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How the Rich Soaked the Rest of Us
The astonishing story of the last few decades is a massive redistribution of wealth, as the rich have shifted the tax burden
Over the last half century, the richest Americans have shifted the burden of the federal individual income tax off themselves and onto everybody else. The three convenient and accurate Wikipedia graphs below show the details. The first graph compares the official tax rates paid by the top and bottom income earners. Note especially that from the end of the second world war into the early 1960s, the highest income earners paid a tax rate over 90% for many years. Today, the top earners pay a rate of only 35%. Note also how the gap between the rates paid by the richest and the poorest has narrowed. If we take into account the many loopholes the rich can and do use far more than the poor, the gap narrows even more.
When the Cadillac Eldorado made its debut in the 1950s, wealthy Americans were paying a top rate of tax of 90%; today, the top rate of tax is 35%.
One conclusion is clear and obvious: the richest Americans have dramatically lowered their income tax burden since 1945, both absolutely and relative to the tax burdens of the middle income groups and the poor.
Consider two further points based on this graph: first, if the highest income earners today were required to pay the same rate that they paid for many years after 1945, the federal government would need far lower deficits to support the private economy through its current crisis; and second, those tax-the-rich years after 1945 experienced far lower unemployment and far faster economic growth than we have had for years.
Historical tax rates for the highest and lowest income earners
The lower taxes the rich got for themselves are one reason why they have become so much richer over the last half century. Just as their tax rates started to come down from their 1960s heights, so their shares of the total national income began their rise. As the two other Wikipedia graphs below show, we have now returned to the extreme inequality of income that characterised the US a century ago.
The graph above shows the portion/percentage of total national income taken by the top 1%, the top tenth of a percent, and the top 100th of a percent of individuals and families: the richest of the rich. The third graph compares what happened to the after-tax household incomes of Americans from 1979 to 2005 (adjusted for inflation). The bottom fifth of poorest citizens saw their income barely rise at all. The middle fifth of income earners saw their after-tax household income rise by less than 25%. Meanwhile, the top 1 % of households saw their after-tax household incomes rise by 175%.
In simplest terms, the richest Americans have done by far the best over the last 30 years, they are more able to pay taxes today than they have been in many decades, and they are more able to pay than other Americans by a far wider margin. At a time of national economic crisis, especially, they can and should contribute far more in taxes.
Instead, a rather vicious cycle has been at work for years. Reduced taxes on the rich leave them with more money to influence politicians and politics. Their influence wins them further tax reductions, which gives them still more money to put to political use. When the loss of tax revenue from the rich worsens already strained government budgets, the rich press politicians to cut public services and government jobs and not even debate a return to the higher taxes the rich used to pay. So it goes – from Washington, to Wisconsin, to New York City.
Share of national income taken by top tranches of earners
How do the rich justify and excuse this record? They claim that they can invest the money they save from taxes and thereby create jobs, etc. But do they? In fact, cutting rich people's taxes is often very bad for the rest of us (beyond the worsening inequality and hobbled government it produces).
Several examples show this. First, a good part of the money the rich save from taxes is then lent by them to the government (in the form of buying US Treasury securities for their personal investment portfolios). It would obviously be better for the government to tax the rich to maintain its expenditures, and thereby avoid deficits and debts. Then the government would not need to tax the rest of us to pay interest on those debts to the rich.
Second, the richest Americans take the money they save from taxes and invest big parts of it in China, India and elsewhere. That often produces more jobs over there, fewer jobs here, and more imports of goods produced abroad. US dollars flow out to pay for those imports and so accumulate in the hands of foreign banks and foreign governments. They, in turn, lend from that wealth to the US government because it does not tax our rich, and so we get taxed to pay for the interest Washington has to give those foreign banks and governments. The largest single recipient of such interest payments today is the People's Republic of China.
Third, the richest Americans take the money they don't pay in taxes and invest it in hedge funds and with stockbrokers to make profitable investments. These days, that often means speculating in oil and food, which drives up their prices, undermines economic recovery for the mass of Americans, and produces acute suffering around the globe. Those hedge funds and brokers likewise use part of the money rich people save from taxes to speculate in the US stock markets. That has recently driven stock prices higher: hence, the stock market recovery. And that mostly helps – you guessed it – the richest Americans who own most of the stocks.
Relative increases in net household incomes of Americans from 1979 to 2005
The one kind of significant wealth average Americans own, if they own any, is their individual home. And home values remain deeply depressed: no recovery there.
Cutting the taxes on the rich in no way guarantees social benefits from what they may choose to do with their money. Indeed, their choices can worsen economic conditions for the mass of people. These days, that is exactly what they are doing.
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104 Comments so far
Show AllCapitalism IS a big Ponzi scheme. And unfettered cutthroat capitalism will always crash just like a Ponzi pyramid. That's why the role of government as a regulator is so important. We have gone from a capitalist economy with an emphasis on societal enrichment to a capitalist economy with an emphasis on corporate enrichment. This is what happens when business owns government.
"Mayor Bloomberg, one of the richest men in the country, compared Social Security to a Ponzi scheme in an interview with Time magazine.
"When asked how Ponzi fiend Bernard Madoff got away with his epic $65 billion scam for so long, Hizzoner said, 'Nobody cared. Everybody just thought, where did Madoff get the idea?"'
"A cynic would say Social Security, [though] I would never say that. But it's exactly the same thing, isn't it?"
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/social_security_like_ponzi_mike_le3xccazL1bAbuJsNZpASN
Horrible Horace,
Based on your logic and Bloomberg's self serving bullshit, the human body's biochemistry is a ponzi scheme because, due to the laws of thermodynamics, entropy eventually catches up with our inefficient attempts to convert matter to energy by eating. And then we die. I guess that makes humans the ultimate bubble market, eh?
So what's your time horixon, huh pal? You 'externalize the costs and run away with the profits' types make me sick. Your logic is the logic of a parasite which blames the host for not having enough blood. You belong in prison.
I like that name, Horrible Horace. It's almost a Homeric epithet, like Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος (Peleian Achilles), or even Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (Atreides, King of Men).
Horrible Horace,
Oh erudite one.
Look up Procrustean bed. It describes your mindset.
Look up Sisiphys, who is emblematic of your intellectual achievements.
Which is why I stick to Ho, which has a nice ring to it, and conjures up Ho Chi Min, laughter, and prostitution at the same time. Take yer choice. No offense intended, of course. I always prefered the Odyssey myself. It's the world's first picaresque novel. The Iliad, on the other hand, was taught to me by a prep-school tyrant, a 'muscular christian' and a blowhard. he was just doing his job, which was trying to imbue us with the importance of becoming "Kings of Men".
Horace. Please refuse those "ponzi scheme" checks when you become eligible for them, out of principle.
It is astounding how post after post, your braggadocio of ignorance grows exponentially.
Oh very reputable source there, NOT.
in capitalism, the business inevitably owns the government, one way or another, more or less.
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan gives a summary of what went down in the last 60 years or so.
The Perfidy Of Government
How We Lost Our Economy, The
Constitution And Our Civil Liberties
By Paul Craig Roberts
3-1-11
http://www.rense.com/general93/howec.htm
There seems to be something wrong in your country. After reading most of the comments, I came to the conclusion, that the United States should completely change its democratic system. Nothing is perfect, but one thing would be nice:
If any American at any given time could freely speak up and start a political initiative, could ally with - let´s say - 1% of all US voters, then submit this to Washington, and if then all Americans would have to discuss and vote in favor or against the proposal - that would change things quickly. Seems, you guys as individuals lost control over your democracy and therefore over own country. No matter who you elect, they all seem to go to their offices, (may be) trying the best they can - or may be just doing what they want - for 4 or 8 years, right? Then all the ´John Does´ get mad because nothing changed and vote for the ONLY OTHER party that exists - and the game starts all over again.
How about having a little more ´direct´ instead of this inflexible ´governmental´ democracy that you practice now?
BINGO! Hey man! Guess what...the rest of the world is watching.
This is not happening only here in the US. Taxpayers ALL OVER THE WORLD are getting the same scam by their governments. Here is just a lot more massive because everything here is massive! Let me make this very simple. It is ALL about tax dollars going to the very top, particularly war efforts, military spending, defence, so on. To simplify:
On the balance:
"Our happiness and our future" x "Trillions to psychopath billionaires".
It is that simple!
World: REACT!!!! It is time!!! There is a tsunami coming from the East. Use it wisely.
It should be noted that FOX is not the only culprit here (but clearly the most obvious!) as ABC, CNN, NBC and CBS also reinforce the corporate ideology, but in a more subtle way. None of those networks ever give serious attention to any candidate who espouses progressive ideals like taxing the rich, slashing the military, introducing universal healthcare or eliminating Homeland Insecurity. Do you think Wolf Blitzer or any other mainstream political media hack would ever endorse a progressive and still have a job the next day?
Don't forget the CPB's NPR, and PBS. This author would NEVER be quoted, or interviewed on those so-called "liberal" broadcast entities.
hue_sir_name
You're quicker at the keyboard than I am....was about to make the same observation.
I would like to make this as imple as possible. something you can even memorize and spread around:
Here's what's on the balance
"Our happiness and our future" x "Trillions to the billionaires".
It is that simple!
REACT!!!! It is time!!!
Don't expect Obama and the Democrats to save us from "The Attack of the Rich." The corporate Dems are part of the problem. Add to that-- the Wall Street beholden Republicans and you see the stew we're in. Things are so bad that people think teachers cause all our woes. Memo to the folks--it's Wall Street and the Pentagon, not the teachers. The rich refuse to pay taxes and want no regulation. Both parties support this view. Emails make nothing happen. Take it to the street!.
First of all, hi Prof. Wolff from the Happy Valley!
Personally, I'm sick to death of this whole rat race to the bottom economic system. We need to invent a new system based on what's best for all living things on this planet. Stop doing business with the oligarchs. Try to live more simply. Do business with local sustainable businesses. Start co-ops to keep ownership in the hands of employees and customers. If we would make a commitment to do these things, we could put the corporate elites on the defensive. The other benefit to living on less would be to shrink the tax base for the military machine. Stop valuing things and start valuing each other and the Earth. I intend to commit myself to achieving this new life style.
Horace ~
Mae West said that?
I wish I could say that the rest of your drivel is more accurate (but it ain't).
Pink Floyd - Money 1973
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay
And your O.K.
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands
And make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team
Money get back
I'm all right Jack
Keep your hands off my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that
Do goody good bullshit
I'm in the hi-fidelity
First class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
(Sax and guitar solos)
Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly
But don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil
Today
But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're
Giving none away
Away
Away
Away
Away...
"Hu Huh! I was in the right!"
"Yes, absolutely in the right!"
"I certainly was in the right!"
"You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!"
"Yeah!"
"Why does anyone do anything?"
"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!"
"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2. He was asking
Why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and
Screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out"
- - - - -
and so it goes.....
...peace...
Let me add:
--The payroll tax in the US is very regressive because there is no deduction (it is charged from the very first dollar of earnings) because there are no progressive rates based on income, and because there is no payroll tax on incomes greater than about $105,000.
--Property taxes, sales taxes, and many excise taxes (mostly on businesses) are charged regardless of income and wealth and so they are regressive taxes.
--Most fees that are economically equivalent to taxes are charged regardless of income and wealth and so they are in effect regressive taxes. For example, fees associated with driving: car registration, drivers’ licensing, and required car insurance.
When the income tax was being made very progressive in the years after the First Great Depression by both political parties in the States, the reasoning was that having a very progressive income tax would perhaps offset all the other regressive taxes in the US, producing a slightly progressive system overall. Having a slightly progressive tax system in the US was (a) a compromise between the same old regressive, backward US system and the new, highly progressive taxation systems developing in Northern and Western Europe and in parts of Asia and (b) was desired on the theory that it would reduce the risk of a new Depression.
But the biggest thing of all I would like to add to this article is that Obama Care (unless it is very heavily modified or truly repealed) will cause the US to indisputably and dramatically end up with one of the very most regressive tax systems in the world, and I would presume the most regressive tax system in the history of the US. This in turn will increase further the already large disadvantages the US economy is facing relative to the majority of the other nations of the world. It could be the final straw that “breaks the camel’s back” and causes a complete collapse in the value of the US dollar and in turn a complete collapse of the stock market and of the US economy. (But admittedly who other than trivia buffs really care which is the very last straw. There will have been so many, many other straws.)
The refusal of the rich in the US to allow a single payer system (unlike rich people in essentially all comparable countries who have allowed AND benefitted from such systems long term) has recently led to the remarkably twisted and unconstitutional Obama Care monstrosity, which attempts to force middle income and even lower income people to pay percentages of their income for health care which grossly exceed the effective percentages paid by people with comparable incomes in single payer countries. (Note: countries that allow for quasi-private insurance administrators but that forbid them from earning profits are single payer countries for purposes of this short essay.)
The fact that Obama Care ratifies the grossly expensive and financially out of control US system (rather than slashing expenses via single payer) insures that whoever has to pay the freight will be relatively financially devastated compared to residents of single payer countries. Since the rich refuse to allow a single payer system in the States, they had to come up with a scheme so as to avoid being the ones devastated by the grossly expensive and out of control system. Thus, Obama Care was born.
The health insurance subsidies in Obama Care are very carefully limited ones that apply only to premiums and not to deductibles, co-pays, uncovered items, prescriptions, eye care, and dental care. Under Obama Care, people are supposed to pay health insurance premiums, as a percentage of income, very roughly what they would pay in sum total for every last thing involved, lock, stock, and barrel, in their health care in single payer countries (through general taxation). But what about all those other items other than health insurance premiums? You guessed it; in the States people with modest and low incomes are completely on their own for those, with no government subsidy at all available for deductibles, co-pays, uncovered items, prescriptions, eye care, and dental care. For those items, Uncle Sam says “You are on your own, buddy, and if you can’t afford to get the actual health care after you have paid your premiums, tough luck; you might have to just go to a corner and die after all”.
Looked at from a comparative international economics perspective, the required health insurance expenditures including all of the items I mentioned above (two times for emphasis) are equivalent to taxes imposed on US residents. Note that due to the subsidies for health insurance premiums and due to the relatively substantial tax penalties for not having health insurance, whether you get the health insurance or pay the tax penalty for not having it will in many cases not radically change your overall tax disadvantage in the States compared to all the single payer countries.
What if you don’t like the idea of paying much higher taxes than your cousins with the same income in single payer countries pay? There is one and only one radical thing you can do under Obama Care in order to insure that your overall taxation remains less than or, at worse, comparable to what it would be in single payer countries. You have to pay the tax penalty instead of getting the insurance AND you have to never or at least almost never pay for ANY of the other items. In other words, you don’t ever get any health services! Only in that extreme case will many middle income people in the US still have lower taxes than what they would pay in taxes in single payer countries. But under that strategy you now have no health care from ordinary sources, whereas everything important in health care is covered in the reputable single payer countries. Note, though, that if in a car accident or whatever you would still be eligible for emergency room care and you still could file for bankruptcy after that.
In summary, under Obama Care, (a) the US tax system becomes far more regressive than ever before, and (b) anyone with an income above the Medicaid level but below between $50,000 and $250,000 (depending on location, family size, etc) is heavily financially damaged compared to what their situation would be in single payer countries.
Later, Dreamers.
Great comment. Despite its length, it was nonetheless concise!
A better critique of Ocare, I have not read.
O-care is also regressive in that it furthers stratification and alienation within US healthcare. The next step is FROM employer provided TO non - profit single payer. O-care's devolution to "individual choice" is the wrong direction and will lead to the corrupt and captured bureaucratic nightmare you so aptly describe.
Welcome to KafkaKare. Hope you survive the show.
Shut up and pay your taxes. The rich stole the government fair and square. What did you do to have a share of the wealth?
after the neolithic revolution the main effort for most people has been to control the worst excesses of the rich/powerful against everyone else. This war is constant with more-or less-good success. This is what we are stuck with. Welcome, my friends to the show that never ends.
Thank you for your post.
To Horace (& others): The reason the rich should pay more in taxes isn't just that they're the ones who can best afford it, mostly it's because they're the primary beneficiaries of the "system" here in the good ol' US of A. So much of our tax revenues goes to making an environment that's "business friendly" and the ungrateful bastards are under the delusion that they achieved their great wealth all on their own. I wager that very, very few of our most successful citizens would have reached such great heights if they had been born in say Bangladesh or almost anywhere else in the world. But instead of getting down on their knees every day thanking their lucky stars and gladly giving back to support the system so that others now and in the future can have similar opportunity they refuse to offer a helping hand to anyone, so easily minimizing the enormous assistance they received at every step along the way.
Well, see, there is a much more important reason why they shouldn't have to pay taxes - they don't want to and you can't make them. So nyah nyah nyah, you loser. (Summarizing Horace's arguments.)
I think that is cruel. I got my light bill this month and they have doubled the rates. My bill was $716.00. I am disabled and I receive a check for $674.00 a month. The real trip to this is that for the last 2 years we didn't get a raise because (they said) that there was no increase in the cost of living. Life is so grand in the US of A :s
Yes I like the way it said in the news that our social security would not get the yearly raise because of the economy, but when social security sent us a letter they said it was because there was no rise in cost of living. So instead of a 1 time occurrence, I feel like a policy was shoved in there. I doubt we will ever see a yearly increase again'
I get social security widow's benefits and I work also I make around 22K at my other job, so the IRS also taxes my Social Security. I end up paying about 3K a year in taxes, which is about 1/3 of my social security checks for the year.
They spent all our Social Security we built up since it was made a program, then they tell us we can't have it and they can't pay us back.
How is this different than robbing people's pension plan's and going to prison for it??
Of course it is cruel. Terribly cruel.
It is a national tragedy that anyone has to try to live on what you are trying to live on. Unspeakable and unforgivable.
You buy their shit, they stay rich.
Buy local made and grown goods. Buy American only.
The government is designed to take most from the majority, really stab the heart of the middle, and kiss ass of the super rich.
What part of this doesn't anyone get?
Personal individual decisions are no substitute for mass organizing and mobilizing and for solidarity.
I speak as a person who has practiced what you are preaching for 45 years.
Consumer choice - even the right ones - is still consumerism. As we can see from the buy local and organic movements the corporations easily co-opt any consumer choice political movements.
A similar thing happens with the liberal organizations. Sierra Club "partners" with BP for "a greener future. Hey, they need money, BP offered it. My, they sure were strangely silent about the Gulf catastrophe.
Nothing replaces the working class organizing and fighting back.
Dear peace lover 57 and the rest of the world. Are we all too busy to look at labels? My wife and I just bought a new coffee pot, in Oregon. Nothing from china, we found one made in West Bend, Wisconsin. My wife is a Wisconsin native, it made our hearts feel good knowing that even that small item was made at home. Now I wonder if the Koch brothers made a huge profit from the power it took to manufacturer the coffee pot. If the Koch brothers, Exon/Mobile, Haliburton, etc. would pay their fair share of taxes maybe it would not so painful paying their outrageous prices.
Horace,
Just joined in, so forgive me for asking about something down thread. At 12:12 you wrote this:
"Those who work hard, accept risk, save and invest wisely will always do better than those who don't."
That's just not true. This from another CD article this week, "The Plutocrat's Coup d'Etat:
"Worker productivity in the private sector has been going steadily up for three decades. That means corporations are making more money off of each hour worked. Yet wages have stagnated over that time, and benefits have shrunk.
Where has the wealth from the increased productivity gone? Straight into the pockets of the Plutocrats. For example, in 1966, CEOs made about 50 times the minimum wage. Today, they make more than 821 times minimum wage."
Defend this.
Great counter-argument to Ho's calvinist propaganda!
Thanks. It wasn't a rhetorical question. I'm disappointed he didn't give me an answer according to his world view. Perhaps he's done with this thread. Or perhaps he has no good argument to justify such extreme and obscene disparities in wealth in this country.
I'll check in tomorrow...
drift,
I don't believe Horace needs to defend the circumstance you quoted, but it can be explained by basic economic theory. The price of labor in a free market, like the price of anything else, depends on the balance between supply and demand. Simply stated, the price will move to the point where the number of employers offering positions at or above a given wage, equals the number of workers who can do the job and will accept that wage (or less). If productivity increases due to acquisition of new skills or knowledge by some workers, there will be fewer workers who achieve this higher productivity, and they will be able to negotiate a higher wage. If productivity increases due to capital investment in better plant, equipment, or processes by employers, then the pool of workers able to perform at the higher level of productivity does not decrease, and so the wage will not increase. If wages and benefits have stagnated or declined while productivity has steadily increased, this simply demonstrates that the bulk of the productivity increase is actually due to capital investment, not improvement in worker skills.
Does this mean, as asserted in the quote, that the wealth from the increased productivity has gone "straight into the pockets of the Plutocrats?". Ignoring the perjorative implication that all capital investors use their wealth to wield influence over the government, it can certainly be said that some of the increased wealth will go to the investors. Without an expectation of return, no one would risk the capital necessary to increase productivity, just as no worker would show up for work without the expectation of a wage. However, one should not assume that there is a linear relationship between the increase in productivity and the increase in profits to the firms. Again, this is a situation where the law of supply and demand dictates reality. If firms obtain an increase in productivity, with no increase in wages or benefits to labor, and are able to maintain the same price for the good produced, then yes, all of the increased wealth goes into the pockets of the capital investors. In reality, however, competition from firms with similar reductions in the unit cost of production will result in a general lowering of the price of the good. The only circumstance in which this would not occur would be if competition was sufficiently restricted.
So who gets the rest of the increased wealth? The consumer, who is able to purchase more goods at a lower price. Since the workers (whose wages and benefits may have "stagnated") are also consumers, much of the benefit of the increased productivity (provided by greedy investors seeking a return on their capital investment) flows directly into their pockets.
This is how a true free market economy works. No such ideal economy exists, but some economies approach the ideal more closely than others. In other economies, the ideal is defined by economists such as Richard Wolff, whose article can be summarized as follows; "The rich are better able to afford the things that I would like to have (unselfish goals like "social justice", of course), but they don't seem to want to spend their money on those things. Wouldn't it be great if I could send armed government agents to confiscate much more of their wealth than they already do? After all, they already stole that wealth from me by paying more taxes than me but not as much more as they used to." (huh?)
There are numerous flaws in the current system of global "capitalism", and most of them can be blamed on corrupt collusion between corporations and governments. In many cases, this collusion reaches the level of outright theft and fraud, and it is certainly true that the criminal perpetrators are often able to use wealth obtained by such means to protect themselves from prosecution and restitution to their victims. It is also true that the democratic process can be used to commit theft and fraud; for example, to impose punitive tax rates, based solely on a person's success in accumulating wealth, to fund programs which have nothing to do with the legitimate role of the state (maintaining the rule of law), and which inevitably fail to provide any benefit remotely commensurate with the cost. These are both facts of life, but neither of them justifies the level of animosity against "the rich" as a class in evidence on this thread.
Feed the World!
Eat the Rich!
I see Horiss is still here making a fool of himself. Just a silly boy. We have to be tolerant of those who have allowed themselves to turn off their brain and prattle on with words stuck in their mouth by the faux morons. There is no where for him to go to actually get intelligent debate. You think the repug or tea bag sites have intelligent conversations??? hahahahh Lots of lies and violent suggestions, I don't really blame Horace for coming here instead. We should just offer him more information and see if we can open his mind..........
OK, well, I gave it a shot.
As for the Cost of Living raise for seniors, that was set up by Nixon and it had a time-line on it, which ran out two years ago. All your wonderfully bought and paid for congrease sheople have avoided the opportunity of reinstating it. And one more thing, currently the SS money is still in a tenuous position, but there. The government wants to download OUR OUR OUR money we put in to the fund, and support more whores in the MIC and other gas bag thieves.
For that alone all the seniors who are retired should converge on DC March 19 to express their collective concern for their 'golden' years. I got mine, and it looks like piss.
Just caught a glimpse of the title of this article...should have read...
HOW THE RICH PISSED ALL OVER US
From Squibb on another thread.
"1) YOU MAKE MORE - YOU PAY MORE - PERIOD -
2) YOU INCORPORATE HERE - YOU HIRE HERE - OR PAY A PREMIUM - PERIOD
3) YOU DO BUSINESS HERE - YOU BUILD IT HERE - OR PAY A PREMIUM - PERIOD
4) YOU ACCESS THE COMMONS - YOU PAY A SHARE - PERIOD
Why can't all the links listed on the front page of this website LINK UP under some SIMPLE BASIC PLATFORMS - and TAKE TO THE STREETS - ?
What is that - how many millions visit those links - how many of them have like minded family friends and neighbors.?..
We won - but they have more money - the ONLY solution - is mass - MASS - CRITICAL MASS -
................. then one day they came for me... sigh"
Richard D. Wolff has set out some easily understood arguments against the conservatives who want our society to become even more top-heavy in favor of the rich. His thinking should remain on call as progressives prepare for 2012. I was particularly impressed with the explanations of how giving the rich tax breaks they could only have dreamed of 30 years ago forces the U.S. to borrow from the rich, and other countries, and then pay interest using taxes obtained from those of us relatively less favored by the new tax regime.
"In the time of Jesus He (Maitreya) told the poor not to pay taxes. In Maitreya’s view, rules and regulations made by institutions or governments that demoralize individuals will result in the fall of these institutions or governments. Maitreya will not allow the demoralization of the people in this way but will create a different situation."
From Maitreya's Teachings
What is a different situation?, simple, by sharing the worlds' resources we can overcome (in due time) the problems we face today, the just redistribution of wealth is as basic as a solution as is the ending the flush of cash in unnecessary military interventions, the middle class tends to spend what comes in to provide basic goods to their family, thus, circulating the wealth.
We need to take out the rich. Without taking them out, you will never again gain control over your life. It is their greed and love for power that has ruined the world. It is their wars, morons all over the world are fighting. It is their money that created authoritarian-populist movements through history. They put Hitler into power, Mussolini, Ronnie the clown, the brain dead Bushes, the corporate whore Thatcher and about anybody else that has enriched oneself on the expense of the common wealth.
Remember Ronnie's blower Thatcher? Her corpo-fascist 'thatcherism' wreaked havoc amongst the British middle and low income class. Like Hitler, she took out the Unions first.
Now back to the US, where the rich have unleashed the latest stage of their plan to subordinate the morons and to incarcerate the dissenters, which are growing in numbers by the day. Their heinous plan is to demolish the US government and to replace it with a christo-fascist system the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. Everything will be privatized and if you don't have the required dough, you will not get any social services.
The rich are arming the military to the teeth, because they know there are enough brain dead Americans out there to shoot at their fellow citizens, because they are told so.
There was a link in another post last night that I highly recommend. http://tinyurl.com/4oyqkmj (http://ampedstatus.com/the-road-to-world-war-iii...)
Having read the article the following from moveon.org makes all the sense in the world. The republican whores are trying to ban Unions and to bleed to death 'ordinary' people, or as they term them: 'The ones that made the wrong choices'. Notably to ever vote republican.
Well, here it is. Check it out at Moveon.org's website for sources.
Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans' Immoral Budget
The Republican budget would:
1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.
2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.
3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers--which will deprive more than three million low-income people of health care over the next few months.
4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.
5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.
6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.
7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.
8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would "send shockwaves" through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research, and cause job losses.
9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women's health care.
10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.
Yes, you are of course right. The right will increase military spending. How does it feel when you ponder about the fact that the money the scammers draw from your
life blood will end up in drones and WMD's?
Only a fool believes that Big Brother can be stopped through voting or protesting.