I understand if you can't find all of your thoughts represented on TV and radio; neither can I. However, to say that it's all conservative is a misrepresentation. There are many conflicting viewpoints presented if you change the channel once in a while. You might disagree with all of them, but many people express ideas who would call themselves "liberal".
I think in some ways he comes off that way, and I believe that he cares about what's best. However, the consequences of his policies are the antithesis of Libertarianism.
For instance, if we nationalize health care, what we're really doing is mandating that someone provide health care to someone else. Who is going to enforce that? Health care is a scarce resource, like everything else, so who will be in charge of denying people health care (through lines, rationing, or bureaucracy) in favor of someone else? These decisions all need to be made and enforced by government.
It's actually easier to legalize drugs when people face the consequences for the resulting poor health (unless you're just talking about pot, in which case there aren't many known health consequences). And what if the doctors want to do LSD before surgery? If you're entitled to surgery, shouldn't you also be entitled to sober surgery?
True libertarianism is a government of limited scope, not necessarily limited size. The scope of government for a libertarian is to protect citizens from extortion, violence, theft, intimidation, invasion, fraud, and those types of crimes, and to enforce contracts and that type of thing. Once you move into the realm of Kucinich policies, the government has no end to it's scope.
Yet I'd rather have them, and Brother Rush, even expand their broadcasts than to force thoughtful networks with good fact-checking to distribute ill-conceived, factually incorrect bullshit out of "fairness."
Agreed! However, I'd like to add two points:
(1) Having two perspectives, neither of which is restricted by government, is valuable. I have changed my mind before based on hearing ideas from sources I wouldn't expect to agree with about anything.
(2) I think you could probably do without juxtaposing "I hate Fox News" with "good fact-checking". The fact is, one of the largest media scandals in modern history was perpetrated by Dan Rather, when he presented obviously forged documents so close to a major presidential election. He may not have meant to, but nothing about that says "good fact checking". And that's why I'm glad to have so many sources for news.
I am worried that the media is now in the hands of so few people
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that your ideas are at the top of a controversial news story linked one level down from a site with millions of hits.
So either the media is more diverse than you think, or you are the president of a major broadcast network.
Let O'reilly spew his insane nonsense, just as long as there is a warning that he is a right wing nut job.
The problem is with self-labeling. How is someone supposed to objectively rate themselves on such a simple one-dimensional spectrum?
In the current system, people rate other people. Anyone who cares enough to find out can see the issues through the eyes of quite a few different people. On/., for instance, I see a lot of viewpoints (although not all viewpoints are moderated equally).
If you watch a TV program, the only thing you need to know is that you're only seeing one viewpoint. If that's your only source of information, you are missing a lot of perspectives. Sometimes an entire channel shares common perspectives (Fox News), and sometimes many channels present only one perspective on an issue (the "MSM" is largely fed by the NYT). That doesn't mean they're wrong, but it means that if you get into an argument with someone, you'll probably lose, because you probably haven't considered their viewpoint.
There's no such thing as a balanced perspective. There are many perspectives, and the more you see the more you're immune from political trickery and double-talk.
Well, since there are only two sides to any issue, it will be easy. Just take any issue you want to talk about, and call the Democratic Party and the Republican party and ask them what to say. Then, just repeat verbatim what they tell you to.
The thing in question is what is the driving forces for it and wether man plays a significant role in those forces and whether or not it is a natural occurance as science has proved it happened before man was around.
I couldn't disagree more. That's the least important question. The only reason people make it sound like an important question is because they'd like to place blame on specific groups (like the US, for instance). Obviously a collective blame for all humanity is meaningless. But blame doesn't get us anywhere, unless you're just trying to score political points.
Here are some much more important questions: (1) What kind of warming trajectory are we on? (2) Can we change it, and if so, how? (3) What are the short and long term costs of those changes? (4) What are the short and long term costs of our current warming pattern? (5) How do we achieve a positive return on investment for controlling the climate (i.e. lower total cost)? (6) How do we measure all of these things to give us the feedback we need to continue making good decisions?
You can say costs in dollars or costs in lives, but the important thing is measurement. The current global warming discussions are going nowhere because, just like other environmental causes, there is no accountability.
semi religious experience
There's nothing "semi" about it. When a lot of people push the "separation of church and state" (which is not in the Constitution, anywhere) I don't think they realize how many organizations are religious without using the word religion (because they want taxpayer money).
I agree with your overall point in your post though. When so many people are so quickly labeled because they want to ask questions before they turn over power to the global warming groups, that's not a reasonable debate going on.
Most environmental causes start out with noble goals, but without accountability nobody is willing to listen to their ideas. People need to hear costs and benefits, so they can weigh against other costs and benefits, and choose how much to allocate to one project versus another. But that's not the way an environmental movement works. They make the costs of not "doing something" seem infinite, and then ask for a blank check to "do something". But undirected, unaccountable change is the stuff tyrants are made from. Any time you say "something should be done" you're asking to be the victim of the worst kind of politician.
Not everyone can articulate exactly why they don't want to turn over dictatorial power to the global warming groups, they just have a sense of when people are trying to grab power, and resist. I'm not saying the average concerned citizen is a part of that thought process, but the global warming groups' leaders have a much larger goal than climate management.
Re:You have no idea what you're talking about
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And the post I was replying to was completely clueless, in that even though he said, "it's all SQL underneath", he still was asking, "how can you access data stored with Hibernate outside of Java", and said that Hibernate is some kind of COBOL-style network data storage thing.
It's not that the data is inaccessible but that the way the data is accessed is tied to the way the data is stored. For instance, let's say you have two versions of the same application, and in the first version a given relationship is one-to-one (let's say spouse) and the second version it's one-to-many (they just legalized polygamy). You'd like both applications to be able to operate on the same database at the same time. You devise a rule that says that version one can only see the first spouse that the person married, and can't add a spouse if one or many already exist. That's good enough for version one of the application. Version 2 can, of course, add and view as many spouses as you want.
With a relational database, you can do that quite easily. Just use an updatable view.
How would you do that if both applications used Hibernate?
Re:You have no idea what you're talking about
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You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here.
Yes, yes, that guy knew exactly what he was talking about. In fact, his post would make an excellent starting point for you to learn about the subjects he's talking about.
This is a huge field of study, but if you are still not impressed with relational languages just consider this: you can't create an infinite loop in a relational language (in SQL it is technically possible to create an infinite loop, but only when using non-relational features like recursion). If you've worked mostly with iteration and recursion, this may seem strange. Declarative languages are very important for many reasons, and I encourage you to find out why they are so important for databases.
So corporations with limited liaility were instituted so small investors could join together to own ships and participate in trade without having to worry about being liable if the ship sinks.
Interesting. I didn't know exactly where it started.
by taxing the profits of the corporations they own stocks in they are indirectly paying.
I'm not sure I agree here. First of all you're taxing corporations which everyone invests in, not just the rich.
I agree with you about 90% though. I'm a little concerned that it would not stop at corporate taxes.
Corporations offer their share/stock-holders something other business owners like proprietorships and partnerships don't get, limited liability. If you want limited liability you should pay for it.
An interesting point. Sometimes I have a hard time justifying the limited liability at all.
If the CEO wants more pay then they could pay the workers more.
I think you're getting off track with your taxing of businesses. If you want the rich guys to pay more taxes, do a progressive consumption tax. Anyone who lives on (for example) $20k/year pays no taxes. Anyone who consumes $500k/yr pays a lot of taxes.
By taxing businesses you're going back into the trap of "who can pay the taxes". If someone has a lot of money and they don't spend it, it looks like they can pay a lot of taxes. But we, as a society, don't want them to pay the taxes because we're depleting investments, discouraging production, and encouraging consumption. We want the person who is consuming a lot (Ferrari, 10000 sq ft home) to pay a lot of taxes. Sometimes that will be the same person who makes a lot of money, but there is a world of difference in the incentives. The whole point of consumption tax is that you only tax what someone takes out of society.
Also, a consumption tax is harder to get around. If you're in the old money club and just live a life of luxury off of your parents' money, right now you pay almost no taxes. However, if you're earning a lot and living modestly you're taxed heavily. Consumption taxes would reverse that.
I think you took what I said a little too literally. I was merely trying to illustrate that the cost is the primary barrier to the usefulness of the tesla for many people, and the range is just fine.
Besides, most of Gates' wealth is in Microsoft stock, not cash.
Does that really make a difference? If he hasn't spent the money, it's invested. There's no magical limbo for an economic product, it's either consumed or invested.
And investments are just capital and labor, i.e. jobs, buildings and equipment.
That's why we should tax consumption and not production. Instead of reporting your earnings, you should report your spending. If you live a life of luxury, you should pay high taxes. If you make twice as much money as Bill Gates and live a modest life, you should pay low taxes.
If you want to drive more than 200 miles in a Tesla, you have to carry around the portable charge and recharge it for three hours
A small percentage of the miles I drive take place during a day in which I travel more than 200 miles. If the tesla were cheaper, I could have two cars: a cheap internal combustion car to make long trips, and a tesla to do most of my driving. We don't need one car to serve all purposes for all people.
You've got it backward. Savings doesn't create jobs, money flowing through the economy does.
No, you've got it backwards. Savings are invested in the economy, that's what savings are. Investments put money directly in the hands of businesses which use that money to hire and buy capital.
A lot of people are confused about the "money flowing" argument. Money flowing is not helpful in itself, but a signal that many people are making useful transactions (which are mutually beneficial). When you spend money on capital and labor and start a business, that's great for the economy. When you spend money on an SUV, that's bad for the economy. It pulls all the resources from other places in the economy and reallocates them to the SUV factory to make you one SUV from which most people never benefit. Those resources could have been used to make a tractor which would increase the GDP.
There is no free lunch. If consuming was actually good for the economy someone else would pay you to consume, just like other people pay you when you hire and buy capital for a successful business. But consuming is not good for the economy. It's good for you and the person you bought it from (and diffuses out from there) but it's a net negative for the economy.
You should read up a little on the "money flowing" and also about investment. The only thing money flowing does is create inflation, which can sometimes be a short-term stimulus for the economy (like when the fed lowers the discount rate). I recommend books by Thomas Sowell (find his economic books, he writes about other stuff too). He cuts through a lot of these ideas and uses a clear analytical process. He's also a great economist.
The rich should pay more because they have the most ability to pay and have received the most from society.
No, the rich have produced the most for society, if you define rich to mean high-income or "has a lot of money". If you define rich to be those who consume the most (maybe a Ferrari and a 10000 sq-ft. home), then they have received the most from society. I'm trying to show you that I, too, want to tax the rich, but I use the second definition.
You are confused between the two definitions. You think that income means rich, rich means consumes, and I can only suppose you equate income to consumption. Income is what you do for society, consumption is what you take from society. They are very different, but a lot of political policies are based on the same confusion. And a lot of politicians have an interest in promoting that confusion.
Most of it just sits in an investment portfolio that really doesn't contribute much of anything to the economy
I think you're very confused about what investment means. Every last thing you consume is produced because of investment. The tractor that harvested the wheat, the wage of the tractor operator, the milling machines to process it, the store you buy the bread in, and the wage of the person who sold it to you are all paid for 100% with investment. I know it's 100% because that's the definition of investment.
It's not just "big corporations" that get to use the investment, investment fuels every single business in the US, including the one that pays you.
There is also value in using progressive taxation to combat the effects of rampant free-market capitalism.
You should probably refine your ideas somewhat. Read about the economy and how it works, and then decide for yourself what policies are useful. Progressive income taxes deallocate investment from the economy and, in addition, discourage production. A progressive consumption tax is a much better policy: it discourages consumption and encourages production.
If you think 100% capitalism is bad, you need to choose carefully what parts you take away. History is full of great-sounding ideas and horrible results. Take one thing you'd change about capitalism, and study the historical examples of this policy and the results. If you think something should be changed but you don't have the specifics you're a prime target for a very evil politician.
One of those countries is not like the other. For that country, it doesn't matter how long it takes to get a green card because you don't need one. You can just run across the border and have kids. That country is Mexico. People from China and the Philippines can't run across; they get asked for their papers when they fly in or enter a port.
After we get control of our borders, we can then make the system fair to all immigrants. I'm not suggesting that Mexico be at a disadvantage, just a level playing field.
Now, the tide has turned and it seems unfair to say "thanks for your help, now go back".
First, we need to enforce the borders. We drastically reduce illegal immigration by building a wall and patrolling. Then, we talk about what to do with the people already here. I don't want to combine the issues because otherwise the amnesty will happen and the border control won't.
And how will a wall stop the privileged Irish immigrants?
Are they legal or illegal immigrants? If they are legal, they are already citizens and we can't take that away. If they are illegal we should deport them. If you think we're making it too easy for Irish to immigrate here legally, then the policy can be made more fair for the future. A wall will have no effect on any of this. You are talking about a small problem to distract from the large problem.
Just because a wall doesn't solve every problem in the world doesn't mean it isn't useful. It will help to solve the problem of illegal Mexican immigration if there are adequate patrols, etc. Like everything else, there are exceptions to the rule, but a well-patrolled wall will drastically reduce illegal immigration.
I don't think any citizen should be privileged by the law while here. However, we should choose the immigrants we let in wisely, and to do that we need a filtering process (i.e. a wall).
It does really help the poor, and does not appreciably impact the rich.
When you tax the rich "because they can afford it" you're not restricting their consumption, so they can still consume a lot. However, you are draining their savings (which they may never have spent anyway), and savings pay for capital and labor for other businesses. If you drain the bank accounts of the rich, economically speaking you're liquidating capital and labor (i.e. firing people and selling the machines to China).
So, what you want to do is have a consumption tax that taxes every form of consumption. If you make $1M/month and live on $3k/month, you pay the same taxes as someone who makes $3005/month and lives on $3k/month. This discourages consumption and encourages savings. The savings lead to jobs for other people and new machines that produce more in the economy.
Why not? Who ever said everything was the same? You are simplifing the equation. Mexico and the US are good parts, and in many ways help themselves.
There are a lot of educated people who have difficulty immigrating here. We have to make choices based on the alternatives available. Let's say you have 4 people: an educated person from India, an educated person from Mexico, a criminal from India, and a criminal from Mexico. We'd like the two educated people to come in and the two criminals to stay out, but we have no way of even determining which ones we're getting. We know that the two Mexicans will come in and the two Indians will stay out, and that's for no good reason at all. We have the ability to filter (most of the immigrants, maybe not 100%), and we should filter them.
And for that matter, while you might think it's in people's best interest, to a lot of people the US isn't seen as nearly a great place as Americans like to believe it's seen as.
It doesn't matter what a lot of people think. The people that aren't in that lot make up a huge number. If you're poor in China or India, you'd be better off in a lot of places, not only the US. We don't want whoever feels like coming here to just walk in.
Most people in the country probably have no interest in coming into my house. But I still have a lock so that I can filter the ones that do.
If you were a felon on the run from the law, would the U.S. really be your first destination?
The US has a large network of illegal immigrants where nobody asks questions if you want to hide. It's got all kinds of services and jobs where you don't get questioned. Also, they might not be on the run. Wouldn't we want to filter out felons even if they've served their time? When we've got no shortage of people who want to immigrate here, why not choose the non-felons first?
Felons want opportunity as well, but let's let in the non-felons first, ok? And why not give ourselves the option of choosing our immigrants? Without a wall we get whoever runs here. It's not that I have anything against Mexicans, but aren't we being unfair to Asian immigrants who can't run here?
NO! No "progressive" tax! Leave it as a straight percentage and the same percentage for all non-necessary goods.
I don't really care whether it's progressive or not. It makes it politically infeasible if not though.
However, what I do care about is that you make necessary goods taxable. The reason is that it doesn't work otherwise: everyone, rich or not, has a budget used almost entirely for housing, food, water, electricity, and health care. However, you need to tax those because you can have a humble home or a luxurious mansion, or anything in between. You can buy steak or you can buy rice. You can run the AC all summer or you can endure the heat.
Nothing you consume no matter how "necessary" should escape taxation.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand if you can't find all of your thoughts represented on TV and radio; neither can I. However, to say that it's all conservative is a misrepresentation. There are many conflicting viewpoints presented if you change the channel once in a while. You might disagree with all of them, but many people express ideas who would call themselves "liberal".
At best, your comment is an oversimplification.
He is a very libertarian candidate
I think in some ways he comes off that way, and I believe that he cares about what's best. However, the consequences of his policies are the antithesis of Libertarianism.
For instance, if we nationalize health care, what we're really doing is mandating that someone provide health care to someone else. Who is going to enforce that? Health care is a scarce resource, like everything else, so who will be in charge of denying people health care (through lines, rationing, or bureaucracy) in favor of someone else? These decisions all need to be made and enforced by government.
It's actually easier to legalize drugs when people face the consequences for the resulting poor health (unless you're just talking about pot, in which case there aren't many known health consequences). And what if the doctors want to do LSD before surgery? If you're entitled to surgery, shouldn't you also be entitled to sober surgery?
True libertarianism is a government of limited scope, not necessarily limited size. The scope of government for a libertarian is to protect citizens from extortion, violence, theft, intimidation, invasion, fraud, and those types of crimes, and to enforce contracts and that type of thing. Once you move into the realm of Kucinich policies, the government has no end to it's scope.
Yet I'd rather have them, and Brother Rush, even expand their broadcasts than to force thoughtful networks with good fact-checking to distribute ill-conceived, factually incorrect bullshit out of "fairness."
Agreed! However, I'd like to add two points:
(1) Having two perspectives, neither of which is restricted by government, is valuable. I have changed my mind before based on hearing ideas from sources I wouldn't expect to agree with about anything.
(2) I think you could probably do without juxtaposing "I hate Fox News" with "good fact-checking". The fact is, one of the largest media scandals in modern history was perpetrated by Dan Rather, when he presented obviously forged documents so close to a major presidential election. He may not have meant to, but nothing about that says "good fact checking". And that's why I'm glad to have so many sources for news.
I am worried that the media is now in the hands of so few people
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that your ideas are at the top of a controversial news story linked one level down from a site with millions of hits.
So either the media is more diverse than you think, or you are the president of a major broadcast network.
Which is it?
Let O'reilly spew his insane nonsense, just as long as there is a warning that he is a right wing nut job.
/., for instance, I see a lot of viewpoints (although not all viewpoints are moderated equally).
The problem is with self-labeling. How is someone supposed to objectively rate themselves on such a simple one-dimensional spectrum?
In the current system, people rate other people. Anyone who cares enough to find out can see the issues through the eyes of quite a few different people. On
If you watch a TV program, the only thing you need to know is that you're only seeing one viewpoint. If that's your only source of information, you are missing a lot of perspectives. Sometimes an entire channel shares common perspectives (Fox News), and sometimes many channels present only one perspective on an issue (the "MSM" is largely fed by the NYT). That doesn't mean they're wrong, but it means that if you get into an argument with someone, you'll probably lose, because you probably haven't considered their viewpoint.
There's no such thing as a balanced perspective. There are many perspectives, and the more you see the more you're immune from political trickery and double-talk.
Well, since there are only two sides to any issue, it will be easy. Just take any issue you want to talk about, and call the Democratic Party and the Republican party and ask them what to say. Then, just repeat verbatim what they tell you to.
Perfect balance.
The thing in question is what is the driving forces for it and wether man plays a significant role in those forces and whether or not it is a natural occurance as science has proved it happened before man was around.
I couldn't disagree more. That's the least important question. The only reason people make it sound like an important question is because they'd like to place blame on specific groups (like the US, for instance). Obviously a collective blame for all humanity is meaningless. But blame doesn't get us anywhere, unless you're just trying to score political points.
Here are some much more important questions:
(1) What kind of warming trajectory are we on?
(2) Can we change it, and if so, how?
(3) What are the short and long term costs of those changes?
(4) What are the short and long term costs of our current warming pattern?
(5) How do we achieve a positive return on investment for controlling the climate (i.e. lower total cost)?
(6) How do we measure all of these things to give us the feedback we need to continue making good decisions?
You can say costs in dollars or costs in lives, but the important thing is measurement. The current global warming discussions are going nowhere because, just like other environmental causes, there is no accountability.
semi religious experience
There's nothing "semi" about it. When a lot of people push the "separation of church and state" (which is not in the Constitution, anywhere) I don't think they realize how many organizations are religious without using the word religion (because they want taxpayer money).
I agree with your overall point in your post though. When so many people are so quickly labeled because they want to ask questions before they turn over power to the global warming groups, that's not a reasonable debate going on.
Most environmental causes start out with noble goals, but without accountability nobody is willing to listen to their ideas. People need to hear costs and benefits, so they can weigh against other costs and benefits, and choose how much to allocate to one project versus another. But that's not the way an environmental movement works. They make the costs of not "doing something" seem infinite, and then ask for a blank check to "do something". But undirected, unaccountable change is the stuff tyrants are made from. Any time you say "something should be done" you're asking to be the victim of the worst kind of politician.
Not everyone can articulate exactly why they don't want to turn over dictatorial power to the global warming groups, they just have a sense of when people are trying to grab power, and resist. I'm not saying the average concerned citizen is a part of that thought process, but the global warming groups' leaders have a much larger goal than climate management.
And the post I was replying to was completely clueless, in that even though he said, "it's all SQL underneath", he still was asking, "how can you access data stored with Hibernate outside of Java", and said that Hibernate is some kind of COBOL-style network data storage thing.
It's not that the data is inaccessible but that the way the data is accessed is tied to the way the data is stored. For instance, let's say you have two versions of the same application, and in the first version a given relationship is one-to-one (let's say spouse) and the second version it's one-to-many (they just legalized polygamy). You'd like both applications to be able to operate on the same database at the same time. You devise a rule that says that version one can only see the first spouse that the person married, and can't add a spouse if one or many already exist. That's good enough for version one of the application. Version 2 can, of course, add and view as many spouses as you want.
With a relational database, you can do that quite easily. Just use an updatable view.
How would you do that if both applications used Hibernate?
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here.
Yes, yes, that guy knew exactly what he was talking about. In fact, his post would make an excellent starting point for you to learn about the subjects he's talking about.
This is a huge field of study, but if you are still not impressed with relational languages just consider this: you can't create an infinite loop in a relational language (in SQL it is technically possible to create an infinite loop, but only when using non-relational features like recursion). If you've worked mostly with iteration and recursion, this may seem strange. Declarative languages are very important for many reasons, and I encourage you to find out why they are so important for databases.
So corporations with limited liaility were instituted so small investors could join together to own ships and participate in trade without having to worry about being liable if the ship sinks.
Interesting. I didn't know exactly where it started.
by taxing the profits of the corporations they own stocks in they are indirectly paying.
I'm not sure I agree here. First of all you're taxing corporations which everyone invests in, not just the rich.
I agree with you about 90% though. I'm a little concerned that it would not stop at corporate taxes.
Corporations offer their share/stock-holders something other business owners like proprietorships and partnerships don't get, limited liability. If you want limited liability you should pay for it.
An interesting point. Sometimes I have a hard time justifying the limited liability at all.
If the CEO wants more pay then they could pay the workers more.
I think you're getting off track with your taxing of businesses. If you want the rich guys to pay more taxes, do a progressive consumption tax. Anyone who lives on (for example) $20k/year pays no taxes. Anyone who consumes $500k/yr pays a lot of taxes.
By taxing businesses you're going back into the trap of "who can pay the taxes". If someone has a lot of money and they don't spend it, it looks like they can pay a lot of taxes. But we, as a society, don't want them to pay the taxes because we're depleting investments, discouraging production, and encouraging consumption. We want the person who is consuming a lot (Ferrari, 10000 sq ft home) to pay a lot of taxes. Sometimes that will be the same person who makes a lot of money, but there is a world of difference in the incentives. The whole point of consumption tax is that you only tax what someone takes out of society.
Also, a consumption tax is harder to get around. If you're in the old money club and just live a life of luxury off of your parents' money, right now you pay almost no taxes. However, if you're earning a lot and living modestly you're taxed heavily. Consumption taxes would reverse that.
But I can't afford two car payments
I think you took what I said a little too literally. I was merely trying to illustrate that the cost is the primary barrier to the usefulness of the tesla for many people, and the range is just fine.
Besides, most of Gates' wealth is in Microsoft stock, not cash.
Does that really make a difference? If he hasn't spent the money, it's invested. There's no magical limbo for an economic product, it's either consumed or invested.
And investments are just capital and labor, i.e. jobs, buildings and equipment.
That's why we should tax consumption and not production. Instead of reporting your earnings, you should report your spending. If you live a life of luxury, you should pay high taxes. If you make twice as much money as Bill Gates and live a modest life, you should pay low taxes.
If you want to drive more than 200 miles in a Tesla, you have to carry around the portable charge and recharge it for three hours
A small percentage of the miles I drive take place during a day in which I travel more than 200 miles. If the tesla were cheaper, I could have two cars: a cheap internal combustion car to make long trips, and a tesla to do most of my driving. We don't need one car to serve all purposes for all people.
You've got it backward. Savings doesn't create jobs, money flowing through the economy does.
No, you've got it backwards. Savings are invested in the economy, that's what savings are. Investments put money directly in the hands of businesses which use that money to hire and buy capital.
A lot of people are confused about the "money flowing" argument. Money flowing is not helpful in itself, but a signal that many people are making useful transactions (which are mutually beneficial). When you spend money on capital and labor and start a business, that's great for the economy. When you spend money on an SUV, that's bad for the economy. It pulls all the resources from other places in the economy and reallocates them to the SUV factory to make you one SUV from which most people never benefit. Those resources could have been used to make a tractor which would increase the GDP.
There is no free lunch. If consuming was actually good for the economy someone else would pay you to consume, just like other people pay you when you hire and buy capital for a successful business. But consuming is not good for the economy. It's good for you and the person you bought it from (and diffuses out from there) but it's a net negative for the economy.
You should read up a little on the "money flowing" and also about investment. The only thing money flowing does is create inflation, which can sometimes be a short-term stimulus for the economy (like when the fed lowers the discount rate). I recommend books by Thomas Sowell (find his economic books, he writes about other stuff too). He cuts through a lot of these ideas and uses a clear analytical process. He's also a great economist.
The rich should pay more because they have the most ability to pay and have received the most from society.
No, the rich have produced the most for society, if you define rich to mean high-income or "has a lot of money". If you define rich to be those who consume the most (maybe a Ferrari and a 10000 sq-ft. home), then they have received the most from society. I'm trying to show you that I, too, want to tax the rich, but I use the second definition.
You are confused between the two definitions. You think that income means rich, rich means consumes, and I can only suppose you equate income to consumption. Income is what you do for society, consumption is what you take from society. They are very different, but a lot of political policies are based on the same confusion. And a lot of politicians have an interest in promoting that confusion.
Most of it just sits in an investment portfolio that really doesn't contribute much of anything to the economy
I think you're very confused about what investment means. Every last thing you consume is produced because of investment. The tractor that harvested the wheat, the wage of the tractor operator, the milling machines to process it, the store you buy the bread in, and the wage of the person who sold it to you are all paid for 100% with investment. I know it's 100% because that's the definition of investment.
It's not just "big corporations" that get to use the investment, investment fuels every single business in the US, including the one that pays you.
There is also value in using progressive taxation to combat the effects of rampant free-market capitalism.
You should probably refine your ideas somewhat. Read about the economy and how it works, and then decide for yourself what policies are useful. Progressive income taxes deallocate investment from the economy and, in addition, discourage production. A progressive consumption tax is a much better policy: it discourages consumption and encourages production.
If you think 100% capitalism is bad, you need to choose carefully what parts you take away. History is full of great-sounding ideas and horrible results. Take one thing you'd change about capitalism, and study the historical examples of this policy and the results. If you think something should be changed but you don't have the specifics you're a prime target for a very evil politician.
China, Mexico, and the Philippines
One of those countries is not like the other. For that country, it doesn't matter how long it takes to get a green card because you don't need one. You can just run across the border and have kids. That country is Mexico. People from China and the Philippines can't run across; they get asked for their papers when they fly in or enter a port.
After we get control of our borders, we can then make the system fair to all immigrants. I'm not suggesting that Mexico be at a disadvantage, just a level playing field.
Now, the tide has turned and it seems unfair to say "thanks for your help, now go back".
First, we need to enforce the borders. We drastically reduce illegal immigration by building a wall and patrolling. Then, we talk about what to do with the people already here. I don't want to combine the issues because otherwise the amnesty will happen and the border control won't.
And how will a wall stop the privileged Irish immigrants?
Are they legal or illegal immigrants? If they are legal, they are already citizens and we can't take that away. If they are illegal we should deport them. If you think we're making it too easy for Irish to immigrate here legally, then the policy can be made more fair for the future. A wall will have no effect on any of this. You are talking about a small problem to distract from the large problem.
Just because a wall doesn't solve every problem in the world doesn't mean it isn't useful. It will help to solve the problem of illegal Mexican immigration if there are adequate patrols, etc. Like everything else, there are exceptions to the rule, but a well-patrolled wall will drastically reduce illegal immigration.
I don't think any citizen should be privileged by the law while here. However, we should choose the immigrants we let in wisely, and to do that we need a filtering process (i.e. a wall).
The US could afford to be much more helpful to other immigrants if we didn't give so much of an advantage to immigrants from Mexico.
It does really help the poor, and does not appreciably impact the rich.
When you tax the rich "because they can afford it" you're not restricting their consumption, so they can still consume a lot. However, you are draining their savings (which they may never have spent anyway), and savings pay for capital and labor for other businesses. If you drain the bank accounts of the rich, economically speaking you're liquidating capital and labor (i.e. firing people and selling the machines to China).
So, what you want to do is have a consumption tax that taxes every form of consumption. If you make $1M/month and live on $3k/month, you pay the same taxes as someone who makes $3005/month and lives on $3k/month. This discourages consumption and encourages savings. The savings lead to jobs for other people and new machines that produce more in the economy.
Why not? Who ever said everything was the same? You are simplifing the equation. Mexico and the US are good parts, and in many ways help themselves.
There are a lot of educated people who have difficulty immigrating here. We have to make choices based on the alternatives available. Let's say you have 4 people: an educated person from India, an educated person from Mexico, a criminal from India, and a criminal from Mexico. We'd like the two educated people to come in and the two criminals to stay out, but we have no way of even determining which ones we're getting. We know that the two Mexicans will come in and the two Indians will stay out, and that's for no good reason at all. We have the ability to filter (most of the immigrants, maybe not 100%), and we should filter them.
And for that matter, while you might think it's in people's best interest, to a lot of people the US isn't seen as nearly a great place as Americans like to believe it's seen as.
It doesn't matter what a lot of people think. The people that aren't in that lot make up a huge number. If you're poor in China or India, you'd be better off in a lot of places, not only the US. We don't want whoever feels like coming here to just walk in.
Most people in the country probably have no interest in coming into my house. But I still have a lock so that I can filter the ones that do.
If you were a felon on the run from the law, would the U.S. really be your first destination?
The US has a large network of illegal immigrants where nobody asks questions if you want to hide. It's got all kinds of services and jobs where you don't get questioned. Also, they might not be on the run. Wouldn't we want to filter out felons even if they've served their time? When we've got no shortage of people who want to immigrate here, why not choose the non-felons first?
Felons want opportunity as well, but let's let in the non-felons first, ok? And why not give ourselves the option of choosing our immigrants? Without a wall we get whoever runs here. It's not that I have anything against Mexicans, but aren't we being unfair to Asian immigrants who can't run here?
So you're saying that there are more illegal immigrants from Ireland than from Mexico living in the US today?
NO! No "progressive" tax! Leave it as a straight percentage and the same percentage for all non-necessary goods.
I don't really care whether it's progressive or not. It makes it politically infeasible if not though.
However, what I do care about is that you make necessary goods taxable. The reason is that it doesn't work otherwise: everyone, rich or not, has a budget used almost entirely for housing, food, water, electricity, and health care. However, you need to tax those because you can have a humble home or a luxurious mansion, or anything in between. You can buy steak or you can buy rice. You can run the AC all summer or you can endure the heat.
Nothing you consume no matter how "necessary" should escape taxation.