Given the company he keeps I doubt he’s ever heard a serious argument of any kind.

What these cloistered turds fail to grasp is that most middle and working class people wouldn’t know an “estate” if it bit them on the ass.

But, don’t you know that those middle class types might possibly become rich at some point in the future by some means, and THEN they won’t want no stinken death tax! See, Freddo is just thinking ahead. When you all become multimillionaires you’ll wish you had listened to him!

Um, this guy is pretty damned stupid isn’t he?

You have to realize that their definition of “middle class” probably includes multimillionare CEOs and white-shoe lawyers.

After all, they have to *work* for a living, don’t they?

You have to realize that their definition of “middle class” probably includes multimillionare CEOs and white-shoe lawyers.

Sadly, you’re probably right on the money with this.

“I have never heard a serious argument that the estate tax benefits the middle class.”

I’ve never heard a serious argument that scrapping it benefits anyone but the very wealthy, something his middle class constituents might have considered as he put time and effort into something that didn’t benefit them one whit.

I accuse him of plagiarizing from Megan McArdle.

Estate tax? Never heard of it. Is this the ☠ tax perhaps?

OK genius, explain to me how the Estate Tax cut benefits me. I’m all ears.
I heard a republican economist on NPR the other day say in a throw away line that the best any tax cut has done since and including Reagan is a 60% return. So is the benefit the same as that?

I am beginning to think that there SHOULD be a tax on obscure ASCII characters, if only to compensate me for the eyestrain I incur while trying to figure out what in hell those tiny things are.

That’s it. Trilateral Chairman is off the blog roll!

Given the company he keeps I doubt he’s ever heard a serious argument of any kind.

Oh, I’m sure he has heard serious arguments about steroid use in baseball. Which, after all, is much more important than not granting amnesty to corporate criminals spying on the citizenship and impeaching Chimp&Darth Vader. At least to congress.

Freddo is not being stupid, he’s being dishonest. He knows damn well he’s shoveling shit. He just doesn’t care. It’s worked for Rush, Boehner, and the entire Republican machine. The truth is irrelevant. Facts are irrelevant. Just keep repeating the lies and you’ll peel off enough support to rule with a mandate.

McArdle, on the other hand, is just stupid.

TC: Ascii only contains 256 characters (quite a few of which are unprintable… and not just because they’re so naughty ;-)) It’s unicode

(/unneccessary geekyness)

Maybe he thinks our taxes go to huge corporations, which in turn give a miniscule percentage to politcians, thus ensuring the politicians will send them more millions.

The talismanic use of “serious” has become an immediate, dispositive red flag that what is about to follow is completely full of shit. Cf. Kristol, William, Bloody, The.

Apparently Freddoso thinks that the revenues received from the estate tax are fed to pink and lavender sparkle ponies across the rainbow bridge and are never seen again.

Well, he’s partially right on this one. Those revenues go to building the rainbow bridge to Nowhere that Stevens wanted in Alaska.

TC: Ascii only contains 256 characters It’s unicode

I am always happy to accept geekiness–I stand corrected!

And now I’m going to sit down again. My labmates are starting to give me strange looks.

Who knew that pink and lavender sparkle ponies lived on a small island off the shore of Alaska?

the eyestrain I incur while trying to figure out what in hell those tiny things are
Someone needs to write a Greasemonkey script that recognises any special characters in a comment thread, and enlarges the font size. It could be called the TrilatChair script.

One of these days I plan to write the opposite of the anti-troll script — if a comment comes from any of a list of sources [mumble Anne mumble Laurie mumble mumble], it will emphasise them — bigger type, or red text.

So WordPress won’t let us use blink codes or colour codes in the comment thread… Greasemonkey can put them back in…

I would also repeal the Polo Pony Tax. Since its imposition the entire polo pony industry has suffered poor sales leading to the layoffs of workers. The loss of polo pony sales tax revenue has negatively affected many communities and cancellations of municipal chuckers.

It’s obvious. Most of the people who benefit from the estate tax are in the middle class, working stiffs getting by on only 1 to 5 million per year. Those who don’t benefit are the shiftless poor, who are lazy enough to work 2 or 3 jobs to make a meager income, when with a little hard work and initiative, they could get their parents to set them up in a much more lucrative junior position in the family corporation. Slackers!

Agreeing with me is my friend, Reginald Luxuryyacht (pronounced reg-gin-auld throatwarblermangrove).

Greasemonkey.
That funky monkey!

Cheerio !!!

“Who knew that pink and lavender sparkle ponies lived on a small island off the shore of Alaska?”

Problem is that Monster Island is just around the corner and when Gamera gets hungry, well..things can get ugly. Ponies disappear…

(there’s no metaphor anywhere near this comment. I’m just being silly.Carry on)

I, Reginald Luxuryyacht, am also middle-class, my pater having planted the inherited family lands in flax and jute. Just last weekend, whilst visiting the country manse, he commented to me over our armagnacs, that my inheritance would now be unemcumbered by any levies for the school the townsfolk use to educate their offshoots to the, wholly unnecessary, fourth grade. Then we watched a rerun of “Love Boat”.

Who knew that pink and lavender sparkle ponies lived on a small island off the shore of Alaska?

Oh, goody!

Can we drill for them?

mikey

Someone needs to write a Greasemonkey script that recognises any special characters in a comment thread, and enlarges the font size. It could be called the TrilatChair script.

Actually, I switched back to my regular computer and used the magnification feature in Opera (a delight to weak-eyed people like me). I now know it’s a skull and crossbones.

To the Wingers, all tax cuts benefit the rich, who then deign to let a small dribble of unidentified bodily fluids trickle down to the Middle Class. And we should be happy to even get that tiny bit of glorious Rich trickle. I actually leave a bucket out every night with the hopes that I will awake and find some of that sweet Trickle for my edification.

What? A boy can dream…

This reminds me of my bank (WaMu). I got hit with $160 in overdraft fees for $33 of charges. The branch manager told me I was lucky, because if they had turned all of the charges away, I would be out even more money.

I certainly feel lucky.

He’s never had the pleasure of attending an estate tax weenie roast? We burn the tax money and roast weenies over the flames. They’re so much fun! Sometimes I wish they’d pull a few bills out of the stack to spring for the weenies instead of making us bring our own, but… nahh, it’d spoil the tradition.

You think you have it bad, TC? I still can’t find the character you are talking about.

About time to splurge on some glasses, methinks.

If I were Brian, and he were Stewey. I would cut off his teddy bear’s leg and eat it.

Why is “serious” the adjective of choice for bullshitters?

Why should we have a death tax anyways?

Why is “serious” the adjective of choice for bullshitters?

I’ve reached the conclusion that they love to call themselves “serious” because it avoids having to label a conclusion right or wrong. No matter how wrong a particular course of action might be, it can still be the one deemed necessary by “serious” people.

Iraq, for example…

mikey

“I would also repeal the Polo Pony Tax. Since its imposition the entire polo pony industry has suffered poor sales leading to the layoffs of workers.”

Luckily, the out of work shit shovelers were retrained and all landed lucrative jobs at Fox News.

I’ll tell you what…we could get rid of that darned old estate tax if we would just tax the original holder of the freaking estate the first time.

Let’s repeal the estate tax and reinstate the 90% marginal rate for income over, oh, 250K per year per person. What say?

I know, pessimistic of me. I might be rich one day, and then where would I be?

This reminds me of my bank (WaMu). I got hit with $160 in overdraft fees for $33 of charges. The branch manager told me I was lucky, because if they had turned all of the charges away, I would be out even more money.

Here’s my story: Bank of America inherited me from Fleet a few years ago and I was too lazy to switch. I had a checking account and a credit card and I got about ten junk mailers a day from them promising “special offers”. I also got hidden fees out the wazoo. Finally I got so sick of their bullshit that I went in, told them to give me all my money, and cancelled my account.

Well, the grinning idiot that they had working that day gave me $20 extra by mistake. So a month later I got a statement with a month’s worth of overdraft fees on the money that I “owed” them because I didn’t have enought to cover it in my no-longer-existant account. I called and bitched out the poor underpaid schmuck at their complaint line and he said that tey would investigate. Another month went by and a collections agency started stalking me for the $130 I now “owed” them. Also, turns out that cancelling your credit card voluntarily gives you “bad credit”

So now I’m damaged goods everywhere I go and I had to get a cosigner to get another credit card. Plus, Bank of America still sends me special offers every god damn fucking day.

I still can’t find the character you are talking about.
Offer not valid for IE-users.

What this nation needs is TAX CUTS!

And some trillion dollar wars!

But, bitching aside, I just watched Sicko so I do feel sort of lucky… so far… I mean, I am still young enough to emigrate.

Look at Mr. Jolly Roger now! He’s huge, and it’s all thanks to his rigorous off-season workout routine. His wife may have used HGH, but he never has. No, never.

No holidays in the fight against Evil?

You mean we don’t get Darwin’s Day off anymore?

Just in case anyone missed this good one over at Eschaton recently:

“If the Government is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributor cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, “See, this proves that people were meant to walk.”

“And they do this so that they don’t have to chip in on gas.”

-Lance Mannion

http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2005/09/remember_good_o.html

I hate Bank of America with a white-hot hatred that, admittedly, is somewhat irrational, but here it is –

I bank with a Credit Union, but Bank of America provides bankcard services for it. When I joined the Credit Union, both my spouse and I were employed by the institution that it served, and we opened our joint account there. Later, I changed jobs, so only my spouse is a “member” of the Credit Union now.

While travelling last summer, I discovered that my bankcard was being declined. I called the Bank, was referred to BofA, and was told that they detected a pattern in my card use that might be fraud – it being the fact that I purchased a Metrocard at the JFK Train-to-the-Plane station when I flew into New York.

No, I said, it’s me, I’m travelling, thank you so much for looking out for me, but can you turn my card back on?

Much time on hold, then they came back to tell me that only the account holder would be able to authorize that.

I said, “I AM the account holder,” and was told, no, your name is not on the account. “It’s a joint account.” No, your spouse is the account holder. He is the only person who can authorize turning back on your card.

I hit the roof – partially in an unfair, knee-jerk reaction to what sounded and felt like blatant sexism, even though I knew it was more of a “members only” kind of thing.

Apparently, as a non-member of the Credit Union institution, I am a non-account holder, even though my name is on it, it’s a joint account, and California is a community property state. So BofA refused give me access to my own money until my Daddy said so – even though they had just received a direct deposit of my very own paycheck two days prior to that.

A$$hats.

All I have to say about Bank of America is you haven’t really, really lived until you’ve had them as your mortgage lender. [snarling sounds….]

it’s funny because I have never heard a serious argument that the the Iraq War benefits America.

Banks? Fuck ’em all. the Gnomes of Zurich can take a long walk off of a short plank.

Does anyone have the URL for the Sadly Facebook page? I’m new to the whole Facebook thing, but I want to be part of the club.

Scratch that. found it.

“it’s funny because I have never heard a serious argument that the the Iraq War benefits America.”

Thank you.

Bank of America has a two-tiered system, as I found out recently. If you have below 100k in assets you are treated like dogshit. Above it? Well, we have our own personal banker and investment broker, who we reach on their private lines and do not wait on hold. They’re always quick to oblige, and return our messages promptly. We’ve never had to pay a fee – we just mention it, and it’s removed. It’s called “premier banking.”

Chances are, at the 1m asset mark, they send someone over to wipe your ass with your bank statement.

When I first came to California, I was choosing between Washington Mutual and Bank of America.

I had a paycheck drawn on Bank of America. I took it to Bank of America. They told me they’d charge me $5 to cash it.

Went to Washington Mutual, and never looked back. Not that they don’t have their flaws. They’re just not on the same level of unhelpful assholism that appears to be Bank of America’s customer policy.

I left BoA for Wamu, but when he said they can only overturn one overdraft a year, I was out of there.

People demonize the payday loan places for their high interest rates. What’s the interest rate on a twelve hour loan of $33 with $160 in interest?

We must be approaching infinity if calculated annually.

The point of this being, the rich do live in an entirely different world than the rest of us, and it’s bloody unfair.

Homer Simpson: Wow, Ron Howard takes his kid to the zoo, just like a regular guy.

Ron Howard: Well, actually it’s a different zoo… with animals you’ve never heard of.

Paying more taxes so millionaires can pay less: priceless.

Similar to what Ted said, it’s very possible in happy think tank/conservative web site land he’s never actually heard this. Sometimes it’s not merely stupidity; it’s ignorance, too.

For the record, if you have canceled your Bank of America account in the past, say, because you’re fucking broke and unemployed and admittedly undermedicatedly paranoid about paperwork on you, and then later you need to open a new bank account after inheriting not enough money to have caused even your benefactor to worry about the estate tax, BoA will not accept the credit card offers they’ve been sending you for the last seven years as even partial proof of your identity. They will, however, fall all over you to give you a no-fee checking account once they discover you jointly owe them a hundred thousand or so on a mortgage. So mention that first.

They *will* stop offering you credit cards if you take three or four hours a day for about a week to scream at them over the phone and in person about how they’re enabling the potential theft of your identity and you *still* don’t have a job and are fucking ass broke. My account has since been whittled down to the point where it’s probably been inactive for months (which does, fortunately, mean no fees, but if I do try to deposit a check I’ll end up having to go talk to them in person again and get it reactivated first), which probably helped get them to stop offering me credit cards. But probably not as much as me screaming at them in well-honed paranoid fashion and demanding the guy helping me come discuss it with me outside the bank because I didn’t want to sit in front of their security cameras for twenty minutes. He didn’t, of course, but he did speed things up.

Once customer service people label you mentally ill, I have found, they will do a great deal to get rid of you fast.

I hate to be a Python geek, but it’s RAYMOND Luxury Yacht, not REGINALD. The name is, however, pronounced Throat Wobbler Mangrove:

A dead thread is as good a place as any for a geek fight.

It’s Throat Warbler Mangrove.

Har, I had to follow the link to realize you weren’t talking about Python the programming language.

What? Who said I’m a geek?

Luckily, the out of work shit shovelers were retrained and all landed lucrative jobs at Fox News.

Why was retraining considered necessary?

Just in case anyone’s still paying attention to this thread…

People demonize the payday loan places for their high interest rates. What’s the interest rate on a twelve hour loan of $33 with $160 in interest?

It’s just 128,931% annual interest, compounded continuously. See, not even close to infinity!

For the record, I quit BoA after a similar experience. Deposited a $200 check at 2:30 on Thursday afternoon, went Christmas shopping on Friday night, and spent just under $100. The first purchase was enough to deplete my account balance, so I was hit with six overdraft fees at $32 each. Then they applied the deposit, resulting in a net balance of about -$100.

I was then told by the very polite account rep, to my face, that it was my fault for not ensuring that my check had cleared. I responded that there had been no hold on the check, it had been more than 24 hours, and the balance slip from the ATM had showed the money in my account.

It got ugly, but I eventually found out that they can, actually, reverse the overdraft fees if you get stubborn and nasty enough. It’s a lesson everyone should know.

In fact, it’s pretty much routine for banks to count up your debits before they add in your deposits. You’ll enjoy this, but many of them also have a policy of starting with the largest debits, regardless of chronological order, so that they can nail you with as many overdrafts as possible. If you had enough to cover six small checks or one large one, they’ll hit you with the large one first so they can overdraft each of the small ones afterward.

See? This is why I want to cancel bank accounts when I’m unemployed and broke. Unfortunately, being less-than-well-documented (I’m not an immigrant, I just object to records and live a non-driving, unemployed, cash-only life) means it’s virtually impossible to get an account when you need one, and then you’re forced into check cashing places which are, amazingly, even worse.