Why Are We Broke?

[undertheice]

Going over seas to kill people doesn't protect Americans, it protects American Corporations. They should pay for it.

what the hell do you think american corporations are, alien entities? are you so steeped in the anti-business culture of statism that you can divorce our society from its economic lifeblood? these american corporations you so detest are largely owned and financed by, you guessed it, american citizens. last i heard merely being wealthy didn't deny you the full protection of the united states government. as for who is footing the bill, need i remind you that the top few percent of americans at the head of the economic food chain shoulder the lion's share of financing the workings of our government? the fact is, they already are paying for it. the wars, the entitlements, the bureaucratic fraud and waste, even the very buildings used to house the courts that waste their time on frivolous lawsuits against, you guessed it once again, american corporations. those who invest in american business have been paying the freight for your war on them since before you were born.

 

[undertheice]

unless the president is a black democrat... then ANY sort of military action is against our interests and just stinks of socialism.... am I correct??

you seldom are and this time is no exception.

 

[hazyintentions]

unless the president is a black democrat... then ANY sort of military action is against our interests and just stinks of socialism.... am I correct??

WHAT?! Our president can be blue for all I care, we MUST stop this completely UN-Constitutional war mongering. It's corruption of the American ideals at hand. I agree with American troops participating helping to fight against genocide in 3rd world countries but ONLY under compliance with international laws. And never as a lone country.

 

[redivider]

what the hell do you think american corporations are, alien entities? are you so steeped in the anti-business culture of statism that you can divorce our society from its economic lifeblood? these american corporations you so detest are largely owned and financed by, you guessed it, american citizens. last i heard merely being wealthy didn't deny you the full protection of the united states government. as for who is footing the bill, need i remind you that the top few percent of americans at the head of the economic food chain shoulder the lion's share of financing the workings of our government? the fact is, they already are paying for it. the wars, the entitlements, the bureaucratic fraud and waste, even the very buildings used to house the courts that waste their time on frivolous lawsuits against, you guessed it once again, american corporations. those who invest in american business have been paying the freight for your war on them since before you were born.

you are BLIND by partisan idiocy.

the individuals you describe PROFIT from war.

is this one of those times i am seldom correct??

let me remind you that government military contracts pay 140% of costs, regardless if the project goes over budget, and regardless if the projects works, regardless if there's EVER any deployment of the technology developed....

yeah, they shoulder the burden alright.....

 

[WillyBagseed]

Did you all forget Bush kept the wars off the books, part of the debt is Obama put them on the books. I am no Obama fan, just thought I would throw that tidbit about the wars out there.

 

[WillyBagseed]

I don't view programs like SS and Medicare, 2 programs that I have paid over $54,0000 in the last 10 years alone into, entitlement programs.

I'm with you on the Military spending. I consider expecting to be able to wage war anywhere in the world no matter the cost an entitlement program.

But the programs that I pay into and expect something out of are Social Insurance Programs, not Entitlements. By contributing to these programs, I am investing in the American People. I cannot think of a better investment or a more Patriotic one.

Tell that to a Tea Bagger and watch their head explode.

Agreed, SS and medicare are insurance programs you pay for, they are not entitlements. Not our fault the government likes to steal from SS and repubs put in the poison pill for part b. Other than being paid off why would the republicans want the federal government to HAVE to pay retail prices on prescriptions?

 

[taipanspunk]

...plain and simple...

-legalize textile hemp production and screw cotton
-properly tax commercial marijuana (like wine taxing) and set age limits

 

[WillyBagseed]

Clinton wasn't dealing with a 14.4 trillion dollar deficit either man. Looking back I was only a kid then but I believe Clinton did a good job although I'm upset about the whitewater affair he did a good job in office. With that said, do you want me to fetch the a reply I posted earlier relating to the exuberant amount of money the rich are taxed?



The tax rates on the rich are ridiculous, to even suggest that we should raise them more for any one to make up for this monstrous debt our government is raking in for us is even a worse idea.

Do you understand that "cuts" aren't "cuts" they are only decreasing the increase in spending. Have you seen the charts and numbers? There is talk about almost doubling our deficit! We don't have double the people or double the land so why our we going to double or government?

MY though. FREEZE the budget right here and now as it is. That in itself would balance the budget in like 8 years. Even better than that? Bring our troops home! There's at least 500 billion is spending a year cut. What about all the troops? Take a portion of that 500 billion saved and train them for jobs that can help rebuild our infrastructure (roads, electricity, water mains) as well as jobs to help develop better way to power our country (free solar,wind,water power, drill our own oil). Even more, strip the federal reserve's power to print money! Stop them from inflating our dollar.

You can even keep all the entitlements for now and still turn this country around ! It's not fucking rocket science, it's common sense. Unless you have a better idea, if so please do divulge it.

The real tax on the top 2% is approx 21%, the real tax on the top .5-1% is 15% or less, the real tax rate on corporations is an average of just over 11%. What am I missing that shows the ridiculous taxes the wealthy pay?

What entitlements do I get to keep? I pay for Social security and Medicare so I dunno what you are talking about.

I do agree with the war and infrastructure comments.

 

[NoDrama]

I wonder what would happen if you put 2 million more people on the unemployment roles when you cut all those military jobs?

 

[NoDrama]

The real tax on the top 2% is approx 21%, the real tax on the top .5-1% is 15% or less, the real tax rate on corporations is an average of just over 11%. What am I missing that shows the ridiculous taxes the wealthy pay?

You know why that is? Because really really wealthy people don't have jobs, They invest most of their money into equities that yield dividends. and they just live off the dividend checks they get every few months. Guess what the tax rate is on Capital gains? 15%.

Its not like they are stealing, they just happen to be smart and use the system to their advantage, Like almost every one of us does.

 

[WillyBagseed]

Correct, a broken system. No legitimate reason to bitch about paying to much in taxes.

 

[NoDrama]

Correct, a broken system. No legitimate reason to bitch about paying to much in taxes.

Quite Broken, but the Deficit is caused by too much spending, not a lack of funds. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[WillyBagseed]

Taxes are under 15% related GDP for 3 years in a row. This has not happened since WW2. How is going from over 20% of GDP to under 15% of GDP = " not a lack of funds" ?

A 25% pay cut sounds like lack of funds to me.

Yes spending must be fixed, esp these bogus "wars", but to say the current tax situation has nothing to do with it is plain ignorant.

 

[NoDrama]

Taxes are under 15% related GDP for 3 years in a row. This has not happened since WW2. How is going from over 20% of GDP to under 15% of GDP = " not a lack of funds" ?

A 25% pay cut sounds like lack of funds to me.

Yes spending must be fixed, esp these bogus "wars", but to say the current tax situation has nothing to do with it is plain ignorant.

Yeah, its terrible isn't it?

 

[WillyBagseed]

If we are going to do the chart thing.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/pdf/low_tax_graphs.pdf

 

[NoDrama]

1950, now those were terrible times, America was almost on the cusp of total collapse. Not really.

 

[WillyBagseed]

1950, now those were terrible times, America was almost on the cusp of total collapse. Not really.

Gross National Product rose from $211 billion in 1944 to $329 billion in 1951, but measured in 1960 dollars of equal purchasing power, the rise was only from $373 billion in 1944 to $391 billion in 1951. Furthermore, the GNP growth rate (in constant dollars) was slower than many other industrialized areas, such as Japan and Taiwan. This difference might have been a beginning for the current large productivity gap between the US and these countries. The foreign balance of trade took its first major dive during this decade and for twelve of the thirteen years between 1950 and 1963, the US had a negative balance of trade. This was a primarily new occurrence for the US economy as it was the main economic powerhouse in the world previous to this time and did not have to rely on imports to be self-sustaining. This balance of trade led to $8 billion dollars of gold leaving the hands of the US government during this period of thirteen years and may have paved the way for our current deficit situation

NAFTA and other bogus trade agreements are another part of today's problem.

The 50's were also a time when CEO's averaged 30x their workers wage, not the 400+ x they make now. Not only are the wealthy/ corporations picking the taxpayers pocket at year end, they are doing it all year long, all the while keeping you smiling.

A CEO of a Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index company received, on average, $11.4 million in total compensation in 2010. In other words, the combined pay of 299 CEOs could support 102,325 workers earning the median wage. ($33,333.00 per year.)

Corporate Welfare is almost 10x social welfare for the poor, yet you do not hear anybody screaming to cut corporate "entitlements" lol ....The ball less Dems made a weak try at it and the Republicans and Tea baggers said "No, we will not end corporate entitlements"

 

[undertheice]

is this one of those times i am seldom correct?

i'm afraid i'll have to answer with a resounding NO. that blind partisanship you are so quick to accuse me of seems to be a sin you are quite guilty of. as is par for the course with the statists of modern liberalism, you mix all corporations into one bag, all wars into another, then mix and match to suit your chosen argument. how often i've seen this same scenario played out i simply can't even number.

do some corporations profit from the wars we wage? of course they do. for some, the technology of war is their bread and butter and profit is, after all, the name of the game when conducting business. for others, the change in political climate caused by a military conflict is more conducive to their operations. to baldly claim that they have started such a conflict simply for the sake of profit is the sort of accusation that demands more proof than the "maybes" of conspiracy fanatics. that the corruption existing in our government might allow the unscrupulous to commit such deeds is yet another strike against your chosen philosophy.

the causes of our wars and the incompetence of those who dole out military contacts are different matters entirely. to simply lump all wars into one category in order to dismiss them is worse than disingenuous. afghanistan, a war of retribution, might be seen as an almost ethical incursion. the punishment of a regime that harbors those who committed heinous acts against our civilian population is one of the better reasons to commit the atrocity that is war. actions such as those in iraq and libya are of an entirely different order. both were engaged in for the express purpose of ousting regimes deemed abusive to their own people and dangerous to the rest of the world. as the self-styled global watchdog of democracy, we have often seen fit to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries for much the same reasons and i've never make any effort to disguise my disgust over this policy.

as to the ludicrous nature of our government's contract skills, this is still another strike against the institutionalized ineptitude of our federal bureaucracy. having negotiated more than a few contracts over the course of my various careers, i am constantly amazed at the incompetence shown at nearly every level in this matter. there is simply no consistency. in one instance a contract will be handed out to an unqualified bidder, merely because they have low-balled their price and left it open to increases to make up the difference. in the next they will offer the contractor the moon because it is something our government believes it just can't do without. no project ever comes in at the originally quoted price and, because someone else (the taxpayer) is footing the bill, no one ever thinks to complain. the military is far from the only segment of government guilty of this idiocy. the sheer magnitude of the contracts they oversee and the destructive nature of their purview merely makes them the most obvious target of our scorn. who do you wish to blame for this fiasco? would any responsible businessman pass up the opportunity to pad their bottom line a bit at the expense of one of the world's most abusive institutions?

 

[ULMResearch]

what the hell do you think american corporations are, alien entities? are you so steeped in the anti-business culture of statism that you can divorce our society from its economic lifeblood? these american corporations you so detest are largely owned and financed by, you guessed it, american citizens. last i heard merely being wealthy didn't deny you the full protection of the united states government. as for who is footing the bill, need i remind you that the top few percent of americans at the head of the economic food chain shoulder the lion's share of financing the workings of our government? the fact is, they already are paying for it. the wars, the entitlements, the bureaucratic fraud and waste, even the very buildings used to house the courts that waste their time on frivolous lawsuits against, you guessed it once again, american corporations. those who invest in american business have been paying the freight for your war on them since before you were born.

That's great in theory, if those corporations in turn gave a fuck about people.

"He may be a bastard, but he was our bastard".

That quote is about Fulgencio Batista, the guy who ran Cuba before Castro took over. He let us [read: American corporations] exploit the fuck out of his people and then beat, tortured and killed the ones who tried to stand up for themselves. Hence Castro and Che overthrowing the government. We didn't hate Castro because he was a bad guy.. we hated him because he was a good one.

 

[capncash]

We are broke because George Bush projected a 5.6 Trillion Dollar Surplus and gave massive tax cuts to people who did not need them as a result of that false Projection. That mistake needs to be corrected.

It's that simple. Corporate America thrived under Clinton and those rates. You cannot deny it.

Does it ever get old blaming Bush? Clinton did have the help of the booming tech economy.