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Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The 50-50-50-50-50 tax and economic plan. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Do you want to opt out of society? I meant could I opt out of this program? Like, can I decline the free money and then not have to pay the taxes?
Consider the proposition that half of what you make is due to your individual effort and half of it is due to the socio-economic society you live in. I don't accept that. If I put in zero effort, I'd make less than half of what I make now.
Contributing half your earnings (via taxes) to build a happy, well educated and healthy society means that you get to live in a society with happy, well educated and healthy people. That's just you assuming your conclusion that this program would work well.
Part of the pursuit of happiness is that you need a happy environment to live in yes? I dunno.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I meant could I opt out of this program? Like, can I decline the free money and then not have to pay the taxes? Can you feasibly opt out of all the benefits provided by taxes? Or are you going to cherry pick ...
I don't accept that. If I put in zero effort, I'd make less than half of what I make now. So you are quibbling about the proportion not the basic concept. Like the joke about billionaire ask woman "will you sleep with me for $1million?" the woman says yes and he says "will you sleep with me for $1?" and she says "no, what do you take me for, a prostitute?" and he says "we've already established that, we're just haggling over the price" ... Curiously I don't think you fully take into consideration how much your salary is dependent on the society and economic structure that surrounds you, from the roads you travel every day to the businesses you interact with. Can you earn that salary all on your own in total seclusion with no communication other than voice and no transportation other than walking? Really?
That's just you assuming your conclusion that this program would work well. Actually it is me looking at other countries that provide more social assistance to all people and the happiness and education level of the people there compared to the US. Enjoy.by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
So this is a thinly veiled "No, you wouldn't be able to opt out.", right?
Can you feasibly opt out of all the benefits provided by taxes? Of course not. But its a yes or no question, RAZD. Apparently one that you cannot answer. How about this: Can I opt out of the free money for a reduction in my income tax? Keep the $50 a day and just charge me, say, 10% on taxes or something? Or is that just totally disallowed?
So you are quibbling about the proportion not the basic concept. Yeah, its not 50/50. I'm thinking more like 5/95.
Curiously I don't think you fully take into consideration how much your salary is dependent on the society and economic structure that surrounds you, from the roads you travel every day to the businesses you interact with. But I've helped pay for that stuff. And all that stuff would still be there even if I put in zero effort and hadn't helped pay for it. They don't magically grant me a salary by existing. So I'm still required to put in most of the effort to get where I am.
Can you earn that salary all on your own in total seclusion with no communication other than voice and no transportation other than walking? Really? Doesn't matter. Without my effort, I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am now. The existence of the infrastructure allows me to put in the effort, it doesn't grant me the benefits of my effort.
Actually it is me looking at other countries that provide more social assistance to all people and the happiness and education level of the people there compared to the US. And assuming it would work here.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Of course not. But its a yes or no question, RAZD. Apparently one that you cannot answer. How about this: Can I opt out of the free money for a reduction in my income tax? Keep the $50 a day and just charge me, say, 10% on taxes or something? Or is that just totally disallowed? What you already get is your taxes reduced by $50.
Yeah, its not 50/50. I'm thinking more like 5/95. Which is just your opinion.
But I've helped pay for that stuff. And all that stuff would still be there even if I put in zero effort and hadn't helped pay for it. They don't magically grant me a salary by existing. So I'm still required to put in most of the effort to get where I am. And that stuff needs maintenance , it doesn't just magically appear on its own, new structures and innovations that you benefit from don't just magically appear -- it is the work of other people, by society, that makes those things that directly benefit you, not just at work but at home and where-ever you go.
Doesn't matter. Without my effort, I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am now. The existence of the infrastructure allows me to put in the effort, it doesn't grant me the benefits of my effort. The work you do doesn't need you to get where it is, the society just needs a person, and you just happen to be a candidate ... without society that job would not exist. So yes you owe society more than a measly 5% of your value. You claim that without your work society would still give you 5% ... but without society you would get 0%.
And assuming it would work here. Why not? Does universal health care benefit Europeans more than it would here because they are Europeans? Would free education benefit Germans more because they are German? Really? Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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ringo Member (Idle past 439 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Cat's Eye writes:
You could always give the free money to charity.
How about this: Can I opt out of the free money for a reduction in my income tax?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
What you already get is your taxes reduced by $50. So: "No, you cannot opt out in any way". Got it.
Which is just your opinion. I responded to your opinion with my opinion.
So yes you owe society more than a measly 5% of your value. Which is just your opinion.
Why not? I didn't say it wouldn't. I was just pointing out that you are assuming that it would.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You could always give the free money to charity. So could they.
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ringo Member (Idle past 439 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Cat's Eye writes:
The government can't be picking and choosing charities to support.
ringo writes:
So could they. You could always give the free money to charity.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.4 |
Ringo posits:
The government can't be picking and choosing charities to support. They already do...the Military and it's subcontractors, the Big Oil's fatcats, Big Agra's, Big Pharma's...you name it. Plus the meagre social programs the GOP is trying to eliminate.- xongsmith, 5.7d
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ringo Member (Idle past 439 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
xongsmith writes:
Point taken - but my point is that if you didn't want your "handout" you could give it to the Catholic Church or the Salvation Army or the NRA or the IRA. The government can't make that choice.
ringo writes:
They already do...the Military and it's subcontractors, the Big Oil's fatcats, Big Agra's, Big Pharma's...you name it. Plus the meagre social programs the GOP is trying to eliminate. The government can't be picking and choosing charities to support.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9197 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
Libertarians are so funny. Don't need society, did it all on their own.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Adding this here to rekindle the thread:
quote: What I said at the end of Message 1 was: "With no minimum wage and simplified forms this truly benefits small businesses and promotes job growth, and it allows people to add to their minimum wage by working at will without losing benefits." Different argument, same conclusion. Putting my argument in an evolutionary paradigm, feeding and protecting the weakest and the hungriest allows them to contribute to the social group, and this improves the amount of survival for the species. This is why social species evolve. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : .by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I dont quite understand your basic model, but I am all for it as long as it benefits the declinuing middle class. (In America...not globally)
I fear being poorer and part of a global equality. Perhaps it is why I fear socialism. I also fear unfettered capitalism, however.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith "as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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I dont quite understand your basic model, but I am all for it as long as it benefits the declinuing middle class. (In America...not globally) Benefits to the globe mean more people outside of America will be able to spend money on American products, further enriching America.
Perhaps it is why I fear socialism. Socialism suggests that the workers should get a bigger slice of the pie - that is they are rewarded more equitably for the value their labour adds to the the product. This is surely how one goes about benefiting the declining middle class?
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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I dont quite understand your basic model, but I am all for it as long as it benefits the declinuing middle class. (In America...not globally) Personally I think the argument based on evolution as a model of economics is weak and smacks of Social Darwinism. There is a strong argument based on economics alone that suggests a basic living minimum wage will improve the overall economy and people's lives along the way. What it comes down to is transactions -- the 'health' of the economy is based on the number of transactions, where transactions are like the heartbeat of the economy. More transactions means better economy, one that grows and expands. If you transformed all the transactions in one year to a single day event between two people, the economy would cease as soon as that was completed. When you look at the economic spectrum and posit giving a person $10, the rapidity that the $10 is spent would be roughly inversely proportional to how rich they were. But it's not just the person getting the $10 that benefits, because what it is spent on puts that money in someone else's pocket, and the process repeats. It only ends when someone takes it out of circulation by putting it in savings (and even then part of it gets back into the economy via loans). Also see "Money as Debt" (50 minutes), a history of banks and banking
The bit at the end about interest is interesting.
Perhaps it is why I fear socialism. I also fear unfettered capitalism, however. Unfettered capitalism and unfettered socialism are self defeating as they both tend towards extremes. But mixing them creates a synergy where one benefits the other and the result is more than the sum of the parts. You end up with a vibrant diversified economy with many entrepreneurs creating businesses and jobs and many people able and willing to buy their products to enhance their lives. Even in the US now we have a substantial mix of socialist programs and degrees of unregulated commerce.
These still hold true today, if not more so. Things on the right are social programs to either benefit people directly or to regulate against extreme capitalist predation. Now if we DO want to indulge in a biological paradigm, it seems more appropriate to me to use an ecology model than a "mutation and survival" evolution model. For instance a (seminal) paper: Hairston, Nelson G., Frederick E. Smith, and Lawrence B. Slobodkin. "Community Structure, Population Control, and Competition." The American Naturalist 94, no. 879 (1960): 421-25. JSTOR: Access Check. (known as the "Why is the world green" paper):
quote: Species can come and go but the basic ecological structure remains. Population booms and busts occur but the long term trend is towards equilibriums. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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