Income gap is a good thing.

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Lol Buffet doesn't like the so-called Buffett rule. He thinks it's bad for the economy to tax the quantity and earning level of people democrats propose.

And HuffPost is an anticapitalist echo chamber.
 
From Maris' top link:
Sixty-four percent of Americans said they believe those making a million dollars or more in taxes should pay more. Thirty percent said taxes on such individuals should not be increased. Democrats were extremely likely to support such an increase (83 percent did so), and independents also supported it, 65 percent to 28 percent. On the other side, 54 percent of Republicans opposed such an increase, while 40 percent supported it.
...Republicans have the most critical view of government, with 81 percent saying it has a negative impact on most people's lives. But a majority of independents (61 percent) and Democrats (55 percent) felt the say way
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So, to get this straight, the large majority of people in the US think that the government has a negative impact on most people's lives, but the vast majority of Democrats and Independents want other people (not themselves!) to pay more into that negative impact? Why not just pare down how much impact that the government can have?

America's still the Land of the People...unfortunately it's the Land of the Largely Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable People.
 
From the second link:
The debate over whether affluent Americans are insufficiently taxed comes during a moment when hundreds of thousands of people nationwide have taken to the streets under the banner of the Occupy movement, which is protesting, among other things, the vast income gap between the highest 1 percent of earners in the U.S. and the other 99 percent.
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I was asking this yesterday...is the OWS movement about income, or wealth? Even HuffPost bloggers don't seem to know.
 
From the third link:
Approximately 60,000 people fall under the Buffet Rule, according to The New York Times, and raising their taxes would generate about $13 billion in revenue over the next decade.
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So if OWS got its way, it would add 1.3B a year to the coffers of the US over the next decade. Those 60,000 people would just have to suck it up.

OR....

Every one of the 76,000,000 tax returns that didn't pay a dime in federal income taxes this year could pony up $20. That would add more revenue than the Buffett tax.

Though, in both of them, it covers 1/1000th of government overrun. So, uh, not sure that that would be a net "win." Not like, say, not spending almost 4T when you only have 2.3T to spend.
 
BrianFromWA said:
America's still the Land of the People...unfortunately it's the Land of the Largely Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable People.
Click to expand...

What do you do when the majority of the citizenry is "Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable"?

Re-education camps?

"cleanse" the population?

ship them all off to some newly discovered island continent?
 
bluefrog said:
What do you do when the majority of the citizenry is "Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable"?

Re-education camps?

"cleanse" the population?

ship them all off to some newly discovered island continent?
Click to expand...

Make 'em read HuffPost and watch MSNBC, of course.
 
HuffPo is insufferable. The comments are possibly worse than YouTube and half the articles posted on the site are flattering write-ups about Jennifer Aniston or Gwyneth Paltrow. During Jenny McCarthy's insane reign as leader of the anti-vaccine movement HuffPo backed her like nobody else and when she was exposed as a twit they kept supporting her. Even now there is still an anti-vaccine sentiment on the site despite the children that have become ill or passed away as a direct result of not being vaccinated. HuffPo seems to cater to self-righteous left-wing middle-aged women who just know better than everyone else. Probably as misogynistic a post as I've ever written.
 
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speeds said:
HuffPo is insufferable. The comments are possibly worse than YouTube and half the articles posted on the site are flattering write-ups about Jennifer Aniston or Gwyneth Paltrow. During Jenny McCarthy's insane reign as leader of the anti-vaccine movement HuffPo backed her like nobody else and when she was exposed as a twit they kept supporting her. Even now there is still an anti-vaccine sentiment on the site despite the children that have become ill or passed away as a direct result of not being vaccinated. HuffPo seems to cater to self-righteous left-wing middle-aged women who just know better than everyone else. Probably as misogynistic a post as I've ever written.
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Fuck yeah, Speeds.
 
Denny Crane said:
As I've always seen it, the rich can have all the money they can amass as long as the rest of us do better over time. It sucks that I didn't productize MSDOS and make a fortune, but I'm satisfied there's always a chance for anyone to do so. Nobody was able to prevent a couple of college kids from making Google or Facebook.
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To me, there are at least four areas of concern I have regarding society's wealth:

1. Overall wealth of society,
2. How wealthy our poor are in absolute terms,
3. Upward mobility possibilities, and
4. Equality of distribution.

I just listed, for me, those three things are in order of importance.

I don't want people starving in our streets. I don't want kids to lack health care. I want the poor to be in better shape than they have been in the history of the world. But I am not concerned with the poor being equal to the richest--or even close to it. I also believe that by letting our society become as wealthy as possible--including some fabulously rich individuals--we best serve the poor.

The Occupiers seem to prioritize things in this order:

1. Equality of distribution,
2. How wealthy our poor are in absolute terms,
3. Upward mobility possibilities, and
4. Overall wealth of society.

I might be misrepresenting their position, and it's not an insane order to place those things, but... those just aren't the things that I value the most.

Ed O.
 
bluefrog said:
What do you do when the majority of the citizenry is "Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable"?

Re-education camps?
Click to expand...
If by "reeducation camps" you mean "don't let them pass 4th grade if they can't read, or pass 8th grade if they can't do enough math to balance a checkbook, or graduate if they don't know about civics" then yes, reeducation camps.

"cleanse" the population?
Click to expand...
How do you propose cleansing someone of narcissism, Herr?

ship them all off to some newly discovered island continent?
Click to expand...
How would that help? It "worked" when the alternative was execution or life in a no-shit, for-real leaky dungeon. Right now, what's the worst that can happen? Jail time, where you get free food and health services?
 
bluefrog said:
I think the majority of network cable news viewers are already watching MSNBC.
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Not even close. MSNBC is the worst ratings-wise of Fox, CNN, and the like. It hemorages money and would have gone away years ago without Microsoft spending $400M a year to keep it afloat.

Olbermann went to current tv where he has the audience he deserves - in the thousands.
 
BrianFromWA said:
If by "reeducation camps" you mean "don't let them pass 4th grade if they can't read, or pass 8th grade if they can't do enough math to balance a checkbook, or graduate if they don't know about civics" then yes, reeducation camps.

How do you propose cleansing someone of narcissism, Herr?

How would that help? It "worked" when the alternative was execution or life in a no-shit, for-real leaky dungeon. Right now, what's the worst that can happen? Jail time, where you get free food and health services?
Click to expand...

It was a tongue in cheek response. I don't believe you seriously think the majority of Americans are "Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable"
 
Ed O said:
This made me want to see the ratings/viewerships. Here's a link.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...-saturday-sunday-october-29-30-2011-2/109101/

Ed O.
Click to expand...

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/the-scoreboard-sunday-october-30_b95790#more-95790
This site has rating but only for the 25-54 demographic (I have no idea why the limit it to that). It shows MSNBC leading the pack of cable news

The data from Ed's site is more comprehensive though. Fox kills it on Saturday with the 35-64 demographic.
 
Like it or not, Fox kills the competition head to head. Like O'Reilly's show #1 against Chris Matthews or Olbermann or Maddow. And by millions of viewers.
 
Denny Crane said:
Like it or not, Fox kills the competition head to head. Like O'Reilly's show #1 against Chris Matthews or Olbermann or Maddow. And by millions of viewers.
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So you think if more people watched MSNBC it would actually help them be better educated, more thoughtful and accountable?
 
BrianFromWA said:
From Maris' top link:

So, to get this straight, the large majority of people in the US think that the government has a negative impact on most people's lives, but the vast majority of Democrats and Independents want other people (not themselves!) to pay more into that negative impact? Why not just pare down how much impact that the government can have?

America's still the Land of the People...unfortunately it's the Land of the Largely Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable People.
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian. I was going to post exactly the same thing. And clearly shows why we are in trouble in this country.
 
BrianFromWA said:
America's still the Land of the People...unfortunately it's the Land of the Largely Uneducated, Narcissistic, Non-Accountable People.
Click to expand...

You're making the failed assumption that most Americans are like those in the military.
 
BrianFromWA said:
If by "reeducation camps" you mean "don't let them pass 4th grade if they can't read, or pass 8th grade if they can't do enough math to balance a checkbook, or graduate if they don't know about civics" then yes, reeducation camps.
Click to expand...

That would completely decimate our military.
 
Since it keeps being brought up by anti OWS posters trying to confuse the issue...

OWS is at it's base protesting the fact that the top 1% wealthiest (not highest paid) people in America (some not even American citizens) have secured complete control of the Government of The United States of America and are using it for their own purposes.

It's not a protest about income disparity or tax disparity, it's about re-installing an honest government of, by and for the people.

This is not something a new tax plan will fix. Americans want their government back and the enemy created DHS specifically to protect them from this inevitable revolution. When this thing refuses to die out quietly, martial law, curfews and mass internment of American citizens will commence.
 
MARIS61 said:
OWS is at it's base protesting the fact that the top 1% wealthiest (not highest paid) people in America (some not even American citizens) have secured complete control of the Government of The United States of America and are using it for their own purposes.
Click to expand...

Link?

I have only seen the 99% defined based on income in the OWS era.

Ed O.
 
Ed O said:
Link?

Ed O.
Click to expand...

Background

In mid-2011, the Canadian-based group Adbusters Media Foundation, best known for its advertisement-free anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, address a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis.[12] According to Adbusters' senior editor Micah White, Adbusters suggested the idea on their email list in mid-July and “it was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world.”[12] At their website they wrote: "Beginning from one simple demand—a presidential commission to separate money from politics—we start setting the agenda for a new America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
 
MARIS61 said:
Since it keeps being brought up by anti OWS posters trying to confuse the issue...

OWS is at it's base protesting the fact that the top 1% wealthiest (not highest paid) people in America (some not even American citizens) have secured complete control of the Government of The United States of America and are using it for their own purposes.

It's not a protest about income disparity or tax disparity, it's about re-installing an honest government of, by and for the people.

This is not something a new tax plan will fix. Americans want their government back and the enemy created DHS specifically to protect them from this inevitable revolution. When this thing refuses to die out quietly, martial law, curfews and mass internment of American citizens will commence.
Click to expand...

I think that you're as confused (if not more) about Occupy than I am. Which is difficult. Here's what the Portland paper says:
About 500 people have been camping in Chapman and Lownsdale squares in downtown since Oct. 6 as part of a global movement to protest the loss of jobs in the United States, corporate money in politics and unfair banking practices.

While camping in city parks is illegal, Portland's government has permitted Occupy Portland to stay put.
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Nope, nothing about DHS. Speaking of them, though, which component of those jackbooted thugs are the ones that are draining the Portland gov't of $200k in overtime? Or shooting Oakland protesters? Or arresting people in Atlanta? Is it the coast guard? TSA? FBI? CIA? Or is it policemen of the town that the protesters are being allowed to illegally squat in?
 
MARIS61 said:
That would completely decimate our military.
Click to expand...

First, "decimating" implies that one out of every ten would be lost. The military is mandated that 90% of the force is composed of high school graduates, and all have to have graduated or have some equivalency (GED, CHSPE, etc). But don't take my word for the quality of recruits:
In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004-2005) support the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers.
Recruits have a higher percentage of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distribution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population.
Demographic evidence discredits the argument that a draft is necessary to enforce representation from racial and socioeconomic groups. Additionally, three of the four branches of the armed forces met their recruiting goals in fiscal year 2005, and Army reenlistments are the highest in the past five years. A draft is not necessary to increase the size of the active-duty forces.
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BTW, the US average graduation rate is 70.1%.
 
A few years ago, an intern came to me with what he no doubt thought was an exciting new idea for a piece about “the youth vote.” After having read a few too many press releases from MTV, he wanted to “get out the message” that young people should go to the polls “so their voices can be heard.” As editors go, I don’t think I have a reputation for being curmudgeonly, but on this particular occasion I could hardly contain myself.

“Frankly, I don’t want the youth to vote,” I told him. “They don’t own property, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t have kids to send to school. They have no financial stake and little moral stake in society and, until they do, I’d prefer they stay the heck away from the polls.” OK, maybe I was a little harsh. But this demographic—the unmarried, childless, economically dependent types—is a growing segment of society.

They’re now called emerging adults. And, much as I think that they don’t understand enough to make informed decisions about the long-term future of the country, what worries me more is that they may never know and may never even care.
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http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/11/a-generation-detached
In addition to being detached from their romantic (or simply sexual) partners, most of these young adults are also detached from their churches, their local communities, and their country. According to the authors,

they are not only not engaged in politics, they are also not big on volunteering and voluntary financial giving. . . . They are so focused on their own personal lives, especially on trying to stand on their own two feet, that they seem incapable of thinking more broadly about community involvement, good citizenship, or even very modest levels of charitable giving.

When asked about volunteering, one typical respondent explained, “I actually don’t have time for it. I feel like if I’m going to do something good for the community I might as well do something good that I get paid for too.”
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Emerging Adults in the US: largely uneducated, narcissistic, non-accountable.
 
I tend to agree that while the young CAN vote... I'd rather they didn't. :)

Ed O.
 
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