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#52 May 03 2004 at 7:43 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
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Really? Did you pay more or less taxes in relation to your total income this year compared to say 4 or 5 years ago? I'm betting less. So yeah. Those "tiny" tax cuts did help you. Maybe not a lot, but they did.

I don't want to get into the wall of ******** here, besides it's other people's turn to kick the mental cripple, but I have one question.



Sure... I'll give you the econ 101 answers.

Quote:
Assuming you're right, and the middle class paid less total taxes, who's going to pay for the $7 Trillion National Debit?


Ok. First off. Let's pick what we're gonna ***** about. Are we going off about taxes on the middle class? Or are we ******** about the national debt? Pick one. Don't switch from one to the other as it suits you for the argument.

Guess what? It's money. You take it from one part of the economy and put it somewhere else. If you decrease taxes, you must do some combination of decreasing spending, or increasing debt. If you're going to state that you care about one thing (tax rates), then worry about tax rates. Don't sidestep the fact that you're paying less taxes today then 5 years ago with "but the deficit is increasing!".


The answer will depend on how taxes/spending are adjusted in the future. In the same way as above, you can pay off the debt by either increasing taxes or decreasing spending. Seems simple. So it could be taxpayers that bear the burden. It could be "the poor" in the form of cuts to entitlement programs. It could be the military in the form of cuts to spending there. The question itself is not silly, but kinda pointless. Kinda like taking out a loan and then saying: "but who's going to pay off the loan?". duh...

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I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "cut taxes, increase spending" economic policy in play. Can you explain to me how the billion dollar a day defecit that causes get's paid for again? Is it voodoo?


Sure. Have you ever taken out a loan? Say when interest rates are really low? Why do people do that? Why do business do that? Find that answer, and you'll understand what deficit spending is all about. It's the government correlary to taking out a business loan. The assumption is that by borrowing money today, you'll increase your revenue generation down the line by a degree that you'll have more money left over after payments on the loan then you would have had if you hadn't borrowed the money. It's done all the time. Talk to anyone who buys and sells real estate for a living. It's not even that complicated of a process.


Say you borrow half a trillion dollars when the interest is really low (oh. Like right now). So you have to pay say 5% interest on it (which is about 25B a year). But you put that 500B dollars into the form of tax cuts for big businesses, intended to make R&D more profitable for them (or whatever forms of business you've decided will increase growth the most). As a result, you increase the GNP rate by say 1% a year. Depending on the size of the GNP (about 20T), and your overall tax rate on GNP (about 17% right now), then you'd have increased your tax revenues from 3.4T dollars to 3.74T dollars. Simple subtraction says that we've just increased our taxible revenue by 34B dollars. Subtract the 25B you are paying in interest on the loan you took out, and you're ahead by 9B dollars.


Need more? Or is that a simple enough explanation of how deficit spending works. The conditions need to be right. You need to have a slow economy in need of an injection of currency to spur it on. You need to have a very low interest rate (which is usually the result of a slow economy). That's exactly what as happening in 2001-2003, so that's exactly what Bush has been doing. It's smart economics folks. Nothing more...
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#53 May 03 2004 at 7:51 PM Rating: Decent
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Let me know when you can answer the question.

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#54 May 03 2004 at 8:17 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
Let me know when you can answer the question.



Ah... Ok. Then let me give you the Dem "alarmist" answer:

YOU will have to pay it. Yes: YOU! It doesn't matter who you are. You will have to pay. OMG! Lament the fact that we borrowed some cash. Ignore the fact that we'll get more in the long run from it. Forget that there are 300 million other people in the US. The government is "evil" and will of course target you personally to pay off all debts. And even if they insist that only some other guy will have to pay, you know that they are lying, right?

There's a wide range of people in the US, with a wide range of economic spectrum, yet whoever you are, the Dems will make sure you are aware that you will have to pay. Or worse yet! You're children will pay. Oh. The horror!


Let's ignore that our children, while saddled with this debt, will have luxuries undrempt of by us, and have an even higher standard of living then we do.


How much did a flat panel plasma TV cost 30 years ago? Don't know? That's because they didn't exist. Internet? Nope. Cell Phones? Nope. Laptop computers? Nope. Games like EQ? Nope. This forum? Nope? Hard to put a dollar amount on all that stuff, isn't it? Um... All of that stuff *only* exists because of the tenents of the supposedly failed "trickle down economics". You don't see a dollar amount, but you get something that you didn't have before. No amount of giving people free food and housing and medical care will ever produce new products or technology. No amount of subsidizing existing products will do that either. Only be allowing businesses to retain not only enough money to generate a profit for their owners, but enough extra to encourage them to "risk it" developing new things, will that process occur.


Sure. You can follow the Dem plan if you want. Heck. We could go to full socialism if we wanted. And we might even be able to make sure that no one ever goes hungry, and everyone has a roof over their head, and every single person has good medical care. But that just assures that everyone gets whatever goods and services exist right now. It does nothing to produce "new" things that might be better down the line.


A more important question is: If we follow the Dem plan, who's going to make the next standard-of-living-increasing technological breakthrough? Who's going to pay for the development of new medical techniques? We could have given everyone free medical care in the 50s, but then we'd still have the same medical techniques today that we had in the 50s. If we do it today, in 50 years will our children be better off with their free 50 year old medical care then with potentialy much more modern medicine that they have to pay for? There is a hidden value to the free market that extends beyond just the dollars and cents of the economic equation. It's just hard to look forward and see where we could be costing us, since we don't have those things yet. You just can't put them on a value sheet today. But it should be easy to look back and see by inferrence from the past that by reducing the amount of money available to R&D, we *will* reduce our future standard of living. Unless you're all suggesting we don't have any better standard of living today then we did in 1950?...
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#55 May 03 2004 at 8:22 PM Rating: Decent
LOL. I didn't think this thread would be that big, but carry on. Im learning political ...things?:)
#56 May 03 2004 at 8:22 PM Rating: Good
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It's really a pretty simple question.

I mean, there's an argument to be made for lowering taxes while cutting spending. I might not agree with it, but I can see the point of view.

Cutting taxes while *increasing spending* and creating wholesale, a brand new entitlement, seems a little harder to make any sort of case for.

I guess that's why you seem forced to resort to crazy random five hundred word posts of hyberbole that don't answer the simple question.

I tell ya, it gets easier and easier to expose you for the fraud you are every day. It's almost not worth doing anymore.
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#57 May 03 2004 at 8:25 PM Rating: Decent
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I'm a Libertarian, so if the election will not be close in my state I'll vote for whomever runs for the Libertarian party. But if it's going to be close I'll vote for Bush again.


No, no, no. How can you vote for Bush. Freedom in Iraq... Pfffft. Yeah right! You got Sadam (that tyrant) out of there. So now it's your turn to do the same!
#58 May 03 2004 at 8:54 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
I mean, there's an argument to be made for lowering taxes while cutting spending. I might not agree with it, but I can see the point of view.

Cutting taxes while *increasing spending* and creating wholesale, a brand new entitlement, seems a little harder to make any sort of case for.


Hmmm... I thought I answered this. Guess I'll have to go slower...


If you lower taxes while lowering spending, you are maintaining a status quo (you're not borrowing any money). That's nice. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, you'll probably want to do that most of the time.


There will be times when you'll want to borrow money. For much the same reasons that businesses take out loans when they want to expand their business, or homeowners take out loans to improve their homes. It's an investment of sorts. You borrow money, and spend it in a way intended to make you more "profit" down the line (profit is not exactly right, since governments don't technically make profits, but it's close enough for the analogy to work).

If you are in a state where your economy is sluggish (like it was in 2001-2003), and your interest rates are low so borrowing money isn't that costly (like it was in 2001-2003), then it is actually better to borrow money to increase spending on those things that you hope will increase your overall revenue down the line.

Thus, by taxing less (especially businesses), you can cause that spur to your economy that will help lift you out of recession (which is *exactly* what happened). But you've still got your budget to pay for. You could trim that budget, but many parts of it aren't discretionary (oh, like most entitlement programs), so a Republican president would be stuck trimming stuff that his own party put in (probably wont get that going), and/or stuff that's already designed to help out businesses anyway (contract work), which would just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.


So yeah. You end up increasing spending *and* decreasing taxes. In the end though, what matters is whether growth increases sufficiently to make up for the increase in interest payments. As long as that happens, then whether you increased spending or not is irrelevant. They could have just taxed less and spent the same, and still borrowed the same amount of money.

Amount spent plus amount borrowed = amount taxed. Play with that equation all you want. It's just not that complicated. The fundamental flaw in your thinking is the assumption that borrowing (debt) is bad. This is a carryover from handling a persons finances (in which carrying debt is almost always a bad thing). Government finances don't work the same way. What matters is *how* you spend (and tax). You can design your tax structure and your spending structure to encourage future growth, or inhibit it. At a very simple level, the difference between Rep and Dem economics is that the Dems want to get stuff for people *today* at the expense of growth for tomorrow. The Reps want to do the opposite. Which is better is up to you to decide. Personally, I think the "buiding future growth" plan is better. YMMV though.



Edited, Mon May 3 21:57:25 2004 by gbaji
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#59 May 03 2004 at 9:15 PM Rating: Decent
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Let me ask the question very simply again. Who's going to pay for the debt?

It could be answered with about ten words. You've thusfar spent...let me run a word count real quick...One thousand, six hurndred and twenty eight not answering it.

One, that's about 1600 words more than is needed, which is really quite astonishing. Two, it's stunning you still can't answer the question. Let me make it multiple choice for you, perhaps that will make it easier:

A) The middle class will end up paying for the debt in the form of higher taxes.

B) The magic money fairy will come and the debt will vanish and no one will have to pay for it.

C) The economy will grow at 470% rate, which is what would be required to compensate for the current increasses in spending coupled with the reduction in tax rates.

Now you only need respond with a single letter, not lets see, the NINE THOUSAND characters you've spent thusfar.

Oh, hey, by the way. Do you rent that place in CA or own it?

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#60 May 03 2004 at 10:09 PM Rating: Decent
Yaaaa well the other GUY SUCKS ,,!,,
#61 May 03 2004 at 10:21 PM Rating: Decent
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My vote gos to the bush. Then iI would like to be hired as his/her(Whatever sex a bush is) "First Water Boy". It would be great.:)
#62 May 03 2004 at 11:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
Let me ask the question very simply again. Who's going to pay for the debt?


I've told you. We're all going to pay it. But the value we get along the way is worth it. Who is "middle class" Smash? Everyone pays it. We pay it because the cash allocated to pay off the debt comes off the top of the budget. If that means that a bit of disbility gets shaved to pay it, then the "poor" are paying for some of it. If that means that you don't get a tax break buying your first house, then *you* are paying it. If that means we increase taxes on big business then they pay that portion. If that means that we cut government programs (like NASA and such), then again those big businesses that get the contracts for such things will pay a portion.

You're trying to steer the question into a ludicrous political spin. Simple income tax off the average wage earner is only one part of the revenue the government takes in. Assuming that any extra expense will be dumped into middle class income taxes is an amazing oversimplification.

But then, you want things "simple". After all, as long as people make up their political views off statements that can fit on a bumber sticker, then it becomes much easier to lie to them. "Save the Whales!". "Make love not war!". "No Nukes!". Yup. All incredible oversimplifications. The real world is a bit more complicated. Not terribly so. But it does require a bit more thought then: "Oh no! They're borrowing money and you and *gasp* your children will have to pay...".



My issue isn't with answering your question. I just think you are asking the wrong question in the first place.

It shouldn't be "Who's going to pay it?". It should be: "Are we going to be better or worse off in the long run for borrowing this money?". I happen to believe that in the specific situation in which we are currently borrowing money, the answer is "yes".

I'm not ignoring your question Smash. I just think it's irrelevent and leading.



Quote:
Oh, hey, by the way. Do you rent that place in CA or own it?



I own. Why? I bought it for 285k. It's currently worth about 360k (bout 18 months later). Yes. I'm one of those "evil" people who makes his money work for him instead of the other way around...
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#63 May 03 2004 at 11:27 PM Rating: Decent
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Just curious. I'm bored and trying to build an imaginary "Gbaji" personality in my mind. The only bit I can't figure out is why you live with the female roomate.

Quote:

You're trying to steer the question into a ludicrous political spin. Simple income tax off the average wage earner is only one part of the revenue the government takes in. Assuming that any extra expense will be dumped into middle class income taxes is an amazing oversimplification.

Sometimes things really are simple. The middle class carries about 80% of the burden of all money that reaches the coffers of the government. If you want to dispute that show me something that indicates otherwise. Keep in mind, that the middle class get nailed with payroll taxes which generate a vast amount of revenue for the Feds independent of income tax. It's largely a function of numbers. There's more middle class than there are other classes. There's really no way around the middle class burdoning the majority of the load unless you lessen the load.

That's my point. This administration is spending and not collecting revenue. That's no one's model of economics, it's just "something for nothing" politics that can't help but bite us inthe ***. That's not just my oppinion, it's the oppinion of fiscal conservatives as well. When you get economists from the left and the right agreeing on something there's a pretty good chance they're right.

Edited, Tue May 4 00:36:15 2004 by Smasharoo
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#64 May 03 2004 at 11:45 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
Just curious. I'm bored and trying to build an imaginary "Gbaji" personality in my mind. The only bit I can't figure out is why you live with the female roomate.


Lol. Why not? Um... I used to have *two* female roomates for a while. Yes. We got a ton of "Threes Company" comments back then...


Really simple. I have a whole group of friends that I've hung out with since High School. At one point 2 of the females were roomates. Pure coincidence occured and I was looking for a place at the same time they were looking to move out of their appartment. It just made sense that 3 people could get a better deal then 2 (or 1), so the three of us got a 3 bedroom place together (for less rent when divided three ways then any of us would have gotten separately). After a few years, one of them moved up to LA with her boyfriend (who was also one of the "crowd", in fact we met here through him). For awhile my current roomate and I had one of my cousins as a roomie, but he moved eventually.

Later, the lady who owned the place we were in was selling it, so we moved into a really nice 2 bedroom condo in the Del Mar area. A couple years after that, the guy who owned it put it up for sale. I didn't really feel like moving again, and I really liked the place, so I bought it. End result is that I now have a roomate whom I charge rent (so shes technically paying part of my home payment, which works pretty darn well).

I get help making my mortage. She gets to live in a really nice part of town, relatively close to the UCSD (if you take the Torrey Pines back way), and for much cheaper then she'd be able to get any other way. That way she's saving up money, so when she gets her Professorship and goes to work somewhere, she can buy herself a house wherever she goes. We've known eachother long enough that we don't get in eachother's way, and can manage to not get on eachother's nerves too much. It's just a convenient arrangement. I was actually expecting her to leave this summer, but it looks like she's going to be in SD for one more year (timing on the disertation and job openings that she liked, and funding for school just didn't sync up, so she's going to put off presenting until next winter/spring).


There. Any other questions?... ;)
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#65 May 03 2004 at 11:47 PM Rating: Decent
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One more. It's Qualcomm you work for?
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#66 May 03 2004 at 11:48 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
Sometimes things really are simple. The middle class carries about 80% of the burden of all money that reaches the coffers of the government. If you want to dispute that show me something that indicates otherwise. Keep in mind, that the middle class get nailed with payroll taxes which generate a vast amount of revenue for the Feds independent of income tax. It's largely a function of numbers. There's more middle class than there are other classes. There's really no way around the middle class burdoning the majority of the load unless you lessen the load.


That's also a matter of pure definition. If you're defining "middle class" to be everyone with an income between 20k and 200k, then sure, they're going to shoulder 80% of the tax burden, one way or another (via income, payroll cuts, tarrifs on goods they want/need, whatever). Um... But that's like 80% of the population, so what's the problem?
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#67 May 03 2004 at 11:50 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
One more. It's Qualcomm you work for?



Hmmm... That would be a good guess given the clues I've dropped. I'll leave it at that though... ;)
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#68 May 03 2004 at 11:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:

Um... But that's like 80% of the population, so what's the problem?

Well, philospohically, for me, the problem is that the top ten percent, allthough moreso the top one percent get a free ride. Economically, the problem is that the current model *today* is broken by everyone's measure. The only reason taxes aren't raised allready is political and not economic. The war, and the medicare bill require funding. That's fine, we can argue if we should do them or not, it's irrelevant. But the money does eventually have to come from somewhere. Even the most optimistic free market supply side people don't think the current situation is beneficial.

You're going to see inflation soon, and very possibly a colapse of the residental real estate market. IMHO. One of the reason's I'm probably selling my Virginia place this calandar year.
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#69 May 03 2004 at 11:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:

Hmmm... That would be a good guess given the clues I've dropped. I'll leave it at that though... ;)

Making good gueses is my job. I'll check that off as a "yes".
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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#70 May 03 2004 at 11:54 PM Rating: Decent
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To Lefein

You are deluded if you think the rest of the world fears us. If they did, we would not have had 9/11, and therefore Afghanistan and not Iraq (only because Bush would have no reason, although given time, I'm sure he could create on, or his advisors would). The world hates us, our allies are losing elections because they went against what the citizens of their country wanted. Americans are attacked and killed daily in a war that was supposed to be over a year ago. Do our senators and our president care, probably not that much. The majority of politicians have enough money that it is not usually their children on the front lines. I had a friend recently return from Iraq only 3 weeks before her mother left to go there, and my friend's boyfriend is still there. I also have a friend serving in Korea, and I pray daily that they will return safely. If you think we had to fight these wars because people fear us, then think again. Scared people don't fight back, angry people full of hate fight.
#71 May 03 2004 at 11:58 PM Rating: Decent
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So how come no SO or whatnot, Gbaji? You're about my age, maybe a few years older, financially secure, no desire for little Gbajis?
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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#72 May 04 2004 at 12:19 AM Rating: Good
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TILT
He's waiting for the right 18yr old in a swimming pool Smiley: lol
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#73 May 04 2004 at 12:41 AM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
Well, philospohically, for me, the problem is that the top ten percent, allthough moreso the top one percent get a free ride.


Eh. That could be. It really depends on how you look at it though. That same 1% also does not get nearly as much in terms of government services in relation to the taxes they do pay.

That same 1% also provides a service that government does not (jobs just to name one). One can argue that the top 1% contributes vastly more per dollar earned to our nation then the other 99% combined. Sure, you've got to have lots of people to dig the ditches, but someone has to pay them, and someone else has to have a need for a ditch, and someone has to arrange for the right ditch to get dug in the right place and for the right reasons.

Should they bear an even greater burden so that others can get more benefits? At what point do we say: "Hey. You're successful at what you do, and should get to keep what you've earned?".

It's just a fundamental difference in the way you and I look at economics, value, reward, and entitlement. I start from the assumption tbat each person should get to keep what he makes in the free market, and then we add government services that are needed by taxing those people. I make no assumption about the need or even desirability of an equality of result. In fact, I believe that the more we try to equalize the results across our citizens, the *worse* things become. You seem to start from the exact opposite view. Those who earn the most don't deserve to keep any more of it then what the "average" person earns. They somehow owe not just a livelyhood to themselves and their family, but to everyone else in the country, and we should tax them to the highest extent to remove the inequity that is wealth accumulation.

There's just no way to make those two starting assumptions agree Smash. I simply fundamentally disagree with your entire believe as to what a government *should* do in terms of economics.


Quote:
Economically, the problem is that the current model *today* is broken by everyone's measure. The only reason taxes aren't raised allready is political and not economic.



That I can totally agree on. It's one of the reasons you'll see a Republican increase the budget like Bush did (and why we saw Clintons shrink). Each party has things they want to spend money on. And that's not getting into the nitpicking within a party as each congressman wants to get his little bit in for his state or district. There's a hell of a lot of deal cutting as well. One can easily argue that the size of the budgets during Clintons last term and Bush's term have nothing to do with the party in power and everything to do wither whether a single party had "control". With a Dem president and a Rep congress, it would simply be harder for anyone to pass a big spending bill. This case would exist regardless of which party had power where. Once you had a single party that had both executive and legistlative, the budget grows. Again, it had nothing to do with which party was there and everything to do with how many votes you'd need to pass something, and how willing one side or the other was to make a deal.


Quote:
The war, and the medicare bill require funding. That's fine, we can argue if we should do them or not, it's irrelevant. But the money does eventually have to come from somewhere. Even the most optimistic free market supply side people don't think the current situation is beneficial.


I think alot of it is the relative alarmism relating to a dip in growth during Clinton's last 3 years and a countering growth in spending during Bushs first 3 years. When you actually plot the total spending across the long term, you'll see that what's happening right now is that spending is moving back up to the same line it's been on more or less for the last 30+ years. The line was unusually shallow during Clinton's last few years, which makes the upswing today look more dramatic. We're still just getting back to the line though.


Think of it like sailing a ship. If you want to keep a specific course, you can just go straight in that direction. However, if you turn to the left for a bit, you'll go offcourse in that direction. You then have to turn dramatically to the right, then back to the left again to get back online. That's what's happening right now. You're seeing that sharp turn first. I'm betting, once interest rates climb again, we'll start seeing taxes rise, and spending increases slow to bring us back "on course". I tend to agree that GWB should have been a bit more conservative with it, maybe just steepened the curve a bit to bring revenues back up while dropping taxes slightly. But maybe his economic advisors felt a more dramatic jolt was needed to push us out of recession. I have no idea of the specifics, but I also don't automatically critisize just based on the changes of some economic indicators. What I prefer to look at is that jobs seem a lot more easy to come by this year then 3 years ago. Consumer confidence is much higher this year then 3 years ago. People are buying stuff. People are feeling better about their financial outlook. Stocks are coming back up. Businesses are hiring and promoting again. Those are the indicators that really matter...


Quote:
You're going to see inflation soon, and very possibly a colapse of the residental real estate market. IMHO. One of the reason's I'm probably selling my Virginia place this calandar year.


Yeah. Possibly. "colapse" is a pretty strong word though. "dip" is more like it. San Diego has its own unique topology and sprawl. It's extremely rare for property values to actually go down (although it does and can happen). It's more often that the growth in property values just doesn't make it as good of an investment. But that'll occur as interest rates and/or inflation rates change anyway. What's far more likely to happen in this area is if the businesses get depressed, and folks lose jobs, but costs initially are still high so they either wont be able to maintain their own houses, or wont be able to afford rent. This causes a ripple in the market where there is more housing then jobs (cause they have to leave), and that screws the folks who use property holdings as a source of income as well. It's a double whammy that can devalue property very fast.


Historically though, property has always been one of the best long term investments you can make. Sure, you may lose some "value" (not the same as losing money) for a time, but it always comes back up again. The real trick is being diversified enough to be able to weather out the bad periods.


Heh. If we had guarantees in life, we also would have no opportunities. You take the good with the bad IMO.
____________________________
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#74 May 04 2004 at 12:45 AM Rating: Good
Encyclopedia
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35,568 posts
Jophiel wrote:
He's waiting for the right 18yr old in a swimming pool Smiley: lol


Speaking of which. A couple young hotties are moving into one of the units across the way... ;)
____________________________
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#75 May 04 2004 at 12:59 AM Rating: Decent
Please see below. Thank you. Smiley: jester

Edited, Tue May 4 02:00:59 2004 by psychojester
#76 May 04 2004 at 1:00 AM Rating: Decent
While the unemployment rate hasn't skyrocketed, it has increased. Here are the facts. Notice the decline during Clinton years, and the incline during Bush years.

I don't vote for a party, though I do think in general Republicans are all uptight, white-crust, satan worshipers. But there have a been a few good ones. I will agree that voting for a third party candidate is just the same as voting for popular candidate without actually having to vote for them. Nader being a good example. No third party candidate is ever going to win, much less stand a real chance, in modern times. Government is way to partisan.

Personally, I'm all for Kerry. He's got sound issues, and besides...he's not Bush. Then again, I'd vote against Bush regardless who ran.
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