j_b

Prepare an initiative for 2012 creating a tax on the wealthy but that also decreases sales tax. In the meantime, freeze wages and whatever else is necessary but let's be pedagogical and also explore ways of cutting services in proportion to how people voted on 1098 and 1053. 70% voted against 1098 in Pierce county? well, lets cut 70% of some state subsidies going to that county or something like that.

Interestingly even Bush voters overwhelmingly chose a partition of wealth similar to that of Sweden. It just shows how effective is propaganda.

Demagoguery is very effective, as we have seen with the anti-tax/small gov propaganda over the last 30+ years. The major error of 1098 was to not include a decrease in sales tax to show that the intent was to make the system more progressive, not to tax people more.

Polls indicate there is a large majority of Americans that are for taxing the wealthy. Revenue shortfall is directly linked to the economic collapse. Unchecked health care costs and wars of aggression are the main cause of long term deficit. There is absolutely no reason to make American workers pay when they are already paying more than their fair share.

I guess not! Our warriors are just too busy hunting down public employees making $57k/yr to go after the banksters looting our communities.

Representative Democracy versus Corporate Democracy: How Soft Money Erodes the Principle of “One Person, One Vote” Russell D. Feingold, US Senator 1992-2010 America’s electoral process is rooted in the principle of “one person, one vote,” but that principle is drowning in a flood of unlimited political campaign contributions that are, through their ability to secure privileged access to lawmakers, undermining the integrity of both our elections and the legislative process.1 [..]The course that both parties so zealously pursue poses a serious threat to the integrity of our democratic process. That threat is the transformation of our representative democracy into what I call a corporate democracy, in which the “one person, one vote” principle is supplanted by a system that allocates influence over the political process in proportion to the amount of money an individual or group puts into that process. http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/book/pdf/316.pdf

Surely, if the WPC and their minions on this board are going to accuse bus drivers and other public employees of sucking up resources for making $57k/year and say they want to cut their pay and benefits, can we expect them to take to the street to demand that banksters lay off our communities. JayB, PP, KKK, FW are you at least going to pay lip service to the notion of austerity across the board? States and Cities Pay Wall Street $4 Billion To Exit Bad Deals Cities and states have had to pay Wall Street firms $4 billion since 2008 to get out of complicated interest rate deals that went sour, Bloomberg reports. After more than a decade of selling deals that were supposed to help local governments fund public projects, banks and insurance companies are now raking in payments as already-strapped cities and states try to exit the agreements. According to Bloomberg's investigation, the payments, to exit a total of more than $500 billion worth of deals, have soared to over $4 billion. They come at a time when states face budget shortfalls of about $72 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The deals, called interest rate swaps, are designed to allow a borrower (in this case, the local government) to pay a low and consistent rate of interest on their debt. What once seemed attractive, though, is now corrosive: In the wake of the financial crisis, Wall Street firms failed to uphold their end of the bargain and weren't able to cover the governments' interest payments, Bloomberg reports. The governments want out, and it's costing them dearly. In New York, for instance, the state initially saved about $203 million from the swaps, but it has now paid about $247 million to exit, Bloomberg says. The termination payments come on top of fees that banks have already collected for selling the deals. Government officials, not surprisingly, are incensed. The interest rate swap mess compounds an already growing risk: municipal debt default. As the Wall Street Journal reports Wednesday, some cities and towns are choosing to stop paying certain debts. The next major financial crisis, analyst Meredith Whitney argued in September, could come from local government defaults. Spending has outpaced revenue in cities and towns over the past decade, and this unsustainable situation was worsened by the financial crisis, Whitney said in an interview after the release of an extensive report. She noted that municipal debt has doubled since 2000. Ballooning pension obligations make the problem even worse than it appears. And now, the WSJ reports, some municipalities are behaving like homeowners who walk away from their mortgages. While investors sue, the cities and towns say they don't have to pay. Menasha, Wis., for example, still hasn't paid $23 million for debt that helped finance a failed steam plant, even though the payment was due in September 2009, the WSJ says. The city spends an average of $80,000 every month to battle investor lawsuits, according to the WSJ. Vallejo, Calif., has been mired in bankruptcy proceedings for more than two years. Harrisburg, Penn., has been considering filing for bankruptcy, as a failed incinerator project has clobbered its budget. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/government-debt-crisis_n_781417.html#

The day I am upset by meaningless zingers then I'll ponder whether I have a lack of self respect. You better watch out too, because neanderthals don't like people who don't mince words. You'll probably end up on their drive by hit list too if you don't wisen up.

Damn bus drivers! they are taking all of our money:

Did you bone up on your arithmetic since what 2004? Your ass has been sore all this time?

Bend over guys, PP is coming through.

SO, Fairweather posted 6 times over a ~24hour period claiming he wanted his question answered even though it had already been answered. When I eventually posted a law journal article that shows conclusively that 'one person, one vote' entails some measure of equality to influence outcomes, he first made himself scarce from this thread, then when he couldn't ignore it anymore, he started lying about how we got to this point. How can someone showing so little self respect carry on in public like this? Is it stupidity? is it self loathing? This is a mystery to me.

75k with overtime, because they max out at 59k for 40 hours/week.

Bush had so much gravitas right wingers voted for him twice.

Gravitas: dignity, seriousness, and duty That's Bush to a T

COme on peons, pay up. When is it your turn to take a pay cut because only your wage and pensions could be the cause of this fiscal crisis

Fairweather still hasn't commented on the law journal article discussing how 'one person, one vote' entails some measure of equality to influence outcome, even though he insisted ad-infinitum that he wanted an answer to his questions. Guess what? [video:youtube]bUopnpcGzrE

Fairweather claims he has no recollection of how we got here: I said: "right, who knows what might happen when uppity commoners actually try to enforce one person, one vote ..." Fairweather replied: "S'what we have already. Well, for those of us who choose to participate anyhow. Your goofy ideas don't look like freedom at all." then FW posted: "explain what you mean when you talk about "enforcing" one person, one vote." then FW posted again: "Does this mean you're not going to answer the question?" then FW insisted: "What does any of this have to do with one person one vote? Is someone getting extra votes? Are corporations (or unions) now casting votes? Please try to answer the question." but FW wasn't going to let it rest, so he said: "I'd appreciate it if he (you) clarified or retracted his (your) statement--which is patently untrue--that one person, one vote is not now in effect." and my short answer wasn't enough, so FW came back for more: "In other words, you were just shooting off your mouth without any real grasp of the words you were told by someone else to say. Well done, leftist dupe. Try thinking before you speak--at least every once in a while." So, I got tired of FW's bullshit and I posted the law journal article that everyone can read near the middle of this page. and then .... Fairweather ran away like a coward that he is and now he pretends to not know what's going on. You couldn't make that shit up if you wanted. What a clown!

Like all things that contradict his anti-tax, anti-government propaganda, JayB is certainly not going to acknowledge that the average wage for metro bus drivers is 50k. I said it several times in this thread and he ignored it. That's a classic JayB move. If he doesn't answer something, you can be pretty sure that you were right on the mark. Didn't you also see that Ennis who wrote JayB's reference article is with the Washington Policy Center, a neoliberal think tank aligned at 100% with the like of CEI, CATO, etc ..? They are the kind of propaganda outfit that are rabidly anti-green because they refuse to acknowledge externalities and the real cost of doing business. They are a bunch of sociopaths.

j_b doesn't go to parties - too much risk that he might actually have fun, and distract him from his life's work to inform the masses of the evils of "unfettered" capitalism, and reform our economic system according to a vision only he can see here comes the extremist thugs whose only arguments are ad-hominem.

Right, the law journal article on how 'one person, one vote' entails some form of equality to influence outcome, which you ignored after claiming that the flooding of our election with corporate money didn't prevent 'one person, one vote' is on this page. Just scroll the page up and you'll see it. You are such a lousy liar. You aren't done seeing running chicken pictures, coward!

So, you really wanted to press the issue until recently and now you are making yourself scarce. Are you ready for your quizz, jackass?

The bottom line is the banksters broke it, so they get to fix it or give up the loot before anybody else pays for this clusterfuck.

[video:youtube]nVh0ZdLgj5U

WTF does that have to do with using public money to pay more than necessary to staff positions with qualified people? Having employees implies paying them enough so they can support their families and so they contribute to their communities, unless one is a social Darwinist like you. Your socio-economic model harks back to the age of the robber barons on a global scale, nothing more. I am proud to pay taxes toward services, but I do pay more than my fair share thanks to anti-tax demagogues who cheered those that nickeled and dimed us to death. Shame on you. What a stupid comment! I pay taxes to help those who need services because their employers doesn't pay them enough, either because the boss really can't afford it or because the boss is greedy.