It's time to outlaw billionaires!
By louisehartmann
Welcome to America, where half the nation lives right on the razor’s edge. A shocking new report out of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, finds that 44% of Americans are just one financial shock away from complete ruin. Nearly half the nation doesn’t have enough savings to keep them out of poverty for more than 3 months, should they suffer a job loss, an accident, a sickness, or other financial shock.
Another recent study out of the Consumer Federation of American, found that 40% of all American households live paycheck-to-paycheck, with virtually no savings. This is what’s become of the once valued American middle class, after thirty years of trickle-down Reaganomics. And it’s the main reason why are economy continues to falter – our nation's working people and consumers don’t have enough money to spend.
Let’s roll back the Reagan tax cuts – put in place a new wealth tax on everyone making over a billion dollars and redistribute some of that wealth down to working people, who will actually spend it. Go to NoBillionaires.com.
Comments
#2
They can also herd many of the younger generation into yet more cannon fodder...if they get hungry enough they'll join the military and fight to the death for a scrap of food. That, combined with the constant glamorization of the military...heroic battles...in the movies, TV, computer games...what red-blooded American kid isn't brought up with the idea embedded in his/her minds that killing is fun. No wonder we have so many school shootings. You can, maybe, take away some of the guns, but the root cause will only dissipate when our children are not subjected to the glamorization of violence. Maybe we'll get lucky and these kids will grow up to use the billionaires for target practice.
The glorification of killing in our media is the worst kind of pornography...
#3
Blaming Reagan for today's Obama economy is ludicrous. We have a cultural degradation of our society, work ethic and family values At the root of our problems. Until we learn how to deal with this, stealing money from the rich and redistributing wealth is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.
In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married. By 2010, this was down to 51 percent.
The change is most pronounced among two of today's largest Democratic Party constituencies: youths and blacks. In 1960, 45 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 were married compared to 9 percent today. In 1960, 61 percent of black adults were married, compared to 31 percent today.
Means testing, targeted tax increases on the wealthy, raising the retirement age -- all proposed ways to keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid going as they are -- all simply grow the American welfare state, increase dependence of working Americans on government and other taxpayers, and displace family and traditional values with socialism.
This is why Democratic leaders are not stressed out by the entitlements crisis facing us. More socialism in America is what they want.
They are not bothered that slow growth and high unemployment go hand in hand with this socialism.
#4
Why should our kids have all the fun? I say "screw gun control, let's start shooting billionaires now; our kids can go after the millionaires". 8-))
Seriously, though, they can't take it with them, so why have all that money?
#5
Establish a Wealth Ceiling and let IRS mail out checks to the less fortunate. A country which slips into poverty is plundered by its officials.
#6
This is ridiculous...
It's really easy to criminalize billionaires when there are so few.
It makes more common sense to find ways to INCREASE the wealth of us all, than to try and DECREASE the wealth of others!
The "rich" live in as oppressive a system as the "poor" just in different perspective. Some of most depressed, fearful, isolated people I know are the so-called "rich" friends I have.
If we overhaul the ENTIRE monetary system (as well as the government, legal system, education system, and religion) this planet will begin to function in a sustainable way.
#7
How greedy is greedy? Not that it would make much of a difference but if we could just make sure every dollar earned is taxed equally it might be start. Also? As long as we're bagging on the rich we should also be bagging on those folks that run cash only ops and the such. I'm sure there are more then a few manicure salons, barbers and donut shops, neigborhood liquer stores and likely a few 100,000 schedule C filers that need to pay up also! wink,wink. When i think of joe the trucker and his waitress/part time stripper wife and those 3 kids he's trying to get through college and he paid $13,000 in taxes on 84k to some other fat cats 100k @ only $2,800 tax it really chaps my you know what! Get it? They only got rich 'cuz they had more left over on april 15th! Imagine if joe and his wife had the extra $10,200!! he'd likely not have to be going in hock for student loans or refiing the house to try to squeeze some cash out, which by the way these days is like jumping through hoops of fire since some moron(s) crashed the economy. Poor Joe, that S.O.B. never missed a mortgage payment in 20 years and now he's sweating about getting a lousy refi....
#8
It is not necesary to "criminalize" billionaires. They do that all on their own, by committing crimes. They start wars for their own profit, and that's against the law. They illegally pollute, and that is against the law. They overthrow foreign governments, and that is against the law. They run Wall Street, which is a very thinly-veiled criminal enterprise. They run our banking system and committ countless crimes in so doing.
So, no need to criminalize billionaires. Simply prosecute them for the crimes that they commit. Just as they would insist on the prosecution of anyone who stole money from them. What? It's a crime to steal if you're poor and hungry, but it's not a crime to steal if you're filthy rich?
And yes, I said they are filthy rich, as in: having more money than a person needs, makes that person filthy, it makes them a profiteer who takes from other people just so they can have more money to sit on.
I agree that many rich people are in very bad shape mentally. And part of the reason they are in such bad shape mentally, is because they make their entire lifestyle on the backs of the poor, they make most of their money by abusing other people. And they must be stopped, both for their own good and for our good. Because they are not capable of controlling their own behavior and if things keep going this way, they will destroy America. It is an act of high patriotism to stop the billionaires from further harming themselves and us.
#9
Do the billionaires want us to respect the rights of other countries? No, they do not.
Do the billionaires respect any of our rights? No, they do not.
Do the billionaires bribe congress to pass laws that benefit them at our expense? Yes, they do.
Do the billionaires scream blood murder when we try to pass laws to protect ourselves from them? Yes, they do.
Are the billionaires willing to do anything to anyone, in order to indulge the mental illness that forces them to hoard more money? Yes, the actions of the richest Americans ever since this country was founed, prove that they are willing to do anything to anyone, to get more money, even though they don't need more money.
Should we ask them politely if they would please stop stealing our money? No, that would be like asking an autistic person to not be autistic, because the billionaires are incapable of controlling their own behavior.
#10
Yep That's the Golden rule..Those with the GOLD RULE ! Its worse now than its ever been. Middle class is dying - lower class..losing ground. And not because we are lazy bums or victims. as Mitt says . M y husband and I worked all our lives..paid lots of taxes.. I paid double SS taxes as self employed. My husbands pension was cut by 60 %. Now as a widow I live on $ 1900 per month. Home - Utilities- phone = $ 900. month. Wall St got the welfare. We earned our benefits . My husband walked cement floors of a huge factory for years, then got screwed by CCC when the plant closed down. in 1988. I've had to take some IRA cash out just to live and help my daughter who had at stroke . I pay taxes on my IRA savings that I am forced to take out so now I owe the IRS ! Our lives are going down hill even though we worked hard . We made our money honestly, fairly and took unfair advantage of NO ONE Who says crime , greed does NOT pay ? IT sure does
#11
Thom, NOBILLIONARES!! I for one agree this is a brilliant idea. Please have the honor of drawing up the petition and give me the honor of signing it! Haste not!
Take the toys away from the greedy little babies and distribute them to the other kids so the toys don't get neglected. Force them to put their good where it will do the most good! It's after all, that is the most Patriotic thing to do!
#12
I'll reiterate what I and others have said before. Nothing, that is absolutely nothing will be done as far as any reforms go unless and until campaign finance reform is enacted. We MUST get the greedy hands of the 1% out of our government and return to representative democracy. Until our "elected" representatives are free of the yoke of corruption, any and all reforms will be hollowed out or re-written to specifically benefit those wealthy campaign donors. No other issue is as important as this. Not abortion, healthcare, immigration, gun control etc. All of our efforts should be directed at campaign finance reform first and foremost. Then when that is done, only then can meaningful reform start to occur. Otherwise we are just shovelling sand against the tide of Big Money donors.
Come on Thom, get behind campaign finance reform and give it a REAL push. I know you agree with it and you have the public exposure to make a difference.
#13
I can't beleive that some of you still blame Reagan. You do know he passed away nine years ago and he hasn't been the president for about 25 years. I guess if Moses didn't part the sea there would be more fish today. You people are starting to scare me. Didn't Hilter go after the Jews because they where a small portion of the population with a large percentage of the wealth.
leighmf "Establish a Wealth Ceiling and let IRS mail out checks to the less fortunate" don't we do this already its called welfare.
Nice to have you back Global
#14
Wealth tax
It seems that when you say wealth tax, you are referring to what is owned rather than what is earned. I like that idea since it goes after our main political problem which is a developing class of nobility who are born into their possesions rather than earning them. They see no problem in subverting our system so that they can hang onto their position of nobility. We need to tax this group out of existence.
#15
Have you ever wondered what happened to the mafia families that used to run so many criminal enterprises in America? I will tell you what happened to those mafia families: they got rich committing crimes, and then, in an effort to make themselves look like better people than they were, they sent their children to the finest universities to study law, accounting, banking, international finance, and related subjects.
Their children returned from those universities and said, "Dad, put down your gun. We need to quit robbing banks. We need to own the banks. And we need to own large accounting firms, so instead of getting caught with two sets of books, we can bribe congress to pass laws that make it legal for us to avoid paying taxes. In fact, let's pass laws that make the government give us tax rebates even when we don't pay any taxes.
And why engage in extortion on a personal level, such as making so-and-so pay us for not trashing his bakery in New York City, when we can control America's government and get the government to engage in extortion on an international scale, with us getting the profit.
And their dads said, "But I enjoy killing people and breaking their legs."
The sons said, "Sure,sure, who doesn't enjoy doing that? But the thing is, do it legally. Imagine the thrill if we had the American military dropping bombs on our enemies. Dad! Take your hand out of your pants, that's not polite! And what the hey, if you want to do it personally, you can still shoot people in the face with a shotgun, you just have to say it was an accident."
Slowly, it began dawning on those old mafia leg-breakers, that it really is a good idea to send kids to college. Because instead of carving up territories in New York City, or the northeast, or wherever, they could take over the entire world. Which is exactly what they have been doing.
We need to stop considering billionaires as regular people who somehow lucked out and got some money, because they are thieves, con artists, extortionists, and murderers. They are common criminals.
When someone tries to steal money from a Jew, they have a saying, "You are stealing food out of the mouths of my children."
And that saying has never been more appropriate in America than it is today: the billionaires are stealing food out of the mouths of our children.
They must be stopped.
#16
Global, by your reasoning, if you worked all your life to save up some money for your kids, and I stole that money, and then when you complained about it thirty years later, I can say, "Get over yourself, that was thirty years ago. Geez, get a job, you loser."
Great to have you back, Global. Now, what's your bank account number and your bank's routing number, so we can get started?
#17
"We have a cultural degradation of our society, work ethic and family values At the root of our problems."
And we didn't untill Reagan. How can you generalize work ethic when most people are forced to work for poverty wages. Been this way ever since Reagan! Family values? People love their children but ever since Reagan, when both parents were FORCED to work, values take the back seat to eating and sleeping. If the right believed in family values as they so poorly claim, they would be helping all families to make a living wage. I'm afraid our real problem is elitism and fascism. It doesn't happen over night, Global and it won't get fixed over night but we need you on our side. The real family values side. The real living wage side. The anti billionaire side. Karl Rove is very busy trying to save the 4th reich through election rigging.
I had a vision where no one was allowed to OWN any more than $30 million. When you reached that point, you don't NEED any more and have to pass your business on to a person or group of your choice. Preferably the employees. Can you imagine the economy from the mass of money in circulation! It would be instantly awesome!
#18
Most Americans are not earning enough income to properly support themselves and their families. The country is experiencing a widening divide between an elite income class with well-paid salaries and dividend and capital gain income from stock ownership and low-pay wage earners and those dependent on taxpayer-supported government welfare funded by extracting taxes and incurring national debt. This situation will continue to worsen. Americans need to WAKE UP and realize that the FUTURE is one of technological unemployment. Private sector job creation in numbers that match the pool of people willing and able to work is constantly being eroded by physical productive capital’s ever increasing role. And as a result, most American incomes will decline, which will result in a downturn in the economy as there will be fewer and fewer "customers with money" to purchase the products and services society needs and wants. The result: no or significantly reduced opportunity for income.
In the past decade and previous to that Americans were increasingly relying on CONSUMER DEBT to finance homes, cars, vacations, education, and their material affluence. This is the worst debt because it does not generate its own income stream to pay for its self unlike applying the logic of corporate finance, which is self-financing and asset-backed credit for productive uses to grow the economy. People invest in capital ownership on the basis that the investment will pay for itself. Ordinary Americans are shut out of this opportunity because our financial institutions require a form of loan security and relay on "past" savings and equity, which ordinary Americans, and by that I mean the majority, do not have. What is need our proposals to free economic growth from the slavery of "past" savings.
The new reality of technological unemployment is not going to go away. This reality is the result of technological innovation and invention, tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, and an obsolete union movement stuck in job creation and "more pay for less work" instead of bargaining for employee ownership and increased incomes resulting from dividends earned as stock owners in corporate America.
There is a solution, which will result in double-digit economic growth. The Just Third Way Master Plan for America's future is published at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797.
The solution to broadening private, individual ownership of America's future capital wealth requires that the Federal Reserve stop monetizing unproductive debt, including bailouts of banks "too big to fail" and Wall Street derivatives speculators, and begin creating an asset-backed currency that could enable every man, woman and child to establish a Capital Homestead Account or "CHA" (a super-IRA or asset tax-shelter for citizens) at their local bank to acquire a growing dividend-bearing stock portfolio to supplement their incomes from work and all other sources of income. As well national debt needs to be focused on growing the private sector of the economy simultaneously with facilitating private, individual ownership of FUTURE productive capital formation. Policies need to insert American citizens into the low or no-interest investment money loop to enable non- and undercapitalized Americans, including the working class and poor, to build wealth and become "customers with money." The proposed Capital Homestead Act would produce this result.
The fundamental economic solution is to create income for EVERY American by simultaneously broadening private, individual ownership of FUTURE productive capital economic growth and fully paying the profit dividends to the new American owners of the income-producing capital assets of our corporations.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
#19
Geez, David. Who kicked you in the teeth and stole your money? Do you want a better job or would cash help you out and how much do you need?
#20
Worse yet is the lack of opportunity even for those with a bachelors or masters degree. Our lust for wage saving tchnology has eliminated millions upon millions of jobs and devalued millions more. So as a result of billionaires quest to eliminate employee payroll and benefit packages and destroy labor unions by implimenting technology that destroys jobs. Smart technology doesn't break down, and has no need for health plans it has upset the ratio of jobs needed in high technology as well. How many engineers can we posibly employ ? The population of the US has more than quadrupled since Kennedy but the opportunity for employment has shrank to unbelievably low levels. There simply are not enough jobs.
Not even enough minimum wage jobs. There will not be enough jobs in the future. Austerirty will only piss people off untill something catastrphic socially takes place. I do not wat to work in a clean room wearing a bunny suit. I do not want to be an engineer, and I don't want to sit on my but being a research analyst, or nuclear physisist. We have arrived at a point where the opportunites left are for the execptions of our society not for the millions of common folks who want a job. They are not genius nor are they stupid. They are just ordinary people who want to be something other than a burden on the rich. Or maybe the most reasonable question is are the super rich a burdon on society. What will the conslusion be in the future ?
#21
Scott from Oz has it right: "Nothing, that is absolutely nothing will be done as far as any reforms go unless and until campaign finance reform is enacted. "
And yet there is almost NOTHING being done to get Mega-Money out of Government and Politics. The Politicians are doing nothing -- and why would they? Look who is receiving the big-bucks. It's either us folks, or it ain't gonna get done.
#22
I saw recebtly a statement that the poverty level of income was 50%of the median income. This means that a very large percentage of Americans are below the poverty line on incomes.
Also one source iomdicated that the Affordable Health Care Act will be subsidizing health care insurabce premiums up to four times the BLS poverty levels. Yhis would mean that even the median incime families would receive a subsidy. This in spite of the present estimate of average medical costs about twice the costs of food for the families in the U.S. and that cost is rising at considerably over tth National cost of living increase each year. It woin't be long before the people will rise up and revo;d like the French did! Unfortunately that led to the loss of the republican (we call it a democracy but it is really an oligarchy) form of government.
Check Leverett & Leverett's new book. I listenened to their discussion on BookTV. Also check out Max Boot's new book on the history of guyerilla warfare. He makes some rational recommendations how to handle the terrorist warfare problem.
Also, get spellcheck installed!
#23
There usually is a message about this billionaire stuff that is elusive. That is most of us don’t know the reasons to build such wealth. From my view this whole concept was displayed in the last election. It is called transparency.
Or, many call it closed door meetings, backroom deals, voting for something you don’t need to read, because the political person already knows what is in the legislation and they or someone they know has their fingers in the stock market before and after it happens. President Obama knows this by now as soon as he signs legal stuff money flips like lighting.
If the American electorate did not know that Romney ditched such an amount of his money secretly in off shore bank accounts, or a Swiss bank accounts, where he made millions in just interest payments, besides the business deals, I think through thirty second advertisements America would have voted for him. Of course I am discounting that forty seven percent secret film that destroyed him and the party. Don’t you see how weird the whole thing is? This ant nothing like hoop basketball.
America, if the big insurance business can induce you to buy insurance from watching a lizard or a talking pig called Maxwell while riding in an airplane they are pretty sure they own this country. It is the media. The media has the responsibility to expose these imbalances.
The ideal between the concepts of the public not being told what the truth is to be able to give feedback for representatives to take action is the integral part of the America problem. Just simple and responsible communication with an understanding of where the noise comes from. Like political junk from FOX News. The electorate needs to be taught the difference more so today than ever. It is very obvious the university system fails this to the point of extreme poverty.
#24
Global, you said, and I quote: "Blaming Reagan for today's Obama economy is ludicrous."
I responded by pointing out that if someone stole your money thirty years ago, arranging for you to be poor rather than middle class, I rather doubt that you would say, "Oh don't blame him."
Reagan favored wealthy Americans to the very clear detriment of the poor and the middle class. He put in motion many laws and executive actions that harmed America and harmed Americans. Well, except for the rich Americans- he didn't harm the rich Americans.
Until Reagan, it was free to go to college in California. Reagan decided that poor and middle class people should not get higher education. Reagan saw higher education as being a privilege that people should have to pay for.
I see it differently. I think that a highly-educated workforce is one of the most valuable assets a country can possibly have. It is one of the best protections for a country, to ensure that REAL job creators can create REAL jobs (as opposed to starve you slowly WalMart jobs), and we have a stable economy made up of people who can freely get out of poverty and contribute more to America, to make America a greater nation. Reagan didn't want poor people to contribute anything other than cheap labor, unless they were able to claw their way to the top of the dung heap that he created.
And at the other end of the spectrum, Progressives see poor people and say, "How can we, as a country, help these people to get ahead in life, so they make more money and therefore pay more taxes, and make other substantial contributions to America?"
I have no idea where you got your response about kicking in the teeth. And thanks for the offer of a job or money, if you were really offering and not trying to change the subject. But I was simply replying to your post with a "How would you feel if I did to you what Reagan did to millions of Americans" scenario, because you said don't blame Reagan. And then you changed the subject. Which is the across-the-board republican method of dealing with facts that they do not want to admit.
#25
You can blame Reagan for the decline of American values. The '80s was when greed became good and "how you play the game" ceased to matter. Only whether you won or lost did anymore. People' values became completely superficial and they only cared about wealth and status and had no sense of responsibility to the community. Crime and the cocaine trade exploded as poor kids saw what was really admired and respected in society and sought to make money any way they could without regard for law or ethics.
The welfare state is not socialism, the workers' state is. The welfare system is just a poor compromise with capitalism inadequately trying to make up for some of the injustices. What big business doesn't pay in wages it must pay in taxes, hence Walmart in California giving its employees formal instruction on how to go on food stamps. If business refuses to do either - as it is now - you have what is happening now - the destruction of the middle class and the pauperization of working people.
Marriage rates are irrelevant to any of this. The woman eager to bear children by any means so she can qualify for welfare is a fictional construct. Business has always run a public media campaign against welfare because welfare benefits compete with wages and force business to pay more living wages.
And I don't see slow growth and unemployment affecteing the socialist democracies of Western Europe. Their actual unemployment rates are not higher than ours, they just have a different, more realistic and truthful way of calculting their rates.
#26
Global, I want you to see my reply to your post of the day before yesterday that I don't think you saw because I posted it on that blog late last night. It follows
Labor, by far, isn't always justly compensated. As Woody Guthrie said, "The gambling man is rich, the working man is poor". What may be legal isn't always ethical, by any means. Everything shouldn't be organized to serve the investor class.
The masterminds who decide how much of your income you should keep or how much it should be subsidized are you and I - and everyone else - deciding collectively and democratically.
There is nothing handed down by God saying which or how much that has to be. We just gotta decide
#27
I absolutely agree that billionaires should be outlawed. They are the real parasites. Imagine a society with no rich and no poor! If I had one wish...
#28
I'm also in total agreement that billionaires should be outlawed. In my opinion the collection of additional revenue from those who gained it due to an absence of equitable tax policy is necessary to meet constitutional obligations. The promotion of the general welfare and securement of the blessings of liberty is sentiment far removed from half of the population being one financial shock away from complete ruin.
So how do we communicate without any question that extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few not only makes a farce out of democracy but also does not equate to rightful or in my opinion legal ownership of said wealth. I think the strategy of simple and powerful lies that characterize right wing talking points might be a good one for the way we should approach getting the word out. Of course a big difference being that our talking points would include powerful and simple truths.
I for example don't see a false equivalence in a statement like the following.... someone making over a billion per year is no different than a used car salesman selling vehicles for ten times more than they're worth to his own employees whom he's paying ten times less than their worth, who is the rightful owner of the wealth gained by the used car salesman....unregulated capitalism in a so called democracy.....that's what we get.
Taxation is one way to right the wrong!
#29
Oh Yes O-B-Juan! A most perfect society where there is TOTAL EQUALITY. Where there are no black and whites but only one drab shade of grey. How Utopian and Wonderful. We all live in the same houses with the one media channel. One big eye watching us and protecting us from uh uh uh oh yeah....there is no evil because we are all equal....we all wake up at 7 am and lights out at 10 pm. What a boring, drab and "Big Brother" world...Oh yeah, by the way, who is going to "police" this utopian society? King Obama?
We are Human Beings with a "Drive" to succeed.
#30
Global...If your reach in my pocket and take a dollar without my consent and then make a billion dollars on that "stolen" dollar of mine...The billion dollars is just as much mine as the dollar that you stole from me...And I will TAKE back what is rightfully mine.
In other words; Taking back what was mine to begin with ain't stealing!
#31
Global, I know your were not addressing me but...I just want to afford a healthy life...To work an honest 40 hour work week doing what I love and am qualified to do, and be compansated with a wage that - at the very least - pays for the basic cost of living for a house hold of 3, and enables me to be independent and maintain a healthy household.
I have trade skills in construction, a degree in education, but for the last 9 years I haven't been able to land a good paying job in those areas. For 3 years the best I could muster up for a teaching job was subing, but that didn't pan out into a full time teaching position, and as you know construction isn't booming, occasionally I pick up a remodel or someone needs a handyman. Currently I work 40hrs a week doing landscape making $12/hr which is steady but I will never be able to retire and I certainly am not a contributing consumer to the economy...I don't earn enough to have extra spending money; by the time the bills are paid there is barely enough for food each week. Which puts me and my family in a tough spot since most of the food I can afford is looooooaded with crap and not healthy. When I get sick I cannot afford to go to the doctor...The best I can do is afford a bottle of tylenol...So far I have beat the flu twice this season. The last time...I was sick for 5 days but only missed 2 days of work fearing I would lose my job if I missed more.
I know there are no guarentees in life, except death...That life ain't fair, but we seem to have lost our humanity as a collective; It seems essential - especially when times are so economicaly bad, for so many - that we all work together and help each other through these national dire straights.
The BIGGER problem is that no one wants to be the generation that takes the bull by the horns and suffers through the great fix, so that we don't keep kicking the problem down the road with just a band-aid solution that only benefits the current generation.
I don't want to "steal" anyones money, nor do I want a handout, or compensation for work I have not done.
Is it to much to ask the so called "job creators" that they pay a wage that secures honest working people above poverty level? A wage that enables me to secure a healthy and independent household. But!!!and it is a BIG BUT...The last 30 years seem to offer less and less...Even though many companies have high production, lower overhead and ever increasing profits...They do not take care of their worker bees.
And yes the great economic divide did start with Regan and has been holdfast by the powers of Wall St.
#32
Billionaires should pay no tax! Or billionaires should pay 99%, their choice.You see, if a 99% tax on wealth is properly stuctured, reinvested wealth is not taxable, nor is charitable wealth.Unfortunatly the argument is never framed this way. Insteaded the so called "progressive" argument seems to be lost in a Robin Hood fantasy. Meanwhile the wealthy and their minions promote the message "if you let us keep our money we will create jobs". And they will, if you let them do anything they want with their money expanding their on shore widget factory wont be their first choice. Its too much work and not the biggest profit. "Beware of false profits". These non taxed billionaires will come in handy to a yacht factory in Hong Kong and a cigar factory in Cuba, this is called "trickle down"... Outlawing billionaires is what a dictatorship would do. What a government founded on both capitalism and social responsibility would do is capitalise on billionaires. It would create a choice , expand opportunity for the greater good or pay the tax. A government like ours used to be!
#33
"ron943" says: "...when you say wealth tax, you are referring to what is owned rather than what is earned." He identifies a "developing class of nobility" born into unearned wealth and says we need to "tax this group out of existence". And I say, BINGO!! How aptly put! They stole it from us and we need to take it back. - Aliceinwonderland
#34
"MMmmNACHOS" sez: "I just want to afford a healthy life...To work an honest 40 hour work week doing what I love and am qualified to do, and be compansated with a wage that - at the very least - pays for the basic cost of living for a house hold of 3, and enables me to be independent and maintain a healthy household."
You've got to understand, Nachos- this is America, the land of the makers and takers. Those of us who must earn our keep are not entitled to anything anymore. Our sole purpose is to work until we drop, so that the takers can... well, you know. Keep on taking.
Look what's being sacrificed for their little paradise! Our savings, our homes, even our lives, all up for grabs now! This is where we are my friends. Here in the land of makers & takers, we "ordinary" folks are on our own as we lose our homes to foreclosure and die of preventable diseases. Instead of infrastructure and a social safety net, all we get for our hard-earned tax money is bank bailouts and endless war. As a society, we're way past the threshold of spiritual death.
We have to be hurting enough and tired enough to set our differences aside and come together, as a united force against a common enemy. But until enough people recognize who and what that enemy is, and are not gonna take it anymore, we shall continue serving as beasts of burden for Plutocrats; or to put it less politely, cheap protein for a system that is predatory by design. - Aliceinwonderland
#35
This is "flyguy's interpretation of a classless society: "one drab shade of grey"... "How Utopian and Wonderful"... "We all live in the same houses with the one media channel"... "...a boring, drab and 'Big Brother' world" policed by "King Obama". Cute.
You conservatives are masters at trivializing and dismissing anything that could obstruct or contradict your ego-driven worldview where greed trumps need and Ayn Rand reigns supreme... You're also great at putting words in other people's mouths. Oh yeah, I love "Big Brother" just like you do; I strive for the kind of world you've charicaturized. But where you see "Human Beings with a 'Drive' to succeed", I see the "Me First" crowd trampling over the rest of us in their strivings for "success". The patronizing tone of your commentary doesn't faze me one bit, sir. Blather all you like about "Utopia"... you guys just love the word "Utopia"! We can thank a foreigner named Rupert Murdock for dumbing-down so many of our fellow citizens, reducing them to self-centered little babies with an attitude. Where their side of the debate lacks substance, they cover up with smears and sarcasm
I wish for a "We" society while Mr. Flyguy would prefer a "Me" society. It all boils down to that, doesn't it! Herein lies the philosophical divide tearing this lame-ass country of ours apart, with the help of that foreigner. Heil to the Thief!
- Aliceinwonderland
#36
Reagan’s tax welfare entitlements and government handout tax cuts for the ultra wealthy REDISTRIBUTED wealth from the poor and gave it to the rich. This was a mistake and must be corrected.
#37
In the 80's the entire monetary system was overhauled. It was called the republican revolution and they won. It was a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich and this is what we are left with.
#38
Smart !!! Great point, i love it. Makes sense to me.
#39
Thom, you are so right! I have been fortunate enough to have heard your voice since 2003. I think FOX news has a few Radio Shticks wondering just how to shush this up! Rewriting history doesn’t seem to be working for them. As I have heard you say, paraphrasing, we've got a big man at the table with all the cookies and they are telling republicans to watch out for the democrats who are trying to take their share of the one cookie left for us to divide among everyone in the country while the big man has the other 99 cookies. All thanks to Ronald Reagan’s tax welfare entitlements and government handout tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. Reagan was a great actor and democrat, it's too bad the wealth class needed to hire his services as a John Wayne cowboy for the Republican Party. The wealth gap shall not continue to skyrocket in the billionaires favor! NO BILLIONAIRES!
#40
I gather that human beings will continue to be driven to make one million, maybe ten million, OMG even one-hundred million. I don't think any one of us is going to throw our hands up in the air in frustration and refuse to be driven to success only because we know that any dollar earned beyond the ONE-THOUSANDTH MILLIONTH dollar point is going to be taxed at 100% unless you’re not smart enough to reinvest in your damn business located within the United States of America.
Try turning on your brain and turning off FOX not so news.
#41
You construct what is called a "false dichotomy". It's not a choice between dull, drab totalitarianism and predatorily capitalistic oligarchic tyranny. It is not at all necessary to live in any tyranny or predatory system.
What the anarcho syndicallists and libertarian socialists know is that what is needed is not a redistribution of wealth but a redistribution of POWER. If you redistribute the power the wealth will redistribute itself. The Soviet Union tried to redistribute the wealth keeping the power concentrated in the hands of a central elite. The result was that the wealth didn't get all that well redistributed either. The small minority of Communist Party members (10% of the population) had a much higher standard of living and privilege than everyone else.
Everything is about power. When you look at things scientifically and take away all the forms and formalisms you see everything is about power and relative dominance of the society. The rich need the poor because they couldn't be rich if someone else wasn't poor.
When conservatives talk about the "freedom of capitalist society" they are ulitimately referring to the fact that capitalism liberated society from feudalism by giving political and economic power to the individual. What happened, however, is that a lot of power got concentrated with a few individuals and most of the rest got little or none. Now the oligarchs seem to be trying to return us to feudalism by destroying the middle class and gaining control of government through privatization.
There is nothing more beneficial about privatized government, quite the contrary. Privatization takes government OUT of the hands of the people making it less accountable to the people and more like the personal property of one or a few rich assholes. We are much better off all owning and controlling it collectively and democraticly.
You have to look at where the power is. If a private individual has the power - and any power over YOU - then he's much more, not less, likely to be abusive and tyrannical than democratic government that is accountable to the people would be.
#42
Your entire comment is based on trying to redistribute the wealth. The wealth was redistributed from the poor to the rich in the Reagan revolution and "the people" are intent on remedying that redistribution of wealth. Get onboard or miss the bus.
#43
Your comment almost perfectly describes what the Christians preach. That eternal salvation will bring everlasting life in Heaven, where there is TOTAL EQUALITY. Where there are no black and whites but only one shade. It will be Utopian and Wonderful. We all live in the same channel. One big eye watching us and protecting us. There is no evil. In Christian Heaven, wealth will be redistributed and slavery will end.
It is ironic how so many so called Christians on earth will end up complaining of the idea and how utterly boring it will be for them.
#44
Regarding the issue of class and inequality, Mark Saulys gets it. He says "You have to look at where the power is." He seems to share my view that privatization equals theft; the theft of the commons. What once belonged to everyone and no one is now under private control. Services once for the common good, depended upon by everyone, are being hijacked by thieves. I'm talking about our healthcare system, our schools, the prisons, the media, and - if we don't watch out - the Post Office too.
If "flyguy" is more bothered at the prospect of a classless society than by this type of scenario, I feel sorry for him. - Aliceinwonderland
#45
Your idea that this earth could be a new earth as if it were heaven is very real, and you can make it real for you. Meanwhile lions will still continue to...Then they will feast on their entrails. Praise God!
#46
Socialism is a term bandied about constantly by people conned by corporatists into calling themselves "conservative". It is used as though its mere mention were evil and therefore capable of contaminating, by the mere use of the word, anything one wishes to attack. This is not informed discussion; it is not even a form of thinking.
There are no "entitlements" (except for whatever society forks over to the demands of the power exercised by the ultra-wealthy); there are only paid-for benefits whose surpluses have been and still are raided and transferred as operational expenses in the form of no-bid contracts to government contractors that spend lavishly on political campaigns and lobbying, to tax cuts, and to subsidies for the wealthy. The promise of spending so profligately on the super-wealthy was that investing those surpluses in the overprivileged would trickle down to everyone and that the result would be a thriving economy of rising wages and opportunities. The hoax worked in the sense that the wealthiest few now control our for-profit media, the GOP, much of the Democratic Party, and most of our economy--including trillions of dollars in untaxed, uninvested accounts lying inert in tax havens abroad. The ill-advised "supply-side" economic fad did not, however, bring about the higher revenues and the better, higher-paying jobs it had promised
The time has come for those who were allowed to abuse those surpluses to enrich themselves pay back what they took under false pretenses. They can pay back in the form of taxes or investments in start-up enterprises, although taxes are the more likely way to recoup what those funds lost to the wealthiest people in the world.
It makes no sense economically to slash Social security and Medicare to make up for the trillions we have squandered, and continue to squander, on the unimaginably wealthy caste because money in the hands of the poor and middle classes is spent on food, clothing, housing, and other consumer goods. The greater the consumer demand for such goods, the greater the investment in job-producing enterprises. The more money we invest in the ultra-wealthy, however, the less the investment in the US economy.
It also makes no moral sense to take from people who need Social Security and Medicare just to further fatten the accounts of our unproductive corporatocracy--or to protect their owners from making a down payment on what they owe to a society that has been so generous to them.
We should tax the wealthy because they are where the money is. Their money--in the trillions--is not being put to any productive use. Why, then, take needed resources from people who need those resources, people who will never be able to pay back our public debt, however much is take from them--especially since the more we take, the less is the purchasing power of the American people. The less We the People spend, the less businesses will invest. The spiral downward ensures a major economic depression and an even greater public debt.
There is no substitute for a growing, prospering middle class. The choice is a no-brainer: keep wasting more to appease the corporatocracy, or invest in our people and our country. The former tack is a repeat of the laissez-faire economics that led to the Great Depression.
Ability to learn is not the problem. We can learn, but not without humility and acceptance of the world as it is changing.
#47
We should listen and critique people like Peter Schiff as opposed to Limbaugh and Hannity. We know those two are kooks but Schiff is an economist putting information out that causes people to fear the loss of all their money and to think the government is just a bunch of boobs (may be some truth to that)
In one of Schiff's rants he says that housing prices going up is not necessarily a sign of an improving economy. He also said lower interest rates may be good for the borrower but it.s not good for the lender. He opens his show praising capitalism but complains that "Obamacare" is charging too much!
I thought that was the goal in capitalism. They seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. As he talked about this needed austerity he said "WAGES ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE LOWERED!!" I bet the regular listeners sail right past that. How does one complain that the middle class does not make enough to pay for healthcare and then say wages have to be lowered.
I think clips from his show getting debunked on your show would go a long way.
#48
We are not adapted to a perfect world. We are adapted to an imperfect world and are happiest when we are perfecting it. As Saul Alinsky said, "The happiness is in the pursuit.".
#49
Ahh.. a voice of sanity: "It also makes no moral sense to take from people who need Social Security and Medicare just to further fatten the accounts of our unproductive corporatocracy--or to protect their owners from making a down payment on what they owe to a society that has been so generous to them." - "amoobrasil"
Thank you for your bulls-eye assessment of the insanity we all are up against. - Alice I.W.
#50
I created a petition to repeal Postal Reform Act of 2006. Help save the Post Office. Sign the petition. Needs 150 signatures to get on the White House site.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/save-us-post-office-repeal-postal-reform-act-2006/k4jKqBPB
We the people have to stand up to the those trying break up the largest unionized employer in the United States. Please spread this link to others that you know.
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They got us where they want us. Economic insecurity for us means stronger dominance and control for them. We're so scared shitless of losing our jobs that we don't dare organize a union or even contradict our bosses.
They, on the other hand, are doing better than ever. No crisis for them.