Justice for all...LMAO

laker1963

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/11/29/f-rfa-macdonald.html

Good link to a good article on justice in America.

Amos_Umwhat

The famous saying is "The law, in its magnanimous equanimity, forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges." We just keep going through the same old cycles.

phobicsquirrel

no surprise there laker. but it's not the large banks or wall street that did this to people, it's their fault for not reading. If people would stay within their means than everything would be fine. I mean it's that simple. Why else do you think the irs can spend so much time and effort going after one man but never bust large banks. I mean the larger one is wouldn't it be easier to find dirt on? yeah it would but it's not worth going after... funny huh.

Vulchor

But Squirrel, without the rich to make the money-----how will the rest of us be able to scrounge for the "trickle down" leftovers?

Amos_Umwhat

Interesting article I read lately in Newsweek, a little off subject here, but not by much, points out the following:

Americans earning more than a million dollars a year collect more the $30 billion in government largesse each year. This is from a report by Tom Coburn, Rep, OK, who got his info from the IRS. A lot of this comes from "farm" subsidies going to millionaires whose primary addresses are to be found in major urban areas.

Also, since 2004 millionaires have accepted more than $9 billion in Social Security. The biggest money coming from unpaid taxes, more than 1,500 millionaires paid NO income tax last year.

Justification for all this is explained thusly, by J. Thorndike of the Tax History Project: "The government comes to the rescue of people in bad moments, and it should do that blindly." So, there is at least some blind justice going on;)

To Tom Coburns great credit, he points out: "The country is sucking wind right now...we end up subsidizing the very wealthy and not helping the ones who really need the help."
Well, it gives hope that there are a few politicians who actually have their eyes open, and perhaps the good of the country at heart. Maybe some of the voters will do likewise.

clearlysuspect

Just something to add here. History has shown continuously, in ancient civilizations to modern nations, that the only thing increasing taxes on the rich in order to redistribute wealth does is force the rich to get better at avoiding taxation. A recent example of this was back around 2008 when a tax investigation into a wealthy Athens suburb where only a couple hundred households reported having a swimming pool. Satellite images of this neighborhood revealed that over 1,500 households had swimming pools and that most had lied on their taxes in order to save money and further shows that a lot of construction was getting paid for under the table, further avoiding taxes.

clearlysuspect

Interesting that Neil McDonald references two housing market criminals as people whose " financial shenanigans sent the world into a tailspin four years ago." The housing market was just a very small portion of the collapse of the market in 2008. In depth studies have demonstrated that bear raids directed particularly at Bear Stearns were the primary cause of the collapse. I'm not a big fan of George Soros, but I don't usually question his expertise when it comes to money, and even he is 100% certain that bear raids were the primary cause of the collapse. Those raids coupled with sub-prime mortgages, naked short-selling, dark pool hedge funds, and sponsored access all led to a very vulnerable market.

Not trying to take away from his argument of injustice for those who can and can't pay their way out of it. (Just take Charlie Sheen for example! What would have happened to you or I if we got caught with a suitcase full of cocaine?) Just saying he should get his facts straight before he sits down to the keyboard because he is implying a magnitude of responsibility that is far beyond it's actual magnitude.