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I started a fishing tackle manufacturing business, Berkley and Co., with $50 saved from my newspaper route when I was 15 years old.
From the beginning, my main focus was on sales and revenue.
The business was successful.
In my 50s, I ran for Congress. I won and appointed a person to run the company. He focused on cutting costs rather than building revenue and the business was soon headed for bankruptcy.
My son, Tom, came back to Iowa to run the company. He focused on marketing and research to build revenue, and when he sold the company a few years ago, it was by far the largest most successful fishing tackle manufacturing company in the nation.
Show me a company that ignores revenue and focuses on cutting costs, and I will show you a firm that is headed for failure. Show me a government that ignores revenue and focuses on cutting costs, and I will show you a government that is a failure.
Today that is exactly what we have in our state and federal governments.
Like most people and most corporations, I would prefer not to have to pay taxes. I am now 90 years old. I lived during the middle of the 1900s when our top income tax rate varied between 70 and 91 percent - more than double that of today. I saw what we can do when we properly tax ourselves to build a better nation.
Today the top 1 percent of households have over 38 percent of all privately held stock, 60 percent of financial securities and 62 percent of business equity. The top 10 percent own 80 percent to 90 percent of stocks, bonds, trust funds and business equities, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate. Since financial health is what counts as far as control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America.
My wife and I are part of that 10 percent. We are heroes in our hometown, just as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are national heroes.
Like them, we are not bad people, we want to be good people and contribute so we have formed a foundation for alternative medicine (FAIM.org) to try to do good with our money.
But our government is all screwed up. Instead of using everyone's wealth to build a better society as we did in the 1950s, we are cutting taxes to the rich and corporate America while we cut back on services and jobs for the masses. You do not create jobs by firing teachers and lowering wages.
People are starting to rise up in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states. They are correct to be disturbed and to protest. I hope they will keep it up. I hope they realize the basic problem. It is, revenue matters!
Until we properly tax corporate America and those of us who can afford it, and use those revenues to put our people back to work, clean up the environment, replace fossil fuels, reduce the deficit and bring back the prosperity we had in the middle of the last century, I believe we all need to join those protesters.
Having served in Congress, I have seen how political contributions from the wealthy, and now corporations, control our government. It is time for the people - all of us - to do as did the people of Egypt and join the street marches to demand that our government bring back the time we had in my youth, when we worked together, rich and poor, to contribute the tax revenue needed to build a nation that was the envy of the world.
A good read... and I've used Berkley products for years. Good luck getting today's youth fired up about politics. street protest, or even voting. And good luck with the rich payin' their fair share . . .
-------------------- " One toke over the line... "
Quote: vinsue said: Good luck getting today's youth fired up about politics. street protest, or even voting. And good luck with the rich payin' their fair share . . .
Quote: vinsue said: A good read... and I've used Berkley products for years. Good luck getting today's youth fired up about politics. street protest, or even voting. And good luck with the rich payin' their fair share . . .
Do you not remember the 2008 presidential election? Youth voters had a tremendous turnout, Obama was literally the biggest celebrity in the nation that year. It very easily CAN be done, you just have to find a cause that youth are willing to get behind.
QFT. Yeah, the only reason Young Voters turned out is because it was a young black guy running for president. Put two white guys in the spot light and you'll see that the youth wont turn out. I think in their minds they wanted to be a part of something thats never happened before. But once its the same shit we've seen for years it wont matter to young people.
I'm sad to admit it, my first election (2008) I went without voting. Voted in 2010, nobody i voted for won. In 2012 i plan on voting and getting every single one of my friends to that can as well.
Tax breaks hurt out government, plain and simple. Breaks to the poor may be beneficial, but as the marginal propensity to save increases the impact of tax breaks become smaller and smaller. If anything we need to understand we all need to pay our fair share, and those in the lower and middle class need to understand even though their taxes would go up the top money makers would be paying more too. If our fair share is larger than what we pay now so be it, but we need to have taxes for a successful government. And a successful government is the only way to help those of low socioeconomic status, entitlement programs aren't about wasting money on someone that doesn't need it; it's about giving people what they NEED to get by.
/rant
-------------------- "Je pense, donc je suis (I am thinking, therefore I am)." -Rene Descartes
Quote: Harry_Ba11sach said: ... Do you not remember the 2008 presidential election? Youth voters had a tremendous turnout, Obama was literally the biggest celebrity in the nation that year. It very easily CAN be done, you just have to find a cause that youth are willing to get behind.
. . . I voted in, and remember every presidential election since 1976. . .
Quote: Shroomofdoom said: ... But once its the same shit we've seen for years it wont matter to young people.
...
Quote: DungenessDank said: The only way the youth will turn out to vote will be with force.
Violent video games and all that.
...
Quote: Thebooedocksaint said: I'm sad to admit it, my first election (2008) I went without voting. Voted in 2010, nobody i voted for won. In 2012 i plan on voting and getting every single one of my friends to that can as well.
... I vote every year ... school, local, state, federal, and I've picked plenty of losers. My son voted for "Bama" in '08 and said "I picked a winner" I know my vote doesn't mean shit, but my NOT vote is worse . . .
-------------------- " One toke over the line... "
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Good luck getting today's youth fired up about politics. street protest, or even voting. And good luck with the rich payin' their fair share . . . 
I vote every year ... school, local, state, federal, and I've picked plenty of losers.
My son voted for "Bama" in '08 and said "I picked a winner" 
I know my vote doesn't mean shit, but my 
