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GoonSquad
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18 Sep 2012, 7:37 am

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnB0NZzl5HA[/youtube]

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Quote:
He was speaking after a secret video recording was posted on a website in which he was caught denigrating people who receive benefits from the government.

He went on suggest they could expect little help from him if he became president.

"My job is not to worry about those people," he said.

He added that all these government-dependent people would support Barack Obama.

The video was recorded a few months ago at a fund-raising event behind-closed-doors.


...

In his press conference, in California, Romney basically repeated the case he made in the video that the 47% dependent on the government would vote for Obama, though couched in slightly less inflammatory language. Obama's policies are "attractive to people who do not pay taxes", Romney said.





...but it's fine for millionaires who offshore jobs to pay less than the average middle class worker. :roll:


What a douche.


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ruveyn
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18 Sep 2012, 9:41 am

GoonSquad wrote:

...but it's fine for millionaires who offshore jobs to pay less than the average middle class worker. :roll:


What a douche.


When you go shopping do you buy at the lower price, all other things being equal? If so, how can you complain that someone wants to buy has labor at the lowest price, given that the labor so bought can deliver the goods.

Labor is a commodity. It is bought and sold in a market system.

ruveyn



Fnord
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18 Sep 2012, 9:47 am

Competition is fair, as long as there is a "Level Playing Field".

If the U.S. were to abolish the Minimum Wage, eliminate Collective Bargaining, and do away with OSHA's on-the-job health and safety standards, the Level Playing Field would be established, and fewer jobs would be outsourced to foreign countries.

Of course, if all the foreign workers would be unionized, paid a fair living wage, and never again work under sweat-shop conditions, that would also level the playing field.

Which is easier to accomplish?



ruveyn
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18 Sep 2012, 9:52 am

Fnord wrote:
Competition is fair, as long as there is a "Level Playing Field".



It is virtually impossible to establish by empirical means that opportunities are equalized. One can only observe results and outcomes. We can assume that impediments and regulations that do not seem to meet and observable needs are unnecessary and could be better eliminated.

why is that? Because.... people are not equal. There are smarter ones and less smart ones. There are energetic ones and less energetic ones. There are more focused people and less focused people and so on and so on..... There is little among humans were humans are equal. We are all mortal. That is no reason for putting us into Procrustes bed and stretching or squeezing us all to equal lengths.

I recommend you read the short novel -Harrison Bergeron- by Kurt Vonnegut sometime.

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GoonSquad
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18 Sep 2012, 10:00 am

The government has a mandate to promote the general welfare.

Racing to the bottom does not accomplish this. It only lines the pockets of Mitt and his rich pals.

We need to demand higher standards from countries who want access to our markets.

I live in a region with 6.2% unemployment and 17% poverty. These people are not lazy welfare sponges, they are the working poor--soon to be the average Americans--that Romney holds in contempt.

The sacred job creators are already turning America into a 3rd world hellhole and a Romney presidency would only speed the process along.

There are greedy parasites in the US today, but they aren't the poor.... :roll:


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ruveyn
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18 Sep 2012, 10:02 am

GoonSquad wrote:
The government has a mandate to promote the general welfare.

l:


One man's general welfare is another man's taking care of his Cronies. There is no general welfare. There is my welfare and your welfare. General Welfare is the battle cry of armed charity thugs ready to stick their greasy hand in your pocket.

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GoonSquad
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18 Sep 2012, 10:11 am

ruveyn wrote:
GoonSquad wrote:
The government has a mandate to promote the general welfare.

l:


One man's general welfare is another man's taking care of his Cronies. There is no general welfare. There is my welfare and your welfare. General Welfare is the battle cry of armed charity thugs ready to stick their greasy hand in your pocket.

ruveyn


If that's what we've devolved to..... Sounds like the Polybian cycle is nearly complete.


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marshall
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18 Sep 2012, 11:57 am

GoonSquad wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
GoonSquad wrote:
The government has a mandate to promote the general welfare.

l:


One man's general welfare is another man's taking care of his Cronies. There is no general welfare. There is my welfare and your welfare. General Welfare is the battle cry of armed charity thugs ready to stick their greasy hand in your pocket.

ruveyn


If that's what we've devolved to..... Sounds like the Polybian cycle is nearly complete.


If I was a religious person I'd be building an arc waiting for the next big flood. Wipe out this scourge if greedy myopic imbeciles. Humanity is done, finished. We're totally f****d.



marshall
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18 Sep 2012, 12:15 pm

GoonSquad wrote:
The government has a mandate to promote the general welfare.

Racing to the bottom does not accomplish this. It only lines the pockets of Mitt and his rich pals.

We need to demand higher standards from countries who want access to our markets.

I live in a region with 6.2% unemployment and 17% poverty. These people are not lazy welfare sponges, they are the working poor--soon to be the average Americans--that Romney holds in contempt.

The sacred job creators are already turning America into a 3rd world hellhole and a Romney presidency would only speed the process along.

There are greedy parasites in the US today, but they aren't the poor.... :roll:


They are greedy parasites because they don't pay federal income tax to fund military adventures. It's also rather foolish of Romney to demonize a big chunk of the "47%" who vote Republican. A lot of those people are part of his base. The majority of small-town middle America lives on a very modest income. He'd have to be a complete imbecile to believe otherwise.



GoonSquad
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18 Sep 2012, 1:23 pm

marshall wrote:

They are greedy parasites because they don't pay federal income tax to fund military adventures. It's also rather foolish of Romney to demonize a big chunk of the "47%" who vote Republican. A lot of those people are part of his base. The majority of small-town middle America lives on a very modest income. He'd have to be a complete imbecile to believe otherwise.


Yeah, most of the white working poor in my neck of the woods are staunch republicans. Even though they'd qualify for government assistance, much to the detriment of their children, they don't take advantage.... These folks just let their suffering fuel their resentment and hatred of liberals and those who do accept assistance.

Its quite perverse, but I'm not sure Romney's comments will hurt him around here.

It kind of reminds me of something I read in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs:

Quote:
Not far from this time Nat Turner's insurrection broke out; and the news threw our town into great commotion. Strange that they should be alarmed when their slaves were so "contented and happy"! But so it was.

By sunrise, people were pouring in from every quarter within twenty miles of the town. I knew the houses were to be searched; and I expected it would be done by country bullies and the poor whites. The men were divided into companies of sixteen, each headed by a captain. Orders were given, and the wild scouts rushed in every direction, wherever a colored face was to be found.

It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subservience to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation. Those who never witnessed such scenes can hardly believe what I know was inflicted at this time on innocent men, women, and children, against whom there was not the slightest ground for suspicion.


Poor whites have not changed that much.... :?


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Last edited by GoonSquad on 18 Sep 2012, 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

visagrunt
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18 Sep 2012, 1:26 pm

The 47% figure is a total canard.

That 47% includes the elderly who benefit from age-specific exemptions that reduce their tax liability to zero. But most of them have paid into the system all their lives.

That 47% includes children, who are blessedly free from the obligation to sell their labour--but who will in turn pay into the system.

That 47% includes students who can only work on the margins of their principal occupation of acquiring the skills that will allow them to earn much better livings (and pay more into the system) than they would otherwise be able to do.

It's not the factual accuracy that offends me. It's the notion that we are content to see public policy built upon this kind of sloppy thinking. When did the United States decide that it was a sin to be the smartest guy in the room? And when did they decide that smart people weren't electable unless they portrayed themselves as "just folks?"


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ruveyn
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18 Sep 2012, 1:33 pm

marshall wrote:

If I was a religious person I'd be building an arc waiting for the next big flood. Wipe out this scourge if greedy myopic imbeciles. Humanity is done, finished. We're totally f****.


You mean the class of people who invested their money and made possible the computer network you rant on?

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18 Sep 2012, 1:57 pm

I really hope this is the final nail in that prick's coffin for his presidential aspirations. And to think, when I was trying to make nice with Inuyasha, I actually said Romney was basically a decent man. Well, I take it back!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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18 Sep 2012, 2:05 pm

Voting for Obama. Worked my butt off for decades. Pay all my taxes. But I'm not so sure Romney has paid his, since he won't disclose.



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18 Sep 2012, 2:20 pm

Two things:

First of all, doesn't Romney have a point when he claims that some groups in society have no incentive to support lower taxes, regardless whether these are beneficial to society or not?

Second of all, why do people automatically assume that paying taxes is a *good* thing? Unless we live an utopian economy with no price effects, taxation will in most cases result in a dead weight loss to society... In other words, the government would have spend the tax revenue very wisely just to break even...

.. Oh, and shouldn't this thread be in the PPR forum?



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18 Sep 2012, 2:31 pm

GGPViper wrote:
Two things:

First of all, doesn't Romney have a point when he claims that some groups in society have no incentive to support lower taxes, regardless whether these are beneficial to society or not?

Second of all, why do people automatically assume that paying taxes is a *good* thing? Unless we live an utopian economy with no price effects, taxation will in most cases result in a dead weight loss to society... In other words, the government would have spend the tax revenue very wisely just to break even...

.. Oh, and shouldn't this thread be in the PPR forum?


How are things going to get done without taxation?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer