thraashman
Lifer
- Apr 10, 2000
- 11,112
- 1,587
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And, if once a student has a 4.0 GPA we give them less and less homework and grade them less strictly, while at the same time increasing the homework burden on the student with lower GPA's and making their tests harder. Then the intelligence and grades of the 4.0 students will trickle down to the students with lower GPA's. It's perfect!
FYI, this is one of the stupidest threads I've ever seen. Which is saying a lot for P&N since Anarchist420 started posting.
thraashman
Lifer
- Apr 10, 2000
- 11,112
- 1,587
- 126
Meh, not like I ever really did my homework in school. Most of the time you could get away with BSing. My GPA gradually went down the older I got. It was 4.0 in elementary school. It was 3.5 in middle school. It was 3.0 in high school. And it was 2.5 in college. And in the end, I make more money and almost all of my friends who worked way harder than I did.
DominionSeraph
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2009
- 8,386
- 32
- 91
You need a buyer to convert physical assets into capital.
As for moving physical assets, the government can prevent that.
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
lulz
Animo
Love it!But I HAD no point other than arguing with an animo is a waste of time. I do think it was a clever analogy, albeit wasted on the progressives who will always have ten reasons why they should have my stuff but I shouldn't have theirs. But it wasn't MY clever analogy, and being able to see both sides (how the analogy works as well as how it falls short) I have nothing vested in it either way.
By the way, although I can see where the analogy breaks down, it's already been put into play to some degree. Grades on SAT/ACT are commonly evaluated to benefit minorities who, without as much benefit of a history of financial success due principally to slavery and segregation, have on average less of a social network to help them develop the study skills and less of a financial network to allow them to attend college and/or to allow them to devote more time to study (because of less need to earn money to support themselves.) So grades on SAT/ACT tests are being allocated away from whites and especially Asians and redistributed to blacks and Hispanics, at least for college administration. That's fairly analogous to wealth, especially since the racial component of both these grades and wages stem from the same historic injustices.
EDIT: It would also behoove us all to remember that Lani Guinier, one of Clinton's SCOTUS nominees, has actually advocated redistributing laws. Her specific proposal was that since blacks form only an eighth of our population, they can never pass laws that benefit blacks, so as a mater of basic equity blacks (and presumably other minorities) should be allocated a certain number of laws each year that they can pass with no participation from other racial groups. Compared to that, redistributing grades is pocket change.
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Steeplerot
Lifer
- Mar 29, 2004
- 13,051
- 6
- 81
I still don't know where these magical progressive strawman people are you keep talking about.
Why do you want other peoples stuff?
DominionSeraph
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2009
- 8,386
- 32
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Ooh, look at that. Someone using a kindergartener's model of ownership.
The world is more complex than that. Fix your brain to match.
You do realize that with what we have now people don't get to keep all of what they earn, right? There's not only a tax burden, but the regular worker supports the ultra-rich. This is just a measured increase in the taxation on the ultra-wealthy to reflect their increased fleecing of the workers.
Increased fleecing != increased wealth as a nation. You need to understand the difference between wealth creation and wealth transfer. The wealthy are getting better at wealth transfer -- transferring wealth from the worker to themselves. This does not increase production. It does not increase demand in the "regular people" economy -- it in fact lowers it as the worker doesn't have as much to spend on himself because he DOESN'T GET TO KEEP WHAT HE EARNED.
Higher taxation on the ultra-wealthy allows lower taxation on the worker allowing him to keep more of what he earned.
Working to game the system of work != working for yourself.
There does not need to be the incentive of infinite wealth transfer to get people to work harder. 20% more work for 20% more money works just fine. If you have managerial skills, the ability to take your share of the increased production of the workers is also an incentive.
There needs to be no infinite leverage to create slaves to you in order to retire to a beach and live off their production. Having access to your OWN production is sufficient.
We have the military might to go back to Africa and get more slaves for ourselves -- slavery not hidden in the vagaries of worker competition. I don't see too many people saying, "Hell yeah! Capitalism! Let's DO IT!"
The fact is, slavery isn't all that good for making a growth economy. But that is where we are headed with the regular worker -- where he does all the work for near-subsistence pay to support the leisure lifestyle of the entitled landowner.
The American worker is more productive than ever, yet he only gets a fraction of that increased productivity for himself. Taxation on the ultra-wealthy who are otherwise the sole beneficiaries of that increased production is the best way we now have to rectify that. It doesn't mess with the front-side of capitalism -- property ownership, worker competition, managerial improvements, capital reinvestment -- it just collects the slop on the back end to reinvest in the worker because the front-end of the system doesn't give him the leverage to do that for himself.
Capitalism is a system that works very well at getting the most production for the least compensation to the worker producing it. But at some point the worker should have an increased share, because otherwise growth in that sector is held back.
Skimming off his production far and away above what reinvestment in his job can reasonably result in an increase in production just isn't efficient to the overall economy.
The luxury market has its place -- it's a wonderful thing to have. But you do not need a market of infinite luxury. After a certain point it just has no relevance to even the lives of top managerial workers.
But how many MORE jobs would've been had if his workers had that money to spend instead?
The luxury yacht market is a dead-end for growth. It is transferring the wealth of workers to other workers who are producing nothing of use to the working class.
Instead of him buying ten 50 million dollar yachts, what if 22,500 of his workers could afford one $20,000 Bayliner each, with him having one $50 million yacht? Wouldn't the worker be better served by innovation in the Bayliner, making a cheaper and better toy for the working-class, than for the ultra-wealthy to get a slightly better yacht for his dollar?
The upper- and upper-middle class worker are the ones who open new markets that trickle down, not the 1% entitled landowner. It is those upper-crust workers who buy the reasonably better things, and there's enough of them that when they do it opens up economies of scale, bringing up everybody. The entitled landowner, OTOH, is little more than a burden on the system. They have their uses, but they do not need infinite wealth to accomplish that use. Too much wealth becomes idle hands -- the devil's tools. Instead of putting the money to work in good ways, they put it to work in bad. The American worker is not served by offshoring and pouring money into DC and propaganda for regulatory room and taxation schemes to further increase the wealthy's share.
The regular economy would grow to encompass them and more, because the wealth would be poured into the regular economy.
You are corrupted by absolutist thinking. Think evolutionarily.
Mutation and selection serves to find local peaks. You want to know where that local peak is? Try mutating and selecting.
Of course, that is change, which is a conservative's greatest fear because he lacks the brain power to analyze the result. But not all of us are stupid. We can step, check, think, progress.
Evolution can design things that are beyond a human's ability to design. I do not need to be able to design the perfect command economy to be able to see problems and submit that tinkering may be in order.
They are already the product of the builders' work.
They are paid for by the product of their work now.
All done by the workers now.
Evolution will take its course. If it is not run internally to match the external conditions, unless by some miracle of design, natural selection will come in.
Companies are largely evolutionary. Is this news to you? Did you think they were all intelligently designed? That they burst forth from someone's head with every worker understood by name, every communication path mapped out in its entirety, every supply path marked out, every parts bin located?
Are you retarded? What system? I was just illustrating that you cannot steal the wealth inherent in the worker or what he grants you by consent.
You "own" Ford and want to take it China, yet Americans continue to want to make Ford cars? You can't stop them. If Americans decide that they want to use "your" blue oval, and "your" car names, and "your" car patterns, what are you going to do about it? Sue? The government is Of the People and For the People. If the People decide that it's all theirs now, guess what? It's theirs.
Ownership is by consent of the People. They usually give consent for anything that traces back to something that would reciprocally apply to them, because otherwise they leave themselves exposed; but extremes can form another case.
Much can be done in the name of national necessity.
No, I assert nothing for I have not done an analysis of efficiency. But 20% of the budget is Social Security -- a direct pay out, so you'd have very little to stand on if you asserted >80% waste. 20% is Defense, and we do get out of that the most powerful military in the world, so that 20% is obviously not 100% waste. The 23% in Medicare and Medicaid is an iffier proposition, but the People do seem attached to that entitlement. Working out the waste in that would be more complicated than figuring out how much NASCAR wastes in duping people to buy overpriced products, and any plea on my part for intelligence would have just as much as an effect, so I don't have much incentive to really look into it.
6% is interest on the debt, $4.5 trillion of which is held by foreigners. That part's a waste, but in order to pay it back we're gonna need 4.5 trillion in surplus. The entire spending budget's 3.4 trillion, so I don't think you're gonna find 4.5 trillion in waste to cut in there.
A good portion of the country's "high school" is my state's "first grade;" so that doesn't change much.
Your ideas at full complexity are retardedly simplistic. So if you can't grasp what I'm saying (and you obviously haven't if you think it's "dumb"), that says to me that I haven't yet dumbed things down enough to reach your level -- that I haven't yet reached your "catch" level from which I can work you up step by step.
So the question is, are you worth the effort? And the answer is, "No."
Go back to school and get back to me when your catch point is considerably higher.
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DominionSeraph
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2009
- 8,386
- 32
- 91
Oh my, the insults of a person with such keen analytical insight that he put his full faith in the Bible. How ever could I avoid the sting of the conclusions of someone with logic proven so infallible?
The wounds... they hurt.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Jesus freaks: Bear quite the resemblance to the proverbial barrel of monkeys.
Werepossum, you silly monkey, why do you try? You don't have the foundation to reach the bottom of my feet.
You jump, jump, jump, trying to pluck my star from the sky. Yet I shine on unscathed.
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
I don't want other people's stuff. I'm for funding the federal government solely with sales taxes and tariffs, with zero redistribution other than for those who (permanently or temporarily) cannot support themselves. Or at worst, a flat tax, where everyone pays the same flat rate on ALL income of ANY type above poverty level. My point was that you guys always have ten reasons why everyone with income above yours has money that they "don't need" and that should be redistributed "fairly".
The problem is that a flat tax is proportionally much harsher on those making less money. Frank makes $10,000/yr. Leonard makes $100,000/yr. The flat income tax rate is 30%. After taxes, Frank is left with $7,000 - he is barely scraping by to cover the basic costs of survival, which severely limits his ability to gain any sort of upward economic mobility or save for the future. Leonard is left with $70,000, obviously enough for anyone without unreasonable expenditures. Money is worth much more to you when you have less of it - this may sound contradictory, but it's true. A $500 dollar medical bill or other necessary expense is easily manageable for Leo, but for Frank this is 5% of his yearly income before taxes.
I'm just using these numbers for the sake of simple math - 10k is below the poverty line in the US (~11k in 2009), but the argument is about the relative value of income anyway.
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2004
- 16,852
- 59
- 86
And Frank ends up getting $10K a year in handouts from the government while guys like Leonard make it possible to have that sort of system. Frank can also use his economic status to get government assistance for a higher education so he can get a better job and make more money so the government can take it away and give it to those in his former condition.
I mean, it sucks that Frank has a crappy job but it's likely that if he would have redirected his educational pusuits in school instead of majoring in rolling blunts with a minor in gangster rap music theory he might possibly be making more than 10K/year.
a777pilot
Diamond Member
- Apr 26, 2011
- 4,261
- 21
- 81
Welfare is part of the issue, though you haven't actually addressed the point I'm making. And if Frank and Leo are both paying a 30% flat tax rate, they are both making a social safety net possible (Leo would pay more than Frank into the system whether they lived under a flat or progressive tax rate anyway). People like Leo also benefit when people like Frank are able to get an education, even with government assistance. Leo gets the benefit of living in a more educated society, which includes features such as lower crime rates, more skilled workers, and diversified talent which all contribute to increasing the wealth of an area. There are of course negative aspects to welfare and other social safety nets but i'd rather not stray into that if it's o.k. with you since it just makes the discussion more tedious.
The second part of your post is a joke, right?
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2004
- 16,852
- 59
- 86
The problem with the claim you are making is that any actual recommendations for a "flat tax" system I have ever seen carries an exemption for people making under a certain amount of money that is far above the poverty line or provides for a progressive tax up to a certain amount. So, in any actual implementation of a flat tax, people like Frank wouldn't be paying any taxes at all.
A "true" flat tax system is much like true communism. You will never see either put into action in the real world because they simply aren't viable.
Only partially. I doubt everyone you went to school with was a focused learner who cracked the books every night. In fact, those types are generally the exception, not the rule. I have little sympathy for those who did not try to pay at least a bit of attention in school and afterwards found they couldn't get decent a job because they could barely read and write. The screw-offs made their own bed. So why must I now stuff cash under their mattress?
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
That's true, but are taxes to fund essential government, or to make things more "fair"? Unless you propose that we go hard communist and pay everyone the same (which wasn't true even under the Soviet Union or Cuba), then any tax scheme is going to take money that is more precious to people earning less. (Regardless of where you start, you have to start taxing somewhere, so someone is always going to have less income than someone else.)
I like the FairTax - it prebates the cost of the tax at the poverty level to every head of household each month. If the tax was 25% and the poverty level for a family of four is set at $24K per year, then every household would receive a check each month for $500. If you take four families of four earning $10K, $24K, $60K, and $600K, each of whom spend everything they make, then the families would have adjusted incomes of $16K, $30K, $66K, and $606K, would pay total federal taxes of $4000, $7500, $16,500, & $151,500. Using their original earned incomes, the four families would pay effective tax rates of -20%, 6.25%, 17.5%, and 24.25%. Remember, this would replace all payroll taxes as well. If any of those families saved money, their effective tax rate goes down. If any of those families are spending saved money (most visible for trust funders, but most common for retirees), their effective tax rate would go up assuming that they are above the poverty level. (Those below the poverty level would effectively be subsidized.) Illegals and criminals would pay full taxes. And best of all, products manufactured in the USA would have exactly the same embedded taxes as would imported goods, making American goods much more competitive in the USA.
This will never happen, of course. We've been conditioned that government has the right to decide how much money you "need" and that fairness is to take disproportionally from some to give to others.
QuantumPion
Diamond Member
- Jun 27, 2005
- 6,010
- 1
- 76
Um, students who work and study hard require less effort to due homework because they are learning the material, not because the teacher is making it easier on them. Students that don't pay attention or learn the material get worse and worse off as the class goes on because they fall behind. Just like in real life - people that work hard and save and invest their money have assets that grow. People that live hand to mouth and waste their money fall into debt. It's such a simple concept, even a liberal should be able understand this.
What you said makes sense, and really I wanted to make that point about a 100% flat tax system which i think is absolutely unfair. I'm not an expert at all in the intricacies of how taxes affect imported/exported goods so I'll defer to someone else on that. Thanks for going into more detail though :thumbsup:.
The system you describe is a way of deciding how much money someone needs to live/contribute. I don't know what you're really getting at with this sentence though (who is we?). That social safety nets are bad? There is a reason they have been a feature of major governments since at least the time of the Roman Empire, and it actually isn't because of bleeding heart liberals or the government trying to take your money because they're greedy. It's because welfare acts to satisfy the immediate needs of hunger and shelter, which prevents widespread crime and revolt against the upper class. It also fosters dependency, further entrenching the upper class. I accept that this is a rather cynical viewpoint.
Please remember that your life experience is not applicable to everyone else. Laziness is not an indicator of being poor or rich. I find that many people demonize the poor (e.g. they are stupid, they are lazy, criminals, leeches, on drugs, alcoholics, they are poor because they are worse people, and so on) in order to justify the difficult circumstances in which those people live. The socioeconomics of poverty is very complicated and, unfortunately, a very large determining factor of where you end up on the totem pole of life is where you started out. It's nice to think that anybody can be nouveau riche with just some elbow grease and a touch of imagination, but it's also naive. Read what I said above about why (in my unprofessional opinion) welfare exists.
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2004
- 16,852
- 59
- 86
All I originally stated was that those who slacked off, didn't pay attention in school, and failed to get a decent eduction are highly likely to be poor bastards now. My intent was not to demonize the poor, though I'm not surprised that someone took it as such because it seems that any time someone in here has the audacity to mention that the reason some people are poor might be their very own fault there are those that have to make excuses, waggle their finger, and go 'tsk, tsk.'
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
I'm all for social safety nets such as Social Security. I'm old enough to remember the county poor houses, and I've no wish to return to the days of rows of hollow-eyed old men lined up on the porch and waiting to die. I'm all for disability programs, where someone truly unable to earn his way is supported at the poverty level. And I'm all for programs such as WIC, where the poorest of us are provided with essential nutrients that otherwise might not be there. Late nineteenth/early twentieth century social experiments in England showed the problems with low IQ as a result of poor nutrition. Many parts of Africa still have this problem today, and it really is a drag on the society.
What I specifically object to is our entitlement mentality that says I need all my money, but people earning more than myself have more than they need so some of their money should be taken and used for my benefit. These people should subsidize my schooling, my transportation, my housing, my freakin' Internet access. We're to the point today that people far above median income still expect government bennies - witness the married mother of two with $70K household income who asked Obama in '08 "What are you going to do for me?"
I specifically object to the idea that wealth should be taken and redistributed to those above the poverty level.
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