Tax the Rich? Tax the Millionaires!

[M14 Shooter]

No such debate can ever be had in a free country.

That depends entirely on conditions.

No... it doesn't.
In a free society, no one has standing to tell you that you have too much.

 

[MikeK]

No such debate can ever be had in a free country.

That depends entirely on conditions.

No... it doesn't.
In a free society, no one has standing to tell you that you have too much.

In a free society one has standing to tell you anything he wishes to tell you.

 

[georgephillip]

In a free society we all have standing to tell you how you are allowed to acquire your wealth.

Across the globe financial speculators have driven the cost of food upwards by 61% since December of 2008.

"The price of wheat has exploded, more than doubling in the last eight months to $8.56 a bushel.

"When half of your income is spent on food, as it is in countries such as Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast, price increases of this magnitude bring with them malnutrition and starvation."

Only corporate slaves would hesitate to tell food speculators "you have too much."

Chris Hedges: The Collapse of Globalization - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Who causes more problems in society? The rich or the poor?

Explain your answer please.

What kind of problems?

Crime problems? The poor commit more crimes than the rich, but there are so many more of them.

Social problems? Most of America's social problems are the result of malfeasance and misfeasance by government, most of which is traceable to corruption. There are over 270 multi-millionaires in the Congress. If they were effectively audited I'm sure many (most?) of them would end up in prison.

BTW who are you to say how much a man can make?

The question will be more appropriately framed as, who am I to say how much personal assets may one individual be permitted to accumulate?

The answer is I am one man with an opinion, which at this time is insignificant. But as the economic situation worsens and more Americans fall into poverty, that will change.

So by your own admission, the poor and the inadequacies of the government causes more problems for society than the rich does, so why are you targeting the rich?

The problem is, when you give a man/woman money, food and a place to live. He/she doesn't need to work. And many don't. Many never have. There are literally generations of welfare families in this country and no amount of federal assistance has stemmed the tide. As a matter of fact poverty rates have risen over recent years. That tells me that handouts aren't working. If you want to curb poverty, you need to give these people the incentive to better their station in life and sometimes tough love is what's needed.

How many jobs have you gotten from a poor man?

When I hear a person putting down rich people, I see a person that is full of envy. Rich people makes tons of money but they are the ones taking all the risk, so it stands to reason that they would reap the most out of their investments.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Would the "Fair Tax" increase the number of billionaires/millionaires in the US?

If it's true that over the last three decades the richest 1% of Americans has increased its share of national income by almost ten percentage points, would a Fair Tax increase or decrease those gains?

The Deficit Hawks Target Nurses and Firefighters

I don't know and I don't really care. But I do know that a fair tax would tax every citizen fairly.

What do you have against the rich getting richer?

Because the rich get richer by corruption.

Recently the richest 2% of Americans nearly doubled their share of returns to wealth because they bribed Republicans AND Democrats in DC to provide a $13 trillion bailout for rich Wall Street bankers and their richer clients.
Why do you think Wall Street needs more money it hasn't earned?

I'd have to see the evidence of that.

 

[MitchMan]

The way to assess the situation substantively, honestly, and accurately is to keep your eye and your perspective on the big picture. The big picture is that in this country there is a massively disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top. The USA is the 2nd worst offender in the world. Ever heard of the ‘GINI Coefficient’? Connected to this lopsidedness is the loud and clear fact that the majority of the working class is suffering badly, especially the bottom 40% of the majority. I am not indifferent to that, are you?

With regard to the rich getting richer, well, that is exactly what has happened for the last 30 years and the result of this is this massive disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top. The problem, among many other things, is if the rich continue to get richer, then the disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top will get even worse. That is exactly what happened over the last 30 years. I don’t know about you, but I think that is not good for the reasons below.

Maybe some of you don’t think that the lopsidedness that we have right now is a problem. Well, just look at the lopsidedness and tell us if you think it is just fine and that there is no problem with it. The bottom 60% have only 4% of the nation’s wealth and the top 10% have 71%. The bottom 50% of taxpayers have only an average of $15,000 per year of adjusted gross income left after paying a small federal income tax, the top 10% have an average of at least $223,000 of AGI left after paying their federal income tax. Now that’s no problem for the top 10%, but it is a hell of a problem for the bottom 50% and therefore a big, big problem for this country because $15,000 each for half of all taxpayers is not enough to make it. I am not indifferent to that, I think that is a problem, don’t you?

Maybe you right wingers think that if the rich continue to get richer, that is a good thing. Are you looking at the fact that the rich have been getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer and that the majority of the working class has gotten poorer during these past 30 years? Have you noticed that is a pattern? Have you noticed that the financial weakness of the bottom 60% is a massive hardship on those people in the USA, and that the bottom 50% of taxpayers are not really making it? Or, are you simply indifferent about these facts?

You know, right wingers, the malaise and pain that the country is going through right now is felt not at the top among the “haves”, the pain is felt at the bottom by the vast majority of the working class. While the average top 10% taxpayer’s $223,000 may be less than in 2007, that taxpayer’s actual condition is not even close to the destitution experienced by the bottom 50%. Can you see that? Probably not because you are too damned intellectually dishonest and lack the integrity and the character to admit the truth. And/or, you are probably too stupid to have looked at the big picture to see the real truth of the situation.

The right wing thinks that the disproportionate accumulation of most of the wealth and income at the top (as is the situation now and that has been the situation for decades) has no connection to what happens at the bottom and the lack of wealth at the bottom. Think again, morons. The right wing ignores the fact that there is a pattern whereby the rich get richer while the poor are getting poorer. Why do you ignore that, right wingers? Why?

The right wing thinks that wealth has only been created by those that have it. That the majority of the people at the bottom don’t have any wealth to speak of is because they didn’t create any for themselves. Guess again, morons.

More to come, I am just getting started.

 

[MitchMan]

Lonestar, are you having sex with Oddball?

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Lonestar, are you having sex with Oddball?

That the best you can do? What are you 13?

Grow the **** up!

 

[Lonestar_logic]

The way to assess the situation substantively, honestly, and accurately is to keep your eye and your perspective on the big picture. The big picture is that in this country there is a massively disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top. The USA is the 2nd worst offender in the world. Ever heard of the ‘GINI Coefficient’? Connected to this lopsidedness is the loud and clear fact that the majority of the working class is suffering badly, especially the bottom 40% of the majority. I am not indifferent to that, are you?

With regard to the rich getting richer, well, that is exactly what has happened for the last 30 years and the result of this is this massive disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top. The problem, among many other things, is if the rich continue to get richer, then the disproportionate concentration of wealth and income at the top will get even worse. That is exactly what happened over the last 30 years. I don’t know about you, but I think that is not good for the reasons below.

Maybe some of you don’t think that the lopsidedness that we have right now is a problem. Well, just look at the lopsidedness and tell us if you think it is just fine and that there is no problem with it. The bottom 60% have only 4% of the nation’s wealth and the top 10% have 71%. The bottom 50% of taxpayers have only an average of $15,000 per year of adjusted gross income left after paying a small federal income tax, the top 10% have an average of at least $223,000 of AGI left after paying their federal income tax. Now that’s no problem for the top 10%, but it is a hell of a problem for the bottom 50% and therefore a big, big problem for this country because $15,000 each for half of all taxpayers is not enough to make it. I am not indifferent to that, I think that is a problem, don’t you?

Maybe you right wingers think that if the rich continue to get richer, that is a good thing. Are you looking at the fact that the rich have been getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer and that the majority of the working class has gotten poorer during these past 30 years? Have you noticed that is a pattern? Have you noticed that the financial weakness of the bottom 60% is a massive hardship on those people in the USA, and that the bottom 50% of taxpayers are not really making it? Or, are you simply indifferent about these facts?

You know, right wingers, the malaise and pain that the country is going through right now is felt not at the top among the “haves”, the pain is felt at the bottom by the vast majority of the working class. While the average top 10% taxpayer’s $223,000 may be less than in 2007, that taxpayer’s actual condition is not even close to the destitution experienced by the bottom 50%. Can you see that? Probably not because you are too damned intellectually dishonest and lack the integrity and the character to admit the truth. And/or, you are probably too stupid to have looked at the big picture to see the real truth of the situation.

The right wing thinks that the disproportionate accumulation of most of the wealth and income at the top (as is the situation now and that has been the situation for decades) has no connection to what happens at the bottom and the lack of wealth at the bottom. Think again, morons. The right wing ignores the fact that there is a pattern whereby the rich get richer while the poor are getting poorer. Why do you ignore that, right wingers? Why?

The right wing thinks that wealth has only been created by those that have it. That the majority of the people at the bottom don’t have any wealth to speak of is because they didn’t create any for themselves. Guess again, morons.

More to come, I am just getting started.

The rich get richer. How does that harm you or society as a whole?

 

[Flaylo]

Lonestar, are you having sex with Oddball?

Lonestar is an ex-con, an admitted ex-con, watch out.

 

[MitchMan]

The vast majority of the rich are not the problem. The vast majority of the rich are good people. I have worked professionally among the rich, wealthy, and well-to-do for most of my professional life and I can tell you from personal experience that the majority of them are good, decent, hardworking, knowledgeable, disciplined, intelligent, people and good, upstanding citizens.

I repeat, the vast majority of the rich/wealthy are not the problem. As a group, most do not deserve the wrath nor the resentment from the rest of society. I do not resent, hate, nor envy them. The vast majority are good people.

The problem, unfortunately, however, has many factors and elements and components.

With regard to people, there are certain individuals that are principal players that are key factors of the problem and among the ranks of the wealthy and rich. In numbers, these miscreants constitute only a small, small minority of the wealthy, the rich, and the well-to-do. There are certain other individuals that are politicians, and there are certain other individuals that are prominent public figures, and certain others that are powerful and influential in business, the government, and in the corporate world. All of the aforementioned people, in total numbers, are really only a small minority of those that are responsible for the bad stuff. I will call the aforementioned minority the “key players”, and some are Democrats, but the vast majority of the “key players” are Republican or Libertarian or Independents. However, the vast majority of those who are the problem are simply those that vote Republican and/or Libertarian.

The key players have successfully duped and hoodwinked the right wingers, and sometimes the Independents, to vote against their own best interest.

The bad symptom and the bad result of the foregoing has given us the real culprit and focal point of the problem which is our current biased economic system that unfairly and inequitably over compensates the few at the top with the wealth that was produced by the working class with their own working class hands and minds. That is the cancer that has to be fixed. It is eroding our country, our health, our security, our environment, our spirit, and our confidence.

The big picture, people, keep your eye on the big picture and you will not go astray when you talk about the details. The right wingers in this forum and in this thread are all chasing their tails, using stupid cliché’d, tired old repeated mantras that they regurgitate from listening to their right wing hacks and blowhards.

More to come, as I said before, I am just getting started.


Hey Lonestar, do you have any tats on your neck? Do you own a confederate flag? Any swastikas? Or, do I have you all wrong and you like white wine, watching 30 Rock, and eating sushi? Which is it?

 

[MalibuMan]

I don't know about any of you but I have never gotten a job from a poor man. It has always been from a rich person.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

The vast majority of the rich are not the problem. The vast majority of the rich are good people. I have worked professionally among the rich, wealthy, and well-to-do for most of my professional life and I can tell you from personal experience that the majority of them are good, decent, hardworking, knowledgeable, disciplined, intelligent, people and good, upstanding citizens.

I repeat, the vast majority of the rich/wealthy are not the problem. As a group, most do not deserve the wrath nor the resentment from the rest of society. I do not resent, hate, nor envy them. The vast majority are good people.

The problem, unfortunately, however, has many factors and elements and components.

With regard to people, there are certain individuals that are principal players that are key factors of the problem and among the ranks of the wealthy and rich. In numbers, these miscreants constitute only a small, small minority of the wealthy, the rich, and the well-to-do. There are certain other individuals that are politicians, and there are certain other individuals that are prominent public figures, and certain others that are powerful and influential in business, the government, and in the corporate world. All of the aforementioned people, in total numbers, are really only a small minority of those that are responsible for the bad stuff. I will call the aforementioned minority the “key players”, and some are Democrats, but the vast majority of the “key players” are Republican or Libertarian or Independents. However, the vast majority of those who are the problem are simply those that vote Republican and/or Libertarian.

The key players have successfully duped and hoodwinked the right wingers, and sometimes the Independents, to vote against their own best interest.

The bad symptom and the bad result of the foregoing has given us the real culprit and focal point of the problem which is our current biased economic system that unfairly and inequitably over compensates the few at the top with the wealth that was produced by the working class with their own working class hands and minds. That is the cancer that has to be fixed. It is eroding our country, our health, our security, our environment, our spirit, and our confidence.

The big picture, people, keep your eye on the big picture and you will not go astray when you talk about the details. The right wingers in this forum and in this thread are all chasing their tails, using stupid cliché’d, tired old repeated mantras that they regurgitate from listening to their right wing hacks and blowhards.

More to come, as I said before, I am just getting started.


Hey Lonestar, do you have any tats on your neck? Do you own a confederate flag? Any swastikas? Or, do I have you all wrong and you like white wine, watching 30 Rock, and eating sushi? Which is it?

I don't fit any of the descriptions you mentioned.

And you didn't answer my simple question.

How do (the small minority of rich people that you claim cause the problems) harm you or society as a whole? And be specific and to the point.

 

[MitchMan]

Question: Who produces wealth? Who in our society does the vast majority of the hourly labor that produces the tangible wealth and the intangible wealth and what proportion of our society are they quantitatively? Is any material (by material, right wingers, I don't mean tangible material, but instead I mean"quantitatively significant and measureable") wealth actually produced if there is an absence of work performed?

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Lonestar, are you having sex with Oddball?

Lonestar is an ex-con, an admitted ex-con, watch out.

Your point is?

If your saying an ex-con cannot have a valid opinion then you are as stupid as your name.

FTR, I was granted a full pardon by Gov. Mark White and my record has been expunged. So technically I don't have a prison record. Besides I couldn't have aquired a Class 3 dealers license without having my record expunged.

 

[georgephillip]

I don't know and I don't really care. But I do know that a fair tax would tax every citizen fairly.

What do you have against the rich getting richer?

Because the rich get richer by corruption.

Recently the richest 2% of Americans nearly doubled their share of returns to wealth because they bribed Republicans AND Democrats in DC to provide a $13 trillion bailout for rich Wall Street bankers and their richer clients.
Why do you think Wall Street needs more money it hasn't earned?

I'd have to see the evidence of that.

My source is Michael Hudson in CounterPunch:

"Obama seems to be campaigning for his own defeat! Thanks largely to the $13 trillion Wall Street bailout – while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s 'bottom 98 per cent' – this happy 2 per cent of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75 per cent) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains). This is nearly double what it received a generation ago. The rest of the population is being squeezed, and foreclosures are rising."

Michael Hudson: Obama's Greatest Betrayal

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Because the rich get richer by corruption.

Recently the richest 2% of Americans nearly doubled their share of returns to wealth because they bribed Republicans AND Democrats in DC to provide a $13 trillion bailout for rich Wall Street bankers and their richer clients.
Why do you think Wall Street needs more money it hasn't earned?

I'd have to see the evidence of that.

My source is Michael Hudson in CounterPunch:

"Obama seems to be campaigning for his own defeat! Thanks largely to the $13 trillion Wall Street bailout – while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s 'bottom 98 per cent' – this happy 2 per cent of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75 per cent) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains). This is nearly double what it received a generation ago. The rest of the population is being squeezed, and foreclosures are rising."

Michael Hudson: Obama's Greatest Betrayal

In other words you have no evidence of any bribes taking place.

Fair enough.

 

[MitchMan]

How do (the small minority of rich people that you claim cause the problems) harm you or society as a whole?

The small minority of rich people that you ask about are only a small component of the key players. Just for the record, you have limited your question to only them. And, just for the record, being a small minority is an implication that the larger majority of the rich people are not who we/me are talking about. Just to be clear, I am not talking about the rich people as a whole, but only a very small part of them.

Those certain few rich people can and have used their influence and money and whatever authority and forum they can wield (just like most of key players) to ensure and maintain and further and support a biased economic system here in the USA that inequitably favors the people at the top of the economic ladder over the vast majority of the working class by using their aforementioned resources to influence legislation that sustains/bolsters the said economic bias, to pay lobbyists to lobby certain politicians that further the economic bias, by contributing to certain politicians that support the agenda to support the bias, to contribute to the public messaging that supports this economic system bias in order to influence the general public to vote for politicians, policies and legislation the supports the aforementioned bias and which encourages less to be spent on education, infrastructure, the environment, on healthcare, etc., etc., etc.

The point being that the bias that I speak of is the bias in our economic system that has led to the current unhealthy, inequitable and disparate concentration of wealth and income at the top thereby leaving the bottom 85% to only 15% of the nation’s wealth, that leaves the bottom 60% with only 4% of the wealth and the bottom 40% with only 1/3 of 1% of the nation’s wealth, while the top 15% have 85% of the nation’s wealth and the top 10% with 71% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 50% of taxpayers on the average have only $15,000 left of their adjusted gross income compared to $223,000 for the top 10% on the average.

I don’t know about you, right wingers, but I see that as not good for the bottom 85%, not good for the bottom 60%, nor for the bottom 50%, nor for the bottom 40%. I see that as harm to the majority of the working class. I also see that as unhealthy as well as inequitable for many reasons on many fronts. I see that trend (and it has been a trend for decades) as a deterioration of this country’s economy as a whole, the majority of its people, and our security.

You know, Lonestar, I already spelled this out for you before, but you are not a very careful reader. You have trouble connecting the dots. Maybe it’s ADD, too much MTV, ingesting too much sugar, or you are watching too many cartoons on Saturday morning.

 

[MitchMan]

Lonestar, if you have paid your debt to society by serving your time, I have no problem with your having been in carcerated and I don't judge you for that. Everyone should be judged individually, one on one.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

How do (the small minority of rich people that you claim cause the problems) harm you or society as a whole?

The small minority of rich people that you ask about are only a small component of the key players. Just for the record, you have limited your question to only them. And, just for the record, being a small minority is an implication that the larger majority of the rich people are not who we/me are talking about. Just to be clear, I am not talking about the rich people as a whole, but only a very small part of them.

Those certain few rich people can and have used their influence and money and whatever authority and forum they can wield (just like most of key players) to ensure and maintain and further and support a biased economic system here in the USA that inequitably favors the people at the top of the economic ladder over the vast majority of the working class by using their aforementioned resources to influence legislation that sustains/bolsters the said economic bias, to pay lobbyists to lobby certain politicians that further the economic bias, by contributing to certain politicians that support the agenda to support the bias, to contribute to the public messaging that supports this economic system bias in order to influence the general public to vote for politicians, policies and legislation the supports the aforementioned bias and which encourages less to be spent on education, infrastructure, the environment, on healthcare, etc., etc., etc.

The point being that the bias that I speak of is the bias in our economic system that has led to the current unhealthy, inequitable and disparate concentration of wealth and income at the top thereby leaving the bottom 85% to only 15% of the nation’s wealth, that leaves the bottom 60% with only 4% of the wealth and the bottom 40% with only 1/3 of 1% of the nation’s wealth, while the top 15% have 85% of the nation’s wealth and the top 10% with 71% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 50% of taxpayers on the average have only $15,000 left of their adjusted gross income compared to $223,000 for the top 10% on the average.

I don’t know about you, right wingers, but I see that as not good for the bottom 85%, not good for the bottom 60%, nor for the bottom 50%, nor for the bottom 40%. I see that as harm to the majority of the working class. I also see that as unhealthy as well as inequitable for many reasons on many fronts. I see that trend (and it has been a trend for decades) as a deterioration of this country’s economy as a whole, the majority of its people, and our security.

You know, Lonestar, I already spelled this out for you before, but you are not a very careful reader. You have trouble connecting the dots. Maybe it’s ADD, too much MTV, ingesting too much sugar, or you are watching too many cartoons on Saturday morning.

Ok, ok, you can't answer a simple question I get that.