Class warfare, wealth inequality, and the stupidest video of all time
Since apparently I am being accused of buying into the “class warfare” concept, I figured I better put my bona fides on display. So, to clear the air: I have zero problems with exhorbitant salaries and 1 percent getting rich as hell, IN THE PRIVATE MARKETPLACE.
So watch this little bit of idiocy:
As the President might say, Let me be clear, this is the dumbest video since Gigli.
Most people are morons, and I really don’t care what their vision of “what ought to be” is. What I care about is what these numbnuts propose to do about it.
You know what graph I’d like to see? What percent of people actually EMPLOY other folks directly. How many of those rich folks are actually helping OTHER people also get rich.
You want some inconvenient facts?
Most of the billionaires are self-made, 961, while 184 inherited their wealth and 281 inherited part of it and are increasing it.
The oldest billionaires, on average, are in the Americas, with an average age of 67, with those in the United States slightly younger at 65.
The United States had the most billionaires with 442, followed by Asia-Pacific with 386, Europe with 366, Middle East and Africa with 103 and the Americas, excluding the United States, with 129.
The number of women billionaires rose to 138 from 104. The United States has 50 female billionaires, followed by 35 in Europe and 22 in Asia-Pacific.
Oh, so you mean THEY EARNED IT?
Good for them.
You want fairness? Move somewhere else. My checking account is lower than my cholesterol. But sticking it to the man isn’t going to make me feel better about it.
Category: Politics
Another piece of propaganda for B. Hussein 0bama’s minions screaming “GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!!”.
I already feel like I live back in Denmark, where it’s better to stay on welfare than to get a job most of the time. Ugh, what happened to be proud, have a job, take care of yourself. Things are not going in the right direction, sad to say.
This administration is worse than a hag fish for predation.
The term “wealth inequality” makes me shudder. What are they going to do, pass laws that you can’t make too much money? What ever happened to rewarding people for working and earning their keep?
The authors of that video do some nice subliminal messaging as well: the blue (Democrats)color represents the downtrodden exploited poor while the red (Republican) color represents the evil billionaires who are raping the world of its wealth for themselves.
Wealth distribution? Who is this asshole, anyway?
Let me tell you how things work in THIS country: Arnold Schwarzenegger is an Austrian immigrant, best known for his Terminator movies. He also has 17 bodybuilding titles that he earned early in his career. When he came to this country, he made a career out of what he was — big, bulky musclebound guy with an accent — and for $3.00, he got a business license and started a chain of gyms when anyone could go and work out. He built it up from nothing but a bright idea and a few dollars. Whether or not you like Arnold is immaterial; he embodies what this country offers to people who are willing to work hard to get what they want.
The people who despise hard workers who do well aren’t willing to do the hard work it takes to be successful. Want another example of success from the ground up? J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, was on the dole when she started writing up the book series, until she got a job at an office. She sent the first “Harry Potter” book for publication in 1997, but it didn’t hit big until Scholastic Publishing bought the US rights, and it just went from there.
That’s what this country is about. That is what any democracy is about. I know JKR is a Brit, but it doesn’t matter.
You may get something for doing nothing, but that doesn’t mean you deserve to get it. It just means that you’re a lazy fuck who found out how to milk the government for everything.
Who is the asshole that made that video?
TSO, while I agree this is stupid, one thing that never pops up with the “businessmen” who run for office or propose budgets is a simple business correlation when we talk about responsibility for services and taxation.
It’s not unreasonable to have an expectation that those who benefit from possessing 80% of the wealth of the nation be expected to pay a higher percentage of the tax revenue stream than the rest of the folks holding only 20% of the wealth.
They now certainly pay more with the top 1% and top quintile paying about 53% total of each tax dollar, but it’s still not equal to the 80% of assets they own. I don’t necessarily believe that pointing that out equals class warfare.
Although, I do believe that the way our current administration proceeds in discussing this issue results in creating animosity between the different economic strata. This is a difficult issue and bears scrutiny. Along with reducing expenditures some tax increases will need to happen to resolve our long term debt.
Oh, yeah – exploited poor? How are they exploited? This isn’t the 18th or 19th century. So how they hell are they exploited?
Oh, yeah – nice piece of propoganda there.
Let’s assume, for the moment, that there is some factual accuracy in there somewhere: so what? We already have laws which preclude stealing what someone else has, so file criminal charges against anyone who obtains wealth by criminal means.
No big deal. If you want wealth, go invent something, manage something, or produce something else of value for which others willingly pay large sums of money. Otherwise, quit whining because your choices don’t pay dividends as large as those who work their butts off for what they have.
I found a video that makes much more sense to me:
Here’s an inequality I never have understood. Perhaps someone can explain it to me.
You have two presidential candidates, both of whom are stinking rich.
The GOP candidate is stinking rich because he started a business from scratch, made it work and did the same thing with other businesses. People despise him simply because he’s stinking rich, which makes him a bad person, and ignore the fact that he worked for his wealth.
The Democratic candidate is also stinking rich, although he got his money through inheritance and grants and scholarships and having a job where he could suck up a high salary that comes from taxes (taxpayers’ money), in exchange for paying lip service to taxpayers’ needs. People ignore the fact that he’s as stinking rich as his opponent because he’s good a making a sales pitch.
They’re both stinking rich, but the fellow who worked for his wealth is despised and the fellow who got it handed to him is groovy and cool.
Someone explain that to me. Mind you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m talking about Romney v. Obama. It could be Jay Gould v. FDR or anyone else. (Gould did not run for office, but he was a workaholic who made good.)
Actually, VOV, I don’t agree. I do not find imposing taxes based on the “ability to pay” any more legitimate than I would find allowing the legal purchase of votes, or different tax rates based on gender.
The only truly fair taxes are no-exception sales taxes and no exception flat-rate income taxes. In either case, a dollar spent/earned is taxed equally, regardless of source or the individual spending/earning same. The closest we have to those today are FICA taxes – which stop at the wage base. Medicare taxes used to be the same (without an upper limit), but no longer are due to the newly-imposed “rich surcharge”.
Any “progressive” tax scheme is using the word progressive to mask the bald fact that it is in reality discriminatory by design. It is discriminatory because treats people differently legally based on an attribute or characteristic that is completely irrelevant regarding the purpose at hand.
The government’s role is to ensure equality – not to attempt to enforce some nebulous concept of “fairness of outcome” that it can’t even define.
@ EX-PH2 … it is fully explained in the video I posted in # 9.
Everyone is getting uffed … from the bad bad bizzillionaires to the poor poor poor folk!
Saw this the other day and had a gag reflex response (really).
I do have an issue with your characterization re: Most people are morons.
Most people are ignorant of things outside of their purview. Some might even say “focused”?
I posit that the culprit here is the dependency of some folks on polls. And Power Point like presentations used to support an agenda.
I would have said “idiot” rather than “moron”. [grin]
some ppl make too much money (congress) and i hate the idea of ceo’s that give themselves bonuses as they lay ppl off and their companies fail, but redistribution of wealth is scary to me.
Master chief, you’re supposed to WARN PEOPLE about that. They might laugh themselves to death.
Zero: actually, I’d argue that “moron” IMO is the correct word. In Goddard’s 1910 characterization of feeble-mindedness, a “moron” (IQ of 51-70) rated higher than an “imbecile” (IQ of 26-50) or an “idiot” (IQ of 25 or less).
On that scale, “idiots” are essentially literally incapable of comprehending the argument presented here, or of caring much about it. In contrast, “morons” can comprehend the words but miss the main concepts and are thus easily led to false conclusions by the unscrupulous.
In summary: morons are reasonably common. True idiots are fairly rare. (smile)
Hondo,
What about freckled faced dumb ass?
Actually, that was labeled wrong. It should have said “taxing inequality in America.”
Hondo #16: I think I hurt myself laughing. I used primary Google-fu definitions cause I don’t do nuance worth a damn. BTW the only Goddard I’ll acknowledge as important is the rocket guy, and only about rockets.
@16 Careful Hondo. You’re gonna give the PC crowd a case of the vapors using terms like that (even if they were accepted medical terms in 1910). *eyeroll*
PintoNag #20: Wish I’d said that!
How do you fix disparity in wealth if a lot of the “poor” are 3rd and 4th generation leeches on social programs? Most of the rich own, run, or invest in companies that provide employment for a good part of the population.
As long as the rich aren’t violating common sense labor laws, evading legitimate taxes or violating the constitutional rights of American citizens more power to them.
You told me that this was the most stupid video ever, so I took you word for it. There is plenty of stupid out there and I can’t waste my time watching it. “A Harvard economist” was enough for me.
Yeah, that study was done by a fuggin’ Haw-vauhd economist, which lost me as well. Utter nonsense. Obviously someone who has drank the kool-aid and subscribes to the rest of the DC/Beltway bullshit.
I think the eggheads should begin by setting the redistribution example in academia and in collegiate sports. First, let’s allot admission seats in Harvard, Yale, and the other Ivy League schools, reserving 99% of the seats for poor achievers. Anyone who scored above a 900 on the SAT and has a high school GPA of greater than 2.0 is eliminated. And we’ll make this retroactive immediately. And the many Ph.Ds come largely from well-heeled families, so let’s rescind those and award them to others who either failed to obtain one or who were unmotivated to try. Second, let’s apply this to college sports. Those who are athletically gifted and highly motivated to outperform others should not be rewarded with starting positions or scholarships. Redistribute the starting roles and scholarships to tubby and tortoise, the fat, slow kids. It’s only fair.
Hondo, it’s not “ability to pay” it’s based on what we own and benefit from versus equal percentages.
With a flat tax if we all owned equal portions of the country a flat tax would be equitable, but we don’t.
The top 20% own 80% of the nation’s assets and wealth and pay about 52% of the tax burden. As many are quick to point out the value of having a business person run the nation, perhaps a business analogy is appropriate. In no business partnership do the 20% stakeholders find themselves responsible for the same debt as the 80% stakeholders, nor do the 20% stakeholders get the same profit as the 80% stakeholders. That’s fair, your exposure and your gain are equal to your investment. That’s capitalism at work.
If you are suggesting that the top 20% have not benefitted from living in the US and therefore are not liable for taxation at a rate appropriate to their benefit, that’s a different matter.
While we might be equal under the law in theory it’s absolutely untrue in reality, and since the inception of the income tax we have never been equal under tax law. That’s not class warfare, that’s a reality.
Yeah, Haaaahhhhvaaaahhhhdddd has pretty much lost any credibility they had with me when Fauxcahontas (whoops, sorry, SENATOR Fauxcahontas) can teach ONE class and make $350K a year, then bitch, piss, and moan about how kids NEED more loans to get a degree in Navel Gazing.
@ TSO–My checking account is lower than my cholesterol.
Buying a house’ll do that to you. Something about you’ll spend more in the first six months on it than you will in the five years following. Certainly true in my case. Then again, we have people in this country making $15K who have more disposable income due to government “gimmes” than families making $60K. Explain that one to me.
@26–The top 20% own 80% of the nation’s assets and wealth and pay about 52% of the tax burden.
BZZZZZZTTTTTTT!!!! Wrong!!!
http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2012
Top 10 percent had 45 percent of income and paid almost 71 percent of taxes. Top 25 percent had almost 68 percent of income and paid 87 percent of taxes.
And those tax shares have gone UP over the past 30 years, not down.
Perhaps you need to look up a little speech the Iron Lady gave in the House of Commons about 20 years ago describing how wealth redistribution doesn’t help out anyone in the end, whereas building up ALL (rising tide lifting all boats and all that) does increase the income/wealth of ALL involved.
@27 A house, 4 kids through college, a divorce…..you find yourself at 40 having less money than you had at 25…..15 years later you find yourself okay but not great…for most folks that house is their life savings….if that mortgage is under water when you are in your 50s….you are indeed f$cked.
@28 you are assuming income tax is the only source of total tax revenue and the only source of income? Wealth is not only income from income tax based sources that’s how the 20% owning 80% of the income/resources….additionally, when you have 3% of the nations corporations avoiding paying any corporate income tax in a given year or as according to the GAO 55% of corporations have not paid some income tax during a 7 year span who benefits from that do you suppose? Is it the folks in that bottom 20% working as wage slaves or is it maybe the folks in that top 20%….there is propaganda aplenty from both sides.
My point is fairness was never part of the equation.
Sparky: The money makers at Harvard and other schools of finery do not teach at all. At best, those being indoctrinated watch videos featuring the learned ones. Otherwise, the classes are taught by teaching assistants who receive a stipend or credit.