If anytime someone does this, people catch it and then we all make a big stink about it, maybe they'll stop doing it. And we'll have a better idea about which entities do or do not play well with others, which matters to some of us when making purchasing decisions. Perhaps you want us to just shut up and be good little consumers?
Is it really called "capitalism," or is it the "free market," or is it just plain corporatism? I have no problem with the free market. Not that I'm religious, but lending money for profit is a sin in most major world religions for a reason. So I have a problem with capitalism, as it is an unfair societal adjudication of risk and reward. Corporatism, which is what we really have, is is anti-democratic and just plain evil. Look at the history of the corporation sometimes and learn how the robber barons screwed us over by changing the laws regarding corporations. You can let yourself be bent over a barrel all you like, and you can bleat in your sheep-like way at those of us who won't put up with it, but unless you make over a quarter million a year, you are getting screwed by the system too.
Very expensive under the estate tax law? You know there is no tax on estates under two million, right? My heart bleeds for the poor spoiled rich brats whose only heritage is their families' two million dollar home. Whatever will those poor rich children do? How about, get a real job instead of living off of daddy's wealth?
How dare you accuse me of believing in platitudes and refusing to think? You are incapable of even understanding my point, and answering my questions, yet you claim I am not thinking? I've thought about this far more than you have, you childish leach on society. You hide behind insults and appeals to authority, dodging every legitimate question raised. Your political philosophy, as stated, boils down to "You're not the boss of me!" Infantile and poorly thought out. You have bought the platitudes of the individualist anarchist crowd without understanding them, let alone their implications.
If you actually have thought more about this than your short sighted and selfish posts indicate, please, enlighten us with your brilliant alternatives. For bonus points, explain how your system won't fall prey to the same difficulties all other political systems encounter.
I never hide that bias. The rich are, by and large, parasites living off the backs of the working man. By rich I mean people making over a quarter million a year. But as much as I dislike the robber barons, I do not advocate the initiation of force. Of course, one could easily make the case that the robber barons have initiated force against the majority of the world's population, and anything we do to them is simply defending our interests.
Well, look. I am an anarchist at heart, so I agree that no one, and no group has the right to use coercive force to get what they want. That's just a given. But we don't live in an anarchist collective right now, and we do have a social contract. It's like when you go into a restaurant and order food. You shouldn't just get up and walk out after eating, claiming that, as you didn't sign a contact you owe them nothing. You ate the food, that's all the agreement that's needed. Similarly, you've benefited from our current system. You can't now claim that you shouldn't have to pay. If you want to make that claim, you need to do what one poster (dada21? I can't remember now) here has done. He refuses to use the services, even roads, so he has a leg to stand on when making the claim you make. If you really want to make that claim with authority, put your money where your mouth is and stop benefiting from ALL public works.
I am thinking for myself. I like the current situation, because my estate will never be large enough to be taxed. Only the wealthiest estates are taxed. I like that and I will fight to keep taxing the rich as much as possible. They benefit the most from our current system, they should pay and pay and keep on paying.
We are the government. If WE don't like it, WE can elect people that will enact our will. WE obviously want it the way it is, it is YOU that want to get services without paying for them. Thankfully that is illegal, and it will likely stay that way. Go live somewhere else or try to change it through our democratic process if you don't like it.
You haven't answered my question: why should inheritance be treated differently than any other income, including gifts? When people die, the money changes hands. When money changes hands it is taxed. Why is that so hard to understand, and exactly how is it different when someone dies? If I work for my father I am taxed on the income he gives me. Yet if my father dies and leaves me that money, I shouldn't be taxed? How is that remotely fair?
Money and goods should be free to traverse borders unimpeded, but people shouldn't because people are SINFUL and must be CONTROLLED while material wealth is a manifestation of GOD'S WILL ON EARTH.
Why should income from a dead relative be different than income from a job, or from investments? All that money was taxed before, and oh horror! it is taxed again when you get it. Even gifts are taxed, and this is another form of gift. Money is taxed whenever it changes hands. Your income is taxed, even though it was already taxed when it came into your employer's company. Why should gifts from dead relatives, which you did nothing to earn, be special?
Now as far as inheritance tax, exactly how many times should the same dollar be taxed? 1, 2, 3 times? You made the $ we tax it, you invest the dollar we tax it you die we tax it. How many times should we tax it to make it fair? We should tax a dollar every time it changes hands. Gift, wages, profits, sales, it's all the same. Money changes hands, it gets taxed. I spent five bucks on breakfast. That five bucks was taxed when my employer earned it, when I earned it, and when I paid for the meal. Some of it will be taxed when it is used to pay the employees, and then when they buy stuff with it.
Oh the horror! Should dollars only be taxed once, and then be tax free every time they change hands after that? Maybe we should have some kind of database listing which dollars have been taxed already? I hope you see how ludicrous this would be, yet you seem to think that inheritance should be different than every other form of income, in that it should not be taxed.
The poor in the US are not in the top ten percent of the world's income or possessions. They may have it easier than the poor in many other countries, but they still have it bad. They work hard, sometimes two or three jobs, and scrimp, save, pinch pennies and cut corners everywhere they possibly can just to have enough to pay for rent and food. Often times, without health care, they must choose between food and medicine.
You have obviously never known many poor people personally, and are relying on some very biased sources for your information. I see this all the time: you are basically a good person who wants to think that our system is fair, and rewards those who work hard. It's easier to believe that, because you are a good person you would want to change things if you thought otherwise. This way, you get to feel good about yourself too. You didn't get where you are by taking advantage of unfair privilege and opportunities unavailable to others, you got where you are because you worked hard. You get to feel good about yourself, and you get to feel as if you don't have to lift a finger to help others. They have all the opportunities you have so they could be where you are if they only wanted it badly enough and weren't lazy. They obviously deserve any suffering that comes their way.
That kind of belief system may seem easier, but it is a cancer of the soul and will keep you from achieving lasting happiness.
Holy crap. I thought I was an asshole. I'm an amateur compared to you. You win the Biggest Fucking Asshole of the Universe Trophy with that remark. Guy shows you up using nothing but the facts, and you hope he gets flooded? Wow. Just... wow.
Global climate change can affect ocean currents, which in turn affect global climate change. Your strident ranting adds nothing to the debate except anger and misunderstanding. What is your motivation?
Are you a psychologist? Do you know about current treatments and their success rates? Furthermore, who are you to say that we don't want others buying a treatment that might help relieve their suffering? Some types of trauma can not be 'accepted and coped with.'
What a load of authoritarian claptrap. You sound like the type of person who has had some small measure of success dealing with their own minor past hurts and now has THE ONE TRUE ANSWER for every human being on the planet. Good luck with that.
We had, and still have, an extradition treaty with India. Warren was tried and convicted. By our own treaty, he should have been extradited. The treaty is not a pick and choose kind of thing. For countries we do not trust, we do not have a treaty. The prosecution had a very strong case showing that Anderson himself had made many of the decisions leading up to the disaster. Anderson fully expected to be extradited, and went into hiding.
There are many possible futures, with varying probabilities that we will end up in any particular one from here. When one creates a model of a possible future, one is creating a link between this present and that possible future, thus making it more likely that that will be the path the universe takes. That's hardly trippy at all. What is beaucoup trippy is that all possible pasts that lead to this present, and do not contradict any observations already made, exist in some sense and there is no direct link between any given past and this present unless everything about this present is known. One can change the past, not by changing it, but by changing which past is more or less directly linked to this present. But playing around at changing the past or influencing the future is a trap, and not worth the time of any serious practitioner. I'll leave figuring out the reason why that is true as an exercise for the reader.
Maybe our universe is just a simulation, running inside a simulation, in a much bigger universe that itself is just a molecule in an even bigger universe that is just a molecule in that cloud of pot smoke you just exhaled. Ever think of that?
Did I say that proved anything? It's an anecdote, maybe you've heard of them? I don't have to prove anything, I'm not a scientist and never claimed to be. However, there is a wonderful invention, the Internet. Maybe you've heard of it. When one encounters an anecdote, one can look up the underlying assumptions to see if they have any scientific validity. Now, as you are posting on said Internet, I must assume you know about it and are simply too lazy to look things up for yourself. Being a super nice guy, I will do so for you:
Please let me know anytime you need help with this sort of thing, as I have absolutely nothing better to do than look up papers to back up my purely anecdotal postings on a nerd discussion site.
Look at that, I can be a sarcastic ass too! As if that surprises anyone here...
Something to remember in these sorts of discussions. If everyone here remembered that, there wouldn't be any of these sorts of discussions. The six or eight guys who have any sort of actual scientific knowledge of a particular subject would say their piece and that would be that.
If we all die off from some super-bacteria because too many people bought the marketing hype regarding anti-bacterial soap, well, that is the free market at work. And we all know that when there are no government regulations the free market is infallible. Besides, who are any of you to take away my right to make stupid decisions that impact others?
If you oppose anti-bacterial soap, you hate the free market and you hate freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
How succinctly put. *sigh* It seems so obvious, why don't more people see it that way?
Yes, that's a rhetorical question.
If anytime someone does this, people catch it and then we all make a big stink about it, maybe they'll stop doing it. And we'll have a better idea about which entities do or do not play well with others, which matters to some of us when making purchasing decisions. Perhaps you want us to just shut up and be good little consumers?
Is it really called "capitalism," or is it the "free market," or is it just plain corporatism? I have no problem with the free market. Not that I'm religious, but lending money for profit is a sin in most major world religions for a reason. So I have a problem with capitalism, as it is an unfair societal adjudication of risk and reward. Corporatism, which is what we really have, is is anti-democratic and just plain evil. Look at the history of the corporation sometimes and learn how the robber barons screwed us over by changing the laws regarding corporations. You can let yourself be bent over a barrel all you like, and you can bleat in your sheep-like way at those of us who won't put up with it, but unless you make over a quarter million a year, you are getting screwed by the system too.
Very expensive under the estate tax law? You know there is no tax on estates under two million, right? My heart bleeds for the poor spoiled rich brats whose only heritage is their families' two million dollar home. Whatever will those poor rich children do? How about, get a real job instead of living off of daddy's wealth?
How dare you accuse me of believing in platitudes and refusing to think? You are incapable of even understanding my point, and answering my questions, yet you claim I am not thinking? I've thought about this far more than you have, you childish leach on society. You hide behind insults and appeals to authority, dodging every legitimate question raised. Your political philosophy, as stated, boils down to "You're not the boss of me!" Infantile and poorly thought out. You have bought the platitudes of the individualist anarchist crowd without understanding them, let alone their implications.
If you actually have thought more about this than your short sighted and selfish posts indicate, please, enlighten us with your brilliant alternatives. For bonus points, explain how your system won't fall prey to the same difficulties all other political systems encounter.
I never hide that bias. The rich are, by and large, parasites living off the backs of the working man. By rich I mean people making over a quarter million a year. But as much as I dislike the robber barons, I do not advocate the initiation of force. Of course, one could easily make the case that the robber barons have initiated force against the majority of the world's population, and anything we do to them is simply defending our interests.
Well, look. I am an anarchist at heart, so I agree that no one, and no group has the right to use coercive force to get what they want. That's just a given. But we don't live in an anarchist collective right now, and we do have a social contract. It's like when you go into a restaurant and order food. You shouldn't just get up and walk out after eating, claiming that, as you didn't sign a contact you owe them nothing. You ate the food, that's all the agreement that's needed. Similarly, you've benefited from our current system. You can't now claim that you shouldn't have to pay. If you want to make that claim, you need to do what one poster (dada21? I can't remember now) here has done. He refuses to use the services, even roads, so he has a leg to stand on when making the claim you make. If you really want to make that claim with authority, put your money where your mouth is and stop benefiting from ALL public works.
I am thinking for myself. I like the current situation, because my estate will never be large enough to be taxed. Only the wealthiest estates are taxed. I like that and I will fight to keep taxing the rich as much as possible. They benefit the most from our current system, they should pay and pay and keep on paying.
We are the government. If WE don't like it, WE can elect people that will enact our will. WE obviously want it the way it is, it is YOU that want to get services without paying for them. Thankfully that is illegal, and it will likely stay that way. Go live somewhere else or try to change it through our democratic process if you don't like it.
You haven't answered my question: why should inheritance be treated differently than any other income, including gifts? When people die, the money changes hands. When money changes hands it is taxed. Why is that so hard to understand, and exactly how is it different when someone dies? If I work for my father I am taxed on the income he gives me. Yet if my father dies and leaves me that money, I shouldn't be taxed? How is that remotely fair?
Money and goods should be free to traverse borders unimpeded, but people shouldn't because people are SINFUL and must be CONTROLLED while material wealth is a manifestation of GOD'S WILL ON EARTH.
How ya like THAT tripe?
Why should income from a dead relative be different than income from a job, or from investments? All that money was taxed before, and oh horror! it is taxed again when you get it. Even gifts are taxed, and this is another form of gift. Money is taxed whenever it changes hands. Your income is taxed, even though it was already taxed when it came into your employer's company. Why should gifts from dead relatives, which you did nothing to earn, be special?
Oh the horror! Should dollars only be taxed once, and then be tax free every time they change hands after that? Maybe we should have some kind of database listing which dollars have been taxed already? I hope you see how ludicrous this would be, yet you seem to think that inheritance should be different than every other form of income, in that it should not be taxed.
The poor in the US are not in the top ten percent of the world's income or possessions. They may have it easier than the poor in many other countries, but they still have it bad. They work hard, sometimes two or three jobs, and scrimp, save, pinch pennies and cut corners everywhere they possibly can just to have enough to pay for rent and food. Often times, without health care, they must choose between food and medicine.
You have obviously never known many poor people personally, and are relying on some very biased sources for your information. I see this all the time: you are basically a good person who wants to think that our system is fair, and rewards those who work hard. It's easier to believe that, because you are a good person you would want to change things if you thought otherwise. This way, you get to feel good about yourself too. You didn't get where you are by taking advantage of unfair privilege and opportunities unavailable to others, you got where you are because you worked hard. You get to feel good about yourself, and you get to feel as if you don't have to lift a finger to help others. They have all the opportunities you have so they could be where you are if they only wanted it badly enough and weren't lazy. They obviously deserve any suffering that comes their way.
That kind of belief system may seem easier, but it is a cancer of the soul and will keep you from achieving lasting happiness.
Holy crap. I thought I was an asshole. I'm an amateur compared to you. You win the Biggest Fucking Asshole of the Universe Trophy with that remark. Guy shows you up using nothing but the facts, and you hope he gets flooded? Wow. Just... wow.
Global climate change can affect ocean currents, which in turn affect global climate change. Your strident ranting adds nothing to the debate except anger and misunderstanding. What is your motivation?
Are you a psychologist? Do you know about current treatments and their success rates? Furthermore, who are you to say that we don't want others buying a treatment that might help relieve their suffering? Some types of trauma can not be 'accepted and coped with.'
What a load of authoritarian claptrap. You sound like the type of person who has had some small measure of success dealing with their own minor past hurts and now has THE ONE TRUE ANSWER for every human being on the planet. Good luck with that.
We had, and still have, an extradition treaty with India. Warren was tried and convicted. By our own treaty, he should have been extradited. The treaty is not a pick and choose kind of thing. For countries we do not trust, we do not have a treaty. The prosecution had a very strong case showing that Anderson himself had made many of the decisions leading up to the disaster. Anderson fully expected to be extradited, and went into hiding.
Big trolls have little trolls
That try to incite 'em
And little trolls have lesser trolls
And so, ad infinitum.
Yes, but it's not a quote from this universe. I believe I read it in "Universal Simulation for Godlike Dummies."
There are many possible futures, with varying probabilities that we will end up in any particular one from here. When one creates a model of a possible future, one is creating a link between this present and that possible future, thus making it more likely that that will be the path the universe takes. That's hardly trippy at all. What is beaucoup trippy is that all possible pasts that lead to this present, and do not contradict any observations already made, exist in some sense and there is no direct link between any given past and this present unless everything about this present is known. One can change the past, not by changing it, but by changing which past is more or less directly linked to this present. But playing around at changing the past or influencing the future is a trap, and not worth the time of any serious practitioner. I'll leave figuring out the reason why that is true as an exercise for the reader.
Drat and blast! Hoist by my own petard.
Maybe our universe is just a simulation, running inside a simulation, in a much bigger universe that itself is just a molecule in an even bigger universe that is just a molecule in that cloud of pot smoke you just exhaled. Ever think of that?
Did I say that proved anything? It's an anecdote, maybe you've heard of them? I don't have to prove anything, I'm not a scientist and never claimed to be. However, there is a wonderful invention, the Internet. Maybe you've heard of it. When one encounters an anecdote, one can look up the underlying assumptions to see if they have any scientific validity. Now, as you are posting on said Internet, I must assume you know about it and are simply too lazy to look things up for yourself. Being a super nice guy, I will do so for you:
g i?artid=4165946 f8/
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fc
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0byj25luk2l8e
Please let me know anytime you need help with this sort of thing, as I have absolutely nothing better to do than look up papers to back up my purely anecdotal postings on a nerd discussion site.
Look at that, I can be a sarcastic ass too! As if that surprises anyone here...
Something to remember in these sorts of discussions. If everyone here remembered that, there wouldn't be any of these sorts of discussions. The six or eight guys who have any sort of actual scientific knowledge of a particular subject would say their piece and that would be that.
If we all die off from some super-bacteria because too many people bought the marketing hype regarding anti-bacterial soap, well, that is the free market at work. And we all know that when there are no government regulations the free market is infallible. Besides, who are any of you to take away my right to make stupid decisions that impact others?
If you oppose anti-bacterial soap, you hate the free market and you hate freedom.