Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

I found this editorial pretty interesting considering it is coming from the 3rd wealthiest man in the world.....



Published in the New York Times Aug 14/2011 - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

By Warren Buffett

Spoiler:

I believe that it (society) is becoming a Cast system. Rich and Poor. With the poor being taxed to death.



Fuck, I can't afford the 480 tax on our car this year. Its due in Sept, or we can't register the car.



Each year they adjust the "Vehicle" tax here. Good thing I got rid of my Chevy Cobalt SS. That was close to 700 dollars in tax. Each Fucking year.



Strange isn't it. You pay taxes on your Income. Then your disposible income you have to pay taxes on purchases. But here in Conneticut, we pay taxes on our taxed dollar our disposible income and our Property (Vehicle) of course the home/house taxes too..



Sad..



Makes me want to puke.



Maybe I should start selling medical Marijuana..

nous aussi nous sommes un pays trés taxé avec plein d'impôt la vie est cher a cause de ces **** d'impôt.

Can't say that it makes me mad to see the rich get tax breaks, what pisses me off more is that our govt. is now considering making anyone applying for welfare pass drug tests before they are eligible for benefits. Now we have a bunch of bleeding heart piece of shit liberal fuck-tards saying that is unconstitutional. How come it's constitutional to make me pass a drug test for a job (which means i work for my money), but it's not constitutional to make a loser piece of shit that wont work pass a test to get MY FUCKING MONEY, from govt. social programs. I say test the bastards if they fail cut em off for an extended period of time, lets say 40 or 50 years, if we quit pouring money down the drain on welfare losers because they aren't eligible for benefits maybe then we can get some tax breaks that benefit the rest of us. wouldn't take long to have a surplus of cash once we get all of the druggies off the books.



Aint that a bitch, a burntout pothead is all for drug testing, shows you where our society has fallen too in this day and age.



-Hippie

really liked that article and i agree with it. tax rates arent going to dissuade people from investing, unless that rate is phenomenally high.

dont get me started on the liberal left,, both sides break down in regards to Constitutinality in opposite ways. the right, write bills to become laws and check them against the constitution to ascertain if they are ok. the left writes bills to become laws then twists the language of the Constitution to make their bill appear to be legit, or they just attach their bills as riders to avoid supreme court approval.

drug testing welfare and food stamps recipients? im all for it. if its a 4th amendment violation for them, then its a 4th amendment violation for people who actually work. whats good for the goose is good for the gander

Hippie has become more liberal lately... He used to be angry.

Actually i am angry, just knowing that Obamageddon is on his way out and going down as the sorriest piece o shit president in History is enuff to off set the Anger.



What has actually put a smile on my face is the fact (OFFENDING STATEMENT FORTHCOMING) that i find it Ironic we have our first black president and for the first time Ameica is looking at a default on it's loans. To me that is irony at it's absolute finest. Think about what i mean by that and you'll smile as well



-Hippie

It's actually a shame. Most people on this side of the aisle do not care about his (or anyone's) color. The fact that he is a turbo-socialist that thinks America is the root of all evil in the world, is good enough for me to hate him.



However, we are all racists for disagreeing with him. Ask Sharpton or Jackson...

OH LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR ON THIS...... i hate him for one reason and one reason only....he's a Democrat, pure and simple.......

I just find it laughably ironic


Hippie

=[C]=BurntoutHippie wrote:

What has actually put a smile on my face is the fact (OFFENDING STATEMENT FORTHCOMING) that i find it Ironic we have our first black president and for the first time Ameica is looking at a default on it's loans. To me that is irony at it's absolute finest. Think about what i mean by that and you'll smile as well



-Hippie

*smiled*

this has become a country of electing the lesser of 2 evils.. or elect whoever the fuck is running to get the current guy out. our current panel of GOP hopefuls is about worthless,, but i imagine the GOP feels a retarded monkey can beat Obama as he cuts his own throat while the Tea Party is right there showing everyone.

I'll give my 2 cents as well.

Dicky is stating a very good point. American political system is based on two party system. You are with us or against us and when you find none of these two big parties are doing any good what are you gonna do as a citizen. For example, nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway) have a multi party system. For another example, finnish government at the moment is based on democrats, republics, greens, left side democrats, right wing finnishswedish party and christian democrats. What that means is all these parties has to do an effort to govern not only the people who have voted them but the whole nation. In my opinion that gives us citizens more power to control what happens in our every day life by voting. But I always have to remind myself that governing a country of 5 million people is always a different thing than governing a country as big as states.

In the past I have been having these conversations with hippie in Vent so many times that I know I cant change his mind but again i will try

I know hippie is and have always been angry about the welfare system in states. But saying that makes you more angry than tax breaks for rich doesn't compute with me. I understand it is more easy to be angry to things you can see in your every day life like to drugfags who exploit the system but considering the amount of money between these two things I think all should be more angry about the tax breaks.

I thought the article was well written and very wise. Especially when it comes from a person who has shit load of money and the taxing system would hit him the hardest. And in my opinion listening a person who is willing to give away from his own is always worth of listening.

where is the "Like" button for Rauskis post?

the agenda has been in place a long time to establish a 3rd party. to do so that party must receive at least 10% of the vote in a given election. oddly they never seem to even get that much.

our domestic economic policies havent changed in over 80 years. we go back and forth and nothing works. tax cuts for the rich havent worked because the rich didnt create the new jobs as promised, they simply invested in offshore markets, employed foreign labor, or just pocketed the loot. trickle down Reaganomics didnt work and still didnt work under the Bush's.

the 2 worst presidents we have ever had are GW Bush and Obama, and for them to serve back to back makes for the catastrophe we are heading towards.

Doesn't anyone actually think that just maybe it is the system that is actually fucked? It doesn't matter how many political parties you have, or who you vote for because all parties operate within the same framework. A framework whereby parties are funded/lobbied by big business to make/change laws in their favor. When business interests are put before human interests something must be seriously wrong.

Democracy is a nice idea, but when it allows ignorant, ill-informed people to vote, how can you expect it not to go wrong? It's just mob rule with no consideration towards logic and reason.

As for the financial crisis/economy: Fractional Reserve Banking = A Debt Based Economy. The only way money comes into existence is from loans. It is mathematically impossible to pay off all debts with the money currently in circulation. Banking is the biggest scam ever devised especially in countries which use a private central bank to control the issuance of currency (ie. UK, USA). The worst president you've had was Woodrow Wilson for signing the Federal Reserve Act into Law - essentially taking the control of currency from the US people and giving it to a private bank.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've heard there is no law that requires US Citizens to pay Income Tax - if this is indeed the case, then why the fuck are you paying it? Oh yeah, cos if you don't pay, you go to prison. Land of the Free, I think not...

If anyone is to blame for the mess that we are in now, maybe we should blame ourselves for letting it happen.

actually both the federal government (16th Amendment to the US Constitution) and the states individually have the power to levy income tax. not all states have an income tax, like Tennessee.

Woodrow Wilson was the Father of the Progressive movement, the first President to buy into communism. FDR was like an early version of Obama.

there is a lot of popularity here around the idea of placing the federal reserve bank under gov. control,, which would eliminate paying interest on our own currency.

-Rauski- wrote:

I'll give my 2 cents as well.

Dicky is stating a very good point. American political system is based on two party system. You are with us or against us and when you find none of these two big parties are doing any good what are you gonna do as a citizen. For example, nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway) have a multi party system. For another example, finnish government at the moment is based on democrats, republics, greens, left side democrats, right wing finnishswedish party and christian democrats. What that means is all these parties has to do an effort to govern not only the people who have voted them but the whole nation. In my opinion that gives us citizens more power to control what happens in our every day life by voting. But I always have to remind myself that governing a country of 5 million people is always a different thing than governing a country as big as states.

Well said --- i hmm agree with raskusak that white finnish prick
That being said, no one should look at the finish government for ideas, cause that is fucked up that all the parties are involved atm. Who needs the green to give their 2 cents?

Give me an army and let me start a cleansing operation to wipe out all socialists and greens together with those muslim fucks... oh and let's make africa a big fucking national park!

Hey a man can dream...

As far as taxing the rich, i dont see where taking a mans money just because he makes more than everyone else is the way to fix a damn thing, i mean jesus what kind of socialist/ communist agenda do you people have. That is exactly what socialism and communism do, SHARE THE WEALTH, fuck that we are trying to keep from being socialist and everyone is screaming the same socialist sentiment. take what the rich have and support the rest of us with it.



taxing the rich is NOT the problem, so it looks like ALL OF YOU are wrong with your thinking. The problem is how the govt figures the income of the rich. Example: a day trader makes 5 mil in trading today. no problem there, that was INCOME. but the way the govt sees that money, it's operating expense for those days where the trader LOSES money, it's a built in safety net to keep those people from going broke within the first month of business. the Problem is that the govt. does not put a cap on what is considered operating funds. The same goes for any other large business. a large majority of the income is stuck into a company account and the govt labels it "operating money." Now you're probably thinking that the rich are just taking advantage of this loophole and are burying there money to keep it out of the govt's greedy hands, but thats a wrong guess as well. the govt. decides what is operating money not the businesses.



So my take on the situation is that we are giving the wealthy hell and saying tax, tax, tax them when in reality if the govt would pull their heads out of their asses and amend the laws to actually make some what of an intelligent sentence then we would see more revenue on this end, but our govt once again thinks they have a clue how to balance a checking account much less a national budget.



No i don't believe in taxing the rich any more. i think by taxing them that we completely destroy the basis of the american dream, when you build a business only for the govt to take the majority of your profits i think the country is on it's way down the tubes for sure then. as far as you Europeans go i think Mario is the only one that had an intelligible cure to the whole situation. there are things about our politics that you folks can never understand simply because our system was set up completely opposite to your multi-party system. Thats why it's been called the BIG EXPERIMENT IN DEMOCRACY.



Now no offense but, i think that some of the opinions that have been given to us about our financial crises should be relayed to your oewn politicians, party members whatever they are called. Remember that the U>S> is not having a total financial break down the way a lot of European countries are. it's the socialist system of taking care of jobless people and the low cost of education for all. those things have brought the European economy closer to collapse than the US has been since this financial spiral began.



As it stands no one is right and no one is wrong, our ideologies make us think we know what kind of solution we need but we are still wrong on that. the only way to fix any of this at this point is to say "Fuck it" and start over. that means from the writing of a constitution on down the line. The world economy is fucked and we have all had our hand in doing it. i have school loans that are killing me, there are others here that have too much house note, or to many car pymts or credit cards. we have all contributed to the mess on a global scale. there is no fix that we can come up with, it's going to have to work itself out one way or another.



So FUCKING HAPPY to have our first black president, now we have something tangible to blame ALL of the worlds problems on.



-Hippie

taxing majority of profits? the only proposal on the table is raising capital gains tax from 15% to 35%, which is still less than their brackets income tax.

as much as i hate to admit it, because im a Libertarian, is globalization has forced some degree of socialism to encroach on peoples thinking. across the country, expectations of our government have changed with its growth. many of us conservative/libertarians/constitutionalists want smaller government, however some of the growth weve experienced since this countries founding have become institutionalized, such as a standing army and navy, public schools, etc. Social security was never intended as a sole means of support for retired persons, but the reality is, it is. Americans are supposed to rely on their IRAs, 401k, and pensions. people are cashing in their 401ks early and moving them to protected IRAs to keep the government from flat out stealing them, pensions dont exist for most americans because our government in its infinite wisdom allowed labor unions to squeeze the shit out industries, thereby practically chasing them out of the country. (dont get me started on unions,, uggghh). social security could at any time be flat out taken. when FDR (another Progressive) created the Social Security fund, there was NO provision made that said the government had to pay it back. Social Security isnt a government operated retirement plan, it was a well disguised tax.

i do agree with Hippie that NONE of the parties has a solution. this is mostly because of globalized economics. our economy is too deeply tied in with other countries. i do support a return to the gold standard. i do have to go back and look at the Constitution again, but i dont think theres a provision allowing its invalidation and allowing a new one in its place. i think at this state of our society that would be a very bad idea because of such widespread socialist thinking


we are at a place now where debt represents 53% of our GDP i think is the latest number. as far as world ranking goes on debt % vs GDP.. we are in 33rd place. Japans debt vs GDP ratio is 225%. in the "global" scheme of things, this isnt so bad, but i think it would be a good idea if Congressmen and Senators were nagged 20x a day with calls from collection agents asking when our debts will be paid.

Where is my Bacon Double Cheeseburger?!

Like I said before. Fractional Reserve Banking, Debt Based Economy.

The only way money can come into existence is from loans. But it's not as simple as that. For example, if I deposit £1000 into my bank, my bank can then loan out approximately 9 times that amount, even if they do not have the money.

The word "loan" is not strictly accurate in banking, because banks rarely lend you money, instead they create a debt. If the bank lend you £1000, that money wasn't transferred from one account into your account. No money was moved physically or electronically. Don't believe me? Try and get an audit for any bank loans, mortgages etc that you have. You will find that before you agreed to repay the loan, the money they "lent" you did not even exist physically or electronically. So, as they did not lend you money, there was no risk to the bank but this does not stop them taking real wealth (ie houses, cars etc.) if a customer was to default on their loan/mortgage.

Getting out of debt is mathematically impossible as all money is loaned into existence and must be paid back with interest. So where does the money come from the pay the interest? It comes from taking out more loans.

It's just a big fucking scam.

Any system that allows a minority of people to dictate whether you eat, have a home or a job is fucking insane, but unfortunately, that is what we have.

Just remember, it wasn't people like us who caused the financial crisis (not directly anyway). As for the banks who fucked up, they should never have been bailed out. I can't get a government bail out if I fuck up my finances and nor can you.

Until the economic and financial models are structured into a fairer system, it will not matter which political party gets elected as your daily lives, and the daily shit you have to deal with will remain the same!

For hippie with love

For you taxing = socialism. For me taxing provides for my education, the roads I'm driving, the mailboxes I put my mails and everything we need for living in a society and not to become the national park Mario wants Africa to be. No one is saying increasing rich people's tax rates from 17% to lets say 25% would fix everything, but imo it would fix something! But you're right, the way it need to be done should be evaluated by people who knows how the system works and I believe we both agree that politicians are not the ones who knows how to find the best solution for revenues.

But your criticism of "european socialism" has many fouls and how you presented it showed you don't know much about how the countries in europe are run. Every single country in europe has very different governing systems. Where you stated that providing a free education or taking care of jobless have something to do with the economic down fall in europe is just totally not true. For example Ireland, portugal and Greece don't provided those things for their citizens in the magnitude that nordic countries are doing. And in the same time those three countries are fucked where as nordic countries are doing very well. (for example every single nordic bank have passed all the stress tests with high scores). We as nordic countries, the most socialist countries you have been talking about, are actually helping and saving other countries that have fucked their own economics not by being "socialist" but just using too much fucking money without getting it back from somewhere.

Then again I'm not gonna tell you U.S should take example from nordic countries, since it probably wouldn't work since our systems are so different. What I'm saying is I would be more pleased to live in a country where my options considering who I'm gonna vote are more grater than just voting form options YES/NO, YES/YES or NO/NO, if you see what I mean.

-Rauski- wrote:

Then again I'm not gonna tell you U.S should take example from nordic countries, since it probably wouldn't work since our systems are so different. What I'm saying is I would be more pleased to live in a country where my options considering who I'm gonna vote are more grater than just voting form options YES/NO, YES/YES or NO/NO, if you see what I mean.

But see Rauski that statement is so TOTALLY worng on every level. I keep seeing that everyone talks about our two party system, the reason it is a 2 party system is because the people never vote for the other parties. For example right now we have the tea party, supposed to be an off shoot of the republican party but they are more old school and believe strictly on governing within the constitution they way the country was meant to be when it was founded. But as it stands now the tea party are at odds with the GOP, which in essence is the party they are supposed to be part of, but they don't align themselves because they are constitutionalist. Then we have our independents and occasionally there are other parties that pop up, but they always lose in elections.



What i'm getting at is that there is no law here that only allows for a 2 party system, it's the wway the people vote that make it look like we only have 2 parties, there just isn't enuff support for the other parties so they disentigrate before they make any head way. as far as the european financial problems. i dont consider Greece and Ireland european countries i mean the european continent. And Yes France is having hell with their pansion and public assistance, they cant afford teir socialist programs anymore and are changing things, thats where the problems stemmed from earlier this year, britain (if you wanna bring in countries that aren't on the european continent, just had a bad bout of rioting earlier this year because they are changing laws to put more tuition on the citizens instead of the state paying for it, and were discussing cutting public assistance and retirment bacause these programs are bankrupting them. Germany was in the news earlier for their financial crisis, yet again the problems stem from the sociualist programs that most all european countries have. The Netehrlands were one of the few places that wasn't hit quite so hard but they were shoring things up to stay a float and not be burdened as bad as other places. but it's an on going thing, if you tell me i'm wrong then maybe we need to set up a time to see the world news together and you can explain to me how these reporters from these other countries are wrong.



It's amazing that the social programs we are having problems with were programs brought back to the US from europe. and now that europe is having problems with these same programs our govt thinks we need to be more like them and give everybody everything. WRONG fuck em. if they cant get off their asses and work for a living let em starve to death. That would be population control and once you let the bums and freeloaders drop dead then maybe we could start to see some better finacial situations and people that actually work for a living could keep their money instead of giving it to a bunch of freeloading low life bums.



I am 100% against more tax on the rich. I would be happy with a flat tax across the board for everyone, rich, poor, whatever. I do not like th thought of making a man pay more because he makes more. what are we gonna do as a society when the dollar collapses? tell a man that has enuff to feed hi family that he has to share with this piece of shit that didnt feel like gathering food for himself today? Bullshit i would take it upon myself to put a bullet in the freeloaders head. Look at it this way, when we get to the point of living hand to mouth, will your taxes make a difference then? i dont think so, are we gonna be so fired up for socialist programs then? Nope, we will be thinking survival of the fittest. Thats how i see the rich, they are the fittest and are surviving better than the rest so the have nots want the govt to take what the rich do have and give it to them, that's bullshit, and this shit about taxing the rich is nothing more than the have nots crying to their mommies because they want what someone else worked to get, without having to work for it themselves.



-Hippie

Wow you fuckers can actually have an intellectualised debate for 2 pages without it turning into a gay love thread. I am proud

a lot of people are calling for flat tax for overall fairness. its closing the loopholes and entitlements that people are at odds about. i havent seen anything about raising the personal income tax of the top 2%, or even the top 10%. among the only suggestions ive seen pertain to capital gains tax increases on investments over $50k, and a tax reduction on investments under $35k, which pertain to everyone. there are lots of people that are not "super rich" that make their money off investing, stock trading, etc. in essence its no different that taxing the shit out of oil companies and giving funding and tax breaks to "green" energy projects.

2 party, multi party, republican, democrat, tea party, green party, independent, progressives,,,,, none of this shit makes any difference. what it has always been about is an administration is going to pass laws that benefit their favorite pork barrel, and strangling anything that opposes that.

i am curious about something though. who exactly counts as someone "sitting on their dead ass and not contributing"? technically that would include anyone on social security, disabled, unemployed, returning military that did not have jobs prior to enlistment or were active longer than FMLA allows, and of course those on welfare either because they are lazy or simply cant find work. I agree with stopping a lot of entitlements, but lets be intelligent about who counts as a freeloader and those who are just fucked through no fault of their own. states that have used welfare to work programs have worked out to some degree. as a condition for receiving public assistance, you agree to perform public work or work for participating private employers with the potential for gainful employment, but there will always be politicians and others who will abuse the programs.

Britain, France, and netherlands have a lot more to worry about than saving some cash,, the muslims are taking over and establishing their own law over people 1 neighborhood at a time.