[quote]harris447 wrote:
Christ, man…if Bush was raping one of your lovd ones, you’d be complimenting him on his forceful hip thrusts.
[/quote]
And you question the president’s intelligence?
I have an idea, quit spouting gossip like some schoolgirl. Quit hating bush because he isn’t in your clique.
I now return this post to its rightful humor.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Where have you been Randman? I haven;t seen you since the Patriots started sucking major ass. Your not ashamed or anything, are you?[/quote]
Oh, yea, by the way RJ…HOW BOUT THEM GIANTS!!
Hey maybe they’ll have a consolation game for “America’s team”…
[quote]vroom wrote:
Do people still actively promote “distribution of wealth” these days?
It sounds like an old and failed viewpoint.[/quote]
Sounds like there’s quite a bit of truth there to me. However, I think its now more of a individual viewpoint than a parties position. IMO the “story” is a pretty accurate reflection, though not true in all cases.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; it’s conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
In fact, if you allow us into all of your homes to install “light monitors”, we will make sure your lights never go out.
[/quote]
I’m a republican, but that Prof X was very good! Did you make that up? If so, I applaud you!
[quote]harris447 wrote:
HW DID buy W into Yale and Harvard.
DID call in favors to get him out of service in Vietnam.
DID buy him into the oil business.
DID buy his way out of trouble in the oil business. (Look into a company called Harken.)
Did buy him into baseball. (At least, the name H.W. passed along helped.)
And, of course, we’re all sure Daddy didn’t make ANY calls to raise money for his mongoloid son so he could be gub’ner and prez’dent.
[/quote]
i don’t know why so many people assume that you needed to call in favors to join the national guard/reserves to avoid military service during the vietnam war. all you had to do was volunteer, and you wouldn’t get drafted. the other four examples of any supposed misdeeds are all legal, even if they are true, so what’s your point? another example of diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.
btm,
The fact that people want to tax the rich disproportionately isn’t quite the same as taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Redistribution is about getting the money back into the hands of the poor, on purpose, as a policy.
The fact that the US has a lot of damned expenses, many of which aren’t giveaways to the poor, makes it harder to argue the point.
However, I really don’t think anyone except the communists in Cuba have the concept that people need to be taxed more so that money can be taken away to make them poorer, like everyone else.
The concept is that the government wants money and it needs to take it from people that actually have it… 
And yes, whenever possible (which is more often than it happens) the government should be shrunk and expenses lowered… so that the tax burden on everyone can be lowered.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; it’s conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
In fact, if you allow us into all of your homes to install “light monitors”, we will make sure your lights never go out.
[/quote]
Ha. Not bad. Not bad.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
…
Quit hating bush because he isn’t in your clique.
…
[/quote]
He’s in your clique?
[quote]vroom wrote:
btm,
The fact that people want to tax the rich disproportionately isn’t quite the same as taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Redistribution is about getting the money back into the hands of the poor, on purpose, as a policy.
The fact that the US has a lot of damned expenses, many of which aren’t giveaways to the poor, makes it harder to argue the point.
However, I really don’t think anyone except the communists in Cuba have the concept that people need to be taxed more so that money can be taken away to make them poorer, like everyone else.
The concept is that the government wants money and it needs to take it from people that actually have it…
And yes, whenever possible (which is more often than it happens) the government should be shrunk and expenses lowered… so that the tax burden on everyone can be lowered.[/quote]
Too happy today to argue with you Vroom. (Besides I agree with some of what your saying. ) Have a Merry Christmas or generic/non-offensive holiday of your choice.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; it’s conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
In fact, if you allow us into all of your homes to install “light monitors”, we will make sure your lights never go out.
[/quote]
HAHAHAHHAHHA…laughin my fuckin ass off! And I’m stealing that one.
harris!!!
Great post!!! Nasty and lacking any substance!!! I expect nothing more from you!!!
Let’s have some fun!!!
"harris447 wrote:
Explain your post, please:
“HW DID buy W into Yale and Harvard.”
Are you saying that he used money or political influence to get him in?
If so, proof please.
“DID call in favors to get him out of service in Vietnam.”
Proof? So far it’s been “it’s so odd how quickly he did this or that…”
Might not want to use Word if you are going to present an original document.
“DID buy him into the oil business.”
This one MAY have actually happened.
“DID buy his way out of trouble in the oil business. (Look into a company called Harken.)”
Please educate me on this. Remember that your specific assertion is that GHWB was responsible for buying him out of trouble.
“Did buy him into baseball. (At least, the name H.W. passed along helped.)”
Buying? Nope, still need some proof.
“And, of course, we’re all sure Daddy didn’t make ANY calls to raise money for his mongoloid son so he could be gub’ner and prez’dent.”
I heard a neat quote once. Hey, it was something W said!!!
He said, “I inherited half of my father’s friends and all of his enemies.”
On balance, his “name” was a double-edged sword.
For instance, you and your pals dribble this: “Bush the First” and “Bush the Second.” The monarchial overtones present in those phrases are obviously meant to whip up some resentment. Hey, another ploy gone awry!!!
“Christ, man…if Bush was raping one of your lovd ones, you’d be complimenting him on his forceful hip thrusts.”
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!!!
I love my dems nice and angry.
JeffR
[quote]The Mage wrote:
harris447 wrote:
Christ, man…if Bush was raping one of your lovd ones, you’d be complimenting him on his forceful hip thrusts.
And you question the president’s intelligence?
I have an idea, quit spouting gossip like some schoolgirl. Quit hating bush because he isn’t in your clique.
I now return this post to its rightful humor.
[/quote]
I didn’t question the president’s intelligence; I questioned the intelligence of his cheerleaders that for some reason known only to god, think he’s a self-made man.
And, unless you’re a millionaire scion of a political dynasty: youre not in Bush’ clique, either.
please pick up after your dogma… it smells and I don’t want to step in it.
FROM DOW JONES, OWNERS OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
"The Wall Street Journal’s news coverage is relentlessly neutral. Of that, we are confident.
By contrast, the research technique used in this study hardly inspires confidence. In fact, it is logically suspect and simply baffling in some of its details. […]
Suffice it to say that “research” of this variety would be unlikely to warrant a mention at all in any Wall Street Journal story."
However, this has confirmed my suspicions about the ACLU…neocon facists of the radical right…BB, don’t many of the conclusions of this study seem counterintuitive?
I’ve got a one line liberal joke- Ted Kennedy. His daddy, of course, never, not in like a bajillion, zillion, billion years, ever helped him in any way, shape, or form. Not with one red cent. Nada, nothing, zip, zero, zilch. And most especially not after he took his eye off of the road and the car ended up in the water, where the girl couldn’t breath so good. How long did it take him to find his way to the police station? Too bad their wasn’t government program for that sort of thing back in the day- daddy could have maybe bought him the Presidency like he did for his older brother.
Dubbya ain’t much of the pimpin’ type either, like that Lurchy lookin dude he ran against last time. What are the odds of marrying not just one, but two super- wealthy chicks in a lifetime? And he gets to spend cold, hard Republican cash galavanting around and gobbling up huge chunks of precious non-renewable resources while trying to make us plebes feel really bad for simply driving to work.
By all means should we have our nation run by libs, not conservatives(compassionate or not), skipping their way through life on other peoples’ dime, or half a billion, if you are the junior Senator from Taxachusetts. One may well wonder what Jason Blair’s ex-employer would say about a Republican Senator as President with a wife worth a half-billion big ones- something about being able to relate the common folk while slumming it in Sun Valley no doubt.
Of course, the freshman-type chick prototype of the joke exists nowhere in a nation with millions of kids going to college as well. No doe-eyed little waif going to an institution of higher learning founded by very dead and white males in a country founded by more pasty corpses would ever, ever be goaded into calling for living white (among others) males to fork over more by some tenured relic of the 60’s with his fading Uncle Ho portrait in the background. Said almost-geezer would certainly not be on the take for a portion of the ‘contributions’ so that he could preach to even more kids the wonders of the left.
Daddy could of course been an absolute bastard by insisting she, not he, foot the bill for such agi-prop Bolshie bullshit.
It must really suck to be a lefty today. The Republicans, being themselves, are basically giving away the store. Too bad Chappy insisted on driving up the truck to take all of the loot away. Seems he got lost somewhere along the way…
Merry X-mas to you too.
If you believe one side is evil, you should believe it is possible of the other too…
One of the biggest problems with the tax system is that it is painfully inefficient. There are numerous corporate taxes that people support because they don’t think they have to pay them.
However these hidden (I say hidden because it is not clear who suffers from them) corporate taxes do a great deal of damage and eventually hurt me and you - through higher prices, lower employment rates, &c. The income tax is really the most efficient but people hate it because they see their losses directly and it is a violation of privacy (all the personal information on your tax forms that are read by someone).
A simple but radical solution to this would be to scrap income/corporate/social security &c. taxes and only have a consumption (sales) tax. Granted this tax would have to be rather high (perhaps 25%) it would likely be no different, or perhaps even lower, than what you are playing now between all taxes. This would also mean that your savings would not be taxed.
Lastly, for those who favor redistribution you could fix the tax at a rate that is higher than needed and then redistribute the money evenly amongst everyone (i.e. everyone would get a check for the same amount regardless of what they paid).
Sometimes you need to change your thinking to fix problems.
[quote]Heuristic wrote:
A simple but radical solution to this would be to scrap income/corporate/social security &c. taxes and only have a consumption (sales) tax. Granted this tax would have to be rather high (perhaps 25%) it would likely be no different, or perhaps even lower, than what you are playing now between all taxes. This would also mean that your savings would not be taxed.[/quote]
That would be a complete catastrophe. Our Sales Tax is bad enough.
In fact, some countries in Europe have seen pretty serious results just by increasing their VAT (which is somewhat similar to our Sales Tax). And they only increased it marginally. Most of them had to quickly decrease it shortly afterward, but, still, it’s pretty high over there (between 16 and 22% depending on the country) and somehow they ignore the devastating effects its having in their economies.
Capitalism sustains itself by the movement of money. Money must change hands, as frequently as possible, INSIDE the country.
By hiking the Sales Tax to compensate for no other taxes (according to the calculations I saw, it would have to be hiked to well over 40% to make up for it), the incentive for everyone would be to avoid, at all cost, buying stuff that gets Sales Tax on it – especially large purchases – inside the US.
Not only it would send the market into disarray – mainly because the psychological effect is tremendous, with people shifting their expenses even further towards housing and food, and avoiding durable goods as much as they can – it would provide a huge incentive for illegal transactions, included, but not limited to, smuggling; so the Government would now have to spend a LOT of money trying to control the illegal transactions, which, in the end, makes things even worse.
Not bad enough? A lot of Credit Companies and Banks would go bankrupt, which, although part of me likes the idea, the more rational one realizes that would be a LOT of lost jobs – which is BAD.
The reason income taxes have been around for so long is because they work. They’re the easiest to collect, the hardest to get away from and the ones that have the least destructive psychological effect (believe it or not).
In fact, all trials and studies have proven that the best for a country’s capitalist economy is to focus on income tax and reduce, or even eliminate, all other forms of taxation, EXCEPT taxation on goods you specifically want to control consumption of (gas and tobacco, for example).
Out-of-the-box thinking is good, yes, but not all solutions that sound good are good.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; it’s conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
In fact, if you allow us into all of your homes to install “light monitors”, we will make sure your lights never go out.
[/quote]
Brilliant. I wish I’d said that.
(Professor X’s imagined reply: “Oh, you will, Varqanir. You will.”)
I only skimmed over this whole thread, but I need to say this:
The problem with the joke is it assumes everyone who is well off has worked hard for success and everyone who’s not well off is has not worked hard.
Hard work does not equal success/money/grades/anything.