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Where was it that I mentioned either teaching or receiving a stimulus check? Your reading comprehension isn't any better than your economics. The thousands of dollars that I have received (year after year) from the Bushies has been as the result of their tax cuts for the rich. Those haven't made much difference to most folks (which may be why you overlook them), but at the upper ends of the income scale, these have represented an ongoing and quite substantial windfall. All part of redistributing income and wealth up to the already wealthy, leaving other folks holding the bag. Suckers.
Again you simply imagine that I specified a direction, but as soon as you introduce specialization and division of labor, you imply wealth transfers from the rich to the poor. All are protected even though only the young, strong warriors fight to repel marauders. If lightning strikes and your barn burns down, the community comes together to build you a new one. If you require a heart transplant, it is paid for by the contributions of those whose hearts are perfectly fine. Society is about reducing risk and addressing need through redistributions of income. Society is a mix of rights and responsibilities. You don't get to have the one and walk away from the other.
Feudalism? Where did that come from? Not even recognized in its own time, it was a dead-end system that emerged in rather few places over rather short periods of time. And of course it is a right-wing system akin to unbridled capitalism, but based on forced control of arable land, rather than the means of industrial production. Doesn't look like you fare any better at history than at economics or reading comprehension.
The tyranny you seek to evade is that of responsibility...something you wish not to accept. Membership in society comes with an obligation to others taken up in exchange for the obligations that others take up for you. There are two options: willing participation and attempted free-loading. It is apparent which one of those you prefer.
It was not unique and that slavery thing is a bit more of of a burden on your "free of" ideals than you want to let on. When did women get the right to vote? When did they come to have have the right to work for wages outside the home? Most of American history is a history of exploitation, not economic freedom. Blacks, Chinese, Native Americans, women, children, immigrants...all these and many more have had their turn at being systematically robbed of the "benefits of their own labor". You turn a blind eye to this history in an attempt to justify an ideal that never existed. Rather than recognize reality, you dress up the past as some sort of Norman Rockwell painting. This is an example of delusional behavior.
Deep end alert. There is nothing in managed capitalism (what you call "socialism") that denies people either incentives or rewards. The examples you cite belie only the irrational kneejerk hyperbole that so many on the right find to be their only refuge. No one recommends that we become any of those places.
Jeezus, dude! The purpose of including increased food stamp benefits in a stimulus proposal is not to expand the number of acres under tillage. It is to get money into the economy in a way that will result in a maximum jolt to sagging aggregate demand. Food stamp receipents have no problem at all in spending their roughly 14% increase in short order. That takes stock off the shelves. New stock has to be trucked in and put on the shelves to replace it. Thus the dollars move rapidly on to stock boys and truckers who turn right around and spend them again. It is a simple fact that the web of economic activity that is spun off of food stamp increases is more complex and much more quickly traversed than the web of activity that results from handing out more bucks to rich people who are already sitting on a lot of bucks to start out with. Stated more generally, the marginal propensity to consume of high-income individuals is lower than that of low-income individuals, an effect that is only amplified by introducing a temporal dimension (i.e., the rich consume both less per dollar and more slowly). Either you are aware of this fact and its implications or you are not. From the increasing volume of things that you are not aware of, I would guess the latter to be a significant part of what underlies your latent inability to recognize the current economic sitaution for what it actually is.
Wow. I guess one cannot debate a hard core marxist. They really believe that taking from one class and giving to another is perfectly fine and will benefit everyone. I guess that is why Cuba is the most powerful nation in the world now and the USSR still prospers.
Again, could you tell that university where you teach economics? Is it in Havana? The food stamp argument has been debunked everywhere and provides only short term "stimulus". It does nothing long term. Under your theory, Flint MI, and Watts CA have to be the wealthiest towns in the US, because they use alot of food stamps. Everyone who lives there knows what great communities they are.
Anyone who really believes that, outside of slavery, that the labor of working Americans throughout its history was simply stolen from them is a hard core Marxist. Of course in America, no one has ever bettered themselves or moved to a higher socio-economic class. It just can't and did not happen here, and our prosperity and improvement in life style is just a big hoax. Only in the USSR, Pol Pott's Cambodia, and Cuba has "the good life" been achieved. That is what everyone wants- poverty for all so we can all be equal.
Wow. I guess one cannot debate a hard core marxist. They really believe that taking from one class and giving to another is perfectly fine and will benefit everyone. I guess that is why Cuba is the most powerful nation in the world now and the USSR still prospers.
Again, could you tell that university where you teach economics? Is it in Havana? The food stamp argument has been debunked everywhere and provides only short term "stimulus". It does nothing long term. Under your theory, Flint MI, and Watts CA have to be the wealthiest towns in the US, because they use alot of food stamps. Everyone who lives there knows what great communities they are.
Anyone who really believes that, outside of slavery, that the labor of working Americans throughout its history was simply stolen from them is a hard core Marxist. Of course in America, no one has ever bettered themselves or moved to a higher socio-economic class. It just can't and did not happen here, and our prosperity and improvement in life style is just a big hoax. Only in the USSR, Pol Pott's Cambodia, and Cuba has "the good life" been achieved. That is what everyone wants- poverty for all so we can all be equal.
Yes the trickle down theory is such a better plan.
I was wondering what your opinions are on the rich and if you think they should pay more taxes?
Personally, I think they should the rich have a very high share of dividens and capital gains which are taxed at 15%.
On the other hand the poor the income tax is 10% and the middle-class are in the 25% tax brackets and most of the middle-class dont have as heavily amount of dollars from dividens and capital gains like the rich so the middle-class are being taxed at a higher rate then the rich in alot of cases.
Another thing is since interest on housing payments, charity (churches) and property taxes are tax-deductible these generally benefit the rich much more then the poor and middle-class.
I think that they raise the income tax rate on the wealthy to 40% like during the Clinton years and go from 15% to 20ish% on capital gains and dividens taxes.
The so-called "rich" are already paying over 90%. Whey should they pay more? Tas the "poor" more, and make them pay thier "fair share".
Prop 13 only deals with Prop Tax and it is the one saving grace Californians have...
Prop 13 treats all property owners the same... everyone pays 1% of the assessed property value at the time of transfer adjusted up by 2% per year...
Prop 13 has withstood every legal challenge and for 30 years is Law of the Land...
What CA needs is a Prop 13 for income tax...
The San Jose Mercury News just had an article on prop 13 and some of the things they're thinking of trying... and why or why not the ideas might work or not.
The San Jose Mercury News just had an article on prop 13 and some of the things they're thinking of trying... and why or why not the ideas might work or not.
The nice thing about flat tax, is there is no property tax and/or sales tax.
Yes, there is, unless whatever flat-tax plan proposed is specially designed to replace sales and property taxes in addition to the income tax. That was the case with the ironically named Fair Tax proposal that right-wingers touted for a while, but in plain old day-to-day talk, a flat tax merely changes the way income tax obligations are calculated so that the wealthy end up owing much less and those who are not wealthy end up owing much more.
Location: I currently exist only in a state of mind. one too complex for geographic location.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
Yes, there is, unless whatever flat-tax plan proposed is specially designed to replace sales and property taxes in addition to the income tax. That was the case with the ironically named Fair Tax proposal that right-wingers touted for a while, but in plain old day-to-day talk, a flat tax merely changes the way income tax obligations are calculated so that the wealthy end up owing much less and those who are not wealthy end up owing much more.
they would never approve the fair tax for one reason. it takes too much power out of the politicians hands. the scumbags in washington you are in love with would never go for that.
Yes the trickle down theory is such a better plan.
"the rich should pay more taxes" to the government is liberal theory. this liberal theory only advances substituting the word government every time you hear the words small business or business. this is a recipe for disaster since government itself does not generate revenue. you are talking about government trickle down, which is way more dangerous than your so-called business trickle down. as government pulls from the private sector, the very group that provides the government sector funding is diminished with no equivalent growth.
The idea that the rich pay more than their fair share, "far in excess" is laughable. They pay a lower tax rate now than they have in decades.
That's quite true. In 2006, the top 1% paid a little less than 21 cents out of each dollar of adjusted gross income in federal income taxes, the lowest rate of the last 20 years at least. Only a decade earlier, they had been paying just under 27 cents per dollar. In the intervening ten years, the income of the top 1% increased by 146% while their taxes paid increased by only 90%. Somebody has been getting a free ride.
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