When Will Obscenely Rich A**holes Stop Crying About Taxes?

[Hannah Bell]

I don't care for bill maher, but this is good:

New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.

And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn't believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben -- so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn't know Broadway Danny Rose was still working...Poor billionaires -- they just can't catch a break.

First off, far from being vilified, we bailed you out -- you mean we were supposed to give you all that money and kiss your ass, too? That's Hollywood you're thinking of. FDR, he knew how to vilify; this guy, not so much. And second, you should have been vilified -- because you're the vill-ains! I'm sure a lot of you are very nice people. And I'm sure a lot of you are jerks. In other words, you're people. But you are the villains. Who do you think outsourced all the jobs, destroyed the unions, and replaced workers with desperate immigrants and teenagers in China. Joe the Plumber?

Another of my favorites, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, "I don't know where they're going to get all this money, because we're running out of rich people in this country." Actually, we have more billionaires here in the U.S. than all the other countries in the top ten combined, and their wealth grew 27% in the last year. Did yours? Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit...Steve Forbes said that Obama, quote "believes from his inner core that people... above a certain income have more than they should have and that many probably have gotten it from ill-gotten ways." Which they have. Steve Forbes, of course, came by his fortune honestly: he inherited it from his gay egg-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor fag-hagging father, who inherited it from his father....


http://www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13172

[cutlassmama]

1. Never. Their greed never stops.

[RandomThoughts]

2. I think real weath that matters, is not inherited, but is through

choices of actions by each individual.

[cascadiance]

3. Maybe when a few more of them get punched out in health clubs...

... as was done many months ago!

Sad to say, but it does seem that normal democratic political processes where Americans say that enough's enough are something that they don't accept or "tolerate" in our system that's corrupted by them!

[Pholus]

4. When the "little people" pay taxes to them instead.

Simple answer to a simple question. Morning! :)

[bluestateguy]

5. To be fair, you're only hearing the ones who complain

They make the news. The people like Warren Buffett who say they are just fine with paying more don't get the publicity because it's not contentious enough for the media.

Obama carried voters making over $200,000 with 52% of the vote.

[Pholus]

6. +1

You're right of course.

[old mark]

7. Not in this life. So long as the government takes a cent of their money they will complain

and feel persecuted - it is their nature.


mark

[randr]

8. Linda McGibney: We Who Prospered Should Pay Tax

Yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning a commentary that should go viral. When I tried to post a link it oddly directed to the Bill Mahre commentary on assholes.
Well worth the search.

[KharmaTrain]

9. One Thing About Rich People...They Feel They Never Have Enough

I've been around my share of those with lots of money in my years and I've noticed two things. First, they're very paranoid...concerned someone is gonna try to take their money from them and the GOOP has manifested the "government" as that evil boogie man. Next is that they are always measuring themselves against those that have more...they never have enough. If you're worth a million, you want to be worth $10 million...it's the status that matters as that's what helped many of these people make the huge sums of money in the first place. It's a definite greed factor but is so internalized these people really don't know nor care how others view this obsession. Again, this plays into the GOTB mantra of how they're paying too much in taxes despite how their rate is capped and they have bookkeepers and a wide array of ways to dodge those taxes. It's been conditioned deep.

The ugly truth is many in this country still admire the rich. Our media is saturated with the "lifestyles" and have long pushed material wealth as being the standard of success in this world. This has led to a nation that has become very selfish...obsessed with money and the trinkets that it can buy. The thought of common good and economic opportunity is all well and good as long as it doesn't affect their stash. It also shows the hypocrisy underneath the selfishness where these people gladly take government money in all forms (especially corporate welfare), yet bitch that the government is after their money. And for the past 30 years, this mantra has predominated this culture...and still does.

The rich...especially the Kochs and their ilk know that they need to keep the government as the boogie man as to deflect attention from their own activities and further their need to accumulate wealth just for the sake of accumulating it. The rest of you...you're definitely on your own and very divided. I don't see things changing any time soon.

[izquierdista]

10. They have to use money to measure

When their genitals have shriveled and their trophy wives have wrinkled and sagged, how else to show off?

[Kievan Rus]

17. Greed is an addiction -- just like alcoholics, meth addicts, or gambling addicts

[HughBeaumont]

11. A: Sometime around when the Earth crashes into the Sun.

I'd say this country's done more than enough to please these spoiled ingrates, don't you?

[Odin2005]

12. When they are hanging from the end of a rope.

[FiveGoodMen]

18. And that day can't come soon enough.

[Lilith Velkor]

20. Yup.

[blindpig]

13. When we separate them from the means of production.

Then they will no longer have anything to cry about, nor the ability to do anything about it.

[txaslftist]

14. Maybe you should be complaining about taxes.

One of the primary motivators of the American Revolution was the obscenity of a 10% tax.

10%!! Outrageous!!

Now we pay 50-60% and it's just hunky dory?

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the rich paying taxes when we all have to pay them, but being taxed at the rate we are taxed is a large part of the reason it takes 2 full time jobs to support a family when it used to take one.

If our military was at all sensible in size, we could pay about half of the taxes we pay, and still run a surplus annually. The fact is that taxes are out of hand.

[Wednesdays]

23. Where do you get your statistics?

And who are the "we" you speak of? :shrug:

[txaslftist]

24. From the Tax Foundation:

"Despite all these tax reductions, Americans will pay more taxes in 2010 than they will spend on food, clothing and shelter combined.

Taxes and the Federal Deficit

Tax Freedom Day does not count the deficit even though deficits must eventually be financed. Since 1948, when Tax Freedom Day was first calculated, the difference between what governments are spending and what they're collecting has never been as great as during 2009 and 2010. If Americans were required to pay for all government spending this year, including the $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit, they would be working until May 17 before they had earned enough to pay their taxes—"

May 17th is the 137th day of the year, so "tax freedom day", ie, the day we begin to earn our own money, is 37% of the year along. But this statistic is misleading (although still outrageously high), because it includes all Americans (more to follow).

[txaslftist]

25. The reason the 37% statistic is misleading:

The average from the tax foundation is taken from a general population, which includes the underemployed and unemployed. When these are factored out, the tax burden (which includes ALL taxes, including sales, use, property, income, etc, etc) comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 percent for what you would call "productive income earners"; ie - those who are working full time at jobs that pay minimum wage or higher. (I don't think minimum wage is particularly productive because you are still living at poverty level - that's another story).

As for the prevalence of 2 earner households, hold on (coming up)

[txaslftist]

26. Here's a link to the 2-earner household idea

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1815467

Or at least some statistics on it. Basically the prevalance of 2-earner households has been steadily on the rise, and now is something approaching 50% of households. These households comprise a majority of the top two quintiles (40%) of wage income in the US, who pay well over half of all federal income taxes, and this increase almost certainly applies to other forms of taxes as well, although I haven't researched that. It would certainly seem to follow, however, given than they are more likely to have disposable income (meaning they pay more sales tax) are more likely to own homes (property tax), etcetera.

[txaslftist]

27. So in conclusion ...

It would appear that the "we" I am speaking of are the majority of full-time wage earners in the US, generally comprised of two-earner families, who pay the vast majority of taxes.

If you are lucky enough not to have to pay taxes because you live in another country or something, I am not talking about you. If you are unfortunate enough to be unemployed, I am also not talking about you as one of the people suffering (directly) under the tax burden. However, I would suggest that if we substantially reduced our military spending, which presently is about 40% or more of the entire worlds military spending, that would free up money that could then be used for job creation or an increase in unemployment benefits. I would also suggest that the unemployed suffer indirectly from the tax burden on wage earners. If I were an employer and could pay x amount wage for an employee A, and I could reduce x by some factor due to a decrease in the witholding tax I have to pay A, I could use the savings to hire employee B, increasing the productivity of my business and reducing the ranks of the unemployed.

[Initech]

15. GOP = greedy old perverts

[Amaril]

16. When the religiofascists stop worrying about who / where / how

everybody is screwing. :)

In other words, not in any of our lifetimes.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

19. More importantly, when will politicians decide to stop listening to them?

The top 2 percent could go fuck themselves, if they weren't pouring so much money into their coffers.

[maryf]

21. K&Rnt

[spanone]

22. when they are treated like the churches and pay no taxes

[Pathwalker]

28. They'll stop....when we are forced to eat them.

Okay, my bad. :evilgrin:

[FiveGoodMen]

29. Make sure you cook them well!

Serious risk of parasites.

And don't forget that the "Mad Cow" prion will survive even normal sterilization procedures, so best just to toss out any downers.