toldailytopic: Revamping the tax system.

[Traditio]

If it were all as simple as you are saying, then why isn't anyone else stepping up and creating manufacturing jobs?

If they all just left in a mass exodus, the economy would completely implode.

Because there's a nexus of property claims that prevent it. If GM shuts down a factory I can't just waltz in, take possession of the factory and start telling people to get to work.

Even if the rich export the jobs, they still retain the properties and the capital.

However, suppose that all of the "job creators" suddenly just disappeared. Just like that. They disappear right out of thin air. Yes, the economy would be momentarily disrupted, but the country wouldn't just stay shut down.

I expect what would happen is that the government would start organizing people to fill in the gap left by the sudden loss of private enterprise.

 

[PureX]

Is that why so many people are leaving california these days?

My guess is it's because the cost of property out there is so high. They can't afford to live in that nice climate, anymore.

 

[eameece]

Spending or an investment with a return there is a difference.

But you guys oppose a lot of such spending. You only like it when it benefits you. Typical.

That is your opinion, not mine. Your an enabler not a helper.

At least I know how to spell you're.
Helping people in poverty and in trouble creates a great return. Those people spend money for basic needs, which stimulates the economy. It helps them get back on their feet, which also helps the economy. Permanent rigid classes, severe inequality and immobility is what you prefer, I know; but it is in no way good for America or any other country.

Hardly truth.

Hardly false.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

 

[eameece]

My guess is it's because the cost of property out there is so high. They can't afford to live in that nice climate, anymore.

BINGO

 

[1PeaceMaker]

Helping people in poverty and in trouble creates a great return. Those people spend money for basic needs, which stimulates the economy. It helps them get back on their feet, which also helps the economy. Permanent rigid classes, severe inequality and immobility is what you prefer, I know; but it is in no way good for America or any other country.

:up: The rich forget that they are rich so that they can use their wealth wisely as a helper of the poor. Not everybody needs that responsibility, but to whome much is given, much is required.

Having said that, I do not believe that forced redistribution, aka stealing is a good thing at all. It would be right for the poor and needy to be given aid by the honest rich. Not a forced thing, which allows others to steal and take advantage. Meanwhile, the dishonest rich (and you know who I mean, all those who have provably scammed the People into unknowingly giving away their substance to them...) should have their wealth redistributed, since it was never fairly gained in the first place.

We could probably recover trillions in aid that way.

 

[Angel4Truth]

Because there's a nexus of property claims that prevent it. If GM shuts down a factory I can't just waltz in, take possession of the factory and start telling people to get to work.

Even if the rich export the jobs, they still retain the properties and the capital.

However, suppose that all of the "job creators" suddenly just disappeared. Just like that. They disappear right out of thin air. Yes, the economy would be momentarily disrupted, but the country wouldn't just stay shut down.

I expect what would happen is that the government would start organizing people to fill in the gap left by the sudden loss of private enterprise.

Doesnt seem to be working too well in Detroit.

 

[PureX]

The rich forget that they are rich so that they can use their wealth wisely as a helper of the poor. Not everybody needs that responsibility, but to whome much is given, much is required.

Having said that, I do not believe that forced redistribution, aka stealing is a good thing at all. It would be right for the poor and needy to be given aid by the honest rich. Not a forced thing, which allows others to steal and take advantage. Meanwhile, the dishonest rich (and you know who I mean, all those who have provably scammed the People into unknowingly giving away their substance to them...) should have their wealth redistributed, since it was never fairly gained in the first place.

We could probably recover trillions in aid that way.

It's important to understand that we don't "own" wealth. The wealth of the nation belongs to the nation. If we add value to the lives of those around us, we are given control of a greater share of the wealth. If we do not add value to the lives of those around us we are given only that which we need to survive, because civilized society has chosen not to allow people to die. At least this is how it's supposed to work.

The redistribution of wealth by national fiat is not stealing because no one person "owns it" in the first place. Individuals can and do manage to gain control of vast amounts of it, but this is not good for society. And society has a right to redistribute it if it chooses because the whole purpose of business, commerce, taxation, and government is to serve the well-being of all the participants. Not to help a few very clever and lucky individuals control the lives and well-being of millions.

 

[Angel4Truth]

It's important to understand that we don't "own" wealth. The wealth of the nation belongs to the nation. If we add value to the lives of those around us, we are given control of a greater share of the wealth. If we do not add value to the lives of those around us we are given only that which we need to survive, because civilized society has chosen not to allow people to die. At least this is how it's supposed to work.

The redistribution of wealth by national fiat is not stealing because no one person "owns it" in the first place. Individuals can and do manage to gain control of vast amounts of it, but this is not good for society. And society has a right to redistribute it if it chooses because the whole purpose of business, commerce, taxation, and government is to serve the well-being of all the participants. Not to help a few very clever and lucky individuals control the lives and well-being of millions.

That idea didnt work too well in Russia.

 

[PureX]

Thats not the case in this one (which is the one we are discussing), you said they cant take jobs from here and you can stop them from taking their wealth, tell me how you intend to do that and by what law you can stop them?

It happens everyday. American jobs are taken to other countries all the time and american wealth is taken from here to elsewhere all the time too.

The wealthy use their money to buy politicians. Then they use the politicians to change the laws so that they can do as they please. And what they please to do, always, is gain more wealth and power, by taking it away from us. So they bribed the government to change the laws so that they could close down their factories in the U.S., where they had to follow rules protecting their employees from abuse and exploitation, to other countries where these rules don't exist, or aren't applied. That way, buy exploiting those foreign workers, they could increase their profits.

They also want to eliminate those rules here in the U.S., so that they can once again exploit workers here at home, but that's taking too long, and costing them a lot of money. So they decided it's easier to just move to other countries that have no such rules. This is what you are referring to as "exporting our jobs".

The problem is they you voted for the politicians that made it legal for them to do this. And so did I. We did it partly because the politicians lied to us and said they wouldn't change those laws (Clinton), and then they did, or because we are idiots who believe all sort of stupid explanations and excuses for why it's OK for U.S. businesses to move to other countries and exploit their workers for profit at the expense of millions of jobs here at home. This happened because we let it happen. It happened because we are fools and idiots.

But we can stop it from happening just as easily. All we need to do is make our politicians do what's right and change the laws to stop this exploitation of foreign workers for profit. But to do that we have to stop voting for liars and thieves, and we have to stop listening to their threats about how the world will come to an end if we impost any sort of limits on the greed of corporations and their toady politicians.

 

[PureX]

That idea didnt work too well in Russia.

That idea never was executed in the (the Soviet Union - I assume this is what you meant by "Russia"). They called themselves "communists" but what they were was not even remotely communist. It was fascism masquerading as communism. But that's neither here nor there, because the redistribution of wealth through taxation is not communism, it's socialism.

 

[Angel4Truth]

That idea never was executed in the (the Soviet Union - I assume this is what you meant by "Russia"). They called themselves "communists" but what they were was not even remotely communist. It was fascism masquerading as communism. But that's neither here nor there, because the redistribution of wealth through taxation is not communism, it's socialism.

That idea always sounds good though but everywhere its been practiced, it doesn't work.

 

[Angel4Truth]

The wealthy use their money to buy politicians. Then they use the politicians to change the laws so that they can do as they please. And what they please to do, always, is gain more wealth and power, by taking it away from us. So they bribed the government to change the laws so that they could close down their factories in the U.S., where they had to follow rules protecting their employees from abuse and exploitation, to other countries where these rules don't exist, or aren't applied. That way, buy exploiting those foreign workers, they could increase their profits.

They also want to eliminate those rules here in the U.S., so that they can once again exploit workers here at home, but that's taking too long, and costing them a lot of money. So they decided it's easier to just move to other countries that have no such rules. This is what you are referring to as "exporting our jobs".

The problem is they you voted for the politicians that made it legal for them to do this. And so did I. We did it partly because the politicians lied to us and said they wouldn't change those laws (Clinton), and then they did, or because we are idiots who believe all sort of stupid explanations and excuses for why it's OK for U.S. businesses to move to other countries and exploit their workers for profit at the expense of millions of jobs here at home. This happened because we let it happen. It happened because we are fools and idiots.

But we can stop it from happening just as easily. All we need to do is make our politicians do what's right and change the laws to stop this exploitation of foreign workers for profit. But to do that we have to stop voting for liars and thieves, and we have to stop listening to their threats about how the world will come to an end if we impost any sort of limits on the greed of corporations and their toady politicians.

In other words, you cant stop them from leaving if they desire.

 

[PureX]

In other words, you cant stop them from leaving if they desire.

Ummm ... what part of this paragraph confused you?

PureX - "But we can stop it from happening just as easily. All we need to do is make our politicians do what's right and change the laws to stop this exploitation of foreign workers for profit. But to do that we have to stop voting for liars and thieves, and we have to stop listening to their threats about how the world will come to an end if we impost any sort of limits on the greed of corporations and their toady politicians."​

 

[Angel4Truth]

Ummm ... what part of this paragraph confused you?

PureX - "But we can stop it from happening just as easily. All we need to do is make our politicians do what's right and change the laws to stop this exploitation of foreign workers for profit. But to do that we have to stop voting for liars and thieves, and we have to stop listening to their threats about how the world will come to an end if we impost any sort of limits on the greed of corporations and their toady politicians."​

But you initially said you can stop them from leaving with their wealth.

You cant, you would need to change the law first, that was my entire point and you just proved it by giving your list of all the things you would need to accomplish first.

If all the extremely wealthy people in the US decided to up and leave today along with all their wealth and move their buisnesses to other places and just ship their products back here from somewhere else, there isnt a thing you could do to stop them.

 

[PureX]

But you initially said you can stop them from leaving with their wealth.

I said they could be stopped. Not that "I could stop them".

You cant, you would need to change the law first, that was my entire point and you just proved it by giving your list of all the things you would need to accomplish first.

Are you really basing your whole argument on a imaginary pronoun, now?

If all the extremely wealthy people in the US decided to up and leave today along with all their wealth and move their buisnesses to other places and just ship their products back here from somewhere else, there isnt a thing you could do to stop them.

If the moon suddenly decide to leave it's orbit and crash into the Earth, I couldn't do anything to stop that, either.

I'm pretty sure that at this point we've completely lost track of whatever it was we were trying to discuss/debate.

:execute:​

 

[Angel4Truth]

Tell me why you believe that what someone earns, belongs to more than the earner?

 

[PureX]

Tell me why you believe that what someone earns, belongs to more than the earner?

Because in this modern and very interdependent culture, no one is working alone. Anything we "earn", is earned through the cooperation and participation of everyone else. In fact, none of us would even have a job if everyone else wasn't also participating in this huge collective endeavor we call 'commerce'. So the idea that we are independent entities, with some innate right to whatever wealth we manage to gain for ourselves is pretty naive. It isn't this way at all. Everything we have, we have because everyone else is agreeing to participate in the collective, and more importantly, because everyone else has agreed to a set of rules that govern all our participation.

Just because a few people manage to gain control of a huge amount of wealth, doesn't mean they have some innate right to it. In fact, they couldn't have gotten it at all without the participation and agreement of all the rest of us. The economy belongs to us. It is our collective endeavor. The wealth that we generate we generate collectively. And the rules we follow are rules that we all choose to obey. So if we should choose to redistribute our collective wealth via a progressive tax system, we have every right to do so. Because we all generated it, and we all get to decide how it will be handled. It doesn't "belong" to someone just because they managed to get control of it.

 

[eameece]

:up: The rich forget that they are rich so that they can use their wealth wisely as a helper of the poor. Not everybody needs that responsibility, but to whome much is given, much is required.

Having said that, I do not believe that forced redistribution, aka stealing is a good thing at all. It would be right for the poor and needy to be given aid by the honest rich. Not a forced thing, which allows others to steal and take advantage. Meanwhile, the dishonest rich (and you know who I mean, all those who have provably scammed the People into unknowingly giving away their substance to them...) should have their wealth redistributed, since it was never fairly gained in the first place.

We could probably recover trillions in aid that way.

Good to hear from you.

I think most of the rich have gained it unfairly, through extorting high salaries from their employees who should get more of the money. Those who make lots of money should pay for their good fortune, which society helped give them. Paying taxes is not being stolen-from; that is a Reaganoid myth. We pay taxes for the benefits the government brings us. These work best when we all contribute. Those who hate government are unrealistic utopians at best. Smart folks don't fall for this fallacy; we need our government, and it works as well as the people we put into it. That's the problem, we put Republicans and other corrupt folks into our government, and so we have noone to blame but ourselves if we think the government wastes our money.

 

[eameece]

That idea didnt work too well in Russia.

Which is totally irrelevant because the society PureX describes is OUR society when not dominated by greedy folks (aka Republicans), not totalitarian Russia. That you trickle-downers keep conflating Russia with liberal 20th/21st-century democracy shows how desperately you cling to the most ridiculous arguments, because you have no truth on your side.

 

[eameece]

Tell me why you believe that what someone earns, belongs to more than the earner?

Besides PureX's excellent points, it is also true that a lot of rich folks don't really "earn" their wealth, they just get control of it as PureX pointed out. They are in the position to assign high salaries to themselves, or fortunate enough to make money on their investments. In both cases, it is other people who generate and "earn" their wealth for them.

And a lot of poor folks can't "earn" money because they are not given a good job. Jobs are hard to come by in this outsourced economy, and are often not assigned on a fair basis.