Hometown America Must Save the Nation

[artto]

If you really want to know even a little bit about economics and how "our" banking system works (or doesn't work) may I suggest at least a year of college level econ and very thorough read of Paul Samuelson's "Economics". At least then you'll be able to form some sort of "qualified" opinion on your own.

This is a time of great opportunity. If you held on to all of your "equity" while piling on more and more debt you have no one to blame except yourself. What you really need to do is stop worrying about some stupid aristocracy. If you're an able person it's your reasonsibility to save yourself from yourself, not theirs.

As far as the tax code goes, there are different kinds of "income". There is "earned income", there is "ordinary income", there is even non-taxable income, etc. Figure it out. It's your choice.

The plain fact, truth, is that a "job" IS the modern day serf. In plain English this means working class are capitalist slaves. Until you accept that, understand what it means, you'll most likely never do anything about it.

Yes, this "bailout plan" sucks. But the alternatives suck even more.

[Chris A]

An interesting article that I stumbled across this AM. Note the source (the newspaper), the author (Safire), and the date. Maybe not spot on to the thread, but very interesting and certainly closely related to the subject. Seems as though some issues (e.g., government budgeting) just won't go away:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DB103FF931A15751C0A965958260

Chris

[Tom Adams]

Hi Tom--

Well dang. I went to the site and tried every way possible to "pose a question" but I could not find a single button or form to complete to ask the question. I must be missing something on that site? There are canned questions and answers, but I find no way to ask my (rather long) question. I have no objection whatsoever to asking the experts my questions. However, my question does require some nuance and detail to make clear. It's not as simple as "How come drugs are not exempt?" And so on. I didn't see any similar long-form questions.

I guess any tax system anyone wants to invent can be deployed and some sort of results will follow. And, eventually, every system will adapt to that policy and whatever it yields is what the new reality is. Overall, there is no possible way a tax sytem can serve the idea of fairness, any more than war can serve the idea of fairness. Anyone becoming dead will certainly have a legitimate claim of unfairness. So, if its not fair, it is what? That's the real question to search out. What replaces "fair"? I say the answer to that is "interests." Specific interests compete for advantage.

The easiest example of this is the issue between taxing capital gains, versus taxing wages. You don't have to go deep to see whose interests are at stake on each side of that. Wage earners whose majority income is wages must compete against investors whose majority income is capital gain. Someone is going to pay for the war, the FBI, the FDA, the NAS, congressional salaries, pork and so on - - someone has to pay. Taxation is like squeezing a balloon - - less air here means more air at the other end. There's no question that those who want zero cap gains tax have a huge lobbying effort (bribery) to make that happen. If they do, it squeezes wage earners into "eventually" higher taxes - one way or the other. If they simply increase the deficit, then you pay later through inflation. One way or the other it is a net zero game - you pay, or they pay - it's just that simple. Now, all that is just to say that the FairTax folks represent certain "interests" - and I would never assume those interests are mine, until I examine the effects, which I have tried to show in various posts. There ought to be no doubt that the highest incomes will be paying a vanishingly low percentage of the total tax, and the very lowest incomes will be paying the highest. Since I am not in the former group, my interests are very clear.

Sorry for the long windedness.

Sorry Mark for being away from this thread - actually......I've been away from the forum for some days now. And there's no need for apologizing for being long-winded, I appreciate you being interested enough to post your thoughts. So.......where were we.......

I went to the FairTax website and found the following that would aid you in posing your questions. The first link is to the folks in your state that are part of the FairTax organization. You'll find both email and phone number contact info. The second link has an email address to contact the national organization directly. You can probably skip that one since I took your post questions/comments and sent it off to them for an answer. I also sent them a link to this Klipsch thread so they can understand the context in which your posts were made and I urged them to read the entire thread. Hopefully they'll do that.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=grassroots_leader_CA

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_contact

Tom

[Tom Adams]

More proof that the enemy is our own government.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/106022/

Sadly.....no one is listening or cares. Show me one instance where any politician talks about their compensation and uses the word "fair" in the same sentence. I wonder how the parents of small children of this country feel knowing that when their child starts working 18 years from now it will be for the good of the state while the government determines what you get to keep.

Tom

[oldtimer]

That's why congressman or senator will be the most sought after jobs. High pay, fantastic perks, and a pension that puts other private and government pensions to shame. Well , OK that's already true. And what country does a government elite with outsized perks and benefits remind you of? So who is more deceived? Those who rail against the thought of the comparison? Or those who recognize that the difference is simply one of name only? Neither one is a workers paradise, that much is assured.

[BigStewMan]

don't you think that the political machine, the beast that it has become, for lack of a better phrase--corrupts those that enter with good intentions?

many a person has been elected, claiming to and initially trying to buck the system, and has been shut down. soon they're playing the game just to get something done. not a fan of his; but arnold comes to mine here in california. he came in with his "there's a new sheriff in town" approach and couldn't do a thing. next thing we know, he's a full-fledged politician. I just wonder how many other people have been corrupted, sold out, or gave up?

too bad we didn't stick to the representation ratio that the james madison intended when he wrote federalist paper 56 or 57 (can't recall which)--if memory serves correctly, it was 1/30,000 which he said would render the house of representatives safe from corruption and competent. he believed that ratio would lessen the corruption. today it something like one representative in the house for every 700,000 citizens. i know we couldn't afford it; but, if we had 7500 members of congress it sure would be harder for the lobbyists to "buy" them. Sadly, they capped the house numbers at 435--much easier to corrupt a sufficient number when you only have 435 to deal with.

i think the old guy had this one right.

[EdmundGTP]

BigStewMan, I don't think it's an issue of the machine corrupting candidates with good intentions as much as it's an issue of candidates who really have self-serving interests and intentions, saying whatever needs to be said or portraying whatever image needs to be portrayed, in order to get elected.

[BigStewMan]

BigStewMan, I don't think it's an issue of the machine corrupting candidates with good intentions as much as it's an issue of candidates who really have self-serving interests and intentions, saying whatever needs to be said or portraying whatever image needs to be portrayed, in order to get elected.

Edmund,

yeah, i'm sure it's a combination of both. i think the founding fathers gave us a good start; but, we've really turned it into a monster--and I don't know if we'll ever be able to reel it back in.

[BigStewMan]

BigStewMan, I don't think it's an issue of the machine corrupting candidates with good intentions as much as it's an issue of candidates who really have self-serving interests and intentions, saying whatever needs to be said or portraying whatever image needs to be portrayed, in order to get elected.

But voting records are public records, and not difficult for anyone to discover. And checking those records and voting is the tool for getting the truly shiftless and useless ones out.

Very true. A few years back, when people were screaming for term limits, I like to use a line that a co-worker told me..."we already have term limits--it called ELECTIONS." Yes, it's a big paradox--dissatisfaction continually increases while the incumbants get reelected at an astronomical pace.

[BigStewMan]

i can't prove this scientifically; however, i imagine that most voters are uninformed and by default vote for the incumbant. (i'm referring to their voting practice--you can tell by looking at who and what gets the most votes, that the voters are uninformed--that's enough scientific proof for me [:#])