The Wealthiest 1% Should Immediately Have ALL Of Their Assets Seized

[Orwellian_Ghost]

http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?p=1320





The reality is that the Washington Post and the elite clique for which it is a mouth piece have badly failed us and our children. The housing bubble was easily recognizable. The economic disaster that we are now facing could have been easily avoided if the Washington Post and its elite friends (e.g. Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Henry Paulson) were not too incompetent or corrupt to see the evidence of problems everywhere. Needless to say, those of us who did try to issue warnings were ignored by this elite crew.

<snip>

The point is that the Post and it crew of cronies have badly failed the world in a large number of ways and continue to do so. The Post and Hoagland's efforts to attribute the blame to the rest of us for the trouble caused by the greed and incompetence of their elite clique deserve nothing but contempt and ridicule.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/washington-post-the-probl_b_152649.html

[NYC_SKP]

1. K and R.....nothing to add.

[humbled_opinion]

242. As I was lighting up my Pubbie co-workers with this

and discussing how Obama could steer us out of this mess.

I got slammed with the fact that Obama is spending 2 weeks vacation in an $8500 per night rental house in Kailua HI.

It was a do as I say not as I do moment.

[NYC_SKP]

261. Have you considered the secret service component of his stay in Hawaii?

I don't know, but it is probable that the typical accommodations wouldn't pass the security test.

I rather doubt that as a private citizen or even as a senator he would have been spending anywhere near that amount.

He's going to be flying on a big jet from now on too.

[FailureToCommunicate]

303. Obama HAD found one for less $, but there was no room for Secret Service...

You can tell what radio your co-workers listen to by what talking points they repeat.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. As Thom Hartmann has often said

Never mind the Bush tax "cuts", it's time to roll back the REAGAN tax "cuts".

I'm also in favor of a 100% "death tax" for inherited income, so people like Chimp Bush and Paris Hilton no longer gain fame and wealth for doing absolutely NOTHING. But at least Paris' grandparents didn't kill anybody (as far as I know)

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. I'd like to see a floor on that "death tax"

Middle income people could be hurt by this. After losing both my parents and my husband's, I was surprised by how much of an estate a middle class couple could accumulate. For example, my in-laws didn't have an 'estate', but their house was paid for so there was money for their heirs once the house was sold. Not a huge amount, but I would have hated to have paid taxes on it.

[dysfunctional press]

44. "Not a huge amount, but I would have hated to have paid taxes on it."

but it wasn't "your" money. anything you get from an inheritance- even after taxes, is still "found money".

that being said, i'd rather see an estate tax with an exemption on the first 1 or 2 million dollars in an estate.

[ShortnFiery]

47. It is my understanding that "the first SIX (6) Million" is not (or LOW) taxed on Estates.

Hey, even if I had Paris Hilton's mommy and daddy, I could live "quite handsomely" and donate large sums to charity each year with SIX MILLION dollars at my disposal. :shrug:

[PassingFair]

53. I think it used to be 625,000 per parent.

So a couple could inherit 2.5 million tax
free between 4 parents, if they were that
lucky.

Family business and farms were treated differently,
although the anti-"death tax" advocates deceptively
used them as examples of people who were hurt by
the "death tax".

I'll be luck to inherit 6 THOUSAND dollars from
my parents...and I would be willing to be taxed on
THAT.

Charitable donations have dropped off precipitously
since they stopped taxing estates because the rich
had previously to USE IT or LOSE IT.

[ShortnFiery]

60. Thanks for the information.

I need to bone-up on finances within our American History.

Very interesting and thanks again. :hi:

[rhett o rick]

166. Your 2.5 million from 4 parents would require that the 4 parents were all single.

Otherwise the surviving spouse would most likely inherit.

[tclambert]

245. 4 single parents? Some sort of biological experiment gone awry?

Sounds like the plot of the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito movie Twins. Or did they have 7 fathers? The IRS auditor is gonna have fun with them.

[dysfunctional press]

288. divorce happens.

:shrug:

[dysfunctional press]

65. i was just stating where i'd like to see the tax take effect...

i have no problem with people leaving a reasonable sum to their heirs, after a lifetime spent earning it, but i don't think that HUGH fortunes should be passed on and built upon from generation to generation.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

259. My mom has chosen to give a lot of her assets to us now

while she is still alive. I got her car, my brother her house. I have no problem with this, as he is living near her assisted living center and is looking after her. What she has left are the money investments that are paying for her care and some family heirlooms.

[dysfunctional press]

287. my parents are the same- my dad always says he'd rather give with a warm hand than a cold one.

and they can enjoy seeing how they're helping.

[tclambert]

244. Here's what Wikipedia says about the estate and gift tax exclusion:

"For a person dying during 2006, 2007, or 2008, the "applicable exclusion amount" is $2,000,000, so if the sum of the taxable estate plus the "adjusted taxable gifts" made during lifetime equals $2,000,000 or less, there is no federal estate tax to pay. According to the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the applicable exclusion will increase to $3,500,000 in 2009, the estate tax is repealed in 2010, but then the act "sunsets" in 2011 and the estate tax reappears with an applicable exclusion amount of only $1,000,000 (unless Congress acts before then)."

and

"the federal estate tax is effectively a flat tax of 45% once the unified credit exclusion amount has been exhausted."

If that's right, the inheritor gets to keep all of the first 2 million, and 55% of the amount above 2 million.

[GTurck]

54. The Estate Tax...

cuts in on the first $2.5million for an individual($5million for a couple). Your statement indicates how successful the right as been on this issue. It needs to go viral that the tax only does effect the rich. Never use the term 'death tax' it is a Grover Norquist created term and just makes it seem as though it effects everyone who dies - which is why it has been so powerful for the right.

[dysfunctional press]

64. i never used the term death tax.

perhaps you replied to the wrong post?

[Enthusiast]

270. You said it exactly correct, GTurck.

They keep repeating that "Death Tax" to death. They have all these Limbaugh listening idiots making $30,000 a year believing their "estate" will be sold to pay taxes.

[NashVegas]

349. People Need to Stand Up to the "Death Tax" Meme

And call a million dollar inheritance for what it is: a lottery jackpot.

[rhett o rick]

168. I think that estate tax should be considered on how much money is inherited by the individual

not the estate size. If an estate of 10 million is divided among ten people it shouldn't be taxed more than an estate of 2 million divided among two people, but it is today.

[dysfunctional press]

175. the tax is not on the people receiving the money.

it's ultimately on the(estate of) the person who died.

but- if they were to do it your way and tax the recipients instead, i'd rather see them do away with the estate tax altogether, and just treat it as regular income.

[rhett o rick]

195. The purpose of the estate tax is to prevent the development of an aristocracy.

If the estate is divided into a lot of parts then it isn't as important to tax as if it were to go to one individual, therefor the tax amount should be determined on the amount an individual gets and not the total estate. I agree with you that over a certain tax free amount for the inheritor, then tax as income.

[dysfunctional press]

201. your way would create an aristocracy even faster, by allowing a family to keep more money.

divide the estate among the kids to avoid the tax-bite, but keep all the wealth in the family.

"I agree with you that over a certain tax free amount for the inheritor, then tax as income."

i didn't say anything about a tax-free amount if they aren't going to tax it as one estate- if the tax is to fall on those that inheirit the money- then ALL of it should be treated as regular income...and i don't mean as capital gains.

[cpamomfromtexas]

279. I like this concept, it encourages spreading it around.

[dysfunctional press]

292. actually, it encourages an aristocracy.

wealthy families would be able to keep more and more of their wealth within the family.

[bigscott]

218. not entirely -

some of us spend a lot of $$ helping our parents stay in their home in their old age - inheriting 100,000 after their deaths is not "found money" all the time

[dysfunctional press]

289. if the parents need financial assistance, it's a good bet they aren't going to leave an inheritance.

and if the kids are paying the bills/mortgage to keep them in the home- the home shouldn't even be in the parent's name- it makes more sense to put it in the name of the people paying the bills, otherwise it could end up being lost if the parents have to go into an extended care facility. it happened to a buddy of mine.

[Dappleganger]

380. Exactly!

We are already paying $$ out for my father, and my husband's parents pay big $$ each month for his grandmother's ALZ care.
To get an inheritance from any parent would be a pipe dream in our family.

[NashVegas]

348. That's Still Too Much

Unless that estate is part of a business the inheritors worked to build, it's money for nothing and it needs to be taxed just as much as any Lotto jackpot.

[Doremus]

56. Even in the 1990s the first $1M of an estate was exempt from tax.

That seems like a good threshold as most people's homes would fall under that amount, especially now.

I do believe at one time there were very strict limits on the amounts that could be inherited. Our forefathers had no appreciation for silver spoon punks.

[Raster]

63. "silver spoon punk" = george w. bush*

*Poor george can't help it, he was born with a silver spoon up his nose.
With all due respect to the late, great Ann Richards, may She rest in peace.

[mopinko]

105. there is a floor.

there always has been. iirc, it is about $12M.

[John Q. Citizen]

131. There were never taxes on anything less than 600 thousand, just on amounts over 600 thousand.

And that could and probably should be indexed.

But wiping out inheritance taxes completely was stupid, short sighted, and as regressive as it gets.

[Asgaya Dihi]

141. self delete

Someone else already covered it

[DeeDeeNY]

157. There actually is a floor on the estate tax

It doesn't kick in until something like over 2 million. And if there's a surviving spouse, the estate tax is zero.

[rhett o rick]

170. 100% is unreasonable. The purpose of the estate tax is to prevent

aristocracies from developing. This is what many of our founding fathers feared. But there can be a reasonable limit. Like each person can inherit 1,000,000 tax free. Above that, there should be a stiff tax.

[Swede Atlanta]

181. Couldn't disagree more

I agree with your premise that the "ultra rich" shouldn't be able to use our tax system to pass on egregious and immoral sums of money to offspring that haven't done squat other than ruined every business they every went into and nearly ruined the world (i.e. GWB).

But there are legitimate transfers of wealth from generation to generation that actually benefit society. A family that saved and scrimped and pass on $750K to two offspring should be able to do so. A family business that generated a going-concern value of $3M shouldn't be taxed on the $3M but allowed to pass that value on.

Where I draw the line is something above $5M. I see that as the line in the sand between the "doing better than others or maybe even much better than others" and the ultra filthy rich. It is the latter I want, or demand to attack. I want to see the smirks on their faces disappear and find them counting the cans of beans in the pantry. It is a fantasy I agree but what a fantasy. Darth Cheney, the habitual eater, going to the pantry and finding NOTHING to eat. Maybe he'll chew off an arm or two. I am an eternal optimist.

[tclambert]

246. GWB's parents died? When did this happen? Darn lazy news media.

[aquart]

187. Don't be ridiculous.

You're saying my sister and I can't inherit my mother's house? Only a complete idiot would propose that.

[MikeNearMcChord]

265. Don't call it the "Death Tax" Call it the "Paris Hilton Tax"

since it goes to the heirs, just say no family aristocracies!

[Enthusiast]

269. But, but, Sebastion!

Then Bush could not have been born on third base believing he had hit a triple. Now what is wrong with you?

[truedelphi]

3. K & R. n/t

[balantz]

4. Kick and rec.

Will Obama be our hero and seize the assets of the top 1%?

We are going to find ourselves in desperate need of big help real soon after the thieves get done with us.

Are we going to be left in the cold?

We've been thoroughly robbed.

[tblue37]

5. I think Madoff has already seized a significant portion of those assets. nt

[rockymountaindem]

7. No, that shitbag seems to have only looted charities n/t

[sandnsea]

9. He took all kinds of money

Lots of people have lost their invested assets to that bastard.

[Peggy Day]

114. You mean MADE OFF with the money? nt

[earth mom]

11. Obama is not going to take money from friends like Oprah etc.

In our dreams.

[SammyWinstonJack]

32. True that!

[deaniac21]

75. That could be detrimental to his 2012 fund raising.

[balantz]

80. Good point! The rest of us won't have extra money to promote politicians. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

6. We are so fucked

And people wonder why I have *zero* hope these days. I hope there's something left for us when it's my generation's turn to govern 20-30 years from now.

[cabluedem]

18. My generation is just as corrupt as the ones we had as a youth so dont get up much hope for yours.

[sandnsea]

8. Which proves labor is not the problem

Now if every worker in the country could see those graphs and come to the logical conclusion...

[KharmaTrain]

10. Good Luck On Collecting...

The truth is the "elite" didn't "fail us"...they were never "us" to start with. If anything, "we" failed us for standing idly by for years as 'deregulation' meant zero oversight and and markets totally detached from reality...companies making money on "projections" as opposed to actual earning, to hedge funds and other ponzi schemes that promised double digit returns with no basis other than "trust me" as a reason to invest and a repugnican regime in Washington that threw money at their "base" like there was no tomorrow...and now tomorrow is today.

I only with it were one newspaper or a couple that were the source, but the greed was everywhere...and as long as people were making money, or thought they were, no one dare rock the boat. Now that the deck of cards finally crashed, people want answers? Or a simple scapegoat?

[earth mom]

12. Great notion, but the people in U.S. government aren't gonna do that to their friends, relatives or

themselves. :grr:

[1]

13. off with their heads!

"their elite clique deserve nothing but contempt and ridicule."

i hate cliques. that's why i can't post in the lounge...

[Usrename]

15. heads on pikes!!!

someone needs to make examples of these folks

[Citizen Number 9]

51. I'm sorta curious as to how you

(and my distant cousin, CasualWatcher9) there, have been raised to develop such sentiments.

[rhett o rick]

68. Not wanting to speak for the poster, but it's probably a metaphor. nm

[Citizen Number 9]

90. Maybe, but I thought a metaphor

was where you compare something in a way that can't be. For example, the Oxford compact Dictionary says it's a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable.

You might say that someone was "a lion" in their defense of something and that's a metaphor because no one has actually turned into a lion.

However, there have been a number of unhappy circumstances in which bad actors have actually placed human beings' heads on pikes. I know there are many different kinds of metaphors, but this seems different.

In any case, I'd never employ it against another person.

[mitchum]

139. I agree with "off with their heads" in a literal, not metaphorical, sense

dead men do no more mischief

[tama]

145. That's funny

I haven't yet met an anarchist who wants to kill other humans, even though they are the once that get beaten most by cops and often murdered. Liberals, commies, socialists, fascists and others supporting state violence seem to often have daydreams about killing and murdering on massive scale.

[mitchum]

158. Link to assertion that anarchists are beaten and murdered far more often than we "commies"?

Otherwise, you just pulled that out of your ass, didn't you?

[tama]

160. Simple deduction

based on different behaviour. And life experience. I've been to many commie demonstrations, no hardship from cops ever, I've been one anarchist demonstration and heard and read about many. Very different.

[mitchum]

163. Ahhh...anecdotal evidence

well, I guess that clears that up

[tama]

167. Any case

it shouldn't be a competition and was not intended that way. The point is, state is violence.

Fact is commies - if that is what you sign into - want to take over state and use it's monopoly of violence. Anarchists don't.

[tclambert]

248. Riiight. The anarchy of the Wild West was known for its quiet, peaceful lifestyle.

And Somalia, where no effective central government exists, that's the most idyllic land on Earth. Ignore those stories of pirates!

Anarchy always, always, always leads to despotic tyranny. Might makes Right is a lousy basis for a society.

You are arguing that King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table introduced more violence than the Robber Barons who preceded them. And maybe that was true for a while. Then came a period of law and order.

[tama]

255. Different use of the word n/t

[Citizen Number 9]

176. Sure, but

they only daydream about neutralizing those who don't agree with them. In that respect, I hope you don't think members here are any different from the right-wingers.

As long as we're comparing, I have never met an anarchist who could break 100 on Stanford-Binet, but I know a bunch of bright liberals and Socialists who could top a SD or two. The Fascists and the real Commies are usually just too mentally ill to get a good read read on them.

But that's just my experience. :P

[Hannah Bell]

230. bull on both counts.

[Name removed]

336. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pipi_k]

150. If they ever sell lottery tickets

for gutting and skinning them, I'll be first in line with an assortment of Ginsu knives

[Usrename]

219. It's purely a case of self-defense.

Don't you believe in that?

In either usage (literal or metaphorical) the object is the same. These monsters should be stopped because it's also the right thing to do.

They will not police themselves, they don't even know why they should. For many of these criminals this is their third go round (Nixon, Reagan, Dubya).

Or haven't you been paying attention?

[Jester Messiah]

237. Ooh, is it time to murder those we disagree with??

Sweet! Where do we pick up our brown shirts?

[valerief]

254. Let them eat cake--from a dumpster!

:mad:

[leftstreet]

14. K&R

[Selatius]

16. The wealthy aristocracy would sooner send a Franco-style death squad to your door than give it up.

There would be a full-scale war right here at home between leftist forces and rightist forces. The example that comes into my head off the bat is the Spanish Civil War, and that was a war the right wingers led by fascist dictator Francisco Franco won. Untold thousands of left wing dissidents were "liquidated" in the prison camps in the decades following the defeat of the Spanish Republic. It was class war.

[ShortnFiery]

38. You got that right!

And there's a few folks here who'd, IMO, readily volunteer for the "Corporation's Rule SS" because THEY have deluded themselves into believing that they too could either be in the upper 1% or would receive "tastee scraps" from their bloated ruling elitist masters. :(

[mitchum]

140. There are plenty of bootlickers on this very thread...

who would volunteer for "Corporation's Rule SS"
They do love those scraps and occasional pats on the head

[Enthusiast]

272. And exactly the same would happen here.

And the ignorant poor would fight and die for the right of their wealthy masters to remain wealthy. They would be aligned with the wealthy because of some ideological issue like "prayer in school" or creationism or something. Most likely abortion. Guns? They have 'em all. I would be liquidated.

[anaxarchos]

332. I'm thinking that...

...a healthy number of the "ignorant poor", some of whom support the Republican Party today, would actually vote "yes" on the OP's referendum question. I was thinkin' that this was the OP's way of "reaching across the aisle", so to speak. I dunno but I would think you would get a lot of support. Among some of the posters above, though... not so much.

[dems_rightnow]

339. I sort of agree...

... that the "ignorant poor" might support the idea. In fact, "ignorant" would be a pre-qualification for anyone supporting taking all of someone's stuff away for no legitimate reason, other than they have it.

[anaxarchos]

358. Afraid of the "mob", are we?

One hundred years ago, 70% of Americans were small property holders... i.e. they owned their own means to subsist. Today, it is much less than 7% (I won't quibble about the number). The concentration of property in the hands of the 1% is a direct function of the expropriation of the rest. You don't have any problem with that, it seems... so the issue must be "legitimacy".

Perhaps the "ignorant" are incapable of reading the "fine print".

[Swamp Rat]

17. k&r

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. y = 1/x (nt)

[annabanana]

20. Katherine Graham is spinning in her grave.

This would not have happened under her stewardship.

[dems_rightnow]

21. Then we'd have a new top 1%

We could do them, too. And keep going until I'm in the top 1%. That's going to take a good while.

[pipoman]

22. Because we all know that the top 1%

are all Pugs...errr...nevermind...

BTW anyone know what percentage of the population the top 1% employ?

It is always fun to blame the other guy for all the bad things, how many dems were/are misusing credit, buying homes they couldn't possibly afford, speculating on the housing market, etc. I suspect a lot. At the same time * has been in office, Dems have controlled no small amount of Washington power. The sooner we all get over ourselves and look at these problems objectively, the sooner real solutions will arise...seizing wealth from anyone (not implicitly involved in actual criminal activity) will not fix anything...just another snake oil scheme.

[Cid_B]

25. You sir...

... are a gentleman and a scholar.

Christ.

"I don't like the fact you have so much stuff. I want stuff. I'm going to take your stuff" There, I just summed up the whole thing. Presto Chango.

[anaxarchos]

66. Is it really about "stuff"?

How much of the total reported by the OP is personal "stuff"... houses, cars, boats, airplanes, jewels... no matter how lavish or absurd? Only a tiny proportion is the answer. How much is social stuff? Henry Ford once admitted that without the command of labor, all he could do was sit down in the middle of an empty River Rouge and cry.

So you think that someone has the absolute right to command the lives of thousands or millions because that is their "personal" stuff and that they can dispose of as they please? How did it get like that?

Or did God command it, as he did with Louis XVI?

[Cid_B]

81. Well...

He depended on them for labor. They depended on him for a paycheck.

[anaxarchos]

87. Same as the slaveholder and the slave.

"He depended on them for labor. They depended on him"... for survival. The questions are simple and similar. How does it come about that one doesn't work but commands the labor of others while others work and don't even command their own? This is far beyond the question of "stuff". How is it that some end up claiming social property (even humans themselves), as their own?

[pipoman]

134. You always have the option of starting your own business

otherwise I am not seeing the difference between what you are describing and anyone (in fact most everyone) who has a boss. A boss' job is in fact to coordinate the labor of others, by definition, and anyone who believes that isn't work has never done it. Anything else would be work anarchy? Is this what you are advocating or am I missing something here?

[tama]

162. Your logic is infallible

indeed, if you don't want to be a slave bossed around - or become a boss - then anarchism or same attitude by any other name or noname is the correct answer.

[Usrename]

221. Right on. It's their birthright to be supported by others.

The wealthy are entitled to extort money from the poor.

It's a big Monopoly game, don'tcha know?

[Cid_B]

226. What the hell is extorted?

They provided a service ( labor ) the "boss" provided them funds in exchange for that service. What the hell is wrong with that?

[tama]

256. Slavery

If you are not a well-behaving wage-slave selling yourself to some boss, you don't eat. That's extortion. In this Ponzi-scheme you don't have freedom not to participate.

[Cid_B]

263. God damn it...

Someone has to make the widgets. The choices are work and receive compensation in return or sit on your ass all day, do nothing and starve.

I'm ok with this arrangement.

Seriously, what is your alternative?

[tama]

271. The alternative

Forget the widgets, God damn it, relearning self-reliance in sustainable and self-sufficient communities. Back to basics and relearning human dignity.

It's not exactly "my" alternative, just something Mama Nature tells us to adapt to. I'm not saying everyone will adapt or that it will be easy. It's just unavoidable. On what kind of time-table, I prefer not to know - in order to preserve hope.

[Cid_B]

295. Look...

If you want to go live in some organic commune and talk to trees that is fine. The rest of the world wants and deserves high tech medicine, communication and a million other things.

You don't create satellites in "self-sufficient" communities. You don't discover a cure for AIDS. You don't have information passed around the world to doctors, lawyers, researchers in an instant.

[tama]

297. Well

the rest of the world may want what it wants and a million other things, that doesn't mean it will get it and be able to keep it. Despite it's strong hubristic conviction, rest of the world is not God All-mighty. It saddens and worries me greatly to see their hopes crushed, having put all their eggs in one basket.

[maryf]

311. If someone has to make the widgets...

That would indicate that the widgets are important...the makers are thus more important than the widget factory owners, fair compensation for their working conditions...and it should come out of the share holders pockets...Or am I being convoluted here?

[Usrename]

318. Don't you get it? Not EVERYONE has to make that CHOICE.

There are those that sit on their ass all day, do nothing, and make billions off of other people's labor.

Or don't you think the wealthy should have to work too? They get a free lunch? Only the poor have to do anything to survive?

It's extortion when some people have to work or starve, while others (the ones who own the food) don't have to do jack except threaten to starve people. Isn't it extortion to make that kind of threat?

What is it that you don't understand?

Do you think ONLY those folks who are born poor ever have to do anything, and those born rich get the free ride?

Why would you hold poor people to a different, higher standard? Is it some sort of crime to be poor?

Should the poor be punished for the crime of being poor?

[Cid_B]

325. Jebus save us all....

Define work. What the hell does that mean?

Is it only the poorest peons who meet your criteria of moral people? What about the shift supervisor? Is he exploiting someone cause he makes 3 dollars more an hour? The middle manager? The regional director? The vice president of PR? The CEO?

Do you only blame the very top single person or just anyone who is in charge of someone else's work?

It isn't extortion to have it be work or starve. People should work for their money, their food, their car and their child's education.

It isn't a crime to be successful or even to inherit money. It is along the same lines as winning the lottery. Random chance of huge success with a ginormous payoff.

Some of the biggest whining I have ever seen has been because people don't realize that the social strata of our society is a goddamn bell curve from poor to rich. Yes, some people start at different points along that curve but they all have the option to move to the left or the right.

Being rich, in and of itself, is not a crime or even a moral failing.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

327. This is not a mtter of morality

It is a matter of social justice.

Again, your comment about how people have "options to move to the left or right" is patently false unless you consider miniscule movement to be the criteria.

There are countless studies that prove conclusively that not only is it true that folks do not as a rule rise into higher strata but that even moreso folks who are born into the higher strata rarely leave such lofty and ill-gotten kingdoms.

Feudalism isn't dead it's just dressing better these days.

Understanding Mobility in America

April 26, 2006

Read the full report (PDF)

The key findings relating to intergenerational mobility include the following:

*
Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.
*
Children born to the middle quintile of parental family income ($42,000 to $54,300) had about the same chance of ending up in a lower quintile than their parents (39.5 percent) as they did of moving to a higher quintile (36.5 percent). Their chances of attaining the top five percentiles of the income distribution were just 1.8 percent.
*
Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by which economic status is transmitted from parent to child.
*
African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.
*
The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.

<snip>

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html

No matter how many times the Horatio Alger myth is trotted out it is still a lie.

[Usrename]

334. Being rich, in and of itself, is not a crime...

Not everyone who is rich is a criminal. All it takes is a few that are above the law.

How does it make sense that billions of dollars disappear and no one even bothers to look for it?

Take just one minuscule crime, for example the disappearance of 360 tons of money in Iraq.

360 tons!



http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06312951.htm

Mid-2003:

A reporter in Iraq stands on a pallet filled with shrink-wrapped bricks of C-Notes

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2006/10/04/its-ok-to-vote-for-foley-florida-elections-officials-say/?p=4583


It's gone and nobody is even looking for it. Every $100 billion of taxpayer money that goes missing is about $1000 per taxpayer, assuming 100 million taxpayers.

Who do you think should be held responsible, the working poor?

What about the trillions missing from the Pentagon or from the TARP?


I'd be perfectly fine if everybody had to earn a living, just like in your fantasy world. Only that isn't the real world as it exists today.

The Uberwealthy just buy up governments and law enforcement and then rob everyone blind with no consequences. These are the folks who need to be stopped. If it takes knocking everyone in that class down a peg or two to do it, then so be it. They don't seem to be able to police themselves, they don't even think they should try.

Economic justice isn't just a philosophical concept, although you seem to think this is all just some kind of ideological whining and ranting.

I'm trying to talk about the reality of the situation we find ourselves in, and you'd rather go on about some fantasy world where everyone works for a living. Where is this idological Utopia that you keep going on about? I don't think it's in this country.

Criminal cronyism is wrong, legally and morally, and I defy you to define the difference between organized crime, the corporate state, or government. There isn't any real distinction any more, these enterprises have merged together and many of the same individuals are known to be involved in all three.

Why do you think it is ok for some people to be born into privilege and never have to work? How does that fit with your theory that everyone has to work? I can't really make sense of what you believe in, but it doesn't represent the real world, either currently or any time in recorded history. There has always been a class war of some sort or another, and we are loosing this fight right now.

Drastic measures may need to be taken before things deteriorate even further. The longer we wait, the worse the cure.

[Cid_B]

335. Isn't this the group...

... that would rather let 1000 murderers go free than take the chance of executing a single innocent man?

"if it takes knocking everyone in that class down a peg or two to do it, then so be it."

My point exactly is that some people are born into wealth and that it is a fact of life. What is the alternative? Take the children of wealthy parents and chuck them in the street to fend for themselves?

Sorry little Johnny, yes you have parents that are well off and love you and want to support you but this is for your own good. *boot*

What is your alternative?

[Usrename]

337. Have you seen this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4710330

[Cid_B]

341. and...?

Ridiculous political posturing. There is no such thing as a "right" to food. When I think of "rights" I think of them in a very strict inalienable way. A "right" to me is something that cannot be taken away under any circumstances.

Real rights are the right to think, to speak and accept consequences, the right to attempt to better yourself ( successful or not, chance of success or not). Those are rights.

The idea that someone has a "right" to a chicken sandwich is silly at best.

[Usrename]

364. Some people have no right to live.

Sure.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

365. That's amazing

Are you suggesting people do not have a right to food? How about shelter?

Does this include children and the elderly?

[Cid_B]

367. No and No

You know why? It is because they can be taken away and are therefore not rights.

[Greyhound]

378. Wow. Enjoy your stay, may it be as brief as your understanding is shallow. n/t

[HughBeaumont]

381. The UN says differently.

And you can get off this site with that attitude. Food, shelter, clothing and health care are all human rights, and you need to come correct with that.

[riverdeep]

400. Then the second amendment is not a right.

It can be taken away.

Actually, all the rights listed in the Constitution CAN be taken away. You can be grabbed in the middle of the night and tossed in prison with no rhyme or reason or recourse. There's most of your rights right there. You can shout at the walls, but who's listening?

In the real world, you actually don't have ANY rights. ANY. They can all be taken away, and they are all dependent on the threat of force of some kind to be enforced on your behalf. If someone shuts down my radio station saying I have no right to say the things I'm saying, they can do it. My recourse is to sue, or make criminal charges. Either way, I'm expecting that they will either comply or be FORCED to comply down the road. Without this FORCE, my 'rights' aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

In that light, does someone have the right to legal representation if they're indigent? Our laws say they do. How about a right to healthcare? Do you think you'll be worse off going without legal representation or treatment of a serious injury? Yet, public defenders cost money too.

[Hannah Bell]

401. you don't have a right to think. it can be taken - forced drugs, surgery,

sleep deprivation - lots of ways.

the right to better yourself? even more so.

you don't have any rights, by your definition. everything can be taken, your very life, for starters. and is.

[riverdeep]

399. This part right here:

"but they all have the option to move to the left or the right", yeah, that's going to be a sticking point.

I think even the most die hard free marketer would have to admit that there are those who have far greater access to movement along a left to right plane than others do. If that's the case, then the word 'option' doesn't really bring full clarity. Realistically, if something is much easier for me to do than my neighbor, say lifting a log, I spend far less effort and strain doing it, then I'm more likely to do it even if we both possess an inherent ability, i.e. if he lifted weights for a year, and went on a diet and invested time in lifting technique, etc.

There would be many that have an inherent capacity (though far less than 'all'), but they would still be different in their probability of movement.

As far as it not being a crime, who writes the laws? I believe the wealthy and well connected have a far greater influence on our laws, from what they say to which ones are enforced. I think if poor people wrote the laws, some things like excessive usury (in payday lenders) would indeed become a crime, and at least one source of revenue for the super wealthy would terminate. How do you think Appalachia feels about coal industries and their mountain top removal? There goes another source. The credit card industry issuing unreadable contracts? That's gone. Walmart and their union busting efforts? Gone. And so on. Right now this stuff isn't a crime because the laws are weak or unenforced or nonexistant, but that's the only reason. The wealthy don't have a hotline to truth and morality.

[RedCappedBandit]

79. Nonsense. nt

[ShortnFiery]

37. After filching their first Million, "Democrats" turn to the Corporate DLC or Become Republicans.

:evilgrin: :nuke:

[cali]

42. oh what nonsense.

My dad was an interesting character who became a fairly wealthy man. In brief, here's his story. PhD anthropologist and writer who went into business to support a growing family. He invented things and started to manufacture them. He first manufactured counters and then invented and manufactured early print heads for computers. He was a supporter of unions. He was an early advocate of green manufacturing. He refused to do business with your oh so beloved military. He was a life long Roosevelt dem. He often worked 60+ hours a week. He made good and conservative investments. He believed that people like him should pay their fair share of taxes.

[ShortnFiery]

48. Yes cali, I'm constantly reminded by you: You and yours are above it all.

My father's battlefield commission in Italy during WWII ... his continued guilt and emotional suffering after charging a Nazi machine nest and killing, among others, a 16 y.o. boy - WAS FOR YOU AND YOUR FATHER TOO! Yes, you and yours are damn fortunate for the moral and brave men in the MILITARY like my late father keeping you safe from The Third Reich.

<sigh> I hope you have a nice day. :hi:

[tama]

164. To be strict

your father didn't manufacture, the workers he hired did. Orwellian language is supposed to be deceptive.

[cali]

356. actually he damn well did manufacture. He not only made prototypes

of everything himself. He could frequently be found on the manufacturing floor, sleeves rolled up, working right alongside workers. It's the one thing the union tried to stop him doing. They did not succeed.

You haven't a fucking clue what you're talking about. Clearly, as he was my dad, I'm a little more informed than the likes of you.

[pipoman]

52. Oh, so now anyone who accumulates or earns

a million is a thief and a pug?

After filching their first Million

I am hoping you only forgot or didn't feel the sarcasm tag was necessary?

[ShortnFiery]

59. Hey, I live in an upper middle class neighborhood. I'm not telling stories out of school

when I say that there's no more arrogant persons to be found than those who have "a little bit" of treasure. Further, it's often true that once people rise to the upper middle class, they "turn republican" or behave condescendingly to those who are not so blessed with such financial security, i.e., DLC democrats.

What opened my eyes was attending some "house parties" during the run up to the present election. The democrats who hosted these parties were DLC SIMPLY because it was in their best financial interest to think they know better ... no, they ARE better and should keep MORE than the average wage slave American.

Because there is so much disparity between high and low income groups, there needs to be a more progressive income tax on our Country's most wealthy. I'm talking about those who are worth, not just a mere "one million" but increasing on those who have say 50 or 100 million. If these assets are not being reinvested in businesses or philanthropy, what good is it doing for the individual or society at large?

[Two Americas]

223. well said

We are supposed to pretend that what you say is not true.

The defensiveness of the apologists for the haves suggests that they know this, but don't want it to get out.

The gap in the country, the divide, is between haves and the have-nots. It is not between liberals and conservatives, those are merely two competing groups of neo-aristocracy fighting with each other for power over the rest of us.

[Enthusiast]

274. I know this arrogance of which you speak.

You outta live in Appalachia. Some people start getting uppity when their truck starts without being jumped. :rofl:

[Abq_Sarah]

107. I don't know the percentage overall

But they comprise over half of my customers. Without them, my employees wouldn't have a job and I wouldn't have a business.

[Swede Atlanta]

184. Don't insult my Chinese Pugs....

My pugs are loyal Democrats...... They believe in equal and justice for all...well except the ultra-rich. They might deserve "enhanced interrogation techniques".

[pipoman]

207. No insult intended

you may know here on DU pug is short for Repug or Repuglicans, both are plays on repugnant. ;)

[Richardo]

23. It's early yet, and the competition is fierce, but this could be the stupidest post of the day...

...keep a good thought! :thumbsup:

[pipoman]

30. Definitely right up there...n/t

[leftynyc]

33. I agree

And the people who are agreeing are either stupid or envious - doesn't really matter which.

[unpossibles]

277. I don't agree with the conclusion, that the top 1% should give up anything

But I do agree that our economic policies have allowed the top 1% to grow at a rate that has destroyed our economy. Supply Side economics - you know, the thing that people once ridiculed and which now is considered the only reality - has fucked us over. As has the short-sighted Quick Profit bullshit with no thought toward sustainability. What I mean is, sure someone can kill jobs and save money, but eventually that catches up to you and suddenly no one can afford your products - you saved/made money short run, but slit your own purse long run.

[fed_up_mother]

91. Agreed.

[NeedleCast]

264. Agree!

The amount of Fail on this thread is huge and continues to grow.

[Richardo]

267. It could make stupidest post of the week!

:bounce:

[Enthusiast]

275. It might be used on the Rush Limbaugh show

You know, to illustrate a point.

[Caution]

305. Agreed. n/t

[cali]

26. so anyone who's net worth is more than 2 million dollars should have

their assets seized? That's fucked up. That would include a family I know who own a dairy farm. It would include small business people who work their asses off. It would include retirees who worked their asses off.

[Cid_B]

27. But.. but..

They're rich and I'm not! Thats not FAIR! *proceeds to throw temper tantrum on the floor*

[AlbertCat]

185. Bingo!

All these revolutionaries crying "Don't let'em keep their money!" would be happy to keep it if it were theirs.

What am I saying????

If their parents died with 3 or 4 million, I know all these good revolutionaries would just give it up without a whimper. Even if it were just taxed at almost 50%, they wouldn't complain, but probably say to the IRS: "Here take 60%, 70%! I'm a good Progressive!"

C'mon, you KNOW it's true!...













...right?

Uh huh.

[live love laugh]

28. Those numbers are bad but don't reflect the reality. Inflation is not

mentioned at all. Income would not have increased at all for the avg. Joe if it were.

[cali]

29. I love how you don't mind taking a shit all over the Constitution as

long as YOU are the one taking the dump.

[Thothmes]

31. Agree, most of the posters here seem to be quite

willing to just tear up the Constitution and throw it is a shitcan. Wonder how they justify acting like the current administration.

[cali]

34. the OP is sheer stupidity but the large number of recs is sickening.

[Dr. Strange]

88. In fairness...

maybe the reccing is to expose the post's stupidity?

I may recommend it just for that reason!

[TZ]

313. Don't scare me like that Dude!

I was afraid you were..well uhh..:crazy:
What I learned here...ignoring the constitution if you are a republican=Bad, ignoring the constitution if you are a democrat=good
:eyes:

[anaxarchos]

314. Exactly where in the Constitution...

... is the OPs proposal prohibited?

[lumberjack_jeff]

324. 4th amendment, for starters. n/t

[anaxarchos]

326. Hah... Add the 14th in while you are being the property police.

Details...

Make it a "Tax". Nothin' "unreasonable" about a tax.

[lumberjack_jeff]

353. How is a 100% tax of assets not "siezure".

The income tax, as its name implies, taxes a portion of income.

[anaxarchos]

355. More quibbles...

Make it 85%, 90%, 99%... the issue is not "constitutional". Confiscation of "property" is done all the time - just not among those who own the country. The one big exception was during the Civil War, and it can be argued that the slaveholders lost their property precisely because they ceased to any longer be those who "owned the country".

[Enthusiast]

276. Cali, you don't understand how poor we are. nt

:sarcasm:

[anaxarchos]

281. Make it a ballot referendum in the next elections...

... and see what happens. You may need a case of Pepto Bismol.

[fed_up_mother]

93. When you consider that many are pure socialists

and some would even call themselves communist, it's not surprising.

As for me, I want strong regulated capitalism, progressive taxation, and European socialist programs for the benefit of society.

[Thothmes]

152. Agreed, you approach fits our system

regulation, progressive taxation and a strong social safety net are the best way to go.

[Enthusiast]

278. I'm with you here! nt

[Orwellian_Ghost]

50. Wouldn't it be interesting

to examine who wrote the Constitution and how it represented certain vested interests. Of course that would require challenging your assumptions and learning a little history.

Not too difficult to see who identifies with the ruling classes here.

[cali]

57. lol. I know who wrote the Constitution and I realize that it reflects certain biases

however, it's the foundation of this country. If you don't like it, work to change it. And sorry, to burst your illusions, but I don't identify with the ruling classes. I'm all for higher taxes on the wealthy, for greater spending that benefits the poor and disenfranchised as well as the working class. I just don't have the vile hate toward any class that you harbor.

[bread_and_roses]

110. And I'm for eliminating the artificial need for the "poor and disenfranchised" by getting rid of

the owner class. Or we could call it the "over-class" and be just as accurate. Anyone who profits from the labor of others is an oppressor. Poverty and disenfranchisement are necessary to sustain capitalism, which only works for the owners when the power of labor is suppressed. The work of one person is not more valuable than the work of another. People will die if the garbage does not get picked up just as they will die if a doctor is not available when they need one.

Nor do I mean heads on pikes when I say "getting rid of." I am referring to social constructs that do not reward the oppression of others, not violence - not even violent confiscation (which is what the very rich consider any attempt to make them pay in taxes even a moderately fair share of what they take out of "the commons"). I take such remarks here to be deliberate, for effect hyperbole, since I am sure that somewhere in the rules there is a prohibition against calling for violence against persons or property.

Nor do I expect such radical change from Obama or from anyone else in my lifetime. I will be happy to see some moderate change along the lines of progressive taxation, fair trade, sustainability for the earth, and justice for labor.

But it is good to be clear about exactly what is what, who is oppressing who, and the social constructs and assumptions that creating "wealth" require.

[rpannier]

135. Anyone who profits from the labor of others is an oppressor...

So...anyone who owns a business that makes a profit and hires employees that he pays is an oppressor.

I see...

[bread_and_roses]

171. Yes. To make a profit, one must either underpay or overcharge

- either oppress the worker or the consumer. The idea that "capital" (money) in and of itself "creates" something of value that is worth more than anything else is a myth constructed to justify the accumulation of vast wealth through oppression.

But don't worry - I include myself and all of us among the oppressors, though I own no business. We have little choice, if we want to eat, have a bed to sleep on and a pot to cook in and a few trinkets to satisy the human need for aesthetic pleasure, however one wants to define what is aesthetic. One can try, as I do, to minimize one's participation, but somewhere along the way (like on these very internets) - we comply with the system.

So I am not condemning anyone who oppresses via profit - even the business owner, though once one gets beyond small, local business - many of which make no "profit" if some sort of reasonably fair wage for the owner's work is calculated - one does tend to oppress far more.

edit for grammatical typo

[rpannier]

186. Interesting...

Thanks for expanding on your thought.

I felt rather confused at your post above mine.

After reading your reply I understand your rationale for your statement.

It gives me something to ponder.

Your reply is appreciated.

Thanks

[Lucky Luciano]

192. His further clarification is not useful to me

He is, in fact, off the fucking wall....he never heard of the extremely basic concept of "economies of scale." A profit is fully justified if generated in a proper fashion - no oppression required.

...and a garbageman's labor is worth SIGNIFICANTLY less than a medical doctor's labor. Sorry...you will never sell me that they are of equal value. It is wrong on so many levels.

[Synicus Maximus]

208. I'm afraid I must disagree

To say "The work of one person is not more valuable than the work of another." is incorrect, simply based on supply and demand. There are a vast number of people capable of picking up garbage but relatedly few who can diagnose and cure a disease. If I'm sick I want a doctor to treat me not a garbage man even if the doctor cost a lot more. Why do NFL players or some actors make millions a year? Not because they are the only ones that can act or play football but because they can do it better than anyone else. People will pay to go to a movie with Will Smith in it, ain't nobody but my mama going to pay to see a movie with me in it, and I'm not sure about her paying.

[bread_and_roses]

260. Your "supply and demand" argument depends on their being too few doctors. Why do you think

there are too few doctors? Do you not think that there are many thousands of people - around the globe many millions - who have a desire to make healing and health their life's work and the intelligence to do that? They are not doctors because medical school is made so vastly expensive. Think about why we might create a system in which so essential a work is made impossible for so many who would otherwise be suitable for it. I notice that poor little Cuba seems to turn out so many doctors that they send them around the globe to help others. How can that be?

Obviously, no one is talking about the garbage collector performing surgury - what a straw man (? - I think the right term). However, you do know that there is a school of thought that posits that public health improvements - among which is getting garbage off our streets and out of our water - have contributed more to our longer average life-expectancy than have advances in medicine? I would consider exactly how valuable that garbage collector's contribution is to our quality of life before being so dismissive of the value of his/her work.

[muriel_volestrangler]

312. But your argument isn't just for the garbagemen - it's for everyone

You said "The work of one person is not more valuable than the work of another". So it's not just people like garbagemen who are involved in public sanitation - you're saying that people who cold call you trying to sell you worthless tat are doing work just as valuable as doctors. You're saying that people who work on 'psychic' phonelines do work just as valuable as a doctor. You're saying that car salesmen who make their living by trying to sell extra unwanted features on a car are just as valued as doctors. Or people who work for Fox News. All of these people do work you value equally with a doctor who saves lives.

[bread_and_roses]

320. You are defining "work" as employment for money or profit-making activity

under which definition any and all criminal activity that is profitable is also "work." In each of the examples you use, the sole purpose of the activity is to get money to create a profit for someone. The only marginally legitimate "job" you cite is that of a car salespesron - which, I suppose, can be considered a useful activity if cars are necessary and one can't buy them directly from the producer, the salesperson thereby performing a useful service. Still, the example you cite is of someone trying to sell extra unwanted features for profit, in other words, behaving shabbily and unethically (which seems more often than not to be a salient feature of activities undertaken solely for profit). Those poor telemarketers are no doubt simply trying to survive, and to be pitied for the exploitation they typically suffer, but their employers are not creating or originating anything, or making anything useful (who waits for a telemarketer to call before getting something they actually need or really want?), but simply trying to generate profit - profit probably based on near-slave labor in some third world country.

The definition of work I had in mind is closer to an example given at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/work: "To produce or form by labor; to bring forth by exertion or toil; to accomplish; to originate;" - a definition that covers everything from a tinker to a composer (the reference includes "to effect" but I left that out, since it covers exactly the type of activities to which you refer). The telemarketer, the scammy psychic, the wall-street trader may "work" very hard but they produce nothing. Their functions exist simply to generate profit.

As for the doctor who saves your life, why is not the EMT who may be actually the one saved your life paid as much? (Having some personal experience of this, I can attest that in some cases were it not for the EMTs there would be no "life" for the doctor to "save.") If there were plenty of doctors, so many that people went into the profession out of desire to do that type of "work," why would they be paid so much more than that paid to other useful functions? Someone who loves cars would sell cars (if that were truely a necessary and useful function) and someone who loves healing would be a doctor - or nurse. I imagine a good few lives have been saved by nurses, too, but we don't pay them as much so they are never the ones cited in this sort of discussion - interesting, that.

In our culture, we call anything one does for money (at least, in most cases, anything that is legal) "work," regardless of what it actually produces or accomplishes. And people always defend obscene wealth as the product of "hard work" even when it is inherited and the inheritor has never "worked" at anything harder than selecting which designer clothing to buy. So that Commander Codpiece, who's never done a day's real work in his life, can whine that "it's hard work" being a puppet figurehead, and no one in the mainstream culture even challenges his idiocy. I guess I have a different definition of work.

[muriel_volestrangler]

342. By making an ethical difference between a car salesman and a cold caller

you are acknowledging there are differences in the value of the work - both are parting sales and marketing, and area in which a huge number of people work; they perform a service. Some people will occasionally buy something from them, when they wouldn't have otherwise, and enjoy the product or service, and so they will have done something useful. It just may not happen so often, or be as important as saving a life; and so we all have subjective ideas of how valuable types of work are.

A doctor has to train longer than an EMT, or a nurse (including very long hours while they are junior, in many countries); doctors need more academic ability, and would be able to do a wider variety of jobs outside their profession because of that; and they have to take more responsibility in the job (when the different types work together, the doctor is expected to be responsible, overall). So there are several reasons for paying them more.

[bread_and_roses]

344. No, I am questioning the definition of "work"

that you used in your post.

And in a market system, we do not pay people more of the length of their studies/preparation. If we did, a Doctor of theology would make as much as, say, plastic surgeons. We pay them more because of scarcity. The scarcity of doctors is an artificial condition created by excluding millions who are both desirous and capable of performing the task by making it too expensive for them to complete the preparation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

347. That only applies to countries where doctors pay significant tuition fees

In many countries, they just select the most promising students. You do need a high academic ability for it; not all those with it will want to do it as their profession.

[Cid_B]

227. Stupidest Sentence of the (Yester)Day

"Anyone who profits from the labor of others is an oppressor."

Wow

[jmowreader]

241. Dude, put down the Atlas Shrugged and step back...very...slowly...

[bread_and_roses]

258. You think I'm promoting Rand's peurile fantasy of "Objectivism?"

I went back and read my own post to try to figure out what could give you such a misunderstanding of what I wrote, and came up with the sentence on the rich consideering fair taxation "violent confisciation." I remembered that the "Objectivists" (who are nothig like "objective," enmeshed as they are in adolescent fantasies about the nature of the world and human endeavor, not to mention a mean-spirited contempt for most of humanity, similar to that of the poster above who dismisses the work of the garbage collector) consider taxation to be a use of force by the State. Perhaps you took that sentence to mean that I agreed with their ridiculous position?

Far from it. My thinking is closer to the poster's who noted that the wealthy "would rather send a Franco-style death squad to your door" than to give up any of their gains. The rich - and those who defend their accumulation of capital - tend to forget that the economic activity that garners them their wealth would not be possible without the schools, roads, water systems, etc. that we insignificant little peasants (like garbage collectors) pay taxes to provide. They have a vested interest in believing that myth of their "capital" creating something in isolation - as well as the myth that their accumulation of capital is the result of their own "hard work" (so famously referred to by that illegitimate little puppet of the Oligarchic Junta still residing in the WH) rather than having been aquired by the exploitation and oppression of people and of nature.

[Xenotime]

119. Obama views the constitution as a list of negative values so maybe he can change it..

Then we can make the greedy wealthy pay.

[varelse]

35. I rec'd this out of sheer perversity - even though I disagree with your thread title

I do agree that the problem does exist, but your proposed solution isn't going to happen - ever.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4700504&mesg_id=4700504

To quote another poster on that thread: "As long as people think they have a chance of getting to the top, they just don't care how rich the rich are."

And people will keep on thinking that, too, because most of us will never learn the truth - and guess who owns most of the media that could be reporting it? Yeah, they're up in that top 1.5% too. :(

[mainer]

36. Who are the wealthiest 1%?

Those who earn $300,000 and have a net worth of 5 million. Yes, a number of them are in finance. But this group also includes many dentists and doctors. These are not the "ultra-rich" you seem to envision them as. And if you've read the Millionaire Next Door, you'll also learn that the average millionaire is unassuming, thrifty, and works more than 45 hours a week, often as a small business owner. It's the pseudo-rich who wear expensive watches and buy designer clothes -- too often on credit.

How about this strategy? Instead of engaging in envy and murderous thoughts, study hard, go to medical school, and BECOME one of the 1%. Hey, I know it's the it's the hard way to do it but it can be done.

(And btw, my father worked all his life as a restaurant cook at night, plus held down a clerical job during the day. He worked 16 hours a day, never went anywhere, lived in a $30,000 house, saved like a demon, and died with a two million dollar estate. Would you have confiscated his wealth?)

[woo me with science]

39. Hey, little one.

Time to get back to health class, now. Don't forget your gymsuit.

I really hope you have that government class next semester.

[ShortnFiery]

40. Fortunately the OP will attend a four year university ...

how is that Civics course working for you in H.S.? ;) <tease!>

[woo me with science]

268. Ha! I was right! nt

[LeftishBrit]

41. Do you mean literally seize all their assets? Or just very steep taxes?

I definitely support super-taxing the super-rich, but NOT just going in and seizing their assets. If the government has that power, they can just seize the assets of anybody whom they don't like, or if they think it's a good way of getting money for their latest war or other pet project.

[ShortnFiery]

55. I don't know about the OP, but I'd be for a return to the Progressive Taxation System

with the only loopholes for small to moderate sized businesses.

What we need is REGULATED CAPITALISM. Presently, we are once again financially back to the 1920s with regard to the VAST disparity of wealth between the working poor and the rich.

I'm not a socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but when individuals have BILLIONS, we have returned to "The Robber Baron" days of plutocracy.

[IMPERIUM V]

228. We tried regulated capitalism already.

It failed.

I know... let's try COMMUNISM!

:think:

[rhett o rick]

67. I'd like to frame it a little different. The mega-wealthy used their power to STEAL money from the

rest of us. It's not their money. Their assets should be seized until a FAIR return of OUR money is figured out. Sad thing is most of this money is already out of the country.

[BeFree]

43. That is cruel

Lets leave them 5%.

[ShortnFiery]

45. What freaks me out: There's such a VAST income disparity, they could live COMFORTABLY off of that 5%

:wow:

[dysfunctional press]

46. i'd rather see a one-time 10% wealth tax on all wealth over $10million.

suggesting taking ALL of anyone's assets is truly an idiotic proposal.

[tomp]

58. to suggest 10% shows no grasp of the scope of the problem.

i think the gist of the op is that for such a small section of the population to have such a large portion of the wealth is an indication that there is something FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with the system. drastic change is required. now. nothing less.

how about an all-the-time 100% tax on everything over $ 4 million total assets? only this kind of change will equitably distribute wealth.

or, we could pay people what they're actually worth. paper pushing, acting, entertaining, etc. are not more important than actually making things or providing invaluable services (healing the sick, putting out fires, keeping the peace, e.g.). the median income of~ $50,000 is not much more than bare subsistence (especially when compared to the top 1%).

for the record i am not opposed to such a seizure as the op mentioned. in fact, i'll help.

[dysfunctional press]

62. to suggest 100% over $4million shows no grasp of reality.

and A LOT of class envy.

[tomp]

209. not exactly envy, more like hatred....

....but really, exactly like wanting a fair distribution of wealth.

[dysfunctional press]

215. shouldn't the entire worl be included in that fair distribution...?

although- that's gonna knock down the standard of living for all but the poorest americans.

and btw- envy begets hatred. especially if you hate a rich person merely for being rich.

[tomp]

283. of course. nt

[dysfunctional press]

294. ....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

thanks for that.

[Rebubula]

250. Distribution??

OK...how does that work?

Does the money go into a Government coffer for bureaucrats to hand out? Straight into a US rainy day fund? Into social programs?

I have no problem with creating a more even tax system (even though the top 5% pay over 60% of all US taxes), but to start talking about redistribution without having a plan for how to use the money is just simply (as you stated) class hatred and not very progressive.

Moreover, what is fair??

[tomp]

284. the question is: what is not fair?

the answer is: the existing system, by a long shot.

look, i don't imagine any of this is actually going to happen without revolution. but as long as we're talking pipe dreams, let's be clear that this would never happen if the bureaucrats you speak of were not on the side of the poor and middle class in the first place. frankly i think it would be fairly easy to figure out what to do with the money once "we" have it, because if "we" have it, that means people who care about the good of the whole have it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

103. to suggest more shows little grasp of math.

The total net worth of americans is about $40 trillion. The top 1% of households own about 40% of that, thus 10% of their wealth represents a $1.6 trillion tax windfall.

To take 100% of their wealth in one year would require liquidating 40% of the assets in the country. Who's going to buy it? You?

You think we're in a depression now... forced liquidation of almost half of the country's assets will cause a huge deflation - exactly what we don't want.

I'm fine with eating the rich. But we can't do it in one bite.

[tomp]

213. who's talking about "buying" anything?

i literally mean taking it away and resdistributing it by gov't edict and force if necessary (of course, it will come to force). it's not eliminating anything, not as far as i can tell,anyway...except the super-rich.

btw, $1.6 trillion is just about double what we just gave away and has immediately disappeared. that is not to mention what has been siphoned off in corporate handouts and other forms of corruption since...oh, let's say... the turn of the 20th century or so. 10% would probably not even be recouping what's been lost from the treasury in the bush/cheney years.

not only that, but take only 10% and you leave them with essentially as much power as they had before, to rape and plunder and buy votes as usual. the power of money needs to be eliminated form gov't immediately.

now, of course, i don't expect any of this to actually happen, but in my view it is what should happen, and in fact, what must happen, if we are to literally survive.

[dysfunctional press]

285. "and in fact, what must happen, if we are to literally survive. "

:eyes:

over-wrought much?

[lumberjack_jeff]

323. Tax collectors with tow trucks and shopping carts.

How do you plan to "redistribute" this?


Oooo! Me! I need a tax refund this year!

This has got to be one of the most poorly thought out ideas I've ever read. Government has no use for people's shit, they have use for people's money. The way to turn shit into money is to sell it. If you intend to sell 40% of the privately held shit, you need someone to buy it.

[anaxarchos]

330. So you think the bulk of the wealth of the top 1%...

...consists of personal property - cars, houses, jewels, yachts? Nonsense. They can keep all that. Let them sail those yachts by themselves... on oil fuel they suck out of the ground by themselves. Let it be "only" their social property which is "taxed" away - you know, "capital"... that magical "money which makes money". How is that magic done, by the way?

You raise so many trivial objections, I begin to think you are actually against the OP's proposal.

[lumberjack_jeff]

352. I AM against the OP's proposal, because it's stupid.

The top 1% net worth is mostly stuff. Stocks and real estate. To turn it into something useful for those wielding the torches and pitchforks, it must be sold. I'm sure the fuck not going to buy it, because I don't want you coming after me.

You can't eat the rich in one bite.

[anaxarchos]

357. Ah...

then, if you wanted to be "constructive", you could have made practical proposals for eating the rich in two bites. The number of bites is irrelevant. BTW, stock and real estate is not "stuff". Land is always useful and stocks are simply a share in mines, mills, stores, factories, and all the rest that is social property. If you can't drive it, fly it, wear it, live in it or take it on vacation in Dubai, it ain't "stuff". I suppose you could wear stock certificates on the beach, but then you would just be trying to make a point.

[rhett o rick]

69. I think you could do anything you want, but.....how are you going to get them to pay. They have

ways of moving the money and themselves out of the country.

[dysfunctional press]

72. yes they do.

nt

[Nye Bevan]

49. Great idea! Screw 'em! Oh, wait a minute, I just thought of something...

my boss is one of those people and he won't be able to pay me anymore, and I will be out of a job. Perhaps it's not such a great idea after all.

[Lucky Luciano]

198. MathGuy - you in finance?

I see you have a pretty wealthy boss and you are in Stamford....I was a math geek too. Wasted my time with a math doc at UCLA...and you?

[lonestarnot]

61. I would bet that they would be able to track where THAT money WENT!

[rhett o rick]

70. Would that even be possible? Good post. nm

[ProfessorGAC]

73. How Many Times?

Do we iterate the confiscations of the top 1% every quarter. Then pretty soon the top 1% will be people who make $100k per year. And then those who make $60k. And then everyone who makes more than $40k?

What is the logical basis for calling an end to it?

This absurd extension of the logic is why i DON'T this it's a good post.
GAC

[lumberjack_jeff]

116. The first iteration would be an epic fail.

You can't force the liquidation of 40% of the country's net worth in one year and expect a healthy economy 12 months later.

[ProfessorGAC]

142. I Agree, Jeff

I was taking the idea to its illogical extension. I think it's a horrible idea, and you know how polticos are: They will keep doing the same thing thinking it's a good idea until it causes disaster. (See Supply-Side Economics.)
GAC

[LanternWaste]

71. Why not the top 2%? 10%? The top 25%? No?

Why not the top 2%? 10%? The top 25%? No?

If not, what is the precise and relevant moral difference between the seizing the assets of top one percent but not the top two percent?

[nichomachus]

77. Because

if you are ultra-wealthy, there's a 99.9999 percent chance you got your money by seriously screwing over working people.

[LanternWaste]

83. One man's peasant is another man's king.

What is the amount of people in the Top 1% Bracket screwing people vs.the number of people in the bracket just underneath screwing over people? Do we allow that 0.0001% of the "ultra-wealthy" who made money "honestly" to keep their money? If so, do we set up a new government program to determine who keeps what? If not, what is the moral justification for taking their wealth also?

Should we seize the assets of any and all people who screw over working class people-- even though we're all well aware that working class people screw over other working class people as well?


Does the young orphan in Rwanda, living in abject poverty and worrying merely about eating on a daily basis rather than which new game console to purchase or which cool new mp3 to download have the precise same moral right to demand our money (as we would easily be considered ultra-wealthy to him, I imagine)? Or do we merely constrain morality to the confines of our own imaginary red and blue lines on a map...?

One man's peasant is another man's king. And we are all of us guilty.

[Statistical]

92. Very good points

On a global basis the American middle class would be considered living as the ultra rich.

How far does this wealth redistribution go?

[LanternWaste]

99. As far as your conscience allows...

"How far does this wealth redistribution go?"
As far as your conscience allows you to I would imagine.

Not merely by law do we help those in need....

[anaxarchos]

273. No, "we" are not all of us guilty...

Whether you mean to or not, you have just repeated the oldest line in the book. "They will take your goat and divide it amongst your neighbors..."

It ain't about your goat. Whether you identify your "goat" as being the same in "quality if not in quantity" as Tyson or Monsanto, or whether others identify it that way is equally silly. Three bedroom ranch houses in sub-divisions is not the point, here. They've usually got a mortgage that is underwater, anyway.

As far as the "guilty" part goes, 99.9% of the people in America simply don't have the power to be guilty. They have virtually no power over their own lives, anymore than anyone in Rwanda does. It is more of a "guilt fantasy"...

[Enthusiast]

280. We constrain morality

and I'm all for it. You can take your portion and share it with the Africans.

[SOS]

74. Floors and ceilings

The top 1% are those over $338,000 a year.
That sum would buy half a one bedroom apartment in New York.
It's good money, but the limit is too low.

Meanwhile, John Paulson made $10 million a day (every day) on Wall Street in 2007, betting against the American homeowner.

Nixon proposed a minimum income in the 1970s, which of course was shot down.
Let's call that $20K as a floor.
Now let's put in a $10 million/year ceiling. Certainly the Wall Street arsonists could get by on $10 million a year.
This way really creative businesspeople could live grandly on the fruits of their ideas and labor, while taking away the outrageous excesses of Wall Street.
Our dopey Treasury Secretary walked out of Goldmine Sachs with $800 million and paid no tax because of the "public service" loophole.

Proposal:
Minimum income per adult: $20,000/ year
Maximum income per adult: $10 million/year.

The details could be worked out through taxation, minimum wage adjustments and rebate checks.

One equitable house, for all Americans to live in.

[muriel_volestrangler]

126. That's income, not assets - which were specified in the OP

Presumably, the idea is to confiscate all businesses, properties, etc. worth over a certain limit ($5 million or something). You'd then have to sell them off, or run them as nationalised businesses. The most expensive properties would have to be sub-divided, because no-one would be able to afford them, legally; if your don't nationalise the businesses, you have to set them up as public stock companies.

The portable stuff you could sell off to wealthy foreigners.

It'd be somewhat like the Russian Revolution, I think. Not a good idea, I'd say; it's a powerful disincentive to success - do well, and you'll lose absolutely everything. A high, progressive income tax sounds better to me.

[DetlefK]

76. Actually, a german politician just proposed a similar idea:

He would make it mandatory for anyone owning €750.000+ to invest 2% of their fortune in federal bonds. These bonds would have a 2.5% interest rate.

[anigbrowl]

102. I'm seeing a slight difference between 2% and 100%.

[muriel_volestrangler]

127. That's not even confiscation - they get a steady, though unspectacular, income from it

I think the OP is thinking in terms of punishing the rich, not fixing the economy.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

78. My Sentiments Exactly - nt

[AlbertCat]

82. Let 'em keep it.

I inherited a nice bundle...and I deserved it too after living my life with such a family! And my taxes will be almost 1/2 of it.

I know, after we get rid of tax cuts for JUST the top 2%, let's make corporations pay up their taxes, and tax the churches and their businesses! Then we can all...each and every one of us, take a huge cut in our personal taxes.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

165. US Income Gap Widens, Richest Share Hits Record

US Income Gap Widens, Richest Share Hits Record

by Karey Wutkowski

Washington - The gap between America's richest and poorest is at its widest in at least 25 years, with the wealthiest taking home a record share of the nation's income that exceeds even the previous high in 2000.1012 07

According to recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all U.S. income earned in 2005. That is a significant increase from 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of the nation's income.

The previous high over the past 25 years, when such data were compiled, was in 2000 when a bull market brought the figure up to 20.81 percent.



To make the top 1 percent of wealthiest Americans in 2005, a taxpayer had to earn at least $364,657. That figure is an increase from 2004, when the cut-off point stood at $328,049.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/12/4509

[sarcasmo]

84. It's all about the top 1percent, the Corporations and their stockholders.

We are all just serfs in their game of life.

[Statistical]

96. You could buy stock. It is allowed for "serfs" to buy ownership is the mechanisms of industry

[sarcasmo]

117. Hard to buy stocks when the wife is Disabled and I take care of her.

[Hannah Bell]

240. unfortunately, the serf's "ownership" is a joke; the princes may water

the stock, or whatever other games they want to play.

The serf "owners" will be the last to know; the ones holding the empty bag.

Seriously, you don't own anything but a piece of paper. If you can't hire & fire the management, can't affect corporate decisions - you're the mark.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

85. That's Gotta Be One Of The Dumbest Damn Demands I've Ever Heard Here.

It's beyond dumb.

[tomm2thumbs]

86. love that pic

says it all

[Danger Mouse]

89. One of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a long time.

[bobd0]

94. K&R They fucked it up. Let THEM pay for it. :) Best idea I've heard in a long time. nt

[sasquatch]

95. Thank you boomers

:eyes:

[SOS]

97. As a tail end boomer (1960)

I really thought our generation would make the US a better place.
Now in 2008, my contemporaries have destroyed the nation.
What a staggering disappointment, with regrets to those under 45.

[sasquatch]

98. Thank you for apoligizing though, most of them won't do that

[Warren Stupidity]

120. no shit. what a sorry lot we turned out to be.

peace love and fuck you I got mine.

[bread_and_roses]

345. Too true, I agree

I've posted this before but sometimes I just can't wrap my mind around how this happened - and I am a fairly analytical sort who tends to look at systems rather than individuals as culpable....still...how did it happen that so few of us tried to live the values we trumpeted in youth? Virtually every major step in progress in the past forty years can be traced to us - environmentalism, the second wave of feminism, GLBT rights...etc....and still. Here we are. It is too depressing.

[Maru Kitteh]

212. Remember that piddly ass sentiment when some snot-nosed child blames

this generation for all the world's ills 30 years from now.

If it wasn't for those Boomers, we wouldn't even have a Barack Obama presidency.

How stupid.

[Nye Bevan]

100. Ah, DU Economics Threads

The highest ratio of {number of recs} to {sanity} you will see out of any subject on this board.

[depakid]

179. "The highest ratio of {number of recs} to {sanity} you will see out of any subject on this board."

:rofl:

Ain't it the truth....

[JoseGaspar]

301. Rousseau

"The first man to put a fence around land that had previously been shared in common, to declare 'this land is mine', and to find those stupid enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society."

How stupid Jean-Jacques was (or insane, if you like).

[Sebastian Doyle]

101. For those defending inherited wealth, let me ask you one simple question

Should Jenna Bush be allowed to coast through life because her great grandfather made millions from concentration camp labor in the 1930's?

Yes or no?

[Statistical]

104. Have you thought about the unintended consequences of your actions?

If there is a 100% death tax then ALL wealth beyond what is needed will simply be tax sheltered.

Expect massive increase in consumption since what can't be wasted away or hidden will be taken by the govt also.

The idea that under your tax system I can't pass on anything to my heirs is sad and pathetic. That the next generation will never be better off because of the sacrifice and hard work of their parents is anathema to what it means to be an American. The only source of support will be from the govt. All hail the mighty govt. The only source of income and wealth. Sad

I am trying to figure out how you came up with such an insane idea and the only thing I can think of is nobody passed anything on to you so the system "isn't fair" .
"If I can't have an inheritance then nobody can".

A more regressive inheritence tax I can understand.
A smaller tax free exemption I can understand.
A complete 100% tax on inheritance is insane sir.

[Sebastian Doyle]

109. There is a reason why I mentioned Paris Hilton and the Chimp (and Jenna) as specific examples

Someone who creates something and contributes something of value to the world, and is well paid for it as a result should be able to pass something down to their immediate heirs. However that should NOT allow their great-great-great grandchildren to live off the same money. The goddamn Rockefellers should not be rich today from oil sold in the 1800's, for fucks sake.

The Bush Crime Family should have no money at all, because they made it by investing in the third reich, and by world wide drug smuggling. Every last penny should be confiscated from those pieces of shit.

So yeah, there are "degrees". And yeah, there should be a "floor" to it as others have suggested. But if Paris Hilton and Jenna Bush had to look for a job tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a single tear for either one.

[Hannah Bell]

231. Hey, most of the big, long-lived fortunes in the US began with an

association with the slave trade; either as traders, direct users of slave labor, or trading slave-made products.

FDR's family, for example; Teddy's too.

Great wealth is typically linked to great crimes.

[lumberjack_jeff]

115. Why is perpetual aristocracy a primary american value?

I am in agreement that a 100% estate tax is silly, but there's nothing unamerican about meritocracy.

[DS1]

111. The Dem version of black Cadillac queens riding around on welfare

[mondo joe]

155. Yes, but with a caveat.

I think people can be reasonably taxed and STILL leave enough for their children and grandchildren to live comfortably.

[Thothmes]

247. Should the Kennedy kids inhereit Joes wealth

He made his violating the XXI Amendment to the Constitution and the Volstead Act.

[Baby Snooks]

106. The reality of the 1%...

Quite a few of the 1% just lost everything with Bernie Madoff. Others have already lost everything. Don't know where the $10 trillion is really going but if it's going into the pockets of the 1% it's not going into all the pockets. Just the pockets of the crooks. Who apparently aren't too good handling money to begin with.

The bottom line is the Village Idiot has reigned in a village of idiots called Washington. Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, were too busy lining their pockets with the money the crooks were giving them to first let them defraud the American public and then to defraud the American public a second time by covering their asses when they lost everything.

All Congress is doing is providing money to cook the books some more. We are, in a word, insolvent. Bankrupt. Completely broke.

[Fire1]

113. Madoff should in JAIL!!! Period. JAIL!! Furthermore......

AIG, Lehman, Chase, B/A, ALL STILL have their jets. Got their 'bail-out' straight from the freakin treasury without sitting before ANY freakin committee, paid BILLIONS in EXECUTIVE BONUSES, AND COUNTRY CLUB DUES!!! NO ACCOUNTABILITY!!! NONE, ZERO, ZIP!!! FUCK THE 1% and EVERYTHING THEY LOST!!! Greedy bastards.

[Hannah Bell]

402. you know what? i'd be willing to bet very few lost "everything," no matter

what the news says.

i'd bet some serious money on that.

[Mark D.]

108. Naysayers

Despite all of those naysayers, this is a good idea. They saw their wealth go up 2-3 times on average in last decade while the bottom 90% on average saw wages stay the same or go down. If wages and wealth stay about the same, it means they go down? Why? Even at 4% inflation, over the 8 years of Bush, we loose 1/3 of our buying power. I.E. if your income and worth hasn't gone up by 1/3 in the last 8 years, YOU HAVE LESS and LESS BUYING POWER. It's not rocket science people.

I second the idea and up it by saying an additional 10% or more levied on the top .01% or even the top .001%. We are talking about the billionaires, and the elite families like Sam Walton's kids, but more so the ultra elite aristocracy, like the Rockefellers, the House of Morgan, and the Rothschild kids who decided to live here. They are worth billions and control TRILLIONS. This is why despite the 'fair tax being the same rate for everyone' bullshit, we MUST HAVE progressive taxation.

And base it more on wealth than income (which would help the middle class and tax the rich more by default) with an exception when use of that wealth creates jobs or betters the lives of the bottom 90%. That's how you encourage real growth. Those who have more can pay more. Does a mandatory permanent 50% tax rate on those who make more than a 10 million (without that exemption, having it would encourage them to do things to create jobs and growth and 'trickle down') be unfair?

60% over 100 million? 70% on 500 million (or more)? And 80% over a billion? 90% over 10 billion? Folks, if you make that much you can afford that rate. Folks need to understand. A 2% tax increase could be devastating to a typical lower middle class family struggling to barely get by. If you tax 10 billion in income at 90%, the person still makes a billion a year net. THEY WILL SURVIVE I THINK.

But why will we never see this? Those elite, mainly corporate owners, shareholders, or financiers of them and often of government (ie. the Rockefellers, Morgans, etc.) really run things, because they pretty much run the Federal Reserve with a few other elite families. And that has more power than government? No? It's obvious. Government struggles to give less than 20 billion to save millions of blue collar jobs in the auto industry, in loans THEY HAVE TO PAY BACK.

Multiply that times a hundred. 2 Trillion. The Fed 'lends' it to whoever they want (ie. the 'real owners' JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs) and WE have to pay it back. And there are no hearings, they don't even have to say where the money is going, they smugly tell us. The total payouts will be close to 8.4 trillion. They must LOVE that number. The elite love numbers games. Why that number? A dirty dozen. We see the nation worry about the plunder of 700 billion.

IT WAS A RED HERRING. Sure that's a 'lot'. But take that off the 8.4 Trillion, that's 1/12 of the total they'll lay out within just one year, effectively doubling our total debt. They smugly hand out 11 times that 'bailout' amount without any such hearings, with no stipulations, or even saying where it is going. The bank they helped form, gives them a 'loan' we have to pay back (with interest) so they can maybe lend us money again to 'keep the economy going'.

Only in a country run by banker elite.

[muriel_volestrangler]

129. How can you take 110% of someone's wealth?

You want to take all the assets of the richest 1% (see the title of the thread), and then tell the ultra-rich fraction they still owe us money - 10% of what they had before we took it? Presumably they'd have to borrow that - and I suspect they'd be a bad credit risk by then. I wouldn't want to lend it to them, anyway. How would they be able to pay it back?

[LatteLibertine]

112. One of my favorite sites below

It supports this post and shows what the United States has become.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

I hope they get the hedge fund "casinos" up and running again for the very wealthy soon.

[Greyhound]

379. Thanks for that, it looks interesting.

:kick:

[ooglymoogly]

118. At a vague point on the money scale, money becomes power

even without having to spend that money....a lot of money becomes a lot of power over the rest of us and perhaps that should be the determining factor on inherited wealth and those folks are far less than the top 1%. No one should be able to inherit vast amounts of power over anyone else as in Herr *. Of course the rich have figured this out and created magical and unassailable trusts and the laws to protect those trusts whose beneficiaries often appear charitable in concert with perpetual grand or great grand children and never the Paris Hilton's or Jena's of the world; They just get to live on the enormous proceeds of these trusts with of course a modest amount (comparatively) going to a charity of their choosing; Leaving the fortunes in tact to grow in perpetuity...notwithstanding the occasional wild card Maddoff.

[Hannah Bell]

233. "Charities" are instruments of power too. You can use them to

provide jobs & salaries for your dependents; as money-laundering ventures; as instruments to guide policy & manipulate people's behavior; as propaganda mills.

Foundations are pretty much established channels of power. That's why rich people fund them, mostly.

Not to help the peons.

[Warren Stupidity]

121. The L Curve

Every time this crap comes up, I feel compelled to point the OP to the facts. The 'super rich' are not the 1%, heck the 1% tier isn't even rich, they are upper middle class professionals: doctors lawyers top end tech engineers etc. The nice people who actually own the planet and everything on it are a vastly smaller group than the 1% tier.

300K a year is a nice income, but you are not wealthy and you are, like all the rest of us peasants, one heart attack class event away from having nothing. At 300K a year you are probably living in a nice house in a nice town where the house costs you 500K or much much more. You do not qualify for any financial aide, so your kids who obviously have to go to private schools, cost you 50k+/year. Your taxes already take around 40% of that right off the top - so your cash flow starts at 180. Two kids in college? You are down to 80K. That fancy house at 3k/month is another 36K leaving you with 44K to spend. Oh yes, since 300K is not RICH, you have to save for retirement - 20K isn't enough but it leaves you with 24K, or 2K/month for food clothing shelter transportation and utilities.

These people are not the problem.

Here: http://www.lcurve.org/

If you want to confiscate wealth you have to go after the wealthy. Duh.

[TBF]

130. Interesting, I hadn't seen this before. You're right about the top 5%

though. Once you add in how many student loans you have to pay back, many lawyers and doctors are thankful if they are just able to live in a good public school district so they can pay off their own student loans before their kids get to college.

A big problem, and it is on your site about the L curve, is that many of these folks do make the mistake of thinking they are "rich", and identifying with the moneyed capitalists. Especially if you are saddled with the loans, and started with no inherited money, you are lucky to be living a middle class life style with your 250K-300K salary. You likely pay for your own health care, you qualify for no help anywhere, and if both spouses work (because you have 2 sets of student loans to pay off), you're penalized for that. Even if you're a one-earner family you probably have a savings account and could survive awhile without work, more if you're two-earner, but you wouldn't be able to do it for a long period of time. That will become more apparent after the holidays when we see more layoffs. Noone is immune from them - even at the executive level.

We need to think strictly about economics and support each other. If you have enough inherited wealth that you don't ever have to work you're probably not going to be interested in this theory. But most of us aren't in that boat.

[muriel_volestrangler]

133. Any idea on the point at which the top 1% in terms of assets start?

That data is for income; and since the OP is about taking assets, I presume it would be those with the most assets who would lose it all. So far, I've drawn a blank (this page tells us the top 1% own 33.4% of the wealth, but doesn't say how much you have to have to be in that category).

On edit: mainer, in post #36, says it's $5 million: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4699816&mesg_id=4700671 With the income figure they give agreeing with the $300,000 from your page, that may be a real figure, rather than a guess.

[Warren Stupidity]

138. I can't find one that does what the L curve does.

Looking at the 'top 1%' is way to broad a brush - which is what the L Curve is all about. It suffers from the 'bill gates gets on the bus' averaging problem. One has to look inside those numbers to find the distribution within that 1%, where I suspect one would find another L curve.

[muriel_volestrangler]

144. I agree it's far too broad a brush

I was hoping to be able to show to the thread starter who it was that they'd be confiscating everything from. For instance, it seems Joe Biden's house was estimated at $3 million at the top of the market; and with the royalties from his books, it's possible Barack Obama now has net wealth more than $5 million (though I guess he may have spent a lot of personal money this year - I bet a lot of expenses for getting your family around the country, people to look after the children, etc., come from the candidates' own pocket in the end).

[lumberjack_jeff]

147. Why are you talking about income? The OP was about wealth. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

153. The op mixes wealth and income without regard.

I doubt the OP thought there was much of a distinction. Actually, as far as the L curve goes, there isn't much of a distinction. The actual rich have huge incomes from enormous wealth: they don't work for a living other than as a hobby.

[Flatulo]

308. Thanks for some sanity. This thread is ridiculous. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

122. Pure idiocy on so many levels. Simplest is it is unconstititutional. Come back when you can think.

[ooglymoogly]

124. A graduated tax is not illegal nor unconstitutional. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

132. This isn't a graduated tax; it's the confiscation of all assets of 3 million people

(or perhaps 2.25 million, if you restrict it to the richest 1% of adults). There's no 'graduation' proposed; those who have assets worth more than, say, $5 million (I haven't seen anyone specify what the cutoff point is) have them all taken away. They are presumably expected to find an apartment to rent; those that used to run their own business and get their income from it will need to find a job, and so on. Those too old to work need to find somewhere on social security. Those with less than the cutoff point will be completely unaffected.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

182. Progressive or graduated tax ok. OP Seizing assets as penalty for being rich is unconstitutional.

[lightningandsnow]

123. Sigh.

I'm all for taxation and social services, but here's the assumption I have an issue with.

Just because many people who are poor or middle-class are good people, does not mean all wealthy people are evil.

Also, unconstitutional much?

[Hannah Bell]

235. nothing to do with personal evil. lots to do with structural evil.

[bread_and_roses]

346. Ding ding ding ding ding!

exactly. I get so tired of the "all wealthy people are not evil" posts. Similar to those who cannot seperate personal bigotry from institutional racism.

[nini]

125. Ridiculous

While I certainly believe the rich need to be taxed hard to make up for all the breaks they have received - taking everything they have is certainly against what this country is supposed to stand for - 2 wrongs do not make a right.

The American voter allowed people friendly to these assholes to take power - there's plenty of blame to go around.

Anyone corrupt in the financial end of this needs to be tried and imprisoned - if guilty they lose anything they made off their crimes.

[Dreamer Tatum]

128. Let me get this straight: a NEWSPAPER failed us to the degree that

the solution to their "failure" is to allow the government to appropriate the assets of
wealthy people?

Why not just seize the assets of the Washington Post?


It's against the rules to call the OP stupid, so I will merely refer to this idea as fucking moronic.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

156. The Super Rich Are Out of Sight

The Super Rich Are Out of Sight
January 2000

The super rich, the less than 1 percent of the population who own the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth, go uncounted in most income distribution reports. Even those who purport to study the question regularly overlook the very wealthiest among us. For instance, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, relying on the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, released a report in December 1997 showing that in the last two decades “incomes of the richest fifth increased by 30 percent or nearly $27,000 after adjusting for inflation.” The average income of the top 20 percent was $117,500, or almost 13 times larger than the $9,250 average income of the poorest 20 percent.

But where are the super rich? An average of $117,500 is an upper-middle income, not at all representative of a rich cohort, let alone a super rich one. All such reports about income distribution are based on U.S. Census Bureau surveys that regularly leave Big Money out of the picture. A few phone calls to the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. revealed that for years the bureau never interviewed anyone who had an income higher than $300,000. Or if interviewed, they were never recorded as above the “reportable upper limit” of $300,000, the top figure allowed by the bureau's computer program. In 1994, the bureau lifted the upper limit to $1 million. This still excludes the very richest who own the lion’s share of the wealth, the hundreds of billionaires and thousands of multimillionaires who make many times more than $1 million a year. The super rich simply have been computerized out of the picture.

When asked why this procedure was used, an official said that the Census Bureau’s computers could not handle higher amounts. A most improbable excuse, since once the bureau decided to raise the upper limit from $300,000 to $1 million it did so without any difficulty, and it could do so again. Another reason the official gave was “confidentiality.” Given place coordinates, someone with a very high income might be identified. Furthermore, he said, high-income respondents usually understate their investment returns by about 40 to 50 percent. Finally, the official argued that since the super rich are so few, they are not likely to show up in a national sample.

But by designating the (decapitated) top 20 percent of the entire nation as the “richest” quintile, the Census Bureau is including millions of people who make as little as $70,000. If you make over $100,000, you are in the top 4 percent. Now $100,000 is a tidy sum indeed, but it's not super rich — as in Mellon, Morgan, or Murdock. The difference between Michael Eisner, Disney CEO who pocketed $565 million in 1996, and the individuals who average $9,250 is not 13 to 1 — the reported spread between highest and lowest quintiles — but over 61,000 to 1.

Speaking of CEOs, much attention has been given to the top corporate managers who rake in tens of millions of dollars annually in salaries and perks. But little is said about the tens of billions that these same corporations distribute to the top investor class each year, again that invisible fraction of 1 percent of the population. Media publicity that focuses exclusively on a handful of greedy top executives conveniently avoids any exposure of the super rich as a class. In fact, reining in the CEOs who cut into the corporate take would well serve the big shareholder's interests.

* * *

The higher one goes up the income scale, the greater the rate of capital accumulation. Economist Paul Krugman notes that not only have the top 20 percent grown more affluent compared with everyone below, the top 5 percent have grown richer compared with the next 15 percent. The top one percent have become richer compared with the next 4 percent. And the top 0.25 percent have grown richer than the next 0.75 percent. That top 0.25 owns more wealth than the other 99 percent combined. It has been estimated that if children’s play blocks represented $1,000 each, over 98 percent of us would have incomes represented by piles of blocks that went not more than a few yards off the ground, while the top one percent would stack many times higher than the Eiffel Tower.

<snip>

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Superrich.html

[ooglymoogly]

222. Now here is some good info....take note. nt

[dcsmart]

136. WRONG COUNTRY FOR THAT TYPE OF ACTION

BUT NOT FOR THIS



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhVP--zFfY



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCp5kfdOrU

there is only the action of the population. GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. BY THE PEOPLE. FOR THE PEOPLE.


EDITOR
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRACY
http://timetofight.tumblr.com/
FIGHT 4 EVER
http://riot4ever.tumblr.com/

[Name removed]

137. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

143. Getting a little carried away by Pravda on the Potomac, aren't we?

Donald Graham & Co have basically been a laughingstock for years. I mean, here's a paper whose own editorial board refuses (on ideological reasons) to accept objetive facts gathered by its own reporters, and then publishes an editorial based on "made up" -and false information, the very next day!

How many other papers actually have to shut off the website of their own ombudman?

They're essentially a stuffier version of Fox- or the Moonie Times.

[edc]

146. WFT

:wtf: WE have been saying for forty years that the country needed to become more energy efficient, reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, foster an economic, social and educational order predicated upon social justice and long term viability. WE have been voices crying in the wilderness for 40 years about the dangers of climate change, the reason to avoid military conflicts, and the need to restrict military spending in peace time as a percentage of GDP. WE warned of the dangers inherent in the deregulation of big business and the end of progressive taxation. WE warned that the death of organized labor was the death of the American working class, its organized power and the start of pay to play politics. WE were labeled leftists, un-American, wimps, pinkos, self haters and worse for these and other efforts to reverse the death spiral of the American Empire. WE are liberals, not progressives. WE are mostly Baby Boomers who did not entirely sell out. Virtually all of our efforts to reform society have failed for two generation. WE had nothing put grass roots organization, no money and little time away from the demands of work and family. WE became enslaved to the same debt economics that have led the nation to our current impasse. WE were seduced by the glitter of the junk we could by. WE are not innocent. WE should have done more, even though arrayed against us was the vast economic and political power of the wealthy and their corporations, but WE didn't. The very rich have benefited greatly from the blood and misery of the entire planet. Why not take their assets? They've not only taken ours, they've stolen the futures of our children and threatened the very survival of our civilization and the planet itself with their avarice. Do you suppose they have seen the error of their ways? Do you think they or the economic system they have used to rob the world will change from any effort of theirs? ? Thinking back on it now, perhaps struggle to the death was the correct choice in the 60's. Who knows? That time has passed. What will you do generation XYZ123 if you are betrayed again and again by a Democratic Party you helped put in power and there is no viable political alternative to it? Will you just piss and moan, or will you fight? You better do better than WE did if you want to live and not just survive. Semper Fidelis

[Cid_B]

229. What Fuck The?

Seriously though, there is a button near the right side of your computer.

It is called an "Enter" key and it has a small arrow on it. Please press it every now and then.

Thanks

[edc]

257. Subject and Structure

Moderate consumption of red wine inspired the use of convoluted

alliteration, pronoun caps and excessive parallel structure in the

composition of this single paragraph missive. Sorry.

[Belial]

148. Wealth Envy = Loser Mentality

[TBF]

151. The point has nothing to do with jealousy, it has to do with redistribution.

1% of the people owning 30% of the country's assets is hardly a place where you really have a chance if you're not born with it. A few rich people are "nice" and give to charities. They do that to ease their guilt.

This OP is at least a step in the right direction for DU. We need to stop identifying as elites and start fighting for workers in this country.

[Belial]

154. Thanks for the response and the thought.. my concern is

where does it stop?

[TBF]

217. If we worry about that we'll never get started. Think of it in reverse -

if we don't start doing something, how many of us are going to be left? The gap between rich & poor is greater now than it was in the 1920's. With their "bank bail-out" they looted not only our 401ks but all the future earnings it is going to take to pay back the interest, not to mention principle. It's time to stand up to the bullies, and to fight back. We have very little to lose at this point.

[mitchum]

159. Thank you for that stunning wisdom, Miss Limbaugh

[Maru Kitteh]

216. You think yourself a liberal yet seek to demean someone by addressing them as "Miss."

how very dissociative of you.

[mitchum]

243. Fuck that "liberal" shit.; I'm a Leftist

[Hannah Bell]

234. nothing to do with envy. lots to do with power. plenty of people unemployed

right now, not because they screwed up, but because the super-rich like playing games with money.

why should some people have to lose their jobs, homes, security because thurston howell III made bad bets on telecoms?

why should some people have to go kill other people because thurston howell wants to protect his oil investments in the middle east?

why should some people's kids be exposed to drugs because thurston howell wants a supply of funds that can't be traced?

why should some people starve to death because thurston needs to drive up the price of rice to make more profit?

i don't envy the rich their houses or toys. but i hate the cruelties they force most of the world to endure, & the lies they make people live.

[proud patriot]

149. I can support seizure of 95%

[RollWithIt]

161. This is the United States, not the Soviet Union....

So ummmm, not gonna happen?

[fascisthunter]

169. doesn't have to be the Soviet Union

...could you imagine a country's government doing what the wealthy 1% do to us on a daily basis?

[RollWithIt]

191. "The Wealthiest 1%"

You act like they're some big cabal of likeminded people. It's a ridiculous concept. Are the wealthiest 22% all the same too?

[grantcart]

203. logic on a inflamatory thread like this? a true romantic

[Hannah Bell]

238. they go to the same schools, marry each other, "work" for the same enterprises.

and they have the same interests to protect. why wouldn't they be likeminded?

did you know jp morgan & fdr were cousins? Their great-grands were siblings.

Joseph Lyman m. Anne Jean Robbins
| .Catherine Robbins Lyman m. Warren Delano
| .Sara Delano m. James Roosevelt
| .FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1882-1945), US President
.Mary Lyman m. Lynde Lord Jr.
.Mary Sheldon Lord m. John Pierpont
.Juliet Pierpont m. Junius Spencer Morgan
.JOHN PIERPONT MORGAN (1837-1913), banker, m. Frances Louise Tracy


Roosevelt: fighting the big bankers!

Roosevelt family banks = Chemical bank, bank of NY

[MessiahRp]

172. Worked for Marc Antony and Gaius Octavian Caesar...

Although they not only killed the rich and seized their assets they took out political enemies as well... of course we're in charge now so.... j/k. :evilgrin:

Rp

[hughee99]

173. What's wrong with being in the top 1% ?

why should we seize all their assets leaving them with less than the poorest 1%? Are they all bad people who cheated or stole their money?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

174. There is much wrong with it

Consider these figures from the Economic Policy Institute. In 1979, the top one percent of wage earners made 9.4 times as much, on average, as the bottom 90 percent of the populace. This ratio had remained virtually unchanged since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, the top one-tenth of one percent made 21 times as much as the bottom 90 percent — again, a ratio that had barely budged in the postwar period.

Since then the income ratio of the top one percent relative to the bottom 90 percent has doubled, thus making it about the same as what the ratio of the top one-tenth of one percent to the bottom 90 percent was for the first 35 years of the postwar period.

<snip>

And, contrary to 30 years' worth of propaganda this redistribution of wealth hasn't been an inevitable product of the "laws" of economics, or the Divine Right of Plutocrats, or whatever rationalization the Heritage Institute and the Wall Street Journal are peddling this week. Rather, it's been largely a product of conscious policy changes: changes in the tax code, in the laws that distribute social power between capital and labor, in America's trade relationships, and in a host of other ways that have moved money from everyone else to the extremely rich as surely as Bonnie and Clyde moved money out of Depression-era bank vaults.

Of course none of this counts as a "redistribution of wealth" if you take the view that there is a certain natural economic order, and that only deviations from that order count as "redistribution."
That, indeed, has been the position of contemporary American conservatism. From the perspective of the defenders of our current plutocracy, the "natural" order of things is that envisioned as natural by J.P. Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt — no taxes on capital, weak or non-existent labor unions, largely unregulated financial markets: in short, an certain extreme vision of laissez faire capitalism.

<snip>

http://www.eagletribune.com/puopinion/local_story_299224532.html

[hughee99]

177. I understand the inequity part, are the top 1% specifically to blame for this...

or have the just been the most successful of the top 10% ers?

[Enthusiast]

286. I like this part

"That, indeed, has been the position of contemporary American conservatism. From the perspective of the defenders of our current plutocracy, the "natural" order of things is that envisioned as natural by J.P. Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt — no taxes on capital, weak or non-existent labor unions, largely unregulated financial markets: in short, an certain extreme vision of laissez faire capitalism."

And this is why we are in the mess we are in today.

[Career Prole]

178. K & friggin' R!!

:grr:

[muryan]

180. This is a democracy, and a capitalist system

Such a seizure would be in violation of half the laws of this land.

[RadiationTherapy]

183. Nooo! Then Atlas will shrug! Or Telemachus will sneeze!

Or Hercules will fart!

Disaster!

DISSSAAAASSSSSTEEERRRRRRR!

[anaxarchos]

188. Between the time that America was colonized, and the Civil War...

...there were four (4) - count them, 4 (four) - millionaires made through the individual "thrift, enterprise, and hard work" of several million individual proprietors in the United States. From 1861 to 1865 - four (4) years - another 1500 millionaires were created, almost exclusively through war contracts, profiteering, graft, and confiscated property. From 1865 to the end of World War I, another 15,000 millionaires appeared. Almost all of them date from two periods: from the redux of money-making in the World War itself, and from the earlier period of the construction of the transcontinental railroads. The last was an astonishing period in which huge land grants, both Federal and State, were given to the barely capitalized "Railroad Companies", who then turned around and immediately sold most of that land in order to raise capital. The throw off from that era created the "Robber Barons" and was directly or indirectly responsible for most of the great fortunes of the 20th century, and in particular for the genesis of American "Finance Capital" (Wall Street).

Prior to the railroads, the Rockefeller brothers, together, had spent 15 years applying the highest standards of personal enterprise and the nastiest standards of business practice to amass a fortune of less than a million dollars. Then, they cut a monopoly deal with the Penn Central Railroad. In two months, Standard Oil had absorbed 22 of its 26 competitors. In three years, Standard Oil was worth $150 million dollars. Over the coming decades, John D. Rockefeller became America's first billionaire. The Carnegie story is similar.

Hard earned, hard won, "personal fortunes"?

The OPs proposal would be no more than a "reset", "modest and conservative" by any objective standard. He didn't say, "off with their heads".

[Pavulon]

189. parity is fun that way

did your gammy ever talk about what could be had for a penny back in the day? same thing.

[Name removed]

190. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

194. Poverty

is the necessary offspring of such obscene wealth. I'm guessing the bodies piled high don't bother you too much. It's all connected.



Global Poverty

Will poverty be eradicated when the benefits of an unencumbered free market system
filter down through greater investment and better allocation of resources?
Or will free market fundamentalism produce greater inequality, exacerbate poverty, and
sound the death knell of human rights, democracy, world peace and the environment?

Could benevolent capitalism and enlightened self-interest lead to a more equitable
distribution of the world's scarce resources?
Or is it in the nature of capitalism to encourage and entrench vicious avarice,
shareholder fundamentalism and the tyranny of the market
which is so devoid of humanity?

Was the demise of social programmes like the New Deal and the Welfare State,
with the resultant elimination of crucial safety nets for the poor,
inevitable because of unsustainability and the enormous
demands placed on national fiscuses?
Or were these funds in fact siphoned off into Corporate Welfare for the
obscenely wealthy global capitalists and transnational corporations
in the form of corporate tax cuts and privatization of state assets?

http://www.pbase.com/rayker/image/58981761

[Lucky Luciano]

196. heheh...Mr Redstone ain't #41 anymore! Have you seen how

badly crushed VIA and CBS stocks have been?

[HughBeaumont]

382. Good ol' Forbes . . .

. . . still perpetuating that "self-made" myth, I see . . .

I think this is why he's for a flat tax. After all, since the wealthy are "self made", they shouldn't justifiably have such a huge chunk taken out! I mean, if you raised taxes on the wealthy, where would all that hiring come from?

:eyes:

[CreekDog]

Illegal, unconstitutional, but oh well...

Though I thought being a lousy idea was enough to keep it from consideration --but what do I know? :shrug:

[Captain Lance Bass]

193. smokin to much ganja i c n/t

[dweller]

197. a modest proposal

while i haven't read the OP's links thoroughly, this has been rumbling in my mind before, and thought i'd toss an idea out: sure, progressive tax them. But then apply also a mandatory servance of, i'll just throw out a number...say 40 hrs a week community service for every $100K of income earned over . . $5 million. And make it service in a variety of areas that poverty and lack of health care, or lack of food and shelter, or lack of educational opportunities abound. In other words, make them 'volunteer' in areas that the majority of the populations of many countries are suffering in due to lack of income.

Hell, most states now require all high school students to contribute in volunteer situations for x number of hours as a prerequisate for a diploma. Now, this is 'free labor' for short periods of time for many areas, meant to instill in the young people a sense of community, giving without expecting reward, the satisfaction of helping others that they must commit to graduate, etc. But it is still 'free labor'.
And if it is mandatory for them, why not the wealthiest?

I have thought this idea thru several times, and find myself ideally seeing a beneficial outcome overall. First, some of these wealthiest will experience firsthand, like it or not, what a larger number of humans experience, and some of them will gain insight into what their $$ is causing by the imbalance of distribution, what they could do to alleviate it by investing, contributing (tax write-off) to end the suffering of others, etc. What a lesson in forced empathy it could be...

and if they refuse, yeah, hang 'em. That's incentive too.

think it over if it interests you and add your ideas if you like. Like i said, i've thought it over myself several times and would not mind some critique and ideas of fine-tuning it.
peace
dp

[anaxarchos]

199. This is very good...

Appeal to their better nature, reach them through their human side, make them consider the real implications of their actions, and "if they refuse, yeah, hang 'em. That's incentive too."

This proposal captures the real duality of our age. Let me be the first to sign on, just as it is.

[Synicus Maximus]

200. What is the difference between making someone "volunteer' and slavery?

If you force someone to do something regardless if you call it volunteering or not for no other reason then they are a member of a group how is that different than slavery?

[anaxarchos]

202. I think the poster had tongue-firmly-in-cheek...

...but, now that you mention it, waddya call that?

I dunno... Jail? Workfare? Community Service? Being unemployed?

[dweller]

211. actually, tongue planted firmly in mind

tickling abit the grey matter.

as i said, an idea that could use some fleshing out. All ideas are welcome.
dp

[dweller]

210. explain that to a high school student

unable to graduate w/out 'volunteer service' requirements.

dp

[Fumesucker]

239. The point being though that high school students are *already* being forced to volunteer..

If slavery is OK for one group, why not for another?

Or is it only slavery when the wealthy are forced to do something?

[leftstreet]

204. Why not force poor people to live the lives of the wealthy instead?

See if they can gain some insight, experience firsthand, like it or not, what a small percentage of people experience.

And then we can all join hands, rich and poor, and sing The Internationale.

[IMPERIUM V]

224. "Class struggle"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZxkAQfkf6k

[leftstreet]

225. No call to insult my tractor, Mademoiselle!

We're all brothers, as Marx said.

;)

[dweller]

331. okee dokee by me, you take names

and i will work on lining them up for city blocks.


we'll sing in esperanto, you lead...
http://ttt.kafejo.com/lingvoj/auxlangs/eo/tradukilo/index.php?mytext=This+is+the+struggle+final%2F+Let+us+group+together+and+tomorrow%2F+The+Internationale%2F+Will+be+the+race+human.%22&sourcelanguage=English&outputformat=Xoisme&submitbutton=Translate%21

all together now
dp

[BrklynLiberal]

205. If things do not change, we will have no choice.......

:evilgrin:

[Incitatus]

206. ridiculous

A lot of people in the top 1 percent got there by using their brains and busting their asses.

If we were talking about the super wealthy who take away billions from corporations that pay many of their employees so little that they can't even afford health care or put food on the table without government assistance, I might agree.

[gristy]

214. Simple yet effective. I'd support this.

Yee-Hah!

[brentspeak]

220. Thomas Friedman also tried to pull the "we are all to blame for this mess" meme the other week

[HughBeaumont]

232. Dollman Friedman, like his ruthless economist counterpart, says a lot of things . . .

. . . many of them, of course, are wrong.

When I read the philosophies and beliefs of the Friedmans and their rationalization for "steamroll the poor, let the market sort 'em out" policies, I just got to wonder where along the way did they lose their soul and fully ignore the consequences that come with such an idiotic way of doing things?

[specialed]

236. Maybe not siezed but their tax rates should go up to 80% for several years

to pay back this Ponzi scheme they perpetrated on average Americans.

[erpowers]

249. Does That Include Obama?

I know this might anger a few people, but I just wanted to ask the question, does that include Obama. Obama happens to be a part of that one percent. In addition, while you are placing blame on so many other maybe you should ask why Obama did nothing to stop this from happening. He could have also tried to do something. I imagine any Obama supporter will say his running for office was doing something, but he could have done something in the Senate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

315. At least he has a house from his new job; Gore, the Clintons, the Kennedys will be homeless

as well as penniless. All those who think the OP is a good idea are advocating making 3 million people homeless; that some of them may be leading Democrats, or Oprah Winfrey, or Bruce Springsteen, probably, makes no difference to them. Once they hit the limit, they are to have all their assets confiscated. They feel that owning say, $4 million is fine, while owning $5 million is so bad that it should all be taken by the government, leaving them with literally nothing.

They are obviously very judgemental.

[DailyGrind51]

251. Certainly, everyone who profitted from the war, escalation in oil prices, and mortgage meltdown!

[pipi_k]

252. Didn't want this point to get lost in thread limbo...

In response to a post titled "Wealth envy = Loser"



I don't envy anyone's wealth. In fact, in most cases, I feel rather sorry for the super rich. Must be a dreadfully boring life knowing where every meal is coming from, and it must be sheer torture having yachts and multiple cars to have to choose from. Imagine how hard it must be having to worry about losing that nice Rolex watch or someone making off with that $5,000 diamond studded change purse.

bleh. I'll have none of it, thank you very much.




But this little guy...I'll bet he would envy all that wealth...maybe his parents would too, if they're still alive...but hey...he's probably just a loser...

warning: link to graphic photo

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.htm

[valerief]

253. Kick

:kick:

[Joanne98]

262. I agree. It's the only why we'll get our money back!

[NeedleCast]

266. Haves vs the Have Nots

You know, if there werent mounds of evidence that show that every time some revolutionary types make a power grab they just turn around and become the new oppressors, you might be on to something here. But, history has shown us that the usual result of revolution is just to install new "haves" who begin to act the same way (or worse) than the original "haves."

You find a way to stop greed and the corruption of power on a global scale, then I'll get behind you on this.

[km1550]

282. Revolution Time

It's time for real Americans to organize, and do just that. Take back what is ours, and imprison the thieves and politicians that made this happen.

[NeedleCast]

291. That's all well and good to say

Well, actually it's not, it's pretty dumb really, but let me ask you this...what makes you think a revolution will produce anything but the same system with new masters?

I'm not sure what you mean by "real American" in this context, but I'll assume you mean the working class. What do you claim to be "ours?" Or is that just rhetoric used to point out that "they" have something "you" want?

Cite me some evidence where the people have risen up and seized the assets of the wealthy and created a society where there was no longer a wealthy class. Until you can do that, all you have is knee-jerk jealousy of being a have-not.

Please note, I'm not saying it can't happen, I'm just saying it hasn't worked the way you think it will work yet.

[anaxarchos]

290. Look on the bright side...

Whenever the Have Nots show up, there is always lots of good singing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k34COolbdmY

[Greyhound]

293. This is unfortunately true, we have seen the signs here already. Remember the contrast

between the Carter and Raygun Presidencies?

Carter, a man obviously firm in his convictions, walked to the inauguration as a symbol of humility, put solar panels on the White House, and had the temerity to tell Americans that we had to change our ways. We hated him for it.

Raygun came in and wallowed in pomp and privilege and has declared to have "restored the dignity of the Presidency".

We seem to want someone to be better than us.

[scrinmaster]

296. And then what?

Do you really think that people would be willing to struggle to get to the top if everything they owned could be seized because you think that would be "fair"?

[stray cat]

298. Lets just put any crooks in jail and act legally

People have a right to there legal earnings whether they make more or less than I do. Without law they can cease your property or throw you in jail as well.

[blindpig]

317. But what if what is legal is unfair, immoral and obscene?

And we're not just talking about income here, we're talking about wealth. How does 'picking one's parents' entitle one to anything? Serious wealth has little to do with genius or hard work, unless it's other people's.

When the law is a tool of oppression then to comply with it makes one complicit. How long shall we lock our own shackles?

[Zech Marquis The 2nd]

299. I wouldn't take away their assets

seriously, what's a middle class guy like me going to do with P Diddy's gold toilet seat? :evilgrin: Since the Paris Hilton class was given so much money when they really didn;t need it in the first place by *, surely they wouldnt mind paying their fair share of taxes like the rates ere under the Clinton years. At the worst, they'll have what, one less Bentley or one less vacation up in Vail?

[stray cat]

300. "Animal Farm"

[jeff30997]

306. Yep. And now it's time to sing:

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.












And they are damn parasites also.

[onehandle]

302. Gee. I wonder why they call us the looney left? nt

[anaxarchos]

333. I doubt anybody calls you that. n/t

[CheCheCheCheYerBooty]

304. It's our money,

why not?

[jeff30997]

307. DOH!!!

Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

Kickin'.

[Odin2005]

309. Methinks the OP has been reading too much Marxist BS.

High taxes on the rich, yes, outright confiscation? fuck no.

[Richardo]

310. "Marxist" and "BS" are redundant

:)

[Odin2005]

319. LOL, that post is refreshing for this ex-Marxist.

I expected to be flamed for saying that... :yoiks:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

322. Closely related features

found in the capitalism uber alles culture is anti-intellectualism and red-baiting.

The game is rigged. The playing field needs serious leveling. At present there is no system in place that can even approach the obvious grotesque inequities that surround us. Nor are there any in the distance which are approaching. Quite the contrary as any threats to the current system are kept hidden from view or willfully ignored by those who identify far more with the system than they do with social justice.

How high must the bodies pile before you admit to the evidence?

And Marx was right.

[Richardo]

328. Those Communist workers' paradises all worked out so well, right?

Bodies didn't pile up in the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Angola?

Marx forgot he was dealing with humans.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

329. Hello?

Please read some history.

If you are stating that the USSR, China, Eastern Europe and North Korea are or have been in any way run even remotely by Marxist principles you have displayed a terribly predictable but still breathtaking ignorance of historical fact.

Pretty sad to see such a reactionary response but again all too predictable.

And of course we don't even want to start counting the bodies killed by capitalism.

[TZ]

354. Have you ever read Animal Farm by George Orwell?

I think you need to. Marxism is a FAILED idea. Every time it gets applied it gets corrupted and turns into misery for most people. Stalinism was a direct result of the attempt by Lenin to apply Marxism and it was one of the most murderous govts in modern history.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

362. Yes of course I've read it

Several times in fact.

Your conflation is way off target. Orwell was speaking to Stalinism (as well as other things) and many of the right-wing will smear Marx by using Stalin as a prop. These comparisons are grossly inaccurate.

Your simplistic interpretation of events in Russia are a-historical.

You are confused.

[Name removed]

338. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Odin2005]

360. Marx was pwned by center-left philosopher Karl Popper. FAIL!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society

The open society is a concept originally developed by philosopher Henri Bergson. In open societies, government is responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are transparent and flexible. The state keeps no secrets from itself in the public sense; it is a non-authoritarian society in which all are trusted with the knowledge of all. Political freedoms and human rights are the foundation of an open society.

In Karl Popper's definition, found in his two-volume book The Open Society and Its Enemies, he defines an "open society" as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need for bloodshed, as opposed to a "closed society", in which a bloody revolution or coup d'état is needed to change the leaders. He further describes an open society as one "in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions" as opposed to a "magical or tribal or collectivist society".<1> In this context, tribalistic and collectivist societies do not distinguish between natural laws and social customs. Individuals are unlikely to challenge traditions they believe to have a sacred or magical basis. The beginnings of an open society are thus marked by a distinction between natural and man-made law, and an increase in personal responsibility and accountability for moral choices. (Note that Popper did not see this as incompatible with religious belief.<2>) Popper argues that the ideas of individuality, criticism, and humanitarianism cannot be suppressed once people become aware of them, and therefore that it is impossible to return to the closed society.<3>

Popper's concept of the open society is epistemological rather than political.<4> When Popper wrote The Open Society and its Enemies he believed that the social sciences had failed to grasp the significance and the nature of fascism and communism because these sciences were based on faulty epistemologies.<5> Totalitarianism forced knowledge to become political which made critical thinking impossible and led to the destruction of knowledge in totalitarian countries<6>

Popper's theory that knowledge is provisional and fallible implies that society must be open to alternative points of view. An open society is associated with cultural and religious Pluralism . Open society is always open to improvement because knowledge is never completed but always ongoing. Claims to certain knowledge and ultimate truth lead to the attempted imposition of one version of reality. Such a society is closed to freedom of thought. In contrast, in an open society each citizen needs to engage in critical thinking, which requires freedom of thought and expression and the cultural and legal institutions that can facilitate this.<7> Democracies are examples of the "open society", whereas totalitarian dictatorships, theocracy, and autocratic monarchies are examples of the "closed society".

Humanitarianism, equality and political freedom are fundamental characteristics of an open society. This was recognised by Pericles, a statesman of the Athenian democracy, in his funeral oration: "... advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life."<8>

George Soros, a student of Karl Popper, has argued that the sophisticated use of powerful techniques of deception borrowed from modern advertising and cognitive science by political operatives such as Frank Luntz and Karl Rove casts doubt on Popper's original conception of Open Society.<9> . Because the electorates' perception of reality can easily be manipulated, democratic political discourse does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of reality.<10> Soros argues that besides the requirements for the separation of powers, free speech, and free elections, we also need to make explicit a strong commitment to the pursuit of truth.<11> "Politicians will respect, rather than manipulate, reality only if the public cares about the truth and punishes politicians when it catches them in deliberate deception."<12>

Organisations such as the Open Society Institute and Open Society Foundation of South Africa aim to actively promote the open society through lobbying and public involvement.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

363. Maybe you had a typo

You are then pushing for Popper's "Open Society" if I understand correctly?

[Blue_Tires]

316. um...no

all of their assets should not be swiped, but there should be some fundamental changes on a legal and cultural level which allows and encourages the exploitation of the bottom 90 percent...and as enron showed, there are a lot of fortunes out there, but fewer and fewer legit ones...

[flvegan]

321. 115 Recommends? Gotta be kidding me.

[Irish Girl]

340. actually not as crazy as first seems when viewed from perspective of survival of the human species

however, still very unlikely to happen. A more likely scenario is the top 1% elite will squash the rest of us like bugs. When dwindling resources are at stake and wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, we will probably become simple disposable fodder.

[B Calm]

343. If the top 1% pay 90% of all the taxes, why in hell don't they pay all of the taxes?

They sure as hell could afford it!

[natrat]

350. should be-politicians,bankers should have assets siezed and be jailed

[Cid_B]

351. Theodore Roosevelt said it best...

"Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures." -T.R.

I was done with this thread but I had to come back after coming across this quote while doing research.

[anaxarchos]

359. Teddy Roosevelt said...

...some of the dumbest things ever uttered (go look) and he probably invented "blaming the victim". When it is something to be lauded, it is the "talent", "enterprise", yadda, yadda of the "individual" character. When it is something to be criticized, "we" - the big collective "we" that only comes out when its time to disburse the blame - "we" are at fault.

If those of moderate means are guilty of "envy and hatred" for wanting so little, what monsters of "envy and hatred" the rich must be for not being satisfied with so much...

[Hannah Bell]

361. nothing to do with fucking ENVY. The maldistribution of wealth & power KILLS people, haven't you

noticed??!!!

People like you think it's about buying more ipods & fur-lined bmws or something. sheesh.

[Cid_B]

366. And you in turn...

are fooling yourself if you think that there isn't a hint ( at the very least ) of envy in your little mix. Even if you don't acknowledge it.

[anaxarchos]

368. No...

Not a hint; not an iota; not a trace element. No envy at all... Wrong life, wrong values, wrong epitaph. Really.

The "rich" are nothing but historical flotsam. They have nothing that is worth having.

[Hannah Bell]

369. perhaps the envy you think you see is projection on your part.

i no more "envy" the ultra-wealthy than i would "envy" hitler.

yes, i put them in the same category.

[Cid_B]

370. Did we really make almost 400 posts without Hitler?

I'm gonna check....

EDIT: Yup, wow.

[Hannah Bell]

371. why are we in iraq, in whose interest, & why 1 million excess deaths?

why are we in congo, in whose interest, & why 4 million excess deaths?

why are we in hock for 700 billion, in whose interest, & why 750,000 layoffs?

too bad you don't get it. too bad you think it's about "envying" someone's sportscar.

useful idiots.

[Cid_B]

372. Do you just sit there...

... and hug yourself all night just knowing how much smarter you are than everyone else?

I don't know what lots of folks around here would do without indignation and self-righteousness and the smugness of knowing just how much better you are than everyone else ( you know.. on the inside .)

Get over yourself.

[Hannah Bell]

373. it's all you have to offer, isn't it?

buddy, you're the one who started off with "envy".

i'm not so smart;

just smart enough not to help the ruling class spread their propagada memes: like charging "envy" on anyone who questions the distribution of wealth & power.

those people are useful idiots.

[Cid_B]

374. Zzzz

*awakes with a start*

Oh, I'm sorry. Wake me when your done hugging. *nods off again*

[Hannah Bell]

375. If you're snoring, how'd you write the post? The snark doesn't change the facts.

The rich make us fight their wars. They impose a phoney "reality" that serves their interests, & their power.

They put their ideas into your head.

And you serve them, like a good little slave, & worship their power.

[Cid_B]

376. *hits the snooze button*

5 more minutes Ma.. just five more minutes


Zzzzzz....


( As a side note... "If you're snoring, how'd you write the post?" <---- Really? Did you really ask that?)

[Hannah Bell]

377. Yes, I really wrote it. Your stupid snark warrants it.

Keep on sleeping, little man, & dreaming your dreams.

[HughBeaumont]

383. Well, if you look upstream, said poster believes food isn't a "right".

You know, despite what that pesky UN charter says.

So this is the kind of cretin who will be worm food soon.

[Cid_B]

389. Why exactly am I going to be "worm food"?

Inquiring minds want to know...

[HughBeaumont]

390. Fer not follerin' the RULES, G.

"Democratic Underground is an online community for Democrats and other progressives. Members are expected to be generally supportive of progressive ideals, and to support Democratic candidates for political office. Democratic Underground is not affiliated with the Democratic Party, and comments posted here are not representative of the Democratic Party or its candidates.

Last I checked, attesting that food isn't a "right" (despite clear wording from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that it is) is not a progressive ideal. The right to speak and think can be taken away with a bullet to the temple. That doesn't make them, by your weird logic, NOT "rights".

Dismissal of the real problem of world and local starvation is not exemplary of the ideals of this site. Food is a universal human right, as are shelter, clothing and affordable health care.

[Greyhound]

396. "Useful idiot". You nailed that one. The parasites cannot exist without them.

These marks that think, "someday it will be me" give them the cover they need to operate.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

384. Between the 70's

and the present, the biggest shift of wealth ever, from working people to the filthy rich 1 percent, took place.

"The net worth of the 358 richest people in the world was then to be found to be 'equal to the combined income of the poorest 45 per cent of the world’s population — 2.3 billion people.’ The world’s 200 richest people 'more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998, to more than $1 trillion,’ so that 'the assets of the world’s top three billionaires were more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people.’ These trends have accelerated, albeit unevenly. The share of the national income taken by the top 1 per cent of income earners in the US more than doubled between 1980 and 2000 while that of the top 0.1 per cent more than tripled. 'The income of the 99th percentile rose 87 percent’ between 1972 and 2001 while that of 'the 99.9th percentile rose 497 percent.’ In 1985 the combined wealth of the Forbes 400 richest people in the US 'was $238 billion’ with 'an average net worth of $600 million,’ adjusted for inflation. By 2005, their average net worth was $2.8 billion and their collective assets amounted to $1.13 trillion—more than the gross domestic product of Canada.’" — Introduction to 'The Limits of Capital’, David Harvey, Verso edition, 2006, p. xi

[TZ]

385. Making a new class of poor is a good thing. Got it.

[Danger Mouse]

386. So apparently there were 115 people stupid enough to rec this shit?

:puke:

[lonestarnot]

387. Looks like you created a disturbance.

:applause: :evilgrin: Richies always get shook up when there is talk about their money.

[Danger Mouse]

388. Fucking bullshit. I'm as poor as dirt and I still think this OP is tragically stupid.

[anaxarchos]

391. Fookin' tragic, I'm tellin' ya...

Ten million unemployed, millions more can't retire, the fortunes (modest though they were) of the "middle class" lost, the world slipping into a historic depression - we're just startin' - and it bugs you that some people have begun to think about taking the social property of the rich (who clearly, unambiguously, and ruthlessly caused the above)?

Why... you're right. That is tragically stupid. Sorry to hear that you are not even "rich".

Perhaps you can repeat some silly-ass catechism about "human nature" to make yourself feel better.

[lonestarnot]

392. Gee, I don't have to say a thing!

:applause: Thanks! :hi:

[Danger Mouse]

393. A handful of people are responsible. You punish them through legal channels...

not by doing something that's flagrantly unconstitutional and against every principle upon which this country was founded.
What, you want to make their children suffer too to fulfill your bitter vendetta? Good luck with that.
You know the french revolution was a fucking trainwreck, right?

[anaxarchos]

394. You need to learn a little more...

...about history. The French Revolution made the American Constitutional Republic. Too bad it stopped short; with the Constitution of 1789 rather than that of 1793. Jefferson knew it and so did Madison, but then, slavery makes you crazy for centuries at a time. "Flagrantly unconstitutional" is it? As I asked above, what article of the Constitution is violated? It's just "details", exactly as the rich you want to protect see it. Even in a land of property holders and slave-masters, there is NO absolute property rights per se. Of course, you can argue for the "Unwritten Article": Thou shalt always try to understand and toady to the "tragedy" of money. "The rich are different from you and me." Yep, they've got no conscience, no morality, and no reason for existence. Other than that, they are just fine.

You just stay on that catechism as if it were your own.

[Danger Mouse]

404. The French Revolution turned into the Reign of Terror which made a lot of dead innocent people.

Eventually the ideals of the Revolution were subverted by...surprise surprise...IDEOLOGUES...who were more interested in shedding blood than the good of the people...eventually they simply turned on each other like wolves. Yeah, what a fantastic period in history that was. :eyes:

[Greyhound]

398. If you're really as poor as dirt and still defending the system that impoverished you,

just who is "tragically stupid"?

[Danger Mouse]

405. How the hell is seizing the assets of the wealthy going to do shit to help this country?

Care to explain in detail, with evidence to support your argument?
I'm not defending the system that caused this mess, I'm just criticizing severely flawed arguments.

[Greyhound]

406. If you are unable to see how $7T to $9T would not be an enormous help

to the rest of us, you are the problem.

There is no argument to the self-evident.

I have no idea where to even start. The private banking system? The dual education systems? Perhaps if JFK Jr. sat you down and personally related to you just how alien the world you grew up with is to his peers?

I'm just going to tell you that, to those that matter, you and your problems are of no worth whatsoever, not even a consideration, less a concern than their pet's most recent digestive problems. Imminently, and inevitably, replaceable with six billion other "useless eaters".

Do you really believe that the people that run things give you or yours any thought whatsoever?

[Danger Mouse]

408. So we starve some to feed others?

Again, how is that constitutional? Not every rich person got rich through evil means. Not every rich person is evil.
I'm not 'the problem.' :rofl: Tell me how you would implement this seizure of assets, oh great one! There's just so much of this that's mind-bogglingly stupid, I hardly know where to begin.

[Greyhound]

409. Point made. n/t

[Danger Mouse]

410. Riiight, whatever you say, buddy.

:eyes:
I'm done with this discussion. You can have a miniature French Revolution in your head and mentally condemn all of the rich people you hate so much to the guillotine.

[B Calm]

395. We'll call it JUDGEMENT DAY! Finally, a wealth recovery

mechanism for all the benefits large businesses and the filthy rich received at the expense of 99% of the population and for all the protection services provided by the US government..

[riverdeep]

397. I think restructuring would be vastly superior to outright seizure.

Reshifting incentives so the super wealthy would be naturally eliminated by the marketplace. Or at least reduce the vast inequities.

When you start talking about outright seizure, I start thinking of a place like Zimbabwe seizing the farms of whites. Look how well that turned out.

[B Calm]

403. Here is an historical example of how the game is played

and hopefully will provide enough incite to understand the current situation. In order to get railroads built across the nation in the mid 19th century, the government gave huge tracts of land to the railroads in Indian Territory. This provided an incentive to build the tracks and maintenance depots. Soon thereafter, the railroads realized that they had no customers to make freight carrying operations profitable. Hence they encouraged the government to provide incentives to settlers to move West to create working farms and ranches who would need freight services to carry their output to markets East, thus the impetus for various homestead acts, etc. As soon as the West was settled and made safe by driving the Indians to live on their reservations, the railroads, decided that they could regain some of this land by increasing their shipping costs to a level that made many farms/ranches unprofitable. Many of these farmers sold out and were driven to cities to become the labor for much of the new industrial factories being built in the north and latter this provided labor for the auto industry. Furthermore, when the railroads gained monopoly power and it was proven they betrayed the public trust, all was neither forgotten nor forgiven. The progressive party came about. Also, when it came time to provide incentives for the transportation systems of the future, the railroads were scorned over autos which became the preferred industry, while the rails declined.

Well, essentially we are repeating history; we are at the point where the railroads raised prices to drive the farmers off their land. The tax code was changed over the last 20 years to create wealth, and it accomplished this feat extremely well. Corporations were given "free land" the ability to issue stocks and the public received incentives to homestead-IRA, 401k plans, Pensions, Mutual Funds, etc. Now just like the railroads, they betrayed the public trust (stock options, insider trading, pro forma accounting, cooked books, dishonest business practices, etc) while stock prices continue to tumble and share buybacks continue at record levels...just like the railroads buying back the land of the farmers they defrauded. And now the question remains will the public forgive?

I think the public would and should be outraged, turmoil is simmering. A judgment day will come....

[Hannah Bell]

407. Thank you for the history paradigm. IMO, this kind of covert manipulation of labor

is pretty standard. I don't agree with you in all the details, but studying geneaologies I started noticing the relatives of the big boys were always in "the new land" when the landless pioneers got there. Ready to put them to work.

"In order to get railroads built across the nation in the mid 19th century, the government gave huge tracts of land to the railroads in Indian Territory. This provided an incentive to build the tracks and maintenance depots. Soon thereafter, the railroads realized that they had no customers to make freight carrying operations profitable. Hence they encouraged the government to provide incentives to settlers to move West to create working farms and ranches who would need freight services to carry their output to markets East, thus the impetus for various homestead acts, etc. As soon as the West was settled and made safe by driving the Indians to live on their reservations, the railroads, decided that they could regain some of this land by increasing their shipping costs to a level that made many farms/ranches unprofitable. Many of these farmers sold out and were driven to cities to become the labor for much of the new industrial factories being built in the north and latter this provided labor for the auto industry."

[Naturyl]

411. Seize it all, baby. (n/t)

[roamer65]

412. I'd just move my accounts to the Cayman Islands.

Problem solved.

I'm really not that wealthy, but I would move my accounts just to piss you off.

I am in favor of an automatic 50% tax rate for anyone making over 500k a year. No credits, no deductions.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

413. You've explained quite simply

what the very problem is with the automatic tax rate you propose. That was probably unintentional.