Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Unknown Target on April 22, 2011, 03:34:36 pm
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Well I figure it's time we start discussing it. Some people are saying it'll all be fine, and other people are saying the quantative easing strategy being employed by the Federal Reserve will lead to hyper inflation in the near future.
Thoughts?
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my thoughts on the US debt is the government needs to stop spending more money than it has. end of thoughts.
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The american debt will prove them fatal
and once the US goes down, the dutch will rise and claim world domination!
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The american debt will prove them fatal
and once the US goes down, the dutch will rise and claim world domination!
I'm pretty sure Mexico or even Greece would rise before the dutch
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The american debt will prove them fatal
and once the US goes down, the dutch will rise and claim world domination!
I for one welcome our new gouda-wielding overlords!
It's a tasty cheese.
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Remove your sandal and follow the holy Gouda!
Oh...wait...
Seriously though, debt is a worrying trend for a lot of countries, I remember saying years ago that I was concerned about the fact that there is enough money in the world to buy everything in it several times over, a closed system that is in constant debt to itself is headed for collapse.
America could, iif it cut back to absolute basics, be self-sufficient it can easily provide enough to feed, clothe and power its own citizens, which is why nobody is running around screaming 'Aaaargh!' about it, but the problem is that the austerity measures are largely band-aids over a gaping wound.
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Anyhow, it's important to be able to discuss things seriously too - with a pinch of salt but nonetheless - I do believe things are starting to go crazy. I'm not as worried for my personal future given i just got hired and got my own securities in place, but I don't think the dollar and Euro are going to last very long with current inflation rates, let alone a possible hyper inflation.
However the current U.S. debt is so high that even if the government would stop spending at all, the amount in derivatives will still make this ship sink.
That's why it's probably a good idea, from what i know (And i am not a financial expert) to be ready at least, storable foods seems like a good idea, water filters, probably air filters, that kind of thing. Backup energy seems ideal too.. would hate to have the financial world interfere with our ability to communicate, develop mods and assets for FS2, from working or reaching work, or even surviving cause you can't afford the food or keep it refrigerated in some cases.
So, I just hope things aren't as serious as they may be, but I can't advice just waiting it out doing nothing about it in your personal lives, at least.
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Oh man, the paranoia is astonishing. Oh teh noes, finance is scary complicated, therefore we must invest in apocalypse-proofing.
I mean, seriously? It's almost as if you think that society was so married to the financial institutions that without them, everything would stop instantly. While I certainly hope we'll never have to test it, I do like to think that western society does have more robust failure modes than that.
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Oh man, the paranoia is astonishing. Oh teh noes, finance is scary complicated, therefore we must invest in apocalypse-proofing.
I mean, seriously? It's almost as if you think that society was so married to the financial institutions that without them, everything would stop instantly. While I certainly hope we'll never have to test it, I do like to think that western society does have more robust failure modes than that.
We've reached Failure Mode: Assless Chaps!
(http://hipsterjew.com/files/2011/04/mad-max-image.jpg)
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Oh man, the paranoia is astonishing. Oh teh noes, finance is scary complicated, therefore we must invest in apocalypse-proofing.
I mean, seriously? It's almost as if you think that society was so married to the financial institutions that without them, everything would stop instantly. While I certainly hope we'll never have to test it, I do like to think that western society does have more robust failure modes than that.
I've been trying to convince people in the US to start bartering and growing their own food. Pretty much no one has come along with that - everyone thinks that without money, society collapses. That's the "word on the street" as it were. Yes, I've actually gone out and talked to people instead of blindly theorizing.
That being said, like I've said before and am saying again; never underestimate the propensity of a system to perpetuate itself.
It's possible that hardcore "austerity measures" could go into effect should the worse happen, and the people being so fearful of anarchy and chaos that they go along with things they wouldn't normally accept. It matters more what the people believe will happen than what will actually happen - because the latter is the one they plan for.
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I'll trade my skills with the blade for some of your tasty mead friend
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since i can only read the parts of the debate not blocked by my cat, il just say if worst comes to worst, we can just nuke our creditors.
that said i think anarchy and chaos would be pretty cool.
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Oh man, the paranoia is astonishing. Oh teh noes, finance is scary complicated, therefore we must invest in apocalypse-proofing.
I mean, seriously? It's almost as if you think that society was so married to the financial institutions that without them, everything would stop instantly. While I certainly hope we'll never have to test it, I do like to think that western society does have more robust failure modes than that.
What they are talking about is the US national debt, which is a rising and very real problem. Right now it stands at $14 trillion, and is going up by ~$1.5 trillion a year. Why is this a problem? Because if it keeps up it will sink the dollar. It's already happening. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/20/standardandpoors-creditrating)
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Commodity-Commmodity trading economy: Refer to Craigslist.
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The american debt will prove them fatal
and once the US goes down, the dutch will rise and claim world domination!
I'm pretty sure Mexico or even Greece would rise before the dutch
They will fall the same way the US did (Greece almost did that, anyway).
WE actually know how to spend our stuff! Everytime you buy our Gouda Cheese, 6% goes directly to the goverment! That way, we keep our---
Anyway, the solution is in the above: The US always talks about cutting spending, but why do they never talk about raising taxes? They don't have that much taxes. They even subsidize the oil industry, if they put taxes on Petrol, it would do great things to the enviroment and their bank balance. For example.
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The american debt will prove them fatal
and once the US goes down, the dutch will rise and claim world domination!
I'm pretty sure Mexico or even Greece would rise before the dutch
They will fall the same way the US did (Greece almost did that, anyway).
WE actually know how to spend our stuff! Everytime you buy our Gouda Cheese, 6% goes directly to the goverment! That way, we keep our---
Anyway, the solution is in the above: The US always talks about cutting spending, but why do they never talk about raising taxes? They don't have that much taxes. They even subsidize the oil industry, if they put taxes on Petrol, it would do great things to the enviroment and their bank balance. For example.
There are petrol taxes. But in any case, spending cuts are always talked about but never happen to a significant degree, hence our current situation.
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Tax raises are never talked about, but should happen. The US need some revenue, but it seems they forgot that the states' main source of income is taxes, and that said income has been cut rather severely.
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But if we raise taxes, then CEOs won't be able to
buy a third beach house and another Maserati while sending jobs to Mexico and India create more jobs for Americans!
why do you hate capitalism and freedom
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Cos I'm a socialist. Wealth redistribution FTW.
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Anywhere else in the world people would be pushing to close the deficit mainly with taxes. The US could pretty easily fund current spending and start paying down debt immediately if it raised taxes to, say, French levels. Here's a nice table from my trusted source. Interest payments are included with spending.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending
That's not going to happen of course. The Dems are going to keep pretending to help the middle class while pushing just barely less severe cuts than the GOP.
As for QE there are going to be long term effects. Countries won't want to export to the US if the dollar is cheap; this is already part of what's happening with oil as Saudi Arabia is shying away from capacity expansion. But the rest is armageddon fantasy. QE is an entirely separate issue from federal debt, though.
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Tax raises are never talked about, but should happen. The US need some revenue, but it seems they forgot that the states' main source of income is taxes, and that said income has been cut rather severely.
Problem is Americans hate taxes, possibly more so than many other countries in the world. Hell the USA wouldn't even exist if Americans didn't mind paying lofty taxes (or being taxed without representation, or being drafted into ze royal navy, but I jest...)
You can't compare the situation with American debt to any other country reliably for two good reasons: firstly because the US deals with far more money than any other country in the world and secondly because US debt affects the entire world. There's a proverb which origins escape me: when the US sneezes the world catches a cold.
It don't matter though. When China and America duke it out in the Great Resource Wars us Scots will sit comfortably in our hills with our renewable wind and wave power, laughing as England and Holland are flooded by the polar ice caps.
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Cos I'm a socialist. Wealth redistribution FTW.
HA I FOUND YOU OUT
you european elitist scum. UNGREATFOL JERK we saved your whole continent
you probably like the terrorists too
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http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Enslave-A-Nation
"That’s right America – your whole economy is not based off of much of anything being of real value, but rather a number in a database that can go away at any time. That car or house that you worry so much about making payments on is nothing more than a few digits inserted the balance sheet of non-existent funds that your bank made. Feels good huh? Oh, and don’t let anyone tell you that the GDP is the measurement by how much the dollar is worth. While that certainly is the explanation we are often given, remember that the GDP is nothing more than a measure of goods and services produced. That means that the Federal Reserve is basing the value of a dollar on a measurement of high dynamic – not a stable one.
If you are thinking that this is criminal, then you are absolutely correct. "
I suppose that in a few years people will talk about "Lazy and corrupted Americans", just like they do with Greeks.
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I dont think raising taxes (which will usually be focussed on the middle class and poor anyway, if you let Politicians decide) but huge corporations should definitely pay more taxes, its a bit ridiculous in some cases, like Google with 2.5% tax compared to it's own employees paying 40% or more. Also, didn't JFK lower some taxes, and doubled the returns, the money that the government gained as a result?
I don't think the current U.S. (and EU too) debt can be dealt with in traditional ways though.
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Not really. He advocated lowering taxes but saw the first peacetime deficit in US history.
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Disband the FED and declare all debt own to it, along with intragovernmental holdings (the absurdity of government owing debt to itself) null and void. Instant reduction of debt by almost half.
The rest are genuine bonds to foreign and private entities that should be paid back unless you want to steal. But that can be paid back with modest tax increase even to the level of balanced sheet.
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Tax raises are never talked about, but should happen. The US need some revenue, but it seems they forgot that the states' main source of income is taxes, and that said income has been cut rather severely.
Problem is Americans hate taxes, possibly more so than many other countries in the world. Hell the USA wouldn't even exist if Americans didn't mind paying lofty taxes (or being taxed without representation, or being drafted into ze royal navy, but I jest...)
You can't compare the situation with American debt to any other country reliably for two good reasons: firstly because the US deals with far more money than any other country in the world and secondly because US debt affects the entire world. There's a proverb which origins escape me: when the US sneezes the world catches a cold.
It don't matter though. When China and America duke it out in the Great Resource Wars us Scots will sit comfortably in our hills with our renewable wind and wave power, laughing as England and Holland are flooded by the polar ice caps.
Holland flooding is a contradictio in terminis. Well, it happens nowadays, but that is only because we planned for it, so nobody lives there :P.
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I think we should start paying back our debt with goods, services, and labor.
It's possible, but it requires the leadership at the top to change.
Here's a great example; Japan is our second largest creditor. If we gave them all the money we borrowed from them right now, they would use it to rebuild their country. Why not start up American industry again for that very purpose, and rebuild it for them? In doing so, we'd be helping ourselves actually get back on our feet and become a functioning country again. Rather than just producing endless plastic crap, we would be able to produce real goods for real needs.
The first question people ask me is; "How would you pay for it?". Trust me when I say we can pay for it. But trust me too when I say you probably can't pay for it in dollars - you'll have to find other ways of letting people be happy, besides shoving cash in their face and telling them to buy stuff they don't really need or want.
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Disband the FED and declare all debt own to it,
me thinks bad idea. FED is necessary.
someone mentioned inflation rate. . .which is less than 3% (2.68 i think). . .which is good
plus not sure if now is the time to address the deficit. knifes edge balance between waiting to long or going to soon on it
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Disband the FED and declare all debt own to it,
me thinks bad idea. FED is necessary.
someone mentioned inflation rate. . .which is less than 3% (2.68 i think). . .which is good
plus not sure if now is the time to address the deficit. knifes edge balance between waiting to long or going to soon on it
Why do you think the Fed is necessary? It wasn't in the original founding...it's only 98 years old. Could you explain to me in layman's terms the pros and cons for keeping it, please? :) I'm genuinely curious to know both sides.
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The Fed allows for control of the money supply which is a powerful tool for economic policy. Good use of the Fed is (maybe) one of the reasons that the economy has been so much tamer in the past decades. For example the late-80s (1987?) stock market crash never even really hit the economy because of Fed intervention iirc.
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darn he beat me. FED also insures banks and makes sure there are no runs on banks by loaning them money which they have to pay back with interest. (btw all the money we in the US bailed the banks out with has been repaid with interest)
The whole FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) insures all accounts up to 250 K meaning that if you dont go over that you can never lose your money if the bank fails. they regulate banks and in general the FED keeps the economy going more smoothly less boom and bust cycles.
edit: they are also in charge of tackling inflation which is important. instrumental to management od depressions, recessions, and inflation
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The Fed allows for control of the money supply which is a powerful tool for economic policy. Good use of the Fed is (maybe) one of the reasons that the economy has been so much tamer in the past decades. For example the late-80s (1987?) stock market crash never even really hit the economy because of Fed intervention iirc.
A lot of the criticism I've seen lately blames the Fed for rising inflation; something to do with keeping the interest rates near zero and the "quantitive easing" strategy being basically equal to printing more money under a different name. True/false?
darn he beat me. FED also insures banks and makes sure there are no runs on banks by loaning them money which they have to pay back with interest. (btw all the money we in the US bailed the banks out with has been repaid with interest)
Where did you see that? Last I saw the US was still overloaded with toxic assets, and the ones they didn't have they had to dump at a loss for the most part.
The whole FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) insures all accounts up to 250 K meaning that if you dont go over that you can never lose your money if the bank fails. they regulate banks and in general the FED keeps the economy going more smoothly less boom and bust cycles.
edit: they are also in charge of tackling inflation which is important. instrumental to management od depressions, recessions, and inflation
Is the FDIC actually a part of the Fed? It also seems to me that ever since WW2 the US's entire economic history has been one of boom and busts in different markets. Especially recently - first there was the tech bubble, then the internet bubble, then the auto crash, then the housing bubble and crash, then the credit bubble and crash, and now the rising student loan bubble.
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You're not wrong, you're just not right.
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gah i cant figure out how to quote right. ok so here goes.
the whole quantitative easing thing and keeping interest rates near zero is so banks will start lending to one another and to business, students, homeowners, Darth sidious etc. this is designed to bolster economice growth and get us outa recession.
now the inflation rate might be climbiming some but in not enough amounts to worry about. what we have is good now. link here http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/CurrentInflation. top of the chart.
and the US banks repayment was by my econ teacher. ill see if i can find something talking about it.
yes the FDIC is part of the FED. mustang could prob give more info about the last ?
Edit: we are currently out of recession but in recovery.
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I think the FDIC stands alongside the Federal Reserve as part of the same system but is not technically part of the Fed.
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I think you are right and I stand corrected.
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found about banks.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/16/business/main20044087.shtml
they have mostly repaid the money lent out. 1 billion left.
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Anyway, boom/bust cycles have been much dampened post-WWII, to the benefit of all. Monetary policy has in many cases worked very well.
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now the inflation rate might be climbiming some but in not enough amounts to worry about. what we have is good now. link here http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/CurrentInflation. top of the chart.
It is worth worrying about when your salary doesn't keep up. Not sure about the US but certainly over here inflation is going at a much faster pace than the average pay rise. Things cost more than we have money for. A good example would be freddo bars. I remember them costing 10p when I was a kid. Then they went up to 15p. Then 17p. Hell some places are seeling them for 21p! That's a rise of over 100%!
You know inflation is bad when 10p packets of crisps cost 15p. /Kevin Bridges quote
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apologies. the inflation rate in the US isnt worth making a huge fuss over now. No idea about anywhere else or where you are. ill take your word for it tho.
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Well currently, if i'd compare the Dollar and Euro to things like silver, gold, platinum, etc; It looks like there's around a 40% loss of purchasing power to both currencies, in 6 months alone. I'm not sure if precious metals can be considered bubbles, or what else could be causing their price to increase. It could give a decent idea of the amount of inflation we currently have, though, in the western world.
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Well currently, if i'd compare the Dollar and Euro to things like silver, gold, platinum, etc; It looks like there's around a 40% loss of purchasing power to both currencies, in 6 months alone. I'm not sure if precious metals can be considered bubbles, or what else could be causing their price to increase. It could give a decent idea of the amount of inflation we currently have, though, in the western world.
Precious metals are used in all sorts of electronic equipment and dental fillings and all that. Ever since China has decided to keep their precious metals for their own needs instead of selling them, the prices have greatly increased, since China was the major producer.
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As for QE there are going to be long term effects. Countries won't want to export to the US if the dollar is cheap; this is already part of what's happening with oil as Saudi Arabia is shying away from capacity expansion. But the rest is armageddon fantasy. QE is an entirely separate issue from federal debt, though.
Let me get this straight, you're saying if we devalue our currency that somehow nations that have wages and standards of living of only 1/6 or 1/10 will somehow not want to export stuff to the US? So much of what gets imported is actually done so under American companies, so really we're taxing our companies while simultaneously not getting anything in return. Saudi Arabia is also a poor example of your point because there's other reasons why they dont want to increase their capacity, such as the commodities bubble. Oil prices now are going up mostly because of speculation caused by mideast instability and the dollar devaluations. If they were to increase capacity it's a multi billion dollar investment that will take a few years to bear fruit by which time oil prices will have gone down again making it a waste.
I also question whether or not it doesn't anything to do with federal debt. Our debt has gotten so outrageously high that there is no way we can really pay it back without major pain. Often in that kind of situation nations will choose to devalue their currency rather than face the music, and for us this is especially tempting since our debt is priced in our own currency.
Here's a great example; Japan is our second largest creditor. If we gave them all the money we borrowed from them right now, they would use it to rebuild their country. Why not start up American industry again for that very purpose, and rebuild it for them? In doing so, we'd be helping ourselves actually get back on our feet and become a functioning country again. Rather than just producing endless plastic crap, we would be able to produce real goods for real needs.
Because Japan is a highly protectionist nation, using anyone elses industry to do anything is a nonstarter for them.
The Fed allows for control of the money supply which is a powerful tool for economic policy. Good use of the Fed is (maybe) one of the reasons that the economy has been so much tamer in the past decades. For example the late-80s (1987?) stock market crash never even really hit the economy because of Fed intervention iirc.
But if we let that crash run its course we might not have had the meltdown we had. Moral hazard has a lot more meaning when people have to pay for their mistakes.
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Oh man, the paranoia is astonishing. Oh teh noes, finance is scary complicated, therefore we must invest in apocalypse-proofing.
I mean, seriously? It's almost as if you think that society was so married to the financial institutions that without them, everything would stop instantly. While I certainly hope we'll never have to test it, I do like to think that western society does have more robust failure modes than that.
I've been trying to convince people in the US to start bartering and growing their own food. Pretty much no one has come along with that - everyone thinks that without money, society collapses. That's the "word on the street" as it were. Yes, I've actually gone out and talked to people instead of blindly theorizing.
That being said, like I've said before and am saying again; never underestimate the propensity of a system to perpetuate itself.
It's possible that hardcore "austerity measures" could go into effect should the worse happen, and the people being so fearful of anarchy and chaos that they go along with things they wouldn't normally accept. It matters more what the people believe will happen than what will actually happen - because the latter is the one they plan for.
Some people along with myself are.
Well, along with blacksmithing, livestock, beekeeping, ect. :D
On the issue of National Debt, sadly I believe it's too far gone. Might as well get ready, wait for it to hit the fan and rebuild.
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As for QE there are going to be long term effects. Countries won't want to export to the US if the dollar is cheap; this is already part of what's happening with oil as Saudi Arabia is shying away from capacity expansion. But the rest is armageddon fantasy. QE is an entirely separate issue from federal debt, though.
Let me get this straight, you're saying if we devalue our currency that somehow nations that have wages and standards of living of only 1/6 or 1/10 will somehow not want to export stuff to the US? So much of what gets imported is actually done so under American companies, so really we're taxing our companies while simultaneously not getting anything in return.
I didn't mean to say that they would stop all exports to the US, just that the US trade deficit would lessen. I'm not sure what the second sentence means.
Saudi Arabia is also a poor example of your point because there's other reasons why they dont want to increase their capacity, such as the commodities bubble. Oil prices now are going up mostly because of speculation caused by mideast instability and the dollar devaluations. If they were to increase capacity it's a multi billion dollar investment that will take a few years to bear fruit by which time oil prices will have gone down again making it a waste.
It's the Saudi's concern about lower future oil prices which made them reconsider expanding capacity even before the unrest. QE is part of the reason for the expectation of lower prices.
I also question whether or not it doesn't anything to do with federal debt. Our debt has gotten so outrageously high that there is no way we can really pay it back without major pain. Often in that kind of situation nations will choose to devalue their currency rather than face the music, and for us this is especially tempting since our debt is priced in our own currency.
Devaluation of the dollar from QE does lower the US debt; however, the Fed also bought hundreds of billions worth of treasuries, ultimately doing more to raise the debt than lower it.
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I didn't mean to say that they would stop all exports to the US, just that the US trade deficit would lessen. I'm not sure what the second sentence means.
It wont even lessen the overall trade deficit much, if at all unless there was a huge devaluation. Of course that would also plunge the economy into a total nosedive. What the second sentence means is that manufacturing outsourcing is done by American companies signing contracts with foreign factories to make the stuff and send it to America. This accounts for much of the non-energy trade deficit, so in the end it is kicking both American companies and consumers in the teeth, but without getting anything in return. At least with taxes you get a police force.
It's the Saudi's concern about lower future oil prices which made them reconsider expanding capacity even before the unrest. QE is part of the reason for the expectation of lower prices.
QE is partly what is causing the price of oil to go up, not down. Investors are looking for a safe harbor until the dollar stops sinking and oil is one of them.
Devaluation of the dollar from QE does lower the US debt; however, the Fed also bought hundreds of billions worth of treasuries, ultimately doing more to raise the debt than lower it.
Since the fed isn't really a government agency are its debts even counted? Currency devaluation makes existing debts cheaper by making each dollar owed worth less than originally borrowed.
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QE is partly what is causing the price of oil to go up, not down. Investors are looking for a safe harbor until the dollar stops sinking and oil is one of them.
Speaking in nominal terms, devaluing the dollar will directly increase the USD price of oil but the real value of oil won't hold indefinitely. OPEC (http://imarketnews.com/node/20813) is fretting rather than welcoming the current price rise as it's mainly speculative. It's price expectations, not current prices, that are taken into count in planning production.
WASHINGTON (MNI) - The increasing likelihood that the Federal Reserve will ease monetary conditions further, in an attempt to boost a flagging U.S. economy, has OPEC fearing a resurgence in speculative investment in commodities, due to a weaker U.S. dollar, that will in turn lead to a rise in oil prices to uncomfortable levels.
Since the fed isn't really a government agency are its debts even counted? Currency devaluation makes existing debts cheaper by making each dollar owed worth less than originally borrowed.
The fed has it's own separate budget, and it has positive net assets anyway.
This accounts for much of the non-energy trade deficit, so in the end it is kicking both American companies and consumers in the teeth, but without getting anything in return. At least with taxes you get a police force.
In the short term things are fine for the United States; companies get cheap labor and consumers get cheap products. In the long run sale of domestic assets might be bad for the country in more ways than lost tax revenue.
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Currency devaluation makes existing debts cheaper by making each dollar owed worth less than originally borrowed.
That makes a lot of sense... 'cause, you know, the dollars that make up your wages and the dollars that make up your bank account stay at the same value. Oh. Wait. :wtf:
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My econ teacher summed it up very nicely with an example from the Soviet Union (and immediately thereafter) about inflation. It went something along the lines of:
"So, and apartment costs, what, 20,000 rubles in early 90s? Well, banks give these loans for 20,000 rubles, expecting to be paid back. Then, breakup of Union happens, and inflation goes through the roof. Now, 20,000 rubles gets you a box of matches. So, people hand the bank a box of matches and say 'we're even.'"
That's how inflation cheapens debt.
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The funniest part of the debt is that it's been in there since very early on. The US has borrowed for 2.5 centuries now. Look where it's gotten us. Borrowing's just how we roll. I really don't get why people flip out over this so much. Perhaps if they paid more attention to history they'd know this.
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Esarai, I believe they started massive borrowing after the Federal Reserve Act, and since the 1960's/70's removal of gold as the main backing of the Dollar, followed by the removal of Glass Steagal allowing the Federal Reserve to leverage the same dollar multiple times (like selling the same item to multiple customers, giving them a piece of paper and a promise you keep it safe for them) - If there was borrowing 2.5 centuries before (From whom?
Central off-shore banks only really came in with the Federal Reserve Act in 1913) it would be a more individual thing, lending from eachother, bartering. You can't really build a nation with debt - It's a house of cards.
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Exactly. We may have borrowed for 2.5 centuries, but we paid our debts. Maybe we just got new ones as we did, but if you pay off some credit cards while using other ones to buy more things, that's fine as long as you have income that allows you to do so without getting in trouble. You don't max out some credit cards and then just apply for more when you need money for food. That's stupid.
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Exactly. We may have borrowed for 2.5 centuries, but we paid our debts. Maybe we just got new ones as we did, but if you pay off some credit cards while using other ones to buy more things, that's fine as long as you have income that allows you to do so without getting in trouble. You don't max out some credit cards and then just apply for more when you need money for food. That's stupid.
But the latter is pretty much the aequivalent of what the government itself has been doing for the last decades... excessively... along with the rest of the nation.
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Exactly. We may have borrowed for 2.5 centuries, but we paid our debts. Maybe we just got new ones as we did, but if you pay off some credit cards while using other ones to buy more things, that's fine as long as you have income that allows you to do so without getting in trouble. You don't max out some credit cards and then just apply for more when you need money for food. That's stupid.
But the latter is pretty much the aequivalent of what the government itself has been doing for the last decades... excessively... along with the rest of the nation.
I don't know if I agree when you say "along with the rest of the nation". Most people I know are living rather modestly - most people I know are soaked in debt and are just getting by.
I don't know if the nation is "living excessively". I'd say it's quite the opposite even.
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Exactly. We may have borrowed for 2.5 centuries, but we paid our debts. Maybe we just got new ones as we did, but if you pay off some credit cards while using other ones to buy more things, that's fine as long as you have income that allows you to do so without getting in trouble. You don't max out some credit cards and then just apply for more when you need money for food. That's stupid.
But the latter is pretty much the aequivalent of what the government itself has been doing for the last decades... excessively... along with the rest of the nation.
I don't know if I agree when you say "along with the rest of the nation". Most people I know are living rather modestly - most people I know are soaked in debt and are just getting by.
I don't know if the nation is "living excessively". I'd say it's quite the opposite even.
Going into debt excessively is what i meant. The reasons (i.e. how somebody spends it and what their standard of living is, etc.) are really irrelevant to the macro - economic problem and its consequences.
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Exactly. We may have borrowed for 2.5 centuries, but we paid our debts. Maybe we just got new ones as we did, but if you pay off some credit cards while using other ones to buy more things, that's fine as long as you have income that allows you to do so without getting in trouble. You don't max out some credit cards and then just apply for more when you need money for food. That's stupid.
But the latter is pretty much the aequivalent of what the government itself has been doing for the last decades... excessively... along with the rest of the nation.
I don't know if I agree when you say "along with the rest of the nation". Most people I know are living rather modestly - most people I know are soaked in debt and are just getting by.
I don't know if the nation is "living excessively". I'd say it's quite the opposite even.
Going into debt excessively is what i meant. The reasons (i.e. how somebody spends it and what their standard of living is, etc.) are really irrelevant to the macro - economic problem and its consequences.
I would think that it's all related. Besides, if society requires excessive debt for some reason or another (home loan, school loans, etc), it's definitely related.
Besides, if you're not looking at the people who are supposedly working within the system for a mutual benefit, then why work with that system?
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If you have massive debt you are clearly living above your means. The possible exceptions are people who take mortgages for houses and/or loans and then actually pay them off instead of racking up more.
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What about people who need to borrow just to make ends meet? Even if they're frugal with their spending? If you have to borrow so that you stay above the poverty line, then it's the system and not the people who are wrong.
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What about people who need to borrow just to make ends meet? Even if they're frugal with their spending? If you have to borrow so that you stay above the poverty line, then it's the system and not the people who are wrong.
Frankly, in the longterm the "why" is totally irrelevant ... what do you expect to happen, when you spend more than your monthly income each month?
This is especially true for countries where people have to borrow to stay above what is considered "poverty".
With the US economy evolving as it does I have no doubt that more and more people will feel they "have to" borrow to maintain their standard of living.
Being in debt before a new crisis/crash like this is really risky business however. Sure... some people speculate on inflation or even a new currency eventually... but usually disregard the fact that they may as well lose their home and all their belongings much earlier. Also keep in mind how many people lose their jobs in this current economic climate, although losing your job is certainly not a requirement for a ****ty future if you keep spending more than you make each month.
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I'd hardly say the "why" is irrelevant. Your example is more of a short term problem, or more immediate and smaller in nature. You spend more than you make for a few years, and them, suddenly, you've got nothing.
On a longer time frame with a bigger scale, you have a society that has a middle-class that is steadily getting poorer, all the while needing to appear that they have an acceptable level of wealth. In our society, if you look like you can't afford to take care of yourself or your kids, then it's assumed that you're incompetent. You'd never get hired and you'd be forced to carry these negative associations into every new business or personal relationship you forge. So you borrow.
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One other problem is that much of the industry has been going off-shore the past decades, and the amount of (illegal) immigrants into the USA also seem to be very high, applying for very low wages jobs. Every issue has it's significance on what's going on. So, the nation is going into more and more debt, and it's industrial base is slowly disappearing, and it's means to pay back other countries near impossible.
Also, like Europe, the USA is trying to compete with China and India. I don't think it's a good idea to try to compare and compete with nations with millions of slave workers, who barely get enough paid, if at all (all spent on company food for instance) or who, in order to produce more quantity, they throw in some deadly toxin or some other problem.
Even worse in the comparison is that China especially gets to build many more electricity plants (dirty ones, but thats beside the point) than the West, and gain many industries. Many off-shored companies nestled themselves there.
That, has been making me wonder how feasable it is to slowly stop competing, stop trading as much as we do, to and from such nations, as it only empowers them. And what if, say, such a nation as China would suddenly say, "You owe us so much debt, that we'll force our own leader into the position of U.S. presidency"? Hope to hear opinions on that.
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More likely just demand really high payments that force us to slowly bleed ever more to them. And then once we are no threat, apply subtle pressure to do w/e they want aka become their little minion.
Or not. :lol: IDK
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What about people who need to borrow just to make ends meet? Even if they're frugal with their spending? If you have to borrow so that you stay above the poverty line, then it's the system and not the people who are wrong.
When you have such huge swathes of people in that situation it shows something is seriously wrong with the economy.
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So in my class's mock congress we were tasked with this problem, and I felt that it went really well.
The initial proposal my group turned in was to basically replace the IRS with a set tax based on a fair poverty income amount.
An example of the system: if a fair (to both sides) minimum income per year was deemed to be 30,000 dollars, then people with incomes greater than 30,000 would be charged 5% of their income, subtracting the 30,000. So if you earned $35,000 a year, you would only get taxed on the 5,000 you make above 30,000.
As you go up to 10x the income ($300,000 a year), you might go up to 15% of that is taxable, or .15 times (the amount you earn).
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Isn't that pretty much exactly how taxes work right now, except it's going to cut revenue a lot because you lowered taxes so much?
I'm not sure I get the advantage.
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Isn't that pretty much exactly how taxes work right now, except it's going to cut revenue a lot because you lowered taxes so much?
I'm not sure I get the advantage.
Not really. The current tax code is swiss cheese. The rich are somehow both overtaxed and undertaxed at the same time, there's almost 50% of people in this country that don't even pay taxes, there's massive corporate tax loss...I guess some of the best evidence that the tax code is a mess is the fact that tax day produces so much trepidation in people.
Oh and to answer your question about the cutting revenue...you're not really cutting it so much as you're evening it out. Like I said, almost 50% of the current population of the US don't pay taxes. The richest people or organizations in this country are undertaxed. Instead of "cutting revenue", you're evening the system out at a reasonable level that you can actually support or sustain.
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Yeah but as someone who actually files taxes, the tax you're suggesting doesn't sound any different at the core level. It's the same mechanism. You didn't even include a corporate tax.
Also tax day is easy. :colbert:
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Yeah but as someone who actually files taxes, the tax you're suggesting doesn't sound any different at the core level. It's the same mechanism. You didn't even include a corporate tax.
Also tax day is easy. :colbert:
I edited my previous reply, please read. :) But yea, I don't see why it would have to be radically different. You're still collecting taxes, just now you're doing it more reasonably and fairly.
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UT, you have described exactly how taxes work already. It's called progressive taxation. Look it up on wikipedia.
50% of people don't pay taxes because a lot of people are not in the workforce (they're retired or children), and I don't know what you mean by "corporate tax loss" but fraud is an issue of enforcement not insufficient tax rates.
I think I've pretty much lost hope for the internet now.
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Perhaps I should explain then...the current tax code is full of loopholes that let a lot of taxables slip through. 50% of the population is not starving and just barely making it with $14,000 a year (I believe the current "poverty line"). Yet in the system I proposed, 50% of the population would currently have to be making $14,000 or less per year in order to get that sort of tax rate.
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People who make that little don't have to pay taxes. I make a lot more than that and I barely have to pay.
Why don't you just propose closing loopholes instead of restating the exact progressive tax system we already have?
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
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"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax" - Albert Einstein.
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
Okay so can you like list the differences between your idea and the present system?
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
Okay so can you like list the differences between your idea and the present system?
Every single addition besides what I said is a difference. What I proposed would be the extent of the tax code.
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
Okay so can you like list the differences between your idea and the present system?
Every single addition besides what I said is a difference. What I proposed would be the extent of the tax code.
If your goal is to put more taxes on the rich and relieve the poor why are you lowering the minimum wage and reducing the tax burden on the rich?
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
Okay so can you like list the differences between your idea and the present system?
Every single addition besides what I said is a difference. What I proposed would be the extent of the tax code.
If your goal is to put more taxes on the rich and relieve the poor why are you lowering the minimum wage and reducing the tax burden on the rich?
I did not say that was my goal.
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Every single addition besides what I said is a difference. What I proposed would be the extent of the tax code.
The only differences you mentioned were apparently elimination of loopholes and changes in the tax brackets from what they are now. Is this correct?
If so I guess it's okay but it's good to have things like tax deductions for families, and a 15% tax on $300,000+ would lower taxes from what they are now when the government is already running a budget deficit.
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Hmm... this is interesting...
THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2011
Congressional Testimony Regarding Tax Simplification
-- Posted by Neil H. Buchanan
Yesterday morning, I testified before the House Ways and Means Committee at a hearing on "How the Tax Code’s Burdens on Individuals and Families Demonstrate the Need for Comprehensive Tax Reform." I have copied below my prepared testimony. Tomorrow (and perhaps in follow-up posts next week), I will post some thoughts on the hearing.
Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address the Committee today. At the outset, at the risk of stating the obvious, I want to acknowledge that there are many areas of the Internal Revenue Code that could benefit from rationalization and simplification. In areas in which multiple provisions have accumulated over time, such as retirement savings and education incentives, the same incentives and benefits surely could be provided in a simpler fashion. That being said, I hope through my testimony to warn the Committee of some red herrings – issues that need not be addressed as you work to simplify the lives of Americans who honestly try to comply with the tax laws. Clearing away some tempting distractions will, I hope, provide more clarity – and time – for the Committee to focus on genuine tax simplification.
False Simplification
Assuming that the goal of simplifying the tax code is truly to simplify the lives of citizens, and that the exercise is not merely a cover for the elimination of the housing, education, retirement savings and other incentives that past Congresses have enacted to benefit the American people, the Committee should be wary of reducing “tax complexity” without reducing what we might call “overall complexity.” A simple way to reduce the complexity of the tax code, after all, would simply be to stop running certain benefits through the tax code and, instead, run them through some other agency of the government. The mortgage interest deduction, for example, could be turned into a benefit program run by HUD. The earned-income tax credit, which is a benefit to workers, could be run by the Department of Labor. The medical expense deduction could go through HHS.
Doing any of those things, however, would do nothing to make the lives of American taxpayers less complicated. If anything, compliance burdens would become even more onerous, as our citizens would now have to deal not just with the IRS but with newly-created administrative arms of other cabinet departments, or “mini-IRS’s” – which would also add to federal spending, by the way.
The IRS has the advantage of being a single agency with which citizens interact, and it is the logical agency to provide incentives and benefits the eligibility for which are conditioned on income levels. In addition, decades of experience have shown that the IRS and its employees possess the expertise, dedication, and experience – notwithstanding years and years of chronic under-funding – to handle the administration of important benefits that we administer through the tax code.
Multiple Rate Brackets
Reducing the number of tax brackets is not an important aspect of simplifying taxes, and it has the undesirable effect of making the tax code less progressive. Some analysts have asserted that the existence of multiple brackets is confusing, making it more difficult for taxpayers to figure out how much they owe in taxes each year. In fact, all of the work and uncertainty involved in tax compliance is related to what happens before tax rates even become relevant.
That is, once a taxpayer has determined his or her “taxable income,” it takes merely a few seconds to look at the relevant table to determine the tax owed. We could have ten or twenty tax rates without increasing the compliance burden. The taxpayer’s uncertainty is in figuring out what to include, exclude, deduct, credit, and so on, not in dealing with different rates. Again, it is the determination of taxable income, not the final step of determining the tax owed, that takes up all of a taxpayer’s time.
Phase-outs
As a related matter, the existence of so-called phase-outs is not inherently complicated, either. Again, the difficult part of the process is in figuring out whether a person is eligible for a particular provision, and what facts must be known before one can even understand the provision in question. The arithmetic involved in the phase-outs is a relatively simple after-thought, and the IRS is perfectly capable of providing simple tables to assist the taxpayer in determining how a phase-out alters the final tax computation.
I should add the qualification that phase-outs can pile up, with a different phase-out for each of several different tax provisions, which complicates compliance somewhat. Combining separate phase-outs into a consolidated phase-out would, therefore, allow taxpayers to apply a simple adjustment to all of the relevant provisions for which they might otherwise qualify. For example, if we were to set a “universal phase-out” range from, say, $100,000 to $250,000 for a single taxpayer, then any single taxpayer earning more than $250,000 would know that it is not worth the time to work through the various tax benefits. Taxpayers with incomes below $100,000 would know that they qualify for full benefits, and taxpayers in between would know in advance the fraction of the benefits that they can expect to receive.
More to the point, however, as the Committee sets priorities, its time would be much better spent simplifying tax provisions themselves – who qualifies, what can be deducted, and so on – than on hunting down and eliminating phase-outs.
In addition, it is important to remember that phase-outs serve two important purposes: First, they limit the cost of any tax benefit, by reducing the benefits received by people who can afford to live without the deduction. They are, therefore, a way to means-test benefits – benefits that, after all, cost the federal government money. Second, phase-outs avoid abrupt, all-or-nothing changes to tax benefits, with a taxpayer suddenly losing all of a benefit after hitting an income limit or some other arbitrary threshold. Without phase-outs, taxpayers can face especially harsh tax consequences as they suddenly lose a benefit that they would otherwise have received.
My message today, Mr. Chairman, therefore amounts to taking three items off of the list of possible approaches to tax simplification. First, taking policies out of the tax code – and out of the IRS’s jurisdiction – can make citizens’ lives more complicated, rather than less so, as it would simply relocate the complexity that our citizens face, rather than actually reducing it. Second, the number of tax rates is a non-issue, as far as complexity and compliance burdens are concerned. And third, the existence of phase-outs is nearly a non-issue, and the complexity of phase-outs can be all but eliminated by harmonizing phase-outs across all provisions that Congress chooses to means-test.
The Committee’s work is daunting, involving important work in eliminating and combining duplicative and sometimes ineffective tax benefits. That work will be difficult enough without becoming distracted by false promises of reduced complexity. I hope that my testimony will prove useful in directing the Committee away from those distractions.
Thank you.
POSTED BY NEIL H. BUCHANAN AT 3:01 AM
Thoughts?
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Because I'm not restarting the same one we have now. I'm starting with a fresh slate - one that we'll hopefully have a better time of keeping clean.
As for closing the loopholes, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of time for it.
Okay so can you like list the differences between your idea and the present system?
Every single addition besides what I said is a difference. What I proposed would be the extent of the tax code.
If your goal is to put more taxes on the rich and relieve the poor why are you lowering the minimum wage and reducing the tax burden on the rich?
I did not say that was my goal.
Clearly not, because you did one better and actually put forth numbers which achieved the opposite, so making life easier for the rich and harder for the poor is not just your goal but actually the outcome of your policy. :blah:
Though I misspoke, instead of minimum wage I meant 'minimum tax ceiling', i.e. the cutoff below which you pay no taxes.
Like Mustang said, your numbers have the poor paying more and the rich paying less.
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Whaaaat is going on here. From what I can comprehend UT wants people below either $14,000 or $30,000 to not pay tax. And the lowest bracket is currently 5% so this would actually lower taxes for everyone.
Anyway jr2 posted this really cool article for us to talk about so we can do that. The guy in the article raises some good points, EITC helps low income families feed their kids and the IRS should clarify qualification for phase outs. But a right lib sicko like me would be against the mortgage interest deduction since home ownership reduces labor market flexibility and discourages people from seeking jobs outside their local area (http://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/spcial/79.html), while fewer brackets would make for a flatter tax model at the top which is good for work incentives.
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Whaaaat is going on here. From what I can comprehend UT wants people below either $14,000 or $30,000 to not pay tax. And the lowest bracket is currently 5% so this would actually lower taxes for everyone.
If you don't get all your money back with an income that low something's funny. I can't recall paying a cent in taxes when my income was in those brackets though I may be hallucinating.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Income_tax#Year_2010_income_brackets_and_tax_rates
Marginal Tax Rate[5] Single Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er) Married Filing Separately Head of Household
10% $0 – $8,375 $0 – $16,750 $0 – $8,375 $0 – $11,950
15% $8,376 – $34,000 $16,751 – $68,000 $8,376 – $34,000 $11,951 – $45,550
25% $34,001 – $82,400 $68,001 – $137,300 $34,001 – $68,650 $45,551 – $117,650
28% $82,401 – $171,850 $137,301 – $209,250 $68,651 – $104,625 $117,651 – $190,550
33% $171,851 – $373,650 $209,251 – $373,650 $104,626 – $186,825 $190,551 - $373,650
35% $373,651+ $373,651+ $186,826+ $373,651+
Odds are the IRS didn't even bother to issue a form. That seems to happen quite often; I never receive one. Congratulations on your inadvertent tax fraud. Unless your income came from mowing your neighbor's lawn or something you probably had payroll taxes. But unless it gets deposited in a bank or otherwise written down somewhere there's no way for the IRS to know what you made on odd jobs. Or if you did get a form you got back mad deductions.
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I always get mad deductions natch
But yeah I did a form and everything, there were just enough obvious deductions to get everything back where it belongs (my dealer)
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Read a radical proposal a couple months ago, actually from two different sources at opposite ends of the political left/right scale, and both came to a single interesting conclusion:
The best tax reform would be to eliminate income taxes entirely (on individuals and corporations) and implement goods/services taxes on all consumables at flat percentage rates, and targeted to industry (e.g. a general consumption/service tax, fuel taxes, electronics recycling taxes, etc). This accomplishes several basic objectives:
1. All persons pay taxes equally according to their consumption, as opposed to disproportionately based on their wealth (and ability to dodge taxes, since we all know that a large proportion of wealthy persons and corporations pay no taxes in the current system). Buy a bigger plane, you pay more for it. Businesses are equally subject to such a tax which eliminates the need for corporate income taxation.
2. Eliminates taxation loopholes and ensures automatic collection. If taxes are owed based on consumption, they are collected by the seller and required to be forwarded to the taxing authority. This prevents people from dodging their taxes, and audits would ensure corporate record-keeping was accurate and the correct amounts were forwarded. No more tax havens for the wealthy - and no more "business write-offs."
3. Consumption-based taxation gives incentive for people to reduce usage and increase self-sufficiency.
4. For low-income earners who are typically the hardest hit, a tax rebate could be issued quarterly to those below a set income threshold in percentage increments. This is already done for federal taxes in Canada. This ensures that the poor are not disproportionately affected on consumption of essential goods.
I strongly favour this type of taxation format because it is fair and difficult to avoid, and because it targets human behaviour. Right now if you want to reduce your tax burden you have a variety of options which always involve either earning less, OR dabbling in financial instruments that allow for deferred taxes or relieved taxes if you have the necessary disposable income to do so, which eliminates all of the lower classes and much of the middle class. Only the top earners benefit from the current taxation scheme used in most of the G8.
Also, corporate taxes are so full of loopholes that they are ridiculous - large corporations pay no tax, while small entrepreneurs pay their full amount, which is why high corporate taxes are universally bad - they stifle grow. Taxation should be aimed at people and entities which accumulate and consolidate wealth, not those which cause quantifiable gains in wealth through job creation and innovation.
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Sales tax/values added tax. Every other country has it.
It's good because it taxes consumption not work. The complaints are typically about how it's flat and the complexity of the rebate system required. I don't really know how that works in Europe. But it does encourage saving which is good for growth and economic stability.
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Sales tax/values added tax. Every other country has it.
It's good because it taxes consumption not work. The complaints are typically about how it's flat and the complexity of the rebate system required. I don't really know how that works in Europe. But it does encourage saving which is good for growth and economic stability.
It's also making things more expensive and is incredible ... "visible"...
I remember the uproar in Germany as that tax got raised a few percent some years back... and we always had it to begin with.
Seriously... I wanna see how that gets "sold" in the US (of all countries). Political suicidide, propably.
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Read a radical proposal ...
I like it. :yes:
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Read a radical proposal a couple months ago, actually from two different sources at opposite ends of the political left/right scale, and both came to a single interesting conclusion:
The best tax reform would be to eliminate income taxes entirely (on individuals and corporations) and implement goods/services taxes on all consumables at flat percentage rates, and targeted to industry (e.g. a general consumption/service tax, fuel taxes, electronics recycling taxes, etc).
This sounds like sales tax?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea. I'm just saying I think we already have something like that on the books right now.
I wonder if things would be helped along if people started saying "tax us this amount and in these ways and let's use that money to maintain X", with X being decided upon by the group.
Why don't we name our taxes by what they're paying for instead of what they're on? Instead of always referring to the tobacco tax, why don't we refer to it as a cancer research tax?
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Read a radical proposal a couple months ago, actually from two different sources at opposite ends of the political left/right scale, and both came to a single interesting conclusion:
The best tax reform would be to eliminate income taxes entirely (on individuals and corporations) and implement goods/services taxes on all consumables at flat percentage rates, and targeted to industry (e.g. a general consumption/service tax, fuel taxes, electronics recycling taxes, etc).
This sounds like sales tax?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea. I'm just saying I think we already have something like that on the books right now.
I wonder if things would be helped along if people started saying "tax us this amount and in these ways and let's use that money to maintain X", with X being decided upon by the group.
Sales tax are generally by state, some like MA have them others like NH do not.
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Read a radical proposal a couple months ago, actually from two different sources at opposite ends of the political left/right scale, and both came to a single interesting conclusion:
The best tax reform would be to eliminate income taxes entirely (on individuals and corporations) and implement goods/services taxes on all consumables at flat percentage rates, and targeted to industry (e.g. a general consumption/service tax, fuel taxes, electronics recycling taxes, etc).
This sounds like sales tax?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea. I'm just saying I think we already have something like that on the books right now.
I wonder if things would be helped along if people started saying "tax us this amount and in these ways and let's use that money to maintain X", with X being decided upon by the group.
Sales tax are generally by state, some like MA have them others like NH do not.
Pretty sure there's a federal tax on top of that. I lived in a US territory where we had no sales tax, the reason I was told being that since we didn't have a representative in Congress, we don't have a federal income tax...oh, it was an income tax, not a sales tax. My bad. :)
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The thing I like about MP-Ryan's proposal is - if I'm reading it correctly - that it moves the actual reporting of taxes away from the individual with the most incentive to conceal them. Tax information would be collected by the seller, which makes psychological sense.
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The thing I like about MP-Ryan's proposal is - if I'm reading it correctly - that it moves the actual reporting of taxes away from the individual with the most incentive to conceal them. Tax information would be collected by the seller, which makes psychological sense.
Why wouldn't the seller be just as likely to want to conceal it? If you collected all this extra money that you were supposed to send the government, then you could have the incentive to underreport your sales, thus lowering the amount of sales tax you would owe. However, since you're not reporting individual taxes, you could have all that money left over and no one would know unless you made it known in some way - such as living in the middle of suburbia but buying a private jet.
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You raise a good point, but reread his point #2. Corporate record-keeping is more far more robust, by necessity; especially publicly traded corporations must accurately report their revenue in order for everything to work out. Underreporting ultimately works against them because strong revenues will attract even more revenue. And auditing would be simpler because there are fewer points to hit up and better records to work with.
Psychologically, them, the incentive to underreport income at the corporate level is lower simply because a corporation gains from having strong revenue above and beyond the value of the revenue, whereas a person does not to the same degree.
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I've quoted his point 2 for reference below.
To your first point, you're correct, but that in combination with his point 2 would only mean that you've eliminated tax loopholes for the very wealthy. However, for middle class business owners you've opened up the temptation for them to want to under report their sales and garner a lot of taxables. Whether or not that's a problem at the moment, I don't know - that would depend on how many of those individuals are left these days. The word on the street these days is that there probably isn't, at least, not in a lot of areas - small computer repair shops are an endangered species in the US.
2. Eliminates taxation loopholes and ensures automatic collection. If taxes are owed based on consumption, they are collected by the seller and required to be forwarded to the taxing authority. This prevents people from dodging their taxes, and audits would ensure corporate record-keeping was accurate and the correct amounts were forwarded. No more tax havens for the wealthy - and no more "business write-offs."
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class. I'm guessing the middle class person wouldn't be able to get away with as much as an upper class person would. Right?
EDIT: Because the middle class person would raise suspicion if he actually started using that money. And if it's sales tax we're talking then it's a percentage of what he's sold, which would not be worth as much as the things an upper class person would sell, meaning the actual monetary value of what the public (represented by the government) lost would be less.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
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As opposed to your tax program which would lower total revenues? I thought the goal here was to pay off the debt, not increase it.
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As opposed to your tax program which would lower total revenues? I thought the goal here was to pay off the debt, not increase it.
The point isn't about revenue, the point is about making a society that people would actually enjoy being a part of.
Do you remember when we had that discussion about loopholes? These are the ones I'm talking about. Trying to close one just opens another. Stop fighting and just trust people...that's the whole point.
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As opposed to your tax program which would lower total revenues? I thought the goal here was to pay off the debt, not increase it.
The point isn't about revenue, the point is about making a society that people would actually enjoy being a part of.
Do you remember when we had that discussion about loopholes? These are the ones I'm talking about. Trying to close one just opens another. Stop fighting and just trust people...that's the whole point.
Trust people? Now there's a good one. I think the shennanigans of wall street during the credit bubble when they essentially policed themselves shows how much people can be trusted.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
But the broke will be rich. And you won't have a problem :P.
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As opposed to your tax program which would lower total revenues? I thought the goal here was to pay off the debt, not increase it.
The point isn't about revenue, the point is about making a society that people would actually enjoy being a part of.
Do you remember when we had that discussion about loopholes? These are the ones I'm talking about. Trying to close one just opens another. Stop fighting and just trust people...that's the whole point.
hahahahahahahahaha
You were making good arguments there for a while, let's go back to those.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
But the broke will be rich. And you won't have a problem :P.
Until the rich are broke and then you have the same problem all over again.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
But the broke will be rich. And you won't have a problem :P.
Until the rich are broke and then you have the same problem all over again.
But those rich who went broke will be rich again, and we do not have a problem.
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
But the broke will be rich. And you won't have a problem :P.
Until the rich are broke and then you have the same problem all over again.
But those rich who went broke will be rich again, and we do not have a problem.
Yea - because they'll end right back up at this point. Can you see how this could be a cyclical thing?
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I'd rather have the middle class making off with a bit of the public's money than the upper class.
Then that's not a very fair tax code, is it?
Certainly more fair than the other way around.
For the moment, yes. If this one tax were to turn us around, maybe 300 years from now the rich would broke and we'd have the same problem all over again.
Beyond that, though, I don't think this tax would turn us around.
But the broke will be rich. And you won't have a problem :P.
Until the rich are broke and then you have the same problem all over again.
But those rich who went broke will be rich again, and we do not have a problem.
Yea - because they'll end right back up at this point. Can you see how this could be a cyclical thing?
Yes.
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The point isn't about revenue, the point is about making a society that people would actually enjoy being a part of.
Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
Do you remember when we had that discussion about loopholes? These are the ones I'm talking about. Trying to close one just opens another. Stop fighting and just trust people...that's the whole point.
Such a proposal isn't an attempt to close loopholes, it's an attempt to re-design how the bulk of taxes are collected. Let's not forget that, historically, income taxes were enacted as temporary measures, largely because consumption taxes were much less feasible 80+ years ago. It was easier for the state to collect money as people earned it than as they spent it.
Now, we've come to the reverse. Taxation in most democracies is in a state that permits the wealthy to avoid them due to wrangling with financial instruments, reimburses or reduces the burden on the poor because proportionately a dollar means more to them, allows large corporations to avoid them due to financial manipulation (all perfectly legal), and forces the taxation burden squarely onto the increasingly-beaten middle class and small business owners. Income taxes are overwhelmingly unfair, and trusting people to accurately file them is laughable. Meanwhile, corporations largely don't have to abuse the tax system because the exemptions are written in.
Consumption taxes hit everyone equally - and like I said, to deal with the overburden potentially placed on the poor, you address it through rebates. Incidentally, carbon taxation falls under consumption taxes, along with sales tax, service tax, etc. The only people that actually lose from such a system is entities that currently pay no taxes at all, because they would lose the holes and benefits that permit them to dodge taxation of their income.
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
This. :yes: You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
This. :yes: You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
I don't think I agree with this. At the very least you shouldn't be stating it as fact. I doubt you can prove it.
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
Wouldn't work. The super rich tend to horde money rather than spending it.
Hell, look at Bill Gates and Ingvar Kamprad, men famous for still flying economy class even when they each held the title of richest man on the planet.
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
Wouldn't work. The super rich tend to horde money rather than spending it.
Hell, look at Bill Gates and Ingvar Kamprad, men famous for still flying economy class even when they each held the title of richest man on the planet.
Aye, if a goal of a society that was taxed in that way is to help to make things better for more members of society, then it would be set up so as to create less of an incentive for more monetarily wealthy individuals to spend relative to their monetary holdings.
For example; if airlines want a large amount of customers, then they could possibly want to have the most comfortable seats so that more customers would be willing to go with their airline instead of the other airlines (a society based on competition for "resources"). The airliners could possibly then pursue the best cost to statistical comfort/weight ratios, thus producing seats that are just comfortable enough for you to bear the $300 you saved by going with coach and that you could use to buy something really nice when you landed because you can afford to spend that much money on an impulse buy, and besides, the people in first class are in the same tube for the same amount of hours as you are, regardless of where you sit.
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Wouldn't work. The super rich tend to horde money rather than spending it.
Hell, look at Bill Gates and Ingvar Kamprad, men famous for still flying economy class even when they each held the title of richest man on the planet.
That's an overgeneralization. The super rich (Gates and so on) account for a small portion of national income. Usually the rich save a higher portion of their income but not in the United States. Since 1980 lowest percentile income saving rates doubled while the upper percentile savings rate actually went negative recently. For whatever reason higher income people actually save less in the US.
Of course the VAT could still be combined with an income tax to get at the top earners; this is what's done in the EU. This is really important because the rich pay almost all taxes currently. The top 1% provide about 35% of federal tax revenue in the US while the bottom 50% pay just 4%. Paying the average person back 96% of what they pay in sales taxes isn't really practical. That doesn't mean VAT is a bad idea if combined with other taxes, due to it's desirable economic effects.
edit: Another advantage of the value added tax is that it rewards producers over retailers because retailers must pay the cost of all previous value additions to a product.
(http://www.infoplease.com/images/07alm_taxincome.gif)
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
Wouldn't work. The super rich tend to horde money rather than spending it.
Hell, look at Bill Gates and Ingvar Kamprad, men famous for still flying economy class even when they each held the title of richest man on the planet.
Having money is pointless if you don't spend it to maintain a level of comfort. Therein lies the point - the more the "rich" spend to maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, the more taxes they would pay. I'm not going to begrudge a wealthy person who maintains a middle class lifestyle and sits on their money, though one wonders what exactly the purpose a lot of zeros behind the number in your bank account would be in such a taxation scenario.
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Having money is pointless if you don't spend it to maintain a level of comfort. Therein lies the point - the more the "rich" spend to maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, the more taxes they would pay.
But in American society, one of the biggest pushes out there is for no taxes. Is the problem that people would rather not pay taxes before they buy lavish goods...? I don't know, I'm posing the question.
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Having money is pointless if you don't spend it to maintain a level of comfort. Therein lies the point - the more the "rich" spend to maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, the more taxes they would pay. I'm not going to begrudge a wealthy person who maintains a middle class lifestyle and sits on their money, though one wonders what exactly the purpose a lot of zeros behind the number in your bank account would be in such a taxation scenario.
$-dick waving contests mainly I suspect.
But as I said the problem is that you've removed the large tax contribution the super-rich currently make via income tax and you aren't going to replace it by sales tax simply because the super-rich can't spend money fast enough to actually make that kind of contribution.
So all this is going to do is push the burden onto less rich people and allow the super rich to wave even bigger $-penises at everyone.
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But as I said the problem is that you've removed the large tax contribution the super-rich currently make via income tax and you aren't going to replace it by sales tax simply because the super-rich can't spend money fast enough to actually make that kind of contribution.
For one, even with the various lower consumption taxes in place now, I pay roughly the same amount in those taxes as I do income tax. Increasing the consumption tax rates and the range of things they are applied to would make up the fiscal gap quite easily (especially whne you start talking things like carbon taxation).
Also, anyone who is super-rich and actually paying significant taxes needs a new financial planner. Most G8 countries have tax-deductible financial instruments available to anyone willing to purchase them. Leveraging allows one to ensure that their wealth is socked away in financial instruments that also provide a tax break. In addition, as evidenced by recent activites by both the IRS and the CRA, a fair number of the North American super-rich have serious wealth socked away in tax havens like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
I'm not an economist and I haven't run the precise numbers - but policy analysts all over the political spectrum believe that such a shift could legitimately work, if implemented correctly.
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Warren Buffet once commented that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I'm not sure what you mean by "super-rich" Kara, but billionaires generally get a lot of their income from investments and the capital gains tax is quite low.
But as I said the problem is that you've removed the large tax contribution the super-rich currently make via income tax and you aren't going to replace it by sales tax simply because the super-rich can't spend money fast enough to actually make that kind of contribution.
Again as I said in my last post this doesn't always apply. In the US the rich spend the most.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/176462-debt-to-income-ratios-and-the-u-s-savings-rate
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200121/200121pap.pdf page 26
SAVINGS RATE BY INCOME CLASS
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Income class Savings Rate 2000
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Highest quintile -2.1
Fourth quintile 2.6
Middle quintile 2.9
Second quintile 7.4
Lowest quintile 7.1
------------------------------------------
So in the particular case of the United States a sales tax on things the rich (or upper-middle class) spend money on, particularly real estate, would work quite well and would discourage the kind of **** that started the GFC.
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Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
This. :yes: You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
As it stands I'm making around $10,000 per year and getting taxed 15%
The instant I finish my RN I can get a $40,000 a year job and get taxed around 20%
Clearly, I have a lot of reasons to improve myself.
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You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
This. And solution? Income tax + Negative Income Tax (Basic income welfare decreased by 10% of own income, not all taken away when one gets any little income). That is the basis of tax and welfare reform we are going to implement here in Slovakia. We can even abolish minimum wage, since BI would kinda act like it - noone would be forced to work for arbitrary minimum wage or be hungry, but if someone wants to work for little, he will can.
Consumption taxes wont allow you to integrate welfare and tax system into one solution continually adressing the transition from lack of income to high income, so I think one income tax (not progressive) is better from pragmatic POV.
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Substantiate the claim that there's no motivation for poorer people to better themselves. jr2 was unable to substantiate it so he gave up and left. Can you do better?
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Ahk, that's not the way it works. In the absence of evidence that poor people want to "better themselves" (make more money) then that proves poor people don't have motivation to do so.
I mean it really depends on your expectations. If you're cool with living in a car and working part time at Wal Mart then you're already good to go.
The thing is, unless taxes equal or exceed 100% of your income you can always make more money working more. Unless handouts get involved.
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I think the cycle of poverty probably works for reasons distinct from 'I want to stay on welfaaaare', and I'm not seeing any evidence presented to back up these assertions that it DOES operate on that principle. Obviously there are people who are never going to get anywhere because they're lazy, but I don't think you can claim that the tax/welfare system is keeping people in poverty because they'd make less by making more.
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I think the cycle of poverty probably works for reasons distinct from 'I want to stay on welfaaaare', and I'm not seeing any evidence presented to back up these assertions that it DOES operate on that principle. Obviously there are people who are never going to get anywhere because they're lazy, but I don't think you can claim that the tax/welfare system is keeping people in poverty because they'd make less by making more.
I've known people who wanted to avoid working for precisely that reason. There are situations where welfare benefits exceed what you could be making at minimum wage. With unemployment benefits especially there's an incentive to not take up part time work.
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Yeah but post-Clinton that generally isn't very sustainable.
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Yeah but post-Clinton that generally isn't very sustainable.
You still know exactly the time frame that your benefits will last. Security is also an issue because you risk losing your income if you go off benefits to get a job, and then get laid off. And hey what's the deal with Nuke? He claims to be living off the government.
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Yeah but post-Clinton that generally isn't very sustainable.
You still know exactly the time frame that your benefits will last. Security is also an issue because you risk losing your income if you go off benefits to get a job, and then get laid off.
I'm not necessarily going to dispute the notion that this COULD occur, I just want to know how often it does. There are some sweeping generalizations being made about the tax/welfare system and they don't have much backing as is.
And hey what's the deal with Nuke? He claims to be living off the government.
alaska
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No idea. I've only been on parental welfare myself. If I had to guess though I'd say that most people prefer to have a job for something to do during the day regardless of anything else. The number of people on welfare who don't want to work is probably a minority and they must be very bored. Hell, there are probably more people living off of inheritance than on welfare they don't need. All I have are first and second hand stories, though, not numbers. If you really are curious and not just picking a fight there should be a google search bar to the upper right of your browser.
One specific example I can think of that is kind of relevant is social workers sterilizing black mothers in the 70s to keep them from having children that welfare had to pay for. Now if someone tried this deliberately it might be an effective strategy to push yourself under the poverty line in order to collect welfare. Too bad I can't get pregnant.
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Substantiate the claim that there's no motivation for poorer people to better themselves. jr2 was unable to substantiate it so he gave up and left. Can you do better?
Batts, I love people like you. You make the world a better place... so full of kindness and good will.
Let's see. If you're making a small enough amount to qualify for food stamps, free health insurance, housing assistance, HEAP (Heating assistance), and probably a few other things, your NEEDS are met.
If you take a job at Wal-Mart and make minimum wage, all of a sudden your benefits disappear. If it's winter, now YOU have to pay $600+ for heat. Plus you probably now have to have a car to get to work. Which uses GAS and requires REPAIRS, which are expensive. Now you have to pay RENT, and the UTILITIES. You have to buy groceries to EAT. You have to pay for MEDICAL INSURANCE through your employer.
None of this would matter IF you actually made enough to smoothly pay off any and everything that you owe. If you don't, you are in for some turbulence.
EDIT: And of course the person living on welfare can always illegally work under the table for cash. If you get a real job, they report your income to the IRS.
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Batts, I love people like you. You make the world a better place... so full of kindness and good will.
I think drawing conclusions about someone from a sentence in a forum post on the internet is probably a bit hasty.
Let's see. If you're making a small enough amount to qualify for food stamps, free health insurance, housing assistance, HEAP (Heating assistance), and probably a few other things, your NEEDS are met.
If you take a job at Wal-Mart and make minimum wage, all of a sudden your benefits disappear. If it's winter, now YOU have to pay $600+ for heat. Plus you probably now have to have a car to get to work. Which uses GAS and requires REPAIRS, which are expensive. Now you have to pay RENT, and the UTILITIES. You have to buy groceries to EAT. You have to pay for MEDICAL INSURANCE through your employer.
None of this would matter IF you actually made enough to smoothly pay off any and everything that you owe. If you don't, you are in for some turbulence.
Ditch the bold, it's unnecessary. Calm down, too.
How does this translate into there being no incentive in the current tax structure for the poor to get less poor? And while it's a nice hypothetical scenario, where's the data? That's what I'm asking for: population statistics to demonstrate the behavior you're postulating.
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http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/can-you-live-on-330-a-week-mainstreet.aspx
A fraction of a paycheck
The goal of the unemployment insurance program, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is to provide people with about half their normal wage. However, it almost never works out that way. The average American collected $295 in weekly unemployment benefits in the third quarter of 2010, according to the most recent government data. But the average weekly salary in that same quarter was $865, which means the jobless benefits replaced just over a third of the average worker's salary.
So $295 a week in unemployment, after leaving what probably wasn't a minimum wage job in most cases.
ed: dammitedit: And this only counts unemployment, not any other assistance or charity like Medicaid.
Federal minimum wage: $7.25 an hour
Working 35 hours a week: $253.75
So you can see that you may be better off just collecting welfare, particularly if your job doesn't offer enough hours.
edit: And this just counts unemployment, not any other assistance or charity you might get like Medicaid.
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No no I get that, I'm actually willing to believe it, but:
1) jr originally proposed this as a problem with the tax structure and I don't see how you can argue that, this is a welfare issue primarily
2) we don't know if it's an issue at all until we know how many people are intentionally using this tactic.
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1) jr originally proposed this as a problem with the tax structure and I don't see how you can argue that, this is a welfare issue primarily
It could be. Sales tax rebates (like under Huckabee's fair tax) might provide enough rebates to the poor to push some people above the poverty line. Although all taxes themselves can do is reduce the incentive to work, not eliminate it, unless they go past 100% income.
2) we don't know if it's an issue at all until we know how many people are intentionally using this tactic.
I don't know if there are even studies on this but I knew someone who claimed that she didn't want to take up work because she earned more with welfare. So that's one person in the world, possibly. But considering even McDonalds employees make about $9 an hour I don't think this happens often.
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This is more of a social programs issue than a tax one. I however can see where a sales/services tax system may encourage those currently living off the welfare system to better themselves as then every one would be paying said taxes for anything they may need or desire. Hence knowing that they must find work to pay for things that are beyond the simple necessitates that social programs should justifiably pay for. That being said the whole social program network needs a revamp as well. It is grossly inefficient with little to no accountability but that is another discussion entirely.
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This is more of a social programs issue than a tax one. I however can see where a sales/services tax system may encourage those currently living off the welfare system to better themselves as then every one would be paying said taxes for anything they may need or desire. Hence knowing that they must find work to pay for things that are beyond the simple necessitates that social programs should justifiably pay for. That being said the whole social program network needs a revamp as well. It is grossly inefficient with little to no accountability but that is another discussion entirely.
If you can get your housing and food paid for by social welfare, what else do you need? You can get the rest of what you want by working small jobs or dealing with illegal things.
Food and housing are basic, justifiable needs. If not housing then at least food. But at that point you have gypsies - which I don't see a problem with. I say our whole system of qualifications for these need programs is really warped and badly managed. Why not just let people apply if they feel the need, or even let anyone state their case for community aid?
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I think you're arguing the wrong thing here Batt. What you should be asking is why would these poor people be better off under a system with no income tax?
Using the figures Mustang posted someone on benefits earns $295 and someone working 35 hours minimum wage earns $253.75. Even if you abolish income tax someone would still be better off staying at home according to their arguments.
So in other words the entire argument is completely inapplicable to the matter of whether or not we should scrap income tax.
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I think you're arguing the wrong thing here Batt. What you should be asking is why would these poor people be better off under a system with no income tax?
Using the figures Mustang posted someone on benefits earns $295 and someone working 35 hours minimum wage earns $253.75. Even if you abolish income tax someone would still be better off staying at home according to their arguments.
So in other words the entire argument is completely inapplicable to the matter of whether or not we should scrap income tax.
That is also a fair point. But I'm still waiting for those statistics, damn it.
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I think you're arguing the wrong thing here Batt. What you should be asking is why would these poor people be better off under a system with no income tax?
Using the figures Mustang posted someone on benefits earns $295 and someone working 35 hours minimum wage earns $253.75. Even if you abolish income tax someone would still be better off staying at home according to their arguments.
So in other words the entire argument is completely inapplicable to the matter of whether or not we should scrap income tax.
That is also a fair point. But I'm still waiting for those statistics, damn it.
Maybe you should start thinking about it logically instead of just relying on one number being higher or lower than another?
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I think you're arguing the wrong thing here Batt. What you should be asking is why would these poor people be better off under a system with no income tax?
Using the figures Mustang posted someone on benefits earns $295 and someone working 35 hours minimum wage earns $253.75. Even if you abolish income tax someone would still be better off staying at home according to their arguments.
So in other words the entire argument is completely inapplicable to the matter of whether or not we should scrap income tax.
That is also a fair point. But I'm still waiting for those statistics, damn it.
Maybe you should start thinking about it logically instead of just relying on one number being higher or lower than another?
Maybe I've already thought it through logically, built several competing models, and am waiting on empirical data to test which one is best?
You know, like scientists do?
This is the only way to determine policy in the real world. Better get used to it.
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So back to the topic at hand, Trying to tackle the debt in any sort of effective means is going to require both spending cuts, and increased revenue (Taxes). The sooner Washington realizes this the better but they are way to polarized right now. The Republicans want to fight it through spending cuts only (Not even touching the military budget though it is one of the bigger aspects of the total budget) and this will simply not work on it's own. The Democrats want to raise taxes but are relunctant to cut funding to various social programs. Bottom line is that things got to change and the status quo is just not sustainable. Not to mention we have a crumbling infrastructure that is going to need heavy investment to replace and or maintain. We will be getting to a point here in the next decade where the simple "patch and pray" system we have now is just not going to be sufficiant to keep things moving. It's high time politicians got their act together and stopped worrying about getting re-elected. Focus on making the hard decisions that must be made.... yeah right like that would ever happen.
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You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now.
Wait what.
No, no, you can't drive-by "poor people are lazy" posts.
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I think you're arguing the wrong thing here Batt. What you should be asking is why would these poor people be better off under a system with no income tax?
Using the figures Mustang posted someone on benefits earns $295 and someone working 35 hours minimum wage earns $253.75. Even if you abolish income tax someone would still be better off staying at home according to their arguments.
So in other words the entire argument is completely inapplicable to the matter of whether or not we should scrap income tax.
That is also a fair point. But I'm still waiting for those statistics, damn it.
Maybe you should start thinking about it logically instead of just relying on one number being higher or lower than another?
Actually, dissecting this further will help you develop.
In this thread you've suggested that welfare should be available on the basis of need. This is a fairly laudable notion, but you need to understand why people will oppose it, because they will and they do - vehemently. One of the primary attacks leveled against welfare is the idea that it permits a certain class of undesirables who lack the drive or desire for self-advancement to live as social parasites. This is part of why the assertion was made in the thread that the poor simply lack the motivation to get rich - because welfare enables simple parasitism.
If you want to advance the idea of more extensive welfare for the needy, you need to defeat this objection. How are you going to accomplish that? Outline a battle plan.
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People who argue against welfare for the reason that it makes people lazy have apparently never applied for welfare or tried to get any of those benefits. There are very specific rules and regulations when it comes to applying for food stamps and unemployment benefits--namely, that you have to be actively looking for a job.
You can't just sit on your ass all day and collect government checks.
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Just like every thing else there are exceptions to that ideal, drive by the nearest section 8 housing complex and look at how many higher priced cars are sitting in the parking lot for example. Not saying it is always the case but it happens enough to be noticed. Now can we please get back the subject at hand.
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Just like every thing else there are exceptions to that ideal, drive by the nearest section 8 housing complex and look at how many higher priced cars are sitting in the parking lot for example. Not saying it is always the case but it happens enough to be noticed. Now can we please get back the subject at hand.
Sure, if the subject at hand is welfare. Threads wander! (not that we can't talk about the deficit, but we can talk about both)
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
jr2 suggested the tax structure was broken because the poor had no incentive to get richer. I asked him to prove it, Kara pointed out it wasn't a fault of the tax structure anyway. Welfare's an obvious culprit in any suggestion to that extent.
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
I proposed in class today that we wipe everything. If you can't fairly make cuts, then cut everything to 0. Then make sure the troops get paid. Then go from there and figure out what you can and want to keep.
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Slash the Pentagon's budget. It's been one of the most useless departments for the last twenty years and has been more responsible for America's problems than welfare ever will be.
oh nuclear y u haet the trewps
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
I proposed in class today that we wipe everything. If you can't fairly make cuts, then cut everything to 0. Then make sure the troops get paid. Then go from there and figure out what you can and want to keep.
Again, the issue is creating a politically viable proposal. The very nature of a representative democracy demands that all representatives fight for their constituencies. You need something that will draw the support it needs to pass; realpolitik has to be accounted for.
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
I proposed in class today that we wipe everything. If you can't fairly make cuts, then cut everything to 0. Then make sure the troops get paid. Then go from there and figure out what you can and want to keep.
Again, the issue is creating a politically viable proposal.
I think what defines a viable proposal is what the population desires at the time. If the population want change and they want something they can understand, then what I suggested is a viable proposal. :)
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
jr2 suggested the tax structure was broken because the poor had no incentive to get richer. I asked him to prove it, Kara pointed out it wasn't a fault of the tax structure anyway. Welfare's an obvious culprit in any suggestion to that extent.
Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
This. :yes: You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
What I am saying is, the poorer classes have no incentive to get richer, so that their income that they currently receive through benefits programs will be reduced or cut entirely. It's a security blanket. Having your needs met vs. maybe having them met. You know, if you have to get an operation without health insurance, you could end up owing the hospital more than you make in 15 years (say $300,000 bill and you make $20,000 which is far above the income limit for free health care... now you are stuck).
As far as "proof", I'm looking for some now. Found an interesting book however I don't know if it even deals with the current topic or what its take is. The Transition From Welfare to Work: Policies to REduce Public Dependency by Gary Burtless (http://books.google.com/books?id=lpw-_Psqqi0C&lpg=PA197&ots=mTXgkNZgmf&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q&f=false) Apparently there's a bunch of other books / articles with this.... it's a lot of reading. Hence it takes time, unless I wanted to recite talking points.
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The population has no unified voice or desire - this is the entire purpose of a representative democracy, to speak for all the voices out there. People don't want the same things. Representatives represent that; that's why they're called representatives.
Explain to me how you'd build a viable proposal by cutting all government spending and building it from the ground up. How would you select what to retain? Who would make the decisions?
True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
jr2 suggested the tax structure was broken because the poor had no incentive to get richer. I asked him to prove it, Kara pointed out it wasn't a fault of the tax structure anyway. Welfare's an obvious culprit in any suggestion to that extent.
Speaking personally, I'd much rather have my money taken by government based on my habits of spending rather than my habits of working. In other words, pay into the system for what I take out of it.
This. :yes: You also have to realize there there's absolutely no motivation for poorer people to better themselves as things stand now. All they stand to do is lose all of their rebates, start getting hammered with taxes, and lose their health benefits. And then when disaster strikes, they aren't eligible for help because they actually have scrabbled together something resembling assets and thus are disqualified.
What I am saying is, the poorer classes have no incentive to get richer, so that their income that they currently receive through benefits programs will be reduced or cut entirely. It's a security blanket. Having your needs met vs. maybe having them met. You know, if you have to get an operation without health insurance, you could end up owing the hospital more than you make in 15 years (say $300,000 bill and you make $20,000 which is far above the income limit for free health care... now you are stuck).
As far as "proof", I'm looking for some now. Found an interesting book however I don't know if it even deals with the current topic or what its take is. The Transition From Welfare to Work: Policies to REduce Public Dependency by Gary Burtless (http://books.google.com/books?id=lpw-_Psqqi0C&lpg=PA197&ots=mTXgkNZgmf&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q&f=false) Apparently there's a bunch of other books / articles with this.... it's a lot of reading. Hence it takes time, unless I wanted to recite talking points.
Cool, thanks. What's interesting to me is not whether it's possible, but how many people actually use this strategy. If the number is low it suggests that it's not a major concern in terms of tax structuring. If it's high it suggests that there's too much of a no-mans-land between benefits and a reasonably paid job.
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
I proposed in class today that we wipe everything. If you can't fairly make cuts, then cut everything to 0. Then make sure the troops get paid. Then go from there and figure out what you can and want to keep.
Again, the issue is creating a politically viable proposal.
I think what defines a viable proposal is what the population desires at the time. If the population want change and they want something they can understand, then what I suggested is a viable proposal. :)
In addition to the above - please don't miss it - let me be more specific about the meaning of viable proposal: do you believe that a proposal to cut all government spending and rebuild the budget from the ground up would even be brought to the floor in the House?
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True, just out of curiosity though why is it that any time spending cuts gets mentioned everyone gets hung up on welfare?
I proposed in class today that we wipe everything. If you can't fairly make cuts, then cut everything to 0. Then make sure the troops get paid. Then go from there and figure out what you can and want to keep.
Again, the issue is creating a politically viable proposal.
I think what defines a viable proposal is what the population desires at the time. If the population want change and they want something they can understand, then what I suggested is a viable proposal. :)
In addition to the above - please don't miss it - let me be more specific about the meaning of viable proposal: do you believe that a proposal to cut all government spending and rebuild the budget from the ground up would even be brought to the floor in the House?
Are you saying that a proposal that is considered viable by the people, would not be considered viable by a member of the House?
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Please respond to the material I specifically asked you not to neglect. After you do that, we can continue.
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To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.
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To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.
And for good reason. Each representative has a responsibility to fight for the interests of their constituents. The Founders intended the government to be a slow, divisive process to ensure that no one group or interest could gain hegemony.
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To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.
But if the people want it and the people agree to it, then it seems like the obstacle becomes the government refusing to agree in order not to follow the people's will?
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To the floor no, in a committee maybe but highly unlikely. Reaching a consensus on every item in the budget one item at a time would take over a decade if it ever got done at all.
But if the people want it and the people agree to it, then it seems like the obstacle becomes the government refusing to agree in order not to follow the people's will?
How do you know the people want it and the people agree to it?
Perhaps a system could be employed where the people elected speakers to tell the government what they wanted. Would that be agreeable to you?
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It would be a procedural nightmare, there are reasons why things get put together in committee and then brought to the floor for discussion. And when have Representatives always followed the will of their constituents and not their own political agenda especially when it comes down to following party lines. A lot of times when it comes down to picking some one for congress one is forced to try to determine the lesser of two evils. Just because the people elected them doesn't always mean the people agree with them.
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Here's a monumental, grand master plan - and it boils down simply to the following: grow a pair, slash spending, and slash deep. It's clear that the system is broken, so let's just re-engineer it. I've even got a decent blueprint for it. (No TLDR's, please)
Pensions went the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo bird because companies could not afford to pay people that were not working for them. The vast majority of social security is just a government-mandated pension system, paid by the american taxpayer. The US government is not impervious to the basic laws of accounting - and as such, the present system is not stable in the long run.
Newsflash: Retirement is not free. There's only one way out of this without pissing off everyone in the US to the point of insurrection. Give back all the money taken for social security retirement - and cut all age-based entitlements from it. You want to retire? Go do it yourself - and quit expecting the government to do it for you. There are a buttload of private-sector companies that are more than willing to help you retire, any one of which can do it better than the government can.
The narrow sliver of people on social security that actually NEED to be on social security (the severely mentally and physically disabled)...I'm fine with paying for that. Although the government would get far better results by outsourcing to a private charity, and contracting with them to care for the mentally and physically disabled. This includes assisted living facilities.
Welfare? Unemployment? Here's an idea: mandatory enrollment in job placement (outsourced to private industry to preserve efficiency). Oh, and the people on social security that need caring for? Here's your workforce to take care of them.
Running prisons is also getting expensive - that needs restructuring too. Governments need to turn a profit on prisoners - or at the very least, break even. Is it somehow morally reprehensible to require inmates to do some kind of work, to pay for the cost of housing and feeding them? How about electric power generation? Put a hamster wheel (or something similar) in each cell, and pay them for the power generated. This way, they can rent nicer cells, and pay for food (beyond the absolute bare minimum to keep someone alive).
National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget. All gamers know this, and all entrepreneurs could make this work.
In times of economic recession, just do the following: announce that any small business (less than say, 500 employees) is tax-free for the next five years, and let the federal reserve begin investment-lending to said businesses. Kaboom - overnight solution to economic recession. Let the huge banks fail, and pave the way for brand new ones to open up the very same hour.
Education - let's face it, current public schooling is just government-run daycare. Outsource it to the private sector, paid for by parents (or the government, if they can't afford it). Require students to learn - and heck, even pay them based on performance.
Infrastructure construction and maintenance: outsource completely to private sector. See the following: http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/private-enterprise-does-it-better.html
Also, for the senate and congress - they need to speed things up. They get paid very well to do very little. Maybe they should be required to actually get things done. Lock them in a room, send them food and water, and don't let them out until they find a resolution to laws and such. Even the most complicated of issues could probably be hammered out in a few days, rather than taking years.
The same "You don't leave until the job is done" approach could be applied to many exceedingly slow-moving government structures.
Yeah, the government should do something about healthcare - but healthcare is a complex issue. It costs so much because doctors pay a lot of money for medical school, and have to charge high prices to pay back what they owe. Health insurance suffers from a blatant lack of competition - and the inherent problem that profit = how much you can rip people off. One solution: private, non-profit insurance. In fact, any insurance that's not a non-profit could be made illegal. This would greatly reduce the cost of healthcare.
Once the US government turns a profit per person, there is no reason to not open up the borders, and turn incoming immigrants into money.
Also, my two cents on the 1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package:
The VASMIR plasma drive would be finished. The international space station would be finished. We would have orbital shipyards. We would have working fusion power plants, with Helium-3 fuel being shipped in from the moon. We would have people on Mars, at this very moment - thanks to the VASMIR drive taking the trip down to thirty-something days. Then, legalize drugs, at very high tax rates...and use the money we gain to begin building our first colony spaceships. A positive future for humanity requires expansion into the cosmos.
This strikes me as a far wiser investment, since the aforementioned 'tax free' small business solution would have cost a microscopic sliver of what the bailout did - and would have worked much better.
/endrant
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Simple - grow a pair, slash spending, and slash deep.
How about raising taxes?
Newsflash: Retirement is not free. There's only one way out of this without pissing off everyone in the US to the point of insurrection. Give back all the money taken for social security retirement - and cut all age-based entitlements from it. You want to retire? Go do it yourself - and quit expecting the government to do it for you. There are a buttload of private-sector companies that are more than willing to help you retire, any one of which can do it better than the government can.
They will also be rigiriously more expensive, thus working those who do not get far on the income ladder to working untill they die.
The narrow sliver of people on social security that actually NEED to be on social security (the severely mentally and physically disabled)...I'm fine with paying for that. Although the government would get far better results by outsourcing to a private charity, and contracting with them to care for the mentally and physically disabled.
And in term, have less control over what actually happens there. More expensive does not automatically mean higher quality. If a need for a service is dire, it tends to go the other way around due to cartelling.
Welfare? Unemployment? Here's an idea: mandatory enrollment in job placement (outsourced to private industry to preserve efficiency). Oh, and the people on social security that need caring for? There's a massive, desperate, awaiting workforce there.
Yes. Exactly. The problem is that the desperately awaiting workforce simply can not get any jobs because nobody wants to hire them, due to economic problems. The only employer you can do that with is the army.
Running prisons is also getting expensive - that needs restructuring too. Governments need to turn a profit on prisoners - or at the very least, break even. Is it somehow morally reprehensible to require inmates to do some kind of work, to pay for the cost of housing and feeding them? How about electric power generation? Put a hamster wheel (or something similar) in each cell, and pay them for the power generated. This way, they can rent nicer cells, and pay for food (beyond the absolute bare minimum to keep someone alive).
In the Netherlands, inmates have to work to pay for the cells. I am quite sure that the americans already have a similar system.
[quoe]
National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget.
[/quote]
Ever heard of a PMC? Yes. the PMC. The Americans are already doing that, and geuss: it is not working very well, as the PMC's are not held accountable for their actions.
In times of economic recession, just do the following: announce that any small business (less than say, 500 employees) is tax-free for the next five years, and let the federal reserve begin investment-lending to said businesses. Kaboom - overnight solution to economic recession. Let the huge banks fail, and pave the way for brand new ones to open up the very same hour.
Right. There goes all your money. The big banks falling means that many small businesses can no longer acces their funds the goverment gave them, because it was on said banks. Since they are dependent on that money to pay for their investments the goverment wanted them to make... You just dropped an Atomic Bomb on the economy right there.
Also... Where is this in slashing spending?
Education - let's face it, current public schooling is just government-run daycare. Outsource it to the private sector, paid for by parents (or the government, if they can't afford it). Require students to learn - and heck, even pay them based on performance.
Right. That is not going to work, since then the schools will jsut do everything to increase percieved performance instead of actually learning people stuff.
Also, for the senate and congress - they need to speed things up. They get paid very well to do very little. Maybe they should be required to actually get things done. Lock them in a room, send them food and water, and don't let them out until they find a resolution to laws and such. Even the most complicated of issues could probably be hammered out in a few days, rather than taking years.
Which would then be rushed solutions which barely hold together. Decision making takes time. The main problem with the US senate is that people are fighting over slightly-differenting ideology instead of thinking about actual problems.
The same "You don't leave until the job is done" approach could be applied to many exceedingly slow-moving government structures.
Did you not just out source them?
Then, once the US government turns a profit per person, there is no reason to not open up the borders, and turn incoming immigrants into money.
Once the US goverment turns a profit, it would be slashed down as COMMUNISM!.
Also, my two cents on the 1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package:
The VASMIR plasma drive would be finished. The international space station would be finished. We would have orbital shipyards. We would have working fusion power plants, with Helium-3 fuel being shipped in from the moon. We would have people on Mars, at this very moment - thanks to the VASMIR drive taking the trip down to thirty-something days.
Which would cost the US even more money with only marginal benefits.
/endrant
/endcounter
I do not really get why you want to outsource everything to private firms. It reduces tranpsaracy, and they might decide to make even more money of the goverment, thus turning more expensive then when the goverment did it themselves. We already outsourced quite a few things here in the Netherlands, and it did not really do the quality of said services (such as public transport) any good.
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National defense - again, outsourcing to private industry could be quite advantageous. Maybe they wouldn't use such exotic, bizarre, and extraordinarily expensive weapons in wartime. It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget. All gamers know this, and all entrepreneurs could make this work.
No.
I'm sorry, just no.
I've worked alongside people from PMCs before, and they are some of the worst people on the planet--the types whose entire job requires that there be some sort of conflict going on.
Plus, we've already outsourced national defense to the private sector in more ways than PMCs already, and it's killing our democracy one day at a time.
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Pensions went the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo bird because companies could not afford to pay people that were not working for them. The vast majority of social security is just a government-mandated pension system, paid by the american taxpayer. The US government is not impervious to the basic laws of accounting - and as such, the present system is not stable in the long run.
Social Security is basically fine. You get a blip with the boomers, but after that we're golden. Medicare/caid are emphatically not, but they're not fine because the trend for healthcare spending--public and private--is beyond ****ed.
But we've already seen just how effectively the people and organizations benefiting from the status quo are able to hobble reform even when conditions are as good as they could be for reform. My guess is nothing gets done until health spending does as much damage as those mother****ers in the banks did a couple years back. If then. After all, the financial sector wasn't exactly saddled with regulations after they, um, brought down the world's economy.
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No.
I'm sorry, just no.
I've worked alongside people from PMCs before, and they are some of the worst people on the planet--the types whose entire job requires that there be some sort of conflict going on.
Plus, we've already outsourced national defense to the private sector in more ways than PMCs already, and it's killing our democracy one day at a time.
Not to mention the $100+ million in overcharges (that we know about) that just one company managed to bilk from the government, now imagine that there's even more of that going on with more outsourcing. Isn't corporate welfare wonderful? :P
Which would cost the US even more money with only marginal benefits.
Forget the environmentalists and doomsayers going on and on about how we're imminently going to run out of resources, in space there's an unbelievable wealth just waiting to be plundered.
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Forget the environmentalists and doomsayers going on and on about how we're imminently going to run out of resources, in space there's an unbelievable wealth just waiting to be plundered.
This is satire, right?
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Which part? The part about the doomsaying or the part about Sol being rich in resources?
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The part where anything in space is just waiting to be plundered, as easy as your date on prom night.
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Once you get out of Earth's gravity well it is. The real problem is there is an upfront capital investment in spaceborne infrastructure, which has not yet been made to any significant amount unfortunately.
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Substantiate the claim that there's no motivation for poorer people to better themselves. jr2 was unable to substantiate it so he gave up and left. Can you do better?
Well it has been already substantiated here. If you receive x money, benefits and so on without working, and once you start to work you receive at best the same x (in some cases even lower), BUT you have to work in addition to that, and even lose some necessary benefits like health insurance its obvious its better to stay on welfare for any rationally acting person (and maybe work illegally alongside that).
Now I am not saying there is NO motivation at all, someone might work even when he gets less or the same because he enjoys it, or wants to advance to better payed job afterwards. I am saying there is no motivation from the welfare system, instead, there is demotivation. And considering its easily fixable with elegant NIT based welfare system, where you ALWAYS have more net income when you work than when you dont work (even if you work for fraction of minimum wage, which should be abolished after reform because its simply not needed with NIT), I simply cannot see a reason why continue with current status quo other than incompetence and inertia of the government.
Dont know how huge is welfare abuse and welfare moms problem in the US, but here it is substantial, thats why there is hopefully going to be BI + NIT welfare reform (along with limiting child benefits to first 2 children to not encourage endless procreation for money, which should have been done long ago).
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Well it has been already substantiated here. If you receive x money, benefits and so on without working, and once you start to work you receive at best the same x (in some cases even lower), BUT you have to work in addition to that, and even lose some necessary benefits like health insurance its obvious its better to stay on welfare for any rationally acting person (and maybe work illegally alongside that).
Hardly. Unemployment benefits and food stamps, despite what the anti-welfare crowd would have you believe, is not something you can live on for more than a few months. As in, it's simply impossible.
And unless I read that sentence wrong, I'm going to call bull**** on the health insurance statement as well. The thing with being unemployed and why companies offer health insurance plans as perks is because you can't afford insurance when you're unemployed. I got lucky because under the new health bill, I'm able to stay on my parents' plan, but with very few exceptions, there's no "health welfare" that people lose when they get employed.
And I'll say it again, since this seems to be utterly ignored by everyone making a case against welfare--in the United States, you are ineligible for unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other welfare programs if you can't prove you are actively looking for a job.[/i] As far as economic statistics go, the lazy people that the anti-welfare crowd is talking about aren't counted in unemployment numbers.
I don't know what everyone's situation is here, but it's my absolute firm belief that you shouldn't be speaking about welfare if you haven't been on it or if you don't represent a hell of a lot of people who are on it. A few people game the system, I know, but I'm really sick of seeing children starve because their parents are A) too proud to apply for welfare programs or B) are afraid of being called "welfare queens" and the like by people who haven't had a moment of financial hardship in their lives. The anti-welfare crowd likes to cherry-pick the few examples of people who abuse the system to take those benefits away from people who would starve or lose the roof over the heads without it.
People are confused about what causes people to not look for jobs or not improve themselves--it's not welfare, it's the situation that puts them on welfare. Being unable to find jobs, for example, just destroys people's will.
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I don't see where you are getting that people are attacking those specific programs. Foodstamps and Unemployment are some of the better run social programs though they too could use some tweeking. Those programs are designed more to help those who fall short of being able to provide for themselves when hard times fall on them. It's other programs such as government subsidized housing where the real problems reside. When people don't have to earn things for themselves they tend not to respect what is given them or care about it's upkeep. I like the habitat for humanity approach to that very problem where participants have to earn the benefits of the program by volunteering with the program. Not sure if it could be adapted on such a large scale but surely something similar can be done.
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Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.
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Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.
Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?
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Haha, from a pull I just dug up from 1939:
AT PRESENT, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING SEVERAL BILLION DOLLARS MORE THAN IT TAKES IN EACH YEAR. IF THE REPUBLICANS WIN THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, DO YOU THINK THEY WILL MAKE THE GOVERNMENT'S INCOME EQUAL EXPENSES WITHIN TWO YEARS?
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Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.
Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?
Why don't you try it and see?
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Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.
Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?
Why don't you try it and see?
If you mean myself, personally? I've done it. Rebuilt the federal budget from the ground up, in conference and solo.
Or are you asking the government to do it?
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Cut everything to zero. Pay the soldiers. Redo the taxes so that they're fair and reasonable. Tax others. Get a decent idea of how much income we actually have for governmental operations.
Interesting plan. How do you decide what's fair and reasonable? How do you decide what programs to reinstate?
Why don't you try it and see?
If you mean myself, personally? I've done it. Rebuilt the federal budget from the ground up, in conference and solo.
Or are you asking the government to do it?
It sounds like both of us have done the "mock debating" they teach you at places where "The Best Degrees" come from?
As to answer your question, you got it right the first time - I was asking you, personally.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation. You can't just dream up a solution; you need a politically viable solution that both American politicians and the American public would actually spring for.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
Maybe. Is it also possible that you can not make sense of them? Choose. :)
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
Maybe. Is it also possible that you can not make sense of them? Choose. :)
ed: i'm really resisting a great burn right here, i want everyone to notice
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
Maybe. Is it also possible that you can not make sense of them? Choose. :)
Well I looked at your post history and it turned into a really easy choice.
Here is an opportunity to continue a cyclic line of conversation that I am willfully declining.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
Maybe. Is it also possible that you can not make sense of them? Choose. :)
I can't make sense of them because they don't make sense. Basic tautology.
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It's a pointless exercise. It ignores the realities of the situation.
I agree.
And yet it's what you're pressing strongest in this whole thread. Your arguments do not make sense.
Maybe. Is it also possible that you can not make sense of them? Choose. :)
Well I looked at your post history and it turned into a really easy choice.
Here is an opportunity to continue a cyclic line of conversation that I am willfully declining.
Oh ****, caught red-handed
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Once you get out of Earth's gravity well it is. The real problem is there is an upfront capital investment in spaceborne infrastructure, which has not yet been made to any significant amount unfortunately.
No, the problem is even if that were so it'd have to be more profitable than mining the earth before anyone would do it. Which, barring something like zero point energy, is more than a little unlikely.
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Once you get out of Earth's gravity well it is. The real problem is there is an upfront capital investment in spaceborne infrastructure, which has not yet been made to any significant amount unfortunately.
No, the problem is even if that were so it'd have to be more profitable than mining the earth before anyone would do it. Which, barring something like zero point energy, is more than a little unlikely.
Maybe if you could get a good von Neumann swarm going it'd pay off.
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Right, that's the first thing other races need to see of us.
PRIORITY OVERRIDE. NEW BEHAVIOR DICTATED.
MUST BREAK TARGET INTO COMPONENT MATERIALS.
(http://cft2.lki.ru/Txt/Horizon/0904/Retro/Small/slylandro_probe_crew.jpg)
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Once you get out of Earth's gravity well it is. The real problem is there is an upfront capital investment in spaceborne infrastructure, which has not yet been made to any significant amount unfortunately.
No, the problem is even if that were so it'd have to be more profitable than mining the earth before anyone would do it. Which, barring something like zero point energy, is more than a little unlikely.
That's why it would have to be part of a general push into space, as in a long term investment. Precious metals would be returned to Earth while the remainder would be used to build more stuff in space.
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You do know that bulk cargo transfer from orbit to surface is a security nightmare, right?
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You do know that bulk cargo transfer from orbit to surface is a security nightmare, right?
In today's world, it simply would not happen with the speed or efficiency that it would need to become successful. Every rocket launch would be guarded closely, every passenger extensively scanned and background checked, every bit of cargo run through tests. The amount of resources required would balloon exponentially. We'd never make it off the planet.
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You do know that bulk cargo transfer from orbit to surface is a security nightmare, right?
And keeping our entire species on just one planetary body is a better choice? If that's the prevailing view then we deserve to go extinct.
I think that really says something about just what kind of ****ed up planet this has become when we stop ourselves from accomplishing great things because we've become so afraid of eachother.
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You do know that bulk cargo transfer from orbit to surface is a security nightmare, right?
And keeping our entire species on just one planetary body is a better choice? If that's the prevailing view then we deserve to go extinct.
I think that really says something about just what kind of ****ed up planet this has become when we stop ourselves from accomplishing great things because we've become so afraid of eachother.
This.
We should to start having a basic trust in ourselves and others to do the right thing, IMO. We should also work to carry that spirit with us as well, and apply it to other species that we may meet in the future, be them organic or digital.
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Oh, please. A hundred years ago you wouldn't even have been able to get people of different skin colors to cooperate. We're doing better on that front than we ever have.
Don't confuse the problems of a decade for the problems of an era.
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Oh, please. A hundred years ago you wouldn't even have been able to get people of different skin colors to cooperate. We're doing better on that front than we ever have.
Don't confuse the problems of a decade for the problems of an era.
On that front. Blacks and whites used to trust their fellow blacks and whites much more than we trust each other now. It's easier to trust people like you when there are people not like you. Don't forget that the solutions for one era can cause the problems of the next.
EDIT: And before anyone says it, no I'm not advocating a return to segregation or for racial genetics.
One "solution" to the US's racially charged past was not to ever mention anyone's skin color or race because that might be "rude". That ends up causing more problems than it solves, IMO. Sort of like replacing hand towels with those stupid blowdryers.
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On that front. Blacks and whites used to trust their fellow blacks and whites much more than we trust each other now.
Evidence?
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On that front. Blacks and whites used to trust their fellow blacks and whites much more than we trust each other now.
Evidence?
Underground railroad? The whole black community culture of "brothers" and "sisters"? The 1950s for white people?
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On that front. Blacks and whites used to trust their fellow blacks and whites much more than we trust each other now.
Evidence?
Underground railroad? The whole black community culture of "brothers" and "sisters"? The 1950s for white people?
These are superficially compelling anecdotes, but they don't actually speak to intragroup trust - the Underground Railroad, for instance, was prone to strife, division, and even betrayal, the culture of the civil rights movement was full of divisions like those that gave rise to the Black Panthers, and the 1950s was a politically divided era that saw vast amounts of strife both culturally and geopolitically (remember the witch hunts for Communists?)
A lot of the things you see as modern problems have been around forever.
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I think that you're looking at exceptions rather than the rule in an effort just to find every bit of evidence to disagree with the general point that I'm trying to get across.
Individuals will act like individuals. If 24 people in a room work together and 1 person does something different, am I not allowed to apply the sentence "These people worked together" to all 25 of them?
Society, to me, includes both the 24 and the 1.
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I think that you're looking at exceptions rather than the rule in an effort just to find every bit of evidence to disagree with the general point that I'm trying to get across.
I think that's exactly what leads you to believe we have unique problems today. It's called the availability heuristic.
Ignoring context, whether historical or scientific, will never help you solve a problem. Embrace knowledge and analysis; they'll free your mind from heuristic shackles.
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I think that you're looking at exceptions rather than the rule in an effort just to find every bit of evidence to disagree with the general point that I'm trying to get across.
I think that's exactly what leads you to believe we have unique problems today. It's called the availability heuristic.
Ignoring context, whether historical or scientific, will never help you solve a problem. Embrace knowledge and analysis; they'll free your mind from heuristic shackles.
What if I was just thinking of a different context than you? What implications would that have?
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Questions are no substitute for a clearly stated argument and the evidence to back it. I won't create your points for you, nor will I illustrate them. Articulate what you want to say and substantiate it, then continue.
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Questions are no substitute for a clearly stated argument and the evidence to back it. I won't create your points for you, nor will I illustrate them. Articulate what you want to say and substantiate it, then continue.
Questions are all that science is - do you think that science is something other than simply asking questions and trying to find answers to them?
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My suspicion is that you have a vague, utopian ideal floating around, a queasy sense that something is wrong and that perhaps you can rouse people to fix it. But I don't think you've managed to articulate what you believe is wrong, and without knowing that - or, hell, without being able to prove to anyone that anything is wrong at all - I don't think you can figure out a way to fix it.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your beliefs, but I think what you need to do is sit down, write out a great whopping manifesto of the issues you see, ascertain that they're things people don't already know, and figure out how to back your beliefs up in a way that doesn't require people to already share your vague, utopian ideal. Arguing from a shaky position allows you to reach those who already share your position, which just ends up as masturbation.
If you want to try to change something, I think that should be your next project.
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Why do you think that's not what I'm doing right now? :)
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Calm down. You're taking this as a blow to your own intelligence, and it doesn't need to be. I know these beliefs are personal to you, and I appreciate your courage in sharing them.
The fact that people on Hard Light think you're a nut doesn't mean you'll always be considered a nut. Learn how to present your ideas and you'll find an audience and respect. You just want to avoid people tuning you out before you even begin.
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I put a smiley face. :) I'm perfectly calm - it's actually a lovely day outside and I was going to go biking. (Something I do every day, I wish we had covered bike paths during the winter in this State).
Please answer the question. :)
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I believe my examination is complete. Hard Light Productions, Mr. Unknown Target.
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I believe my examination is complete. Hard Light Productions, Mr. Unknown Target.
It seems to me that you are speaking from a position of authority, as if you were some lawyer, teacher, politician, or psychiatrist - essentially another manifestation of institutionally-mandated authority.
Please, answer the question. If you wish to see yourself as a fair example of any of those professions, then why are you allowed to not answer the defendant's question, yet earlier it seemed that you believed that I must always answer yours?
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(http://www.mariakhalife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/applaud-yourself.jpg)
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In this thread and others, you have been repeatedly asked to back up your claims, to prove that you are arguing from a position more substantial than your own hopes and desires. You have consistently failed to do so. At this point, the burden of proof and substantiation is on you.
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Oh, please. A hundred years ago you wouldn't even have been able to get people of different skin colors to cooperate. We're doing better on that front than we ever have.
Don't confuse the problems of a decade for the problems of an era.
I think there's a huge difference between then and now. For one thing back then you had a ruling class who wasn't necessarily afraid of the others but outright despised them (hence segregation). Today we have a situation where everyone is afraid of everything (anyone remember the Great Duct Tape Run of '03?), including the big boogeyman of the day, terrorism. I think that is a big difference and it was the pervasive sense of fear that I was reffering to.
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Sales tax/values added tax. Every other country has it.
It's good because it taxes consumption not work. The complaints are typically about how it's flat and the complexity of the rebate system required. I don't really know how that works in Europe. But it does encourage saving which is good for growth and economic stability.
I think this person actually is a bot. :nervous:
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What is your opinion of FreeSpace 2 Mr. Possibly Bot
Okay, Sorry if my Comment was like a bot. I just read more HLPBB on this thread that's why i thought that was the Topic. My bad :(
Your friend is back GB.
:headz:
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What is your opinion of FreeSpace 2 Mr. Possibly Bot
Okay, Sorry if my Comment was like a bot. I just read more HLPBB on this thread that's why i thought that was the Topic. My bad :(
Your friend is back GB.
:headz:
Yeah but I think he actually is a bot. We need to run a Voigt-Kampff!
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That was a good movie.
Why don't we discuss that instead.
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I contend that there is absolutely no reason to watch the theatrical cut and that Harrison Ford's voiceover is a crime which drags the whole movie down.
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Hey, it's a tribute. He's going for the deadpan Joe Friday thing.
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Sales tax/values added tax. Every other country has it.
It's good because it taxes consumption not work. The complaints are typically about how it's flat and the complexity of the rebate system required. I don't really know how that works in Europe. But it does encourage saving which is good for growth and economic stability.
I think this person actually is a bot. :nervous:
Why would you think that person is a bot?
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Because he repeated arguments made earlier in the thread.
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Because he repeated arguments made earlier in the thread.
I've seen a lot of people do that. :)
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The passive aggressiveness level in this thread is OVER 9000.
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The passive aggressiveness level in this thread is OVER 9000.
Everything is fine. :) Why do you feel that way?
pft haaaa
I"m really not sure about that maybe-bot-maybe-guy, I wish he'd say something definitive - nothing in his post history is exactly a giveaway except maybe his last. There's clearly some human posts in there, but it could just be a human-assisted launch.
I'm suffering Turing anxiety!
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I'm suffering Turing anxiety!
If so this could be a major milestone in the development of artificial intelligence.
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The passive aggressiveness level in this thread is OVER 9000.
I wasn't talking about General Battuta. I didn't say "I've seen a lot of people do that in this thread".
Our discussions earlier weren't as hot as everyone seems to think they were. I was calm the entire time - I looked at it as a discussion, not some sort of "flame war".
The lack of tone on the internet can work against conversations sometimes. People read each other's posts in their own head and so tend to assign whatever feelings they may have to a writing's tone. :)
As for the Turing test; how does it account for someone refusing to take the test because they disagree with it? Person or other entity - what if one or both refuse to take or "pass" the test?
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The fact that people on Hard Light think you're a nut doesn't mean you'll always be considered a nut. Learn how to present your ideas and you'll find an audience and respect. You just want to avoid people tuning you out before you even begin.
Wait a minute...
:nervous:
You know this might just apply to you as well, General Batutta?
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Except Battuta is VERY VERY GOOD at presenting his ideas.
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Fair point. He is not always that good with those of others, though.
(I shall rest now).
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It's like a RTS game - build what's cheap, build what works, build lots of it, and fight on a budget. All gamers know this, and all entrepreneurs could make this work.
Well the cheap units die all the time, something acceptable in games, but not in reality.
Also- private contractors seem to cost a bit more than regular soldiers.
Other than that- I think there were a few cases when lowering taxes raised the amount of tax money a government collected, but I'm too lazy to check who, when and where, and spending must be cut big time.
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Russia gained revenue from cutting taxes in the late 90s due to increased compliance. Is that what you mean?
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Also- private contractors seem to cost a bit more than regular soldiers.
Only if you count in dollar values. I.e. a regular soldier is meant to be a symbol of a country, so when they are somewhere, the country is in some way there too.
Mercenaries only cost what they charge. There's at least a strange honor in that, in a mercenary who chooses to have honor.
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Also- private contractors seem to cost a bit more than regular soldiers.
Only if you count in dollar values. I.e. a regular soldier is meant to be a symbol of a country, so when they are somewhere, the country is in some way there too.
Mercenaries only cost what they charge. There's at least a strange honor in that, in a mercenary who chooses to have honor.
Mercenaries are looking to make a profit. Regular soldiers do not.
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Most of the mercs I've known operate under the same "honor" they had in the service, but as soon as I carefully remind them that they kill for money, they get a little irritated.