While Howie is on a private plane, Shocking Statistics: gap between the Rich & Poor

[NotMyBro]

While Howard is tweeting pics of him & his crew feasting on dozens of sandwiches and expensive wines and drinks while he's flying on a private jet, it just shows how out of touch he is and how out of touch most Americans are when it comes to income gap between the rich and poor. Check out this video:



Unbelievable video. This is why this country is breaking apart.

[Chimney Portions]

That's a troubling video, but not necessarily an indictment of the rich or true capitalism and especially not against Howard.

As gross as Howard is in all regards, he did actually "earn" his fortune. And, by that, I mean he is being paid what both he and Sirius XM think is a fair, mutually beneficial amount for his services. We might disagree, but we're not forced to subscribe. So while it's tasteless that Howard shows off his opulence, it's not coming out of our pockets...unless we still choose to subscribe to Sirius.

And I'd say the same for some of the others in the 1%. What I have issue with isn't capitalism or the rich in general, but crony capitalism or corporatism. Where our fucking government is bought by lobbyists and banksters every fucking day. Where a faulty, disastrous system like "too big to fail" is perpetuated by the very same people we vote to represent our best interest.

[ZevonFan]

Just my humble opinion, but Howard has "earned" only about five bucks since starting on Sirius

[TelegramSam]

Just my humble opinion, but Howard has "earned" only about five bucks since starting on Sirius

Damn straight, just because Howard greased the wheels and got a sweetheart deal (that XM rightly thought was ridiculous and shot down) doesn't mean it made good business sense. It's like saying Rick Wagoner at GM deserved his salary because people bought Buicks; it was still a net loss in the long term.

P.S. you should really try not to seriously respond to Winst in that Scott Ostrosky thread, he doesn't need anymore encouragement with that bullshit.

[NotMyBro]

BTW, thanks to Dawg for fixing the title.

[ZevonFan]

BTW, thanks to Dawg for fixing the title.

I peaked in here because I thought it was about Howard's privates.

[tired]

That's fucking very harsh

[tHISisKiSSeL]

i would like to see a comparison of the costs of corporate welfare vs poor people welfare.

[KillVampires]

i would like to see a comparison of the costs of corporate welfare vs poor people welfare.

Corporate welfare can keep major companies afloat and actually earn money back. You bail out a car company or a bank and it saves hundreds if not thousands of jobs and keeps a company from collapsing. You pay someone corporate welfare to keep a few hundred jobs around and it is not welfare but an investment. As long as the company doesn't immediately go under you should see a return to society because a handful of middle and upper class jobs are preserved.

Social welfare is the exact opposite. It used to be that welfare was used to float people for a few months while they were actively seeking employment. Or to help out a single mother who fell on hard times and needed support from society to help her keep her kids clothed and fed. Now? Social welfare is almost exclusively used to reward those who refuse to work and create children as welfare babies. What was once a useful tool for society to help those in need for a short time has become a system of dependency and leeching.

You give a company money to keep them afloat and it could get you enormous benefits for society. You keep a company that employs hundreds afloat for a month and then that company pays taxes and employs hundreds of Americans for years beyond that.

You give a welfare queen some money and she'll just keep having children because it means even more money. Then her kids grow up to collect welfare. It's a cycle of poverty that those dependent on welfare refuse to try to break. They get free money and clothing. Then they spend that money on luxury items even. You'd be shocked how many people collecting welfare can afford nice jewelry and the NFL Sunday Ticket.

If studies showed that the majority of welfare money was being spent on people who use it for a short while and then return to the workforce I wouldn't mind. But it is almost entirely used by leeches who want long term free money and benefits from hardworking taxpayers. Personally I couldn't imagine using welfare as I'd feel like a failure and a disgrace. Unless you're on major disability like a crippling accident or you are a single parent who lost your job you shouldn't be relying on free handouts so much. It used to be that people were ashamed to be on welfare. Now there are "welfare carols", to quote Chris Rock.

[racerx]

Corporate welfare can keep major companies afloat and actually earn money back. You bail out a car company or a bank and it saves hundreds if not thousands of jobs and keeps a company from collapsing. You pay someone corporate welfare to keep a few hundred jobs around and it is not welfare but an investment. As long as the company doesn't immediately go under you should see a return to society because a handful of middle and upper class jobs are preserved.

good points, but IMO falsely propping up the economy keeps it from becoming truly strong.
when a company fails, a better company fills the void.
and they dont bail out all companies, just a few. i dont think the gov should be picking the winners and losers.


as for howard, he earned it he can buy what he wants. but im positive i wouldnt buy a bowling alley, i dont like bowling. and more money wont make me like it

[KillVampires]

good points, but IMO falsely propping up the economy keeps it from becoming truly strong.
when a company fails, a better company fills the void.
and they dont bail out all companies, just a few. i dont think the gov should be picking the winners and losers.

Bailouts should happen when some catastrophic happens. Like when 9/11 happened your company might need government assistance if you run an airline to avoid going under. But once people are back to normal you should be fine. Or when the banks fail and you literally cannot get a loan for your company's payroll then you go to the government for a short term loan.

But bailing out the banks for throwing out criminal mortgages is not the way to spend our tax dollars properly.

perhaps if the CEO types would stop paying themselves salaries and bonuses that their company cannot afford and then embezzling more money on top of that, there would be less need for corporate welfare.

Won't happen. CEO pay is dictated by who sits on the board of a company. Who sits on the board at publicly traded companies? CEOs of other companies. So it's in their own interest to up CEO compensation to as high as they can get it because it makes the CEO seem more important overall. It's just like when NFL and MLB players get the most money to drive up the market for the rest of the players.

Only way to win this is to eliminate Wall Street and make the stock market not dictate everything so that shareholders and board members aren't constantly jacking off to short term profits and high frequency trading. But taking many companies private is impossible. Barnes and Noble is looking to go private now to get away from the idiot shareholders. But a company like Apple literally cannot afford to buy out the public shares as they don't have even a tenth of the money on hand that would be necessary to go private.

You'd need radical changes to halt CEO pay. It's just not going to happen in our lifetime. Many politicians either are CEOs or they get their biggest incomes from CEOs through campaign money or lobbying.

[Art]

good points, but IMO falsely propping up the economy keeps it from becoming truly strong.
when a company fails, a better company fills the void.
and they dont bail out all companies, just a few. i dont think the gov should be picking the winners and losers.


as for howard, he earned it he can buy what he wants. but im positive i wouldnt buy a bowling alley, i dont like bowling. and more money wont make me like it

When a company fails, hundreds or thousands of employees temporarily lose the ability to feed their kids. I don't believe in propping up failing businesses, but we have to admit the collateral damages are extroadinary.

[233monte]

[QUOTE=NotMyBro;3711673]While Howard is tweeting pics of him & his crew feasting on dozens of sandwiches and expensive wines and drinks while he's flying on a private jet, it just shows how out of touch he is and how out of touch most Americans are when it comes to income gap between the rich and poor. Check out this video:"


Fuck off obama voter. The man earned his money dispite what you people think. You all sit on here all day and crow how he sucks and is failing at evrything, when the reality is TV and radio are paying him millions upon millions. What he spends it on is his choice.

[tHISisKiSSeL]

Fuck off obama voter. The man earned his money dispite what you people think. You all sit on here all day and crow how he sucks and is failing at evrything, when the reality is TV and radio are paying him millions upon millions. What he spends it on is his choice.

[Yeahnolisten]

[QUOTE=233monte;3712667]

While Howard is tweeting pics of him & his crew feasting on dozens of sandwiches and expensive wines and drinks while he's flying on a private jet, it just shows how out of touch he is and how out of touch most Americans are when it comes to income gap between the rich and poor. Check out this video:"


Fuck off obama voter. The man earned his money dispite what you people think. You all sit on here all day and crow how he sucks and is failing at evrything, when the reality is TV and radio are paying him millions upon millions. What he spends it on is his choice.

Thats the point - he doesn't spend it on shit - how can you defend a guy who is almost a fucking billionaire yet demands free shit on the air. He is WAY too cheap to pay for that plane.

[TelegramSam]

I have to say, as a libertarian, all forms of welfare are bad in general. However, even the Roman emperor and later medieval kings subsidized loaves of bread for peasants. It's why Marie Antoinette so famously suggested they "eat cake", not realizing that government provided bread kept people from starving. Corporate welfare can be useful in very rare cases, but I was not a fan of the bank bailouts or the GM auto bailout (the Chrylser sale to Fiat made sense IMHO).

What is my point? Howie's salary was a form of corporate welfare; it wasn't illegal, but it was immoral. The shady behind the scenes dealings we only learned of later make it obvious why he chose Sirius over XM and why XM wouldn't pay. He did not earn that salary, and if a John Malone (who is a shady character himself) hadn't wanted it as a tax write off/future asset based on satellites, Howard and Mel would have bankrupted SiriusXM. Failing corporations CAN deserve to be saved, but that doesn't mean the people who ruined them in the first place did their job well, deserved their salary, or should be exonerated for knowingly engaging in unethical business practices. Mel and Howie = Rick Wagoner and the UAW.

[Chimney Portions]

I have to say, as a libertarian, all forms of welfare are bad in general. However, even the Roman emperor and later medieval kings subsidized loaves of bread for peasants. It's why Marie Antoinette so famously suggested they "eat cake", not realizing that government provided bread kept people from starving. Corporate welfare can be useful in very rare cases, but I was not a fan of the bank bailouts or the GM auto bailout (the Chrylser sale to Fiat made sense IMHO).

Great post, but Marie Antoinette never actually said, "Let them eat cake." It's a myth that nobody wants to deal with.

The quote comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions," which was written when Marie Antoinette was a child. And there's evidence that he was citing a quote written a century earlier.

[TelegramSam]

Great post, but Marie Antoinette never actually said, "Let them eat cake." It's a myth that nobody wants to deal with.

The quote comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions," which was written when Marie Antoinette was a child. And there's evidence that he was citing a quote written a century earlier.

I did not know that, thanks for that. I guess that's what I get for studying ancient and early medieval history in college while not taking anything related to the Enlightenment.

[Chimney Portions]

I did not know that, thanks for that. I guess that's what I get for studying ancient and early medieval history in college while not taking anything related to the Enlightenment.

I'd love to pretend that I've known that for years, but I learned it only two years ago when I was reading a book about Voltaire.

[Hamptons]

It's one thing to be rich and talk about it, as much of a douche as people say Mark Cuban is he never denies not being a billionaire and talked about how much money he has made but when he flipped it around on Howard; now all the sudden Howard doesn't talk about money and acts like he is some blue collar hero to common folk when we know he is a rich fake asshole just admit you have money and stop going around talking about how jealous you are of someone who's net worth is 5 million dollars