Corporate taxes are regressive taxes paid by the poor

[crazyhorse1]

It was the government's failure to manage the economy that caused the depression, not the government's mismanagement of it. The depression happened when and because the market was "free."

...

Wow, talk about voodoo economics. You should have spent more time studying capital markets in economics classes instead of political science classes.

The term "voodoo economics" was coined to by George H.W. Bush to describe supply-side economics, which is inconsistent with "free" market capitalism. Maybe you'd like to explain why you have embraced both at
the same time and have the temerity to imply that you have studied economics.

Why is it you "voodoo" people think the free market in intact when the government doles out tax breaks and other largess to the wealthy and corporations and think of the "free" market as no longer free when conditions (regulations) are imposed.

Please, know more free market crap from you guys who only want breaks for yourselves and the license to fleece the stupid . You wouldn't know a free maret if it bit you in the butt.

[crazyhorse1]

Like "free" health care in Canada. It's "free" to use, besides that 40% income tax.

We cannot afford this "freebie" anymore.

And actually JansenFan got it only partially right. That is only the Federal tax rate (it can be higher according to income) There is ALSO a Provincial annual income tax, -and- Federal -plus- Provincial sales taxes.

There is no such thing as a free product or service provided by government. Government only "manages" the wealth it collects. Sometimes there are elements of vision designed to channel such investment into mechanisms that enhance productivity (I am thinking about basic infrastructure development) and others, well, they are just plain pork barrel mismanagement projects and ineffective operations.

Health care in Canada does not require a 40% tax. My healthcare program in the U.S., however, costs my family about $800 a month and about another $600 a month for out of pocket costs plus over- priced drugs and at least $200 a month for dental care, counting braces and so on. I'm not sure what it would be if my employer were not paying most of the costs, which I'm sure he makes up for by keeping my salary lower that what it would otherwise be. But let's forget that hidden costs. Let's deal with the visible costs-- $1600 a month, and that figure would triple if I became incapitated and lost my job. Oh, my. $4,800 a month in medical expenses on my half salary for disability or retirement.

Guess what? I'm dead. Or off to Canada, which more and more Americans are discovering is a viable way to stay alive.

[crazyhorse1]

You can't seriously have just claimed that schools cost nothing.

Oh, yes he did.

Don't you understand? If the government provides... it is free!

Of course, it's at least free. It's actually a lot better than free. Public schools are probably the government's best investment and yours too, whether or not you or yours go to school. I won't insult you by explaining why. I'm sure you can figure it out yourself.

[Countertrey]

You can't seriously have just claimed that schools cost nothing.

Oh, yes he did.

Don't you understand? If the government provides... it is free!

Of course, it's at least free. It's actually a lot better than free. Public schools are probably the government's best investment and yours too, whether or not you or yours go to school. I won't insult you by explaining why. I'm sure you can figure it out yourself.

Either you are deliberately avoiding the point, or (even more frightening) you actually believe what you said, the POINT is PUBLIC SCHOOL ISN'T FREE! SOMEONE IS PAYING FOR IT.

Now, NO ONE said it shouldn't be paid for... simply that IT WASN'T FREE.

And, BTW, due to Federal micromanagement (in an area where it has no Constitutional authority to be sticking it's nose), and union intransigence and protection of the lazy and incompetent, Public Schools are NO BARGAIN.

[Fios]

Me gusta pizza

[Countertrey]

Me gusta pizza

Is it that good, free, government pizza?

[NC43Hog]

Me gusta pizza

Is it that good, free, government pizza?

If it's free and from the government - you expect it to be good too!!!

Me thinks you wish for tooooo much.

[KazooSkinsFan]

Me gusta pizza

Is it that good, free, government pizza?

No, but it was topped with good, free, government cheese

[crazyhorse1]

Me gusta pizza

Is it that good, free, government pizza?

If you buy a pizza and receive both the pizza and the cost of the pizza back, do you really think you've paid for the piizza.? How about if you receive double the cost of the pizza back after you have eaten?

The economic value of your education is worth many times what you pay for the education. Even if you don't to school, the building of a new school typically results in investor gains in relation to everything from real
estate to career advancement. Frankly, my education has allowed me to make millions more than I would have without it over the course of my career.

[crazyhorse1]

It was the government's failure to manage the economy that caused the depression, not the government's mismanagement of it. The depression happened when and because the market was "free."

I agree with what Kazoo wrote. A little economic history will help.

Again, how was the market "free"? I've pointed out that U.S. currency was under government control and manipulation. In what way could the government make itself more intimately involved in every transaction in the nation?

Hoover's belief that the market was self adjusting led to his doing nothing. No government regulation and a lack of union strength means that workers' pay goes down, which eventually destroys even the employer when there's no money to buy goods that are manufactured.

Oh, Hoover did plenty. The myth of a laissez faire Hoover is perpetuated in 11th grade history books but is easy to debunk. (See above where I linked to Murray Rothbard's book on the the Great Depression. He discusses Hoover at length.)

The depression had nothing to do with the government handling money; it showed that capitalism doesn't work and the market is not self correcting. The government or some other third party has to do the regulating if we are to stay economically intact. Hence, we became a socialist country under FDR and have been so ever since.

OK, so I laid out an argument that went something like this in the post above:

(1) A free market is a system of property rights and liberty absent of coercive regulation
(2) Money (which is a means of indirect exchange) is used in most agreements and contracts
(3) The government coercively siezed control of the money supply and manipulated it prior to the boom of the 1920's (and subsequent depression)
(4) Therefore, the government was managing the economy in an intimate way prior to a depression that was caused by monetary policy.

And you come back with: No, the Great Depression showed that capitalism failed and that the government needed to manage the economy?

What? Why not take on one of my points (1-4) listed above.

The great economists of our era have soundly trounced Adam Smith, which is natural-- a discipline doesn't begin and end with its founder (if Smith can be called a "founder."

Smith can't be called a "founder." Spanish Jesuits and Dominicans living in Salamanca wrote (better!) free-market economic theory than did Smith. . .and they did it 200 years before him.

Neither is Smith the best voice for free-market economics. Knocking Smith down in certain points really isn't hard to do, but Adam Smith and Free Market economics aren't identical.

You're completely wrong about private contractors costing less in relation to providing services than does the government. It costs zip to go to the typical High School or community college but about 35 K a year to go to typical private colleges;

"What is seen and what is unseen. . ."

You can't seriously have just claimed that schools cost nothing.

There's more, but there doesn't seem to be much point in moving onward. I do hope that you check out Rothbard's history of the great depression; it's fantastic.

You probably haven't intended to assert that the government's issuing script caused the depression, have you? That seems to be where your logic leads, especially since you don't offer any other bit of data to suppot that Hoover actually mismanaged anything. It's true that Hoover believed he could manage the economy and gave it what he considered a shot, which I suppose is why you think he's gotten a bum rap from Dems, but the incontestable fact is that he tried to control the economy by relying on voluntary cooperation and state action rather than provide direct relief, which is not our idea of doing anything.

Speaking from our point of view, your definition of what constitutes a free market is so derived to serve your view that it ignores reality and would in universal application assert that there is no true free market on earth, which your wild men, like Kazoo, whose diatribes make my day, then use like a placenta of reason to assert that economies everywhere are unhinged by any kind of government regulation at all.

The reality is that all the free market gibber being spread around is a verbal cloak behind which the rich hope to continue eating the middle class and the poor without being disturbed by rules of conduct.

It is part of government's job to prevent the above and no nicities of argument and definition cancel that obligation. When it comes right down to it, it is our will that this be done and if it is not done we will invent a new government and/or a new logic until it is done.

[Fios]

It's threads like these that make me realize how much smarter Irn-Bru is than yours truly.

[Redskin in Canada]

Guess what? I'm dead. Or off to Canada, which more and more Americans are discovering is a viable way to stay alive.

So, THAT is why we are paying exorbitant taxes in Canada! Paying for illegal US immigrants who come here ONLY for the benefit of taxpayers sponsored health care. Those leaches!!!

Well, I have bad news for them: The line ups are so large and the time to be taken care of is so long, they might die before they are taken care of in Canada. Some procedures take as little as six months others up to a year or more.

As a real life joke, one of my friends was given a date about a year ahead. He patiently waited all 12 months. But then, due to an emergency, missed the appointment. He was given another 12 months ahead. In frustration he asked: In the morning or the afternoon?

We were laughing our heads off but we shouldn't have.

[Countertrey]

If you buy a pizza and receive both the pizza and the cost of the pizza back, do you really think you've paid for the piizza.? How about if you receive double the cost of the pizza back after you have eaten?

That I might get the pizza for nothing, that I might get the pizza AND cash equivalent to the cost of the pizza, or EVEN if I get the pizza AND DOUBLE the value of the pizza in cash DOES NOT void the FACT that SOMEONE PAID FOR THE PIZZA.

IT WAS NOT FREE.


Poor RIC's epiphany:

So, THAT is why we are paying exorbitant taxes in Canada! Paying for illegal US immigrants who come here ONLY for the benefit of taxpayers sponsored health care. Those leaches!!!

Dude, according to CH, your healthcare is free, and, therefore, there can be no cause and effect relationship between your tax rate, and your free healthcare. Circular logic is a wonderful thing.

Open your arms, and accept our political refugees! They cost you nothing, after all.

Find some other windmill to tilt at.

[Fios]

Soooooo, who's bringing me a free pizza?

[KazooSkinsFan]

0ff to Canada, which more and more Americans are discovering is a viable way to stay alive.

Well, I have bad news for them: The line ups are so large and the time to be taken care of is so long, they might die before they are taken care of in Canada

This is what shows how full of hot air the American Left is. They don't care what the reality of socialized medicine is, they still want it. And obviously while they talk about going to socialist countries they aren't actually doing it.

[Redskin in Canada]

Canada's Supreme Court Chips Away at National Health Care

IN CRITICAL CONDITION: HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA
CANADA'S WAY

[Fios]

Soooooo, who's bringing me a free pizza?

ahem

[Countertrey]

Soooooo, who's bringing me a free pizza?

ahem

Hang on... don't get a kink in your straw.

This government pizza takes time... the topping selcetion committee should be done in about 2 months. Rule making and public hearings are scheduled for early June.

I understand that the Department of Energy has just contracted for a new, more efficient solar pizza oven, which should be availible for use by the time final specifications are posted, and contract proposals for actual pizza construction are solicited... so, maybe by November... as long as the days aren't too cloudy.

[KazooSkinsFan]

Soooooo, who's bringing me a free pizza?

ahem

I'd write your local Congressman and have him track it down. After all, the Government is there to help.

[KazooSkinsFan]

Soooooo, who's bringing me a free pizza?

ahem

Hang on... don't get a kink in your straw.

This government pizza takes time... the topping selcetion committee should be done in about 2 months. Rule making and public hearings are scheduled for early June.

I understand that the Department of Energy has just contracted for a new, more efficient solar pizza oven, which should be availible for use by the time final specifications are posted, and contract proposals for actual pizza construction are solicited... so, maybe by November... as long as the days aren't too cloudy.

I wouldn't eat it. When the government sets out to spec a Pizza by the time it's made it's so covered Christmas try ornaments it not only doesn't resemble a pizza at all but it's almost certainly inedible. Then again if you like pork on your pizza there will be plenty of that.

[Fios]

Screw it, I decided to privatize

[Countertrey]

Screw it, I decided to privatize

Between you and I, that's a good call... this way, if you want some cheddar with your mozzerella, you can just do it, knowing you won't be subpoena'd for some stupid Congressman's C-Span face time.

[crazyhorse1]

0ff to Canada, which more and more Americans are discovering is a viable way to stay alive.

Well, I have bad news for them: The line ups are so large and the time to be taken care of is so long, they might die before they are taken care of in Canada

This is what shows how full of hot air the American Left is. They don't care what the reality of socialized medicine is, they still want it. And obviously while they talk about going to socialist countries they aren't actually doing it.

We are a socialist country and will not go back to unregulated markets or tolerate a widening gap between the rich and the rest of us and absurd wars and assorted lies to benefit corporations, so get used to it.

So- called conservatives in this country are strangling themselves with their own greed; they have already lost the House and the Senate and will probably lose the Presidency for eight years, which will allow liberals and moderates to flip the Supreme Court.

Helping out in this regard will be real conservatives, like MacCain.

[KazooSkinsFan]

Screw it, I decided to privatize

Between you and I, that's a good call... this way, if you want some cheddar with your mozzerella, you can just do it, knowing you won't be subpoena'd for some stupid Congressman's C-Span face time.

I think he's already toast for that one. He's screwing pizza, some Republican who believes in personal liberty and small government is going to be too bothered by the thought of what Fios might be doing behind closed doors with consenting adult food items (I hope Fios used condom-ents) to not have government pry into every aspect of his private life to ensure Fios isn't doing anything against the Republican's personal morality so he can sleep at night.

At the same time, Fios is "privatizing" government pizza drawing the swift and severe ire of Democratic congressmen who will want to investigate how Fios is going ensure those able to pay for their slices do not end up with more of the pizza then those who can't.

At the same time, the IRS recognizing Fio's good fortune in owning a private pizza will take half the pizza for themselves and keep auditing the rest of the pizza to find out why he is not giving that part of the pizza to them as well.

Yes, privatizing that pizza was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Fios should have just had nachos.

[KazooSkinsFan]

We are a socialist country and will not go back to unregulated markets or tolerate a widening gap between the rich and absurd wars and assorted lies to benefit corporations, so get used to it.

So- called conservatives in this country are strangling themselves with their own greed; they have already lost the House and the Senate and will not probably lose the Presidency for eight years, which will allow liberals and moverates to flip the Supreme Court.

Helping out in this regard will be real conservatives, like MacCain.

Touche