Amazing how pessimistic and negative this thread has become and it's just started.
Politics, does that. Bring a politician to the party and everyone gets that look like they're about to go rummaging through your pockets...cause they probably are.
Lets be clear, when Obama says spread the wealth around I think he's talking about the wealth of his "enemies", the republicans, and not his friends like Steve Jobs.
Politicians are typically narcissistic and power hungry, it's a fact of life. We can't really complain much since it's our fault. Our culture's lust for political gossip has driven away any descent people from running for office, they're too smart to let their name be recklessly dragged through the mud by our puppet media corps.
What I found remarkable about Obama's statement was that it was the first time a President, sitting or otherwise, had referred to Apple's products the way that Apple would want them to be. He called them 'revolutionary devices', which is almost right out of the company byline.
It's true that Jobs and Obama have met, probably a few times. If I were President in today's world, I'd want to make sure to sit down with the heads of the most successful American companies, like Apple, and find out from their point of view what their secrets are. What makes them so successful and what makes them tick.
It sounded to me like a little bit of the Jobs RDF rubbed off on Obama. Interestingly, Jobs is older than Obama, also a first with a President. Maybe Obama looks up to Jobs a bit, and was interested in getting a little bit of his wisdom and experience? Shows how much the world has changed, that we have a President so young as to be Steve's junior. Jobs used to be the youngest guy in the room.
It seems to me that Apple has successfully written history here. If this President has referred to Apple's devices as revolutionary, its unlikely that any future President would contradict this. "Revolutionary" may now be officially written into the history books... I doubt such a word will be associated with any other tech companies in a historical context. Apple wins!
It's what's destroying the United States. Rich get even richer and pretend to give small handouts to the poor, all while squeezing the middle class. Yeah, great freaking system.
Why should the poor even expect handouts? I think this says volumes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by monstrosity
Do not envy wealth. Aspire to it.
What's the ancient proverb? Give a man a fish and he's not hungry for a day, teach a man to fish and he's not hungry for life.
If you are tired of being poor - do something about it! As a friend would say, stop waiting for the roast duck to fly into your mouth!
Quote:
Originally Posted by frankie
Or with 50 billion you can donate money to the poor and less fortunate. Shouldn't that be what our government should be doing with it's money?
Who's money? Government doesn't have it's money. To have something you have to produce something. Government doesn't produce anything! It get's it's money by taxing our money! It's not the government's money - it's OUR fucking money!
That's the central problem with our currently out of control central government - too many assholes in congress and elsewhere thing it is their money - and they couldn't be MORE wrong!!
Quote:
Since we are such a global economy now, I think if a company wants to use another country's cheap labor they should be taxed enough to pay for the labor that is not being utilized in this country. That would do away with all the trade issues we are having with jobs in China and India and bring back all those lost jobs in the US and fix the unemployment problems plaguing this country.
Just my thoughts...
Ha! Protectionism never works. We have centuries of countries and even large corporations (East India Tea Company anyone?) trying to muck around with geo-political and economics to game the system in their favor - and never with positive results.
For all it's faults, the US republic system of government, was, until the 1930's, the most successful system of government and fostered the greatest explosion of technology and human advancement - ever!
For all the people who seem to be gung-ho about evolution and natural selection (survival of the fittest and all that) it amazes me that they believe in "creationism economics" so whole-hartedly.
Sigh... another great overused platitude, but so appropriate for this discussion - those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Read up on the fall of ancient Athens - the first democracy. Ancient Rome - another valuable set of lessons - especially for modern America. Then look around - the similarities between are pretty depressing. Here we go again....
And before you trot out any more of this 'gap between rich and poor' class warfare bullshit, you might want to time travel back to the middle ages and ask a serf about their opinion of such things. What we take for granted and outright dismiss or mock as being "unfair" is really rather sad and pathetic
Of course, this is extremely simplified, and ignores other qualms I have with taxation, and social philosophy, etc. But sometimes people just need a little perspective.
Good luck with that. Your trying to overcome greed (whats in it for me) and jealousy (hey, you don't need all of that since I have none!). Two ugly sides of the human condition which have been at war with reasonable and practical thought since the dawn of time.
Really, it's amazing humanity every emerged from the dark ages when you think about it. Especially when you read ignorant posts like many in this thread
Do you know why food stamps and unemployment benefit is the governments best way to stimulate the economy? Because there is a 100% chance it will be spent.
1) So where did this magical resource to produce the food stamps to turn them into food and "necessities" come from in the first place? And how does that stimulate anything?
2) 100% chance eh? So you are just discounting administrative overhead, fraud and basic human stupidity? While you might live in some fantasy land where life is efficient and perfect, it's time to wake up and join the real world
I'll never forget last year at this time parents complaining that the DC toy drive ran out of toys for their disadvantaged kids while sporting an iPhone in plain site of the camera.
Necessities and stimulation of the economy my ass....
We have infrastructure falling around our ears and record numbers of people on unemployment - why the heck aren't we doing WPA type programs to at least get something for the literally BILLIONS in unemployment benefits we are paying out? We should at least get a few roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. - and who knows, if people aren't willing to do a little honest labor for their "benefits" maybe they'll jump back into the job pool or increase their skills to get back in. Motivation - god forbid someone try to inject a little accountability into things...
Maybe "conservatives" should actually learn the meaning of the word, and stop treating the primaries like a popularity contest.
Why are we, the tax payers, funding private elections anyway? If the political parties want to elect their internal choices, they should pay for their own elections!
Actually it would do all Americans a bit of good to read George Washington's feelings about political parties. Unfortunately all the fears he had about them have long ago been realized.
Quote:
I'll be voting for Ron Paul.
While you may feel better, unfortunately it won't address the real issues.
We have infrastructure falling around our ears and record numbers of people on unemployment - why the heck aren't we doing WPA type programs to at least get something for the literally BILLIONS in unemployment benefits we are paying out? We should at least get a few roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. - and who knows, if people aren't willing to do a little honest labor for their "benefits" maybe they'll jump back into the job pool or increase their skills to get back in.
Yes. Unfortunately, many such projects?high speed rail, a tunnel in NY come to mind?were killed by Republicans this year. Just because they were initiated by Democrats.
When someone figures out how to make us all equal, then incomes will converge.
That was tried in Soviet Russia and they collapsed.
It's a false goal - we aren't all equal. We all have different talents, abilities, opportunities and resources. It's what makes life interesting. And thanks to the structure of our society, we all have opportunity. The "Land of Opportunity" wasn't some benign campaign slogan or the damning of faint praise - it did and still does mean something.
To those who are willing to reach out to it anyway... yes, despite all the ways our country is being screwed up by greedy self-interests, America is still a land of incredible opportunity.
A minimum wage earner can save, invest and become fairly well off? We're talking about 15K a year, certainly not enough to become fairly well off.
To me the more interesting question is not what a minimum wage earner can or can't do, but why are they still a minimum wage earner?
The solution isn't raising the minimum wage or handing out more benefits - the solution is helping people get out of that tier and up to the next ones....
Then again that isn't as sexy as promising people free crap if they vote for you so no wonder not many politicians are interested in looking at problems from practical and realistic standpoints
...It sounded to me like a little bit of the Jobs RDF rubbed off on Obama.
Yeah, god forbid Apple actually does produce revolutionary products! No, it must all be marketing and a reality distortion field
Because it's trivial to become the company with the second largest market capitalization in the world with flim-flam artistry instead of tangible success
1) So where did this magical resource to produce the food stamps to turn them into food and "necessities" come from in the first place? And how does that stimulate anything?
It's just another idiotic mantra repeated by the left. "Unemployment benefits stimulate the economy", they say, ignoring the fact that unemployment benefits have been going during the entire recession and haven't stimulated squat.
It's the identical situation to the right saying the Bush tax cuts stimulate the economy.
I don't think either side of the political fence even knows what an economy is.
That was tried in Soviet Russia and they collapsed.
It's a false goal - we aren't all equal. We all have different talents, abilities, opportunities and resources. It's what makes life interesting. And thanks to the structure of our society, we all have opportunity. The "Land of Opportunity" wasn't some benign campaign slogan or the damning of faint praise - it did and still does mean something.
To those who are willing to reach out to it anyway... yes, despite all the ways our country is being screwed up by greedy self-interests, America is still a land of incredible opportunity.
You just made my point. There is no way to make us all equal. Ambition is an individual trait and varies greatly from one individual to the next.
Without a magic potion to remedy this disparity, among thousands of others such as natural talent and the location of birth, we are hopelessly doomed with living in a society where some are rich and some are poor.
I've enjoyed your posts and agree 100%. This is the land of opportunity for those that pursue achievement.
Some other posts sound like they come from the Nancy Pelosi school of economics. Unemployment benefits do not stimulate the economy. They are transfer payments - the money must be taken from someone else. If Nancy Pelosi was correct, we could all simply stop working and start receiving unemployment and our economy would thrive!
For those that don't understand why tax cuts stimulate the economy, consider taxes a cost for business. If you reduce the cost of one item (paying taxes), it gives a business more $ to invest in something else, like a new factory, a new employee, a new computer, etc.
This is why when taxes go up, businesses often lay off employees. One cost went up (taxes) and must be offset (all things equal) by a cost reduction somewhere else. Most often, it's a cost businesses can readily control, such as employment.
There are a lot of small business people in that 'wealthy' 250K area that Obama wants to hike taxes on. Not a good plan to tax the job creators, especially in a recession. 250K was far too low a starting point and hardly constitutes someone democrats often refer to as 'rich, wealthy, millionaires, and billionaires."
For those that don't understand why tax cuts stimulate the economy, consider taxes a cost for business. If you reduce the cost of one item (paying taxes), it gives a business more $ to invest in something else, like a new factory, a new employee, a new computer, etc.
This is complete nonsense that's demonstratably false. The Bush tax cuts were in place when the economy collapsed and have been in place the entire recession. They've done nothing to improve the economy and they never will. All they've done is bankrupt the country. Also recall the economy was booming under Clinton before those tax cuts went into place.
Right-wing economics as it is today is exactly what George Bush senior called it in the 80s: voodoo economics. Seriously, tax cuts cause businesses to build new factories? What country do you live in because it's not America. They're closing the factories down over here, and have been since Reagan's day.
That's why the Republicans got kicked to the curb in 2008. And the only reason Republicans made gains in 2010 is the left immediately proved themselves to be every bit as incompetent as the right.
This is complete nonsense that's demonstratably false. The Bush tax cuts were in place when the economy collapsed and have been in place the entire recession. They've done nothing to improve the economy and they never will. All they've done is bankrupt the country. Also recall the economy was booming under Clinton before those tax cuts went into place.
Right-wing economics as it is today is exactly what George Bush senior called in the 80s: voodoo economics. Seriously, tax cuts cause businesses to build new factories? What country do you live in because it's not America. They're closing the factories down over here, and have been since Reagan's day.
That's why the Republicans got kicked to the curb in 2008. And the only reason Republicans made gains in 2010 is the left immediately proved themselves every bit as incompetent as the right.
I would agree with everything but your last sentence. The reason Republicans made gains is a) a relentless propaganda machine, led and paid for by Rupert Murdoch and a number of other wealthy Americans like the Koch brothers and b) because Democrats ended up with too few votes in the Senate to actually accomplish anything, and Republicans were more interested in regaining power than in putting the country on a solid footing.
But, as you point out, right wing economic policies are and have been destroying this country since Reagan's voodoo economics began to be implemented in the 1980s. Tax cuts are emotionally appealing, but, to the extent they have been enacted, ultimately destructive. Our current economic policy represents a massive redistribution of wealth scheme where "wealth" is taken from the poor and given to the rich, and the statistics back that up. Deficits and the national debt have ballooned, not because government has expanded significantly, and not even because it was too large to begin with, but because right wing economic policies have been disastrously wrong at every turn.
Comments
I cringe when I read political statements that are written by 'un-imformed' people...
You're free to enlighten me.
Just try to do a better job than "Capitalism is eating and breathing".
A minimum wage earner can save, invest and become fairly well off? We're talking about 15K a year, certainly not enough to become fairly well off.
What if that person saved $10,000 and invested it in AAPL in 1990.
Hey Smugly, name one non-capitalist system that is a democracy.....
Well I can name a non-democracy with a very succesful private sector ....
LOL.
(This one is not even worth adorning with a smiley icon).
What if that person saved $10,000 and invested it in AAPL in 1990.
The growth of Apple stock since 1990 is like hitting the lottery. No sane investor would tell you to put all you Apples (lol) in one basket.
I have a rock that keeps tigers away. I've never been attacked by any tigers so far so it must be working.
Ah, that old Mulla Nasiruddin idiot-savant chestnut..... funny one, that.
(Look it up).
Amazing how pessimistic and negative this thread has become and it's just started.
Politics, does that. Bring a politician to the party and everyone gets that look like they're about to go rummaging through your pockets...cause they probably are.
Lets be clear, when Obama says spread the wealth around I think he's talking about the wealth of his "enemies", the republicans, and not his friends like Steve Jobs.
Politicians are typically narcissistic and power hungry, it's a fact of life. We can't really complain much since it's our fault. Our culture's lust for political gossip has driven away any descent people from running for office, they're too smart to let their name be recklessly dragged through the mud by our puppet media corps.
It's true that Jobs and Obama have met, probably a few times. If I were President in today's world, I'd want to make sure to sit down with the heads of the most successful American companies, like Apple, and find out from their point of view what their secrets are. What makes them so successful and what makes them tick.
It sounded to me like a little bit of the Jobs RDF rubbed off on Obama. Interestingly, Jobs is older than Obama, also a first with a President. Maybe Obama looks up to Jobs a bit, and was interested in getting a little bit of his wisdom and experience? Shows how much the world has changed, that we have a President so young as to be Steve's junior. Jobs used to be the youngest guy in the room.
It seems to me that Apple has successfully written history here. If this President has referred to Apple's devices as revolutionary, its unlikely that any future President would contradict this. "Revolutionary" may now be officially written into the history books... I doubt such a word will be associated with any other tech companies in a historical context. Apple wins!
It's what's destroying the United States. Rich get even richer and pretend to give small handouts to the poor, all while squeezing the middle class. Yeah, great freaking system.
Why should the poor even expect handouts? I think this says volumes:
Do not envy wealth. Aspire to it.
What's the ancient proverb? Give a man a fish and he's not hungry for a day, teach a man to fish and he's not hungry for life.
If you are tired of being poor - do something about it! As a friend would say, stop waiting for the roast duck to fly into your mouth!
Or with 50 billion you can donate money to the poor and less fortunate. Shouldn't that be what our government should be doing with it's money?
Who's money? Government doesn't have it's money. To have something you have to produce something. Government doesn't produce anything! It get's it's money by taxing our money! It's not the government's money - it's OUR fucking money!
That's the central problem with our currently out of control central government - too many assholes in congress and elsewhere thing it is their money - and they couldn't be MORE wrong!!
Since we are such a global economy now, I think if a company wants to use another country's cheap labor they should be taxed enough to pay for the labor that is not being utilized in this country. That would do away with all the trade issues we are having with jobs in China and India and bring back all those lost jobs in the US and fix the unemployment problems plaguing this country.
Just my thoughts...
Ha! Protectionism never works. We have centuries of countries and even large corporations (East India Tea Company anyone?) trying to muck around with geo-political and economics to game the system in their favor - and never with positive results.
For all it's faults, the US republic system of government, was, until the 1930's, the most successful system of government and fostered the greatest explosion of technology and human advancement - ever!
For all the people who seem to be gung-ho about evolution and natural selection (survival of the fittest and all that) it amazes me that they believe in "creationism economics" so whole-hartedly.
Sigh... another great overused platitude, but so appropriate for this discussion - those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Read up on the fall of ancient Athens - the first democracy. Ancient Rome - another valuable set of lessons - especially for modern America. Then look around - the similarities between are pretty depressing. Here we go again....
And before you trot out any more of this 'gap between rich and poor' class warfare bullshit, you might want to time travel back to the middle ages and ask a serf about their opinion of such things. What we take for granted and outright dismiss or mock as being "unfair" is really rather sad and pathetic
Of course, this is extremely simplified, and ignores other qualms I have with taxation, and social philosophy, etc. But sometimes people just need a little perspective.
Good luck with that. Your trying to overcome greed (whats in it for me) and jealousy (hey, you don't need all of that since I have none!). Two ugly sides of the human condition which have been at war with reasonable and practical thought since the dawn of time.
Really, it's amazing humanity every emerged from the dark ages when you think about it. Especially when you read ignorant posts like many in this thread
Do you know why food stamps and unemployment benefit is the governments best way to stimulate the economy? Because there is a 100% chance it will be spent.
1) So where did this magical resource to produce the food stamps to turn them into food and "necessities" come from in the first place? And how does that stimulate anything?
2) 100% chance eh? So you are just discounting administrative overhead, fraud and basic human stupidity? While you might live in some fantasy land where life is efficient and perfect, it's time to wake up and join the real world
I'll never forget last year at this time parents complaining that the DC toy drive ran out of toys for their disadvantaged kids while sporting an iPhone in plain site of the camera.
Necessities and stimulation of the economy my ass....
We have infrastructure falling around our ears and record numbers of people on unemployment - why the heck aren't we doing WPA type programs to at least get something for the literally BILLIONS in unemployment benefits we are paying out? We should at least get a few roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. - and who knows, if people aren't willing to do a little honest labor for their "benefits" maybe they'll jump back into the job pool or increase their skills to get back in. Motivation - god forbid someone try to inject a little accountability into things...
Maybe "conservatives" should actually learn the meaning of the word, and stop treating the primaries like a popularity contest.
Why are we, the tax payers, funding private elections anyway? If the political parties want to elect their internal choices, they should pay for their own elections!
Actually it would do all Americans a bit of good to read George Washington's feelings about political parties. Unfortunately all the fears he had about them have long ago been realized.
I'll be voting for Ron Paul.
While you may feel better, unfortunately it won't address the real issues.
We have infrastructure falling around our ears and record numbers of people on unemployment - why the heck aren't we doing WPA type programs to at least get something for the literally BILLIONS in unemployment benefits we are paying out? We should at least get a few roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. - and who knows, if people aren't willing to do a little honest labor for their "benefits" maybe they'll jump back into the job pool or increase their skills to get back in.
Yes. Unfortunately, many such projects?high speed rail, a tunnel in NY come to mind?were killed by Republicans this year. Just because they were initiated by Democrats.
When someone figures out how to make us all equal, then incomes will converge.
That was tried in Soviet Russia and they collapsed.
It's a false goal - we aren't all equal. We all have different talents, abilities, opportunities and resources. It's what makes life interesting. And thanks to the structure of our society, we all have opportunity. The "Land of Opportunity" wasn't some benign campaign slogan or the damning of faint praise - it did and still does mean something.
To those who are willing to reach out to it anyway... yes, despite all the ways our country is being screwed up by greedy self-interests, America is still a land of incredible opportunity.
A minimum wage earner can save, invest and become fairly well off? We're talking about 15K a year, certainly not enough to become fairly well off.
To me the more interesting question is not what a minimum wage earner can or can't do, but why are they still a minimum wage earner?
The solution isn't raising the minimum wage or handing out more benefits - the solution is helping people get out of that tier and up to the next ones....
Then again that isn't as sexy as promising people free crap if they vote for you so no wonder not many politicians are interested in looking at problems from practical and realistic standpoints
...He called them 'revolutionary devices'
...It sounded to me like a little bit of the Jobs RDF rubbed off on Obama.
Yeah, god forbid Apple actually does produce revolutionary products! No, it must all be marketing and a reality distortion field
Because it's trivial to become the company with the second largest market capitalization in the world with flim-flam artistry instead of tangible success
What an awful and depressing thing to say. Monetary wealth should not be a person's lifetime goal.
He isn't saying it is a goal. He is saying that doing great things should be rewarded.
1) So where did this magical resource to produce the food stamps to turn them into food and "necessities" come from in the first place? And how does that stimulate anything?
It's just another idiotic mantra repeated by the left. "Unemployment benefits stimulate the economy", they say, ignoring the fact that unemployment benefits have been going during the entire recession and haven't stimulated squat.
It's the identical situation to the right saying the Bush tax cuts stimulate the economy.
I don't think either side of the political fence even knows what an economy is.
That was tried in Soviet Russia and they collapsed.
It's a false goal - we aren't all equal. We all have different talents, abilities, opportunities and resources. It's what makes life interesting. And thanks to the structure of our society, we all have opportunity. The "Land of Opportunity" wasn't some benign campaign slogan or the damning of faint praise - it did and still does mean something.
To those who are willing to reach out to it anyway... yes, despite all the ways our country is being screwed up by greedy self-interests, America is still a land of incredible opportunity.
You just made my point. There is no way to make us all equal. Ambition is an individual trait and varies greatly from one individual to the next.
Without a magic potion to remedy this disparity, among thousands of others such as natural talent and the location of birth, we are hopelessly doomed with living in a society where some are rich and some are poor.
I've enjoyed your posts and agree 100%. This is the land of opportunity for those that pursue achievement.
Some other posts sound like they come from the Nancy Pelosi school of economics. Unemployment benefits do not stimulate the economy. They are transfer payments - the money must be taken from someone else. If Nancy Pelosi was correct, we could all simply stop working and start receiving unemployment and our economy would thrive!
For those that don't understand why tax cuts stimulate the economy, consider taxes a cost for business. If you reduce the cost of one item (paying taxes), it gives a business more $ to invest in something else, like a new factory, a new employee, a new computer, etc.
This is why when taxes go up, businesses often lay off employees. One cost went up (taxes) and must be offset (all things equal) by a cost reduction somewhere else. Most often, it's a cost businesses can readily control, such as employment.
There are a lot of small business people in that 'wealthy' 250K area that Obama wants to hike taxes on. Not a good plan to tax the job creators, especially in a recession. 250K was far too low a starting point and hardly constitutes someone democrats often refer to as 'rich, wealthy, millionaires, and billionaires."
For those that don't understand why tax cuts stimulate the economy, consider taxes a cost for business. If you reduce the cost of one item (paying taxes), it gives a business more $ to invest in something else, like a new factory, a new employee, a new computer, etc.
This is complete nonsense that's demonstratably false. The Bush tax cuts were in place when the economy collapsed and have been in place the entire recession. They've done nothing to improve the economy and they never will. All they've done is bankrupt the country. Also recall the economy was booming under Clinton before those tax cuts went into place.
Right-wing economics as it is today is exactly what George Bush senior called it in the 80s: voodoo economics. Seriously, tax cuts cause businesses to build new factories? What country do you live in because it's not America. They're closing the factories down over here, and have been since Reagan's day.
That's why the Republicans got kicked to the curb in 2008. And the only reason Republicans made gains in 2010 is the left immediately proved themselves to be every bit as incompetent as the right.
This is complete nonsense that's demonstratably false. The Bush tax cuts were in place when the economy collapsed and have been in place the entire recession. They've done nothing to improve the economy and they never will. All they've done is bankrupt the country. Also recall the economy was booming under Clinton before those tax cuts went into place.
Right-wing economics as it is today is exactly what George Bush senior called in the 80s: voodoo economics. Seriously, tax cuts cause businesses to build new factories? What country do you live in because it's not America. They're closing the factories down over here, and have been since Reagan's day.
That's why the Republicans got kicked to the curb in 2008. And the only reason Republicans made gains in 2010 is the left immediately proved themselves every bit as incompetent as the right.
I would agree with everything but your last sentence. The reason Republicans made gains is a) a relentless propaganda machine, led and paid for by Rupert Murdoch and a number of other wealthy Americans like the Koch brothers and b) because Democrats ended up with too few votes in the Senate to actually accomplish anything, and Republicans were more interested in regaining power than in putting the country on a solid footing.
But, as you point out, right wing economic policies are and have been destroying this country since Reagan's voodoo economics began to be implemented in the 1980s. Tax cuts are emotionally appealing, but, to the extent they have been enacted, ultimately destructive. Our current economic policy represents a massive redistribution of wealth scheme where "wealth" is taken from the poor and given to the rich, and the statistics back that up. Deficits and the national debt have ballooned, not because government has expanded significantly, and not even because it was too large to begin with, but because right wing economic policies have been disastrously wrong at every turn.