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50 Economic Numbers About The US That Are "Almost Too Crazy To Believe"

Discussion in 'Economics and Financials' started by maynard, Dec 17, 2011.

  1. maynard

    maynard Who, whom?

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    this might serve a nice reference for arguments here or in the POFO. just about every one of these has a link if you go into the zerohedge post

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/50-economic-numbers-about-us-are-almost-too-crazy-believe

     
  2. texasPHINSfan

    texasPHINSfan New Member

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    It's really eye-opening that something like 50% of this country pays NO taxes.

    Meanwhile, we're concerned with increasing the taxes of the 1%? LMAO
     
  3. Dol-Fan Dupree

    Dol-Fan Dupree Tank? Who is Tank? I am Guy Incognito.

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    How is that eye-opening at all?
     
  4. texasPHINSfan

    texasPHINSfan New Member

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    Pretty easy, actually. If you didn't know that statistic before...
     
  5. Dol-Fan Dupree

    Dol-Fan Dupree Tank? Who is Tank? I am Guy Incognito.

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    How so?
     
  6. texasPHINSfan

    texasPHINSfan New Member

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    I don't follow politics. At all.

    This tax-related discussion usually happens with political discourse. Me, personally - I just hadn't read that anywhere since my readings usually don't deal with that topic.

    It is what it is.

    A better question might be why is it so hard to believe someone doesn't know a statistic that isn't common knowledge.
     
  7. FinSane

    FinSane Cynical Dolphins Fan

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    I can believe it. After 30 years of right-wing, neoliberal economics practiced by both parties, we have the failed results we're living with today, with more and more people falling into an ever-shrinking safety net.
     
  8. adamprez2003

    adamprez2003 Senior Member

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    the american people get what they deserve. they are sheep and they deserve to get sheared. until a generation wakes up and does what's necessary to take back the country its lambs to the slaughter. well at least they have american idol to keep them amused
     
    unluckyluciano likes this.
  9. texasPHINSfan

    texasPHINSfan New Member

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    A flat tax would be better than the current system, but with how many CPAs we have out there I doubt a tax code along those lines ever gets instated.
     
    DeDolfan likes this.
  10. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    The reality is that no one is promised that life is easy or that you are guaranteed a job. It is the responsibility of each individual to get the education or training to enable him or her to find a job in the market place.
    While things may seem tough right now, they are far tougher in most every other country on Earth.

    It appears that today many people want to sit around and complain about how bad things are instead of going out and doing something to improve their own lot in life. Unless you have a severe health problem which prevents you from improving your financial situation. Sitting around complaining about how bad you have it, compared to the 50% of Americans who actually pay taxes and earn most of the income, isn't going to get you into that 50% anytime soon.

    Politicians or the rich aren't responsible for your present economic situation, you are. Yes things are tough today, but they have been just as tough or tougher at other times in American history. Dwelling on how bad you have it and doing nothing except complaining about your situation or blaming it on others, serves absolutely no useful purpose. If you don't like your present situation, change it. You are in control of you own life and sitting around complaining about how bad you have it or how bad things are, isn't going to do anything but cause you to wallow in self pity. It certainly isn't going to help you improve your financial situation one bit.
     
    MikeHoncho likes this.
  11. MikeHoncho

    MikeHoncho -=| Censored |=-

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    101%
     
  12. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    I agree somewhat with what you're saying. But yes there are politicians and rich as well as poor who should bare some responsibility.
     
  13. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    Not entirely true anymore. This isn't the America of the past. The deck is stacked. That's why there is such a vast gulf between the haves and have nots. Wall Streets power to dictate the economy instead of being an indicator of it has changed everything. We're talking Enron type corruption but on a countrywide scale. People are screwed. There will always be people that abuse a system that goes for welfare and the stock market. Right now however, the level of abuse by wall street is a 100 fold more detrimental than the abuse of welfare.

    Think about why people are *****ing. They didn't just one day get lazy. They were screwed by gas prices, the housing bubble and the credit crunch. If those things don't happen, we aren't having this discussion. Those things are all caused by the people who manipulate their respective markets through shady tactics.
     
  14. MikeHoncho

    MikeHoncho -=| Censored |=-

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    Forgot to mention feline AIDS[​IMG]
     
  15. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    I just don't agree that Wall Street is the problem. I think that many individuals who are invested in stocks should not be. They don't have the risk tolerance to deal with the ups and downs of the market on a daily basis. I have been an active investor in the stock markets since the early 1980's. I have always understood that there is risk in the market and that you have to be able to handle this risk.

    I have a lot of friends who were invested in the stock market prior to the huge sell off in late 2008 and early 2009. Most of these individuals couldn't stand seeing their retirement savings depleted by this sell off, so they got out of the market after losing thousands of dollars and have refused to get back in the market, even though the DOW is up well over five thousand points from its 2009 low.
    Since I had been an investor for over 25 years when the sell off took place. I didn't sell a single share of stock as the markets fell. Instead, I purchased shares of large cap stocks which were selling at prices they had not sold at in years.

    While many of my friends have never recovered from the losses they took by selling their stocks at prices well below what they paid for them. I was able to quickly recover from my paper losses within less then a year and I have been fortunate to have made a great deal of money over the last three plus years as the market has continued to rise. So my view is that if you lost money in the stock market over the last four or five years, it is probably because you didn't understand the market and you probably should not have been in the market in the first place.

    Regarding your statement that people are upset because they have been screwed by gas prices, the housing bubble and the credit crunch, I again don't agree that this is the fault of the government or Wall Street.

    Gas prices tend to rise based on what is happening in the world at any given time. We are also living in a time where we are no longer the only major country using a massive amount of energy. China and India are no longer basically agricultural nations. They rely a great deal on the same energy sources which America used to dominate in regards to consumption. I have been fortunate enough to travel around Europe and parts of Asia in recent years and I can assure you that the prices we are paying for gasoline today is a great deal less then what the citizens of these areas are paying for their gasoline. The world has changed and the United States can not longer dominate the use of the natural resources as we did in the past. High gas prices are a fact of life today and I don't see this changing for the better anytime in the near future.

    As far as the housing bubble and the credit crush goes. The reality is that it was individuals who purchased homes they couldn't really afford and charged items on credit cards they couldn't pay for who created these two problems. While credit and home loans were too easily accessible prior to 2008. No one forced anyone to buy a home which they couldn't afford or to go out and max out their credit cards just so they could buy more, "THINGS". People wanting it, NOW" even if they couldn't afford it ,was the problem.

    To me, the access to easy credit and easy loans created a scenario where many individuals felt that they had the right to live beyond their means. They didn't care if they could really afford the home or other items they were taking out loans to purchase or charging on one of their ten or more credit cards.

    I am happy to see that it is more difficult to take out home loans today and that banks and credit card companies have cut back on the availability of the easy access to these cards. I have always believed that if you don't have the money in the bank to pay for an item, you shouldn't be buying it in the first place. The fact is that prior to the recession in 2008, nearly 50% of Americans were living beyond their means. I blame these individuals for this, not the banks, credit card companies, Wall Street or the politicians.

    Hopefully we have learned our lesson as a nation regarding easy credit and we will never return to the unlimited access to credit cards and no income verification loans which led to the worst economic decline we have seen since the Great Depression.

    People in America need to learn to live within their means and if that means they can no longer buy every new product on the market, and they have to wait to buy a home until they can actually afford to make the payments, so be it.
     
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  16. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    And as for the giant companies that are highly leveraged thus started going under? Whose fault is that? Wallstreets? The peoples?
    And the point is the housing bubble was created by banks/mortgage companies selling off bad mortgages thus spreading the bad debt. The derivatives market? Those were all caused by wall street companies, hence why wallstreet companies needed bailing out. You can't take away their culpability, no matter how much you want to. They played a shell game, and they almost sunk the entire world economy. That there is no getting around.
     
  17. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    I find fault with the banks and credit card companies only for making loans and credit too easy to access during those years. My problem is in trying to understand why anyone would charge more on a credit card than they can afford to pay back each month. Also, as I pointed out earlier, no one forced anyone to take out a loan on a house they could not afford. Many people lied about their income in order to obtain these loans and they merely walked away from these loans once the market on home values collapsed.

    The fact is that if all the individuals who took out home loans and charged freely on their credit cards had repaid these debts, there would never have been a banking crisis to begin with. I agree banks and credit card companies were too lax in their lending practices and the granting of credit card access but it was all the individuals who decided to live beyond their means who were really at fault for the economic decline of the past few years.

    Blaming the banks and Wall Street for the inability of millions of individuals to live within their income is merely attempting to place the blame on the wrong individuals, as far as I am concerned. Just because someone is willing to loan you more money than you can afford to pay back certainly doesn't mean you should take this money, if you know that you will never be able to pay it back. Every individual should be held accountable for repaying the money they borrowed. Blaming the banks and the credit card companies for the credit problems is the easy way out. Instead, we should all be placing the blame where it truly lies.
    On all those individuals who wanted to live a lifestyles they didn't deserve by taking out loans they could not repay and by living above their means by charging their lifestyle on credit cards which they knew in advance they could not truly afford.
     
  18. 2socks

    2socks Rebuilding Since 1973

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    Love how number 50 leaves out the nearly 5 trillion dollars George Bushes administration racked up during his tenure, while trying to make Obama look bad. Aren't these the very programs and deficits Bush and congress of the 90's and early 2000's put into motion. I am not giving Obama a pass just trying to keep it real. Not saying Obama is any better, but just hacking the budget by 30% would cause a depression. #50 is crap.
     

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