SilentSnow

I can't believe you actually seriously believe that. Yes, the definition of these terms is nearly completely irrelevant. Lets suppose you changed the definition of millionaire to exclude primary residence. My argument would be virtually unchanged. To adjust for this even greater inequality you would just slightly tweak the proposed tax rates. As for liquid, even if we imposed the tax based on today's wealth levels, there is no way we would make people pay off the tax over less than 5-10 years. With any reasonable time period the required assets are 100% liquid.

This argument is just dumb. It's an argument for anarchy in general since you could use the same argument structure for literally any government function. He doesn't have a clear understanding of morality at all. The point of morality is not to gratify your ego and maximize your individual chances to "do the right thing". By his logic, why don't we eliminate all crime laws so vigilantes can take credit for saving the damsel in distress? The point of morality is to do the right thing, period- even if you don't individually get to take credit for it. So the relevant question is when is governme

Obama issued the moratorium because there was evidence of widespread corruption and deliberate disregard for safety regulations. Macondo never would have happened if the safety rules had been followed. Over the last 6 months deepwater drilling permits have been issued at the same rate they were before Macondo. http://www.platts.com/weblog/oilblog/2011/...gulators_i.htmlhttp://gnoinc.org/images/136.jpgAlso, you made one relevant claim in your last post- that "permits take 2-5 years to approve"Just looking at the graph makes this claim seem nonsensical. It's clear that drilling is very closely c

Nice to see you chiming in with your usual pseudo-intellectual BS. Unfortunately Guapo actually did provide a classic red herring argument about semantics that completely avoided the actual discussion. His three points-1.He objected to my definition of millionaire- almost completely irrelevant to the discussion. 2.He objected to my commonly accepted definition of liquid assets- absolutely irrelevant. He was then dumb enough to include a quote that essentially agreed with me- "Liquid assets include most stocks, money market instruments and government bonds. "3.He objected to his own false claim

A nice story, but does absolutely nothing to show that Obama is restricting drilling through excessive environmental regulations. I have to go. I'll check back in tomorrow to see if you've made any coherent points.

1.A nice thought, but irrelevant. A rising tide has not lifted all boats. The poor in this country have been getting poorer for decades and now the middle class are starting to join them. 2.Taxes are not unconstitutional. You really need to drop that crazy objection of yours. 3.There has been all out class warfare by the rich for 30 years now. The only change is that more people are finally starting to catch on. As of now there has been no concerted effort to fight back.

So despite a longstanding record of massive distortions and a lack of comprehension of what I've said, you are now claiming that you have the omniscient ability to know what I really mean? Good to know.Also, why don't you show off some of your immense knowledge to explain how the rig count has skyrocketed in the Obama administration despite these mythical environmental restrictions? To a neophyte, this would seem impossible, but I'm sure it will be resolved by your superior erudition. http://www.wtrg.com/rigs_graphs/rigus.gif

Um what???Just to remind you, we're the ones arguing AGAINST the Mexican model. You are the one arguing FOR it.

There's nothing there to address. All you are doing is arguing over semantics and refusing to discuss the real issue- exactly what I predicted in advance you would do.

Obviously I am not saying that Obama has single-handedly turned around a 40 year trend of oil production in the US. What I am saying is that the conservative idea that Obama is restricting oil production is completely absurd.And thanks for helping prove my point. Oil prices have been steadily increasing for 10 years now, yet the overall production trend has gone down. We are producing less than we did 10 years ago despite skyrocketing prices. Geology is the dominant factor in oil production. Prices or environmental restrictions are only a small factor in comparison.Here's another fun chart tha

I think I posted that one before. It won't matter though. There are no amount of facts that can convince them. Getting some people to honestly discuss inequality is harder than getting a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

Speaking of strawmen- That you guys refuse to even discuss what I am saying is a decent indicator that no one can seriously defend the current tax rates on the rich. Also, raising taxes in general is definitely constitutional. We already have a wealth tax(property tax). Even if the corrupt corporate supreme court declared a wealth tax unconstitutional, you could always put in a temporary deficit reduction tax on income.

Once again Republicans show their immunity to facts. They would have you believe that Obama is some evil environmentalist who's stopping us from drilling for oil. Just elect them and we will find way more. Not only is there not much more oil to find- US production has been declining for 40 years- but Obama is the only president in the last 40 years to have a production increase while in office.

1.I'm not going to get into a dumb semantic battle if you aren't willing to address the main point. As defined by Deloitte, they are including residence equity as part of the definition of a millionaire. They estimate there are 10.5 million millionaires in the US. But apparently this definition of millionaire is highly offensive to conservatives. Deloitte estimates that the top 1% start at around 5 million net worth, and are unquestionably millionaires by anyones standards. The lowest estimate I have ever seen for the wealth controlled by the top 1% is 25 trillion, and some estimates are far h

My favorite part of this forum is where they introduce worthless straw men and false "facts", then pretend that I am the one being ridiculous.They don't have to lose their business if they move out, but in this theoretical example they would be taxed on any US profits at the same rate, so that would take away much of their incentive to leave. Sidenote-In Republicans' benighted examples of hypothetical small business owners, very few of them are multi-millionaires and none at all are managing a business from overseas. So you would have to rework your marketing to account for your change to the

What you fail to grasp is that the deficit will be paid no matter what. Either through higher taxes, lower economic growth or both. It has already been "nationalized" to use your stupid and misleading word. The question now is who will pay it? The rich, who were massive beneficiaries of the deficit spending- or the poor, who hardly seemed to benefit at all.

In other hilarious news, a deluded libertarian is actually taking Ayn Rand seriously. I would be overjoyed if they tried this, since they might then discover that nearly everything libertarians believe about economies is false. Of course it probably won't happen, since most libertarians are smart enough to realize that starting over on an uninhabited island would be absolutely disastrous to their wealth prospects. Better to prop Galt Gulch up as the fantasy it is than to ever try it and do irreparable harm to the greed movement. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silico...-140840896.html

First of all, I was posting those as hypothetical examples proving that Bravehearts claims about wealth were absolutely false. But let's suppose that these were actual proposals. A 1 time deficit elimination tax of 33% and only tax the rich from now on. Could the rich move to Canada or anywhere else? No. At least not rationally. You only have a rational incentive to move if tax rates are significantly lower somewhere else. I don't know the exact number, but in general the US taxes the rich far less than other rich countries. Let's estimate the rich get taxed at 18%, while somewhere else they g

Your post shows the "Right" in all their glory. Absolute ignorance of the facts, yet completely derisive towards those that are aware. LLYs post lists total "income" as 7.7 trillion. Our economy is 15 trillion. Clearly those numbers do not account for all income. If they are measuring household income, then the proportion of non-household income not shown is disproportionately taken by the rich. Your idea about what would happen contains so many misconceptions that I hardly know where to begin. But it doesn't matter what I post since there is literally no fact that you wouldn't be willing to i

I've already been talking about this for a while, but it looks like it's time for another update. Most people severely underestimate how unevenly wealth is distributed in the United States. The top 1% make 20-25% of annual income and have about 40% of the total wealth. It's estimated that millionaires in the united states are worth about 45 trillion(39 trillion + 6 trillion in tax evasion schemes). You could do a one time 33% wealth tax on only millionaires and pay off the entire national debt tomorrow. We could run our entire yearly government expenses exclusively on money from the top 1% and

I can see why you might be confused, since the liberal media is a complete myth. Most of what conservatives "know" about liberals is conservative propaganda. As I've already explained, Obama has gone against liberal principles on nearly every major issue. You guys seem completely unable to grasp the fact that liberals are virtually disenfranchised in this country and conservatives have nearly complete control over the government. That is how a conservative who lost the popular election was able to enact nearly everything he wanted, while a "liberal" who had a massive electoral victory achieved

Compared to the potential future damage from global warming, that is essentially nothing.

Unlike conservatives, liberals adjust their beliefs when the facts change. First of all, I doubt the corn subsidies were as much of a liberal idea as you claim. For example, in the 2005 bill that expanded them, 20 of the 26 No votes were from democrats. I don't remember how the MTBE rules got implemented. What I do know is that environmentalists were the first ones to oppose them when it became clear that they weren't working. Now, the attempt to repeal the corn subsidies has more Democrat than Republican support, mainly opposed by corrupt midwest politicians.

You should get out more. Environmentalists and Liberals think subsidizing ethanol is spectacularly stupid and immoral and have for a long time now. It's the corrupt midwest politicians and lobbyists that are keeping it going.

Your trolling is severely deteriorating. The first rule of trolling is not to get your opponents' position wildly wrong, because they then have no incentive to respond to you. The goal is to get some part of it right, then distort the rest. I clearly have said they do matter since they have a hugely disproportionate influence over government compared to their actual numbers in congress and the general population. Obviously we disagree on whether that is a good thing. I have stated multiple times that Liberals are disenfranchised in this country and Democrats do not even remotely run things. T