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Occupy Wall Street Protests
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Post by
457758
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Over, and out.
Off-topic, but a cadet friend of mine used to have a massive pet peeve about this. If you're talking to someone, you can't pass it over to them and go 'out' of the conversation, because then you haven't passed it over, you're just out. The technically correct way is simply to say 'Out.'
On topic, if they're obstructing private property, then it's trespass. If they're obstructing public property, then they're probably in breach of other laws (loitering and the like) unless the protest was sanctioned and stayed within limits of the sanctioning (e.g. must leave gaps for people to pass by, must not encroach on the roads illegally, etc.).
Personally, I think that people who perform illegal actions whilst protesting (including, but not limited to, verbally / physically abusing and intimidating passerby-ers, obstructing the flow of traffic, causing physical damage to property, loitering, resisting arrest, obstructing police, etc.) deserve to be arrested and prosecuted to the extent of the law.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
gamerunknown
Wouldn't all protests contain an aspect of loitering? I appreciate they need permission and not to obstruct pedestrians, but I think the entire point is to stay in particular areas to exert a presence.
Post by
Squishalot
Hence the comment about sanctioning. If they get permission, then it's hardly illegal, isn't it?
As an example, you can't just grab a bunch of people together and walk down the main road in a city, arms linked singing
kum ba yah
- that would be illegally obstructing traffic. However, if you obtain permission, authorities will close off roads and allow you to do it safely.
Post by
pezz
Another instance worth considering is that even with curved taxation the rich very rarely pay the majority of tax money due to accountants and subsidies and tax havens.
Maybe I'm misreading
this data
, but I just don't see that in these numbers.
Note that the charts come from the IRS, so the numbers should be what they actually collected.
Salient point: in 2008 the top 10% of earners paid 70% of the total income tax.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
Salient point: in 2008 the top 10% of earners paid 70% of the total income tax.
I stand corrected. I remember reading some websites about the economic effects of tax loopholes and offshore banking and I think one had a quote to the effect that the rich don't pay the majority of tax, but I'm glad to get the opportunity to challenge that view. One website was also quite virulently against tax evasion from (what seemed like) a right wing economic point of view, which I found interesting.
Post by
pezz
Well this is what Warren Buffet wrote an article against. The rich pay a much higher proportion of total income tax, but their de facto income tax percentage tends to be lower than middle or upper-middle class workers who don't get paid in options and dividends and don't make offshore bank accounts.
Post by
207044
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Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Transducer
I would like for the economic geniuses here on wowhead to come up with some reasonable alternatives to 'getting fed up with the rich bankers and mega-corporations', with all the media blowing up about this 'Occupy Wall Street' lately... many various groups of people getting interested and involved, including several huge unions about to enter the scene.
Pretend you're standing there at the crowd and you want to make it clear to people they are being foolish and wasting their time, that it is all for nothing. What would you suggest to them?
Post by
Heckler
Another instance worth considering is that even with curved taxation the rich very rarely pay the majority of tax money due to accountants and subsidies and tax havens.
Maybe I'm misreading
this data
, but I just don't see that in these numbers.
Note that the charts come from the IRS, so the numbers should be what they actually collected.
Salient point: in 2008 the top 10% of earners paid 70% of the total income tax.
Salient point: in 2008 the top 10% of earners paid 70% of the total income tax.
I stand corrected. I remember reading some websites about the economic effects of tax loopholes and offshore banking and I think one had a quote to the effect that the rich don't pay the majority of tax, but I'm glad to get the opportunity to challenge that view. One website was also quite virulently against tax evasion from (what seemed like) a right wing economic point of view, which I found interesting.
Well this is what Warren Buffet wrote an article against. The rich pay a much higher proportion of total income tax, but their de facto income tax percentage tends to be lower than middle or upper-middle class workers who don't get paid in options and dividends and don't make offshore bank accounts.
I linked this in another thread, but I'll link it here too. It's from David Cay Johnston, the author of
Free Lunch
if you've heard of that:
9 Things the Rich Don't Want You to Know About Taxes
Some interesting things relating to the oft-quoted Tax Foundation tables...
It’s true that the top 1 percent of wage earners paid 38 percent of the federal income taxes in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is available). But people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.
Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. That’s because, once you reach $106,800 of income, you pay no more for Social Security, though the much smaller Medicare tax applies to all wages. Warren Buffett pays the exact same amount of Social Security taxes as someone who earns $106,800.
Here's a
chart
showing how that "less than half" idea breaks down, for anyone curious. So the 70% of income taxes paid by the top 10% makes up 31.5% of total federal revenue -- but they make more than
40%
of the total income (
source
), and control
80%
of the total wealth (
source, p28
).
The article above doesn't talk much about Payroll taxes, so let's break them down a little. A Payroll tax is levied on all
wages paid
in the U.S..
Payroll taxes consist of (source):
Social Security
: 10.4% of wage (6.2% is paid by the employer, 4.2% is paid by the employee)
Medicare
: 2.9% of wage (paid half by employer, half by employee)
FUTA
(Unemployment Tax): This one is confusing, but here's my understanding. The FUTA rate is 6.0% of the first up-to-$7000 of each employee's wage. There is currently a 5.8% credit available on this tax (varies by state), so this tax is 0.2% on the first $7000 of each employee in most states (that's $14 per year per employee). Keep in mind this credit is only available as offset for unemployment tax paid to the States.
Because the employer's part of these taxes are paid per-employee, the money is part of the total pool that an employer pays to have an employee. As an example, let's say I hire someone and I'm willing to pay $10 for that employee, once I deduct my payroll contribution, I pay the rest to the employee as a wage.
This site
attributes Employer contributions as "lost wages by worker" and shows the total
Federal
tax totals by income. The "parabolic" nature of the
charts
on this site are pretty startling.
Finally, none of the figures above include State taxes, which vary from State to State in terms of progressive / regressive. Here's
Texas revenue information for 2010
as an example. Sales taxes make up over half of the Major Tax Income, and Sales Taxes are regressive (because low-income people tend to spend 100% of their income). It's also worth noting how much Texas takes in Federal funds (42.2% of their total revenue comes from the Federal Government). In other States, Income taxes and Property taxes create a more progressive taxation structure.
I realize this isn't exactly what people are complaining about when they talk of "Banksters" and "Wall Street," but I figured it was pertinent information to anyone discussing Taxation and Equity. The top 1% have nothing to complain about concerning taxation.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
To any of the Occupy Wall Street supporters on Wowhead, here's a parallel issue you might be interested in reading / signing.
http://www.getmoneyout.com/
It's a petition started by Dylan Ratigan from CNBC/MSNBC to promote the adoption of a Constitutional amendment to remove money from politics (in-line with the OWS goal of overturning
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
(558 U. S. ____ (2010)). The proposed amendment:
"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."
I also thought this was interesting:
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
To any of the Occupy Wall Street supporters on Wowhead, here's a parallel issue you might be interested in reading / signing.
http://www.getmoneyout.com/
It's a petition started by Dylan Ratigan from CNBC/MSNBC to promote the adoption of a Constitutional amendment to remove money from politics (in-line with the OWS goal of overturning
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
(558 U. S. ____ (2010)). The proposed amendment:
"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."
I also thought this was interesting:
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
Yes please. It makes sense on all kinds of levels. Not least of which that maybe we won't spend
half of a president's term covering who the next one will be.
I'd like a system where politicians only have enough money to campaign for about a month.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
To any of the Occupy Wall Street supporters on Wowhead, here's a parallel issue you might be interested in reading / signing.
http://www.getmoneyout.com/
It's a petition started by Dylan Ratigan from CNBC/MSNBC to promote the adoption of a Constitutional amendment to remove money from politics (in-line with the OWS goal of overturning
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
(558 U. S. ____ (2010)). The proposed amendment:
"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."
I also thought this was interesting:
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
This is to keep businesses out of politics? I find it interesting that it would likely limit federal offices to people who were already rich, who are.... wait for it.... business owners. This is kind of like going to town, picking out a firearm, loading it, pointing it at your foot, pulling the trigger, and then wondering why you are in pain.
Post by
367020
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
This is to keep businesses out of politics? I find it interesting that it would likely limit federal offices to people who were already rich, who are.... wait for it.... business owners. This is kind of like going to town, picking out a firearm, loading it, pointing it at your foot, pulling the trigger, and then wondering why you are in pain.
It's to keep all money out of politics, both business and private -- did you actually read the amendment? Your statement makes no sense. I think you're saying, "Campaigns are so expensive that if all donation capability were removed from everyone, only independently rich people could afford to run."
But the important part of the amendment is that it defines explicitly that money in the form of campaign donation is not protected speech under the first amendment.
This would mean that campaign finance laws could be stronger, without fear of overturn by the Supreme Court. It would open the way for a complete restructuring of elections and money, whether that means limitations on campaign spending in general, or even a path to public financing.
In a previous thread, you made a statement denigrating the McCain-Feingold bill (
the BCRA
), can you explain in detail exactly what you had against that? With this amendment, the provisions of BCRA would have been protected from the overturn in
Citizens United
. Do you actually support the rulings of
Citizens United
?
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