Right. You don't need to change to a flat tax, and you don't need to take the herbal supplements. You can just close loopholes and exercise more.

It would still involve you getting money from me and I can't participate in that.

What would?

I read your post wrong. I thought you were still trying to sell me down the river with your stupid supplements.

I don't think you have your facts straight. You don't know what I need.

Ding ding ding - We have a winner. I'm in.
Perhaps not, But I'll still tell you & you'll like if I have to beat it into you.

:D Thank you may I have another. :D

:whip:

Who do you think I am Sugarpop?

Dude, you are no Sugarpop. I know Sugarpop. And well... you're a dude. She is hot.

I get what you're saying, and I agree, to an extent. I do not believe any CEO is worth 4-500 times what the average worker is worth. We have this mentality in this country that is... evil, for lack of a better word. WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO ELIMINATE POVERTY IN THIS COUNTRY. So why shouldn't we try? Not everyone wants to be filthy rich. Everyone DOES want to be able to live, to have a life, and to be treated with respect. Why can't we create that? It's in our power. NO ONE should have to work 3 jobs just to survive. Not in this country.

You are right, but you will never be rich if you don't.

I don't care about being rich. Many people don't care about being rich. They do care about having a good quality of life, where they can afford to live and pay their bills and make their obligations, and save a little for later in life, and still have some money left over to have some fun, and people should be able to that without having to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. People should not have to live paycheck to paycheck, no matter what job they do. Not in this country, supposedly the best country in the world. You can't argue that we have the greatest country when so many people, people who work hard, are struggling just to survive.

No we don't. We have the ability to raise incomes across the board, thus bringing everyone above the current poverty line. Yippee! oh wait, what was the definition of inflation again? If minimum wage is $50K/year, within a short period of time it will cost $60K to be above the poverty line. That is how it works, like it or not.

Meh. Shrouds don't have pockets.

It also depends on what you call "poverty". 3 square meals and a roof over your head is unheard-of luxury, historically speaking.

There is a cost for "not being rich" If you want all that goes with it, you have to make the sacrifices to reap the rewards.

There is no utopia - it doesn't exist. I agree though this doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards this goal, but if you want, you have to earn. Your "I'm entitled to all these wonderful things just because I exist" is a mentality that I disagree with.

I forgot my /sarcasm tags.:o

:rolleyes: It does not have to work like that.

What is the cost for not being rich? Not being able to own a big yatch or an expensive sports car, or not being able to go skiing in Switzerland every year? I'm not even talking about that stuff. I'm talking about people who work their ASS off, and still have trouble affording food and health care and the necessities of life.

People should be able to have a decent job, and if they work hard, they should be paid well enough to afford nutritious food, and since we don't want government health care in this country, then they should be paid enough to afford a GOOD insurance policy that completely covers them and their family (if they have one), and they should be able to afford to buy new clothes/shoes once in a while, and their utilities and a phone, and some kind of transportation (even if it's a bicycle), and to go out to dinner once in a while, maybe once every couple of months, or to see a movie, and they should be paid enough to save a little.

Now I am not stupid. I know that, even if we paid everyone well enough to afford those things, some people still would not manage their money well. But what has gone on in this country for the past 30 years is not about that, it's about people being left completely behind. There IS plenty of money for everyone, if the people at the top would just be a little less greedy.

The truth is, the GAP between the top and bottom has grown horribly over the past 30 years. CEO pay has skyrocketed, while pay for the middle class has remained stagnant or grown very little. Why is it OK with you for the pay to jump so damn much at the top, and to remain the same for everyone else? Don't you see the unfairness of that? Not only that, don't you see the unsustainability of it? I honestly do not get the reasoning of people like you, who cheer for the uber wealthy, while demonizing the majority of Americans. In this country, CEOs used to earn 30x more than the average worker, which is close to what it is in other countries right now, higher even, NOW, a CEO earns around 500x more. What makes you think that is OK? Why was it OK for Carly Fiorina to walk away from HP with millions of dollars after she ran the company into the ground? Why is it OK for CEOs to take giant sums of money in bonuses while they lay people off and cut their benefits? Good grief!

Warning: Thread Drift.

Where does this end? I guess since the Bush twins and Palin's daughter were attacked and followed in the press for their growing pains, so is Biden's daughter. We learned during the last election cycle that the press knows no bounds in the BS they can publish. Now rumors about Biden's daughter, who btw is 27 years old and a completely independent adult, was caught on tape doing cocaine. So do you get to be famous by proxy? It would seem so.

I heard about this too.

One link I found had this in it.

Bold mine - Note that in the first description it's a red straw and in the second its a rolled bill.

I don't really care what she does, just like I didn't care about what Palin's kids did. All media hype.
Asan aside, I'll bet that video gets a good buck though.

Yea, but you know in the pre-election phase the press and liberal media outlets liked to hold Palin's daughters private life as if Palin failed as a mother or could not control her daughter which contrasted with Palin's christian conservative views she preached about on the road to the election. Who control's a 17 year old and what they do? Biden's daughter is 27. This has nothing to do with Biden the VP.

Wasn't coke. Was Botox.

They start early in that family.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Cocaine Scandal Video
Lawyer Quits

Yes it does. It is simple mathematics applied to the law of supply and demand. If you think there is another way please describe it.

Just have everyone put all their earnings in a big pot (Gov't) and (let them) divide it up equally between everybody. Won't that work?

Or just stuff everything in a great big strawman! Won't that be FUN?

:blah:

HA HA HA

No, it doesn't. People at the top don't have to be so greedy. If a company is profitable, everyone should share in the success, not just the executives and the shareholders. The pay at the top does not have to be 500x that of the average employee. Why not something reasonable? There is no other country on earth where the pay scale is so imbalanced. It works in other countries, and it worked in this country for years, so please don't be so insulting as to say it can't work, because it has worked, and it does work.

The people at the top are not the subjects we were speaking about. We were talking about all the people at the bottom having a higher level of income/standard of living. We were talking about the elimination of poverty. Quite simply that cannot happen. If the lowest income earner in America received $50K/year then the poverty line would be moved to $60K because of inflationary pressure. If there is that much cash injected into the economy then the cost of items increases - that is an economic fact that has absolutely nothing to do with john q billionaire's most recent gold plated yacht.

if the grocery bagger earns $50K/year the plumber will earn $100K. If the plumber earns $100K the surgeons will earn $500K. There is no other way for things to play out.

We live in a society where the poor still have food, shelter, tv, and transportation. They have a minimum expectation for healthcare. Never before in history have the poor lived so well. While we should always strive to improve life for all, don't be so foolish as to believe the current high income earners will stand still while those at the bottom move up.

I am talking about the disparity of income in this country. If we didn't have such a huge gap, everyone could live more comfortably. The gap was not always this huge. Couples in the middle class used to be able to afford living on one income even while buying a house. The middle class is what made this country strong. The middle class is disappearing because the people at the top keep demanding ever higher incomes. We need things to swing in the other direction for a while to bring us back into balance. And NO, I do not mean that everyone should have the same things and earn the same amount. We DO have the ability to end poverty in this country. Maybe we need to snatch some of the power away from the people at the top in order to acheive this. Greed has brought us to the brink of destruction. It's time to do something about that.

And don't think those at the bottom will continue to just take it from the rich. One day people will rise up and we will have a bloody revolution on our hands if these things are not addressed.

How much did that house cost? Did they have two new(er)cars? Did they multiple cell phones? Big screen TV's? The gap between the richest and poorest has increased obscenely but what you seem to ignore is that neither is standing still. The middle class and in fact the lower class are have and do much more than they did 30/50/70 years ago. Once playthings for the rich, luxuries like these are available to most of the people you see in day to day life.

I know many middle class couples today who live on one income. That is a choice they made based on their priorities. They live within their means knowing they earn less than dual income middle class couples.

There will always be a gap and there should be a gap, otherwise we call it socialism. We do not live in a socialistic society.

Prove it. ;)

IMO it all boils down to the fact that I don't really care what the rich have. If they gained it by playing inside the lines then good for them. There will always be a poverty line and there will always be some beneath it. I don't care at all about the amount it is set at because that will change. I support trying to make life tolerable with safety net programs designed to help them back on their feet and moving upward. Very few people genuinely don't have the ability to better their position in life if they see it as a priority and are willing to work at it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/morr...890/hammer.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bogd.../socialism.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=lSm...um=6&ct=result

Q. What do people mean when they say they are "socialists"?

A. As for "socialist", there are again two types - genuine ones fighting for the abolishment of wage labor and the rule of capital, and reformists. Many reformists call themselves "socialist" but have generally imperialist policies. For example, the French government is currently "socialist" - yet they are pursuing criminal imperialist aims such as the bombing of Yugoslavia! In Marxist terms, socialism is generally regarded as the period of transition between capitalism and communism - the transition to a system in which we can truly have "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". So genuine Marxists can be interchangeably called socialists so long as they have as their goal the abolishment of capitalism and the establishment of genuine worker controlled, democratic socialism. Just remember, those who call themselves "socialists" need to be taken with a grain of salt - look at the contents of the jar before you eat it - don't rely only on the label! :)

http://www.newyouth.com/content/view/117/60/

We live in a society that is influenced by socialism. It isn't black and white.

But thank God the influence of Capitolism far outweighs it. And we need to be sure we are talking about the same "socialism" as I have defined above.

This is going off on a tangent, but most of that material wealth is just disposable crap.

Houses today are built with drywall and plastic siding, not plaster and wooden clapboards. Plastic windows instead of wood. Furniture is mostly particleboard crap. Electronics are meant to be thrown away after 5 years. My last TV lasted 20 years. Think my new one will? We were recently looking for a dresser for my daughter. To find a decent one built of hardwood, it was $2000 to buy new one from a furniture store. Fortunately, we found an antique for less. The $400 dressers from IKEA will be in the trash in 10 years. Look at lot sizes for houses. They are tiny.

I understand what you are saying, but we live in a disposable society today, and if you want to buy quality items that last, you have to pay a fortune. Most people buy disposable crap and throw it away after a few years. Cars are about the only material thing we have that are better than what our parents had.

Merc, you repeatedly miss her point. The AMOUNT of the gap is her issue.

I understand the tangent Glatt and I'll readily agree that the quality of everyday mass consumption items has gone down. Of course to say that we have to compare them to items that weren't everyday mass consumption items when they were made.

My point is that the lower income brackets have filled their lives with stuff that would have been viewed as pure luxuries to the lower brackets thirty and forty years ago. Hell, I remember when my uncle got one of those big rear projection tv's in the late 70's - early '80's. EVERYONE knew about it. It was an event when someone in our low blue collar town made a luxury purchase like that. A new (used) car was worth whistling at for a week or two. I didn't know anyone who purchased a new-new car until I was in high school and that guy owned the biggest construction company in the area.

The quality of items may be lower, but that goes with mass production. If we remove the nostalgia from the equation it is fairly clear that the lower income brackets have access to much more than they did before. I'm not saying they shouldn't grow anymore, I'm just saying that while the rich have grown richer, so have the poor. We live in a society where it is a tragedy if someone can't have a cellphone from the company of their choosing.

I have known her for years. She her focus is always on the top 1%. But when you look at the overall discussion it is not so much about the top 1% as it is about the bottom 60% or so and how she believes that those who make more should make less so the wealth can be transfered to the lower socio-economic class.

So what you are saying is that the disparity between the top and the bottom should be less.

Actually, I am really not concerned that much about the disparity. I believe that there will always be uber rich and uber poor. I believe it is a natural distribution of society.

See, now was that so hard?

And from our friend Barney the Purple Congressman:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/po...-42158597.html

nice.

Of course we do. We have for decades.

You know they didn't because that stuff wasn't invented yet. And you are right. They are not standing still. They are moving in opposite directions.

The people you are talking about must be upper middle class.

Lookout has apparently never hung out with the dirty boys on Grant Road, here in Tucson.

Big screen TVs, my ass.

You and I have different lines. I do not think it is playing inside the lines if they are getting bonuses while they lay off workers and cut their benefits. I do not think it is playing inside the lines when they get obscene salaries while the company they are running loses money, or when they rake in obscene profits, but they don't supply health care for their emplyees, so they are subsidized by the government. I do not believe it is playing inside the lines when the corporation is subsidized by the government but they keep all the profits. I do not believe the system is fair the way it is now.

yea, because that capitalist system is so great it has brought western civilization to the brink of destruction.

Wow. Thank you classic. You actually got it. :)

A long time ago m'dear.

Yea, like I said....

Obama declares US not at war with Islam

Could someone please explain some of them to me. Specifically those in the US. I am curious.

They saved Classical knowledge from the Christians (and added a significant amount of their own), enabling the Rennaissance.

That was quite a while ago, though, and they now seem to be where the Christians of that period were. Hopefully it takes them less time to get through it.

I agree - I find his comments quite intriguing and with respect to the U.S., I am curious to know what Obama meant by that.

He might have just been speaking in general terms, alluding to the fact that we're a nation of immigrants all bringing different contributions to our local, state, and nationwide society. The "Great Melting Pot" idea and all that. An appeal to commonality, and an attempt to make the US appear more benevolent, in an effort to reverse the hawkish nature that some in the foreign Islamic communities see the US as is my knee-jerk reaction to what he said there. I doubt he'll make much progress with Turkey since he has recently (2008 I think) called for those yahoos to accept the Armenian Genocide.

I applaud Obama for making that speech. What I don't get is, so many people in the US think that people in that part of the world are different from us, and in one sense they are, but others, not so much. I'm sure most of the people over there want peace, and respect, and they want to live their lives without oppression. That does not necessarily mean they want a system like ours. I don't think they want to be occupied by US forces, just like we would not want to be occupied by foreign forces. I do not think they want to be told what they can or can't have or what they can and can't do, by us or by the Taliban. They are not children, and we should not treat them as such. I think we'll find, if we act in concert with them, that we will get a much better response than we have gotten in the past. This antiAmerican sentiment has been building for a long time. In order to repair that, we can't act like their parent. We have to like their partner.

So what happens when they act like our partner and in fact they are actually using the relationship to screw us at every corner and take advantage of our friendships to exploit the relationship for their gain at our loss or worse to facilitate our demise?