I’ve long abandoned this party, but does it strike anyone else as sort of odd to confuse jlzania with Zeriel?
I mean besides both of them being dirty hippies and all…
Yes, but in this case, at least one of us is very clearly wrong.
Indeed. In a case where it was basically one industry sector against everyone else, one that completely circumvented the legislative. Your point is nice, but (and pardon me seeming to move the goal posts here) it says very little about the absolute corruption and cronyism which is not only present in congress, but also legal.
Not nearly enough for an issue with this kind of support and backing.
Maybe?
I’m asking you what we did. I’d be unsurprised if we managed something in this field, but I’m left wondering what exactly we pulled off, if anything.
Well, you do come off both bitchy and dick less, so perhaps you can excuse my confusion.
And we’re still in the fifth grade. Sexism too? I wouldn’t have said, before this thread, that I should have been expecting that from you.
I should have been expecting that from you, O Grand High Financier.
Great article, RT!
There are over 30 years of hard evidence that “trickle down” economics is probably one of the biggest economic lies ever perpetrated on the American public. It was “invented” as a purely political ploy for Republicans to win elections, by a man named Jude Wanniski, who was tired of seeing Democrats win because the electorate saw them as “Santa Claus.” Since he knew the Republican policy of tax reduction for the wealthy wasn’t resonating with voters, he devised a way to frame it so that it would make Republicans look like a second Santa Claus; if you let the rich get richer, they’ll trickle it down to you — win/win!
It was a craven political move, not designed to better the economy, but to advance Republicans in public office. It didn’t work then and it hasn’t worked for 30 fucking years.
Hasn’t.
Worked.
Empirically.
Factually.
Thirty years later we have one of the widest gaps in income disparity this country has ever seen. Corporations are posting record high profits, offshoring their billions so they don’t have to pay taxes on that income, paying effective tax rates of Zero or less in many instances, and blaming American workers for demanding a liveable wage.
All the while, our infrastructure is crumbling, the middle class is disappearing, poverty has risen to frightening levels, unemployment remains high and the people fighting for good economic practices are being labeled as fueling “class warfare,” even though it is their “class” upon which war has been waged for 30 freaking years.
Now, nobody is saying the rich aren’t entitled to be rich. G-d bless 'em!
But there’s no way in hell the middle class is going to continue to allow them to become filthy rich at their expense anymore. Some of us have finally had ENOUGH and aren’t going to take it anymore.
It’s inexcusable in the richest country on earth that the richest of the rich have seen their share of the national income increase 285% while the middle class has actually lost ground.
This chart makes it glaringly obvious.
When wealth is concentrated so disproportionately at the top, bad things happen to society as a whole. Crime goes up. Mental health problems increase among the population. Teen pregnancy goes up. Child welfare goes down. Life expectancy goes down. High School dropout rates increase.
Yet the Republican party and its party members continue to insist that it’s the poor’s fault. They trot out crap like “47% of Americans don’t pay taxes,” ignoring that that figure represents only federal income taxes, and glossing over the fact that a large percentage of those people are seniors living on non-taxable Social Security benefits and truly destitute people living well below the poverty line who don’t have a pot to piss in, let alone a percentage of their pittance of income to contribute.
The Republicans have framed Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid as “entitlements” that the poor or elderly who use them are overusing and must be cut. They rile their base up to hate these people for “taking government handouts,” as if they had any other choice. And until today you would never hear them acknowledging that the “handouts” provided to the elderly and poor, downright pale in comparison to the handouts given to the richest of the rich in this country.
Today, by far the most conservative member of the Senate, Tom Coburn, has released a study that outlines the billions and billions of “handouts” the federal government doles out to millionaires and billionaires (as if they needed any). Those include but are not limited to: tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates. They’re even being paid by the federal government for not working! Yep, you heard that right; lazy ass millionaires are not working and receiving checks for their laziness from Uncle Sam, aka You and Me.
Read the whole thing.
THAT is why we are OCCUPYING cities all across this nation. It’s about damn time that our supposedly Representative Democracy started actually representing the 99% and not just the 1%. We expect our interests protected by our elected representatives. Not that we don’t want rich people’s interests protected, but we don’t want them subsidized with our pennies while we break our backs for a substandard wage and CEOs take home hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries while crying poor and laying workers off rather than sharing the corporate profits in a fair and equitable manner with those who labor to bring those profits in.
We want our government to go back to being “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” not “of the corporations who can buy the best legislation, by the corporations who can influence elections, and for the corporations who stand to benefit over average Americans.”
Get money out of our politics. Overturn Citizens United, the most offensive piece of legislation to have been handed down in at least half a century. It flies in the face of everything this country was founded on. Everything.
Rescind Gramm-Leach-Bliley and reinstate the rules that existed under Glass-Steagall so that our financial institutions can never again issue us a mortgage, bundle it up with garbage, rate it AAA, sell it to our own 401k and pension plans, then bet against the goddamn thing and in the end, PROFIT from the whole fucking debacle when it all comes crashing down.
Raise the tax rate on passive activity income such as capital gains to equal or above the rate actual labor is taxed at. It’s outrageous that a working man who labors every day to put food on the table and a roof over his family’s head is taxed at twice what wealthy investors are taxed at for doing absolutely nothing but gambling on stocks. It’s backwards.
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Enact the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act that keeps floundering since 2004, so that our legislators are bound by the same conflict of interest rules as judges and other federal employees, and can no longer personally benefit financially by INSIDER TRADING. That shit’s actually legal. We want it stopped.
Just fucking STOP ripping us off.
I don’t think any of those requests are unreasonable even from a fiscally conservative perspective.
That’s what OCCUPY is about.
Those of you on the right should be joining us. We’re fighting for you, too, you know.
And unleash Elizabeth Warren!
Hear, fucking Hear!
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
It’s a trap!
It signifies dorky approval, man. “You win one free internet for that post.”
I’m not BPC, but I think that translates to, “You not only win the thread, you win the Internet.”
Anyway, I would take it as a compliment, pending further data.
Oooooooh. Guess my hackles were up since we’re in the Pit. I took it to mean something like, “If you believe any of that hoke you just posted, I’ve got a coupon for a free internet to give you.” :smack:
Hope you’re right and I am wrong. And if so, thanks, Budget Player Cadet! 
Occupy Detroit has its permit ending tonight. The police have been cooperative and so far zero people or cops have been hurt. The police have to start the confrontations and it is likely they will tonight. The Thanksgiving Day Parade goes past the camp and they want them gone, bleachers erected and Xmas tree lights up before 11-23.
Strange the city can not service the homeless, but they can afford a parade. The homeless have been fed and sheltered for the last 6 weeks ,with no help from the authorities.
If that were the case, then…a certain poster, who shall remain gormless…would have a ton of them!
Yep, “you may have one free internet” is a nerdy compliment. I keep forgetting that most people here don’t visit sites that are frequented by such memes.
You mean, the kind of places that use terms like “upvote” and “karma”? Certainly not! Some of us have standards!
Barry Ritholtz asks:
Any Barney/Fannie/Freddie/CRA origin theory of the housing bubble needs to have an answer to these questions.
Scylla, of course, has never attempted such an answer. Because, you know, RTFirefly is a troll.
Nah, more like the kind of places where you’re anonymous and every third post is porn.
http://www.truth-out.org/bank-america-makes-millions-charging-fees-withdraw-unemployment-benefits/1321294590 Bank of America is charging the unemployed fees for accessing their unemployment checks. They have no problem gouging the poor.