Do You "Deserve" To Keep Your Own Money?
Krieg
Everyone, Registered Users Posts: 5,068
Saw this while reading...
"The most important thing we have to do right now is hold the line for the tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires who, frankly, do not need the extra cash." That is according to Joe Biden's chief economic dogwasher, Jared Bernstein.
Isn't it amazing how these people go back to the Communist Manifesto time after time after time? Not that our children are going to learn this in today's government schools, but "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is a basis tenant of communist philosophy ... and when you talk about taking money away from "millionaires and billionaires" who "do not need the extra cash" you're parroting the "to each according to their needs" mantra.
Then we had Governor Tim Kaine talking on Fox News Channel talking about who "deserves" a tax cut. Interesting thought, don't you think? You go out and earn the money, then the government decides whether or not you "deserve" to keep it. Are you people ready to accept that idea?
Apparently the prevailing thought in the White House is that this extra $700 billion over the next 10 years is going to make or break our economy. Question .. if the Obama/Biden stimulus of $878 billion wasn't able turn the tide of our economy, why are they expecting this "extra cash" to make the difference? Besides ... the extending the middle class Bush tax cuts will "cost" the economy about $2 trillion .. and that's quite a bit more than the tax cut for the high achievers is going to cost. Besides .. how many jobs are the middle class taxpayers going to create?
Bernstein continues .. "Anyone who thinks that these tax cuts for our millionaires and billionaires costing $700 billion over 10 years -- we we're just talking about the importance of that long-term budget under control. This is a great way to lose control of that and if you think an extension of one or two years is going to hold, I think that is very misguided political thinking." Oh .. so now it seems that "long term budget controls" according to the Obama administration is NOT reducing federal spending, it seems to be making sure that the rich are funding their imperial federal government. THAT is what this administration sees as the solution to long-term budget controls.
Bernstein goes on to say, "It's a waste of money at a critical time." Do you hear that? Allowing people to keep money they work for and earn is a "waste." And what is NOT wasting money? Well ... how about using the money these evil rich people earn to fund a genital-washing program in Africa! That's right .. we need $800,000 of your money so that some kook professor at UCLA can study and teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. Now THAT is what the government calls stimulation!
Something else to keep in mind. Democrats refuse to recognize that when you allow these evil, disgusting rich people to keep their own money that cast doesn't just disappear. They spend it. They invest it. Spending that money creates jobs through increased consumer demand. Investing that money in new businesses or business expansion creates jobs. It's a cinch these producers aren't going to spend the money on a weenie washing program in Africa.
"The most important thing we have to do right now is hold the line for the tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires who, frankly, do not need the extra cash." That is according to Joe Biden's chief economic dogwasher, Jared Bernstein.
Isn't it amazing how these people go back to the Communist Manifesto time after time after time? Not that our children are going to learn this in today's government schools, but "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is a basis tenant of communist philosophy ... and when you talk about taking money away from "millionaires and billionaires" who "do not need the extra cash" you're parroting the "to each according to their needs" mantra.
Then we had Governor Tim Kaine talking on Fox News Channel talking about who "deserves" a tax cut. Interesting thought, don't you think? You go out and earn the money, then the government decides whether or not you "deserve" to keep it. Are you people ready to accept that idea?
Apparently the prevailing thought in the White House is that this extra $700 billion over the next 10 years is going to make or break our economy. Question .. if the Obama/Biden stimulus of $878 billion wasn't able turn the tide of our economy, why are they expecting this "extra cash" to make the difference? Besides ... the extending the middle class Bush tax cuts will "cost" the economy about $2 trillion .. and that's quite a bit more than the tax cut for the high achievers is going to cost. Besides .. how many jobs are the middle class taxpayers going to create?
Bernstein continues .. "Anyone who thinks that these tax cuts for our millionaires and billionaires costing $700 billion over 10 years -- we we're just talking about the importance of that long-term budget under control. This is a great way to lose control of that and if you think an extension of one or two years is going to hold, I think that is very misguided political thinking." Oh .. so now it seems that "long term budget controls" according to the Obama administration is NOT reducing federal spending, it seems to be making sure that the rich are funding their imperial federal government. THAT is what this administration sees as the solution to long-term budget controls.
Bernstein goes on to say, "It's a waste of money at a critical time." Do you hear that? Allowing people to keep money they work for and earn is a "waste." And what is NOT wasting money? Well ... how about using the money these evil rich people earn to fund a genital-washing program in Africa! That's right .. we need $800,000 of your money so that some kook professor at UCLA can study and teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. Now THAT is what the government calls stimulation!
Something else to keep in mind. Democrats refuse to recognize that when you allow these evil, disgusting rich people to keep their own money that cast doesn't just disappear. They spend it. They invest it. Spending that money creates jobs through increased consumer demand. Investing that money in new businesses or business expansion creates jobs. It's a cinch these producers aren't going to spend the money on a weenie washing program in Africa.
Comments
To expect the ones that don't pay taxes to receive the most money is like expecting someone to go to Wal-Mart and refund a plasma TV that they never bought.
You obviously believe that people (rich and poor alike) should keep their money and should not be subjected to being over taxed. Sounds good. You made claims about who does or does not provide jobs for people. Assumably rich folk employ people and middle income earners do not. HOWEVER, presently in the US most major companies are cash rich, right now while things look so bleak in the US economy. The reason for this build up of cash is that these cash rich companies are in fact laying people off and not re-investing in what they consider a fragile, worrisome economy.
The fact is Kreig, most rich folk DO NOT invest their own money. They invest other peoples money and banking institutons' money. The problem being is that this source of cash has dried up for the most part. Why? because everyone is holding on to their precious dollars, because they are not willing to risk losing their money.
I know the points you were making, and I don't disagree with all of them, but I do think it's a little bit off course to make some of those claims. The truth of the matter is that rich folk know it is not a smart thing to risk your own money. Do it with someone else's money and if things go wrong, you can claim bankruptcy and carry on. The rich DO NOT drive the economy as much as small business and individuals. As long as people buy into the bigger is better theory, these huge MULTINATIONAL companies will continue to get more then their fair share of the pie.
As for you guy's and your relentless attack on O'bama and his administration, it is getting old. O'bama has inherited every failure of the Bush administration and in the eye's of many these have become things of his making. Revisionist history seems to run rampant in certain political circles. These people have taken the tact that " a lie told enough times becomes a truth", and thus we are left with half facts and partial truths to try and paint a picture of the present president.
It's funny. I have noticed in the past that when a Republican wins the presidency, for the most part all Americans (democrats too) seem to accept that and support him as the president if not his policies. However when a Democrat is elected president the Republican side do nothing but constantly whinning and looking for ways to drive the edge of the wedge of division into every arguement. It too get's old real quickly. The same sort of tactics are used in Canada by the Conservative party. These tactics only work on the people who don't know any better because they fail to educate themselves as to what is really going on, and instead rely on unreliable sources for this information.
Link? Here ya go:
CNN, PoliticsDaily, CBS, and The Tax Foundation support this statistic:
- CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes/who_pays_taxes/index.htm
- PolitcsDaily: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/15/income-tax-why-70-million-americans-dont-pay-uncle-sam-a-dime/
- CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/15/politics/otherpeoplesmoney/main4945874.shtml
- Tax Foundation: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/542.html
Of couse, in the spirit of fairness, I'll include the only source I could find that disagrees: Alternet.
Alternet, which according to Wikipedia is a progressive news source that advocates for social justice, says the claim is false
- Wikipedia article about Alternet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternet
- Alternet news: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/13/fox-and-drudge-sucker-tea-partiers-with-a-big-lie-about-taxes/
So who do you believe?
second, yes, the cash has dried up because people are afraid to invest in this economy. i agree that they dont want to lose more than they already have. not only that, people are afraid of the unknown. right now there are a TON of unknowns: how the health care bill will impact business, potential for cap and trade, potential tax increases, are the bush tax cuts going to be extended? ...etc...
its not a good climate to invest in. too may things could go wrong.
it wasnt getting old to the republicans when bush was getting attacked?
sorry, Obama is a politician. he will always get attacked. nobody cares if it is "getting old"
in fact, thats kinda how being president works. and blaming bush isnt getting old? Obama is half way through a presidential term. isnt it time he took even a little responsibility?
i also find it interesting that Bush got attacked for Guantanimo bay, the Patriot act, the war in Iraq, the was in Afganistan, the tax cuts, and many other policies.
then Obama ran on change
The bay is still open, the patriot act is still enforced just the same, the strategy in Iraq used to "win" it in the eyes of Obama was Bush's, we are still in Afganistan, and i have heard rumors of extending the tax cuts.
attack bush but uphold his policy... interesting. whats funny is that the other side sees it just the opposite.
i have seen it on both sides. there were plenty of pictures of Bush being burned, dolls dressed like him being hanged, pictures of bush with Hitler mustaches drawn on them, attacks from the house and senate...
wanna talk Revisionist history?
how about we start there?
again, like i said above: sorry, (insert politicians name here) is a politician. he will always get attacked. nobody cares if it is "getting old"
in fact, thats kinda how being (insert office here) works.
the two sides bicker. ok. thats nothing new. why bicker about bickering when we can bicker about policy? thats much more fun anyway.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/09/14/whs_bernstein_millionaires_dont_need_the_extra_cash.html
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198
as I recall, Bush was attached vicisously during his 2 terms, calling him a nazi, hilter, etc. I on the other hand have never called obama anything like that. I have always tried to present factual arguments. Not something based on emotions. In my experience with debating Leftists, when they no longer can debate you factually, they resort to calling you names. If my "attacks" are getting old Laker, then don't read my posts.
The PrezBo has now been in Office for 2 years, The DEMOCRATS have been in control of House (where spending bills originate) now for 4. Obama passed a "Stimulus" bill spending over 800 Trillion dollars promising unemployment wouldn't go above 8%. He passed Obamacare(which American businesses are scared to death of), son of stimulus, grandson of stimulus..I could go on and on. My point is this, at what point does Obama take responsibility for the legislation he has passed and the state of the economy ?
I won't defend for one moment the insanity of the Democrats, insisting that people with no skin in the game be provided with an opportunity to buy housing, in fact, basically this move somewhat resembled a stick-up, gun to the head, give these people who haven't worked for it some money they can screw away, but somehow we need to pay our bills, and governments pay bills by taxing. Forgive me if I don't give this quote word for word, but: "...from those to whom much is given, much will be expected".
The greatest wisdom I see in the comments above mine is the importance of the middle class, and the small businesses, these are indeed our backbone, and they are indeed suffering under undue burden, in my opinion. Small business taxes are a monster that is eating the heart out of our country. They are cumbersome, confusing, and above all, unfair!
But, let's not forget the stories the papers used to run, back during Clinton's bid for office, about 9 figure bosses paying less in taxes than their 5 figure secretaries. No single person NEEDs a five-hundred million dollar income, or any hundred million a year income, do they?
Next thing you know, on TV you hear about a new witch hunt against somone who was "trying to game the system".
I tell ya what boys - I love my country, but I grieve for it....
I must admit that I would kind of like to see some sort of virtue exercised at the upper echelons of our corporate structure, wherein those who have the most restrict their personal take of the collective labors of their enterprise to some reasonable ratio. I'd be happy somewhere in the fifty to one, even seventy five to one. I want the people who can put these things together to be rewarded, and well.
My point is that I believe in capitalism, because it works. It takes the weaknesses inherent in human beings into account. This, of course, is why communism doesn't work, and socialism fails. Our current situation, however, is that our leaders have caused us to become a debtor nation, that doesn't produce what it consumes, whose economy is built on artifices. This is a recipe for disaster, and if we don't find a way to pay our way out of it, the historical alternative has always been that such nations fight their way out, and they ALWAYS think they'll win and go on, but this is not so.
A second note, Puro, I understand your aversion to my use of the word morality. The slippery slope isn't usually very far behind, is it? I guess what I'm referring to is just the kind of situations where the powerful rig the game, take advantage, etc. It is certainly an area for caution when attempting to regulate behavior, or commerce, for that matter.
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?
"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil? "Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money? "Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. "Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.
"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.
"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.
"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."
Kudo's if anyone reads the entire thing.