You are so right. The "EVIL ONES" are those who don't give a damn.

Some "members of the 1% got there because of actual work or creative effort", others did not.

If you took all the money from all the rich it would only pay off even a small fraction of the federal debt. Since the rich own that debt you would be basically taking the money from them and giving it right back to them. Reversing that, one can see the rich got rich from the debt, which is confirmed by anyone who knows recent economic history. The financial service industry leverages debt in circles for fees and grow very wealthy for that service- until the leveraging deleverages and the financiers blow up. Then they get bailed out, to the tune of trillions in tax cut handouts and quantitative easing.

Again, "members of the 1% who got there because of actual work or creative effort" sell a service or product so depend on a market for that service or product. If those providers pay tax that goes to public benefits then the market increases and the providers get more back than they pay in tax. If they get tax cuts paid for with cuts in public services then the market shrinks and the providers lose more than they save in tax cuts.

Fifteen trillion in debt carried on treasury bonds bought by the rich with their tax cut savings. That does NOT "make jobs", it is the opposite, all that debt sucked up private capital that could have gone to making jobs.

So when Reagan took us from a 500 billion debt to a two trillion one then poppy Bush doubled that and baby Bush took us from @6 to well over ten....

He does remind me of Darth in "spaceballs"

@nobodyinparticular

Another one of Romney "girlfriends" was on NPR yesterday.

Claims he said he would excommunicate her if she didn't give up her child for adoption because Mormons despise single mothers.

• Robme's Excommunication and Adoption Scandal

The Cayman Islands thing is about dual citizenship.

• Purchasing Caribbean Citizenship

And Mitt Robme is "unemployed" (retired).

• Offshore Tax Haven Retirement Guide

Why is nobody pushing these buttons?

Somebody will start pushing those buttons. It will likely happen when Romney least expects it. Then he will stumble over his tongue and say something stupid and arrogant. He cannot help himself because his true personality prevents him seeing people as equals. That is what will happen when he debates Obama.

Can hardly wait for that debate. I'm a poet and didn't realize it...HAHA?

Thanks crackhead Here is a line from your first link--"The companies were attracted by low tax rates and a flexible system that allows capital to be moved easily around the world." In other words who knows how much Mitt funneled through there since I doubt they keep records.

There is also a difference in the way the money was made.

For Bill Gates, he developed a product people wanted to buy, hired people to make it and sold it. Many of the people he employs have made a lot of money too. He is not taking advantage of them or exploiting them.

Romney on the other hand, made his money by taking advantage of others misfortunes. He made money by putting people out of work and by exploiting people.

There's a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between the two.

Cora, you obviously don't really know what venture capitalists are. Without venture capital Bill Gates would have never been able to get Windows to a mass market.

This junior high level of economic understanding is why there's such a unnecessary division in this country.

The 'uncanny perception' was a very slow train that has finally arrived

we have a uncanny perception when it comes to basic fairness.

hellllllllllllll no, what country are you living in?

samusx...I presume you are referring to Romney's company Bain Capital? BTW...Bain is not a venture capital company. Venture capitalists provide money to people to START or EXPAND a business, for a percentage of the profit usually. Bain is a private equity firm...which searches out distressed companies and buys them out. Sometimes selling off parts of the firm, but almost always leaving unemployed workers and distressed communities in it's wake. Not even in the same arena my friend.

So you don't know about the venture capital arm, aptly named Bane Capital Ventures?

Yes, private equity firms buy out companies that are about to fail. Additionally they are venture capitalists and provide growth capital. I know this is probably complicated for you since you have such a fundamental misunderstanding. Please take some time and at the very least read a wikipedia article on the topic. I'll stand by for questions from you if there's anything else you don't understand and need explained to you.

Dodge and weave baby.Dodge and weave.

Whether it is the salesman that fattens his commission at your expense or the bank that charges you to use your own money every business is at heart heartless.

I'd not expect an apparent communist to understand the fundamentals of a free market. How's that socialist European model working out?

Buying and fixing up automobiles or other in animate objects does not put people out of work, it actually creates jobs. See the difference there?

"I know a guy who buys beat up, run down automobiles; fixes them up; sells them and pockets the cash. Is that not American?"

Not even close to being a relevant analogy.

If any of you have ever lost a job due to parasites like Mitt Robme,you may have a different view.What would you say as your cleaning out your desk or your workplace?Oh well thats free enterprise.If honest investors invest in a start up business',and the buisness' grows or fails thats free enterprise.But when investors buy up business' and suck them dry,take their profits and pawn the pensions off on the government for taxpayers to pay,thats not my idea of the free market.Thats pure greed.Thats Mitt Robme.

What's a pension?

Something that went out with gaslight and Hansom cabs.

I knew that was his first, but I've never heard anyone recommend it before. I'll check it out. Thanks!

THX 1138 is not a movie for everyone. I should be clear on that. Like any Lucas movie, dialog is less a means of telling the story than it is part of the music and sfx tracks, and that's a problem for a lot of people. It's why a lot of people find Lucas' dialog boring. I'm probably weird in this respect (I am in most), but I tend to watch Lucas movies in the same way I watch silent movies, which are far more cinematic than most talkies. In other words, you take the story in with your eyes, and not so much with your ears. If that makes any damn sense. It's something you just get if you're into silents.

Short version: A lot of people hate THX 1138, but it's not really a bad movie. You just have to be in the right frame of mind to get it.

Good movie. Worth the time to hunt down a copy.

The story is set in a futursitic society somwhat similar to George Orwell's 1984. People are identified by 4 digit numbers rather than names and all their movements are under constant scrutiny via computerized cameras. The story revolves around one man (1138) trying to escape from the system. The number of the leader of this society is 0000.

Seeing the short version, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was Lucas' final student film at USCLA, is worth seeing as well. I've got the two disc DVD edition of THX, and I think it's a good idea to watch the short version (which corresponds to the last third of of the commercial version) before watching the commercial version. It won't make the commercial version more understandable or anything like that. It's more like, here's the baby and here's the adult.

But, CA, although the 1984 comparison is apt, I have to disagree with the part about the leader of the society. I know you're only quoting someone else's words, so I know you won't take this the wrong way, but the world of THX has no leader. Lucas has always been clear that the world of THX is a headless bureaucracy. If my brain is working correctly right now, 0000 was the number on the forehead of the Jesus image in the student film version (in which the number suffixes were on the foreheads of every person in the film). In the commercial version, the same image was referred to as Omm and I'm not sure what if any number came after that (although there should be a number even if one is never mentioned). More to the point, I take Omm as shorthand for the way capitalism and corporatism are made into faux religions or ethical systems by apologists for those systems. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy, and be happy. **shudder**

But, yeah, it's very much worth seeing. Sometimes I wonder what Lucas' career might have been like if THX had been a commercial success rather than a miserable failure. On the other hand, who cares? Bringing Up Baby and The Wizard of Oz flopped at the box office as well. Star Wars got me into movie serials, and now I can point at conventional Star Wars fans and laugh. I get the point of Jar Jar and you don't, losers, bwa-ha-ha-ah! OK, that was pointless. Sorry.

Sounds a little like The Prisoner series.

Similar theme.

Thanks for the lead. We're always on the lookout for good movies, and firsthand recommendations are welcome.

Sounds a little like The Prisoner series.

Never thought of that. And I've seen The Prisoner. But you have a pretty good point. In one episode, Number Two expresses the wish that the Village would become the model for the whole world. That's sort of what the world of THX is, particularly in the theme of the population being controlled through drugs and the emphasis on total conformity.

The way to create jobs is to raise the tax rate on the rich, not lower it.

Yep. It's counterintuitive- tax hikes are tax cuts and tax cuts are tax hikes. That is because, in economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Tax cuts are paid for with either borrowing or benefit cuts. Borrowing creates more debt later and benefit cuts shrink the economy as a whole, reducing investment returns. Borrowing also absorbs capital that could be invested to make jobs so we see how tax cuts reduce jobs, not create them. If tax cuts grew the economy and created jobs we would be rolling in jobs and be flush with cash, not rolling in debt and the highest unemployment in a generation.

If the tax rate on paper investments is too low, like it is now, you can pull your cash out of the economy, buy financial investments like bonds that don't create jobs that involve producing real goods and services

David Stockman on Bill Moyers was saying exactly that. Investors at the Federal Reserve "discount window" borrow at near zero rate then buy foreign bonds and currency, such as Australian dollars, called the "carry trade".

I wonder why he allowed those bills to pass? To get re-elected? As to his health care bill, who won the most, the people or the insurance companies? When everyone is fed up with getting ripped off the right simply mollifies the masses by making a twisted move that endears them for ---ripping them off.

Exxon moved all or most of its business off shore

That is important to remember when right-wingers advocate tax cuts for the rich or they will take their money and leave the country and we will all be poor. Uh, no, global capitalists have already left the country.