and especially outrageous because it exposes Democratic leadership for doing corporate bidding.
In the forum, I posted a snippet, about how CA and IL are suing countrywide for deceptive loan practices. I guess those "special" loans to Congress also paid off.
Truly, everyone should be calling their reps on this one.
I've got another one just in case, BoA was one of the biggest offshore outsourcers there is. literally a guy committed suicide in their parking lot over their treatment of him.
There is something which the flat tax will capture and that is the underground economy, currently estimated at 8.4% of US GDP. A luxury tax won't get that one at all.
I like the idea of disincentives for the underground economy, which we know illegal labor is a huge part of.
On luxury taxes, I'm betting the super rich will use some sort of offshore something to get around it. Finland has luxury taxes and they have them on automobiles. Hence you should see the games the Finns play to get around it all and get a vehicle. Finland is an icecube, not exactly the place where standing around in the arctic air waiting for a bus in a sparely populated area is a lot of fun. So, it can also be attached to things that aren't so much luxuries and instead hits once again the middle class in their pockets.
Then, the flat taxers argument of getting rid of the IRS I mean that has a lot of merit too. Massive, expensive department plus a lot of horror stories on abuse of power.
I don't have any answers on this except to say a regressive tax is unacceptable and then to point out some of their reasoning and why they are where they are. I think over in the left camp, people have a tendency to blow off everything they have to say due to Bush and his corruption, the multinational corporate agenda behind privatization plus the social agenda and some of them have some very valid points I think we should look at.
abet I'll claim because of the China PNTR, which wasn't in effect or we felt the effects during the Clinton era, I don't think we'll get a surplus. Although did you know two central banks in Europe talked about a great depression in press releases this week? Shocked me actually.
I have no idea how McCain even got the nomination but to me this election was over, the real race was between Clinton and Obama. I real question is how does he say these things with a straight face and what does it say about Obama that it's this close at all in the polls. I mean touting out Carly Fiorina, the queen of offshore outsourcing in Michigan, decimated by offshore outsourcing. Can someone get more out of touch and why did the Michigan voters sit there so politely?
Yes. It happens and rather frequently. However, the offenders often do not know that they are engaged in this activity. Inappropriate behavior and off-hand remarks will sneak up to bite you. As a corporate director for a fortune 500 company, I have been blindsided many times by disparaging remarks made by your management team? The managers don’t realize at the time that they are in a discrimination mode. I detail these likely events in my management book, Wingtips with Spurs. Usually they will ‘get it’ when their depositions start. When you hear the following phrases, stop the offender, offer some education, and hope to goodness no one else heard them. If it happens again with the same person, it may be time to sell the cow. The courts and juries will decide if the remarks are ‘stray comments’ or direct evidence of a discrimination mindset.
• “We need sharp, young people.”
• “We need people who can come in early and stay late.”
• “They’re dinosaurs.”
• “They’re too old to learn something new”
• “We want employees who are young, lean, and mean.”
• “They wouldn’t be able to keep up with the fast company
growth.”
• “We’re looking for longevity.”
• “We need some young blood in this department.”
If a manager allows a culture that tolerates remarks such as the ones above, then the manager will probably get what he or she is asking for. The great leader will remind management on a frequent basis that they should never forget silence is often the best answer. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I too sold my business after 16 years and foolishly thought I could go to work for someone else for the next 10+ years. I even made sure my computer skills were up to speed by taking classes, and making sure I was Internet savvy.
After numerous interviews by "twenty and thirty something" individuals inferring that I can't keep up with the pace (have they ever tried running there own retail business?) or getting the fake smile and hearing that I'm over qualified, I'm still searching for something where I can be of service and use my years of experience instead of being put out to pasture.
India's central bank signaled it will keep raising borrowing costs after unexpectedly lifting interest rates for the second time in two weeks and telling lenders to keep more cash in reserve.
The Reserve Bank of India increased the repurchase rate by 0.5 percentage point late yesterday to 8.5 percent, the biggest move since 2000, and adjusted the cash-reserve ratio by a similar margin to 8.75 percent.
At least india is in better shape than Vietnam, recently touted as the new even-lower-cost producer than China: Vietnam's inflation rate is almost 30%! The US and Europe are probably both in recession now, and Asia is in a 1970s style inflationary boom. The next few years will be chaotic and especially hard to foresee as the disinflationary global boom of the last 25+ years ends.
Well, I feel certainly that ethics and a sense of fairness has flown out the window in recent years. There does seem to be no correlation at all anymore to ability, competence and being hired, keeping the job. So, if someone wants to only hire over 50, fine by me, there is no doubt from what's going on you would have the pick of the cream of the crop since so many other companies are outright discriminating against older workers. Talk about a skills/experience gold mine selling at rock bottom prices at this point. If I were doing a start up, I'd do what you're doing simply because it would probably be outrageously cost effective in terms of getting the bang for the buck.
Being a Baby Boomer, I find it incredible how blatant hiring practices are.
In my working life, I went from sales, through management, to executive management, and on to owning my own business. I'm proud to say I never used bias in the hiring and assignment criteria regarding any of the protected classes, including age, in my or my company's hiring. In fact I fired one so-called Human Resources Specialist [an oxymoron onto itself] for trying to do so. Strange part, she thought nothing of it; didn't understand why it shouldn't be allowed.
I'm about to start a new company. The reason being after closing my last one after sixteen years, I thought I'd go to work for ten years or so working for someone else, and do what I've always enjoyed the most, Selling. That was a year ago. I'm still not hired. I know what's going on. And the reality is there is no sense in arguing the point. Another tact is necessary to with this challenge. (Read on.)
I have my own personal opinion on what's going on as well. Maybe some of the rest of you who are BB's as well can relate:
In our lives, we have lived and grown through periods where we have seen at least 3 generations come after us. GenX, Y or B2, and now Z. When we grew up in the 50's and 60's, we had a culture where education, growth, accomplishment were the underlying themes to how the US functioned. We had a new national highway system that required higher educations to be part of; we had a new space program that emphasized competitiveness, knowledge, and education. We had sports heroes who happened to play on 'teams', but you never heard them emphasising how they were 'team members' or 'team players'. (Today nearly all those in companies who tout their organizations have no clue what it means to be part of an actual TEAM. It's all buzz words they echo from the latest train seminar they went to.)
We were raised on competitiveness, intelligence, and experimentation. We actually changed the world in a great many ways. The country was progressive. Our society was a model of excellence. We were competitive.
Then along came GenX. If you remember, we couldn't understand why we couldn't motivate them. They became known as the Slackard generation. They also became protected. They invented political correctness, the schools dropped the bar for passing them through, televisions and video games replaced living a real life in a real world. All that counted was that everyone staying out of their face. (I can go on with more details.)
Well, they aged like the rest of us. Now they are in their late 30's, and are the corporate managers making such decisions as we are seeing documented in articles like this one.
But whoa are they. What they don't realize is that there is a generation coming right behind them; and that generation is the children of us Baby Boomers. That new GenY generation were raised with our ethics, methods, competitiveness, drive to question, accomplish and succeed. The X'ers are about to be 'the old ones'. How funny it will be when they find they are laid off and not rehired because of the dirty little secrets of unspoken, baseless policies they instituted.
Personally, if my new business idea flies, I'm contemplating only hiring those over 50. Why? It's simple. I know that as a whole our generation is far more educated and far, far more competitive. We had to really learn principles behind the instruction, our tests were far more stringent, and we weren't 'socially promoted' through the school systems. We either learned or flunked. (How many people do you hear about flunking or repeating a grade any more?) We are also healthier. Go to any athletic club and see who's playing racquetball, squash, handball, the real difficult and demanding sports. It's Boomers. (It doesn't take my athleticism to stay upright on a stairmaster; just a deadened brain without focus.)
Boomers as a whole are far less 'FAT'. Our ingrained socialization included going outside and playing as kids, 'without headphones on'. We played sports, were competitive, and felt good whether we won or lost, didn't make any difference. The fact that we showed up on the field and played hard is what counted. Winning was a celebration, losing was to find out how you could get better and then go do it. Today, they don't even keep scores in most sports for growing kids. They think it's more important that everyone win every game; as if that happens in the world, adult or otherwise......
We didn't grow up drugged-up on Ridlin and all the other pharmaceuticals. Our parents cared enough to give us a whack or three when we needed it, and it worked. The kids that were hyperactive grew out of it. It's normal for many kids to grow through development phases. For the other generations, they don't have the patience to wait for their kids to grow out of anything; it's easier to let some quack dumb them down. It's convenient because both parents work slave hours, and can't take the time to be parents. (That's okay, pharma makes billions and all those investors get a check; except for the kids who are treated that way.)
So where am I going with this? It's simple: Why hire GenX? Who wants that level of dysfunction, laziness, apathy, lacking drive, and poor judgment? And did I mention all that Type II diabetes they bring along due to eating so terribly? No, I don't think so. I'll go with the proven, the experienced, the learned, the accomplished, those who have had the chance to make the rudimentary mistakes earlier in their careers, and now know better and understand the systems better.
So you think there's age discrimination? I think so too. I just think it's time for some push-back. That's the new tact. Funny part is, the law for age discrimination as it reads now, supports my idea.
Right now the system is rigged to discourage savings. Saving faces the double whammy of inflation and dollar devaluation insidiously sapping peoples "wealth", and low interest and the fact that interest from savings is tacked on as income and taxed robbing what little gains may be made - gains that do not keep pace with inflation.
Savings interest should absolutely not be taxed for middle incomes and lower. Upper brackets absolutely must be taxed. Getting Americans saving again will help get consumer debt under control at the micro level, and also help get the liquid money supply down incrementally helping inflation and devaluation at the macro level.
On the issue of consumption tax - I agree it is largely regressive. Food and other staples should never be subject to these taxes. Rather than a consumption tax -what about a return to the "luxury tax" slapping hogher sales taxes on luxury items - yachts, exotic cars, expensive jewelry - so forth
My attitude towards all of this is the situation a matter of least objectionable candidate and the race close or not. I assuredly agree with 3rd party candidates that the two parties lock them out completely so this ends up being a choice of corporate/super rich/special interest agenda with a woman's choice or without so often.
I can tell you what the Clintonistas strategy is. That's to vote McCain and since he's just a disaster plus 71, that will open the window for a Dem in 2012 certainly. They don't want 8 years of Obama plus they are royally pissed, especially regarding the sexism.
Myself, I think we should try to find some worthy Congressional candidates and try to help their campaign by volunteering and blogging about them.
We did manage to get some very good people into Congress in '06, the problem is they do not have seniority and are assuredly not in the majority.
I'll say something sacrilege on here now, since the world is so partisan, but Chuck Grassley, Iowa Senator who is a Republican has been Professional workers best friend for some time now and sometimes literally by himself. Because of people like him, I'm not so willing to swear alliance to vote Democratic like a zombie.
In terms of overall positions, policy, Nader has represented pretty much most of my views for a long time. I don't know why he gets so much shit when if Al Gore had not been so DLC, so "WTO", it wouldn't have been even close.
Remember, the Democratic party has a larger, but less loyal, base than the Republicans. I'm a life-long Democrat who talks frequntly to my congressman. I can pass on this election altogether. I can support Nader. If we make enough noise, they will listen.
I think we need a wealth tax to fund any security-related government functions such as defense or financial regulations (and likely national disaster-related expenses) rather than funding them from income taxes.
A wealth tax would be exactly equivalent to an insurance policy to protect people from the loss of their wealth. Currently the annual cost of an insurance policy on a typical house is 3% per year, and that might be a good starting place.
Since those with no wealth have little or nothing to insure from destruction or theft from invasion or similar destructive forces, those at poverty level should be exempted, and those a multiple or three above the poverty level should pay a relatively nominal amount while those at the top of the wealth scale need no exemptions.
Health care for Baby Bearing years is costly too. I do not believe it is the health care issue. I believe it has more to do with remaking the workplace society. Veteran employees teach the new hire more than the needed information to get the job done. They teach the new hire about working, about labor laws, about benefits, about saving plans, pensions, OSHA, workman comp issues, grievance filing procedures, etc. The veteran employee teaches the young things that the employer does not want the new hire to know about. So many employers segregate the veteran employees from the freshman employees. Forced retirement, layoffs, etc, ensures employers can get rid of the old and experienced and in with the new naive. I see it all the time. I work alot of temporary positions. The workplace is filled with the young that are unaware of labor laws. They work through lunches, breaks, etc. They accept additional responsibilities without the compensation. They stay late and do not report their overtime. They get hurt at work and do not report the injury for workman compensation. They put up with unsafe and unsanitary conditions because they do not know they have rights.
the super rich rarely spend those massive sums of money and also avoid taxes most cleverly. They have the money, they are not spending the money. That's the issue here. Also, I think what is going on in the United States is actually not new, it's quite old. We had the English empire, feudal states, slavery....even in the United States we had massive Robber Barron, the super rich and the very poor, not a large middle class. Guess what we had at that time in the US? No income tax. So, you need to look at the details.
So, it's more of a "bubble" tax where most of the burden goes on working people in terms of consumption.
That said, if one could work something more Progressive, truly progressive out, taxing the underground economy is a very good idea, getting rid of the IRS, hmmmm, seems like a worthy goal to me.
but the massive amounts of loopholes in the corporate tax code is astounding and written for and by corporate lobbyists.
And no, I think our current tax code is absurd, unfair and also burdens the middle class as I mentioned.
We really should consider VATS and tariffs on imported goods. this is largely where the US got most of its revenue pre IRS
we should also tax mineral extraction such as oil- this is an asset that is owned by the US citizen
We should also return to a higher tax bracket for the highest incomes and wealth
As Theodore Roosevelt once said (and I paraphrase since I don't have my Bartletts handy) The wealthy benefit more from the privileges of a free society and therefore have an obligation and responsibility to contribute back to it.
Neither candidate is thinking out of the box. J. K. Gailbraith called this conventional wisdom.
Our fiscal polices were initiated nearly a 100 years ago and are woefully out of date in our highly automated global economy. Our woefull situation, debt balance of payments, deficits etc should initiate change, but both parties seem indifferent to the situation.
We need to tax imports, outsourced labor and items made by machines instead of our own labor and investment.
A progressive form of a sales tax might be one answer.
Bank of America is also the outfit that gives illegals accounts and loans
"If the hand of the Free Market is invisible, how come we can see it?" Tom Tomorrow
He has been an absolute star on the FISA issue. And then we get this bailout.
It is perfectly obvious that we are going to have to hold Congress' and the Executive's feet to the fire even if the "progressive" candidates win.
and especially outrageous because it exposes Democratic leadership for doing corporate bidding.
In the forum, I posted a snippet, about how CA and IL are suing countrywide for deceptive loan practices. I guess those "special" loans to Congress also paid off.
Truly, everyone should be calling their reps on this one.
I've got another one just in case, BoA was one of the biggest offshore outsourcers there is. literally a guy committed suicide in their parking lot over their treatment of him.
There is something which the flat tax will capture and that is the underground economy, currently estimated at 8.4% of US GDP. A luxury tax won't get that one at all.
I like the idea of disincentives for the underground economy, which we know illegal labor is a huge part of.
On luxury taxes, I'm betting the super rich will use some sort of offshore something to get around it. Finland has luxury taxes and they have them on automobiles. Hence you should see the games the Finns play to get around it all and get a vehicle. Finland is an icecube, not exactly the place where standing around in the arctic air waiting for a bus in a sparely populated area is a lot of fun. So, it can also be attached to things that aren't so much luxuries and instead hits once again the middle class in their pockets.
Then, the flat taxers argument of getting rid of the IRS I mean that has a lot of merit too. Massive, expensive department plus a lot of horror stories on abuse of power.
I don't have any answers on this except to say a regressive tax is unacceptable and then to point out some of their reasoning and why they are where they are. I think over in the left camp, people have a tendency to blow off everything they have to say due to Bush and his corruption, the multinational corporate agenda behind privatization plus the social agenda and some of them have some very valid points I think we should look at.
abet I'll claim because of the China PNTR, which wasn't in effect or we felt the effects during the Clinton era, I don't think we'll get a surplus. Although did you know two central banks in Europe talked about a great depression in press releases this week? Shocked me actually.
I have no idea how McCain even got the nomination but to me this election was over, the real race was between Clinton and Obama. I real question is how does he say these things with a straight face and what does it say about Obama that it's this close at all in the polls. I mean touting out Carly Fiorina, the queen of offshore outsourcing in Michigan, decimated by offshore outsourcing. Can someone get more out of touch and why did the Michigan voters sit there so politely?
Yes. It happens and rather frequently. However, the offenders often do not know that they are engaged in this activity. Inappropriate behavior and off-hand remarks will sneak up to bite you. As a corporate director for a fortune 500 company, I have been blindsided many times by disparaging remarks made by your management team? The managers don’t realize at the time that they are in a discrimination mode. I detail these likely events in my management book, Wingtips with Spurs. Usually they will ‘get it’ when their depositions start. When you hear the following phrases, stop the offender, offer some education, and hope to goodness no one else heard them. If it happens again with the same person, it may be time to sell the cow. The courts and juries will decide if the remarks are ‘stray comments’ or direct evidence of a discrimination mindset.
• “We need sharp, young people.”
• “We need people who can come in early and stay late.”
• “They’re dinosaurs.”
• “They’re too old to learn something new”
• “We want employees who are young, lean, and mean.”
• “They wouldn’t be able to keep up with the fast company
growth.”
• “We’re looking for longevity.”
• “We need some young blood in this department.”
If a manager allows a culture that tolerates remarks such as the ones above, then the manager will probably get what he or she is asking for. The great leader will remind management on a frequent basis that they should never forget silence is often the best answer. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I too sold my business after 16 years and foolishly thought I could go to work for someone else for the next 10+ years. I even made sure my computer skills were up to speed by taking classes, and making sure I was Internet savvy.
After numerous interviews by "twenty and thirty something" individuals inferring that I can't keep up with the pace (have they ever tried running there own retail business?) or getting the fake smile and hearing that I'm over qualified, I'm still searching for something where I can be of service and use my years of experience instead of being put out to pasture.
The search continues...
Signed,
Not quite ready to moo...
From Bloomberg:
At least india is in better shape than Vietnam, recently touted as the new even-lower-cost producer than China: Vietnam's inflation rate is almost 30%! The US and Europe are probably both in recession now, and Asia is in a 1970s style inflationary boom. The next few years will be chaotic and especially hard to foresee as the disinflationary global boom of the last 25+ years ends.
Well, I feel certainly that ethics and a sense of fairness has flown out the window in recent years. There does seem to be no correlation at all anymore to ability, competence and being hired, keeping the job. So, if someone wants to only hire over 50, fine by me, there is no doubt from what's going on you would have the pick of the cream of the crop since so many other companies are outright discriminating against older workers. Talk about a skills/experience gold mine selling at rock bottom prices at this point. If I were doing a start up, I'd do what you're doing simply because it would probably be outrageously cost effective in terms of getting the bang for the buck.
Being a Baby Boomer, I find it incredible how blatant hiring practices are.
In my working life, I went from sales, through management, to executive management, and on to owning my own business. I'm proud to say I never used bias in the hiring and assignment criteria regarding any of the protected classes, including age, in my or my company's hiring. In fact I fired one so-called Human Resources Specialist [an oxymoron onto itself] for trying to do so. Strange part, she thought nothing of it; didn't understand why it shouldn't be allowed.
I'm about to start a new company. The reason being after closing my last one after sixteen years, I thought I'd go to work for ten years or so working for someone else, and do what I've always enjoyed the most, Selling. That was a year ago. I'm still not hired. I know what's going on. And the reality is there is no sense in arguing the point. Another tact is necessary to with this challenge. (Read on.)
I have my own personal opinion on what's going on as well. Maybe some of the rest of you who are BB's as well can relate:
In our lives, we have lived and grown through periods where we have seen at least 3 generations come after us. GenX, Y or B2, and now Z. When we grew up in the 50's and 60's, we had a culture where education, growth, accomplishment were the underlying themes to how the US functioned. We had a new national highway system that required higher educations to be part of; we had a new space program that emphasized competitiveness, knowledge, and education. We had sports heroes who happened to play on 'teams', but you never heard them emphasising how they were 'team members' or 'team players'. (Today nearly all those in companies who tout their organizations have no clue what it means to be part of an actual TEAM. It's all buzz words they echo from the latest train seminar they went to.)
We were raised on competitiveness, intelligence, and experimentation. We actually changed the world in a great many ways. The country was progressive. Our society was a model of excellence. We were competitive.
Then along came GenX. If you remember, we couldn't understand why we couldn't motivate them. They became known as the Slackard generation. They also became protected. They invented political correctness, the schools dropped the bar for passing them through, televisions and video games replaced living a real life in a real world. All that counted was that everyone staying out of their face. (I can go on with more details.)
Well, they aged like the rest of us. Now they are in their late 30's, and are the corporate managers making such decisions as we are seeing documented in articles like this one.
But whoa are they. What they don't realize is that there is a generation coming right behind them; and that generation is the children of us Baby Boomers. That new GenY generation were raised with our ethics, methods, competitiveness, drive to question, accomplish and succeed. The X'ers are about to be 'the old ones'. How funny it will be when they find they are laid off and not rehired because of the dirty little secrets of unspoken, baseless policies they instituted.
Personally, if my new business idea flies, I'm contemplating only hiring those over 50. Why? It's simple. I know that as a whole our generation is far more educated and far, far more competitive. We had to really learn principles behind the instruction, our tests were far more stringent, and we weren't 'socially promoted' through the school systems. We either learned or flunked. (How many people do you hear about flunking or repeating a grade any more?) We are also healthier. Go to any athletic club and see who's playing racquetball, squash, handball, the real difficult and demanding sports. It's Boomers. (It doesn't take my athleticism to stay upright on a stairmaster; just a deadened brain without focus.)
Boomers as a whole are far less 'FAT'. Our ingrained socialization included going outside and playing as kids, 'without headphones on'. We played sports, were competitive, and felt good whether we won or lost, didn't make any difference. The fact that we showed up on the field and played hard is what counted. Winning was a celebration, losing was to find out how you could get better and then go do it. Today, they don't even keep scores in most sports for growing kids. They think it's more important that everyone win every game; as if that happens in the world, adult or otherwise......
We didn't grow up drugged-up on Ridlin and all the other pharmaceuticals. Our parents cared enough to give us a whack or three when we needed it, and it worked. The kids that were hyperactive grew out of it. It's normal for many kids to grow through development phases. For the other generations, they don't have the patience to wait for their kids to grow out of anything; it's easier to let some quack dumb them down. It's convenient because both parents work slave hours, and can't take the time to be parents. (That's okay, pharma makes billions and all those investors get a check; except for the kids who are treated that way.)
So where am I going with this? It's simple: Why hire GenX? Who wants that level of dysfunction, laziness, apathy, lacking drive, and poor judgment? And did I mention all that Type II diabetes they bring along due to eating so terribly? No, I don't think so. I'll go with the proven, the experienced, the learned, the accomplished, those who have had the chance to make the rudimentary mistakes earlier in their careers, and now know better and understand the systems better.
So you think there's age discrimination? I think so too. I just think it's time for some push-back. That's the new tact. Funny part is, the law for age discrimination as it reads now, supports my idea.
Right now the system is rigged to discourage savings. Saving faces the double whammy of inflation and dollar devaluation insidiously sapping peoples "wealth", and low interest and the fact that interest from savings is tacked on as income and taxed robbing what little gains may be made - gains that do not keep pace with inflation.
Savings interest should absolutely not be taxed for middle incomes and lower. Upper brackets absolutely must be taxed. Getting Americans saving again will help get consumer debt under control at the micro level, and also help get the liquid money supply down incrementally helping inflation and devaluation at the macro level.
On the issue of consumption tax - I agree it is largely regressive. Food and other staples should never be subject to these taxes. Rather than a consumption tax -what about a return to the "luxury tax" slapping hogher sales taxes on luxury items - yachts, exotic cars, expensive jewelry - so forth
My attitude towards all of this is the situation a matter of least objectionable candidate and the race close or not. I assuredly agree with 3rd party candidates that the two parties lock them out completely so this ends up being a choice of corporate/super rich/special interest agenda with a woman's choice or without so often.
I can tell you what the Clintonistas strategy is. That's to vote McCain and since he's just a disaster plus 71, that will open the window for a Dem in 2012 certainly. They don't want 8 years of Obama plus they are royally pissed, especially regarding the sexism.
Myself, I think we should try to find some worthy Congressional candidates and try to help their campaign by volunteering and blogging about them.
We did manage to get some very good people into Congress in '06, the problem is they do not have seniority and are assuredly not in the majority.
I'll say something sacrilege on here now, since the world is so partisan, but Chuck Grassley, Iowa Senator who is a Republican has been Professional workers best friend for some time now and sometimes literally by himself. Because of people like him, I'm not so willing to swear alliance to vote Democratic like a zombie.
In terms of overall positions, policy, Nader has represented pretty much most of my views for a long time. I don't know why he gets so much shit when if Al Gore had not been so DLC, so "WTO", it wouldn't have been even close.
I'm voting for Nader for exactly that reason.
So where does that leave us?
Obama has got to be better than McCain.
Remember, the Democratic party has a larger, but less loyal, base than the Republicans. I'm a life-long Democrat who talks frequntly to my congressman. I can pass on this election altogether. I can support Nader. If we make enough noise, they will listen.
I think we need a wealth tax to fund any security-related government functions such as defense or financial regulations (and likely national disaster-related expenses) rather than funding them from income taxes.
A wealth tax would be exactly equivalent to an insurance policy to protect people from the loss of their wealth. Currently the annual cost of an insurance policy on a typical house is 3% per year, and that might be a good starting place.
Since those with no wealth have little or nothing to insure from destruction or theft from invasion or similar destructive forces, those at poverty level should be exempted, and those a multiple or three above the poverty level should pay a relatively nominal amount while those at the top of the wealth scale need no exemptions.
Health care for Baby Bearing years is costly too. I do not believe it is the health care issue. I believe it has more to do with remaking the workplace society. Veteran employees teach the new hire more than the needed information to get the job done. They teach the new hire about working, about labor laws, about benefits, about saving plans, pensions, OSHA, workman comp issues, grievance filing procedures, etc. The veteran employee teaches the young things that the employer does not want the new hire to know about. So many employers segregate the veteran employees from the freshman employees. Forced retirement, layoffs, etc, ensures employers can get rid of the old and experienced and in with the new naive. I see it all the time. I work alot of temporary positions. The workplace is filled with the young that are unaware of labor laws. They work through lunches, breaks, etc. They accept additional responsibilities without the compensation. They stay late and do not report their overtime. They get hurt at work and do not report the injury for workman compensation. They put up with unsafe and unsanitary conditions because they do not know they have rights.
the super rich rarely spend those massive sums of money and also avoid taxes most cleverly. They have the money, they are not spending the money. That's the issue here. Also, I think what is going on in the United States is actually not new, it's quite old. We had the English empire, feudal states, slavery....even in the United States we had massive Robber Barron, the super rich and the very poor, not a large middle class. Guess what we had at that time in the US? No income tax. So, you need to look at the details.
So, it's more of a "bubble" tax where most of the burden goes on working people in terms of consumption.
That said, if one could work something more Progressive, truly progressive out, taxing the underground economy is a very good idea, getting rid of the IRS, hmmmm, seems like a worthy goal to me.
but the massive amounts of loopholes in the corporate tax code is astounding and written for and by corporate lobbyists.
And no, I think our current tax code is absurd, unfair and also burdens the middle class as I mentioned.
We really should consider VATS and tariffs on imported goods. this is largely where the US got most of its revenue pre IRS
we should also tax mineral extraction such as oil- this is an asset that is owned by the US citizen
We should also return to a higher tax bracket for the highest incomes and wealth
As Theodore Roosevelt once said (and I paraphrase since I don't have my Bartletts handy) The wealthy benefit more from the privileges of a free society and therefore have an obligation and responsibility to contribute back to it.
Neither candidate is thinking out of the box. J. K. Gailbraith called this conventional wisdom.
Our fiscal polices were initiated nearly a 100 years ago and are woefully out of date in our highly automated global economy. Our woefull situation, debt balance of payments, deficits etc should initiate change, but both parties seem indifferent to the situation.
We need to tax imports, outsourced labor and items made by machines instead of our own labor and investment.
A progressive form of a sales tax might be one answer.
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