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[greenkoolayd]

how will taxes be able to be cut if they will be paying for the upcoming healthcare reform?

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, I'm no economist, but I tend to think folks with a lot of money will plow it into business and create jobs if there is money to be made.  That's why so many of the big banks took their bailout money and kinda sat on it:  because they were paranoid about the environment and not sure they could make money with it.

If you tax people SO MUCH that they have no money left over to invest, well, that's not good.  But for people who are obscenely wealthy (of course, your definition of this may vary), I don't see such people saying "Well I COULD put this spare million into adding production to my factory, as there is sufficient demand for our product, but I'm so pissed about the other $100K I paid in taxes this year that I'm just going to take a bath in it like Scrooge McDuck."

[theinevitable]

My rich-guy dad agrees with LFM.

Weird.

His line is basically "there is nothing that I want that I can't afford, except things that are big enough that a tax return is not going to make a difference."

The other thing I have recently learned from my dad is, don't wait until you are retired to buy the car you've always wanted. You are a lot more likely to have some shitty reason you can't drive it by then (in his case, an increasingly bad back.)

I have basically given up at having opinions/knowledge of economics. It is my Evolutionary Biology.

[littlefallsmets]

The question becomes, ultimately, where you see the function of American government to lie.

If you see the main function of government as being the protection of the privileges of the privileged class because you either (a.) are of the privileged class, (b.) mistakenly believe you're part of the privileged class, (c.) believe that you are going to join the privileged class or (d.) believe your children will join it, then... sure... you should probably support taxes that support that structure.

As long as you're being honest about it.

If you see the main function of the government as being... anything other than placating the people who have wealth (not just prosperity, mind you, but WEALTH) then... well, we gotta have another discussion.

Honestly, if the super rich don't wanna be active partici##### in this shared society commiserate to the fruits they've reaped from it, they CAN get the fuck out. They already shelter most of their holdings quasi-legally out of country anyway, with corrupt multinational corporations and bookkeeping tricks to begin with.

They can leave, abandon their businesses and allow them to be rebuilt or replaced by small businesswomen and men who would be happy for the opportunity to crawl out from under their semi-monopolies at the cost of paying a fairer share in taxes. The kind of actual patriotism that Fox News would never mention.

It astonishes me the extent of the Stockholm Syndrome required to say "America, love it or leave it!" to immigrants showing token affection to their motherlands or to people who don't believe in war and yet no one yells it at wealthy tax dodgers. The extent to which this culture has an undercurrent of "Don't knock down the people this system is rigged for because WHO KNOWS you could be next!" it... I'm not surprised that it exists, I guess I'm just surprised the extent to which is accepted without question or comment.

[Arachno-capitalist]

You need to read Atlas Shrugged so bad it hurts. Look dude, you don't want to live in a country where the best and brightest are actively encouraged to leave the country. "Hey youre a really effective leader and manager of resources, you should get the fuck out of my society" Who in their right mind comes up with that kind of BS? And where do you get this idea that somehow government is competent at doing anything? There has never been and never will be a government capable of perpetually sucking up resources and then distributing them back out so that we all end up even. In America we believe everyone has the right to start off on equal footing and what you do from there is on you, not your neighbor. If you don't like how we've arrived as the greatest nation on the face of the earth, you sir, are free to vote with your feet and move to one of these socialist paradise countries you dream of. I hear France has something like that, but you know, things arent going so swell for them over there. Or hell, go balls out and move to North Korea where private industry and money and investors and private property are all eliminated, surely you would enjoy such a place that lacks all of these capitalist vultures gouging the middle class.

And there you have it, you successfully trolled me, but this is the end of our sloppy makeout session.

[littlefallsmets]

I've skimmed Atlas Shrugged.

It was the heartless savage ravings of a woman's batshit obsession with the fact that the commies wrecked up her dad's career and so she didn't get to live out an easy life as a pretty pretty princess.

And its tendency to lapse into shambling rambly rants made me look like Dr. Terse Tersington, PhT. (The T stands for Terse.)

I gave up on it faster than "Lord of The Rings" which was my previous standard for impenetrability.

Plus, it was a novel, it did not actually happen. This is an important thing to keep in mind.

The people we're talking about AREN'T effective leaders or managers. They're effective solely at skimming off the top, finding loopholes to protect their bread and give as little back to society at large for their grotesque earnings as their public relations managers and lobbyists can allow them to get away with. Have you... watched the news in the last five years? Or read... any history books?

And the lack of actual equal footing is what we're talking about, man. I'm no socialist, I'm pro-business that's small enough and regulated enough to not slouch toward monopoly.

If you're happy with the illusory vision of "equal footing" because you feel you can game it, you think you have the tools to get into the rigged end of the game... and from your talk, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders... I totally understand why you believe this is the best system for your personal sense of your needs.

But again, all I ask is honesty about it.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Yeah ok whatever I dont have time for this. I'm right, and you're a person who is wrong on the internet. I'm sure you're a perfectly fine person, but the days of these kinds of conversations on the internet are behind me.

[littlefallsmets]

Fair enough.

Other than our disagreements on this set of subjects, you are certainly a rad dude who I'd gladly buy a beer for were I in the same bar.

I'm just sayin', this is my position on these things. Inserting them into this discourse seemed a useful counterpoint s'all.

[AugustWest]

You need to read Atlas Shrugged so bad it hurts. Look dude, you don't want to live in a country where the best and brightest are actively encouraged to leave the country. "Hey youre a really effective leader and manager of resources, you should get the fuck out of my society" Who in their right mind comes up with that kind of BS? And where do you get this idea that somehow government is competent at doing anything? There has never been and never will be a government capable of perpetually sucking up resources and then distributing them back out so that we all end up even. In America we believe everyone has the right to start off on equal footing and what you do from there is on you, not your neighbor. If you don't like how we've arrived as the greatest nation on the face of the earth, you sir, are free to vote with your feet and move to one of these socialist paradise countries you dream of. I hear France has something like that, but you know, things arent going so swell for them over there. Or hell, go balls out and move to North Korea where private industry and money and investors and private property are all eliminated, surely you would enjoy such a place that lacks all of these capitalist vultures gouging the middle class.

Because it has to be all or nothing.  A governmental system must be completely anarcho-libertarian-capitalist or deeply red communist.  There's no possible way we could use a blend of systems to create a better result, because everything must be explained by one single ideology.

Ayn Rand was a fuck*ng lousy novelist and a worse philosopher.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Eh, we agree. The thing is, in this system you have to take some wildly extreme ideology to pull the median in any direction. So people walk around talking about socialism or libertarianism and the end result is a blend of the best of both. Like at work I have to put absurd timetables on the board in hopes of reaching the realistic one. Like if you tell a group of people to meet at 10am, they will all show up at 10:15, but if you say 'meet me here at 9:30' then everyone is assembled by 10. If we were are all reasonable and efficient people, this kind of psychological gamesmanship wouldn't be necessary.

[Doc]

AW gets a reasonable can for a reasonable man.

If you don't like how we've arrived as the greatest nation on the face of the earth, you sir, are free to vote with your feet and move to one of these socialist paradise countries you dream of. I hear France has something like that, but you know, things arent going so swell for them over there. Or hell, go balls out and move to North Korea where private industry and money and investors and private property are all eliminated, surely you would enjoy such a place that lacks all of these capitalist vultures gouging the middle class.

Dude, when you're talking about arriving at being the greatest nation or earth are you ignoring the periods when the highest income tax bracket was over 80%? It hasn't all been one way or the other as far as I can tell and the love it or leave it argument is pretty weak to my mind. Apart from anything else plenty of the Nordic countries are socialist as all get out and do consistently well by most measures of quality of life. Conversely I can't think of any countries of any consequence that I'd describe as embodying pure free-market capitalism. But then that's your area of expertise so I could be wrong.

Edit: Awww I write all this and then you go and make a completely reasonable point.

[AugustWest]

Wait a minute, wasn't I already through that territory on page 1? I mean, with less smarm?

Smarm?  Moi!?  Never.

[theinevitable]

now I want to come up with a word for that thing Ash has that isn't smarm. It definitely isn't smarm, it is like a more aggressive form. mutated by internet radiation.

Now I am looking up the dictionary definition of smarm/smarmy, and feeling like this definition is not the same thing I use it to mean.

[Victoria Waterfield]

OK, yeah, I see how it is. All gaming the system in favour of the can-vantaged.

I got my eyes on youse guys.

If you give more cans to those who already have cans, they'll feel more generous and start giving more cans to those without cans. That's just basic economics.

[AugustWest]

If you give more cans to those who already have cans, they'll feel more generous and start giving more cans to those without cans. That's just basic economics.

Can.