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From: Greegor on 13 May 2010 16:05 BS > Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is BS > now in will be fixed by Greece. The EU - as BS > a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing BS > until that happens. Oh GOODY! More DEBT! THAT'LL fix em! LOL!
From: Greegor on 13 May 2010 16:13 BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you sure are emotional about taxation in the USA! You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism.
From: Bill Sloman on 13 May 2010 18:02 On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > On May 13, 11:02 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > > > On May 13, 4:32 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > > > On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > > > On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > > > > On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > > > > > >Maybe. A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's > > > > > > >permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that > > > > > > >dough he spent--I can't remember. > > > > > > > *Maybe*. The deficit for just April was $83B. Note that April is also the > > > > > > month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing > > > > > > date. In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month. > > > > > > > <snip> > > > > > > A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.. > > > > > (Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.) > > > > > > Of course that assumes people continue to buy stuff at the same rate, > > > > > which they won't. They won't work at the same rate either. Better > > > > > make it 18%, like Europe. And, naturally, that won't be enough > > > > > either. He'll spend more. > > > > > > That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.. > > > > > Deficit spending does. > > > > > Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards > > > > the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which > > > > attracts VAT. > > > > True. > > > > > The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which > > > > doesn't attract VAT. > > > > Naturally. As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy > > > figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the > > > course that minimizes them. > > > > > Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a > > > > regressive tax. > > > > In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23% > > > national sales tax. It would replace all of our federal tax system > > > (personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc), > > > and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and > > > time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes. The latter > > > costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy > > > wasted unproductively. > > > > A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive. > > > Dream on. The prebate reduces the load on the lower income groups - > > but since they have to jump through bureaucratic hoops to establish > > that they qualify for the prebate > > Nope. > > >, it just shifts the book-keeping > > load from the rich to the poor > > Wrong. No bookkeeping. If you exist, you get a prebate check, same > amount no matter what. Rich man & poor man get the same, though it > means more to the latter, obviously. > > > - but because it is a tax on > > consuption, rather than income, it still collects more from the poor > > than the rich, and remains regressive. > > Supposedly the design specifically prevents that. By changing the offset of the straight-line relationship you can reduce the total amount collected from the poor, but "progressive" and "regressive" refer to the incremental effects - as rich people get richer they spend less of their income on consumption, which makes a tax on consumption regressive. > > Search on "the poverty trap" sometime, where the poor end up facing a > > relatively high marginal rate of tax when they cross some threshold > > where they no longer qualify as poor. > > The real poverty trap is that the government takes their retirement > savings before they can save it, and now their health care money, and > so forth, such that a family earning 10% above break-even is reduced > to break-even. That means they can't save, can't accumulate capital, > can't get ahead, and have no margin of safety in an emergency. Anybody can invent anedotal evidence. Only a right-wing nitwit would waste bandwidth by posting the product of his fevered imagination. > > > I love the simplicity, I like the "flat" part, I adore the one-point > > > collection no-records-needed part. I'm not sure about the mechanics > > > of the prebate--prone to political games, ISTM, but then, what isn't? > > > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing nitwit, and enthuse about > > every proposition that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most > > certainly does. > > Your remarks about the Fair Tax are uninformed. They don't need to be be well-informed. It's an old idea, whose main charm is that it is simple enough for the dumbest right-wing nit-wit to understand. Unfortunately, like all old, simple ideas, it isn't practicable, which is why our ancestors evolved the slightly more complicated taxation system we have today. > As to the class envy stuff, naturally you think everyone should make > exactly the same wages and have exactly the same amount of stuff, no > matter how hard they work, no matter what they sacrifice, or for how > long. And if they work harder, any excess they earn should be > confiscated, and divided amongst the voluntarily poor, certainly. > > Noted. This is a standard right-wing straw man. In reality modern socialists - as seen in Britain, Scandinavia and Germany - are perfectly happy to let the market place determine salary levels, and collect progressively more income tax from those who earn more. There was a time when socialist governments imposed conficatory incremental rates on very high incomes - up to 95% of the top slice of a high income - but this has long been recognised to be a waste of time, and maximum incremental rates now don't go much above 60%. The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load. This falls a long way short of Marx - from each according to the abilities, to each according to their needs - and is compatible with a society where some people can afford fancier cars, bigger houses and finer wines than their neighbours, though the rich no longer have access to the services of a truly deprived under-class who will do almost anything to save their kids from starvation. > This guy makes your case for you:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0wwK7fggOs&NR=1 The link doesn't work for me, and if it had worked I imagine that its content would be just as half-baked as your argument. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 13 May 2010 18:06 On May 13, 10:13 pm, Greegor <greego...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing > BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition > BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most > BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen > > For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you > sure are emotional about taxation in the USA! Nijmegen is about as far east of Amsterdam as you can get - the German border is just eight kilometres east of our house. And I'm not emotional about the US tax system - I'm just emotional about people who post half-baked nonsense as if it were some kind of revelation. > You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism. You obviously haven't yet run into a doctinaire socialist. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 13 May 2010 18:12
On May 13, 6:32 pm, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Thu, 13 May 2010 07:32:26 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com > wrote: > > > > >On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > >> On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > >> > On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote: > >> > > On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > >> > > >Maybe. A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's > >> > > >permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that > >> > > >dough he spent--I can't remember. > > >> > > *Maybe*. The deficit for just April was $83B. Note that April is also the > >> > > month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing > >> > > date. In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month. > > >> > > <snip> > > >> > A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing. > >> > (Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.) > > >> > Of course that assumes people continue to buy stuff at the same rate, > >> > which they won't. They won't work at the same rate either. Better > >> > make it 18%, like Europe. And, naturally, that won't be enough > >> > either. He'll spend more. > > >> > That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth. > >> > Deficit spending does. > > >> Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards > >> the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which > >> attracts VAT. > > >True. > > >> The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which > >> doesn't attract VAT. > > >Naturally. As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy > >figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the > >course that minimizes them. > > >> Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a > >> regressive tax. > > >In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23% > >national sales tax. It would replace all of our federal tax system > >(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc), > >and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and > >time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes. The latter > >costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy > >wasted unproductively. > > >A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive. > > Just exempt basics, like sensible food, reasonable rent, generic > medicines, public transport, education, stuff like that. Use tax > policy to steer behavior. They tried that in the UK. It rapidly got silly. Food was VAT-exempt, but eating in a restaurant was not a necessity, so you had to pay VAT on the bill - unless you bought a take-away meal. The UK still has an extra tax on alcohol and tobacco, over and above VAT, and everybody seems to slap an extra tax on gasoline. Try not to re-invent the wheel. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen |