Imagine what the proposed(but unlikely) tax plan would do to the NBA.

[QUOTE=greymatter]Who said anything about deserving other people's money? Why are you parroting a conservatard canard that the rich paying more tax = wealth redistribution?

Unless you were old enough to be in the top tax bracket before 1981, you probably had no clue that 70% was what they paid at that time. Back then, the rich actually had to pay for the government that they own and operate.

Every Republican elected to office since 1980 has been working tirelessly to grow the wealth inequality gap back to the Hoover era. Massive deficit spending is great for them. Massive debt means that the government has to print more money to pay off the interest, which = inflation. Who do you think inflation affects more?

Rich people won't suddenly decide to stop doing whatever made them rich just because their taxes went up. One of the biggest problems we have going forward is that the rich can afford to fund think tanks that publish literature to misinform all the stupid people (hello Heritage Foundation).

Trump passes a tax cut that gives most middle class earners 40-50 extra bucks/month and expires in 6-7 more years while it remains permanent for corporations and will add 2.3 trillion more to the debt over the next 10 years. How many people do you think understand that this is essentially passing on debt to future generations while making the rich richer?

GE pays no taxes. Walmart gets subsidized to the tune of 6+ billion a year because they don't pay a living wage and the taxpayers have to foot the bill for housing aid and food stamps for their employees. "Wealth redistribution" is happening, but not in the way that your typical RW Faux-News-viewing simpleton believes.[/QUOTE]

Complaining about the heritage foundation brainwashing people is hilarious. Liberals have the media, pop culture, hollywood, public schools, academia etc. and think there's absolutely no brainwashing going on there at all. Please.

Wealth inequality is really a dubious statistic that doesn't take into account age at all. When you break it down by age, the distribution isn't as drastic. Nonsense to compare a 25 year old to a 60 year old and scream about "inequality."

GE and Walmart may not provide taxes but they still provide a ton of social good in the products they supply.

Anyway, doesn't matter what the tax rate has been, revenue has been steady.

[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/U.S._Federal_Tax_Receipts_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP_1945%E2%80%932015.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Hawker][B]Without someone owning those assets, the labor wouldn't exist though[/B]. Most people were working at some point before they decided to become a businessman and take a risk (aka owning resources for example). People who own resources create things that people want (and then provide it to them) not simply because they own it. It's a win-win for everybody.[/QUOTE]


Labor exists without property ownership.

I can be a lumberjack without anyone owning the forest.

[QUOTE]People making hundreds of millions of dollars didn't earn it either. They benefited from a system where the folks who own assets are entitled to the excess value of everyone's labor.[/QUOTE]

Tell you what.....

Go get hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing...without winning the lottery. Tell me how that goes.

Everything comes from somewhere and few little of it is free.


[QUOTE]Athletes are a tiny percent of the very rich. Most do not get rich from working. Most wealth is inherited or comes from capital appreciation and profit (money you get because you own the resources).[/QUOTE]

Where did those resources come from exactly?

[QUOTE]Athletes, actors, musicians, and reality/social media stars are emphasized in our media in order to obscure the true nature of the extremely wealthy in our country[/QUOTE]

Thats a matter of perspective and where you start defining people as extremely wealthy. Wealthy to me now is far from what I thought it was 20 years ago. Im wealthy by the standards I used to have. Im broke by the standards of the people I deal with now.

[QUOTE]Who said anything about deserving other people's money? Why are you parroting a conservatard canard that the rich paying more tax = wealth redistribution? [/QUOTE]

When someone cant understand why people who arent rich dont want the rich to be taxed even more....seems they cant grasp the reasoning. Some people arent only thinking of themselves. I'll never make 10 million a year. Doesnt mean the people who do owe society more money.


[QUOTE]Unless you were old enough to be in the top tax bracket before 1981, you probably had no clue that 70% was what they paid at that time. Back then, the rich actually had to pay for the government that they own and operate. [/QUOTE]

Really? You think you are the one who informed modern society of the tax laws of generations ago?

Everyone who ever had a tax discussion knew that taxes used to be much higher. Who could you possibly think didnt know that?


[QUOTE]Every Republican elected to office since 1980 has been working tirelessly to grow the wealth inequality gap back to the Hoover era. Massive deficit spending is great for them. Massive debt means that the government has to print more money to pay off the interest, which = inflation. Who do you think inflation affects more?

Rich people won't suddenly decide to stop doing whatever made them rich just because their taxes went up. One of the biggest problems we have going forward is that the rich can afford to fund think tanks that publish literature to misinform all the stupid people (hello Heritage Foundation). [/QUOTE]


Case by case. There is a point at which I wouldnt keep putting in the effort to only bring home a third of what I make from that point on. It would depend on the job and how rich I already was.


[QUOTE]Trump passes a tax cut that gives most middle class earners 40-50 extra bucks/month and expires in 6-7 more years while it remains permanent for corporations and will add 2.3 trillion more to the debt over the next 10 years. How many people do you think understand that this is essentially passing on debt to future generations while making the rich richer? [/QUOTE]


You dont make people richer by letting them keep their money. I dont know where people got the idea that its doing someone a favor to take less of their money. It isnt. Its their money to begin with. They are supposed to get richer when they keep generating it. Why on earth would I want to prevent someone from possessing what they earn? They money isnt being pulled from my childrens mouth. They get the money the same way anyone does. Other people giving it to them. Depending on the industry it it could be a few people...or millions giving a penny here and there...but they are given the money by society. It isnt stolen. That they use that money to make more money is none of my concern.

[QUOTE]GE pays no taxes. Walmart gets subsidized to the tune of 6+ billion a year because they don't pay a living wage and the taxpayers have to foot the bill for housing aid and food stamps for their employees. "Wealth redistribution" is happening, but not in the way that your typical RW Faux-News-viewing simpleton believes.[/QUOTE]

GE employs 300+ thousand people without another 200 thousand in support companies indirectly. Ge is paying this planet in a thousand ways. How many things do you think get taxed before a generator that powers a quarter million homes is built and installed in a power plant? How much gas...shipping...how much material is bought...how many people pay income tax from the salary Gm pays...how much land is purchased...how many things must property taxes be paid on? Just so happens the largest turbine plant they have in the world is literally up the street from me. I live in greenville south carolina as many here have heard me say before. Do you know how well GM pays? Ive known people working there all my life. My friends parents were making 30 dolllars an hour in the early 90s. Who knows what it is now.

Ge generates massive tax revenue in a dozen ways. You cant run a company of that size for free. You cant do anything for free.

And the living wage shit is hilarious to me. Bunch of people take minimum wage(or near it) jobs and complain about the pay. You know why Walmart can pay what it does? There are always a thousand people willing to take the job of anyone who quits.

A job is worth what the people working it decide it is. You know what it would take to raise pay at walmart(even more I mean...its going to 15 an hour soon just like Target)?

Not showing up to work.

I know a dozen people who worked at walmart. I worked at Kmart myself back in the day. Know what I did?

Quit. You only load so much pine straw at 4 bucks an hour in 100 degree weather.

There are so many better jobs....people who work at walmart do it by choice. Its a lack of ambition...or being ok with it. There are thousands of elderly greeting because its supplemental income. Tens of thousands of students. The able bodied normal adults bitching about 11 dollars an hour(what they pay now) get not ****s given from me.

Pay 100 bucks of that walmart check to get a state licence to drive a forklift. Get a factory job. Work hard and advance....get a raise. My friend is the supervisor of TLE at a local walmart. He isnt making minimum wage now.

Ive had retail jobs....its mostly lazy pieces of shit that a few workhorses like me carry until we see it doesnt make sense longterm.

There have always been and will always be low paying jobs for one very simple reason...

Someone ALWAYS thinks the pay offered is enough to show up.

Talking about Walmart making people be on food stamps. 45 million people arent on food stamps because of jobs not paying well for incredibly simple work that in some cases...can be performed by children or the learning impaired.

People are on food stamps because they ****ed their lives up at 16 and didnt graduate high school. Because they didnt go to school. Because they wont even google trade schools. Because they had 4 kids by 23 while living at their moms house and not having a good relationship with the father of any of them before they started having unprotected sex. They are on stamps because they cant pass a drug test. Because they have a disability. Because the breadwinner in the family passed before they learned to support themselves. Because they robbed a guy in 1994 or stole from the register when they worked at Wendys.

Having a shit job or no job isnt the fault of a business that pays what shit work is worth.

Ive owned businesses. Tell me...why should I pay someone twice what THEY tell me they need for a days work because....otherwise I get richer? The morals dont change if I had 30,000 employees instead of 6. Your work is worth what you will take to do it. If guys wont take 60 bucks a day to cut grass....id have to stop operations or pay 100. This is simple. And its not the fault of the people offering the job.

We just have trouble accepting that peoples lives are ****ed up because they ****ed them up....

If you are elderly or disabled...ok. Young and healthy? You can go **** yourself. This is america. A young healthy person doesnt have to keep a bad job for life if he has a speck of common sense.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]We just have trouble accepting that peoples lives are ****ed up because they ****ed them up....

If you are elderly or disabled...ok. Young and healthy? You can go **** yourself. This is america. A young healthy person doesnt have to keep a bad job for life if he has a speck of common sense.[/QUOTE]

I agree with all of your posts and especially the quoted. Amen, amen, amen.

And also I always just llove how such a large percentage of people think it

Morgan Freeman said this best...

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72a19Lbz7k[/url]


A lot of people just don

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Tell you what.....

[B]Go get hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing...without winning the lottery. Tell me how that goes.

Everything comes from somewhere and few little of it is free.[/B]




Where did those resources come from exactly?



Thats a matter of perspective and where you start defining people as extremely wealthy. Wealthy to me now is far from what I thought it was 20 years ago. Im wealthy by the standards I used to have. Im broke by the standards of the people I deal with now.[/QUOTE]


It happens every day, it's called inheritance. Almost 40% of wealth is inherited in America.

Where did those resources come from? Uhh, the earth?

The question you should be asking is, why do the people who own the resources own them? The answer: because the government says they do, and is willing to back it up with violence. All ownership of land and resources is backed by the implicit threat of violence.

Take for example a coal mine. Nobody created coal. The only thing that makes coal valuable is labor being used to remove it from the ground, and the fact the people need it. The owner of the coal mine isn't remove the coal from the ground himself, he just owns it. Why shouldn't the workers own the coal mine? Without them, the coal just sits in the ground, worthless.

All land in America was taken by violence or distributed by the government to the well-connected.

If workers were somehow 100% united, owners would have no power. 99% of what they own needs workers to create and consumers to purchase it, otherwise it is worthless.

Most of American politics is just meant as a distraction to keep workers divided. Both political parties are in on this. Racism, sexism, abortion, gun control, immigration etc etc are all real issues, but they currently used to wedge people apart. Nobody in politics is seriously trying to solve them.

Btw, I'm saying all this because I've studied it, not because I'm some sort of jealous hater. I have a good job and I could sit on my ass for the rest of my life and eventually be a multi-millionaire....because I'm white and white people control most of the wealth in this country. Eventually I'm just going to inherit a bunch of money that I did nothing for...

Here is a good example of how no one "earns" a billion dollars

Amazon depends on the US Postal service to deliver most of their crap. We as voters control USPS. If we elected officials who wanted to, they could change USPS policies to put Amazon out of business, then swoop in and occupy the role of Amazon on the economy...except the profits would be going to the American people.

The USPS used to provide standard banking functions that everyone needs. If they started back with that again, they could push corrupt organizations like Wells Fargo out of the market.

In fact, banks on general depend on the Federal government for liquidity through the Fed Reserve. Without the Government (which theoretically is the people), banks would not be nearly as profitable.

[QUOTE=Ben Simmons 25]Morgan Freeman said this best...

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72a19Lbz7k[/url]


A lot of people just don’t want to believe they stay in the spot they’re in because of themselves and their own mindset.

As a child this is obviously not true but as an adult... in the United States... it is 100% true.[/QUOTE]

Mr. Freeman is an exception to this, but most Hollywood stars are the children of directors/actors/producers who got them into the Screen Actors Guild at a young age. Hollywood is more nepotistic than almost any industry.

This is changing somewhat with social media. It's harder to pretend you got your roles off merit when anyone can look up who your dad was.

[QUOTE]It happens every day, it's called inheritance. Almost 40% of wealth is inherited in America.[/QUOTE]

Meaning the vast majority wasnt. And even what was isnt exactly cash. Most "wealth" is in the form of land passed to children not stacks of cash. Only 15% of the wealth of the 1% is inherited. 15% of the 1% is a vast sum of money but people forever cite tycoons who built themselves from nothing somewhat recently. People who opened a store and were the richest man in america in 20 years. People who started in a garage and hit 50 billion in no time. People who made programs in college and now are in everyones pocket. Those guys are the villains most often tied to these things and I will never understand it.

[QUOTE]Where did those resources come from? Uhh, the earth?

The question you should be asking is, why do the people who own the resources own them? The answer: because the government says they do, and is willing to back it up with violence. All ownership of land and resources is backed by the implicit threat of violence.

Take for example a coal mine. Nobody created coal. The only thing that makes coal valuable is labor being used to remove it from the ground, and the fact the people need it. The owner of the coal mine isn't remove the coal from the ground himself, he just owns it. Why shouldn't the workers own the coal mine? Without them, the coal just sits in the ground, worthless.[/QUOTE]

If the grunts on the ground knew how to run a billion dollar business they wouldnt be down a mine shaft working for the people who do.

Workers shouldnt own a company because they are required to run it. Its about supply and demand. The workers can quit. They would have people take those jobs for less money tomorrow.

[QUOTE]All land in America was taken by violence or distributed by the government to the well-connected.

If workers were somehow 100% united, owners would have no power. 99% of what they own needs workers to create and consumers to purchase it, otherwise it is worthless.

Most of American politics is just meant as a distraction to keep workers divided. Both political parties are in on this. Racism, sexism, abortion, gun control, immigration etc etc are all real issues, but they currently used to wedge people apart. Nobody in politics is seriously trying to solve them.[/QUOTE]

If workers were somehow united.....

Any other fairly tales you wanna spin? Of course if they unite they would get what they want. I said that. Problem is workers dont have the common sense or will power to unite. Which is exactly why they get paid shit. Blame them not the people paying what they agree to work for.

Why are we blaming the ambitious instead of the fools who take a job then complain about what they agreed was enough to do it?

[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]Here is a good example of how no one "earns" a billion dollars

Amazon depends on the US Postal service to deliver most of their crap. We as voters control USPS. If we elected officials who wanted to, they could change USPS policies to put Amazon out of business, then swoop in and occupy the role of Amazon on the economy...except the profits would be going to the American people.

The USPS used to provide standard banking functions that everyone needs. If they started back with that again, they could push corrupt organizations like Wells Fargo out of the market.

In fact, banks on general depend on the Federal government for liquidity through the Fed Reserve. Without the Government (which theoretically is the people), banks would not be nearly as profitable.[/QUOTE]

The post office is way less equipped to replace amazon than amazon is to do without it. Amazon ordered 4500 vans to start its own service and got so many people applying to lease the vans and run local delivery for them they had to up the order to 20K.

In 5 years Amazon will have 200 thousand vans delivering its own shit making even more money.

They are well run and earned their status.

You dont get to be a trillion dollar company by wishing.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]You really can

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Meaning the vast majority wasnt. And even what was isnt exactly cash. Most "wealth" is in the form of land passed to children not stacks of cash. Only 15% of the wealth of the 1% is inherited. 15% of the 1% is a vast sum of money but people forever cite tycoons who built themselves from nothing somewhat recently. People who opened a store and were the richest man in america in 20 years. People who started in a garage and hit 50 billion in no time. People who made programs in college and now are in everyones pocket. Those guys are the villains most often tied to these things and I will never understand it.



If the grunts on the ground knew how to run a billion dollar business they wouldnt be down a mine shaft working for the people who do.

Workers shouldnt own a company because they are required to run it. Its about supply and demand. The workers can quit. They would have people take those jobs for less money tomorrow.



If workers were somehow united.....

Any other fairly tales you wanna spin? Of course if they unite they would get what they want. I said that. Problem is workers don't have the common sense or will power to unite. Which is exactly why they get paid shit. Blame them not the people paying what they agree to work for.

Why are we blaming the ambitious instead of the fools who take a job then complain about what they agreed was enough to do it?[/QUOTE]


1. Wealth acts as a funnel. If I have money, I can go open 40 McDonald's franchises, pay someone to run them, and make way more money than I started with. So if 40% of wealth is inherited, a lot of that "earned" wealth is also just money flowing to investors, who have invested their inheritances or windfalls.

2. Workers are required to run a company. They are the ONLY people required to run a company. You are making my point.

3. The people (mostly large groups) who own big businesses primarily worry about how they can personally take as much money from the business as possible. The people that run the business might make a ton of money, but they aren't the ones who own it. Small businesses and start-up successes are held up as examples because that's the only level where the motives of the owners are usually productive, and more in line with the labor.

4. "If workers were somehow united...." it's called a union. We used to have them and everyone made more money, and the economy was consistently booming. Unions have been on the decline for decades, mostly due to attacks by business interests, who ARE united. I'm sure you know what a Chamber of Commerce is. They act as the business-equivalent of a union.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]The post office is way less equipped to replace amazon than amazon is to do without it. Amazon ordered 4500 vans to start its own service and got so many people applying to lease the vans and run local delivery for them they had to up the order to 20K.

In 5 years Amazon will have 200 thousand vans delivering its own shit making even more money.

They are well run and earned their status.

You dont get to be a trillion dollar company by wishing.[/QUOTE]

The post office already has 215,000 mail trucks in operation.

[B]Amazon is a multi-decade scheme to monopolize the supply-chain management industry. Monopolies are [B][U]bad[/U][/B].[/B]

Amazon went without profit for a a decade when they started. They basically made very little money relative to their size until recently. They were buoyed by investment cash for that entire time, as they grew and pushed stores out of business.

A store franchise is essentially just a supply chain. Think of a store like RadioShack. They buy products directly from the companies that make them, transfer them all over the country, and then sell them to consumers.

Amazon's goal was to cut out all the RadioShacks, and connect producers directly to consumers. In that, they are effectively killing all the corporate office, supply chain manager, store manager, and lower-level employee jobs at those companies.

Why was Amazon able to do this? Because they had no expectation of making any money at first. They just kept getting money from investors to keep them afloat, while they undercut every other company.



[B]Amazon has effectively put a ton of other companies out of business. This is not inherently a bad thing. If they can deliver what people want, at a lower price, that's a good thing. However, when a company gets so big and powerful, there's a lot of awful side-effects.[/B]

1. All those workers who got laid off at other retailers have to go somewhere. Effectively, Amazon pushed them into the labor market, and then hoovered up workers at low wages and poor conditions (because what else are they going to do? Radioshack and everywhere else closed!). In a lot of areas, Amazon's distribution plants are now the main source of employment. They are often run by fresh-out-of-college business students at $40k a year (I turned that job down lol).

2. Amazon now can manipulate which products are being sold. The put products that give them kick-backs at the top of searches, or products by companies that they have purchased (by virtue of having so much cash to throw around).

3. Amazon is not powerful enough to bully local and state governments. If we had a bunch of competing companies it would be more difficult for them to get tax (and other) concessions from our governments. Amazon represents so much money and so many jobs that they are able play our governments against each other to get out of paying taxes.

4. They are just going to get bigger and more powerful, and keep doing this same stuff on a greater scale. They've killed all their direct competitors in America. Their only real competition now is foreign (folks like Alibaba) who are doing them same thing in their own country.


[B]Amazon, subsidized by the American People, is a monopoly that subverts competition in the market and should be subject to anti-trust action.[/B]

Any organization that gets this powerful will act this way in our current system, and it doesn't have to be this way.