Tax the rich? Tax everyone the same? No taxes at all?

[Mr. Blonde]

In the name of consolidation. Here's a starter:

The Blog : How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying) : Sam Harris

[DJ FC]

a tl;dr please? or just more of the same?

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by blog

But it appears to be a form of theft that we require, given how selfish and shortsighted most of us are.

Except of course the writer, who is much smarter than those selfish bastards.

For instance, Graham Alison, author of Nuclear Terrorism, thinks there is a greater than 50 percent chance that a nuclear bomb will go off in an American city sometime in the next ten years. (A poll of national security experts commissioned by Senator Richard Lugar in 2005 put the risk at 29 percent.) The amount of money required to secure the stockpiles of weapons and nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union is a pittance compared to the private holdings of the richest Americans. And should even a single incident of nuclear terrorism occur, the rich would likely lose more money in the resulting economic collapse than would have been required to secure the offending materials in the first place.

This doesn't make much sense; you can't simply buy all the nuclear material in the world; I don't mean it would be wrong to, I mean it's literally impossible. One of the key markers of a black market is that not every seller will sell to the highest bidder, and won't sell to some people regardless of the price.

Few of people are eager to make large, solitary, and ineffectual sacrifices. And I was not arguing that the best use of Buffett’s wealth would be for him to simply send it to the Treasury so that the government could use it however it wanted. I believe the important question is, how can we get everyone with significant resources to put their shoulders to the wheel at the same moment so that large goals get accomplished?

Imagine opening the newspaper tomorrow and discovering that Buffett had convened a meeting of the entire Forbes 400 list, and everyone had agreed to put 50 percent of his or her wealth toward crucial infrastructure improvements and the development of renewable energy technologies. I would like to believe that we live in a world where such things could happen—because, increasingly, it seems that we live in a world where such things must happen.

What can be done to bridge this gap?

This sort of thing never makes sense; seems to be more of the "fair share" argument that never actually defines what is fair, why that is fair, and how is that definition of fair not being already met?

As for the development of renewable energy; one sure way to make sure it doesn't work is to do it in a bubble outside of the cold competitive world.

What makes people eventually switch from one thing to another is when it is the obvious choice, usually when it is cheaper. Over the past decade or so we have been subsidizing solar panels which are simply not as cost efficient as normal power, so we have a bunch of people who have inefficient solar panels and a bunch of companies who have no incentive to make a solar panel that is efficient enough to work.


As for the general tone; yes there is vast inequity between the very wealthy and the poor, but there is also a higher quality of life for the poor as well as everybody else compared to any time in history.

A social safety net, and enough help to get people who want to improve their lives the ability to are certainly going to help everybody, and even if they don't you can certainly see the benefit of them.

However, developing an entire class that lives on government assistance as a way of life, permanently living off other people, creates a self perpetuating cycle of these people voting for even more assistance and higher taxes on others, so that those who are making money become vilified and ruled by a majority of society who lives off their work. That is when taxation starts to become indistinguishable from theft; it becomes 2 muggers holding a 3 man vote over your wallet.

[Mr. Blonde]

If it was ensured that everybody in America had a job and paid taxes, but we were still in this kind of deficit, would you support taxing the rich more?

[Beebs]

Not really, and this might sound like a dodge, but if that happened and there was still a deficit, it would be due to spending being beyond anything close to defensible.

To answer in a more useful way; if there absolutely needed to be an increase in revenue from the richest taxpayers, I would prefer to start by stopping all tax credits and just taxing all income,

[DJ FC]

So just more of the same then.

[Mr. Blonde]

World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 08/18/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

F3lix, Beebs and FC won't watch this
I just said that so they'll watch it

[DJ FC]

Well you're right about me not watching it:

[angry pancake]

Didn't watch it yet. What kills me is how the poor for the most part are fighting amongst themselves. Some broke ass niggers don't even know they're broke ass niggers. People treading water seem to think they're middle class. It's amazing when poor people don't realize that they're poor and they bitch about the poor.

If they ever figure out they're in the same boat, our capitalist system as we know it is over. But, for the most part Americans are incredibly stupid and dont realize how the rest of the industrialized world has passed them by in most areas.

Tl;dr. AP hates Americans.

[Mr. Blonde]

It all boils down to education, education, education.

Also rap really fucked a lot of kids up.

[Beebs]

Well in all areas people tend to identify closer to the mean then they actually are.

Weight, intelligence, sexual partners, anything.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

I'm higher than the mean in all of those categories.

[thekremlin]

You fat, clever slut.

[Mr. Blonde]

Reddit.



I really liked this comment as well: "Get rich on your own in an empty room without a computer or a person in sight, then yeah, you got rich on your own. Get rich working with other people, then acknowledge it. It's an important principle and it's never mattered more than it matters now."




I was just thinking, that I wonder how many of our nation's problems would go away if we Cut our Defense budget by 3/4.


I bet a lot of them would, and we wouldn't even have to consider taxing the "rich" "more."

[ninjaface]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I bet a lot of them would, and we wouldn't even have to consider taxing the ""rich"""more.""

FYP

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by ninjaface

I don't contribute shit to Nubblies these days

FYP

[ninjaface]

Be sure to stay on topic.

[DJ FC]

The problem with her argument is the implicit assumption that everybody agrees there is a Social contract - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and what exactly it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract#Criticism

[thekremlin]

If the only problem with her argument is the assumption of a social contract, then it is a pretty good argument.

Edit: Hume is pretty cool.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

If the only problem with her argument is the assumption of a social contract, then it is a pretty good argument.

Edit: Hume is pretty cool.

Read part 2 of my very short post:

and what exactly it is.

[thekremlin]

I mean, I think Elizabeth Warren's OP gives a pretty decent explanation of it.

PS How was Buda? Work is gonna be awesome this week.

[Beebs]

An interesting insight as to what is behind many people's motivation in taxation:

In a 2008 debate, Charlie Gibson asked Barack Obama about his support for raising capital gains taxes, given the historical record of government losing net revenue as a result. Obama persevered: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”

‘Fairness’ ruse shows Obama’s lefty roots - BostonHerald.com

[Repugnant Abomination]

There's a social contract whether you like it or not.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

There's a social contract whether you like it or not.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

There's a social contract whether you like it or not.

Beebs claims to see what you did there, but I honestly wonder if you're smart enough for that joke. Sorry for the disrespect if you are kidding.