waitforufo

Phi for All wrote… You replied to my post with… I seem to recall be shouted down for suggesting that tax cuts were not government subsidies. So are tax cuts subsidies or not? Yes he was referring to tax cuts but he was also referring to ways to stimulate the US economy. My response applies to both. No, not all government spending is a subsidy. But if the US government contracted a company to build a windmill power generation farm, it could not restrict the contracted company to buy only US made windmills. That would be in violation of the WTO. So yes we would have the windmill power generation, the jobs to erect the windmills, and the jobs to maintain the windmills, but it is likely that the vast majority of the money spend would go the foreign windmill manufacturers. Those jobs would likely go to China. You say that ”Stimulus can/could be spent on infrastructure, for example, which really can't be outsourced.” I said… That sounds like infrastructure to me. I’m glad to see we are in agreement. I did however forget pipelines like the Keystone XL pipeline. Another great example of infrastructure. Our economy will never expand in a significant way without more energy. I find it ironic that people use the price of oil as an indicator for economic improvement. Increasing oil prices are a governor on economic growth. We need to remove that governor by expanding our energy resources and capacity.

I’m not sure that US tax payer funded stimulus money could be limited to US job creation without running afoul of NAFTA and WTO treaties. By running afoul of these treaties The US would then have to pay fines to foreign countries and companies for unfair trade practices. By the way, non US car companies have and are filing WTO complaints regarding the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Perhaps the US government could stimulate companies by reducing government regulations and other employment tax burdens. They did temporarily reduce the employer social security matching contribution. That was a welcome start. Perhaps the government could do something with regard to energy costs. Perhaps if we revved up the Tennessee Valley Authority, Bonneville Power Administration, and other such entities to build more coal, nuclear, and dam power plants we would not only have the employment during the construction but also an abundance of power to drive our economy when the plants were completed. The government could also stop requiring the use of ethanol in gasoline which depletes our soil, increases engine wear, drives up fuel costs, increases water pollution, and increases food costs. Perhaps all savings from eliminating that single act of stupidity would free up some cash to create a few jobs. Can you really expect business people from making sound business decisions with regard to the cost of labor and doing business? Can you really expect them to make decisions contrary to the regulations government places on them?

It sounds like you are saying your rich people are good and my rich people are bad. Is that how you feel? Sure Warren Buffet says taxes should be progressive. Progressive income taxes might as well be called wealth prevention taxes. That is what they are designed to do. Keep people from becoming rich. Notice however that the already rich stay rich regardless of the tax code. You know, people like the Kennedys. Warren Buffet can eliminate his future competition and be popular with Liberals at the same time. What a genius. No wonder he is rich. If you think Warren Buffet will pay more in taxes with changes in the tax code you are only deluding yourself. On top of that Berkshire Hathaway will just start marketing new products to avoid the new taxes and Buffet will just be come richer. Warren Buffet is a good rich person. Good one. That’s like saying George Soros is a good corporate raider.

Many people do. Almost all frugal middle class people do. All of my parent's generation did it. All of my siblings and cousins are currently achieving this goal. I'm not sure how old you are, but when I was in my 20s and 30s this goal seemed near impossible. Now that I am in my 50s the only thing that will stop me from achieving this goal is the government taking my savings and giving it to people the government feels are more entitled to it than the guy that earned it, me. Go figure. Maybe you just don't want to work as hard as I have. I say you should stop worrying about things that don't belong to you. Go make your own money. You will be happier if you do. Capital gains income from assets held one year or less is taxed at the ordinary income tax rates in effect for the year. So no you can't buy today and sell tomorrow and pay a tax based on the capital gains rate. Also, in stock and bond trading sometimes you gain and sometimes you lose. While everything you gain in a year is taxed that year, you can only write down $3k. Yeah, you can push losses from one year into following years, I think for ten years, but that leads to interesting tax calculations. For example if I have two investments and one gains by $10k and one declines by $10k and I sell them both for a net gain of $0 I have to pay capital gains tax on $7k if the gaining investment was held for a year. This is how the government tries to help people get ahead? For every two steps one takes forward toward financial independence the government takes one of those steps back. Perhaps this is why Athena doesn't think she can attain what is rather common in America. I don't get your point? What about other income. It is taxed at the regular income tax rate. On that other income I believe the marginal rate is determined by ones full income which includes income from capital gains. If my belief is correct, capital gains do increase your income tax rate on other income. So my parents worked their entire adult lives, raised a family, purchased a modest home, and set aside a nest egg for their golden years so as not to be a burden on their children in retirement. My entire family made sacrifices in achieving this goal. From the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the colleges we attended, and so on. My father is gone now and I hope my mother can enjoy the time she has left with the investments my parents made. When she does die, I hope she is broke and that she enjoyed the money she saved with my Father. My guess is when she does die, there will be money left to me and my siblings. You refer to this as a "windfall", as if it is somehow ill gotten gains. This statement implies that I and my siblings will be steeling from you and the greater society when my mother dies. What makes others more entitled to the fruit of my parents efforts then their children? Again, I say people of such a mindset are resentfully coveting the property of others. Stop worrying about what other people have. That wealth belongs to no one but them. Go make your own money and stop looking in my mom's purse.

1) free bubble up 2) rainbow stew 3) big rock candy mountains

Let me give you two reasons why capital gains should be taxed a lower rates than income. The first reason is best explained by example. You work for a wage. You pay taxes on that wage. You save your post tax dollars. With those post tax dollars you purchase an investment. Years later you sell that investment for dollars. Over the period of your investment there was inflation. So when you sell your investment, some of the dollars you receive simply account for inflation. To tax those inflated gains is simply increasing the income tax that was paid in the past. Why should people be taxed for saving for future security? You think that is fair? The second reason is because a lower capital gains tax encourages investors to take gains when they are available thereby incurring taxable events. The more they incur these events the more tax they pay. Government revenue goes up when the capital gains tax is lower than the income tax rate. Think of it this way. I saved my entire life for retirement, but I have to be careful spending my money because I just might run out before I die. But I check my investment portfolio and find that my stock in XYZ Corporation has had significant gains. If I sell some of my XYZ Corporation I can take that trip to Yosemite Valley I always wanted to take. When penciling out the expenses I have to consider taxes. If the taxes are too high I’ll stay home and hope my investment grows some more so that maybe next year I can go. If taxes are low maybe I can sell a little bit of XYZ every year and go on a trip every year. See, more taxable events and yearly revenue for the government and more happiness for retired people. Why do you think this is bad? I agree with ParanoiA. Those that want a higher capital gains tax are simply resentful. You just can’t stop looking in other people’s wallets. Why do you even care? You would screw middle class people with modest retirement savings in an attempt to get at the money of the super-rich. You would do it even if it reduced government revenue. Is such behavior even sane? Your problem is that you think it is possible to tax the super-rich. They’re super-rich for a reason. They know how to keep their wealth. They know how to pass their tax burdens on to others. It’s like corporate taxes. Why not just call corporate taxes sales taxes. Corporations just pass their tax burdens on to their customers, or they screw their employees. Why not just accept that fact that middle class people ultimately pay all the taxes. You will sleep better at night if you do.

So what would effective gun control look like in the USA? Would it require confiscation of guns or at least certain classes of guns? Should semi automatic rifles be banned and confiscated. Would the speed at which a gun can fire rounds matter? Double actions revolvers can fire rounds faster than automatic handguns. Should only single action revolvers be legal? Cartridge capacity was once limited to 10 rounds. Is that too many? Should we require that personally owned guns be held a armories or gun clubs? In the Colorado case the shooter purchased his weapons from national retailers like Bass Pro Shop. I’m sure they ran him through the national background check system. So he didn’t come up with mental problems or violence crimes or he would not have been able to purchase guns. Should we make people take a psychological exam within a short time, say 48 hours, before purchasing weapons. Once someone own guns should they have to periodically take psychological exams? Should doctors be criminally punished for not reporting patients with suspected mental problems that may result in violence? If they don't make such reports what is the point of the instant background check system? Why would we let doctors undermine this system? What about doctor patient confidentiality? Would nutters even go to the doctor if such laws were passed? If you are in favor of additional control measures in the USA, what is your favorite politician doing to strengthen gun control? Will you vote for that person if the answer is nothing?

Perhaps some might find the word “coerce” too pejorative. One can for example write off from their income the mortgage interest on two homes when determining income taxes. Are taxpayers they coerced in to buying a home? In this case our elected officials are wise enough to admit that taxation can be so onerous as to prohibit citizens from obtaining the necessities of life. Only a liberal would consider such a tax break as a subsidy. Really? So you don’t think that parishioners getting passed the donation plate won’t be thinking about how the government is going to take 30% of their donation to support things they find contrary to their religious beliefs? You know, things like war and abortion? Two things here. First there are plenty of people with legitimate reasons for not wanting churches to distribute government largess. Not only does it crash hard into the separation of church and state, but it provides a false sense of the true generosity of the church involved. How caring and generous is a church which simply distributes government money? How many would claim that they do it for a profit? By the way, church goers pay taxes and those taxes pay for the roads they drive on to get to church. Personally I would prohibit churches from distributing government largess. My experience however is that you overstate your case. Why? The government applies rules to this money causing most religious organization to turn it down. Locally for example the federal government tried to give the Union Gospel Mission money to provide meals to the indigent. The Union Gospel Mission requires those that receive such meals to hear a short sermon and sit through a prayer before they eat, which is prohibited by government. So the Union Gospel Mission turned it down. Also locally, the Catholic Church opened a shelter and halfway house for indigent women, mostly prostitutes. This shelter was opened in part to reduce the body count from serial killer Robert Lee Yates. For a short period of time this shelter and halfway house received HUD funding but ran into fair housing act laws when it tried to evict tenants who were using their shelter apartments as brothels. The nuns thought it was better to reject government cash than to be forced to run a whore house.

iNow, Your ideology is simply detaching you from reality. Of course you believe that all that is earned and all that is owned is a subsidy of government. You have expressed this opinion in various ways on many topics in science forums. For example this belief is central to the arguments of the occupy movement which you have fully embraced. In various ways you have expressed that the wealthy have gamed the tax system and by which are receiving huge government subsidy. Never does it cross your mind that the wealthy have the same property rights as all others so that what they earn and what they own belong to them. Your ideology simply won't let you except facts. The same can be said for your belief that oil companies receive subsidies through tax breaks. Oil companies pay billions in taxes. When the government wants oil companies to do things that make no business sense government coerces them into doing those things by creating taxes with built in tax breaks for those that play along. Then those of your ideology come along and add insult by calling those tax breaks a subsidy. Only ideology could trap someone into believing such nonsense. Our constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. Are you going to tell me that taxes are not coercive? How many times have I read your exaltations regarding the good and proper use of the coercive taxation? Admit it, you are a firm believer in this use of taxation. Have you abandoned your support of carbon taxes? Is not the goal of such taxation to inhibit my free use of fossil fuels? Have your beliefs so blinded you that you can't see that taxing religious organizations would be inhibiting the free exercise of religion? Perhaps you should step out of the ideological box of your own religion for just a moment and embrace reality.

So if the government did tax religious organizations, could the government then also provide tax exemptions and rebates to religious organizations? If your answer is yes, are you then advocating government subsidies for religious organizations? You did say that subsidies include tax exemptions and rebates. Why don't we just cut to the chase? You seem to believe that all income earned and all property owned by everone and every organization is simply a subsidy from our benevolent government. So I have to ask, why all this silly talk about taxes? The word tax is such an old fashioned and pejorative term. Subsidy sounds much more caring and giving. Why don't you simply advocate that our government endow it's subsidies in a manner more to your liking? If we are going to operate by your rules, personally I would advocate a greater subsidy to me, my family, and my church. Being old fashioned however, I advocate sticking with our current system.

Let's just contemplate the following two quotes. and from his source.. Based on these to quotes isn’t everything a person makes and owns a subsidy? Think of all the firefighters and police officers and teachers that could hired if the government decided to take away all your subsidies? Especially police, the government will need lots more of those when they reduce such subsidies. Not related to the topic at hand? I think someone brought up the fact when it comes to religion, the constitution stops our government from “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Well I guess if you can come up with newspeak versions of words like subsidy and by which make everything a benevolent subsidy from government, well then government can do anything.

I’m curious about your source of information, table 1, in your opener. Also I wonder about the use of the word “subsidy.” My search for the definition of this word found the following.. sub•si•dy: 1. A sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service... 2. A sum of money granted to support an arts organization or other undertaking held to be in the public interest. Now I know that the government at times chooses to provide money to the poor and indigent through religious organizations. Is this the “subsidy” of which your source speaks? Please explain how else the government is granting money to religious organizations? Can you provide images of the cancelled checks? My guess is that your “subsidy” is simply tax breaks and exemptions. I’m always intrigued how liberals distort the word subsidy. I for example, would never call letting a person keep the money they earn a subsidy. I recall the HUD Secretary under Clinton once claiming that the middle class in America received more housing subsidies than the poor. How you might ask? Well the middle class takes the greatest advantage of the tax right off on the interest they pay on mortgages. Well as I recall that didn’t go over too well on the middle class. No middle class person thought that the money they earned was a subsidy. On the other hand such subsidies would make a great liberal stimulus plan. Create a $100K personal occupancy tax for living in the US and then exempt everyone that is either living or dead. Everyone would then be receiving a $100K subsidy. Think of what you could buy with your subsidy. We could support the arts by passing an artist tax but then exempt everyone who then produces art. What a novel way of subsiding art. Your opener makes it sound like religious institutions would shut down if it wasn't for all that government cash. What a joke.

In a poll there is no valid or invalid result. Pollsters ask questions. Some people choose to answer those questions. Pollsters report the results of those that answer. It's up to the reader of the resulting report to determine how to interpret the results. The reader of the report has to ask themselves what kind of person would participate in such a poll and what is the likelihood such participants would answer truthfully. Most people could care less about evolution or creationism. This topic has no impact on their lives. So how does this reader interpret these results? Well, you are going to get respondents that are religious nut jobs saying they believe the eye witness testimony of the Rigellians Kang and Kodos. Then you are going to get people that think it’s important to demonstrate that they are smarter than everyone else or that they could be “Jeopardy!” grand champions. Yeah, you will probably get a few poor saps that think such a poll is important in the grand scheme of things in some way and take the time to participate and provide their true feelings. Finally you will get people who give BS answers for laughs. So in my opinion, the entire poll is most likely to provide no meaningful information. So why is my analysis any more or less valid than anyone else’s? Really, you had to go there? Since you did, let me ask you. Do you think Al Qaeda would be more likely to want to kill those that believe in the evolution or creationism?

You miss the point of my question. You responded to my previous post with the following. What exactly is there to be good at? If they are not "good at" eliminating false responses, are they "good at" eliminating false responders? Are they "good at" only bothering the dinners of people who speak the truth? Perhaps they are "good at" asking loaded questions which only find the truth. I don't think they are good at anything. They bother people in their homes. Most people hang up on them. They know nothing about the people that respond. The responses they get are biased on how the responders feel at the moment. So I ask again, if some jerk called and interrupted your dinner to find out if you believe that the Rigellians Kang and Kodos witnessed the creation of the earth by God 5000 years ago, would you answer yes? I would.

So you have confidence in surveys where the survey takers filter out responses they don't like?

One of the beautiful things about Americans is how they choose to tell pollsters how to drop dead. So if someone from Gallop called you on the phone and asked you if you believed God created the earth 5000 years ago in an instant, are you telling me you wouldn't at least be tempted to say yes? With all the things going on the world right now some jerk calls you on the phone and disturbs your wind down from a hard day to ask you if you're and idiot are you really saying your answers would be truthful? This reminds me of when I was in high school back in 1976 and my home room teacher passed out a survey with questions on personal drug use and sex activity. I remember my fellow students and I smiling, giggling and laughing as we filled in the little ovals. I never saw any published results but I'm sure the survey revealed high drug use and rampant sexual promiscuity. No one knew this survey was coming and everyone I knew said they regularly used every drug mentioned during nightly orgies. I wish this Gallop survey would have asked the following question. Do you believe that God created the earth 5000 years ago because the Rigellian Simpsons characters Kang and Kodos said there people witnessed the creation? That one would have likely garnered a unanimous yes. If you are buying this survey, perhaps you simply need to adjust your BS detector. By the way, most Americans could care less what people think about them. It's one of the wonderful things about being an American.

A move from 8.1 to 8.2, last I checked, is up. Even the Washington Post agrees. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/unemployment-up-in-may-as-job-growth-falls-off/2012/06/01/gJQAhXDj6U_story.html?hpid=z1 Besides, I was blaming it on Bush. Isn't that the constant narrative from "the one"? You, iNow, of all people must agree. By the way it's called a sense of humor. Lighten up. While visiting the WP you might check out Krauthammer latest. It's a beaut. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-drone-warrior/2012/05/31/gJQAr6zQ5U_story.html?hpid=z2

Looks like Obama is having a bad day. Just thought I would try to cheer him and his supporters up.

Sending me a big fat check would be a good use. In fact it would be the best use ever. I recommend never turning down money from the government. Believe me, you will be sending the government plenty of money in your lifetime.

Wouldn’t the zombie apocalypse be a supernatural disaster?

To my post below... it appears that iNow responded with the following quote/link from the Huffington post. If this was indeed a response to my post, I believe iNow is interpreting my intent too narrowly. For example, one could argue the environmental pollution threatens my right to life and the right to life of others. It would then be correct for the government to step in and protect the rights of the governed to stop or regulate environmental pollution. I would be my duty to support governmental environmental pollution regulation through taxation particularly if the government were freely elected by the people.

I have freedom if I have my natural rights of life, liberty and property. The right of liberty permits me to do as I choose so long as I do not infringing on the life, liberty, or property of others. Paying taxes is a duty so long as so long as those taxes support the natural rights of the governed and those that govern are freely elected by the governed.

Doesn't sound like a crisis to me. Read more about it at.. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/02/22/is-catastrophic-global-warming-like-the-millenium-bug-a-mistake/

What an excellent, well-reasoned article. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop My favorite aspect is this graph. Doesn't look like a crisis to me.

I don't really understand your point but yes it's wrong, I went to the store to get milk. Since you left out my milk desire forcing your model fails to accurately predict my going to the store behavior. Leaving out forcings is a bad idea. Is that your point? Perhaps you are not aware that actual science knows that sun spot activity impacts climate. My first attempt Google search found this paper. So why doesen't climate science attempt to accurately include sun spot cycles in their models. Perhaps it is because they need to have a handy reason for thee failures of their models. http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT76674961/PDF Perhaps those climate deniers over that USDA have been hiding this report from climate modelers. In general by "we" I mean human beings. Sure there are a few human beings that have become too entrenched in their position to see reason but they are the minority. For example look again at this survey I posted recently. People in this survey were asked to rank 25 items in order of importance. Climate warming came in dead last.