Where most of the continents were being destroyed in a cataclysmic event, but the 1% types (well, more like the .001% types) - the super rich, the political elite, the connected - were all going to be saved in giant 'arks' that could survive the massive disturbances at sea long enough so that they could repopulate after all of the riff-raff had been killed off. Based on that photo, the super-rich aren't going to even need geopolitical allies before long. They'll be able to build their own escape pods without even bothering with governments or militaries.

After all, the ultra rich are going to need peasants to take care of the dirtier parts of life. And they (the folks making the movie) certainly didn't even suggest that the ultra rich were going to be treated like pariahs by the Africans when they landed. If they left themselves open to problems, I would suspect it more from the crews of the ships, who mostly seemed to be military.

Chillax.

I've been under stress for too many years, my system flooded with stress hormones, so I can't actually sustain any deep emotion about anything. My word choice is more simply a rhetorical choice than indicative of any specific emotion or depth of 'caring' about any specific issue.

the inhabitants of the arks were specifically chosen to represent a broad spectrum of people whose purpose would be to repopulate Earth. Useful, talented, knowledgeable people from across the globe: scientists, artists, educators, communicators, etc. There was never a reference to economic status as criteria that I recall.

to get himself and his spoiled kids taken on the ark, and it was made plain in dialogue in several places that the arks were incredibly expensive and largely funded by selling space to similar billionaires of no particular talent or moral stature. Highly placed government officials and military types were also in on it, because it was such a massive undertaking that it required government involvement and military protection. I do recall them taking along some scientists as well, but if they mentioned a 'broad spectrum' of other individuals, it was slipped in in passing among all of the CGI explosions and whatnot. I don't particularly recall much mention of those other types.

In exchange for financing the project, the billionaires did get their ticket punched to get on the ark with the other more deserving people.

So that meant that almost all of the people on these ''arks'' were billionaires. Problem is, in reality, no one survives without an environment that can sustain life. Once we've diminished that thin layer of breathable oxygen there's no way we can survive. So they left that out in the movie .. Oh Hollywood, aren't they a hoot.

No really it's called the Utopia. http://www.utopiaresidences.com/

...except police and firefighter unions.

...a certain class of American is giving a lot of thought to the possibility of rampaging poors coming for them.

You don't want to piss off the firefighters who will put out the fires in your mansion set by the "rampaging poors" or the police who will protect you from their wrath.

...had a Porsche, I don't think I'd want to see it from inside my house.

Oh, well, no risk of that in this lifetime.

I sometimes fantasize about what I would do with a hundred million dollars (or some other arbitrary large sum, depending on my level of grandiosity at the time). Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and yachts hold no appeal for me; I couldn't enjoy that stuff without feeling terrible guilt and an overwhelming desire to give it away. I always figured &'d keep a few million to cover me, and then devote a lot of time & energy into trying to figure out how to use that money to make the greatest benificent influence on the things I care about--namely, the biosphere and this desperate little species of ours, still mired in the primordial soup of our own emotions but striving for the stars nevertheless.

To so many others, it would be a waste. I look at places like Walmart & Apple and all I see are people getting wealthy off the slave labor of others, off ensuring they remain locked into a life of serfdom, just as they are using that wealth & power they posses to attain the same here at home.
There are those that resist and there are those that assist.

No one wants this,

will want one

Rain and dust and mud spattered car parked in your apartment? Not to mention that with all the editted film left on the cutting room floor, that looks like about a 15-20 minute process. So rather than park your car, walk through beautifully landscaped scenery on possible a lovely summers day to an elevator that takes you to your apartment, one is supposed to sit in their car for 20 minutes being transported there by automated elevator?

Just stupid...

do it for you? Particularly in a city environment. Read the paper or watch TV enroute to your destination! Hell, I'd rather have a garden room instead of a garage in my high rise (not that I'm getting one of those any time soon...).

...that cleans your buggy on its way up to your "flat."

They dump the treated waste water into the river. Detroit intakes their drinking water on the upstream (from the city) side of the Detroit River and dumps their treated waste water on the downstream side of the river. Cleveland and Buffalo intake this treated Detroit water.

No practical way to eliminate this, we just have to be super careful about how well the waste water is treated. One useful (though pricey) option is to have a dual water supply system where the treated water is run back through the secondary system and all lawn sprinkling and car washes use the treated water off the secondary system (don't take a drink out of your garden hose!). It would require re-piping of most municipal water supplies, but particularly in drought ares might well be the optimum solution. Until then we just have careful watch over municipal sewage treatment to assure the discharge water is adequately treated.

Can I drive my Yugo in the elevator ?

We are so incensed that the poor use 'welfare', our hard-earned dollars, to "dine on king crab and take ocean cruises" while we sacrifice and live on ramen noodles to put our kids through our state public community colleges (which our parents went to for free).

That way we won't notice what they're doing with our unpaid wage and salary increases, non-existent benefits and regressive tax cuts they pocket for "their essentials" and more chips for the big casino stock market.

So, lets take away those safety nets - the rich need more chips!

All The While What Remains Of The Middle Class Is Amusing Itself To Death In Fear That They Are Next.

It's been probably 40 years since I read Brave New World, and 20 since rereading 1984. It's been distressing, to say the least, to see elements of both future worlds manifested today. I have several friends/family in the Huxley scenario: "Did you hear what Miley did? OMG, Kim looked slutty in that outfit. Atrocious!" These are grown-ups -- the same people who think I care about this stuff and get angry because I point out the latest political or gun-related REAL atrocity. I've been told I'm a Debbie Downer. Well, yeah, I guess I am.

as intended. Real news, the awful TRUTH is hard to find; the Left has done nothing to stop Corporate, Hate Media consolidation in 20+ years since Clinton deregulated the Media with the 1996 Telecom Act.

90% of all US Media, TV, radio stations, newspapers and publications are all controlled by 4-5 Media MONOPOLIES now:

COMCAST (NBC, MSNBC), DISNEY (ABC), VIACOM (CBS), TIME WARNER (CNN, HBO), NEWS CORP (FOX)

We all live at the microscopic scraps level, where the biggest price tags we regularly encounter are in the hundreds of dollars, not millions. That's an invisible world to us.

It's.......PEOPLE!

I'm wondering which takes away the lion share of our taxes.

Marked for ref.

Of course, I have to re-define that term to "working class"…

Meanwhile, there's this…

They do it in the form of constantly calling for increases on the tax rates of individuals, when they should be screaming daily for a repeal of all the loopholes that only corps and millionaires get that ensure they pay very little to nothing regardless of the rates the rest of us pay. They've been conned by the same corps and millionaires and billionaires and the media companies they control.

talking about when they call for increases on the tax rates of the rich. I think we are aware that it is not just a matter of percentages on personal taxes but also that the subsidies and hidden gifts and welfare to the corporations owned mostly by the rich that are problem. We are also aware that the capital gains taxes need to be adjusted and that it would be helpful to have a small tax per trade or transaction on the stock market and other trading exchanges around the world.

It's pretty easy to say stop the corporate loopholes rather than "raise taxes."

Rich people don't care if we raise taxes (like Obama did) because they aren't going to pay them anyway.

Others include raising the taxes on large inheritances. Another would be to raise the taxes on capital gains. If you recall, Bush lowered those. Yet another would be to impose a new tax on stock market and other trading transactions. Ending loopholes is another way. A combination would be best.

The disparity in wealth and income has grown since the late 1960s. But the revenue of our government continues to derive to a great extent from income taxes. Because the wages of the middle class and the poor have not increased as rapidly as the wealth and incomes of the rich, the middle class and the poor cannot carry as much of the tax burden.

That means that those whose incomes have increased, those who earn more, need to make up the revenue lost from the relative decline in wages of the middle class and poor. That is why we say that the rich need to pay more in taxes. It does not matter how those taxes from the wealthy, the very top 1% or so are paid, but they have to be paid.

One of the problems with our growing wealth disparity is that the tax burden has to be shifted. It would be healthier for our society if the wages and earnings of the middle classes and the poor were raised so that everyone could share in the tax burden. But you cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip. People working irregularly or earning low wages can barely afford a place to live and food and cannot pay taxes. That means that we have "raise" the taxes of those who can pay them. It's just reality. It is not so much ideological as it is pragmatic. The money to maintain streets, police, fire, education and all the services that governments have to provide including national defense and the regulatory agencies that are necessary in a country with our population and of our sophistication has to be found. Again. You cannot squeeze blood out of turnips.

Own a small business living your liberal values and then tell me again how it doesn't matter where you get the taxes from. You're wrong. Simplistic thinking.

It does matter where you get taxes from. You have to tax the money, not the business, not the person. You tax the money where it is.

Is to close the loopholes. Small businesses hire people. There are no loopholes available to them. I live it everyday. There is no earthly reason I pay more in taxes per year than mega corps. None.

The large corporations can, for example, realize profits overseas in countries in which populations are smaller and taxes lower. It is extremely unfair that they can actually make their money as a differential between the cost of a product purchased in China that is resold and repurchased and then finally sold in the US at many times the price at which it was originally purchased and then claim only that portion of the profit as profit that was actually recognized within the US.

There are so many tax avoidance schemes that reduce the taxes of large corporations and shift that burden to working Americans and small businesses in America.

That's why I posted about the fact that the rising disparity in wealth enables a disproportionate amount of political influence and thus favor-purchasing by the wealthy. These tax loopholes which DUers refer to as low tax rates are precisely the problem. A lot of the problem lies in the accounting methods that are used by the big corporations and, as I wrote, the fact that they can hide profits in their multi-national networks of subsidiaries.

I think most DUers agree with you but use less sophisticated language and expression to say what they think.

If we get rid of the loopholes without manipulating the rate, the Republicans will scream that it isn't "fair" to the coupon clippers that they're paying such outlandish taxes; if we give them a tax cut, they'll Use The Money To Help The Poor. And there will be a tax cut...which of course won't be used to help the poor.

If we keep the loopholes and the low tax rate we have now, we run into the situation we have now: the rich aren't helping the poor.

If you want the rich to create jobs and invest - not "buy a piece of paper from one rich guy, wait till the price of that paper does whatever it is you want it to do, and sell it to another rich guy" but buy machinery, factories, development of new and useful goods - then you raise the tax rate to an unbelievable amount, then sprinkle the code liberally with lots and lots of deductions and credits for doing socially useful things. This is what we did before Reagan was elected, and it's one of the reasons America was so strong in the world - rich people used their money to improve the economy.

I have a small business in the Seattle area. I pay 21 employees 2-3 times minimum wage to employees I train on my own dime. They get 28 paid days of leave. I pay 100% of a good health insurance policy (same policy I have), and a 401K with 4% match with immediate vesting.

I paid $240k in federal taxes this year. Boeing paid zero on several billion in profits. For like the 10th year in a row. In fact they got a refund. My effective tax rate is 40% thanks to other taxes beyond fed taxes. Boeing taxes are negative 1.4%.

You're wrong.

They all paid less federal taxes than my small, 21 person business.

That's not fucked up?

The problem is twofold:

low tax rates on the ultra rich

AND

high numbers of loopholes

The current rate of tax on the rich is 39.6 percent. When you loophole the shit out of it you run it down to...didn't Romney pay twelve percent on his $25 million tax return? And if you're Boeing, who has access to loopholes coming out the ass, you can run a 35 percent corporate tax rate down to negative figures quick. That's the real problem with loopholes - not that they exist, but that they can be used to eliminate a tax that's too damn low in the first place.

Now consider a split tax rate: 35 percent on corporations that make...oh, $5 million top-line or less...and 75 percent on corporations that make above that. They keep all the current loopholes, but will start paying taxes. And add a couple new brackets to the individual tax system to enable the Romneys and Buffetts of the world to pay their fair share.

You and I may agree, but to go back to MY original response in this thread, DU'ers are just as snowed on this as anyone. You don't need to raise taxes (which ultimately ensnare the middle class as well).

All we need to do is close the loopholes. Period. I bust my ass daily as a small business owner. And truth be told I could retire tomorrow. I keep it going because I know that 21 employees depend on it. But if they raise taxes to the point that the government gets 50% Of my profit then that's the tipping point for me. Fuck it. Not going to do it.

Close the loopholes. It's outrageous that I pay more federal taxes as a small business than Boeing, GE, comcast, apple, and Microsoft

Outrageous.

Nice to know somebody gets it. The only problem I have with paying high taxes is a) how they spend them on wars and the DOD (which I live with but hate), and b) how I pay more than these huge mega corps. It's ridiclous. Me, at less than $2mill in revenue pays more in taxes that companies making BILLIONS in not revenue, but BILLIONS in profit.

That isn't a Democratic Party principle. I agree that it is outrageous for you to pay far more in taxes than a mega corporation. Do you fall into the boat within a boat income bracket?

We do want mega corps to pay their fair share like they did ages ago, when the nation did big things besides war.

The country built dams, bridges, highways, the space program and educated the people. Now filling a pot hole seems to be a challenge.

Imagine building the TVA today and rural electrification. It would never happen.

with foodstamps

About the excess IF all had the basics for a decent life and their excess didn't hurt the environment. So I guess I do care. Actually, I'd find that excess porn esthetically disgusting even if everyone did have enough.

would refer to it as the top of the disparity pyramid maybe) buys that is the problem. As Elizabeth Warren points out with the student loan interest imbalance, the rich push the burden of supporting the commons, the things we all need and pay for like the cost of government, on the poor and middle class. As she points out, if your parents have enough money to put you through college and graduate school and you don't have to borrow, take out loans, the cost of your education is much lower than if your parents can't afford to pay and you have to borrow the money and pay interest compounded at a rate of maybe 4% per year. That kind of advantage is what political access and control get for you.

Before the disparity of incomes and wealth grew as huge as it is today, higher education was priced reasonably. State and federal governments made state universities affordable. No longer the case. This is tragic for our country. We don't notice it now, but we will inevitably lose our lead in higher education and the knowledge we need to compete and stay afloat in the future.

Pretty unbelievable.

His driver is parking the boat...

The rich make all the money, pay none of the taxes.
The middle class pays all the taxes, does all the work.
And the poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep them showing up at those jobs!

Minimum wage and less-than-minimum wage workers pick our food, pump our gas, sell us stuff, work in factories making stuff for us, and on and on.

Where do you park it then? Granted sometimes I park it in one of my many Caiman Island mansions. There is the secret cave as well.


Granted the secret cave has dreadful decor and a tiny dinning room. Still, for a submarine it's not too bad.

That's when it all started. Republicans claimed the rich would LOVE to give you a raise but they couldn't afford it because of high taxes and the burdensome, profit killing regulations like having to install expensive smoke scrubbers to keep the tree hugging hippies happy.

That money they got was SUPPOSED to go into PAYROLL.

Wall Street decided to buy the three branches of government while Reagan was giving away the country! IF ONLY, more people knew or cared to remember OR cared to read a book about modern history!

Reagan started our slow roll into hell!

To turn the poor into a social pariah, to be hated and despised. Their aim is to make cutting social programs acceptable to the middle class. They need to cuts programs that benefit the poor and middleclass to balance the revenue lost from tax cuts and loopholes. Its working on the stupid voters.

Hope peaceful change is still possible.

GW and TJ thought so, esp. with the reign of Terror.

* When do the Guillotine Emoticons arrive for us to use? Not still on back order I hope-

public debt.....I'm going to get on my box now...

Keep building those stadiums at our general city funds expense....give aways....case in point Wrigleville baseball training - $8o million from general and overruns you will never hear about..but then, Chicago Wrigley reno - classified historic...we pay...

When will we ever get involved in local government....just say NO - we did, and won, when this very same city wanted us to build AZ Cardinals stadium - um NO, and hell NO - so they moved it to Glendale...was it hard work - oh well,

I digress....

small story - my son, US Navy (can't give his rank) spent 2 years in Dubia providing security at the pier for our ships docking - he loved Dubia..in all their splendor..he also had to provide security and transport from the huge - massive ships - like the one in the picture - from CEO to royalty - so many stories....he also observed how many civilian workers labored all day for practically nothing and lived in labor camps in the most harsh of conditions....(many workers from middle Eastern countries..slave labor)

Perhaps this is why our corps here in US think their employees are living large...they have seen the profits from slave labor....

Proud IBEW/CWA retiree
AFSCME - hubby

There's still a middle class?

where your next meal is coming from, as one DUer said here recently. The US is now No. 2 in the middle class for the first time. Canada is No. 1 since 2013. US education now ranks No. 17 worldwide.

... that the "random" ad to the right of the Original Post is from Maserati?

Perfect ad to counter the GOP bill to eliminate the inheritance tax on millionaires and billionaires. Bumper stickers, shirts etc...
When only ONE boat in a boat is not enough - support the GOP inheritance tax elimination.

Awwww....how magnanimous.