(ANNIELIVES)
To start with . . . .
In the US and throughout most of the rest of the world, the tenth man would have paid off a politician for $10 to get a beer subsidy of $30 per night(to create jobs for the bartender). Of this $30, $10 of course would have covered the lobbying expense, $10 would go in his own pocket, $1 would go to the bartender to keep his mouth shut, and $9 would go to the bar.
The Bar would give him a kickback of $10 each night for bringing in his 9 buddies to make them into alcoholics, repeat customers for life.
The Bar would then raise their prices to $130 citing inflation and higher taxes.
The tenth richest man would then secure his finances in a Dutch Holding Company managed by a trust in Ireland which invests in Chase and Bank of America. He would then explain to his buddies that he is as poor as the rest of them and can’t afford to pay himself as he cries into his beer that night citing his latest financial report which shows him to be broke on paper so that he doesn’t have to pay taxes in the United States ever again.
Citing his former generosity, the other nine men would agree that the tenth man can now pay nothing like the 4 poorest.
The others would then be faced with an adjusted amount of
The fifth would pay $3.
The sixth would pay $10.
The seventh would pay $22.
The eighth would pay $38.
The ninth would pay $57.
Now the group would recognize that this is not fair and so would lobby the Government for an Earned Drinking Credit for the Poorest men. The government would oblige and give the four poorest men $2 each, but they would tax the 5th – 9th men $2 each as well.
4 men receive a total of $8 and 5 men pay $10.
The adjusted amounts would then look like this for all 10
First Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
Second Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
Third Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
Fourth Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
Fifth Pay $1 to bar pays $2 to tax | net paid $3
Sixth Pay $8 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $10
Seventh Pay $20 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $22
Eighth Pay $36 to bar pays $2 to tax | net paid $38
Ninth Pay $55 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $57
Tenth Man:  Tax Credit Received: $30 ;
Pays $10 to politician;
$1 to bartender;
Receives $10 from Bar
Net RECEIVED $29 per night and free beer
Of course this can not go on forever as the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth men can’t afford to pay those rates forever. So they start paying with their credit cards held by Bank of America and Chase.
The tenth man would start demanding a higher Return on Investment from his investment managers, who would be hearing similar requests from all of their other investors. They would then expand their holdings into mortgaged back securities where a good deal more profit could be made.
Meanwhile the Fifth through ninth men are racking up debt on their credit cards from drinking every night, their health care costs are increasing as their liver fails, and they are also spending more on gasoline as they drink and drive as they can no longer afford to cab it.
Ultimately, they end up refinancing their credit cards into their house where they have equity. The mortgage broker promises them a 4.9% interest rate on the refinance which sounds good as their credit card interest rate is up to 21%. The broker promises them that they will not have to verify their income, provide W2’s nor copies of their tax paper work.
Their mortgage broker doesn’t tell them, but lies about the value of their house in order to refinance their credit and help them avoid paying private mortgage insurance. At their current income levels, and without verifying their income, their mortgage would be classified as Sub Prime and the interest rate would be 10.9%

The mortgage officer lies about their income levels as well to boost the internal credit scoring mechanism and get them financed, not at 4.9% but 5.9%, which is better than 10.9% and happens to pay the mortgage broker a higher commission than a loan at 4.9% that is not sub prime.

The mortgage broker also promises them a payment of $900 per month, but fails to mention the balloon payment of $50,000 in the 5th year and doesn’t mention the adjustable rates in year 3.
The men separately show up with a hangover and sun glasses on the date of their close for their new mortgages. They trust their broker and do not read the paperwork in detail flipping and signing almost as fast as they could raise a beer bottle to their lips.
The loan closes, the mortgage broker gets a fat commission, the bank securitizes the mortgages by selling them to an Irish Hedge Fund and pockets collectively a billion dollars in profits that year.
The hedge fund holds the investment for a year, shows a 35% gain on paper and starts selling shares to retirement funds and 401ks in the US that the Sixth through 9th men just happen to have the rest of their life savings sitting in.
The tenth man sees the writing on the wall, literally magic marker on a stall in the restroom of the bar.
“The end is Nigh”
He pulls his money out of the Irish Hedge fund invested in real estate and invests in Gold at $600 a troy ounce.
Meanwhile, he lobbies congress to tighten bankruptcy laws for credit cards which he still has a sizable investment in. Congress tightens bankruptcy laws and makes it impossible to absolve credit card debt, forcing people into chapter 13 where they must pay off the debt within 3 years or go to debtors prison where they can work it off in 7 years.
Gas prices are still going up so the President ignores a minor terrorist threat, allows the terrorists to blow up a major building and then goes to war with the terrorists home country where there is no oil, and simultaneously with a country that sits on 10% of the worlds oil reserves that has a decimated military infrastructure.
Oil prices shoot through the roof with Gold following close behind. The President whose family comes from oil barons make a fortune and become famous at their skull and bones country club outside of Yale.
Meanwhile our famous 10 guys, start paying even more money at the pump. The first 4 guys end up taking second jobs working at Wal-Mart and have to give up drinking at the bar so that they can try and beat their teenage kids out of a promotion.
The fifth and sixth guys get foreclosed upon. They were forced to stop paying their mortgage payments so that they could pay their mandatory credit card payments as required by the new bankruptcy law.
The seventh, eighth and ninth men all previously traded up their homes for McMansions that they can not afford with interest only payments of $2300 a month. When foreclosures start happening their plans on flipping their McMansions and cashing in on the equity slips through their fingers.
To make matters worse seven and eight get laid off from the companies they work for when their jobs get outsourced to China. The ninth man keeps his job at a law firm, but fails to notice that his 401k fund is slipping and has lost 10% in the last year. Things are looking up as his law firm seems on the edge of landing a big contract with Merrill Lynch.
Then the real estate crash and sub prime mortgage scandal erupt. Banks start dropping like flies to be saved not by the cash strapped government that can barely afford the war for oil any longer, but by China. Oil and Gold soar, Gold hits $900 a troy ounce and Oil hits $130 a barrel (about the same amount for 10 rounds of beer prior to the crash). Beer prices hold steady for the first few months, but then start to edge up as gas prices for delivery creep into the bar owners expenses.
Then the first four men one night remember their favorite bar. They sneak around back around 4:30 am and steal 50 empty kegs that just happen to be made of pure aluminum. Those kegs are now worth about half the value of a keg that is full in scrap metal prices or about $80.
They are not stupid and don’t want to get caught turning the kegs in at the dump where the police are already looking for keg thieves. So they head out to the closed down manufacturing plant where they used to work. They start a big fire, and melt down the aluminum into big messy aluminum splashes on the cement.
They turn in the aluminum for cash and get caught up on their back alimony and child support before heading back to work at Wal-mart where they now work for their teen age kids that beat them out for that promotion earlier in the month because their job skills weren’t as good as recent high school graduates.  They then begin dreaming of new ways to find aluminum alimony allowances.
Meanwhile, the banks and mortgage companies lobby congress spending about $10,000 a head in an election year to bail out the economy. Congress provides the major banks with government backed loans to refinance the bad sub prime loans so that the government can personally guarantee those bad loans. They also put $100 billion of actual cash into the hands of Americans hoping to stimulate the economy.
Americans however, are all in debt up to their eye balls and use the extra $1200 they receive to make 2-3 credit card payments. They take the $300 for each kid and buy groceries for the month and then they start worrying about next month.
The banks get away free as they have Chinese financing now and no bad loans as they have refinanced them over to the US Government. The US government had to print more money to pay for all of these actions and so Gold goes up to $1500 a troy ounce.
The tenth man is now worth Billions and moves to Costa Rica to retire taking the new trophy wife that used to be the bartenders girl friend with him.
The first four men end up going to county prison for 3 months for stealing aluminum dog crap receptacles after running out of kegs to steal.
The fifth and sixth men end up living in an apartment and then homeless after they lose their jobs at Wal-Mart.
..The seventh and eighth men whom we previously left hanging in our story after they lost their jobs and ability to pay for their homes, end up losing their homes, and their kids. They and their spouses are each convicted of mortgage fraud by the FBI in a major sting operation after it is revealed that they lied on their mortgage applications. Their mortgage brokers who actually did the paper work cop a plea agreement in exchange for immunity with the Feds and rat out each of their unsuspecting customers.
The ninth man ends up losing his entire retirement fund which took a big hit as the dollar rapidly plummeted into free fall. He ends up refinancing his own house under a government backed loan for $650,000. Unfortunately, a tornado comes through that winter in a freak coincidence and levels the home. FEMA promises to provide assistance but never shows up and the ninth man freezes to death attempting to salvage the shreds of his belongings. His home insurance policy refuses to pay as they claim that his house was over valued and then they prove it with comparables studies from his own mortgage brokers database.
The tenth man ends up dumping his new bride a year later, moving back to the states a year after that when the US appears to have hit rock bottom and he leads up a Chinese real estate investment initiative in the states. He makes another $10 billion in ten years, but is then executed in Beijing for espionage.
Meanwhile, the bar tender goes on to win American Idol and sleep with Paula Abdul. They are now blissfully happy, doped up on anti-psychotics, and the biggest two idiots the world has ever seen.
———-End Revised Edition———–


To paraphrase the Buddha — Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun; the moon; and the truth.

Trickle down economics is when the super rich get tax breaks and then pee on the rest of us

DrJack37
Oct 30

Yet another irony in this dopey-drunk debacle of an “explanation”----If the wealthiest “leave” the U.S. (and I hope they do), THEY WILL STILL HAVE TO PAY U.S. TAXES. Don’t these numbskulls even know the current law, that Americans living abroad still have to file and pay every year? All in all, if you can’t bear to give anything back to the country that made you rich, get the @#$%& out and good riddance!!!






Oct 30
DrJack37

And if you think it’s unjust to pay your workers a living wage so they can afford to pay their own bar tab without you rubbing their nose in your begrudging and belated generosity, you’re not the kind of Americans we want here anyway. Stupidly selfish Americans, apply for citizenship elsewhere, please.

Quote
riverhousebill
DrJack37
Oct 30

Yet another irony in this dopey-drunk debacle of an “explanation”----If the wealthiest “leave” the U.S. (and I hope they do), THEY WILL STILL HAVE TO PAY U.S. TAXES. Don’t these numbskulls even know the current law, that Americans living abroad still have to file and pay every year? All in all, if you can’t bear to give anything back to the country that made you rich, get the @#$%& out and good riddance!!!

Hey, Dr. Jack Ass - We're not 'giving back to the country', we're being Forced by Government to give our money that we earned to the Government so the Government can give it to someone else who didn't earn it. Redistribution of Wealth. Socialism.

Two Words - Individual Responsibility. I'm responsible for Me and My Family, no one else.

Quote Jennifer-
Hey, Dr. Jack Ass - We're not 'giving back to the country', we're being Forced by Government to give our money that we earned to the Government so the Government can give it to someone else who didn't earn it. Redistribution of Wealth. Socialism.


The Red Phoenix
All Power to Working People!


Myths About Socialism: Redistribution of Wealth?
Myths About Socialism: Redistribution of Wealth?
By The Red Phoenix on October 30, 2011 • ( 0 )

Probably one of the most common right-wing arguments against social welfare spending is that it constitutes “redistribution of wealth” or “sharing the wealth,” and is thus a road to socialism. Indeed, “socialism” is often defined by these reactionaries as the redistribution of wealth, which is seen as the ultimate evil because it leads to socialism, which is evil, and it’s evil because it entails the redistribution of wealth – you get the idea.
There are a few notable problems with this. First, socialism is far more than simply the “redistribution of wealth.” Second, redistribution of wealth happens all the time under capitalism, yet strangely the right-wing only complains when some hypothetical redistribution favors the working class as opposed to the capitalists. To understand why socialism does not equate to redistribution of the wealth, we must first ask what distribution means.
Distribution in economics refers to the manner in which total output or wealth is distributed among individual people or various factors of production. For the purposes of this article, distribution among individuals is the most relevant.
Human beings in a given society produce wealth, in various forms, and this wealth is distributed among the members of society via various institutions, laws and mechanisms. However, to speak about how and to whom wealth is distributed inevitably leads to asking questions as to who produced that wealth in the first place. Speaking about distribution without mentioning production is simply useless. Thus we must go deeper.
In the capitalist mode of production, commodities are produced socially by workers. Even commodities which are still produced by skilled individuals, such as works of art, require inputs which are produced socially. A single artist may create a painting, but who manufactured the paint, the canvas or the brushes? One of the peculiarities of capitalism is that the socialization of production, meaning commodities are produced socially by many people, leads to a world in which the commodities we buy appear disconnected from the people who produced them. We look on a shelf and see an MP3 player from “Sony,” a large corporation. We understand that Sony made this product,’ but who is Sony anyway? If we buy the MP3 player, it appears as though we have engaged in a monetary transaction with the retailer and the seemingly faceless Sony Corporation. There has been an exchange; money for an MP3 player which you now own. What is not so apparent is the relationship between you and the people that actually produced the MP3 player. In fact this would include not only workers in Sony’s manufacturing plants, but also those workers who build the individual components, who mine or extract the resources necessary for their production, and of course those who transport all these commodities, to name a few. This is in stark contrast to past modes of production, where the few material commodities which existed were often supplied by skilled workers whom everyone in the community knew. When you bought something from a blacksmith, for example, you knew that blacksmith and understood that you were buying the products of his labor. This is not the case under capitalism.
So here we have one MP3 player out of tens of millions manufactured and sold worldwide. And of course Sony and its competitors make not only MP3 players but all kinds of products, the sales of which lead to the creation of wealth in money form. So how is that wealth distributed? If we go back to our pre-capitalist society where skilled craftsmen produced certain commodities, the answer is simple. The master craftsman, owning his own tools and having performed the labor necessary to produce the commodity, appropriates whatever value he can exchange for it. He appropriates that value not simply because he did the work or he owns the tools, but because he also owns any commodity he produces. Now think about all those workers, in several different countries, who produce MP3 players, and think about the amount of money the sales of these products earn. To whom will the large portion of that money, including profit, go?
Under capitalism, private ownership of the means of production such as factories, machines and raw materials is what determines the ownership of not only the commodities produced via those means of production, but also the proceeds of the sales of the commodities. In other words, shareholders and proprietors appropriate commodities they did not produce, and pocket the profit from their sales.
What about the workers’ compensation? How is that determined? Another peculiarity of capitalism is that one’s wages are generally not linked with productivity. Most Americans are aware that many of their products are produced by workers in foreign countries for extremely low wages. In other words, these people work hard, and are extremely productive, yet are compensated with what amounts to crumbs from the table.
Once we factor production into the equation, we can now examine distribution. Under capitalism, the majority of the means of production are owned privately by a minority of people. The majority of people are deprived of their own means of production, meaning they do not have the means to support themselves either directly via the land or by the production of commodities which they can sell for money. They possess only one commodity – their capacity to do labor. The capitalist has a huge pool of labor to choose from; as workers are ultimately compelled by the threat of homelessness and starvation, there will always be someone desperate enough to accept a lower wage. If they don’t find such people in their own country, they can move their production operations elsewhere. Since they own capital, and means of production, the deck is stacked in their favor. The workers produce wealth, but it is distributed primarily to the capitalists. This is true whether we look at the world as a whole, or the wealth of one particular country.
In the case of the United States, productivity rose sharply along with the introduction of computer and other digital technology in the 1970s, creating a massive amount of wealth. Prior to this point in history, Americans’ real wages rose steadily alongside productivity. Afterwards, distribution changed; real wages stagnated or even fell, Americans started working harder and longer for less pay, while at the same time CEOs and owners started appropriating a vastly larger share of the wealth. That is to say, the wealth they did not produce in the first place. Thanks to this process, the United States has an income inequality ranking on par with several developing nations.
So what does this all mean? Simply, it means that redistribution of wealth, from the producers to those who do not work, occurs under capitalism.
Of course, when forced to admit to this, the right-wing will raise various objections in an attempt to distract from the obvious exploitation that is occurring here. Fox News, and the rest of the right-wing noise machine has recently started referring to America’s capitalists as “job creators,” the implication being that these multi-millionaires and billionaires deserve their massive wealth simply because they “create jobs,” even if they personally did not produce anything.
This argument fails right out of the gate. For one thing, “jobs” are “created” out of necessity. If any of us found ourselves dropped onto an island somewhere, we would go about laboring to produce the means for our survival without the intervention of another party to “create jobs.” Next, we could apply this term “job creator” to all kinds of individuals throughout history, including slave-owners, feudal lords, pimps and Nazi concentration camp commanders. If one chooses to limit the discussion to modern industrial nations, one might find it difficult indeed to explain how socialist nations such as the U.S.S.R. or Albania managed to have full employment without the existence of “entrepreneurs” to create jobs. If lower taxes and higher profits inspire “entrepreneurs” to create jobs, one has to wonder why the official unemployment rate is over 9% at the time of this writing. As an attempt to justify the massive distribution of wealth to those who don’t produce it, the “job creators” argument falls flat on its face.
Other justifications abound. For example, entrepreneurs “take risks,” and thus deserve their massive compensation. This fails for a number of reasons, but the most obvious being that human labor, not risk, is what creates wealth. Risk is not a commodity, it does not have a price, and we do not buy and sell risk. Corporations and investors actually prefer to avoid risk as much as possible, often spending a great deal of money to minimize their risks. Does a company which goes to great lengths to avoid risks necessarily end up poorer than those that don’t? Usually this is not the case; wise investments pay off. If one wants to get rich with risk, go to Vegas.
Lastly, another justification is that investors, bankers, top managers, etc., earn their massive compensation with their own “hard work,” not only in business but in university when they were younger. This argument fails just as hard as the others. For one thing, we know that “hard work” and productivity do not determine wages. If they did, we would have no explanation for the past thirty years of stagnant real wages in the U.S., for one. Second, we have no way of knowing exactly how hard these people “worked” through college, and this is irrelevant because these companies are selling commodities, not their “hard work” in college. Lastly, while all these individuals may perform daily tasks, which may indeed be stressful or require great intelligence or talent, it does not mean that this work is actually productive, that is to say that it produces wealth. Lastly, investors and bankers are entitled to profits merely by their ownership of stocks, bonds, loans, etc; they will derive wealth from these assets regardless of what they do or do not do.
So if “redistribution of wealth” inevitably goes on under capitalism, and socialism isn’t necessarily the redistribution of wealth, what then, is socialism?
Socialism, in its most basic form, entails not the redistribution of wealth, but the expropriation, that is seizure, of the means of production by the working class. If capitalism is a system where production is socialized, meaning commodities are produced socially by many people, while the products and the value from their sales are privatized, socialism merely balances out the equation. That is to say that production is still socialized, but the appropriation of the value that is produced, including surplus value, is also socialized. Thus society benefits as a whole.
Why this system is better than capitalism is a matter for another article, but what the reader can conclude from this is the following: “redistribution of wealth” occurs under capitalism, and when it results in massive inequality, standards of living and society suffer. Socialism is something far more comprehensive than a simple redistribution of wealth.

7 men standing in line at the Corporate Welfare office-U.S.Treasury,
One says to other "YEAH YEAH THIS IS JUST TEMPORARY,THE FREE MARKET WORKS BEST
WHEN THERES NO GOVTERMENT INTERVENTION
You Have WALL STREET, BANKS, AIRLINES, AGRA BUSSNESS, AUTO MAKERS, HEALTH CARE, OIL, all in line for corporate wefare, that's your free market Jennifer

The Beer Tax Analogy is a smoggy smoke screen for theft!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2017 08:05AM by riverhousebill.