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Whatever, Halloween Scrooge. >> ^dag:

Boo! I'm just not feeling it this year - so much other stuff going on. Maybe it's the election - Super Tuesday could be really scary.

Beautiful, but way too dark and disturbing for a non-humanitarian advert. Well made, but feels more in the end like something from Scrooged.

Bar none the best movie version of this story. The best cast, dialogue etc.
At 1:12:30 when Scrooge talks to himself in the mirror check out the reflection of a crew member.

The Music Theatre of Idaho production features Erick Pew as the crabby Scrooge In this theater the dialogues are including the christmas quotes and Love quotes.

Way to totally rim them tea baggers by telling them they're geniuses. Obama is the Grinch and Scrooge combined, and has single handedly wrecked everything. The solution is to let corporations run everything.

Drachen, it sounds like your beef with the rich is that they "hoard" money rather than pump it back into the economy. Your solution, then, it to increase the capital gains tax rate (what Obama is promoting in this video)? As a hypothetical rich person, I have two options as far as what to do with my money. I can put it into a safe but low-interest bank account or I can invest in capital (stock market, real estate, etc), where on average I stand to earn a greater interest rate but where I also put my money at much greater risk. If you disincentivize the latter with an increased capital gains tax rate, you are going to divert funds from being invested into the economy toward Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool.

And in case there is any confusion, rich people are not taxed at a lower net rate than poor people on INCOME. Rich people in the U.S. pay 39.6 cents on every dollar they make in income over $250,000 after deductions, while those who make less $39,600 after deductions are taxed at 15 cents to the dollar. However, traditionally, capital gains (as opposed to income) have been taxed at 15% flat. Why should capital gains be taxed at a lower rate than income? Arguments include:

1. Investment in capital is an investment in the economy. It is encouraged with a lower capital gains tax rate.
2. Money must first be earned as income before it can be invested. Therefore it has already been taxed. Capital gains tax in essence is a taxation on already taxed money.
3. Investment is risky, bringing in a salary is not. Risk averse spenders will not take risks unless they are incentivized to do so. But it is essential to the growth of our economy that this risk be taken. Refer to point 1.

On second thought, Bill Gates probably would be able to still buy a new Rembrandt even if his taxes were raised (even if they were raised a LOT). And that's the point of this whole argument. Even if you raise taxes on the rich they wouldn't do without anything save for a Scrooge McDuck style money swimming pool/vault.

It's a crime that higher taxes on the rich are not being imposed when everyone else is a bit of bad luck away from huddling around a trash can fire for warmth and they are living lives of excess thanks to laws influenced by the lobbyists they hired with their disgusting wealth.

The rich pay a higher percentage, and more taxes overall than the poor. Why do you think anyone is saying otherwise. And that's absolutely how it should be, for the good of everyone, rich included.

It's perfectly sensible to talk about why some people don't pay any taxes at all. I'm not even debating that. But the rich should still pay more, regardless. The US has been one of the strongest economies for most of the 20th and 21st centuries with a progressive income tax, and it's been a heck of a lot more progressive than it is now, and we were still very prosperous.

Showing fraud in some programs doesn't mean the program should be abolished. It can be reformed as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. We didn't abolish welfare in the 1990s. We reformed it. And no, it's not true that private businesses will always create the jobs when the economy is down. History has proven quite the opposite. Why would a business invest to make more goods and services if there's no market for it. A downturn in the economy breeds more economic decline. It's called a business cycle, and it's a natural occurrence. If you were a business owner, generally speaking, if you know less people out there have the money to buy your goods and services, would you increase production and hire more workers? Of course not. Does the average person put more money into the stock market or take money out when the market tanks? Takes money out, which drains money for investing. This is basic micro and macroeconomics.

Some force has to run counter to the natural tendencies of the market to force demand to increase, and of course this virtually always requires running a deficit. This is why slogans like "the gov't should be run like a business" are simplistic and wrong. The gov't should in those situations create jobs through various programs, thereby increasing income for the lower classes, which creates spending and demand, which then causes businesses to increase production, hire more workers, and that gets the economy back on track. You can site case study after case study in our history we've done this, and it worked. We ended the Great Depression via defense spending in the form of WWII in record levels as the most obvious exaggerated example. That historically was qm's worst nightmare - record deficits in raw amount at the time, and still to this day historic record deficits as a percentage of GDP during WWII, followed by a tax raise on the richest Americans to over 90%. And what calamity befell the US because of those policies? We ended the Great Depression, became an economic Superpower, and Americans enjoyed record prosperity it and the world had never seen before.

This is historical fact that simply can't be denied.

Here's what happened - Democrats deficit spent as they were supposed to (which is exactly what the GOP would have done had they been in power, because it was started by George W. Bush), which stopped the economic free fall. Moody's didn't downgrade the US debt. It was S&P. They sited math about the alarming deficits which contained a $2 trillion mistake on their part. They also sited political instability as the GOP was risking default to get their policies in place, which btw still include massive deficits.

The GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from spending all that money?! Laughable. The GOP started the freakin' bailouts and stimulus! What did the GOP do the last time there was a recession after 9/11? Deficit spent, then continued to deficit spend when the economy was strong. Dude, seriously, you have no factual basis for that kind of claim whatsoever.

>> ^quantumushroom:

this is what we've been trying to tell you QM, the system doesn't work when only a few contribute...the system works when ALL contribute based on what they can afford.
I totally agree, so why does the bottom 50% of Americans pay NO income tax? The wealthy already pay a disproportionately high percentage of all taxes and I have yet to find a liberalsifter who admits this.
I well understand that Scrooge McDuck won't miss a few more shovelfuls of gold coins swiped by federal bulldozers, but lets review reality:
1) The "extra" money attained by "soaking" Scrooge and Rich Uncle Pennybags (from the Monopoly game) will be pi$$ed away, like the 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR lost to fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid/Medicare. The federal mafia is composed of sh1tty stewards of our money.
2) The Hawaiian Dunce has spent 3 trillion in 3 years with little or nothing to show for it. So what magical number of dollars is going to make everything all right? A quadrillion?
3) When the socialists raise taxes, the wealthy of 2011 have their accountant press a few buttons on their computating machines, sending their $$$ overseas, invested in more stable markets. Apparently many already have, probably the moment they knew Obama was elected.
4) Liberal say, "Rich man not know difference he still rich." But there's now less money to invest and less money to create jobs. Now some liberalsifter will say, "This graph indicates that the rich don't create jobs with their ill-gotten gains."
BUT, if you're honest with yourselves, you'll know that one million dollars has a much better chance of creating jobs in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors than the government "Department of Creating Jobs" which probably spends that much just on office furniture.
5) The debt limit 'debate' is total BS, always has been. Here is what happened: taxocrats burned through tax money at an alarming rate and there weren't enough elected Republicans to stop them. THAT'S why Moody's got scared and US was downgraded. Republicans can't communicate for sh1t anyway, and so the socialists and their media lapdogs managed to blame the right for this mess.
6) Warren Buffoon likes to be liked, I get that, but he should still STFU and make a real gesture. Giving a symbolic billion dollars to the federal mafia should do it. He won't miss it.

this is what we've been trying to tell you QM, the system doesn't work when only a few contribute...the system works when ALL contribute based on what they can afford.

I totally agree, so why does the bottom 50% of Americans pay NO income tax? The wealthy already pay a disproportionately high percentage of all taxes and I have yet to find a liberalsifter who admits this.

I well understand that Scrooge McDuck won't miss a few more shovelfuls of gold coins swiped by federal bulldozers, but lets review reality:

1) The "extra" money attained by "soaking" Scrooge and Rich Uncle Pennybags (from the Monopoly game) will be pi$$ed away, like the 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR lost to fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid/Medicare. The federal mafia is composed of sh1tty stewards of our money.

2) The Hawaiian Dunce has spent 3 trillion in 3 years with little or nothing to show for it. So what magical number of dollars is going to make everything all right? A quadrillion?

3) When the socialists raise taxes, the wealthy of 2011 have their accountant press a few buttons on their computating machines, sending their $$$ overseas, invested in more stable markets. Apparently many already have, probably the moment they knew Obama was elected.

4) Liberal say, "Rich man not know difference he still rich." But there's now less money to invest and less money to create jobs. Now some liberalsifter will say, "This graph indicates that the rich don't create jobs with their ill-gotten gains."

BUT, if you're honest with yourselves, you'll know that one million dollars has a much better chance of creating jobs in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors than the government "Department of Creating Jobs" which probably spends that much just on office furniture.

5) The debt limit 'debate' is total BS, always has been. Here is what happened: taxocrats burned through tax money at an alarming rate and there weren't enough elected Republicans to stop them. THAT'S why Moody's got scared and US was downgraded. Republicans can't communicate for sh1t anyway, and so the socialists and their media lapdogs managed to blame the right for this mess.

6) Warren Buffoon likes to be liked, I get that, but he should still STFU and make a real gesture. Giving a symbolic billion dollars to the federal mafia should do it. He won't miss it.

Was anyone else reminded of a Christmas Carol whenever that stupid interviewer opened her mouth?



"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their
useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."



Personally, having had some experience teaching part time while in uni, you could not pay me enough money to do it. So I have nothing but the utmost respect for those that are willing to put up with non-stop stress, abuse and crappy pay and still try to educate kids. Damon is absolutely right.

They sounded like Scrooge McDuck's nephews...

>> ^dag:

Best line: "when you're swimming through your pussy vault like Scrooge fucking McDuck".
So much of this campaign is centered around "school will end soon, just hang in there" when did school become a prison sentence to be endured? I'm disliking the notion of high school more and more these days- not sure that the positives outweigh the negatives.


To me, school always felt like a prison sentence until college in '87.