Fiscal Cliff Political Stupidity

[Airbrush]

For every millionaire who was successful because they worked extra hard at it, there are many who struggled just as hard and yet in vain because of limited number of economic opportunities. For every great and famous athlete, there are many unknowns who were just as talented and driven, and willing to work hard at it, but could not occupy a limited number of teams. The fortunate few enjoy more of the infrastructure. Everyone who created wealth because they worked extra hard at it thinks anyone else could accomplish the same with similar effort. That is a fallacy. Besides effort you need opportunity and opportunities are limited. So the few lucky ones think they are superior, but many others could do the job just as well.

[iNow]

Your problem is that you only look at the current outcome. You believe that someone who made immediate choices throughout their lives should be taxed less and receive more from government.

I do not understand what about my comments causes you to say this. Can you please clarify? I have made no such assertions, yet you attribute those comments directly to me. Perhaps you can use the handy quote feature offered by this site to support your assertions that I think or believe these things?

 

Perhaps you should read “The millionaire next store.” It may show you a path to wealth.

You make far too many assumptions about me, my income, my investments, and my work ethic. I formally request now that you please refrain from doing so again in the future. If your position cannot be successfully argued without making assumptions about me personally or casting aspersions then you should probably keep that position to yourself.

 

It should also be noted that your entire reply was orthogonal to my rebuttal of your position.

[waitforufo]

For every millionaire who was successful because they worked extra hard at it, there are many who struggled just as hard and yet in vain because of limited number of economic opportunities. For every great and famous athlete, there are many unknowns who were just as talented and driven, and willing to work hard at it, but could not occupy a limited number of teams. The fortunate few enjoy more of the infrastructure. Everyone who created wealth because they worked extra hard at it thinks anyone else could accomplish the same with similar effort. That is a fallacy. Besides effort you need opportunity and opportunities are limited. So the few lucky ones think they are superior, but many others could do the job just as well.

 

Luck. I never felt particularly lucky. Does your belief in luck make it easier for you to take from those that you have deemed lucky?

 

Superior. If anything my belief in my inferiority has been a main motivation to hard work. I was put back a grade in primary school do to dyslexia. Life has taught me that I have to work considerably harder to achieve comparable results to others. I have always been willing to do that work and more. Do you consider that luck? Does it make me more deserving of taxation?

 

I do not understand what about my comments causes you to say this. Can you please clarify? I have made no such assertions, yet you attribute those comments directly to me. Perhaps you can use the handy quote feature offered by this site to support your assertions that I think or believe these things?

 

 

You make far too many assumptions about me, my income, my investments, and my work ethic. I formally request now that you please refrain from doing so again in the future. If your position cannot be successfully argued without making assumptions about me personally or casting aspersions then you should probably keep that position to yourself.

 

It should also be noted that your entire reply was orthogonal to my rebuttal of your position.

 

In your rebuttal you stated "What's wrong with asking people who have benefited from our common infrastructure to give back and help pay for that same infrastructure once they've realized that benefit?" To me this seems to be the cardinal on which your argument hangs. This is why I responded only to this comment. My comment regards how, in this statement, you look only at the current outcome. For most people wealth isn't acquired in a day it is acquired over a lifetime. One person benefits from our common infrastructure by enjoying the moment. Another person stores up his benefits over a lifetime as wealth. To each their own. Both pay along the way but only one ends up with wealth. There is no justice in forcing the latter to pay more in taxes. Your "asking" statement, in my opinion, is implying that it is only reasonable to expect a wealthy person to pay more. It would be generous but not reasonable.

 

I meant no aspersions in my statements. You are simply being too sensitive.

[overtone]

Using my own life as an example I fail to see how I have used this resource any different than any other common citizen. So why should I pay more? Particularly, why should I be forced to pay a higher percentage?

Those who benefit from the setup should pay for it. That's as fair as one can get - it accounts for luck, work, happily coincident abilities, fortunes of birth and circumstance, character traits well suited to its peculiarities, the whole shebang.

 

We set up the system so that some people can use it to gain weatlh, on the presumption that those people will then pay for it, setting up the next round of beneficiaries. We always knew that many people would fail to amass wealth from any particular setup, for any number of reasons, and that is maybe not fair to them (another setup might have been more useful to them, but too bad) - this is the setup we decided on, and taxing its beneficiaries is how we pay for it. You are welcome to use our setup to amass wealth, but you are not welcome to then refuse to pay the bills for its use. We are under no obligation to accomodate freeloaders.

[iNow]

Does it make me more deserving of taxation?

This is an awkward way to frame comments. It's not about deserving to be taxed or not deserving to be taxed. As citizens of this nation, we benefit from certain infrastructure, and we pay for that infrastructure. The amount we pay is a percentage of our incoming money. We have benefited from being progressively taxed. To a millionaire, $1,000 is much less of an impact to well-being than $1,000 is to a person who makes only $15,000 per year. Is this a difficult concept to comprehend?

For most people wealth isn't acquired in a day it is acquired over a lifetime.

Citation needed. In my experience, quite a large percentage of the "rich" are born into wealth or have it left to them upon the death of a family elder. I don't know whether or not "most people acquire their wealth over a lifetime," but since you're the one asserting it you're the one that must support it with evidence.

There is no justice in forcing the latter to pay more in taxes.

All taxes are by force, and taxes right now are at their lowest in decades. My position is that these low taxes are causing our deficits and debt to be unnecessarily high. This has nothing to do with stealing people's money or punishing people for being successful. Your position is against taxes, in general. My position is that taxes are inherent in our society and so we should try to do what we can to balance the collection of them.

 

 

To put the ideas into perspective, I like this recent cartoon:

 

 

[waitforufo]

Those who benefit from the setup should pay for it. That's as fair as one can get - it accounts for luck, work, happily coincident abilities, fortunes of birth and circumstance, character traits well suited to its peculiarities, the whole shebang.

 

We set up the system so that some people can use it to gain weatlh, on the presumption that those people will then pay for it, setting up the next round of beneficiaries. We always knew that many people would fail to amass wealth from any particular setup, for any number of reasons, and that is maybe not fair to them (another setup might have been more useful to them, but too bad) - this is the setup we decided on, and taxing its beneficiaries is how we pay for it. You are welcome to use our setup to amass wealth, but you are not welcome to then refuse to pay the bills for its use. We are under no obligation to accomodate freeloaders.

Well I guess I just need to blow all my cash and join handout crowd. Thankfully it is easy to become deserving and entitled. At least I will have a lot of toys to enjoy.

[proximity1]

 

Simple.

 

1) Taxing more only leads to spending more. We have a spending problem. Government is already too big and will continue to grow to the bounds of taxation. Let’s keep those bounds tight.

 

2) Taxing the "rich" only makes taxing people with middle incomes more acceptable once "fairness" has been achieved. The way things are today you can't tax me more because that would only make the perceived injustice even less fair.

 

3) What's wrong with letting people enjoy the fruit of their labors and property that belongs to them?

 

Now some questions for you. Why do you covet what does not belong to you? Why can't you see someone else’s success and think "good for them"? When you see the success of others, why does their success not inspire you to make your own? Why do you think wealth is a zero sum game?

 

There can always be more wealth. You just need to make your own. Quit coveting mine.

 

 

 

"There can always be more wealth. "

 

 

Explain this part to us, please, very specifically, very precisely, with detailed supporting evidence and argumentation. I contend that you can't do that and, so, you won't do that; my hunch is that in asserting that "there can always be more wealth," you're mouthing an article of faith, something you accept uncritically, without examination. But it would be interesting to be proven wrong on that.

 

Who says "there can always be more wealth"? You? Your economic theorists?

[iNow]

Well, IMO there can always be more wealth in aggregate... More workers added to the workforce, new businesses serving new market niches, new demands from customers all help new families to realize income to which they did not previously have access. Individuals may get lucky and through hard work and chance (being at the right place at the right time) realize many of those benefits, and the more savvy will not squander those benefits (they will invest and save instead of partying or buying the latest greatest toys, for example).

 

However, none of that really matters In fact, it's entirely peripheral to the arguments being made by anyone.

 

First, inequality is at levels worse than we've seen since the great depression. Contrary to the assertions of some, this is not due to the country becoming more lazy and dependent nor is it related to some oversimplified and ignorant division of moochers versus producers, but is instead related to skewed policies set by those with influence and money to shape legislation. Second, taxes are at all time lows and that is partially what's driving our deficit, not social programs that protect people during times of economic volatility. Social security and medicare are fully funded right now, and will not become an issue for at least another 8-10 years in terms of ensuring revenues can cover expenditures, so that's a total red herring.

 

Third, out of all those receiving help from the government, only about 2-5% are engaging in fraud or gaming the system or trying to "get something for nothing." Those other 98% are people who genuinely want to work and who have been disproportionately impacted by the lack of demand, increase in savings, and hence increased unemployment across sectors. Fourth, this has nothing to do with punishing people for being successful and everything to do with steering us back toward a healthy economy that grows across income levels like we saw after WWII. Fifth, the economy has done best overall when taxes on the rich have been higher, the evidence shows that raising taxes on the rich does NOT hurt the economy, and we have nearly 70 decades of data in support of this point. At some point we need to move forward based on what the evidence shows instead of what the talking points convey.

 

Finally, the fiscal cliff itself is a political problem, not an economic one. We picked up a bullet, loaded it into the chamber, drew back the hammer, aimed downward, and intentionally shot ourselves in the foot by requiring congress vote to pay bills on debts already incurred. It misses the point since the spending has already happened and the debt ceiling is merely a vote to pay for spending for which we've already contracted. Since the vote has been used to hold the other side of congress hostage... used as a weapon of blackmail to get what they want... we put mandatory cuts that NOBODY wants so as to force action... "If you don't work this out by December 2012, these cuts to things we all want will happen AUTOMATICALLY." This is merely us trying to prevent that from occurring. We've intentionally shot ourselves in the left foot, and now all we have to do is move the gun away so we don't intentionally shoot ourselves in the right foot. Yet we struggle to accomplish even that.

 

If a deal isn't made, we will automatically cut our military. We will automatically cut our social programs. We will automatically cut teachers, and police, and firefighters jobs and we will automatically cut aid to children in poverty and school lunches and other contracts like construction of ships and jets and weapons and computer systems and all manner of other things. This will cause yet another huge (unnecessary) shock to the economy as a whole, and will come with downstream impact on other overlapping workforces... Suppliers and shippers and retail establishments, vendors of food and clothes and books, and anyone else doing business with those impacted... That business will dry up so they too will lose their work... and the folks with whom they do business will lose revenue... and it's the multiplier effect in reverse. This will all happen at the same time that taxes are going up on everyone, and all they need to do in order to avoid it is say, "Yep, let's agree on X, Y, and Z and sign legislation that prevents all of that from happening... Let's do these other things instead of intentionally shooting ourselves in the right foot. It would be silly to cripple ourselves and shoot both of our own feet when there's no good reason to do so."

 

Instead, what's happening is we are being held hostage so Republicans can preserve tax cuts on the richest 1-2% of the country. The president put forth nearly $800B in spending cuts last year, and has proposed another $1T this time around on top of that, but that's apparently not good enough. Further, everyone agrees that we want to avoid the crude blunt cuts to the military and to teachers and firefighters, and everyone agrees that taxes shouldn't go up on the other 98% of the country, but no... What we're seeing is republicans threatening to let all of this bad shit happen all just so the top 1-2% can maintain the lowest tax rates in decades, an act that will only keep our deficit unnecessarily high.

 

If I might make a suggestion, we probably should stop chasing the red herring and strawmen people continue to put forth about "some people are just envious and want to punish the rich" or the suggestion that this is all about "lazy people wanting to suck off the government teet." Let's recognize it for the hollow baseless distraction that it is and remain focused on simply preventing ourselves from intentionally shooting ourselves in the other foot in order to protect historically low tax rates on the uber-rich.

 

* In support of my point above how the social programs are not bleeding us right now, and the deficits are due to high unemployment (lower revenues at the same time that expenditures from social programs like unemployment insurance are up):

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-26/the-deficit-not-as-bad-as-they-want-you-to-think.html

and

http://www.businessinsider.com/closing-the-deficit-is-painless-2012-12

Edited December 29, 2012 by iNow

[ewmon]

Companies hire only as a last resort, when demand for their product increases enough to justify additional payroll and healthcare and benefits expenditure.

 

I wholeheartedly agree, so the question is — Who will actually spend more of the money they receive.

 

I suspect that rich people will look at it as discretionary money and simply save it, hoard it, or invest it (remember how the banks sat on their TARP money), and that middle-class people will see it as essential money and spend it on necessities.

 

I would also rather prevent, say, five middle-class families from losing their five homes than one rich family losing its one home. Especially since the middle-class bears the economy on its back. The one rich family can downsize to a regular-sized home (oh poor them!), whereas the five middle-class families might downsize to a homeless shelter.

[Airbrush]

waitforufo: "...why should I pay more? Particularly, why should I be forced to pay a higher percentage? In fact, I could easily argue that I have used these common resources less than most. That is why I have wealth. So why shouldn't I pay less?"

 

You have more to lose in a fire or burglary than a poor person with few toys. When fire fighters and police are reduced, when we go over the fiscal cliff, you will be more at risk.

 

The reason you should pay a greater percentage of taxes is because the poor certainly cannot pay more, and the middle class CAN pay more but in doing so will SPEND less, and then the whole economy, that you enjoy more than the less rich, will take a dive, even though you continue to spend the same as before. This is mostly a matter of beginning to pay for a couple of wars that Uncle Sam charged on his credit card.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Airbrush

[iNow]

An argument can also be made that the rich pay more because they use more. I have oversimplified, but Elizabeth Warren made this point quite well a little over a year ago:

Edited December 29, 2012 by iNow

[proximity1]

Well, IMO there can always be more wealth in aggregate... More workers added to the workforce, new businesses serving new market niches, new demands from customers all help new families to realize income to which they did not previously have access. Individuals may get lucky and through hard work and chance (being at the right place at the right time) realize many of those benefits, and the more savvy will not squander those benefits (they will invest and save instead of partying or buying the latest greatest toys, for example).

 

However, none of that really matters In fact, it's entirely peripheral to the arguments being made by anyone.

 

_______________________________

 

There are limits at some point to the capacity of any economy to add more workers to the economy. At those points, I don't see "more wealth" being "created" or "new businesses" being created or new market niches being served within those economies at a stall or already in capacity employment.

 

It's sterile to speak of wealth as some hypothetical global "aggregate" which, because, in spite of stagnation or depression in some areas, there are some economies somewhere (supposedly) expanding, that this necessarily translates into increased wealth for any practical purposes for those other economies which are in severe retraction-- in, for example, conditions of increasing unemployment, falling purchasing power, falling effective or absolute wages.

 

The only sense in which "more wealth," has valid meaning when one is claiming that "there can always be more wealth" is in showing that, within a given economic situation, more wealth, (i.e. a larger GDP, measured in a true-value manner) is actually a possibility. "More wealth" in China does not translate per se into "more wealth" in various other locales. So, chinese or argentine, or brazilian expansions are not examples of "more wealth" in, for example, the U.S. economy. Not only is that an issue in theory, its especially an issue as a practical matter since, in present economic conditions--namely, where powerful multi-nationals are capable of wage-and-employment dumping and tax-favor-shopping--- it is entirely possible for one nation's top industrial actors to create employment, produce goods or services, and reap huge profits all in ways and in locales which profit little or nothing to the national (i.e. "home"--a now often meaningless concept for these corporations)economies of these same multi-national corporations. Nor need they ever "repartiriate" their gains. Instead, they may simply park them in tax havens, or economies where, again, they have demanded and won a more favorable treatment from the national taxing authorities.

 

In both theory and practice, "more wealth can always be created" is a snare and a delusion. It is also important as such because it serves to create false impressions and expectations, it gives undeserved credit to a welter of spurious economic beliefs which rely on an imagined limitless capacity for wealth creation, thus helping foster the idea that, if so, then it becomes ultimately an "economy's" or a business sector's or a coporation's or firm's fault, or, more particularly, an individual's fault if he or she fails to remain employed. since, the reasoning goes, "there could always be more wealth (opportunities) created."

 

Real, not imaginary, employment capacity*--if that, after all, isn't what's being driven at by references to "more wealth creation" what point is there in touting this supposedly limitless capacity?--, far from being "peripheral to the arguments" is at the very center of them.

 

When slumps occur, they can be world-wide in their effects; that is, all economies can at the same time deflate, with massive unemployment occurring everywhere at once or within very closely-spaced time periods--the same quarter, same semester, etc. In such circumstances, "more wealth" does not mean increased hiring, or wages, or factory expansion, or, in any meaningful sense, "more wealth" being created.

 

 

Speaking of wealth, one can find it, lots of it, concentrated, in the holdings of a tiny fraction of a nation's population. Indeed, even if we assume no-limit wealth creation as a hypothesis, divorced from the factor of wealth's distribution, its creation isn't socially interesting to the general public --which may find itself excluded from whatever is supposed to count as wealth creation.

_______________________________

 

from Chaper 5, (at page 37) "Expectation as determining output and employment", in Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,

 

 

 

 

 

II

 

This leads us to the relevance of this discussion for our present purpose. It is evident from the above that the level of employment at any time depends, in a sense, not merely on the existing state of expectation but on the states of expectation which have existed over a certain past period. Nevertheless past expectations, which have not yet worked themselves out, are embodied in the to-day's capital equipment with reference to which the entrepreneur has to make to-day's decisions, and only influence his decisions in so far as they are so embodied. It follows, therefore, that, in spite of the above, to-day's employment can be correctly described as being governed by to-day's expectations taken in conjunction with to-day's capital equipment.

 

Express reference to current long-term expectations can seldom be avoided. But it will often be safe to omit express reference to short-term expectation, in view of the fact that in practice the process of revision of short-term expectation is a gradual and continuous one, carried on largely in the light of realised results; so that expected and realised results run into and overlap one another in their influence. For, although output and employment are determined by the producer's short-term expectations and not by past results, the most recent results usually play a predominant part in determining what these expectations are. It would be too complicated to work out the expectations de novo whenever a productive process was being started; and it would, moreover, be a waste of time since a large part of the circumstances usually continue substantially unchanged from one day to the next. Accordingly it is sensible for producers to base their expectations on the assumption that the most recently realised results will continue, except in so far as there are definite reasons for expecting a change. Thus in practice there is a large overlap between the effects on employment of the realised sale-proceeds of recent output and those of the sale-proceeds expected from current input; and producers' forecasts are more often gradually modified in the light of results than in anticipation of prospective changes[4].

 

Nevertheless, we must not forget that, in the case of durable goods, the producer's short-term expectations are based on the current long-term expectations of the investor; and it is of the nature of long-term expectations that they cannot be checked at short intervals in the light of realised results. Moreover, as we shall see in chapter 12, where we shall consider long-term expectations in more detail, they are liable to sudden revision. Thus the factor of current long-term expectations cannot be even approximately eliminated or replaced by realised results. http://cas.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultyPages/kregel/courses/econ645/Winter2011/GeneralTheory.pdf

Edited December 29, 2012 by proximity1

[overtone]

Well I guess I just need to blow all my cash and join handout crowd.

You'd learn something, and you're overdue.

 

One thing that would happen to you is that your marginal tax rates would go up. That would be an interesting lesson. Another would be discovering that your hard work is not necessarily rewarded any more.

 

But you won't. Rich guys are never so enamored of the ease and irresponsibility of the poor that they are motivated to join them.

[swansont]

Interesting use of the word “asking.” I don’t ever recall anyone “asking” me to pay my taxes. Wouldn’t a more appropriate word be forcing? Forcing at the point of a gun with the threat of imprisonment.

I find that rhetoric to be particularly uncompelling. All laws are, in this sense, "forcing at the point of a gun". Leash laws are enforced "at the point of a gun". You are forced to pay your taxes in the same way you are forced not to murder people.

 

Particularly, why should I be forced to pay a higher percentage?

In part because people with large incomes have access to tax loopholes/advantages which allow many of them to pay a lower percentage.

 

How was delaying personal gratification so that I could fully fund my 401k aggressive use of our common infrastructure?

401k plans are tax-advantaged, i.e. the money is deducted before the income is taxed. (The advantage is larger if you are in a higher income bracket) Not a good example.

 

 

One person benefits from our common infrastructure by enjoying the moment. Another person stores up his benefits over a lifetime as wealth. To each their own. Both pay along the way but only one ends up with wealth. There is no justice in forcing the latter to pay more in taxes. Your "asking" statement, in my opinion, is implying that it is only reasonable to expect a wealthy person to pay more.

In this context wealth isn't being taxed. Income is.

[waitforufo]

There have been a lot of comments since my last post. Forgive me for not providing quotes from these comments in this reply. It would take too much effort particularly since I haven’t figured out the new science forums system.

 

Perhaps a little more about me would provide some context to my posting.

 

I was raised in a middle class family in a middle class neighborhood. I have 8 siblings so my family was always cash strapped. Like my neighbor friends, most of the clothes I wore came from thrift stores or hand-me-downs. Several of our neighbors received welfare assistance in the form of food stamps and government surplus food. I remember how good that government peanut butter that came in a large can tasted. I had dyslexia so I was never a stellar student. I was put back a grade in primary school in part because of this learning disability. Also because I liked to day dream a lot instead of studying. I graduated from high school with a 2.8 only because I took the minimum state requirements and filled in the rest with shop classes. I remember taking the Washington State college placement test and it said I read at a 7th grade level. I don't recall anyone having high expectations of me at my high school graduation. After high school I got a job working at a local tractor trailer factory and moved into a small studio apartment in part to relieve my parents of my financial burdens. After 6 months of this I thought I could achieve a bit more in life with a better education. I switched to swing shift at the factory and went to community college to become a certified electronics technician. I did not receive an associate's degree in this one year course. At the end of the one year of training I took a test, which only required a 70% to pass, and earned my Certified Electronics Technician (CET) certificate. I also passed FCC tests and earned my 1st class radiotelephone license. I spent a year fixing stereos and CB radios at a local electronics shop while living in my studio. During that time I met a girl going to a local university. She talked me into trying college. I went expecting to flunk out, but I tried hard wanting to have no regrets when the inevitable flunk out happened. I took electrical engineering simply because I thought my previous education would help me out. I continued to work through collage so by BSEE took me six years to earn. When I graduated in '85 I was married to my pregnant wife, owned a '69 VW beetle, had $800 in the bank but no debt. Since then I have lived in 5 states and have had 7 employers. I was laid off 4 years ago and worked as an engineering contractor for year before finding my current employer. Other than that one year I have always worked for a wage. I live in a modest middle class neighborhood in a modest home. I have three grown children who attended public school. I drive second hand cars and motorcycles which I fix myself. I have a passion for riding motorcycles. I would say it's the only real risk I take in my life. I own my home, have no debt, and have over a million dollars in investments and cash. I have never inherited a dime from anyone and neither did my parents. Because of my parents frugality I may share an inheritance with my siblings. I say may because my 80 year old widow mother is doing a good job enjoying her retirement savings. I hope she spends it all before she is done and I hope the government gets none.

 

The only part of the above I remember being a hardship was the teasing I got for being put back in the third grade and the year I worked as a contractor. My secret to financial success? Work hard, push for promotions, quit and find another job if advancement isn't available, delay gratification, and save money like you just might run out one day. By the way I ran out quite often early on. Perhaps I could add take jobs others won't take and always be willing to move across the country. I think I would even have more wealth if I had any talent at investing. Knowing that I suck at investing I put most of my money in conservative domestic mutual funds, corporate bonds, and cash. The bonds and cash part however meant the recent stock crash didn't hurt me as bad as others. It still hurt. I always considered housing to be disposable so I didn't get caught up in real estate boom. I don't remember acquiring wealth to be particularly difficult. Four of my eight siblings are in similar financial circumstances. Some of them still live in my home town and have kept up with our childhood friends. Some of those childhood friends are dead, some are struggling financially, and some are doing as well if not better than I am.

 

iNow, it amazes me that you need citations to prove that above is common. Perhaps you should change your attitude. I always knew it was possible and found acquiring wealth to be a simple routine aspect of life. Also your images in post 30 are quite telling about your attitude. If I'm in either of those images, I'm one of the people in the bleachers that paid to get in. While I'm sure you will disagree, I always pay my own way.

 

I think Airbrush says it best with "The reason you should pay a greater percentage of taxes is because the poor certainly cannot pay more ". To me this says "we don't care how honestly you came by the cash, we don't have any so we are taking yours." I like honesty. That is why iNow's comment about "asking" bothers me. It implies that he and those like him are the reasonable ones. There is nothing reasonable about the situation. Coveting and stealing are common human flaws and those that do it always find good sounding rationalizations. Tearing me down by stealing wealth won't build anyone up. You will just have to move on to coveting a stealing from others with less. Margaret Thatcher said it best when she said eventually you will run out of other people's money. You should worry more about making stories like mine possible. Instead you are working to increase dependency.

Edited December 30, 2012 by waitforufo

[swansont]

I see government food program, comunity college, university (any financial aid?), FCC certification, home ownership (ever have a mortgage?) public school for you & your kids. You have a fair amount of assets, that are reasonably safe from anyone taking from you. Yet you earlier stated that you are less of a burden than others on government infrastructure.

 

This isn't about envy. This is about recognizing just how much the government does, and paying for it. Even if you paid full tuition in schol, there was govenment support. That and other programs were investments in you - to make your story possible - to be paid back if possible. It perpetuates the system. You have wealth, so safeguarding it is of more importance to you than to someone who has little; that has a cost.

[Airbrush]

......Margaret Thatcher said it best when she said eventually you will run out of other people's money. You should worry more about making stories like mine possible. Instead you are working to increase dependency.

This has nothing to do with increased dependency. We are protecting the US standard of living. We are working at paying off a debt. The debt came from 2 wars plus a war on terror, Katrina, Sandy, and many other necessary evils, such as the Kepler Mission search for Earth-like planets.

 

Pay off should be a combination of spending cuts that don't hurt the economy or weaken national security, and tax increases that don't hurt the economy. The poor cannot pay more, the middle class can but shouldnt, only the rich can pay more and take it in stride. Rich means earning about $250,000/year. Maybe the rich could go without a luxury. Oh heaven forbid!

Edited December 30, 2012 by Airbrush

[iNow]

iNow, it amazes me that you need citations to prove that above is common.

We seem to have far more in common than you probably realize, including the hard work, advancement, humble backgrounds, years of struggle trying to make things work, investment and frugality approaches, and even a love of motorcycle riding. I don't need citations to prove what you've said is common. I was simply saying that you are arguing on an assumed premise (that MOST people earn their wealth and aren't merely born into it) and that you should support that premise with something more than just personal anecdote if it is going to serve as so foundational to your entire position.

 

Coveting and stealing are common human flaws and those that do it always find good sounding rationalizations. Tearing me down by stealing wealth won't build anyone up. You will just have to move on to coveting a stealing from others with less.

You attempt to take me out to task for assuming my position to be the reasonable one, and then in the very next sentence you show precisely why I've deemed YOUR position to be of lesser merit. I do not covet your wealth. You've asserted this many times, and I have corrected you many times sharing how untrue that is, yet you persist in making the assertion. I am not tearing you down. You've asserted this many times, and I've corrected you many times sharing how untrue that is, yet you persist in making the assertion.

 

Your fundamental stance is against the entire concept of taxation itself, not my or other's position here. You argue that taxes are a form of stealing. I argue that taxes are inherent in a civilization that relies on certain things like public education (from you which definitely benefited despite your struggles)... certain things like police and firefighters... certain things like armed forces and highways and shipping ports and borders and the protection of them. These things require revenues to keep intact. These things are a cost of living in this society. These things are to the benefit of us all, that some people benefit from that infrastructure more than others, and that this is true no matter how forcefully you try to remain obtuse to and willfully ignorant of that point.

 

My position is that the rich have benefited asymmetrically relative to the other 98% of the country, that their taxes are at historic lows, and that this results in other major problems for us as a nation (such as with our deficit and debt and inequality of growth). My position (oversimplified, but to ensure clarity) is that we can help make the economy healthier as a whole... and across all income groups including the very rich... if we address some of those asymmetries.

 

I will say again, this has zero to do with coveting wealth, punishing the successful, or tearing people down. If you continue to suggest otherwise, then you are not approaching this discussion in good faith or with even a modicum of integrity. I've made my position clear, so stop misrepresenting it for the purposes of your ideological position. Those claims (that this is about hating the rich or coveting what others have earned) are all strawmen built up to prevent us from doing what is necessary to grow and prosper again.

 

Calling taxes a form of stealing is another distraction from the central point, as our constitution explicitly provides that power to congress in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, and which is reinforced by the 16th amendment. Frankly, your replies are tangential to the discussion here. We have taxes. That's a fact, and it is not something that is changing no matter how hard you wish it so. The discussion here is that we need to correct the asymmetries that have become part of our tax system and that have harmed our economy, our markets, our aggregate growth, and our people.

 

I commend you for all of your hard work through the years, and genuinely praise you for making so much good out of so little and through so much struggle. I would appreciate it very much, however, if you could recognize that I am in a very similar position as you, and just feel differently about the issues here.

 

To repeat: You're arguing against the philosophic idea of taxes in very generalized terms. I'm saying that taxes are part of being an advanced civilization and that our current tax system hurts us and needs correction. It would be quite lovely if you could please stop talking past me and start listening to what I'm actually conveying, and if you could acknowledge that our backgrounds are not quite as divergent as you seem to think.

[overtone]

My secret to financial success? Work hard, push for promotions, quit and find another job if advancement isn't available, delay gratification, and save money like you just might run out one day. By the way I ran out quite often early on. Perhaps I could add take jobs others won't take and always be willing to move across the country. I think I would even have more wealth if I had any talent at investing. Knowing that I suck at investing I put most of my money in conservative domestic mutual funds, corporate bonds, and cash. The bonds and cash part however meant the recent stock crash didn't hurt me as bad as others. It still hurt. I always considered housing to be disposable so I didn't get caught up in real estate boom. I don't remember acquiring wealth to be particularly difficult.

And now it is time to pay back the society that made all those opportunities possible,

 

a society in which hard work is - unless you catch a bad break or two - rewarded,

 

a society in which a vairety of jobs are available and promotions can be pushed for,

 

in which you can move around and get work and invest in a regluated market with enforceable contracts and a solid monetary system,

 

in which acquiring some wealth is not particularly difficult, for those with the requisite character and good fortune.

 

You were fronted the use of enormous resources of various kinds, for many years. It wasn't easy to set them up, for you to use. Other people paid for them then, it's your turn now.

 

":A man of spirit will be unbearable unless he have two virtues: cleanliness and gratitude" (Nietzsche)

[waitforufo]

We seem to have far more in common than you probably realize, including the hard work, advancement, humble backgrounds, years of struggle trying to make things work, investment and frugality approaches, and even a love of motorcycle riding. I don't need citations to prove what you've said is common. I was simply saying that you are arguing on an assumed premise (that MOST people earn their wealth and aren't merely born into it) and that you should support that premise with something more than just personal anecdote if it is going to serve as so foundational to your entire position.

 

Since you ride you can't be all bad. Also, I appreciate the kind words. I'm not quite sure what it is with liberals, but you hang on to your idealism longer than most. I have read many of your posts where you express frustration and disgust over how the government spends the public's money. We only disagree on the topics for such expressions. When you lose your idealism you will begin to realize that the best way to end the madness is to simply leave the money with the public. A good place to start is to turn off the TV news. I haven't watched in 10 years.

 

I'm sorry, but when someone takes your money, even with the best of intentions, and flushes it down the toilet, that's stealing.

 

Last time I was in Texas, all I remember is that was very flat and hot. Everywhere I have lived I found good rides and I'm sure Texas is the same. North Carolina and Tennessee have particularly good rides, but the mountain people are racist aholes. Nothing however beats the rides in the inland Northwest. Washington, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Oregon have lots of twisties, friendly people, cheap motels, and great watering holes for after the ride. The bear tooth Hwy, Chef Joseph Hwy, lost trail pass, Lolo pass, Thompson Pass, the ice fields parkway, the devils tail (Oregon) and the Olympic Peninsula to name just a few. Lot's of dirt trails and roads too if that's your preference. If you get tired of hot and flat head north and I will show you.

[iNow]

Last time I was in Texas, all I remember is that was very flat and hot. Everywhere I have lived I found good rides and I'm sure Texas is the same. North Carolina and Tennessee have particularly good rides, but the mountain people are racist aholes. Nothing however beats the rides in the inland Northwest. Washington, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Oregon have lots of twisties, friendly people, cheap motels, and great watering holes for after the ride. The bear tooth Hwy, Chef Joseph Hwy, lost trail pass, Lolo pass, Thompson Pass, the ice fields parkway, the devils tail (Oregon) and the Olympic Peninsula to name just a few. Lot's of dirt trails and roads too if that's your preference. If you get tired of hot and flat head north and I will show you.

 

That would be quite nice. The funny thing is I'm rather confident we'd get along splendidly so long as we weren't butting heads about politics or climate change. I wish you and your loved a 2013 filled with little more than good fortune and great health. Take it easy, mate.

[Airbrush]

"...the recent stock crash didn't hurt me as bad as others. It still hurt. I always considered housing to be disposable so I didn't get caught up in real estate boom. I don't remember acquiring wealth to be particularly difficult."

 

Acquiring wealth was not difficult for you? That proves to me you are a genius, and your argument is bogus. Not ANYONE could have done what you did. Very few could do that, probably less than 2% of the population.

[overtone]

I'm not quite sure what it is with liberals, but you hang on to your idealism longer than most.

Dunno about inow, but your positions and assertions here are far more idealistic than mine, and I am a classic "liberal" (or "center-left libertarian", if as seems llikely the word "liberal" has been rendered meaningless in your information sources).

 

Paying one's bills, recognizing and honoring one's debts, is not idealism. Recognizing how large capitalistic corporations, as well as large governments, are set up and likely to treat people, landscapes, and civilizations, is not idealism.

 

Recognizing the necessity of forcing people to pay such bills is not idealistic, either. I am being perfectly hardnosed and realisitic when I point out that the benefits obtained by coercive taxation will never be matched by private charity, for example - individuals who can pocket the cash and still live in town with a fire department often (too often) will do so, I'm afraid. And rich people will never voluntarily support education, medical care, etc, for poor people's children in general (paying lots of money for their own children's competition? no)- so without community coercion , that education and medical care will never happen.

 

One way to spot idealism vs realism is by remembering, and checking, predictions and assertions and claims of the past. The people and stances that have proven to be more accurate at recognizing circumstances and estimating consequences are not properly termed "idealistic". The stuff that agrees with reality is called "realistic".

 

When you lose your idealism you will begin to realize that the best way to end the madness is to simply leave the money with the public. A good place to start is to turn off the TV news. I haven't watched in 10 years.

Not watching TV is a decent start, and many "liberals" have you beat by many years there ("kill your television" bumper stickers have been showing up on liberal's cars since the 70s if not earlier). The key step, however, is acquiring reliable information and reasonable analysis and so forth from somewhere, and that step is where the current self-described "conservative" crowd stumbles - badly.

 

You guys voted for W. Twice. Separated by four full years in which to come your senses. That wasn't just a victory of pandered and mistaken ideals over reality, but an inexplicably childish, borderline moronic example of that. Every liberal in the country was trying to get you to not do that, for not only solid and critical but realistically dead obvious reasons. Take a good look at that fact, and recognize what it means for your political ideology and "realism".

 

Or, more simply, look at this gem of adolescent ideology:

the best way to end the madness is to simply leave the money with the public.

Anyone who thinks we're all one big public in this together with Exxon and their top executives, who describes allowing the people who are running the banks and investment firms to simply keep whatever share they can arrange of the wealth the entire economy produces as "leaving it with the public", who sincerely believes that the ruling corporate elite of the United States is part of the same public as everyone else coem tax time, is the type specimen of an idealist. You can't get any more hippy dippy kum by ya than that.

[proximity1]

RE:

 

"I'm sorry, but when someone takes your money, even with the best of intentions, and flushes it down the toilet, that's stealing."

 

Okay. Let's go with that.

 

Q: Who stole/steals your money?

 

Your A.: the Government, as in Ronald Reagan's "Big Gub'ment."

 

And I say, fine. You're right. The "big government" did it/does it to you.

 

Now, think: who is "big government" if it's not those in the top 0.1% of the wealth and income-holding public? These are the wealthiest of the wealthy. Their money finances both of the two main political parties--that is, the single-party system we have in which one wealth-party presents two faces--a Republican face and, beside it, a more-and-more Right-wing "Democratic Party", the one Franklin Roosevelt once belonged to.

 

So wealth's money finances this one-party 'Two-party' fraud we have. It pays for the campaigns' expenses, the mega-millions in broadcasting party messages, the costs of travel, of equipment, food, lodging, --everything. All that money, in one way or another comes from the richest of the rich. Even people who work for hourly-wages, who live in a mobile home park and who give something to a candidate got that from their employers--other wealthier people. The only exceptions are the modest & low income self-employed who contribute to (guess who? The Republican Party and its candidates, mainly) political campains. But of these latter, even if you put all their contributions together, you couldn't finance a single afternoon's worth of a congressional or a presidential election campaign. So, in effect, they don't even make a "blip" on the radar-screen.

 

Once money buys the parties, their election campaigns, finances both of the main candidates, what do we have?

 

We have a system which is bought and owned. When you buy something, don't you consider it "yours"? Well, the wealthy people (you're not one of these) who've bought and paid for the political system, with all its electoral paraphernalia, they, too, expect that they own what they bought and paid for.

 

There is a small--and a not very significant--- catch; these ultra wealthy do not always agree politically on every last fine detail of policy (tax policy included in certain cases). Instead, they dispute some of them. They argue --mainly in private, but also and always in public, for purposes of spectacle and distraction--over these details, fight, and oppose one plan with another. But these fights all boil down to how to divvy up the nation's wealth among themselves and virtually all the rest of us are left completely out of the important debates, the negotiations and the decision-making --except as bit-part players, or what Hollywood refers to as "Extras". You may hold a million dollars (for the moment) in various investments but you still constitute an "Extra" in the scheme I'm describing here.

 

But, on those broad points of policy--which include taxes in many and certainly where their kind of wealth is concerned, they always agree, no matter what the television talking-heads tell you to the contrary.

 

So, Big money, a.k.a. "Big Gub'ment, owns the system and its hired help--and in a few rare cases, its "own" are both of those at once the owning class and the hired help: as they are both elected official and stupendously wealthy fat-cat--that is, Senators and Congress members get their cues and their spending money from their elite owners and so, the tax system, which you say is stealing your hard-earned income, is a product of these elected officials, who, in turn owe their posts and their power to the organized money which financed their campaigns--year in and year out, for decades in many, many cases.

 

Now, you don't like that? What are you gonna do about it?

 

You have three basic options:

 

1) you can double-down, that is, try and make your way---as you see it, "earn your way" ---into the upper-stratosphere of the system-owning wealth--in which case, you'll be one of the "happy (extremely) few."

 

2) you can stay where you are and either smile at your good forune or grumble at your misfortune--that is, those big mean rich people taking your income in taxes.

 

3) or you can resist, fight, protest, etc. either with others who are by far the numerical majority but who have nothing even close to your investment portfolio (so far, that is); or on the side of the much better off, those similar to you in income, for example, or even considerably wealthier. In any scenario where you try the resistance route (unless, that is, you become a member of some armed terrrorist cell), you're condemned to working within the party and electoral system which, as I've already explained, is owned outright by the very same class who give the orders to Congress which results in your income being confiscated in taxes.

 

So, briefly, you can either try and fight 'em or you can try and join 'em.

 

Since your fairy-tale world view has it that one can always create more wealth, more riches--that is, by working harder, you can always get a bigger and bigger pile, why don't you simply do that and join the top 0.1% of the ruling class? When they (pretend to) pay more in taxes, they don't "feel it". Their lives go on, year in and year out, no matter what the Congress or the Markets do, just as they have been doing. At their level, a few score million dollars, or even one billion can be lost but not wept over for very long.

Edited January 2, 2013 by proximity1

[Airbrush]

And we haven't even mentioned the effect that global warming is going to have on taxes. Imagine the cost, and imagine tens of millions of people migrating inland from coastal flooding, imagine more frequent and bigger storms. Imagine wars over drinkable water, etc. Who is going to pay for all that? The only people who can pay, the wealthy. But eventually wealthy will mean earning about $100,000/year.

 

Social security and medicare cannot last much longer at the current payroll deductions and ever-increasing-inflation-adjusted monthly payouts to the increasing numbers of old people with expensive health problems. Even the middle class will take a tax hit. The poor will have Obamacare, but that will eventually evolve to just drugs to take away the pain while dying of conditions that CAN be cured, but too expensive to cure.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Airbrush