TAX THE RICH

Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains -- at 15 percent -- due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of over 5 million teachers. Who is more valuable to our society -- thirteen hedge-fund managers or 5 million teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?

http://www.salon.com/news/economics/Index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/18/robert_reich_republican_strategy

Tax the fucking rich.

Listen to Robert Reich on Thom Hartmann's http://www.thomhartmann.com/ show today.

Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, Monopoly

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

World pollution, there's no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

Ten Years After

Or will the poor just starve?

as opposed to shareholders and executives making millions off the back of the working class, then the poor won't be so poor anymore.

The rich may not be able to buy that 3rd house, that 2nd yacht, and that private jet. There may be fewer trust fund babies. It will take more than tax rate changes to get there, however.

The point is there are plenty of resources to go around but our economic system is designed so that the lowest common denominator for wages and benefits for working people, poor people, elderly and disabled people gets lower and lower while the rich get richer and richer.

It ain't fair, it ain't right, and it ain't freedom.

And if we weren't all so vulnerable to propaganda, divide and conquer tactics, and American exceptionalism, maybe we'd get somewhere.

It's the same, the whole world over,

It's the poor what gets the blame,

It's the rich that gets the pleasures

Ain't it all a bleedin' shame!

Ain't it all a bleedin' shame?


Old Cockney Drinking Song

That's how much he would still have after his $5 billion income was taxed at 70%.

BTW, I'm a fan -- saw TYA in 1975 at the Amphitheater in Chicago.

the true scope of wealth. To wrap your head around 1 billion dollars this example was given...it's so simple...just never thought of it this way: If you earn fifty thousand dollars a year and put it away without spending any of it, you would have to save for 20,000 years to acquire 1 billion dollars!!! Of course, so simple!

Now, to read this OP and see 13 hedge-fund managers earning 1 billion dollars, I find it not only outragious but now I want to :puke:. And, to think these people are enjoying tax cuts & loopholes, makes the situation even more vile.

My question: I'm not trying to be snarky but, what does a hedge fund manager contribute to society?

Smith says that productive Labor is THE fundamental REAL (as opposed to arbitrary) Value in an economy.

THROWING the MOST fundamental form of wealth, LABOR, away, and conserving the anti-wealth generators, those who DO NOT PRODUCE REAL Value (in terms of Adam Smith's definition of that economic factor). ****NOT**** Conservative at all.

I'm a Liberal myself, but there's no way I HAVE to/Must/should conform to the truth of what an authentic Liberal is, if there is no authentic foil in the opposite end of the phenomenological spectrum. IOW, I can screw off in my responsibilities as a Liberal BECAUSE "Conservatives" are such total lying phonies - AND - VICE - VERSA. This is what is Wrong with America. There are not enough authentic political factors at work in our shared milieu.

It's like I said elsewhere; it's a BAD Marriage, both sides copping out and blaming the other for their own lack of authenticity.

see is confusion....I've lived long enough to know that republicans today have different ideals than prior to raygun and the Democrats, although I believe their principles have remained fairly static, are wishy washy in their political technique. Whatever, it's a mess!

saying, "TAX THE RICH" is like standing outside a closed store while the owner watches you in the window as you scream, "OPEN THE STORE!" Ah, if he don't want to open it, he doesn't have to. He might laugh at you or call the police, even.

Taxing the (deadbeat) rich is obviously a real and demonstrable necessity, but the fact that it has not happened should tell us some inconvenient and even shocking truths about the system as it now stands -- a system that goes out of its way to protect the rights of a small minority to control and profit and even commit crimes with impunity. Their facade is wearing thin as the negative and destructive impact they have increases in proportion to the inequity they demand.

That cannot be allowed to continue much longer. There is a window here. It is going to close eventually because of the tremendous imbalance now. I do not want to live in country that is merely a staging ground for a Corporate Occupation that acts solely for the benefit of a handful of individuals and families behind it. I don't want that for our future generations because it is a nightmare of hell on Earth.

Even if all of those 13 made $5 billion each that would make a total of $65 billion. If one wanted to use that whole
amount to pay salaries and benefits of 5 million people, each of those people would make $13 thousand not nearly
enough for a teacher's salary. The tax difference would actually be only $13 billion, making the salary an even
less impressive $2700. With the managers making on average $1 billion ($13 billion in total) the salary goes down
to $540 - off from the actual number only by a factor of 100. Not to say that 50,000 teachers who could be funded by
eliminating that tax loophole is not an impressive number, but 5 million? Geez, who does the math for those writers?
Well, no matter how you look at it, one thing is for sure - we need more teachers. Particularly math teachers.

or this writer, to be exact, is Robert Reich who was Clinton's labor secretary. So I think he is pretty good at math, despite any other criticisms I may have of the man and his ideas..

I clicked to the original printing on his blog to see if there were sources or more details on these figures, and for some reason the numbers on Salon are different than his original piece.

It should read 300,000 teachers, not 5 million. I think it's too late for me to edit the excerpt in my OP.

So tell me, is one hedge fund manager more important than 300,000 teachers?

you want to count their total income, not just the money they save due to the tax loophole.
Then it is 13 hedge fund managers and 250,000 teaches, making it one hedge fund manages vs
20,000 teachers. Everyone can pick up a calculator and do a simple math. That's the beauty
of math, any argument over it is easily settled by doing a calculation. The question of
relative importance of hedge fund managers vs teachers comes from a different field and
cannot be answered so easily. Obviously, the free market capitalist system, of which most
Americans (including the teachers themselves) are so fond of, already decided in favor of
the hedge fund managers. Anyone who thinks this decision is unfair, yet still wants to keep
and defend the system is nothing but a delusional hypocrite.

I assure you I am not defending the system of capitalism.

Most American's are 'fond of' the capitalist system because billions of dollars have been spent to convince us that it equates with freedom, when in fact the opposite is true. We are bound and trapped by capitalism. And very few of us will ever win in that game.

Long overdue sanity and fairness.

It should read 300,000 teachers, not 5 million. Not sure why the numbers on Salon are different than Robert Reich's blog but it doesn't change the essential point being made.

It's too late for me to change the OP.

The reason the old guard repubs loved George W so much was that he was able to cut capital gains taxes and they made out like bandits.

I still think the system's gotta go.

They're more tender that way.

whoever you are!

:)

(dunno where else to put this, it's my only active thread so I assume it's related)

national protest. If we don't take to the internet and the streets to overwhelmingly demand this, they won't take notice that we mean business.