The Occupy Movement

[nrclptcnsmniak]

Originally Posted by aliphian

I don't get it.

The government is always taking handouts. When they dont have enough to budget themselves they raise taxes and also print more money which lowers the value of the US Dollar. To me its a hand out. They have this powerful printing machine and when they dont have enough money (which they never do) they just print away! And were also always constantly taking loans from China which to me is another hand out. Our national debt is due to the government receiving handouts -__-

[kwnate]

Occupy a Desk...

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by kwnate

Occupy a Desk...

Exactly. That's what I'm doing at the moment. Almost time to Occupy a Chickfila though.

[keiri]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Exactly. That's what I'm doing at the moment. Almost time to Occupy a Chickfila though.

Get the Chicken wrap!

[Longhorn248]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Exactly. That's what I'm doing at the moment. Almost time to Occupy a Chickfila though.

Spread the wealth and get me some waffle fries, yum.

[Dragonitti]

Originally Posted by Zgrinch

Goverment is the real problem by advancing the entitlement programs and then leveraging the class warfare arguement to stay in power. Many of you in this forum appear to be in school or have just graduated, so let me ask you this question.

On the first day of Math class, the teacher tells everyone that NO one will make an A or B in this class, NO one will make an F or D in this class, but rather that everyone is going to make a C in the class to so it will be "fair" to everyone.

The students that make A's & B's, will have a portion of thier grades taken away so that the F and D students can have thier grades moved up to C's.

After the first week, how many students in the class will be doing homework?

This may be over-simplified, but the reality is that America was not built on a socialist mentality, and so this "entitlement" attitude is ruining our country, and the Goverment is feeding on this sense of "entitlement" from the F and D students in order to get them to vote in mass, whereby the government stays in power and those people end up being slaves to the government, while the A & B students will eventually move to a different school (country/move thier money offshore) and finally this wonderful "fair" school will collapse because the model does not work.

I do not pretend to have all the answers, but entitlement reform and restoring personal accountability are the first steps to put the country back on the right path.

Just my 2 cents.

That is oversimplified and off the mark. If you go through life and now make a ton of money, you should not bring home more and more while the hard working blue collar guy is working two jobs to keep the bills paid and having to give Uncle Sam his first born child in taxes. This is not "A and B students have to suffer and carry the weight of C and D students" like your analogy eludes to.

There is an Economic Growth chart that shows when the top 1% was banking in most of the money. EVERY SINGLE TIME the Top 1% did, we entered into a Depression (the Great Depression was the same situation). When the Top 1% paid more in taxes though (i.e. Clinton Era), the country was on an Economic Growth. Then Bush came into office and guess what....Top 1% started banking back in the money and guess what...what is our economy like today?

Like I said, there is a graph online that lays all this out and shows the Percentage the Top 1% brought in and shows where we were Economic Growth wise. Trickle Down Economics does not work period. How many depressions do we need to enter before we stop letting this happen. Top 1% should not get tax breaks and loop holes that the little guy can't get. If you give them tax breaks then award those tax breaks to everyone. If I'm paying X amount % in taxes, I expect someone making more than me to either pay the same % or more, not less.

[OldSkoolToys]

Originally Posted by Dragonitti

Like I said, there is a graph online that lays all this out and shows the Percentage the Top 1% brought in and shows where we were Economic Growth wise. Trickle Down Economics does not work period. How many depressions do we need to enter before we stop letting this happen. Top 1% should not get tax breaks and loop holes that the little guy can't get. If you give them tax breaks then award those tax breaks to everyone. If I'm paying X amount % in taxes, I expect someone making more than me to either pay the same % or more, not less.

I'd like to see that chart Dragon. As it stands now, for the first time in U.S. history, over 50% of the working population do not even pay taxes. The majority of tax revenue for the U.S. comes from the wealthy and super wealthy, upwards of 80% of all tax revenue.

FWIW; As with all percentages, its weighted. The Bush tax cuts lowered tax rates across the board for ALL brackets. The rich just get a bigger chunk back because they pay a much larger chunk (ie: 10% of 100,000 is bigger than 10% of 2,000) of dough in taxes. You must also discern between wealthy and super wealthy. In the tax code, that would mean anyone grossing more than $250,000 a year. That is a wealthy person, but not super wealthy.

Someone making more than you already does pay more in taxes. My father used to make 6 digits a year before the housing market collapsed, and his annual income tax was roughly in the $35,000-$40,000 range. That's more than I make in a year pre-tax.

I find it especially funny that this liberal sentiment for HIGHER taxes is being shouted by the moronic goons in hollywood. Hey, if they (they rich) wanna pay more taxes, you can always GIVE more to the government than is requested.

Finally, if the Bush tax cuts were to be completely taken away, you would be looking at the largest tax increase in American history, FOR ALL BRACKETS (including poor little blue collar worker, which is what I am atm, a warehouse worker). Our problem is NOT a Taxation problem, it is a SPENDING problem. $0.40 of every dollar in tax revenue is going towards paying the interest alone in our debt. At the rate spending keeps increasing, it will soon by upwards of $0.80, and when we reach that mark, we're buried.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by keiri

Get the Chicken wrap!

Ended up Occupying a Lee Roy Selmons instead and got some pulled pork nachos (sorry Giccin, no pics).

[Giccin]

This is what I'm blinded by.. so shed some light for me on specifics if you have to.

Government = Bought out by the wealthy and or Super wealthy.

Government does what super wealthy and wealthy want + some special interest groups

During election time: representatives try to appeal to the diminishing middle class and the growing lower class.
->Lower class somewhat uninformed of many new laws/bills/ordinances being passed they just vote on things that appeal to them. Or follow whatever the church or group tells them to vote on.
-> Middle class more informed about lowerclass but not enough man-power to have much of a say (ie. Votes) during election time.

Government isn't scared of the people. Gov. Scared of wealthy companies not giving them that "allowance."

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Ended up Occupying a Lee Roy Selmons instead and got some pulled pork nachos (sorry Giccin, no pics).

Damn... Lol

[Dragonitti]

Originally Posted by OldSkoolToys

I'd like to see that chart Dragon. As it stands now, for the first time in U.S. history, over 50% of the working population do not even pay taxes. The majority of tax revenue for the U.S. comes from the wealthy and super wealthy, upwards of 80% of all tax revenue.

FWIW; As with all percentages, its weighted. The Bush tax cuts lowered tax rates across the board for ALL brackets. The rich just get a bigger chunk back because they pay a much larger chunk (ie: 10% of 100,000 is bigger than 10% of 2,000) of dough in taxes. You must also discern between wealthy and super wealthy. In the tax code, that would mean anyone grossing more than $250,000 a year. That is a wealthy person, but not super wealthy.

Someone making more than you already does pay more in taxes. My father used to make 6 digits a year before the housing market collapsed, and his annual income tax was roughly in the $35,000-$40,000 range. That's more than I make in a year pre-tax.

I find it especially funny that this liberal sentiment for HIGHER taxes is being shouted by the moronic goons in hollywood. Hey, if they (they rich) wanna pay more taxes, you can always GIVE more to the government than is requested.

Finally, if the Bush tax cuts were to be completely taken away, you would be looking at the largest tax increase in American history, FOR ALL BRACKETS (including poor little blue collar worker, which is what I am atm, a warehouse worker). Our problem is NOT a Taxation problem, it is a SPENDING problem. $0.40 of every dollar in tax revenue is going towards paying the interest alone in our debt. At the rate spending keeps increasing, it will soon by upwards of $0.80, and when we reach that mark, we're buried.

I'm at work right now, when I get home I will search for the chart and post it (I have already seen it, found it through watching a Young Turks video on Youtube). Or you can look for it yourself in the mean time. Try "Top 1% and economic growth" as a search in google. Or something along those lines. You will find data that states just that...everytime they get the cuts, the economy declines. It dates back to the Great Depression.

Lowered across the board means nothing when the Top rich pay LESS in tax % than the middle class still. Warren Buffet stated it so himself that his secratary paid more in taxes on a % base than he did. Come one really, you think that's a working system? It hasn't work and it doesn't work.

And you are still looking at it wrong, you can't compare $ paid to your income, that makes no sense seeing as how it's taxed on a larger amount of money to begin with. You compare % rates, not the monotary amount.

[Dave-ROR]

I'm not wealthy but I still spend a decent amount on taxes. I'm not against raising taxes WHEN IT MAKES SENSE, but I agree with OldSkool, we have a spending problem more than a income problem. We spend (and waste) so much money that it's retarded. More social programs (and hand outs/bailouts/etc) will only make the problem worse. We need someone to run the government like a business, if it's BLEEDING money KILL IT.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Dragonitti

Lowered across the board means nothing when the Top rich pay LESS in tax % than the middle class still. Warren Buffet stated it so himself that his secratary paid more in taxes on a % base than he did. Come one really, you think that's a working system? It hasn't work and it doesn't work.

This is true and false.

Buffet and other super wealthy make the vast majority of their income on long term investments/capital gains and not wages. So yes, they pay less % but only because of the investments. They pay MORE on wages.

Changing capital gain tax structures also hurt everyone, but people who live paycheck to paycheck aren't investing in the market either so you can say it's structured to help the wealthy I suppose.

[Dragonitti]

When I started making $52k a year, I got a letter telling me I've entered another tax bracket and how % of taxes paid would increase. Didn't phase me. What person would look at themselves and say...Oh, I better not try and earn any more money because I will get more in taxes....No one. You going to continue to rise in income level. I'm expected to be around the $70k range within the next 6-12months and my field taps out around $120k yr. Would you fear getting a better job paying $100k yr just because you will get more taxes taken out on you than when you were getting 25k yr working at the call center when you were 18? Answer is no. So, it makes no sense to me that if you are pushing $250k that you should be paying less in % of income tax.

Regardless of what Warren Buffet is taxed on, the Rich are still paying LESS in % taxes than the middle class.

[Dragonitti]

On lunch, so quickly searching

http://inequality.org/income-inequality/


There is graphs in that link. Some of the text from it. There are many more sites with data just the same.

This level of income inequality, research shows, endangers our society, on a variety of fronts.
In 2007, the top 1 percent share of national income peaked at 23.5 percent. The only other year since 1913 that the wealthy had claimed such a large share of national income: 1928, when the top 1 percent share was 23.9 percent. The following year, the stock market crashed, and the Great Depression began. After peaking again in 2007, the U.S. stock market crashed in 2008, leading to what some are now calling the “Great Recession.”

Between 1979 and 2009, the top 5 percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 72.7 percent, according to Census data. Over the same period, the lowest-income fifth saw a decrease in real income of 7.4 percent. This contrasts sharply with the 1947-79 period, when all income groups saw similar income gains, with the lowest income group actually seeing the largest gains:


CEO Pay

After adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2010)
In 2009, CEOs of major U.S. corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2010)
CEOs who cut jobs the most cashed in the greatest. In 2009, the CEOs who slashed their payrolls the deepest took home 42 percent more compensation than the year’s chief executive pay average for S&P 500 companies. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2010)

Men Lie, Women Lie, numbers don't. It's been a pattern since the Great Depresion. Top Rich start banking it in, the inevitable crash of the market follows afterwards.

PS...this isn't the graph I was originally referring to by the way...