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#61
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Normal lifespan of cats
"jmc" wrote in message ... Suddenly, without warning, dgk exclaimed (10/13/2010 9:09 AM): On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:05:22 -0700, "Bill wrote: Capitalism doesn't work when corporations get "too big to fail". If we had let the financial system crumble, it would have ruined a lot more people than just the ones responsible. We need to stop corporations from getting that big but no one can because corporations can now fund elections all they want. Thanks to the Republican Supreme Court. Remember, Democrats are leased by big corporations but Republicans are owned outright. You are discounting the millions of out-of-work people who are suffering from this recession today.....You think that they don't count because we can't see them all? In my state alone, fully 12% of the work force doesn't. I see these people every day, trying to earn a few dollars to pay for their food by mowing my lawn or doing some chore that I need. Your estimation of what the government is doing to help the situation is very unrealistic. And, even in my own case, I retired in 1996 with .93 million dollars in my IRA, and today it has shrunk to .7 million. I certainly haven't spent the difference in the past 14 years. I will be lucky if I survive until my death without having to rent a trailer court home outside Tulsa Oklahoma.....My father would be rolling over in his grave about now......He's the one who told me to save 10% of everything I earned for my retirement.....Little did he know that the socialists would steal most of it, and I should have saved 20%.....I wonder where he would go to escape were he still alive today? For the life of me, I can't find anyplace..... The socialists stole it? I'm a socialist and I don't have any of it. No, your money has gone to increase the wealth of the already fabulously wealthy. I haven't seen any of it. See, I'm a socialist like those guys who used to get together and raise a barn for their neighbor. We all get together and try to make our little village better. I'm the president of our civic association. I'm the guy trying to spay and neuter the local feral population, and build them little winter homes. No sir, capitalist pigs stole your retirement money, not us good socialists. I'm not a socialist and I think barn-raising is great. Why would you think libertarians won't help their neighbors? I donate my time and money to charities all the time. So do many of those so called "capitalist pigs" you so love to denigrate. I noticed you completely failed to notice that I provided a link where thousands of "filthy rich" give millions (billions, in the case of Bill Gates) to charity. Here's another example: Remember Tony Curtis, who recently died? Him and his wife spent a good bit of time and money rescuing horses, rehabilitating them, and helping them find new homes. He didn't have to do that, but he chose to. Sure, there are people who have a lot of money that don't donate a dime to charity. That's their choice, it's their time and money. There are plenty of people in all walks of life, rich AND poor, who wouldn't lift a finger to save a dying puppy on the side of the road. It's not the amount of money a person has that makes them that way, it's their own personality. If charity is forced, it is not charity. It is theft. Plain and simple. If you take my hard earned money away from me, to give to those who haven't worked for it, then you've robbed me. I'm willing to pay taxes to support roads and other public works, but not to pay able-bodied people to sit around on their fat asses, watch TV and call me evil, while coveting the money I've earned by my own hard work. One thing I've noticed about socialists though - it's always someone else's money. Never their own. It's always That Evil Capitalist that needs to have their money taken away, not Me The Good Socialist, even if the Good Socialist makes the same amount of money. Margaret Thatcher (you remember her, used to be Prime Minister of England, a socialist country?) once said, "the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money". This is getting kind of old though. None of us are going to change each other's minds. Since you love Socialism, please move to England. I've lived over a half decade there, so I know what it's like to live under a socialist government. You can have it. America is not, and should not become, another socialist country. That perverts the very tenents our country is based on. jmc Robin Hood was, sadly, nothing but a thief. A thief neither knows nor cares where the person he steals from got his money. He just assumes that he stole it from the poor and will use it for himself. |
#62
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Normal lifespan of cats
"dgk" wrote in message ... On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:56:46 -0400, Patok wrote: Bill Graham wrote: It isn't us capitalists who are printing money at the mint in Washington DC, and borrowing trillions from China either. In a pure capitalist world, we would be in competition with one another for the consumers money.....What it comes down to is this: (in my experience) when a businessman bribes a government official or senator to get him to vote in laws that restrict trade, then who is more at fault? If you think that its the businessman, then you are a liberal socialist. If you think its the government official, then you are likely to be, (like me) a libertarian. I think that both are equally at fault. What am I? -- You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone. The problem is that it costs millions of dollars to run for office. If someone takes money in order to run for office, of course they are going to vote the way the donor wants. If people really want to fix the way things are, then get the money out of politics. Right now, the Supreme Court has unleashed corporations to spend massive amounts of money to buy their chosen republicans the House and Senate. It's working. I can't turn on a radio or tv without hearing an attack ad by some unknown sourced group attacking the democrats. Let's work for a system where it is illegal to bribe (ie, donate money to) a politician. Oh, but the Supreme Court says that donating money is free speech! Well, we'd best find a way around that quickly unless we want a fascist country. (facism, the marriage of corporate and state power). Geting there quickly and I expect the Tea Party members will be receiving their brown shirts soon. I agree with this, which brings up my ideal government. I would eliminate voting, and have a computer pick several hundred people out of the voting population to be our congressmen and run the country.....Perhaps 200 every other year for 6 years, and then retire the oldest two hundred and replace them with the 200 freshmen they just picked.....So no one would serve more than 6 years.......IOW, chose our leaders out of the general population. That way, there wouldn't be any more lawyers or rich people than there were farmers, store clerks, seamstresses, nurses, or any other profession or workers.......Truly a government "of the people"..... |
#63
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Normal lifespan of cats
On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:52:19 -0700, "Bill Graham"
wrote: "dgk" wrote in message .. . On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:56:46 -0400, Patok wrote: Bill Graham wrote: It isn't us capitalists who are printing money at the mint in Washington DC, and borrowing trillions from China either. In a pure capitalist world, we would be in competition with one another for the consumers money.....What it comes down to is this: (in my experience) when a businessman bribes a government official or senator to get him to vote in laws that restrict trade, then who is more at fault? If you think that its the businessman, then you are a liberal socialist. If you think its the government official, then you are likely to be, (like me) a libertarian. I think that both are equally at fault. What am I? -- You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone. The problem is that it costs millions of dollars to run for office. If someone takes money in order to run for office, of course they are going to vote the way the donor wants. If people really want to fix the way things are, then get the money out of politics. Right now, the Supreme Court has unleashed corporations to spend massive amounts of money to buy their chosen republicans the House and Senate. It's working. I can't turn on a radio or tv without hearing an attack ad by some unknown sourced group attacking the democrats. Let's work for a system where it is illegal to bribe (ie, donate money to) a politician. Oh, but the Supreme Court says that donating money is free speech! Well, we'd best find a way around that quickly unless we want a fascist country. (facism, the marriage of corporate and state power). Geting there quickly and I expect the Tea Party members will be receiving their brown shirts soon. I agree with this, which brings up my ideal government. I would eliminate voting, and have a computer pick several hundred people out of the voting population to be our congressmen and run the country.....Perhaps 200 every other year for 6 years, and then retire the oldest two hundred and replace them with the 200 freshmen they just picked.....So no one would serve more than 6 years.......IOW, chose our leaders out of the general population. That way, there wouldn't be any more lawyers or rich people than there were farmers, store clerks, seamstresses, nurses, or any other profession or workers.......Truly a government "of the people"..... Yea, the problem is that there are real issues and it takes a while to get up to speed, while the vested interests know all the ins and outs and deals and such. Corporations have huge staffs that push through bills and loopholes that they want and they do not turn over every six years. |
#64
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Normal lifespan of cats
On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:43:53 -0700, "Bill Graham"
wrote: America is not, and should not become, another socialist country. That perverts the very tenents our country is based on. jmc Robin Hood was, sadly, nothing but a thief. A thief neither knows nor cares where the person he steals from got his money. He just assumes that he stole it from the poor and will use it for himself. What we have in this country is a very bad way of distributing wealth. Too many people work hard all their lives and have nothing to show for it. I have neighbors, good hard-working people, who barely scrape by. And we have people with so much wealth that they couldn't spend it in a thousand lifetimes. Yes, each person theoretically has a chance to become wealthy, like Bill Gates did, but most of the money goes from generation to generation. Such great wealth has really stacked the deck against working people and towards the enormously wealthy so that it isn't really fair anymore. The more money you have the easier it is to get more. Did you know that the top bracket was once 90%? Now getting them up to 30% is too much to ask. The original income tax was only on the wealthy, under the assumption that America had been good to them so they should have a big stake in making it stronger. Now we're supposed to let them keep all their wealth and they'll invest it and get us jobs. Yes, jobs in Thailand. |
#65
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Normal lifespan of cats
"dgk" wrote in message ... On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:52:19 -0700, "Bill Graham" wrote: "dgk" wrote in message . .. On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:56:46 -0400, Patok wrote: Bill Graham wrote: It isn't us capitalists who are printing money at the mint in Washington DC, and borrowing trillions from China either. In a pure capitalist world, we would be in competition with one another for the consumers money.....What it comes down to is this: (in my experience) when a businessman bribes a government official or senator to get him to vote in laws that restrict trade, then who is more at fault? If you think that its the businessman, then you are a liberal socialist. If you think its the government official, then you are likely to be, (like me) a libertarian. I think that both are equally at fault. What am I? -- You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone. The problem is that it costs millions of dollars to run for office. If someone takes money in order to run for office, of course they are going to vote the way the donor wants. If people really want to fix the way things are, then get the money out of politics. Right now, the Supreme Court has unleashed corporations to spend massive amounts of money to buy their chosen republicans the House and Senate. It's working. I can't turn on a radio or tv without hearing an attack ad by some unknown sourced group attacking the democrats. Let's work for a system where it is illegal to bribe (ie, donate money to) a politician. Oh, but the Supreme Court says that donating money is free speech! Well, we'd best find a way around that quickly unless we want a fascist country. (facism, the marriage of corporate and state power). Geting there quickly and I expect the Tea Party members will be receiving their brown shirts soon. I agree with this, which brings up my ideal government. I would eliminate voting, and have a computer pick several hundred people out of the voting population to be our congressmen and run the country.....Perhaps 200 every other year for 6 years, and then retire the oldest two hundred and replace them with the 200 freshmen they just picked.....So no one would serve more than 6 years.......IOW, chose our leaders out of the general population. That way, there wouldn't be any more lawyers or rich people than there were farmers, store clerks, seamstresses, nurses, or any other profession or workers.......Truly a government "of the people"..... Yea, the problem is that there are real issues and it takes a while to get up to speed, while the vested interests know all the ins and outs and deals and such. Corporations have huge staffs that push through bills and loopholes that they want and they do not turn over every six years. So I would have to make a few other rules.....Like, nobody should be able to talk to a senator in private....All such discussions should be monitored by the press....(for example) and/or all such discussions would have to be monitored by a bi-partisan committee. (all parties represented) |
#66
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Normal lifespan of cats
"dgk" wrote in message ... On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:43:53 -0700, "Bill Graham" wrote: America is not, and should not become, another socialist country. That perverts the very tenents our country is based on. jmc Robin Hood was, sadly, nothing but a thief. A thief neither knows nor cares where the person he steals from got his money. He just assumes that he stole it from the poor and will use it for himself. What we have in this country is a very bad way of distributing wealth. Too many people work hard all their lives and have nothing to show for it. I have neighbors, good hard-working people, who barely scrape by. And we have people with so much wealth that they couldn't spend it in a thousand lifetimes. Yes, each person theoretically has a chance to become wealthy, like Bill Gates did, but most of the money goes from generation to generation. Such great wealth has really stacked the deck against working people and towards the enormously wealthy so that it isn't really fair anymore. The more money you have the easier it is to get more. Did you know that the top bracket was once 90%? Now getting them up to 30% is too much to ask. The original income tax was only on the wealthy, under the assumption that America had been good to them so they should have a big stake in making it stronger. Now we're supposed to let them keep all their wealth and they'll invest it and get us jobs. Yes, jobs in Thailand. Hey! Nobody is madder than I am at Bill Gates.....I use his name in vain whenever I try to do anything on my computer....:^) It is true that wealth breeds more wealth. Fortunately, most wealthy people start and run businesses that hire others and generally contribute to the wealth of the entire nation....We only hear about people like Brittney Spears and Michael Jackson, and never hear about the others. You are right about that, but I don't believe across the board taxation at like 90% is the answer. Or, if you do have a larger sliding scale tax rate, then you should allow exemptions for those who start businesses that hire others.....IOW, there are ways to be sensible other than just ripping off everyone who has made money. I am against the capitol gains taxes because they represent double taxation. As a stockholder, I am a business owner, and my businesses pay a corporate income tax....Then, when the corporation tries to give me my (after tax) profit, I get to pay taxes on it again! (income tax) For the same basic reason, I am against sales taxes.....First I get paid. Then I pay federal income tax on that pay. Then I pay state income tax on that pay.....Then, when I try to go to the store and spend what little I have left over after those taxes, I should have to pay sales taxes too? This it triple taxation, even not counting my property taxes and automobile registration fees. (which are really property taxes in most states) This country is tax crazy......They collect money from us every chance they get, and right now they are sitting around in some smoke filled room trying to figure out how to get more of it from us. They are talking about putting men on Mars now.....I wonder how much that's going to cost. Do you really think we need men on mars? I think a nice robot crew could do the job a hell of a lot cheaper, and I am a technical person with an engineering education that worked in the sciences all of my life. I love the satellite program, and the GPS stuff for navigation, and the space exploration program in general, but men on Mars? Give me a break! I think the government is drunk on spending other people's money....(Yours and mine) |
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