The Hermanator telling it like it is!

[Michael Tee]

<<What business is it of you at what anyone else can and can't pay?>>

Once you concede that the government has a right to levy taxes, then it's the government's business what anybody can or can't pay, because they don't want to waste their time cooking up taxation plans that can't be paid.  If I'm a citizen of a democratic country, then it becomes my business as well, so that I can determine for myself if my elected government representatives are cooking up tax plans that make sense or not. 

<<What business is it of anyone's, so long as they're paying EQUALLY, as in they ALREADY DO PAY THEIR FAR SHARE, SINCE THEY ALREADY PAY MORE>>

I believe that the Supreme Courts of both of our countries have approved in principle of the graduated income tax, meaning an income tax whereby top earners pay more than bottom earners.  In so doing, the courts would have implicitly rejected that proposition that the only legitimate income tax is the flat tax.  It is the government's prerogative, not only to establish a graduated income tax, if it sees fit, but also to set the gradient at any level they want.

<<There's everything scary at the idea of the America that was founded, one based on freedom, is removed, and replaced with one that mimics the movie, V for Vendetta.  Sorry, not going to happen here>>

When America was founded, nobody had ever heard of an income tax, let alone a graduated income tax.  Since the Supreme Court has decided that income taxes do not constitute an unjustifiable restriction on anyone's freedom - - you are free to stop earning money at any point where you determine that your earnings are being unfairly taxed - - there's nothing at all scary about a government taxing your income at either a flat or a graduated level.  The "Sorry, not going to happen here" part I just don't understand - - it already IS happening and has been for longer than you've been alive on earth.

[Xavier_Onassis]

No doubt if it comes down to them or me they will be going down first! There are a whole lot of people like CU4 and myself out there and we religiously practice the 2nd Amendment. Do you ever wonder why it's #2 and not #18?

============================================
Because someone thought if it first, of course.

So now we know that you plan to SHOOT any demonstrators who answer your telling them FUCK YOU by shooting them dead.
Make sure that are not pregnant, or you will be charged with murder twice.

[sirs]

The "Sorry, not going to happen here" part I just don't understand - - it already IS happening and has been for longer than you've been alive on earth.

Not the V for Vendetta outcome the left is trying to push us towards.  Socialism-lite's door was opened with Obmination care.  We're currently looking to defund then shut that door down come 2012

[BT]

<<BTW Illinois doesn't have a proposition 13 yet they are as bankrupt as Cali. >>

With or without a Prop 13, they have CHOSEN not to increase taxes or not to increase them sufficiently.  This whole thing about states being "bankrupt" is bullshit.  What it means usually is that given a choice between raising taxes on the rich or discontinuing benefits to the poor, the choice is almost invariably made in favour of the people who shower them with money, trips, hookers and parties, rather than benefitting  the poor.

Mikey you have been gone for a while. Take the time to research what is happening in Illinois as far as taxes go, vis a vis pension obligations that the state took on and just doesn't have the money to meet. Then do some research and see who paid the lobbyists who produced the above average health and pension plans in exchange for a guaranteed voter base. Then tell me that only corporations are capable of rigging the system. Then rinse and repeat to varying degrees across the remaining 49 states.

[Plane]

Cain doesn't get that Wall Street OWNS Washington, so he's effectively telling the demonstrators to deal with the monkey instead of the organ grinder.  The demonstrators at least knows where the problem originates and have decided to deal with it there.

The American voter today has absolutely no way to vote against the banks or the financial industry generally, .....

nor much reason to.

    What is the relationship between the American investor and the American voter? Large overlap isn't there?
    Some of the recent trouble we have had financially stems from regulations and otherwise meddeling by Washington to ease credit terms for the poor.
    As it turns out there is some part of the poor that really shouldn't be given credit and can't realise for itself when the point of overextention has occured. With less regulation and less expectation for rescue by Unckle Sam ,banks with foolish loan policys would live and die by Darwinistic survival of the fittest rather than Washingtonian survival of the whineyest.

[Kramer]

<<BTW Illinois doesn't have a proposition 13 yet they are as bankrupt as Cali. >>

With or without a Prop 13, they have CHOSEN not to increase taxes or not to increase them sufficiently.  This whole thing about states being "bankrupt" is bullshit.  What it means usually is that given a choice between raising taxes on the rich or discontinuing benefits to the poor, the choice is almost invariably made in favour of the people who shower them with money, trips, hookers and parties, rather than benefitting  the poor.

Mikey you have been gone for a while. Take the time to research what is happening in Illinois as far as taxes go, vis a vis pension obligations that the state took on and just doesn't have the money to meet. Then do some research and see who paid the lobbyists who produced the above average health and pension plans in exchange for a guaranteed voter base. Then tell me that only corporations are capable of rigging the system. Then rinse and repeat to varying degrees across the remaining 49 states.

If he did this he'd be shocked or NOT. He would find out that some states and local governments do accounting like Enron. He would find out that a lot of people should go to jail and he would also find out that unions are a bigger threat to this nation than Wall Street.

But hey, he's an admitted Communist, and the unions are are Communists, so don't expect them to admit their part in this economic collapse.

[Plane]

    Who in the United States is responsible for creating jobs , or distributeing jobs to people who need jobs?


      In my opinion this is ultimately the responsibility of the individual who wants to work, no other person or agency is really competant to ensure that it happens without tyrany and history demonstrates that even with the power of a tyrany it is a hard thing to accomplish.

     If each of us applys for every job that we can, we will collectively apply for every job there is , and have reason to create a job for ourselves if no suitable job already exists .

     The government may facilitate this or not , but they cannot accomp;ish it.

[Plane]

MT!
Wow, it is good to see you,  your cogent wrongheadedness is exactly what this site needs .

[Michael Tee]

<<Mikey you have been gone for a while. >>

My brain was in cold storage all that time, BT.

<<Take the time to research what is happening in Illinois as far as taxes go, vis a vis pension obligations that the state took on and just doesn't have the money to meet.>>

Uh-huh.  "Just doesn't have the money to meet."  Some cold alien force just freezes the governor's hand every time he tries to sign a bill that the Legislature presented to him, raising the taxes to meet his state's pension obligations to his state's workers.

<<Then do some research and see who paid the lobbyists who produced the above average health and pension plans in exchange for a guaranteed voter base.>>

Let me guess, BT - - Evil union leaders escaped from the gates of Hell into America the Beautiful and immediately began their nefarious machinations to ensure that their lazy, parasitic, good-for-nothing "workers" would be awarded pensions and other benefits for their years of sloth, laziness, negligence, sabotage and incompetence in the service of the state.

<<Then tell me that only corporations are capable of rigging the system. >>

Why on earth would I want to tell you anything as stupid as that?  Even I could rig the fucking system.  What I will tell you instead is that corporations can rig and have rigged the system time and time again, ripping off the taxpayers and the citizens of the country for hundreds of billions, probably by now trillions, of dollars, at the same time as they foment wars, pollute the fucking earth, rob the poor and the sick through their multiple insurance scams, Obamacare included, sub-prime mortgage scams, savings-and-loan scams, and on and on and on.

But I'll tell ya what - - you don't see or don't want to see what the fucking corporations have done and are doing, and personally I don't think you ever will.  None so blind as those who will not see.  So why don't you and your like-minded friends pick out a few particularly heinous union headquarters and go occupy them, demanding an end to all the evils that they are responsible for?  I'm sure that somewhere in Ohio there's a union headquarters that's responsible for all of the state's fiscal problems.   Sit down in the street right under their windows and try to convince your fellow Americans that this union is responsible for more wastage and theft of taxpayer money than all the corporations in the country.

Meantime, the Occupy Washington and Occupy Wall Street and all their allied movements will continue on with their occupation campaigns blaming Wall Street and corporate America for all the things they've been blaming them for so far.  IMHO, the crash of too-big-to-fail firms and resultant bail-outs, the wars of the military-industrial complex, the housing bubble crash, the sub-prime mortgage loan disasters, the savings and loan scandal (my God, does anyone still remember?  corporate fraud and theft go on so continuously that the older scams just fall into the memory hole while the new ones take their place!) the caving in to insurance industry lobbies for Obamacare, for tax breaks on the rich, etc. etc. will somehow ring a little truer than your ridiculous complaints about the "fraud" committed by providing workers with pensions and the "inability to pay" by a state that doesn't seem able to raise its taxes.

<<Then rinse and repeat to varying degrees across the remaining 49 states. >>

No, in the case of California, I don't think I'll sweep Prop 13 under the rug as you seem to want to do, I think I'll assign to it its proper share of the blame (100%) for the mess that they're in, and for any other state, I'd be very surprised if they have any different reason than Illinois does if they're in financial straits - - as always it'll be the greed and the criminality of the corporations and businesses of the state primarily, crooked state legislators secondarily and probably just the same kind of general incompetence and foolishness that I'd expect when politicians chase corporations for campaign funds and media endorsements and then you expect these bought-and-paid-for ass-holes to perform a proper stewardship of the people's interests.  Unions have to look out for their members and I don't see anything outrageous in working men and women getting decent pensions.  I DO see something outrageous in insurance company CEO's getting $8 million annual salaries when their companies are constantly in court for ripping off the sick and the dying who they were supposed to cover.

As long as you have corporate flunkeys indebted to corporations and corporate-owned media for campaign support, so long will you have mismanagement and incompetence, to say nothing of actual criminality, in the state legislative bodies.

[BT]

Fortunately i never made the claim that corporations have not used their wealth to purchase influence. It's called rent seeking.

What i did claim is that unions are guilty of the same thing.

And no i don't see the need to picket a union headquarters and let them know that i am wise to their game. What i will do is support state representatives and state executives who also realize that the public sector benefits package are unsustainable and urge that they carry through with their reforms.

Oh and i don't believe that corporations deserve the right to be treated as individual citizens, nor do i equate their money as speech. Ditto unions.

You might find this link illuminating re: Illinois.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0112/Illinois-tax-increase-why-lawmakers-passed-66-percent-income-tax-hike

[Michael Tee]

<<nor much reason [for the American voter] to [vote against the banks and the financial institutions].>>

Oh.  Then I guess there's no real need for the banks and the financial industry to invest so heavily in campaign financing, is there?  Or in lobbying.  I guess they don't realize that they're just wasting their money.

    <<What is the relationship between the American investor and the American voter? Large overlap . . .?>>

No, I wouldn't think so.  Not at all.  Most Americans DON'T have investments, many of those who do have only small amounts in mutual funds, the amount of bank or financial institutional holding in the funds probably amounting to double-digit figures at most.  But since you raised the subject, maybe you have some numbers you'd like to tell me about.

<<Some of the recent trouble we have had financially stems from regulations and otherwise meddeling by Washington to ease credit terms for the poor.>>

Really?  Then maybe you could tell me where in the regulations or "meddling" it is written that home loans have to be made to people who have no realistic prospects of repaying them?

While you're at it, maybe you could tell me where in the regulations or meddling it is written that the banks and financial institutions who make these shit loans are required to bundle hundreds of them together into pools of mortgage obligations and sell them as triple-A securities to other banks and financial institutions?

Maybe while you're at it, you could tell me where in the regulations or meddling it is written that the banks and financial institutions who sold these shit loans as triple-A to other banks also at the same time were required to purchase insurance in the form of credit default swaps against defaults on the now-securitized shit loans?

Maybe while you're at it, you could also tell me where in the regulations or meddling it is written that the rating agencies whose job it was to rate the securitized shit loans gave them all triple-A ratings despite massive defaults in documentation affecting up to 50% of the loans in some bundled portfolios?

The "conservative" explanation for the sub-prime mortgage fiasco is hilarious.  It starts with the relaxation of federal rules on single-family home mortgage loans and then totally ignores the avalanche of corporate criminality and fraud that follows - - the bundling and securitization of the loans, the mysterious failure of ALL rating agencies to detect the shit-nature of the bundles, the sale of the shit-loans simultaneously with the purchase of credit default swaps (insurance against default by the seller of the securities.)

    <<As it turns out there is some part of the poor that really shouldn't be given credit and can't realise for itself when the point of overextention has occured. >>

LOL.  I really don't think that you understand much about the mortgage industry.  Mortgages are a product and they are SOLD just like any other product is sold - - that is to say, the lending institution pays a commission to a salesman (broker) to find a borrower who will borrow money from the lending institution.  Every lending institution has a "basket" - - a certain amount of funds on hand that has to be lent out as mortgage loans within a fixed period of time.  If the institution can't loan out all the funds in its "basket" within the time frame, it's in trouble.  So there's always a search for qualified borrowers, and the pool of qualified borrowers at any time is of a fixed size.  The salesmen or brokers from each institution fan out into the neighbourhood looking for borrowers.  But due to the shitty economy, the off-shoring of manufacturing jobs, there weren't too many borrowers who could service the loans.  Enter the "variable rate" or "balloon" mortgage - - in order to empty their "baskets," the lenders began offering variable rate mortgages - - start with 0.01% interest, or even NO interest, or even NO PAYMENTS for a year, house prices will rise, the economy will get better, you'll get a job in a year; in a year, the rates will go up, you'll need to pay money but by then you'll have it.  The sucker takes the loan and buys the house and signs the mortgage.

What is in it for the bank?  They've got an "asset," the loan itself.  As long as it's on paper and not in default (how can it be in default when the poor dumb schmuck doesn't even have to make a fucking payment for a year?) this is a saleable asset.  What was in it for the mortgage salesman or broker?  Commission.  He got his commission paid right off the top (probably by the borrower, otherwise just written into the mortgage and paid by the lender) and as soon as the mortgage was signed, before it could possibly go into default.

The bank then "bundles" the shit mortgage with hundreds of other shit mortgages and now has something to sell to another bank for ready cash.  If the whole bundle goes bad, as it inevitably will when the first payments start falling due, the bank doesn't want to get sued by the institution that purchased the bundle, so it buys a "credit default swap" from an insurance company insuring it against the default.  Everyone makes money - - the lending bank, the buying bank, the salesman of the mortgage and the insurance company insuring the bundle.  The poor dumb schmuck now has a home -- for a while.  The shit hits the fan when the first mortgage payments start to come due.  Due to the massive scale of the fraud even the insurance companies can't pay up to cover the losses.  Banks are going under, insurance companies are going under, homes are being foreclosed . . .

This goes a lot deeper than loosened restrictions on borrowing - - the active fraud and criminality was from the banks, the insurance companies and the rating companies.  They were all betting on something they never should have bet on - - the ability of penniless schmucks to pay mortgages that rapacious lenders had conned them into using the illusion of the "variable rate" mortgage and traditional salesmanship.

A whole sector of the banking and lending industry was responsible for the disaster, not just the legislators who loosened the restrictions on borrowing.  That just provided the opportunity for the fucking crooks to jump on the bandwagon and take in a shitload of money as long as they could.

<<With less regulation and less expectation for rescue by Unckle Sam ,banks with foolish loan policys would live and die by Darwinistic survival of the fittest rather than Washingtonian survival of the whineyest.>>

Do you not understand that it was BECAUSE of less regulation that the whole teppel schmaltz was allowed to build up in the first place?  Lending had to be MORE tightly regulated (prohibiting a lot of the shit loans) not less regulated if the disaster was to be avoided. 

I didn't even get into the deregulation of banking that made the disaster even worse, i.e.  the erasure of the distinction between investing and deposit banks.  Some of the banks like Goldman Sachs that got into the purchasing of sub-prime "bundles" were originally investment firms, but due to deregulation were also allowed to take in deposits.  In effect depositors who deposited with Goldman Sachs were stripped of the protection that was formerly enjoyed by all bank depositors.  If the bank took deposits it couldn't buy speculative securities like the "bundled" shit loans.  Now the restrictions were gone, thanks to deregulation - - Goldman Sachs was free to take in savings deposits, but it was also free to speculate in crazy derivatives and securitized shit loans.  All of a sudden, the depositors' money wasn't so safe any more - - it had been exposed to the risks of the investment side of Goldman Sachs.  What the banking and lending industry needs is obviously MORE and not less regulation so that savings are no longer subject to investment risks (unless the depositor wants to take his savings and invest them.)

[Michael Tee]

<<Who in the United States is responsible for creating jobs , or distributeing jobs to people who need jobs?>>

LOL.  Do you see any jobs being created in the U.S.A.?  I don't.  I see millions of jobs that were destroyed.  So I think your question should be re-phrased:  Who in the United States is responsible for destroying jobs or taking away jobs from people who need jobs?

That's actually a pretty easy question to answer.  Look up "Free Trade" and see which legislators voted for it.  When it became the law of the land, America began to lose jobs.  Trade with China lost a lot of American jobs.  Factories closed down here, factories making the same stuff opened in China.  Gee, who's responsible for THAT?

I read somewhere that about 50% of Chinese companies exporting into the U.S.A. are partly owned by Americans.  Do you think . . .   that the corporations that USED to make stuff in the U.S.A. just closed down their factories and opened up in China with Chinese partners so they could benefit from lower wages and less safety and health regulation in the workplace?  Nah, stupid idea - - they would have been way too loyal to their American workers to even think of it.   BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

  <<    In my opinion this is ultimately the responsibility of the individual who wants to work, no other person or agency is really competant to ensure that it happens without tyrany and history demonstrates that even with the power of a tyrany it is a hard thing to accomplish.>>

Right, we wouldn't want tyranny now, would we?  That would mean that the government could torture and kill its own citizens without due process of law . . .  but wait a minute!  The government already CAN torture and kill its own citizens without due process of law.  So, um, we wouldn't want tyranny , right, definitely not.  We'll stick with 20% unemployment.  Thanks for asking though.

     <<If each of us applys for every job that we can, we will collectively apply for every job there is , and have reason to create a job for ourselves if no suitable job already exists .>>

I think it's happening now.  The problem is, applying for every job you can, so is everyone else applying for every job they can - - doesn't seem to have much of an effect on the overall employment rate, though, does it?  But I like the idea of creating a job for myself.  I wanna be . . .  a brain surgeon.  Would you like to volunteer as my first patient?

    << The government may facilitate this or not , but they cannot accomp;ish it.>>

Waaaal, let's not be too harsh on the government.  On the positive side, we've all seen what they CAN do, especially when they're bought and paid for by Wall Street:  they can make millions of American manufacturing jobs disappear overseas to the lowest-paid and most exploited workers on the planet; they can take billions of dollars of your money every year and give it away to their "ally," Israel, an "ally" which strangely enough has never sent troops to fight in any of your wars, but HAS succeeded in earning the undying hatred of a billion Muslims for the U.S.A., they can give carte blanche to Wall Street firms and the banking industry to make billions from fraudulent home mortgage "loans" which they know can never be repaid, and then hand over hundreds of billions more to those same firms so that they can repeat their fraudulent schemes in new formats over and over again till the money runs out again and they need to ask for more, they can lie the country into pointless wars of unprovoked aggression that ultimately cost trillions of dollars, and help to jack up the deficit to dizzying new heights . . .  boy, your corporate-owned government can do LOTS of neat stuff, even if it can't really create jobs.  Never underestimate the power of a corporate-controlled, Wall-Street-controlled "democratically elected" U.S. government.  It's the shizzle.

[Michael Tee]

Huh?  I replied to this and now the reply is gone.  Oh, well, I'll reply in shorter form:

<< i never made the claim that corporations have not used their wealth to purchase influence. It's called rent seeking. >>

Good.  So far, we agree.

<<What i did claim is that unions are guilty of the same thing. >>

Agreed.

<<And no i don't see the need to picket a union headquarters and let them know that i am wise to their game. >>

The suggestion that you do so was purely sarcastic, meant to show that while the Occupy! movement has correctly identified and targeted the source of the problem, you are off somewhere in the left field of irrelevancy, making ridiculous comparisons between the relative petty meddling of the unions in state government with the disastrous effect of the financial and banking industries corrupting the federal government and fleecing the Treasury out of hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions actually counting the cost of the wars it foments.

You're under attack by a wolverine and a mosquito.  While you prefer to focus on the mosquito, the Occupy! movement is correctly focused on the wolverine.

<<What i will do is support state representatives and state executives who also realize that the public sector benefits package are unsustainable . . . >

Unsustainable my ass.  They are very sustainable with a relatively small tax increase.

<< . . .and urge that they carry through with their reforms.>>

Translation:  that they break their word to their pensioned employees and cancel a deal previously inked.  Well, I hope if those welchers and cheats ever pull shit like that, that their workers and pensioners sue their fucking ass off, and get them impeached and jailed as well.  Good luck widdat.

<<Oh and i don't believe that corporations deserve the right to be treated as individual citizens, nor do i equate their money as speech. Ditto unions. >>

I'm with you on the corporations, not so sure on the unions.  Haven't seen all the arguments pro and con for them.

<<You might find this link illuminating re: Illinois. >>

Yeah, thanks.  Reminded me of a condominium board.  The roof suddenly springs multiple leaks and has to be replaced, but there's nothing left in the "contingency" fund.    The pension benefits to the state's workers are found to be "unsustainable."  In the case of the condo board, it's a no-brainer - - raise the monthly common expenses by whatever it takes and for how long as it takes and fix the fucking roof.  The owners will bitch but that's life.  The State of Illinois seems to have done a similar thing in similar circumstances --  raise some taxes, in one case from 3% to  5%.  BFD.  Even with the raises, the article itself says, Illinois taxes remain among the lowest in the nation.  Where's the beef?

http://www.csmonito

[BT]

Yeah, thanks.  Reminded me of a condominium board. 

States are not condominium boards. And states that find themselves massively in debt to the tune of 78 billion dollars in Illinois case need to look at the reason for the debt, why the funding mechanisms in place did not work, why the obligations were undertaken in the first place and if the funds were diverted to whom and why.

Simple stewardship of the public purse.

[Michael Tee]

<<States are not condominium boards.>>

I just noted the similarity of the situations.  Sudden discovery of big problem.  Cut expenses or raise money?  Decision. 

<<And states that find themselves massively in debt to the tune of 78 billion dollars in Illinois case need to look at the reason for the debt, why the funding mechanisms in place did not work, why the obligations were undertaken in the first place and if the funds were diverted to whom and why. >>

Absolutely.  We agree.  Why are we having this discussion?   Do all of those things.  But fix the fucking roof.  Pay the fucking pension.  If there was any wrongdoing in procuring the pension plan, for sure check out the recourse available, including cancellation, but the article didn't indicate to me that there was any wrongdoing involved.

<<Simple stewardship of the public purse. >>

yep.