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Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO
parallel_prankster writes "Bloomberg reports that Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook, has renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill. From the article: 'Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin's stake is about 4 percent, according to the website Who Owns Facebook. At the high end of the IPO valuation, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can trim their tax liabilities in that country. Saverin won't escape all U.S. taxes. Americans who give up their citizenship owe what is effectively an exit tax on the capital gains from their stock holdings, even if they don't sell the shares, said Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan's law school. For tax purposes, the IRS treats the stock as if it has been sold.'"
Just to provide a little bit more information to this story, here are the requirements for citizenship in Singapore: http://www.ica.gov.sg/page.aspx?pageid=132
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
To think, he could have had 1/3 of that company if he wasn't such a dumbshit.
I'm sure this move was well planned and will serve him well.
Yeah... a guy who created a giant marketing scam based on US laws and protections, and is now dodging taxes. Wonderful. You Ayn Randians can have 'em.
Of course, now that I think about it, he might have had to spend an entire year dead to realize any tax benefit from it. I'm sure you could manage that sort of thing when you're worth a few billion dollars!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Actually the tax is quite low - 50 years ago, the tax was a lot higher.
That's a pathetic attempt at trolling. You're not even really trying to be remotely relevant or subtle, it's just plain lazy. I bet you bought that low UID just to troll, too.
Yes, much better if he pays his taxes honestly, so we can go start a few more wars.
That's some high-quality calculation, right there. Maybe if the spending were expressed in terms of a taco chart, instead of a pie chart, you'd be able to understand it.
And too many people don't understand that the government has no money of it's own. It must confiscate it from the citizenry.
The fabled Robin Hood is often mis-characterized. He wasn't robbing the rich to give to the poor. He was robbing the government (Sheriff of Nottingham) to give the people back their own tax money the Sheriff mercilessly demanded by force.
I really hope this becomes a trend among CEOs who are presently in the U.S.. It's a brilliant way to get rid of many of our parasites; we just need to find a way to convince our politicians to do it as well and we'll be home-free.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
He wasn't much of an American. He had U.S. citizenship for a grand total of... 14 years. Apparently he wasn't very honest when he took the oath of citizenship in 1998. The U.S. doesn't need more people who lie under oath; we've got quite enough, so one less is an improvement.
In any case, there are a lot of actually productive people who'd love to become American citizens, most of whom won't be so quick to turn their backs on it if it makes them successful. I'd be happy to loosen immigration restrictions and let more of them in. And people who don't like the United States, and want to renounce it? Let them, especially if they're non-productive investor leeches. You don't see real American rich people renouncing citizenship: Steve Jobs didn't go anywhere, Bill Gates isn't going anywhere, even libertarians like Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers aren't going anywhere, because they aren't mercenary traitors.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's the old people, the old sick people, and the old paranoid people who want to invade other countries that spend *ten times what the hoodrats get. Yes, I don't like them very much either, but they aren't the big problem. I don't like giving billions of dollars to oil companies who are making record profits. There are a lot of paper pushers in government that could be replaced with a simple shell script.
And how much do we spend in interest on the national debt?
*may be more than ten times
I'd tackle the discretionary spending in the defense budget first. The government is spending $666.2 BILLION there, as opposed to $80.6 billion on "health and human services" of which welfare is a part. Source.
If we reduced the U.S. Government (as a whole, not just defense) to the size it was in the 1990s you could do away with the income tax completely. Source. And think of how big the government was in the 1990s. What taxes could we eliminate if we reduced the government to the size it was before LBJ's "Great Society" (1965), the "New Deal" (1933), or even the income tax itself (1913)?
Liberty in your lifetime
On the plus side, they'll have more money. On the negative side, they won't have a very useful citizenship (EU and US citizenships are basically the most favorable ones to hold). And on the even more negative side, they're now required to two two years of military service, plus report once a year for military reserve training up until they reach the age of 40. (Saverin himself is exempt because first-generation immigrants aren't required to do the service; only their children are.)
Personally I'd rather pay some taxes than condemn my kids to years in the military, but perhaps he has other priorities.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And the loopholes enabled people to still pay around 25% net.
Yes, lets forget about the wars.... You sir, are an idiot. But a really good one.
That's some high-quality calculation, right there. Maybe if the spending were expressed in terms of a taco chart, instead of a pie chart, you'd be able to understand it.
Wouldn't a taco chart just be the top half of a pie chart?
when $3.84 billion just isn't enough...
Let's just shut down schools, hospitals, and such. The market will provide. I can't wait to go to the Disney Exxon-Mobile ER and pay a fair market price of $5,000 for a visit that formerly cost $75. The security I will feel knowing that the fire department (which will only exist in communities with enough fires to provide demand) will automatically debit my bank account when they come service a fire in my building.
Ayn Rand was a hypocritical fool who shunned the very value of society only to feed off it in her own time of need.
"Going Galt" is a breaking of the social contract after having benefited from it, and deserves no more admiration than that afforded the bully who steals your lunch money to sneak out and stuff his face with McDonalds.
And when they created it in 1913, it was 1%, and only on incomes over $3,000 ($65,331.57 in 2010 dollars). There was a single 6% "surtax" on incomes over $500,000 ($10,888,594.79).
Liberty in your lifetime
Party advisors from rich families, apparatchiks, trusted tribal families, cult members and military flunkies are running with tablets or printouts to their respective superiors. ..... .....
If we just change our simple tax law here, here and here, tweak citizenship and residency permits here
Think of the yachts, airport, housing, medical, banking, legal, security, car boom for our economy paid for by the USA been so
"Welcome to your happy new home for a few months a year" ad contracts are rushed to media groups around the USA for discussion.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
As an immigrant *to* the US, I feel insulted. My family worked quite hard to *get* US citizenship, and I know exactly why, and why it was worth it. People renouncing it to make a quick buck to me almost feels like selling their souls.
By becoming one himself.
How nice. It's so funny, the Galt's of the world are so dead certain that they are entirely self-made, that they completely and utterly don't pay attention to all of what came before being the whole reason they can be who they are.
I looked up Singapore individual tax rates. Max out at 20% and 0% on capital gains. Looks like a good deal for him. I assume Calif will get some tax out of him too before he leaves. I assume he must have another citizenship already. Notice Singpore requires two years residency before you can be a citizen. Of course maybe there is a billonaire's exception.
You forgot to mention that in 1913 wages and salaries were not included in "income". It was more of a capital gains tax than an income tax. That was a major selling point -- that they were only going to tax the rich.
See how well that worked out?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No, but they have their labor. It's gone by different terms, and with varying levels of severity---slavery, serfdom, peonage, taxation---but it's what governments have done since the dawn of civilization: Steal from the poor.
Liberty in your lifetime
Fixed that for you. What would have been really cool is instead of his dad shipping Eduardo to Miami for safeties sake, the boy got his education old school, getting kidnapped for ransom and/or knifed outside a club in Sao Paulo. But no, he got a respite while raking in some unearned income in Brazil from the safety of FL. Next, he won the lottery when one of his few friends at Harvard needed some start up money for a social networking idea.
Now, he flips the bird to the country that gave him the safety, and an environment to make a major move up the SE ladder, because it's all his HIS! Well, screw 'em, and put 'em on a no-fly list as an ingrate of the First Degree, Order of the Asshole.
Frankly, we're not losing much when the likes of him take off: one of many sociopathic money grubbers constantly looking to game the financial system (privatize the profits, socialize the loses), and whose investments know no border no matter where they've bought a condo. If he participates in fucking the banks in Singapore like his kind did in the US, he'll end up in gaol faster than he can whine "class warfare".
Luke, help me take this mask off
One thing for sure, the IRS is going to look back at Mr Saverin all previous tax schedules. And no doubt, the IRS will claim that
since Facebook actually trade on secondary market before IPO, that he will owe millions in back pay taxes plus interest.
All this tax talk is making me hungry.
I hope he doesn't live to regret his decision, as it's a hell of a lot easier to drop US citizenship than it is to get it back.
What if you reduced the government back to its size in 1776? Imagine how much money you'd save personally if you didn't buy food!
Thanks for the incomplete picture, now please, tell us about the OTHER taxes being paid, and the ACTUAL spending of the budget.
For example, the military was a lot smaller and cheaper, there was no interstate highway system, and if you got sick, you were still somewhat more likely to die in the hospital than be kept alive by machines despite your vegetative state and express wishes to the contrary.
Not that I'm pretending to give an exhaustive review of how society has changed, mind you, but just pointing out how your one data-point is entirely misleading.
It all boils down to too much government spendings, especially on welfare, to raise the kids of those who just stay at home, making babies and taking drugs
Idiot. The vast majority of Federal spending goes to the DoD, Medicare, and Social Security. Frankly, the major constituents for all of these are core Republican voters. The drugs are mostly for blood pressure, gas, and diabetes. So sure, screw 'em.
If the government doesn't have to pay for all these, the tax rate wouldn't be so damn high, and people wouldn't have to renounce their citizenships
They don't have to do anything, kid. 35% percent - before deductions and shelters - is high? Pffft! Anybody in Eduardo's position who's actually paying 35% is using form 1040EZ to do their taxes.
Luke, help me take this mask off
And another person "goes galt" and escapes the looters.
Not for long. I hear the Virginia has been considering annexing Singapore since this story broke (taxes on $3.84 billion ain't chump change... and VA needs it for something or other). What sources tell me, is the plan is to use just the VA Air National Guard... but not quite... just one F-22 and a single hypoxic pilot to take out Singapore's entire military (apparently it has a button for that). So looks like Saverin will be paying taxes after all... as well as state and local taxes to the Commonwealth and its soon to be new county of Singapore.
The Admin and the Engineer
If you tax rich people, they will leave and if you tax poor people, you can't raise any money.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
What a lot of anti-tax folks don't realize (or choose to ignore) is the fact that a tax regime that creates a civil society (educated, healthy populous, rule of law) in turn creates an environment that allows companies like Facebook to flourish. It's much harder to create wealth in an environment where your employees are illiterate, hungry and sick and corruption is rampant. Sure, you can drill oil wells or mine for gold, but you can't really create companies with IP in those environments. I guarantee you the next Apple or Google is not coming in Nigeria. Why do you think India is working so hard to create institutional change?
They mean only someone that makes more money than they do.
The rich go away
The tax stays.
keep drinking the kool-aid, your next.
Seriously, I have no problem with someone giving up their citizenship if there's a real reason. There's usually not though since the US is perfectly fine with you having another citizenship, if you have a second one (or more) they just only recognize your US citizenship for their purposes. I have a Canadian citizenship, as well as my US citizenship. Also renunciations only count in front of a US council, with the intent to renounce. So a foreign country can make you "renounce" it in their ceremony and it doesn't count as far as the US is concerned and of course they are the only ones who matter for that.
However for people who do it to try and escape from taxes? Fuck them, put them on a permanent travel black list. No reentry to the US, ever. Since they dislike the US and its taxes to much, they are free to stay the fuck out.
Particularly in circumstances like this, it is pure greed. At the level of billions you are not talking about something that makes a big difference in quality of life. 9 billion dollars lets you live basically just an opulent life as 10 billion. It really is the case that the more you make, the less it matters how much more you make. Him paying the taxes wouldn't be the difference between the good life and the poor house, it is the difference between being able to get gold plating on a massive yacht, or just have a massive yacht, to the like.
So I say since he is telling the US he doesn't need them, they could say the same. Bar him entry. Maybe it won't matter, but I'm betting some day he'll want to visit for some reason.
Are you going to travel to the ER on privately owned dirt roads? Better hope the bridge owner isn't asleep for the night if you need to cross water.
"I can't wait to go to the Disney Exxon-Mobile ER and pay a fair market price of $5,000 for a visit that formerly cost $75."
Are you sure it would work out that way? You might plot the price of lasik and related eye surgeries over the last 20 years to see what less-regulated market might do.
See my earlier post about what the U.S. Government spends its money on, and how little you'd have to reduce the U.S. Government in size in order to completely eliminate the income tax. The words "schools" and "hospitals" appears nowhere in that post.
On the topic of hospitals, here is what government intervention in what used to be a free market system has accomplished.
A contract requires consent. Please show me where I consented to this contract.
Liberty in your lifetime
If Facebook makes him money, why can't he just pay the taxes and be done with it?
I'm LostCluster but I lost my password to that user. Hey Slashdot, how about helping me get it back!
Why, after all, should he help support the very civilization - with its legal institutions, stable economy, educational system, communication and transport infrastructures, etc. etc., that made this wonderful windfall possible for him? Surely he could have turned the same trick as a loner in the wilderness, with only stone knives and bearskins.
And I'm sure he'll continue to avail himself of all of the legal and institutional protections he requires to protect and maintain his new wealth, whether or not he feels it his duty to pay for them.
Just so we can have him covered, what are some of the benefits of US Citizenship>
I'm LostCluster but I lost my password to that user. Hey Slashdot, how about helping me get it back!
Which tax?
You are correct. Society has changed in that the U.S. Government, having duped people into paying an income tax, turned itself into a global empire with its bloated military spending funded through confiscatory taxation (income tax increased to 77% during WWI), and then created myriad other things that were best left to the free market, all in order to justify the perceived "necessity" of the existence of such a big and bloated government.
Liberty in your lifetime
In which 3.84 is 4% of 11.8.
Which way did you come in?
Seriously, if the ass hat wants to renounce his citizenship, he should be shown the borders and told not to come back.
What a fucking wanker!
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Meanwhile, Chinese try to escape to the US:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577393841014313050.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Tax rates were higher, but deductions were aplenty. For example, there was only one type of income to cover everything. A dentist with a good salary could offset that earned income with paper real estate losses, so the high rate was on a tiny portion of his income. Now, it's all segregated and those paper losses cannot offset earned income, and the result is higher taxes. You think they net-net reduced taxes in 1987? Wrong!
You must not live in America. It already costs $5,000 for a visit to the E.R.
Let's look at personnel. In 1990, the US government had 3 million employees, 2.1 in the military. In 2010, there were 2.8 million, and 1.6 million in the military.
So where are we going to find people to cut? How many more citizens have we added, that are served less by fewer people?
Or is your problem with the spending? Wait, wait, you're probably thinking it's gone up and up. I know you are. Then you factor out Social Security and other such non-discretionary spending, and control for inflation. Can you do that, or will you just take the budget gross as a given?
It's even worse if you go back to your LBJ days, we'd have to eliminate all spending and personnel involved in the Internet, while 1933 would eliminate the Interstate Highway system. And Social Security. That'll go well, won't it? At least in LBJ's days, NASA was a bit larger. Still not the 10% of the budget people think it is though.
Now don't get me wrong, I'd be happy going back to the days when passenger rail was an option, it'd reduce pollution considerably, and enable us to very quickly transition off fossil fuel dependency, but somehow I don't see you going along with that idea.
I'm sure you LOVE your platitudes, your blanket statements, but the reality ain't so pretty. Ron Paul wants you to believe it'd be easy, and practical, and a cure for what ails you.
He's not being honest with you, and I can only hope he's lying to himself as well. Otherwise he's an actual conman, not just a foolish optimist who offers grand ideals, but is only separated from a huckster by a sincere belief in what he has to offer.
Guess you're not familiar with the Galt analogy, because that's basically what I was saying. People are leaving---except they're not all becoming hermits, they're working together to create freer and voluntaryist societies.
Liberty in your lifetime
And too many people don't understand that money is created and maintained by government. Go try to barter for your next Glen Beck book with seashells.
I don't respond to AC's.
You obviously know Jack Shit about AR or the philosophy.
You are the fool - and I'll bully you, take your alleged $5K and give you a few stitches. Go fucking read before you rant, you capitalist-leftist asshole.
Or maybe....the income tax started out as a tax on the wealthy, who didn't like it, but who needed large government services--like, say, a large global military presence to protect their overseas investments. (You don't think our military is spread all over the world because we feel like it, do you?)
Maybe those same people who BUY AND PAY FOR LAWS managed, over the course of a few decades, to get the laws shifted so that the tax burden now falls on working people instead of the wealthy, who benefit the most from very expensive things like armed ships, planes, and troops protecting their assets, lavish and ever expanding international airports, transcontinental transportation systems, diplomatic missions that seem rather preoccupied with protecting the rights of wealthy corporations and individuals overseas, an educated workforce, police to keep the educated workforce in line and compliant, and of course a huge spying apparatus that most likely illegally snoops on US citizens looking for people with wrong thoughts and almost certainly is engaged in industrial espionage on a massive scale?
Kinda depends on how you look at it, huh?
Please show me where I consented to this contract.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here. Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract, I suggest you leave the country, forfeit the priveleges of the civilized society that has already given you countless advantages and protections without which you would likely be destitute or dead, and find some place else in the world to hang out with other 'rugged individualists'. Good luck with that.
PS I used to be a Randroid too, and once upon a time I would have agreed with you. Then I grew up, attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Of course, back then, you worked till the day you died, since there was no Social Security. And that would be quite soon if you got sick and didn't happen to be wealthy, since there was no Medicare or Medicaid. And let's not forget that there were no food stamps or WIC checks, so if you were poor, you were liable to starve. That is, if you didn't rob or kill to get your food.
And there were no battered women shelters, or protections of any sort for abuse victims. And there were no regulations to stop companies from dumping all sorts of nasty shit into your air or water, or outright putting it into your food as filler. And of course your employer could force you to work 12 hours a day, with no weekends, and no overtime -- not that it mattered, since they could also pay you in scrip which was only good in the company store.
I don't see why you glorify that time period. The workers of the time hated it so much that they fought like hell to get us unions and social safety nets. Why are you so eager to throw away everything they worked for?
I'll tell you what. If you don't like paying to live in a civilized society, then you are welcome to get the fuck out. We'll be better off without you.
So someplace is worse than the U.S.. What's your point?
Liberty in your lifetime
So renounce your citizenship and go elsewhere.
By remaining, you are implicitly saying that you can live with this system, or that it is at least better than any other alternatives.
I don't agree with how every cent of my taxes are spent, but that's what comes with representative democracy.
The benefits I net (security, social safety nets, police, fire, EMS, food inspectors, FAA, etc., etc.) far outweigh the things I don't like ("elective" war, eleven carrier groups, corn subsidies, etc.).
Nobody is compelling you to stay.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Well, heck, I was going to reply to you, but another AC already did.
The reality is, the US government isn't an entity of its own accord, perceiving of it in that way only leads to ignoring the influences that determine its course.
But while you may think your free market would produce an ideal solution, or even just a better one than the one we have, others disagree. Probably because we've seen the result of leaving things to your way of thinking, and recognize that the biggest problem with the free market is that it relies on informed and free decisions, which is rarely actually the case.
Marx explained why it wasn't. You should read his works. He actually wanted a free market, but he knew what it'd take to get there. Considerable reform.
What oil companies are getting billions of dollars freely from the government? Can you perhaps elaborate, or even give us a fact or two?
I know the Eric Shultz talking points sound great, but they don't hold up to much scrutiny.
Actually the tax is quite low - 50 years ago, the tax was a lot higher.
So your justification is "Hey, it used to suck even worse. Quit complaining"?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, viticulture, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
This makes me mad.
He became an American Citizen, became successful, and now when its his turn to pay his fair share he bails.
Thats a move the banksters would try and pull..... hes actually in a position to improve our countries economy now and how does he repay us? by renouncing his citizenship to save money on taxes....
i dont know maybe im misinformed (which if i am im damn sure the readers of /. will clear me up), but as a ordinary normal American, who pays his taxes, this is just plain greedy.
Last time I took my wife to the ER was for a bug bite. The bill was $4,150. The Doctor's Hospital in Coral Gables FL. Dr. Edwin Hsu was the physician. He gave my wife an IV drip and a perscription for two antibiotics. That evidently was enough to bump her up into the gunshot victim's billing code. 99284 instead of 99281.
So yeah, sit in a waiting room for two hours before receiving "emergency" treatment and then sit on a gurney for two more hours while waiting for the $80 worth of lab work to come back. Oh, and try getting a itemized bill. We requested one three times before we finally just paid the bill. Then we requested it again. They never sent any record explaining the charges. We also tried to find some government entity that gave a fsck. No luck with that either. And to top it off, the Doctor's Hospital is a non-profit.
It really is easy to spot a fan of Rush Limbaugh.
If he is still alive after the shit really hits the fan, once he is old enough not to serve in the IDF, he'll make a bee line for Israel. If there are questions about his mother's pedigree, he'll have to apply for citizenship within the jurisidiction.
Implement a 90% exit tax. Problem solved. If you really hate the country, you're free to leave. But if you're only leaving because you've received the benefits of living here and now want to skip out on the check, well fuck you.
Just because I need cholesterol to live doesn't mean I'm in favor of buying a Big Mac every day.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
If Obama be true to his radical ideology that hates success, he better instruct Eric Holder to bar his ass under pain of HYPOCRISY!
In other words it wouldn't even be big enough to cover the percentage of personal income taxes paid on the top five percent of tax returns (in 2005, for example, the top ONE percent paid over 39% of the total personal income taxes in the US).
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Thanks for the incomplete picture, now please, tell us about the OTHER taxes being paid, and the ACTUAL spending of the budget.
I'll try (but take w a grain of salt; this is more rant than info). In this era of deficit spending, none of this stuff makes a lick of sense. Cf. that annual "debt ceiling" kafuffle that Congress goes through: the gov't wants to go further in debt to spend more money. Taxes? Ptheh. It's simpler to just print more paper (or right-shift the decimal point; whatever).
What's the US' national debt now? How many generations will it take to pay those trillions of dollars back? Does anyone in charge actually care about that kind of stuff, or does Keynesianism still rule (Yes!)?
The IRS is like paint on the hull of the Titanic. Your tax dollars cannot possibly keep that ship from sinking. As long as everyone accepts that Bernie Madoff ... sorry, the Federal Reserve knows what it's doing, the dance can continue. Musical chairs anyone? Listen to the pretty music.
Ah, taxes. Payroll taxes, real estate taxes, sin taxes, sales taxes, import/export taxes, municipal taxes, state taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, estate taxes, ...
You suckers. Sorry, we suckers, 'cause we built the damned thing and there's no way to avoid its clutches short of leaving for an even more rapaciously greedy venue. The only way to get your money's worth out of it is to get 'em to shoot you. Death by cop gets you out of the treadmill, but it's going to hurt.
I'll be in that roadside diner serving breakfast alongside that philosopher guy. I'm saving up to fund a new school: "Ragnar Daneskjold's School of Confrontational Politics and Gunboat Diplomacy."
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
And by "suck even worse" you mean that their was booming economic expansion, the debt to GDP ratio was plummeting, and real income was rising at a rate in one decade that hasn't been matched percentage wise even over the last 30 years? Then, yes, things really did "suck".
I propose that private property is theft. Why does it not belong to the people? It is robbing from the public to give to the individual. Profit is also theft. To attain profit one must pay a worker less than he actually produces. See how that works?
http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/16493
I don't use facebook, nor have money to invest in it. Why does this facebook trash news make it to slashdot?
The guy ran to this country's safety, used its great educational and legal systems, its infrastructure (all largely tax-funded) to pick up some loot. As soon as it benefits him, he flees and renounces it. He looted the U.S. They should charge him a fat traitor fee, send him abroad penniless, and forever ban his ass from entering. Typical rich asshole, privatize profits, socialize losses, run abroad from any responsibility.
So up from approximately 0% to approximately 0%?
It it increases by the same factor of 7.57 over three years then in under 21 years you will all have renounced your US citizenship. Of course that is exceeding unlikely to happen but this is why you need to be concerned about large factor increases even when the numbers are small because they can grow very fast - although I don't see any reason to suspect that such a huge growth factor will be maintained.
It's not your money you indignant bastards! But I'm sure you'll come up with some formula that assigns a significant portion to your pockets based upon some big government BS.
A contract requires consent. Please show me where I consented to this contract.
When you used society's services. IIRC, there are implicit contracts that don't actually require a signature or formal agreement on your part. Best example is eating at a restaurant. You walk in, pick food, eat, and at no point mention anything required on your part. But, as a fun experiment, try using that fact to get out of being caught doing a dine & dash.
And another person "goes galt" and escapes the looters.
Or...
This fellow benefitted greatly from the business culture and laws of the United States, was fortunate enough for his wealthy father to immigrate to America so that his son could attend Harvard and other schools of the United States, but when it comes to paying back into the system that made him, he pulls chocks. Who's the looter?
Now, perhaps he has plans to carefully spend his 'rescued' funds to improve American Society, but is this likely?
Let's have a few questions:
1) Should the people of an advanced civilization that includes core values of compassion and respect develop means to systematically decrease the suffering of its less fortunates?
- I believe it should.
2) Can we rely on individuals, rather than systems, to reliably, and without discrimination, provide that means to decrease suffering?
- I do not believe so, regrettably.
3) Am I willing to accept a certain degree of inefficiency in that process, based on the sheer scale of such an undertaking?
- I am, having an understanding of the nature of complex systems.
4) Could a person with billions of dollars start a foundation to truly investigate advanced means to determine the genuine nature of neediness that is the first step in increasing the efficiency of compassionate societal aid systems?
- I believe he could.
5) Will he?
But I am rich and deserve all of the profit I milk from the stupid working class. I owe it to myself to relocate to Bermuda, so that I can setup a tax shelter. While doing so, I hope to find local prostitutes that I can ...., well, guess getting into the mind of a millionaire is a crazy place, glad I am just a poor sap that posts on slashdot.
This is mostly correct, although there are plenty of wealthy people out there that don't become such parasites.
Not understanding this is one of the reasons why no amount of government interventionism ever seems to help the poor or middle class in the long run. The wealthy parasites in and behind government (bankers, financiers, and similar assorted rent-seekers---all non-productive types) steal from the poor and middle class. When the people finally get sick of it, their anger and envy is directed toward "the rich"---which inevitably falls on the productive rich (entrepreneurs, businessmen, upper middle class), not the parasites who are truly responsible for the mess.
New laws are passed, new regulations are created, taxes are increased---all of which impact the poor, the middle class, the small businessmen, and other productive people. The parasites already know how to work around such laws and taxes because they wrote them---and wrote in the loopholes! So the end result is more people are pushed down into poverty while the parasites get richer.
Liberty in your lifetime
(income tax increased to 77% during WWI)
And who was in that top bracket if not the people who owned the defense industries?
The war certainly didn't harm Howard Hughes' bank account.
Yeah, Ron Paul is obviously a reliable source of information on tax policy.
Let's take 1995 as the canonical year "in the 90s" since it's dead smack in the middle of them. In 1995, the US federal government spent $1516 billion (source: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42911).
Actual tax revenue for in billions for FY2011 are as follows: (source: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42911)
Individual Corporate Social
Income Income Insurance Excise Estate and Customs Miscellaneous
Taxes Taxes Taxes Taxes Gift Taxes Duties Receipts Total
1,091.5 181.1 818.8 72.4 7.4 29.5 101.8 2,302.5
There are three major things to note about this data with respect to what you said:
1. Your claim is bullshit. Add up the stuff that's not under the "Income Tax" columns and you get $1029.9 billion. Last time I checked, that's less than $1516 billion. The math is a little hard but... YEP. $1029.9 is less than $1516. In fact, it's only about 68%. If you look at the data, you will see that there was not a single year in the 1990s that could have been paid for by the non-income taxes collected in 2011 OR ANY YEAR SINCE 1987.
2. Eliminating the income tax would mean that our taxes would break down as follows:
79.5% from social insurance taxes
7.0% excise taxes
0.7% gift and estate taxes
2.9% customs duties
9.9% everything else
This would be a highly regressive tax system.
3. Adjusted for inflation the bill for the stuff in the 1995 budget would be about $2282 today. (source: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). That's 2.2X what your non-income taxes collect today.
You'd think Ron Paul would have as much access to the Congressional Budget Office as I do. He's a member of Congress. Or maybe his mouth just doesn't have as much access to the truth.
As long as the tax isn't more than what you earn, the tax should be paid. The governments need to get money from somewhere.
I'm LostCluster but I lost my password to that user. Hey Slashdot, how about helping me get it back!
Yes, that is more rant than info.
What you're saying is the result of the tea party/right wing/Norquist adherents pet dream of starving the beast, by their support of the classic retreat into austerity, based on a couple of false premises. One, that cutting spending will reduce costs. That's like thinking "Well, I'm losing money, I'd better hold back on this needed repair to my roof" and believing it'll save you money. The other false premise is that the government is actually unable to resolve the current deficit crisis in any other way. That's like running a store, and having such huge discounts that you think "OMG, I'm losing money, I'd better go cheap" when in reality, the thing to do might be to stop giving away everything to your customers.
The reality is that there are solutions to the problems, the biggest impediment being that one side's idea of bipartisanship is doing exactly what they want.
I'll give you three guesses which side it is.
A hereditary obligation? You just described feudalism.
Thanks! Many of us are doing almost exactly what you suggest!
So thieving from people at gunpoint is what you call "empathy"? Well, I guess it's not you who do the actual thievery: You let the U.S. Government and their bureaucrats point the guns, steal other people's wealth, and then redistribute it down to you using an immense, multi-tiered bureaucracy of state, federal, and local agencies. That must be the "sophistication" part! :)
Liberty in your lifetime
I don't see why you glorify that time period. The workers of the time hated it so much that they fought like hell to get us unions and social safety nets. Why are you so eager to throw away everything they worked for?
Because it's failing hard. I'll just say this. That period of time built up a superpower, while this period of time with the supposedly enlightened social safety net is destroying that same superpower. Sure, we don't need to attract the rich or the businesses to the US. They can go run to places where they'll be treated with respect. We don't need working sewers either.
I'm sure we'll find some balance between the things we wish we could have and the things we actually have. The only question is how far will we fall before we get our priorities straight?
Before there were income taxes (before the 14th amendment), there were higher import/export tariffs. If you read the wealth of nations by Adam Smith (cited as the father of modern capitalism), most of it is about free markets from the perspective of how import/export taxes are detrimental to the success of nations.
One way or another, the government needs revenue. When Adam Smith, source of famous quotes about the "invisible hand," gets to writing about tax revenues, he writes:
"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
Eduardo lives in Singapore (which is where I also live). Taxes are lower here, but they do exist. Being taxed twice, once in each country, sucks, even just for the accounting hassles. There are only a couple of countries in the world that tax people by citizenship instead of by residence. The US is one of them, creating issues of double taxation. With a good accountant I can avoid paying any taxes to the US, but I will spend more on accounting than I do on taxes.
There are an increasing number of Americans renouncing their citizenship for this reason.
If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract, I suggest you leave the country, forfeit the priveleges of the civilized society
Are you sure it is the US that you are in? I can think of many adjectives to describe our sad republic, but "civilized" is not among them. Go do a "police brutality" search on youtube and then come back and boast about how civilized we are.
More like a country of poorly educated, spoiled, rich people who think we are much, much smarter than we really are or ever will be. We are a country with no shortage of self-esteem or confidence, but a huge shortage of real ability and intelligence. This discussion is a perfect example of that sort of empty arrogant nationalism with nothing at all behind it. We are a country that is great only in our own minds. Perhaps that is what really makes us unique. Nothing will ever convince us of our own ineptness and incompetence because we are so very certain of our inherent superiority and greatness. We are a country that renounces and hates the very thing we once stood for. The one thing that really did make us special. What could be more sad and pathetic than that?
Instead of being the place where you were free to do pretty much anything you wanted we are now just known as the neighborhood bully. And like most bullies we are cowards at heart. Unwilling to start any fight that would be even remotely fair, and yet still boasting to ourselves about how tough we are. As tough as those cops were who were beating Rodney King. So tough that the unexpected demolition of a couple of tall buildings is enough to change our entire way of life. If anything has ever proven the inherent cowardice of America it was 9/11. It has demonstrated our true character and we don't even have the insight to realize how pathetic it all is. The rest of the world is laughing, and they are not laughing with us.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
as milton friedman said, "it's always someone else who's greedy."
where and who are these truly objectively productive people i keep hearing about, and how would any practically-realized libertarianism make sure to promote them and only them (as it emptily promises)?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Are you sure it would work out that way? You might plot the price of lasik and related eye surgeries over the last 20 years to see what less-regulated market might do.
There's variance. There are 2 stable free market configurations, different market segments inevitably drift towards one or the other:
a) Race to the bottom — prices go down rapidly, margins are thin, competition is high, you have choices and varying levels of quality based on what you need
b) Cartel — prices are raised collectively to whatever the market will bear, margins go up, quality goes down, no matter where you buy there is no real choice
The existence of government regulation is supposed to prevent the second but often ends up captured which just makes it worse. Free marketers who believe that cartels are entirely government constructed are idiots though, in the absence of regulation, market barriers can still be created through exclusivity contracts between suppliers; it's rather hard to enter the market for widgets when all the metal suppliers are under contracts that prevent them from selling to you instead of ACME Corp even if they wanted to.
I hear the Virginia has been considering annexing Singapore since this story broke (taxes on $3.84 billion ain't chump change... and VA needs it for something or other).
The dominant party in Richmond, the Republican Party of Virginia, is more likely to give him a medal.
We're talking about the home of Eric Cantor here.
Actually the tax is quite low - 50 years ago, the tax was a lot higher.
Why stopped at just 50 years ago?
Before there was any tax, there was none.
One of the root cause of America'ss independence was that the Brits were taxing too much on too many things.
Including tea - hence, "Boston Tea Party"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
When was this? If you're thinking of the U.S. in the late 1800s, which is what most people think libertarians mean by a free-market society, you are deeply mistaken: This was an incredibly anti--free market time period, with all sorts of government laws and regulations favorable to large, well-connected industrial corporations. The government supported outright monopolies, gave massive subsidies to corporations, forcibly intervened on behalf of the companies in labor disputes, eliminated all common-law protections against pollution in the name of "progress," and so on. Laissez-faire didn't mean free market; it meant "let the industrialists do anything they want."
Since then, the government has simply, and only to some extent, "switched sides" as to whom it benefits with its legislating, taxing, and regulating power. In the twentieth century, they had to break up monopolies of their own creation. They had to legislate in favor of trade unions only after their attacks on such had allowed corporations to get away with so much. They had to create consumer protection laws, environmental regulation, securities regulation, banking regulations, &c., against depredations they allowed. They had to redistribute wealth to help the poor that they (effectively) created. And so on.
Liberty in your lifetime
He wasn't robbing the rich to give to the poor.
He spread money around to buy protection from the locals. He was helping himself.
We were still in building-a-superpower mode long after the institution of the income tax and the New Deal, and probably even after the Great Society. The downfall didn't start until the 80s, with its massive tax cuts, deregulation, explosion of Wall Street gambling, and culture of greed. Yes, all that stuff probably made us a bit richer in the short term, and it made some people a lot richer. But in the long run, it's destabilized the markets and encouraged businesses to focus on quarterly profits at the expense of long term planning.
He sounds like a cheapskate to me.
What do you call a rich person after paying taxes? Still rich.
The concept of property rights is derived from, and inherent in, self-ownership.
Liberty in your lifetime
That's a pathetic attempt at trolling.
ACs, complaining about trolling. Ha, haha, hahahahaha, ...
Loser.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Before you can go Galt, you have to be Galt, and this guy isn't, unless he knows how to generate power from static atmospheric electricity (or some other way), or something like that. If Facebook went belly up, the US economy would go along just fine.
Or, you know, you put money, in a savings account, and just retired. Savings accounts being at their lowest these days, might I add.
See, the Social Security measure was supposed to be like the Welfare program; it was a catchall for the people who got old, who were unlucky in life, and meant primarily as a feel good measure about society. Charity is another name for it, and again, it was supposed to be something only a handful would even consider using; the vast majority of future retirees were supposed to still use a Savings account.
Now it has grown into a monster, with people saying f*ck it, let's not save, we'll just make do with the Social Security we get. And when your entire retirement plan revolves around Social Security, the politicians know they can count on your support.
I am John Hurt.
The wealthy are, by and large, a diverse group. To say that 'the wealthy' wanted / needed / used these services is to be so disingenuous that the rest of the argument falls apart right there.
I am John Hurt.
The US makes it very easy to keep a US citizenship. To renounce it you have to do so in front of a US consular officer, and with the full intent of renouncing your citizenship. Any other way isn't valid. So if another country as part of their immigration process say "Give us your passport and say you renounce your US citizenship," you can do so and it doesn't matter. You can go to the US embassy and get a new passport later. The US doesn't consider their ceremony valid, they consider you still a citizen. Of course when it comes to US citizenship, the only opinion that matters is that of the US.
Also other than taxes, there aren't really any burdens of staying a US citizen. They don't require you to show up twice a year to praise the president or something. You can have the citizenship and it is just something you have. Taxes also aren't a problem, if you aren't trying to get out of them. If you live in another country, work there, and pay taxes there, you are fine. The US is a-ok with that, they don't want a cut.
They only go after taxes when people are clearly trying to dodge taxes that they'd otherwise owe. They don't want rich people to make a ton of money in the US but technically live in Barbados and not pay any taxes.
So really the only reason to formally and actually renounce a Us citizenship are:
1) If a country you are immigrating to actually makes you do it properly, to a US council. Of course even then who knows because that would be done in the presence of the US council and they might decide it was bullshit since you were forced.
2) If you really dislike the US so much that as a statement or personal moral matter you just can't keep your citizenship. Fair enough, but of course then you'd better be sure.
3) To evade taxes. In that case, fuck you.
Otherwise, people keep it. My parents moved to Canada like 5 years ago. Mom is from there, so Canadian of course, but got her US citizenship when she lived here. Dad was born in the US, and recently got his citizenship up in Canada. Neither renounced their US citizenship and neither are going to. Why would they? Nor a I renouncing my Canadian citizenship, though I live in the US. I can keep both and it is no big deal.
And you believe, no doubt, that re-instituting this tax at a higher level will bring back the golden days of yesteryear?
I am John Hurt.
Who up-mods this crap?
"Going Galt" is a breaking of the social contract after having benefited from it...
"Going Galt" is abandoning a government and leaders that abandoned their duties to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and thus have broken their oaths of office, and hence the "contract" that gives them their authority.
They have taken an oath as servants of the people, but instead, seek to rule over them as their masters and confiscate/limit the fruits of their labor and give them to those who have not earned it in exchange for political favor, and try to control what private citizens spend their own money on, while limiting the amount of success someone is allowed to attain.
There IS no more contract. Those in government over the last ~60-80 years who are and have been anxious to progress past the limitations on government scope & power set on it by the Constitution broke it long ago. It hasn't existed for many decades. It's now, and has been for some time, the Rule of Men, not the Rule of Law.
This turning-away from the Rule of Law is one of the central underlying problems (though not nearly the only one) with the US. The US will never equal the achievements of individual freedom and wealth of it's past for it's present & future citizens until this is corrected and the Rule of Law is once again supreme.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Wouldn't a taco chart just be the top half of a pie chart?
I love you guys. :-)
All this tax talk is making me hungry.
Snicker! :-) Stop! Please, stop! No, don't! Don't stop!
Keep it coming, you glorious bastards. I wish Douglas Adams was still alive to see this !@#$. Pardon my French.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Who doesn't rob the poor? You know, as does every government since this planetary disc accreted, that they are the EASIEST to steal from. They don't have any resources to fight back with!
You think a government is going to chance its existence over trying to rob someone who has any serious wealth? That's how the US government was partially created -> pissed off, rich, land-owners (George, Benjamin, Thomas...) decided, as did a number of others, that the Crown was taking a little too much, and providing a little too little. Easier to start a revolution when you have the financial backing.
I am John Hurt.
And by "suck even worse" you mean that their was booming economic expansion, the debt to GDP ratio was plummeting, and real income was rising at a rate in one decade that hasn't been matched percentage wise even over the last 30 years? Then, yes, things really did "suck".
Can you bring back the circumstances that gave us that boom? Namely, the aftermath of WWII, whee the US was practically the only game in town for decades? Just which continent do you propose to level first in order to give us this second economic expansion?
The economy didn't thrive at that time because of those taxes, it did so in spite of them. Because in the 50's and 60's, while the rest of the world was still digging out of the rubble, the US was the only place to buy things like capital equipment, airplanes, and computers. That situation is never, ever coming again.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We have good seats to the death spiral of not sure what exactly, federal government perhaps.
He is just doing what apple, m$, facebook, ..., cisco, .. are doing: getting out of Dodge.
Corporations are stockpiling their money, moving factories, outside the US. Out of the reach of US government and states.
Leaving behind ever fewer resources to tax.
Raise rates on the remaining; more will find it worthwhile to leave.
US could lower rates to attract companies to pay taxes here, but then the half of Americans who pay no taxes,at all will scream about unfairness.
I read that the US government's trillions of debt to the Fed is secured by income taxes and property of the citizens. Dunno.
It isn't looking too good.
Because, like or not, there are always a handful of people whom you'd rather not share a bunk with. Or at least, that's how the argument goes.
Profit, in the free-market (yes, yes, that phrase must be a curse-word to some people) sense, is a...bonus for doing a good job. Unfortunately, and I believe you will agree with me here, there are no free-markets implemented as such, only free-markets in name. Perhaps at one time there were, but these days, there are nothing but middlemen, demanding protection money. I feel almost as though we are on the infamous 'B' Ark from the HHGTTG.
I am John Hurt.
Nice straw man there. Nobody minds paying for a civilized society. What they mind is being screwed. You can tax a person only up to a certain point, at which time they'll just say, "Fuck it!"
The bottom line is, how many rich people can we afford to lose before we lose it all?
piece of shit.
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, viticulture, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Don't forget Roman orgies & anal sex.
Whereas today, 3% net. Or, if you are GE, zero net, plus billions back. What's your point again?
Or, as Republicans call it, "the good ol' days".
PS you forgot about oppressing darkies and fruits -- good times!
So, when you say "the U.S. Government", what do you mean by that? How does a "government" dupe people into doing something? Is it fair of me to rephrase that as, "a majority of the people of the United States decided that the status quo was bad, and that this new policy was better"? Is that what you mean by "duped"?
Straw man. You had the option of not walking into that restaurant if you didn't want to agree to the implicit contract, and you understood that before doing so. By the time one even hears of, let alone understands, this "social contract" nonsense (14-18 years old?), the person has already used so much of "society's" services that you'd claim they're already bound by the agreement.
The social contract is a pathetic attempt at justifying the existence of coercive government. It doesn't meet any of the elements of a real contract. It was invented by philosophers who were beginning to understand the concept of individual liberty, but they either couldn't quite wrap their heads around the idea of complete freedom from coercion, or they were afraid of the implications, so they had to come up with some hand-waving rationale for continuing a little bit of coercion in society.
It's like Jefferson struggling with his assertion that all men are created equal with the inequality of slavery which was so firmly embedded in society around him. It's like the rationalists of the 1700s, who had supplanted religion with science as an explanation for every major question of existence except creation itself, so they came up with "Deism."
It's the kind of thing someone suffering from cognitive dissonance would come up with to quiet their mind.
Liberty in your lifetime
if you are GE, zero net, plus billions back
Tax GE till it withered and crashed, it that's what you want
But you guys better be prepared for the consequence - GE and all the other corporations will move out of USA once you guys do that, resulting more millions of Americans queuing in front of the unemployment offices
USA is no longer the only heaven on this planet
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Did Friedman really say that? If so, he's totally wrong. I hear "greed is good" from Wall Street brokers all the fucking time, including from friends of mine. It's the outcome of a sick economic religion based on nonsense and self delusion.
Babe, that's 18 years of your life that you are not going to get back.
Secondly, it costs money to emigrate from the US. Other countries typically don't want you unless you're a skilled worker, or have money.
"I used to be a Randroid too, and once upon a time I would have agreed with you. Then I grew up, attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue." -> Hmm. Use of the word 'Randroid' implies lack of sophistication, lack of understanding why someone might have problems with the society they are born in implies lack of empathy, and the 'go with the flow / crowd mentality; change is impossible' attitude implies that wisdom has never seen the inside of your head (clueless).
Now stop being bitter because your life didn't turn out the way you hoped it might, and have some hope that a few of the younger ones will break free of their bonds.
I am John Hurt.
LOL. Do you think an accurate description of that time period will dislodge his fanciful romanticized notions? Yeah right. If this guy thinks "free markets" instead of "robber barons", then there is no way to get through to him.
What was the US spending on defense (as a percentage of GDP) back in 1913?
Rich people are greedy; poor people are envious.
Envy is worse than greed: Greed is merely acquisitiveness, the desire to have. Envy is the desire to have something that is already someone else's.
So if greed is "sick," what does that make envy?
Liberty in your lifetime
No, we think it is a sufficient way to raze the stupid assertion that economic output is the result of low taxes.
We were still in building-a-superpower mode long after the institution of the income tax and the New Deal, and probably even after the Great Society.
It takes a while to destroy a society. The Second World War helped by setting back tremendously our competitors and got rid of the worst of the FDR policies. In the 60s and 70s, no one really noticed as we started to lose industry to other countries.
The downfall didn't start until the 80s, with its massive tax cuts, deregulation, explosion of Wall Street gambling, and culture of greed.
I guess the oil crisis and the fall of the entire US automobile industry didn't happen. Sure those companies are still in business, but they've been steadily loosing market share ever since the 70s.
One can see the same thing in other traditional US industries such as mining, aerospace, electronics manufacture, textiles, etc. Other places turned out to be better and well, we never tried to get that back.
> PS I used to be a Randroid too, and once upon a time I would have agreed with you. Then I grew up, attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
AMEN Brother
Mmm hmm. And too many people don't understand that "the government" isn't a thing that does things. It doesn't sound so awesome when you phrase it realistically: a majority of your countrymen made a policy decision that you don't like.
lol social security is a complete failure along with medicare and medicaid. The U.S. is bankrupt, the music hasn't stopped yet but it will in do course.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
You are right that the U.S. Government itself can't "do" anything. It's an abstraction that a bunch of violent people operate under, a "d.b.a." if you will, in order to evade personal responsibility for their actions.
Politicians, demagogues, and so on, did the "duping."
The people don't decide anything in this country. The political classes do. Politicians decide they want something, then go about "manufacturing consent" through propaganda, playing on people's fears, hopes, hatreds, and so on. Then the people duly vote for what they've been told they want or need.
Liberty in your lifetime
I could care less if this guy thinks he's going to circumvent paying taxes. He'll be part of a publicly traded corporation and there are many ways to skin a cat.
Fuck you and your so-called "Free State Project". Get out of my country. Now.
Yes, that is more rant than info.
I warned you. :-)
... false premises. One, that cutting spending will reduce costs.
I suggested no such thing. I suggested that those in authority to spend have disconnected themselves from "the money supply." They don't care how far into debt they spend you. They're Keynsians. It holds no meaning for them. "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money!" Jeebus. *You* should worry about that. They are out of your control.
The other false premise is that the government is actually unable to resolve the current deficit crisis in any other way. That's like running a store, and having such huge discounts that you think "OMG, I'm losing money, I'd better go cheap" when in reality, the thing to do might be to stop giving away everything to your customers.
Do you bother to think before typing? It doesn't appear so. What does that mean?
I've seen and studied a lot of paper (fiat) money based economies, and their (inevitable) results. You're buying snake-oil, and it's long time past that you should have learned not to.
FYI, I'm not TP, and not even in the US.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Yep, I see you didn't cover inflation at all! Or even in the increase in population, as the other poster just mentioned. Maybe you think more can be done with fewer people, but that's not always true. Sometimes that is a bad idea.
Sorry, but there's a reason why I mentioned both things. You obviously don't care to be honest, you'd rather just stick to your deceptions. Ron Paul is not telling something that is accurate. He may be making claims that he believes are true, but they are poor calculations, and that's not an improvement. That's actually a sign he's not thinking of the situation in a comprehensive fashion.
And yet you're trying to blame me for bringing up irrelevant statistics...for shame. You're the one lying here, since if you were at all honest, you'd recognize what matters, and you surely aren't so incompetent as to not even consider inflation. Let alone break not out the mandatory spending. Heck, you didn't even mention Social Security taxes, which ARE counted in the budget, especially in the number you used for revenue. In fact, 959 billion at Wikipedia. That's right, most of what you're talking about being left over is actually from Social Security taxes. My word, do you not even realize how bad your accounting actually is?
Heck, just add up what's listed on your own source's page:
Total receipts:
Item Requested
Individual income tax $1359 billion
Corporate income tax $348 billion
Social Security and other payroll tax $959 billion
Excise tax $88 billion
Customs duties $33 billion
Estate and gift taxes $13 billion
Deposits of earnings and Federal Reserve System $80 billion
Other miscellaneous receipts $21 billion
Total $2902 billion
Please add up the excise taxes, customs duties, estate and gift taxes, Federal reserve deposits, and miscellaneous.
Nice, figure, huh? Apparently you'd rather Social Security be purposed entirely to fund every other role in government.
If Ron Paul came to my house with such nonsense, I'd be calling somebody in Congress to check his sanity.
I can save my own money for retirement, i don't need the govt to do it for me. And no food stamps or WIC checks, good, it's just plain wrong for the govt to steal my money by using force to give it to someone else.
I showed how this works for 1990; you showed how it doesn't for 1995. What's your point? Does it work for 1990 or doesn't it?
Liberty in your lifetime
Says an AC: "Who up-mods this crap?"
Ha, haha, hahahaha, ... Idjit. FOAD. Seriously. Loser!
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Fair enough. Allow me to clear the country, then proceed with the experiment. Crank the taxes up to confiscatory, on all classes, and write me a report on its effects.
I, and the others, will be sunbathing on a few of the more tropical islands. We'll keep a private jet, on a runway near you, fueled up and ready to go; if it turns out we are wrong, give us a phone call; if not, take the jet, as you will probably want to. ^_^
I am John Hurt.
You sir, are an idiot. But a really good one.
C|n>k!
Thank you! Oldie, but a goodie. :-)
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Of course, back then, you worked till the day you died, since there was no Social Security.
Or you bought your house outright and saved your money for retirement like a responsible adult would. Just as an example putting that money directly into a 3% APR passbook savings account would likely return more than putting into Social Security. You might want to look at something like this for some detailed numbers: http://www.inmessment.com/finance/is-social-security-a-good-investment-lets-review-the-numbers/
And that would be quite soon if you got sick and didn't happen to be wealthy, since there was no Medicare or Medicaid.
I again refer to the link above for return on investment. In addition there is a strong case to be made that medicare and medicaid pervert the natural cost and procedures used. What they are willing to pay for gets used whether it is the best way to do it or not (insurance also has this effect). This in the end increases the overall cost of healthcare. It has gotten so bad that doctors don't even know what the cost of the procedures they order are thereby removing any chance of controlling expense or cost while treating a problem. If you don't believe go to your general practicioner and ask them for EXACT pricing. Many will provide an estimate that is off by almost 30 - 40% because the cost has risen that much since they last knew them.
And let's not forget that there were no food stamps or WIC checks, so if you were poor, you were liable to starve.That is, if you didn't rob or kill to get your food.
And there were no battered women shelters, or protections of any sort for abuse victims.
Yes, you are correct there was nothing like charities, local community groups (lions, jaycees, kiwanis, etc) that did anything to help out those in need. Most of those groups are gone or almost inactive now because the government stepped in to handle it. Good thing to because there is no waste, fraud or other negative effects from a system that HAS to provide for people even if they have a huge number of kids to get more from the state for it. Go live near a housing project and tell me food stamps are a great idea. I used to see people sell them for 30 - 50 cents on the dollar in most of the local grocery stores so they could by items not covered when I was a student. All these things used to be covered by charities and local community social organisations. Additionally, according to your premise as taxes rose crime should decrease. I'm not and expert but this doesn't seem to agree with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
And there were no regulations to stop companies from dumping all sorts of nasty shit into your air or water, or outright putting it into your food as filler.
These laws could be made anyway and the EPA funded by excise taxes and/or hefty fines for companies that violated the rules. You do realise that before there was income tax there was a large government surplus, right? It's before all these programs we "authorised" under the reinterpretation of "the general welfare" clause. As it is now company fines are considerably less than the profits from the violations. I point to the gulf spill, fracking, valdez and BP oil spills, divesting of GM's useful assets from all the environmentally damaged sites leaving them to be left as is with no real chance of funding for proper cleaning as clear examples of how large companies are not held accountable for the environmental damage they do. These same issues apply to FDA which is now self funded by the companies that apply for product approval and has led to using carbon monoxide to keep meat red to fool customers, BPA still allowed in many containers even baby bottles, BHT in
See, the Social Security measure was supposed to be like the Welfare program; it was a catchall for the people who got old, who were unlucky in life, and meant primarily as a feel good measure about society. ... it was supposed to be something only a handful would even consider using; the vast majority of future retirees were supposed to still use a Savings account.
The first half of that is true, the second half is false. I suspect that's a talking point you heard somewhere, cleverly designed to mislead with a grain of truth.
Yes, it is true that Social Security was designed as a sort of welfare program to protect the poor, and that it wasn't supposed to support those who could get by without it. But what you're missing is the fact that at the time of its passage, the vast majority of seniors were living in poverty. And remember... this is the 1930s definition of poverty! (Technically, it also was designed to exclude vast swaths of the population, primarily women and black people. Hopefully no one advocates a return to that.)
Now, if you want to talk about going back to the idea of not giving Social Security to those who don't need it (roughly the top 20-30%), then that's something I might be able to get on board with. But "returning" to a past that never was, in which only a relative handful collect benefits, would leave huge numbers of elderly out in the streets.
Lasik is a luxury, they have to compete on price.
Cancer treatments aren't, you'll pay anything to fix the problem.
That's where the free market falls short.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Actually, you misread what I said, which probably comes from you cutting the relevant part of my post:
"What you're saying is the result of the tea party/right wing/Norquist adherents pet dream of starving the beast, by their support of the classic retreat into austerity, "
See that phrasing? It's very important. It's describing what you're talking about, not what you're suggesting, but what you're saying. I guess I could have clarified by "saying is the problem" if that would have helped you understand it? I can see how it's not quite clear enough. I was mostly borrowing from my existing response to such people, and just trying to add an introduction. I'm lazy, forgive me!
Anyway, as I was trying to make clear from my introduction, while you may not have suggested such a thing, the people I was talking about have done so. They're the reason we can't actually bring taxes in line with needed spending, they just want to cut cut cut because they worship the Laffer Curve or some such nonsense, which gets us into that last part. The government is doing a lot for people (and no, not the ones on social welfare), who aren't paying for it, but just taking it as their due. They don't even realize how much they're benefiting.
The Tea Party is selling us Snake-oil, and I'd quite averse to buying it myself, but you know what? It's hard to get others to realize it.
Believe it or not, Democrats have gone alone with cutting spending, but instead of getting any promised tax revenue increases, we don't get it. Instead we get their idea of Bipartisanship. Doing what they want. Full stop.
Yay?
Hard to collect that money if someone already smuggled it out. Chances are the country you are emigrating to will accept you plea for asylum based on the 90% exit tax alone, thus rendering you immune to prosecution unless you go back (like hell you ever would). And, if they wouldn't accept it from a normal, you can bet they will take a plea of asylum from someone insanely rich who only wants to spend that money in their new-found haven. Thus, once again, the only people hurt are the somewhat rich who are lucky enough to afford two cars, a 1200 sq ft home, and 2.3 children.
Go ahead and suggest you can stop people from smuggling the money out, but you're wrong. The US tried to confiscate everyone's gold at one point--and gave up. Because it didn't work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
You could say that's roughly the time when Baby Boomers hit their stride. You know, the little spoiled brats who felt they deserved everything they wanted with no effort expended. No correlation between the two events, though.
Die, Boomers - just fucking die...
Of course, back then, you worked till the day you died, since there was no Social Security
Of course, since Social Security isn't supposed to be a fucking retirement plan, that's a non-sequitur.
I do not see how a system that forces people into handing over their money at the point of a gun, or the threat thereof, in order to help others, can be described as "compassionate" or "respectful." "Vicious" might be a more appropriate term.
Based on what evidence? Up until the early 1900s, providing for the needy was handled by a vast number of private charities, churches, mutual aid societies, fraternal orders, service organizations, and the like. This was all destroyed by the U.S. Government using the competitive advantage that rampant theft confers upon it.
Much of the crushing poverty of the industrial era was also created by the government, not by their support of the free market, but by their support of industrial corporations at the expense of everyone and everything else. They supported monopolies; they intervened in labor disputes, violently, on the side of the corporations; they passed laws destroying small businesses and farms; they eliminated common-law legal recourses when corporations injured or killed workers, polluted, and so on; they did everything they could to turn America into a country of millions of wage slaves working for a few rich industrialists.
And then in the 1930s when the stink got so bad they couldn't ignore it anymore, the U.S. Government came along and "fixed" a problem of their own creation by inserting themselves even more into private matters, but this time on the side of the common man. This is what libertarian Harry Browne meant when he said, "Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'"
Does that acceptance of the "inefficiency" of this system include an acceptance of what I pointed out in #1?
Liberty in your lifetime
step 1) invent an engine that doesn't need fuel (solving the energy crisis)
step 2) quite because the owner wants to give all employees equal shares of the company, leaving the engine on a table
step 3) move to the middle of nowhere... with no agricultural system in place and no market or business
step 4) convince bankers to move to the middle of nowhere and starve.
step 5) Have a pirate steal and destroy
step 6) ???
step 7) profit (sell rocks on the side of the street)
If I'm not mistaken, the same applies to an unconscious person, also unable to give consent, being given medical services. If you're using something, even if you don't know or (eventually, after the benefit has been derived, natch) agree, it still counts as an implied contract.
Rather convenient that you did not (or could not) get by without society's help. Say what you will for the social contract theory, what you're saying sounds like a pathetic attempt to say 'I've got mine, now screw off.'
A lot closer to what it should be?
Liberty in your lifetime
And how much of the income did they have total? I think that's the point though, they're doing fabulously well, and paying less than the less well off are. What's more, the poor don't have a lot of money to spend on stupid things the way the rich do as substantially more of it goes for things like housing, food, clothing and medical care.
My wife is American born to Canadian parents and has the choice and in the end picked Canadian. We have been advised that she would have a better experience traveling overseas in many places with a Canadian passport.or
Economic or military our political might doesn't seem to translate to respect from customs or security officials abroad. US passports in some cases act as invitations to solicit bribes for example.
I wouldn't doubt a singapore passport has its benefits over US in some places, especially in asian dealings where those in the tech sector might spend a great deal of time.
A modern legal fiction that was invented by a system thoroughly immersed in this poisonous "social contract" idea to begin with, and the reason "living wills" and "DNRs" had to be invented.
You're basically trying to justify an evil idea by one of its own derivations. A cancer doesn't suddenly become a good thing because it's metastasized. I'm sure there's a name for this particular fallacy, but I don't know it offhand.
Liberty in your lifetime
Though, it makes him a sociopathic unpatriotic disloyal traitor, like all tax cheats. He benefits from the internet out tax dollars invented and created, our educational system? And innovation and investment infrastructure. He benefits from our expensive copyright and patent protection system. Too bad he doesn't want to pay back. I hope he gets what's coming to him.
He is a Brazilian native. He has been a Singapore resident for years. US and Singapore both have a 183 day residency threshold to pay taxes as a resident. Singapore has a provision to allow resident aliens to not pay taxes in Singapore except for income earned in Singapore. He has probably had his shares in a tax haven country since day one.
US citizens have to pay taxes for all income worldwide. Some foreign paid taxes are deductible, some not. If you are real curious about the details probably the most comprehensive public source is the recent tax return released by Gov. Romney.
By renouncing his citizenship years after moving out he is removing the last vestiges of what can only be called an actual unfair tax. I don't like it either but this is not caused by a lack of patriotism, but by crazy tax laws.
People leaving high tax jurisdictions happens all the time. This one just made news.
Having two citizenships, and having family living abroad, I know a thing or two about it. The US is fine with it so long as you are paying income in the country you work in. You have to report the income to the IRS, but you get a credit for foreign taxes paid. Also you get to exclude $90k of income period. There are exceptions, and complexities, of course (when is tax law ever simple?) but if you live and work in another country and pay them taxes, you don't tend to get double taxed.
Also Canada, while not the same, is similar. Just moving abroad doesn't exempt you from potential Canadian tax liability.
It may cost less but how many more people end up blind because they found some cheap unregulated Lasik surgery?
I can think of many adjectives to describe our sad republic, but "civilized" is not among them. Go do a "police brutality" search on youtube and then come back and boast about how civilized we are.
LOL. Get some perspective. We have tiny pockets of violence relative to the norm through human history. We all hope to stamp out those pockets, and there's much work to do, but things have gotten a lot better at an astounding pace. In another couple thousand years, humanity could really be quite peaceful and productive.
Indeed, and surely he would have built that exact same website, even if the United States government hadn't, you know, invented the internet.
Except you're not allowed to have a shack in the woods and ignore the government as well. I'm pretty sure I could manage a lifestyle similar to the frontiersman of years gone by - probably not my wife - but the government wouldn't allow me to exist without taxing me. If I own property, they'll tax me. If I don't pay the taxes, they'll take my property. I don't see how I could live and avoid the government, much as I'd like. As such, it doesn't seem so much as a "social contract" as it does an "obligation". A contract requires two willing parties. I don't the need the government, but they wouldn't leave me alone, if I wanted them to.
The point is that people who don't have freedom but want it, want to be in the USA, not anywhere else. People who use our freedom to make a ton of money, can buy their own freedom on a private island, and betray the society which gave them so much.
And spies on them.
Are we sure he's giving it up for a tax break?
If that were true, I'd applaud it. However it is doubly wrong. First: Saverin isn't renouncing his citizenship to protest the ever more powerful police state. He's saving on taxes. Second, Going Galt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt) is a response to taxation. It is, in the Randian philosophy, the response of the "producers" deciding to withhold their economic clout and genius from the selfish workers/lazy poor people who want to suck off the teat of big business. It is classic class warfare from the perspective of the 1%.
In reality, the poor are far from lazy, and the ranks of the working poor are ever increasing thanks to short sighted policies that benefit businesses and wealthy individuals over sound economic leadership. The workers (and that includes the innovators) are the ones who move society and our economy forward, not the owners/producers and their teams of lawyers/politicians.
foreigners who invest 500,000$ plus, buy property worth that much, create jobs, etc. can become U.S. citizens. to a billionaire, that peanuts, and probably alot less than some of his taxes! USCIS Immigrant investor VISA after he sells his citizenship, he can probably buy it back anytime.
Everything below is from 2005 (sorry, I've not crunched the numbers from more recent IRS reports).
The top one percent of tax returns reported an AGI over $364,657 and paid over 39 percent of aggregate personal income taxes. In the Silicon Valley, this would represent a middle aged couple who are both pretty good engineers and have some investment income from income they saved over the first 25 years of their career.
The top five percent of tax returns reported an AGI over $145,283 and paid over 59 percent of aggregate personal income taxes. In the Silicon Valley, this would represent a household with one marginally competent engineer and one person who works relatively unskilled jobs (requiring a high school education and the ability to add, multiply and subtract and speak competently).
Of course, one problem is that income taxes (and, for that matter, Social Security) benefits are not indexed by cost of living where the taxpayer (or Social Security recipient) is living. In much of the country, a household income of $145K is rich, but in the Silicon Valley, those wages let you buy a 1200 square foot fixer upper in an area where many houses have burgler bars on the windows (with good cause) and you wouldn't send your kids to the public schools if you were a responsible parent.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
My next what?
No, his term Randroid implies that Randian philosophy is oversimplified, myopic, and harmful to society. The whole purpose of the so called rational self interest is to promote your own interests before the group's which is counterproductive to running a civilization. Rand basically believed that social darwinism was okay: the strong should survive, the weak should perish, and that that's the way things should be. When most people grow up they get over that kind of immaturity and realize we're all in this together.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I hear ya. My son broke his arm in a wrestling match. The EMTs set it in a temporary cast. The ER doctor left the temporary cast as-was, throughout the three weeks of healing. We got the bill for $500 - this was, um, a few years ago - for "fracture care" and we told the insurance company NOT to pay it: we had yet to learn what the doctor did to justify "fracture care," since he neither set the arm nor even changed the wrapping. We fought with the doctor for months, asking him to explain exactly what "fracture care" he performed until he finally dropped it.
Then, there was the time we sat in the waiting room for three hours with a gash of about four inches on my son's knee and, when we said "Fuck it," and started to leave, the ER nurse said, "You could experience all kinds of complications from not getting that treated." Well, no shit, bitch. But we're not getting it treated waiting around until the cows come home. So we left. At least we didn't get a bill for that. Interestingly, it healed just fine without the 20 or more stitches it would've needed.
While the oil crisis happened the automobile industry had the portions stuck in the 1960s left on life support giving them little reason to change and no room for any local competition to emerge. The Japanese and European automobile industries have been producing vehicles that should have scared the US industry into action for possibly your entire lifetime - yet we see mostly just things that may as well be a repainted Ford F100 instead of the better products in every category made elsewhere. Some of those better products are even designed by people from the USA who can't get them built at home.
What gives the government the right to my labor? To my work? What is so great about slavery? I believe slavery is wrong no matter how great my master. Why should I work for free for a bunch of evil guys with guns? You know what? You have a slave mentality and you want to be a slave. You don't speak for all of us. Fuck them and fuck you.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
A contract requires consent. Please show me where I consented to this contract.
You voted, right?
From the links you've posted it is quite clear that you're a fucking whackjob.
A hereditary obligation? You just described feudalism.
Not at all - you were too young to decide, so they decided, either actively or by default, for you. Had I considered it an hereditary obligation, I wouldn't have suggested that you leave the country.
Thanks! Many of us are doing almost exactly what you suggest!
In all seriousness this time, good luck to you. I truly hope your utopia is a success; however, history would suggest that it won't succeed, and I really think you're ignoring a huge amount of psychological, sociological, and bahavioral complexity which will make your peace 'n' freedom loving society far, far different from the vision you currently have of it. And I'm pretty sure those differences will not be to your liking, 'cause your new society will soon look pretty much like the one you're attempting to leave.
So thieving from people at gunpoint is what you call "empathy"? Well, I guess it's not you who do the actual thievery: You let the U.S. Government and their bureaucrats point the guns, steal other people's wealth, and then redistribute it down to you using an immense, multi-tiered bureaucracy of state, federal, and local agencies. That must be the "sophistication" part! :)
"Steal other people's wealth"? Well, a lot of that wealth was itself effectively stolen - enter Ragnar Danneskjold, I guess. Do you really believe that the wealth concentrated in such places as Hollywood, the recording industry, and yes, the high-tech sector, was obtained without the use of force or fraud? Surely you aren't that naive.
"At gunpoint"? Yes, that's ultimately true. So let's look at your alternative. Suppose I'm in your utopia, and I claim an unclaimed piece of land. I drill for oil, find some, and start pumping. Only my oil operation, with its noise, smells, and deadly hydrogen sulphide emissions, interferes with your ability to enjoy and make use of your adjacent land for farming. How will this dispute be resolved?
At this point a typical Randian will spout dogma - ' there are no conflicts of interest among rational men'. When pressed farther, - 'but which party prevails?' - the Randian asserts that, because the two parties are reasonable and rational, the dispute will simply be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Assuming for the moment that this is true, who decides what is rational? Rand wrote a lot of philosophical hooey, (rhymes with Toohey), about such things being absolutes, but they're demonstrably NOT absolutes. And even if you can somehow determine an absolute 'rational' answer, how will you guarantee that the parties involved remain 'rational'? Rand herself was highly irrational - she continued to smoke, and defended it as "a symbol of the fire in the mind", long after it was conclusively proved that smoking leads to the lung cancer which she ultimately suffered from. If the originator of your faith, (you deny that it's a faith and you hate that word, but it really is a faith), was unable to b
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
He is Brazilian, if he leaves and doesn't pay, they can't extradite him.
So, if taxes cause companies to move away, then why aren't all corporations based in Afghanistan? Why are't all billionaires citizens of Singapore?
I'm not following you. How can you be "greedy to have (things)" without being "greedy to have (other peoples' things)"? Where do you think things come from?
Greedy Wall Street people want money. Where do you think money comes from? It comes quite literally from the labor of poor people (all people, of course). Greedy rich guy wants money from poor people; poor people want pretty much the same thing. You can call that equal, if you want to ignore the fact that only one of those parties is executing on the greed.
So, again, "the people duly vote for what they've been told they want or need" is an equal statement to "a majority of your countrymen, possessing a wide and deep wisdom well beyond that of your single little perspective, collectively weighed the same issues you did and came to a consensus, which you and your single little perspective don't like". Boo hoo.
The whole point is that democratic actions have legitimacy. In order to deny that, one must deny the independent thought of the citizenry -- which you have in fact done. Yeah, mmm hmmm, we're all sheep, but you J'raxis are truly awake.
I see you are a practicing evangelical Christian...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
That experiment was the time period we are talking about, the time with the great economy. That's exactly what we're talking about. The nation went from zero income taxes, to brackets in the 80%s or 90%s, and the economy expanded rapidly. Do I think that's causative? No, I think there is no relationship. Rather I mean, I think there is little to no impact of high taxes on the economy, and the high taxes are an indication of a strong economy.
Because one more thing the incredibly fucking rich need: an other way to dodge taxes. Shame on him...
First: Saverin isn't renouncing his citizenship to protest the ever more powerful police state. He's saving on taxes.
And you'll notice I simply described what "going Galt" means. I didn't say Saverin was going Galt.
However, removing yourself and your wealth from the clutches of a corrupt and greedy government bent on using wealth redistribution to buy the votes of the short-sighted, greedy, and ignorant I would consider a valid and sensible action no matter what you want to call it.
"Going Galt" is about far more than simply taxes. It's about political corruption and cronyism, and using the power of government as a tool of the powerful to crush competition and/or as leverage to demand a piece of the action and/or control over innovation. It's about rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny.
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
That such actions anger those who believe the fruits of others' labors is their right concerns me not at all. Well, besides checking the sighting accuracy of my weapons regularly and assuring I have plenty of ammunition and supplies as well as a functioning means for off-grid secure communications, that is.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
That period of time didn't build up a superpower. We weren't a superpower until we ramped up for WWII, a time during which we had price controls and all manner of intrusive government involvement in the economy. Karl Marx would have been proud of the way we became a superpower.
I'm not saying that's the preferable way to do it, or even optimal, just that you need to read a few more history books to understand the time period. Not everything in American history fits the idealistic libertarian, lasse-faire narrative people seem to hold so dear.
Now, we did fairly well during the 1920s. Now _that_ was a period of libertarian, lasse-faire government. Even the government's enforcement of Prohibition was restrained compared to our modern day War on Drugs. The only problem is that with all that economic freedom we still ended up with the Great Depression. We had an export led economy with a huge trade surplus (selling radios, refrigerators, etc to Europe), much like China today. When that imbalance came crashing down... well... you can see why people should be concerned about China.
Paying tax as an US citizen living abroad is not fun. You are double taxed, the rules change every second year, you don't get any straight forward answer from the IRS, you HAVE TO use a tax lawyer to file taxes and you're still not sure that you did things correct. The punishments for doing something wrong are ridiculous (e.g. my friend suppose to pay a 5% fine on her German husbands bank account, as a punishment that she did not list his account in her tax form although she has access (credit card) to his account). Even if you try to do the right thing you get treated as a potential criminal. And this for paying money to the US and not using any of the benefits you suppose to get from taxes. As long as the IRS doesn't make it easier for their citizens abroad to get rid of their money they will see many more of these cases.
Best example is eating at a restaurant. You walk in, pick food, eat, and at no point mention anything required on your part.
Except for, y'know, all those prices on the menu. /Pro-tip: It's only your 1%'er restaurants that don't have prices on the menu. //captcha: insights
Which is better, getting paid 60 grand a year with 50% taxes and the freedom to do things like go to work without paying to use the road to get there, or making 18 grand a year with way more expenses like the toll on the road to get to work, higher food prices as they also have to pay and higher everything else as the rentseekers need to make a bigger profit.
Seems like so many people would rather make 1/3rd what they do now as long as they can give it to private industry instead doing socialist things like having public roads, a public police force to protect their property and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Are you sure it is the US that you are in?
Actually, I'm Canadian - the line that implied that I'm American was PEBKAC, and I didn't catch it until after I hit submit. So no, my posting wasn't a paen to the USA - I realize that the country has some real problems right now, and that it has already handed the 9/11 terrorists the victory they sought, and then some. But even given how far America has fallen, she's still a great nation compared with many places in the world.
My point was meant to be that a society with a government has siginficant advantages that can't be matched by the unrealistic utopias promoted by Randians, Libertarians, and anarchists.
I agree with most of what you said, and I'm sorry for the anger and bitterness that you're (justifiably) feeling. Try to remember that there are still a lot of good, intelligent, reasonable people in your country - right now they just lack a focal point and a rallying cry.
I'd like to mod your comment up, but I can't - I've already commented myself.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Oh wait..He can donate all my money to a foreign fund before he renounces citizenship...
oh wait.. The fund can magically finance him afterwards..
Do you buy your stuff from Acme corporation?
As we're progressive, a bullet in the back of the head will show these people who has the power.
You've perfectly described what "progressivism" is all about: violence towards people who won't give you wealth that they earned and you didn't.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The downfall didn't start until the 80s
I consider the "downfall" to be the loss of our freedom, and that was long before the 1980s. My grandfather was thrown in Jail for protesting World War One.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
People live in America and not pay taxes. Whats wrong with a guy leaving America and not paying taxes?
America is founded on Greed. Money is worshiped here. Not being greedy is frikkin un-American. I am not sure what the fudge you talking about. His ass should be welcome here any time, just like his dollars.
Social Security measure was supposed to be like the Welfare program; it was a catchall for the people who got old, who were unlucky in life, and meant primarily as a feel good measure about society. Charity is another name for it, and again, it was supposed to be something only a handful would even consider using; the vast majority of future retirees were supposed to still use a Savings account.
Well, and the pension that the retiree's employer would provide for the rest of their life. Let's not forget that.
we did fairly well during the 1920s. Now _that_ was a period of libertarian, lasse-faire government.
Not really. In the 1920s, the country was in the boom phase of the third unconstitutional bank's first major inflationary binge. It made the crash of 1929 inevitable.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's not enough that his entire success is due to the opportunities offered by the US, not to mention the freedom and protection from being kidnapped for ransom. Instead he must stiff the US government to save money and to hell with paying his dues. Without the US, he would most likely not have earned this money in the first place. Even though taxes are at a historic low in the US, it's still not enough for these people. It's about time the US does something about these people who exploit US citizens for profit and then do everything they can to avoid paying taxes.
As we're progressive, a bullet in the back of the head will show these people who has the power.
You've perfectly described what "progressivism" is all about: violence towards people who won't give you wealth that they earned and you didn't.
And that's why I am not replying those so-called progressive people anymore
It's a waste of time to even read their sour-grape diatribes
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I don't even understand what you want. Everyone is born into some circumstance they didn't ask for. Do you think zebras sign some sort of "contract" to be hunted by lions? You can't be born into a vacuum where you do whatever you like and nobody else's actions impact you, because it's a nonsensical fantasy. Not a good idea, not a bad idea, just illogical nonsense.
Comparing raw data is useless you need to compare in constant dollar using inflation figures. I think it is about 3% per year except in crisis year so 1.03^22=~1.9 (doubling every 70/3=~23.3 years) so you would need a budget of 2 trillion dollar not 1.1 *only* to maintain the 1990 budget. Now as to why somebody like Ron paul seemingly ignore that factoid, whether intentional or not, I can't see it a good point in his favor in either case.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Actually I was thinking more of the progress from drawing and quartering, to hanging a person low (strangling vs breaking their neck) to guillotining. I'm not American so progressive just means making progress, a good direction as far as I can see and I notice all of us here are doing progressive things such as using computers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The US is the only country I know of that taxes its citizens even if they live outside the US. Citizens of other countries don't need to renounce their citizenship to escape taxes, they simply liquidate their assets and move to a tax haven.
The downfall didn't start until the 80s, with its massive tax cuts, deregulation, explosion of Wall Street gambling, and culture of greed.
The middle class has always carried the majority of the tax burden, but they haven't been paid their fair share.
It started in the 70s when workers' productivity vs wages started to diverge.
It didn't help that Reagan decided to drastically cut tax rates, but the long term problem has not been lower taxes,
it's been that workers aren't being payed enough & therefore, the government's tax revenues haven't kept pace.
This wouldn't be an issue if the individuals who were accumulating 40 years worth of profits were paying the top tax rate.
But they didn't. For 40 years. So we're boned.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You don't think it is progressive going from killing someone as slowly as possible to killing them quick? Next you'll probably say that it is not progressive using a computer.
You Americans have a weird dialog of English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I am writing this with zero 'jab', I mean it sincerely and without anger:
Can you prove that America was a place with less collective suffering when "providing for the needy was handled by a vast number of private charities, churches, mutual aid societies, fraternal orders, service organizations, and the like"? If not, would you examine the possibility that it may be a convenient fantasy to support your current belief system?
This sounds exactly like the Soviet Union used to say (and do). Jews leaving the country had to pay about 5-10 average yearly salary "to compensate for the higher education received". US applied a lot of pressure to have that practice repealed.
You don't think it is progressive going from killing someone as slowly as possible to killing them quick? Next you'll probably say that it is not progressive using a computer.
You Americans have a weird version of English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Slashdot never told me I succeeded in posting, instead letting me re-edit
Sorry for the multi-posts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Nonsense. She promoted the idea that the individual, not the group, was the most important part of any society; the the individual is the atom of society, making everything else possible (a bottom-up approach), as opposed to the sadly more common top-down approach (society makes the individual, the individual cannot exist without society). She also promoted the idea that it's okay to acknowledge, as an individual, that you have wants and desires of your own, that that was not a bad thing, and it's perfectly okay to stay at home and read a book rather than working a soup kitchen. What more, that it is idiotic to proclaim that you are a selfless individual when you do not actually know the needs nor wants of your brother (yes, you may know that he wants to eat or sleep, but typically not which song he wants to listen to, etc.).
Finally, she loathed hypocrisy more than anything. She despised the kinds of people who promoted nonsense philosophies, who were more interested in scamming people, or making a profit at the expense of someone else. Remember, in any of her books, the people who worked were payed very well. It's only the people who used things like 'eminent domain' or political connections that ended up getting thrown under a bus. I am greatly curious why so many people, who have seen the abuses of eminent domain and political lobbying, seem to despise the point Rand was trying to get across.
As for the Social Darwinism angle, I believe you have that slightly off. Her point, if you read closely, was that any charity that comes at the end of a gunpoint is not charity. That a Good Samaritan is by choice, not by mandate.
But then, most people seem to misunderstand Rand. Reading comprehension not being what it used to be, I can understand.
I am John Hurt.
The unfortunate truth behind tax policy, that those with the position to be sucessful have to leave to avoid their 1%tax. In a free country, your actions are not owned by the government. If you want to sell the fruits of your labor, they are owned by you, not the state.
Its simply the thought that everything has a tax implementation that is wrong with the system
There IS no more contract. Those in government over the last ~60-80 years who are and have been anxious to progress past the limitations on government scope & power set on it by the Constitution broke it long ago.
Could you be more specific?
Because I'm pretty sure anything you're going to say can be more or less closely matched by something that happened within the founding fathers' lifetimes.
/except Iran-Contra. I'm pretty sure our founding fathers were never selling arms to the enemy.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This Saverin guy must have sure dug a lot of ditches or served a lot of hamburgers.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
renounce your citizenship it will not be possible to return to live in the U.S.
Yeah, the no-fly bit didn't take long to go deep into cliche territory. On the other hand, shitty laws don't get enough attention to repeal until they've been throughly used and abused, if only in jest.
Luke, help me take this mask off
The fact that they provide the infrastructure, law, defence etc. to enable you to perform it?
Chances are that without government you'd be giving up a lot more of it. Or you'd be dead.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I suggesting ES needed anal rape, and you think I'm an ugly American for trying to keep him off a plane?
Luke, help me take this mask off
They didn't extradite Bin Laden. Just sayin'...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd leave if I could do so without being raped by the TSA on the way out.
Oh, it's coming. It's coming. The forms to renounce the citizenship used to be free, up to this year, now they are 450USD. The IRS can deny or revoke your passport now if you owe more than 25K in taxes to them, so never mind quitting the citizenship, you can't even leave the country to go anywhere, not even a vacation.
The exit tax is huge actually, it's gigantic, in order for somebody to leave, they have to LIQUIDATE THEIR BUSINESS and all estate in USA, which is ridiculous, why is that the case? Foreigners can own businesses and houses in USA, why can't a person, who is a former citizen own stuff in USA, it's still his property?
No, the IRS wants the exit tax, and now the exit tax is punishing enough, that people with businesses can't legally get rid of their citizenship without destroying the company or selling it off, soon enough the exit tax will be ridiculous enough that even people WITHOUT savings, investment capital and possessions won't be able to leave.
You are BORN into this system, right, so you MUST uphold this ridiculous 'social contract' that you were born into? That's the argument - you are a slave of the system.
Soon enough you won't be able to renounce your citizenship at all unless you can pay out not only insane taxes, but also your portion of the national debt (why not?) and then you won't be able to leave just because you have to stay in the country, somebody HAS TO WORK, to pay for this 'socialist paradise', this 'social contract', the SS and Medicare and all that nonsense.
Admit it - USA is now USSR.
We weren't allowed to leave USSR, we weren't allowed to have real money or real investments or businesses or anything for that matter. The government owned us through and through, cradle to grave ownership of the persons.
We could be arrested and executed by the government for reasons that were completely political in nature. We could not leave our address even without the authorities letting us.
Nobody could leave the country really, very few travelled abroad, and most of those who travelled were KGB agents etc.
Admit it: USA is USSR.
---
There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with a person wanting to leave the country if he believes that the country is abusing him, he doesn't want to pay the taxes - this is an EXCELLENT REASON to leave.
But when you fill out that form and when you bring it to the officials, don't you make a mistake and tell them that you want to escape the insane taxes and that's why you are renouncing the citizenship, they will not let you, and that is total bullshit. They own your ass.
And look at the pathetic /. crowd response: "fucker, take everything from him" or "fucker, don't let him in ever", etc.,etc.
And this was a 'free country'? A 'free society'?
You make me sick.
You can't handle the truth.
But you guys better be prepared for the consequence - GE and all the other corporations will move out of USA once you guys do that, resulting more millions of Americans queuing in front of the unemployment offices
Its really simple: You want to sell to Americans, You are an American Company who pays their fair share of taxes, or you pay a stiff import tariff. You want to take advantage of the developed infrastructure and stable developed economy, you have to contribute to it. Is it that unreasonable to expect companies to contribute to give back to the people who made their success possible?
And as far as this Eduardo Saverin asshole is concerned, he ought to be lynched as a traitor. He takes advantage of the benefits of the US when it is convent to do so, but when he makes lavish amounts of money, hes ready to pick up an move in order to avoid paying it. And this isn't for a little money. This guy is going have billions with a B. Do you realize how much money a billion dollars is? If he had to pay 50% of his money in taxes, he still will have close to 2 BILLION dollars. He will be able to buy mansions, jets and boats without blinking, and he can't man up an pay his fucking share of the bill. I hope the stinking ratfuck is slowly raped to death by Somali pirates. Burn in hell, Saverin.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No. The vast majority of retirees were supposed to die in 6 years, rather than living another 20 or 25.
Is there any way he can be encouraged to move out of the US? We don't want him leaching any more. You know, using roads, airports, telecommunications networks, oil, food, etc. etc. that may have benefited currently or in the past from government subsidies paid by tax dollars.
Oh shit, you're serious aren't you?
The agreement is implied when you order off a menu that has prices listed.
Are you joking or are you really that fucking stupid that you believe that?
Some interesting bits around this:
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship
Effective June 2008, U.S. citizens who renounce their citizenship are subject under certain circumstances to an expatriation tax, which is meant to extract from the expatriate taxes that would have been paid had he remained a citizen: all property of a covered expatriate is deemed sold for its fair market value on the day before the expatriation date, which usually results in a capital gain, which is taxable income
and those conditions are listed here: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97245,00.html
If you expatriated after June 16, 2008, the new IRC 877A expatriation rules apply to you if any of the following statements apply.
Your average annual net income tax for the 5 years ending before the date of expatriation or termination of residency is more than a specified amount that is adjusted for inflation ($145,000 for 2009 and 2010, $147,000 for 2011, and $151,000 for 2012).
Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
You fail to certify on Form 8854 that you have complied with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the 5 years preceding the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
And you believe, no doubt, that re-instituting this tax at a higher level will bring back the golden days of yesteryear?
I do.
Here's the thing about taxing the rich.
It reduces their incentive to make more money.
Which is a very good thing.
For example, let's say the top marginal tax rate is 80%. It applies to all income over, say, $10 million. Income includes ALL income too, including capital gains.
You have a decision to make. If you fire 100 employees, you can increase your profits by $1 million. And make $200,000. What's your decision?
Now let's look at the current tax system. If you fire 100 employees, you can increase your profits by $1 million, funnel those earnings through a structure so they are taxed as capital gains, and make $850,000. What's your decision?
The reason we had great economic expansion is because very high marginal tax rates on very high income is a strong disincentive against earning very high income. It encourages the people who are running the businesses to share the wealth with everyone who contributes to the business.
When you eliminate taxes on high income, you are encouraging most of the wealth to go to a small number of people.
Why pay an employee an extra $10,000 that the government will take $4,300 of (15.3% FICA and 28% income) when you can keep it for yourself and only pay the government $1,500?
That's the problem: Under the current tax system, paying employees (in the US) is stupid! The more employees you have, the MORE taxes you pay!
paintball
i love screwing govt out of taxes at every level: local, county, state and federal - govt is full of ID10Ts who waste money
If you hadn't been successful, if, perhaps your education was poor, and you needed to work 60 hours a week from the age of 16 just to survive, with no way of improving your lot, would you genuinely accept that this is a fair and just way of running society?
Because people who are in that position tend not to think so. Is it just a coincidence that most libertarians seem to be the fairly wealthy who have, typically, benefited greatly from society?
Except it seems to lose a certain legitimacy when you decide to do so only at a time when you'll be paying high taxes.
It seems to me that it is not only Saverin who is not mindful of and not caring about the health of the nation and the people around him. Judging from the articles linked below, it seems that the entire of Facebook is not healthy:
.
... was charged ... based solely on a Fac
Facebook's reputation in the mainstream media is rapidly getting worse. Facebook is getting a bad reputation partly because of articles like these:
Worst company: Facebook was a semi-finalist in the April 2012 competition to be voted the worst company in the United States
Facebook follows its business rules? Not always. The April 7, 2012 Wall Street Journal story, Selling You on Facebook, says:
"Facebook requires apps [mobile phone software applications] to ask permission before accessing a user's personal details. However, a user's friends aren't notified if information about them is used by a friend's app. An examination of the apps' activities also suggests that Facebook occasionally isn't enforcing its own rules on data privacy."
There's more like that in the article.
Facebook tracks every web page you visit that has a Facebook button (using Javascript). For example, if you visit the Oregonian Newspaper web site, Facebook tracks every story you visit, even if you don't click on the "Like" button. There are ways to prevent that (using Firefox with the NoScript add-on), but most people don't know about them.
Companies pay people to click on Facebook "Like" buttons. The number of Facebook "Likes" doesn't give any indication of popularity.
On December 9, 2011 it was necessary to click on a Facebook "Like" button to be allowed to see Fry's Electronics ads.
Do 86,688 people (on April 9, 2012) really like Firestone Complete Auto Care, or did the company offer something to be "liked"?
A few problems with Facebook: Richard Stallman wrote a short list of things wrong with Facebook.
How much information does Facebook keep? Read the December 13, 2011 article, Twenty Something Asks Facebook For His File And Gets It - All 1,200 Pages.
What do people in other countries think? The May 14, 2010 article, Facebook is not your friend gives one idea.
The June 15, 2011 article, The End of Facebook, and the June 14, 2011 article, Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook? give others.
Most people don't understand the problems that may occur. For example, consider the March 28, 2012 article, Teacher's aide says 'no access' to her Facebook; now legal battle with school.
This April 4, 2012 article would be funny if it weren't so sad: Woman arrested for assault based on Facebook photo. Quotes:
"Aston
How about taxing imports? Tax any imported goods the difference between the taxes already paid where they were manufactured and local taxes.
Unlikely. I mean, if anyone's able to spot a pump-and-dump scam it's him.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Simply put a 200% tariff on any product and service from a company that has left the US. Bam, instantly every company the ran for a tax heaven has to come back or see its product unable to compete with new local offerings.
As for "essential" products? Simply remove US protection from foreign products. See how MS likes it if it no longer is protected by the US copyright laws.
People forget that we created governments to be powerful opposition to the rich. Government is the one who can answer the question: "You and what army".
Capitalists like the wheeny above seem to think that companies and the rich can do whatever they want and the government and the people just have to sit back and take it. That is only the case if you let weenies run the country.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Way to make personal attacks and claim to have a clue in the same sentence...
As a Dutch Web Developer I have had jobs and job offers with foreign companies and... they are not what they seemed. In Holland, we get a lot of extra's on top of our salaries. A 100% refund on public transport for instance that isn't (yet) taxed. 370 euro's is the max, for a small country, you can travel quite far with that and of course a subscription also allows you to travel for free on non-work trips. Since the price of a subscription goes down the further you travel, the point where you just buy a free travel pass for the entire country is easily reached and I have had one for years. Remember, that in Socialist Russia, public transport is somewhat usable (well except since the capitalist came into power, 2 years of VVD rules and more breakdowns then in the previous 100 years).
A Dutch salary also includes contributions to unemployment programs, pension, healthcare etc etc. So, if a Dutch person says he get 5k, that is NOT all the money flowing out of the employers bank account to benefit him and society. This is constantly changing because Dutch governments fall down quite a lot and we have had to have coalition governments for decades but it means that a job offer from a US based company and native Dutch one needs careful consideration. It gets especially interesting if the person making the offer hasn't got any experience with the Dutch labor market.
You need to take even more care if as a Dutch person you are thinking of working in the US. Be REALLY careful how the money is going to flow. It is not the same for all US states or even cities but simple things like if you get a house, how is garbage collected? Who pairs for public transport (often doesn't even exist), car, fuel, road charges? How is medical covered? No dutch job advertises with medical coverage because that is standardized. How many paid holidays do you get? How many mandatory holidays? How do you get paid if the company goes bellyup (hint, IN holland your pay is ensured with no fuss, no hazzle, you get your full salaray). How quickly can you be fired (Holland 1 months notice and there are a lot of safeguards for dismissal, not just unfair ones, just saying, we don't need him anymore is not enough).
Add it all up and I have turned down many an English over (for some reason, the English speaking world has really bad labor laws) because it just didn't make any sense. They wanted me to take a pay cut for less security while working more hours. How attractive!
But Americans believe in this system, presumable thinking that one day they too will be rich and they don't want to be paying their wage slaves a decent salary then. The American Dream consists of, if I ever become rich, I want to keep it all, even if I have so much I could never ever spend it and got to take it to the grave with me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Which would you rather have?
10 percent of 20 billion dollars
or
35 percent of zero dollars
Take your time. This is apparently a deceptively complicated problem because people keep coming to different answers.
The question is basically Cake or Death... and people keep choosing death for some reason.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"Orgies, wine, and bulimia."
Charlie Sheen
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And another person "goes galt" and escapes the looters.
Meanwhile thousands of people are applying for "investor visas" to acquire US citizenship.
Bunch of dummies those guys, each of them throwing away at least half-a-million on "reverse galts."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Progressivism is a recognized political concept that advocates deliberate social change in response to other social and non-social changes that occur in the world, whether that be industrialisation, urbanisation, technology etc. Past progressive issues include limiting (and ultimately, banning) child workers, allowing women to participate in the workforce, and allowing women and ethnic minorities to vote. More modern movements include outlawing discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, race, and age.
At the time of all of these movements that advocated social change, there were opposing social conservative movements, which advocated maintaining the existing social rules and structure. And still, in modern times, there are many people who believe that a return to the social norms of the past would be preferable to modern society, even if that means abandoning or limiting the use of technology. In particular, cell phones, smart phones, and the internet have all prompted social change, whether it be small social change like people talking on the train, changes in sexual behaviour as a result of widespread access to hardcore pornography, or people directly using these devices to communicate and organise larger social change like the Arab Spring. There are social conservatives that oppose all of these things.
In reality, it is very difficult to stop non-social changes from prompting social change, but it is possible - as societies like North Korea and Afghanistan show - if a concerted effort is made to limit the spread of change, and the impact of technological developments.
Exactly. This wasn't something we can blame on Reagan. It's been going on for a long time.
Or the advent of TV. Being raised on Saturday morning cereal commercials might affect your development somehow. Still it's worth noting that a lot of US industries, particularly the automobile industry which was a large portion of the US economy, had already stagnated by the time the Boomers got into the workforce.
Of course when you are alive, and you give a substantial amount of money (above the gift limit) to someone who owes tax they have to pay tax on that windfall
Wrong. When you give more than the gift limit to someone it is you who pays tax on the gift. See IRS Form 709.
That's why they call it a "gift" tax instead of an "inheritance" tax.
I would make a site like Facebook in one evening.
The middle class has always carried the majority of the tax burden, but they haven't been paid their fair share.
You have to show first, that you aren't already getting paid that "fair share". It's a little tiresome to have to say this again and again. But just because a large number of people believe a thing, doesn't make it true. And all evidence points to it becoming progressively harder as the decades roll on in the US to employ people. The fair share for people who are employed, versus the ones who employ, should naturally dwindle under such circumstances.
It didn't help that Reagan decided to drastically cut tax rates, but the long term problem has not been lower taxes,
Actually, it did. That was a good time to save money and invest it.
it's been that workers aren't being payed enough & therefore, the government's tax revenues haven't kept pace.
Kept pace with what? This is one of the key problems. If revenue hasn't kept pace with the spending of that revenue and increasing taxes isn't going to fix it, then the spending has to be curtailed.
A good place to start is with the few large programs that spend most of federal revenue such as the big three: Social Security (move the tax to general revenue and drop paying for peoples' retirements, except under need-based circumstances), Medicare/Medicaid (need-based only), defense (too much spent on fancy systems and functions that used to be done by the military itself). If you can cut those three by half, collectively, then you've shaved almost a third of spending from the federal budget.
Yet another tiresome thing is having to correct again and again people who want to tax the rich. The rich are already taxed at a considerable amount. Sure, we can make it fairer by dropping all those loopholes by which the worst offenders pay less in taxes, but in the end, they just don't have that much money to cover the evergrowing US federal budget.
This wouldn't be an issue if the individuals who were accumulating 40 years worth of profits were paying the top tax rate. But they didn't. For 40 years. So we're boned.
No, we aren't. The individuals who have been accumulating 40 years of profits also helped build such things as the computer industry. What we have now was built in large part on the capital gained over the past 40 years.
Sure, there are some modest changes we could make to make paying taxes fairer. But that's not the problem. The problem is that we have $3.3 trillion and growing in forced spending.
What a jackass
"With a few billion, I would purchase a ton of bonds/stock/etc and live off the f'n interest with excess interest going to charity."
Mitt, stop posting on slashdot.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Actually the tax is quite low - 50 years ago, the tax was a lot higher.
I'm sorry, but this is a lie. While the federal income tax rate itself might be "lower" than it was 50 years ago, that is only part of the picture. Most of us working stiffs also have Federal Medicare and Social Security taxes along with State and Local income taxes tacked onto our paychecks. That ups the burden significantly. Then once we do get our money, most of us are subject to sales taxes and excise taxes. If you have any subscription-based service like a cell phone or cable TV then you pay taxes on that. Do you like electricity and water? Guess what that is taxed too. "Own" a home? You get to pay property tax. If you drive then of course you pay gas tax. And while Federal taxes may have come down, for most of us a lot of these taxes are going up.
Between all these taxes I'd dare say the overall tax rate in the US for most people is far higher than we can remember it being in our lifetimes. The argument that "taxes are quite low" is silly and wrong.
As for the subject of this post quitting the US to get a better tax rate, part of me can't blame him. There are over 200 countries from which one can procure government services, if the US doesn't offer the best value on them for the amount of tax paid, why not pick another one?
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Travel through Mexico or Canada. Or hire a boat or charter a plane.
Wasting mod points to reply:
We were a superpower after WWII not because of how badly we treated our own labor, but because we were the only industrial economy that wasn't bombed to oblivion and back.
We still had our factories. Pretty easy to "build" a superpower when you're the only one with the buildy-thingies.
Towards the end of the 20th century the other developed nations caught back up.
semantics are everything!
Yeah, society and the taxes that run it are a form of looting. I don't think he minded the looting that paid for the infrastructure he depended on every fucking day, and the teachers who educated the people he relied on to get work done, and the military that made sure he wasn't too busy doing the ole Sig Heil to bother with anything else and courts that and system of laws and enforcement of those laws that provided him with the legal framework he needed to make his money or the EPA who made sure he wasn't dead from dioxin exposure or all the other myriad of governmental services ..."looters" ... who made civilization possible and carry it forward on civil servant wages and the promise of a government pension at the end of a lifetime of service.
This guy is a poster boy for the problems when people become so much more wealthy than the average person. They become selfish, uncompassionate and basically sociopathic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/rich-people-compassion-mean-money_n_1416091.html
Permitting these monsters to also hold influence proportionate to their wealth is where most of America's political and social problems come from. I don't give a fuck how tired you are of anything to do with anything "1%", what we have in America is an oligarchyy-kleptocracy being run into the ground economically, environmentally and morally by the scum who could give a shit about anyone or anything so long as he's got access to an all you can eat buffet of his favorite vices.
The super-wealthy twist and distort the system so it works only for them and at everyone else's expense. That's a fact and anyone denying it is just living in a fantasy world in which they're in line to be the next billionaire.
"I got mine, now watch me fuck you all. I don't need you,. and you can't touch me."
That's about the most dangerous thinking process a member of society can develop.
And yes, I do understand that programming and technology are areas that attract a higher than average number of such types. Let the mod down begin.
Fuck you. Read history.
Facebook may be a gigantic spy machine that induces the hapless and naive to surrender bit by bit most intimate details which are then assembled into a dossier to be used to suppress their own political, employment and economic opportunities so the rich can stay rich and keep the poor poor, but it's not going to save the rich from what comes when the system collapses in ecological and economic devastation . They'll share the same fate that all the past and present kings who thought of themselves as "untouchable"- and had better reason to consider themselves so- shared .
How soon until we read about some vet-who-can't-get-treated-by-a-tax-starved-VA taking a six dollar .50 BMG from two klicks away and exploding this fucking narcissistic panty-boy-billionaire's head like a two dollar melon?
Not soon enough. Ayn Rand's Galt character was just the (cardboard character, cartoonish) embodiment of the desire to have no obligations placed upon by society whatsoever, while of course being permitted
Easy solution: tax outsourcing so it costs DOUBLE what it costs to do anything domestically
"Overall effective Federal tax rates on the top 0.01 percent of earners have declined from about 70% in 1960 to about 35% in 2005, while effective rates for the middle class have remained constant over the same period."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates
What's happened is that social spending has risen, so the average productive person is getting less for their tax money, and seeing their tax money going to support non-productive people.
Futurist Traditionalism
The downfall didn't start until the 80s, with its massive tax cuts, deregulation, explosion of Wall Street gambling, and culture of greed.
In other words, Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the worst thing to ever happen to this country.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Please show me where I consented to this contract.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here. Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract, I suggest you leave the country, forfeit the priveleges of the civilized society that has already given you countless advantages and protections without which you would likely be destitute or dead, and find some place else in the world to hang out with other 'rugged individualists'. Good luck with that.
No luck required, just google OECD standard of living, education, health or any other number of metrics and you'll see a whole bunch of countries that have more to offer than the US.
Maybe you need to fucking learn what the word "earn" fucking means.
What part of the government paid for R and D in basic science did you EARN ? What part of the infrastructure whose TIT you suck every goddamn day of your miserable useless life did YOU earn?
Fucking none of it.
So STFU about what you EARNED or this coke snorting degenerate thinks he EARNED because if you were going to EARN it, you'd have to start with studying science then recreating everything society has created and given to you as your fucking silverspoon birthright biotch.
You earned jack. You took an inconceivable amount of goods and know-how that generations have paid for in taxes in time in labor in suffering and in blood and thought of it as "yours" just like this puss filled filth sack did. Then you bitch slap everyone who came before and preen and prance around like you invented it all, paid for it all, created it all and "you don't owe no-nobody nuthin!"
Ayn Rand was an amphetamine addict. The process of being an addict of pharmaceutical stimulants systematically degrades you brain in a known and characteristic way- it turns you into a megalomaniac void of higher order emotional cognition. Thus the character of John Galt. Thus this fucking shit bag who, if the FB movie is to be believed, basically coke-snorted away whatever fucking ganglia it was that was passing for his brain back in the day.
One of the totally legitimate functions of society is to limit - through whatever means are effective- the harm and damage the mentally deranged anti-social psychopaths can inflict on society. I hope this guy dies in the most degrading abasing manner imaginable, preferably at the hands of one of society's most disadvantaged and deprived members, perhaps his drug dealer or one of the whores he has to pay to fuck him
Die die die die die die die die.
Do it NOW and shut the fuck up about it. Just die.
Damn, the government switching sides to support the interests of the mass of the people. Such a terrible thing.
Good this it's not true.
You don't even realize how what you're saying shows the result of your feigned interest.
Of course, I also remember some libertarians here swearing up and down that that time period was the paradise they wanted and we should all be glad for it.
This statement is factually wrong. The Boston Tea Party was not a result of more taxes, it was a result of less taxes.
British tea was taxed. That allowed American contrabandists to sell their contraband tea cheaper. When the tax on British tea was rescinded, it was economically harmful to their American competitors.
Hence, Tea Party.
You know that the US was basically a paper tiger in the 1970s? No, you didn't, because that doesn't fit in with your PCF worldview.
I'm actually old enough to remember what it was like before the "Great Society" and when thing were mostly run on a local level, not from Washington. The common conception now seems to be that if you cut Federal spending at all that you're only one step up from Somalia. We'd revert to a time when people starved to death in the streets every day, people (including children) would be working 7 days a week, 16 hours a day while covered in toxic slime, and so forth.
Nothing could be further from the truth - we still had roads, hospitals, schools (in many cases better schools than today), police departments, courts and worker protections. Charity was largely handled by the churches, but there were community shelters and assistance as well. What was different was that welfare was seen as a friends and neighbors sacrificing to help you over a rough spot, not as a way of life.
Government was also far, far more responsive. Your leaders weren't strangers you saw on TV, they were your neighbors, and people you ran into in the grocery store. They cared about the things that you cared about because they lived in the same community after all.
And yes, people did vote with their feet as well. If the government of a town got out of control, that town started losing population (and tax base). It was pretty easy to move to the next town - much easier than moving to another country.
IMHO, the reason government works so well and is so relatively uncorrupt in Singapore is that politicians and administrators have multi-million dollar salaries.
It seems in the U.S politicians are so reliant on being hired into cushy jobs at Goldman Sachs, getting insider stock tips from lobbyists (they are exempt from insider trading laws) and begging for campaign contributions that there's a lot more waste and corruption. Many of them are millionaires despite making relatively small salaries and when they retire and go into the private sector to work for companies they helped, they make millions.
If you make the simple salary of the politician the main focus, exit strategy and retirement plan of the politician they focus on doing their job and only their job well. It also becomes easy to attract very talented people from all professions to work for the government.
Let's just shut down schools, hospitals, and such
Umm, schools are run and funded by the states, not the federal government (the topic of discussion here), and hospitals are already private businesses (some for-profit, some not-for-profit).
Perhaps you have a point, but you chose very poor examples.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Yep---just like I'd defend myself against a robber with whatever means I could. Doesn't mean I agreed to the robber's "terms" if he wins.
Liberty in your lifetime
Because some people produce new wealth. Or do you actually think that we have the same amount of "stuff" here in 2012 that they had in 1912, or 1812, or...?
Greedy people are often the producers: Business leaders, entrepreneurs, &c.. Not all are parasites.
Liberty in your lifetime
People renounce their citizenship because they are self centered bastards who don't care about their country. The US has some of the lowest tax rates, you don't pay shit, because you are a self centered nation who don't give a shit about anyone but yourselves. And still people whine.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Actually, there are an awful lot of people that are "waking up" finally. The topic of this article itself, and stuff I've linked to in these threads---the Free State Project, the Ron Paul phenomenon---attest to this.
Liberty in your lifetime
What a surprise.
Come back when you pay 50% with a smile to support your country.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"and go elsewhere"... I always like that part. Are you aware that most countries in the world would probably not let you in?
How can Facebook even be on a list of worst companies? They offer a product you pay nothing for.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Which one of these people is a "producer"? The factory worker that puts together widgets on the assembly line, or the investment banker who devises ways to take existing high-risk securities to re-package them to obscure the actual risk? Hint: not the wealthy guy that lead to the crash of our economy.
Look, I'm not a class warrior here; I'm actually an entrepreneur working on building my second company. But, I'm not so delusional to believe that I'm actually "producing" stuff as people usually use the term. My employees produce the valuable goods and services, I'm around as a manager and shield between them and the investors. My business succeeds when they produce stuff and I'm good enough at playing the finance game to keep us in the black.
Civilization produced things to improve life for centuries before we developed our current economic system. To pretend that people with wealth are a special class of people largely responsible for improving our lives is simply bullshit. The reality is that the wealthy have been more adept at rigging the rules to make sure they get paid first and best.
Posting AC because I don't exactly want my (potential) investors to form negative opinions of my business due to not toeing the standard economic line they would like us to believe.
In a free society, you would have something like this.
By the way, how do you propose to use the government to solve such a dispute? Because the government, back in the 1800s, eliminated the use of the court system to seek relief against polluters. See what happens when you have one system trying to monopolize solutions? They can take it away from you just as fast as they gave it to you.
Actually, the exact opposite is true. Libertarianism is probably the one philosophy that both understands human nature---petty, greedy, self-interested, not at all altrustic---and tries to work with human nature as it is, rather than condemn and punish it, or try to change it.
Libertarians aren't going to try to force people to be charitable ("welfare," "social security") and then wonder why this does nothing but create anger and resentment. Libertarians aren't going to wonder why giving all this free money to people seems to do nothing but make them less likely to ever want to get back to being productive citizens. Some people are charitable; most aren't. Libertarianism is about fostering private, voluntary charity without trying to force the uncharitable to go along with it.
Libertarians aren't going to try to fundamentally change human nature like the communists did ("If only all the workers would all work together and support each other..."), and then wonder why this does nothing but create shortages. Some people are cooperative; many aren't. Libertarianism is about fostering private, voluntary cooperation (free-market businesses) without trying to force the selfish and loners to go along with the group.
Libertarians understand that people are going to be greedy and selfish, and try to come up with ways of making society work in light of this--not against it. Libertarians aren't going to try to tax, regulate, and punish these basic and inescapable human behaviors, and then wonder why no one is willing to work anymore. Some people are really greedy; many aren't. Libertarianism is about fostering people's natural desire to have things into productive labor, productive industry, and wealth creation, not trying to suppress these natural desires and then wondering why people turn to fraud, graft, the depredations we've seen in the world financial system, and so on.
Libertarians aren't pacifists and have no problem with "pointing guns"---when its a justifiable act of self-defense against the initiation of force, as understood by the Non-Aggression Principle. What libertarians have a problem with is the initiation of force---or worse, the insistence that sometimes that initiation is actually moral if it's done by a "legitimate" group (the government).
Except what the government does with its guns is far from just "referee disputes" nowadays. If all we had was a government that, as in the late 1700s, merely protected "life, liberty,
Liberty in your lifetime
You have to show first, that you aren't already getting paid that "fair share".
Income disparity is the greatest it has been since right before the Great Depression.
40 years of profits have mostly been squirreled into low tax or offshore investments.
If that same money had gone to employees, it would have been subject to normal levels of taxation and kept our government solvent.
Really, it's almost like I talked right past you.
Did you bother to click the link and look at even one of those graphs?
Here's one: http://i.imgur.com/wBgyq.png
I'd say these numbers more or less speak for themselves.
That should more or less answer all your questions.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Prevent anyone that renounces their citizenship from entering the US for 10 years.
Friendly Societies: Voluntary Social Security and More:
The Shortcomings of Government Charity:
And here's a side-by-side comparison of what happens to groups who end up on the government dole vs. groups allowed to take care of themselves. Government Creates Poverty:
Liberty in your lifetime
That other people's actions impact someone says nothing about whether or not that person is somehow obligated to do something.
Liberty in your lifetime
So the poor have no Right to food, what a horrible uncivilised unChristian country, would be ridiculed at the United Nations, have them depend on what - Christian charity? As a scientist I know that if a population is starving the likelihood of shootings and stabbings increases, which all American citizens do not want. Do a poll - How many Americans want themselves and their children to be tortured for money and physically shot and killed? And would you give a five percent tax to avert this possibility? Pretty much everybody would say yes they would pay the tax.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
You had me going to you posted this nonsense:
Government was also far, far more responsive. Your leaders weren't strangers you saw on TV, they were your neighbors, and people you ran into in the grocery store.
Sorry, but politicians during that time were just as corrupt if not MORE corrupt than today. To claim they were "more responsive" is fucking hilarious. Yes, they were "more responsive" to the party bosses who had a stranglehold on politics.
There was a reason that 17th amendment was passed and it wasn't because politicians were "more responsive" it was due to massive corruption.
Those people don't produce. Those people are leaches syphoning off the labor value of everyone else. They are the "takers" in the "makers/takers" equation. The makers are working on assembly lines and down in mines. They do add some value to the economy but nowhere near what they take out of it.
Not to step on your point, but half of those were invented by the Persians.
DARPA invented the internet as ARPANET. Is this fact in question now? Do the small-government ideologues now also deny the pedigree of the Internet?
Lasik is a non-essential cosmetic procedure that's not covered by insurance policies other than a token discount, thus the incentive to charge less than competitors in order to attract business is there.
You can't compare this to essential health services where providers have you (often literally) by the balls. What incentive would they have to lower their prices on emergency care? You're not in any position to price-check hospitals while in an ambulance.
Rand and Marx were both doctrinaire Jehovahpaths (Yahweh haters). The difference is Rand allows one the liberty to acquire, possess and defend toys which is more in tune with (evil, wicked, fallen, corrupt and depraved) human nature.
For certain Mr. Saverin better drive the safest car in the world, get checked by the best doctors in the world, and have the best lawyers in the world. In short, he better Yahweh-proof himself.
Actually, an awful lot of successful businessmen got started through the hard work you describe. What they didn't do was take government handouts and become complacent, ambitionless wards of the state like so many poor do nowadays, nor did they get a government school "education" and become middling employees of the corporations run by those who are successful.
Your question as to "fairness" can't be answered because the statement that someone would have "no way of improving their lot" is a false premise. (And it's curious that you're defending statism as if it solves such a premise, because in truth the only situation under which "no way of improving [your] lot" can occur is a statist society in which social classes are enforced.)
Liberty in your lifetime
Bra-VO! Well done, sir. I nearly hacked up a lung.
An obligation to do something is nothing more or less than a threat by somebody else to take actions that impact you. You don't have to hand over your wallet just because somebody puts a gun to your head and demands it.
Europe here. We've been running that experiment for a while now. My tax rate is about 50% but, granted, I earn a fair lot.
My apartment in downtown capital costs about 500 bucks a month, thanks to public building and very efficient public transport that makes speculation nearly impossible (the moment some real estate scalper hoovers up the flats the town government builds a new apartment complex and the subway to it, rendering that speculation worthless), unemployment is around 3% (so much for companies fleeing the tax burden), health care is perfect (anything that happens to me is covered, with a participation in the 2 digit area, more a safeguard against people going to the doc over a papercut than actual expense), education is free up to university level (and then, depending on university, costs between 300 and 600 a year), crime is virtually nonexistant (a murder makes the headlines easily, it happens once or twice a year so it's a story that will be squeezed for a few weeks)...
Taxes are way lower for lower incomes, sadly I earn enough to pay the full extent. But considering what I get in return, I'd guess I'm not that bad off.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Our problem today is not that we lack the money for investments. There's plenty of money wanting to be invested, what we lack is money for consumption. We are heading for the problem of the 1930s: Overproduction without a market.
We don't need more money for investments, we need more money for consumption.
We, like every first world nation, are highly dependent on the tertiary sector. Services. Look at the distribution of workforce and GDP production and you'll see that in every developed country, services makes up roughly 75% of the workforce employed and GDP produced. Services, though, are also the sector that suffers the first and the most when the economy isn't running. What do people cut down on when money is tight? Groceries, plumbing or a haircut? Well?
The main reason for the economic downturn is that people don't have money to spend anymore. People were "friendly" enough to keep spending 'til they couldn't anymore, even when they were already in debt, but now they effectively CANNOT spend anymore. They cut back on services, which leads to jobs being lost, which leads to less money to be spent and the spiral continues.
What we need is money in the hands of people so they can spend it again. On services. Yes, it won't solve the foreign trade problem easily unless the US can somehow also attract more tourists (which won't happen bloody likely as long as the US keep treating everyone wanting to come as a tourist like a terrorist), but it will start the economy again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am. And I weep for his / her inability to get into those nations. Truly a tragedy.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
No one is compelling him to do anything about it. Think of it in terms of discomfort. Say you have a pair of shoes and they you like the looks of.
If they offer no discomfort, great. You wear them.
If they offer a tiny bit of discomfort, say they are difficult to tie, you may still wear them.
Say they don't bend at the toe perfectly.
Say they are perfect fit w/ very little wiggle room.
They irritate your ankle just so.
Cause an abrasion after a few days.
etc etc..
The cost/work to "fix things" and the impetus to do so is determined by the level at which discomfort sucks. Then there's learned helplessness which is another ball of wax.
income tax is optional , NOT MANDOTAORY
But the IRS has goons on its side, called the SWAT team and FBI. Who are clueless dumb workers who didnt even pass high school.
IRS = EVIL
worse than stassi org, and full of crooks.
JPMorgan and banks, your gone, toast, people will revolt, and never pay back your loans.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
besides the native indians who you fuckers killed.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner
That fucker got millions in tax free money, did you know if you a FORCED to sell shares when entering USA GOVT, its all tax free.
1. So stock up on lots of shares.
2. Join govt.
3. sell shares tax free
4. pay no tax
5. live rich like a Saudi Prince.
All the govt politicians are filthy dirty evil theiving scum.
God will but fuck you with a penis 100 billion light years wide.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here.
- ha, nobody can consent for you without you signing authorisation with a lawyer, and when you are a kid, you can't sign it, so you consented to nothing, you are not a slave of either your parents or the government just because you are born.
Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract
- again, nobody is under that contract just because they were born. There is no contract.
You didn't sign a contract.
You are not a slave of your parents.
You are not a slave of your government.
You freedom cannot be signed away by some proxy contract that you didn't sign and didn't give legal authority for anybody to sign on your behalf.
This is a pure nonsense argument.
attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
- the most humanitarian people are the most libertarian, the ones who understand that a totalitarian government and lack of liberties is what causes poverty. Be it a socialist or a communist or a fascist government, be it a dictatorship or a monarchy, whatever, all this stuff destroys societies and prevents real wealth from being created.
USA was a Republic and as a free republic it allowed for the free people and the free people came to USA and now those who are still free are leaving. USA was built as a prosperous nation without government, now the government took over and ridiculous ideas about 'contract' that nobody signed are imposed upon children.
You can't handle the truth.
Just name the first country to make pot illegal and then forced the UN to make it illegal too and thus 99% of the world.
Only in America as they say.
Who made liquor illegal ? eh? dumb asses, total fuck nuts there... ie those pathetically stupid christians. Dude, wine was in the bible. MOFOS
Yeah something scares you, make it illegal, oh now I feel better, its illegal. Cool. Dumb fucks, you cannot control the universe and define what exists and doesn't.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You don't really remember the 70s, do you? People were complaining about the state of the economy quite a bit back then as well.
Come to think of it, they complain a lot just about any era you look at. And it's all been "downfall" since some point with policies they didn't like were enacted.
Sorry. Didn't realize I was walking on your lawn.
Its all the little fuckers that fuck it up.
The person that doesnt question the TSA or some the govt, or some procedure.
The lawyer that approves something.
The judge that doesnt question decisions.
TSA is all 100% show , and 200% profit margins to corps, it stops nothing, it does nothing, it protects nothing, its all show.
Nothing will stop kamikazes.
Seriously, all too often its people in govt, trying to best their careers ahead of the common good that ruin the lives of everyone. Trying to 'achieve' tasks or goals or specs,to make rules or laws that sound good on your resume, but in reality cost more billions, ruin more lives, and dont really help any one.
Id like to see ALL LAWS have a sunset clause and review processs, to say if X law doesnt achieve any goodness and help for society, then rm -f the law.
Since inception of lawyers, bad laws stay on books forever, like Windows, with no question about its removal, or review to see if it was wrong.
So.... Fuck the Govt, its run by a bunch of amature crooks, who dont give a shit if it hurts a bunch of people.
Why cant all new laws have an UNDO clause if its bad or not deamed to have been good enough.
The govt are above the law, they make the law, if there is any loop hole, they can make a new law to stop it. So they are above the law, they make the law.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
In much political theory since the, oh, seventeenth or eighteenth century (when democracy started becoming a thing), voting is considered a consent to the system in full, not just consent if whomever you want to win wins. In essence, once you've consented to the system you're consenting to be ruled by the will of the majority, determined however the system determines that will (which in some cases, such as first past the post systems, doesn't even mean an actual majority of the population).
Now, you can of course break that contract and attempt to change the system by revolution, or attempt to change the system from within the rules of that system -- but don't say you never consented and therefore shouldn't have to pay taxes but can reap the benefits of others' taxes.
I've found that it's common for libertarians to deny the horrors of, and even romanticize the Gilded Age and the early 1900s before the New Deal. It really saddens me that time travel was proven impossible, because I'd love to send them back there with nothing but a reel of bootstraps and a six-pack of self-determination.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The problem is that people have a subjective view of reality which is tied up in their own interests. The things they like are "good" and the things they don't like are "evil". Many rich people don't like paying taxes, so they construct a kind of false reality in their own minds where they are the victims of "political corruption and cronyism", thus justifying their own personal interests in not paying taxes. Personally, it seems to me like, to the extent that there is political corruption in the US, it being driven by the rich not by the poor (as much as conservatives would like to believe otherwise). All of this "going Galt" stuff just seems like personal interests being dressed up as "objective and rational responses to a system that oppresses the rich". I think the only reason this twisted view of the world has permeated below the super-rich class in society is because the conservative news has been pushing this narrative, and they've managed to hoodwink the middle class into believing that they are being oppressed. The fact that you call it "rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny" shows just how deeply they've tricked you into their worldview.
I agree. Society should do nothing at all to help you (including providing no medical care, no education, etc) until you are old enough to be considered a consenting adult (at the age of 18), at which time, you can sign your name with an "X" to agree to the contract (since you'll be too illiterate to actually write your name).
What I think you'll discover with some more time on this earth to think about it is that the US isn't the only country with the problems you describe. Violence and arrogant nationalism is by no means throughout history exclusive to the United States.
Dear sir, please get some perspective: "Steven Pinker on the myth of violence" http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
I hate seeing the money I could have had go to taxes, but that is what helps makes this country run to provide services to me and others. It really bothers me when you see this type of thing occur because they just want to screw over the government and its people yet wants to still be provided the services that they didn't pay for. Don't get me wrong, people's taxes are misspent by the government but that needs fixed, not wriggled out of. Personally, he's a spoiled brat and can piss off out of the country.
Blame the 'progressives'. They want to go back to socialism.
Don't forget every god damn hippie and benz driving dead head with Obama sticker. Just die baby boomers.
We got the behavior that we rewarded. Weird.
Stick that in your compiler and debug it!
To be fair, we weren't defending half our allies then.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
When net immigration stops being out of your country and into the hell that is America then speak again.
Right now your countrymen are voting with their feet. Convince them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
On the contrary, history has shown us that poverty correlates inversely with welfare states. When the state does not provide adequate welfare, private charity never makes up the difference with statistical significance. There's been at least two major empirical studies to determine this which are summarized concisely on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare's_effect_on_poverty#Table_of_poverty_levels_pre_and_post_welfare
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Fix the currency exchange rates between America/Europe and China/India and that will work itself out. The peg is the source of many global economic problems. For China and India too. China has simply set their peg to target 100% industrial utilization for decades. They are starting to see the problem with simplicity.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why would anyone stay in silicon valley if they were living on SS? Are they nuts?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
One of the things that's hobbling my plans to depart is a minor little claim by the US Goverment in regards to voluntarily giving up citizenship:
'You are liable for taxes to the United States for a period of 10 years following your formal resignation of US citizenship.' (I'm getting the wording wrong here, but that's the gist of it.)
While that may allow him to dodge state taxes, and certain things like social security, he still WOULD be liable for income taxes for the following 10 years. And if he has a change of putting a significant dent in the current deficit with the amount of income tax owed, you can sure as hell bet the IRS and whoever else will be scrutinizing him closely to see what sort of funding they can appropriate from him. (Assuming of course they don't just go 'Hey, this guy is no longer a US citizen, which means we can just detain him indefinitely in guantanamo and claim all his assets in the name of terrorism, thus helping to reduce our budget shortfall!). I'll leave out the Godwin and just ask: 'What are non-citizens, but a source of revenue that doesn't require following the constitution?!?!'
Food for thought on clearing up the budget.
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Galloping through the sward
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
And his horse Concorde
He steals from the rich
And gives to the poor
Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Riding through the night
Soon every lupin in the land
Will be in his mighty hand
He steals them from the rich
And gives them to the poor
Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Dum dum dum the night
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Dum de dum dum plight
He steals dum dum dum
And dum dum dum dee
Dennis dum, Dennis dee, dum dum dum
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Riding through the woods
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
With his bag of things
He gives to the poor
And he takes from the rich
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,
Dennis Moore Dennis Moore,
Dennis Moore Riding through the land
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Without a merry band
He steals from the poor
And gives to the rich
Stupid bitch
This redistribution of wealth is more complicated then I thought.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In Europe the rich move to Monaco. IIRC Steffy Graff got caught not moving 'well enough' and had to pay a buttload of taxes.
Capital is mobile, forget that and your nation is fucked.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Learn to superglue a cut. It's not hard.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not a lie. The top income tax bracket was, indeed, higher 50 years ago than it is today. Between the mid 1930s and until 1980 (when Reagan came to power), the top income tax bracket ranged between 70% and 94% (the current top tax bracket is 35%). In fact, in 1943, there was a law put in place to make the top income tax bracket 100% (yes, the US government would take 100% of the money you earned over a certain amount), but the law was struck down before taxes were actually collected in April. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Federal_income_tax_rates_2
It really doesn't matter what "Federal Medicare and Social Security taxes along with State and Local income taxes tacked onto our paychecks" you count up. You simply aren't going to reach the equivalent of a 70% or a 94% tax bracket.
so-you-want-to-be-american-5-circles-immigration-hell
He would rather never live in the US again, than pay tax on money he could never spend.
Such a class act.
Because their friends and social network is there. It's not "sensible" from a strictly financial standpoint, but that's not the only consideration for most people.
IMHO, income tax rates should be adjusted for cost of living where the taxpayer resides. However, I don't know that adjusting Social Security benefits for cost of living is appropriate.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone to move to a lower cost area when they no longer have job considerations keeping them in a particular area. Also, if someone has spent many years working and living (and, presumably building up their social network) in the Silicon Valley at a mid wage job (i.e., less than the earnings cap for SS - which is $110,100 for 2012), their SS benefit is higher because the higher wages for the same job in the SV result in a higher average lifetime indexed earnings (although, this is still skewed because SS retirement benefits are regressive, the first dollar you contribute gives you six times the eventual retirement benefit as the last dollar you contribute on earnings just before hitting the cap).
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Not only is the entire country easily offed in one shot from various weapons, he picked a country that does quite well at extraordinary rendition.
While I'm not exactly in favor of the tax code, I'm not in favor of arrogant allocation of assets outside the country. I am in favor of the US Government using the DoD to nullify any jurisdictional concealment.
In addition, I'd like to see something in the citizenship/residency/etc. documents stating that you will not engage in any jurisdictional tax avoidance, even if it is otherwise legal to do so; the penalty being forfeiture of all assets anywhere.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
No, it doesn't if you consider inflation.
These programs deserve a more thoughtful response... Social Security is a transfer from the young to the old. My mother (who didn't really need it) thought it was the greatest thing in the world until I pointed out that what she received was roughly what her three sons were paying in taxes - while we struggled to pay the bills and make homes for her grandchildren. Now I am about to receive my own Social Security payments, but I hope to be able to give all that money back to my own children. We can afford to help the needy elderly - but do we need this blind transfer from young people to old? As for Medicare and Medicaid - again, we need a system that helps the truly needy. But we also need a system that puts a price tag on health - it can't be free, and the consequences of bad life choices should also have financial consequences. Why should taxpayers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for LVADs? They'll buy granny a few weeks in agony, sedated in the hospital... You have to say yes if it's "free" but what if the hospital asks you for a $100,000 cashier's check in advance? We need skin in the game, not bureaucrats deciding for us.
Income disparity is the greatest it has been since right before the Great Depression.
So what? What are you doing to deserve to earn more? Are you employing people or providing great value that can't be provided by others?
40 years of profits have mostly been squirreled into low tax or offshore investments.
Like, as I noted, the computer industry.
If that same money had gone to employees, it would have been subject to normal levels of taxation and kept our government solvent.
Why should employing people or keeping our government solvent be more of a priority for a business than making sure it's running well and satisfying its customers? I don't see it.
Really, it's almost like I talked right past you.
Your claims mean little to me. Vague talk of fairness and such. As I see it, the US has undermined and disrupted employers for the past century or more. So of course, productivity has gone up without a corresponding increase in wages. Make it easy to employ and fire people, then you'll see more demand for employees and a closer correlation between productivity and wages. But as long as it's extremely hard to employ people, you should expect see the same disengagement that is seen in the graphs you link.
Ayn Rand is one of the biggest hypocrites ever, topped only by the likes of Jefferson. She was parroting about individuality while her real goal was establishing a personality cult around herself.
did you make up that username specifically for this post? seems funny
Taken from my post on another board:
http://www.f2bbs.com/bbs/show_topic/627995/2
"Loyalty to a nation is declining. The wealthy are only loyal to themselves, and the future will have them living as citizens of tax-havens. Multimillionaires and billionaires will no longer accept supporting hundreds or thousands of poor people who aren't even the same race. Yes, it does boil down to race. As the US becomes more and more "diverse" the amount of people willing to pay our high taxes dwindles. Successful Indians, Chinese, etc...they aren't going to pay massive US taxes. They have no loyalty to the US at all. All the well-off people with an origin outside the US plan on leaving the US once they stop working and take their wealth back home. People are just using the US to work and earn money, but don't want to invest back into the system. Of course the poor foreigners will all stay to take advantage of social benefits.
The corporation and guilds of the wealthy will eventually become more powerful than countries. The concept of a nation with a population of like-minded people is coming to an end.
socialism only works at all when your population is very homogenous. Once you let hordes of non-whites in, no one with money is going to hang around to help you build your liberal empire.
another thing to note is that religions/shared faith can produce groups of "like minded" people."
excimer laser used in almost all refractive surgeries was developed at UCLA (a public school) in cooperation with Northrop.
you are almost right, except in saying the rich are taxed a considerable amount. given all the loopholes, the rates can be significantly different.
here is a great example: a doctor living in the US can pay around 35 pct of their income to taxes(granted, at a very high earning level, but still). A person who simply trades futures on an exchange pays no more than 25 percent. In what way does the trader offer so much more of a public service that the tax rate should be lower?
we can go on, using the 15% on carried interest as a PE investor vs a small business owner paying significantly more, as much as the doctor.
Let`s make it even better: if I day trade with my own personal money, I pay up to ordinary income tax. On the other hand, if I create a mutual fund and engage in similar trading and be an owner of shares of the fund, I can defer to long term capital gains without changing my trading style.
The rich are not some monolithic group, but if we leveled the tax system and treated all income as equivalent (that includes gifts from your parents, i.e. inheritance), rates could be much, much lower. Oh, and filing your taxes would require about a 4th grade education, as compared to a college degree it now requires when your returns grow complex (as mine have). You could massively lower taxes on many of the rich simply by removing exemptions and deferrals that others use.
You still pay all the taxes I listed and then some. Why shouldn't they count? You would still incur the same kinds of penalties you'd get if you didn't pay those (assuming you were required to) as if you didn't pay your Federal Income tax.
If all you do is count Federal Income tax then yes, you can say that yes it is relatively low (even though it was raised in 1993 and lowered somewhat in the early 2000s). But the fact remains that our overall tax burden is not "as light as a feather."
To put it more simply, I could say that if I was only counting state sales taxes, then a state like Delaware would have the lowest tax burden because it has no sales tax. But Delaware of course has other taxes that people have to pay. It would be just as wrong for me to say that Delaware has a low tax burden by just counting the (lack of a) state sales tax as it is for you to say that Federal Income tax is "low" when you don't add in all the other taxes we have to pay.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
income disparity by definition should increase with globalization as a smaller group that has services people want can expand their markets astronomically. It isn`t about tax havens or offshoring of money. That is quite irrelevant.
Take actors for example. As the market for Hollywood has massively expanded, so has the pay an actor can demand, simply because the movies will generate more revenue with a larger possible audience. But those benefits will generally go towards those workers on the set who bring in the audience, and that isn`t the janitor or executive assistants. This naturally creates increasing disparity even though those who work on the movie are doing essentially the same work they did 20 years ago.
We can do the same argument for the pay for the CEO of a company, who simply by an increase in the market size, can argue for a large disparity as workers compete globally for jobs (greater supply) while the complexity of running an international organization being many levels higher than a smaller outfit leads to fewer and therefore, more highly compensated individuals at the top (please don't get into a long winded diatribe about how some managers are not worth the money, that is a different question).
Ayn Rand is a pseudo philosopher, a minor writer. Those that hold her works in high esteem are genuinely uneducated and lacking in sophistication.
No, he should be completely free to come and go as he chooses, and to renounce being a member of any country at will. Allowing such behavior is a basic freedom that any and all should be allowed to exercise. What I said has nothing to do with this in the slightest.
What I object to is his using the US as a platform to grow billions in wealth, and then not contributing back when he should be. There are billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that US citizens have invested into infrastructure of the country over the last several hundred years, and that makes it a great place to start a business. The country has roads, a mail system, decent public education, and non-corrupt public servants. There are fire departments, airports and Intranet infrastructure. The country is stable, secure, and there is a developed banking and financial network. People want to live here, and there is plenty of highly skilled talent. All of this came at a cost that was paid for by taxpayers. And now that this guy makes several billion dollars, enough money that he could never even realistically spend it under ordinary circumstances, he abandons his citizenship to avoid paying his taxes. He is no less than a common thief, abet one with a lot of personal accountants advising him on how to cheat the American people. He is about to steal 2 billion dollars from the country, a country that worked hard to give him a chance at his dreams of success.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I believe you missed the point. Charity, taken from people at the proverbial gunpoint, is not charity; it's theft. You are denying the giver a voluntary choice, i.e. duress free, to determine whether or not to donate to a cause. If you wish to argue that you believe the ends justify the means, then say so.
I am John Hurt.
It is money of the investors who are willing to pay for FB shares, and you are not paying for it..
Your assumptions are incorrect, he is benefiting from all the advantages that being in the US confer that were paid for by you and I. You think that FB could have got of the ground in a country without a government or infrastructure, like Somalia? Who paid for that, in dollars and blood over the last several centuries? The people of the US. You want to be a patriot? Don't try to cheat the system by cutting and running in order to save yourself from paying taxes.
I am not advocating that he pay more than anyone else, just because he has money. I think that he should play only exactly as much as the law says he owes, (without trying to exploit loopholes). He is saying that 2 billion dollars is worth more to him than contributing to the country that gave him a chance to succeed, and fuck the law, he will take is money and run when given the chance.
You say that there shouldn't be taxes, while enjoying all the benefits that the provide you. You are spouting off against taxes ON THE INTERNET, WHICH WAS STARTED WITH GOVERNMENT FUNDS. Show the strength of your conviction. Stop paying taxes, turn off your Internet access, unplug your phones, turn off your water and sewage and tell the police and fire department that you don't ever want or need their help. You and all the small minded fools like you that rail against paying the very modest taxes that are asked of you are short sighted selfish twits. Walk the walk little man, renounce all the blessings that society pays for with taxes. I dare you.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If that's how you look at things, then Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 - does this mean that U.S. was never really free?
Wrong. The USA is not the USSR. In the USSR, you could not amass lots of wealth. And the "Exit Tax" should correctly be called "Reichsfluchtsteuer", or maybe "Dego-Abgabe".
Jealous some?
Not to worry. CA will soon have the highest state income tax rate. It's currently #2. We still have hope, sanity might smack down the idiots but it's looking bad.
There is another way of thinking of high cost areas. Real estate is higher, wages are higher but almost everything else costs the same. Once you earn enough to cover the real estate everything else (cars, computers, toys) comes easier.
I do think its unreasonable to expect others to cover the costs of your choices. If someone values living in silicon valley enough to pay to live there, fine. It really is a hell hole though. You could move 100 miles in any direction and be better off (even in the pacific ocean).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If Govt does it is patriotism.
If Civilian does he is a traitor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_hegemony
Casteism
Many rich people don't like paying taxes, so they construct a kind of false reality in their own minds where they are the victims of "political corruption and cronyism", thus justifying their own personal interests in not paying taxes.
And, you know all these intimate details about how many rich people think in their heads...how, exactly? Oh yeah....you don't, you just like to make stuff up that makes you feel better about discriminating against one group of people and confiscating the wealth *they earned* in order to feed the endless maw of a collectivist government. How much is enough? I already know the answer...it's the same answer in any collectivist/redistributionist society...it's never enough. Collectivism assures everyone enjoys an equal level of poverty. Except for the ones in charge, of course. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, Collectivism is great until you run out of other people's wealth to redistribute.
All of this "going Galt" stuff just seems like personal interests being dressed up as "objective and rational responses to a system that oppresses the rich"
It's both, and there's nothing wrong with "personal interests". It's what drives Capitalism, the basis of Western civilization. Capitalism embraces the natural human desire to improve one's life and those of one's family to create wealth for everyone in the society, whereas Collectivism depends on people always acting in the interests of the State and not themselves, which never really happens, which is why all forms of Collectivism always eventually end in tyranny, corruption, and collapse.
I think the only reason this twisted view of the world has permeated below the super-rich class in society is because the conservative news has been pushing this narrative, and they've managed to hoodwink the middle class into believing that they are being oppressed.
Gee, that's strange. I only count *one* cable news channel, a few AM radio talk shows, and some bloggers, out of all the TV and cable news channels and other media, that will even present the side of the "conservatives" *at all*, or without doing it in a completely biased, negative, & derogatory manner. Why do you feel it's OK to silence those with opposing views? Isn't that a form of tyranny and oppression?
The fact that you call it "rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny" shows just how deeply they've tricked you into their worldview.
No, it shows how well the Left's ~80 years of propaganda has blinded you to recognizing tyranny, just as they intended. You're being used as a tool by those who think themselves your betters and your masters. Are you familiar with something called "Stockholm Syndrome"?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm not american, I'm not living in the U.S. and I'm not rich. And I'm tired of all these "we're the 99%" whiners.
If you don't believe in the right to own property, then vote for communists and I pity the country you'll be living in once communists shall take power. Eastern Europe wasn't exactly a nice place until recently (when it turn to capitalism) and it wasn't exactly a place know for amazing cars, technology, military (they always lagged way behind the U.S. and it was all propaganda: basically their entire budget was spent on the military and on propaganda making believe that their military was top-notch).
The additional money that dude shall be making by not paying taxes in the U.S. is not going to disappear: it's just going to end up used in a way that the (corrupted) U.S. government didn't intend. Less money for the militaro-industrial complex? Less money for the socialist health-care system? So be it.
For all we know that money may end up being invested in part of the world that rewards entrepreneurship and research and that *motivates* people by not confiscating what they earned.
There should be a cap --a worldwide cap-- on the amount of confiscation any government is legally allowed to make to its citizens. And it should be low. Way lower than what this over-socialist europe is taking and way lower than what this "turning-to-socialism-America" is taking.
F*ck a potential exit tax. F*ck the U.S. govt asking to banks and other govt worldwide to give the list of all the assets of all its citizens living abroad.
I just hope one thing: that enough entrepreneurs and billionaires give the finger to both what the U.S. and what Europe are quickly becoming.
To all the people who have 100 millions+ (I only know personally one such person and he's not living in the U.S., nor in Europe) and who are still in the U.S. or in Europe: abandon you U.S. citizenship and move all your money to a nicer place while you still can.
I'm in the EU and I'm currently evaluating my options. I could move to Switzerland but I cannot acquire citizenship there: which doesn't bode well because it's likely Europe will soon follow the U.S. in this crazy big-brotheresque "we'll ask every single country in the world a list of your assets because we plan to rape you with super-high taxes". While Switzerland is very close and moving there is an option, I'm more looking at Asia right now. I already have one family member who moved there and I may follow.
As long as these socialist or communist 99% keep spreading this hate of the successful, I'm not considering starting any company in neither Europe nor in the U.S.
I'll keep my entrepreneurship-spirit for the countries who rewards the people who want to create jobs, science, technology, etc.
F*ck taxes. F*ck the govt.
Go Ron Paul btw (wish I could have vote for him).
The Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with taxation or representation and much more to do with the business interests of the instigators. Yes, it's one of the things we lie to children about. If you are not a child, you may do well to educate yourself further on the subject.
I'd do the same thing, who needs to comeback to the states if you have that much money?? FUCK the tax man plus I saw him on that movie and he got robbed by Mark, he doesn't need to get robbed again...by Sam.
(Re: CA - expecting sanity would likely just lead to disappointment.)
A significant portion of the US population lives in areas that have a high cost of living by some measure. I could argue that taxpayers in high cost areas are subsidizing those who live in low cost areas where, in particular, housing and land are cheap.
Many areas are high cost because that's where jobs are for skilled workers in STEM, finance, bio, et al and these fields often benefit from their workers being physically present in one place. These are fields that require well educated people and that the US must encourage if they are to remain a leader in the world (okay, some here would argue about 'finance' being in that category). Of course, there are some areas that have a high cost of living for other reasons (such as geographical isolation - ref. Alaska and Hawaii).
Not all workers in high cost areas are in high paid "apex" jobs -- those with such jobs (as well as the businesses they work for) also require workers that are not in the "regional specialty". These other workers include auto mechanics, janitors, painters, retail workers, plumbers, police officers, firefighters, teachers, etc. These other workers need to live in the immediate area and, in turn, also use other services (the fire department responds when a teacher's house catches fire). These other workers also receive higher wages in high cost areas than in low cost areas in order to pay the higher costs of housing and services they consume in the region. On an individual basis these additional workers (unlike those with a region's "apex" jobs) could work elsewhere, but since the region requires these jobs (Amazon doesn't put out house fires or fix your car - shipping is just too expensive in both cases -- and in the former case, shipping a burning house to an Amazon Fire Suppression Center for processing may have some logistic complexities that would confound even Amazon) and someone has to do these jobs so these workers will exist.
One reason the US (and most countries) have a progressive tax system is to shift the tax burden from those that would have to forgo basic necessities of life to pay taxes if the system were not progressive. These basic necessities include housing (a big regional variable). The boundaries of tax brackets are not set because they are some natural constant like pi, e, or c -- they are set to achieve the social goals of progressive taxation and therefore do reflect the cost of goods and services. These brackets are adjusted regularly to reflect general inflation, I see no fundamental reason that they should not as well be adjusted to reflect regional cost of living as well.
Compare, for example, "fair market rents" (probably a reasonable proxy for cost of renting) of two bedroom units in Clay County Kentucky ($491/mo, $5892/yr) to those in San Francisco County California ($1,905/mo, $22,860/yr) - the annual difference is $16,968. Recall that for a couple filing jointly for TY 2012, the federal tax rate rises from 10% to 15% at $17,400 (of course, deductions have a big impact at this level and I'm not accounting for that, but nor am I accounting for food, utilities, transportation, or clothing costs) -- about THREE TIMES the "fair market" rent in Clay County and LESS than the "fair market" rent in SF County. I know these prices are not completely appropriate for comparison (as, for example, the units in Clay County may not be as nice, on the average, as the units in SF County), but there is clearly an enormous difference in the price of basic necessities and to ignore this in a progressive taxation system would seem to be counter to the whole notion of progressive taxation.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Yet the money you make and the securities you made it under was made possible by the country you live in. So its only fair you contribute back and stop being a selfish bastard.
Yep, because it is a mess of a country. You want to get murdered by a jeep full of thugs with AK-47s? Perhaps, you would like to discuss your elegant views of government as you are boarded by some of their famed nautical entrepreneurs. Or perhaps drink some chemically polluted water because a 'captain of industry' upstream from you decided the easiest way of getting rid of toxic chemicals was to just pour it into the river? Don't try to make it sound like some sort of romantic utopian government experiment, because I am not buying it for a second.
Who paid for that, in dollars and blood over the last several centuries?
- who do you think did? Businesses. Individuals who built businesses created the wealth and that was the wealth that built the infrastructure in USA.
The government can try and take credit, but the government is only stealing the money and distributing it, including into government projects, and that's wrong.
Business are self interested entities. They will help the community when it is in their self interest to do so. They need a road built to the harbor to move goods? No problem. The city needs roads built everywhere? Fuck em. The Government can do things to improve society that no individual business can or would ever try to do, things that generate opportunities for new business to grow and flourish. You say that someone would have invented the Internet eventually, which is true. But what kind of Internet would it be? It would be a highly controlled, limited scope project for the wealthy. By designing something to be open ended and not just for profit, it created a bedrock that allowed the modern Internet to flourish. This is exactly the sort of thing the government should be doing.
I have heard people with your sort of arguments before. 'The criminal government steals from me' and 'Taxes are slavery' seem to be just a coded dog whistle rallying cry for people who just are too selfish to see beyond their personal wants and desires. 'I don't see a need for (some bit of public infrastructure), so why should I have to pay for it?'. There is a self-centered minority that worships at the alter of Ayn Rand's delude rantings, and they parrot her dogma in a way that would make a propaganda minster's hear swell with pride. Almost every time I hear the anti-tax spiel, it is followed with something tired like a comment about John Galt. Rand's writings where a hysterical over-reaction reaction to being raised in the worst period of Communist Russia, and should be regarded as nothing more than her personal attempt at poorly written psychological therapy. If you actually think that taxes are slavery, you should try out the real deal, and then get back to me about how awful it is to have to pay a few bucks to help build some hospitals.
I moved, by the way, I am not in USA or even North America, I moved somewhere much more aligned with my ideology, an actual libertarian nation (not because the gov't wants it to be, because the people don't want a strong national gov't and they don't allow it to become one).
I commend you for this, by the way, you should try to live your life in line with your beliefs. I hope you have a long and prosperous life wherever it is you have settled in a manner that is morally congruent with your beliefs.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
There was strong resistance to the Alien and Sedition acts, including the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, so I would say that while freedom was attacked in '98, it wasn't lost.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
One of the totally legitimate functions of society is to limit - through whatever means are effective- the harm and damage the mentally deranged anti-social psychopaths can inflict on society.
I agree, people like you belong in mental health care facilities.
I hope this guy dies in the most degrading abasing manner imaginable,
I hope you're getting the help you need. Tell me, do they let all the inmates in your facility access the internet?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
How did that assembly line get built? Someone had to put the money in to do it. Employee-built and -owned factories are certainly a possibility, but that's not how most are set up. Most are built as a result of investors/entrepreneurs putting in money to build one, then hiring other people to come produce using the infrastructure he paid for.
Liberty in your lifetime
Fortunately I live in a state where their "social contract" explicitly allows for this:
Liberty in your lifetime
Society doing something to help children vs. doing nothing is a false dichotomy. A child is the parents' responsibility.
Liberty in your lifetime
The "entangling alliances" George Washington warned us about...
Liberty in your lifetime
Go do a "police brutality" search on youtube and then come back and boast about how civilized we are.
Hyperbole, at best. I can also find on youtube examples of police in the US taking unbelievable verbal abuse from citizens for a simple (and justified AFAICT) traffic stop. One example of that made it onto one of those "crazy police videos" TV shows. Move to Turkey, Russia, or South Africa and try mouthing off to a cop - tell me how that turns out for you. Yes, we have real problems with police brutality in the US, especially in certain parts, and disproportionately more of it for (most) minorities. Some of it may be rooted in militarization of police forces since 9/11; some of it may be increased exposure of long-standing problems due to the near ubiquity of relatively inexpensive video-capable devices, particularly cell phones. To generalize that to "uncivilized society" is hysteric hyperbole. Get a grip.
And if you think it's worse here now than back in, for example, the 1950's, you're severely deluded. Back then, there were no hand-held cameras to record the cops giving you a beat-down because you talked back, had hair they thought was too long, or were black in the wrong neighborhood (hell, even Italian/Irish in the wrong neighborhood). And there was plenty of that to go around, just ask your grandparents if they're still around and willing to talk honestly about it. Care to launch a civil suit for police brutality back then? Hah! You'd sooner see everyone going to work in their jetpacks and atomic flying cars...
- T
Facebook is a ridiculous joke. I can't understand why people use it or why anyone would invest in it. As for this founder dumping his citizenship, it just reflects how people of any means will screw anyone else for money. The so called 99% are only pissed off because they don't have money and if they did and were part of the so called 1% they would act no different.
Then why do they call it "Greek"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If you take out a life insurance policy, and pay the premiums without fail, is it charity when the company pays off the policy to your family upon your demise?
Social Security is neither welfare nor charity. It is insurance.
Specifically, it is death insurance, although of course it will never be officially referred to in that way.
When you fail to live when you're supposed to, during the years when you would work and support your family, life insurance pays off.
When you fail to die when your're supposed to, when you are too old or too disabled to work, death insurance pays off.
You pay premiums on both., which are determined with the help of actuarial tables so that the risk is spread out over all of the insured. It is only just that both pay off when they are supposed to.
As for the notion of "...let's not save, we'll just make do with the Social Security we get...", anyone expecting to make do with only Social Security is in for a very rude awakening.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Of course the ends justify the means. What you call theft I call a civic obligation to the society that makes your wealth possible. An enlightened society is one which ensures a humane minimum standard of living for all its members. If we have to take from the rich to bring the poor up to that minimum standard, then that coercion is certainly the lesser of the two evils. Otherwise you'll have people dying in the streets while the aristocracy lives a life of opulence.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Which didn't happen to those that were intelligent enough to work hard, open a business, and save their money.
Unless they saved that money in one of the many, many banks that got wiped out by the Crash of '29 and its falling dominoes aftermath, even though the bank itself only made prudent investments.
Did you ever know anybody who lived through those times? Or listen to what they had to say?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
A contract requires consent. Please show me where I consented to this contract.
Sure. It was right about the time that you stayed here instead of leaving.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Except the 'fabled' Robin Hood, according to legend, did rob rich people (in fact, some of the earlier references to him just had him robbing people - basically he was a bandit - outlaw). The Sheriff of Nottingham was not the guy he was robbing, but the guy who was after him because he [Robin] was taking from the people/tax collectors. The Sheriff of Nottingham wasn't a tax collector himself.
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/rh/RH%20Exhibit/text.htm
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Right. So if I make up a contract, and you refuse to do anything with it, that implies you consented to it?
A contract requires, among other things, explicit consent. Without such, it's not a "contract." The "social contract" is nonsense made up to try and justify a fundamentally nonconsensual system by redefining concepts to make them fit.
Liberty in your lifetime
So, if taxes cause companies to move away, then why aren't all corporations based in Afghanistan? Why are't all billionaires citizens of Singapore?
Patience, young padawan, give it a few more years.
A contract requires, among other things, explicit consent. Without such, it's not a "contract."
Not if a prior contract allowed for implicit consent, which is what happened.
Somebody before you explicitly consented to a contract called the Constitution. Unfortunate for you, the Constitution allows for implicit consent by all the descendants who come after the one who explicitly consented (i.e. immigrants explicitly consented when they became citizens, their children born are under the same deal, even if the children didn't explicitly consent)
The assembly line got built by other makers, of course. Other laborers, turning screws and putting things together. And it was designed by still other makers, people who make blueprints. Who do you think built the assembly line? You don't think the owner of the company built the assembly line, do you?
I appreciate your taking the time to post some resources, and I did review them. I do think that most of what you have supplied is full of rhetoric, and seems to be from sources quite biased in the direction of the concepts you seem to support.
Further, I don't see a lot about how effective, holistically, the difference was? You provide an example of the Lumbees, but there is no rationale as to why that example should always map to other scenarios with the same result.
If you want to begin to sway the minds of the opposition, try using neutral sources, dispense with the dualism. Maybe you are right, but I don't feel compelled to think so yet.
There's no chance that this fairly straightforward procedure has become cheaper due to improvements in technology is there? Because that would make your argument about lack of regulation look pretty stupid.
"That's because they know what being fucked without lube leads to"
Well I must not be poor because I have no idea what being fucked without lube leads to. Are Americans incapable of arousing women so that they become naturally lubed? WTF is wrong with you people?
and what the hell is "the game"? YOUR POST MAKES NO SENSE
yeah because America doesn't have a history of revolutions or anything. Happens ALL THE TIME in, you know, anywhere else.
So why is it that in reality, it always seems to take a group of people to invest money in someone else doing the work? I don't dispute that it's possible for a group of a few hundred workers to get together and build a factory themselves from the ground up using nothing more than their own money and labor. But this is rarely how it works in reality---instead, a few people (or a single individual) with a large amount of money come together and pay someone else to build and operate the factory for them.
Liberty in your lifetime
And what you just described is the whole crux of the argument that our society is by no means free. People are expected to adhere to other people's obligations without their explicit consent. Hereditary obligations---this is properly called "serfdom" or "feudalism."
And it's not just the descendants of the signers of the Constitution that are expected to submit to its obligations. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the United States when the Constitution was signed, yet it was signed by only a handful of people. All these other people were just forced to go along---not just the descendants of the signers. This is properly called "slavery."
You know that if anyone but the State tried to write a contract with conditions like this, it would be considered highly immoral by any thinking individual. It would be called "unconscionable" and unenforceable. If Alice tried to contract with Bob for employment that was (a) perpetual, (b) obligated Bob's children, grandchildren, and so on, to continue working for Alice, and (c) obligated everyone else in his household, too, without their explicit consent, Alice would rightly be called a slaver, and Bob's family, slaves.
So what makes it suddenly moral to construct a contract with such terms, just because it's done by the State?
Liberty in your lifetime
I'm not sure what we are arguing about. Someone said something about "makers and takers", which is used these days as a disgusting slander against the poor. It's all the more disgusting for being exactly wrong: the poor are makers; the rich are takers.
To answer your question, "why is it that in reality, it always seems to take a group of people to invest money in someone else doing the work", it's because that's the result of the perverse power dichotomy humans have always had in their societies. The question isn't why does it take a person with money to pay for a factory to be built, but why does that person then take an outsized proportion of the value produced in the factory? He does so because he has the power to do so, not because he added that amount of value to the economy. Workers, makers, are the ones who add all that value to the economy.
Damn, that sounds almost communistic, doesn't it? Well I'm not a communist at all. I'm a capitalist, I just think that the theory underlying our American brand of capitalism -- the theory that capital is apportioned according to economic value -- is laughably, transparently, obviously wrong. I'd much prefer to somehow get to a capitalist system where capital is proportioned according to economic value, which would leave the factory owner with, say, slightly less at the end of the day than the average assembly line worker. That's still not bad for a guy who didn't actually do any work. But look, I ain't holding my breath for that to happen.
Suppose we had a system where money couldn't buy "power." It couldn't buy laws, licensing, regulations, bans, tariffs, subsidies, artificial barriers to entry, forced competition, forced non-competition, monopolies, the breaking up of monopolies, and so on. And in such a society, if someone had the wealth to invest---that is, to build something and then convince a bunch of other people to voluntarily come work for him, where they agree to receive mere hourly wages with the bulk of the wealth of the production going to the investor---you would oppose this?
If someone is making money off of someone else's labor, but that situation is entirely voluntary---the worker wasn't forced into it, the investor didn't use the legal system to somehow prevent competition from worker-owner factories working alongside his---what's the problem? Why do you think that people should be prevented from entering into such voluntary agreements?
I think you and I are almost on the same page---but I draw a distinction between "natural" wealth inequality where people have voluntarily agreed to work for someone else where the someone else receives the bulk of the profits, and an involuntary system (which is what our real-world system certainly is in many, many sectors of the economy) where the owners have used their wealth to buy power and effectively ensure that the only economic opportunity for ordinary people is wage work.
Liberty in your lifetime
You had me at viticulture.
I think you have forgotten that the free market is driven by demand. People want Lasik, but they need the ER. The free market price of Lasik may be low, but what is the free market price of your life ... probably everything you own and more!
Well, we had plenty of rich guys in the 80s, and they're now paying lower taxes than they did then. So we're definitely not anywhere near the "danger zone" of "losing all our rich people", and we are in fact continuing to cut their taxes.
it's fairly obvious that you people (the true americans) never really would consider him an 'american' anyway, anytime. he would always be one of 'them'. So, I guess he is right to leave, tax or no tax. Again, 'true americans' are unhappy because he is leaving without paying what, according tot the true americans should be their cut. Relax, people. your country blows to smoke in Afghanistan in a few minutes more than what his entire share is worth.
IN other words, do not be all so holier than thou - you guys are just angry and jealous because according to you you guys are getting cheated out of your share. No one would have cared if he was not rich. So, you guys are not any better than what you blame him to be.
you renounce citizen ship ... you forfeit all assets and get booted the hell out.
If you have the country that made you rich the you don't deserve to be here or to have the assets you generated while here.
Additionally this should be classified as tax evasion pure and simple.
I plot it this way:
versus
I can suggest one better - 100% exit tax. You don't want to be a citizen anymore? Fine, but leave behind EVERYTHING that you were able to accumulate BECAUSE you were a citizen. Try starting out life as deformed or disabled orphan in Burundi or Congo and see how far all your personal efforts take you. If you're so great that you don't owe anything to your US citizenship, then leave with the clothes on your back. That said, there are probably enough Americans who would love to go to Canada or Europe after our health care system has stripped them of everything but the clothes off their back.
I have no problem with people who want to leave the US, even for economic reasons, but to denounce your citizenship is usually reserved for those who hate America and want to reside in the homeland of America's enemies. There can be many advantages of retaining American citizenship while holding a second citizenship with another country. The tax consequences are not overly burdensome for most citizens living abroad, even those who have no intention of ever returning to their nation of birth.
Consider this...
If you lived in California and thought their taxes were too high, would it be "unpatriotic" if you decided to move to another state?
What if California decided to charge you an exit tax and sent you a bill after you moved? Would you consider that to be fair? After all, you lived in California and were able to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities and benefits provided by the California government.
After you have sold all your property and moved out of California, you now work in Florida and earn all your money in Florida. However, the state of California says you still must report and pay taxes on the money you earn in Florida. They give you credit for Florida taxes, but they still want want you to pay taxes on your Florida income. Also, besides making you pay taxes, California wants you to give them the details of any financial accounts you have in Florida. If you don't report your accounts, you are subject to fines of up to $250,000 or even jail. Would you consider that to be fair?
Here's another scenario...
Let's say that both of your parents were born in California, but you were born in Florida and have lived there all your life. You've never even been to California.
One day, you receive a tax bill from the state of California. They claim you owe them taxes because both of your parents were California citizens, so therefore you must be a California citizen and owe taxes there. And they also want you to report all the details of your Florida bank and retirement accounts, with stiff penalties if you don't comply. Would you consider that to be fair?
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If you think the above situations are ridiculous, then just substitute "USA" for "California" and "Singapore" for "Florida". Then you'll discover that everything is absolutely true. You'll also discover why many people have made the quite rational decision of renouncing their USA citizenship.
The USA is the ONLY country that requires its non-resident citizens to report their world-wide income and pay taxes on it. If a USA citizen moves to Singapore, they are still legally required to report their income and pay taxes back to the USA. They are also required to report any financial accounts they may have in Singapore. A Canadian or Brit (or a citizen of any other country) living in Singapore has no such requirements. They may be required to pay taxes in Singapore, but once they've been gone from their home country for a certain period of time, they are no longer required to pay taxes there.
Think the last scenario mentioned above is far-fetched? It's not. There are thousands of American citizens living in Canada who have never even set foot in the USA. Their parents were American, so that makes them American citizens. Now the IRS is going after them and requiring them to report their Canadian assets (like bank and retirement accounts) and to pay taxes on income earned in Canada.
Instead of spouting ignorance, do your homework and you may discover why Mr Saverin's decision makes perfect sense.
The USA is not the home of liberty and freedom. USA tax policies are anti-freedom and out-of-step with the rest of the world. It's like telling a slave they are free to leave the plantation, but you still have to pay money back to the plantation owner. After all, you had the "benefits" of living on the plantation.
Some taxes are necessary, but if you think the current tax structure and bloated government is responsible for "creating the internet" or other such nonsense, then think again. Yes, the original internet may have been created by the government-funded DARPA project, but do you really think that we would not have something like the internet today if DARPA had never existed?
Do you think that the telegraph and telephone would not have been invented if Morse and Bell had never lived? Do you think man would never have flown if the Wright brothers had decided to stick to bicycles? How did radio and television come about? Did we need
If we can imagine a world where employer and employee have equal power, then your hypothetical sounds fine. The power disparity here in the real world is what causes the things I'm complaining about.
Yes, I oppose rich, powerful people stealing labor value from underlings without a reciprocal obligation back to those people, which for me takes the form of, basically, welfare (public education, nutrition, progressive taxation, direct transfer payments). Some people here in the real world like to try to pretend that there is no power disparity, and that a janitor is perfectly capable of negotiating a full-value salary for his work. Those people are willfully ignorant. They desperately want to live in a world where their greed is a virtue; but it's not a virtue, and their acrobatics to try to make it into a virtue will never be successful.
The thing is, what kind of situation would two equal-power people come to an agreement where one of them is going to siphon off value from the other's work? In what hypothetical world would the second person agree to that? That agreement can only happen in a world of disparate power. Which is fine, we're never going to have a society of equals, but the inequality is the moral justification for implementing a system which gives things back to the poor. If the second person wouldn't have a job without the first person, then by definition that gives the first person more power.
Maybe those same people who BUY AND PAY FOR LAWS managed, over the course of a few decades, to get the laws shifted so that the tax burden now falls on working people instead of the wealthy,
Except that the taxes are largely paid by the "wealthy". Yes, they pay less of a percentage of their income, but they pay many times mroe in actual dollars. 10% of the country pays 95% (or 99% can't remember) of all tax dollars.
So no, the "wealthy" are still paying the lion's share of the taxes. And they're still largely the ones paying for the armed ships, planes, troops, etc.
Yes, you feel your higher percentage rate more because it has more of an effect on your day to day spending/living -- but don't let that fool you into thinking that the "rich" aren't paying.
I don't know if you know this, but having to wear glasses doesn't actually kill most people.
You are correct sir. It's a CONSTANT struggle to maintain our freedom against tyranny.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Incorrect. You are confusing the life expectancy AT BIRTH with the life expectancy AT RETIREMENT age. Since most life expectancy improvements this century have been among the very young, the former is irrelevant to Social Security finances. Life expectancy at 65 in 1940 was 12.7 yrs for males and 14.7 years for females, while today it is 15.3 years for males and 19.6 years for females. In addition, the retirement age has already been raised to 67, so the difference is almost nonexistent for males and very small for females, not the 19 year difference you propose.
The really scary part is he's probably not in a nuthouse.
He's walking the streets somewhere, impersonating a member of society...
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
RADIO: CBS News reported two weeks ago that tax laws changes (US) recently created onerous reporting burdens, to the tune of thousands of dollars in paperwork fees. I can't find a link to that news article, but NYTimes (ref below) also reports,
Increased citizens fleeing, passport returns, well darn it--it has been reported--they are objecting to unfair taxation. In a Foghorn leghorn voice, "I says un-fair tax-ation!
The number of people trolling loudly about taxes owed by people who use United States' elite infrastructure--please be properly grateful to citizens living abroad and not "using up" any of that 1337 infrastructure!
Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/18expat.html?_r=1&ex=1182312000&en=a0208f4fcc1484bc&ei=5070
A very vulgar way to say "I stand on the shoulders of giants".
Granted, I like a little vulgarity here and there. But wishing death on someone is really pushing it.
:(){
Yeah, you're right. I agree.
FTFY
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
In 1913, life expectancy was age 50, so that means that a person circa 1913 would have to work 15 years beyond the day they die to collect Social Security. In other words, people didn't live long enough to need social security in 1913.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
But seriously. You have a talent for vulgarity and that's more rare than you'd think. I bet had you not included the wishing of death, you wouldn't have got modded flamebait, though you can take heart in not being down to -1.
And I totally agree that the wealthy benefit disproportionately from the services that are provided from taxes. For instance, welfare prevents some people from stealing in order to feed themselves; thus, crime is down. Who are the victims of crime usually? Those who have things to steal...
They also need to consider economies of scale. Do you think there would be wide screen TVs if there weren't a thriving middle class with enough disposable income to purchase enough quantity that the R&D costs can be amortized to reasonable levels? Samsung would never make an HDTV if there were only 50 households that could afford them, because those 50 households aren't going to pony up the millions of dollars of R&D needed. And even if they did, Comcast wouldn't find it profitable enough to send HD content to just those 50 households. And so there wouldn't be any HD television stations, either...
Without the middle class, would Wal-Mart have anyone to sell crap to? Without those highways and local roads, would there be any way for them to ship their goods all over the US? Without the local police force, would it be safe enough to sell things without the risk of being looted?
:(){
Or, you know, you put money, in a savings account, and just retired. Savings accounts being at their lowest these days, might I add.
Yeah, putting moving in a savings account was a great plan in 1913. Why, that was a totally awesome plan as long you died within the next 16 years.
Sorta sucked for people after that, though.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
No shit.
I love how we have people yammering that people will not choose to 'make as much' or something, and that's presented as a bad thing.
Any trivial thought experiment will show that this is idiotic, that in fact we want people who are sufficiently 'far enough' up the economic ladder making as little as possible.
Why? Because the economy is not some magical thing that grows and shrinks based on what they're doing.
If they're making less money out of 'spite' or whatever nonsense, then other people are now making more.
Let's say that I happen to own a 10 acre orange orchard. I have such economics of scale that I'm the only supplier of orange juice to the entire county, and I employ 100 people. (9 an acre, and the rest do paperwork and deliveries.) And I currently make $1,000,000 a year, and pay 10% in taxes on the first $100,000, and 30% on the rest. (As I know nothing about orange growing, those numbers do not actually make sense, but let's pretend.)
But, wait, they've raised the upper tax rate on me to 40%, costing me another $90,000 a year. Well, fuck them, I'm not going to expand my operations. In fact, I'll lay off 18 people, and sell 2 acres, and the sale will net me back some of my income this year.(I actually think this is insane behavior, but let's pretend rich folks are entitled idiots.)
So, yeah. Anytime anyone talks about 'going galt', invite those fuckers to. Because, right now, half the goddamn problem is that we don't have 'inefficiencies' in the market, and if some of those companies would get smaller and more numerous we would. (Because 'inefficiency' often means 'having an employee do something'.) Giant corporations are only helpful to the superrich. Paying people huge amounts of money are only helpful to those who are paid.
For everyone else, the less those people get paid, the more other people get paid, which is helpful even if it's not you. A town having ten people making a million a year is a fuckload better for the average person than having one person making ten million a year, for a dozen different reasons.
(Obviously, this is only true down to a certain level. Having two people making $5000 a year is not noticeably better than having one person make $10000 and the other $0.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Anyone trying to use 'Robin Hood' as a justification for anything is an idiot.
Especially as Robin's 'usual hero', King Richard, was the person who, in real life, had actually set the tax rates, because of the damned idiotic Crusader. Prince John was just collecting taxes for Richard. (Actually, he wasn't really even doing that. Taxes were collected locally.)
In actual real life, Richard's stupid war so bankrupted the country that after he died, England was so deep in debt that John had to raise taxes so much that the nobles revolted. (Leading to the Magna Carta.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
what Theresa said I didnt know that you able to get paid $6341 in 1 month on the computer. have you read this web page http://qr.net/iu8s
Why did Robin Hood rob from the rich?
Cause the poor have no money!!
jeez-jimini-crikey! I know I'm late to this game, but damn, there's a lot of people who think he's doing this just to avoid the IPO tax bill. He's been there for years, married a citizen (according to the citizenship reqs for someone over 22), is working there, and is really just trying to go live there. And keep in mind, he executed this decision months before the announcement of the IPO. He's going to pay all the taxes he owes. You people seriously need to quit letting articles written be people supposing they've cynically guessed someone else's motives stoke your rage. Facts, people, facts. Come on!
Didn't Ayn Rand spend her remaining years on government assistance?
Rule of law will only remain supreme when the wealthy all decide to relinquish their stranglehold on power. Good luck on that ever happening.
Rule of law will only remain supreme when the wealthy all decide to relinquish their stranglehold on power. Good luck on that ever happening.
That's why the US central government (Federal) was intended from the beginning to be minimal and weak, so that the wealthy & powerful have extremely little central government power/control there to corrupt in the first place.
History shows that powerful central governments are corrupt, and the more powerful, the more corrupt. That's just human nature at work, and why all forms of Collectivism (Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and Crony-Capitalism aka Fascism-Lite), which require a strong command-and-control central government to function, always become corrupt and eventually collapse.
If there's no Dept. of Education and it's accompanying power and control, there's no way to corrupt it. The same with other areas of expanded Federal power that didn't exist ~60-80 years ago or more, and which much if not most of that expansion is not permitted constitutionally.
It really started with Progressive POTUS Woodrow Wilson, when the SCOTUS caved in to his threat to expand the number of SC justices and pack it with "his people" if they dared to find Wilson's "New Deal" unconstitutional (which it was and is).
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It really started with Progressive POTUS Woodrow Wilson, when the SCOTUS caved in to his threat to expand the number of SC justices and pack it with "his people" if they dared to find Wilson's "New Deal" unconstitutional (which it was and is).
Oops, my bad. That should have been FDR, not Wilson (although Wilson has his own claims to unconstitutional infamy aplenty).
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
People are entirely too hung up on loyalty to the invisible lines. I have no real loyalty to my country past wanting it to do the right thing for its people. I didn't choose to be born here, it was an accident of birth and I certainly don't let borders limit my possibilities.
By remaining, you are implicitly saying that you can live with this system, or that it is at least better than any other alternatives.
There are some missing steps between "you can live with things as they are" and "therefore you should not attempt to change anything."
A moment's reflection will show that this nonsensical argument would apply to anyone anywhere at any point in history.
I don't agree with how every cent of my taxes are spent, but that's what comes with representative democracy.
Living with decisions you don't agree with comes with any form of government where you aren't dictator for life. That isn't special about democracy, representative or otherwise. What is special about democracy is that it expands the range of responses available when you disagree with something.
Democracy works when people advocate for changes they want. When enough people agree, change happens: in that manner, we approximate the greatest good for the greatest number.
And too many people don't understand that the government has no money of it's own. It must confiscate it from the citizenry.
The fabled Robin Hood is often mis-characterized. He wasn't robbing the rich to give to the poor. He was robbing the government (Sheriff of Nottingham) to give the people back their own tax money the Sheriff mercilessly demanded by force.
What a lot of people don't know is what John was collecting those taxes for. It was to raise up the very kingly ransome for Richard who'd gotten himself taken prisoner during one of the Crusades into the Holy Land. In order to raise those taxes, John had to get the cooperation of the local barons. In exchange for that cooperation they essentially twisted his arm into signing the Magna Carta.
If all the good people go due to bad government spending and high taxes, who's left?