Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
So sez Kate at Small Dead Animals…as she links to this.
It’s been this way for awhile, you know.
…[T]axpayers with the highest 400 AGIs (who made on average $345 million in 2007, the majority of which came from capital gains which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15%) were taxed at an average federal income tax rate of 16.62 percent, with effective tax rates within this group ranging from 0% to 35%.
These statistics signal a tax system that is not only progressive, but one that is convoluted and unfair.
I remember my liberal social studies teacher making the case for a progressive tax system. We had a conservative one and a liberal one, and they were fast friends with each other. This was some thirty years ago, you see. Different era. Anyway, the argument had something to do with a “waitress.” She needed every nickel to stay alive or something.
When I was in tenth grade, that did make some measure of sense to me. It still does. But there are prob-a-luhms you know…like…with all the social programs for which one becomes eligible when one earns only the bare minimum required to survive, can it truly be said that the bare minimum can be defined so starkly and so clearly? The necessities required for survival, after all, have much to do with what is offered to the eligible.
In fact, is anybody in America in danger of starving to death because their salaries & wages are too much on the skimpy side? Any kids with swollen bellies in American cities, desperately trying to catch rats & pigeons so their starving bodies can get some protein?
I shouldn’t be able to find any poor people with big teevee sets, right? Certainly, no poor people with teevee sets bigger than those owned by some of the “wealthy” taxpayers who subsidize them? Does my social studies teacher’s argument still hold water if the waitress’ kid wears $300 sneakers to school? What if the waitress has a $500 tattoo?
No, my point is not that everyone in the bottom 45% is able to afford such luxuries.
My point is that when some of them are…and that is undoubtedly the case…we are no longer talking about money required for survival. The necessities of survival have, in one way or another, been provided, thus freeing up the cash for these non-staple items. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that either. Other than this: Don’t characterize it as a discussion about what’s needed to survive, when that is not what we’re really talking about.
Also, 45% is awfully close to 50%. If half of us are not paying any income tax at all, and the matter being referred to the electorate is “should we provide more alms,” then the “we” in that question has lost all practical meaning. If it’s a minority among the electorate doing the providing the question becomes more like one of “should we make those guys over there give us more stuff?”
And we’re way too close to that situation in 2011.
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Sounds like you are promoting “No representation without taxation.”
- vulcanmom | 04/20/2011 @ 18:11Yup. It’s looking more and more like a failed experiment, from where I sit.
Although if I could pick out the motto myself, it would be more something like “put some goddamn skin in the game.” By the way, welcome.
- mkfreeberg | 04/20/2011 @ 18:16Taxing the grocer raises the price of groceries,taxing the landlord raises peoples
- kermitt | 04/21/2011 @ 09:09rent;low income people pay for the gov’t secondhand .”Tax the rich” is a way of hiding
the tax burden.We should be shouting about this:hello!dumasses! where do you think
that high income comes from?
It just floors me that so many people still make the argument that “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share”, and further aren’t being laughed out of the room when they make it.
Floors me.
- philmon | 04/21/2011 @ 10:13