Most people don't even have any idea of how bad the wealth divide actually is. But most people DO have a notion of what it should be. And we are nowhere near that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do you really honestly believe that a coal miner should pay the same taxes as a corporate CEO? really???

Is that what the chart shows?

What's missing from this chart is how much income each group made. If that were added in, it would become quite clear that the folks at the bottom of the graph are paying the lions share of taxes, because they are making the lion's share of income.

People take a lot for granted. "I pay more than a guy making $35k and the guy making $35k should have more skin in the game" - yeah, well the guy making $35k probably doesn't have much of anything left after paying rent on his modest apartment, paying bills, and buying groceries. Basic living expenses eat up most of his income, whereas for someone making $350k that's not at all the case. The guy making $35k most certainly isn't living high on the hog. He doesn't have much more to give, and that's the problem. You can't get blood from a stone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

At the very least, it's "otherism" - a clear attempt to marginalize, denigrate and drive a wedge between yourself and someone or some group of people you don't like. Just like how Palin talked about "Real America" as though the rest of us somehow weren't legitimate or real Americans as well. They constantly attacked Obama for his foreign-sounding name, particularly the "Hussein" and constantly tried to paint him as though he wasn't a real American. Same with Trump and Judge Curiel, Sessions on "some judge on an island out in the Pacific" and so many other things. All part and parcel of the same thing. But guess what, we are ALL REAL AMERICANS and Trump, Sessions, Palin and the rest have been WAY OUT OF LINE for saying things like that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do you really honestly believe that a coal miner should pay the same taxes as a corporate CEO? really???

Is that what the chart shows?

You seem to be implying there is something wrong with the chart. I'm saying there isn't. That's how it should be.

More discussions aren't a blatant greed for one reason: the narratives are largely directly by rich, via politicians or our oligarch-controlled media. They are very happy with the system as is and have no reason to challenge.

Much of the squabbles in our "two party system" is about which group of richies get first dibs on societies best goodies. Hence HRC boasting about how she had the support of "real billionaires".

Don't think one party is for "makers" and another for "takers". They're both "takers" with different groups of "makers" serving as the cannon fodder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there anything in the current GOP's platform designed around anything other than more dollars in the pocket of big business and billionaires?

I feel like all the conversation about policy minutiae (is climate change real? how do we fund high-risk pools?) are completely pointless, because the decisions are driven by cost-cutting for business and the possiblity of lower taxes for very rich people.

Let's just get it out in the open.

because it seems like the entire educated elite class has abandoned ethics for greed, the fight is not democrat or republican.

The few managers at my current company, that I know well, are polished liars, devoid of normal human emotion. In fact the key to success is the ability to keep a poker face while lying to employees.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/harvard-business-school-financial-crisis-economics-578378.html

Greed has nothing to do with political party, race, sex, or any other category. It is very easy to be generous with other people's income. That's the model of the Democratic party. The Republicans push back on that to make the income redistribution a little less severe. But rich people pay plenty in taxes and way more than they get from the Government in services and entitlements.

If you are saying the Republicans are unduly influenced by [rich] donors, that's a fair point. You could make the same point about Democrats.

We ought to strongly consider moving to a consumption tax. The rich would still pay more because they buy more goods.

As long as we have a rigid 2 party system, nothing is going to change.

This is naive. A full accounting would note that public resources dis-proportionally go to the rich: that's WHY they're rich. If you're struggling to see this, understand that the one group reliably has the ear of the politicians: the rich. And don't think for one minute the rich have altruism on their minds when they court politicians.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do you really honestly believe that a coal miner should pay the same taxes as a corporate CEO? really???

Is that what the chart shows?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

I agree but I think some folks thought Trump was questioning Obama's legitimacy. That is not racist by itself but a lot of folks felt like they had to defend Obama. Now Trump's legitimacy is being questioned due to unproven conspiracy theories about Russian collusion. So, Obama boosters are getting payback.

Anonymous wrote:

I thought it was Republicans who, rightfully IMHO, pointed out the silliness of saying that anyone earning more than $250K is "rich".

This graphic tells you nothing about billionaires and corporations, both of which pay a much, much lower effective tax rate on their rentier income than UMC individuals who actually work for a living. Actually, this illustrates why our tax code is so messed up, because you have wealth UMC professionals with mid-to-high six figure incomes aligning with people who have net-worths in the high 8 figures and above on taxes...not realizing that they are being scr3w3d just as much as the person earning $100K.

Now, I have a mid-six-figure HHI, and I'm not going to sit here and even cry DCUM poor and claim I can't afford my tax burden. But it does bother me that while I pay such a large fraction of the money I have to work everyday for to the government, the rentier class pays a tax rate a fraction of my own. The hedge fund managers particularly get me angry, since they literally add no value to the economy (that's the underlying theory of a hedge fund). My cousin is a hedge fund manager, and he agrees with this assessment BTW.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there anything in the current GOP's platform designed around anything other than more dollars in the pocket of big business and billionaires?

I feel like all the conversation about policy minutiae (is climate change real? how do we fund high-risk pools?) are completely pointless, because the decisions are driven by cost-cutting for business and the possiblity of lower taxes for very rich people.

Let's just get it out in the open.

because it seems like the entire educated elite class has abandoned ethics for greed, the fight is not democrat or republican.

The few managers at my current company, that I know well, are polished liars, devoid of normal human emotion. In fact the key to success is the ability to keep a poker face while lying to employees.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/harvard-business-school-financial-crisis-economics-578378.html

Greed has nothing to do with political party, race, sex, or any other category. It is very easy to be generous with other people's income. That's the model of the Democratic party. The Republicans push back on that to make the income redistribution a little less severe. But rich people pay plenty in taxes and way more than they get from the Government in services and entitlements.

If you are saying the Republicans are unduly influenced by [rich] donors, that's a fair point. You could make the same point about Democrats.

We ought to strongly consider moving to a consumption tax. The rich would still pay more because they buy more goods.

As long as we have a rigid 2 party system, nothing is going to change.

The problem is, we do have wealth redistribution, but not at all in the sense that conservatives keep talking about - what we've had since the 1980s is a reverse-robinhood scheme where the rich have been getting richer but the middle class and working folks on whose backs the rich have made their money have stagnated. Sure, the rich pay a lot in taxes. But that said, they hold most of the wealth. The 400 richest people in America have more wealth than the bottom 61% of America. Yes, they have more wealth than the bottom 193 MILLION Americans, combined. If you can afford $200,000-a-year golf club memberships then you can afford to pay a little more in taxes. But if you are living paycheck to paycheck and have to skimp on groceries just to pay your bills then you can't afford to pay. We don't need to be giving deductions on mortgages for $10 million dollar homes. This is what Republicans don't seem to understand in their "flat tax" proposals. And NO, the wealthiest are NOT the job creators. The majority of jobs are still in small business, and what drives the economy and growth is money changing hands and disposable income, the more transactions the better. But when most of the money is concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest, but for the working class, their wages are stagnant and they have little disposable income, then the whole economy stagnates. This has been borne out in all of the economic data.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there anything in the current GOP's platform designed around anything other than more dollars in the pocket of big business and billionaires?

I feel like all the conversation about policy minutiae (is climate change real? how do we fund high-risk pools?) are completely pointless, because the decisions are driven by cost-cutting for business and the possiblity of lower taxes for very rich people.

Let's just get it out in the open.

because it seems like the entire educated elite class has abandoned ethics for greed, the fight is not democrat or republican.

The few managers at my current company, that I know well, are polished liars, devoid of normal human emotion. In fact the key to success is the ability to keep a poker face while lying to employees.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/harvard-business-school-financial-crisis-economics-578378.html

Greed has nothing to do with political party, race, sex, or any other category. It is very easy to be generous with other people's income. That's the model of the Democratic party. The Republicans push back on that to make the income redistribution a little less severe. But rich people pay plenty in taxes and way more than they get from the Government in services and entitlements.

If you are saying the Republicans are unduly influenced by [rich] donors, that's a fair point. You could make the same point about Democrats.

We ought to strongly consider moving to a consumption tax. The rich would still pay more because they buy more goods.

As long as we have a rigid 2 party system, nothing is going to change.

A consumption tax would be fine by me. And a huge tax on bringing in good from abroad for personal use.

Anonymous wrote:

Do you really honestly believe that a coal miner should pay the same taxes as a corporate CEO? really???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there anything in the current GOP's platform designed around anything other than more dollars in the pocket of big business and billionaires?

I feel like all the conversation about policy minutiae (is climate change real? how do we fund high-risk pools?) are completely pointless, because the decisions are driven by cost-cutting for business and the possiblity of lower taxes for very rich people.

Let's just get it out in the open.

because it seems like the entire educated elite class has abandoned ethics for greed, the fight is not democrat or republican.

The few managers at my current company, that I know well, are polished liars, devoid of normal human emotion. In fact the key to success is the ability to keep a poker face while lying to employees.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/harvard-business-school-financial-crisis-economics-578378.html

Greed has nothing to do with political party, race, sex, or any other category. It is very easy to be generous with other people's income. That's the model of the Democratic party. The Republicans push back on that to make the income redistribution a little less severe. But rich people pay plenty in taxes and way more than they get from the Government in services and entitlements.

If you are saying the Republicans are unduly influenced by [rich] donors, that's a fair point. You could make the same point about Democrats.

We ought to strongly consider moving to a consumption tax. The rich would still pay more because they buy more goods.

As long as we have a rigid 2 party system, nothing is going to change.

Anonymous wrote:You're right. We're all focused on the horror this would potentially wreak on our lives that no one has the energy to see that the GOP is a bunch of lizard slugs.

I hope the Mercers and Kochs rot in stinking hell.

Hell would be too good for them.