Please Ban SDM

[Andy]

[Andy]

[Maf54]

[sandmann]

If I'm not mistaken, my father is taxed >50% just in income taxes. That's not even counting everything else.

[edit] It appears I am mistaken. I'll leave my mistake there, though. I must have been incorporating property taxes as well. Sorry.

By the way, what does IIRC mean?

[Maf54]

I think you are mistaken. IIRC the top ammount taken is like 49.9%.

[Brig]

I should add that I really have no credibility in this thread, as I'm not an economist. I read Fortune and Money from time to time. money.cnn.com is my homepage. I've taken macro and micro, but that just makes me educated enough to be foolish.

So really, I'm only guessing when it comes to my tax plan. Most of it is A leads to B style reasoning. However, I do make assumptions, and they can run contrary to reality. I do like my plan though, so I'm going to have to look into it more. However, I am reasoning this out according to my values and what facts I have on hand. I try to make as few assumptions as possible.

Morally speaking, I think that companies that hire low-skill, low-wage people, should feel obligated to protect the health of that community by supporting welfare programs and public services used by that community.

The individual should feel obligated to provide for her/his community. I think that an individual is important, and that the community is an important part of the individual. I mean this in both an emotional sense and from the perspective of production. A better community leads to a happier individual, which in turn leads to a more productive individual, and thus a happier and more productive community results.

I'm going to have to do some research. I'm curious what kind of affect taxing the income of the people I described before more would have on jobs at the company, and the economy as a whole. The alternative would be to directly tax the company. I'm curious which will produce the better results. I don't agree with Andy's plan, and I don't agree with some european ones. The tax system in the US isn't the worst system out there (I can't say it's the best, since I don't really now).

200 posts. Wazzup.

[sponge]

IIRC = If I recall correctly.

http://www.acronymfinder.com - useful to have around

[Brig]

Actually, the top 1% pays 39.6. I'm reading this article right now: http://www.ncpa.org/oped/bartlett/dec2999resp.html

Another think tank: http://www.epinet.org/

Both say they're non-partisan. I don't know how true that is.

[Andy]

I don't think any of us here have put in much serious research into economics, so it seems our arguments can only stem from moral basis. I'll try to explain where I'm coming from.

I don't think I owe this entity we dub "society" anything. As Rand would put it (I hate to quote such a hypocrite, but it's a good measure of how I feel): "I Swear by life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor will I ask another man to live for my sake."

I also think that social welfare is government management of a business' money -- something I think they have little to no right fucking with.

Laws are all based around the concept of what is mine, is mine -- that is, property rights. When someone takes from another person, without their consent, we have theft. And it is the governments job to react to that transgression

To "React" is the purpose of law in a classical sense, ie "reactive laws". Murder is taking a life. Vandalism/assault/mutilation are all forms of damaging someone else's property. Kidnapping is taking someone's time. Slavery is the worst, it is taking, or even forcing, someone's efforts. Laws make no sense (to me, at least) without the concept of ownership.

Enter what I call "proactive laws": legal enforcement of behavior. The concept of ownership is not factored into calculations here; in fact it's less than not factored in, it isn't even consequential to people who pull these laws from their rectums.

When one party starts to feel entitled to the property of another, there's only one thing I'm not certain of: is that party a thief or a slavemaster. No ifs, ands, or buts about it: proactive laws legalize classical crime.

When a government starts enforcing a lifestyle and taking what I've earned, something is wrong.

[Maf54]

[Andy]

[refractor (mmh, cookie)]

[Maf54]

[Andy]

[Caesar]