# Aug 18th - The Daily Show - Brilliant! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 19, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286 "2011-08-19T05:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/21 "2011-08-20T00:08:30Z")
What bothers me is between having the very barest necessities and all that scraping just to get by, the poor will never be angry enough or have enough energy to get a revolution together. Nor even the lower middle class come to that. C’mon people! Get angry! Get these bastards! ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/22 "2011-08-20T02:00:03Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > What bothers me is between having the very barest necessities and all that scraping just to get by, the poor will never be angry enough or have enough energy to get a revolution together. Nor even the lower middle class come to that. > > C’mon people! Get angry! Get these bastards! Seriously. “Let’s not tax 2% of the people an extra 2%, let’s tax 50% of the people an extra 50%.” Come on, people, the _French_ revolted around this time. Are you gonna let the French outdo you? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/23 "2011-08-20T02:45:22Z")
I watch five hours of news a night, and, to the best of my recollection, the Daily Show is the first news program to _actually do the math_. As Tom Tomorrow once wrote: “The sad part is that you had to learn it from a talking penguin in a cartoon.” ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/24 "2011-08-20T03:22:09Z")
> [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > I laughed so hard I scared the dogs! The line that killed me was, “you food-chilling motherfuckers!” ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/25 "2011-08-20T04:16:33Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > … Has it really come down to this? … > [@](#): > > [Lucky duckies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_duckies) is a term that was used in Wall Street Journal editorials starting on 20 November 2002 to refer to Americans who pay no federal income tax because they are at an income level that is below the tax line (after deductions and credits). … > > … The Journal defined the term in this way:Who are these lucky duckies? They are the beneficiaries of tax policies that have expanded the personal exemption and standard deduction and targeted certain voter groups by introducing a welter of tax credits for things like child care and education. When these escape hatches are figured against income, the result is either a zero liability or a liability that represents a tiny percentage of income.The worry of the Journal’s editorialist was that “as fewer and fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of all taxes, the constituency for tax cutting, much less for tax reform, is eroding. Workers who pay little or no taxes can hardly be expected to care about tax relief for everybody else. They are also that much more detached from recognizing the costs of government.” > > For example, according to the editorial:Say a person earns $12,000. After subtracting the personal exemption, the standard deduction and assuming no tax credits, then applying the 10% rate of the lowest bracket, the person ends up paying a little less than 4% of income in taxes. It ain’t peanuts, but not enough to get his or her blood boiling with tax rage. … So, not only are the poor bastards living in the lap of luxurious poverty they don’t even care about how hard it is to be rich! The other part of this whole thing, that’s even more repulsive, is because people in America have _A_ and people in country _Y_ don’t there is no real poverty in America. And we can eliminate poverty with a hand wave in country _Y_ by simply pointing to country _Z_ where things are even shittier. This works just as well with wealth, just because you earn more than 95% of the population it doesn’t mean your rich, look at how much more the top 1% have! Meanwhile, we recently had a thread [_How long would a million bucks last you (if you had to use it every time you paid for something)?_](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=613162) 10 to 20 years was a popular answer. Puts 250K+ a year into a whole 'nother light don’t it? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/26 "2011-08-20T04:49:19Z")
Just got the link in my email: [The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - TV Series | Comedy Central US](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---warren-buffett-vs--wealthy-conservatives) Oh, for the days I was so completely unaware of the existence of these people. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/27 "2011-08-20T18:47:53Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > They must have some poor schmuck on the Daily Show staff that watches Fox News all day. From what I understand, one of their great tools is a huge pile of DVRs, and they record every news channel and program. The PC based ones can also record the closed caption files, which will allow you to search through the archive. It has made life difficult for the bigoted and/or stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/28 "2011-08-21T04:11:54Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > The line that killed me was, “you food-chilling motherfuckers!” When my 1st husband & I got divorced we split everything down the middle. He got the refrigerator. I used an ice chest. I learned that when the block of cheese is floating on top & the edges have turned white, don’t eat it. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286/29 "2011-08-21T20:41:22Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > From what I understand, one of their great tools is a huge pile of DVRs, and they record every news channel and program. The PC based ones can also record the closed caption files, which will allow you to search through the archive. That actually sounds pretty cool, but from experience the live closed caption feed is pretty awful. Worse than some drunk texting at 3 in the morning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aug-18th-the-daily-show-brilliant/593286.md?page=1)