Wonkette
HUZZAH WE ARE ALL RICH AGAIN: “The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, a key gauge of the broader market and the benchmark for many investors’ index funds, erased all its 2009 losses just before the close.” So yay, we are “only” as poor as we were on January 1, which is to say, quite. [New York Times]
This is the sign I’ve been waiting for. BRB, short selling.
Hot damn! Somebody leverage me at 500:1 again!
Yay! Can we have Michelle Bachmann come out and give her salute again, just to commemorate the occasion?
I was unemployed on January 1st and I’m still unemployed.
So, is MSNBC now reporting that the market LIKES teh socialisms?
Michael Steele’s plan is working perfectly…
If the wingnuts proclaimed that this was Obama’s Recession/Depression then by their lojik this should be Obama’s turnaround. Right? Right?
How about the S&M index? Spiking?
Of course one possibility is the S&P is at zero since it cannot drop below zero
It’s all Obama’s fault! Oh…wait..
And with the amount of people who will soon be DEAD FROM _____ FLU soon the economy will be able to fully reset itself. Also.
ManchuCandidate: That’s just ignorant. It’s the Bush tax cuts that saved us from the Obama recession. Anything contradicting this is just noise and should be thrown out.
Now that we’re richie-rich again, has anybody run the numbers on my idea of giving ALL American kids teh socialist Muslin Medicare tyranny, just like their grand-Olds?
I’d pay for it by enacting some of that ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ stuff I’ve been hearing about recently: I’d blow up the Medicare tax-cap so the 2% who make more that $100K can pay into the new system. That munnie will go into low co-pay ($10 visit/$5 Rx) ‘prevention-first’ medical service for kids, along with more funding for school gyms and junk-free (read: Pepsi/Frito-Lay/Little Debbie) cafeterias so they’ll be raised healthier as a group, thus becoming a healthier group of adults, with healthier habits to pass to their kids…
Here’s the fun part, now - today’s kids will get to keep their Medicare for the rest of their lives, and when they become working adults (with fewer sickdays, lower smoking/alcoholic rates and less lost productiviy) they can start paying the tax for their kids!
Social engineering? - you bet! Good for America? - you got it, Comrade! Allahu Akbar, y’all!
shortsshortsshorts:
“And with the amount of people who will soon be DEAD FROM” MEXICAN SWINE-FUCKER ZOMBIE DEATH PLAGUE “FLU soon the economy will be able to fully reset itself.”
/fixed
i am rich on the inside. and that’s what matters….right?
Bearbloke: Debout, les damnés de la terre
Debout, les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C’est l’éruption de la fin
Du passé faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
Muslin Commie Terrist Ghey
“erased all its 2009 losses just before the close.” That’s fantastic, considering the stock market crashed in October of 2008.
Bearbloke: Socialized medicine sounds like a great idea, but, uh, there already is no cap on Medicare contributions. Couldn’t we finance it by taxing hedge fund profits as ordinary income, or raising the rate on dividend and interest income instead?
x111e7thst: Oui, it is changer de base I can believe in!
V572625694: There is a cap on the amount of one’s income that’s subject to those taxes - but we can do your ideas also…
Looks like we’re well situated for the coming Commercial Real Estate forclosure tsunami. Should be fun!
Bearbloke: Just another evil plan to undermine Jebus, kill teh fetuses and promote butt sects. Nice try–you almost had me there but gave yourself away with that exotic
muslinese.
What good is it to have healthy children when they will be…..LEFT BEHIND??? Sure, they’re all toothless and diseased but Jebus loves them and they will see Memaw, Pepaw and Uncle Bubber in heaven in 2012 when the Goddess Sarapac Shakira will strike her mighty hockey stick on the ground and the Seven Mountain Prayer Warriors will all be lifted up….to Jebus!! And Lego Jesus!!!1111!
sevenrepeat: So you’re a cannoli? Or a creampuff?
We’re in the money and Arlen Specter is a democrat. Coincidence, …. yes.
smartypants: Curses! Foiled again! Just when I was gonna offer the SATANIC idea of age-appropriate real sex-edumakayshum, so they wouldn’t be any unwanted fetuses to leave in the dumpster outside the Junior Prom dance… but who besides silly Satanic me would want to spare young girls such emotional/physical trauma?…
Rush Limbaugh isn’t missing any meals. Or maybe Huffpo just photoshopped his face to look extra bloated today.
Bearbloke: Not so….There used to be a cap on the 2.9% Medicare tax, but not since 1993, when Hillary’s hubby got it lifted. Last sentence in para 4:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba470
Should we just convert this to a tax policy blog?
Oh boyz! Maybe I can open my 401(k) statement without a clutching my chest in a bout of atrial fibrillation. In about 2012.
V572625694: Well, that’s why I asked about “someone (certainly not me) running the numbers on this”, since I’m clearly fuzzy on teh maths of tax policy and I’ll let you have the lead - Besides, I’m the BIG Picture Idea Guy, and you get to be the bean counter… so can we pay for this idea (near- AND far-term please, and be sure to show your work), or not?
V572625694: Of course, the NCPA are the same neocon-men who wants to privatize (read: steal) the Olds’ Social Security in the first place, to invest in rock-solid companies like AIG…
Obama/Biden 2012!!!
V572625694: National Center for Policy Analysis:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis
They’re whores for ExxonMobil, also… http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=55
Bearbloke: Not to worry–Check out “That GGGGRROOOOOVVYYY Abstinence Program”, by Bristol Palin. Only book left in the liberry besides The Word of Jebus.
Giant Robot: Oh you can bet your last Amero that he’s all that and more–living underground will do that.
V572625694: Tax policy? I swoon, daddy.
Joshua Norton: You have money left? Meh.
I’m going to celebrate by taking a nap. My fourth nap of the day.
I propose we pay for Bearbloke’s health care ideas by ‘eliminating’ all Fortune 500 CEOs and redistributing their munnies to people who actually need it. This will also act as ‘encouragement’ on any remaining richies to pay their motherfucking taxes & not hide them in the Caymans.
My idea will probably have to wait for Hopey’s 2nd term, where with his mandate he will also shrink the military budget to $50,000,000/year, raise the highest tax bracket to 95% and expand the NEA to include a living wage stipend to all formerly starving artists.
Hahaha Neal is gaining steam:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-1765-Underground-Examiner~y2009m5d1-Vote-Neal-Horsley-at-Ideas-to-Rebuild-our-Future
He’s actually all over the place, but I can only put one link at a time on Wonkette, and it is dangerously OT.
Also, ShortsandPants has an interview lined up with Neal Horley sometime in the next week via web cam. The man is literally on fire.
Mary Matlin and James Carville are so poor, the best they could do was a working vacation.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/cruise-ship-to-offer-refunds-to-brides-who-get-pregnant-on-board-20090429-amoo.html
If this keeps up, they’ll soon have their faces on Burger King’s give-away glasses.
hobospacejunkie: We could start now by repealing the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999…
Bearbloke: That might cut down on the ButtSecks.
And that’s not change we can believe in.
Bearbloke: I was hoping for something a little more, I don’t know…violent?
I don’t just want social justice. I also want social revenge. Also.
Bearbloke: There was this thing the Westies did. They called it curbing. Basically you arrange a guy with his teeth resting on a curb.Then you step on the back of his head. Do that to a few of these fucks and I bet you the rest would line up to pay their taxes.
x111e7thst: In my ‘hood we call that a “Madoff”…
shortsshortsshorts: If he’s not literally on fire he should be.
“The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index …erased all its 2009 losses…”
Is this why they bitters call him the zero prez?
smartypants: “I swoon, daddy.” I know how to talk to a woman, assuming you are one.
We could go back to vintage woodworking, if that’s more your taste.
Bearbloke: Okay, here’s some easy-to-follow detail:
(1) Minimum-Wage Willie has a total of 7.65% docked from the first dollar he makes. The employer pays the other half. So his total tax rate is 15.3%.
(2) Plutocrat Pete, whose income is all from dividends and income, pays 15% — a lower rate. He doesn’t pay FICA or Medicare because this is “passive” (i.e., unearned, as they used to call it) income.
(3) Middle-Class Mike, with two kids to send to college and a big mortgage, pays maybe 25% on his $200K salary.
See anything wrong with this picture? Me too.
V572625694: ohhh, ohhh, ohhh…..ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Damn, you DO know how to talk to a woman..that Minimum-Wage Willie is HAUGHT (Me, woman, blushing)…
Not that I have the girlnutz (see Custerwolf pics)to prove it, goddamit.
Let’s talk about that ‘passive’ income s’more. I’m ready to kick somebody’s ass.
smartypants: They used to call it “unearned income” but that hurt the hedge fund traders’ feelings, so they changed the name to “passive income.” If you have a checking account at the bank, you get a little, you lucky girl.
The reason you don’t hear about the “Flat Tax” Steve Forbes had big wood for a few years ago is that….we already have it! It’s just crazy that some guy working in a carwash is paying taxes at the same rate as Mitt Romney.
Now, if you’re game, I’ll talk about the inequities inherent in California Prop 13. Smokin!
shortsshortsshorts: Mule Train! Clippity clop, clippity clop … carrying bags of Obama porkulus monies to victory. All Neal, all the time. Fair and balanced.
V572625694: This is part of a decades-long strategy to shift the tax burden from the wealthy (through property taxes) to the middle & below classes. And they’ve been successful. Highest marginal tax rate under Eisenhower was 90%. Today the wealthy get retarded clods to protest on their behalf when a 3% rise is proposed after which the top rate will still be under 40%. And this has not been a Republican v. Democrat issue. Plenty of Dumbocrats (ha!) voted for Reagan’s income tax cuts & W’s income tax cuts, while reducing capital gains taxes. Which is why it’s so ridiculous to call Obama a radical. He’s not even proposing a tax increase, just letting W’s cuts expire. How fucking radical, dude. If you wanna erase the deficit, we all know where the money is. I don’t recall any recession or depression in the 1950s. Though I’m sure both parties would blame that decade’s 90% rate for Sputnik.
hobospacejunkie: Hobo— are you saying that Obama is NOT a radical? Did that just come out of your mouth?
STONE HIM.
V572625694: I like you and I suspect that we are related in some way.
But let’s not get kinky. I would love to hear about Prop 13 if you will continue to talk about Willie and Pete and Mike (I have their Chippendale bodies all in place)..although you really should give 1.5 of them women’s names, since we do in fact represent half of the population.
If I don’t reply this next go round I am either (a)passed out (b)overcome by passion for tax law/legislation or (c)trying to convince my spouse that I am in fact NOT having an online affair.
hobospacejunkie: My parents are Dumbocrats. I am absolutely convinced now that I was adopted.
shortsshortsshorts: Um, uh, I meant that, uh, he’s not a radical only in comparison to Lenin and Mao, who all the wingers are comparing him to these days.
Sir!
hobospacejunkie: My Senior-Bearbloke told me of some economic bother in 1958, that he remembers since he was trying to get his first job outta HS - but that’s neither here nor there…
For purely ideological reasons, I wouldn’t want to raise the marginal tax rate beyond 50% - but
if someone’s making $25Mil a year, they’re gonna pay something damn close to 49.999999999%… and capital gains and other unearned income would be taxed at least as much as earned income…
smartypants: I am absolutely convinced now that I was adopted.
So am I! Though that is because I actually am adopted. And reunited. Found my birthparents 12 years ago.
Bearbloke: My Senior-Bearbloke told me of some economic bother in 1958
You are correct. I am wrong. I bow down to your superior research.
The Recession of 1958 was a sharp worldwide economic downturn in 1958.
hobospacejunkie:
Yeah, it helps to have somebody who remembers a little bit about everything before one was born… and you’d be surprised what info one can elicit in return for a backrub…
hobospacejunkie: Well done, you. Having a moment of solemnity on your behalf.
Okay, on with the hijinks!
Are we now BOWING to other posters??!!111! Like our SecretMuslin Prez did to his Saudi King?!!11!? What, you can’t be serious for five fucking minutes on this crappy site????
God, I love this place.
smartypants: Sweet dreams. We’ll talk more tomorrow. My girlfriend wouldn’t like an on-line romance either. But what’s more platonic than Willie and the gang, and their tax problems.
V572625694: Question mark.
smartypants: You know what? Even in snark-world, having someone say they like you is awfully nice. Thanks. I love this place too.
Forget tax policy, is EcoDriving back? It keeps popping up.
G’night, john boy, goddamit. Heh.
Phew! Being poor sucked.
smartypants: john boy?
Appropos of nothing, I just clicked over to the NYTimes op-ed page…is it wrong that the pic of Douchat makes me want to punch his pasty white face?
At last, I may replenish my Sippy Straws.
Damn you. Kegger!
chascates: “Unemployment is a consequence of over-capacity. Its unavoidable effect is job loss and hunger. But this is the freedom to choose.” - Milton Friedman
For this reason, we need guillotines in every square.
Oh my, what do we have here…
Hey look the real economic data which is unconnected with the stock market…Hmmmm….I wonder how unemployment, debt to GDP, and industrial capacity are…Oh my.
Oh well, I’m glad that the Obama plan is paying back some of the money the investor-class lost *wipes his brow* I mean, you wouldn’t want them to be deprived of their imaginary money (okay, all money is imaginary in some respect due to fractional reserve banking, but let’s call this money EXTRA imaginary, because you don’t pay taxes on it until it becomes spendable, that is, until it becomes money).
x111e7thst: Just in case:
Arise ye pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall;
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been naught we shall be all.
(IWW version)
“An enraged mob is a consequence of over-stupidity. Its unavoidable effect is head loss and pillorying. But this is the freedom to kick ass & take names.”
- Miltown Lulzmongler
hobospacejunkie: Revenge is such an ugly word. How about social punishment?
bearbloke/v572625694 in 2012!!1!