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Frazzled wrote:Nope. You're assuming they are paying those taxes either. I have familaies across the street, behind me and next to me who aren't. (employment taxes).
But to the point, if you're not paying a tax, you shouldn't be able to vote representatives on that tax.

They avoid paying sales taxes? Also, wanting to limit voting rights by economic capability is sickening to me. Glad you want us to live in an oligarchy of the rich. Have you thought of moving to china or russia? I heard the poor has no representation in those places and people feel safe in their wealth and high walls.

LordofHats wrote:American Revolution I don't think is well defined by rich vs poor.

And no one argued it that way. It was described as elites leading the poor. While we had some wealthy elites not all of them were that wealthy.

LordofHats wrote:The great irony about Revolution is that rhetoric talks about improving the lot of the underclass, but rarely is their lot improved via revolution (economically).

The argument for insurrection (when it got that far) was less 'everyone is going to become wealthy' and more 'you need to be free of King George's tyranny'.

LordofHats wrote:The poor are just as poor after the revolution as they were before the revolution.

Not all wars about the poor becoming less poor. They may have had as much or little as they did before economically but they felt different. For example pre-Rev War they would bow to the higher ups and after it they would not. They garnered a sense of self worth. It can be argued whether it was illusory or real, but they still felt it.

VoidAngel wrote:

Melissia wrote:

VoidAngel wrote:Taxing the rich isn't the answer. Rich people own factories and businesses - and are the *engines of the economy*. Welfare recipients are not the engines of the economy. Ditto burger flippers and suchlike (though they are a vast improvement over those on assistance that *could* work).

And yet, the trickle down economic "theory" has been proven, time and again, to be a baseless load of crap. Giving rich people more money won't give the country more jobs, it's been proven so many times that it's painful to think someone still believes in that theory. The trickle down economic "theory" is a load of gak.

You prefer "trickle up poverty"?

Prosperous companies can afford to hire more people. Prosperous companies spend more on their communities. It's very simple. Without the prospect of prosperity, where is the drive to earn, innovate, or build? These things are not theories, they are truths.

Prosperous companies get that way by hiring fewer people on lower salaries.

Prosperous do everything possible to avoid spending on their community via taxation. If necessary they relocate to a different country.

It's very simple, without the drive to get rich, the first caveman would never have invented fire.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Nope. You're assuming they are paying those taxes either. I have familaies across the street, behind me and next to me who aren't. (employment taxes).
But to the point, if you're not paying a tax, you shouldn't be able to vote representatives on that tax.

They avoid paying sales taxes? Also, wanting to limit voting rights by economic capability is sickening to me. Glad you want us to live in an oligarchy of the rich. Have you thought of moving to china or russia?

1. I said employment taxes. Please try to read the post fully.
2. So you're favor of people voting themselves benefits when they have no chance of being impacted by it? IN the court system judges have to recuse themselves for such when they have a financial conflict of interest. Thats disctatorship, but I'm not surprised Shuma supports dictatorship.

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Nope. You're assuming they are paying those taxes either. I have familaies across the street, behind me and next to me who aren't. (employment taxes).
But to the point, if you're not paying a tax, you shouldn't be able to vote representatives on that tax.

They avoid paying sales taxes? Also, wanting to limit voting rights by economic capability is sickening to me. Glad you want us to live in an oligarchy of the rich. Have you thought of moving to china or russia?

1. I said employment taxes. Please try to read the post fully.
2. So you're favor of people voting themselves benefits when they have no chance of being impacted by it? IN the court system judges have to recuse themselves for such when they have a financial conflict of interest. Thats disctatorship, but I'm not surprised Shuma supports dictatorship.

A dictatorship of the people is called a democracy. I'm not surprised you are unfamiliar with the concept, you've espoused feudal ideals for years. Keep those peasants down, they have no right to want land or rights as they do not own the land and their rights are given to them by their feudal lords.

Also, you said employment taxes but you used that to refut a post that listed numerous kinds of taxes the poor are still beholden to, only one of which is employment. Even then, the concept of a democracy isn't to vote only on things for which you have holdings. I'm not in the military, but I have some things to say about it's use and costs.

I was speaking of revolution in general as it relates to what Andrew seems to think of it, not to disagree with you Aht

Stay in the Army, it's a guaranteed paych- Oh wait...

Frazzled wrote:
1. I posted the list just to cite the list of histrionics. As noted both sides can put that up, and the reposte the counterarguments. But there's no need as that wasn't the issue. If you really want to tackle the budget you will have to have balls of steel. Very few in Congress have it. If I made my living like that I'd doubt I would either.

Its not just Congress though, and really that's my point. Congress reflects the electorate, and the electorate is selfish, dumb, and cowardly. That's not merely the US, its everywhere.

Everyone in the Western world wants the government'x hands off their Medicare, which means everyone in the Western world wants selfish privileges insofar as they can dictate them. No surprise really, who doesn't want power?

Frazzled wrote:
2. Wo, wo keep it personable now Dogma.
I did vote - did you? Play nice now. All my state candidates won, but my protest federal votes did not.

I didn't realize that questioning whether or not person X voted was hostile. Though I should have, given how many people lie about it*.

*Not saying that you are, just that most people do. Last I checked ~70% of people voted in the 2008 election despite a 48% turn out.

I know of people who wouldn't vote unless someone payed them to and drove them there. A man I worked with actually did that during the last two presidential elections. He got about a half dozen people to vote who wouldn't have cared otherwise, signed up, made sure they had a ride there. He also paid them. Now I understand the voting decision is up to the individual, but I wouldn't doubt that these people neither knew nor cared about the issues they were voting for, and probably voted for whomever this person told them was the best reason to get out and vote, through no thought process of their own about the issues. If they really knew or cared what they were voting for, they wouldn't have needed to be bribed. Democracy meets capitalism in ways that aren't necessarily just, or "free" with all the idealism of 1-man-1-vote able to be undermined by that kind of activity.

Kilkrazy wrote:Prosperous companies get that way by hiring fewer people on lower salaries.

Pretty much. That's why we don't need to suck up to them or make laws for them, they're not hiring more, they're trying to REDUCE their size.

Instead, we need to make laws that benefit companies which are actually benefiting the nation as far as job creation. Not big business, small business.

sebster wrote:

They are the engine of the economy. Your argument that that engine will stop functioning if they face a 2 or 3% tax increase is crazy.

You are really good at both the straw man and the ad hominem - but that doesn't make you right. I didn't say no increase. I didn't say no taxes. Nowhere did I mention 2-3%.

Studies have shown that illegal immigration is a net boon to the economy, actually enough. Because they are still hit for many taxes, like sales sax and payroll tax, but can't claim many services.

And they also allow building and infrastructure construction at much lower overall costs.

What studies? By whom? Also, did you fail to catch the word "illegal"? Can't claim many services? Come down to my local hospital tonight and sit in the emergency room for 15 minutes.

The current chaos could have lead to the domino effect the free world was looking to set up ("Hey, look at them! They're free, and prosperous, and still MUSLIMS! The Americans didn't try to convert them! Hey...waitaminute...maybe we could have that too...?")

Umm, we knew this was the actual goal of the operation. We also knew it was stupid and doomed to fail. Which it did. As Tunisia showed, you can get a flow of revolution from one coutnry to another. It was just very stupid to think you could start with a military invasion from a foreign power.

No, you didn't. You claim that now, but in a thread just a few months back I am pretty sure I remember you calling me crazy for thinking that this was the plan when I mentioned it. Now that it's coming true it's obvious I guess. Convenient. Also, it's not failing - at all. It's been rough, and still is - but it's not failing.

- but we are currently mucking it up in Libya by *participating*. For this to work, it has to be a Muslim idea, executed for and by Muslims. We need to get the hell out of there.

Which is, of course, why invading Iraq and thinking it would lead to a democratic domino was ridiculous. And that you recognise this with the small involvement of NATO in their support of the local rebellion, but can't see it with the full blown invasion of Iraq just shows how ridiculous your thinking is.

The dominoes need a push in order to start to fall. They won't do it by themselves.

Lastly, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill:

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

And Churchill was, being entirely disingenuous, and was proven to be entirely wrong. A clever turn of phrase doesn't make a thing true. Actually watching it work does. And, gosh and golly, we've seen keynesian spending programs work, and work constantly to reduce the impact of economic downturns. This was observed and the debate ended 50 years ago. All we see now are disingenuous loons on the fringes of economics relying on the generally poor economic understanding of the general population to make bs arguments.


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VoidAngel wrote:Prosperous companies can afford to hire more people. Prosperous companies spend more on their communities. It's very simple. Without the prospect of prosperity, where is the drive to earn, innovate, or build? These things are not theories, they are truths.

You're pretending that an increase in taxes on the wealthy is the same thing as denying them a chance at prosperity. Which is a ridiculous thing to assume.

Seriously, people don't see a tax increase of 3% and say 'oh feth it all, I'm not going to bother starting up that factory now, $380k in after tax earnings just isn't worth bothering with, but I totally would have if the old tax rate was in place and I could have earned $400k after tax!'

Again, I am not talking about, and never mentioned 3%. I am talking about European style taxation. With 56+% of my earnings vaporizing to pay for welfare and free benefits to non-contributors - you can damn sure bet that the drive to succeed would be severely reduced. And the first place it would start would be with the working poor!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

VoidAngel wrote:The government mainly provides opportunity to the poor - not the rich. The government encourages accumulation of wealth by providing security and NOT taxing the earners to death. "Rich" people *tend* to have earned their opportunities or built upon those provided by hard-working parents and grand-parents.

They have had those opportunities because of the economic and legal structures built and maintained by government.

Now it's good that they've been able to generate that wealth, in doing so they've created jobs and wealth for others as well. Capitalism is the engine of the economy and all that.
But to argue that they couldn't possibly pay a greater portion of the tax burden is just plain wrong.

Except that I never argued that.

There is certainly a point where having them pay more is unjust and impractical (as they will leave for other countries) but the US is nowhere near that rate.

Precisely. And we should not allow our Europhile Democrat brethren get us there.

Hardly, big business doesn't WANT to hire more people, they just want more profit and will do everything they can to increase their profit first before adding any extra expenses such as hiring. Most of them have been firing people, not hiring, for the past ten or so years. The wealthy, as a general rule don't give a feth about the unemployed.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
1. I posted the list just to cite the list of histrionics. As noted both sides can put that up, and the reposte the counterarguments. But there's no need as that wasn't the issue. If you really want to tackle the budget you will have to have balls of steel. Very few in Congress have it. If I made my living like that I'd doubt I would either.

Its not just Congress though, and really that's my point. Congress reflects the electorate, and the electorate is selfish, dumb, and cowardly. That's not merely the US, its everywhere.

Everyone in the Western world wants the government'x hands off their Medicare, which means everyone in the Western world wants selfish privileges insofar as they can dictate them. No surprise really, who doesn't want power?

Must resist...urge...oh no...we...agree...a third time...gateway forming... something's coming through...RUN!

Frazzled wrote:
2. Wo, wo keep it personable now Dogma.
I did vote - did you? Play nice now. All my state candidates won, but my protest federal votes did not.

I didn't realize that questioning whether or not person X voted was hostile. Though I should have, given how many people lie about it*.

*Not saying that you are, just that most people do. Last I checked ~70% of people voted in the 2008 election despite a 48% turn out.

Ok. we're cool, gotcha now. I should note if I ever say a sports team is going to win, bet on the other team.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Define rich.

People who make millions of dollars a year.

OK, now define "fair".

Citizen A makes $80,000 a year and pays 34% income tax (making up numbers here for the sake of discussion). That's $28,000

Citizen B makes 8,000,000 a year and pays 17% income tax. That's $1,360,000

So I ask you, define fair. The evil rich guy just contributed 48 times more than the noble middleclassman. Is that fair enough for you? No?

OK, how about that "flat tax" (unworkable)? Everyone pays a third? The guy making $80,000 is happy - his tax liability hasn't changed much. The rich guy is furious, and probably motivated to take every loophole he can find. Maybe cut costs at his company (i.e. "jobs" etc.). And...wait for it....the poor guy making $17,000 is...gonna starve. Good job.


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Melissia wrote:Hardly, big business doesn't WANT to hire more people, they just want more profit and will do everything they can to increase their profit first before adding any extra expenses such as hiring. Most of them have been firing people, not hiring, for the past ten or so years. The wealthy, as a general rule don't give a feth about the unemployed.

Really? Do you know any of these heartless richies? Or do you just parrot stuff you read on the Huff and Puff post? My wealthiest associates and friends donate more to charity than most of us make, and that's on top of their taxes. Sure, they can write some of it off -but that ain't why they do it. That's a fact. There are more compassionate, honest people out there with serious money than there are crooks. But don't let that get in they way of your desire to hate indiscriminantly.

Melissia, I agree with that. I don't think they deliberately want to fire people, it is the system in which they exist that necessitates lost jobs. It isn't the desire of anyone to create unemployment, but a big business as an entity of its own cares neither way. There is no boogey-man to point at in big business, just that the policy makers that have jobs to show growth are bound to try and perform their jobs as best as possible or be replaced by someone who will. The problem isn't big business itself, it is the priorities by which it becomes the entity it is. The same priority stance applies to environmental regulations on big business. Nobody wants to pollute the planet, but instead a company will most likely cut as many corners as possible to just barely squeeze within the regulation level of environmental concerns. If they do more than the minimum and their competition does not, their bottom line will show it (unless they use the "green" publicity to their advantage, which is questionable) they are replaced by someone who will. Nobody at any level of business will deliberately operate at a loss, it wouldn't be a business but a charity if they did.

Consider yourself sigged.

dogma wrote:
Congress reflects the electorate, and the electorate is selfish, dumb, and cowardly.

Prosperous companies get that way by hiring fewer people on lower salaries.

Prosperous do everything possible to avoid spending on their community via taxation. If necessary they relocate to a different country.

It's very simple, without the drive to get rich, the first caveman would never have invented fire.

Prosperous companies pay handsomely to get and retain talent.

Prosperous companies pour money into the community because of the tax breaks communities give them in order to keep them from moving. It also earns goodwill and creates a ready pool of hires in good times.

It's very simple, the first caveman with the resources to have the sharpest sticks and best sling stones didn't get eaten by something else. If someone had come along and tried to take half his sticks and his best stones in order to give them to a lazy neighbor tribe - he'd have killed them. And he'd have been right.

VoidAngel: I never said anything about "fair". As for the rest... read below:

mister robouteo wrote:Melissia, I agree with that. I don't think they deliberately want to fire people, it is the system in which they exist that necessitates lost jobs. It isn't the desire of anyone to create unemployment, but a big business as an entity of its own cares neither way.

Exactly.

They aren't heartless, but it's pretty much the sole objective of businessmen who run these large corporations to drive the business into profitability. Frequently, that means shedding jobs, not creating them.

Thus, they don't really care. Or maybe they do, but it doesn't effect their decision making either way so it is irrelevant. They only "care" about making jobs (IE, consider doing so) if it will profit them. And frequently it doesn't.

Big businesses are not the answer, and have never been the answer. Small businesses are.


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VoidAngel wrote:Prosperous companies pay handsomely to get and retain talent.

They aren't doing a very good job then, there's plenty of talented people with advanced degrees yet they're unable to find jobs with them.

VoidAngel wrote:Prosperous companies pour money into the community because of the tax breaks communities give them in order to keep them from moving. It also earns goodwill and creates a ready pool of hires in good times.

They certainly aren't doing a good job here, because rarely do companies actually do this.

Your caveman comparisons are inane.

You know what would help solve the fake 'deadlock' that may shut down the government at midnight? If Planned Parenthood could save money by not having to go state by state to defend legal abortion in courts from Arizona to Ohio to Missouri to Connecticut to Iowa. Since their public policy expenditures are something like $55 million, and Planned Parenthood's government contracts and grants are only something like $363 million, none of which is used to pay for abortion services, they could get closer to not needing your government money if half the states in the country would stop pushing stupid laws.

Planned parenthood's 2009 annual report

/facepalm

is this really what all this arguing is over? Something they already can't use federal funds for? I am so over this conservative ideology of maximum freedom... except on social issues we care about. Get your fething hands off women's vaginas.

@Melissa
I am not against small businesses. Far, far from it. But big businesses have more effect. Not all of them are GE. Or Enron. But because of these bad players, everyone suffers. Innocent companies suffer the same punishment now imposed by the government - which results in the need to cut costs. Those costs usually = jobs, unfortunately. This is a caution against unintended consequences and blanket indictments - of which you are guilty.

The caveman thing was playing off Killcrazy's caveman comment - and is mostly tongue-in-cheek.

VoidAngel wrote:I am not against small businesses. Far, far from it. But big businesses have more effect.

Haha.... no.

Small businesses have generated 64% of job increases in the past 15 years.

Haha - yes. Individually. I assume you mean "overall" - which I won't argue except that you MUST include medium-sized businesses as well. So, I guess you meant "small-er" businesses, didn't you?

VoidAngel wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Define rich.

People who make millions of dollars a year.

OK, now define "fair".

Citizen A makes $80,000 a year and pays 34% income tax (making up numbers here for the sake of discussion). That's $28,000

Citizen B makes 8,000,000 a year and pays 17% income tax. That's $1,360,000

So I ask you, define fair. The evil rich guy just contributed 48 times more than the noble middleclassman. Is that fair enough for you? No?

To take your analogy a few steps further:

Citizen A now has $52,000 of disposible income in which to pay a $2,000 a month house note, feed his family, pay monthly bills, and save for college for his 2 kids. At the end of the year, citizen A probably has zero left over.

Citizen B has 6.64 million left over, which allows him to buy a yacht, another condo, and attend some 1,000 a plate political dinners in which to entice Congressmen to make even more tax loopholes benefiting him because he somehow "spreads the wealth." Even if Citizen B were taxed at double Citizen's A's rate, at 68%, Citizen B would still have more than 3 million left over after taxes of disposable income.

Fair encompasses both having someone feel they are vested in the health and wellfare of the country, while at the same time not overburdening them with a crushing liability. 1.36 million looks like a lot of money, but proportionally, based on an ability to pay, its miniscule.

In your example, the 34% on the middle class wage earner is a crushing burden, even though it is 1/48 the size of the rich person's tax burden in terms of total dollars. And so that would be inherently unfair. Luckily, using your numbers, a single wage earner making 80,000 would only be taxed at around 25%, and if he/she were married, it would be 15%. And a wealthy person at your income level being taxed at 17% would either not be gainfully employed and simply living off of a trust fund or investments, or have a lot of compensation tied up into deferred options, etc. So they would either not be contributing anything to society through industrious work or they would be playing games with tax loopholes; neither of which makes me feel too terribly sympathetic to their plight.

dogma wrote:College students aren't poor, no matter how much they beg to differ. They're engaged by a system that requires extensive capital investment, even if it isn't theirs.

Correction, he wasn't a college student. He wanted to be one, but couldn't.

He supported his mother, uncle, and younger siblings, including paying for one of his sisters to attend university, by earning approximately US$140 per month selling produce on the street in Sidi Bouzid.

streamdragon wrote:That's not poverty, you are eating, have eaten, and have no worries regarding where you will eat.

You're not poor.

Again, lots of people have definitions of poverty predicated on their own inconvenience, or social malady, these definitions are nonsense.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said I was poor. It was simply a joke about a silver lining to not going to work, since as an hourly contractor I don't get paid while the government is shut down, nor will I be eligible for back pay should Congress approve it for Federal workers.

I'm using the Small Business Administration (a governmental organization)'s definition.

For all the small businesses, there are a lot more people who own no business and just work for them. So much energy is worried over the middle class, but if the aforementioned $80,000 a year is "middle class" where does that leave people who literally go from paycheck to paycheck and pay rent to the "middle class" who are their landlords and work for their small businesses waiting tables or running a cash register for minimum wage or thereabouts? I would think those are the true middle class as there must be more workers than owners. The problem with the middle class versus upper class is that the interests of the lower class are not considered at all. Those are the people that suffer first from a down economy because food costs the same for everyone, and paying someone else a profit for a place to live instead of owning one (with the help of a bank) is not an investment but an expense. People worried about their retirement, their office jobs, their real estate investments, and their small businesses are lucky to have had one in the first place to lose.

Generally speaking, people who own businesses but aren't millionaires are "upper middle class".

Those who live paycheck to paycheck are considered working class.

In the US at least (we don't have true "nobility" here), Upper class are those such as CEOs and similar positions, politicians, upper tiers of lawyers and physicians, heirs, stockbrokers, venture capitalists, celebrities, investment bankers, etc. Basically, most upper class are those that can derive enormous amounts of income from wealth through techniques isuch as investment and money management rather than through wage earning or salaried employment.

Eldanar wrote:

To take your analogy a few steps further:

Citizen A now has $52,000 of disposible income in which to pay a $2,000 a month house note, feed his family, pay monthly bills, and save for college for his 2 kids. At the end of the year, citizen A probably has zero left over.

Citizen B has 6.64 million left over, which allows him to buy a yacht, another condo, and attend some 1,000 a plate political dinners in which to entice Congressmen to make even more tax loopholes benefiting him because he somehow "spreads the wealth." Even if Citizen B were taxed at double Citizen's A's rate, at 68%, Citizen B would still have more than 3 million left over after taxes of disposable income.

Are they somehow not entitled to it because it is more? What entitles another person to that money, if you please?

Fair encompasses both having someone feel they are vested in the health and wellfare of the country, while at the same time not overburdening them with a crushing liability. 1.36 million looks like a lot of money.

No - it IS alot of money.

In your example, the 34% on the middle class wage earner is a crushing burden, even though it is 1/48 the size of the rich person's tax burden in terms of total dollars. And so that would be inherently unfair. Luckily, using your numbers, a single wage earner making 80,000 would only be taxed at around 25%, and if he/she were married, it would be 15%. And a wealthy person at your income level being taxed at 17% would either not be gainfully employed and simply living off of a trust fund or investments, or have a lot of compensation tied up into deferred options, etc. So they would either not be contributing anything to society through industrious work or they would be playing games with tax loopholes; neither of which makes me feel too terribly sympathetic to their plight.

You make huge assumptions there! Sure, your scenario applies to some, but certainly not all high earners. It is natural and right to want to keep most of what you *earn*. If I had millions, I would give greatly - but I'd *decide* who and where to give. I give often; that would not change because I struck it rich.

Meh. The top 1% of Americans own around 34% of the wealth in the U.S. while the bottom 80% own only approximately 16% of the wealth. No matter how hard they work, the percent of those eighty percent that will get the lucky breaks those top one percent have already gotten will statistically be close to or at zero. And the difference is increasing every year, more and more middle class joining the ranks of the working poor while the upper class garner more and more of the nation's wealth.

Manipulating wealth so that you can increase wealth isn't really work in my eyes, and doesn't really benefit society. In fact it's probably more of a drain.

streamdragon wrote:
Correction, he wasn't a college student. He wanted to be one, but couldn't.

He supported his mother, uncle, and younger siblings, including paying for one of his sisters to attend university, by earning approximately US$140 per month selling produce on the street in Sidi Bouzid.

You should read what you cite, because there are several sources, per your own source, stating that he had a college degree and one source disputing that fact.

streamdragon wrote:
Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said I was poor. It was simply a joke about a silver lining to not going to work, since as an hourly contractor I don't get paid while the government is shut down, nor will I be eligible for back pay should Congress approve it for Federal workers.

Why would you joke about that?