Czuch: Actually the buses here a very good, comfy and regular. Our local service is every ten minutes, and most services in this area run at least 4 times an hour. The Buses have been built to cover the problems of wheelchairs and prams (the doorside can be lowered to the level of the kerb) and have easy access.. Certain supermarkets offer free delivery... you shop it, they pack it and deliver it.

The bus companies are private run for the most, some services in some towns are free, it depends on where and what the service is for. The councils subsidise certain routes, and run a door to door service for OAP's and the disabled.

Us British like them.

The overwhelming majority of federal income taxes are paid by the very highest income earners. The top 1% of income earners pay about 32% of all income taxes. The top 5% pays 51.4%. The top 10% of high income earners, pay 63.5%. The top 20% of income earners pays 78% of all federal income taxes


The bottom 80% pay only 20% of the burden.

# An enormous percentage of taxes are payed by a minority of Americans:

* The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 29% of all taxes.
* The Top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes.

# Our tax system is not so much progressive as it is confiscatory -- Frederic Bastiat called this phenomenon "legal plunder." A progressive tax is based on the premise that those with more income can afford to pay more taxes, and conversely, those with little or no income should pay no tax. However, a quick look at Graph 1A below shows that the U.S. tax system has become far beyond progressive. Fully half the taxpayers contribute almost nothing in individual income taxes.
# The Top 1% of income earners (comprising about 1 million families) earn about 15% of the total income earned by all wage earners in the United States, yet they pay almost 30% of all individual income taxes.
# Furthermore, the Top 1% are shouldering a roughly 50% higher proportion of the overall income tax burden than they did in 1977.
# The argument most oft used against tax breaks are that they benefit only the wealthy. It is clear from even a cursory look at the numbers below that the 'wealthy' will receive the majority of any income tax reduction because they pay a disproportionately huge percentage of the income taxes! To structure a tax break such that those in upper income brackets are excluded would constitute nothing more than transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who don't (i.e. legal plunder.)

Czuch: The professor at the U. of Alaska (Rachunak, I think) tried to convert me to conservatism because I was his best student. There's plenty I don't know about economics, but I'm no dummy.

Czuch: That's right, they have all the same rights. But they shouldn't have! That's my point.

Price gouging is a separate issue, as you say, though it is very real. But it is not true that the government gets most of its money through the wealthy, or that the poor pay nothing. It gets most of its wealth through INFLATION! Inflation is the hidden tax that robs you & me every day, a penny at a time.

Here's a great book on this, by a conservative:

"The Creature from Jekyll Island"
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212

The Usurper: Corporations aren't people


You are good with your conspiracy stuff, but have a lot to learn about economics..... Corporations have all the same rights and responsibilities of an individual, economics 101

The Usurper: Look.... the government subsidizes the oil industry, the government gets most of its money from wealthy people, and they certainly get none from poor people, these subsidies make it possible for $2 gas instead of $8 without them... this has nothing to do with price gouging (maybe there is gouging, but that doesnt change the fact that subsidies keep gas prices lower)

So in effect, it is the wealthy americans paying to keep gas prices lower for the poor people....something I would think you would advocate for not against?

Charles Martel: You need some solid evidence before you can rightly accuse Czuch of such a conspiracy. As to conspiracies, I don't believe in them either, except the ones that are true. :o)

Czuch: I do advocate for the poor. It's just that they'd have a better chance in a free system than in a system stacked against them.

"Does that include allowing companies to send jobs overseas"

If we had a truly free market worldwide, sure that would be fine. Corporations aren't people, and they would need restrictions.

Czuch: czuch, I'm formally accusing you of being involved in the conspiracy to steal my chips in poker, along with fencer, both bushes, dick chaney, and the Queen of England

The Usurper: give everyone a chance to compete in a truly free market


Does that include allowing companies to send jobs overseas, if it helped them compete? Because i dont think most liberals like a market that free

Czuch: Even if those stats were correct, which I correct, they still don't include inflation & price gouging. But it makes no sense to me, that a wealthy man would pay himself 6 dollars so he could offer gas for 6 dollars less. Maybe an oil guy pays a steel guy, and then a steel guy pays an oil guy, but it amounts to the same thing. It doesn't make sense and it isn't the way things work. Why are the rich getter richer and poor getting poorer? It can only be because wealth is being transferred. This is simple logic.

The Usurper: Yes, I would be for cutting out all handouts, but it would mean a lot higher gas prices, and it would hurt the poor the most.... You seem to advocate for the poor, so I dont understand how you could favor something like that?

The Usurper: The top 10% wealthiest Americans pay over 90% of the taxes in the US, so when the government subsidizes the oil companies, the majority of that money comes from the wealthy!

Without those subsidies, gas prices would be at $8 instead of $2... so I would think you would be advocating to let the rich keep paying the oil companies for lower gas costs for the poor?

Czuch: I thought our agreement was that cutting out handouts altogether, both to the rich & poor, is a better solution than we have know, because it would even the playing field and give everyone a chance to compete in a truly free market. Was that not our agreement?

Then I said, if we keep the handout system, it is better to let the money trickle up than trickle down, for a variety of reasons. But we didn't agree on this point.

Czuch: So you're saying the money comes from the wealthy to pay off the wealthy? No my friend, the money comes from me & you, in taxes, in future debt, in inflation, and through price gouging.

The Usurper: Didnt we just go over this recently?

The Usurper: Where do you think the money comes from for the 'hand outs' to the oil companies?

(V): You would think that public transport would cost you nothing with all the taxes you already pay to get it in the first place?

Czuch: If we had public transit to get me there...who knows. lol

Czuch: Really? What printout did you read to get that info...the one supplied by the wealthy? lol

The wealthy jack up prices mercilessly unless & until people just have to stop buying gas. Then naturally they lower them. It's called monopoly capitalism.

(V): Yeah traveling by bus, thats convenient, and comfy, or going to run errands by bus or subway.... sounds like a load of fun to me... you can keep it, and I dont see Userper moving there anytime soon either

The Usurper: We have a high level of public transport, including some very good deals on using buses over a long distance. I can buy a ticket that lasts all day and gives me unlimited travel in our local area. Or even for about £1.50 more buy a ticket that allows me to travel long distances and is recognised by many bus companies.

I use to do a 200 mile round trip in a day on the one ticket

The Usurper: Nobody in the UK goes hungry????

They better have a lot of public transport... who except the wealthy can afford to drive????

At least over here, the wealthy subsidizes the gas to keep prices lower for the poor... over there, the poor cant afford to drive!

Czuch: Yes.... But then again no-one can moan about the rich paying more taxes to subsidise fuel.

Plus, in such cases as farmers there are special rates.

Czuch: Yeah and nobody goes hungry. What a concept!

Besides, if I'm not mistaken, England has invested in public transit, whereas in America in most places you drive or you're up the creek.

(V): so you pay about a $1.50 more per gallon in just taxes than we pay for it in total

Looks like about $3.49 per gallon in the UK....(thats US dollars)

Czuch: Duty on petrol is about £2 per US gallon, plus VAT!!!

(V): Its about a quarter of the total cost.... what is your tax rate then?

Czuch: 55 cents.. Oh wow that is high..... NOT!!!</b>

Drivers over here pay road tax, to help maintain the highways they drive on, they pay a high duty on petrol rather then those who don't drive paying tax for them.

But on the other side, some of the problem seems to be the oil companies, who make extra ordinary profits and are slow to pass on savings re reductions in the cost of oil.

(V): As for petrol taxes.. obviously not enough tax.



Well it varies by state, but in California for example, its about 55 cents per gallon.....

(V): There's no high like killing for God, I guess. I think Jesus also had something to say on that.....

(V): Naturally it would also include New Age gurus who work for the buck.

(V): H.P. Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophy movement in the late 19th century, said that all forms of spiritual, psychic & natural "magic," done for selfish ends, is Black Magic by definition. This would include today forms of mind manipulation by politicians, preachers & even some corporate commercials, I would think.

(V): "Have you heard of the luck of the Irish..." (singing) -- John Lennon, one of my heroes. Another is William Blake, the great romantic poet who decried the abuses of Church & State during the Industrial Revolution.

The Usurper: It wouldn't surprise me that they would do that. During the Northern Ireland troubles, British Intelligence were feeding secretly loyalists with info on the name and addresses of certain people they were worried about who were either active in the IRA or supporters..... They didn't live long after the info was passed on, and our Gov could deny anything to do with it.

The Usurper: Yeah I remember the Witch killings thanks to King James here, all over misuse of certain scripture and really not looking at the contexts that said scripture were about.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was about gold digging females that use their body to entrap a man into making them pregnant and making the man marry him out of duty rather then love. And being as a loveless marriage is against how a marriage is defined by God (A union of two souls) it is an abomination against the institute of marriage and God.

The other scripture that comes to mind is one about the misuse of 'spiritual', 'psychic' and natural 'magic' such as knowledge of herbs, etc. Such stuff is not to be used except for it's purpose to heal, which is recognised by healers and Wiccans alike. It is not to be used for self gain, and certainly not for some of this stuff we have today like "Most Haunted", psychic lines to find your true love, etc.

That is misuse and against the rules and regs and common sense of genuine gifted people. Not the 'money greedy ones'.

And don't forget the wonderful Reformation wars, which still (I believe) holds the record for deaths caused by it, some 40 million or so.... directly and indirectly from consequences like the break down of infrastructure and famine.

(V): Speaking of bad Commies.....

If you get a chance, you might look up that BBC documentary that aired in 1992 (I think), on Operation GLADIO.

This was a clandestine NATO operation, headed by U.S. Intelligence. It remained secret almost 4 decades, before being exposed.

After WWII, NATO left secret "stay-behind" units throughout Western Europe, ostensibly to sabotage a Soviet invasion, but actually what they did in the ensuing decades was carry out false-flag terror operations against their own citizens, in places like Italy. It was done wherever the communist movement seemed to be gaining ground through democratic processes, and included the kidnapping & murder of high officials on occasion.

So...what we have in this case, is the Anti-Communist West killing its own citizens & blaming the Communists...classic false-flag at its best. Naturally, the U.S. media didn't report on this documentary.

(V): You're absolutely right. And now the same McCarthy-style mindset that hunted for Commies in the old days is looking for Muslim terrorists & their sympathizers today. Going back further into European history, we had the Inquisition torturing witches and, in the Protestant movement, Calvin burning "heretics" at the stake. I think I see a pattern here....

The Usurper: A modern example would be McCarthyism (sp) from the early period after WWII, where anyone with even the remotest connection to the communist party was persecuted. Bad hysteria based on all communism being bad.

...... Even though just a few years before, they were our brothers in arms against Hitler and we were supplying them with essential supplies through which many sailors died from U-boat attacks as we knew if Russia fell, Hitler would have only the west to concentrate on.

I still remember pictures of the two sides meeting when they'd over run Germany and Berlin and the joy and comradeship shown by all soldiers for their fellow soldier at the joy of defeating the Nazi menace.

Bernice: I disagree, I recon Stalin controller was the greatest of modern times followed historically by the RCC before the reformation. And as a group controlling people, telling big lies.... Some of the modern Christian movements in America, who put business and the use of fear, above the truth and God.

After all.. If they told the truth.. they wouldn't get their limos.

Czuch: Nahhh We all now about Bush and the lies over Saddam's WMD's.

That cover up has already been blown.

As for petrol taxes.. obviously not enough tax.

Peer Review: a process used for checking the work performed by one's equals (peers) to ensure it meets specific criteria.

Peer Review: the evaluation of creative work or performance by other people in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work or performance in that field.

Now this:

"116th Peer-reviewed Paper Published in Journal of 9/11 Studies: 'The Missing Jolt: A Simple Refutation of the NIST-Bazant Collapse Hypothesis' "

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090117234838631


Yeah, this stuff is pretty heady. I guess some think all these scientists, architects, engineers, etc., publish papers refuting the government's conspiracy theory for fun.

Czuch: I'm glad we can see eye-to-eye on something...or at least be in the same ball park.

Bernice: No, I haven't read them all. I'm good, but I'm not Superman. The first link I gave, to the article by the BYU physicist, is a good place for you to start. :o)

I've been using the wrong word. Just going back over some papers, the word is "thermite."

The Usurper: bloody hell....isnt it a pity that I would be dead before I was able to read your first link....48 pages...and about 10,000 links with perhaps another 100,00 pages ROFLMBO.......

you dont expect me to believe that you have read all of that and gone into all the links and their links ad infinitum do you?

Artful Dodger: Winning?

I'll admit you're doing your damndest (sp), though how you transform a collapse showing ALL the obvious signs of controlled demolition into a "routine" collapse by fire which breaks many laws of physics, is a wonder to me.

But this debate is healthy for both of us. Everyone else just has to suffer through it. lol