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Well, he linked arstechnica this time... (think) progress...
Anybody that links thinkprogress has no room to criticize, tbh.
Well, he linked arstechnica this time... (think) progress...
I love me some arstechnica.
Perhaps a little perspective.
34 glorious, American years
"...they have food specifically made for cats in America? What a country!"(Every year on July 20th, I celebrate the day my mother and I arrived in America. This year the shooting in Aurora, Colorado was so overwhelmingly on my mind that I found it hard to focus on anything else and write about my happy day until now. Please keep the victims in your thoughts.)
In 1977, the year I was born and the year my father, his mother, his aunt and many other Jews left the Soviet Union (my mother and I left in 1978), the Soviet propaganda machine began circulating a rumor. It went, roughly: life in America is so terrible that the old people eat cat food.
This was…perplexing.
People didn’t quite get it: they have food specifically made for cats in America? What a country!
A lot of things about America remained beyond their comprehension.
A week after my father arrived in New York, he and a friend were walking around Manhattan in pure wonder. They got to midtown and stood in front of Bloomingdale’s watching well-dressed people come in and out. They discussed it amongst themselves that they would obviously have to show evidence that they had money, or proof of income, or some other paperwork to get inside. Surely this store for the wealthy wouldn’t just let them in. They watched and watched but didn’t see people getting stopped. They walked slowly through the doors and found no one gave them a second look.
There’s a feeling in America today that there isn’t equality until any of us can walk into Bloomingdale’s and buy whatever we want. The two men standing there in 1977 weren’t thinking that it was unfair they couldn’t wear the same clothes as the beautiful people around them, they were just grateful for the opportunity to try. They had left a place where that opportunity simply didn’t exist. You were born poor and you would die poor–everyone would. You could gain influence in your life and that might get you small victories–instead of being assigned to practice your profession in Siberia you might get lucky and get sent to a capital city. Perhaps you, your wife, your child, your parents and other relatives could have your own apartment, one you wouldn’t have to share with another family. Those were your wins.
It’s hard for Americans, even the ones who see America’s greatness and love this country for it, to understand the lack of opportunity that my family left. As Communism retreats into the rear-view mirror of history it’s easy to gloss over the everyday ways that Communism is meant to crush the individual and make everyone equal–equally poor, equally scared, equally hopeless.
If you’ve always lived in a country where companies make food specifically for cats then you’ve known an abundance that my family couldn’t even begin to imagine while they waited to be free. They wanted to say and do whatever they wanted, to live freely, to be allowed to earn as much money as they could, to keep their family safe from murderous ideologies and monster rulers. They just wanted the chance. Success isn’t guaranteed to anyone, and they knew this, but only if you come from a land of opportunity do you ever imagine that it’s even possible.
This year marks 34 years that I’ve lived in America. Even in the toughest times, in its darkest days, the times where we all might feel pessimistic about our collective future, we’re all so blessed to be here. On each July 20th I remember exactly how blessed.
What a country, indeed.
You know what occurs to me? In the former Soviet Union, all goods were moved to market on roads paid for by the government, too.
Have you SEEN boutons_ 's posts? Yonivore looks like an unbiased, opinion-free centrist by comparison, tbh....yonivore is the biggest in partisan POS on this forum.
Let's not go that far.
Yoni is at least willing to put up the fight to defend what he links whereas boutons will hit the GFY-eject button two posts into getting called on something.
I pray for you and your family. You have a problem with you, brother. If you had a problem with hypocrites and folks who make stuff up, you would not be a supporter of any political party. You say what you said, say,in alot of instances to avoid the real problem. It's a defense mechanism to avoid the real issue, you. God bless
The main difference is that boutons puts 'Repugs' in his thread les and Yoni doesn't put the subject in the le but rather a lame attempt at a teaser and then proceeds to rant like an AM radio personality.
And when the government get involved in the development of economies of scale --as they should-- private enterprises should not just be ceded control.
They're both ends of the spectrum, IMO... lots of noise and little substance.
Who paid for all those 1000s of USA farm-to-market, FM, roads?
You ers to read the RTFM
I'm not partisan, I'm ANTI-partisan, the recipients of my ANTI-attention is the Repugs/VRWC/UCA/conservatives/tea baggers/libertarians.
Actually you're ANTI-one-partisan, which pretty much makes you a partisan.
the 1% aren't wealthy by their own efforts in insolation. Most inherited their wealth, while a lot a them outright stole it (financial fraud, theft), and of course many of them buy legislation and regulations BECAUSE THEY CAN.
5 Reasons the Super-Rich Need Government More Than the Rest of Us
Wealthy individuals and corporations want us to believe they've made it on their own, without the help of government or the American people. Billionaire financier Sanford Weill blustered, "We didn't rely on somebody else to build what we built." He was echoing the words of his famous predecessor, the formidable financier J. P. Morgan, who spouted, "I owe the public nothing."
That's the bull of Wall Street. There are at least five good reasons why the wealthiest Americans need government as much as the rest of us, and probably more.
1. Security
In his "People's History," Howard Zinn described colonial opposition to inequality in 1765: "A shoemaker named Ebenezer Macintosh led a mob in destroying the house of a rich Boston merchant named Andrew Oliver. Two weeks later, the crowd turned to the home of Thomas Hutchinson, symbol of the rich elite who ruled the colonies in the name of England. They smashed up his house with axes, drank the wine in his wine cellar, and looted the house of its furniture and other objects. A report by colony officials to England said that this was part of a larger scheme in which the houses of fifteen rich people were to be destroyed, as part of 'a war of plunder, of general levelling and taking away the distinction of rich and poor.'"
That doesn't happen much anymore. Of course, the super-rich aren't taking any chances, with panic shelters and James Bond cars and personal surveillance drones. But the U.S. government will be helping them by spending $55 billion on Homeland Security next year, in addition to $673 billion for the military. The police, emergency services, and National Guard are trained to focus on crimes against wealth.
In the cities, business interests keep the police focused on the homeless and unemployed. And on drug users. A "Broken Windows" mentality, which promotes quick fixes of minor damage to discourage large-scale destruction, is being applied to human beings. Wealthy Americans can rest better at night knowing that the police are "stopping and frisking" in the streets of the poor neighborhoods.
2. Laws and Deregulations
The wealthiest Americans are the main beneficiaries of tax laws, property rights, zoning rules, patent and copyright provisions, trade pacts, an rust legislation, and contract regulations. Tax loopholes allow them to store over $1 trillion in assets overseas.
Their companies benefit, despite any publicly voiced objections to regulatory agencies, from SBA and SEC guidelines that generally favor business, and from FDA and USDA quality control measures that minimize consumer complaints and product recalls.
The growing numbers of financial industry executives have profited from 30 years of deregulation, most notably the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Lobbying by the financial industry has prolonged the absurdity of a zero sales tax on financial transactions.
Big advantages accrue for multinational corporations from trade agreements like NAFTA, with international disputes resolved by the business-friendly World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. Federal judicial law protects our biggest companies from foreign infringement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would put governments around the world at the mercy of corporate decision-makers.
The euphemistically named JOBS Act further empowers business, exempting startups from regulatory accounting requirements.
There are even anti-an rust measures, such as the licensing rules that allow the American Medical Association to restrict the number of doctors in the U.S., thereby keeping doctor salaries artificially high. Can't have a free market if it hurts business.
3. Research and Infrastructure
A publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to manipulate their 80% share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Private jets use 16 percent of air traffic control resources while paying only 3% of the bill.
Perhaps most important to business, even as it focuses on short-term profits, is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. Especially for the tech industry. Taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet) and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for technological product development. Well into the 1980s, as companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft and Oracle and Cisco profited from the fastest-growing product revolution in American history, the U.S. Government was still providing half the research funds. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported.
Public schools have helped to train the chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, and testers who create modern technological devices. They, in turn, can't succeed without public layers of medical support and security. All of them contribute to the final product.
As the super-rich ride in their military-designed armored cars to a financial center globally connected by public fiber optics networks to make a trade guided by publicly funded data mining and artificial intelligence software, they might stop and re-think the old Horatio Alger myth.
4. Subsidies
The traditional image of 'welfare' pales in comparison to corporate welfare and millionaire welfare. Whereas over 90% of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families goes to the elderly, the disabled, or working households, most of the annual $1.3 trillion in "tax expenditures" (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, and loopholes) goes to the top quintile of taxpayers. One estimate is $250 billion a year just to the richest 1%.
Senator Tom Coburn's website reports that mortgage interest and rental expense deductions alone return almost $100 billion a year to millionaires.
The most profitable corporations get the biggest subsidies. The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in financial assistance to financial ins utions and corporations. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, 280 profitable Fortune 500 companies, which together paid only half of the maximum 35 percent corporate tax rate, received $223 billion in tax subsidies.
Even the conservative Cato Ins ute admitted that the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric.
In agriculture, most of the funding for commodity programs goes to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland. For the oil industry, estimates of subsidy payments range from $10 to $50 billion per year.
5. Disaster Costs
Exxon spokesperson Ken Cohen once said: "Any claim we don't pay taxes is absurd...ExxonMobil is a leading U.S. taxpayer." Added Chevron CEO John Watson: "The oil and gas industry pays its fair share in taxes" But SEC do ents show that Exxon paid 2% in U.S. federal taxes from 2008 to 2010, Chevron 4.8%.
As if to double up on the insult, the petroleum industry readily takes public money for oil spills. Cleanups cost much more than the fines imposed on the companies. Government costs can run into the billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars.
Another disaster-prone industry is finance, from which came the encouraging words of Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein: "Everybody should be, frankly, happy...the financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out."
Estimates for bailout funds from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve range between $3 trillion and $5 trillion. That's enough to pay off both the deficit and next year's en lement costs. All because of the irresponsibility of the super-salaried CEOs of our most profitable corporations.
Common Sense
Patriotic Millionaires recently addressed the President and Congress: "Given the dire state of our economy, it is absurd that one-quarter of all millionaires pay a lower tax rate than millions of working, middle-class American families...Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes."
It's good to know somebody gets it right. Taxes, for the most part, are not unfair. They represent payment for society's many benefits, which get bigger and better as people get richer.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156413
Much of Gecko's wealth exists because of GOVT loopholes.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-25-2012 at 10:21 AM.
Actually, she didn't build that alone - unless she manufactures Legos herself.
But, before President Obama said it...there was Fauxchahontas Elizabeth Warrent:
And, before them both, was George Lakoff:
Who is George Lackoff, you ask? He teaches Liberals how to make their collectivist bull more palatable to the masses. I'm sorry, he's a Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at UC Berkeley.
And before them were every economist on the planet earth.
We get it, you're too stupid to understand nuance. The people shocked by this revaluation number in the high zeroes.
Last edited by scott; 07-25-2012 at 10:22 PM.
And before that, Mitt Romney said it.
How ridiculous for Obama to claim we didn't build the infrastructure that we use to drive our businesses. Of course we built it... WE PAY TAXES!!
(Oh, by the way, we're tired of paying taxes.)
There's a difference between the Olympics and its athletes (some of whom, by the way, are completely self-made -- particularly the American athletes) and Businesses and their owners.
Say scott, will you send me a percentage of your profits since we all built your business together?
What are the differences that are germaine to the point being made?
Even so, Romney has recently elaborated to essentially echo the points made by Obama. See the link Sense posted above.
I already do, but you've already proven too stupid to understand the very simple concept being expressed in this case.Say scott, will you send me a percentage of your profits since we all built your business together?
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financ...#ixzz28R4SxvxsMitt Romney once seemed like a moderate technocrat. But, as the Republican Convention and the video leak of his comments about the “forty-seven per cent” of Americans who “believe that they are victims” made clear, Romney now seems to fancy himself a small-government zealot, who promises the end of the culture of en lement. Yet even as he assails people on Medicaid and Social Security, and those who receive the earned-income tax credit, for being “dependent upon government,” Romney has had strikingly little to say about another prominent group that’s “dependent upon government”: the many American companies whose profits rely, in one form or another, on government assistance.
From the days of high tariffs and giant land grants to the railroads, business and government have always been tightly intertwined in this country. But, in recent decades, what you could call the corporate welfare state has become bigger. Energy companies lease almost forty million acres of onshore land in the U.S. and more than forty million offshore, and keep the lion’s share of the profits from the oil and natural gas that they pump out. In theory, this is O.K., because we get paid for the leases and we get royalties on what they sell, but in practice it often works differently. In 1996, for instance, the government temporarily lowered royalties on oil pumped in the Gulf of Mexico as a way of encouraging more drilling at a time of low oil prices. But this royalty relief wasn’t rescinded when oil prices started to rise, which gave the oil companies a windfall of billions of dollars. Something similar happened in the telecom industry in the late nineties, when the government, in order to encourage the transition to high-def TV, simply gave local broadcasters swathes of the digital spectrum worth tens of billions of dollars. In the mining industry, meanwhile, thanks to a law that was passed in 1872 and never rewritten, companies can lease federal land for a mere five dollars an acre, and then keep all the gold, silver, or uranium they find; we, the people, get no royalty payments at all. Metal prices have soared in the last decade, but the only beneficiaries have been the mine owners.
In other cases, the government offers direct subsidies, like those which have helped keep many renewable-energy projects afloat. Farmers, despite food prices at record highs, still get almost five billion dollars annually in direct payments, along with billions more in crop insurance and drought aid. U.S. sugar companies benefit from the sweetest boondoggle in business: an import quota keeps American sugar prices roughly twice as high as they otherwise would be, handing the industry guaranteed profits.
The tax code, too, is a useful tool for helping businesses. Domestic manufacturers collectively get a tax break of around twenty billion dollars a year. State and local governments give away seventy billion dollars annually in tax breaks and subsidies in order to lure (or keep) companies. The strategies make sense for local communities keen to generate new jobs, but, from a national perspective, since they usually just reward companies moving from one state to another, they’re simply giveaways.
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