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I don't know your business, but obviously there are some logistics or organizational issues. Many truckers do not drive alone, but in alternating shifts with their partners. Or you could hire a part-time employee to do the accounting, bank errands and similar stuff for you.
I would certainly not support a schedule such as the one you described, no matter how much I earned. I would simply feel that I was wasting my life and health...
I think people get so lost in the politics of today, that they don't look at how policies actually affect life.
For example, could we have afforded to have a space program on a simple flat tax? Made it to the moon? Funded the science programs that led to harnessing the atom? Lasers? Satellites? Paid for returning vets to go to college and create the largest white collar work force in the world?
How would many of the developments that funded our advancement into a superpower been achieved on the severely reduced tax revenue of a national sales tax, VAT, or flat tax?
Keep in mind that historically, we had 70 years where the top marginal tax rate was never less than 50%.
You have to ask yourself how much less you are willing to have in order to fund the government. Lets say we have a 15% VAT. That is a 15% tax on a product every time it changes hands. So, no only do you pay a 15% tax when you purchase a product, every sub-component gets hit with a 15% tax as well. Which means you will actually have to pay 30-50% more for anything you buy. Ask yourself what a 30% pay cut does to you now? If you have to pay 30% more for food and fuel...can you still afford that smart phone and night out? Can you still afford your rent or mortgage? Can you still afford a car when you pay 50% more (products with lots of "value added" content are hit the worst)?
EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS COMES OUT OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR. This is money taken by force to provide services. Instead of figuring out how to take more money from people, we should be asking just what services we are willing to pay for, and how much they really should cost. The federal government alone already takes more than 1 dollar in every 5 produced in this country to operate. 20%...of every good and service produced by the hard working people of this country...just for the federal government. To say nothing about what states and cities take. And you want them to take more??? Why don't you write a check, instead of looking for ways to make others pay?
I think people get so lost in the politics of today, that they don't look at how policies actually affect life.
For example, could we have afforded to have a space program on a simple flat tax? Made it to the moon? Funded the science programs that led to harnessing the atom? Lasers? Satellites? Paid for returning vets to go to college and create the largest white collar work force in the world?
How would many of the developments that funded our advancement into a superpower been achieved on the severely reduced tax revenue of a national sales tax, VAT, or flat tax?
Keep in mind that historically, we had 70 years where the top marginal tax rate was never less than 50%.
Keep in mind, that while it was never less than 50% we had a totally different tax code, where all the interest you paid on your credit cards, mortgage, and hundreds of other deductions were available to completely reduce that tax rate to probably less than 5%.
Could we have afforded a Space Program? More than likely.
What makes you think that a flat tax on goods and services would have resulted in reduced revenue? We would not need as large of an IRS as we have now, and would not have to have TAX returns yearly. People being paid under the table, and criminals who's earnings are currently no taxed would be paying taxes on their illegal earnings.
I don't know your business, but obviously there are some logistics or organizational issues.
"Obviuosly"....LOL, you've come to that conclusion based on what? In that business you go out of business if there is logistical or organizational issues. Is a Pizza business being overwhelmed during Lent a logistical or organizational issue?
I was delivering coal to local residential customers and while I would offer reduced rates through the Spring and Summer keeping me busy while most of the other dealers did nothing I couldn't force people to take it. Late August through mid November would be the crazy months.
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Many truckers do not drive alone, but in alternating shifts with their partners. Or you could hire a part-time employee to do the accounting, bank errands and similar stuff for you.
You're assuming again based on what? I had two trucks going during that time and again you simply don't understand the sacrifices small business owners make. What I've described is not out of the ordinary but typical for most small business owners. FYI no small business is going to let any part timer anywhere near the books.
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I would certainly not support a schedule such as the one you described, no matter how much I earned. I would simply feel that I was wasting my life and health...
This revolves back to my original point. Now I get up when I want, I don't even own an alarm clock. I do what I want when I want to do it. If the government was taking a very large piece of my pie for increasing success I would not have done it and still be working at that job.
I don't agree. Most small businesses are not at all as specialized and dependent on seasons as delivering coal. Since you mention a pizza service, here for instance they use the smallest units, i.e. scooters for that. And it makes sense as you can easily hire additional staff if demand increases. No need to buy a new car, just a new scooter. Maybe your two trucks were too big. If you had used four smaller trucks or pickups they might have delivered more coal faster in parallel as you would have had 4 drivers instead of 2...
Either way, I would never start a small business on my own, only with a few other trustworthy partners.
>Is is fair that you pay a percentage on your working income and I get to pay income taxes on my social security after having paid taxes on the same thing before I stopped paying on income? I am going around a second time.<
LOL
You paid a TAX to get a government pension. Call it what you want to feel better.
Just like Medicare is GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE. You were TAXED for it for ?X? years and told you would get health care when you got old. Call it what you want but it is STILL government health care. yeah I know deny deny deny.
In both cases, especially Medicare, people earn a large multiple of "what they contributed". They did NOT EARN it. It was a tax and a govt promise to collect later if that tax was paid. Most recipients get well above average a beneficial to the recipient multiple.
Note in neither case am I calling for anyone to lose their SS and Medicare. I just find it funny people want to think it is something other than a govt benefit.
I don't agree. Most small businesses are not at all as specialized and dependent on seasons as delivering coal.
Firstly you've made the assumption there is an "obviously there are some logistics or organizational issues" which I've shown to be false. Secondly I don;t know what you're disagreeing with because I haven't suggested that most business are seasonal.
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And it makes sense as you can easily hire additional staff if demand increases.
There is nothing easy about hiring staff especially if they are temporary. In my business for example you could easily destroy a $70K truck, cause untold damage to the customers property and kill yourself and other people all within a split second. Truck experience is the easy part. By the time I might consider letting them go on their own the busy season is long over. On top of that they needed a CDL which cost $$$ to hire and that's besides the fact most with a CDL aren't interested in temporary work. Again you're going to hear similar experiences from many business owners.
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No need to buy a new car, just a new scooter. Maybe your two trucks were too big. If you had used four smaller trucks or pickups they might have delivered more coal faster in parallel as you would have had 4 drivers instead of 2...
ROFL.... perhaps you might want to consider understanding the business that my family has been in for four generations before trying to give me advice on it, OK? This is a bulk business with specialized trucks. Pickups? BAHAHAHA,
It's not the money necessarily but the work required to make that money, if there is very little return why bother? In the business I was in if we considered just working average days that was 60% of my revenue, for 9 months it was average days. Average for me was M-F, 10 hours each day.
There was a 3 month period where the additional 40% came from and I'm going to describe that time for you. I'd wake up about 4AM. I'd do all my accounting from the previous days receipts, get the deposit ready, write out that days invoices. I'd be out the door by 5:30-6. I'd stop at the bank on the way and be in my truck by 6:30 watching the sun come up. I could only get product until 4PM so I'd set a long delivery for that time. I'd usually be parking the truck between 6 and 8 PM. Then it was home......... where I would spend another 1 to 2 hours on the phone each night. I be done and in bed by 11 or 12 only to have to get up and do it again the next morning. I'd do that Monday to Saturday and a half day Sunday, as long as nothing needed fixing on the truck which was rare I'd get a break on Sunday Afternoon.
If you ask any small business if they have similar experiences they are going to tell you the same thing. Why does anybody have any ncentive to work like that if the government is going to be taking increasingly larger piece of the pie?
Just remember, when you're working from 5:30am to 11:00 at night, that you didn't build that business...Obama did. Foolish statements like his shows just how out of tough most democrats are with small business, and the effort requried to be successful. Far easier to get government grants and agitate the masses to demand wht they haven't earned..as a "community organizer".
Last edited by Toyman at Jewel Lake; 09-07-2012 at 08:56 AM..
Well, I am not a capitalist, money was never an incentive or source of motivation for me. I give my best when I like doing what I do, when I do something meaningful, etc.
So, say I make a good product that a lot of people like and demand and thus I earn a lot. I would expand and hire anyway, regardless whether I paid 30 or 50% in taxes. As long as can lead a decent middle-class life, who cares about the excess money?!
Because with anything other than taxes on natural wealth it will eventually lead to no ability to do this. Rent always grows until both labor and capital reach subsistence. Its not new. Its been happening for millennia. Its actually like a cancer since it shifts the surplus away from producers to a liesure class that knows nothing about production.
You have to ask yourself how much less you are willing to have in order to fund the government. Lets say we have a 15% VAT. That is a 15% tax on a product every time it changes hands. So, no only do you pay a 15% tax when you purchase a product, every sub-component gets hit with a 15% tax as well. Which means you will actually have to pay 30-50% more for anything you buy. Ask yourself what a 30% pay cut does to you now? If you have to pay 30% more for food and fuel...can you still afford that smart phone and night out? Can you still afford your rent or mortgage? Can you still afford a car when you pay 50% more (products with lots of "value added" content are hit the worst)?
EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS COMES OUT OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR. This is money taken by force to provide services. Instead of figuring out how to take more money from people, we should be asking just what services we are willing to pay for, and how much they really should cost. The federal government alone already takes more than 1 dollar in every 5 produced in this country to operate. 20%...of every good and service produced by the hard working people of this country...just for the federal government. To say nothing about what states and cities take. And you want them to take more??? Why don't you write a check, instead of looking for ways to make others pay?
Actually it doesn't, but we are heading in that direction.
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BAHAHAHA, 
