You can simultaneously have corporatism and socialism. When you take money from one group to pay for another group, that's socialism. When you have public schooling, public parks, public healthcare, etc, those things are socialized. Everyone is forced to pay for those things, even if they don't use them, to provide for other people. And when corporations buy the government, that's corporatism. Both of these things can coexist. And they do in the US. We're not full-blown socialist, but there's a ton of it going on. Same with corporatism.
Well, with this big snowstorm heading for the Northeast, it will be interesting to see what will happen. Though, with that said, it's the cold rather than the snow that may eventually get to them.
Why is the hippie dressed like a construction worker? Why are they not occupying their life and working to become part of that 1% instead of standing around aimlessly. Because lets face it, its pretty aimless.
Because there are no jobs. I don't know if you forgot this, but we're still under the Bush tax cuts. The top 1% is paying the lowest amount of income taxes since 1931 (with the exception of a four year span from 1988-1992). And there's not a shred of evidence that suggests that lowering them will somehow make more jobs.
40% is still ridiculously high. Factor in other taxes and they're paying close to 50%. Our governmental revenue has nothing to do with our economic well-being. Taxes do nothing for the economy. The government isn't productive. It produces $0 for the economy. So when we pay all this money to the government, it drains our economy. And there's plenty of evidence if you search for it. I've given plenty of evidence before. Economic sense gives us the evidence needed. When you don't tax people and keep that money in the economy, they'll have more money to do what they want. If business owners want to hire more workers and expand business, they'll have more money to do so. If people want to spend money on goods, they'll have more money to do so. So, the less taxes, the better. The only reason our economy survived those incredibly high taxes is because the whole world was basically destroyed after WWII and they had to buy everything from us since our factories were left untouched. Now that that isn't the case, these taxes (our government) are eating us alive. Has been for about 40 years. Our economy will continue to swan dive, the federal reserve will continue to print more fake money to fund the government, inflation will eventually cause extreme panic around the globe (causing our dollar to crash), and hyperinflation will occur. It happened to Germany and Zimbabwe in almost the same fashion, only the whole world wasn't relying on their currency like the world is with us. We're in a much more dire situation here. Here's something I stole from a Facebook group I'm in: More gov't spending means poverty, less gov't spending means prosperity. This is an economic law that has been empirically tested. On the Y axis is the country's economic growth, and on the X axis is a country's ratio of gov't spending to private spending. CHART SOURCE: http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/function/function.pdf Are you even from the US? Either way, I'd appreciate something constructive to the debate. You acting like we don't have socialism and that we aren't disobeying the constitution totally ignores everything going on in our country.
I think I'm going to photograph a little sheet of statistics from the Harper's Report later to post here. It's almost hilarious (would be if it weren't sad) how low corporate taxes have become, especially in contrast to how the average Joe's taxes have gone up.
No, not that one, I didn't see that, although that's probably the same general numbers. It's sad because: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...t-winning-its-cheating-20111025#ixzz1cfaIS6kO Economic injustice, bitch.
This has nothing to do with the tax topic we were on, but I'm glad you've read it and brought it up here, as this is more important. I agree with almost all of it (hard to not agree with facts), and those are the biggest problems our economy faces right now. Without me going into anything yet, what do you think we should do to eliminate some of these problems? The article didn't touch on any of that, which is something I'd love to get into.
I don't know if only because I think this is a problem beyond the scope of only one person. Just thought I'd put it out there. Also I'm sure you do agree with me; the problem of this whole mess we're in right now is that almost everyone sees the same problem being caused for different reasons, all proposing different solutions. Maybe there are a few who see a different problem (i.e. the formerly privileged white trying to get their privilege back) or who don't see one at all (i.e. Wall Street execs), but on the whole I'm sure all of us agree there's a great injustice in this country that needs to be dealt with in some way or another. I think it's big business, you think it's big government, but the problem is still the same. In other news, decided to lurk at my old forum P/R today. The global moderator of the entire forum has taken to banning people who disagree with him. Glad to know it wasn't my abrasive and disrespectful posting style.
It's definitely not one person causing the problem. It's a few leaders (Obama, Bernanke) that are at the core of the problems, but there's many more people responsible for the mess. It's not that we need to deal with these people to make the problems go away, it's that we need to deal with the policies and laws we have so that these types of people won't continue popping up in the future even after/if these people are dealt with. The reason we have failing mega-corporations with little or no competition is because they pay the government to make regulations to stifle the competition. The only businesses that can afford to operate under these regulations are the mega-corps, who make these regulations for themselves, knowing the smaller companies can't afford it. Then, even when these corporations go bankrupt, instead of better businesses taking their place in the market, the government gives them the taxpayers' money to bail them out, knowing the company will give them a chunk of it in the future. Both parties profit from stealing from society by socializing the costs through our taxes. This isn't to say that all mega-corporations are corrupt or that all of government is corrupt, but this is the problem. They control our economy, along with the federal reserve. And when all they want is money, it only benefits them. The problem with our currency and deficit woes is that we're spending too much, financed by money being created out of thin air by the federal reserve. This, along with central banking, is what's going to destroy our economy. They have a monopoly on our currency, and they can decide what happens with it. When they make wrong choices, like they are now, nobody can do anything about it. Our dollar's value will continue to spiral, also destroying our credit rating, meaning that nobody will lend us money anymore. Once we can't borrow anymore, all of our debt will have to be liquidated immediately unless we can figure out a way to pay everything off, which is impossible. This is all before hyperinflation sets in and our dollar becomes worthless. Most people don't realize how close this is to actually happening. The same people (Austrian economists) who have been right about all our economic problems since they came into existence, have said it might only be a few years before this happens at the rate we're going. The more we ignore the fact that we're worse than bankrupt, the exponentially worse our problems are going to be when we hit rock bottom. And if you enjoy debating this kind of stuff, I suggest looking at this Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-be...re-fans-than-John-Maynard-Keynes/367822059871 The moderators are very intelligent, active, respectful, and don't ban people who disagree with them. Lots of good info and debates in that group.
I wasn't saying one person is to blame, I said it was up to more than one person to come up with a solution. And there's another point of contention actually; you identify Obama as one of the more deserving of blame. For my own part, I see his inability to move past a deadlocked Congress as being his fault, but not the reason for our current problems, merely as a reason the solution to that problem is delayed. I'm in no mood to debate with you (I also happen to be at my girlfriends' parents' place) so I'll simply say I disagree. We actually should worry more about deflation.
lol mayor bloomberg. thank you, sir. you might have just revitalized a movement that was, in all honesty, just floating along. especially with the discovery that mayors/cities around the nation are working with the federal government to stamp out these occupations.
Thought you all might find this interesting. My girlfriend and I drove past the Occupy Fort Worth "movement" the other night after dinner. It was comprised of like 7 dudes sitting in lawnchairs with cheesy signs outside a bank downtown. We thought it was hilarious! It would appear that North Texans on this side of the Metroplex don't have much passion for the protests. I haven't been over to Dallas, but from what I understand there is a bit more enthusiasm over there.