I agree somewhat. I think it is a good baseline, but as you pointed out it depends on the particular issue. It was the best I could do in 5 minutes at 11 PM on a Friday night.

Easiest way to do that is to lay off people and in corporate speak "Do more with less."

Not true. It takes a balance of investors/workers to make things work most efficiently.


If you look at all taxes collected by all the different levels of government we're already close to a flat tax. Having a flat tax on income and a sales tax would equal a regressive total tax burden.

In some cases that will happen, but in other cases it won't. Let's see some proof that backs up your original claim.

Just to expand on this a bit. From my experience, it is not the rank and file worker who drives the economy, it is the upper class. When I worked at a golf course in college, Michael Jordan came out with three of his teammates from the Birmingham Barons. In 20 minutes, he spent more money in the golf shop than the other customers spent in a work week (Mon. - Fri.).

The rich can afford to take more vacations, travel, dine out, etc., etc. They can also afford to buy luxury items. Finally, they can take their money and use it to finance a start up company. This provides jobs for the other classes.

In MOST cases that is what happens. You can only squeeze so many pennies in tightening the belt as far as expenses like supplies and things like that go.

Again, employee salaries are the biggest operating expense for most businesses.

It's not that simple. Where does Jordan get his money? It doesn't just show up out of the blue. He needs people to buy tickets, apparel, things he's advertising, etc. for him to get his money.(I completely understand this is rather simplistic!) That takes a broad base of people with enough money to purchase goods and services. If wealth is concentrated in too few hands things will break down. There needs to be a wealthy class and more importantly upward mobility, but there also needs to be a broad base of folks with enough money to keep money flowing. It's all about balance.

Not necessarily. My footprint on the economy is tiny compared to what an NFL player or a Paris Hilton adds to it.


To my prior point in the post, who determines what a "fair" tax is? Just because someone can afford to pay more does not mean that it is the most "fair" thing.


Yes, this is being a little melodramatic, but our tax codes and laws and our distribution system of those funds go together with that quote too well for my liking.

I could spend an hour preparing a carefully written thesis on the subject, with links to sources, and be rewarded with a "That's crap," reply from you. No thank you.

I've been around long enough to know that people are going to believe what they want to believe.

so if you make enough money warhammer then the fire department should just be able to let your house burn down? cool

Prove it. You said,


and I'll guarantee that you can't prove that to be an accurate statement.

Let me put it this way: When was the last time a middle-class or poor person offered you a job? The rich, either directly or indirectly (through investing, financing, ownership, spending, ect.) create jobs, products, and finally income/salaries.

:lol:

JPhillips' point is that even the greatest economists in the world can't show that trickle-down economics works - so for you to claim that "oh I could do it but you wouldn't believe me so it's a waste of time" is total BS.

and if there were no workers there'd be no one to enable them to become wealthy in the first place

I can tell you who isn't going to his games. Those that aren't making that much money. To use the Jordan example, the people that pay the majority of his salary are not the 10,000 people sitting in the nosebleeds paying $10 a seat. Its the 100 people sitting courtside that are paying $1500 a game, plus seat license fees, etc., etc.

Your model is good for the majority of commodities. Items that have very low profit margins and operate on volume. Milk, gas, water, food, etc., are all examples of these goods. But you don't see many average workers going out and buying a $10 million yacht, or vacationing down in Miami and staying in the penthouse. Those are the type of expenditures that make the difference between a company breaking even and making huge profits.

Exactly. To claim the rich just get their money by themselves is dreadfully naive. They rely on others in order to gain their wealth in the first place.

Without the middle class or poor there is no rich. You won't see the rich out in the fields, getting all the crop with their own bare hands.

You're right there. Just because the wealthy need workers does not mean that it is the workers that drive the boat. The workers need the wealthy more than the wealthy need the workers.

But there's a hell of a lot more of you and I's than NFL players. But even that isn't terribly important. Without the masses consuming their products the NFL players and Paris Hilton types wouldn't continue to spend. Again, the key is balance.


That's a wholly separate issue where I doubt we'd agree. Initially you were calling for a flat tax.

That's where we'll disagree. I think they need each other equally. Too much wealth in too few hands isn't good for the economy in the long term.

Good work, collect your Nobel on the way out.

Was I ever claiming taxes increases would never lead to layoffs? You set the bar at all tax increases. That still requires some proof. Of course you could be sensible and admit you made a statement you can't back up.

Thanks, I've cleared some space on the mantle. :)

I guess it comes down to what's fair. Should person A be taxed more (either a set dollar amount or a set %) than person B?

At least we agree on something.

Ahhh... OK I see a disconnect between what you guys are saying and what I am saying...

OK, you have a guy that figured out how to make a better...cotton gin. He pays the going rate for the cotton to the farmer, and processes the cotton. But, since he is more efficient than they next gin manager, he earns an extra $2 per bale of cotton. He gets rich because that $2 he saves per bale goes straight to his bottom line.

Now, he gins 10,000 bales per year. The manager down the street does the same and earns $5 for each bale. This guy earns $8 per bale. They each have household expenses that run $40,000 a year. So the guy that earns $8 per bale over time has more disposeable income. They both spend $10,000 on pleasure over the course of a year. The guy that earns $8 a bale can now either use that money to improve his company (paying for new equipment, more workers, building expansion, etc.) or he can spend it on something else (vacation, car, etc.). In either case, the one that earns $ per bale has a larger effect on the economy than the guy earning $5. Not only that, but he has almost twice (probably more considering the velocity of money) the impact on the economy.

I guess my point is that at one time, someone made their money creating something new. That is how they earned their money. That, or they just worked harder than the next guy. In any case, most wealth can be traced to someone that was just a guy in a factory somewhere.

:eek:

Again, a different argument where we won't agree. I believe in a progressive income tax as I feel the wealthy benefit from a stable, balanced society. I'm sure you see things differently. I'd like to at least come to an agreement that a healthy society needs both an investor class and a working class.

I agree with you there, but the wealthy can get along fine with or without the workers. Obviously, it works out better with the workers, but there is a limit to what the wealthy will bear.

Actually, I only gave three or four distinct ways a company could react to tax increases, one of which was layoffs. My list was in no way to be considered exhaustive.

In most cases, I'm sure companies would combine multiple strategies to preserve profit margins in the face of higher taxes.

While true, one must also remember that society allowed him to do so. If the society decided intellectual property wasn't worth protecting, the guy who created something new perhaps doesn't get the worth of what he created.

Basically, individuals don't exist in a vacuum. The society is instrumental in their creation of wealth, from the workers who help him create the wealth, to the rules of society that protect his innovations from theft by others.

Again, not that simple. Where does the money come from? Somebody is buying that cotton and where does that money come from? For markets to work efficiently the key is the flow of capitol. What happens when the guy charging 8$ has no buyers? Economics is far more difficult to quantify than you're making it. In your world you should have zero taxes on the wealthy(btw-where does that begin?) and then everything would work at maximum efficiency.

I'm not denying the need for an investor class and I'm not claiming there isn't a point at which taxation becomes punitive and damages the economy. What I'm arguing is that the balance for maximum efficiency is far more difficult to find than saying the rich drive the economy.

I'll take this one step further, a healthy society needs upper, middle, and lower classes.

I could (probably get killed for it, but that is another matter) make an argument that we have moved too much towards the middle class than what would be good for us. I have found that in my industry, people that have the education and work ethic would prefer to do things other than weld or construction. Companies that require this skilled labor have increased wages, but they cannot find workers skilled enough to do the work. Essentially, the college grads don't want to work in construction, while the ones that didn't go to college don't have either the work ethic or the skills to become good employees.

The wealthy won't be fine without workers for very long. Of course there's a limit, but where that limit is at is the problem.

Actually small business employs the majority of people in this country. Most of the owners of these businesses are hard working and would probably laugh in your face if you tried to tell them they comprised the "rich."

However, the way a lot of them file their taxes for their businesses (sole proprieterships, S corps, etc.) would put them in that "rich" category.

Without getting into too much detail we probably agree, although I'm setting the bar for poor much lower than you are.

No, you said,


and you can't come close to proving it. It's okay to admit that.

I see where you are going and agree with it, but I think that is a different debate. We're moving from economics into more of the social/ethical/moral values when we start talking about intellectual property, societal laws that provide for innovation, etc., etc.

They would just invest their money in other countries.

No problem for them. They'll just outsource to China.

All of that's tied up into economics. There are few wealthy musicians without intellectual property laws. Same goes for drug and software companies. The society has agree that individuals making those contributions should be able to amass wealth if possible. Given the importance of patents to industry you can probably trace a huge percentage of wealth to patent and intellectual property law.

I agree and realize that. I also realize that most small businesses fail. Not due to lack of work ethic, but due to a lack of working capital. I just switched industries 3 months ago due to this. Sales grew 100%, but the company was tapped out of capital. I'm still owed money by them.

Why, then, hasn't every company moved to China? Perhaps there are some advantages to being closer to the consumer base in general or in the United States in particular?

Well, we've been talking social/ethical/moral for a while now ;). Economically speaking, the rich should bear more of the tax burden because A) they can afford it far more easily and B) the poor have a higher marginal propensity to consume. By lowering taxes on the middle class and poor and raising them on the rich, you get higher consumption. You can argue that the rich will invest their extra money, but a lot of that investment money can very easily go overseas (and does). Furthermore, it has been shown, economically, that the more progressive the tax code, recessions and economic downturns become easier to deal with (for obvious reasons). Though you obviously don't want to tax the rich tooo much because they'll run overseas with it. But a few more percentage points won't do it because, well, anywhere else they'd go will have higher tax rates on the top end.

Okay, you're right, big companies will grin and pay their taxes without complaint. In fact, they'll probably demand to be given even more tax increases because I'm sure the leadership will feel they still aren't paying their fair share. And so what if their profit margins disappear (who the hell goes into business to make a profit anyway? pffft!), and their stock value plummets and the board and shareholders are demanding the head of the CEO. I'm sure that CEO would much rather lose his job than sacrifice any of his employees to save costs or raise the cost of his product to pass it on to the consumer.

Black. White.



FIN

No doubt about that, it is a part of the debate, but I think we're getting further and further away from what the original debate was about.

During Roman times people made fortunes and you had classes and it was not due to patent and intellectual property laws. Those laws are much more important to modern societies than they were four centuries ago.

If you look at just about any manufactured item in this country, you're likely to see a "Made In China" sticker on it. Most companies are based in the U.S., but subcontract production to foreign countries were labor is cheaper. They likely haven't moved physically to China because the standard of living in this country is the highest in the world and...well, let's face it, Chinese is a bitch of a language to learn. Plus there are like, what, 2,000 dialects across the country. Sheesh.

I'd be interested to see where this came from. Many of my economics texts argued the opposite. The one thing I agree with is that the economic downturns are easier to deal with because when the low end are paying little to no taxes anyway, any loss there is negligible. Also you are right that the rich will go overseas to avoid taxes, which is why I advocate lower taxes there. If you can keep the money here, you can make up for what you don't tax in money velocity.

That and their intellectual property laws are laughable and are not enforced.

Intellectual property is Capitalist Think...for shame.

These are all fairly established by studies that have been done. For example, the higher MPCs, the lower down the scale you go, is fairly uncontroversial and, frankly, obvious. If I had less money, I'd be consuming a far greater percentage of my paycheck every month.

Shorter:

Yes, I did make a statement I can't prove.

Manufacturing moving to China is not necessarily tax based. Labor costs are far more important.

Not a lie but it didnt sell on Ebay.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

The AK Governor Jet didnt sell on Ebay, Kudos for her though for actually listing it on Ebay in the first place.


and troopergate has been put in the express lane, which is good

Here's an email from someone who has known Sarah Palin since 1992, and it has been checked out by Snopes. I'm sure this will get spun by both sides, but this is some insight I hadn't seen before, and it comes from a first hand source who had her as their mayor.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp

Jon Stewart was in rare form in this clip. It's like some people have no recollection of what they've said in the recent past, or just don't care.

Jebus reading that, its clear Sarah Palin has read the 48 laws of power, The Prince and the Art Of War.

Jon Stewart is the man.

great video clip by Jon and completely exposes the hypocrisy and blatant lying that is going on. It's unchallengeable after seeing something like that, that the spin doctors do not care about ethics or morals and all they care about is winning and that their target audience is too blinded or dumb to see through it. Sickening and flies in the face as the things Im looking for on my list of desired wants.

And surely the Dems are the most honest individuals ever. Please. Both sides do it and normally the Daily Show, while slightly slanted toward the Dems, does pretty good job of keeping things balanced. The way the Deomcratic convention was presented and the way the Republican convention was presented was unacceptable for me and I've bailed from this show after watching it for several years.

As I said.....I have never had any doubt where Stewart's leanings have been but he's always been fairly balanced...now the show has turned into way too much of a political machine for me to be able to stomach. I realize they have no obligation to be fair and balanced but they've always at least done a good enough job for me. Now that we're down to crunch time though, it seems the show will become nothing but a praise Obama, rip Republicans show.

Republicans like to be ripped. ;) Arnold.

No one is saying that the Dems are saints and the Repubs are devils. But this level of doublespeak borders on the sublime. If there was a similar instance about a high profile topic of a Dem backtracking like in these examples, then I guarantee the Daily Show would air it, as they have done in the past. Just because the opportunity didn't arise from the Dem convention to skewer them on the level that the Repubs opened themselves up to doesn't mean the show has gone one-sided.

This is laughable as most CEO's have awesome conditions built in to their contracts in case of firing and most of them become CEO's at different companies. In case you haven't noticed, it's not the high tax burdens that are killing companies right now. CEO's are still losing their jobs and getting picked up to be CEO somewhere else.


Poor CEOs. Maybe if they were paid according the value they return, they wouldn't be the burden on shareholders. In short, most CEOs only care about stock price as it relates to their options.

The Economist on Palin:

I didnt say that.

But please explain how the clips in his video were twisted in a way to show the hypocrisy he's exposing?

I think you got him. The messenger is dead. Too bad you missed the hypocrites though, perhaps you could do some good.

The very interesting thing is going to be if there's a scenario where we see Hillary back in a Presidential race whether they'll flip back. If I had to lay money, I'd guess so.

Has anyone else noticed that the McCain commercials now heavily feature older, white Dem Senators? They're going all in for women it seems.

Um, those who smelt it dealt it?

:)

I kinda have to agree with rowech's criticisms here. Stewart has really gone over the cliff. It had been building up, but, I'd imagine an equal opportunity basher would have gone after Obama's talking about the surge working, but I don't see any video on the ComCentral site about it at all.

That's true, and business is pretty good at doing those things.

The government on the other hand......

I've worked in government most of my career. I've also worked in the private sector. I'm alarmed by the waste in one of those entities.

If you seek to destroy the rich, the poor/middle class doesn't fill the power/wealth vacuum. The government does.

It may not mean much to you, but when you were in the military do you remember those guys/gals that were unit commanders? McCain was one of those guys. He led a squadron and recieved awards for how well he led.

I guarantee you can't prove the alternative - that you're right. Why does every view other than your own have the burden of proof?

It's funny to hear "it's not that simple" from someone who just wants to rob from the rich and give to the poor and thinks that makes everything OK.

It kind of make you wonder why everyone in America just isn't a CEO.

There's good and bad CEOs. But if you want a good one, you better be prepared to pay a crapload.

Obama said that the surge is working??? Isn't that like the most contradictory statement ever made, knowing where he was on this up until recently?

I'll go with that if you promise never to cite how often McCain votes with Bush as some kind of negative (this was a big talking point a few pages back). I still don't really understand the point, as Bush isn't in Congress.

Obama: Surge Succeeded Beyond ‘Wildest Dreams’ - America’s Election HQ

I don't have any problem with him saying this now, in fact, I admire it. Obama did a 180 on Iraq after he visited it a few months back, and I find that admirable to do in the middle of an election. It's far more honest than maintaining his old views for the sake of consistency.

Show me where I say I want to rob from the rich? If you're going to make that claim, show me.

What alternative are you talking about? Nearly every economist in the world would agree that there's no proof that trickle down economic theory is always correct. Do you dispute that?

Thanks, I didn't know that. Is this another foreign policy related position where, after some time, he got to where McCain had been all along?

Political Radar: Obama: Surge Succeeded But Too Costly

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), that you want to increase taxes on the rich, far above the already progressive tax.

By "alternative" I just mean your ideal economic system. Other people are making arguments about what they think is best, and your response is "prove it!". Why don't you prove that it doesn't work? Why don't you prove that your system is best? Why is the burden of proof on anyone that disagrees with you?

Opps...Looks like Molson beat me to it.

You left off the other part of my statement where I said comparisons of votes or stances does show us something. Voting for bills supported by the White House does show a tendency to support the occupant of the White House. Substantively this is important because McCain says he's different than Bush.

I'll stick with my argument that calling McCain far-right because he votes with the Republicans doesn't really mean much.

We agree, stubborn consistency for the sake of has gotten us into enough trouble. give me a flip flop anyday rather than trying to prove the definition of insanity.

Well, there was a school of thought that if they had the proper troop deployments from the beginning, instead of the incredibly stupid incompetence that was shown, things may have had a faster outcome. Perhaps it was too costly, as the whole thing had been, but doing something like this appears to have made a bad situation better.

I support a return to the Clinton era tax brackets as we're currently spending well more than we're bringing in and there's basically no practical possibility of spending cuts that will close that gap. Given that the world didn't end in the nineties and in fact the economy prospered, there's little reason to see a return to those brackets as a sure sign of economic collapse.

As to your second point, you're merging two discussions. The conversation with Warhammer contains things that I support, but admittedly can't prove just as his theories aren't proven. No one can prove that a flat tax is always better than a progressive tax. The discussion with SFL comes from his blanket statement that tax increases always trickle down. That statement is false plain and simple. Would you dispute that?

Obama is at the top of his party's ticket for president. Rove is an unemployed political hack who spews a lot of hot air.

I wonder if anyone has ever made a table that graphically shows detailed tax rates/spending through the years, per administration, along with the ideas of Obama and McCain. I think I talk in generalities and I don't have a great sense of the numbers - though my impression from reading worlds (not numbers), is that Obama is FAR more liberal in terms of tax/spend than Bill Clinton.

That would be the Russian invasion of Georgia. At first, Obama (in his customary parsing and equivocating manner) tried to draw a moral equivalency between Russia and Georgia. Then, he released a statement that the U.N. Security Council would be the appropriate vehicle to address the crisis. Then, when one of his 300 foreign policy advisors informed him that Russia had veto power in the Security Council, Obama finally released a statement agreeing with McCain's initial position.

They're not...and I love when he does those pieces on both sides but to pretend the Deomcrats aren't doing the same thing all throughout is nonsense. As just one example -- over and over Obama touted the fact he was bringing soliders home immediately....now he's not so sure that's the right course of action.

Like I said, normally the show has been pretty fair although in the Dems favor and I'm fine with it. The past two weeks have just been pure one-sided propaganda with no sense of equal opportunity mockery.

Can we define flip-flop? Obama didn't say or claim that he was "for the surge before he was against it" or something to that affect. He said that he can see that the surge did work even though he was against it. I respect a guy who basically admits he was wrong. Is that flip-flopping? Admitting the truth instead of stubbornly denying what is right before your eyes?

There's no doubt that Obama will increase total federal taxes. But by my reading his tax plan is still lower than Clinton's plan and for an overwhelming majority of households income taxes will be reduced. This FactCheck.org page explains some of the falsehoods being thrown about Obama's tax plans.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec...fits_if_i.html

Wow, Im sure someone is going to hammer this home better than i but:

Its a good thing that a leader can change their minds after seeing evidence to support such a change especially in contrast to what his party and perhaps most ardent supporters would want.

BTW, unfortunately, I dont get to watch the daily show often as for some reason I havnt set it on my TV to record. Plus football is starting (and futbol) so Ill basically be sportsed out for 5 months.

Both sides do lie but it doesnt mean it's ok for either and when one is caught it's deserved to be exposed and dragged through the mud, perhaps drawn and quartered as well. When the talking heads for the right do it, as exposed in the video above, it doesnt need equivocation or explanation, "it is what it is," and is bad.

Tsk! Now it's your turn to admit that a lot of the prosperity of the late nineties was based on rampant speculation on tech stocks, a lot of which had absolutely insane price-to-earnings ratios. A lot of that "wealth" disappeared overnight when the tech bubble popped.

Not to mention that several major corporations were simply cooking their books to make themselves look profitable when, in fact, they weren't. But, hey, lying about things was fashionable at the time.

DOLA

I love fact-check.org but people dont read it, dont care about it, and only garner the information that supports their positions anyway which is a shame.

I think I agree with what it seems like you are saying. Taking a stance on an issue after the issue has already passed isn't really a stance. He was for one method of handling the issue, the other option he was against was chosen. The method he was against worked, and he admitted he was wrong. Not really flipflopping, just saying he was wrong.

I don't think the right play here for Republicans is to call Obama a flipflopper, for me it shows some of who he is as a person to be willing to admit he is wrong on something he does not necessarily understand. Republicans should play up the issue that he obviously doesn't have any experience with foreign politics and it has shown several times now.

Is that supposed to be some sort of a zinger? Of course there was speculation that led to bubbles. It is, though, dishonest not to admit that there were real gains in the economy. Arguing how the strong the economy was/wasn't isn't the point, though. The point is that there's no reason to believe that returning the top income tax rate to the Clinton rate will wreck the economy.

I feel like the definition of "lie" has gotten WAY TOO broad over the last few years, and I find the relevance of the fact checking police a little questionable.

I really don't give a shit if someone says one thing and then says something later that's not consistent. That's decent Daily Show comedy shtick but I just don't care. Last week I told someone that 5 people went out to dinner, and today I said there might have been 6. That doesn't make me a liar. I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't really go to dinner, and I wasn't just mistaken and I didn't just have my dates wrong.

And stuff like a Republican making an OBVIOUS joke about Palin getting more votes than Biden, and people running out the statistics and calling him a liar. Whatever.

Bill O'Reilly's take on O'bama

http://www.billoreilly.com/column;js...D39E?pid=24183

I've said this about 50 times, but why is it a surprise that "the surge" improved things? If you commit unlimited resources towards any problem, wouldn't you expect the situation to improve?

If the owners of the Pittsburgh Pirates or Kansas City Royals decided to boost their payrolls to $150M, their teams' play would improve.

If we decide to pay school teachers $100K per year and allocate one teacher to every four students, education will improve.

The problems remain the same:

How do you pay for it over the long term?

What happens when you cannot afford to pay for it any longer?

It's great to see McCain and Co. bragging that the surge worked, but are we just supposed to maintain it indefinitely (while he somehow decreases government spending, I might add)?

So he respects the shit out of Obama but disagrees with him on policy issues.

Bill O'Reilly is evil why?