Ch'i

I couldn't care less about money, I do not go out pursuing sex everyday, and power (I'm assuming you mean "the power to control other people") is something you become trapped by yourself, if you think you've nearly attained it.


Even if those three were true, what's your point? What is the connection between those and the OP?

powerclown

Government-subsidized healthcare has its problems both in Canada and England...I still think that private sector funding is the best solution for providing quality healthcare to whomever needs it, and in a timely manner. And don't get me started on public education here in the States: I cringe when I see the homework that my kids bring home, supposedly to educate them.

I maintain that fascism/socialism/communism society is closer to the realization of a nightmare than a dream. Yes, people have their distractions such as stamp collecting or whatnot, but I believe the strongest psychological forces that drive people to action are those 3.

Commendations for taking care of your kid, btw.
It's all about the kids, they say. The future.

Lindy

I'm posting this, a variation on a quote in an earlier post, because not even one person commented on it. This has been floating around in my computer for so long that I can't even remember where it originated. It even contains a violent revolution. Well, sort of.
Lindy

Redistribution of Wealth!

This is a simple way to understand how redistribution of wealth in the form of a tax cut works. Read on -- it might make you think. Well, some of you.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for lunch. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their restaurant bill the way we now pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man -- the rich guy -- would pay $59.

That's what they collectively decided to do. The ten men ate lunch in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement --until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language-- a taxcut). "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now lunch for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six -- the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 reduction so that everyone would get his "fair share?" The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man (joining the first four) paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four (now joined by the fifth man) continued to eat for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"Hey, I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man, "But he," pointing to the tenth "got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, (who now paid nothing at all) "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair. That rich guy got seven times as much as I did!"

Right!" shouted the seventh man, "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?" "The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait just a minute here!" yelled the first four men (who still paid nothing) in unison, "Where is our share? We didn't get anything at all. This system exploits the poor!"
The nine men then turned on the tenth and beat the crap out of him.

The next day the rich guy didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists, professors, "activists," liberals and conservatives, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. Where would that leave the rest? Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic.

Ch'i

Forget it.

Willravel

Powerclown, do you post on TFP for power, sex or money?

I'm sorry, weren't we talking about the rich being basically treasonus and using their power to change the rules to help themselves and rape the country at the cost of the not-so-rich? I'm sure we can create a thread elsewhere about how *some* people are only motivated by pure greed and anamilistic wants, and how other people think less of them for it?

powerclown

I see people posting here for any number of reasons - social networking, porn, conversation, word on the street, file sharing, physical and emotional exhibitionism, loneliness, boredom, humor, enter/infotainment, ego trips, power trips, arrogance, addiction, despair, role playing, identity switching, journalism, venting, relationship advice, sex advice, travel advice, cooking advice, self-affirmation, self-promotion, self-indulgence, self-flagellation, philosophy. I have a love/hate relationship with this place.

Back on topic then...

dksuddeth

ah, thanks for telling me that i have no clue whatsoever about this particular subject. Sorry to have cluttered your intellect with my ramblings of incoherent dialect.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dksuddeth

doubleposted

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

FoolThemAll

dk, I think you have to explain what you mean by fascism, as you appear to be using it more broadly than the traditional definition would allow. Desal posted the definition, noting a partial similarity:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=70

This might just be a simple matter of a semantics argument, which is easily cleared up with a little effort. I'm guessing that some posters here would agree with certain elements of fascism while rejecting the other elements outright. That would take a lot of the sting out of the negative connotation of the word.

That said, the accusation that you don't know what you're talking about isn't exactly useful unless followed with an explanation - and roachboy's last few posts were lacking in that department.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Willravel

I can definately agree with this as an investor. The housing bubble has already reached it's maximum tensile strengthc and is in the process of bursting from the bottom up. 82% of recent SF Bay Area loans are adjustable. As a former owner, this would have represented extreme danger every time the interest rates go up, and it's only going to get worse as more ARMs get adjusted upwards. It's going to be losses for a long time....

....luckely I've been out of of the market for 9 months.....

filtherton

I respect your opinion, i just disagree.

I agree with you that the public school system can tend towards shoddiness. Me and the lady are leaning towards home-schooling. I just don't think you can blame socialism. First of all, there are plenty of public schools that do a fine job of educating their students; in minnesota they generally coincide geographically with high property taxes(that's where their funding comes from).

I think that the most ideal society is a measured combination of ideas that work towards the betterment of everyone in the society. To me it doesn't matter the ideological framework from which the ideas sprout. There are certain elements of capitalism that function well and do what they are supposed to and there are certain elements of socialism that function well and do what they are supposed to.

Thanks and right back at you.

pan6467

I was going to say I disagree with this but the more I thought about it the more I realize you are right in many cases not all.

Sex.... everyone wants to have some form of appeal to others... it may not necessarily be the actual act just the idea and having someone flirt with you. Actually, I wouldn't even say sex is the right word.... more just socialization with others is a driving force.

Money.... no matter how you say it "money doesn't mean anything", "I love my job, I don't need to make big money." Money is a definate need in this society. You need money to support yourself, to eat, to satisfy other needs you have.... money whether you admit it or not, is a huge driving force. You need it to satisfy other needs both physical and mental. It's a necessary evil.

Power.... I had issues with this one, was determined to blow it out of the water, but then I realized, you're right. Power can mean all sorts of things. The power to be able to have disposable income, the power to make sure you never starve, the power to move forward, to create your own destiny, to control what you do, learn, see, hear, as an individual. Power didn't have to mean over someone else or outside influences. Power in essence can mean just making sure you have the power to move the way you choose that day.

So, I find myself agreeing that, yes, those 3 reasons are very powerful. But I wouldn't say they are the ONLY 3 reasons or that everyone uses those 3 reasons everday.



However, social collectivism doesn't mean we have to all make the same amount of money, have the same power, have the same ideas, have the same everything. I would argue that social collectivism just means society taking care of those that are weak (whether physically, mentally or spiritually). I believe that people who want to move ahead will, regardless whether or not there is a bigger physical reward for them. My belief is that people will advance themselves based on their inner drives and what they value.

Some people may value love, respect, and being charitable over finances and thus like working at a job such as a store or restaurant or taxicab because they like it. Some people may like working alone and not dealing with others so they become janitors, some people may like to teach others, or help others, or there maybe someone who wants to find the cure to cancer out there. There is no reason society should say "because you want to work this job, even though it is 40 hours a week, you don't deserve a house, or wages that you can live on."

To me that's wrong, if people work 40 hours they deserve to make enough to live on and to own a little piece of the American dream. They deserve dignity, respect and honor, regardless of the profession they have.

So in the end, I don't see "social collectivism" as this evil, nasty, limit how far one can go bs that neocons want people to believe.

I see it more as, allowing those who put the work in, regardless of what the job is, who live life to the best of their ability and who want only as much as they want, their dignity, honor, respect and the ability to make what they need and may want.

It's not limiting the top, it's making sure that everyone has the chance to succeed at what they want.

The cream will always rise, but why keep others down just because they have different values on what is important?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

powerclown

pan, you said it much, much better than I did. I didn't mean power over other people, I meant empowerment of self, ie., recognition and acknowledgement of peers and colleagues at work, friends, family. Maybe respect would have been a better word. Money is pretty self explanatory, and if you say you don't care about it you're either a multimillionaire or you live at home with you parents. Sex is obviously a basic physiological need not unlike sleep or hunger.

The part of collectivism that I agree with you the most is care for the sick, infirm, mentally ill, drug addicted and similar social problems. Businesses can take care of themselves - I don't see the need for excessive government interference there. Social issues are another matter. I also think entreprenuership and free trade are essential to any society.

I agree with you that no matter the profession, an honest job is an honest job, and people who contribute to society deserve their share of dignity, respect and a living wage. I think this more probable under a system of capitalism. See North Korea for the opposite effect.

Awesome post pan.
I think we agree more than disagree on the matter.

dksuddeth

The problem with alot of people and definitions is that when they don't agree or like the sound of something, they require that issue or situation to meet ALL the requirements of that definition when it may only meet two or three of the criteria established by a dictionary. In regards to fascism, people think of the third reich or WW2 italy and how they were run by an iron fisted dictator. That need not be the case though, especially if a few of the other criteria are solidly in the playing field of the definition.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

filtherton

That's not a problem. It would be like you pointing at an orange and saying, "Look at that hamburger, there's an example of a hamburger that's good for you."

Obviously an orange is not a hamburger, despite the fact that they may share a few common characteristics.

dksuddeth

that makes zero sense and is hardly a comparison to the question asked and answered.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

pan6467

Thank you, . Like I said I was ready to take what you said apart, but I couldn't, I found myself in complete agreement.

Absolutely, there must be free enterprise and a trade balance that allows countries mutual benefit not we'll bring your's in relatively cheap while you tax ours out of competition. The only way to advance society is to continually develop better ways to do things. The only truly efficient way to do this is through private enterprise. Government cannot do it, thus the private sector must and should be allowed to without government influence so stifling it hinders progress to a snail's pace.

But government should police the companies enough to make sure the products are safe, the workers make fair wages and benefits and that the surrounding environment is not permanently harmed.

A society is graded and judged by how they treat their poorest, their infirmed and their weakest. Not by the richest.

I agree, Capitalism, in it's true form is the best system we have. The problem is Capitalism eventually promotes excessive and harmful greed, much the same way Marxism and Communism eventually promotes excessive and harmful totalitarianistic governments. Socialism is a good plan for companies, and maybe some small communities but in a large arena cannot work, it hinders progress.

How we avoid the greed in Capitalism is the ultimate problem. Once, we come up with the answer, we're good to go. We need desparately to find the fair balance between labor and management. What we have been doing is allowing one side too much strength then switching over and allowing the other side too much, to where our companies can't compete globally. If we don't find the middle soon we are in serious trouble.... it maybe too late.

Anyway, I ramble.... yes I think we do agree more than disagree... but that comes from GHOUL POWER.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

filtherton

An orange and a hamburger have several criteria in common. I guess the problem you're having is that you're attempting to require an orange to meet ALL the requirements of the definition of a hamburger when it may only meet two or three of the criteria established by a dictionary.


In other words, there are nuances when it comes to the application of words. Just because you think that the current situation is similar to fascism doesn't mean that we live in a fascist state, or even that the similarities are significant.

guyy

Yes, even the term "capitalism" is sort of taboo because using it puts you in a conceptual space where alternatives exist.

You're coming at this from theory. I tend to agree that we need new theory more than anything right now, but sometimes i need to remind myself that people can act and even organise themselves without too much theorising. Y'know, like when workers organise the flow of work so that they don't put too much strain on the guy with the bad back. ("That is socialism!" wrote a famous Trinidadian back in the fifties.) Surely there are other examples of the New Society emerging from under our noses. Of course, those examples will need to be sought out and described and presented as The New.

It's interesting to hear my very small-time capitalist relatives call for more money for schools (workers need more/better education just to do their jobs), public transport (urban gentrification means the cheapest-to-hire workers must travel from the hinterlands), and most often, for a Canadian style health care system (They want Walmart to pay their share of social costs). I had thought that it was only the Big Guys, like GM, who wanted a national health plan, since it would spread the cost of their corporate social programmes. So there you go: conservative ideology is not even coherent from the perspective of actually existing capitalists.

pan6467

You base the rates on a sliding scale based on income.

Then if it is major where the person has a severe health problem that affects employment (cancer, sever cases of diseases), you don't take everything this person has worked hard for, but instead safety net them into care that is supported by the government, but is privately owned (i.e. a contracted organization). Hopefully, the person recovers and is able to go back to work and resume paying on a sliding scale.... if not the contracted company can take no more than 15% of that patient's net worth, based on amount the patient has averaged for 5 consecutive years (this prevents having someone just give all their money to someone so they don't have to pay).

So if I work and amass a nice $250,000 house, a retirement worth $1,000,000 stocks, bonds, cds, savings, life ins. worth $750,000, making me worth $2,000,000 the most I'll pay out for my health care will be $300,000.

Conversely, if I am only worth $10,000 they only make $1,500.

But you also have to make sure everyone gets equal care, thus only the government knows who is worth what and pays the contracted company for all patients or pays a contracted amount and the patient's money goes to the government to "cover the cost".

I believe a plan like that with professionals working on it and figuring out all the bugs, it would be the perfect answer.

PS By using private contracted businesses, you increase jobs, create a new market so to speak and advance the economy by putting people to work.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

shakran

good plan, just one nit to pick. Unless you can use the life insurance to pay for the healthcare it shouldn't be counted toward your net worth - after all, you're really only worth whatever assets you can spend or dispose of, and you can only spend the life insurance when you're dead, so that's your beneficiary's net worth

pan6467

True, in most cases. Me, I have a policy that was made upon my birth, paid in full. Now that policy is worth some bucks and I can "borrow against the interest" at any time. And I can honestly say as one who has borrowed it dry a few times, it replenishes itself fast.

So say you are in that health situation and you are lucky enough to have a policy like that, that is money you could feasibly use to pay the medical bills. That's what I was looking at.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

The_Jazz

That's incorrect. There are different forms of life insurance, and some of them can be used as savings vehicles. I'm using one now to partially fund my son's college education (partial in that there are other mechanisms doing the same thing). It's generally referred to as "whole life", which means that it never expires. You can "borrow" against it, although the insurance company is generally the "lender" and "loans" the money to you at no interest but deducts the amount from your benefits. In the long run, it actually saves them money since these policies are constantly growing.

I'm not a life insurance guy, but I've bought a bunch of it in the past 10 years.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

shakran

Read again sir I said Unless you can use the life insurance to pay for the healthcare

The_Jazz

You need to be clearer in what you mean - there are insurance products out there (besides typical health insurance) to pay for long term healthcare. Proceeds off of life insurance can be used to pay for ANYTHING since you get cash and as such should be counted for net worth provided it's not term life insurance.

With this "clarification" your first post looks clear as mud.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

shakran

I'm sorry that you are having difficulty with this concept. Some life insurance only pays out if you die. Period. The money is not available to anyone unless you die. This life insurance cannot be used to pay for medical expenses (unless used, after the person dies, to settle the bill with the hospital). It should therefore not be counted as part of your net worth, because YOU aren't worth that. Your estate WILL be worth that, AFTER you die. You cannot count potential net worth as net worth - otherwise I'm a potential millionaire, why can't I get that Ferrari on credit?

Other life insurance policies do, as you noted, allow you to borrow against them at 0% interest so that you can get hold of cash. Those policies can be used to pay for healthcare, here, now, while you're still alive. That, then, is part of your net worth.

Long term healthcare policies are obviously there to be used to pay for health care, and so do not fit my initial argument, which regarded life insurance policies that pay out only at the time of death.

j8ear

Great post Lindy. I struggle with the notion that while even producing or contributing nothing some notion of entitlement exists.

-bear

__________________
It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

guyy

Beyond a certain income level, taxes are more or less voluntary. If you're really rich, you can hide your assets offshore or use one of the many, many loopholes that Congress has provided you. Corporations, which are individuals under the bizarre reasoning of our legal system, have it even easier.

So in effect, you're saying that we can't try to tax the rich because they might do what they're doing now. I fail to see how the rest of us would be any worse off even if your predictions are correct.

host

Okay....three of you have repeatedly posted the same, "10 men went to lunch", widely emailed and blogged "story". The background is that your article appeared in the February 23, 2002 issue of the Lakeshore News - Salmon Arm, B.C.

"It was written by Ron Adams, a local financial advisor who writes a regular column in the paper. Ron is sometimes a little irreverent and ruffles many conservative feathers in town but he is often entertaining and usually gets straight to the heart of the issue.":

<b>Now....here is the problem you are overlooking by dismisssing the premise of this thread's OP, simply by posting, three times, the five years old, anti-progressive taxation sentiments of a Canadian financial advisor. My problem is that you refuse to react to the US wealth redistribution trend. I've described the problem, with the data that supports the disturbing trend, below. The solution was not to shift the tax burden even more heavily onto those who "enjoy" a steadily shrinking portion of total US wealth, and wage stagnation, to the benefit of those who have experienced a doubling in their annual incomes, between 1979 and 2003.

Your sentiments are a prescription for turning the US into a place like Mexico City....kidnappings of the wealthy, the expense of body guards and heavy security to shield the "haves" from the "have nots", and the lessening of the ability of the "haves" to come and go as they please.

People get angry when the wealthy become too successful at concentrating the wealth, and hence the political and financial leverage of a country. When the "have nots" get to the point where they decide that they have nothing to lose, they begin to act like it. If you do not have anything to add to this discussion, kindly stop reposting the Ron Adams article.

Instead, please tell us how "tax reform" that shifts the tax burden, in any way, to the people who have benefitted the least from economic growth and prosperity, and away from the people who have a virtual "lock" on the increased wealth, is of any benefit, to anyone. Tell us how the growing disparity can be slowed or reversed, without political interference. Tell us how people who experience the loss of representative government, because it has been bought and co-opted by the richest, will sit still, trusting that the "system" will solve the problem...no matter how bad things get for them.

In a hunter gatherer society, if one hunting unit developed a weapon that allowed that unit to take...say 8 out of ten of the game kills on every hunting trip, and that unit refused to share it's bounty, and it became more and more difficult for every other hunting group to find and kill enough game, even to subsist, what do you think would happen to the unit with the superior hunting weapon that refused to share it's out of proportion food supply with the less successful units. We enjoy the resource that the hunter gatherers did not have. We have a government that can respond to inequities in the social structure, especially if the inequity is influenced by the buying of the power and influence of the government, by the wealthiest few.

The "rest of us" will not sit still and idly observe the richest one percent continue to take an increasingly large piece of the pie, and buy legislation to lower their proportion of the total tax burden as they grow richer, and while our wealth barely increase at all. You can repost Ron Adams' article as often as you like, but it does not acknowledge, accept, or offer solutions to the problems of growing wealth and political influence inequity that the Bush tax cuts are aggravating...
</b>

<b>The findings above are supported by data available of the CBO.gov website:</b>