Michael Moore ignores questions about his $50 million
So, plus-sized Michael Moore addresses a crowd at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Portland. He tells the crowd how simple it would be for the richest 400 people to give up a million bucks to the rest of us. One member of the crowd asks when Moore is going to give a million bucks from his fifty million dollar net worth. Of course Moore ignores him. When he persues Moore, the questioner is asked by members of the crowd who is paying him to harrass Moore;
Of course, if they were true to their principles, the Leftists would ask Moore the same question. But, the Occupy movement is just a political exercise and they can’t be seen to eat their own.
Thanks to one of my nameless ninjas for the link.
Category: I hate hippies, Occupy
Hollywood IS the 1%, but they don’t want to admit that.
Moore is their idol. A big ole slob who made his millions filming himself harrassing other folks.
What a fat sack-o-shit.
If he would just cut back to 1/3rd of his daily caloric intake, just imagine how much food would be available to the starving people of the world…
what did you expect? He is notorious for being selective with his facts. Notice how he never mentioned that mortality is significantly higher in socialized medicine countries, or how states with strong CCW laws have lower crime rates than those without.
I’ve said it before and I can say it, again. The left is wearing the RCG’s so they can pretend to care. Not only that, but POS’s like Moore can tout taxing the rich because he (insert snark) “he cares”!
They will never give freely- that is they will never redistribute their own wealth unless it is legislated. Because while he talks out both sides of his mouth, in the end, it comes down to “I worked for my money and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna share.”
Make no mistake, it’s how they think.
Well said, defend!
Here’s a clue: There’s a difference between making your millions ethically and ripping people off. I’ve got no problem with ethical millionaires who, say, build a better mouse trap. But Occupy Wall Street is not talking about those kinds of millionaires, in case you didn’t notice.
What kind of millionnaires are they talking about, Joe?
Joe: define “ethics.” Moore is currently suing his partners because Moore’s personal payday wasn’t big enough. That leads to the ethical question, as posed The Won, Obama himself, of what is enough money, ethically?
Moore’s ignoring the question is tacit confession that he’s just hawking his wares, not his cares.
And Joe, according to OWS’s own literature – they are talking about ALL millionaires.
Heh
Joe, time and again ALL rich people have been castigated. Carnegie built a better mouse trap, and invested HUGELY in the public library system. As did Rockefeller, and pretty much all of the “Robber Barons” had philanthropic successes that put pretty much every government program to shame. Hell even after the trusts were broken up, they STILL supported those things. Even the Hull House was supported by very rich men (even though it spent much of its time castigating them.
99% of all sammiches are consumed by 1% of all the Michael Moores…
Lardass, isn’t it funny how he keeps his residence in a lower taxed state while living in a higher taxed state. I guess claiming to live in Flint (which he has NEVER lived in) and actually living in Manhattan are two different things. Here is something funny, his movie Sicko was banned in Cuba, because it gives false impressions of the Cuban health care system. I guess having mental patients die from hypothermia is okay in socialized healthcare.
History should have taught those asshats something. After the top 1% have their heads cut off in the city square, they are next. This is one piece of history that I think the Frenchies could actually teach us.
Socialism is for the people, not the socialists.
Contrary to the beliefs on this board, not every liberal is a fan of Michael. I’m a liberal and i’m not a fan. I think his attacks on President Obama are, for the most part, idiotic. I also think his co-opting of the OWS to sell his book and to encourage people NOT to vote for causes is grotesque. So no, i’m not a fan.
That being said the “You’re rich, why don’t you pay more” question is about the most idiotic fucking question ever posed on gods green earth and Moore was quite right to ignore the stupid mother fucker asking the stupid fucking idiotic as hell question. Taxation, is not voluntary, the government is not a charity. Taxation is the right we pay for a civilized society and it is the right of every man, be it rich or poor to call for changes to the tax code if they feel they are unfair and inequitable as our present tax code certainly is.
But i got to hand it to you. You have the rhetoric coming and going. 1. You dispicably only count income tax when you’re determining taxes and so you’re able to put out the BIG LIE that only the rich pay taxes. 2. You discount the rich people by putting out the big lie that they should somehow just choose whatever it is they want to pay.
Of course you’re all getting hosed because the mega rich (wich most of you don’t belong to and never will) are paying only 10 to 15% of their income to taxes and most of us are paying over double that.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2011/10/12/warren-buffets-effective-federal-income-tax-rate-is-just-11/
And what’s really great is that the Republican’s which almost all of you are supporting are interested in making the poor and middle class (most of you) paying more (they call it expanding the base) and absolving them from paying ANY taxes:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/10/rick-perrys-ultra-rich-are-too-big-to.html
So, enjoy your mad-on at Michael Moore while the rich are fleecing you and laughing their asses off at you.
Suckers.
“Of course you’re all getting hosed because the mega rich (wich most of you don’t belong to and never will) are paying only 10 to 15% of their income to taxes and most of us are paying over double that.” Except the 46% who aren’t paying any income taxes at all. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=3054
I don’t like Michael Moore but it’s not because he’s fat. It seems that every time something comes up about him, people start in with the fat jokes.
It’s kind of lame.
Moore is a sorry SOB, but he’d still be a sorry SOB even if he got acquainted with Jenny Craig and lost a hundred pounds. He’d be a sorry SOB at any weight.
More tripe from Mikey Moron. IF the top 400 millionaires each gave 1 Million dollars to some warm and fuzzy fund for all the “others”, that comes out to, let’s see, $400 million divided by 330 million Americans, comes out to $1.21, each. Wow, that’ll do it. Where do I sign up for my Gulfstream, with that windfall?
This from a guy who’s “summer home” in Torch Lake, Mi. is in one of the more exclusive zip codes in Michigan. He bought a house valued at $1.2 million, about 6000 sq feet of “living” space, and immediately set about having it devalued to about $650K, so his tax bite was halved. Yeah, a real “man of the people”.
#16…trust me, I primarily don’t like him because he’s a leftist POS and propagandist for the far left.
But I also don’t like him because he’s a fat, undisciplined POS as well.
He needs to get his LAME, fat ass to the gym and work out…and settle for smaller portions.
Gotta feed those of the 99% who are hungry don’t we?
@7 Need another clue, Joe. Okay, so how one makes his gazillions of greenbacks is how we are to distinguish between the Wicked Rich and Mr. Good Rich. So, if I socked away $10,000 from salary years ago, invested it brilliantly, and today–purely as a result of that investment–I am a millionaire, am I the Wicked Rich or Mr. Good Rich?
@14
I agree with your statement: “…the ‘You’re rich, why don’t you pay more’ question is about the most idiotic fucking question ever posed on gods green earth…” and normally I would agree that “…Moore was quite right to ignore the stupid mother fucker asking the stupid fucking idiotic as hell question.” But not when Mr. Moore is actively telling people how simple it would be for the richest 400 people to give up a million bucks to the rest of us. If his actions would more match what he was asking, I would say his words carried weight.
Case in point…if I’m preaching that people with a lot of money should share more and someone points out that I have a lot of money and asks why I’m not sharing more, that seems like I just walked into that question and I should answer or shut up.
As for taxes and spending…it’s a sore subject and I generally don’t see people coming to a consensus on this in any really meaningful way (meaningful here meaning in a way that is accepted by enough people in and out of power to get enacted and generally supported). The only suggestion I can come up with is ending Keynesian economic stupidity. I say that because I’m not a fan of the “spend your way out of debt” philosophy.
“Oh, the humanity.”
I wonder if Moore enjoyed the Fat Bastard character in the Austin Powers movies.
It’s not Moore’s fault. It’s glandular.
The guy has more chins than a Chinese phone book. Baddabing.
Moore to Juanita:
“Look, I’m gonna address the little peoples today, the saps that pay $15-$20 a pop to see my films. Go down to WalMart and buy me some $20 sneakers and a $10 sweat shirt. Make sure it has a hood. As soon as you get outside the store, pull the tags off each and throw away the receipt and WalMart bag. Got it? And make sure you throw the stuff away in separate garbage cans. When you get back here, give the stuff to Cook. He’ll get them to me. Now go!”
Taxation is a right, insipid? Really? And where in the Constitution is this right to be found? I can’t find it in the first 10 amendments.
Lessee here now. Warren (Owes $1Bn in back taxes) only pays 10 or 15%. 10 or 15% of $1Bn issssss… more than everyone here will ever make in their lifetimes, barring winning the lottery. 47% of Americans pay $0.00 (or 0%) of income tax. Hmmm… playing with percentages is bullsh*t because the pots of money are of vastly different sizes.
Now, if Buffet incorporates, every dollar he’s taxed he passes on the cost (the tax) to a consumer of his products.
Point is, as Ooid so aptly put it: put one’s money where one’s mouth is. Moore has no integrity, and he’s a hero of the Left.
Someone smarter once wrote: ‘if you want to be rich, study money. Study the rich. Learn to make money work for you.’ Think it was the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
#15, Bobo:Except the 46% who aren’t paying any income taxes at all.
As i pointed out in the post that you referenced, only counting income tax is a fundamentally dishonest way of counting who is contributing what. In fact out of all the talking points, bandied about by conservative, that’s the one that gets me the most pissed off. How a party can get away with calling 46% of the populations lazy shits and STILL be a major party is beyond me.
The reason why the rich pay so much more in income tax is because the rich HAVE so much more income. That and the fact that their liability for payrole tax cuts off at 164,000 dollars. So a guy like Warren Buffet, who makes about 176,000 dollars a day is done paying ALL the payrole tax he’s going to pay on January 1st.
The ONLY fair way of measuring tax is to determine it based upon percentage of total income. Warren Buffet paid just 11% of his income in taxes his secretary paid a considerably greater share of her income in taxes. When you start seperating income taxes from payrole taxes you’re being Clintonesque in your parsing.
I like the fat jokes because they are easy and dont take much thought, I can use the spare cells for something else like sniffing glue…
@20 Case in point…if I’m preaching that people with a lot of money should share more and someone points out that I have a lot of money and asks why I’m not sharing more, that seems like I just walked into that question and I should answer or shut up.
Embarassed to admit i didn’t actually watch the video. Just assumed it was on tax policy. But you’re right, Michael used the term “give” not tax. To be fair to michael, he has repeatedly asked for the top 1% to pay more. Since as the video pointed out, Michael belongs to that prestegious “club” he is calling for himself to “give” more in the form of taxes.
@23 Davo- Taxation is a right, insipid? Really? And where in the Constitution is this right to be found? I can’t find it in the first 10 amendments.
It was a writing mistake, i meant to repeat the famous Holmes quote that taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society. But i mentioned right later on in the sentence and some wires got crossed. I was in a hurry to go somewhere when i wrote it.
Taxation can’t be called a right, but it is a duty that true patriots wouldn’t mind paying. The current crop of Republicans would be anathema to the greatest generation.
actually taxation of income didn’t come along till the progressive movement (unless you count the one TEMPORARY tax during the civil war) with the 16th Amendment, which essentially made income eminent domain.
followed shortly there after by the 17th Amendment, which made Senators by popular election, which essentially meant that now only the rich could afford to be senators, and the Federal Government could tell the states to fuck off (which happened frequently thereafter)
Lastly followed up by the 18th Amendment, prohibition, which *thankfully* was repealed (the only amendment to have been)
So you can thank the progressive movement for all the high minded ideals that have horribly backfired and royally screwed this county. Just think about that the next time someone takes pride in being a progressive.
Insipid…
No. Everyone needs to pay taxes period. You see, we all eat, we all consume and unless you can afford to be driving Bentleys, most of us own a vehicle. Why because someone makes more or less should we let anyone who benefits from living here escape the burden that 51% of us already pay? And, please, do not tell me that the poorer folk pay sales tax, etc.
We own an accounting business and I see people who make more than 400K get the tax refund they deserve,because it’s what they pay in- like everyone whining that GE didn’t pay…well, did you think that maybe they had it covered already or that the law makes it so? ANd, there are those who make 30k and end up with more money back than they paid in-not right either but the law makes it so…and then there are those who pay nothing at all. Why is okay that I or others shoulder that burden?
Liberals constantly scream about leveling the playing field, well, whoop, der it is. Then it should be that EVERYONE pays income taxes whether the income is state entitlements or earned income. It’s just class envy with left minded thinkers. Tell me, would you give up say 150 a month so your neighbor down the street who doesn’t have health insurance could? Or would you share your vehicle with someone who doesn’t have one? Do please enlighten me with answers.
but it is a duty that true patriots wouldn’t mind paying
Like Geitner, Buffet, Kerry…need me to go on?
“Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809, 810-11 (2d Cir. 1934).”
Judge Learned Hand. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Maybe you should read some of his work?
@17actually taxation of income didn’t come along till the progressive movement (unless you count the one TEMPORARY tax during the civil war) with the 16th Amendment, which essentially made income eminent domain. followed shortly there after by the 17th Amendment, which made Senators by popular election, which essentially meant that now only the rich could afford to be senators, and the Federal Government could tell the states to fuck off (which happened frequently thereafter) Lastly followed up by the 18th Amendment, prohibition, which *thankfully* was repealed (the only amendment to have been) So you can thank the progressive movement for all the high minded ideals that have horribly backfired and royally screwed this county. Just think about that the next time someone takes pride in being a progressive. ————————————————————- First off, i can think of three senators off the top of my head that weren’t exceptionally wealthy. 1. Harry Truman 2. Richard Nixon and 3. Joe Biden. So the idea that only the rich could afford to be Senators is proveably false. Hell, Truman was downright poor. Plus i disagree with your historical interpretations and your conclusions. The temperance had as much to do with religious fervor, usually characterized as being of the right as it did with any progressive values. You’re also forgetting that the Volstead act passed DESPITE liberal President Woodrow Wilson’s veto and that prohibition was repealed under Liberal icon FDR and perhaps the most liberal Congress in history. Secondly, yes, the income tax was a liberal idea, and it was a great one. The reason why the “good old days” were so good wasn’t because queers and black and gays knew their place, it was because of that dread word, Socialism. The rich were taxed as high as 90%. This allowed us to have the best roads, the best schools, the GI bill and it allowed the average American to be able to support his family on a single income. That is until Reagan came in and fucked everything up. Now no one argues anymore that a woman should be in the home because, thanks to… Read more »
The rich were taxed as high as 90%.
You do realize that the level at which this marginal rate was reached would be roughly equivalent to an income of over $4 Million/year in today’s dollars, yes?
And that virtually NOBODY hit that level?
That is until Reagan came in and fucked everything up.
I dunno, I did pretty well during the 80’s. Now in the 70’s, especially under Carter, not so much. So please tell me how creating over 20 million jobs is “fucking everything up”.
That’s true NH, but they had a lot more tax brackets back then. That’s one of the main reasons why nobody hit that level.
#29 DefendUSA. It wouldn’t publish my first reply to you DefendUSA i’s assuming because it went long. So I’m just going to post my replies. I think everyone can suss out which paragraphs i’m replying to.
What? there’s rules now as to what i’m allowed to argue and not allowed to argue? And who made up these rules anyway? We’re only allowed to count taxes WE want to count and WE declare that counting anything other than income taxes as taxes just isn’t cricket.
You guys are absolutely brilliant at the rhetoric though, i gotta hand it to you. When it comes to taking the money for SS it’s an entitlement, but when it comes to paying for the useless wars you Republican’s are so fond of getting us into, then it’s a tax. The fact is that both sides have been taking from the SS trust fund for decades. We can’t simply declare that it’s not a tax because it’s inconvenient for your talking points.
—————
So it’s just wonderful that rich folks use the law to pay less taxes or no taxes and it’s just horrible when poor folks do the same thing?
The fact is that the rich should pay more in taxes. A LOT more in taxes. They get more from the government, they use government services more, they’ve benefited more from our society. They should pay more.
————————–
John Stewart did a great job of destroying this whole “class warfare” meme here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare—warren-buffett-vs–wealthy-conservatives
And here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare—the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over
True, but EVERYONE paid back then. Starting at 20-23 percent usually. If I made the 1950 equivalent of what I make now, I’d actually be paying 36 percent. Tell me how that helped me.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
A little FYI.
Oh, and anyone who gets their information from John Stewart DESERVES to be ridiculed, scooter.
Sparky, you mean Stewart is not a news source? I’m crushed, I though that he and Colbert were the only sources for unbiased news in the universe.
Well, I can, and do argue that Fox News is not a news source either. Is there anything in particular about WHAT Stewart said that you found false?
Sparky, i will stipulate that the Rich pay more in income tax than the rest of us, if you will stipulate that 1. The rich have a LOT more income than the rest of us and 2 That the VAST majority of income that the rich pay is in income tax and not payrole taxes.
Again, i find only counting the one form of taxation to be a fundamentally dishonest way of calculating. the fair way is to count taxation as percentage of total income.
You argue it amongst people who think MSNBC is right-leaning. Please, stop while you’re behind.
Now, I would show you the IRS data that shows that the “rich” in fact pay taxes proportionally FAR in excess of their income–not wealth–note the difference if you will.
Frankly, I don’t know too many people making six figures who are counting on SS as a income stream in retirement. I’m certainly not. That 15.3 percent is pretty much “throwaway” taxes for those folks, in that they’ll never see that money coming back to them anywhere near what they put into the system.
Taxation as a percentage of total income? Oh, goody–you stepped right into it. Too fuckin easy there, holmes. Tell me, how do you reconcile a family of four making $20,000 a year having MORE disposable income than the same family making $60,000 a year? How do you reconcile the fact that guys like me pay upwards of 40 percent of my income (total income) to some form of government before I get it? Yet those who make half of what I do not only pay nothing, but get money back?
No, I find it hypocritical that a fat fuck pretends to give a shit about the little guy while pissing on his back and telling him it’s raining.
Again, you didn’t state how John Stewart is lying or wrong.
What are you referring to as disposable income? Is a family making 60k a year more likely to be able to afford a mortgage, or to put their kids through college? Yes. Does paying for these things reduce their “disposable income”? Yes. But to argue that somehow the family of 20k has it better than the family of 60k is cynicism of the highest order.
I reconcile it by pointing out that the rich use the commons more than the poor. They have better security, better roads, better school systems, they rely on our courts to protect their business, to inforce patent and contract laws, to regulate commerce etc. etc. etc.
Plus do you really want to raise your family on 20k a year? You guys love to talk about class warfare, but it seems like you guys shit on the WAY more than liberals shit on the rich. I would argue a return to the 90% tax bracket. The same brackets that served us so well between the 1940s and 1980s. But very few Democrats are arguing that. Most are arguing a meager 3% increase in taxes for those making over 250k a year and so many of you are howling like Stuck pigs over that!
For the most part, we’re not arguing to really “stick it” to the rich, we’re just arguing for a tax rate that is FAR LESS than the tax rate paid under Ronald Reagan.
But you ARE arguing to stick it to the poor. Because let’s face it, ANY increase in taxation to a guy or girl struggling to bring up 4 kids on 20k a year is going to hurt them a LOT more than a 3% increase on someone making over 250k.
@41 sparky: How do you reconcile the fact that guys like me pay upwards of 40 percent of my income (total income) to some form of government before I get it? Yet those who make half of what I do not only pay nothing, but get money back?
Also, how do you reconcile your being more angry at the poor than you are at the tax code that allows Warren Buffet to only pay 11% tax while you’re paying 40%? Why punch down?
Furthermore even if i were to agree with your philosophically absurd arguments that somehow we should ONLY count income tax as tax, i would still say you were wrong based on simple math. You would have to tax the bottom 50%, that’s 150 million people on 10% of their earnings for 10 years to get the same amount of money as increasing taxes on the wealthies 1.5 million people 3%. How in the world can you justify making such a major imposition on 50% of the people over a minor imposition on the wealthiest 1%?
No, asshole–I’m pissed off at a system that gives those who won’t improve their lot more and more of my hard-earned labor and then tell me what a selfish fucker for not giving them still more.
A generation ago, EVERYONE paid into the system. Today, barely half do. Do I have some resentment for the people who bitch that I don’t “give” them enough, knowing they’ve done fuck-all to earn what they’ve been given? I could tell you horror stories of people who intentionally quit jobs so their income doesn’t go above a certain level, meaning they can still ride the gravy train on MY dime. But you don’t see that, do you?
Come on up here sometime, where people drive into the local Market Basket with a near-new “dualie” pickup, load up on steak tips, etc., and pay for it with an EBT card, while momma is in the cart behind with beer and smokes paid for with cash (often recently cashed unemployment checks) and then bitch about how New Hampshire is so mean to poor people cause they don’t give free rides like Maine does.
Your class warfare bullshit doesn’t fly. You could tax EVERYONE in the top 10 percent (not just the top 1 percent) at 100 percent, and STILL not pay the deficit. It’s not just a tax problem, genius. As we’ve known all along, it’s a spending problem FIRST.
Did George Washington pay income taxes? Did Thomas Jefferson or James Madison?
Are they true patriots, insipid?
@44 Sparky.
Yeah, and i’m pissed off at folks like Donald Trump, the Kock Brothers the Waltons and Paris Hilton, shits who never had to put in a hard days work in their entire lives simply because their daddy gave them everything. I’m sick and tired of the same shits, the kock brothers, insisting that THEIR kids not have to pay ANY income tax at all on their inheritence simply because they happened to pick the right womb to come out of.
If we were to tax Warren Buffet at the same rate that you’re paying, that would generate 26,000,000 in taxes versus the 6 million he pays now. So that means that we’d generate an extra 20,000,000 in taxes. We’d have to tax 20,000 of your low lifes 10 percent of their income in order to generate the same income we would create from simply taxing one Warren Buffet the same rate you’re paying.
It is not, primarily, a spending problem. It’s a revenue problem. Thanks to thirty years of Reagan-dominated tax theory the Rich are paying less in taxes than they ever have in the past 50 or 60 years. Wealth inequality is greater than it has been at any time since right before the great depression. The problem with the economy is that we’re losing our middle class, the great consumer engine is rapidly being depleted because of 50 years of Reagan policy.
Right now half the population only has 2.5% of the wealth in this country. The top 10% controls 71.5% with the top 1% controlling 33.8. And your solution is to take from the top 2.5% either by eliminating programs to help them or just taking money from them directly.
If you want to go back to the tax rates of the 50s where “everyone pays” but the rich pay a LOT more, that’s fine. The class warfare is happening to the middle class, and the rich are kicking their ass.
There wasn’t an income tax in place at the time, Dave O. But George Washington certainly believed that the Federal Government has the power to levy and collect taxes. So much so that when some PA farmers refused to pay a Whiskey tax and attacked a tax collector’s home he actually personally led an army to put down the insurrection.
insipid,
Not have you called George Washington unpatriotic for not paying income taxes (like 47% of America today), but also a witless tool of the Man for forcing the poor Pennsylvania farmers to rebel so he could put them down.
That’s stone colder than Steve Austin.
Next you’ll be saying Thomas Jefferson and John Adams arrived at a bi-partisan tax on spirits to oppress the 99%.
Oooooh! Right wing humor! Should of guessed.