What Is Americas Biggest Problem?

[iNow]

Hey tar, my wife shared something with me this morning. It was a couple of pictures showing the difference between equality and justice. It showed three people watching a sporting event over a fence. One very tall, one medium, and one short. They were each standing on equal boxes, so they had equality, but the short guy still couldn't even see the game. The tall guy had a penthouse view. The second picture shows justice. The tall guy gives his box to the short guy, and now they aren't equal in that regard, but everyone is now enjoying the game.

 

Why does the conservative mindset seem to want to deny everyone getting justice, and enjoying life?

For the visual thinkers out there:

 

[Ten oz]

I have no need to rebut iNow's heavily researched arguments, as I agree with most of them.

Nor do I dismiss them.

 

Can you talk about Waitforufo's questions raised in post #398.

Maybe try to present mitigating arguments, or dispel his fears ( as INow is doing ).

He is, after all, one of the people you profess to care about.

So everyone here must individually acknowledge and refute Waitforufo's posts personally point by point even though facts have already proven them either outright wrong or pointless to the discussion by other posters?

[Phi for All]

Can you talk about Waitforufo's questions raised in post #398.

Maybe try to present mitigating arguments, or dispel his fears ( as INow is doing ).

He is, after all, one of the people you profess to care about.

 

I prefer iNow's answer to that post as well. I have no interest in performing for his Gish Gallop approach. I do all that work posting relevant facts for thirty questions, only to have them dismissed in his usual short-sighted, fuckem-I-got-mine-everything's-fine manner.

 

And there's no dispelling this kind of fear, except with the very knowledge and perspectives waitforufo and other conservative mindsets reject. These are self-imposed, anti-intellectual hobbles to reason, but they must feel pretty good around the ankles, and they do keep things moving really slooooooooooooooooooowly.

[tar]

Phi,

 

I don't see either picture as equality. I am thinking the security guards should chase all three away for not buying a ticket like everybody honestly watching the game have done

 

Regards, TAR

That would make it fair, for the people that bought the tickets.

Without the ticket price the players would not be paid and the game would not be talent filled and exciting to watch. Someone has to pay the mortgage on the stadium and pay to keep the place nice to look at and functional.

The conservative view would be the three of them should go home and do their chores and get their dads to take them to the next game.

or get a paper route and buy a bleacher seat for a game later in the season

regards, tar

[StringJunky]

Phi,

 

I don't see either picture as equality. I am thinking the security guards should chase all three away for not buying a ticket like everybody honestly watching the game have done

 

Regards, TAR

That would make it fair, for the people that bought the tickets.

Without the ticket price the players would not be paid and the game would not be talent filled and exciting to watch. Someone has to pay the mortgage on the stadium and pay to keep the place nice to look at and functional.

The conservative view would be the three of them should go home and do their chores and get their dads to take them to the next game.

or get a paper route and buy a bleacher seat for a game later in the season

It is an analogy. They are general and not meant to cover every case.

Edited January 20, 2016 by StringJunky

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

 

I don't know who Sanders would pick as a running mate, I just picked somebody I would vote for.

 

Regards, TAR

String Junky,

 

I took it as an analogy. People getting for free, what everybody else is paying for, is exactly the topic we are discussing as where conservatives feel abused by people that feel entitled to get the same stuff for free that they themselves have worked all their lives and made all the sacrifices to achieve.

 

Perhaps if the analogy was not meant to have a profession team on the field and a stadium full of paying customers, it should have been a sandlot game with kids playing and garbage can lids as bases.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited January 20, 2016 by tar

[Phi for All]

Phi,

 

I don't see either picture as equality. I am thinking the security guards should chase all three away for not buying a ticket like everybody honestly watching the game have done

 

Regards, TAR

 

Wow, you're always hard to pin down, but you're (usually) not obtuse about it.

 

How about the same situation, but the guys are looking out over the Grand Canyon. Forget about safety, forget about what they should be doing differently to gain the same view. Pretending to be obtuse in order to make things work out for you in a discussion won't work twice (or at all).

[tar]

Phi,

 

I get the principle of giving the guy the boost. I already do that and I would do that, even as a conservative, You posted the comment to laugh at conservatives and to tell us what a conservative's idea of equality was. And to show that conservatives are evil and stupid, whereas liberals are kind and reasonable. I responded with my obtuse remarks to show you that you indeed do not understand a conservative, nor how they would view a situation. I am neither stupid nor cruel but I might think the kids are getting for free what everybody else has worked for. There are many ways into the stadium. You can get somebody to take you, by doing something for them. You can earn some money and buy a ticket. You can marry the daughter of the owner of the team and get a box seat, you can practice and get really good at baseball and go out for the team, you can get a job as ball boy, or selling popcorn or whatever.

 

Any conservative would give his little brother a boost to see the grand canyon.

 

Regards, TAR

[iNow]

Without the ticket price the players would not be paid and the game would not be talent filled and exciting to watch.

You seem blissfully unaware of how sport revenues actually work with television advertising and product merchandising and suite deals and naming rights and monopoly rents and scarcity pricing on food/drink/alcohol.

 

https://www.bostonfed.org/peanuts/sptspage/inning4.htm

 

The conservative view would be the three of them should go home and do their chores and get their dads to take them to the next game.

 

or get a paper route and buy a bleacher seat for a game later in the season

Average ticket price for football $86 each. For all three family members to attend one single game, that would be nearly $260, and that's before, parking, food and drink (where a coke costs $6 and a hotdog costs $8), and merch. Even at the cheapest stadium a ticket costs $60, or nearly $200 for all three to attend.

 

http://www.statista.com/statistics/193595/average-ticket-price-in-the-nfl-by-team/

 

It's really not that much better for baseball, either:

 

http://www.statista.com/statistics/193673/average-ticket-price-in-the-mlb-by-team/

https://www.teammarketing.com/public/uploadedPDFs/2015%20mlb%20fci%20(1).pdf

 

Now, to your other point about the paper route...

 

81% of paper route jobs are handled by adults with cars, and even for them this work only accounts for ~12-15 hours per week of work at around $10/hr or less. That money is spent on food, shelter, clothing, and other basic needs. Do you really think the average person can drop $200-250 on 3 sports tickets and the peripheral costs like that on a paper route?

 

Seriously... Even buying a sports ticket has become a sign of the profound inequality in our nation, a luxury too few can afford. This isn't the 1950s anymore, Tar. Things have changed, and your thinking should, too.

You can marry the daughter of the owner of the team and get a box seat, you can practice and get really good at baseball and go out for the team...

Wow... Just, wow.

[Phi for All]

Phi,

 

I get the principle of giving the guy the boost. I already do that and I would do that, even as a conservative, You posted the comment to laugh at conservatives and to tell us what a conservative's idea of equality was. And to show that conservatives are evil and stupid, whereas liberals are kind and reasonable. I responded with my obtuse remarks to show you that you indeed do not understand a conservative, nor how they would view a situation. I am neither stupid nor cruel but I might think the kids are getting for free what everybody else has worked for. There are many ways into the stadium. You can get somebody to take you, by doing something for them. You can earn some money and buy a ticket. You can marry the daughter of the owner of the team and get a box seat, you can practice and get really good at baseball and go out for the team, you can get a job as ball boy, or selling popcorn or whatever.

See how much time you re-wasted making your obtuse, strawman points, that don't actually address what was said?

 

Any conservative would give his little brother a boost to see the grand canyon.

See how little time it takes you to give a complete non-answer to the actual question?

 

So your little brother's happiness trumps the overall social trends of a mighty nation. You think your personal support of him alone is a better than re-organizing a national effort to help him and millions more with fairness and justice. You don't understand investing in Americans, except the ones you know are worthy.

 

Can I put this down as a stance from you, finally?

[tar]

iNow,

 

I think it obscene that everybody pays 80 bucks for seats you can barely fit into in the new Yankee stadium and there are 800 dollar empty seats, big wide soft chairs, behind home plate, with waitresses coming down to take drink orders.

 

Still I bought the 80 dollar seat for my dad and took him...once, to a game, as he had taken me half a dozen times to games at the old stadium.

 

Being not upper class, does not mean I can not be proud of my accomplishments, and remain a kind and generous, reasonable person, whose ideas of fairness and equality do not include hamstringingy one person so another can succeed.

 

Phi for All,

 

The GI Bill and Pell grants and all the other ways we have invested in our nation and its people through grants to colleges and tax credits for R and D and such, and all the big endeavors like space programs and the interstate system and the Tennessee valley authority and such are obviously beneficial to everyone. Working together is good. I am all for it. There is however a distinction in my mind between helping your neighbor get strong so that the whole chain is stronger by virtue of there being no weak links, and enabling an abled body person to be a leech. I point here, especially to West Virginia where government programs and disability insurance and such has made it possible for people to survive, without doing a darn thing for themselves or for society. Yes there is a Meth problem and a stupidity problem in West Virginia, but I think government programs do as much to enable the swoon than to put any boxes under a short person so that they can see the game.

 

So yes, I think a person should "deserve" a leg up, but I also think a person should feel obliged to give something back to us, as the society that handed out the boxes to stand on.

 

Regards, TAR

And as far as this thread goes, I remain correct in assuming that we already are beholding to the people that own the stadium, for bringing us the game. And some of these people are conservatives, and some vote republican, and almost all are capable and trustworthy and do not deserve the ridicule that is evident in the conservative/liberal view of equality cartoon.

Edited January 20, 2016 by tar

[Phi for All]

So yes, I think a person should "deserve" a leg up, but I also think a person should feel obliged to give something back to us, as the society that handed out the boxes to stand on.

 

Well, the programs available keep getting robbed of funding by a conservative mindset that thinks the way you do. It's really no wonder that you think poorly of them. But it's a lot like holding your foot on someone's neck and then mocking them for not standing up on their own two feet, don't you think?

 

What if some of the liberal ideas were put in place, the ones from Eisenhower's days about taxing the wealthy, and the new ones about educating our People to a modern, post-American Revolution level? We could actually stop pretending the meth addicts in West Virginia had all the options you have.

[Willie71]

I think the biggest differences between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives refuse to accept the role of the biggest factor in success, the social/genetic lottery. That is the single biggest predictor of what retirement will look like for people. Liberals accept that, and don't see minimizing the high costs of letting people flounder through life is either ethical, or financially viable. Conservatives call it freebies. Liberals recognize that for every dollar spent on prevention, $100.00 is returned in not requiring expensive fixes later on.

 

By preventing "freebies," you are losing so much money it's obscene. Math is not a conservative strong point, obviously.

Phi,

 

I don't see either picture as equality. I am thinking the security guards should chase all three away for not buying a ticket like everybody honestly watching the game have done

 

Regards, TAR

That would make it fair, for the people that bought the tickets.

Without the ticket price the players would not be paid and the game would not be talent filled and exciting to watch. Someone has to pay the mortgage on the stadium and pay to keep the place nice to look at and functional.

The conservative view would be the three of them should go home and do their chores and get their dads to take them to the next game.

or get a paper route and buy a bleacher seat for a game later in the season

regards, tar

Hmmm, you support everyone chipping in fairly to support the team wages, and operational costs, but taxing a corporation that uses public I frastructure is bad to you? Please try to be internally consistent. Would you agree that the best seats should have the highest price, rather than be given to the wealthy for free?

[tar]

Phi,

 

We have had a good deal of programs put in place We are, as a result, exactly where we are. Some good has come. Some things did not work out. Some things worked but had unintended consequences. There is such a thing as game theory, where everybody makes their best move...every time. My theory remains that we are doing it right, and everybody is doing their best...and it is working out like this. And it is much better to attempt to win the game together, than to attempt to have the other guy lose.

 

I don't mind working with you to end drug abuse and poverty and ignorance. I mind you making it sound like I am the enemy and the only way you can win is to make me look foolish and defeat me. Makes no sense for you to take that attitude.

 

I am on your side.

 

Regards, TAR

[waitforufo]

They are also me and my family. I work (quite successfully) within an organization that currently employees nearly 80,000 people. My father, my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles and cousins also work (or worked) for massive corporations. None of that is relevant to anything I'm saying, though.

Its relevant because or your parjoritve rhetoric. You are calling good people robbers and other things simply to score points. It does your own argument no good.

 

You may find my choice of words or the manner by which I string them together offensive, but you've done nothing to rebut my choice of facts nor my presentation of the correctable asymmetries so common in our current economic landscape.

My responses were based on your sources. We just view the same facts from a different perspective. To be effective in arguing you need to try to walk in the other person's shoes. You see corporate welfare, and I see corporations and states & municipalities working to create the jobs needed for thriving communities. You see subsidies, and I see intensives. You want the government to fix things, and I see the government doing just that through the tax code.

 

I don't think taking away all of Warren Buffet's money would do "my cause" any good. I simply agree with much of what Warren Buffet himself has to say on the topic: http://reut.rs/1M9anvJ

If Warren Buffet's secretary is paying 35% in federal income taxes, that person is likely making in excess of $200k a year. I say good for that person, and don't feel that they are in need of my sympathy. My guess is you would like to see that person paying even more in taxes. Warren Buffet pays 15% because his income is from long term capital gains. Long term capitol gains taxes are lower the income taxes in large measure to account for inflation. I personally think gains from investments should be taxed based on the difference in the inflation adjusted initial investment cost subtracted from the sale price. While that would be fair, the mere suggestion of such a scheme would make the average liberal's head explode.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. I understand your opinion, but I feel it requires a degree of willful ignorance I'm unwilling to accept. The evidence and facts at hand are just too robust to maintain such an opinion while in parallel remaining intellectually honest.

Again, simply a perspective thing. I think your perspective is skewed by your desire for more governmental tax revenue. The government however disagrees with you. They understand the benefits of the tax intensives and tax brakes they provide.

 

That is certainly a bit of a surprise to me, I'll admit. I'm sure you are correct that you've said this before and I've just forgotten. Regardless, I'm glad we can be allies on this particular topic.

Like I said, I like neither, simply because I think one is better than the other doesn't mean I am in favor of either.

 

We're not as different as you probably think, but we are differently opinioned and informed on this topic.

I would agree with this except I feel you are implying that I am not informed. If that is the case, you are wrong.

 

More on other comments later.

Edited January 20, 2016 by waitforufo

[Ten oz]

@ TAR, do you anticipate Sanders will win the Nomination?

[tar]

Willie71,

 

In this thread, I am not trying to have either the rich or the poor win. I am trying to win an argument, that says the biggest problem in America is that we don't give each other the benefit of the doubt and treat each other as equal citizens in power and authority and judgement. We are none of us either withholding largess from the other or entitled to largess from the other. Equal citizens share each others strengths and bolster up the other when they are in danger.

 

Neither rich nor poor should be the enemy of the other.

 

Regards, TAR

Ten Oz,

 

I think Sanders will win in New Hampshire and possibly Kansas and the momentum thus achieved might hurt Hilary's chances with the Southern black vote she is hoping will get her some of those states. Plus, if there are any federal charges related to her handling of top top secret information, people that otherwise would have voted for her, might not trust her with the nuclear codes. Biden I think might be a little sorry he did not throw his hat into the ring, so I am thinking he might be attractive to Sanders, to absorb some of the votes that would have gone to Hilary.

 

Regards, TAR

[MigL]

@Ten oz

 

No you certainly don't need to discuss all of Waitforufo's questions.

But at the time, only Waitforufo, iNow and Phi for All were involved in the discussion.

At the time iNow chose the option of addressing one of Waitforufo's questions, while Phi chose instead, to question his conservative motivations.

And when I pointed out Phi's less desirable choice, he also threw the conservative label at me.

 

And, as even Phi has pointed out some of those questions are valid, you need to show where others, besides iNow, have addressed those questions.

[overtone]

I saw yesterday that Sarah Palin is supporting Trump. As I already was hoping the republicans would find a real candidate, which seemed to inexplicably be not happening, I now am completely convinced that we are in trouble and in danger of going the fascist, xenophobic route..

So wtf did you think was happening when Palin herself was the candidate, and the Republican crowd was bringing stuffed monkeys painted up in blackface with bones in their noses and Palin-inspired lipstick ("lipstick on a pig" remember?) to the Palin rallies? Or when Rush Limbaugh was crowned big daddy at CPAC and endorsing W&Cheney?

 

The Republicans went the fascist, xenophobic route in 1980. They made it Party policy in 1992. It's not a route any more - it's the Party identity.

 

 

When I say we are doing it right, I am pointing out that we already have a graduated income tax.

It's reverse graduated for capital gains income and social security. Mitt Romney had advance warning in 2012, adjusted his chosen released year of tax returns to look as heavily taxed as possible, and still paid less than 14% total - about what a self-employed housecleaner pays in Social Security alone.

 

 

Guy A is paying 4 times the percentage of his income in taxes compared to guy B or that guy B is paying 7 times as much tax as guy A. Add to this two ways of looking at it, that fact that guy A is also receiving government assistance and guy B has 10 employees who he pays a living wage and who pay taxes themselves and who he provides health insurance for, or the salary to pay for health insurance...then the income inequality component between a fast food worker and a corporate Vice President, is not automatically caused by bigotry.

Don't forget that guy B is receiving government assistance, that all the money he pays to employees is being invested for a return and subtracted from his taxes at the same time, and so forth.

 

But that's not the main point, or even the second one.

 

The main point is that guy B should be paying enough to cover the government's bills, whatever that percentage is - that's how a sane economy is structured: the winners pay for the game. The question is not what is fair, but what is necessary to pay the bills. When President Shitforbrains starts two land wars in Asia, his buddies in the boardrooms - the guys who financed his campaign and backed his career - face a tax hike, not a tax break, under responsible government.

 

And the second point is that guy B should be prevented from accumulating too much wealth compared with guy A, so that inequality of income and wealth does not choke the economy and make everyone worse off. Free market economies and capitalist societies work poorly at high levels of income and wealth inequality - the exchange mechanism that is supposed to keep things efficient breaks down; too much of the surplus production goes to a limited and localized set of benefits for a few people, starving the rest of the economy of investment and innovation.

Edited January 20, 2016 by overtone

[waitforufo]

iNow, I did make comments above to your first reply to my previous post. This is a continuance since you posted twice to my comments.

You imply with your words that it's salt of the earth, dirty fingered nail, blue collared, 9-to-5, a sixer of Pabst and a pack of lucky's "working people" who own those companies, but absent a few on the margins with a largely insignificant number of shares that's just not true.

GM Owners: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-board-shareholders-factbox-idUSKBN0LE2JX20150210
Fiat Chrysler Owners: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/beb311a4-c92a-11e2-9d2a-00144feab7de.html

First wasn't it Obama that bail out GM and Chrysler. So can I take it that you thought that bail out was corporate welfare and wrong? I so I'm sure the UAW thinks you are wrong.

Your second link is not working for me.

Your first link show that GM is mostly owned by mutual funds. Who do you think invests in mutual funds? What do you have in your 401k? I have mutual funds in mine.

Corporate welfare is about much more than the ability to write off R&D expenses.

But you think R&D expenses are corporate welfare right? You know their is a reason why the US is a technology leader. Our government show it understands the importance of R&D to our nation. Do you?

https://en.wikipedia...ensive_analyses

So you are a big supporter of the ideas of the Cato institute?

Are you simply pulling these numbers out of thin air, or do you have a relevant source you can share with the rest of us that actually supports them?

No I'm using the sources you previously gave. That source said the top tax rate was 35% but that some paid 13%. 35% - 13% = 22%. Those paying 13% are not being hauled of to jail so I have to assume they are following the law. You see when the government writes tax law there are three way you can be compliant. 1) You can pay the top rate. 2) You can act in a way the government wishes you to. 3) You can do both. In all three of those ways you are compliant with the tax code. You like to think that options 2 and 3 are cheating or immoral in some way. I think all three was were intended to benefit society and are therefore good.

 

With regard to food workers your data shows a full 54% fall into the new worker category I mentioned. I'm sure others are simply working for supplemental income. The others need to get more ambitious.

I appreciated your reply. It was not disrespectful of me, but much of it was disrespectful of accuracy and facts.

Again, I simply have a different perspective of the facts.

ou are absolutely and 100% correct that this is a big issue (even a problem) worthy of our focus and attention, but you are incorrect to suggest it's the only (or even the primary) one. Many countries, essentially all of whom are vastly smaller than ours, are also competing with China and India, yet most still manage to set policies that safeguard against plutocracy and which prioritize the maximum benefit of the maximum number of their citizens, and all while engaging and respecting robust active markets.

I wish those other countries luck, but we in the US have our own way.

 

More again later.

[overtone]

I wish those other countries luck, but we in the US have our own way.

This way you call "our way" is a recent and significant change to what was "our way" from 1935 until 1980. And the change is visible in every marker of prosperity and sound economic management you can find - since the changes of Reaganomics, we have been in a slide, simultaneously stagnant in wages and accumulating public debt.

 

The WWII and aftermath "our way" worked a lot better than the Reaganomics "our way"has been working. And the reasons why are not hidden.

 

 

 

You see when the government writes tax law there are three way you can be compliant. 1) You can pay the top rate. 2) You can act in a way the government wishes you to. 3) You can do both. In all three of those ways you are compliant with the tax code. You like to think that options 2 and 3 are cheating or immoral in some way. I think all three was were intended to benefit society and are therefore good.

Why do you think the various tax breaks and loopholes carefully written into the law, every single one of which reduces the absolute and relative burden on the wealthy significantly, were intended to benefit "society"?

 

And why would such a silly and soon-revealed and damaging mistake in intention, if it ever existed, be a good thing?

Edited January 20, 2016 by overtone

[Phi for All]

We have had a good deal of programs put in place We are, as a result, exactly where we are. Some good has come. Some things did not work out. Some things worked but had unintended consequences.

 

I'm not surprised at all that youve once again missed the point, and tried yet again to say that the state we're in is all normal, that we're doing it right.

 

What I've said, over and over, is that the programs keep getting underfunded, yet you still expect them to work well or be scrapped. The conservative mindset has done this with every program they disagree with, and pretended later that the liberal "way" just doesn't work.

 

Like Bush II did with FEMA and the EPA. Put some gratuity appointees in those positions whether they have experience or not, and then wait for Hurricane Katrina to overwhelm him, calling into question the whole agency. Compare that with what the liberals do, making sure there's competence and funding involved, so much so that even someone like Chris Christie thanked President Obama for his timely and efficient response to his state's disaster hurricane.

 

Even you have posted in the past, wondering at the sanity involved in setting up No Child Left Behind without adequate funding. Now, of course, we see that he purposely cut the funding so the private sector could cash in on what he did with public funding. His brother Neal is still making money from that.

 

So this isn't just a cyclical, Oh-well-we-tried, some-things-don't-work-out situation. It's been engineered to benefit a small percentage with general public funds. And let's be honest here, kissing corporate ass, bending over and hiking up our skirts for them just because they create jobs using the People's infrastructure is exactly what fascists like. It's like the lube that makes the rape more pleasant for both sides.

 

I guess I just don't get it when you and waitforufo say we're doing fine, doing it right, when we can point to greater periods of overall prosperity historically, and identify what made it that way using hindsight (it's supposed to be 20/20, isn't it?). You don't seem to see the massive problems we've got since you're both calling for status quo. Even when the historical solutions have provided so much more return on investment, and given more people the opportunity to achieve what you've both got. It makes it seem like you want to keep a lot of people below you, people who might just achieve more than you did if they had the same privilege.

 

But I'm a humanist. I think we all prosper when we remember our humanity, and stop judging the worth of others when there's such disparity in privilege and circumstances.

[Willie71]

Willie71,

 

In this thread, I am not trying to have either the rich or the poor win. I am trying to win an argument, that says the biggest problem in America is that we don't give each other the benefit of the doubt and treat each other as equal citizens in power and authority and judgement. We are none of us either withholding largess from the other or entitled to largess from the other. Equal citizens share each others strengths and bolster up the other when they are in danger.

 

Neither rich nor poor should be the enemy of the other.

 

Regards, TAR

Ten Oz,

 

I think Sanders will win in New Hampshire and possibly Kansas and the momentum thus achieved might hurt Hilary's chances with the Southern black vote she is hoping will get her some of those states. Plus, if there are any federal charges related to her handling of top top secret information, people that otherwise would have voted for her, might not trust her with the nuclear codes. Biden I think might be a little sorry he did not throw his hat into the ring, so I am thinking he might be attractive to Sanders, to absorb some of the votes that would have gone to Hilary.

 

Regards, TAR

You say you are not trying to have the rich win, yet you support politicians and policies that rig the game in favour of the rich. How does that work in your perception? It causes me cognitive dissonance. As has been pointed out multiple times, the policies of the republicans cannot let everyone win. History shows this in multiple examples.

[Ten oz]

So wtf did you think was happening when Palin herself was the candidate, and the Republican crowd was bringing stuffed monkeys painted up in blackface with bones in their noses and Palin-inspired lipstick ("lipstick on a pig" remember?) to the Palin rallies? Or when Rush Limbaugh was crowned big daddy at CPAC and endorsing W&Cheney?

 

The Republicans went the fascist, xenophobic route in 1980. They made it Party policy in 1992. It's not a route any more - it's the Party identity.

 

 

 

 

The GOP as a party has been pandering to racists since Nixon used the Sourthern Strategy. It wasn't until Reagan that the nuts actually started trying to run the asylum. It seems that Bush's failure (a clear failure of right wing policies) followed by a black president has finally pushed them over the edge. The GOP establishment has no control anymore. Trump clear evidence of that.

 

It actually makes me very hopeful. We might see a shift in the Republican party where they turn their based on the fringe right. That could lead to a hand full of years where moderates in both party's work together.

[Willie71]

 

 

No I'm using the sources you previously gave. That source said the top tax rate was 35% but that some paid 13%. 35% - 13% = 22%. Those paying 13% are not being hauled of to jail so I have to assume they are following the law. You see when the government writes tax law there are three way you can be compliant. 1) You can pay the top rate. 2) You can act in a way the government wishes you to. 3) You can do both. In all three of those ways you are compliant with the tax code. You like to think that options 2 and 3 are cheating or immoral in some way. I think all three was were intended to benefit society and are therefore good.

The politicians who pass the laws couldn't be rigging the system, giving an unfair advantage to the wealthiest people, bankrupting the government in the process?

 

 

With regard to food workers your data shows a full 54% fall into the new worker category I mentioned. I'm sure others are simply working for supplemental income. The others need to get more ambitious.

What about the people laid off during the crash? People with 20 or 30 years experience who were downsized, list management or manufacturing jobs, left with mortgages they can't afford, and can't afford to retrain? The USA went from a manufacturing g economy to a service economy. Service pays shit, compared to manufacturing.

 

 

 

 

 

Again, I simply have a different perspective of the facts.

You have a different interpretation of data, but these conclusions are not supported by facts. Too many relevant variables are ignored to be considered accurate interpretations.

 

The GOP as a party has been pandering to racists since Nixon used the Sourthern Strategy. It wasn't until Reagan that the nuts actually started trying to run the asylum. It seems that Bush's failure (a clear failure of right wing policies) followed by a black president has finally pushed them over the edge. The GOP establishment has no control anymore. Trump clear evidence of that.

It actually makes me very hopeful. We might see a shift in the Republican party where they turn their based on the fringe right. That could lead to a hand full of years where moderates in both party's work together.

Under Reagan, the dominionism became much more influential, and hating gays is much more profitable than hating blacks. Reagan also popularized the sound bite over discussion of policy. It was the start of the dumbing down of America.