When it comes to politics, no one's guiltless for trampling on our rights
Almost no one. Libertarians are the only party that actually believes in restoring all of the rights republicans and democrats stole long ago (and continue to steal). Libertarians are the only group that believes in the philosophy of liberty and don't waver from its principles when facing difficult scenarios.
Actually, I read somewhere that some company (maybe microsoft?) is working on consumer facial recognition software for your photos. So, if you identify a particular face in a photograph as "Mary" then all subsequent photographs uploaded with Mary in it will be indexed as such making searching for photos easier and autotagging a reality. Personally, you won't find me using such software...as the big brother implications are fairly damn scary on a number of levels. Especially if the government feels like they can just subpeana search query data from companies just because they WANT it.
I apologize for not finding a link, but I'm fairly certain I'm not talking out of my ass. I'm sure someone else will dig something up (hint hint).
If that's not good enough, look at America's history.
Ok. You must be refering to history of the most successful nation on the planet. You must be refering to the history of the nation that is home to the most inventions, medical discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and globally influencial companies and entertainment mediums. You must be refering to the fastest growing, wealthiest nation that ever existed BECAUSE of the inherant freedom all the EVIL business men had. You must be referring to the history of the country that is home to the $40K+ AVERAGE income.
Look at what railroad barons and mining companies put their employees through.. Not to mention the food processing industry. Not to mention.. jesus the list goes on and on.
Look at what? The EVIL railroad barons that OFFERED the CHOICE to work? Sorry, but the only employers in history that didn't give their employees the choice to QUIT are the slave owners. The food processing industry? I guess you're refering to the meat packing industry that didn't exactly have great health standards. SO WHAT? You don't trust the source of your freaking meat, don't buy from that source! Not sure if that meat you're buying was packaged in a sanitary enviornment? DON'T BUY IT! The CHOICE is yours. Let's get back to this "list" that "goes on and on" of yours. The truth is, your "list" is simply a list of every instance of history in which bad practices met their demise or their reformation. The government never brought about the changes...individuals and the free press brought about those changes.
There was a time where there were no labor laws, where employers could work children all day, every day, for little pay, or what amounted to "credit" at the company store (still for little pay)... If labor laws didn't exist, ALL of these practices would still be widespread.
So the F what? If you don't want your children working in a factory, then don't let them. Don't like businesses that hire other people's children? Don't buy their freaking products! Contact the media and tell everyone how much you hate business X for employing small children and so forth. If most people feel the same way as you, then the business will go out of business unless it reforms their human resources model. Since profit is the core motivation, it WILL do what the public wants if it intends to survive.
I simply see this as the ultimate goal of true, unfettered capitalism. The endgame is to have everyone else's money. If everyone is rich, your money is worth less, so the true capitalist wants to be rich and everyone else to be poor.
And this is a good example of why you should leave the thinking and policy making to those of us that abandon speculation and isntead employ reason and logic. I'm a "ture" capitalist, and I want simply to be rewarded for my ingenuity and hard work. I also want to reward people that provide valuable products and services so that they will continue to provide them.
I am not a socialist or a capitalist. You don't have to pick one or the other extreme, no matter how many American capitalists tell you such. They tell you so at the ignorance of how the rest of the developed world operates: capitalist models with some social programs for things all of society needs, like food and health care, and the freedom to choose between them if you can afford to.
Sorry pal, but you can't have your pie and eat it too. Capitalism isn't an "extreme." It is a system that works. In fact, it is the ONLY system that works. The more freedom you add to capitalism, the better it works. Free market capitalism does not exclude charity or social programs, it only excludes coercion and force. If YOU care about the poor and the sick, you are FREE to help them with YOUR money. Capitalism don't stop you...in fact, it encourages it! Capitalism IS exactly what the people want. If the people want to help the poor, then the poor will be helped voluntarily by charities and so forth. W
Since you asked, here's a few examples off the very top of my head:
[a "few" examples of businesses taking advantage of the power politicians sell them]
It's rad that you are able to take a "few examples" and apply them to all business. I wish I could do that...but I suppose I prefer not to GENERALIZE by propping up straw men to support my feeble arguments.
All oil/automobile execs telling us global warming doesn't exist
Again, totally rad use of the word "All" and totally rad how only a few "oil/auto execs" have the final word on all matters concerning the globe instead of say, scientists and journalists. Whenever I need to know how the planet is standing, I consult oil/auto execs instead of science journals and newpapers.
I was gonna go through each of your "points" and dismantle them, but it would be too easy and anyone smart enough already knows how weak your points are...plus, I'm not in the mood. The bottom line is this: Everyone, including evil business men, will buy and abuse power if it is available to them. You cannot eliminate evil/immoral men from the world no matter how much regulation you have, but you can reduce the damage they do by eliminating government intervention and letting the free market destroy them. Trust and quality always win in the end. Everytime a company tries to pull a fast one over the public, the public turns around and sues their ass for billions of dollars. The government has never fixed a goddamned thing. The only thing the government does is support the protectionist regimes of their buddies. The free press are the ones that discover and reject corruption, not the government.
As long as it's cheaper to bury the evidence or fight in court than it is to make right, big companies will bury the evidence. That's one of the reasons they're big. That part is my opinion, but my opinion was based on watching how they act.. and this is the shit that DID see the light of day. That means there is a lot more that didn't.
So what? If you don't like or trust a company, don't buy their freaking products or services. If you think companies obscure "evidence" then don't support them! Start a website called thiscompanylies.com or something and list the supposedly obscured "evidence" for people that care enough to check. Talk to the media, to bloggers, and to your friends and let them know how you feel about this evil company. Look at the Sony rootkit fiasco. The public found out, the public wrote endlessly about it, the public sued, and Sony got owned. Companies don't get away with dishonesty in the end. In the end, companies that lie and cheat and so forth are not supported by the buying public. I know I won't buy any more sony products as a result of their business practices, and if it means enough to you, you won't either. All your "examples" of corporate corruption resulted in justice. Enron, which simply wasn't a profitable company regardless of its spurious accounting practices, failed. If Walmart really treated their employees badly, their employees wouldn't work for them. Car companies that do make faulty parts are eventually sued and most of them actually recall their cars before that happens. The tobacco industry are a bunch of assholes, but that doesn't relieve people of their personal responsibility. Breathing smoke into your lungs is clearly not a healthy practice and every damn smoker knows it. If smokers don't care enough about their health to boycott the industry that poisons them, fuck em. Exxon whatever. Who cares WHY the oil spill happened? The bottom line is Exxon paid out the ass for their mistake and I guarantee you every oil executive on the planet has thought long and hard about preventing subsequent disasters to avoid further extremely expensive lawsuits. Drug companies? Yeah, they are so evil. Forget the fact that their greed has saved millions of lives, prevented millions of diseases, and generally helped every single one of us at one time or another...they must all be evi
It IS worse now... because now big business is writing the laws, just like the olden days of this country. When you hear the word "reform," most of the time that means big business rewriting the laws of a particular field to suit them.
Examples: the medicare reform bill (gift to big pharma and insurance companies) and the bankruptcy reform bill (a handout to the credit card companies).
That's so rad. You blame "big business" for buying things that are for sale instead of blaming the government for selling it. Here's a novel idea...why not reduce the government to its constitutional size so that big business has no desire to buy it? How about taking the power out of the hands of politicians so that there is no power to sell?
Watch "The Corporation" for proof. Basically, corporations are free (leagally) to do anything they want and it's getting worse.
I watched it. It was fantastic example of generalization and simplification, but mostly, it was a beautiful case of false causality. It's always amazing to me that people blame "corporations" for buying the government instead of blaming the government for having too much power to make it worth buying.
As you can see, the link also gives you a list of the world's billionaires. You will notice that the list is comprised mostly of self-made men. Even the Waltons, which are technically heirs, are the product of being born to a self-made man. Sam Walton left HIS money to his children because HE wanted them to have it. But ignoring the waltons, the top 5 people on the list and pretty much everyone else, is there because of hard work and creativity. I think you ignored a major theme in the article on purpose. There are many NEW billionaires...but how can that be possible if the rich try to keep all the money to themselves? Oh, yeah, it's possible because anyone with enough drive and vision can become rich despite the greedy capitalist dogs trying to keep them down.
As far as your anecdotal evidence goes...I'd normally agree with you assessment of its value, but when you construct your anecdotes to "prove" your point, you should try to choose ones that are analogous. The GP's comment made no conclusions, but yours did. While you were obvioulsy attempting to be clever with your sarcastic anecdote, a false analogy is still a false analogy and certainly failed to underline your "point" that anecdotal evidence is useless. It only made you look the fool.
Among the many people I know who are arguably upper-middle-class (I'm not one of them), none of them were "born wealthy."
I wish I had time to pick your goofy argument apart piece by piece, but since I work for a living, I'll just take this one point and make a point of my own using your screwed up, baseless logic: Among the many birds I have seen out my kitchen window, none of them were being eaten by cats. Therefore, predation does not exist.
You call this a point? Aside from being a false analogy and the apotheosis of baseless logic, it ALSO only serves to SUPPORT the very point you are trying so desperately to undermine. LOL. You see, your conclusion is wrong, but the fact is, MOST birds are not in fact victims of hungry cats. Most birds die of "old age". The odd cat that catches a bird is in fact the odd cat. Still want to use your analogy? Ok, well, most upper-middle class people were not born wealthy. In fact, most billionaires are entirely self-made. Here are some actaul FACTS supporting the FACT that most wealthy people are self-made (maybe you can use them to improve your infalliable "logic" skills): http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/2005/03/10/cz_l k_lg_0310commentary_bill05.html
You referred to my comment as "utter crap," but I'm really not sure you're seeing the context of my response.
I don't think he's seeing the context of reality...or truth for that matter. You can't be a "top" wage earner in America and only pay 20% in taxes. He's either lying (probable), manipulating his tax data to the IRS, or has a very different take on "top" wage earner than you or I. Now, I'm assuming that despite his protests, he really is ignoring all the other taxes (Social Security, Property, consumption, state, local etc), but if this were true, it would put his income even lower than my estimate. My guess is that he earns between 40 and 50 grand a year: http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html.
You would have been able to pay for your own college degree if education supplies weren't artificially decreased by the government's virtually limitless subsidies, regulations, grants, and interest free loans that have doubled, tripled, or otherwise grossly multiplied education prices (allowing for inflation mind you).
While I was still working there, I calculated that the total value of his annual compensation was more than 1000 times the value of mine. He could spend an amount equal to my annual salary with the same ease that I could take my wife out to dinner at a fancy restaurant.
He's also probably about 1000 times more valuable than you in that he, through his leadership and management skills is capable of earning 1000 times more money for the company which still pays thousands of people annual salaries. What would you have him do, not cut the employees and see the ENTIRE company go bankrupt so that NO jobs are available for anyone?
A CEO is a CEO earning the big buck because he can see the big picture. You clearly aren't part of it.
80 years ago people were expected to read Shakespear in the 4th grade, now we (MAYBE) get into it by high school. We've been dumbed down folks, and if you don't think TV played a large part in that, well, you watch too much TV...
We have been dumbed down because the federal government controls education. The government, in fact, has a monopoly on education. When monopolies occur, prices go up and quality wanes. TV has little to do with it because kids are still forced by the federal government to attend schools 8 hours a day. It just so happens that those 8 hours are terribly useless. If anything is "sickening" it is that you don't realize that government is what ruins everything it touches, including college, healthcare, radio bandwidth and Shakespeare.
This is NOT cutting back. This is increasing spending without increasing results/profits. If employer X can get job Y done with 200 employees one year, but needs 220 employees the next year to perform the same exact job, then employer X doesn't know how to run a business. Employer X does not know how to successfully deploy economies of scale, efficiency, or technological improvements. Employer X would go out of business and bankrupt all his shareholders and leave all his employees out on the street looking for better work with an employer that actually knows how to run a business.
Unfortunately, because employer X is the government, he has a monopoly on the education market. No matter how poorly the government performs, they will will still receive funding and that funding will more than likely increase every year because there are no stockholders they are accountable for and no one is personally responsible. It's very easy for a politician that literally knows nothing about education to come up with some crackpot "plan" for education that requires lots of money...because ultimately he/she is not responsible for the results of that plan...the taxpayers are.
The best way to cure education problems is to eradicate the monopoly in the market that creates them and completely eliminate the government from the picture. The free market, every single year, has doubled the power of a computer...while reducing its pricing by half. Just imagine how well everyone's kids would be educated and how many educational options there would be if education was left to the free market. It would be cheaper, it would be better, and all the teachers, administrators and owners would be directly accountable for their actions because they depended on EARNING your money rather than knowing it would always be there no matter what.
And of course that fails to acknowledge that these "25 gig" movies are going to be compressed with the latest comprssion algorithm into 4.3 gigs or less so we can fit them on standard single layer dvds. Hell, I download 42 minutes of HDTV rips with 5.1 sound and it comes in at a nice 699 MB--just perfect for a plain ol CD and it looks GREAT. A movie with the same quality is only 2 or 3 times as long...so it's obvious that the downloads won't be as massive as the industry hopes they will be. It will only take ONE person to rip each new HDDVD/bluray disc even if it has to be through an analog hole, and the rest, will be history.
I agree with this. This would be a great addition. As a matter of fact, I use tikiwiki on some sites I've setup, and this feature is built in (though the authors of the pages are put on the bottom, rather than in the byline--I'm sure this can be modded to your specifications). There might even be an extension for wikimedia that suits your needs.
I'd also suggest that you join the talk and community pages on wikipedia to make this suggestion.
Many business do in fact move to states with lower sales taxes as a sole reason. As a result, they develope commerce there that also drives consumers to move to the state as it will generally offer a lower cost of living. So yes, competition does play a very significant factor.
The real arguement here is why a business that has made a very deliberate decision to move to a sales-tax free location (or a low tax location) should have to collect sales taxes for OTHER states? The incentive for the business to move and operate to the no-sale tax location will be largely eliminated if it is an ecommerce business as it knows that consumers would much rather purchase items on the internet when they are not taxed. Right or wrong, this is how it works, and ultimately, it should not be the businesses burden to collect taxes for states it's not even associated with! Brick and Morter businesses in sales-tax free locations don't have to collect taxes from out of state consumers, so why the hell should an ecommerce business have to? This is clearly a case of brick and morter businesses trying to protect their monopolies and using politicians to make it happen.
The federal government absolutely has the right to regulate (and tax) interstate business. Arguably you could say that what the Feds should do is impose a "federal sales taxes" on interstate commerce and distribute the proceed to the state in one way or another. I could see that point.
Wrong. I urge you to review the powers and limits of the federal government in The Constitution. You are urged to review Sections 8-10 that outline just how few rights the federal government has over states and state commerce.
The fact is, the federal government has no legal or Constitutional right to impose ANY laws or regulations on state businesses or state taxes, let alone the hundreds and thousands of constitutionally forbidden arenas the feds have laid waste to.
And of course theres the fact that this "money" of which much is spoken is actually just a share in a government run fantasy, with no intrinsic value (of course, you can argue up and down for years about intrinsic value, and taken to an extreme there's no such thing).
It was difficult to decipher this paragraph, but I'm going to extrapolate that you are refering to the fact that the money isn't tied to a gold standard and therefore has a rather arbitrary value. I agree with this. There should be a gold standard.
And that fantasy requires money to subsidise and operate. Yes, strange but true - if you had a system that "let[s] me keep ALL my money and spend it how I see fit", you wouldn't have "money" at all!
Actually, our government did let us keep all of our money prior to the 16th ammendment. And we did just fine. In fact, we created one of the most successful, fastest growing countries in the world...and we did it all without a federal income tax.
Also, physical goods aren't usually dropped from the sky, so at some point it has to go over roads and bridges and such, a portion of which is paid for by the state from tax revenue.
To be honest, my take on the subject is that if businesses want paved roads to their stores so that consumers will be more likely to drive to them, then the businesses ought to pay for those roads, not the consumer. The same goes for residents of residential areas...if they want paved roads, they ought to pay for them via the purchase of their house in association fees and a very small annual maintenance fees agreed upon by the residents. There is no need to drag the government (and its associated buearacratic and non-competitive costs) into it. All the other roads (like those joining city to city) should be paid for by the DMV when you register your vehicle and at the pump with a gas tax (that is to be used only for roads and road lights). In other words, the only people that should pay for the roads are those that benefit from them (drivers, businesses, residents etc). There needs to be a tighter accountability for funds paid out and the recepients of those funds...and I garauntee you, the road building and maintentance costs will go down drastically (because private industries will compete for the money).
Also, believe it or not, roads and street lights require only a tiny tiny amount of money compared to the amount of money collected by sales taxes and/or state income taxes.
In any case, if the people are unwilling to pay taxes for out-of-state sales, then the people should be heard, not the politicians that are buddy buddy with the complainers at the huge brick and morter outfits that see legitimate competition creeping onto their margin sheets. This is no different from the MPAA/RIAA asking the government to crack down on consumers because their business models are flawed. The government has no business protecting monopolies.
There is nothing unfair about this. You'd be taxed the same thing wether you go buy something at the local brick and mortar store, or on the web from a company in another state. What's unfair about that? If something is unfair to begin with, it's the current system. Incredibly unfair to brick and mortar stores.
Actually, it's incredibly FAIR as it is right now. You may have heard of this thing called "competition." You see, competition isn't just the arena for private businesses (online vs brick/morter), but also between states. If one state has no sales tax, then they are competing for more businesses to move to that state and make that the base of their operations (which in turn increases employment and the overall economy in that state). If you essentially eliminate these incentives which certain intelligent states institute, you in essence eliminate competition and innovation (which admittedly, the government is great at doing).
Rather than think of it like levelign the playing field, why not think of how great it is that states will feel additional pressure to LOWER their sales taxes and cut the glut out of their state budgets to accomodate the tax cuts which people obviously want.
As a side note - online shopping isn't technically tax free right now. At least in Pennsylvania you're suppose to mail in the sales taxes for purchases you've made "tax free" on the internet. Of course, nobody in their right mind does that. So from that perspective, it's not even a change at all. Just that the feds are stepping in to enforce it.
First of all, the burden to pay the taxes on out of state purchases is on the tax payer, not the businesses. This legislation would attempt to completely shift the burden onto businesses which is completely unfair. If the existing tax collection methods don't work because "nobody in their right mind" wants to pay for what they inherantly know is an unfair tax, then the tax should be eliminated altogether! And as a "side note", the Feds have no Constitutional right to interfere in state business (not that that's stopped them from instituting most of their unconstitutional agencies and laws).
The justification behind the law makes sense. There is no reason that customers of say, Amazon.com, should be mostly exempted from paying sales tax while customers of bestbuy.com or compusa.com have to do so for the exact same items.
Actually, there is a big reason. Best Buy and CompUSA have a physical presence in almost every single state and therefor must collect taxes for the states they exist in. Amazon only has a physical presence in 4 states (and they DO collect taxes from those 4 states). Best Buy and CompUSA a free to kill their physical stores and go with the online-only distribution model like Amazon.com, but they CHOOSE not too. Amazon.com most certainly should be exempt from paying sales taxes in states they are not even present in.
Yes, but the arguement is that the states do nothing to EARN a piece of that ecommerce money and have no right to tax it. Hell, I'd argue that the states do nothing to earn the money they tax on brick and morter stores either, but that's a debate for another day.
Maybe I am calling for reform here but tax for services rendered is the system I would like to see.
The system I'd like to see is one that lets me keep ALL my money and spend it how I see fit. You know, like the one the founding father's that drafted our Constitution had in mind.
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Almost no one. Libertarians are the only party that actually believes in restoring all of the rights republicans and democrats stole long ago (and continue to steal). Libertarians are the only group that believes in the philosophy of liberty and don't waver from its principles when facing difficult scenarios.
That, is funny.
I apologize for not finding a link, but I'm fairly certain I'm not talking out of my ass. I'm sure someone else will dig something up (hint hint).
Ok. You must be refering to history of the most successful nation on the planet. You must be refering to the history of the nation that is home to the most inventions, medical discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and globally influencial companies and entertainment mediums. You must be refering to the fastest growing, wealthiest nation that ever existed BECAUSE of the inherant freedom all the EVIL business men had. You must be referring to the history of the country that is home to the $40K+ AVERAGE income.
Look at what railroad barons and mining companies put their employees through.. Not to mention the food processing industry. Not to mention.. jesus the list goes on and on.
Look at what? The EVIL railroad barons that OFFERED the CHOICE to work? Sorry, but the only employers in history that didn't give their employees the choice to QUIT are the slave owners. The food processing industry? I guess you're refering to the meat packing industry that didn't exactly have great health standards. SO WHAT? You don't trust the source of your freaking meat, don't buy from that source! Not sure if that meat you're buying was packaged in a sanitary enviornment? DON'T BUY IT! The CHOICE is yours. Let's get back to this "list" that "goes on and on" of yours. The truth is, your "list" is simply a list of every instance of history in which bad practices met their demise or their reformation. The government never brought about the changes...individuals and the free press brought about those changes.
There was a time where there were no labor laws, where employers could work children all day, every day, for little pay, or what amounted to "credit" at the company store (still for little pay)... If labor laws didn't exist, ALL of these practices would still be widespread.
So the F what? If you don't want your children working in a factory, then don't let them. Don't like businesses that hire other people's children? Don't buy their freaking products! Contact the media and tell everyone how much you hate business X for employing small children and so forth. If most people feel the same way as you, then the business will go out of business unless it reforms their human resources model. Since profit is the core motivation, it WILL do what the public wants if it intends to survive.
I simply see this as the ultimate goal of true, unfettered capitalism. The endgame is to have everyone else's money. If everyone is rich, your money is worth less, so the true capitalist wants to be rich and everyone else to be poor.
And this is a good example of why you should leave the thinking and policy making to those of us that abandon speculation and isntead employ reason and logic. I'm a "ture" capitalist, and I want simply to be rewarded for my ingenuity and hard work. I also want to reward people that provide valuable products and services so that they will continue to provide them.
I am not a socialist or a capitalist. You don't have to pick one or the other extreme, no matter how many American capitalists tell you such. They tell you so at the ignorance of how the rest of the developed world operates: capitalist models with some social programs for things all of society needs, like food and health care, and the freedom to choose between them if you can afford to.
Sorry pal, but you can't have your pie and eat it too. Capitalism isn't an "extreme." It is a system that works. In fact, it is the ONLY system that works. The more freedom you add to capitalism, the better it works. Free market capitalism does not exclude charity or social programs, it only excludes coercion and force. If YOU care about the poor and the sick, you are FREE to help them with YOUR money. Capitalism don't stop you...in fact, it encourages it! Capitalism IS exactly what the people want. If the people want to help the poor, then the poor will be helped voluntarily by charities and so forth. W
[a "few" examples of businesses taking advantage of the power politicians sell them]
It's rad that you are able to take a "few examples" and apply them to all business. I wish I could do that...but I suppose I prefer not to GENERALIZE by propping up straw men to support my feeble arguments.
All oil/automobile execs telling us global warming doesn't exist
Again, totally rad use of the word "All" and totally rad how only a few "oil/auto execs" have the final word on all matters concerning the globe instead of say, scientists and journalists. Whenever I need to know how the planet is standing, I consult oil/auto execs instead of science journals and newpapers.
I was gonna go through each of your "points" and dismantle them, but it would be too easy and anyone smart enough already knows how weak your points are...plus, I'm not in the mood. The bottom line is this: Everyone, including evil business men, will buy and abuse power if it is available to them. You cannot eliminate evil/immoral men from the world no matter how much regulation you have, but you can reduce the damage they do by eliminating government intervention and letting the free market destroy them. Trust and quality always win in the end. Everytime a company tries to pull a fast one over the public, the public turns around and sues their ass for billions of dollars. The government has never fixed a goddamned thing. The only thing the government does is support the protectionist regimes of their buddies. The free press are the ones that discover and reject corruption, not the government.
As long as it's cheaper to bury the evidence or fight in court than it is to make right, big companies will bury the evidence. That's one of the reasons they're big. That part is my opinion, but my opinion was based on watching how they act.. and this is the shit that DID see the light of day. That means there is a lot more that didn't.
So what? If you don't like or trust a company, don't buy their freaking products or services. If you think companies obscure "evidence" then don't support them! Start a website called thiscompanylies.com or something and list the supposedly obscured "evidence" for people that care enough to check. Talk to the media, to bloggers, and to your friends and let them know how you feel about this evil company. Look at the Sony rootkit fiasco. The public found out, the public wrote endlessly about it, the public sued, and Sony got owned. Companies don't get away with dishonesty in the end. In the end, companies that lie and cheat and so forth are not supported by the buying public. I know I won't buy any more sony products as a result of their business practices, and if it means enough to you, you won't either. All your "examples" of corporate corruption resulted in justice. Enron, which simply wasn't a profitable company regardless of its spurious accounting practices, failed. If Walmart really treated their employees badly, their employees wouldn't work for them. Car companies that do make faulty parts are eventually sued and most of them actually recall their cars before that happens. The tobacco industry are a bunch of assholes, but that doesn't relieve people of their personal responsibility. Breathing smoke into your lungs is clearly not a healthy practice and every damn smoker knows it. If smokers don't care enough about their health to boycott the industry that poisons them, fuck em. Exxon whatever. Who cares WHY the oil spill happened? The bottom line is Exxon paid out the ass for their mistake and I guarantee you every oil executive on the planet has thought long and hard about preventing subsequent disasters to avoid further extremely expensive lawsuits. Drug companies? Yeah, they are so evil. Forget the fact that their greed has saved millions of lives, prevented millions of diseases, and generally helped every single one of us at one time or another...they must all be evi
That's so rad. You blame "big business" for buying things that are for sale instead of blaming the government for selling it. Here's a novel idea...why not reduce the government to its constitutional size so that big business has no desire to buy it? How about taking the power out of the hands of politicians so that there is no power to sell?
I watched it. It was fantastic example of generalization and simplification, but mostly, it was a beautiful case of false causality. It's always amazing to me that people blame "corporations" for buying the government instead of blaming the government for having too much power to make it worth buying.
As far as your anecdotal evidence goes...I'd normally agree with you assessment of its value, but when you construct your anecdotes to "prove" your point, you should try to choose ones that are analogous. The GP's comment made no conclusions, but yours did. While you were obvioulsy attempting to be clever with your sarcastic anecdote, a false analogy is still a false analogy and certainly failed to underline your "point" that anecdotal evidence is useless. It only made you look the fool.
You call this a point? Aside from being a false analogy and the apotheosis of baseless logic, it ALSO only serves to SUPPORT the very point you are trying so desperately to undermine. LOL. You see, your conclusion is wrong, but the fact is, MOST birds are not in fact victims of hungry cats. Most birds die of "old age". The odd cat that catches a bird is in fact the odd cat. Still want to use your analogy? Ok, well, most upper-middle class people were not born wealthy. In fact, most billionaires are entirely self-made. Here are some actaul FACTS supporting the FACT that most wealthy people are self-made (maybe you can use them to improve your infalliable "logic" skills): http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/2005/03/10/cz_l k_lg_0310commentary_bill05.html
I don't think he's seeing the context of reality...or truth for that matter. You can't be a "top" wage earner in America and only pay 20% in taxes. He's either lying (probable), manipulating his tax data to the IRS, or has a very different take on "top" wage earner than you or I. Now, I'm assuming that despite his protests, he really is ignoring all the other taxes (Social Security, Property, consumption, state, local etc), but if this were true, it would put his income even lower than my estimate. My guess is that he earns between 40 and 50 grand a year: http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html.
Nothing wrong with that, but it's only slightly above average, and certainly doesn't qualify one as a "top" earner. Maybe in Mexico, but not in the US where the median income is over 40K a year: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/income_wealth/002484.html
In short, I call Bullshit.
Read these:o ne.htm m S chools 0 68 I CLE_ID=26270
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/EducationForEvery
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/FreeTheSchools.ht
http://harrybrowne.org/Journal0409.htm#Government
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ART
He's also probably about 1000 times more valuable than you in that he, through his leadership and management skills is capable of earning 1000 times more money for the company which still pays thousands of people annual salaries. What would you have him do, not cut the employees and see the ENTIRE company go bankrupt so that NO jobs are available for anyone?
A CEO is a CEO earning the big buck because he can see the big picture. You clearly aren't part of it.
We have been dumbed down because the federal government controls education. The government, in fact, has a monopoly on education. When monopolies occur, prices go up and quality wanes. TV has little to do with it because kids are still forced by the federal government to attend schools 8 hours a day. It just so happens that those 8 hours are terribly useless. If anything is "sickening" it is that you don't realize that government is what ruins everything it touches, including college, healthcare, radio bandwidth and Shakespeare.
Prove it. I think you "typically" generalize without two facts to stand on.
Unfortunately, because employer X is the government, he has a monopoly on the education market. No matter how poorly the government performs, they will will still receive funding and that funding will more than likely increase every year because there are no stockholders they are accountable for and no one is personally responsible. It's very easy for a politician that literally knows nothing about education to come up with some crackpot "plan" for education that requires lots of money...because ultimately he/she is not responsible for the results of that plan...the taxpayers are.
The best way to cure education problems is to eradicate the monopoly in the market that creates them and completely eliminate the government from the picture. The free market, every single year, has doubled the power of a computer...while reducing its pricing by half. Just imagine how well everyone's kids would be educated and how many educational options there would be if education was left to the free market. It would be cheaper, it would be better, and all the teachers, administrators and owners would be directly accountable for their actions because they depended on EARNING your money rather than knowing it would always be there no matter what.
And of course that fails to acknowledge that these "25 gig" movies are going to be compressed with the latest comprssion algorithm into 4.3 gigs or less so we can fit them on standard single layer dvds. Hell, I download 42 minutes of HDTV rips with 5.1 sound and it comes in at a nice 699 MB--just perfect for a plain ol CD and it looks GREAT. A movie with the same quality is only 2 or 3 times as long...so it's obvious that the downloads won't be as massive as the industry hopes they will be. It will only take ONE person to rip each new HDDVD/bluray disc even if it has to be through an analog hole, and the rest, will be history.
I'd also suggest that you join the talk and community pages on wikipedia to make this suggestion.
The real arguement here is why a business that has made a very deliberate decision to move to a sales-tax free location (or a low tax location) should have to collect sales taxes for OTHER states? The incentive for the business to move and operate to the no-sale tax location will be largely eliminated if it is an ecommerce business as it knows that consumers would much rather purchase items on the internet when they are not taxed. Right or wrong, this is how it works, and ultimately, it should not be the businesses burden to collect taxes for states it's not even associated with! Brick and Morter businesses in sales-tax free locations don't have to collect taxes from out of state consumers, so why the hell should an ecommerce business have to? This is clearly a case of brick and morter businesses trying to protect their monopolies and using politicians to make it happen.
The federal government absolutely has the right to regulate (and tax) interstate business. Arguably you could say that what the Feds should do is impose a "federal sales taxes" on interstate commerce and distribute the proceed to the state in one way or another. I could see that point.
Wrong. I urge you to review the powers and limits of the federal government in The Constitution. You are urged to review Sections 8-10 that outline just how few rights the federal government has over states and state commerce.
The fact is, the federal government has no legal or Constitutional right to impose ANY laws or regulations on state businesses or state taxes, let alone the hundreds and thousands of constitutionally forbidden arenas the feds have laid waste to.
It was difficult to decipher this paragraph, but I'm going to extrapolate that you are refering to the fact that the money isn't tied to a gold standard and therefore has a rather arbitrary value. I agree with this. There should be a gold standard.
And that fantasy requires money to subsidise and operate. Yes, strange but true - if you had a system that "let[s] me keep ALL my money and spend it how I see fit", you wouldn't have "money" at all!
Actually, our government did let us keep all of our money prior to the 16th ammendment. And we did just fine. In fact, we created one of the most successful, fastest growing countries in the world...and we did it all without a federal income tax.
To be honest, my take on the subject is that if businesses want paved roads to their stores so that consumers will be more likely to drive to them, then the businesses ought to pay for those roads, not the consumer. The same goes for residents of residential areas...if they want paved roads, they ought to pay for them via the purchase of their house in association fees and a very small annual maintenance fees agreed upon by the residents. There is no need to drag the government (and its associated buearacratic and non-competitive costs) into it. All the other roads (like those joining city to city) should be paid for by the DMV when you register your vehicle and at the pump with a gas tax (that is to be used only for roads and road lights). In other words, the only people that should pay for the roads are those that benefit from them (drivers, businesses, residents etc). There needs to be a tighter accountability for funds paid out and the recepients of those funds...and I garauntee you, the road building and maintentance costs will go down drastically (because private industries will compete for the money).
Also, believe it or not, roads and street lights require only a tiny tiny amount of money compared to the amount of money collected by sales taxes and/or state income taxes.
In any case, if the people are unwilling to pay taxes for out-of-state sales, then the people should be heard, not the politicians that are buddy buddy with the complainers at the huge brick and morter outfits that see legitimate competition creeping onto their margin sheets. This is no different from the MPAA/RIAA asking the government to crack down on consumers because their business models are flawed. The government has no business protecting monopolies.
Harry Browne explains what life would be like without the income tax or the "fair" tax: http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/IncomeTaxDay.h tm
Actually, it's incredibly FAIR as it is right now. You may have heard of this thing called "competition." You see, competition isn't just the arena for private businesses (online vs brick/morter), but also between states. If one state has no sales tax, then they are competing for more businesses to move to that state and make that the base of their operations (which in turn increases employment and the overall economy in that state). If you essentially eliminate these incentives which certain intelligent states institute, you in essence eliminate competition and innovation (which admittedly, the government is great at doing).
Rather than think of it like levelign the playing field, why not think of how great it is that states will feel additional pressure to LOWER their sales taxes and cut the glut out of their state budgets to accomodate the tax cuts which people obviously want.
As a side note - online shopping isn't technically tax free right now. At least in Pennsylvania you're suppose to mail in the sales taxes for purchases you've made "tax free" on the internet. Of course, nobody in their right mind does that. So from that perspective, it's not even a change at all. Just that the feds are stepping in to enforce it.
First of all, the burden to pay the taxes on out of state purchases is on the tax payer, not the businesses. This legislation would attempt to completely shift the burden onto businesses which is completely unfair. If the existing tax collection methods don't work because "nobody in their right mind" wants to pay for what they inherantly know is an unfair tax, then the tax should be eliminated altogether! And as a "side note", the Feds have no Constitutional right to interfere in state business (not that that's stopped them from instituting most of their unconstitutional agencies and laws).
Actually, there is a big reason. Best Buy and CompUSA have a physical presence in almost every single state and therefor must collect taxes for the states they exist in. Amazon only has a physical presence in 4 states (and they DO collect taxes from those 4 states). Best Buy and CompUSA a free to kill their physical stores and go with the online-only distribution model like Amazon.com, but they CHOOSE not too. Amazon.com most certainly should be exempt from paying sales taxes in states they are not even present in.
Yes, but the arguement is that the states do nothing to EARN a piece of that ecommerce money and have no right to tax it. Hell, I'd argue that the states do nothing to earn the money they tax on brick and morter stores either, but that's a debate for another day.
The system I'd like to see is one that lets me keep ALL my money and spend it how I see fit. You know, like the one the founding father's that drafted our Constitution had in mind.