What part of

"the top 10% of earners pay 70% of all taxes and the top 50% pay 98%"

is compatible with your assertion that

"the wealthy have bribed and bought their unquenchable greed into law, and it's siphoned off huge amounts of money from everyone else".

It is a simple fact that the wealthy pay far more in taxes than the middle class or the poor. In addition, the mindless liberal mythology of blood-sucking bankers notwithstanding, most of the wealthy people have become wealthy by benefiting their fellow citizens to a far greater extent than the amount left over for themselves.

  If you create a business and make a widget, and people like it and buy it in huge numbers, you will become very wealthy and in the process benefit the society by the added value represented by the widgets you made which didn't exist before. Nobody has been harmed and you have not taken anything from anybody and you have no obligation to give anything back.

Your mentality is stuck in zero sum economy of the hunter gatherer society, not in a society where we produce the stuff we need rather than pick it up from a tree.

Your logic is flawed. It is perfectly possible for more people to vote for Democrats and yet Republicans (or vice versa) to win the house by a landslide without any gerrymandering. You have to win more congressional districts, not more overall votes. Republicans traditionally have support in far more geographical areas (break it down by states, or counties or whatever) than Democrats: http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/11/07/CountyMap2012.main.jpg Democrats get their votes from a small number of densely populated areas.

Yea but they have to order it and it takes a few days to arrive. You can do that online in a bunch of places as well. Now if they were an actual bar, serving alcohol and offered instant tattooing of your photos they might be onto something.

The name of the top bidder is a closely guarded secret but those familiar with the process describe him as a bold, British chap with a habit of touching the corner of his mouth with his little finger.

Oh, so I gave you too much credit in my last post. You don't actually support socialism, you just have no idea what socialism is. Please tell me which of the following Merriam-Webster definitions of socialism apply to the economic system they have in Sweden:

so-cial-ism
noun

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

But if their senior executives are directly appointed by the government, why would they need to be directed to do anything. I think it is unlikely that people who were put into their job by the government and can be removed from that job by the government at any time, not to mention the fact that they most likely were in the same year at Oxford/Cambridge and belong to the same country clubs as the government ministers, would exhibit a great deal of independence what it comes to criticizing those same ministers.

I don't know what's more pathetic, your ignorance of what socialism is or the fact that you remember what my signature used to be. So since you gave your opinion of me, let me give my opinion of you:

You are a product of a failed government-run education system and idiotic parents who neglected their responsibly to teach you even the basic notions of individual liberty and personal responsibility, and allowed you to live your life guided by primitive emotions and hunter-gatherer instincts and controlled like a dog on a leash by the unscrupulous people who exploit cretins like you for their ends. In short you are not much more than a dumb animal, except without honesty.

Yes, I can tell that from one post - name calling without any explanation or reason is a dead giveaway, another hint being that you apparently support socialism.

Other than that I don't know or care to know anything you have to say and I wouldn't remember you if you were painted red and jumping up and down making monkey noises, which would actually be slightly more interesting than what you have to say. But feel free to keep track of my signatures. Some day maybe you'll understand but I wouldn't bet on it.

For some reasons, some US-Americans have a problem with grasping the difference between "public" and "governmental".
 
I have to admit that I do. Can you enlighten me as to what is the difference?

Some quotes from the wikipedia:

"Under the Royal Charter, the BBC must obtain a licence from the Home Secretary. This licence is accompanied by an agreement which sets the terms and conditions under which BBC is allowed to broadcast."

"The BBC Trust is [....] the governing body of the Corporation. [...] BBC Trustees are appointed by the British monarch on advice of government ministers."

"Within the United Kingdom its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee [...] the level of the fee is set annually by the British Government and agreed by Parliament."

So it is licensed by the government subject to an agreement approved by the government of the terms and conditions under which it is allowed to broadcast, it's governing body is directly appointed by the government and it is funded by public money according to a fee set by the government. Yep, sounds totally independent to me.

I never watch CNN so you might be right but judging by their website they are just as biased towards the liberal causes as Fox is towards conservative. I bet you never watch Fox either and, like most liberals, you probably imagine it to be a lot worse than it is.

How cute that you think BBC and CNN are news organizations (except in a literal sense) rather than propaganda outlets for their owners, the British government and Ted Turner.

The Guilded Age was an age of economic growth, great increase in prosperity of ordinary people and of technological advances. I don't see why something like that would be a bad thing? Inequality of income is a natural consequence of the same system that historically creates the greatest increase in prosperity, namely economic liberty combined with strong rule of law and protection of private property. You know, the system that formerly impoverished socialist economies are these days moving towards and, as a result, experiencing huge growth.

The living standards have been getting better and still are, even in the western world. If you have some evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it. Oh you mean that the rich are getting richer so that makes you feel worse off in comparison even though you really are better off as well?

No, that's a given. The submitter's question is actually "What would you like to see at CES, apart from flying cars and personal jet packs?" but he reasonably omitted the redundant second half of the sentence.

USA badly needs some depussification if it is going to compete with China and other emerging economies in the long run. You have to take some risks every once in a while but you can't do that if there is a pack of lawyers watching like hawks and waiting for your slightest mistake to sue you out of business. Our extreme obsession with safety will lead to our destruction.

I think US Office Of Personnel Management has better data than your article: http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp

So, federal government: 4.4 million employees

Plus, state and local, 16 million: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-156.html