Occupy Wall Street: The Movement Grows

[flacaltenn]

Barb:

Why would I want to read the same books that you did if you spout such ignorant crap like...

most of our millionaires didn't get there by hard work and sacrifice.

MOST ALL of our Millionaires are AUTHORS, SPORTS FIGURES, ENTERTAINERS, INVENTORS, and hard working business people.. The tiniest MINORITY of the rich live off of 2nd generation wealth.
Screw your books -- they didn't do you any good..

Link please, and be sure to include ONLY those who weren't rich to begin with. The greatest of those with the most money were trust fund babies from jump.

You're waffling here with a phrase like --"The GREATEST of those with the MOST MONEY... "

That's not what I corrected you on.. You said "MOST of our Millionaires didn't get their by hard work".. That is BLATANTLY false and doesn't require a link.

There's a big diff between between the VOLUME of millionaires and the small elite percentile at the TOP of that bracket which neither You or I should spend our lives sweating about. There are 100s of Thousands of Millionaires. You're worried about 400 people who are 2nd/3rd generation wealth. And even THOSE have a high percentage who are STILL earning it..

 

[Barb]

Barb:

Why would I want to read the same books that you did if you spout such ignorant crap like...



MOST ALL of our Millionaires are AUTHORS, SPORTS FIGURES, ENTERTAINERS, INVENTORS, and hard working business people.. The tiniest MINORITY of the rich live off of 2nd generation wealth.
Screw your books -- they didn't do you any good..

Link please, and be sure to include ONLY those who weren't rich to begin with. The greatest of those with the most money were trust fund babies from jump.

You're waffling here with a phrase like --"The GREATEST of those with the MOST MONEY... "

That's not what I corrected you on.. You said "MOST of our Millionaires didn't get their by hard work".. That is BLATANTLY false and doesn't require a link.

There's a big diff between between the VOLUME of millionaires and the small elite percentile at the TOP of that bracket which neither You or I should spend our lives sweating about. There are 100s of Thousands of Millionaires. You're worried about 400 people who are 2nd/3rd generation wealth. And even THOSE have a high percentage who are STILL earning it..

The top 1% are living tax free while the rest of us pay their freight. We ALL pay more taxes to support them, with less to invest to grow our own wealth because of the tax burden created by their special and untouchable status.

Needs based welfare comprises the tiniest portion of our budget, and people scream about that as if the needy took their favorite blanket, and what any of it actually pays for would make even the hardest of you cringe in shame.

Assuming you had any shame.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Link please, and be sure to include ONLY those who weren't rich to begin with. The greatest of those with the most money were trust fund babies from jump.

You're waffling here with a phrase like --"The GREATEST of those with the MOST MONEY... "

That's not what I corrected you on.. You said "MOST of our Millionaires didn't get their by hard work".. That is BLATANTLY false and doesn't require a link.

There's a big diff between between the VOLUME of millionaires and the small elite percentile at the TOP of that bracket which neither You or I should spend our lives sweating about. There are 100s of Thousands of Millionaires. You're worried about 400 people who are 2nd/3rd generation wealth. And even THOSE have a high percentage who are STILL earning it..

The top 1% are living tax free while the rest of us pay their freight. We ALL pay more taxes to support them, with less to invest to grow our own wealth because of the tax burden created by their special and untouchable status.

Needs based welfare comprises the tiniest portion of our budget, and people scream about that as if the needy took their favorite blanket, and what any of it actually pays for would make even the hardest of you cringe in shame.

Assuming you had any shame.

Can you be any stupider?

Is everyone on the Left: TM, Deany Barb, really THIS stupid?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Mr. Soros is really pissed that you'd say such a thing -- out loud.

I wonder how long before he has one of his hench puppets propose some new law to limit your ability to say such seditious stuff on the interwebz.

You can shut the web down but it will never shut me up.

That's what the SEIU type thugs are for.

I butted heads with some of those pussies they ran like a scared rabbit.

 

[Liability]

You can shut the web down but it will never shut me up.

That's what the SEIU type thugs are for.

I butted heads with some of those pussies they ran like a scared rabbit.

Well, that's a good thing.

 

[flacaltenn]

Link please, and be sure to include ONLY those who weren't rich to begin with. The greatest of those with the most money were trust fund babies from jump.

You're waffling here with a phrase like --"The GREATEST of those with the MOST MONEY... "

That's not what I corrected you on.. You said "MOST of our Millionaires didn't get their by hard work".. That is BLATANTLY false and doesn't require a link.

There's a big diff between between the VOLUME of millionaires and the small elite percentile at the TOP of that bracket which neither You or I should spend our lives sweating about. There are 100s of Thousands of Millionaires. You're worried about 400 people who are 2nd/3rd generation wealth. And even THOSE have a high percentage who are STILL earning it..

The top 1% are living tax free while the rest of us pay their freight. We ALL pay more taxes to support them, with less to invest to grow our own wealth because of the tax burden created by their special and untouchable status.

Needs based welfare comprises the tiniest portion of our budget, and people scream about that as if the needy took their favorite blanket, and what any of it actually pays for would make even the hardest of you cringe in shame.

Assuming you had any shame.

Uh barb: You're not goin' anywhere with those assertions. It defies common sense.

Here's your problem. For the 53% who DO pay the freight, On April 15th, we see our money going to 3 wars, car companies we think stink, education programs that don't educate, energy programs that don't generate energy, stimuli that doesn't stimulate, an growing army of bureaucratic meddlers who meddle and politicians who can't write legislation. We DON'T see those US Treasury checks going to the 400 Billionaires that you are psychotically fixated on..

Now don't you think our time would be better spent AGREEING on ending corporate welfare, ending the abuse of the Soc Sec funding, reforming education, and getting capital to flow towards a 21st Century reconstruction of the American economy?

Or would you rather continue to toss in with the ill-informed rabble on the streets demanding that we just divvy up what's left?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

That's what the SEIU type thugs are for.

I butted heads with some of those pussies they ran like a scared rabbit.

Well, that's a good thing.

It was for me at least.In your signature cain is able? You do realize cain killed able?

 

[flacaltenn]

Link please, and be sure to include ONLY those who weren't rich to begin with. The greatest of those with the most money were trust fund babies from jump.

Are you really stupid enough to believe the bullshit you spew?

Hey Barb, how much of his fortune did billionaire Corporate CEO Steve Jobs inherit? How about Bill Gates? Andrew Grove?

ROFL, the shit you leftists spew...

Funny you don't mention the Rockefellers, Fords, Astors, etc. Don't fit your agenda, Adolf?

Back in the mid 90s there was a Progressive Socialist org that used to take the Forbes 400 list of the richest and break it down into those who started life at "1st base", 2nd base, or Home plate. Even then -- the results often contradicted their socialist claims of "entrenched multi-generational wealth".. They STOPPED doing that detailed analysis -- which is telling in itself -- and instead went back to anectodal horror stories of inherited wealth.

I doubt the link is still good. But the analysis could be reconfirmed.

http://www.ufenet.org/press/archive/forbes_400_study.html

SUMMARY OF RESULTS
We examined both 1995 and recently released information about the 1996
Forbes list. The average of 1995 and 1996 results indicate that:

30.1% Started in the Batters Box -- includes individuals and
families whose parents did not have great wealth or own a business
with more than a few employees.

13.9% Born on First Base -- includes individuals whose
biographies showed signs of a wealthy or upper class background,
but did not apparently have assets of more than $1 million.

5.75% Born on Second Base -- members inherited a small
company or wealth worth more than $1 million, but less than $50
million.

6.85% Born on Third Base -- includes people who inherited
substantial wealth, in excess of $50 million, but not enough to
qualify for membership in the Forbes 400.

43.35% Born on Home Plate -- includes those who inherited
sufficient wealth to rank among Forbes 400.


Between 1995 and 1996, the net worth of the Forbes 400 increased from
just over $500 billion to just under $593 billion -- a gain in net worth of 18
percent. There was a 38% increase in the number of billionaires.

EXAMPLES

Batters Box H. Ross Perot was son of a horse trader and born into a
comfortable but by no means affluent family.
Wayne Huizenga got his start by buying a garbage truck and starting a
waste-hauling company. He took over the 19-store Blockbuster video-rental
chain and built it into an industry leader.

First Base Bill Gates' parents were comfortable professionals and he went
to Harvard University, but quit for better prospects. He got a head start in
life, but the success of his venture did not depend on substantial family
money or assets.
Forest Mars, Sr. took over a small European candy business from his
parents and invented the Milky Way bar.

Second Base Donald Tyson inherited a small company, Tyson Foods,
from his father in 1967 but then built it up into a substantial business.
Poultry magnate Frank Perdue inherited his father's egg farm and hatched
millions in chickens.

Third Base Kenneth Feld inherited Ringling Brothers Circus in 1982 when
it was worth tens of millions but took it to the big top.
Edward Crosby Johnson III inherited Fidelity Investments from his father
but was involved in growing it into the "pace car" of the mutual fund
industry.

Home Plate J. Paul Getty, Jr. inherited the oil fortune from his father.
David Rockefeller is the great grandson of Standard Oil founder John D.
Rockefeller.

In other words -- out of the 400 or so people that all this fuss is about -- 44% of them started out in life with NO appreciable wealth or help. A virtual tribute to the mobility of wealth in this country when almost half of the richest came by wealth by THEIR EFFORTS.
And yet the left think that the 100 or 120 of these that didn't are the LARGEST economic THREAT to the rest of Americans. That's BullShit.. So stuff it and start helping fix the REAL problems..

 

[Dragon]

Here's your problem. For the 53% who DO pay the freight

This is a a lie.

 

[flacaltenn]

Here's your problem. For the 53% who DO pay the freight

This is a a lie.

Look Dragon -- I was beefing about the unfair THEFT of FICA wages from the working poor for YEARS... It was incredibly cruel to turn what should have been "insurance premiums" into a regressive tax into the general fund.

BUT --- FICA taxes ARE insurance premiums. They are SUPPOSED to be UNIVERSAL. And local taxes go predominantly to PUBLIC UNIVERSAL education. Go bitch and moan about the meaning of UNIVERSAL -- but as far as funding the Fed General Fund -- it IS ONLY about 1/2 of taxfilers that contribute anything.

 

[Liability]

I butted heads with some of those pussies they ran like a scared rabbit.

Well, that's a good thing.

It was for me at least.In your signature cain is able? You do realize cain killed able?

Yeah. I do realize that. I don't care, though. It's just a little pun.

Nothing to get worked up over.

 

[Dragon]

All of this discussion about whether the very rich inherited their money or worked for it, and whether they pay any taxes or not, is skewing off on tangents that aren't really relevant.

Most very rich people worked quite hard to get there; definitely NOT in proportion to how much people who make much less work so as to justify their wealth on that basis -- there aren't enough hours in a day for that -- but most did not inherit it all. But so what?

The point of this protest has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that:

1) Wall Street, corporate America, and the rich and powerful have excessive influence over the government that undermines democracy and makes the government serve private greed instead of the public interest.

2) Because of this, the rules of the economic game are set so as to concentrate wealth increasingly over time in a few hands, leaving everyone else with harder and harder circumstances.

The fact that you cannot become one of those few people who are the big winners in such a system by sitting around on your ass is not relevant to that in any way.

 

[Dragon]

BUT --- FICA taxes ARE insurance premiums. They are SUPPOSED to be UNIVERSAL.

In reality, FICA taxes go to pay current Social Security benefits for current beneficiaries. They are not insurance premiums for one simple reason: you can cancel your insurance policy and avoid paying the premiums. You must, by law, pay Social Security taxes.

They are taxes. To discount them and claim on that basis that 53% of taxpayers pay the load for the other 47% who are lazy moochers is a lie.

EDIT: Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing FICA taxes abolished, income taxes raised to compensate, and Social Security be paid out of general funds with equal benefits for everyone. Then, if people who don't pay income taxes now still didn't pay them, you could bitch about that. As it is, stuff it.

 

[flacaltenn]

All of this discussion about whether the very rich inherited their money or worked for it, and whether they pay any taxes or not, is skewing off on tangents that aren't really relevant.

Most very rich people worked quite hard to get there; definitely NOT in proportion to how much people who make much less work so as to justify their wealth on that basis -- there aren't enough hours in a day for that -- but most did not inherit it all. But so what?

The point of this protest has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that:

1) Wall Street, corporate America, and the rich and powerful have excessive influence over the government that undermines democracy and makes the government serve private greed instead of the public interest.

2) Because of this, the rules of the economic game are set so as to concentrate wealth increasingly over time in a few hands, leaving everyone else with harder and harder circumstances.

The fact that you cannot become one of those few people who are the big winners in such a system by sitting around on your ass is not relevant to that in any way.

Some truth to #1 --- but you still have cause and effect bass-ackwards..

#2 is just plain wrong. Because their success is in no way affecting YOUR chances of success. The pie grows ever larger with the GDP. And because our GDP is STALLED, (possibly on purpose since that's a stated goal of the leftists who see growth as "unsustainable, and hurtful to the earth") -- the deflation of the economy is more apparent at the bottom. Nobody NEEDS to aspire to the FOrbes 400. I'll agree to that. Just like nobody really needs to fret all day and march in the streets about it..

 

[flacaltenn]

BUT --- FICA taxes ARE insurance premiums. They are SUPPOSED to be UNIVERSAL.

In reality, FICA taxes go to pay current Social Security benefits for current beneficiaries. They are not insurance premiums for one simple reason: you can cancel your insurance policy and avoid paying the premiums. You must, by law, pay Social Security taxes.

They are taxes. To discount them and claim on that basis that 53% of taxpayers pay the load for the other 47% who are lazy moochers is a lie.

EDIT: Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing FICA taxes abolished, income taxes raised to compensate, and Social Security be paid out of general funds with equal benefits for everyone. Then, if people who don't pay income taxes now still didn't pay them, you could bitch about that. As it is, stuff it.

There's an army of bureaucratics at the SSA who are cooking the Trust FUnd books that would disagree with you. And FDR would WHACK YOU Up the side of your head with his walker for that.

I don't want to see Soc Sec turned into just another entitlement program to be plucked. I want the program to be as FDR conceived it. I'd rather end it then merge it's funding.

And you do too -- because you don't realize the damage that does to crys for NEW UNIVERSAL programs that are for "EVERYONE". People won't buy the UNIVERSAL shit if you bury the accounting for SS and Medicare premiums..

 

[Dragon]

Some truth to #1 --- but you still have cause and effect bass-ackwards..

I don't think so, although I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. There's a libertarian argument that goes that we should stop giving the government power over the economy, because then there would be no motivation for the rich and powerful to corrupt it. But that's wrong. If the government didn't exercise power over the economy, the rich and powerful would want to corrupt it so that it would begin exercising that power on their behalf.

If you meant something else besides that standard libertarian argument, please explain.

#2 is just plain wrong. Because their success is in no way affecting YOUR chances of success. The pie grows ever larger with the GDP

GDP grows faster with a more egalitarian division of wealth. So most of us end up with a smaller piece of a smaller pie, not a smaller piece of a bigger one.

It's not a case of their success affecting my chance of success, but of the same rules that make their success so overwhelming also making my chance of success less. The two go together. Government policies that make it harder to form a labor union, encourage outsourcing, and encourage investment in financial shell games rather than job-creating enterprises, all work to keep wages down, making it harder to achieve a decent living by working at a job. Those same policies reduce business costs and so increase business profit margins. The net effect is to tilt the board so that more of the income goes to the very rich, less to everyone else.

We produce wealth together, collectively, and then divide it up according to a set of rules which are largely set by the government. It's common among conservatives to depict the economic contest as a race, when it's more like a battle.

 

[Dragon]

There's an army of bureaucratics at the SSA who are cooking the Trust FUnd books that would disagree with you. And FDR would WHACK YOU Up the side of your head with his walker for that.

Yeah, he would -- except he's dead. (Did he ever have a walker? I thought it was a wheelchair.)

Setting aside whether his political reasons for doing it that way are still sound, though, the point is that since it's an involuntary program, the funds taken from people to pay for it must be called taxes. And that means that those 47% of the people that this false right-wing meme says pay no taxes, DO pay taxes. They're not paying their Social Security expenses -- they're paying my mother's.

And since they're paying my mother's Social Security benefits, it's totally wrong-headed to suggest that richer people are carrying them while they coast.

 

[Uncensored2008]

This is a a lie.

Dragon, what contribution do you see the Shitters making to society?

Honestly? They don't work, they don't have a coherent message, they aren't effecting any change. What the hell are they good for? Their little "Woodstock" shit-in has no positive affect.

 

[Dragon]

This is a a lie.

Dragon, what contribution do you see [Occupy Wall Street] making to society?

Honestly? They don't work, they don't have a coherent message, they aren't effecting any change.

Many of them do work, they do have a coherent message (I just restated it above), and they most certainly will effect change.

 

[Uncensored2008]

All of this discussion about whether the very rich inherited their money or worked for it, and whether they pay any taxes or not, is skewing off on tangents that aren't really relevant.

Most very rich people worked quite hard to get there; definitely NOT in proportion to how much people who make much less work so as to justify their wealth on that basis -- there aren't enough hours in a day for that -- but most did not inherit it all. But so what?

The point of this protest has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that:

1) Wall Street, corporate America, and the rich and powerful have excessive influence over the government that undermines democracy and makes the government serve private greed instead of the public interest.

Dragon;

Let's say that what you claim is 100% true and accurate.

What has the shit-in done to alter the influence that the rich and powerful have? Isn't Nancy Pelosi, one of the richest people in the nation, still the leader of the fascist democratic party in the house? What have the Shitters done or said to oppose the plutocracy represented by multi-millionaires Pelosi, Reid and Obama?

Show me anything from the Shitters demanding that the wealthy elite, like Barack Obama, recuse themselves from government?

Isn't it a fact that your statement is a hypocritical fraud, and that the left in general, the Shitters in particular, are more about partisanship and don't actually oppose plutocracy?

2) Because of this, the rules of the economic game are set so as to concentrate wealth increasingly over time in a few hands, leaving everyone else with harder and harder circumstances.

I've challenged you repeatedly to substantiate your claim (lie) that people actually ARE in harder circumstances than 1980, or particularly 1960.

You have ducked and weaseled every time.

Isn't a fact that you and the Shitter movement promote a deliberately dishonest message to further a radical left agenda?

The fact that you cannot become one of those few people who are the big winners in such a system by sitting around on your ass is not relevant to that in any way.

Does the fact that you cannot shoot baskets like Kobe Bryant mean that Basketball should be outlawed?

Is your envy and jealousy sufficient to destroy a functional society?