How so? The “cake” is what taxes pay for, yes? The rich use LESS things like police services, don’t they?
If memory serves the companies usually got the police or national guard and such to do the killing. As such the state was enforcing the law. Not sure who you prosecute for murder.
- Your rates are very low right now. 2. Are you of the impression that those millions don’t pay any taxes at all?
Had one of you made the cake, while the other purchased the ingredients, would you think a “fair” division of that cake automatically meant you each got half, or would, alternatively, a negotiated division of the cake be more likely to result in what an external observer (lets call her “Mom”) would think to be fair?
Given my Post #47 do you at least agree you are less brutalized by taxes now than you have been in 50 years?
Yes, subjective choices are made all the time. But when we make them, w don’t typically characterize them as objectively “fair.” We admit that some choice has to be made and that the line is arbitrary. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that an age of consent of 16 is “fair for everyone,” or that fifteen-year-olds have to wait their fair turn to have sex.
The point being that the conduct you describe is contemptible, and I agree with prohibiting it.
Oh, so you aren’t against it, you’re just trying to make a uselessly-nitpicky statement about the use of the word fair… well then.
I think attempting to find the best balance of pain for everyone is fair. I further suggest that all adults get to vote people into office to hammer out the particulars. Is that fair to you?
If you include tens of billions in corporate welfare are the rich really getting bilked here?
This.
I live in one of the only states in the nation ¶ not to tax Marcellus Shale drilling, and our newly-elected Republican Governor shows no signs of changing that, despite the transit system going under, despite continued unemployment, despite loss of Federal funding, despite the looming pension crisis, etc.
Rich people and corporations need to just pay their taxes and live with it. I mean, it’s not like they can go somewhere else to drill! Why do “cuts” only seem to cut the working class?
In the absence of any agreement to the contrary? No, half. We assume the person buying the ingredients can’t cook and the person cooking can’t buy.
But if the person who bought the ingredients and the person who cooked reached an agreement prior to making the cake, then Mom needs to let that agreement stand.
But we do say that while sex at 16, or driving at 16, or voting at 18 etc may not be fair for each individual, as the mature 15 and a half year old is fucked (or not, as the case may be), while the immature 16 and a half year old gets to make whoopee irresponsibly, we do say that the age of consent is fair (or voting, driving, drinking) in an overall sense, in that it reasonably approximates the age at which people become mature enough in the eyes of society to do X.
If we didn’t say an arbitrary cut off was fair, it would be hard to say that comparing it to another cut off was unfair. For example, it is regularly said it is unfair that a person can be conscripted to the military, but not purchase a beer. When we make that statement, we don’t consider the individual element involved.
Why do you assume half as being fair? I can see it as the default in situations of equal contribution - you and your brother find a box of pornography in the woods, it is fair than you have it on alternate days. But there is nothing about the situation where one cooks, the other buys the ingredients that says 50-50 is fair to me. If the ingredients cost $1, and the time spent cooking is 8 hours, I wouldn’t think it fair that the spllit, even absent any agreement, would be 50-50.
I agree that this is a problem. And the solution is: cut the corporate welfare. I haven’t read it in detail, but a quick glance at your cite mentions cuts I absolutely agree with.
Well, then, that’s a good reason to agree in advance on how the fruits of any particular contractual arrangement are to be distributed.
Re Taxes:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/67.html
So, no, I don’t think that the people of Wisconsin would like to increase their taxes to pay for the benefits of public sector workers. Given their election of Walker, et al it appears that they would like to have a few things cut back instead of raising their taxes. Given how high their taxes are, I can’t blame them.
Re: pay levels comparisons. Most of the analysis I have seen do not take into account the value of a full pension, that in the case of Wisconsin is not being paid for directly by the employees. Again - most of us in the private sector do not GET a defined benefit pension anymore.
So how about those government jobs. PolitiFact took a look at Federal Positions:
Sounds like you agree with my Flat Tax leanings
If everyone is paying the same %, then the rich are footing 90% of the collected revenue
Quoth Shodan:
Oh, absolutely. Of course, if the group of like-minded teachers is large enough and determined enough, then the school board might have a very difficult time finding teachers who will work for less, and might find it worthwhile to pay the 9% to avoid the problem. And if the group of teachers isn’t large enough, that’s a sign that the union isn’t doing a good enough job of looking out for their interests (because if they were, the scab teachers would have wanted to join it of their own free will).
Well obviously. I’m trying to go deeper, though.
You seem to have a gut reaction that fair means equal shares, in absence of any other framework. My gut reaction is that fair means shares in related to contribution, in absence of any other framework, where we are dividing up the product of labor. Where we are dividing up a found item, or a gift, fair to me would be based on need. If your brother is twice your size, then I would not automatically default to 50-50 as being the fair distribution of the cake.
And where we are talking about contributions to society, or the family here, I think we again default from 50-50 as fair. Again, if big brother is twice your size, and Mom says the drive needs shovelling, I wouldn’t think it automatically fair if big, buff brother shovels half of it and tosses the shovel at weedy, cringing, younger brother Bricker and tells him it is fair that he shovels the other half, despite the fact it will take him 8 times as long as result in him taking to his bed with exhaustion for the next week.
Bricker:
For all the hand-wringing over the rich paying more it is worth noting that when all taxes are taken into account the tax rate in the US is pretty close across the board (some variation but hardly worth getting fussed about).
Seems pretty close to fair yes?