Election 2012

[glatt]

Because if we didn't bail them out, they would have taken us all down and it would have been worse than the Great Depression. Things were that close 4-5 years ago to really going into the toilet. We would all be trying to sell pencils from a plastic dixie cup on the street corner. Too poor to afford a tin cup.

The question is, why do we acknowledge that the businesses are now too big to fail, and we have set the precedent that we will bail them out when they get into trouble, and yet we aren't doing ANYTHING to slice them up into smaller businesses that can fail without hurting us?

We broke up Ma Bell. Why can't we break up these horrible banks? When it comes to businesses, big is bad. It's self defense. Break them up already.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by glatt

we aren't doing ANYTHING to slice them up into smaller businesses that can fail without hurting us?

We broke up Ma Bell. Why can't we break up these horrible banks? Break them up already.

Agreed. It is long past time and those with the power to do so have failed us - all of them.

[Trilby]

Yeah. Its just that these dickheads - these "capitalists" - eschew
any type of private hand-out but they certainly do feed st the trough of corporate welfare.

[Ibby]

If it means your corporate tax rate drops instead of rises, if it means your subsidies keep coming, if it means you own that many more politicians? Probably REALLY big.

[Ibby]

[classicman]

neat site. I hadn't seen anything from them before. At first I thought they were a partisan group trying to use a name close to the CBO. One interesting article had this piece.

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to extend President Bush’s income tax cuts for households making up to $1 million a year would lose nearly half of the revenue that President Obama’s proposal to extend the tax cuts only for households making up to $250,000 would raise, according to new estimates from Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). The higher threshold would raise 44 percent — or $366 billion — less in revenue over the coming decade than the lower threshold. Citizens for Tax Justice has released estimates showing a virtually identical percentage revenue loss."

[Ibby]

According to wikipedia, they're often called a left-of-center group, so take it or leave it as you will, but..

[classicman]

From the articles I scanned that was my impression too.
I had to go through a bunch on Romney before I found one on something else.

[Ibby]

cropped from, apparently, a photo taken of a TV screen on Tumblr, so low-quality, but i couldn't find a better version of the chart. Rachel Maddow featured it on her show a few days ago, and had been saving it for a long time to use, cause it's so informative.
I think it says a lot.

[infinite monkey]

What we would 'like' wealth distribution to be is rather silly. I like the contrast between what it 'is' and what we 'think' but what we 'want'?

Hell, I'd like to be a unicorn but it ain't going to happen.

[glatt]

Be careful what you wish for. Unicorns are constantly snagging their horn on low tree branches when they gallop.

I'm sure you would be a smart unicorn, so it wouldn't happen to you so much, but you'd have to hear about it from the rest of them. And that might get old.

[Glinda]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Hell, I'd like to be a unicorn but it ain't going to happen.

I, for one, would be very interested in seeing a monkeycorn. Surely there's a surgeon out there who can make this happen.





ETA: Oh, dear ghod, they exist!

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

What we would 'like' wealth distribution to be is rather silly. I like the contrast between what it 'is' and what we 'think' but what we 'want'?

Hell, I'd like to be a unicorn but it ain't going to happen.

[Ibby]

I think the bottom one is important because it shows that we really don't like the insane exponential growth of the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by Ibram

I think the bottom one is important because it shows that we really don't like the insane exponential growth of the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Puh. Subjective and irrelevant.

I don't think anyone needs to tell anyone that they don't like the fact that there are insanely uber-rich. Except the uber-rich, they might not know we don't like it.