They aren't getting rich off of me. Why are they getting rich off of you?

Do you know who you're talking to?

parr
 

It will alway's be Bush's fault, don't you know that Tracy. :rolleyes:

parr
 

And while they are at it, swing on by Jeffery Immelt's.

You're wrong about that. Say it to me, any time, and I will defend what I state and would challenge you to meet me in public, on a stage, and even come to where you are to wipe the floor with you in an honest debate

Now, you cleverly implied it. As you well know, there is both denotation AND connotation in language.

See my answer just above. You do this all the time, Tracy, and it's transparent to everyone who reads your posts. It's okay to do it -- that is, to make implications -- but when you have no argument to back them up why can't you just drop it instead of playing the "I-didn't-say-those-exact-words-and-I-dare-you-to-quote-me" game? Wouldn't a real discussion be better served by either backing up your statements or admitting that you can't?

Throw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, there's waste. We should focus on doing these things correctly, not on NOT doing them because our government doesn't do the right things. But I realize that if you don't want to do the hard work in a discussion of figuring out how to find common ground and consensus and actually do something constructive, it's a lot easier to write your last sentence just above.

We could drop the "offense" part and do just find. But in any case, we have the money to provide free education otherwise, too. It's all about priorities and whether profits for corporations and an uneven playing field for the rich come first.

Nice dodge. An apologist is someone makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, and so on. You legitimize Carolla's rant as reasonable discourse in the way you presented it here to the Forum, thus functioning as an apologist for it. My statement had nothing to do with anything else he has said. As is so often the case, though, you already knew that.

And now, dear readers who may be following this exchange, we come to the part where Tracy Coxx whines that he has been attacked personally. The last defense of Tracy Coxx is to reproduce Forum Rule 4 at the end of a discussion when Tracy Coxx cannot debate on the substance of issues. Spend a few minutes finding all the other times Tracy Coxx has done this, and you will get a real education in what the opposite of constructive discourse is all about.

I onderstand what you have to say, and see value in it. However, you must remember that I am a strong believer in State's Rights (thanks to my dad), I would like to see the Federal government scaled back to its constitutional limits.

I don't know how you are in real life, but I have enough experience on here to know what happens on the forum.

No. You are imagining things. I said what I said and that is what I meant, which is only that it has already been tried by Obama. Again you're debating what you think I'm saying rather than what I'm saying.

And there you go again.

And yet again, you're debating what you THINK I'm saying. I explicitly said "I never said those jobs shouldn't be done. And I'm fine with them being done by the government." Followed by "Billion dollar mass transit projects like in my town that only go 7 miles is a waste though." From this you conclude that I don't want these projects to be done by the government when I said the opposite. Yes there's waste, but I never said I wanted the government to stop working on infrastructure. It's so exasperating debating not only the actual issues that come up on this forum, but defending myself against what you imagine I'm saying as well.

Uh, no we don't. We're over $14 trillion in debt.

But that's not what you said. You said I am an Adam Carolla apologist after informing everyone about what else Adam supports, not an apologist for the one rant I posted.

What's to debate here? There's either your diatribes that are devoid of any real content or your debating your illusions of what I'm saying.

Thankyou W, as 1/3 of that is from his wonderful taxcuts for the the super rich
Then W put in two unfunded wars
Remember when W and his Vice said the Iraq war will be paid for out of oil profits
Iraq hasn't paid one damn dime

We can't afford to rebulid US roads or fix our schools but we can afford to rebulid Iraq WTF?????
Funny how the GOP never gives a damn about debt when they are in the White house they only start screaming about it when a Dem is in the white house they never said diddly about the debt Reagan ran up with his trickle down they only cared when Clinton was in office
When W stole the Whitehouse he was given a balanced budget and a surplus and with in his first three months both were long gone and the GOP said nothing as he started a massive debit the GOP didn't say diddly until Obama got the Whitehouse and for his whole term that's all they scream about and yet they refuse to end the Bush tax cuts which would do away with a big chunk of it
If they were serious about the debt the tax cuts would have been the first to go
:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

I stand by what I wrote about implications, denotations, and connotations. Otherwise, I would have to accept that on the one hand you are the only person I've ever come across who never, ever implies or connotes in communication, while on the other hand you partake in using the same approaches to language that other humans use. And that doesn't fit with anything I know about communication or anything I have ever encountered in all my years of dealing professionally with communication.

I'll let others to draw their own conclusions.

Debt is restructured all the time. It would be easy enough for the United States to nationalize the banks to whom debt is owed and deal with it that way ... for just one example of how it could be handled. Extending your logic, we should spend no money until everything is balanced. Good luck with that.

Nice try, Tracy. I presume you count on others not following the exchange as closely so that you can dissemble in this manner.

I wrote the following:

"Why you would choose to be an apologist for Adam Carolla, who says absolutely nothing in his rant to distinguish one Occupier from another, and who paints the entire Millenial generation with his broad brush, is beyond my comprehension ... unless you really do agree with him."

My charge was specifically about the rant, as you well know. The information about other things Carolla has done/said was introduced quite specifically as follows:

"By the way, for those readers who do not know, Adam Carolla is a TV and radio host who has notoriously attacked ethnic groups and women, and now the entire Millenial generation, with useless name-calling that is inappropriate at best and is highly offensive and that has no place in civil discourse at worst. Here are a few examples: ..."

That is, it was there to put him in context for everyone else. I did not make an assumption that you knew anything else about him, nor did I make an assumption that you were his best friend, nor did I assume anything in between about your connection to Adam Carolla.

I have nothing more to say about this rule that you keep bringing up. If you think I violate it and insult you directly rather than attacking your political positions and the method in which you dissemble to present them, contact the site owner as you have done in the past. We'll take it from there.

And good luck to you with your assumption that I would like the US to spend nothing until the debt is payed off. As usual you mischaracterize your opponents arguments to something ridiculous and try and claim victory over this artificial position. Rock on with that strawman argument smc.


Over the time you and I have been debating (what is it, a decade? seems like it...) they have drawn their own conclusions and I'm hearing support from them. Of course most of them won't say anything here. They're at least smart enough to know better.

And as I have previously replied in another post...That is utter and complete bullshit. The VAST majority of people DO pay federal taxes in the form of regressive payroll taxes. Not everyone has income tax liability...That is true. But the right likes to talk about the tax burden the wealthy pay...They like to leave out the fact that the top percentage of earners own the VAST majority of the wealth in the US. Given that the top 20% of earners own 80% of the nation's wealth, I have absolutely no problem with them paying a higher share of the tax burden. They wealthy already own the country...It's high time they start paying for it.

Could you do me the honor of reposting that post of yours here GRH? I knew you had responded to tslust in the past but I could not find it since I remembered no specific wording and I have not seen you active in a long time.

I meant to respond to tslust's assertion with something akin to your comment about "top wage earners owning 80% of the nation's wealth," alas Tracy got up to his old tricks again and I wanted to observe how that went down first. I guess I may as well post that soon.

In light of this, those that don't pay taxes shouldn't expect much of a say in how the country is run. That's one reason I'd like to see a flat tax so everyone has skin in the game.

Enoch Root???

:respect:You took the words right out of my mouth.

I too favor the idea of a flat tax. Be it either a swinging percentage based on tax brackets, or a fixed percentage. According to my uncle's idea, the government would take in at least 185 billion dollars each mnoth.

Taxing the rich is not an answer, cutting spending is! The rate the government is spending money (over 300 billion a month) is unsustainable. It doesn't matter how much taxes would be hypothetical raised, it won't ever be enough.

Fortunately, the Constitution doesn't "weight" the value of a vote based on the income of the person casting the vote. Otherwise, we might as roll over and hand the wealthy the small portion of the country they don't already own. They've already rigged the game to funnel as much wealth away from the middle class and towards them...Why not remove the few safeguards that are left in our democracy? We'll just correlate the value of a vote to the income of the person casting it.

You do realize that the wealthy pay lower "effective" tax rates (on their total taxable income) than most middle class earners? Middle class earners pay a full 6.2% for Social Security/FICA tax...This is on earnings up to $106,000 (which the vast majority of earners make below this). Meanwhile, the uber-wealthy pay the same 6.2% on their first $106,000 in earnings. Any income beyond this cap isn't taxed. So FICA taxes are regressive in nature. To a family making the median income of $50,000/year, they are paying in excess of 6% FICA tax. Meanwhile, if you have a millionaire bringing in $1,060,000 in income, this millionaire is only paying a 0.6% FICA tax.

On marginal tax rates, the wealthy do have a higher tax burden. However, to suggest that they pay "higher taxes" doesn't really elaborate on the way that marginal taxes work. EVERYONE pays the same tax rate on their first dollars of earnings. If I make $10,000 and a millionaire makes $1 billion/year-- guess what, we BOTH pay the exact same rate of taxes on those first $10,000 of earnings. If we each make an additional $50,000 of earnings...Guess what? The millionaire and I BOTH pay the exact same income tax liability on those dollars of earnings. It is only when the millionaire is making money in the next tax bracket (a bracket that I don't fall into because I'm poor) that they begin paying taxes at a higher rate. But technically, everyone pays the same tax liability on earnings. We already have a "flat tax" in this respect. The right likes us to believe that the poor "job creators" are taxed at 30+% on their TOTAL earnings-- this is simply not the case. The one caveat is that there are various deductions, loopholes, etc. which skew income tax liability for lower-income earners.

Now, the millionaire and billionaires do pay higher marginal tax rates. However, given that these individuals often receive substantial portions of their income through capital gains, dividends, carried interest, and/or stock options, they end up paying substantially less tax liability on these favored types of income. This is the reason that Warren Buffet has a lower effective tax liability than his secretary. I'm sorry, but for the second wealthiest American to have a lower effective tax burden than the secretary of his company suggests a deeply flawed tax system. And any attempt to make a "fair" or "flat" tax is merely a disguised way of shifting more of the tax burden to the poor (and by default, move tax liability away from the wealthy). And I think George Bush Sr. said it best regarding the old trickle-down theories of Reaganomics-- it's nothing but voodoo economics.

As usual, you accuse me of what you do. I didn't mischaracterize YOUR position. I extended your logic on my own.

I get between 100 and 200 PMs a day supporting my positions in our exchanges. :yes:

Oh, see how easy it is on the Internet to claim anything.

But I do give you credit for the last sentence, and its implication. Of course, as we know from an earlier post, your words never have implication or connotation.

Why don't you tell us precisely what you would cut to balance the budget, and how much.

I spoke of the wealth created by workers as they produce some good or service: a car, a house, plumbing, tech assistance, computers and their requisite components, etc. I spoke of these people and yet you retreated to that area the right wing so dearly loves: to throw out some percent, which usually seems to be 50 or above, of income tax paid by the ?ruling rich,? as smc terms them, as if this were proof they somehow do not take from the wealth created by workers. But if they do not take, that is, if they do not act as a parasite upon the working class, upon the majority of the population of any one country?by now the world?then how do you think they get the wealth they have? But you ignore this and focus instead on taxes and you commit the mistake of equating the wealth these people have, these people who make anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars an hour, with the wealth?or rather, lack of wealth?of the working class.

GRH once said something?and has now reiterated?along the lines of: they have 70 percent of the wealth so it is only proper they be taxed that high. You ignore this and focus instead on taxes because, after all, if the government takes it?s bad, even if the money goes to social programs that benefit the population, but if a corporation does it it?s as American as apple pie?hell! It?s good and proper and gosh darn it it?s sanctioned by thine Founding Fathers. Yeehaw.

Of course, your post ignores how much these people who ?pay no taxes? actually make and it ignores whatever other taxes may exist which the population is subject to and it ignores whatever tax evasion the ruling class gets up to and it ignores whatever rules are in place which said class employs most heartily so they end up paying little or no taxes at all, like that whole General Electric thing from a while back.

FYI, i didn't just pull that number out of my ass! In the original post I refered to, (back in July) I stated that different sources put it at different numbers. I simply averaged it out.

I was speaking of the Federal tax burden. I wasn't speaking of State, county, city, and sales tax. Furthermore, IDGAF how much money, wealth, property, pay someone does or does not have. How is any person, or (I guess I should say) a group of people "entitled" to partake of another's wealth?

Isn't the very concept of taxation to fund public goods, regardless of the level of taxation, based on taking wealth from individuals to distribute it (in the form of how it is spent) to the group?

Not in those terms. Taxation is "a burden laid upon individuals or property owners to support the government". The government may choose to spend some of this money on social benefits.

I was referring to taxation for social goods, as my post stated. The issue is with how it's spent, not that it's collected per se.

And I never used the term "social benefits." I don't think there is a social benefit to much of how the government spends our tax money, but the government does not simply collect the money to fill the coffers of individuals, as was the case with the English monarchy when the United States was a colony. (And before the shitstorm begins, I am not unaware that individuals can enrich themselves at the government teat. I mean that my tax dollars don't go directly into the account of some oligarch.)

The GOP are saying the DEMS are redistrubing wealth by taxing the rich and giveing it to the poor who are poor because they are lazy
While the GOPS beloved trickle down is a reverse Robin Hood by taking from the poor to give the rich
And does what they claim the DEMS are doing but in the other direction
And before you start yelling for a fair flat tax which is not fair as the super rich get another windfall by a even lower rate and those on the bottom recieve a higher rate
Perry's 20% flat rate lowers the rate for the rich and raises the amount for those on the bottom since those on the bottom pay no wheres near 20 % currently
So explain how a flat tax is fair, it shifts the burden to those on the bottom and a windfall to those on the top
Why do you think that systems is wanted by Steve Forbs and the Donald
Flat tax is another :coupling: from the GOP to the 89% not on top

:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

The Prison Industrial Complex and Racism:

http://prisondivestment.wordpress.co...of-immigrants/

Yes, it appears that the 10th amendment is being ignored, especially by the current administration.

What countries should we look to here? Europe? They're about to sink under their own weight of even worse fiscal mismanagement than we are going through. Europe's track record in the industrial revolution was 1: quickly eclipsed by the US and 2: was built largely on the backs of the working poor. Then, after nearly wiping itself out in The Great War, Russia went to communisim / stalinism & Germany, AFTER disarming its citizens (done by the Prussian elitists during the Weimar years) fell into nazism. France & Britain buried their heads in the sand and the resulting 20 year rematch was even worse. Are you also suggesting the eurozone's unemployment rate is lower than that of the US??? I haven't checked on this, but I would be surprised. I checked, It's 10.3% worse, as i expected.

I don't think we need to look to Europe.

Well, what about Japan? Sure. Japan, who's emperor was until 2 Sep 1945 was a Divine Being, has been in recession for well over 20 years straight.

There isn't much left, you're not suggesting China, are you???

No, we need to fix our own house and a good start is a change in the administration next year.

Don't put words in my mouth. I was quite clear about the social safety net. I said nothing about the European unemployment rate. Europe's problems are the result of global capital competition, not overspending on what makes Europeans have a better social safety net than the United States by orders of magnitude, the result of a social solidarity that Americans have been quite deliberately taught (falsely, to serve the interests of the ruling rich) is some kind of affront to their "liberty."

You presume that recessions, etc., are caused by social spending, and point to your examples. But something precedes those recessions, which is putting profits of corporations ahead of human needs and organizing government around ensuring that priority.

Finally, things like the Emperor of Japan being a Diving Being, etc., are clearly red herrings in a serious debate. Such an approach is transparently an attempt not to discuss the core of my post.

Europe's social safety net will disintegrate if they continue to spend themselves into disaster.

You state you didn't say anything about the European unemployment rate, yet this phrase is an allusion to that: "and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages".

Europe (especially western Europe, but eastern Europe as well) ) owes its existence and relative problem free past 65 years to the United States. And I'm sure the 30-40 million who died at the hands of tyranny in WW2 would agree.

You seem to ignore whatever points in a post will not conveniently fit into your preconceived notions of the world. The first sentence of your post reveals that to be true, because you have ignored the essence of all of my posts in this particular exchange, which have to do with changing the paradigm. And if that happens, the spending disaster to which you refer would not even be a concern.

But I understand how these things work. Heaven forbid we should think differently than the ways in which we have been taught in American schools, that is, the asinine notion that we are all better off when are in it for ourselves.

Aren't you part of the American school system?

This refers to Europe, does it not:
"It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, "

Well, it's not a recipe for success. Western Europe has been under the American Nuclear Umbrella for the past 65 years, and have not had to spend anywhere near as much on their own defense as the US, yet they are still on the brink of fiscal disaster due to excessive unsustainable spending. Your utopia is going broke faster then the US.

They have had a greater proportion of their national wealth to make things better, yet they are still on the edge or a disaster. And you want the US to do gown that same road???

I teach at a university, and I don't teach that crap.

I want the United States to go down a road that puts people before profits, period. You continue to ignore what I clearly wrote to make your points. Your comparisons to Europe are not the comparisons I made, and they are irrelevant to my thinking-outside-the-box point earlier on. I did not say we should be Europe, only that more social spending is better. And I stand by that. Sure, under capitalism, where the entire trajectory is to greater and greater exploitation, it is a recipe for disaster if one country tries to buck the trend in a global economy. But that's not what I'm talking about, and I believe you are smart enough to know that. But it's okay: if trying to ghost ideas and making it seem as if they're mine is all you've got, have at it.

When you say put people before profits, do you mean back rubs? Those can be free. Are you talking about services to people that cost little or nothing? Because without profits you can't offer much. Paladin was talking about how Europe can afford to devote more of their resources towards social programs because we take on a lot of their defense burden. Yet even so, they are going under. Whether you're talking about Europe or not, this is an example of what happens.

If not Europe, which country or countries should we emulate?

Tracy, please explain to me how you believe wealth in Wall Street to be generated.

I believe this would be called, The Corporatization of Education:

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/the-regency/

Of course.

Yes, obviously quite powerful. Yet, as there is no country to emulate, apparently no country has been able to pull it off. Maybe the need for profits are harder to ignore than you think.

Certainly not from my pocket book lol. Ok, they're getting rich off the work of several people, as well as off their own work. But I can't think of any CEOs getting rich off of my work. At least not any that aren't putting in a hell of a lot of work themselves. What I should have said was how are they impoverishing you, because they aren't impoverishing me.

So how do you reconcile the above with this from earlier on:

"...from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good..."

When you are referring to "most of the world's other industrialized nations" you are referring to europe, and look where all that good social spending has landed them.

The operative words in what you quoted are "the kind of social solidarity that created ... a communal sense of social good."

That Europe has gotten closest is a good example. I will make it clear for the last time: whether I did not write specifically that I do not seek to emulate European social democracies exactly in my earlier writing, I state it now. I am talking about something that transcends even Europe.

Happy now?

Maybe the need for the profiteers to resort to anything in their arsenal to ensure that their outlived class doesn't get pushed into the dustbin of history is greater than you think, and it takes longer.

This is a start but it does not address my request.

When a Wall Street investment bank is bailed out, lent money by the Fed at 0% interest ostensibly to reinvest in the economy, and then does nothing productive -- and yet gives its CEO and others million-dollar-plus bonuses at the end of the year -- do you think that CEO might be getting rich off YOU ... even just a little bit?

what we need is another Huey
 

What we need today is another Huey, this was a man before his time he was fighting the 1 percenters back in the 30s
If we had someonr like him today Rush and Ann would have blown a gasket by now and i know out very own Tracy will also blow a gasket after seeing this
http://youtu.be/hphgHi6FD8k

:cool: Santas naughty elf Jen

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=SR8Y7tO8yrI

If you are referring to Huey Long, that man was almost as corrupt & criminal ad Daly in Chicago.

Those assholes need prison time instead of bonuses...

Yes, true. Although I have never supported bank bailouts, and have spoken out against them in other threads.

Between the recently passed (I'm not sure if it's been signed into law yet.) National Deffence Authorization Act and the upcoming Stop Online Piracy Act, there's not much of the Constitution left.

And like the House and Senate we have today isn't?
Both parties are corrupt so in the end you have to pick do we want Robin Hood or Jesse James?
I'd perfer Robin Hood
:eek: Santas naughty elf Jen

Yeah, well America had a pretty good run didn't she?