Taxes and the Bail Out

[leftysergeant]

Way to not address the question. Do you deny that an unemployed person on welfare is consuming more in government services than they earn, let alone what they're taxed?

That is such a snivelling position. The amount of money going out to the unemployed is trivial compared to what else the government does.

To get unemployment benefits, you have to have had some employment at some point, in most states.

The person recieving those benefits is still a customer to the local merchants. He is not to be discarded after someone has extracted wealth from his labor. That would serve mostly to shift all the wealth in the community into the hands of the investors.

 

[Ziggurat]

That is such a snivelling position. The amount of money going out to the unemployed is trivial compared to what else the government does.

And yet, the fact remains: taxes are not levied in proportion to the use of government services. They never have been, they probably never will be, and it's baffling why a leftist would want that were it even possible to achieve.

That would serve mostly to shift all the wealth in the community into the hands of the investors.

Once again, you substitute wealth distribution questions in place of addressing your original argument regarding government services. These are not equivalent arguments.

 

[leftysergeant]

Look, the guy who used to assemble Broyhill couches and is now doing day labor for half the pay is not getting the same benefit from the existance of the infrastructure as is the stevadore unloading couches made in Vietnam or the greedy little sleazeball who decided to move the production facilities there. Who should be paying the most to keep up the infrastructure and the regulators and inspectors?

 

[Ziggurat]

Look, the guy who used to assemble Broyhill couches and is now doing day labor for half the pay is not getting the same benefit from the existance of the infrastructure as is the stevadore unloading couches made in Vietnam or the greedy little sleazeball who decided to move the production facilities there. Who should be paying the most to keep up the infrastructure and the regulators and inspectors?

But you claimed far more than just that rich people benefit more from government in general than poor people. You claimed that the amount of money you earned indicated how much government services you consumed. Which is obviously false, I've given counterexamples, and your example in no way contradicts that. I haven't said that the rich shouldn't pay more in taxes than the poor, merely that the excuses you come up with to rationalize your position are simply nonsensical.

Funny, though, that the guy who doesn't want a foreign worker to be able to compete on the global marketplace is noble, but the guy who gives that Vietnamese worker a far better paycheck than he could otherwise earn is the sleazeball. Your professed love for the working class is a sham: all it really is is a hatred for the rich, which is why you'll throw that Vietnamese worker under the bus at the drop of a hat.

 

[Toke]

Will you try "tax is theft" next

 

[Ziggurat]

Will you try "tax is theft" next

Who are you talking to?

 

[Toke]

You

 

[corplinx]

I'm telling you, Lefty is just playing John Candy's character from Volunteers.

 

[Ziggurat]

You

Not only did I never suggest tax is theft, I never even argued against having a progressive tax code. But at least your forum ID is accurate.

 

[leftysergeant]

Funny, though, that the guy who doesn't want a foreign worker to be able to compete on the global marketplace is noble, but the guy who gives that Vietnamese worker a far better paycheck than he could otherwise earn is the sleazeball. Your professed love for the working class is a sham: all it really is is a hatred for the rich, which is why you'll throw that Vietnamese worker under the bus at the drop of a hat.

I am simply arguing that the fat parasite who throws an American worker under the bus is not entitled to pay less for the use of our infrastructure than the middle-class small business man.

I don't give a rat's about whether or not the Vietnamese worker can compete with our workers when we are slowly losing our industrial base because the investor class objects to paying the actual value of a day's labor. If the investor is not doing us any favors, there is no reason for us to give him a tax break.

 

[Toke]

Not only did I never suggest tax is theft, I never even argued against having a progressive tax code. But at least your forum ID is accurate.

Come on Ziggy, you were a bit unclear, and I ask for clarification.

There is no need to take it personally or try to get personal.

 

[Ziggurat]

Come on Ziggy, you were a bit unclear, and I ask for clarification.

Hardly. You asked if I was going to take an extreme position even though nothing in my posts suggested I would.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am simply arguing that the fat parasite who throws an American worker under the bus is not entitled to pay less for the use of our infrastructure than the middle-class small business man.

That was not the position you took earlier, and it is not the position I attacked you for. But hey, I understand: when you can't defend your previous position, it makes sense to pick a new one and pretend it's what you said all along.

I don't give a rat's about whether or not the Vietnamese worker can compete

Of course you don't. As I said, your concern for the poor is nothing more than a pretense to justify your hatred of the rich.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

[To leftysergeant]
Of course you don't. As I said, your concern for the poor is nothing more than a pretense to justify your hatred of the rich.

John 12:6

“This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.”​

 

[leftysergeant]

A tax structure that favors job creation overseas does not enrich the locals overseasas much as it impoverishjeds our own workers and enriches the investor class here and overseas, at the cost of our workers.

When you figure in the fact that corrupt governments and oppressive investors in those foreign countries help suppress wages to attract our capital, globalism is a bad deal for all working people regardless where located.

 

[Ziggurat]

A tax structure that favors job creation overseas does not enrich the locals overseasas much as it impoverishjeds our own workers and enriches the investor class here and overseas, at the cost of our workers.

Where have I heard that before?
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_promises_to_stop_americas

When you figure in the fact that corrupt governments and oppressive investors in those foreign countries help suppress wages to attract our capital,

Take a look at third world wages sometime. The ones with the lowest local wages are NOT the ones with high foreign investment. You are clueless about economics, but then, that comes as no surprise.

globalism is a bad deal for all working people regardless where located.

Nope. Trade is not a zero-sum game, and the poorest countries are the ones that trade the least.

 

[leftysergeant]

Those countries that trade the least also tend nopt to have an industrial infrastructre.

You may be paying too much attention to per-capita incomes. When i was in Libya, the per-capita income was $500. That was the highest in Africa at the time.

There were some fabulously wealthy members of the royal family and an awful lot of common laborers wondering if they would ever rise to a comfortable living.

 

[Ziggurat]

You may be paying too much attention to per-capita incomes.

Then look at median incomes, you'll find the same thing: countries will low incomes have low foreign investment, not the other way around. Foreign investment raises wages, it doesn't lower them.

 

[leftysergeant]

Then look at median incomes...

And then look at the mode.

The concentration of wealth is always toward the top, and the more foreign investment coming into a developing country, generally, the harder it becomes for the poor to enter into business ventures on their own, without some mechanism, like micro-loans and co-operatives to help them. Globalism is not a friend of such measures.

Angola had a lot of foreign investment under Portequese rule. How did farmers feel about it?

 

[Ziggurat]

And then look at the mode.

The concentration of wealth is always toward the top,

Apparently your math is as bad as your economics, because the mode of an income distribution for a third-world country will be at the low end, not the high end.

and the more foreign investment coming into a developing country, generally, the harder it becomes for the poor to enter into business ventures on their own, without some mechanism, like micro-loans and co-operatives to help them.

And yet, globalization is helping make exactly those resources more available.

Angola had a lot of foreign investment under Portequese rule. How did farmers feel about it?

So you're claiming that colonialism and globalisation are equivalent? Sorry, they aren't.