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Obama budget resurrects rejected tax increases

So people work hard and make money and you decide how much they should have?

yeah, that is their attitude. existence within a certain area of you is all they think they need to have a just claim on your wealth
 
i guess you really cannot understand the issue

and what facts have you ever posted that support your belief that income redistribution is more "good" than my belief

maybe you will post facts proving that Red is a better color than green while you are at it

you really aren't very knowledgeable about this concept are you?

I provided facts to show the inequality in the tax system. Still waiting on facts to back up anything you've opined about.
 
So people work hard and make money and you decide how much they should have?

Does it look like I decide? No, the "free market" supposedly does - whatever that means. This free market God is someone that I'd love to meet someday. He/she clearly makes a lot of weird decisions. I am still unsure about his/her infallibility.

when we cut away all the crap,all the nonsense, all the artificial parameters, all that is left is nature. and in nature, those who don't produce don't survive/ is that "fair"? who knows but its the undeniable reality of earth for as long as there has been life on this planet.

so when someone whines that its not fair that they aren't rich or they aren't smart or they arent lucky or they dont make a million or they aren't Tiger Woods or Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton it really is irrelevant.

if you -for whatever reason-bad luck, lack of talent poor parents, drug addictions, criminal records, etc-cannot pay for what you need you really have no moral claim upon someone else to pay for what you need unless they directly prevented you improperly from being able to get what you need

Well, unfair this unfair that. I am less of a whiner than you might think. I am not crying, I am on a board that was developed for debating and I am doing just that. You can call it whining, but I would say it is trying to change a flawed system.

People said the same thing about their indentured servants 300 years ago. Why were they whining about being oppressed and forced into underpaid/unpaid work and bad conditions with continual broken promises of freedom. Just like the influx of the Irish, people called them dirty illegal immigrants who did not deserve to live here - now its Latinos. The truth is times are always changing and there is always one group kicking and screaming as they get dragged along into the future.

You can kick and scream or you can be productive in the progression of human history.
 
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I provided facts to show the inequality in the tax system. Still waiting on facts to back up anything you've opined about.

the only inequality is that far too many people don't pay for what they use

Do I really need to prove to someone who pretends to be as well informed as you do that 5 percent of the population pays more of the federal income tax and death tax than the other 95?
 
You mean the part where 40% pay no taxes

he is clueless-the top 5 percent pay more actual federal tax dollars (income and death taxes) than the other 95%

and even he cannot pretend that the top 5% USE more of the government services than the other 95%
 
Does it look like I decide? No, the "free market" supposedly does - whatever that means. This free market God is someone that I'd love to meet someday. He/she clearly makes a lot of weird decisions. I am still unsure about his/her infallibility.



Well, unfair this unfair that. I am less of a whiner than you might think. I am not crying, I am on a board that was developed for debating and I am doing just that. You can call it whining, but I would say it is trying to change a flawed system.

People said the same thing about their indentured servants 300 years ago. Why were they whining about being oppressed and forced into underpaid/unpaid work and bad conditions with continual broken promises of freedom. Just like the influx of the Irish, people called them dirty illegal immigrants who did not deserve to live here - now its Latinos. The truth is times are always changing and there is always one group kicking and screaming as they get dragged along into the future.

You can kick and scream or you can be productive in the progression of human history.

to me progress is a person evolving to become less dependent not more dependent on others
 
If they got paid more would they not be less dependent?

if they made themselves more valuable that is true
giving someone money to make them less dependent is self defeating.

if we gave someone with no HS diploma and no skills the same pay as a Harvard Law Review graduate or a Summa from Johns Hopkins medical school I bet we'd have alot less people busting their balls to get through demanding professional schools
 
Right, but you have to understand the idea of someone's worth is also subjective. They are paid a subjective salary, taxed a subjective amount, etc. So the amount of money an individual has does not necessarily define that individual or make them any less hardworking.

Pay them more and they can afford it and then all of the sudden they aren't bums anymore. Have you seen teacher's salaries recently?

They can't afford much if anything at all... do you think they don't deserve a good life as much as anyone else? What determines someone's worth?

Teacher's salaries are an excellent example:

"In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people "earned," we could have hired 658,000 entry level teachers. (They make about $38,000 a year, including benefits."
Les Leopold: Why Are 25 Hedge Fund Managers Worth 658,000 Teachers?

Economist Paul Krugman describes what he sees as a return to the Glided Age:

"Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.

Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.

But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.

How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance.

The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that we’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s."
Krugman on the New Gilded Age « naked capitalism
 
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Teacher's salaries are an excellent example:

"In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people "earned," we could have hired 658,000 entry level teachers. (They make about $38,000 a year, including benefits."
Les Leopold: Why Are 25 Hedge Fund Managers Worth 658,000 Teachers?

Economist Paul Krugman describes what he sees as a return to the Glided Age:

"Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.
Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.

But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.
How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance.

The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that we’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s."
Krugman on the New Gilded Age « naked capitalism

I wonder how much Krugman gets paid to do nothing much more than put on paper his stream on consciousness.
 
if they made themselves more valuable that is true
giving someone money to make them less dependent is self defeating.

if we gave someone with no HS diploma and no skills the same pay as a Harvard Law Review graduate or a Summa from Johns Hopkins medical school I bet we'd have alot less people busting their balls to get through demanding professional schools

Who or what assigns value? The free market? You since you support this "idea"? What is the free market? How exactly does it decide?

Teachers need to make themselves more valuable? Again, these are subjective things that you talk about like they are fact. Prove to me that one job is worth more than another and I will find someone who disagrees.

Is the Vice President of Sales in the North East of a major corporation more valuable than a heart surgeon who works in a local hospital? You tell me.
 
I wonder how much Krugman gets paid to do nothing much more than put on paper his stream on consciousness.

I wonder if you have any facts to counter the one's the award winning economist cites.
 
Who or what assigns value? The free market? You since you support this "idea"? What is the free market? How exactly does it decide?

Teachers need to make themselves more valuable? Again, these are subjective things that you talk about like they are fact. Prove to me that one job is worth more than another and I will find someone who disagrees.

Is the Vice President of Sales in the North East of a major corporation more valuable than a heart surgeon who works in a local hospital? You tell me.

So put away the subjective things and look towrad the objective measures. One might make more money. The other gets to go home at the day of his/her day. One gets to hold an annointed place in the community the other is a corporate manager who people think makes too much. Money is not the only measure of what you get out of a job.
 
If they got paid more would they not be less dependent?

The money has to come from somewhere.

I think that's the disconnect with Leftists. Ya'll think money grows on trees and it's just sitting there, waiting to be picked.
 
Who or what assigns value? The free market? You since you support this "idea"? What is the free market? How exactly does it decide?

Teachers need to make themselves more valuable? Again, these are subjective things that you talk about like they are fact. Prove to me that one job is worth more than another and I will find someone who disagrees.

Is the Vice President of Sales in the North East of a major corporation more valuable than a heart surgeon who works in a local hospital? You tell me.

teachers are a dime a dozen-maybe not good ones but ones qualified to get a public school NEA job

look at any big state university-where do those intending to become teachers rank in terms of the students who aspire to engineering, law, medicine?

yeah not real high.

you can complain about the market assigning values you disagree with but that has more validity than a bunch of bureaucrats making that determination

and yes some professions are vastly overvalued-from some "hedge managers" CEOs movie stars ball players, tort lawyers etc

but that is no argument to let a bunch of scum like Krugman or Robert Reich have the power to assign salaries
 
So put away the subjective things and look towrad the objective measures. One might make more money. The other gets to go home at the day of his/her day. One gets to hold an annointed place in the community the other is a corporate manager who people think makes too much. Money is not the only measure of what you get out of a job.

Yes, as proven by the hardworking, intelligent Americans who choose to become teachers or EMTs even though they know they will not receive much money. They do it because they know they are helping better society.

I am not assigning value based off of money, conservatives are when they say these people should have to pay more and live harder lives because they "contribute" less. I don't know how they assign these values, but they do.

The money has to come from somewhere.

I think that's the disconnect with Leftists. Ya'll think money grows on trees and it's just sitting there, waiting to be picked.

We could just take it from your business!

Just kidding, of course. Do you know that there are quite a few Americans who make over a billion per year for arguably nothing? How many lives have hedge fund managers changed?

In the future, how many people are going to say, "Remember those hedge fund managers that made America great!"? But somehow the free market has valued these types of people to be the most valuable people in our country. Why? Mostly because they can exploit the free market.

Apparently being able to exploit the free market makes someone more valuable than a hardworking teacher or doctor.
 
I wonder if you have any facts to counter the one's the award winning economist cites.

that appeal is akin to saying Bush was right because he was the most powerful man in the world for 8 years


Krugman's a hack and btw Obama got a nobel and that impresses me not at all.
 
The money has to come from somewhere.

Yes, that is what is being discussed, whether the taxes should be proportioned to according to wealth or whether the middle class should subsidize the wealthy.

Which are you for?
 
Yes, as proven by the hardworking, intelligent Americans who choose to become teachers or EMTs even though they know they will not receive much money. They do it because they know they are helping better society.

I am not assigning value based off of money, conservatives are when they say these people should have to pay more and live harder lives because they "contribute" less. I don't know how they assign these values, but they do.



We could just take it from your business!

Just kidding, of course. Do you know that there are quite a few Americans who make over a billion per year for arguably nothing? How many lives have hedge fund managers changed?

In the future, how many people are going to say, "Remember those hedge fund managers that made America great!"? But somehow the free market has valued these types of people to be the most valuable people in our country. Why? Mostly because they can exploit the free market.

Apparently being able to exploit the free market makes someone more valuable than a hardworking teacher or doctor.

I wonder why the left fixates on an extremely small number of people and try to use them as a prototype for every capitalist or top two percent tax payer. "exploit" is a loaded term and essentially dishonest when applied to such people
 
Yes, that is what is being discussed, whether the taxes should be proportioned to according to wealth or whether the middle class should subsidize the wealthy.

Which are you for?

how does the middle class subsidize the wealthy when the wealthiest 5% pay more of the federal income and death taxes than the rest of the nation?

more dishonesty on your part
 
that appeal is akin to saying Bush was right because he was the most powerful man in the world for 8 years. Krugman's a hack and btw Obama got a nobel and that impresses me not at all.


Again no facts to counter those posted, just more unsubstantiated opinion.
 
teachers are a dime a dozen-maybe not good ones but ones qualified to get a public school NEA job

look at any big state university-where do those intending to become teachers rank in terms of the students who aspire to engineering, law, medicine?

yeah not real high.

you can complain about the market assigning values you disagree with but that has more validity than a bunch of bureaucrats making that determination

and yes some professions are vastly overvalued-from some "hedge managers" CEOs movie stars ball players, tort lawyers etc

but that is no argument to let a bunch of scum like Krugman or Robert Reich have the power to assign salaries

Look, I am not an economist. My understanding of the big picture is somewhat limited. The difference between you and me is that you dislike the people who contribute little to society, make very little, and pay very little in and still use lots of government resources. Whereas I am more offended by those whose salaries are grossly inflated and who will never have to put in an honest days work.

In reality, both of these groups are an issue, it just depends on which one you think is more of a dire issue. And furthermore, who gets do "decide salary" is another issue that really has no great solution that I know of.

Also, I think calling teachers a "dime a dozen" is a mistake. First it is not good enough if you only have a college diploma (which is what many Americans made a living on during the 20th century). Now even having a college diploma isn't enough? What about social workers? Are they a dime a dozen to?
 
Again no facts to counter those posted, just more unsubstantiated opinion.

your nonsense is getting tiresome

you claim that Krugman's opinion is more valuable because he won an award that was the subjective decision of a small group of people with a decidedly leftist bent and claim that such an award means he is right

you are among the most disengenuous posters when it comes to pretending irrelevant facts support your opinion

the facts you post don't make your opinions right
 
Look, I am not an economist. My understanding of the big picture is somewhat limited. The difference between you and me is that you dislike the people who contribute little to society, make very little, and pay very little in and still use lots of government resources. Whereas I am more offended by those whose salaries are grossly inflated and who will never have to put in an honest days work.

In reality, both of these groups are an issue, it just depends on which one you think is more of a dire issue. And furthermore, who gets do "decide salary" is another issue that really has no great solution that I know of.

Also, I think calling teachers a "dime a dozen" is a mistake. First it is not good enough if you only have a college diploma (which is what many Americans made a living on during the 20th century). Now even having a college diploma isn't enough? What about social workers? Are they a dime a dozen to?

dislike has nothing to do with it

and teachers are a dime a dozen

its called reality

its an easy profession to enter

that's why the pay is not very high

like or dislike has nothing to do with it
 
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