Occupy Wall Street. Police vs people in NY.

Ulairi wrote:

You're doing it right now. Look at the occupy wall street movement, it is very white, metropolitan and athiest. You're making my point for me. The only difference between how the tea party gets treated by a lot of people here and how these people get treated is that you happen to agree more with the occupy wall street crowd than the tea party. Which is fine. We had some idiot saying the rich pay no taxes which is on the level of stupid as the tea bagger with the sign that said "keep the goverment out of my medicare". My whole point is that these people do just as much damage to a liberal movement as the tea party does to the conservative movement.

I keep seeing this argument over and over again and frankly this is a giant bag of horse sh*t. Yes the "rich" pay taxes but the portion of their income that they pay is absurd when compared to the "non-rich". It's the same level of stupid as someone like Bachman saying "we need to broaden the tax base:". By all means Michelle, lets tax the sh*t out of everyone living below the poverty level. That's an awesome idea for solving our economic woes.

If you're a millionaire and you don't have an army of accountants to hide an absurd portion of your earnings then you're just an idiot. The entire system is bent and twisted to allow wealthy individuals to hide massive portions of their income.

The problem isn't the Tea Party movement, the liberal movement or the conservative movement. The problem is the current system of government is HORRIBLY broken and serves only to protect their own interests and not the interests of the nation. How anyone can argue in favor of a system that is so blatantly twisted to serve those with the most money is beyond my comprehension.

Ulairi wrote:

You're doing it right now. Look at the occupy wall street movement, it is very white, metropolitan and athiest. You're making my point for me. The only difference between how the tea party gets treated by a lot of people here and how these people get treated is that you happen to agree more with the occupy wall street crowd than the tea party. Which is fine. We had some idiot saying the rich pay no taxes which is on the level of stupid as the tea bagger with the sign that said "keep the goverment out of my medicare". My whole point is that these people do just as much damage to a liberal movement as the tea party does to the conservative movement.

Meh. You are painting over nuances of meaning w/ the old chestnut: we have no way to evaluate between two personal opinions. To truly believe that there is no difference between positions other than personal preference is to be a nihilist.

yes there are differences of opinion, but to suggest that we have zero means of evaluating the difference between them is an extreme over-simplification.

The angry 99% expressing their rage at the 1% leads to an interesting juxtaposition. Instead of left versus right, we have top versus bottom. That is a significant change.

Bear wrote:

I keep seeing this argument over and over again and frankly this is a giant bag of horse sh*t. Yes the "rich" pay taxes but the portion of their income that they pay is absurd when compared to the "non-rich". It's the same level of stupid as someone like Bachman saying "we need to broaden the tax base:". By all means Michelle, lets tax the sh*t out of everyone living below the poverty level. That's an awesome idea for solving our economic woes.

Then why are the protestors in favor ofthe buffet plan? Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

Bear wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

You're doing it right now. Look at the occupy wall street movement, it is very white, metropolitan and athiest. You're making my point for me. The only difference between how the tea party gets treated by a lot of people here and how these people get treated is that you happen to agree more with the occupy wall street crowd than the tea party. Which is fine. We had some idiot saying the rich pay no taxes which is on the level of stupid as the tea bagger with the sign that said "keep the goverment out of my medicare". My whole point is that these people do just as much damage to a liberal movement as the tea party does to the conservative movement.

I keep seeing this argument over and over again and frankly this is a giant bag of horse sh*t. Yes the "rich" pay taxes but the portion of their income that they pay is absurd when compared to the "non-rich". It's the same level of stupid as someone like Bachman saying "we need to broaden the tax base:". By all means Michelle, lets tax the sh*t out of everyone living below the poverty level. That's an awesome idea for solving our economic woes.

If you're a millionaire and you don't have an army of accountants to hide an absurd portion of your earnings then you're just an idiot. The entire system is bent and twisted to allow wealthy individuals to hide massive portions of their income.

The problem isn't the Tea Party movement, the liberal movement or the conservative movement. The problem is the current system of government is HORRIBLY broken and serves only to protect their own interests and not the interests of the nation. How anyone can argue in favor of a system that is so blatantly twisted to serve those with the most money is beyond my comprehension.

Which is why I support Huntsman's tax plan which lowers the rates and widens the base make richer payers pay more but helps the uppder middle class pay less.

chocolatemuffins wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

My whole point is that these people do just as much damage to a liberal movement as the tea party does to the conservative movement.

The Tea Party has its own caucus in Congress, and debate forums attended by the top challengers of the 2012 Presidential elections.

Damage away.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

[citation needed]

Cool speculation, bro. 90% of people who work at Wall Street forget to use toilet paper after using the stall. Am I doing it right?

There is the progressive cacus in Congress. Why isn't there a progressive debate? That isn't my fault but the Democratic party's fault.

Ulairi wrote:

My whole point is that these people do just as much damage to a liberal movement as the tea party does to the conservative movement.

The Tea Party has its own caucus in Congress, and debate forums attended by the top challengers of the 2012 Presidential elections.

Damage away.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

[citation needed]

Cool speculation, bro. 90% of people who work at Wall Street create fictional data to win their arguments.

Ulairi wrote:

There is the progressive cacus in Congress. Why isn't there a progressive debate? That isn't my fault but the Democratic party's fault.

Where is the debate indeed. It's like, people are staying home and stuff, and not going out to try to get their voice on the matter heard or anything.

Ulairi, callin people idiots and hipsters with such certitude and vitriol, constantly isn't convincing me to read your posts, for what it's worth. Wall Street owns Washington DC. Right now these kids are no real threat to the establishment. Wall Street is safe.

chocolatemuffins wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

[citation needed]

Cool speculation, bro. 90% of people who work at Wall Street create fictional data to win their arguments.

Here is the cite

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...

But 3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009, and they paid $434 billion in taxes. To put it another way, roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama's plan aren't millionaires, and 99.99% aren't billionaires

If that "create fictional data" crack was aimed at me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I can usually cite any salient facts I'm using to argue a point.

All your citation tells us that 90% of the people who make more than $200k a year aren't millionaires. What does that signify?

Just what I said - 90% of the people punished by the buffet rule aren't in the neighborhood of the "super rich" types being discussed here as "owning" the government.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
chocolatemuffins wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

[citation needed]

Cool speculation, bro. 90% of people who work at Wall Street create fictional data to win their arguments.

Here is the cite

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...

But 3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009, and they paid $434 billion in taxes. To put it another way, roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama's plan aren't millionaires, and 99.99% aren't billionaires

If that "create fictional data" crack was aimed at me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I can usually cite any salient facts I'm using to argue a point.

Would you mind showing me where it says that 90% of people who make $200k/year or more do not have at least $1,000,000 in net worth? I am a bit shocked that people who make 1/5th a million per year are that bad with their money. I'd hate to see them have to get by paycheck-to-paycheck.

Millionare != $1M+/yearly.

And I will re-iterate the question stated above: You're good with numbers. What's one percent of 300 million?

NormanTheIntern wrote:
chocolatemuffins wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

Something like 90% of the people who will see tax increases under the plan aren't even millionaires.

[citation needed]

Cool speculation, bro. 90% of people who work at Wall Street create fictional data to win their arguments.

Here is the cite

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...

But 3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009, and they paid $434 billion in taxes. To put it another way, roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama's plan aren't millionaires, and 99.99% aren't billionaires

If that "create fictional data" crack was aimed at me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I can usually cite any salient facts I'm using to argue a point.

What's one percent of 300 million?

edit: the math seemed too simple, so I just wanted to double check myself in the meantime: it's 3 million, right? One percent of the U.S. population is 3 million?

So that article states: "3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009" and "In 2009, 237,000 taxpayers reported income above $1 million...A mere 8,274 filers reported income above $10 million"

So that's 4.165 million that will pay more (can't imagine many 10mil+ filers). That's 1.3% of 300 million, right?

That means Occupy Wall Street is only off by .3% when they say this is about the top 1% by my math.

Maybe I screwed that up, but it looks like they got it right going by that WSJ article.

Oh, so it's just the Joe the Plumber argument again. Yawn.

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

Are you suggesting, sir, that News Corporation's behaviour is morally parlous? How very dare you. A fine, upstanding organization dedicated to finding the truth, no matter whose phone it's recorded on.

WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

You sound like the right wing and their liberal media boogeyman.

Ulairi wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

You sound like the right wing and their liberal media boogeyman.

While I understand the media bias door swings both ways, and you make a sound point, In this instance you may want to reconsider hitching your wagon to NewsCorp's star. Or haven't you been following the news?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Here is the cite

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...

But 3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009, and they paid $434 billion in taxes. To put it another way, roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama's plan aren't millionaires, and 99.99% aren't billionaires

If that "create fictional data" crack was aimed at me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I can usually cite any salient facts I'm using to argue a point.

The problem with that citation is that it conveniently overlooks a key point of the Buffett Rule, which is that it would require at least one additional tax bracket to be added for those folks making more than $1 million in income annually. Right now the top tax bracket is $380,000 a year. So if the Buffett Rule would be turned into law then 100% of those people who would pay more would really be millionaires.

That additional tax bracket is something that's required if only for the reason that it would allow us to intelligently discuss our tax system. The super wealthy love the fact that they can hide behind households that make $200,000 or $300,000; households that don't feel "rich", especially if they live in an expensive metropolitan area.

CheezePavilion wrote:

What's one percent of 300 million?

edit: the math seemed too simple, so I just wanted to double check myself in the meantime: it's 3 million, right? One percent of the U.S. population is 3 million?

So that article states: "3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009" and "In 2009, 237,000 taxpayers reported income above $1 million...A mere 8,274 filers reported income above $10 million"

So that's 4.165 million that will pay more (can't imagine many 10mil+ filers). That's 1.3% of 300 million, right?

That means Occupy Wall Street is only off by .3% when they say this is about the top 1% by my math.

Maybe I screwed that up, but it looks like they got it right going by that WSJ article.

It's actually much less than 1%.

According to the IRS there were 140,494,127 individual income tax returns filed in 2009.

3,195,039 reported incomes between $200,000 and $500,000. This is 2.27% of all taxpayers. They would *not* pay more under the Buffett Rule.

492,568 reported incomes between $500,000 and $1,000,000. This is 0.35% of all taxpayers. They would *not* pay more under the Buffett Rule.

108,096 reported incomes between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000. This is 0.07% of all taxpayers. They would pay more under the Buffett Rule.

44,273 reported incomes between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000. This is 0.03% of all taxpayers. They would pay more under the Buffett Rule.

61,918 reported incomes between $2,000,000 and $5,000,000. This is 0.04% of all taxpayers. They would pay more under the Buffett Rule.

14,322 reported incomes between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000. This is 0.01% of all taxpayers. They would pay more under the Buffett Rule.

8,274 people or households) reported incomes over $10,000,000. This is 0.006% of all taxpayers. They would pay more under the Buffett Rule.

So the Buffett Rule would apply to a whooping 0.15% of all taxpaying individuals (or households). Again, this is just the very rich trying to hide behind a "middle class" who make upwards of 10 times the median income.

chocolatemuffins wrote:

Millionaire != $1M+/yearly.

This would have been a better rebuttal without the ad hominems.

Meanwhile, found a writeup by Tim O'Reilly that I thought was pretty spot-on.

I just went down to check out the scene at the https://occupywallst.org/ rally. It was a bit of a disappointment, for a number of reasons. First, there were only a few hundred people there (one of the organizers told me they peaked out at around a thousand on the weekend). Second, the people who were there were the wrong people.

What do I mean by that? The attendees were mainly scruffily dressed young people, whose attire and approach was too easily dismissed by those in authority. The smirk on the face of the Fox News reporter who was interviewing various participants said it all. "These people are easy to dismiss."

I couldn't bear to see him goading these idealistic young people into making bombastic statements (the reporter is a tool of AIG was one comment I overheard), so I stepped over and asked if I could speak to him.

I told him that I run a company with about $100 million in revenue, and that it isn't just kids who think that Wall Street bankers got away with a crime. There are a set of people who constructed a set of financial products with intent to defraud. They took our country to the brink of ruin, then got off scott free, even with multi-million dollar bonuses. I'll be interested to see if Fox runs my comments anywhere.

It seems so odd to me that the Tea Party isn't out in force at this protest. It seems so odd that government largesse aimed at rich corporations seems to be OK with them, while government largesse aimed at the disadvantaged ought to be cut. I would have loved to see blue collar Americans out in force at this protest, not just college students.

Regardless of the actual proportions, it is true that the young folks have allowed themselves to be the "face" of the protests in the media, which makes it easier for folks to be dismissive of their concerns. In any event, with several major unions set to join the protests tomorrow, Tim may not have to wait long.

Edwin wrote:

I also like this guy. I wonder if FoxNews ever aired that.

The Seattle's Stranger newpaper has a comedian at the protests reporting for them and it's an interesting read.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/arc...

Wow. Did he take it to that guy or what?

OG_slinger wrote:

The problem with that citation is that it conveniently overlooks a key point of the Buffett Rule, which is that it would require at least one additional tax bracket to be added for those folks making more than $1 million in income annually.

I'm not sure that "overlooks" is the right answer since it was written back when several trial balloon versions of the plan were being floated by the administration. I see that Obama provided some details last week and you're correct - I withdraw my point (it buuuuuurns us, it does).

I would like to point out that people were using Naked Capitalism to cite things earlier and no one batted an eye, so I'm not sure trying to undercut a WSJ editorial based on objectivity is really consistent.

WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

C'mon man. He was asked to back up his numbers and he did.

Ulairi wrote:

Here are the list of the demands:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/propos...

Wouldn't #11 start WW3?

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

It's good to see the start of some focus on actual goals, grievances, and demands. As much as I'd love to have my mortgage erased, asking for things like all world debt be stricken is lunacy.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I'm not sure that "overlooks" is the right answer since it was written back when several trial balloon versions of the plan were being floated by the administration. I see that Obama provided some details last week and you're correct - I withdraw my point (it buuuuuurns us, it does).

I would like to point out that people were using Naked Capitalism to cite things earlier and no one batted an eye, so I'm not sure trying to undercut a WSJ editorial based on objectivity is really consistent.

And I would disagree with you considering that it was an op-ed from the WSJ, not exactly a newspaper dedicated to giving voice to those of low net worth. It was specifically written to deflect attention from how well the fraction of the top 1% have been doing and purposefully muddy the waters by talking about households making around $200,000 and $500,000 as being "middle class". Ten times the median income isn't middle class. It's rich.

This op-ed was written three days after Buffett's piece came out in the New York Times. Obama mentioned it in several town hall meetings in Iowa and Illinois during those three days. None of those mentioned taxing people in the $200,000 or so income range.

Here's what he said at the town hall in Iowa on August 15th:

Warren Buffett had an article published today in which he said, “Stop coddling billionaires.” (Applause.) He pointed out that -- I think he made about $36 million on income; it was, I guess, an off-year for him -- (laughter) -- but he pointed out that he paid an effective rate of 17 percent when it came to taxes, which meant that he paid a lower tax rate than anybody else in his office, including his secretary, because most of his income came in the form of capital gains.

And he made a simple point. He said, look, nobody’s income has gone up faster than the top 1 percent. In fact, nobody’s gone up faster than the top one-tenth of 1 percent. There’s nothing wrong, when it comes to closing our deficit and managing our debt, to say that we should ask a little bit of help from everybody. I don’t want a tax cut if it means that senior citizens have to pay an extra $6,000 a year for their Medicare. That’s not fair, and that’s not right.

And here's what he said on August 17th in Illinois:

There’s a mid-level proposal that would exempt most -- almost all family farms and nevertheless would still hit folks like Warren Buffett and make sure that he is able to pay what he wants to pay in terms of passing on something not only to his family, but also to the country that has blessed him so much.

So this is going to be part of the larger debate we have about the tax code. And the one thing I want to emphasize, a lot of folks don’t realize this, but there are only 3 percent of the population that has an annual income of more than $200,000 a year. Think about that, 97 percent of folks, their annual income is less than $200,000. And there are only less than 1 percent who are making millions of dollars. And then there’s less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent who are in the Warren Buffett category. That top 1 percent -- in fact, that top one-tenth of 1 percent, those are the main folks who have seen their incomes skyrocket over the last 10, 15 years. Ordinary families, including family farmers, basically your incomes and your wages have flatlined over the last decade.

Notice the specific and repeated focus on the top 1% and the top one-tenth of one percent. Obama made few additional public comments about Buffett's editorial in the following month and when he did all he said was that people who had lots of income like Buffett shouldn't be taxed less than a secretary/teacher/etc. On September 19th, the Buffet Rule was announced.

According to the IRS the top 1% are people making $380,000+. I seriously doubt you'd get a lot of Americans saying that would be considered a "middle class" income as the WSJ op-ed claimed. The top one-tenth of one percent Obama talked about would be people making more than $1 million per year according to the IRS numbers, which is exactly what the Buffett Rule turned out to be.

So this is one case where the trial balloon--if you wanted to call that--turned out to be exactly what the President said one day after Buffett's editorial was published.

MattDaddy wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

Here are the list of the demands:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/propos...

Wouldn't #11 start WW3?

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

It's good to see the start of some focus on actual goals, grievances, and demands. As much as I'd love to have my mortgage erased, asking for things like all world debt be stricken is lunacy.

George Monbiot's "The Age of Consent" has a good discussion on how to go about doing this IIRC.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The problem with that citation is that it conveniently overlooks a key point of the Buffett Rule, which is that it would require at least one additional tax bracket to be added for those folks making more than $1 million in income annually.

I'm not sure that "overlooks" is the right answer since it was written back when several trial balloon versions of the plan were being floated by the administration. I see that Obama provided some details last week and you're correct - I withdraw my point (it buuuuuurns us, it does).

I would like to point out that people were using Naked Capitalism to cite things earlier and no one batted an eye, so I'm not sure trying to undercut a WSJ editorial based on objectivity is really consistent.

What about naked capitalism do you object of? It is not corporate sponsored but rather a website published by Yves Smith, an individual.

I would also like to point you to another website called Pragmatic Capitalism, www.pragcap.com. This one is published by Cullen Roche, an investor/trader/economist. He puts his money where his mouth is and does good for himself because of his economic views.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I would like to point out that people were using Naked Capitalism to cite things earlier and no one batted an eye, so I'm not sure trying to undercut a WSJ editorial based on objectivity is really consistent.

I wasn't using naked Capitalism as citation earlier, and I jumped into this conversation later than most others here. I've yet to be commenting in this thread long enough to be consistent.

MattDaddy wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

C'mon man. He was asked to back up his numbers and he did.

I didn't try to discredit Norman or WSJ. I was just pointing out the irony in citing the Wall Street Journal, owned by one of the largest financial firms on Wall Street, owned by a less-than-objective conglomerate, when the issue at hand is corruption and the goings-on on Wall Street and big businesses.

OG_slinger wrote:

This op-ed was written three days after Buffett's piece came out in the New York Times. Obama mentioned it in several town hall meetings in Iowa and Illinois during those three days. None of those mentioned taxing people in the $200,000 or so income range.

It's also possible they're lumping in other parts of the jobs bill with the buffett plan?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/us...

Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, $800 billion of the $1.5 trillion in tax increases would come from allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire. The other $700 billion, aides said, would come from a combination of closing loopholes and limiting deductions among individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000.

I don't see how it's salient to this thread anymore, but on my part it was simply a good faith mistake based in part on that editorial, not deliberate obfuscation or fabrication.

WipEout wrote:
MattDaddy wrote:
WipEout wrote:

Sorry, but I can't help but smirk at citation from the Wall Street Jounral, published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corporation.

C'mon man. He was asked to back up his numbers and he did.

I didn't try to discredit Norman or WSJ. I was just pointing out the irony in citing the Wall Street Journal, owned by one of the largest investment firms on Wall Street, owned by a less-than-objective conglomerate, when the issue at hand is corruption and the goings-on on Wall Street and big businesses.

True, and backing up numbers is a good thing. OTOH, it is worth pointing out that the WSJ and other newscorp outlets have a practice of blurring the formerly clear divide between objectively voiced news reporting and editorializing. But, in the interest of civil discourse we can set that issue aside, and point out that the cited article is, in fact, an editorial. It was published in the Review and Outlook column, which is in the Opinion and Commentary section.

Anyway, I don't dispute that the numbers are accurate. It seems highly likely that 90% of Americans with an annual income over $200,000 make less than $1,000,000 per year. However, that particular fact isn't significant. The Buffet plan has a special rate for rich people with more than $1 million dollars per year in income, but it also raises taxes on other wealthy people as well.

The point stands, if your personal income is greater than $200,000 per year, you are rich and not part of the middle class. To those people I say: congratulations! You are doing it correctly. You win at being an American and can enjoy the best that the first world has to offer. Now pay your fair share to keep the system that enabled your success to continue to thrive.