Looters' proposal for "recovery"

[j_b]

Here comes the thug.

[Fairweather]

Go easy on the little guy, Nitrox. His mom just announced she's renovating the basement.

[j_b]

and how many synapses did you pop on that one?

 

Better get my sandbox toys to play with CC's right wing brain trust: http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toy_categories/outdoor_toys/beach_toys_sand_toys/index.cfm

[Nitrox]

Go easy on the little guy, Nitrox. His mom just announced she's renovating the basement.

 

She's just saying that, the truth is she has been seeing a nice white haired guy from the senior center and doesn't want j_b walking in on them any more.

 

 

[Nitrox]

and how many synapses did you pop on that one?

 

Better get my sandbox toys to play with CC's right wing brain trust: http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toy_categories/outdoor_toys/beach_toys_sand_toys/index.cfm

 

I bet your brow gets are twisted as you bite your lip and feverishly bang the keyboard while screaming "THOSE MOTHERFUCKING REGRESSIVE SHILLS!".

 

 

[j_b]

[Hugh Conway]

Deriding Rand's fiction becuase of its conservative undertones is akin to conservative's refusing to read Heller or Vonegut becuase of their view on war.

 

Do you really think it's because of "conservative undertones" that Rand's drivel is pushed almost every day on the airwaves by neanderthals like Beck and Limbaugh?

 

I agree with you that her philosophy is abhorrent, I was just pointing out that Atlas and Fountainhead were two of the most influential fiction novels of the 20th century. They're well written and in my opinion should be read by everyone -- especially given how relevant they are in today's political climate.

 

 

The Dan Brown comparison was poor. Brown's more subtle. So was Michael Crichton. Read one novel of their's and that's really all you need.

 

Rand's influence is mostly because pimply anti-social teen losers can read it and feel inspired.

[wfinley]

[video:youtube]

[JayB]

Dude, you and your boys have driven the economy into such a hole with your trickle down bullshit, tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of industry (especially finance) and privatization of the commons that the tax base has shrunk to such a point that it doesn't have the capacity to fund anything, littler less the wars you have pushed on us, or tax cuts for people who don't reinvest in our economy.

 

The government could easily deliver the same level of services to the public without a single furlow or layoff by imposing across the cuts in pay and benefits, particularly pensions.

 

Public employee unions clearly prefer furlows and layoffs to reductions in pay, benefits, and pensions. Makes sense - sense their primary concern is maximizing the private advantage that they can derive from the expenditure of public funds.

 

What doesn't make sense is a self-styled progressive adopting a platform that maximizes the cost and minimizes the delivery of public services. Why renovate 5 bridges when you can pay the same amount under Davis-Bacon rules and get three? Ditto for police, fire, teachers, etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

 

[Choada_Boy]

Yeah, unions are for SUCKERS.

[j_b]

More JayB drivel attacking public employees and unions but nothing about the largest economic inequalities in over a half century, all "growth" of the last 30 years having gone to the upper 10%, most people's real earning income having decreased since his trickle down religion was forced down our throats 30 years ago, about most corporation paying little to no taxes, about most major coporations hiding income in tax heavens, about banks getting untold trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money at 0% so they can turn around and lend it to you at whatever you can afford ... until bankruptcy, etc ...

 

The economy won't recover until people have money to spend because it is a consumer economy, yet JayB wants to decrease wages further and rob them of their pensions so they have even less money to spend. I guess his math isn't very good.

[j_b]

Yeah, unions are for SUCKERS.

 

ya, suckers who like the 8 hour day, no child labor, some vacation, the minimum wage, etc .. some "suckers" I'd say.

[JayB]

More JayB drivel attacking public employees and unions but nothing about the largest economic inequalities in over a half century, all "growth" of the last 30 years having gone to the upper 10%, most people's real earning income having decreased since his trickle down religion was forced down our throats 30 years ago, about most corporation paying little to no taxes, about most major coporations hiding income in tax heavens, about banks getting untold trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money at 0% so they can turn around and lend it to you at whatever you can afford ... until bankruptcy, etc ...

 

The economy won't recover until people have money to spend because it is a consumer economy, yet JayB wants to decrease wages further and rob them of their pensions so they have even less money to spend. I guess his math isn't very good.

 

How - per your understanding - will transferring less private income to the government in the form of taxes lead to a reduction in total private income and spending.

 

If the taxes on your income and consumption were reduced by 10%, would you have more or less money to spend or invest?

 

Also - per your understanding of economics, is there any difference between the economic impacts associated with accruing savings in the form of physical cash, versus bank deposits, CDs, money market accounts, bonds, and other forms of investment?

 

 

[j_b]

Another strawman from the resident corporate shill. I didn't say we had to increase taxes on the common man, I said we had to increases taxes on the wealthy and corporations who are paying today a tiny fraction of the taxes they paid when America had it strongest growth and aren't reinvesting in our economy despite your continual snake oil promising the opposite, trickle down zealot!

[j_b]

In the 80's, the Reaganites spewed their hate of "welfare queens" years on end to justify cutting the social safety net like today's dead-enders spew their hate of public employees and their unions to cut public spending.

 

The strategy is the same as it always has been: divide and conquer. Pit the public employees who retained their benefits against private sector employees who lost their benefits. Pit the young against the old by lying about social security, the most successful program ever for Americans. Pit whites against ethnic minorities through race-baiting that I don't need to describe since everybody can witness it today.

 

The tactics is always the same: lie about how many "welfare queens" there are and how much they weigh in the balance of the equation, like they lie today about how many overpaid public employees there are (JayB has been caught several times cherry-picking data about public employees to support his bogus argument) and how much that weighs against the corporate/elite boondoggle we have continually financed for decades now.

 

The purpose is always the same: cut the social safety net, increase the share of banksters and other thieves who they claim work the hardest, plunder what's left of the treasury (i.e. today it's social security) and kill off the middle class. The result is society of a few have-a-lot and everybody else has-little-to-nothing: almost the perfect neofeudal wet dream.

[JayB]

Another strawman from the resident corporate shill. I didn't say we had to increase taxes on the common man, I said we had to increases taxes on the wealthy and corporations who are paying today a tiny fraction of the taxes they paid when America had it strongest growth and aren't reinvesting in our economy despite your continual snake oil promising the opposite, trickle down zealot!

 

I was actually hoping that you would persist with the "as you transfer private sector income into unionized public sector income private sector income will increase proportionally" argument. Bummer.

 

 

In other news, it looks like the regressive virus is spreading. Witness a first, the "lefty" regressive! Introducing, Jeff Adachi....

 

"San Francisco is the most progressive, pro-union, you know, lefty, and I'm probably the poster boy for that in many ways. But the reality is, if we don't do something, all of the important programs, not only public defense but we're talking about children's programs, after-school programs, education, senior programs, everything that we care about as progressives is going to be lost because it's being sucked up by the cost of pensions."

[j_b]

"Income Tax Burden Shifted Towards the Wealthy"

 

ROTFL how could it not be since they get an even more disproportionate share of the pie and there are more people living in poverty?

[JayB]

"Income Tax Burden Shifted Towards the Wealthy"

 

ROTFL how could it not be since they get an even more disproportionate share of the pie and there are more people living in poverty?

 

I see your ROTFL and raise you a LOL...

 

 

 

[j_b]

"Income Tax Burden Shifted Towards the Wealthy"

 

ROTFL how could it not be since they get an even more disproportionate share of the pie and there are more people living in poverty?

 

I see your ROTFL and raise you a LOL...

 

You especially went from dishonestly implying the wealthy returned more of their take than in the past to merely saying the wealthy now pay a greater proportion of taxes than those who have little to nothing. DUH!

 

The truth is over the last 30+ years, tax rates have fallen most for the wealthy as they took an even greater share of the pie (the wealthiest had the largest decrease in tax rates). Moreover, a) your charts do not account for sales taxes, fees and payroll taxes that have almost all increased for people who work to earn a living, and b) tax evasion thanks to undeclared income.

[denalidave]

I'm confused, we have two JBs here... I never noticed till now they were the same, yet different. Will the real JB please stand up?

[Nitrox]

"Income Tax Burden Shifted Towards the Wealthy"

 

ROTFL how could it not be since they get an even more disproportionate share of the pie and there are more people living in poverty?

 

I see your ROTFL and raise you a LOL...

 

You especially went from dishonestly implying the wealthy returned more of their take than in the past to merely saying the wealthy now pay a greater proportion of taxes than those who have little to nothing. DUH!

 

The truth is over the last 30+ years, tax rates have fallen most for the wealthy as they took an even greater share of the pie (the wealthiest had the largest decrease in tax rates). Moreover, a) your charts do not account for sales taxes, fees and payroll taxes that have almost all increased for people who work to earn a living, and b) tax evasion thanks to undeclared income.

 

If it's "their" money why should they return it? I have to admit, you made me laugh by claiming quantifiable statistics are irrelevant because of some incalculable and non existent data.

 

 

 

 

[JayB]

"Income Tax Burden Shifted Towards the Wealthy"

 

ROTFL how could it not be since they get an even more disproportionate share of the pie and there are more people living in poverty?

 

I see your ROTFL and raise you a LOL...

 

You especially went from dishonestly implying the wealthy returned more of their take than in the past to merely saying the wealthy now pay a greater proportion of taxes than those who have little to nothing. DUH!

 

The truth is over the last 30+ years, tax rates have fallen most for the wealthy as they took an even greater share of the pie (the wealthiest had the largest decrease in tax rates). Moreover, a) your charts do not account for sales taxes, fees and payroll taxes that have almost all increased for people who work to earn a living, and b) tax evasion thanks to undeclared income.

 

Paging the ROFL-Copter...

 

 

 

"A new CBO report gives the effective federal tax rate by income group. These numbers include all federal taxes, not just income taxes, and are expressed as a percentage of household income."

 

 

 

Here's a chart that includes all taxes - state, local, federal, etc.

 

"As the first chart shows, if income is measured as market income — income from employment, investments, and a few other sources, but not including government transfers — the tax system is essentially flat. The effective tax rate is approximately 30% for households throughout the income distribution."

 

Total Tax Rate Before Transfers

 

REGRESSIVE!

 

But wait..

 

"Adding government transfers (as the Congressional Budget Office does in its calculations of federal tax progressivity) increases the average income in each quintile, but much more for the bottom than for the middle or top. This reduces the effective tax rate more in the lower part of the distribution than the upper, resulting in a progressive structure."

Total Tax Rates After Transfers

 

"What should we conclude? I think the first chart here better reflects the impact of the U.S. tax system. It does very little to alter the market distribution of income. Redistribution is achieved mainly by government transfers rather than by taxes."

 

REGRESSIVE! LOL.

[j_b]

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else

David Cay Johnston

 

"David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, here reveals how fairness and equity have eroded from the American tax system. Johnston describes in shocking detail the loopholes our government provides the "super rich"--from private individuals to profitable corporations—-to hide their wealth, to defer or evade tax payments, and to pass the bill to law-abiding middle-class Americans. The loss in revenue "imposes a severe cost on honest taxpayers" through reduced services, increased federal debt, and a weight on the middle class that threatens to impede its ability to achieve upward social mobility.

 

Admitting the extreme complexity of our economy and by extension our tax code, Johnston points out that the very wealthy do, of course, pay taxes. However, because of shelters that allow them to understate most of their income, they pay little more on average than most Americans on the dollar. This is regressive, and unquestionably favors the superrich. Johnston includes examples of outrageous corporate malfeasance (such as companies that establish off-shore tax addresses) and exposes the tax benefits of the particularly loathsome practice made famous by Jack Welch, in which thousands of wage earners are laid off while a handful of executives are granted hundreds of millions of dollars through deferred compensation, company stock options, and lucrative retirement packages, all at stock holders' expense. In addition to these offenses, he describes the tax evasion methods of those who simply defy the law and are emboldened by a beleaguered IRS that is too underfunded to serve as an effective deterrent to tax cheats. Johnston calls for a complete overhaul of the system. But because those who most benefit from these laws comprise the "donor class" that supports the government power structure, our prospects for reform remain very bleak."

 

http://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Legal-Campaign-Benefit-Everybody/dp/1591840198