I know, he is a total turd I cant stand him. I dunno how poor people can listen to him either, Im average and I cant listen to him. He is an example of extreme patheticness.
You make a accurate point, if this nation falls its all our fault as a society. Its sad because this is a scientific dictatorship running the country. All the propaganda, brainwashing, advanced psychological techniques, hijacking of the education system, promotion of irrelevant materialism by corporations is working. Much more to it than that, but ultimately we are failing as a people including myself.
on a side note-how can they even consider cutting medicare or social security? they are not handouts, i have paid into them for almost 35 years!!!! just give me my f'ing money back and be done with it-i am pissed!
Coming Soon: Smaller Raises for Seniors?
Lawmakers are considering changes to how Social Security is adjusted for inflation.
"When inflation rises, retirees' social security checks keep pace with small increases. But if some lawmakers get their way, those raises may be a whole lot smaller in the future."
Whole story:
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the simple fact that people with incomes under a million are buying into the republican bs of putting everything on the shoulders of the poor and average joe tells me everything i need to know. the 12 jurors of casey anthony look like einsteins compared to a guy working at walmart and voting republican.
But thats not true at all. The guy working at walmart pays a negative % of his income in taxes with tax credits, etc. Granted this chart was from 1999, but 2008 had some of the lowest collected taxes ever.
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The bottom almost 50% of incomes pay nothing in federal taxes, and actually collect money via the earned income credit etc. "Putting everything on the backs of the average joe" is a joke, everything is on the back of the people who earn a decent living and up and the average joe has had a free ride for a long time.
that's right wing propaganda...they pay 0% federal taxes, but take a look at how much ssn and medicare they are paying!!! plus state taxes here in indiana are a killer. then you have 7% sales tax.....geezus, no taxes my ass!!!
The "rich" people pay all those too, and its a lot more in net dollars. And my point above was there, the bottom 20% of earners don't even pay their whole SSN + medicare %. But they sure will be collecting and using it.
A person who makes 200k a year doesn't have any good reason to pay 100x more in taxes than a person making 20k a year. 10x more sure.
ok, if you want to look at it that way-warren buffet said that he pays less percentage taxes than his secretary. just because the wealthy are taxed at a higher rate doesn't mean they are paying it....the wealthy have accountants who are paid good money to make sure the wealthy get every tax break and loop hole possible. if the wealthy actaully paid 20% EVERY DOLLAR THEY EARNED THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE 10X MORE THAN THEY ARE PAYING NOW!!!!!!!! get real eric, you know this is truth!!!!!
Warren Buffet SAYS that, but he's wrong on the math. What you are talking is the leftist propaganda, the rich people avoid their taxes. I can tell you that in that inbetween area, accountants or not you can't avoid that much, and you still pay more than 0. (which is what the bottom 20% of earners pay). If you want fair, an even percentage of everyones dollars with no deductions would work, but that will raise the average joe's rate.
lol-that would raise everyones rate!!!! my problem is, if you work at walmart for 7.50-10 an hour, just how much more CAN you pay. it's disgusting to me that walmart is the countrys largest employer and 70% or more of the employees are well below the poverty level.
But "how much more can you pay" I have to think the answer is more than they currently do. If you bring your car to a repair shop, you shouldn't expect them to fix it for free because you don't make much. Same thing goes with federal taxes + services. Whats brought people to thinking the way you are now goes back to Roosevelt and the whole New Deal, the expectation that contrary to the Constitution that the federal government should provide services its not entitled to.
The reason so many people are below the poverty level is they don't have the skills or knowledge to do better. And that isn't the federal government's problem, its theirs and their parents. The bottom line is that the ability to make a liveable wage without education or significant skills continues to drop year over year. The other issue related to this is that people's expectation of what their lifestyle should be on that sort of wage has gotten ridiculous. In the 70s growing up with my father making that low end wage we grew some of our own vegetables, never had a car less than 15 or 20 years old, had 1 tv, no cable, etc. Now people expect to have an unskilled job but have flatscreen tvs, computers, ipads, cellphones, etc. Which just isn't going to happen and work out. If the same people spent the amount of time they spend watching sports on educating themselves, they could change their position. But they don't. And i'm not happy seeing even more of my pay taken away from me for that.
no what brought me to my way of thinking was my time living in the philipines. the difference between the u.s now and the philipines then seems to be getting much less.
give the poor a decent living wage, then you can ask for something back.
you and i are blessed to live good lives...i just hate seeing this country become a 3rd world country in terms of how it's WORKING poor are treated.
"the government should do something about this"
And the more they get involved the more things get screwed up for everybody as a whole. The Social Security act's failure was inevitable, as will the new mandatory insurance aka health care system the government has set in place. They screwed up the education system too just to name a few.
But there is no "right" to a good paying job, or a right to housing, food, etc. People have come to believe there is, but its not there. If you look at it, the decline of the US as a society began when? Right when people started thinking there was a right to those. The poor can make a decent living wage if they make the effort to educate themselves. There are all sorts of free programs, libraries, grants, student loans, etc. The fact that they'd spend their money on malt liquor and an ESPN subscription instead isn't the government's fault.
See I don't think we are blessed to be leading a good life, I think we both consciously made choices and sacrifices that brought us to having a good life. I know plenty of people who came from nothing and managed to do so as well. But they actually worked for it, not expected someone to hand it to them. And even with talking about elementary + high school education, its not the government's place to be totally responsible for each child's education, parents need to do their share as well, and many fail to having given in to the mentality of "the government should do something about this"
well then, maybe the poor ought to change the laws-remember there are many more poor than there are wealthy,lol. after all this country seems to be all about majority rules.....isn't that why we vote?
Sure, but what law are they going to change? raise minimum wage to $20/hr? that will just cause big macs to go up to $12. pass a law changing tax brackets? Then the people who have money will just maneuver it to not be subject to US laws, and the economy will totally collapse. More jobs will be lost, more effort will go into automation. The easy solution is for people to try and make better of themselves by getting skills that are useful. But they won't, so screw em. I grew up on free school lunches, and Salvation Army clothes and I put my own effort in to be where I am.
Bill Gates says that to fill US demand 3/4 of IT staff will end up HAVING to be outsourced by 2010 since our colleges aren't graduating enough students in the field to fill the constant growth.....
lol-the reason the economy is in such bad shape is because demand is down-the poor people have no money to buy anything.
what happened to ojt-why do you have to have a general diploma to do a specialized job? i know if you had a guy follow you around for a month he would be way ahead of a guy with a 4 year diploma!!!
Its much more than just poor people not buying things, these crooks at the top dont care a damn about this country and are planning on bankrupting this country. They look at China is the premier role model of how the new world order should look like.
Bankrupting America is the goal as the few on top will gain more wealth and power. The power and money will be going to the IMF.
These people have no values and are all just oligarchy, to them we are all just serfs.
Just think, 2.3 trillion! Well, thats nothing to what else they really took.
i think they have more problems in china than they are letting on.....even with the tight government control, i hear of rebellions spinging up in china. there is only so much people will take until they feel they have nothing to lose-it has been this way though out history.
I know much about china, they have 80,000 wide spread protests and demonstrations annually. None of that really matters. Ive gone there, its a bit complicated Im not sure where to start, but the way things are set up there its nearly impossible for that government to collapse especially since they are learning out of the Western playbooks on how to dominate and control peoples minds through modern scientific propaganda and control tactics...
If you listened to Hu Jintao's speech a few weeks ago in celebration of 90 years of the Chinese Communist party he is stressing the government needs to get more scientific in order to stay in power. What this means is they will rule with science, they control people using western scientific methods with their own Chinese accents. I got to know Chinese people there within the cities, they are extremely supportive of the government and that government has successfully build a tight knot security in order to cement their power.
BecauseA it really is longer than a few months for them to become productiveB without them having a basic understanding of terminology and ideas it would take even longerC without them having proved the can apply themselves and they aren't an idiot, its not worth it for a company to pay them plus tie up a higher end resource to give them ojtD the sorts of jobs that are reasonable to do ojt tend to be the sorts of jobs that are easily automated.lol-the reason the economy is in such bad shape is because demand is down-the poor people have no money to buy anything. what happened to ojt-why do you have to have a general diploma to do a specialized job? i know if you had a guy follow you around for a month he would be way ahead of a guy with a 4 year diploma!!!
very interesting.....most people in this country aren't that supportive of the government!
BecauseA it really is longer than a few months for them to become productiveB without them having a basic understanding of terminology and ideas it would take even longerC without them having proved the can apply themselves and they aren't an idiot, its not worth it for a company to pay them plus tie up a higher end resource to give them ojtD the sorts of jobs that are reasonable to do ojt tend to be the sorts of jobs that are easily automated.
i disagree...they could A-do aptitude screening. B-pay less to start than a college graduate. C-teach them exactly what they need to know in a classroom. D-pick only the ones who can do the job. E-train them in their actual duties.
you have to pay a college graduate more money just for having a degree-then you have to train them anyways...my way makes much more sense.
the military does it this way.
The military does it that way because they can get away with paying dirt, and with charging you criminally if you try to leave. The ASVAB is a joke, if you can't pass all areas of that you probably have a hard time tying your shoes in the morning. Aptitude for more complex tasks is harder to judge and prove, so its higher risk for a company to create standardized tests for it. Hence why colleges are still important, they prove you at least can commit to something.
And part of it is that most of the military duties are things that are also relatively easily automated, and don't require a whole lot of creativity. Thats just not true in things like software design, chemistry, etc.
geezus-you can't believe the creativity required to get a project done in a limited time frame while adhering to specfic guidelines. you office types have no idea what it takes to actually do something. nothing ever works as planned, lol.
as to the military....i would take my old crew in the navy over over all the brainiacs in the world-those guys knew how to get the job done.
blue collar all the way-without us everything would still be on the drawing boards, someone has to actually work to get things done!!!!!
Ha, if I had to get my projects done on a military timeframe and military budget, i'd be thrilled to death![]()
if you are on search and rescue detail and you have someone in the water in rough seas in pitch darkness you would be thrilled to death-i guarantee it, lol.
Instead of cuts the Pentagon could just face slower growth is a total joke, as that's all that is happening in other programs as well. We would have done better dropping all spending to 2008 levels. And $50 billion over 11 years isn't some windfall to the Pentagon, its not enough for them to notice. You could easily tell it was written by leftist wanks
Oh sure, my point more was that Medicare has been getting far greater breaks each year as Congress passes a new bill each year undoing the Medicare cuts as they are supposed to have been happening. And again it shows the short sightedness of our politicians, instead of the 2-5% drop per year, the sum of all those years undoing the planned cuts means restoring Medicare to a balanced budget requires cutting payments to providers by over 30%. Considering doctors already only get 75 cents on the dollar for treating Medicare patients vs private insurance another 30% off that means very very limited availability of doctors willing to take Medicare