1000s of excuses....

they dont know how to help their country, are afraid to, or are aren't allowed to. The success of the US comes from the mindset. we're not special in any way. history shaped us into people who learned their lesson from the british empire. and its passed on, but its seen as ignorance by people living in projects in western europe for some reason. people in western europe dont have that kind of motivation but are totally capable of it

or eastern europe

The terminally poor NEVER will become "wealthy" or anything but "poor".

They never move up. And it has nothing to do with what govt. can or can't do about it. You can throw money at it all day long and it won't change a thing...matter of fact we have spent trillions of dollars over the last few decades on the "War On Poverty"

About the same results as "The War On Drugs" :(

You're right (finally)...we should be cutting what govt. spends. They are a bunch of greedy crooks spending more in one day than most mega companies profit in a year.

your constant need to make yourself look important is sad and quite telling of the person you really are. i don't lay blame for myself to anyone or anything. you have no idea what kind of success of failure i've had. you just assume by my position. you see the real difference is i know all kinds of people, from the very success to the very poor. some great people and some real losers on both sides. your view of the world is so simple, i don't know how you can actually believe it to be true. i do i feel i pay too much taxes, yeah. did i ever say the rich should pay more? no. i just take issue with your vast generalizations.

I don't think i'm important. I'm not a very secure person and don't really have a strong and positive self image. I do think i'm better than many in this conversation and better than those most of those around me in every day life. Big difference.

I don't run around shouting it from the rooftops. I quietly work. Quietly build. And quietly love and enjoy the important people in my life and things that are important to me.

But I suppose I do think i'm better than many here. I'm better because I don't blame anyone but myself for my failure. I don't demand the government take care of me as I lose the house I couldn't afford to begin with. I'm better because I don't blame rich people for anything. I'm better because I don't envy success. I'm better because I don't care how many billions Bill Gates has and I genuinely wish him luck and continued success and admire those who spent decades working 80hr+ work weeks to build empires.

I'm better because I don't believe in saying or believing something as stupid/subjective/ambiguous as "the rich need to pay their fair share" which is nothing more than saying "punish people who are better than me because they make me ashamed to be me". After all, "fair share" is never defined, so "fair share" isn't the issue. There is no specific objective as much as it serves as a rallying cry for losers.

I'm better because I don't blame external factors for my failures. I'm better because I was never given a participation trophy in school. I'm better because I was never taught that I was special as kids are these days. I'm better because I ran away from home at 16 and quickly learned that the world is not a great place or a miserable place... I'm better because I learned quickly that the world is exactly what you make it for yourself.

I'm better because I looked at those who were successful and tried to understand them and tried to understand their success. I'm better because it never occurred to me to think "well, he must have stole it or inherited it" as so many here do. I'm better because I looked at the guy with the nice car and thought "i want that too"... it never occurred to me to think "fuck him, who'd he rip off to get that".

I have a great deal of disdain for those who blame more successful people for their mediocrity, apathy, or anger, frustration and sense of personal shame at their lack of success.

Working hard and improving yourself isn't the plan anymore in this country. Instead it's "who's to blame". To me, that's no different than hating Kobe Bryant for being a better basketball player. It helps no one other than give the individual an excuse or rationalization for both failure and mediocrity.

I don't hate Walmart greeters
I don't think i'm more important than Walmart greeters
I don't have any disrespect for Walmart greeters
I think i'm better than Walmart greeters who blame me for their station in life, for their misery and for their failures.
If you are a happy Walmart greeter that just wants everyone to be happy.. then I think you're awesome and I want to get to know you.

The second you look outside yourself for answers to "why",... "why did my business tank", "why did i lose the game", "why is he making 600k a year and i'm making 50k a year",... you've lost. That is what the tax discussion is.

I'm better because I have the strength of character to lay blame for everything in my life where it belongs... at my own two feet.

Oh... and I'm sure you're a closet billionaire. Everyone here is.

Your point seems to be 'the poor live well enough.' Many would argue 'the wealthy live well enough.' I don't think those are very useful statements. My point is that both can live much better if we focus on efficiency and growing the pie - and that there is no difference between many poor people who collect food stamps and many trustfunders who collect interest on their inheritances, except for the dollar amounts involved.

You and I have discussed these topics for close to 5 years now, and I think we are fairly close to seeing eye to eye on the issues involved. If the following proposal was on the table... would you agree to it? I would.

1 - All income tax at a reduced flat rate across the board for all citizens on every dollar earned over $50,000.00

2 - A sales tax of 2-3% on all purchases with a short list of excluded necessities (basic food, heating oil, basic clothing etc)

3 - Every year the government announces what happens with each rate. As both would affect the VAST majority of Americans, everyone would have skin the game... but the burden would be disproportionately paid by people spending more money than by people earning less or saving more.

I'm pretty sure that is the policy that would fix most of the problems we have on the revenue side pretty much immediately.

We agree most poor people will never move up. Most wealthy people do not move down. So it becomes very important as a society for us to set a floor and ceiling on those economic eventualities. No matter what society you live in, some floor and some ceiling will always exist. My belief is that floor ought to provide poor people with food, shelter, clothing, education, security and distractions. Wealthy people should be able to earn as much as they are able to get and do whatever they want with it *so long as* the needs of the least among us are being met effectively.

Any time you get away from the notion that wealthy people need poor people and poor people need wealthy people... you damage the society and harm everyone in it. The only people who do well in that environment are post-nationalists who are no longer tied to any country and frankly they provide little or nothing for society, so helping them is of no interest to me.

I don't agree with your position on the *basement*. That is what we have today. Generational welfare. Welfare began as the right thing for the right reasons. And look at what it is today.

I would agree with all of it. A very good start.

i watched "Precious" last night and if that's reality ("you don't need education, go get your welfare"), i can understand many white people that are upset that this is the clientele that votes for Obama, probably mostly just because he's black as well.

on the other hand i am pretty sure that enough white people exist with a similar attitude that would never vote for Obama cause he's a "n*****" to them.

just taking welfare away from them is no solution, it just leads to more crime among adults and mostly affects those that can't do anything against it - children.

people need options but the jobs those people can do have been killed by modernization or outsourced long ago.

shitty situation

I agree generational welfare is a huge problem... as is generational wealth. Trust funders do no more to earn their fortunes than welfare recipients do to earn their food stamps.

Still waiting to see if anyone else in this discussion doesn't agree with it or has any valid reasons not to do it. It seems the solution in this instance is easier to agree on than the problem. :thumbsup

i think it sounds like an acceptable plan - it just needs numbers to see if it could work

So was social security... Now there are lots that are looking to it as a fallback in retirement, it wasn't designed to be like a pension. My Grandpa is a multimillionaire and he gets about $1800 or so a month.

Often times if I go to Wal-Mart at 11pm-3am you'll get backed up by people running through all their coupons, cards, and other program material. I'm not sure if they're there at that hour because they're ashamed or what.
I remember working for a grocery store and a guy came in with welfare and bought 8 cans of cream, GETTING HIGH!!!!!!!

IF your grandfather collects SSN then he paid into it his entire working career.

People who depend on a government safety net without ever contributing anything is welfare.
It's becoming a way of life for too many people.

The numbers would be tied to spending... so setting the numbers would be fairly simple based on tax returns and spending from the prior year. I'd even favor some sort of balanced budget agreement if this was our tax system. Since virtually every person would be paying the sales tax rate and many would be paying the income tax portion, any move to raise those rates would be met by strong resistance from voters unless the expense made sense.

Someone earning one million dollars and banking 800K of it would pay much less in taxes than someone earning one million in 'investment income' and spending 800K of it. Meanwhile a guy who earns 40,000 and saves it or spends it on 'tax free' items like basic food for his family would pay zero taxes. A guy who earns 40,000 and spends 32,000 on flat screen televisions and a luxury car lease would be paying the same tax on his flat screen television as any wealthy person with the same television.

Seems awfully simple and effective. :2 cents:

yeah - but thats not what i meant...

based on current numbers - how much tax money would be raised this way?

because i have the feeling that serious spending cuts will not happen and also at some point all that borrowed money has to be repaid

when your plan only covers 50% of what is spent right now, it doesnt make much sense.

unless you are willing to set the flat tax at 30% and the sales tax at 10% or 15%

(over here sales tax is 21% btw - but you don't notice cause all prices always include it already - you never see the net price)

All kinds of repercussions, I'm not an economist but makes me wonder what legislation would have to be taken on auction sites to compensate.
Craigslist would become that much more popular and you could probably upmark all your goods on there.

With tax reform (not just changing a percentage by 3 points) comes the importance of reforming fiscal policy as well. Some kind of balanced budget agreement would be needed and the rates would be tied to those budgets. The idea of running things on a year to year budget is beyond retarded. You can't run a candy store on a year to year budget let alone the government of 300 million people. They ought to be able to lay out a sensible fiscal policy showing a trajectory of tax rates. I'd gladly agree to a higher percentage right now if there were real safeguards in place to show that the deficit would drop, spending would become more efficient and the tax rates would decline over time.

The system is badly broken and needs to be fixed, not just tinkered with idiotically. Like most large changes I would expect it to be phased in rather than suddenly shifted.

as long as you have 2 parties that cannot agree on anything and do their best to keep each other from achieving anything plus a bunch of highly paid lobbyists that do their best to keep the status quo, i foresee not much success

Campaign finance reform (and overturning Citizens United most of all) are also important parts of fixing the system. That being said, the two parties very much agree on one thing... they both desperately want to be reelected. Raising taxes on virtually everyone would very rarely be popular. National Sales tax puts everyone at the bottom in the pool, but only as much as they choose to buy luxuries. Flat income tax with a 50,000 universal exclusion and no other loopholes puts everyone at the top under the same rules as everyone else. That makes raising taxes a hard thing to do (which is why Democrats oppose it) and it means very wealthy people would actually need to pay more than 15% (which is why Republicans oppose it). For everyone else, it would be a huge step in the right direction.

yeah, campaign financing is also absurd from almost any other civilized countries point of view

Agreed.

:thumbsup

hahaha, dude, get off it. Trust funders make up such a small portion of the population as to be insignificant. Its their money. its not yours, go find something else to cry about.

Dude, you've lost your marbles.

:2 cents:

It being their money is not in question. It being protected from taxation in ways that differ tremendously from money earned by producers (rich or poor producers) is very much in question. The fact that they did not earn it should not come with any kind of additional exemption. A national sales tax would go a long way toward correcting the problem.

I'm not 'crying' about it in any sense different than someone 'crying' about poor people having access to food stamps. Just as I do not seek to protect lazy non-producers who abuse the system by fraud at the low end, you ought not to be trying so hard to protect the lazy non-producers who exploit the system via loopholes at the high end. They are both part of the problem.

A person on food stamps cost an average of $133.42 per month in 2012.

A person who inherited 10 million dollars they never earned, living on 2%* income tax free or at 'carried interest' rates brings in 200K per year or 16,666 per month. The 30%* income tax they didn't pay on that 16,666 per month is 5K - or roughly the cost of 38 people on food stamps. I agree any of those 38 who abuse the food stamp system should be removed from it immediately. I also believe a trustfunder who pays little or 0 tax on income from the principal they never earned ought to be paying their share of the expense, the same as I and every other American must. The same is true for the 'carried interest' crowd and people who offshore their revenue. The fact that we tax income rather than spending is the root of the problem, the fact that different people live under entirely different rules makes it much worse.

National sales tax, lower flat income tax and zero loopholes or at least a Buffet Rule makes sense.


*I am using round numbers as percentages... obviously those change on a case by case basis, but the concepts remain exactly the same.

I spend my whole life working my ass off so my kids can have a better life than I did... and then someone like Relentless comes along and says it's a "huge problem" that I want to pass on what I accomplished working 100 hours per week for 40 years to my kids? I paid almost 50% in taxes all along, and earned every penny through hard honest work... what gives the government the right to tax what I accumulated throughout my life?

It's fun to play arm chair philosopher when it's not your ass on the line... :2 cents:

We are talking about two different things. You are talking about an estate tax on the principal amount you leave to your children. I am talking about the profit and income they gain by investing that principal amount. The fact that you left them 10 million should not also give them a tax advantage on what that 10 million earns when compared to someone else who earns 10 million by producing.

You missed my point dude. How many times does someone have to pay tax on the same exact money? Are they supposed to hide all of it in their mattress? No. Most invest it or at worse have it sitting in a bank. Either of which, they have to pay tax on.

I guess what you are trying to say is, instead of being considered capital gains at 15% for investing that money versus having it sit in a bank account, they should be gouged at 30-50% (whatever tax you deem fit) because their money did all of the work.

Let me riddle you this chief. What is the incentive to invest, grow a business, or take calculated risks if I am going to be ass raped on taxes? There isn't. I thought, based on what the politicians are always talking about, the whole point was to drive investment, new jobs, and innovation. You can't do that tax raping those who have the money to invest at 50-90%. They will simply wait it out until a better business climate.

:2 cents:

Agreed. How many 'bites at the apple' does the government get to tax the same exact money.

I'm still trying to grasp why welfare collectors and trust fund babies are being considered equal.

Welfare collectors receive money and benefits from the general public. Trust fund babies receive money and benefits from their parents, or another benefactor, that earned money and already taxed on that money. The trust fund babies are taking nothing from the general public (they are probably putting more money back in by blowing cash on luxury items, art, so on and so forth… but that's another argument.) The welfare collectors are.

Now you can argue that trust fund babies are spoiled brats and don't deserve their money all day long (which many like to claim, I say, who cares?), but at the end of the day, the fact remains: their money was earned by somebody and was already taxed at a prior date.

One receives public money. One does not. Not comparable.

How many times do we need to tax the same dollar before we think it's "fair?"

Why?

That $10 million was already produced by a benefactor. That $10 million was already taxed. Now it's just another person utilizing that produced $10 million to create more income.

$10 million is $10 million. Given, earned, stolen. It's the same money.

1 - The principal amount is taxed once. The profit from that principal amount is taxed once. No dollar is taxed twice.

2- Why should money earned by money be taxed at a lower rate than money earned by work? The profit is the same, the rate of taxation should be the same. There would be zero reduction in investments if the rates were identical. People might put less dollars in the stock market, but they would find other places to invest those dollars - real estate, private businesses, etc...

3 - The incentive to grow a business and take a calculated risk is exactly the same as it is right now. Capital gains, carried interest and offshoring income are not incentives, they are loopholes.

That is a sound argument against an "inheritance tax" on the principal amount left to the trustfunder. It has nothing to do with the fact that profit earned by that trustfunder should be taxed at the same rates as profit earned by working people. The principal was already taxed... the profit on that principal was not. A national sales tax would make their 'art purchases' relevant to the tax equation... I am all for having one and reducing income tax across the board.

So everyone changed everyone's minds??

Perfect.

/thread

Again, we aren't talking about the 10 million, we are talking about money earned by that 10 million.

It took roughly 5 years of threads like these for Minte and I to reach agreement on the way taxation should be structured... but now we are in agreement. So that's progress :winkwink:

Great, hopefully after another 500,000,000 years, you guys can get another 100,000,000 Americans on board and really change things!


:)


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...1ut5EL7zrITl2A

It's the energetic intellectual support of people like you that will make it happen :winkwink:

I doubt it. I'm far to apathetic and increasingly insensitive when it comes to the needs of others that I don't know.

I view the world as ... say a network of beehives. All the bee's are going to be busy all day, everyday and are always going to be busy doing busy little bee things. Drones will be drones. Queens will be queens. The group dynamics will never change as behaviors and who we are and what we are is coded into our DNA as much as its learned. I've realized long ago that you'll never change the nature of the bees. All the drones busy themselves complaining they are drones. They complain about the Queen. They complain about the hive. They complain about the future of hives. They complain about everything as they continue on being drones. They talk about change as if there is ever permanence to those changes. As if a perfect formula can be found that makes everyone happy. All of which is nothing more than a bunch of meaningless crap to occupy the conscious mind and distract it from the tedium of life.

You'll never change how they build hives. You'll never stop them from mindlessly gathering pollen and bringing it back to the hive and i've realized that if you want something different for yourself, you won't find that in changing others. If you truly want change in your own life, you just quietly create it for yourself and tune out the chatter around you, because its the single largest distraction to success there is... and if you don't like the hive you're in, then be prepared to pack up and move because you aren't going to change anything at all other than your own personal sense of feeling you tried to change things.


Anyway.. that's just me :)
That's just my world view.

I've found that the less I care about what's going on in the world around me, the happier I am. I don't watch the news. I don't care whats happening in Pakistan. I don't care who bombed a London subway. I don't care how many people died. Though that might sound as if it borders on insane, i would choose a contented and happy life over one wrought with persistent anxiety, frustration, anger and fear anytime.

nicely put.

That doesn't explain your participation in this thread... :2 cents:

These kinds of discussions are perfect for a BBS of diverse personalities. If anything it's a reminder that people from different walks of life have significantly different opinions. Reading some of these quotes are the best way to absorb. You can read and then think about it before immediately SHOUTING back.

None of my friends or associates are on foodstamps. Without GFY I would never really hear the other side beyond watching television.

Boredom as I edit videos. Distracting myself from the tedium of what i'm doing. I also enjoy observing people.

But I have no delusions about changing others,... or of changing the nature of people. The nature of people cannot be changed. There will always be poor. There will always be rich. Their views on life and success and the "how's" and "why's" and "whats fair" will never be reconciled.

I do a fair amount of time consuming work that allows for these kinds of discussion threads as well. As a writer I have also gained plenty of clients specifically from the opportunity to display my writing abilities in threads like these. Many clients rightfully conclude 'if he can keep webmasters interested in reading and responding to threads about taxation and poverty - he can also write blogs, sites and news articles about other topics for effective marketing purposes.'

As to the impossibility of progress... it would seem we are doing a lot better than we did in the Stone Age. Will it ever be perfect? No. Can it be better?... always. Socrates was correct: The unexamined life is not worth living.

Local police busted 43 residents a few months ago for abusing the welfare system as a result of a year long investigation. Here's a link to the local story: http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/stor...L6rMn3jyQ.cspx

43 people out of over 70,000 people which according to my county department of social services receive some aid over the course of a year.

43. Out of 70,000. It's "voter fraud" all over again.

That amounts to .000614%. If that number is statistically significant, so are the 'small number' of trustfunders who abuse the system with loopholes that let them earn profit at a much lower tax rate than people who work for their income.

I used to be a great deal more considerate, compassionate or empathetic than I am today. I used to want to understand everyone, their views and so on. I used to enjoy learning or understanding what makes each individual tick. I realized the flaw in that however... and that is that, personal views, character or behavior are rarely unique to the individual. They are the largely the result of personality types and traits of those personality types. There are no individuals when it comes to human behavior. We all believe ourselves to be unique, intelligent, thoughtful and considerate of the views of others. However, a junkie is a junkie. A junkies behavior (baring any other mental disorders) is actually very consistent with that of a junkie. Any junkie. Any addict.

So I began asking myself more and more "why am I trying to understand this individual when his behavior is textbook and will be until he stops using and gets treatment?" A democrat has a liberal view and believes he's right more than wrong. His world view is consistent with that of a Liberal. That is a product of brain function, namely ones favoring of either the left/right hemisphere of their brain. A conservative has a conservative view of things and believes he's more right than wrong, but again, the product of brain function and the resulting perception/interpretation of a highly subjective reality.

I reminded [Labret] many years ago as he droned on and on trying to convey the fact that he is an individual and everyone else is sheep,.... that he is no different than the other 10,000,000 short haired, tattoo'ed, anti-social dickheads that are mad at the world, all sharing the same views, same personality traits, the same anger, the same disdain for others, same tastes in music etc. He's unique,... unique like everyone else in that rather large group of individuals who believe themselves to be unique.

Now, I am more careful to put people into groups and deal with them accordingly. An addict is an addict and I don't expect any behavior other than that consistent with that of an addict. A conservative is conservative and I don't expect any behavior, not consistent with a conservative. A morbidly obese woman is morbidly obese. When the discussion of diet and exercise comes up, I don't expect any view or behavior not consistent with that of a morbidly obese women and so on. A person with severe ADD is going to always act consistent as a person with severe ADD. I set my expectations of people accordingly and am rarely surprised.

My GF started telling me I was a bit negative. I started pointing out her interactions with others (she's a real estate broker dealing almost exclusively with institutional investors, chains of people, personalities etc). After many "i can't believe he did this..." kind of conversations, i would simply point out "this is his personality type... he will be the person who does XY & Z, he will be the person that needs this and that, that plays this game and that game etc and this is what you have to expect from your interactions with him".... as I gloated more and more in being right as I hear conversation after conversation with certain individuals, I think began asking "Look, you knew what to expect from this person. You know who and what he is. You know he's insecure and a narcissistic personality. He's behaved in perfect accordance with a person possessing those traits. You are frustrated. But the thing is, you are frustrated because you expect something different. You expect him to see the world as you see it. You expect him to act as you would. That's not going to happen. So who is to blame for your frustration? You? Or him? When you learn to calibrate your expectations correctly, you're frustration in dealing with others will simply melt away". That is how I deal with people now.

So who's mind gets changed in political debate? Only those who either are capable of more or less equal left/right use as they are able to give the appropriate weight and careful consideration of the view points of others, or those in the center or those who don't (for whatever reason) have a strong opinion. Those groups, do not represent the majority. the majority are more hardened in their views as they tie very tightly into ones own sense of self and identity. Furthermore, we are hobbled by basic tricks of the mind, such as the driving urge to continue to be consistent with decisions we've made and dismissive of any info to the contrary and so on. Political discussions aren't about "opinions" as much as they are about people expressing/affirming ones own identity and belief systems.

What does welfare pay in the USA?