OT: Tax the rich???

ONLY IF YOU GET BRAIN LOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Rich

On May 16, 7:59=A0pm, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote: > One year I paid 39% federal, 11% California, 14%(?) self-employment > tax, and a few others. =A0It was because I made something really cool > that created a lot of jobs. =A0I'm careful not to do that any more. >

Sloman got on me because I pointed out the totality of the tax burden and I'm sure I left a lot of things out. What got me was his implication that the federal tax rate wasn't enough but that's only the biggest chunk out of a LOT of taxes. He seems proud of the high tax rates in Europe. It doesn't strike me a a target to shoot for.

I wish I had the money to conduct this experiment. I believe you cannot ever achieve redistribution because some folks are better at it than others. Take 1000 people in a room and give them each $1000. At the end of the day find out where the money ended up. I think a good chunk will walk out with little to nothing and a few with a whole lot of bucks.

Let me make my own way. I won't be Trump but I won't be 'poor' either.

G=B2

You certainly don't when you Sit-N-Spew®

Go Sit-N-Spew® your horseshit, and your horseshit attitude elsewhere.

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I have more respect for private school teachers. They get a lower salary, but probably more reward teaching students that want to learn. They don't have the problems of gangs, drugs, guns, teaching political correctness, why Heather has two mommies, or Joey has two daddies, or other stupid stuff. They just teach the basic reading, writing, math, and history.

I heard a 15 year old caller to a radio show who was home schooled, and she knew more about American history than I did. But I don't know much.

-Bill

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Sure, I get it. Add mine up -- more than 64%. Never bother that I worked 90-hour weeks for free, gave up friends and family, and took a big chance at getting nothing. I got six year's pay at the end of six year's work, which made me 'rich'.

He thinks wealth is some infinite golden fountain of other people's money to tap, that companies are hoarding The People's money, and that you can take that without actually taking it from the consumers, who ultimately pay the cost.

(What does the grocer or the gas station owner do if he has to pay more in cost? Raises his prices.)

Bill believes in something-for-nothing, perpetual energy; that rearranging things--with losses--makes more. You know, that permanent overspending by a factor of 1.76 to get a transient 5% boost in economic output is a bargain.

Amen. Money is just something you trade for stuff. I use hardly any, personally, nor do I want.

"Economy is the art of getting the most out of life." --G.B. Shaw (who, ironically, was a socialist.)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

20 years from now, when your job has been shipped over to India or China, you won't have a dime to tax, Rich. But you'll probably still be blaming it on the liberals, because that's just how stupid you are.

HAH? See how you feel about taxing the rich when you're starving and they're eating caviar and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it because the few of their life-guard slaves who are still eating at all think it's because the rich, thankfully, don't have to pay taxes - if they did, they couldn't afford to feed their slaves.

And then steal a gun somewhere so you can go off in a corner and shoot yourself, Rich. The world, what's left of it, will applaud.

Welcome to the future you're creating with your blind stupidity, Rich.

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Irony is scarcely Newspeak. It's a literary form that goes back to classical times.

No one ever said that the US education system encouraged clear thinking or the precise use of words.

Sure. You exemplify it all too well.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Having krw talk about "educating" anybody is richly comic. He knows very little - and most of what he knows is wrong - but he's happy to talk about "educating" people into sharing his delusions. He probably wants his political oponents to be sent to "re-education camps".

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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He's happily resistant to absorbing the group-think that Larkin uncritically soaks up when he reads his right-wing newpapers.

As John reminds us whenever he recycles the Exxon-Mobil denialist propaganda that he's picked and absorbed - without actually thinking about it - in the course of his mindless reading.

Rabid redistributionists would vote for the Dutch Socialist Party, who are rather too left-wing for my taste, but John Larkin is insensitive to fine distinctions in politcal affiliation - you are either a rabid right-winger (like him) or a rabid redistributionist.

Of course John Larkin doesn't see himself as right-wing. He doesn't waste time actually thinking about political questions, but uncritically absorbs them from the right-wing press, and thus sees them as normal and middle-of-the-road, in so far as he sees them at all - since they aren't electronics and thus not important.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Sure. And there really is a Santa Claus.

But you still manage to churn out Exxon-Mobil inspired propaganda whenver the subject of anthropogenic global warming comes up. It's just a coincidence that your pathetic delusions on the subject are exactly those that Exxon-Mobil has spent a lot of money propagating?

Then you'd better start hating the fossil carbon extrction industry which is well on the way to killing off quite a few of your descendants (whom you presumably also care about).

In order to preserve your sense of self-worth you do seem to need to reject the message that I'm sending you.

Odd that you - of all people - should say that. Your emotional life does seem to be dominated by your vanity, and your vanity does seem to make it impossible for you to realise that you have committed youself to endorsing a bunch of irrational opinions.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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I doubt that even Jame Arthur is stupid enough to think that I think anything of the sort. What he is really saying is that I take Keynesian economics seriously, like most professional economists, and he doesn't.

Since he won't - and thus can't - see the point of running a budget deficit to support pump-priming expenditures, he feels free to ascribe other motives to people who can see the point of this activity, and suggest that anybody who doesn't share his fatuous economic delusions suffers from equally fatuous delusions of a different nature.

Sadly for this argument, the fact that James Arthur is an economic twit doesn't mean that the rest of the world is insane, as e seems to want to believe.

The whole point of deficit-financed spending in a recession is to get the economy out of recession, at which point pump-priming expenditure would become inflationary and are stopped. The deficit spending is - by definition - transient rather than permanent.

Since James Arthur won't - and can't believe in the justiifcation - he isn't aware that the over-spending isn't permanent.

No socialist thinks any different. But socialist also happen to think that letting the kids of poor people go hungry isn't a good idea, because under-fed kids don't benefit as much as they might from education, and grow up to be less productive workers than they might be. Socialists believe in sufficient redistribution to keep the poor healthy and productive, rather than total redistribution in which everybody shares totally equally.

There was time when they seemed to believe "from each according to their abilities, from each - only - according to their needs" but that "only" has long since been dropped. More productive people are welcome to retain a substantial proportion of what they produce/earn.

Lucky you.

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Except perhaps that you'd prefer to keep your study warmer than 45F in winter. Typing in gloves must be a pain.

A prominent and effective member of the Fabian Society, whose example and influence has made Western Europe what it is today - you've now got to pay $1.43 for a euro.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Sloman got on me because I pointed out the totality of the tax burden and I'm sure I left a lot of things out. What got me was his implication that the federal tax rate wasn't enough but that's only the biggest chunk out of a LOT of taxes. He seems proud of the high tax rates in Europe. It doesn't strike me a a target to shoot for.

I wish I had the money to conduct this experiment. I believe you cannot ever achieve redistribution because some folks are better at it than others. Take 1000 people in a room and give them each $1000. At the end of the day find out where the money ended up. I think a good chunk will walk out with little to nothing and a few with a whole lot of bucks.

Let me make my own way. I won't be Trump but I won't be 'poor' either.

G²

Hi G², Your experiment was implemented here on the Gulf Coast with BP money. Bp was passing out money to people that didn't deserve it (lot's of fraud) My wife and I have a small business that is open 10hrs a day , 7 days a week. I watched to many people that earn very little money get big checks. I was p***** and one day my wife said "relax, in a short time they will be just as poor as they were before they got the money" Yep, I see many that had new motorcycles and trucks are now are without vehicles. Some of the smarter ones put the money into their boats for the next season, others put the money into drugs that went up there nose. Some are saving it for retirement. Many didn't save enough to pay the taxes, so now they have new problems. The joke around here is, vehicle dealers and plastic surgeons did well, (a lot of waitresses got boob jobs with their BP money). Would you say that money was an investment? :-)

There is something about the mindset of a portion of society that needs to be changed. They don't think about taking care of tomorrow, no thought about not living paycheck to paycheck, or no thought about getting off taxpayer assistance. My wife's family immigrated to the US and I watched as they lived very frugally, saved and invested in building businesses. They are all doing well above average financially. They did this with poor English skills. I may not have done as well if not for my wife and adopting her mindset. The first year we were married (1981) we grossed $18,000 and saved $6,000. From then on it was can do attitude. Mikek

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We could call you a classic "useful idiot"... if you were useful.

John

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Probably not a coincidence. Exxon is a major provider of the energy and chemicals that make our civilization possible. I am a minor provider of things that make our civilization possible, like laser controllers for making ICs, and NMR gear for drug and chemical research, and stuff for testing jet engines. Exxon makes stuff, we make stuff, so we might have a common perspective.

You are a useless fatheaded humorless drone, and make nothing, and your theories are untested by any sort of expectation of results. You whine about CO2 but will do nothing to reduce your own personal carbon profile.

Yup, I'll side with Exxon any day. Their square-mile refinery in Baton Rouge is one of the wonders of civilization. Their gasoline is always available and always 100% reliable, an incredibly complex product, made at 5% profit margin, of superlative quality.

What have you made lately?

John

We'd be more impressed if you actually ever produced anything.

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Why should companies make jobs here? If we make it super expensive and super difficult (full of paperwork and lawsuits), why wouldn't they just leave?

Guess what--they do.

That opens a great vacuum for liberal business minds like yours to step in, harness all these willing workers, and make a fortune. So go ahead, the world's waiting. Make something, employ some people, then tell us how easy it is.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

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I already explained that it's a conservation experiment, and it's fun for me. I try to maximize gas mileage too. I conserve everything, recycle, compost, reuse. I've also designed a passive solar-thermal house heater--that saves a bit too.

You don't conserve, you've said that. Someone has to make up for your excess.

If you care to scan back, you'll see I keep my office between 60 and

65F or so in the winter. As much as you delight believing I'm cold and too poor to afford heat--which is a particularly cruel thing to wish on anyone--you're wrong. Again.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

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I've designed stuff that went into production, and designed in stuff that kept products in production. All this is in the past, but I can't see any obvious reason why I couldn't do it again, if I got half a chance.

You wouldn't be impressed - the only things that impress you are the miracles wrought by John Larkin and his trusty minions at Highland Technology - but more impartial observers have been receptive.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Sure. We know that you are broke and proud.

Not when the cost is out of proportion to the potential rewards.

Your economies certainly won't. At the moment, the average citizen of the US is responsible for some 20 tonnes of CO2 emission per year, and the average European for some 10 tonnes. George Monbiot figures that we need to cut back to 0.5 ton per head to keep anthropogenic global warming from wrecking our economy in the not too distant future.

The only way we can do that is to collectively abandon burning fossil carbon as an energy source - CO2 capture and sequestation would help, but it's strictly a short term solution until we can get fully moved over to sustainable energy sources, which is to say, solar power. This is going to roughly double the price of energy - in the short term - which isn't going to help the economy, but since we can't do it overnight, nobody in their right minds is suggesting that we double the price of energy overnight either.

That's not what you claimed earlier.

"My thermostat's at 42=BAF. Yours? "

in the thread "OT; Widespread Global warming" at Jan 23 2011, at 7:04 pm (UTC+01:00).

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen