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from the wish-we-were-in-the-one-percent dept.
Due to completely messed up U.S. tax policies, some even got a rebate check. Only small businesses pay taxes. Big companies often pay nothing at all.
Look at a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice ( http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/04/fifteen_of_many_reasons_why_we_need_corporate_tax_reform.php#.VSbihhPF8QY ), a Washington, D.C. group. It finds that some of nation's most famous brands have paid remarkably little to the government over the last five years. In fact, many actually enjoyed a negative tax rate: They received a nice rebate check from the U.S. Treasury.
The 15 giants highlighted by CTJ were chosen to represent a wide range of industries among Fortune 500 companies. They include CBS, Mattel, Prudential, and the California utility PG&E. Together, they paid no federal income tax in 2014, despite profits totaling $23 billion. CTJ's point is that these companies are not anomalies, they are examples.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:18PM
When the tax system is so large only major corporations can get maximum benefits, it is time to throw out the system and replace it.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:28PM
This has NOTHING to do with fascism. I believe this is a captured democracy in action in this case.
This is EXACTLY what the voters have voted for every year for the last several decades. The faux outrage and pontificating is rather pathetic - you are getting what you paid for. (and so are they)
The fact that they are ignorant of that fact and easily fooled has nothing to do with it.
Wake up and deal with the core issue here (your corrupt two-party system) or just stop moaning altogether please - it is getting ridiculous. You cannot and will not change this unless you go to the source.
And you will just continue to sound foolish to the rest of us...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:58PM
Not just a "captured democracy", but a captured democratic facade covering a criminal oligarchy, all built upon the ruins of a shattered constitutional republic. The voters have faced false choices at the polls for generations, not the least of which is the problems stemming from a lack of a "none of the above" option. Granted, as you suggest, such an option may not have made a difference: every time I return to bash my head against the wall of the established political system, I always hear the voice of the masses keening for more and more largess from the plundered treasury.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:03AM
Picture = a bunch of words. [twimg.com]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:17AM
I can't draw a picture, so I use my words.
There is always a choice. Some of the choices may be difficult, and some may even prove fatal to the decision-maker - but such a situation still does not change the fact that there is always a choice. Sometimes, the best choice is to choose something other than what oligarchs or even society in general present as the only choices.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:10AM
Of course. The statement in the satirical "bumper sticker" is that there is no ELECTORAL CHOICE. :-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:17AM
Agreed. It is plain that we USians cannot vote our way out of this mess.
(I've currently chosen to take ever-increasing responsibility for my own life, with the goal of having nothing to do whatsoever with anything government is "selling". Charging across the White House lawn with fixed bayonets any time real soon is not something I see as something likely to produce positive change, whereas an increase in personally-responsible individuals is.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:53AM
We can vote our way out of the mess. Vote with your wallet. Vote with your feet.
What I find sad is how many people stayed with the big 4 banks, Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo, despite their culpability in causing the Great Recession, and even the terrible service they deliver on a personal level. It was only after Bank of America invented yet another fee that my dad was finally provoked enough to change banks. They paid a pathetic interest rate of something like 0.1% on his savings, but he stayed. They "accidentally" charged him a service fee they should not have charged, and we went running in to the nearest branch to inquire about it and get it fixed, but he stayed. They included copies of printed checks in the monthly statement, for free at first, then they started charging $3/month for this service, opting him in without asking. That wasn't quite enough. It also took a dumb and annoying question from yet another new teller (they have a very high rate of turnover) to finally push him over the edge, and switch banks.
He still got punished. The IRS had his old bank info, and nailed him hard for a refused payment. It's their fault their system is so poor at handling updates to bank info, but we get punished for that. I thought bank fees of $30 were outrageous, but the IRS charges a penalty of 2% of the amount. As it happened, that was the year his income was hugely inflated thanks to converting his retirement money to a Roth IRA, so 2% turned out to be way, way more than $30. We appealed, and the IRS denied it.
Why do people put up with Ticketmaster? I'd chose to skip the concert every time if the only way to get a ticket was through them. Why can't people live without cable TV? I think cable companies charge way too much, and I refuse to have their services. We could break the entertainment industry in an instant and make them change their attitudes about piracy, if we had the will. We could also stop such things as speed traps and bogus red light camera tickets created by taking advantage of too short yellow lights, if only people would fight this stuff rather than cowardly trying to avoid trouble. Yes, antelopes should not make trouble for lions. Don't run away, just let the lions kill them. Lions have to eat too.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @11:36AM
You are right, and that general approach is the only non-violent way we have to compel change. The electoral system is a charade, the government a criminal syndicate. So, opt out. Eschew the cable companies, take your house off-grid, sell your ICE vehicle, stop buying crap you don't need, grow as much of your own food as you can. We are now on the cusp of having the means to do all that without consigning ourselves to living at the level of hunter-gatherers. We can now live modern, technological lives without ceding all power to central control. So do. And help those around you to do so, too.
Often we geeks relish our feelings of superiority because we understand and command technologies that most other people don't, or, when we have moments of compassion, we pity them. Often that's because we felt undervalued or bullied as young kids, and it's the natural reaction of the wounded social animal. But that's self-indulgent, and more importantly, counter-productive because it perpetuates the cycle of the oppressive status quo. If we really want the world to change, then we have to use our powers to not enrich ourselves (does the world really need another rich asshole in a ferrari, even if that rich asshole is us?) but to raise up those around us and do things differently.
It takes courage and grit to do that, which are not qualities that geeks are commonly known for, so it's a high bar. But we have to because no one else will. Everyone else is either too co-opted or too beaten down.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:31PM
Your series of anecdotes and admonitions go further to illustrate that we do not live in democratically responsive form of republican government, but as the captive clients of Finance Capital rentiers, with money as the only actual medium for expression of speech.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @02:17AM
Insightful? What DaFuq mods? For just saying "Herpa de derp, choice" without even a single fricking example? And you KNOW why he didn't provide an example, because short of violent revolution there IS none! You have ALL of the major media outlets controlled by a handful of corps that are in on the game, you have a system where the highest office can NEVER go to anybody but one of the two, and a primary process where even a party outsider has ZERO chance of getting the nomination.
Saying "there is choice" is like making an employee play 3 card monty with a street hustler to get his check and then when the employee can't win saying "well you should have played better". The game IS RIGGED, you can't "play better" or do anything different to affect the outcome of a fricking rigged game!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday April 15 2015, @02:53AM
If you have enough people to succeed at a violent revolution, you probably have enough people to just vote.
Assuming, of course, the voting system is still mostly functional. They're working on that via gerrymandering and (thankfully mostly unsuccessful thus far) attacks on the voting system itself.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:05AM
If you have enough people to succeed at a violent revolution, you probably have enough people to just vote.
Actually, violent revolutions require far less than the majority. The latest example is Ukraine; population is about 50 million, but 10,000 well organized protesters were able to force the weak government to resign. That's only 0.02%. Even if you count supporters in other cities and claim 100,000 - it is still only 0.2% ... that's exactly why violent revolts are so popular - they can be done by a small group.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:18PM
A fair point, and I suppose on consideration there are some notable counter examples in history.
I'm not entirely convinced my position is wrong in the general case, but I'll concede that it's not absolute. In any case, certainly a position that warrants more fleshing out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mr Big in the Pants on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:21AM
Bollocks.
Although severely misguided the Tea party movement's only redeeming feature was that a motivated minority CAN make a difference.
Now imagine if that was a well informed and better motivated movement that actually followed through?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:29PM
Bwa ha ha ha ha...I'll just leave this here [huffingtonpost.com] but just FYI the ones that formed the original "tea party" were ousted waaaaay back in late '08, less than 8 months after forming it in the first place, ever since then? Its just been a mouthpiece for the billionaire Koch bros and big tobacco. If you use THAT as an example? Then thank you for proving my point.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:31AM
Freedomworks was a highly-visible latecomer that jumped in what they hoped was the front of the parade and started madly waving a baton around. While the term "tea party [wikipedia.org]" has been part of the American vernacular since shortly after 1773, the most current well-known political iteration under that term started as a suggestion by a few Internet authors to send in tea bags to federal politicians as a cautionary reminder that a portion of the population was getting angry over the continued financial fraud and related criminal activity ongoing with the aid and/or participation of the elected "representatives". One of the authors, Karl Denninger, has been angrily shutting down parts of his website(s) over the years in frustration over apparent reader inaction, so I am unable to provide you with a working source link [wikipedia.org].
However, I was an eyewitness to the events and timeline in question, and at the beginning, the 2009-era Tea Party was indeed a spontaneous movement brought about by a multitude of independent individuals all working to move towards the same general goals of demanding an end to fraudulent financial schemes, government bailouts of fraudsters, and similarly-themed ideas.
That the name has been coopted and derailed by outsiders does not change the fact that the original crimes were left unaddressed and that the participants are still out there and aware that their last efforts to play nicely within the rules dictated by the system did not accomplish what they see as justice demanded.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 16 2015, @05:12AM
meh.
This conversation is pointless if you are going to intentionally miss my points.
Can't be bothered talking further and in the end nothing on this board will change anything.
byee
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:32AM
I disagree: there are choices to be made in advance of a violent revolution, and although I recognize that violence in the form of self-defense (on both the individual and group level) is a legitimate choice, I sadly do expect outright war between the agents of the US government and We the People.
In the meantime, the US fedgov is getting a full 75% of its spending money from the income taxes of private individuals. Have you bumped up your W-4 exceptions to a number high enough to have no income taxes withheld (and then decided to never again file a tax return)? Why not? That's a choice, a non-violent one, a principled one, and something that has the potential to starve the beast almost instantaneously.
Have you chosen to reduce your quality of life such that you are officially below the financial level "required" to be a net contributor to fedgov coffers? If so, why not? That's a choice, a non-violent one, a principled one, and something that doesn't expose you to unusual risks of a personal confrontation with IRS collection agents.
Human bodies are remarkable examples of the most advanced pieces of technology in the known universe. Do you really claim to need someone to hold your hand and point out specific examples before you consider re-examining your premises? Well, if you do, I just gave you a couple to consider. (Don't feel too bad, tho - I, too, once needed someone to hold my adult hand.)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @11:24AM
That is exactly right, HairyFeet, the game is rigged. We all know it now. At least, enough of us know it. Those of us who do know it have now the duty to proclaim it far and wide, and to work on ways to overturn the card table. There is no other way forward.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:26PM
Even though I do not support or believe in anything the libertarians do what convinced me was the videos they put up when Ron Paul was running. You had a major news anchor on camera tell the reporter to outright ignore anything from the Paul camp, even though at that time he was ahead in the polls of that state, you had county election officials say, again on camera, that "the votes we counted was not what was reported, they gave the votes we counted for Paul to Romney" and finally you have the RNC convention itself, where they called for a floor vote and somebody managed to get a vid from their cellphone behind the podium where the results of the votes was already on the teleprompter before the votes was even cast!
Only a fool supports a rigged game and pretends it isn't rigged, and I'm not a fool. You have better odds of winning the powerball 3 times on nothing but 1s than you do of changing anything through the current system because the big money already controls the table, they have the MSM, they have the party officials, and they have the judges that decide any disputes. To think you can change all of that influence just by printing some flyers and getting out voters? Yeah and pull this leg it plays jingle bells!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:02PM
Hairyfeet, I directly responded with explicit examples to your complaint about my post not providing any examples of choices. None of my examples dealt with addressing criminality in US government by voting at the polls. The author of the post you responded to does not appear to support change via voting at the polls, either, as he(?) refers to the game being rigged and a desire to find a way to "overturn the card table".
If you're trying to come up with a solution that involves controlling other people, congratulations, your search is over: get yourself elected as a member of lawless US government. If you do not desire to control other people, the only approach left is to try to take control over your own self.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday April 25 2015, @07:23PM
What examples? Tax fraud, THAT is your big solution? You DO know that nearly all the "money" the country runs on is percentage lending where a bank with $10 can lend $100 based on "future earnings", yes? This is why the gov had to throw trillions at the 2008 crisis as banks were lending closer to $1000 on every $10 because "real estate always goes up". Maybe you should have a little gander at this video [youtube.com], made by a libertarian so perhaps he'll have more weight with you than a socialist like me, and see how much of the government's money is tied up in gambling on the stock market and banks. It ain't coming from you friend, or did you forget Mittens little "47%" gaffe already?
If your theory would hold water the fact that a good chunk of the fortune 50 pay ZERO taxes [huffingtonpost.com] would have caused it to collapse years ago...but it hasn't, why? Because they can simply borrow more freshly printed money [usdebtclock.org] and anybody who refuses to take it can get bombed or invaded [time.com] so no worries. Think this is a new development? We haven't had any real say in this country in nearly a century [ratical.org] so if anything else was gonna work? It would have done so by now.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:09PM
Yes that is the problem, and the proof. But you don't need those specifics. A person could observe that control of the federal government has completely, from Congress to the Whitehouse, changed hands in the last 20 years and nothing substantial has changed on a policy level. If that doesn't convince you that party politics are irrelevant, and that something deeper is going on, then nothing will.
The government of the United States must be overthrown, somehow, some way. There is no avenue through the rigged game that it is. We all know it, even if we don't all have the words to express it. You and I and others like us can and will be crushed for observing it, but it doesn't change the fact that the keepers of this system shall all hang.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:44AM
Jean-Paul Sartre and Soren Kierkegaard never had to live in 21st-century bankster America.
Of course there is always a choice, but since the only effective way to undo the current system is violent revolution, until popular sentiment reaches critical mass the choice is either ride Hobson's horse or walk.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:47AM
A capitalist democracy will always be captured. Once anyone has enough money, they will buy things which allow them to obtain even more money, like lawmakers; there will always be corrupt, bribeable legislators, and all it takes is a few, or even just one (like President Reagan), to change the laws so they can rake in even more, allowing them to capture even more of the government for private interests. Any laws and regulations set up to protect against this just get repealed or changed to be powerless, which is exactly whats happened in the US, more than once even, so the only longterm solution we're left with is to not allow money to concentrate into the hands of individuals by getting rid of this system of exploiting workers for slave wages, where only the owner benefits, and replacing it with a system where people get rewarded for their hard work and given a reason to care about the company for which they work, which allows people to move up the economic ladder by working hard and having good work ethic and also prevents money from concentrating into individual's hands - socialism (eg, cooperatives).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:16PM
There are cases where democracy could be at least more difficult to capture. Basically, if democracy is local enough, it gets to be harder for someone with enough money to pay off enough people. After all, if Bill Gates had to pay off 20 million people to lower his tax bill, it probably wouldn't be worth it. The only way that could make sense is if we used a sort of binary tree to 'vote up' power, with the ability to recall that power locally. That is to say, if each representative represented 10k people (call these the local reps), and every 5-100* of them voted for one representative (national reps). If 10% of the local reps get recalled or when 10% are voted out of office, there is an automatic revote on the national rep that the locals are represented by. The local representatives would be able to talk with just about anyone they represent and wouldn't need insane campaign budgets. Money would matter, but not by much since you could go door to door to talk to everyone. Gerrymandering would still be a problem, but it could be done algorithmically, like requiring square shapes for selecting the people and auto-redistricting when the 10k figure redoubles or on elections. I don't disagree how we have built the system, it will automatically corrupt given enough time. The system I propose has possible ways of corrupting too, but I think with enough people thinking about it, we could at least solve todays forms of corruption.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VortexCortex on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:54AM
This is EXACTLY what the voters have voted for every year for the last several decades. The faux outrage and pontificating is rather pathetic - you are getting what you paid for. (and so are they)
The evidence shows otherwise. Thanks to lobbyists purchasing politics We now live in a plutocracy or oligopoly, not a democratic republic (or "democracy" as many incorrectly deem it). [economyincrisis.org]
This has been the case for quite some time. For example, according to declassified documents the CIA caused a military coup on September 11th, 1973 in Chile at the behest of AT&T to keep the populist government from socializing the communication infrastructure.
Frequently I have watched representatives on CSPAN fervently denounce some legislation in accordance with their claimed party or political stance, and then vote for it instead of against it. Later when their own pet project needs to pass, likely due to promises of benefits from Lobbyists, they will call in their favour and get the other party to do the same. What manner of voting for representatives matters when most representatives refuse to represent the people while claiming otherwise?
I'm sorry, but I refuse to accept responsibility for the state of things. It's not my fault, but it is our problem.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Mr Big in the Pants on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:29AM
You are very confused.
It is a captured democracy. It has a functioning democratic process but that process has been thwarted by legal means. You are confusing the system of government with the practical reality.
You are also confusing personal responsibility with that of the country as a whole. In any society you will find opponents to any issue or state of affairs. That is irrelevant.
The fact remains that the US could vote for a different party or candidates and put into power a different set of people who could begin to fix things...in theory. It would not even require a revolution.
But they don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:20AM
This has NOTHING to do with fascism. I believe this is a captured democracy in action in this case.
What in Zeus' name do you think Fascism is! It is a popular dictatorship, coming from the Roman practice of handing over the faeces, an axe with a bundle of sticks tied around its shaft, to an absolute dictator to save the Republics. And after the emergency, he would hand it back. The amazing thing, is that actually happened a couple of times in Roman history. Mussolini, he did not do so well. So yes, all the Fox News Americans, the LePen Frenchies, the Harper Canucks, and Australians more or less in general, support an absolute dictatorship to keep us safe and get stuff done. That is Fascism. Any one who says different is trying to sell you something.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:56AM
You had it right up to the point where you (falsely) attribute corporatist cronyism exclusively to the Right. In practice, fascism only works as well as it does in America when all political parties, or preferably a single party, are instruments of the regime. The American Left is just as corrupt as the Right, hence the term Republicrats. Are you ready for Jebary in 2016?
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:38PM
> Popularly attributed to Benito Mussolini
Pretty sure it was William Shatner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:57PM
Is this a new meme?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:01PM
I'm working on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:56PM
"Please shoot yourself" - Wilson Shatner
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:22PM
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