Mikeoxenormous
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If Socialism is so great, why don't you move to CUBA?
CDZ Why do Conservatives believe that America is no longer great?
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the_human_being
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the_human_being
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edthecynic
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Actually, Robin Hood robbed the RICH who had usurped the government and gave to the victims of the rich whether they paid taxes or not.
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Among Robin Hood's favorite victims was the Church......just saying.......
320 Years of History
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I think the problem these days is that we hear folks like Warren Buffett say they can afford to pay higher taxes and we think, "yes, well, he can; he's got billions." What we need to hear is the folks who are not that well off, but who are nonetheless in the 1%, saying the same thing...because, quite frankly, it's true for them too. But most folks in that position aren't about to say that because, IMO, they are just plain greedy...that or they genuinely believe that "he who dies with the most wins."
Why not? Well, for one thing, when you look at your 1040 and see in black and white that you've paid some $350K to the IRS, there's no way to not think, "Damn! That's a lot of money! And what the heck did I get for it?" You aren't thinking about the "big picture" and the fact that the country would go to pot if you didn't. You're just thinking you need to talk with your financial advisor and come up with some better ways to lower your tax bill.
People who are doing well do still understand it. Just like everyone, well off folks seek to minimize their tax bill. Nobody, rich, poor or in between jumps for joy over paying more taxes. Way back when in the Reagan era, I remember bumping into a friend of my father's while we were out running errands. I don't recall how the conversation (theirs; I was just present) got onto it, but the lady began ranting about the Reagan tax cuts and how unfair they were....her reasoning...the cut was saving her ~$40...this at a time when that was a decent salary. Her point: sure, they were going to avail themselves of the savings, but at the end of the day, saving it or not wasn't going to alter hers and her family's lifestyle; it just wasn't necessary, and the thing is that one didn't have to be as well off as she for the cut to have been necessary.
There's another thing going on these days that I frankly do not understand at all. I don't know how it is where you live, but in the D.C. metro area it seems to me the majority of new homes are priced at $600-700K to start. I honestly don't get that...I drive out to visit my folks in the burbs and everywhere I look, former farmland is not a subdivision of "McMansions." Everywhere, I see a new development, the signs say "luxury homes starting the in low $600s," or often enough, more. Where are the signs saying, "nice homes starting in the mid $300s?" (Of course, it's possible to buy something for less, a lot less, than $600K, but it's just that, a lot less than a single family home.)
I ask myself, "where are all these people coming from who can afford to buy houses like that?" It's not that I'm shocked to see pricey homes, it's the quantity of them that just doesn't make sense to me. Even as that makes no sense to me, I know builders don't just build homes like that on the "off chance" that they'll sell. They have to have a reasonable basis for making the investment to develop the land. And that tells me that there must be enough folks around with the money to buy homes like that. And the only way there are enough people to buy homes of that sort is the country is, at least economically, doing well.
I have to assume there are enough people around to buy all these new homes, because I drive by the new subdivisions year in and year out and watch them fill up, I have seen over the past 30 years the huge change in the traffic patterns and volumes when I venture into the burbs to visit friends and family or go shopping. My family's business is real estate, although not single family home building, and I see the same general pattern there as well in terms of the cost per square foot just keeps increasing and the occupancy rates stay very high.
The point there is that folks who have cash to spend are coming from somewhere, and they keep coming. Now, to my mind, the only way that happens is if the economic state of the country is decent overall. It has to be because the D.C. area isn't inexpensive and most folks who are here came here from somewhere else. D.C. isn't the kind of area one can come to bordering on flat broke and expect that one is going to find the "pot at the end of the rainbow" here. (One might be able to pull off something like that living some 40 or 50 miles outside the city, but in D.C. Metro, that ain't happening.)
So when I see all these folks coming to the D.C. area from "wherever" and buying these fancy homes, I have to think that "life is good" outside the beltway too, no matter all the kvetching that various politicos do. All that griping strikes me as a lot of disingenuous jockeying for power rather than legitimately sounding the alarm because there is something really wrong, again, economically.
Truly, if I were to posit any single thing is wrong, it'd be that too many folks are spending right at their means in an effort to reach for that little bit more...which in turn straps them for cash and puts them just a couple paychecks away from ruin. I think folks who do that know that's what they've done and it makes them nervous, for good reason. The thing is that doing that was their choice; nobody made them buy that fancy house with the graduate's/nanny's apartment above the garage.
They sat with a realtor and a banker and thought, "well, if we stretch a little and cut back on 'such and such' a little, we can get it...and it's so lovely...yatta, yatta, yatta," and now there they are in their lovely home feeling strapped....and presumable echoing the cry of "the country's falling apart; the average person just can't get ahead."
Clown! WTH are you thinking? You bought a $600K+ home. You aren't an average person/earner. You're a well above average earner who's overextended yourself and now it's somebody else's fault. Well, I'm sorry, but it's nobody else's fault. You were/are, as my welfare mentorees would say, "frontin," it's caught up with you, and now here you are singin' the blues, "Woe is me! for I am undone. They did me wrong." [adaptation of Isaiah 6:5 & Jeremiah 4:31] (I stuck with the figure I began with above, but the same principle -- overextending oneself -- applies at higher or lower price points.)
Now on the social side of things, yes, I think the country is headed toward hell in a handbasket. Why is beyond me seeing as economically most folks are doing okay and I'm no sociologist or cultural anthropologist.
the_human_being
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Well, the Church was filthy rich.
rightwinger
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How is Sweden and Finland doing?
Far better than they would without America's contribution to their situation.
Neither a Nazi nor a Soviet dominated Europe would be a very nice place to live.
Anathema
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Just because somwthing or someplace isn't GREAT doesn't mean it isn't Good or that there's any other place thst is better.
My family came here from many different parts of Europe to escape those societies. Unfortunately, we've now brought many of those societal ills to this nation as well. I still have a amall amount of hope that we can correct that; becayse if we can't then there's no decent place left on this planet.
rightwinger
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the_human_being
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Why don't you move there and write us back and tell us?
the_human_being
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Mikeoxenormous
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The Church and the King were one and the same, that is why the Pilgrims left Europe for America.
Mikeoxenormous
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Every time a Republican President gets elected, you hear from the Hollywood liberal elites that they are going to move out of America, yet they never do. That is because they LOVE their money(that isn't taxed like we are) and don't want any government to take it away. Since Obama has been in office, Hollywood has received OBSCENE tax breaks, yet We the People have had to pick up the bill. Shame libtards are too stupid to realize this, but when your head is stuck up your ass, you tend to miss a lot of what is going on around you.
My point was that neither a Nazi nor a Soviet dominated Europe would be a very nice place to live.
You can tell because that is what I said.
It relates to the question of capitalism vs socialism because the Industrial might that gave US that military power came from our better economic system.
Would you like to be a Swedish Citizens in a Nazi dominated Europe?
rightwinger
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Total nonsense
What "tax breaks" did Hollywood receive from Obama ?
He raised taxes on anyone making over $400K
What happened to all the conservatives on this board who swore they would leave forever if Obama got reelected? They all snuck back in
rightwinger
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Skull Pilot
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So tell me exactly what did the GOP do to destroy the economy
BTW it wasn't destroyed we have had recessions in the past and we will have them again
And FYI a major cause of this last recession was the deregulation signed by Blow Job Billy that removed the once very sharp dividing lines between banks, investment firms and insurance companies AKA too big to fail
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