Never in a million years could have seen this coming.

[377OHMS]

So DOD waste is 2-4%? I think it's much, much higher. However, I'm quite interested in your source for the 1-2% of waste in welfare. You do have a source for that number you threw out, don't you?

And to talk about the % of waste in the total budget (all spend types) is not relevant. What is relevant is how much of the welfare budget is spent through fraud.

Agree. If you consider anything that does not provide utility or support to the war-fighter to be waste it could be something like 15-20% of total budget. If you add the gouging done by some countries in our supply lines to Afghanistan and Iraq it could be even higher.

On the welfare side I'm not sure as the numbers I've seen are all over the place depending on who is citing them.

 

[Spike Trader]

House Votes To Boost Well-Off Kids, Cut Out Poor Kids.

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted Friday to change a tax credit in a way that would add $115 billion to the deficit and hurt poorer parents while aiding the well-to-do.

By a vote of 237-173, mostly along party lines, the House decided to make permanent the child tax credit and expand it to families earning up to $205,000 a year. The credit, which is worth up to $1,000 for each child in a family, would also be indexed to rise with inflation, as would the eligibility thresholds.

But the new measure fails to extend the part of the credit that was passed in 2009 to help impoverished families and that currently allows parents with annual earnings as low as $3,000 to claim some of the break. That element expires in 2017. Without it, a family would have to earn at least $15,000 to qualify for the credit.

According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, that means a mom working full time at a minimum wage job would receive no help from the credit -- because she would be earning only $14,500. Indeed, that mom would lose $1,725 under the new bill, while a family of four earning $150,000 would gain $2,200, according to the center's analysis.

About 12 million people, including 6 million children, would be pushed further into poverty if the measure became law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/child-tax-credit_n_5620014.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

 

[SIUYA]

You think about this stuff while riding?

Democracy and capitalism are essentially incompatible. This became clear about 30 years ago when the emphasis shifted toward corporate profits and the lower and middle class were left pretty much hanging.

Can it be reversed? Yes. Will it be reversed? Eventually, if we can survive long enough.

I disagree - I think capitalism is fine. Corporatism seems to be the real issue for incompatibility.

 

[SIUYA]

This is a ridiculous comparison that radical left wingers like to make, as if there is anything similar between a person keeping more of their own money that THEY EARNED, and the parasites who live off of other people.

I cant tell if you are agreeing with me or if you are actually reinforcing my point exactly.
Have you completely misunderstood and lumped everything together in an us v them.

Very few people here left or right think people who work hard and earn their money ever deserve to transfer all their hard earned wealth to those who did not deserve it.
...and yet you decide to believe that everyone who is successful earned their money....that everyone unsuccessful is a bludger. If you love to lump everyone together in an us v them situation.....and worse think anyone who thinks differently needs to be labeled then you are not thinking. (and I am not talking conspiracy theory thinking here)

Many dont even recognise that when something is undeserving it is undeserving. A thief in a suit is still a thief. Corporations and CEOs can also be parasitic. A beggar on the street may have been his victim.

Just previously people were complaining about corporate greed and excessive CEO salaries, and that is the point.
Does every person who makes money and has been successful deserve it and has earned it.....much like does every person who has not made it or been unfortunate deserve that and is then immediately branded a parasite?

If recognising the difference between these things makes one a lefty then Not recognising this makes one a sucker. You will end up living in one of these places like Russia, Turkey, China - where the leaders amass billions in 'hard earned' wealth while at the same time professing moral values and rhetoric of solidarity - the people are suckered.

Of course - if you are one who believes that the world really is dog eat dog, it is every person for them selves and that the aim of the game is do so then that is fine also.
Try not to be a hypocrite while you do so. Too often those who think live by the sword die by the sword are not prepared to when it does not suit them. (How many people complain about paying taxes and at the same time complain the government is not doing enough to stop illegal immigration?)

(for the record no one who knows me has every called me a lefty and yet I am also far from a conservative - these are in the non US versions of the words)

 

[dbphoenix]

I disagree - I think capitalism is fine. Corporatism seems to be the real issue for incompatibility.

If you're talking about pure capitalism, perhaps. But we don't have that anymore than we have pure democracy. What we have -- or are in the process of developing -- is a Dickensian-style capitalism that subverts the ideal.

 

[dbphoenix]

If you're talking about pure capitalism, perhaps. But we don't have that anymore than we have pure democracy. What we have -- or are in the process of developing -- is a Dickensian-style capitalism that subverts the ideal.

Or, put another way, mobs of Marleys and only a handful of Fezziwigs.

 

[gwb-trading]

You think about this stuff while riding?

Democracy and capitalism are essentially incompatible. This became clear about 30 years ago when the emphasis shifted toward corporate profits and the lower and middle class were left pretty much hanging.

Can it be reversed? Yes. Will it be reversed? Eventually, if we can survive long enough.

Today's quote:

"I also have been dismayed by the transfer of massive amounts of wealth to the richest people in the country, a policy supported over the last 35 years by successive administrations of both parties. Apparently income redistribution downward is dangerously radical, but redistribution upward is just business as usual. The middle class used at least to get lip service from the rich—“backbone of the country” and such. Now it is often treated like a bunch of saps not aware enough to evade their taxes." - Thomas E. Ricks

 

[dbphoenix]

"Can it be reversed? Yes. Will it be reversed? Eventually, if we can survive long enough."

When I said the above, I wasn't factoring in the seeming increasing desire to just shoot them all.

I'm waiting for the gunfights to start outside abortion clinics and welfare offices.

Where's Randolph Scott when you need him?

 

[gwb-trading]

The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/business/the-typical-household-now-worth-a-third-less.html?_r=3

Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.

(more at above url)

 

[CaptainObvious]

Welfare to the poor is but a pimple on the ass of which is corporate welfare. Abuse and scamming the system is business as usual at the corporate level.
The man in the street is not the problem. Congress is the problem. Corporate America is the problem. Of course they hold the purse strings, the power and the media, so don't expect the problem to be solved anytime soon.
My view is plain spoken. The message to leadership is crystal clear. If it's OK to bail out corporations, then it's OK to bail out the worker bee. If it's OK for the boardroom boyz to scam the system, then it's OK for average Joe to scam the system. The fish rots from the head. You want me to respect and obey the law? Well motherfucker, YOU obey show some respect for the law, and since you're the god damn leaders, YOU go first. Clear enough for ya'?