How Should the Wealth be Redistributed?

[The Voice of Reason]

- small businesses would hire MORE people (like me, who lost his small business job) if it was less expensive to run one.

We have been on a 30 year run of "trickle down economics". You have lost your job (which, apparently, was in a small business).

How's that "trickle down" working out for you?

You seem to be incapable of admitting that the reality of your situation contradicts the talking points in the emails from the RNC.

 

[tomspug]

"Trickle up" is just as stupid as "trickle down", IMO. But thanks for sharing!

 

[Sunstone]

Exactly what drew you to this conclusion? I can only assume you are referring to the rising number of wealth in a smaller and smaller percentage.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the rising number of wealth in a smaller and smaller percentage". The way you've phrased your point seems to have thrown me off your trail. Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Here's some thought for you:
-there would be more jobs in America and less unemployment if less jobs were shipped overseas, this is the result of making business in America EXPENSIVE due to all of the red tape our government has put in the free-market. If you FURTHER increase the tax burden, how can you argue that any of those jobs that were sent overseas will ever come back, let alone the thought of us losing MORE jobs to cheap foreign markets.
- there would be less poverty if there was LESS welfare through our government, which you would know if you've ever seen the physical results of people who receive welfare checks
- small businesses would hire MORE people (like me, who lost his small business job) if it was less expensive to run one. By raising taxes, we will see the big companies get BIGGER and the small companies disappear. THERE'S redistribution of wealth for you!

I'll neither buy into nor dispute anything you've said there, Tom, because I believe what you've said is beside the point. I am arguing for closing the gap between rich and poor in order to preserve the traditional American values of freedom and liberty. To some extent, I don't care how closing that gap is done -- But I want it done -- and starting now!

 

[Sunstone]

"Trickle up" is just as stupid as "trickle down", IMO. But thanks for sharing!

There's plenty of evidence "trickle down" doesn't work. What's the evidence "trickle up" doesn't work?

 

[darkendless]

Even if wealth is distributed there will be sections of the community that will have a good old whinge, even if they got exactly what they want. Its the same people that do not buy groceries but go to a homeless shelter to save money, but have the nerve to say that the soup is not hot enough or something of the sort.

A simple fact of life, wealth is never uniform, and no matter what people do and how much the government intervenes, there will be sly b*stards who will stash all their savings in Switzerland before it can be divided up.

 

[Sunstone]

Even if wealth is distributed there will be sections of the community that will have a good old whinge, even if they got exactly what they want. Its the same people that do not buy groceries but go to a homeless shelter to save money, but have the nerve to say that the soup is not hot enough or something of the sort.

A simple fact of life, wealth is never uniform, and no matter what people do and how much the government intervenes, there will be sly b*stards who will stash all their savings in Switzerland before it can be divided up.

It doesn't matter to me whether wealth is distributed completely evenly. What matters to me is that the gap between rich and poor is narrow enough that representative democracy can be preserved.

I figure some people will always be richer than other people. I can live with that. But I cannot live with a fascist tyranny arising out of a huge and unmanageable gap between rich and poor.

 

[Reverend Rick]

There's plenty of evidence "trickle down" doesn't work. What's the evidence "trickle up" doesn't work?

Ever try to urinate up a rope?

 

[Sunstone]

Ever try to urinate up a rope?

Only when drunk on the cheaper and less respectable brews.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

The disparity of wealth between rich and poor is a threat to representative government. By "disparity", I mean the currently growing gap between the rich and poor members of society. By "representative government" I mean what we commonly call "democracy" or "liberal democracy" -- the traditional system of government in America.

Well, you or anyone else can raise that issue if you wish. But fairness is not for me the reason I want to redistribute wealth. I want to redistribute wealth in order to close enough of the gap between rich and poor that the threat to democracy the gap creates is made manageable. I think doing that requires us to do things that might be perceived by some people (myself included) as unfair.

But I value representative government over fairness in this case. To me, meaningful liberty and freedom for most of us depends on our having a genuinely representative government. And if that ultimately means some rich people get knocked out of their socioeconomic class, then so be it. I'm prepared to sacrifice their socioeconomic status for the sake of preserving liberty and freedom for the many. That's not entirely fair to them, but I would rather be unfair to them than live as a slave under a fascist tyranny of the wealthy.

Thanks for clarifying. The word "fair" is subjective and I respect your position of it's use in this thread.

You point out that national economic cohesiveness provides government with a balanced perspective of it's collective constituents. That "sounds" fair to me.

The problem is, as I'm sure you well know, that most people in Congress do not encompass different economic backgrounds. Couple this with their weakness to lobbyists and apparent lack for anything that resembles due diligence and you have our past, current and future failures.

My old drum instructor at Palmer High said you can polish a turd all you want... Congress was, is and probably will continue to undermine Americans until we Americans grow a set and start to fight back. The French went through their Revolution and with respects to Cameron Mackintosh, it was no song and dance.

I regretfully beleive that the American public has become intuitively lobotomized and the only mechanism Americans have, that will alter our future in some positive direction, ironically is catastrophe. The way things are going, even with the prospect of an Obama win, we very well might have to cross that bridge.

I can't leave a post like this without a bang...
\
YouTube - Peter For President - America The Beautiful.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Only when drunk on the cheaper and less respectable brews.

Wind can be an undesirable element as well.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

There's plenty of evidence "trickle down" doesn't work. What's the evidence "trickle up" doesn't work?

No evidence needed. It simply offends his sense of spatial relationships, as applied to greenbacks.

It looks like the only thing he has left himself is the famous "trickle sideways".

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Ever try to urinate up a rope?

I've tried to reason with social conservatives. No small trick, that.

 

[Reverend Rick]

If Liberals are so smart, how come they need other people to pay for their programs against their will?

 

[Sunstone]

Congress was, is and probably will continue to undermine Americans until we Americans grow a set and start to fight back. The French went through their Revolution and with respects to Cameron Mackintosh, it was no song and dance.

I'm hoping for a bloodless revolution. Yet I believe, like you, that some sort of revolution is necessary to accomplish the objective of preserving our freedoms and liberties. It is arguable we have gone too far towards tyranny for minor changes to bring about a restoration of our freedoms and liberties.

 

[Sunstone]

If Liberals are so smart, how come they need other people to pay for their programs against their will?

If Conservatives are so smart how come they need Liberals to tell them which social programs and policies are required to preserve traditional freedoms and liberties?

 

[Reverend Rick]

I'm hoping for a bloodless revolution. Yet I believe, like you, that some sort of revolution is necessary to accomplish the objective of preserving our freedoms and liberties.

Many of us neo-cons are just hoping something like this will erupt. Believe me my friend, it won't be pretty and you will not like the outcome. Take a look at the map of red states and blue ones.

 

[Father Heathen]

Ever try to urinate up a rope?

Because we know the laws of physics applies to economics.

 

[darkendless]

It doesn't matter to me whether wealth is distributed completely evenly. What matters to me is that the gap between rich and poor is narrow enough that representative democracy can be preserved.

I figure some people will always be richer than other people. I can live with that. But I cannot live with a fascist tyranny arising out of a huge and unmanageable gap between rich and poor.

You have to ask yourself why would these people want to give up their wealth? Because the government makes them? Good luck there. Would they want to shed some unwanted $100 bills to feed a starving hobo freezing to death in winter? Of course not. A cold heart got them to the top of their game and a cold heart will keep them there.

Unfortunately, it is these cold hearted b*stards that will probably make the decisions whether to redistribute wealth or not.

 

[Father Heathen]

Many of us neo-cons are just hoping something like this will erupt. Believe me my friend, it won't be pretty and you will not like the outcome. Take a look at the map of red states and blue ones.

A win for the red states will be a defeat for freedom and liberty.

 

[Sunstone]

Many of us neo-cons are just hoping something like this will erupt. Believe me my friend, it won't be pretty and you will not like the outcome. Take a look at the map of red states and blue ones.

No one wants a civil war, Rick, except Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity --- and they want a civil war because they haven't grown out of adolescence yet.