It doesn't make the system bad. Weak people will screw up in any system they find themselves living in.

good points Paul and you are right. When this country was great and did great things. It wasnt I got mine fuck you.
Also its nonsense that success isnt celebrated. Steve Jobs is treated like a god, bill gates interviewed all the time. Donald Trump has best sellers and tv shows that are hits.

But they spent more on education , you had public college and road systems were built and we had a bunch of wars. So everyone wasnt paying 12 percent. They also had a war tax.

off topic have a safe flight Minte.

Vietnam dragged on for a long time. There was terrible unemployment in the 1970's.
When I bought my first house the interest rate was 16%. And I had to put 10% into it.
Inflation was out of control.

Every generation has their cross to bear. This era isn't any different from the ones your parents and grandparents lived in. All that has changed is that there are better toys and gizmos.

In the words of Mr Dickens, "these are the best of times ,these are the worst of times. "

Thankyou, We hired a fellow this year that flys blackhawks for the Army Reserve. He is also IFR rated in twins so this trip I am taking the right seat.

Whats to debate?

Your views are pretty clear and consistent.

Democrats can do no wrong. Republicans can do no right. Companies are evil. Unions are awesome. Rich people are only rich because they unfairly took it from poor people. Times are changing, this time its different... workers of the world unite! etc etc etc.

You'd have a much different attitude about business people and success if YOU were the one who risked everything you had, put your home and property on the line, spent years working 80 hr work weeks, getting by on almost nothing, paying 10-100-500 employees competitive salaries, great benefits, if you were the one who's business depended on deadlines, production schedules, quotas, 5 and 6 figure leases for property, fleets of vehicles, massive marketing budgets etc etc etc etc etc. With 80% of them grumbling every single day about how unfair everything is, what a crook you are, how you take from the poor to buy your new car and so on.

It's not a shocker that no one can define "fair share" - why subject yourself to strong counterpoints and a reality check? Class warfare at its finest. You don't know what you want and how you're going to get it... you just know you want to take it from those who have more than you.

Not true at all. Also a fyi Ive had my own business since 2000. I Know the people that buy memberships to sites are middle class people for the most part. So if that keeps shrinking it hurts sales. Got to look at the big picture. Chinese dont buy porn memberships. Also Obama isnt a liberal at all, he is a Rockefeller republican. I was called a right wing plant on the daily kos because I disagree. Ive voted for two republican gov's and a republican insurance commissioner every time he ran. The first political campaign I ever worked on was a republican. I voted for Bush the first time. lol Reagan was my first ballot cast. Having a business I have to worry are purchasers of my product are going to have work thats above min wage.

Oh... I didn't realize you were really just concerned about the middle class because it affects porn sales. Definitely big picture thinking.

"the rich are getting richer... the poor are getting poorer". Same thing has been said since the dawn of civilization, yet strangely enough... here we all are... same arguments, same complaints, same blame game, same finger pointing.

Those that can do... those that can't sit around laying out long winded arguments for why they can't while attacking those that do.

https://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=19213310&postcount=27
By the way minte you hire American workers, I think you should get huge tax breaks for doing that. Politically we may see everything different but I respect you for that.

doesnt look like attacking to me

Well this is an adult industry board.

:thumbsup

:1orglaugh
Nailed it
So, that is all that matters?

Yep if adult is how you making your living. Like it if was a bakery industry board,people buying bake goods would matter. You understand, I have faith in you. :)

Wow... I never know rates were that high!

Yeah , at that time my dad worked for a bank and one of the benefits they gave their employees were 3 percent mortgages. At the time mortgage rates were like credit card rates so it was a huge perk.

tony, how much have you given starving kids in africa, who look at you like you live like a king?


and if you dont care about them, how do you expect any american to help somebody out on the other side of the continent that cant figure out how to provide for themselves?

and i love how people talk about progreesive tax %'s on here

if i paid 100k in taxes into the pool and you paid 1k, why am i getting any criticism from you about not paying enough? get to work making $, whatever you have to, picking cotton if it comes down to it, to come up with the difference

So, you think Obama is pro-adult?

I appreciate that, and we are looking into some employee training funds that are being offered at a state level, 3 weeks ago Lt.Governor was at our new plant to raise the WI.flag. I was able to visit with her personally for nearly an hour and she brought me up to speed on several state funding programs for small businesses.

So the people overspending on credit cards, the Governments borrowing money to inject into the system were all weak people. Got you.

The bankers were successful in making themselves rich out of the weak people buying all their worthless paper. Apple and MS send jobs to the Third World.

Look at the root of the cause to see the problem and solution.

For decades Westerners have been living the dream, paid for by borrowed money. We got fat, weak and lazy. Now hungry Third Worlders are taking our old wealth. Well not quite true, people like Romney are giving it to them.

Is that you taking handouts from an overspending Government? </sarcasm>

This is what the Governments of the West have to do. Sadly they often didn't. They pumped it into non profit, high maintenance projects that will always cost money. The problem is switching the system.

At the moment many countries, including the UK and US, are on life style support. They have pumped money in to the system to make it all look great and to get votes.

YOU CAN'T SIMPLY STOP THE SPENDING. It will be like a family stop spending money on food, you can't stop pumping money into a system that depends on it. Without that system collapsing. Look at Greece, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal for the proof, yes they went too far and had to put the brakes on and now have to suffer for a long time to get their standard of living to match their income, as a country.

STOP PAYING BENEFITS AND THE SHOPS IN THE AREA STOP TAKING MONEY. Then think how much of that budget goes to Government office workers and that infrastructure. Sack those guys, empty those offices? Then they join the poor who aren't spending. So a few get taxed less and the spending is level, except for the extra police budget to keep the lid on the millions pissed off as hell. And the borrowing stays at the same level. :upsidedow

Cut the borrowing and all that happens is he money flowing into the US economy, no longer flows in. And that hits your joins. So you will suffer.

Stop spending on Military and workers in arms factories get laid off, soldiers get laid off. Not the type of people you want rioting.

Stop food subsidies, your weekly shopping bill goes up.

Get any more cuts you would like to debate? Go figure the consequences out first.

Most of you are looking for easy fixes and there are none.

This is your best post ever!

Couldn't agree anymore with it! It basically shuts up Rochard and Tony on the subject.

Yes, Paul. People who fall into such obvious traps are weak. What part of strong and solid do you see in someone who goes out and spends far more than they can afford?

Saying too much is the same as saying nothing. Make a point. not 40 of them.

Paul lives by the broken record technique

I disagree with you one a simple fact.. Education. While in this era education can be gained from many more places but it is a somewhat recent development that kids are put 50-100k in debit just to go to school to get an education.

Kids used to get their student loans at affordable rates and were backed by the federal government. This is the backbone that allowed our country to develop at a very high rate after world war two.

It wasn't just that we no longer had serious competition from Europe, but that we invested in education. It was Republicans once again that we can blame for the soaring cost of college education that we see today and why kids with out jobs leave school owing on average $50-100k.

They pushed for the end of direct lend and to privatize the lending process (oh sound familiar?) they fell short but were able to make the govt loan process hard enough with extra layers of red tape that colleges simply went to the private sector.

We now start to reap the consequences of this action and it will continue to compound as time goes on. Obama has actually tried to reverse this and ironically was helped by the market disruptions, because schools had no choice but to switch back to direct govt loans, because they could no longer get funding for students from the private sector.

No question school has gotten too expensive.

However, what ever happened to saving for an education? I had most of my schooling paid for by the GI bill. Along with that I worked to help pay the bills.

Young people that have to borrow ever cent to go to school probably should consider technical schools. THey are a lot cheaper and the odds of getting a job is better. There are lots of ways to get through college.

Unfortunately, too many students are picking the worst one.

FINALLY! Tony has admitted that Obama is just another lying politician! It's about time you saw the light!

Now hang on Tony...you've championed the unions so many times on here.

Wasn't it back in the "good old days" that people in this country were doing great things AND were all about "I got mine, fuck you" that made the unions necessary in the first place?

It's ALWAYS been that way.

And if you're talking about WW2...that's just human nature to come together during an emergency. We did it 11 years ago on 9-11 too.

But leave those two things out...and it's ALWAYS been people trying to get ahead for themselves and their families. It's never been a big communistic country all holding hands and singing "kum ba yah" lol

When my father worked for a very very large international bank in the 70's. There was a large recession, to lay people off was considered a loss of face for the ceo. It was these are our employees we had a duty to them like they have a duty to us. All salaries were frozen and there wasnt much to do but they waited it out.
Now its human capital just dump them . They werent communists.

Discussing a 'rate' change when almost nobody pays the listed rates is beyond retarded. We ought to be making sure the rates are actually applied first, then figure out our revenue and expenditures... and adjust rates accordingly.

Doing it this way is like saying 'I will make a website and charge X per join' before you have any idea what the website will be, what the expenses will be or what the conversion ratios will be like. It's nonsense. We could charge 162% of income for the highest bracket, and Romney would still pay 13-15%.

We do not need a tax rate change. We need structural tax reform. :2 cents:

See you hate obama for whatever madeup reason you are told to believe. Ive said many times he is a huge disappointment. Im no loved at many liberal site for that but its the truth.He isnt a progessive, he is alittle right of Nixon. But out of the two bowls of shit we have to pick from he is better one. I think the way the system is set up now we will never see a progressive again just less right than the right wing extremists.

Also Robbie why are you here talking to us and not at the Olympia talking to the ultra hot fitness chicks?

That is simply false. No generation before this one was able to produce more than it needs with only a tiny fraction of its citizens doing the work. That is a massive foundational change. We just had the most serious drought in decades. The number of people working in agricultural production is tiny compared to what it was 100 years ago. We have 25% under/unemployment. I have yet to see a single food product 'unavailable' on supermarket store shelves. That is brand new in the entire history of humanity.

We do not need most of the people now living. We had best find something useful for them to do, or find a way to placate them - because the only thing massive groups of dim people do well on their own .... is riot. :2 cents:

Rent Soylent Green... ;)

Potatoe - Potato

Problems with different names are still problems.
There are things for people to do. They have to actually want to do something.

Soylent Green, good movie and I think Edward G Robinson's last film.

And there were plenty of companies that did layoffs. Just because your dad's company did not do it does not mean it was not prevelant . . . or the rule of thumb more often than not.

Soylent Green was a warning, not a prediction.

Society has always been segmented into the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' When the number of haves is going to become very tiny (though how much they will have grows exponentially) and many of the have-nots will be hard working capable extra people simply not needed by society any longer, it is in the interest of the haves to keep the have-nots comfortable enough. A 'Let them eat cake' approach usually results in the many have-nots beheading the few haves.

Watching people try to avoid providing poor people with at least as much as prisons provide inmates (basic food, shelter, clothing, health care) is like watching the NFL have a labor dispute with referees over what reportedly amounted to $60,000 per team. :2 cents:

I didn't even know that was in town this week. lol

I went out last night and got a room at the 4 Queens on Fremont Street (it's bike week) and went out to the Palamino strip club and got wasted.

Suffering a damn hangover from hell today.

I can tell you what I've seen.

In the 1980's I lived in Ft. Lauderdale on the strip. Bums EVERYWHERE. Excuse me...I was politically incorrect..I meant homeless people.

There was work everywhere on the strip. I'm not kidding about that. In 1984 you had to actively avoid work not to get a job. Money was everywhere in Ft. Lauderdale then.
And yet...you couldn't walk down the street without being harassed by guys who were young enough and healthy enough to WORK. But they didn't. All they cared about was getting a few bucks and getting a beer.

I know, I know...you're going to say that's just a small percentage of people. Maybe.

Then I lived in South Carolina from 1992 to 2008. And I saw some of the WORST shit. People living off the govt. out in the bars every weekend spending money on drinks and pot and meth. I saw them because they were in the audiences at all the clubs I played in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee
A LOT of them.

Now I live n Vegas. The streets here are just like the ones in Ft. Lauderdale in the 1980's. FULL of bums...er, I mean homeless people.
A good percentage of them are just insane. They need to be in mental institutions.
And then there's the majority of them...Perfectly healthy men standing at every intersection scamming...er, I mean asking for money.

And then I go to Star Nursery and I see packs of Mexican men across the street holding up signs to WORK. They know that people go there to buy trees and shrubs for their yard. So these MEN show up there and look for WORK.

They don't beg. They don't whine. They take the bull by the horns and they get out there to work and make money.

I've heard the argument you are making a million times over my life. And I've seen with my own two eyes the nature of some of the "poor" people you feel sorry for.
And I'm not talking about the folks who just need a hand to get back on their feet. Or the elderly who have no family or way to help themselves.
I'm not ignoring them...but you and others in this thread ARE ignoring the millions of sorry, good for nothing BUMS who are simply lazy pieces of shit.

Just wanted to make sure they got their recognition in this discussion. There are LOTS of them out there.

What draws you to a progressive ideology?

I think I'm a Libertarian. I like the idea of people being free to do as they want with minimal govt. interference in their lives.

Seems the Republicans preach freedom...but only for the things they like. They sure do seem to NOT like freedom when it comes to partying or what you do in your bedroom or a woman's right to choose. :(

And the Democrats....I don't really know what the heck they stand for anymore. When I was a kid THEY were the racist war-mongering politicians. Then they became the "liberals" in the late 1970's.
But they don't really seem to have any backbone in giving people freedom. At least Jimmy Carter had the guts to say pot should be decriminalized. But he didn't have the balls to actually DO it.

It seems like all the Republicans and Dems want to do is grow the govt. (the Republicans say differently, but the reality is they are exactly like the Dems) and control everything from Washington D.C. so they can get their greedy hands on it.

10.6 BILLION dollars a day is what the federal govt. spends. 6.85 million dollars PER MINUTE 24 hours a day, every day.
It's outrageous.

The Feds spend more in 30 minutes than Mitt Romneys entire wealth.
Warren Buffet is worth 44 Billion dollars. The feds spend that in 4 days. :(

Robbie,

I agree with you. There are many people in this world who are lazy, incompetent, dim witted sheep. Lets say its 15% of the population. People can quibble over the percent... But for the moment take it as a given. Now acknowledge there are also competent hard working people out of work or unlucky etc who also fall upon hard times. Call it 10% of the population. That number will continue to grow and the speed will accelerate as automation, globalization and efficiency continue to increase.

Within your lifetime more than half the people able to work won't be needed for work. Society can already make all the food we need, all the shelter, clothing, transportation, etc etc etc with a tiny fraction of our population. Not well enough for everyone to live in free mansions and drive designer hand made cars... But easily enough to a moderately comfortable standard of living for the population with a decreasing number of people doing the work. Eventually there will be jobs for 10% of people and the production will be sufficient for 100% of people. That is what is actually coming. What shall we do with most people when we do not need them.

It used to take dozens of people to open a singe storefront a few decades ago. Now, I can open a dozen storefronts in a single day online by myself and manage all of them without a single employee. We grow food with a tiny fraction of the farmers that were needed. We can fight wars that used to require a draft and 100,000 boots on the battle filed by having four guys a few thousand miles away in a simulator flying drones that are 100,000 times more effective.

When most people are 'bums' what do you want to do with them all? Not everyone can be an entertainer or mistress. Many will simply be extra people. Up until now we have jailed many of them for nonviolent crimes. Good luck when it is more than alf the population that we no longer need. The paradigm of only getting what you earn is heading for obsolescence. Like it or not. Hard workers will only be working for luxuries soon, and extra people will be getting baseline needs met whether they work or not. The alternative is mass graves full of hobos.

How many posting in this thread have built their own businesses?
How many have earned more than six figures annually in their lifetime?

It's a simple fact that many people start out as Democrats when they're poor and become Republicans when they "make it".

For me I remain a firm Independant.
A pox on both their houses I say!

The elections are nothing but pagaents meant to distract the poor little people.
The decision on who will run the Corporation of America has been decided long ago.

Obama four more years BUT this election is about "opening the door" for Mormon acceptability, as Leiberman in 2000 was about Jewish acceptability, as it will be when a woman officially runs for President (and loses).

Change comes in waves, over time, and only how the powers that be want it to be.

I say just deal with it and try and do the best you can regardless of who's President.

There is a big problem with what you speak.

China has something like 5 times our population, granted they are a Communist country, but they still have a shitton of people.

Also India almost has the same number of people as China now.

Neither of those countries seems all that fucked up and seem to be growing bigger and bigger.

What simple-minded bullshit.

Does Mitt pay income tax? No. But that won't stop him from from bitching, and it won't stop rubes from eating it up.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A3G3WowCQAAm1_Q.png

Your outlook is pretty bleak.

I say...if a group of illegal mexicans have enough drive and will to work that they are smart enough to go to a plant nursery and hold up signs to do the hard work of digging holes and planting trees...then all those bums standing on the corners here in Vegas with signs begging for handouts could do the same thing.

I've had setbacks in my life. Found myself without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
I've never stayed that way for more than a few days though. I'm driven.

But I know lots of guys who have zero drive and zero ambition.

As for the predictions you are making of everybody being out of work because of the nature of things...that's the same thing we were being told in the 1970's when I was in high school.

And yet...here we are. Up until the end of 2008 this country effectively had full employment. (around 5% unemployment rate)

And once the housing market is stabilized....the economy will start to rise and we will once again be back at that rate. Which is also when federal revenues will rise.

Nice Obama talking point there with that pic.
But it's bullshit.

There are MILLIONS of people who simply live off the govt. dole because they can. If you don't know that it's because you aren't out enough in the real world.

Turn off MSNBC for a few minutes and start going out and meeting people. You'll be surprised at the sneaky shit that people pull to scam for money.

Why are 47% on benefits?

Some of you have been so brainwashed by the far right it's astounding. Instead of being asked why you should ay more tax to look after the 47%. You should be asking yourself why in such a great country 47% need this support and how to fix it.

No stupid answers like, let them find a job. Think it beyond the brainwashing.

I'm on that problem.,.but I am going to have breakfast first