But China's middle class is roughly the same size as US middle class. But they just about met. In a decade China will have double the size of middle class, while US middle class is steadily shrinking.

If you don't let us snoop on you, children get fucked. I mean, literally, fucked, by pedophiles. Yes, that is your only choice a stalker or pedophile. Pick one.

I'm for this proposal, if the same bill will include a requirement for all military financing to declare ahead of time which military conflict the weapon will be used with specifics and financial analysis of the impact for dollar compared to current weapons.

But they don't pay the same tax for the same purchase. The only REAL commodity we have in this life is our time. Money is just a mental construct. If you paid the same amount of time in tax for the same purchase, we could talk about some fairness. But you don't. You pay same amount of some made up number, which for one person could mean a day, for another an hour and for another just a fraction of a second.

Sales Tax is actually a reverse progressive tax. Depending on the percentage of your income spent each month, you are taxed more or less. The most at 100% income spent, which is poor and lower middle class. Then middle class gets to about 95% spending, upper middle class 85% spending and then you get the rich, which spend generally at 10% or less. So their tax burden is 10 times lower than the poor and middle class. There is nothing fair about a sales tax.

Heh?

I'm sorry, I thought you've got problems with basic economics, but clearly it is also reading comprehension and spelling. Please read again my last comment.

I spend a lot of time at the computer. Well over 80 hours a week. So I did a lot of measurements with different configurations of HW/SW. And I found out that I spend at average two more hours a week doing non-productive stuff on PC/Win than on Mac/OSX. Those two hours a week are 150 hours over the amortized lifetime (3 years) of the computer. I don't know what is your hourly rate, but I cannot afford to use PC/Win even if they paid me $5000 to take it, I would not. It is just too expensive for me. So yeah, I need OSX for "some reason".

Because you think of it wrong. You think about how you would handle the situation if you were in it. The people that starve do not have your skills and/or intelligence. They don't have access to information, transportation and education. They might not be aware of programs that help, but even if they did, food is something you need every single day. It wears on you to beg all the time. They might be also too busy working often 2-3 part time jobs and getting from one to the other.

Most people also starve because the food they can get is not nutricious or they don't get enough of it. The reason being high pricess on quality food, which are kept high due to the export and other factors. We do have full shelves, but we also have people who look at those shelves and cannot afford what is on them and so the shelves stay full.

There were 4 billlion dollars cut from the food stamps program as well just recently. It will mean so many more families who still starve, but do not qualify for the food stamps. Those churches and food banks are not available in rural areas, where poverty is the biggest problem and are not sufficient for the demand in impoverished cities where there is just too many poor and starving people.

The argument you are making is so insensitive and prejudicial it is hard to imagine how you can even think like that, but I guess this is what positive bias is about.

If America stopped exporting food, so many countries could finally get domestic food supply on financially viable track and get self-reliant and people in those countries would get up economically out of poverty and hunger. Agriculture is the first industry of any country and we are denying them to opportunity to build it, basically keeping them in the stone age.

On top of that people in US starve, while US exports food. How can you put that together other than the US Food Aid being basically a money giveaway to the local agriculture industry. You need to read some more on this "achievement" you mention. It is the one policy that basically decimates central america and africa and keeps them from developing. It is almost as bad as the fact that since they are now fully reliant on the food aid, we dictate policiies like no condoms in a continent fighting the worst AIDS epidemic.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/jul/18/us-multinationals-control-food-aid

Make sure to get your flag ready.

I'm sorry, in that case... AMERICA! FUCK YEAH! We ARE the greatest country!

If you want be alarmist about something, at least get your facts straight. NSA is spying on people for Apple, not the other way around. Corporations are the citizens with votes, the government is in their service. The reason why there is outrage about the data sharing going the other way too is because Facebook does not want their data to be shared with Microsoft :)

You see, this is yet another from a long list of excuses for people to justify their morally indefensible behavior. When slavery was a law on the books, the laundry list of arguments justifying it was just as long.

Society implies rules, laws, no laws means anarchy. Laws imply enforcement, non-enforced rules mean anarchy. In a complex society, more rules are needed, with the complexity, judges and law enforcement cannot be part-time volunteers, but have to be professionals. So someone has to support their lives, while they perform this duty. Either there is one wealthy person supporting this group, which would imply dictatorship or feudalism, or more wealthy people, that would be oligarchy or the cost and the selection of rules is evenly spread around everyone, whcih would be democracy. Unless the society is primitive, there is a need for taxes to preserve democracy. But I'd like to hear your non-brainwashed way to do this. You so far offered no workable alternative. :)

If you live in the same state, where you setup the rules (minimum wages, business taxes, trade rules, labor migration) in a way that 2/3 of people barely make living and then you enforce such rules, you perpetrate violence that keeps others hungry, sick, dumb and homeless. To me, that is sickening. The only reason, why you have the money in the first place is that you skewed the rules in your own favor. Increasing taxes is not taking the money away, it is the same form of rule making you used to create an environment in which you get the money yourself disproportionatelly compared to others.

There is enough wealth to use less than 50% GDP to have everyone, fed, sheltered, educated and healthy. It was not the case always, but since about middle of 20th century, this number got under 100% and now it is going down each year. In 21st century in 1st world countries it is now under 50%. It is immoral by any standard not to do so if there are the means to it. How you split the remaining 50%, I don't care. Feel free to make rules where one guy gets it all if you want. But as long as there are people starving, sick, homeless and poorly educated, your moral imperative is to do something about it.

It works in Scandinavia, it works mostly in Canada, so there is no way to say it is impossible to do so.

It's a matter of degree. Negatively impacted by taxation usually means: "Cannot afford a new car or bigger house." and on the other hand you've got "starving", "freezing", "dying of disease". I'll save my compassion for those who cannot afford new car until the time, everyone has basic food, shelter, education and health covered. Those are not optional, you have no choice but to address those problems and if you cannot make enough money to address them, you live your whole life as a slave. America says it has abolished slavery, but that is a load of crap, it just got transformed. And you have the audacity to equate freedom with paying less taxes.