is really hurting your image here. It appears you are willing to believe anything if it supports your opinion.

I am at this point assuming your are just arguing for fun, or trolling, I'm not really sure. If this is the case you win. Although I'm not sure what you won?

If your not arguing for either of the above reasons you fall into one of the following, which in my opinion is even worse than being a silly internet troll.

I don't think you are making 1.4 million a year and trying to protect your money, although that's an assumption, and really the only valid reason for arguing for wealthy tax cuts. Worse yet if you are actually serious about your position, and are not very wealthy. You must believe you are better off by the wealthy getting this money instead of the people who need it through government run programs then you have to much respect for the majority of the wealthy. They don't see tax breaks as charity to be donated, but as personal money earned. Large expenses are paid to buy members of congress, and convincing the poor that we need lower taxes for the rich is also not cheap. I wonder how expensive it was to buy the tea party? Anyways if you are fighting for the top 1% of America to keep their money by changing the laws so they don't have to pay their full taxes, and your not wealthy. You are being a fool, simple as that.