I challenge everyone to listen to Rush tomorrow afternoon.

Listen..........

....just listen.

alpha80 wrote:I challenge everyone to listen to Rush tomorrow afternoon.

Listen..........

....just listen.

Which album?

clocker bob wrote:I find the internet to be the most liberating venue for political debate, because I think that the distance created by the technology encourages people to say exactly what they think, when maybe they wouldn't in some bar or coffee shop.

And yet you have the gall to call people cowards.

So great.

nihil wrote:

clocker bob wrote:I find the internet to be the most liberating venue for political debate, because I think that the distance created by the technology encourages people to say exactly what they think, when maybe they wouldn't in some bar or coffee shop.

And yet you have the gall to call people cowards.

People? Oh, you mean you. Have another cocktail, you mumbling goof.

clocker bob wrote:

nihil wrote:

clocker bob wrote:I find the internet to be the most liberating venue for political debate, because I think that the distance created by the technology encourages people to say exactly what they think, when maybe they wouldn't in some bar or coffee shop.

And yet you have the gall to call people cowards.

So great.

What is your point? Oh wait- it's nihil at 1:44 am. Too drunk to read, not too drunk to post.

My point is that you have effectively admitted that you are afraid to engage people in the real world. The distance seems to give you courage to say what's on your mind. I don't have this problem.

I would be very happy to meet you in person, Bob. Somehow, I get the feeling that you wouldn't.

danmohr wrote:If I say "I like the idea of a flattened tax system (one bracket) because it seems intrinsically, mathematically proportionate".

We already have a flat tax in the US- depreciation of the value of the dollar. When the government has expenditures that cannot be covered by tax revenue ( or by robbing the Social Security and Medicare trust funds ), the Federal Reserve borrows to increase the money supply. This creates monetary inflation, which affects all users of US fiat currency at an equal rate. The Fed has doubled the money supply in just the past six years. The $100 dollars in the pocket of a poor person loses over 5% of its value in a year, and the $100,000 in the bond trader's pocket depreciates at the same rate.

Over the last three years, the US dollar against the Euro has depreciated by 35 percent and against the Japanese Yen, 24 percent. Since February 2002 against a package of currencies, the US dollar has depreciated by 23 percent.

The depreciation against gold and silver is even more dramatic. That's the buying power of the rich and the poor, shrinking at the same rate. That's a flat tax.

nihil wrote:
My point is that you have effectively admitted that you are afraid to engage people in the real world. The distance seems to give you courage to say what's on your mind. I don't have this problem.

You're an idiot. From me saying that the internet encourages free speech, you conclude that I don't speak my mind in the real world?

I would be very happy to meet you in person, Bob. Somehow, I get the feeling that you wouldn't.

I'll be PM'ing you my phone number as soon as I post this.

clocker bob wrote:
I'll be PM'ing you my phone number as soon as I post this.

Bob, you're not answering your phone. Pick up, duke.

nihil wrote:

clocker bob wrote:
I'll be PM'ing you my phone number as soon as I post this.

Bob, you're not answering your phone. Pick up, duke.

Hah, you're right- I silenced it when I was at dinner- call me again.

steve wrote:If you have an income in the hundreds of thousands cut in half, you still have an income in the hundreds-of-thousands, and you will have no problem surviving. If you have an income that barely keeps your family alive, and you lose half of it, you and your family will die.

Right, but it seems like it would be a fairly straightforward and necessary exercise to determine where the "barely keeps you alive" line is and set a line well above there where your income cannot be reduced below it by taxes. We already have similar mechanisms in place today (earned income tax credit, etc.) to deal with the low end of the spectrum today. We currently lack mechanisms to deal with the high end of the spectrum or perhaps the high end of the spectrum simply has too many mechanisms to avoid paying their share.

Clearly we cannot have an income tax system that causes people to suffer by taking from them the money they need to survive. But, I don't see the redistribution of wealth as a reasonable goal for an income tax system; its purpose is to fund the government. To the extent that the government decides to make it a goal to redistribute wealth, sure, I guess.

steve wrote:Rich people should pay their fair share -- a bigger share -- than poor people.

Perhaps we could address this problem of the rich not paying their fair share via other means than income tax. There is a class of people whose income is not really derived from wages but rather from investment interest or family wealth or other things that most people have in very small or nonexistent amounts. These people have no need to actually work to make money - their mere act of not dying nets them cash. These are the people I call "rich". Maybe there is a type of consumption-based tax or luxury tax that could be used to deal with this corner case. Estate taxes are another piece of the puzzle even though I have a hard time getting excited about the idea of taxing the same dollar twice (once when originally earned and once when inherited).

I can't get behind the idea that, for all people whose income is above the aforementioned poverty line and who derive their income from job wages, a "progressive" tax system is fair. It goes against the values I was raised with - hard work, education, frugality, etc. Taking away more of the income that I earned simply because I earned more than someone else seems like negative reinforcement for positive behavior. If I take a test in a class, I should get the same number of points for each correct anwser as all of the other students regardless of how many questions I answer correctly, right? Ah, whatever. Let's just pass a giant fucking federal sales tax on everything except food, health care, housing (including rent) and basic utilities and then we'll penalize everybody who spends money and presumably the rich will spend a whole bunch and the poor won't spend very much since they don't have much to spend. Might encourage people to save money, though that usually hurts the economy...

Dan