bottom are already struggling to put food on the table, if they even have a table.

To a billionaire paying 5% more in taxes is about as disappointing as losing at golf. Traumatic, to be sure, but no one in their circle will go hungry or be forced to forgo their medication.

A 5% increase in taxation would be LESS traumatic than losing at golf, as it would go unnoticed until the increase was reported in the media ... and even, then, it would only be seen in retrospect, but only with the knowledge of the increase.

The wealthy, because of the way they get their money, have no way to know how much they WILL get in any time frame ... they only know what they GOT.

The wealthy (the rich man) is that way because of what they own. The U.S. tax code is very, very nice to the wealthy. The 1% pay very little taxes on their wealth compared to the rest of us since they don't get most of their income through wages. Sure, there are capital gains and a few other piddling taxes but they are easily circumvented by good accountants and off-shore "investments".

I have noticed however that the wealthy tend to be greedy and very aware of their bank accounts and holdings. Almost anal about it. Those of us trying to get by are happy if there is something at the end of the month and we're also happier to help other people in our shoes.

"The guy who signs his paychecks is wealthy." -- Chris Rock

The difference between rich and wealthy is ... do you have to do anything other than wake up, and, maybe, sign your name, to get money versus actually having to be someplace at an appointed time (with some or a lot of flexibility) and do something (no matter how minimal) once you get there.

I catch a lot of flak here and other places when I say include everyone that receives a W-2 on their primary source of income ... no matter how much they get paid ... as a working class ally ... whether they believe it or not.

You said golf and it brought to mind something I saw a while back.

"Warren Buffett's wealth increased by $427 every 1.2 seconds. That's the average time it takes for Tiger Woods to start and finish his swing."

The numbers used where I originally read this came from 2013 and the fact that his wealth increased a reported 12.7 billion in that year. Can't say how accurate those numbers are but yea.

I did some google surfing and found something else interesting. If you take 5% from warren buffetts 2013 income you come up with $635,000,000.
According to:
http://www.topmoneymake.com/10-most-richest-golfer-in-2014/
Arnold Palmer, the richest golfer of all time, has a net worth of $675 million. That means that extra 5% per year from the second richest man in the world can almost completely cover the cost of a famous golf players entire career. So apparently winning A LOT at golf for an entire life time can actually financially compare to losing 5% in ONE year.

A most interesting first post.



My advice. Keep tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Best regards.

Solving an economic crisis is easy when the uber-wealthy don't own the government.

The U.S.A. could slash its military spending, putting people who work for the military industrial complex now into jobs that actually improve lives (infrastructure improvements, renewable energy, education, etc...)

The U.S.A, could create a more generous retirement, disability, and welfare system, and implement living wages for all.

We could take care of all our homeless people, whether they are mentally ill, disabled, addicts, or just plain unemployable.

But first we have to wrestle our government away from the uber-wealthy class, probably by taxing them out of existence.

Most of our uber-wealthy class seem to be sociopaths of one sort or another who achieved their fortunes by inheritance, gaming the political system, destroying the natural environment, and/or wage slavery.

I would shutter every business school in the country. But I'd give the accounting profs their own department. We will always need accountants but we can live very nicely without MBAs, "financial engineers" (is there a more completely terrifying term in all of business jargon?) and people who are rilly good at selling useless shit to people who don't need it in the first place.

...going to be, "Not a damn thing."

my mom fed me, my sister, 2 brothers (and she ate last) on 5# of potatoes and a box of powered milk. No one should know this in the United States, never.

...are often among those most eager to starve their fellow Americans.

are often among those who are the first ones to want to send more of our kids off to war (and then deny them health care and rehabilitation and GI benefits after they come home broken and war-weary and shell-shocked because they're suddenly part of the "lazy moocher" crowd).

Shit - it takes me back to this - um - "conversation" I had with one of the other "karate moms" who was quite wealthy, country-club type, married to a predatory developer husband. She was SO republi-CON she was pretty doggone unreachable. She was the one I had an argument with - about dick cheney.
She: "Oh he served."
Me: "No he didn't!"
She: "YES. Yes he did!"
Me: "Nope. NEVER wore his country's uniform, NEVER saw combat, five deferments. NEVER got his hands dirty."
She: "But ... my brother-in-law says cheney SERVED!"
Mom #3 (mutual friend, another karate mom, also a country-club type, married to a rich guy but she had a taste for facts and reality): "Um... actually, no, cheney never served. calimary's right. Your brother-in-law is wrong. cheney never served."
She: (flustered) "What? Really? He didn't?"
Mom #3: "No. He didn't."
She: (flustered, stammering) "Well... I'm getting wrong information here. I've been given wrong information..." Muttering continued as she took her coffee and headed down the sidewalk.

This SAME "She" came to me after war was declared and our loved ones were being conned off to war, and pleaded - "Oh, God! It's started! I put our flag up at our house to support our trooooooops. Aren't you going to fly your flag to support our troooooooooooops?"
Me: "NO. I'd rather 'support our troops' by stopping that damn stupid wasteful war so they don't have to go! The way we need to 'support our troops' is by NOT WASTING THEIR PRECIOUS LIVES to begin with! By NOT SENDING THEM TO A WAR LIKE THIS ONE. By KEEPING THEM OUT of a stupid useless war that's built on LIES and we shouldn't even BE over there fighting it in the first place! THAT'S how you 'support our troops'."

She never got it. And I didn't really expect her to. She'd spent too much of her life in that mindset. Surrounded by people who felt only THAT way. She never heard the other side, and had already been wired to dismiss it if she did hear it. She was hard-wired NOT to be receptive to anything I would argue. There was nobody like me, or even like "Mom #3" in her social circle. She lived her life surrounded by bush/cheney lovers and war proponents and other believers in "that" musty, irrelevant, and fact-free capitalism-worshipping mindset of rovian reality-manipulation and Pox Noise-pushed delusion. She was and probably still is unreachable, and unredeemable. But I never stopped trying. She'd NEVER HEARD ANYONE in her circle who knew the truth about dick cheney, for example. Certainly nobody who spoke up about it. And if she'd never heard that, it's an absolute guarantee that she never heard anything else about bush/cheney that was based on reality, either. It was a shame. We lost touch after awhile, as our kids grew up, earned their black belts, the boys started wanting to get their drivers' licenses and chase girls and try to get ready for college, the girls started wanting to get their drivers' licenses and chase boys and try to get ready for college, and very few of them stayed with the karate lessons for long. The little group around the karate school started to splinter off and scatter to the four winds. And so it goes...

... but it was oatmeal, not potatoes.

-- Mal

they can buy a new one, just ask cheney.

the heirs and successors would have to struggle on with only a $2,500,000,000.00 start up fund. How on earth could they survive? Divided equally among 20 heirs, each share would only be $125,000,000.00. Talk about your wailing and gnashing of teeth! Damn "death tax" made 'em paupers. I don't know how many $30 billion estates exist in this fair land but I bet the answer would be "more than a few". And that is just the "small" uber-rich estates.

Rush complains that raising taxes on the rich will "punish" their "success." (The corollary must be that raising taxes on the poor and middle class is some kind of worthy punishment that can motivate the non-rich to become rich and thus escape from such burdens of responsible citizenship.)

But if government's job is not to mete out punishment to capitalists, neither is it to reward them. Government's purview is to provide a stable framework in which all sorts of societal functions can occur sustainably, and the resonsibilty of individuals to contribute to this effort increases with their ability to do so.

The rich man's reward for his hard work and/or good fortune is his riches -- not a relief from his fair share of taxes. Yes, he will still be rich -- he will still have his reward -- even after his financial contributions to a more just and productive society.

Representative democracy is America's form of government, not capitalism. If you succeed as a capitalist, congratulaions; it's time to give back.

It's telling, by the way, that El Rushbo calls the 1% "successful Americans." In his way of thinking, which mirrors so much right wing philosophy, being American is just a game where the score is measured in dollars, and where there must be a consequence or a judgment meted out on the "losers."

Isn't that what the RW response would be?

Turn on any RW talk show and that's what you will hear.

Keep the taxes low for the rich and they will create jobs and help everyone else.

Good old trickle down!

Somehow still not discredit for some folks in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

They claim the rich aren't THAT rich to be able to increase social spending.

I send them this:

from the 0.1% to the 0.2% income band. Imagine how low would their self-esteem drop! Don't be so cruel...

Raising taxes on the 99% versus the 1%, starves children and families.

Cutting Social Security on the 99% versus the 1%, starves our retirees and disabled folk.

Allowing Wall Street to pilfer pension funds makes our economy dramatically more unstable.

Raising taxes on the 1% versus the 99% has been PROVEN to benefit our entire economy.

Raising taxes on the 1% makes cutting social security and raising taxes on the 99% unnecessary... AND it leaves the 1% still BLOODY STINKING RICH!!!

In short:
Taking from the poor is equivalent to (attempted) murder.
Taking from the absurdly rich saves lives.

they may have to delay putting the solid gold fixtures on the bidet in the guest bedroom at the annex to the summer house.

So cruel.

percentage is. I believe the right number was the one Obama campaigned on in 2008, $250k a year or maybe $300k a year. I don't think raising taxes only on those making a million bucks or more a year is going to fill the bill, so to speak.

its about control

the poorer someone is, the less they are able to stand up against the dehumanization that is served up to them

the Democrats plan to pay for any certain program, look them straight in the eye and say: "By taxing the living shit out of people that are so fucking rich they wouldn't even notice it if you took half of their money."

It catches them a little off guard when you speak to them like that. They think speaking like that is yet another privilege reserved just for them.

Try it, it's fun.

Ok if I borrow that line some time?

Anyway, so the government won't make any more money from it either.

Million, Billion, Trllion, all sound alike.

Although, I did think the answer was going to be "Their heads explode" with some graphics (since the supposed country has gone all American Sniper on us.)