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Hall of Famer [20546]
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The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 7:54 PM
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I didn't get to go to Clemson like most of my friends and family; I wound up at Winthrop because of scholarship money. (Yes, it was grim. Yes, your college experience was better than mine. Congrats. Now move on.) Interesting story from about a month after I started, though - there was some sort of fraternity/sorority hijinks at a local convenience store (or maybe some freshmen just really wanted some beer!) where this chick walked in wearing high heels, a top hat, and a little Phantom of the Opera mask...and nothing in between.
She did a long, slow, langorous circuit of the building, smiling an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile...and then sauntered right on out the door again, the clerks just sorta standing there, gaping.
And of course, sometime later, they discovered the beer cooler had been emptied, by the dudes who piled in after her. The clerks never even noticed they were in the store; their attention was kind of riveted on Exhibit A, the one in high heels and a top hat. Actually made national news.
Clever freshmen, those. And I always felt they really earned that beer.
Mind, it stops being funny when instead of a cooler full of beer it's the nation's tax revenue. And that's kind of what the wall is, a naked girl in a top hat, only instead of a naked girl in a top hat the distraction is more of a bar fight in an El Paso saloon...and we're all so busy breaking bottles over one another's heads that we're failing to notice the loot going out the back door.
Yeah, illegal immigration is a problem. Yes, illegal labor is an even bigger problem, as well as illegal drug and human trafficking syndicates. It might even be a billion-dollar-a-year problem. Maybe more than that.
The far bigger problem was the corporate tax cuts and cuts for the uber-rich; which conservatively are costing the USA $250 billion a year in lost revenues. And some of the pay-for-play we're seeing at the corporate lobbyist level is mind-boggling. A good example of that is the case of Gary Cohn...and here to explain, oddly, is none other than Elizabeth Warren, who actually makes some astoundingly coherent economic points when she's not talking out the other side of her mouth about gibberish like reparations for slavery.
Anyhow, have a look and a listen while she explains the game, because this kind of pay-for-play is crazy-widespread right now, and exactly why the actual fiscal conservatives like me are losing our freaking minds.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/14/sen-elizabeth-warren-goldman-sachs-gave-gary-cohn-a-pre-bribe-when-he-went-to-trump-admin.html
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All-In [48078]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 8:25 PM
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Maybe we should focus on many issues, including border security.
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 8:36 PM
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Maybe we should focus on many issues, including border security.
Oh, no doubt it's an issue. The issue, to my mind, is yes, we've always been a nation of immigrants, but how many is it reasonable to take?
The big problems, to my mind, are 1) cultural assimilation (you don't want an immigrant culture overwhelming ours, and too many at once does that, and 2) how many can we afford without altering the quality of life for our own citizens?
To me those are the questions, not - do we want an alligator pit for a wall that won't actually work.
But the wall is a divisive issue, the way it's being done (kids in cages, invective, hype, and race-baiting!), and it's being used as a distraction while the real action always seems to be happening off-camera. Trump is really good at this. It's gotten so I almost wonder what he's really up to when he lobs another grenade into the Twitterverse. Honestly a lot of times it does seem to be when he's meeting with powerful lobbyists or foreign leaders, and there's Trump race-baiting Omar or calling Baltimore "rat infested" or some such...it's like: hey, who was in town yesterday he didn't want us asking questions about?
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All-In [48078]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 9:09 PM
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I want really tough immigration and less people from places like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. That said, I agree with you that the rhetoric should be toned down. I do though wish the immigrants were coming from places like Japan etc.
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 9:58 PM
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I want really tough immigration and less people from places like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. That said, I agree with you that the rhetoric should be toned down. I do though wish the immigrants were coming from places like Japan etc.
That's where the pressure is going to come from because those places are no-joke messes right now. They're teetering on the edge of being non-viable governments, and it's bad. Real bad.
Maybe I have a different perspective because I coached a lot of state-level soccer and that means I know a lot of Latino families - a lot of them from the Northern triangle - and the kids, anyhow, are fine. (I will admit I was less crazy about some of the dads.) Some of them are straddle that line between first/second generation (sometimes they were born here, sometimes they got here real young) but most of them didn't even have accents, though a few barely spoke much English. They're just...kids.
Our next-door neighbors were also Colombian, and my son and their oldest son were best friends for about five years until they moved away. Both parents - mom and dad - had been cops; the dad is now a computer programmer, the mom cleaned houses under the table because she wasn't legal. But she was....great. Cheerful, open, friendly, just a fun cool person with a huge personality; she didn't talk about it much, but I know her and her husband moved (informally!) to the US because policemen tended to not live long in Cali, where they were from; her husband managed to get himself a green card but she either didn't or couldn't. (I don't know the exact particulars, I got a lot of this secondhand from my son.) Immigration found and deported her two years ago and she hasn't been able to get back into the country since. So her husband, their oldest son - who's now 17, and a US citizen - and a younger one who's also a citizen and is maybe 6 or 7 now are living here without their mother. And my son's best friend - who played for more almost two years on one of my soccer teams - now spends his days worrying that some cartel heavy is going to blow his mom away on the street in Cali.
I don't know what the answer is, but that is just messed up. Sorry, it just is.
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All-In [48078]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 10:48 PM
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I spent just under 2 years combined in Guatemala and El Salvador. I like Latino familes. I was raised in So Cal. I live in South Fla now. My best buddy here that I hangout with is from Mexico and his wife is fram Brazil. He was born in San Diego, but was raised in Cabo. I hangout with Latino and Hispanics. I hangout with Brazilians. I have a good friend and she is from Venezuela. She is kind of wealthy and she left Venezuela. I just think about the USA more and I dont want all of those herds of people from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala coming to the US. They arent what we need overall and not in masses. Those countries suck overall, but the people that are coming truly arent the best overall. They are honest og course, but it's just not their best. We dont need to open the flood gates. Its not what the US needs. I want to be very picky who we take from those countries. Its not about being latin or hispanic. Its about looking out for the US.
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CU Guru [1405]
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All-In [34618]
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deer Mr. wintrup, it aint the usa's money.***
Jul 28, 2019, 8:33 PM
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: deer Mr. wintrup, it aint the usa's money.***
Jul 28, 2019, 8:43 PM
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Well, true...not anymore, it's not.
Go punch a Guatamalan 'fugee in the face if it makes you feel better, I guess, but he doesn't have your money. It went the other way and it was a corporate lawyer in a suit who had it. Actually it was a whole bunch of them.
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All-In [34618]
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go punch yer ugly momma in the face, idiot***
Jul 28, 2019, 8:56 PM
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: go punch yer ugly momma in the face, idiot***
Jul 28, 2019, 9:37 PM
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LOL. Do me the favor. If you can find her, do let me know. 
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Lot o points [155986]
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not getting someone’s own money from them =/= a “cost”***
Jul 28, 2019, 8:44 PM
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All-In [34618]
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^^^ POTD ^^^***
Jul 28, 2019, 8:55 PM
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: someone not paying their share (or any!) of tax = "cost"
Jul 28, 2019, 9:34 PM
[ in reply to not getting someone’s own money from them =/= a “cost”*** ] |
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Amazon got a $129 million refund this year.
That's right: Jeff Bezos (was) the world's richest man until his divorce, anyhow, worth $150 billion plus...and he got back $129 million in tax dollars this past year.
Who paid that? I did. You did. (Or at least I know I did! I dunno, maybe you're a really bored billionaire on the other end of this thread.)
I don't have a problem with millionaires or getting rich. I like capitalism, too. I know I wanna be rich.
I do have a problem with billionaires re-writing the tax laws to insanity, robbing the nation blind, and retiring to their own private pedophile islands while the rest of us fight like Jerry Springer guests over the scraps they leave behind.
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Lot o points [155986]
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There are a number of common logical flaws in that sentiment
Jul 28, 2019, 10:27 PM
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Off the cuff, sure, it seems wrong and yeah maybe the tax laws do need some tweaking. Here are the problems though.
1) Jeff Bezos, regardless of his net worth, didn’t get that refund. Amazon, a publicly owned company did. Don’t intertwine the two if you’re trying to think about this logically.
2) The tax cuts had almost no bearing on what they paid (or didn’t pay). They got a refund in 2017, before the laws were enacted, as well.
3) They used tax laws that have long, long been on the books, and got significant credits for A) paying much of their compensation in stock. B) making significant infrastructure and R&D investments and C) Carrying forward a significant amount of losses from years past when they lost money, didn’t claim the losses, and paid billions in taxes.
The people who wrote the tax code aren’t entirely stupid. The tax breaks on physical infrastructure were mainly for the warehouses they put up across the country, creating jobs in the process that ultimately pay more taxes than the credits provided for said infrastructure would ever amount to. The deductions for paying employees in stock? These deductions are written off of the corporation’s 21% rate and paid as income taxes on the employees’s usually-higher-than-21% rate—a net win for Uncle Sam.
I have no idea how to tally up all the taxes paid by all the 650,000 employees of Amazon, but I’m willing to bet it dwarfs whatever annual deductions Amazon gets as a corporation, so you can sleep better knowing that you aren’t personally paying for the gilding on Jeff’s yacht. And while the nude shoplifter story is funny, ultimately your anger, if it’s merited at all, should be directed at the long-standing tax codes—-they have much more to do with what corporations pay than the tax rate does.
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Hall of Famer [24826]
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Lot o points [155986]
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That’s because you can’t.***
Jul 28, 2019, 10:27 PM
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Oculus Spirit [83135]
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Point. Agree with some of that. Don’t agree that illegal
Jul 28, 2019, 10:44 PM
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labor is a problem, or it’s a legal problem but it’s not an economy problem.
I think the corporate tax cuts were way over-due, and Warren will add to the problem, not lessen it.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 10:54 PM
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I wish Warren were not such a ding bat, but she seems to be the only one in the race with the balls to speak truth to power. And if it were not for the rampant greed at the top, there would be no talk of socialism, although really nobody in this race is even suggesting we ditch capitalism. But we are racing off a cliff and most people are so mired in their cognitive dissonance that they can not even acknowledge what is going on right in front of their noses.
Without major structural reforms in our campaign finance laws and banking system, this country will eventually be lost forever. What we are witnessing now certainly is not what Adam Smith envisioned.
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All-In [48078]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 11:05 PM
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Exactly. As time goes on I bet we get more socialist due to the greed and the haves and the have nots. The have nots will one day dominate voting. I dont think we will ever be socialist, but there will be policies that will end up happening that would considered extreme for today.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 11:07 PM
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people will have to take to the streets for that to happen, I am talking protest and marches on the scale of what we saw during the civil rights era.
Noam Chomsky has a wonderful documentary called Requiem for the American Dream, involving the ten steps to the consolidation of power. Every one should watch this, it is a brilliant piece that explains how we got here.
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All-In [48078]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 11:10 PM
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What happens if they just start voting for people like Warren or Bernie types down the road?
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 28, 2019, 11:12 PM
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because the real rulers of this country will not let it happen. But when people take to the streets on a massive scale in acts of civil disobedience, it is one step away from anarchy and that scares the crap out the powers that be.
If you need proof, look at what just happened in Puerto Rico.
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Legend [15492]
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Re: The wall = a naked gal in a top hat
Jul 29, 2019, 12:24 AM
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Wintrop is a good school and congratulations for getting a degree there. I thought it was a chick school but that turned out to be Meredith...so never mind.
You make the most important point facing our country today. But you're making it in a place that doesn't seem to mind that the country is being controlled by very greedy people and even greedier corporations. That's ok to these guys 'cause their 401K's are looking pretty good. One of the rare time Federal policy can actually be traced to a very real effect on someone's individual life.
So, the idea that "we the people" are supposed to be running this country through representative government...doesn't matter anymore...that was a long time ago. Economy's good...making money, don't sweat the small stuff. (You really don't understand it...after all, Amazon took those deductions legally...'nuff said)
Trump, a billionaire, get's elected and one of the first things he does is give himself and his family and his friends tax breaks. Huge ones. And he does it so openly and so obviously that it just doesn't seem to matter.
If I go to a bank and borrow $700,000 I can go get a nice Ferrari, rent a palace and live like a king in Miami. For a while, but one day...I gotta pay that money back. But while it lasted I was living like a king....and it all looked good.
That's sort of where we are now. When they sign the budget deal in a few weeks, Trump will have added approx $4.1 Trillion dollars to the deficit in just 3 years. It's high times right now bro's. It's all good.
But one day.
You make points my friend, but your playing to a tough crowd in here.
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Lot o points [155986]
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you seem to loosely reference one of my replies in that post
Jul 29, 2019, 7:50 AM
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Instead of just replying directly to me, so I’ll take a shot at it. And if you believe that I’m in the “the future must be great because the present is awesome” camp, you have either never read or never understood one of my numerous posts on the topic.
You’re all over the board in this reply, referencing Citizens United to “the rich”, to corporations, so here goes:
Citizens United—I’m not a fan of this ruling, but it’s the law of the land now, so I’m open to your ideas on what to do about it.
Trump giving “the rich” a break—sorry, that’s emotionally loaded drivel. Almost everyone who pays taxes got a break, and the percent who don’t pay any federal income taxes rose from 43 to 44 percent post-tax cuts. No one is getting screwed by this cut, and if the wealthy are getting more breaks, it’s because they pay more taxes that would be impacted by cuts. If a property tax decrease were implemented in North Carolina, the Biltmore House is going to save a lot more money than Bubba in Gastonia.....that doesn’t mean Bubba got screwed. Oh, and if you don’t believe me on the tax breaks for most, here’s a source I know you trust: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-tax-cut.html
Corporate tax rates— I find it funny that the same people who constantly point out other countries as models of perfection on health care and other social systems suddenly lose their mind when our corporate tax rate is brought into line with those same countries. It’s a cut meant to make us more competitive on the global stage....maybe it ends up working and maybe it doesn’t due to a million other loopholes still in existence, but it’s not insane to try.
If you guys really were concerned about the deficit, and wanted to rightfully berate Trump and every other politician extant, you’d be talking about spending, but you don’t, because deep down you guys love the spending and the million social programs that come with it....your only regret is that we don’t spend more. Talking about the deficit and then making the recent tax cuts your target of first concern is like having an engine fire in your car and addressing it by checking the air in the tires. So when you go after tax cuts with the tired old “he’s helpin tha rich” line, you aren’t really concerned with what people are bringing home so much as you’re concerned with how all these current and future pork programs you want and love are being financed. Let’s just be honest about it.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: you seem to loosely reference one of my replies in that post
Jul 29, 2019, 10:25 AM
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growth is back down to 2% after a couple of good quarters, as predicted by most of our economists. As I recall, the tax cuts where going to pay for themselves and to paraphrase trump, "What we are witnessing is unprecedented growth, I expect 4%, heck even 5 or 6%....."
How many times do we have to do this before you guys come to he understanding that "Trickle Down" was a scam, and did little more than send our deficit spending out of control? And why do you care how much a Billionaire pays in Taxes, or that it does not bother you that GE, Amazon, and most of the energy companies pay little to no taxes at all? You seem completely Ok with this concentration of wealth and power that has completely undermined our democracy.
how is any of this rational in your world?
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Lot o points [155986]
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there is indeed one of us in this conversation who cares
Jul 29, 2019, 12:37 PM
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Greatly about what billionaires pay in taxes, but it sure isn’t me. I’m also not overly bothered about what companies who combined employ millions of people pay or don’t pay on what is a comparatively small amount of profits. Corporations aren’t good and they aren’t evil—they are entities who play by the accounting rules we give them, and they’re given those rules by people much smarter than you or me because they obviously also value the jobs these companies create. If you don’t like the rules, seek to change them, but try some logic, reason, and facts instead of the overly emotional “us vs them they’re so evil and out to get us” crap.
Want to know what I do care greatly about? I care about what I pay, and I am paying a meaningful amount less now. .
The only fatal flaw to these tax cuts were that they weren’t paired with equal spending cuts.
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Legend [15492]
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Re: there is indeed one of us in this conversation who cares
Jul 29, 2019, 2:25 PM
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Greatly about what billionaires pay in taxes, but it sure isn’t me. I’m also not overly bothered about what companies who combined employ millions of people pay or don’t pay on what is a comparatively small amount of profits. Corporations aren’t good and they aren’t evil—they are entities who play by the accounting rules we give them, and they’re given those rules by people much smarter than you or me because they obviously also value the jobs these companies create. If you don’t like the rules, seek to change them, but try some logic, reason, and facts instead of the overly emotional “us vs them they’re so evil and out to get us” crap.
Want to know what I do care greatly about? I care about what I pay, and I am paying a meaningful amount less now. .
The only fatal flaw to these tax cuts were that they weren’t paired with equal spending cuts.
First, yes I did loosely allude to your response but no I wasn't trying to offend you. I generalized you're specific comment to make an overall point. Like Balm1 said, "Trickle Down" just doesn't work. I respect you Obed and always read your posts. And you and I had a similar discussion a few weeks ago when it became known that Amazon got a refund. We just disagree as to how that is appropriate. We can disagree and still respect one another.
I will now, however, take this opportunity to disagree with again. The idea that corporations operate based on the rules "we give them" is, in my opinion, incredibly naive. Do you really believe that Congress listens to their constituents and then sits down and writes the tax code? Give you're Congressman a call, he's go you and Goldman-Sachs on hold, who do you think he's going to talk too?
Corporations write a lot of the tax code and regulatory legislation. They're called "stake holders". And they have a great deal more influence than un-organized citizens. Where do you think all those 'loopholes' come from?
You're argument is a pretty standard Reagan-Republican argument and I respect it, I just don't agree with it. I'm glad that Amazon employs 650,000 people, but that isn't an act of kindness on Amazon's part, they need those employees as much as the employee's need them. That doesn't entitle them to pay no taxes. Lincoln once said, "If you see a turtle sitting on a fence post you know he didn't get there by himself." And Amazon didn't get to where it is in a vacuum, they used and still use an infrastructure that was paid for by taxpayers. They should pay their fair share just as you and I do.
I don't agree with the idea that just because corporation employ people that they should have any greater say in our govt. than anyone else. Plantation owners provided basic livings to their workers. It wasn't much, but they were fed and housed. My point is that that is exactly the same argument that Plantation owners and the Southern elites made in the 1850's. "We take care of these people where would they be without us."
I majored in history and I'm pretty good at it. The struggle we're having now has been going on for centuries. What made us unique is we created a new way to do things. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the forces of greed have again placed us all in peril. The same arguments that Trump and Co. are making now are the same ones made by the Bush Administration before the meltdown. It's the same old song and dance. Cut taxes, deregulate Wall St., roll back Dodd-Frank...nahhhh, don't need it.
Donald Trump didn't create American's anxiety and apparent disenfranchisement, he is a result of it.
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Lot o points [155986]
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Why does no one in this thread reply to the replies
Jul 29, 2019, 2:33 PM
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That were to them??
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Legend [15492]
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Re: Why does no one in this thread reply to the replies
Jul 29, 2019, 2:38 PM
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What are you missing? I've quoted your posts in my responses to you. I actually enjoy and learn from talking to you.
But you are sadly, sadly mistaken if you think I'm a "socialist". People keep throwing that word around and I swear they don't seem to know what it actually means. True Socialism is when the state own all property and business for the 'common good'.
I'm just a cranky old fart that thinks it's stupid that the Army pays $600 for a freaking hammer it can get at Walmart for $26.
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Lot o points [155986]
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Legend [15492]
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Re: you quoted my reply to balm and didn’t mention this one
Jul 29, 2019, 2:52 PM
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Yes, I answered both of your responses in one post, I just responded to the last one you'd made at that time. Scroll up.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: Why does no one in this thread reply to the replies
Jul 29, 2019, 3:08 PM
[ in reply to Why does no one in this thread reply to the replies ] |
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Because you seem to have a lot more free time in your day, I just popped in now to see your response, Felix and I are on the same page here..
I will likely put in 12 hours and have not had lunch yet. That is why I have director in my title and get 5% of the company.
But I am happy that your employer pays you to sit around and argue politics on the internet, not all of us have that luxury on any given day.
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Lot o points [155986]
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Director...that's cute.
Jul 29, 2019, 3:27 PM
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I actually own my business, get 100% of "the company" and we're doing quite well....perhaps that's why I like the corporate tax cuts and you don't.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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I am happy for you, really.
Jul 29, 2019, 9:34 PM
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But you have accused me of being dumb, undependable, a liar on several occasions, and a welch which is well deserved.. but you do not know me.
I have never spoken nor written an ill word about you.
You followed me around on the PnR for 9 months trying to shame me off this board, yet I have remained patient and sought to seek out the best in you.
It gets old after a while Obed.
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Lot o points [155986]
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Cut the passive aggressive, man.
Jul 29, 2019, 9:47 PM
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You just tried to drop in like a swinging #### earlier with some random brag about your work title because you completely misunderstood my (quite joking) post about everyone replying in the wrong place. You tend to have this happen a lot, and every time your response is some sort of pseudo-superiority reflex. Every time I try to give you the benefit of the doubt and have a civil discussion, you have a random doucheout like that and make me instantly regret it. You’re a sad insecure man, and I feel badly for you.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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and there we go with the personal attacks.
Jul 29, 2019, 9:51 PM
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I am not a perfect person, I have no problem admitting that. See how I do not go there with you? Yet you persist. My getting defensive is for that very reason, because I actually have a lot of respect for you.
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Lot o points [155986]
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It’s not a personal attack.
Jul 29, 2019, 10:00 PM
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And I’m not going to continue this on a public forum. Have a good one.
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: It’s not a personal attack.
Jul 30, 2019, 7:18 AM
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you are quite the gifted contrarian. and I prefer to keep this dialogue in the open.
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Lot o points [155986]
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additionally, since you seem to have misinterpreted (again)
Jul 29, 2019, 3:29 PM
[ in reply to Re: Why does no one in this thread reply to the replies ] |
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the point wasn't "why is it taking so long to respond" I get that. Rather, it was "why, when people are responding, are they replying to comments that were to others and ignoring ones that were to them". It's conversation hopping, not conversation timing. But being such a busy company man, you probably only had time to skim my post, so no hard feelings.
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Oculus Spirit [81079]
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Hall of Famer [20546]
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Re: you seem to loosely reference one of my replies in that post
Jul 29, 2019, 12:59 PM
[ in reply to you seem to loosely reference one of my replies in that post ] |
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Okay, here's the thing.
Citizens United basically amounted to a coup, by the 1% - those 600 or so billionaires that own the major corporations. They could then buy any politician they wanted without the money being traced, and do it legally. It meant that instead of "we the people" America became ruled by "we the billionaires". Not that they didn't have a lot of say before, but now they have direct control. That isn't democracy. It has to be fought. Now. Or we're headed straight for 1970's Europe, when the Red Brigades were roaming around lots of places in Europe capping or kidnapping anybody with money. You think Antifa isn't good for that? I certainly do. Keep winding them up, see what happens.
Also, please stop trying to paint me as some sort of socialist for pointing that out. I literally have never voted for a single Democratic candidate in any election, not once, ever. Entitlement programs, by and large, simply do not work, and to use an engineering analogy most Clemson guys would understand, is pretty much the equivalent of trying to control a machine with direct feedback; it tends to oscillate out of control, what folks call "the law of unintended consequences." Like, the #1 cause of urban blight is actually rent control, which sounds great on the face of it...but clearly, it doesn't work as intended. The real problem goes deeper than that - zoning. Affordable housing has to be baked into the city plan; you can't just pick existing structures and mandate it.
Health care is a different story. Our system is an utter mess and the figures bear that out. So what working elsewhere, and how do we do it ourselves? That isn't socialism either. And "Medicare For All" comes with an apparent $25 trillion price tag...good luck getting that one done. So what's reasonable and attainable? Because 50 million people without insurance is a recipe for disaster.
I'm a big believer in free markets. We don't have them. What we have instead is a lot of guild behavior, British East India company type situations, where these vertically integrated mega-corps control too many levels on the supply chain and can squeeze out competitors without ever giving them a chance to compete, like Windows constantly altering their OS so only their overpriced software and games work on it, and better product is forced to huddle together under the freeware Linux banner just to survive. This hyper-consolidation by media giants like Comcast and Disney should also be deeply frightening to the consumer.
The only person talking about that is Elizabeth Warren. That's insane to me.
And I am indeed concerned - deeply concerned - about spending. The deficit is getting crazy out of control and we're getting to the point we're just pretty much going to that death spiral where you're paying interest on interest. The only thing that's saved us, to this point, is the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency and we can just always print more dollars...but God help us if we mess that up, by going to the well so often the rest of the world simply won't tolerate it anymore.
And yes, I understand that revisions to the corporate tax code were necessary, but the big problem is we haven't done a nearly adequate job of making up for those loss of revenues by clawing those earnings back from the billionaires who actually own those corporations. (Yes, I do appreciate the distinction.) Increasingly billionaires are essentially legally stateless entities who move their assets around between tax havens, and we aren't doing a nearly good enough job of making them pay for the money that they earn in our country. Considering that 600 or so people own more than half the wealth in this country, that's an issue. A huge issue.
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Lot o points [155986]
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appreciate the reply, but you replied to
Jul 29, 2019, 1:25 PM
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My response to Felix....if I was directing socialist accusations to anyone, it was him.
Look up a few lines if you want to see my direct reply to you.
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Legend [15492]
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Re: appreciate the reply, but you replied to
Jul 29, 2019, 2:35 PM
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My response to Felix....if I was directing socialist accusations to anyone, it was him.
Look up a few lines if you want to see my direct reply to you.
Yeah, but he gave you a great reply, didn't he? Eager to hear your response to it. Quoz is smarter than I am.
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Oculus Spirit [81079]
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Legend [15492]
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Re: I never heard you complain when we added 10 Trillion to the
Jul 29, 2019, 2:29 PM
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Excellent 'what about' argument. You must be a Trump supporter.
Trump is just a symptom of the problem, just a really bad one. Here is a nice graph to show you the problem. We are only barely a representative government anymore, and it doesn't appear to matter which party wins the White House.
Where on earth do people think the money goes to? Military Industrial Complex, Health Care Industrial Complex...etc. Corporations get the vast majority of it.
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Oculus Spirit [97772]
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Wall = Media.
Jul 29, 2019, 7:36 AM
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There. Fixed.
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Legend [17313]
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Kind of like watching Mueller’s testimony or Trumps tweets_
Jul 29, 2019, 8:02 AM
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While Munchin and Pelosi raise the debt ceiling $350B ... closing in on a $22T deficit!
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Heisman Winner [111778]
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Re: Kind of like watching Mueller’s testimony or Trumps tweets_
Jul 29, 2019, 8:10 AM
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you know that there are six members of the board at the federal reserve. None are elected, and the president only gets to choose one. It is a private corporation and act in their own self interst. Raising the debt ceiling is music to their ears. They own this country along with the heads of the banks, wallstreet, and the CEO's of our largest corporations. As Quoz eluded to, have spent the last 40+ years re writing the rules to benefit themselves while everyone else is left footing the bill. i am glad that people, including fiscal conservatives, are finally waking up to this, it gives me a small glimmer of hope in this next election cycle.
and I will just tack this one on, Suppsedly Biden was recently over heard telling some very wealthy and powerful donors that "nothing would change if I where in the whitehouse". Certainly that was true of Obama, so I would not expect anything different out of him. This from some one with impeccable credibility and one of the brightest political thinkers currently alive. Just food for thought.
Message was edited by: Tigerbalm1®
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