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2012-04-11, 05:02 PM | [Ignore Me] #31 | |||
Corporal
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2012-04-11, 06:47 PM | [Ignore Me] #32 | ||
Colonel
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[Thoughts and Ideas on the Direction of Planetside 2] |
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2012-04-11, 08:35 PM | [Ignore Me] #34 | ||
Lieutenant General
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So Malorn, then why do rich people have a LOWERED tax rating right now in the US?
Meaning they not only make more money, have more money left after taxes, but also pay a lower percentage? If you look at the world in percentages, say for instance... everyone pays 60% tax. Then if you earn 20.000, you have 8.000 left to spend. If you earn 20 million, you have 8 million left to spend. That's not quite "fair", because it is not by a long shot as easy to do stuff with 8.000 than with 8 million. One does not NEED 8 million, but one may NEED 15.000 in a capitalist world where the 8 million influences costs. You also forget that the percentage of costs for lower incomes is much, MUCH greater than that of higher incomes. Housing, energy (incl. fuel and heating), education, food, etc. makes it much harder to get by for someone with minimum wages than someone with an income in the billions, who doesn't even know what to do with their money anymore. So to tax someone with more money isn't weird, as long as it doesn't mean they worked harder for nothing. A difference is fine, but to have the "peasants" slave, stress and then have nothing left is rather bad for society. Besides, those companies these big guys run, they use the roads and other infrastructure much more than citizens. So to have them pay more for the maintanance of infrastructure and the wellfare of their employees is IMO a good thing, including the economy. I'll give you the example of dutch tax rates: http://www.okxvanleeuwen.com/?p=228 Dutch income tax for the highest income bracket is 52% and has been for decades. In the USA, it's as low as 15% iirc. Our infrastructure is among the best of the world. Our economic climate among the best within Europe. Our people among the richest in the world. Yet we get taxed far heavier than you lot. Fuel alone. You get a heart attack and almost start rioting if it costs a couple cents per gallon more. Why? We pay many times as much per LITER. Yet we can, despite of our higher taxes. We know the money is invested in education, infrastructure, public services, city maintanance, public works and other important parts of our life. It subsidises new economic initiatives, funds research, defends the country, cleans up the environment we live in. And of course, is disputed on where to spend most and what to make budget cuts on. Socialist parties do tend to want to spend more than you get in taxes and they ARE actually opposed by liberals in that: there's a limit. And low tax and small government is fine, but there is a lower limit and a minimal level of budget and government you need. You cannot expect the private world to invest in any infrastructure they have no personal interest in (no profit to be made). A government however, will. And for that, you need taxes. However, when taxed, the government doesn't just take. It also gives and invests and that improves the lives for everyone, as long as it is done wisely. And there (the wise part) I share your concern regarding America. Especially the Reps, they just spend everything on their own prefered budgets anyway to finance their buddies in particular industries who paid their election programs... >.> |
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2012-04-11, 08:48 PM | [Ignore Me] #36 | ||
Just so we're all clear, you're wading into a debate that is not about practicality or efficiency, but about ideology. The venom and partisanship within American politics is staggering. You will not sway anyone with words or deeds or anything else, you will also not be able to prove a point, as for everything you may reference, they have a counter-reference lined up. This is an infectious ideology you're at odds with, and I'll tell you plainly, it won't be ameliorated before another major national crisis occurs on the scale of 11/09/2001.
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2012-04-11, 09:06 PM | [Ignore Me] #38 | ||||
Lieutenant General
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I'm talking about billionaires and their "carried interest" tax advantage.
Signed, Warren Buffet, Billionaire. |
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2012-04-11, 09:59 PM | [Ignore Me] #39 | |||||||||||||
Colonel
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This is one of Obama's strong points that has been proven time and again that wealth in the US comes from smaller companies hiring a few people. Personally I tend to separate in my mind hard work. For instance, I know software developers that make $150K a year using their skills as a programmer. I don't equally value their skills with someone that can take 10 dollars, invest it and get back 15 dollars and continue the cycle with larger amounts of money. Using wealth indirectly to make wealth is more of a skilled exploit in capitalism that really made me a socialist. The first time I saw this was when I was invited to a state stock exchange competition to compete using fake money in an accelerated stock exchange where days were 5 minutes. I don't think any team did worse than doubling than their money. (The guy that hosted the event made pretty much all his money doing exactly what we just did). I view it as a flawed system that destroys the incentive of "hard work" and without control is easily exploited by the few by piggybacking on the hard work of others through investment. (One of the reasons I hate banks that exploit this by hurting their customers for profits). Also these have a lot of information. It's basically what Obama's speeches try to summarize sometimes. The summary of each section of his budget can be viewed here.
I think it's unfair to judge Romney on all of Bain's history. There's been many concise reports on Romney's actual involvement. The WSJ did a piece on it here. He did his job fairly well in investing. Some of the problems though were questionable. It would be unfair to say he'd take the US in the same direction in regards to hurting a few companies though based on a few cases. The article mentions 77 investments during his time with 22% bankruptcy with 10 gaining a lot and of those 4 filing for bankruptcy later. I've seen videos for both sides arguing if Bain hurt more than helped with their investments. From an investor point of view their success rate wasn't that bad.
I think we're at the point where we can make the switch with out country where gambling with healthcare in the private industry isn't a necessity. We have infrastructure to help those that through no real fault of their own suffer problems. Santorum I have to imagine realized this. One of the more laughable things is when people try to talk badly about a country's single-payer system when they go over there and it costs a thousand dollars for an operation. Then they leave out the stories of 200K+ dollars surgeries in the US when foreigners get stuck here during an emergency. The day when I just pay taxes (don't really care. Could be 30% or higher) and just walk into a hospital and show them my ID to see a doctor will be the day. The competition moves from insurance companies to a fight for higher quality healthcare as hospitals compete for patients. Like I said Canadians fully realize this benefit to financial security for their economy.
Also regarding selling across state boundaries that sounds difficult. I thought the idea of having insurance locally in a state was so that each state could place its own mandates. If you could buy outside of a state I'd imagine those mandates would still need to be applied so the cost would not really change. Though I guess the pool of people would rise. I would need to do a lot more research on that before even attempting to comment, so I won't say anything more.
To be fair a lot of liberals want a single-payer system for all. That is grandma has the same security as a newborn. Simple. Though going back to your "1,000" page comment this would require thousands of pages to define probably. If capitalism and libertarians has taught us anything it's that more people paying into an insurance system lowers cost. So a single-payer national pool with state control should be the most efficient system for patients and doctors.
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[Thoughts and Ideas on the Direction of Planetside 2] |
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2012-04-12, 04:10 AM | [Ignore Me] #41 | ||||
Lieutenant General
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Plus, I don't really see where you get that corporations are more reliable than an elected government. Would you rather see corporate police and army than national police and military? PS: I hope you did not ignore that the 15% effective tax was brought up by a US billionaire who knows more about taxes for higher wages and money making than you do. Here is another quote for you from the same article:
Last edited by Figment; 2012-04-12 at 04:15 AM. |
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