OT: US is a Weird Place to Live

Krw (Kevin?) I guess we're done here. (We'll stick to electronics.) I had this idea that we'd agree on at least 1/2 the tax things. But (to me) it seems like you just want to paint me with your lefty brush, which then allows you to change what I'm saying to fit your image of me. So be it.

George H.

Keith

When you want to do nothing more than transfer money from those who produce to those who don't, no, we have nothing in common.

You *admit* to being a lefty and, not so amazingly, you are! Read what you write sometime, then tell me that you aren't a socialist.

Keith, Sorry.

GH

That's pretty good, thanks George.

"The primary purpose of the tax system is to provide the government with revenue. That revenue should be raised in the least distortive way possible, meaning the tax system should affect the behavior of businesses and households as little as possible."

Yep.

Cheers, James Arthur

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a semi automatic shotgun, you could not have a semi automatic pistol.

two classifications of skeet, and the same for shotguns for trap. I am n ot up on pistol target shooting, but am pretty sure that .22 is one classif ication. And there may be one for 9 mm pistol and another for .45 caliber pistols. And of course there are .22 rim fire semi automatic rifles for pli nking, and then there are center fire automatic rifles for deer, elk and mo ose.

ne person has. And it makes no sense to allow mentally ill people to have one gun, regardless of whether it is semi automatic or a black powder gun.

During the L.A. riots, handfuls of Korean storekeepers with long guns and sidearms held off armed mobs that had burned and looted nearby areas. They fired hundreds of warning shots, scaring off attackers. Only a few shots were fired 'in anger,' at actual targets.

As a result, loss of property & life was minimal--Koreatown survived.

Could they have faced off mobs with six-shot 'progressive' magazines, out-numbered 20-to-1? Nope. They'd be dead.

You can find similar stories from Houston all over YouTube, less than a month old.

Here's a good example, full of local sentiment utterly alien to the know-it-alls:

So that's a second example of the right to bear arms preserving the peace and ensuring stability in a time of trouble, right there...

Cheers, James Arthur

If you tax people who have jobs, but not tax businesses that create jobs, more people will have salaries to pay taxes.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Events like the LA riots happen a few times in a century. People are better off leaving an area in riots than they are remaining. They could have died or killed someone. The "someone" could have deserved it or not. That's not justice and people are often tried and convicted for taking the law into their own hands. A jewelry merchant in DC followed a thief back to his car where he shot and killed him. He was tried for murder because he life was no longer in danger after the thief left the shop. At that point the victim became the perpetrator and went go jail. Rightly so. Material goods are not more valuable than a life... unless you live in a few states that allow such killings (or maybe they are just thinking about it, not sure any have passed).

So your story is that the very few justifiable uses of guns which might save a relatively small number of lives (although your example was actually about property, not lives) is worth the increasing numbers of innocents killed in massively senseless slayings such as the Las Vegas shooting?

The problem isn't getting better, its getting worse even though more people have guns in the US. Hmmm... can anyone think of what might be causing that?

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

John Larkin wrote on 10/5/2017 7:38 PM:

People are already taxed. Here is the breakdown.

Roughly 80 percent comes from the individual income tax and the payroll taxes that fund social insurance programs (figure 1). Another 9 percent comes from the corporate income tax, and the rest is from a mix of sources.

So you want to increase the tax on individuals to save those who own businesses from paying taxes?

I'll go for that if corporations no longer have the right to donate or spend money in elections.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

Socialists transfer money from those who produce to those who don't (like the army and the police) in order to achieve specific targets - keeping them sufficiently well fed to absorb an education does come to mind.

Only krw could be so tunnel-visioned as to imagine that the transfer of money was the only point of the exercise.

Krw thinks than anybody who doesn't share his narrow and unrealistic right-wing view of the world is a socialist.

Since he rejects taxing people to pay for the army, the police and the justice system - "transfer money from those who produce to those who don't" - he's a little further to right than any sane person could be.

Even James Arthur admits that paying taxes to pay for defence and law and order is okay, though he does tend to express himself as simple-mindedly as krw and has to be reminded of his core beliefs from time to time.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Den fredag den 6. oktober 2017 kl. 01.39.05 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:

I suspect big multinational companies (with lobbying power) don't mind USAs high corporate tax rate, they just move the money around the world until they have a rate they are happy with

afaict the corporate tax rate in Denmark which it otherwise have very high taxes is only half that of the US

Nothing to be sorry about.

Bingo! We have a winner. Meanwhile that money stays where it won't do the US one bit of good.

Right. Only small businesses, the ones that create domestic jobs, pay the full rates. Fed tax, State tax, FICA, workmen's comp, unemployment insurance, health care, property tax, equipment tax, various other fees. The incremental cost of employing people is huge.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

But not high enough to stop you from doing it.

80% of new start-up fail in the first five years. It might be argued that the barriers to starting up a new company should be higher - to discourage egomaniacs with an unrealistic idea of their own expertise from going into business in the first place.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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But there is one book (with very suspect statistics) that claims more guns = safer environment! Must be true, it was printed in a book and sold on Amazon! Books and authors don't lie to serve their own ends. Righ t?

By the same logic what about nuclear proliferation, everyone on the planet should have as many nukes as they need for deterrence. I am sure there would never be any problems as everyone would have one, therefore no one would ever use the bomb.

Oh, wait, wasn't that part of the concern for right-wingers (and lefties

come to think of it) of North Korea having a bomb and a delivery system?

How is it right for the US and Russia to have 10,000s of bombs but no one else (well, the UK and France and Israel... each have under 400 bombs)? The right to bare/bear arms should be universal, eh? Makes as much sense as everyone should have concealed weapons.

(ducking)

John

It seemed OK to me. I moved back to a state with high taxes. I don't see why that should give me a tax break. But let's phase out the other right-off's too. IMO we don't need to encourage more borrowing. And I don't buy the 'double' taxation on interest/ dividend income. You don't get taxed again on the principle, just the money you make with your investment. Anyway, I think you (the right) need to convince some of the left to go along... well, or some of the middle.

George H.

. And I don't buy the 'double' taxation on interest/ dividend

The argument on double taxation on dividends is that the company paid taxes on the profits it made. So when it uses some of those profits to pay divi dends , the money has been taxed once already. When someone gets dividends , they have to pay takes on the dividends received. So that is the secon d time the money is taxed. You do not pay taxes on the principle. But the company gets taxed on the profit it makes and you get taxed when you rece ive some of companies profits.

If the corporate income tax is lowered, then the companies can pay higher d ividends and the stock owners will pay more in taxes.

Dan

es on the profits it made. So when it uses some of those profits to pay di vidends , the money has been taxed once already. When someone gets dividen ds , they have to pay takes on the dividends received. So that is the sec ond time the money is taxed. You do not pay taxes on the principle. But t he company gets taxed on the profit it makes and you get taxed when you re ceive some of companies profits.

dividends and the stock owners will pay more in taxes.

Australia has a neat trick called imputed tax. If your dividends are taxed

- "franked" - the tax paid on them is imputed to you, and comes off the inc ome tax you have to pay.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

A friend showed me his dad's tax return, from the 1950's IIRC. It was *literally* on one side of a postcard.

How much did you make? ____ Multiply by x% ____

Send check to xxxxxx.

Instructions were on the back.

Just making taxes THAT simple again would free up millions of man-hours, billions of dollars, and untold creative energy that is all currently WASTED on preparing taxes and gaming the system.

If the interest rate is lower than inflation, they *are* taking your principle.

That situation is worse when it comes to capital gains. If you buy a house and it goes up exactly at the inflation rate for 40 years, then you sell it, you owe a large tax on the 'gain,' but the inflation-adjusted result is a huge loss. (Not to mention all the taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance you incurred all those years.)

If you buy a factory, and spend all the money to operate, maintain and improve it for decades, lose money after counting inflation, and yet owe a huge tax bill when you sell, it makes even less and less sense to bother starting a business. Which is another reason businesses go away, overseas.

I'd think everyone could agree on something that was a lot simpler while collecting the same revenue, and that would be a big boost to the economy.

Hopefully we can at least get that.

Cheers, James Arthur