Corporate Taxes Hit Records

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Corporate Taxes, Gov't Spending Hit Records
Thursday January 12, 2:33 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Corporate Taxes and Government Spending Both Hit Records in December


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government posted the first budget surplus for December in three years as corporate tax payments hit an all-time high, helping offset a record level for spending, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT


The department said in its monthly budget report that government receipts surpassed spending by $10.98 billion last month. A year ago, the government ran a deficit of $2.85 billion in December.

The improvement reflected the fact that government receipts were up 12.1 percent from a year ago to $241.88 billion while government spending rose by a slower 5.6 percent to $230.9 billion. The figure for outlays still represented an all-time high for spending for any month.

Corporate income tax collections totaled a record $73.5 billion last month, surpassing the old record of $72 billion set in September.

Even with December's surplus, experts are predicting that the budget deficit for this year could well surge above $400 billion, reflecting increased government spending to help with reconstruction efforts in hurricane-ravaged states along the Gulf Coast.

The largest deficit in dollar terms was an imbalance of $413 billion in 2004. Last year, the deficit narrowed to $377 billion as a surge of tax revenues from an improving economy helped offset rising government spending.

President Bush has vowed to cut the deficit in half by 2009 and still preserve the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in his first term.

Treasury Secretary John Snow said this week that the administration plans to lower the deficit through stringent controls on spending, which he said would be evident in the budget proposal for 2007 that Bush will send to Congress in early February.

However, budget experts are already predicting that Congress will balk at making sharp cuts in the growth of popular government programs, especially in an election year.

Through the first three months of the current budget year, which began on Oct. 1, government tax receipts have totaled $530.2 billion, up 8.8 percent from the same period a year ago.

Government spending totals $649.52 billion, a 7.2 percent increase from the same period a year ago. That resulted in a deficit for the first three months of the government's budget year of $119.31 billion, up 1.1 percent from the same period a year ago.

The December surplus marked the first surplus for that month since December 2002.

http://www.wjxx.com/money/news-article.aspx?storyid=49928


So Bush wants to give breaks to all his big business buddies, but Corporations are paying more taxes than ever....

You guys on the left are wrong yet again.

[JKP]

The federal budget is almost 2 trillion.

That means the corporations, who own most of the wealth and have the most power, are paying a tiny sum. Everyone else has to foot the bill.

Besides, the corporations get massive subsidies from the government; it's socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else.

[commiecrusader]

I would suggest that the real reason why corporations pay more tax now than ever before is because they, on the whole, make more money now than they ever have before? The corporations have become victims of their own exploitative success. You have demonstrated nothing Capitalist Liar.

[Manic_Fist]

i have but one thing to say - I HATE TAXES.

[Sabocat]

US multinationals awarded huge tax break on foreign earnings
By Jamie Chapman
15 February 2005


Under the guise of a provision to create jobs, the US Congress passed a revision to the tax code allowing an 85 percent reduction in taxes on foreign earnings of many of the country’s largest corporations. The reduction applies to profits made and held by overseas subsidiaries. Instead of requiring the companies to pay the standard 35 percent top corporate tax rate on these earnings, the rate on such earnings “repatriated” to the US parent will go down to a mere 5.25 percent for one year.

The Wall Street Journal estimates that as much as $750 billion in profits may be subject to the lower rate.

A provision of the law is supposed to prohibit companies from using the tax bonanza to boost dividends, buy back stock or raise executives’ compensation. Nothing, however, prevents the companies from using the money to pay down debt, for capital spending that may already have been budgeted, or for research and development costs. Money saved on such purposes could easily be reallocated for the technically prohibited uses.

Under the “domestic reinvestment” plans required under the act, consumer giant Procter & Gamble, for instance, is expected to use the extra cash to help finance its planned $57 billion acquisition of Gillette. Cereal maker Kellogg, Inc., likewise announced it would use the money to purchase competitors.

While the law is titled the “American Jobs Creation Act,” it could more accurately be described as the “American Corporate Tax Boondoggle Act.” It passed the US House by 280 to 141 and the Senate by 69 to 17. President Bush signed it into law last October, but its impact is only now coming to light as corporations project earnings for the coming year based on the tax breaks.

The list of companies that stand to benefit reads like a Who’s Who of American business. Exxon, General Electric and IBM have profits subject to the favorable tax treatment of about $20 billion each. Pharmaceutical manufacturers stand to reap exceptional rewards. Pfizer heads the list at $38 billion of eligible overseas earnings, followed by Merck at $18 billion, Johnson & Johnson at $14.8 billion and Eli Lilly at $9.5 billion. Drug makers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Schering-Plough are also sitting on many billions of “unrepatriated” earnings.

The excuse provided to lawmakers for signing on to such a blatant corporate tax giveaway is that pumping dollars into corporate America will stimulate the economy, resulting in the creation of new jobs. The package does not, however, require that a single job be created. Computer maker Hewlett-Packard, which lobbied heavily for the bill and is sitting on some $14 billion in accumulated foreign profits, announced recently that it would continue to cut jobs this year, on top of the 25,000 it has eliminated over the past three.

By allowing companies to use the tax windfall for corporate buyouts, the result is all but certain to mean fewer jobs as production is “rationalized.” Analysts expect software maker Oracle Corp. to use some of its $3 billion in foreign earnings to help pay off its recent acquisition of PeopleSoft. The company plans to consolidate the two companies at a cost of 5,000 jobs.

Ostensibly, the tax break is required to compensate US exporters for the loss of a government subsidy that helped offset tariffs imposed by other countries. The World Trade Organization ruled the subsidy a violation of fair trade. The European Union (EU) recently imposed sanctions, which were due to increase in successive months.

Upon elimination of the tax subsidy, known as foreign sales corporation/extraterritorial income (FSC-ETI), the EU agreed to lift the sanctions. At the same time, the move opened the door to a major revision of the corporate tax code. Companies will reap the benefit of the revisions, even if they never benefited from the now repealed FSC-ETI subsidy.

Apart from the reduction in tax on foreign profits, all companies designated as “manufacturers” will see their standard rates go down from 35 percent to 32 percent. The rate will slide even further to 29 percent in 2007.

Not only will traditional manufacturing benefit, but the term is defined so broadly as to include such far-flung fields as construction, engineering, energy production, computer software, film and videotape, and any processing of agricultural products. A national retail coffeehouse chain will be allowed to call its coffee-roasting “manufacturing.”

In addition to throwing agricultural processing into the manufacturing category, more than 20 other tax breaks have been given to agricultural concerns. The largest of these is a $10 billion fund for tobacco farmers. Lawmakers voted down a requirement to bring tobacco under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation as a condition of setting up the fund.

The list continues. Other specific “incentives” were incorporated for wholesale distributors of distilled liquors, NASCAR car owners and farmers’ cooperatives. An ethanol subsidy targeted for farm states has been extended.

The bill also extends government largesse to high-income individuals. It provides concessions totaling $4 billion on the treatment of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which Congress passed in 1969 after negative publicity about wealthy individuals who used loopholes to reduce their tax burden to zero. Owners of small aircraft will receive a 50 percent bonus depreciation credit. In addition, broad-based stock options have been excluded from payroll taxes.

In a letter to congressional leaders on the eve of the vote, even US Treasury Secretary John Snow noted that the bill was filled with provisions for “special interests.” At the same time, he signaled the intention of President Bush to sign the bill.

The bill was touted as “revenue-neutral” for the government, meaning that the lost revenue from the tax breaks would be counteracted by the elimination of the $50 billion FSC-ETI subsidy and other increases in revenue. Such claims are deceptive.

The legislation as it passed mandates that the tax credits, such as the main one on foreign profits, shall expire in a year. However, if Bush, abetted by Congress, seeks next year to make these cuts permanent, the cost to the treasury could run $500 billion or more, according to CCH Tax and Accounting, a leading tax-consulting firm.

This is exactly the approach the administration has taken with its first-term income tax cuts for the wealthy. In that case, it low-balled the amount of the tax cut by maintaining it would expire in a few years. Now, additional billions are being sought from tax revenue to make those cuts permanent.

The so-called American Jobs Creation Act constitutes yet another step in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The business tax breaks just enacted would more than cover the cost of the cuts in social programs proposed in this year’s budget. Programs to help the working class and the poor, such as Medicaid, housing and student loans, are given short shrift, however, by a Congress bent on lowering the tax burden on their sponsors among the wealthy elite.

Link (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/tax-f15.shtml)

[Manic_Fist]

tax breaks on foreign earnings...isn't that endorsing imperialism...well,economic imperialism?

[Leif]

Very much so.

[commiecrusader]

Taxes aren't always bad. In Switzerland (I believe, I may be wrong about the country), the rich are taxed very highly and welfare is really good, poor people get a lot of support. In these circumstances, taxation is a good thing.

[Manic_Fist]

no disrespect...but, commiecrusader....how is forcing the rich to pay for the poor in anyway a good thing?....don't get me wrong,i don't support capitalism...or socialism for that matter....but...how is it my fault...if i am rich...that somebody is poor,why should i be made to give support to the poor? i work hard...i run my business...use my brains...and the government takes half my money to feed some idiots who can't help themselves?

edit - LOL,i'm a restricted member now...jesus christ,this is ridiculous.

[VonClausewitz]

'cause being rich makes you a bad person, an automatic oppressor of women, hater of gays and drowner of kittens.

I was once told we can't choose where we are born, so national pride is stupid.
By the same token, we can't choose what we're born with, so why be made to feel guilty about it ?

[JKP]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2006, 08:39 AM
no disrespect...but, commiecrusader....how is forcing the rich to pay for the poor in anyway a good thing?....don't get me wrong,i don't support capitalism...or socialism for that matter....but...how is it my fault...if i am rich...that somebody is poor,why should i be made to give support to the poor? i work hard...i run my business...use my brains...and the government takes half my money to feed some idiots who can't help themselves?

edit - LOL,i'm a restricted member now...jesus christ,this is ridiculous.
People like that constitute such a tiny fraction of the economy it's largely irrelevant.

[Commie Rat]

They are paying more tax's whoope doo
now they are paying a tiny amount instead of a minescule amount

[commiecrusader]

Manic Fist:


how is forcing the rich to pay for the poor in anyway a good thing
Wealth becomes more evenly distributed throughout the given society, reducing inequalities. Exactly how is that a bad thing?


how is it my fault...if i am rich
The only way to get rich in a capitalist society is at the expense of someone else. There is a finite amount of money in the world, and if you have a lot, there is less floating around in the economy for other people.


why should i be made to give support to the poor? i work hard...i run my business...use my brains...and the government takes half my money to feed some idiots who can't help themselves?
One of the most ignorant suggestions I have ever heard of. There are many poor people who can't help but be in the situation they are in, either due to unemployment, disability, or just being trapped in a shitty job. Not everyone in capitalism can 'win' so to speak. That is fact. It is impossible for everyone to be as rich as Bill Gates. There will always be a few rich and a lot of poor people in a capitalist world. That's the way it is. At least heavy taxation on the rich can moderate this effect to the maximum extent possible without changing the system.

VonClausewitz:


'cause being rich makes you a bad person, an automatic oppressor of women, hater of gays and drowner of kittens.
Not all rich people are actually like that. Your hasty assumption implies you may be though. :angry:


I was once told we can't choose where we are born, so national pride is stupid.
By the same token, we can't choose what we're born with, so why be made to feel guilty about it ?
Your right. Bill Gates was born with the Microsoft Empire, his own island, and more money than several countries. He didn't get it by exploiting other people's ideas and labour. If you don't feel bad for being rich when there are billions of people much worse off than you, than quite simply, you don't have any empathy for your species.

[Tungsten]

commiecrusader

Wealth becomes more evenly distributed throughout the given society, reducing inequalities. Exactly how is that a bad thing?

It usually involves violence against people who have never done anything to anyone and rewards those who do little, if anything. There are both hard working and lazy people out there who have both got what they deserve.


The only way to get rich in a capitalist society is at the expense of someone else.

Who are the workers getting rich at the expense of?


There is a finite amount of money in the world, and if you have a lot, there is less floating around in the economy for other people.

Marxist economic fairytales. Back in the ice age, the population of the earth was very small, let's say ten thousand people. Now there are how many people on earth, 6 billion?

So let's see, if wealth was all distributed evenly, each person today should, according to that economic model, be 60000 times poorer than the average caveman.

Nice going, ace. I can see you've given this subject a lot of thought.


One of the most ignorant suggestions I have ever heard of. There are many poor people who can't help but be in the situation they are in, either due to unemployment, disability, or just being trapped in a shitty job. Not everyone in capitalism can 'win' so to speak. That is fact.

Success must be cursed everywhere because it can't be gotten by everyone? How childish.


It is impossible for everyone to be as rich as Bill Gates. There will always be a few rich and a lot of poor people in a capitalist world.

Poor relative to who? The average person today is richer than a medieval king.

[somebodywhowantedtoleaveandnotcomeback]

Originally posted by Tungsten+Jan 18 2006, 04:11 PM--> (Tungsten @ Jan 18 2006, 04:11 PM)
commiecrusader
Wealth becomes more evenly distributed throughout the given society, reducing inequalities. Exactly how is that a bad thing?

It usually involves violence against people who have never done anything to anyone and rewards those who do little, if anything. There are both hard working and lazy people out there who have both got what they deserve. [/b]
So poor people are just people who get what they deserve? So you honestly believe that every man, rich or poor, black or white, homo-/bi-sexual or heterosexual, born in the Bronx or a residential area down in Florida has been given the exact same chances? You'll forgive me for finding you naïve.


Who are the workers getting rich at the expense of?

They aren't, as they're not supposed to get rich. If they would become rich, we would've
just turned everything around and we'd still have rich people and poor people, and that is, as you should know if you're debating here, by no means the goal of a socialist/communist society.


Marxist economic fairytales. Back in the ice age, the population of the earth was very small, let's say ten thousand people. Now there are how many people on earth, 6 billion?

So let's see, if wealth was all distributed evenly, each person today should, according to that economic model, be 60000 times poorer than the average caveman.

Nice going, ace. I can see you've given this subject a lot of thought.

Yeah, because in the ice age they had dollars :rolleyes:

Don't you understand that wealth is now inequally divided, and it doesn't matter if there's a total of, for example, a million dollars in the world or 200 billion dollars, if 20% of the population owns 80% of everything? No matter how much or little there is, there's still that 20% of selfish fuckheads.


Success must be cursed everywhere because it can't be gotten by everyone? How childish.

Did he say that? If you're succesful in a capitalist society, it's always at the cost of somebody else. In a socialist society, we could use the skills of somebody who would be "succesful" in a capitalist society to help other people. If that's not being succesful, I don't know what is.


Poor relative to who? The average person today is richer than a medieval king.

:lol:


Comrade RedFaction :hammer:

[VonClausewitz]

QUOTE - Commiecrusader
'cause being rich makes you a bad person, an automatic oppressor of women, hater of gays and drowner of kittens.

Not all rich people are actually like that. Your hasty assumption implies you may be though.

I was being sarcastic friend, a lot of people on this site do seem to take the view that having more than you need to stay able to wake up in the morning automatically makes you an evil nasty deserving of everyone's hatred.

But humour me, what does that little snippet suggest about me ?



QUOTE
I was once told we can't choose where we are born, so national pride is stupid.
By the same token, we can't choose what we're born with, so why be made to feel guilty about it ?

Your right. Bill Gates was born with the Microsoft Empire, his own island, and more money than several countries. He didn't get it by exploiting other people's ideas and labour. If you don't feel bad for being rich when there are billions of people much worse off than you, than quite simply, you don't have any empathy for your species.

I meant about inherited wealth, it was probably a little off-topic looking back. About Gates though, if the man has been sucessful, in a world, that is, according to all left rhetoric, hostile to anyone getting anywhere if they weren't born with blue blood, then well done to the man. I expect he takes as his motto the latin phrase 'Exitus Acta Probat'.

Of course, it doesn't make him a moral person, don't mistake what I say to presume I have any love for him.

[Tungsten]

RedFaction

So poor people are just people who get what they deserve? So you honestly believe that every man, rich or poor, black or white, homo-/bi-sexual or heterosexual, born in the Bronx or a residential area down in Florida has been given the exact same chances?
Read carefully :

There are both hard working and lazy people out there who have both got what they deserve.

I didn't say "every man". There are some that do and some that don't. It doesn't matter that everyone isn't given the same chances, provided they're not discriminated against legally.

You'll forgive me for finding you naïve.
You're a dishonest person.

They aren't, as they're not supposed to get rich.
That doesn't answer the question.

Yeah, because in the ice age they had dollars
Come on comrade, come out and say it: "I know nothing about economics."

Don't you understand that wealth is now inequally divided, and it doesn't matter if there's a total of, for example, a million dollars in the world or 200 billion dollars, if 20% of the population owns 80% of everything? No matter how much or little there is, there's still that 20% of selfish fuckheads.
That's completely and utterly irrelevent. You haven't understood a word I've said, you've just repeated yourself and used the same false economic model again.

Did he say that? If you're succesful in a capitalist society, it's always at the cost of somebody else.
Explain how this happens in detail.

In a socialist society, we could use the skills of somebody who would be "succesful" in a capitalist society to help other people.
Except that they're probably already sucessfully doing that now, just getting paid for it.

[Tormented by Treachery]

Explain how this happens in detail.

My example (and I am fairly ashamed to bring it up) is my father. He owns a convenience store that turns a fair profit. Workers are paid just enough to keep them happy and such, a little above minimum wage. At the end of the week, he makes an exponential amount more than do the ladies that work the store, especially considering the hours worked, and furthermore, the degree of labor (typing on a computer or stocking shelves, which is tougher, seriously). So, he gets to have all the nice toys, he gets money, and he gets to do what he wants with it, and it is based on the backbreaking work of the much more poor workers. When this happens (as it does an astonishingly large % of the time) in millions of stores, laundromats, bowling alleys, restaurants, shops, corportations, etc, all accross the nation, the rich consolidate holdings again and again (Carnegie, Rockefeller). Thus, the profit being skimmed off of the top that is built on ever more laborers is going into continually wealthier hands. Furthermore, at a certain point, the owners don't even have to do that minor work, they can hire someone to run the business, and still make billions. That's how success, as measured by the materialistic society of today, is built off of the uneducated worker.


I didn't say "every man". There are some that do and some that don't. It doesn't matter that everyone isn't given the same chances, provided they're not discriminated against legally.

Boy, if the rich paying for their buddy's campaign, getting him elected, and then supporting and lobbying for education to be turned into a business-like environment, and then having this buddy take money out of education and rural and urban development, and THEN privatizing health care, sheesh, if that isn't legal discrimination, what is? If one is born to an inner-city mother who works 2 waitress jobs, going to a rundown school with no funding and thus horrible teachers, never being able to excel because of lack of funds (taken away by government tax cuts for the rich), if all of that isn't legal discrimination, what exactly is?

Rich guys fund campaigns. Well funded campaigns win elections. Those elected want reelection. They dance with those what brung them, as the phrase turns. The rich get what they want. What they want is a large, uneducated, apathetic class of workers.

[QOUTE] That's completely and utterly irrelevent. You haven't understood a word I've said, you've just repeated yourself and used the same false economic model again. [/QUOTE]

I think what he is saying is that money in itself is a completely arbitrary system. What if the whole world though trees were so rare and valuable that we should base our monetary system on them? Ridiculous, but almost as ridiculous as basing it on minerals in the earth, es verdad? So seriously, saying that his model would make us, what was it, 60000 times poorer than cavemen, is ludicrous. What was their currency, teeth? Mammoth tusks? Because man, we'd really be fucked if it was tusks. How much poorer would we be then? Also, this economic model you're talking about, even IF the cavemen used gold as currency, even IF we havent unearthed a single brick of gold since back then, even then, Urg didn't have to pay $6.95 for a meal. Neither did the medieval king someone mentioned.


But humour me, what does that little snippet suggest about me ?
It suggests that you're so impossibly skewed to one side, mind closed to any voice of reason (or even irrationality) that you would automatically assume someone is going to engage in slander or consider you a dishonest, horrible person. I do neither of these, I simply try to explain the view that is in opposition to yours. And yet, you imply with such sardonic humor, that I am a smearing nimwit who can only argue that you're a kitten drowner and not call upon your political views. So cancel any hope of reconciliation, of the passing of knowledge, and of civilized debate. That snippet suggests that you think (as much propaganda has taught you, so I still do not blame you) that communists, anarchists, socialists, left-wingers, and even Democrats, are ignorant, silly, frothing-at-the-mouth morons. And that, good sir, is ignorant.


Edit: Not sure what's up with the quotes, sorry bout that.

[VonClausewitz]

Tormented by treachery;



But humour me, what does that little snippet suggest about me ?
It suggests that you're so impossibly skewed to one side, mind closed to any voice of reason (or even irrationality) that you would automatically assume someone is going to engage in slander or consider you a dishonest, horrible person. I do neither of these, I simply try to explain the view that is in opposition to yours. And yet, you imply with such sardonic humor, that I am a smearing nimwit who can only argue that you're a kitten drowner and not call upon your political views. So cancel any hope of reconciliation, of the passing of knowledge, and of civilized debate. That snippet suggests that you think (as much propaganda has taught you, so I still do not blame you) that communists, anarchists, socialists, left-wingers, and even Democrats, are ignorant, silly, frothing-at-the-mouth morons. And that, good sir, is ignorant.

I have some left friends, a couple of true hardcore commie types, and they are wonderful people, we can argue 'till the sun comes up about just about anything :), you do, by this rather nice response, seem to be one of the good types.

I was being a sardonic person about a large majority of this site's membership; far too many are capable of giving the left a bad name with astonishing regularity.

Propaganda hasn't taught me anything by the way, I'm studying the final year of a master's degree of history and war, and understand perfectly how propaganda works thankyou very much. Just because I may hold a different view, doesn't mean I've been brainwashed, I'm a little above that.

(I'm not some proto-capitalist by the way, economics bores me. I'm rather authoritarian in my political views though, I expect I'd only get on with Stalinists fully in that respect)

[Tormented by Treachery]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 01:15 AM
I have some left friends, a couple of true hardcore commie types, and they are wonderful people, we can argue 'till the sun comes up about just about anything :), you do, by this rather nice response, seem to be one of the good types.
Thank you.

As for the propaganda thing, I apologize, I didn't intend for it to come accross as that insulting, but communism has been raped by the American media, although who could blame them during the Cold War.

[commiecrusader]

VonClausewitz


I was being sarcastic friend, a lot of people on this site do seem to take the view that having more than you need to stay able to wake up in the morning automatically makes you an evil nasty deserving of everyone's hatred.

But humour me, what does that little snippet suggest about me ?
I was taking the mick, just joking around. My allegations were not actually any more serious than your statement. I'd be pretty dumb if I seriously thought that meant you killed kittens in reality.


I meant about inherited wealth
Then they should still feel bad and be condemned for not sharing and redistributing their wealth.

Tungsten


It usually involves violence against people who have never done anything to anyone and rewards those who do little, if anything. There are both hard working and lazy people out there who have both got what they deserve.
Tax collection, which this thread is about, doesn't usually involve violence. It only causes violence when greedy rich people don't want to give up their wealth, or poor people can't afford to pay the taxes.


Who are the workers getting rich at the expense of?
Workers don't get rich. And I'm not going to be hoodwinked into a hypocrisy either. If a worker gets rich and becomes bourgeois, I'm not foolish enough to think that it's at the expense of the rich. It just adds to the sufferring of the poor.


Marxist economic fairytales. Back in the ice age, the population of the earth was very small, let's say ten thousand people. Now there are how many people on earth, 6 billion?

So let's see, if wealth was all distributed evenly, each person today should, according to that economic model, be 60000 times poorer than the average caveman.

Nice going, ace. I can see you've given this subject a lot of thought.
In the ice age they weren't capitalist, and didn't have money. It is the creation of money, and the subsequent stockpiling of the money into 20% of the population that creates the inequality. Have you ever heard of 'Inflation'? This proves perfectly that in a capitalist system there is a finite amount of wealth. Year upon year, the amount of 'money' in terms of notes, coins, and bank balances, increases. Why therefore, is everyone not richer now than they were before? Because the value of each coin and note goes down the more coins and notes there are, because each denomination of money e.g. sterling, dollar etc, has a value as a percentage of the overall wealth of the country from which they come. Otherwise, a poor country could just make loads of notes and coins and become instantly rich. Give that some thought ass.


Success must be cursed everywhere because it can't be gotten by everyone? How childish.
It should be cursed at the moment, yes, because it is possible for everyone to be equally successful and well off in a communist system, but not in this capitalist system we find ourselves. Therefore success in a capitalist system should be cursed.


Poor relative to who? The average person today is richer than a medieval king.
In terms of the number of pounds/dollars/whatever they have, but not in terms of actual wealth. See above for further elaboration.


There are both hard working and lazy people out there who have both got what they deserve.

I didn't say "every man". There are some that do and some that don't. It doesn't matter that everyone isn't given the same chances, provided they're not discriminated against legally.
Since it's possible to do, give me one good reason why everyone shouldn'thave an equal chance and equal success.


QUOTE
Did he say that? If you're succesful in a capitalist society, it's always at the cost of somebody else.


Explain how this happens in detail.
There is a finite amount of money in the world. Hence, if one person gets some more wealth, someone else must have less. For example, if I get paid a wage, the employer will have slightly less money. If a company makes money selling shoes, then everyone who's bought shoes has less money. This happens in ever lengthening chains throughout a capitalist world. It is impossible to gain money, without it coming from someone else.