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RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 4:17:18 AM

rulemylife

Posts: 14614
Joined: 8/23/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin

For capitalism to prosper, poverty has to exist !

And in such a system there are those with obscene wealth and those with obscene poverty and every direct comparison in between.

Now I am not intending to denigrate capitalism because of what it is, nor because I inhabit the lower echelons of the capitalistic system, and as it happens I happen to believe some elements of capitalism are good, the chief being that capitalism provides the carrot for those who are able and wanting to better themselves, where is the wrong in that ?

But my ideal of capitalism is the situation where when the level has been achieved where one has become comfortable, then a helping hand should be extended to others to get on the first rung of bettering themselves, the ''have done it's '' help those not moving, get moving and there everyone raises the standard of everyone else, everyone is responsible for each other, so a sort of socio-capitalist system if there can be such a thing, and one where it is hoped those at the top better themselves by developing a conscience where out and out greed it is hoped is dissolved.

But why is greed so prevalent, even promoted in society ?

Good question.

My answer would be propaganda.

Those that have the most wealth, like the Koch brothers, are able to convince enough people that their wealth should be protected because it benefits everyone.

The same with the Walton family that is trying to to eliminate the inheritance tax.

Wal-Mart makes them a fortune but they are still not satisfied.

< Message edited by rulemylife -- 9/11/2011 4:18:19 AM >

(in reply to Aneirin)

Post #: 21

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 4:23:14 AM

Edwynn

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Joined: 10/26/2008
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We shouldn't be thinking in terms of "distribution" at all, truth be known.

If markets were anywise half way regulated in the US, then we would have a well functioning market system, in which the lower market rate workers would still be decently compensated and well appreciated, as in continental Europe.

That was thrown out the window 10-12 years ago in the US, bye-bye any sane market system after that.

Goldman's better management of their Greek currency swap - debt deceit might have avoided other issues too, who knows.

But here we are now.

< Message edited by Edwynn -- 9/11/2011 4:36:44 AM >

(in reply to Fellow)

Post #: 22

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 4:29:45 AM

Jaded2005

Posts: 56
Joined: 9/4/2004
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It's all about the gold standard.
He who has gold, decides the standard!

_____________________________

The greatest delusion of the working class is that
they believe we live in a democracy.
The greatest fear of the ruling class is that some day
the working class will realize that this is not so.

(in reply to Edwynn)

Post #: 23

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 10:20:09 AM

heartcream

Posts: 3044
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From: Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop
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We need more help than us mere humans can conjure The reason dickwads (not all rich people are wads, speaking of the way too many who are) are rich and most of us are not is not because they are more talented or fabulous than us. Intent makes all the difference in the world. I am going to love to see the day when folks are compensated for their core intent or not compensated. We will see how fast these people hoarding it will last.

It is complex and age old. Doesnt make it right at all. Or the way it is meant to be. Things will change I bet, and they will change for the better. The balance and shift in power will happen and it will be a case of the meek inheriting the Earth and keeping it afterall. You can be rich and be meek.

_____________________________

"Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague." Vincent Van Gogh

I'd Rather Be With You

Every single line means something.
Jean-Michel Basquiat

(in reply to Jaded2005)

Post #: 24

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 10:30:57 AM

heartcream

Posts: 3044
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From: Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jaded2005

It's all about the gold standard.
He who has gold, decides the standard!

Depends how you define gold as well.

< Message edited by heartcream -- 9/11/2011 10:48:02 AM >

_____________________________

"Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague." Vincent Van Gogh

I'd Rather Be With You

Every single line means something.
Jean-Michel Basquiat

(in reply to Jaded2005)

Post #: 25

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/11/2011 11:06:25 PM

tweakabelle

Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: Sydney Australia
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: heartcream

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Tax cuts ....for rich people is just nuts.

Good thing there havent been any tax cuts for the rich.

There haven't been???????????????

Were you asleep during Reagan and Bush?

Willbur's consciousness is Neanderthal ... it's been asleep for millenia. All those years covering the entire history of humanity up to today went straight past Willbur's brain - as is evident in just about any of his posts.

_____________________________

(in reply to rulemylife)

Post #: 26

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 1:11:24 AM

Hippiekinkster

Posts: 5512
Joined: 11/20/2007
From: Liechtenstein
Status: offline

http://www.youtube.com/user/SpokenVerse#p/search/5/8_YOnA6Cu5U

_____________________________

"We are convinced that freedom w/o Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism w/o freedom is slavery and brutality." Bakunin

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.” Reinhold Ne

(in reply to tweakabelle)

Post #: 27

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 6:14:39 AM

Sanity

Posts: 22039
Joined: 6/14/2006
From: Nampa, Idaho USA
Status: offline

Theyre "lizards" who need to be shot off into space?

I hope that for your sake and for everyone elses, whatever room you are posting from is secure, and well padded

quote:

ORIGINAL: heartcream

The feckwits who are greedy lizards and dont care at all about our Pretty planet or it's people live in any continent. They are the ones we need to send off in a space ship far, far, away. I think people with 100 grand are not poor but certainly not in the one percentile we are addressing either. I think it is a matter of intent. Rich people doing good with their lives and cash are fine by me. I am not sure what is going to happen with our money system over the next few years, I am curious to see what happens, how it plays out.

As long as there is Third World no matter where we have a big problem. Imagine the input from these destitute countries if they werent busy starving to death and the like? Our White man world is so technological, which is fine but it would be mightily balanced out by other elements if Africa, India, South/Central American and wherever else wasnt dying on a daily basis rather than flourishing and thriving. The whole world has much to offer but one cannot offer up thier gifts and talents when they are not eating or getting proper water and basic needs met.

The lizards need to get out off the path, get out of the way and quit being lizardy hoarders of wealth that thye do no good with. People starve in First and Second worlds too, it is nuts. Needs to stop.

I love the idea of people doing what they love and growing in many ways because of it. I want a nice home and the ability to travel and the like, nothing wrong with that and I wish it for all my friends and all the good people of this Earth.

_____________________________

Inside Every Liberal Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out

(in reply to heartcream)

Post #: 28

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 9:35:27 AM

willbeurdaddy

Posts: 11894
Joined: 4/8/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: heartcream

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Tax cuts ....for rich people is just nuts.

Good thing there havent been any tax cuts for the rich.

There haven't been???????????????

Were you asleep during Reagan and Bush?

No you bought the liberal rhetoric and lies. As a result of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts the "rich" have paid a larger proportion of Federal Income Taxes than they ever have, and that despite the fact that their effective rates are down somewhat recently because of their disproportionate losses in the financial markets.

_____________________________

Hear the lark
and harken
to the barking of the dogfox,
gone to ground.

(in reply to rulemylife)

Post #: 29

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 9:36:37 AM

willbeurdaddy

Posts: 11894
Joined: 4/8/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow

quote:

Tax cuts and bail outs for rich people is just nuts.

Who needs taxes when the government can create money as much as they wish (out of nothingness). Besides, giving them more means more microwave ovens for you to pass through in the airports, homeland security centers in every village, more foreign wars.
I think, the focus on taxes is a wrong direction. We should focus on how to change the system of income distribution, but not how to distribute more to the government. The government is over-extended to the limit.

Because creating money IS a tax.

_____________________________

Hear the lark
and harken
to the barking of the dogfox,
gone to ground.

(in reply to Fellow)

Post #: 30

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 11:06:13 AM

SternSkipper

Posts: 7546
Joined: 3/7/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ROFLMAO....willbur you are too funny.

He's only been this good since the day that I explained to him how the greats like AZBM do it so consistently... (Spraypaint and paper lunch bags)

_____________________________

Looking forward to The Dead Singing The National Anthem At The World Series.

Tinfoilers Swallow

(in reply to slvemike4u)

Post #: 31

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 11:19:58 AM

popeye1250

Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline

Heartcream, I don't think it's a matter of people not paying enough taxes, it's a matter of our govt. spending *way more* than it should be!
It's like a drunk on a bender, you don't give them more booze so the bender can continue, you decrease the amout of booze they're drinking so the bender will end.

_____________________________

"But Your Honor, this is not a Jury of my Peers, these people are all decent, honest, law-abiding citizens!"

(in reply to heartcream)

Post #: 32

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 3:12:29 PM

SternSkipper

Posts: 7546
Joined: 3/7/2004
Status: offline

quote:

You know what?
There is an old saying, “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”

Wow,,, that reminds me of yet another old saying ...
Leave your blood at the red cross, not in the road. - Broderick Crawford "The Highway Patrol"

_____________________________

Looking forward to The Dead Singing The National Anthem At The World Series.

Tinfoilers Swallow

(in reply to tj444)

Post #: 33

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 8:13:10 PM

Hippiekinkster

Posts: 5512
Joined: 11/20/2007
From: Liechtenstein
Status: offline

Al Franken: in "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," recalls an episode from historian Barbara Tuchman's "In a Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century," where she writes about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley. At one estate the serfs attacked the manor house, killed the knight, and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after 10 or 12 peasants violated the lady, with the children still watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her dead husband and then killed her.
Now THAT is fucking class warfare.
Arguing over the tax rate for the top one percent is not. (ty Ziegfried)

_____________________________

"We are convinced that freedom w/o Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism w/o freedom is slavery and brutality." Bakunin

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.” Reinhold Ne

(in reply to SternSkipper)

Post #: 34

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/21/2011 8:29:20 PM

willbeurdaddy

Posts: 11894
Joined: 4/8/2006
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: heartcream

We need more help than us mere humans can conjure The reason dickwads (not all rich people are wads, speaking of the way too many who are) are rich and most of us are not is not because they are more talented or fabulous than us. Intent makes all the difference in the world.

Not sure what you mean by "intent", but you are only partially correct. They ARE more talented and more "fabulous" (in the case of entertainers) than most people, but there are a lot of people who are equally so. What sets the winner from the equally talented 2d place finsihers?....they work their asses off.

And the day the meek inherit the earth is when the earth is reduced to rubble already. It can never happen otherwise, because there will always be someone more talented or more willing to sacrifice than the meek.

< Message edited by willbeurdaddy -- 9/21/2011 8:30:46 PM >

_____________________________

Hear the lark
and harken
to the barking of the dogfox,
gone to ground.

(in reply to heartcream)

Post #: 35

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/22/2011 2:22:42 AM

Termyn8or

Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline

"Because creating money IS a tax. "

Wahddya figure ten percent of the sheeple know that ?

And you better quit coming up with shit I agree with, this place would not be as much fun.

T^T

(in reply to willbeurdaddy)

Post #: 36

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/22/2011 5:11:03 AM

EternalHoH

Posts: 791
Joined: 5/30/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
What sets the winner from the equally talented 2d place finsihers?....they work their asses off.

And the 'winners' write bigger lobbying checks to get their way, legislatively. Thats why most of the middle class is working their asses off for more time out of a workweek now than ever before and are getting nowhere.

(in reply to willbeurdaddy)

Post #: 37

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/22/2011 6:43:35 AM

kdsub

Posts: 12180
Joined: 8/16/2007
Status: offline

I worry about how much money I can earn…I don’t care about how much money you can earn. I’m not jealous of you if you make more as long as you do not break the law in doing it. I don’t care if you make less than me either…that’s on you… just as long as we both have the same opportunities.

So… get off your ass… use your assets…make as much money as you can or want and don’t worry about what I make.

My post is about making money…now how you spend it will say more about you.

Butch

_____________________________

Mark Twain:

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

(in reply to heartcream)

Post #: 38

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/22/2011 9:26:07 AM

MileHighM

Posts: 400
Joined: 10/8/2009
Status: offline

To the OP:

While the distribution of wealth among of private citizens may be unsettling to many like yourself and require government action to even things out, I believe that distribution is often a function of government meddling rather than inaction. Wealthy people often hoard money out of the economy when they feel uncertain about the actions and behavior of the government. Whether taxes are high or low, the very uncertainy the government creates by not having a long term fixed taxation strategy only harms the economy. Investing, creating jobs, starting businesses, etc, is a gamble. How many people like to sit at a black jack table and place bets when they don't know if the dealer has to stand or hit on 17? The answer is not many, and if they do they aren't betting big.

However, I do have to ask, why many people who share these positions of hate towards wealth distribution have no malace towards the wealth of the single largest entity in the world, the US gov't? The wealth of the US gov't is staggering, yet there are people who consistently claim the government should have more of it. Right now, the US Federal, State, and Local governments collect over $4T in revenue every year, and are spending over $5T (Hence our deficit)(want a source? look it up on your fave lefty/righty website, you are all adults)

When you consider the vast sums of money the government is playing with, and what quantities they are simply pissing away (purposeless wars, subsidies of every kind, futile/meaningless research and art projects, redundant government agencies and employees, a lost war on drugs, prisoner cable, etc, etc). Would it not be reasonable to assume that in that $5T of spending that we could squeezy measly 10% or $500Bil out of the budget?? Because really, what could 500B do? It could give 50 million Americans a $10,000 check every year (or 100mil som graduating scale between $10K and $1 depending on income and dependants). Talk about making sure the poor can afford health insurance or a roof over your head!!! I think the indignance should be placed squarely on the government. With so much money, how can they piss away so much, while the citizenry struggle to afford glasses for their kids, their mortgage, regular preventitive care, etc.

I think this will always boil down to a spending issue until we can wisely spend what we have already. With such waste now, will any increase in revenue really solve the problem? Certainly no tax cuts and bail outs (actually, bail-outs should be made constitutionally illegal), but really what good will a hike do with current state that we are in?

(in reply to heartcream)

Post #: 39

RE: Fault Lines: The Top 1% - 9/22/2011 11:47:52 AM

willbeurdaddy

Posts: 11894
Joined: 4/8/2006
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: heartcream

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Tax cuts ....for rich people is just nuts.

Good thing there havent been any tax cuts for the rich.

There haven't been???????????????

Were you asleep during Reagan and Bush?

Willbur's consciousness is Neanderthal ... it's been asleep for millenia. All those years covering the entire history of humanity up to today went straight past Willbur's brain - as is evident in just about any of his posts.

Your grasp of facts is primordial.

_____________________________

Hear the lark
and harken
to the barking of the dogfox,
gone to ground.

(in reply to tweakabelle)

Post #: 40

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