Losing Our Way

[Gerald]

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.

Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.

Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/opinion/26herbert.html?bl


Note: March 25, 2011

[tater]

The US already spends too much on public education. The average is around what I pay for private school. In NYC and other urban areas, public school spending per student is well above what I pay per kid. Do they have 14-16 kids per class with virtually all the kids finishing grade school with excellent academics? Didn't think so.

I'm with you on the expense of Libya, etc, but some of the "usual suspects" for where money should go instead are false choices, IMHO. Better to cut spending, then pay of debt, then with whatever is left over, cut taxes (there won't be any left over any time soon). Edu is the bulk of most state budgets, too, so it should get cut first, not last—it's not like the end product is an intelligent electorate, I'd be willing to be more HS kids (public) would be able to tell you some trivia about virtually any celebrity, and nothing at all about WW2, or even the Revolutionary War period.

[Growler]

The simplest distillation of the current situation is that nothing is working as may have been initially intended. Education, as tater pointed out, is plainly broken. Social services = broke. Election processes = broke. Accountability of elected officials = broke. Corporate responsibility extends now only to shareholder dividends on a quarterly basis - that's three months. If a retailer isn't reporting double digit sales growth every three months, they're a failure. That kind of growth isn't sustainable; the only way to achieve those kind of profits is to cut other expenses - lower lighting levels at night, fewer on-hand employees, reduced benefits, lower salaries. Eventually, you get what exists today: Salaries too low to pay for people to even live in the communities where they work, or unemployment, creating a strain on social services that could otherwise be more efficient in helping others, ramping up their costs, which leads to calls for tax hikes, ad nauseum.

What's called for is a wholesale revamp of the way this country does business - literally and figuratively. We cannot continue to support a Congress and White House - either party - that is controlled by what the chief "sponsors" tell them to do. They're no longer accountable to the public they allegedly serve; they've become lackeys of special interests on all sides, at all levels. Both parties are experts at spin, making it look like the other guys' sides' fault, while the special interests go marching along with their agendas and benefits.

Meanwhile, we need to see fair wages instituted for workers, and jobs kept in this country. In order to do that, this quarterly profit sharing dividends model bullpucky has to stop. The reason jobs are outsourced is because they're cheaper, which leads to more profits to keep the shareholders happy. We have become a nation ruled by shareholders who, by their power, dictate what they want from business, who then goes to Washington to get what they need to post those profits from Congress, who pays for it all off of taxpayer dollars. That model has to change.

But it won't. We still believe in some dude who created all of the world, to whom we owe our very souls, and who will reward us for being sheep in this life by making us shepherds in the next. So if we can still, after all the advances of society and technology, believe in a middle-ages-serf-control method today, why should the lords change anything about how they work, either?

[Takeda Shingen]

Education spending did not cause this crisis, nor does it perpetuate it. What we are seeing is what Rahm Emanuel summarized as 'not letting a crisis go to waste'. Education spending has long been in the crosshairs of the right, and we now see that they use the current problems as an excuse to take care of an old enemy. So much for the argument of moral superiority.

[Wolfehunter]

But it won't. We still believe in some dude who created all of the world, to whom we owe our very souls, and who will reward us for being sheep in this life by making us shepherds in the next. So if we can still, after all the advances of society and technology, believe in a middle-ages-serf-control method today, why should the lords change anything about how they work, either?:nope: So true... so true.

[gimpy117]

being 19, and ready to come of age in this world...this article depresses me. Hell maybe I should learn Swedish and move there or something. Even the women are hotter there.

[Gerald]

being 19, and ready to come of age in this world...this article depresses me. Hell maybe I should learn Swedish and move there or something. Even the women are hotter there. Are you really sure that they are better in Sweden instead of U.S.? Personally, I think the opposite (sometimes), but it depends on the time and opportunity :DL

[Torplexed]

Are you really sure that they are better in Sweden instead of U.S.? Personally, I think the opposite (sometimes), but it depends on the time and opportunity :DL

Alas, a lot of us Americans grew up on the glorious myth of the Swedish Bikini Team. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Bikini_Team

The Swedish Bikini Team was a group of American female models who appeared in an advertising campaign for Old Milwaukee beer. These commercials ran for several months in 1991 in the United States, playing with American stereotypes of Scandinavian women being blonde and having big breasts. The premise of the commercials was that a group of bored or thirsty men were "saved" by the Swedish Bikini Team. Other commercials would focus on a group of men male bonding on a hunting trip and saying "Guys, it does not get any better than this", to which a narrator would say the man was wrong and an Old Milwaukee truck would drive miles off road towards them claiming "it improved", "..and when the Swedish Bikini Team showed up, it got somewhat better."

[Gerald]

Alas, a lot of us Americans grew up on the glorious myth of the Swedish Bikini Team. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Bikini_Team Not invite him to some temptation now :O:

[UnderseaLcpl]

The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent


I always hate hearing stuff like this. I hate it because that kind of inequality is indeed scandalous. I hate it because even with stats like that, the bottom 80% of the US is a damn sight better off than 90% of the world. But mostly, I hate it because it's almost always part of an argument that is indicative of a desire to force a redistribution of wealth, which in turn requires government intervention.

Contrary to popular belief, the US government doesn't actually redistribute wealth in the way people hope it will. What it does do is akin to distributing a pie somebody else made by eating a disproportionate share of the pie itself, passing what's left to the fatties most interested in eating the pie, and then redistributing the leftovers to those most in need as defined by who is the most popular. Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough pie for all of that so it borrows or steals pies from people who made them. But, there still isn't enough to go around so it starts gradually diluting the pie filling so that more pies can be made, though they won't be as good. While it does all this, it loudly proclaims to everyone in the room that it is doing good work and, in fact, made all these pies. Then it repeats the process, but faster the next time. Even when the pie-makers start leaving because they are tired of having their pies stolen and distributed thusly, the government just keeps doing it until there is no pie left.

Actually, that's not the best analogy. What government actually does is so unrelated to any other entity in existence that no real analogy can be made that I am aware of. The best I can do is just point out the results. That's what the author of the article is doing. And somehow, he thinks the same agency that either created these problems or allowed them to happen is going to fix them? New leadership? Really?

Government is not some genie that will magically fix things just because you ask it to. It's just a bunch of people. And no matter how smart or well-intentioned those people are, or how you go about finding smart, well-intentioned people in the first place they are not smarter than millions of people working for their own benefit. That holds true in the case of both wealth-creators and lobbyists. Business will always capture the regulators. The stricter the limitations on government, the longer it takes to happen, but it will always happen.

The author of the article apparently does not realize that. Presumably, he is in favor of more regulation. Many people are. They think that if the regulations were just a little more plentiful, or a little stricter, or a little more well-written, they'd close all these loopholes that the monied upper-class uses to cheat the little guy. I can understand that. Hell, I'll even cede the argument (in this thread only). Effective regulation is a good way to redistribute wealth, except it often ends up redistributing it right out of the country. I'm actually kind of happy about that bit. There are a lot of suffering people in this world who live terrible lives and could use the work. But no, all of the sudden that's a bad thing for people who want the wealth to be redistributed. As it turns out, what they really wanted was for wealth to be redistributed to them.

Now that we've established that, let's look at what they did when they realized that wealth distribution wasn't going the way they planned. Of course, they asked the government to help, and it tried. Protectionist trade law in the US (tariffs, quotas, etc) is so mind-bogglingy huge and complex that I can't even describe it without going beyond even my very lax standards for post length. Or the character limit. Or even human comprehension. There's not one person alive who understands all of it. In response, business did exactly what people do. Where it could adapt, it did, and where it couldn't it just left. You want to complain about outsourcing, go ahead and point that finger right at a mirror. All those pages of trade regs didn't preserve any jobs. The US export industry is all but dead in every case where the work could be done elsewhere. I could bitch further about how all that law is completely unfair to people who are a lot worse off than self-centered a-holes complaining about self-centered corporate a-holes, but I trust the point is made.

Fighting business is like trying to wrestle water. It's pointless, tiring, does nothing but shift water about, and no matter how you go about it you still end up wet. All in the name of fighting something that makes your life possible.

I can't really blame the author for his views. Nor can I blame the people who unwittingly demanded that government outsource their own jobs. They're just people being people. Unsuprisingly, that's what people do best, and most often. Unless they're zombies, of course. I will, however, blame the government, which, as I said, is just a bunch of people. When you give people power like that you're just asking for abuse. I don't blame the people themselves, even when they are career politicians. They're just doing what we gave them incentive to do. But it needs to stop.

Private industry, on the other hand, is also just people doing what we gave them incentive to do. It extracts things. It manufactures things. It serves you because you have somthing to offer in trade because you served other people. Everybody who can make pies is making pies! For everyone! Unless you can't afford them of course, in which case people made wealthy by pie-making will just give you pies for free! And that's actual free, not "free" stolen from someone else. Or maybe you don't like pie. Maybe you like cake. Maybe you like sausage. It doesn't matter. Private industry generates so much choice that we had to invent supermarkets just to keep up with all the demand. Thousands of channels on TV. Hundreds of millions of websites. Billions of books on every subject ever, and some subjects that aren't subjects at all. Simply by letting people be people without fiat power.

[Blood_splat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsliQwT94nY&feature=relmfu

[Gerald]

No Taxes....

[sidslotm]

Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone


The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organizes habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society: Edward Bernayes 1920s USA.

I hope the peoples of England wake up soon before this generation of middle class leaders (and liars) get us all into another world war, because the next one could be the last one. This oil lust will be the undoing of all that is good, if it's not to late already.

It is necessary to disagree with everyone who would control your spirit, therein is Freedom.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour, duty; mercy; hope. Winston Churchill.

[AngusJS]

The reason jobs are outsourced is because they're cheaper, which leads to more profits to keep the shareholders happy. We have become a nation ruled by shareholders who, by their power, dictate what they want from business, who then goes to Washington to get what they need to post those profits from Congress, who pays for it all off of taxpayer dollars. That model has to change.

But it won't. We still believe in some dude who created all of the world, to whom we owe our very souls, and who will reward us for being sheep in this life by making us shepherds in the next. So if we can still, after all the advances of society and technology, believe in a middle-ages-serf-control method today, why should the lords change anything about how they work, either?QFT

[Ducimus]

I always hate hearing stuff like this. I hate it because that kind of inequality is indeed scandalous. I hate it because even with stats like that, the bottom 80% of the US is a damn sight better off than 90% of the world. I hate it because it's almost always part of an argument that is indicative of a desire to force a redistribution of wealth, which in turn requires government intervention.

UnderseaLcpl, last i checked this is the United States, not F'ing China or India. You've used that part in the bold before, and what it seems to me your really saying is, "Your not living in huts, so STFU". What you are arguing for, IS a redesitribution of wealth, in and of itself. Your arguing that it is ok to redistribute American wealth, across the globe, because we aren't living in huts.

Well, yeah, it's true, we don't live in huts, but this is the United States of America. Places like China or Inida is there, and this is here, and HERE is what matters. Here we have and should have higher standards, and you should expect no less for your home country! In order to ensure that, and to preserve the American way of life, we need to look after our own people.. You know.. looking out for your own? Didn't they teach you that in the Marine Corp?

[MothBalls]

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.


They have oil. We can use that in our SUV's. Just don't say it too loud, don't want the people of Rwanda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide) know why we can help and oil country and not them.

[UnderseaLcpl]

UnderseaLcpl, last i checked this is the United States, not F'ing China or India. You've used that part in the bold before, and what it seems to me your really saying is, "Your not living in huts, so STFU". What you are arguing for, IS a redesitribution of wealth, in and of itself. Your arguing that it is ok to redistribute American wealth, across the globe, because we aren't living in huts.
That's not what I'm saying at all, Deuce, sorry if I gave you that impression. I don't know if you read the rest of the post (can't blame you if you didn't) but what I'm arguing for is limitation of government because government is so counterproductive. It inadvertently ends up sedning our jobs overseas or destroying them entirely or making it so that nobody creates them in the first place.

I don't much care for the current world distribution of wealth, but I'm not out to fix it. Actually, if we adopted my consistent stance that we should restrict government and lower corporate and capital gains taxes to a fraction of what they are now, or better yet, to zero, we'd end up making a lot of the world poorer as firms (and especially financial firms) flocked to the US.

In order to ensure that, and to preserve the American way of life, we need to look after our own people.. You know.. looking out for your own? Didn't they teach you that in the Marine Corp?

And that's precisely what I'm doing, as best I know how. Granted, my preferred method is not going to save the family farm or the old mill. In fact, a lot of jobs like that would be lost for lack of subsidies. However, there would be so many new and better jobs created that we come out out. Even the little guy wins because employers will be forced to pay more and provide training just to attract workers because there won't be enough to go around. The wealth generated by such a business environment would also provide jobs in other countries since we buy everything from everybody else. Everybody wins in the end.

[Ducimus]

I don't know if you read the rest of the post (can't blame you if you didn't)

Your right i didn't. With posts that touch on one of the few topics I actually give a rats ass about, the post itself becomes a persuasive argument i scrutinize with a furrowed brow. It's much akin to that old TV game show "Press your luck". (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIJYfvN9954) The instant i see something that I strongly disagree with, the stop button gets hit, and the whammy comes out. At that point, i stop reading.


On the bright side of things, at least were wanting the same thing. We aren't quite on the same page as to how to achieve that same thing, but at least we seem to want the same thing. Honestly, reading your posts (i dont always respond) half the time, i think you love your personal finances more then you love the your country. (edit: For clairification that means, half the time, i think you'd outsource everyones job/livelyhood if it meant for you to getting ahead, just like those big time CEO's with the golden parachutes that screw everyone over)

I'm not making that accusation, its just the impression i get as much as you go on about your love of globalization and unrestricted capitalism, with so little mention of anything else. I pick up on that, because I have very strong sense of nationalism, and i'm probably one of the few people around who will still use the word "Countryman". (look up the synonyms for that if the word is fuzzy to you.:O: )

[Gerald]

They have oil. We can use that in our SUV's. Just don't say it too loud, don't want the people of Rwanda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide) know why we can help and oil country and not them. Glad I do not drive a gas-guzzling car, but sometimes I drive fast then easily come up in 1.4 liters miles 1 mile (10 kilometer)

[UnderseaLcpl]

Your right i didn't. With posts that touch on one of the few topics I actually give a rats ass about, the post itself becomes a persuasive argument i scrutinize with a furrowed brow. It's much akin to that old TV game show "Press your luck". (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIJYfvN9954) The instant i see something that I strongly disagree with, the stop button gets hit, and the whammy comes out. At that point, i stop reading.
I figured it would be because my posts are always so damn long. Sometimes I look back at what I wrote and I don't even want to read it.



On the bright side of things, at least were wanting the same thing. We aren't quite on the same page as to how to achieve that same thing, but at least we seem to want the same thing. Honestly, reading your posts (i dont always respond) half the time, i think you love your personal finances more then you love the your country. (edit: For clairification that means, half the time, i think you'd outsource everyones job/livelyhood if it meant for you to getting ahead, just like those big time CEO's with the golden parachutes that screw everyone over)

Nah, I'm not like that. If I could be accused of being so heartless it would be in the sense that I want to outsource other nations' jobs to us, along with most of their liquid capital. I want to make sure the dollar is always the world's reserve currency. I want every business that can do so to be based in the US so we own everything anyway, no matter where it's made or mined. Easiest way to do that is to get our public debt and defecit under control. Cut the most wasteful programs and subsidies. Simplify the regs. And then pull the rug out from the rest of the world's feet by suddenly dropping corporate and investment taxes to zero. Companies will be tripping over each other to source work here and invest in US businesses.

It's a dirty trick but if we could ever implement it we'd be sitting pretty for a long time.


I'm not making that accusation, its just the impression i get as much as you go on about your love of globalization and unrestricted capitalism, with so little mention of anything else. I pick up on that, because I have very strong sense of nationalism, and i'm probably one of the few people around who will still use the word "Countryman". (look up the synonyms for that if the word is fuzzy to you.:O: )

Well that's mostly because I value freedom so much. Particularly the freedom of this nation. But to be free you need to (a) not be beholden to the state and (b)be wealthy enough to make free choices and not forced ones out of necessity. Until you get those out of the way there really isn't much point in discussing what we could or should be doing because it isn't really our choice, anyway.

My sense of nationalism is just as strong as yours. I just want to make sure that it indeed remains "our" sense of nationalism and not one used to goad us into supporting political agendas or supporting some half-coked state plan and then forgiving them for frakking it up because it's "patriotic". I hope that helps you see where I'm coming from, countryman:O:

[Onkel Neal]

UnderseaLcpl, last i checked this is the United States, not F'ing China or India. You've used that part in the bold before, and what it seems to me your really saying is, "Your not living in huts, so STFU". What you are arguing for, IS a redesitribution of wealth, in and of itself. Your arguing that it is ok to redistribute American wealth, across the globe, because we aren't living in huts.

Well, yeah, it's true, we don't live in huts, but this is the United States of America. Places like China or Inida is there, and this is here, and HERE is what matters. Here we have and should have higher standards, and you should expect no less for your home country! In order to ensure that, and to preserve the American way of life, we need to look after our own people.. You know.. looking out for your own? Didn't they teach you that in the Marine Corp?

Easy, there. Debate the message, don't attack the messenger.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Easy, there. Debate the message, don't attack the messenger.

I don't mind. I've come close to crossing that line myself more than enough. I try not to take things personally. I like everyone on this site, even Tribesman. Hence the stolen sig.

Your site, your rules, of course.

[gimpy117]

Not invite him to some temptation now :O:

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/55a401f0_d891_6e1f.jpg

saw this...couldn't help but think of this thread

[mookiemookie]

But mostly, I hate it because it's almost always part of an argument that is indicative of a desire to force a redistribution of wealth, which in turn requires government intervention.

Why is it acceptable then to have that top 1% take unfair advantage of a rigged political system that allows the wealth to be redistributed upwards?

The solution isn't to say "ok we're taking X% of your wealth and giving it to the poor people." That's only treating the symptom. The cure is to treat the system that allows for such a concentration of wealth to occur.

You the consumer are paying $4 and $5 a gallon for gas. Meanwhile, oil speculators at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley drive the price per barrel up more and more. Traders at AIG make ridiculously stupid bets on the derivatives and credit default markets. When they blow up, who makes them whole? You the taxpayer. You pay for it with overcrowded schools because of slashed education budgets. You pay for it with 10% unemployment. You pay for it with reduced social services. All because the titans of capitalism are "too big to fail." Makes me sick.

[Gerald]

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/55a401f0_d891_6e1f.jpg

saw this...couldn't help but think of this thread Well,you are enough "old" to understand what was meant :DL

[UnderseaLcpl]

Why is it acceptable then to have that top 1% take unfair advantage of a rigged political system that allows the wealth to be redistributed upwards?
It's not. That's why I'm always whining about dismantling the government as much as possible. If it had stricter limitaions on passing legislation, creating agencies, interpreting the constitution, and a well-written budget amendment that mandated profitability and restricted tax levels, there would be no political system to rig. Nobody is going to lobby an impotent government.

The solution isn't to say "ok we're taking X% of your wealth and giving it to the poor people." That's only treating the symptom. The cure is to treat the system that allows for such a concentration of wealth to occur.
We're agreed on the first point. Half-agreed at least on the second. Concentration of wealth is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the system it operates in is alowed to continually generate more wealth. The distribution remains quite unequal (though I don't think the disparity would be as drastic as it is now), but the important thing is that everyone keeps moving up.

Perhaps more importantly, distribution of wealth seems to hover at around the top 10% having more than the bottom 90%, no matter what society you are in. In societies where that wealth is allowed to buy the inherently unethical mandate of force that only states have, that disparity gets even worse, and then it gets cemented in.

That's my view, anyway. If you have some other system I'm listening.

You the consumer are paying $4 and $5 a gallon for gas. Meanwhile, oil speculators at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley drive the price per barrel up more and more. Traders at AIG make ridiculously stupid bets on the derivatives and credit default markets. When they blow up, who makes them whole? You the taxpayer. You pay for it with overcrowded schools because of slashed education budgets. You pay for it with 10% unemployment. You pay for it with reduced social services. All because the titans of capitalism are "too big to fail." Makes me sick.

Is this all directed at me because I'm starting to wonder if you read the whole post, either. The reason I said the part in bold is because of just how harmful government intervention is. Goldman-Sachs and Morgan Stanley are only too big to fail because the government was captured by business, just as it always is in the end. The bailout money was stolen from the citizenry by the government. If the government wasn't in education in the first place there would be no more overcrowding of schools than there is overcrowding of supermarkets or gas stations. There would probably still be a high unemployment rate in the event of bank failures, but it takes state favoritism and iron grip to make it last more than a couple of years.

It makes me sick, too. Which is why I say we need to take that power away.

[mookiemookie]

Is this all directed at me

Nope, just a rant using the collective "you"

[Gerald]

A very "neutral" statement I must say

[tater]

Wealth redistributed upwards. LOL.

Redistribution means taking money (with threat of force/jail) from one party, and giving it to another. You can argue that rich interests benefit from government spending. I'll grant it for the sake of argument.

OK, so we have the rich, political class writing government checks to themselves (gov contracts, etc).

There is redistribution for you. I agree.

Upwards? Sorry, but the bottom doesn't pay in a statistically significant amount. There is no way this largesse passes upwards, since even if we grant the lower end is over taxed (due to payroll taxes, not income tax which they don't pay), the total amount collected is still a meaningless amount. Debt? Again, the gov gives money to rich interests with borrowed money. The press reports this as if it's XX,XXX dollars for every American, but only the top 20% will ever get sent the bill, so it's really a multiple of that figure for every "rich" person, and ZERO for the rest.

There is no way to redistribute meaningful amounts of money upwards, since the poor don't have meaningful net worth.

[Growler]

There is no way to redistribute meaningful amounts of money upwards, since the poor don't have meaningful net worth.

Exactly. Wealth redistribution has got to stop being looked at as a solution, it just ain't.

What needs to be addressed are the causes that got us here, not stopgap treatments for the symptoms. Unfortunately, that involves change, and change is uncomfortable, and people hate being uncomfortable etc. etc. All of which stems from the increasing inability of anyone to be responsible for anything.

It's as if the entire nation is collectively claiming an insanity defense because they had bad childhoods.

[mookiemookie]

Wealth redistributed upwards. LOL.

Redistribution means taking money (with threat of force/jail) from one party, and giving it to another. You can argue that rich interests benefit from government spending. I'll grant it for the sake of argument.

OK, so we have the rich, political class writing government checks to themselves (gov contracts, etc).

There is redistribution for you. I agree.

Upwards? Sorry, but the bottom doesn't pay in a statistically significant amount. There is no way this largesse passes upwards, since even if we grant the lower end is over taxed (due to payroll taxes, not income tax which they don't pay), the total amount collected is still a meaningless amount. Debt? Again, the gov gives money to rich interests with borrowed money. The press reports this as if it's XX,XXX dollars for every American, but only the top 20% will ever get sent the bill, so it's really a multiple of that figure for every "rich" person, and ZERO for the rest.

There is no way to redistribute meaningful amounts of money upwards, since the poor don't have meaningful net worth.

You're myopically focused on income taxes. Think bigger. Tax cuts lead to increased deficits, lower purchasing power, a weaker dollar. Interest rate cuts eat into those reliant on fixed income portfolios. Bailed out Citigroup gets $38 billion in tax abatements. Bailout recipient GE pays no income tax. They actually received $3 billion back from the government. By the Republican "the answer to everything is to cut taxes" model, they should be hiring people hand over fist. Are they? I've already been over this in my previous post which you obviously didn't read in a rush to "hurr hurr LOL" about, but yet you think this is all about personal income tax.

Corporate profits are at record highs but so is long term unemployment. You can LOL about it and call it a coincidence all you want but you're living in the dark.

I'm like Ducimus on this - this stuff pisses me off to the point of being irrational, name-calling and whatnot, so I think I'll just bow out here.

[tater]

I specifically excluded income taxes for the poor, I said for them, payroll taxes.

GE had money redistributed to them. The money did not, not enough to matter, come from the poor.

A weaker dollar has actually been a goal of US policy for ages. It's the goal of most countries, actually.

The bottom line is that redistribution requires a state actor. You've posted before about "the rich" owning 90% of the wealth. There is no possible way they could have had that redistributed from the poor, because the sum total of everyone else in the wealth department is therefore 10%. It's not like a large % of wealth passes through the hands of the poor before going to the rich.

If the rich get money "redistributed" to them, where, pray tell can it come from except people that have the money in the first place.

You made it about taxes, since taxes is where government money comes from. No taxes, no redistribution.