Winners, Losers, and Nobodies

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Understanding "The Game"

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

In this post, I attempt to identify the essence of human politics, and try to explain how "the game" is actually played. After that, we will use this understanding to explain the existence of a mixed economy, why Big Business rules America, and why taxes are higher for the wealthy nonetheless. (also why there's really nothing anybody can do about it)

1. The Elements of "the Game"

Besides leaders (the people who make the policies) and their opponents, the rest of society can be divided into three groups: Winners, Losers, and Nobodies. The Winners are the people who keep the leader in power. The Losers are the people who have some chance of becoming winners. Finally, the Nobodies are the people who can be neither Winners nor Losers. "Somebodies" are people who are not nobodies.

The Leader collects taxes (not necessarily literal taxes, but whatever that segment of society produces that the leader has a legitimate right to, though it can be taxes. For example, a business owner has a right to all of the revenue produced by his company, in that abstract sense, then, the revenue produced is a "tax". Another example from high school politics, students pay a "tax" to the popular kids by spending time with them. The popular kids can then use that availability of other people's time to organize parties and introductions to certain people and such (parties which keep them popular, as we will see)) from everyone, and produces two things: Prizes and Welfare. Prizes are things that one can exclude others from using. Things like food, a car, a house, a fiefdom, a government contract, cash, etc. Welfare is stuff that everyone can enjoy simultaneously. That includes things like national defense, individual rights, welfare, clean air, a growing economy, etc.

Everyone benefits equally from welfare, but only winners can get prizes. A leader is deposed if he doesn't have enough winners on his side, and when his opponent does.

2. Turf

A leader's turf is the section of society where he is top dog. A turf is defined, not only the leader, but also by what things he can affect, and, most importantly, the number of winners, losers, and nobodies on that turf. Turfs can overlap, and a person who is a leader in one turf can be a nobody in another.

3. The Three Flavors of Turf

Turf comes in three flavors. They are: autocratic, oligarchic, and democratic.

An autocratic turf is one where there are very few winners and many losers. The more losers there are, the more autocratic the turf. Thus, the most autocratic turf is one with exactly 1 winner, and 0 nobodies.

An oligarchic turf is one where there are very few winners and about as many losers. In an oligarchic turf, most people will be nobodies.

A democratic turf is one where there are lots of winners and about as many losers. In this case, most people will be a somebody (either a winner or a loser), and there will usually only be a few nobodies.

4. How Leaders Maintain Power

Leaders stay in power by providing the winners with enough prizes and the rest of the population with enough welfare. What this optimal distribution of goodies is, exactly, depends on the kind of turf, but for now, we focus mainly on the idea that there does exist an optimal set of policies.

Let's say the leader attempts to rule as a tyrant by charging a very high tax rate and keeping everything for himself. Then, an opponent only has to provide a very small prize to any winner in order to tempt him away from the tyrant's team. Thus, the tyrant is easily deposed.

Let's say that the leader attempts a "hands off" approach and sets a zero tax rate and provides nothing. Then, an opponent only has to set a very minimal tax rate, and award a very small prize to a winner, just enough to compensate for the increase in taxes.

Note that a leader who sets a zero tax rate couldn't provide anything even if he wanted to. Therefore, in politics, there must always be some level of taxation.

Let's say that the leader is overly generous, and tries to give prizes to a few losers as well as the winners. But this has the effect of diluting prizes among the actual winners. Therefore, an opponent could simply offer a higher level of prizes to a more restricted group.

If a leader tries to avoid paying a winner a promised prize, that winner becomes disgruntled and will easily defect to an opponent.

Thus, we see that not giving enough to one's core group of supporters is political suicide. But giving them too much is also a mistake (though a far less serious one), because then a leader may not have enough resources of his own to whether political shocks.

5. How the Number of Winners Affects Policy

Each winner must get a prize, and as the number of winners grows, the amount of resources spent on prizes increases rapidly. If the number of winners is high enough, leaders might end up in a situation where they can keep nothing for themselves if they keep spending on prizes, or even run out of prizes. There is only so much land to go around, and a King can't give every knight his own piece.

This is why welfare is important. By shifting spending away from prizes and towards welfare, leaders may keep a slice of the pie, while keeping the winners happy. This is because, as the price of each unit of prizes increases with the increasing number of winners, this price eventually overtakes the constant price of an additional unit of welfare. Thus, at a certain point, it is easier to satisfy the winners with more welfare and less prizes.

6. Loyalty and the "In" Crowd.

Loyalty is the measure of the loyalty of the winners to their leader. It is essentially the ratio of winners to losers in a turf. When there are few winners and many losers, Loyalty is high. When there are about as many winners as losers, loyalty is low.

Loyalty has important consequences for the leader's choice of policy. It basically decides how much of the tax revenue a leader can keep for himself and how much he must spend on keeping the winners happy. Put simply, the greater the loyalty of the winners, the more a leader can keep for himself. This because the winners know that they are "in" with the current leader, else they wouldn't be winners. This is important, because any opponent looking to depose the leader will have to tempt his supporters away from the leader and into his own coalition. However, the winners know that they run a risk of not being included in the opponent's circle of winners after the opponent comes into power, and being replaced by someone who is in the opponent's "in" crowd. This risk of being excluded from the future group of winners is really what keeps the winners loyal to their leader (assuming both his and the opponent's offers of prizes and welfare are optimal), even when the opponent offers to take none of the booty for himself (more on this in the section on loyalty). As Machiavelli said, "He who causes another to become powerful ruins himself."

7. How Leaders Survive in Each Flavor of Turf

In an autocratic turf, there are few winners and many losers. From what we know from section 5, this means that an autocrat will spend more on prizes and little on welfare. That there are few winners and many losers means that the ratio of winners to losers is low, and that the level of loyalty is therefore high. Thus, an autocrat will keep a lot of the revenue for himself.

In an oligarchic turf, there are few winners and about as few losers. Like in an autocratic turf, the oligarch wishes to spend more on prizes and less on welfare, but the difference is that he will be spending a lot more resources on the winners and keeping less for himself than the autocrat, due to the fact that the loyalty of the winners is low.

In a democratic turf, there are many winners and about as many losers. Thus, unlike autocrats and oligarchs, democrats will focus mainly on providing welfare rather than prizes. Also, because there are about as many winners as losers, the loyalty of the winners is low and democrats will not be able to keep much of the revenue for their own use. However, a democrat will find it harder to stay in power than an oligarch because he will not be able to favor the winners with prizes as much should a more competent opponent show up who can provide better welfare.

8. Preferences of Turf

From the above, we easily see that Leaders prefer an autocratic turf over an oligarchic turf over a democratic turf.

Winners prefer an oligarchic turf, over a democratic turf, over an autocratic turf. The reason that they don't like an autocratic turf is because they are dependent on the leader, whereas, in an oligarchic or democratic turf, the leader depends on the winners.

No group except the leader likes an autocratic turf. That being said, the attitude of losers towards an oligarchic or democratic turf is complicated. In an oligarchic turf, the turnover rate may be high, so the losers have a good chance of eventually becoming winners, and collecting the coveted prizes. However, a democratic turf might make up for this with relatively high welfare, eliminating the need for being a winner.

Nobodies prefer a democratic turf over an oligarchic turf over an autocratic turf. Thus, their political interests are directly opposed to that of the leaders.

9. Strength and Weakness

We say that a group is strong in an area of society when it has its preferred kind of turf there. Thus, democratic leaders are weak, whereas autocrats are strong. Oligarchical winners are strong, and autocratic ones are weak. etc.

Those who find themselves in unfavorable political circumstances, i.e., when the they don't like the turf they are in, are exploitable.

10. Big Business and the Government.

The leaders of the government are weak, because leaders prefer an autocratic turf, but the government is a democratic turf due to their need to get elected in order to hold office. Regardless, the winners, the losers, and the nobodies are all rather strong on the government's turf, especially the nobodies and the losers. Thus, they cannot be exploited directly by the government.

The leaders of Big Business, on the other hand, are strong. Each corporation's internal workings are more or less unique, but a business owner is a business owner. Corporations will tend to be either an autocratic or oligarchic turf. Either way, their leaders are quite strong.

11. Strategic Moves

A "strategic move" is what happens when a player uses elements from outside of a game in order to change its structure so as to influence the behavior of the other players.

When a player is strong in a turf, he has either more resources to work with or greater "wiggle room". Because they have more options available to them, the strong rule the weak.

12. How and Why Big Business Manipulates the Government.

Well, everybody already knows how this is done. "Money goes in, law comes out" is the long and short of it. But the question remains, why do politicians allow themselves to be used like that?

The answer is that democratic leaders are not only dependent on the winners but there also a hell of a lot of winners. And the worst part is that they are disloyal. This makes holding on to office quite difficult for them (not only that but they don't get a whole lot out of being in office either). Unless they can get someone strong to keep them there (or give them goodies that the government can't or won't).

Because the leaders of Big Business have enormous resources available for their own use, they can use those resources to provide the prizes and the welfare that government leaders can't. Things like, investment in the economy and jobs, lower prices for everyday goods or important resources such as gas and oil, etc. This frees up government resources that politicians can then use to hold on to office.

It's kind of like comparative advantage. Big Business focuses on giving the politicians the things they can then promise to their voters, i.e. jobs and higher wages, health benefits, economic development, etc., and this frees up the politicians so that, instead of having to put in all the hard work required to make actual effective policy that will benefit everyone, they can get elected by promising the voters the things that their Big Business friends are offering them. In return, the politicians can then give Big Business favorable economic policy, in the form of government contracts and anti-competitive regulations. You know, things that the government is innately good at providing.

Now, you might say that this proves that, really, these are two equal partners in a corrupt dance, but if we look at the turfs in play, we see why this is not the case.

Under this modified, "mixed economy" game, government leaders must play on two turfs. The first is the political, which is democratic, and the second is the economic, which is oligarchic. Thus, government leaders are weak on one and rather strong on the other. However, Big Business also plays on two turfs. The first is the corporate, in which they lead and are either oligarchic or autocratic, and the second is the economic, which is oligarchic but on which they are not leaders (most businesses are nobodies on both turfs. Only the largest corporations and wealthiest individuals are somebodies). They are quite strong on both counts, regardless. Additionally, the fact that the economic turf is oligarchic means that the government leaders are dependent on the winners and not the other way around.

Now, if the government could have its way, it would be autocratic on both turfs. It would like to eliminate its dependence on voters and open up the economic turf to all individuals so that there would be many losers. For example, they could do it by passing a law that allows the government to appoint CEO's directly. Additionally, they would like to make it so that Big Business is weak on its own turf, i.e., possibly by making it so that business owners have to be elected by a large number of people. In simple terms, Obama would like to be a socialist dictator. But this can never happen, because this would be opposed by almost everyone in society, the nobodies, the losers, and the winners in both turfs. The reasoning for why the government is not in a position of power here is simple. If you want something, and you don't have it, and you can't get it because other people won't let you have it, then you are weak.

Conversely, Big Business is strong because they have exactly the kind of turf they want on both sides (both the winners and the losers). Additionally, the government leaders, their targets, are weak.

13. Why Taxes are Higher for the Wealthy

The answer is quite simple. It's because the economic turf is oligarchic and most wealthy people are nobodies on that turf. The government can afford to screw them over, but it makes up for the higher taxes to the winners by giving them the economic policies they want. The poor, on the other hand, are much more numerous and constitute a huge portion of voters. They are very strong on the political turf, and placing a higher tax burden on them would be political suicide, as we see from section 5.

Yeah, I think this is everything.

EDIT: I think it's easy to see why laissez-faire is politically impossible. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

[dldelancey]

I've only read up to section 2, Naomi. There's a couple of points I want to make sure I understand before I continue. If you addressed these points later in the piece, feel free to direct me to the relevant sections.

You describe 5 types of participants: leaders, winners, losers, nobodies, and somebodies. You've done this in such a way that I'm not sure what exactly makes a person a somebody except that a person can't be both a nobody and a somebody. Can leaders, winners, and losers all be somebodies? If so, are they both of those things at the same time or do they drop one of those identities to become a somebody? In what way does someone "qualify" as a somebody?

Is your definition of welfare meant to be contextual to this article only? Or do you see actual welfare as it is implemented in the US now as fitting this definition? If so, can you please explain how you arrived at that conclusion and which types of welfare specifically did you take into consideration?

Are leaders the only participants who can produce prizes and/or welfare? In other words, are we to assume that non-leaders are always non-producers? If so, why?

[deanwins]

I generally agree with what you are saying, although I have some issues with the terminology you use. If you would edit your post and call it "resource transfer" instead of "taxes" then you would probably get more Objectivist participation. Instead, you are probably only going to get arguments about conflating taxation with voluntary resource transfer.

Over the evolutionary time span, I don't think that the political system exists as it does through democratic voting, rather it has much more to do with the properties of the defensive and offensive technology of the various participants in "the game". For example, right now, due to the proliferation and ability of all humans to use guns, and vulnerability of humans (particularly producers, "winners", "politicians", and "business owners") to guns, political power (force) is resultantly very evenly distributed across the population of humans.

Given that new technologies are developed that enable producers to defend their property... power may shift and hence the political system may change due to loss of ability to collect resources by the governments. (I have a particular new currency technology in mind that I'd rather not hijack your thread with.)

[BaalChatzaf]

13. Why Taxes are Higher for the Wealthy

The answer is quite simple. It's because the economic turf is oligarchic and most wealthy people are nobodies on that turf. The government can afford to screw them over, but it makes up for the higher taxes to the winners by giving them the economic policies they want. The poor, on the other hand, are much more numerous and constitute a huge portion of voters. They are very strong on the political turf, and placing a higher tax burden on them would be political suicide, as we see from section 5.

Yeah, I think this is everything.

EDIT: I think it's easy to see why laissez-faire is politically impossible. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

Tax Rates are higher for the wealthy. But the wealthy can hire lawyers and accountants and what they pay is a much smaller amount in proportion to their income than middle class folks pay.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[SoAMadDeathWish]

I've only read up to section 2, Naomi. There's a couple of points I want to make sure I understand before I continue. If you addressed these points later in the piece, feel free to direct me to the relevant sections.

You describe 5 types of participants: leaders, winners, losers, nobodies, and somebodies. You've done this in such a way that I'm not sure what exactly makes a person a somebody except that a person can't be both a nobody and a somebody. Can leaders, winners, and losers all be somebodies? If so, are they both of those things at the same time or do they drop one of those identities to become a somebody? In what way does someone "qualify" as a somebody?

Is your definition of welfare meant to be contextual to this article only? Or do you see actual welfare as it is implemented in the US now as fitting this definition? If so, can you please explain how you arrived at that conclusion and which types of welfare specifically did you take into consideration?

Are leaders the only participants who can produce prizes and/or welfare? In other words, are we to assume that non-leaders are always non-producers? If so, why?

Winners are the people whose support is essential for the leader to stay in power. Losers are people who have a chance at becoming winners. Winners and losers taken together are somebodies. Anybody who is not a somebody is a nobody. Leaders are neither somebodies nor nobodies.

Actual welfare may or may not be "welfare" (in the sense used here). "Welfare" includes those things for which the marginal cost of providing for an additional individual is zero (or close to zero). For example, defense spending. If one new person enters the country, he is defended by the government just as much as anybody else at zero additional cost. Some forms of actual welfare might be "welfare" but I think most kinds of actual welfare are prizes.

As to your last question, yes. Only leaders "produce" prizes and welfare. But they can only produce these things by collecting a "tax" from the people on their turf. These people are the actual producers.

[Frediano]

Thus, we see that not giving enough to one's core group of supporters is political suicide. But giving them too much is also a mistake (though a far less serious one), because then a leader may not have enough resources of his own to weather political shocks.

In our political system, a leader is not handing out resources of his own; the winners, losers, and nobodies provide all the resources.

A leader says: "I will make you __________." What he doesn't say is "And you will provide all the resources and bear all the risk." Suppose the offer du jour is 'safe.' You will pay for the police and armed forces to make you safe, you will staff and bleed and die providing that safety, you will build the tanks and planes, you will send your children into the meatgrinders both as the generals and the E1s and every swinging dick between, you will pay for your defined contribution pension plan after paying for all of that and funding my defined benefit plan... I will make a few phonecalls and speeches. Is that a good deal for you?"

'Insured.' A leader will impose the ACA on almost the entire nation, others will pay for it, and he will exclude his own from it.

'free' 'happy' Fill in the blank. A leader will ... not do any of that. The winners, losers, and nobodies do it all.

This process of 'leadership' starts in school. In any class of 30 students, maybe 2 take their education by the throat and bust a gut. 27, at best, on a good day, do at most exactly what they are told. And 1 looks around and knows precisely enough math to figure out that 27 is way greater than 2. We call that clever observer of democratic math 'The Leader.'

These people are the actual producers.

Exactly. Producers, bleeders, risk bearers, doers. The actors who bring into being the political promises of the leader. A leader is only in risk that he will run out of his followers resources. When that happens, he needs to figure out a way to borrow from their unborn children.

[deanwins]

Naomi Ludenberg,

In post #5 you make it sound as if Austrian economics "entrepreneurs" who decided which products to make (risking spending their existing resources in order to create the product) are not "actual" producers, nor are the product engineers who created the designs of the products, nor are the industrial engineers who designed the manufacturing system, nor are the managers who put their jobs on the line in order to take the responsibility of meeting deadlines, but the people whom they commanded to "screw this part onto this thingy" on the assembly line are the "actual producers". That is bullshit. They are all "actual" producers.

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Thus, we see that not giving enough to one's core group of supporters is political suicide. But giving them too much is also a mistake (though a far less serious one), because then a leader may not have enough resources of his own to weather political shocks.

In our political system, a leader is not handing out resources of his own; the winners, losers, and nobodies provide all the resources.

A leader says: "I will make you __________." What he doesn't say is "And you will provide all the resources and bear all the risk." Suppose the offer du jour is 'safe.' You will pay for the police and armed forces to make you safe, you will staff and bleed and die providing that safety, you will build the tanks and planes, you will send your children into the meatgrinders both as the generals and the E1s and every swinging dick between, you will pay for your defined contribution pension plan after paying for all of that and funding my defined benefit plan... I will make a few phonecalls and speeches. Is that a good deal for you?"

'Insured.' A leader will impose the ACA on almost the entire nation, others will pay for it, and he will exclude his own from it.

'free' 'happy' Fill in the blank. A leader will ... not do any of that. The winners, losers, and nobodies do it all.

This process of 'leadership' starts in school. In any class of 30 students, maybe 2 take their education by the throat and bust a gut. 27, at best, on a good day, do at most exactly what they are told. And 1 looks around and knows precisely enough math to figure out that 27 is way greater than 2. We call that clever observer of democratic math 'The Leader.'

These people are the actual producers.

Exactly. Producers, bleeders, risk bearers, doers. The actors who bring into being the political promises of the leader. A leader is only in risk that he will run out of his followers resources. When that happens, he needs to figure out a way to borrow from their unborn children.

This is, pretty much, right on target.

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Naomi Ludenberg,

In post #5 you make it sound as if Austrian economics "entrepreneurs" who decided which products to make are not "actual" producers, nor are the product engineers who created the designs of the products, nor are the industrial engineers who designed the manufacturing system, nor are the managers who put their jobs on the line in order to take the responsibility of meeting deadlines, but the people whom they commanded to "screw this part onto this thingy" on the assembly line are the "actual producers". That is bullshit. They are all "actual" producers.

The term "actual producer" is problematic for that reason, and that's why I don't wanna use it. Everyone is an "actual producer" on the most basic level, in the sense that they produce something of value.

The difference is that I wanna say "actual producers" produce the inputs on a turf, whereas leaders transform that input into some kind of output. Since this output is assumed to be valuable by the people on that turf, the leader thereby "produces" something but not in the same sense.

[Frediano]

Naomi Ludenberg,

In post #5 you make it sound as if Austrian economics "entrepreneurs" who decided which products to make are not "actual" producers, nor are the product engineers who created the designs of the products, nor are the industrial engineers who designed the manufacturing system, nor are the managers who put their jobs on the line in order to take the responsibility of meeting deadlines, but the people whom they commanded to "screw this part onto this thingy" on the assembly line are the "actual producers". That is bullshit. They are all "actual" producers.

The term "actual producer" is problematic for that reason, and that's why I don't wanna use it. Everyone is an "actual producer" on the most basic level, in the sense that they produce something of value.

The difference is that I wanna say "actual producers" produce the inputs on a turf, whereas leaders transform that input into some kind of output. Since this output is assumed to be valuable by the people on that turf, the leader thereby "produces" something but not in the same sense.

It seems like you are now shifting from 'political leader' to 'organizer of effort; he who tells those waiting to be told what to do, 'what to do.' In a plurality of self-organized free people, there are lots of things that people want to do, and lots of ways of freely organizing to accomplish those wants. Singularly, as in, the self-employed, and jointly, as in communal/corporate efforts. There are races, plural, not 'the race.' Not all of us competed in the men's downhill at Sochi last month. Only one person came in first. There was only one winner. That isn't the only race. And the function of the Olympic 'leader' was simply to organize the games. Make sure there was enough toilet paper and so on. Totally not a problem.

To apply that concept to something like a national leader presupposes that there is some singular thing that the entire nation wants to do. At that level and scale, those types of things are 'our mutual defence' -- which is provided -- including the organization of same -- by other than our national political leaders. In a free nation, our national political leaders are less emperors and more state plumbers. We strive to give them plungers, not scepters.

[deanwins]

Naomi,

OK. Back to your comment "I think it's easy to see why laissez-faire is politically impossible.":

1. Surely some amount of capitalism must exist in a system. One unquestionable law of reality is that production must exceed consumption, otherwise resources decrease. So I could agree that "laissez-faire" could never exist in its pure form, there is still left the argument about how pure it could be.

2. I'd like to reiterate that "the game" you describe is highly dependent on context of available resources and the properties of force technology. Availability of resources is pretty simple: things like fresh water, oil, good weather for farming, etc... are all variable and not completely controllable by man. Their availability alters what kinds of people can survive (less efficiency can exist when there is higher resource availability per person). Force technology is technology that enables one entity to act in a way that is against another entities will. Different technologies empower different kinds of entities, and new technologies are always being developed. Technologies are game changing, some more significant than others. Some empower different kinds of strategies to attain success in our world.

3. There is also philosophy... but I think that people generally change their philosophy to suit whatever is in their personal interest... they don't necessarily care about Rand's "man" for example. For lots of people, they don't care so much about others, despite so much preaching about it, please for the less fortunate are a deceptive (sometimes self deceptive) beg for themselves. But the philosophy of producers doesn't make their political wishes come true. Might doesn't necessarily make what you consider morally right, but surely might makes true. Of course producers must identify the falsehood of duty ethics in order to feel angry and exercise their might.

More on #3: Its capitalism's Achilles heel that it results in such great prosperity that eventually those who produce nothing grow in numbers to such an extent that they have enough power to take over the system. Evolutionarily, I would say that the emotions to feel the need to give charity and feel duty towards the needy are being weeded out by the currently occurring economic collapses: as these people will be victims of population decline just as much as the welfare recipients. Objective philosophy helps people think through their emotions and come to better conclusions than their instincts.

So anyways, there are game changers: resource availability per person, technological changes that alter advantages of different strategies (producing verses stealing, different forms of producing and stealing), and philosophical advances that help people increase personal goal attainment.

[moralist]

In other words, are we to assume that non-leaders are always non-producers?

Today in America, political leaders produce nothing. They only represent the moral values of the political majority who voted them into office.

The only way to win this game is not to play... and instead create your own game.

Greg

[dldelancey]

In other words, are we to assume that non-leaders are always non-producers?

Today in America, political leaders produce nothing. They only represent the moral values of the political majority who voted them into office.

The only way to win this game is not to play... and instead create your own game.

Greg

Greg, my questions in that post were directed specifically to Naomi so that she could clarify her points. Your preaching at me is neither helpful nor welcome in that context.

[merjet]

But the wealthy can hire lawyers and accountants and what they pay is a much smaller amount in proportion to their income than middle class folks pay.

False (link). Page 9 of the document, page 13 of the file.

[moralist]

In other words, are we to assume that non-leaders are always non-producers?

Today in America, political leaders produce nothing. They only represent the moral values of the political majority who voted them into office.

The only way to win this game is not to play... and instead create your own game.

Greg

Greg, my questions in that post were directed specifically to Naomi so that she could clarify her points. Your preaching at me is neither helpful nor welcome in that context.

My response was just a general comment. Posting is not a zero sum game where the response to one person has the power to prevent a response by another, so there is no need to behave as if it does... unless, of course, that's your own game. I'm sure the deathwisher is fully capable of speaking for herself and will answer your incisive question.

Greg

[Frediano]

But the wealthy can hire lawyers and accountants and what they pay is a much smaller amount in proportion to their income than middle class folks pay.

False (link). Page 9 of the document, page 13 of the file.

Got to love those Quintiles!

Hope I see you on the Quintile Train this year. I'm going to be in the dining car, hogging down some veal. Stop by, I will buy you a drink.

When you show people those things, don't they just come back with the 'But they get more' argument?

See, the problem is, folks just don't realize what Quintile Train to walk onto. They should have better signs at the station.