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Who would win, in a BATTLE ROYALE????

Gogoogogogogogogogogogo

well Obamannn can use his secret black magic but boehner can use his BONER ov DOOM so I SaY BOOOOONNNNEERRR

The rich just do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. if a rich person can buy a $100,000 bottle of wine, they can pay more taxes. The bastards want to get their grubby, slimy hands into Social Security, and if the Repukes try that, they are in the fight of their life. And, guess what? The average American will remember this bullshit the next election. If they do not reach an agreement by August 2, and there are cuts or worse to medicare, medicaid, welfare, food stamps, etc, it may be a blood bath. STORM THE CONGRESS, and hang 'em high. Romanian style.

browneyedgirl wrote:The rich just do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. if a rich person can buy a $100,000 bottle of wine, they can pay more taxes.

I see your point. But- the bottom 50% of income-earners in the USA pay 2.7% of taxes. In other words, half the country virtually pays nothing in taxes, while the top 1% of the rich pay 40%.

In other words, the entire country's budget already hinges on the the tax contributions of the few super-wealthy.

I am totally with Boehner on this one. We got 14 trillion in debt because of excessive spending, NOT too few taxes.

I understand why Obama wants to avoid massive spending cuts- if he cuts spending, he makes enemies and risks losing the next election. Cutting spending is usually a very politically unpopular move!

In any case, I hope they compromise before the deadline...

In any case, I hope they compromise before the deadline.

I think they will, the alternative is too scarey to think about. The riots in Greece and Spain were a cakewalk compared to how the masses would be in this country if essentials as Social security and Medicare were totally cut. Then again, maybe I'm being a drama queen and not putting much faith in the strength of the individual.

Nah, you're no drama queen. Its Boehner and Obama who are being the drama queens...much of these highly publicized quarrels are just political campaigning, anyway. I agree with you, they'll probably swiftly compromise before the deadline!

Any chance we'll be seeing Miditek here? Or Neon? :nervous: Take it away, boys!

Miss me yet?

NeverendingAbyss wrote:Miss me yet?

Miss him? LOL His administration is basicly what is at fault starting this mess! I don't have the time to list all the data involved in proving that at the moment, but Bush's 8 years in office are now coming back to haunt us!

AAAAAAAAAA wrote:I see your point. But- the bottom 50% of income-earners in the USA pay 2.7% of taxes. In other words, half the country virtually pays nothing in taxes, while the top 1% of the rich pay 40%.

Those figures are for income tax only. Poor and middle class people living paycheck to paycheck spend most or all of their income on goods, services, beer and cigarettes, gas, etc immediately - all of which are taxed.

The United States also has huge income inequality. The rich make their fortunes on the backs of the poor.

Fun picture


As for the debt crisis, it is disheartening that none of them seem to be able to put country first. It's embarrassing.

bockrocker wrote: Those figures are for income tax only. Poor and middle class people living paycheck to paycheck spend most or all of their income on goods, services, beer and cigarettes, gas, etc immediately - all of which are taxed.

Yes, but excise taxes account for only 2.3% of tax revenue, compared to 49.1% from individual income tax (that half the country virtually doesn't pay), 15% from corporate income tax (the average Joe does not own a corporation), and 32% from employment tax (paid by the corporations).

That means, to adjust my initial figure, the bottom 50% of taxpayers contributes 2.3% * 49.1%, or a total of 1.1% of the country's tax revenue.

And yet, they still benefit from free public education, financial aid, public libraries, welfare, unemployment, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc...

But wait- call in the next 24hrs and we'll bomb a middle eastern country at no extra cost!!

In summary: if you make less than $40,000 a year and take a dump in a public restroom, you already broke even.

bockrocker wrote:

AAAAAAAAAA wrote:I see your point. But- the bottom 50% of income-earners in the USA pay 2.7% of taxes. In other words, half the country virtually pays nothing in taxes, while the top 1% of the rich pay 40%.

Those figures are for income tax only. Poor and middle class people living paycheck to paycheck spend most or all of their income on goods, services, beer and cigarettes, gas, etc immediately - all of which are taxed.

The United States also has huge income inequality. The rich make their fortunes on the backs of the poor.

Fun picture


As for the debt crisis, it is disheartening that none of them seem to be able to put country first. It's embarrassing.

AMEN AMEN AMEN +1,000 *thumbsup* *high5*

Republican is the party of the rich. People who are the poor and middle class conservatives are fools to be Republican because the TRUE Republicans would not lower themselves to even spit on these wannabes. When FDR tried to pass Social Security ALL the Republicans in the Congress at that time voted against it. ANYTHING to help poor working class families is voted against by Republicans.

And if I hear one more Repuke say,"My Granny raised 10 kids on $50 a week and she wasn't on welfare or food stamps" I'll be in jail because I'll stomp their ass. In 1950 things were LOTS, and LOTS cheaper then. DUH.

Bush made his biggest mistake by bailing out all those blueblooded Wall Street shitheads---13 trillion dollars. The US REALLY needs that money now to finance the people who REALLY need it.

Fuck it.

I'm going into survivalist mode if this economic stuff does not pass. My poor Mom will not get SS or Veteran's checks. It's a good thing she's got a good savings&checking account. But, will the banks close? After all doesn't the government partially fund them? And, the Post Offices---they are partly supported by the Federal government, I think.

Man, when you think about it, it's going to be a mess if these guys do not come up with something solid in 6 days!

Does the average Joe make enough money to actually be able to pay higher taxes while maintaining a decent standard of living?

(I'm not trying to get a rise out of anyone, I genuinely don't know about the tax situation over there.)

DDDDDDDD wrote:well Obamannn can use his secret black magic but boehner can use his BONER ov DOOM so I SaY BOOOOONNNNEERRR

Best response so far. DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Poll added

browneyedgirl wrote:The riots in Greece and Spain were a cakewalk compared to how the masses would be in this country if essentials as Social security and Medicare were totally cut. Then again, maybe I'm being a drama queen and not putting much faith in the strength of the individual.

The tea partiers (rich people) are the people with the guns. And the tea partiers are the ones who want to "starve the beast". So once the federal US government defaults, the rioting will be self limiting. All the poor people will be dead. The poorer part of the rich people, will become the new poor people. Problem solved!

:yuk: :cyclop: :crazy1: :errrr: :luv3:

Boner of course is a way mightier name in a smackdown situation. "Nomen est omen"

In one way, I seriously can't even believe this debate is going on. In Europe everyone has been tearing their fucking hair out for two years trying to sort out the debt issues of Greece (which has 2% of the GDP of the US). Now in the US, there is not even a big threat on the table, just some political bickering... and still out of that, a serious and apparently common political opinion is: "just let the fucker default already."

I think nobody is quite believing what actually could happen if it drags on for much longer, and what the stakes are -- everyone is in denial. That and perhaps they are seriously scared of the implications of a global run on the dollar...

Remember it can take just a sneeze for the markets to collapse. The markets are not rational... they are full of sheep-like investors, prone to panic. In the case of Greece an angry car mechanic blogging from some internet cafe almost brought the country to default earlier this year..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... gets-paid/

I say lets start by cutting interest payments!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 022AAcqiWc

Well Greece is a different animal from the US. They didn't really have much of an economy to start with, because when they joined the euro they could suddenly borrow much more easily than before and did so, and spent it incredibly inefficiently.

Couple that with their lack of proper industry and rather... relaxed attitude to work (some people get a 200 euro bonus per month for 'arriving to work in time'. In Cyprus we also have a bonus for turning up to work on time, it's called 'you get to keep your job') and paying taxes (tax evasion is more the rule than the exception) and you have a recipe for disaster. Greece is also a very corrupt country (anyone who's from there or lived there will be familiar with the 'fakelaki' concept) with an overstaffed, underworked and basically useless civil service, so I'm still not sure what austerity measures are supposed to achieve. I'm just glad our economy in Cyprus isn't too closely linked to Greece's. I want something decent to go back to when I've had enough of London.

The US on the other hand DOES have a functioning economy and does contribute to the world, and they do have a better system in place it would seem, so this 'leaving it to the last minute' thing is very strange to see. A US default before Greece would be hilarious, until the money I have in the bank is worthless and people are eating each other in the street. Then it wouldn't be so funny I guess.

I think we should repay our national debt, sometime.

Arnold Layne

AAAAAAAAAA wrote:

bockrocker wrote: Those figures are for income tax only. Poor and middle class people living paycheck to paycheck spend most or all of their income on goods, services, beer and cigarettes, gas, etc immediately - all of which are taxed.

Yes, but excise taxes account for only 2.3% of tax revenue, compared to 49.1% from individual income tax (that half the country virtually doesn't pay), 15% from corporate income tax (the average Joe does not own a corporation), and 32% from employment tax (paid by the corporations).

And one thing many people fail to see is the 32% employment tax that is "paid for by the corporation", is actually a cost of goods (or services) sold that is undoubtedly passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. 30% or less of people actually work at Fortune 500 corporations (since there are only 500 companies in the Fortune 500 club itself), while the other 70% are either employed by the government, or (you guessed it), SMB's- small to mid-sized businesses.

Other burdens imposed by the government and/or related watchdog agencies include various regulatory scams such as PCI, FISMA, SAS70, and HIPPA, the latter of which has really driven up healthcare costs and with questionable benefits that are less than tangible to the patient. HIPPA has however, certainly lined the pockets of of security, IT, and medical tech companies such as Cisco, McKesson, Checkpoint, and RSA Data Security, the latter of which as already been hacked twice this year and the source code for their flagship SecureID products stolen, and now in widespread circulation on hacker torrents and Demonoid-type sites.

Think it's a joke? Go to HHS (Health & Human Service's) website and look at some of the provisions of HIPPA, and tell me that it was only lawyers that wrote the laws with such detailed (if generic) technical specifications and requirements. It's not like the lawmakers themselves knew what to write, so they bring in outside "experts" from companies such as the ones previously mentioned and more importantly, who had paid sufficient amounts of campaign contributions in order to get in on the game, which is lawmaking via product design.

If the government had simply wanted to help the tech companies (without introducing exorbitant compliance costs to the consumer and hellishly complex standards for compliance officers and IT staff at the hospital), then a sort of HIPPA-lite act could have been passed to improve security of patient data, but also provide tax incentives to corporations to depreciate their computer and network systems over a three year period (which is the typical corporate lifecycle for most PC's, laptops, and servers) instead of the current five-year period.

This is a real rip-off since most companies, large or small, can ill afford to keep all of their systems in place for a full five years, in order to reap the tax depreciation benefits, and still have a system that allows the employees to remain competitive and productive- and also the costs of maintaining four and five year old "legacy" systems can often be an expensive prospect. In turn, this delays sales of new systems, software, and networking gear for many companies by up to two years, which in turn hurts the tech sector itself.

Obamacare is another fucking nightmare in the works, one that could bankrupt many, if not all of the individual states. TennCare, a sort of Obamacare Lite, damn near bankrupted my state, and I can assure you that many physicians simply stopped accepting TennCare, in addition to Georgia WellChild programs since you could not even get the states to even answer the phone, let alone pay. All claims processing outsourced to a third party that never would pick up the phone.

The real point here is that the government in its present form is too onerous and bloated to be of any real use at all anymore. If anything, they fuck with and tinker with the economy and honest businesses far too much, and yet important regulatory bodies, such as the SEC, have not only failed to prevent, but also failed to detect some of the biggest financial scams in history.

Personally, I think that Speaker Boehner bitch-slapped that jug-eared monkey across the room with his response after Monday night's address, and I'm hoping that they'll deport him back to his native Kenya in 2012.

JensJohansson wrote:sheep-like investors, prone to panic.

I love sheep. And I thought everyone here should know.

The only people bitch slapped in this mess has been the poor, and middle-class who stand to lose lots if some agreement has not passed by the deadline. But, who cares about the poor, right? After all they use cheap soap, don't use toothpaste, and their feet smell.

Seriously, it staggers the mind that the GOP is willing/eager to risk national default, and cause a crisis simply because they are so anti-tax.

The GOP has amnesia. From 9/11 until Obama became President the GOP has done virtually everything in their power to INCREASE the deficit, from funding 2 wars to bailing out the blueblooded wall street bastards to the tune of trillions of dollars. And, BUSH approved dipping into the Social Security emergency fund to get it!

If the entitlements and social security is left untouched that means defense spending will have to be cut about 40-50%, and LOL we all know those conservative Congressmen are not going to cut off their bread&butter/slice of the juicy pie from those defense contractors they are in bed with. The conservatives would rather see elderly and children starving, or living on the street.

I'm not an American, so this doesn't matter, but anyway.

Obama has done some good things, but at the same time the US army is still fighting in Afganistan and the US military costs are still HUGE. So I don't choose Obama.

Boehner and the other Republicans (example Palin) are trying to take the USA back to the "white Christian redneck" age and they're trying to make a confrontation between white and black/latin people and between Christians and Muslism. They're also trying to spread fear with the religious message and political party's message instead of trying to develop the freedom of speech/religion. So I don't choose Boehner either.

The biggest problem here is that it looks like Republicans aren't even sure of what they want themselves - John McCain basically telling the more demanding Republicans that they're in la-la land and that they're lying to America.

Overall, I'm not entirely convinced I understand the thinking behind any of this on either side. At least the Democrats are putting forth a united front and therefore come across as more convincing.

I love US politics - it reminds me of WWE.

Complimentary graph, source NYT & WP.

NeonVomit wrote:The biggest problem here is that it looks like Republicans aren't even sure of what they want themselves - John McCain basically telling the more demanding Republicans that they're in la-la land and that they're lying to America.

Overall, I'm not entirely convinced I understand the thinking behind any of this on either side. At least the Democrats are putting forth a united front and therefore come across as more convincing.

I love US politics - it reminds me of WWE.

Complimentary graph, source NYT & WP.

I love WWE...

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@NeonVomit, thanks for posting that link!!!!

Personally, I think that Speaker Boehner bitch-slapped that jug-eared monkey across the room with his response after Monday night's address, and I'm hoping that they'll deport him back to his native Kenya in 2012.

LOL Those conservative jerks better realize they are not dealing with a pussy. They are not dealing with the Kennedys or with the Clintons. They are dealing with a strong, proud, and intelligent black man---and he ain't gonna take ANY shit, or be bullied, or railroaded into anything by these arrogant, hateful self-centered bastards. Go, OBAMA, go!
He knows the conservative party wants to sink him, and send the poor&middle class to Hell.

I think this bullshit started out as some little warped game by the Republicans to discredit Obama, and Biden and now it has snowballed into something VERY serious. People WILL remember this little ploy come election 2012, but it won't be the way the Repukes want it!

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miditek wrote: Personally, I think that Speaker Boehner bitch-slapped that jug-eared monkey across the room with his response after Monday night's address, and I'm hoping that they'll deport him back to his native Kenya in 2012.

Whatever you say, redneck. Maybe if you are so upset you can satisfy your fetish by taking some guns and finding some poor people to shoot.

Sumerian wrote:

miditek wrote: Personally, I think that Speaker Boehner bitch-slapped that jug-eared monkey across the room with his response after Monday night's address, and I'm hoping that they'll deport him back to his native Kenya in 2012.

Whatever you say, redneck. Maybe if you are so upset you can satisfy your fetish by taking some guns and finding some poor people to shoot.

Tolkki redux.....sent from Al Gore's "green" fax machine. Fuck.

REPUBLICANS want the entire burden of the deficit reduction to be carried on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the poor, working families, and children. While the blueblooded folks who think they are better than everyone else don't make any sacrifices at all.
that's NOT going to work anymore, and these snobs better get used to that.

Tolkki wins