patrick.net

mell says

The more people are dependent on government, the less likely anybody advocating cuts and denying them more of the same is going to get elected. And yes, this is not sustainable.

a lot of stuff going on isn't sustainable.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GINIALLRH

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP/

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NETEXP

Much more socialist systems than ours are doing much better now -- Norway, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Finland, Denmark, perhaps France and Netherlands.

What Romney was spouting was just the right-wing Bircher groupthink bullshit that has gained currency and was what his $50,000 a plate donors wanted to hear him say.

The reality of the situation is that the 47% he disparages have to work their asses off in this country just to make the 1% ever wealthier.

The 1%'s income share -- 1/6th of the national personal income -- doesn't come from machines harvesting the aether. It's from the sweat of labor -- global labor, and American labor.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0

One of out 100 tax units are collecting out of six the wealth.

And one out of twenty tax units are collecting one out of three of the wealth.

Fix that imbalance, and we'll find this "sustainability" you talk about.

chanakya4773 says

What the heck are there republicans talking about. They keep drumming as if the half of the country is on welfare and the country is going to dogs ( socialism). No wonder, people saw through this B.S .

The % of federal budget spent on welfare in 2006 (under bush) =~ 10%

The % of federal budget spent on welfare in 2012 ( obama) =~ 12%

total % of federal budget on military, pensions, healthcare =~ 70%

source : http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/budget_pie_gs.php

On top of this, the funny part is that most of the money comes from blue states because they have the max revenue.

You can certainly argue about how dire the situation is, but I wonder what your point is as given the numbers you presented they will eventually be right (this has nothing to do with being republican or not, it's about simple math). Where is the money coming from to balance any of those spending increases?

mell says

and knowing that the government itself does not create any wealth, then the only conclusion is that that money has to come from those who don't depend/over-produce.

Missing from your understanding here is that those like Romney that have money working for them are just very large parasites in the system.

We could throw nearly all of the 1% into plastic shredders and the wealth creation of this nation would not be affected one iota. We'd be better off, quite frankly.

Or you can pay for it for quite a while via deficit spending, but then future generations will pay for it

to the extent the debt is internal, that is totally wrong. Much of our internal debt is just owed to people who don't really need the money and can be stiffed (by the soft default of inflation).

The debts we owe to the ROW, however, that's more serious, yes.

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

It's harder to soft-default on that debt, and hard defaults leave hard feelings. Then again, much of that debt is just the remaining evidence of past currency manipulation, so I say we fuck 'em too.

curious2 says

Alas fundamentalist crusaders lack such subtlety and wisdom, which is part of why the Republicans failed to win.

all your doing is insulting our first President and Founder of our Nation...

you are in a personal war with our founders and principles of our Nation.

Its seems that you have proven Ryan's point all to well.

A lady asked Dr. Franklin, "Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy?"
to which Franklin replied, " A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it."

mell says

Where is the money coming from to balance any of those spending increases?

(things haven't gotten any better since then, LOL)

Bellingham Bill says

We could throw nearly all of the 1% into plastic shredders and the wealth creation of this nation would not be affected one iota. We'd be better off, quite frankly.

That may be true, but how can you realistically achieve any significant monetary benefit from targeting the 1% (aside from fairness issues as there are likely 1% who didn't scam the system)? Even if you could come up with a plan to tackle them effectively it would likely be a drop in the bucket. I think the best thing you can do is prosecute fraud and default to clear bad debt whenever possible and let those leeches (mostly banks) who feed off of interest on future production (bailouts and ZIRP) fail fast.

thomaswong.1986 says

all your doing is insulting our first President and Founder of our Nation...

you are in a personal war with our founders and principles of our Nation.

Its seems that you have proven Ryan's point all to well.

When did I insult the first President?!? Which founders and principles am I "in a personal war with?!? And who is Ryan, and what was his point? Honestly Thomas, sometimes I read comments that you have addressed to me and I wonder if you are writing to someone else who has nothing to do with me. I hope you will take a moment to answer these questions and clarify your comment because I really, sincerely, have no idea what you mean.

"Had it been Romney in the pic, the media would be all over this like flies on shit."

No, those were actual capital-c Capitalists, making real exportable wealth.

The motherfuckers paying for Romney to give them verbal blowjobs were rent-seeking parasites.

Not that the late Steve Jobs & Co. aren't past masters at rent-seeking, but at least creating new wealth -- the Personal Computer, Desktop Publishing, the www, touchphones & tablets -- is how they make their money.

That's capitalism. Make shit and sell it. Romney wouldn't know that kind of capitalism -- his career in vulture capitalism was largely as a wealth destroyer, not creator.

curious2 says

When did I insult the first President?!?

LOL, I see your interlocutor is firmly ensconced on Bullshit Mountain still.

mell says

but how can you realistically achieve any significant monetary benefit from targeting the 1%

personally, I'd break their rent-seeking business models. Foremost is real estate, and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax is good for that.

Included in this is more aggressive severance taxes on natural resource exploitation.

Then I'd socialize health care via single payer, to slowly wring the rents out of that sector.

Then I'd somehow close the $600B/yr trade deficit.

If I were King there wouldn't be inheritance taxes, since it would be impossible to accrete wealth via rent-seeking in the first place. People who had money had come by it honestly, through their own labor and deferred consumption.

Oh yeah, both socialist Norway and North Dakota have state banks. I think that's a good idea, too, maybe.

A dollar would be a dollar in my Kingdom, not this 2% pa. inflationary jazz we've got going now.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CPIAUCSL

Bellingham Bill says

A dollar would be a dollar in my Kingdom, not this 2% pa. inflationary jazz we've got going now.

JFK campaigned against 2% inflation in 1960, and won.

As for your kingdom, I hope it will be on PatNet's floating island after cannibal anarchy leads to Zombie apocalypse. AF will be defense minister. Since it will be a floating man-made structure, there will be no land tax, but we can all pitch in on the hydroponic yam harvest.

Bellingham Bill says

mell says

but how can you realistically achieve any significant monetary benefit from targeting the 1%

personally, I'd break their rent-seeking business models. Foremost is real estate, and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax is good for that.

Included in this is more aggressive severance taxes on natural resource exploitation.

Then I'd socialize health care via single payer, to slowly wring the rents out of that sector.

Then I'd somehow close the $600B/yr trade deficit.

If I were King there wouldn't be inheritance taxes, since it would be impossible to accrete wealth via rent-seeking in the first place. People who had money had come by it honestly, through their own labor and deferred consumption.

Sounds overall good to me although I'd favor a mix of state/federal run and private health care (both as add-ons and complete replacement) working side by side like in Germany - when can you start? ;)

chanakya4773 says

How can one child who is born on the planet claim a piece of nature as inheritance and the other child cannot.

Property / Contract Laws.

Bellingham Bill says

Not that the late Steve Jobs & Co. aren't past masters at rent-seeking, but at least creating new wealth -- the Personal Computer, Desktop Publishing, the www, touchphones & tablets -- is how they make their money.

Billy... Im suprised at you.. surely you mean those who paid 90/share for Apple stock during first day of trading didnt exactly become wealthy over the next months-years..