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I really don't understand the Obama-ness of HN. I'm certainly not busting my ass working on my business just to see Obama "spread my wealth around". I understa

• viggity 18y ago
  FYI I'm fine with someone disagreeing and down voting my comment, but I would appreciate some sort of response if you do. I'd like to know why you think I'm wrong
  • DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Viggity, This is my only comment on the matter, and I comment because, this voting system makes no sense and it's hard to use it as a feedback device. People vote you up or down based on whether they want to look at your comment. This site is heavily Obama-ish -- I'm guessing 80% or so. There are some libertarians such as myself rambling around. Probably some Republicans too, but they're deep into some sort of witness protection program I guess. :) You won't get a conversation. They'll just keep voting your comments into the mud. Stupid, huh?
    • sc 18y ago
      Libertarian beliefs do not presuppose a lack of Obama support.
      • DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Agreed. Nor do they indicate a lack of McCain support. That's why I love libertarians -- we're such a pain in the ass to everybody else.
    • yummyfajitas 18y ago
      I'll come out of the closet: I'm a Republican. [Note: this post is poorly written from here on. Ignore it. I feel like fixing it would be rude to the responder, since it would make his post look nonsensical.] Not going to vote tomorrow, though. My feeling is that more voters gives the process legitimacy, and I don't want to contribute that.
      • jncraton 18y ago
        This is just an honest question. If you aren't a fan of the political system, why do you affiliate yourself with a political party?
        • yummyfajitas 18y ago
          Sorry, my statement was poorly written, a weird agglomeration of the two thoughts running through my head at the time I wrote it. My bad. Let me fix: >Not going to vote tomorrow, though. My feeling is that more voters gives the winner legitimacy and a mandate, and since I hate the winner, I don't want to do that. Anyway, I affiliate myself with the republicans because I agree with a many of their (old school, not Bush-era) positions. I also tend to vote republican in local races since NY/NJ democrats are hopelessly corrupt. However, since I now live in Harlem, even voting in local races is pointless.
  • mynameishere 18y ago
    Here's how you're wrong: Obama's platform is, for the most part, not that bad. The only real way to attack Obama is by guessing at what his real policies will be. This is very tricky and (to people with an existing predisposition) completely invalid. http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=302137342405551 http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?seci... Obama's sympathies are not just "redistributionist" but genuinely communistic. His racial views are consistently nationalistic. Consistently. But...until he actually wields power (he has voted "present" over 100 times in his short Senate career) it's all speculation. McCain, by constrast, would be crustily predictable.
  • msg 18y ago
    "I understand the realities of having a progressive tax system, but Obama crosses a line with me when he is going to tax the rich just to hand it straight over to everyone else in $1000 cash increments." We've all been funneling money into the pockets of rich people since the Bush tax cuts passed. McCain wants to extend them. For me, Obama is not so much crossing the line as uncrossing it. Taking a policy like tax policy out of the historical context, you will always be able to label tax increases as socialist and tax decreases as anarchical. These labels mean nothing and pollute the discourse. The correct question to ask is, what have our previous budget priorities taught us that we can use going forward? Should we, for instance, continue supply-side economics and the dogmas of market deregulation? All politics about anything is about the redistribution of wealth. (I didn't vote down your comment, incidentally. I reserve downvotes for forum abuse.)
• prospero 18y ago
  Marx believed that the government should distribute goods, not money. Don't be silly.
  • viggity 18y ago
    Don't you use money to acquire goods?
    • prospero 18y ago
      Not always, no. Government rationing during WWII, for instance. You might want to broaden your horizons a bit, economically speaking. A capitalist with socialist leanings is nowhere near a Marxist, and you make yourself sound ridiculous by claiming otherwise.
• sc 18y ago
  "[39.6 per cent] is what it would be under Obama's proposal, what it was under President Clinton, and, for that matter, what it will be after 2010 if President Bush's tax cuts expire on schedule." "During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC's 'Hardball,' a young woman asked [McCain] why her father, a doctor, should be 'penalized' by being 'in a huge tax bracket.' McCain replied that 'wealthy people can afford more' and that 'the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don't pay nearly as much as you think they do.' The exchange continued: YOUNG WOMAN: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?... MCCAIN: Here's what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more" http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_...
  • viggity 18y ago
    Right, I understand that it is to be expected that the rich will pay more under a progressive tax system. I have mixed feelings about this, but am generally ok about it. The difference between Clinton and Obama is that Clinton didn't hand my hard earned cash directly over to anybody else. Instead he spend money on technical skills training or food stamps for the poor.
    • noodle 18y ago
      mccain also voted for the relief checks...
      • viggity 18y ago
        I wasn't a fan of the relief checks and am not thrilled about McCain. But at least you had to pay taxes in order to get a relief check.
        • noodle 18y ago
          i just went digging into all materials i could find on this issue. from what i can tell, the $500-1k proposed stimulus and tax rebate is, essentially, the exact same thing as the last one. information will be based on 2007 tax reports. you must have previously paid taxes to obtain a check, just like the last round. i'm not 100% clear on how this check factors into your 2008 taxes, but from the looks of it, it might act as, essentially, a retroactive tax cut from 2007. if you paid your taxes last year, you'll get another check. but i'm not an expert and would like to see any information showing something contrary to what i've just said.
• debt 18y ago
  The upper class can go without a few luxuries so that the lower class can actually afford necessities. Don't be such a selfish pussy.
  • DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Aside from your language, which violates board terms, can I point out that captialism, the thing that drives startups, is dependent on people acting in their best interests. "Selfish" is a loaded, emotional, subjective term. Not something to base a policy on (and I don't think Obama or McCain is doing that)
    • debt 18y ago
      You contradict yourself. You're saying that politics has a place in my self-interest yet my self-interest doesn't have a place in politics. Capitalism is based almost ENTIRELY on acting selfishly. However, as we can clearly see, people suffer greatly from the near literal implementation of capitalism. Therefore, there needs to be a system in place to help those people who have become victims of it.
      • dgordon 18y ago
        Near-literal implementation of capitalism? Where?
        • debt 18y ago
          Depends on your version of capitalism.
          • cjoh 18y ago
            Just going ahead and nailing Godwin's law down here buried a little deep in a thread. ...hitler, etc. therefore such as.
  • anamax 18y ago
    The last time I looked, said luxuries were produced by the lower class, allowing them to buy necessiities. Why do you want the lower class to lose their jobs? The "yacht tax" a few years ago provides a useful lesson. The federal govt in its infinite wisdom added an significant tax to pleasure boats. Surprise - folks who could afford to buy outside the US did so. Folks who couldn't cut back. Folks building boats in the US lost their jobs.
• noodle 18y ago
  here are a few points worth considering: all tax systems are "spreading the wealth around" unless they're a flat tax system. obama is proposing a top tax bracket of 39.6%. under the "conservative lord and savior" ronald reagan, the top tax bracket paid 70%. that was eventually lowered to 50%. sarah palin presides over a state that siphons money from oil companies and uses it to cut checks to their citizens. this year's check was, iirc, for $3200. in addition, alaska is #1 in the country for pork barrel spending, leading the #2 state (arizona, [un?]ironically) by approx. 2500%. on the y2k campaign, john mccain, when asked about why the questioner's father (a doctor) pays a higher percentage in taxes than others, said this : "Look, here's what I really believe: That when you are, when you reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more." almost every person in the top 10 richest americans (not all were asked) stated that the current tax system unfairly favors the top. that includes warren buffet and bill gates.
  • viggity 18y ago
    Taking tax revenues and spending it on projects that benefit the entire society is not "spreading the wealth around". The rich who paid extra taxes in the 80's and 90's benefited from a more skilled and educated populace. This is stark contrast to what Obama wants to do: take an extra $50000 from a single rich person and giving $1000 in CASH to 50 poor people. Unless the rich person owns stock in malt liquor and plasma television companies, they won't be benefiting at all. Alaska doesn't "siphon" money off of the oil companies. The oil that the oil companies are extracting is the property of the citizens of Alaska. Alaska is cutting checks to its citizens for what they are properly owed in exchange for their property.
    • noodle 18y ago
      ok, you disagree with obama's 500-$1k stimulus plan. thats cool, you have the right to not agree with it. but, to be clear, you don't like the entire platform based on this one thing? in addition, the point would be to have the money stimulate the poor economy. buying booze and tvs would be the exact point of the checks going out. it would be, theoretically, "bad" if it were to be saved. japan did something similar but set it up so that the people were required to spend their money. like a governmental gift certificate. also, you don't see anything marxist/communist about a state collectively owning a resource and divvying up profits equally to its citizens?
• petercooper 18y ago
  Can I have a citation for your claim that Obama will directly give cash to the poor based on extra taxes raised on the rich?
  • viggity 18y ago
    Taken from http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/index.php http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/index.php Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans. Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
    • viggity 18y ago
      A "windfall profits tax" is a pretty slippery fucking slope. Who decides what is "excessive". Fuck that. The margin on my software is several hundred percent, is that excessive? The margin on oil is 4-6%. Does that mean I'm super fucked?
    • petercooper 18y ago
      Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families: That's interesting, actually. A similar prospect was laughed out of British parliament not too long ago - a parliament far to the left of US tastes.
• gruseom 18y ago
  His plan is the very definition of Marxism His plan is to seize the means of production and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat? Can we get a citation on that?
• auston 18y ago
  "spread my wealth around" Like with his proposal for 0% Capital Gains tax for Start-ups and Small Businesses? Man he's killin' you AND me with that one.
• time_management 18y ago
  Although I was a trader at a hedge fund for just over a year, I'm not rich. I probably will be, in the future. The Republican argument is that liberal economics are worst not for the already rich, but for the middle-class people who are trying to get rich. Well, I'm one of those: middle-class background, likely to be wealthy one day on account of my talent and work ethic. I'm also liberal, and will vote for Obama tomorrow, and although I suspect he's center-left, I secretly hope he is somewhat of the socialist his detractors accuse him of being. Why? I want a fair society, and a stable one. I don't want high levels of crime and unreliable health coverage. Nor do I want to feel guilty about enjoying my relative level of privilege. I don't want to be destroyed in the off chance that I'm unable to work due to illness or injury. I definitely don't want to see a violent revolution (much more probable than anyone wants to admit; given 20 more years of the 1980-2009(?) neofeudalism, I'd lay even odds on that one). Frankly, whether the upper tax bracket is 35 or 39.6 percent is of little interest to me, given the much larger issues at stake. I'll gladly pay a few more percent in taxes, contingent upon positive fortune on my part, in order to live in a better, fairer, and safer society. Also, here's why redistributive taxation fundamentally makes sense. Poor and middle-class people, in general, spend the bulk of their income on commodities-- food, clothing, consumer goods-- whose prices are set by material supply and demand. Doubling the incomes of the poor is going to enable them to purchase more of these commodities. The growth factor isn't 100%, since there will also be an increase the prices of these commodities (inflation) but it's fairly close-- no worse than 50%, I'd bet. So the poor peoples' standards of living increase if their incomes are doubled. Likewise, a 50% reduction in income will destroy many of them. On the other hand, wealthy people tend to purchase status goods, such as jewelry, rare (usually shitty, but that's beside the point) art, and trophy real estate. If the wealthy are suddenly made twice as rich, the prices of all the Manhattan apartments and paint-factory-vomit "modern art" works would instantly double. The same would be true if their income were halved. As long as these individuals' relative rankings were unchanged, their standards of living would change only slightly. One exception might be for those who wish to purchase a rivate jet, since a major expenditure in that pursuit is oil, a commodity. So private jets might become less affordable. Boo-hoo. The truth is that you could increase the tax rates on the very rich ($2.5 million+ per year) to 80 percent and, although they would feel intense pain due to the numerical changes and perceived loss of status, their lifestyles wouldn't change substantially, due to price reductions for most of the things they care about.
• lutorm 18y ago
  Maybe you should look at the Colbert segment where he interviews the real Socialist candidate, ie the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America, and see if he thinks Obama's plan is socialist.