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There is a concept called personal responsibility and people need to get back to learning what that is and stop blaming all their problems on everyone else.
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of the concept called personal responsibility. I am personally responsible for the overall well-being of all the members of my community and my country, because they form the general society that I can best profit from when it is healthy and strong from top to bottom. That's what people need to get back to learning.
I don't want you in my society, because it is your "personal responsibility" to put the knife in my back for personal gain, the minute I experienced a turn of bad luck or experience a weak moment, and then crush me when I'm down so I can never recover.
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of the concept called personal responsibility. I am personally responsible for the overall well-being of all the members of my community and my country, because they form the general society that I can best profit from when it is healthy and strong from top to bottom. That's what people need to get back to learning.
I don't want you in my society, because it is your "personal responsibility" to put the knife in my back for personal gain, the minute I experienced a turn of bad luck or experience a weak moment, and then crush me when I'm down so I can never recover.
I think you have a warped sense of reality and appreciation of people out there. You get back what you put out there. And if that is what you expect or think of people that's what you'll be getting back.
I don't see how I can personally be putting a knife in your back and crushing you when you are down. People demonstrate to me how I can personally interested or am capable of that. Considering the career I have it's an impossibility.
This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. How many people are employed in the private health insurance industry, compared with the number employed by Medicare? How much time does a doctor's billing office spend filling out thousands of different, complicated forms for myriad private insurance companies, compared to how much time they spend doing the Medicare paperwork? How many adjusters are employed by private insurance firms, whose job is to do nothing but think of reasons to deny claims?
It is estimated that at least a million people are doing bureaucratic work, either in the private health insurance industry, or at the provider end. Nearly all those jobs would be lost, if all health bills were paid through a single payer with a single set of forms. That's a million people doing nothing but medical payment bureaucracy. Almost one percent of our whole work force. How many in Medicare?
Couldn't care how many are employed in private industry at the moment. My main concern is where my tax dollars are going and right now medicare is a wasteful program that needs streamlined.
I was replying to Pimpy, who suggested "a flat national sales tax (such as the FairTax)."
The FairTax does tax rent (services are taxed), and it also taxes a portion of interest, including a portion of mortgage interest. (Interest above a certain rate - the federal funds rate I believe - is taxed under the FairTax, and interest under that rate is exempt from tax.)
This means that homeowners with a mortgage will pay FairTax on a portion of their mortgage interest. Homeowners without a mortgage would enjoy housing consumption without paying tax on it.
Homeowners would, of course, continue to pay RE taxes, but the FairTax would not be added. Since RE taxes on rental property are simply added to (embedded in) the rent, renters would effectively pay FairTax on top of the RE tax.
A national sales tax would redistribute income from renters to homeowners, because under equal consumption or equal spending, a renter will always pay more tax than a homeowner.
Retirement to me is fine as a concept, as long as people pay for their own retirements. But as a society we cannot afford to have people work for 25 years and then get paid half wages and health care for the next 40-50 years. The numbers don't add up. As a society we cannot bear a huge number of people in society being unproductive by not working and asking for handouts.
Who gets that kind of SS? By the time I reach 62, I will have paid into SS for 47 years (most of them at top rate) and will be entitled to approximately 16% of my current income level. I am rounding up!
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Originally Posted by wanneroo
If we punish success, successful people and business will go elsewhere. There are too many examples of businesses and people heading to less taxation and regulated states and countries. If we go down the high tax path, we'll just reduce productivity and send the productive people elsewhere.
No one is being punished for success. You assume it is a fair world and everyone has the same advantages. Absolutely not the case. Simply being born into a supportive family with a chance to go to college and not struggle to escape poverty is a huge advantage. That doesn't even get into those born into wealth and entitlement. America makes that possible and I don't think giving back into the system is punishment, as long as it is not oppressive.
But, I agree we must remain competitive and pro business in our business environment.
Most rich and successful people work very hard for their money. But even I see that luck plays a role in the equation. The richer you become, the more luck plays a role.
Warren Buffet was a very lucky guy. Here is where luck comes in for Buffet:
"Buffett's interest in the stock market and investing also dated to his childhood, to the days he spent in the customers' lounge of a regional stock brokerage near the office of his father's own brokerage company." Warren Buffett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
His father owned a brokerage company, and Buffet grew up around finances and investing. He was lucky to be surrounded by this early in life. That's luck for you.
"Outliers" is a good book to read on the "luck issue"
Bingo! You cannot over emphasize the importance of good fortune. And Buffet is all about giving something back too.
There are plenty of rags-to-riches Oprah Winfrey success stories for every Warren Buffet story.
I know a lot of people believe luck plays the biggest role in success. I do not. I agree with the famous quote that "luck is when preparation meets opportunity." ...
So, you believe that two genetically identical people will fare equally well whether raised in Cabrini-Green by drug addicts or Highland Park by doctors?
I do agree it takes much more than opportunity though. You must have the desire and capacity to capitalize on your opportunities.
I think very little of Buffett's success is due to luck. There must be thousands of brokerage offices in the US. The sons and daughters of the people who own/run/work there - what have they done with their "luck?" Any other Buffetts come from being close to investing as a child?
Was Michael Jackson lucky? Or was he also unlucky? Was Michael Dell just lucky? Or was he the only one in the world who saw an opportunity to build low cost IBM compatible PCs?
Buffett's exposure to the stock market simply stimulated his interest in investing. If you read that article - you'll see he attended Wharton, then finished his degree at Nebraska when he was 19. Buffett also became a disciple of Benjamin Graham's ideas, which continues to guide him today. No one gave Buffett a bag of money to play with.
I think most people at different times in their life encounter opportunities, but fail to act on them.
Few folks born into abject poverty would believe that they could ever be a part of that world. Having a father working in that world makes it seem possible. That is huge! Few would ever get the chance to attend Wharton. Or be born with the intellectual capability to expand on those opportunities.
Was it a slam dunk? No, farthest thing from it. But, essentially you cannot remove his opportunity from the equation and expect the same result. I believe Buffet would say the same thing, based on his commitment to helping others.
the government has a debt load over $14 trillion. i didnt get anything for that, i got no say in how it was spent. i understand that this is a democracy and we voted for these morons, but it would be much better if government had much less power to spend our money.
Is there a chart indicating where all of the debt was accumulated? I mean since the alleged surplus at the end of the Clinton presidency and particularly since 2008.
I also do not see where any benefit has resulted from massive indebtedness. Last occasion was fighting and winning WWII. What was the result from the one we have now?
It was not my choosing that I had a 2500 deductible with my insane insurance plan!
That left me in debt! (just an example)
Debt is not always a choice but at times a necessity
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