Labor Day Weekend Thoughts and Links
In this, the age when politicians routinely piss on the working class of this country, it’s important for us to take a moment remember what Labor Day really stands for.
Those among us who aren’t wealthy, beautiful celebrities or powerful wall street titans.
Those among us who don’t blow all their time and money on a life of privilege getting stupid tatts and spikey hair and lounging by the poolside in Vegas.
The regular joes.
The people who used to be celebrated by this country as the backbone of our nation are now seeing themselves targeted as criminals, called lazy, shiftless, or deserving of what they’ve gotten. Rich and powerful clowns, coming from the same narcissistic cesspool that produced douchebag culture, now routinely equate the labor class with failing in life.
These preening egos in suits and ties, douchebags of the worst sort, get on our TV and lecture us like their money means they are enlightened. They actually believe, or have convinced themselves, that their money was earned because of the greatness of their “individualism.” In a vacuum. And the rest of us need to be like them. Or we get what we deserve.
These flaming pudwacks who’ve read too many Ayn Rand fantasy novels are insecure enough not to want to understand the network around them in which they are graced to live. How those at the bottom also produce the value they think they “earn” from the society that holds the rules and structures together to produce our collective national wealth.
Don’t be one of those asswipes.
Remember what Labor Day really stands for. Income does not define your rank in this world, no matter what how the media now stigmatizes and shames those at the bottom as lazy and shiftless.
There are different standards. Standards we used to apply before a few billionaires with too much power and too much insecurity decided to teach us all the lessons of fantasy in which they are Atlas, and we are the teaming hordes, the unwashed, clawing at their greatness.
F@#k them. No one “earns” a billion dollars. It’s not possible. They are not heroes. They are insecure fools, confused by their success and seeking a philosophy to justify their narcissism. Even a philosophy as fantastical as Scientology and as logical as Narnia.
I’ll take the guys in front of Home Depot over the jackass from Wall Street any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And on Monday, I’ll tip my Ubiquitous Red Cup to honor those who don’t have anything, but still get up and go to work every day.
Here’s your links:
Your HCwDB DVD Pick of the Week: “If a fox stole your chickens… Would you slaughter your pig because he saw the fox? No. You would hunt the fox… You would find where it lives and destroy it! And how do we do this? Become a fox.”
Speaking of foxes and chickens, if you feel like trippin’ out this weekend, dig the Animal Beatbox. Skip to 1:50 for a glimpse into the DB1’s secret fantasies.
Leisure Diving. Photographic genius and summer slackerdom in one creative package.
My latest quartasian (alas not Semitic) semi-celebrity hottie fixation is Marie Digby, singer or something. I would sexy love her legs for a fortnight or six.
An eagle-eyed reader trolls the web for porn and discovers HCwDB Hall of Pear legend Ass Pear LaPlante has been hijacked! Ransom is only $1.99 for unlimited downloads.
Pink Dudes Want to Party. Hot chicks don’t.
Finally, a justification for Facebook. Remember, it’s not bestiality if you groom them first.
If I had to pinpoint the exact moment I first discovered the compelling power of the uberhott, it would be when I first saw this scene from “Malibu Bikini Shop” on HBO in 1986. Barbara Horan changed everything about my understanding of life. And sort of for the worse. The desire to gnaw has never stopped plaguing my waking and dream lives like a propulsive compulsion of redirected primal humpty hump.
You aren’t a true Lebowski fan unless you can argue either for or against The Donny Theory.
Speaking of humpty hump, let us not forget how even nature likes to remind us of the Pear. As we appearciate:
Less meaty than her American cousin Pears, it is still firm of chewtoy. And well worth guiding us into the weekend.
Have a great Labor Day. Posts’ll continue a little over the weekend, and then we’se gearin’ up again next week.
Hope everyone a good labor day. It is time for tequilla and burgers for me.
Nice write up DB!!!! oh and Mmmmmmm Slender Supple Tropical Pear.
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Let’s hope there aren’t any current Barbara Horan pictures floating around on the Internet that will ruin the image created by the 1986 film clip. Considering she was Miss Texas in 1978 the damage done by a 2011 photo could be quite considerable.
fucking wow…i had to share that…succinct and brilliantly written…kudos sir…kudos!
I’d still go Horan with Barbara. She’s only a few older than me. Decades, I mean.
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Everything OK DB1. That was quite an anti-capitalist downer. I’ve seen some of that from some people I know on The Facebook lately from the states. Tough times. On a sad note. I am returning to the capitalist world on Tuesday as Rotten Daughter #2 takes to the 20 year road of book-learnin’. I will be continuing in my quest to rob people in times of economic and personal hardship of as much home equity as I can while they think I am saving their fiscal lives. Ten years till the next nervous breakdown.
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Waterparks are all fun and games until a group of big hairy Greeks catch you staring at their peri-pubescent daughters.
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I’m a wild party.
I think the masses with little or no work,desperate for work,should rise up,walk into Washington and just fire everyone. Take over their houses,live a little. This country is in a sore decline. I keep hearing it’s this or that.It’s the housing boom that won’t pick,yet no one will give a house loan,anymore… Who’s got time to waste? Rent is due. People need jobs,I say make your own job,so you can’t get fired and our part time job is to rid the world of douchebags.
And for their strenuous labours that constantly provide us with the inspiring images used to mock Baggery, I offer a heartfelt thanks be to all our douche documenters. My limited experience with this activity confirmed it to be a pastime fraught with potential skirmish. A recent attempt I made – and duly submitted only to have declined – at nabbing a Bag shot whose rampant repulsiveness was enough to almost grant a Notta pass for HoS inductee Douche Lee, was an ordeal in itself. I’d waited patiently, while pretending to admire the arrangements at a local florist, for the target to both face my iPhone camera and stand next to his remarkably hott chick. While I only managed to grab a solo exposure, I did notice the douche make a comment to his hott, which I’m sure was somewhat unflattering to me. I then felt a mixture of extreme self-conscienceness together with a barely contained desire to walk up and beat the shit out of the Bag.
Now I’m raving. Enjoy your weekend, fellow Bagsters. We are running neck-and-neck in the eternal mock.
DB1, thanks for saying what needed to be said in one of your rare moments of seriousness. Saying that the workers produce all the value is a pretty radical thing in this day and age, even though it was the likes of Adam Smith and David Ricardo who elaborated this theory — it was self-evident enough that it didn’t even need Karl Marx to explain it. Yet it remains true. And your sentiment of outrage is justified.
Yep. Take that same $ billionaire and put him in any other country. Nada.
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Thanks for saying what needed to be said. For a young puke, you’re OK.
I’m hitting up Home Depot for about 250 fence wickets after work and heading back there tomorrow to find a chuntaro to help me fix my backyard up a little. $10/hour and a twelver of Corona at the day’s end is a good wage, I say.
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Let’s call my weekend Day Laborer’s Day
@DB1, so does that mean your gonna stop making jabs at the Sizzler and Arby’s night crew? They’re part of the workforce too ya know. And shit, I think I gotta work on Labor Day. How’s that for a mind fuck? Happy three day weekend everyone else.
BTW, the L.A. County fair opens today. $1 admission all weekend if you get there by 1PM. Parking is still fuccen $15 .
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This season’s concerts? Stellar. The usual Tower Of Power sellout along with War, Earth Wind & Fire, Big and Rich/Gretchen Wilson, Monster Trucks and Demolition Derby for my tyke are all on my schedule not to mention lots of exotic bets with Martin Pedroza’s horse on ’em
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And pre- teen hearthrob hottie Victoria Justice is playing but I haven’t told the boy that one as I don’t want to go to that screaming pre-pubescents with soccer mom-fest
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She’s 18 years old, shaddup
sheeit
[IMG]http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt359/Batman347/Victoria%20Justice/17864485.gif[/IMG]
Sheeit, I give up
Donny is real, but I like the theory. Slender Pear gives me hope for a nice weekend.
I think its cute that someone who goes by Boss on his website and makes a profit off of society’s douchebags feels he has the right to get all Caesar Chavez up in here. When you are an actual boss or work a shitty job to support someone other than yourself then you can talk DB1, until then stick to what you do best. Whatever that is.
Honoré de Balzac: “Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait.”
English, for you non-French speakers:
“The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.”
Those who quote Rand and style themselves “producers” invariably aren’t.
Thanks for a great serious post, DB1. You earned yourself a permanent spot on the good guy list with this one.
Interesting. Labor Day is about jealousy and bitterness.
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I have no love for the super rich, I also have no contempt for them. I actually feel a little sorry for those who place money and power above love, family and a satisfied mind.
I also feel particularly sorry for those who feel such intense animosity and envy for the rich that they somehow feel entitled to their money, because such feelings can only come from their own love of money.
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Myself, I’ll just go on nursing the two ruptured discs, bad knees and male pattern baldness resulting from twenty-five years of physical labor, and hope the assholes in Washington will return this country to the Free Market, Middle-Class prosperity our fathers and grandfathers knew, before it’s too late.
Hahah embed Marie Digby.
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Nice rant, DB1, just make sure that in the future you don’t mock douchebags about how they can’t get real jobs and wind up working at Autozone. Because we wouldn’t want you to contradit yourself.
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And keep in mind, the labor movement was brought to you by Communists. The post WWII standard of living? Communist unions. No more Communists = back to third world country economics.
Tell it!
^ You could start a war with Canada. GDP might go up about the cost of a shift-worth in a bullet factory and a few Hum-Vees. Are bullets and Hum-Vees still made in the US. Fuck China I say.
Chick on the right looks like she has swallowers remorse.
You speak truth, DB1. This weekend — the idea of a weekend — was brought to you by labor unions. Don’t forget it.
how about you leave the politics out of your column. i read this stuff to get away from it. and here you are trying to push your own agenda. you’re no better than any of them
Quit harping on DB1! Think of the children. Jerry’s kids like that sweet gimp in university that I left to die in a state of anyphylaxis.
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Mercy Killers
@Reverend Chad Kroeger, I can target you instead but it always ends in you burning your couch on the front lawn. Such a go to old guy move. Zzzzzzzzzzz.
Let’s leave DB1 alone and get back to the tom foolery, the cracking wise that we come hear for in the first place. As I mentioned earlier about chick on the right, with what looks like swallowers remorse, at least she gave it a try similar to those Alpacas being talked about on FB in the link above. Some of Kelly Owbridge’s Alpacas sound young & adventurous where as Andrew Lopez’s sounds like a spoiled brat.
A fine write-up for Labor Day.
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As for the dissenting posts: gosh, are we having an influx of lurker outrage?
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Nah…”molly ringworm” and “the groan ranger” have the same IP addresses. Way to keep it real, dude.
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If there’s ONE thing we won’t tolerate on this site, it’s one person posting under several names.
^RIGHT ON, DarkSock! You tell ’em!
^True dat, DarkSock! You’re the greatest!
^Well said, DarkSock!
YAFSS! FWUEGIN’ SLAPHOAWRS!!!
DarkSock may well be the most important voice of our time.
Yes, he’s pretty great
Ummm, I mean…
HEY, GOTTA GO! IT’S LATE!
You have always been the true hero of hcwdb Darksock. Even with your whole beastiality kink.
Hey Sock having learned that Alpacas are spitters would that dissuade you from peeing in one?
Dudes chest, in photo above with the 2 ugly chicks, needs some work. He has the potential fore some good aesthetics. I’d spot him in the gym.
Enjoy the weekend everyone, September is upon us and that means cooler weather and before you know it October & hockey will be right around the corner.
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Hockeypucks
@Mr. Biggs 2:36,
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I agree. The late 19th and 20th century Communist party had a huge influence on the Labor Union Movement. It’s widely accepted that the Post War Labor Union Movement staved off a Communist Rebellion in the U.S.
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And, Hell yes, it had a huge roll in raising the standard of living in Post-War Amerikä.
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And excuse the knee-jerk, but I probably agreed with a lot more of DB1’s post than disagreed. My views on materialism should be clear, and Fuck yeah, celebrate the Working Man.
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The Working Man is the backbone of this country, and without The Working Man, how the hell would the
Payday Loan outlets and meth dealers survive?
I also agree with Douche Against the Machine 3:41
Word
http://youtu.be/g0iVWQ0wJmk
“Family Guy” makes me wet.
regarding LeisureDive, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShFAeNdiEiA&feature=player_embedded
Donny is real. If he wasn’t, The Dude wouldn’t have flipped out on Walter at the end when Walter gets his ashes all over him. He kept shouting “What the fuck does anything have to do with Vietnam?” because Vietnam and Donny had nothing to do with each other. This totally debunks the “Dude is letting his crazy war veteran friend let out his demons” idea.
Barbara Horan’s not that bad for 50 something. It’s all about perspective sons. One day when you’re around 40 and see the family pictures from when you were a teen and get a boner about some girl from the rear, it will be your mother, aunt, or uncle!
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AND Kim Kardashian likes sucking black cocks and getting rear ended. This is not one of my proplapse/hemorroid/disfigured baby clips. I double, triple promise. This thread was way too heavy. Take back your country young apes!
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http://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=2125162372
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I love cockk more than Kim Kardashian. Srsly.
DarkSock, I must send Admiral Hamilton Man-Titty a bill for another splattered keyboard.
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oh, and why do people get mad at the mocking? My favorite HCwDB pic remains Four Points. The douchey-looking guy wrote in with two wonderful things: he said “yeah, I look kinda douchey” and, more importantly, he reported that she was 100% silicon-free. Lovely, large, natural beauty selling you another beer on the 4th hole. Awesome!
I don’t know how to post a hyperlink. Google Four Points.
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Not Four Pints. Points.
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That girl belongs in some kind of list, but don’t worry — I’ll never forget her!
@ The Dude, I Googled Four Points but it only directed me to some hotel websites. I’ld rather waste my time watching the ball game instead.
i never understood what Labor Day is about. i just know i missed a whole day of overtime money because i’m not in Kearl Lake.
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goddamnit. and today’s pear has a douchey hairstyle too.
WTF? That dudes column wasn’t about the working class…it was about the professional moochers who chose NOT to work and live off the government…while I bust my ass 50+ hours a week to have a third of my income pay for these people to crank out kids, not work and live in free houses and drive nicer cars than I do. Its called “LABOR DAY” not “WELFARE RECIPEINT DAY” or “FOOD STAMP” day….Who do you think creates the jobs for the guy at the Home Depot you want to hang out with? He is a billionaire, and now he is an asshole for creating a successful business and providing tens of thousands of jobs? Shut the fuck up, and make us laugh clown…keep your political views to your self…
Wow! Is this going to go like that girl we made too much fun of last year? We don’t get this much hate when we make fun of Jews. What about the working Jew man? He needs a splotz and three skiviutz a day like the rest of us. But he likely only has one hand, works as a lawyer, and has an assistant to wipe the schmutz off his chin after knish fest at the Salty Gentile Semitic Dance Revue.
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Cam
Could we just get back to what’s most important?
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You’re welcome.
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Gapers.
Regular reader, seldom comment, but I felt compelled to pipe in with a “well done, sir” on the rant up front.
The capitalist fucksticks are the ultimate douchescrotes. I’d welcome some attention to their perfidy here — and there’s almost always a hott involved, so it’d be a perfect fit for HCwithDBs.
Stick it to the man, DB1!
DB1, very eloquent and spot on–due to my labor today, I’m too fucking tired to really enjoy the thread tonight, so I will save it until my morning coffee, but…FUCKING A–nobody ‘earns’ a billion fucking dollars, they luck into it.
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Good night.
Oh, and Matt, fuck you.
@Anonymous 7.09pm — If you do a search “Four Points” here, it shows up on the second page as a Golden Globes nominee for 2008. Enjoy the game
PREACH!
….and one peach please
idfma, you think nobody had ever actually made a billion dollars? Every wealthy person just was born with it? You are truly a fucking moron. You have no notion of how the world actually works.
Matt, putting the labor in Labor Day weekend.
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Ima go find me a billionaire hottie, get her to buy me some nice working man’s champaigne wishes and caviar dreams.
Matt’s a teabagger who thinks that he’s going to be rich one day. Keep dreaming Matty. And the past 10 years, when the wealthiest 3% of the American population have paid the lowest tax rates since the enactment of the tax code, have conclusively proved once and for all that the wealthy do not create jobs. Matt has no idea how the real world works.
Fuck you teabagger.
“And the past 10 years, when the wealthiest 3% of the American population have paid the lowest tax rates since the enactment of the tax code, have conclusively proved once and for all that the wealthy do not create jobs.”
Sorry, but that statement makes no sense. Rate of personal taxes paid has no connection whatsoever with job creation. I don’t mind a reasoned argument, but illogic is not argumentation. (and this from a huge Great Gildersleeve fan.)
The reason the wealthiest among us pay low (percentage-wise) personal taxes is largely that capital gains, which is how truly wealthy people make money, are less heavily taxed than personal income. The reason for that, put simply, is that corporations are already taxed, and capital gains taxes arguably amount to double taxation. You can raise the tax on capital gains if you want to, sure. You’ll then see the effect it has on the ability of entrepreneurs to gain access to capital for new businesses, and thus the effect on job creation. No particular capital gains tax rate (or any tax rate, really) is perfect, ordained by god, comes down from on high on a stone tablet, etc. It is the result of a political process that is a result of the tension between society’s desire to tax things so that the government has revenue, and society’s desire to encourage capital formation so that business enterprises flourish, employ people, and produce useful goods and services.
I’ll now make the comment usually made at this point in these discussions, in response to your “3%” one, which is that in 2008 (the year I could find quickly) the top 5% of taxpayers paid 58.72% of Federal personal income taxes, and the top 10% paid 69.94%. When you are talking about fairness, you might consider whether it is “fair” that 10% of the people are bearing 70% of the personal tax burden, and whether it really makes sense to argue that the percentage should be even higher than that.
And as you probably know, since you seem interested in these issues, the bottom 50% pay essentially zero in personal income tax. Many get money back at tax time through the Earned Income Tax Credit. (Hence the neologism “tax takers”, and the existence of people who say “I haven’t received my taxes yet,” a statement someone as old as me has trouble imaginging.)
The usual riposte from the other side at this point is “Yes, but Social Security is completely regressive,” which is of course true. Social Security is also, in theory, paid back to the payer at some point in his life. The same is not true of Federal personal income tax. So in my view the two are not comparable.
As to the “true meaning of Labor Day” that we are exhorted to remember . . . I suppose you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t get all excited about a holiday that was invented by labor folks to celebrate labor folks. It is unlikely, as the attitudes expressed in this thread make clear, that anyone is ever going to create a holiday celebrating the existence of entrepreneurs who come up with an idea, risk their own capital or that of investors who believe in the project to make it come to life, create goods and services of value to other people, and in the process pay corporate and personal taxes, as well as employing people who, also, pay taxes and enjoy an improved life as a result of their income. Because, as we see from the attitudes here, those people are just evil. Especially when they are successful.
Wealth envy = autodouche
Blondie on the right doesn’t seem to be into it. Like she’d rather be somewhere, anywhere, else, but has no idea where that anywhere else is. It could be in the ‘burbs, or it could be at the beach. Just no place where she’d have to think, or concentrate too hard.
How many of those non-income-tax-paying people are on Social Security?
Tax rates on the wealthiest Americans are at near-historic lows, and heave been for a decade, despite 3 wars. Where’s all them jobs? [See Capitalist $ Billionaire op-ed piece in the NY Times 2 weeks ago. He explains the lunacy very clearly.]
I left out the name Warren Buffett from the above as the writer of the op-ed piece.
As long as we’re ranting here what’s up with oppressive heat? you got be shitting me it’s not even 11AM and it’s fucking nasty out. Damn global warning.
Douche equis, you might want to check your facts–while you are correct about personal income, there are many corporations that pay little to no tax, so your statement about that bullshit called ‘double taxation’ is also bullshit. For example, GE paid virtually no tax, and the subsidies for corporations that allow them to deduct themselves into carryforward credits are ridiculous.
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Matt, re-read DB1s sermon, without other people NOBODY makes money, so it’s not THEIRS–we live in a collective community where interdependence is how people ‘make’ money, so someone saying ‘mine, mine, mine’ doesn’t get it. Whether people get it or not, it’s ours, ours, ours, and when the chinese take it from everybody, we’ll see if you agree that it’s theirs.
Anyone who thinks lowering taxes creates jobs, please provide one shred of fucking data to that effect. Also, when doing so, citing fuckwads like Bill O’Reilly, Ronald Reagan, Sean Hannity, et. al. is not ‘data’ even though you believe it. Show me fucking NUMBERS that demonstrate when tax rates go down jobs that do not include scrubbing toilets or delivering pizzas are created. I have news for you–I already checked (so did a lot of economists who weren’t bought off by Cheney/Bush/Reagan), and there is no fucking data to support it. I know that isn’t going to stop you from supporting the policies that are going to be the downfall of our standard of living and society as we know it, but somebody had to say it–I think about 50 people on this thread have.
Biff, is thinking that tax policies should be designed to sustain and forward social advancement, fairness, and services like schools, roads, and national defense, autodouche? Redistribution of jwealth (and the desire to redistribute) does not necessarlily equate to envy–it may have something to do with a sense of fairness, equity, and sustainability of everyone’s standard of living.
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The idea that one person or group can never have enough = autodouche.
The Labor Movement: The People Who Brought You the Weekend. If that’s not something to get excited about
what is?
Matt, I didn’t say nobody ‘made’ a billion dollars, if ‘making’ it means it got deposited into a bank/equity account. You are obviously a dittohead, because you changed my words. What I said was, noone ever earned a billion dollars. Dumbfuck. Assuming hard work and what you earn are correlated (allegedly they are) how fucking hard do you have to work to ‘earn’ a billion dollars? Moreover, most of that kind of income, by definition is passive (bone up on your taxation, Matt), so no, I don’t believe anyone has earned a billion dollars, it has accrued to them in interest, captial gains, and other forms of passive (unearned) income.
I agree with DB1, and those who don’t can just go vote for the Republican idiot du jour for the fastest ride to third world feudalism. Those who want a slower ride, vote Democrat. Those who don’t want to go there should leave. Now.
Wow! Just wow!
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I’m glad I’m in Consevative Canada where the left is whipped and the commies are dying.
^conservative
Have a fantastic weekend, you fuccen hatters! Have it with a side of Goatprah…..
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No, it’s not “goatse” – my name isn’t “bcs” or anything.
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Profilers.
^Fucking funny Wheezer. Cause it is so true.
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Pundits
labour day….equals slave day! we celebrate our collective slavery to those cocksucking oligarchs that live in the shadows and quietly usurp the very freedom we are born with through taxation. YOU CUNTS!
Preach it, DB1. It’s time to storm the Bastille and get our TARMAL back.
Top Marginal Tax Rates For The Past 50 Years:
Eisenhower 91%
Kennedy 91%
Johnson 70%
Nixon 70%
Ford 70%
Carter 70%
Reagan (1st Term) 50%
Bush, G.H.W. 31%
Clinton 39.6%
Bush, G.W. 35%
You see a direct correllation between Middle Class prosperity and high tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. The Post War period saw the greatest employment and prosperity for the middle class in American history, and even the Rockefellers and their ultra wealthy friends survived the high tax rate. And to add to this, when Ike was President, Capital Gains were taxed as regular income, at 91% for the wealthiest. Today they are 15%. We tax work at a higher rate than we tax wealth for the first time in American history. Also, we cut taxes during a time of war for the first time in American history. Iraq & Afghanistan have cost this nation $3.8 Trillion (and counting), yet we slashed taxes while fighting two wars. It’s fucking insane.
DB1, You’re the man!
GOPBags everywhere love high income tax and low capital gains because it rewards wealth and punishes workers.
Just noticed, I don’t think it is a coincidence that the new neo-cons are Teabaggers. Teabaggers=Douchebaggers? I report, you decide.
Go live in a fucking tree, DB1, with no tools whatsoever from the outside world, and then I’ll allow you to spout against capitalism. Otherwise, keep up the good work, and keep this site politics-free.
Wow. You guys should talk to folks who escaped oppression to come here and have the opportunity to work and be free. Too many of you think like the prez that “at some point you’ve made enough money…”
That also equals autodouche.
I don’t think it’s up to you and your current mood of the moment to determine how much your fellow baghunters make. freedom is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.
Someone said it’s not wealth envy. Ok. Let’s call it wealth bigotry.
Rukus: You’ve got to read a bit closer. DB1 isn’t criticizing capitalism, in fact I think he (like almost everyone) is happy to be operating in a relatively free market economy operating mostly under the rule of law. What he is criticizing is the libertards who have decided they need to capture the levers of power and use them to benefit themselves and people like them solely. Their approach involves a lot of misleading propoganda about “freedom” and economics and the often use legal trickery and downright intimidation to overcome opposition and reduce the involvement of segments of the population which oppose them.
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Biff: Read what I posted above.
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Reverend: How you likin’ our federal budget back in the red? Our supposed “conservative” government has been spending money like sailors back in port for the first time in a year. They have no real policy that I can discern, other than to avoid controversy and conduct whatever manouvering it takes to remain in power.
Biff,
The only people who want to come to America these days are people from 3rd world shitholes where people are living in abject poverty. Nobody from Europe wants to move to America anymore, they see this nation as the corporatocracy that it has become, with economic justice for the few and a dying middle class.
“Douche equis, you might want to check your facts–while you are correct about personal income, there are many corporations that pay little to no tax, so your statement about that bullshit called ‘double taxation’ is also bullshit.”
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I don’t disagree that corporations game the system; everyone does. Or perhaps you can suggest another reason that the percentage of 25-64 year olds claiming SSI disability has doubled from 1985-2005. Not just those nasty corporations and rich people slurping at the government trough, is it? Where money is involved, people will try to get it.
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Anyway, the rate at which corporations pay taxes doesn’t change the fact that corporate taxes are double taxation. Even a site sympathetic to your point indicates that the top 275 companies paid tax at an average rate of 17.5%. Add to that the 15% cap gains rate and you’re at 32.5% (roughly). Or take the non-tax-deductible dividends they pay and apply a typical personal marginal tax rate of 25% and you’re at 42.5% (roughly). Are 32.5% and 42.5% a sufficiently high tax burden to make you happy? If not, how high should it be?
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Further, if you read the linked article you’ll see that a lot of the corporate tax-ducking that goes on is due to tax credits the government has seen fit to pass. I didn’t see the left kicking up a fuss about “affordable housing tax credits” and “alternative fuel credits” until it turned out that they might, in fact — be tax credits! Who knew? If you don’t want corporations to take those credits, then don’t pass them. It’s simple.
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As to GG’s attempt to link diminishing levels of highest personal marginal tax rates with diminishing middle-class prosperity, you are confusing correlation with causality (and I think you’re wrong about diminishing middle class prosperity anyway — were I to look into it, I think your complaint would not be that the middle class is doing worse, but rather than the rich are doing too well, in yoru view). When the personal marginal tax rates were at 91%, how many people do you think were really paying them? At that tax rate, it becomes profitable to spend a lot of money trying to duck the tax, which is what people did. That type of activity, which is directly fostered by such high rates, is not beneficial to our society as a whole.
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I’ll add that this nostalgia for the 1950s is rather surprising given your expressed views. How many other things that were part of how society operated in the 1950s do you agree with, I wonder? No Civil Rights Act? No gay rights? No abortion rights? No medical marijuana? The draft? Do you look back fondly on all that? Or is it just in the area of taxation that you think we’ve regressed rather than progressed? Sorry, I’m not buying it. Our society is constantly evaluating these things and making adjustments, and there’s a reason taxation has gone the way it has gone. It’s not all just the evil rich and their lobbying. Don’t you find that argument just a bit too . . . easy?
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Enough of this for me. I’m on record as saying politics and baghunting don’t mix; time to practice what I preach.
I will not repost all of what douche equis has stated. I have to agree with all of it. I am no ditto head…and your post you used the word “made” not “earned”. If I worked and deposit money into an account that pays me interest, that is not an acceptable way to increase your wealth? How is that “Lucking into it”?
And Gilderdouche is spewing all the typical talking points of the left…feel free to give all your income to the government since they obviously know how to spread it around wisely….
But I digress…let us get back to making fun of something we can all agree upon….Asshats who are totally undeserving of any female compainonship, even is that female be Bleeth….
Matt & Equis are spewing all of the typical talking points of the right. They are sad, sad shills for the top 2%. Meanwhile, America now has the greatest income and wealth inequity in this nation’s history. It’s even greater than during the Robber Baron era. Welcome to The New Gilded Age.
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/even-more-gilded/
Let’s get back to debating the real issues people, Chaz Bono is on Dancing With the Stars and he will not be dancing to any of his parents songs. Kids these days, no respect I tells ya.
I like turtles
DB1: Your preface about the meaning of Labor Day is one of the most moving pieces I have read in a long time. It’s so refreshing to hear someone give American workers the honor they deserve and remind everyone (including me) that money does not equal success or entitlement. Also, thanks for making me aware of people like Matthew Vadum who forget what has made America great–hard-working citizens who always have each others’ backs.
Kudos to you, DB1!
The truly worrisome thing is that we’ve entered a period in which the purveyors of radical knuckleheadism are having some success convincing the members of the cluelessocracy that gummint employees and union members are the root of all evil.
Yup, cuz it was those folks who triggered the economic meltdown, ‘stead of folks known for the purity of the color of their collars.
When we white boys allow ourselves to get all riled up for no good reason, good things do not usually follow.
Excuse me while I now go revisit the wonderfulness that is the VictoriaJacksonDressTuggingAnimatedGIF.
Cher: Douche or Bleeth? Discuss.
You make a valid point. Altough I’m an investment advisor and my clients come first (before me) Sadly a lot of people in my profession think the other way around and are pure salesmen. The sad truth is also that most people spend their whole life saving money, but they don’t take a couple of days to get the best advise for their lifetime savings and trust it to a salesman. Which is imo like asking a wolf to guard the henhouse. On the topic of Wallstreet billionaires: people liek George Soros and Paul Tudor Jones deserve every penny they ever made, because they do the best job for their clients and their clients pay them well for it. Thanks
100 – THAT MUTHAFUCKA is asleep on the job again!
Mmmmmm…..Slender Supple Tropical Pear…..(drools)
Biff,
I agree with your viewpoint 100%. It just seems odd that none of this was discussed last week when we hooked up at the the “Club”. Hope to see you again after my sores have dried.
You go @Gilderdouche. I thought I learned a long time ago not to argue with the mine, mine, mine–I ‘earned’ it and you can’t take away from me crowd, but here I am.
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The last thing I will say to those of you who equate taxation to oppression: go look up the word ‘fascism’, then read a little bit about it in a history book instead of getting it from Bill O’Reilly. Fascism is naked capitalism–it is the owners of the factories and the guns telling the rest of us what to do, usually in an expansionist and dictatorial way. George Bush is a plutocratic fascist. I will see every single one of your fucking John Galt’s, and raise you a Ghandi every time.
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Society has moved forward through men and women like Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and so many others who preach living together in harmony and cooperation. It’s what ended slavery and segregation, and it is only possible through an educated populace that understands the redistribution of wealth is the key to giving EVERYONE a fair chance at what so many of you dittoheads have pointed out is the best thing about the US and other ‘enlightened’ countries. It’s not the low tax rates, it’s the understanding and belief that everyone should have a chance at ‘success’.
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I’m done and so are we, it is only a matter of time, and it’s the dumbasses who think the unfettered, untaxed ‘individual’ is going to save us who are leading the way to our demise.
I figured we’d get an old fashioned teatard swarm.
Last response, I promise…But “Anonymous” needs a response due to his multiple contradictory statements…per Webster :Definition of FASCISM:
: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
End of definition.
It is not the factory owners forcing people to work at the point of a gun, it is the government forcing you to work, then taking your wages by force, and giving them to some one else, who is greater need of the money.
You preach openly about redistribution of wealth, or communism…all for the greater good..the collective.
As for John Galt, he was a fictional character…but I will take a producer, some one who makes something of worth and can parlay that into a thriving business that provides jobs to the people over Ghandi (who is fine spirtual leader) who has produced nothing and never given anyone a job….
So go live on a fucking commune you hippie commie and you can share your tofu and $10K annual income with all your like minded friends…
Hey DB1,
Just curious, what exactly is it you have in common with the guy out front of the hardware store? I’m pretty sure he could not relate to you and your very sizable income. Between the website, book deals, and producing those shows for MTV, I’m guessing you have a mid six figure annual income…But you are different then those others who didn’t “earn” thier wealth, right?
Bra-fucking-vo! I have a slow, 80’s movie clap for you, DB1.
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By the way, wealth is not only a construct of human vanity, it’s also a fiction we collectively allow to exist. You all know that, right?
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Discuss amongst yourselves.
Baron always knows when to chime in. And he is correct.
Well, I shouldn’t be shocked that all the regs and non-regs here are completely idiotic, most Americans are so why should this site be any different.
Baron, I hope you’re being sarcastic. If not, fuck yourself.
Matt in 804, bravo. Was going to post something similar myself.
DB1, you’re a business-owner, who because of his creative mind has produced dozens of jobs relating to your tv show. Of course, you hate to think of yourself that way, you’re a “man of the people,” whatever that means. If you managed to create other shows that got picked up and became successful, then invested your income properly instead of blowing it on vacations and booze (which ironically you slammed people for doing in your “rant”, fucking hypocrite), then you would quickly be on your way to being wealthy. Of course you wouldn’t have earned it though.
Somebody wrote that taxation doesn’t stifle jobs. Really?! How stupid can one person be? When a businessman is poring over his finances, deciding among other things if he should hire or fire any employees, he looks at his expenses. Taxes are an expense, and if they are high, he has less capital. Jesus, use your fucking brain.
@ Baon
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Wanna go get a beer and wait this one out?
Baron. Sorry ’bout that.
To expand on Baron’s post:
Humanity is not only a construct of Samurai Scrote’s vanity, it’s also a fiction he singularly allows to exist. You all know that, right?
@ruckus, reading is fundamental.
Nice job using the dictionary, Matt. However, you only get a ‘C’ because you didn’t do the history part: Hilter and Mussolini are the two most prominent fascists in history, and they co-opted the industrial complexes, and got the capitalists on their side first. Then they attempted to eradicate entire populations in the name of expansionism, and their god-given right to everything because they worked harder and were more ‘pure’ than everyone else.
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You also left out the ‘right-wing’ part of the fascist definition, but I wouldn’t expect anything but a solid ‘C’ from a Bushie-Reaganite–all that erudition is for the liberal-intellectuals who are just trying to take away all that money Donald Trump and Bill Gates earned.
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Finally, you mentioned contraditions, but all you did was bloviate about the government forcing us to work to pay taxes. Tell me, what financed the roads, schools, and other public services where you live?
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I hate tofu, and I hate selfish people who think that the word enough is dirty and for hippies in communes. Your next assignment is to look up ‘sustainability’. We don’t have it, and, if we achieve the wonderful dream you describe, we will accelerate everyone’s collective demise.
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Just to be clear–I’m not a communist, but the idea that taxation is evil, is naive, simplistic, and wrong. It is that kind of ignorance that is wrong. Go into the middle of the rainforest, with no-one else around and ‘earn’ a billion dollars. Don’t worry, Dick Cheney will show up with a chainsaw and blueprint for how to do it, if the snakes or parasites don’t get you first.
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By the way, children are the biggest group of people who are in poverty, and the best way to get them out is to educate the, which is one the the biggest chunks of what your tax dollars are used for–after defense spending. I know, why don’t we punish those kids for the poor choices their parents made? Great idea.
^Put this man in charge. Please.
why can’t i post here?
okay, that’s weird
are there forbidden words here? I’ve tried to post a follow up six times and it hasn’t worked.
@ Baron
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It’s because you’re not trying to ram your opinion down someone else’s throat. Pound on your keyboard a little harder. That should make it work.
I’ll try it a piece at a time.
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@ :lkj
Nicely put, sir. The finity of wealth is inseparable from the sustainability of the planet. It’s just a matter of time before McDonald’s starts serving jellyfish instead of cow.
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Greed, if we don’t recalibrate our expectations, will surely prove to be the deadliest of the Deadly Sins.
@ MC Meat Curtains
I could get behind that.
@ ruckus
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“Sarcasm”? Moi? Not in this case, sporto. If a “business” isn’t providing food or shelter or a forum for procreation, then the value of what they’re producing is completely relative if not downright arbitrary. The average consumer can’t discern between “needing” something and “wanting” something any better than my four year old can.
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And that’s assuming that the business is even producing something. The banks and the Madoffs and the Tsoros are compounding the fiction by making money off of money which isn’t a job. It’s a grift. Just because it’s clever and legal (and I use that word only in the sense that the practices are subsidized by governments, not that it is useful, moral or right) and makes a cherished few people filthy rich does not mean it’s good for the world. Unless, of course, that filthy rich person, actually follows the teaching of Jeebus, like so many rich white Americans claim to do. In that case, that rich person is also a social**t so it should all work out just fine.
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Okay, that last bit was sarcasm. Not the part about Jeebus being a social**t. The part about a rich American willingly being one when it’s soooooo much easier just to be a hypocrite.
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And finally, I appreciate your suggestion for me to go fuck myself but don’t for a moment think that I hadn’t tackled that particularly slippery little engineering problem for myself years ago. Try as I might, the solution still eludes me. If you have any pointers, do share. In the meantime, please consider this an open invitation for you to polish my schvantz until you can see yourself in it.
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Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I need to get back to business.
My business.
Which I own.
And pay an assload of taxes on, yet still manages to create jobs.
Yay for me!
Holy crap.
All this time it was the dirty, dirty word ‘sew-shall-list’ that I couldn’t post.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Are we on some kind of watchlist here?
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These are not rhetorical questions.
@BVG, just added some new spam software as I was getting overrun. Not sure what’s going on.
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Socialist? I hardly know her.
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– management
Intriguing.
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I still can’t post the word sociali*t.
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I can, however, post penis enlargement. So your spam software sucks.
Let me try something else…
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Social justice.
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Okay, that worked. At least now we know FOX News isn’t behind this.
“These preening egos in suits and ties, douchebags of the worst sort, get on our TV and lecture us like their money means they are enlightened.”
Damn straight, DB1. Under this description there should be an honorary Hall of Scrote induction of Paris Hilton, the spiritual godmother of all the “rich and famous for being rich and famous while contributing nothing of value to society” douchebags.
By the ghost of Sir John A. MacDonald, I return from obscurity and the neo-liberal lock-step inter-cunninglingus unearths itself because DB1 dared to share an opinion.
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Strangely enough, if our Conservative (Tory) Prime Minister came back to life up here in Canuckland, he probably would have been considered communistic as this platitudinal prism through which modern North American politics is projected results in the most curious of inversions, not the least of which is that appeals to defending a more organic and just society with marginal appeals to communitarianism have been plucked from that tattered, bourbon-soaked tabby that is now regarded as paleo-conservatism and held by the mantle of “liberals” today. Heck, its the “liberals” who are now interested in purchasing “American made” items. Something tells me that mentioning Hooker would probably either invoke images of a previous night at the Motel 6 or a campy William Shatner these days. Ironically, the usual defense of the culturally eviscerating tendencies of runaway neo-liberalism has come from the purported “Conservatives.” However, if this kabuki dance is still going to continue along within the chicken-coop-like perimeter of neo-liberal discussion, you might as well pick up some whiskey and enjoy the show.
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Oh, and a gentle piece of advice, Douche Equis. If you are going to be quick to cite confusion about correlation and causality (cum hoc ergo propter hoc), you should stay away from immediately jumping later on into a variant of its slutty cousin: Confusion between cause and effect (post hoc ergo proctor hoc), not that I didn’t get your point about hindsight bias. It is just that the counter reasoning looked as if though it tried to distinguish itself by going from jet black to black.