Wall Street-where's the threads

I am getting seriously annoyed by all these "we are the 99%" pictures losers keep posing, each saying something along the lines of "I've made terrible decisions and am now in heaps of debt and don't think I can afford basic things and I shouldn't be held responsible" trying to garner pity.

The sense of entitlement and self-centeredness and jealousy is sickening.

I've never been one for role models, but these are the kinds of people I see as examples to avoid at all costs.

It makes me feel good to know what that's all about now.

"The poor" aren't paying for shit, Dan. No income taxes, negligible sales taxes on their negligible commercial buying power. Hell, even vehicle registration fees are cheaper when you drive an old beater.

And no, no matter how shady the bankers and speculators are, if you signed a mortgage you could barely fucking pay under ideal circumstances, you are the cause of your own problem.

You need to define your terms, because, like I said, below a certain threshold you aren't paying any income tax.

And the whole histrionic "higher percentage" meme is a popular one these days, because it sounds more dramatic than the actual dollar amounts. A few hundred dollars out of $20k is a higher percentage than $100k out of 5 million, but it's still not a terribly meaningful statement.

It depends on what it is that it requires you to lose. For some people it would mean nothing at all, for people that can't feed their kids or get health care coverage or pay rent it would be pretty damn big.

Or to put it in context that a amoral sociopath such as yourself would identify with, say it meant you couldn't smoke pot.

Then you might say it meant something.

No, your responsibilities are not conditional on your means. If you want the same benefits of society, you can pay the same as your neighbors. If that's too much of a burden on you, dial back your living expenses and be more productive.

Don't advocate redistributive parasitism and then lecture me about morals, fucknuts.

And for the record, I do skip out on unnecessary pleasures when other priorities demand those funds. Why? Because I recognize the fact that I am not owed a minimum quality of life or a certain amount of pleasure.

No country on earth employs a flat amount system.

I'm sure it's every other society on Earth, not a problem with you.

Letting kids die that don't have to because their parents made a mistake is an immoral act, fucknuts.

If you don't understand that, it's because you are well and truly broken.

You'd be out on the streets selling your ass to the next gay guy that comes along.

You think "soak the rich" as a popular sentiment is going to be an earth-shattering revelation for me? Yes, I realize "someone else" is always going to be the favored answer when the question is "Who should pay?"

Fuck off with your snide bullshit. I say "pay to play," you automatically knee-jerk with "you want kids to die!!11"

It's intellectual dishonesty without the "intellectual" part.

Everyone paying an equal percentage would be as fair as any system imaginable.

Of course, that's too progressive for you - you want a flat amount, because it's somehow unfair that a billionaire pay 20% while a guy busting his ass in a coal mine only pays that same 20%.

Nah, I didn't say you want kids to die. I said you just don't care if the die, because they aren't your problem.

Which everyone on this board knows you've said a hundred times in a hundred ways.

As far a knee jerk, go look at your 'soak the rich' comment. Making everyone pay a flat percentage isn't an attempt to 'soak the rich', despite your hyperbole.

Not unless everyone receives a level of benefits commensurate with that percentage, it isn't.

"Fair" is paying the same amount for the same services. Sorry if that doesn't service your sense of unearned entitlement and relativistic personal responsibility.

Actually, I lied. I'm not sorry at all.

Still dishonest.

Find one example of me saying anything that could be construed as me not caring if kids die. It doesn't count if you have to resort to stacked, "creative" interpretation.

Oh really? Shifting the burden upward isn't soaking the people on top? That's some tortured reasoning you've got there. I'm sure you'll come back with some silly bullshit that rests entirely on some monacled billionaire not projecting a sympathetic image. Because, you know, all that matters is how everyone feels about things.

Wow. You are a progressives dream! The intrusion level to get that metric is truly astonishing.

Let's see, we'll need to know how much everyone drives. We'll need your health information - after all, you might have to use a government system and we need to be sure you don't get anything more than you owe. We'll need to measure your trash, see how much you recycle. We'll need to measure your energy use, some of that comes with government subsidies. Hell, we'll need to measure how much air you breath - enforcing the clean air act costs $$$.

What an amazingly stupid idea.

Unless of course you think everyone will just 'agree' as to how much they should be charged in taxes for the benefits they use.... ROTLFMAO.

Well, as my Dad used to say, you can shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up the fastest.

Oh, and what are they going to do when Wall Street doesn't accede to their list of demands? Get shot in the ensuing riot for which they have no weapons because they don't believe in them?

The percentage withheld from lower incomes is more detrimental to the income earner's ability to pay for basic necessities (food, shelter, utilities, transportation, healthcare, education, etc. all add up). Withhold a few hundred thousand from millions, and the income earner still has millions to do with as he/she pleases.

Also, $20k incomes are taxed on the order of thousands of dollars, not hundreds.

Nope. Usage fees. Doesn't allow for excusing personal failure or entitle you to something beyond what you earn, so I can see why you wouldn't like it. But your cute little attempt to distort me gains you nothing.

I get paid $24k.
My taxes are roughly $3600 of that.

I wasn't trying to nail down someone's W2. It was just an example to illustrate. And like I said before, your responsibilities are not subject to your means.

I mind paying taxes that are going into these ridiculous bailouts.
But I don't mind taxes that are going into roads, schools, and public services like police and firefighters. I also don't mind paying into unemployment and, to some extent, welfare.

What I DO mind is people abusing the system, and politicians and corporations having a party with our money and bailing themselves out.
But no protest in the world is gonna fix that, so why bother? Seems like every major empire in history has had economic corruption. It never ends, and the US is no different.
Honestly, all I can do is work hard and get my PhD so I can splurge on expensive shinies later on in life.

So do I, but I'm willing to live with the massive hit to the economy and job market withholding those bailouts would have implied.

Actually... has anyone felt better about paying taxes to a better government?

For example, Bredesen kept Tennessee's roads absolutely sparkling. They were clean, pothole-free, always under construction but generally in good condition.
When I moved to Alabama, I saw how bankrupt the state is, mostly due to a shitty government. I feel bad paying taxes into THOSE roads. They're shit. Birmingham roads are SHIT. If they'd managed the state's money better, maybe my car wouldn't go KA-THUNK every 2 seconds on the highway.

Set up toll booths and ignore the wailing about disproportionate burdens on the poor.

I realize that, I had to look up the tax brackets myself.

I'd categorize (most of) them as necessities, and yes they are very much dependent on one's means. Certainly a responsible person would prioritize certain needs over others, but they shouldn't have to be put in the situation of whether or not they should buy food or antibiotics, for instance.

There is no "shouldn't have to". There is your responsibilities for the services you receive, and whether or not you satisfy them.

One solution nobody wants to hear is warehousing these people to more efficiently manage the burdens they impose. No more getting to choose where you live, work, spend your money or free time. You and your family sleep in bunk beds in a single-room unit with a shitter, a shower, a sink, fridge, and stove. No smoking, no drinking, no drugs. No junk food. No electronic luxuries. No personal vehicles. You are shuttled to and from work with everyone else on a bus. Busing to school. Centralized day care staffed by residents. Your earnings are managed for you, since you clearly can't do it yourself. I'm willing to bet you'd get a good response if you solicited donations to fund such a program. That, combined with the fees charged the residents might be enough to minimize or eliminate the burden on the taxpayers.

Yawn.

What, you don't like my plan? I'm proposing ways to keep families fed and housed. What have you got?

So instead of 1 government bureaucracy dedicated to ensure that you pay your fair share, you now have ALL the government bureaucracies doing so.

And how exactly do you regulate the EPA usage fees for clean air?

And that would create a defacto tariff on imports - after all, they have to be shipped to American ports, road and rail.

And what about things that aren't a direct transaction, like money spent on research? No DARPA, no internet, no space race, thousands of lost or delayed advancements.

And how exactly do you rate what usage charge I should be assigned for the military?

Oh, and I'll need to pay more for crime prevention and prisons - after all, you don't want any contribution for unemployment insurance, so if someone is out of work for any period of time whatsover they are just SOL.

But hey, that's just what the other 99% are - parasites hoping to sponge off the rich people's teat, right? LOL.

Your "plan" is the workhouse system of the 18th century. Fuck that.

Oh, I don't know. It's not like anyone ever imposed a tax on fuel or electricity usage.

You're not shoehorning in the imposition of environmental regs on other countries. Sorry.

Yep. Private enterprise is incapable of advancing anything.

The cost of operating it.

I detailed something on that in the Wall Street thread, actually.

You are such a shrieking partisan douchegargler it's not even funny.