Now this is a guy I could have a beer with.

^I feel like drinking a beer right now.

This is a great conversation... better than the debates and rhetoric because it outlines the situation.

and the question people have to ask themselves. As a good human being, is it appropriate to say,
"I don't care about most people, I don't care about my employees who are struggling. I don't even empathize having struggled myself for years.
What about me? I gotta get mine!"

Or is it more socially responsible to say,
"I AM getting mine, that's why I'm successful. I respect what it took to get here. I'm willing to pay my way only another 3% and only on whats above the line - so others can have the opportunities i have."

...also...
the irony is... if you forgo that tax cut, and allow the majority 95% of people more money and more spending power? That increase in spending will give your business more profit and customers by magnitudes more than the tax cut would have given you. It's an investment in sales.

JOE, OH JOE! They appear to be talking a lot to you on TV tonight - The key-question for the viewers of the 3rd debate appears to be if they can get in touch with the little plumber in them.

BTW: Here is why McCain keeps bringing him up http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d0b_1224085171

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 5:27pm PDT - promote requested by NetRunner.

Key point: It's a marginal tax increase. As he said in the video, you wouldn't suddenly be paying 39% on all $250,000. You would only be paying that tax rate on the money over $250,000. So if you made $260,000, only ten thousand would be taxed at 39%. The rest would get a tax cut. Which would very likely make you come out ahead. I'd have to do the math to be sure, but your net taxes probably wouldn't actually start increasing on this plan until you made around $400,000 per year because of the reduced rate on the majority of your income.

People talk about the marginal tax rate all the time, but that doesn't give you the real picture. I'd like to see a qualified comparison of net tax rates for the different proposals.

I would love to be making $250,000 right now. Go ahead and tax me 36%... That's still $160,000 in my pocket.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'obama, tax, plumber, well, explained, taxes, election' to 'obama, tax, plumber, well, explained, taxes, election, joe the plumber' - edited by lucky760

Joe the Plumber^TM for Vice President!



*news

Adding video to channels (News) - requested by NetRunner.

Joe the Plumber^TM interviewed by Politico: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Joe_reacts_Pretty_surreal.html?showall

Obama is correct though, 10 years ago, this man would have loved Obama's tax plan. The problem is that the american dream is the american dream for guys like this.

Joe is a selfish dick. And he is exactly the sort of person the Republicans love.

He keeps coming at it from the mentality of 'I put in the hard yards, I did it tough, I made sacrifices, why should I pay more money now?'

But he is SO FLAWED on so many points.

* MaxWilder's above... it's ONLY on the money above $250K and it's ONLY another 3% at that... you'll hardly even notice it you dick.
* He thinks that just because he got where he is then everyone else has to do it tough to get where they want to get. Can he not remember any time he wished he had a bit more money in his pocket when he didn't earn much?
* The country needs money to be able to make everything work, taxes are the way it's done, and it's only fair to stop taking as much from those who it actually hurts rather than those who really probably won't notice the extra money missing.
* 'That's not the American dream' - Oh fuck off. The American dream is not 'I got here, now I don't have to do shit to help anyone else'. The American dream is a fair go for everyone and the ability for anyone to make it good through hard work. The fact that he's about to buy a quarter of a million dollar business means he's doing ok for himself, he is not going to miss the extra 3% on the small sum of money he earns over $250K... The American dream means that everyone should pitch in a bit to help others so that everyone gets a fair shot at the dream, regardless of their economic background.

Selfish, self righteous bastard.

Things like this though, things like seeing Obama talk off the cuff like this shows me why I like him as a politician, he is courteous, knowledgeable, learned, and just frankly knows his stuff, and seems to know 'FAIR'... and that's what the USA needs at the head of the ship at the moment.

>> ^Mixaster:
Now this is a guy I could have a beer with.


I hope you mean Obama, as I think Joe would just spend the whole time talking about how he built up HIS business with HIS hard work and how the government wants HIS fricken money man.

I can't write a long comment because I have to get up and go to work tomorrow, unlike most of the people here who believe that Joe should pay for those that don't want to help themselves. The irony is that the beer is on the working class. That's what bums spend their money on anyway....anything else would be responsible.

Oh, and for those that believe Joe is selfish. Yeah, and those who don't do anything but sit at home, play dominoes, steal electricity and cable, and go pick up a check every two weeks aren't. We should give those selfless Americans more. After all, they're decreasing the demand for gasoline, therefore, putting country first! The lower class rules! Hey, let's get them a computer so they can see how awesome Obama is. Wait, they've probably already stolen one. Is that how you got on here?

^ Generally speaking, us liberals are more worried about the people who work 60 hours scrubbing floors, and trying to make ends meet than the unemployed.

We also tend to think the bulk of the unemployed aren't unemployed by choice. They either got laid off, got injured, or had some other external event ruin their life.

There's probably a very small number of people who do mooch off the state, but we don't like them any more than you do.

We just don't assume everyone whose economic situation sucks is only in that position because they're lazy.

Obama is so super awesome!

>> ^OriginalUsername:
I can't write a long comment because I have to get up and go to work tomorrow, unlike most of the people here who believe that Joe should pay for those that don't want to help themselves. The irony is that the beer is on the working class. That's what bums spend their money on anyway....anything else would be responsible.


>> ^OriginalUsername:
Oh, and for those that believe Joe is selfish. Yeah, and those who don't do anything but sit at home, play dominoes, steal electricity and cable, and go pick up a check every two weeks aren't. We should give those selfless Americans more. After all, they're decreasing the demand for gasoline, therefore, putting country first! The lower class rules! Hey, let's get them a computer so they can see how awesome Obama is. Wait, they've probably already stolen one. Is that how you got on here?


Ahh, the right wing mantra "Why should we give money to lazy bums"?

It's a friggen cop out, you lot TRY to believe that it's really the case, that everyone but you and those who make stacks of money are just lazy... heck, even if you're getting disadvantaged by the current government because they're giving tax breaks to those who earn shiteloads more than you, you still bend over and take it because you believe that one day you'll make squillions of dollars.

The thing is... if you do start earning that kind of money... you wouldn't notice a 3% change in ONLY THE MONEY YOU EARN OVER $250K.

Everyone earning under $250K ARE NOT BUMS. You selfish, closed minded, ME ME ME dick. And how can those earning under $250K be getting this tax cut if they're not working to earn the money to get the tax cut in the first place? You make no sense.

You really are absolutely delusional, and I hope that you end up out of work and unsupported by family and then see how much you might be thankful for any kind of social security there may be... WHILE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A JOB.

(And you know... not all of us are on the same timezone, so don't think that we're all staying up late because we don't have jobs... I have a full time job that supports me, my wife going through uni and my three kids thanks very much... )

It's impossible to tell because Dems seem to glorify Obama and the government as if they are the saviors of the free world. My stepfather was just laid off after 20+ years from a company that shut its doors. However, we share the same ideology that work is always available to those who are willing and able. He is mowing yards and doing other odd jobs to make ends meet and it puts food on the table and keeps them in their house until he is able to find something a little more stable. People who choose not to be victims are not victims and I'm sick of our country shaping people to be exactly that. I believe that we should help the disabled, and that government assistance should be necessary, but when irresponsibility as a whole is enabled, the lines of those who were once willing to be responsible become blurred.

My siblings and I were raised by a single mom who worked overtime every week to support us. We would spend many evenings at her office, while she tried to get work done. And we pulled together and did it so I'm not a Republican snob who has or comes from money. Those who scrub floors to make ends meet are special people who typically pass on amazing work ethic. I don't want someone else supporting me if I lose my job. I want and need to support myself and my family, and I'm willing to do that because I choose not to be a victim. The more we require of the government, the more the government requires of us. Too many people have enslaved themselves to their governments, with dramatic results.

^
You're railing against something that isn't even being put forth here. Obama is talking about his tax plan cutting taxes FOR THOSE WHO WORK. FOR THOSE WHO DON'T EARN MUCH. How is it in ANY way bad to be doing that? You're trying to suggest that this is all about those who don't/won't work, this is about fairly taxing people, and repeatedly giving tax cuts to those who don't need it is WRONG.

>> ^OriginalUsername:
The irony is that the beer is on the working class. That's what bums spend their money on anyway....anything else would be responsible.


"Drinking is the curse of the working class"
vs.
"Working is the curse of the drinking class"

>> ^spoco2:
And you know... not all of us are on the same timezone, so don't think that we're all staying up late because we don't have jobs... I have a full time job that supports me, my wife going through uni and my three kids thanks very much...


Speak for yourself pal, I do all my sifting from a cardboard box in an alley next to a Starbucks where I use a stolen laptop and that delectable free Wi-fi to come online and promote Obama so I can get free stuff at the expense of hard-working fools like Joe the plumber.

Mr. OriginalUsername, it sounds like you have a lot in common with Obama, raised by a single parent, and believe in the value of work.

Regardless of what you believe about Democrats, we're not socialists. We don't think we need to have government seize the means of production, and make all salaries equal. We believe in encouraging the growth of business and prosperity by using tax money to build an infrastructure that business is conducted on.

Republicans demagogue about choking business with taxes, and maybe that was true 40 years ago, but it's not true today. Democrats aren't philosophically wed to growing government, and we won't shy away from killing programs that don't work, even if we're not shy about trying new ones.

Our goals are to get as many people working as possible, through improving education, healthcare, and our infrastructure (e.g. roads, networks, and energy).

I never assume Republicans are rich -- there aren't enough of those out there to ever win elections. Most of their supporters seem to misunderstand what the Democratic party is about these days.

Excuse me, but when was this taped??? Going by the last line, it seems like it was the day of the debate. Obama says "I gotta go prepare for this debate."

I thought from the first moment he spoke that Joe was a shill, planted in the line to ask the question.

When I watched the debate, I thought McCain was acting pretty weird about Joe the Plumber, with Republican catch phrases like "spread the wealth" and what-all. He had a "gotcha" energy to him that I found unappealing at the time, off-center, off-balance.

Now I think I know why. That was a prepared bit, I'd bet a whole dollar on it. Joe was placed there to ask his question in front of the cameras. McCain must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven when Obama actually SAID "spread the wealth."

I would love for my supposition to be proven correct. News cycle being what it is, I'm counting on it.

PS Doesn't Joe look like that gay reporter that was planted in Bush's White House press corps? Bald head, strongly built....

Basically those who appose reducing tax on most while raising it a bit on the super wealthy fit into one of two camps:

* They already earn over $250K and so are selfish pricks who want to keep every last cent of their money even though they would hardly notice the difference.
OR
* They don't earn that much, and so would actually be better off under the scheme BUT are under the delusion that they too will one day be super rich, and when they are, well dangit, they want to keep every last cent for themselves.

They are the only two camps, both are selfish and wrong.

really this argument is really simple. Money makes money. The more you have the easier is to make it. So it is fair to level the plain field just a bit. That is all.

Those who think Joe the Plumber is selfish, that is not true. He is already being taxed a lot in the current system and contributing a lot more and those on lower incomes.
In order to cut taxes for the lower earners, they should try to cut spending and increase efficiency of their bloated government organisations rather penalising Joe even more for being good at his job.

With "me first," the rest of the working masses gets dehumanized - if this were a standoff between Joe the plumber and that waitress back in the diner, then this would be a different human interest story.

And McCain repeating "You're rich, Joe, congratulations!" at the last debate annoyed the crap out of me. According to McCain's definition, Joe could double his income and still be middle class.

McCain is a fucking idiot.

Spoco2, Joe the plumber seemed to have a question that needed answering, and Obama answered it. I don't think he was being some greedy bastard, I think he didn't understand that it was a marginal tax increase above $250K. I know a lot of people here in Canada, where increases are not always marginal, often loathe having their income go up a small amount that takes them into the next tax bracket, because they end up making less money after taxes and would have been better off without the raise or promotion... that was probably Joe's concern.

Now get off your high horse. You're so emotional...

From a political standpoint though... what a disaster... Bring up this guy... but when you do it twenty times... you marginalize him and make him a gimick... and boy did he last night... I'm so sick of this damn plumber! To me, in the end, it really just spoke to McCain's primary concern for the wealthy in this country...

In the words of Stewie from Family Guy:
"I want my money man! Where's my money?!? Give me my money man!"

Oh, I see! It's "Trickle-Up Poverty."

Only if your describing the current state of affairs...

I just think it's really good of McCain to be the champion of the 250k plus folks... and present it to the american people... because we should feel bad for Joe... (Samuel is he name by the way but Samuel the pumber doesn't have the same ZING!) He might have to put off buying that buisness for a couple years (worst case) in the mean time he is living quite comfortably and enjoying an income FAR better than the majority of Americans...

By all means... lets just forget about all the people who are losing their jobs and unable to provide health coverage for families and their children... unable to meet their morgages... It's 'Joe' who has it rough...

Turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher from the Toledo event is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher of Milford, Ohio. Who’s Robert Wurzelbacher? Only Charles Keating’s son-in-law and the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the infamous Lincoln Savings and Loan. The now retired elder Wurzelbacher is also a major contributor to Republican causes giving well over $10,000 in the last few years.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/joe-plumber-more-joe-keating-family-

1)No, he's not greedy
2)No, the American dream IS NOT getting rich so you can help others. It most certainly is getting rich so you can have a lavish lifestyle
3)Yes, it his HIS money, and he worked hard for it, so when he thinks that he's finally at a point were he can make his dreams a reality, he's gonna get shit on for it.

If I were that guy, and I knew what the hell "marginal" meant (he apparently did not") then I might not give so much of a shit.

4)I want to know where a top of the line middle-class home is only $140,000. Where I'm from, that's a pretty low-end house.

What about Joe the pool cleaner?

It came out today that Joe the Plumber isn't even registered to vote. Dunno how true that is, but it's hilarious nonetheless.

I agree MG he is not being greedy... but don't ask America to feel sorry for him either... There are enough really sad stories going around without having to invent them...

Interesting... he also doesn't have a licence to be a plumber... and yes... it is required in the county their buisness is located... It's an interesting article if your feeling bad for this fellow... By his own discription and excuse the pun his 'plan' to buy the buisness is more of a 'pipe dream' (ba dum bum) the moment...

I'll say it again... don't ask me if your running for president to feel bad for this guy...

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20081016/D93RONUO0.html

i want the government to spend less on bullshit and corruption, and tax us all less.

but like some people said here, under a graded system, i would LOVE to be on a higher tax rate. that would be sweet. and yes i would like my customers to be on lower rates so they give me the money instead of the government.

-Just a fun fact,
The original constitution/bill of rights says nothing about taxing income.
-maybe all of this should be deferred to the state level. what kind of connotations would that carry?
a real question/preponderance

Normally I refrain myself from commenting on political threads.

But that wowed me.

Republicans make rich people richer, and that's all that McCain cares about.

This Joe guy is a fake and $250,000 is not rich.

And the vast majority of us make much less than $250,000 primarily because there are no jobs in this country because the fucking Republicans have been shipping them overseas by the boatload.

And the jobs that do exist are still being paid wages that were considered shabby even by the standards of the 1990's.

Bush gave the rich the biggest tax breaks in history - did it make our country richer, stronger, better?

Fucking wake up.

>> ^MarineGunrock:
1)No, he's not greedy

Well, I never said he was greedy, I said he was selfish. I don't think it's greedy to want to earn a good living, to have nice things, to do well for yourself and your family, that's not greedy. BUT, not being happy to let some of the good fortune (yes, don't tell me it's all down to just 'good hard work', it isn't, it's always born out of your environment, your family, and other help you get on the way... you may well work your arse off and come from adversity, but don't try and say that given a different set of circumstances you couldn't be in the dumps) you've had be used to let even more people get that little bit more and therefore have MORE prosperous people around thereby having a BETTER economy all round and EVERYONE getting more money... I mean, come on, that IS selfish.

2)No, the American dream IS NOT getting rich so you can help others. It most certainly is getting rich so you can have a lavish lifestyle
Wow, what a lovely dream... a dream where it's every man for himself and f*ck anyone else... ahhh... beautiful. Surely the dream is a COUNTRY which makes it POSSIBLE for anyone to get your materialistic end goal? If so then those who can afford it, those who have made it to the top, who have that lifestyle, shouldn't they want others to be able to do that to? Oh, no, they don't? Why? Because then they can't feel as special... bah.

3)Yes, it his HIS money, and he worked hard for it, so when he thinks that he's finally at a point were he can make his dreams a reality, he's gonna get shit on for it.
If I were that guy, and I knew what the hell "marginal" meant (he apparently did not") then I might not give so much of a shit.
And if this is the case, if this is a guy going off the rails because he's misinformed about marginal tax rates then that shows one of the biggest problems in mainstream voters today... lack of bloody education. Going nuts over perceived injustices that DON'T EXIST... it happens in all countries, it happens here in Australia too... it's nuts. He will be taxed LESS on the money under $250K... *sigh*

4)I want to know where a top of the line middle-class home is only $140,000. Where I'm from, that's a pretty low-end house.

There's no way you can buy ANY house for that anywhere near me in the land of Oz...

Of course, I also find all of this amusing because our (Australian) top tax rate kicks in at $150K ($180K next year), and it's 45cents in the dollar. And I'm happy with that, because we've ended up with far better services for it.

Cursing is the work of the drinking glass.

>> ^nomino:
"Drinking is the curse of the working class"
vs.
"Working is the curse of the drinking class"

So it looks like obama really won't be getting joe's vote.

>> ^lucky760:
It came out today that Joe the Plumber isn't even registered to vote. Dunno how true that is, but it's hilarious nonetheless.

this guy is a tool.

If Obama is as good a President as he is at thinking on his feet and NEVER losing his composure, then the future looks bright.

God damn, he's good. Even if you don't agree with Obama at all, you gotta admit that he is one cool customer when it comes to public speaking, especially when he's speaking off the cuff.

And I bet he would be a blast to have a beer with too.

>> ^budzos:
Spoco2, Joe the plumber seemed to have a question that needed answering, and Obama answered it. I don't think he was being some greedy bastard, I think he didn't understand that it was a marginal tax increase above $250K. I know a lot of people here in Canada, where increases are not always marginal, often loathe having their income go up a small amount that takes them into the next tax bracket, because they end up making less money after taxes and would have been better off without the raise or promotion... that was probably Joe's concern.
Now get off your high horse. You're so emotional...


I'm thinking back to my T1 forms.

Aside from wealthy retirees getting nasty clawbacks on pensions and people escaping welfare only to get caught in that vicious little trap, which other non-margianl increases do you have in mind?

HA HA HA.

He REALLY hates taxes.

http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/dont_mess_with_taxes/2008/10/joe-the-plumb-1.html

Apparently he owes back taxes.

Ayn Rand: SOCIALISM!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Notice how Faux News silences out Obama's actual responce to Joe, and tries to put words in his mouth.

Also, paying for a $140,000 house would be completely trivial for anyone making $250,000 a year (at least $180,000 after taxes). That's $500 a day. He makes more in a day tha the combined monthly cost of rent,electricity, cable, etc combined, in Nebraska, and he calls his situation modest (LOL). A week long luxury cruise in the Caribbean costs well under a grand per person. He makes enough in one year to spend 4 years cruising in the Caribbean.

Eureka! Maybe Joe the Plumber picked up a $500 a day cocaine habit with his newfound wealth.
OR, perhaps he hasn't quite grasped the difference between revenue and profits, and how to deduct business expenses from his taxes.

don't worry, in a democracy the majority gets the economy they deserve

in a democracy, 9 out of 10 people agree: they aren't idiots.

Absolute capitalism without any welfare, inheritance/gift tax, or income tax would become practically indistinguishable from the worst sort of absolute monarchy as the vasy majority of the wealth is concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. Whoever owns all the means of living could dictate the terms of their use down to every detail such as what you're allowed to read in your apartment. Ayn Rand fails to consider that if her pure capitalist system were followed absolutely, someone with enough money could have the same power over everyone as a fascist police state via owning all the media, owning all the land upon which the food is grown, etc. The threat of starvation is just as effective as the threat of violence. Using the threat of starvation to induce compliance is no better at all than using the threat of a whipping to induce compliance. If absolute capitalism ever existed, it would be a joint form of slavery where those few who have 99.9% of the money make all the rules, and those who don't have the money comply or starve. So you want to make Ayn Rand dictator, eh? Let anybody suffer and die according to the whims of a handful of plutocrats? I think you haven't thought this one through.

Obama - 'Can you have empathy for people who aren't making $250,000?'

Joe - 'No. I'm a Republican. And I'm trying to be a dick to you.'

I find it a bit silly that some sifters, i.e. anyone who has quoted Ayn Rand, thinks that their loose logic can debunk a lifetime worth of philosophy, modeling, and brainstorming. These are the best and the brightest, otherwise they wouldn't be as well published. The Austrian school of economics (not necessarily associated with Ayn Rand) has been the Nostradamus of the financial system, yet when it comes to actions that could be taken, it is thrown out the window.
SOCIALISM -social organization advocating social or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society.
for future reference

>> ^OriginalUsername:
Oh, and for those that believe Joe is selfish. Yeah, and those who don't do anything but sit at home, play dominoes, steal electricity and cable, and go pick up a check every two weeks aren't. We should give those selfless Americans more. After all, they're decreasing the demand for gasoline, therefore, putting country first! The lower class rules! Hey, let's get them a computer so they can see how awesome Obama is. Wait, they've probably already stolen one. Is that how you got on here?


I downvoted this comment from work.

Which starts in.... crap! Gotta go!

I BELIEVE, COMRADE, THAT THE WEALTH SHOULD BE "SPREAD AROUND!"...D'OH!

Everything that the USA has accomplished since near the 30s has been accomplished under a system of progressive income tax and redistribution payments. What we have is light years away from the USSR's economic policy. And the USA is a lot better off now than it was in 1910.

The Austrian school is the "Nostradamus of the financial system"? That's apt but doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. Nostradamus made some flaky predictions that were vague enough to be inevitable.

probability of men living in productive peace and efficient harmony without a regulated system: zero.

probability of actually perfecting such a system in our lifetime: zero.

probability that maybe parts of all the systems have merits, and other parts have drawbacks: one.

probability of any one of us having discovered the perfect system, knowing how to implement it worldwide, and actually going through with that: zero.

probability of Obama actually changing anything fundamental in a way that humans will respond positively to: I reckon it's looking pretty good.

Reading jwray's stuff makes me want to hurl.

Absolute capitalism without any welfare, inheritance/gift tax, or income tax would become practically indistinguishable from the worst sort of absolute monarchy as the vasy majority of the wealth is concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

Actually, socialist policies have done nothing but increase, and the problems you describe have gotten worse. Still waiting for that socialist idea that actually increases the wealth of the bottom. Prior to 1913 we never had an income tax. Special tax credits as a form of anti-competitive subsidy were thus impossible, and charity was at its highest in American history. Actually, the funniest part is just the idea that increases taxes on the rich helps in some way. All it does is incentivize those people to sit on their money, or move it into a tax haven, or leave the country altogether. Precisely what happened when Hoover raised marginal rates to 63% and FDR to 90% succeeding him. Would you go through the trouble of running a business if government is taking 90% of what you make if you make anything? Didn't think so.

Whoever owns all the means of living could dictate the terms of their use down to every detail such as what you're allowed to read in your apartment.

Epic fail. In a republic, a constitution prevents rights from being infringed, regardless of how much money one person has over the other. You can't even vote it away with a majority, that's the difference between a republic and a democracy. Who is responsible for electing politicians who follow it and punishing those who don't? You. You are the regulator for the regulators. 98% of the public didn't vote for Ron Paul, therefore 98% of the people don't believe the supreme law is important or should be followed. The end. You have no one but yourself to blame. You've chosen the benevolent dictator route, no law, no concept of barring certain powers under any circumstances. Good luck with that.

Ayn Rand fails to consider that if her pure capitalist system were followed absolutely, someone with enough money could have the same power over everyone as a fascist police state via owning all the media, owning all the land upon which the food is grown, etc.

In order to make that kind of money in a free market system that protects rights, the person to whom you're referring would essentially have to create every product and service with the utmost quality and awesomeness. Remember, with small government, he can't bribe a politician for forcibly appropriated money because the politician doesn't have it. He can't get an anti-competitive tax credit, because income taxes don't even exist for anyone, just like pre-1913. Fraud isn't an option because he would be taken to government courts and lose. False advertising either. Theft either. Rights are protected. What the hell does this person do to get wads and wads of money? Well... they essentially have to create a product or service that millions and millions of people will buy. Need workers for that. No problem, let's hire some workers for a penny a piece. What? They won't work for a penny because someone else is offering them a nickel? Shit, we'll offer them a quarter and still make money! WHAT YOU SAY, HE OUTBID ME ON THAT SKILLED LABOR AGAIN. CHRIST, THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER, MY PROFIT MARGINS ARE GETTING KILLED BY GODDAMN COMPETITORS TRYING TO DO WHAT I'M DOING AND BIDDING UP WAGES.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFdj103G60

Anyway, Ayn Rand's brand of libertarianism is not the popular brand. You're dreadfully confused to be building up this kind of strawman in your fearmongering of capitalism. I think this Milton Friedman link ought to clear it up for you, as well as some other things, such as how dirty technology invariably contributes to its cleaner successor, and how government cannot possibly spend other people's money with as much thrift as people would spend their own. This stuff seems so obvious once you hear it, but you'd be amazed at how clueless most people are at these basic fundamental behaviors. They assume that because 100% capitalism doesn't work, that the optimal system must be 50% or even less capitalism. In reality, just a little bit of government force is necessary and it should require no more than 10% of a people's capital in order to exercise the functions of defending rights and offering courts. It was never intended to appropriate 50% of our money for undeclared wars like Vietnam and Iraq, or subsidize industries in exchange for campaign financing, or fund pet projects, or forcibly manage retirement and health care via unsustainable ponzi schemes.

Remember, outside of nominal appropriations (taxes), the government inflates with a non-market determined money that it is capable of duplicating at no labor or material cost. Even a poor family not paying any income tax and getting welfare payments is having their wages and purchasing power diminished by the inflation tax. This is the key. This is the root cause, it's how despite everything they are getting with the left hand, government is taking more from the right via inflation. This is how our economy came to be in shambles, how markets distorted, how wealth started to transfer from the bottom to the top, like every fiat economy before it. Because those who use the money the Fed is creating increase their bidding power with it while those who have no money can't get their themselves because their wages and savings are being perpetually debased by it. How do you accumulate so much money that you can live off interest on stock for a living when your cost of living continues to rise faster than your wages? Bingo, you've figured it out. Congrats. Inflation is how government finances most of its activities today and this is how our economy has been destroyed. We let go of the gold limit in 71, we had one decent Fed chairman that took away the punch bowl to wipe the slate for another bull run, and that was it, the inevitable collapse of our fiat money is assured from the current hole we've dug. We now abuse our reserve currency status of the world gained under gold to export our inflation worldwide, which is why the problems today are so global. 10 trillion national debt, 70 billion a month trade deficit, 60 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a negative savings rate, two income households barely making ends meet, and an economy that since the early 90s has depended on perpetual credit extensions from the savings of the world to consume imported products that those creditors make in exchange for paper interest that they can recycle back into us or lock in a vault. They get paper, we get products. Yay for them. Yeah, don't delink from the dollar, don't use those savings to invest in production, keep loaning it to us to consume products you can't afford because of it.

These, of course, are policies you support. Libertarians don't want government to have the ability to inflate, because it makes no sense. You can't give government instant access to every person's purchasing power and expect them not to mortgage it. That's precisely what fiat money enables. And chances are that some lawyer spending millions of dollars to get in a low-paying position of legislating and distributing other people's forcibly appropriated money isn't going to be a very honest or incorruptible individual. Not sure why you haven't figured this out yet or why you think this is more efficient or moral than an individual trying to convince you give him your money in exchange for a product or service you want and think might improve your life.

The threat of starvation is just as effective as the threat of violence.

Where are people most starving today and throughout history? Exactly in the types of places where people are least able to keep and spend their own money as they see fit. Did China have to build walls to keep people from going into Hong Kong, or did Hong Kong have to build walls to keep people from going into China?

^ This will sound childish, but BansheeX, you're a nutbar.

Actually, socialist policies have done nothing but increase, and the problems you describe have gotten worse.

...in America. Other countries' socialist policies, like in say, the whole of Europe, do quite well compared to us.

Nowhere else in the world has a more libertarian system than us, as near as I can tell, and it handicaps us.

In order to make that kind of money in a free market system that protects rights, the person to whom you're referring would essentially have to create every product and service with the utmost quality and awesomeness.

Actually no, they would just need to get enough market power, and apply it ruthlessly to stomp out competition wherever it rises. One of my favorites from the roaring 20's was the rate war. Slash your prices to nearly nothing, and let your company lose a lot of money, on the premise that the smaller company will go bankrupt before you do.

What's a libertarian government going to do about that? Price controls?

98% of the public didn't vote for Ron Paul, therefore 98% of the people don't believe the supreme law is important or should be followed.

Nuttery, Ron Paul is the only politician who believes in the law? Seriously, that's what you're saying? He's probably the only Republican who believes in the law being supreme, but there's more than a few Democrats who believe in the supremacy of law (including some joker with a law degree from Harvard running for President...).

Remember, with small government, he can't bribe a politician for forcibly appropriated money because the politician doesn't have it.

No, but he can still bribe the politicians to look the other way on violation of rights. They do it now, and I'm not sure why it would change, just because the companies have more money to spend (according to your theory).

The bottom line here is that attacking Democrats as being socialist is a huge fucking straw man. We like the free market, and we want it to work. However, unlike market fundamentalists, we realise that neither extreme is good, neither the libertarian nor the pure communist/socialist structure. Most market functions should be decentralized and unrestricted, but just like pruning a tree, some restrictions can aid growth.

Most investment banks are now crying out to be regulated in the wake of this credit crisis, and given that they bribed the government into deregulating them in the first place, that should tell you something.

Democrats in America are moderates -- our goal is not absolute control of the market, and we're as happy to deregulate as regulate (see Clinton's Presidency) but for some reason the conservatives here have adopted an absolutist goal, seeking to destroy government, or at least discredit it.

Bush has done a fantastic job at making government fail in every aspect, but did it make the people embrace the conservatives more strongly?

Hell no, because they were shown all the ways government was helping them, and suddenly had it ripped away -- now they want it back in working order.

Libertarians need to stop pretending they have all the answers already, and that the rest of us are fools. No country, least of all the US, has ever been libertarian. There's no evidence that such a system would even remotely work the way you claim, and in many cases through history regulation has been imposed because the market system was destroying itself, and ruining millions of people's lives.

Like right now.

I would love to see what would happen if we just taxed every working person 50% across the board.

And personally I don't find socialism to be such a frightening thing. It seems like a good idea to give back to your community, that's what the taxes are for. I don't see how raising the living conditions and well-being of your country as a whole would impact anyone negatively.

Other countries' socialist policies, like in say, the whole of Europe, do quite well compared to us.

Actually, this is causation without correlation. If you go to Europe, living situations are deteriorating. Their massive amounts of welfare have created a situation in which immigrants are coming not for opportunity, but to be subsidized by programs they haven't paid into their whole lives like existing citizens. Sound familiar? Our programs are being strained by the same problem. I won't deny that they've made better decisions with their socialist powers over the past twenty years. If you want to make this an argument about whose dictator is doing a better job at emulating the market, then certainly Europe wins. France, for example, gets 80% of their energy from nuclear power and is the largest energy exporter in Europe. I'm jealous. That's what the market would have chosen. Our dictators, however, have been blocking it for thirty years due to the influence of the radical environmentalist lobby. Our government-directed economy has also pumped billions of forcibly appropriated money into agri-business bio-fuels like ethanol. It reduced the supply of food because it became more profitable after all the subsidies to grow corn for ethanol than some other crop for food. And it takes almost as much energy to create as it produces. Negative net result, that money would have been better off staying in the hands of people who really couldn't afford to have it taken away. We realize this now, but it never needed to happen. Any product that wouldn't be able to compete on the market without being funded with stolen money isn't worth a damn. So why did we think a bill could do something the market couldn't? All subsidies are retarded, they have collusive anti-competitive redistribution written all over them, and that's exactly what we got despite election year promises that it would give us miracles.

In fact, imagine if a stranger comes to your house and says "Hi, I'd like to take some of your money from your paycheck every week because I think I can spend it better than you can on products and services for your life. You look pretty busy, irresponsible, and unintelligent." Would you give it to them? Why would you do that? That's essentially socialism in a nutshell. People spending other people's money on the claim they can do so with greater thrift than the person that earned it.

Another thing that we do different than Europe is maintain a gigantic military empire. Of course their socialist programs are better, they don't have a military industrial complex sucking trillions of dollars away from them. It's really not necessary in the nuclear age. No nuclear power has ever been invaded domestically. Because it's a losing proposition. If you win the ground war, they have nothing to lose so they launch them. But we're idiots over here, we have this manchausen syndrome where our CIA creates problems that eventually blow back in our face, at which point we can launch all out invasions under the pretense of self-defense. This might include installing the Shah in Iran. Or giving bioweapons to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Or arming afghani warriors to fight the Soviets. Or paying off Musharraf in Pakistan to be a puppet. Terrorist propaganda becomes effective because of this shit.

Nowhere else in the world has a more libertarian system than us, as near as I can tell, and it handicaps us.

Price fixing interest rates = socialist
Bailout out bankruptcy with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Allowing one industry to loan out money they don't have, at interest = socialist
Subsidizing one company and not another = socialist
Taxing one company and not another = socialist
Nationalizing private industry to be financed with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Directing industry and research with forcibly appropriated money = socialist
Declaring lending standards discriminatory to low income people and forcing banks to remove them via the Community Reinvestment Act = socialist
Issuing a non-market determined or constitutional money, banning competing currencies, and taxing dollar debasement gains on gold as if it were income = socialist
Blocking nuclear power for 30 years = socialist
Blocking domestic oil drilling for 20 years = socialist


Actually no, they would just need to get enough market power, and apply it ruthlessly to stomp out competition wherever it rises.

Bullshit, no one but the government has endless streams of capital to buy up anything and everything. Only government monopolies are self-sustaining, because they're the only monopolies financed with forcibly appropriated money.

In your version of the world, AMD shouldn't exist. Aptera Motors shouldn't exist. Right? I mean, giant corporations a thousand times their size existed before they even entered the market. They should have been bought out. Oh, wait, what's that? Not all companies are publicly traded.

The reality is, in order for a MARKET monopoly (note: in an environment where they don't have access to government specific powers like inflation and subsidization) to stay that way is to continue to offering the best product at the best price. Because then there's no window, no opportunity for someone else to come in and eat into that marketshare. If a company is delivering crap or overcharging, however, that immediately opens a window for someone else to come in. That's how AMD got so large, Intel was doing exactly that with netburst architecture. Even with a monopoly position, competition was waiting in the wings.

Suppose Microsoft took XP off the market and put Windows 3.1 on the shelf? Do you think they wouldn't go bankrupt? Do you think a competitor wouldn't arise to take their place? Because they're an all-powerful monopoly, right? They don't have to deliver shit, they can just buy Macintosh and anyone else while they pay thousands of programmers to create a product that doesn't sell.

Doh. Someone doesn't understand basic market principles.

One of my favorites from the roaring 20's was the rate war. Slash your prices to nearly nothing, and let your company lose a lot of money, on the premise that the smaller company will go bankrupt before you do.

Actually, large businesses with lots of workers have far more overhead and are much more inefficiently run. That's why most businesses today are small businesses. My mother owns an advertising business for wedding directories with no one but herself employed. A local newspaper owned by the Gannett company recently created a staff of twenty people to try and compete with her. They lasted two years before the magazine ended the operation. It was costing way more money than it was bringing in, and the so-called greedy megagiant slashed it.

Nuttery, Ron Paul is the only politician who believes in the law? Seriously, that's what you're saying? He's probably the only Republican who believes in the law being supreme, but there's more than a few Democrats who believe in the supremacy of law (including some joker with a law degree from Harvard running for President...).

Supreme law is the constitution doofus. It's the law that came before all other laws, it's the laws against government to prevent them from becoming a tyrannical, collusive nuthouse like all other governments before it by assessing which powers, which enablements, it shouldn't have under any circumstances. And inflation was one of them. But after a couple hundred years, people became complacent, arrogant, and ignorant, like yourself, and politicians found that they could ignore it with impunity. There was no longer a bunch of gun-toting, tea-hating radicals ready to hang them on the nearest tree when they broke it. There was nothing but the opposing party. But that party loves to spend, too. So they compromise by allowing the other to break it so long as they get to break it in another way. Remember how the bailout failed and then got passed? They put some extra pork in there to get the votes they needed. Rum and arrowheads...

http://www.greenfaucet.com/economy/porky-the-bailout-bill/19680

Welcome to our country, and the socialist enablements that make this spending possible.

No, but he can still bribe the politicians to look the other way on violation of rights. They do it now, and I'm not sure why it would change, just because the companies have more money to spend (according to your theory).

The bottom line here is that attacking Democrats as being socialist is a huge fucking straw man. We like the free market, and we want it to work.

No, you don't, You don't even know what it is.

Most investment banks are now crying out to be regulated in the wake of this credit crisis, and given that they bribed the government into deregulating them in the first place, that should tell you something.

They're not crying to be regulated, they're crying to be bailed out after being regulated. What do you think regulation is exactly? Do you realize that the fundamental way in which banks operate is fraudulent? How do you regulate that? How do you oversee to make sure fraud is being conducted in the best way possible?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking#Money_creation

This is the type of nonsense I hear from the republicrat camp. Regulation, the buzzword of the day. It's meaningless. To "regulate" the bank runs this system was causing, the Federal Reserve was created to backstop bankruptcy. Yes, failure, that free market pinnacle that makes private business suffer and fear consequences for risk and imprudent policy. Or how about the FDIC, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INSURANCE on deposits. Don't worry, now you don't have to fear about losing your deposit on this scam industry. We've regulated it with the FDIC. OOPS, THE FEAR OF LOSING ONE'S DEPOSIT WAS WHAT DETERRED PEOPLE FROM GIVING IT TO HIGHLY LEVERAGED INVESTMENT BANKS OFFERING ABNORMAL YIELDS, CAUSING THAT BUSINESS MODEL TO GROW, CAUSING OTHER BANKS TO FOLLOW SUIT IN ORDER TO COMPETE.

The problem is regulation on fraudulent activity that should have never been allowed. It slowly but surely eliminated basic deterrents and self-regulating principles by backstopping risk and rewarding bad behavior.

^ You used a lot of words to put forward no logical argument, just a lot of "nyah nyah, I think you're wrong".

You say: Europe is choking to death from socialism.

I say: Check your facts again, Europe is excelling, and we're declining, and between the two, we're vastly closer to libertarian philosophy.

You say: Monopolies don't/can't exist.

I say: Google Enron and California. When's the last time you saw a small, independent grocery store?

You say: I'm arrogant and ignorant for denying that inflation is unconstitutional.

I say: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;" from Article I, Section 8.

(and frankly, it was a straw man argument on your part -- I'm not opposed to the gold standard, I just don't think it's unconstitutional, nor that fiat currency is the Root of All Evil)

You say: [Democrats] don't [like the free market], you don't even know what it is.

I say: One of 'em just won the Nobel prize in economics. Someone notify the Nobel Foundation!

You say: Regulation of banks with pesky laws is impossible, so let's get rid of them so that people are forced to police the banks themselves.

I say: Why stop there? Why not get rid of property laws too, and let people engineer their own way of defending their property from thieves?

Let's tone down the level of demagoguery. I'm just as capable of calling you a an arrogant, ignorant fool, but somehow I doubt that will make you more receptive to an opposing view.

Maybe a few beers would help, but given the size of the rant, I'm not sure there are enough beers out there to do the job.

This has got to be a hard time for Libertarians -- even the Republicans have abandoned conservative economic principles, and the country seems to be swinging the way of the (moderate) Democrats.

See comments here for another discussion about the economy and tax rates versus tax revenue.

You say: Europe is choking to death from socialism.

No, they're deteriorating from it and on the path to serfdom. But as I said, they live within their means, and their lack of military spending and their lack of domestic oil reserves has resulted in better energy efficieny and policies, because they were spurred by high gas prices that we never had. You can HAVE a benevolent dictator that works to your advantage for a while, but the enablement of certain powers gaurantees inevitable costs that outweigh those benefits. You need to understand this, and why our forefathers bothered with a constitution limiting government from the get-go. They knew it, they lived it, they saw it happen, and as a result of this document, gold money, and unmitigated markets, we rose from nothing to the most powerful, affluent country in the world. Government was miniscule on the way up, it will be humongous on the way down.

It was 1913 the path to destruction began, the federal reserve and the income tax were passed in the same year. The Fed's inflation of the 20s caused the correction of 29, then turned into a long depression by Hoover and FDR's interventionist policies. The Smoot Hawley bill was a protectionist reaction resulting in retaliatory tariffs on American exports. Taxes then went from 20% to 63% under hoover, then 90% under FDR. Anyone with any money to hire people, sat on it. What revenue did come in from those taxrates, government used it to pay government workers to basically dig holes and fill them back up again. The policies always destroyed more wealth than they created, decreasing unemployment for the sake of it. You simply can't centrally direct the desires and wealth brought about by millions of diverse individuals freely transacting and trading with each other. They also ordered farmers to plow under fields and slaughter livestock to reduce the supply of food, because they believed falling prices would hurt the economy. This is also the same guy that confiscated people's gold (for which he should have been arrested), absolved the banks of having to pay people back despite their fraudulent lending, and allowed Pearl Harbor to be a massacre. It wasn't until he died and Europe was ransacked by a world war that we got out of it.

Europe is getting there. One thing you can always count on when you're putting your faith in benevolent dictators spending other people's money, is that it will invariably corrupt and cascade in on itself. Socialism has failed in every country that's tried it, including ours now. It fundamentally perverts the risk reward system of capitalism. Because if you're gauranteed the same share regardless of your contribution to the pool, why excel? Where's the incentive? If you're spending other people's money, why be thrifty? It's not like you're wasting something you worked hard for.

Fannie and Freddie were pseudo-government institutions in many democratic congressmen's campaign coffers, formed originally under the socialist ideal of making housing more affordable. Every one of their managers got golden parachutes. They accomplished exactly the opposite in the end, prices are now exorbitant, bid up by inflation equipped flippers, who left the banks with the mortgage after they realized that the appraisal price was phony and that legitimate buyers had been priced out of the market. Now the banks are stuck with the collateral, homes they loaned money out to buy at the appraisal price, well above what they can sell it back for. The market would have them decline in price, good for savers.

Or how about the Federal Reserve? Why self-regulate from a fear of bankruptcy when the government creates an arm to backstop it with inflation? If there's no risk of consequence, what is the disincentive to taking huge gambles with other people's money? Likewise, if you're a depositor, why not invest in the highly leveraged bank down the street offering a 5% yield by gambling on subprime? The government insures your deposit if they fail, so you have zero disincentive to give them your money with which to make those bets. If there was no FDIC, no one would be reckless enough to do it, thus that business model would have never existed.

If people don't start realizing how government policies change human behavior that create economic distortions and disruptions, we are gauranteed an inflationary depression.

I say: Check your facts again, Europe is excelling, and we're declining, and between the two, we're vastly closer to libertarian philosophy.

We are nowhere near being 90% capitalist. The majority of our GDP is controlled communally by the government, making us a socialist nation by definition. We are absolutely drowning in socialist failures and my list should have convinced you of that. Yet you sit here and tell me to vote for someone who just passed a trillion dollar bailout mortgaged on my children to reward someone else's bad behavior.

You say: Monopolies don't/can't exist.

I say: Google Enron and California.

Enron wasn't a self-sustaining one like government monopolies, it died a quick death, thank god (today, it would probably be bailed out by your money). It was a scam business enabled by ignorant employees and citizens who have been completely brainwashed into company directed 401k programs, as well as speculative, non-dividend paying investments. Enron never had to prove it was making money by paying a dividend because people allow themselves to be fooled by wall street valuations of stocks. If you're buying a stock without a dividend, you're purely speculating on the price going up or down. Just like the tech stocks of the 90s. People thought they were rich on paper, but when the stocks crashed, they had nothing. Because they didn't sell at those paper prices, they didn't complete the gamble by guessing the top like Mark Cuban did, who was one of the lucky ones. People illogically shirk responsibility on learning basic economics and stock principles and then flail helplessly for the government with which Enron was colluding to help them. It's idiotic. Rather than admit the mistake and educate others, they flip out emotionally, call on the government to recompensate their loss with their neighbor's money, and resign themselves to repeating the same mistake. It never would have been possible if they had taken twenty minutes to be skeptical and educate themselves.

Why don't you start listening to libertarian Ron Paul advisor Peter Schiff? The guy is brilliant in explaining this stuff, and predicted most of this mess years in advance while most economic types were dumb enough to confuse problems for strengths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhJaVEWAG24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-a_r4qx4WE


When's the last time you saw a small, independent grocery store?

Yesterday. I go to several. The big chains won't carry most of the organic and specialty items that I want. And I purchase my grass fed meat directly in bulk from a local cattle farmer, stuff's amazing.

You say: Regulation of banks with pesky laws is impossible, so let's get rid of them so that people are forced to police the banks themselves.

I say: Why stop there? Why not get rid of property laws too, and let people engineer their own way of defending their property from thieves?

That would actually be a good start because banks would start fearing failure again. But I want fraudulent fractional reserves banned. You can't currently take them to court for it, because it's federally sanctioned. See, politicians are big spenders with a symbiotic relationship with the inflationary banks. They don't want honest money, they don't want a system where they are limited to direct taxation, because taxes are overt appropriations that elicit a lot more resistance. The average citizens can SEE how much exactly he's being taxed. Not so with inflation, it's very confusing and has a lag effect. The trillions that the Fed is adding to the balance sheet over the next year is going to result in hyperinflation, not immediately, but down the road.

How about Central and South American Socialist Governments? How are those working out?

..and Europe isn't excelling at the moment. Check your facts:

The 15 countries that use the euro agreed on a massive bail-out package earlier this month to help banks survive the crisis, which has seen inter-bank lending dry up, threatening the wider economy.
BBC NEWS

>> ^deedub81:


The whole world's economy is still smarting from the U.S. marketplace's screw ups.

The U.S. bailout, and the coordinated bailouts in other countries, seem to be helping thaw the credit markets, now that we're following the advice of our socialist allies in England and France on how to structure it, by buying equity in the failing banks (something Paulson originally said he'd never do, because it's socialist, BTW).

I don't know what's wrong with South American countries, but I don't think socialism is a universal good, either.

In my view, there's a "just right" amount. Too little, and shit like this credit meltdown happens. Too much, and people cease to be motivated by self-interest.

Europe seems to have a pretty good balance, and it's to the left of where we are right now in this country.

This "libertarianism or bust" attitude just busted. No government policy made this get this bad. If the market was so much wiser than government, how did they not see this coming, and avoid it? Claims that the government "forced" banks to overextend themselves are completely, utterly false. They did this to themselves, and conservatives who're paying attention should know that.

If you're ready to throw Bush under the bus as being a socialist, why do so-called socialists like me hate him with a passion for his blind adherence to conservative philosophy?

Do you deny that Bush brought us to the most conservative policy structure we've seen in 30 or 40 years?

With all that juicy conservatism, how could anything possibly have gone wrong?

Why is the economy a big losing topic for McCain? Aren't arch-conservatives supposed to be the masters of that subject?

Why doesn't this chart show Republicans being universally superior?

*dead
but here's two possible replacements (dunno which was the original length video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUvwKVvp3-o&hl=lv
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRPbCSSXyp0&hl=lv

This published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by EDD.

rasch187 has fixed this video's dead embed code - no Power Points awarded because rasch187's points are already fully charged.