Texanadian

An interesting debate has come up about Buffet and Gates' request that millionares give away half their fortunes to charity. Ted Turner and George Lucas have agreed already. They're trying to raise 600 billion dollars.

It's the same debate that the tax cuts vs government ownership of taxes (in regards to deficit funding) have brought up. The estate tax is going to be 55% next year. If these ultra rich people give away half their fortunes to charitable purposes, the government will (at some point in time) "lose" out on the estate tax. Not only that but the government will "lose" revenue by them claiming a charitable deduction on 600 billion dollars worth of money.

So it's really the people who think that government should own all the money and determine what to do with it that are against this. They want rich people to not be rich. They want rich people to pay more. But they don't want to lose out on the revenue that rich people give in the way of taxes even when it means they're giving money to poor people.

What kills me is that there are 248,000,000 Americans in the bottom 80% and many actually support tax cuts [subsidizing] the top 20%. Yet like slaves, the bottom 80% are competing for their puny share of 15% of the wealth - the crumbs basically.

What is being subsidized? Jobs and income. Do we want more jobs and income or less? Besides, changing the tax rates from one high point to another is not subsidization. That's simply less penalty for earning income. Subsidizing would be being paid money for not earning income. This is welfare for the poor and bailouts for the rich.

The root of capitalism is that everybody pursues their own interests and that society benefits from that even though it wasn't purposely set out to be. The invisible hand. Steve Jobs wants to sell phones, computers and music players. He never meant to help musicians sell more music by MP3's. He never meant to help businesses by the use of cell phones. He never meant for parents to be able to contact their kids when they're not in the same area. His primary goals are to sell product and make money.

First off, the wealthy need to start paying a fair wage. It's simply not acceptable that someone working full time has to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. As I have said before, what sort of a person defends the wealthy getting wealthier, yet doesn't give a ####### about where they or people like themselves stand? Idiots, that is who.

What it comes down to is this, the wealthy look out for their own azz, so why shouldn't the 80% do the same?

You guys will hate on the poor and section 8 folks, call them lazy leaching bums, but turn a blind eye to how little the wealthy actually do to earn billions. You guys are being played like fools but don't even know it or see it. At least Canadians and Australians have smartened up and demanded to be paid a fair wage, rather than live in squalor and in shitty has-been run-down towns and cities.

As mentioned, everybody separately looks out for themselves. The person working 2 jobs is to be respected. They're doing what they can to better their situation. They're probably trying to get a better apartment. Or afford to keep their house. This is much different from government subsidized housing and welfare. Where people are making other people get behind in order for themselves to receive special treatment.

"Fair" is a delicate word. If the only way to make things fair is to make things unfair for somebody else, then it isn't really fair. If a homeless person walks into a restaurant and steals your lunch. It's not fair. Robbing a bank. Also not fair. But setting common rules that allow everybody the same starting basis tend to be fair. The same starting position.

You make it sound as if nobody is homeless or poor in Canada. Nobody drops out of school. Nobody is hooked on drugs. HA! The homeless situation is rampant in Vancouver. It's not rampant in Winnipeg. Temperature tends to send the homeless to where it's warm. Nobody wants to live outside in -40 in the winter. A few degrees above freezing is much better in that regard.

I was watching the news in Vancouver last night. They were talking about how the gas costs more in Vancouver than any other city in Canada. How the HST is costing the consumer more and many businesses more while subsidizing other businesses (the movie industry for example). HST is a step in the wrong direction.

True, yet less than 2.7% of American households earn that.

In fact, the National Median household income in the United States is $44,389. Now contrast this to Aust, where the average income per person is $53K.

What is the cost of living in Australia? I can use Canada and the USA as a good measure. Incomes are relatively the same. But homes, cars, food, etc are cheaper in the US. My car to get new tires would have been $1200 in Canada. The same tires in the US were $700. If in Canada the income was 1.7x higher than the US, then it wouldn't matter. But the income difference isn't so. I wound up buying the tires from the USA even though at the time I lived in Canada. This is why it's easier to be poor in the US than it is in Canada.

yeah, and they are supposed to save for retirement and save for their kids education all the while supposed to enjoy yearly family vacation. hell, just so we can pay baseball players 100 million, when a family of four goes to just 1 game, it is a major dent in 44,349 dollars. concerts these days are priced such that going to 1 year on 44,389 is all that is possible. middle class is being squeezed like never before.

Baseball games aren't that expensive. Tickets here are quite reasonable. $20. Concerts have gone up in price. I tend to go to less of them as a result. But this is how cheap vs expensive goods work. If everybody could hit homeruns and strike out everybody like the pros do, then the salaries wouldn't be so high. It's a niche market. Only few even among the pros can do that sort of thing. The same could be said for opera singers. Even rock singers. Robert Plant can sing better than a 3 chord garage band. As such, he earns a higher amount of money. His old Zeppelin albums still sell quite highly 40 years after the fact.

It all comes down to this, many are too prideful to admit that in terms if wealth and quality of life for the average Joe America, their equivalents in other countries are doing much better. Don' even realize that while the middle class is growing elsewhere, it is dying here. While other countries are modernizing, the US is falling apart. Sure, the pockets of wealthy areas are fantastic, but what about the rest of America - the 97%. It's a bloody joke.

Take NY and Jersey as an example, most folks with attitude and pride, basically assume they are the ######, don't even realize they are dirt poor. How many of them can honestly afford the down-payment on a home in Sydney, Melbourne, or Vancouver - none. I think this is all a ploy by the wealthy though, to keep the poor ignorant and naive. Up there, they have actually made you guys believe attitude equals wealth.

It's true, that most can't afford a house in Vancouver. And if they can, it's a small house in a bad part of town that will be small and have a renter living in another part of the house. This isn't what people want. We all want our own homes. I was looking at houses for sale for $325K last night. Here in Houston I could get 5300 sq feet. Cherry wood flooring. A pool and hot tub. A garage. In Vancouver that would get you a one bedroom condo in the slums.

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme, no matter how many times that Right Wing talking point gets repeated.

How is it not a ponzi scheme?

A bank account is not a ponzi scheme. The money that goes into it has your name on it. Everything in the account is your's. It doesn't matter what happens with future economies or birth rates. The money is 100% yours.

Social Security requires you to put money in year after year and not a penny of it goes to a dedicated fund with your name on it. 100% of it is spent on older people. 100% of your "benefits" come from future younger people.

What do you define as a ponzi scheme?

If all states had the same tax laws, this wouldn't be a problem. We are one country after all.

But not one state. .......I do agree to a certain extent about your take on state taxes. All 50 states should adopt the no state income tax that is currently held by 9 states. Massachusetts residents got to vote twice in elections about getting rid of their state income taxes. They voted against it both times. By 70-30. Shocking I must say.

How many of you wouldn't have done the same thing? If Orange County had lower car registration fees than Los Angeles County, I'd register my car there. Los Angeles county has higher sales taxes than most, so where is all the outrage at all the people who go to neighboring counties to save a full percent on sales tax?

Save the crocodile tears.

In Texas, the car issue is a moot point. State sales tax here is 6.25% but the cities/counties can each add 1% of they like. Obviously somebody buying a new car could save money by buying the car in another county. TX got around that by simply stating that the sales tax on cars is 6.25% regardless of where you live in the state.

A common tax shelter is for people who live in California to buy and register their car in Oregon (no sales tax). Not much is needed. Show some gas station receipts from Oregon every year and you're pretty much good to go.

If Obama and the Dems are so worried about tax cuts = deficits, why are they wanting to let the lower income tax cuts remain?

cars run so hot yet i don't see the US changing zoning laws so dentists, MDs, accountants (other professional services), mini-grocery stores, and a host of other basic needs stores and services are located in neighborhoods. neighborhoods are built way outside town without any consideration for providing basic needs stores in the heighborhoods, but not the developers fought, gov'ts make zoning laws.

This is why Houston TX rocks. There are no zoning bylaws. It comes up for vote every so often. But the people don't want them. The result is a nice variety of everything everywhere. Cheaper real estate too.

Russia had its hottest temperature in history on July 11, when the mercury rose to 44.0°C (111.2°F)..........Amazing that it can be hotter in Russia than Houston. Our all time record is 109°F, set in 2000. I suppose that is one of the benefits of high humidity. It keeps the temps from rising during the daytime. (and also keeps them from falling at night time) Florida has the same weather style.

It's another lesson to be learned that simply taxing the rich will make them GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! Take any rich person who isn't in the media eye and they'd most certainly keep their boat in a tax free neighboring state that's close by. Thus Massacusetts loses out completely in the deal. I use the same example with Bill Gates and Washington state. WA has no state income tax. Bill Gates lives there and pays no state income tax. But WA benefits from the huge sales taxes that Gates pays.

I shouldn't be surprised by MA for their tax policies. They are the state that went against NH for the tire tax ordeal. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/03/state_chases_sales_taxes_in_nh/

I don't know what business you are in because you have stayed mum on it but most corporations use credit to conduct business or expand. Why is this any different for the government? The most efficient government would be one run like a corporation. One with a goal of minimizing costs while improving service, increasing revenue and re-investing it back into the business to grow. This is what conservatives have implemented in AUS and the result of it speaks for itself. Not to mention, we literally put the country first.

The majority of economists concur that investing in America during the depression help get it out of the depression. In fact, the double dip occured because investments were cut back, due to similar cries about the government. When did the economy bounce back again? When the government borrowed and spent at unprecedented levels to fight WWII. Further propelled by the GI bill following WWII.

The problem is not spending, rather, where and what the money is spent or invested. No one is saying just give people money but investing in things like infrastructure or fixing Americans disgraceful infrastructure improves efficiency, modernizes the country and ultimately creates jobs and growth.

I don't think anybody here will disagree that better roads and bigger better access to roads are all good ideas. Maybe it's different in Australia, but the ones who are against spending more on roads are the ones who think that riding the bus will magically make roads last forever and never need any new money injected. Or that a population increase of 10 million people over a decade won't cause any change in road quality.

Oddly enough, urban sprawl is reduced when better moving roads are maintained and built. It keeps businesses in the city. This keeps people living close by. Once you get a road system that is rush hour all the time, it encourages companies to move out of the city to the outer regions of the city where access isn't an issue. This makes people then move out of the city as they have no reason to stay inside.

As for government running like a business? When does this happen? Governments tend to run as non profits or losers. They have no reason to make money because they don't benefit from income like an individual or a company does.

As for businesses and credit? I agree that cash is the best way to grow. Sure it takes longer to grow this way. But it's a great safety cushion. Companies that have cash on hand always weather the storms better than the credit starved companies. I will admit that a great many businesses will expand and get better with the use of credit. I'm just saying it's not the best venue to partake in.

As for the Great Depression. Government was not the answer to that. In fact, I can't think of worse ways to improve the economy than the government did in the 1930's. The federal reserve tightened the money supply right through 1933 by over 30%! At a time when over 9,000 banks had failed. 1 in 3 banks. They put up import tariffs which destroyed any means of free trade. They raised income tax rates. They raised the discount rate by 2% in the span of 1 week. (Unheard of)

You're partly right about WWII eliminating the depression. But this was more because of the 12 million people who were taken out of the unemployed labor percentages and sent off to war.

Here is the reality. Road taxes and levies are significantly lower here. As a result, they are much more dangerous [represented by the high road-toll], cause more damage to your car and wear them out quicker. It's why I have had to replace four windshields versus none in AUS; in fact, I don't even know of anyone who has had to do so ever in AUS. Not only are the roads well maintained and safe but they are cleaned [swept] weekly. In the long run I save money by paying tax upfront to build and maintain roads, as they do in pretty much every other first world country outside the US. Google streetview covers South Africa, Now have a look at their roads and compare them to the US - it's bloody embarrassing actually.

Why are the roads being swept weekly? Sounds like too much littering. Too bad of roads (crumbling weekly?).

There are public goods and services that are provided by the government (federal / state and local) to and paid for by the public. Whether you actually use them or not is another issue. Schools are a good example - you pay for them whether you have kids in them or not. The fire department is another. It's there for you if you need it but you pay for it even if you don't require their services. Or how about the military? I mean really, to sit there and say I only want to pay for what I use is quite ridiculous. Move to a place that doesn't have any government and hence no taxation for public goods and services you don't fancy. May I suggest Somalia? It's some paradise for the self-sufficient I hear.

You're talking mostly about local city programs. Everybody including myself is fine with these. We pay property taxes after all. Military is one where you can't really have more or less military protection than somebody else. Schools are a different deal though. There are many different ways we could handle schools. But the government monopoly seems to be the only one that's (not) working.

I'll skip Somalia. I'd prefer Monaco or the British Virgin Islands. Neither of which has a federal income tax. Living in Texas, I at least don't have to pay state income tax.

I don't know what business you are in because you have stayed mum on it but most corporations use credit to conduct business or expand. Why is this any different for the government? The most efficient government would be one run like a corporation. One with a goal of minimizing costs while improving service, increasing revenue and re-investing it back into the business to grow. This is what conservatives have implemented in AUS and the result of it speaks for itself. Not to mention, we literally put the country first.

The majority of economists concur that investing in America during the depression help get it out of the depression. In fact, the double dip occured because investments were cut back, due to similar cries about the government. When did the economy bounce back again? When the government borrowed and spent at unprecedented levels to fight WWII. Further propelled by the GI bill following WWII.

The problem is not spending, rather, where and what the money is spent or invested. No one is saying just give people money but investing in things like infrastructure or fixing Americans disgraceful infrastructure improves efficiency, modernizes the country and ultimately creates jobs and growth.

It's a great lesson in inter-state competition isn't it? I wonder how many boats have moved from (or never gotten to) Massachusetts in order to stay in Rhode Island?

At least Kerry is owning up to it and agreeing to pay the tax.

I agree. And saying a third party isn't viable is a bad reason to not support one. Politics is just as much about influencing power (see: tea party) as it is about actual victory.

Heck, one could make the argument that a two party system isn't viable in a dictatorship.

Texas is one of those states. It is very hard to get any party on the ballot. There has to be a certain amount of registered voters in the last major election sign a petition submitted by a certain date to the secretary of state for a party to be allowed to be posted on the ballot.

It's extremely hard to get on the ballot. That's pretty much why Ron Paul decided against running as a 3rd party candidate last time around. He knows how hard it is. (He ran as the Libertarian presidential candidate back in 1988)

Consider that New Hampshire is the most Libertarian friendly state in the country. Yet when Badnarik was running for president, he wasn't on the ballot in NH. You had to get a certain amount of signatures to get the party on the ballot. But the signatures collected were before the Libertarian party had chosen their candidate. So those signatures were deemed invalid. Thus a new round of signature gathering was needed with very little time. As a result, the LP was not on the ballot in NH.

luckytxn has right that third parties ideas can get absorbed by the two big parties but the most recent examples I gave didn't really matter beyond a symbolic protest vote.

If the third party candidates achieve nothing and their ideas don't go anywhere the only result is a divided vote throwing a victory to the side without ideological cracks.

If your third party candidates and run and lose everytime, you can get a superiority complex that comes with not being "part of the system" but then again you've no real input into what's happening so it's the same as not voting at all. Better yet, just write in whoever you want because it doesn't matter except to you.

When the voter eligible roles show only 30% of the voters bother to vote, the Dems and Repubs can't really say with a straight face that they've received the voter's stamp of approval. It's like choosing between Coke and Pepsi. They are slightly different, but mostly the same. If you want root beer, dr pepper, or sprite, you're out of luck. Personally I think a 2 party system is pretty crappy. I would much rather vote for somebody who supports my views even if they have a low chance of winning. It's an honest vote that way......Voting for the 2nd worst candidate only because they're not the 1st worst candidate isn't really democracy.

I thought it really sucked when Nader got ridiculed for "stealing" votes from Gore. The people had the choice to vote for Gore if they wanted. They didn't agree with Gore and/or thought Nader was better. So they got to vote for who they truly thought was the best candidate. Besides, who is to guarantee that they would have voted for Gore anyways? I'm a Libertarian Party guy. But if they weren't on the voting list, I'd probably vote Democrat before I voted Republican. It really depends on who is on the ballot. But speaking strictly in the party sake, I'd go Libertarian, then Democrat, then Republican.

To look at it another way. Voting is about the individual. Groups can't vote. Only individuals. Thus the vote should be about who each individual thinks is the best person for the job. But too many people get into the group thinking mode when it comes to elections. Having to vote to keep the bad guy out. It's a strange way of demonstrating why big government and group thinking is less sincere than small government and individual thinking.

I support the safe passage idea.

I actually agree with El Buscador. Get rid of the employment + credit score routine. Heck, it could be argued that it's the opposite. People in debt are willing to work and work hard. Work overtime. Whatever. They gotta get their bills paid. Even if you've never been late on a credit card, utility bill, phone bill etc, your score can still go in the dumpster simply because you have a credit card that is slowly being paid off.

The strange thing about credit scores is that like everybody else here, I had zero credit history and no credit score when I moved to the USA. I managed to grow it up to 750 FICO BEFORE I ever got my 1st job in the US. Now how is it that somebody with zero work and credit history in the country can have great credit? I don't have a mortgage, no car loan, one credit card. No personal loans. My credit report can fit on a post it note.

Let's face it. In the working world, there are energetic and lazy people with good credit and there are energetic and lazy people with bad credit.

The unemployment program should be eliminated. The best program would be to have a very simple form to fill out when hired. The form would ask what percentage of your income you want deducted from your pay. Tax free of course the savings would be astronomical.

The same thing could be accomplished by simply eliminating the early withdrawal penalty on 401K's and IRA's.

But even using Lingus' system, the benefit to people who've been working continuously for a long period (20+ years) would be astronomical.

The Senate voted 60 to 40

"One vote made a difference today for millions of Americans who have been out of work waiting for their unemployment benefits," Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said about Mr. Goodwin's arrival to cast his decisive vote.

Apparently there are some openings for mathematicians out there.

You think the child is to blame more than the parents? Some parents are irresponsible and idiotic, spanking the child is hardly going to change that, now is it?

But my parents always said this was going to hurt them more than it would me.

So belly dancing is OK, but smoking a water pipe is sexual innuendo?

She was also one of the 15 people who voted to keep congress' automatic pay raise this year. (It got voted down 402-15)

I bet the bride's parents are pissed about still having to pay for the wedding.

If the only thing you care about is keeping taxes low for rich people, you won't be convinced. For the rest of us, it's a no-brainer.

It's a no-brainer alright.

I would take the quoted sentence and simply take out the word "rich." So that it reads "If the only thing you care about is keeping taxes low for people, you won't be convinced."

Dave Ramsey got into it with a listener awhile back. The listener was saying that getting a tax break for donating to charity was stealing from the government. Dave replied that it wasn't stealing. It was money that was never owed or owned by the government in the first place.

Heck, why target the rich? Why not go after legal residents who can't vote? Everybody who has a green card should automatically be put in a flat 39% tax bracket. It would tax a very small amount of the population but bring in a large amount of government revenue per capita.

What do you think of this concept of free speech that allows people to come to the funeral of a US soldier and shout that god killed him and god hates him ? Doing that in front of his parents.

Is it worth letting that go on for the sake of a theory ?

Who gained from that? - society ?

No other country in the 1st world allows that and non of them are the worse off for banning it.

Ahh yes. Those pesky Westboro Baptist Church people. They annoy the heck out of me.

When it comes to free speech, we have two ways we can go about it.

1) A complete free speech rule. The notion that people can speak freely about any topic, good or bad.

or

2) We can pick and choose which topics can be spoken of.

Let's take a look at choice # 2. This will always result in the majority rules aspect I spoke of earlier. People will be mostly in favour of eliminating what they perceive as bad speech by others. But it won't be a big deal to these people....Conversely, the people who have the greatest loss will be the people in the minority who have the major role in the argument at hand. The people who have the most emotional issue of free speech will always be the ones who are pushing an issue that is clamped down on......Choice # 2 can be supported (in theory) by the idea that YOUR ideas will always be good ones and that it's OTHER people's ideas that should be suppressed. But the trouble is who is the deciding person that determines if you are the one on the good side or the bad side? Is an anti-war protester trying to save people from dying? Or are they a treasonous person who should be silenced?

But if we look at choice # 1, you'll find that people are overwhelmingly for it. They feel that they have a greater chance of losing their ability to speak if given the choice of yay/nay on complete free speech. Thus people support the notion of free speech. Willing to put up with the bad apples in order to keep their own free speech.

Now getting back to the Westboro people. Personally while I wouldn't go and protest at anybody's funeral, they do have their right to do so. Fortunately we have the Patriot Guard riders who block them from getting nearby. And their future picketing spots are well known. I'm surprised that people haven't protested outside their church (which happens to be next door to where they live). Blow some air horns and vuvuzelas outside their church while they're having their service. Blow whistles and car horns while they're trying to sleep. Set off a dozen people's car alarms. Michael Moore rented a pink bus and filled it up with some "Village People" type gay men and got on the megaphone outside their church a number of years ago. It was great.

Religious freedom is arguably one of the biggest issues of free speech. I don't consider the Westboro people to be a religion. They're more of a family based cult who use religion for tax write offs. (Using the family swimming pool for baptisms = tax write off? Puh-lease) But getting back to religious freedom. In the US as well as most open countries you can go to any church you want and participate in any style of religion. In the extremist countries, you must follow the one type of religion. Anything else is either against the law or at the very least threatened. The extremists (by our definition) follow choice # 2 above. But to them, they are the majority where they live. To them, the extremists would be the ones who want religious freedom to choose another type or no type at all.

So yes, while I view the WBC people as being worse than crack dealers. I wouldn't pass a law banning their free speech.

except when its a TOS violation

Why do Americans always compare them selves to Somalia/Afghanistan etc

Why can't they play in the big league with the big boys

It's so insecure to not be compared with 1st world countries. The Americans ALWAYS do this comparison.

Then look at the Kennedys and Lincoln and the others - and thats without going to John Lennon and Martin Luther King etc. This wild hate speech that drives all this stuff is not something to be proud of and has never been worth it. Where is the payoff ? Hate and violence only begets more and I don't think there is a payoff - not unless we consider providing meat to the cable channels as being a payoff.

You can't say what you want at work and you can't say what you want on VJ either - so why get away with it in the street or at a soldier's funeral etc ?

Why compare to Somalia/Afghanistan? Because that's the nature of comparative arguments. Why do people promote the idea of helmets on bicycles? So that people don't crack their heads open in the event of a bad accident. Nobody argues that people should wear them because even though you're about 99% unlikely to have an accident like that, that you should anyways. Same with cigarette warnings. They always say this may result in serious medical illness. It never says it may result in serious medical illness 50 years down the road. The best case for any argument is to provide the worst case for the alternate argument. Think of warnings about getting an electrical shock. They don't warn about pain. They warn about death.

I don't remember there being hate speech against the Kennedys. King? Probably, but you sure don't hear about it.

Work and VJ? These are private entities. Nobody is forcing you to abide by their rules. If you don't like either, you're free to post somewhere else and work somewhere else. But government laws are unavoidable.

You think that's bad? Here in Houston when the teamsters built a new union hall, they built it using non-union construction workers. When asked why, the teamsters answered that using union contractors would have cost too much. Oh the irony.

Nothing wrong with the wealthy generating wealth. I also never said we should take their money, rather, what I have said since day one is that instead of someone earning $100 million a year, they earn $60 million and the workers be paid a legitimate salary for their work.

Ford did the same thing you mentioned above back during the Model T days. The turn over rate was terrible working there. So they upped the wages. What do you know? Turnover rate dropped. Reliability of build went up (due to not having to constantly train new people). There is a certain intangible aspect of high turnover that it looks good on paper to the accountants but works poorly for the supervisor and co-workers of said workers.

People displying swastikas outside my house is an advantage of living in the US ?

Hate speech

This is a case of majority rules over the minority. It's precisely what the US is against. Even though to the common average person it may be sickening, to somebody else there is an aspect of free speech and personal choice involved. As long as it's not hurting others, there isn't a problem. Take the obvious case of countries that have banned being gay. The majority in these areas support the idea and are thoroughly disgusted that anybody would want to be gay or that they actually are gay (either way, what's the difference?)........But if a person actually is gay, that doesn't create any problems to other individuals.

Now to take hate speech, again this is something that the majority of people will be against the topic of the speech. But what is bad here could be good somewhere else even though it's considered evil. Take women's rights to protest under the Taliban. They would treat this with the same contempt that we look at hate speech as. But in the USA, you can say what you want. Over in Afghanistan you can't.

Robert Reich is saying that income should be more adequately dispersed so that all boats are lifted instead of just those in the top income bracket. There's no logic as to why most American's incomes have remained relatively stagnant over the last 40 years, while the upper 1% income has gone up exponentially. As he pointed out - the two largest income gaps in our history were followed by the two worst economic crisis and there is a correlation. With stagnant wages, most Americans have had to borrow their way to make ends meet. The rich don't pay high credit interest rates or ever have to resort to payday loans.

The rich tend to get richer because that is what they're good at. Somebody who has a Phd in engineering will always be able to negotiate a better salary than somebody who slid through high school. The real question is should we punish people for success? Some people are simply born with unique abilities. Even Mick Jagger, a famously liberal person pondered if the Rolling Stones should only earn 10% back in the 1970's with the government taking the other 90%. They wound up "living" in multiple countries to get away from the taxation system in place at the time. Too many people look at the wage imbalance as being tilted against the poor. The only thing high tax rates do is bring the rich back down to middle income or worse.

One of the few constants I see in 1929 and 2008 was government bungling of the finance system. In 1929, it was severe tightening of the money supply. In 4 years they shrunk the money supply by 30%. That's going to turn a recession into a depression. In 2008, you had a system were banks were forced to lend to people that you and I wouldn't lend $100 to. Bad credit? Verbal verification of job income? No money down? Here is your mortgage. And a teaser rate mortgage at that.

A consumer based economy is fine, so long as the good you are buying in a vast majority are made within your own nation. If you buy goods from another nation, and that nation doesn't buy the same back amount from you, then you're literally sending them money and never seeing it come back. It's a negative effect and possibly one of the greatest arguments for raising tariffs ridiculously high....

The only thing that high tariffs do is make it more expensive for the consumer to buy and harder for the business to sell to foreign buyers. The Smoot Hawley tariffs made the Great Depression worse. The money doesn't disappear when goods are bought from foreign countries. I've probably explained this before. But let's take a US dollar and a Japanese Yen. Assume a flat exchange rate, $1 = 1Yen. You buy $100 of electronics from the Japanese. What are they going to do with the money? Not much at first. Because there is nothing they can buy in Japan with $100 that they can't buy for 100 Yen. They'll have to sell those American dollars at a discounted rate. Say $100 = 95 yen. Multiply this by the thousands if not millions of transactions every day and the variable exchange rate system occurs. At some point in time, it becomes cheaper for the Japanese person to buy American goods and expensive for the American to buy Japanese goods. I noticed this with the Canada/USA exchange rates. When it was $1 USD for $1.60 Cdn back in the early 2000's, I bought very little from the US (lived in Canada at the time). Conversely, Americans were coming across the border and buying new cars and trucks at an alarming rate. Fast forward to the last couple of years when the exchange rate was roughly 1:1. Canadians were buying new vehicles from the USA.

Now suppose the American money that went to Japan didn't get spent by the Japanese buying US goods. Instead they bought German goods or Australian goods. The cycle still goes back to square one eventually. It's just that it takes a few extra steps along the way. The lost jobs from outsourcing are easily visible. The gained jobs are not as easily seen. The fact that your car cost $800 less because it was made with foreign rubber components means you can support your local restaurants by eating out more often. Nobody sees this. The cheap foreign produce at the grocery store means you have money to buy more expensive meat rather than ground round. But the only thing you notice is that these oranges were made in Mexico.

Add up the median cost of housing, health insurance, food, clothing and transportation, and you'll have a better sense of why so many Americans have borrowed their way to get by.

I often hear from the lefties that Americans should pay more for transportation. That gas prices are too low. Clothes are cheap and have always been cheap. It's just that people today want name brands instead of cheaper alternatives. For some reason people will spend more money on Nike Air shoes when they say "Jordan" on them. I wear New Balance shoes most of the time. For me it's a comfort issue rather than a brand issue. Health insurance is a whole debate in itself. Suffice to say, it's not the rich people who are paying for their health insurance that are driving up costs. It's the medicaid/medicare underpayments among a myriad of other problems with health care.

I don't know what data or measure the author is using to assert that wages are stagnant when adjusted for inflation, but the reality is that today the middle class has much more buying power and a higher standard of living. The amount of electronics, cars, clothing, housing, and other possessions that the middle class accesses and uses dwarfs anything from 70, 50, or even 20 years ago. Wages may or may not be stagnant, but the middle class has more access to goods and services than ever before. The economic collapse was caused by the simple greed of people who borrowed money to buy things they couldn't afford.

Free trade has allowed us to buy cheaper from abroad. Once you get government in there with tariffs and export quotas though, all bets are off. The notion that by taxing the consumer, that they will somehow benefit is confusing to me. The consumer doesn't get the tariff money in their pocket while at the same time buying the more expensive domestic item to offset the alternatively cheap foreign good. They simply pay more.

Ideally, the tax cuts of 2001 should be renewed and a new bracket added (The current highest bracket being 375,000ish?) at say 5 million @ 79%. That would discourage corporate raiding and encourage internal investment.

At the same time, I would lower the highest corporation tax to something like 20% and adjust from there.

You're going to kill the Googles of the world. Or they could simply move to another low-no tax country. I'd rather have Google workers paying 35% here and Google itself paying 20% than have them register in the Caymens.

I have to laugh when people here make it out as if Americans epidemically are simply living beyond their means. It's also quite a bizarre attitude to want to drive the country into the poorhouse, while the wealthy live it up - even in the worst recession ever.

I have traveled around the US and seen the North to south, east to west and can without a doubt say that outside coastal states, the average person is relatively poor. There are various parts of America that look like something out of a third world country country, yet you guys want them to cut back even more. Downsize from a trailer to a cardboard box perhaps and eat those Raman noodles [or even dirt] to get by; all why the wealthy just live it up for doing nothing. The only item I do see Americans overspending is vehicles. Many have trucks worth half their house, that get a good 10mpg.

The issue is not overspending. The issues come down to American corporations exporting jobs and putting profit over the country [ thanks crapmart], an unregulated and rouge real-estate market, wild-west consumer lenders, private companies that downsize at a seconds notice to protect profits and finally the reckless wall street. Then on top of that, you have a flood of cheap illegal labor will to work for almost nothing. Basically the perfect financial storm. It's no surprise that countries without these issues, have weathered the storm and offer a quality of life that most Americans simply cannot have period. e.g Australia and Canada.

I'd really like to hear where your tour of the United States was. From the sounds of it, you've traveled through Detroit, Oakland, as well as some of the rural areas of West Virginia and Mississippi. Possibly Arkansas as well.

Electronics naturally become cheaper the longer they are in production. Even housing has seen a fundamental change in construction. Someone mentioned their 1950s house of 900sq ft for 10,000 USD. My parents bought a house in the mid 1980s for about 30,000 with 2,000sqft. The prices are pretty comparible but.......I bet you will find that the 1950s house was built at a higher quality level with more detail than the 1980s house.

Basically in terms of architecture, America traded quality for size.

Housing.....in some cases yes, the quality was better then (mostly because people built homes to live in personally for long term). But in other ways, no. The 50 year old houses on the market were built with R-2 insulation. Or none at all! Single pane windows. One bathroom. At least the 20 gallon hot water tanks for a family of six are are mostly a historical note now.

Existence forces people to work accept wages that they don't agree to. If a person is starving they'll work 5 hours for a dollar (see third world countries).

That is true. The alternatives being?........3rd world country with minimum wages so that everybody starves. Pay them welfare for not working. The 3rd world countries tend to have bad education systems. Not a lot of specialized skills. Lots of people for a small amount of jobs.

I like the idea of co-operatives and employee owned businesses. I've been in them myself. The trouble with them is that they often aren't willing to take the drastic measures needed to STAY in business.

Its important to note that government spending is associated with wealth and the economy in general. Without a stable government, its nearly impossible to acquire wealth. Therefore it is in the interest of the wealthy to provide tax revenue. Obviously, the arguments of today are tied to what degree the government involvement should be to create a stable society that promotes the development of wealth for all people.

Monaco gets by without a federal income tax. They're pretty stable to me.

The places where it's impossible to generate wealth are the countries that don't practice capitalism. Taxation is an anchor on capitalism.

If you start a business that must rely on the labor of others to produce capital and that labor is not adequately compensated, is that not redistribution? If we can place monetary value on labor, then any production model where labor is undercompensated is effectively a redistribution.

Only in few select places could your statement be true. Things like prisons that make license plates and pay the prisoners 10 cents an hour. You could throw in charitable labor in that too if you wanted. Things like the Red Cross and other non-profit groups. But even then the Red Cross is a voluntary work program for those participating. As far as I know, you pretty much have to do something in jail.