patrick.net

well said

With all of the media propaganda, the glen becks, rush limbaughs, faux news, right wing/left wing nuts out there... people respond to drama. It's alot easier to blame the problems of the country on the government than to admit we voted for them.

I do find it ironic that the pundits that scream about how poorly the country is run - and purport to be there for the little guy - make millions of dollars each year from the people who can afford it least. Faux news sponsored the t-parties and made money off the sponsors while claiming to be agents of "change." Sarah Palin makes millions off of a failed run for the VP, had a ghost writer for her book and now is a pundit for faux news. All the while, claiming to be there for the "little guy." Yea, right.

It goes both ways - both right wing & left wing pundits make millions while the unemployment rate rises. People want to blame someone and they listen to everything they're told. Mob mentality sucks.

It's hard to hate the government when it is we...

I don't hate the Government, I don't care for people that try to marginalize the government by being a Unilateral Proxy of the Democratic process.

Anyone party only has a marginal 50% majority. I reality there is no Majority, so one party can't just ignore the other 50% while claiming to speak for that other, even as they rapidly lose that majority support from their own constituents then govern by "At all cost" and "It's better than nothing".

If your party is truly throwing a Coup against the American democratic process, then God Damn it you better some "Great" accomplishments in your legacy. Vague shouts of "Change" and ending up by "Chance" with half assed half backed compromised fractured "better than nothing" legislation.

Then it wont take long for History to catch up with that ideology and beat the living hell out of it. Pseudo Legacy legislation as the Democrats have been leading with for a year, has already played it's course. They lost and they have them selves to blame. They had the deck stacked from top to bottom, and for the Democrats to now belly ache, and blame the Republicans, and every one else. And BTW, I'm an Interdependent and he never had my vote, which the media keeps claiming he had the Independents and have lost them.

The Liberals couldn't even get a Congress and Senate full of Liberals to buy their own crap they were selling each other. It is 110% the fault of the Democrats to have not passed any tangible in this first year. KNOCK on ehping wood! I'll take my Victories any way I can.

I just can't believe anyone really pays 45% in the USA. I don't see how it's possible, even in California.

If you're making over $100K but less than $200K, you may get up to the maximum marginal rate of 35% Fed and 9% CA, but that ignores all the income below that marginal rate, which is taxed at lower percentages.

If you make more than $200K, you probably get more of your income from long-term capital gains and dividends, which are taxed only at 15% because class warfare is over and the rich won that war during the Bush years.

And if you make some absurd amount of money, you probably pay even less because you have good lawyers.

RayAmerica says

I suggest you read the Constitution of the United States for a definition of why government exists.

Actually the Declaration of Independence is a better guide.

I just can’t believe anyone really pays 45% in the USA. I don’t see how it’s possible, even in California.

When you factor in state, local, federal, FICA, Medicare, sales, energy, unemployment, fuel, etc... and the hidden tax of inflation I would suspect that it is closer to 50% of our annual income is confiscated by the bureaucracy. For our own good of course.

AdHominem says

Actually the Declaration of Independence is a better guide.

I have no problem using the Declaration as a "guide" while using the Constitution as an instrument in limiting the powers of the centralized government.

RayAmerica says

AdHominem says

Actually the Declaration of Independence is a better guide.

I have no problem using the Declaration as a “guide” while using the Constitution as an instrument in limiting the powers of the centralized government.

OK Ray,

Merely pointing out that the Declaration tells is WHAT many early Americans believed about government, whereas the Constitution describes HOW we are attempting to achieve these ideals.

Therefore the Declaration of Independence is a better source of WHY early Americans believed government exists. The Constitution primarily tells us how, not why.

I just can’t believe anyone really pays 45% in the USA. I don’t see how it’s possible, even in California.
If you’re making over $100K but less than $200K, you may get up to the maximum marginal rate of 35% Fed and 9% CA, but that ignores all the income below that marginal rate, which is taxed at lower percentages.
If you make more than $200K, you probably get more of your income from long-term capital gains and dividends, which are taxed only at 15% because class warfare is over and the rich won that war during the Bush years.
And if you make some absurd amount of money, you probably pay even less because you have good lawyers.

Have you ever seen property taxes in NJ? In North Jersey, middle class families are paying $12k in taxes their homes.

do you like the way the government solved that big problem we had with hemp and marijuana? through prohibition?

I think to answer the OP, I would say I don't hate the idea of government. I hate that we have a polarized, non-functional, corrupt government that is either unable or unwilling to put the good of the nation ahead of partisan and lobbyist interests. This broken government we have is the product of both parties.

America was born because the colonists got pissed off with an uncaring, distant government. Figuratively I believe the majority of Americans today believe our current government is the same. I believe our representatives in D.C. are totally unfamiliar with our daily lives and struggles. Sure, they give good sound bites about how they stopped by the Salvation Army store and saw some black kid something or other. How many of those people in Congress ever worked for minimum wage, EVER? Most of them are from privileged backgrounds and truly have no concept of what Americans are living with today.

Personally I'd like to see a smaller more focused government. I just don't see how we're going to get there when during the greatest economic crisis of our generation you have congressional committees being called to grill the White House party crashers. REALLY, nothing better to do with your time Mr. Congressman?!

Hating the government has been a favorite pastime of people everywhere in the world since the first governments were formed.

In the US, I hate the government for its inability to operate in a rational and somewhat transparent manner. As an engineer, I'm appalled at our complete inability to make simple and rational decisions. I'd rather have an honest government doing things that I don't support than the convoluted mess that we have today that is ostensibly doing what I'd like.

Well I can only speak for myself. In 2008 (haven't calculated or filed for '09 yet) we had W-2 income of between $97.5K and $98K (approximating numbers here for privacy reasons but I'm reading my 1040 return for the numbers). So basically just about a six-figure W-2 income from day job wages.

Add in taxable interest and taxable refunds (prior year refunds), subtract real estate losses (paper losses only due to depreciation and deductions on a couple rental properties), subtract itemized deductions such as Interest-Only home mortgage interest and child tax credits (2 kids), etc, our Taxable Income on line 43 was between $12K, and $12.1K.

Final federal income tax due for tax year 2008, $1,203.00.

So real tax impact for fiscal '08 to the feds from my family? 1.23%

Real tax impact for fiscal '08 from state income tax? 1.24%

Sure, you can argue about gasoline taxes, car taxes, National Park entrance fees, etc, etc, etc.

What it comes down to for me is that if you read a few books and learn about all the tax breaks for owning real estate investments (1 SFR, 1 duplex, 1 condo) and if you were lucky enough to have bought right and financed right you can almost make your taxable income completely disappear.

For cash flow purposes I only need to worry about how much cash comes in from tenant minus property manager fees. I get a check for net cash in-flow from my property manager. I have a net cash outflow for the PITI payment to the mortgage company. Let's say for example at this point my cash in = cash out.

Now, I may have cash expenditures for repairs or upgrades, but then I get to deduct those expenses against income anyway. And here's the kicker, a lot of my cash out is tax deductible as a business expense (mortgage interest on the property, property taxes) and THEN I GET TO TAKE DEPRECIATION of the building structure and any improvements like the new carpet I put in, the roof I put on in 2003, etc, etc, etc. I get to write off property management expenses just as a business would write off an employee expense. I get to write off a (very small) fraction of my personal home because I have a room used as a home office. I write off the computer and printer I bought for business use. I write off a portion of my utility bills as a business expense, I write off a portion of my cell phone bill. All the last write-offs are only at a small fraction (proportional to personal vs exclusive business use), but they still reduce my taxable income. (There is a limit of a $25K loss annually for a passive investor, which I am since I'm not actively managing the properties personally).

So even though my real estate cash in may = cash out, it's all a great big tax LOSS that reduced my taxable income by almost 1/4. Add in personal residence interest paid, and property taxes paid, and taxes paid for state income tax and that wipes away more than another 1/4 of the W-2 wages.

Add up the Child tax credits, tax-deductible retirement contributions, charitable donations to our church, and there goes another 1/4.

Now I could argue that in paying for property managers and deducting those expenditures from my tax returns I'm just shifting the taxable income to those contractors who will pay their own income taxes. I could argue that reducing my taxable income by donating to the church results in some tax gain for the gov't somewhere else (but not that I'm currently aware of expect church employee incomes). I could argue that reducing my taxable income today by putting funds into tax-deferred retirement accounts will cause the gov't to get more money from me in retirement.

Whatever the arguments, I'll stick the hard numbers at the top of my post and argue that if you structure your life in a tax-advantaged way with the input of research and a CPA you can get away with paying almost no taxes if you're "rich enough" to own a home and real estate investments and have money left over for charity and retirement funding.

So to sum up, I can't really justify for myself being in the "anti-tax" camp because I don't feel I'm really paying all that much in taxes. My "beef" with the gov't is over how it acts, not where it gets its funding.

Hahaha, you're kidding, right...you must be. Concepts too simple for liberals, socialists or progressives: 2 + 2 = 4, debasing your own currency is reckless monetary policy, its fiscally irresponsible to spend more than you have, shall I continue?

Yes, we spend way too much on imperalism (might as well call it what it is) but putting the albatross of health care around the necks of tax payers will only make matters worse, not better. Name ONE government program that provides any service for less that what the private sector does (I mean one WITHOUT a government subsidy).

Honest Abe says

Name ONE government program that provides any service for less that what the private sector does (I mean one WITHOUT a government subsidy).

That's the point though--health care is unlike any other service. You literally can't live without it so there is no substitute for it. And free markets don't work well under those conditions.

97.6% of statistics are made up or outright lies. Get it?

The "50% of the budget is the military" is a popular, usually leftist, fib. Most of the budget is now interest payments on the debt, social insecurity and medicaid/medicare. The rest, including the military, is gravy. Tee hee. That's one reason why the socialist agenda is DOA in the USA: It's like the USSR all over again: No money. Thanks for slushing all that money to the bankers, Obama! Tee hee! (Did I mention I think that's great?)

I personally don't trust the left because I know that being: A) White and B) Male means I have a huge target on my back. I know there are white male leftists out there (a disproportionate number of whom live in the Bay area) but for the other 65% or so of us, I don't see why I should drink cool aid so that the left can bribe other special interest groups into propping up the socialist fiction for a bit longer. If you want to drink cool aid and chant "Yes we can!", go right ahead. Just take off your sneakers first.

That's really what it always comes down to: Not making government more "efficient" or even "spreading the wealth" around from "the rich". The rich are too well connected to allow their pockets to be picked. If anything, they buddy up with leftist politicians (like bankers and Obama) to get even MORE money! (Can't say I blame them. They're too SMART to drink cool aid!) So the left's paradigm boils down to buying 2 votes via robbing 1. At least until they get enough power to not need to buy votes. Then it's Josef Stalin time. (And the only justice there is that they are the first to get killed. "Hey! When I supported a big socialist state to rob and lie to others, I didn't mean to me! I'm too CARING and GOOD to be held to my own standards!")

Here's the bottom line commies: You clearly have already pushed me under the bus and praying and hoping that I'm foolish enough to feel guilty for being "greedy" to not let you have a second go at it. Among other problems, there isn't money for socialism to work and the demographics of most new socialists is they won't be the kind of electorate to make a socialist utopia either. Think more like Cuba. That's the BEST you can hope for.

PolishKnight says

The “50% of the budget is the military” is a popular, usually leftist, fib. Most of the budget is now interest payments on the debt, social insecurity and medicaid/medicare. The rest, including the military, is gravy. Tee hee.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you're wrong. If you want to cut spending, you have to start and end with the military industrial complex. Otherwise you are wasting your time because there's not enough money anywhere else to make a hill of beans. 50% (+) of the budget is military spending. And you should really include debt payments because it was the military spending that caused us to be in debt in the first place.

Polish--your whole post is ridiculous. More talking points from AM radio. Woe is me--I'm a white male victim. Oh my goodness, I feel so sorry for you...

theoakman says

Actually we do. You should see the budgets for the FDA, SEC, FCC, and every other regulatory agency.

Well, since you brought it up, I would assume that you would actually post the budgets of those agencies and what % of the US budget they represent. That's how you argue a point--with supporting evidence.

theoakman says

It is possible to decrease the spending of the Federal Government by 90% while increasing regulatory measures

Really--90%? Of the overall budget? Please share how you would accomplish this. ie--what would you cut and by how much.

According to wikipedia and other google sources, the military budget is 800 to 1000 billion dollars. The President's proposed budget is 4Trillion. So that means, at most, military spending is 25%. I guess you get your cites from Air America. You can claim that debt it ALL military debt but that would be a stretch, but hey, you expect us to believe that weather getting colder is due to global warming, eh?

Regarding calling me a woe-is-me victim. Indeed, the left smugly claims to be "caring" and smart yet they openly sneer at those they view as no longer politically useful being pushed in front of the bus. Looks like white Massechusettes voters have woken up, eh? Pennsylvania and New York voters aren't as smart, but they'll play catch up!

I THINK THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE 15%.WHAT I MEAN HERE IS 85%OF US HAVE NO PENSIONS WE GET A PALTRY SOC.SEC CHECK AT 68-70 YEARS(FULL BENEFITS).WHILE POLITICIANS ,STATE ,AND CITY WORKERS GET OUT AS EARLY AS 48.LOOK AT WHAT THEY GET FOR WHAT THEY PUT IN VS US WITH SOC.SEC. IT WILL MAKE YOU SICK.REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS ARE AGAINST SOC.MEDICINE BUT THEY THEMSELVES GET IT.DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS ARE FOR THE COMMON GUY BUT GET LUSH PENSIONS FOR 2 YEARS OF SERVICE.THEN THERE ARE THE TEACHERS AND ALL OTHER PUBLIC SERVANTS WHO GET SO MUCH AND WHINE HOW SCREWED THEY ARE.THIS IS BECAUSE THERE IS IN PLACE A POLITICAL SYSTEM THAT USES THE SERVANTS OF THE STATE -WITH THE MEDIA HELP-TO PROTECT THERE UNBELIEVABLE BENEFITS.IF 401K ARE SO GREAT FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF US WHY ARE THE POLITICIANS ,UNIONS ,AND OTHER PUBLIC SERVANTS ON IT?GET REAL ITS THE PRIVATE(THE MAJORITY) GETTING SCREWED BY THE PUBLIC SERVANTS WHO USE DEM AND REP POLITICIANS TO DIVIDE US.GUESS WHAT IT WORKS.I COULD GO ON BUT I HAVE TO GET BACK TO WORK .

Polish--

Here's a different take on the budget and military spending.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

tatupu70 says

theoakman says

Actually we do. You should see the budgets for the FDA, SEC, FCC, and every other regulatory agency.

Well, since you brought it up, I would assume that you would actually post the budgets of those agencies and what % of the US budget they represent. That’s how you argue a point–with supporting evidence.
theoakman says

It is possible to decrease the spending of the Federal Government by 90% while increasing regulatory measures

Really–90%? Of the overall budget? Please share how you would accomplish this. ie–what would you cut and by how much.

Rofl, why don't you look them up for yourself. You act as if my point was not valid because I didn't post the budgets. As far as accomplishing this...it's pretty simple. Stop spending 1 trillion dollars on the overseas military budget. There, I just eliminated 33%. Want another 33%? Eliminate all subsidies for corporations. Do you need another 20? Roll back the budgets of all Federal Government Agencies to their 1998 levels. Oh yeah, and I would eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. I'm pretty sure that would be more than enough.

theoakman says

You act as if my point was not valid because I didn’t post the budgets.

Your point wasn't valid because it was incorrect. I challenged you to post the actual budgets because I knew you wouldn't--it would show how wrong you are.

theoakman says

Stop spending 1 trillion dollars on the overseas military budget.

We agree on that much anyway. Cutting the military budget is the only way to make a meaningful change in the budget. The FDA, SEC, FCC consume very little of the budget...

theoakman says

Want another 33%? Eliminate all subsidies for corporations.

While I don't necessarily disagree with that option it doesn't reduce the budget. It would raise our tax base and increase government revenues. Which is just as good at reducing deficit, but we were talking about reducing spending and not increasing revenues.

theoakman says

Do you need another 20? Roll back the budgets of all Federal Government Agencies to their 1998 levels.

Would you adjust the budgets for inflation or roll them back to their actual 1998 levels? Either way, that most certainly wouldn't give you 20%. Maybe 1%.

Again--Take some time to actually research the budget. You might be surprised at where the real spending goes..

First, in response to tatupu70's link. It's from a war resister league and, get this, lists NASA as a "military" agency as well as the State Department. Do you really expect the USA to close down it's Embassies across the world?

I used numbers from Wikipedia which few would accuse of being a hotbed of right wing politicos. They refer to the cbo numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_federal_budget Here's the CBO breakdown of 2007 (GW Bush year)

Military+VeteransBenefits: $654B
SS/MC/MC: $1,256B
Everything else (plus debt): $710.9

That comes out to the military comprising 25% of the overall budget.

In regards to Nomograph's asking: "Can you please explain how you have been personally targeted for being a white male?" This reminds me of New Jersey politicians who used to say to the press: "What's the Mafia?" Let's play a little game: If universities and large corporations advertise saying "women and minorities encouraged to apply", then who doesn't qualify under that critera to be encouraged to apply? For someone who claims to lecture me about deceitfulness (unfounded, of course), you're playing dumb and Orwellian doublespeak games. Accusing conservatives of having a victim mentality is a laughable projection when the whole leftist agenda is about robbing Peter, whose "rich" because he's baaad, to pay Paula and various other victim entitlement groups.

I'm merely (ok, not just merely) observing that if you slush out goodies like welfare Santa to other leftist welfare groups, why not me too? Oh, wait, that won't work because socialist democracy is 2 wolves and 1 sheep deciding what's for dinner. Oh, wait, Obama is slushing money over to Wall Street, mostly white males. Tee hee. So the system works after all! Doesn't that make you happy to know how great the system is working out for you? Good luck with that "free" health care (Oh, wait, it's just taxing your own insurance.)

tatupu70 demonstrates selective logic: "The FDA, SEC, FCC consume very little of the budget…"

Agreed. And if the FDA, SEC, and FCC were the ONLY parts of the budget besides the military then you'd have a great point. You seem to have forgotten about social insecurity (thanks FDR) and medicare/medicaid (thanks LBJ). So if you totally ignore real numbers than your commie paradise will work out just fine.

As I said above, that's a neat allegory for your whole crazy, granola eating, hypocritical racist, sexist, corrupt agenda: You claim to "care" about everyone, except only to rob from the rich, while sneering about how you'll rob from stupid white male working class voters. Oh, except in Taxachusettes where they have OFFICIALLY woken up! Oh, and you'll also get a perfect government to take care of you except that the politicians you elect to rob and steal are dishonest and rob from you to send money to Iraq and wall street!

And that's the world YOU DESERVE tovarisch!

SF ace says

believe it Patrick, a partner at a large firm once, expressing how poor he is showed us how his 15K weekly draw is less than 6K take home. (of course a lot of it is partnship unit payback and partner pension) But besides fed and state income tax, there is social security and medicare which runs at about 9%, then there is the employer portion for an equal amount (which you can argue could have been yours instead of the government) and business tax based on payroll. Then there is exemption phase-out and surtax for the high income earner.

That "partner" is a fucking idiot if his take home is only $6k on $15k coming in. More likely you're just making this up, but I'll bite:

The top tax rate that you'll ever pay in CA is ~45% (35% federal, ~10% state)

Anyone who thinks you pay 9% for FICA has clearly never seen a pay stub of a highly paid individual. At $780k a year this guy is paying less than 3% for FICA.

Assuming he has absolutely no deductions (he's single, he doesn't contribute to his 401k, he doesn't own a home..) -- his take home pay will be a minimum of about $8500 a week -- and I highly doubt that someone who is smart enough to be earning $15k a week is dumb enough to not have significant tax shelters.

...and this is A LOT more money than he would have taken home at any time in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or 00s.

This really is public information, you know. We don't have to debate and argue over whether taxes were higher at some other time between WWII and now -- google can tell you what taxes you'd be subjected to at any of those times.

Why is it that the only people I ever see complaining about taxes are people who hardly pay any?

PolishKnight says

The “50% of the budget is the military” is a popular, usually leftist, fib. Most of the budget is now interest payments on the debt, social insecurity and medicaid/medicare. The rest, including the military, is gravy. Tee hee.

The military is gravy? $1T+ is *gravy*?

SS and Medicare are definitely big items -- and if we didn't have them the deficit would be *larger* than it is today (because SS still runs a surplus).

The proposed budget for 2010 puts "defense" spending at about 28% -- a larger component of the budget than any other item.

Add those three things together and you're looking at about 85% of the budget.

Pretending that defense spending isn't the largest component of the budget doesn't make it true.

You can't fix the budget without drastically reducing defense spending -- by at least 50% (well, you could always raise taxes...)

PolishKnight says

Military+VeteransBenefits: $654B
SS/MC/MC: $1,256B
Everything else (plus debt): $710.9
That comes out to the military comprising 25% of the overall budget

A few observations:

Including SS/MC/MC in the discussion is debatable. As they are trust funds, theoretically outside the budget, an argument can be made that they shouldn't be included in this discussion. After all, the SS trust fund buys government bonds--so they are really a separate entity.

Next--we are talking about ways to reduce spending. The debt service is not an appropriation--you can't really reduce your spending there, so it's not relevant either. But, even if you want to include the debt service, we're still at just under 50% using your numbers. And I guarantee you that there is military spending hidden in the areas you call "everything else"

PolishKnight says

Agreed. And if the FDA, SEC, and FCC were the ONLY parts of the budget besides the military then you’d have a great point.

Polish-- The Oakamn brought up the FDA, SEC, and FCC--not me. I was only trying to show him where he is wrong...

Thanks for all the posts, I should have checked back sooner! I need a bit to read and digest all of this...

SF Ace--

The point is that it's not taxes making his take-home pay so low.....

LOL, just got sent this video. Apparently this is an official video put out by the Carly Fiorina (former CEO of HP) campaign in her bid for office in CA. I post it here because of the last comment's discussion of sheep and wolves. They're featured prominently in this video

FCINO.com/
youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA

The youtube site is the same video, just funny unfiltered comments appearing below the video. Remember, this is official campaign material!

"Seriously the message gets lost in the flowery crap and personal attacks."

nuff said.

PolishKnight says

I’ve already addressed your challenge for me to show you ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of a “laissez faire economy prospering

I must have missed it. What is the laissez faire economy that is prosperous?

Tatupu, I said your question is loaded similar to: "Have you stopped beating your mother?" You equate "laissez faire economy" to anarchy when I am not proposing such a thing. This is while you whine that I'm unfairly catagorizing you as a socialist. Amazing.

For the record, I do think that socialist economies enjoy limited success just as so-called "laissez faire economys", as you define them, enjoy limited success. The Russian Czars, for example, were around for almost a thousand years and ushered Russia from a primitive backwater to a world power and this is BEFORE Josef Stalin took credit for "modernizing" Russia (which really meant he starved half the population to death, bungled an attempt to invade Germany and got outsmarted, and barely survived due to help from the capitalistic west!)

Lest we need to remind you, the housing bubble was propped up due to easy government money and continues to cost taxpayers as Obama just announced a policy to "lift" home prices. I'm sure that's evil GW's doing somehow...

PolishKnight says

Lest we need to remind you, the housing bubble was propped up due to easy government money and continues to cost taxpayers as Obama just announced a policy to “lift” home prices. I’m sure that’s evil GW’s doing somehow…

No, actually it was caused by poor oversight and regulation, allowing underwriting standards to go to crap.

PolishKnight says

Tatupu, I said your question is loaded similar to: “Have you stopped beating your mother?” You equate “laissez faire economy” to anarchy when I am not proposing such a thing. This is while you whine that I’m unfairly catagorizing you as a socialist. Amazing.

Can you answer a question without putting words in my mouth? I don't equate laissez faire economy with anarchy. I equate it to a free market economy with little to no government regulations.

And I don't recall complaining about you calling me a socialist, either. How about you just worry about answering a question instead of telling me what I believe...

So-the question is: Do you have an example of a laissez faire economy prospering?

Hahaha! This is like saying that the problem with the foxes guarding the henhouse was that there weren't ENOUGH foxes! Yeah, the way to stop Obama from blowing more money is to give him more money.

Ok...

PolishKnight says

Hahaha! This is like saying that the problem with the foxes guarding the henhouse was that there weren’t ENOUGH foxes! Yeah, the way to stop Obama from blowing more money is to give him more money.
Ok…

Your analogies leave a little to be desired. Are you saying the SEC was in bed with the banking industry? Because I would probably agree that was the case--and was part of the problem.

More pot calling kettle activity: You whine about me putting words into your mouth and then restate that I have to use your definition of a free market economy with Somalia being an example of such yet not it's not an anarchy.

I don't buy into your claim you're not a socialist. Your silly denial of the obvious only shows that you're engaged in congative dissonance mental gymnastics. The truth will set you free! Embrace your inner commie!

"Are you saying the SEC was in bed with the banking industry?"

No. I'm not saying that. Read for comprehension. I said Obama and the Democrats were and are in bed with the banking industry. I never mentioned the SEC.

However... with all of Obama's huffing and puffing, we'll have to wait and see what he does with the SEC... Good luck waiting on that.

PolishKnight says

No. I’m not saying that. Read for comprehension. I said Obama and the Democrats were and are in bed with the banking industry. I never mentioned the SEC

Well, that's completely ridiculous. In case you've forgotten, the housing bubble occured long before Obama was President. So, Obama had nothing to do with how the housing bubble happened.

PolishKnight says

More pot calling kettle activity: You whine about me putting words into your mouth and then restate that I have to use your definition of a free market economy with Somalia being an example of such yet not it’s not an anarchy.

I've never mentioned Somalia. I think you're confused. I just want you to name one country that is prosperous with little to no government regulation. It's pretty simple.