Give me convenience or give me death?vonbekJanuary 22 2009, 23:22:54 UTC
"Their stupidity is your advantage."
I have seen this for a long time and completely agree with you. The problem i have with it is, it doesn't have to be this way! Then again try and change the colors of a zebra (or however that line goes???). People in general are so set in their ways, it would be amazing if anyone could move back into a DIY attitude. I am trying to truly get there, where i won't have to depend on outside society for the most part. I will admit it is horribly difficult, because of how ingrained it is into society. If you don't work as a cog in the wheel and don't depend on the great machine you are considered "crazy" or a "whackjob" or a "redneck" to all the others who are a part of that machine. Not only that, but the great machine of people castigate you and ensure that you become further removed from the machine by said castigation. If you act out against the machine you are labeled a "vigilante" or a "terrorist" by the powers that be to ensure the machine keeps running smoothly, and people do not come away from the teet of it's succulent milk.
"I will have the easy pickings of looting and pillaging the suburbs of useless people."
Careful my friend. They will ALL be rabid for ANYTHING you have. Ever seen a hungry man trying to get food for his family? I haven't, and i hope i never have too, but i know that great lengths will be gone to when an empty belly is on the line.
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?arioch1134January 23 2009, 01:22:14 UTC
Unfortunately in a worst case scenario, I don't see the wolfs taking advantage of the mass throng of suburbia... I like to fantasize it more like a zombie movie, with the zombies starting in lower income areas, then spreading to the suburbs. By the time it's there, it's time to find someplace far away from the zombies. Else there's to many of them to take even when well armed. lol.
This of course is a joke.(Said for folks that may be watching this and take me as a crazed vigilante or terrorist.) :)
But in all seriousness. The suburbs are some of the most dependent on the system, and if the system goes... They have no other option but crime, or slavery. (Real slavery)
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?funghoulJanuary 30 2009, 02:52:59 UTC
I agree with you on most points except Fairtax. I believe that is one of the most devious scams I've encountered, because it is a sales tax rather than an income tax. Sales tax is a tax on the poor, who spend almost all of their money. The rich do buy more expensive things, but still have a larger percentage left over. Besides that, it would be easier for them to get imported goods and dodge the tax altogether. We would be going out of the frying pan into the fire, but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. If the richest bastards actually paid a quarter to a third like most of us, there would be no problem with revenue.
This is the reason I don't plan on staying in Tucson. I don't know if I really believe the whole doomsday scenario (though it is my favorite paranoid delusion) but I'd hate to be stuck in the middle of the fucking desert when the shit hits the fan.
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?vonbekJanuary 30 2009, 14:32:19 UTC
You are obviously uneducated on taxes, how they are paid and on the Fairtax. Read up on both, then i might take you seriously. Right now you are spouting class warfare BS, are showing how you know absolutely nothing about the way YOUR government works, and that the kool aid that is being handed out by the class warfare idiots is very tasty to you. Grow up and get educated before you make sophomoric comments and embarrass yourself!!!!!
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?funghoulJanuary 30 2009, 21:13:38 UTC
Whoa, hey, Mike, it's me, Joseph. I still wear that Gonads and Strife shirt you gave me. Let's turn down the talk radio for a minute and take a few deep breaths. Did something happen between us in the several years since I last saw you that I don't know about?
I've been doing my own taxes every year, but I'm no accountant. I did, however, go to school for engineering and got a bit of math down my throat. If you can refer me to some source that will provide better information, I'd be happy to check it out.
Here's my understanding of it, broken down into small numbers for convenience. Say one fellow makes $10 and another makes $100.
The fellow who makes $10 saves 10% of his income (a common amount for the middle class) and spends the rest. He spends $9. Say sales tax is 10%. He pays $0.90 tax, which is 9% of his income. (I'm ignoring that -what is it- prebate?, because that only offsets the tax to a small, fixed degree and makes it more complicated.)
The fellow who makes $100 spends, lets say, 3 times as much, or $27. On that he pays the same 10%, $2.70, which is 2.7% of his income.
As far as ratios go, the man who is only 10 times wealthier than a poor man (not an extreme case when you consider that $1 million is 25 times $40,000) can spend 3 times as much and the poor man will still pay 3 and 1/3 times as much, percentage-wise.
I haven't really spent much time studying Fairtax, but I have listened to a few Neal Boortz Shows about it and I'm not convinced. The only thing I've noticed talk radio hosts (Conservative, Liberal, and Libertarian) are good at is saying things that will aid their stock portfolios. Listen to one carefully, and I'll bet you can guess where his/her investments are. If you have any other information, again, I would like to be educated.
I am not into class warfare and part of growing up involves developing better interpersonal skills. I'll chalk this up to having a bad moment and I hope we can still be friends who don't agree 100% on fiscal policy. M'kay?
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?vonbekFebruary 3 2009, 04:28:19 UTC
“I still wear that Gonads and Strife shirt you gave me” Great! I hope you still enjoy it and get some use out of it. I have since lost mine. Oh well.
The kiddie gloves come off now. Take it personally if you want.
“Let's turn down the talk radio for a minute and take a few deep breaths.” If you only knew how irrelevant and childish this makes you sound you would find some way to manipulate the internet to redact it (Since it’s your post you might, I haven’t taken the time to look). It’s like calling me a Nazi or a racist. Here. Have a definition of racist for my amusement: http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/browse/racist
“Did something happen between us in the several years since I last saw you that I don't know about?” Not that I can recall. And the reasoning for wording my response the way I did is; you have had the incorrect progressive “adaptation” of the Fairtax shoved down your throat (Or maybe you happily ate it because it was what you wanted to hear. Don't know. Don't care.). In addition, you spat it out like it was a pat knee jerk reaction, with little to no thought behind it. When you use a phrase like “the richest bastards” your entire argument goes out the window for me. You are using class warfare at its worst and your argument becomes irrelevant.
“I did, however, go to school for engineering and got a bit of math down my throat.” Keep in mind there is a difference between education and intelligence. And i believe you are smart enough to recognize this.
If you believe the Fairtax is a scam, then you obviously have not taken the time to educate yourself on it by reading the whole bill that is before congress. If you have truly read it, which I doubt based on all of the statements you have made in the previous two posts you have made, then you would see it for the great idea it is. Is it perfect? Hell no. But it’s a far cry from the bureaucracy that is the IRS and the current reams of tax code that plague US taxpayers come tax time. (The number of pages in the current tax code is somewhere between 14,000 pages and 60,000 pages. The difference is so big because I can’t find an accurate source for the number! I know it falls between those numbers and I understand the IRS portion is by itself almost 14,000 pages! And our illustrious Imperial Federal Government is not telling us the number of pages because then government might have a hint of transparency. I'm not even getting into the various state tax codes. The best I can find is here http://www.trygve.com/taxcode.html BTW The Fairtax Bill is only 133 pages in totality! )
A couple of things are in order before we move on: Have you ever gotten a job from a poor person? If you did, how long did you keep it? Did you ever work for a company that consistently failed to make money? If so, then how long did you keep working after it became apparent the company was failing to be profitable?(Notwithstanding the government bailout BS that is going on right now.) Do you know what your gross pay is versus your net pay? Does the United States use an Inclusive Tax for sales or an Exclusive tax? Define profit margin for me. Do you know the difference between regressive, progressive, proportional, and fixed tax systems? What tax system are we using in the United States right now? What kind of a tax system will it be under the Fairtax? What is one of the big reasons New York State and New York City are in the hole as far as tax revenues right now? (Hint: It involves filthy, stinking, putrid rich getting bonuses.) Finally, before we move on: How did the “the richest bastards,” as you so eloquently put it, get to where they are now?
Answer these questions without knee jerk reactions, without emotion, and without any kind of demagoguery, but with cold hard facts and we can have a discussion and move on to increasing your knowledge of the current US tax code and fixing your misconceptions about the Fairtax. Answer them with knee jerk reactions and emotions or demagoguery and again your response will be considered irrelevant.
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?vonbekFebruary 3 2009, 04:28:46 UTC
- Continued - There is a lot more that I can answer to in your post, but I figure this is enough homework for one post.
Have I become an asshole? Oh yeah. But I don’t care. I was told recently that I am a hammer where others are soft and use kiddie gloves and even :gasp: subtlety. I am tired of subtlety. I am tired of being walked on and I am tired of not saying enough. Sometimes you have to hit them in the face with a sledgehammer to get them to think.
Re: Give me convenience or give me death?funghoulFebruary 4 2009, 02:29:45 UTC
Emotion and demagoguery? Do you read the shit you write before you post it? You clearly don't know the first thing about your audience. For starters, I make between $14,000 and $60,000 per year (a "cold, hard fact" by your standards), so I have no need to participate in this class war of which you speak. In fact, I can't remember having ever met one of these mythical class warriors.
It would behoove you to learn how to argue without fighting. There is a difference. Either way, I don't care. Two things I have no shortage of are friends and assholes. These are the last words I will waste on you.
I have seen this for a long time and completely agree with you. The problem i have with it is, it doesn't have to be this way! Then again try and change the colors of a zebra (or however that line goes???). People in general are so set in their ways, it would be amazing if anyone could move back into a DIY attitude. I am trying to truly get there, where i won't have to depend on outside society for the most part. I will admit it is horribly difficult, because of how ingrained it is into society. If you don't work as a cog in the wheel and don't depend on the great machine you are considered "crazy" or a "whackjob" or a "redneck" to all the others who are a part of that machine. Not only that, but the great machine of people castigate you and ensure that you become further removed from the machine by said castigation. If you act out against the machine you are labeled a "vigilante" or a "terrorist" by the powers that be to ensure the machine keeps running smoothly, and people do not come away from the teet of it's succulent milk.
"I will have the easy pickings of looting and pillaging the suburbs of useless people."
Careful my friend. They will ALL be rabid for ANYTHING you have. Ever seen a hungry man trying to get food for his family? I haven't, and i hope i never have too, but i know that great lengths will be gone to when an empty belly is on the line.
Reply
This of course is a joke.(Said for folks that may be watching this and take me as a crazed vigilante or terrorist.) :)
But in all seriousness. The suburbs are some of the most dependent on the system, and if the system goes... They have no other option but crime, or slavery. (Real slavery)
Reply
This is the reason I don't plan on staying in Tucson. I don't know if I really believe the whole doomsday scenario (though it is my favorite paranoid delusion) but I'd hate to be stuck in the middle of the fucking desert when the shit hits the fan.
Reply
Reply
I've been doing my own taxes every year, but I'm no accountant. I did, however, go to school for engineering and got a bit of math down my throat. If you can refer me to some source that will provide better information, I'd be happy to check it out.
Here's my understanding of it, broken down into small numbers for convenience. Say one fellow makes $10 and another makes $100.
The fellow who makes $10 saves 10% of his income (a common amount for the middle class) and spends the rest. He spends $9. Say sales tax is 10%. He pays $0.90 tax, which is 9% of his income. (I'm ignoring that -what is it- prebate?, because that only offsets the tax to a small, fixed degree and makes it more complicated.)
The fellow who makes $100 spends, lets say, 3 times as much, or $27. On that he pays the same 10%, $2.70, which is 2.7% of his income.
As far as ratios go, the man who is only 10 times wealthier than a poor man (not an extreme case when you consider that $1 million is 25 times $40,000) can spend 3 times as much and the poor man will still pay 3 and 1/3 times as much, percentage-wise.
I haven't really spent much time studying Fairtax, but I have listened to a few Neal Boortz Shows about it and I'm not convinced. The only thing I've noticed talk radio hosts (Conservative, Liberal, and Libertarian) are good at is saying things that will aid their stock portfolios. Listen to one carefully, and I'll bet you can guess where his/her investments are. If you have any other information, again, I would like to be educated.
I am not into class warfare and part of growing up involves developing better interpersonal skills. I'll chalk this up to having a bad moment and I hope we can still be friends who don't agree 100% on fiscal policy. M'kay?
Reply
Great! I hope you still enjoy it and get some use out of it. I have since lost mine. Oh well.
The kiddie gloves come off now. Take it personally if you want.
“Let's turn down the talk radio for a minute and take a few deep breaths.”
If you only knew how irrelevant and childish this makes you sound you would find some way to manipulate the internet to redact it (Since it’s your post you might, I haven’t taken the time to look). It’s like calling me a Nazi or a racist.
Here. Have a definition of racist for my amusement:
http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/browse/racist
“Did something happen between us in the several years since I last saw you that I don't know about?”
Not that I can recall. And the reasoning for wording my response the way I did is; you have had the incorrect progressive “adaptation” of the Fairtax shoved down your throat (Or maybe you happily ate it because it was what you wanted to hear. Don't know. Don't care.). In addition, you spat it out like it was a pat knee jerk reaction, with little to no thought behind it. When you use a phrase like “the richest bastards” your entire argument goes out the window for me. You are using class warfare at its worst and your argument becomes irrelevant.
“I did, however, go to school for engineering and got a bit of math down my throat.”
Keep in mind there is a difference between education and intelligence. And i believe you are smart enough to recognize this.
If you believe the Fairtax is a scam, then you obviously have not taken the time to educate yourself on it by reading the whole bill that is before congress. If you have truly read it, which I doubt based on all of the statements you have made in the previous two posts you have made, then you would see it for the great idea it is. Is it perfect? Hell no. But it’s a far cry from the bureaucracy that is the IRS and the current reams of tax code that plague US taxpayers come tax time. (The number of pages in the current tax code is somewhere between 14,000 pages and 60,000 pages. The difference is so big because I can’t find an accurate source for the number! I know it falls between those numbers and I understand the IRS portion is by itself almost 14,000 pages! And our illustrious Imperial Federal Government is not telling us the number of pages because then government might have a hint of transparency. I'm not even getting into the various state tax codes. The best I can find is here http://www.trygve.com/taxcode.html BTW The Fairtax Bill is only 133 pages in totality! )
So in order for you to completely educate yourself on the Fairtax I have included this handy guide to its legislation that is before congress:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-25
A couple of things are in order before we move on:
Have you ever gotten a job from a poor person?
If you did, how long did you keep it?
Did you ever work for a company that consistently failed to make money?
If so, then how long did you keep working after it became apparent the company was failing to be profitable?(Notwithstanding the government bailout BS that is going on right now.)
Do you know what your gross pay is versus your net pay?
Does the United States use an Inclusive Tax for sales or an Exclusive tax?
Define profit margin for me.
Do you know the difference between regressive, progressive, proportional, and fixed tax systems?
What tax system are we using in the United States right now?
What kind of a tax system will it be under the Fairtax?
What is one of the big reasons New York State and New York City are in the hole as far as tax revenues right now? (Hint: It involves filthy, stinking, putrid rich getting bonuses.)
Finally, before we move on: How did the “the richest bastards,” as you so eloquently put it, get to where they are now?
Answer these questions without knee jerk reactions, without emotion, and without any kind of demagoguery, but with cold hard facts and we can have a discussion and move on to increasing your knowledge of the current US tax code and fixing your misconceptions about the Fairtax. Answer them with knee jerk reactions and emotions or demagoguery and again your response will be considered irrelevant.
Reply
There is a lot more that I can answer to in your post, but I figure this is enough homework for one post.
Have I become an asshole? Oh yeah. But I don’t care. I was told recently that I am a hammer where others are soft and use kiddie gloves and even :gasp: subtlety. I am tired of subtlety. I am tired of being walked on and I am tired of not saying enough. Sometimes you have to hit them in the face with a sledgehammer to get them to think.
Reply
It would behoove you to learn how to argue without fighting. There is a difference. Either way, I don't care. Two things I have no shortage of are friends and assholes. These are the last words I will waste on you.
Reply
Take care.
Reply
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