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DesideriScuri -> RE: Another interesting article... (8/2/2014 12:36:13 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
Income made in the US should have taxes paid to the US. Income made outside the US, shouldn't have taxes paid to the US, imo.
Preventing businesses from reincorporating outside the US, imo, shouldn't be prevented by edict. Why are these companies reincorporating outside the US? And, why isn't that addressed?
I think it should be addressed, and I'm not arguing that anyone should be prevented from leaving the U.S. if they wish to leave. But if they want to have their cake and eat it, too, then that might be something worth questioning.
Even if they leave, though, they are still going to pay taxes on their US revenues, and their US employees still pay US income taxes. I'm sure Toyota and it's workforce are paying taxes here.
But doesn't that bother them just as much? Why would anyone want to do business with the US at all if it’s true that we're so unfriendly and hostile to private business?
That's my point. They are still paying taxes right here in good old USA, even though they aren't here. We don't assess taxes on the entirety of their global revenues, though. That's yet another thing that the Liberals have been talking about. When GE makes a kajillion bucks outside North America, they don't pay taxes to the US on that, though they are paying whatever taxes are applicable where they are making that revenue. If GE turns a profit in foreign markets and takes losses in the US, if that revenue never comes back into the US, why should it get taxed?
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Have you ever stopped to consider just how absurd it all is? I mean, here we have people born into wealth and privilege, who have every luxury and comfort, who enjoy the protection of living under one of the most powerful governments and nations on the planet, and yet, they're still complaining that they're not getting enough.
Could it be they aren't complaining about not getting enough, but about having too much taken away?
Either way, it's still pretty obvious that they have quite a bit left over - far more than the average working stiff could ever hope to get. It's just like when you hear about celebrities or sports heroes going bankrupt even after earning humongous salaries. Or when Johnny Carson's ex-wife complained that she couldn't live on $40,000 a month alimony (and this was back in the early 80s). I just have to wonder: What world do these people live in? It certainly isn't something that most working stiffs would recognize or identify with.
I understand you here, but, what's wrong with them being out of the loop with us working stiffs? There will always be those types. Why isn't it okay for there to be income inequality, anyway? Isn't that an incentive for "working stiffs" to find a better way?
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I agree with you about the low information voters. I have to admit that I’m somewhat baffled at times, especially since our society overall has favored education and informed political activism. It’s not that the information isn’t available, so I don’t see any real excuse for anyone to be a low information voter nowadays. It may also be due to the quality of the information they have, not the quantity.
Politicians also have a way of playing on people’s fears. That’s why mud-slinging and negative advertising seems to be so effective at winning elections. The common voter’s logic might go like this: “Well, I don’t really like D that much, but I’ll vote for him just because I’m really afraid that R will get in there. I really like G and would rather see him win, but he has no chance of winning and I don’t want to waste my vote. So I’m voting for D.” I think it’s actually a greater waste of one’s vote by voting for the lesser of two evils when there might be more desirable candidates in the field who get all but ignored.
There are people who will tell you that America has been "dumbed down" through our educational system. I'm not so sure that's not true. I don't think it's been done as a goal to keep the masses uninformed and stupid, but I do think we aren't as prepared by our educational system as we used to be. I don't think we teach enough critical thinking skills. I've always been one of those students that wanted to know why something was the way it was, rather than just knowing what it was. Explain that math theorem to me. Don't just tell me this is how it is. If you know the "why," when stuff doesn't fit quite right, you'll have a better ability to fix the problem.
I was the same way. I always wanted to know why, too.
I’m not sure exactly what happened to our educational system, although I try to keep in mind that there’s no single education “system” for the whole country. Some school districts are actually quite good and prepare their students quite well, while others seem to lag behind. Parents also play a huge role and can make or break their children’s education. Popular culture and media also have had a great deal of influence over the hearts and minds of America’s youth, so if America has become “dumbed down,” I don’t think the cause of it could be placed solely on the educational system.
It’s just that the educational system is an easy scapegoat and the one aspect of society which is the most accessible and easiest to control. People can’t do much about the culture or the media, and society can’t do much about bad parenting, unless it crosses the line of abuse or neglect. But the local school board is just a phone call away, so it’s far more convenient to just blame it on them. Society has turned our schools into political football fields, and then we wonder why the kids can’t get a good education.
Another thing that I’ve noted is that, in many other countries in the world, the role of teacher is far more respected and revered than what we typically see in American culture. There’s a very strong anti-intellectual bent in our culture, along with a somewhat diminished respect for teachers and education in general. This seems especially true in the districts where education is badly needed. It’s not because it’s not available or accessible, but when so many people seem to believe that they “don’t need no book learnin’,” it’s an uphill battle.
I also agree about not teaching critical thinking skills, but again, too many other influences in our culture seem to direct people away from critical thinking. At some point during my lifetime, thinking went out of style, and everything was about feeling instead. “Don’t worry, be happy.” Critical thinking can be very stressful on a person’s consciousness, and a lot of people really don’t want to know what’s going on. Again, I would say it’s not an issue of not teaching critical thinking, but it’s that too many people just don’t want to learn. As a result, their children don’t learn either.
I'm less critical of our educational system. Seriously. What I think is wrong with our educational system is all the non-curricular shit demanded of it. Parents need to play a bigger role in their kids' academic lives, and need to take care of all the non-curricular shit. Let schools go back to just teaching. I honestly don't think there's enough time for our schools to teach critical thinking skills because of all the other stuff they have to deal with.
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Taxing people at ever higher rates to subsidize more and more isn't knocking people down? I disagree.
Well, I think it would depend on how high the rate is. Taxation, in and of itself, is not designed to knock people down. It can certainly be used that way and abused to extreme proportions. We have a far from perfect track record in terms of governmental abuses in this country, but at least in my lifetime, I don’t think the taxes have really been that bad. Sure, they’re kind of a pain in the butt; I hate taxes, so it’s not that I’m unsympathetic.
I also find it especially galling to consider how much of the people’s money is wasted by the government. I don’t think that negates the necessity of taxation, but I agree that the government needs to come up with a better way of doing things.
Taxation isn't designed to knock people down. You're correct in that. You're also correct that it certainly can be used that way. Because of the amount of money that's been wasted, many people don't want to pay more in taxes. I'm all for government reducing waste and excess. I'd even be willing to continue to pay current tax levels while they wring out the waste (because we'll be able to pay off our debt quicker). If government isn't going to reduce waste on it's own, though, how do we, as citizens "force" government to do so?
Well, the first step would be to elect better people to office, which brings us back to our previous point about how “dumbed down” the electorate has become.
Lazy Americans. I used to be one.
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My use of the phrase, "for the most part," indicates that working harder isn't always going to be indicative of your success levels, and there are people who get to add to what their forebears started, too. A person "paying it forward" to his/her children is a good thing. Even that is being attacked. You take two people who are generally equal, the one that works harder than the other will tend to be more successful. I'm never going to have income like Lebron, the Koch's, Bill Gates, etc., and I'm perfectly okay with that. I don't need it. I'm looking at competing with myself, though. I want to be better than I am. I know that the better I am, the more valuable an employee I'll be, and the more successful I'll be.
On a personal level, I’m much the same way, and in no way am I criticizing hard work, diligence, or even the success of the individuals you’re referring to. I just don’t think that it tells the whole story. In any case, noting individual success is more a credit to the talent, skills, hard work, and determination of those particular individuals. It doesn’t necessarily give credit to any particular system or political ideology. Hard work, talent, ambition, intelligence, and diligence will always tend to pay off on an individual level, regardless of whatever economic or political system one lives under.
It doesn't tell the whole story. Someone's hard work, though, might not be just for him/herself. It could also be for his/her kids. That person who is in a better situation because his/her parent(s) worked extra, or sacrificed much to improve the lives of his/her family shouldn't be knocked down because of it. Just because your mom or dad didn't put you in a better situation than you're in doesn't mean the other guy has to pay more because his parent(s) put you in a better situation.
If he has to pay more, it would still depend on how much more. If he’s still in a comparably better position than the other guy who’s worse off, then I don’t see that as being “knocked down.” If he had to pay so much that he found himself at the same level as the other guy, then I would see your point.
Why increasingly tax increasing success? Why does government get to say "you make too much, so we'll take more" anyway?
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I'm still lucky to have both my parents in my life. When they do pass, they won't be leaving me with riches galore, but they did provide a life relatively free of unmet "needs." We didn't always get what we wanted, but we did usually always get what we needed. My parents built on the life that their parents provided them, who built on the lives their parents provided.
You are fortunate. My parents passed about 5 years ago.
I'm sorry for your loss.
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Maybe the government can put the hurdles and regulations on big business, while cutting small business a break and removing some of the hurdles. I don’t think anyone wants to knock down any of the hard-working small business owners, but I think most of the public’s anger these days is mainly directed at the fat cats and others at the top levels.
How do you fairly cut small business a break though? Do you roll back the EPA regulations? Big Business has made it their business to carve out their own spots, leaving in place an environment that makes it more difficult for competition, especially new competitors. That was part of the point of deregulation. It was an attempt to make it easier for competition to enter the Market to reduce costs all around.
There will always be businesses that fail because they can't compete well enough to succeed. It's not just government. But, shouldn't it be because of the business model and the efforts of the business that a business fails or succeeds?
Ideally, it should work that way, but when humans are involved, plans tend to go awry. It doesn’t matter if they’re wearing a government hat or a business hat, humans can do some rather foolish things which can cause businesses to fail, among other unfortunate events.
As for cutting small business a break, there are possibly some tax incentives that could favor proprietorships, partnerships, and family businesses, while corporations could be penalized with higher taxes, making that business structure far less attractive. Or another way to look at it would be to give tax breaks to businesses which stay within a single state, while significantly increasing taxes to businesses which operate in two or more states.
Another possible way is to differentiate between types of businesses and rank them according to their utility to America as a whole. Those which produce a useful tangible product or service (such as food, medicine, energy, construction, housing, vehicles, etc.) would be put into a separate category than those who do nothing more than paper-pushing (banks, insurance, finance, consultants, etc.). Luxuries, fluff, and vices may also be put into another category.
Who gets to decide their utility, though? Do the Democrats, when in power, get to say that any non-Volt's are going to get taxed higher, only to have the GOP make changes when they take over?
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Paul Ryan proposed a revenue neutral plan that cut corporate tax rates to no higher than 25%. It closed loopholes to make up for the reduction in rates. Isn't that a better way of taxing corporations? Level the playing field so that this company or that company isn't getting a leg up because it gets some sort of loophole? I'm all for closing all loopholes (outside of some tax exemptions for charities). I'm just not for closing "this" loophole, or "that" loophole, or just loopholes for this business or that business. Hell, I've said before that I'm all for closing all the loopholes now, and dropping the tax rates slowly, so the end might be revenue neutral, but getting to that end will have a positive effect on revenues until the end rate. That has to be used to pay down the debt, though. I hardly see either side doing that.
The main problem I see with this is that there seems to be a desire to bend over backwards just so that everything is “fair” to corporations and other private businesses, but nothing about the interests or general welfare of the American people or the country as a whole.
That’s the problem with much of the entire debate on the economy, since the businesses, corporations, and capitalists keep arguing from a decidedly selfish point of view. Everything is about “me, me, me – MY money, MY business, MY property – mine, mine, mine!” Nothing about America as a whole, or what’s good for the country, nor any of the same appeals to patriotism that they use whenever they want to bring the country into another war. I’m not saying that people don’t have the right, but when so many people abuse their freedoms so wantonly and recklessly, it will definitely have unfavorable consequences to the country as a whole.
Take a look at the US poor vs. the poor in most any other country. Take a look at how those who are just outside of "the poor" in any Third World country compares to the poor in the US.
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Indecision and gridlock can be limiting to real improvement, but it can also prevent further distortions of the economy. "Real improvement" and "distortions" will be defined by your political persuasion, of course.
I think there might be ways of measuring “real improvement” from a more objective and non-political point of view. After all, there are plenty of things that conservatives and liberals do agree upon, so they can always try to build upon that. I don’t think we need any distortions of the economy, but I always try to remember that any perceptions of the economy are tied in with political and cultural perceptions as well. I figure, as long as we don’t have any major shortages of vital goods, or no food riots or power outages, we’re still shooting par. They never promised us a rose garden.
I don't know that the desired end results are really any different at all. I just think the problem is in how we get to those ends. That's where the disagreements are.
In practice, it seems that too many politicians are beholden to special interests who only want for themselves or their own pet cause(s), while they don’t give a damn about the rest of the country. This is true on both sides of the spectrum. When you really think about it, there is no central, singular “cause” or issue which truly defines the Left or the Right in this country. Each faction seems more like a catch-all cacophony of several different causes.
One thing both sides mostly seem to agree on is the need to avoid any extremism one way or the other. If the voices of moderation and compromise are drowned out by more extreme voices from either end of the spectrum, then we’re in even deeper trouble.
That’s what we should really focus on, not so much whether an economic system is ideologically orthodox or would be something that Adam Smith or Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman would approve of. It might be better to look at the situation from a sociologist’s and political scientist’s point of view, not a theoretical economist’s point of view. That’s the main problem with the pro-business factions in this country, since their view of the world is very narrowly focused within a single subject of study (economics) while deliberately avoiding anything that might be outside of that narrow focus.
Even the article you linked in the OP seems to suggest that those who oppose capitalism do so just because they want a free lunch, but that’s really not the case at all. I just don’t want to see the country’s economy sink so low that it leads to riots, people burning stuff down, killing people – and possibly an extremist tyrannical regime taking power. This is what we should seek to avoid. I used to believe that even capitalists would see the merit in wanting to avoid such a thing happening in their own country, but the way they’ve been operating these past decades, I don’t know what to make of them anymore. Their actions would indicate that they’re myopically self-destructive, which is even evident within the increasingly fractured GOP, as if they’re deliberately taking some kind of “hold or die” position. It’s somewhat the same within the Democrats, too.
No one wants that. Where are in danger of that happening in the US?
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Still, when there are more and more boarded up storefronts, more pawn shops, more panhandlers and homeless people, and other signs of misery out there, it’s hard to ignore. Or even if people aren’t materially deprived, there still seems to be some inexplicable level of insanity that I can’t quite fathom. I don’t blame capitalism directly for that, but I think capitalism advocates a system which allows for unscrupulous people to prey on the weak and vulnerable. So, part of the loathing of capitalism also rests in the idea of wanting to protect the weak, which is an honorable thing for Captain America to do.
Those who can't provide for themselves should be helped. That's definitely a role charities used to play, and should play, imo. If government is going to supply a "safety net," how do we make sure that net doesn't become abused and used for an actual floor? How do we prevent people from relying on the safety net rather than relying on their own selves, leaving the safety net to catch those who fall, or truly can't rely on their own selves?
A large part of this depends on how society defines “those who can’t provide for themselves.” That seems to be the real issue – and makes the government bureaucracy all that much bigger due to society’s demand that we really make sure that anyone who asks for assistance truly needs it and isn’t some “lazy bum” trying to game the system. So, to determine if someone qualifies for assistance, it has to go through so many layers of bureaucracy before a decision is actually reached.
And all those layers of bureaucracy involve government workers who have to be paid and provided other perks and benefits that come with government jobs – and they invariably will get more money than the average welfare recipient. The person requiring public assistance may also have documentation from their doctor to prove that they’re disabled and in need of assistance – and the doctor gets paid too. There might also possibly be a psychiatrist and/or mental health agency involved, and they also get paid. The poor person has no money to pay these people, so where do you think the money comes from?
How do we keep the safety net from becoming an actual floor? Build a better, more attractive floor above the safety net so that there would be a noticeable difference between the two.
Among the lower classes, one has the choice of either working like a dog for low wages, or opting for the “safety net” which guarantees the same (or possibly even better) standard of living. So, why shouldn’t someone take the “safety net” when the end result would be basically the same? That really should be the best argument for raising wages across the board. It would actually show people that they can actually get something for their work, something well above the “safety net.” It shows that society (and even the capitalists) value hard work and loyalty of their employees – not something to be spat upon or taken for granted, which is the message they’re currently sending. They’re basically saying “You’re not worth very much to us” and then wondering why there’s discontent among the masses. If people are constantly told that they’re not worth very much, then it leads to the kind of defeatism and despair that would be better avoided, if at all possible.
Historically, we’ve seen that whenever large numbers of people are made to feel like they have no hope, then they’ll gravitate towards those who give them help, whether political extremists or some sort of religious faction – which can lead to other things that best not be mentioned. A lot of rhetoric out there is pretty nasty. It has the potential to get pretty ugly out there. The only thing that really keeps people somewhat “tamed” and “pacified” is that most in the lower classes still have some modicum of food, shelter, healthcare, education – and even a few luxuries here and there. While there are many who are suffering horribly out there, most seem to be staying above water – barely.
But there’s a question of how long this can be maintained. Those with wealth and power seem more inclined to want to build gated communities, fortresses, and their own private bastions of security, while keeping others out. The same phenomenon is evident with those wanting to keep out immigrants and even seems to drive a similar disdain for the lower classes within America. Then there’s the international aspect of all this, related to globalism and perceptions of US “imperialism” around the world which continues to generate and feed opposition to America which frightens the American masses and leads them to further entrenchment and isolation.
The fact that there are people who do work and succeed should give hope to anyone not doing as well. I watch people come into work and do whatever they can get away with to not have to work, and they are getting paid upwards of $14 to start. All the while, they bitch and moan about how shitty their job is. There will never be a minimum wage that will be "enough." That's the problem. As soon as we set a floor, the politicians will start to raise it in an effort to get elected.
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