This has nothing to do with your alleged failure of government employees to pay taxes.
- and do I have to only bring up one point in a discussion, or will you allow me to make multiple points, especially given that this thread is under attack and my comments are being bombarded here with people, who clearly do not like the implications of my questions?
The answer to your question is simple. The growth of the government is based on the increasing demands of the public upon that government to provide for their personal needs. As in, "I cannot find a job, government, so I expect you to pay me for not working until I can find one".
- except that government cannot PROVIDE for the needy, because it does not PRODUCE anything.
Government can and does grow and I contend that it creates the poverty, creates the poor by growing and by mis-allocating the resources from the private sector, so the wealth that could be produced is not, instead the capital is spent on government and thus on foreign production capacity, because local production capacity is destroyed by the growth that is government.
Why should it take trillions to manage basic checks being mailed to people (something that a private company can manage very efficiently with very few workers comparatively speaking, I did a contract with ADP, I know how they do it.)
The answer to why they don't have to balance the books is easy, too. Just raise the debt ceiling and all will be wonderful again. We can't cut the spending on things people demand, even though it isn't the job of the government to do it. People expect it. It takes government employees to manage the programs.
- there should be no programs to manage.
During harder economic times government needs to shrink, not to grow and take up more of the valuable resources, credit and other capital, as well as human resources and generate an artificial class warfare, shifting the eyes off the government itself to some wealthy individuals.
You want the welfare,
- no, I think all welfare programs must be stopped, starting with SS and Medicare. The recipients must be means tested and only those, who can't survive can remain, but must be transfered to actual welfare (which is the same thing with only difference being in nomenclature.)
AND you expect the people working for the government who manage the welfare programs to work for free, too?
- no, I actually don't believe government must grow, it must shrink, and if mailing of some checks need to be managed, a subcontractor, such as ADP has the knowledge and efficiencies to do this.
What a novel and interesting concept. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
You cannot honestly argue both ways -- "look at how large their salaries are" and "they don't pay taxes!".
- I agree. Their actual salaries are whatever they make, forget the taxes. This is true for anybody, the only reasonable number to compare is after tax income. (I am against income taxes completely, btw., income, payroll, corporate, you name it, if it taxes work rather than consumption, I am against it.)
Except for the fact that the money goes through a private citizen first, you would be correct. You do understand, I hope, that the money withheld from a government employee's salary is just like every other worker's withholding. I.e., an estimate of the amount of taxes that will be owed at the end of the year. And that by proper estate planning and other actions the amount withheld can be returned to the employee as a "tax refund" when he files his taxes. That's another example of why your lie that government employees don't pay taxes is a lie.
- again, it's not a lie, it's exactly what is happening, and the fact that government workers can get that money on top of their so called 'after-tax' salaries, just shows how profitable it is to work for the government, which is my point - government sector is the only sector growing in this economy and this needs to be brought up in every conversation when they talk about taxes or regulations or subsidies or wars, etc.
And who the hell said we don't pay income tax? If not, then something screwy is going on in payroll; at least a third of my check is gone before I ever see it
- your salary is 2/3rds of what you think it is.
In private sector one produces something to make money off the sales of some sort, the money comes from other private individuals, this money is then raided by the government. THAT is income tax.
In public sector the money is already collected by raiding incomes of others, by borrowing and printing. Now they just have to distribute it, including to their employees. Since it doesn't make sense to give you money just to take it away immediately, they make it look like you are paying a tax, but in reality it's your salary that's 2/3rds of what's on paper.
just like every other American worker out there.
- right. Like all those other Americans, who actually have to work for near half the year to pay their taxes, is that what you are saying? All those Americans who can't have a decent economy, because there are near 30 million people working directly or indirectly for US government? All those Americans who are not allowed to do what they prefer with their money and are forced by the government to give it up for all the things, including SS and Medicare and Wars, while the gov't is printing the money and destroying the savings capital, so that the dollar is truly left being worth nothing, so while they are paying their taxes today in more expensive dollars, when it's their turn to get the SS back, they'll either get nothing (or more likely) will get checks with many zeros on them, but nothing to buy with them?
this myth of "the luxury of government work" really pisses me off.
- happy to piss you off. Hope you get fired, and 99.99% of the others like you too. The sooner you get fired, the better. The sooner you get fired, the quicker the economy will start healing.
The sooner the government is fired, the freer the people will be, the freer the economy will be, the more valuable the currency will be, the more savings there will be and more business will be created.
And you will get fired and you will have to then do something else, something that others in economy will actually find useful. I am sure you think you are doing something important and useful, but as long as you are a government employee, the economy needs to you cease and desist.
Yes, I've got a great job, and good job security. But I also ride crappy public transit, sleep in a crappy one-bedroom apartment, eat lunch in a room of coworkers eating PB&J or last night's leftovers, watch TV on a CRT with the beginning stages of burn-in, and sleep on a crappy freecycle mattress because I had to choose between buying a couch or a bed.
- that's why economy needs you out of that and into something productive.
I'm not asking for pity. Hell, I'm not even asking for a raise. I'm just asking people to quit the public-sector bashing.
- reduce the government to be under 1% of spending, reduce it to under 1% of taxes, then it'll stop.
Exactly the same thing can be said for private sector employees.
- wrong.
It cannot be said that a private worker does not pay taxes to government, because government did not have that money already. The private sector worker did a job, which brought him his salary not from the coffers of the Treasury or the Fed, but from other private individuals.
So he did the work and now he is forced to give up part of his work towards the government.
And that is what makes this lie about government employees not paying taxes just that -- a lie.
- no, it's a lie that government workers pay income taxes.
The money that a government worker receives from government is already collected by the government, so it does not make sense for government to collect that, just to give it away, just to collect it again.
The government workers do not pay income taxes, because it is clear that it's just one government department shuffling money to another but in US they sure like to keep the public happy, so they pretend the gov't workers pay the taxes, just like the average Joe. Of-course the average Joe lost his work some time ago, but now he is kept happy by the gov't through various income redistribution scams and his anger is directed by government at some individuals who have more money than he does, but the real trick is to make sure he does not understand why the jobs are really gone and why the money is worth less and less every day.
So a teacher in a private school produces something of value while a teacher in a public school doesn't
- of-course, because a teacher in private sector exists because economy needs him there, while the teacher in public sector exists because government can tax to subsidize that position.
guess that a teacher at a private school who gets a 20% government subsidy then produces only at an 80% rate
- when a business is subsidized by government is that business still a private enterprise or is it now part of government, as it enjoys profits that come out of taxes (or inflation, when they print money, or debt that needs to be paid out some time in the future, when they borrow)? A business stops being a private business once it starts getting privileges, such as subsidies from government.
As to the rest of your comment - you don't know where I am, what I do, etc., it should not be pertinent to the question.
Is this place filled with people who can no longer ask questions without having their view completely clouded by their ideology? These questions have legitimate purpose. There is a real disconnect between the public and the private industries and there should be questions there as to why that is, that the unproductive part of society is growing, while the productive is shrinking, what will it lead to, how will it end and should it be allowed?
It's unreasonable for the country to keep this enormous public workers sector at all, their work should not be protected, in fact, the government workers need to be on the chopping block immediately with the worsening economy. I asked a question: why gov't is growing at this time and private sector is shrinking? But of-course I know that those things are linked. The economy is what it is because the public sector has tipped it over by too much of itself. By destroying the freedoms that people used to have in USA, the government has also destroyed the ability of that freedom to provide great foundation for strong economy.
Yet the question remains: the only industry that is growing in size, power, spending it can afford and does not have to balance its books is government industry, and you are saying that you don't want to take that seriously, and this is in a story that is talking about "2 countries"?
So why don't you want to think about it seriously? The grandmother has gotten a wonderful deal on the SS (a supposed grandmother, mine has died long ago in a different country altogether.) The grandmother has gotten such a wonderful deal, that early comers into SS have gotten 17 trillion dollars more out of SS than they paid in, while those who are paying today will see nothing out of it but inflated, worthless dollar.
In reality it is much better to stop paying SS to all those grandmother right now, this very second, and save the currency, save your money and stop government from spending altogether, save the capital and restart economy by investing into new businesses. That would really answer the ultimate question in this story - what's going on with the economy and how to improve it?
It's not going to be through charity. If improving economy through charity worked...... that would defy history of human economics.
Precisely what you would expect to hear from a tea party nut that has never worked in the public sector. Thank you. Keep up the good work being a shill for the Koch brothers and their ilk. It is only a matter of time before the super-rich (who are the only ones to truly benefit from Tea Party ideals) come after you and make your life miserable.
- good arguments all around, a round of applause is in order for this marvelous creation of the mind.
The rest of us, who are not working for a government (and are really insulted by that idea in itself actually) can ask ourselves a question: with all this posturing and talk about some individual millionaires on the part of government workers, how come the government is the only growing industry left and it happens to be also the one that is in power and doesn't have to balance its books at the end of the day to stay in power?
No, I do mean that public sector workers do not pay federal income taxes.
If you get 100K and 30K are withheld, it's the same as just getting a salary of 70K. It's a scam. There are no income taxes for gov't employees.
Real businesses and people pay money to government that government did not have ALREADY.
It's an illusion created by the government to pretend that gov't employees are paying taxes like everybody else. That's an illusion, tricks they are playing with people. There is no sense in taking tax money to pay to a gov't employee, and then charge taxes back upon that employee. I guess the only reason to do that is to play these tricks, but also to allow gov't employees to make even more money if they can claim various deductions upon that money (like home mortgage, etc.), which I am sure they do.
Let's consider military personnel... they don't sacrifice or risk their lives doing their jobs?
1. Military is the only legitimate service government must be providing.
2. Military must be minimal, for protection only. Instead you've got a war machine, which is dropped as a 'solution' hammer into every problem, creating more problems than solving.
3. Government policies are the primary reason for the problems, that later are 'solved' with military intervention.
4. By destroying the private businesses, government mis-allocates so many resources, that so many young people have nothing else left to them, but to join the military. It's definitely not something most of them would choose in a working economy, and the government is the primary reason for economy being fucked.
5. The government sector is the only one that's growing and has been growing and spending, but not actually earning and producing anything (and it shouldn't be, gov't is a spending item, not a productive item) for many generations now, and it's happening because you and others like you don't see a problem with that now and you don't even have the presence of the mind to be able to ask those questions.
When a scientist employed by the Naval Research Laboratories invents a better laser, is something of value produced -- yes.
- the same scientist could be working for a private company, doing the same thing. If government was not destroying the credit, the savings, the capital that makes private companies invest into their business. If government wasn't busy destroying the currency itself, many would be able to invest into their businesses, rather than having to simply search for ways to escape the destruction.
When an employee of the city picks up your garbage, is a service of value performed -- yes
Besides, I said "produce", not "service". Services can be performed by any business, government is definitely not better at it, but mainly worse, they don't have to compete, their monopoly is tight and their unions don't care about the customer.
When a SEAL puts a bullet through the head of bin Laden, is a service of value performed -- yes.
- wouldn't it be great if the government stuck to its role - minimum military for protection, and didn't stick its nose into every hell hole on the planet CREATING the fucking terrorist in the first place?
They create the problem and then they "solve" it. And at what cost? The wars? The dead, that didn't have to be dead? No thanks, you can keep that 'public service'.
All examples of public employees producing valuable goods and services.
- at what cost and to what end? What was not done by the private sector, because the public sector ate the money, the credit, the resources, regulated the hell out of private sector and destroyed a bunch of businesses by subsidizing monsters it feeds off of?
Not for a couple of centuries. Between 1800 and 1913 USA became the world's strongest economy, largest creditor nation with probably the strongest currency as well, while seeing new technologies being created, innovation and inventions were everywhere and people were really looking for a better, FREER life in USA.
Freedom of 19 century is what allowed USA to become the super-wealthy country, and since the beginning of 20th century, USA has been living on that credit while burning it away with more and more regulations and taxes, fewer and fewer freedoms, bigger and bigger government, which became sort of a separate nation in itself, existing for itself, feeding on the productive part of the economy and society.
The way they did it is by convincing the general public that the law that governs the government - Constitution, was not a law, but a set of loose guidelines open to interpretation. All that was needed was some unscrupulous people, who were willing to take that idea and implement it into reality, so the politicians but also the judges of-course. Another important step was taking over the economy - so more and more regulations and various types of income taxes. Of-course this wasn't enough for the insatiable appetites of government machine, it needed to be able to print money itself and allow itself to get into insurmountable impossible to pay back debts.
The Fed, the IRS, the Treasury and SCOTUS became the tools of self-destruction, not the tools of building the country up, they became the tools of mass destruction and that's where the country is finding itself now, with people being weak, of-course, bought by the impossible to fulfill promises and filled with hate towards the wrong target (the rich, the employers, companies, etc.etc.), all of this to ensure that nobody asks the real question: what's the deal with the two countries - government and the rest?
If you have no equity in your house, it makes sense to get up and leave and stop paying, because one thing is certain: it will not get better because people want politicians to solve their problems, rather than shoeing the politicians away with brooms and taking matters into their own hands in terms of the economy, security, etc.
Actually it's Bill Clinton's economy. Many believe that Clinton presided over some incredible economic times, while in reality he was inflating a very large bubble, with one was in the dot.com stuff and the other was starting in public and consumer credit, as Greenspan took interest rates down to near 1 as a bail out/stimulus, while FHA had quotas for 'affordable' housing go from 30 to 50% over Clinton's administration, all while Rubin was re-mortgaging US debt at low variable rates (and many incorrectly believe that there was a balanced budget during Clinton, which is false, the budget was 'balanced' by another credit card in layman's terms.)
Of-course nobody before Clinton has been better for 100 years....
Any private enterprise is good, especially if it does end up creating destructive technologies, because after all, wealth is not work, it's things we produce and can then own.
The real question that was left an-asked should be this:
Should the unemployed country care about where Washington DC is taking the country?
The real question is what is up with the divide between the public and private sectors?
Work in the public sector should be about sacrifice, it should not be a better place to make more money, instead the workers there enjoy very stable and secure working conditions. However this is not what the public sectors is or has been about for over a hundred years now.
Today working in the public sector is profitable, it comes with various perks - the workers are famous, they are swamped by armies of lobbyists, who are working on behalf of those, who are being regulated/taxed/subsidized based on the decisions made in the public sector.
USA sees values of its housing market decline except for places where there is high competition with foreign investors (N.Y., L.A.), but the most growth in every way is found in Washington DC. Growing housing market, growing salaries, growing everything.
Public workers do not pay income taxes.
That's right, they don't pay income taxes, because to pay an income tax, income must be made, something must be produced of value, so whatever counts for income taxes there is just what they don't get in salary. There are all sorts of perks being a public sector worker.
So what do you think, do public sector workers share the same problems as the rest of the country?
When a public sector worker talks about sacrifice, he does mean that everybody must sacrifice but him, because whoever does actual work - creates something and sells something, that person lives off his own labor. A public sector worker lives off the labor of others.
When a public sector worker strikes, he really is only trying to negotiate a deal between himself and some other politician, and that's definitely an Alien vs Predator situation, because it doesn't matter who wins there, the actual tax payers lose, either in money or in some way that has to do with policy.
The real question is what about these 2 countries: the government workers VS everybody else? It's not about employer VS employee, as the public sector worker wants you to believe.
Being a member of a functioning society means you need to participate -- check your mail and respond when asked reasonable questions by state authorities...
Government should not be in business, what I mean is that governments must be expressly forbidden from regulating businesses and taxing income and subsidizing businesses/people. Only this way, buy taking away the power of governing enterprise away from government, there can be free market and real competition.
How do you propose to stop them from patenting outside of a legislative fix
- wow, what a dumbass.
Government shouldn't be providing a patenting service. Without government intervention into the market there are no patents, only trade secrets.
In Germany and the EU and Canada where there is MUCH MORE government and MUCH MORE regulation,
- I used to live in North America, stayed for near 16 years in Canada and at this very moment I am in Germany. You found the wrong guy to push your nonsense to, as the most regulated one is USA out of these countries.
If you dont' like the extent to which BUSINESS dictates laws and electoral outcomes,
- no, I don't like the way government meddles with business.
they exist because of significantly bad things that happened in the past.
- yes, the "bad thing" being that monopolies couldn't form due to all the competition and government couldn't get a cut that was big enough from the monopolies.
- oh really? I knew too many DEAD people who died because they couldn't have TIMELY access to the doctors they really needed.
Names, I can name too many dead names.
--
As to utilities and wireless, etc. It's true, what you are saying. I worked for AT&T and Bell Canada and Hydro One, they are terrible.
However here is one of the projects that I built:
Invoice on-line for Bell Mobility back around 1997. I specifically built the itemization part, all of it. It was for different types of invoices, be it business or personal, it was data itemization per call to a second resolution at that time (don't know what they have now though.)
So at least there wasn't a problem with this, even though my brother and I contracted for a company, that specialized in figuring out any wrong charges and helped the customers to fight them and got 10 or 15% of what was retrieved from the phone companies, which was still extremely profitable, as some of the customers were huge call centers, whose bills were literally in tens of millions per year with wrong charges being in hundreds of thousands to millions.
Our political system is so locked down by corporations
- you have to understand that the corporations that are locking your political system down are in the position to do so because the government got into their business in the first place.
At some point government of USA even declared AT&T to be a national monopoly specifically, so that nobody could challenge them, they were a 'national resource'. Government by regulations, taxes and subsidies creates the corporate monsters, who then take over the government.
Nothing will change in the United States without a revolution, which would first require a huge sea change in the culture to even be remotely effective.
- yes, a revolution against the government, which created all of these problems, but that would mean a revolution against thyself, as government uses voters to do what it wants and without total voter complicity this wouldn't have been possible.
Yes, the patents were created in another age, when large companies did not have such a stronghold upon the government, because the government did not involve itself in company's business.
Today everything is upside down, government regulates and taxes and subsidizes whoever it wants, and those, who are disproportionately hit with taxes, regulations infiltrate the government and make sure they are also the ones with disproportionate amounts of subsidies and protections and become monopolies, which politicians feed off of.
The system will not be changed, but it needs to be abolished.
Given the existence of the placebo effect, in what way do you suppose that the market -- consisting of individuals who operate on limited information -- will be able to tell the difference in efficacy between a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and acupuncture?
- ha ha, the way it was always done, by doctors sharing information among each other, learning what works and what doesn't - the only real way things are found to be useful or not.
Especially given that so-called "alternative medicines" such as Zicam can effectively compete against science-based medicine even with FDA regulations in place? Do you propose we go back to the patent medicine era?
- I am against all patents altogether. There should be no gov't creating artificial barriers to entry against individuals and for monopolies and there should be no special treatment provided to monopolies, like in case with this, falsifying the results to help out some friends in giant pharma. However FDA routinely denies people in US access to drugs, that are used all over the world, for example the drug RU 386, which was used in Europe and was banned in US by FDA.
Why the fuck should some piece of shit government organization deny you access to drugs, any drugs if you wish so and especially drugs that are known to be effective and are in use in the rest of the world?
The reason we have the regulations we have by the FDA is because we tried working without them and, unsurprisingly, people died and a lot of unscrupulous hucksters made a lot of money.
- no, the reason you have FDA being what it is, is because it has enormous power, which translates into dollars for monopolies, who kill off the small competitors and make sure prices never fall.
We have the same thing going on now with homeopathic medicine.
- there is no reason for FDA to get involved into this homeopathic stuff, especially since it is just placebo.
What we need are good, functional, and smarter regulations, not merely fewer or more regulations.
- seriously? You truly believe that? You truly want government to regulate your life? To tell you, probably a grown ass man, what you can and cannot use in your life as drugs? To ensure that only monopolies can sell you drugs? To make sure you have to pay a small fortune for any real treatment?
Please check your facts before posting; this took me all of a minute with a search engine to find in PLoS.
- I'll give you some facts.
Here is one. A drug that before FDA approval only cost $10/shot (ten dollars), once approved by FDA was immediately repriced at $1500 dollars a shot (one thousand five hundred dollars), as FDA granted a monopoly to the producer company, so nobody could compete with them. This is for a drug that people need to take 20 times, so that's $30,000 for the 20 times instead of $200 as it was prior to FDA 'approval' - in reality granting a monopoly. The orders of magnitude, by which FDA raises costs to the end users are similar with this drug.
Do you have like a circle of friends, some of them being astrologists, some phrenologists, some diluting donkey piss to 1 part per billion, selling it as holistic medicine and most being religious freaks, scientologists maybe?
When you turn on a computer, do you think it's magic marshmallows that carry the signal across the interwebs?
Because if that's how you roll, I really am wondering how you are still around to tell us all about the wonders of chiropractice.
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with your alleged failure of government employees to pay taxes.
- and do I have to only bring up one point in a discussion, or will you allow me to make multiple points, especially given that this thread is under attack and my comments are being bombarded here with people, who clearly do not like the implications of my questions?
The answer to your question is simple. The growth of the government is based on the increasing demands of the public upon that government to provide for their personal needs. As in, "I cannot find a job, government, so I expect you to pay me for not working until I can find one".
- except that government cannot PROVIDE for the needy, because it does not PRODUCE anything.
Government can and does grow and I contend that it creates the poverty, creates the poor by growing and by mis-allocating the resources from the private sector, so the wealth that could be produced is not, instead the capital is spent on government and thus on foreign production capacity, because local production capacity is destroyed by the growth that is government.
Why should it take trillions to manage basic checks being mailed to people (something that a private company can manage very efficiently with very few workers comparatively speaking, I did a contract with ADP, I know how they do it.)
The answer to why they don't have to balance the books is easy, too. Just raise the debt ceiling and all will be wonderful again. We can't cut the spending on things people demand, even though it isn't the job of the government to do it. People expect it. It takes government employees to manage the programs.
- there should be no programs to manage.
During harder economic times government needs to shrink, not to grow and take up more of the valuable resources, credit and other capital, as well as human resources and generate an artificial class warfare, shifting the eyes off the government itself to some wealthy individuals.
You want the welfare,
- no, I think all welfare programs must be stopped, starting with SS and Medicare. The recipients must be means tested and only those, who can't survive can remain, but must be transfered to actual welfare (which is the same thing with only difference being in nomenclature.)
AND you expect the people working for the government who manage the welfare programs to work for free, too?
- no, I actually don't believe government must grow, it must shrink, and if mailing of some checks need to be managed, a subcontractor, such as ADP has the knowledge and efficiencies to do this.
What a novel and interesting concept. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
- why, are my /. comments not enough for you?
Are you not entertained?
You cannot honestly argue both ways -- "look at how large their salaries are" and "they don't pay taxes!".
- I agree. Their actual salaries are whatever they make, forget the taxes. This is true for anybody, the only reasonable number to compare is after tax income. (I am against income taxes completely, btw., income, payroll, corporate, you name it, if it taxes work rather than consumption, I am against it.)
Except for the fact that the money goes through a private citizen first, you would be correct. You do understand, I hope, that the money withheld from a government employee's salary is just like every other worker's withholding. I.e., an estimate of the amount of taxes that will be owed at the end of the year. And that by proper estate planning and other actions the amount withheld can be returned to the employee as a "tax refund" when he files his taxes. That's another example of why your lie that government employees don't pay taxes is a lie.
- again, it's not a lie, it's exactly what is happening, and the fact that government workers can get that money on top of their so called 'after-tax' salaries, just shows how profitable it is to work for the government, which is my point - government sector is the only sector growing in this economy and this needs to be brought up in every conversation when they talk about taxes or regulations or subsidies or wars, etc.
The housing market in & around DC has continued to fall
- ORLY? That's not what the data says.
And who the hell said we don't pay income tax? If not, then something screwy is going on in payroll; at least a third of my check is gone before I ever see it
- your salary is 2/3rds of what you think it is.
In private sector one produces something to make money off the sales of some sort, the money comes from other private individuals, this money is then raided by the government. THAT is income tax.
In public sector the money is already collected by raiding incomes of others, by borrowing and printing. Now they just have to distribute it, including to their employees. Since it doesn't make sense to give you money just to take it away immediately, they make it look like you are paying a tax, but in reality it's your salary that's 2/3rds of what's on paper.
just like every other American worker out there.
- right. Like all those other Americans, who actually have to work for near half the year to pay their taxes, is that what you are saying? All those Americans who can't have a decent economy, because there are near 30 million people working directly or indirectly for US government? All those Americans who are not allowed to do what they prefer with their money and are forced by the government to give it up for all the things, including SS and Medicare and Wars, while the gov't is printing the money and destroying the savings capital, so that the dollar is truly left being worth nothing, so while they are paying their taxes today in more expensive dollars, when it's their turn to get the SS back, they'll either get nothing (or more likely) will get checks with many zeros on them, but nothing to buy with them?
this myth of "the luxury of government work" really pisses me off.
- happy to piss you off. Hope you get fired, and 99.99% of the others like you too. The sooner you get fired, the better. The sooner you get fired, the quicker the economy will start healing.
The sooner the government is fired, the freer the people will be, the freer the economy will be, the more valuable the currency will be, the more savings there will be and more business will be created.
And you will get fired and you will have to then do something else, something that others in economy will actually find useful. I am sure you think you are doing something important and useful, but as long as you are a government employee, the economy needs to you cease and desist.
Yes, I've got a great job, and good job security. But I also ride crappy public transit, sleep in a crappy one-bedroom apartment, eat lunch in a room of coworkers eating PB&J or last night's leftovers, watch TV on a CRT with the beginning stages of burn-in, and sleep on a crappy freecycle mattress because I had to choose between buying a couch or a bed.
- that's why economy needs you out of that and into something productive.
I'm not asking for pity. Hell, I'm not even asking for a raise. I'm just asking people to quit the public-sector bashing.
- reduce the government to be under 1% of spending, reduce it to under 1% of taxes, then it'll stop.
Exactly the same thing can be said for private sector employees.
- wrong.
It cannot be said that a private worker does not pay taxes to government, because government did not have that money already. The private sector worker did a job, which brought him his salary not from the coffers of the Treasury or the Fed, but from other private individuals.
So he did the work and now he is forced to give up part of his work towards the government.
And that is what makes this lie about government employees not paying taxes just that -- a lie.
- no, it's a lie that government workers pay income taxes.
The money that a government worker receives from government is already collected by the government, so it does not make sense for government to collect that, just to give it away, just to collect it again.
The government workers do not pay income taxes, because it is clear that it's just one government department shuffling money to another but in US they sure like to keep the public happy, so they pretend the gov't workers pay the taxes, just like the average Joe. Of-course the average Joe lost his work some time ago, but now he is kept happy by the gov't through various income redistribution scams and his anger is directed by government at some individuals who have more money than he does, but the real trick is to make sure he does not understand why the jobs are really gone and why the money is worth less and less every day.
So a teacher in a private school produces something of value while a teacher in a public school doesn't
- of-course, because a teacher in private sector exists because economy needs him there, while the teacher in public sector exists because government can tax to subsidize that position.
guess that a teacher at a private school who gets a 20% government subsidy then produces only at an 80% rate
- when a business is subsidized by government is that business still a private enterprise or is it now part of government, as it enjoys profits that come out of taxes (or inflation, when they print money, or debt that needs to be paid out some time in the future, when they borrow)? A business stops being a private business once it starts getting privileges, such as subsidies from government.
As to the rest of your comment - you don't know where I am, what I do, etc., it should not be pertinent to the question.
Is this place filled with people who can no longer ask questions without having their view completely clouded by their ideology? These questions have legitimate purpose. There is a real disconnect between the public and the private industries and there should be questions there as to why that is, that the unproductive part of society is growing, while the productive is shrinking, what will it lead to, how will it end and should it be allowed?
It's unreasonable for the country to keep this enormous public workers sector at all, their work should not be protected, in fact, the government workers need to be on the chopping block immediately with the worsening economy. I asked a question: why gov't is growing at this time and private sector is shrinking? But of-course I know that those things are linked. The economy is what it is because the public sector has tipped it over by too much of itself. By destroying the freedoms that people used to have in USA, the government has also destroyed the ability of that freedom to provide great foundation for strong economy.
Yet the question remains: the only industry that is growing in size, power, spending it can afford and does not have to balance its books is government industry, and you are saying that you don't want to take that seriously, and this is in a story that is talking about "2 countries"?
So why don't you want to think about it seriously? The grandmother has gotten a wonderful deal on the SS (a supposed grandmother, mine has died long ago in a different country altogether.) The grandmother has gotten such a wonderful deal, that early comers into SS have gotten 17 trillion dollars more out of SS than they paid in, while those who are paying today will see nothing out of it but inflated, worthless dollar.
In reality it is much better to stop paying SS to all those grandmother right now, this very second, and save the currency, save your money and stop government from spending altogether, save the capital and restart economy by investing into new businesses. That would really answer the ultimate question in this story - what's going on with the economy and how to improve it?
It's not going to be through charity. If improving economy through charity worked...... that would defy history of human economics.
Precisely what you would expect to hear from a tea party nut that has never worked in the public sector. Thank you. Keep up the good work being a shill for the Koch brothers and their ilk. It is only a matter of time before the super-rich (who are the only ones to truly benefit from Tea Party ideals) come after you and make your life miserable.
- good arguments all around, a round of applause is in order for this marvelous creation of the mind.
The rest of us, who are not working for a government (and are really insulted by that idea in itself actually) can ask ourselves a question: with all this posturing and talk about some individual millionaires on the part of government workers, how come the government is the only growing industry left and it happens to be also the one that is in power and doesn't have to balance its books at the end of the day to stay in power?
No, I do mean that public sector workers do not pay federal income taxes.
If you get 100K and 30K are withheld, it's the same as just getting a salary of 70K. It's a scam. There are no income taxes for gov't employees.
Real businesses and people pay money to government that government did not have ALREADY.
It's an illusion created by the government to pretend that gov't employees are paying taxes like everybody else. That's an illusion, tricks they are playing with people. There is no sense in taking tax money to pay to a gov't employee, and then charge taxes back upon that employee. I guess the only reason to do that is to play these tricks, but also to allow gov't employees to make even more money if they can claim various deductions upon that money (like home mortgage, etc.), which I am sure they do.
Let's consider military personnel... they don't sacrifice or risk their lives doing their jobs?
1. Military is the only legitimate service government must be providing.
2. Military must be minimal, for protection only. Instead you've got a war machine, which is dropped as a 'solution' hammer into every problem, creating more problems than solving.
3. Government policies are the primary reason for the problems, that later are 'solved' with military intervention.
4. By destroying the private businesses, government mis-allocates so many resources, that so many young people have nothing else left to them, but to join the military. It's definitely not something most of them would choose in a working economy, and the government is the primary reason for economy being fucked.
5. The government sector is the only one that's growing and has been growing and spending, but not actually earning and producing anything (and it shouldn't be, gov't is a spending item, not a productive item) for many generations now, and it's happening because you and others like you don't see a problem with that now and you don't even have the presence of the mind to be able to ask those questions.
When a scientist employed by the Naval Research Laboratories invents a better laser, is something of value produced -- yes.
- the same scientist could be working for a private company, doing the same thing. If government was not destroying the credit, the savings, the capital that makes private companies invest into their business. If government wasn't busy destroying the currency itself, many would be able to invest into their businesses, rather than having to simply search for ways to escape the destruction.
When an employee of the city picks up your garbage, is a service of value performed -- yes
- there should be no government involvement into this at all. This here was Toronto, not US, but the point is valid.
Besides, I said "produce", not "service". Services can be performed by any business, government is definitely not better at it, but mainly worse, they don't have to compete, their monopoly is tight and their unions don't care about the customer.
When a SEAL puts a bullet through the head of bin Laden, is a service of value performed -- yes.
- wouldn't it be great if the government stuck to its role - minimum military for protection, and didn't stick its nose into every hell hole on the planet CREATING the fucking terrorist in the first place?
They create the problem and then they "solve" it. And at what cost? The wars? The dead, that didn't have to be dead? No thanks, you can keep that 'public service'.
All examples of public employees producing valuable goods and services.
- at what cost and to what end? What was not done by the private sector, because the public sector ate the money, the credit, the resources, regulated the hell out of private sector and destroyed a bunch of businesses by subsidizing monsters it feeds off of?
Those are questions very well worth asking.
Not for a couple of centuries. Between 1800 and 1913 USA became the world's strongest economy, largest creditor nation with probably the strongest currency as well, while seeing new technologies being created, innovation and inventions were everywhere and people were really looking for a better, FREER life in USA.
Freedom of 19 century is what allowed USA to become the super-wealthy country, and since the beginning of 20th century, USA has been living on that credit while burning it away with more and more regulations and taxes, fewer and fewer freedoms, bigger and bigger government, which became sort of a separate nation in itself, existing for itself, feeding on the productive part of the economy and society.
The way they did it is by convincing the general public that the law that governs the government - Constitution, was not a law, but a set of loose guidelines open to interpretation. All that was needed was some unscrupulous people, who were willing to take that idea and implement it into reality, so the politicians but also the judges of-course. Another important step was taking over the economy - so more and more regulations and various types of income taxes. Of-course this wasn't enough for the insatiable appetites of government machine, it needed to be able to print money itself and allow itself to get into insurmountable impossible to pay back debts.
The Fed, the IRS, the Treasury and SCOTUS became the tools of self-destruction, not the tools of building the country up, they became the tools of mass destruction and that's where the country is finding itself now, with people being weak, of-course, bought by the impossible to fulfill promises and filled with hate towards the wrong target (the rich, the employers, companies, etc.etc.), all of this to ensure that nobody asks the real question: what's the deal with the two countries - government and the rest?
If you have no equity in your house, it makes sense to get up and leave and stop paying, because one thing is certain: it will not get better because people want politicians to solve their problems, rather than shoeing the politicians away with brooms and taking matters into their own hands in terms of the economy, security, etc.
Actually it's Bill Clinton's economy. Many believe that Clinton presided over some incredible economic times, while in reality he was inflating a very large bubble, with one was in the dot.com stuff and the other was starting in public and consumer credit, as Greenspan took interest rates down to near 1 as a bail out/stimulus, while FHA had quotas for 'affordable' housing go from 30 to 50% over Clinton's administration, all while Rubin was re-mortgaging US debt at low variable rates (and many incorrectly believe that there was a balanced budget during Clinton, which is false, the budget was 'balanced' by another credit card in layman's terms.)
Of-course nobody before Clinton has been better for 100 years....
Any private enterprise is good, especially if it does end up creating destructive technologies, because after all, wealth is not work, it's things we produce and can then own.
The real question that was left an-asked should be this:
Should the unemployed country care about where Washington DC is taking the country?
The real question is what is up with the divide between the public and private sectors?
Work in the public sector should be about sacrifice, it should not be a better place to make more money, instead the workers there enjoy very stable and secure working conditions. However this is not what the public sectors is or has been about for over a hundred years now.
Today working in the public sector is profitable, it comes with various perks - the workers are famous, they are swamped by armies of lobbyists, who are working on behalf of those, who are being regulated/taxed/subsidized based on the decisions made in the public sector.
USA sees values of its housing market decline except for places where there is high competition with foreign investors (N.Y., L.A.), but the most growth in every way is found in Washington DC. Growing housing market, growing salaries, growing everything.
Public workers do not pay income taxes.
That's right, they don't pay income taxes, because to pay an income tax, income must be made, something must be produced of value, so whatever counts for income taxes there is just what they don't get in salary. There are all sorts of perks being a public sector worker.
So what do you think, do public sector workers share the same problems as the rest of the country?
When a public sector worker talks about sacrifice, he does mean that everybody must sacrifice but him, because whoever does actual work - creates something and sells something, that person lives off his own labor. A public sector worker lives off the labor of others.
When a public sector worker strikes, he really is only trying to negotiate a deal between himself and some other politician, and that's definitely an Alien vs Predator situation, because it doesn't matter who wins there, the actual tax payers lose, either in money or in some way that has to do with policy.
The real question is what about these 2 countries: the government workers VS everybody else? It's not about employer VS employee, as the public sector worker wants you to believe.
I am over 35, and it's time for you to wake up.
Being a member of a functioning society means you need to participate -- check your mail and respond when asked reasonable questions by state authorities...
.
Functioning?
Society?
Need?
Participate?
Asked?
Reasonable?
State?
Authorities?
I have a problem with every word I put a question mark behind, and that's just with one of your sentences.
Government should not be in business, what I mean is that governments must be expressly forbidden from regulating businesses and taxing income and subsidizing businesses/people. Only this way, buy taking away the power of governing enterprise away from government, there can be free market and real competition.
How do you propose to stop them from patenting outside of a legislative fix
- wow, what a dumbass.
Government shouldn't be providing a patenting service. Without government intervention into the market there are no patents, only trade secrets.
In Germany and the EU and Canada where there is MUCH MORE government and MUCH MORE regulation,
- I used to live in North America, stayed for near 16 years in Canada and at this very moment I am in Germany. You found the wrong guy to push your nonsense to, as the most regulated one is USA out of these countries.
If you dont' like the extent to which BUSINESS dictates laws and electoral outcomes,
- no, I don't like the way government meddles with business.
they exist because of significantly bad things that happened in the past.
- yes, the "bad thing" being that monopolies couldn't form due to all the competition and government couldn't get a cut that was big enough from the monopolies.
Except for healthcare. We have that part covered.
- oh really? I knew too many DEAD people who died because they couldn't have TIMELY access to the doctors they really needed.
Names, I can name too many dead names.
--
As to utilities and wireless, etc. It's true, what you are saying. I worked for AT&T and Bell Canada and Hydro One, they are terrible.
However here is one of the projects that I built:
Invoice on-line for Bell Mobility back around 1997. I specifically built the itemization part, all of it. It was for different types of invoices, be it business or personal, it was data itemization per call to a second resolution at that time (don't know what they have now though.)
So at least there wasn't a problem with this, even though my brother and I contracted for a company, that specialized in figuring out any wrong charges and helped the customers to fight them and got 10 or 15% of what was retrieved from the phone companies, which was still extremely profitable, as some of the customers were huge call centers, whose bills were literally in tens of millions per year with wrong charges being in hundreds of thousands to millions.
Our political system is so locked down by corporations
- you have to understand that the corporations that are locking your political system down are in the position to do so because the government got into their business in the first place.
At some point government of USA even declared AT&T to be a national monopoly specifically, so that nobody could challenge them, they were a 'national resource'. Government by regulations, taxes and subsidies creates the corporate monsters, who then take over the government.
Nothing will change in the United States without a revolution, which would first require a huge sea change in the culture to even be remotely effective.
- yes, a revolution against the government, which created all of these problems, but that would mean a revolution against thyself, as government uses voters to do what it wants and without total voter complicity this wouldn't have been possible.
Yes, the patents were created in another age, when large companies did not have such a stronghold upon the government, because the government did not involve itself in company's business.
Today everything is upside down, government regulates and taxes and subsidizes whoever it wants, and those, who are disproportionately hit with taxes, regulations infiltrate the government and make sure they are also the ones with disproportionate amounts of subsidies and protections and become monopolies, which politicians feed off of.
The system will not be changed, but it needs to be abolished.
Given the existence of the placebo effect, in what way do you suppose that the market -- consisting of individuals who operate on limited information -- will be able to tell the difference in efficacy between a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and acupuncture?
- ha ha, the way it was always done, by doctors sharing information among each other, learning what works and what doesn't - the only real way things are found to be useful or not.
Especially given that so-called "alternative medicines" such as Zicam can effectively compete against science-based medicine even with FDA regulations in place? Do you propose we go back to the patent medicine era?
- I am against all patents altogether. There should be no gov't creating artificial barriers to entry against individuals and for monopolies and there should be no special treatment provided to monopolies, like in case with this, falsifying the results to help out some friends in giant pharma. However FDA routinely denies people in US access to drugs, that are used all over the world, for example the drug RU 386, which was used in Europe and was banned in US by FDA.
Why the fuck should some piece of shit government organization deny you access to drugs, any drugs if you wish so and especially drugs that are known to be effective and are in use in the rest of the world?
The reason we have the regulations we have by the FDA is because we tried working without them and, unsurprisingly, people died and a lot of unscrupulous hucksters made a lot of money.
- no, the reason you have FDA being what it is, is because it has enormous power, which translates into dollars for monopolies, who kill off the small competitors and make sure prices never fall.
We have the same thing going on now with homeopathic medicine.
- there is no reason for FDA to get involved into this homeopathic stuff, especially since it is just placebo.
What we need are good, functional, and smarter regulations, not merely fewer or more regulations.
- seriously? You truly believe that? You truly want government to regulate your life? To tell you, probably a grown ass man, what you can and cannot use in your life as drugs? To ensure that only monopolies can sell you drugs? To make sure you have to pay a small fortune for any real treatment?
Please check your facts before posting; this took me all of a minute with a search engine to find in PLoS.
- I'll give you some facts.
Here is one. A drug that before FDA approval only cost $10/shot (ten dollars), once approved by FDA was immediately repriced at $1500 dollars a shot (one thousand five hundred dollars), as FDA granted a monopoly to the producer company, so nobody could compete with them. This is for a drug that people need to take 20 times, so that's $30,000 for the 20 times instead of $200 as it was prior to FDA 'approval' - in reality granting a monopoly. The orders of magnitude, by which FDA raises costs to the end users are similar with this drug.
And yes, it only takes an Internet search.
Do you have like a circle of friends, some of them being astrologists, some phrenologists, some diluting donkey piss to 1 part per billion, selling it as holistic medicine and most being religious freaks, scientologists maybe?
When you turn on a computer, do you think it's magic marshmallows that carry the signal across the interwebs?
Because if that's how you roll, I really am wondering how you are still around to tell us all about the wonders of chiropractice.