Funny, redistribution of wealth is just fine when we fight unnecessary wars to line the pockets of the wealthy stockholders of Haliburton, off the backs of the taxpayer.

The right wing can shove that redistribution shit up their ass, Cheesey! Tax the shit out of those wealthy pricks - they are still paying less here than they would anywhere else in the world.

As for cutting spending, I'm all for it - just so long as it's the military and not domestic social problems.

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If we cut the spending on the military war machine (which helps funds all our enemies' militaries as well), we wouldn't have to redistribute the wealth. And the already over-taxed wealthy could be able to give MORE.

Oh yeah, and we wouldn't have to worry about taking away their incentive to continue their wealth.

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The key word being "if", of course. Problem is, where do the cuts come? How much you want to bet it won't come among the general officers or the big money contracts and the influencers? Any more than the cuts to "social programs" will come from the administrators and the pet charities that suck off the government tit.

Next time you hear someone up the government/bureaucratic hierarchies, civilian or military, complaining about how terrible budget cuts are, look carefully at their department/agency. Look where the cuts are made (from the low tier employees and from the most deserving of the beneficiaries), and look where the cuts are not made (e.g., from the guys at the top and from the useless dead weight in the agency). In fact they'll often end up hiring/promoting that deadweight "in order to administer the growing needs imposed by the cuts forced on us."

Bah.

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And part of the reason America has been more productive than the rest of the world is that they've paid less taxes than anywhere else in the world.

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p.s., DakotaT. I'm still waiting for your quantitative evidence.

[grin1]

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America, and every other empire throughout history, built their wealth by the exploitation of the poor and through slavery. We like to say that we have these laws in place to protect workers, but then you get a bunch of like minded rich guys, banded together by wealth, to systematically destroy what gains men and women accomplished. To pour more salt in the wound - they come up with a political party that weak minded poor people can relate to and pit the poor against the poor.

Sorry boys, I'm not going to shed one tear for the wealthy that have to pay more taxes. They've taken advantage of the tax system for so long, it's time for them to step up. Robinhood is much greater than Romneyhood.

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Go take a Jack Kerouac trip and give me some quantitative evidence of your own. I don't have any time. 30 years of trickle down is pretty evident throughout the slums of our country.

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You want to take trillions of dollars away from people (because, remember, the problem here is in the trillions, not just a few tens of billions), and you don't think it is necessary to have quantitative evidence first?

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?? When it comes to that liberal babble, you truly are an overly trusting soul.

Here's a bit of quantitative thinking for you:

I. Solving problems by taking from the rich.

1. How many billionaires are there in the United States?

2. How many billionaires would it take to make a trillionaire?

Answer to #2: 1000.
Answer to #1: 425 (per wikipedia)
So if you took ALL the wealth of the billionaires in America, you'd eliminate about ONE year of the deficit run by the Obama administration.

Source: Wikipedia.

II. How many people are "rich" in America vs. the rest of the world:

USA: 5.1 million households with a $1 million net worth (1.6% of population of 312 million).
Japan: 1.6 million households with a $1 million net worth (1.25% of 128 million)
China: 1.4 million households with a $1 million NW (0.1% of population of 1,344 million).

USA: households with a $100 million net worth: 2989.

Percentage-wise, a bigger proportion of our population is wealthier. Why is that, I wonder?

http://business.time.com/2012/06/05/number-of-millionaires-in-u-s-decreases-but-spikes-worldwide;  www.google.com/publicdata.


III. Thirty years of trickle down.

Comparing 1981 and 2011:
Personal income per person (in 2005 dollars): $19,100 in 1981, $37,000 in 2011 [increased by 94%]

Prices of particular goods/services people buy with their income (all expressed as a percent of 2005 dollars)

Durable goods (cars, furniture, recreational goods): 1981: 99% 2011: 91%. [8% cheaper]
Nondurable goods (food, clothing, gasoline, energy): 1981: 61% 2011: 119% [58% more expensive]
Services (housing, health care, financial services and insurance): 1981: 41% 2011: 117% [76% more expensive]

So, we're spending a lot more for services (e.g. health care), and quite a bit more for food and gasoline [when you separate things out, clothing is actually a bit cheaper]. And we're paying less for goods that last for awhile (furniture and the stuff in our garage and back yard).

And even the amount we've been spending for services, food, and gas? It has increased LESS than our income.


Sources: www.bea.gov (Tables 2.1, 2.3.4)

IV. The slums.

People in poverty:
1980 225,000
2002 285,000
Increase: 26.7%
Population increase over same period: (227 million to 287 million): 26.4%.

Percent of population in poverty, 1980: about 1/10th of 1 percent.
Percent of population in poverty, 2002: about 1/10th of 1 percent.


Poverty threshold 1980 (family of four): 6,628
Poverty threshold 2002 (family of four): 14,480
Increase: 118% [= change in CPI]
Increase in real GDP over same period: 45%


http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/rdp05.html 
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh80.html 
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh02.html 


V. Government "help" and taxation.

(This is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, too, Table 2.9, which only goes back to 1992; I'm pretty sure these are not adjusted for inflation, but that doesn't matter for what I want to point out here.)

1. Personal income (total, not per capita): From $5,300 billion to $12,900 billion [increased by 143%].
2. Government social benefits to persons (Social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, vet benefits): From $300 billion to $2,300 billion [increased by 666%; these are pure transfer payments, i.e. "redistribution"]
3. Contributions to government social insurance (what we pay for social security, medicare): From $200 billion to $900 billion [increased by 350%]
4. Personal taxes: from $350 billion to $1,400 billion [increased by 300%].

So, while increased productivity means our incomes have increased by 150% in the last thirty years, the tax burden we have has increased by three times that and our other "voluntary contributions" by 3.5 times, just so government can help us to shift money from one pocket to another 6 or 7 times?

And with that evidence -- not just pontificating and arm-waving, but evidence -- you really think ANY solution to ANY multi-trillion dollar problem is going to come through ANY government action?

It's an amazing thing about numbers. Start looking at them carefully, and you realize that the sampling process offered by your own eyes turns out to needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Eyewitness evidence, contrary to the TV detective shows, is often the *WORST* evidence. And often the worst eyewitness evidence of all is our own. And this is especially the case when we use our personal experience and observation to draw conclusions about how economies and other "systems" made up of hundreds of millions of pieces or more.

I'm sorry, my friend, but if we don't have time to think seriously about the numbers, we every damn last thing the government does to you in the years ahead.

Paying attention to numbers will set us free.

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lol Virtual beat down!!

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What are you laughing at tard? What have you ever contributed to this conversation besides the Tea view?

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