Will any New Deal or Great Society programs exist in a decade?

[Wonkish1]

No, your position isn't insane at all (as I said, I think you've diagnosed the problem quite well even if I'm as yet unconvinced of some of your specific solutions), your rhetoric is just sometimes a little...I don't know, it's not the kind I would use. Again, I can't say I blame you (though you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself).

Don't coddle the guy or people are going to start wondering if your crazy.

[Wonkish1]

Not to mention, with tax rates on the wealthy being historically low, the middle and lower classes are increasingly bearing the burden of revenue-all this, in a time when unemployment is high and wages are depressed.

That is just factually incorrect! Your just another example of people that are intent on coming onto a site without actually looking up or reading anything and regurgitating a lie.

[Peeperkorn]

At the rate things are going I really don't think so. I think we're going to see a new Gilded Age.

Obviously not, just look at the numbers.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No, your position isn't insane at all (as I said, I think you've diagnosed the problem quite well even if I'm as yet unconvinced of some of your specific solutions), your rhetoric is just sometimes a little...I don't know, it's not the kind I would use. Again, I can't say I blame you (though you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself).

Don't coddle the guy or people are going to start wondering if your crazy.

I'm not sure what you think you're threatening me with. As I said before, sometimes going insane (though not, I should point out, in quite the way opebo has) is the only acceptable response to reality.

Besides, he's been here for longer than you have. We're more familiar with his quirks by now (and a lot of it is quirks, albeit, uh, some highly unusual ones).

[Wonkish1]

I'm not sure what you think you're threatening me with. As I said before, sometimes going insane (though not, I should point out, in quite the way opebo has) is the only acceptable response to reality.

Besides, he's been here for longer than you have. We're more familiar with his quirks by now (and a lot of it is quirks, albeit, uh, some highly unusual ones).

Not threatening you. Just saying. No need to get pissed.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not sure what you think you're threatening me with. As I said before, sometimes going insane (though not, I should point out, in quite the way opebo has) is the only acceptable response to reality.

Besides, he's been here for longer than you have. We're more familiar with his quirks by now (and a lot of it is quirks, albeit, uh, some highly unusual ones).

Not threatening you. Just saying. No need to get pissed.

No, I understand. I just felt the need to make it clear that I've been called far worse things than crazy in the past, so I'm not really worried about it anyway.

I'm not really 'coddling' opebo, either. I hope I've made it sufficiently clear in my time here that I think he is, while amusing, kind of horrible in several areas other than his thoughts on finance capital.

[Wonkish1]

On another note: I really have to hand it to this tiny political leader in Slovakia of all places just giving Europe the proverbial finger when it comes to the idea of poor Slovakia bailing out public employee and pensioner leeches in the rest of Europe.

First he single handedly kills the passage of the Euro Bailout fund the other day, and now when everybody is thinking the 2nd vote is a shoe in he is brings in the Slovakian constitutional court that will end up delaying a vote for a long time. Go Sulik! Stick it to the public parasites in Europe.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/slovak-twist-slovakias-sulik-announces-efsf-vote-has-be-adopted-constitutional-court-first

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not sure that what Sulik is doing is trying to stick it to the 'public parasites' so much as to this whole idea currently fashionable in the Eurozone that these monetary policies need to be picked up by poorer countries to avoid any conceivable damage to the interests of the almighty Germans and French. Which I would hope we can all agree is a good thing, at least from a Slovak perspective.

[Wonkish1]

I'm not sure that what Sulik is doing is trying to stick it to the 'public parasites' so much as to this whole idea currently fashionable in the Eurozone that these monetary policies need to be picked up by poorer countries to avoid any conceivable damage to the interests of the almighty Germans and French. Which I would hope we can all agree is a good thing, at least from a Slovak perspective.

Well seeing as how I actually read Sulik's remarks a few days ago when he said his party was going to vote no, yeah I can say what you put is definitely not the reason.

Paraphrasing here: "I don't think its right for me to vote to take money from poor Slovakian's to subsidize a Greek pensioner who receives 3 times the amount a person in Slovakia does."

Do you think he is wrong in his statement?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Not to mention, with tax rates on the wealthy being historically low, the middle and lower classes are increasingly bearing the burden of revenue-all this, in a time when unemployment is high and wages are depressed.

That is just factually incorrect! Your just another example of people that are intent on coming onto a site without actually looking up or reading anything and regurgitating a lie.

Please then, enlighten me as to the truth.

[opebo]

At the rate things are going I really don't think so. I think we're going to see a new Gilded Age.

Obviously not, just look at the numbers.

Inequality is increasing, thus it can reach the level of the Gilded Age again.  Pray tell, what would stop it increasing, other than State action, M.P.?

[Wonkish1]

Not to mention, with tax rates on the wealthy being historically low, the middle and lower classes are increasingly bearing the burden of revenue-all this, in a time when unemployment is high and wages are depressed.

That is just factually incorrect! Your just another example of people that are intent on coming onto a site without actually looking up or reading anything and regurgitating a lie.

Please then, enlighten me as to the truth.

Low and middle income contribute very little revenue to the federal government. And at no point in the last couple decades has that increased. Instead they increasingly bare less of a tax burden.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not sure that what Sulik is doing is trying to stick it to the 'public parasites' so much as to this whole idea currently fashionable in the Eurozone that these monetary policies need to be picked up by poorer countries to avoid any conceivable damage to the interests of the almighty Germans and French. Which I would hope we can all agree is a good thing, at least from a Slovak perspective.

Well seeing as how I actually read Sulik's remarks a few days ago when he said his party was going to vote no, yeah I can say what you put is definitely not the reason.

Paraphrasing here: "I don't think its right for me to vote to take money from poor Slovakian's to subsidize a Greek pensioner who receives 3 times the amount a person in Slovakia does."

Do you think he is wrong in his statement?

No, but I don't see how that invalidates my interpretation. He's saying that it's wrong for poor countries to pick up the tab. At least, I read that as a more trenchant feature of what he said than the fact the richer people happen to be retired public-sector workers.

[Wonkish1]

I'm not sure that what Sulik is doing is trying to stick it to the 'public parasites' so much as to this whole idea currently fashionable in the Eurozone that these monetary policies need to be picked up by poorer countries to avoid any conceivable damage to the interests of the almighty Germans and French. Which I would hope we can all agree is a good thing, at least from a Slovak perspective.

Well seeing as how I actually read Sulik's remarks a few days ago when he said his party was going to vote no, yeah I can say what you put is definitely not the reason.

Paraphrasing here: "I don't think its right for me to vote to take money from poor Slovakian's to subsidize a Greek pensioner who receives 3 times the amount a person in Slovakia does."

Do you think he is wrong in his statement?

No, but I don't see how that invalidates my interpretation. He's saying that it's wrong for poor countries to pick up the tab. At least, I read that as a more trenchant feature of what he said than the fact the richer people happen to be retired public-sector workers.

He also said about a paragraph later that Slovakia was in a pretty rough spot in 08 and they didn't get any help from Europe and had to undergo some painful austerity. He doesn't see why Greece, Italy, Portugal, Iceland, etc. can't do that themselves.

His comments weren't really directed at the Germans and French they are directed at profligate spending countries that have citizens with higher standards of living then they have unwilling to take a little less from the state and asking Slovakia to pay up so they can delay having to make those cuts for a little longer.

That is what had SaS pissed and that is why they voted no. But it doesn't matter now. Everybody, but SaS just voted Yes and now the Euro bailout funds increased powers and money has been approved in all nations.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Not to mention, with tax rates on the wealthy being historically low, the middle and lower classes are increasingly bearing the burden of revenue-all this, in a time when unemployment is high and wages are depressed.

That is just factually incorrect! Your just another example of people that are intent on coming onto a site without actually looking up or reading anything and regurgitating a lie.

Please then, enlighten me as to the truth.

Low and middle income contribute very little revenue to the federal government. And at no point in the last couple decades has that increased. Instead they increasingly bare less of a tax burden.

Take your own advice, and don't regurgitate lies (or half-truths, at best).  The lower and middle income pay less taxes in raw numbers increasingly because their incomes have decreased.

Let's compare how much of national income the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent each have, and compare that to the percentage of taxes they pay--all federal taxes, not just the federal income tax.

[Wonkish1]

Not to mention, with tax rates on the wealthy being historically low, the middle and lower classes are increasingly bearing the burden of revenue-all this, in a time when unemployment is high and wages are depressed.

That is just factually incorrect! Your just another example of people that are intent on coming onto a site without actually looking up or reading anything and regurgitating a lie.

Please then, enlighten me as to the truth.

Low and middle income contribute very little revenue to the federal government. And at no point in the last couple decades has that increased. Instead they increasingly bare less of a tax burden.

Take your own advice, and don't regurgitate lies (or half-truths, at best).  The lower and middle income pay less taxes in raw numbers increasingly because their incomes have decreased.

Let's compare how much of national income the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent each have, and compare that to the percentage of taxes they pay--all federal taxes, not just the federal income tax.

Actually lets just look at the drop in rates that low and middle income people have had over the last half century that still continues. I think that should pretty much do it right there.

The way your approaching it doesn't work because total income tax receipts as a percentage of GDP(which is a horrible metric) have fallen in general relative to other taxes like corporate or payroll. Just because tax rates for higher earners have fallen causing their % of taxation relative to income to drop doesn't mean that low and middle income earners have had their rates or all the amount of taxes they pay increase at all.

They too have had their rates slashed as well. And now they contribute very little to federal government.

Higher taxation starts at the upper middle class and continues from there.

So yeah that is why you just regurgitate Bull$hit.