What do liberals want the US to be?

[Wyatt earp]

Where is the money going to come from for longer lifes?

 

[rightwinger]

Where is the money going to come from for longer lifes?

Let em die

We can't afford to let em live

 

[Mathbud1]

You mean Reality is summed up by that cartoon. In natural reality there will always be people with advantages. The only way to remove the "privilege" afforded those sitting in the front of the class is to artificially manipulate the seating until everyone is the same distance from the goal. In life, this means dragging everyone down to the level that you are able to drag the lowest up to. Punish success and reward failure until you are left with a mediocrity perfectly described by this definition of fair: neither excellent nor poor; moderately or tolerably good.

No...that is what YOU mean.

"Punish success" No. Make success attainable for everyone. That seems to be what conservatives on the whole hate.

Is success not currently attainable by anyone? Is anyone legally banned from being successful?

The America Conservatives seem to want; summed up in 4 lines:.

For women: "Why aren't you in the kitchen making me a pie?"
For minorities: "Why aren't you serving me my pie?"
For the poor: "Get your own pie."
For non-Christians: "You're entitled to what you call "pie", just agree your pie is inferior

I can't speak for others, but my views are not so simple that they can be summed up in such a trite manner, and if they could it certainly wouldn't look like that.

Eliminate excellence and achievement and you can reach your goal of "fairness." A tolerable life for everyone. Is that what you want to achieve?

Fairness? I stated what I meant... Tax all income the same. Let people do what they want with their bodies. Treat criminal suspects all the same through out the process from first suspicion to sentencing.

Tax all income the same as in every dollar a rich person earns is taxed the same as every dollar a poor person earns? As in a flat tax?

You'll have to explain what you mean by "do what they want with their bodies."

Shall we let people use their body to beat others? Shall we let people use their body to stand in the middle of the street and block traffic? Shall we let people expose their bodies to our little children?

"Treat all criminal suspects the same. I doubt you meant that a serial rapist should be treated just like a shoplifter, but maybe you did.

On the other hand you could use this definition of fair: free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice.

Is it free from bias to manipulate society to take from some and give to others?

Of course nobody suggested such a thing. Just leveling out the playing field when it can be done is the message. We can certainly do that.

Nobody suggested such a thing?

I seem to remember hearing someone say they thought government should redistribute the wealth.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe nobody has said such a thing.

 

[rightwinger]

A dollar I earn from my stock's dividend buys $1.00 worth of gasoline right? A dollar you earn working at your job buys one dollar worth of gasoline, right? So it should be taxed the same.

It's pretty simple.

The $1.00 I use to buy stock, wasn't it already taxed when I earned it working at my job? What moral imperative allows you to tax it again? Your greed seems insufficient to me.

You only pay tax on your profit from the $1 in stock, not your purchase price

 

[zeke]

Is success not currently attainable by anyone? Is anyone legally banned from being successful?

What would be your definition of "success"?

If I am poor, with no job skills and poor math and reading abilities, yet I still keep myself clothed, fed and a roof over my head, would that fit your definition of success?

Is surviving being successful? In your opinion.

 

[zeke]

Tax all income the same as in every dollar a rich person earns is taxed the same as every dollar a poor person earns? As in a flat tax?

Which do you want to do.
Raise the poor persons tax rate to the level of the rich?
Or, lower the rich persons tax rate to the level of the poor?

You want equal taxes but you don't want equal wealth. How's that work? Shouldn't they be the same?
Everybody pays the same tax rate because everybody has the same wealth and income. Is that what you want?
That might be "fair".

 

[Wyatt earp]

Where is the money going to come from for longer lifes?

Let em die

We can't afford to let em live

dont remind me liberals never think ahead, just like in the 40s when median age of death was 45, they set the age of retirement to 65. Thinking payouts to S.S would be minimal

 

[Mathbud1]

Tax all income the same as in every dollar a rich person earns is taxed the same as every dollar a poor person earns? As in a flat tax?

Which do you want to do.
Raise the poor persons tax rate to the level of the rich?
Or, lower the rich persons tax rate to the level of the poor?

You want equal taxes but you don't want equal wealth. How's that work? Shouldn't they be the same?
Everybody pays the same tax rate because everybody has the same wealth and income. Is that what you want?
That might be "fair".

I'm not the one who said I wanted "fair." You will notice that the sentence you are responding to has one of these at the end: "?"

In English, that means the sentence is a question. In this case it was a question directed at the person to whom I was responding.

I'm not the one who said every dollar should be taxed the same to be "fair." That person is.

 

[rightwinger]

Where is the money going to come from for longer lifes?

Let em die

We can't afford to let em live

dont remind me liberals never think ahead, just like in the 40s when median age of death was 45, they set the age of retirement to 65. Thinking payouts to S.S would be minimal

I have no issue with raising the retirement age

 

[Mathbud1]

Is success not currently attainable by anyone? Is anyone legally banned from being successful?

What would be your definition of "success"?

If I am poor, with no job skills and poor math and reading abilities, yet I still keep myself clothed, fed and a roof over my head, would that fit your definition of success?

Is surviving being successful? In your opinion.

In one sense it is successful. If you are trying to stay alive and you do stay alive, you have succeeded in staying alive. I kind of doubt that was the success intended by the person to whom I was responding though. Why don't you ask them?

 

[Wyatt earp]

I wish they would raise the retirement age to 75. People including my dad was forced to retire and he drives my mom nuts by always remodeling the house. I sure don't retire at the now 67 limit.

 

[sealybobo]

the minimum wage argument is a prime example.

Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer

Hanauer said he doesn't consider himself a "job creator." If no one can afford to buy what he's selling, the jobs his companies create will evaporate, he reasons. In his view, what the nation needs is more money in the hands of regular consumers.

"A higher minimum wage is a very simple and elegant solution to the death spiral of falling demand that is the signature feature of our economy,"

How does the minimum wage create more money?

Take an economics course Bubba. It's called a multiplier effect! Or we just keep giving it to the top 1/10th of 1% of US who hold it offshore out of circulation?

The so-called "multiplier effect" is keynesian Voo Doo. It's obvious horseshit. Politicians love it because it allows them to delude themselves and the public that they are doing something beneficial when they spend us into bankruptcy. It's like getting an award for peeing in the punch bowl.

Got it, you don't like the field of economics, you prefer to live in myths and fairy tales of libertarian bullshit!

And they think the rich want what is fair for their broke asses. Not a chance. This reminds me. Did you notice that the airlines didn't lower their prices when gas went down? So much for right wing logic that the corporations will pass the costs on to us if we tax them. The fact is, the corporations will charge us whatever they think they can get away with. Give them tax breaks or let them buy cheap shit from China aint going to lower prices any. Just fatten the CEO bonus'.

Fortunately for me, I don't NEED to fly. But I do need to drive a car.

This also reminds me of how "they" have slowed our progress towards hydrogen cars or battery cars because their business is coal or oil based. I was watching the Cosmos again and they were talking about this one person and how if it weren't for them we wouldn't have satellites. ONE PERSON! It got me thinking about how these mega corporations have shelved competing technology while they burn up all the planets oil. How far have they held our civilization back? How much more might we know? How many great ideas have been shelved? They discussed how every great civilization rose and fell and lost all their advancements and here we are the same thing is going to happen because humans are self destructive.

 

[sealybobo]

I wish they would raise the retirement age to 75. People including my dad was forced to retire and he drives my mom nuts by always remodeling the house. I sure don't retire at the now 67 limit.

What a fool you are. If you want to work go for it. But to raise the retirement age? My god man think of all the negatives. I'll give you just a couple.

1. Lets say you are worn out and beat up at 65 and you can't work anymore so you want to retire. You have to buy your own healthcare for 15 years till medicare kicks in? Maybe you have a fortune but this won't work for the vast majority of Americans. So your idea sucks.

2. Who's hiring 61 year olds dummy? Good luck finding a job at 73 you ******* idiot.

 

[sealybobo]

Oh Jesus... not this stupid shit again.

Do you want to pretend it didn't happen or wait for me to forget? This is why we'll get no where with fools like you who don't even know/remember what the **** happened to us once Bush got into office.

Remember he took Clinton's SURPLUS and squandered it. Him and his GOP party led by Tom Delay.

There's one huge problem here... Clinton did not leave Bush a surplus. And btw.... Obama has added more to the debt than all his predecessors.. combined.

And so did Bush. So did Clinton.

And yes he did leave him a projected surplus. If spending remained and if taxes coming in remained the same, Bush would have a surplus. But NOTHING stayed the same. Bush gave the rich tax breaks. Strike 1. Lied us into 2 wars. Strike 2. Let illegals flood in to compete with American workers for "jobs Americans won't do". Strike 3. Sent all the good paying union manufacturing jobs overseas. Strike 4. Deregulated the banks and mortgage companies who would no doubt use those deregulations to fuckin ruin the economy.

And it was all by design. The rich got everything they wanted. Its called Disaster Capitalism. Cause a crisis so we have to implement your policies you say will fix the crisis and when they don't work blame it on the other side.

1. Who would you give the breaks to if not the ones paying the taxes?
2. Nobody lied.... that BS has been debunked for a decade now.
3. Yeah, Bush invented this....
4. Better read up on the CRA bub... you people got what you wanted with SISA loans and all that stupid shit. Bush actually warned of an impending crisis and the DEM's laughed.

1) And you whine about debt? lol
2) Jan 25, 2008 - President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq

Study Bush aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war - CNN.com

Senate Report: Bush Used Iraq Intel He Knew Was False

The report found that these failures led to the creation of inaccurate materials that misled both government policy makers and the American public. The Committee's Republican majority and Democratic minority agreed on the report's major conclusions and unanimously endorsed its findings.

Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

3) Nope just doubled down on it

4) SERIOUSLY? Wow you REALLY need to grow a brain

Right-wingers Want To Erase How George Bush's "Homeowner Society" Helped Cause The Economic Collapse


2004 Republican Convention:

Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence.
...

Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, "Welcome to my home."


June 17, 2004


Builders to fight Bush's low-income plan


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge?

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative





Eliot Spitzer - Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime



Bushs documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to)

Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners
Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs
Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership
Routinely taking credit for the housing market
Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals
Lowering Invesntment banks capital requirements, Net Capital rule
Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans
Lowering down payment requirements to 0%
Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets
Giving away 40,000 free down payments
PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING


But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards.


MORE HERE

FACTS on Dubya s great recession US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


CRA? LOL

If we were really being honest we'd all realize they did it all on purpose.

I remember in year 7 thinking I can't believe Bush and the GOP got away with ******* us like they did but at least it's almost over and then came TARP, the biggest bank robbery in world history. The bankers basically pulled an inside job and got away with it.

 

[sealybobo]

There's one huge problem here... Clinton did not leave Bush a surplus. And btw.... Obama has added more to the debt than all his predecessors.. combined.

And so did Bush. So did Clinton.

And yes he did leave him a projected surplus. If spending remained and if taxes coming in remained the same, Bush would have a surplus. But NOTHING stayed the same. Bush gave the rich tax breaks. Strike 1. Lied us into 2 wars. Strike 2. Let illegals flood in to compete with American workers for "jobs Americans won't do". Strike 3. Sent all the good paying union manufacturing jobs overseas. Strike 4. Deregulated the banks and mortgage companies who would no doubt use those deregulations to fuckin ruin the economy.

And it was all by design. The rich got everything they wanted. Its called Disaster Capitalism. Cause a crisis so we have to implement your policies you say will fix the crisis and when they don't work blame it on the other side.

1. Who would you give the breaks to if not the ones paying the taxes?
2. Nobody lied.... that BS has been debunked for a decade now.
3. Yeah, Bush invented this....
4. Better read up on the CRA bub... you people got what you wanted with SISA loans and all that stupid shit. Bush actually warned of an impending crisis and the DEM's laughed.

I've heard all these arguments/lies from the right in 2009. Piss off stupid.

I would give the tax breaks to the middle class and poor. Remember Bush wanted to not be in an official recession so he sent everyone $300? Why didn't he just give his rich friends the money? Because he knew they wouldn't go SPEND IT like the middle class and poor will. And this way even benefits the rich because if the poor and middle class are spending, the rich are making more money.

Our way works, your way does not. Sorry.

Stop crying about what's fair. Ask yourself what works.

Yeah, what you guys are doing is working wonders... worst economy in thirty years, record unemployed, lowest workforce participation since Jimmy Carter...

Seriously how old are you? 15? You sound very immature and frankly, irrational. Do you smoke a lot of weed?

Stop projecting dummy

Dec 2007

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush Vanity Fair


Dubya lost 1,000,000+ PRIVATE sector jobs in 8 years of 'job creator' policies. Obama has a NET of over 7+ million

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data



Retirement Among Baby Boomers Contributing To Shrinking Labor Force. According to The Washington Post, many economists agree the shrinking labor force participation rate is largely explained by a demographic shift, wherein "baby boomers are starting to retire en masse":

But since 2000, the labor force rate has been steadily declining as the baby-boom generation has been retiring. Because of this, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago expects the labor force participation rate to be lower in 2020 than it is today, regardless of how well the economy does.


The incredible shrinking labor force - The Washington Post



I do believe you might be 15?

Just think of our great Democratic presidents vs. the GOP bunch. Forget about while in office. What did Bush or Bush do after they got out of office? Not much. But look at how much Carter and Clinton have done and all the awards they have received. No doubt Obama will do the same.

What is HW doing? Jumping out of planes. GW? Painting silly paintings like a retard. No Nobel Peace Prizes in their futures.

 

[JoeNormal]

Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer

Hanauer said he doesn't consider himself a "job creator." If no one can afford to buy what he's selling, the jobs his companies create will evaporate, he reasons. In his view, what the nation needs is more money in the hands of regular consumers.

"A higher minimum wage is a very simple and elegant solution to the death spiral of falling demand that is the signature feature of our economy,"

How does the minimum wage create more money?

Take an economics course Bubba. It's called a multiplier effect! Or we just keep giving it to the top 1/10th of 1% of US who hold it offshore out of circulation?

The so-called "multiplier effect" is keynesian Voo Doo. It's obvious horseshit. Politicians love it because it allows them to delude themselves and the public that they are doing something beneficial when they spend us into bankruptcy. It's like getting an award for peeing in the punch bowl.

Got it, you don't like the field of economics, you prefer to live in myths and fairy tales of libertarian bullshit!

And they think the rich want what is fair for their broke asses. Not a chance. This reminds me. Did you notice that the airlines didn't lower their prices when gas went down? So much for right wing logic that the corporations will pass the costs on to us if we tax them. The fact is, the corporations will charge us whatever they think they can get away with. Give them tax breaks or let them buy cheap shit from China aint going to lower prices any. Just fatten the CEO bonus'.

Fortunately for me, I don't NEED to fly. But I do need to drive a car.

This also reminds me of how "they" have slowed our progress towards hydrogen cars or battery cars because their business is coal or oil based. I was watching the Cosmos again and they were talking about this one person and how if it weren't for them we wouldn't have satellites. ONE PERSON! It got me thinking about how these mega corporations have shelved competing technology while they burn up all the planets oil. How far have they held our civilization back? How much more might we know? How many great ideas have been shelved? They discussed how every great civilization rose and fell and lost all their advancements and here we are the same thing is going to happen because humans are self destructive.

Yup, I think you got it. Existing energy technologies, especially extractive ones always have the upper hand over newer renewable ones. I've seen it a couple of times already. As soon as say solar generation gets within a competitive margin from fossil fuel generation, the price of fossil fuel generation goes down to make solar uncompetitive. Of course, the short sided laissez faire crowd is fine with that.

 

[RKMBrown]

No question affirmative action is an attack on white males. Prior to affirmative action, white males had almost exclusive access to skilled and management positions....that is no longer true

Yest, white males still seem to be doing pretty well in our society

Depends on age. White males entering said racist environment are screwed by the supposed sins of their forefathers in hiring to many white guys and thus are the target of racial profiling against white males. Of course when layoffs come around getting rid of expensive white males is a double bonus as you are also correcting racial and gender numbers, course who gives a shit whether the people staying based on race and gender know how to tie their shoe laces. It's all about race and gender.

Somehow

White males seem to still be doing pretty well 50 years after affirmative action

RKM claims to have paid "millions" in taxes. I know, he's full of shit and all but here is his "testimony"...

Gasoline Below 3.00 A Gallon Thank You Mr. President Page 100 US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


Which means he's personally made tens of millions of dollars...all under affirmative action. Obviously, the deck is stacked to hurt that moron.

You're a moron... only morons think the upper middle class is limited to 20% in taxes. My corporation was not subject to AA because I never took a government contract. Other companies I worked for, other than my own, did have AA and that did affect me in negative ways dozens of times, both directly and indirectly.

FYI millions in taxes divided over 30years does not equal filthy rich.

Actually millions (plural) in taxes does equal "filthy" rich. If you were actually wealthy, you'd know that.
Either that or you have some accountants who are either dumber than you (doubtful) or have sticky fingers.

Well then your definition of "filthy" rich is upper middle class, which BTW is the reason many republicans don't like democrats. You think professionals are "evil rich." You think I'm evil cause I studied hard to be an Engineer and I work for a good living as an Engineer thus end up paying the top income tax rate + AMT + SS (both sides) + med + local property + sales. ROFL yeah I'm evil cause it makes you feel better to take my money while having an excuse.

 

[RKMBrown]

Yeah and any company that has a federal contract has to promote women and minorities irregardless of qualifications or loose the federal contract. Thus white male professionals get screwed again and again and again. What do you have against older women?

No they don't

They have to demonstrate that they promote and hire regardless of race, sex or creed. If they can demonstrate they do not have qualified applicants, they are not forced to hire anyone
Prior to civil rights, it seemed only white male christians were qualified. That is why we needed affirmative action

ROFL what a load of horse manure. They are FORCED to hire based on race, sex, and creed to "correct" the NUMBERS based on some BULLSHIT ASSUMPTION that the people working for a company should have a certain percentage of each, and until you get their the people in the wrong group are screwed over.

White males no longer had exclusive access to skilled and management positions. affirmative action changed that
Federal contractors were forced to justify their lack of diversity or lose contracts

Affirmative Action was hugely successful

Yeah you can tell how successful it was by all of the how well our economy and companies are doing.. oh yeah NVM I guess putting shitty people in charge isn't working is it.

The number of women and minorities now occupying skilled positions and management is a tribute to affirmative action

Correct. Sadly, it should be a tribute to their skills vs. government intervention.

 

[RKMBrown]

Yeah that's what I thought. Let the rich hide their wealth any which way they can. Punish retirees, small business owners, and professionals that make up the upper middle class with brutal tax rates designed to bulldoze them into the ground and make them leave the country or give up trying to better themselves.

Why must the super wealthy hide behind small business?

That is how they justified their current 38% tax rate. Fact is our wealthiest Americans are paying historically low tax rates and hide behind capital gains

Lets tax every dollar the same whether it is earned by sweat or investment

every dollar the same for everyone? Or do you want to pick and choose who pays taxes and who you give discounts too? For example, the super rich who don't need any income of any type... those people we'll just ignore. The professionals who went to school for 8years they pay twice as much as everyone else by percentage of income and the laborers who never went to school they pay no federal income taxes. Is that what you want?

That is why I want to target capital gains

Right now, mega wealthy CEOs can brag that they only receive $1 a year in salary while they take tens of millions in untouchable capital gains

ROFL Capital gains already went up, you need a new shtick.

They need to match the rates paid on earned income

Money earned from sweat should be taxed at the same rate as money earned from investment

You mean rich people should pay the same for both, right? You don't want poor people to pay the same tax rates as everyone else do you?

The rich currently pay 23.8% on capital gains... the poor and middle class pay 0.0% on capital gains. But to you that's not fair for the poor people right? The rich are getting such a huge tax break right?

 

[candycorn]

Is success not currently attainable by anyone? Is anyone legally banned from being successful?

For all intent and purposes, some may as well be. Here is a graphic you'll ignore immediately of course but here it is anyway:

It shows the percentage of blacks who get LIPNP vs. whites charged with comparative crimes. I'm not debating whether they are guilty or what put them there...just the sentencing. The upshot of this is that for every green and blue pixel, someone is growing up without a father or mother; aunt or uncle perhaps.

Maybe, just maybe, had there been a clearer path to success for these individuals, they would have taken it. Shame on them for not taking it.

The America Conservatives seem to want; summed up in 4 lines:.

For women: "Why aren't you in the kitchen making me a pie?"
For minorities: "Why aren't you serving me my pie?"
For the poor: "Get your own pie."
For non-Christians: "You're entitled to what you call "pie", just agree your pie is inferior

I can't speak for others, but my views are not so simple that they can be summed up in such a trite manner, and if they could it certainly wouldn't look like that.

Why do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses women as a group?
Why do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses blacks as a group?
Why do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses Hispanics as a group?
Why do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses non-Christians as a group?
Why do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses lower income voters as a group?

Eliminate excellence and achievement and you can reach your goal of "fairness." A tolerable life for everyone. Is that what you want to achieve?

Fairness? I stated what I meant... Tax all income the same. Let people do what they wanWhy do you think the party that represents "conservative values" loses women as a group?t with their bodies. Treat criminal suspects all the same through out the process from first suspicion to sentencing. [/quote]

Tax all income the same as in every dollar a rich person earns is taxed the same as every dollar a poor person earns? As in a flat tax?

Sort of but not precisely the same thing.

You'll have to explain what you mean by "do what they want with their bodies."
hall we let people use their body to beat others? Shall we let people use their body to stand in the middle of the street and block traffic? Shall we let people expose their bodies to our little children?

No. Abortion. A woman's right to choose.

"Treat all criminal suspects the same. I doubt you meant that a serial rapist should be treated just like a shoplifter, but maybe you did.

No. If you're going to have a "crackdown" on seatbelt wearers or drunk drivers, pull over roughly the same amount of whites, blacks, Hispanics etc.... Let go roughly the same number of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, etc... with warnings Keep roughly the same amount of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, etc.... for prosecution.

On the other hand you could use this definition of fair: free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice.

Is it free from bias to manipulate society to take from some and give to others?

Of course nobody suggested such a thing. Just leveling out the playing field when it can be done is the message. We can certainly do that.[/QUOTE]

Nobody suggested such a thing?

I seem to remember hearing someone say they thought government should redistribute the wealth.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe nobody has said such a thing.[/QUOTE]

Dunno...quote someone saying it if you can...