if walmart paid a living wage

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Be careful there, you'll be labeled a conspiracy theorist

This has been the FED model ever since the collapse of the economy and subsequent "propping-it-back-up" with borrowed money.

You never see Obama talking about restoring the middle class, only "creating good paying jobs". It is not in the government, nor the FED's interest to create policies that restore the middle class. Quite the opposite, actually. We discussed Thomas Pikkety's book in the last thread this topic came up in, I'd really suggest anyone that has an actual interest in the fundamental cause/effect of Capitalism run amok take some time to read it. There's only like 800 years of data that points out precisely what happens next (believe it or not, we're not the first ones to be in this current state)

Of course it is sooooo much easier to blame the big ole' meanies that run Walmart because they hate 'Merica.

High stakes musical chairs where 95% of Americans don't even have a chance to chase the remaining chairs.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by jms62

High stakes musical chairs where 95% of Americans don't even have a chance to chase the remaining chairs.

The first thing I'd recommend investigating and am personally considering is changing 401K / IRA contributions to after tax. If you think the current tax rates on investments are high relative to income, think about the full blown Marxist/Socialist state you will be retiring into when they hit you for 74%.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Of course it is sooooo much easier to blame the big ole' meanies that run Walmart because they hate 'Merica.

I don't think they hate America; they just love it less than they do their bank accounts.

We blame Big Business because Big Business IS the government. They bought it; they own it.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

The first thing I'd recommend investigating and am personally considering is changing 401K / IRA contributions to after tax. If you think the current tax rates on investments are high relative to income, think about the full blown Marxist/Socialist state you will be retiring into when they hit you for 74%.

I don't think the current tax rates on investments are high relative to income at all. In fact, they are much too low, relative to income. Yet another way the rich stack the deck. They pay 20 percent tax for sitting around while money their great-grandad made ensures they don't have to do anything with their lives.

Lower tax rates on capital gains is merely welfare for the already wealthy.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

I don't think the current tax rates on investments are high relative to income at all. In fact, they are much too low, relative to income. Yet another way the rich stack the deck. They pay 20 percent tax for sitting around while money their great-grandad made ensures they don't have to do anything with their lives.

Lower tax rates on capital gains is merely welfare for the already wealthy.

My fault - I worded my thought improperly. The point I was trying to make is that when saving for retirement most financial advisers will recommend investing pre-tax dollars; the wisdom of course being that you will be taxed less on it in retirement (as you make a lot less money, the taxable rate will be much lower when you are not accruing an annual income).

My point was that this seems logical now, but in 15-20 years, well after the scale has been tipped (between workers paying into the income tax base vs. those not) the tax rates will have to rise exponentially to pay the massive debt + fact that 65 -70% of the people in the country will be retired, on welfare and not paying into the system, or on a government funded disability.

The number of people on disability, as Jim pointed out in a previous thread, is at an all time high. Sure, a lot of this is fraud, but alot of this has to do with 10 years of maiming our kids (physically and mentally) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our defense is spending is 37% of our GNP. By comparison, China is 11% and Russia is similar.

The point of all of this is that we are beyond any chance of correcting and fixing our problems. We will have no choice at this juncture but to eventually devolve into a sort of Marxist Apocalypse where we will be taxed at rates that will compare to most Socialist regimes, though we will reap none of the benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc.)

So you may be ahead paying 25-28% tax on it now as an adjunct to your income, rather than a flat 70-75% of it in 20 years.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

My fault - I worded my thought improperly. The point I was trying to make is that when saving for retirement most financial advisers will recommend investing pre-tax dollars; the wisdom of course being that you will be taxed less on it in retirement (as you make a lot less money, the taxable rate will be much lower when you are not accruing an annual income).

My point was that this seems logical now, but in 15-20 years, well after the scale has been tipped (between workers paying into the income tax base vs. those not) the tax rates will have to rise exponentially to pay the massive debt + fact that 65 -70% of the people in the country will be retired, on welfare and not paying into the system, or on a government funded disability.

The number of people on disability, as Jim pointed out in a previous thread, is at an all time high. Sure, a lot of this is fraud, but alot of this has to do with 10 years of maiming our kids (physically and mentally) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our defense is spending is 37% of our GNP. By comparison, China is 11% and Russia is similar.

The point of all of this is that we are beyond any chance of correcting and fixing our problems. We will have no choice at this juncture but to eventually devolve into a sort of Marxist Apocalypse where we will be taxed at rates that will compare to most Socialist regimes, though we will reap none of the benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc.)

So you may be ahead paying 25-28% tax on it now as an adjunct to your income, rather than a flat 70-75% of it in 20 years.

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I don't disagree with this. Outsized defense spending (which does little other than make those with government contracts wealthy) and frankly, too low of taxes on the wealthy over the past 35 years have indeed screwed the pooch. I don't think it's paranoid at all to think it will end in violence. There's a reason kids in school don't learn much about the history of the labor movement in this nation- it's because most of it through the 1930s was written in blood. We didn't learn anything the first time around, clearly.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I don't disagree with this. Outsized defense spending (which does little other than make those with government contracts wealthy) and frankly, too low of taxes on the wealthy over the past 35 years have indeed screwed the pooch. I don't think it's paranoid at all to think it will end in violence. There's a reason kids in school don't learn much about the history of the labor movement in this nation- it's because most of it through the 1930s was written in blood. We didn't learn anything the first time around, clearly.

the defense spending is simply outrageous in this country.
when paul ryan came out with his latest 'cut welfare and add that money to defense' i had such a look on my face, some people asked me if i was ok! i was at the gym at the time they were showing it, and i guess i looked simply furious.
how many tanks we have parked out in the desert in storage right now? that f-35 program, what's the tag on that up to at this point?

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

the defense spending is simply outrageous in this country.
when paul ryan came out with his latest 'cut welfare and add that money to defense' i had such a look on my face, some people asked me if i was ok! i was at the gym at the time they were showing it, and i guess i looked simply furious.
how many tanks we have parked out in the desert in storage right now? that f-35 program, what's the tag on that up to at this point?

And now the secretary of Veteran Affairs is out over the VA scandal, and no one is talking about the real scandal- that Congress is NOT FUNDING THE VA ADEQUATELY. How hard is this? As someone on balloon-juice put it, the next nominee's response to every question asked during his nomination hearing should be, "Where's the money, Senator?"

Billions for shiny new machines to send young men and women out to fight in, no money for those men and women when they have the audacity to come home wounded instead of dead.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

And now the secretary of Veteran Affairs is out over the VA scandal, and no one is talking about the real scandal- that Congress is NOT FUNDING THE VA ADEQUATELY. How hard is this? As someone on balloon-juice put it, the next nominee's response to every question asked during his nomination hearing should be, "Where's the money, Senator?"

Billions for shiny new machines to send young men and women out to fight in, no money for those men and women when they have the audacity to come home wounded instead of dead.

treatment of vets has been pisspoor since george washingtons time. it's ridiculous. hell, they sent andrew jackson and his militia to a fight...changed their mind after they'd already been gone for weeks, andy paid out of his own pocket to get all his men back home.
spend all this money on all these toys, send people to fight for bullsh-- reasons, they come back damaged and backs are turned. it's a disgrace.

i know a lady whose husband was a disabled vietnam vet. he passed away last summer.
first thing that happened, they pay they sent stopped. reason? altho they'd been married over 20 years, they hadn't been married at least 10 years when the determination was made he deserved benefits, so they ended!

[Rudeboyelvis]

If you get the chance to see the HBO Vice episode on the amount of waste in Afghanistan, please do so.

If you happen to be on blood pressure medication, be sure to take before watching. Over 100 billion dollars to rebuild the country that has literally, in every sense of the word, has been thrown away and put in the hands of the Taliban.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/seg...34441254000e6e

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

If you get the chance to see the HBO Vice episode on the amount of waste in Afghanistan, please do so.

If you happen to be on blood pressure medication, be sure to take before watching. Over 100 billion dollars to rebuild the country that has literally, in every sense of the word, has been thrown away and put in the hands of the Taliban.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/seg...34441254000e6e

hell, we've spent blood, sweat, tears and treasure for years in that shithole. trillions spent on a country worth millions. to what end? i have no idea at all. and now we get reassurance from obama that we will maintain a presence there after the war 'ends' at years end. what for?
and don't get me started on all the equipment left behind in iraq, because it was 'cheaper' to leave it.
stupid, just stupid.
i thought we left the mother country way back when to keep out of attempts at empire and the like all over the world.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Danzig

hell, we've spent blood, sweat, tears and treasure for years in that shithole. trillions spent on a country worth millions. to what end? i have no idea at all. and now we get reassurance from obama that we will maintain a presence there after the war 'ends' at years end. what for?
and don't get me started on all the equipment left behind in iraq, because it was 'cheaper' to leave it.
stupid, just stupid.
i thought we left the mother country way back when to keep out of attempts at empire and the like all over the world.

Too bad the saber rattlers didn't want to take a page out of the Russian's history book 35 years ago.

but what continues to go on there goes so far and beyond absurd there is no words left in the English language to describe it.

When you have defense contractors scrapping hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of brand new equipment so their budgets don't get un/de-funded the following year, and the Pakistani's then buy the military equipment from the scrap yard to turn over to the Taliban in order to use against us.

Corroborated evidence that prove IED's used against our troops were made from materials in the scrap yards filled by the defense contractors.

How the hell do you find a word that could possibly give this level absurdity it's proper credence?

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Too bad the saber rattlers didn't want to take a page out of the Russian's history book 35 years ago.

but what continues to go on there goes so far and beyond absurd there is no words left in the English language to describe it.

When you have defense contractors scrapping hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of brand new equipment so their budgets don't get un/de-funded the following year, and the Pakistani's then buy the military equipment from the scrap yard to turn over to the Taliban in order to use against us.

Corroborated evidence that prove IED's used against our troops were made from materials in the scrap yards filled by the defense contractors.

How the hell do you find a word that could possibly give this level absurdity it's proper credence?

yeah, i really don't think there is language strong enough to convey the utter ridiculousness of the situation. it's beyond the limits of our vocabulary.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

. I don't think it's paranoid at all to think it will end in violence.

“Coppers are pissed there was no reporting in the local press” said one Chicago officer via email. “You ask coppers on the Gold Coast. They see black mobs roaming downtown Michigan Avenue without any money. No real reason to be there but to strictly rob, beat and hurt random Whiteys.”

Steve Chapman is an editor at the Chicago Tribune who does not like it when people like Second City Cop complain his paper “embargoes” news about racial violence. “Why do you care so much about the attackers’ race?” he wrote. “If you fear or dislike blacks, I suppose it would confirm your prejudice. But otherwise, it tells you nothing useful.”.

http://americanthinker.com/2014/05/w...nal_media.html

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

http://americanthinker.com/2014/05/w...nal_media.html

You can really tell when an author is trying to hawk a book, cant ya?


I can assure you, the media did everything but NOT ignore the Clearwater Beach episode. They practically broke into network programming to cover the SWAT team descending on the block and kept a live scroll running all night.

turns out it was a group of thugs from a neighborhood in Tampa that went to the beach and thought it might be a good idea if they all had guns with them due to an ongoing beef with each other.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

You can really tell when an author is trying to hawk a book, cant ya?


I can assure you, the media did everything but NOT ignore the Clearwater Beach episode. They practically broke into network programming to cover the SWAT team descending on the block and kept a live scroll running all night.

turns out it was a group of thugs from a neighborhood in Tampa that went to the beach and thought it might be a good idea if they all had guns with them due to an ongoing beef with each other.

Not a peep about the mobs wandering the Gold Coast in Chicago.

Glad to hear Clearwater Beach doesn't have the same pc handicap Chicago does.

BTW the hawking of the book if that what it was didn't work on me.

Too depressing!

[GenuineRisk]

http://gawker.com/video-of-violent-r...re-o-954939719

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

http://gawker.com/video-of-violent-r...re-o-954939719

Media is obviously covering up surfer on porta potty crime as well

How many dead and wounded?

[jms62]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Media is obviously covering up surfer on porta potty crime as well

How many dead and wounded?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04