What Do We Owe to Others?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
The argument is wrong, the only Fair way to tax someone is in equal proportion, either consumption or income. That is why in statistics it is called standardization because it standardizes variable based on the absolute values. the idea of taxing at a higher percentage because you make more is not fair, it is progressive, it is unfair and unequal.

[/quote]

You get one hot dog a day, as all your food. I get sixteen full meals (meat, vegetable, starch, dessert, all in generous portions) a day. Please tell me you would think it “fair” for us to each be required to share half our food. [/quote]

How about you are only taxed on what you don’t eat. Then the tax rate doesn’t matter so much.

That’s actually how it is for corporations… they’ve got a year to re-invest there profits (as I understand it anyway - there’s different types of corporations and all). That’s how you get huge corporations paying so little.

182

[quote]hlss09 wrote:

I also understand that capitalism is a very complex machine, and that there are many subtleties that I don’t understand. But how about creating some new jobs and placing more of the burden OFF the backs of the poor and ON the backs of the rich. Not an overwhelming burden that will turn the rich into the poor (that seems like communism sorta) but instead how about the rich people take a bigger hit than they are to help out their brothers? [/quote]

How about not placing burdens on anyone? Or just make it our goal to “reduce burdens”, however we can?

[quote]hlss09 wrote:

And here’s one quick idea. If you want to create more jobs, make stricter salary worker guidelines. It seems that nowadays companies are losing money, so they hire 1 guy on salary and essentially force him to work 60 hour weeks. Well, if it were stritclty enforced that no person could work over 40 hours, then these companies would HAVE to hire another person to get all their work done. It seems that companies are using the salaried worker to pick up the burden of their work needs without paying him his fair share. I think Marx talked about this a bit, and I agree with him. Create more jobs by enforcing a stricter 40 hour work week, or even reduce it to 36 hours, say. That way companies that want X amount of work done will have to hire 2 people to do the work instead of overworking one poor SOB. [/quote]

I know you already understand that capitalism is a very complex machine. I don’t know all the subtleties either, but this one I do know. Notice what you’ve said here, these are you’re own words… “It seems that nowadays companies are losing money, so they hire 1 guy blah blah blah”. If the company is already losing money and you MAKE them hire MORE people… guess what happens? …Now you get NO jobs.

But yea… I can kinda agree that it could be better to hire 2 people working 30hrs rather than 1 person working 60hrs. The only two reasons I can think of right now why they wouldn’t is if they actually need 1 guy for some reason like he has to lead a project for 60 hrs - and you couldn’t have two leaders or other situations that are similar. And the other reason that I don’t know much about is that I believe it’s much cheaper tax-wise to have less employees. This goes back to what I said before about decreasing burdens. If you want to increase employment you could quit taxing it. It really works much better than attempting to force people to do things, cuz when you try that you are more likely to only prevent them from doing what they want.

Moral of the story: Do not fuck with the free market, lest some day you look in the mirror and find that YOU have become the tyrant.

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Free market capitalism promotes people to be innovative and work hard. The ppl that work hardest and come up with the best products, ideas, etc, will be the ones who profit the most. I agree with Rand that money CAN be the root of all good, if we literally look at free market capitalism. BUT, inevitably the richest/most innovative people dig themselves a niche and establish their dominance. They then begin to exploit others and essentially rule the world. Don’t believe me? Look around. This leads to the current problem being addressed by the Occupy Movement: The 1% fucks the 99%. This is a direct result of free market capitalism.

Free Market Capitalism is a great incentive to work really hard and make strides to come up with cool new products and technology. But it inevitably leads to competition that inevitably leads to economic Darwinism that creates an upper echelon vs everybody else. So, I think that we MUST get rid of this 1% ruling everybody else. The 1% rules and creates laws/systems that benefits themselves. They typically do not care about the 99%, and use them (as Kant would say) as a means to their end. This is the crux of the problem in a nutshell. [/quote]

You just hit the nail on the head right there

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
So, I think that we MUST get rid of this 1% ruling everybody else. The 1% rules and creates laws/systems that benefits themselves. [/quote]

So you want to create laws/systems that hurt the rich and benefit the poor/middle class? You basically can’t. What you are doing here is like throwing bullets at your enemy. While they have actual guns. Its a trap - they actually fool you into begging for your own slavery. In a free market there is no 1% ruling over everybody else. There may be a 1%, but they just ain’t ruling over you.

And you have the ability to rise as high as you can in a free market. No rulers holding you down. You are only limited by your own imagination / intelligence / talent / dedication / whatever else. Then there is nothing stopping you from rising up and affecting the change you want. That beats the hell out of forcing and preventing people from what they want imo

183

SB I like what you’re saying sorta. FIrst, I understand that companies losing money can’t hire people. But I’d rather the burden be more on the corporations than on the employee. But it’s a symbiotic relationship, so that’s a tough call.

Also, I don’t think we should ‘hurt’ the rich, I just think that they should take a bit more of the economic burden than the poor. I like the current democratic idea of increasing taxes by 3% on the wealthies tax bracket (I think that’s what it is if memory serves me correctly). Nothing mind boggling, just 3%. No, that will not solve the problem, but it’s a start.

Also, get rid of frivolous spending, such as wars with countries we have no place messing around with. This country wastes SO much money that could be spent better.

For instance, just a quick rant. My school system (University of California, a public university) just approved the Dream Act. So essentially they’re giving financial aid to I believe 1,100 illegal immigrants who are NOT legal citizens. On Wednesday people are marching and protesting/walking out of classes to protest the UC’s plan to increase fees by 81% over the next 4 years. This is a microcosm for the problem in this country. Big bureaucratic institutions like to spend frivolously (don’t mean to say that helping illegal immigrants is frivoulous, but you get the point), and then place the burden of their frivolous spending on us. It’s just not fair IMO. Stop the stupid spending, cut back and make the men in charge more financially accountable, run the country without spending on things that we have no business spending on, and perhaps a 3% tax increase for the wealthiest people COULD make a significant differenct. As it is, we’d have to tax everybody their whole paycheck for 1,000,000 yrs to get out of debt lololol!!!

Goodnight

184

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
SB I like what you’re saying sorta. FIrst, I understand that companies losing money can’t hire people. But I’d rather the burden be more on the corporations than on the employee. But it’s a symbiotic relationship, so that’s a tough call. [/quote]

What burden though? Like you said, it’s a symbiotic relationship. I’m all about reducing the burden. Not transferring it. I do not have the right, somebody else earned there position/money.

This also ties into what TB was saying about the flaws of socialism. It’s not a zero sum game, and thats a huge point that you might be missing

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Also, I don’t think we should ‘hurt’ the rich, I just think that they should take a bit more of the economic burden than the poor. [/quote]

They do take a lot more of the economic burden than the poor. It is virtually impossible to become big time rich without revolutionizing the economy, and peoples lives. Think trains, cars, internet. They (the rich) create the product / system AND create jobs for people to run the systems.

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
I like the current democratic idea of increasing taxes by 3% on the wealthies tax bracket (I think that’s what it is if memory serves me correctly). Nothing mind boggling, just 3%. No, that will not solve the problem, but it’s a start. [/quote]

I don’t even think its a start. Raising taxes doesn’t actually help anyone - it only puts limitations on my fellow man. (back to the zero sum game)

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Also, get rid of frivolous spending, such as wars with countries we have no place messing around with. This country wastes SO much money that could be spent better. [/quote]

I fully agree with that. Thing is - the people earning the money (rich, poor, whatever) are MUCH more likely to spend it better than the gov’t imo

[quote]hlss09 wrote:
As it is, we’d have to tax everybody their whole paycheck for 1,000,000 yrs to get out of debt lololol!!! [/quote]

I think thats a fraud. If I didn’t consciously agree to the debt in the first place, then how can I be in debt? No need to steal from the rich to pay it back, you don’t pay for frauds, you make arrests.

Probably sounds worse than tax increases huh? But like I said, I don’t have a right to the money of the rich. I do have a right to my own money. If someone tries to fraudulently take it from me, that’s a crime. Instead of finding out who and how to tax, we should be finding out who and how to arrest… imo

185

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
You dont think people, even if they have basic necessities, will work to get things they want?[/quote]

This has already been proven to be the case, just look at our own country if you want an example.

186

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]roguevampire wrote:
I have always thought it was highly unfair for the 1% of the supremely rich to have all this money, while millions of others are barely making enough to survive. YOu have pro athletes making millions per year, all because they are a certain height and can dunk a basket ball, that entitles them to make all this money.

The money needs to be more evenly distributed among its people. Nothing wrong with having alot of money, but its not right for them to have all this money while so many others are homeless or making minimum wage. [/quote]

As much as I appreciate the insight of the very valuable posters who’ve responded thus far I was sincerely hoping for a response from Monsieur Vampire.[/quote]

But Mr. Push, he is right. I mean it is totally unfair that the biggest strongest lion gets all the power, and all the lion p-tang. I mean he should be fair and distribute this. That way we can promote bad genetics and create furture generations of loser lions who can create even further generations of these inferior lions.

Redistribution of wealth breeds laziness, de-motivates the masses and is ridiculous. Compassion and charity are a different story. But this whole socialist utopia bullshit you all are trying to pedal is assinine.

RV go back in your hole you animal killing, peta supporting hypocrit POS.[/quote]

Even other male lions in the pride, while not head lion, they still get to eat, and their lives are just as good as the leader. he may not get all the females, but im sure he gets some. There is no way there should be billionaires and homeless people in the same country. That is insane.

187

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

I’m sorry, I worded that last post badly. It should say “then yes, providing fire service to everyone through taxation would remedy an inequality (caused by an inequality in wealth) among citizens.”[/quote]

But fire protection doesn’t have a policy mission of reducing the perceived income/wealth inequality. Nor does military protection. Or provision of the judiciary. Or the provision of a public post office. Or setting aside national parks.

By your rationale, every public program would be the fruit of “socialism” in one form or another. That can’t possibly be true. “Socialism” and socialist-type policies are mission-specific.

This is precisely the rhetorical dodge I mentioned earlier. Socialist-oriented types insist that all public programs are essentially of the same category, and therefore they argue for the nationalization of banks or health care as just an extension of a service like having firefighters and post offices. But it has always been a failure of an argument, because it’s apples and oranges, and always has been - unless you think Thomas Jefferson, for example, was always a closet socialist.

Socialism features mission-specific policy designed to achieve equality of material result, basically understood. Not every government program is designed with this policy in mind. Just because something is in “the public interest” does not mean it is a child of “socialism”.

188

The 1% fucking the 99%… is nothing new. Lets look at the egyptians enslaving the jews, the romans enslaving the christians, shit they didnt even get PAID! Or how about World War 1? Hmm, rampant 1%'er ism among warring nations controlled by decaying monarchies/corporatists institutions fucking millions and millions of people by making them die for nothing.

I am not saying the current situation is not an unfavorable balance of power, but there never was one in the first place. The lines have just dimmed from geographic to geo-financial.

The free market-socialism thing has been done on here many times, but since the “fair share for society” is brought up. What is the fair share? A great deal of wealthy people provide services, innovations and other things that consumers, mostly the 99% WANT. Furthermore, they dont need, nor use public services that are often paid for by taxes. Does bill gates use food stamps? Does he ride the subway? Maybe take a bus through the inner city? Does bill gates really need the police, or could he subcontract a private military contractor firm if he wants? So how does he benefit from these?

The taxation redistribution system is designed to pick winners and losers, divide people, and eradicate responsibility, all while increasing the power and wealth of those bookies (read: Politicians) who make the rules. Otherwise why would multi million dollar lawyers go and become politicians…for the greater good right?

So while people are busy shouting over each others heads about “socialism!” “birth certificates” “capitalism” “tea party” , these cats are laughing all the way to the bank and getting your vote in the process.

Take away the bookies and make people responsible for their own lives…and you will see a paradigm shift. trust me.

189

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]hlss09 wrote:

@ Thunder: My GSI is very smart. Bottom line. You may not agree with him, but he just is.[/quote]

I didn’t say he wasn’t smart. I just said that from your description, he doesn’t sound well-versed in the subjects you noted.

Who is attacking anyone? What “intellectual high horse” are you talking about?

I have grave concerns about the health (and existence) of the middle class and I have ideas on how to resurrect and strengthen it. Emulating the European “socialist” model - which is disintegrating in real-time before our eyes - however, isn’t the answer.

As for worries about “winning” arguments - an important part of discourse is to have the honesty to call bad ideas bad ideas. That isn’t a bad thing, and you can’t have a meaningful discussion without it.[/quote]

The problem with Greece is precisely the sorts of wealth redistribution you all are talking about. PASOK (the socialists who have been in power for decades) set up a system which has nearly killed the country with entitlements to government workers. Their plan was to have the government expand until eventually everyone worked for it. This was to be their smooth transition to socialism. No muss, no fuss and everyone stays employed.

Problem is that (and this, in a nutshell is why socialism doesn’t work) is that redistribution ignores production. Someone has to grow food. Socialist countries get large bureaucracies to manage things but completely derail production and skew it. Thin Ethiopia if you want a recent example of a socailist country that tried agricultural reform. Famine pretty much always follows pure socialism as an historical fact (again of the 170 million people killed outright by their own governments in the last century, 90% have been buy left-wing governments truly commit to social justice programs). The lack of food parallels the lack of everything else.

If you think that you will come up with a workable form of it, this is not borne out in any way by an empirical look at history. Every such country from the Bolsheviks to the Nazis (and if you think they weren’t socialists you are too politically ignorant to be talking about this topic) to the North Koreans follows the same dreary pattern of turning into a police state, killing off huge numbers of their citizens, famines and simply horrific living conditions.

Want a parallel? let’s say I have a theory that all mankind’s ills will be solved if we could fly. Then we wouldn’t need borders or countries, people could go where there is food so there would never be famine and everyone would be more in touch with Nature. Now I start convincing people to jump off the roof. Of course, people don’t seem to want to do this, but we all agree it would be great if true. What’s more, I get elected and set up programs to throw people off roofs with special emphasis on minorities and the handicapped. Anyone who says this might be a bad idea fails to absorb the full utopian scope of my claim, so they are obviously enemies of the people. Since you never know who will come up with this (so many people seem to, so it can’t be that they all have the same idea – there must be a conspiracy), the police should get involved. Perhaps if we just put them in re-education camps they might think differently. This is socialism in a nutshell… (I have outlined several famous historical arguments in my whimsical example, by the way. At least a one due to Lenin and Stalin each. Apply it to economics, not flight though.)

And as always, I might just be full of shit…

– jj

190

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

Even other male lions in the pride, while not head lion, they still get to eat, and their lives are just as good as the leader. he may not get all the females, but im sure he gets some. There is no way there should be billionaires and homeless people in the same country. That is insane.
[/quote]

Yes there is, if people refuse to help themselves that is not the billionaires fault.

There are some people that will not stand on their own no matter how much opportunity you give them. You cannot steal from one group to give to these people just because they refuse to do it for themselves. I am not saying all are like that. But that is why it should voluntary not forced by the government.

191

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]roguevampire wrote:
I have always thought it was highly unfair for the 1% of the supremely rich to have all this money, while millions of others are barely making enough to survive. YOu have pro athletes making millions per year, all because they are a certain height and can dunk a basket ball, that entitles them to make all this money.

The money needs to be more evenly distributed among its people. Nothing wrong with having alot of money, but its not right for them to have all this money while so many others are homeless or making minimum wage. [/quote]

As much as I appreciate the insight of the very valuable posters who’ve responded thus far I was sincerely hoping for a response from Monsieur Vampire.[/quote]

But Mr. Push, he is right. I mean it is totally unfair that the biggest strongest lion gets all the power, and all the lion p-tang. I mean he should be fair and distribute this. That way we can promote bad genetics and create furture generations of loser lions who can create even further generations of these inferior lions.

Redistribution of wealth breeds laziness, de-motivates the masses and is ridiculous. Compassion and charity are a different story. But this whole socialist utopia bullshit you all are trying to pedal is assinine.

RV go back in your hole you animal killing, peta supporting hypocrit POS.[/quote]

Even other male lions in the pride, while not head lion, they still get to eat, and their lives are just as good as the leader. he may not get all the females, but im sure he gets some. There is no way there should be billionaires and homeless people in the same country. That is insane.
[/quote]

You you do not know an awful lot about lions, right?

What other make lions?

192

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

Even other male lions in the pride, while not head lion, they still get to eat, and their lives are just as good as the leader. he may not get all the females, but im sure he gets some. There is no way there should be billionaires and homeless people in the same country. That is insane.
[/quote]

Yes there is, if people refuse to help themselves that is not the billionaires fault.

There are some people that will not stand on their own no matter how much opportunity you give them. You cannot steal from one group to give to these people just because they refuse to do it for themselves. I am not saying all are like that. But that is why it should voluntary not forced by the government.[/quote]

How about people that have it well off their whole lives, but say the husband loses his job and money in the stock market and now finds him and his family homeless. thats not right. these are the people that need help to get their house back and their money.

What do you think is going to happen, when families now find themselves homeless. Don’t you think they are going to get desparate and the crime rate will soar.

193

This

194

Or this

195

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

Even other male lions in the pride, while not head lion, they still get to eat, and their lives are just as good as the leader. he may not get all the females, but im sure he gets some. There is no way there should be billionaires and homeless people in the same country. That is insane.
[/quote]

Yes there is, if people refuse to help themselves that is not the billionaires fault.

There are some people that will not stand on their own no matter how much opportunity you give them. You cannot steal from one group to give to these people just because they refuse to do it for themselves. I am not saying all are like that. But that is why it should voluntary not forced by the government.[/quote]

How about people that have it well off their whole lives, but say the husband loses his job and money in the stock market and now finds him and his family homeless. thats not right. these are the people that need help to get their house back and their money.

What do you think is going to happen, when families now find themselves homeless. Don’t you think they are going to get desparate and the crime rate will soar. [/quote]

While bad things can happen to good people, most of the homeless people I know are that way by choice and quite smug that they are better than you for it.

Poverty does not create crime. This is one of those urban myths that is used to justify all sorts of social programs. Try it this way, do you really think everyone living in rural Peru has to be a criminal because of their dire poverty? Are you because you are poorer than Warren Buffet? In this society there is no such thing as poverty but relative in-affluence. Mostly “poor” people are highly dysfunctional and simply cannot organize their lives. Subsidizing them to stay that way is the real crime.

Case study? My ex wife who is virtually destitute. She and her boyfriend go to various churches in the area for food regularly. She’ll probably lose her home soon too. So sad, isn’t it? Or is it? How did this happen? When we divorced I bought her a house. I also agreed to pay her the maximum by law (24% of my income, before taxes). She still gets the money and I know her total base operating expenses are just a couple hundred dollars a month. She smokes pot all the time, which is expensive, her boyfriend is an idiot with money and she has refused to get a job, giving mostly arguments about fighting “the system” from her anarchist brother. Oh she got a good education with good grades and has worked before professionally but found it “hard” – you know, showing up regularly and on time is oppression. Damnit, I am bleeding money still every month to her and she is still fucking it up. This is a more common occurrence than what you imagine. What makes you think she’ll be any better getting any more than what she gets now (and I make really good money)? The reason (among many) I gave her the boot was that she was so damn bad with money she was going to bankrupt me. That and the fact she didn’t want to be a mommy any more and was more than happy to dump the kids on me, take the money and run.

Most of her friends are just about like this and are loudly socialist too, as they collect welfare or disability and proclaim that the reason they are failures is the system or capitalism. Last I heard they were off to the local Occupy venue, trying to enact social change. The theorizing is just rationalizing and frankly I am sick of hearing them. They think I am a heartless slug because she could sure use (=spend) more money and I won’t give her more. Hell, I have to raise my kids still and that’s where the money goes. Yes I got my kids in the divorce and that’s really all that mattered to me. Paying her off to get custody was cheap. This is reality, not theory.

That there are good people someplace who have fallen on hard times is stirring, but all the examples I run into regularly are ninnies. Giving the idiots money in hopes of helping some people who may exist someplace is foolish.

– jj

196

[quote]666Rich wrote:
The taxation redistribution system is designed to pick winners and losers, divide people, and eradicate responsibility [/quote]

x2 and designed is the key word. Its a trap

197

[quote]groo wrote:
Or this[/quote]

That is just idiotic,

So I guess we can say the liberals are really the most selfish people. Rather then give of themselves and have real compassion and real mercy. They would rather use violence and force to take from others what they have earned; use a small portion of that to enslave future generations of poor serfs and the rest on their own interests.

198

[quote]roguevampire wrote:

How about people that have it well off their whole lives, but say the husband loses his job and money in the stock market and now finds him and his family homeless. thats not right. these are the people that need help to get their house back and their money.

What do you think is going to happen, when families now find themselves homeless. Don’t you think they are going to get desparate and the crime rate will soar. [/quote]

To rob others is a choice, if you are desperate and it leads to that, it shows your character.

We are not defined by our circumstances, but our actions.

The best way to deal with poverty and suffering is not through the government. This breed complacency. Rather to keep in the eye of the people, so they feel responsible for fellow man. By trying to use the government you remove the obligation from fellow men, as it is now the government responsibility. It is an idiotic and deplorable remedy to the problem.

When everyone actually feels they can be part of the solution and feels accountable, that is when we will see resolution. The use of government through taxation and regulation is only exasperating the situation.

199

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Or this[/quote]

That is just idiotic,

So I guess we can say the liberals are really the most selfish people. Rather then give of themselves and have real compassion and real mercy. They would rather use violence and force to take from others what they have earned; use a small portion of that to enslave future generations of poor serfs and the rest on their own interests. [/quote]
Lol get some humor respond with this or something