Stimulating the rich

[miles]

It's really funny how some of you absolutely wet your pants about how much taxes the rich and poor allegedly pay without ever lifting a finger to do a little fact finding.

Incidentally, facts are not what you hear on TV.

 

[Thrillhouse]

Re: Re: Stimulating the rich

brutal economic sodomy

I just wanted to say that this would be a great band name.

 

[Cuckolded_BlK_Male]

Good point. We shouyld sterilize anyone who earns less than (some randomly determined amount) per year.

Of course that, why do they have kids stuff, is a thinly veiled racist remark, aimed at us darkies and beaners who, according to popular myth, all subsist on welfare and foodstamps, which we pick up at the welfare office in our Hummer H2's.

 

[Pagliacci]

It's really funny how some of you absolutely wet your pants about how much taxes the rich and poor allegedly pay without ever lifting a finger to do a little fact finding.

Incidentally, facts are not what you hear on TV.

Or read on the Internet on some page with an agenda.

 

[Thrillhouse]

Of course that, why do they have kids stuff, is a thinly veiled racist remark, aimed at us darkies and beaners.

Eugenics rears its ugly head...

 

[medjay]

Incidentally, facts are not what you hear on TV.

Yeah. The facts are the numbers written on the check that I sent to the IRS last year.

 

[Viper Vic]

Re: Re: Really stimulating the rich

I dunno...miles seemed relatively helpful, and not angry at all. You can see by the anger of some of the posters, however, that the ultra-rich are winning in their efforts to pit the middle class against the poor.

Would that Ultra-Rich be the Dem Senators or Hollywierd rich? Face it ,people that make more money are really the only ones paying taxes, and you fall inside the upper 50%. When you hear Dim politicos talking about "Tax cuts for the Rich". They are talking about you! They don't want to define the "Rich" Well the "Rich" is 26,000 and above!

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Poor people can't afford to pay taxes. That seems like a simple enough notion. Rich people got rich mostly on the backs of the poor, so maybe they should pay some taxes, don't you think?

 

[teddybear4play]

Commentators and pundits are having a field day with Bush's just unveiled economic "stimulus" plan. As one wag wrote, it will sure stimulate Bush's rich cronies and backers. Paul Krugman was especially effective in skewering it in today's Grey Lady. As he puts it, it won't stimulate the economy, it won't help the needy, but it sure gives a lot of goodies to those who are already rich. With liberal writers tearing the Bush plan to shreds, I don't need to say anything myself.

For someone who constantly bitches that people don't know about your preferred system of economics/government, but still criticize it, you are one woefully ignorant motherfucker when it comes to the tenets of capitalism. It's okay, though, because reading this, I can see you're not alone.

Real simple to break down. In capitalism, there are two major forces: supply and demand. So, in the whole economic system, you have suppliers and demanders, or, more accurately, producers and consumers.

A capitalistic economy is only healthy if both sides perform; if producers supply and consumers demand relatively equally. The problem the American economy has right now is on the supply side. Businesses are cutting costs and laying people off because they can't afford it. The reason why holiday spending is always big news is because it's a barometer of how consumers are doing. It was holding pretty steady for a while, but this Christmas season was pretty wretched. So now, both supply and demand could use relief.

So, in order to stimulate the economy, you need to stimulate both supply and demand. And, for the most part, it's the rich who supply and the middle and lower classes who demand. It's a little more complicated than that, of course, because there are plenty of small-business owners who don't swim naked in a big pool of money, and rich people also consume more than middle-class people.

But the point remains: if businesses are to remain healthy, those people who control them (i.e. the rich) have to have their burdens lightened. Giving a rebate check to all taxpayers without it, as happened in 2001, is worthless, because Bill Gates can't rehire somebody on $300.

And I'm sick of hearing all the bitching about what the rich get out of the deal. You always hear the complaint that the rich get so much more money than the middle-class, but the rich do more with that money than the rest of us. And when they're done, they still pay one-third of their income in tax (at least as of the 2001 Bush tax plan). And it's just useless to begin with. If you get yours, who the hell cares what someboedy else gets?

Would I like a tax cut? Well, shit yeah. But if it doesn't help me get a job, then it's really not all that valuable.

Tax cuts that are across the board, or even just at the top, help the economy. Ask John F. Kennedy. But not Teddy.

(Teddy Kennedy, that is.)

TB4p

 

[miles]

Or read on the Internet on some page with an agenda.

Oh, yes, like the IRS website. Now there is a real source of extreme right wingers.

 

[REDWAVE]

So what are you saying?

"Since the poor don't pay taxes, screw 'em."

Is that it?

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

I personally define rich as over $10 million in assets, and over $2 million a year in income.

 

[CoolidgEffect]

Poor people can't afford to pay taxes. That seems like a simple enough notion. Rich people got rich mostly on the backs of the poor, so maybe they should pay some taxes, don't you think?

If 28% of the taxes paid are from 1.5% of the population, I'd say the rich do pay taxes.

It is always easy to decide how much someone else should pay.

 

[miles]

Of course that, why do they have kids stuff, is a thinly veiled racist remark, aimed at us darkies and beaners who, according to popular myth, all subsist on welfare and foodstamps, which we pick up at the welfare office in our Hummer H2's.

Excellent post!

 

[teddybear4play]

Of course that, why do they have kids stuff, is a thinly veiled racist remark, aimed at us darkies and beaners who, according to popular myth, all subsist on welfare and foodstamps, which we pick up at the welfare office in our Hummer H2's.

Please buy some more of those. They're made in my hometown. To hell with Navigators and Pathfinders.

TB4p

 

[Thrillhouse]

Re: Re: Stimulating the rich

For someone who constantly bitches that people don't know about your preferred system of economics/government, but still criticize it, you are one woefully ignorant motherfucker when it comes to the tenets of capitalism. It's okay, though, because reading this, I can see you're not alone.

Real simple to break down. In capitalism, there are two major forces: supply and demand. So, in the whole economic system, you have suppliers and demanders, or, more accurately, producers and consumers.

A capitalistic economy is only healthy if both sides perform; if producers supply and consumers demand relatively equally. The problem the American economy has right now is on the supply side. Businesses are cutting costs and laying people off because they can't afford it. The reason why holiday spending is always big news is because it's a barometer of how consumers are doing. It was holding pretty steady for a while, but this Christmas season was pretty wretched. So now, both supply and demand could use relief.

So, in order to stimulate the economy, you need to stimulate both supply and demand. And, for the most part, it's the rich who supply and the middle and lower classes who demand. It's a little more complicated than that, of course, because there are plenty of small-business owners who don't swim naked in a big pool of money, and rich people also consume more than middle-class people.

But the point remains: if businesses are to remain healthy, those people who control them (i.e. the rich) have to have their burdens lightened. Giving a rebate check to all taxpayers without it, as happened in 2001, is worthless, because Bill Gates can't rehire somebody on $300.
TB4p

Yeah, trickle-down worked so well in the 80's.

BTW, that $300 is a hell of a lot of money to most of those in the bottom 50% (<$26,000/year). It's $300 they could be spending at those businesses that aren't healthy, for example.

 

[REDWAVE]

Party!

TB4P invites everybody over to his house to swim naked in a big pool of money. You get to take home whatever you can grab, too. PM him for details.

 

[Xodus]

The top 1.5% pay 28% of all taxes
The top 1% have 21% of all the money?

 

[REDWAVE]

But seriously, now

TB's views are in line with one school of economic thought, that of Milton Friedman, Richard Epstein, etc. There is also a liberal, Keynesian school of thought, which to me makes much more sense. Krugman, an academic heavyweight at MIT, belongs to the Keynesian school. This economic model says that in hard economic times, the best thing to do is put money in the hands of those who need it and can be counted on to spend it, mainly on necessities, and quickly. That will increase consumer demand, and stimulate business investment, "priming the pump" for a recovery. A twenty six (26) week extension of unemployment benefits, the core of the Dems' plan, will stimulate the economy much more than will Bush's plan, and will actually cost less!

 

[Pagliacci]

Oh, yes, like the IRS website. Now there is a real source of extreme right wingers.

Ask Redwave

 

[Xodus]

Maby I should ask my question a little better
I don't usually pay much attention to politics because I think politicians of any party are about as low life scum as you can get.

I saw a post that the top 1.5% of the moneymakers in the country paid 28% of the taxes. Another post said that the top 1% had about 21% of all the money. If you take that other 0.5 % and add it to the 1% wouldn't that 1.5% have at least 28% of the money, maybe even more?
Does that mean that the richest people in the country pay about the same percentage or maby less income tax than the rest?

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

And if they pay a bit more...so what? If you have millions, what's a few extra thousand? When yopu only have thousands, a few extra hundred can hurt alot. I don't think that someone who makes $150,000 a year should worry about being taxed out of his lifestyle, and the rich cannot be seriously damaged by a single digit tax increase. Their greed pertaining to amounts of money that they can afford to give without ever feeling it...ugh.

 

[Xodus]

Yea, greed is one of the reasons I sold my share of a business a few years ago.
The primary owner got so greedy he was making me sick. He would have people that worked at the plant go mow his yard because he was too cheap to pay a gardener for his two million dollar home. Then I watched him let the best welder, that had been there 11 years quit before he would give him a raise from 13 an hour to 14 an hour. The guy hadn't had a raise in 17 months.
It got to where if the primary owner made two mil the year before, he was gonna make more the next year even if he had to cut wages.

 

[HeavyStick]

And if they pay a bit more...so what? If you have millions, what's a few extra thousand? When yopu only have thousands, a few extra hundred can hurt alot. I don't think that someone who makes $150,000 a year should worry about being taxed out of his lifestyle, and the rich cannot be seriously damaged by a single digit tax increase. Their greed pertaining to amounts of money that they can afford to give without ever feeling it...ugh.

Really?



So you're saying your lifestyle shouldn't be affected by taxes but someone else's should be?!?!

 

[Xodus]

I think he is saying if his life is effected tremendously by income tax, so should the lives of the rich?