It is NOT forced wealth redistribution. He's putting the taxes on the rich back where they were under Clinton, and lowering everyone else. American has ALWAYS had this kind of tax system, and even McCain supports it. All this cry about socialism is just the right getting desperate. OBAMA is a MUSLIM and a SOCIALIST and TERRIST.

McCain 8 years ago, saying the same thing Obama is saying now:

Except that in order to prevent aforementioned 'untold practices', every new cupcake recipe, baking method and frosting technique would have to pass through the aforementioned bureaucratic cupcake approval process.

uh... actually i have thought obama was a bit of a socialist ever since i first found out where he stood on any number of issues. if you ask me placing heavy taxes on the rich in order to support social programs that will supposedly benefit "lower class" citizens is a fairly good definition of redistribution of wealth and... socialism.

The letters in your post are incredibly white.

Also the whining about socialism is mostly coming from people who don't have a firm grasp on what socialism is.

i think he was referring to unfair business practices, not coming up with a more delicious product.

That girl's comments sort of made me

The whole Obama = Robin Hood thing makes no sense either. Like Vin said, he just wants to readjust the tax brackets to more or less what they were 15 years ago. He's not trying to have the government take control of manufacturing or set prices for firms or do anything THAT DRASTIC to try to bring about a socialist economy. The people who are saying OMG OBAMA GIVING MONEY TO POOR PEOPLE SOCIALIST!! are the people who *apparently* are arguing that a progressive tax system shouldn't exist, which I'm almost certain they would start an uproar over if it actually did happen.

It should also be noted, however, that Obama always refers to his plan in the context of the middle class -- i.e. not take money from rich people and give to deadbeats. It also is somewhat amusing that many of those who think that it IS a 'take from the rich and give to the poor' deal are a part of that middle class.

I wouldn't start an uproar if the progressive tax system went away.

One thing Obama wants to do is raise the Capital Gains Tax. This would be a disaster. The capital gains tax applies to money gained in the stock market. Raising it discourages investment. It is possibly the tax that most directly affects the economy.

Granted... last I heard, McCain also wanted to raise it.

huh? So was I. I meant that pervasive regulation of business practices bogs down the system just as much, except now you've got all participants trying to circumvent the rules to gain more profit. (Also, the profits go to private hands instead of being reinvested back into society like it would if the state handled their distribution).

Yes, because profits are just hoarded by the greedy greedy business owners to go buy their pure gold houses and to fly their private jets, and most certainly aren't being used to invest in new capital and labor giving more people jobs and increasing their wealth and purchasing power....

lets all make generalizations and pretend they're universally true

those gold houses had to have come from somewhere

lol reaganomics

As long as the goal is production and profit is the means, I'm fine with that.

It's when money accumulation is the goal and production the means that it gets sketchy.

Though this is hardly ever the case with manufacturing. It mostly applies to financial sector pyramid schemes (you know, like everything they do).

i dont see anything wrong with wanting to be wealthy, or even wanting to horde money. if someone wants to be scrooge mcDuck why shouldnt they be allowed to? i mean seriously? why is there this asinine mentality that the rich need to be punished for being rich? so the ceo of exxon/mobil got 12,054,133,3$@$%^^@#@#% for his retirement package... well guess what! when it comes down to it we are the ones buying the gas, they are not forcing us to. "oh! b-b-but our society is dependent on oil." if these guys making millions really erks you that much then take some personal responsibility ad do something to change YOUR situation, get a hybrid, or a stupid bio diesel car. yeah its difficult and inconvenient, but if you cant handle being a little put out then shut your trap.
all these billionaires have something in common, they have a product that we want and are willing to pay for, why should they be punished for that?

Naïve post of the day! Ever ask yourself why we want their products so badly?

And mscbuck, if the business owners hoarded their money that would be great, they wouldn't influence the market. But they don't hoard it, on the contrary, they use it to invest in efforts to increase their influence in the market and gain more capital. A lot of great products and services come out of this, and jobs are created, but that isn't the entire picture. In order to succeed (and satisfy megalomaniac egos), corporations need to keep growing, so investments are made with corporate growth in mind, not public interest. Such investments include advertising and lobbying and other such practices which make Darth_Alran want to buy gas, and also ever-increasing consumption of natural and human resources.

My opinion of Obama declined drastically when he said that health care was a right...

I'll forcefully redistribute your wealth.

What's wrong with this? Not arguing, I just want to know why you don't think it's a right.

:downs: no...



of course corporations (with VERY few exceptions) have their own interest in mind, i have no doubt if they could find a way to legally make me pay money to work for them then they would do it. im not under some "Naïve" delusion as you seem to think. lobbying and advertising is not what makes me want to buy gas. its because im perfectly fine with paying for the convenience of NOT having to ride a bus or a bike or converting my car to bio diesel. of course many big business use their power to lobby, but guess what... if we werent giving them our money the would really have no lobbying power. im just sick of this "oh! oh! mr. government! we cant possibly make any difference so we need you to punish these big bad corporations for us!" attitude.

Naïve my ***... go play in a sandbox.

also this ^

It's a right in the same sense that police protection is a right, a fire department is a right, and a state-appointed attorney is a right (if you can't afford one for yourself).

But we pay for those services through taxes.

so?

People with eleventy billion dollars don't have that money in their mattresses. That money is all invested capital - buildings, assets, and jobs. Even when it is spent yachts, it's still paying working class people's wages. Taxing the rich isn't just taking money of a bigger pot; it effects everyone. Taxes are bad for the economy, no matter which way to slice them. They are of course, necessary, but you can't "just tax the rich."

I think Obama would win, because Americans don't want another war and a president who do something useful. Bush was far from useful, he was useless - McCain sings from the same tree. I can't see many wanting that...

But what do I know about American politics anyhow - come to Britian its worse...
At least you have two or three candidates, that makes it a easier right?

Taxation is the only way to stabilise an economy, provides services for society and redistribute wealth. This idea that a single man should earn his keep and if he works hard he becomes wealthy is very noble, but society simply has never worked like this since the dawn of civilisation. No man is an island, you exist within society and within forces that are more than simply the sum of its individuals. You take from society, and society gives back. This is taxation.

This. Thank you. Simple and elegant yet most people don't get it.

I don't have a link because I'm posting this on a cell phone, but the gap between the candidates in polls has decreased.