What's Wrong With This Picture?

[kpete]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/photos/a.404595876219681.103599.142474049098533/1041973582481904/?type=1&theater

[spanone]

1. k&r...

[Enthusiast]

2. Kicked and recommended to the Max! Why does this continue?

[bvar22]

8. Why does this continue?

...because we continue to elect people who benefit from the Status Quo,
Democrat & Republican.

[Rex]

3. That is exactly the way a plutocracy behaves.

Oh wait...said I wouldn't be talking about that anymore. Old hat etc..

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Nothing is your middle name is insert corporation here

[elias49]

5. American exceptionalism

You have to admit we're good at what we truly care about.

[daleanime]

6. K&R....

[gademocrat7]

7. K&R

[passiveporcupine]

9. I don't even know if they believe what they are saying

but if they do, they are frigging idiots!

[JDPriestly]

10. Companies that do more than 25% of their production overseas should not be considered

"American" companies and should not be allowed to take any tax deductions on any money earned in the US except for the amounts they pay directly to employees who live over 10 months a year in the US and who pay taxes in the US.

None of this selling foreign-made goods in the US, banking and factoring the income in the Bahamas or in Switzerland and not paying all owed taxes on the money.

Maybe I am being a bit extreme, but not that much.

You sell products in the US including phone services or legal services, etc., that you produce in another country, and you pay taxes on the value of those services and all connected. This would be similar to the VAT taxes the Europeans pay, except instead of having retail buyer of the finished product pay the tax to the government directly, the producer or seller of the product would pay all of the sales tax as well as other taxes on its production when it is sold in the US.

Our prices would rise, but we would have far more jobs and a competitive labor market.

It's just an idea, but the point is that companies that don't pay US taxes on what we consume in the US are not paying their full share to support the infrastructure needed in this country for them to be able to sell their products. And they need to start doing that.

[gregcrawford]

13. You are not the least bit extreme, Mr. Priestly...

... or Ms., as the case may be. It can be difficult to discern gender from screen names sometimes.

But coproatists are robbing us all blind, and I, for one, am sick of it.

[JDPriestly]

14. I'm a MS. Yes. You are right.

[lark]

34. In a sane world, this would be how it was done.

We, however, are living in insanity where total lies are taken for the God given truths by a terrifingly large percentage of the population (all conservatives and their sheeple). The rich are not American job makers any more, yet sooo many still revere them and coddle them because of this supposed fact which is actually a lie. They can't see past their own bank accounts and are destroying the environment and livlihoods of millions of Americans, which will ultimately hurt them too when their products/services aren't being bought at a high enough rate due to rampant poverty.

[JDPriestly]

38. Thanks. So true.

[Dont call me Shirley]

11. Robert Rocks! He always says it as it is in clear language!

[libodem]

12. Oh nothing

That's Republican utopia.

[LiberalEsto]

15. And THEN they want to cut "entitlements" to those in need. NT

[StarzGuy]

27. Of Course, The Word "Entitlements" Is The Wrong Word...

Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements they are paid for benefits. The Repukes like to misinform the public by having their cut throats to butcher words to have a negative meaning and/or connotation. That's what they have done to the word entitlement.

They also want to force people to work until 70 as that's their new retirement age. I've been disabled since 2010 at the age of 55, now 60 and there is no way I can return to my profession given my disabilities which are not getting better, but worse over time.

[tooeyeten]

16. Plenty wrong n/t

[azmom]

17. They own our government, they make

The laws.


Elect Bernie. He is not beholden to Wall Street, bankers or corporations. He will fight for us.

[Hotler]

20. The PTB will not let Bernie near the Whitehouse.

I support Bernie and hope he will wins, but it will not happen. They will do to him what they did to JFK, RFK. MLK or just hack the voting machines. If he does by chance make it to the Whitehouse the PTB will find a way to kneecap him and he will not be able to do much. The PTB (aka the bankers and the war machine) have too much to lose. Our only chance is an uprising the likes this world has never seen before. The workers and the poor in the rest of the world are looking to us to bring change. If we rise up the rest of the little people in this world will support us. We will never know unless we try it with all we have.

[azmom]

21. True. We cannot underestimate them.

We will need to be out in the streets for as long as it takes.

[lark]

35. Part B was correct. They'll just hack the machines, they did it twice with Bush already.

I really don't think they will ever let Bernie win, but if his margin is high enough, it could happen. In that event, I'd be very very very worried about this health. Katherine Graham died in a suspicious way right after BFEE stole the presidency, she was too inconvenient and powerful. Think the same would be planned for him.

(Yeah, I know)

[Hotler]

18. Ya so???? What are we going to do about it?

Voting every 2 and 4 years is not cutting it. Nobody wants to do anything except sit behind their keyboard and bitch. The biggest weapon we have is our wallets and pocket books. Shut the spending down and take to the streets by the hundreds of thousands and stay in the streets for 4-6 months till we we start to get the PTB attention. The days of playing nice with these fuckers are over. It is time to get fighting mad.

[azmom]

23. It's the only way they will listen. Masses of people

Out in the streets. That's what it is going to take.

[Alkene]

19. + a lot.

[appalachiablue]

22. Neofeudalism, slavocracy, greedocracy.

[midnight]

24. Years ago Scroogle scraper had this little thank you message:

Let's be honest: you'll never win the lottery.

On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it — you're a member of the working caste. Sorry!

As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you. That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America.

Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us — and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people.

Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!

You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo. So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold."

Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits. And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening — instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Jews," Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation.

We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!

Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system — robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself.

So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Thanks so much for "knowing your place" — without even knowing it!
Source - Scroogle Scraper

[WillyT]

25. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Agschmid]

31. #1 WTF?

[BeanMusical]

28. Bunch of parasites.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[Gothmog]

30. Great meme

[tartan2]

32. This is why corporations,

the 1% and Wall Street are recognized as the "true welfare whores" and they are so damn entitled about it.

[raouldukelives]

33. If one is invested in or labors for Wall St? Nothing.

We all have to live in and with what they toil for day in an day out.

It is only those who take things like democracy seriously that avoid destroying it for everyone else. Only those who place the natural world above the synthetic that refuse to commit atrocities against it for money.

So many are more than willing to kill for a paycheck to defend what they are told is democracy, so few are willing to actually sacrifice and suffer for the real thing.

[d_legendary1]

36. Corps have set themselves up nicely

while the rest of us keep blaming each other for the situation they caused. We need to banish corporations from having any say in our government and protect the people they are supposed to cater to.

[Kensan]

37. What's wrong...

I think the amount parked overseas is closer to double the $1.5T.

President Obama in his most recent budget actually addressed this, and he did something I've been waiting for a politician to do (especially in light of how our USSC has ruled multiple times that corporations are "people" too). PO put into his budget the removal of Subpart F in the tax code (that allows for the use of various blocker entities to defer taxation on foreign earnings). PO would tax foreign earnings currently starting at 14% and then moving up to 19%. In this way, a corporation would be taxed on worldwide income similar to individuals (albeit at a much lower rate). This would be in addition to lowering the maximum corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% (25% for manufacturing).

The cry you hear from the right all the time is that US businesses can't compete globally because we have the highest tax rate. Sure, the maximum rate is one of the highest in the world....but hardly any of the top performing businesses actually pay that. Their effective tax rates are significantly lower, and quite often result in refunds.

Previously, our captains of industry wanted (and have received before) a repatriation holiday to bring back money from overseas at a flat 5% rate. This money, of course, just went to buy back shares or line the pockets of big investors with dividends taxed at what was then a 15% tax rate on qualified dividend income. None of the repatriated money really went to expansion, hourly wage increases, retirement funding for the peons, etc. It was classic 2004/2005 Bush tax giveaway to the already rich.

The Honorable (hahaha) Paul Ryan has basically already said that PO's budget proposal is dead on arrival. Our well-financed ("bribed&quot Congress wants no part of an actual fix to the system. They just want to lower the top tax rate brackets, but can't get the political messaging right about what they will cut to pay for those tax cuts. Ryan has said he will do the tried and true method that has worked for years......wait until late in the year and try to pass something literally as the clock it running out on the year and there is no time for real debate. We will likely see another year of various tax extenders to laws that should have expired years ago, so Congress can continue to kick the can down the road.