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"I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." ~ C. S. Lewis (Yes, even politics)
In loving memory of Mr. Z
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35 comments:
That's an excellent essay by Mr. Z. I did leave a comment and a few questions.
This is the comment I left there. (it truly was a good post) "Nice post, truly. Here's the only possible scenario as I see it. The federal government was a creation of the states. All power is granted through them. That power must be taken back by the states. Several states, my Oklahoma included, have passed 10th Amendment Resolutions tellng the government to cease and desist usurpation of states' rights.
These resolutions must be given teeth by threat of government reformation. There are already rumbles in the lone star state that have spooked the statists in D.C.. If more states start raising hell, then the government will either bend their necks to the will of the people or it will take the steps that will transfer us from a soft tyranny to a hard tyranny.
At least then they will be honest in their course. (sorry I don't have a rosy outlook on this, but I call it as I see it.)"
Bravo, well done
Wow, what a great blog. And I thank you for writing it. .If you look at the way Obama beams at those America haters you would see that ..Rush is right..Obama believes he will make our "evil country" into a socialist utopia that these demagogues will admire. Obama, Ortega, Rev Wright, Chavez, Castro and Louis Farrakhan are all cut from the same hate America cloth..
great post, put in informative layman's terms. thanks for sharing this mr. z.
Great essay Mr. Z! I am truly impressed.
Z could you email please. zeevadaveed@gmail.com -- no biggie, just a question of sorts!!!!
Shalom
i need mr. z to sit in at my blog, it can use a decent writer as well!!!
I do enjoy his completely inaccurate tax facts. Just for the record folks, the tax burden across quintiles is becoming more uniform.
Mr. Z uses taxes when he knows full well he means income taxes (not SSI, sales etc.). Quite deceitful.
Coming soon. Since the far right political philosophy is based on the idea of original sin (I don't know if I disagree) we will discuss why the right thinks only government and not corporations are subject to this original deficiency.
It should take only a couple of paragraphs to demonstrate you can't follow a thought to its conclusions and your whole political edifice is built on a massive inconsistency.
Far right reactionaries - like shooting fish in a barrel.
Ducky: I normally don't comment on your remarks, but feel obliged to do that in this case.
It is obvious that it is income tax which is meant here, because the combined number of all taxes is not easily available and goes beside the point. What people feel directly is the income tax. And I do have my facts right.
In fact, the most significant number - worth repeating - is that the 10% of taxpayers with the highest income (who, BTW, earn 40% of the total income) pay 72.8% of all income tax. No other country has such unbalance (no, even not Germany). So what will the Obama plan do? It will increase the 72.8% (so the 10% of tax payers will pay an even larger share), and the people who do not pay income tax at all will rise to 49%. No other country has such an unjustified unbalance (no, even not Germany).
But here comes the pinnacle of injustice, and the reason why socialism is the recipe for disaster: Those 49% of the people who don't pay income taxes basically determine what those people have to pay who support them through their taxes. As predicted already by the old Greeks, society will go down when people only vote for those people who give them most. We are at that point.
Read my lips: Unless this idiocy on the way to a banana republic just like the current Venezuela is stopped, two things may happen in this country: (1) A revolution of those people who have had it with people reaching into their pockets, and/or (2) people and/or companies will leave the country in droves (just as it is happening in Venezuela as we speak).
In this sense, the brotherly handshake between Obama and Chavez made sense since it was from one despot to the other of banana republics at the same level.
Mr.Z
I like Ducks, stuffed and baked. :)
That wasn't nice. Should I delete it? Naaah.
I left a comment on Mr. Z's excellent post, Z. You are married to a brilliant man. :)
excellent post, mr. z - brilliant man indeed!
In fact, the most significant number - worth repeating - is that the 10% of taxpayers with the highest income (who, BTW, earn 40% of the total income) pay 72.8% of all income tax.
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So what? That is simply a statement of fact.
Is there some cogent reason people should not pay income tax in some reasonable proportion to the percentage of the nations assets they control?
Give me some kind of economic argument instead of some piece of libertarian dogma.
Come on, let's have your best game.
Then we'll go on to why deficit spending under Obama is socialism but under St. Ronnie Raygun, well:
"Raygun taught us that decficits don't matter".
--- Unca Dick Cheney.
Best game, let's go.
"Blogger Ducky's here said...
In fact, the most significant number - worth repeating - is that the 10% of taxpayers with the highest income (who, BTW, earn 40% of the total income) pay 72.8% of all income tax.
-------------------------
So what? That is simply a statement of fact."
YOu just don't get it, do you. They pay the most but they'll be having nothing left soon. But, America will be fine. Ya, you just DO NOT get it.
But, you keep slugging.
We'll have no country left in short enough time. You should be rejoicing, as you so willingly identified yourself as a socialist here, in those words, 3 weeks ago. You're almost there, Ducky.
Congratulations.
You just don't get it, do you. They pay the most but they'll be having nothing left soon.
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There you go, over the high side again.
That your best game?
You are aware that the income discrepancy has been tracking radically in favor of the uppermost decile for over twenty years, no?
Ducky, you still aren't getting it. The point is this, if you keep taking from those that produce, you take away their ability and motivation to expand and create.
Your point of view is apparently that the Government should be able to tell each and every person that works hard to become successful what he or she should be able to keep. That is fundamentally wrong. The right to a persons wealth and property is as fundamental to why this nation was concieved as the rights to free speech and religion.
If the government keeps confiscating wealth, then those that have will stop expansion and economic deterioration will be the result.
Is that a little clearer than some libertarian dogma?
Great post Mr. Z. You make clear what's being done to America, and the ramifications thereof. Great job.
Pris
Greywolfe, it's like Ducky's here for comic relief anymore.
But, we need to keep hoping he learns.
Pris, I'm glad you enjoyed the piece..if you can say it's ENJOYABLE, right!?
Greywolfe, nearly the entire growth in GDP over the last decade was generated by bad paper in the financial sector.
THEY PRODUCED NOTHING BUT A PONZI SCHEME. Trillions dissipated and you don't call that economic deterioration? Trashing the world banking system isn't economic deterioration? What page are you on?
I get it just fine. Trickle down supply side is OVER, IT DID NAUGHTY IN ITS PANTS.
So right away we have a disconnect. Here a group of people stole immense amounts and you see them as innocent victims, interesting.
At any rate, government fiscal policy is necessary for the growth of the nation. Government often undertakes capital projects that benefit some disproportionately. Capitalists have always been in league with government to see that those projects are undertaken.
Yet you somehow feel a progressive tax is immoral? Sorry, that needs more explanation.
Used to be that traditional American values (if the right can remember them) were built around community banking and industry and we prospered pretty well. Now we have to deal with the catastrophe brought about by the very people you seek to defend, people who's values are at odds with community in America. Yet you defend them.
My guess is that you have invested so much in this supply side nonsense that you can't admit its utter failure. Just as you know that "liberal" is no longer a word of primary potency and you have to dial up to the more provocative "socialist".
Me, I'm just watching the death throes of the far right. You failed, you were wrong and you ain't going to get anyone to buy that supply side silliness again.
Greywolfe, you are aware that currently your high flying boys on Wall Street are broke, aren't you?
How can they spend anything? They're broke.
The consumer is broke. Kapital dropped the price of his house 25 - 40 percent and he can't pay off the credit cards.
Now who is there left to do any spending and why is government spending less effective than say additional consumer debt?
How can KAPITAL spend until their friends in government make them whole again?
Now as far as I can tell, we are GIVING money to the capitalist pukes that did boom-boom all over the economy. No? Then what's TARP all about?
Just how is anything but the risk that is supposed to be attendant to capitalist activity being taken from them?
Let me know when you can make a consistent argument.
Then what's TARP all about?It's about political payback.
Not exactly Elmer, but you can be sure that Bubbles Summers and Timmy Taxes aren't looking out for your interests.
No different than it would have been if the mentally ill Little Napoleon, McCain had won.
Ducky, when you're honest enough to bash your left, I feel there's hope for you here at geeez. I don't know how many times I can ask you to stop the really belittling stuff; nobody here deserves it and it only makes you look even more pompous than usual.
I wasn't a fan of McCain's, either...You think it was fun for most of us to root for someone like him only because we knew obama could only be worse?
Everyone here makes 'consistent arguments'...consistency does not rely on your understanding or appreciation of the information.
No different than it would have been if the mentally ill Little Napoleon, McCain had won.but all you have is speculation.
Mr.Z,
Very good article. Too bad we have to listen to the meanderings of someone who refuses to see the specious nature of his arguments.
Tax cuts must be accompanied by corresponding budget cuts. Pretty simple really. Economics is not really that difficult. The government must stop spending money it doesn't have. Printing more is making matters worse.
The Weimar Republic suffered from hyperinflation and collapsed because they continued to print money without value. The government shouldn't run any differently than a business or a family. Common sense says you cannot continue to fine people people who are productive. Once taxes become prohibitive production will fall. Human beings are driven by a profit motive. Without that, production doesn't make sense. The Soviet Union proved that.
I'm going to open another beer and drink it while I sit in my underwear and watch NASCAR.
Z,yes it is enjoyable to read clear thinking and Mr. Z's ability to get his points across without any mumbo jumbo.
Clarity is always a good thing.
Pris
Thanks, L&0 and Pris....your opinions are highly valued.
Elbro...true!! (how'd the dinner go?.let me know!)
For a change of pace, I'll go ahead and agree with Ducky on something: the banking system is a government-sponsored Ponzai scheme. For every dollar the banks take in, they lend out five or ten. The government then rewards such responsibility by insuring such a system.
Now, where a banking system finds itself in trouble as a result of government intervention, I say you reduce the government's intervention in banking ("separation of bank and state" seems like as good a rallying cry as any). Ducky--and correct me if I'm misstating your view--believes that if a little intervention is bad, a lot must be the solution. I also think his idea that taxing productivity will yield more productivity is insane, but I'm trying reach across the aisle and come to an agreement with Ducky on something; therefore, yes, Ducky, it is a Ponzai scheme. I just read Murray Rothbard's "Mystery of Banking", and he agrees with you.
-tio bowser
I just heard Cheney call the Federal Reserve a Government group...now THAT is weird, TIO!
good comment.
Excellent post Mr. Z!! Lucid, cogent and well developed. And, Ducky, Mr. Z's tax facts are quite on the money. My own records, taken from IRS figures in 2006, are (in round numbers):
Top 1% pays 40% (compare at 17% in 1980)
Top 5% pays 50%
Top 10% pays 71%
Bottom 50% pays 3%
If anyone misses the obvious here - that those without the responsibility to pay are quickly getting a stranglehold on those with the obligation to pay - how about if you loan me your credit card? I think I can give you a fast education.
Debby, go research Social Security and Medicare withholding.
Also research the fact they are approaching income taxes as a percentage of Federal revenue.
Then factor in that incomes over about $100,000 get a break because they no longer are subject to Social Security and you may start to figure out that Mr. Z is blowing smoke.
Right wingers - Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Ducky, Deborah knows from what she speaks, I wouldn't go there if I were you. She's a good friend and could talk you down into the GROUND with history and politics and economics...I'd LOVE to see that..
Your guys want to raise it OVER $90K.
And there will be reaped NO ADVANTAGE to the the payers later..their benefits will remain the same but they've paid tons more.
This is nothing else but a tax for the rich if you consider $90 rich.
shooting fish in a barrel. ya. Socialist barrels are thicker with fish, and getting thicker by the day.
Right wingers - Like shooting fish in a barrel.Come on Duhkkky you're getting boring.
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