Lucky...

Watch this. I will select the QUOTE box. Here I will place my response to them. My 2nd response/ My response.

And yet your side would scream bloody murder if I posted Moveon. Of course you will skim over that and not respond, right? Data is best when it is from the gov and even Wikipedia, any source that is truely objective is going to be fair and usually accurate, but that is what the resonse gets to attack; the accuracy. Op-eds are skewed opinions. What sucks the most is an op-ed from anyone, that is just a personal take from someone other than the poster. If ya want to plagiarize I would rather read a person take that argument and provide independent data rather than an editorial cut-n-pasty with dreamed-up data. And as he did unemp went to 10.8% and the debt trippled; wasn't that a great time. Actually GHWB did in 1990 and Clinton did in 93 and show me this recession please. Wait, I enjoy disproving you more: http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=230 Looks like a pretty good upward stream to me, maybe I'm not good at reading these dam pesky things. Oh wait, maybe it was the unemployment rate. http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet No, the unmp in jan 94 was 6.6% and 5.5% in Dec 94. In fact, the unemp rate was 7.3% in Jan 93 and 4.2% in Jan 2001. Do you step in it a lot or just sometimes? In Jan 94 the Dow was 3,635, in Jan 95 it was 4,157. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EDJI#chart1:symbol=^dji;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined So where exactly did you dream up this recession of 1994? Was it you who lost a job and had a personal recession? That doesn't equate to a national recession.

Thx for your stark contribution to this thread, really, it is invaluable.

That was Heraldo Rivera, get your quacks straight That was Stossel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stossel#David_Schultz_incident Yea, I found that later and posted it, I also found several sites that claimed it was Rivera. I posted them a ways back.

They're general guidelines that protect people who cannot do so for themselves based upon their status. SO you think a 40-hour workweek establishment is a bad thing, huh? And most states have laws that today exceed the FLSA guidelines, so I guess they're all wrong too. Hmmm, everyone's wrong but you, ok. Try to get slave descendants to buy that oh so lovely argument. Per capita GDP we're 6th http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita They call us 8th here http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-richest-countries-map.html In a gross sense we have the highest GDP, but factor that with population per capita and we're down there http://www.geohive.com/earth/ec_gdp2.aspx This illustrates our wealth disparity. Highest standard of living didn't even make teh top 10 for the US http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-quality-of-life-map.html Again, establishing the highest GDP translates to a low standard of living for most, a massive standard for a few. Right, sure they do. And where the US citizens in mass numbers cannot get HC absent an emergency. What a country. Statistically your version is. Statistically, closed shop states have much higher wages and much lower workplace mortality....ironically (not) these are almost all blue states. SCOTUS is likely foreign to you, but the labor org cannot impose themselves upon you in regard to demanding you take their representation for individual disputes. Or we can level the playing field by way of taxation and fair workplace rules. Welcome to earth, enjoy your stay.

Yes, it does. Likely not percentage wise, but it does represent it. HUH, representation and statistical representation are the same thing.

Hey, the new title will draw more interest as tho it's something savy I can't change it, if ya wanna start one, go ahead.

They cost a lot less to run if they're not busily engaged in shoveling trillions of dollars into military adventurism in remote corners of the world. Cutting our insanely out of control military spending is a much more logical step than trying to support it further by jacking up our top tax rates further, especially given that we have the most progressive taxation in the world already. That's a big problem, but the Iraq War amounted to 16% of Bush's 5+T debt heisting. The rest went to tax cuts, my friends.

That's true, provided the rich are willing to pay much higher tax rates. If they aren't, then wealth disparity is indeed a problem. We can't have it both ways. ??? Would you rather live in a country where everyone makes $1 per year (perfect income equality), or one where the lowest earner makes $100k/yr, but the highest makes $100,000k/yr (higher income, but with much less equity)? Trying to tear down the top earners simply because they make more than you is just pettiness. If you don't understand economics well enough to realize that you can't get blood from a turnip, then we're not going to get very far with this discussion. If the rich possess most of the income and wealth of a nation, then they will have to carry a larger tax burden than the poor and middle class. Nice realistic numbers you chose, BTW. He's laying a ridiculous hypothetical to try to get me to express some hate for the rich. Ridiculous, I don't hate the rich, I hate that the gov allows them to cart away with money, kill employee rights, etc.

Whatever (rolls eyse) This is a nutty hypothetical, but I'll play along. Since my agenda is to have a baseline for everyone, and 50k is higher than I would set, but somehow cutting taxes 15% for the top is the methodology in which this will be made to happen; yes I would. I don't care about the rich from an idependent element, I want teh poor tobe less poor and to have basics met until they earn more then they pay more. Truth is we would have raise taxes on the rich to bring the bottom up, or just borrow gobs of money against the debt. So ultimately I want to improve the bottom, so yes, I would go for your hypotheical scenario. You don't even know me. I'm for people doing well, but not at the cost of most of society.

Ditto to all people who post their statements on top.

Not necessarily, didn't happen during the GWB admin

Thank you. That works better.

OK, I don't know of it, but a questiuonaire? The OECD sends those questionnaires out to the governments of it's member nations--not the citizens. OECD web site. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development information from wikipedia. It just sounds like a method that is prone to bias. Why not set up a study using raw gov data. As well, that group is basically an anti-taxation group.

Did teh end of your sentence not make it: IF YOU'RE RICH. No, it has more to do with my 96 Geo Metro with 200k miles. Perhaps it's my unavailability to acquire HC too. It hurts that I cannot get medical issues fixed and that jobs pay shit; I'm nowhere near the, "i want a new Hummer stage." We ought to be concerned with a fair distribution so we have our rich and hopefully we can make it one day, but we need a baseline that will be supported by the tax system and/or borrowing to ensure a descent bottom standard for everyone. When you say 'give up' what does that mean? Not at all, I want to buy a modest house, have a descent but modest car and get HC when I need it. You don't evvveeen know me. I'm not a luxury whore, I see a system that has been run by elites, pandering to elites and the lower 80%, lower 50% are just there because tehy cannot find a way to get rid of them.

Ahh, the ultimate fatal error - chasing a woman. I have scars to show my errors. Right, it's about a relative comparison, just like relative wind as you exit the acft.

http://webmail.aol.com/28789/aol-1/en-us/Suite.aspx

Um, the OECD isn't exactly an anti-taxation group. OK, I don't know of it, but a questiuonaire? Come on, can't they use raw data? I think if they did they wouldn't get their desired result. The Tax Foundation isn't as blatant as The Heritage, but it has an agenda.

You may think that, but I don't. There are many things I'd like to change about the US. That's not to say that it's terrible (or ideal). Given a choice of living anywhere (with citizenship) the US would be in my top five, worldwide. That was sarcasm. I know you're not a typical conservative nationalist. That was more for others than it was for you. Certainly, the US is in my top 10, no where near the top of the top 10 tho. We need to realize this countries shortcomings in order to fix them and wealth disparity and an overbuilt military are right up there.

Not really, it's big but not as big as undertaxing the rich. Our tax system burdens the top earners far more than any other country in the industrialized world. (Source). If we wanted to be more like the rest of the world, we'd need to reduce taxes on the wealthy. Per what, an anti-taxation group? I love the origin of their data: Source: Computations based on OECD income distribution questionnaire. A qustionaire.....hmmm, I wonder who they questioned: homeless people perhaps....no, maybe it was multi-millionaires. Tom, show me objective data pls. Of course the rich pay virtually all of the taxes, why not, they hold 93% of all cash and 85% of all cash and asset. And still the wealth disparity spreads........ hence we need to tax them to at least stop the spreading, stop the homlessness.

Why, the US is the best country in the world?

As a Swiss living in the US, I have to object to that, lol. Switzerland has similar principals as the USA, a government structure modeled after the USA, love for guns etc. but the actual implementation of policies are quite different than here. - Unemployment is like 3.9% currently - Even unskilled laborer makes like $3000 a month - No underclass that lives in mobile homes with plastic covered single pane windows. - Even the smallest of village can be reached by this thing called "Public Transportation" Living in the US is great though, if you make enough money that is. Anyways, sorry for the interruption...

Not really, it's big but not as big as undertaxing the rich. The Iraq War accounted for 16% of Bush's 5+T debt increase. Reagan's war on communism wasn't the primary culprit of his massive trippling of the debt, it was the tax cuts down to 28% at the end.

There's also the little matter of the balance of trade. The US runs a massive trade deficit. And that has to do with politics and the derailment of labor unions. etc. etc. etc. So it's all correlated and te right seems to want to offload jobs and crap on labor so we can no longer become a manufaturing nation. The good thing is taht as we do this, we become indebted as we hav to buy many things, our debt chokes our dollar and it falls, now we have to start manufacturing things again and find our roots.

Shhhhhhhh, some Republicans can read.