Obama legitimizes anti-Israeli Muslim Brotherhood (NY Daily News)

[SI Subway]

Sorry if this is a little long, there's a lot for me to discuss.

 

He's not Liberal enough and I'm sick to death of selfish brain-dead moronic Conservatives holding the country hostage because they're too dumb to raise taxes. To think there are idiots who vote for them.

 

I think he's doing a good job, but not good enough. About Conservatives ruling the country, nothing could be closer to the truth. Maybe that's why Obama isn't being liberal enough.

 

They even endorsed Obama

 

And why shouldn't they?

 

4) So it is selfish to believe in capitalism and not crushing the producers of this country?

 

Yes. Yes it is. Capitalism is, like most systems, good in theory, but the rich have turned it into a cash cow for themselves. What's worse, they don't think they should share with people in this country who are jobless, homeless, and hungry, who need money much more than they do. This is outrageous. I think that either Capitalism should be completely revised, or Socialism should be adopted. Then everyone in the country would have an equal chance at success.

 

4) Obama is NOT a centrist! He is as left wing as you are. He wants to tax the rich as much as you do.

 

Then why hasn't he? Oh yeah, people like you have such a stranglehold on the economy, government, and other stuff that he can't.

 

5) So an economic system which has lead to a high standard of living for so many people (middle class/rich) is bad and selfish?

 

Read two paragraphs above me. Yes it is. I don't care if they have a high standard of living, but they should be playing their part monetary-wise, and helping people that are less fortunate, which they don't have to in capitalism. That is why socialism is a much better option.

 

That's completely wrong. It just shows how polarized your views are and how far the center has shifted if you think the News is "as far Liberal as you can get." It's a mix up gossip and center-Right garbage with the odd Liberal columnist "balancing" it out. Secondly, lefties are not conspiracy theorists, don't know where you're going with that. [Re: the Palin map, poor taste and despicable, yes, but it didn't lead to the shooting.] You pull up as many unique Democrats there as you want, but it's anything but a Liberal paper.

 

Encore!

 

Oh believe me he's not as left wing as me. I see him as a left-centrist. I'm pretty far left, and you're far right. He's no Liberal, not after falling through on the Bush tax cuts.

 

Don't forget Medicare, gay rights, and Guantanamo Bay's supposed closing, all of which he fell through as well.

 

It's not that simple though. Capitalism is an every-man-for-himself type of system where the greediest man wins -- the free market means one man wins, another loses. It's not equal and it's fundamentally flawed. "So many people" is just ignorant. So few people is the real story... A lucky few make it in the free market world and get vastly overpaid for jobs that don't deserve that much and we call it beneficial for "so many." Smh.

 

So true... Why are those people grossly overpaid? What did they do to deserve that money? Why aren't they helping others as they should (see above comments)?

 

I don't get why you want your taxes to be raised. The less tax you pay the more money in your pocket.

 

The more taxes we pay, the better the government can operate, and the more people are equal.

 

1) If this paper is so conservative and right-wing, why would they endorse Obama?

 

Again, why shouldn't they?

 

3) He is as far left as you can possibly get. He was friends with two 60s radicals (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) and went to a church with a radical leftist as it's pastor (Jeremiah Wright). His childhood mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a noted communist writer and poet. Look it up your self bro. He hates the rich, businesses, and oil companies as much as you do.

 

Just because he is friends or listens to these people doesn't mean he agrees with them. Look at me right now, talking to and listening to you. Does it mean I agree with you? Of course not.

 

4) One man winning and another losing is apart of life. No one gets participation trophies in the real world, my friend. Sorry. As much as you hate it, capitalism produces more winners than losers. Contrary to what you think, Socialism does not make everyone a winner. Socialism makes everyone into a loser. All one needs to do is look at history. Socialism has been tried out in Cuba, the Soviet Union (Russia), Germany, Italy, North Korea, China, and Venezuela. It has never worked and it never will. Wake up, bro.

 

Your first sentance may be true, but capitalism makes it nearly impossible for children of losers to win. How many people in the US make 750,000 a year? Not many. Not even the president, the most important figure in the country, makes that. If you're paid twice as much as the ruler of the free world, you are extremely overpaid. Socialism does not make everyone losers, it makes everyone even, so that they have an equal chance from the start to be winners or losers. Capitalism pre-determines that.

 

Finally, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and China were communist. Germany, Italy, and Venezuela were fascist. Three different things. Look it up. Communism=doesn't work, Socialism=works.

 

First off, the taxes that need to be raised are on the rich, not the middle class. I thought that was pretty clear. Now secondly, just look at the Bush presidency that left us in a recession: trickle-down economies don't work. You can't throw money at the rich and expect them to produce, because in a free market economy they'll still outsource jobs and overpay themselves with bonuses. Tax the rich higher, and provide more services for the lower and middle classes.

 

IMO, Bush was the worst president in American history. First he attacks Afghanistan, costing billions of taxpayers' dollars, then he attacks Iraq for some unknown reason that he had to lie to cover, then he does not even respond to Hurricane Katrina, and finally the economy tanks. Why, Bush?

 

You can throw out historical companions (that I do know) as much as you'd like, but friendships and past history do not speak for the man. Open your eyes, his policies are anything but Liberal, and general rest in the center. Did you sleep through the extension of the Bush tax cuts? Miss his failure to support gay marriage? Look the other way as he compromised to death on health care? Look at the present, not the past, and you'll see why he's not "as far left as you can possibly get."

 

Again, Obama has fallen victim to the Republican-dominated government. If he was a staunch liberal, he wouldn't have to compromise on those things. He had a liberal cabinet, a liberal house, a liberal Senate, why couldn't he just pass what he wanted? Why did the Republican minority have to act like a majority? It's just stupid.

 

Communism is in principle nice, but in reality terrible. Socialism and capitalism are both flawed, but socialism (specifically Democratic socialism which I stand for) is by far the lesser of these evils. You know what else doesn't work? CAPITALISM. Look at the recession we're still crawling out of. Capitalism produces overpaid scum, many underpaid benefit-less workers, and then leaves a huge portion of the country unemployed. That's not my opinion, that's our current economy. The most important thing we can do (you'll love this) is spread the wealth.

 

So true, so true... :cry:

 

The lower and middle classes are much more vital to society because they actually do s***, as opposed to those whos goal in life is to acquire as much wealth as possible without regard for others.

 

The lower and middle classes work their butts off, while the rich just sit there, doing nothing. Don't pull the "rich tried harder" routine with me. The rich are greedy, and that's one of the reasons why Socialism is so frowned upon. They are afraid of workers earning more money, as they should, and themselves losing money, again as they should.

 

Like MHV9218, I am a staunch Democratic socialist. There are many good things about capitalism, but ultimatly there are too many faults for it to be any good. I have yet to see a fault with socialism, so explain to me why it should not be implimented in the US.

[R68 Subway Car]

- Freedom of the markets does not mean complete freedom (just like freedom in America does not mean it is OK to kill). Right wing conservative idiots don't seem to understand this. They seem to think that freedom of the markets means that it is OK to lie, steal, cheat, and price-fix to get ahead in the business world

I have never stated that the market should be completely free. I believe that there should be regulations to prevent people like Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay from taking advantage of people. All conservatives believe that.

 

There's a reason America's founding fathers always promoted a doctrine of neutrality in foreign conflicts.

They held that doctrine because America at that time was too young and financially unable to get involved in foreign conflicts. That is not the case currently. Eventually, America became financially able to get involved in foreign conflicts. We got involved in these conflicts (like WWII) to protect ourselves from our enemies.

[R68 Subway Car]

Look, I am not the one that wants to cause trouble in the world. I would love it if the world was peaceful, but life is not a John Lennon song. There are people in the world that want to kill us and attack our way of life. This is why I will never really get behind a guy like Ron Paul. When the situation warrants it, we HAVE to defend ourselves and our allies.

[East New York]

That's why if these people want to set up an Islamic state, and try to take over the world I will be saying the same thing that you said just now.

 

They are the last people anyone needs to be worried about trying to "take over the world."

 

China on the other hand owns most all of our debt, they make most all of our consumer products, they purposefully devalue their currency, and they are buying up all our natural resources with money they get from us......

 

China is our best "frenemy."

 

That's who we need to be worried about!

[Quill Depot]

China is our best "frenemy."

 

That's who we need to be worried about!

 

Exactly! China is ruling robbing us. So many things are made in China that if something goes wrong (Bad hurricane, Etc.) or they just don't want to import stuff here our country would FAIL. And if we could have more stuff made here, we'd all be better off.

[Urbanfortitude]

That's why if these people want to set up an Islamic state, and try to take over the world I will be saying the same thing that you said just now.

 

LMAO seriously kid, lay off the TV and comic books. Take over the world....lol.

 

I'm leaving the serious debates to the elites. But I really couldn't hold back. My biggest concerns are also with China...seeing as we owe them a ton of money. I guess we should be glad they haven't come to collect.

[SI Subway]

Look, I am not the one that wants to cause trouble in the world. I would love it if the world was peaceful, but life is not a John Lennon song. There are people in the world that want to kill us and attack our way of life. This is why I will never really get behind a guy like Ron Paul. When the situation warrants it, we HAVE to defend ourselves and our allies.

 

Life could be a John Lennon song if we didn't rush into places like Iraq and Vietnam without sustainable proof of threat. Saddam Hussein was a sadistic cur, but that does not justify a full-blown war. We really should be afraid of ourselves, if we are judging by invasion likelyhood.

 

China on the other hand owns most all of our debt, they make most all of our consumer products, they purposefully devalue their currency, and they are buying up all our natural resources with money they get from us......

 

China is our best "frenemy."

 

That's who we need to be worried about!

 

LOL, but a battle with China would cripple the economy further than it already is. The goal is trying to gain their friendship, and not having to be worried.

[MTARegional Bus]

LMAO seriously kid, lay off the TV and comic books. Take over the world....lol.

 

My biggest concerns are also with China...seeing as we owe them a ton of money. I guess we should be glad they haven't come to collect.

 

That because we buy stuff from them, if they started to collect both economys would suffer since Americans don't have any money to spend. its a lose lose situation.

[SoSpectacular]

That because we buy stuff from them, if they started to collect both economys would suffer since Americans don't have any money to spend. its a lose lose situation.

 

Lol, no money to spend... Where did it all go? Oh yeah:

 

 

Some arrogant idiot left this in the ATM machine after making a withdrawal

[nycbusfan]

In 1956, the top federal income tax rate on personal income was something like 91%.

 

By 1985, this had been dropped to 50%. Tax rates on the super rich had been effectively CUT IN HALF.

 

In 2010, it was 35%.

 

In 1956, the economy was pretty good. In 1985, it was in recovery, bouncing to and fro, but it didn't recover until the internet boom of the 90's, which was not actually a recovery but instead a BUBBLE. Just like housing was a BUBBLE in the mid 2000's. Both BUBBLES ended by POPPING, and reverting things back to the way they were in the 70s, which is to say "not good."

 

Now here we are in 2010. Governments in deficit. Jobs continually outsourced. Rich getting richer by outsourcing jobs and unemploying the American people - shipping their money overseas in foreign wages and foreign investments. Reducing the wealth of America. Like they've been doing for the past 35 years anyway.

 

Has any of it changed? Have any of the tax cuts to benefit the wealthy done ANYTHING? NOPE. We sit around and argue to all hell about raising the top tax rate back to THIRTY EIGHT PERCENT - well less than half of what it was in 1956, and our government backs down. Even as it stares at a record deficit of FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS because it does not want to offend its masters.

 

But meanwhile it is content to add payroll taxes on to small businesses. Andrew Cuomo won't support a millionaire's tax, though. Meanwhile, it's OK to end tax deductions for working class people. It's OK to keep capital gains tax rates low when the majority of the American people don't enjoy the LUXURY of investing their money in a prime brokerage account like the wealthy do to avoid paying the top tax rate.

 

To overcome the FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT, someone's got to pay something and it sure as hell ought NOT to be the working and middle class population that has been raped and pillaged SINCE 1956 to pay for the extravagant and excessive lifestyles of a bunch of unoriginal corporate c***smokers, who all buy yachts and cars with their tax breaks - none of which are made by American companies doing business in the USA.

 

I never said that I support higher taxes on the low and middle class. We need tax cuts across the board. The more money people have in their pocket the more they will spend which throws more money into the economy.

 

Yes. Yes it is. Capitalism is, like most systems, good in theory, but the rich have turned it into a cash cow for themselves. What's worse, they don't think they should share with people in this country who are jobless, homeless, and hungry, who need money much more than they do. This is outrageous. I think that either Capitalism should be completely revised, or Socialism should be adopted. Then everyone in the country would have an equal chance at success.

 

 

Read two paragraphs above me. Yes it is. I don't care if they have a high standard of living, but they should be playing their part monetary-wise, and helping people that are less fortunate, which they don't have to in capitalism. That is why socialism is a much better option.

 

I believe that every person has the opportunity to do well if you put enough effort into it. I know a person who started out years ago with one tiny store and was barely making ends meet. Despite the fact that he didn't even finish high school he said why do I want to live like this and became very aggressive and opened store after store until this company now became a large chain of stores employing hundreds if not thousands of people. This is the beauty of Capitalism, it gives you the opportunity to make it happen.

 

There are rich people out there who donate large amounts of money to charity such as the person mentioned above. However it is and should be a persons prerogative to decide what they do with their money.

 

 

 

 

So true... Why are those people grossly overpaid? What did they do to deserve that money? Why aren't they helping others as they should (see above comments)?

 

Many of these people worked hard to get where they are or some just got lucky. I know if I had large amounts of money I would try to help the less fortunate however as I said above you can do whatever you want with your money.

 

 

 

The more taxes we pay, the better the government can operate, and the more people are equal.

 

What the government should really try to do is cut this massive spending and cut taxes to put more money in our pockets.

 

 

 

Just because he is friends or listens to these people doesn't mean he agrees with them. Look at me right now, talking to and listening to you. Does it mean I agree with you? Of course not.

 

Alot of the choices that a typical person makes in life have to do with who his friends are. If you are a kid in high school and your friends are smoking weed odds are you might try weed too. So if a guy hangs around with communists he might start thinking like them.

 

 

 

Your first sentance may be true, but capitalism makes it nearly impossible for children of losers to win. How many people in the US make 750,000 a year? Not many. Not even the president, the most important figure in the country, makes that. If you're paid twice as much as the ruler of the free world, you are extremely overpaid. Socialism does not make everyone losers, it makes everyone even, so that they have an equal chance from the start to be winners or losers. Capitalism pre-determines that.

 

Finally, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and China were communist. Germany, Italy, and Venezuela were fascist. Three different things. Look it up. Communism=doesn't work, Socialism=works.

 

So now if we make everyone equal the economy would probobly collapse. Why would the owner of a large corporation want to do his job if he gets the same amount of money as a cashier at Mcdonalds. Where is his motivaton to waork hard. If I told you I'm going to pay you $10 dollars an hour and you can either be CEO of Apple or Cashier what are you going to pick.

[SI Subway]

Many of these people worked hard to get where they are or some just got lucky. I know if I had large amounts of money I would try to help the less fortunate however as I said above you can do whatever you want with your money.

 

Yeah, most just got lucky or were the descendants of someone who worked hard when it was easier to earn a forturne (aka 1880s-1920s). I wish all of the rich had your ideology, but most just keep a large majority for themselves. I do not have a problem with the rich, as long as they earn it fair and square (namely not through inheritance), and help greatly with the less fortunate.

 

What the government should really try to do is cut this massive spending and cut taxes to put more money in our pockets.

 

What do you consider "massive spending"? If you are talking about Medicare and Medicade, forget having my support. If you are talking about military overspending, like war and pilotless planes, then you have my full backing.

 

 

So now if we make everyone equal the economy would probobly collapse. Why would the owner of a large corporation want to do his job if he gets the same amount of money as a cashier at Mcdonalds. Where is his motivaton to waork hard. If I told you I'm going to pay you $10 dollars an hour and you can either be CEO of Apple or Cashier what are you going to pick.

 

That is an extreme exaggeration. The point of Socialism is to have the government provide for all basic needs, like food, housing, and health care. Free enterprise would still exist, but for things that are not as important. There would still be varying pay for different jobs, but not nearly as varying as in capitalism. Corporations like McDonalds and Allstate would not exist, or they would be operated (at least in part) by the government. What you are thinking of is communism, which as I said, is a bad idea.

[Roadcruiser1]

You know it won't be a bad idea to adopt some Socialism into our Democratic/Capitalistic way of life. FDR did it in the 1930's and it really helped the nation. I don't see what is completely wrong with Socialism that you can't use some beneficial ideas from it to help our nation. This fear of Socialism/Communism is not helping us at all. There are some good ideas in other subjects besides Democracy/Capitalism. We just need to look into it, and adopt it. It will really help the nation.

[SoSpectacular]

And there's huge budget deficits because there isn't enough money coming in from taxes too

[SubwayGuy]

I have never stated that the market should be completely free. I believe that there should be regulations to prevent people like Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay from taking advantage of people. All conservatives believe that.

 

Those are examples of absolute a-holes blatantly violating a lot of rules that were in place many years ago and just pocketing money. But there are a lot of lesser a-holes that go around with their multi million dollar legal departments trying to find little loopholes to exploit the American people. And they get away with it. Real reform closes the loopholes, the problems in the economy, because they are problems that lead to exploitation.

 

Exploitation is the act that laws try to make illegal. The government now WON'T expand the scope of what is considered exploitation because it would piss off the corporate masters who are making too much money with the existing loopholes.

 

It's not about enforcing 50 year old laws and deregulating things back to a time when no one knew what a derivative or a mortgage backed security was. It's about writing SIMPLE NEW LAWS and enforcing the f*** out of them, that PREVENT EXPLOITATION.

 

Something NO ONE is willing to do.

 

They held that doctrine because America at that time was too young and financially unable to get involved in foreign conflicts. That is not the case currently. Eventually, America became financially able to get involved in foreign conflicts. We got involved in these conflicts (like WWII) to protect ourselves from our enemies.

 

Don't speculate. That doctrine created for several reasons:

 

1-to prevent partisanship within the country as its largely immigrant population allied itself with one side or the other (particularly if the US were to "choose a side")

 

2-not so much because of financial inability, but because of wanting to avoid financial commitments in furtherance of FOREIGN aims. and btw, how the HELL is that "not the case currently" - we have a 14 trillion dollar RECORD DEFICIT and you're telling me that we are financially ABLE to continue being involved in foreign conflicts???

 

3-to avoid a network of treaties and alliances that would drag us into additional conflicts in the future

 

NOTE: we did NOT get involved in World War II until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Again, READ YOUR HISTORY. The US was a COMPLETELY NEUTRAL POWER in both World Wars UNTIL (WWI) the Germans continued sinking American vessels and (WWII) the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and shortly after we declared war on Japan, Hitler stupidly and inexplicably declared war on US.

 

The US was initially neutral in those conflicts!!! We weren't running to send troops to Europe because "OH NOES!!! TEH HITLER MIGHT EXPAND TEH GERMANY!!! HE'S GONNA TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!" - we reacted to a direct attack that took many innocent American lives by the Japanese and declared war on them. Then we acted in defense when Germany declared war on us.

 

So your post is invalid.

[SubwayGuy]

LOL, but a battle with China would cripple the economy further than it already is. The goal is trying to gain their friendship, and not having to be worried.

 

f*** their friendship. They don't want anything more than to expand their influence around the globe, and they never have wanted anything more than that. That country lives to have the whole world worship it.

 

We should be focused on paying down their debt with increased taxes on the rich so that we don't have to cowtow to them. Then we reserve the right to tell them to f*** off with their racist, elitist, and exclusive agenda.

[SubwayGuy]

I never said that I support higher taxes on the low and middle class. We need tax cuts across the board. The more money people have in their pocket the more they will spend which throws more money into the economy.

 

Ah yes, that would sound wonderful wouldn't it? Lower taxes and we all frolic together under rainbows like a bunch of happy leprechaun children forever happily ever after...

 

...except that if there were no taxes, there would be no money for government. No public schools. No money for law enforcement. Public roads. Fire. Mail (post office). Infrastructure. Transportation. A courts system. An army, navy, and air force. Border controls. Securities enforcement.

 

The rich would be able to buy their way to whatever they wanted. They could pay off private vigilantes to let them do what they want. They could raise prices, and no one could tell them otherwise.

 

Lowered taxes sound wonderful except for the fact that when you are FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT OPTION. Taxes need to go up to reduce the deficit (which also reduces how expensive it is to run the country every year since you are not paying debt service costs). And the ONLY way to do that is to TAX THE RICH LIKE WE USED TO when this country was successful.

 

I believe that every person has the opportunity to do well if you put enough effort into it. I know a person who started out years ago with one tiny store and was barely making ends meet. Despite the fact that he didn't even finish high school he said why do I want to live like this and became very aggressive and opened store after store until this company now became a large chain of stores employing hundreds if not thousands of people. This is the beauty of Capitalism, it gives you the opportunity to make it happen.

 

This is bulls***, plain and simple. If you succeed in life, it's Capitalism that gets all the credit, and if you fail in life well you must just be a lazy SOB with no skills and motivation.

 

Things don't work that way. A lot of really good people wind up in really shitty circumstances, or don't do as well as they could under a different, better system that is a controlled brand of capitalism with some socialistic elements like a highly progressive tax rate, which PROPERLY maintains a distribution of wealth that is proportionate to each social class's VALUE and ACHIEVEMENT. Which is not what we have today.

 

There are rich people out there who donate large amounts of money to charity such as the person mentioned above. However it is and should be a persons prerogative to decide what they do with their money.

 

And there are a lot who don't. What's your point? It is good monetary policy and makes for a healthy economy to recapture the profits of the wealthy and distribute them evenly among all the social classes at some point in time, because all economics is trickle up. If you let things trickle up long enough, the rich control everything, and everyone else gets pissed off and hungry...and that's what this country is RAPIDLY moving towards. It's time to take things back a bit. Not because "waah it's not fair" but because without a middle class this country will turn into a GHOST TOWN and the economy is going to get VERY BAD for a prolonged time.

 

Many of these people worked hard to get where they are or some just got lucky. I know if I had large amounts of money I would try to help the less fortunate however as I said above you can do whatever you want with your money.

 

Again, see above. I don't care how hard they worked. They'd still be better off than everyone else under my system. They'd still have incentive to make money. But they couldn't just gleefully run to the bank and jerk off in the eye of society and spit on the rules like they do now.

 

What the government should really try to do is cut this massive spending and cut taxes to put more money in our pockets.

 

Ah yes, the classic "cut spending" argument. Yet another Republican on here with no ideas for how to do this. Give me specific line items you'd cut, let's hear it. I've posted many. All I ever hear is this generic shit. And don't just say "cut welfare" because that's a drop in the bucket nothing more...let's hear the specifics of this "master plan" or let's not hear it at all.

 

Alot of the choices that a typical person makes in life have to do with who his friends are. If you are a kid in high school and your friends are smoking weed odds are you might try weed too. So if a guy hangs around with communists he might start thinking like them.

 

I don't think anyone here is a communist. Now let's refrain from name calling and get back to the task at hand.

 

So now if we make everyone equal the economy would probobly collapse. Why would the owner of a large corporation want to do his job if he gets the same amount of money as a cashier at Mcdonalds. Where is his motivaton to waork hard. If I told you I'm going to pay you $10 dollars an hour and you can either be CEO of Apple or Cashier what are you going to pick.

 

Nothing I've proposed "makes everyone equal". It brings the incomes of the rich in line with what is expected of a successful society, and redistributes the massive surplus among the other social classes so that they can maintain a decent standard of living, which is not possible now.

 

Right now the cashier gets $10 an hour and the CEO gets $1,500 an hour.

 

What I'm suggesting makes it most efficient for a corp to pay the cashier $15 an hour, the CEO gets $800 an hour, and a lot of other cashiers get $15 an hour too.

[Hawk Operator]

The US Goverment should not be legitimizing any religious states or organizations, period.

[nycbusfan]

Ah yes, that would sound wonderful wouldn't it? Lower taxes and we all frolic together under rainbows like a bunch of happy leprechaun children forever happily ever after...

 

...except that if there were no taxes, there would be no money for government. No public schools. No money for law enforcement. Public roads. Fire. Mail (post office). Infrastructure. Transportation. A courts system. An army, navy, and air force. Border controls. Securities enforcement.

 

The rich would be able to buy their way to whatever they wanted. They could pay off private vigilantes to let them do what they want. They could raise prices, and no one could tell them otherwise.

 

Lowered taxes sound wonderful except for the fact that when you are FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT OPTION. Taxes need to go up to reduce the deficit (which also reduces how expensive it is to run the country every year since you are not paying debt service costs). And the ONLY way to do that is to TAX THE RICH LIKE WE USED TO when this country was successful.

 

Its very simple stop spending so much money. Obama has spent more than any other president in history and he will be president till at least 2013.

 

 

 

This is bulls***, plain and simple. If you succeed in life, it's Capitalism that gets all the credit, and if you fail in life well you must just be a lazy SOB with no skills and motivation.

 

Things don't work that way. A lot of really good people wind up in really shitty circumstances, or don't do as well as they could under a different, better system that is a controlled brand of capitalism with some socialistic elements like a highly progressive tax rate, which PROPERLY maintains a distribution of wealth that is proportionate to each social class's VALUE and ACHIEVEMENT. Which is not what we have today.

 

I'm not saying that every last person will be a millionaire but statistics show that most likely you will be more successful than your parents were. Just work hard and be happy with what you have. Remember there are people in a much worse situation than you are.

 

And there are a lot who don't. What's your point? It is good monetary policy and makes for a healthy economy to recapture the profits of the wealthy and distribute them evenly among all the social classes at some point in time, because all economics is trickle up. If you let things trickle up long enough, the rich control everything, and everyone else gets pissed off and hungry...and that's what this country is RAPIDLY moving towards. It's time to take things back a bit. Not because "waah it's not fair" but because without a middle class this country will turn into a GHOST TOWN and the economy is going to get VERY BAD for a prolonged time.

 

If you worked to make that money why should the government be able to take it away from you and give it to somebody else who might be handing out fliers on a street corner. If you want to give it to the less fourtionate go for it but nobody should be able to force you.

 

 

Ah yes, the classic "cut spending" argument. Yet another Republican on here with no ideas for how to do this. Give me specific line items you'd cut, let's hear it. I've posted many. All I ever hear is this generic shit. And don't just say "cut welfare" because that's a drop in the bucket nothing more...let's hear the specifics of this "master plan" or let's not hear it at all.

 

How about stop giving stimulus money to huge corporations whose executives took big bonuses from this money. If they aren't doing the right thing with that money then they don't diserve it. With all these bail outs we have been also printing more and more money which makes inflation go up therefore costing everybody more money to buy the things they need.

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing I've proposed "makes everyone equal". It brings the incomes of the rich in line with what is expected of a successful society, and redistributes the massive surplus among the other social classes so that they can maintain a decent standard of living, which is not possible now.

 

Right now the cashier gets $10 an hour and the CEO gets $1,500 an hour.

 

What I'm suggesting makes it most efficient for a corp to pay the cashier $15 an hour, the CEO gets $800 an hour, and a lot of other cashiers get $15 an hour too.

 

But why should they be forced to raise pay for the cashier. If a company wanted to pay $15 dollars an hour then I'm all for it but I don't support the government forcing them to pay more. Unless you work for the government they shouldn't have any say in how much you are getting paid as long as how you are getting this money is within the law.

 

I also think the federal minimum wage should be $0.00. Each city should set its own minimum wage based on the living costs of that city. 7.25 will go alot farther in some rural town in North Dakota than it will in New York City.

[R68 Subway Car]

NOTE: we did NOT get involved in World War II until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Again, READ YOUR HISTORY. The US was a COMPLETELY NEUTRAL POWER in both World Wars UNTIL (WWI) the Germans continued sinking American vessels and (WWII) the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and shortly after we declared war on Japan, Hitler stupidly and inexplicably declared war on US.

 

The US was initially neutral in those conflicts!!! We weren't running to send troops to Europe because "OH NOES!!! TEH HITLER MIGHT EXPAND TEH GERMANY!!! HE'S GONNA TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!" - we reacted to a direct attack that took many innocent American lives by the Japanese and declared war on them. Then we acted in defense when Germany declared war on us.

I am sorry for the way I worded my post. Believe me, I know exactly why we got into WWI and WWII. I have solid knowledge of history. I was just trying to say that the world now is very different than the world of Washington, Jefferson and company.

[Tokkemon]

LOL!

 

To those of you who say the upper class is stupid and should be taxed up the wazoo, consider this: You wouldn't be having that opinion if YOU were part of that group. Guaranteed.

[SubwayGuy]

LOL!

 

To those of you who say the upper class is stupid and should be taxed up the wazoo, consider this: You wouldn't be having that opinion if YOU were part of that group. Guaranteed.

 

And that's the problem. No one privileged minority group should be able to influence and direct policy in a direction that does not benefit the MAJORITY of American citizens and that's exactly what has happened.

 

Sounds like someone was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

[SubwayGuy]

Its very simple stop spending so much money. Obama has spent more than any other president in history and he will be president till at least 2013.

 

It's not about blaming Obama, that's what no one here seems to get. OK fine you all think Obama sucks? OK. I can't really disagree at this point. But FIND SOMEONE WHO WILL NOT SUCK. Oh wait there isn't anyone.

 

And again, what is it with people around here speaking in generalities? How do you plan to cut 14 trillion dollars of deficit? By "cutting spending" OK but what does that mean? Getting rid of vital services like police and fire which largely benefit the middle class? Nope. Reducing the education system which is already a joke before you cut its budget more? Nope. Ending investment in infrastructure so that things start falling apart, people get killed due to unsafe conditions? Nope. Let's hear some specific examples for a change.

 

I'm not saying that every last person will be a millionaire but statistics show that most likely you will be more successful than your parents were. Just work hard and be happy with what you have. Remember there are people in a much worse situation than you are.

 

Perhaps you have heard of something called inflation. When you adjust for it, the middle class of today is NO better off than the middle class of 30 years ago, and in some cases has done worse. However when you adjust the earnings and wealth of the wealthy for inflation, they are doing SIGNIFICANTLY better than they were 30 years ago. They have had 30 years to write all the rules and get everything they want and they will not stop until they have it all.

 

And the saddest, most pathetic part of all is that people who are not in that social class, who are f***ed over by that social class every day...agree with that social class because they wish they could be them.

 

And no one should "be happy with what they have" - it should be a goal of this country to KEEP MAKING IT BETTER like we did for close to 200 years before we STOPPED and just decided to HOARD and tell those with less to accept their situation in life.

 

If you worked to make that money why should the government be able to take it away from you and give it to somebody else who might be handing out fliers on a street corner. If you want to give it to the less fourtionate go for it but nobody should be able to force you.

 

Because the government needs that money to provide vital services that failed when privatized - like schools, fire, police, post office, transit, infrastructure.

 

That's the problem is that people on this site don't READ. Nowhere did I say steal from the rich and start giving the poor handouts. Nowhere did I say expand welfare or workfare or food stamps.

 

ALL I've said is rewrite the tax code to reduce business taxes (keeping them here), INCREASE individual/joint high earner taxes SIGNIFICANTLY, and that creates an incentive for businesses to treat their workers more fairly instead of simply overpaying their executives. That creates a situation where more people make more money and the rich take home less, but they can still get paid whatever the company wants to pay them. The nice thing is if they continue to take advantage of the system, then the government will recapture it in taxes and pay down the debt, meaning the working and middle classes won't have to.

 

But everyone "works for what they get" under everything I've suggested. The problem is some people here seem to believe the great lie that the lives of the rich are "WORTH" more than the lives of anyone else. They're not. They're just people like you and me and their interests are no more valuable than yours or mine.

 

How about stop giving stimulus money to huge corporations whose executives took big bonuses from this money. If they aren't doing the right thing with that money then they don't diserve it. With all these bail outs we have been also printing more and more money which makes inflation go up therefore costing everybody more money to buy the things they need.

 

Stimulus and bailout money absolutely should be cut. But even without stimulus and bailout money we are still churning out record deficits and have been since the Bush days.

 

Printing currency and devaluing the dollar is horses*** and Ben Bernanke is an idiot. So we agree here.

 

But that alone is not going to lead to running a surplus.

 

But why should they be forced to raise pay for the cashier. If a company wanted to pay $15 dollars an hour then I'm all for it but I don't support the government forcing them to pay more. Unless you work for the government they shouldn't have any say in how much you are getting paid as long as how you are getting this money is within the law.

 

Again, read above. They wouldn't be forced. If they chose to keep paying the CEO a shit ton, the money would be taxed more. OR they could do what's healthy for a well balanced economy and give their hourlies a pay raise. Then there's tax savings to be had in that...FOR THE COMPANY.

 

I also think the federal minimum wage should be $0.00. Each city should set its own minimum wage based on the living costs of that city. 7.25 will go alot farther in some rural town in North Dakota than it will in New York City.

 

Bulls***. If you make the minimum wage 0, people will work for 25 cents. The elite don't care about the standard of living for their workers. Go back and read your history. Read about the industrial revolution. Factory workers and working conditions. The nonexistence of worker's compensation. The Gilded Age. The robber barons. And all the abuses the rich have been committing on the poor and working and middle classes for thousands of years and then tell me we don't need a minimum wage.

 

The federal minimum wage should be equivalent to the lowest possible standard of living in the country. The state minimum wages should be determined by the states, and many be higher. But to say the federal minimum wage should be $0 is ridiculous.

[Tokkemon]

Sounds like someone was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

 

Actually I probably make less money than you do.

[DJ MC]

Please, watch the Nazi Banksters Crimes Ripple Effect at http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[nycbusfan]

Perhaps you have heard of something called inflation. When you adjust for it, the middle class of today is NO better off than the middle class of 30 years ago, and in some cases has done worse. However when you adjust the earnings and wealth of the wealthy for inflation, they are doing SIGNIFICANTLY better than they were 30 years ago. They have had 30 years to write all the rules and get everything they want and they will not stop until they have it all.

 

But it could be possible that people who grew up in low or middle class homes aren't in those classes anymore.

 

And the saddest, most pathetic part of all is that people who are not in that social class, who are f***ed over by that social class every day...agree with that social class because they wish they could be them.

 

And no one should "be happy with what they have" - it should be a goal of this country to KEEP MAKING IT BETTER like we did for close to 200 years before we STOPPED and just decided to HOARD and tell those with less to accept their situation in life.

 

I never said that we should stop making improvments however I'm sure you've been on the subway and seen the many homeless people that live there. At least you do have a roof over your head that isn't a rat infested tunnel.

 

 

Bulls***. If you make the minimum wage 0, people will work for 25 cents. The elite don't care about the standard of living for their workers. Go back and read your history. Read about the industrial revolution. Factory workers and working conditions. The nonexistence of worker's compensation. The Gilded Age. The robber barons. And all the abuses the rich have been committing on the poor and working and middle classes for thousands of years and then tell me we don't need a minimum wage.

 

The federal minimum wage should be equivalent to the lowest possible standard of living in the country. The state minimum wages should be determined by the states, and many be higher. But to say the federal minimum wage should be $0 is ridiculous.

 

I was saying to eliminate the federal minimum wage and put the control of that in each city government. So lets say in NYC it might be $10 dollars an hour because the cost of living is much more than in some rural town upstate where it might be $8 dollars per hour as the cost of living is less there. The 7.25 wage won't get you too far in this city.