Forum Post: How are you posting???
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 13, 2011, 6:38 p.m. EST by charmcitydude
(9)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I find it hard to believe that you are posting here without owning a laptop, pc, mac, or smartphone that was made by a 1% company. I work for a fortune 100 company, yes our leaders are in the 1%, but they also keep over 30k employees employed. They provide us with safe working environments. They encourage us to support our communities. They provide opportunities to thousands of vendors, and they pay more taxes than you. What are they doing wrong again, oh yeah they don't provide the handouts the OWSers believe they deserve.
Corporations (EDIT: Fortune 500 type companies, otherwise known as,"Big Business,"not the tiny little multimillion million dollar, Blumberg legal form Incorporation specials[giggle]) contribute roughly 1.6% of all Federal Revenue collected, under the current tax system, down from 2.2%, during the Reagan years. Some Corporations actually don't pay taxes, period. There are companies that have been able to get out of paying taxes for years, off of Global activities, so long as they remained an ongoing entity, which is like saying, a human doesn't have to pay taxes, so long as his small business is in business. Since corporations are immortal, so long as they do not go insolvent, some companies, making money abroad, can easily get out of paying taxes, forever....sweet deal! I doubt that your individual Corporation is contributing more than my social class, tax wise. I also doubt that anyone in my class is allowed to not pay taxes, so long as his shoe store is open for business.
I think you're confusing your numbers. In 2010, corporate taxes made up about 9% of Federal revenue. They were about 1.4 of GDP.
No, I am actually rationing out many small Corporations, by using Corporation as slang for big business. I am focusing more on the Fortune 500 size Corporations. Remember, most Corporations are nothing little companies. Anyone can go on Blumberg and incorporate, for a few bucks. I am thinking big business, not simply an incorporated business. I should not assume that other people will see what I am getting at, since I merely pointed out Corporations, but I tend to use Corporation as slang for a big business, a company with an internal economy, the size of a small country and not simply an incorporated one, etc.
More and more irrelevant garbage. So what, even if you had the exact numbers - it would take you exactly nowhere! Focus.
Pick a few laws that target crony capitalism, campaign finance reform, health care affordability and abusive pay for officers and directors of corporations and pursue those changes. Who pays more in taxes now, like, really - who cares? Just not worthy of discussion.
Save you Objectivist rant. It is tiring. Your movement is the Libertarian equivalent of Scientology! De-program yourself, you will be better off. So what? What do you mean, so what? Who pays more taxes now? The middle class and the rich, to support a bunch of dead beat ultra rich loonies. It does matter, because it impacts a great number of things, including the standard of living of the middle class and the rich. We need a new Social Democratic Party, representative of the interests of the working class, middle class and the rich. We need not focus on a single issue or two, since there is far too much to narrow down to one issue. We need decades of systemic reform and rehabilitation of this Nation. Why worry about who pays more taxes? Ha! Please, tell that to Paris Hilton!
We need to occupy the "abandoned factories" the banks that scare their customers and the usury insurance industries on our soil, for our benefit, as an example to other nations, we will be a strong trading competitor again, and it will take less than ten years. If they want to do business in the US, then they can play by our rules and hire 85% Americans, or take their business elsewhere.
Without a change in the laws, all that money goes right back into the same corrupt slush fund and nothing changes. That's why it doesn't matter who's pocket the money comes from.
Put another way: Even if we re-cooked the tax laws in whatever idealistic perfect way the OWS people proposed so that each person and entity in the country paid what OWS dictated was fair, do you think that alone would change anything?
You would expect it to, but just like every tax change that has EVER happened, nothing ever changes. Poor neighborhoods stay poor, educated wealthy people continue to prosper and hard working people still work hard. Unemployment might shift a bit, but the global economy is here to stay and manufacturing is not going to get cheaper here all of sudden just because the tax rates change.
To restore the balance in our capitalistic economy, we need to eliminate the inbred corruption. The sick connection between the banks, the government and big business. There are laws in place, but they not being enforced effectively because those in charge of enforcing them have a disincentive to break up crony capitalism- they usually benefit from it.
Without breaking up that corruption, tax changes are just a slight adjustment that readjusts who pays into the pot, but keeps the crony capitalism system exactly the same.
No, changing the tax laws would be a great thing. Look, the middle class and the rich basically pay for a Welfare State, that increasingly serves to help concentrate wealth and income, in the hands of ultra rich Americans. Meanwhile, the US Government spends money, like there is no tomorrow. Before we cut one social program in the USA, let us end the foreign occupations, let us get rid of our Pacific Fleet and scale back Colonial ambitions. Let banks accept a wall of separation, between Commercial and Investment banking or let them accept failure. When it comes to taxes, if the US Government needs to tax or borrow, let the US Government tax the ultra rich. Now, why tax the ultra rich?
The dirty little secret is that the US Government needs their money, but rather than tax the ultra rich, the Government borrows their money. When the Government borrows the money of the ultra rich, Corporations and entrepreneurs cannot minimize their cost of capital and some of them are utterly rationed out of debt securities, because they can't compete with the US Government. When the Government borrows money, from the ultra rich, the US Government reduces the likelihood that Corporations and rich entrepreneurs will be able to create jobs, improve infrastructure or create new and innovative companies and products.
The ultra rich will just sit there, watch the middle class flounder and put their money in Governement securities, gold and foreign markets. If the middle class can't pay back, the money the millionaires in Washington decided to borrow, on our behalf, to pay for wars we don't even support, the ultra rich will say, well, cut all the social programs and raise taxes on the rich! So what the heck do we, middle class or rich, get out of worrying about taxing the blood suckers? The problem is further compounded by the fact that the middle class is in stagnation and eventually the rich, will follow the middle class.
This is really bad news, since the middle class is the engine for growth, for being a Super Power. The middle class is the cheapest class for companies to service, the most profitable class for companies = to service. When the private industry does not create jobs and Government cuts jobs, you undermine the middle class, you undermine, our ability to be an attractive market to service. Even if Americans made less money than Indians, what would be the point of prioritizing this market, when there is a growing middle class in India and China? In order to sustain growth in shareholder value, off of activities in the USA, the US population needs to grow. If the middle class isn't making babies and salaries are too low to attract foreign immigration, the US is finished. We will be a large Philippines; a country with an ultra rich and a large number of poor.
I don't have any problem with increasing taxes on the ultra rich, I think it's somewhat sad that hardworking people - often with multiple kids to put through college that make around 300K get caught up in those numbers, I'm referring to those in millions when I say ultrarich.
The key is, the points you make in lines 4, 5 and 6 of your essay are major legal battles that wouldn't happen overnight. Those are the kind of goals OWS should focus on in order to curtail the crony capitalism that I mentioned earlier. Without those changes, I stand by my point that the tax changes would just amount to a feelgood reshuffling of money.
Sure, people forget that the rich depend on occupational income, for their standard of living, that most of their wealth is in home equity, that from a cash flow perspective, many rich families are just about in over their heads, just like the middle class. The rich are not making money off of their money, inhibiting domestic investment, through accessing US Government securities, certainly not like the ultra rich do. This is somewhat the fault of the rich though, because they associate with a class, that in the end, will throw them under a bus.
The rich and the middle class need to align their interests. After all, when the middle class is gone, the rich will be next. No one is paying a medical doctor half a million dollars, in a country where there is a small middle class. Heck, most countries, with a sizable middle class won't put up with artificially raising medical salaries, by artificially decreasing the number of graduates from medical schools. Unless the rich want to lose their standard of living, the rich ought to be on the side of the middle class, since the ultra rich don't really need the rich to be ultra rich. One US bus driver would make many times what a Medical doctor would make in India. US doctors can get a screwing too, through insourcing and increasing the number of graduates from medical school. The rich should check out why Russia, India, Brazil and China, have so many billionaires and so few millionaires, before the US rich get too supportive of Globalism. [giggle] The American rich aren't unique snowflakes, after all.
Fools paradise. Overnight and as soon as a Bengali is found to do your job for less you will be humiliated to train your replacement. You will be left bewildered by your exaggerated view of yourself and contempt for unemployed. Wake up and find your place with OWS.
See: Every War and Depression in History.
Mommy and daddy are buying the phones and computers for the little tykes down there.
what 's the mean pay
Support the "Stock Act" Legislation to keep our Representatives from inside trading legally. We want "Government Campaign Finance" This will take all Corporate money out of our Government and also all the lies off the airwaves.
Did you watch the "60 Minute" program tonight?
I don't know anyone here who thinks corporations shouldn't be able to make and sell products for a profit. What are you talking about? Are you sure you're in the right forum?
Corporations sold sub prime loans for a profit, but I thought that was not okay?
No, actually, the banks packaged junk subprime mortgages into CDOs, which they then fraudulently misrepresented--with the help of the ratings agencies--as AAA-rated securities. And not only that, while they were assuring their investors that these junk CDOs were completely safe, AAA-rated products, they were short-selling these very same securities, because they KNEW they were going to collapse! It's called F-R-A-U-D. And you might be okay with it, but I'm not...
If the idiots who borrowed money on overpriced homes would have not borrowed, then the banks could not have lent. The root is the greedy public that had to get what they could not afford, and did not deserve. Companies will always mislead to sell, from As Seen On TV all the way to loans. Demand created the issue, not supply.
But those people COULD afford those houses! You know why? Because the banks didn't ask for any money down...LOL! Who are the idiots here? If a bank is going to offer me a gigantic asset like a house and not require me to have any skin in the game, of course I'm going to take it--who wouldn't? A free house, which I can walk away from whenever I want, and not lose ANY money...OKAY! Thanks, Mr. Banker!
People like you put here, thank you mr. lazy. America appreciates picking up your tab.
Many of the people who borrowed were tricked into believing that they could afford the rates, based on the confusing interest structures, particularly balloon payments which became common during this period. Mortgage brokers who were motivated by bonuses convinced people that it made sense to "cash out" their equity and that the real estate market "only" went up! For some, this was the first time that they had ever owned a home or the only chance they had of catching up on consumer debt. Google predatory lending and the mortgage crisis.
Most people were not tricked, the media just focuses on those few. Even the ones that were tricked made it easy for the lenders because their greed made them want what the could not afford.
Was it greed or just the instinctive desire for a home, security or material success? Why the need to vilify the borrowers - at this point, most of them have already lost their homes or are going through foreclosure. They were the first ones to be held accountable for the lost value on those loans.
Think about all the kids in this country who've been traumatized by the experience of losing their homes because of this financial debacle, which really was the fault of the government; which created a mechanism for under documented mortgages leading to a surge in lending that wasn't supported by the property value.
"instinctive desire for a home" means buy what you can afford by using common sense. I'm sick of people blaming everyone else. The people caused these issues. We are in a demand driven economy. How did this country get to this "everyone deserves a trophy for showing up" attitude?
I certainly agree that everyone does not deserve a trophy for showing up. I'm just trying to make the point that their were many players in the mortgage fiasco and the actual mortgagees were the just about the only ones to pay and to lose their shirts. The bankers, who took home huge bonuses when they issued new mortgages, didn't then have to return the money when those same mortgages later became non-performing; they had long been sold on the secondary market. And the individuals at Fannie Mae who were paid based on the number of loans they bought, knowing they were undocumented and probably undersecured, have never been indicted or asked to returned their multi-million dollar bonuses.
Why in the world should the bankers have to pay back??? If the borrowers paid their mortgages there would not be a problem. If they didn't buy what they could not afford they would not have caused this issue. Keep drinking your OWS kool aid.
No OWS kool aid here. Fannie Mae and the purchasers of the mortgages on the secondary market had the right to demand the originators of the mortgages supply alternative property if the original collateral turned out to be inadequate for the loans - that was the standard back up provision to cover for the fact that the loans were so low on documentation.
In almost zero cases, was that provision enforced - and I'm speaking nationally. It was a huge conspiracy to cover up the fact that none of these had adequate value from the beginning. FannieMae didn't call for a substitution of the collateral because it would have sent up a red flag around the country of its own involvement.
But if it had, maybe all those mortgage backed securities that had been bundled and resold as AAA wouldn't have crashed and toppled our whole economy. There's no kool aid here, it's just complicated. The home owners are smallest piece of this puzzle.
Home owners are the biggest piece of this puzzle. No home owner = no loan = no mess. The borrowers are the root. How doy you possibly not see this??? It's like blaming McDonalds for obesity.
It wasn't quite that simple. Government regulations stopped requiring the documentation of valuation of the underlying property to support the mortgage, so banks stopped requiring appraisals of the property when issuing a mortgage, since they knew they could resell the mortgages (which were backed by the gov't) on the secondary market. The fact that these mortgages were guaranteed by the gov't is what made them AAA rated.
They have bought out the Congress, and presidency; subverted the Justice Dept to rule that corporations have the rights of people; established a corporatocracy; fascism; stolen over 60 trillion dollars of working class monies; installed a police state; created seven wars of empire; off shored the manufacturing base....and far more.
OWS are not all poor. They are not all uneducated. They are not all unemployed. They come in all colors and of all faiths. You are being lied to. People like you are all over the boards spreading hate directed at the poor. Its disgusting and we don't have to be poor to set higher standards ethical standards for ourselves than that. Can you not hear yourself? Just because a lot of people do it does not justify or sanctify it.
nobody is asking for handouts, crazy person - just an open debate about everybody paying their fair share. it seems that here in America that sort of of debate is un-American, isn't it?
"Crazy person", sorry I upset you. If you want to debate please do so, but insults just show a lack of IQ.
...as evidenced by someone who starts a thread with an insult yet goes on to make a baseless assertion in that same thread about the correlation between IQ and hurling insults. it seems like you have no idea what you are talking about in all senses of the phrase. good luck.
My post isn't an insult, There are forum posts all over this site promoting socialism. Capitalism works when everyone is responsible for their actions. The CEOs, the consumers, and everyone in the middle.
your last sentence is an insult, you passive-aggressive moron. and please spare us your trite armchair economic reflections. boring!
Sorry the truth hurts.
good luck. you need it.
BTW, if you are not looking for handouts, remove the Donate button from this site. Ha ha. Also, luck is for those who do not steer their destiny. You can keep your luck, perhaps for your donations.
According to the NYT... "Corporate taxes accounted for about 9 percent of all federal revenue in 2010." This also matches the IRS site. Add in employment taxes they pay and you are at 45%
I meant large Corporations. You are including very small, but numerous entities. Incorporation is a rather simple matter and you could just about incorporate a ham sandwich, just check out Blumberg's legal form site, to see how easy it is to Incorporate.
they are just throwing the baby out with the bath water. They don't know what the problem is just a symptom. Blind leading the blind
You have to get up every morning and go to work, OWS people want to spend their days discussing Medieval Aboriginal History and eating free food provided by the city. They also want to receive a cash stipend from the government just for existing.
We're all at the public library, taking turns.
Ha, ha. Just kidding, charmcitydude ; ]
Who cares anyway? They can't agree on what their point is, so having computers shouldn't disqualify their right to rant!
I Like this reply. I do enjoy the rant.
They bought iPhones with the donations.
The debates over buying MacBook Pros and iPads with the donations are documented in GA meeting minutes. I don't recall any iPhone or iPod purchases.
My bad. I meant iPads.