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#27 Jun 22 2004 at 7:16 PM Rating: Decent
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This on the other hand is pure rhetoric and exaggeration. How many people starve in the US each year? How many of those would still starve even if you had free food being handed out on every street corner? Proably exactly the same. People don't starve because there isn't food to be had. People starve for a number of usually personal or psychological reasons.

Children starve because their parents mistreat/abuse them. Adults starve because they refuse to take a handout, even when they have nothing. I'm not sure how taxing our industries (which presumably would make "honest jobs" harder to get) in order to provide said handouts will help anything.



"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."


I guess you're not the first person to hold that view, but then I guess I'm not the first to ridcule it, either.
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#28 Jun 22 2004 at 9:44 PM Rating: Decent
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First off, Friar, personal attacks are the last place a person runs to when they have no argument against my point...Think about that the next time you try to flame me.


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Human being as we stand are not ready (nor capable) for this.


Pickle I agree with you completely. Human beings are indeed NOT ready to handle a socialist system (which is essentially what you want).

Socialism, on paper, is great! Food, healthcare, work, all gaurenteed! But there's a problem, socialism requires perfection in man. It requires that man completely eliminate there natural tendencies towards greed, creativeness, pride, inginuity, and the drive to succeed and raise your social standing. Also, socialism requires that man find a perfect leader who has absolutly NO flaws whatsoever. This is why a socialist system is a feat that could never be maintained nor made to prosper by man. Socialism would require a Eutopia.

This is also why capitalism works. This economic system plays on the basic tendencies of man (greed, inginuity, need to succeed, etc.) in order to create a stable system of trade.

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There is no solution.


Pickle, im sorry to say, your are right about this too. There is no solution to the worlds problems. No matter what economic system we use there will always be starving children, homeless people, and corruption amongst government and corporations. But, we have to do with what we have. Sometimes, you have to choose the lesser of two evils.

There are flaws in both systems of government. But again, we must do with what we have.

Now, Smash, congratulations on your successes. A great deal of luck without a doubt contributes to a capitalist system. There's nothing wrong with that, it's part of the game, sometimes you get a lucky roll of the dice (good call on the iomega stock). But that doesn't mean that hardwork won't get you places too. Good work ethic as well as a proficiency in a certain field will make you stand out from the pack of others in your field. Thus there will be more demand for your services. So, you can make more money in exchange for your services. Either way though, you will amke a living.

As for Scrooge, he was an ******* with several issues he needed to work out before he found the decency in himself. But, in the end, he did end up getting Tiny Timmy the biggest Christamas Goose ever.

Oh, BTW, there's much more to life then making money (it is convienient though). Some of the happiest men have been the poorest.
#29 Jun 22 2004 at 9:57 PM Rating: Decent
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There is no solution to the worlds problems


don't be such a pessimist

http://jnocook.net/saturn/files/links/bobk.htm

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#30 Jun 22 2004 at 10:28 PM Rating: Decent
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I want to go watch Armaggedon now...
#31 Jun 22 2004 at 10:30 PM Rating: Decent
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I want to go watch Armaggedon now...


You're gay, I knew it.
#32 Jun 23 2004 at 1:13 PM Rating: Decent
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Ah, yes Trickle down economics. It worked for Reagan, it's working now so what's the point of all the hating?.


Explain to me how the creation of a larger gap between the have's and the have not's equates to success for most people. Reagan's economic policies were bad, and deficit spending while cutting taxes (as is currently going on) is even worse. Even Reagan understood that taxes aren't the worst thing in the world and they occassionally need to be raised.

The simple truth is that Republicans don't want to invest in an infrastructure that would allow equal opportunity to succeed. They want to keep the status quo, or even better, create a society that is devoid of a middle class.

Voodoo Economics only benefits the rich, and even then, really only benefits the greedy.

On a side note: Awhile ago, Costco got their stock devalued because they were paying their workers too much money. Conversely, Wal-Mart, a company that is currently in litigation for gender discrimination on pay and illegally adjusting time sheets (not to mention a notoriously bad company for benefits and pay in general), had their value increased even though the companies are roughly in the same area profit-wise. That's indicative of the kind of thought process that Reagan's economics typified: "I got mine, **** everyone else".

I see Republican politician in Minnesota cutting away the infrastructure and refusing to invest in people, while they themselves are a product of the same institutions they are not only shortchanging, but are gutting. I guess they got theirs...

Grady
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#33 Jun 23 2004 at 1:19 PM Rating: Decent
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Now, Smash, congratulations on your successes. A great deal of luck without a doubt contributes to a capitalist system. There's nothing wrong with that, it's part of the game, sometimes you get a lucky roll of the dice (good call on the iomega stock). But that doesn't mean that hardwork won't get you places too. Good work ethic as well as a proficiency in a certain field will make you stand out from the pack of others in your field. Thus there will be more demand for your services. So, you can make more money in exchange for your services. Either way though, you will amke a living.


The reality is the reasons most people aquire even modest amounts of wealth in the United States, let's say $1,000,000 in net worth, are the following in order:

1. Connections
2. Inheritance
3. Luck
4. Determination
5. Merit.

Luck is fine. Luck is part of life. Mistaking luck for merit or hard work is a massive mistake. Connections and inheritance unlevel the playing feild for most Americans the day they are born.

It's a self perpetuatiing thing as well. The wealthier you start off, the less debt you have to carry to own a home, or a car, or an education.
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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.

#34 Jun 23 2004 at 2:26 PM Rating: Decent
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The reality is the reasons most people aquire even modest amounts of wealth in the United States, let's say $1,000,000 in net worth, are the following in order:

1. Connections
2. Inheritance
3. Luck
4. Determination
5. Merit.

Luck is fine. Luck is part of life. Mistaking luck for merit or hard work is a massive mistake. Connections and inheritance unlevel the playing feild for most Americans the day they are born.

It's a self perpetuatiing thing as well. The wealthier you start off, the less debt you have to carry to own a home, or a car, or an education.


Precisely! The whole "Value" arguement is a strawman. ;)

Eb
#35 Jun 23 2004 at 3:42 PM Rating: Decent
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Not with the ******* strawman again!

Grady
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#36 Jun 23 2004 at 5:33 PM Rating: Good
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Grady wrote:
Not with the ******* strawman again!

Grady


Muahaha... We're going to make you watch the Wizard of Oz or something like a zillion times. "look! It's the strawman...".


Smash. I never said that there wasn't a quantity of luck involved. Heck. Connections certainly help as well. But in the end, it doesn't matter what you did or what happened to allow you to be successful. It's the fact that you *can* do it that matters.

Luck and connections dont help you if you aren't willing to do anything to help yourself. You downplay your decisions. Why? You *chose* to buy a 90k house. You *chose* to buy iomega stock. Your success is the result of your choices. You're saying it's "luck" because the result wasn't guaranteed. Well Duh! Same applies to everyone else. You think someone with 100M instead of 100K had anymore of a guaranteed result if he were investing? Not one bit. If he'd put it in iomega, he'd be richer. If he put it in any of a hundred other stocks that didn't do well, he wouldn't be.


What's your point exactly? That luck plays a part in all things, but the amount you risk to luck determines the amount you can loose *and* win.


And the point you are totally missing is that the reason that iomega stock increased by 10 times it's wealth is because iomega made a product that succeeded. You didn't work hard to do that, but you invested in it. Your investment presumably helped, and that's why you were rewarded. After all, if there weren't a bunch of people willing to risk their money on that stock, they wouldn't have been able to build their products. You may not have seen it as work, but it was just as important to the success of the stock value as the guys building the product. Capital comes in many forms, and labor is just one of them. You provided 100k worth of capital. That's not insignificant...

Let's look at it from the other side:

If the increase in property value on your home had been heavily taxed, you would have had less to invest from the sale, right?

If you'd known that your capital gains on your iomega stock would have been taxed heavily, would you have been as likely to invest? Might you have done something else with the money?


My point is that you are just one small example of the economy at large. The same factors that affect your decisions of what to invest and when and where affect everyone else. If you'd made 30% less money off your home, you'd have had 30% less to roll into T-bills and iomega stock. If you'd been taxed heavily on those investments, you might made other choices with the money. All of that ultimately affects the amount of money that is "working" for us, paying people's salaries, building new products, and bringing them to market. Increasing taxes on those types of investments just slows the whole process down. It's not about how much you or anyone else makes Smash. It's about encouraging people to use their money in a way that benefits everyone in the long run. Rewarding people for investing in successful ventures seems like a pretty good way to do that. Sure. You can pull out examples of negative effects from "success", but when we look across the board, the "people" are better off when industry is successful then when not.
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#37 Jun 23 2004 at 5:42 PM Rating: Decent
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Luck and connections dont help you if you aren't willing to do anything to help yourself. You downplay your decisions. Why? You *chose* to buy a 90k house. You *chose* to buy iomega stock. Your success is the result of your choices. You're saying it's "luck" because the result wasn't guaranteed. Well Duh! Same applies to everyone else. You think someone with 100M instead of 100K had anymore of a guaranteed result if he were investing? Not one bit. If he'd put it in iomega, he'd be richer. If he put it in any of a hundred other stocks that didn't do well, he wouldn't be.


The scope and variety of choices available to a person with higher social standing, friends in the right places, or tons of money is much larger, don't you agree?

Unrelated to point above: Are you saying that poor people need to be more greedy?

Eb

Edited, Wed Jun 23 18:42:36 2004 by pickleprince
#38 Jun 23 2004 at 7:20 PM Rating: Good
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pickleprince wrote:

The scope and variety of choices available to a person with higher social standing, friends in the right places, or tons of money is much larger, don't you agree?


First off. It's not "social standing". It's "money and connections". There's a huge difference. If we were arguing fuedalism versus socialism, you'd be right. Your "class", established by your birth, determines how high you can rise and puts a hard limit on that rise. That's not the case with US capitalism though.

It's all relative. If you invest 100 Dollars, and Smash invests 100K, and someone else invests 100M, and iomega stock goes from $10 to $100 a share, you all increased the value of your investent by 10x. The amount you gained is in direct proportion to what you put in. How is that not "fair"?

You are as likely to have a family friend at the local store who can get you a job as the millionaire's son is to have a family friend who gets him a job at some firm. Sure. The "scale" is different, but that's a relative assessment. He's starting with more money and wealthier friends. You aren't. But relative to your current value, that job at the local store is just as valuable to you as the millionaire's job is.


The point is that as you gain wealth and make new connections, you gain advantage from them as well. Since wealth is a measure of value generated not just for you but for others, it seems logical to reward that work with more benefit. I still don't see a problem here. You don't just magically make money because you have money. You make money because you do something with that money that is of value to someone else. It's just as easy to make money with a hundred dollars as with a hundred million. You just have to put forth the effort to use that money in a way that benefits others rather then yourself. If you spend that money buying a gizmo for you, that's money spent benefiting you. If you spend it investing in something, that's money that benefits someone else. It is right that we reward that. Otherwise all anyone would do with their money is buy stuff for themselves.


Quote:
Unrelated to point above: Are you saying that poor people need to be more greedy?


No. Not at all. It's not about being "more greedy". It's about making smart choices with the most likelhood of return. Smash could have taken his 100k and spent it on trips to Europe and parties and cars. He didn't. He invested it. That's why he made more money in the long run.

Most poor people are poor, not because they don't have the opportunity to make their lives better, but because they choose not to pursue those opportunities. Sure. The truly poor (those who can barely afford food and shelter), don't have those options. But they do have the option to spend their time working on getting a better job and saving up more money. Many don't. Everyone who does make more then a subsistence wage does have the option to invest and save. Many don't. Not suprisingly, those are the people who are still poor 10 years later. Most people in general spend money on themselves first and think about the future second. You don't have to go out to see that movie. You don't have to eat out for dinner, or order that pizza. You don't have to buy that new video game, or that PS2 system to play it on. You don't have to have 500 channels on your cable.

The vast majority of people in the US fall into what I call the "working poor". They do have jobs, they do make enough money to support themselves. But they will never be "wealthy". Not because they don't have the opportunity, but because they chose to simply buy better and more expensive "stuff" as they increase their salaries. Wealthy people don't have investments because they are wealthy. They are wealthy because they have all those investments. That's the key. An average salary is sufficient for someone to begin building wealth. If they chose to do so. What's funny is that Smash did exactly that. He made one choice: He bought a modest home. He did get lucky in the amount that the property increased, but he knew going in that the reason he was able to buy that much land so cheaply was because there were some special constraints on its development. He knew it was underpriced for that reason. It was a good investment. It was a smart investment. There was no guarantee that it would pay off to that extent, but property tends to always go up. He then continued to make choices. In each case, choosing to invest rather then just spend his money on himself. Because of those choices, he now has a sizable personal fortune.


My point is that *anyone* could do that. It's not about guarantees. It's about opportunity. When you tax those structures, you reduce those opportunities for everyone. Not just the poeple who've already succeeded, but for everyone who might in the future. I would also argue that by taxing capital gains, you actually make it harder for the "working poor", then you do the rich. The wealthy do have more options, and they have the advantage of already having wealth. Investments are a great way for someone to break free of the contraints of a salary. If we tax them heavily, the guys who can get that 500k a year job due to their connections will still get more then you or I can. However, right now, your or I could move ourselves upwards by investing and eventually maybe making more with investments then we make in salary. Take that opportunity away and it will always be about who can land the job that pays the best. And, as Smash has pointed out, that's rarely based on merit alone. Nothing that the author is complaining about fixes that inherent problem. However, if we do increase taxes on those investments, then we take away the *only* path to wealth that does not require one already have those connections.


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#39 Jun 24 2004 at 5:01 AM Rating: Decent
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Smash. I never said that there wasn't a quantity of luck involved. Heck. Connections certainly help as well. But in the end, it doesn't matter what you did or what happened to allow you to be successful. It's the fact that you *can* do it that matters.


Not it's the fact that that most people *cannot* do it that matters. Most people will never own a home. Most people live paycheck to paycheck.


Luck and connections dont help you if you aren't willing to do anything to help yourself. You downplay your decisions. Why? You *chose* to buy a 90k house. You *chose* to buy iomega stock. Your success is the result of your choices. You're saying it's "luck" because the result wasn't guaranteed. Well Duh! Same applies to everyone else. You think someone with 100M instead of 100K had anymore of a guaranteed result if he were investing? Not one bit. If he'd put it in iomega, he'd be richer. If he put it in any of a hundred other stocks that didn't do well, he wouldn't be.


The problem with that argument is that people can't invest $50 a week efficently. So while a person with $100,000 may have most of the opportunities (allthough certainly not close to all) to invest as a person with $100M, a person with $100 doesn't.


What's your point exactly? That luck plays a part in all things, but the amount you risk to luck determines the amount you can loose *and* win.

My point was that merit and hard work are not what lead to wealth in the US. Starting wealth and connections and luck do.

So that a person who is lazy, and stupid will succeed more often than a person who is hard working and smart if the stupid person is born into a better situation.


And the point you are totally missing is that the reason that iomega stock increased by 10 times it's wealth is because iomega made a product that succeeded.


The reason Iomega stock increased by 10 times was that people lied about expected furutre demand. I happened to cash out at the same time that most of the inside traders did, by coincidence. The stock lost 90 percent of it's value in a few years after I sold it.

I'm not sure they ever turned a profit, at all.




You didn't work hard to do that, but you invested in it. Your investment presumably helped, and that's why you were rewarded.


I was rewarded because other people lied and inflated a stock price. I benefited from the greed of a few executives.



After all, if there weren't a bunch of people willing to risk their money on that stock, they wouldn't have been able to build their products. You may not have seen it as work, but it was just as important to the success of the stock value as the guys building the product. Capital comes in many forms, and labor is just one of them. You provided 100k worth of capital. That's not insignificant...


I didn't provide capitol to Iomega at all. Unless you're buying an IPO or stock issued directly by a corperation you're not contributing to capitialization of the company in the slightest. I bought someone else's investement in it. The economy didn't benefit from me buying the stock in the slightest.


If the increase in property value on your home had been heavily taxed, you would have had less to invest from the sale, right?


Sure.


If you'd known that your capital gains on your iomega stock would have been taxed heavily, would you have been as likely to invest? Might you have done something else with the money?


No, probably not. Since only gains are taxed, I imagine I would have done the same thing.



My point is that you are just one small example of the economy at large. The same factors that affect your decisions of what to invest and when and where affect everyone else. If you'd made 30% less money off your home, you'd have had 30% less to roll into T-bills and iomega stock. If you'd been taxed heavily on those investments, you might made other choices with the money. All of that ultimately affects the amount of money that is "working" for us, paying people's salaries, building new products, and bringing them to market. Increasing taxes on those types of investments just slows the whole process down.


Yes and no. Your assumption that more money invested equals more jobs has never been shown to be the case. You also have to keep in mind that I didn't really invest ANY money in Iomega at all. I bought someone else's investement in them.

99% of stock transactions are just that. Peices of paper representing bits of a company moving around. The company only benefits from issuing new stock or selling shares they own to raise capital. You or I buying stock doesn't give tham any mroe capital to work with.


It's not about how much you or anyone else makes Smash. It's about encouraging people to use their money in a way that benefits everyone in the long run. Rewarding people for investing in successful ventures seems like a pretty good way to do that. Sure. You can pull out examples of negative effects from "success", but when we look across the board, the "people" are better off when industry is successful then when not.


If all investment, or even most, or even more than a miniscule fraction involved putting capital directly into the economy, you'd have a case to make here. Fact is, it doesn't. Most investement has to with people trading bits of companies between themselves. Most money in investing is made from this process. Speculation.

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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.

#40 Jun 24 2004 at 6:08 AM Rating: Good
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Ok. You bring up a valid point about the capital isssue. Technically, all that happened was a change in ownership of some miniscule portion of the company. However, you're still not really correct in saying that your 100k didn't add to the value of the company.

If we didn't sell stock the way we did, what would happen? You purchased Iomega stock because someone else was willing to sell it. In fact, was actively looking to cash in his percentage ownership in the company. That's an important thing to realize. The stock represents ownership of a portion of that company. If you didn't buy it (or we didn't have the system for people to buy stock in that manner), what mechanism would be used for "cashing out"?

The replacement would be someone taking out their ownership. So if some guy owns .01% of the company, and he doesn't want it anymore, then he takes his .01% in the form of cash. Basically, the company would have to break off those assets and give it to him in return for him giving up his ownership of that portion of the company.

That's what would have to happen if we didn't have the idea of stocks being sold independant of the business itself. Yes. It's also speculative, but ultimately it does indicate a percentage of ownership as well. So when you buy that 100k worth of iomega stock, you are really preventing iomega from losing 100k worth of assets (assuming that's a reasonably accurate represention of that portion of ownership) which they would have lost if we used a more direct system.

So in a backhanded way, even though the stock just changed hands, you did in fact add to the value of the company. You added to the value they would have had if people cashed in their portions of the company instead of simply selling it to someone else. You also took over the risk that portion entailed.


Heh. I'll be the first to agree that stock value and business profits don't always go hand in hand. Especially over the short term. However, in the long run, they do. A corporation simply can't hide failing business for that long. Positive profits make the stock value rise. Lower profits (or losses) make that value decrease. While some people can certainly make whole businesses out of working those short terms gains and losses, most of the market and its value is about the long term. Heck. That's why we scale capital gains taxes based on the duration off the investment. If you buy and then sell a stock within a period of 6 months (I think? I don't reember the cutoff), it is taxed just like income. The super low tax rates that people complain about are the long term capital gains. You don't get those gains by playing trends. You get them by putting your money into businesses that do well, not just in stock value but in terms of real profits.


That's why it's a null argument in my opinion. The "bad" investments (speculation) end up mostly being taxed at high rates. The "good" investments (long term on businesses that do make and sell products of value to consumers) are rewarded with lower tax rates. If you don't understand that, and seek to target those long term rates, then you discourage the "good" investments. Why look to the long term if you don't get a tax break for it? You'll end up discouraging investments in those businesses and encourage the short term "trend" specualtive investment instead.

Is that a good thing? I don't think so. But that's what the underinformed seem to think is the right answer. They are told by alarmists like this author that it's "unfair" that "the rich" get super low tax rates on their investments. They don't understand that the tax rates are scaled based on the duration of the investment. They also don't understand that it's a very good thing to reward those types of investments. Certainly, we can't tax investments of any duration *higher* then income. Else no one would invest. We also must scale the taxes to encourage longer term investment (presumably more responsible, right?). So how exactly would you change things? It's all relative. Even a small increase in tax rate will have an impact on the market.


On a more broad note, I think you are looking at end result and applying semi-bogus logic to the problem. When you have a large enough population sample, you will find all sorts of extremes. So you can find the guy who worked hard and did everything "right", but didn't succeed. And you can find the guy who did evertying "wrong" and did. But the general trend isn't changed by those examples. In general, people who work hard and save money, and invest will succeed. People who don't, wont. Sure. There'll alway be that lotto winner who did nothing to "deserve" his winnings. But that does not cancel out the vast majority of people who did earn what they have. And IMO, reducing their chances of success so we can try to prevent ayone from failing is "unfair". Call me a meanie if you want, but to my way of thinking, I should not be punished for the failures of others. Is that harsh? Sure. But once you go down the road of trying to guarantee a certain minimum level or result, you discourage people from making smart choices. I think that we as a society should look at the rule and not the exception. The rule is that those who try will achieve a level of success. Reducing that so we can guarantee of a level of sucess no matter how miserably someone fails mayprevent that exception case of the guy who did othing wrong, but most of the time it'll just reward people for failure.
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#41 Jun 24 2004 at 8:19 AM Rating: Decent
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The facts don't support your argument.

If it were the case that people who worked hard generally succeeded, the middle class would be generally growing, instead of shrinking. The distribution of wealth would be moving towards the middle class.

There are two explinations for why wealth keeps moving away from the poor and middle class and to the wealthy.

1. The system is unfairly wieghted towards the wealthy.

2. People born into wealth work harder, have better genes, whatever reason other than the playing feild not being level you'd like to throw out there.

Personally, I find one a bit more likely. Having had the good fortune to have paid scholarships to school which educate people born into wealth, I can say with all confidence, they're not working any harder.

In a system that rewarded merit, there would be constant movement from class to class as the most talanted and determined moved up the ladder and the least talanted and determined moved down the ladder.

That's not what we have in this country. We have a system that rewards privlidge and connections above all else and punishes poverty. It should equalize both situations so that where you are born has little impact on where you end up.

The current President and Secratery of State are good object lessons in the way the system works. Regardless of your oppinion of his job performance, look at his life history.

Bush:

Born into a wealthy family, does poorly in school, but is accepted at one of the most prestigous High Schools in the country. Does poorly at Andover, but is accepted into Yale. Does poorly at Yale. Fails at buisness multiple times. Does poorly at Harvard, but is awarded an MBA anyway. Succeeds in politics largely because of name recognition. Is elected President.

At any point in his journey to the White House, Bush would have been derailed had he not been from a wealthy powerfull family. Had he been a middle class kid, he would never have attended Andover. He didn't have near the grades.

Had he by some miracle been admitted, it's unlikely he would have been accepted at Yale, even given the long standing "gentalman's agreement" between Andover and Yale that almost any student from one can attend the other.

While at Yale, there are serious questions as to he would have even achieved his poor grades without a little help from the faculty.

The chances of his going into politics would be almost non existant.

Powell:

Born to Jamacian immigrants, he attends a public high school. His grades are outstanding but he can't afford to go to an Ivy Leuge school, so he attends CCNY. Even with his outstanding performance he's aware that it will be difficult for him to find work after graduation because of his skin color and socieo-economic standing. He enrolls in ROTC because he's aware that the military is moreso a level playing feild than the private sector.

He serves two tours in Vietnam, on the ground, likely while Bush is preforming his Guard "service". He's awarded a Bronze Star. HE works his way up the coc eventually becoming batallion XO in '68. In '71 he earns an MBA from GW and works at OMB. He works in various places in government, and the military untill becoming Chairman of the JCOS in '89.

Who's more qualified to run the country? Who worked harder?

The point is that for Powell to reach the level he has, he has had to be EXCEPTIONAL. For Bush to reach the level he has, he has only to be BARELY AVERAGE.

Had Powell not been in the militray it would have been magnified 100 times. How many graduates of Morris High School went on to be upper middle class do you think? Now how many graduates of Andover did?

All I want is to live in a country where the poor talanted kid who works hard has a better chance to succeed than the rich average kid who doesn't work hard.

I don't think that's too much to ask.
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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.

#42 Jun 24 2004 at 5:37 PM Rating: Good
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Couple points here:


How are you measuring success? You ask how many graduates of Morris High school went on to be upper middle class? Ok. Are we talking about percentage? Or total number?

How are you measuring "middle class"? By what measurement are you saying it's "shrinking"?

On the one hand, you say that the "wealth" in the nation is being concentrated into a smaller and smaller group of elite/powerful people. On the other, you say that the middle class is shrinking. Which is it Smash? It can't be both because as the wealth gets concentrated into a smaller group then numerically, it's the "wealthy" who are shrinking, and those who no longer are in that range are now "middle class" (admittedly upper middle class, but we're putting them somewhere, right?).


Or are you arbitrarily defining everyone who can't buy everything they ever want as "poor" and just lumping a huge percentage of the population into that group?


Wealth is an abstract thing Smash. I've been trying to explain that to you, but you don't seem to get it. Back in the pre-industrial age, wealth certainly meant that someone simply owned all the land and everything produced from that land. But in todays economy, it doesn't work that way. The ultra-rich typically have 99+% of their "wealth" tied up in businesses and corporations. The same busineses and corporations that hire most of the people in this country. The vast majority of their wealth goes to benefit others, not themselves. It's a totally different model, and old assumptions don't apply. A concentration of wealth doesn't really affect anything as long as most of that wealth is being put right back into industry (which it is).


The key factor isn't dollars, but standard of living. Do people live better lives today then they did 20 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 100 years ago? The "middle class" certainly is. Again. How many luxury items does the average household have today? How many more is that then that same family with the same adjusted income from 50 years ago? Quality of life is what matters Smash. Not how many dollars you have in relation to someone else or to some other time.


As to living in a world where a poor person who excells can achieve more then a rich person who's "average"? I agree 100%. So reform the political process. Reform education systems. Reform hiring practices. I've got no problem with that. What I don't get is how changing the tax systems on capital gains does anything to solve that problem. That's what this thread is about, right? This author wrote a book highlighting the fact that "the rich" pay a lower percentage taxes then the poor. He says that's a bad thing. Presumably, he favors finding ways of taxing the types of income that they use more heavily (again, I haven't read the book, but it's a reasonable assumption based on the blurbs).

I'll say again: How does changing the tax structures on the types of income "the rich" have fix any of the problems you are bringing up? It will not change the distribution of wealth. It'll only stunt industry. You're deliberately targeting the exact portion of "wealth" in our country that generates our prosperity. You're robbing Peter to pay Paul Smash. Taking that money and redistributing it just means that you've dumped more money into consumption. The data says that it'll still just end up back at the top anyway, since the people who own the companies that the recievers of that money will buy products from are the same people you just taxed. The *only* difference is that while you've ensured more buying power in the hands of consumers (and presumably helped out some people in the process), you've reduced the profits at the top end. Those profits are what end up rolled back into new business ventures. The wealthy don't just lock their cash up in a vault like Richy Rich. They put it right back into business ventures. Taxing that discourages doing that. You'll actually encourage the wealthy to hold on to their money, or to buy thing for themselves with their profits instead of investing them. It's a horribly bad idea.
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#43 Jun 24 2004 at 5:40 PM Rating: Decent
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folks:

The candidates that never were.
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#44 Jun 24 2004 at 6:03 PM Rating: Decent
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Couple points here:

How are you measuring success? You ask how many graduates of Morris High school went on to be upper middle class? Ok. Are we talking about percentage? Or total number?


By any measurment you like, the people making $200,000 a year or more from Morris High School are less than those from Andover. Probably by a factor of 100.



How are you measuring "middle class"? By what measurement are you saying it's "shrinking"?

On the one hand, you say that the "wealth" in the nation is being concentrated into a smaller and smaller group of elite/powerful people. On the other, you say that the middle class is shrinking. Which is it Smash? It can't be both because as the wealth gets concentrated into a smaller group then numerically, it's the "wealthy" who are shrinking, and those who no longer are in that range are now "middle class" (admittedly upper middle class, but we're putting them somewhere, right?).


No. I think you need to pause and think about the simple arthmetic here. I didn't say that the group of people who were elite/powerful was getting smaller, I said they're getting more and more of the money. That money comes from the middle class. If two middle class families become poor families and one rich family becomes middle class...what happens?

Think it through, you'll get it.



Or are you arbitrarily defining everyone who can't buy everything they ever want as "poor" and just lumping a huge percentage of the population into that group?


I don't need to arbitrarily define things. That's your job. I work from the facts to the conclusions, not the other way around.



Wealth is an abstract thing Smash. I've been trying to explain that to you, but you don't seem to get it. Back in the pre-industrial age, wealth certainly meant that someone simply owned all the land and everything produced from that land. But in todays economy, it doesn't work that way. The ultra-rich typically have 99+% of their "wealth" tied up in businesses and corporations.


The ultra-rich typically have 99% of their wealth DOING NOTHING. Most of them own shares in large corperations and don't do a damn thing with the money except occasionaly sell a few shares to buy things.



The same busineses and corporations that hire most of the people in this country. The vast majority of their wealth goes to benefit others, not themselves. It's a totally different model, and old assumptions don't apply. A concentration of wealth doesn't really affect anything as long as most of that wealth is being put right back into industry (which it is).


It isn't. The Hilton's wealth is in Hilton hotels. Where it's been for the past century. They're not putting it back into industry. They're leaving it right where it's been. They're not funding new buisnesses. They're not outlaying capital. They have no reason to.



The key factor isn't dollars, but standard of living. Do people live better lives today then they did 20 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 100 years ago?


No. They do not, by any standard of measurment. It's more difficult to buy a house, to buy a new car, to send children to college. By any measure you want to use, people lead worse lives than they did 20 years ago, and 50 years ago. 100 years ago is ludicrously far out. I think our standard of living is probably better than it was in 1900 on average, but I think it's better than it was in 1066 too. Neither one is relevant.



The "middle class" certainly is. Again. How many luxury items does the average household have today? How many more is that then that same family with the same adjusted income from 50 years ago? Quality of life is what matters Smash. Not how many dollars you have in relation to someone else or to some other time.


No, they don't.

You should, perhaps, just once, look into the facts before you make blanket assumptions.


As to living in a world where a poor person who excells can achieve more then a rich person who's "average"? I agree 100%. So reform the political process. Reform education systems. Reform hiring practices. I've got no problem with that.


Given your position on Affirmative Action, apparently you do have a problem with it.


What I don't get is how changing the tax systems on capital gains does anything to solve that problem. That's what this thread is about, right? This author wrote a book highlighting the fact that "the rich" pay a lower percentage taxes then the poor. He says that's a bad thing. Presumably, he favors finding ways of taxing the types of income that they use more heavily (again, I haven't read the book, but it's a reasonable assumption based on the blurbs).


The fact that the most wealthy people pay LESS percentage wise than middle class people on income is an abomination. By allowing it to continue you give an advantage to the very people who allready start with one.



I'll say again: How does changing the tax structures on the types of income "the rich" have fix any of the problems you are bringing up? It will not change the distribution of wealth. It'll only stunt industry.


Where does this particular bizarre fantasy come from? Let me say for the millionth time, to which you never once respond, Raising taxes on the wealthy has never, ever, not one single time, been shown to impact industry negatively in any way. Ever.



You're deliberately targeting the exact portion of "wealth" in our country that generates our prosperity. You're robbing Peter to pay Paul Smash. Taking that money and redistributing it just means that you've dumped more money into consumption. The data says that it'll still just end up back at the top anyway, since the people who own the companies that the recievers of that money will buy products from are the same people you just taxed.


That's fine. That works. Now explain to me how it stunts industry since you've determined it's going to be put back into the sytem regardless. The point is the middle class will have less debt and more net worth at the end of the day, be it in a svaings account or in their kitchen in the form of a new blender. That increases everyone's quality of life. Placing a higher tax burden on the middle class lowers quality of life.



The *only* difference is that while you've ensured more buying power in the hands of consumers (and presumably helped out some people in the process), you've reduced the profits at the top end. Those profits are what end up rolled back into new business ventures. The wealthy don't just lock their cash up in a vault like Richy Rich. They put it right back into business ventures. Taxing that discourages doing that. You'll actually encourage the wealthy to hold on to their money, or to buy thing for themselves with their profits instead of investing them. It's a horribly bad idea.

Tacing them doesn't discourage it, for the love of god. Look at the highest marginal tax rates when Eisenhower was in office. The current system forces middle class families to borrow and borrow and borrow going into unrecoverable debt spirals.

That's why the average person carries more debt than at any time in history. That's why Bancruptcy is filed more than ever in history.

Eventually that model collapses. Every generation has to aquire more and more debt to maintain a standard of living that gets harder and harder to maintain. At some point the debt can't keep up and you have a permenent underclass with no real assets, who are or all intents and purposes indertured servants to corperations.

Raising taxes on the wealthy and lowering taxes on the middle class solves that problem completely. It won't prevent the rich from investing, it never has, it will prevent the middle class from having to go into massive debt.

Every person should have healthcare.
Every person should have the right to a FREE education.
Every person should have the right of basic food and shelter.

Without exception. The wealthiest people of the wealthiest nation on the planet have a responsibility to see that it is so.

We're a nation who spends more on pet food than we do on the homeless, and that's deplorable in every way.

Edited, Thu Jun 24 19:05:43 2004 by Smasharoo
____________________________
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.

#45 Jun 24 2004 at 6:19 PM Rating: Good
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"I signed up and post on this forum for legitimate discussion of issues. Gbaji has made his argument, let's see a legitimate rebutal." --Lordimsorry

Well, that was your first mistake. Anything worth discussing soon get drowned out by the chorus of screeches and screams from the FFXI playing howler monkeys who hang about around here.

Secondly, there are only a few of us who can adequately make a reasoned argument for or against any particular topic, but in this specific case, it's a hot button issue with Gbaji and Smasharoo.

Me? I know what side my bread is buttered on and it ain't on the Democrat side who aims to garnish my wages the more I work and earn. It's self defeating. Under that thinking, the less you work and earn the more you are rewarded. That's like giving the lazy kids in class an "A" for slovenly work habits and avoiding their homework. Oh, you missed half the questions on your test? No worries, here's an "A" for just showing up. As for you, you overachiever, you have plenty of "A's," so we're gonna give you a "C"-- no, no, make that a "D" so it all evens out among the class.

Nonsensical.

Totem
#46 Jun 24 2004 at 6:31 PM Rating: Decent
^^ :)

Nice.

Eb
#47 Jun 24 2004 at 6:58 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:

Me? I know what side my bread is buttered on and it ain't on the Democrat side who aims to garnish my wages the more I work and earn. It's self defeating. Under that thinking, the less you work and earn the more you are rewarded. That's like giving the lazy kids in class an "A" for slovenly work habits and avoiding their homework. Oh, you missed half the questions on your test? No worries, here's an "A" for just showing up. As for you, you overachiever, you have plenty of "A's," so we're gonna give you a "C"-- no, no, make that a "D" so it all evens out among the class.


That is, exactly, presciely, how the current system works.

The lazy rich kids get the "A" and the hard working, smarter, poor kids get the "D".

George W. Bush is a prime example.

Edit: Besides, your oppinion and Gbaji's don't matter at all. Your state's in Kerry's pocket allready.

Here come the taxes boys!!

Ahahahahaha!!

Edited, Thu Jun 24 19:59:28 2004 by Smasharoo
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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.

#48 Jun 24 2004 at 7:26 PM Rating: Decent
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well...

then why are all the poor people fat and the rich people skinny?

hm?
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#49 Jun 24 2004 at 7:28 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
well...

then why are all the poor people fat and the rich people skinny?

hm?


Because liposuction and personal trainers can be a bit pricey.

Eb

I know you were joshing. :)
#50 Jun 24 2004 at 8:14 PM Rating: Good
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Gonna just reply to a few points which I think highlight the flaws in your argument:

Smasharoo wrote:

No. I think you need to pause and think about the simple arthmetic here. I didn't say that the group of people who were elite/powerful was getting smaller, I said they're getting more and more of the money. That money comes from the middle class. If two middle class families become poor families and one rich family becomes middle class...what happens?

Think it through, you'll get it.


Ok. I get it Smash. So show me the stats. Show me how many middle class people each year are now "poor". Then show me how we're defining "poor". Until you do that, it's pure rhetoric and speculation and "the sky is falling" style fearmongering.

What's happened over the last half century is that people like you have redefined what "poor" is. It used to be if you couldn't afford to put food on the table regularly, you were poor. There was not even an assumption that anyone who didn't own a home, or afford a college education for their children, or pay for medical care was an indicator of being poor. Most people (like the vast majority of the population) did not own homes or have college degrees or have more then the most rudimentary medical care.

But today, you add your "list" of things that "everyone is entitled to have". That's your list Smash. Not mine. You then decide that everyone who doesn't have those things is poor.


Smasharoo wrote:
It isn't. The Hilton's wealth is in Hilton hotels. Where it's been for the past century. They're not putting it back into industry. They're leaving it right where it's been. They're not funding new buisnesses. They're not outlaying capital. They have no reason to.


Ah. So the Hilton company hasn't built a new hotel in the last 100 years. Is that what you are saying? They haven't hired a single person in that time. They have not expanded their business at all. They haven't upgraded the services they provide, or the quality of the rooms. They never added those newfangled things called "air conditioning" into their hotels, did they? After all, that would just cost them money fromm their money vaults, and would only benefit the people who build ACs and the people who install them, and the customers who'll use them, right?

C'mon Smash. That's a ludicrous argument to use. They spend their profits expanding and updating the product they sell. The end result is a competitive product that provides more value to the consumers. Yet. Interestingly enough, the cost in relative dollars to spend the night in a Hilton probably isn't any higher then it was 50 years ago. Odd that? Swimming pools, AC, bigger rooms. We got all that extra value in the product. Why? Because we allowed the investement capital required to make those improvements in the hands of the people who can make them.



Quote:
Where does this particular bizarre fantasy come from? Let me say for the millionth time, to which you never once respond, Raising taxes on the wealthy has never, ever, not one single time, been shown to impact industry negatively in any way. Ever.



Really? Aside from opinion, where do you get that? You're touting an economic theory (which I happen to disagree with) as though it's fact Smash. Admittedly, I'm doing the same. The difference is that I can at least verbalize *why* I think my theory works better then your's. All you seem to do is keep repeating the theory like a mantra: "Increasing taxes on the wealthy doesn't affect industry. Increating taxes on the wealthy doesn't afffect industry...". Do you really think that if you just keep saying it over and over, it'll become true?



Quote:
That's fine. That works. Now explain to me how it stunts industry since you've determined it's going to be put back into the sytem regardless. The point is the middle class will have less debt and more net worth at the end of the day, be it in a svaings account or in their kitchen in the form of a new blender. That increases everyone's quality of life. Placing a higher tax burden on the middle class lowers quality of life.



I have "explained it" to you. Many time. You don't seem to grasp what I'm talking about though.

It's a very simple concept. It goes like this:

"You can't buy a product that isn't on the shelves".

You are correct that both the supply and demand cycles are two parts of the same circle. Money put in either end goes through the whole cycle over and over. So. Your argument is:

"Why not inject money into the demand side so we can ensure that everyone has the ability to buy/obtain a particular level of goods that we've decided everyone should have?"

Honestly. It's a good argument. It makes a lot of sense. After all, the failure with keeping the money in the supplly side is that you have no guarantee that the money will reach the demand side even semi-equitably. Basically, we can't guarantee that everyone has a job, and since employment is the way that money "trickles down", it can't ensure that everyone has food on their table.

I accept that totally. Which is why I'm not at all opposed to very basic demand side spending programs. Let's make sure we don't have anyone starving. That's a good thing. The problem though is when you get people like you that think that if a little demand side spending is good, then a lot of demand side spending is better, right? After all, the Supply side doesn't ensure equity, and all the money goes through the same cycle, so why not take as much as we can from Supply in the form of taxes, and shuttle it into demand in the form of entitlements? That makes total sense, right?


And it would, except that there is a failure on the Demand side as well. It's the sentence I wrote up above: "You can't buy a product that's not on the shelves".

In the same way that supply side money only get to the consumer (demand side) via the mechanism of employment, demand side money only gets to the supply side via the purchase of goods. What this means is that as you increase the taxes to supply and shift that to demand, you allow existing products to be purchased easily by consumers. This allows those companies to get the money back in the form of sales. The problem is that the tax cycle that puts that money back into the demand side happens *before* they can do anything with those profits. They are only left with the remainder. What this means is that there is significantly less money for things that don't result in the immediate sale of a product. If you take the remainder of profits after taxes and turn it into more product, you'll get that money back and the cycle continues. If you set that money aside for R&D, you've effectively lost it. You don't get *more* profits from those future products. You've basically got a heavy amount of demand, and a supply that is tight. When consumers have lots of dollars to spend, they don't demand "the best" product. They don't shop around. They just consume. So there is very little profit in building a "better" product. Everything is slanted the opposite way.


Thus. No matter how much demand side money there is, none of that results in new products on the shelves. Everyone has plenty of money to buy products that already exist and to keep making more of those products, but the release of "new" products is retarded.


How much did a flat screen plasma TV cost 20 years ago Smash? Infinite dollars. Because no one had built them yet. How much did a microwave oven cost 50 years ago? Same answer. How about a DVD player 20 years ago? Yup. Once again, you can't buy a product that isn't on the shelves, no matter how much money you have to spend. You have to give the supply side money to make them first. Taxing "the wealthy", particularly capital gains is removing the money that's used to research and develop those new products. Those new products increase our overall standard of living.


I'll freely admit that "staple" goods don't follow those cycles. After all, it's kinda hard to make "better" bread. Certainly, homes are more expensive today then 40 years ago relatively speaking. Um. But a lot of that has to do purely with population levels and land costs. It would happen whether we taxed the top percentages higher or not. However, the goods we put in our homes, and the things that make our lives better are much cheaper today then they used to be. More importantly, we have things that just didn't exist back then. We can argue the relative merits of things like color TVs and DVDs and microwaves in another topic, but the fact is that we have those things today and didn't have then back then. Not just "only the rich could get them". They didn't exist, for anyone, at any price.


That's the failure of the demand side Smash. You can't see it because you're just looking at the money cycle and nothing else. But where the money is injected (or not removed as the case may be) has a huge impact on what is done with the money.

If we'd started taxing investment and "the wealthy" heavily 50 years ago, and put that money into providing free housing education and health care for everyone, we could certainly have done it. And it might even prevent the concentration of wealth that you are complaining about today (although I'm not sure of that). However, it's virtually guaranteed that we would be driving cars very similar to the ones we drove in the 50s, and living in homes with wiring and building techniques very similar to the 50s, and we'd have phones that looked and operated just like the ones in the 50s, and we'd likely not have computers, certainly not for home use. Microwaves would probably not exist. We'd probably have color TVs, but not nearly as nice as today. DVDs and CDs would likely still be something people are still dreaming about but no one wants to spend the money to develop.

Or some of those things would exist, but they would have been developed and designed in other countries (like Japan and Korea). We'd be a second class economy as a result.


It does have an effect on industry Smash. It's just more long term then you are looking at.
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#51 Jun 24 2004 at 9:08 PM Rating: Good
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The thing is you can't use the Hilton hotel industry as an example since they've moved from hostelry to the **** industry. They went from a respectable and taxable clientel to the furtive passing of cash in sleazy hotel rooms while filming various sex exploits using night vision videocameras.

It's apples and oranges, guys.

Totem
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