BF2S Forums Does lowering the tax rate increase reveneue to the government?

JohnG@lt wrote:

Or it could be that I joined for the GI Bill because I didn't want student loans hanging over my head when I got out of school. It could be that I didn't yet know what I wanted to do with my life and didn't want to waste money in school while I was deciding. It could be that I joined a year before 9/11 happened and I had no clue I was going to be fighting in a war I didn't believe in.

JohnG@lt wrote:

I refuted this in a post below.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Norway only survives because it has oil. Ireland has lowered corporate tax rates, attracted new businesses and has a booming economy because of it. Funny that.

JohnG@lt wrote:

As for your link... It's a UN link. Show me a single chart produced by the UN that wasn't 100% biased towards socialism and I will eat the Mets hat I am currently wearing. Here's where you whip out the WHO health care chart, yes? Look at the grading criteria and then get back to me.

JohnG@lt wrote:

I'm sure you've heard this a million times... If you think those other countries are so wonderful and have a better way of life than we do here feel free to move to one of them. Why the socialist minority in this country, and yes, you are a distinct minority at less than 20% feel the desire to change everything about America to suit their own vision is beyond me. Go. Move. Do the rest of us a favor.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Sure, but have them earn it via time spent in the military or americorps or whatever else. When something like education is handed out to all comers it loses its value. If they don't have the money to pay for it make them earn it. They'll appreciate it more. I know I do.

I'm not necessarily against having a universal mandatory time of civil service for all citizens before being granted access to socialized college.

In other words, every prospective student would join the military or serve the government in some other capacity for a few years before moving to college.  Many nations have successfully implemented this sort of plan.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Despite our shortfalls, the U.S. is still far from mediocre, yet we are the least socialized. What say you?

Our education certainly is...

We aren't the least socialized country in the world and we aren't the most mediocre.  However, we still lack the level of quality in education that those countries have.   We also have considerably more crime.   We also have a healthcare system that is much, much more expensive than theirs.

So yeah, we're not mediocre, but we're not as great as some people think we are.

The way you describe it, we should be pretty shit right? Near the bottom? Clearly we aren't...so what's the dealio?

There are intangible systems and attitudes that you fail to take into account.

Turquoise wrote:

That depends...   Is it really free will when the only reason you join something is because you need the money?

Free will is a matter of perspective.  I could put a gun to your head and say, "Give me your wallet or die."  You don't have to give me your wallet.  You're choosing to give me it.

More often than not, we are coerced to make a specific action one way or another.  In this society, financial need is the predominant factor.  Under this plan, duty would be the factor.

Even duty, however, involves free will.  People have dodged drafts, and people have dodged taxes.  The amount of coercion is the only difference involved.

While I do prefer to minimize coercion on most things, I don't see how duty is such a bad inspiration.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Absolutely. There are other options available. You can chase scholarships, use PELL grants, take out loans, work and save up enough money to go or you can choose not to go at all. Free will is definitely involved in the system that exists today. Joining the military was a personal choice and there was a lot more involved in my decision aside from the GI Bill.

JohnG@lt wrote:

No, I would be choosing to live, not choosing to give you my wallet. In your straw man either/or decision there really is no choice involved at all. Try again.

JohnG@lt wrote:

This is completely false. There are plenty of people in our society that care nothing for money. If they have enough to get by and are able to do the things they enjoy in life they require nothing more. You on the other hand are showing that what you really want is to reach the ranks of the super wealthy and you can't see a way to get there. What you seek is power.

JohnG@lt wrote:

You're misusing the word duty. It is not duty if the options are a prison sentence on the one hand or a prison sentence on the other. They both net you 'four hots and a cot'.

Spark wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Spark wrote:

I have complete faith in the market and zero faith in government to ever correct itself.

Hmmm.

So you're saying that government is incapable of correcting itself? That the people the people voted in are less capable in doing the job they were voted in for than people who by nature have no reason to care about anything beyond their business (which is fine, no doubt about it - but I would much rather a high school cirriculum, for example, be set by government than by businesses who may tailor individual cirriculum to individual needs, because they can and will)?

Government in the United States is completely corrupt. How many senators and congressmen have made millions while in office by directing funds to their friends, by opening their pockets to every special interest group and lobbyist etc. When we are limited to exactly two parties and are forced to choose the lesser of two evils based on what they sell us then yes, I can honestly say I have no faith in government. "The object of power is power." This is especially true in a society that has completely marginalized and defrauded its own education. Most people seek entertainment via their TV or video games and live in a state of mental apathy. Very few are even capable of holding a conversation past what occurred on American Idol the previous night. You place your trust in these people to correct the government? Ha! 90% of them re-elect the incumbent each election.

Then put in donation caps. Or at least regulate the amount that third-parties can donate.

Spark wrote:

After all, they are your country's people whether you like it or not. That's democracy.

Spark wrote:

And if the market is always correct, why do you need anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws? Because the capitalistic game is an inherently self-centred one, that's why.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in pursuing your rational self-interest. Whether you live or die today does not mean anything to me. If I die today then I lose. The market is self-correcting when government isn't allowed to interfere. What we have today is crony capitalism where special interests and corporations buy politicians to entrench themselves at the expense of their rivals. It matters not if their product or service is superior when all it takes is a little money in a few senators pockets to make sure they win.

I never said there was. I'm just saying that that is not the way to run a country... and if government isn't doing it, then who is?

What evidence is there that the market corrects itself without government inteference when things go pear-shaped? As for the donations bit, I agree that that is a serious, serious concern for your system.

Spark wrote:

You don't think this is true? Why do you think that the price of health care is so high? It's not because of the evil greedy insurance companies. It's because your state legislators have been bought and paid for and have allowed those insurance companies to write legislation entrenching themselves. There is little to no competition because of this and this is why the prices are so high. This doesn't make the insurance companies evil, it makes your state legislatures evil for allowing it to happen. We don't need socialized health care, we need the US Congress to enforce the interstate commerce laws and open up the market to competition.

Bear in mind my location - these are more open questions rather than direct challenges.

But I do not see the logic in not taking steps to ensure that everyone who wants healthcare insurance can get it.

Spark wrote:

Spark wrote:

This argument doesn't make sense as it stands. How on earth is not educating people going to increase productivity? Please expand because that's exactly what it looks like you're saying at the moment.

It makes perfect sense. It wasn't the education that drove up wages, I know plenty of people with college degrees making 30k a year, it was a slackening in competition for jobs. Notice that wages across the country are going down right now? It's not because the economy sucks, it's because there are too many people looking for too few jobs and it gives the power to the companies. Back around 2000-2001 when unemployment was miniscule wages were soaring. In the 1800s and early 1900s there was a flood of immigrants stepping off the boat every day and all seeking work. This is what kept wages down, not the fact that people weren't educated. Education helps, I'm in no way saying it doesn't, but it was not the primary reason for the rise of the middle class in this nation. It wasn't unions either. It was cutting off that flood of new workers that could easily replace those who had jobs.

Okay, thanks. That makes more sense now, your original argument was a bit odd at face value. Unfortunately I don't what local values/benchmarks I can use to test this (Australia had a somewhat racist anti-immigration polcy until about ~30 years ago), so I'll leave it.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

and the two conservatives on this thread are both EE majors lol

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

There is a huge difference between justice and fairness. You try to keep things fair, I try to keep things just.

Suppose a dumb kid who works his ass off studying for a test still fails it. A smart kid passes with flying colors with little work. It is not a fair situation, but it is just. You don't give the dumb kid points just to make things "fair".

What you're discussing is more applicable to affirmative action than to socialized education.  If you observe the socialized education systems of most First World countries, your access to education is only limited by ability, not personal wealth.  So, a dumb kid still won't get a degree if he can't get through his classes.

With respect to healthcare, it really has little or nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with lifestyle and genetics (and sometimes, just luck).

When it comes to welfare, it's basically a stopgap measure to keep poverty from being an epidemic.  In an environment where all it takes to end up homeless is losing your job while the labor market is flooded, you will see a massive rise in the underclass.  By consequence, crime will increase as well.  Welfare is there to make it possible for those down on their luck to get back on their feet.  Some people do choose to live off of the system, but that's a small price to pay if it means having fewer people in desperation -- and by extension, less crime.

The simple truth of the matter is that the poor don't just disappear.  When people get desperate, they use whatever means they can to stay alive.  I don't think you'd really want to live in a country without welfare.  If you want to see what life is like in a country without welfare and with a large underclass, there are several Central American and South American countries to observe.  There's a reason why the wealthy (and tourists) get kidnapped for ransom so often in those areas.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

but what is stopping anyone from doing it? That is the point. Not that that it is easy, but that it is very possible.

What's stopping them?  Multiple things.

On the one hand, some of it is laziness or lack of intelligence.

On the other hand, some of it is not knowing the right people, not having much money to work with, or just plain bad luck.

Everyone's situation is different, but trying to reduce it all down to a lack of effort is just ignorant.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

In a welfare state that people like you maintain, prohibiting any significant social darwinism. Because people undoubtedly blame their problems on lack of money when they don't have any, and admire those who do solely because they do.

You're describing human nature, not anything that is the fault of social programs.  You'll have to change our genes to get away from these tendencies.

Turquoise wrote:

I would argue that allowing people to die because they lack green pieces of paper is far, far more ridiculous.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

You don't get it. Money is a means of ability, not a status symbol.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Other countries are not America.

Yes, we are unique, but that does not render the outside world irrelevant.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

There is nothing wrong with a quick feasibility check. There is a big difference between a 10 second analysis and putting significant time and effort into a lost cause because they "deserve to live".

With modern medicine, it is actually rare to come across a situation where someone is "beyond help."  A large portion of people in the ER aren't even experiencing genuine emergencies.  This allows most hospitals the leverage to attend to the people who need help the most first.  They also tend to give more than a 10 second analysis per patient because of legal liabilities.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Again (I worked from the last point up actually) you are taking the metaphor literally. My point is only that that which is just and that which is fair do not always coincide.

The countries you mention are developing countries where the standard of living is absurdly low. Again, you cannot take the examples of other countries that are so very different to the U.S. and apply them directly to the U.S.

We'd rapidly fall in development among the working class without social programs.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I did not try to reduce it to lack of effort. Don't put words in my mouth.

I said it was possible, and nothing you said answered that point. All of the points you have mentioned are very valid, but none of answer why it is categorically impossible for any one person to rise to whatever station in life they choose.

I didn't say it was impossible, but it's clearly not an even playing field.  Plenty of people try hard to succeed but still fail.  That doesn't mean we should just let them suffer if they fall into poverty.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

...yeah. Change our genes by something like...social darwinism?

Gene therapy and other more direct methods would change genes in a feasible time span.  Social Darwinism wouldn't change genes except over maybe a frame of millions of years.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

It is not about the money, it is about ability. Money over time is inextricably linked to ability in a capitalist society (of which we are not, but of which I speak of) but money is still just a byproduct of skill. The skill is the thing of value, money is how that skill is necessarily represented in society.

I am arguing that these people are allowed to die because they have proven themselves not to be worth what it would take to keep them alive by the very definition.

And I would argue that money isn't a measure of skill.  Plenty of jobs require high skill but get paid less than jobs with less skill.  Someone in certain sales fields can make far more than an engineer, but the engineer is clearly more skilled.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Not irrelevant, but taking other societies and applying them to our own cookie-cutter style does not get us anywhere.

And I could make the same claim that idealized capitalism and market theories also don't apply because we don't have ideal market conditions.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Did you forget that this was a metaphor for the medical industry, not actual triage in an actual hospital?

But the metaphor functions quite well in a literal sense.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The working class is working. Everyone who does have a job would benefit from a lack of social programs - I think you underestimate just how much money people could keep for themselves if they didn't have to pay for everyone else's right to happiness.

If you want to talk about the unemployed that's cool, but anyone with a job will benefit.

Why didn't they benefit in the early 1900s from a lack of social programs?

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The vast, vast majority of people that try can make some life for themselves. Turning down benefits to a fraction of what they are now to help only those that fall on supremely hard times it will help more people actually succeed than dependent on welfare.

I think a better approach would be to make sure that benefits are less than minimum wage and to extend benefits to those that find work while on welfare for a few months after getting a job.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

lol "gene therapy"

Eugenics is directed by people. No one should be directing that.

Social Darwinism works much faster than natural evolution. Evolution depends on natural selection - something that in nature takes a long time to discriminate properly against unwelcome traits. Working in the confines of an artificial society that values specific traits, dramatic change in a few generations is reasonable.

If that's true, then why wasn't society already reaching utopia status before the New Deal?  Back then, the market was much freer than it is today.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

No, they don't apply unless we make a concerted effort to apply them. I am not saying we implement some aspects and not others (which is what it seems to me that you are doing), I am saying it is all or nothing.

I'm saying that "all or nothing" is not being realistic.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

...no, it doesn't. It doesn't even make sense to go from metaphor to a literally interpretation, ever. The only reason there is an illusion of applicability in this case is because you happened to choose a medical metaphor.

You can't go down levels of abstraction man. You necessarily lose the point.

I thought you said it was "all or nothing."

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

erm...how do you know they would have benefited from social programs? I am kind of confused as to what you are getting at.

Decreasing wealth disparity, increasing standard of living...  things like that.  The typical working class person was a factory worker.  Generally speaking, the most common reasons for being out of work involved industrial accidents and health problems that were often the result of vast amounts of pollution.  While reforming labor laws and cleaning up the environment were part of the equation, social programs help a lot when it comes to unemployment.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I don't really see why anyone would want welfare if they have a job. I guess if they paid it back at zero interest that would be okay.

There are plenty of cases where welfare actually pays better than a minimum wage job.  In those cases, there isn't much incentive to find a job for people who don't have much education or skill.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

We have never had a capitalist society on this planet. Not that we ever should have an utterly capitalist government, but we have never even been close.

Then why is Social Darwinism the answer?  Given what you said earlier, it sounds like it would only work in a purely capitalistic system.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Striving for all or nothing is realistic though.

We'll possibly have nothing soon enough....

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I have no idea what you are talking about now.

I was making somewhat of a pun with your comment about levels of abstraction.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

It depends on the social program, they all either increase unemployment by hurting commercial investment or create jobs by making what jobs there are already less valuable.

How do social programs make jobs less valuable?

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Welfare that pays less than minimum wage seems like a given to me. I was talking more about the continued welfare after a job as been acquired.

Flaming, read my response again.  There are actually jobs that pay less than welfare.  That's the reason why some lower skill unemployed don't make much of an effort to find work.  If the only jobs they have a realistic chance of getting will pay less than what they get for just sitting around, then it's understandable why they'd rather live off of the system.

What I'm suggesting is that we either lower welfare payments to less than what minimum wage provides or we increase minimum wage above what welfare provides.  Continuing welfare payments after finding work is more of an optional approach.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Social Darwinism could be effective though not perfectly efficient if we could make the dollar a relatively accurate measure of value against the social value of a person. Ideally it would be perfect, of course I realize that can never happen, but if a society actively works towards that goal I believe it could get damn close. Certainly closer than we are now (or have ever been really) where a dollar means fuck all in terms of human value.

The market itself will never accomplish this.  There are plenty of jobs that are more valuable to society that get paid relatively little, because they are not focused on profit.  For example, most successful salespeople are going to make more money than a schoolteacher.  The teacher is obviously worth more in importance to society, but the salesperson gets commission.