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FlattopMike

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  • Posts

    1713
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About FlattopMike

  • Birthday 07/31/1959

Profile Information

  • Interests
    Cars, Snowmobiles, Poker
  • Location
    Stayton, OR
  • Gender
    Male

Contact Methods

  • ICQ
    0
  • Website URL
    http://

Previous Fields

  • Zip Code
    97383
  • Model
    Starion
  • Type
    Other
  • Model Year
    1983
  • Transmission Type
    Manual
  • Factory Color
    Majorca Black
  • Interior Color
    Black-Gray
  • Status
    On the road

FlattopMike's Achievements

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  1. Well that wouldn't be the 1st time!
  2. Does anyone have contact info to whoever ended up with my '83? I was cleaning out a desk while getting ready to move and I came across all of the original paperwork including the owners manual and I think it should stay with the car.
  3. That's all I needed to read. So much for an intellectual discussion.
  4. That's why there needs to be a progressive tax rate. 30% hurts a lot more for some one making $25 compared to someone making $250k. For some reason, a lot of people can't seem to understand that.
  5. http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a103/FlattopMike/ScreenHunter_01Jan261602.gif This is a page from the actual report. It shows a net decrease in the deficit of $56 billion by 2013. (I added the arrow) Here is the link if you care to check it out yourself. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12033/12-23-SelectedHealthcarePublications.pdf
  6. 63% of what? How does it compare to other states?
  7. You underestimate the power and intelligence of the corporate machine. They control what the majority of people see and hear and those people believe it to be the truth. (even more now with NBC and Comcast merging) The most frustrating thing to me is watching news report on TV and and having someone quote one of the talking points like "Obama care adding to the deficit". The reporter never questions the validity of the statement even though it is completely false. The CBO has determined that it will decrease the deficit by billions. I believe that if everyone knew the facts, we could start to agree. The problem is that some people don't want to know anything. They feel safer in an intellectual void that they have created for themselves. Some people will only believe the facts that fit their pre-established notion of what is going on. I'd say that half of the people I know fit into one of these two categories. When the tea party movement first started, I thought it was great. We now had a grass roots vehicle in which us average Joes could climb aboard and make some changes. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a corporate financed artificial turf movement that banded together all of the religious zealots, the anti-government believers, the racists and the fringe right. The problem with banding together a group of open minded people, that actually base their opinions on the facts and not by what someone tells us to think, is that we rarely completely agree with each other. Free thinking intelligent people don't think and act in lock step and that is what is required in order to have a tea party type movement. It is awfully difficult to herd cats.
  8. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class is disappearing before our eyes. It's not politicians, although they have the power to stop it. It's corporatism and corporate greed. Just check out how much the fortune 500 companies made over the last 5 years while we were losing our butts. Big corporations run this country and the supreme court gave it's blessing when they voted that corporations have the rights of a citizen. Most of the middle class jobs have been sent overseas so the top couple percent of this country could make a couple dollars more. All we need to do is to turn the clock back 40 years. Reinstate all of the regulations that existed in 1970 including the tax rates. Get rid of all of the corporate welfare/incentives that have been added. Reinstate all of the tariffs and import taxes from that time. Unbridled capitalism is a disaster. It can only work if it is void of greed and that isn't going to happen. Capitalism must be regulated.
  9. That was one of the best games I've seen and I think that Auburn was the better team. They dominated the line of scrimmage. I was surprised by how wussie the announcers were. I would have liked to have seen what happened in the early personal foul other than a quick glimpse of the guy looking like he was kicking him in the face. The players face was really messed up and, if that was the case, the Auburn player should have been ejected. I would also have liked a better explanation as to why that wasn't an interception. The Oregon player caught the ball and had possession before he went out of bounds. That last big Auburn running play was just bizarre. He was tied up, brought down, flipped over but was still able to continue running. It was the right call but it just seemed wrong. All in all, I think the best team did win but we proved that we belonged there and we will have most of the team back for another run next year.
  10. I now have 2 kids in college. Free ride? Yah, right! Let's see..... $30K a year, times 4 years, times 2 kids............ That's $240k worth of "direct" government loans. Once they're out of school, I declare bankruptcy. I'll be screwed but I gave my kids what they needed.
  11. I actually think that this community has gotten much better about it. There's no way that this discussion would have been able to go on this long a year or so ago.
  12. You're going back a little farther in history than what I was thinking. I know that growing up in the 60's and 70's, my father worked a 40 hour job and my mother stayed home. We were middle class. We had a nice home, plenty to eat, a new car every few years, a color TV and a family vacation every summer. I now work 50 to 60 hours a week and my wife works 40. We are middle class. We have a nice home that just lost every penny of equity that has been growing over the past 10 years. There is no way I can afford a new car. In fact I don't own one. I have a company car. My wife drives an '02. I took my family on a vacation this past summer for the 1st time in 15 years. I had to max out a credit card to do it but I figured that this was my last opportunity. There is no way that I'll be able to pay off the college loans that I'm taking out for my kids but ruining my credit and having collectors knocking at my door is a small price to pay for giving my kids every opportunity to ride the upper graph line. We are losing the middle class of this country because of the greed of the 1 percenters. I found an historic listing of the tax rates. http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html When looking at it, keep in mind the health of the US economy during that time frame.
  13. I have been told that just the opposite occurred. Our economy was at it's best when wealthiest payed a higher percentage and it started to drop along with the tax rates. Of course my source is liberal biased so that is why I asked if someone could find the unbiased facts about it. If the money is invested in an industry that actually produces a product, I wouldn't consider that a loop hole. That is good for everyone. The economical circle of life requires that goods or services be purchased with a large percentage of the money. Trickle down doesn't work because a large percentage is "invested" in non tangible things like futures that produce nothing. If you give $25k to a guy that makes $60k, he might go out and buy a new car. If you give $2.5 million to a guy that makes $6 million, is he going to go out and buy 100 cars?
  14. Exactly. We need a progressive tax system. So many of you are turning your nose up to the working poor and lower middle class of our society. Those people are the tools that the wealthy use to make money. Taxes should be based on expendable income. The rich have a hell of a lot more expendable income than someone making $50k a year. I see no problem with taxing someone taking home more than $1 million paying 70% taxes on everything above that $1 million. 1st off, all they have to do is re-invest it into their company in order to avoid it. That means new jobs, more equipment purchased and a stimulated economy. (this currently isn't happening and that's why "trickle down" doesn't work) 2nd, these are the people that profited the most from the "American dream". They should be happy to support our country. 3rd, it's not going to hurt them. 70% after the 1st million isn't going to keep them from eating well or putting gas in their 25 year old Mitsubishi or buying their kids an iPad for Christmas. 4th, the country needs the money. We can't dig out from under mountain of debt on the backs of the middle class. 5th, continue out into the future with those graphs showing the increasing division of wealth. If this trend continues, we are all in trouble. I'm not any good with internet searches but can someone find a graph showing the correlation between tax rates and the health of our economy over the years?
  15. I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if I didn't have to pay $1,200 per month for medical and dental insurance. That is a family of 4 and doesn't include deductibles and co-pays. They run me about another $4,000 per year. I pay more for health insurance than I do for my house. Oh, and my premiums will be going up on the 1st.
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