I am testing my mobile communication system

In a Financial Fog

I'm having trouble really understanding finance and politics, and I'm tired of not being able to argue my point of view very well.  One thought I had is that I should study the whole topic, economics and politics and tax and finance, so that I can understand it better.  I've been avoiding studying it for a few reasons.  One reason, because every time I start reading more about it, I get depressed or aggravated.  Another reason - because it's such a huge topic, and I always assume that there are more than two sides to any given story, and nothing is black and white, but everything is a hazy shade of gray.  And finally - because I'm afraid that I'm not really smart enough to understand what is going on with the whole economy, because if all of these smart people out there have so many different opinions, how can I possibly understand?

But I've decided to start trying to keep track of things I read, in order to be able to go back to them and make sense out of them.  So, in that vein, here are a few interesting thoughts/quotes/articles/points/ whatever ya wanna call them.

Warren Buffett wrote an editorial on why we should stop coddling the super rich: HERE

"...from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers...." Jill Schlesinger, from MoneyWatch.com (CBS)  read more HERE

Read more: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/financial-decoder/buffett-on-taxes-rich-should-pay-more/4830/#ixzz1V7jW5Sqk

The Pay at the Top:  from the New York Times... you can read it HERE...
The compensation research firm Equilar compiled data reflecting pay for 200 chief executives at 199 public companies that filed their annual proxies by April 1 and had revenue of at least $7 billion.
The number one guy - 

Viacom Philippe P. Dauman - 

well, he didn't get a raise in 2009, because his company had laid off about 850 people.  I'm pretty sure they weren't hired back.  So obviously, he deserved to make about 149% more in compensation from 2009 to 2010, because after all he'd missed a year, and they probably showed a pretty good bottom line that year.  So he went from $34 Million to $89.5 Million.

My goal in this exercise is NOT to only be one sided, although so far my links are one sided.  My goal is to really learn the truth.  The hard part about that is that I already have an opinion, and my opinion is so far left I'm practically a socialist or communist or something.  BUT... please... I am a VERY PATRIOTIC AMERICAN, before you get any ideas!  So, I'm planning on doing more research, including on tea party ideals and tenets.  I want to have the whole story, or as close as I can get to it.

And then, I guess, my goal is to fix it.