hahahahahaha, lmfao. you retard. :RockOn:
[ms] · Est. May 2002
Music madethis place,we just kept itgoing...
One durable person. One social graph. Many communities—and every way people speak, share, listen, write, gather and remember.
A SAD, SAD DAY...
210 durable postsStarted 2004-11-03Latest 2004-11-10
Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...
sacredawe78 perhaps its a sad day to someones, but relax and enjoy the life
k so many fallacies everywhere i have to respond to a few.......
[quote=sacredawe78]people are dying, people are poor and suffering...and etiquette is only a part of stagnation....im not here to cause anyone physical harm, nor am i apart of anything EXCEPT raising the standards of equality[/quote]
So why do you vote for a party that takes money from the .0001% of the globes richest people and then redistributes it to the top 20% of the world's richest people. Buying votes much? :lol: You say: "But no! democrats really do care about poverty!" Laff. The only reason we have welfare is because republicans and democrats alike realized we were going to have to pay people not to turn communist. B/c of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers. Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat
[quote=Terry]the only thing that hes right about is that you moronic country re elected a guy who has run 2 businesses into the ground driven your dollar ridiculously low and killed millions of your people for an unjust cause. enjoy the next few years of your life, they will be interesting[/quote]
A low dollar makes our exports more appealling abroad and makes imports look more expensive at home, which helps our country close its enormous and sometimes out of control trade defecit. If your talking about the two Texas oil companies W ran into the ground, you are wasting your breath. Tons of people lost their shirts when Texas Tea dried up.
[quote=sacredawe78]it can be right here...but i cant happen if we contiue to live in a world based on the individuals proliferation, hoarding of all natural resources, (i.e. capitalism)...[/quote]
WTF. Hoarding of natural resources is called mercantilism. Repeat after me. Mercantilism. Capitalism is about making things more valuable by generating cash flows and making the assets you have appreciate in importance over time. Not about building a big pile of money to sit on. Everyone who has ever stepped into economics 101 knows that hoarding natural resources is self-defeating. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and social scientists were actually economists. They also have been seeking ways for people to live in peace and prosperity. The only thing holding capitalism back today is the uneducated dimwits who enter the American workforce with absolutely no capitalistic training what-so-ever. And the hilarious thing is most of those people go around calling everyone else uneducated or uncultured. :lol:
[quote=sacredawe78]we can be TACTFUL with our strife, we can argue, we can reduce our omnipresent strife to a stage of reason...THE ARGUMENT...that CAN happen...[/quote]
Argument and reason mandate that all people maintain complete objectivity. Can you ask a parents to accept the suffering of their children? Can you ask a husband to accept the suffering of his wife? No. Because of the intimate emotional bonds between people. Objectivity is only possible through the suppression of emotions. As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be unattainable.
Damn i gotta go work on this project.
Peace
Welcome back My Lexicon. As eloquent as ever i see! :lol:
Lexicon, the part of your post I did understand ws very well put. I assume the (for me English is my 2nd language) unintelligible parts were just alike. :mrgreen:
Just Joking. Well spoken except for some parts, but I totally agree with [quote=mylexicon]As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be unattainable.[/quote]
:RockOn:
[quote]k so many fallacies everywhere i have to respond to a few.......
sacredawe78 wrote: people are dying, people are poor and suffering...and etiquette is only a part of stagnation....im not here to cause anyone physical harm, nor am i apart of anything EXCEPT raising the standards of equality
So why do you vote for a party that takes money from the .0001% of the globes richest people and then redistributes it to the top 20% of the world's richest people. Buying votes much? Laughing You say: "But no! democrats really do care about poverty!" Laff. The only reason we have welfare is because republicans and democrats alike realized we were going to have to pay people not to turn communist. B/c of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers. Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat
Terry wrote: the only thing that hes right about is that you moronic country re elected a guy who has run 2 businesses into the ground driven your dollar ridiculously low and killed millions of your people for an unjust cause. enjoy the next few years of your life, they will be interesting
A low dollar makes our exports more appealling abroad and makes imports look more expensive at home, which helps our country close its enormous and sometimes out of control trade defecit. If your talking about the two Texas oil companies W ran into the ground, you are wasting your breath. Tons of people lost their shirts when Texas Tea dried up.
sacredawe78 wrote: it can be right here...but i cant happen if we contiue to live in a world based on the individuals proliferation, hoarding of all natural resources, (i.e. capitalism)...
WTF. Hoarding of natural resources is called mercantilism. Repeat after me. Mercantilism. Capitalism is about making things more valuable by generating cash flows and making the assets you have appreciate in importance over time. Not about building a big pile of money to sit on. Everyone who has ever stepped into economics 101 knows that hoarding natural resources is self-defeating. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and social scientists were actually economists. They also have been seeking ways for people to live in peace and prosperity. The only thing holding capitalism back today is the uneducated dimwits who enter the American workforce with absolutely no capitalistic training what-so-ever. And the hilarious thing is most of those people go around calling everyone else uneducated or uncultured. Laughing
sacredawe78 wrote: we can be TACTFUL with our strife, we can argue, we can reduce our omnipresent strife to a stage of reason...THE ARGUMENT...that CAN happen...
Argument and reason mandate that all people maintain complete objectivity. Can you ask a parents to accept the suffering of their children? Can you ask a husband to accept the suffering of his wife? No. Because of the intimate emotional bonds between people. Objectivity is only possible through the suppression of emotions. As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be unattainable.
Damn i gotta go work on this project.
Peace [/quote]
thank you Lexicon. :wink:
[quote=mylexicon] B/c of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers. Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat [/quote]
I don't know who you are, and I care not for your little economics lesson, but your views on lower class and impoverished people are despicable. Apparently to you, how much money one makes is the sole factor determing their worth.
Believe it or not, there is more to life than money.
Lexicon had been around here longer than us Lobster, just been away for a while.
And yes, he has also struck me as being very capitalistic. Hopefully he has heard about humane capitalism, too.
Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...
MyLexicon 8) lol,cracks me up when he does that. I pretty much agree with all of it.
cheers man, come around more often!
[quote=mylexicon]k so many fallacies everywhere i have to respond to a few.......
[quote=sacredawe78]people are dying, people are poor and suffering...and etiquette is only a part of stagnation....im not here to cause anyone physical harm, nor am i apart of anything EXCEPT raising the standards of equality[/quote]
So why do you vote for a party that takes money from the .0001% of the globes richest people and then redistributes it to the top 20% of the world's richest people. Buying votes much? :lol: You say: "But no! democrats really do care about poverty!" Laff. The only reason we have welfare is because republicans and democrats alike realized we were going to have to pay people not to turn communist. B/c of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers. Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat
[quote=Terry]the only thing that hes right about is that you moronic country re elected a guy who has run 2 businesses into the ground driven your dollar ridiculously low and killed millions of your people for an unjust cause. enjoy the next few years of your life, they will be interesting[/quote]
A low dollar makes our exports more appealling abroad and makes imports look more expensive at home, which helps our country close its enormous and sometimes out of control trade defecit. If your talking about the two Texas oil companies W ran into the ground, you are wasting your breath. Tons of people lost their shirts when Texas Tea dried up.
[quote=sacredawe78]it can be right here...but i cant happen if we contiue to live in a world based on the individuals proliferation, hoarding of all natural resources, (i.e. capitalism)...[/quote]
WTF. Hoarding of natural resources is called mercantilism. Repeat after me. Mercantilism. Capitalism is about making things more valuable by generating cash flows and making the assets you have appreciate in importance over time. Not about building a big pile of money to sit on. Everyone who has ever stepped into economics 101 knows that hoarding natural resources is self-defeating. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and social scientists were actually economists. They also have been seeking ways for people to live in peace and prosperity. The only thing holding capitalism back today is the uneducated dimwits who enter the American workforce with absolutely no capitalistic training what-so-ever. And the hilarious thing is most of those people go around calling everyone else uneducated or uncultured. :lol:
[quote=sacredawe78]we can be TACTFUL with our strife, we can argue, we can reduce our omnipresent strife to a stage of reason...THE ARGUMENT...that CAN happen...[/quote]
Argument and reason mandate that all people maintain complete objectivity. Can you ask a parents to accept the suffering of their children? Can you ask a husband to accept the suffering of his wife? No. Because of the intimate emotional bonds between people. Objectivity is only possible through the suppression of emotions. As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be unattainable.
Damn i gotta go work on this project.
Peace[/quote]
2 entries found for mercantilism. mer?can?til?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m?rkn-t-lzm, -t-) n. The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade. The practice, methods, or spirit of merchants; commercialism.
cap?i?tal?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-zm) n. An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
i don't see what your point is???
mercantalism was culturally from a completely different historical period first of all...capitalisam utlmately is just an extension of that era...i don't see how you can sit here and honestly think that mercantalism is even around right now??? the laws of supply and demand will always bring about equity growth to those resources that are more valued (in demand)...that is just a naturally occuring mechanism of capitalism that keeps it going...
the same thing happened during the mercantile era...except it evolved into more advanced forms of individuals having control in a more "free" market...hence, the capitalism we know today...
youre trying to say that they are mutually exclusive realities and that mercantalism may be an alternate reality to what we currently have...
i say that that mercantalism was part of a historical evolution in economy and i say that its evolved into what we have today
you are out of context
secondly, yes i do agree with you about emotions being a problem to overcome when attaining a moral utopia...but ive already made it very clear that strife is essential, that you need only one variable existent to be homogenous with entropy, etc...
people die randomly at the hands of nature...death will always occur no matter what outside of our control...we can die from an accident, an earthquake, causes outside of our scientific understanding, etc....
that is in itself a variable
i dont see why we cannot have a morally perfect world, a utopia, and still not live in accordance with entropy...seeing that for sure at least this one variable would always be there...
it seems mathematically possible
emotions can be suppressed...yes they are essential, but with reason being the level playing field in an argument, we all have to play by the rules...we have to follow a deductive path from premise a and b and c, etc. to the conclusion....therefore, our emotions really have no place in this arena anyhow....
why cant we be tactful with our eternal strife and set the stage ourselves...in the form of an argument??? rather than just using our understanding of entropy as a normative justification in itself, i.e. the world is at war, so i must do everything i can do justify that fact...continue to cause more and more chaos (moral problem)
and then you may say, well how do you avoid dogma?? one person cant always be right, etc,.
the answer to that is that you view arguments as an inductive possibility in themselves...they are not a panacea...just because you resolve one conflict through reason does not mean that it is over
i think that in a continual dynamic social reality where humans argue constantly about what is best (morality) in terms of consequence (not intention)...the arguing in itself is the most probable (inductive) way of achieving a utopia...and since we can never ovecome the bounds of living within entropy, we can reduce as many variables as possible all the time...this is in accordance with what we can possible know and do, therefore it is a utopia
you may say weve already achieved all the arguing and fighting continually but its not rational, we dont reduce the variables, we extend as many as possible...we base our arguments on religion, on profit, on loss, on bullsit like that...we dont first reduce our arguments to the moral sphere in a scientific deductive manner, and then homogenize with entropy...we tend to want to create more and more strife as much as possible
seriously this needs to be elucidated, but it could fill a book
more later
[quote=sacredawe78]2 entries found for mercantilism. mer?can?til?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m?rkn-t-lzm, -t-) n. The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade. The practice, methods, or spirit of merchants; commercialism.
cap?i?tal?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-zm) n. An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
i don't see what your point is???
mercantalism was culturally from a completely different historical period first of all...capitalisam utlmately is just an extension of that era...i don't see how you can sit here and honestly think that mercantalism is even around right now??? the laws of supply and demand will always bring about equity growth to those resources that are more valued (in demand)...that is just a naturally occuring mechanism of capitalism that keeps it going...
the same thing happened during the mercantile era...except it evolved into more advanced forms of individuals having control in a more "free" market...hence, the capitalism we know today...
youre trying to say that they are mutually exclusive realities and that mercantalism may be an alternate reality to what we currently have...
i say that that mercantalism was part of a historical evolution in economy and i say that its evolved into what we have today
you are out of context [/quote]
Damn :shock: You really haven't stepped into an economics class. I was just kidding around but obviously I was right.
Mercantilism and Capitalism are fundementally different. Night and Day really, because of the advancements in economic theory in the 19th century. During Mercantilism the prevailing theory of wealth was displacement or the Archimedes principle of wealth/zero-sum game. Because mercantilists believed there was a finite amount of wealth in the world, they thought the only way to make themselves prosperous was to hoard giant stockpiles of gold and silver bullion.
During the 19th century many economic philosophers particularly Keynes diproved the Archimedes principle of wealth. In addition, David Ricardo came up with the law of comparative advantage.
During the 1600's when Adam Smith wrote wealth of nations, he theorized that a nation had to have an absolute effeciency advantage in order to trade with foreign nations (another reason people hoarded gold and resources). Ricardo proved that two nations could trade for mutual benefit even if one country had no absolute advantage. This breakthrough led to modern economic theory.
RECAP:
Mercantilism is about hoarding giant piles of finite wealth.
Capitalism is about creating infinite wealth that can be spread around through mutually beneficial labor and trade markets.
[quote=sacredawe78] i dont see why we cannot have a morally perfect world, a utopia, and still not live in accordance with entropy...seeing that for sure at least this one variable would always be there...
it seems mathematically possible[/quote]
It is mathematically possible. Utopia is attainable in the presence of 100% contentment or 100% indifference. Relativity and Emotion would have to be destroyed. They are the tools by which Utopia is destroyed. Of course, relativity and emotion can never be eliminated nor should they because they are part of the human condition. Freud tried to explain rational and irrational relationship and how they are reconciled when he wrote about id, ego, and superego. But even his simplistic postulations have been wrought with controversy.
[quote=LobsterClan]I don't know who you are, and I care not for your little economics lesson, but your views on lower class and impoverished people are despicable. Apparently to you, how much money one makes is the sole factor determing their worth.
Believe it or not, there is more to life than money. [/quote]
Americans are relatively poor and relatively impoverished. Granted there are some Americans who are extremely poor, but in the grand scheme of global poverty you could actually consider them well-to-do. Which is why I get frustrated with the Democratic party. The energize their American base by saying that they have it rough, and that they are victims of capitalist raider barons. The hilarious irony is that the capitalists they hate and their fortunate birth into the USA is precisely what keeps them from being one of the 2-3 billion truly impoverished people who live all around the globe. Think about how much good could be done if we took the 400 billion we dedicate every year to "eliminating poverty" in America and actually invested it in the future of other discouraged nations abroad, in order to eliminate real poverty. Unfortunately, such progress would require us to drop our nationalistic legislation, but I suspect Democrats will probably never support the elimination of our narcissistic regression as long as there is an abundance of political power stemming from our disillusioned lower class and our "misenlightened" upper class (read Alec Baldwin; Susan Sarandon; Tim Robbins).
What is it about celebrities and other wealthy socialists that makes them believe that the government is the only way they can give their money away? Oh wait, that's right. Their deep seeded narcissism leads them to do what makes them feel self-righteous and they know it is a lot easier to force America to participate in their moral crusade rather than trying to convince Americans that what they are doing is right.
i appreciate your insight into the subtelties of these economic theories and the people who've created them, but i now i feel that we are saying the same things
i feel capitalism is just an extension of mercantalism....mercantalism failed...capitalism was the inevitable conclusion
you originally attacked me by saying that i was wrong for saying capitalism is the hoarding of natural resources by the individual...
it terms of what is ultimately valued...i dont see any difference than mercantalism...the most valued goods/services set the scale for inflation...thats it...
i suppose in mercantalism...there is no such thing as inflation because of the finite wealth...but what is the fucking difference in terms of value here?
with capitalism you have infinite wealth, but it still depends upon the person with the highest control over the natural resources setting the value for which we must strive to stay ahead of inflation...
because there are over 7 billion people in the world...and because our financial transactions are so complex...it is very difficult to pinpoint what these natural resources are and whom that person may be...it always changes, but that doesnt mean i am incorrect...they both depend upon a measuring stick...mercantalism has no inflation and limited wealth...capitalism does....in terms of values, its still about the individual shaping the measuring stick or trying to keep up with individual who created it
capitalism is just an extension of mercantalism because mercantalism could not have lasted...trade is inevitable...natural resources dwindle...supply and demand...technology...they've all changed what we value....and they always will...
mercantalism is not even a possibility anymore, so why bring it up
and as far as what you said about emotion...ive already talked of how we need to reduce the illusion of relativity...we are more mathematically similar than dissimilar genetically...so we should be focusing on species flourishing and survival, not indivualization, that is so honored in capitalism
and finally, with regard to your bullshit statement about the Democratic party and wealth in the usa..and how we really have it good, etc..
your right, its stupid...we shouldnt complain right?? ...we have more wealth here than anywhere....BUT the world is becoming americanized...capitalism has spread everywhere...our dollars set the standards for everyone elses because were the epicenter of the capitalistic movement...we are a vortex... that is why Bin Laden wanted to destory the WTC
it affects everyone else in this world...every poor person in Africa is poor because we cant invest there...there is no market...
that is how we think...only in terms of profit and loss...not in terms of any moral sensibility or argument
money has absolutely nothing to do with the species survival or flourishing in a perfect moral world...so why cant we use that form of thinking as a measuring stick...rather than profit or loss...seems a bit more rational to me in terms of what is good
[quote=mylexicon] Americans are relatively poor and relatively impoverished. Granted there are some Americans who are extremely poor, but in the grand scheme of global poverty you could actually consider them well-to-do. Which is why I get frustrated with the Democratic party. The energize their American base by saying that they have it rough, and that they are victims of capitalist raider barons. The hilarious irony is that the capitalists they hate, and their fortunate birth into the USA is precisely what keeps them from being one of the 2-3 billion truly impoverished people who live all around the globe. Think about how much good could be done if we took the 400 billion we dedicate every year to "eliminating poverty" in America and actually invested it in the future of other discouraged nations abroad, in order to eliminate real poverty. Unfortunately, such progress would require us to drop our nationalistic legislation, but i don't see the Democratic party ready to do that anytime soon.[/quote]
A clever way to dance around the issues I raised. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not particularly interested in talking economics. I am talking straight up human worth. Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker?
I know people, personally, that work two full-time jobs and are still impoverished. These are decent, hard-working people, just trying to survive and take care of their families. You claim they are "worthless".
Yes of course, Americans have it better than third world countries, and sure I would like to see poverty alleviated elsewhere. But flat out, change starts at home.
So who IS going to pay for the war on Iraq? :|
we are all our paying for the war in iraq
unfortunately
our taxes pay for it
we are all evil ultimately
that is another unfortunate reality of capitalism
lots of people with good intentions, but evil actions
hence, they are evil
their soul is not a measuring stick, only their actions...thats how it should be
[quote=LobsterClan]A clever way to dance around the issues I raised. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not particularly interested in talking economics. I am talking straight up human worth. Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker?
I know people, personally, that work two full-time jobs and are still impoverished. These are decent, hard-working people, just trying to survive and take care of their families. You claim they are "worthless".
Yes of course, Americans have it better than third world countries, and sure I would like to see poverty alleviated elsewhere. But flat out, change starts at home. [/quote]
Why do you regard the amount of consumer junk a person has as an indication of their self-worth?
You've been poisoned with the juice of the liberal party. Liberals encourage consumerism by declaring that money and junk are indications of what society thinks of you. Therefore, if you don't have money and junk you have been disenfranchised and disrespected.
my lexicon what you just said is the essence of capitalism...stemming from the protestant movement Calvanism...the "visible signs"...the more stuff you own is symbolic of your right to salvation, therefore attain as much as you can
christianity was fuel for capitalism...they are inextricably bound at the moment
i dont think lobster feels the way you are saying he does...i think he feels humans have more self worth outside of materiality
[quote=LobsterClan][ Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker? [/quote]
The market dictates worth. Fact is, there are not many wide receivers who can run a 4.1 / 40, hence why one who can is paid millions of dollars based on the value the sport and the revenue it generates. School teachers = bad example, they should be paid as much as doctors, but they're not. sad. Investment banker, lawyer, specialized people, are worth more, not in terms of human life, but in terms of how much they contribute to the society and their value in the marketplace.
I can go out today and find 10000 people who can push a broom. I can't very well find 10000 highly educated people to manage my investment portfolio aggressively.
Not that sanitation workers aren't needed too, but in terms of value, they're not worth as much. Sad, but true.
[quote=Kobe]So who IS going to pay for the war on Iraq? :|[/quote]
We will......
The irony is that our federal budget of 1.5 trillion dollars is more than ample to cover our war debt. But our politicians are to busy running around trying to create Utopia and buy votes with our money. Unfortunately they will ask us to pay more instead of controlling their own spending. They know that when they flash the national debt over and over and over they will scare the money right out of our pockets. They've been doing for 3-4 decades now. And they always succeed in blaming low taxes as the reason for our bloated defecit.
[quote=mylexicon]It is mathematically possible. Utopia is attainable in the presence of 100% contentment or 100% indifference. Relativity and Emotion would have to be destroyed. They are the tools by which Utopia is destroyed. Of course, relativity and emotion can never be eliminated nor should they because they are part of the human condition. Freud tried to explain rational and irrational relationship and how they are reconciled when he wrote about id, ego, and superego. But even his simplistic postulations have been wrought with controversy.[/quote]
Dammit, you beat me to it Mylexicon. I'm not as good with words as you are in English, but that's right on the spot. If Utopia is about living like a robot, I don't think I want to live in such a society. Emotion is what makes life worth living: for every negative emotion there is a positive one, it's the peaks and lows in your mental state that make it all worthwile.
Living without fear, anger, jealousy etc, but also without happiness, love, compassion etc. What a world. Utopia is a computer-generated world, in which things are always subject to a set of given rules and in which any decision is taken without emotion, only a cold win-lose analysis. Remember the film 'The Matrix'? Sounds stupid to bring it into the story, but they said one thing that is true in it: the first Matrix was a perfect world, but that one failed miserably because the human mind could't accept that one. It was too perfect.
We are not mathematical equations. We're humans.
[quote=sacredawe78]i dont think lobster feels the way you are saying he does...i think he feels humans have more self worth outside of materiality[/quote]
I believe the same. That's why I asked him not to embrace society's understanding of capitalism (consumerism). I don't really give a damn how much stuff someone has. But Lobster's anger clearly stems from the fact that the free market has given some people more money than others.
If you take posessions and popularity away......there is nothing to indicate any inequity.
[quote=mylexicon] I believe the same. That's why I asked him not to embrace society's understanding of capitalism (consumerism). I don't really give a damn how much stuff someone has. But Lobster's anger clearly stems from the fact that the free market has given some people more money than others.
If you take posessions and popularity away......there is nothing to indicate any inequity.[/quote]
Without a doubt, you are trying to put words in my mouth. My anger was at viewpoints like yours, for claiming that lower class and poor people are "useless"
My anger is over the fact that good people have to work two jobs just to get by.
My anger is over the fact that 40% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the people.
My anger is over the fact that big corporations do not have to pay any taxes due to loopholes and off-shore tax havens, while raking in hundreds of millions in profits.
You, on the other hand, seem to like things just as they are.
[quote=LobsterClan] Without a doubt, you are trying to put words in my mouth. My anger was at viewpoints like yours, for claiming that lower class and poor people are "useless" [/quote]
He's not saying they're useless, they're just worth less to the marketplace. Fact.
[quote]My anger is over the fact that 40% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the people. [/quote]
AND it's NOT the government's job to redistribute wealth. Upward mobility is REAL in this country. You want, you work, you earn. I'm not saying it's an equal playing field, but take advantage of what's available for you in this country, nobody every said life was fair.
[quote]My anger is over the fact that big corporations do not have to pay any taxes due to loopholes and off-shore tax havens, while raking in hundreds of millions in profits. [/quote]
GOOD. These corporations provide fuel for the economy and jobs. Their good fortune benefits both. I'm fine with the Fortune 500 getting tax breaks, i'm also fine with the Rich getting tax cuts, because they do in fact pay the taxes in this country.
The middle class is not left with the tax burden. In fact, the top 50% of wage earners pay 96.03% of the taxes in this country. The IRS data is public, and you can look it up if you think i'm blowing smoke up your ass. Less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. These are facts.
[quote]You, on the other hand, seem to like things just as they are.[/quote]
Please draw me a map to this utopia you speak of, where there are fields of cookies and cream, where everyone is equal, everyone is provided for...hey wait, that sounds a lot like communism, without the cookies and cream.
:roll:
Well...why don't we start a communistic revolution with cookies and cream? If Stalin had done that, I bet people would've loved being in the Gulags... :mrgreen:
[quote=mylexicon][quote=Kobe]So who IS going to pay for the war on Iraq? :|[/quote]
We will......
[/quote]
Seems like a strange time for record tax cuts.
lobster...these people do not care...they argue to uphold disparriagement....they like the way things are
probably have never been poor enough to see or feel the burdens of this system...
i dont see how else they could be so ignorant and brainwashed
Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...
and you argue that we should all live in an aldous hxley novel.
"have you taken your soma?"
[quote=LobsterClan]Without a doubt, you are trying to put words in my mouth. My anger was at viewpoints like yours, for claiming that lower class and poor people are "useless"[/quote]
Whoa, slow down for a sec. I never said the entire lower class was useless. "utterly useless" was not an adjective describing the lower class but was part of the proper name. In other words I was referring to those people in the lower class who are utterly useless......thos people who produce absolutely nothing and they consume enormously large amounts of government money and resources.......like a parasite.
[quote=LobsterClan]My anger is over the fact that good people have to work two jobs just to get by.
My anger is over the fact that 40% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the people.
My anger is over the fact that big corporations do not have to pay any taxes due to loopholes and off-shore tax havens, while raking in hundreds of millions in profits.
You, on the other hand, seem to like things just as they are.[/quote]
Ask the government why things are the way they are. Why does the government insist that our middle class work 3-4 months out of the year to pay their tax expense. Ask liberals why they are insistent on driving prices up and wages down by slashing corporate profitability with overly restrictive legislation. Ask the government why everyone in America even the poorest of the poor are forced to have insurance. Ask the government why the won't focus on reforming corporate civil litigation that causes depressed corporate earnings and expensive products. Ask the Government why they refuse to teach finance and accounting in high school even though we live in a capitalistic society. Would you take a sledgehammer and use it to smash your own hand? If no, then you shouldn't support destroying corporate America. It is part of our system......one of the most important parts. It is a tool people can use to generate cashflows until they can become financially independent. Furthermore, corporations give us many of the products we "need" to survive.
Besides most corporations don't make hundreds of millions of dollars. They may generate that much in revenues, but after all of the expenses and salaries are paid most of them only retain about 10%-20% of that number. Very few corporations will ever see those types of earnings or revenues ever. You need to stop basing your beliefs upon a tiny percentage of the entire story.
[quote=mylexicon] .Besides most corporations don't make hundreds of millions of dollars. They may generate that much in revenues, but after all of the expenses and salaries are paid most of them only retain about 10%-20% of that number. Very few corporations will ever see those types of earnings or revenues ever. You need to stop basing your beliefs upon a tiny percentage of the entire story[/quote]
Actually, the average profit margin is about 10 percent higher in the US, more towars the 35% margin for large and small firms. the medium sized firms drop a bit because of expansion and savings. but there are about 20 times more small sized firms (i.e. sole owners or small LLP's) than the rest of all businesses.
these businesses are the ones creating the money that we all live on.
Sorry I should have been more specific, when i say retain I mean retained earnings. Net income - after dividends and preferred stock payouts. Which get taxed twice.
This is not a party political topic, it's a US problem ? the richest nation on earth has 1 in 8 people living below the poverty line. Democrats and Republicans both play up to businesses because that's how you gain/stay in power.
[quote] Last year [2002] alone, another 1.7 million Americans slipped below the poverty line, bringing the total to 34.6 million, one in eight of the population. Over 13 million of them are children. In fact, the US has the worst child poverty rate and the worst life expectancy of all the world's industrialised countries, and the plight of its poor is worsening. [/quote] [url]www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1076608,00.html[/url]
I shouldn't need to tell you that this kind of poverty creates all kinds of social problems that the US really shouldn't have. I'm not suggesting abandon capitalism or start taxing corporations heavily ? just addressing the fact that something needs to happen here.
It is a party specific issue in most people's minds, didn't you hear anything Kerry had to say during the Debates?? Democrats as a whole want to raise taxes for the highest tax brackets, that effects small business owners more then anything else and would also effect corporations. People are always getting on Bush for lowering the taxes of corporations, but thats what lexicon was talking about.
Fact. Bush win was GOOD for the market. Kerry win would have meant a loss. :Naughty:
Not sure I'm ready for another recession, one lay off was enough. But now that Nov. 2 has passed, I'm not as concerned. Most Americans don't know how to take advantage of capitalism, a major barrier but regardless Americans should not have to carry the weight of their neighbors. I pitty no fool.
Balanc3 that is not entirely true ... after any election most stocks do go up ... but the question is will they stay up. :Naughty:
Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...
Is courious but in the history of USA the % of citizens that vote, was the hier in history, and as the resoult, means, Usa citizens likes war
[quote=mixu]This is not a party political topic, it's a US problem ? the richest nation on earth has 1 in 8 people living below the poverty line. Democrats and Republicans both play up to businesses because that's how you gain/stay in power.
[quote] Last year [2002] alone, another 1.7 million Americans slipped below the poverty line, bringing the total to 34.6 million, one in eight of the population. Over 13 million of them are children. In fact, the US has the worst child poverty rate and the worst life expectancy of all the world's industrialised countries, and the plight of its poor is worsening. [/quote] [url]www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1076608,00.html[/url]
I shouldn't need to tell you that this kind of poverty creates all kinds of social problems that the US really shouldn't have. I'm not suggesting abandon capitalism or start taxing corporations heavily ? just addressing the fact that something needs to happen here.[/quote]
Stop, please. These kind of statements make me frown and in general ruin my day. First of all the wealth of the united States doesn't belong to the U.S. it belongs to individual's who live within our borders. Having more rich people doesn't entitle us to special treatment.
And just for the sake of argument let's calculate what we could do with the money necessary to keep people out of poverty. I'd imagine that the average poverty stricken individual could probably use an average of $10,000 dollars to help pull them out of poverty. $10,000 times (280,000,000x12.5%)=$350,000,000,000
After you factor in administration fees and federal budget robbing and political end-fighting that number probably grows to about 400billion. 400billionpfft.....thats chump change for us. In fact its about equal to our current welfare budget. So what's the deal. Why are we so hell bent on spending that much money on Americans who have already been given more opportunity that 3/4 of the globe. We could put the entire middle east or all of Africa on welfare with that kind of scratch and that might actually provide us with some sort of benefit.
Secondly, why do we even have to spend it. Why can't that money be invested on furthering a capitalistic system that will continue to generate cash flows for poverty stricken individuals rather than jeopardizing everyone's future by taxing the machine that we have. Furthermore, am I the only one who realizes the the negative social impact that taxes have. The harder you tax the rich the harder they have to work to generate cash flows necessary for growing their businesses. The harder they have to work, the harder they expect their upper middle class, middle class, and lower class employees to work and the more they cram their goods and services down our throats. The harder the employees have to work, the less leisure time they have and the worse their quality of life. Taxes have been climbing for centuries and the quality of life (stress wise) has taken a nose dive. And most of the tax hikes have been to generate revenues for our lower class or for other ridiculous political initiatives that don't really do anything other than make it look like Washington is busy.
When will people wake up and stop then insanity that surrounds class warfare and vote buying?!
I would not say USA people like war ... but we are prone to justify the death of innocent people. Yet it does not make sense.
Many people support the War on Terror, but many have a difficult time to place that with Iraq. What is done is done, and perhaps I can speak for many of us ... it would be sad to pull out of Iraq and to reason all the deaths that have been wasted on a cause.
SHUT UP LIBERALS. I am firm believer that history will tell the truth in the matter of Iraq. None of us know the answer. I hope and do wish Iraq to become a free and self governed country, but once again history will speak the truth in about 10+ years.
War sucks in any aspect you look at it. I just hope the deaths of all the people in Iraq are worthy of the cause of creating a better place for the people.
[quote=asdf_admin]
War sucks in any aspect you look at it. I just hope the deaths of all the people in Iraq are worthy of the cause of creating a better place for the people.[/quote]
and if america fails?
who is going to explain to the future generation iraqis who will be suffering from numerous radioactive diseases, robbed from their natural resources, poverty levels in a decline with no safe jobs available, a shady puppet government in rule and terrorism lurking in the background that their mother father brother sister uncle etc. died for the [i]just[/i] cause?
you cannot implement democracy when there is no strife for it. you have to realize that some places in the world prefer a dictatorship and are better off when you compare whats at hand. especially in a case when a half-assed democracy is going to make the situation even worse.
They only believe they are better off with a dictatorship. That doesn't make it true. Give them 5 years under a democracy and see how they feel.
I mean, are you listening to youself? Better off under a dictatorship? :lol: :lol:
You are hilarious my friend.
And what the hell are you talking about, radioactive diseases?? If there is any radioactivity in Iraq, its from something Saddam did, not anything the US is doing. Your entire argument is baseless.
Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...
if you were more aware of world history you would notice that many countries have adopted a pozitive dictatorship regime sometime during the course of time which has helped them develop into their current position.
let me give you a more simple example:
you cannot take a new born baby and put him in school.
there is a period where the child is nursed to adopt to the rules & regulations, a period where it is told what to do and what not to, a pre-learning period if you will which also applies to countries and their citizens aswell. do you really just expect that the iraqi people are going to go to their municipal courts and vote for a president and the campaigns are going to be just peachy?
Perhaps saying 'radioactive' was jumping the gun, but do you know what are in those bunker-buster shells they've been dropping for years? Think about the side effects all that hi-tech weaponary has.
As I said before, it's nothing but a target practice range for the hawks and their new toys.
Want a base? Look into the "Gulf War Syndrome"