why do we pay so much in taxes?

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Macamus Prime

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2011
3,108
0
0
We keep paying high taxes to subsidize the industries owned by the rich, since the poor can no longer buy anything from said industries; since there are no jobs (which were moved to Asia and labor costs less,... yet prices are still high).
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
the flat percentages aren't that bad, it's the hidden taxes like inflated gas and the like that really add up.

I say make sales tax like 15-20%+ and get rid of everything else.

Not that idiocy again. It's worth than the birthers at being shown terrible and it just keeps coming up like cultists repeating their dogma.

It's nothing but a TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM EVERYONE ELSE TO THE RICH.

Period. It should not be brought up again, the people who fell for it need to get informed.

It must be 500 times I see these cultists repeat the mantra just in this forum.

It's like cultists posting 500 times "the moon landing was faked" for years.

Mencken said every complex problem has a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong. That's the case with these cultists' wrong clear, simple solution.
 

a777pilot

Diamond Member
Apr 26, 2011
4,261
21
81
Not that idiocy again. It's worth than the birthers at being shown terrible and it just keeps coming up like cultists repeating their dogma.

It's nothing but a TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM EVERYONE ELSE TO THE RICH.

Period. It should not be brought up again, the people who fell for it need to get informed.

It must be 500 times I see these cultists repeat the mantra just in this forum.

It's like cultists posting 500 times "the moon landing was faked" for years.

Mencken said every complex problem has a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong. That's the case with these cultists' wrong clear, simple solution.

So, you are saying that the current tax system is working just fine but that the rich...undefined...are getting away with everything.....money wise?

As far as I am concerned, if you have questions for me, just ask me. Don't make things up. Yes, I know it is way more fun but, well......childish.
 

wuliheron

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2011
3,536
0
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I want more than just lower taxes. I want what we tax changed too. Then I want the size and scope of this intrusive government reduced. Yes, lower all of our taxes but there is more, way more to it than that.


So you're a marine with champaign taste and beer budget who knows everything there is to know about running the most advanced country in the world.

Interested in buying some swamp land?
 

a777pilot

Diamond Member
Apr 26, 2011
4,261
21
81
So you're a marine with champaign taste and beer budget who knows everything there is to know about running the most advanced country in the world.

Interested in buying some swamp land?

So you're a Marine with beer taste and beer budget who knows everything there is to know about running the most advanced country in the world.

With a couple of changes....and, YES!
 

IceBergSLiM

Lifer
Jul 11, 2000
29,932
3
81
The idea is that if you have no children, your species ceases to exist.

It's amazing how limited our generation's deductive capability has become.

speaking of deductive reasoning has there ever been in the last 300 years a time when human population was on the decline?
 

wuliheron

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2011
3,536
0
0
With a couple of changes....and, YES!

How about this beauty?

images



I can get you a real good deal.
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
So you're a marine with champaign taste and beer budget who knows everything there is to know about running the most advanced country in the world.

Interested in buying some swamp land?

First of all, you misspelled champagne.

Second, I'd say being a Marine gives him the experience of accomplishing great things on a shoestring budget, essentially what he's advocating we need to learn to do as a country.
 

wuliheron

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2011
3,536
0
0
First of all, you misspelled champagne.

Second, I'd say being a Marine gives him the experience of accomplishing great things on a shoestring budget, essentially what he's advocating we need to learn to do as a country.


What can I say, I don't drink the stuff and I'm a lousy speller.

The military eats up a quarter of the budget, so I'm not so sure about marines being able to accomplish great things on a shoestring budget. In addition, maybe 14% of the population has served in the military, roughly 20% of congress, 60% of all presidents, and the overwhelming majority of them describe themselves as republicans. It doesn't seem to be helping.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
136
First of all, you misspelled champagne.

Second, I'd say being a Marine gives him the experience of accomplishing great things on a shoestring budget, essentially what he's advocating we need to learn to do as a country.

The Marines are allotted about $175,000 per year per Marine if you count in operations supplementals. Not exactly a shoestring budget.
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
The Marines are allotted about $175,000 per year per Marine if you count in operations supplementals. Not exactly a shoestring budget.

Compared to how much the Navy, Air Force or Army get, the Marines get peanuts.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
136
Compared to how much the Navy, Air Force or Army get, the Marines get peanuts.

The Marine Corps does significantly less R&D than the other services, has significantly fewer procurement and logistical requirements, (thanks Navy!), runs significantly fewer bases, etc.

It's not actually independent, being part of the Department of the Navy, and it uses the resources of its parent service in a lot of situations.
 

a777pilot

Diamond Member
Apr 26, 2011
4,261
21
81
Compared to how much the Navy, Air Force or Army get, the Marines get peanuts.


...and we do wonders with those peanuts. Just ask those that are our enemies. Oh, wait. That's right, you can't do that. They are dead.
 

a777pilot

Diamond Member
Apr 26, 2011
4,261
21
81
The Marine Corps does significantly less R&D than the other services, has significantly fewer procurement and logistical requirements, (thanks Navy!), runs significantly fewer bases, etc.

It's not actually independent, being part of the Department of the Navy, and it uses the resources of its parent service in a lot of situations.

That we do and is all true, but we do get results.....lots and lots of dead enemy in our wake.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
136
That we do and is all true, but we do get results.....lots and lots of dead enemy in our wake.

Sure do, the Marines are absolutely our elite ground troops. They are very effective, I was just noting that they aren't exactly scraping by on nothing.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
That we do and is all true, but we do get results.....lots and lots of dead enemy in our wake.

I'm not impressed by any amoral person who is an effective soldier - who takes pride only in killing well (backed by the wealthiest support in the world gaining advantage).

That's like praising 'remarkable efficiency of the holocaust, impressive use of technology' rather than condemning the moral wrongs.

Watching a soldier proud only of 'killing lots' is like watching a gang member brag about doing crime well. Maybe he did, but the point is his lack of morality.

I'm not comparing the military's actions or motives to these examples, but rather they're examples of how such amoral people can be part of evil.

The military does have plenty of immoral blood on its hands. No immoral violence happens without people who commit it.

We need more people who have developed morality - who get to the place John Kerry did when he opposed the Vietnam war, organizing other soldiers to do so.

That's not you. You speak like the 'thug' type.

A good role model for you would be the Marine general who was the most highly decorated US military man at the time, AFTER his service, Gen. Smedley Butler.

He was approached by a right-wing conspiracy to overthrow President Roosevelt for the interests of right-wingers, a group of the wealthy.

I suspect you would have gone along with them, seeing your views. Butler did the honorable thing and exposed the group, ending their plans.

Butler 'left a lot of enemy killed' too while serving, far more than you, and he came to have a moral sense of how much of it had been wrong, which you appear unable to.

A weak man is one who lets the government take his moral responsibility for killing, and lets them make him a murderer, if they do badly choosing who to kill.

There is killing needed for real defense; and there is the sort of corrupt killing of people who are only fighting oppression, against US corporate interests who are doing wrong.

I'll assume you have seen Butler's summary of the missions he came to realize he had serve on.

Luckily, that sort of wrongful violence happens far less in the modern era - but still too much, more often through our US-trained proxies (from the former school of Americas training the brutal forces for Latin America), from our military and economic aid (remember whose gas canisters the Egyptian protesters faced? Last night I saw a clip of John McCain and other Senators visiting Qadafi in 2009, pledging their commitment to secure him in power, supplying non-lethal weapons for his security forces).

When Indonesia wrongly invaded their neighbor East Timoor, killing 250,000 purely for gain, they did it with US-supplied weapons, weapons the Democratic congress had passed a law saying could only be used to defend, not attack - with (Republican) President Ford's secret and illegal approval to violate that law.

Looking at the forces going and slaughtering innocent East Timorans, you don't look like a Muhammed Ali, who had the morality to refuse to kill for bad reasons, but you look like you would fit in with that or any such force of thugs who kill only because they let someone take their moral responsibility.

I think it's likely you don't get any of this - that 'violence for your country' is some sort of glowing license for killing anyone, whether it's to 'defend' or to wipe out the people who are fighting a dictator we back who is killing their families to keep his corrupt political power.

Being an effective killer is useful when moral; without the moral limitations, you can just as easily become a force for evil, indeed an amoral murderer even when fighting a just war, who just happened to get lucky that his government was fighting a good war, not that you care.

I'm not impressed you, with the training and equipment and support of the best-funded military ever, can kill well. I'd be more impressed if I saw some morality.
 

a777pilot

Diamond Member
Apr 26, 2011
4,261
21
81
I'm not impressed you, with the training and equipment and support of the best-funded military ever, can kill well. I'd be more impressed if I saw some morality.

LOL! You do, however, seem to be obsessed with me. That's funny.

As for that morality thing....I agree, morality is a fine quality but using the Ketchup man as an example is ludicrous. At least I didn't kill an unarmed teenager by shooting him in the back as he was running away then bragging about it.

As to what you consider a moral man, is up for debate.

I would have done the very same thing as MGen Butler, for that was the right and moral thing to do.