: Wrong, I was paying attention, which is why I pointed out that most of the wealthy's wealth is not in the form of taxable income -- that's the lucre we should be taxing. Furthermore, you haven't responded to the fact that the top 10% owns 90% of the wealth, which as I've already pointed out, is proof positive that any redistribution we need ain't happening and is in fact, as SDF pointed out, flowing upwards in the wrong direction.
SDF, now there's a sharpy. Those who own wealth, as long as it was arrived at legitimately, should be allowed, no, they have a God-given right to own that wealth. Far more insidious then the wealthy are those who sit around rationalizing methods to steal that wealth. Anyhow, I'd like to see a flat tax so that way everybody is taxed equally. Isn't that strange, here I am espousing economic equality.
: : Instead of waiting for someone to throw crumbs to you, why don't you get another job?
: I love my present job, and make a solid middle class salary, which is what I think EVERYONE should have.
How presumptious. Maybe everyone would prefer to make their own choices in life. Can you say 'overweening'?
Apparently you believe that an illiterate ne'erdowell also deserves a solid middle class salary. That's mighty white of you. But why in the world stop there? Why not also include a house? A couple of cars? Do you and your kind ever think beyond the feel-good stage?
Nevermind, I already know the answer to that.
: :Or create a service that others would be willing to buy?
: I already provide a valuable and socially useful service, but as it turns out, I also have created another profitable service: been to the movies lately. ;)
Nah, not lately. Last movie I saw was "Saving Private Ryan", a movie I doubt would have any meaning to the denizens of this board. You weren't in that were you?
: : : Lastly, if like me, you cherish democracy, then this very uneven wealth distribution should concern you. Money is power, and when you concentrate too much money in a small minority, they get too much power, and the result is the bought and paid for Congress and President (and elected judges) we have today. That ain't good for our democracy, and as I like to point out, just because we've had democracy for 200 odd years, there's no guarantee we'll retain it. Most of the world's history has involved non-democratic nations, so the big D is a fragile thing. We need to protect it, not justify those things, like grossly uneven wealth distribution, which harm it.
: : The only thing worse in history than the supposed fragility of Democracies (and here I mean the kind we have here, coupled with a Bill of Rights, etc.) is the disasters that schemes dreamed up by misfits like Marx have brought.
: Marx wasn't a misfit, he was a brilliant thinker. Now, no one is denying the catastrophes that certain communist countries have been, and still are, though the reasons for their failures are not all their own -- the West did its best to crush them, and in doing so, created its own enemies. However, you must agree with me that our own democracy here in the U.S. is not set in stone, and if it goes, while it may not be as bad as Stalin's USSR, it still won't be good, and could be awful.
Hey, they tried to crush the Western Democracies! Remember the Cold War? Remember the Cuban Missle Crises (I remember wondering if I'd live to see the next day, that's how serious the news reports were)? Remember the backyard A-bomb shelters? I do. The USSR was rightfully crushed and for the right reasons.
And yes, I do agree that if our democracy goes it'd be terrible. But I and many others feel that we are on the way to losing it. Waco was a turning point for me, you'll never know how that affected me. Just as George Washington was a rebel to some and a hero to others so it is w/ Timothy McVeigh.
: : You don't know what poverty is unless you've been out of the US.
: I've seen miserable poverty outside the U.S., and very bad poverty in the U.S., but that's apples and oranges. I've never said the U.S. is the worst place in the world -- far from it; the pity is, we could be so much better.
The pity is that it is apples and oranges but there are so many who won't admit it preferring instead to use deceit to gain points. The 'poverty' of the US is living high off the hog in most other countries. I've been in countries where the per capita was 800 bucks a year, only a fool would make comparisons between those countries and the US. Only a fool, additionally, wouldn't be able to see that those tragedies evolve from their own corruption, not as a result of US capitalism and all the rest of the eyewash that is so popular on this board.
None.
