Tax the rich. Tax the corporations. Take their wealth. Give it to the little people. Make life fair.
Are these people so foolish to think these people and companies will not relocate and I mean RIGHT NOW to third world countries to keep their wealth?
The answer is yes, I really believe that some of these people are that stupid. And then when all the wealth leaves, just as now, the definition of rich is lowered, and the middle class is the next target.
Yet, still, life is not fair.
Barry is desperate and ANGRY. Look at his face. The man is going to blow a blood vessel in his forehead and spatter the room with his own blood. He is self-destructing before our eyes, and gets more irrational every day.
I wonder if that coke use (self-admitted) is coming back in flashbacks. Or just coming back. Fair is fair. Bush was accused of drinking while being president.
If a company is making certain gizmos, it will relocate its gizmo making factory to wherever it is cheaper to make and deliver the goods to where they are sold. So, say, bricks (expensive to ship, not so labor intensive) are made in the US, and calipers (cheap to ship, labor intensive) are made in China.
The driving force of this is price competition and not taxes.
Also, I believe that a US person who "relocates", still owes the United States tax payments for a number of years. In addition, I would guess that most people whose earned income is over a million, would not be able to realize that income outside of the US.
Personally, I fully realize that I could not achieve anything close to my income anywhere except the Unites States, and feel that it is quite proper to ask me to make a suitable contribution to the budget.
I mean, I was never asked, here, for any kind of a bribe. I could not possibly even imagine that if I tried to deal with surplus property in Russia.
Thus, I do not feel bad about paying taxes, and wish that tax levels honestly reflected the level of government spending.
The liberals just seem to simply not see the plain fact that taxing "the rich" causes the price you pay in the checkout line to increase. The only place corporations can get money is from sales of their products.
Government doesn't have that problem, they just take your money, at gunpoint if they want to.
There is no such thing as a "corporate tax." Every tax dollar there is comes out of the pocket of some working stiff.
The solution?
First, the insane deficit spending needs to be stopped. The insane preemptive wars need to be stopped. Foreign aid must be stopped.
Ron Paul has all the answers, and has had the answers for thirty years, but apparently too many people don't actually want Liberty, they want Mommy.
Gunner Asch on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:34:15 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
In the 1920s, the progressives jacked the top rate on millionares (Back when a million dollars was a lot of Real Money, too) to 73%. The next year, there were 40% (iirc) fewer "millionaires". Not that they had suddenly gone broke, but that they had shifted their investments to tax free municipal bonds. That's the problem that progressives do not seem to grasp: they believe that raising the taxes on cigarettes will result in people modifying their behavior and quit smoking (reducing their tax exposure), yet they seem to also feel that if they raise taxes on income, they will not be causing people to modify their behavior to reduce their tax exposure. Sort of like the people who want you to believe that advertising on TV will change you behavior, but that the programs themselves have no impact at all. Yeah, right.
Well, but... people and companies alike benefit from government-supplied services, creating an environment where complications (lack of safe transport, unenforcability of contracts, unsafe airi/water/food, corrupt police) make for added, unpredictable costs. It's worth paying a high tax rate if the benefits are commensurate.
Like EVERY economic decision, it is NOT about cost. It's always about two complete alternative paths, each with both costs and benefits. Never just cost. Never just cost of taxes.
================ A point well taken, but the following article indicates that much [how much no one knows] of the US governmental revenue stream is p***ed off, with no benefit to anyone except the gouging meeting coordinator and [likely] the people they paid off.
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$16 Muffins Found at U.S. Meetings By Seth Stern - Sep 20, 2011 2:58 PM CT
U. S. Justice Department agencies spent too much for food at conferences, in one case serving $16 muffins and in another dishing out beef Wellington appetizers that cost $7.32 per serving, an audit found.
?Some conferences featured costly meals, refreshments, and themed breaks that we believe were indicative of wasteful or extravagant spending,? the Justice Department?s inspector general wrote in a report released today.
A March 2009 conference of the Office on Violence Against Women served Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars at a single break, costing $32 per person, according to the report.
$5 Swedish Meatball {very spicy! -- UG comment}
The report is a follow-up to one from 2007 that found the Justice Department had few controls to limit the costs of conference planning, food and beverages. That audit cited a reception that included Swedish meatballs costing $5 apiece.
This does not appear to motivate most people to pay more in taxes, and indeed is a powerful selling point for the Greek tax paying system...
First, nowhere near "50% of US manufacturing" has moved offshore. The dollar volume of US domestic manufacturing continues to climb.
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It's the jobs that have gone away, not the manufacturing itself.
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The first reason is higher current and future profitability of offshore operations. It has very little to do with taxes, as you'll see if you read the business economics reports instead of the general press. It's mostly about growth in customer bases, which is the primary reason for manufacturing in China.
After that, it's free or almost free land and/or manufacturing plants; wages hovering around $1/hour; state assumption of health care insurance costs; and state-supported loans.
Gunner Asch on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:08:58 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
One reason may be the economic uncertainty in the States. That is one reason the Great Depression is hanging on so long - the "rule change of the week" from the apparachniks in DC makes planning "long term" a crap shoot. But that is the recent four years. Before then - well, regulations made it less expensive to move production overseas. E.G. Remember the "Brat"? Because it was basically a truck, it was subject to a lesser customs "fee". Same with the SUV - it replaced the station wagons because station wagons were "cars" but SUVs are "trucks". Big difference in how they apply to CAFE standards, excise taxes, and the rest.
Gunner Asch on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:08:58 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
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In a word "Containerization". Made it cheap to ship stuff from plant to distribution center. Cheap enough that the plant could be moved to another country.
Sure. Cost of permanent plant - real estate - is normally cheaper then in the U.S. and labour costs are significantly lower. Comparing the much touted $60.00 an hour (in costs) for the U.S. car industry to something like $16.00 a day (for an average Thai Government worker) and adding local government mandated retirement and medical costs U.S. labour costs may be 30 times higher then foreign wages.
Internal transportation costs are significantly lower and normally raw materials are cheaper. Insurance costs are lower, being based on lower priced plant and personal costs.
In most foreign countries the government mandates salary levels and labour unions are either controlled or nonexistent. Costly strikes are extremely rare or nonexistent.
Government interference in operations are rare - I remember the story told in this group about the safety inspector who made the guy repaint the yellow "walk lines" because they were "the wrong shade of yellow". Cheers,
Firstly, working people in most Asian countries can afford to buy things. The thing that you are overlooking is that things cost less here. Have a look at the "Big Mac Index".
A big mac costs $4.07 in the U.S.
(in US Dollars) Malaysia - $2.30 Thailand - $2.29 Hong Kong - $1.93 China - $2.30
And a visit to McDonalds would be a rare event to the average working man in these countries. The average local meal is more like US$ 1.50.
The costs to operate and maintain a developed country are high and projected to go higher.
Someone must pay for the infrastructure improvement and maintenance, e.g. roads, bridges, canals, ports, airports, sewers, water, etc. Someone must pay for "education," especially for free, universal compulsory education, which is required to keep the whole thing running. Someone must pay for the military force to defend the country. Someone must pay for the emergency/public safety services we all take for granted such as police, fire, and EMT. Someone must pay for the courts, land registeries and prisons. Someone must pay for clean food and effective drugs. Someone must pay for the social services and "safety nets."
When individuals and organizations attempt to enjoy the benefits and services of a developed country but are unwilling to pay their share of the cost, it is called "freeloading" or tax evasion, and what they don't pay, but use *MUST BE PAID FOR BY EVERONE ELSE.*
Even when a corporation relocates their production out of the country to reduce labor and regulatory costs, they still make use of large numbers of benefits and services, for example patent/trademark protection by the courts and law enforcement. Their real property is protected by the courts, land registry, and fire/police. They make extensive use of the infrastructure such as roads, bridges, canals, ports and airports to distribute their products. The individuals running these corporations expect public safety services for themselves and their families. They expect their food to be safe and their drugs to be effective. They want their schools to be effective. They just feel it is unfair they or their companies have to pay for any of it.
Even if the other posters are correct with the old saw "companies/corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do" (which is highly questionable, as some of the cost is to the owners in the form of lower dividends), it is still worthwhile to tax the corporations their full and fair share of the national operating costs, so their customers know the actual cost of the product when the pay at the cash register, rather than making only a partial payment at the cash register and an addition *LARGE* payment on April 15th, through the IRS.
Having said that, it is also apparent that huge amounts of US governmental revenue, at all levels, are diverted and wasted on obsolete, extraneous, and fraudulent schemes and programs. However, the Greek solution of "do-it-yourself" tax cuts and a large and growing informal or "black" Greek economy, rather than undertaking the difficult but necessary task of repurposing and reconstituting their government to minimize waste while meeting current vital national requirements, does not appear to be a viable solution.
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