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On November 10 2017 02:56 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 02:55 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:47 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:41 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:36 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:35 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:32 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:31 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:28 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:24 xDaunt wrote:
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Why do you think that they pay the most in taxes? In other words, why is the income in and around DC so high? i’d like to hear instead you tell me how those who pay the most in taxes are being unfairly (based on your comments about not feeling bad) given the most money. The reason why incomes are so high in and around the DC area is because DC is where people annually decide how to spend trillions of tax dollars. Getting a piece of that pie not only leads to huge business, but is also huge business in and of itself. so your belief is the seven hundred thousand residents in DC control the budget? You're smarter than this. Try again. no, i’m honestly asking. there are seven hundred thousand residents. and you’re stating they make money from being employed in/around congress? Of course not. Congress and the federal administrative state determine how the money is spent. But they don't do it in a vacuum. They do it while being surrounded by lobbyists and other persons who are actively trying to get federal dollars. Tons of businesses set up shop in DC precisely because they want to benefit from the issuance of federal contracts -- either as parties to the contracts themselves or as secondary beneficiaries. that’s why i said in or AROUND congress. apologies if that was unclear. well i understand why you’re confused now. this simply isn’t the case. rest assured that the seven hundred thousand residents of DC not being represented in congress are not themselves congressmen or lobbiests, but on average every day working people. I understand that. However, the original argument was made that these people pay more taxes than everyone else, which is why I asked the question as to why that was the case. There's no disputing that there is a huge wealth and income disparity in and around DC. I'm only pointing out where the wealth predominantly comes from -- federal tax dollars collected from other people around the country. the original argument was your lack of empathy for a city of people who have no vote and bathe in the money of the rest of the country. this is only an acceptable opinion if DC, in your head, is five square blocks of city around the national mall. there is sixty miles of city beyond that, that you very obviously know nothing about.
Now you're making a different argument. It still doesn't change the fact that the local DC economy has unique luxury of being injected with billions upon billions of federal tax dollars each year.
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On November 10 2017 02:57 Velr wrote:
And the wealth of lawyers comes from people/companies all around the country. Yet you don't get excluded from voting (and obviously shouldn't)
Do you really not understand the difference between purely private enterprise and federal contracts?
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On November 10 2017 03:03 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 02:56 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:55 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:47 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:41 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:36 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:35 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:32 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:31 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:28 brian wrote:
[quote]
i’d like to hear instead you tell me how those who pay the most in taxes are being unfairly (based on your comments about not feeling bad) given the most money. The reason why incomes are so high in and around the DC area is because DC is where people annually decide how to spend trillions of tax dollars. Getting a piece of that pie not only leads to huge business, but is also huge business in and of itself. so your belief is the seven hundred thousand residents in DC control the budget? You're smarter than this. Try again. no, i’m honestly asking. there are seven hundred thousand residents. and you’re stating they make money from being employed in/around congress? Of course not. Congress and the federal administrative state determine how the money is spent. But they don't do it in a vacuum. They do it while being surrounded by lobbyists and other persons who are actively trying to get federal dollars. Tons of businesses set up shop in DC precisely because they want to benefit from the issuance of federal contracts -- either as parties to the contracts themselves or as secondary beneficiaries. that’s why i said in or AROUND congress. apologies if that was unclear. well i understand why you’re confused now. this simply isn’t the case. rest assured that the seven hundred thousand residents of DC not being represented in congress are not themselves congressmen or lobbiests, but on average every day working people. I understand that. However, the original argument was made that these people pay more taxes than everyone else, which is why I asked the question as to why that was the case. There's no disputing that there is a huge wealth and income disparity in and around DC. I'm only pointing out where the wealth predominantly comes from -- federal tax dollars collected from other people around the country. the original argument was your lack of empathy for a city of people who have no vote and bathe in the money of the rest of the country. this is only an acceptable opinion if DC, in your head, is five square blocks of city around the national mall. there is sixty miles of city beyond that, that you very obviously know nothing about. Now you're making a different argument. It still doesn't change the fact that the local DC economy has unique luxury of being injected with billions upon billions of federal tax dollars each year.
But the state of Alaska gets 2 senators, a bunch of house reps and the ability vote. DC doesn't.
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On November 10 2017 03:03 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 02:56 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:55 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:47 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:41 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:36 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:35 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:32 brian wrote:On November 10 2017 02:31 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:28 brian wrote:
[quote]
i’d like to hear instead you tell me how those who pay the most in taxes are being unfairly (based on your comments about not feeling bad) given the most money. The reason why incomes are so high in and around the DC area is because DC is where people annually decide how to spend trillions of tax dollars. Getting a piece of that pie not only leads to huge business, but is also huge business in and of itself. so your belief is the seven hundred thousand residents in DC control the budget? You're smarter than this. Try again. no, i’m honestly asking. there are seven hundred thousand residents. and you’re stating they make money from being employed in/around congress? Of course not. Congress and the federal administrative state determine how the money is spent. But they don't do it in a vacuum. They do it while being surrounded by lobbyists and other persons who are actively trying to get federal dollars. Tons of businesses set up shop in DC precisely because they want to benefit from the issuance of federal contracts -- either as parties to the contracts themselves or as secondary beneficiaries. that’s why i said in or AROUND congress. apologies if that was unclear. well i understand why you’re confused now. this simply isn’t the case. rest assured that the seven hundred thousand residents of DC not being represented in congress are not themselves congressmen or lobbiests, but on average every day working people. I understand that. However, the original argument was made that these people pay more taxes than everyone else, which is why I asked the question as to why that was the case. There's no disputing that there is a huge wealth and income disparity in and around DC. I'm only pointing out where the wealth predominantly comes from -- federal tax dollars collected from other people around the country. the original argument was your lack of empathy for a city of people who have no vote and bathe in the money of the rest of the country. this is only an acceptable opinion if DC, in your head, is five square blocks of city around the national mall. there is sixty miles of city beyond that, that you very obviously know nothing about. Now you're making a different argument. It still doesn't change the fact that the local DC economy has unique luxury of being injected with billions upon billions of federal tax dollars each year.
no, i’m not. the argument has always been that you have an opinion of DC based on the area immediately surrounding the mall(bathing in others money.) you have no idea what the residents of DC are like(no sympathy,)how wealthy they are, and how many tax dollars they are the beneficiary of. you are grossly mistaken about the make up of the city from start to finish.
that you think it’s a new argument is only testament to how little you know of DC. someone even remotely familiar would not be so lost.
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On November 10 2017 03:05 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 02:57 Velr wrote:
And the wealth of lawyers comes from people/companies all around the country. Yet you don't get excluded from voting (and obviously shouldn't) Do you really not understand the difference between purely private enterprise and federal contracts?
No, not really at least i don't know where you want to go with this and why it makes it ok for 700'000 people not having a vote.
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On November 10 2017 02:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:35 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 01:21 kollin wrote:On November 10 2017 01:11 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 01:07 kollin wrote:On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year. What point are you trying to make, other than raging against an imperfect world? Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken... Right so...what? We should pay less taxes, more taxes, vote for different local/federal government?? What is your point beyond there's an imperfect system? There needs to be a better transparent way of seeing what our taxes is used for. Most work is too specialized for outsiders to have a great grasp of what is realistically efficient. You can easily look at a job, private or public, and see waste. They try yourself and realize shit is hard, and the waste is just cost of business. Look at productivity numbers - private sector isn't improving much either. Communists did a lot of that - arrest / execute people for 'wrecking'. Doesn't mean that fraud / waste doesn't really exist, just that unless you have a real game plan to discuss you're just crabbing.
one observation related to your point:
I often see construction workers around, and it often looks like a lot of htem are just standing around doing nothing (and maybe they really aren't, and it's just waste); but when I did a few small projects of my own around the house, I realized it also took me quite a long time to get things done, and it often seemed slow, and there was a lot of waiting, and thinking, to make sure everything got right; otoh, maybe that's just because I rarely do work like that, so it's slow because i'm inexperienced, which wouldn't apply to most construction workers. also, on physical labor-ish stuff, the pacing is a lot different if you're going to be doing such work all day, than if you're just doing a much smaller project.
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On November 10 2017 03:08 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 03:05 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 02:57 Velr wrote:
And the wealth of lawyers comes from people/companies all around the country. Yet you don't get excluded from voting (and obviously shouldn't) Do you really not understand the difference between purely private enterprise and federal contracts? No, not really at least i don't know where you want to go with this and why it makes it ok for 700'000 people not having a vote.
Let's just say that it is categorically stupid to liken attorneys providing services to businesses on a purely private basis to firms receiving federal contracts -- which is what you did.
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So the federal goverment giving out contracts to private entities is somehow worse than private to private exchanges.
Might I ask why and why it is a good reason to strip 700'000 people from voting?
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That is like a biblical marriage, so it should be right in line for Roy.
Seriously, this is terrible if true. Also not shocking in any way.
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On November 10 2017 03:18 Velr wrote:
So the federal goverment giving out contracts to private entities is somehow worse than private to private exchanges.
Might I ask why and why it is a good reason to strip 700'000 people from voting?
I didn't say it was. I said that it is hard to feel sorry for the residents of DC when they so obviously benefit from the economic realities of having trillions of tax dollars pass through Capitol Hill every year. I really don't care whether the citizens of DC get federal representation.
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Goodlatte's retirement is a big deal, the House Judiciary Committee is one of the most influential and he's been a power broker there as chairman for almost 5 years now.
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On November 10 2017 03:23 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 03:18 Velr wrote:
So the federal goverment giving out contracts to private entities is somehow worse than private to private exchanges.
Might I ask why and why it is a good reason to strip 700'000 people from voting? I didn't say it was. I said that it is hard to feel sorry for the residents of DC when they so obviously benefit from the economic realities of having trillions of tax dollars pass through Capitol Hill every year. I really don't care whether the citizens of DC get federal representation.
the government hands out contracts country wide. is the rest of the country also unduly benefiting from congress controlling the budget?(rhetorical)
can you provide one specific example of a dc resident outside congress/lobbyists benefiting from congress? because, as mentioned, they make up less than 1% of the population.
you posture a lot of ignorant assumptions as fact but this one really blows my mind. it’s crystal clear you don’t know anything of DC, how do you pretend to be so certain?
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On November 10 2017 03:21 Plansix wrote:That is like a biblical marriage, so it should be right in line for Roy. Seriously, this is terrible if true. Also not shocking in any way.
It's... almost funny that this is not totally unsurprising. I had pegged it at a 20% chance he diddled a kid or had paid a male prostitute.
In the greater scheme of things, even if Doug Jones manages to squeak out some sort of victory he's almost guaranteed to be a one-termer.
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Well they are really unlucky voting is none of those inalienable rights XDaunt's western values guarantee everyone. But even if it was. You know, sometimes you have to be practical.
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Florida man does Florida things in Congress.
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On November 10 2017 03:28 RolleMcKnolle wrote:
Well they are really unlucky voting is none of those inalienable rights XDaunt's western values guarantee everyone. But even if it was. You know, sometimes you have to be practical.
Maybe we could come to some sort of compromise, maybe xdaunt would be OK with DC citizens having 3/5 of a vote each? It worked in the past.
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United States44286 Posts
On November 10 2017 03:01 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 00:04 KwarK wrote:On November 09 2017 23:35 Danglars wrote:On November 09 2017 23:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
When the cutoff is at $11 million for a household, clearly you can still accumulate generational wealth. It's not like they take 100% beyond that either. (Tbh, I'd personally be kinda fine with that. :D Or it should probably also depend on how many beneficiaries there are, but I don't see the fairness or benefit from any individual being given more than $5 million for 'being in the same family as someone'. So maybe rather than calculating it based on the value of the estate, have the cutoff be decided by how much each recipient gets. )
I don't see the societal benefit from individuals being billionaires. I get 'they invest and create jobs', but I've never seen any compelling evidence that one individual holding 1 billion creates more, better jobs than 200 individuals holding $5 million does. (Or that there being one company valued at $1 billion is better for the economy than 200 companies worth $5 million). All the bipartisan talk about 'small business being the backbone of american economy' really doesn't seem to match up with policy geared towards benefiting small businesses (which must, naturally, come at the expense of big business). The way I see it, it's impossible to accumulate $1 billion without having massively underpaid workers helping your company thrive, and while I prefer methods like increased worker ownership or limiting CEO pay to X amounts of entry level pay over taxation as a means of redistribution, if you do allow CEOs to make 600 times entry level pay then the redistribution must be done through other means. And if people aren't taxed sufficiently during their life times, then it has to happen at death.
Everybody idealizes the meritocracy. But a meritocracy is incompatible with an aristocracy, the US can't pretend to be the former while enacting policies that benefit the latter. The wealth you've earned and has been taxed that the government allows you to give to your children and grandchildren ... Examining how much property individuals attain in terms of net societal benefit as compared to pay cap ... catching up on presumed inadequate taxation over their lives ... allowing CEOs to make X redistribution must be done. I shudder to think you're probably talking in good faith here. No individuals but only servants of societal benefit, no unjust policies but only the ends justify the means, and so transparently the politics of envy but without attendant shame. I really hate to think this may be what we're headed towards. It's the social contract that binds us together. If a man lived on an island by himself and all his possessions were crafted by his own hand I wouldn't see any reason to tax him. But within a capitalist society every rich man has become rich through the redistribution of labour from others to them. We allow capitalism to redistribute wealth because it's functionally effective for allocating resources within society but there is nothing natural about, say, land ownership. If a field in Texas is discovered to have oil underneath it it does not rationally follow that all Americans should have to collectively make the owner of the field a billionaire in order to make their commute to work. You need to recognize that the wealth capitalism awards you is simply the product of an artificial system that was created by men to help decide whether ipods or zunes were better. The fact that an employer is willing to pay you $100,000 for your labour does not mean that the intrinsic value of your labour is $100,000, it's just a bullshit number that the system produced. If you get rid of society none of this labour has any intrinsic value, it's simply a product of a set of rules we created. You're trying to combine two completely separate concepts, the individual and capitalist society and it doesn't work. You can't have capitalism on an island with one occupant. Taxation is part of the same book of rules that capitalism comes from, and neither makes any sense from an individualist perspective. I don't know how you're defining "intrinsic" value, but if an employer is willing to pay me $100,000, the market value of my labor is $100,000 (assuming efficient/competitive markets). If the market values my labor more than someone else's, it follows that (again, assuming efficient/competitive markets) society's best estimate of my labor's value is more than that other person's. Should not the fruits of society's labor be distributed, in principle, proportionally to those who created it? Especially given that, for most people, the market value of the labor is--to a pretty large degree--under their control during their lifetime? You can argue that heirs to large fortunes didn't really create the value that their fortune's create (their parents did) and I think that's fair (though there are counterarguments in favor of the estate tax as well), or that economic mobility isn't possible (I disagree), but to act like the only basis for how society's wealth should be distributed is the tyranny of the masses (who are writing the "book of rules" you're referencing--at least in a democracy) doesn't have any moral or ethical basis in favor of it.
The share of the wealth you get and the share of the wealth you created aren't well correlated. That's pretty much the point of capitalism, the underlying mechanism that makes capitalism work is people attempting to do arbitrage to take advantage of that discrepancy. If you break it down to its very simplest village level bartering, the objective is to find something that you can produce in an hour that you can trade for firewood that took two hours to chop. You perform one hour of labour, and yet you get two hours of stuff.
The mechanism relies upon disproportionate rewards to redistribute labour and direct economic activity. Clearly whatever the guy in the village was doing with his hour was the right thing to do, and other villagers may follow him until an equilibrium where 1 hour = 1 hour is restored. Arbitrage to exploit disproportionate rewards between what you contribute and what you get is the engine that drives capitalism.
By the time we apply it on a modern global perspective the difference is staggering, a ratio of thousands of manhours to one in many cases. These differences are reinforced by artificial impositions upon the ability of many people to engage in arbitrage, such as denying Mexicans the ability to sell their labour in America, and by exploitation grandfathered in by the capital class. However, the basic engine remains the same, the economic systems offers participants in the economy disproportionate rewards for directing their labour in certain ways.
The disproportionate outcome needs to exist for our society to work. We need doctors to get more than grocers to keep kids in school. But it doesn't follow that what the system outputs is what you deserve, or what you earned. It's certainly not what you created, any American can tell that the manhours of labour they consume on any given day greatly exceed the manhours of labour they performed. Deserve and earned are subjective moral concepts that aren't relevant to the mechanism, what you get is what you get.
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On November 10 2017 03:27 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 03:23 xDaunt wrote:On November 10 2017 03:18 Velr wrote:
So the federal goverment giving out contracts to private entities is somehow worse than private to private exchanges.
Might I ask why and why it is a good reason to strip 700'000 people from voting? I didn't say it was. I said that it is hard to feel sorry for the residents of DC when they so obviously benefit from the economic realities of having trillions of tax dollars pass through Capitol Hill every year. I really don't care whether the citizens of DC get federal representation. the government hands out contracts country wide. is the rest of the country also unduly benefiting from congress controlling the budget?(rhetorical) can you provide one specific example of a dc resident outside congress/lobbyists benefiting from congress? because, as mentioned, they make up less than 1% of the population.
This is a question of basic economics. If you inject a massive amount of money into a local economy (which clearly happens in DC), that money is going to spread throughout the localized economy (not necessarily equally or equitably). Everyone in DC is going to benefit from that liquidity injection to one degree or another, whether it be through the increased level of services that the government can provide as a function of higher tax revenue or through the rich lobbyist just going to the local bar and dropping a $1,000 to buy drinks for himself and some hookers.
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EPT
