OT - Is this representative of US public opinion? UK Newspaper Front Page

Andy Dingley wrote:
>The absolute best thing for the Bush campaign is a car bomb against
>disposable American grunts (and preferably a cute blonde BAM or two)
>somewhere foreign, a day before the vote. It would give him a a
>landslide.


We all appreciate your cheery thoughts. Ever think of
getting into children's literature?

UA100

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Greetings and Salutations.
>
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:37:16 GMT, Doug Winterburn
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:35:21 +0000, Mark wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Yeah, OK,
> >>
> >> How about posting the link directly to your cite, I could
> >> wade through the IRS site all day before finding what you
> >> want me to see.
> >>
> >> Or is that your point?
> >>
> >>
> >> This comes under the trick of making me do the work of
> >> proving your argument.
> >>
> >> It's not a java site, you can post a direct link.
> >
> >The information you don't want to believe is in this document:
> >
> >http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00inrate.pdf
> >
> >You will observe that the top income earners are paying a higher and
> >higher percentage of total income tax over time.
> >
> >-Doug
> >
> >-Doug
> >
> Well, many numbers there. I have a few thoughts, though.
> 0) Cash to a politician is like crack to an addict.
> There is never enough of it, and, they WILL sell their
> sister or mother into prostitution to get more of it.
> 1) To them that much has been given, of them,
> much will be required.
> 2) If a class of people is acquiring 90% of
> the total income, is it not fairer that they
> pay 90% of the taxes.

But it's really a class of people paying 96% of taxes who are
acquiring only 86% of total income.

> Regards
> Dave Mundt
>
>

(tapping on the desktop wondering if I really want to get involved in this
thread....awww...what the heck..)

no numbers or percentages...no demand for fairness...just an
observation...if I wasn't working for a rich man I probably wouldn't be
working. So please...by all means Mr. Rich Man, take your loopholes of
which my salary is part of and just keep passing it on down. Best advice
I've ever heard was stop worrying about what you pay in taxes and worry
about what you make in income.

"C" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:30:57 -0800, Noel Hegan wrote:
>
> > This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction" to
> > the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view how
> > does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush administration and
> > the US economy? This is not in anyway a political post,I've just an
> > interest in world affairs.
> > http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
> >
> > Rgds
> >
> > Noel
> >
> > noel dot hegan at virgin dot net
>
>
> I met an older woman in Denmark this past September. When the
> conversation somehow turned to the Bush invasion of Iraq, she summarized
> Mr. Bush quite succinctly: He is a catastrophe.
>
> Unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Libya, etc, we get an
> opportunity every 4 years to oust our "dictators". Bush's turn to move on
> comes this November.
>
> He is among the worst of presidents in modern history. He has done next
> to nothing to make this country safer or more prosperous. He has been
> part of an agenda from the moment he took office, and 9/11 gave him the
> impetus to put that agenda into full swing. As you know, he continually
> laid down ultimatums to Saddam and every time Saddam seemed to comply.
> Tired of the apparent compliance, Bush decided to finally launch his
> invasion based on doctored reports of weapons of mass destruction. None
> have been found to date. Instead we now have more than 500 of our sons
> and daughters, mothers and fathers returned in body bags. The Bush crowd
> wants us to believe these young people did not die in vain but surrendered
> their lives selfishly for the Bush doctrine of patriotism. Meanwhile
> there are families mourning their losses and places at tables go empty
> with only painfully sweet memories of the loved ones gone.
>
> The economy is cyclic. Unfortunately it is showing signs of improving.
> Bush, of course, is taking full credit and says it's because of his tax
> cuts, cuts which favor the rich but leave the working American high and
> dry.
>

Please define and distinguish between the "Rich" and the "working American"? Is a married couple, one working as a school teacher
and the other in a steel mill rich? They take home more than $125k/year and did benefit from the tax reductions. What about a
married couple, both working in the IT field OR a cabinet maker whose wife worke an the IT department at a local hospital? Are
these people not "working Americans"? Then just who are you referring to?

My wife and I both work hard to make a living and support our family. How dare you insinuate that I am rich and am not a working
American!!!


> If Bush weren't tragic enough, there are still too many Americans swept up
> in his rhetoric and who still blindly support him without ever questioning
> or challenging Bush.
>
> What else do you want to know?
>
>

"gabriel" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Noel Hegan wrote:
>
> > This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> > to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> > how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> > administration and the US economy?
>
> You can use statistics to prove anything. You can omit certain numbers,
> include an extreme number and leave out certain information.
>
> For example, the comparison on how many American soldier deaths after the
> Iraq war vs after WWII: Well the author leaves out all the context, and
> leaves out the fact that the world is not the same. The article is aimed
> at fooling people unaware of the fallacies of using statistics this way.
>
> For what it's worth, I think bush (yes, lowercase) is a blithering fool,
> manipulated by the extremists in his cabinet, and utterly incapable of
> leading the country towards betterment (i.e., our social security system
> is mathematically proven to be headed towards disaster, but bush just
> gave the rich an unnecessary tax cut instead of fixing the system).
>

Here we go with the class warfare balony again. Just who are those damned rich? How much money do they need anyhow? Maybe we
should set the national wage to $100,000.00 then tax/refund what ever is necessary to arrive at that figure. How long do you think
that the rich will continue to invest in the economy? This is why communism is doomed to failure, and has, in fact, failed
everywhere it has been tried.

It is amazing that Russia now has Steve Forbes' flat tax and we have the Soviet's progressive tax. At least Putin understands
economy.

> Of course, there are people who think differently than I :-)...
>
> --
> gabriel

"Renata" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> We should not be cutting revenue intake at the same time we are

The point that is almost always missed is that each time taxes (marginal tax rates, etc.) have been cut, the end result is more
revenues, not less.

> shoveling money out the door.

I agree that spending is completely out of control. Fortunately, a rising economy and lower taxes will help to bring things back
into balance.

>
> Renata
>
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 02:54:20 GMT, Mark & Juanita
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> >[email protected] says...
> >> Sweetie, I don't need the rich's money, whether they're evil or not
> >> (though, hey, if someone's handing out spare bags of cash, count me
> >> in).
> >>
> >> But, we can't afford to be giving money to the rich,
> >
> >GIVE MONEY TO THE RICH!!!????? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The
> >government ain't printing cash and mailing it in bags to the "rich". It
> >is simply taking less of the money that they have earned.
> >
> >Here's a statistic for you in the same flavor as the more than slightly
> >biased article that started this fest:
> >
> > % of wage earners paying 65% of federal income taxes: 10%. That's
> >right 10% of wage earners are paying well above half of all income
> >taxes.
> >
> > % of wage earners paying 96% of federal income taxes: 50% Of course
> >the lower wage earners aren't getting "big" tax breaks, they don't pay
> >much of the tax to begin with.
> >
> >> a token pfenning
> >> to the rest (so a claim can be made that all share in the tax cut),
> >> while increasing spending out the wazoo and shelling out big bucks for
> >> a couple of foreign skirmishes.
> >>
> >> Notice that all the states are doing all kinds of "fund raising" (like
> >> increasing state income tax, adding all kinds of fees, etc.) to make
> >> up for shortfalls, and these burdens have much more impact on the
> >> normal everyday worker, who's enjoying his 100 tax cut and shelling
> >> out a few hundred back to the states and localities.
> >>
> >
> > So keeping federal taxes high is going to help this how?
>

"gabriel" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Al Reid wrote:
>
> > I agree that spending is completely out of control. Fortunately, a
> > rising economy and lower taxes will help to bring things back into
> > balance.
>
> Now there's a Nobel-prize worthy statement! You should print it, frame it,
> and put it on your wall. Then practise it in your own home, and hire a
> good bankruptcy lawyer.
>
> You gotta love self-delusion.

You have proven yourself totally ignorant of the realities of economics. The concept of lower taxes works even in Russia where thay
have abandoned an antiquated progressive system with a low flat tax. The result? Higher revenues. Here is just one of many
articals on it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba452/

You need to take time to understand a topic before commenting on it. It is a fact that lower taxes raises revenues. Do some
research and find out for your self.

You are indeed the one who is self-deluded.

>
> --
> gabriel

"Doug Winterburn" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:11:54 +0000, gabriel wrote:
>
> > Al Reid wrote:
> >
> >> I agree that spending is completely out of control. Fortunately, a
> >> rising economy and lower taxes will help to bring things back into
> >> balance.
> >
> > Now there's a Nobel-prize worthy statement! You should print it, frame it,
> > and put it on your wall. Then practise it in your own home, and hire a
> > good bankruptcy lawyer.
> >
>
> I do. With more income (rising economy) and lower taxes, there is more in
> my paycheck for me to do with as _I_ wish. I wonder why some people find
> this concept so hard to grasp?
>
> -Doug

Either failed Economics 101, never took Economics 101, or had been taught economics by a socialist. It seams that some believe that
all behavior is static. You can raise taxes to 100 % and never effect behavior and thus for every 1 percent increase in taxes, you
get a 1 percent increase in revenue all the way up to the point that you confiscate 100% on ones paycheck.

"Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:00:19 +0000, gabriel <[email protected]> brought
> forth from the murky depths:
>
> >As for internation awareness, how many Americans would you bet can point
> >out the USA on a world map?
>
> Let's see, 53% are Pro-Bush so that leaves a probable 47%
> who might get lucky on a map.

So that is 53% + the lucky among the 47%. More than half.

>
>
> --== May The Angst Be With You! ==--
> -Yoda, on a bad day
> --
> http://diversify.com Ending Your Web Page Angst.

"gabriel" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>
> > A flat tax would result in the upper "echelons" paying less than they
> > currently pay and the lower wage earners paying more than they
> > currently pay. Most flat tax proposals exempt some initial amount of
> > earnings to ease the burden on low income earners.
>
> Sorry, but rich people pay peanuts. If you want to believe they pay
> their share, that's fine, but even some rich people, like Warren Buffet,
> think they should be paying their fair share (he was against the "farm-
> saving" estate tax elimination [as was Bill Gates] and was against the
> supid frozen property taxes in California).
>

Peanuts? In 2001 the:

Top 10% Paid 68.2% of Federal Taxes
Top 5% Paid 56.6%
Top 1% Paid 35.9%

To suggest that they are not paying their fair share is obsurd.

How would you like to pay the same percentage of your income in taxes?


> If a millionnaire sets up a charitable non-profit fund for the benefit
> of his family, then gives all his money to the fund, how much does he
> pay in taxes? Nothing, because he donated everything to charity. I
> know it's not that simple, but that's the idea.
>
> Get rid of the loopholes and instill a flat tax!
>
> LOL, I'm sounding like a para-revolutionary idiot!
>
> --
> gabriel

"gabriel" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Al Reid wrote:
>
> > Peanuts? In 2001 the:
> > Top 10% Paid 68.2% of Federal Taxes
> > Top 5% Paid 56.6%
> > Top 1% Paid 35.9%
>
> Ah, and you bring up a common fallacy when looking at the issue this way:
> This does NOT suggest that the rich (or high-earners, more appropriately)
> pay their fair share of taxes, it merely shows what the numbers of paid
> taxes add up to. Where's the column for pre-deduction gross income?
>
> In other words, on paper, the top 1% earned $1402B, and paid $361B in
> taxes, or 26%. This seems fair at first glance, doesn't it? What the
> numbers do not show, is what the true raw income is of that top 1%. The
> $1402B number is _after_ all the loopholes and deductions (ie, charitable
> donations to their own non-profits), and also after all attempts to
> divert earnings through other channels (corporations, off-shore, etc...).
>
> There is an entire mechanism in place to keep the numbers you gave as
> they are: Giving the impression that the rich pay their fair share. Tax
> shelters, finance organizers, loophole artists/consultants, etc... they
> were even highlighted on a recent issue of BusinessWeek, ironically, one
> of the loophole artists highlighted in the article made a call for the
> loopholes to be closed!
>
> > How would you like to pay the same percentage of your income in taxes?
>
> Cammon you know you are comparing apples to oranges. The numbers you
> gave are not percentages of income paid as taxes. Actually, though, I do
> pay a higher percentage of my earnings than the top 1%, as shown above...

You are misreading the data!!! That is, the top 1% of tax payers are payong 35.9% of the burdon, NOT paying an effective tax rat of
35.9%.

>
> --
> gabriel

"gabriel" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>
> > On this, I agree.
>
> Just trying to keep it light-hearted... It's not like this discussion will
> change anything.
>
> So hopefully no one feels insulted by all this nonsense.
>
> After all, we're all woodworkers and this is a woodworking group, right?
>

Woodworking??? Who woulda thunk it.

> --
> gabriel

In article <[email protected]>, fatheree21
@NOcomcastSPAM.net says...
>
> "Renata" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> <snip>
>
> > Spending might be out of control, but I don't think too much of it is
> > actually going for "social programs". Though they certainly are
> > trying to give that impression w/their words. Looking at actualy
> > dollars might tell a different story. e.g. the $24 billion for pork
> > projects in the current omnibus funding bill - an all time record far
> > surpassing the past pork allocations.
> >
> > Renata
>
> From the most recent chart I could find from 2001, the breakdown is as
> follows:
>
> Social Security: 23%
> Medicare: 12%
> Medicaid: 7%
> Other Entitlements: 6%
>
> There's 48% of the budget that goes to social programs, assuming there isn't
> more in the 6% described as "other mandatory".
>
> I would agree that all of the politicians in DC are too free with spending
> out money.
>
> todd


From OMB figures for 2004 (as a percent of federal budget):
Social Security, Medicare, Other Mandatory: 55.4%
Non-Defense Discretionary: 19.2%
Defense 17.5%
Net Interest 7.9%



>
>
>

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote in message >
> >
> > From OMB figures for 2004 (as a percent of federal budget):
> > Social Security, Medicare, Other Mandatory: 55.4%
> > Non-Defense Discretionary: 19.2%
> > Defense 17.5%
> > Net Interest 7.9%
> >
> >
>
> Someone please explain what government spending is "mandatory". I
> don't remember any specific government programs or spending being
> delineated in the Constitution.

Only a few fall into that category, defense being one. I believe a
significant number of items would cause the founders to scream in
anguish if they realized what politicians were doing with OPM (other
peoples' money).

I only used the term above because that is how it is reported.
Basically, "mandatory" means money that no-backbone politicians
determined to spend years ago and passed the legislation such that it
does not have to be approved year after year -- i.e. no political
fallout.

> I do believe that it is ALL
> discreationary - certainly Social Security and Medicare is. I do
> however believe that many a politician refers to welfare programs for
> the "poor" as "entitlements" and I know that they all see corporate
> welfare as an "entitlement" in order to keep their jobs.
>
> Dave Hall
>

In article <[email protected]>,
gabriel <[email protected]> wrote:

> SteveC1280 wrote:
>
> > I was in Europe last week and met with people of several
> > nationalities, including the UK. I was struck with the impression
> > that the people were completely mis-informed and had no access to, or
> > didn't care about the truth. Now I know why.
>
> That's of course assuming that _you_ are informed and know the truth (The
> USA has CNN, right?!?!? :-) )... Your attitude is typical of why
> foreigners hate Americans.
>
> I do not mean to put you down, but how can you expect people in other
> countries to know as much about life in the USA as you? How can you be
> sure you are in the know and the others are not?
>
> Most importantly, why should a foreigner care more about the USA than
> Americans? It's always puzzling to see that many, many American people
> act as of the world is there to serve us, and of course, we complain when
> they fail us? <*sigh*>

Funny. The reason that you give for "foreigners hat(ing) Americans" is
that stereotypical Americans display a lack of knowledge about other
cultures, and then you use foreign lack of knowledge about American
culture to justify foreign hatred of us.

Eh?

Kevin

Consider the source!!!

Jay in NH

I was in Europe last week and met with people of several nationalities,
including the UK. I was struck with the impression that the people were
completely mis-informed and had no access to, or didn't care about the truth.
Now I know why.
>
>
>
>
Remove the 'remove' in my address to e:mail me.

>
> Someone please explain what government spending is "mandatory". I
> don't remember any specific government programs or spending being
> delineated in the Constitution. I do believe that it is ALL
> discreationary - certainly Social Security and Medicare is. I do
> however believe that many a politician refers to welfare programs for
> the "poor" as "entitlements" and I know that they all see corporate
> welfare as an "entitlement" in order to keep their jobs.
>
> Dave Hall

snipped From the US Constitution Section 8 first paragraph

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties,
Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties,
Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

IMHO then, anything the government spends money for needs to fall under
these guidelines which have gotten pretty damn broadly interpreted over
the last 225 years.

Allen
Catonsville, MD

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> I'm afraid the federal and state corporate tax rates are a touch
> higher than 8%:

Whatever... The point was not to give exact figures, but to show how income
can be hidden and "buffered" by using several corps of different types (ie,
a c-corp with a july-june fiscal year, an s-corp with a jan-dec fiscal
year, a fund, etc...).

The whole point was not to show that corp taxes are lower or higher, it was
to show that money can be shifted around so as to bypass some or all
taxation.

--
gabriel

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> A flat tax would result in the upper "echelons" paying less than they
> currently pay and the lower wage earners paying more than they
> currently pay. Most flat tax proposals exempt some initial amount of
> earnings to ease the burden on low income earners.

Sorry, but rich people pay peanuts. If you want to believe they pay
their share, that's fine, but even some rich people, like Warren Buffet,
think they should be paying their fair share (he was against the "farm-
saving" estate tax elimination [as was Bill Gates] and was against the
supid frozen property taxes in California).

If a millionnaire sets up a charitable non-profit fund for the benefit
of his family, then gives all his money to the fund, how much does he
pay in taxes? Nothing, because he donated everything to charity. I
know it's not that simple, but that's the idea.

Get rid of the loopholes and instill a flat tax!

LOL, I'm sounding like a para-revolutionary idiot!

--
gabriel

Al Reid wrote:

> You have proven yourself totally ignorant of the realities of
> economics. The concept of lower taxes works even in Russia where thay
> have abandoned an antiquated progressive system with a low flat tax.
> The result? Higher revenues. Here is just one of many articals on
> it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba452/

Well no crap, that's why we should have flat tax too, make the upper
echelon pay their fair share. We agree on this 100%

> You need to take time to understand a topic before commenting on it.

I will not bore you with my education about this, but I do have more than
enough.

> It is a fact that lower taxes raises revenues. Do some research and
> find out for your self.

Ooooookayyyyy.... I'll take your word for it :-). Seriously, maybe we
disagree because, in the context of your flat-tax argument, some people
would be taxed more, some less (this is the "lower taxes" part). The
increased revenue from those who would be taxed more would more than make
up the lost revenue from those who would be taxed less. I certainly buy
that.

--
gabriel

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> What verifiable facts can you provide to substantiate this, or is
> just a gut feeling?

I have seen articles in magazines (Newsweek and Businessweek mainly) and
newspapers that talk about the loopholes available, the people who take
advantage of them, and the people who create them. For example, some
non-profits can refrain from naming names, so the IRS cannot link some
people to hidden income.

> spending tripled and revenue only doubled. As far as who is
> deserving, I find that government comes up short, not taxpayers.

Hey, no argument there... I am very willing to pay my own fair share.
In fact, I would raise taxes right now, not lower them. For example, I
would consider the state of the SS system as cause enough for some
temporary pain in the form of higher taxes. OTOH, I would scrap the new
manned mission to Mars initiative because the cost would be tremendous
and the ROI would be too small (national gloating rights?, Let's fix
health care first, no?).

> Some would say a millionaire is rich.

Well, that;s the problem in this too-long debate... We don;t even know
who we are talking about. I don't mean that to reflect badly on you or
anyone else, but rather to stress how complex things get, where you can't
even get past defining the problem, much less get to solving it.

> Income and net worth are two very different things. I have been in
> the top 5% of wage earners during my career and my tax preparer was
> never able to find all these loopholes you speak of.

Yeah, get a better accountant. By the time you prepare the taxes it's
too late. You need to do it ahead of time, set up the right entities
(corporations, funds, etc...). There's a reason they're called loophole
"artists."

> The only way I can think of that this could happen is for someone to
> be granted stock options, which are not income until exercised.

Nah, you can set up a fund, or a c-corp that "holds" money until later.
For example, you make $2M, but you need only $500K to live confortably...
So you take $500K in paychecks direct to you, the rest goes to the corp.
The corp pays 8% tax when it gets the $1.5M (much less than you would
pay), and then you do your investments through the corp, using the $1.5
from the corp, but never putting directly in your name. when you buy
your $200K Bentley, the corp buys it for your use, for example. Then you
hire a good loophole artist that will maximize this scheme (and exploit
other schemes as well, all legal) so that you only take as little as
possible in your name (and in your income tax rate). At the end of the
day, you directly own nothing, but control everything, and earn _very_
little in your name. Of course, you only made $500K to the IRS eye, even
though the real number was $2M.

--
gabriel

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> On this, I agree.

Just trying to keep it light-hearted... It's not like this discussion will
change anything.

So hopefully no one feels insulted by all this nonsense.

After all, we're all woodworkers and this is a woodworking group, right?

--
gabriel

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:52:54 +0000, gabriel wrote:


> What does this statistic prove, anyway: "the top income earners are paying
> a higher and higher percentage of total income tax over time." I cannot
> find a significance other than "there are lot of rich people in the USA."

It points out that they are doing more than their fair share. I hope the
trend of more and more people migrating to higher income brackets
continues, in fact the more millionaires, the better. That's what this
country is all about.

-Doug

Renny wrote:
> With all due respect, this type of post has no place here. Let's keep
> politics out of rec.woodworking!!

While appreciate your distaste of politics, it certainly isn't OT. What
could have more wooddorking content than getting the shaft?
Dave in Fairfax
--
reply-to doesn't work
use:
daveldr at att dot net
American Association of Woodturners
http://www.woodturner.org
Capital Area Woodturners
http://www.capwoodturners.org/

gabriel wrote:
>
> Doug Winterburn wrote:
>
> > A flat tax would result in the upper "echelons" paying less than they
> > currently pay and the lower wage earners paying more than they
> > currently pay. Most flat tax proposals exempt some initial amount of
> > earnings to ease the burden on low income earners.
>
> Sorry, but rich people pay peanuts. If you want to believe they pay
> their share, that's fine, but even some rich people, like Warren Buffet,
> think they should be paying their fair share (he was against the "farm-
> saving" estate tax elimination [as was Bill Gates] and was against the
> supid frozen property taxes in California).
>
> If a millionnaire sets up a charitable non-profit fund for the benefit
> of his family, then gives all his money to the fund, how much does he
> pay in taxes? Nothing, because he donated everything to charity. I
> know it's not that simple, but that's the idea.
>
> Get rid of the loopholes and instill a flat tax!
>
> LOL, I'm sounding like a para-revolutionary idiot!
>
> --
> gabriel

yes you do!!!

I guess they generously didn't include the devalued US dollar in their
stats.

A similar list of negatives could be compiled for virtually every country in
the world, including the UK.

"Noel Hegan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy? This is not in anyway a political
> post,I've just an interest in world affairs.
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
> Rgds
>
> Noel
>
> noel dot hegan at virgin dot net

With all due respect, this type of post has no place here. Let's keep
politics out of rec.woodworking!!

Greetings and Salutations...
First off..other than the question of how much
MDF it would take to build a coffin for Saddam and his
boys, what does this have to do with woodworking?
(don't answer, son, that was a RHETORICAL question).

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:33:40 +0000, Andy Dingley
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:14:49 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>A less slanted article would have also included
>>statistics showing our economic improvement, the reconstruction of Iraq's
>>infrastructure and its brave new political system, etc.
>
>As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
>reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement". The dollar is
>through the floor, the deficit is enormous and all your manufacturing
>base are belong to China.
>
This is a point. The economy sucks here in America...
although it probable will turn around eventually. The events
of 2001 really kicked the props out from under that recovery, though.

>Iraq has almost no infrastructure. Now I'm hardly surprised by this -
>we've just fought a war through the place. I hope they will have one
>soon, and I have faith that many well-intentioned soldiers are doing
>their damnedest to assist this.
>
>Neither does Iraq have a "brave new political system". It has protests
>on the streets against a US-led war to bring "democracy", where this
>appears to be US-selected non-elected placemen.
>
And the amazing thing is that there are no reports of
those protestors vanishing, or getting gunned down in those same
streets.

>The US government _hates_ democracy. Democracy keeps giving the wrong
>answer, so America has to depose the freshly-elected popular leader.

I mainly was moved to toss some gasoline on the fire because
of this statement. The fact of the matter is that Saddam was NOT
the "freshly-elected popular leader". It is meaningless to get
100% of the vote in a country where it is not only illegal NOT
to vote but physically hazardous to even CONSIDER voting for
any candidate but the incumbent.
Saddam was a dictator who was not above cheerfully
slaughtering thousands of his own people in order to maintain
his own power. He may have been "our boy", but that shows
more the questionable judgement of our government than any
sense of moral correctness in his reign or policies.
As for whether or not the government hates democracies...
how would we know? We don't have a true democracy here...it
is a representative Republic. If it WAS a true democracy, then
we would be bitching about President Gore instead of President
Bush.
However much it may suck, though, it sucks a LOT
less than many other forms of government, and, even with
the increase in totalitarianism that has afflicted us
in the past few years, it is still better than most
alternatives.

>As democracy in a united Iraq would almost certainly give power to a
>Shia majority, this would lead to rapprochment with Iraq and
>everything that America is most scared of. America's best hope for a
>permissible democracy in Iraq is to Balkanize it (in the original
>sense of the term) into federal states where no one state can dominate
>the others. And then try to mollify Turkey when they have a US-created
>Kurdistan on the doorstep.
>
It would be nice to think that we can accurately
predict the future. However, there has been VERY little
luck in that in years past.
I agree, though, that an American Democracy in
Iraq is a pipe dream. For this form of government to work,
it has to have deep roots and a general agreement among
the citizenry. Neither of those exist in Iraq just now.
However, it IS possible that, like Japan, we still might
be able to leave Iraq a better place than we found it.
I REALLY hope this is the outcome...it would be a big
disappointment to most Americans if the self-serving
and greedy parts of society tried to create a puppet
state there.
I said, when the wars with Afghanistan and Iraq
started, that I thought we might well succeed where the
Russians failed because we were NOT going to try
to annex the country...

>>I am not a fan of
>>Bush nor am I defending him, but that article does not represent American
>>opinion, merely British.
>
>I wouldn't say that article represents anyone's opinion. It's a
>collection of isolated facts that doesn't look anything like the
>"opinion" of either a "My President, right or wrong" Blairite, or a
>"Make noise, not war" Spartist.
>
>Nor is the Indie a British tabloid. No tits, no royals, no soapstars.
>If anyone can see a single erroneous figure in that list, then please
>correct it so that we may all learn.
>
Don't know. I have developed a deep suspicion of statistics
because I have seen VERY few cases where they have not been
carefully picked and groomed to support a particular agenda.
Also, while some of those items may be true...there is some
question in my mind about what the current administration
could have done to affect them. It is a difficult world,
even under the best of times, and these are not
the best of times.
Regards
Dave Mundt

>
>--
>Socialism: Eric, not Tony

3 days before at least. Gotta give him enough
time to learn how to read the impromptu speech.

--
Cheers
Nuno Souto
[email protected]
"Andy Dingley" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

> The absolute best thing for the Bush campaign is a car bomb against
> disposable American grunts (and preferably a cute blonde BAM or two)
> somewhere foreign, a day before the vote. It would give him a a
> landslide.
>

Greetings and Salutations.

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:37:16 GMT, Doug Winterburn
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:35:21 +0000, Mark wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Yeah, OK,
>>
>> How about posting the link directly to your cite, I could
>> wade through the IRS site all day before finding what you
>> want me to see.
>>
>> Or is that your point?
>>
>>
>> This comes under the trick of making me do the work of
>> proving your argument.
>>
>> It's not a java site, you can post a direct link.
>
>The information you don't want to believe is in this document:
>
>http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00inrate.pdf
>
>You will observe that the top income earners are paying a higher and
>higher percentage of total income tax over time.
>
>-Doug
>
>-Doug
>
Well, many numbers there. I have a few thoughts, though.
0) Cash to a politician is like crack to an addict.
There is never enough of it, and, they WILL sell their
sister or mother into prostitution to get more of it.
1) To them that much has been given, of them,
much will be required.
2) If a class of people is acquiring 90% of
the total income, is it not fairer that they
pay 90% of the taxes.
Regards
Dave Mundt

Kevin Craig wrote:

> Funny. The reason that you give for "foreigners hat(ing) Americans" is
> that stereotypical Americans display a lack of knowledge about other
> cultures, and then you use foreign lack of knowledge about American
> culture to justify foreign hatred of us.

The point you chose to ignore about what I said is the key: Foreginers
don't come to the USA and stroll around saying how stupid we are (and we
Americans, as a whole, are VERY stupid). Americans go abroad, refuse to
try to speak the local language, and tell people in their countries what
to do and how dumb they are.

Of course, not all Americans are like that... Some are unaware that
other countries even exist!

As for internation awareness, how many Americans would you bet can point
out the USA on a world map?

--
gabriel

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 21:09:45 +0000, gabriel wrote:


> BOTTOM LINE
>
> Maybe I better take a moment to restate what I have been arguing about:
> I do not believe that rich people paty their fair share of taxes, and I
> believe tax breaks to the rich are neither deserved, nor are they so
> beneficial as to be worth gettnig the federal government into huge debt.

What verifiable facts can you provide to substantiate this, or is
just a gut feeling? You are aware that tax cuts have resulted in
substantially increased tax revenue the two times they have been
implemented under Kennedy and Reagan. Unfortunalely in Reagan's case
spending tripled and revenue only doubled. As far as who is deserving, I
find that government comes up short, not taxpayers.

>
> I define "rich" as individuals who have the ability to take advantage of
> the loopholes in tax law that allows those people to significantly
> obfuscate the true financial figures, such as creating non-profits that
> exist for the sole purpose of benefiting themselves or their families,
> or setting up corporate or similar entities that allows them to
> indefinitely delay reporting earnings, etc...

Some would say a millionaire is rich. A millionaire refers to net worth
and it isn't very difficult for average joe accumulate a net worth of $1
million or more through home equity and 401K's and IRA's. Income and
net worth are two very different things. I have been in the top 5% of
wage earners during my career and my tax preparer was never able to find
all these loopholes you speak of.

>
> I know people that make ample use of such structures and schemes... All
> legal, of course, and all apalling if you know that someone who makes
> $5M a year only reported $300K.

The only way I can think of that this could happen is for someone to be
granted stock options, which are not income until exercised. When
exercised, the piper will be paid - believe me, I know. In fact, some of
those nasty dot com undeserving rich folks exercised options, kept the
stock rather than immediately selling, got taxed on the paper gains and
had the bottom drop out of the stock price. Perhaps you could enlighten
me on how anyone can legally not report true income and point to one
verifiable case.

-Doug

Don wrote:

>> Also, your figures don't state what percentage of income
>> these wage earners pay in taxes.
> Its none of your business what other people do with their money.
> Focus on your own problems, thanks.

For what it's worth: I agree with you we should be free to do whatever we
want with our money, but with income taxes, equality has to be assured
somehow, so some figures _must_ be freely available, and must be
verifiable. Privacy is a huge concern as well.

I think the right balance between availability and privacy is struck every
time the IRS releases overall tax figures by city, zip, or county and no
more specific than that... I don't need to know what my neighbor makes,
but knowing the average income of my zip code has countless benefits.

--
gabriel

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> We should not be cutting revenue intake at the same time we are
> shoveling money out the door.

You are assuming that this is a zero-sum game, i.e., cut taxes, and
those revenues go away forever. Truth is, historically, tax cuts have
actually resulted in increased revenues, this occurred both during the
Kennedy and Reagan administrations -- it's too early to tell with the
current tax cuts. This results from the fact that turning more money
loose in the market results in more investment, more spending and a
growing economy.

OTOH, spending is out of control, this is my primary beef with Bush,
he continues to cater to the left, expanding social spending at every
opportunity -- increased educational funding, this medicare increase, as
well as other such spending.


>
> Renata
>
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 02:54:20 GMT, Mark & Juanita
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> >[email protected] says...
> >> Sweetie, I don't need the rich's money, whether they're evil or not
> >> (though, hey, if someone's handing out spare bags of cash, count me
> >> in).
> >>
> >> But, we can't afford to be giving money to the rich,
> >
> >GIVE MONEY TO THE RICH!!!????? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The
> >government ain't printing cash and mailing it in bags to the "rich". It
> >is simply taking less of the money that they have earned.
> >
> >Here's a statistic for you in the same flavor as the more than slightly
> >biased article that started this fest:
> >
> > % of wage earners paying 65% of federal income taxes: 10%. That's
> >right 10% of wage earners are paying well above half of all income
> >taxes.
> >
> > % of wage earners paying 96% of federal income taxes: 50% Of course
> >the lower wage earners aren't getting "big" tax breaks, they don't pay
> >much of the tax to begin with.
> >
> >> a token pfenning
> >> to the rest (so a claim can be made that all share in the tax cut),
> >> while increasing spending out the wazoo and shelling out big bucks for
> >> a couple of foreign skirmishes.
> >>
> >> Notice that all the states are doing all kinds of "fund raising" (like
> >> increasing state income tax, adding all kinds of fees, etc.) to make
> >> up for shortfalls, and these burdens have much more impact on the
> >> normal everyday worker, who's enjoying his 100 tax cut and shelling
> >> out a few hundred back to the states and localities.
> >>
> >
> > So keeping federal taxes high is going to help this how?
>
>

"Mark" <[email protected]> wrote
> > How much do you think is their fair share? According to IRS reports,
> > the top 10% of wage earners pay 65% of income taxes, while they only
> > earn 43% of all income. The top 5% of wage earners pay 53% of income
> > taxes while earning only 32% of all income.
>
> Is that what they actually pay, or is that what they owe
> before their accountants start their work?

Mark thinks Bill Gates earns too much money.

> Also, your figures don't state what percentage of income
> these wage earners pay in taxes.

Its none of your business what other people do with their money.
Focus on your own problems, thanks.

> These 'figures' you've posted really mean nothing. Their a
> small part of the story. I see them as misleading.

Of course you see them as misleading. duh.

Andy Dingley wrote:

> Maybe Osama's Evil Plan is to _not_ attack America during the election
> campaign ? It's the most damage he could do to Bush.

Osama would be smarter to attack the USA to keep bush in power. bush would
then retaliate by attacking North Korea, or invading Uruguay.

--
gabriel

In article <[email protected]>, bdelph@no_spam.krjda.com
says...
> Noel Hegan wrote:
>
> To be fair, the last statistic says it all.
>
> To about half of this country Bush and those people are an embarrassment

You were doing OK to this point

> and would agree with the tenor of the article. The other half don't know
> any better and would agree with anything they're told.

Then you fell right down into condescension and insult. Yep, anybody
who disagrees with you is a moron and an idiot -- a gullible idiot at
that.

Of course nobody who might disagree with the tenor of the article
could have a valid, well-reasoned view of political events and current
events, could they? No, they have to be led sheep, there is no other
possibility.

>
>
>
>

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:03:45 +0000, gabriel wrote:

> Al Reid wrote:
>
>> You have proven yourself totally ignorant of the realities of
>> economics. The concept of lower taxes works even in Russia where thay
>> have abandoned an antiquated progressive system with a low flat tax.
>> The result? Higher revenues. Here is just one of many articals on
>> it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba452/
>
> Well no crap, that's why we should have flat tax too, make the upper
> echelon pay their fair share. We agree on this 100%

A flat tax would result in the upper "echelons" paying less than they
currently pay and the lower wage earners paying more than they currently
pay. Most flat tax proposals exempt some initial amount of earnings to
ease the burden on low income earners.

-Doug

> What could have more wooddorking content than getting the shaft?

LOLOLOLOLOL! You made my day!

--
gabriel

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:35:21 +0000, Mark wrote:

>
>
> Yeah, OK,
>
> How about posting the link directly to your cite, I could
> wade through the IRS site all day before finding what you
> want me to see.
>
> Or is that your point?
>
>
> This comes under the trick of making me do the work of
> proving your argument.
>
> It's not a java site, you can post a direct link.

The information you don't want to believe is in this document:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00inrate.pdf

You will observe that the top income earners are paying a higher and
higher percentage of total income tax over time.

-Doug

-Doug

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> So you think taxes should be calculated on gross income rather than
> net income?

No. I'd like to see how much rich people loopholed off and hid before
getting to the taxable wages line on their returns.

This is almost impossible to do, since rich people do not want tnyone to
know, and I read the IRS itself is having trouble finding out the true
gross income of really rich people. Think of this a a pipe dream of
mine.

> You don't like the thought of more people being more
> successful? I suppose that if it showed the rich paid a small fraction
> of all income tax, it would be meaningful?

Hell, I did not bring up that figure. All I have been saying is that the
figure is irrelevant! It does not prove or disprove anything! If you
don't bring it up again, I will not either!

If you get another information source that states the top 50% of earners
pay 90% or all collected taxes, it is still irrelevant.

> The point _was_ that as
> you say, "rich people pay most (or a big chunk) of the taxes that are
> collected". I find that very meaningful.

It might be meaningful to you, but it's irrelevant to the topic. The
discussion has been about the rich paying their fair share or not.

By the way, define "rich"... Would you say "rich" means top 1% or 40%?
That's one of the problems of looking at these charts, one tends to read
too much into them because the information it's not the right
information.

BOTTOM LINE

Maybe I better take a moment to restate what I have been arguing about:
I do not believe that rich people paty their fair share of taxes, and I
believe tax breaks to the rich are neither deserved, nor are they so
beneficial as to be worth gettnig the federal government into huge debt.

I define "rich" as individuals who have the ability to take advantage of
the loopholes in tax law that allows those people to significantly
obfuscate the true financial figures, such as creating non-profits that
exist for the sole purpose of benefiting themselves or their families, or
setting up corporate or similar entities that allows them to indefinitely
delay reporting earnings, etc...

I know people that make ample use of such structures and schemes... All
legal, of course, and all apalling if you know that someone who makes $5M
a year only reported $300K.

--
gabriel

Al Reid wrote:

> Here we go with the class warfare balony again. Just who are those

This is not the forum to prove it either way, at the end of the day it's just
a conflict of opinions. So I won't get into that, strong an opinion as I
might have...

I will recognize that you have a valid opinion on this as well. I will not,
though, get into a war over it.

> It is amazing that Russia now has Steve Forbes' flat tax and we have
> the Soviet's progressive tax. At least Putin understands economy.

Hey, here's a point of agreement... A flat tax would do me fine.

--
gabriel

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:14:49 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>A less slanted article would have also included
>statistics showing our economic improvement, the reconstruction of Iraq's
>infrastructure and its brave new political system, etc.

As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement". The dollar is
through the floor, the deficit is enormous and all your manufacturing
base are belong to China.

Iraq has almost no infrastructure. Now I'm hardly surprised by this -
we've just fought a war through the place. I hope they will have one
soon, and I have faith that many well-intentioned soldiers are doing
their damnedest to assist this.

Neither does Iraq have a "brave new political system". It has protests
on the streets against a US-led war to bring "democracy", where this
appears to be US-selected non-elected placemen.

The US government _hates_ democracy. Democracy keeps giving the wrong
answer, so America has to depose the freshly-elected popular leader.
As democracy in a united Iraq would almost certainly give power to a
Shia majority, this would lead to rapprochment with Iraq and
everything that America is most scared of. America's best hope for a
permissible democracy in Iraq is to Balkanize it (in the original
sense of the term) into federal states where no one state can dominate
the others. And then try to mollify Turkey when they have a US-created
Kurdistan on the doorstep.

>I am not a fan of
>Bush nor am I defending him, but that article does not represent American
>opinion, merely British.

I wouldn't say that article represents anyone's opinion. It's a
collection of isolated facts that doesn't look anything like the
"opinion" of either a "My President, right or wrong" Blairite, or a
"Make noise, not war" Spartist.

Nor is the Indie a British tabloid. No tits, no royals, no soapstars.
If anyone can see a single erroneous figure in that list, then please
correct it so that we may all learn.


--
Socialism: Eric, not Tony

Noel Hegan wrote:

> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy?

You can use statistics to prove anything. You can omit certain numbers,
include an extreme number and leave out certain information.

For example, the comparison on how many American soldier deaths after the
Iraq war vs after WWII: Well the author leaves out all the context, and
leaves out the fact that the world is not the same. The article is aimed
at fooling people unaware of the fallacies of using statistics this way.

For what it's worth, I think bush (yes, lowercase) is a blithering fool,
manipulated by the extremists in his cabinet, and utterly incapable of
leading the country towards betterment (i.e., our social security system
is mathematically proven to be headed towards disaster, but bush just
gave the rich an unnecessary tax cut instead of fixing the system).

Of course, there are people who think differently than I :-)...

--
gabriel

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:23:05 +0000, gabriel wrote:
>
> > Therein lies the disagreement. I would measure "fair share" by the
> > percentage of TRUE gross income that is paid in taxes paid by _each_
> > person, not by the whole group. The document you guys are wavnig around
> > does NOT measure true income. Furthermore, it says rich people pay most
> > (or a big chunk) of the taxes that are collected, and not anything else.
> > The statistic is meaningless.
>
> So you think taxes should be calculated on gross income rather than net
> income? You don't like the thought of more people being more successful?
> I suppose that if it showed the rich paid a small fraction of all income
> tax, it would be meaningful? The point _was_ that as you say, "rich
> people pay most (or a big chunk) of the taxes that are collected". I find
> that very meaningful.
>
> -Doug

Doug,

You're getting muddy.


>

Al Reid wrote:

> I agree that spending is completely out of control. Fortunately, a
> rising economy and lower taxes will help to bring things back into
> balance.

Now there's a Nobel-prize worthy statement! You should print it, frame it,
and put it on your wall. Then practise it in your own home, and hire a
good bankruptcy lawyer.

You gotta love self-delusion.

--
gabriel

Renata <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> The question is, can anyone disagree with these facts?
>
> for example, something not well advertised beyond stating that the tax
> cuts are NOT only for the wealthy:
>
> "88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on
> their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and
> dividends taxes"

2 questions: what % saved more than $100 from ALL the tax cuts? What %
of taxes did that 88% pay in the first place?
>
> Additionally,
>
> "$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to
> enjoy this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends
> taxes

Question: how much is the average Bush cabinet member expected to pay
in taxes this year?

> $42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001

Question: How much federal income tax will the average household
making $42,228 pay this year?

>
> $116,000: Amount Vice-President Cheney is expected to save each year
> in taxes

Question: How much in taxes is Dick Cheney expected to pay this year?

> 44%: Percentage of Americans who believe the President's economic
> growth plan will mostly benefit the wealthy"

Question: What percentage believe that taxes are mostly paid by those
they describe as wealthy?

> Can anyone dispute these? Can anyone tell us why they're so enamoured
> of these tax cuts that are so extraordinarily helpful to y'all? Or is
> this quite the elite group, on par with the Cabinet?

I wouldn't try to dispute the stats given, because they certainly seem
OK to me. I will dispute how they are contrived to try to give weight
to your viewpoint that the evil rich aren't giving you enough of their
money.

> Renata

Dave Hall

Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote in message >
>
> From OMB figures for 2004 (as a percent of federal budget):
> Social Security, Medicare, Other Mandatory: 55.4%
> Non-Defense Discretionary: 19.2%
> Defense 17.5%
> Net Interest 7.9%
>
>

Someone please explain what government spending is "mandatory". I
don't remember any specific government programs or spending being
delineated in the Constitution. I do believe that it is ALL
discreationary - certainly Social Security and Medicare is. I do
however believe that many a politician refers to welfare programs for
the "poor" as "entitlements" and I know that they all see corporate
welfare as an "entitlement" in order to keep their jobs.

Dave Hall

Doug Winterburn wrote:


> It points out that they are doing more than their fair share. I hope
> the trend of more and more people migrating to higher income brackets
> continues, in fact the more millionaires, the better. That's what
> this country is all about.

Therein lies the disagreement. I would measure "fair share" by the
percentage of TRUE gross income that is paid in taxes paid by _each_
person, not by the whole group. The document you guys are wavnig around
does NOT measure true income. Furthermore, it says rich people pay most
(or a big chunk) of the taxes that are collected, and not anything else.
The statistic is meaningless.

--
gabriel

"Renata" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

<snip>

> Spending might be out of control, but I don't think too much of it is
> actually going for "social programs". Though they certainly are
> trying to give that impression w/their words. Looking at actualy
> dollars might tell a different story. e.g. the $24 billion for pork
> projects in the current omnibus funding bill - an all time record far
> surpassing the past pork allocations.
>
> Renata

From the most recent chart I could find from 2001, the breakdown is as
follows:

Social Security: 23%
Medicare: 12%
Medicaid: 7%
Other Entitlements: 6%

There's 48% of the budget that goes to social programs, assuming there isn't
more in the 6% described as "other mandatory".

I would agree that all of the politicians in DC are too free with spending
out money.

todd

> >>A less slanted article would have also included
> >>statistics showing our economic improvement, the reconstruction of
Iraq's
> >>infrastructure and its brave new political system, etc.
> >
> >
> > As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
> > reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement".

Sincere sympathy, but you are a pretty small sample.

The dollar is
> > through the floor, the deficit is enormous and all your manufacturing
> > base are belong to China.

I've seen quite a bit of economic improvement, but perhaps I'm looking in
different places than you. You are correct that the deficit is enormous, as
it was during the Reagan administration. Then, however, we we were fighting
Communism. (Whether we needed to or not.) The Bush tax cut and the cost of
the war will saddle us with interest for years to come, since
borrow-and-spend is so popular and the public doesn't care just so long as
their taxes go down.
All my manufacturing base are not belong to China, but isn't that a great
way to integrate that country into the world economy and lead them toward
capitalism?


> > Iraq has almost no infrastructure. Now I'm hardly surprised by this -
> > we've just fought a war through the place. I hope they will have one
> > soon, and I have faith that many well-intentioned soldiers are doing
> > their damnedest to assist this.
> >
> > Neither does Iraq have a "brave new political system". It has protests
> > on the streets against a US-led war to bring "democracy", where this
> > appears to be US-selected non-elected placemen.

If irony is beyond you, the rest of my post would have been unintelligible
also.

> >>I am not a fan of
> >>Bush nor am I defending him, but that article does not represent
American
> >>opinion, merely British.
> >
> >
> > I wouldn't say that article represents anyone's opinion. It's a
> > collection of isolated facts that doesn't look anything like the
> > "opinion" of either a "My President, right or wrong" Blairite, or a
> > "Make noise, not war" Spartist.

The mere selection of which facts to present represents a point of view. Nor
are they isolated--they are carefully chosen to represent, as a group, a
very specific opinion--that United States policies are wrong.

> > Nor is the Indie a British tabloid. No tits, no royals, no soapstars.
> > If anyone can see a single erroneous figure in that list, then please
> > correct it so that we may all learn.

The issue is clearly NOT whether any single fact is wrong, but rather
whether they collectively misrepresent American public opinion, as the
original poster inquired. They do not, since our opinions are widely varied.

Noel Hegan wrote:

> Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy?

Title says it all.

Noel Hegan wrote:

To be fair, the last statistic says it all.

To about half of this country Bush and those people are an embarrassment
and would agree with the tenor of the article. The other half don't know
any better and would agree with anything they're told.

Mark & Juanita wrote:

>
> How much do you think is their fair share? According to IRS reports,
> the top 10% of wage earners pay 65% of income taxes, while they only
> earn 43% of all income. The top 5% of wage earners pay 53% of income
> taxes while earning only 32% of all income.



Is that what they actually pay, or is that what they owe
before their accountants start their work?

Also, your figures don't state what percentage of income
these wage earners pay in taxes.

These 'figures' you've posted really mean nothing. Their a
small part of the story. I see them as misleading.




--

Mark

N.E. Ohio


Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart.
(S. Clemens, A.K.A. Mark Twain)

When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure
ends the suspense. (Gaz, r.moto)

"Dave Mundt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Well, many numbers there. I have a few thoughts, though.
> 0) Cash to a politician is like crack to an addict.
> There is never enough of it, and, they WILL sell their
> sister or mother into prostitution to get more of it.

No doubt about this one.

> 1) To them that much has been given, of them,
> much will be required.

For most of these people, they've worked very hard for what they have and
not had it "given" to them.

> 2) If a class of people is acquiring 90% of
> the total income, is it not fairer that they
> pay 90% of the taxes.

Works for me. So you're advocating a tax cut for the top 1%?

> Regards
> Dave Mundt

todd

"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
> > Noel Hegan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > : This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> > : to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> > : how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> > : administration and the US economy?
> >
> >
> > It's a better representation that the typical US media, which are skewed
> > heavily toward conservatism, and the consequent uncritical coverage of
> > the Bush administration. (Thos of you who believe in the myth of the
> > american liberal media, jump in here now).
> >
> However, the media continues, in every instance, whenever Haliburton is
> mentioned in a news story, "the company was formerly headed by Vice
> President Cheney despite the fact that Cheney gave up all ownership of
> Haliburton when he started running for VP.

Did they not say "formerly"??? Do you really think that he has no
connection with this company anymore??? When Fox news channel has to tell
me that they have "fair and balanced" reporting, it is obvious that those
days are long gone. Just look at the ownership of so many of these stations
and it is obvious that they have become quite conservative in nature. BTW,
how many news stories appeared about Clinton and Whitewater and the Monica
affair compared to Bush and the BS intelligence reports that sent us to war
or even the Presidents shady military career.


--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving

The way a set of 'facts' are presented can absolutely be biased to
reflect the presenter's opinion. Yes, they are facts, they just don't
tell the complete story. If I showed a few 'facts' about Brit
crossdressers, it could be made to look as if the whole country was a
bunch of gay flamers. Mark

Andy Dingley wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:14:49 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>>A less slanted article would have also included
>>statistics showing our economic improvement, the reconstruction of Iraq's
>>infrastructure and its brave new political system, etc.
>
>
> As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
> reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement". The dollar is
> through the floor, the deficit is enormous and all your manufacturing
> base are belong to China.
>
> Iraq has almost no infrastructure. Now I'm hardly surprised by this -
> we've just fought a war through the place. I hope they will have one
> soon, and I have faith that many well-intentioned soldiers are doing
> their damnedest to assist this.
>
> Neither does Iraq have a "brave new political system". It has protests
> on the streets against a US-led war to bring "democracy", where this
> appears to be US-selected non-elected placemen.
>
> The US government _hates_ democracy. Democracy keeps giving the wrong
> answer, so America has to depose the freshly-elected popular leader.
> As democracy in a united Iraq would almost certainly give power to a
> Shia majority, this would lead to rapprochment with Iraq and
> everything that America is most scared of. America's best hope for a
> permissible democracy in Iraq is to Balkanize it (in the original
> sense of the term) into federal states where no one state can dominate
> the others. And then try to mollify Turkey when they have a US-created
> Kurdistan on the doorstep.
>
>
>>I am not a fan of
>>Bush nor am I defending him, but that article does not represent American
>>opinion, merely British.
>
>
> I wouldn't say that article represents anyone's opinion. It's a
> collection of isolated facts that doesn't look anything like the
> "opinion" of either a "My President, right or wrong" Blairite, or a
> "Make noise, not war" Spartist.
>
> Nor is the Indie a British tabloid. No tits, no royals, no soapstars.
> If anyone can see a single erroneous figure in that list, then please
> correct it so that we may all learn.
>
>
> --
> Socialism: Eric, not Tony

It's like the old saying -- "There are lies, damn lies ... and statistics".
:-)


I don't think the article was an attempt to represent American opinion. I
think it was pointing out information. As far as whether most Americans
would be nooding or shaking their heads when they read the information is
debatable.

As the national politicians are well aware, the country is very evenly split
between Democrats and Republicans these days. The party that wins the
presidency is the one that doesn't lose it's members to a 3rd party
candidate. (Perot & Buchanon during Clinton years & Nadar during Bush).

Bush has to hype terrorism because that's his angle for keeping Republicans
in line (and you can be sure that events will lead to it being center stage
come the next election). How else can Bush keep conservatives voting for him
when he shows no fiscal responsibility with his deficit spending, greatly
increases the intrusion of the federal government through federal education
programs and medicine entitlements, does nothing to protect blue collar jobs
or discourage overseas outsourcing, and throws open American borders to
illegal immigration in order to pander to the hispanic vote?








"Noel Hegan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy? This is not in anyway a political
> post,I've just an interest in world affairs.
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
> Rgds
>
> Noel
>
> noel dot hegan at virgin dot net

"Andy Dingley" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
> reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement". The dollar is
> through the floor, the deficit is enormous and all your manufacturing
> base are belong to China.

This reminds me of the complaints about the stock market. When Republican
presidents were concerned about the market when it was up, they were
pandering to the rich. More recently, when the market was down, liberals
want something done to bring it back up for all of the 401Ks. Similarly, I
don't remember ever hearing any meaningful discussion about the dollar in
the last 10 years. Now that's it's down, the dollar is "through the floor".
Here's a question: what is China's factory output for US-bound goods
compared to the output of US factories? Should be an easy figure to get to
back up your assertion that all our manufacturing base are belong (sic) to
China.

> Iraq has almost no infrastructure. Now I'm hardly surprised by this -
> we've just fought a war through the place. I hope they will have one
> soon, and I have faith that many well-intentioned soldiers are doing
> their damnedest to assist this.
>
> Neither does Iraq have a "brave new political system". It has protests
> on the streets against a US-led war to bring "democracy", where this
> appears to be US-selected non-elected placemen.

How many protests were there when Saddam was in power? I guess everything
was fine then and there was nothing to protest.

> The US government _hates_ democracy. Democracy keeps giving the wrong
> answer, so America has to depose the freshly-elected popular leader.
> As democracy in a united Iraq would almost certainly give power to a
> Shia majority, this would lead to rapprochment with Iraq and
> everything that America is most scared of. America's best hope for a
> permissible democracy in Iraq is to Balkanize it (in the original
> sense of the term) into federal states where no one state can dominate
> the others. And then try to mollify Turkey when they have a US-created
> Kurdistan on the doorstep.

You're right. I forgot that there was an election recently in Iraq where
Saddam received 99.9% of the popular vote. So are you saying we won't allow
elections to take place? I thought I just heard that the US has asked the
UN for help in studying how quickly elections can be held (a task the the UN
is, at least, marginally qualified to handle).

> >I am not a fan of
> >Bush nor am I defending him, but that article does not represent American
> >opinion, merely British.
>
> I wouldn't say that article represents anyone's opinion. It's a
> collection of isolated facts that doesn't look anything like the
> "opinion" of either a "My President, right or wrong" Blairite, or a
> "Make noise, not war" Spartist.
>
> Nor is the Indie a British tabloid. No tits, no royals, no soapstars.
> If anyone can see a single erroneous figure in that list, then please
> correct it so that we may all learn.

My answer to many of these "statistics" would be "so what?". The number of
funerals that the President has attended? What do you want? The President
to go and invade some poor serviceman's funeral? I'm sure if our previous
President was here, he'd find a way to get in there for a photo-op and "feel
their pain". The year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair
of golden spurs? Who gives a damn if Saddam was a friend of the US 21 years
ago? As Lord Chamberlain once stated (I may be paraphrasing a bit), there
are no permanent allies, only permanent interests. Apparently, there's a
nice photo of Wesley Clark being chummy with Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic,
an indicted war criminal. This happened just 10 years ago. Should Gen
Clark be prevented from seeking office? 88% of American citizens will save
less than $100 on their taxes? There's a bogus statistic. How many of
these don't pay any taxes in the first place? And gee...fewer people
approve of the President's job approval now than 2 weeks after 9/11? No
kidding. Maybe if we could change another statistic "Number of times
President Clinton was offered Osama Bin Laden and refused", we wouldn't have
had a 9/11. I could go on, but I think you get the drift.

> Socialism: Eric, not Tony

todd

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:34:07 +0000, Mark wrote:

>
> Is that what they actually pay, or is that what they owe
> before their accountants start their work?
>
> Also, your figures don't state what percentage of income
> these wage earners pay in taxes.
>
> These 'figures' you've posted really mean nothing. Their a
> small part of the story. I see them as misleading.

In an attempt to lead a horse to water, try here:

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html

I know you don't want to believe the information you will find here, but
try to open your eyes.

-Doug

Al Reid wrote:

>> Cammon you know you are comparing apples to oranges. The numbers you
>> gave are not percentages of income paid as taxes. Actually, though,
>> I do pay a higher percentage of my earnings than the top 1%, as shown
>> above...
> You are misreading the data!!! That is, the top 1% of tax payers are
> payong 35.9% of the burdon, NOT paying an effective tax rat of 35.9%.

I meant as shown above on my statement: "In other words, on paper, the
top 1% earned $1402B, and paid $361B in taxes, or 26%."

--
gabriel

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 03:54:27 +0000, Mark & Juanita wrote:


>
> Doug,
>
> You're getting muddy.

I know, I'll try to wash if off :-)

Renata wondered openly...>
> Can anyone dispute these? Can anyone tell us why they're so enamoured
> of these tax cuts that are so extraordinarily helpful to y'all? Or is
> this quite the elite group, on par with the Cabinet?
>
> Renata
>

Renata, the fact of the matter is that a small percentage of the
population pays for most of the burden for all of us. It is only
natural they will see a bigger benefit from cuts. How could it be
otherwise? Also, capital gains only occur in years in which you
liquidate assets, so using a percentage of the population being below
a given level doesn't make sense. Al Gore hummed this tired tune to
defeat four years ago. Been there, done that.

Also, I noticed one "fact" that was not accurate, there may be more.
George Bush never executed anyone as Governor of Texas. The author
was either uninformed, careless, or deviant, but the Governor of Texas
has very limited involvement in capital punishment. I believe the
most he can do is instistute a stay of execution, which automatically
expires after a predetermined period of time. Therefore, the
inclusion of this statistic is clearly intellectually dishonest, as is
most of the article.

Don't be a tool, think for yourself.

Joe

I'm not a big fan of Bush, but that is NOT representative of mainstream
opinion.

"Noel Hegan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy? This is not in anyway a political
> post,I've just an interest in world affairs.
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
> Rgds
>
> Noel
>
> noel dot hegan at virgin dot net

"mel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> (tapping on the desktop wondering if I really want to get involved in this
> thread....awww...what the heck..)
>
> no numbers or percentages...no demand for fairness...just an
> observation...if I wasn't working for a rich man I probably wouldn't be
> working.

Something I've learned in my years on this earth,
not everyone is like you.

Dennis Vogel

"Doug Winterburn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> The information you don't want to believe is in this document:
>
> http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00inrate.pdf
>
> You will observe that the top income earners are paying a higher and
> higher percentage of total income tax over time.

It's supposed to be that way. Our tax system is
designed to be progressive.

Dennis Vogel

"Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > > As someone who was laid off from a large US corporate during Bush's
> > > reign, I'm not seeing much "economic improvement".
>
> Sincere sympathy, but you are a pretty small sample.

Yeah, but the other couple million simply haven't
posted here. Trust me, they're out there.

Dennis Vogel

"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Only a few fall into that category, defense being one. I believe a
> significant number of items would cause the founders to scream in
> anguish if they realized what politicians were doing with OPM (other
> peoples' money).

Well, what then would they make of the current crop
of politicians who are doing things with BORROWED
money? If they'd return "our money" to us as they like
to say that's be one thing. But, as it is, they're giving
us money that will come out of the pockets of your kids
and grandkids. The FF would sh*t a brick over that
I venture to say.

Dennis Vogel

Noel Hegan <[email protected]> wrote:
: This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
: to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
: how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
: administration and the US economy?


It's a better representation that the typical US media, which are skewed
heavily toward conservatism, and the consequent uncritical coverage of
the Bush administration. (Thos of you who believe in the myth of the
american liberal media, jump in here now).

-- Andy Barss

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> I do. With more income (rising economy) and lower taxes, there is
> more in my paycheck for me to do with as _I_ wish. I wonder why some
> people find this concept so hard to grasp?

Because people say "spending" when they mean government spending, not
people spending money to buy things.

Blah! whatever.

--
gabriel

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:07:39 +0000, gabriel wrote:


> Nah, you can set up a fund, or a c-corp that "holds" money until later.
> For example, you make $2M, but you need only $500K to live confortably...
> So you take $500K in paychecks direct to you, the rest goes to the corp.
> The corp pays 8% tax when it gets the $1.5M (much less than you would
> pay), and then you do your investments through the corp, using the $1.5
> from the corp, but never putting directly in your name. when you buy
> your $200K Bentley, the corp buys it for your use, for example. Then you
> hire a good loophole artist that will maximize this scheme (and exploit
> other schemes as well, all legal) so that you only take as little as
> possible in your name (and in your income tax rate). At the end of the
> day, you directly own nothing, but control everything, and earn _very_
> little in your name. Of course, you only made $500K to the IRS eye, even
> though the real number was $2M.

I'm afraid the federal and state corporate tax rates are a touch higher
than 8%:

http://www.meocpa.com/corprate.html
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/corp_inc.html

Near as I can tell, you'd be paying up to 44% depending on the State.

-Doug

SteveC1280 wrote:

> I was in Europe last week and met with people of several
> nationalities, including the UK. I was struck with the impression
> that the people were completely mis-informed and had no access to, or
> didn't care about the truth. Now I know why.

That's of course assuming that _you_ are informed and know the truth (The
USA has CNN, right?!?!? :-) )... Your attitude is typical of why
foreigners hate Americans.

I do not mean to put you down, but how can you expect people in other
countries to know as much about life in the USA as you? How can you be
sure you are in the know and the others are not?

Most importantly, why should a foreigner care more about the USA than
Americans? It's always puzzling to see that many, many American people
act as of the world is there to serve us, and of course, we complain when
they fail us? <*sigh*>

--
gabriel

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Al Reid wrote:
>
> > You have proven yourself totally ignorant of the realities of
> > economics. The concept of lower taxes works even in Russia where thay
> > have abandoned an antiquated progressive system with a low flat tax.
> > The result? Higher revenues. Here is just one of many articals on
> > it. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba452/
>
> Well no crap, that's why we should have flat tax too, make the upper
> echelon pay their fair share. We agree on this 100%
>

How much do you think is their fair share? According to IRS reports,
the top 10% of wage earners pay 65% of income taxes, while they only
earn 43% of all income. The top 5% of wage earners pay 53% of income
taxes while earning only 32% of all income. The top 50% of all wage
earners pay 96% of all taxes, while earning 86% of all the income. At
what point are you going to be satisfied that the upper echelon is
paying their "fair" share?

Al Reid wrote:

> Peanuts? In 2001 the:
> Top 10% Paid 68.2% of Federal Taxes
> Top 5% Paid 56.6%
> Top 1% Paid 35.9%

Ah, and you bring up a common fallacy when looking at the issue this way:
This does NOT suggest that the rich (or high-earners, more appropriately)
pay their fair share of taxes, it merely shows what the numbers of paid
taxes add up to. Where's the column for pre-deduction gross income?

In other words, on paper, the top 1% earned $1402B, and paid $361B in
taxes, or 26%. This seems fair at first glance, doesn't it? What the
numbers do not show, is what the true raw income is of that top 1%. The
$1402B number is _after_ all the loopholes and deductions (ie, charitable
donations to their own non-profits), and also after all attempts to
divert earnings through other channels (corporations, off-shore, etc...).

There is an entire mechanism in place to keep the numbers you gave as
they are: Giving the impression that the rich pay their fair share. Tax
shelters, finance organizers, loophole artists/consultants, etc... they
were even highlighted on a recent issue of BusinessWeek, ironically, one
of the loophole artists highlighted in the article made a call for the
loopholes to be closed!

> How would you like to pay the same percentage of your income in taxes?

Cammon you know you are comparing apples to oranges. The numbers you
gave are not percentages of income paid as taxes. Actually, though, I do
pay a higher percentage of my earnings than the top 1%, as shown above...

--
gabriel

Doug Winterburn wrote:

> You will observe that the top income earners are paying a higher and
> higher percentage of total income tax over time.

... a statistic you will find to be much less meaningful than the
percentage of taxes paid on declared income. You have to calculate this
yourself from the same document.

What does this statistic prove, anyway: "the top income earners are paying
a higher and higher percentage of total income tax over time." I cannot
find a significance other than "there are lot of rich people in the USA."

--
gabriel

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Noel Hegan <[email protected]> wrote:
> : This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> : to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> : how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> : administration and the US economy?
>
>
> It's a better representation that the typical US media, which are skewed
> heavily toward conservatism, and the consequent uncritical coverage of
> the Bush administration. (Thos of you who believe in the myth of the
> american liberal media, jump in here now).
>

With you Andy, it wouldn't do any good. When the media starts writing
stories about Enron that include the words, "whose actions were
implemented during the Clinton administration" you will have a point.
However, the media continues, in every instance, whenever Haliburton is
mentioned in a news story, "the company was formerly headed by Vice
President Cheney despite the fact that Cheney gave up all ownership of
Haliburton when he started running for VP.

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:23:05 +0000, gabriel wrote:

> Therein lies the disagreement. I would measure "fair share" by the
> percentage of TRUE gross income that is paid in taxes paid by _each_
> person, not by the whole group. The document you guys are wavnig around
> does NOT measure true income. Furthermore, it says rich people pay most
> (or a big chunk) of the taxes that are collected, and not anything else.
> The statistic is meaningless.

So you think taxes should be calculated on gross income rather than net
income? You don't like the thought of more people being more successful?
I suppose that if it showed the rich paid a small fraction of all income
tax, it would be meaningful? The point _was_ that as you say, "rich
people pay most (or a big chunk) of the taxes that are collected". I find
that very meaningful.

-Doug

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:26:08 -0500, "Walker" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Bush has to hype terrorism because that's his angle for keeping Republicans
>in line (and you can be sure that events will lead to it being center stage
>come the next election).

Maybe Osama's Evil Plan is to _not_ attack America during the election
campaign ? It's the most damage he could do to Bush.

The absolute best thing for the Bush campaign is a car bomb against
disposable American grunts (and preferably a cute blonde BAM or two)
somewhere foreign, a day before the vote. It would give him a a
landslide.

(cont. conspiracy_theories/maine ...)

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:56:27 -0500, Renata <[email protected]>
brought forth from the murky depths:

>Except that businesses, while continuing to be quite profitable, are
>often cutting jobs in droves. But not executive pay. The gap

Ditto here in Oregon. Over 150 managers and other top execs get
in excess of NINE weeks paid vacation each year. Instead of scaling
it back, they cut funding to schools (and other infrastructure) and
lay off lesser workers; all while putting forward a bill to increase
personal income tax to cover the difference. Not one sacrifice has
been made by the government and it's pissing everyone off.

Our federal gov't is the same way.


>Spending might be out of control, but I don't think too much of it is
>actually going for "social programs". Though they certainly are
>trying to give that impression w/their words. Looking at actualy
>dollars might tell a different story. e.g. the $24 billion for pork
>projects in the current omnibus funding bill - an all time record far
>surpassing the past pork allocations.

I hadn't seen recent pork stats so IDAGS and came up with this
startling doc http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm377.cfm
And those are just 100 of the 10,000 FY 2004 pork projects.
UnFreakin'Believable.

Here's an eyecatcher:
$1,000,000 Transylvania Community Hospital,NC
(Must be blood donor research, eh?)

If they needed money, why remove the toll booths?
$1,000,000 Hal Rogers Parkway, KY

Thanks for the Heads-Up.


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On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:11:54 +0000, gabriel wrote:

> Al Reid wrote:
>
>> I agree that spending is completely out of control. Fortunately, a
>> rising economy and lower taxes will help to bring things back into
>> balance.
>
> Now there's a Nobel-prize worthy statement! You should print it, frame it,
> and put it on your wall. Then practise it in your own home, and hire a
> good bankruptcy lawyer.
>

I do. With more income (rising economy) and lower taxes, there is more in
my paycheck for me to do with as _I_ wish. I wonder why some people find
this concept so hard to grasp?

-Doug

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:37:41 +0000, gabriel wrote:

>
> LOL, I'm sounding like a para-revolutionary idiot!

On this, I agree.

-Doug

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Sweetie, I don't need the rich's money, whether they're evil or not
> (though, hey, if someone's handing out spare bags of cash, count me
> in).
>
> But, we can't afford to be giving money to the rich,

GIVE MONEY TO THE RICH!!!????? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The
government ain't printing cash and mailing it in bags to the "rich". It
is simply taking less of the money that they have earned.

Here's a statistic for you in the same flavor as the more than slightly
biased article that started this fest:

% of wage earners paying 65% of federal income taxes: 10%. That's
right 10% of wage earners are paying well above half of all income
taxes.

% of wage earners paying 96% of federal income taxes: 50% Of course
the lower wage earners aren't getting "big" tax breaks, they don't pay
much of the tax to begin with.

> a token pfenning
> to the rest (so a claim can be made that all share in the tax cut),
> while increasing spending out the wazoo and shelling out big bucks for
> a couple of foreign skirmishes.
>
> Notice that all the states are doing all kinds of "fund raising" (like
> increasing state income tax, adding all kinds of fees, etc.) to make
> up for shortfalls, and these burdens have much more impact on the
> normal everyday worker, who's enjoying his 100 tax cut and shelling
> out a few hundred back to the states and localities.
>

So keeping federal taxes high is going to help this how?

"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > todd
>
>
> From OMB figures for 2004 (as a percent of federal budget):
> Social Security, Medicare, Other Mandatory: 55.4%
> Non-Defense Discretionary: 19.2%
> Defense 17.5%
> Net Interest 7.9%

The interesting part of that is that the percentage of the budget spent to
service the debt went down from 11% in the year I was looking at to about 8%
in 2004.

todd

We should not be cutting revenue intake at the same time we are
shoveling money out the door.

Renata

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 02:54:20 GMT, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>> Sweetie, I don't need the rich's money, whether they're evil or not
>> (though, hey, if someone's handing out spare bags of cash, count me
>> in).
>>
>> But, we can't afford to be giving money to the rich,
>
>GIVE MONEY TO THE RICH!!!????? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The
>government ain't printing cash and mailing it in bags to the "rich". It
>is simply taking less of the money that they have earned.
>
>Here's a statistic for you in the same flavor as the more than slightly
>biased article that started this fest:
>
> % of wage earners paying 65% of federal income taxes: 10%. That's
>right 10% of wage earners are paying well above half of all income
>taxes.
>
> % of wage earners paying 96% of federal income taxes: 50% Of course
>the lower wage earners aren't getting "big" tax breaks, they don't pay
>much of the tax to begin with.
>
>> a token pfenning
>> to the rest (so a claim can be made that all share in the tax cut),
>> while increasing spending out the wazoo and shelling out big bucks for
>> a couple of foreign skirmishes.
>>
>> Notice that all the states are doing all kinds of "fund raising" (like
>> increasing state income tax, adding all kinds of fees, etc.) to make
>> up for shortfalls, and these burdens have much more impact on the
>> normal everyday worker, who's enjoying his 100 tax cut and shelling
>> out a few hundred back to the states and localities.
>>
>
> So keeping federal taxes high is going to help this how?

Sweetie, I don't need the rich's money, whether they're evil or not
(though, hey, if someone's handing out spare bags of cash, count me
in).

But, we can't afford to be giving money to the rich, a token pfenning
to the rest (so a claim can be made that all share in the tax cut),
while increasing spending out the wazoo and shelling out big bucks for
a couple of foreign skirmishes.

Notice that all the states are doing all kinds of "fund raising" (like
increasing state income tax, adding all kinds of fees, etc.) to make
up for shortfalls, and these burdens have much more impact on the
normal everyday worker, who's enjoying his 100 tax cut and shelling
out a few hundred back to the states and localities.

Renata
On 20 Jan 2004 13:28:24 -0800, [email protected] (David Hall)
wrote:

>Renata <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>> The question is, can anyone disagree with these facts?
>>
--snip--
>I wouldn't try to dispute the stats given, because they certainly seem
>OK to me. I will dispute how they are contrived to try to give weight
>to your viewpoint that the evil rich aren't giving you enough of their
>money.
>
>> Renata
>
>Dave Hall

smart, not dumb for email

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:08:06 GMT, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:

>If I showed a few 'facts' about Brit
>crossdressers, it could be made to look as if the whole country was a
>bunch of gay flamers.

What "facts" though ? I know plenty of British crossdressers. The
only gay ones though are two of the women. Of the gay men I know, not
one is a crossdresser.

And the only monkey I know is lactose-intolerant and can't eat cheese
without getting a dose of the squitters. It probably would surrender
while incapacitated though.

Found this and it explains a few things better than I could. This is
not an isolated interpretation of where this country may be headed.

Renata



By Daniel N. Shaviro, Newsday

What's the difference between Pete Rose and the George W. Bush
administration?

The main one is that at least Pete Rose has admitted he had a
compulsion and promises that if reinstated he will not act on it
again. You may believe him or not, but admission is a necessary first
step.

The Bush administration isn't hooked on sports gambling. Instead, what
it likes to do is spend money in wild binges while also constantly
cutting taxes and pretending that nothing has to be paid for.

Eighty-seven billion dollars for a year in Iraq, with the occupation
expected by many to continue indefinitely? No problem.

A new Medicare prescription drug benefit, with no financing and an
estimated long-term cost of $12 trillion, or more than our entire
economy produces in a year? Why not?



A permanent space station on the moon, plus manned trips to Mars
within a decade? Sounds expensive, but who's counting?

Repeal any of the Bush tax cuts of the last few years? Unthinkable.

The administration is also, at long last, facing something akin to the
baseball commissioner, albeit lacking his powers: The International
Monetary Fund. The IMF - long the scourge of political leaders from
Brazil to Kenya to Indonesia for its insistence on budget discipline -
has now trained its sights on American policy. The IMF notes that,
within a few years, our trade debts to the rest of the world may
exceed 40 percent of the size of our economy - and this before the
Baby Boomers' retirement puts our budget even more massively and
permanently in the red. It warns that our ever-expanding budget and
trade deficits and national debt endanger not just our own economy,
but worldwide economic growth.

Only, unlike in Brazil or Kenya, the IMF cannot threaten to pull the
plug on us, because there is no plug to pull. We have not borrowed
money from the IMF, or at least not yet. Keeping the Bush
administration's budget policies in place would make about as much
sense as letting Pete Rose manage the Cincinnati Reds again and bet on
their games as much as he likes. What happens if the federal debt
keeps growing and growing, with no end in sight?

A recent Congressional Budget Office report lays out this scenario:
"Foreign investors could stop investing in U.S. securities, the
exchange value of the dollar could plunge (as is already happening),
interest rates could climb, consumer prices could shoot up, or the
economy could contract sharply.

"Amid the anticipation of declining profits and rising inflation and
interest rates, stock markets could collapse and consumers might
suddenly reduce their consumption."

Now for the bad news: That is only Step 1. At some point, if the
United States continues to increase spending while cutting taxes, the
government may no longer be able to sell enough bonds at any
reasonable interest rate. At that point, with seniors clamoring for
their Social Security and Medicare benefits and tax increases a
political third rail, the temptation to keep things going a bit longer
by printing money may become irresistible.

The Congressional Budget Office therefore feels compelled to point out
that this would "lead to hyperinflation (as happened in Germany in the
1920s, Hungary in the 1940s, Argentina in the 1980s, and Yugoslavia in
the 1990s)." Quite extraordinary company, even if it is just
hypothetical for now, for the world's largest economy and greatest
democracy to keep. Even Bush's chief economist, Gregory Mankiw, the
chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, has warned about this
scenario - although not, at least publicly, since taking office.

Back in 1995, when the debt and deficit picture was much more
innocuous than it is now, he warned about a capital market meltdown
involving the U.S. government and wrote that it is "hard to think
about because things can go wrong in such a rich variety of ways."

What is keeping us on this disastrous course? Three main things: The
first is the administration's total and reckless disregard for
elementary principles of fiscal probity. The second is the moral
failure of Republicans and conservative intellectuals who know better
but say nothing because they want to play on the team, or else care
just about the next election. And the third is the political cowardice
of Democrats who dare neither to challenge the Bush tax cuts head-on
nor to tell seniors that they cannot keep on getting ever-larger
government handouts.

As Pete Rose is learning, when you do something wrong it is not
necessarily enough to later come clean. But at least coming clean
about its disastrous budget policies would be a start for the Bush
administration, which continues to deny the undeniable.

Daniel N. Shaviro is a law professor at New York University and author
of "Making Sense of Social Security Reform."

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

smart, not dumb for email

The question is, can anyone disagree with these facts?

for example, something not well advertised beyond stating that the tax
cuts are NOT only for the wealthy:

"88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on
their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and
dividends taxes"

Additionally,

"$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to
enjoy this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends
taxes

$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001

$116,000: Amount Vice-President Cheney is expected to save each year
in taxes

44%: Percentage of Americans who believe the President's economic
growth plan will mostly benefit the wealthy"

Can anyone dispute these? Can anyone tell us why they're so enamoured
of these tax cuts that are so extraordinarily helpful to y'all? Or is
this quite the elite group, on par with the Cabinet?

Renata

On 20 Jan 2004 05:30:57 -0800, [email protected] (Noel
Hegan) wrote:

>This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
>to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
>how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
>administration and the US economy? This is not in anyway a political
>post,I've just an interest in world affairs.
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
>Rgds
>
>Noel
>
>noel dot hegan at virgin dot net

smart, not dumb for email

It reads like a typical British tabloid.

Bob S.


"Noel Hegan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction"
> to the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view
> how does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush
> administration and the US economy? This is not in anyway a political
> post,I've just an interest in world affairs.
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
> Rgds
>
> Noel
>
> noel dot hegan at virgin dot net

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:59:23 -0500, Renata <[email protected]> wrote:

>The question is, can anyone disagree with these facts?
>
>for example, something not well advertised beyond stating that the tax
>cuts are NOT only for the wealthy:
>
>"88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on
>their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and
>dividends taxes"
>
<<SNIP>>

I'm not going to take the time to point out all the logic faults in a =
bunch
of statistics compiled by a considerably biased "news" organization,
especially considering this is a woodworking group. But for example in =
the
above figure it isn't 88% of working Americans, or 88% of Americans aged
18-65 or any other meaningful statistic. Sure the 30% of Americans under
21 will save less than $100 due to a cut in the tax on capital gains, so
what? A large portion of the Americans over 85 will probably not save a
bunch either. =20

Davis Eichelberger

No, no, no. Now that we've captured Sadass, we're much safer, doncha
know

Renata

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 13:14:54 +0000, Andy Dingley
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Maybe Osama's Evil Plan is to _not_ attack America during the election
>campaign ? It's the most damage he could do to Bush.
>
>The absolute best thing for the Bush campaign is a car bomb against
>disposable American grunts (and preferably a cute blonde BAM or two)
>somewhere foreign, a day before the vote. It would give him a a
>landslide.
>
>(cont. conspiracy_theories/maine ...)

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:30:57 -0800, Noel Hegan wrote:

> This was on the front page of my newspaper today as a "introduction" to
> the Bush state of the nation speech. From an American point of view how
> does it read? Is it a true representation of the Bush administration and
> the US economy? This is not in anyway a political post,I've just an
> interest in world affairs.
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947
>
> Rgds
>
> Noel
>
> noel dot hegan at virgin dot net


I met an older woman in Denmark this past September. When the
conversation somehow turned to the Bush invasion of Iraq, she summarized
Mr. Bush quite succinctly: He is a catastrophe.

Unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Libya, etc, we get an
opportunity every 4 years to oust our "dictators". Bush's turn to move on
comes this November.

He is among the worst of presidents in modern history. He has done next
to nothing to make this country safer or more prosperous. He has been
part of an agenda from the moment he took office, and 9/11 gave him the
impetus to put that agenda into full swing. As you know, he continually
laid down ultimatums to Saddam and every time Saddam seemed to comply.
Tired of the apparent compliance, Bush decided to finally launch his
invasion based on doctored reports of weapons of mass destruction. None
have been found to date. Instead we now have more than 500 of our sons
and daughters, mothers and fathers returned in body bags. The Bush crowd
wants us to believe these young people did not die in vain but surrendered
their lives selfishly for the Bush doctrine of patriotism. Meanwhile
there are families mourning their losses and places at tables go empty
with only painfully sweet memories of the loved ones gone.

The economy is cyclic. Unfortunately it is showing signs of improving.
Bush, of course, is taking full credit and says it's because of his tax
cuts, cuts which favor the rich but leave the working American high and
dry.

If Bush weren't tragic enough, there are still too many Americans swept up
in his rhetoric and who still blindly support him without ever questioning
or challenging Bush.

What else do you want to know?

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:00:19 +0000, gabriel <[email protected]> brought
forth from the murky depths:

>As for internation awareness, how many Americans would you bet can point
>out the USA on a world map?

Let's see, 53% are Pro-Bush so that leaves a probable 47%
who might get lucky on a map.


--== May The Angst Be With You! ==--
-Yoda, on a bad day
--
http://diversify.com Ending Your Web Page Angst.

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 13:14:54 +0000, Andy Dingley
<[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:

>On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:26:08 -0500, "Walker" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Bush has to hype terrorism because that's his angle for keeping Republicans
>>in line (and you can be sure that events will lead to it being center stage
>>come the next election).
>
>Maybe Osama's Evil Plan is to _not_ attack America during the election
>campaign ? It's the most damage he could do to Bush.
>
>The absolute best thing for the Bush campaign is a car bomb against
>disposable American grunts (and preferably a cute blonde BAM or two)
>somewhere foreign, a day before the vote. It would give him a a
>landslide.

You say that as if you think it couldn't happen, Andy.


>(cont. conspiracy_theories/maine ...)

Do they have the 9/11 bombing as a bush re-election conspiracy, too?


--== May The Angst Be With You! ==--
-Yoda, on a bad day
--
http://diversify.com Ending Your Web Page Angst.

On 20 Jan 2004 15:12:15 GMT, SteveC1280 wrote:
>
> I was in Europe last week and met with people of several nationalities,
> including the UK. I was struck with the impression that the people were
> completely mis-informed and had no access to, or didn't care about the truth.
> Now I know why.

Stick with CNN, Fox and the rest. You can then have your opinions
served up to you and you'll find it a lot less painful.

I'm afraid in Europe we like to make our own minds up which is what
probably confused you.

--

Frank

http://www.freebsd.org/