patrick.net

That's great, I'm not. Tax him then. Dickface is free to pay 50% if he wants to, he may even get a thank you letter in the mail. The hypocrisy.

mell says

That's great, I'm not. Tax him then. Dickface is free to pay 50% if he wants to, he may even get a thank you letter in the mail. The hypocrisy.

Once again conservatives demonstrate their complete mathematical illiteracy and inability to comprehend the concept of freeloading when talking about the rich.

Dan8267 says

mell says

That's great, I'm not. Tax him then. Dickface is free to pay 50% if he wants to, he may even get a thank you letter in the mail. The hypocrisy.

Once again conservatives demonstrate their complete mathematical illiteracy and inability to comprehend the concept of freeloading when talking about the rich.

Ludicrous, there will never be a meritocracy if people have to pay 50% of their income and getting nothing in return. It's the very reason this country is on the decline. If you took a closer look at the tax responsibilities you would see that the top quintile pays almost all of the taxes. When those people with skills eventually have been decimated and pushed into the current 47%ers and the uber-wealthy have moved all of their cash overseas into untouchable accounts, then cannibal anarchy is on.

mell says

Ludicrous, there will never be a meritocracy if people have to pay 50% of their income and getting nothing in return

Right now Walmart employees pay 78.2% of their productivity as taxes to Walmart before the government taxes a penny. If you think that taxes are too high, start by lowering the taxes employers levy on their employees. The tax the owner class places on workers is far greater than all taxes government places on workers or on owners.

You want less welfare and government handouts? Make companies pay employees at least 80% of the wealth generated by those employees. When Walmart short-changes its employees by 80%, you the taxpayer make up the difference.

There will never be a meritocracy if people's income is determined by bargaining power rather than by merit.

Last I checked the Steven King home for wayward abused children was closed down for lack of funds.

Call it Crazy says

If you knew anything about business (which you don't), you would know that 80% of employees are a liability to the company and COST the company money.

Any company that has 80% of employees as a liability is long gone.

mell says

. If you took a closer look at the tax responsibilities you would see that the top quintile pays almost all of the taxes.

However, they also have most of the income, and more importantly, the vast majority of the wealth. The remaining 90% have very little wealth or income but pay a disproportionate share of taxes relative to that.

To visualize it by land mass:

The Republicans, Austrians, and Glibertarians complain that the large number of people living in that small part of Texas should be paying as much at the whole rest of the US owned by a few.

Note that Communist Jefferson talking about Socialist-Progressive-Commie-Homogay Taxation.

If you look closer at the prison population, you will see that violent criminals are serving almost all of the life sentences.

Call it Crazy says

80% of employees are a liability to the company and COST the company money. Only 20% of employees generate "wealth" for the company, which covers the expense of the other 80%

80% of applications of the Pareto principle are horseshit. The remaining 20% are meaningful.

mell says

If you took a closer look at the tax responsibilities you would see that the top quintile pays almost all of the taxes.

And do you why that is?? It's precisely because of the current state of inequality. When 1% of the people own 90% of the wealth, the only place you can tax is on them. If you want a broader tax base with more people paying in--you have to find a way to reduce this inequality.

Call it Crazy says

If you knew anything about business (which you don't), you would know that 80% of employees are a liability to the company and COST the company money.

If you knew anything about statistics, you'd know that your ass isn't a proper source of them.

thunderlips11 says

However, they also have most of the income, and more importantly, the vast majority of the wealth. The remaining 90% have very little wealth or income but pay a disproportionate share of taxes relative to that.

They definitely do not pay disproportionately because many don't pay income tax and or even get money back net due to negative effective tax rates (transfers). I agree that there's a huge wealth imbalance, but what's happening is that the larger bottom of the top quintile is pushed back into the "middle-class" or lower middle-class while the uber wealthy become wealthier. This will create less and less taxable income. You can only fix that by leaving people in the upper middle-class and upper class enough money to not fall back down the social ladder while temporarily levying the uber-wealthy (only as long as necessary) and increase the buying power by reducing wealth disparity through natural corrections and crisis (as happened in 2008 before the stick-save of the uber-wealthy) - which btw. will also cause great redistribution of land and property owned via natural means, and stop debasing the currency while inflating asset bubbles; and remove all special crony deductions (mortgage etc.)to level the playing field for a simple and uniform tax structure for everybody.

Tough shit for you guys, because I'm not tired of talking about it. I've known rich people, and why not, since I'm one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing 'Disco Inferno' than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar."

The reason I don't like modern horror writers, specifically King, is because they interject vulgarities into their stories which distract from the horror. Writers like M. R. James, F. Marion Crawford, Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft , William Hope Hodgson, H. Russell Wakefield created atmospheres of true horror which far surpass anything King can conjure up without any sexual or vulgar references. Also, I don't believe any of them had the least bit of interest in politics or whether or not they were paying their fair share of taxes, whatever that is. I wish acotors and writers would just stick to what they do and keep out of politics.

They're always talking about the 80% tax bracket in the 50's and 60's. My parents' best friends, Ross and Olna Sams, I'm sure had $1M income during the 60's and later, but I can assure you they didn't pay 80%. Ross (1898-1986) grew his father's small church furniture business into the largest church furniture manufacturing firm in the nation by the time he died. It was sold to another firm in the 90's and his son, who is 88, is his survivor. The plant and facilities were given to Baylor who now uses them for offices and housing.

http://www.llsamslofts.com/Apartments/module/website_documents/website_document[id]/32780/

So if I buy a house, the maid cleans it, the gardener takes care of the yard, the cook does the cooking-now they won the house, because they do most of the labor??

The Earth is ours to share with our fellow humans and other creatures. But sharing doesn't come naturally to us, so we must "own" things to be assured of their proper care and maintenance. Nobody ever washed a rental car...

lostand confused says

So if I buy a house, the maid cleans it, the gardener takes care of the yard, the cook does the cooking-now they won the house, because they do most of the labor?

I grew up in an era of 28% capital gains tax rates, and top marginal rates of around 41%, and I don't remember any maids and gardeners owning any of the houses in the neighborhood.

I'll have to ask some elderly relatives about that time period.

From a certain country in europe:

Bracket Annual income Rate
1

up to €10,999

0%

2

€11,000 – €25,000

36.5%

3

€25,001 – €60,000

43.2%

4

Over €60,000

50%

Would these rates be acceptable here if certain things such as healthcare, university education, etc were "free" (i.e included with your taxes). I have my doubts.

Call it Crazy says

Yeah, we also know which side of the equation you're on too...

All productive members of society are on one side of the equation and all parasites are on the other. That's why we need a new equation, dumb ass.

Quigley says

Nobody ever washed a rental car...

You obviously never rented a convertible for several weeks.

Quigley says

The Earth is ours to share with our fellow humans and other creatures. But sharing doesn't come naturally to us, so we must "own" things to be assured of their proper care and maintenance.

Sharing and ownership aren't opposite. Furthermore, an owner may very well choose to destroy his "owned" possession if he perceives it's in his best interests.

Example...
Bob is given ownership of the oceans. He gets to decide how much fish to extract from it. Bob is a greedy fuck who doesn't give a shit about anyone else, and he knows his lifespan is limited to about 80-110 years. So he sets the fishing rate such that all fish will be extinct by the time Bob is 90 years old. Bob makes out because he's "extracted all the value" from the ocean, and by that I mean he's maximized his profits, but in doing so he's decreased the total value that can be acquired from the ocean from a virtually unlimited amount to whatever was fished out before collapsing the ecosystem, which is the tiniest percentage of what thousands of future generations would have extracted if the oceans were managed in a sustainable manner.

Ownership does not imply the best management of resources for society. Personal greed does not guarantee the optimal use of resources. This is the fallacy of capitalism.

Dan8267 says

You want less welfare and government handouts? Make companies pay employees at least 80% of the wealth generated by those employees

that sure got you dislikes but you're spot on, mostly.

Also need to patch the housing market so that increased take-home pay just doesn't result in increased rent skimming by landlords of course.

Seriously, this is the dominant fact on the ground now:

Conservatives want that to go higher such that every dollar spent into the economy ends up with the capitalist owner class.

And they're winning!

Dan8267 says

ersonal greed does not guarantee the optimal use of resources. This is the fallacy of capitalism.

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-05-30/business/fi-2426_1_charles-hurwitz

MCO taking over Pacific Lumber and clearcutting "their" forests is a prime example.

As is the natural resource sector overall. Getting paid to sell our own resources back to us. What a racket. Core of the GOP powerbase of course, from Eisenhower's "Texas Oil Millionaires" on to today's Koch suckers.

"you would see that the top quintile pays almost all of the taxes"

http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-0

shows top 5% pays 60% of income taxes, but are taking almost 2/5 of the AGI dollars now ($175k/yr+)

out of unearned income! Nobody's punching a clock making $200+

The stupid thing is the low taxes on the bottom quintiles is just ending up in higher housing rents that are extracted from them each month.

Our current system is about as dysfunctional as the Soviet one got. GOP doesn't have any fixes, it's their policies that have fucked things up.

Democrats only have bandaids on it, just raising taxes on high incomes across the board.

Dan8267 says

concept of freeloading when talking about the rich.

99% of the current bullshit is just the GOP trying to avoid raising taxes on the rich.

The rest is opposing other Democrat wins like legalized birth control & abortion, racial integration, minimum wage laws, unions, subsidized health insurance, secularization / less Christian-dominated society, ending the systemic homo-hate in our culture, accepting that the US was, is, and should be a nation of immigrants, with all that entails . . .

They don't stand for anything other than returning to the 19th century both socially and economically. What a bizarre collection of people, conservatives.

I'll never understand them, yet they're so many!

Guess ol' J.S. Mill had their number.

Bellingham Bill says

that sure got you dislikes but you're spot on, mostly.

Dislikes are a manifestation of The Backfire Effect. I wear them with pride.