Greed Is Good. What?

[oshunluvr]

...and they pay more than 50% taxes. And I'm not saynig that's a bad thing in their cases. At least they can point at where their tax money went.

[GreyGeek]

Good points, LuckyOne.

Goldwater was running when I was able to vote for the first time in a presidential election. I was told that if I voted for him there would be war. Remember that ad about the little girl picking peddles from a Daisy? Well, I voted for him and sure enough, there was war.

However, since that time I've changed my views, which were naive and void of actual historical fact and long on "free market" mythology ... Adam Smith's invisible hand and such. Most of my views were extracted from movies. You know, the Indians were ungrateful, violent recepients of the Whiteman's good will and religion, Blacks were lazy and shiftless, if they weren't out raping White women and stealing from honest, hardworking White men who could barely make a living after the government was done stealing their money, etc ...... Now, the movies are telling another kind of mythology which is just as one sided, slanted and bad. It seems that all Hollywood ever knew how to do was tell half-truths and denigrate the enemy de jour. Most of Nebraska, Eastern Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming and parts of North Dakota and Montana are still legally owned by the Lakota Nation, which has been locked in a legal battle with the US Fed Government since the 1870s, and most recently turned down a $4.5 Billion dollar settlement and repayment for the land that was stolen and the 52 out of 52 treaties that the Fed Gov made with them and then broke on false pretenses.

As far as taxes go I'd like to see the income tax AND the IRS eliminated. Too many loopholes for too many people, both rich and poor (a negative income tax is a loop hole for the poor and has been introduce, IMO, solely to buy the poor person's vote), too many taxing bodies in too many political districts and too many people paid to do too many evil things. The whole system is corrupt from the village boards to the Washington DC. Especially Washington DC.

IMO, a national sales tax on all goods and services is the answer. It should be graduated, increasing with the decreasing necessity of the goods or services. The basic food items, basic clothing and basic medical devices and services, X cubic feet of gas, X KWH of electricity, X gallons of water and sewer would not taxed at all. Everything else would be on a single sliding scale of luxury which applies to everyone everywhere. Food, then, would be tax free, but, lobster, caviar, fast food, candy and pop would be taxed since they are, after all, luxuries not necessary to support life. No one has to go to a fast food joint or they'd starve. The higher the price of a car or diamond ring the higher the percentage of sales tax on it. Such luxury items purchased outside the country and brought into it would be taxed at market value, independent of what the person paid for it or where the person who bought it lives, since part of the law would require that an item sell for the same price everywhere in the country, with shipping and handling costs averaged out.

Another part of this plan would be the elimination of other taxes for what ever purposes. All stores would collect sales tax and submit it directly to federal tax collecting agencies. The big advantage of this plan is that Congress could not hide behind hidden taxes, like the payroll tax. If they wanted to raise the sales tax percentage they'd have to do so in Congress, in public and the change would be public knowledge. NONE of this crap about "If you want to see what's in it you'll have to pass it!" That kind of "democracy", Ms. Polosi, is pure, evil arrogance.

People would feel every penny of the taxes they paid every time they bought something that wasn't essential to life and health.

[Qqmike]

re #17, GG's comments about taxes, made me think of how many taxes we already pay. We've all seen the lists. I can't find one in my files at the moment, but I did a quick search and got this as a typical hit (scroll down to see the whole "partial" list):

http://www.nowandfutures.com/taxes.html

(btw, I have NO idea about the affiliations of this web site and don't care for now -- just using it for its list of taxes at the moment.)

[dibl]

... I did a quick search and got this as a typical hit (scroll down to see the whole "partial" list):

http://www.nowandfutures.com/taxes.html

Thanks Mike. If I were younger and more energetic, I would put together the companion site to that one. The name of the site would be "List of the Ways the Government Totally Wastes the Taxpayers' Money".

But, that project sounds vast and endless.

[Qqmike]

@dibl: "the companion site to that one. The name of the site would be 'List of the Ways the Government Totally Wastes the Taxpayers' Money'."

Agree completely! I hate the waste, and I feel that should be top priority for any administration, to chase down the fraud, the waste, the inefficiencies, the inequities, and thus reduce necessary costs of programs (and eliminate redundant/unnecessary programs). Maybe THAT is an area where government isn't good -- at analyzing and eliminating waste. So ... why not hire private, specialist companies to do it for the gov't? Not on some bs analysis-study basis, but on a real, agreed upon action basis. In fact, why not hire private companies to run those gov't programs? But then, there's our war experience in Iraq, with Halliburton and the likes and such ...

[bsniadajewski]

I'm very afraid that a government-engineered solution to this "problem" would produce the result that everyone is poor.

If everyone is poor, wouldn't everyone suddenly become "rich", since prices for almost everything would have to fall (deflation), thus increasing the buying power of the currency (benefitting the "poor")?

[bsniadajewski]

@dibl: "the companion site to that one. The name of the site would be 'List of the Ways the Government Totally Wastes the Taxpayers' Money'."

Agree completely! I hate the waste, and I feel that should be top priority for any administration, to chase down the fraud, the waste, the inefficiencies, the inequities, and thus reduce necessary costs of programs (and eliminate redundant/unnecessary programs). Maybe THAT is an area where government isn't good -- at analyzing and eliminating waste. So ... why not hire private, specialist companies to do it for the gov't? Not on some bs analysis-study basis, but on a real, agreed upon action basis. In fact, why not hire private companies to run those gov't programs? But then, there's our war experience in Iraq, with Halliburton and the likes and such ...

Yeah that could become a problem if your not careful.

[GreyGeek]

If everyone is poor, wouldn't everyone suddenly become "rich", since prices for almost everything would have to fall (deflation), thus increasing the buying power of the currency (benefitting the "poor")?

Actually, there is evidence of the opposite of that. East Germany made everyone poor and no one benefited from the poverty. Same for Yugoslavia and other USSR satellite states, and for the USSR itself. North Korea, Cuba anyone? In every Socialist state run by dictators (dictatorship of the proletariat) extreme poverty is the result. Strict application of Karl Marx's dictum results in everyone being poor.

Canadian and Western European Socialism appears to do better in regards to leveling the economic field without reducing everyone to poverty.

[bsniadajewski]

Actually, there is evidence of the opposite of that. East Germany made everyone poor and no one benefited from the poverty. Same for Yugoslavia and other USSR satellite states, and for the USSR itself. North Korea, Cuba anyone? In every Socialist state run by dictators (dictatorship of the proletariat) extreme poverty is the result. Strict application of Karl Marx's dictum results in everyone being poor.

Canadian and Western European Socialism appears to do better in regards to leveling the economic field without reducing everyone to poverty.

thanks for the reply GG.

Of course it didn't help that Soviet Russia wasn't capitalist first during either the czarist era or the provisional gov't(to have the capital there to begin with) before going Communist.

I wonder then, if Western European/Canadian-Style Socialism (or is that Social Democracy) is doing better, why hasn't SD caught on here in the USA. Is it some sort of NIH?

[GreyGeek]

.....
I wonder then, if Western European/Canadian-Style Socialism (or is that Social Democracy) is doing better, why hasn't SD caught on here in the USA. Is it some sort of NIH?

IMO, corporate "lobbying" (bribery) of Congress has prevented any significant improvements in our democracy, which is more aptly described as a cabal since all of the Federal agencies originally created to protect citizens from corporate abuse are now in a revolving door management policy with the very corporations each agency is supposed to regulate and thus protect corporations from the anger and wrath of the abused citizen.

I saw this interesting article on a G+ thread:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...en.html?ref=us

[Goeroeboeroe]

I don't agree fully Marx has anything to do with that. Marx didn't write too much about how the state should be organized.
In the Soviet Union it went already wrong with Lenin, who destroyed every kind of opposition, even peaceful opposition. The fact there was a civil war in which western countries supported anti-soviet forces did help Lenin to get absolute powers.
I still believe it must be possible to have a democratic and (more or less) Marxist state and economy. But indeed, there is not one single example of a Marxist country that did not become a disgusting dictatorship. I think you can't have real socialism without real democracy to control the leaders.
There's one small other point I disagree with you: not everybody in the so called socialistic counties was poor. The leaders were absolutely not poor. In Easter Germany they lived in big houses in a separate neighborhood, forbidden for normal people. I don't think Marx would be happy with that kind of idiocy. One of the former Soviet leaders, if I remember well it was Breznew, collected big cars like Mercedes. Lots of people in North Korea are starving, but the leader doesn't look like he's only eating dry bread.

[dibl]

If everyone is poor, wouldn't everyone suddenly become "rich", since prices for almost everything would have to fall (deflation), thus increasing the buying power of the currency (benefitting the "poor")?

No. Sorry, this is the kind of goofy false logic that pervades the liberal philosophy -- that the abolishment of wealthy people and organizations would produce a better life for poor people. It would only produce a miserable kind of fairness, in which everyone has a lesser quality of existence.

The economy would shrink (see my point about economic growth above), innovation and entrepreneurship would go the same way it did in Eastern Germany and North Korea, and the citizens would enjoy the same "fair" lifestyle that the citizens of Cuba and North Korea enjoy today. Any increase of buying power would be worthless, as there would be nothing more than the essentials of life to buy.

The average conservative is far less concerned with reducing the wealth gap (which is not denied to be a social problem) than he is appalled at the prospect of using the power of the federal government for such an unconstitutional purpose. The average conservative thinks that governmental policies at the state and local level which address the cultural underpinnings of economic poverty (cultural, intellectual, and spiritual poverty) would be far more likely to reinvent the upward mobility in our society which has, in the past century of our history, been the hallmark of American exceptionalism.

[HalationEffect]

It would only produce a miserable kind of fairness, in which everyone has a lesser quality of existence.

Heh, that reminded me of the superb story Harrison Bergeron, by the incomparable Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

It's an excellent short story about how zeal for equality can be taken too far, and it can be read in its entirety (not that it's very long) here: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html.

[dibl]

Heh, that reminded me of the superb story Harrison Bergeron, by the incomparable Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Good one! I read it and like it. I'll never forget Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Slaughterhouse Five".

[bsniadajewski]

I don't agree fully Marx has anything to do with that. Marx didn't write too much about how the state should be organized.
In the Soviet Union it went already wrong with Lenin, who destroyed every kind of opposition, even peaceful opposition. The fact there was a civil war in which western countries supported anti-soviet forces did help Lenin to get absolute powers.
I still believe it must be possible to have a democratic and (more or less) Marxist state and economy. But indeed, there is not one single example of a Marxist country that did not become a disgusting dictatorship. I think you can't have real socialism without real democracy to control the leaders.
There's one small other point I disagree with you: not everybody in the so called socialistic counties was poor. The leaders were absolutely not poor. In Easter Germany they lived in big houses in a separate neighborhood, forbidden for normal people. I don't think Marx would be happy with that kind of idiocy. One of the former Soviet leaders, if I remember well it was Breznew, collected big cars like Mercedes. Lots of people in North Korea are starving, but the leader doesn't look like he's only eating dry bread.

In that case, it was more "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." except with a hammer and sickle rather than a swastika.