2008 US Presidential Election - Page 7

On October 14 2008 07:54 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

Roughly 50% of Americans pay little to no taxes.

On October 14 2008 08:02 ahrara_ wrote:
I think you've simplified the idea too much. First, American is kind of an exception in regards to its economy. The comparative stability of its economy, its regulatory transparency, and the large disposable income of its people are all incentives that outweigh the cost of the tax burdens. Second, where else do you take your money? Investment in America may not be as profitable as emerging markets, but it is significantly less risky. Taxes are even higher in Europe. Third, there are costs associated with "moving" your business elsewhere that make the shift unprofitable. When you've already built a factory here to get around tariff barriers, invested millions in marketing, it's not worthwhile to move out of the country. Finally, 62.5% of the world's reserves are valued in American dollars. People view the dollar as a very safe bet, so the high demand for the dollar will fuel American investment.

P.S. Where did you get your statistic about the taxes? To be fair and reciprocal, my numbers came from the CIA world factbook.

On October 14 2008 08:08 ahrara_ wrote:

No. Don't just make facts up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2008_income_brackets_and_tax_rates

Everyone is taxed normal income. Only capital gains go untaxed for the bottom echelon. Most income for low and middle echelon families constitute normal income.

On October 14 2008 08:07 evandi wrote:
To be fair and reciprocal, its pretty well known. I don't have to document everything, only that which people disagree with, so shove it, Ahrara.

And stop going off message. If you want to be my teacher give me a fucking PM so I can ignore it.

On October 14 2008 07:45 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

If you shift it, the rich leave the country, and so do the companies. You are lucky if you can tax the rich, because they can just pick up and get out. The top 5% of Americans pay 75% of all taxes. The rich hold this country up, going in to fuck them isn't just a bad idea, it is suicidal. So saying that you are shifting the tax burden is false, the tax burden already falls heavily on them, go too far and you will screw yourself over.


Iran-contra wasn't illegal, and you all obviously forget what the largest problem was socialism, and the reason why we are the only super power leaving the soviet era is because of what Reagan did.

If you like America being the only super power, you need to thank Regan.

On October 14 2008 08:12 ahrara_ wrote:

would you like a tissue

i was responding to SnK-Arcbound.

On October 14 2008 08:10 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

If that were true we wouldn't be outsourcing right now. And the rate of outsourcing is increasing. I don't have to move to Europe, I can move to the ghetto lands of fucking Africa if I want.

On October 14 2008 08:10 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

If that were true we wouldn't be outsourcing right now. And the rate of outsourcing is increasing. I don't have to move to Europe, I can move to the ghetto lands of fucking Africa if I want.

But I'm not just talking business, if I don't live in the US, you won't be taxing me (obviously if my business is there you can tax that though).

My taxes came from one of the dozens of books I've read over the past two years, but if there are more recent sources I should update myself.

Little to no taxes as the total of all taxes collected.

On October 14 2008 08:14 Jibba wrote:
This post is ridiculous. The Iran-Contra affair was extremely fucked up, especially since the US was selling weapons to BOTH SIDES of the Iran-Iraq war.

Reagan used fear more than any other US President to expand the size of government and waste money. He fucked up the "war on drugs", allowed AIDS to take off, he turned the education system into crap, and few presidents supported robber barrens as much as he did, creating tremendous hostility against the US in South America and other countries.

While it's great that the Soviet-Afghan war accelerated their downfall (which would have happened anyways), the blowback effect was fucking Al Qaeda and 9/11. Honestly, you can pin the emergence of extremist Islam and extremist Christianity on the man.

On October 14 2008 07:59 evandi wrote:
In reality people make decisions on what to strive for. People sacrifice time and effort to become a CEO. They sacrifice time they might otherwise spend doing something like playing Starcraft. Its a high paying job because its really hard to be qualified enough to get it.

People who innovate don't just say "whoops, that there is cool!" because

"Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% persperation"

Ambitious people work hard their entire lives forsaking a lot of things that less ambitious people pursue. They are less likely to make sacrifices if the reward is smaller. That would be hard to argue against.

On October 14 2008 08:31 aRod wrote:


Here's a very simple arguement against it. Ever heard of charity? Some people work hours and hours on end for charity, but don't benefit personally at all other than say personal growth. Have you ever met one of these people who work even though they're set financially? There's no meaningful monitary reward for these people, but they continue to work. Some even donate the funds they make directly too charity so they're tax exempt!

Simply put, money isn't the only motivation for work and productivity.

But also, I could make an even simpler arguement against your point using your same logic. People make decisions on what they strive for (money). Ambitious people work hard their entire lives for things they pursue. Make it harder to get money and people will work harder for it, after all this is their nature to obtain what they persue. They'll have to sacrifice more to reach their goals and they may even have to lower than standards a bit. Nevertheless this will increase productivity and help the economy since they have to work more.

On October 14 2008 08:17 ahrara_ wrote:
Outsourcing employment has little to do with taxes. It has a lot to do with how comparatively cheap labor is in developing countries. I haven't heard of a serious trend of companies outsourcing their production for tax reasons. When an American company makes money from shoes it produced in China, it is still being taxed as much as if it had made those shoes here. But it did save a lot of money by having to pay only dirt cheap wages. The single most significant cost to any business is labor, not taxes.

I'm very skeptical of your 75% number. I tried googling it but couldn't find anything.

On October 14 2008 08:31 aRod wrote:


Here's a very simple arguement against it. Ever heard of charity? Some people work hours and hours on end for charity, but don't benefit personally at all other than say personal growth. Have you ever met one of these people who work even though they're set financially? There's no meaningful monitary reward for these people, but they continue to work. Some even donate the funds they make directly too charity so they're tax exempt!

Simply put, money isn't the only motivation for work and productivity.

But also, I could make an even simpler arguement against your point using your same logic. People make decisions on what they strive for (money). Ambitious people work hard their entire lives for things they pursue. Make it harder to get money and people will work harder for it, after all this is their nature to obtain what they persue. They'll have to sacrifice more to reach their goals and they may even have to lower than standards a bit. Nevertheless this will increase productivity and help the economy since they have to work more.

On October 14 2008 08:37 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

Outsourcing saves money. If leaving the country saves money, companies will do that too. Taxing companies has little to do with taxing the top 5% of earnings for americans. Americans can easily leave the country, and don't think that our beaches are any more beautiful than stinky Mexico's etc.

To find out the % you will need to divide a tax brackets total tax collections for a year divided by total taxes collected. I doubt anyone would actually bother to do this shit by hand and post it on the internet.

I believe the brackets were 1-50 is 1% of all taxes, 51-75 were 5%, 75-94 10%, 95-98 35%, 99-100 50%. Though I have nothing to back this up and I don't remember whichever book I read it from.

If the federal taxation rate is compared with the wealth distribution rate, the net wealth (not only income but also including real estate, cars, house, stocks, etc) distribution of the United States does almost coincide with the share of income tax - the top 1% pay 36.9% of federal tax (wealth 32.7%), the top 5% pay 57.1% (wealth 57.2%), top 10% pay 68% (wealth 69.8%), and the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (wealth 2.8%).[13]

On October 14 2008 08:41 evandi wrote:


Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#Tax_distribution

the top 5% with gross income of $137,056 or more pay 57.1%

On October 14 2008 08:27 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

So you're saying Socialism killing over 120 million people, taking over half of Europe, etc. wasn't the "big picture"?

How did Reagan waste money? On military? There is a reason why we are the only super power in the world, and why Europe is a wasting sack of pansy shit.

Explain how Reagan can fuck up the war on drugs? I wasn't aware that was a national problem, but a local problem. People choose to do drugs, that isn't the presidents problem.

Reagan allowed AIDs to take off? Did he promote unprotected sex with people who have the HIV virus? People go and fuck other people, that isn't the presidents problem.

The education system is already crap, and it's because we keep lowering the requirements for teachers to pass the teaching exam. We've doubled how much money is spent per student across the country, with no gain. Schools don't need money, they need to fire teachers. Schooling is a local problem.

And I do believe that 9/11 was the fault of some pissed off muslims and not Reagans fault. Did Reagan give supplies to Arabs? Yes, but by removing peoples own choices you remove all responsibility.

On October 14 2008 08:44 FzeroXx wrote:
Doesn't it make sense economically to have the people with 50% of the money paying 50% of the taxes? I'm failing to grasp your argument. Do you think the new tax hike of 700k on those people making more than 1.5 million (minimum) per year is going to cripple them or something?

Also, perhaps you could avoid mixing your argument using socialism as a social construct with socialist tendencies as economic policy. China, for example, has a booming economy with a very capitalist social construct in that the wealthiest people have most of the money, but they are a communist national imparting socialism onto the poor. The world isn't black and white, and socialism did not kill 100 million people.



From evandi's article -- Seems about right to me. Exactly how is our tax system so flawed? I would argue that this article is using outdated figures, because the top 1% certainly has more than 32.7% of the wealth. It seems to me increasing the taxes on them only brings the system back in line. Frankly, the poor can pay slightly less than their wealth class and the rich can pay slightly more if you want to be a moralistic society. I find it curious that the conservative approach is to punish the poor who can't afford to pay the same tax burden as the middle class or upper class WHILE MAINTAINING moral high ground? Epic win.

On October 14 2008 08:40 evandi wrote:


"But also, I could make an even simpler arguement against your point using your same logic. People make decisions on what they strive for (money). Ambitious people work hard their entire lives for things they pursue. Make it harder to get money and people will work harder for it, after all this is their nature to obtain what they persue. They'll have to sacrifice more to reach their goals and they may even have to lower than standards a bit. Nevertheless this will increase productivity and help the economy since they have to work more.["

People will not as often make the choice to work harder if the reward is smaller. Do you disagree?

It is not true that if you make something more difficult people are more likely to want to do it.

On October 14 2008 08:02 ahrara_ wrote:
as for my intelligence, there are several posters on TL who are better informed than me. i've got my ass slapped around for ignorance or getting my facts wrong many times past but i didn't respond by going apeshit and getting all defensive. you need to shape up.

On October 01 2008 13:36 ahrara_ wrote:
Your only fucking response to my post is politics? Centralized power? Seriously man? All you're doing is speculating. You wanna tell me exactly what will happen that is so bad? You have nothing to say about the economics of the bailout? People making rash judgments based on moral and political principles is EXACTLY why I made this post, and yet you seem to ignore the economics entirely. You're completely unresponsive to my argument that the limited credit has pushed the housing market below equilibrium levels, or my assertion that investors, lenders, and buyers have imperfect information.

On October 01 2008 16:19 ahrara_ wrote:

I want to hit you.

If I get a $90 loan, and put it back into the bank, don't you think that kinda fuckign defeats the purpose I mean are you deliberately stupid were you dropped on the head as a baby??!?!?!

On October 01 2008 16:30 ahrara_ wrote:

INCREASING MONEY SUPPLY IS NOT PRINTING MONEY HOLY SHIT PLEASE STOP POSTING YOU ARE WRONG DEAL WITH IT

On October 01 2008 16:32 ahrara_ wrote:
IN ORDER FOR A BANK TO MAKE A LOAN IT HAS TO DEDUCT FROM ITS TOTAL ASSETS. THUS THERE IS A REALISTIC LIMIT TO HOW MUCH A BANK COULD LOAN. THIS KEEPS THE MONEY SUPPLY IN CHECK. THE ONLY CIRCUMSTANCE UNDER WHICH YOUR LOGIC WOULD WORK IS IF IT COULD MAGICALLY MAKE THE VALUE OF THE LOAN APPEAR AT NO COST TO ITSELF. I READ YOUR GODDAMN GOOGLE SEARCH. NEXT TIME MAKE YOUR OWN ARGUMENTS FUCK.