diverborg

I may be wrong here, but I don't think Darius necessarily meant a Darwinian approach to the word evolution in his post. The term evolve has been around longer than Darwin and has more than one implication. BTW Darius, good post!

Michael Moore "documentaries" (if you can even call them that) pretty much rate up there with the 911 conspiracy videos as far as credibility. I know its easy to get all excited when watching those videos, but you really need to get the whole picture. Its like sitting on jury duty and only allowing the prosecution to make their case and you making you're decision. Out of curiousity I must ask who you think was responsible for the 911 terrorist attacks.

I couldn't agree more, but when are we going to get our government on path to do this. Its starting to seem like a lost battle, when the people keep demanding more services and more spending, and the candidates playing politics just try to please the masses.

I understand that is the concept behind liberal economics. You've got two opposing views saying that one is better than the other and one of them is, but both swear that its theirs. If only 4% of tax revenue is from corporations is accurate, then it seems cutting corporate taxes would make a much bigger difference for the economy than a 4% tax burden being widely distributed to the rest of personal income taxes would be. Just something to think about. If I ever get really bored, I may have to crunch the numbers sometime to see how much personal income tax would really have to be raised to make up for that difference. That's assuming we don't even see any economic benefit from it.

My theory was that they wouldn't have to be raised because the extra taxes received on income tax because of it being passed down as well as the more jobs might make up for it. Just a thought. I'm not saying its not flawed. It just seems that money is going to get passed on to people in the company who will be paying income tax on it anyway. If its not passed on and used to expand the business, then more jobs would be created and hence more income taxes collected. Someone mentioned this to me a long time ago, and I've been thinking a bit about it lately.

I dunno, I just wanted to tell the story cause I thought it was a good one.

Not that I have any idea about this scenario, but I know a guy that was arrested because his picketing sign was 2" bigger than what was allowed by law. The cops actually came out and measured everyone's sign to find a reason to arrest people. Just saying, that sometimes they can get nasty. A good majority of the crowd went to jail because of a technicality none of them even knew about. This guy was protesting the states move to not recognize homeschooling. Not quite as heated of an issue.

But, Fox news told me that Obama's tax policies are going to ruin the country. You have to be wrong. Ok, in all seriousness. I don't have all the facts as far as what president has done what thru history, nor do I really care. I'm only saying that I don't see his tax ideas helping our current situation. Here's something that I would like some honest input on. Something I've been pondering? Why even have a corporate tax? I don't have a source, but I think corporate tax accounts for around 4% of the countries tax revenue. Now, if they are not taxed, then they can choose what to do with the extra revenue, whether that be save it for hard times to ensure no layoffs, or pass the profits onto their employees in forms of raises or bonuses which will get taxed probably just as much anyway, or expand to create more jobs. Think of how much the business could grow. I know my raises are directly related to the companies profits in almost every job I've worked, not to mention bonuses. I will pay a good amount of tax on that and also have the extra money to pump back into the economy. Think of all the jobs we've lost to other countries because of corporations trying to avoid taxes and find tax loopholes. Ideally all the extra jobs and income taxes seem to me would more than make up for that 4%. And so what if the corporation wants to get greedy and give all the extra revenue to their upper execs in bonuses and salary. If thats the case the govt, is gonna see that money anyway in income tax. I've been wondering this for awhile. I'm curious what the cons to this would be.

Thats all fine and dandy, but historically we've never had a democratic president that has ever passed anything like Obama is proposing except maybe FDR. Congress really has the final say in these measures, so saying that the economy is completely tied to who the president is can be a stretch. While there is correlation, its not the full picture. A presidents ideas are meaningless if he's overridden by congress everytime.

If it's hardly Bush policies that are responsible, that you have nothing to fear from Obama policies either. Huh? I'm not blaming Obama or Bush for the current situation. I'm just saying that Obama's ideas are not going to help it.

current policies sure worked great for business. I think its funny that the dems keep using that line. Obama used it over and over again in the debates. Its Bush's policies blah, blah, blah... I'm not a big fan of Bush either, but its hardly Bush's policies that got us into this mess. I know the problem now extends beyond the mortgage crisis, but that is still the root of it. I'm curious how anybody can link the mortgage crisis to "Bush's policies", or to tax policies in general. So to solve this conundrum were going to tax struggling businesses even more? Fantastic! Here's a simple question. Do you honestly think that if Obama's proposed tax policies ever passed that it would be good for the economy? Do you think taxing business heavier is going to do anything to help that business profit more?

What would make you think that the majority of investors actually think Obama's tax policies are going to be good for businesses?

I've been wondering this too. I don't have the stats either way, but lets just say its 100% the flippers. The flippers were riding on an unrealistic bubble that the CRA and pressure on banks to finance everyone made. So in a sense, it still wasn't free market economics that brought about this problem. I don't think it matters which group is being foreclosed on, there is blame to pass around to everyone here, and you can hardly blame free market economics. Also to add, every one of the homes forclosed in my neighborhood had families living in them. If it were just the flippers that were responsible, the govt wouldn't be worrying about ways to keep people in their homes. So yes low-income mortgages played a bigger part than just creating the bubble.

When I mean inevitable I mean eventually whether 100 yrs from now or 1000, not necessarily with this. We are step by step heading that direction and this may be nothing more than just another step. Depending on how desperate things get, this could be the big piece of the puzzle. I think desperate times can often bring about unnecessarily desperate measures. Although I think things have to get a little more desperate yet, which anything is possible. Either way some day I think it will happen. Either way it will be interesting to see what kind of steps are taken on this, especially when this predominant of a world figure is calling for something this "crazy".

http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CBUS/nbusinessNews_uUSTRE4A900K20081110?src=RSS-BUS Very interesting read. I'm curious to see what kind of discussion this brings up. I personally think there will probably be too much opposition to it here in the states at this time, but it is inevitable. Then again it may happen regardless of the opposition.

All I can say is I sure hope he breaks a good portion of them.

If Bush survived the last 4 years, I think Obama will be ok. His assasination would likely cause one of the darkest periods our country has ever seen. I think the riots we would see would borderline civil war. I wish any nutjobs that would think of killing him would have the slightest bit of common sense that NOBODY is going to benefit from that.

Uh, did you see my post up there? I liked "The Notebook", "Sleepless in Seattle", "An Affair to Remember", etc. But this one has Kurt Cameron in it. Remember the last time we saw one of those? It sucked! Sucker!!! Enjoy the movie!! If I was dragged into "Happy Feet" and lived, you'll survive this one.

That's awesome to hear that after 25 years of marriage you still have that strong of feelings.

Yes, it is a religious based movie. But if you don't believe in any of that, you can ignore that whole part of the movie if you want to, and it has some very simple truths that can be applied to any marriage. To understand the role of religion in it, well you'd have to see it. If you take the religion out of it, you still get a very good message that I think any married couple can use. There's a lot more to the movie than I can explain, but it has a lot to do with love in marriage being a choice and constant work rather than a feeling. One of the biggest problems I think with marriage in our society is people think that love is something you feel that they expect to last. Either way, it is a religious movie. If you want to draw conclusions about the movie without watching it thats ok, but it can only help a marriage. If the idea of Christianity is something that really bothers you, then you probably won't like it. But if the religious implications don't bother you, then there's a lot to learn from this movie for any married couple. Just my opinion.

Wow, I just went and saw this movie with my wife, and it is definitely a must see for any married couple or anyone thinking about getting married. I was hesitant to go see this movie and the acting was a little cheezy at first because its made by amateurs, but you get past that real quick and see this movie for the amazing movie it is. My perspective on my marriage has changed because of this movie and it has probably already saved me from some future heartache. If you're marriage is having problems and you want to give it one last chance, go see this movie. It has the potential to save a lot of marriages. Even if you have the best marriage in the world, it will make it that much better and will reignite some passion. Anyway, I don't post in here often, but I couldn't help but share this with everyone.

Fair enough, but they already pay more. How much more do you think they should pay? Personal income tax aside, do you really think its a good idea to tax businesses more. Do you really think that's going to create more jobs and help anyone working for that company to get a raise? I love to see rich people spending their money on lavish stuff like yachts, jets, and mansions. That's going to create much more technical and higher paying jobs in those industries than if those rich did nothing but save their money. We don't all want to work at Wal-mart do we? I make a healthy salary working on private jets that these people blow their money on. The more money the wealthy spend the more they are giving back.

When I mentioned the 1500 I was making the point that its probably not going to happen where wal-mart only kills 1500 job. If there in trouble where lay-offs are necessary its going to be a lot more than one person per store and the cutting the CEO's salary to nothing isn't going to make a rip of a difference. I've given you an example of one corporation. I've given you the numbers to make my point. If you want to ignore them and continue on with the "its not fair" rant go ahead. I'm exhausted with this discussion. Life isn't fair, the sooner people can grasp that the better off they will be. Bitching about it will get them nowhere to advancing themselves to be on of those CEO's. Oh yeah, what's wrong with having a yacht, a private jet, two homes in Aspen. A lot of people are employed from the yacht and jet manufacturing industry as well as home construction. You take away from that kind of spending and you'll sink those industries. Are the people that work for Gulfstream not as important as the people that work for Wal-mart? In fact the more money that CEO spends on lavish stuff only helps the economy and employs more people. I think I've made my point and I see its not going to change anything.

Well we keep jumping around here. Are we talking compensation ratios, salaries affect on profits, or golden parachutes. I have addressed these except for Golden parachutes. Well I suppose it could, but that would be pretty ineffective and not solve crap. Reread my Wal-Mart example. I've already shown you that 23.3 million is not going to make a rip of a difference if a corporation of that size is struggling. because that is only .0009% of the companies sales. If a company of that size is going bankrupt, there is a a much bigger problem than that CEO's salary. Assuming wal-mart wants to cut jobs to save cost, we'll assume the low-end workers are making 16,000/yr. It takes less than 1500 of the 1.2 million employees to equal that CEO's salary. Thats less than 1 person per store. And that's assuming the people getting layed off are the low-end workers. Cuts are usually made at all levels. Which would reduce that number even more.

I think you need to reread some of my posts. I've explained this already. Are you trying to tell me that these corporations you're referring to haven't grown exponentially and don't employ more people than 40 years ago, or are you trying to say a CEO of a corporation that employs 10,000 people should be payed at the same compensation ratio to his/her employees than a CEO from a corp employs 50,000 people. The concept is pretty basic. Lets say I own a company that employs 4 people at $10/hr to operate a cash register. My year end profit is $75,000. Ok now lets say I open another store and employ 4 more people at the same rate. Well if all goes well, my salary should be $150,000 and they will still make 10$/hr to do the same job. If you somehow think that they need to be compensated more for the same job because I'm managing another store, then all I have to say is WOW. Your ideals are going to devestate this economy. Ok, if you think CEO compensation is really what's holding back America, heres one example of why that's utter bs. Lets take everyones beloved wal-mart They average $256 billion in sales a year. This last year their CEO's full compensation with stocks and salary comibined was 23.3 million. Thats only .0009% of the companies sales. Also Walmart employs over 1.2 million people in the US alone, so if the CEO decided to work as a volunteer and liquidate his salary equally to all the employees it would only be an extra $20/yr for every employee or less than a penny an hour more. I hardly think his $23.3 million is a problem.