Riddle me this

[Clodfobble]

What does that mean, warch? I don't understand.

[jaguar]

What it means is you're screwing yourself.

The rich are that way because they made the pie bigger, not because they penny-ante'd some welfare mom's check from her.

This is the kind of thing that really makes me laugh. Or cry, depending on mood. Look at say, the kafuffle over estate tax, and look at who is affected by that. Or bush's last round of tax cuts that did little for the economy but sure helped some of his mates. Look at the tens of billions of public money effectively siphoned to rich cronies off by untendered contracts over Iraq.

The other thing that halfwits like noodle tend not to take into account is themore recent concept of non metric externalities. People's wellbeing and most forms of environmental damage being the most common two. By exploiting these things you're effectively borrowing against a finite resource you cannot really define or passing the cost silently over to someone else, this doesn't mean there isn't a cost involved. Look at the cost of things like depression on the economy (when they put a vague number or it) or the forecasts for economic damage from the greenhouse effect and it starts to come into focus. There is a vague school involving this called PAE - post autistic economics which has gained some ground but it's effectively fractured and a bit all over the place at the moment, postmodern economics is not very mature yet but needed more than ever in the face of people like noodle.

The minimum wage stops exploitative businesses doing people over even harder than they do at the moment, there is no way to encourage a business to pay more for the same labour, it's not in their interest. People do live on the minimum wage, usually supplemented by a sideline of some sort, take the 'burden' of businesses to pay employees in something other than peanuts fucks over all those people, including particularly vulnerable categories like new immigrants. I suppose environmental law is a 'burden' as well, why not let them dump PCBs into the local ecosystem so they can concentrate on making more environmentally friendly products? Both statements are fucking non sequiturs.

As for your folks social security cheque, this admin is working to stop that as soon as possible.

[Undertoad]

No way to encourage a business to pay more for the same labour - except of course for the obvious fact that every single person in the job market would like to be paid more, and is angling for that at all times, and when paid not enough generally departs for greener pastures.

The labour market doesn't exist in a vacuum, and historically every increase in the minimum wage results in a burst of increase in unemployment for a few quarters. The correction is that some businesses can't afford to continue with a higher percentage going to labor and so some of the jobs go away temporarily and others go away forever.

But at this point the M.W. has been low for so long in the US that it almost doesn't matter. Even mild inflation has left the M.W. behind. Very few jobs exist at minimum wage these days. Jacquelita's 16-year-old started work as a hostess at a Bob Evans restaurant (read: working class sit-down meals) for a good 30% over the M.W.

So it turns out that if you are concerned about wages, all you really need is economic growth. No amount of laws will permit employers to hire people at wages above what they can possibly pay in the economy. A decade of really good growth increases everyone's standard of living until they are ALL paid above "minimum" - even to just stand there and smile while people come in to get their biscuits and gravy. (After only three months of doing that, Jacquelita's young one will have enough cash to buy my old car, not bad at all for a teenager.)

[jaguar]

Let me know when they work out this whole really good growth thing, it doesn't look like happening anytime soon. Removing regulation will usually stimulate some economic growth but almost always at a cost.

[Undertoad]

Well that's kinda the problem: as long as a population looks to "them" to work out really good growth, it won't happen. "They" definitely do not know how to do it.

[jaguar]

and deregulation is not the answer. If you want to visit how it works, visit the Scandinavian states, the quality of life for everyone beats the shit out of the Anglo-Saxon model, for everyone. . The answer to the problem now is massive investment in education and research. While noodle's bizarre claims that the government can never do anything right are to be expected but they don't hold true. While governments often fuck things up they can and do do a lot of good. It's not like the republicans believe in small government anymore either. Also - the equally strange claim the rich pay 90% of tax is amusingly far from reality, the rich don't pay tax you sillybilly, that's for little people. Over a certain point the money fades into networks of shell companies, offshore tax havens and other tricks with the assistance of Private Banks. Big corporations tend not to pay tax either, last I checked GE was surprisingly based in a small Caribbean county. It's the middle class that pay the vast majority of tax in our societies.

[mrnoodle]

a visual. It even comes from the NYT, not known for its integrity when it comes to anything regarding Bush. Despite the normal class warfare rigamarole about "the rich", tell me jaguar, who bears the tax burden in American society? Why, then, is it unfair that those shouldering the burden should benefit from tax cuts? Should their percentage be higher still? And should we add the burden of forcing them to pay even higher wages? If so, are you willing to pay 50% more for the same products? Obviously you will answer this with some playground insult, but if you would couch the answers "yes" or "no" somewhere within, it'd be appreciated.

Perhaps it wouldn't be that much. What, then, should the minimum wage be? How much would you pay someone to wash dishes in your restaurant? $20/hour? After all, when they go to the grocery store to purchase the products whose price has trebled because the owner has to pay his/her employees $20/hour, they'll need enough to get by on.

The "rich", which by the way means "anyone who makes over 50k" to the left, are paying it all.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

a visual. It even comes from the NYT, not known for its integrity when it comes to anything regarding Bush. Despite the normal class warfare rigamarole about "the rich", tell me jaguar, who bears the tax burden in American society?

It depends on what you mean by burden. The word has a very different meaning depending on how much you've got.

The "rich", which by the way means "anyone who makes over 50k" to the left, are paying it all.

What makes you say that?

[mrnoodle]

The fact that they pay 88.4% of the money that the feds receive from taxes?

What I mean by burden is obvious. What you're talking about is whether or not poor people have a hard time coming up with the scratch to pay Uncle Sam. The answer is that most of them don't have to -- by the time they've received all of their government checks and gotten breaks for marriage, kids, etc., any amount they pay to the feds is offset. Most of the least wealthy people don't pay any federal income tax at all.

Now, the middle class does pay. And it would be great to have a system by which we could pay less. But as far as this fairness bullshit goes, if taxation were fair, then there would be a flat income tax (or no tax other than sales tax). This doesn't interest liberals. Libs are obsessed with idea that those with more money should be somehow forced to feel the same amount of "suffering" as everyone else.

[jaguar]

Firstly, you want a real debate, well, it makes a nice change but you'll have to work by some basic laws first. First of all, stop making up numbers. Where did the trebling come from? Where did the 50% come from? Where is 20/hr come from? I'm not going to answer you question because it has no basis in reality. Yes noodle, I understand the inflationary power of the minimum wage but use real numbers. Include the deflationary effect of overseas manufacturing. Secondly, stop using misleading terms such as 'least wealthy', we're mostly fairly intelligent people, not a goddamn news-crew, it just gets in the way.

Also worth noting: the AMT hits the rich far harder than the superrich.
Notable label here: share of reported income.
I know some people with a villa on the French Rivera, a chalet in Switzerland and a penthouse in London that report an income of your average accountant. You so far have chosen to ignore this point. I don't think the rates should be higher, I think much more resources should be put into catching the very rich dodging taxes, which is estimated last time I saw in the tens of billions and long jail terms implemented for major tax fraud by individuals.

From the graphic the biggest tax demographics by far are the 'middle class', and middle/upper 160000-400000 or soish. Rich as far as I'm concerned is 150000+. Which is pretty much what I said. Do they deserve tax cuts? I don't see why. It's not about suffering, it's about fairness, by taxing those that have far more, more, we can help those at the bottom get by. I think tax on profits from financial instruments like shares and bonds should be far higher, it's essentially free money. You can argue all you want about the economic stimulus from investment but the same effect is had by just leaving the money in the bank, the bank just does it instead.

On a philosophical level this all comes down to how selfish you are. If you're more selfish the argument tends to run that what you earn is your business, your tax burden should be the same as everyone else and fuck those with less, they should get better jobs if they want more money. The other side says that those at the bottom are in circumstances that make advancement far harder and deserve help from those that have more. Some such as myself also feel that many services can be provided more cost effectively to everyone by the government than as optional services to those that can afford it. Look at healthcare in the US, you guys spend 15% of GDP, more than 5500 a head for healthcare that judging by what I hear, isn't that great compared to 11.5%(3800PP) in Switzerland for incredible healthcare for all or 9%(2900PP) in Denmark. Only the US spends more than 50% of its money on healthcare privately. As far as I'm concerned this is a superior model.

There is one other aspect here, why is the government cutting taxes to anyone while increasingly spending by a massive amount?

[jaguar]

Need to take this a bit further while I think about it. People lambaste the 'European welfare state' but it is in a sense, an indirect way of achieving things. If you look at high-tech productivity I seem to remember it's highest in Spain, midday siesta and all and lowest in the UK with it's grindingly long hours and workworkwork culture. Looking after people pays off. Many European nations have higher absolute worker productivity (per hour) than the US. Trade balance and per capita GNP in Sweden, the usual target for the welfare state stuff is higher than the UK.

As we move towards service / tertiary economies the ability of our best and brightest to think and work to their fullest potential coming up with innovative ideas will as far as I can see, become more economically important than squeezing every last ounce out of workers before the collapse exhausted into depression. But that's just my opinion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

[LCanal]

Weird. I channel surf the news everyday sometimes twice. BBC, ABC (Aussie). This is the first I've heard. I can only assume she's American or is married related to one and it was a slow news day.
Could it also be that the story was cheaper to buy or run than say something from the Beeb or CNN. After all news is not free.

Maybe for the Philosophy Thread but I've often wondered why there isn't a Good News Channel. Must be something about human nature and the "Rather Him Than Me" attitude that pervades life. This could of course be a distant survival thing.

[wolf]

I think that the girl missing (presumed dead) in Aruba is the US equivalent of the Australian story we didn't hear very much about ... you know, the one about the nice blonde Aussie Girl who got busted for drugs in Thailand, was it? Someplace where drug smuggling gets you the death penalty? Whatever did happen to her, anyway?

Tonight on FoxNews it was pretty much wall to wall coverage of the Aruba thing, especially now that the boy's dad's been arrested.

[LCanal]

They couldn't afford the bribe money so she got 20 years. But they have another chance as it will probably go to appeal. If she or someone can scrape up enough money to "lobby" the judges well.....

Death penalty for drug smuggling is the norm in some SE Asian countries. Singapore definitely; Thailand maybe not but life imprisonment for sure; Indonesia well.. see above.