Explain to me again how raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year is “controversial”? (from polls conducted over the summer in swing states)

Explain to me again how raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year is “controversial”? (from polls conducted over the summer in swing states)

$478 million judgment for deceptive infomercials

siddman:

If you’ve ever heard a real-estate infomercial promising you quick, easy money from investing in real estate, you’ve probably wondered if it’s too good to be true.

If you’ve already tried investing in real estate, you already know it’s too good to be true. You can make money in real estate, but it’s rarely quick or easy.

The federal district court in California this week ordered the marketers of three get-rich-quick real-estate systems to pay a record fine of $478 million, saying the companies deceived the more than 1 million consumers who bought their products.

The products promised real-estate riches in exchange for materials that cost $39.95 each — plus $39.95 a month additional that the FTC said wasn’t adequately disclosed — and personal coaching services for which consumers paid up to $14,995. Almost no one made any money.

Those who prey upon the poor and elderly are the very worst scum.

My only issue with this is that Robert Kiyosaki was not included in the judgement. That guy is an idiotic windbag.

Tavis Smiley interviews Ben Stein on the election and the economy.

elledark: Bernie Sanders - The American People Are AngryOne of Washingtons’s very few honest politicians, Senator Bernie Sanders, delivered a blistering Labor Day critique of the USA’s failed economic policies and obscene inequality of wealth. He said ..“The American people are angry because they see the great middle class of this country collapsing, poverty increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else grow wider.  They are angry because they see this great country, which so many of our veterans fought for and died for, becoming an oligarchy - a nation where our economic and political life are controlled by a handful of billionaire families. In the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s.  Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people. Today, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent.Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent.  Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 3/10ths of one percent of the wealth of the country.According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2007-2010.  That’s the equivalent of wiping out 18 years of savings for the average middle class family.The distribution of income is even worse.  If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created from the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining 7 percent. In other words, the rich are getting much richer while almost everyone else is falling behind.Not only is this inequality of wealth and income morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy.  If working families are deeply in debt, and have little or no income to spend on goods and services, how can we expand the economy and create the millions of jobs we desperately need?  There is a limit as to how many yachts, mansions, limos and fancy jewelry the super-rich can buy.  We need to put income into the hands of working families.” (extract from Bernie Sanders Labor Day message .. full text here)

elledark:

Bernie Sanders - The American People Are Angry

One of Washingtons’s very few honest politicians, Senator Bernie Sanders, delivered a blistering Labor Day critique of the USA’s failed economic policies and obscene inequality of wealth. He said ..

“The American people are angry because they see the great middle class of this country collapsing, poverty increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else grow wider.  They are angry because they see this great country, which so many of our veterans fought for and died for, becoming an oligarchy - a nation where our economic and political life are controlled by a handful of billionaire families. 

In the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s.  Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people. 

Today, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent.

Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent.  Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 3/10ths of one percent of the wealth of the country.

According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2007-2010.  That’s the equivalent of wiping out 18 years of savings for the average middle class family.

The distribution of income is even worse.  If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created from the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining 7 percent. In other words, the rich are getting much richer while almost everyone else is falling behind.

Not only is this inequality of wealth and income morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy.  If working families are deeply in debt, and have little or no income to spend on goods and services, how can we expand the economy and create the millions of jobs we desperately need?  There is a limit as to how many yachts, mansions, limos and fancy jewelry the super-rich can buy.  We need to put income into the hands of working families.”

 (extract from Bernie Sanders Labor Day message .. full text here)

but it’s not the free ride people think it is.

deliciouskaek:

community service is required, job search is required, for some services, a JOB is required. unless you have a proven disability, there’s no way out of it, and if you’re like some people, you may not have ever even sought help for yourself except at the bottom of a bottle. you might have been in denial about needing help at all, and so when the time came to check the box that asks “are you or anyone in your household disabled?”  you’d check “no,” and you’d be stuck with a pittance of a check until they realized you couldn’t do the things they ask you to do. and then you’re cut off.

and for those who can fufill the requirements, it’s not so bad. but even then, let’s be honest, the welfare system asks a lot of people who are asking for help.

how much money do you have. do you have a car. how old is the car, what’s its BB value. how many people in your household. are they pregnant, if so, how far along. who’s the father, where’s he live, no, we need a name so we can get all his info, too. that way we can collect child support for you. you’ll only get $50 of that, but at least he’ll be paying. yeah, i know, he’ll probably be paying closer to $600. you still get $50.

oh, yeah, we need SScards for everyone, k? birth certs, too. mailing address? can you prove it? copy of your lease. statement from your landlord. do you pay electricity? gas? phone? prove it. nope, open the bills when you bring them, doesn’t matter if we can see the date and address on the outside, we need to know how much electric and gas you use. never mind why, that’s not important. do you have bank statements. no no, we need a statement to show your banking activity.

how much cash do you have on hand? how much? $200? okay that’s fine, but that brings you over the acceptable amount of cash and bank accounts, you have to get rid of that. spend it. bring receipts to show what you spent it on.

then you have to sell your car. can’t have you driving around. if you really needed help, you would be willing to sell that. we’re looking for complete desperation here, you’re not really fitting the description. what do you mean you need that car? driving kids to school? looking for jobs? pfft, if you can do that, you don’t need us. nope, sell it. wait, you have a 401k? saving for retirement? if you have retirement money, you have assets. your application is void until that money is gone. ooh, an IRA? look at you trying to be fiscally responsible, that’s so cute. nope. close it. i know there’s a penalty. we don’t care. close it. oh, and bring some receipts, would you? we need to know you actually spent that money and that you’re not just sitting on it.

yup, every penny.

and once you do that, we’ll get back to you in 30-90 days.

yeah. everyone wants to go through that every six months. it’s fun and enjoyable, you see?

and then standing in line to buy anything. ANYTHING. lots of stores accept the EBT card for transactions these days, and they don’t just deposit food stamps anymore, your cash benefits go on there, too.

you damn sure can walk into Popeye’s and use your EBT card to get a 3pc. McDonald’s? yeah, some of them. and if that’s what you want, what you can afford, go ahead, do the damn thing! but hide it, cover the card with your hand when you swipe it. people will be over your shoulder to make sure that’s not what you used, because obviously anyone who has food stamps should be eating at the soup kitchen. and everyone in line behind you is judging you, some of them not even silently. 

never hang too long near the steak when paying with EBT benefits. obviously shouldn’t be buying that. never mind that your oldest son just graduated college and is coming home. oh, your middle daughter is turning 16? no cake and ice cream for her. in fact, you should be in the Approved Welfare Foods aisle. don’t leave that area until the cart is full. anything else in there will be subject to inspection by every other customer, employee and manager in the store to make sure you aren’t wasting taxpayer dollars on healthy foods, so they can look down your noses at you if you are.

i see you, over there taking the bus. it’s only 7 stops, you should be walking. you don’t have money for that. oh, it’s your last pocket change? okay then. just make sure it’s some crumpled, over-folded bills and some change that you can drop, so that everyone can see how destitute you really are.

wait, didn’t you say you sold your car? what are you driving? sure, you say it’s a friend’s car. your mom’s car? why didn’t you just go live with her? i’m sure she could squeeze your 5 person family into her 2 bedroom apartment, you should get on that, otherwise, you can’t possibly need assistance.

um, excuse me, how come your child appears to be wearing Nikes? shouldn’t she have some Airwalk from Payless on her feet? how can you afford that! Dooney & Burke bag? Gucci sneakers? better head to Target and grab those Converse One Stars and a Merona purse. it was a gift? please, no one gave you that for Christmas, you’re a liar, you don’t need help. besides, it’s already February, that stuff should look worn down by now, but it’s so clean! you’re so clean! i thought for sure you’d be like, conserving soap or something. and you had time to get you and your daughter’s hair done, too. and hey, where are the little ones? i know you had some… NEGLECT! wait what? how can you afford day care? after school programs? this is unconscionable. i don’t know where this comes from, but i’m reporting you for fraud.

that is what that welfare life is like. that’s what it’s actually like to be on assistance. 

no one wants to go through that unless they have to.

(Source: deliciouskaek)

…to believe that black folk are so weak that they can be infantilized by a political party or various programs supported (sometimes) by members of that party, is to think precious little of those same black persons. It is to suggest that a people who are strong enough to survive the Middle Passage (go ahead Greg, look it up, it’s OK), enslavement, debt peonage, convict-leasing, Jim Crow and lynching, can somehow be brought to their knees, and turned into dysfunctional children, by virtue of an EBT card or a health insurance policy that happens to cover their kids’ pre-existing asthma. To think black people so weak as to be rendered virtually inoperative as functioning adults by various social programs, while white folks in European nations who receive much larger safety net benefits of all kinds seem to have no similar problems, is to believe black people somehow less resilient, even inferior to those Europeans. If safety nets trap blacks in a so-called “hammock” of dependency as the right is fond of saying, and contribute to so many of the social problems that conservatives would like to lay at the feet of that dependency, why haven’t the much more generous safety nets of every other industrialized nation on the planet with which we like to compare ourselves, absolutely wrecked their people? How are Scandinavians still able to remember how to bathe themselves, let alone get up and go to work? Why do social programs cripple black people but not Nordic types? I wait with baited breath for an answer to this question that won’t be by definition racist.

Source: Tim Wise: A Kick in the Gut(feld): Racism, Welfare Dependence, and FOX’s Clown Prince of Prejudice (via azspot)

Romney Insists GOP Not "the Party of the Rich"

At a $1.7 million fundraiser in Jackson, Mississippi this week, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared that the GOP is not “the party of the rich,” insisting instead that “we’re the party of people who want to get rich.”

Sadly for Romney, there are two small problems with his assessment. For starters, Mitt’s proposals (like those from GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan) would deliver another massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy and shred the social safety net while putting the economic recovery at risk. Just as damning for Mitt and his cheerleaders like David Brooks and Robert Samuelson, the historical record shows that from economic growth and job creation to household incomes, stock market performance and just about every other indicator of the health of the U.S. capitalism, the modern U.S. economy has almost always done better under Democratic presidents.

California Defies Lower-Tax Texas In Creating More Jobs

“What these new figures do is drive a stake through these weak Republican talking points,” said Gil Duran, a spokesman for California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown. “California jobs are coming back at a higher rate here. We hope that happens everywhere.”

So tax cuts are the only way to create jobs you say? What’s that, I can’t hear you over the pounding sound of REALITY.

11 years ago, August 25, 2001

“President Bush said today that there was a benefit to the government’s fast-dwindling surplus, declaring that it will create ”a fiscal straitjacket for Congress.” He said that was ”incredibly positive news” because it would halt the growth of the federal government.

In a 45-minute news conference in a community hall next to an RV park here, Mr. Bush avoided specific answers to several questions about how he would find the money for his next big initiatives, from missile defense, to overhauling the military, to reforming Medicaid, without dipping into Social Security surpluses that both parties have declared off limits. And he made it clear he would not re-think his tax cut, saying, ”I can’t tell you how proud I am to be traveling around the country and people say, ‘Thanks for the $600.’ ”

At the same time, Mr. Bush talked in some detail about the economic slowdown, which he called a ”correction,” and left open the possibility that he might dip into the Social Security money if a further economic stimulus was needed …

In an age of suddenly scarce resources, though, he insisted that Congress must adjust its spending attitudes. ”The surest way to make sure that the recovery doesn’t happen in a meaningful period of time or a reasonable period of time is to overspend,” Mr. Bush said. He said his job was to ”make sure we keep fiscal sanity in the budget.” 
~ Source, via The Big Picture

Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence

SOMERSET, NJ—In what local authorities are calling a “near tragedy,” Charles Wentworth, a 17-year-old Rutgers Preparatory senior and member of the affluent Wentworth family, came perilously close to suffering a consequence resulting from his own wrongdoing Saturday.