Should have listened to the TEA Party

People throw up articles by Huffington Post (among others) as evidence that the Tea Party is EVIL or whatever.

So I thought I would take a look at Huffington Post who seems to be interested in a smear campaign of the Tea Party.

What do I find???
AOL bought out the Huffington Post.

On the board of directors we have a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former Director of CIT Group Inc and a former partner at Plainfield Asset Management, who "manages investment capital for high net worth individuals based in the United States and abroad."

The chairman is also Chairmen of The Advertising Council Inc. who just won a $"2,049,078 federal contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency for ready campaign support services."

So we find connections to CFR, Bankers,"High net worth individuals" and Homeland Security. Such wonderful LIBERAL groups.

References:
corp.aol.com...
investing.businessweek.com...:US (used links to access more info)

reply to post by beezzer

You're right. There is no central core, nor a heiarchy to the Tea Party. People can point to Koch brothers, Palin, Bachmann, but the real core (if you want to call it that) is each and every individual who just wants a smaller government.

And that must be driving TPTB absolutely NUTS. How do you take over and subvert a group if it has no central core to bribe or backmail????

Originally posted by Carseller4

Originally posted by aching_knuckles


The TP is idiotic to me, based solely on the idea of removing all restrictions from business. The tea party has been co-opted and infiltrated, a cover for a group that merely wants to give companies and corporations more power.

Just a reminder of what the TEA in TEA Party means....

Taxed
Enough
Already

I have no idea where you coming up with removing all restrictions on business? But I'm sure the TEA Party would be in favor of letting 10 year old kids set up a lemonade stand without having to purchase a permit. I'm sure they would be in favor of getting water to people that need it, instead of shutting them off because of some kind of tadpole.

Spending is out of control, a lot of regulations on business retard growth and employment opportunities, and finally the TEA Party realizes that more taxes leads to more wasteful spending. Spending cuts are the only way. No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.

Same here, I haven't followed what the TEA party has been up too for over a year, but back when it started, all I saw were people who wanted some common sense, less gov and spending, their 2nd A, etc. Maybe they are "infiltrated" now but I find them much more favorable than the extreme left. But im sure any big group/movement can and will be corrupted eventually.


Deebo

reply to post by crimvelvet


Did it ever occur to you that TPTB are the ones who CREATED the Tea Party? The Tea Party is the brainchild of Fox News. Fox News is the mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch is VERY likely part of TPTB!!! It's just sad when sheeple don't realize that they are being shepherded, and instead think they are being 'original' in their thoughts and actions...

reply to post by JaxonRoberts

Are you really THAT delusional??? While I FULLY agree with the Tea Parties stance on a Balanced Budget, their stance on tax policy and business regulation is downright SUICIDAL! Even Warren Buffet agrees that we severely undertax the wealthy in this country. But you go ahead and keep spreadin' Massa's rhetoric and lies... It's almost criminal how much influence a FORIEGNER (Rupert Murdoch) has over you and the other simple minds...

I will try to explain this again in simple terms.

First HOW do you purpose to TAX the wealthy????

1. Tax on income taxes the middle and upper middle class who earn WAGES. so that does not work.

2. The wealthy HAVE their money. It is nice and safe in all sorts of tax havens like trust funds, Foundations that they use to buy influence, or Corporations.

So what happens if you tax Corporations??? Again you get the middle of the road and small businesses not the ultra wealthy transnational corporations.

WHY???

That is the key question and no one ASKS it.

Without import duties, corporations can shift corporate earnings offshore with ease by partially manufacturing an item in a low tax country. It also means corporations can import cheap goods made by slave labor and sell at a huge mark up. The Free trade agreements have screwed not only American workers but also the Peasant farmers who were cheated out of their land so as to provide a large labor pool.
SEE:
The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.....

...Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.

G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.....

Effect of NAFTA free trade agrement on Mexico and Americans:

...since NAFTA, the number of small U.S. farmers has declined nine percent while the percentage of U.S. farm households at or near the federal poverty level has skyrocketed to 93%. Consumer prices for food, however, have not dropped. (NAFTA at 5)

MEXICO
Small Businesses: Under NAFTA, by 1997, an estimated 28,000 small businesses in Mexico had been destroyed by competition with foreign multinationals and their Mexican partners.

· Farmers Demand Suspension: NAFTA market access and anti-subsidy rules for agriculture have forced huge numbers of peasants off the land because they are no longer "competitive." . . .In 1997, 65% of the actual Mexican labor force was either unemployed or underemployed. (NAFTA at 5)

Living Standards

· Wages Falling: “The productivity of Mexican workers has increased 36.4% since NAFTA went into effect, yet their wages have declined by 29% between 1993 and 1997.

· Middle Class Vanishing: Under NAFTA, eight million Mexicans have been pushed out of the middle class and into poverty.

· Declining Purchasing Power: Salaried (that is, largely middle-class) workers in Mexico lost 34% of their purchasing power since 1994, the year NAFTA went into effect.

· More into Poverty: Between 1984 and 1994 ­ and through several currency devaluations ­ the Mexican poverty rate remained constant at 34% of the population. As of 1997, 60% of the Mexican labor force live below the poverty line.” .... library.jid.org...

In Other words ONLY the large transnational Corporations profit from the Free Trade Agreements. EVERYONE else suffers!

EXPORT of JOBS

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e419473c7f7b.png[/atsimg]

Decrease of tax on corporations

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7a762eced0ec.gif[/atsimg]

reply to post by crimvelvet


So instead you would propose what? Free rides for the wealthy? Let the entire burden fall on the rest of us, you know the one's who are making the wealthy wealthy??? And did it ever occur to you that the reason jobs are leaving this country is because of the American Worker, who overvalues his/her worth in the market place? But we can't do that! We can't accept responsibility for our own actions! That would be UNAMERICAN, now wouldn't it! Since the vast majority of American jobs have gone to places other than Canada and Mexico, blaming NAFTA is like blaming Leprechauns for rain...

reply to post by JaxonRoberts

Did it ever occur to you that TPTB are the ones who CREATED the Tea Party? ...

That boat don't float with me because I was part of the general Grass Roots Movement that became the tea party.

That was many years ago when the MSM was trying to muzzle us and the federal government was tossing us in jail, stealing papers from our cars, trashing our computers, baring us from public venues, calling is hysterical, liars, disinfo agents....

Why the heck do you think I have so much information??? I was a researcher for one of the groups

reply to post by crimvelvet


Since your information is flawed and biased, that argument is automatically invalid...

Originally posted by beezzer
Just face it people.

We were right. And because we were right, people are upset.

No you were not right. Nothing about what the TEA party proposed would have kept the downgrade from happening.

One of the main reasons S&P gave for dowgrading the U.S. was our political process has become to unpredictable. The U.S. is not seen as a safe bet anymore.

What the TEA party did was hold a necessary bill hostage so they can try and push through their ideologies. The debt ceiling bill should have been a clean bill like it was for Bush 1 and 2, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, but not for Obama, no he's the Marxist Communist, fascist, secret Muslim that is trying to destroy America. The debt ceiling had to be raised no matter what. They could of cut all the non-defense discretionary spending and still would of come up a trillion dollars short. Our economy was held hostage and the world has lost confidence in our ability to pay our debts because of it.

The TEA party lives in a fairy tale land where they are so oppressed and taxed until they are broke. When in actuality tax rates are the lowest they have been in seventy years. They like to ignore the reality of having a society. A society needs social safety nets, it must have taxes, businesses must be regulated, and deficit spending will always be a fact of life. We should of learned our lesson about regulation after this recent collapse. As far as taxes are concerned, the vast majority of economist admit that any deficit reduction plan is going to have to include revenues no matter how much spending is cut. An economic downturn is not the time for extreme austerity measures to begin with, it will only make things worse. Part of the strategy of the recent negotions was to cause a default. If the U.S. did go into default they would have a much easier time getting rid of social security, medicare, and medicaid. Then they could divert that money to the rich and our massive military industrial complex.

What gets me is members of the TEA party seem to think they too will one day be rich. When revenue increases are spoken of they seem to think they will be affected when all that will ihappen is taxes will go up on the top 2 percent to the levels of the Clinton era when the country was running a surplus. That 800 billion dollars can do wonders. However, they are unable to listen to reason. Even Reagan's economic adviser is trying to make them listen to reason. The rhetoric of 'job killing tax hikes' is all they here though. A myth that is not backed up by facts. It is always funny when I hear republicans speak of protecting jobs. This congress was supposed to be all about jobs, jobs, jobs. What did we get instead? TEA party supported legislation against an imaginary threat of sharia law, an all out war on woman's reproductive privacy, class warfare against the poor, middle, and working class, union busting, a fascistic immigration law, etc. Not one peep about jobs though.

S&P Quote: "The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy … [This] weakens the government’s ability to manage public finances …"

reply to post by JaxonRoberts


NAFTA was ONE of several Free trade Agreements. I used it as an example. The other example I had as a link. The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation, Is from INDIA. I put an except at the bottom I was TRYING to keep it short since I have over 17 pages of just references.

If you looked at my signature block you would see I recommend taxing imports and letting other countries do the same.

What the heck is wrong with self sufficiency when possible???
Why should a product such as chicken or beef or shoes be shipped half way across the world??? Don't we have an energy shortage???
Why should corporations be allowed to pollute other countries???

Import duties protect local small businesses here and abroad from unscrupulous manipulation by the Transnational corporations. I put up a chronicle of the manipulation by a transnational cartel HERE

Stephen Lendman does a three part write up:

smirkingchimp.com...
www.smirkingchimp.com...
www.smirkingchimp.com...

The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation

The Indian peasantry, the largest body of surviving small farmers in the world, today faces a crisis of extinction.

Two thirds of India makes its living from the land....

[WTO ratified in 1995]
1997 witnessed the first emergence of farm suicides in India. A rapid increase in indebtedness, was at the root of farmers taking their lives. Debt is a reflection of a negative economy, a loosing economy. Two factors have transformed the positive economy of agriculture into a negative economy for peasants - the rising costs of production and the falling prices of farm commodities. Both these factors are rooted in the policies of trade liberalization and corporate globalisation.

In 1998, the World Bank's structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved....

The second pressure Indian farmers are facing is the dramatic fall in prices of farm produce as a result of free trade policies of the W.T.O. The WTO rules for trade in agriculture are essentially rules for dumping. They have allowed an increase in agribusiness subsidies while preventing countries from protecting their farmers from the dumping of artificially cheap produce.... www.countercurrents.org...

reply to post by JaxonRoberts

Since your information is flawed and biased, that argument is automatically invalid...

And you have three heads and five eyes. Your statement makes just as much sense as mind does.

Exactly WHAT information is flawed and WHAT information is bias???

PROVE it! Be specific. If I have flawed data tell me what it is???

I love this OP! Thank you for being a glimmer of hope in an endless sea of hopeless people that are simply here to tow the party line! If more people would just use some common sense and pull their heads out of .....the sand , they would see that taxes have not been the answer for decades! The answer is responsible spending that hasn't been seen in this country in decades!

reply to post by Carseller4


I'm glad the problem wasn't simply pushed back, now we'll have to fix the problem, not just apply a band-aid, hopefully our kids will have something decent by then and at least it won't be entirely up to them to rebuild the world on their own.

tax imports have the potential to protect industries at the expense of global and domestic welfare. not a wise choice.

you will regret ever passing the super-congress . This drama was all about the super congress and you still didn't get a balanced budget.


Game-OVer

If the economy needs a $1bn* injection, taxing the rich is the only logical course of action. The poor spend money. The rich take it out of the economy into their off-shore accounts.

Reagonomics/trickle down just does not work and most are idiots for not seeing that

People who are afraid of income tax are idiots. If income tax was abolished, employers would just reduce your wage such that your take-home was the same. The savings wouldn't go back into the economy, but into the CEO's off-shore.

*an arbitrary number, but any value works

Originally posted by TaxpayersUnleashed
you will regret ever passing the super-congress . This drama was all about the super congress and you still didn't get a balanced budget.


Game-OVer

The game has been over for a long time! It is like when you are playing Super Mario Bros and you pause the game just before your character drops off the screen, you know it's done, but you pause it just in case.

reply to post by CriticalCK

tax imports have the potential to protect industries at the expense of global and domestic welfare. not a wise choice.

Did you bother to read what I wrote???

The FACTS show that 15 years of "Free Trade Agreements" allowing no import taxes have meant the Transnational corporations trashed the economies of the USA, India and Mexico to name just the three I posted links to:
COLEGIO INTERAMERICANO DE DEFENSA
DEPARTAMENTO DE ESTUDIOS
CURSO XXXVIII

NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
library.jid.org...

And
The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation By Dr. Vandana Shiva www.countercurrents.org...
Dr Vandana Shiva, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers[citation needed] in leading scientific and technical journals. She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization, chairs the Commission on the Future of Food, is a member of the Scientific Committee which advises President Zapatero of Spain. from en.wikipedia.org...

There are MANY MANY other studies and articles all show the ONLY winners in the game were the transnationals.

Here is the step by step game plan that caused world wide food riots in 2008

Dan Amstutz was CEO of Cargill and President and CEO of the North American Export Grain Association. Before joining government, Amstutz was a general partner of Goldman, Sachs and Company, the New York investment bank, where he initiated the firm’s commodities trading and futures brokerage businesses.

In 1995, Amstutz as a senior trade negotiator under Clinton, wrote the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture. It got rid of tariffs, opened borders.

Amstutz's role in trade negotiations was just part of the agenda. His next step was to introduce the "Freedom to Farm" legislation of 1996. A seven-year farm program pressuring the US government to move away from its farmer support programs. This end of the US policy of buying and stockpiling grain reserves. The resulting over production of grain flooded the market, causing plunging farm prices. The effects on independent farmers was devastating. U.S. Farmers made up 3.4% of the labor force in 1980 and dropped to 1.9 % by 2002 despite 90% of farmers having outside jobs.

Next was the Biofuel law (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ) and Archer Daniels Midland cleans up big time in the government susidized biofuel business. link and link

This new use of grain caused grain prices to rise but that was only part of the manipulation. Back to our good friend Dan Amstutz and his OTHER employer, Goldman Sachs.

Gramm, head of the CFTC, helped firms such as Goldman Sachs gain influence over the commodity markets. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly. Wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent.

...Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.” Through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied hard and the regulations [controlling agricultural futures contracts] were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into “derivatives” that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in “food speculation” was born. The speculators drove the price through the roof....” www.independent.co.uk...

...Today three companies, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Bunge control the world’s grain trade. Chemical giant Monsanto controls three-fifths of seed production. Unsurprisingly, in the last quarter of 2007, even as the world food crisis was breaking, Archer Daniels Midland’s profits jumped 20%, Monsanto 45%, and Cargill 60%. Recent speculation with food commodities has created another dangerous “boom.” After buying up grains and grain futures, traders are hoarding, withholding stocks and further inflating prices....” www.globalissues.org...

Why is it so hard to see..Tax the wealthiest in the nation..decrease funding to the DoD. Clinton made it work. After Years of trickle down nonsense had us in a similar place in 92. We were so scared we voted for a billionaire coot to the tune of 18%..The Tea party is the current billionaire coot but instead of Clinton's policy we have traitor in chief in office.

And with no regulations added to the bailouts we are headed for more..why would the banks change anything when they know that we have given them carte blanche with our economy.

Peace

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
reply to post by crimvelvet

 

Did it ever occur to you that TPTB are the ones who CREATED the Tea Party? The Tea Party is the brainchild of Fox News. Fox News is the mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch is VERY likely part of TPTB!!! It's just sad when sheeple don't realize that they are being shepherded, and instead think they are being 'original' in their thoughts and actions...

Yup, I only need to think about the cover and marketing FOX gave for Bush's run...

Now the same company and group is protesting the results they helped achieve.

This is why I think the TEA party is the tool of all political tools