Article on Taxes

[FMBI]

Aileron, you still haven't replied to the point about how money is not just being destroyed in the welfare states, it's being actively reinvested into the labor pool.

 

Another thing that disturbs me is that no one here has gone into either the German or Japanese "capitalist" models. They're both far more successful than American capitalism, even though both nations have had some downturns in recent years (you never even hear about Japan on the news anymore, even though it's still the US's #1 debt holder).

 

In Germany, active state intervention, major banks, corporations, and labor work together to create some of the most balanced incomes in the world, without utilising welfare state models (though, of course, the taxes are still very high).

 

In Japan, the corporations and government are extremely close together, and long-term, anti-compe!@#$%^&*ive strategies are the norm - but lifetime employment and high worker incomes ensure that everyone gets a fair share.

 

Those are the best examples of fairly equal countries that do not rely on welfare to equalize matters, but they still heavily focus on the responsibility of either government or corporations to educate workers. This is in direct contrast to the US, where the idea is that you're on your own, you can probably get into a community college for a basic degree, but if you want an advanced degree, you're screwed unless you're born into a good family.

 

As I've tried to point out in the past, a lot of the concepts the US accepts as gospel just don't cut it anymore. American corporations can't compete with either super-cheap labor economies (3/4th of the world) or high-quality, high-investment nations like Japan, South Korea, or the Nordic countries. It apparently doesn't occur to too many people that there might be a reason the US is steadily losing its lead in almost all measurements (health, technological innovation, education, currency strength, export / import, happiness) besides "everyone here is lazy." There are lazy people in Europe, too, but the average person there is making more than the average person here.

 

 

edit - Astro, you posted while I was typing. I don't necessarily agree with the last part totally. I've grown up in a small town on the NY-PA border, and people here don't demand things - if anything, they get angry when people expect them to have a lot. I remember that people used to talk about a friend's family that made $60,000 as being "rich" - the way I was raised is that you should always have enough to get by on, but not enough to waste. It's not a strictly immigrant mentality. It does, however, raise some interesting questions - such as why some people who grow up poor and achieve success want to make it easier for others, and some want to make it as hard as possible. Apparently it's not enough to accept that "some are born with the silver s!@#$%^&*," you have to limit the silver s!@#$%^&* as much as possible so everyone gets a chance to dig through the proverbial muck and "truly find out something about themselves"?

 

 

And one more point, Veg.. a while back you mentioned that in the military, they don't "send you in to get killed if you're intelligent" or something along that line. I would beg to differ.. You must have missed the news stories about how they were recruiting navy corpsmen to be foot soldiers? And also note that, here again, America kicks the ladder out from under its "weak and downtrodden" - while they have all sorts of fascinating facts on the recruiting sites ("Start at higher wages than civilians!" "Free food and housing!"), when compared to international military benefits (in the non-conscript ones, of course), they actually look pretty !@#$%^&*ty. Britain, for example, pays far more up-front, has more generous duty tours, and is kinder to its soldiers.

Edited June 12, 2008 by Finland My BorgInvasion

[PaRa$iTe]

True, it is impossible to be in a national state where most people have management jobs, but that's not the objective. The objective is for everyone to make enough money to meet their short term and long term needs, a state which is easy to obtain because everyone is both a worker and a consumer

Not everyone can have those, either. The thing is, there are jobs that don't pay enough. Nevertheless, someone has to do them. So !@#$%^&*uming everyone in the world had the motivation and direction (which can be PRETTY hard to define, since it's all about doing hard work anyway, and if your boss hates you you're screwed) someone would be out of luck. Quite a lot of someones, actually. So either we just assume that some people will be lazy no matter what, and point out that the laziest X% or so deserve to live in poverty.. or we decide that the fact that those X% won't be able to do anything about their situation, except by dragging someone else into the pit, is a problem. Just because someone works harder, longer, and with less work safety, it doesn't, in my opinion, mean they don't deserve a decent life. That's what welfare is all about - guaranteeing that even if you're out of luck, you can at least stay on your feet.

 

In the hypothetical situation about the single 25-year-old with 2-3 kids and no education.. well, I don't think that your entire life should be ruined, as short as it may becone. And what about the kids - they'll suffer too, yet the situation is in no way their fault.

[NBVegita]

that you can't possibly expect Americans to have

 

Why because we've given them everything and told them not to work for anything?

 

As stated in your above paragraph, there are reason why it is useful. BUT IT STILL NEEDS STRICTER REGULATIONS! I've never said to abolish welfare, and I do believe, yet again, that I've stated that multiple times.

 

No not everyone will be rich, or even upper middle class. Not everyone can drive a brand new car. Not everyone will always be able to have brand new clothes and beautiful furniture. For the most part you can live a decent life if you work hard. Even two people working minimum wage jobs make about 25k a year combined.

 

I'm also a proponent of not having kids unless you can support them. Yet things do happen. People get laid off. But if you've got one parent working, one not working and you're only bringing in 20k a year, you shouldn't have kids.

[NBVegita]

Para, as stated everyone has to work somewhere.

 

For the 25 year old, I ask you again, where has accountability gone in the United States?

 

I mean we can argue select situations and semantics, but ultimately I support strict regulations on welfare, you do not.

[NBVegita]

but if you want an advanced degree, you're screwed unless you're born into a good family.

 

Every single company I've ever worked for has a tuition !@#$%^&*istance program. The company I work for now pays 90% of ALL education. I could go back for my doctorate and they'll pay for it.

 

For the military one of my poor friends went into the air force. He was soon married. They gave him $1200 a month for an off base house, $400 for food for just the two of them, $300 for cleaning supplies and other house hold expenses, plus his standard wage from the military. They completely paid for him to train as a large plane mechanic which is a career he can take away from the air force. I mean there are situations, like infantry, that are not as nice, but that is the way of life.

 

As stated before, a severly overlooked aspect of job hunting is that you may not be able to find a good job/the job you want in your current geographical area. Another thing for consideration is that if you're working for a small company, don't expect them to provide the benefits that a large company can provide.

 

But again we can argue situations and semantics all day and still be exactly where we are now 10 forum pages down the line.

[Aileron]

Finland, if the article is true, the money is being effectively, but not actually destroyed. If the revenues are the same no matter how much you tax the rich, then taxing them extra will cause the rich to lose money, though total revenues remain the same, meaning the money goes nowhere and is *effectively* destroyed. It is anti-intuitive, though unlike matter, money can be created and destroyed, and not just at the mint.

 

 

 

Para, if a job performs a needed good or service, it can't possibly pay low enough that someone can't afford to live on it, if the economy is healthy. Suppose a small village has three people in it. There is Adam, a farmer, Bob, a mechanic, and Charlie, a truck driver. Bob and Charlie need Adam's food. Adam and Charlie need Bob to fix their combine and their truck. Adam and Bob need Charlie to ship in needed goods from the outside world.

 

If Adam's wage is so low that he can't afford Bob and Charlie's services, he'll have to leave the village. However, that would mean that Bob and Charlie would be without food and thus would be willing in increase Adam's price until he agrees to stay.

 

 

Now, the national economy is a lot more complicated than the simple village, though the basic principle is the same. Also, note there is a major qualifier in that the economy has to be mostly healthy for this to work. If Charlie has 90% of the villages' money, he does have the power to !@#$%^&* up the system. Not completely - he still needs his food and his truck fixed, but he could reduce Adam and Bob's life to virtual servitude.

 

Now, the other rub is, if you add a fourth person to the village, Dave, the rubber duck salesman, he isn't guaranteed a working salary. If Adam, Bob or Charlie have extra money, they might buy a rubber duck, but if they don't, Dave could be out of luck, because Dave isn't performing an essential function. Most jobs in a national economy are in the non-essential category ever since the dark ages. However, the reason people want more money in the first place is so they can eventually buy things with it, so on a national scale Dave wouldn't be screwed either provided people wanted rubber ducks.

 

 

The point being, you aren't always wrong when you say some people can't find a job they can afford to live off of, but you are usually wrong, and you are only right when there is a seriously !@#$%^&*ed up economy, such as the feudal age economy where 5% of the people weren't in debt up to their ears, or for a more modern example during the Great Depression. You would have to prove that the economy is that !@#$%^&*ed up before making that claim, and at the moment we don't live in the third world so that's impossible to do.

 

 

 

Veg, my degree is in Math. (Not education, the Science of Mathematics). Currently my major problem seems to be an anti-capitalistic force in the form of a flat GPA cap used by government jobs and most scientific companies. My grades weren't that good. Then, a group of HR !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*s decide they won't look at someone with less than a 3.0 GPA, and suddenly a lot of recent science majors are out of work while the companies are now !@#$%^&*ing about how they don't have enough people who know science. Duh, if they lower their !@#$%^&*ing standards, they'll get people!! And no, getting bad marks in school doesn't make me lazy; the lazy people are the ones who either dropped out or changed their major to 'History of Philosophy' or something along those lines. The vast majority of science programs have 50% attrition rates, so just holding the degree places someone above average. Now, before the rest of you start acting like socialism is the answer, as I said this is a two sided problem brought on by the anti-capitalistic force of arrogant HR people, so the solution involves them getting rid of the stupid caps rather than rich people being taxed.

 

Enough griping then. For starters, I certainly need to move out of my current geographical area. Now, I've been looking for science and engineering entry level jobs and internships accrossed the country for over a year, so forgive me, but I've given up there. I've also looked into graduate school (in something other than Math, such as Engineering Mechanics), but the largest problem among others is that my former professors won't back me up in that endeavor (though they will ask me to give them money). Plan A right now is to get a commission for the Army and pray Obama doesn't get elected. (You may think that Math would be more suited for the Air Force, but they happen to be one of the aforementioned !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*s who decided to use a flat GPA cap.) I could also get a job in teaching, though I hated high school, and insurance sales, though I don't have the type of 'moral character' needed to talk an old lady into giving me her life savings. There seems to be a lot of people in insurance sales with a degree in a natural science.

 

Still, if you can name a company willing to hire a Mathematician with a poor GPA, or in your case a company willing to pay 35k to someone without even a degree, I'd still be happy to send them a resume.

[NBVegita]

http://www.nationalgridus.com/aboutus/a5-1..._number=NY-2386

http://www.nationalgridus.com/aboutus/a5-1..._number=NE-2236

 

Are two jobs for you to apply for, plus I know that a contract company here is looking to hire Desktop Support analyst(s) which pay starting at 30k a year with full benefits. No degree or prior work in the field is required.

 

The contract posistion isn't a dream job, but it's a foot in the door and decent pay for relatively simple work.

 

Too bad you didn't mention this earlier, Nationalgrid just merged with Keyspan energy in NYC and they were DYING for financial analysts, which a math degree would have been more than suitable.

[Aileron]

Thanks, I've applied to both positions.

[NBVegita]

I'll keep my eyes open for you, post-merger job openings are plentiful. The best part is nationalgrid does a new merger every 4-5 years.

 

Also being a utility company they're virtually recession proof. In fact I do believe we posted record profits last year.

 

Everyone needs power.

[Aileron]

Lol, on that note in the past week I've received five separate job offers from art sellers in the UK for me to accept payments for art they sell in the US, and transfer it to them. All I need to do is send out some personal info.

 

You gotta admit that the bull!@#$%^&* these iden!@#$%^&*y thieves come up with is funny.

[PaRa$iTe]

Finland, if the article is true, the money is being effectively, but not actually destroyed. If the revenues are the same no matter how much you tax the rich, then taxing them extra will cause the rich to lose money, though total revenues remain the same, meaning the money goes nowhere and is *effectively* destroyed. It is anti-intuitive, though unlike matter, money can be created and destroyed, and not just at the mint.

 

 

 

Para, if a job performs a needed good or service, it can't possibly pay low enough that someone can't afford to live on it, if the economy is healthy. Suppose a small village has three people in it. There is Adam, a farmer, Bob, a mechanic, and Charlie, a truck driver. Bob and Charlie need Adam's food. Adam and Charlie need Bob to fix their combine and their truck. Adam and Bob need Charlie to ship in needed goods from the outside world.

 

If Adam's wage is so low that he can't afford Bob and Charlie's services, he'll have to leave the village. However, that would mean that Bob and Charlie would be without food and thus would be willing in increase Adam's price until he agrees to stay.

 

 

Now, the national economy is a lot more complicated than the simple village, though the basic principle is the same. Also, note there is a major qualifier in that the economy has to be mostly healthy for this to work. If Charlie has 90% of the villages' money, he does have the power to !@#$%^&* up the system. Not completely - he still needs his food and his truck fixed, but he could reduce Adam and Bob's life to virtual servitude.

 

Now, the other rub is, if you add a fourth person to the village, Dave, the rubber duck salesman, he isn't guaranteed a working salary. If Adam, Bob or Charlie have extra money, they might buy a rubber duck, but if they don't, Dave could be out of luck, because Dave isn't performing an essential function. Most jobs in a national economy are in the non-essential category ever since the dark ages. However, the reason people want more money in the first place is so they can eventually buy things with it, so on a national scale Dave wouldn't be screwed either provided people wanted rubber ducks.

 

 

The point being, you aren't always wrong when you say some people can't find a job they can afford to live off of, but you are usually wrong, and you are only right when there is a seriously !@#$%^&*ed up economy, such as the feudal age economy where 5% of the people weren't in debt up to their ears, or for a more modern example during the Great Depression. You would have to prove that the economy is that !@#$%^&*ed up before making that claim, and at the moment we don't live in the third world so that's impossible to do.

Nice post

 

I'm not sure why revenues would be the same if you tax more. O: Unless I don't understand the word revenue, which is possible.

 

The problem with your village picture is that there's no compe!@#$%^&*ion. If we expand the picture.. sure - all ESSENTIAL people in a branch will get paid. However, even if Adam and 1000 of his friends are able to sell their corn, there might quite possibly be 100 other people who also have corn, but nobody to sell it to. What could they do? Well, they can lower prices. Finally, prices will hit the bottom, and 100 of the farmers will be out of business. Unless they sell all of their corn at a below-market price and try to find another job, living on their one-time profit for a while. The thing is, most people need a job more than others need the job they do. A majority of the people will have no problems, but there will always be some who do.

 

Veg: I support regulations on welfare. Without regulations, it wouldn't be affordable. We just have different opinions of what parts of welfare are essential. I just think that everyone should be able to live a decent life by doing a decent amount of work. Ultimately, as I see it, it's all about whether it should be hard to live a decent life, but easy to advance once you've reached that, or whether it should be easy to live a decent life, but very hard to advance. I support the latter.

Edited June 13, 2008 by PaRa$iTe

[NBVegita]

The only problem I have with that para, is that a decent life to me might not be a decent life to you.

 

I might consider a decent life having all of the essentials (just food, water, power, home, small disposable income and a car (not essential))

 

You might consider a decent life having all of the above with cable, internet and a higher disposable income.

 

I would also have a problem with say you have a worker making 30k a year. He works very hard at it and works 40-50 hours a week. Then you have someone working 10 hours a week at McDonalds, who has the same standard of living due to welfare. I know that is a specific example, but there will be a mul!@#$%^&*ude of such cases.

 

I also advocate that if you're on food stamps the government should be able to regulate the food you buy and monitor things like why you have food stamps if you're driving an escalade (common among illegal entrepreneurs).

[PaRa$iTe]

I don't think the system we have here would help the McDonalds person. And if it does, it fails. I definately don't think that welfare should support anyone working under 35 hours a week if they have an option, unless all the options pay less.

 

Defining "decent living" would probably go off topic, but I basically agree with you, except I wouldn't include the car public transport ftw. However, I would also include affording health care and suchlike.

[Aileron]

I don't know why revenues are the same either. The article cited a different theory which made an explanation, but really all it did was show data which indicated it without explaining why.

 

 

If there are too many farmers, then the extra ones are non-essential. They actually become 'rubber duck salesman' because the quan!@#$%^&*y of food is not needed.

 

 

The problem in the real world a few years back was that it became economically correct in the short term for farmer to choose other professions, but if a farm goes under, it is replaced by a development - never to return to being a farm again, and over the long term the need for food is going to increase. If we left it alone, we would have problems trying to feed ourselves later. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much of a problem asking some farmers to switch professions. I mean, its not nice, but its life.

 

I'll admit the fact that farms are so productive is most of the reason I think ethanol could work. I mean, it has problems, but can follow the laws of physics and economics.

[PaRa$iTe]

However, there's no need for that many rubber duck salesmen. Since most tasks are becoming increasingly automated, need for human labor decreases (except for those who can handle automated systems). The solution to the problem for the people who have no place in work life would be to invent something new, but not everyone is capable of doing that, and they'd still need to get money from somewhere while they make plans.

[NBVegita]

http://jobview.monster.com/GetJob.aspx?Job...3a00&seq=10

 

There is another one, just monster search national grid and there a lot of openings right now.

[AstroProdigy]

Well guys I was wrong and I admit it.

 

When I said our human development index for 2007 was at 12th place and was 2 notches below France I was wrong and I'm sorry. The 2007 estimates were actually for 2005 so the US has likely been passed by a whole slew of other countries and is at around 20th place if not worse for 2007 estimates and that's not counting where we'll be by the end of the 2008 "not" recession.

 

Again I apologize for not looking deep enough to see this and allowing NBVegita the chance to play devil's advocate to claim its all okay as long as we're better off Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, India, China, and Indonesia which, although all poor countries, have to surp!@#$%^&* us before we should consider changing our economic strategy simply because they are close to or above our absolute population size.

 

Sure we've been surp!@#$%^&*ed by France, Britain, and Spain and probably also stagnant Italy and unification burdened Germany too at this point (or will be soon). Sure all these countries have large populations (around 45 million for Spain around 60 million for Italy, France, and the UK, and million for Germany), much higher population densities, much less natural resources per capita, and the dreaded social safety net. That's alright because Nigeria is poorer and despite the fact that its a completely different country culturally with endless ethnic and corruption problems its a better country for comparison simply because its population is closer to that of the US. Just because the population of those 5 countries in Europe combined is around the same of the US and the fact that the EU now serves economic management for an even bigger population than the US doesn't mean we should dare criticize the US's failure in comparison. Instead let's keep comparing our economy to Pakistan and until Pakistan is better off we're doing a good job.

 

Anyway to repeat myself I'm sorry for the mistake.

 

P.S.: As for the graph originally posted Aileron forgot to mention the big tax cuts by Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush that are the drops in percentage of the top individual tax bracket all required deficit spending, which increased the deficit, which, with the interest involved on that debt, required more money to be printed, and thus caused inflation and the !@#$%^&*ets of the lower and middle classes to deteriorate and thus the lower classes are the ones who actually payed for this in the long run.

 

Now with Kennedy the top individual tax bracket was reduced from 91% to 70% which is still a large majority of tax revenues, he didn't spike military spending along with tax cuts, and we could afford it as a traditionally lender country at that time, but with Reagan and Bush this led to a great deterioration of the worth of money carried by middle and lower classes due to inflation and thus was paid for by them, but in the sneaky way that characterizes modern conservatives. Again this was paid for by deficit and in the long term by the poorer in the population who found their spending power reduced.

 

I don't want to bash all Republicans as Bush Sr saw that Reagan's tax cuts were unsustainable and sacrificed his own political career to try fix it, thus leading to the longest economic boom in US history along with Clinton's policies which has been destroyed by Bush's tax cuts and heavy spending and the resultant deterioration of the economic situation of those who aren't rich. To put it plainly this graph is utter oversimplified bull!@#$%^&* that was created to further an utterly failed economy philosophy know as supply side economics

 

Or to be provided with another explanation click here although it only explains part of the trick of the supply siders.

Edited July 8, 2008 by AstroProdigy

[darkhosis]

Since ppl are talking about job openings and what not..

 

http://www.chron.com/databases/publicemplo...amp;CPIorderBy=

 

always thought teachers supposedly only made like 30k? isnt that why ppl always say they should get paid more?

 

ABELARDO SAAVEDRA HOUSTON ISD SUPT OF SCHOOLS $0 $442,556

 

CHARLOTTE J PARKER HOUSTON ISD PRINCIPAL, HIGH SCHOOL $0 $127,301

JUNE L HAYMAN HOUSTON ISD TCHR, ESL ELEMENTARY $0 $94,313

MARY E BAKER HOUSTON ISD TCHR, FIRST GRADE $0 $91,451

 

SCOTT D SMITH CITY OF HOUSTON POLICE SERGEANT $93,661 $180,539

MATTHEW LLOYD DAVIS CITY OF HOUSTON POLICE OFFICER $59,443 $120,039

 

first number is overtime pay, 2nd number is total pay

 

 

recommend checking city of houston website. might be some positions open

Edited July 10, 2008 by darkhosis

[AstroProdigy]

The highest paid public employees make huge sums therefore all teachers get paid more than enough? Oh lord I do not want to have your brain doing my thinking because it'd probably destroy anything it touched.

[darkhosis]

The highest paid public employees make huge sums therefore all teachers get paid more than enough? Oh lord I do not want to have your brain doing my thinking because it'd probably destroy anything it touched.

Yes, that's exactly right! The highest paid public employees in the city of Houston, Texas make huge sums therefore all teachers get paid more than enough!!1

 

Congratulations!

Edited July 16, 2008 by darkhosis

[AstroProdigy]

So let's say a CEO makes millions therefore everyone else in the company gets paid plenty! That sounds so brilliant I'm going to have to take the class you've been taking because all my "liberal elitist" professors haven't been teaching me this new branch of logic.