death and taxes...
Now that the American people have realized the right-wing is batshit crazy, you will hear a lot of bizarre stuff as they desperately try to stop their slide into total irrelevance. So pay attention. Yes, history has shown it is a lot easier to mistreat people if you first censor them and then demonize and dehumanize them. Helps keep the conscience clear. for once i agree with williams... i'm not so sure the american people have realized the right-wing is batshit crazy, some of them are beginning to realize we have been scammed,but many still buy into the mc cain/palin fear and hate mongering, and blame fannie, freddie, acorn and the people losing their homes... blame the victim and glorify the robber barons with a big xmas bonus!~) jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
death and taxes...
where do you fit in, john? 50% of taxpayers (by AGI) collectively pay for about 97% of the total government spending, and the other 50% of taxpayers only pay for 3%. I'm part of the 97% group. ah, finally, a partial answer. so are you in the over $250,000 bracket? jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
At 10:20 PM Monday 10/27/2008, Julia Thompson wrote: On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote: Mostly that was just a weird story that leaves you going Huh?, but false analogy is used a lot. One of the best ones was popular some years back, before the Republican party descended into outright criminality. It goes like this: The government is just like a family, it cannot live beyond its means. Many people who gave the outward appearance of intelligence bought into this one, but it fails at the outset. The government is not just like a family. In fact, one could search far and wide and have trouble finding two institutions more unlike than a government and a family. Apples and oranges are identical twins when placed next to governments and families. And yet many people focused on the second part of the statement, while ignoring the fact that the premise was stupendously wrong, so wrong that it should have invalidated anything that followed after it. And I see identical twins in there, and wonder, Monoamniotic? I should probably head for bed now Isn't that how your interest in such matters got started? ;) . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Okay. Disregard the flawed analogy, then, since all analogies are flawed to one extent or another. Government living beyond its means has worked so well, might living within its means perhaps be worth trying? If not, why not? (Serious questions.) And a serious question deserves a serious answer. I will do my best. Treated in isolation, the question of the balance of spending and revenues is not particularly relevant. For instance, I have a mortgage and a car loan. I think that makes me fairly common, from what I can tell, but does it indicate that I am living beyond my means? In one sense, clearly yes, since I did not save up and pay cash for those things. But neither I nor the bank thought that was irresponsible. Do you? I think most people would evaluate that type of borrowing based on my ability to repay the loan. My car loan has a little over a year to run, my mortgage more like 20 years, but my prospects for repaying both loans in full and having a useful asset are quite good. When I was a professor of economics, I would often find that my students had taken out loans to get their college degree. Such loans were not usually regarded as profligate or irresponsible. In some cases they might have been if analyzed carefully, but in any event the analysis would have centered on the present value of future incremental income earned by having the degree, in comparison to the debt. It requires a little care to do the calculation, but it is not rocket science. If you find that the degree costs you $30,000 in debt, and only adds $1000 per year to your income, it is not a good investment, but if it can $5,000 per year it is an excellent investment. Now to the issue of government spending and revenues. When the government spends more money than it takes in as revenue, it actually has two choices. One is to essentially print money, which increases the stock of money in the economy. This tends to sound to many people like a very bad thing, but even that is not cut-and-dried. The relationship between the growth rate of real GDP and the growth rate of the money stock shows up as price changes. To have price stability (generally a good idea in theory), you would need to have the money stock grow at the same rate as output, i.e., real GDP. If the money stock grows more quickly, you will get inflation, if less quickly, deflation. Neither is good, and stability is in general the best way to go. So if you need to increase spending, and you cannot print enough money without causing inflation, the other alternative is to borrow the money. Governments do this by going to the capital market and selling bonds that pay interest. Now whether or not this is a good thing can get somewhat complicated. So let's just look at one factor to begin with, the one I have been leading up to. If a government borrows money, it will need to repay that money, with interest, at a future date. Will this be a problem? It would depend on how the money that was borrowed is put to use. If it is squandered on things that will not increase the future level of GDP, and hence the future level of government revenues, that might indeed be a problem for those who will need to repay the loans. They will in effect have an increased burden of debt without the increased level of income to pay it off comfortably. I think the vast majority of economists would agree that the deficits run up by Bush fall into this category. But in the situation we are in now, I think many economists would support borrowing to be used for productive purposes. The experience of the 1930s is still quite relevant. The U.S. economy remained mired in Depression as long as the government made balancing the budget the main objective (which was true mostly from 1929-1939). We didn't really begin economic recovery until the war spending kicked in, which was all deficit-financed. In other words, the main lesson of the last 8 years is not that unbalanced budgets are always wrong, but that putting Republicans in charge of the government is always bad for just about anything related to the economy. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux User #333216 God made an idiot for practice. Then He made a school board. -- Mark Twain ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
death and taxes...
i prefer taxing the rich. I prefer taxing Jon Louis Mann for all his money to reduce my taxes! you won't even get enough to pay for your meds, john. the most i have ever made in my life was $50,000, (in a year) and that was working two jobs... i pay the max because i use the short form. it would cost too much to hire an accountant to figure out ways to avoid paying my fair share. in the spirit of full disclosure, how much did you amke in your best year? jon __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] you won't even get enough to pay for your meds, john. the most i have ever made in my life was $50,000, (in a year) and that was working two jobs... That's okay, I'll take it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
death and taxes...
you won't even get enough to pay for your meds, john. the most i've ever made in a year was $50,000, and that was working two jobs... That's okay, I'll take it. i have $10 for julia, but i prefer the government to spend my taxes on social programs... as usual you dodge the question... how much did you make in your best year? i assume you must earn 5 times my best, since you are so opposed cutting taxes for low earners like myself, and NOT cutting taxes for those in the more than $250,000 a year bracket... jon __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] t i prefer the government to spend my taxes on social programs... And you prefer even more to have the goverment spend OTHER people's money on social programs. But you don't want other people to spend YOUR money on their preferred applications. Robber baron, robber comrade, you fit right in! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
death and taxes...
i prefer the government to spend my taxes on social programs... jon And you prefer even more to have the goverment spend OTHER people's money on social programs. But you don't want other people to spend YOUR money on their preferred applications. Robber baron, robber comrade, you fit right in! where do you fit in, john? maybe if you would reveal your tax bracket i would understand how you prefer the government to spend your taxes? jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] where do you fit in, john? 50% of taxpayers (by AGI) collectively pay for about 97% of the total government spending, and the other 50% of taxpayers only pay for 3%. I'm part of the 97% group. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Jon Louis Mann wrote: i prefer the government to spend my taxes on social programs... jon And you prefer even more to have the goverment spend OTHER people's money on social programs. But you don't want other people to spend YOUR money on their preferred applications. Robber baron, robber comrade, you fit right in! where do you fit in, john? maybe if you would reveal your tax bracket i would understand how you prefer the government to spend your taxes? jon My favorite quote is from Nero Wolfe: A man condemning the income tax because of the annoyance it gives him or the expense it puts him to is merely a dog baring its teeth, and he forfeits the privileges of civilized discourse. Among the things you need to be extremely careful about are: 1) unsupported assumptions; 2) inflammatory language; and 3) false analogy. I am seeing many of these being used in accordance with the principles developed by the Cult of Rand. Unsupported assumption: It's your money, and the government is stealing it from you. This is one of those things that never stands up to close investigation, unless you are willing to take it on faith as an axiom. Taking things on faith as axioms is of course the primary method of the Rand Cult. In this case, as a member of a society that does various things to allow people to make a living in relative security and safety, you have obligations to that society. The money you earn derives in part from the social structures that make that possible. If you ever doubt that, start suggesting that we get rid of the army, the police, the courts (and didn't we go through all this back in the days of Hobbs?), and watch how quickly the Libertarians will start talking about public goods. In practice, a public good is anything they find necessary, and wasteful spending is anything they don't find necessary. (As an aside, there is a technical definition in economics for what should be a public good, but this is rarely brought into the argument.) How government raises and spends money should be subject to intense debate, since there is a definite tendency for governments to spend more money than they should on things we probably don't need, but even there for every man's wasteful expenditure you have another man's vitally important program. But no matter how intensely you debate these things, to imply that government, by being government, is immoral, marks you as outside the realm of intelligent discourse. Inflammatory language: Taking your money by force Again, this is intended to give you the image of being mugged in a dark alley by scary robbers. By definition, everything the government does has the implied ability to punish you if you don't go along, but how would you enforce any law otherwise? Unless you are an anarchist and believe that everyone should have the right to decide for themselves which laws they feel like observing, you will have to have some type of law enforcement. Governments also punish you for driving while intoxicated, and are quite willing to use force to do it. And they are also quite willing to force you to support your children. In fact, most people would prefer that the government do a better job of enforcing those last two. False analogy: John used one earlier to imply that stiffing a waiter was a good analogy for Obama's economic policies. Mostly that was just a weird story that leaves you going Huh?, but false analogy is used a lot. One of the best ones was popular some years back, before the Republican party descended into outright criminality. It goes like this: The government is just like a family, it cannot live beyond its means. Many people who gave the outward appearance of intelligence bought into this one, but it fails at the outset. The government is not just like a family. In fact, one could search far and wide and have trouble finding two institutions more unlike than a government and a family. Apples and oranges are identical twins when placed next to governments and families. And yet many people focused on the second part of the statement, while ignoring the fact that the premise was stupendously wrong, so wrong that it should have invalidated anything that followed after it. Now that the American people have realized the right-wing is batshit crazy, you will hear a lot of bizarre stuff as they desperately try to stop their slide into total irrelevance. So pay attention. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux User #333216 If you're going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote: Mostly that was just a weird story that leaves you going Huh?, but false analogy is used a lot. One of the best ones was popular some years back, before the Republican party descended into outright criminality. It goes like this: The government is just like a family, it cannot live beyond its means. Many people who gave the outward appearance of intelligence bought into this one, but it fails at the outset. The government is not just like a family. In fact, one could search far and wide and have trouble finding two institutions more unlike than a government and a family. Apples and oranges are identical twins when placed next to governments and families. And yet many people focused on the second part of the statement, while ignoring the fact that the premise was stupendously wrong, so wrong that it should have invalidated anything that followed after it. And I see identical twins in there, and wonder, Monoamniotic? I should probably head for bed now Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
Kevin B. O'Brien [EMAIL PROTECTED] My favorite quote is from Nero Wolfe: A man condemning the income tax because of the annoyance it gives him or the expense it puts him to is merely a dog baring its teeth, and he forfeits the privileges of civilized discourse. ... Inflammatory language: Taking your money by force Now that the American people have realized the right-wing is batshit crazy, you will hear a lot of bizarre stuff as they desperately try to stop their slide into total irrelevance. So pay attention. Yes, history has shown it is a lot easier to mistreat people if you first censor them and then demonize and dehumanize them. Helps keep the conscience clear. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
At 10:05 PM Monday 10/27/2008, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote: Mostly that was just a weird story that leaves you going Huh?, but false analogy is used a lot. One of the best ones was popular some years back, before the Republican party descended into outright criminality. It goes like this: The government is just like a family, it cannot live beyond its means. Many people who gave the outward appearance of intelligence bought into this one, but it fails at the outset. The government is not just like a family. In fact, one could search far and wide and have trouble finding two institutions more unlike than a government and a family. Apples and oranges are identical twins when placed next to governments and families. And yet many people focused on the second part of the statement, while ignoring the fact that the premise was stupendously wrong, so wrong that it should have invalidated anything that followed after it. Okay. Disregard the flawed analogy, then, since all analogies are flawed to one extent or another. Government living beyond its means has worked so well, might living within its means perhaps be worth trying? If not, why not? (Serious questions.) . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: death and taxes...
On Oct 27, 2008, at 8:05 PM, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote: Among the things you need to be extremely careful about are: 1) unsupported assumptions; 2) inflammatory language; and 3) false analogy. I am seeing many of these being used in accordance with the principles developed by the Cult of Rand. Thus began one of the best-reasoned Brin-L posts in recent memory. Three cheers for Mr. O'Brien. The money I have, I have in part because IAAMOAC. I accept my obligation to that community, and do not consider myself under duress in discharging that obligation. The Children of Reagan have repeated their home-spun-sounding lie so long that it is literally common sense -- people's brains have formed around it for 30 years running. The big, bad government is taking your money from you by force, and spending it wastefully because our little family is living beyond its means. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
death and taxes
Oh, I thought it was just what tax is - it's giving up some of your wealth to pay for roads, schools, infrastructure, basic health needs and basic support for society. Charlie. and to pay for invading sovereign nations under false pretenses... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Devil, Darwin, Death and Taxes
nothing is certain but i believe the comparison between not believing in god and not believing in evolution is immaterial (although the converse makes more sense). i don't believe in flying saucers, either, because the so called documented evidence is not subject to verification. evolution is, and the theory keeps 'adapting' as new discoveries are made. science progresses because of healthy scepticism. there are evil scientists and evil clerics, but the latter are more numerous...jon - Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
