My point isn't that the poor aren't hurting, or that we should tax the poor more heavily. My point is that this thread is full of people vilifying the rich, but the rich are the one who already pay 85% of the tax collected annually (cited numerous times already in my comments; look at my comment history if you need the citation), and that is --sometimes literally -- biting the hand that feeds you (okay, maybe not literally "biting", but literally "the hand that feeds you" anyway).
Don't get me wrong -- at this point, I hate the left AND the right. I'm certainly not partisan. IMHO, both sides are corrupt, evil, scumbags who are trying to get their share before the whole country goes belly up. I also cast a jaded eye towards your claim that the left makes "legitimate, reasoned arguments..." If anyone on either side of the political spectrum were doing so, it would be a breath of fresh air, but that's a bunny trail for another time.
Back on track...I have a "transparent, legitimate" rebuttal for each of the things you replied to:
cash for clunkers and Solyndra: Government has no business telling businesses how to do business. If the business can't run without government subsidizing it, then you are saying the business is not competitive. Why sink money into a company that isn't competitive? If there is something in the legal environment that puts the company at a disadvantage to foreign competitors, then fix the legal environment. If the demand for the product is low, then don't waste my tax dollars trying to keep an unwanted product on the market. Furthermore, "domestic" manufacturing base is irrelevant in an international economy. Chrysler was one of the companies bailed out by the Feds...and Chrysler owns Mercedes. So how much of the money that was spent to bail out Chrysler went to jobs and factories in the U.S., and how much went to Germany? Furthermore, I recall hearing a while ago that Toyota (a Japanese company, mind you) has the largest manufacturing work force in the U.S. of all the major auto makers. So is the manufacturing capability really a concern if the Japanese auto makers are hiring more U.S. workers than the "domestic" corporations?
ACORN: yes, and they got caught with their pants around their ankles. The ostensible purpose for ACORN may very well have been a good one, but some of their methods...not so much. I am not a Machiavellian; I don't believe that the ends justify the means. If you can't achieve your (good) purpose in an ethical manner, then you aren't doing good.
Obamacare: there are indeed a number of problems with our current health care mess. Obamacare is an attempt to fix that, but IMHO, it's a misguided attempt. A monopoly is always bad for consumers, a government-run monopoly more so. I am extremely skeptical that government can run health care more efficiently, more fairly and more humanely than the free market. Unfortunately, once Obamacare is put in place, I won't have any alternative at all, whereas right now, if my employer's health care plan sucks (and it's about to, starting Jan. 1), I can always look for an employer that offers a better plan.
I'll stand by my description of Obama as corrupt. When political decisions are motivated by greed and paying off those who helped put you in office, that meets my definition of "corrupt". Can I prove it? No. But I'm not charging him in court; I am stating my personal opinion. In my opinion, Obama is not doing what he thinks is best for the country. Rather, he's paying off those who put him in power, and he's saying what he thinks the voters want to hear so he can stay there for another term, and that is corrupt.
That's not blackmail, that's simple economics. If it costs me X dollars to produce goods in the U.S., but only 0.25*X or 0.5*X or even 0.8*X to produce the same goods in ${Random_Third_World_Country} then why would I continue to do business in the U.S.? Claiming that the rich only levy that argument to blackmail us into giving them their way is disingenuous, at best.
In other words, e.g. if you want twice as much, you gotta work 4 times as hard...
I'm not quite following what you say here. The friction analogy makes sense, but I'm not sure if you're saying that's the way it is or if you are saying that's the way it should be. Regardless, my problem is this: For what reason do we want to make it even harder for companies (or individuals) to be successful? It's not like there is a limited amount of wealth, and once that wealth is used up, no one else gets any. Production creates wealth. Making it harder to be successful puts an artificial cap on the successful, i.e., the ones who are producing goods, creating wealth, providing jobs to others, etc. IMHO, being successful is a good thing for everyone involved.
You and are on pretty much the same page, although I don't think I agree that the rich are quite so evil as you are claiming, but that's a tangent). I'm with you 100% on the flat tax and the plan to reduce the budget deficit, though.
America always seems to do best when there's gridlock due to different parties controlling Congress and the White House, because the perpetual conflict ensures they can't screw things up too badly.
Exactly. That is a economic stimulus plan I could get behind:D
Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president? Eight horrible years of peace and prosperity...
Under Clinton? You remember those years differently than I do. I seem to recall concerns about recession during his tenure, although admittedly, it wasn't as bad as what's happening now, although twelve years of fiscal irresponsibility will do that. As far as "peace" goes, do you remember Bosnia/Serbia, Somalia, launching the cruise missile at Libya, etc., etc.?
Yes, there certainly are people who lucked into wealth. But if you think that money just makes itself, I humbly submit that you don't know WTF you are talking about. A few years ago, I worked with the wife of a millionaire. That dude worked his butt off, easily doubling the hours I worked every week. The bottom line is this: Obama has fed you a line of crap, that it's the "evil rich" who are the reason you are a have-not. You can buy that story if you want, but while you might be right that "Working hard is by far no guarantee to get wealthy,", IME, it's the best option out there for those of us who weren't born into wealth. I was flat broke a while back (1995), but I'm reasonably comfortable right now. That's not because the government "redistributed" the wealth "fairly"; it's because I worked hard and paid my dues. YMMV, but I've got no patience for this bitterness against the rich. Working hard isn't a guarantee, but jealousy won't get you anywhere.
I remember when I first got a "real" job, by which, I mean one that wasn't a paper route or fast food. One of my coworkers was griping about the taxes taken out of her paycheck, when I commented, "That's more than my entire gross income this pay period!" Say what you will about the upper and (upper-) middle classes, but the fact remains, these are the people who are already footing most of the bill for the services that all of us use.
...unfortunately, the investments are all on the other side of the world.
Bingo! That's the problem right there.
If they were actually investing in this country we wouldn't have the massive unemployment we do.
And that's the solution. Unfortunately, Obama proposing a "Wealthy Tax" (in other words, punishing the successful for, well, being successful) isn't going to make that happen. If you want investors to invest in this country, you've got to provide businesses with incentives to stay here. Raising the taxes on business, investors, and others who succeed isn't going to do that, no matter how well it sits with the ignorant masses who complain that "it isn't fair!" that someone has more money than they do.
Some rich people (and wannabes) always bring up the "they (yeah right) will leave and go to tax havens. I say good riddance.
Great plan. I mean, we've already got more jobs in this country than we need, so moving those companies -- and their associated jobs -- overseas won't matter much, right? Right? <sound of crickets chirping>
That's true ONLY if you neglect other taxes, such as licensing (you need at least a business license, and depending upon your business, probably other miscellaneous licenses as well), employee taxes (unemployment insurance, FICA, etc.) and so on. You'd be surprised out how many ways the government, from municipal all the way up to federal, can find to leach money out of corporations.
Don't be dense. If you want to look at it that way, people don't pay taxes either; they just pass their tax costs on to their employers...who pass it on to their customers...who work for someone else, and pass their tax cost on to their employers...wash, rinse, repeat. That's the problem with junior high school economics class -- it simplifies the concepts to the level that a 13 or 14 year old can understand. However, that process of simplification inevitably leads to inaccuracies in the economic model it creates; it is not a valid description of how things actually work in the real world.
As the husband of a small business owner, I can assure you that corporations DO, in fact, pay taxes. Lots of them, actually. Yes, those taxes are paid from the profits of the business, and those profits come from the consumer. But don't fool yourself by saying that "tax costs [are passed] on to the price of [the] goods." There's a limit to how high you can raise your prices before people stop buying from you (supply and demand, right?).
I agree with your sentiment. However, I have to say, all of the things he mentioned are right on the money. The programs he listed* are certainly reason enough to claim that Obama is corrupt and should be removed from office.
*with these possible exceptions:
SEIU (which I know nothing about, and therefore cannot comment one way or the other in good conscience);
TSA (which was started under Bush, as your sig correctly points out -- although it has gotten especially egregious on Obama's watch);
cash for clunkers (if you choose to include the bank and GM/Chrysler bailouts, then that also started under Bush, IIRC).
I haven't read what Buffet had to say about the tax situation for the rich, so I don't know how much he is -- or is not -- paying. However, I have read statistics that claim that the top 25% of the wealth in America pays 85% of the taxes. That stat dates from 2007, so things may have changed since then, but IF that stat is even remotely accurate, then saying, "To anyone who makes over $1M/year and claims that raising their taxes is unfair, SUCK IT UP....if you can't afford to live within yours, CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE." is at least somewhat over simplistic and naive.
...the rich seem to think that because they make millions, they don't have to contribute.
[Citation Needed]
In fact, I'll see your claim that the rich don't pay their share and raise you a citation of my own. If these stats are accurate, and yes, I know what they say about statistics, then the top 25% of wealth in America pays 85% of the taxes. Does that seem "fair" to YOU?
What you don't realize is that there is no such thing as "fair". "Fair" is an arbitrary concept that is only defined within the context of the one who is using the term. To those below the poverty level, it isn't "fair" that they have to pay any taxes at all, because they don't have enough money to provide for their own needs, much less to contribute to the common good. To the rich, it isn't fair that the top 25% of income in the U.S. is paying 85% of the taxes -- they (presumably) worked hard for their money, so why should they have to shoulder the burden of paying to provide goods and services for the welfare class? My own personal opinion is that there should be a flat tax -- say 25% -- across the board for everyone above the poverty level. No credits, no loopholes, just a flat tax rate that applies to everyone. But that's not "fair" either, because those just above the poverty level ($11,161 in 2009) will feel that 25% hit (or $2790.25) far more than a rich person will. However, it isn't "fair" to the rich person (someone making over $250,000 per year, per Wikipedia and dailyfinance.com) either, because a 25% tax rate lightens their pocket by $62,500 -- over 5 1/2 times the ENTIRE SALARY of a borderline poor person. Is that "fair"?
So, I'm not terribly interested in what people call "fair" because there's no such thing. If you think you can find some objective measure of what "fair" means, you are fooling yourself.
Both parties are the parties of class warfare. The Republicans represent large corporations, and the Democrats support the welfare state and labor unions. What's your point? Quite frankly, if I'm going to support one side or the other, I'm going to support the side that actually produces goods,that is, the businesses.
However, to be honest, I believe that having relative parity in the government keeps either side from excess, since both sides are more interested in furthering their own political power, regardless of what it costs the nation as a whole.
While the rich "work", it's mainly having money work for them.
What's wrong with that? Have you ever opened a savings account at a bank? Have you ever put money in a 401k or other retirement plan? Congratulations! You, too, have tried to get your money to "work for [you]" That's not a bad thing; it's a smart thing, although with our current financial situation, traditional investing in the stock market may not be a wise decision. I knew a guy a few years ago who was a millionaire. Trust me, he worked for his money. Even if you are just an investor, you spend a lot of time studying investments, learning which ones are good and which ones are bad. Just as a construction worker or other manual laborer may look at my job as a network administrator and say, "That's not working!", to someone outside of the industry, investing doesn't look like work...but I dare say that it's longer, harder work -- with more risk -- than you'd think.
Even if everybody had the means to and greed to get a face job, tan, tailored suit and the right club memberships, and enough money to invest after that, society would fall apart if everybody were investors and canape pushers, and no-one were workers.
Well, yeah. Society would fall apart if everyone were an investor. You can't invest in a business if no one is actually making products. However, I would argue that society would also fall apart if no one were investing. Investors provide the capital that businesses need to expand and grow. Remove the investors, and you are left with small mom-and-pop operations. Companies like Cisco, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, HP, etc., etc., etc., got where they are because someone invested in them. Do you seriously think our economy would be better off if no one had invested in these companies when they were still operating in their respective garages?
Reward skill, not greed.
Do you seriously think there is no skill required in investing? Try it out some time. Give yourself a million dollars in Monopoly money. Pick a few stocks to "invest" that money in. Take a little time -- a few weeks, a few months, a year, whatever -- and see how your stocks do. Then tell me if you think you could make a living at it. A successful investor is every bit as skilled at what (s)he does as someone successful in any other career field. I know/. group-think says that investors are the epitome of evil -- and people like Bernie Madoff and Michael Milkin before him didn't do much to dispel that myth -- but without them, our economy would crumble. And if you think your financial situation sucks right now, you should see what it would look like without investors to drive the economy.
"Waaahhhh!!! Someone has more money than me. That's not FAIR! Mr. President, can you go take some of that from them so that we will be more equal?"
Are there rich people who have wealth that they didn't earn? Sure. Without a doubt, there are rich people who have simply lucked into privilege by inheriting the wealth that someone else worked for. But there are also rich people who worked hard, paid their dues, and invested wisely, and now are reaping the benefit of their hard work. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less if someone is rich because they are "collecting dividends and stock profits" because both of those things require investing income. Whether you are sacrificing your labor to build a business (i.e., Bill Gates, much as I dislike Microsoft and their products) or investing your capital (i.e., Warren Buffet), you are still taking a risk and giving up your resources now for the promise of a future payout. That's the way things are SUPPOSED to work. I'll never be a millionaire, much less a billionaire, because I wasn't willing to pay the dues required to get there. But I am a rather comfortable middle-class to upper middle class, and I got here through twenty-plus years of hard work (college, crappy entry-level jobs, finally got a break in IT, and another ten or twelve years of advancing through the IT career field). You can gripe that the wealthy are just parasites leaching off the hard work of others, but quite honestly, I don't see it that way.
What I do see, however, is the wealthy deciding that the U.S. is not a hospitable place for business or investments if this tax plan is approved, and moving their money elsewhere. If that happens, expect our economy to spiral even further downward, because when a nation consumes more than it produces, it will eventually go bust. The handwriting is already on the wall. Our economy is in trouble, and shipping jobs, manufacturing and businesses overseas because the President has the misguided idea that taxing the rich will fix the deficit will only make that worse. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, because we are in for a rough ride.
Obviously, you've never read the tripe^Wspin^Wdis^w^w^winformation that Blogger Bobposts on the official TSA blog. Bob never seems to let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to crow about the fantastic job his employer is doing:roll_eyes:
You are being far too kind to TSA. Sure, the post office may not be the very model of efficiency, but I still use USPS and honestly, I am rather happy with the service I receive from them. TSA? Not so much. (shameless plug to my blog, for those who are concerned about such things).
If a private company gropes you, public opinion forces them to change or they go out of business from driving away airport travelers.
Sorry, but no. Airports already have the option of hiring private companies to perform the screening (IIRC, Orlando, FL already does). However, the private companies are still required to follow the policies mandated by the Federal government, so you are still groped and/or nudie-scoped. The only difference is that perhaps the private companies are less obnoxious while violating your civil liberties than TSA.
Then you need a better way to do the whitelisting:)
We use a Squid proxy to filter HTTP traffic, and squidGuard to create the filtering policies. Shalla, IIRC the company that created squidGuard, has a really good list of domains and URLs that fit into various categories (i.e., porn, drugs, violence, social networking, spyware, etc.). You tell squidGuard which categories to block based upon your business needs, and squidGuard does the rest. You can even add rules that allow more liberal policies at certain times of the day (after hours, weekends, lunch time, etc.) and you can add rules that whitelist certain web sites in a category that you want blocked (for example, we block "chat" which includes/., but we explicitly allow./).
By having a community-maintained block list and blocking by category rather than individual domain or URL, the overhead associated with whitelisting goes way, way down.
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My point isn't that the poor aren't hurting, or that we should tax the poor more heavily. My point is that this thread is full of people vilifying the rich, but the rich are the one who already pay 85% of the tax collected annually (cited numerous times already in my comments; look at my comment history if you need the citation), and that is --sometimes literally -- biting the hand that feeds you (okay, maybe not literally "biting", but literally "the hand that feeds you" anyway).
Don't get me wrong -- at this point, I hate the left AND the right. I'm certainly not partisan. IMHO, both sides are corrupt, evil, scumbags who are trying to get their share before the whole country goes belly up. I also cast a jaded eye towards your claim that the left makes "legitimate, reasoned arguments..." If anyone on either side of the political spectrum were doing so, it would be a breath of fresh air, but that's a bunny trail for another time.
Back on track...I have a "transparent, legitimate" rebuttal for each of the things you replied to:
cash for clunkers and Solyndra: Government has no business telling businesses how to do business. If the business can't run without government subsidizing it, then you are saying the business is not competitive. Why sink money into a company that isn't competitive? If there is something in the legal environment that puts the company at a disadvantage to foreign competitors, then fix the legal environment. If the demand for the product is low, then don't waste my tax dollars trying to keep an unwanted product on the market. Furthermore, "domestic" manufacturing base is irrelevant in an international economy. Chrysler was one of the companies bailed out by the Feds...and Chrysler owns Mercedes. So how much of the money that was spent to bail out Chrysler went to jobs and factories in the U.S., and how much went to Germany? Furthermore, I recall hearing a while ago that Toyota (a Japanese company, mind you) has the largest manufacturing work force in the U.S. of all the major auto makers. So is the manufacturing capability really a concern if the Japanese auto makers are hiring more U.S. workers than the "domestic" corporations?
ACORN: yes, and they got caught with their pants around their ankles. The ostensible purpose for ACORN may very well have been a good one, but some of their methods...not so much. I am not a Machiavellian; I don't believe that the ends justify the means. If you can't achieve your (good) purpose in an ethical manner, then you aren't doing good.
Obamacare: there are indeed a number of problems with our current health care mess. Obamacare is an attempt to fix that, but IMHO, it's a misguided attempt. A monopoly is always bad for consumers, a government-run monopoly more so. I am extremely skeptical that government can run health care more efficiently, more fairly and more humanely than the free market. Unfortunately, once Obamacare is put in place, I won't have any alternative at all, whereas right now, if my employer's health care plan sucks (and it's about to, starting Jan. 1), I can always look for an employer that offers a better plan.
I'll stand by my description of Obama as corrupt. When political decisions are motivated by greed and paying off those who helped put you in office, that meets my definition of "corrupt". Can I prove it? No. But I'm not charging him in court; I am stating my personal opinion. In my opinion, Obama is not doing what he thinks is best for the country. Rather, he's paying off those who put him in power, and he's saying what he thinks the voters want to hear so he can stay there for another term, and that is corrupt.
Yeah... the usual blackmail.
That's not blackmail, that's simple economics. If it costs me X dollars to produce goods in the U.S., but only 0.25*X or 0.5*X or even 0.8*X to produce the same goods in ${Random_Third_World_Country} then why would I continue to do business in the U.S.? Claiming that the rich only levy that argument to blackmail us into giving them their way is disingenuous, at best.
In other words, e.g. if you want twice as much, you gotta work 4 times as hard...
I'm not quite following what you say here. The friction analogy makes sense, but I'm not sure if you're saying that's the way it is or if you are saying that's the way it should be. Regardless, my problem is this: For what reason do we want to make it even harder for companies (or individuals) to be successful? It's not like there is a limited amount of wealth, and once that wealth is used up, no one else gets any. Production creates wealth. Making it harder to be successful puts an artificial cap on the successful, i.e., the ones who are producing goods, creating wealth, providing jobs to others, etc. IMHO, being successful is a good thing for everyone involved.
You and are on pretty much the same page, although I don't think I agree that the rich are quite so evil as you are claiming, but that's a tangent). I'm with you 100% on the flat tax and the plan to reduce the budget deficit, though.
America always seems to do best when there's gridlock due to different parties controlling Congress and the White House, because the perpetual conflict ensures they can't screw things up too badly.
Exactly. That is a economic stimulus plan I could get behind :D
Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president? Eight horrible years of peace and prosperity...
Under Clinton? You remember those years differently than I do. I seem to recall concerns about recession during his tenure, although admittedly, it wasn't as bad as what's happening now, although twelve years of fiscal irresponsibility will do that. As far as "peace" goes, do you remember Bosnia/Serbia, Somalia, launching the cruise missile at Libya, etc., etc.?
You've been enjoying the Kool-Aid, I see.
Yes, there certainly are people who lucked into wealth. But if you think that money just makes itself, I humbly submit that you don't know WTF you are talking about. A few years ago, I worked with the wife of a millionaire. That dude worked his butt off, easily doubling the hours I worked every week. The bottom line is this: Obama has fed you a line of crap, that it's the "evil rich" who are the reason you are a have-not. You can buy that story if you want, but while you might be right that "Working hard is by far no guarantee to get wealthy,", IME, it's the best option out there for those of us who weren't born into wealth. I was flat broke a while back (1995), but I'm reasonably comfortable right now. That's not because the government "redistributed" the wealth "fairly"; it's because I worked hard and paid my dues. YMMV, but I've got no patience for this bitterness against the rich. Working hard isn't a guarantee, but jealousy won't get you anywhere.
[Citation Needed]
I remember when I first got a "real" job, by which, I mean one that wasn't a paper route or fast food. One of my coworkers was griping about the taxes taken out of her paycheck, when I commented, "That's more than my entire gross income this pay period!" Say what you will about the upper and (upper-) middle classes, but the fact remains, these are the people who are already footing most of the bill for the services that all of us use.
...unfortunately, the investments are all on the other side of the world.
Bingo! That's the problem right there.
If they were actually investing in this country we wouldn't have the massive unemployment we do.
And that's the solution. Unfortunately, Obama proposing a "Wealthy Tax" (in other words, punishing the successful for, well, being successful) isn't going to make that happen. If you want investors to invest in this country, you've got to provide businesses with incentives to stay here. Raising the taxes on business, investors, and others who succeed isn't going to do that, no matter how well it sits with the ignorant masses who complain that "it isn't fair!" that someone has more money than they do.
Some rich people (and wannabes) always bring up the "they (yeah right) will leave and go to tax havens. I say good riddance.
Great plan. I mean, we've already got more jobs in this country than we need, so moving those companies -- and their associated jobs -- overseas won't matter much, right? Right? <sound of crickets chirping>
Corporations are only taxed if they turn profits.
That's true ONLY if you neglect other taxes, such as licensing (you need at least a business license, and depending upon your business, probably other miscellaneous licenses as well), employee taxes (unemployment insurance, FICA, etc.) and so on. You'd be surprised out how many ways the government, from municipal all the way up to federal, can find to leach money out of corporations.
Garbage indeed. I've seen stats that contradict your claims. Do you have stats to support yours?
Don't be dense. If you want to look at it that way, people don't pay taxes either; they just pass their tax costs on to their employers...who pass it on to their customers...who work for someone else, and pass their tax cost on to their employers...wash, rinse, repeat. That's the problem with junior high school economics class -- it simplifies the concepts to the level that a 13 or 14 year old can understand. However, that process of simplification inevitably leads to inaccuracies in the economic model it creates; it is not a valid description of how things actually work in the real world.
As the husband of a small business owner, I can assure you that corporations DO, in fact, pay taxes. Lots of them, actually. Yes, those taxes are paid from the profits of the business, and those profits come from the consumer. But don't fool yourself by saying that "tax costs [are passed] on to the price of [the] goods." There's a limit to how high you can raise your prices before people stop buying from you (supply and demand, right?).
*with these possible exceptions:
I haven't read what Buffet had to say about the tax situation for the rich, so I don't know how much he is -- or is not -- paying. However, I have read statistics that claim that the top 25% of the wealth in America pays 85% of the taxes. That stat dates from 2007, so things may have changed since then, but IF that stat is even remotely accurate, then saying, "To anyone who makes over $1M/year and claims that raising their taxes is unfair, SUCK IT UP....if you can't afford to live within yours, CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE." is at least somewhat over simplistic and naive.
...the rich seem to think that because they make millions, they don't have to contribute.
[Citation Needed]
In fact, I'll see your claim that the rich don't pay their share and raise you a citation of my own. If these stats are accurate, and yes, I know what they say about statistics, then the top 25% of wealth in America pays 85% of the taxes. Does that seem "fair" to YOU?
What you don't realize is that there is no such thing as "fair". "Fair" is an arbitrary concept that is only defined within the context of the one who is using the term. To those below the poverty level, it isn't "fair" that they have to pay any taxes at all, because they don't have enough money to provide for their own needs, much less to contribute to the common good. To the rich, it isn't fair that the top 25% of income in the U.S. is paying 85% of the taxes -- they (presumably) worked hard for their money, so why should they have to shoulder the burden of paying to provide goods and services for the welfare class? My own personal opinion is that there should be a flat tax -- say 25% -- across the board for everyone above the poverty level. No credits, no loopholes, just a flat tax rate that applies to everyone. But that's not "fair" either, because those just above the poverty level ($11,161 in 2009) will feel that 25% hit (or $2790.25) far more than a rich person will. However, it isn't "fair" to the rich person (someone making over $250,000 per year, per Wikipedia and dailyfinance.com) either, because a 25% tax rate lightens their pocket by $62,500 -- over 5 1/2 times the ENTIRE SALARY of a borderline poor person. Is that "fair"?
So, I'm not terribly interested in what people call "fair" because there's no such thing. If you think you can find some objective measure of what "fair" means, you are fooling yourself.
Both parties are the parties of class warfare. The Republicans represent large corporations, and the Democrats support the welfare state and labor unions. What's your point? Quite frankly, if I'm going to support one side or the other, I'm going to support the side that actually produces goods,that is, the businesses.
However, to be honest, I believe that having relative parity in the government keeps either side from excess, since both sides are more interested in furthering their own political power, regardless of what it costs the nation as a whole.
While the rich "work", it's mainly having money work for them.
What's wrong with that? Have you ever opened a savings account at a bank? Have you ever put money in a 401k or other retirement plan? Congratulations! You, too, have tried to get your money to "work for [you]" That's not a bad thing; it's a smart thing, although with our current financial situation, traditional investing in the stock market may not be a wise decision. I knew a guy a few years ago who was a millionaire. Trust me, he worked for his money. Even if you are just an investor, you spend a lot of time studying investments, learning which ones are good and which ones are bad. Just as a construction worker or other manual laborer may look at my job as a network administrator and say, "That's not working!", to someone outside of the industry, investing doesn't look like work...but I dare say that it's longer, harder work -- with more risk -- than you'd think.
Even if everybody had the means to and greed to get a face job, tan, tailored suit and the right club memberships, and enough money to invest after that, society would fall apart if everybody were investors and canape pushers, and no-one were workers.
Well, yeah. Society would fall apart if everyone were an investor. You can't invest in a business if no one is actually making products. However, I would argue that society would also fall apart if no one were investing. Investors provide the capital that businesses need to expand and grow. Remove the investors, and you are left with small mom-and-pop operations. Companies like Cisco, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, HP, etc., etc., etc., got where they are because someone invested in them. Do you seriously think our economy would be better off if no one had invested in these companies when they were still operating in their respective garages?
Reward skill, not greed.
Do you seriously think there is no skill required in investing? Try it out some time. Give yourself a million dollars in Monopoly money. Pick a few stocks to "invest" that money in. Take a little time -- a few weeks, a few months, a year, whatever -- and see how your stocks do. Then tell me if you think you could make a living at it. A successful investor is every bit as skilled at what (s)he does as someone successful in any other career field. I know /. group-think says that investors are the epitome of evil -- and people like Bernie Madoff and Michael Milkin before him didn't do much to dispel that myth -- but without them, our economy would crumble. And if you think your financial situation sucks right now, you should see what it would look like without investors to drive the economy.
^And this is the crux of the problem right here.^
"Waaahhhh!!! Someone has more money than me. That's not FAIR! Mr. President, can you go take some of that from them so that we will be more equal?"
Are there rich people who have wealth that they didn't earn? Sure. Without a doubt, there are rich people who have simply lucked into privilege by inheriting the wealth that someone else worked for. But there are also rich people who worked hard, paid their dues, and invested wisely, and now are reaping the benefit of their hard work. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less if someone is rich because they are "collecting dividends and stock profits" because both of those things require investing income. Whether you are sacrificing your labor to build a business (i.e., Bill Gates, much as I dislike Microsoft and their products) or investing your capital (i.e., Warren Buffet), you are still taking a risk and giving up your resources now for the promise of a future payout. That's the way things are SUPPOSED to work. I'll never be a millionaire, much less a billionaire, because I wasn't willing to pay the dues required to get there. But I am a rather comfortable middle-class to upper middle class, and I got here through twenty-plus years of hard work (college, crappy entry-level jobs, finally got a break in IT, and another ten or twelve years of advancing through the IT career field). You can gripe that the wealthy are just parasites leaching off the hard work of others, but quite honestly, I don't see it that way.
What I do see, however, is the wealthy deciding that the U.S. is not a hospitable place for business or investments if this tax plan is approved, and moving their money elsewhere. If that happens, expect our economy to spiral even further downward, because when a nation consumes more than it produces, it will eventually go bust. The handwriting is already on the wall. Our economy is in trouble, and shipping jobs, manufacturing and businesses overseas because the President has the misguided idea that taxing the rich will fix the deficit will only make that worse. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, because we are in for a rough ride.
Obviously, you've never read the tripe^Wspin^Wdis^w^w^winformation that Blogger Bob posts on the official TSA blog. Bob never seems to let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to crow about the fantastic job his employer is doing :roll_eyes:
You are being far too kind to TSA. Sure, the post office may not be the very model of efficiency, but I still use USPS and honestly, I am rather happy with the service I receive from them. TSA? Not so much. (shameless plug to my blog, for those who are concerned about such things).
+1
You know, you've got a really good point there. I have to admit, I had never looked at it that way.
If a private company gropes you, public opinion forces them to change or they go out of business from driving away airport travelers.
Sorry, but no. Airports already have the option of hiring private companies to perform the screening (IIRC, Orlando, FL already does). However, the private companies are still required to follow the policies mandated by the Federal government, so you are still groped and/or nudie-scoped. The only difference is that perhaps the private companies are less obnoxious while violating your civil liberties than TSA.
Then you need a better way to do the whitelisting :)
/., but we explicitly allow ./).
We use a Squid proxy to filter HTTP traffic, and squidGuard to create the filtering policies. Shalla, IIRC the company that created squidGuard, has a really good list of domains and URLs that fit into various categories (i.e., porn, drugs, violence, social networking, spyware, etc.). You tell squidGuard which categories to block based upon your business needs, and squidGuard does the rest. You can even add rules that allow more liberal policies at certain times of the day (after hours, weekends, lunch time, etc.) and you can add rules that whitelist certain web sites in a category that you want blocked (for example, we block "chat" which includes
By having a community-maintained block list and blocking by category rather than individual domain or URL, the overhead associated with whitelisting goes way, way down.