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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:00 AM
Original message
"Tax The Rich, Feed The Poor Till There Are No Rich No More"
Click Me


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dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:09 AM
Response to Original message
1. Til everyone is equally poor?
Geez how depressing.
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:23 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yes, that's exactly what would happen.
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 05:24 AM by Hissyspit
Because when the top income tax rate on the top bracket income earners in 1963 in the U.S. was 91 percent, everyone was EQUALLY POOR. :sarcasm:
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:53 AM
Response to Reply #2
17. +1000
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dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #2
31. Til the rich are no more means no one is rich. No one.
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maryf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #31
37. and that's a bad thing? nt
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:53 PM
Response to Reply #31
50. First off, It's a song. Second, the song itself is questioning the absolute expressed in
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 06:05 PM by Hissyspit
in the statement. "Tax the rich. Feed the poor:" "I don't know what to do." But the idea that taxing the rich until there are no more poor will result in everyone absolutely poor is equally absurd.

You aren't concerned that unfair taxation can ensure that poor stay poor?
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Mojeoux Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 08:42 AM
Response to Reply #50
78. Here is an Old Music Hall Song from the 1880s
It's the same
the whole world over.
It's the poor what gets the blame.
It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
Ain't it all a bleedin' shame?
Ain't it all a bleeding shame!?
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:29 PM
Response to Reply #31
52. Also see post #51.
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lumberjack_jeff Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #31
81. No one will be rich because no one would be poor.
The latter is dependent on its very existence on the former.
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 11:54 PM
Response to Reply #31
90. Actually, this is untrue. In Sweden
where they actually practice this, there are a few rich and a few poor. Most people are middle class and have comfortable lives. Even the poor though get medical care and their basic needs of life are met.
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JHB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #2
45. Bingo! Did we not have rich people in the 40s, 50s, and 60s?
Were we not innovative? (remind me: when the entire microelectronics industry was invented, founded, and built?)

We used to have an economic structure that favored people tring to get ahead. Since Reagan it was changed to favor people who already are ahead.
Sometimes there's a sweet spot when you can do both, but most of the time it's one or the other. Which will it be?
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Rage for Order Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:31 PM
Response to Reply #2
53. Nobody paid that rate
If someone made $1 million in 1963 they did not pay $910,000 in income taxes. There were plenty of loopholes that allowed the wealthy to escape paying taxes, bringing their effective tax rate down considerably.

That said, I think we have to increase taxes a couple of percentage points on the wealthiest Americans and corporations (large ones, not mom & pop S corps)
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:42 PM
Response to Reply #53
55. The top marginal tax rate for 1963 was indeed 91%
Back in 1963 the top marginal tax rate was 91%. I assume you do understand what marginal tax rate means. It doesn't mean paying 91¢ on the dollar of all your annual income.

Here's a link: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213
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Rage for Order Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:08 PM
Response to Reply #55
61. Sure I understand marginal tax rates
But the poster to whom I responded did not make that distinction. How much income do you think was taxed at 91% rather than hidden in trusts, offshore accounts, funneled through businesses, etc? I have no issue with raising taxes on the rich a few percentage points (absolute increase, not marginal), but 91% is too much, even as a marginal tax rate.

Nobody should pay more than 40% of their income in TOTAL taxes - inclusive of federal and state income taxes, property tax, sales tax, FICA, Medicare, etc. If the government can't survive on 40% then it needs to do fewer tasks or be more efficient at the tasks it does. IMHO.
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:09 PM
Response to Reply #53
71. I know that. All the more reason that no one is ever
going to be "equally poor."
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:38 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. Don't let it bring you down. It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around.


Sorry, I'm just listening to my mp3's right now. :hi:


Click Me
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:53 AM
Response to Reply #1
18. -1000
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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:55 AM
Response to Reply #1
19. Thank you for your expected "defend the rich" response. Don't they want TO CONTRIBUTE?!
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 09:55 AM by WinkyDink
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:57 AM
Response to Reply #1
20. You speak as if you are one of the financial elitist. What is your answer? nm
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:36 PM
Response to Reply #20
54. My answer is to create the reality that we want through concerted action.
It is easy to write tax the rich, or to hate people that earn in the top 5% (financial elitists). It is far more difficult to work to create ideal social conditions. If some of the people that are putting up corporalist posts, elitist posts, soak the rich posts, and otherwise railing against anything that is not within their view of ideal, got off their buns and started up farmers markets to sell healthy produce and meats, or started a company that made products right here in the USA and which treated workers well, then I would not only respect them, I would kiss their boots if by chance I met them in person. But what I see are individuals that plead poverty when a request is made to give a paltry $20 to help feed hungry people, or who view all corporations as evil even as some of those corporations do more good in one month than some of the detractors will do in ten lifetimes.
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Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 11:51 PM
Response to Reply #54
89. farmers' markets will save us. lol. there are no corporations that do more good in one
month than most people will do in one lifetime.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #1
21. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:13 PM
Response to Reply #1
34. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
lumberjack_jeff Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:31 PM
Response to Reply #1
80. The US gdp per capita is about $46,000.
There's enough to go around. The problem is that it's not going around.
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vduhr Donating Member (481 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #1
82. Not so depressing.
Being poor is relevant to there being rich. Therefore, if there are no rich, than there are no poor - everything is equal in income and cost of living. Utopia!
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:48 PM
Response to Reply #82
84. Trickle down is a utopian idea.
A so-called flat tax is a utopian idea. Market self regulation is also a utopian idea. All utopian ideas for the rich at everyone else's expense.

n/t
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vduhr Donating Member (481 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #84
86. Yes, everything is an utopian idea....
depending upon what your views are or your place in society, or simply that we are what we are as humans. Therefore, a utopia where everyone is equal would be impossible to achieve.
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 02:54 PM
Response to Reply #86
87. I have to disagree.
For the same reason I have to disagree with this:

Being poor is relevant to there being rich. Therefore, if there are no rich, than there are no poor.


IMO that is a cliché. For example: if you lived in a household where everybody in the household were poor. Everybody in that house is poor not because there's someone who's rich. Everybody is poor because they're freakin poor. Same goes the other way around. Everybody in a rich household is rich not because there's someone in that house who's poor to give some kind of light/dark contrast. Everybody in that house is rich because they're freakin rich.

And group size has no effect on this. Its equally the same if you're talking about an entire city, or an entire state, or an entire country, or the entire world. Financially speaking poor is poor for no other reason other than the poor have very little to nothing. Same goes for the rich but the other way around instead.

So you can have an entire country which is poor, and, you can have an entire country that is rich. It only depends on their production output and how its dispersed, not by some sort of contrast. So for that reason I have to disagree with your assertion.

I'd also like to add something off topic. If we continue with the current model we've been using, I can guarantee you some time in the future we're going to see a hell of a lot more poor because the current models are running this planet into scarcity.

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Le Taz Hot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 05:25 AM
Response to Original message
3. TYA
Ah, yes. They're on my Pandora. Great song.
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gateley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:25 PM
Response to Reply #3
38. Agree. And I love Alvin Lee. nt
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mwb970 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 06:37 AM
Response to Original message
5. "There's a monster on the loose."
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Fumesucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 06:47 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. "40 years you waste to chase the dollar sign"
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 06:47 AM by Fumesucker
"so you may die in Florida at the pleasant age of 69"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOBOaF4OKNw
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:42 AM
Response to Original message
7. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
county worker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:30 AM
Response to Original message
8. I use to really like how those old protest bands refused to take payment
for their craft! :sarcasm:

They were the original "selling propaganda" to the masses types.
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Zebedeo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:13 AM
Response to Original message
9. Then how do you feed the poor? n/t
n/t
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:11 AM
Response to Reply #9
22. What poor? nm
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Zebedeo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:25 AM
Response to Reply #22
26. The poor that are born to the poor that you fed
with the taxes from the rich.
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:35 AM
Response to Reply #26
27. Oh I see your point. Let the poor die so the rich can enjoy their wealth. Is this John Stossel?
The rich are strangling us and you side with them. Do you think God divined them to be rich? or that they "earned" the wealth?
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Zebedeo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:47 AM
Response to Reply #27
28. Just pointing out the lunacy in the proposal
in the OP. It's like saying: "drill for oil, burn it in our cars, until there is no oil no more!"

It leads to the obvious question of "If the rich are your resource for revenue, and you tax them out of existence, where will you then get your revenue?"

BTW, "rich" people are people, too. I don't subscribe to class envy or class warfare. I don't begrudge other people for the money they have. It's not my money; it's theirs. The idea of forcibly taking something from someone just because they have more that you is repugnant to me.

When you see an expensive car parked in the grocery store parking lot, do you fill up with resentment and feel like you should be the one to own that car? Do you think it should be OK for you to take it, because, after all, the owner was not selected by God to have the wealth necessary to buy that car, nor did s/he earn that wealth?
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 11:27 AM
Response to Reply #28
30. I find your attitude very dangerous to those that want freedom.
Of course the OP was hyperbolic. It comes from the frustration of seeing the wealthy stealing the life blood from the middle class.

You say the rich are people too. If you mean they are human beings, then yes of course, but so was Mao Tse-tung. When I say the rich I am speaking of them as a class, I am sure there are some that are wonderful people. They have little or no empathy. They are out to grab as much money, resources and power as they can. They use their wealth to influence legislation to allow them access to resources that belong to all, and to pollute our environment. They dont care if our ground water is poisoned. We try to regulate them so they wont poison us or steal our savings, but they have more influence and fight against us. I am guessing you are a follower of Ayn Rand. Do you support a plutocracy?

The linked post says it well: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=576080

It's not that the rich want us to die, they just dont care.
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silver10 Donating Member (492 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #30
43. Agreed!
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #30
46. "It comes from the frustration of seeing the wealthy stealing the life blood from the middle class."
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 02:25 PM by Xicano
Mostly yes, but, it also comes from an ideology as well. I think we should have a more, if not totally, merit based system.

My motivation behind the OP was: Show me a rich person and 99% of the time I'll show you someone who's taken someone's else's wealth, even the clothes off their backs and food out of their mouths.

When you boil it all down to its most basic elements; rich people usually don't produce anything. They just shuffle wealth around and skim (largely) from that wealth into their pockets. A type of parasite, fat from sucking off of other people's exertion.

When I produce something with my labor, that's my property. When I produce something with my labor using someone else's tools, that's both our property. How much of it belongs to me depends on how much the other guys' tools contributed vs my labor's contribution. Now that's assuming this other guy actually produced these tools himself or labored for the wealth to buy these tools. How many rich people do you know who's vast majority of wealth is as a result of producing something as opposed to some sort of profits off of other people's labor?

Also, if this product is derived from using the nation's resources, some of that wealth belongs to the people, also some of that wealth also belongs to the people for using the nation's market no different than a grocery store is entitled to some of the profits from the goods being sold in its market/stores.


One type example of rich people click here: >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW2LUwyZ7a0#t=4m5s




Here you go. Instead: Click Me
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #30
56. Yet.
You concede the chance to create your social reality. News bulletin. Somewhere along the line, the rich were not rich, major corporations existed only as concepts in the minds of the people who would start them up. If one seriously feel that workers are treated like disposable parts (honestly, I do feel that way, but take a path to a solution that involves action, not flowery prose), one can take action and start up competing businesses where workers are respected and held in high esteem. I fight with rightwingers constantly. Many of the posts that I see on DU are rightwingish to a T, it is always "someone else" that is the problem, not the the wingnut's own choices, lack of choices, or willingness to take chances to change life for the better.
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:20 PM
Response to Reply #56
63. I assume you are serious. So your answer is for the masses to start businesses that can compete with
the capitalist giants? That is pure insanity. The big banks have swallowed most small banks. They pay to get legislation passed that will give them an advantage over the small banks. You obviously know nothing about capitalism. The big fish eat the small fish and you suggest that all you need to do is become a small fish.

How can a libertarian be a Democrat?
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #63
68. I know much about business.
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 08:42 PM by bluestate10
Having lived in that sphere all of my adult life. I know from experience that companies that don't exist today will be leaders within a decade, that corporations that are major entities today won't exist in any form two decades from today. That is the business reality that I have lived and been part of. Good product ideas and execution of business plans don't have a f++++++ thing to do with size, anyone that thinks they do is someone that in reality knows nothing about business.

Don't dismiss me. I am a democrat who gives more to charity monthly than I spend on myself and who has seen that if I want change, I make change happen. I aggressively make decisions and invest with environmental quality preservation and recovery as a focal point. I will match my credentials as a democrat against anyone's here on DU.
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Occulus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:31 PM
Response to Reply #56
67. I, too, see rightwingish posts on DU regularly these days
AND MANY OF THEM ARE YOURS.
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #67
69. Oh well.
I will match, action for action, my track record as a compassionate democrats with that of anyone on DU. I am an action oriented moderate that understand that change does not happen unless I put my ass on the line to make it happen. If that makes me an abnormality on DU, then I proudly accept that distinction.
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Shandris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:06 PM
Response to Reply #28
33. It doesn't matter whether or not you subscribe to class envy and warfare.
It subscribes to you. And it doesn't give two shits about what you think.

Nor do the rich.

I'd pick a side before I stood in the middle of the road. There may be brambles along the side of the road you pick that you help to clear up, but you can't clear up a thing when you're roadkill.
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #33
57. Next time.
You buy a pair of drawers, or a shirt. Look at the label then think of what you just wrote. Respect comes to those that take it through earnest action and commitment.
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EstimatedProphet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:14 PM
Response to Reply #28
35. It's not a proposal, it's a SONG LYRIC!
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #35
58. If I may add: "It's not a proposal, it's a FUCKING SONG LYRIC!"
I just wanted to add some emphasis. But there is no reasoning with a libertarian.
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silver10 Donating Member (492 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #28
44. The rich are not a source of revenue for anyone but themselves!
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JVS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:01 PM
Response to Reply #26
59. Are you telling us that giving aid to the poor only makes them breed?
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rhett o rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:22 PM
Response to Reply #59
64. Yes and I believe he thinks we should just let them die. nm
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boppers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:27 PM
Response to Reply #9
40. I have a Modest Proposal to feed the poor...
:evilgrin:
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sendero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:18 AM
Response to Original message
10. I bought that album...
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 09:18 AM by sendero
... (one the the first I purchased) for reasons I cannot recall because generally I (nobody back then) bought anything they hadn't heard in full at a friends house.

I listened to it about 3 times and gave up. What an overrated hack Alvin Lee was, and not a towering intellect either.

I gave it to an acquaintance that thought it was good.
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Karmadillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
11. If the rich didn't impose policies upon the world that create and torment so many poor people,
maybe they'd have a better case to be allowed to wallow in their wealth while billions suffered.
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siligut Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Er, they don't need nor want our approval
Disdain is taught from birth, if not inborn, in wealthy circles.
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Karmadillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:34 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Er, I know that.
nt
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Turbineguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:36 AM
Response to Original message
14. It's not about feeding the poor
it's about looting the working class. You stop looting those who do the actual work and there will be plenty to feed the poor.
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grahamhgreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:41 AM
Response to Original message
15. It's all about taxing the rich at the rate of our grandparents, if we don't, we are doomed.
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bluestate10 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:07 PM
Response to Reply #15
60. We are doomed.
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 08:08 PM by bluestate10
Because people that want change want change handed to them in a gift wrapped package. We vote for politicians that mouth change then sit back to await change.

There is nothing that prevents any of us from working to create our own social realities, except our own self doubts and fears of failure. It is easier that claim that the rich and corporations doomed us. Try starting up an environmentally friendly farm, or a worker centered, environmentally friendly business, or simpler patronizing the businesses of people that have the vision and guts to start those types of businesses. If we want change, we ourselves have to make it, decision by decision, in a relentless effort.
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laylah Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:43 AM
Response to Original message
16. Thank you!
:hug:

Jenn
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
23. there's a few really weird responses in this thead. nt
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Fumesucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:18 AM
Response to Reply #23
24. When the going gets weird...
...The weird turn pro. :evilgrin:
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:21 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. ...
:spray:
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boppers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:29 PM
Response to Reply #25
41. --Hunter S. Thompson
Great work from that man.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 10:49 AM
Response to Original message
29. A foolish and harmful right-wing caricature of left-wing economics.
"Tax the rich, feed the poor until there are no poor any more" is a perfectly good slogan.

The OP, however, gives a great deal of credence to the right-wing meme that progressives are motivated by the desire to harm the rich, not just the desire to help the poor.

The rich getting even richer is a *good* thing; it's just not as important as the poor getting richer. Making the rich less rich is a price worth paying, not a good in its own right. Anyone who doesn't agree with this should not be let near economics, and anyone who doesn't make it clear should not be let near political campaigning.
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cilla4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #29
32. At whose and what expense?
"The rich getting even richer is a good thing...." Cheap foreign labor? Depleting natural resources and killing off ecosystems, species? What is inherently good about gaining more material things?

Why not put a value on clean air, water, nature. I wish to be wealthy in clean environment, time, not material goods. Where is this valued, in your economic paradigm?
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boppers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:31 PM
Response to Reply #32
42. Why shouldn't we have clean air? Safe food?
Why aren't the poor forced to live in feudal conditions anymore, why are american poor so wealthy compared to those of other nations? Shouldn't everybody be forced into squalor, so nobody can live better?
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:19 PM
Response to Reply #32
62. In itself only.
That's rather the point I was making.

A policy which makes the rich richer and also has other, negative effects - as many such policies do - is often, on balance, a bad thing, but the reason it's bad is the other negative effects, not the fact that it makes the rich richer.

"At whose expense?" is missing the point - I'm arguing not that "policies which make the rich richer are generally good", but that "when adding up the pros and cons of a given policy, making the rich richer should be counted on the credit side of the ledger". If it's at someone else's expense, that goes on the debit side, obviously.



Incidentally, if you don't care about gaining more material things, why are you interested in economic justice? If the poor aren't disadvantaged by not having material things, there's no need to try to make them less poor. However, I and the vast majority of the human species regard material things - both essentials like food, medicine, housing and luxuries like books and computers - as desirable.
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cilla4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 09:23 PM
Response to Reply #62
70. Oh come on -
there is no excess in this culture? And that excess doesn't come at the expense of the environment, workers, the middle class?
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silver10 Donating Member (492 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 03:13 AM
Response to Reply #70
75. right on
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 08:28 AM
Response to Reply #70
76. Where did you get the idea I didn't think there was from?
It is most certainly the case that the policies which enable the lifestyles of many rich people in America do more harm to others than enabling those lifestyles justifies.

However, I think that once again you're confusing "the good side of this is not worth the bad side" with "the good side of this is not good". People being able to live lives of untrammelled luxury and excess is, *in itself*, a good thing - it's just not necessarily worth the cost to others.

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cilla4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #76
83. Wow, eww, I don't know what to say!
That is so repugnant...you must be joking?

Sure, if by untrammelled luxury and excess you mean: revelry in the unharnessed, stunning beauty of nature; a wild sense of humor sparked by friends and simple wryness; deep grace in the face of acts of courage, generosity, humility.

Why are material objects necessarily a part of "untrammeled luxury"? Of course we all need food, education, health, housing - a certain degree of comfort. These should be a given, and actually, in my utopia, should be funded collectively by any society that can afford them.

Not to mention the soul-crushing impact the straining acquisitiveness and dependence on material objects has on the one who harbors them (you have certainly heard of "affluenza": "a painful, contagious, socially-transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more...a powerful virus running rampant in our society, infecting our souls, affecting our wallets and financial well-being, and threatening to destroy not only the environment but also our families and communities." From the PBS documentaries of the same name.)?

I don't know, for me, and most of my friends, beyond a certain comfort and freedom level - and granted, one which far exceeds the vast majority of people around the world - what we most highly value is simple outdoor fun, good health, good but simple foods, time, books. I'm not naive enough to think it's Thoreau-ian, but is is a far cry from untrammelled luxury and excess, which is of no interest to me at all -- in fact, would be a curse!
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EstimatedProphet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #29
36. No, it isn't a good thing
Money isn't infinite. It is a limited quantity. More in one pile necessarily means less in another.
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silver10 Donating Member (492 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 01:24 PM
Response to Reply #36
39. Exactly! And love the picture, too.
I think the average repuke believes that under capitalism, if you work the system, the rich will keep what they earned, and they (the average repuke) will also receive a wad of money and get rich too.

I guess there is a magic repukian tree creating money for those who believe in their ways. And anyone who believes in their ways has access to this tree - it's the poor who don't believe in their ways and it is their fault that they will not access this tree. Of course the top 2% know better, but that's what they're selling to Joe Plumber and he's buying - just look at most of the angry mobs of slobs at the tea bagger events.

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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:30 PM
Response to Reply #39
66. That's not actually what Republicans believe.

It's even more a nonsensical perjorative caricature of what Republicans believe than the OP is a perjorative caricature of what left-wingers believe - sure, there are some who believe it, just as there are sadly some people who agree with the OP, but they're a tiny minority.

What most Republicans believe in is trickle-down - that the poor will benefit more from the enlargement of the pie caused by reduced taxation on the rich than they will from the redistribution of it caused by increasing it.

The evidence of the last few decades strongly suggests that this is not the case, of course, but it's a long way from the beliefs you ascribe to them.
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silver10 Donating Member (492 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 03:11 AM
Response to Reply #66
74. Actually, someone posted it already - they really don't think or care about the poor
Edited on Sat Jan-01-11 03:22 AM by silver10
The old and the poor can live or die - it just doesn't matter - unless they imagine the poor are "stealing" their tax money. You just aren't worth much if you aren't working to enrich the corporate machine - that is what humanity has become.

And I didn't mean that the average repuke considers himself poor and that he would have to depend on trickle down - trickle down is for those on the lower rungs. I have to work with a bunch of repukes who don't make very good money but imagine that they will if they keep supporting the right-wing agenda and tow the company line. But believe me, none of these peeps went to Yale and were members of "The Family" or "Skull and Bones." Also, they don't really think that trickle down applies to them.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 08:31 AM
Response to Reply #74
77. Which Republicans are we talking about here, and how do you know that's what they think?
What you're talking about there certainly does not resemble anything I've ever heard an elected Republican say they believe, and while I have seen opinions like that voiced by loonies on the internet they're rare even there.
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vduhr Donating Member (481 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 02:03 PM
Response to Reply #77
85. Then you have not spent a lot of time on a lot of message boards...
Because that's exactly what I've heard a lot of them say. And if you think an "elected Republican" is going to openly say things like that, you are either living in la la land, or....well...hmmmmm.
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Donald Ian Rankin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 08:27 PM
Response to Reply #36
65. Thankfully that's not actually correct, or even close to it.
Economics is a long way from being a zero-sum gain, especially in a system with non-zero unemployment.

Basically, what counts is not money but desirable things - goods, services etc. If all that existed were a fixed number of objects of fixed value then you would be right, but that's actually nonsense. Value can very easily be created - if I spend the day mining or making chairs or teaching people or similar, for example.

The main limiting factor on the amount of desirable stuff we each have is *not* production - if we were all controlled by a single hive-mind then we could produce immeasurably more desirable stuff - there would be a) no employment and b) no-one involved in activities like advertising or banking.

The main limit is *organisation* - in a society of individuals it's very worth while having people doing things like advertising and banking, because they result in people spending more time producing things that other people desire, and less time unemployed.

It's very possible for an economic change to make nearly everyone better off, or nearly everyone worse off. Your zero-sum concept is just wrong, thankfully.
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EstimatedProphet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 11:48 PM
Response to Reply #65
88. That's really not what I'm saying
Yes, you can make everyone's life better through an economic change. Nevertheless, in practice, more rich people with more money almost always means more poor with less. Reality is a lot closer to what I am describing than what you are describing.
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-01-11 01:17 PM
Response to Reply #29
79. "right-wing meme that progressives are motivated by the desire to harm the rich"
Edited on Sat Jan-01-11 01:40 PM by Xicano
Question: When someone harms another is it not normal in a Democratic society to seek justice? So if the rich have gotten rich off of harmful and criminal economic activity. Isn't it not just for the middle and poor class to tax that ill gotten wealth away from the rich class?

Also, isn't it a right-wing meme to promote economic anarchy to facilitate their supply side (trickle down) economic theory because they believe: "the rich getting richer is a *good* thing"? Those were you words.

Hasn't decades now of this catastrophic train wreck of an economic theory proved to you yet that all it does is take from the poor and give to the rich, making the rich richer and poor poorer? How does that sound like "a *good* thing"? Sounds to me like you're promoting the totally proven economic health destroying model of supply-side economics. How very kleptocratic, don't you think?

Here's some interesting dialog from an interview I posted a link to in another thread. It think it illustrates some (insanity) examples of what we get when we have a model which promotes economic anarchy. Isn't it not just to tax this ill gotten wealth back into the hands of the poor? IMO anyone who doesn't agree with this should not consider themselves liberal or progressive, and anyone who doesn't make it clear should not be let near political campaigning for the Democrat party, else we'll just keep seeing representation for the rich and no representation for the middle and poor classes.





    http://archives.kpfa.org/data/20101229-Wed1300.mp3 ((audio))




    Excerpt from interview: (Starting at 37:50)


    Max Keiser: "....They would do these corporate raids where they would borrow lots of money, take over a company, seize the pension assets, fire everybody and cut themselves a big fat paycheck.

    Well this is exactly what the IMF is doing to Ireland, they see pension funds, they see cash, they're (the IMF) borrowing lots of money. The IMF has no money, they're bankrupt. They're using borrowed money because the IMF is mostly the U.S. and U.S. banks and these banks are all bankrupt. You know to say that they could bail-out anybody is ridiculous. They're simply using borrowed money to do leverage buy-out of a country to steal their wealth, and then the population will be left footing the bill.

    Same thing in Greece, and Greece is really a tragic story because of course they should of never been in the Euro to begin with had it not been for Goldman Sachs cooking the books of Greece to make it look like they had a better cash position than they did and then they were let into the Euro. Then a few years later because they don't really have the cash; they can't keep up with the rest of the Eurozone and they fall behind. So the jackals swoop in and now they're turning Greece into a vassal state. Great place to park your yacht but don't try and get any kind of civil rights or human rights in Greece.

    Same thing now for Portugal and Spain. The same kinds of things the IMF was actively doing in South America/Latin America for years during the period where a lot of leaders of those countries would fall out of airplanes and the IMF would come in.

    Argentina is a great example. I mean Citigroup totally decimated that country as they convinced the government to put Citigroup's liabilities on to government's balance sheet and then they force the people to pay-off Citibank's loans. What a genius operation that was.

    So they're using this technique of the leverage buy-out to go into these countries that are sitting ducks basically and they're stealing all their wealth and they're being successful again because people are not able to articulate the problem well enough to fight against it. They, again, the left as its called is completely bamboozled by markets and finance you know.

    Ask your left-wing friends today a simple question. You say to them...ask ten of your left-wing friends today, say "what is the relationship between interest rates and bond prices"? Now this is the most academic piece of financial knowledge that even a first year high school economics person would know the answer to. But I guarantee you that if you ask a hundred of your left-wing friends, not a single one will know the answer. That is a problem because they don't have any idea what they're fighting against. All they know is that they're upset about something and then that's all they know and its not enough and they're getting killed."


    ~snip~


    Bonnie Faulkner: "What about the incredible bail-outs of U.S. and foreign banks by the FED secretly amounting to over twenty trillion? What can you tell us about the FED itself, I mean they're the ones that do what? Manufacture the money right, or the credit?"


    Max Keiser: "Well the FED you know...its ahh...as Ben Franklin said one of the reasons why America broke away from the British Empire was the bank of England. The bank of England is a usurious, co-opting organization that was undermining the colony's ability to economically grow, and, the constitution expressly forbid the use of any money that wasn't gold & silver and put up a lot of fire-walls to prevent anything like a central bank from coming into existence because its a menacing force to the economy.

    You want to be able to coin your own money for your own people. You don't want to out-source your money creation to a third-party, especially when that third-party is aligned with foreign interests. That doesn't make any sense. I mean America doesn't out-source its nuclear weapons program to the Chinese or the Iranians. Why would America out-source its money creation program to the Europeans and the Russians and the Japanese and everyone else around the world vis-à-vis the Federal Reserve Bank. It is not an American bank. Federal does not refer to America. Federal Reserve is American as....its like Federal Express. Its just a brand, its not a federal organization. Its a third-party, internationally owned lending facility meant to undermine the dollar in ways that help only the constituents of the FED.

    So the fact that the FED engineered a bail-out of its foreign interests was a mandate of course by the foreign interests who still look at America as a colony. America is still a colony, that's what this crisis has reveled. The revolutionary war of 1776 was a washout. It did not produce independence as some imagined. Obviously if the FED is bailing out foreign banks with Americans money, then what do you call that? That's called a colony. America is still a colony. You have fifty colonies now under the American/global banking flag instead of thirteen. But its a colony. Therefore...we need to re-stage the independence movement and re-stage the revolutionary war for independence because it didn't work the first time, that was a big wash-out. Whens the real revolution coming because that first one was a damp squib."


    Bonnie Faulkner: "Right and when you say the "constituents of the FED" you're talking about all the other banks, right?"


    Max Keiser: "That's right. They are in the business of loaning money in ways that put people into onerous amounts of debt. As is the case with any feudal lord over his indentured servants. It's a model from the middle-ages that made a lot of people rich. And if it weren't for some of the changes back in the last millennium we would still be under that...the yolk of a feudal system, but, because of the history, for example, the black plague, etc. which wiped much of the work-force in Europe and forced the lords to actually pay people money to keep care of their estates.

    This is the beginning of the middle-class which is the beginning of the French, American, Russian revolutions, but, that force of aristocracy and monarchy didn't go away. They want to go back to the way it was a thousand years ago. They want to go back to peasants and lords. They don't want....they hate the middle-class. They hate the idea that people can get on an airplane and fly around the world for twenty bucks because it doesn't make them special.

    You know if I can do the same thing that David Gaffen can do, what makes David Gaffen special? Not much. You know these people want to be able to do things that nobody else can do. Flying around cheaply and doing these types of things is something they want to remove that privilege because its not fun being an aristocratic monarch if everybody can do the same thing. What's the fun in that?"


    Bonnie Faulkner: "Exactly, and debt is a system of control basically."


    Max Keiser: "Always has been. Always has been and this is why, again, the American revolution...ahh, they didn't want a central bank...to get back to the central bank. There wasn't a central bank in the U.S. until 1913. Then during a lame-duck end of the year session they brought in the central bank in 1913. Shortly thereafter they started having financial calamities. They had a big one in 1929, the collapse of the stock market, a direct result of the creation of the central bank in 1913. And its been a systematic picking away at the underline financial strength of the constitution ever since.

    1971 Nixon who could no longer afford to bomb the Vietnamese closed the gold window out to renege on his international debts. This brought in the hyper-inflation of the late 70's and early 80's which of course was another period of massive wealth creation substituting the petrodollar for the gold back dollar but the integrity of the system continued to degenerate.

    Then you had the listing of formalized options trading in the 70's and gaining strength in the 80's and 90's. The options volatility formula which was crated by Nobel prize winning economists, which is like the equivalent of the E=MC² formula for matter & energy is the options pricing volatility formula separating risk from reward. So with options you can trade risks separately from reward just like you could...nuclear bomb you can separate energy from matter, and armed with this technology is the bases of all algorithmic trading so that any computer can go into the system, figure out the reward, take it and leave the risk.

    The risks then becomes socialized or it becomes distributed over the masses who can't afford it, have to go into debt to pay for it. And this is how through using computer programs there's been this wealth confiscation period resulting in the reemergence of an entrenched kleptocratic aristocracy which knows only one deterrent, and it was played out in France here in 1839, its called the guillotine."


    Bonnie Faulkner: "Can you explain the foreclosure scandal or mortgage-gate? For instance what was Bank of America up to. I mean how deep does the fraud go?"


    Max Keiser: "Well the foreclosure fraud is an interesting one because its fraud taken to the point of an assembly line. Remember Henry Ford famously created the "assembly line" and the masses could afford...cars.

    Bank of America, Wells Fargo and these other banks created an assembly line of fraud. It wasn't just a one-off, it wasn't just a few forged documents and a few bribes here and there. They created an assembly line where tens of thousands of documents were forged, tens of thousands of mortgages were illicitly and fraudulently induced into the population. And as a result by some estimates Bank of America is now attached to a six trillion dollar liability which is even bigger than the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac liability of five trillion dollars.

    Remember the U.S. has fourteen trillion in debt but if you add the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac liability which is off the balance sheet, but, why, I mean they still owe this money, that's five plus fourteen. So you got nineteen trillion in debt plus six trillion in this Bank of America foreclosure debt. So that's twenty five trillion actually in debt the U.S. has, not including the unfunded liabilities of social security and medicaid which is another fifty trillion in debt. So the U.S. has seventy five trillion in debt...the economy is eleven or twelve trillion in size. Clearly its insolvent, the U.S. is insolvent.

    But getting back to the foreclosure fraud. I mean in the case of Goldman Sachs, for example, they committed fraud in a number of different ways. The mortgages were fraudulently sold. The people who bought them were fraudulently induced to buy a mortgage. When you buy a so-called liar's loan, there is no such thing as a liar's loan. The seller of the mortgage has a fiduciary responsibility that they, the mortgage of acquirer has some expectation of paying it back. To be involved in a transaction like this is malfeasance on the part of the financial institution, it has nothing to do with the person taking on the mortgage. That's not the problem here. The problem is fraudulent inducement, ok?

    Its like going into court after a woman has been raped and saying she asked for it. That's not a defense. If somebody ties somebody down and rapes them, the defense can't be that she asked for it. If somebody like Goldman rapes a homeowner with a fraudulently induced mortgage their defense can't be, well they asked for it. Naa, that doesn't work. So that was a fraud. Then, they took this fraudulent paper and they bundled it up into mortgaged backed security and sold it to banks around the world, that's another piece of fraud.

    Then knowing that the banks who bought that paper were going to go out of business, they took out bets on the credit default swap market against the performance of those banks. So they made negative bets against the customers that they sold these two to begin with based on the fraudulent inducement that started the whole chain to begin with. So that's three layers of blatant, heinous fraud.

    Any piece of that would put every single one of those guys in jail, and they did it not on a one-off, but, on tens of thousands of examples. It is you know a plague of fraud. It is so enormous that, that is the problem is that is hard to prosecute. Its like tying to, you know, outlaw gravity. Its just so enormous its hard to know even where to begin.

    And of course it gets back to, you know, what is it...Goldman Sachs modus operandi, if the fraud is big enough there's no way you can prosecute us...because its like cancer isn't it. I mean its incurable, its eating off of your organs, there's nothing you can do about it, your the host, we're the predator, shut up and die."


    Bonnie Faulkner: "Exactly, and nothing is being done about it, right?"


    Max Keiser: "Nope".




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sweetloukillbot Donating Member (378 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 02:47 PM
Response to Original message
47. What a great call to activism that song is...
"I'd love to change the world but I don't know what to do. So I'll leave it up to you."

A laundry list of things wrong with the world that he can't be bothered to do anything about it.

Great sentiment. And the first line doesn't sound like he thinks much of hippies and homosexuals either.

I've never understood why this song is hailed as a great protest song.
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Xicano Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #47
48. "the first line doesn't sound like he thinks much of hippies and homosexuals"
Thanks sweetloukillbot, I too think its a great call to activism song.

As for the first line you mentioned. I can see how today someone would question what it means, but, for me I see it for stating the obvious of the times when the song was produced.

If you put yourself back in that time what you saw all over the place were hippies and same sex partners making a lot of noise. What were they making noise about? The "insanity" of the rich people's system and how unjust it treated poor people of the world.

Ergo, "Everywhere is freaks and hairies, dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity. Tax the rich, feed the poor Till there are no rich no more.". In other words: Hippies everywhere out in the streets asking "Where is sanity!?"

Well, at least that's the way I've always taken those lines.


Peace sweetloukillbot :hi:
Xicano

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sweetloukillbot Donating Member (378 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 03:18 PM
Response to Reply #48
49. I took it the opposite - maybe it is an Okie from Muskogee message
But it doesn't sound like the freaks are asking where is sanity - it sounds like someone is seeing freaks and asking where is sanity.
But that doesn't change the central tenet of the song, that he'd love to change the world but isn't going to be bothered.
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 07:15 PM
Response to Reply #47
51. It's not quite a call to activism. It's about confusion in a confused time. The narrator
Edited on Fri Dec-31-10 07:28 PM by Hissyspit
presents the context of the times with dialogue from the right in the first verse (remember, the singer and band would be viewed as "freaks and hairies,") from the left in the second verse (sounds like a good idea, but too utopian?). The narrator acknowledges the need for change; but admits their confusion and then sinks into powerlessness, but in the process puts the onus on the listener to make the changes, on their own individual responsibility. Yet, the listener may find themselves in the same state as the narrarator. This seeming contradiction is the theme of the lyrics.

It is a protest song, but one that makes apparent the complexity of protest and change. It's about the times and the need for change, but more, it's about the place that an individual finds oneself in this context. When does the individual become society. It's a brilliant song.

The liberal doctrine of progress: People have the ability to harness thought and action for change for the betterment of humanity. But what to change?
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Bill Bored Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #51
73. And don't forget, it was the middle class (between rich and poor) that brought about change then.
Also, everyone had to be concerned about the draft. This gave everyone a sense of responsibility for the war and they had to decide whether or not to leave the country, fight an unpopular war, or take their chances with the draft lottery.

Nowadays, all the young folks have to worry about is their finances, and whether or not to volunteer for war.

Back then the middle class had their finances in order, but they could still get killed in Viet Nam. That concern is what ended the war -- not so much the idealism of the times, IMHO. If they had a volunteer army to do their fighting for them while they played video games, how many middle class white kids would have taken to the streets?

Makes me wonder what the real agenda was for doing away with the draft.
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The Gunslinger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-31-10 11:03 PM
Response to Original message
72. Reading some of these posts I wonder
if there is a "left" in this country anymore. I try to tell my kids to prepare for a totally different world when they get older.
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