If Bernie Sanders is president the amount in additional taxes I would pay equals a new Honda Civic

a reply to: burdman30ott6

What's that about appearing to take a hit?

I am not familiar with that. The wealthy have never had a better time than they have been having while I have been alive. Meanwhile, the middle is shrinking anyway, and the poor are only getting poorer in relative terms to the cost of living, so the issue you seem to be afraid of, is actually happening anyway, with a broken or breaking middle, a screwed bottom end, but a smashing and infinitesimally small top.

And by the way, any American company looking to move out because things got to hot for them, was obviously run by scum. Decent, patriotic persons, pay more attention to the needs of the many, than they do the needs of the few, more to what they can achieve for their nations sake, than what it can achieve for them. That is why, assuming that big business owners are better than their past behaviour would lead us to believe, I would expect no one to be leaving the country, and for prices not to be ideologically driven up for no reason, other than to ensure the exercise fails.

This is not about control. This is about maintaining the stability of a deeply unfair, skewed, and tilted system, which has threatened to totally capsize more than enough times to warrant some stern tiller work to bring it back even.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

any business that is paying their own employees so little that they are eligible for that obama phone, enough food stamps to cover a fraction of their grocery bill, and to have their rent partially subsidize while their upper management are getting huge paychecks and bonuses and their stockholders dividends, has no business griping about the money that is being given out for that obama phone, especially if that business expects to be able to get a hold of the employee at a moment's notice hoping for to come in and fill in for a sick coworkers, or anything else for that matter!! they are a good part of the problem. heck, the best way for a business owner to reduce the amount of goodies that the gov't is giving away IS TO PAY THEIR OWN EMPLOYEES ENOUGH THAT THEY DON'T QUALIFY FOR THESE PROGRAMS!

a reply to: TrueBrit

I keep saying it...in the not-so-distant future, the wealth will be in the hands of a few. (as there is only so much)

These insanely wealthy folks will live in pleasure domes, serviced by robots and AI's. There will be no middle class.

You will either be dirt poor, begging for whatever scraps the wealthy toss out, or you will be the one tossing the scraps. There will be no in-between.



The world will become literally black and white. Abject poverty with no hope or chance of upward mobility, or dynastic wealth for generations.

It used to be that even the wealthy needed limo drivers and groundskeepers. With the advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, the poor will become nothing but a disease to these wealthy people. I wouldn't be surprised if being poor becomes a crime someday.

a reply to: matafuchs

That article has already been debunked. It's spin.
www.dailykos.com...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Being poor used to be a crime.

You could have your kids taken and forced to work around dangerous machinery in a workhouse, you yourself would be sent to a debtors prison, or forced into unpaid labour, and I mean LABOUR, big heavy loads carried, rocks smashed, the like.

That was back before people realised en masse that the vast majority of people have no agency in their fate, that their birth decides next to everything, and sought to start to change that circumstance. The work is not finished and if things keep up the way they are, a return to that time will be on the cards.

a reply to: TrueBrit

The movement is negative. That is to say that the number of dollars may be up, but the number of dollars relative to the cost of living is not, and in many cases is down for everyone, except the top earners, who walk away with an even greater share than ever, of what money is to be made.

But the standard of that living has gone up as well. If you want a lower cost of living, you'll also need a lower standard of living. That may involve moving, getting rid of luxuries, and so on. I've seen self-proclaimed poor people with two-televisions, two-cars, air-conditioning etc.

I understand the discontent, but then again I do not see the enemies of economic inequality going out, creating wealth, paying good wages, giving opportunities, or changing anything. I also refuse to treat the poor and workers like inert matter, wholly innocent, who are destined to be passive and acted upon and exploited by others. The employee/employer relationship is a partnership, involving choices between two-parties, not one. There are no chains there. With the right choices, the right planning, the time, one can lift himself out of the worst poverty.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I keep saying it...in the not-so-distant future, the wealth will be in the hands of a few. (as there is only so much)

And every time you say it you're wrong. There have been rich and poor for thousands and thousands of years. The only thing that is different between earlier times and now is the opportunities for the poor have risen, and it isn't out of the ordinary for a poor person to achieve great wealth. Take Oprah Winfrey for example. Born to a single-mother who was a maid. She was born into poverty.

I love all the "I wanna be taxed more" people.

They act like giving money to the largest and most wasteful government ever devised is somehow charity.

That if they just take it from "the other guy" that it is somehow more just.

Why are we penalizing success?

Let me just leave this here. It's a video about what life in socialist Venezuela is like. This is where we are headed if we aren't careful and we let our pockets get picked.

But it looks like everyone here is equal. Equally miserable.

a reply to: ketsuko

What I have never understood is why people want to give up their hard earned money to a bureaucratic entity that is known for fraud and waste ? youtu.be... which deals with just the defense department and its' money which disappears yearly. Just think about all the other fraud and waste we read about with other departments..

a reply to: projectvxn

Why are we penalizing success?

Envy.

If your taxes go up because of a Sanders presidency then you have no right to complain about it. You earn more than enough.

a reply to: Ohanka

Really? Just exactly is "more than enough" in your opinion. Give me an amount please. For a family of three.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

The right choices?

When was the last time you met a regular guy who could plan anything on an empty stomach worth a crap? When was the last time you met a person working three jobs who had the time to do anything except sleep? When your choices are to either work like a machine if you are lucky, or get evicted, which is the right one? When your choices are such that you either eat today, or heat your home, which is correct? Lights on to save medical bills from trips and slips, or lights off to save power?

That's real world stuff. Actual life. That is the situation for hard working people, and those who have already done a lifetime of hard graft, and had their futures stolen by banking collapses they had no control over. You can make all the right choices given the information you have, but that does not mean jack unless you happen to be fantastically lucky in reality.

a reply to: ketsuko

Unless you are earning MORE THAN $250,000 per year, your taxes will not go up.
$250,000 for a family of three is more than enough.

a reply to: ketsuko

umm...russia went through something much similar, of course the US played a role in that didn't they??
wonder how much money we wasted helping bring about Venezuela's problems...

a reply to: dawnstar

ketsuko doesn't want to understand the difference between Communist Dictatorships and Democratic Socialism.
She's been given dozens of sources proving that she is wrong, but she persists.....in thread after thread......
spewing disinfo and ludicrous lies.

It's called trolling and willful ignorance in the wide world of the webz.

originally posted by: projectvxn
I love all the "I wanna be taxed more" people.

They act like giving money to the largest and most wasteful government ever devised is somehow charity.

That if they just take it from "the other guy" that it is somehow more just.

Why are we penalizing success?

And I love the irony of people who support the corruption and greed of the richest people in the world.

It's like some kind of weird Stockholm Syndrome, where the victim of abuse defends their abuser. It's like a beaten wife defending her scum of a husband.

Or maybe it's some kind of misguided hope, born out of being lied to and told a bunch of rubbish/myths that yes -- they do, if they work really, really REALLY hard and the stars align in just the right way...they too can be just like the richest people in the world!

It's no surprise the wealthiest people want to keep themselves at the top, and have systematically brainwashed the masses into complacency -- convincing them to vote themselves into bondage and keep themselves "poor for their own good".

If you're at the top, you'll do/say whatever you need to in order to stay there.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Wrong argument. I grew up like that, with my Dad working his ass off. I also worked myself through high school and college, hard work doing fun stuff like picking onions and breaking down starters and alternators in a 140-degree quonset hut shop with no ventilation. Ate a lot of Ramen, a lot of beans, and a lot of game meat. No welfare, either... unless you county county extension office at-cost huge blocks of cheese, gallon tubs of peanut butter, and 50lb burlap sacks of pinto beans "welfare."

There are reasons I advocate a world where people STFU, put their head down, bend their back and work their own way out of whatever *ahem* "less fortunate" (a stupid term which anyone who has ever actually earned a day's wages should find extremely codescending and insulting.) situation they find themselves in. Can anybody do it? Absolutely. Will everybody do it? Nope. Is that my problem? Not in the least.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: dawnstar

ketsuko doesn't want to understand the difference between Communist Dictatorships and Democratic Socialism.
She's been given dozens of sources proving that she is wrong, but she persists.....in thread after thread......
spewing disinfo and ludicrous lies.

It's called trolling and willful ignorance in the wide world of the webz.

Wait, Ketsuko is a she? I thought Teikiatsu was the she, and Ketsuko was the he?

Now I'm all confused.

Oh well, it matters not what gender someone is when it comes to the issue of taxes and social responsibility.