EPTthen perhaps
On October 07 2010 01:18 Silvanel wrote:
But there is no pride in being screwed, stop acting like it is a good thing, its not.
But there is no pride in being screwed, stop acting like it is a good thing, its not.
Firefighters let house burn due no fee payment - Page 32
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
then perhaps | ||
Myles
United States5162 Posts
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:41 Effect010 wrote: and let the house burn down because of that? as a punishment for not paying 75 dollars? i dont want to live in a world that thinks like that...i saw that you sad "kinda" dont worry  If they put out fires even if you "forget" to pay the fee, then everyone will "forget", and the actual taxpayers in the city will be forced to pay it for them. It's just a house that some retard set on fire burning garbage in his backyard. It's sad that his dogs died but he should have got them out of there. If the house went up so fast that he couldn't do it, there's no way the dogs would be alive even if the fire department set out right away (carbon monoxide poisoning kills very fast). All that the fire department could have saved was a badly burned structural frame. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:43 kojinshugi wrote: Silvanel, I'm not entirely sure how it works in Poland, but it doesn't really work like that in any European country I've ever been in. Your income tax doesn't directly pay for fire and emergency services. Local or municipal governments do receive a portion of it, but it's directly tied to the number of people who actually live in that municipality. There are also real estate taxes, local business licensure fees, etc. Your local fire department is not paid for by the government or your general income tax. It's paid for by the budget of your municipal government. People who live in Krakow pay higher real estate taxes than people living in some random small town 50 km outside of Poznan. The firefighters in Krakow get paid more than firefighters in some random small town. Yet all pay the same percentage of income tax. Are people in Krakow "paying twice"? That guy in Obion county didn't pay any municipal taxes because he didn't live in a city. He in fact didn't pay even once. If you live in a rental apartment, your landlord is actually paying municipal fees and taxes. If you own your own home, then you pay those yourself. Also, you don't seem to realize how large the United States are. The country is a federation of states that span an entire continent. The federal government centrally controlling every fire department in the country is ludicrous. That aside, that's not even how it works in tiny Estonia, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that in Poland either. Municipal services are provided by municipal governments. My wife is actually from one county over from Obion (Dyer), and she's lived both in a city and outside city limits. When they lived outside city limits they paid a fee for fire services like everyone else, because they didn't pay city taxes. This is normal practice in Tennessee and the media is just turning this idiot's screwup into a sob story by distorting the facts. http://www.s12.pl/site/view/Document/id/300;jsessionid=2988DC9C684483EB7261155A47596E53?context=0 Took me 10 seconds to find it, its in Polish so i dont know if u can read it. Here is most important part. Główne środki finansowe przeznaczone są jednak na działalność w/w służb PSP i OSP, które funkcjonują w ramach KSRG. Finansowanie jednostek organizacyjnych Państwowej Straży Pożarnej odbywa się z budżetu państwa, w jego 42 (MSWiA) oraz 85 (Wojewodowie) części. Na obszarze powiatu finansowanie PSP odbywa się także na zasadzie dotacji celowej budżetu państwa. W pokrywaniu części kosztów funkcjonowania Państwowej Straży Pożarnej mogą uczestniczyć: gmina, powiat lub samorząd województwa jak i organizatorzy imprez masowych. Uzupełnienie powyższych źródeł finansowania PSP stanowi rezerwa ogólna i rezerwa celowa budżetu państwa, z których sfinansowano między innymi w 2002 r. zakup sprzętu przeciwpowodziowego oraz pokryto koszty udzielonej pomocy humanitarnej i zorganizowania akcji ratowniczej na terenie Czech i Niemiec. Sorry for Polish folks, i will replace it with English version as soon as i find one. | ||
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:45 zak1129 wrote: Not showing up because he didn't pay is one thing. Your boss tells you not to go, you don't go. But standing around and watching another man's house burn to the ground? Are you kidding me? That's wrong. You're welcome to climb into a burning cracker shack at risk to your own personal safety to save nothing worth saving for someone who doesn't think your life and safety are worth 75 dollars a year, but I don't see why you'd ask someone else to do it. By the time the fire trucks got there it was waaaay past saving. They contained the fire and let it burn out. But hey, Keith Olbermann gets to show his viewers some righteous indignation and the TV tabloids get their "little man being wronged" sob story, so never mind thinking about this. Let's feel the news. | ||
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NukeTheBunnys
United States1004 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:18 Silvanel wrote: I belive most of the North American posters missed a very important point in my post, its my fault i did not stressed it enough. The misunderstanding arose from the fact that our (European so to speak) and NA taxation systems are not very similiar, in fact they are quite different. There is a huge variety of taxes in USA, Taxation in the United States is a complex system which may involve payment to many different levels of government and many methods of taxation. United States taxation includes local government, possibly including one or more of municipal, township, district and county governments. It also includes regional entities such as school and utility, and transit districts as well as state and federal government. I shamlessly stolen the quote above from wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States Back on the topic, the taxation system in my country (and i belive in most of other European countries) is much more simpler (at least in this aspect). When i pay something that is similiar to Your Individual income tax i pay for almost everything (with notable exception of medical care). My govenment does not inform me for what i am paying. It takes my money and use it for education, roads,sewerage, police, firefighting and many other services (though with notable exception of medical care which have its own separate position). Of course there are few exception some of the money ewentually ends in city or county budget. I would not like to go into it to deep, its rather pointless, all You have to know is the fact that Individual Income tax is most important position here and that is the way my government pays for most of the services. Unless i am mistaken all US citizens have to pay that Individual Income Tax. If that is so, we can safely assume that person in question (the one that lost its house) is paying above mentioned tax.For me he already paid his share for the firefighting, and for a lot of other things. In fact it seems to me that if he would pay the firefighting fee he would in fact paid for it twice. Not legaly speaking of course. But hey, You have sometimes to look at Your relation with the government and ask Yourself if everything is okay? The firefighting issue in this topic, is in my opinion certainly an area where something is wrong. Not that my government isnt screwing me too, it does. But there is no pride in being screwed, stop acting like it is a good thing, its not. To put it stright and simple, i belive US government should finance firefighting from the money You pay it with your Individual Income Tax. As you pointed out the taxation system in the united states is quite complex. Your federal income tax, which taxes your income(supprise) and only goes to the federal government and they go and do what ever the hell they want with it. One of the things they do is fund county fire departments, but only if they live up to federal regulation. This is a common case in the united states because the federal government does nto have a way to force states to adopt some laws. This may seem ridiculous to you, but the federal government/state relationship is closer to the EU/independent nations then anything else. What the federal government can do is say "do this or you get no federal funding." This county has opted to not create a county wide firefighting system, and as a result does not get federal funding. You local property taxes cover local services like sewers, police, fire, EMS ect. Because they are separated into separate taxes you can choose where you live, what services you receive, and how much you pay. By living outside any city he does not have to pay a local property tax. So while you see it as he already paid for the firefighting services, you are wrong. Legally speaking, or otherwise. When I look at my relationship between my local, state and federal government I see that The federal government only has power to effect interstate relations, my state government can make laws that effect the state as a whole, and my local government provides the services I use on a daily basis. I see that If i do not like interaction between the government and my self I can move to some where else in the nation and change a large part of how i interact with the government. I also see that I have more control over the things that effect me most. I can go to town hall and since im 1 of 500,000 or what ever the town population is I have much more of an effect on the system then when I am 1 out of 600,000,000 on the federal level. It is actually unconstitutional for the federal government to take over local services like you suggest, and honestly I like a system where you can fine tune conditions to a local area instead of having it implemented for 600,000,000 people | ||
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:50 Silvanel wrote: http://www.s12.pl/site/view/Document/id/300;jsessionid=2988DC9C684483EB7261155A47596E53?context=0 Took me 10 seconds to find it, its in Polish so i dont know if u can read it Google Chrome translated it. "The main subject of the emergency operating in the municipality are units of Volunteer Fire Brigades. The main costs of equipment, maintenance, training and combat readiness by providing volunteer fire department rests with the municipality. Additional support funds are received from insurance companies which are required to provide 10% of the total revenues accruing from the compulsory insurance against fire in certain fire safety objectives (50 % of this amount is transferred to the PSP). The financing of these units is also carried by the state budget. However, it takes place within a specified range (the funds are transferred subject to their destination only to ensure the combat readiness of these units), and applies only to units included in the TSO national rescue - fire fighting." The translation is iffy but it seems the state budget only pays for national fire brigades (big fires, etc?) and local small fires are handled by Volunteer Fire Brigades. I'm not trying to argue that the system in Tennessee couldn't be improved, but it's not as draconian as people make it seem. It's certainly not a huge amount of money, and it is a service provided by a municipality to people who don't live in, or pay taxes to, said municipality. Also, our tax burdens are massively higher than the US federal income tax. In the end this person opted not to pay a reasonable fee and lost his property. I don't have it in me to feel sorry for every idiot that shoots himself in the foot. Of all the "injustices" in the world or even in rural America, this is just about the least deserving of attention and hand-wringing. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:57 NukeTheBunnys wrote: As you pointed out the taxation system in the united states is quite complex. Your federal income tax, which taxes your income(supprise) and only goes to the federal government and they go and do what ever the hell they want with it. One of the things they do is fund county fire departments, but only if they live up to federal regulation. This is a common case in the united states because the federal government does nto have a way to force states to adopt some laws. This may seem ridiculous to you, but the federal government/state relationship is closer to the EU/independent nations then anything else. What the federal government can do is say "do this or you get no federal funding." This county has opted to not create a county wide firefighting system, and as a result does not get federal funding. You local property taxes cover local services like sewers, police, fire, EMS ect. Because they are separated into separate taxes you can choose where you live, what services you receive, and how much you pay. By living outside any city he does not have to pay a local property tax. So while you see it as he already paid for the firefighting services, you are wrong. Legally speaking, or otherwise. When I look at my relationship between my local, state and federal government I see that The federal government only has power to effect interstate relations, my state government can make laws that effect the state as a whole, and my local government provides the services I use on a daily basis. I see that If i do not like interaction between the government and my self I can move to some where else in the nation and change a large part of how i interact with the government. I also see that I have more control over the things that effect me most. I can go to town hall and since im 1 of 500,000 or what ever the town population is I have much more of an effect on the system then when I am 1 out of 600,000,000 on the federal level. It is actually unconstitutional for the federal government to take over local services like you suggest, and honestly I like a system where you can fine tune conditions to a local area instead of having it implemented for 600,000,000 people Thanks for clarification, i kind expected it looks that way. Its still strange for me why a county would opt for self financed firefighting while it could be founded by govenment? Is goverment founded firefighting somwhat inferior to county founded? (I am just asking i honestly dont know how it is in US). And slightly off topic, what do You get for the taxes You pay stright to the federal government? Apart for the army? | ||
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ammeL
United States211 Posts
The man did not pay his fee. When he needed the services that this fee would have provided (putting a fire out), he opted to pay for it. That's unfair. These firemen get paid by doing their job through the payments that people pay (such as this man's payment). Of course, I'm not saying that a fireman's wage is entirely based off of a fee like this, but you all get the idea. In the end, being a fireman is a job. And in a job, you do what gets you money. Sure, maybe one may have the mindset of "Well, they are firemen -- they should be saving people because that's what they do and should be honored to do so" or something of that sort. It's kind of like a doctor. Doctors are OBLIGATED by some sort of oath before officially becoming a doctor that they will do their best to help patients (I'm pretty sure on this, and if I'm wrong, it's something along these lines). Firemen, on the other hand do not live by any sort of oath. Thus, the man who DID pay his fee got the service he payed for and didn't try to conserve his money until he needed it. I mean, come on, if someone just refuses to pay and only pays when needed, EVERYONE would do that. How frequently do you think you're going to have a fire in your home that requires the assistance of the Fire Department? Rarely, I would say. Since it's rare, you can easily save money by NOT paying it at all because you'll just assume a fire will never happen to you. On the other hand, when it finally does happen to you, you opt to pay it? But through that whole duration of not paying until the fateful seconds of your home burning down, you now want to pay it? Hah. The firemen did the right thing. It's their job. They're not going to sit their and risk their lives for a guy who clearly thought the assistance of the fire department would never be needed. Sometimes a "dick" move (what society may deem that the firefighters have done) is the right move -- unfortunate to say. | ||
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semantics
10040 Posts
On October 07 2010 02:06 Silvanel wrote: Thanks for clarification, i kind expected it looks that way. Its still strange for me why a county would opt for self financed firefighting while it could be founded by govenment? Is goverment founded firefighting somwhat inferior to county founded? (I am just asking i honestly dont know how it is in US). And slightly off topic, what do You get for the taxes You pay stright to the federal government? Apart for the army? Taxes rarely pay for one thing and there is rarely just 1 tax on something. Esp in the US which probably has one of the messiest taxing system esp concerning income tax. | ||
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Moody
United States750 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
On October 07 2010 01:59 kojinshugi wrote: Google Chrome translated it. "The main subject of the emergency operating in the municipality are units of Volunteer Fire Brigades. The main costs of equipment, maintenance, training and combat readiness by providing volunteer fire department rests with the municipality. Additional support funds are received from insurance companies which are required to provide 10% of the total revenues accruing from the compulsory insurance against fire in certain fire safety objectives (50 % of this amount is transferred to the PSP). The financing of these units is also carried by the state budget. However, it takes place within a specified range (the funds are transferred subject to their destination only to ensure the combat readiness of these units), and applies only to units included in the TSO national rescue - fire fighting." The translation is iffy but it seems the state budget only pays for national fire brigades (big fires, etc?) and local small fires are handled by Volunteer Fire Brigades. I'm not trying to argue that the system in Tennessee couldn't be improved, but it's not as draconian as people make it seem. It's certainly not a huge amount of money, and it is a service provided by a municipality to people who don't live in, or pay taxes to, said municipality. Also, our tax burdens are massively higher than the US federal income tax. In the end this person opted not to pay a reasonable fee and lost his property. I don't have it in me to feel sorry for every idiot that shoots himself in the foot. Of all the "injustices" in the world or even in rural America, this is just about the least deserving of attention and hand-wringing. Not realy (regarding translation), since there is no other option, I will translate the main points. 1.In Poland we have two kinds of firefighting units PSP and OSP. PSP is professional (meaning the only thing they do is firefighting) OSP is bulid of volunteers (trained ofcourse), they have their other jobs and are only called when needed. OSP is especially helpfull in some less populated areas of the country. 2.BOTH are government founded, directly and indirectly (through some agencies) 3.The city/county authorities may (but dont have to) also support both PSP and OSP, and of course they do it, that money comes both from land taxes and our income tax (since govenment returns some of taxpayers money to county/city to let them spend it any way they like. 4.PSP AND OSP also have some other ways founding, UE resources, insurance companies and such. My main point is that, hell their (US) system isnt perfect (mine (Polish) is not too), but perhpas this event will make Them reconsider, if everything is the way They want it to be. It can be done different You see. | ||
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NukeTheBunnys
United States1004 Posts
On October 07 2010 02:06 Silvanel wrote: Thanks for clarification, i kind expected it looks that way. Its still strange for me why a county would opt for self financed firefighting while it could be founded by govenment? Is goverment founded firefighting somwhat inferior to county founded? (I am just asking i honestly dont know how it is in US). And slightly off topic, what do You get for the taxes You pay stright to the federal government? Apart for the army? The firefighters in the country are government funded, the question is just what level of government. There are many levels, from smallest to largest there are municipal, county, state, and federal. You could fit a few more in there if you wanted to nit-pick, but those are the major ones. The federal government does provide some assistance to county controlled and funded fire departments, this is because counties are the smallest level that cover 100% of the nation. There are areas, such as where this man lived, that are not covered by any municipal government. As for why we don't have, or want a state or federal firefighting system, its because the US is fucking huge. having smaller independent county fire departments reduces the amount of overhead in the bureaucracy, so more of the money we put into the fire departments goes to equipment, and paying firefighters instead of going to state and federal managers. There is currently a problem that many cities are trying to save money and are cutting fire, police, and education services, I can only imagine this problem would be worse if it was federally controlled because in essence the same amount of money would need to provide for everything it currently does, as well as additional bureaucracy to coordinate the more complex federal system. What do we get from federal taxes, the military, FBI, Federal emergency management Agency Evrometnal protection agency, Food and Drug Administration, the interstate highway system and a bunch of other stuff. More or less we get organizations that control things that go on between states. A lot of the money also gets channeled back to the state level governments, which is then given to the local level. An example of this is the Federal government will not provide any money to the states to maintain their highways if the state does not set the minimum drinking age at 21. This is a constitutional issue because the federal government does not have the power to make any laws about the drinking age, so it uses these indirect ways to enforce it. | ||
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Runnin
208 Posts
On October 06 2010 17:57 foxmeep wrote: The insurance argument has absolutely no merit. You can waive insurance and pay the full fee for a service after the fact (be it medical attention or car repairs). This guy was simply never given the option to have his house put out. And that is what all the fuss is about. How can you have a fire department REFUSE to put out a fire if they were offered fair compensation? Especially once they are right fucking there. How can anyone not see how inherently immoral that is... Sure you have costs for running a fire department, but I guarantee that putting out a few houses that didn't pay and footing a bill isn't going to send you bankrupt. Most people will still pay the small fee, just like most people will still pay for car insurance they NEVER use, even though it ends up costing them x2 the cost of the car over it's lifetime. Your analogy is a little off. You can pay for not having fire protection after the fact just like you can pay for medical attention and car repairs. The cost is your house + whatever is inside of it. If you total your car without insurance, you pay for a new car. If your house catches fire and you have no fire protection, you pay for a new house. There is no "fair compensation" here for the fire department other than the cost of an entire house. Fire departments don't get money from changing tires, doing oil changes, or whatever else an autoshop makes money on. They need constant funding and contribution from everybody or they simply won't have the money to put out any fires at all. If you want to get upset, take it out on the politician who decided to make fire protection optional in this area. This guy is clearly not responsible enough to make this kind of decision on his own. They should have made the fee mandatory or taken it out of whatever local taxes he pays. | ||
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luckybeni2
Germany1065 Posts
On October 07 2010 02:19 Moody wrote: Last I checked, America wasn't a Socialist country... yet. Sadly ;P But seriously you should start to learn from the central and west European states. A hybrid system of a slightly controlled market combined with social security has proven way more usefull than your totally outdated system. You still think in the terms of the cold war where everything that has to do with socialism means dictatorship and evil. The modern way of buisness that is taught in most elite universities borrows and builds upon most of the economical ideas that Marx had. A couple of insurances will not hurt your country. Anyway I just wanted to say that in Germany firefighters still are the most respected job in the country. It is considered honourable because you risk your life to save others. I honestly do not care if they were told to stay put. If you have the tools and skills to help a fellow human being then it is your duty to do so. | ||
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 02:24 Silvanel wrote: My main point is that, hell their (US) system isnt perfect (mine (Polish) is not too), but perhpas this event will make Them reconsider, if everything is the way They want it to be. It can be done different You see. But my point is that this is a non-event. The media is making it out to be some horrific tragedy and oppression of the common man, but it really isn't. Every responsible adult in that area, that doesn't live in a city where the fire dept is funded by taxes, pays this fee to a municipality that then responds to emergencies. This idiot didn't, and lost his house. Many people don't use smoke detectors in their homes. Thousands of people worldwide die from this, in their sleep, every day. Should the government hire people to go into their houses and check the batteries in their smoke detectors? This guy just lost property, material items. He also lost his dogs but I really can't imagine a situation where they could have been saved, regardless of whether the fire department responded to the call or not. As I said, if the house was burning so badly that they couldn't let the dogs out themselves, then the dogs would be dead within minutes from CO poisoning. I agree that this system doesn't protect idiots from themselves, and therefore is also a danger to others (such as the poor dogs that belonged to the idiot). I think a better system would be some legislation that would require that anyone who doesn't pay the annual fee but calls the fire department then owes them 100 years of fees (or 7500 dollars in this case) for putting out the fire. It's not as if this happens all the time. It's not as if this person pays municipal taxes and is then double taxed by the municipal government for basic emergency services. That county does have a system in place that provides everyone access to emergency services, it's just slightly more dependent on personal responsibility than some of us are used to. But it's not evil, heartless, or any such hyperbolic nonsense. | ||
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 03:05 luckybeni2 wrote: Anyway I just wanted to say that in Germany firefighters still are the most respected job in the country. It is considered honourable because you risk your life to save others. I honestly do not care if they were told to stay put. If you have the tools and skills to help a fellow human being then it is your duty to do so. No one's life was in danger. Just the charred remains of an idiot's cracker box. He doesn't respect firefighters enough to pay them six dollars and 25 cents (less than the price of lunch) a month for risking their lives, I really don't see why they should risk their safety to put out a burning pile of plywood. EDIT: Moody's comment is retarded. This has nothing to do with socialism versus capitalism. Less Keith Olbermann, more common sense. | ||
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
I also don't understand the hyperbolic analogies people are bringing up or the irrelevant arguments of morality along with capitalism/socialism of foreign countries. It's really not that big of a deal, he CHOSE not to have fire coverage, he gets to live with the consequences. For those of you offering mandatory services in one way or another, watch what happens when that gets proposed in Tennessee. Your "experiences", "models" and "examples" is completely irrelevant. Watch what happens if you try to implement that kind of a system in TN. | ||
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No_Roo
United States905 Posts
On October 07 2010 03:05 luckybeni2 wrote: Sadly ;P But seriously you should start to learn from the central and west European states. A hybrid system of a slightly controlled market combined with social security has proven way more usefull than your totally outdated system. You still think in the terms of the cold war where everything that has to do with socialism means dictatorship and evil. The modern way of buisness that is taught in most elite universities borrows and builds upon most of the economical ideas that Marx had. A couple of insurances will not hurt your country. Anyway I just wanted to say that in Germany firefighters still are the most respected job in the country. It is considered honourable because you risk your life to save others. I honestly do not care if they were told to stay put. If you have the tools and skills to help a fellow human being then it is your duty to do so. We do have a hybrid system, America has adopted many socialist programs over the last 100 years, we're just a few decades behind most of Europe. Honestly our progress is impressive considering what a huge portion of this country is still struggling with the basic concepts of secularity. Any way, I agree that regardless of bad policy these firefighters have completely failed in their primary duty of helping another human being. They didn't pay the fee? Fine; put the fire out and send them a bill for it. But to stand there and watch it happen while callously refusing to help over a matter of principle? It wasn't even a matter of money, they offered to pay anything... It disgusts me that something like this could happen in our country. | ||
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kojinshugi
Estonia2559 Posts
On October 07 2010 03:21 No_Roo wrote: But to stand there and watch it happen while callously refusing to help over a matter of principle? It wasn't even a matter of money, they offered to pay anything... It disgusts me that something like this could happen in our country. That's not what happened. They just didn't respond to his call because he wasn't part of their "jurisdiction". Two hours later they went there because another person who they were under contract with called them. At this point the first guy's house was just a flaming pile of timber. What difference would it make for them to put it out? They didn't stand there for hours roasting marshmallows on his house. | ||
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