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Kend, where the hell did you get this crap about half of Americans not paying any tax? I get so tired of hearing this right wing Fox bull. First of all to not pay state and federal income tax probably means you're working for slave wages while enriching the so called job creators like the Waltons. The Walton's in fact should pay a very large amount of tax on the income others had to work to create just so this wealth can get redisributed back into the working class society that in reality earned it to begin with.
Back to my point about half of Americans not paying any tax. Property tax is paid by everyone, both renters and property owners regardless of income. The tax rate per $1000 of value on any property is the same for the person in poverty as it is for the Koch bros. The sales tax on a gallon of gas is also the same for everyone, both rich and poor, as are all sales taxes. Everyone pays payroll taxes both rich and poor but the rich guy stops paying into social security after 113 grand. All of these taxes are regressive in favor of the upper income earners. I've added up all of my taxes and pay about 50% of my earnings in some form of tax. I really get pissed when I see a Mitt Romney not only getting massive unearned income but also only paying about 13% on it. Guys like him most likely pay nothing on much of their income as it goes into offshore bank accounts or stays in the form of equitys, "shares of stock." The lower 50% of the population pays plenty of tax, trust me, it's just not state or federal, again only because they don't get paid enough. By the way, I'm more than willing to pay a 50% tax rate just as long as the Koch's and Waltons also do. I actually have to work for mine though.
I can only hope that the folks who voted yes are tea baggers. That is a ridiculous expectation. You have not been payiing attention. Every company you ever dealtr with has all the info they want. Then they throw it back to you. And you expect privacey? Think!
I think Kend meant income taxes. I think it interesting that among the people who don't pay any income taxes (at the federal leve) are Ronald Reagan and the previous owner of the LA Dodgers. I would guess Romney would be another one. The details of how McCourt the ex-owner of the Dodgers avoided taxes became available because he was going through a divorce. The key element he used to avoid paying taxes was accelerated depreciation followed by investment credits. There is evidence that a huge percentage of the 1% use this very scheme. The evidence that I have heard about is the great turnover of luxury hotels. These luxury hotels provide a huge source of depreciation, as well as, investment credits. Another interesting piece of evidence is the congressinal bi-partisan meeting where they were discussing increasing the depreciation life of a corporate jet from 3 years to 7 years. Eric Cantor walked out of the meeting.
One -- Anyone who thinks that half the population does not pay any taxes is grossly ignorant of the money flow. Such an assumption would be predicated on a basis that half the population buys nothing. The final consumer pays the taxes of everyone who has handled the product or service purchased when the product or service is paid for. Is this simple accounting too difficult to understand?
Two – Allegations that a company pays no taxes if it pays no income tax are false. When that company buys materials for production, it pays the taxes that its suppliers pay. Every business recoups its taxes when it sells products or services. Even a plumber covers the tax of the tool maker, the vehicle maker, the vehicle fuel supplier and on and on.
Commchf, I thought I have been called everything on this blog. But "dunce" is a first. You owe that money to the Chinese. Sorry to break the bad news to you but it is real debt to real people. A household does bring in income, well at least 53% of them do.
Only a dunce who deosn't know anything about macroeconomics would compare the federal government (which CREATES money) with a household budget (which can't CREATE money). We owe the federal debt to ourselves! It's simply an accounting identity.
Can anyone explain to me why so-called fiscal hawks believe a country's government should be run like a no name convenience store...what we used to call a "stop and rob?" If you own a small business how much money do you think you'd earn with only dollar a day employees here on a guest worker visa? And don't forget you have to build and maintain the highway to your store over the sewer and water lines you replaced a year ago, catch your neighbors when they mow down your customers as they leave then put them in jail, feed and clothe them, take them to the ER when they try to hang themselves from the light fixture since you dont know how to cook, oh and last but certainly not least, stand idly by and watch your store burn to the ground since you're on the wrong side of the street...but most of all bury you when you try to catch the thief who just cleaned out your till. A government is not, and shouldn't be, a for-profit business despite what the Repub ninnies who havent figured out yet they'd have to clean their own toilet, scrape feces off the walls with a putty knife, and then disinfect themselves before going home to a dinner of white bread, grape flavored jelly, and non-fat powdered milk. When you kill off the slaves, who the hell do you think has to tote that bale? You guys just make me so tired.
Est-ce-que le chat noir?
The way the law works, we have no expectation of privacy. But we should!
I yell at Thom (June 26, I think). I yell at people like Kend. The number one concern should be the economy, not the debt or deficit. Economists usually look at the GDP to measure the goodness of the economy. As an aside, I think a far better set of metrics, besides the GDP, should include the DOW, the median wage (inflation adjusted as appropriate for comparison), and the number of workers (all directly copied from Larry Beinhart). Now you should look at the deficit and the debt and see what effect they have on the economy by either of those metrics.
As Ravi Batra has pointed out every time the deficit becomes small, the DOW crashes. Every time means 100% correlation. Please fear Obama's decrease of the deficit.
With regards to the debt, we need to increase spending (increase deficit) to lower the debt. It should be viewed as investing, and the validity of spending more to reduce debt is borne out by history.
Now I want to provide a few observations on the debt. 4.2 trillion of the debt is intra-agency debt. The republicans present the Reinhart-Rogoff study to show that no country's economy has ever survived a debt/GDP ratio of greater than 90%. The 17 trillion is about 100% of our GDP. I wonder what the Reinhart-Rogoff study says about intra-agency debt? Of course, it does not matter. The study was a total scam uncovered by a graduate student at U Mass, Amherst. Reinhart and Rogoff cherry picked the data and, if that was not enough, their spreadsheets had "mistakes" in them. The item that really identifies it as a scam is that Reinhart and Rogoff were being entirely funded by Pete Peterson (sp?). Pete is a wall st multi-billionaire that wants to privatize social security.
Now POTUS is on a cross country trip saying something about middle class jobs. I'm no longer listening.
If he were serious about helping the middle class he would adopt The Jobs Mandate.org
POTUS only has to put together three things that we currently throw away and he can bring this country to full employment.
people, houses and subsidies.
That is all POTUS has to put on the table to beat any Republican argument. Which was the original question asked by Thom.
"Fussy" math or "Fuzzy" math? Fuzzy math may make one feel better. Fussy math may make one's head spin. Problem is that most of that $17 trillion is "Bushy" math...numbers that were created by Bush and his fellow criminal war mongers and economic criminals in Wall Street who have created the derivative mess that puts us way beyond hope of ever seeing realistic numbers again. So, they try to resort to ridiculous gimmicks...$trillion coins? Give me a break!
And yes, Obama has helped carry the war criminal torch and continued to bail out the banksters..appointing all economic criminals that created the mess to begin with, to his team. Bush's eloquent Howdy Obama Doody (HOD for short) made it possible to stave off another revolution* while they continued to wage their economic war against us.
* I believe that the people were so ticked off at Bush and the Republicans that, had McCain/Palin won the White House, there would have been way more really ticked off people when the politicians pushed that $700 billion bailout to the banksters through. Obama was just the panderer of false hope that temporarily kept the lid from blowing off the pressure cooker. Now that it is pretty obvious to many people that Obama, the fake liberal/progressive/democrat, after he managed to fool them in voting for him in for yet a second term, the pressure cooker lid just may pop off finally. If you can't trust your own party after making all kinds of promises and instead acting more like Republicans, then who can you trust? Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters? We all got slimed! It's time we all slime back!
Listen Flopot. I'm not a wise man yet I am no fool. If you can't see that OUR President Obama represents America and that it is America, ie. each and every American that are corporatist and evil and slaves to the dollar not him the person. I can't try and teach someone the value and meaning of respect but I can assure you that President Obama would LOVE to do A LOT of things differently IF HE THE MAN ACTUALY HAD A CHOICE> Don't you dare give me your arrogant and naive presumtions of what YOU would DO in HIS PLACE. Just like what they say in sports, Flopot, (whatever the capitol f that even means), That's why YOU are the FAN and HE is the COACH! Grow up! complain about Americans, not the one man who's successfully done everything in his power to try and put himself in the best position to do everything he possibly can, or is at least allowed to do given the cricumstances, towards what he believes is best. You hacking at our president is simply arrogant and irreverent towards the entire nation of which I am very proud of. Please respect our proud yet imperfect practice of democracy, maybe if you could see past your own prejudice then you'd actually manage to appreciate the real 'lucky sperm club', it's also called Born in America club, or the Thank Christ Im not born over there like as in 90% of the rest of the planet Earth.
Try using that math with your own household budget, The bank will own your home before Xmas. I hate to break it to you but the real numbers are that as a Country you owe: 17 trillion as a American $53,000 each , a family of four $212,000. because half of Americans don't pay taxes it is up to you if you are working and paying taxes to cover $148,000 each.
This is the highest per person in the WORLD. I guess the fussy math will make you feel better though.
Artist - Groucho Marx - Song - I'm against it! Says it all! And if you've already heard it and still arn't up to date on what it means to be a Republican in the early 21st century then just look up the leading figure representing the ultimate epitome of modern Republicanism, Dennis Hope! Sheer republican genius! He's even offered to use his astronomical financing means and methods to President Obama in order to finally settle our national debt! Lunar Real Estate at a bargain! What a guy! I think he's gonna steal the show at the 2016 Republican Primary! Look out Hillary, this guy's on a whole nother level!!
You got it!
He speaks like FDR and acts like Cheeeeeeeney!
Trash OB-Care and just do Medicare for all. We spend 18% of GDP on health care and the next highest spender is Switzerland at 11.5%.
The Swiss are smart.....we are just stupid or maybe dazed and confused!
Yes, single payer is the only answer because the profit motive is the wrong choice for healthcare.the profit motive has caused every problem we face in healthcare. I believe Edwards, kuchinich, and probably Bernie Sanders want single pair but today's Democrats might as well be Republicans in my humble opinion. so it seems to me voting for a Democrat gets Us a moderate Republican who will do things like Obama care / Romneycare and I believe with the same thing that Hillary was trying to do when Clinton was president.. from now on I am voting green unless a Democrat actually votes like a Democrat on his voting record.
Sorry buddy. "No one should ever die like that" my dad was killed in a car accident Almost 30 years ago now. Sounds like we had the same great dads. They are probaly throwing back a cold one talking about us right now.
Kend ~ Those were his last lucrative words. I wasn't even able to hear them. His neighbors heard them and told them to me. He told the ambulance driver's and attending physicians that he didn't have any children in hopes that he wouldn't burden me. When I returned from abroad and couldn't find him I searched his house. I found the back door broken down and him missing. I immediately called the police thinking he was kidnapped. They suggested I question the neighbors. Of course, I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. The neighbors told me they found him collapsed inside the house. He called out to their son when he heard him return from work for help. They called an ambulance who's drivers broke down the back door. Those were his last words to the neighbors and ambulance drivers. When I found him he was in a convalescence home where he spent the last three weeks of his life. He was in a conversational state but had nothing to say to me or anyone else. I learned after his death that he was suffering from a heart condition and didn't want to burden me with it. I never knew he was suffering from anything more than a fall until his death. The reason for that was because he didn't want anyone to know he had children so that they might be burdened with the cost of his death. My father worked his entire life until he was 80 years old. He served in WWII and got a honorable discharge. My father worked his entire life until he was 80 years old. He served in WWII and got a honorable discharge. He had full Medicare and AARP supplemental Insurance and was eligible for Veteran"s benefits as well. My father was a Bull Moose of a man. I know of no one who was tougher in life or in death. He will always be my hero.
No one should ever have to die like that!! Especially someone like my father!!
That is what I hate about the American system. "how much is it going to cost" should be the last thing on your mind At a time like that. There is a perfect system somewhere in between both of ours I believe. I am really hoping that by last words you just mean before the ambulance ride and not, "last words" .
I'll never forget my father's last words before the ambulance drove him away last year, "How much will this cost me?"
Really!! Is that really a concern that we want to be our last thought in this life time?
Don't worry, it'll all be on You Tube! Better than TV! Although You Tube will only go just so far. Actually, I saw something on You Tube...took place in CA. Something about a hearing where this girl rips off her clothes in front of the hearing members and they had to escort her away. I don't think she was PETA though.