You know my take - I think the US needs to junk its entire income-based tax code - all of it - and go with a consumption-based tax. And I think Obama is wrong on taxes, wrong on Social Security and wrong on government spending.
Obama, being a traditional "raise taxes, soak the rich" Democrat, is focused on giving tax breaks to poor and middle class, while making the rich pay big-time. It won't work, as the rich hide their incomes better than your local stripper, and raising their taxes will actually drive down tax receipts, but I guess he'll just have to wait to find that out (again).
Meanwhile, $250,000 in depreciating dollars ain't rich in America anymore (thank you Ben Bernanke), but it'll be interesting to see the reaction here and throughout America. Is America ready to throw the rich under the bus? I think they are (thank you Angelo Mozilo).
Obama, being a traditional "raise taxes, soak the rich" Democrat, is focused on giving tax breaks to poor and middle class, while making the rich pay big-time. It won't work, as the rich hide their incomes better than your local stripper, and raising their taxes will actually drive down tax receipts, but I guess he'll just have to wait to find that out (again).
If you're one of the 11% of HP'ers in the $250k+ group, get prepared. And hire those expensive accountants to hide that income like you always do. Strippers, bartenders, realtors and the rich are great at not paying taxes. And that's the American way.
150 comments:
The problem is SPENDING not taxation.
It's like saying well it would be better if vampires sucked 10 gallons of blood from my body via my arm instead of via my neck.
It doesn't make a difference, you're still getting bled dry!!
It's excessive government spending that is killing America. Overblown military and defense spending is one of the biggest problems!
When Clinton raised taxes revenues increased dramatically and economic growth was much stronger than when Bush cut taxes.
But hey, let's drop tax rates to zero. We should have plenty of money to run the country then.
Oh, and that consumption tax idea is stellar. The rich who you think will find a way to get out of paying income tax will surely be glad to pay a consumption tax. There's no way to get around that, is there?
Yeah, that's right. It's EASIER to avoid paying taxes on purchases, ESPECIAlLY if you're rich. Didn't you learn anything from your scandal of the month, Mozilagate?
CAMPAIGN 2008
Barack’s Bounce
The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows the Democrat with a 15-point lead over McCain.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/142465/page/1
Actually, if you go to Obama's website and read the fine print, he wants to raise taxes on everyone making over $40,000/year. Apparently if you make at least $40k you're "the rich" even though $40k won't get you a sh*thole 1-bedroom apartment in any coastal city nowadays.
I'm a FairTax guy. I believe the compliance cost of a traditional income tax is onerous and we need to move to a consumption tax just to avoid that cost.
And, a consumption tax would make the US a worldwide tax shelter and bring jobs back to our shores.
Most people don't know the US has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, 2nd only to Japan, and look what happened to them.
FAIRTAX BABY!
Fortunately, Obama doesn't have a chance - the guy is head of the Taliban after all - so at least we won't see extortionist taxes on everyone making over $40k.
cut spending, and move to a consumption tax on everything but necessities.
In the 80s American business schools were sending students to Japan to study their economic "miracle". Now they're failures due to corporate taxes?
Well it beats the old reason most of you brainstems gave for economic woes. Interracial marriage and homosexuals.
About 50 years ago corporate taxes made up 75% of the revenue taken in and individuals the rest. Since then those figures have flipped. That's why people feel so burdened.
But hey, let's drop taxes to zero. We'll have plenty of money to run the country then.
The polls are showing that Obama will win easily--dreadful thought--but many are getting what they hoped for, including Keith. Keith, what happened that you no longer think Obama walks on water?
As one commenter has already noted, Obama will soak the rich and the rest with higher taxes. He will spend this take on loopy social engineering schemes.
On the other hand, we can vote for McCain who will spend our taxes on the Bush loopy war schemes.
Let's see, 70% of GDP is domestic consumption/spending. So you want to tax 70% of the basis of GDP. I don't think you've thought that through very well.
You certainly want to lower taxes and cut spending. Cut spending till it hurts. Cut the bloated military budget. The US spends 40% of the entire world's military budget. Get our military out of its excellent Mid-East adventure. Cut spending on welfare and cut entitlements. If you need to raise taxes make gas more expensive, like a $5/gal tax AND make public transportation alternatives available, pronto. Lower taxes on corporations to make investment in the US economy more palatable.
Raising taxes on the outer layers of the upper crust may not be all bad, they're the ones that profited the most over the last 20 years. Extend the social security tax to all incomes, even the super rich. Mandate a balanced budget.
The whole idea of the Clinton tax hike was to introduce fiscal responsibility into profligate mismanagement. It worked insofar as it brought confidence back into the system, and attracted overseas investment dollars.
I don’t know how anyone with a straight face can knock the democrats in light of the latest fiasco brought on us by the republicans. The tired clichés of tax and spend ring hollow based on the experience of the last 30 years.
Good luck Gopers. I hope that you enjoy the view from inside you Obama Shelter™. I think that you can still watch Bill O’Reilly in there.
"Fortunately, Obama doesn't have a chance - the guy is head of the Taliban after all - so at least we won't see extortionist taxes on everyone making over $40k."
Frank are you high?
When election time rolls around tens of millions of Americans that used to live high on the hog from credit will have faced the harsh reality of having to live within their means. No more lavish Christmases funded with credit; just lumps of coal. They're going to be looking for someone to blame and the wealthy will be targeted. Obama is going to win in a landslide.
I'd like to know where exactly did Frank read Obama will raise taxes on those making $40K or more per year.
Sounds like you're making up rubbish Frank.
Samantha
In response to this miniature-backlash for the rich, you can expect them to overreact big time. Google-search below two articles:
"Are Rich Americans Leaving The Country?"
"Why the Well-to-Do Are Escaping America”
I can't believe it. At this point I'm voting for Nader, despite being a libertarian most of voting life (voted Perot, Browne, Browne, Bednarik).
I don't agree with Nader's solutions, but at least I agree with his identification of the problems. He may be misguided, but he comes by it honestly. At least he's trying to do what's best for individual citizens.
I saw Nader speak at the local independent book store. He's very sharp and pretty damn funny.
The big "L" Libertarians lost me with Barr and Root.
F@ck the rich. They have too much anyway!!!!! Raise Taxes!!!! =)
Sean Hannity told Frank the $40,000 number
Actually, when you compare McCain's tax plan to Obama's, Obama gives a bigger break to the true "middle class" - anyone making less than $112,000
It's the rich who'll get soaked under Prez Obama
Here's some media, but do your own research. And don't listen to Frank (or Hannity)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbxpMw4mco
http://tinyurl.com/6b45g2
Also, with the post about the rich fleeing - the USA is the only country in the world that taxes its citizens on their worldwide income. You can't run from the IRS. Even if you turn in your passport and defect, Congress made a law that the IRS can still tax you.
Jimmy Obama Carter Jimmy Obama Carter
He will fix everything and the voters of this country will buy it and here we go again 1976 all over again but wait he is the candidate of change but already has half the Clinton left overs working for him.
It's bass-ackward to think of imposing Social Security taxes on the rich - that is, those who are least likely to need Social Security support in any form. It looks like what it is: a punitive, jealous, socialist proposal.
Yes, the rich are good at not paying taxes - yet they usually do, if the taxes are fair and reasonable, and in proportion with the resources they actually use. Get too Robin Hood on the rich, and they have a Plan B: leave. When you're rich, you can be rich anywhere in the world. Been to Dubai lately? 8)
Obama is stepping into a moral black hole with his stupid social security scheme. Making the rich pay for benefits they will not receive is not justifiable, unless he calls Social Security what it is - a Ponzi Scheme that has run out of money and will now be funded by the rich
The correct solution is to raise the retirement age. Period. And that's what I hope Congress will end up doing.
$250K a year in NY, Boston, San Francisco, L.A., Seattle is not even close to rich Keith.
But that is beside the point. Class envy is counter productive and you know it. Have you ever worked for a poor person? Have you ever received any kind of income from a poor person? Of course the answer is not. And that is because whether you like it or not, rich people are the ones who create jobs. They are the ones who expand companies. And they are also the ones who pay most of the taxes. The top 10% of income earners pay 70% of taxes.
But of course none of this matters to you.
The debate on whether $40k or $250k counts as "rich" strenghtens the case for a flat income tax! My hope is that all personal income tax brackets and deductions are abolished some day - there's nothing but brain-dead bureaucracy and/or special interests behind them. Or does tax-exempt mortgage indeed make housing more affordable?
This subject continues to vex me. Yeah I hate opulence, oversized SUVs and conspicous consumption as much as the neo-communist bitterrenter.
But when Evander Holylfield gets 17 bathrooms installed in his house, it's regular folks who get paid to build that obscene dwelling. Same for Al Gore and John Edwards disgusting palaces.
About the cap gains hike. They say people won't invest if that's the case. This is harder to see without having a very good understanding of the whole global economy. I think Warren Buffet supports this, perhaps he can break it down for us if he's an HP reader.
Where I find myself really digging in against Obama is, for one, that the dems have no energy plan.
When you hear them talk on it (just saw Bill Richardson last night) it's like watching a dog chase it's tail. He starts with "drilling won't lower prices tomorrow or next year", so let's not do it (as if longer term goals are meaningless).
Then he moves onto wind, solar and bio-fules (which are all BOONDOGGLES) none of these can work without government subsidies. Then onto conservation. Before you know it he's in a short loop of these themes. Bottom line, they got nothing. And I can't understand why, people are suffering, especially the poor.
True story, two weeks ago I picked up a man and woman hitch-hiking on Sunday afternoon. Both in their mid 40's. They say their car ran out of gas and they walked 3 miles to her sisters house TO BORROW 6 DOLLARS. I was stunned when I heard that number. Imagine walking 6 miles round trip to borrow 6 dollars. Good Lord. I was glad that I stopped and was able to drive them the last two miles back to the gas station (apparently the car was nearby).
Guess I got off on a tangent there. I did mentioned I was vexed after all.
Frank,
It wasn't $40,000. It was actually $31,000. Obama has promised to revert **INCOME** taxes back to pre-2001 levels. That means that anyone making over $31,000 will have a higher tax bill. That's just fact. Look up tax rates in 2008, compare to tax rates in 2000 and do the arithmetic. Nothing too hard about it.
The $250,000 in question here is only for social security taxes.
It's all moot anyway. Tax revenue will fall no matter what. For someone earning $250K their marginal tax rate will be 39.6% income tax, 12.4% social security tax and another 2.9% Medicare tax. That's a 55% marginal tax rate. Add in another 5 or 6% state income tax and for ever $100 earned, $60 will go to the government.
I am on the cusp of $250,000, almost there but not quite but hope to be by next year. I'll tell you one thing though, if my marginal rate goes to 60%, I'm saying fuck it. No way I'm spending Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday working for nothing. I will find a way to get paid in non-taxable ways. Or if none of that is possible, I just won't work past the $250,000 mark. And then instead of getting the 40 cents on the dollar you get from me now, you;ll get nothing. Brilliant plan Barack, absolutely brilliant.
As for leaving the country and paying the IRS, that's a good one Keith. I'm sure if I move to Mexico or Argentina or Bulgaria, the tax authorities there will make sure the IRS knows about me.
http://www.humanevents.com
/article.php?id=25496
I think that Congress should raise the retirement age as well. There's no chance that I will see any Social Security payments without it, so I welcome it. If you saved enough to retire early, you shouldn't have a problem with waiting a little longer to collect it. But it clouds the issue a little bit to not tax the rich on Social Security because we are all getting taxed on things we never use and never can use.
the people who want gas at 10 dollars a gallon are the same people who want people to stop smoking, people to stop abortions, (i wish)people to stop drinking, stop welfare, stop taxes, climb and live in trees, and any other cause. Save the whales, save the fishes, save the birds, save the environment. Kill the grass let it go back to aunatural (and then complain about the idiot who won't water his lawn in their neighborhood they meant your neighborhood) Save the air 10 dollar gas and that'll teach people not to buy big trucks and SUV'S. (but don't charge me more for my airline ticket when I go to the I hate everything rally)
A bunch WHITE men started this mess and I don't hear anybody talking about how greedy RICH WHITE people started this mess in this country. Pay your taxes and shut the fuck up. Us lessers do because we don't have enough money to send out of the country and we are tired of taking care of your lazy self serving self centered lives. I am going to be like the people who threw blood on someones mink coat. Consumption tax, this country will really be bankrupt because if it were not for us lowly poor people no taxes would be paid period. The RICH WHITE people would put every expense on their company expense sheet or business card, even down to the coffee at Starbucks why do you think you can pay for everything with a card of some sort. They would never absorb one dime. Then the consumer would pay to offset the consumpton tax. If there is a rule/law someone will find the loophole and abuse it especially if it involves money. Case in point the mortgage crisis.
CUT SPENDING!!!!
Outsource the U.S. Government to India!!
It's worked so well for U.S. Companies to cut costs
How much of that him and his donors keep and what will be left for rest of us ?
I have no doubt in my mind he will bring the techniques of corruption he perfected in Illinois to national level to make himself, his wife and his buddies rich.
Bitterrenter,
"When Clinton raised taxes revenues increased dramatically and economic growth was much stronger than when Bush cut taxes."
When Clinton took office, the economy was already recovering . . . whereas when W took office the economy was about implode from the biggest bubble up to that time (the 1999 stock market bubble). By your logic, firefighters are a leading cause of houses burning down: houses where they show up are statisticly higher chance of burning down than normal average houses not having a fire at all, never mind it's burning down despite of them not because of them. LOL.
BTW, the exact timing of the NASDAQ bubble had a lot to do with taxes . . . it crashed in March and April 2000 just as taxes were due from 1999 stockmarket paper profits. Higher tax rate instituted in lean economic times inevitably kill the economy at boom time. The tax "surplus" rate in 2000 was going at more than 2% of GDP due to the high taxable income in 1999; that 2% or higher "surplus" (ongoing cash flow basis, not counting long term liablity like SSC) is one of the best guarantor of recession.
If you truly believe that raise taxes on something (like income) would make more of it, then why do we have taxes on alcohol and tobacco? Obviously tax something makes that something less. Making Americans have lower income is exactly what tax-and-spend feudalistic policies lead to.
"But hey, let's drop tax rates to zero. We should have plenty of money to run the country then. "
Who are "We"? And why do "We" have to "run" the country? Are you _run_ by someone else?
"But hey, let's drop tax rates to zero. We should have plenty of money to run the country then. "
"In the 80s American business schools were sending students to Japan to study their economic "miracle". Now they're failures due to corporate taxes?"
Yes, dear, earth to Bitterrenter, Japan has been in depression for 28 years, and still counting.
Japanese post-war prosperity started with entreprenureship and good work ethics back in the 1950's,60's and 70's. By the 80's, the Japanese government was so fat on the hog from taxing the Japanese economic growth, it was literally looking for ways to spend money. None of the Japanese Ministry of Industry's billions of spending led to much of anything; they missed the PC revolution, the internet revolution and the biotech revolution. Japan went into a full blown stock market and real estate bubble in the 1980's because economy evolved around the cronism built up around government and industrial bureacrats (Mozillo would have made a good Zaibatsu!). Of course, that's when American Business Schools got really interested in learning from Japan. Hahaha, typical contrarian indicators, just like the magazine covers. Goes to show you why we are perpetually f*cked if we allow ourselves robbed at gun point so the resources are given to the ivory tower academics to "run" the country.
Clownifornia introduced punitive taxes on the rich and the rich fled to other states and the state got nothing. Obama will do the same and the money will flee to other countries and the country will get nothing. When will the stupid socialists learn that taxation does not lead to wealth?
I pay enough taxes...I pay more taxes then most people earn in a year. It is an outrage! Then they talk about taxing me more. Why the F are they not talking about cutting spending! Cut entitlements first. I am 41 if they go back to 70% top tax bracket during Dem Carter years I'll do everything in my power to make sure I do not pay the crooks. www.perotcharts.com check it out.
Better yet, fire most of them - 90% aren't needed anyway, and besides, they stopped representing the people (what they were put there for) a long time ago.
The Housing Bubble Ate My Balls said...
CUT SPENDING!!!!
Outsource the U.S. Government to India!!
It's worked so well for U.S. Companies to cut costs.
Inflation is the fairest tax.
You yelping twats have bigger fish to fry.
http://tinyurl.com/6exjbq
Any Obama tax increase absolutely pales in comparison to the 2-3trillion to be added to the national debt by BoA/CFC who it turns out wrote most of the Dodd/Shelby bailout bill back in MARCH.
1. Higher taxes on your neighbors means higher taxes on your too. Contrary to the popular misconception about "sharing the tax burden," higher taxes on your neighbors does not mean lower tax burden on you. Instead, with higher tax revenue, more programs will be put together by the politicians. Because of the progressive system, the highest tax brackets are usually not catching the regular W-2 wage earners but the segment whose income fluctuates with the economy. That means the government programs put together in years when the government gets a windfall in tax revenues, all those extra shiny new programs benefitting their friends and family, will have to be paid for taxes from the W-2 wage earners in the subsequent economic down-turn! Because those in the high end with fluctuating income have less income or even losses in those lean times. That's why higher taxes on your rich neighbors inevitably lead to higher taxes on yourself!
2. The high income individuals have to
a. spend money on something, or
b. invest it, or
c. have the banks invest it for them.
That means, the money ultimately goes to people who work for them, or work for the jobs that the investment creates.
With federal taxation, the money is taken out of the local community. Then it can be spent on:
(a) a bridge going to nowhere on the other end of the continent;
(b) a war on the other side of the globe, buying off one tribe/faction or another, paying off one government crony or another;
(c) someone who doesn't work or doesn't work enough, so he/she can bid up the price of healthcare, housing, food, gasoline ahead of you the working family . . . after 87 cents out of every dollar is taken out for government cronies in the paper pushing.
In other words, taxation transfers wealth from the working family to the non-working, with on average 87 cents of every dollar siphoned off by government paper purshers. That's why raising taxes is not Robinhood at all; raising taxes is literally taking money from the poor and middle class, and giving it to the Sheriff of Notingham!
Consumption-based tax?
Either way we loose.
Taxation guides economic behavior.
Consumption tax discourages consumption the same way capital gains breaks encouraged the bubble.
Consumption tax puts the entire burden of tax reporting on merchants, landlords, and service providers.
Do you think the tax will come out of their current prices?
No the tax will come out of their new 40% higher inflated prices which you will pay from your current before tax income.
I just don’t see any good coming from it.
Bush lowered the highest tax bracket from 38.6% to 35%. BFD.
It's the gov spending that is out of control...the military, farm-aid, huge pensions, ss, entitlements, etc.....it's all sickening to me.
The fact that the rich pay most of the taxes should not surprise anyone. The reason why is because they HAVE most of the income! When 1% of the population has 40% of income and wealth, then duh, they will be paying a larger share of taxes then everyone else, as they should be. Thats simple mathematics.
PS -- How many rich people will be hanging around in Dubai when the next Middle Eastern war starts? Here, your "high taxes" are paying to protect your wealth and your income -- its not free, and its not a given.
Don't forget to answer my simple question:
Has the backlash against 'the rich' started?
The answer, of course, is yes. And right after that comes the backlash against the baby boomers.
I feel a change a comin...
In response to Chris's suggestion that we raise the age where someone can collect Social Security Taxes, I ask Chris to please remember that not everyone "makes it" in good health to "The Golden Years". With retirement now at 66, please don't think that a working man or woman who has been hacking it out in all weather for 40 years is going to live into their 90s. The percentile is still very small for anything beyond 73. When you reach your 50s, according to "Should I Retire" by George H. Preston, M.D. (a doctor who wrote this in the 1950s) You are going to notice bodily deterioration, especially if you worked all your life in labor. By the 60s, your quality of life is reduced dramatically and by 70 your only going from one doctor appointment to another. Long life belongs to rich people who worked with very little stress their whole life.
You can't be a factory worker and expect to reach late age. You WILL DIE in your 60s most likely. This is a statistical fact. If you are in a low stress occupation, like a religious vocation, you may reach your 80s if you dont' get cancer or some other disease. Chris, I suspect you are younger. You may not realize these facts. I suggest you find a copy of Preston's old book, you will find the information fascinating. Don't believe what you read in the press. Most still die in their early 60s before anyone gets a chance to collect that check. The government knows this and that is why it is at 66. (They already raised it anyway, it used to be lower) It's our money that we worked for all our life, the Government has no right to steal it. They want it all. Besides, if they ELIMINATED 2 programs, Social Security and Medicare, they could afford to pay every man woman and child in the USA 28K per year for the rest of their lives. That is how much money is tied up in the red tape of government.
Taxes: The Bogeyman of the Brainstems
Brainstems believe that you can run a first rate country on AIR. Other brainstems think you can run a first rate country of 300 million without a government! Still other brainstems believe the republicans will bring us something different than the economic debacle we're locked in after 30 years of conservative fiscaal policies!
Brainstems are very prevalent here.
It is foolish to think that the Rich will pay taxes. They know no borders and they have ability to move money to places we have not even heard of.
Tax and Spend liberals should be a dead issue by now. IT don't work and it will not work.
As far as the wealthy threatening to leave: LET THEM.
There's no LIVABLE country in the world that will give them a better deal. Any place that taxes them lower than the US will necessitate spending huge amounts of money on security, armored Mercedes and bodyguards. Think third world shitholes. Europe? No, they'll pay more. Australia, New Zealand? Yep, they'll pay out the ass.
I'd LOVE to see those selfish assholes living behind electrified gates, afraid to leave their compounds for fear of being murdered. Better yet, I'd like to see he rich republicans murdered.
$250,000 a yaer is peanuts, especially if you live in an expesnive city like San Francisco or New York. If your in Iowa or Kansas City, then $250k a year is a TON of money.
And I highly doubt that 11% of HPers make $250k a year. Give me a break!
And to answer Keth's question: NO, the backlash against the rich has not started. I live in a highly affluent county in northern NJ full of mansions owned by Wall Street big shots and rap singers, and I see no such "backlash."
"Fortunately, Obama doesn't have a chance - the guy is head of the Taliban after all - so at least we won't see extortionist taxes on everyone making over $40k."
That is 100% racist Frank. You should take back that ignorant statement.
"Any place that taxes them lower than the US will necessitate spending huge amounts of money on security, armored Mercedes and bodyguards."
And rich people in the U.S. don't have security and body guards????
I'm the smartest one out there. I bought a Honda Odyssey, so I have the space of a Ford Expedition, and the fuel efficiency of a Chevy Impala. Who says that you need an SUV to have space? There is nothing wrong with driving around a soccer mom minivan...
as a $64K/yr W-2er, I will probably fall victim to Obama era taxation more than any rich person. The rich are already paying hefty taxes. My class, the so-called "middle" but more like "the not completely poor yet" are the ones in the democrat taxation cross-hairs now. They'll happily push us down into poverty so we'll become life-long dem voters.
Saw a newsweek poll putting Obama ahead of McCain nationwide by double digits. Not surprising since McCain is a terrible candidate. "If you like the idea Bush term four: never-ending wars, torture, fewer jobs and less freedom.. then vote McSame".
So I guess I'd better stock up on four year supply of KY. Someone please find a viable candidate for 2012.
Some murderers are good at covering their tracks, so maybe we should reduce murder to a misdemeanor.
Some people can shout FIRE! in a crowded theater and then no one remembers who did it. So we should say it's OK to do that too.
If the rich are good at hiding their income, the solution is NOT to lower their taxes.
Higher taxes on higher earners in the 1990s coincided with one of the strongest economies in decades.
Bitter idiot renter is the typical Obama supporter. Has no idea about economics and thinks if we kill the rich, the poor will then become rich.
Please do me a favor and never have children.
sure, the faux rich will blame anyone but themselves for living beyond their means.
politicians need to be on the same entitlement programs as the people they represent, without the extra sweet pensions. then, they might actually fix social security, etc.
Get off yer knees, Anon 6:11. Stop polishing rich knob. Worshipping the wealthy is so 1980s and led us nowhere but into debt, deficits, decay and decline.
Talk about a failed ideology. Supply-side economics not only didn't work, it has failed miserably.
I don't have to reproduce to create more liberals. Republicans did a great job of turning people away from conservative savagery.
xoxo,
BR
Bitterrenter,
1. Actually, the only way a country, any country, can become a first-rate country is by low taxes and limited government. When they stop having low taxes and regulations, they slide down the the road to serfdom. What examples of that? How about Ireland, which used to be the "sick man of Western Europe," but through tax cutting and deregulation it now has one of the highest income in Western Europe. How about Finland? Another success story of low taxation and regulation (compared to its neighbors). Next door Sweden? Used to be a first rate country, then the high taxation and regulation killed the goose that laid golden eggs. Finnish girls used to go to Sweden as nannies back in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. As the spotlight of "third way" socialism trained on the Swedes in the 80's, its economy stagnated . . . by the mid-90's, Swedish girls were going to Finland as nannies.
2. As for the wealthy leaving the country. It's been happening since the 60's. How do you think Sir John Templeton became a Bahamian and received British Knighthood through his charity work? Jim Rogers just left recently. Why else do you think IRS put in a provision into the tax code that demand tax from American citizens even after they renounce their citizenship? Anyone with income over $350k or so would have to prove that the citizenship renunciation is not due to tax reasons. In other words, the government owns you even overseas, until proven otherwise, hmm, what a joke. Feudal lords of the yore only wished they had that kind of extra-territoriality.
Yoski -
how does taxing income not affect consumption as well? do people buy stuff with something other than an income? we've seen that consumption beyond income levels is unsustainable. income taxes punish productivity, and fail to tax those who earn off the grid.
consumption taxes on non-necessities reward saving, and generate revenue off of conspicuous consumption.
Man, there are a lot of fascists or free-market-solves-all-every-word-of
-Ayn-Rand-is-the-word-of-god Kool Aid drinkers out there today.
Raise the top tax bracket to 91% (which it was under Eisenhower - that's right), and after all those f'in loopholes, the rich will finally pay their fair share, around 55%
Way ahead of you Keith. My business here is still turning a profit but much of the personal assets and the new family business is overseas in a country that knows the value of a healthy business. We are spread throughout four countries and have plans in case the business enviroment goes south in any one of the four.
The laws in the U.S. were, are, and always will be, written by and for those who own businesses.
"It's bass-ackward to think of imposing Social Security taxes on the rich - that is, those who are least likely to need Social Security support in any form. It looks like what it is: a punitive, jealous, socialist proposal."
Actually, you pay nothing to social security for income over something like $100,000. That's even less fair than a flat tax, like Medicare. Socialism indeed.
"If the rich are good at hiding their income, the solution is NOT to lower their taxes"
Then more money will be wasted on the cat-and-mouth game instead of having the rich spend the money and hire people who do productive works. Do you honestly believe the IRS spend much resources going after the really rich? Of course not, as that would be cost-ineffective. The bulk of the tax collecting resources is spent on chasing after the upper middle class who are not rich enough to hire enough accountants and lawyers to guard their wealth.
"Higher taxes on higher earners in the 1990s coincided with one of the strongest economies in decades."
And firefighters also usually coincide with houses burning down. BTW, much the 1990's did not have a very high overall tax rate due to relatively rare triggering of the upper tax brackets before the very end of that decade; what really helped was the divided White House vs. Congress, so no major government program could be done. That effectively lowered the burden of government taxation and regulation. Another major factor was demographic: the baby boomer generation was in their peak earning/productivity years.
Eventually, due to the progressive tax brackets, as the economy improved and income rose in the tail end of the 1990's, more and more people got caught by the upper tax brackets, and alternative minimum taxes, none of which many of them had dreamed that they'd be caught up in themselves (even as they had supported the imposition of those upper brackets and AMT a decade ealier)! That's when the government cash flow "surplus" zoomed to over 2% of GDP! The effective tax rate on the whole economy increased dramaticly as more and more people triggered the upper tax brackets and AMT. That's a big reason why the NASDAQ bubble burst in the March to April tax payment due season.
geezs...just a few short years ago 250,000 bucks was a lifetime of hard earned savings and worth something...not just a house flip or some other speculation........ thyat it will not buy hardly today...................ive been robbed
"Robin From the Hood"
"Barack Hussein Obama"
WTF.
Keith, your personal attacks on Obama are embarrassing.
Paul Krugman did an excellent piece on this within the last 2 weeks - Obama's plan is really to let the bush tax cuts expire - which they were written to do anyway - which is not so much a tax increase as not extending ridiculous tax cuts in the first place - also Obama's plan saves middle class tax payers about $1K/year where McCain only saves them ~$300/year. Given the huge gap that's grown in incomes during the Bush years - you cannot tax people that actually work for their money more than people earn money while they go out and play golf
8 Reasons You Should Not Expect an Inheritance
"An AARP analysis of the Federal Reserve Board’s 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances noted that 21 percent of people born after 1964 thought they would inherit some money someday. After all, most of them still have living parents or grandparents. But with each passing year, the pressures on the nest eggs of those older people will only grow."
http://tinyurl.com/4r3otl
Or, in other words, wealth is only for those at the tippy tippy top of the food chain.
yeah...with the half million his wife michele scammed from the hospital last year, 250,000 a year is rich...............
my wife and i are both accountants that make 250k combined.
sure wish i could hide it keith.
please keith, tell me how we can hide our combined 250k w-2 earnings.
pretty please...
more taxes on my wife and i just means we will spend less.
no biggie.
You're wrong again with your trolling for Hussein, Keith. Hussein will raise taxes on anyone who has a mutual fund in retirement accounts, including you.
He said many times that the capital gains tax would go from the current 15% to 28% under his administration.
And please, do a research online first, before you come with the stupid assumption that capital gains tax doesn't affect deferred accounts. It affects EVERYONE who has mutual funds, either in deferred accounts or not, either you sell shares or not, either you withdraw now or later.
Don't be ignorant to think that Obama's raise in capital gains will affect only investors outside deferred accounts. Your mutual fund pays capital gains as a whole when there's high turnover or it has to sell shares in order to buy other stocks or raise cash. That capital gains expense is deducted from the entire fund, which translates into lower returns until you retirement start doing withdraws.
That hidden expense is allocated according to ownership percentages in the fund. For example, if you own 1% of the entire mutual fund, you'll pay 1% of 15% in capital gains to the government. With Obama, you'll pay now 1% of 18%. That happens every year, all the time. And no, there's nothing to do with withdraws or being deferred. That's a hidden expense that the mutual fund has to pay to the government.
Don't be stupid to think that an increase in capital gains won't lower the returns in your mutual funds just because you haven't started to withdraw or because it's deferred. Do a research online about it. I see many people, including Keith, who don't know how capital gains tax works in mutual funds and keep cheering this tax hike from Obama like it wouldn't affect them. In a nutshell, you'll have less money to retire on.
Don't take my word for it, do a research online.
Obama gonna gets me a checks
Chris Dodd's new banker bailout bill will have the government collect data on ALL of your personal purchases and transactions.
http://www.freedomworks.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=2571
"This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America's small businesses are breathtaking."
"Privacy groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and small business organizations like the NFIB sharply criticized this idea when it first appeared earlier this year. What is the federal government's purpose with this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured, and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a housing bailout bill? The bill also includes the creation of a new national fingerprint registry for mortgage brokers.
"At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America's payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have time to examine its full implications."
The polls are showing that Obama will win easily
Not gonna happen, not after this last week or two. We have a serious oil crisis and gas prices are affecting most Americans in big ways. Mr. Obama however opposes every single solution to the problem - offshore drilling, domestic drilling, nuclear power, everything. On top of that he wants a "windfall" tax on oil companies, who of course will only pass it on to consumers at the pump, raising prices even more. To top it all, Obama's voting record shows that he favored big tax breaks for big oil in the past, before this little thing called a Presidential campaign.
The oil crisis is going to sink Obama big-time and will cause him to lose in a landslide. 4-1/2 months is a LONG time in Presidential politics - just look at any campaign from the past and in most cases the front runner 4-1/2 months out wound up losing.
Even if you turn in your passport and defect, Congress made a law that the IRS can still tax you.
That's only on personal income. Lots of people are moving to Dubai corporations and the corporate income is not taxable by the US. Only what you withdraw as salary or dividends.
Has the backlash against 'the rich' started? The answer, of course, is yes. And right after that comes the backlash against the baby boomers.
I feel a change a comin...
Yep, a change for the worse. Kiss more jobs goodbye and watch them to go to Mexico, India, and the like. Backlashes against the rich always wind up hurting the poor and middle class because the rich move their operations elsewhere and move the jobs elsewhere.
People who are ignorant of economics don't realize that raising taxes on the rich removes their incentive to produce, causing them to either stop producing altogether, or causing them to move their operations overseas. In both cases, tax revenues go bye-bye and jobs go bye-bye (and remember, not only do you lose the tax revenue from the employers themselves, but also the income and payroll taxes from all those jobs that are now gone).
I know several people (successful entrepreneurs, etc) who have $10 or $20 million in the bank and plan to simply retire from business altogether if taxes go up, meaning they will have no income anymore and will be out of the system and will no longer be contributing to the tax base.
Yeah, backlashes against the rich ... hehe ... whenever there's a backlash against Atlas, Atlas simply shrugs. Everyone hates the rich until they remember who signs their paychecks and then one day there's a pink slip instead of a paycheck in that little envelope.
Oh well, my programmers in Romania and Pakistan are happy campers at least. They're getting my money now that I got sick of American workers who continually demand more and more money to do less and less. I guess you can say they backlashed too and look what that got them.
Bitter idiot renter is the typical Obama supporter. Has no idea about economics and thinks if we kill the rich, the poor will then become rich.
Please do me a favor and never have children.
Don't worry. I don't think he has enough charisma to charm even stoned and stupid chicks into giving it up in his Mama's basement.
What planet are you on when you talk about 250k being chump change, anyway?
I think this is another one of Obama's stupid ideas, but acting like someone making about five times the median family income is poverty stricken is effin' ridiculous.
No way that jig ever makes to the white house. And if he does, he won't last. There's a whole white system that is in place to prevent exactly this sort of thing...
Robin Hood and his buddy aren't wearing any pants. That's a little freaky.
REALTORS won't get tax hikes because they no longer have income
The only good thing is that Obama's tax increases will hurt the upper middle class white yuppies the most. Those are the ones driving his campaign along with the illegal immigrants and welfare ghettoids.
"Raise the top tax bracket to 91% (which it was under Eisenhower - that's right), and after all those f'in loopholes, the rich will finally pay their fair share, around 55%"
That's how you end up with the military industrial complex enslaving every one! Income tax was initially set at 1-7% when it was introduced in 1913. Wars were the excuses to raise it higher, and higher taxes and central banking enabled perpetual wars.
Higher taxes on the rich does not benefit the poor! Instead, higher taxes robs the working poor of their job opportunities, so that all the poor and middle class (soon to be poor) will have to beg at the feet of government. Government being unable to produce anything itself, will just send the poor overseas to be cannon fodders in perpetual warmaking. That's what high taxes always end up: a militant imperial state.
Hey Frank, you're an idiot. When the rich move their operations over seas who's left to buy their garbage? Shut your face. If there were no poor people there would be no rich. They both depend on one another. History is littered with pages that describe what happens when the commoners are pushed to their limits. Go ahead and think yourself mighty you pretentious ass. When the time comes for rebellion no money in the world is going to save your hide. You must have married into money because it is apparent that you lack the IQ to have acquired it yourself.
Anonymous said...
Bitter idiot renter is the typical Obama supporter. Has no idea about economics and thinks if we kill the rich, the poor will then become rich.
Please do me a favor and never have children.
Don't worry. I don't think he has enough charisma to charm even stoned and stupid chicks into giving it up in his Mama's basement.
Damn shame that we weren't there to ask your parents to do us the same favor.
"When 1% of the population has 40% of income and wealth, then duh, they will be paying a larger share of taxes then everyone else, as they should be. Thats simple mathematics."
Not so simple at all. High income and having wealth are two different things. Suppose Paris Hilton had a super smart and super hard working sibling; when old Hilton dies, Paris gets a $billion, and so does her hard working sibling. The sibling makes 10% return on that inheritance every year, whereas Paris pisses away 1% ($10 mil) of that money each year. Who do you think get taxed? Now if an upstart hotelier tries to compete against Paris, starting with a relatively small base, say $10 million, but grows 20% each year . . . guess who gets taxed? Not the wasteful Paris but her industrious competitor! Income tax gets in the way of wealth building and encourages wealth destruction. That's the insidiousness of income tax. Not supurising: when you tax something, you get less of it. In this case, American society gets poorer and poorer because less wealth is produced as a result of income tax.
"PS -- How many rich people will be hanging around in Dubai when the next Middle Eastern war starts? Here, your "high taxes" are paying to protect your wealth and your income -- its not free, and its not a given."
Ever thought the possiblity that the next war in the Middle East is launced with the intention of corralling the competitive wealthy? Just like Louise XIV's invasion of the Netherlands trying to capture the banking wealth there? French tax payers paid for the war, but it certainly did not bring Frenchmen freedom or security. Louise did not get his greesy hands on the Antewerp wealth either, as the banking houses fled to London.
The 1990's was a relatively low tax decade:
1. At the grassroot level, there was a massive tax revolt taking place in the early to mid 90's. Tax-and-spend governors were tossed out of office, replaced by tax cutters. Numerous grassroot initiatives made into state law, drasticly lowering state tax levels.
2. At the national level, even the Democrats saw what was happening to the national voter sentiment, and fielded the "new Democrats" wing of the DNC crowd that de-emphasized tax-and-spend.
3. The White House and Congress were divided for most of the decade, making spending measures hard to pass into law.
What eventually did the 90's prosperity in was:
(1) Monetary bubble by the FED to prevent the necessary and healthy correction that should have taken place in 1996 and 1998 but didn't;
(2) As the stock market asset bubble zoomed ahead, more and more people got caught up in higher tax brackets and AMT from policies insittuted long before the 1990's. When those higher tax brackets in progressive tax schedule and AMT hit, the government's effective take on the economy mashroomed at the tail end of the 1990's. That brought an end to the 90's prosperity.
Robin Hood's credo was not wealth redistribution per se; his men patronized the local tavern and paid their tabs (tavern usually being one of the most important commerce site at the time, and consequently the tavern owners were usually quite successful).
Robin Hood's rebellion was against the tax authority, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and his imperial overlord King John. Robin Hood's story was about taking resources back from the priviledged feudalistic tax collectors, and putting it back in the hands of the ordinary market participants, yes, including the "capitalist" tavern owner. LOL.
oops, make that "Prince John" for the duration of the story. It's the same John who, after the death of King Richard, tried to raise taxes again and faced another tax revolt, this time by barons. Yes, that Prince John is the King John who was forced by his rebelling barons into signing Magna Carta, the document that started the Anglo-American tradition of check and blance of power.
"Yeah, backlashes against the rich ... hehe ... whenever there's a backlash against Atlas, Atlas simply shrugs. Everyone hates the rich until they remember who signs their paychecks and then one day there's a pink slip instead of a paycheck in that little envelope.
Oh well, my programmers in Romania and Pakistan are happy campers at least. They're getting my money now that I got sick of American workers who continually demand more and more money to do less and less. I guess you can say they backlashed too and look what that got them."
This. Kind. of. thinking. Is why our country is fracked.
That is 100% racist Frank. You should take back that ignorant statement.
How silly of me. I forgot that Democrats are all born without a sense of humor.
Oh Anon 10:53, that old tired "living in his mother's basement" thing again?
I'll bet my net worth exceeds yours by a considerable amount so have little need to live in a basemenrt. And I'll bet I've been with as hot of women as you too. Well, until I went gay in my 30s and even then the guys I dated were damn hot too.
Oh Reality, give it a f*cking rest. The way to build a first rate country is not limited taxation and small government. This country and all the other first world economies went through an amazing growth period of advancement with VERY high taxes. In the US the top rate was 90% and we STILL had amazing growth and a thriving middle class. Things started going to shit when the conservatives convinced people selfishness was the way to go.
Your way has never been tested here. The places it has are shitholes. All you have are theories and bad ones at that. Conservatism and libertarianism have both been on this ridiculous quest to prove their theories correct but they can't get anyone to try them.
Understand this: THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION IS OVER. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE SOUNDLY REJECTED YOUR SAVAGE ISOLATIONIST GARBAGE ANARCHY.
I notice you stay in this country even though it seems you are not from here. Cuba perhaps? GO home. GO somewhere that doesn't tax people. I think Africa has some lovely places where you can live in a hut.
On the contrary, rich people from other places are moving here. America is a magnet for selfish pigs who want to live in a great country but not be asked to contribute much to its upkeep. It's the best deal going for deadbeats and users.
EAT THE RICH!
STERILIZE THEIR CHILDREN.
"But hey, let's drop tax rates to zero. We should have plenty of money to run the country then. "
June 21, 2008 3:50 PM
-------------------
All (100%)of the USA's collected income tax goes to pay the Fed Bank interest. Just saying. The money does not runthe country, local and state taxes do. Duh.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
The polls are showing that Obama will win easily--dreadful thought--but many are getting what they hoped for, including Keith. Keith, what happened that you no longer think Obama walks on water?
As one commenter has already noted, Obama will soak the rich and the rest with higher taxes. He will spend this take on loopy social engineering schemes.
On the other hand, we can vote for McCain who will spend our taxes on the Bush loopy war schemes.
June 21, 2008 8:56 AM<<<
hmmm, so what happens when there is no one to vote for? is that game set match on this bit of nonsense we call a democratic republic? so now the game has come full circle hasn't it? the status quo has finally showed us its hand now. what is she holding? 4 aces? the game is rigged. the jig is up. there is no choice. there never was. so now we have to conclude that the founding fathers were right. a little revolution is necessary every once in a while.
250k was rich in 1980. Today is it is barely middle class.
Anyone making over $50,000 a year is wealthy and needs to be punished
I would say so, Keith. I personally don't care if people making over $250,000 get taxed some more, it is not my tax bracket, and it looks like those making that kind of money had friends in high places the last 7 years. So it goes.
What is much more troubling is how hard it is getting for people who don't make great money. There was once something called noblesse oblige, where the nobles gave to the peasants so the peasants wouldn't come kill them out of rage at their fate in life. Big deal if someone has to move out of a big house to a smaller house, boo-hoo, but if people can't feed themselves properly or get basic services, and others are living large, well, that is a recipe for violence.
Are we there yet? No, but the trends are.
Obama, being a traditional "raise taxes, soak the rich" Democrat, is focused on giving tax breaks to poor and middle class, while making the rich pay big-time. It won't work, as the rich hide their incomes better than your local stripper, and raising their taxes will actually drive down tax receipts, but I guess he'll just have to wait to find that out (again).
--
If you want to see what Obama will do tax wise you don't have to wonder, ponder or guess.
Just Google the results of Chicago's bottle water tax, Chicago's gasoline tax, and Cook County's cigarette tax. All three were raised. Revenues from all three sources DROPPED because people went elsewhere to buy those items!
One border suburb is threatening to secede from Cook County because of the higher sales tax. The highest in the nation thank you very much.
Furthermore, Chicago did it's own retarded part of slowing the housing market even further by raising the real estate transfer tax to pay for senior citizens to ride the mass transit system for free.
You guys would not believe the sh!t they do here.
links to chicago's f-ed up tax policies:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6215732
http://www.beepcentral.com/story.aspx?story=24266
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/balko-040407.html
Going into a housing crash, Mayor Daley, Obama's puppet master forces a tax on real estate transfers.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5942178
And bush lowered the taxation on such to historically low levels---and ran up a huge deficit.
When there's a deficit, a tax cut is ONLY a tax deferral.
Bush/Cheney are the rapacious Sheriffs of Nottingham.
Look, the national debt is ours too.
Natural forces of economics are mkaing it such that the super rich are getting much much richer, and everybody else is getting the shaft.
And then people scream about the ONLY SINGLE action which might equalize some of the burdens to the benefits?
What's stupid about this Obama statement is that he doesn't realize that a $250k income for a couple of professionals, living in a city like NY or San Francisco, doesn't make them rich. Figure you have two professionals, a doctor or a dentist, who have to make exorbitant monthly payments for a $200k student loan from the medical school, they're in a 33% tax bracket and pay taxes to the teeth, then you add medical malpractice insurance which runs around $100k per year, mortgage for a $800k home, school for 2 kids, two cars + insurance, insurance for the entire family @ $1,000 per month, heating, utilities, etc. Keep adding all that to see that many people earning $250k are far from rich.
Obama won't care where you live or what you do for a living, and he'll charge everyone the same, no matter what. Don't forget that the Dems will be preying on the poor people vote so they'll increase taxes on the middle-class to transfer funds to welfare and food stamps.
Again, we live in a new America, and the message from the Democrats is that if you're responsible, high achiever, get a degree while working hard (the way I did), play by the rules, don't buy homes you can't afford, go to work everyday to provide for your family, save money, don't have a zillion babies you can't raise, start a new business to provide jobs and help the economy, etc...if you do all that you get punished by Obama's tax hikes and bailouts to irresponsible home buyers and fraudsters that will keep prices artificially high.
The Democratic party and Obama rather reward all the irresponsible people who breed like flies, refuse to go to school and get a degree because they party all day, or to those who love to take a free ride with food stamps and section 8 because they're lazy to work. That includes millions of illegals who will get a citizenship just to become freeloaders at taxpayer expense, especially during this depression/recession. Oh, and BTW, I used to be a registered Democrat until this year until I changed to Independent.
We live in a new America that fits the message of the Democratic party: if you're irresponsible or lazy, you'll be rewarded. The responsible and high achiever will be punished. And many Americans, like Keith, enjoy that, always cheering for Obama tax hikes.
Case in point:
http://tinyurl.com/6djdz7
You just figured that one out?
I am sick and tired of the clueless Obama haters.
He is Nietzshean and knows it and the rest of you losers can wring your wrists 24/7 like David Brooks - and mistake "under the bus" with "under the truck".
The Anony-assholes are pointless
High point of the month for HP's gay community: getting the right to marry in California.
Low point of the month for HP's gay community: finding out that bitteridiot is one of them.
Making $250k a year puts you in the top ~5% of income. If you can't live comfortably on that amount of money anywhere in the country, you are an idiot and a whiner who doesn't know how to manage money.
methinks a rich rebpublican must have banged bitterrenters boyfriend or husband.
methinks a rich rebpublican must have banged bitterrenters boyfriend or husband.
June 22, 2008 4:12 PM
======
dude that is the funniest thing written here in a long time. and true.
Making $250k a year puts you in the top ~5% of income. If you can't live comfortably on that amount of money anywhere in the country, you are an idiot and a whiner who doesn't know how to manage money.
-----------
El Stupido:
try living on $250K a year with a couple of kids in San Francisco. You are middle class at best. Of that $250K the govt takes $100K off the top. You are left with $150K to live in a city where a 3 bedroom house in a decent neighborhood costs $750K and gas is over $5 a gallon.
get a clue
Emmy,
"There was once something called noblesse oblige, where the nobles gave to the peasants so the peasants wouldn't come kill them out of rage at their fate in life."
Now the "nobles" have their wealth taxed away to be spent on bridges that go nowhere and wars that will never end. Think about it, a $250k-income family should be the one hiring nannies ($10/hr), musical instructors($50/hr), lawn care ($30/hr). . . etc. plus take-outs if not eat-in restaurants. However, when that money is taxed away, the formerly relatively well-off family can no longer afford any of it. It's the nannies, piano teachers, landscapers and restaurant owners, all those making $20-150k who end up suffering. The charities too because the "nobles" no longer have discretionary money.
Bitterrenter,
"This country and all the other first world economies went through an amazing growth period of advancement with VERY high taxes. In the US the top rate was 90% and we STILL had amazing growth and a thriving middle class."
As usual, you are making up shit as you go. If you believe 90+% tax rates brings prosperity, you should indeed move to Cuba. There are very few places in the world outside Cuba and North Korea that have that kind of tax rates. The per capita income growth rate in the 70 years from 1860 to 1929 was 2.5% per year. In the 70+ years since 1929, the growth rate has been around 0.25%. Both adjusted for real gold value. Federal income tax was introced in 1913. That should give you some clue.
"Your way has never been tested here."
Nonsese. No income tax was the rule not the exception for 120+ years before 1913, and Americans experienced tremendous growth.
"The places it has are shitholes."
For example? Give us some examples, since you are using plural "places."
"All you have are theories and bad ones at that."
Do you realize that you are decrying liberalism, as envisioned by John Locke, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison?
"I notice you stay in this country even though it seems you are not from here. Cuba perhaps? GO home."
Cuba's 90+% tax rate will fit you rather well. No, I'm not from Cuba. "Socialist Paradise" are rather similar; seen one seen them all. No desire to see more. Isn't it interesting that you are going "nativist"/"nationalist" now in your argument? Not surprising, like I said before, all socialist regime inevitably become national socialist as their utopia turn into distopia. As society becomes collectivist, societal minorities (including gays) always suffer. Read up on the biography of Ernst Julius Rohm. His turn came even before the Jews, Gipsies and communists, despite his high position in the "revolution." When medicine is socialised, after they ban smoking and fast food, you think they will leave annal sex alone?
Keep the government out of people's lives and maintain a society of free exchange and free association is the only way to guarantee individual rights; that includes the rights of the idividual to be different. That's why the advocacy of small government and respecting the individual is the true liberal cause. . . not some statist feudalistic claptrap that has been tried for thousands of years and failed calling itself "liberalism."
The people who think that $250k a year obvivously live in flyover land. If you ever had to pay $4 for a hotdog in Central Park or $3,600 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment, you would be singing a much different tune.
$4 for a hotdog! What a deal!
A hamburger here is $20
You can respect individual rights and the free exchange of ideas and still make people pay to support their country.
I tell you, we wouldn't have to force people to pay if not for selfish conservatives and libertarians. If the tax code is voluntary those leeches will skate.
You can respect individual rights and the free exchange of ideas and still make people pay to support their country.
I tell you, we wouldn't have to force people to pay if not for selfish conservatives and libertarians. If the tax code is voluntary those leeches will skate.
Bitterrenter, you're such a moron. Haven't you learned that the socialist utopia, collectivist mindset does not work? How many examples in history do you need?
First of all, nobody should have a right to redistribute wealth from free individuals regardless of the good intentions behind that redistribution. As Ron Paul has argued and shown, voluntary redistribution of wealth is more effective and the funds are always used more wisely by private groups than the government.
You say:
still make people pay to support their country
Well that flies in the face of what it means to live in a free society. By supporting their country you are really meaning "supporting the state, supporting the government" because you assume that supporting the country can only come via the government. That is the fatal flaw in your logic. You think that private individuals are incapable of organising themselves and providing services to society.
In your utopian socialist mindset you assume that government is free from corruption and is efficient but it is clearly not. It's not just a matter of a few isolated cases of corruption and inefficiency it is an inherent property of organizations that are not held accountable by the realities of free market economic forces.
When government screws up (which is the norm rather than the exception) the typical response is that the government needs more money and more power. That is the slippery slope toward socialism that we are on.
Bitterrenter, why don't you give us a description of what you think the ideal role of government should be and we can continue the discussion from there?
Not only does collectivism work, it's working quite well all over this country. Perhaps you are using the fall of the Soviets as your example of "failed" collectivism. I could as easily point to the 95% failure rate of new capitalist enterprises to say that capitalism is a failure.
Your local credit union or bank is collectivism. Many put money in so that other can draw out. We all contributed to the roads and now we can drive most anywhere safely and efficiently. We all pay to keep our water and air clean through regulation, monitoring and enforcement and when ANYONE in this country turns on the water it comes out beautiful. We all contribute to public education so that people aren't ignorant (not sure what happened to the conservatives- perhaps they simply flunked citizenship class). We all contribute to defense so we're safe from external threats. Need I go on? ALL COLLECTIVISM, ALL THE TIME.
I had to stop when I read the part about private groups using funds more wisely. I was drinking some lemonade and started to laugh so hard I was choking and the liquid was coming out of my nose. You been asleep lately? How wise was the distribution of funds by the mortgage industry? HELLO?!
Look, we elect leaders to set policy at our direction. They decide more efficiently where that money goes. If left up to private sources, the pet project funding model would be 10X worse than with elected leaders. We'd have golf course funding at 100% and childhood disease prevention for the poor funding at, well, probably not at all.
My favorite part is "Ron Paul has argued and shown, voluntary redistribution of wealth is more effective". What a HOWLER that is! Where did the good doctor show this? You people need to get the f*ck over your hatred of government and child-like belief that the private sector is free from corruption and inefficiency. I can give you 1000 examples of private sector graft and corruption, many times that in government. Not because those in government are necessarily more honest but because we have checks and balances and some oversight of government, something we have almost none of in your magical private sector.
There is NO fatal flaw in my logic because my way has worked, is working and will continue to work in a civilized society. The "free market" is incapable of providing many of the things we need as a culture. For instance, what would be the likelihood of an elderly person getting healthcare? That's why we have Medicare.
Government does NOT fail most of the time, in fact, in succeeds briliantly 99% of the time. Most everything around you is a product of government investment. EVERYTHING. I think I've related to you brainstems how the three biggest successes of this country- agriculture, medicine and defense- have received gazillions in government support and priority setting.
There's a good example of how the free market INHIBITS innovation in research. It's become common for corporations to fund research on campus. As a result, basic scientific discoveries that could lead to greater technological advancement are being kept a secret to protect some rich f*ckers corporate investment. Unfortunately for the corporations, much campus research is also funded by government, often on the same projects that corporations are funding. There have been cases where the government has to FORCE the university to share their discoveries with others. See, we all paid for it but the universities, infected with the disease of capitalism, are being pressured by your magic private sector to withhold information. It's no surprise that open exchange of information is what drives innovation, not the protection of ideas for private capitalist gain.
All Hail the Great Dr. Ron Paul! He Has Single-handedly Shown US The Errors of Decades of Growth and Advancement Through Public investment of Funds! We Must Scrap the System and Adopt His "LOVE MODEL" where the Society Must Depend on the Innate Love Conservatives and Libertarian Brainstems have for their Fellow Man!
What utter bullcrap. You people are some sick, mothers. Sick from your selfishness and greed. Sick from your lack of citizenship. Sick from your being spoiled little jerks who think great cultures arise from a corporate boardroom.
xoxo,
BR
Bitterrenter,
"You can respect individual rights and the free exchange of ideas and still make people pay to support their country."
Not if you tax away people's means to exercise their rights. Freedom of speech and freedom of association are quite meaningless whenever the state controls all the means of production. Give me one example where government owns everything and people still have any real right to do much of anything that is not approved by the government.
"I tell you, we wouldn't have to force people to pay if not for selfish conservatives and libertarians. If the tax code is voluntary those leeches will skate."
You are telling the untruth yet again. It may make you feel better to think that other people are as selfish and miserly as yourself . . . that's fine so long as you keep those thoughts to yourself. In reality, most people are generous, when they can provide themselves with a decent living first. That's why it's important that the government doesn't ruin the economy. Some day, Bitterrenter, when you are better off, you may find yourself to be generous too. The Gates Foundation has spent more money on malaria research than the World Health Organization has, and malaria is one of the leading causes of death in the poor countries . . . of course the World Health Organization is jealous and not happy about that.
Therein lies the problem: if you truely believe that people are criminally selfish, not just selfish in the sense that they take care of themselves first but in the sense that they will do anything and everything legal or illegal to hurt others and enrich themselves, then giving anyone the special privileges of being a government official should be a non-starter.
In reality, the government trough does attract the worst kind of pigs and leeches.
And where do those pigs and leeches come from? Outer space?
I'm plenty well off, thanks. Though sometimes it gets hard to type while sitting in this shopping cart.
I expected more from you than the standard "class envy" argument. Well, maybe I didn't.
Bitterrenter,
You obviusly understand neither "collectivism" or capitalist free market.
Collectivism means people being coerced into doing things as the normal way of life. It was tried in slave states, serf states, feudal states and "socialist" states. All of them brough their subjects misery.
95% failure rate of new private enterprises is not failure of capitalism at all. By your logic, 99+% of species that ever showed up on the planet are extinct now would be failure of evolution. On the contrary, high failure rate and high extinction rate is capitalism in action and evolution in action! Every time a private enterprise fails, it's a lesson learned and resources allocated to better use. What's funny is that socialist government owned enterprises seldomly got shut down even as they lost money year after year . . . that's how you end up with Lada factories keep making cars that were worth literally less than the metal and leather going into them. That's why the whole system finally collapsed. Small and continuous corrections are good. That's how the economy copes with the ever changing world.
Private despositors doing business with a bank or credit union is not collectivism at all. It's called voluntary association! You can move your non-term desposits to any other institution at any time, and you picked your own length of term on the term deposits. If your idea of collectivism is that I can pick and choose how much tax I pay and when I pay it, I'd have no problem with that. LOL.
Roads and utilities existed long before the government got involved. Do I have to cite the volumes on this subject yet again? Government involvement in roads and utilities only led to:
(1) monopolies that charge consumers higher prices and deliver less services;
(2) complete misallocation of resources, so roads and utilities are built in places that make no ecnonomic sense.
What's really funny is that, those pipes blowing up in NYC had been initially built by private companies more than a hundred years ago. After being taken over by government sanctioned monopolies, apparently, they can't even keep up with the maintenance despite the higher rates that they charge consumers . . . now they want more tax money to pay for their incompetence.
The mortgage debacle is a classic case of government intervention gone bad:
(1) FNM, FRE and FHA securitization of mortgages drove the housing market sky high;
(2) Fiat money back-stopping big well-connected gamblers enabled them to reap enormous profits when they get head, and have tax payers foot the bill when the coin shows the tail.
Head they win, and tail we lose; that's collectivism for you in the land where people are forced to accept paper money at face value.
"And where do those pigs and leeches come from? Outer space?"
Not having the government trough would force them to support themselves intead of having all of us robbed at gun point to support them.
"I'm plenty well off, thanks."
Then why is it so hard for you to consider making voluntary donations? I donated to food banks even when I was a poor student living off student financial aid. Your insistence that without taxation there wouldn't be money spent on medical research for the poor is entirely counter-factual. The Gates foundation has spent more money on malaria research than the World Health Organization has. The tax leaches at the WHO instead of being appreciative and trying to do more for the poor in some kind of healthy competition are now criticizing the Gates Foundation for stepping on their turf. Think about it, it's their turf! That's how government officials work: a social problem is not to be cured, but should be a perpetual funding source for their own privileges. You wonder why under public funding, the schools are turning out ill-educated students, and roads are full of pot holes. . . they are the leeches' turfs for more tax collecting!
The retarded masses who were educated by the public school system have been suckered by that crackpot Obama
Poor Reality, trying to lie and obfuscate his way to a hollow internet arguement victory.
The WHO doesn't fund research. Here's what they do:
"WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends."
No surprise then, that the Gates Foundation has funded more research, if in fact they have. You never really support your declarations, you simply take them as fact. "Public BAD, Private GOOD" seems to be your one-note song.
As for the perceived inefficiencies of government at the moment: Your libertarian conservatives have been starving government, treating it as an enemy for about 30 years and you wonder why that neglect is being manifested in decay? I'm AMAZED that government works as well as it does considering the savage treatment it's received.
But really, your ignorance and misrepresentation of the WHO as somehow "competing" with the poor, mistreated Gates Foundation shows you're generally off somewhere in the wilderness. You make shit up, calling on obscure historical references that probably never happened (I'm not interested enough to check) to try and bolster your support for an ideology on the wane.
Your feeble attempt to put me on the defensive about charitable giving is laughable, too. I would bet I give more to charity as a percentage of my income than most people in the upper echelons of American wealth. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, non-religious conservatives give the least of any group. Think white, conservative, fratboy, corporate kiss ass, like many of the people posting here.
http://tinyurl.com/y8dyq7
When Clinton raised taxes revenues increased dramatically and economic growth was much stronger than when Bush cut taxes.
---------------------------------
oh man, it was a fluke! the "economic growth" was due to the internet bubble, you bubble head.
It makes me crazy when people connect two events, saying "event a caused B". Do you really really think raising taxes increases economic growth? say it aloud and listen to yourself. Damn, the left can be so stupid.
"There's no way to get around that, is there?"
Hmmm, 48 states think it works pretty damn well. My state, Oregon, thinks it works so well that they want to start one. Why not the federal government?
The correct solution is to raise the retirement age. Period. And that's what I hope Congress will end up doing.
----------------------------------
that is correct. The other option would be to let the "people" vote to a) raise the retirement age or b) keep the age the same and increase the tax rate c) reduce benefits.
The people can't be trusted to vote on anything of any gravity that involves policy. We elect leaders who get paid to study policy options so as not to have wild swings in governance.
You people don't have a clue how representative government works. You think everything can be put up to popular (and often ignorant and uneducated) vote.
That's not democracy, that's tyranny of the mob.
Bitterrenter,
You wrote, "The WHO doesn't fund research."
and here is on a Thai university website that specializes in malaria research: http://www.ihr.chula.ac.th/e4.html which states " . . . This project was established in 1977 by Professor Sodsri Thaithong. An ongoing project has been funded by the World Health Organization since 1978. . . "
In fact, WHO was and is one of the leading sources of malaria research money. Here is a report by Institute of Medicine, published in 1991:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DUwMDknxu-kC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=world+health+organization+of+funding+of+malaria+research&source=web&ots=BAUDuP5h3o&sig=M0yXWPGqDKUDBnGzFb5kf9CnfdA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result
"The WHO, which contributed almost 30 percent of its annual budget to malaria during the eradication years, currently allocates slightly over 4 per cent of its total annual budget to malaria activities. This has amounted to almost $12 million per year for the 15 years 1973-1988. Some programs, like the TDR, predominantly support research and training activites. Out of the total 1990-1991 TDR budget of $73 million, approximately 21 percent or $15 million, is allocated o funding laboratory and field research on malaria."
And you claim that WHO does not fund research.
"You never really support your declarations, you simply take them as fact."
On the contrary, I cited numerous pieces of evidence, both historical and present: from private turn-pike companies, to private utility companies, to the specific case of Baltimore Gas Company and how it existed for 70+ years as a competitive private company before the government colluded with it to turn it into a monopoly . . . You on the other hand just came here like someone born yesterday and declare that roads and utilities never existed before the government got in the game.
I cited private education, and even public education long before the introduction of income tax, even the very specific case of Kansas 8th grade exam to show the quality of education existed in 1894 . . . you on the other hand came along and just brazenly declared that people would be ignorant if not for income tax introduced in 1913.
I cited Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and John Locke to show you what a true liberal intellectual tradition is consisted of and what liberalism should entail . . . you on the other hand just came along with a rehash of that old Hobbesian tripe about human need for a Leviathan, without even recognizing where that train of thoughts naturally leads to (hint: monarchy and dictatorship).
"I would bet I give more to charity as a percentage of my income than most people in the upper echelons of American wealth."
You have lost every single bet in our discussion so far. At this point, you have no capital left to bet. You are a loser. Your contribution to charity in a typical year is probably zero. Divide that zero into your zero income, well that can be a large finite number in some pre-calculus. LOL.
Bitterrenter,
""Public BAD, Private GOOD" seems to be your one-note song."
Actually, the song is:
Monopoly Bad, Competition Good; Coercion Bad, Freedom and Liberty Good.
I have no idea why any true liberal, anyone who stands for the liberty and freedom of individuals, would object to that.
Government just happens to operate through monopolies and coercions. Is "public" good or bad? Depends on whether the membership is coercive or voluntary. If King John declares it's in the public interest to raise taxes and have a stronger England (incidentally also fattens the king's coffer and further his feudal claims on the continent), everyone from Robin Hood to the barons of Northumberia would have the right to object, as they indeed did.
Funding research is not one of the missions of the WHO. That's why what funding they do provide is minimal. That's how this started, with you saying Gates gave more than the WHO. But then you say WHO is the major funder of malaria programs. Hmmm. Make sense to you? And is the WHO a governmental body?
Reality buddy, I believe you're the one who lost this argument, as your version of life has never been adopted by a civilized society. Even before taxes (if there ever was a time) there was some system of collectivist contribution to the public good. It was never voluntary. You either contributed in some way- goods, services or cash- or you were cast out and/or punished. Some leadership body, whether government or otherwise, established those rules that the people lived by and the collection of that contribution was forced.
Your way doesn't work, never has worked and is simply a way for deadbeats like you to avoid contributing to the greater good. You people don't even know what that phrase means. You don't believe in it. That's why we force you to pay. You call it coercion, I call it force. It's what we do to people who dishonor the honor system. People like you have no honor. You'll skip out on your bills to live in this country if given the chance.
You're why we can't have a system of voluntary contribution. Libertarian is a synonym for selfish deadbeat.
Bitterrenter,
"Funding research is not one of the missions of the WHO. That's why what funding they do provide is minimal."
You are making up sh*t as you go. How else do you think "leadership" is provided in this world if not providing funding? Singing Kumbalaya? Didn't you read that WHO devoted as much as 30% of its entire budget to malaria alone in the eradication years?? Funding health research and field studies in the third world poor countires is WHO's primary function, well, besides paying its own staff. LOL.
"That's how this started, with you saying Gates gave more than the WHO. But then you say WHO is the major funder of malaria programs. Hmmm. Make sense to you?"
Yes of course it makes sense. It would be meaningless indeed for any organization to surpass WHO if WHO provided no funding. Like you know, it would be meaning less to make a statement that you donated more money this year than last if your last year was Zero! You claimed that no voluntary private funding would be available at all for combating diesease in poor coutries. Well, guess what, Gates Fundation, a private fundation, just spent more money on combating third world malaria than the previous top dog in the field, the WHO.
"And is the WHO a governmental body?"
It's an agency of the UN, the ultimate government bureacracy, funded by tax money from the world over, not answerable to much of anyone.
"I believe you're the one who lost this argument, as your version of life has never been adopted by a civilized society."
Everything you believe has turned out to be false: from whether I donate to charity, to whether my parents collect social security, to whether roads existed before government involvement, to whether utility existed before government involvement, to the quality of education before income tax . . . every single thing you believed turned out to be exactly the opposite of facts on the ground.
On the topic of whether limited government ever existed, you keep flip flopping between it never existed and it was the savage way that was tried for hundreds of years. Make up your frigging mind! Here's a remedial course for the delinquent public education that you received: American history 101: American Revolution as an experiement in limited government.
"Even before taxes (if there ever was a time) there was some system of collectivist contribution to the public good. It was never voluntary. You either contributed in some way- goods, services or cash- or you were cast out and/or punished. Some leadership body, whether government or otherwise, established those rules that the people lived by and the collection of that contribution was forced."
In other words, you are now on the side of full-bore savagery! How do humanity ever lift themselves out of that savagery and serfdom in your "'cuz that's always the case" world? You are sounding like the Royalists during American Revolution: but there's always a king! There is not a shred of liberal thoughts in your mind. You are advocating absolutist rule for the ruler's sake!
"Your way doesn't work, never has worked and is simply a way for deadbeats like you to avoid contributing to the greater good. "
On the contrary, American Revolution, with its genesis in a tax revolt against the "greater good" for "public defense and general societal well being in the colonies" (according to the Parliament passing the law for collecting stamp tax in the colonies) usthered in the most prosperous economy in the world.
It's laughable for you to call anyone else deadbeat or miserly, especially someone like me, who makes thousands of dollars of charity donations every year. Your own typical annual voluntary donation is zero! You don't even know how typical charity donations are made. The fundamental problem with coercive (or forced) taxation in lieu of voluntary charity is precise the kind of leeches it attracts: you are a prime example of how people can be turned into something completely irreponsible for their fellow men and yet making shrill noises about the need to rob their other neighbors for the good of the same causes that they never voluntarily contribute to themselves . . . a complete disolution of personal responsiblity. . . in otherwords turning people into deadbeats, like you!
Bitterrenter,
"You call it coercion, I call it force."
And the difference between the two is? Worshipping force and power makes you an authoritarian, not exactly a liberal, someone who should be mindful of individual personal volitions, and respectful of individual freedom and liberty.
As to why force and coercion don't work as the organizational bonding agent of a society, the answer is really quite simple: the top planer/enforcer can not be every where all at once; force/coercion/power breeds corruption. People have free wills; a society that can motivate that free will for "common good" is one that which prospers; force and coercion are mostly counter-productive, as they place special privileges in the hands of corrupt enforcers. If force and coercion worked, authoritarian states from tin pot dictators like Saddam Hussein or any of the South American and African dictators to the big ones like the Soviets and Nazi regimes would long have prospered. They never did.
Bitterrenter,
"You'll skip out on your bills to live in this country if given the chance."
What exactly is the bill to live in this country? Who puts that bill together? Who gets paid? Are you jumping at the joy of paying your share of $3000+ per American for blowing up Iraqis half a world away? How much of $50 trillion of federal long term liability (according to David Walker, the former former head of GAO) are you looking forward to paying? Looks to me like some of your saintly government officials just used the wonderful tools of "force" that you are so fond of to hold us, our children and our grand children in perpetual bondage. Just in case your arithmatics is as week as your history, $50 trillion divide by 300 million is $167,000 per head for every man, woman and child in America.
We're forced to pay for Iraq because our system of representative democracy elected a leader and Congress that voted for it. We had the chance to replace that leader in 2004 but he was re-elected to continue the war most people supported. The system, with all of its warts, worked. Now that the people have stopped supporting the war, we'll change parties and directions as we did in 2006. If that fails to please us, we'll do it again.
Meanwhile, the people we elected are charged with setting the priorities for our society. We gave them that power. That's why we have so much national debt. The people decided overwhelmingly to elect Ronald Reagan who proceeded to slash taxes and spend like mad, borrowing to make up the difference. The debt is due to people like you who think a society runs on air.
Hey, if your voluntarily funded society worked so well, how come we're in debt? Wouldn't the people just step up and pay up? LOL, you can't get people to pay their PERSONAL debt anymore much less pay for the services they use that are provided by the government.
You better run along. I know how fatigued your hand gets from writing all those checks to charities! Poor thing, you can probably barely type!
And f*ck you children and grandchildren. They get the debt because of people like you who felt tax cuts for the rich and the corporate were a higher priority than paying for the operation of the country. Besides, I don't have kids and couldn't care less what kind of mess we're leaving for them. That's what people get for voting republican for so long.
Look, we elect leaders to set policy at our direction. They decide more efficiently where that money goes. If left up to private sources, the pet project funding model would be 10X worse than with elected leaders. We'd have golf course funding at 100% and childhood disease prevention for the poor funding at, well, probably not at all.
Bitterrenter,
I think this quote from you proves my point that you are a moron.
Thanks for coming and wasting our time with your misguided view of socialism. Why don't you go live in North Korea if you feel so strongly about this?
BTW - Ron Paul has completely demolished all of your arguments but I wouldn't expect you to read one of his books. Keep living in your myopic world of state worship. You'll be very lonely there.
The S&L scandal, the corrupt CEO scandals earlier this decade and the real estate market scandals of late are all illustrations of the corrupt nature of profit-based capitalism. Certainly not the pristine, honest picture you paint of the sacred private sector.
Saint Ron hasn't proven anything since we still live in a contributory society of collectivism. He may have crackpot theories but that's all they are- theories. If he believed in them he wouldn't keep bringing home pork for his district.
With the conservative revolution DEAD and the people reaffirming their belief in a participatory democracy that preserves the programs and policies of liberalism, it would seem that you will be the lonely one.
You can see this in McCain's rush to the center and the dramatic increase in votes garnered by democrats in 2006. In that election democrats received 7 MILLION more votes than republicans. In terms of a system where most elections are decided by a few hundred thousand votes, that was GROUNDBREAKING.
As for your simplistic, brainstem North Korea comment, why don't you move to a place of low to no taxes and see how long you last? I think Africa and other third world shitholes are accepting new residents.
xoxo,
BR
I made more than $250,000/year for three consecutive years in the mid-1990's. For a variety of reasons, I co-owned an S-corporation that rolled the corporate earnings into our personal income taxes. On paper, I was probably one of the wealthiest people in the state. The truth was that I drove a 1978 Toyota Wagon and lived in a 900 square foot apartment in a bad neighborhood. Our business office was next to a chemical plant that smelled so bad I can taste it to this very day. I regularly rode a bus to appointments to save on gas money (and gas was cheap then). Having Robin Hood for president feels good to some people, but policies like this are bad for the American Dream.
Hey, if your voluntarily funded society worked so well, how come we're in debt? Wouldn't the people just step up and pay up? LOL, you can't get people to pay their PERSONAL debt anymore much less pay for the services they use that are provided by the government.
You better run along. I know how fatigued your hand gets from writing all those checks to charities! Poor thing, you can probably barely type!
And f*ck you children and grandchildren. They get the debt because of people like you who felt tax cuts for the rich and the corporate were a higher priority than paying for the operation of the country. Besides, I don't have kids and couldn't care less what kind of mess we're leaving for them. That's what people get for voting republican for so long.
You stupid moron, Bitterrenter. Every ill you mention is caused by government intervention not free market capitalism!
It's this collusion of government and corporation that is the problem, that is government corruption. Take the Chris Dodd scandal as an immediate example. The more power you give to government the greater the potential for abuse is. Your beloved government is making you poorer by the day via inflation which destroys the middle class. Socialism, welfare and central planning can never work unless you assume those governing are all-knowing geniuses that can manage the allocation of resources on a national level better than individual business owners working within the constraints of free market forces can.
We're in debt thanks to out of control government spending and the Federal Reserve that enables them via inflation. But you probably think the Fed is a good thing.
You need to read less Karl Marx and more Ludwig Von Mises. At least so you can understand both sides of the argument - which you obviously don't and it makes it pointless trying to argue with you.
I swear to God BitterRenter must be the dumbest person on the planet.
Collectivism is slavery. To endorse Collectivism is endorse slavery. Why would any civilized person want to do that?
Thanks to Social Insecurity, MediScare, and endless government entitlements and war we have become slaves. A formerly free country turned to slaves. And we have someone cheering the whole process!
If you made that much money and lived that badly you can't manage money well enough to save your life.
But then your story is probably bullshit anyway.
"I made 5 times the median household income and had to take the bus to my job scrubbing floors." LOL, what a rube!
Brainstems think that the power company expecting to get paid for keeping the lights on is "enslaving" them.
Brainstems think everything should be free.
Brainstems aren't too bright.
xoxo,
BR
This is my favorite quote in these comments...
"I pay enough taxes...I pay more taxes then most people earn in a year. It is an outrage!"
Bitterenter,
"The S&L scandal, the corrupt CEO scandals earlier this decade and the real estate market scandals of late are all illustrations of the corrupt nature of profit-based capitalism. Certainly not the pristine, honest picture you paint of the sacred private sector."
Nobody paints the private sector as a peachy saintly place where everyone sings kumbalaya. It's a place of competition . . . plenty mistakes are made and plenty mistakes are corrected, every minute of the day. That's where goods and services are produced and rendered. Yes, rendered, a little like sausage making. LOL. Government intervention however introduces corruption into the picture. Take for example, the S&L episode that you mentioned. S&L as a separate class of financial institutions was created by the government forbidding banks to make mortgage loans. That's how S&L's monopoly on mortgage lending came about. Its high profit margin was due to a government granted monopoly. When banks were allowed into mortgage lending in the 1980's, S&L's faced competition. So what did the S&L do? Of course, they lobbied the government for bailout, and got it! That's where the scandal came from: the meddlesome government.
CEO scandals in the early part of the decade? Which one? Be specific, give me one, and I will show you where the real problem is. Take for example, the ImClone-MarthaStewart case. Where did the inside information come from? Why, the FDA's arbitrary omnipotence on drug's legality of course. ImClone's drug eventually proved to be a decent drug for what it's designed to do in later years. It was only reasonable that the Imclose boss was loaded up to the gills with the stocks as he had real faith in it. Then suddenly, FDA interim regulation banned the drug. Are you surprised that the Imclose boss scrambled to unload the stocks? Martha's broker got wind of the Imclone's boss selling, so Martha sold too . . . an action that was not exactly illegal because neither Martha nor the broker had any inside information on the FDA ruling. However, since Martha was such a big celebrity, the prosecutor spent millions of tax dollars, instead of prosecuting violent criminals that NY has plenty of, decided to trap Martha in a "you should have taken the 5th" case. The whole episode was a scandal indeed, a scandal on our legal system: instead of working on his promising biotech company to bring drugs that can cure cancer (as the Imclone drug eventually did prove capable of curing certain types of cancer), intead of working on her great skills beautifying American domestic lives, two highly intelligent people wasted time behind bars at tax payer expense. A scandal and a tragedy indeed.
I have already addressed the current mortgage-lending scandal previously. In short, government meddling is the cause every step of the way: from the very securitization of mortgage loans by FNM, FRE and FHA to drive housing prices sky high (and to keep you a bitter renter, if you really are one), to artificially low interest rates by the FED to keep assets inflated and bankers wealthy, to outright actions in bankers buying off politicians.
You see, Bitterrenter, there is no such thing as "profit-based capitalism." People seek profit under whatever -ism; profit seeking is human nature. Competition and the need to find willing customers are what force such profit motives to also bring something good to the table for the "common good." When government coercion gets involved, well-connected profit seekers suddenly get a chance at a captive audience, to whom they do not have to offer a thing of value yet can be counted on profiting off. The drive to get a crack at that captive audience is the source of corruption: i.e arbitrarging the feudalistic power into personal profit. That's why power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Bitterrenter,
"The debt is due to people like you who think a society runs on air. Hey, if your voluntarily funded society worked so well, how come we're in debt? Wouldn't the people just step up and pay up?"
We are in debt because that's the very design of the coercive central banking system. Remember the military-industrial complex? Add banking to that. Not counting the long term off the book obligations (those had nothing to do with Reagan but everything to do with FDR and LBJ, as they are social security, medicare and mdicaid), the country is currently less in debt a a percentage of GDP than it was in WWI and WWII.
The country being heavily in debt is by design: so that the wealthy bankers who own the government can collect interest on that debt. That's why the US has been in one war or another almost continuously ever since 1913. War is good for the businesses that to bill "the public" and the businessnes that get to collect interest on the "public debt." So are any and all the big government programs. That's why all government programs almost always over-run their budgets. The more waste the better, for the well-connected. Taxation is just a euphemism for robbing you and I at gun point to pay for wars, programs and interest payments that we never agreed to. Then again, you Bitterrenter might just be a bought a paid for shill for the wealthy bankers. LOL
"Besides, I don't have kids and couldn't care less what kind of mess we're leaving for them."
Just dont be surprised when people of their generation decide not to support you at your advanced age. When the economy tanks, it's always the elderly, the sick and the "deviant"/different who suffer the most as lives have to be eliminated at the margins when the fat content of the land goes down.
Could you be any more full of shit? Having a large vocabulary isn't compensation for intelligence.
Deregulation caused the S&L mess. What kind of regulation was removed? GOVERNMENT REGULATION.
In my business, we see endless examples of the private sector's sins: environmental cleanup. Without regulation from GOVERMENT businesses have cost us trillions in cleanup of the environment. Why get rid of your waste safely when you can just dump it? That's what the profit motive creates in the absence of GOVERNMENT REGULATION.
The same is true for taxation. If voluntary the worst offenders, the biggest beneficiaries of government services would skip out on payment. That's people like you. People like you who think that giving a couple hundred bucks to charity takes care of their bill to live here.
Without government intervention we'd have all-out anarchy. But life would be good because then you could have your whole paycheck to go buy more crap at the mall to impress your friends and relatives. That's all that motivates brainstems.
I don't plan to retire in this shithole country unless the conservatives continue getting their asses kicked.
I have plenty of money to live on through my retirement and beyond. We liberals plan better, don't overextend to impress and certainly aren't as shallow and materialistic as brainstems.
Bitterrenter,
"Brainstems think that the power company expecting to get paid for keeping the lights on is "enslaving" them."
You are wrong, yet again. Power companies should have competition, so that they have to deliver service at a good price, just like any other company in a competitive market place. Government sanctioned monopoly is wrong. Utlitiy lines and pipes laid in the 19th century by competitive free market utility companies in the late 19th century on 30-to-50 year schedules are now blowing up all over the country due to lack of maintenance as the subsequently government sanctioned monopolies never replaced those pipes. That should give you some clue, that when government sanctioned monopolies are running the utilities, they can't even keep the lights on despite charging you more than a competitive market place would.
Publicly-owned utilities have lower rates than privately held utilities.
http://www.opuda.org/publicprivate.html
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/afl/LabourNews/feb99-7.html
Bitterrenter,
"Deregulation caused the S&L mess. What kind of regulation was removed? GOVERNMENT REGULATION."
Why should S&L have a monopoly on profitting off home buyers? Say, if there were a GOVERNMENT REGULATION that requires that only Joe Slumlord can rent to you Bitterrenter, and Joe takes advantage of that and charge you $5000/mo for a basement studio apartment. Now regulation is removed, and anyone can rent to you. You move out the apartment, and get a first-floor one-bedroom unit at a different place for $1500/mo. Joe can't find a replacement sucker who would take your old place for $5000/mo. Now is Joe's loss really a problem of "deregulation"? or a profit that he should never have made except for the old bad government REGULATION? Now since, Joe has connection to the government officials, somehow he manages to sell his dump to the government based on a multiple of your old $5000/mo rent that nobody in a free market place would pay. That's corruption for you.
"Why get rid of your waste safely when you can just dump it? That's what the profit motive creates in the absence of GOVERNMENT REGULATION."
Yup, when you pass a law, people will forget their profit motives and start playing harps and singing kumbalaya for living instead. LOL. Ever heard of private law suits? If antying, GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS are in the forefront of immunizing big business from private law suits.
"The same is true for taxation. If voluntary the worst offenders, the biggest beneficiaries of government services would skip out on payment."
Are you talking about government bureacrats?
"That's people like you. People like you who think that giving a couple hundred bucks to charity takes care of their bill to live here."
Yup, a few thousand is too little, we should all do better, and donate nothing at all, just like you.
Bitterrenter,
So what/where is your escape hatch? Some overseas tax haven? or a government pension fund that's about to implode?
Either way, since you are so well off, shame on you for not voluntarily donating anything for the poor and unfortunately who also happen to live in this great country. LOL.
I don't plan to retire in this shithole country unless the conservatives continue getting their asses kicked.
I have plenty of money to live on through my retirement and beyond. We liberals plan better, don't overextend to impress and certainly aren't as shallow and materialistic as brainstems.
Bitterrenter has a nice arrangement worked out with Kim Jong Il. He's obviously a Communist North Korean agent sent here to demoralize the enemy. He probably wears underwear with the face of Joseph Stalin over his crotch. :)
Bitterrenter,
"Without government intervention we'd have all-out anarchy."
Sounding like a true authoritarian, of the Nazi and Soviet tradition. Where's that table pounding, whip crack or cheering crowd noises mixed into the sound track to accompany great insight like that?
Hahaha!
I just found the website that Bitterrenter orders all his clothing from:
Mao Underwear
Bitterrenter,
"Publicly-owned utilities have lower rates than privately held utilities."
Get a grip. The rates do not include public tax funding and public bond issuance. In any case, the point is not ownership per se, but government sanctined monopoly. Many of those privately held utilities can charge what they charge because of government sanctioned monopolies.
In an s-corporation, the company does not file a separate tax form but divides the company's earning amongst its owners. Therefore, a mom and pop shop with high sales but very narrow margins will show up as a "wealthy" family in terms of income, even though mom and pop just live in the back room of their five and dime store. Obama knows this of course and will promise small business tax incentives to protect them. Clinton did the same. He promised a "Small Business - High Technology Tax Credit" to small start-up software businesses like mine. He, of course, never even attempted to deliver on that promise, but simply tried to convince people that his influence on internet development was equivalent to a tax advantage for small start-ups. According to Bill Clinton, Mom, Pop and I were all filthy rich. Raising taxes on the "rich" was actually benefiting the larger corporations who could afford thin margins. Beginning to see the problem with socialism, yet?
Sorry Bitterrenter but Reality is winning the debate by a large margin. Your arguments are weak and based on failed utopia.
I don't plan to retire in this shithole country unless the conservatives continue getting their asses kicked
Hey Bitterrenter, I hope you are not planning to retire in Europe because your type is not welcomed here. Stay there.
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