The rich have gotten richer in the past year or so.

My hope for a lucky break will come when fuel gets high enough that outsourcing becomes too expensive. So just keep burning it in your giant-ass SUV's America, someday you might have a job again.

as nice as the education system and infrastructure are, they're not in danger of collapsing. We have plenty of roads and power lines.

Weak transport infrastructure alone will shave 0.2 percentage points off economic growth this year, said Steven Landau, a researcher in Boston at the Economic Development Research Group.

America spends roughly 2 percent of GDP on infrastructure, about half what it did 50 years ago, according to a U.S. government report from October. Europe spends around 5 percent and China 9 percent.

Because American spending is falling, the drag on growth will grow to 1.3 percentage points in 2020, Landau said.

How is the rich getting richer a problem?

It's not fair to tax everyone the same percent. It's not fair now. And I don't even know what the hell "fair" means anymore.

but money in the state's coffers is money not making more money. It's money banks aren't using to loan to businesses wishing to expand.

YEAH DON'T TAX THE RICH. DONT HELP THE POOR.

Unfortunately for the rich, the poor are the majority shareholder in this democracy. The only reason it's working out is because the poor are idiotically letting the rich have their way under some false banner of fairness.

It's not fair to tax everyone the same percent. It's not fair now. And I don't even know what the hell "fair" means anymore.

Because we could live in a world where everyone makes ~$50 for an hour of work.

How is it not fair? I'd say that's the very DEFINITION of fairness.

Yay communism. 'cept that never works out.

Because there is a certain minimum amount of money you require in order to actually live. Lets call that amount $12,000.

Now if someone is earning $14,000, then the maximum amount of money you can possibly tax them and call it "fair" is $2,000, yes? That works out to a 14.28% tax rate. But under your 'fair' tax system, everyone pays a flat 20% tax. So this means that this person has now only got $11,200 to live on, $800 short of the bare minimum. On the other hand, someone earning $1,000,000/year pays $200,000 in tax and is still far far far above the $12,000 minimum you need to scrape by.

Now instead if we had a progressive taxation system where the person earning $14,000 only had to pay $2,000, because that was the most he could afford, while someone earning $1m paid $250,000 (because he can afford to pay that extra $50,000 compared to the first scenario) then that is more "fair" because no one is unduly going without.
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Ideally the first person would get taxed only $2,000 and the second person would get taxed at the same rate. The world isn't an ideal place and people often get taxed higher than that 2000, even when there's a progressive tax bracket.

Incidentally, did you know that progressive tax brackets in NZ don't increase with inflation each year? This means that more and more people are thrown into the higher tax brackets even though they don't actually earn more in terms of what they can buy.

I'll address this point obliquely.

Remember in the 60s, 70s and 80s how people were concerned (or looking forwards) to having a working week of maybe onto 10-20 hours due to improved technology and automation of tasks etc, and the rest would be spent on leisure activities? Funny how that didn't actually happen, except for the 5% or so of people at the very top. Everyone else still has to work 40 hour weeks, or longer. It's even worse too - in the 60's and 70's most families were supported by only a single breadwinner, but these days most families have both parents working just to be able to make ends meet. The reason for this is that despite the massive increase in productivity of labour, the vast majority of the the monetary gains have been concentrated in the hands of the few at the top.

Money that the government spends doesn't just go down a hole somewhere, you know. It get spent on a lot of things, some of which will directly boost growth in the economy (see my post above - if you don't start fixing up your infrastructure you're going to be in an even bigger shit hole in 10 years time than you are now). Some of it is spent on medicare and medicaid - sure, that's not "money making more money", but it is keeping your grandparents alive and providing better healthcare outcomes for many people who couldn't otherwise afford healthcare. It means keeping the government postal system running - I'd like to see how effective business was without that. It means keeping police and fire departments in operation instead of having to close them down - good luck defending your business from the roaming gangs because the police don't have enough people or cars to come out and help you when you need it.

This idea that "government just wastes money" is really juvenile.

Remember in the 60s, 70s and 80s how people were concerned (or looking forwards) to having a working week of maybe onto 10-20 hours due to improved technology and automation of tasks etc, and the rest would be spent on leisure activities? Funny how that didn't actually happen, except for the 5% or so of people at the very top. Everyone else still has to work 40 hour weeks, or longer. It's even worse too - in the 60's and 70's most families were supported by only a single breadwinner, but these days most families have both parents working just to be able to make ends meet. The reason for this is that despite the massive increase in productivity of labour, the vast majority of the the monetary gains have been concentrated in the hands of the few at the top.

An increase in unemployment is to be expected when Keynesian economics are applied to real life.

I've nothing against increasing funding on schools/infrastructure, really, but if this is a response to the idiotic protests, then I'm all against it. I think that we should focus on cutting spending, not increasing it, and as nice as the education system and infrastructure are, they're not in danger of collapsing. We have plenty of roads and power lines. Our schools do their job, and those that fail in school do so of their own volition. We have community colleges and state universities and a ton of other free or next-to-free ways of going into higher education if you apply yourself.

Everyone should be taxed more, and no one should be helped. We need to increase how much money the government is getting and decrease how much they're handing out. It is foolish to think that doing one or the other is going to help the deficit at all. I am okay with taxing off-shore accounts too, if you can find a proper way to do it (which will be difficult).

I've been trying to bite my tongue on how silly OWS is to me. I think its funny that they are protesting corruption on Wall Street meanwhile they've been camping in a park illegally (just because the city looks the other direction doesn't make it okay, and that is the reason both sides are doing what they do). Frankly I think the protesters are misguided. I think a lot of it is based around a sense of self-entitlement, and while it would be great to not have to worry about health care or cost of education it is hopelessly idealistic in this economy. We shouldn't be starting new programs (in fact we should also be scaling back a lot of programs and spending - welfare, defense, foreign...). And I would be happy to see some of the corrupt CEOs go who do horde money for themselves and don't redistribute it properly.

I think the problem is that people associate A lot of corrupt practices on Wall Street (loosely, as it happens in their homes, accounts, and businesses more so) as being the capitalism essence. When really, that is like saying North Korea is practicing true Communism.