damitjim: My guess is Fox's 'agenda' is stay number one,

Exactly. And guess who they're number one with?

Hint: It ain't people who support the prez in any way.

TsukasaK: Exactly. And guess who they're number one with?

They are number one with the viewers of tv, that's how ratings work.

TsukasaK: rubi_con_man: This seems to be tax evasion to me.

Not if it's all legal. The worst thing you can say about Rmoney is that he possibly lied on his disclosure forms (hopefully it'll disqualify the fark). It's not tax evasion if you're within the confines of the law

That is the problem. Too often the line between what is "legal" and what is "illegal" is not drawn by what an individual or a society believes is right and wrong, but by what those in power want. If I had enough money, power and influence (even to the point of becoming a dictator) I could make any act as legal or illegal as I wished. This is why corporate lobbyists exist.

What is good for society is second to what is good for them.

damitjim: TsukasaK: Exactly. And guess who they're number one with?

They are number one with the viewers of tv cable news, that's how ratings work.

FTFY

For God sakes, even CBS Evening News and CBS Morning News beats Fox News handlily and they're #3 of the big 3 news shows.

Today's wah Fox News wah thread.

If you have a better product you are free to compete with them. You don't.

barneyfifesbullet: Today's wah Fox News wah thread.

If you have a better product you are free to compete with them. You don't.

You're right. The news organizations with the highest ratings are inherently the most accurate. It's a no-brainer for everyone but libs. The argumentums that are most popular get the most ad revenue.

barneyfifesbullet: Today's wah Fox News wah thread.

If you have a better product you are free to compete with them. You don't.

The raitings of CBS, NBC, and ABC would all like to have a word with you.

rubi_con_man: Speaking of Dodging taxes: did you hear about Mill Romney's 401k ?

As CEO he made contributions to his 401k, which were managed by ... Bain. This allowed him to buy a special class of stock from ... Bain. This stock had the very special property that it paid huge dividends regularly and almost immediately based on the profits of ... Bain ...

So now his 401k has over 10 million in it. Wow. That's big.

It's especially big considering that the maximum allowed contribution into your 401k is $17,000 in 2011, meaning that it would take over 580 years for anyone else to get that balance in just contributions. This seems to be tax evasion to me.

As much as I loathe to defend him, if I put $17000 into my 401(k) this year and it does really well, and at the end of the year there's $20,000 in my 401(k), I didn't evade taxes. My 401(k) just increased.

Granted, most people don't have access to a type of fund with that kind of growth rate.

elchip: rubi_con_man: Speaking of Dodging taxes: did you hear about Mill Romney's 401k ?

As CEO he made contributions to his 401k, which were managed by ... Bain. This allowed him to buy a special class of stock from ... Bain. This stock had the very special property that it paid huge dividends regularly and almost immediately based on the profits of ... Bain ...

So now his 401k has over 10 million in it. Wow. That's big.

It's especially big considering that the maximum allowed contribution into your 401k is $17,000 in 2011, meaning that it would take over 580 years for anyone else to get that balance in just contributions. This seems to be tax evasion to me.

As much as I loathe to defend him, if I put $17000 into my 401(k) this year and it does really well, and at the end of the year there's $20,000 in my 401(k), I didn't evade taxes. My 401(k) just increased.

Granted, most people don't have access to a type of fund with that kind of growth rate.

Seriously. All of these poor people complain, but it's their own choice not to take advantage of the same tax shelters as guys like Romney. What's stopping them from making financially beneficial choices such as these?

TsukasaK: rubi_con_man: No. The Definition of Tax Evasion (by the IRS) is when you do apparently legal things and the only motivation is to avoid paying taxes.

So when people donate a ton of money to charity, it's illegal if the idea is to get a write-off instead of altruistic contribution.

Uh huh.

You can't increase your wealth by giving money to charity. How do people not get this? It's a tax write-off, but you've already given the money away.

If I make $100,000 and my tax rate is 20%, I pay $20,000 and have $80,000 left for myself.

If I had given $10,000 to charity then I pay 20% of my remaining $90,000 and have $72,000 left for myself.

Sure, I'm not out the whole $10,000 but I'm still out $8,000.

Of course, if I'm famous, I get good publicity. (Well, not with a measly $10,000, but you know what I mean.)

Morning shows:
The averages for the week of July 2:

Total Viewers: NBC: 4.219M / ABC: 4.462M / CBS: 2.369M

A25-54 viewers: NBC: 1.667M / ABC: 1.643M / CBS: 968K

FNC FOX & Friends Total: 1,071 25-54: 315

Link

Evening News:

Numbers for the week of July 2, 2012:

NBC ABC CBS
Total Viewers 7,642,000 7,288,000 5,918,000
A25-54 2,231,000 1,892,000 1,693,000

Link

Fox News:

Primetime P2+ (000s) 25-54 (000s) 35-64 (000s)
FNC 1,987 400 813

P2+ (000s) 25-54 (000s) 35-64 (000s)
Total Day
FNC 1,129 284 535

Link

Fox News #1? LOL

Hey if the union members like that pay scale, fine. If shareholders think its ok that their CEOs get paid that way, then fine. Remove the imperative to join the union and pay dues(just as a shareholder can divest) and all is fair. Oh ,and fark you all.

gimmegimme: elchip: rubi_con_man: Speaking of Dodging taxes: did you hear about Mill Romney's 401k ?

As CEO he made contributions to his 401k, which were managed by ... Bain. This allowed him to buy a special class of stock from ... Bain. This stock had the very special property that it paid huge dividends regularly and almost immediately based on the profits of ... Bain ...

So now his 401k has over 10 million in it. Wow. That's big.

It's especially big considering that the maximum allowed contribution into your 401k is $17,000 in 2011, meaning that it would take over 580 years for anyone else to get that balance in just contributions. This seems to be tax evasion to me.

As much as I loathe to defend him, if I put $17000 into my 401(k) this year and it does really well, and at the end of the year there's $20,000 in my 401(k), I didn't evade taxes. My 401(k) just increased.

Granted, most people don't have access to a type of fund with that kind of growth rate.

Seriously. All of these poor people complain, but it's their own choice not to take advantage of the same tax shelters as guys like Romney. What's stopping them from making financially beneficial choices such as these?

I wasn't debating that point. Only the tax evasion part.

Yes Union leaders get 10 times more and corporate CEO's get 400 Times more. Your point is?

Mrtraveler01: Morning shows:
The averages for the week of July 2:

Total Viewers: NBC: 4.219M / ABC: 4.462M / CBS: 2.369M

A25-54 viewers: NBC: 1.667M / ABC: 1.643M / CBS: 968K

FNC FOX & Friends Total: 1,071 25-54: 315

Link

Evening News:

Numbers for the week of July 2, 2012:

NBC ABC CBS
Total Viewers 7,642,000 7,288,000 5,918,000
A25-54 2,231,000 1,892,000 1,693,000

Link

Fox News:

Primetime P2+ (000s) 25-54 (000s) 35-64 (000s)
FNC 1,987 400 813

P2+ (000s) 25-54 (000s) 35-64 (000s)
Total Day
FNC 1,129 284 535

Link

Fox News #1? LOL

Fox News is the number one NEWS program on CABLE with 35-64-YEAR-OLDS in that TIME SLOT.

It's like bragging that you're the best husband your wife currently has.

rewind2846: That is the problem. Too often the line between what is "legal" and what is "illegal" is not drawn by what an individual or a society believes is right and wrong, but by what those in power want. If I had enough money, power and influence (even to the point of becoming a dictator) I could make any act as legal or illegal as I wished. This is why corporate lobbyists exist.

What is good for society is second to what is good for them

So how was one man jumping through loopholes in the law to stack away lots of cash somehow wrong or bad for society? I'm honestly curious.

elchip: gimmegimme: elchip: rubi_con_man: Speaking of Dodging taxes: did you hear about Mill Romney's 401k ?

As CEO he made contributions to his 401k, which were managed by ... Bain. This allowed him to buy a special class of stock from ... Bain. This stock had the very special property that it paid huge dividends regularly and almost immediately based on the profits of ... Bain ...

So now his 401k has over 10 million in it. Wow. That's big.

It's especially big considering that the maximum allowed contribution into your 401k is $17,000 in 2011, meaning that it would take over 580 years for anyone else to get that balance in just contributions. This seems to be tax evasion to me.

As much as I loathe to defend him, if I put $17000 into my 401(k) this year and it does really well, and at the end of the year there's $20,000 in my 401(k), I didn't evade taxes. My 401(k) just increased.

Granted, most people don't have access to a type of fund with that kind of growth rate.

Seriously. All of these poor people complain, but it's their own choice not to take advantage of the same tax shelters as guys like Romney. What's stopping them from making financially beneficial choices such as these?

I wasn't debating that point. Only the tax evasion part.

So are you advocating policies that would eliminate unfair tax shelters for the rich? Romney pays a lower tax rate than all of us.

Oh Fox, you sho clevuh.

Well, certainly Fox news would be outraged, if executives only made ten times as much as workers.

The point I'm getting at here, is that it seems odd that everyone is hating on Romney for being rich. Not for lying on his disclosure documents, not for being an inconsistent waffler, not for running companies into the ground (ala Bain), not because he's completely unlikeable..

but rather just for having shiatloads of money.

Farkers be jelly.

damitjim: TsukasaK: Exactly. And guess who they're number one with?

They are number one with the viewers of tv, that's how ratings work.

No, they're #1 with "people who're against the President but not because of any of his policies" and their viewers have lower knowledge of ACTUAL goings on than people who watch no news at all. Nice try, though, you bought into their #1 cable NEWS NETWORK! narrative handily.

elchip: rubi_con_man: Speaking of Dodging taxes: did you hear about Mill Romney's 401k ?

As CEO he made contributions to his 401k, which were managed by ... Bain. This allowed him to buy a special class of stock from ... Bain. This stock had the very special property that it paid huge dividends regularly and almost immediately based on the profits of ... Bain ...

So now his 401k has over 10 million in it. Wow. That's big.

It's especially big considering that the maximum allowed contribution into your 401k is $17,000 in 2011, meaning that it would take over 580 years for anyone else to get that balance in just contributions. This seems to be tax evasion to me.

As much as I loathe to defend him, if I put $17000 into my 401(k) this year and it does really well, and at the end of the year there's $20,000 in my 401(k), I didn't evade taxes. My 401(k) just increased.

Granted, most people don't have access to a type of fund with that kind of growth rate.

I could have sworn there were rules against investing retirement funds into entities owned by the account holder, their spouse, their parents and their children. More specifically you can't buy things from that group of people. That may only apply to IRAs though.

This is a rather transparent attempt to foment class warfare, isn't it?

Great_Milenko: This is a rather transparent attempt to foment class warfare, isn't it?

Only DemocRATS do that. Sean Hannity has told me that just about every night for the past three years.

Don't tell them about football, basketball, baseball or hockey players.

TsukasaK:
So how was one man jumping through loopholes in the law to stack away lots of cash somehow wrong or bad for society? I'm honestly curious.

When they are loopholes you bought and paid for, along with the politicians that wrote said loopholes, that is bad for society. In an ideal world (like the one we don't live in) the citizens that politician is supposed to represent and the politician's own experience, knowledge and conscience are what are supposed to determine what laws get written, passed, or altered.

When the rich and powerful use their money to influence such decisions, this is wrong and always has been. However... it's "legal" because someone paid enough money to the right person to make it so for their own benefit and not for the benefit of the society the politician is supposed to be working for.

Yes I know, people are greedy and corrupt, and always will be. But we should all have to play by the same rules.

rewind2846: TsukasaK:
So how was one man jumping through loopholes in the law to stack away lots of cash somehow wrong or bad for society? I'm honestly curious.

When they are loopholes you bought and paid for, along with the politicians that wrote said loopholes, that is bad for society. In an ideal world (like the one we don't live in) the citizens that politician is supposed to represent and the politician's own experience, knowledge and conscience are what are supposed to determine what laws get written, passed, or altered.

When the rich and powerful use their money to influence such decisions, this is wrong and always has been. However... it's "legal" because someone paid enough money to the right person to make it so for their own benefit and not for the benefit of the society the politician is supposed to be working for.

Yes I know, people are greedy and corrupt, and always will be. But we should all have to play by the same rules.



Tax loopholes are people, my friend. My bank in the Cayman Islands is run by people. My accountants are people who file the tax documents that allow me to pay a lower rate than you do. These are people and people make America great.

gimmegimme: salvador.hardin: Fire the Union boss and credit every teacher their share of the salary. There's only what, 20 or so teachers in each union, so that means like a 50% increase in their salary (multiply by 10 for the boss then divide by 20 for the number of union members). The teachers might experience slashes in benefits or compensation without the union to bargain in their interest, but they will have that extra 50% salary to compensate for the loss. Really a huge win for the teachers if you do the math this way.

LOLWUT?

Lemme guess. You're not a job creator and you never will be.

Maybe there's more people in the union, who knows. That's paper pusher talk.

Teachers aren't historically pushovers who are so dedicated to the calling of their career path that they routinely put the needs of their students ahead of their own welfare. They don't need talented negotiators to look out for their interests, they are capable of bargaining for their own individual fair compensation.

The fact remains there'd have to be hundreds (if not thousands) of people in the union, all receiving some benefit from collective bargaining power (or maybe experiencing some kind of assault on the contractually guaranteed benefits they've already obtained), to justify paying competitive compensation to the talented people running the union.

The smart move is to dissolve the union, go at it on their own, and use those fat union dues they recoup to invest in numismatic gold coins.

TsukasaK: rubi_con_man: This seems to be tax evasion to me.

Not if it's all legal. The worst thing you can say about Rmoney is that he possibly lied on his disclosure forms (hopefully it'll disqualify the fark). It's not tax evasion if you're within the confines of the law.

Honestly? I can get on board with that. If I had that kind of cash, i'd be using every possible loophole and law to my advantage too. So would anyone else in that position.

/doesn't hate the rich
//hates douchebags
///unfortunately there's a lot of overlap

It is just completely astounding how little fark liberals know about SEC filing rules and regulation. There are many examples of CEO in name only and a CEO can have zero managerial contributions to a company, this happens often, especially when acting CEOs are put into place for someone ailing or taking a leave of absence (Sound familiar?) Just because the left is too farking retarded to understand this concept, and they chose to ignore all the independent fact checkers, doesn't mean Romney lied on his forms. This is just advertisement of idiocy from the left. Seriously your side needs to grow up and try to learn at least the basics before accusing someone of a felony. It's farking sickening.

salvador.hardin: gimmegimme: salvador.hardin: Fire the Union boss and credit every teacher their share of the salary. There's only what, 20 or so teachers in each union, so that means like a 50% increase in their salary (multiply by 10 for the boss then divide by 20 for the number of union members). The teachers might experience slashes in benefits or compensation without the union to bargain in their interest, but they will have that extra 50% salary to compensate for the loss. Really a huge win for the teachers if you do the math this way.

LOLWUT?

Lemme guess. You're not a job creator and you never will be.

Maybe there's more people in the union, who knows. That's paper pusher talk.

Teachers aren't historically pushovers who are so dedicated to the calling of their career path that they routinely put the needs of their students ahead of their own welfare. They don't need talented negotiators to look out for their interests, they are capable of bargaining for their own individual fair compensation.

The fact remains there'd have to be hundreds (if not thousands) of people in the union, all receiving some benefit from collective bargaining power (or maybe experiencing some kind of assault on the contractually guaranteed benefits they've already obtained), to justify paying competitive compensation to the talented people running the union.

The smart move is to dissolve the union, go at it on their own, and use those fat union dues they recoup to invest in numismatic gold coins.



I agree wholeheartedly, old chap. Workers went at it on their own in my day and made out like bandits! Can you believe I had to pay nine-year-olds three cents an hour with no benefits? They really put me over a barrel.

TsukasaK: The point I'm getting at here, is that it seems odd that everyone is hating on Romney for being rich.

No they are not. What they are pissed at is how people like him game the system to get that way and stay that way. Rmoney and those like him quite literally own it, with their lobbyists and other corporate schemes. You and I can write letters and e-mails until we die of exhaustion, and vote in elections until our fingers wear out, but we will never have the influence and face time that a lobbyist or CEO gets during a round or two of golf with the local mayor.

What's worse is that now that he's campaigning for president he want to remake himself as a "regular Joe", when he's spent his business career helping to put regular Joes out of work in search of higher corporate profits. If he's supposed to be an RJ, why doesn't he fess up with his tax returns, something that every president's done for the last 50 years? Trying to hide those swiss bank account monies, Mittens?

No one likes a phony. We like hypocrites even less. And liars least of all.

Money. Green. Good.

Vangor: The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers are amongst the largest unions in the United States, making sense the presidents would be paid significant amounts. Does this contrast horribly with the stagnant pay of teachers? Yes. But this is not an exorbitant sum; neither of them is breaking half a million yet.

District union presidents making this much might or pay in the several million dollar range might be worth outrage, but not this. Ten times is not a wealth disparity.

According to right-wingers, some highly skilled individuals with good educations deserve big paychecks and some highly skilled individuals with good educations do not. I wonder what the difference is.

And the fact that liberals are not having a fit about this tells me a lot about them.

The problem here is that these are public sector unions. Meaning tax payers support everything they do no matter what and while some people, particularly liberals, bemoan and complain that teachers don't get paid enough, or that schools don't get enough money... The teachers union bosses are making 500,000? If you are one of the people who thinks we need to 'spend more on education' then perhaps you should suggest cutting back on what the union boss gets.

Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

randomjsa: And the fact that liberals are not having a fit about this tells me a lot about them.

The problem here is that these are public sector unions. Meaning tax payers support everything they do no matter what and while some people, particularly liberals, bemoan and complain that teachers don't get paid enough, or that schools don't get enough money... The teachers union bosses are making 500,000? If you are one of the people who thinks we need to 'spend more on education' then perhaps you should suggest cutting back on what the union boss gets.

Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

Agreed. Teachers, firefighters, judges and everyone else who works in the public sector should make as little as possible. It doesn't matter that teachers have an advanced degree and years of experience. They should make 15K/year with no benefits. This strategy will also help us get the best and brightest to become teachers, firefighters and cops.

"The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself. "

-- John Kenneth Galbraith

randomjsa: And the fact that liberals are not having a fit about this tells me a lot about them.

The problem here is that these are public sector unions. Meaning tax payers support everything they do no matter what and while some people, particularly liberals, bemoan and complain that teachers don't get paid enough, or that schools don't get enough money... The teachers union bosses are making 500,000? If you are one of the people who thinks we need to 'spend more on education' then perhaps you should suggest cutting back on what the union boss gets.

Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

Since taxpayers pay for teacher's salaries, we have a right to tell teachers how to spend that money. Dropping $500,000 in to the nation's schools is like a silver bullet for all that ailes us. There's two union bosses, so we can drop an entire $1,000,000 back into the system and divvy it up among the 8 or 9 schools that comprise the US education system.

doyner: randomjsa: Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

Ah yes.
Policies that favor folks that funnel billions to GOP SuperPacs=GOOD
Policies that favor folks that funnel millions to Democratic SuperPacs=BAD

Four homes GOOD! Two mortgages BAD!

salvador.hardin: randomjsa: And the fact that liberals are not having a fit about this tells me a lot about them.

The problem here is that these are public sector unions. Meaning tax payers support everything they do no matter what and while some people, particularly liberals, bemoan and complain that teachers don't get paid enough, or that schools don't get enough money... The teachers union bosses are making 500,000? If you are one of the people who thinks we need to 'spend more on education' then perhaps you should suggest cutting back on what the union boss gets.

Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

Since taxpayers pay for teacher's salaries, we have a right to tell teachers how to spend that money. Dropping $500,000 in to the nation's schools is like a silver bullet for all that ailes us. There's two union bosses, so we can drop an entire $1,000,000 back into the system and divvy it up among the 8 or 9 schools that comprise the US education system.

Does Coca-Cola have the right to tell its employees how to spend their paychecks?

gimmegimme: salvador.hardin: randomjsa: And the fact that liberals are not having a fit about this tells me a lot about them.

The problem here is that these are public sector unions. Meaning tax payers support everything they do no matter what and while some people, particularly liberals, bemoan and complain that teachers don't get paid enough, or that schools don't get enough money... The teachers union bosses are making 500,000? If you are one of the people who thinks we need to 'spend more on education' then perhaps you should suggest cutting back on what the union boss gets.

Unless of course the only reason you want teachers to get paid more is so they can kick more towards Democrat candidates in elections.

Since taxpayers pay for teacher's salaries, we have a right to tell teachers how to spend that money. Dropping $500,000 in to the nation's schools is like a silver bullet for all that ailes us. There's two union bosses, so we can drop an entire $1,000,000 back into the system and divvy it up among the 8 or 9 schools that comprise the US education system.

Does Coca-Cola have the right to tell its employees how to spend their paychecks?

From your last reply to me I really thought you'd gotten on the trolley here.
Goddamn Poe and his goodfernutin law.

Union Bosses make 10 times the average salary of the workers they represent?

FOX: This is an outrage!

Fortune 500 CEOs make 380 times what their workers do?

FOX: *crickets*

Wow, imagine my surprise.

salvador.hardin: Fire the Union boss and credit every teacher their share of the salary. There's only what, 20 or so teachers in each union, so that means like a 50% increase in their salary (multiply by 10 for the boss then divide by 20 for the number of union members). The teachers might experience slashes in benefits or compensation without the union to bargain in their interest, but they will have that extra 50% salary to compensate for the loss. Really a huge win for the teachers if you do the math this way.

I've not sure if you are being serious but 20 people do not support a 500,000 dollar salary for their union head. I'm hoping that I don't have to explain how unions actually work to you in my next post.