Posts
Ferfal,
Please do not use my name or
information in your blog or posts. Thank
you for all your help.
Perhaps the below will help you.
I have followed your site
for some time and learned a lot. I also have
your book, a huge wealth of
information. To anyone who reads this
ferfal's book makes a great
gift for family or like minded friends.
Anyway the reason for this
message for you is that you have mentioned
how Argentina got into huge
debt and had a subsequent financial
collapse and how
multinational agricultural and other corporations
bought such large amounts of
land. These corporations make big profits
by plundering your natural
resources and support your corrupt dictator
(I mean president, pardon
the slip) all this while the rest of the
population almost starves to
death. This scenario reminds me of a book
I read, it is called
'confessions of an economic hitman' by john
Perkins. If his book is
indeed true it my help you see why your
country was destroyed. Keep
up the good work.
A-
Hello A,
I’m glad you enjoyed my
book. Amazon is currently doing a 56% discount, selling "The Modern Survival Manual" for $11.01. No idea
how long it will last but it’s a good deal.
Indeed, the corporations
that profit from misery in different parts of the world are always the same,
and their modus operandi is pretty similar too: Destruction of national
industry, inflation and a good dose of national debt. Once a country is broken
it is easy to then come and pick it apart, and force your will on the
population through an obedient government.
We live in times when there’s
record of food production, enough to keep every single person fed, but still
millions go hungry. The amount of food that gets thrown away in developed
nations alone would be enough to practically end world hunger.
We live in a time when,
since 2009, 95% Of Income Gains went to the top 1% and when fast food workers
ask for a wage that allows them to live with basic decency the ruling elite
cries out in outrage. It was just a couple days ago that Rush Limbaugh called Pope
Francis a Marxist because he said that “"Trickle-down economics" don’t
work. Trickle-down economics do not work, they never did. You don’t get a fair
society by taking away more money from the great majority that earns less while
giving massive tax cuts to the richest people in the planet. Only a fool can
think that somehow, because the super rich have more, more money will just fall
out of their pockets and land in the hands of average Joe. You know what the
elite does with the extra money they have? They make even more of it, and they don’t
do that by creating millions of fair wage jobs. They do it by becoming so big
that they dictate the laws by which you and I live and what eventually happens
with our labor. That’s the real Marxism, that’s the real communism. Creating an
illusion of freedom by which you pic employee of the month A or employee of the
month B, both who happen to be big corporation lap dogs, and give people the
illusion of liberty by allowing them to choose one.
Disguised as capitalism,
which is supposed to be fair and liberating, the so called 1%, which is more
like a 0.0001%, they get to play big shot Capitalist or full blown Communist
depending on what they need. Rush Limbaugh says Pope Francis is a Marxist. Well
I say that the real Marxists are the ones that force the entire world to bail
out the richest companies in the world because they are “too big to fail”, throwing
the worlds population into virtual slavery. There’s nothing “capitalist” about
getting billion dollar bailouts when you fail. In a real capitalist system a
business that fails goes bankrupt and closes their doors, that's it, they don’t get bailed
out because they are too big, only to then claim record profits for themselves.
In a real capitalist society, these companies that got bailed out by the 99.999%
of the worlds population, would return the money to the people they loaned, no,
stole from, to save themselves from going bankrupt instead of claiming record
profit and bagging it for themselves a few days later.
Sorry for the rant but the
nerve of some people, to defend this cancer in society. Very capitalist when it
comes to bagging the profits, very communists when it comes to picking up the
tab, getting bailed out forcing the worlds’ population to pay for what they’ll
claim to be their own profit a few months later.
There were several factors
involved in the final economic collapse of Argentina. Inflation, debt, unemployment
and lack of real national productivity along with a corrupt government that
played along and benefitted from unquestionably harmful economic measures caused
the very much predicable collapse.
FerFAL
40 comments:
1) I'm shocked. Here I thought billionaires dumped $4 Billion into congressional campaigns every two years because they wanted the voice of the workers to be heard. And to promote fairness in business competition, with no special favors given out to anyone.
heh heh
2) A larger question is why we Americans spend $1 Trillion per year on a K12 educational system that produces some of the biggest fools on the planet.
Fools who never wonder why the "liberal" Washington Post and New York Times failed to inform their readers that 2% of the population had increased their share of the national income from 8% to over 25%.
Fools who never asked if sex pervert Bill O'Reilly, a fat guy with a taste for Oxycontin named Rush Limbaug and a past alcoholic/junkie named Glenn Beck became multimillionaires by telling the American voters the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth.
By the way, did Bill O'Reilly ever find those nukes of Saddam Hussein's? Exxon might hit one of them with all that drilling in
northern Iraq.
Limbaugh has never supported bailouts. The bailouts are part of 'crony capitalism', not something that US conservatives like Limbaugh support.
Fair tax cuts, which proportionately go to the rich (those who pay the highest taxes) does indeed trickle down to those at the bottom. When a business owner keeps his capital out of the hands of the government, he can expand and hire more employees. Or he can buy more goods, bigger houses, whatever. Much of that money goes to workers who make the goods or build the houses. When the government takes the money instead, it is more likely to end up in the hands of some crony capitalist like Soros through government contracts.
If you don't know Limbaugh's actual position on economics, it seems unfair to attack him.
In the real world, I've lived long enough to see the enormous wealth created from Reagan's trickle down economics. I saw the poverty of the 70's first hand, versus the wealth we in the US have today.
Corporations don't bother me. The problem is government. Corporations are beholden to the consumer.
You need to draw a bigger distinction between capitalism, and crony capitalism.
True capitalism does not favor those with connections to power; it allows those who have a good product at a reasonable price to win.
I am fine with certain regulations to protect the environment, but the current system is so far from true capitalism that it shouldn't be called such. Furthermore, to say that capitalism is the problem, it shows a lack of experience and wisdom.
Last year, I was blessed to be a 1%-er. I also paid 50% of my income in taxes. I would have loved to spend my money doing other things (like buying your book, fixing my SHTF jeep, etc.) but I didn't since I had to prioritize. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts. How much is enough?
Also, please consider that there is so much uncertainty about what our president is going to do, that everyone is holding back cash. It will only trickle down if people aren't worried about the future.
Anonymous (December 9, 2013 at 10:42 PM) is correct.
What the world faces now is crony capitalism, more akin to fascism, than pure capitalism. A return to the latter would benefit us all through true liberty; and is what most U.S. conservatives and their public voices advocate.
Please don't confuse capitalism, crony capitalism, socialism, and communism as seems common due to mainstream media redefining/ignoring the proper terms.
There is a reason that the super rich like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and George Soros support Democrat policies of tax increases. They know it's easier to lobby money out of the government than it is to compete in the market. Taxes go up and Bill Gates gets lawmakers to put overpriced computers in every classroom. Buffet benefits from green energy scams. Soros lobbies for more spending and printing so he can benefit from currency manipulation.
Tax cuts for the rich, when Limbaugh talks about them, go to the guy who owns a small business building plumbing parts, etc. It only takes about $150,000 a year to be in the top 1%. The top .0001%, on the other hand, usually vote socialist.
"Please don't confuse capitalism, crony capitalism, socialism, and communism as seems common due to mainstream media redefining/ignoring the proper terms."
I think I made that VERY clear when I said that under real capitalism, a company that goes broke closes its doors rather than gets a billion dollar bailout as compensation for screwing up.
FerFAL
1) I think the rank and file Tea Party members live in a fantasy world and don't recognize the hypocrisy and deceit of their leaders. (Cough
billionaire Koch brothers cough)
But I acknowledge that much of the Democratic leadership is equally hypocritical and deceitful. Because they serve billionaires as well.
2) Those who denounce government fail to realize that government leaders at least are accountable to the people --they have to get our votes.
The Tea Party never notes that the malign billionaires are accountable to NO ONE and are obviously only focused on their own selfish interests --
including corrupting politicans to stab us in the back.
READ the Declaration of
Independence -- it does not say that 99% of the population should be SLAVES to the Richest 1%. The 1% have increased their share of national income to 19% -- where does it stop?
How did the billionaires of Argentina replay the Argentina people for making them rich? What leadership and loyalty did they show in 2000? They sold Argentina to foreigners so that they could stick their wealth into Swiss bank accounts.
3) The US Government has been in the hands of the Rich since at least the time of the lying Ronald Reagan. And what has been the result for the American People?
Disaster after disaster. But disasters which have greatly benefited the wealthy few. If you want to see why Hillary Clinton voted for the disasterous invasion of Iraq, read Wikipedia's article on billionaire Haim Saban.
a) The Rich have been given tax cut after tax cut to create jobs -- and they did so: in CHINA. They took the money and US technology and gave it to Communist China --
while throwing millions of US workers out on the street.
And in 20 years they will want us to sacrifice our sons to fight the competitor they created --just as the wealthy London capitalists of Victorian England created the German chemical industry that gassed British troops in WWI.
b) The Rich claimed they needed relief from government regulation to make the economy more efficient -- and then bought on the worse depression since 1929 by stealing everything not nailed down.
Who is stupid enough to think you can run a massive, highly complex, technologically
advanced economy --and FEED 310 million people-- by pretending we are all small tribes stuck in a pristine laissez faire wilderness circa 5000 BC? The Rich are not that stupid -- they TIGHTLY control anything they invest money in.
4) The Republican conservatives controlled Congress from 1994 to 2007 -- it was THEY who
repealed Glass -Steagall in 1999 and laid the basis for the collapse in 2008.
Of course, the Great Whore Bill Clinton helped them and has somehow amassed a $40 million fortune since leaving office.
But the collapse did not occur because more government regulation was added -- it occurred because government regulation was destroyed.
5) The conservatives did not let out a PEEP when Ronald Reagan, George H Bush and George W Bush ran up $11 Trillion in debt.
When the taxpayers were soaked in 1989 for hundreds of $Billions to fix the Savings and Loan financial scandal that occurred on George H Bush's watch -- including $1 Billion to bail out the Silverado bank of Neil Bush -- George H Bush's son and George W Bush's brother.
Nor do conservatives have a problem with government spending when it involves feeding
$Trillions to defense contractors and running a military empire to protect the foreign
investments of the rich. Giving Exxon the world's second largest oil deposits in Iraq, for example.
Why don't we hear conservative complaints about "spending" when we spend more on the
military than the next 23 largest military powers COMBINED?
Why don't we hear conservative complaints about "welfare" when money goes to the rich -- only when money goes to the poor?
If Marxism is the government owning the means of production (the major businesses) then I fail to see how the corporations owning the government as being anything other than Marxism in clever disguise. GM executives go between FDA executive jobs regularly. Of course these government employees/corporate execs will pay for lawmakers to bail out their companies, at taxpayer expense for sure.
To end misunderstanding, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism#cite_note-26
""Please don't confuse capitalism, crony capitalism, socialism, and communism as seems common due to mainstream media redefining/ignoring the proper terms."
I think I made that VERY clear when I said that under real capitalism, a company that goes broke closes its doors rather than gets a billion dollar bailout as compensation for screwing up.
FerFAL
December 10, 2013 at 7:57 AM"
Ferfal, my comment was more directed at the masses than you individually. Based upon your provided example, it appears you get it. However, contrary to your blog, trickle-down economics has a near certain likelihood of working under a pure capitalist system than the crony capitalist/fascist system we currently endure. You did not make that distinction in that portion of your post.
The name of the game is privatize profits; socialize losses. America’s economic system can best be described as fascism (no, concentration camps are not required to qualify). How else can the bank and auto industry bailouts be possible if not by the force of government plus the 80 billion of T-bills the Bernank buys every month with monopoly money. That’s inflation, the most insidious of all taxes.
Yet, the history of the world oscillates between communism and fascism with brief in-between periods of capitalism. China went from feudal to communist/socialist to fascist/capitalist. Capitalism does not last long because it requires effort by the people, by politicians, by the country as a whole. It’s surprising how often people trade freedom for safety and the bondage chains attached to it. We have the government we deserve and not an ounce more.
This vague anti-corporatism is stupid. Your choice is capitalism or the opposite. Those who push the anti-corporate meme are pushing you towards socialism. So what's your preference? You may not like it that corporations drill for oil or mine for minerals but who would you prefer does this, your government?
In a true capitalistic system, the govt stays come rely out of the economy. It has no favors to hand out. There are no "crony capitalists," which is really fascism.
Every scheme at redistributing wealth centralizes power in a select few. It happened in Russia, Cuba, China, and everywhere else it's been tried. What is more dangerous, a concentration of wealth, or a concentration of power?
Because new wealth is always being created, the rich getting richer does no harm to me. I'm not poorer because Zuckerberg got rich off of Facebook. I am less powerful, however, as socialists increase the size of government.
1) If you get concentration of wealth and income then you get concentration of power and you ultimately get fascism -- as the small oligarchy buys a corrupt legislature and uses the state's military power to keep the rabble in line.
2) Look at history -- how did the wealthy British aristocracy treat their countrymen when they no longer needed them to die in wars? The Highland Clearances.
Large numbers thrown into debtor prison and transported to the wildernesses of North America and Australia. Same done with the Irish --and 100,000 who refused to go were starved to death during the Potato Famine while the Royal Navy blockaded the Irish coast and prevented relief ships --from the Muslims in Turkey-- from landing. Hell, the British invented the concentration camp in South Africa. Diamonds, you know.
3) Look at the Dirty War in Argentina. Yes , the leftists were waging an insurgency --but Marxist ideology has no appeal if the general mass of people have decent living standards and hope that their future will be better.
The people will tolerate much if the social contract from the elites has even a semblance of fairness and consideration.
4) Look at recent history -- the Rich have shown time and again that they have NO loyalty to their fellow countrymen. That applies in America and Britain just as much as it applies in Argentina. Every disaster that has struck America has been at the instigation of our Rich.
Re Anon at 10:06PM "Because new wealth is always being created, the rich getting richer does no harm to me"
1) Said by someone who's never been driven out of business by a wealthy monolith and their government puppets.
Look around you at all those closed businesses in America's shopping centers.
Look up the owners of those dead businesses and ask them how they liked having their tax dollars given to the Big Banks at 1/2 percent interest -- only to have the Big Banks shove the money into their vaults to cover their massive gambling debts.
While refusing to extend credit to small businesses and forcing them into bankruptcy. Why is it that the predatory financial thieves have prospered in this depression -- and real businesses have died?
2) Look up the thousands of businessmen driven into bankruptcy by Walmart -- and ask
Walmart why American workers should ever accept a military draft and protect Walmart's great wealth.
3) Every day millions of American workers sweat and labor to create the wealth of the billionaires -- and in return middle-aged workers have seen their real income fall by 17%. And they can't protest because they can be thrown out on the streets like used toilet paper at any time. Ask our middle-aged unemployed how many jobs there are out there.
4) Our US billionaires are selfish sociopaths with loyalty to no one but themselves -- that is how they became rich in the first place.
Don, who are these evil rich you keep talking about? They are people. Some good, some bad. Just like everyone else.
It seems irrational to believe that rich people are automatically trying to hurt you.
In all of your examples, it was governments that created the concentration camps. I fear government more than I fear the family who owns Wal-Mart.
Don, my last comment wasn't as clear as I would've liked. Look at it this way. Adolph Hitler and Fidel Castro were not rich, but they did awful things using powerful governments. Poor people or rich people, given power over others, can cause harm. The common factor in most of the atrocities of the last hundred years has been powerful government.
Keep the government small and neutered, and no one has to fear the concentration camp.
Y.G.
There is a central core to viewpoints. We want more liberty, higher standard of living, and security. Open market competition is the holy grail to accomplish desires of the people. Always has been and probably always will be.
"Capitalism or trading free-market system: an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit."
Capitalism will always be a part of the human experience i.e. economics; even within prisons, socialism, communism, or dictatorships. It's a good thing. So were just posting about government control of our society and the character of the public. In general we need to maximize the private sector aka the wealth building sector. Big government is overhead cost to both freedom and wealth as compared to "good government" being effective and efficient acting to increase freedom and wealth. Good laws and minimal regulations will improve the market per standardization, minimizing risk, stabilize environments, minimize lawlessness, etc. The population needs a foundation of moral character, selflessness, and work ethic. This trait of character more important than all. Our system of governance needs to be free of corruption and be lawful. We do have many problems. Rush Limbaugh and Tea Party politics just a few good sources of welcomed unconventional thinking. What we need less of is the far left notions or solutions that poison the well. In this country these voices of left are far to powerful, over represented, and extreme. We can accomplish higher standard of living, security, and freedom by getting back to basics such as improving education (not partisan public ed tired old government methods), more efficient minimal government, boosting private sector especially small business, and do so with commonsense laws and regs. I've worked with inner city poor and young females hardly making it. I'm convinced the poor suffer from lack of financial skills and poor education. They may lack intelligence as compared, but they shouldn't be suffering from stupid decisions. Many unique ways to pull the country up by boot strings in which government political control is the least effective. We need to radically depart from the notion that central control to the rescue. Power corrupts, especially to selfish electorate in search of easy solutions, whom lack quality education and high morals. I'm not saying we all suffer such traits, just the solid fact that a just moral hard working society is very durable and will enjoy life more as compared to countries on a scale below the measure. Problem is when below the measure the good people suffer and evil wins.
1) Speaking of evil winning, a rich young man just killed 4 people in Texas and got off with probation because his extremely wealthy father paid a lawyer and psychologist to argue that it wasn't the young man's fault --because HE HAD BEEN RAISED RICH.
2) And the judge agreed. I can't help wondering if an envelope of money was the conclusive argument:
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Defense-pushes-for-intensive-therapy-for-teen-in-drunken-crash-that-killed-4-235288101.html
3) How many poor men are serving years in prison for minor offenses? This is the type of corruption you get when you let a small, arrogant group accumulate most of the wealth.
Forget the false sophistry, cartoon thinking, and vague mirages of ideologues -- look at the facts. Look at what is actually happening in the USA. Look at reality.
If government is so incompetent, why do the rich depend upon the military to protect them? When the Soviets threatened our cities with nuclear destruction, did the rich say "Oh, we just need to sit around and wait for the free market to come up with a solution to fix this"??
Why did my son --and the sons of many -- have to register for the draft at age 18?
The Texas 16 year old stole beer from Walmart with friends. With two friends in back of pickup this kid plowed into a group killing four. Couch was sentenced by a juvenile court judge. If he violates the terms of his probation, he could face up to 10 years of incarceration. Judge Jean Boyd told the court she would not release Couch to his parents, but would work to find the teen a long-term treatment facility. It's doubt full if the defense strategy was effective, but a dream propaganda tool for have vs the have nots. Judge will look at the kid priors, attitude, personality, etc. The poor will make stupid mistakes in court and not accept lawyer advice. Any lawyer even the free lawyers will provide good info on how best to act, respond, etc. The very best lawyers will make a difference, a small difference. The poor have a disadvantage, but most of it self inflicted. We love people with turn around stories and rags to riches testimonies. This is what lifts the human spirit. We need to curtail the hopeless victim hood education. That's another poison to the well the left utilizes to gain political strength.
Our military is needed to stabilize national and some international order. Without ability to hurt those whom seek to exploit their will on defenseless public (analogy of Sandy Hook shooting of the defenseless grade schoolers), we have no enjoyment of life, economy, freedom, etc. This threat important to foundation of country. The man with Mercedes in garage or the bum with six pack.
Government is inept, bloated, inflexible, and a crude (inaccurate) operation. Stack political control on top of this behemoth and we have an invention that continually needs to be policed, deflated, reviewed, force change and implement safeguards to prevent in eventual corruption of this poisonous mix of power. Government enables much destructive power. Government is dangerous per the coercive force of law to do good or bad. This blunt tool should only be utilized for basic needs of society, basically our Constitutional powers of government. Past that we run on thin ice and bad solutions to cure ails of public. Remember history of governments. Socialism and Communism killed millions, starved citizens, robbed their property, and always corrupted by rich and powerful. Open markets of private sector has improved mankinds plight immensely. Hollywood exploits public to gain popularity and riches same with the public union ed indoctrination of youth, powerful corporations and the politics of paying off constituencies with free government benefits. All of these attempts to rig government for wealth is corruption and good indicator we have to much government.
"Forget the false sophistry, cartoon thinking, and vague mirages of ideologues -- look at the facts. Look at what is actually happening in the USA. Look at reality."
It is false sophistry to claim that the rich are responsible for most of the evil in this country. It hardly makes the news when a poor person sells their kid into prostitution to pay for drugs, or kills some unarmed housewife in a home invasion. That Texas story is national news because it's unusual.
Re anon at 7:46 am: "It is false sophistry to claim that the rich are responsible for most of the evil in this country."
1) It is not false sophistry to claim that the Rich are certainly responsible for most of the failures of government over the past 30 years --because they have owned and controlled it. Just as they own and control the news media that lies to us 24/7.
Several things that are the fault of the Rich:
a) $17 Trillion debt laid upon us
b) An unnecessary war in Iraq that cost us $3 Trillion, 4500 dead and thousands more crippled for life
c) The economic collapse of 2008 that made around 25 million Americans unemployed and plunged millions into long term poverty
d) The Sept 11, 2001 attack that killed 3000 Americans and cost us over $2 Trillion
e) The disasterous transfer of US capital and technology to China, creating a competitor that may well destroy us within the next 40 years
f)Creation of an idiotic and unstable globalization that will inevitably collapse into chaos --with massive loss of human life.
g) Creation of a legal system that imprisons a higher percentage of our citizens than any other nation on earth. An economic system that spits on the Declaration of Independence and condemms a large percentage of Americans to hopeless, long term poverty.
2) I would have no problem with a true aristocracy that had some degree of competence and sense of responsibility -- but our selfish sociopaths have lost any justification and entitlement for their wealth and power. They must be destroyed. Taxed out of existence.
3) Re "It hardly makes the news when a poor person ...kills some unarmed housewife in a home invasion."
Actually, it does. When that poor person spends 25 YEARS in prison after being falsely FRAMED by a crooked judge.
With that crooked judge receiving a mere 5 day sentence when DNA test exposes what he did. While the real murderer went on to kill another woman two years later.
Another example of Texas having one law for the poor and another for the privileged:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20131108-former-texas-prosecutor-gets-jail-fine-for-wrongful-conviction-that-sent-man-to-prison-for-nearly-25-years.ece
http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/judge-prosecutor-morton-case-deliberately-concealed-evidence
PS Re the need for military spending, we have two large oceans separating us from the rest of the world.
Why, then , does $1 Trillion of our tax money have to be spent every year for foreign occupation? Other than to defend the Rich's foreign investments and to grab some deposits for Big Oil.
A "defense" budget that is higher than the next 23 major military powers COMBINED -- and most of those other powers are our NATO allies.
After all, many American are effectively bankrupt if you include their share of the federal debt. What do they have to protect? The Rich own most of the wealth.
And it is hard to see how foreign invaders could screw the common citizen any worse than the US elites are already doing.
Ask Ferfal who he thinks screwed the Argentine people worse in the 1980s-- the British protecting the Falklands or the Argentine politicans.
We know where this leads. The US Rich screwed the people in the Great Depression of the 1930s -- and some of those citizens got even several years later by handing Stalin the detailed design of the atomic bomb.
Look at Edward Snowden. And you think he is an anomaly?
Look at Timothy McVeigh --who received the Bronze Star for his military service in Iraq before he returned home and blew the Oklahoma federal building to hell to express his displeasure at the jobs opportunities for returning vets.
Those examples not about rich people, but of frustration of government. Deficit spending per government and empowered by politics. Military spending not that costly as compared to the total budget, but agree needs a major trim. The pension and benefits from upper brass the problem. This group of elites upon the command structure pure leftist and a disgrace to nation. My study of Roosevelt years same as Obama. CIC can get away with it, only if a good spokesperson and talking a good talk. Theodore got away with it because he was genuinely nice and blamed others. He was a disaster to country. Obama understands history and how the majority are fools.
Don,
It's obvious you have a grudge against the rich. You claim the rich do xyz when in reality it's the powerful elite.
A prosecutor or judge who violates the law should have the book thrown at them. But those are anomalies. They are not the rule, but rather the exception.
The rule is as anon 4:58am says.
Re Anon at 7:20 pm: "You claim the rich do xyz when in reality it's the powerful elite. "
1) The rich are the powerful elite. Congress, the talking heads on TV, the deceitful propagandists in journalism -- they are all low level employees of the rich. Middle management at best.
2) Billionaire Rupert Murdoch can fire anyone at Fox News --so Fox News says what Rupert wants. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger can fire anyone at the NY Times -- so the journalists there write what he wants. Did he and Rupert ever find those nukes of Saddam Hussein's by the way?
3) Members of Congress have to raise $4 Billion every two years to run for reelection. You think that $4 Billion comes in as $20 checks from the little people? You think it comes in without strings attached?
4) Some more examples:
a) Billionaire Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton's main financier, dumping $15 million into the Democratic party in 2000-2002 -- to buy an invasion of Iraq:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Saban
b) Billionaire Rupert Murdoch selling the Weekly Standard -- the primary journal of the neocons who promoted the invasion of Iraq -- to billionaire Philip Anschutz:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/business/media/03standard.html?_r=0
c) Billonaire S Daniel Abraham destroying Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential bid with $200,000 of anonymous attack ads in the Iowa primary:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2004/03/04/5563/commentary-political-mugging-america
d) Sheldon Adelson dumping $150 Million into the Republican primary to pressure Milt Romney into supporting Adelson's Middle East policy -- by draining Romney's war chest in a fight with Newt Gingrich. With NO consideration for how many US soldiers would die in an invasion of Iran.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/sheldon-adelson-2012-election_n_2223589.html
2) When he because Democratic National Committee Chairman, Howard Dean attempted to reform the Democratic Party. In the course of mocking Dean, the New York Times explained how things really work:
"For the Democrats, winning presidential elections came to mean doing so without any help from the South or West, and that, in turn, meant cobbling together a relatively small number of so-called battleground states rather than running a truly national campaign.
The D.N.C. quit doing much of anything in conservative rural states, and the party’s presidential candidates didn’t bother stopping by on their way to more promising terrain.
Every four years, the national party became obsessed with “targeting” — that is, focusing all its efforts on 15 or 20 winnable urban states and pounding them with expensive TV ads. The D.N.C.’s defining purpose was to raise the money for those ads.
The national party became, essentially, a service organization for a few hundred wealthy donors, who treated it like their private political club. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01dean.html?pagewanted=all
3) The US government was invented by the Rich for their own purposes and it succeeds -- or fails -- precisely in the manner that best benefits the Rich.
http://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/pmhb/article/view/44288
I would note that I agree with a lot of what John Tamny says here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2013/12/15/for-paul-ryan-and-the-republicans-tomorrow-is-the-day-that-never-comes/
The one objection I would note is that when America's Rich were given tax cuts in the past, they used the capital to grow the economy and create jobs in CHINA --not the USA. That needs to change. Now.
And the Tea Party fails greatly when it fails to note that the one thing worse than being unemployed is being unemployed and having $10,000 more federal debt dumped onto you --knowing that you are doomed to slavery even after you find a job.
The way to cut through the deceitful crap of both parties is to ask: what is in the best interest of all Americans? The news media never allows that honest discussion.
We are the same as the Roman and British Empires, and others.
The major American players in the Revolutionary War owed the most to banks and lenders in Britain. The Roman Empire failed because there was too much money and instead of citizens, they hired mercenaries . . . . . . . . . . Think Blackwater, NSA, DHS, about 700-800,000 new contract employees, etc. this from NPR, Frontline no less. They are in search of a problem to justify their contracts, all they can find is us. Over 70,000 warrant less home invasions by various agencies 2 years ago.
In WWI 25% of British conscripts were so poorly nourished that they could not go in the Army, but no worry, Gen Haig told the British they were going to win. How did I he know? He added French and British high school graduating classes and figured out they were graduating more cannon fodder than the Germans.
The cream of the British Empire was lost on WWI, look at Britain today.
The Democrats and Republicans are racing to get the low info voters. We are going to hell in a hand basket and there is no one who cares. Think how our leaders in the US act. Short term and to heck with long term.
There is in turning around this ship, we are behind Venezuela and Greece and Argentina.
1) The Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years.
Pope Francis is giving the America's Richest 1% the same warning that the Catholic priest Salvian gave to the Romans around 440 AD-- and will probably be equally ignored:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salvian1.html
"In what respects can our customs be preferred to those of the Goths and Vandals, or even compared with them? And first, to speak of affection and mutual charity (which, our Lord teaches, is the chief virtue, saying, "By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another "), almost all barbarians, at least those who are of one race and kin, love each other, while the Romans persecute each other.
For what citizen does not envy his fellow citizen ? What citizen shows to his neighbor full charity?
[The Romans oppress each other with exactions] nay, not each other : it would be quite
tolerable, if each suffered what he inflicted. It is worse than that ; for the many are oppressed
by the few, who regard public exactions as their own peculiar right, who carry on private traffic under the guise of collecting the taxes. And this is done not only by nobles, but by men of lowest rank; not by judges only, but by judges' subordinates.
For where is the city even the
town or village which has not as many tyrants as it has curials ? . . . What place is there, therefore, as I have said, where the substance of widows and orphans, nay even of the saints, is not devoured by the chief citizens? . . .
None but the great is secure from the devastations of these plundering brigands, except
those who are themselves robbers.
[Nay, the state has fallen upon such evil days that a man cannot be safe unless he is wicked]
Even those in a position to protest against the iniquity which they see about them dare not speak lest they make matters worse than before. So the poor are despoiled, the widows sigh,
the orphans are oppressed, until many of them, born of families not obscure, and liberally
educated, flee to our enemies that they may no longer suffer the oppression of public
persecution. They doubtless seek Roman humanity among the barbarians, because they
cannot bear barbarian inhumanity among the Romans.
And although they differ from the people to Whom they flee in manner and in language;
although they are unlike as regards the fetid odor of the barbarians' bodies and garments,
yet they would rather endure a foreign civilization among the barbarians than cruel injustice
among the Romans.
So they migrate to the Goths, or to the Bagaudes, or to some other tribe of the barbarians who
are ruling everywhere, and do not regret their exile. For they would rather live free under an
appearance of slavery than live as captives under an appearance of liberty.
The name of Roman citizen, once so highly esteemed and so dearly bought, is now a thing that men
repudiate and flee from. . . . "
2) How long did the Roman elites last once the common citizens started deserting them?
Is Edward Snowden in Moscow worse off than his fellow coworkers-- 90 percent of whom are about to be thrown out onto the unemployment line?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/us-usa-security-nsa-leaks-idUSBRE97801020130809
I think the basic problem is a lack of respect for other people and their property.
Senor Fiesta here.
Anon 12/9/13 10:42 - Reagan did not prove trickle down works. He proved that large amounts of government spending to create middle class jobs (rather than expanding welfare, etc), creates the jobs. The business owner does not expand and hire because he has excess capital. He expands and hires because the market is forcing him to. Demand is so high that he MUST invest more into the business and hire more people. Any business that hires people just because they have excess capital, will not be in business for long. You hire only because you are missing out on business because you no longer have enough capacity to increase output.
You are just spewing the same crap that every other conservative wing nut spews.
The REAL problem is that one guy making 10 million is worse for the economy than 100 people making $100K. The people making $100K return a greater portion of their income back into the economy (churning). A smaller % of the money becomes parked. Do you honestly believe the guy making $10 million returns as much into the economy as even 50 people making 100K? It's about churning rather than parking.
Ok, the guy making $10 million, has a few houses, a boat, a gardener, a maid, a few cars, etc. The 100 people; 50% of them have a house, 80% have two cars, 30% have a boat or some type of watercraft, some pay a garderner service. They all have TVs, radios, cell phones, computers, refridgerators, washing machines, etc. (I hope you can get the pictue by the now).
I'm not saying take the $10 million away from the guy but if you were to tax 50% of everything over 5 million. He is still no worse for the wear. Now, let's take that 2.5 million and put it towards creating 25 fraud investigator jobs (all types of fraud, medicare, SSI, food stamp, tax evasion, etc.) or 10 infrastructure jobs (the remaining money going to materials for the infrastructure jobs which increases demand which increases jobs, etc). You have now just helped the economy more than the $10 million guy just hanging on to that extra cash and the $10 million guy has not been harmed in any large way, he is still wealthy and just on the income over $5 million, he still pocketed $2.5 million. For the first 5 million assuming a 30% tax rate he pockets another 3.5 million. For a total pocketed of 6 million.
So please, tell me how this scenario really hurts this guy? Or how it drags on the economy? The rich guy is still pretty rich (and will probably get even richer because the now the economy is being more stimulated.) The people who want you to believe this is evil are the people that do not care about the good of the country and want to continue to grab as much as our country's wealth as they can. Forget about the country going down, they've already got more than they need and want to keep it that way and get even more at the expense of those that made them wealthy. When the country goes down, they are in their little enclaves with their private police force or moving to another country.
Our country’s best and longest period of growth 40s-late 60s were when the top tax rate was 90%!
Of course it will never happen. Whatever. Just remember that we’ve had 2 decades of the “low tax” ideal and it’s done a great job so far. Don’t you think?
I wonder if maybe a little thing like rebuilding Europe after ww2 had something to do with that awesome 20 years of growth up until the 60's.
I'm so tired of that garbage statistic about a 90% tax rate. You know how many people paid that 90% rate? None. There were far more deductions bringing the real rate on par with the rate it has been since.
Your churning idea sounds good, but there's no reason we can't keep taxes low for small businessmen as well as the really wealthy. Do both and let government stop trying to control everything.
Y.G.
Oh, ya throwing insults prove your're superior.
High tax rates are phoney, just propaganda to poor whom glee at the idea. The IRS code is so complex for fooling the public into such notions. The Laffer curve will prevent robbing ones earned wealth. Trickle down an indisputable economic theory as well as trickle up. My take, the whole population (business and consumers) need to be convinced the future is better. Also, the green shoots appear from investors trying to get ahead of the improving economic curve. Turning capital important, but this will only happen upon change in mindset of brighter future. Also, a good thing upon hard economic times is accomplished when consumers and investors double efforts to make dollars work harder and earn more. Making an economy more efficient is desirable. Note that socialist usually take the opposite viewpoint and result in tanking economic growth. A economy is a dynamic thing that needs to adjust i.e. buggy whips to computer technology. Keynesian economics as practiced a poor cure. This economic theory does work, but not upon deficit spending. Just like family investment, countries need to save for eventual downturns (every seven years on average). Problem is political parties are to selfish. They act criminally to push country closer to bankruptcy in attempt to benefit their politics or priorities. They do so in to prevent the opposing political party having resources to effect change. Roosevelt clever politics started this mess. Remember Obama studied this era of golden Democratic power. This is the current thinking per Rahm's comments "you don't want to let a crisis go to waste"? The public (business and consumers) understands the reckless ineffective deficient spending going on and have a negative view of future. Printing cheap money helps for short term, but a big problem long term. Passing massive mindless regulations just per political biases with little attention to value and cost of benefit received just a horrible condition in suffering economy. Marshaling so much resources upon D.C. government complex just more poof of inept structure of economy. Government spending is the least efficient use of capital to stimulate economy.
1) As percentage of GDP, US federal tax revenues are currently around 15% --
well below the historical average of 18%:
http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/images/u-s-federal-government-revenue-current-inflation-gdp.jpg
2) Figure I in this 2012 Study (page 3) by the Congressional Research Service shows that the Average
(not marginal) tax rate for the richest 0.01% fell from 60% in 1945 to around 23% today.
The average rate for the richest 0.1 % fell from 55% to around 25%. The CRS notes that the
Capital Gains tax (gains in income from sale of stocks, bonds, property,etc) has been cut greatly.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/r42729_0917.pdf
3) The Rich have owned the government since the Lying Reagan --they and their puppets ran up the
$17 Trillion in federal debt , so they should pay off that debt. Otherwise, middle class
IRAs and 401Ks will be heavily taxed. Someone has to paid off that debt --$11 Trillion
incurred by the signatures of Republican Presidents. If you don't know who the sucker is
then it will be you.
4) In my experience, when deceitful Republicans talked about "not increasing taxes" they
mean "don't raise taxes on my wealthy patrons". They are happy to screw the workers.
The current Republican governor of Pennsylvania ran prominently on "no new taxes" --
and then immediately imposed a sales tax on the middle class for purchases done on the
Internet.
5) Similarly, the argument that the Rich "pay more than their share of the taxes " is deceitful--
the Rich pay because they have manipulated government policy in order to gain
far more than their fair share of the national income.
They privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
1.) Tax revenue is down per poor economy. You can't tax your way out of a recession. Also, national debt must be paid for with growing economy.
2.) Capital gains down from historical peaks. This part of tax code migrated to increase incentive for long term investments. Business and economy grew from less corrosive tax burdens. Overall good for economy, better job growth, higher revenues, and long term outlook.
3. You post of deceit and lying are the purview of Republicans. Well I would take that bet any day that Democrats rank a few notches higher. The national debt not always a President's doing. Bush's debt jumped dramatically the last few month in office. It was a gesture to make finances more friendly for incoming administration. The House sets the budget and often times the President has minimal control. Also, Administrations will set up entitlements to spend the future revenue meaning money not on their watch. Social security schemes illegal in private sector...just ask Bernie Madoff. Personally, IMHO, the Constitution should have restricted Federal government payments to private citizens. That should only be allowed at state level. Their is to much potential for criminal (buy your vote) political behavior at federal level. Let the states compete and improvise to best solutions. Also, the states can't print money.
4.) 5.) Top 5% incomes pay over half the income tax. That's not to shabby a contribution. Also, income tax rates are negative for the low earners. I heard a stat on low earners currently eligible or receiving $25,000 in contributions for assistance.
Per your postings, you need to be a voracious supporter of the Tea Party Movement. You align well with their priorities. But, if a partisan just throwing dirt, well we shouldn't take you seriously.
"...Top 5% incomes pay over half the income tax.."
Yeah but they make well over 50% of the wealth. If they make over 50% of the wealth why are they only taxed at 50%?
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