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Far Left or Far Right

Give the choice, who will the American voters choose - the far left or far right ?

  • Far Left

    Votes: 2 10.0%
  • Far Right

    Votes: 18 90.0%

  • Total voters
    20
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RedTemplar

Johnny Joe Combs
Premium Member
now that alone could make for a good discussion! Many scholars now dont believe that Fascism IS to the far right! In many ways its actually more left in its ideology.

The sad fact is that most people do not know the difference between a conservative and a liberal. What is more sad is they do not care.
 

Wingnut

Premium Member
I've heard nothing showing the average value of the houses foreclose on was anywhere near $500k (except the wealthy foreclosures easily eclipse and skew the numbers - I lived in a one room apartment where the average property value was 4$mil because of nearby houses)

What I said was I could have gotten a 500k mortgage but I would have lost it when I got laid off. By NOT living outside my means I had no worries other than eating. Why do we have to teach someone in school that if you make $75k a year you cant afford a house that has payments of 3k a month + food + a rising payment if the intrest rates change + insurance + car? That to me should be common sense! if your paying out more in bills than your getting in you will eventual run out of money and be in trouble!
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
The sad fact is that most people do not know the difference between a conservative and a liberal. What is more sad is they do not care.

I would have the opposite view. I wish they cared less.

With a handful of labels, you can have two men on the street hating each other just by knowing that label. The idea the world can just be divided into two ideas is very traditional, but the root of an extreme number of problems. It's focused on how we can best disagree.
 

Sirius

Registered User
The sad fact is that most people do not know the difference between a conservative and a liberal. What is more sad is they do not care.

Voter apathy is absolutely a big problem and a contributing factor to the polarization. The more polarized the politics gets, the less people care.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
What I said was I could have gotten a 500k mortgage but I would have lost it when I got laid off.!

When the housing hit us - it led to layoffs because faux investments were affected.

In other words, the people who started losing their houses lost them because they were still employed but their payments tripled. The payments tripled, the banks foreclosed, lowering the value of those faux investments, affecting the banks, affecting business credit leading to layoffs.

Why do we have to teach someone in school that if you make $75k a year you cant afford a house that has payments of 3k a month + food + a rising payment if the intrest rates change + insurance + car? That to me should be common sense! if your paying out more in bills than your getting in you will eventual run out of money and be in trouble!

Why not? "Common sense" indicates the vast majority of individuals could explain interest rates and good budgeting and credit scores. Who here thinks most can?

The banks called these risky loans - but they only lost on them when they tripled payments.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
Conservative - helps people with THEIR money

Liberal - Helps people with YOUR money

Conservative - only sees things in terms of money..?

I used to tell people you had to choose between a party focused on civil liberties and one based on your pocket book.

It's asinine that any of these principles are dedicated to one party over another. In reality, only the extremists of any side are. If you left these labels aside and discussed public education, health, defense. A lot more can be done.

Right now it's an industry to demonize. Blogs and radio have openly discussed that they can only succeed when there is an active enemy. That's why they become more and more shrill and try to reduce complex policies to a single label that will lead to hatred of your fellow American.
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
Conservative - only sees things in terms of money..?

i understand where they come from. when you say "only money" i say, "only?"

"money" is not simple paper, or numbers in a bank account. it is a transitory medium allowing you to turn your hard work, blood, sweat, and tears into something else. without it, all you have is your hard work, with which most of us nowadays would surely perish.

that being said, i just responded to your use of the word "only," not really any other part. i'm pigeon picking, i suppose.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
"money" is not simple paper, or numbers in a bank account. it is a transitory medium allowing you to turn your hard work, blood, sweat, and tears into something else. without it, all you have is your hard work, with which most of us nowadays would surely perish.

Yeah, that can be the case. Or I can work hard for the right company and get massive more amounts for failure (as we are seeing now and has been a historical trend) or I can inherit some and work a little and fail into more money.

I get it, but it's disturbing when people ignore every other issue because millionaires got taxed some.
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
Or I can work hard for the right company and get massive more amounts for failure.
and i would say that because you fulfilled a contract, you get every bit of it. no man has the right to take away more from you because of how they perceive the job was done, unless it was in the contract, and then only the people involved have that right.

a dismissal as "got taxed some" isn't really accurate, i don't believe, either. when we're talking 39% federal income tax (after the GWB tax-cuts expire), then another 8.5% because of medicare/social security/etc, then whatever the state takes, you're left with around half. then you get sales taxes, title taxes, property taxes... "some" doesn't seem to accurately describe the whole story.

regardless, it's extremely clear that for a republic to function, a law must be appropriated equally... effect all people equally. this is reflected in debates about civil rights. you simply cannot make a law that treats people differently.
 
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drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
and i would say that because you fulfilled a contract, you get every bit of it. no man has the right to take away more from you because of how they perceive the job was done, unless it was in the contract, and then only the people involved have that right.

I agree - and bonuses have been recorded for years to be paid out regardless of performance. And they have been expanding extremely far beyond the wages of average workers. The "bonus" complaint only recently coalesced but has been tracked for year.
It has moved from a performance based system to a system of a bunch of guys taking care of each other.

a dismissal as "got taxed some" isn't really accurate, i don't believe, either. when we're talking 39% federal income tax (after the GWB tax-cuts expire), then another 8.5% because of medicare/social security/etc, then whatever the state takes, you're left with around half. then you get sales taxes, title taxes, property taxes... "some" doesn't seem to accurately describe the whole story.

I think my "some" is the idea of the shifts creating such drastic reactions. The rich's tax rates are about to go back before GWB. How many of the middle class and unemployed protesting taxes are affected by that?

This is another economic trend preceding the current recession not talked about
"While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent."
"The analysis by the two professors showed that the top 10 percent of Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

"A recently released research paper from the University of California shows that in 2007, the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages – nearly twice as much as in 2000. The top 10 percent of American earners pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that, according to the research paper, “is higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of the stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.”"
http://www.carrborocitizen.com/main/2009/09/03/was-2000-2007-the-u-s-’s-new-gilded-age-try-platinum/
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
I agree - and bonuses have been recorded for years to be paid out regardless of performance. And they have been expanding extremely far beyond the wages of average workers. The "bonus" complaint only recently coalesced but has been tracked for year.
It has moved from a performance based system to a system of a bunch of guys taking care of each other.


I think my "some" is the idea of the shifts creating such drastic reactions. The rich's tax rates are about to go back before GWB. How many of the middle class and unemployed protesting taxes are affected by that?

This is another economic trend preceding the current recession not talked about
"While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent."
"The analysis by the two professors showed that the top 10 percent of Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

"A recently released research paper from the University of California shows that in 2007, the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages – nearly twice as much as in 2000. The top 10 percent of American earners pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that, according to the research paper, “is higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of the stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.”"
http://www.carrborocitizen.com/main/2009/09/03/was-2000-2007-the-u-s-’s-new-gilded-age-try-platinum/
okay, but we still have no right to tax them. those companies moving from a performance based system to a bunch of guys taking care of each other are failing, and were bailed out.

no matter how much you tax "the rich," they will get it back. they aren't rich because they are lucky, they are rich because they know how to make money. take it away from them, and they'll just take it back.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
no matter how much you tax "the rich," they will get it back. they aren't rich because they are lucky, they are rich because they know how to make money. take it away from them, and they'll just take it back.

Yep - which is about every argument I hear from them. If you do that, we'll do X which will punish you.
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
Yep - which is about every argument I hear from them. If you do that, we'll do X which will punish you.
i don't think them "taking their money back after being taken from them" is punishment.

if anything is punishment, i think it's the punishment for being more successful. "if you earn a ton of money, i'm going to tax you more" = punishment.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
i don't think them "taking their money back after being taken from them" is punishment.

But that is how it is blatantly phrased. If you do X, we will retain our growing profits no matter what. It's happening with credit card reform. Companies are being forced to have fairer dealings, but that means loss of profits.

if anything is punishment, i think it's the punishment for being more successful. "if you earn a ton of money, i'm going to tax you more" = punishment.

I think that's a simplification too. The wealth disparity numbers I posted aren't small. You have to wonder whose earnings were squelched first in our current cycle.
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
But that is how it is blatantly phrased. If you do X, we will retain our growing profits no matter what. It's happening with credit card reform. Companies are being forced to have fairer dealings, but that means loss of profits.
so, "if you make more money, I'm going to take a higher percentage" isn't punishment?

I think that's a simplification too. The wealth disparity numbers I posted aren't small. You have to wonder whose earnings were squelched first in our current cycle.

so we can agree that it's a cycle, then?
 

Wingnut

Premium Member
Graduated Taxes are a disincentive to work and produce. The way things are now and the taxes we pay, I would actually make MORE money if my wife stopped working and went on the dole. I have no incentive to take a raise or bonus because it raises me up to a newer and higher tax bracket.


Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.[8]
 
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