Thread: Stop Coddling the super Rich

Originally Posted by Brutus

venture capitalists use the term "shots on goal" the more venture capital they have the more shots on goal they can take and the more Intels and Goggles we'll have.

The more liberals tax capital gains the less capital there is for new ventures like Google Intel and Apple.

Moreover, liberal demand or customer creation merely creates a bubble that bursts and so does more harm than good requiring a recession to correct. Econ 101

So liberals ignored the pleas for the SEC to investigate Madoff?
I really have to cry for Bill Gates who garnered 45 billion in less than 10 years for having to live under the liberal rule of Bush.
How did the poor schmuck do it?

Originally Posted by USCitizen

Today corporations pay virtually nothing,

who's talking about corporations????????????????????? Do you have any idea what the subject even is???

I have this crazy IRS Table I use a lot....www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in11si.xls

It does tend to lend some numbers and truth to claims, for instance, The those making $500k/year and more (0.7% of the population that filed returns) Earned 13.9% of the AGI, while paying, 29.7% of the entire Income Tax Bill.

Not disputing anyone's claims, just pointing out a good source to begin productive conversations with real numbers so that maybe you all can come to some agreement on where the problems lie and how to move forward to fix 'em.

Hope it helps in the discussions.

The super rich.

And who is the super rich?
Me?

US corps who disguise themselves as MNCs to avoid paying taxes.

Originally Posted by Angamuse

I have this crazy IRS Table I use a lot....www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in11si.xls

It does tend to lend some numbers and truth to claims, for instance, The those making $500k/year and more (0.7% of the population that filed returns) Earned 13.9% of the AGI, while paying, 29.7% of the entire Income Tax Bill.

Not disputing anyone's claims, just pointing out a good source to begin productive conversations with real numbers so that maybe you all can come to some agreement on where the problems lie and how to move forward to fix 'em.

Hope it helps in the discussions.

Middle-Class professionals and small to medium size business are needed to keep our economy going.
They should be encouraged to employ Americans who will then consume.

You can't compare Reagan to now.
Reagan only encouraged the off-shoring of manufacturing.
Today, we off-shore EVERYTHING.
Who's left to support our infrastructure but the bastards who can't afford to leave the US.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

You can't compare Reagan to now.
Reagan only encouraged the off-shoring of manufacturing.
Today, we off-shore EVERYTHING.
Who's left to support our infrastructure but the bastards who can't afford to leave the US.

off-shore of manufacturing was a good thing. It is natural for a wealthy country like us to pay a cheaper price somewhere else. We should be happy for sharing our wealth with other nations, the distribution of wealth to third world countries will end up coming back to us. For example, People in China and India are starting to consume more and more as they get wealthier, and the only country with the large amount of arable space to sell them a consistent supply of food is the U.S. You see agriculture companies like Tyson having large increases in revenue because of new consumers demanding more and more food, forcing these companies to hire more workers. All of this new excessive amounts of consumption in China and India is also putting more investment into increasing the quality and technology of agriculture tools and machines used, prompting more jobs to be created in the U.S. You see prices like soybeans being raised because of the amount of demand its causing.

Originally Posted by Cudorp

off-shore of manufacturing was a good thing.

Uh, No.

America is the consumer.
India and China are completley dependent on us for cash and would collapse if we left.
We have gone way past Comparative Advantage and are destroying the main consumer base of India and China...The US.
We cannot compete for slave wages when it comes to manufacturing and white collar jobs, which, by the way, you didn't mention.

Even the WSJ disagrees with you as we are exporting our wealth and bleeding ourselves dry.

And where exactly do you see Indians and Chinese basking in wealth when they're all desperate to move here?

Don't do like Rush and say that 1000th of a percent of a population is representative of the entire nation.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

Uh, No.

America is the consumer.
India and China are completley dependent on us for cash and would collapse if we left.
We have gone way past Comparative Advantage and are destroying the main consumer base of India and China...The US.
We cannot compete for slave wages when it comes to manufacturing and white collar jobs, which, by the way, you didn't mention.

Even the WSJ disagrees with you as we are exporting our wealth and bleeding ourselves dry.

And where exactly do you see Indians and Chinese basking in wealth when they're all desperate to move here?

Don't do like Rush and say that 1000th of a percent of a population is representative of the entire nation.

I honestly don't really see how China is highly depended on exports when it is starting to get trade deficits once in every other while, as shown by the March Reports of its Trade Balance. True, we can't compete with slave wages, yet we are still able getting trade surpluses against them like Food and Natural Gas. Also if you notice, on a 3 year period, the yuan appreciated by by about 20% vs the us dollar, so your statement of slave wages is irrelevant if the opposite is happening. Also, The U.S. dollar is falling quite harshly the past few years, making our exports cheaper. Please don't come and complain about us losing our wealth from these third world countries if the main cause of our loss of wealth is from the Fed printing trillions of dollar, which in return causes the inflation of prices. I guess people like you don't like the U.S. having a high tech/service based economy.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

Middle-Class professionals and small to medium size business are needed to keep our economy going.
They should be encouraged to employ Americans who will then consume.

They are being encouraged to do so by the Obama administration. After all, if you have higher costs due to more regulation, higher costs due to a poorly thought out health care entitlement, and you're being told constantly by them that you need higher expenses on top of everything else, that's encouraging you to hire right?

Originally Posted by Brutus

If capitalism led to the Irish famine I will pay you $10,000. Bet, or run away with your very ignorant liberal tail between your legs.

First, do you always show this kind of disrespect face to face? I doubt it. Tone it down and try to be an adult and actually learn something from a different view. But this might be unnecessary if you already know everything about everything.

The agony of repeat begins......

Ireland And Free Trade

"The only country in the world I know of that has thoroughly free trade forced upon her by compulsory process is that most distracted and unfortunate land, Ireland. Before the union her manufacturing industries were protected against England by duties on woolens, silks, cotton, yarn, and twist, and cotton manufactured goods. Her calicoes and muslins were protected by a duty almost prohibitory, and Ireland was rapidly becoming a successful manufacturing country. Her people were happy, contented, industrious, and prosperous. There was a loom in almost every house, and with it comfort came, too. Her linens were known and appreciated all over the world, and her silks were gaining a ready market.

There were in 1800, as appears by an imperfect census then taken, over 8,000 weavers employed in Cork alone, over 5,000 manufacturing woolen goods in Dublin, 3,000 making blankets in Balbrigan, 2,000 weaving calicoes in Wicklow, 1,000 making flannels, while the numbers engaged in linen work were immense.

This linen trade was encouraged by subsidies, but they were gradually withdrawn until all protection ceased in 1826. In 1825 more than thirteen million of dollars were expended in the purchase of coarse, unbleached, home-made webs of linen. "What a power of good, of comfort, and of happiness, those home-made webs revealed.

England, not content with destroying Ireland's navigation, with crushing out, in the earlier days, her manufacture of woolens, greedy to manufacture for the world, determined that the rest of mankind should raise the raw materials to feed her hungry looms, as the South wanted us to feed their slaves, beguiled poor Ireland into assenting to the act of the union, under the terms of which every duty was repealed—some gradually, to be sure, but certainly. The act continued the tariff on woolens for twenty years, terminated it on calicoes and muslins in 1821, on cotton yarn and twist in 1816, withdrew all subsidies in 1826, and Ireland enjoyed the benefit of absolute free trade.

What was the result? England held both ends of the bargain. Ireland could raise in her fertile soil the raw material. England could make it into goods cheaper than she could, but Ireland had no voice in the price to be paid for either.

In 1840, another census was taken, and there were 500 blanket-makers in Kilkenny, 200 silk- weavers in Dublin, no carpet makers in all Ireland, no linen- weavers in Cork, 300 operatives in that city in all the manufacturing industries, where fifteen years before there were 8,000 weavers alone.

Free trade had done its work and Ireland was starving. She is the only absolutely free trade country in the world today, the only land enjoying its rare privileges in complete fullness, and what a commentary it affords with a good climate, a fertile soil, great rivers, splendid water-power, broad, safe bays and harbors, an abundance of minerals, an industriously-inclined people, it is the most terribly vexed, troubled, suffering, distracted, impoverished, starving country in the world.

Irishmen, loving their land earnestly and with more unbounded enthusiasm than the men of any other country, have been driven into exile by the millions. Now, I do not blindly charge all of her woes to free trade alone; land tenure has to answer for a portion, not for more than half. Give her a parliament of her own, and the first act passed would be a protective tariff, and in twenty years from now the exiled Irishman would return to the land he loves and find it peaceful, contented, and prosperous. England, for her own selfish purposes, fastened these two fearful leeches upon her, and they have been fattening on her blood."

Senator William Pierce Frye
Speech in the United States Senate, February 10,1882

Note: Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan was assistant secretary to HM Treasury from 1840–1859, during both the Irish famine and the Highland Potato Famine of 1846-1857. In Ireland he was responsible for administering famine relief.


"The influence of laissez faire on the treatment of Ireland during the famine is impossible to exaggerate. Almost without exception the high officials and politicians responsible for Ireland were fervent believers in non-interference by Government, and the behavior of the British authorities only becomes explicable when their fanatical belief in private enterprise and their suspicions of any action which might be considered Government intervention are borne in mind.

The loss of the potato crop was therefore to be made good, without Government interference, by the operations of private enterprise and private firms, using the normal channels of commerce. The Government was not to appear in food markets as a buyer, there was to be "no disturbance of the ordinary course of trade" and "no complaints from private traders" on account of Government competition.

The flaw in the plan was the underdeveloped state of the food and provision trade in a great part of Ireland. Large numbers of people, especially in the west and south-west, hardly purchased food at all; they grew potatoes and lived on them. Shops and organizations for importing foodstuffs and distributing them on the English model were generally found only in more prosperous districts in north-east Ulster, Dublin, some places in Eastern Ireland, and the larger towns, like Cork. Where relief would be most needed, the means by which it was to be supplied seldom existed."

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.49



"On August 17, 1846, Lord John Russel rose in the Commons to acquaint the House, "with great pain" that "the prospect of the potato crop is even more distressing than last year - that the disease has appeared earlier, and its ravages are far more extensive"; it was "imperative on the government and Parliament to take extraordinary measures for relief."

The new relief scheme, briefly, fell under two main heads.

First, though public works were again to be undertaken, and on a large scale, the British Government would no longer, as last year, bear half their cost. The whole expense was to be paid by the district in which the works were carried out. "Presentment sessions," meetings of ratepayers at which works were proposed, would be held as before, but instead of being voluntary meetings they were to be summoned by the Lord-Lieutenant, at his discretion. Works were to be approved and executed by the Board of Works. The cost was to be met by advances from the Treasury, repayable in their entirety in ten years, at 3 1/2 per cent. interest, and the money for repayment was to be raised by a rate levied on all poor-rate payers in the locality, a momentous and controversial innovation. The expense was designed to "fall entirely on persons possessed of property in the distressed district," who were, after all, responsible for the poor on their estates. This part of the new procedure was embodied in an Act, "to facilitate the employment of the Labouring Poor for a limited period in distressed districts in Ireland," popularly called the Labour Rate Act. This measure was the most important section of the new scheme, and proved a source of difficulty, confusion, discontent and ruin. In addition, the modest sum of 50,000 pounds was to be spent in free grants to those districts in Ireland too poor to bear the whole cost of public works.

Second, the Government would not import or supply any grain food. There were to be no Government depots to sell meal at a low cost or, in urgent cases, to make free issues, as had been done during last season's failure. No orders were to be sent abroad, nor would any purchase be made by Government in local markets. It was held that the reason why dealers and import merchants had so signally failed to provide food to replace the potato last season had been the Government's purchases. Trade, said Trevelyan, had been "paralysed" on account of these purchases, which interfered with private enterprise and the legitimate profits of private enterprise; and how, he asked, could dealers be expected to invest in the very large stocks necessary to meet this year's total failure of the potato if at any moment Government might step in with supplies - sold at low cost - which would deprive dealers of their profit and "make their outlay so much loss?"


Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.100-101


"One of the reasons why the British Government did not feel bound to send food to Skibbereen was that ample food was to be found there already. "On Saturday, notwithstanding all this distress," wrote Major Parker, the Board of Works' Relief Inspector, on December 21, "there was a market plentifully supplied with meat, bread, fish, in short everything." This extraordinary contradiction occurred all over Ireland during the famine years, and was not understood by the British Government. Trevelyan insisted that the "resources of the country should be "drawn out," failing to realize that those resources were so utterly inaccessible to the unfortunate wretches dying in the streets and by the roadsides that they might as well never have existed. The starving in such places as Skibereen perished not because there was no food but because they had no money with which to buy it."

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.159-160

But where had the money gone?

In true laissez faire capitalist redistribution of wealth:

"Routh blamed the landlords. The proprietors of the Skibereen district, he told Trevelyan, "draw an annual income of 50,000 pounds." There were twelve landowners, of whom the largest was Lord Carbery, who Routh declared, drew 15,000 pounds in rent; next was Sir William Wrixon-Becher, on whose estate the town of Skibereen stood; Sir William, alleged Routh, drew 10,000 pounds, while the Reverand Stephen Townsend, a Protestant clergyman, drew 8,000 pounds. "Ought such destitution to prevail with such resources?"

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.158-159

And I haven't touched on laissez faire capitalism in England 1800-1840 and the hunger and pauperism that resulted.

Steve

And more.....

"The Irish peasant was told to replace the potato by eating his grain, but Trevelyan once again refused to take any steps to curb the export of food from Ireland. "Do not encourage the idea of PROHIBITING exports," he wrote, on September 3, (1846) "PERFECT FREE TRADE IS THE RIGHT COURSE".

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.118


"Routh disagreed, a rare occurrence. He considered exports to be a "serious evil" and estimated, on September 29, (1846) that by the end of the harvest, of oats alone, apart from other produce, "60,000 tons" would have left the country. Trevelyan would not be moved; according to FREE TRADE DOCTRINES the sale, by export outside Ireland, of grain and other produce which commanded a high price should provide IRISH MERCHANTS with money to purchase and import low-priced foods, to replace the loss of the potato."

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.118


“On August 7, 1846, Father Mathew, the “apostle of Temperance,” wrote in agitation to Trevelyan: he had heard rumours that “the capitalists in the corn and flour trade are endeavouring to induce government not to protect the people from famine but to leave them at their mercy,”.......

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.101


“To people desperate with hunger the sight of food streaming out of the country was once more unbearable, and serious riots took place – more serious than any riots of the previous year (1845). At Youghal, near Cork, a small port much used for export, an outbreak took place on September 25. A large crowd of country people, described by the police as “enraged,”attempted to hold up a boat laden with export oats – the police sent for troops, and the crowd was checked, with difficulty, at Youghal bridge.........A riot, with loss of life, occurred at Dungarvan, County Waterford, on September 29. A crowd of starving unemployed entered the town, threatened merchants and shopkeepers, ordering them not to export grain, and plundered shops. The Resident Magistrate had the ringleaders arrested and put in the lock-up, upon which the crowd declared they would not go home until the prisoners were released.
After the police had tried, in vain, to clear the streets, the 1st Royal Dragoons were called out; the crowd began to pelt them with stones and the Riot Act was read. But as stone-throwing continued the officer commanding the Dragoons, Captain Sibthorp, gave the order to fire, and twenty-six shots were fired into the crowd, which then retreated. Several men were wounded and two were left lying on the ground, dead.”

Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.120

And the result of this capitalism taken to its logical conclusion?

"However, on December 15 Mr. Nicholas Cummins, the well-known magistrate of Cork, had paid a visit to Skibbereen and the surrounding district, and had been horrified by what he saw. He appears to have written to the authorities, but without result, because on December 22 he addressed a letter to the Duke of Wellington, who was an Irishman, and also sent a copy to The Times. It was published on December 24,1846.

“My Lord Duke,” wrote Mr. Cummins, “Without apology or preface, I presume so far to trespass on your Grace as to state to you, and by the use of your illustrious name, to present to the British public the following statement of what I have myself seen within the last three days. Having for many years been intimately connected with the western portion of the County of Cork, and possessing some small property there, I thought it right personally to investigate the truth of several lamentable accounts which had reached me, of the appalling state of misery to which that part of the country was reduced. I accordingly went on the 15th instant to Skibbereen, and to give the instance of one townland which I visited, as an example of the state of the entire coast district, I shall state simply what I saw.....

Being aware that I should have to witness scenes of frightful hunger, I provided myself with as much bread as five men could carry, and on reaching the spot I was surprised to find the wretched hamlet apparently deserted. I entered some of the hovels to ascertain the cause, and the scenes which presented themselves were such as no tongue or pen can convey the slightest idea of. In the first, six famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled in a corner on some filthy straw, their sole covering what seemed a ragged horsecloth, their wretched legs hanging about, naked above the knees. I approached with horror, and found by a low moaning they were alive – they were in fever, four children, a woman and what had once been a man. It is impossible to go through the detail. Suffice it to say, that in a few minutes I was surrounded by at least 200 such phantoms, such frightful specters as no words can describe, either from famine or from fever. Their demoniac yells are still ringing in my ears, and their horrible images are fixed upon my brain. My heart sickens at the recital, but I must go on.

In another case, decency would forbid what follows, but it must be told. My clothes were nearly torn off in my endeavour to escape from the throng of pestilence around, when my neckcloth was seized from behind by a grip which compelled me to turn, I found myself grasped by a woman with an infant just born in her arms and the remains of a filthy sack across her loins – the sole covering of herself and baby. The same morning the police opened a house on the adjoining lands, which was observed shut for many days, and two frozen corpses were found, lying upon the mud floor, half devoured by rats.

A mother, herself in a fever, was seen the same day to drag out the corpse of her child, a girl about twelve, perfectly naked, and leave it half covered with stones. In another house within 500 yards of the cavalry station at Skibbereen, the dispensary doctor found seven wretches lying unable to move, under the same cloak. One had been dead many hours, but the others were unable to move either themselves or the corpse.”

These facts were confirmed by Government witnesses. Mr. Richard Inglis, a Commissariat, was ordered to Skibbereen on about December 17, and horrified by what he saw, he sent a statement to Mr. Hewetson, the senior Commissariat officer at Limerick, who forwarded a certified copy to Trevelyan on December 21. As Mr. Inglis arrived in Skibbereen he saw three dead bodies lying in the street, and he buried them with the help of the constabulary.

Deaths were occurring daily; 197 persons had died in the workhouse since November 5, and nearly 100 bodies had been found dead in the lanes or in derelict cabins, half-eaten by rats. Mr. Inglis brought with him 85 pounds which he had collected privately, and started two soup kitchens. Major Parker, Relief Inspector of the Board of Works, estimated that about 200 people had died in Skibbereen during the last few weeks.

“A woman with a dead child in her arms was begging in the street yesterday,” he wrote on December 21, “and the Guard of the Mail told me he saw a man and three dead children lying by the roadside.....nothing can exceed the deplorable state of this place.”



Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great Hunger, 1962
p.157-158

Steve

Cu,
What's 10% of $1.00? $1.10. That's your first annual salary.
Give yourself a 10% raise annually.
Welcome to China.