When money is free speech (0.00 / 0)

And time is money, listening to any other language is wasteful spending.

As a great Highwayman once said,
"But if you run short of money, honey
I'll run short of time."

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by: triangunation @ Thu Oct 22, 2009 at 20:58:19 PM UTC

The brunt of the new tax load (0.00 / 0)

The brunt of the new tax load from the stimulus packages enacted so far will have to be paid off by the middle class.

The Employee Free Choice Act will probably not be as effective as envisioned.  The majority of job growth will probably be in very small businesses.  These will be ones with less than 10 employees.

Conservative......CNN news:Nopenhagen: US PRES 2 WKS LATE ATTEND 1 DAY, GORE JOURNEY BY TRAIN.

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by: Money Man @ Thu Oct 22, 2009 at 21:45:03 PM UTC

What makes you say either of these things? (4.00 / 2)

Why will the taxes "have to" be paid by the middle class when they don't have most of the money, and when higher taxes on the rich and corporations are so overwhelmingly popular?

As for job growth, again what's the basis for the claim that most job growth will happen in employers with 10 or less employers? Even assuming you are right, why would we worry about where job growth happened in deciding whether EFCA would make a difference, as opposed to where people were employed overall?

The U.S. saw its greatest prosperity at a time when unionization rates were high and taxation was progressive. Later, we had policies designed to undo those things, which shifted wealth to the few, to corporations, and into finance rather than manufacturing, and we ended up with an unhealthy economy that resembled a casino.  Even if you don't care about rewarding work rather than speculation, there is no way to have a stable and healthy economy without a strong middle class.  

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

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by: David Kaib @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 01:40:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I know, we need a strong middle class. (0.00 / 0)

If you take all of the "rich" people in the world and liquidate all of their assets, it isn't going to pay the tax bills that are coming due.  Without a lot of lasting jobs, we are creating more poor people every day that have to take bankruptcy.  The taxpayer takes up the slack as a bankruptcy works it way through the creditors.  Who's left?  The working middle class.

The work/industry paradigm is changing and becoming less centralized with people being hired as "individual" contractors.  They will have to provide their own health and benefit packages also.  Unionization rates were high when we had concentrations of industry.  Now a lot of that industry is dispersed or decentralized.  With more productivity coming from a smaller number of people, new businesses will tend to be smaller.  Believe it or not, with the oncoming "baby boomer" populations, even skilled nursing facilities (nursing home requiring large numbers of employees)are not forcasted to grow.  It will be cheaper to keep us in our homes.  We are facilitating that with "reverse mortgages."  Thus delayed tax revenue on the disbursements of assets.  

People are just going to work much harder and longer.  

Conservative......CNN news:Nopenhagen: US PRES 2 WKS LATE ATTEND 1 DAY, GORE JOURNEY BY TRAIN.

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by: Money Man @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 05:07:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

? (4.00 / 1)

There is a lot wrong and missing in this comment money man. For instance, why is there a tax bill commong due? Rape-public-cans excused the rich from their tax obligations and borrowed from them instead, leading to increased deficit by the interest on those loans, is why. And even as I find your claim that the holdings of the rich are not substantial enough to address the tax liabality questionable, their decades of shirking their share of the tax load could be corrected by decades of them paying more than their fair share, to ballance the scale so to speak.

And where do you think the poor people going bank-ruptured came from? The working middle class, after job loss or medical bills is where. And why are we still loosing good jobs? Because the same greedy rich can make more money exporting our production to slave or sweat shop wage nations who's products must be exported as they don't pay enough to have a home market.

And why are people working as individual contractors? Because the greedy employeer can make more money that way, and the employee makes less. So much less that often there isn't money enough to buy their own insurance- there are no benifits for the employee in this vile exploitation.

The reduction of union representation over the last four decades is the result of mostly rape-public-can administrations not enforcing labor law and targeted employeers taking advantage of this during organizing drives to fire and intimadate employees. This fact is verified by the 60+% of non-union employees who would be union if they could.

Even if nursing homes don't hire in house,and people stay in their homes as long as possible (as most prefer), the need for skilled care will still exist in a simular amount, nursing personel will just have to work in the homes part or full time as needed.

The entire working class is aware of working harder and longer and has been for the fourty years of union decline.

If you really believe we need a strong middle class, offer a way to go in that direction, or constructive critisum of someone who does, not just fatalism.

Many posters here who's judgment I respect have written you off as unreachable, this is my attempt.


Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR

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by: reggiewhitefish @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 18:22:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And the question is? (0.00 / 0)

The subject is:  Who's paying the bill?  When we raise taxes, and a lot of them, who's going to pay them.

We just had a very large stimulus bill passed.  We the citizens, are the government's source of income.  The amount being spent currently, will have to be paid by someone.  That's the tax bill that's comming due.  It will be paid by our children because we have borrowed the money.

This discussion concerns who will end up paying it.  It will always be the citizens of our country.  Those of us that are working and file a 1040 form will pay for it.  We will have to work harder to do it.

The EFCA legislation was written for a workforce that will be much smaller in the future.  

It will be smaller because we have increased our productivity and can get more things done with a smaller number of people.  

It will be smaller because the types of work that can be represented by union is smaller in number.

It will be smaller because the conditions under which people are hired will be changed to effect a more efficient use of the money it takes to employ them.  This is where the individual contractor type of employment comes into the picture.

Overall the legislation just will not be effective as it has been envisioned.

The middle class will grow through more education, more training and more mobility for the employee.  He will have to be more mobile to change jobs and working conditions.  I have stated that I don't know what a living wage is.  I would not stay employed at a dying one.

By the way, I expect future wages to rise.  This will help make future employees more mobile.  The problem is, the employee will have to save more for retirement and make provisions for future health care.

Remember when congress says deficit neutral; It means that they will raise taxes so we don't go into the hole.

Conservative......CNN news:Nopenhagen: US PRES 2 WKS LATE ATTEND 1 DAY, GORE JOURNEY BY TRAIN.

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by: Money Man @ Sat Oct 24, 2009 at 05:01:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

your "logic" is faulty (4.00 / 1)

You state the citizens pay all taxes. Doesn't seem like news to me, the question is which citizens. Those that have had their tax obligation dramaticly reduced are the same people who benifit the most from our system of capitalism, public infrastructure, public educated work force,... etc. And as a group are partly who "we" owe the national debt to, which exists mainly because they have not paid their fair share for decades.

We on the left don't believe the workers should have to pay the rich man's share of the cost of government.

You claim the middle class will grow, and at the same time claim the work force will be smaller. Can you really not see the absurdity of this counterdiction? And the statement that you wouldn't work for poverty wages seems to indicate no one else should either, but real wages continue to fall, so without change ALL will work for dying wages.

You go on to further fantisy by your expectation that wages will raise without force from organized workers. Where has this ever happened in any culture or time?

If you refuse to accept truth, you really will be unreachable.

Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR

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by: reggiewhitefish @ Sat Oct 24, 2009 at 15:03:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Reggie redustribution's of wealth (0.00 / 0)

Stay on the subject it is important.  Bringing in invective and disparagement only indicates that you have lost control of yourself in relation to the subject.

My guess is that you want to go back and collect "back-taxes?"  What is the "rich-man's share?  In your eyes, greater than yours?

The middle class has been decreasing as a population in percentages of the overall population.  It will only grow if it gets smarter.

You are right.  You wouldn't work for dying wages either.

Wages have risen in almost all of the service industries without force from unionization.  Check our the wages of doctors, CPA's, people mowing lawns etc.

Conservative......CNN news:Nopenhagen: US PRES 2 WKS LATE ATTEND 1 DAY, GORE JOURNEY BY TRAIN.

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by: Money Man @ Sat Oct 24, 2009 at 22:51:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

progressive taxes (4.00 / 1)

I believe the people who gain the most from our nation have the biggest obligation to support it, in short progressive taxation of income. This is the fairest method and recognized as such by all but the wealthy shirkers.

The nation worked best for everybody with the tax structure of the 1950s-1960s, and produced the highest standard of living ever achieved in the world for the general population, so I believe that to be the rich man's share.

As for redistribution of wealth, that already happened from Reagan on, as the number of millionaires increased, so did the % of population living under the poverty level, by orders of magnatude!

Everything else in your last post is wrong, and I think you know it.

Let me assure you that I know how to curse and disrespect, just don't because I find it non or counter productive.  

Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR

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by: reggiewhitefish @ Sun Oct 25, 2009 at 18:26:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

He's a RW troll, that's what. (0.00 / 0)

We met earlier.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 11:30:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hi Sadie (0.00 / 0)

I was great meeting you.  Have you anything to add to the conversation?

Conservative......CNN news:Nopenhagen: US PRES 2 WKS LATE ATTEND 1 DAY, GORE JOURNEY BY TRAIN.

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by: Money Man @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 15:57:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think it is essential (4.00 / 2)

that progressive-populists have a means to push our agenda outside the political process. And if you feel that 1)Washington won't reform Wall Street, and that 2) this means there is a solid chance of another dive in the future, then I think some form of EFCA now is the next biggest priority after health care.

That way when the next crash comes, we will not have to deal with the roadblocks put up by the Quisling Wing of the Democratic Party.

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by: glacierpeaks @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 00:04:34 AM UTC

I think you are right (0.00 / 0)

An old mentor of mine used to advise "If you want to keep the conditions you achieve, protect them yourself, put them in the labor contract. Everything won in the political arena will be lost in the politilal arena."

Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR

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by: reggiewhitefish @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 17:14:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So how's Obama doing on EFCA? (0.00 / 0)

It's passed, right? Given that Obama's the greatest orator of our time, and Democrats control the Presidency, the House, and the Senate (with a supermajority)? In other words, were given all the power they ever asked for?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

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by: lambert @ Fri Oct 23, 2009 at 01:53:28 AM UTC