I agreed with TARP. It was silly to push them to pay it back quickly as lending dried up and businesses can't get financing. Business not able to access capital, the push on greater taxes and regulaion along = continued high unemployment. This isn't rocket science here kids.
I happen to know this poster personally - he is actually running a business via his laptop at Starbucks, buying and selling giant foam novelty #1 fingers on eBay. HOw about you, mon frere? Have you ever run a business? I am not talking about being a low level functionary - I am talking about being a real stakeholder. That is the font from which true wisdom spurts.
The poorest people in this country are better off than almost any place in the world. They opportunity is there regardless of race, status or anything. Where is it better? Europe? European countries like Germany and Spain are some of the most racist countries in the world. We have a high standard of living and opportunities and people still b**** and moan while not having the balls to step up.
Maybe listening to you complain about the evils of industry and how government should run all is why his business is based out of starbucks :grin:
I "b**** and moan" because the rich in this country have seen their taxes reduced over and over again over the last thirty years while mine have been raised over and over again over the same time frame and now, they have the audacity to complain and say that they need even MORE government largess on top of what Reagan and Bush gave them. I say we go back to the tax rates of the '50s and '60s, when our schools, healthcare, and middle class were the envy of the world and families could easily get ahead on a single income. Keep in mind that there were still plenty of rich people those days.
Except that the banks are currently plenty well capitalized and still are not lending. So that argument doesn't really hold.
Then live on less. People could get by on a single income but people don't want that life anymore. They want the flat screen televisions, the cell phones the computers, designer clothes, the trips to exotic locations and all of that. They believe they are entitled to the best healthcare and all of this. If one were to want to live simply like people did in those times they could survive and do so, but the insatiable appetite for goods, services and experiences here precludes that.
I really wish I'd saved the rep point. Much more fun discussing Foam Finger Arbitrage than explaining, I dunno, evening shifts.
Why are people who make the median income supposed to "live on less" while the rich get more and more? I don't have a single flat screen television in my house, the most exotic location to which I have traveled is Disney World (on a trip subsidized heavily by my mother), or a stitch of designer clothing. Every single computer I own is a hand-me-down and even my cell phone is on my mother's family plan. I make above the median income and it is so difficult to make it on my income that my wife is going to school for a nursing degree so that we can *gasp* start to save for retirement and our kids' college. Your diatribes about how the poor in this country stand are straw men that do not counter the cold hard fact that the rich have successfully redistributed income in this country from the middle class to themselves. We pay more for healthcare than the rest of the world, don't you think we should have the best? (by the way, we DON'T have the best healthcare in the world and it isn't even close) Yes, the insatiable appetites the rich have for goods, services, and experiences are squeezing out the middle class, reducing the income and buying power that the middle class used to enjoy. The rich do this because they are greedy, pure and simple.
While reading this thread, this quote popped into my head, "Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?" /shrug Not sure why it just popped in there.
Because it is a great illustration of how the rich feel about anyone not in their "class." They throw out words like "deadbeat," "bums," and "lazy" even as they enjoy the opulent lifestyle created on the very backs of the people they insult.
For the purposes of my part of this discussion, I would be comfortable defining "rich" as the top 1% of earners, for an income of $388,806.
When social security began the average life expectancy was 63. A prolongued retirement is a newer idea. Most people in the past have worked till they died. That second paragraph is just disturbing. Would you rather have people that made lots of money hoard it or spend it? I believe that if someone comes up with an idea and takes the risk to start a business and succeeds he should make more money than the next guy. That incentive of making more money is what drives people to think of another great idea that will make our lives better. That is how a society grows. Some people move take a chance and fail and some take a chance and succeed. Those that succeed employ people offer services and usually make more money for themselves. This will never go away and any ideas that take away from this simple spirit have failed and caused much pain and suffering.
I am all for adjusting SS. Specifically, we could extend SS solvency for a hundred years by simply removing the cap on payroll taxes so that everyone pays exactly the same percentage of their income into the system. Apparently, you don't understand the argument. I don't have any issue with the rich spending what they make on whatever they want. I have a problem with the rich working diligently to get their tax rates reduced while the middle class gets their rates raised. This is doubly a problem when incomes for the top 1% have gone up dramatically over the last 30 years while median incomes have actually fallen. Greed is the problem and the greediest among us appear to be the people who already have the most. I completely agree. I agree with this as well, but nothing in the previous two paragraphs changes the fact that the rich have seen their taxes drop while taxes have been raised on the middle class over the last 30 years. This change has coincided with a period that has seen wages for middle and lower classes stagnate or fall while the already wealthy have seen their incomes jump dramatically. Now, on top of all that, they have the audacity to complain even further about how unfair THEIR taxes are while our infrastructure degrades, school systems suffer from lack of funding, and millions of people go without basic health insurance. You are defending all of that and it is sick.
Let me get this straight you are saying we should have just given TARP to the banks but with no oversight?
I have never run a business, but I can tell you that I don't see anything that the administration is doing to make the unemployment rate go any lower...there are too many variables and extending unemployement benefits isn't the answer... businesses have to be encouraged/incented to grow and hire, but to do that, orders/services have to increase and for that to happen people have to spend money and for that to happen, people have to have confidence in spending...and of course have a job... we're focked!
