Heh Heh........... My FAVOURITE scene from that movie

I'm rather fond of the introduction of artists and critics.

The Romans were more honest.
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Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, April 9th, 2012 9:11am PDT - promote requested by Boise_Lib.

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The peasants are revolting!

I spent years waiting for a "History of the World Part II". Never happened.

^ we're living it!

Yup. Pretty much nailed it!

It's not as funny as Part I.

Not quite sure how comparing that to the US economy makes any sense. The US has the highest corporate tax rate on Planet Earth now. We have very high capital gains taxes (compared to global averages). Our income tax is so "Progressive" right now that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 5% of the taxes. Over 75% of the Federal Government's 1.6 trillion dollar budget is dedicated to social programs for the poor.

Only way comparing it to the vid makes sense if if you contextualize it by stating that it is the GOVERNMENT that is deciding the screw the poor by the process of its own incredible incompetence, malfeasence, and mismanagement. Since only about 20 cents on the dollar comes 'out' of government versus what goes in, then yes - the U.S. Federal Government is entirely oriented around screwing the poor.

But of course, that's not what Prog-Lib-Dytes mean. To a leftist, the video means "tax breaks for the rich" ... (insert liberal talking point) et al.

That's not what progressive means, in this context. A progressive tax system is one where you pay a (progressively) higher rate when you have more income. What you have is a regressive tax system.

Do you happen to know what percentage of U.S. companies actually pay tax at the stated high rate? How does that compare to other countries? I know that quite a few of your companies weasel their way out of paying any tax at all, but I don't know how many overall manage this.

The ancient Roman empire also had social welfare, of a sort, increased after 122 B.C. See http://www.roman-empire.net/society/society.html for an overview. Then, as now, it was expensive to run.

The comparison is actually quite fair, except that in ancient Rome it was expected that wealthy citizens would give back to society and the idea of unbounded avarice as a virtue would have been quite foreign to them... so in a sense it's back to front.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Not quite sure how comparing that to the US economy makes any sense. The US has the highest corporate tax rate on Planet Earth now. We have very high capital gains taxes (compared to global averages). Our income tax is so "Progressive" right now that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 5% of the taxes. Over 75% of the Federal Government's 1.6 trillion dollar budget is dedicated to social programs for the poor.
Only way comparing it to the vid makes sense if if you contextualize it by stating that it is the GOVERNMENT that is deciding the screw the poor by the process of its own incredible incompetence, malfeasence, and mismanagement. Since only about 20 cents on the dollar comes 'out' of government versus what goes in, then yes - the U.S. Federal Government is entirely oriented around screwing the poor.
But of course, that's not what Prog-Lib-Dytes mean. To a leftist, the video means "tax breaks for the rich" ... (insert liberal talking point) et al.

That's not what progressive means, in this context. A progressive tax system is one where you pay a (progressively) higher rate when you have more income.

The US Income Tax is a Progressive tax, exactly as you described and exactly what I said. Since our current tax code has the bottom 50% of wage-earners paying only 5% of the Income taxes, than that's a Progressive system. I nailed exactly what it meant. Whatever you're saying here sounds like a distinction without a difference.

I know that quite a few of your companies weasel their way out of paying any tax at all, but I don't know how many overall manage this.

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/accounting/papers/Hanlon.pdf

Yup. It happens. This particular study suggests that once a company becomes 'big', they find ways to jigger the system to the point where they are paying around 20%. Obama just dropped the corporate tax from a staggering 35% to a more realistic 28%. Hopefully that will make it so companies are compliant, rather than gaming the system to get around the "too high" rate that previously existed.

However, the real problem is in companies that are getting massive political payola. Every administration has companies like this. For Obama, it is sleaze-mongers like Immelt and GE who are pushing the bologna that is "Green Energy", which Obama likes - so he gives them so many tax breaks and subsidies that they paid ZERO taxes in 2011. Not to mention they also got massive subsidy payments on top of it. It is that kind of bogusity that ticks people off.

A reasonable corporate tax rate is fine. Set it at a decent level - say 22% - and get rid of the loopholes, subsidies, foreign incorporation, and all the other gimmicks. I dont' have a beef with "taxes" in general. I have a beef with taxes that are too high, and tax codes that encourage modern patronage.

I like your answer.

It's interesting that the average tax rate paid by the companies in your study was almost exactly the 30% corporate tax rate in Australia.

The U.S. tax system would be progressive in a world where everybody draws a salary, which is their only income stream, and where anyone earning more than the national average refuses to take their allowable tax deductions. As this is not the situation people generally describe, I'll assume your system isn't quite as progressive as your answer, talking only about federal income tax, tried to imply.

Your point about the lower 50% of wage earners paying 5% of Income taxes also fails to prove that the system is progressive, due to wage disparity. Assume a regressive system where you pay 50% tax until your income reaches $100,000, then a rate of 5% applies. If you have a population of 100 people, 99 of whom earn 5 dollars per annum and one earns $1,000,000 per annum: $2.5 x 99 = $247.50, $50,000 x 1 = $50,000, the total tax is $50,247.50 and the bottom 50% in a regressive system have paid 0.25% of the total taxes.

Most western democracies have laws trying to prevent the corporate cronyism you point out as the real problem, with varying degrees of success. Super-pac's for instance would be illegal in most parts of the world.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

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Fuck The Poor has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas on that post.