Why Progressive Taxation is Fairest (LOL EAT THE RICH) (Corporate Profits, unemployment rate, Congress)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That is one thing I've noticed about almost all Presidents...how they have changed after 3 years in office and what a toll it has taken on them is very visible in one way or another.
It's a crappy job to have, imo and the pay isn't that great either.
99% of the people that complain about the president (ANY president) couldn't even remotely do the job themselves.
You're not scaring me with the socialism canard, especially since you don't really seem to know what that word means.
I'm glad that you recognize that your views are only important to you and you alone. Unfortunately, you live in a society. I want a social structure where the driving force isn't the accumulation of wealth, but rather providing a minimum comfortable standard of living for *everyone*. Transportation, job security, public safety, health care, child care, education, high-quality nutrition. The questions boils down to something very basic and something quite philosophical. What really matters in life? That you have a huge mansion, a garage full of expensive cars and bank vault full of gold? Is that what you are going to think about on your deathbed? If yes, then I pity you.
What I want is there to ultimately be no one living in poverty, no one dying or suffering because they can't afford medical care, no one starving. I want us to reach other planets and stars one day. And I want everyone to have a part in this.
I'm afraid that is something you will never understand. F-you, got mine, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sanrene
Ah, the liberal utopia. The closest you might get are those blue, blue states, like CA and IL....move there. They are the perfect examples of the liberal utopian dream........gone WRONG.
spot on lady!! interlude the problem with your socialist utopia is that there is no incentive to create, and without that incentive, society does not move forward like it should. also in your utopian society there will still be the rich and powerful people, and there will still be the poor, however there will be NO middle class, and that is also a huge problem. take a good look in history at these socialist and communist societies where the government owned or controlled everything, and notice that they have failed EVERY time. why? because socialism is expensive in the extreme.
in a proper capitalist society, like ours used to be, there is incentive to be what ever you want to be. you want to be rich? there is a path to making yourself rich. you want to be poor? that is actually simple. your just want to make enough to get along and make your own way, that is possible also. why? because we have an incentive to create things, because if you create a better widget, the people will buy that widget, making you money, and giving you the opportunity to create more wealth for yourself if you choose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Interlude
Clearly you are not an altruist. I'll put it in more selfish terms, then. Anyone running (or working for) a small business should want high taxes on the top 20% because that group spends the least amount of their income on "stuff". They invest it and try to earn more on the investments and then get taxed less on that income then if they earned it the hard way.
Instead I want more money in the hands of the lower 80% so I can have customers with money to spend. Its very easy to not spend money when you dont have any.
the problem you have here is that the 20% make it possible for the 80% to have jobs to make money to spend. the more you tax or regulate the people who create the jobs, the fewer jobs you are going to have because that person owning the small business will either work more hours to get the job done with fewer people, or invest in technology that will reduce the number of employees needed to run the business efficiently.
as for the top 20% buying less stuff, not really true. the thing is that the 80% buys a bit of stuff to make themselves happy, A big screen TV, A car or two, A microwave oven, etc. the 20% on the other hand buys 50 big screen tvs, 25 cars, 100 microwaves, etc. so whats the difference? the 20% buys all the stuff to resell to make money.
if we are going to move society forward, we have to have incentives for people to want to move forward. no icentives and we become the soviet union, cuba, albania, etc. all failed communist states because there was no incentive to improve society.
Nobody has gotten where they are in society without massive help from society
Interestingly, I never saw anyone else up with me at 2:00 am when I was starting my small business. Well occassionally my husband. I remember one horrible week we spent holding 2 babies with RSV on our laps in the middle of the night while pulling all nighters to get work done. Because if you want to stay in business, then the buck stops with you, the owner.
And I don't remember any one else throwing money at me when I was putting all the profits back into the business so we could open a store.
When I'm on vacation and still have to check in several times a day to make sure things are running smoothly. When I have put out any fires that arise and miss vacation time to do it- where's all this massive amount of help??
This is what irritates me about ths mindset. I worked my butt off for years, reinvesting pretty much every penny, risking my money, and dealing with the learning curve of starting a business. We had our best year ever last year. How crazy to think it's appropriate to kill the risk takers when they finally make it.
I already give back more than the average person and not just in income tax- the sales taxes from my purchases help fund the city, county, and state governments. I give thousands to charity in cash and new merchandise. And guess what else I do, I keep people employed. Business don't just keep their local employees in business, they also help keep their suppliers in business. When I order $70,000 from a company in VA, that company has to have employees to handle my order. And UPS & Fed Ex have to deliver those daily shipments, so they need employees.
It's easy to sit on your sofa after your 9-5 job and think about how to tax the evil business owners. After all, you don't have to worry about late night calls, orders getting stuck somewhere because of a volcano erruption, or how much money you need to keep your business running. I can promise you one thing, I won't continue to take a risk if I lose more of the reward. My family doesn't need the money to survive. But if I close, that doesn't just hurt me and the local people, it will also hurt every business that counts on us for orders.
rbohm do you seriously believe that raising taxes a bit is going to remove the incentive to create? We're not talking about a 99% tax bracket here. Restoring tax levels to the Clinton era would solve a lot of our current problems. The highest tax brackets in the post-WW2 era were staggeringly high by comparison today, when they are at their lowest in 50 years. Taxes during the Reagan area were dramatically higher than today. Did creation stop?
Divorce yourself from policy and think about the reality of what you're saying for a moment. Understand what marginal utility is. The first twenty thousand dollars you make are the most important, because you'd starve without them. They're not taxed at all. The next twenty thousand are taxed a little bit, because they're very useful but not absolutely necessary. And so on.
Brentwood, did you read the rest of my post where I explained how your business is helped by society or just stop at that phrase? The taxes you pay help take care of your employees, provide you with a stable and educated labor pool, and do the same for your customers. If they're broke, they can't buy whatever it is that you sell.
Interestingly, I never saw anyone else up with me at 2:00 am when I was starting my small business. Well occassionally my husband. I remember one horrible week we spent holding 2 babies with RSV on our laps in the middle of the night while pulling all nighters to get work done. Because if you want to stay in business, then the buck stops with you, the owner.
And I don't remember any one else throwing money at me when I was putting all the profits back into the business so we could open a store.
When I'm on vacation and still have to check in several times a day to make sure things are running smoothly. When I have put out any fires that arise and miss vacation time to do it- where's all this massive amount of help??
This is what irritates me about ths mindset. I worked my butt off for years, reinvesting pretty much every penny, risking my money, and dealing with the learning curve of starting a business. We had our best year ever last year. How crazy to think it's appropriate to kill the risk takers when they finally make it.
I already give back more than the average person and not just in income tax- the sales taxes from my purchases help fund the city, county, and state governments. I give thousands to charity in cash and new merchandise. And guess what else I do, I keep people employed. Business don't just keep their local employees in business, they also help keep their suppliers in business. When I order $70,000 from a company in VI, that company has to have employees to handle my order.
It's easy to sit on your sofa after your 9-5 job and think about how to tax the evil business owners. After all, you don't have to worry about late night calls, orders getting stuck somewhere because of a volcano erruption, or how much money you need to keep your business running. I can promise you one thing, I won't continue to take a risk if I lose more of the reward. My family doesn't need the money to survive. But if I close, that doesn't just hurt me and the local people, it will also hurt every business that counts on us for orders.
Brentwood, did you read the rest of my post where I explained how your business is helped by society or just stop at that phrase? The taxes you pay help take care of your employees, provide you with a stable and educated labor pool, and do the same for your customers. If they're broke, they can't buy whatever it is that you sell.
If I'm not in business, the government still has to educate the children. They still have to maintain those roads. They just have to do it without the money my business provides. So they are better off with my business than without it.
So it's important to grasp that it's absolute rubbish to think that President Obama didn't need massive help from society on his way to being president?
What I want is there to ultimately be no one living in poverty, no one dying or suffering because they can't afford medical care, no one starving. I want us to reach other planets and stars one day. And I want everyone to have a part in this.
I'm afraid that is something you will never understand. F-you, got mine, right?
I want that too, unfortunately you cant have a world where that is "given" to people. People have to want it, work for it, and earn it. A government cant thrust success upon people, its just not possible, nomatter how bad you want it to be.
As long as you let me work towards that goal on my own, Ill be sure to help others along my path because the more success I have the easier it is for me to share it with others through money, time, teaching, and helping. Take some of those same resources and give them to the government and your ROI on them will be about half of what they are when I decide how to use and deploy them on my own.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
