Ok, but now you said outside of a rant. SO I have to respond. “Need” has absolutely nothing to do with it. Try and absorb that for a second.
If a person earns $100,000, or even $100,000,000,000, then he earns that amount. His needs are irrelevant. The only appropriate measure is how he earns that money. And the only appropriate measure if this is that he earns it voluntarily. Everything else is just so much sour grapes.
Finally, do you have even a shred of evidence that any sort of significant numbers of people are starving? I’m not talking about 1 or 2, I’m talking about some hundreths of a percent.
I’m saying what Truman was saying - really rich are Republicans, but what helps the majority of people economically is Democratic economic policy. And I’m further saying that many rich Republicans believe that they’re better off with Republican policies, but in fact many of them - even the rich ones - are wrong. For instance, naturally rich Republicans were against Clinton’s tax raise in 1993, but the low interest rates and solid economy it gave us for 8 years more than made up for it.
But see, be careful. That is the map in my second link. I like it too. but it does not show the perportions of populations which voted democrat. Those huge cities which are blue may in fact be only slightly blue. And judging from the first map I pointed to, in fact they are.
That’s one philosophy. Mine is the opposite. “Want” has nothing to do with it. “Need” has everything to do with it. If person A has, say, food, and person B needs, say, food, then person B should get a fair alotment of said food, no?
The person earns as much as they need. The state uses the rest to cover th eexpenses of the public utilities and companies that, surprisingly enough, take care of people’s needs.
… no? But I’ve lived in San Francisco and Oakland and Los Angeles my entire life, and I spent a few months on the streets myself, so I’m not tlaking about 1 or 2 people myself. I don’t have any statistics on the numbers of people starving in America on hand though, so those are my only cards. From what I understand, the fat is extra-thin in places like West Virginia and Arkansas as well.
Oh, I can offer this:
[url=http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec02/homeless.html]Cities around the country are reporting record numbers of homeless people entering shelters or sleeping on the streets.
Reading and Discussion Questions
As a faltering U.S. economy, skyrocketing housing prices and reduced government services force people from their homes, agencies are scrambling to find ways to provide shelter and assistance to a growing and changing homeless population.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates some 3 million men, women and children will be homeless for at least some part of 2002.
[/quote]
But we all know that PBS are liberal whack-jobs who make up statistics to further their evil left-wing agenda.
That’s one philosophy. Mine is the opposite. “Want” has nothing to do with it. “Need” has everything to do with it. If person A has, say, food, and person B needs, say, food, then person B should get a fair alotment of said food, no?
The person earns as much as they need. The state uses the rest to cover th eexpenses of the public utilities and companies that, surprisingly enough, take care of people’s needs.
corrected my coding flub
… no? But I’ve lived in San Francisco and Oakland and Los Angeles my entire life, and I spent a few months on the streets myself, so I’m not tlaking about 1 or 2 people myself. I don’t have any statistics on the numbers of people starving in America on hand though, so those are my only cards. From what I understand, the fat is extra-thin in places like West Virginia and Arkansas as well.
Oh, I can offer this:
[Cities around the country are reporting record numbers of homeless people entering shelters or sleeping on the streets.
Reading and Discussion Questions
As a faltering U.S. economy, skyrocketing housing prices and reduced government services force people from their homes, agencies are scrambling to find ways to provide shelter and assistance to a growing and changing homeless population.
It shows you that purple San Bernardino and Kern counties are miniscule compared to the pillar of might that are LA County and OC (which, in fact, appear as red on that second map)
Well, but all this says is that rich people do well in a bomming economy. Not really much at all about wether or not they do well with higher taxes. Personally I think the Republican Congress and its Paygo legislation had much more to do with balancing the budget than Clinton did, but they both get some measure of the credit. However, neither of them get credit for the economy of the nineties. That would have happened in one way or another without the tax cuts or the spending freezes.
Or, in other words, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
You may have noticed that redistributionist schemes like this absolutely kill productivity. Most rich people earn their money, and drive economic growth and innovation by doing so.
You have to be careful that, in attempting to be fair, you don’t kill economic growth and make everyone worse off.
If that is all the information we have to go on, then no.
But you see, the person will simply not earn the rest. Simple no?
Which is fair enough. Confined to a rant I have to let it pass with simple acknowledgment of my disagreement. Presented as argument however…
Well, that’s your story. I tend to respec PBS and many of their information. I link to it myself from time to time. In fact, I’d like to point to that very link myself in defence of my argument here. Note that amongst the “growing number of homeless” there is not a growing number of starvation victims. Why wold that be if the number of starving people is significant? Surely more disposed in a nation rife with starvation would mean more starvation. Surely a piece designed to point out the growing desperation of those disposesed would include numbers about such starvations.
Perhaps your rhetoric about starvation is just so much BS?
I’m confused. Are you saying that LA county voted for Geroge Bush? As I look at the two maps (one with population and the other with voter percentages represented as color differences) I see one huge county in Southern California (sorry I am no familiar enough to know which it is) which is both huge in population and voted for Kerry. However, on the color map, I do not find a county in that part of California which was overwhelmingly for Kerry. I interpret this to mean the the large population center went for Kerry, but only by a few percentage points. Am I wrong somewhere?
Oh, the rich still get money. Just less of it. I’m not saying “everyone will make $50,000”… I’m just saying, “no one will make over $100,000”… which most likely would result in a lot of under the table deals and shady transactions.
Hell, if you want to get into the economics of my redistribution plans, you could give the “producers” (the “rich”) credit in their position. Credit to invest in other entities can still happen. The productive ones would obviously be those who rose to the best positions. You can tell a guy, “listen, you can make $30,000 as an auto mechanic, or make $100,000 as a plant manager.” He’ll still go with the more productive and less intensive job.
This paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. What exactly do you mean credit? IF a person can only make $100,000 a year, the very rich will simply take their money and go elsewhere. I cannot understand how you compare the auto mechanic to the plant manager. Are you saying there are legions of people out there who could be plant managers but choose not to so they can be more productive?
You have completely lost me.
Of course not, this whole thing is a leftist idea.
Right, see, I have this thing where I don’t like people starving to death while people next to them eat in excess. Maybe it is a personal issue I should take up with a psychiatrist, but for now, I’ll let it be a political guide.
What you (and basically everyone else) is saying is, take away the $15 million a year CEO positions, and there will be no CEOs. I disagree with this thinking. In fact, I think that thinking is wasteful and counterproductive. The money spent by the company on hiring the CEO can instead be invested in better company policy, in other companies, etc.
Perhaps because I used food as a symbol for money in my example of person A and person B?
And to be technical, I’m also a globalist, so I’m all for redistributing America’s wealth to all those really starving people outside the country.
The very rich are welcome to take their money and go elsewhere, I don’t care about them.
My mechanic -> manager example was counter to your point that no one would work hard if they could only make $100,000, leading to a lack of top-level management. In fact, as I stated in another post, by not paying CEOs et al their multi-million dollar fees, the money could be re-invested into the company, or into other companies or industries.
Are you so outrageously out of touch that you don’t know how much things actually cost. My wife and I live in an outer suburb of Boston. We make well over your figure as do a whole lot of people around here (it only takes a married couple with two 50K a year jobs to do it. Not a big stretch) We bought a house 3 years ago built in 1760 that was in serious need of repair (hundreds of thousands of dollars). We have one child and one child on the way. We both drive used cars. We spend every penny that we make improving our house, our neighborhood, and making a better life for our children. Who are you to tell us that our money should be confiscated to some public agency that won’t do as much good as we do? How dare you tell us that we can’t send our child to a private school or a private college that best meets their needs. I spit in your general direction.
Of course I’m not that out of touch. You are, of course, aware of what would happen to the economy if people could only earn $100,000 a year? Property values alone would take decades to readjust (if not administered properly)
You’re assuming a public agency won’t do as much good as you do (what good do you do, anyway?)
I believe firmly in an equal education for every child and young adult, regardless of income, gender, family name, race, or other factors. Your child has no more right to a better education than a child born to an impovershed inner city family.
Restore a pre-Revolutionary War house and property to its historical glory. Give over 15% of our income to carefully selected churches and other charities. Do volunteer work. Raise our kids in the most fertile environment possible. Have a home and piece of land that we can have as a place for the family to congregate through the generations.
Thanks, but I don’t think it could have worked out quite the same way in your environment. BTW, what have you done?
Zagadka, I’m curious about this notion you have of investment credit. Tell me, if someone couldn’t see a return on his investment at all (due to your rather arbitrary income cap), why on earth would he risk the money to begin with.
Such a scheme would dry up capital needed to drive this entrepreneurial economy.
Plus, if nobody could buy 60-foot yachts, it would kill the yachtmaking industry. All of those folks would then be unemployed. This was the very real result of the “luxury tax” a number of years ago, and a driving force behind its repeal.
I don’t want to be snide, but I have to ask - have you ever studied economics to any great extent? Taken any business courses? Run a business yourself?
