Money is hoarded only in fairy tales and cartoons. In reality, it is all spent or invested. The fact that more of it passes through some peoples' lives than others' in a free market takes nothing from the others. The whole notion that the rest of us would be better off if the rich folks were poorer may be the most destructive misconception of our time.
This. I think if this passes it will cause more outrage than all the banker bailouts combined. Knowing that the govt is helping the person down the street pay their mortgage wont sit well.
It's called facing the music. Gotta do it sometime. Might as well do it the right way and fix the problems. But instead people choose to delude themselves in these "solutions".
It's good to see someone finally looking out for the interests of the extremely wealthy. No offense, but it sounds like Alan Greenspan himself brainwashed you. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that last sentence is a direct quote from Greenspan or at least a paraphrase (using "poorer" to describe men with a trillion or two in wealth is classic). Have you read the maestro's book lately? He didn't know how right he was about the age of turbulence, did he? Maybe he had a pretty good idea, though. If you're extremely wealthy, worth 1 billion or more, never mind what I said. I understand you are part of the persecuted minority and you need to look out for your best interests.
So there is something amoral about making lots of money? Its wealth redistribution. The government has been overthrown by facsists who will take from the wealthy and give to the poor. Part of me just wants to completely ignore politics and world affairs for the next 4 years. Another part of me can't look away, something like watching a train wreck. Its not like this personally affects me much. My taxes are prepared so conservatively that I could make up for any tax increase by merely filing more aggressively. I've also taken to carefully managing my withholding so that I'm not giving the government a float. Most of my money is in hard assets now so I'm not going to be killed by inflation or outright devaluation. Still, its all very troubling and un-American. If we could get the liberals to move to one side of the country and conservatives to move to the other side of the country we could have a nice civil war and settle something. I'm starting to see liberals as a genuine literal enemy and I'll bet others are as well.
Today I will start looking for hand outs. I have struggled to be fiscally conservation in my thoughts and actions in this country long enough. I am calling my mortgage company and telling them I will not pay the mortgage on my house at these egregious terms any longer. I will go 100% long the stock market and demand my congressman vote to spend until it goes up. Anybody know the system well enough to get me on welfare? It's a new dawn in America. Better get yours.
We elected George Bush twice and average citizens aggressively support the agenda of the elite few. We are doomed. I'm no liberal, and you can forget about a "nice civil war." Your elite masters will never allow that to happen. There's too much money to make off the backs of liberals. If a nice civil war did come, they would simply abandon the country, but not before they stripped it of all its wealth. Since you haven't figured it out durring this depression, maybe you'll figure it out in the next recession or the recession after that or the depression after that or the recession after that or the mass corporate fraud after that. Maybe one of those collapses will hurt you bad enough that you simply cannot ignore the bad decades for the good decades, and you will demand to know the root cause of these cycles. Then again, it's probably un-American to ask why.