With taxes you buy some common amenities and a LOT of other crap designed to enrich rent seekers and/or force behaviors on people that powerful interests or crapsack dogooders want enforced.
We are so very far past the "buying civilization" part of the argument for taxes.
If the rich didn't get more ways to weasel out of paying their due, we wouldn't need the pittance they pay as charity. We'd have the money to provide for our people ourselves.
And what is "their" due? If all the money and property from all the billionaires in the U.S. were 100% confiscated it wouldn't pay for one year's average deficit, not expenditures, deficit under the recent administration's budgets.
"Screw rich people"
OK you get to have that opinion but seriously, what amount of "rich people tax" is going to make ANY difference?
CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING drastically the only useful answer.
Not really true. Very little difference in a Coke and apple juice. Really.
One apples worth of juice, not too bad but worse than just eating the apple.
A 16 oz glass of apple juice can have as many as 12 apples. Taken as one huge sugar hit to the system.
Not good for you in any way. Just sugar water from apples instead of corn syrup.
Mark 2030 on your calendar. That's when the majority of baby boomers are retired, retirees will outnumber workers, and two-thirds of the federal budget will go to Social Security/Medicare. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
You get the biggest, best-equipped military in the world. One (admittedly large by area and population) nation, effectively dominating a large portion of the planet and strongly influencing the rest. If you take off the gloves, you could take on the entire world and win.
You've done that at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs. It's a choice you make every election cycle.
"at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs"?!?
FY 2016 had military spending at 16% of the federal budget and healthcare, education and social programs at 62% of the federal budget. When you add state and county numbers to those, the percentage goes considerably higher.
Let's cut the military, healthcare, education and social programs by 50% for both federal and state. That would be a good and fair start.
We have an annual federal deficit of $600 billion and guess how much we spent on our military last year? Yep, $600 billion. We basically borrow every penny we spend on the military, thereby screwing future generations because baby boomers are paranoid idiots.
What are you smoking? For the past 8 years the deficit has been nearly $1200 billion per year. We could cut every dime of the military budget and still have MASSIVE new debt each year.
FY 2016 had the debt service at over half the entire military budget. I agree that we spend far too much on the military but it's a small fraction compared to the social security, medicare and debt service portion of the budget but "progressives" desperately want to increase that already shocking amount because...reasons.
We're basically screwed. There's no way to pay for our system. If taxes were raised enough to pay for what the government spends, the country would shut down immediately.
How about making the rich pay their "fair share", as Hillary proposed? Total bullshit. What is a "fair share"? Forget higher taxes, if ALL the cash, stocks, property, couch change, etc., were 100% confiscated from Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Zuckerberg, et. al., it wouldn't pay one year's deficit under the Obama administration, much less pay a year's budget. After that one year deficit reduction, not deficit elimination, what happens?
But remember Mitt Romney said, "corporations are people" and the Citizens United ruling basically asserts the same thing. I don't agree with either of those, but that's the way it is.
Well, corporations sort of *are* people. To "incorporate" is literally to "embody".
No person, business, town (incorporated) or anything else comprising one or more people can exist, i.e., do business, with anyone else without having a "body".
So yes, a corporation has rights. Just like your body. Corporations are born and die every day.
Sometimes they are powerful "people" and get by with stuff that a smaller, less powerful "person" can't. But a "corporation" isn't a bad thing in itself. It's merely a legal entity that can continue if one or more members leave.
Trump said he was going to drain that swamp, all he's done so far is sign bills that deregulate business to let them screw over customers/the planet in any way they like.
Corporate profits now come first, priority is given to the companies Trump has shares in.
What you're looking at is monopolistic competition; it's a routine outcome of an underregulated capitalist system.
Wrong. What you're looking at is called Fascism. Or what Mussolini called Corporatism. The unholy alliance of anti free market big business and the coercive power of the State.
ObamaCare is an excellent example, if you need another.
Another Republican idea.
And still there are common people that firmly believe that the GOP is there for them. That is some cognitive dissonance of biblical proportions.
Dear GOP, let's not think about your own wallets and who fills them for awhile and when you do, please follow this maxim for a bit: "Does this idea really benefit the every man?" or "Has my idea the potential to increase the risk of corruption on a big scale?".
Another Politician idea.
And still there are common people that firmly believe that the government is there for them. That is some cognitive dissonance of biblical proportions.
Dear Politician, let's not think about your own wallets and who fills them for awhile and when you do, please follow this maxim for a bit: "Does this idea really benefit the every man?" or "Has my idea the potential to increase the risk of corruption on a big scale?".
You're in your mid-60s? You should be retiring. You have SS and medicare. Why do you want full time employment?
I'm in my mid 30s and I plan for retirement like crazy so that I can retire in my mid 60s.
Not on SS and Medicare you won't. SS benefits are puny but at least they're taxed as income.
MediCrap is a partial insurance system that forces you to buy additional insurance. Actually forces you whether you want it or not.
I'm in my mid 60's and it will take 3 months or so of SS benefits just pay the house taxes on my median priced home.
In 30 years SS won't even exist unless the benefits are effectively debased out of existence by inflation. $100,000 a year sounds great until a loaf of bread costs $1000.
Airlines have started ordering new planes without the seat-back entertainment systems. Given that few people use them anymore, they didn't want the extra expense, maintenance, and weight. Something tells me that Boeing saw this trend and did a study showing those personal devices to be dangerous, and reported those findings to the governments.
I don't know where you travel, but when I travel, particularly over seas, I see nearly all the seat back screens showing movies, etc.
This means airlines now have to take the step of their own security, prohibiting these kinds of devices and basically having airline staff declare an emergency if prohibited items are seen in the passenger cabln, or even to re-screen passengers at the gate prior to letting them board.
Had that happen recently on a flight from Minneapolis to Paris. After we had our boarding passes scanned and had entered the jet way.
Inside the jet way were big, heavily armed agents, not visable from the gate, with dogs that gave us all the sniff test as we passed. I had a momentary concern since I was carrying a steak sandwich but the dogs didn't even blink. Good doggie! I didn't particularly care since it didn't slow boarding at all, but I'd not seen this domestically before,
VFP was for serous database programmers.
VB was for looks.
I used to get hired to create VFP layers to bridge SQL Server, AS400 and other databases to other apps because it just worked and worked well.
Wasn't a "real" Windows app in some UI ways, but when you needed to push/pull data to and from disparate back ends and integrate that data into COM based Outlook, Word, Excel and other Windows based applications, there was nothing better.
We'd have C# guys come in and try to migrate VFP apps and they'd whine at the requirements to do things that are simple in VFP.
In 35 years of heavy relational database focused consulting on different platforms, nothing was as easy to use or as powerful as VFP.
Totally in agreement.
I use Uber in Europe because it's a lot easier than trying to get a taxi when the drivers and dispatchers don't speak English.
"Don't speak English! Why should they!?!" I'm not learning half a dozen languages no matter how useful that would be. Not happening.
I'd use a standard taxi, even in the U.S., in a heartbeat if they had an Uber-like interface.
How hard can it be to convert the dispatch to this sort of thing? Not free or instantaneous, but they'd fit better with the modern world.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath.
A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal.
Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
They are the best at this than anyone ever, I believe.
Wait, you ARE talking about the Utterly Corrupt Clinton Political Machine, right?
Compared to those guys, Trump is a boy scout. And he will be dogged by a rabid press that won't let anything slide. Indeed, they'll make stuff up if it helps their cause.
That's why I'm not the least concerned with his business interests. For once, we'll have a press that will constantly examine every aspect of his life looking for dirt. As a free press should.
Legalizing drugs takes organized crime out of the equation...
Bullshit. I'm from North Carolina. No intoxicants are as cheap and ubiquitous as alcohol and tobacco. The Federal government still spends a lot of money and time prosecuting moonshiners and controlling tobacco production. Why? because of the taxes.
Something doesn't have to be illegal to involve crime. The added layer of taxes will encourage people to work outside the system.
You might thing the DEA are badasses but don't forget that 80 some men, women and children died at Waco, an ATF operation.
Slashdot Mirror
CA's tax structure is maniacal, and the wealthy people who set this up have no idea how badly they're screwing the middle and lower classes.
You are much less cynical than I am. I think they know exactly what they're doing.
With taxes you buy - civilisation.
Oh please! Not that crap again.
With taxes you buy some common amenities and a LOT of other crap designed to enrich rent seekers and/or force behaviors on people that powerful interests or crapsack dogooders want enforced.
We are so very far past the "buying civilization" part of the argument for taxes.
$1 in Head Start cost reduces prison, court and other "necessary" government cost by more than $1.
Citation please. My wife has a masters in education and has worked in several school systems and has never seen this to be true.
If the rich didn't get more ways to weasel out of paying their due, we wouldn't need the pittance they pay as charity. We'd have the money to provide for our people ourselves.
And what is "their" due? If all the money and property from all the billionaires in the U.S. were 100% confiscated it wouldn't pay for one year's average deficit, not expenditures, deficit under the recent administration's budgets.
"Screw rich people"
OK you get to have that opinion but seriously, what amount of "rich people tax" is going to make ANY difference?
CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING drastically the only useful answer.
100% juice is still good. Always was.
Not really true. Very little difference in a Coke and apple juice. Really. One apples worth of juice, not too bad but worse than just eating the apple.
A 16 oz glass of apple juice can have as many as 12 apples. Taken as one huge sugar hit to the system.
Not good for you in any way. Just sugar water from apples instead of corn syrup.
Soon the TSA will want to smear e-coli on our clothes and luggage. Eww!
Mark 2030 on your calendar. That's when the majority of baby boomers are retired, retirees will outnumber workers, and two-thirds of the federal budget will go to Social Security/Medicare. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
No need to wait until 2030, it's pretty much there now: https://www.nationalpriorities...
You get the biggest, best-equipped military in the world. One (admittedly large by area and population) nation, effectively dominating a large portion of the planet and strongly influencing the rest. If you take off the gloves, you could take on the entire world and win.
You've done that at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs. It's a choice you make every election cycle.
"at the expense of healthcare, education, and social programs"?!?
FY 2016 had military spending at 16% of the federal budget and healthcare, education and social programs at 62% of the federal budget. When you add state and county numbers to those, the percentage goes considerably higher.
Let's cut the military, healthcare, education and social programs by 50% for both federal and state. That would be a good and fair start.
We have an annual federal deficit of $600 billion and guess how much we spent on our military last year? Yep, $600 billion. We basically borrow every penny we spend on the military, thereby screwing future generations because baby boomers are paranoid idiots.
What are you smoking? For the past 8 years the deficit has been nearly $1200 billion per year. We could cut every dime of the military budget and still have MASSIVE new debt each year.
FY 2016 had the debt service at over half the entire military budget. I agree that we spend far too much on the military but it's a small fraction compared to the social security, medicare and debt service portion of the budget but "progressives" desperately want to increase that already shocking amount because...reasons.
We're basically screwed. There's no way to pay for our system. If taxes were raised enough to pay for what the government spends, the country would shut down immediately.
How about making the rich pay their "fair share", as Hillary proposed? Total bullshit. What is a "fair share"? Forget higher taxes, if ALL the cash, stocks, property, couch change, etc., were 100% confiscated from Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Zuckerberg, et. al., it wouldn't pay one year's deficit under the Obama administration, much less pay a year's budget. After that one year deficit reduction, not deficit elimination, what happens?
Nope, we're screwed.
But remember Mitt Romney said, "corporations are people" and the Citizens United ruling basically asserts the same thing. I don't agree with either of those, but that's the way it is.
Well, corporations sort of *are* people. To "incorporate" is literally to "embody".
No person, business, town (incorporated) or anything else comprising one or more people can exist, i.e., do business, with anyone else without having a "body". So yes, a corporation has rights. Just like your body. Corporations are born and die every day.
Sometimes they are powerful "people" and get by with stuff that a smaller, less powerful "person" can't. But a "corporation" isn't a bad thing in itself. It's merely a legal entity that can continue if one or more members leave.
So, they are "people", in many important ways.
Trump said he was going to drain that swamp, all he's done so far is sign bills that deregulate business to let them screw over customers/the planet in any way they like.
Corporate profits now come first, priority is given to the companies Trump has shares in.
Citation please. Really, I'd like to see them.
What you're looking at is monopolistic competition; it's a routine outcome of an underregulated capitalist system.
Wrong. What you're looking at is called Fascism. Or what Mussolini called Corporatism. The unholy alliance of anti free market big business and the coercive power of the State.
ObamaCare is an excellent example, if you need another.
Another Republican idea. And still there are common people that firmly believe that the GOP is there for them. That is some cognitive dissonance of biblical proportions.
Dear GOP, let's not think about your own wallets and who fills them for awhile and when you do, please follow this maxim for a bit: "Does this idea really benefit the every man?" or "Has my idea the potential to increase the risk of corruption on a big scale?".
Another Politician idea. And still there are common people that firmly believe that the government is there for them. That is some cognitive dissonance of biblical proportions.
Dear Politician, let's not think about your own wallets and who fills them for awhile and when you do, please follow this maxim for a bit: "Does this idea really benefit the every man?" or "Has my idea the potential to increase the risk of corruption on a big scale?".
There, fixed it for you.
You're in your mid-60s? You should be retiring. You have SS and medicare. Why do you want full time employment?
I'm in my mid 30s and I plan for retirement like crazy so that I can retire in my mid 60s.
Not on SS and Medicare you won't. SS benefits are puny but at least they're taxed as income.
MediCrap is a partial insurance system that forces you to buy additional insurance. Actually forces you whether you want it or not.
I'm in my mid 60's and it will take 3 months or so of SS benefits just pay the house taxes on my median priced home.
In 30 years SS won't even exist unless the benefits are effectively debased out of existence by inflation. $100,000 a year sounds great until a loaf of bread costs $1000.
Problem solved!
Sure, we waste a lot of money but at least the taxes are really high. And it's cold.
> I laugh at "black belts" in the martial arts who still need Mommy's help making cereal in the morning
Everyone knows there's a difference between a child's black belt and an adult's.
Only in bullshit belt mills. No respectable dojo does that.
And I know of what I speak.
Airlines have started ordering new planes without the seat-back entertainment systems. Given that few people use them anymore, they didn't want the extra expense, maintenance, and weight. Something tells me that Boeing saw this trend and did a study showing those personal devices to be dangerous, and reported those findings to the governments.
I don't know where you travel, but when I travel, particularly over seas, I see nearly all the seat back screens showing movies, etc.
This means airlines now have to take the step of their own security, prohibiting these kinds of devices and basically having airline staff declare an emergency if prohibited items are seen in the passenger cabln, or even to re-screen passengers at the gate prior to letting them board.
Had that happen recently on a flight from Minneapolis to Paris. After we had our boarding passes scanned and had entered the jet way.
Inside the jet way were big, heavily armed agents, not visable from the gate, with dogs that gave us all the sniff test as we passed. I had a momentary concern since I was carrying a steak sandwich but the dogs didn't even blink. Good doggie! I didn't particularly care since it didn't slow boarding at all, but I'd not seen this domestically before,
Same, same.
I used to get hired to create VFP layers to bridge SQL Server, AS400 and other databases to other apps because it just worked and worked well.
Wasn't a "real" Windows app in some UI ways, but when you needed to push/pull data to and from disparate back ends and integrate that data into COM based Outlook, Word, Excel and other Windows based applications, there was nothing better. We'd have C# guys come in and try to migrate VFP apps and they'd whine at the requirements to do things that are simple in VFP.
In 35 years of heavy relational database focused consulting on different platforms, nothing was as easy to use or as powerful as VFP.
So there!
"Don't speak English! Why should they!?!" I'm not learning half a dozen languages no matter how useful that would be. Not happening.
I'd use a standard taxi, even in the U.S., in a heartbeat if they had an Uber-like interface. How hard can it be to convert the dispatch to this sort of thing? Not free or instantaneous, but they'd fit better with the modern world.
Yeah! Who needs to see the stupid stars anyway.
It's much simpler than that.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath. A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal. Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
They are the best at this than anyone ever, I believe. Wait, you ARE talking about the Utterly Corrupt Clinton Political Machine, right?
Compared to those guys, Trump is a boy scout. And he will be dogged by a rabid press that won't let anything slide. Indeed, they'll make stuff up if it helps their cause.
That's why I'm not the least concerned with his business interests. For once, we'll have a press that will constantly examine every aspect of his life looking for dirt. As a free press should.
Legalizing drugs takes organized crime out of the equation...
Bullshit. I'm from North Carolina. No intoxicants are as cheap and ubiquitous as alcohol and tobacco. The Federal government still spends a lot of money and time prosecuting moonshiners and controlling tobacco production. Why? because of the taxes.
Something doesn't have to be illegal to involve crime. The added layer of taxes will encourage people to work outside the system. You might thing the DEA are badasses but don't forget that 80 some men, women and children died at Waco, an ATF operation.