Who am I shilling for? Do you know what shill even means?
Of course. I was assuming you must be shilling for some statist or socialist group, advocating for a tax to use as punishment even though it would reduce revenue and thus shift the tax burden downward.
But I see now you are just completely ignorant about markets, finance, and monetary policy in general, and probably just advocating any tax that doesn't impact you.
There is a candidate right now that is anti-war, anti-torture, anti-extrajudicial killings, anti-multinational corporate privilege
Ron Paul isn't any of those. He's just against federal funding for any of those.
Well he truly is anti-war, non-interventionist policy and has spoken out against torture and against the droning of Anwar al-Awlaki without a trial, as well as the entire idea of any kind of "extrajudicial" killings. As a legislator, the only action he can take is to deny funding for those kinds of activities, but he is firmly against them and has made his position very clear. Try checking out some of his speeches instead of just listening to what the MSM say about him - they are compromised. There is a really good one on foreign policy you can find on youtude search for "ron paul what if".
Buddy Roemer? Ron Paul? None have a fighting chance, and frankly, the former probably doesn't mean it, and the latter certainly doesn't mean what you think he does.
Well you can say Ron Paul won't be the nominee - it seems to be a common claim. But Paul certainly does mean exactly what he says. He's got 20 years of voting history in the house that proves his actions match his rhetoric. I never trust what any politician says, but if there was ever a politician that was worthy of that trust, it's Ron Paul.
No? Then why would they let the next president do all the same things and not even complain about it?
"Not complain about it"??
Are you a fucking imbecile? Can you honestly say that there has been a president in our lifetime about which there has been as much complaining as there has been about Obama?
No, don't answer the question. I already know you're a fucking imbecile, Curunir_wolf. Your answer would only be further confirmation.
The discussion was specifically about war crimes, not general complaints over all. But you can just pretend not to know what I'm talking about if you want to. You seem to keep your head up your ass about a lot of reality, anyway.
Obama stood as that, stood as "Change", and then gave us a big "Fuck you". Essentially, what we know now is that it's going to take decades to actually get someone in power who's not a right wing (pro-war, pro-torture, pro-extrajudicial killings, pro-corporate, anti-worker) extremist. Decades. Because there's no good reason to believe that the next jackass the Democrats put up will be any less extreme than Obama.
Quit getting so hung up on political parties. There is a candidate right now that is anti-war, anti-torture, anti-extrajudicial killings, anti-multinational corporate privilege, AND that has a long record of backing up his stated position with consistent stance and voting record. But he's trying to get the Republican nomination. Check it out some time.
Do you really think stock traders are going to stop trading stock because the tax on their income goes up? And that's exactly what it is, a tax on stck traders' incomes. tax them more and they'll have to work harder at it.
It's not like that. You can't just turn the handle faster and crank out more dough. It's a risk. You lose some, you win some. Sometimes you're lucky to break even. If you take that kind of risk and you're going to be paying through the nose when you win, you're just going to find something else to put your money into. Bonds or long-term CDs or something. So, yes, many WILL stop trading stock, and it's a known effect, it's not speculation, it's proven.
Notice that the capital gains tax is a tax on profits derived from selling stock, commodities, or a business. Higher capital gains taxes keeps a business owner from "cashing out" and selling his business to retire in Florida.
So, to you, it's a "keep the slaves working" tax? You really are a shill.
As far as mandatory, that is where the big pay-off comes
... for the big pharma corporations. What are you, a shill?
This being vastly cheaper, and more effective than just having the well off people getting vaccinated forever.
No, it's much more expensive, because it's all patented right now. That's the point of the big PR campaign and rush to get the vaccines out there, while they can charge patent-protected prices for it.
No good whatever came from those cuts, and afaik that was the last time Capital Gains taxes were adjusted. They need to be adjusted back up to where they were before Reagan screwed us all.
That would be really irresponsible, considering it would reduce capital (making credit even harder to get) AND create a significant Federal tax revenue shortage. What would you make it up with, more taxes on the middle class?
That's a problem with the overly-complicated tax code full of loopholes and deductions easily hidden in the tens of thousands of pages of IRS codes and regulations. The answer to that is simplification, not tweaking rates and adding more complexity.
If you can make money without working, you're in different world than most people, and you're not talking about the 3.6 million "1%'ers", you're talking about something like 0.00001%. Collectively, they don't really have enough money to make a dent in the federal debt, even if you took all of it. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate to keep revenues high. That rate has been played with many times before, and even Obama and Biden acknowledge that raising the rate will reduce revenues. That's because investors take on risk, and will be less willing to LOSE money if any gains are taxed the same as no-risk earnings.
You overestimate americans. This is a country with significant opposition to HPV vaccination of youths because it removes a significant danger of premarital sex,
I think the opposition is to mandatory HPV vaccinations, something that, really, only Merck wants. They are so anxious to get it that they are even saying all boys should get it too. There are side effects to HPV vaccines - it's not just irrational fear or ignorance. In addition, the actual effectiveness of the vaccine is not as great as advertised. For actual prevention of cervical cancers, it's only about 17% effective.
Personally, I think that what we have in both countries (and in most other so-called democracies) is a plutocracy - rule by the rich - with cosmetic elements of democracy to keep the masses quiet.
Wealth provides a significant influence in government in virtually every country. What actually fits more accurately would be Mussolini-style fascism, that is:
the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police state as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive state the unlimited master of society.
Again, orthogonal terms. A republic is simply a state that does not have a monarchy. An oligarchy or dictatorship is still a republic.
That's bullcrap. "A state that does not have a monarchy." You're just making stuff up. The word "Republic" comes from REPresenting the PUBLIC. It's any system where the PEOPLE (the PUBLIC) are acknowledged as controlling the government, and they are represented by officers selected by the people, typically through elections. That would NOT include a dictatorship and would not include an oligarchy that would be in power for very long.
I'm with you, this is outrageous. But your final premise (conclusion) is pretty off:
property rights, cannot come before democracy.
That's not really true. Property rights are individual rights that must be off-limits to the tyranny of the majority. If a group can get together and vote themselves some one's else's property, then the rule of law is broken and useless.
That said, this isn't really an issue of property rights. It's an issue of specific privileges provided to groups based on monopoly status for creative works. "Intellectual property" should never have been conflated with tangible property rights in the first place, it's not governed by the same rules of scarcity.
False. To me, net neutrality means nobody controls the Internet, and that is as it should be.
It should, but the Feds are already interfering with it too much. This rule-making by unelected bureaucrats is just the foot in the door. Next up is PROTECT-IP, and E-PARASITE, then ACTA, then more and more control. What good is it to prevent the ISPs from blocking content when the the big content providers can take out whoever they want, practically at will.
Why are you so anxious to kill net neutrality
Actually, I want real network neutrality. I don't trust the government to provide it, they have proven to be entirely untrustworthy in that regard. I don't trust the ISPs, either, but every time there has been a problem with them blocking or throttling anything, it didn't last very long once people started complaining. When was last time a Federal agency was that responsive? And if this 155 page rule from the FCC turns out to cause problems, how long before anything is done about it?
Oh right, because private companies would do such a good job to ensure net neutrality. I mean, who's supposed to ensure that content gatekeepers don't create tiered services? ISPs? Uh huh...
Sometimes you just need to admit that government regulations are necessary. No FDA? You can go back to the days before Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Frances Oldham Kelsey. How about the EPA? Not sure why people oppose the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. And if the US government were a company, you might have been bankrupt long ago.
Maybe. But, then, the FDA now works for the Big Pharma and Big Ag and all the latest regulations are about protecting them and reducing consumer choice. Clean air and clean water are, of course, great to have, but even if the delta smelt is more important that some of the richest farm land in Southern California (not to mention all the farmers), it's not even clear that turning all that farm land into desert is going to do anything for the little smelts anyway.
In any case, if you really want to ever have a voice in government, it's probably better that these things are decided by representative that are accountable to the voters, rather than unelected bureaucrats. If you actually read the regulations that the FCC wrote, you might be less inclined to defend them.
This extreme oversimplification has to stop. We aren't "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet" we are "restricting the ability for corporations to interfere with the internet." You are oversimplifying things so far that they actually mean the opposite.
It's not an oversimplification, because the regulations are far-reaching and quite specific. There are several provisions obviously included to appease a few corporations, and several that fail to protect consumers as content creators, and actually make it more difficult and likely more expensive for them. I suggest that you go read the rules before claiming that it's not "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet".
Yes, the media is entirely compromised, there's no denying that. Why, just looking at all the made-up PR they generated to drum up support for carpet bombing and droning Libya makes it obvious.
But as far as cutting off access to any network, only governments have done that, and there is plenty of it going on. Yet somehow you're willing to go ahead and provide the government with even more control over it. That really seems to defy common sense.
As hard as you try, you cannot ignore the evidence.
That's a pretty far-fetched bit of tin-foil-hattery you have there.
I'll do you one better. Allowing government to regulate the Internet will do exactly the same thing, but more easily, without requiring cooperation (just one government, not 2 or 3 ISPs and a few smaller ones), AND... they've already started doing it.
Oh? Does that mean I no longer have to pay "Private Mortgage Insurance"?
Nope, unless you can get a VA loan, the other government-backed mortgage programs all require mortgage insurance.
I always wondered why I had to pay that anyway. if they were so worried about me not paying the loan back, shouldn't THEY pay for the insurance?
Not when they can get you to pay it instead. There are rules that allow you to drop the mortgage insurance, but you have to get the loan principal below 80% of the original purchase price.
Slashdot Mirror
Who am I shilling for? Do you know what shill even means?
Of course. I was assuming you must be shilling for some statist or socialist group, advocating for a tax to use as punishment even though it would reduce revenue and thus shift the tax burden downward.
But I see now you are just completely ignorant about markets, finance, and monetary policy in general, and probably just advocating any tax that doesn't impact you.
There is a candidate right now that is anti-war, anti-torture, anti-extrajudicial killings, anti-multinational corporate privilege
Ron Paul isn't any of those. He's just against federal funding for any of those.
Well he truly is anti-war, non-interventionist policy and has spoken out against torture and against the droning of Anwar al-Awlaki without a trial, as well as the entire idea of any kind of "extrajudicial" killings. As a legislator, the only action he can take is to deny funding for those kinds of activities, but he is firmly against them and has made his position very clear. Try checking out some of his speeches instead of just listening to what the MSM say about him - they are compromised. There is a really good one on foreign policy you can find on youtude search for "ron paul what if".
Buddy Roemer? Ron Paul? None have a fighting chance, and frankly, the former probably doesn't mean it, and the latter certainly doesn't mean what you think he does.
Well you can say Ron Paul won't be the nominee - it seems to be a common claim. But Paul certainly does mean exactly what he says. He's got 20 years of voting history in the house that proves his actions match his rhetoric. I never trust what any politician says, but if there was ever a politician that was worthy of that trust, it's Ron Paul.
"Not complain about it"??
Are you a fucking imbecile? Can you honestly say that there has been a president in our lifetime about which there has been as much complaining as there has been about Obama?
No, don't answer the question. I already know you're a fucking imbecile, Curunir_wolf. Your answer would only be further confirmation.
The discussion was specifically about war crimes, not general complaints over all. But you can just pretend not to know what I'm talking about if you want to. You seem to keep your head up your ass about a lot of reality, anyway.
Obama stood as that, stood as "Change", and then gave us a big "Fuck you". Essentially, what we know now is that it's going to take decades to actually get someone in power who's not a right wing (pro-war, pro-torture, pro-extrajudicial killings, pro-corporate, anti-worker) extremist. Decades. Because there's no good reason to believe that the next jackass the Democrats put up will be any less extreme than Obama.
Quit getting so hung up on political parties. There is a candidate right now that is anti-war, anti-torture, anti-extrajudicial killings, anti-multinational corporate privilege, AND that has a long record of backing up his stated position with consistent stance and voting record. But he's trying to get the Republican nomination. Check it out some time.
Do you really think stock traders are going to stop trading stock because the tax on their income goes up? And that's exactly what it is, a tax on stck traders' incomes. tax them more and they'll have to work harder at it.
It's not like that. You can't just turn the handle faster and crank out more dough. It's a risk. You lose some, you win some. Sometimes you're lucky to break even. If you take that kind of risk and you're going to be paying through the nose when you win, you're just going to find something else to put your money into. Bonds or long-term CDs or something. So, yes, many WILL stop trading stock, and it's a known effect, it's not speculation, it's proven.
Notice that the capital gains tax is a tax on profits derived from selling stock, commodities, or a business. Higher capital gains taxes keeps a business owner from "cashing out" and selling his business to retire in Florida.
So, to you, it's a "keep the slaves working" tax? You really are a shill.
Looks like the effectiveness article you linked was pretty well shot down in the comments in that article
Yes, because posters in an Internet comment section are always more credible than peer-reviews scientific studies.
As far as mandatory, that is where the big pay-off comes
... for the big pharma corporations. What are you, a shill?
This being vastly cheaper, and more effective than just having the well off people getting vaccinated forever.
No, it's much more expensive, because it's all patented right now. That's the point of the big PR campaign and rush to get the vaccines out there, while they can charge patent-protected prices for it.
No good whatever came from those cuts, and afaik that was the last time Capital Gains taxes were adjusted. They need to be adjusted back up to where they were before Reagan screwed us all.
That would be really irresponsible, considering it would reduce capital (making credit even harder to get) AND create a significant Federal tax revenue shortage. What would you make it up with, more taxes on the middle class?
The top 1% consists of politicians, abusive crooked CEO's, and banking fraudsters. Period.
No, that's simply false. There are 3.6 million people in the US that fall into that 1% category. Most of them work for a living.
Oddly enough, the wealthy are already taxed
As it turns out, according to the IRS and ABC News,1,470 American millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009.
That's a problem with the overly-complicated tax code full of loopholes and deductions easily hidden in the tens of thousands of pages of IRS codes and regulations. The answer to that is simplification, not tweaking rates and adding more complexity.
Nearly 100,000 millionaires pay lower tax rates than middle class, and capital gains (gambling on the stock market and commodity futures) has half the tax rate as a working person's income tax.
If you can make money without working, you're in different world than most people, and you're not talking about the 3.6 million "1%'ers", you're talking about something like 0.00001%. Collectively, they don't really have enough money to make a dent in the federal debt, even if you took all of it. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate to keep revenues high. That rate has been played with many times before, and even Obama and Biden acknowledge that raising the rate will reduce revenues. That's because investors take on risk, and will be less willing to LOSE money if any gains are taxed the same as no-risk earnings.
You overestimate americans. This is a country with significant opposition to HPV vaccination of youths because it removes a significant danger of premarital sex,
I think the opposition is to mandatory HPV vaccinations, something that, really, only Merck wants. They are so anxious to get it that they are even saying all boys should get it too. There are side effects to HPV vaccines - it's not just irrational fear or ignorance. In addition, the actual effectiveness of the vaccine is not as great as advertised. For actual prevention of cervical cancers, it's only about 17% effective.
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
No? Then why would they let the next president do all the same things and not even complain about it?
Personally, I think that what we have in both countries (and in most other so-called democracies) is a plutocracy - rule by the rich - with cosmetic elements of democracy to keep the masses quiet.
Wealth provides a significant influence in government in virtually every country. What actually fits more accurately would be Mussolini-style fascism, that is:
Well, no, it doesn't.
Yes, it does. Or the Latin equivalent, anyway. :-P
Again, orthogonal terms. A republic is simply a state that does not have a monarchy. An oligarchy or dictatorship is still a republic.
That's bullcrap. "A state that does not have a monarchy." You're just making stuff up. The word "Republic" comes from REPresenting the PUBLIC. It's any system where the PEOPLE (the PUBLIC) are acknowledged as controlling the government, and they are represented by officers selected by the people, typically through elections. That would NOT include a dictatorship and would not include an oligarchy that would be in power for very long.
I'm with you, this is outrageous. But your final premise (conclusion) is pretty off:
property rights, cannot come before democracy.
That's not really true. Property rights are individual rights that must be off-limits to the tyranny of the majority. If a group can get together and vote themselves some one's else's property, then the rule of law is broken and useless.
That said, this isn't really an issue of property rights. It's an issue of specific privileges provided to groups based on monopoly status for creative works. "Intellectual property" should never have been conflated with tangible property rights in the first place, it's not governed by the same rules of scarcity.
It's full of Santorum!
False. To me, net neutrality means nobody controls the Internet, and that is as it should be.
It should, but the Feds are already interfering with it too much. This rule-making by unelected bureaucrats is just the foot in the door. Next up is PROTECT-IP, and E-PARASITE, then ACTA, then more and more control. What good is it to prevent the ISPs from blocking content when the the big content providers can take out whoever they want, practically at will.
Why are you so anxious to kill net neutrality
Actually, I want real network neutrality. I don't trust the government to provide it, they have proven to be entirely untrustworthy in that regard. I don't trust the ISPs, either, but every time there has been a problem with them blocking or throttling anything, it didn't last very long once people started complaining. When was last time a Federal agency was that responsive? And if this 155 page rule from the FCC turns out to cause problems, how long before anything is done about it?
Oh right, because private companies would do such a good job to ensure net neutrality. I mean, who's supposed to ensure that content gatekeepers don't create tiered services? ISPs? Uh huh...
Sometimes you just need to admit that government regulations are necessary. No FDA? You can go back to the days before Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Frances Oldham Kelsey. How about the EPA? Not sure why people oppose the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. And if the US government were a company, you might have been bankrupt long ago.
Maybe. But, then, the FDA now works for the Big Pharma and Big Ag and all the latest regulations are about protecting them and reducing consumer choice. Clean air and clean water are, of course, great to have, but even if the delta smelt is more important that some of the richest farm land in Southern California (not to mention all the farmers), it's not even clear that turning all that farm land into desert is going to do anything for the little smelts anyway.
In any case, if you really want to ever have a voice in government, it's probably better that these things are decided by representative that are accountable to the voters, rather than unelected bureaucrats. If you actually read the regulations that the FCC wrote, you might be less inclined to defend them.
This extreme oversimplification has to stop. We aren't "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet" we are "restricting the ability for corporations to interfere with the internet." You are oversimplifying things so far that they actually mean the opposite.
It's not an oversimplification, because the regulations are far-reaching and quite specific. There are several provisions obviously included to appease a few corporations, and several that fail to protect consumers as content creators, and actually make it more difficult and likely more expensive for them. I suggest that you go read the rules before claiming that it's not "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet".
Yes, the media is entirely compromised, there's no denying that. Why, just looking at all the made-up PR they generated to drum up support for carpet bombing and droning Libya makes it obvious.
But as far as cutting off access to any network, only governments have done that, and there is plenty of it going on. Yet somehow you're willing to go ahead and provide the government with even more control over it. That really seems to defy common sense.
As hard as you try, you cannot ignore the evidence.
Well, you did. Must not be so hard.
You're taking "government will always handle everything worse than any private company" as an article of faith not backed by evidence.
Wait... there's no evidence?
That's a pretty far-fetched bit of tin-foil-hattery you have there.
I'll do you one better. Allowing government to regulate the Internet will do exactly the same thing, but more easily, without requiring cooperation (just one government, not 2 or 3 ISPs and a few smaller ones), AND ... they've already started doing it.
Oh? Does that mean I no longer have to pay "Private Mortgage Insurance"?
Nope, unless you can get a VA loan, the other government-backed mortgage programs all require mortgage insurance.
I always wondered why I had to pay that anyway. if they were so worried about me not paying the loan back, shouldn't THEY pay for the insurance?
Not when they can get you to pay it instead. There are rules that allow you to drop the mortgage insurance, but you have to get the loan principal below 80% of the original purchase price.
I was here first. So you can spread incredible lies somewhere else, instead, and I'll stay here and speak truth to power.