Evolution Control Committee!
I took Boing Boing out of my newsreader last month when they were running lots of breathless (boring) product coverage from some completely un-wonderful tradeshow. Then I forgot to add them back until yesterday.
But now they’re back, so I can go back to reposting fun stuff you’ve already seen there. Like this: Evolution Control Committee’s new album, All Rights Reserved:
Way fun! Long live IP theft as art! (I actually mean that seriously. But it gets me in hot water whenever I discuss it with the formerly-music-industry-employed love of my life, so let’s just keep it between ourselves, mkay? Thanks.)
February 14th, 2011 at 9:58 am
What Would You Think If I Sang Autotune?
best use of autotune ever
take that Kanye!
February 15th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Enjoyed that. Always wondered why beatles didn’t sing that song more out of key, this remake is an improvement. Stairway to Britney? Frank Zappa would approve & I do too.
Dead thread.
When is JBC going to post another UFO video? In the meantime, let’s do a quick poll:
WHICH ONE LIES?
This guy (Keith):
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/beaches2_60natl_080410.htm
(one minute video)
Or this guy? (John):
http://bpoilslick.blogspot.com/2011/02/wake-up-america-you-are-being-lied-to.html
(Scroll down half a page for the embedded video, it is nearly 6 minutes but any minute of it will do.)
February 15th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
And shcb, you can consider the above questions to be rhetorical until you get some background, this might not be a bad place for you to start: http://oilspillaction.com/new-bp-commercials-make-a-mockery-of-whats-really-happening-on-the-gulf-coast :-)
February 16th, 2011 at 5:15 am
Don’t know, maybe neither, maybe both.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:59 am
After giving it a few more minutes of thought I would say both are telling the truth. BP says it will continue the cleanup as the oil comes ashore and the resident shows tracks in the sand known as the BP highway, that tells me that indeed BP is there on a very regular basis, maybe constant.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:48 am
Add “can’t follow instructions” to the list of shcb deficits:
http://www.lies.com/wp/2011/02/11/evolution-control-committee/#comment-219504
February 16th, 2011 at 10:17 am
What did I not follow?
February 17th, 2011 at 7:01 pm
While Clinton Calls for Free Speech, Ray McGovern is Arrested and Abused Before Her Eyes for (silently) Exercising Free Speech
February 17th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
I have this love, hate relationship with Hillary, similar I’m sure to the relationship she has with Dick Morris. She’s very good at what she does, she’s a mercenary, I like mercenaries, they are pure in so many ways. Morris is the epitome of a political soldier of fortune, I am so practical in my understanding of politics I have many of those same traits, but like Hillary I’m more ideological. The problem with being this way is sometimes you have to act like an adult. It’s hard to watch someone who once was respectable dragged away but it has to be done. I’ve never been a fan of these silent protests, there is nothing honorable about them, just shut out the other side of the argument, not honorable at all. Enky and Smith do this here, not honorable.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Oh! you didn’t answer, which of your instructions did I not follow?
February 18th, 2011 at 3:15 am
“just shut out the other side of the argument, not honorable at all.”
Sometimes the “other side” fails to say anything worth listening to. That is especially true here.
Also, lol at Mr. Talk Radio here bitching about “shutting out the other side”.
February 18th, 2011 at 10:24 am
I think the part where I threw up a little bit was this: “I am so practical in my understanding of politics” lolz
It didn’t take Mr Smith long to figure out that you can’t be reasoned with. How the hell do you have a real conversation with someone who thinks up is flat or level or down or fjzncvatzx. 2+2 does not equal sociamalism. A friendly fyi since those nuns seemed to just plain give up, 2+2=4 Go ahead, use your fingers, we’ll wait.
And really, faux’s go to guy Dick I Suck Hooker Toes Morris? Really?
You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word honorable. No seriously, the dictionary, it’s a book with lots of words inside, you should try it. Check one out at your public (sociamalistical!) library. What’s that? The library is a big building with lots of… books inside… ah forget it
February 18th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
I hope you guys realize what’s going on down there and are taking action…
What’s been happening — and it’s being attempted up here too by our Conservative PM — is that you’ve been cutting taxes for the rich and bailing out corporations and now you’ve got enormous debt. So, what’s the first thing right-wingers do? They attack unions and programs that benefit the lower and middle class.
This has always been their plan: cut taxes so much to starve the government and then start going after social programs and teachers and firefighters…
It’s a “Con” job of epic proportions and I hope my progressive friends here are ready to fight.
I know I am.
February 18th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
No one cut any taxes, and who do you think the money to bail out GM went to? The unions, now they did have to make some concessions, but if GM had gone into bankruptcy it would have been much worse for the unions.
February 18th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Excuse me? Are you for real?
Didn’t Bush (with the help of dems) pass the biggest tax cuts in history, twice? And didn’t Obama just pass them again?
My PM passed the largest tax cuts in a long time in our country, too and put us into a record deficit. Even right now he’s proposing further corp. tax cuts which will significantly add to an already record deficit. And he calls himself a Conservative?!
Why do they rack up so much debt? Because the plan is to starve government into oblivion and drive down wages and the middle calss’ standard of living so it matches China’s and India’s.
And GM received small potatoes in bailouts compared to the banks who actually caused the mess. See there you go again -go right after the unions even though the whole financial meltdown had absolutley nothing to do with union workers. And the recession before that? The one before that? GM is turning nice profits and handing out bonuses – and they’re still unionzed.
If Cons/Repubs had their way we’d all be making $0.50/hr and living in treehouses drinking polluted water.
I’m starting to get really pissed off at all this bullshit.
February 18th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
The current tax rates are either higher or lower than the last tax rates, that is how we know if they have been increased or decreased, or remain the same. I know you HATE Bush but you can’t blame him for something that could have been changed at any time in the last decade, especially since Democrats owned the entire shootin match for two years. Now if you can tax your way to prosperity they could have done it at any time in the last ten years, but you can’t. When you run low on money there is only two things you can do, make more or spend less. We are at the top of what you can tax, the rate is as high as you can go, even Democrats know that or they would have raised the rates, so all you can do is cut spending, Democrats aren’t very good at that
As far as unions go, their wages have continued to go up as ours have stagnated, we don’t like that. Teachers have gold plated pensions, they are guaranteed a pay raise every year no matter what the economy does, pisses us off.
February 18th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
NL,
It’s been happening for decades it’s just speeding up now. Harper might benefit from a reminder that the French Revolution happened for a reason.
shcb says “It’s hard to watch someone who once was respectable dragged away but it has to be done. ” WTF? McGovern was and remains more respectable than shcb will ever be, yet shcb wants cops to drag a person away if they make a statement by standing quietly with his back to a speaker. Sounds like Soviet Russia to me, “STAY IN YOUR SEAT OR YOU WILL BE BASHED AND THROWN INTO JAIL!” shcb is utterly incapable of understanding the irony of heavy handed police hauling McGovern away from his silent protest right under the nose of a leader who is in the middle of a speech pontificating about the virtues of such protests! She was arguing that people have the right to make the kind of statements nearly identical to what McGovern was doing while watching cops haul him away and bruise hiim badly in the process. Perhaps shcb was a cop at Kent state in the 1960’s.
http://www.counterpunch.com/zeese02172011.html
Oh, shcb, your instructions were to educate yourself before responding (third comment in this thread), yet it is clear you just started shooting from the hip with the usual result of missing all targets.
February 19th, 2011 at 4:39 am
I made my comments fully informed.
February 19th, 2011 at 5:43 am
“you can’t blame him for something that could have been changed at any time in the last decade, especially since Democrats owned the entire shootin match for two years”
You can’t blame Bush for anything he did while he was in office? LOL Goddamn you are dumb. It’s like you are some kind of Bizarro Midas. Instead of everything you touch turning to gold, everything you say turns to shit.
“Teachers have gold plated pensions, they are guaranteed a pay raise every year no matter what the economy does, pisses us off.”
I hope you are referring to some local issue here, because if you think the is the case at the national level than you are less than “fully informed”.
“We are at the top of what you can tax, the rate is as high as you can go”
Oh look, shcb seems to be less than “fully informed” about history. He also buys into the “Laugh”-er Curve.
“so all you can do is cut spending, Democrats aren’t very good at that”
http://obrag.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/budget_deficit_or_surplus.gif
“fully informed”…
February 19th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Rhetorical question: why do you insist on exaggerating what I say? Easy, because when you say I said “you can’t blame Bush for anything he did while in office?” it makes it easier to say “Goddamn you are dumb.” of course I’m not saying you can’t blame Bush.
I’m being a little unfair to NL, he is blaming all the people that have been in power since the Bush tax cuts, but he still can’t help himself and put the majority of the blame on Bush. If you have a problem, and you have the solution to that problem, and you have the ability to implement that solution and you don’t, it is now your problem. Lots of “ands” lined up there. But the fact is taxing rich people isn’t going to get the economy rolling again so the Democrats wisely didn’t do it, and people like NL will misguidedly carry their water.
Teachers. Yes there are some local issues that the problem worse here than other places but many of the dynamics are the same in other places.
February 19th, 2011 at 8:59 am
I find it faintly sickening to watch the right wing viciously attack teachers, police officers, fire fighters and government workers trying to make cuts to their pay and benefits. You can’t balance the budget with those peanuts. You have to raise revenues (more taxes and or economic growth) and decrease spending. Medicare is the biggest part of the increased spending, guess which recently enacted legislation actually reduces healthcare costs… healthcare reform does, or as the wingnutters call it “Obamacare”
Wailing about how terrible it is we bailed out GM because it was all a big sop to the all powerful unions? It doesn’t get any more bassackwards than that folks. Unions are down to less than 7% of the US workforce! Unions brought us the 8 hour work day, healthcare benefits, worker safety and a host of other pluses. If your goal is to make us as poor as China, then the Rethuggles are doing a great job.
If the Rethugs want to lower the deficit the only way to do that is to raise taxes on the rich (they are at historic lows right now btw) and reduce spending (no more multi-trillion dollar wars of aggression and stupidity). The US populace wants jobs, not deficit reduction. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.
Rs run up the deficit and destroy jobs, Ds win wars, pay down the debt, create jobs and prosperity. Facts aren’t opinions.
2+2=4 not sociamalism
February 20th, 2011 at 6:50 am
I have to admit that was fairly readable. It was so filled with disjointed metaphorical mixed metaphors I thought Enky was channeling Yogi Berra. Yeah it’s just sickening to see those nasty Rs being so mean to the poor government workers (12% of the workforce is union, not 7%). Yes asking them to pay three times what they pay now for their portion of healthcare is just terrible, even though it is still half what we pay, and we (taxpayers) are paying the rest of it.
He is right, the money we are so ruthlessly stealing from the poor government workers won’t help the federal budget much because most of them are paid from local and state funds. But I’m not complaining, at least Enky mixed the apples and oranges in almost actual sentences. But you see he is talking about two different problems as though they were one. States are in trouble because of unions, which is why FDR was so against unionized government workers, he knew it would drive taxes to an unsustainable level, actually he said that over 65 years ago, pretty smart guy. The feds are in trouble because more money is going out than is coming in, but they can borrow, many if not most states can’t borrow so they have to cut essential services to pay the other half of the union workers medical coverage (7/8ths now) and the gold plated pensions (we have superintendants making $200k in retirement for being a super for a couple years at the end of their careers), or the feds funnel money to the states, and that is where the paybacks begin.
Yes the unions are a huge political influence and yes the GM bailout had a lot to do with paying them back. 12% of the workforce and nearly all the money that is used for political purposes taken from those workers goes to Democrats, huge political influence, huge.
Republicans aren’t going to raise taxes on the rich, they are smarter than that, Democrats didn’t do it either, they are smarter than that, raising taxes hurts economies, you don’t do it when the economy is hurting. (top marginal rates have been as high as over 90% and as low as 7%, at 35% they aren’t even close to historic lows, been pretty stable since the mid 80’s)
“The Us populace wants jobs, not deficit reduction. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.” Agreed, but they want both.
Facts aren’t opinions, that is true, but you need to have the facts right.
February 20th, 2011 at 8:23 am
Questions:
Did unionized workers cause the financial meltdown? What about the recession before that? And the one before that?
How does taking away a workers right to bargain fix the debt or really having anything at all to do with it?
If it wasn’t for unions, what would America look like right now?
Does the U.S. really need troops stationed all ove the world? Was the Iraq war necessary? Is anything being accomplished in Afghanistan? Why does America feel it’s necessary to spend a half a trillion dollars a year on the miltary and then think it’s financial problems are related to unionized, middle class workers?
February 20th, 2011 at 9:20 am
“you can’t blame him for something that could have been changed at any time in the last decade”
“You can’t blame Bush for anything he did while he was in office?”
“why do you insist on exaggerating what I say?”
At no point in the last decade was Bush in office? Hurf Durf.
Teacher’s wages have been frozen for 5+ years in my area.
February 20th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Answers:
Did unionized workers cause the financial meltdown? No
what about the recession before that? No
And the one before that? No
How does taking away a workers right to bargain fix the debt or really having anything at all to do with it? It doesn’t, read what I said, two separate issues, unionized government workers mostly apply to states issues, not federal.
If it wasn’t for unions, what would America look like right now? Without unions in the private sector, worse, without unions in the public sector, better. At least that was the opinion of FDR
Does the u.s. really need troops stationed ell over the world? For the sake of the rest of the world, yes, for the sake of the US, no.
Was the Iraq war necessary? No, but it was beneficial.
Is anything being accomplished in Afghanistan? Yes
why does America feel it’s necessary to spend a half a trillion dollars a year on the military? Because no one else will
and then think it’s financial problems are related to unionized, middle class workers? Because many of the financial issues at the state level are.
February 20th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Test Results:
Did unionized workers cause the financial meltdown? No Correct, that’s 1/1
what about the recession before that? No check, 2/2
And the one before that? No 3/3
How does taking away a workers right to bargain fix the debt or really having anything at all to do with it? It doesn’t, 4/4 read what I said, two separate issues, unionized government workers mostly apply to states issues, not federal. So now we are talking about state finances exclusively? -1 for the bait and switch = 4/5
If it wasn’t for unions, what would America look like right now? Without unions in the private sector, worse, without unions in the public sector, better. Based on what facts? Unions in either sector changed the treatment of workers, it is unrealistic (or wishful thinking) to say one sector should have been unionized and the other not, Sorry shcb, it didn’t work that way because it cannot work that way. Either you get unions and reasonable working conditions or exploitation continues. Whether private or public sector led to treating people with some measure of dignity and respect for their right to a reasonable life compared to the relative serf-dom of the early 1900’s, industrial revolution and previously back to the middle ages and worse. For thinking onesector could be unionized out of the industrial revolution without providing comparable workers in other sectors the same rights, -1 = 4/6 At least that was the opinion of FDR Relevance of FDR’s opinion? -1 for irrelevance = 4/7
Does the u.s. really need troops stationed ell over the world? For the sake of the rest of the world, yes, for the sake of the US, no. EPIC FAIL. Yankee, go home. -1 = 4/8
Was the Iraq war necessary? No, but it was beneficial. To Iraqi’s? Not according to them. To the USA? No, it drained the public purse by trillions of dollars (vs. initial estimates that it would “pay for itself”) To fight terrorism? No, there were no terrorists in Iraq, the occupation of Iraq create 100X more terrorists in that country and BADwill towards America that will take at least a generation if not three to resolve in that region; prior to the invasion an American could travel in the country, now to do so is extremely dangerous. Spectre of civil war looms, extremists have more political power there than before, their standards of living has been decimated by the US attack and occupation & such poverty breeds desperate ideas and actions. Iraq is an epic failure to establish stability and any semblance of a decent social order. Was it beneficial to Haliburton, KBR Root? Blackwater USA? Lockhead Martin? Etc.? Dick Cheney in particular, and George Bush in general, HELL YES. On the balance, suggesting the Iraq war was beneficial is akin to supporting some of the worst evildoers of our lifetime and cheering for the implementation of TORTURE and destruction of the high ideals on which America was founded. -1 = 4/9
Is anything being accomplished in Afghanistan? Yes. Insufficient answer. What is being accomplished in Afghanistan that is any different than was “accomplished” by the Soviets, the British and countless other failed empires before that? Besides the restoration of poppy crops from virtual elimination to pre-Taliban levels & initial steps to construct a trans Afghanistan pipeline to ship Caspian Basin petroleum resources, and other mining ventures of great interest to multi-national/American companies that are yet to be undertaken? Certainly not women’s rights, there’s been little change in that regard. -0 = 4/9 (further explanation required) Why does America feel it’s necessary to spend a half a trillion dollars a year on the military … Because no-one else will You mean because no one else is that STUPID to dedicate such resources; besides that was not the question, the question was “Why does America feel it is necessary to spend ½ a trillion / yr on the military and then think it’s financial problems are related to unionized, middle class workers? to which shcb answers “because many of the financial issues at the state level are” which is not adequate because of the non-sequitor and because more issues at the state level are the result of downloading and stupidity at the national level with respect to grossly misallocated resources on guns instead of butter. -1 = 4/10
Test Results = 4/10, not bad for shcb, congratulations on your D – grade.
February 21st, 2011 at 5:52 am
“So now we are talking about state finances exclusively? -1 for the bait and switch = 4/5” No, I’m not talking about anything exclusively, that is why I have said repeatedly “separate issues.” You guys keep wanting to condense a couple of my points into one because that way it fits a bumper sticker response. To accurately analyze a complex situation you have to know what aspects are related and unrelated, which are the same and which are different. The part of unionization that is hurting the states the most isn’t wages it is the pension plan, it is a defined benefit plan, not a defined contribution plan. Most private unions had to modify their defined benefits plans decades ago because they are a Ponzi scheme, the union must be ever expanding.
At some point the union membership in the private sector topped out and competition from abroad stifled they monopolies of the manufactures in America and the defined benefits became unsustainable. But you see that doesn’t happen in the public sector because government has the power of taxation. The Ponzi aspect can be perpetuated longer because as it becomes unfunded the pyramid can be expanded to areas the private sector can’t reach, this is what FDR was referring to many decades ago.
Luckily states like Colorado have things like TABOR that don’t allow a state to go in debt, this brings the problem to a head quicker and should make the fix less painful.
“…and because more issues at the state level are the result of downloading and stupidity at the national level with respect to grossly misallocated resources on guns instead of butter. “ yes there is that aspect, but that is a separate but related issue, there is also a degree of uploading from the states to the fed to get around my last point, transferring debt from states to the fed.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:53 am
BTW, that is why the founders added the 10th ammendment, to keep the feds and states apart as much as possible.
February 21st, 2011 at 2:00 pm
4 out of 10 is a failing grade
I misspoke on the percentage of unionized workers in America. I meant to add the word ‘private’ workers and the actual percentage is 6.9%.
There are some interesting graphs about the private vs public pay rates here (yes yes I know it’s that lefty pravda site, but it collects the most easily understandable graphs in one place)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/21/947132/-Wisconsin,-Ohio-public-employees-are-not-overpaid
Funny how wwnjs are *enraged* about some poor sap pulling a pension for a 5 or 6 figure annual payout, but an exec making 300 to 500 times as much as their average worker is AOK (and anyone who even mentions this is a sociamalistic commie)
Did you know the previous D gov of WI closed a budget gap that is twice as large as the projected deficit it now faces? And that the state had a $150 M(ish) budget surplus until the new R(wingnut) governor rammed thru some tax breaks and payback for the Koch bros et al. Talk about manufacturing a ‘crisis’. The unions already agreed to some financial rollbacks, but this is all about union busting and removing the last big (but shrinking) counterweight to the super-rich and megacorps.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/MarginalIncomeTax.svg
wwnj – perhaps you could take a peek at this graph and tell me whether the current highest tax bracket is either on the low end or the high end compared with its previous %s? I hope to break thru with super simple concepts like ‘big’ vs ‘little’ and eventually build your understanding to things like ‘up’ and ‘down’ ‘level’ or ‘flat’. Perhaps in some distant epoch you might be ready for ‘right’ vs ‘wrong’
Fed income tax rates are at historic lows. The 7% rate was only in the first few years they were introduced, but why let facts get in the way of some wingnuttery eh?
side note: anyone who thinks the Iraq war was “beneficial” obviously has ‘opinions’ that are laughable.
February 21st, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I couldn’t open the svg file
February 21st, 2011 at 2:53 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States
scroll down to history of…
(ruh roh, up, down, flat, level, upside down… trouble ahead)
graph is on the right…
(ruh roh, right/left)
I’ll spell it out: for roughly 4 5ths of the time since we’ve had fed income tax, the rate has been higher than it currently is. Facts is so dang lib, eh?
I didn’t say “lowest” I said “historic lows” meaning… ah screw it… go out and play lil ricky, Daddy has a headache…
February 21st, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I wouldn’t call that historic but I’ll give it to you, it’s close enough.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Enk,
not “historic”?
Maybe shcb is saying that taxes were much lower in 1777 – 1913 (i.e. zero)? Awfully generous for him to give you that point, but strange he forgot the hurf durf…
February 21st, 2011 at 8:08 pm
It is actually closer to 85% of the time we have had fed income tax it has been higher, and not just by a little. The top bracket has been as high as 94%. I’d say 35% was taxamagically low. Historically low.
facts is so dang lib!
We should institute a war tax for every wwnj who supports the endless wars of aggression. Say 10% off the top. Fair is fair, you morans ran up the deficit. Then maybe a 10% tax on top of that for anyone dumb enough to vote for w. If you voted for McPalin another 10%. Hey look the deficit just solved itself! And we’re running a surplus again, just like the Clinton years! You know, when we had the longest, strongest economic growth and job creation in modern times? (ie the last 100 years or so)
hurf durf!
February 21st, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Knarly, we were looking at the same chart, same years, but it is much more complicated than just looking at that chart. I have found from my last go around that it is unproductive to go any further than his graph if the line goes up that is all the analysis he can do, so it is best to just give him the point and move on.
When you factor in the value of the dollar, the upper limit and the years of those limits and tax rates you find the years the rich were really screwed were in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the changes in the 80’s to bring the rates to 35% were absolutely essential. However, the marginally wealthy that this bracket targets have been paying more and more due to the value of money steadily increasing and the cap increasing at a much slower rate, so even though the rate has stayed constant they are paying more and more real value. Way too complicated for Enky, he is right, historic low, historic.
February 21st, 2011 at 11:59 pm
If you cannot acknowledge that temps are still going up in our previous graph… not flat, not down, not leveled off or sociamalism
If you can’t acknowledge that fed income taxes are near historic lows… based on actual reality… history… math…
What basis for real communication is there?
Could you please explain to us dumb libs how “the value of money is steadily increasing” and the poor poor wealthy folk (yes, I know it makes no sense) are “paying more and more in real value”?
This must be why bread is a nickel and oil is a buck a barrel. New cars can be had for a handful of pocket change and wishes. About the only thing we’re getting more of these days for our buck is semiconductors (see Moore’s Law). A case could be made that the hoi poloi are paying less for their foodstuffs (or a smaller percentage of their income), but I am too tired/lazy to look it up so late (long day at the forge).
But please do enlighten us o wise old one (this should be a classic of wwnj gibberish). I bet your ‘explanation’ will be taxamagical!
February 22nd, 2011 at 5:53 am
I’m not an economist so I probably used the wrong terminology, the consumer price index is steadily increasing. With the CPI, wages go up at a similar rate, so a trash collector is living about the same lifestyle as he was 50 years ago, he just makes a lot more money. If the lower limit of the highest tax bracket doesn’t keep up then the people paying that bracket they are paying more and more of their income on that bracket because they are making more money in that bracket even though their relative wealth hasn’t changed.
When the tax rate was in the 90% range in the 30’s the threshold was a million dollars at certain times, so only the super rich, the Rockefellers, were paying it. Now with it at about $350k the Huxtables are paying it, not super rich. Our veterinarian and her pharmacist ex husband (haven’t met the new guy, don’t know what he does) were probably in that range, now they are certainly richer than me, but we live in the same neighborhood so they aren’t super rich. So on top of the upper tax bracket paying more of their relative wealth on taxes the net is catching a larger number of fish getting out of the realm of “taxing the rich”.
Knarly has a degree in economics maybe he can add the proper terminology.
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:40 am
Thanks for addressing shcb’s answers to my questions, knarly. While I was reading them I just shook my head, closed my browser and loaded up Starcraft.
America’s current problems were caused by corporate greed and extremely excessive military spending.
So naturally, they go after and blame it all on unionized workers who are just trying to put food on the table and provide a decent life for their family.
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:52 am
how does corporate greed and extremely excessive military spending effect state budgets?
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:52 am
affect?
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:12 am
We aren’t going to solve all our problems by ending the Ponzi scheme, just the problems from the Ponzi scheme. But we may make states solvent again if they aren’t paying 55 year old retirees the majority of their highest earnings in to perpetuity. Unions were great to get workers decent pay and decent working conditions, they just got greedy, now they need to slapped down a little.
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:45 am
taxamagical wingnuttery mixed with mendacious ignorance and wrapped up with a beat down metaphor
classic
state/fed workers typically make less than private workers (go wwnj! go forth! and use The Google to cherrypick some numbers that you can blend into a frappé of rightwing outrage and nonsense, go! note – answers from Conservapedia will be disqualified as lacking actual facts or basis in reality)
Trying to break unions has little to do with balancing WI’s checkbook, it’s all about politics and power and money for the megacorps and uber-rich. Check out the WI guvnr’s plan to sell state power plants in closed no bid deals. Keep going down this oligarchy path and we’ll have our own Tahrir Square uprising.
up is up, it isn’t down or flat or leveled off or sideways or whtvr
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:55 am
NL, good call on that starcraft switch… wish I had such a fine diversion…
shcb,
I think you’ll find people work about twice as hard now as they did in the 1970’s for about the same household standard of living. CPI is not static, government’s fudge the numbers (as they must sometimes e.g. to account for consumers substituting cheaper alternatives when the stuff they really want to buy gets outrageously expensive.) We used to have a good beef roast once or twice a week when I was a kid because it was relatively cheap and there was only one income for a above average size family, now it is a luxury for my small family. But it’s okay because there are still plenty of free ducks in the park. ;-) kidding. )
Enk,
I like your tax on stupid votes idea, needs a lot of refining but the principle of assigning the costs of war to those who want war is worth pursuing.
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:08 am
“how does corporate greed and extremely excessive military spending effect state budgets?”
Uh, you know this Great Recession we’re in right now? The one caused by greed? Yeah, that affected your states. Wow…
And I’m assuming like our federal government your federal government provides transfer payments to the states to fund bid ticket items like education and healthcare and whole lot of other things. Since the feds are broke due to corporate greed and warmongering the states aren’t receiving the money they need.
Also, states have been on tax cut binges using the mystical logic that decreasing revenues somehow will help balance their budgets. Even in WI, the R’s are proposing further tax cuts while bitching about their budget deficit. Yes, they’re decreasing their revenues thinking that it will help them get back into the black *pounds head against desk*
The one shining light in all this is that I’m finally seeing progressives down there saying enough is enough. ENOUGH!
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:37 am
NL,
We’re seeing it, but I’ve got the impression that the WI protesters were being characterized (at least by Fox) as wanna be hippies and ungrateful, over-paid union hacks.
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:59 am
funny knarls, when we take the kids down to the civic center to feed the ducks, my kids will ask me, ‘why are we feeding wild ducks?’ and I say ‘well after the big earthquake, we’ll come down here with a crust of bread and a stick or a rock and we’ll catch us some dinner’
You should see their faces!
The hippy punching in America is reflexive. It’s *always* the DFHs’ fault.
Über-rich banksters sold crap derivatives, while credit rating agencies rubber stamped toxic waste as equiv to US treasuries (which might tell you something about US treasuries…), that whole thing was cuz some “negroes and mexicans” (as per wwnj) tanked the housing markets! O and hippies too! Greedy hippy teachers, making $50k a year teaching lib math! grrrrr! expecting to, you know, eat when they retire! grrrrr! “they need to slapped down a little.”
nope. no violent metaphor here folks…
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 pm
knarly, yes, and none other than the man himself — Jon Stewart — last night pointed out perfectly Fox’s hypocrisy when covering these protests and the tea bag protests last summer.
Ah but then there’s sweet, sweet revenge:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201102220006
(check out the signs in the bg during Fox’s coverage :)
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:17 pm
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/FoxLiesSign.jpg
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Send a pizza to the WI protesters
At least one person from Egypt sent them a pie.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49888.html#ixzz1EXkqdxcu
People power is spreading. Democracy is flowering, and messy as it is, the good guys will win. Libya will fall to facebook, twitter and that thing that Al Gore invented (nope, not ‘global warming’) Look out Saudi Arabia! You’re next.
I love how this has also made AQ absolutely irrelevant. O makes his first big speech in Cairo, a bit of diplomacy, export your hierarchy flattening instant communication technology and – wham! A lot cheaper than dumbya’s follies. Priceless.
February 22nd, 2011 at 4:03 pm
I was thinking the same thing, Democracy seems to be sprouting up amoungst the worst Arab regimes under Obama’s watch.
Makes one wonder if Bush’s approach (to bomb the hell out of a country) might be a unnecessary, just a tad expensive, and in most respects completely counter-productive.
If Saudi falls and oil hits $200/bbl we may yet meet Kyoto’s emission targets…
February 22nd, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Let us hope my friend working on the ‘cold fusion’ solution gets there first.
My bike uses very little oil in any case. And in a pinch we could probably use vegetable oil or that can of bacon grease I have i the back of the fridge (you can tell I’m ‘from the South’ [not just because I got the hell out of there asap – too many racist douchenozzles])
February 22nd, 2011 at 6:12 pm
btw #1 oil producer is Russia, then Saudis, then US then mb Canada iirc? Iran is in the top ten for sure (quick lets start a useless war of aggression where we don’t even grab the damn oil… what? o, we already did that with Iraq? ok…)
February 23rd, 2011 at 11:01 am
We’re around #10 for exports… #2 for reserves (perhaps even #1 given the controversy surrounding the Saudi’s oil reserve estimates)
February 23rd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
I suppose all these sorts of estimates have a range of certainty. Isn’t a huge portion of CND oil in the form of tar sands and the like? Our natural gas production is way up because we’ve been using a controversial process called frakking.
Libya will fall, it will be bloody (I bet the war nerd is in a lather watching all that soviet armor go boom). But people power is winning. The whole arab world is in for an upheaval, some will get ahead of the game (Egypt. Jordan perhaps?) while others will not (Israel, Saudis, various little royal kleptocracies). Debatable whether we’ll be in the former or the latter group.
It’d be nice if Obama would, like, ya know, uh, lead?
Get in front of this ya dummies!
February 23rd, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Yes, CDN oil is in the sand and requires a lot of resources to extract it. It’s been labelled “dirty oil” and rightly so. It takes something like 10 barrels of water to extract 1 barrel of oil…
Stupid to the Last Drop.
February 24th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Here’s why it’s so stupid:
http://www.briangordon.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/alberta-tar-sands-before-after.jpg