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#277 Nov 07 2011 at 9:20 AM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
Gumbo Galahad wrote:
Who the h*ll are you to tell a person [...] what kind of lifestyle they should be able to create for their family? Not only is it completely contrary to the very idea of freedom it's basically an endorsement of forced servitude. You would have a made a great ****.
It's what you do, twatsweat.

No kidding. Smiley: lol
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#278 Nov 07 2011 at 10:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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varusword75 wrote:
cat,

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It's the folks that make a 500K a year or more off their investments who really ought to be paying a significantly larger percentage of it in taxes. Past a certain point, you don't need more money to survive in this country; you're just getting more profit for profit's sake. All good and well, you made fantastic investment choices, but if you're not reinvesting those profits, you need to get pinged for higher taxes, period.


It's really sad you don't see just how f*cked up this idea is. Who the h*ll are you to tell a person how much they should be able to make and what kind of lifestyle they should be able to create for their family? Not only is it completely contrary to the very idea of freedom it's basically an endorsement of forced servitude. You would have a made a great ****.



We are not telling them what kind of lifestyle they should have, nor are we putting an upper limit on the money they can make. What we are doing is asking them to pay for a proportional part of the infrastructure which they use.
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#279REDACTED, Posted: Nov 07 2011 at 10:30 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Timmy,
#280 Nov 07 2011 at 10:41 AM Rating: Excellent
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Why do you continue to argue against your self-interest?
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#281REDACTED, Posted: Nov 07 2011 at 1:24 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Timmy,
#282 Nov 07 2011 at 1:29 PM Rating: Excellent
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Gumbo Galahad wrote:
Because when some of us say they value freedom and liberty they mean it.
Then you come in and complain about it.
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#283 Nov 07 2011 at 1:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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varusword75 wrote:
Because when some of us say they value freedom and liberty they mean it.

You have no idea what those words mean.
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#284 Nov 07 2011 at 1:54 PM Rating: Default
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Timelordwho wrote:
We are not telling them what kind of lifestyle they should have, nor are we putting an upper limit on the money they can make.


Huh? That's exactly what you are doing. You're saying that someone only needs to make 50k/year to live comfortably, so everything above that should be taxed higher.

Quote:
What we are doing is asking them to pay for a proportional part of the infrastructure which they use.


I'm not sure what this even means. So if I have a billion dollar investment portfolio, and I sell off $50k/year and live off that, I get to live tax free, but if I sell off $500k/year, I pay a massive tax rate? What does either of those two numbers have to do with how much "infrastructure which they use"?

Are you actually under the mistaken impression that if that guy spends $500k on himself each year instead of just $50k that he's somehow using more public infrastructure? How does that even make sense to anyone? If anything, he'd be using less *and* he'd be contributing yet more taxes (sales taxes for anything he buys). I've run into this "rich people get more from the system so they should pay more" argument quite often, and it's always struck me as a bit nutty, but in this case (capital gains taken in a year) it makes even less sense then usual.


Care to explain your thinking here?

Edited, Nov 7th 2011 12:01pm by gbaji
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#285 Nov 07 2011 at 2:51 PM Rating: Excellent
If a dude owns a business that has 4 remote locations and 500 employees, that's 500 more cars driving on the roads to his businesses, to start. It was cheaper up front to build 45 minutes away from the nearest town than it was to purchase land 10 minutes away for the factory.

This is the case all over freaking highway 316. Businesses snatched up the land at dollars to the acre 20 years ago when they heard it was being upgraded to a state highway. Now the state is screwed because the traffic is so so bad on that road and no one wants to pay the billion dollars it would cost to upgrade it further to interstate, limited access class. So there's this one 5 mile stretch it takes you 20 minutes to get through because the traffic is so heavy. What lines that part of the road? Before the upgrade to state highway, it was just the airport and the jail. Today it's car dealerships, warehouses, giant business parks, etc.

Had the business owners built closer to the cities and towns in question and left 316 to the airport and the cows, it would take us a cool 45 minutes to drive from Athens to Atlanta. But because of the terrible planning on the part of the state and the miserly transportation tax from decades of Republican governorship, it takes closer to an hour and fifteen minutes. And dozens of people are killed every year on the road because it's unsafe.
#286 Nov 07 2011 at 3:51 PM Rating: Default
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catwho wrote:
If a dude owns a business that has 4 remote locations and 500 employees, that's 500 more cars driving on the roads to his businesses, to start. It was cheaper up front to build 45 minutes away from the nearest town than it was to purchase land 10 minutes away for the factory.


I'm not sure what that has to do with the personal profit of the dude at all though. Does the number of people driving to work on the roads change if he personally makes $500k/year from his business instead of just $50k/year? And isn't he employing those 500 people, who can now afford to drive cars, and who are paying for those roads via their vehicle registrations? And doesn't he pay property taxes for his businesses? And doesn't he (in most cases) have to chip in for part of the development of the area he's going to put his business in (one way or another)?

So if instead of 1 dude, what if there were 10, each owning a smaller business in the same area, each employing 50 people instead of 500, and each taking home $50k/year? The total infrastructure required is identical, right? The same total profits made are identical, right? Why the tax difference?

Can we please be honest and admit that the issue with higher taxes is exactly about punishing individuals for being "too rich" and not about anything else?

Also, we were talking about capital gains taxes anyway, not privately owned businesses. So I'm not sure how your analogy matches up.

Quote:
This is the case all over freaking highway 316. Businesses snatched up the land at dollars to the acre 20 years ago when they heard it was being upgraded to a state highway. Now the state is screwed because the traffic is so so bad on that road and no one wants to pay the billion dollars it would cost to upgrade it further to interstate, limited access class. So there's this one 5 mile stretch it takes you 20 minutes to get through because the traffic is so heavy. What lines that part of the road? Before the upgrade to state highway, it was just the airport and the jail. Today it's car dealerships, warehouses, giant business parks, etc.


Yeah. Sounds like it was an economic disaster for the area. All those jobs and businesses and tax revenue from economic activity which wasn't taking place before. You're right, that's terrible! Smiley: lol

Quote:
Had the business owners built closer to the cities and towns in question and left 316 to the airport and the cows, it would take us a cool 45 minutes to drive from Athens to Atlanta. But because of the terrible planning on the part of the state and the miserly transportation tax from decades of Republican governorship, it takes closer to an hour and fifteen minutes. And dozens of people are killed every year on the road because it's unsafe.


So you'd rather the traffic and congestion occur right in the middle of the town instead of on the outskirts? So let's inconvenience everyone driving down the the store and doing errands throughout the day because gosh darn it, you need to drive to the next town over and there's more traffic on that road.


I'm not really seeing the problem there in the first place and I certainly don't see how this defends TLWs comment about how rich people somehow consume a greater share of public infrastructure costs.
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#287 Nov 07 2011 at 4:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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So you are admitting that it's false to assume that someone who makes $500k a year will necessarily have more employees than one making $50k?

Cool, thanks. Now we can all agree that trickle down won't work.
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#288 Nov 07 2011 at 4:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
So if instead of 1 dude, what if there were 10, each owning a smaller business in the same area, each employing 50 people instead of 500, and each taking home $50k/year? The total infrastructure required is identical, right?
I'd wager it actually requires more infrastructure.
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#289 Nov 07 2011 at 4:14 PM Rating: Decent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
So you are admitting that it's false to assume that someone who makes $500k a year will necessarily have more employees than one making $50k?

Cool, thanks. Now we can all agree that trickle down won't work.
No we can't. I'd say nice try but it really wasn't.
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#290 Nov 07 2011 at 4:16 PM Rating: Decent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
So you are admitting that it's false to assume that someone who makes $500k a year will necessarily have more employees than one making $50k?


There's no "admission" involved. The two are largely unrelated. A bigger business will tend to hire more people, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how much the person/people running it earn in terms of personal income (and we're not even talking about personal income here, are we?).

Quote:
Cool, thanks. Now we can all agree that trickle down won't work.


Sigh... That's not the entirety of trickle down economics. Trickle down economics says that increased profits will tend to be invested in ways which "trickle down" in the form of any of a host of economic benefits for the rest of the economy. This could be in the form of more jobs, or it could be in the form of better cheaper products, or it could be in the form of increased technological advances. On the whole, it will tend to involve all of those things, but you can't look at a single case and say "OMG! That guy made more money and didn't hire more workers, so trickle down doesn't work!".


You're also doing what everyone does when they attack the theory: Assuming that all businesses are small sole proprietorships, so that every dollar of profit is a dollar in the pocket of the owner. We were talking about capital gains tax rates, right? If someone's arguing for raising capital gains, they should really avoid using examples which don't have anything at all to do with the long term capital gains tax rates. Better yet, they should at least show some understanding of what those rate represent.
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#291 Nov 07 2011 at 6:36 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah. Sounds like it was an economic disaster for the area. All those jobs and businesses and tax revenue from economic activity which wasn't taking place before. You're right, that's terrible!


You'd have a point if the cities in question didn't have hundreds of "ready to develop" flipped lots inside the city limits. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to plan the infrastructure around three miles of road than it is 45 miles of it.

All those businesses could have easily been built closer to the people who were going to use them and work at them. Instead, they overdeveloped an area that wasn't prepared to be developed at all, and the result is the worst series of intersections in the entire state.
#292 Nov 08 2011 at 3:53 PM Rating: Decent
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catwho wrote:
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Yeah. Sounds like it was an economic disaster for the area. All those jobs and businesses and tax revenue from economic activity which wasn't taking place before. You're right, that's terrible!


You'd have a point if the cities in question didn't have hundreds of "ready to develop" flipped lots inside the city limits. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to plan the infrastructure around three miles of road than it is 45 miles of it.

All those businesses could have easily been built closer to the people who were going to use them and work at them. Instead, they overdeveloped an area that wasn't prepared to be developed at all, and the result is the worst series of intersections in the entire state.


You realize this almost certainly has more to do with city planning than the choices of the private businesses, right?
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#293 Nov 08 2011 at 4:09 PM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
catwho wrote:
Quote:
Yeah. Sounds like it was an economic disaster for the area. All those jobs and businesses and tax revenue from economic activity which wasn't taking place before. You're right, that's terrible!


You'd have a point if the cities in question didn't have hundreds of "ready to develop" flipped lots inside the city limits. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to plan the infrastructure around three miles of road than it is 45 miles of it.

All those businesses could have easily been built closer to the people who were going to use them and work at them. Instead, they overdeveloped an area that wasn't prepared to be developed at all, and the result is the worst series of intersections in the entire state.


You realize this almost certainly has more to do with city planning than the choices of the private businesses, right?


Or maybe some business bought up a bunch of cheap undeveloped land, and expect the government to build the infrastructure for them.

Since NEITHER of us live there, or really know anything about it, either of us could be right.

Or maybe we could talk to someone that lives there... oh wait.
#294 Nov 08 2011 at 4:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
catwho wrote:
Quote:
Yeah. Sounds like it was an economic disaster for the area. All those jobs and businesses and tax revenue from economic activity which wasn't taking place before. You're right, that's terrible!


You'd have a point if the cities in question didn't have hundreds of "ready to develop" flipped lots inside the city limits. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to plan the infrastructure around three miles of road than it is 45 miles of it.

All those businesses could have easily been built closer to the people who were going to use them and work at them. Instead, they overdeveloped an area that wasn't prepared to be developed at all, and the result is the worst series of intersections in the entire state.


You realize this almost certainly has more to do with city planning than the choices of the private businesses, right?


I can't say how it is in other states, but almost all major roads in NJ are under control of the state--the towns get almost no say in how their major roads (meaning ones that coincide with routes) are developed? And that these are the only roads we should care about for this discussion? And that the planning of these routes has to be relative to need? And that need can't be planned for until the movement of businesses is known?

Which means that businesses ultimately dictate how roads are used and by how much, yet tax payer dollars have to go to making those changes to accommodate the choices of businesses?
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#295 Nov 08 2011 at 5:18 PM Rating: Decent
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rdmcandie wrote:

Massive Debt/deficit
- Canada is close to having a balanced budget, and if the economic predictions hold next fiscal year we should end up in a surplus.



So I guess you missed Flaherty saying we would be billions over budget again next year?

Quote:
n his annual fall report card on the state of the economy, Flaherty said Tuesday the deficit won’t be eliminated until 2015-16 and not 2014-15 as promised during the election.

Finance department figures show the deficit will be $3.4 billion in 2014-15.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/11/08/18939496.html?cid=rssnewslast24hours



Nice of them to outright lie during an election like that. I'm shocked. No really. I am.

Edited, Nov 8th 2011 3:20pm by Olorinus
#296 Nov 08 2011 at 6:29 PM Rating: Default
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3.4 billion isn't that much, it is 2% of our current GDP. http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:CAN&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+of+canada

and considering the last 2 decades of a consistent upward trend of GDP (ie. Economic future trends) It was a safe bet saying that the Budget could be balanced. But it is still a very good possibility, the government only need collect an additional 1000 dollars for every person. This doesn't mean from people themselves, this just means to pay their bills up. (they are our bills).

This is a minor boom creating jobs, or an increase in domestic spending, an increase in trade revenues, a decrease in import reliability.

The single biggest boost would be for the states to stop dragging their *** and do something about getting people working and spending again. Spending into debt like they are without changing revenues.

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#297 Nov 08 2011 at 7:20 PM Rating: Good
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Deficits aren't nearly the enemy people make them out to be. The US' problem is that we run a deficit for too long. It's smart to run a deficit during economic downturns and work to pay them off when your economy swings back up, because gov't spending is one of the best ways to end a recession. Our own history proves that, time and again.
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#298 Nov 08 2011 at 7:47 PM Rating: Default
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Deficits aren't nearly the enemy people make them out to be.


Correct.

Quote:
The US' problem is that we run a deficit for too long.


Incorrect.

Quote:
It's smart to run a deficit during economic downturns and work to pay them off when your economy swings back up...


Wrong. That's exactly backwards.

Quote:
... because gov't spending is one of the best ways to end a recession.


Wrong. Crack smoking wrong.


Quote:
Our own history proves that, time and again.


When? When did government spending *ever* prove to be the best way to end a recession. The historical record shows conclusively that while some spending is worthwhile (and helpful), excessive government spending nearly always extends the duration of a recession. We usually recover when we stop spending money and stop trying to "fix" the economy. But by all means, show me where large government spending actually did what you claim.


That is at best a hotly contested theory, and at worst an outright lie.

Edited, Nov 8th 2011 5:47pm by gbaji
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#299 Nov 08 2011 at 7:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Quote:
It's smart to run a deficit during economic downturns and work to pay them off when your economy swings back up...


Wrong. That's exactly backwards.
Exactly backwards? So you think you should run a deficit while the economy is strong and can pay for more in the first place, and then run a surplus when the economy is tanking?
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#300 Nov 08 2011 at 8:06 PM Rating: Default
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Quote:
It's smart to run a deficit during economic downturns and work to pay them off when your economy swings back up...


Wrong. That's exactly backwards.
Exactly backwards? So you think you should run a deficit while the economy is strong and can pay for more in the first place, and then run a surplus when the economy is tanking?


If you can, yes. I'm addressing whether something is "smart", not whether it's possible. We run deficits during downturns too usually because we can't avoid it. That doesn't mean that its smart and it's certainly not smart to increase spending and run more deficit (which is what that argument is used to support).

You always want to run a manageable deficit when economic times are good because the economic gains from not consuming as much in year1 make up for the interest paid on the money you borrow instead. Obviously, ideally it's not just about deficit, but about keeping tax rates down as a percentage of GDP, but everything else being the same, he's pretty much backwards in his assessment.
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#301 Nov 08 2011 at 8:15 PM Rating: Default
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Hmmmm. I actually want to focus on this part as well (kinda missed it first time around).

Uglysasquatch wrote:
...the economy is strong and can pay for more in the first place...



The problem is that this assumes sufficient fiscal responsibility to actually pay down debt during that surplus without raising taxes. There's this myth that you'll borrow money when times are tight and then pay it back once things are going well again. Which is how personal finances tend to work. But in the history of modern economies, this has never ever ever ever ever ever ever (need more "evers"?) actually happened.

What actually happens is that when times are good, we raise taxes on the promise of running that surplus, and then spending rises to meet it over the next few years. Sure, we pay of a small amount of debt, but now our baseline spending is higher, meaning that we have less leeway the next time there's a downturn, leading for more calls for deficit spending. This leads us to a cycle of increased spending during downturns, which is paid for with increased taxes a few years later, which is followed by another round of increased spending, leading to recession, leading to borrowing, leading to need for more taxes, repeat, repeat, repeat.


That argument is used by those who want to increase the total size of the government relative to the national economy. The more important factor isn't deficit, but taxes. Which was the direction I was trying to go with my initial response.
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