Thanks to E.A. Blair for suggesting this wonderful new product...and illustration. We're planning on introducing more of your favorite wingers on Flakies boxes because...well, because every wingnut deserves the recognition.
Let ...
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Happy Friday.
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Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
~Sicilian Proverb
Mitt Romney on his friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu:
We can almost speak in shorthand. We share common experiences and have a perspective and underpinning which is similar.
Shorthand? Wow, that is beautiful. Tell us more!
Israel’s current prime minister is not just a friend, he’s an old friend.
Okay, I’m convinced. Let’s see how Mitt’s amazingly close bond with Bibi would affect his role as President.
I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say, ‘Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do?’
Wonderful. This is surely something which every American dreams of – a president whose loyalty to an old friend has him placing the interests of a foreign nation ahead of those of the U.S. There is no better definition of a friend than this, is there?
And what does Netanyahu have to say in return about his “old friend”, Mittens?
I remember him [Romney] for sure, but I don’t think we had any particular connections, I knew him and he knew me, I suppose.
I suppose? Too funny. Listen, if Romney is going to go through the trouble of lying, is it too much to ask that he at least put in the effort to make it a lie that is not this easy to refute?
What is wrong with this guy?
___
(The Romney and Bachmann source photographs are Creative Commons licensed images from photographer Gage Skidmore.)
Oh, brother — this guy is a joke! Romney will say or do anything for power. I watched an interview of his sons on Rock Center a week ago, and one of them said that his father isn’t running for POTUS because he’s ambitious. He just wants to give back — yeah, right!! He is such an embarrassment, I shudder to think of the damage he could do to this country’s world image as President.
Have any of you considered the possibility that it is Romney who is stating the truth and Netanyahu is lying? For political reasons, maybe Netanyahu would rather that his close friendship with Romney not be known.
Yeah Netanyahu might not want it known, but Mittens — he’s so into telling the world about wonderful he is that he got to meet with MI-6 and he’s just best buddies with Bibi.
He’s like a teenager wanting to impress the girl he wants to date with all the famous people he knows, so she will want to go out with him.
His entire campaign – chasing Obama around honking the horn, and all the other stupid stuff is just so juvenile. It’s like he’s never matured into adulthood.
Now let me think — do I want someone with the emotional intelligence of a 16 year old running the country? No brainer that one. Not ever!
You’re just being silly now, Diana. The emotional intelligence of a 16 year old? Do you honestly believe that? Mr. Romney ran a major corporation and built a fortune for himself and others. He successfully governed the state of Massachusetts for 4 years. He and Ann raised 5 intelligent boys. He has given away millions to charity. He saved the Olympic games from disaster. I can’t think of anything more I would want in a president than the qualities of intelligence, leadership and compassion that Mr. Romney has displayed over the course of his life. Your candidate is lacking in all 3 of those qualities. Is that the reason for your envy?
redState – emotional maturity has NOTHING to do with intelligence. Have you ever heard the old adage about “book learning” and “common sense?”
He may have the I Q intelligence to do all you claim he’s done. That does not make him emotionally mature enough to run the country — and based on his continue faux paus (or faux pas), it’s pretty clear he’s not. He wanders back and forth between opposing positions in an attempt to woo the voters to his side. If it were a girl he was wooing, if she had any sense, she’d say, “Mittens, just who are you and what do you really believe?” because NO ONE except Mittens knows.
I had an uncle who was brilliant when it came to agriculture. He, in fact, was the Dean of Agriculture at the university where he taught. He had absolutely no common sense.
I don’t know…… according to Romney he apparently didn’t run Bain – he was on “retroactive vacation”, he makes money from investments in blind trusts that, according to him he knows nothing about and all his charity goes to the Mormon church which then uses it for anti-gay & anti-abortion referendums and as far as saving the Olympics…..
Some argue that Government Funding, widespread support for the Olympic bid in the state and in the Mormon Church, and the global outpouring of goodwill — and cash — that followed the tragedy of the 9/11 terror attacks deserve much of the credit.
“Any well trained chimpanzee could have come in and had a successful Olympics,” said Doug Foxley, a Salt Lake City lobbyist and former adviser to Romney’s presidential rival Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Being born with a golden spoon in your mouth doesn’t give you intellgience or common sense and surely doesn’t necessarily qualifiy one for the presidency!
God Bless you, for being Mitt’s fan. It is truly hard to find enthusiastic (women especially) citizens ready to defend the man with heart and soul – and of course a lack of nose holding along the way.
You don’t really have answers for why he would make a good President other than abstractions like:
Mr. Romney ran a major corporation and built a fortune for himself and others. He successfully governed the state of Massachusetts for 4 years. He and Ann raised 5 intelligent boys. He has given away millions to charity. He saved the Olympic games from disaster.
Those are fine things, especially raising good kids (as far as I know). But we have to judge him on things like his foreign relations ability, his domestic/economic policy initiatives, his personal strength of purpose. But there in lies the rub. He can’t even handle a trip to England without pissing them off. His domestic agenda/economic intentions are to follow Paul Ryan into the happy land of Ayn Rand, ruled by the plutocracy. And as for personal strength of purpose, the man has changed his positions more times than Linda Lovelace on Fleet Week.
Go ahead and nominate Mitt for Mormon Businessman of the Century, Best Guy in the Country Club, or even Best Hair in the Boardroom. But don’t conflate your list of “Romney attributes” as qualification for the Leader of the Free World.
Why do you think even other Repubs don’t like him?
God Bless you redState girl, Mitt has a real friend.
OC, you don’t make any sense. I listed 6 good reasons for voting Mitt Romney and you call them abstractions. They’re not. They’re facts but you refuse to acknowledged them because you’re stuck on a man who has done untold damage to our country. I don’t understand liberals.
No one claims that Mr. Romney is perfect. So his European trip wasn’t perfect. Big deal. How many errors has Obama made on his trips to other nations? Remember the uproar he created when he did not bow to the Queen?
Mr. Romney’s economic policies are set to reduce spending and get the deficit reduced. Is 4 years of runaway spending not enough of you? It is time to get serious about our finances and stop catering to the low end wage earners who contribute nothing to our economy. Mr. Ryan’s budget addresses the problems. Obama has shown no concrete measures for reducing spending and unemployment.
And Mr. Romney changes position no greater number of times than John Kerry did. Can I assume you voted for Kerry in 2004?
Yes, I voted for Kerry. I await your rationale that Bush was a better choice (remember the crash of 2008?).
Mr. Romney’s economic policies are set to reduce spending and get the deficit reduced.
Not according to economists who have crunched the numbers. Paul Ryan’s budget will add to the deficit. Look it up.
It is time to get serious about our finances and stop catering to the low end wage earners who contribute nothing to our economy.
Yea, those low end wage earners are dead weight, cut them loose baby! They have been riding the gravy train long enough! WOW. You are a piece of work.
I don’t really know who you are referring to as “low end” but as an example, the Firemen, Police, Teachers, etc… who the Republican Party has been attacking of late, pay a higher tax rate than Mitt and friends. You know why? Because the rich and ultra-rich have the money to buy Legislators and write the tax code in their favor.
Tell me you are in favor of Mitt paying a lower tax rate than a Teacher in Dallas.
You still miss the point redState. My comment pertained to his emotional intelligence. The metaphor I used was that book learning does not equal common sense, meaning that it does not also equate to emotional intelligence.
And being a good parent, a good Mormon, a good businessman and all the other attributes you’ve listed, does not make one a good politician or one who has the ability to govern.
Government is not and will never be a business entity. That is not government’s purpose. If it were, it would be called a business.
Tell me redState – how do you look at his entire body of work as a Governor or businessman who created a health plan (that liberals don’t particularly like, but understand it is a stepping stone for something better) that conservatives loathe, who cut a few taxes, but raised fees (see Taxachussetts) that he refuses to call a “tax?”
For slashing “funding for higher education by $140 million, or about 14 percent, as part of deep budget cuts during his first year in office. As a result, student fees at state colleges and universities shot up 63 percent during the governor’s tenure, according to the Boston Globe.”
- For being pro-choice and then pro-life
- For being for stem cell research and then against it
- For being for the mandate and then being against it
- For tying the minimum wage to inflation and then claiming increasing the minimum wage will cause job loss.
“A loophole is when someone takes advantage of a tax law in a way that wasn’t intended by the legislation,” Romney said at a campaign stop in Iowa last summer.
He noted that when he took office some Massachusetts banks were calling themselves real estate companies and getting a special tax break intended for real estate enterprises.
“We said no more of that. You’re not going to game with the system,” Romney said.
Apparently, he has no problem gaming the system – including using tax haven in the Caymans and Bermuda to evade taxes he would otherwise be legally obligated to pay.
Tell us how one who has gained so much from corporatism should be let off the hook from paying his fair share?
So tell us redState – what in all of this makes him qualified to be the President?
And just what are his positions on anything? Other than making the top 1% richer and the rest of us poorer.
Are you kidding me? “low end wage earners who contribute nothing to our economy.”
The low end wage earners like, the farmers who raise the food you eat — not all of them are of the corporate ilk who make millions – or how about the ones who go out and pick the food that ends up on your table. You know, things like apples, oranges, grapes, tomatoes, pineapple — there are no machines to pick them off the trees or pull them from the ground – those that machines do pick are being driven by those low end wage earners. You’d better be damned glad they’re there or you’d be growing veggies in your own little patch of ground.
How about those low end wage earners like truck drivers – nothing, but nothing would get to your door or to the store without them. You think they make a million bucks a year? Long haul drivers leave their families and wives and make little more than $50K a year.
Nurses, health care techs who take x-rays, physician assistants, lab workers — the janitors who clean up after them – and undoubtedly in the office where you work. Who do you think takes out the trash in the middle of the night – the good fairy?
The cops who can be a pain in the ass when they’re stopping you for a ticket, but who would take a bullet for you, if they had to. Or the firefighter who runs into your house full of burning toxins in order to save your child? The teacher who buys supplies for the classroom out of his or her own pocket because of budget cuts and takes homework home to grade it?
How about the guy at the body shop who fixes your car, or the guy who changes your oil? Or the checker at the grocer or the person stocking the shelves?
Or the people who cut your grass, if you don’t cut your own? How about the people at the hotels who change the sheets and clean the toilets? Or do the laundry? Or the people who work for the cleaners where you take your clothes?
Or the people who work in the canneries running the lines so you can buy food or beer off the shelf at the store. Who do you think picks the grapes for the wine you drink?
redState – open your eyes – look around you and think about what it took and who the laborers were who cut the molding for your house, the carpet and rugs for your floors, or the ceramic tile, who made the sinks, the toilets, the cabinets. That smart phone in your hand — built by a low wage worker…in China.
There is nothing you own nor nothing you eat that did not in some way involve a low wage worker. You’d better hope these people never decide that since they don’t “contribute to the economy” that they may as well just go home and wait for a government check.
In all my life, I believe I’ve only encountered only two other people who have had no sense of what people beyond themselves do or how and who builds the stuff we consume that their bosses get rich from selling to us. You make three.
Great post, Diana — the low end wage earners built this country and are the “grease” that keeps our wheels turning. They contribute the most to our economy, and they are consumers as well. You sure won’t see the privileged out in the trenches doing the dirty work anytime soon, that’s for sure.
Forgive me. Writing that low end wage earners contribute nothing to the economy was an overstatement on my part. Obviously they contribute something. My point was that we need to stop making the poor the focus of our economic policies. Handouts are draining the economy. It is time we make the environment more friendly for the job creators who without there would be no wealth to build those roads that truckdrivers use. This is what I was trying to say.
Well, good. I guess you realize that it is asinine to advocate a lower tax rate for multi-millionaires. At least you learned something today, redState girl . Ceers
Okay, that’s a start redState, but let’s take this a step further, okay? You are apparently impressed with Romney’s wealth and that of his peers. Romney’s worth $250 million. The US GDP is over $15 TRILLION. He is but a small fish in a very big pond. Now let’s get to those who “contribute something.” The average income in this country is around $50K a year more or less. Most of those folks at that income level are spending pretty much every dime they make, after taxes – and, yes, they pay taxes – they come of out their paychecks each week. They also pay payroll taxes.
Now depending on whether or not they have children, they might get some or all of the taxes they paid in back, or, if they are single, they probably won’t. So practically every dollar they earn they put back into the economy when they buy food, clothing, pay the rent, lights and gas, the car payment, insurance, etc. This spending keeps the economy pumping along and depending on how much money they have to spend, the more purchasing power they have. The per capita GPD is $35,000K — so all these 99% in the economy are adding $35K per year to the production of goods and services.
Since there are 141.865 million people employed as of May (these would be actual wage earners, not hedge fund managers earning income from investments) they’re carrying the load for the over 311 millions people (which includes the unemployed, elderly, children and disabled). Over half of that group makes less that $50K per year. Romney’s wealth is nothing more than a drop in that very big bucket that these people are contributing to the GDP. The next group at roughly 20% of workers makes between $50,001 and $75K. And the next group of about 10% makes between $75,001 and $100K. So just which group do you think is contributing more to the economy, the approximately 1700 families making over $250K a year or the rest of all the workers combined?
Next you need to consider that while much of our manufacturing has moved overseas, there is still quite a bit done here in addition to all those I listed previously. Those workers are paid for their labor, but it is their employers who reap the rewards from their labor.
Without those workers there would be NO economy – no one to do the work and no one to make the purchases and, ultimately, no business owner/CEO/Board, investor, stockholder.
Without labor there is nothing. Without resources there is nothing. Shovels don’t grow out trees, and vegetables don’t plant themselves. And while risk and investment are necessary for production, those taking the risk are not the ones who are the job creators – it’s those people who purchase the production and the workers who create the goods. Without workers you have no production, without workers you have no consumers. The business owner is merely the facilitator to get the production to market.
Romney is but a mere cog in this wheel. And all he’s doing is stockpiling capital in off shore accounts or putting it in trust funds — neither of which are contributing to the GDP. He’s producing nothing. If he has investments that are creating jobs (where?…here, China, India? – without tax returns, we don’t know), he’s collecting interest on them – not EARNED wages and he’s paying 15% or less in taxes.
Without investment in infrastructure, the electric grid and (now that Koch’s scientist has admitted global warming is to due fossil fuels) a renewable energy system to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we consume, we will rapidly become a 2nd class decaying country and economy. Without those tax dollars we will not be able to do this. The bridges won’t fix themselves. And, as history has proven, investors are often unwilling to take the risks government does to develop new technologies that business ends up reaping profits from.
I hope that gives you a better perspective. We’re all in this together, redState. We all need each other to make it work and giving everything to the elite is not the solution to our problems because it doesn’t matter how much we produce – if we can’t buy it, the economy goes in the toilet – and the 1700 families out there can’t buy all that the workers produce. There simply aren’t enough of them.
And, yes, this is simplified as it’s not taking into account the global economy…but it makes no difference, there just aren’t enough rich people in the world to keep the economy going. It takes the rest of us, too.
This looks like another case of, “I don’t remember what I said earlier, but whatever it is, I agree with it.”
Oh, brother — this guy is a joke! Romney will say or do anything for power. I watched an interview of his sons on Rock Center a week ago, and one of them said that his father isn’t running for POTUS because he’s ambitious. He just wants to give back — yeah, right!! He is such an embarrassment, I shudder to think of the damage he could do to this country’s world image as President.
Sounds like Bibi is just not that into Mittens.
Have any of you considered the possibility that it is Romney who is stating the truth and Netanyahu is lying? For political reasons, maybe Netanyahu would rather that his close friendship with Romney not be known.
Yeah Netanyahu might not want it known, but Mittens — he’s so into telling the world about wonderful he is that he got to meet with MI-6 and he’s just best buddies with Bibi.
He’s like a teenager wanting to impress the girl he wants to date with all the famous people he knows, so she will want to go out with him.
His entire campaign – chasing Obama around honking the horn, and all the other stupid stuff is just so juvenile. It’s like he’s never matured into adulthood.
Now let me think — do I want someone with the emotional intelligence of a 16 year old running the country? No brainer that one. Not ever!
Under the circumstances, having a 16-year-old running the country might be an improvement over Romney.
You’re just being silly now, Diana. The emotional intelligence of a 16 year old? Do you honestly believe that? Mr. Romney ran a major corporation and built a fortune for himself and others. He successfully governed the state of Massachusetts for 4 years. He and Ann raised 5 intelligent boys. He has given away millions to charity. He saved the Olympic games from disaster. I can’t think of anything more I would want in a president than the qualities of intelligence, leadership and compassion that Mr. Romney has displayed over the course of his life. Your candidate is lacking in all 3 of those qualities. Is that the reason for your envy?
redState – emotional maturity has NOTHING to do with intelligence. Have you ever heard the old adage about “book learning” and “common sense?”
He may have the I Q intelligence to do all you claim he’s done. That does not make him emotionally mature enough to run the country — and based on his continue faux paus (or faux pas), it’s pretty clear he’s not. He wanders back and forth between opposing positions in an attempt to woo the voters to his side. If it were a girl he was wooing, if she had any sense, she’d say, “Mittens, just who are you and what do you really believe?” because NO ONE except Mittens knows.
I had an uncle who was brilliant when it came to agriculture. He, in fact, was the Dean of Agriculture at the university where he taught. He had absolutely no common sense.
I don’t know…… according to Romney he apparently didn’t run Bain – he was on “retroactive vacation”, he makes money from investments in blind trusts that, according to him he knows nothing about and all his charity goes to the Mormon church which then uses it for anti-gay & anti-abortion referendums and as far as saving the Olympics…..
Some argue that Government Funding, widespread support for the Olympic bid in the state and in the Mormon Church, and the global outpouring of goodwill — and cash — that followed the tragedy of the 9/11 terror attacks deserve much of the credit.
“Any well trained chimpanzee could have come in and had a successful Olympics,” said Doug Foxley, a Salt Lake City lobbyist and former adviser to Romney’s presidential rival Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Being born with a golden spoon in your mouth doesn’t give you intellgience or common sense and surely doesn’t necessarily qualifiy one for the presidency!
redState girl –
God Bless you, for being Mitt’s fan. It is truly hard to find enthusiastic (women especially) citizens ready to defend the man with heart and soul – and of course a lack of nose holding along the way.
You don’t really have answers for why he would make a good President other than abstractions like:
Those are fine things, especially raising good kids (as far as I know). But we have to judge him on things like his foreign relations ability, his domestic/economic policy initiatives, his personal strength of purpose. But there in lies the rub. He can’t even handle a trip to England without pissing them off. His domestic agenda/economic intentions are to follow Paul Ryan into the happy land of Ayn Rand, ruled by the plutocracy. And as for personal strength of purpose, the man has changed his positions more times than Linda Lovelace on Fleet Week.
Go ahead and nominate Mitt for Mormon Businessman of the Century, Best Guy in the Country Club, or even Best Hair in the Boardroom. But don’t conflate your list of “Romney attributes” as qualification for the Leader of the Free World.
Why do you think even other Repubs don’t like him?
God Bless you redState girl, Mitt has a real friend.
OC, you don’t make any sense. I listed 6 good reasons for voting Mitt Romney and you call them abstractions. They’re not. They’re facts but you refuse to acknowledged them because you’re stuck on a man who has done untold damage to our country. I don’t understand liberals.
Diana, Mr. Romney had enough common sense to built a 250 million dollar fortune. Try beating that.
OK, fair enough, you think I undervalue the attributes you listed. OK.
How do you respond to my critique of the Mittster?
We can debate Obama’s “untold damage” later.
No one claims that Mr. Romney is perfect. So his European trip wasn’t perfect. Big deal. How many errors has Obama made on his trips to other nations? Remember the uproar he created when he did not bow to the Queen?
Mr. Romney’s economic policies are set to reduce spending and get the deficit reduced. Is 4 years of runaway spending not enough of you? It is time to get serious about our finances and stop catering to the low end wage earners who contribute nothing to our economy. Mr. Ryan’s budget addresses the problems. Obama has shown no concrete measures for reducing spending and unemployment.
And Mr. Romney changes position no greater number of times than John Kerry did. Can I assume you voted for Kerry in 2004?
Yes, I voted for Kerry. I await your rationale that Bush was a better choice (remember the crash of 2008?).
Not according to economists who have crunched the numbers. Paul Ryan’s budget will add to the deficit. Look it up.
Yea, those low end wage earners are dead weight, cut them loose baby! They have been riding the gravy train long enough! WOW. You are a piece of work.
I don’t really know who you are referring to as “low end” but as an example, the Firemen, Police, Teachers, etc… who the Republican Party has been attacking of late, pay a higher tax rate than Mitt and friends. You know why? Because the rich and ultra-rich have the money to buy Legislators and write the tax code in their favor.
Tell me you are in favor of Mitt paying a lower tax rate than a Teacher in Dallas.
You still miss the point redState. My comment pertained to his emotional intelligence. The metaphor I used was that book learning does not equal common sense, meaning that it does not also equate to emotional intelligence.
And being a good parent, a good Mormon, a good businessman and all the other attributes you’ve listed, does not make one a good politician or one who has the ability to govern.
Government is not and will never be a business entity. That is not government’s purpose. If it were, it would be called a business.
Tell me redState – how do you look at his entire body of work as a Governor or businessman who created a health plan (that liberals don’t particularly like, but understand it is a stepping stone for something better) that conservatives loathe, who cut a few taxes, but raised fees (see Taxachussetts) that he refuses to call a “tax?”
For slashing “funding for higher education by $140 million, or about 14 percent, as part of deep budget cuts during his first year in office. As a result, student fees at state colleges and universities shot up 63 percent during the governor’s tenure, according to the Boston Globe.”
- For being pro-choice and then pro-life
- For being for stem cell research and then against it
- For being for the mandate and then being against it
- For tying the minimum wage to inflation and then claiming increasing the minimum wage will cause job loss.
or any of the flip flops he’s made?
Oh, and this one’s a beaut.
Followed by this tidbit on his $101 million IRA
Apparently, he has no problem gaming the system – including using tax haven in the Caymans and Bermuda to evade taxes he would otherwise be legally obligated to pay.
Tell us how one who has gained so much from corporatism should be let off the hook from paying his fair share?
So tell us redState – what in all of this makes him qualified to be the President?
And just what are his positions on anything? Other than making the top 1% richer and the rest of us poorer.
Are you kidding me? “low end wage earners who contribute nothing to our economy.”
The low end wage earners like, the farmers who raise the food you eat — not all of them are of the corporate ilk who make millions – or how about the ones who go out and pick the food that ends up on your table. You know, things like apples, oranges, grapes, tomatoes, pineapple — there are no machines to pick them off the trees or pull them from the ground – those that machines do pick are being driven by those low end wage earners. You’d better be damned glad they’re there or you’d be growing veggies in your own little patch of ground.
How about those low end wage earners like truck drivers – nothing, but nothing would get to your door or to the store without them. You think they make a million bucks a year? Long haul drivers leave their families and wives and make little more than $50K a year.
Nurses, health care techs who take x-rays, physician assistants, lab workers — the janitors who clean up after them – and undoubtedly in the office where you work. Who do you think takes out the trash in the middle of the night – the good fairy?
The cops who can be a pain in the ass when they’re stopping you for a ticket, but who would take a bullet for you, if they had to. Or the firefighter who runs into your house full of burning toxins in order to save your child? The teacher who buys supplies for the classroom out of his or her own pocket because of budget cuts and takes homework home to grade it?
How about the guy at the body shop who fixes your car, or the guy who changes your oil? Or the checker at the grocer or the person stocking the shelves?
Or the people who cut your grass, if you don’t cut your own? How about the people at the hotels who change the sheets and clean the toilets? Or do the laundry? Or the people who work for the cleaners where you take your clothes?
Or the people who work in the canneries running the lines so you can buy food or beer off the shelf at the store. Who do you think picks the grapes for the wine you drink?
redState – open your eyes – look around you and think about what it took and who the laborers were who cut the molding for your house, the carpet and rugs for your floors, or the ceramic tile, who made the sinks, the toilets, the cabinets. That smart phone in your hand — built by a low wage worker…in China.
There is nothing you own nor nothing you eat that did not in some way involve a low wage worker. You’d better hope these people never decide that since they don’t “contribute to the economy” that they may as well just go home and wait for a government check.
In all my life, I believe I’ve only encountered only two other people who have had no sense of what people beyond themselves do or how and who builds the stuff we consume that their bosses get rich from selling to us. You make three.
Great post, Diana — the low end wage earners built this country and are the “grease” that keeps our wheels turning. They contribute the most to our economy, and they are consumers as well. You sure won’t see the privileged out in the trenches doing the dirty work anytime soon, that’s for sure.
Forgive me. Writing that low end wage earners contribute nothing to the economy was an overstatement on my part. Obviously they contribute something. My point was that we need to stop making the poor the focus of our economic policies. Handouts are draining the economy. It is time we make the environment more friendly for the job creators who without there would be no wealth to build those roads that truckdrivers use. This is what I was trying to say.
You didn’t answer my question.
Well, good. I guess you realize that it is asinine to advocate a lower tax rate for multi-millionaires. At least you learned something today, redState girl . Ceers
redState girl is obviously someone who judges the success, intelligence and value of a person solely on the basis of how much money a person has.
….or inherited – and then used what he had to dismantle US jobs.
Okay, that’s a start redState, but let’s take this a step further, okay? You are apparently impressed with Romney’s wealth and that of his peers. Romney’s worth $250 million. The US GDP is over $15 TRILLION. He is but a small fish in a very big pond. Now let’s get to those who “contribute something.” The average income in this country is around $50K a year more or less. Most of those folks at that income level are spending pretty much every dime they make, after taxes – and, yes, they pay taxes – they come of out their paychecks each week. They also pay payroll taxes.
Now depending on whether or not they have children, they might get some or all of the taxes they paid in back, or, if they are single, they probably won’t. So practically every dollar they earn they put back into the economy when they buy food, clothing, pay the rent, lights and gas, the car payment, insurance, etc. This spending keeps the economy pumping along and depending on how much money they have to spend, the more purchasing power they have. The per capita GPD is $35,000K — so all these 99% in the economy are adding $35K per year to the production of goods and services.
Since there are 141.865 million people employed as of May (these would be actual wage earners, not hedge fund managers earning income from investments) they’re carrying the load for the over 311 millions people (which includes the unemployed, elderly, children and disabled). Over half of that group makes less that $50K per year. Romney’s wealth is nothing more than a drop in that very big bucket that these people are contributing to the GDP. The next group at roughly 20% of workers makes between $50,001 and $75K. And the next group of about 10% makes between $75,001 and $100K. So just which group do you think is contributing more to the economy, the approximately 1700 families making over $250K a year or the rest of all the workers combined?
Next you need to consider that while much of our manufacturing has moved overseas, there is still quite a bit done here in addition to all those I listed previously. Those workers are paid for their labor, but it is their employers who reap the rewards from their labor.
Without those workers there would be NO economy – no one to do the work and no one to make the purchases and, ultimately, no business owner/CEO/Board, investor, stockholder.
Without labor there is nothing. Without resources there is nothing. Shovels don’t grow out trees, and vegetables don’t plant themselves. And while risk and investment are necessary for production, those taking the risk are not the ones who are the job creators – it’s those people who purchase the production and the workers who create the goods. Without workers you have no production, without workers you have no consumers. The business owner is merely the facilitator to get the production to market.
Romney is but a mere cog in this wheel. And all he’s doing is stockpiling capital in off shore accounts or putting it in trust funds — neither of which are contributing to the GDP. He’s producing nothing. If he has investments that are creating jobs (where?…here, China, India? – without tax returns, we don’t know), he’s collecting interest on them – not EARNED wages and he’s paying 15% or less in taxes.
Without investment in infrastructure, the electric grid and (now that Koch’s scientist has admitted global warming is to due fossil fuels) a renewable energy system to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we consume, we will rapidly become a 2nd class decaying country and economy. Without those tax dollars we will not be able to do this. The bridges won’t fix themselves. And, as history has proven, investors are often unwilling to take the risks government does to develop new technologies that business ends up reaping profits from.
I hope that gives you a better perspective. We’re all in this together, redState. We all need each other to make it work and giving everything to the elite is not the solution to our problems because it doesn’t matter how much we produce – if we can’t buy it, the economy goes in the toilet – and the 1700 families out there can’t buy all that the workers produce. There simply aren’t enough of them.
And, yes, this is simplified as it’s not taking into account the global economy…but it makes no difference, there just aren’t enough rich people in the world to keep the economy going. It takes the rest of us, too.
This might give you some better insight;
Who cares about Romney – Diana McGuiness is AWESOME !
Smile – I’m blushing. Thank you, Golden Sun!