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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (603438)	3/13/2011 1:40:50 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576346

Ted, Bill Maher is rich. Tenchusatsu

To: tejek who wrote (603438)	3/13/2011 1:47:54 PM
From: TopCat	4 Recommendations Respond to of 1576346

"America's rich aren't giving you money—they're taking your money!" Nobody "took" money from the poor.

To: tejek who wrote (603438)	3/13/2011 5:21:11 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576346

Did Maher put up his tax return?

To: tejek who wrote (603438)	3/15/2011 8:26:07 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1576346

"Come on! This is America, where the top 400 people have more money than the bottom 150 million combined. The data for this claims is somewhat disputed, but it is true that the overall net worth of the two groups is at least comparable so that point is just a quibble. Whether they have 102% or 98% of the wealth of the bottom 400 matter little. Of course someone with $50k of income, but little savings (or with debts that roughly equal savings and assets) has very little net worth but really isn't so bad off. And the income of the bottom 50 percent is far higher than the income of the top 400. More to the point the top 400 didn't make the bottom 50 percent poorer, they are more likely to have increased the wealth, income, and/or well being of the bottom 50 percent in their move up. For example among the Walton family has several members on that list, Wal-Mart has helped the bottom 50 percent get decent prices on what they consume. Many others on the list are also corporate founders of their decadents. Generally they didn't get rich by taking from others. They got rich either from generating new wealth and getting some portion of it, or inheriting from those who generated new wealth. Also its not like attacks on the 400 are likely to help the bottom 50%. Raising income taxes won't touch wealth. Serious wealth taxes will cause a lot of capital flight even in a country as large as the US, that also believes that it should go after people who renounce their citizenship to avoid taxes. laims 80% of the income generated in America between 1980-2005 went to the top 1% of earners. In 2008, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 38.0 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 20.0 percent of adjusted gross income... taxfoundation.org 2008 is just one year but there isn't a single year in recent history where the top 1 percent had 80 percent of the income.