First of all, who said the idea (i.e. some particular company) is a bad idea? Is it a logically bad idea, like a waste of time & money, or a morally bad idea which shouldn't matter to the government since morals are based on opinion.
If you as a person are choosing to put money over the lives of others, I would call you a bad person.
If a company is choosing to put money over the lives of people, I would call that company a bad idea.
Good companies can make poor decisions and still be good companies. Anyways, most thing in life have some varying degree of danger attached to them and no one working on an oil rig doesn't know it's dangerous. I wouldn't call that a bad person/decision/idea. Again though, not everyone would agree that putting money over lives is a bad thing. That's what makes morals so much of a pain in the ass (and yet simultaneously interesting), they're based on opinion.
Anyways, the court has agreed that one of it's patrons happens to take the form of an idea. I'm not going to delve back into this discussion since it'll go nowhere, just wanted to remind you of that fact.
Yes, I am well aware that the court happens to be pawns of corporate giants. So, do you know who Walmart is going to vote for in the 2012 election?
Nope, can't say that I do, but luckily the supreme court has also decided that money = speech!
I <3 legislation hehe.
Can you prove they paid to get positive results, or that they paid the costs of the testing? If you try to bribe an officer and get caught then there is proof you tried to bribe the officer. Also, here's a simple example. Under the law we give different punishments to different people, for the same crimes. No we don't, you say. Yes, we do. Children can commit murder but not face the same charges as an adult, so if a company hypothetically committed murder maybe the punishment for a corporate-person is a financial toll as opposed to one paid with jail time?
So, if a person kills another person, they loose their freedom and are thrown in prison.
If a company kills another company, they pay a fine and go on their merry little way.
You are going to sit there and tell me that sounds even to you? Seriously?
And there is a massive difference between comparing a child with a mind that is not yet developed to an adult with a developed mind, and comparing that to an adult with a developed mind and a company which is a group of adults with developed minds.
I'm telling you different kinds of people receive different punishments for the same crime. If a person (child) murders another person, they rarely get the same punishment that a person (adult) would. So is it that much of a stretch that if a person (company) is found guilty of murder that their punishment most of the time would be different from the other 2 aforementioned types of persons? I say no.
Let me ask you this, would you prefer companies not considered persons (I know you're nodding your head so far), so that if someone dies due to their company they are not at all liable? If an idea kills someone, no action is taken (i.e. Nazism).
Still, if you can't prove B.P. paid to get positive results (which is wholly different from covering the costs of the testing) then I have no reason to believe they're guilty.
I go to work soon so I cannot get the documents but remind me after work and I'll see if I can't find them again.
Sure, sounds good, if the documents exist proving they paid for falsified documents that deemed their actions safe, then that's a whole different thing altogether.
Wait a second you're saying a soldier doesn't know how to make informed leadership decisions, for example while under enemy fire? That's bullshit and you know it. A small business owner doesn't mean that the business is successful, they could be driving it right off a cliff and still be small business owners. Someones profession should have nothing to do with their potential candidacy.
A soldier usually knows leadership skills, yes, but they don't have to. A small business owner has to know how to keep their business afloat or they are going to be out of a business soon.
And yes, there is a difference in professions. I'd rather have a physicist then a burger flipper. (Extreme comparison, but you get my drift.)
Most people at one point in their life have menial jobs (i.e. burger flipper) and it means absolutely nothing about them as far as intelligence or leadership skills go.
The club does treat women & blacks fairly now, and progress is coming along for gays as well. Just because they mistreated people doesn't mean it was right. That being said, in a proper setting the club doesn't have ridiculous and weak emotions that humans have (like holding a grudge, which is what the club would do if they didn't do their job equally for everyone, including the ones who don't go out of their way for them).
Looking back, that was a bad argument I made. Let me rephrase it. We treat women and blacks and are begining to treat gays fairly because they are humans.
There is no reason why the club should treat an idea kindly if the idea is a bad idea. There is also no reason why the club should bend over backwards and ask to be fucked in the ass more if it doesn't like it.
The club is not there to be fucked in the ass. It's there to protect it's patrons.
First of all, who said the idea (i.e. some particular company) is a bad idea? Is it a logically bad idea, like a waste of time & money, or a morally bad idea which shouldn't matter to the government since morals are based on opinion.
Also, who said they aren't enjoying the proverbial anal sex? Anyways, the court has agreed that one of it's patrons happens to take the form of an idea. I'm not going to delve back into this discussion since it'll go nowhere, just wanted to remind you of that fact.
Just spin the shit out of it. You aren't in favor of this, [insert country here]? So what you're saying is you're against national accountability? Etc, etc.
Diplomacy isn't that simple...
It could be accomplished in some form, even if you or I can't think of an easy way to get it done.
Okay hold on a second here, let me see if I'm getting this right. I don't recall hearing the tests were forged, but for the sake of what I'm about to say I'll take what you said at face value. Is there any proof that B.P. is responsible for the forging of these documents? If there's no proof, then why would you blame them? Innocent until proven guilty, that's how it works in this country.
When B.P pays to get positive results, yes, they are responsible. If you think they are not, then do you go to jail when you try to bribe a police officer to let you get out of running a red light? No? Then why is B.P. free of responsibility? They are "people" right? Then lock every member of B.P in prison. Either that or we admit that B.P is either A ) above the law because it's not a person, or B ) not a person and thus cannot be punished in the same fashion we would punish a person.
Can you prove they paid to get positive results, or that they paid the costs of the testing? If you try to bribe an officer and get caught then there is proof you tried to bribe the officer. Also, here's a simple example. Under the law we give different punishments to different people, for the same crimes. No we don't, you say. Yes, we do. Children can commit murder but not face the same charges as an adult, so if a company hypothetically committed murder maybe the punishment for a corporate-person is a financial toll as opposed to one paid with jail time?
Still, if you can't prove B.P. paid to get positive results (which is wholly different from covering the costs of the testing) then I have no reason to believe they're guilty.
Most if not all soldiers have leadership skills, a higher-than-average ability to functionally operate during extreme stress environments, etc. You don't have to be really smart to lead others, you just have to know when to turn to experts in various fields for information on what should be done (like speaking to scientists etc). Also, you brought up small business owners but not veterans (which is what confused me more than any of the others) and you also don't have to be smart to be a small business owner. My stepdad is a fucking moron and he's been running his business fine for a couple decades now.
A small business owner knows how to cut something, and how to grow something. A small business owner can make hard, unpopular decisions.
As for a soldier, leadership is very, very different from intelligence. If we want someone like that, we need only look at Cain. "We need a leader, not a reader." This is unintelligent leadership. We need intelligence. We need hard decisions. We need new ideas.
The same old shit just isn't working.
Wait a second you're saying a soldier doesn't know how to make informed leadership decisions, for example while under enemy fire? That's bullshit and you know it. A small business owner doesn't mean that the business is successful, they could be driving it right off a cliff and still be small business owners. Someones profession should have nothing to do with their potential candidacy.
Haha yep, I wouldn't be surprised if the club didn't like me in that scenario. Luckily I also wouldn't give 2 fucks if the club didn't like me in that scenario either. Luckily whether or not the club likes you, doesn't change the fact that you still have rights and they have to treat you fairly, even if they don't like you.
The club doesn't have to treat you fairly. The club didn't treat blacks or women fairly for a long, long time, and the club still doesn't treat gays fairly.
Then again, if you have money, you will probably get better treatment by the club, considering the corruption.
That being said, in a proper setting, if you fuck the club over, then there should be no reason for the club to bend over backwards and ask for more.
The club does treat women & blacks fairly now, and progress is coming along for gays as well. Just because they mistreated people doesn't mean it was right. That being said, in a proper setting the club doesn't have ridiculous and weak emotions that humans have (like holding a grudge, which is what the club would do if they didn't do their job equally for everyone, including the ones who don't go out of their way for them).
It won't work at all if we don't try. Lets give it a go and try to make accountability something you see in this day & age.
I just don't see how it will do anything more then strain international relations. Diplomacy is a fickle thing.
Just spin the shit out of it. You aren't in favor of this, [insert country here]? So what you're saying is you're against national accountability? Etc, etc.
You analogy is ludicrous. Please tell me what they did wrong? How did they have every possibility to have that pocket of natural gas NOT explode? Tests were done on the area and it was deemed safe to continue drilling. Not changing your brake pads when they're worn out is deliberately putting yourself in a known unsafe situation. The situation on the Deepwater Horizon site was deemed safe by the testing authorities. Obviously huge difference between what happened and your analogy.
The tests were forged, the reports that were conducted after the incident showed that the paperwork was filled out without anybody doing any testing at all.
Additionally, the pipe had massive structural integrity issues.
But you are right, with enough money, even a car with no brakepads would be deemed safe by the testing authorities.
Okay hold on a second here, let me see if I'm getting this right. I don't recall hearing the tests were forged, but for the sake of what I'm about to say I'll take what you said at face value. Is there any proof that B.P. is responsible for the forging of these documents? If there's no proof, then why would you blame them? Innocent until proven guilty, that's how it works in this country.
Christianity is a religion (i.e. a collection of beliefs), math is a field of study, and 3 is a number. All of these are RIDICULOUSLY different from a corporation.
You are wrong. Christianity is an idea. Math is an idea. Three is an idea. Corporations are an idea.
People are matter. Protons, neutrons, electrons. People exist. Christianity, math, the number three, and corporations are all ideas. All of them.
I'm not saying that any of these things are bad. I am simply pointing out the fundamental difference between matter and ideas. Humanoids are made of matter. Ideas are not.
The back & forth on this isn't really getting us anywhere. I'm gonna go ahead and move on to the next topic at hand.
No one said veteran status makes you good congress material, you just left out a very reputable profession from your list. You can be a retired firefighter, a good guy, and a complete fucktard too. Getting people to realize that science is important is something that will happen, in due time. Look how far we've come since Galileo's day. That's about all the comfort you'll get as far as that goes though, progress will eventually occur. Also, what happens when you have an informed populace that doesn't give a shit? If the populace is uninformed there's only 2 possible reasons; 1) they're being lied to, 2) they're not TRYING to be informed. If you don't care enough to know what's going on, then that's your fault, and your fault alone.
A soldier doesn't have to understand anything other then "Do as my commanding officer tells me to do." That's really all there is to it.
A firefighter has to have a knowledge of chemicals, of physics, of biology, etc. (Chemicals to know if a chemical tank is possible to blow up, physics to understand the fire, where it may spread, and what a building's integrity may be, and biology, for search and rescues.) (Not a massive knowledge, but a knowledge none the less.)
I'm not saying a soldier is a bad profession, I am just saying that they don't have to be smart. There are many professions where you absolutely must be smart. And then there are professions where you simply don't have to be smart. Does that mean that everybody in a profession adheres to this policy? Of course not. But this is the norm.
Most if not all soldiers have leadership skills, a higher-than-average ability to functionally operate during extreme stress environments, etc. You don't have to be really smart to lead others, you just have to know when to turn to experts in various fields for information on what should be done (like speaking to scientists etc). Also, you brought up small business owners but not veterans (which is what confused me more than any of the others) and you also don't have to be smart to be a small business owner. My stepdad is a fucking moron and he's been running his business fine for a couple decades now.
Eh, IMO any organized thought of belief on higher entities (like God or the non-existence of God) qualifies as a form of religion. That's just me.
A belief in not something? That's like a hobby of not collecting stamps... Atheism is the exact opposite of Theism, ie not religion...
Do you also believe in the non-fairies, and the non-monster-under-the-bead? o.O
*Sigh*
The way I see it is atheism is a religion who's basis revolves around the belief in no God whatsoever. Agnostic (for me) is similar to that, without completely ruling out either possibility. I.E. a religion who's basis revolves around the belief that we don't know completely if there's a God or no God whatsoever, so we're open to either result. Best of both worlds, know what I mean? Kinda close to having no religious affiliation at all, whereas atheism specifically believes there's no God.
Agree to disagree. I think if you want to take & take & take, then not give back, then fine. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
And if you take and take and take, then you shouldn't be surprised when the club doesn't like you.
Haha yep, I wouldn't be surprised if the club didn't like me in that scenario. Luckily I also wouldn't give 2 fucks if the club didn't like me in that scenario either. Luckily whether or not the club likes you, doesn't change the fact that you still have rights and they have to treat you fairly, even if they don't like you.
Really? Part of the problem with prison is it turns non-hardcore criminals into hardcore criminals because you're putting these people together. It sounds like you just want to further the already existent issue. It's supposed to be a punishment to the offender, not a punishment to society by making people worse than they were when they went in.
If you make them work, make them understand the value of a dollar, pay them for their work, let them even use the money they make doing the hard labor to buy television time or chips or something, but make them work four, five, or six times as hard as they would have to outside of the prison.
A carrot and whip style of prisons need to be implemented. Right now its all carrots. "YOU ARE GOING TO PRISON! Now, here is three square meals, all the free television you could ever want, and, depending on which prison, the ability to come and go inside the prison. WE HOPE YOU LEARN A VALUABLE LESSON, SCUM BAG!!" Yea, that doesn't work.
Yes because the horror of being raped and/or murdered isn't punishment lol. There's a lot wrong with the prison system, let's just say that much for now.
If we're held liable for the companies on our lands, it sets a good example for everyone else. In order to continue the example you want to make sure you follow-through when incidents happen. We can't really do all THAT much to a company (in this example, B.P.) because of legal-standings, since they're not mainly in the U.S. That's where England comes in, and that's where sending them part of the bill comes in. It pressures them to enforce laws & regulations on companies in their borders by putting the possibility of a bill coming directly to England. Safety net!
I do understand where you are coming from I just don't think in the international world that it would work that easily.
It won't work at all if we don't try. Lets give it a go and try to make accountability something you see in this day & age.
Those people died when the explosion happened. B.P. was responsible for excess amounts of oil spilling into the gulf. The explosion was an accident. These workers signed waivers by the way releasing B.P. of legal settlements if any accident would occur, so they are safe on that front too. No one could have stopped that pocket of natural gas from detonating. Blame nature for the deaths, that or the combustion engine.
Okay, let me rephrase that then. If I didn't replace the brake pads, and swerved out of control, and hit 21 people having a party, that's the car that did it, but I'd still be going to prison because of negligence.
The people did not have to die. They died because BP was greedy.
But BP exists on paper only, so they can get away with murder. I exist in real life, so I cannot get away with murder.
You analogy is ludicrous. Please tell me what they did wrong? How did they have every possibility to have that pocket of natural gas NOT explode? Tests were done on the area and it was deemed safe to continue drilling. Not changing your brake pads when they're worn out is deliberately putting yourself in a known unsafe situation. The situation on the Deepwater Horizon site was deemed safe by the testing authorities. Obviously huge difference between what happened and your analogy.
No problem, so long as you whole-heartedly recognize that you opinion has no legitimate standing on what is and isn't a person. No one said corporations are human, just that they're people. Maybe one day an android with artificial intelligence will be granted person-hood status. Who knows, I sure don't, but it'd be neat. ^^
My opinion is that a person is a human being.
And as for androids and cyborgs, you can throw them in jail, right? I have no problem with them being granted person-hood status.
It's kinda like trying to say Christianity now has person-hood status. Or math has person-hood status. Or the number 3 has person-hood status. It's so insane it's just sad.
Fucking scotus. (It's also illegal to legislate from the bench, so...)
Christianity is a religion (i.e. a collection of beliefs), math is a field of study, and 3 is a number. All of these are RIDICULOUSLY different from a corporation.
Last I checked most people have access to a wide network of communication (the internet) and last I checked there's a box on the voting ballet where you can jot down a write-in candidate. Rally your troops, write in your scientist, and if the general population agrees maybe it'll pan out. You forgot 1 really important and highly admired profession of people who aren't running for office; veterans. Oh wait, veterans do run for office...
First, Private Jimmy, who is a highschool dropout, is NOT congress material. Being a veteran does not mean you are some awesome super guy. I just want to get that out of the way right now. My friend just got out of the military, and he's a good guy, but he's dumb as a sack of rocks. (I don't know how he survived that shit. I really don't.)
Anyway, back on topic, the problem, though, is getting people to understand that science matters, and that a scientist is better then a politician that promises (again) to lower your taxes.
People are stupid, and the first thing we have to do is educate ourselves and our fellow citizens. Then we can make a difference. An informed populace is a dangerous populace.
No one said veteran status makes you good congress material, you just left out a very reputable profession from your list. You can be a retired firefighter, a good guy, and a complete fucktard too. Getting people to realize that science is important is something that will happen, in due time. Look how far we've come since Galileo's day. That's about all the comfort you'll get as far as that goes though, progress will eventually occur. Also, what happens when you have an informed populace that doesn't give a shit? If the populace is uninformed there's only 2 possible reasons; 1) they're being lied to, 2) they're not TRYING to be informed. If you don't care enough to know what's going on, then that's your fault, and your fault alone.
Social security is a ponzi scheme to the very letter. The government takes money from workers and promises them payments later on. The same is told to newer workers, and the money collected from these newer workers are used to pay the last ones.
I do think that Social Security needs to be re-worked. I do. But I don't think we should get rid of it. It's the safety net that we all need.
I don't think we all need a safety net though. I know you're all about coddling the morons and keeping lemmings from walking off cliffs, but not all people are like that. How about a system of optional opt-in/opt-out, where people who are responsible can collect more of every paycheck to save towards their own retirement. Those who are idiots and spend themselves into debt can just let social security keep going the way it is (post re-work, the current system is too much of a mess to keep going at all). If you want the government to handle your retirement, they will. If you don't, they won't.
I'm agnostic (last I checked) which is the ultimate religion of reason. I don't directly believe or disbelieve in either direction, and I'm open to the possibility of their being a god, or no god at all. Woo-hoo!!!
I'm an agnostic atheist as well!
(By the way, you can be an agnostic theist, an agnostic atheist, a gnostic theist, or a gnostic atheist. Food for thought.)
And I wouldn't really call agnostic atheism a "religion", all things considered.
Eh, IMO any organized thought of belief on higher entities (like God or the non-existence of God) qualifies as a form of religion. That's just me.
Come now, that's just solid pandering to make sure the religious right is behind you without a shadow of a doubt. No (sane) person would actually mean that if they said it. You say it, aloud & on television, to rally the believers behind your standpoint. That's what giving speeches is all about.
With George Bush, I have to wonder. You do know who George Bush is, right?
Yeah, he's that guy who in the face of massive opposition got re-elected. How'd he do it? Professional politician-ing.
Because unlike a club, if you're a U.S. citizen you don't have to be nice to the government to benefit from it. Thank God. *wink wink* Besides, aren't you glad that you can shit talk the government but you're still protected by it's laws? I know I'm glad I fought for our rights to do just that.
And unlike a club, you can take and take and take then when it's time to give back, you can be like Cartman and tell everyone to screw off and then leave. Then you can keep taking from the club.
I just think the club should have a right to not let you (the corporation) keep taking from the club.
Agree to disagree. I think if you want to take & take & take, then not give back, then fine. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
The mob still exists even with those fears looming over them. Besides, most of these guys would be assured by the palm-greasers that if they DO get caught they'll go to a bed-and-breakfast white collar penitentiary. It's not hard to pull the wool over someone's eyes when they've already got on a money blindfold.
That's where we need to make penitentiaries and prisons harder. There should be no such thing as a white-collar prison.
If you are sent to prison, you need to be on a chain gang breaking rocks, only to be greeted when you get back to your cell with Big Bubba.
If we fix the prisons, and make it known they are fixed, this stuff could be fixed.
Really? Part of the problem with prison is it turns non-hardcore criminals into hardcore criminals because you're putting these people together. It sounds like you just want to further the already existent issue. It's supposed to be a punishment to the offender, not a punishment to society by making people worse than they were when they went in.
Ummm, you should've quoted the part you replied to so I could read that instead of alt-tabbing to re-read my post lol. ~alt tabbing~ Alright, let's see. I was saying we shouldn't have to cover the costs of the regulations for all these companies. We cover the ones who have most of their operations housed in the U.S., and we tell the rest of the world they can do the same. That way if B.P. causes a spill because their regulations weren't enforced, we draft up an invoice and send it to B.P and to England. One of the 2 of them will pay the bill. If B.P. doesn't pay, we pull all their drilling rights off our shores (which would be covered under a clause on all the contracts we sign with drilling companies for example). If England doesn't pay, we make life very hard for them and cut off all our exports to them. How to know how much money to divide up between them as far as the invoice goes? I'm not sure, I'm confident someone could figure out a fair way to do that.
First, sorry, I try to make it as small of posts as possible. In these instances, it's difficult, but doable.
Second, I agree with that completely! (Maybe not sending a bill to England, but to BP, most definitively. (Holy shit fuck, I cannot spell tonight! I <3 spellcheck!!!)
If we're held liable for the companies on our lands, it sets a good example for everyone else. In order to continue the example you want to make sure you follow-through when incidents happen. We can't really do all THAT much to a company (in this example, B.P.) because of legal-standings, since they're not mainly in the U.S. That's where England comes in, and that's where sending them part of the bill comes in. It pressures them to enforce laws & regulations on companies in their borders by putting the possibility of a bill coming directly to England. Safety net!
There's no legal precedent of imprisonment for the laws companies break. There are however, punishments. Plenty of broken-laws don't (and never have) resulted in prison time. When they break laws, there is a penalty, and it's normally financial. The punishment fits the crime, as far as the judicial system is concerned. Fine by me.
BP is responsible for the death of 21 workers on the Deephorizon.
If I went out and killed 21, I'd be so far in prison, so fast, my head would spin.
We cannot do that to BP because BP only exists on paper. There is no person, no citizen, no human being, that we can throw in prison. Just a name on a piece of paper.
Those people died when the explosion happened. B.P. was responsible for excess amounts of oil spilling into the gulf. The explosion was an accident. These workers signed waivers by the way releasing B.P. of legal settlements if any accident would occur, so they are safe on that front too. No one could have stopped that pocket of natural gas from detonating. Blame nature for the deaths, that or the combustion engine.
By the way, the definition of human doesn't mean just homo-sapiens. It covers homo-erectus, neanderthal, etc. Anyways, person-hood doesn't rely on the person in question being humanoid (at least in this country). Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think corporations should be considered people, I'm just saying that they are considered people. ^^
And homoerectus, neanderthal, australopithecus, and a gnomish/dwarfish race that began in Asia but died out before interacting with any other humanoid race, are all dead. Humans are the only humanoid species still alive. And Corporations don't fit the definition of "Human".
Again: FUCK YOU SUPREME COURT! YOU ARE NOT SCIENTISTS YOU ARE A BUNCH OF MONKEYS PAID OFF TO GIVE PERSONHOOD STATUS TO CORPORATE ENTITES! FUCKING SELL OUTS!
That wasn't to you, Ghost, that was to the scotus. Fucking scum bags.
No problem, so long as you whole-heartedly recognize that you opinion has no legitimate standing on what is and isn't a person. No one said corporations are human, just that they're people. Maybe one day an android with artificial intelligence will be granted person-hood status. Who knows, I sure don't, but it'd be neat. ^^
If you think everything will go wrong from the start then there's not much anyone can say to convince you otherwise. The goal is to elect officials you're confident will handle re-appropriations correctly. Move money around in the education budget to get more bang for the buck. Cut wasteful spending on defense budgets. Fix goddamn social security so it's not a ponzi scheme. Do not cut abortions as something covered by low-income health care, or whatever the hell the Republicans were trying to do. Take your religion out of my politics. I'm a registered Republican but no, just no. Peanut butter + chocolate = awesome. Religion + politics = gut-wrenching.
Yes, the goal is to elect officials that can handle re-appropriations correctly. The problem is that nobody worth a damn is running, or wants to run. There are no scientists running for office. No small shop business people running. No teachers, no fire fighters, no engineers running for office. Nobody worth a damn is running. All of them are lawyers.
As for abortions, The Republicans desperately want to cut abortions. (Because, you know, its better to get a coat hanger abortion then an abortion in a hospital.)
Last I checked most people have access to a wide network of communication (the internet) and last I checked there's a box on the voting ballet where you can jot down a write-in candidate. Rally your troops, write in your scientist, and if the general population agrees maybe it'll pan out. You forgot 1 really important and highly admired profession of people who aren't running for office; veterans. Oh wait, veterans do run for office...
Tax breaks don't affect your tax rate, you just get additional money back on your tax returns (in my proposed system at least). The rich will complain, it'll be explained to them, aaaaand then I dunno. I can't have every answer or else I'd be in office runnin' the joint.
So then the poor still get screwed, then paid off at the end of the year to keep quiet?
I guess I just don't like raising taxes for those that need tax cuts and lowering taxes for those doing very, very well. (Usually because daddy gave them their millions.)
So if you change it for the poor but keep it the same, no longer is it just the normal system, now they're getting screwed and then getting hush money? Wow talk about the spin-game.
Who gives a shit about how someone got the money? Was it legal? Yes? Then I don't care how you're so rich. It's not raising taxes if they get a bunch more breaks. The poor wouldn't see a difference.
We need to re-appropriate how we use funds for education. Tax cuts AREN'T spending. You don't go around rewarding people for not murdering you, do you? We need to cut spending on Social Security (a.k.a. the Old Folk's Pyramid Scheme).
I completely disagree on social security cuts, and I completely disagree on education cuts. That is on the level of ignorance akin to making corporations people.
(Not calling you ignorant, just the idea. o.o )
But, I never said cut education, I said re-appropriate it. There's no way there isn't some wasteful spending in the education system with the way it currently is. It's highly likely you could get more bang for the buck when it comes to education. Same amount of buck, but much bigger bang. No one should be against that.
Social security is a ponzi scheme to the very letter. The government takes money from workers and promises them payments later on. The same is told to newer workers, and the money collected from these newer workers are used to pay the last ones.
The same hierarchical concept was used by Bernie Madoff, and look where that got him.
Morals are gay. Let the idiots die. That's just my 2-cents.
Guess we have to agree to disagree on this, then. Lol.
Yeah, I'm fine with that. I don't like the concept of morals and other peoples opinions being pushed on others because they're deemed "morals". Oh well, let's call this a draw! ^.^
Hard facts & documentation or I can't outright believe that particular story. However, I'm sure it happens all the time.
Wish I could give you hard facts and documentation, but I cannot.
And I commend you for demanding evidence before believing anything. That is a rare view in this country anymore. (Low blow to religion? Yea. But I had to. =P Hope you are not religious. Haha. )
I'm agnostic (last I checked) which is the ultimate religion of reason. I don't directly believe or disbelieve in either direction, and I'm open to the possibility of their being a god, or no god at all. Woo-hoo!!!
Our leaders don't ask Jesus who to bomb next, come on be reasonable here. >.< We're always gonna have enemies when people want to kill us for being decadent or too slutty or whatever excuse terrorists come up with.
Maybe not Obama, but Bush said in speeches all the time that he did what the Dear Leader told him to do. He was but a pawn for the Dear Leader.
We have enemies, but we don't need invisible sky daddies to give us more.
Come now, that's just solid pandering to make sure the religious right is behind you without a shadow of a doubt. No (sane) person would actually mean that if they said it. You say it, aloud & on television, to rally the believers behind your standpoint. That's what giving speeches is all about.
There's nothing "not fair" about a company not wanting to donate money to the government after the government spent years helping them build-up with tax breaks. I don't want morals interfering with good business practices. As far as the American people getting upset about what their money is spent on, money needs to be spent on things that not everyone likes. You know how I know that? Pick 1 thing everyone likes or dislikes. That's right, it's impossible. Child rape, everyone hates that right? Nope, some don't and those some paid taxes.
Alright, instead of using the term "Donate Money", lets put it this way. There's a club. It's the biggest and coolest club in the world. But in order to be in it and to operate in it, you gotta pay dues. Now, you can go across the street to another club and do business in that club, but why would the first club be nice to you when you try to still make money off that club?
Because unlike a club, if you're a U.S. citizen you don't have to be nice to the government to benefit from it. Thank God. *wink wink* Besides, aren't you glad that you can shit talk the government but you're still protected by it's laws? I know I'm glad I fought for our rights to do just that.
Because your 100k a year is being cushioned by another 200k a year. Money corrupts people quite a good distance beyond rational thought. Who's gonna catch me if we're all doing this? It's safe, we're all safe, let's all take the money!
And your 300k is being cushioned by Big Bubba's dick. >.>
Anyway, the FBI, the CIA, and the different state police and county sheriffs departments would be watching.
It just takes one guy to take down an entire racket.
The mob still exists even with those fears looming over them. Besides, most of these guys would be assured by the palm-greasers that if they DO get caught they'll go to a bed-and-breakfast white collar penitentiary. It's not hard to pull the wool over someone's eyes when they've already got on a money blindfold.
So then we cover American businesses and let other countries cover their own. If there's an incident we come after the nation behind the country for not enforcing regulations. If they don't want to pay, we have a 241:2 kill ratio, let them think about that for about 3 seconds.
Wait...what?
You confused me! Lol.
Ummm, you should've quoted the part you replied to so I could read that instead of alt-tabbing to re-read my post lol. ~alt tabbing~ Alright, let's see. I was saying we shouldn't have to cover the costs of the regulations for all these companies. We cover the ones who have most of their operations housed in the U.S., and we tell the rest of the world they can do the same. That way if B.P. causes a spill because their regulations weren't enforced, we draft up an invoice and send it to B.P and to England. One of the 2 of them will pay the bill. If B.P. doesn't pay, we pull all their drilling rights off our shores (which would be covered under a clause on all the contracts we sign with drilling companies for example). If England doesn't pay, we make life very hard for them and cut off all our exports to them. How to know how much money to divide up between them as far as the invoice goes? I'm not sure, I'm confident someone could figure out a fair way to do that.
I'm sorry but just because you refuse to accept corporations as people, and thus U.S. citizens, doesn't change a thing. Accept it or not, they are. If you want that changed then petition the courts to overrule the current precedents.
Again, when's the last time you opened the news paper and read how 7-11 or Walmart was just thrown in the slammer for a month for doing something illegal?
And when did we change the definition of human from homosapian to whatever the fuck we want?
There's no legal precedent of imprisonment for the laws companies break. There are however, punishments. Plenty of broken-laws don't (and never have) resulted in prison time. When they break laws, there is a penalty, and it's normally financial. The punishment fits the crime, as far as the judicial system is concerned. Fine by me.
By the way, the definition of human doesn't mean just homo-sapiens. It covers homo-erectus, neanderthal, etc. Anyways, person-hood doesn't rely on the person in question being humanoid (at least in this country). Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think corporations should be considered people, I'm just saying that they are considered people. ^^
I'll bet you a shiny nickle that Apple has a larger profit margin than Nintendo.
On iPods vs Nintendo Wii's? Yup.
On Music vs Video Games? Not on your life.
Apple isn't making the music, they're paying a little royalty fee to sell it. I bet they're making a larger profit margin. We would have to investigate further to find out.
Then everyone in that town rallies up and gathers support from other towns, citizens, etc. Big businesses who use DuPont currently but would like more time in the limelight to draw attention to their product will formally denounce DuPont and instead pick up an American-made alternative. DuPont loses tons of money from the abrupt and sudden backlash, and either apologizes and opens more factories than it closed, or re-opens the original factory. One way or another they would lose money for their decision, thus the free market has spoken.
And then everyone learns how to use telekinesis and we all find 200 dollars under our pillow the next morning and McDonalds gives out free hamburgers, and then we all get model husbands and model wives and Ferraris and huge four story homes with no taxes on them ever and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
Well, my hypothetical scenario is pretty accurate and realistic though.... *pout*
I love how George Bush gets the blame and Congress/Senate get none of it. Same as when Obama is blamed for every tiny thing (though some of it is legitimately his fault). Where do we get the money from? From some of those massive cut-the-fat changes to our federal spending. Re=appropriations my friend, re-appropriations.
Of course the Congress is responsible, and I hope every intellegent person knows that. I simply say "Bush" instead of all that because he is the head of state. As a manager of my store, I have found the head is always the one that gets the blame on everything, regardless of what happened, so I don't feel bad for Bush getting the blame, or Obama getting the blame.
As for reapproprations, it will never happen, or it will happen wrong. Either cuts to education and the sciences and infrastructure or no cuts at all. Everyone flat out refuses to cut the places that needs to be cut.
If you think everything will go wrong from the start then there's not much anyone can say to convince you otherwise. The goal is to elect officials you're confident will handle re-appropriations correctly. Move money around in the education budget to get more bang for the buck. Cut wasteful spending on defense budgets. Fix goddamn social security so it's not a ponzi scheme. Do not cut abortions as something covered by low-income health care, or whatever the hell the Republicans were trying to do. Take your religion out of my politics. I'm a registered Republican but no, just no. Peanut butter + chocolate = awesome. Religion + politics = gut-wrenching.
Or you could set the flat-tax-rate to a point higher than the poor's tax rate, and just give them additional tax breaks so that they see no effective difference.
So we are going to have a flat tax rate and give exceptions to certain people?
How long do you think it will take for the rich to get those exceptions too?
And for that matter, if everyone isn't paying the same, it's not a flat tax rate.
Tax breaks don't affect your tax rate, you just get additional money back on your tax returns (in my proposed system at least). The rich will complain, it'll be explained to them, aaaaand then I dunno. I can't have every answer or else I'd be in office runnin' the joint.
There's a LOT of wasteful spending, a LOT. Let's scrape every bit of caviar off our buttered bread before we eat it, shall we?
I agree. I really do. I just want to be careful of what we cut. We don't need to cut funding on education, on science, on literature, on research. We do need to cut spending on tax subsidies on oil barons, on tax subsidies on the ceos that fly personal jets, on the military.
Its not about cutting spending, its about where we cut. And where we need to cut the most is the one place where nobody wants to cut.
We need to re-appropriate how we use funds for education. Tax cuts AREN'T spending. You don't go around rewarding people for not murdering you, do you? We need to cut spending on Social Security (a.k.a. the Old Folk's Pyramid Scheme).
I'm fine with billions dying because of their own stupidity though. Oh well. I will never be in favor of the government doing it's best to try and tell idiots "hey were trying to save you, do you want help with this?" and them staring silently back at the government. Do what you can to help the lemmings I suppose, but if you give them the choice to succeed or to fail, and they pick fail, FUCK 'em.
It's kinda like the Tea Party, and their "Keep your government hands off my medicare". They are stupid. They are damn stupid. They make my head hurt. But they are people, and we have the technology to help them, whether they know or care or not.
Yes, I wouldn't bat an eye if they died, but if we have the ability, if we have the means, if we have the knowhow, then it is wrong (I hate saying the word immoral) of us to do otherwise.
Morals are gay. Let the idiots die. That's just my 2-cents.
I agree we don't need to spend that much on a hammer, but where did you find that info? Sounds akin to the whole $10 muffin debacle, except I hadn't heard of a $3,000 hammer story. I'd love a link to it though.
My father was a mechanic in the military for decades. :/
Hard facts & documentation or I can't outright believe that particular story. However, I'm sure it happens all the time.
You have to make sure the soldiers don't lose any of the pay/benefits/care they currently receive, and that our tech still (like the F-22 Raptor) has something along the lines of a 241-to-2 kill ratio. That's how ahead of the enemy I would like to stay.
Of course not. I want every available advancement that we can have over our enemies. (Of which we would have less if our leaders didn't ask jesus who we should bomb next. Just sayin'.) But there is a lot more money spend then needs to be spent to keep that advancement. We could cut the military budget in half and still have a 241 to 2 kill ratio. I just ask that we cut the fat. That's all.
Our leaders don't ask Jesus who to bomb next, come on be reasonable here. >.< We're always gonna have enemies when people want to kill us for being decadent or too slutty or whatever excuse terrorists come up with.
The government has to have it's nose in every single aspect of human life? That might be excessive don't you think? If a company wants tax breaks and help (help that it should get if it's in the parameters for the help) then who gives a flying fuck if they don't want to give back? Tax breaks and such don't have a little asterisk at the end that reads "oh and afterwards we want you to be kind & give back".
I would like the government to not have it's nose in everything. I think we all would like that. But people don't play fair and somebody could come up to you and mug you right now. The world isn't fair. It just isn't. We have a government that is designed to attempt to make the world a little more fair.
As for tax breaks and bailouts, think the American people give a flying fuck when we bail them out and they use the money to give their ceo's a private jet instead of fixing the problems that we, the people, gave them the money for.
There's nothing "not fair" about a company not wanting to donate money to the government after the government spent years helping them build-up with tax breaks. I don't want morals interfering with good business practices. As far as the American people getting upset about what their money is spent on, money needs to be spent on things that not everyone likes. You know how I know that? Pick 1 thing everyone likes or dislikes. That's right, it's impossible. Child rape, everyone hates that right? Nope, some don't and those some paid taxes.
How is that wrong? You essentially agreed with me, I specifically said the cause of the oil spill was the explosion. I didn't say 1 word on the cause of the continuation of oil spilling. With more regulations the initial explosion would've still happened, and thus the oil spill would have still occurred. So no, I'm not wrong, I'm quite correct.
The oil spill would of been cut off before it got to the water of the gulf, essentially causing there to be no spill at all.
So yea, if they were not cheap fucks, or if we had regulations/regulators worth half a damn, none of this would of happened.
Which means you are wrong.
The explosion itself dispersed SOME oil into the gulf, thus there was a spill, and I am correct. How much is inconsequential.
And when they're all double dipping and having cocaine parties (I still don't believe that they really had coke parties but whatever) and no one can rat anyone out because they're all rolling in cash? Then these regulators are all corrupt and the system is just as bad as you said it was in the first place and ONTOP of that we're wasting shittons of money on these double-dippers. No thank you.
Never said anybody would be ratting anybody else out. And if you are making 100k a year, why would you even think of giving that up and going to prison with Big Bubba for the next 55 to 80 years?
Because your 100k a year is being cushioned by another 200k a year. Money corrupts people quite a good distance beyond rational thought. Who's gonna catch me if we're all doing this? It's safe, we're all safe, let's all take the money!
I'm not saying trust the corporations to handle their own regulation-infractions, but I refuse to pick up the bill for the entire world. We've been doing that for decades and other countries still bitch about America. So what will we do to deal with their bitching? Good luck making it without us, we'll foot our percentage of the bill and the rest of you can fuck off & die, or do your part.
I agree, but we do live in an international world in todays age.
That being said, my position is to help prop up America, not the world.
So then we cover American businesses and let other countries cover their own. If there's an incident we come after the nation behind the country for not enforcing regulations. If they don't want to pay, we have a 241:2 kill ratio, let them think about that for about 3 seconds.
Haha thanks for the good laugh. Also, thanks for proving I'm right, you don't like the fact that corporations are people but they are. If I want to be a dick to my consumers then I should be allowed to. Either they will deal with it and I get both the first & last laugh, or they boycott me and I suffer for my dickery. No reason the government has to get involved, it's just more overreaching. Since corporations are people, and you want this done to corporations, you're pretty much saying it's okay for the for the government to be threatening dicks to the average citizen. That's a terrible thing for you to say, LinkX.
I don't like the fact that the government views non-personal entities, corporations, as people. Corporations can vote, they can make money, they can spend money, they can do anything, anything except be held accountable.
When's the last time you threw a corporation in jail? Honest question, when was the last time a corporation was in jail?
And no, the government is supposed to protect the average citizen from the corporations. (I refuse to accept non-people, non-humans as citizens.)
And if it's terrible to defend humans, then I am a terrible, terrible person.
I'm sorry but just because you refuse to accept corporations as people, and thus U.S. citizens, doesn't change a thing. Accept it or not, they are. If you want that changed then petition the courts to overrule the current precedents.
Alright I'll reply to each of these in turn and then give you an overall better scenario. A) No, if I run a huge company like Apple I'm not going to just "make less profit". Fuck that nonsense, this is a company and I'm supposed to make as much profit while keeping the consumer happy as humanly possible.
Nintendo is one of the biggest video game companies in the world, and they use this model with the Nintendo Wii. I would hardly call it nonsense. Just sayin'.
I'll bet you a shiny nickle that Apple has a larger profit margin than Nintendo.
This made me laugh, complete and total outlandish sensationalism. You make it sound like 1 closed factory will make everyone I've ever known suddenly unemployed, and simultaneously make the government lose billions of dollars every year. Just ridiculous.
It wouldn't be that bad, but I can guarantee you that if DuPont went out, thousands and thousands of people around here would be out of a job. It'd be one of the worst things that could happen to this area. (But DuPont would make more money, so it's okay)
Then everyone in that town rallies up and gathers support from other towns, citizens, etc. Big businesses who use DuPont currently but would like more time in the limelight to draw attention to their product will formally denounce DuPont and instead pick up an American-made alternative. DuPont loses tons of money from the abrupt and sudden backlash, and either apologizes and opens more factories than it closed, or re-opens the original factory. One way or another they would lose money for their decision, thus the free market has spoken.
Now for the better option; C) Offer companies tax breaks that make manufacturing in the U.S. competitively priced against other countries, and tax incentives that make it JUST as profitable to make things here as it does overseas. If there's no additional money to be made overseas then they'll have no reason to go. Plus they'll get the patriotic P.R. from keeping operations in the U.S. Win-win.
Okay, where's the money come from to make up the tax incentives?
Or are we going the George Bush route and putting the bill on our kids?
I love how George Bush gets the blame and Congress/Senate get none of it. Same as when Obama is blamed for every tiny thing (though some of it is legitimately his fault). Where do we get the money from? From some of those massive cut-the-fat changes to our federal spending. Re=appropriations my friend, re-appropriations.
Whats with the technology hate against enemies, wars will be fought economically. China owns a good portion of the American dollar, just cash out watch the country collapse, technology will not save you.
Hard to cash out your investment when we nuke you... I <3 explosives.
But that's not what either of us said, or anything I've heard for that matter. A flat tax system would keep in place the current tax rates for the lower-end of the spectrum, and lower the tax rates for the higher end to that of everyone else. Pretty much lower everyone's taxes down to that of the poor's tax rates. Then, make sure there are tax breaks and cuts in place for the especially poor, to help them keep a higher portion of their already-low income.
Alright, so we are going to set it up so that the flat tax rate is the tax rate of the poor, so then uncle sam looses loads of tax money, and public funding goes down the drain. Now public roads go to hell, volunteer fire departments are gone, university grants are all but extinct, the military is reduced to that of Mexico, etc, etc.
Or you could set the flat-tax-rate to a point higher than the poor's tax rate, and just give them additional tax breaks so that they see no effective difference.
Eh I don't know if I completely agree with the last part of what you said. I guess I'm more libertarian-leaning when it comes to this viewpoint but, let stupid people be stupid and let them suffer. It's the Darwinian way. If we coddle morons into being safe morons, then what is there in place to make people become less moronic? Over time society will become more & more ignorant (almost like Idiocracy) and we'll just have to keep implementing more protection for the dumb citizens. I don't want to live in a world full of idiots... sorry.
Actually if we were to allow Darwin's laws to take effect on Humanity, the six billion people would be reduced to a few hundred thousand.
But, back on topic, because we cannot simply kill the morons or let the morons kill themselves (Nor can we kill the lazy people), we have to accept that they are here and they are not going anywhere soon. The fact that they are morons does not change that they are humans, nor does it change the fact that they are Americans, nor does it change the fact that the American Government is supposed to protect them as well. That's their job. Saying otherwise is saying that the American Government shouldn't be doing what it was designed to do.
I'm fine with billions dying because of their own stupidity though. Oh well. I will never be in favor of the government doing it's best to try and tell idiots "hey were trying to save you, do you want help with this?" and them staring silently back at the government. Do what you can to help the lemmings I suppose, but if you give them the choice to succeed or to fail, and they pick fail, FUCK 'em.
Let's just make it crystal clear, cut some defense budget spending when it comes to development of weapons and equipment. Not all of it, we need to stay much more ahead of our counterparts & enemies, but we can tone down the budget and save a LOT of money.
We don't need to spend $3,000 on a hammer.
Period.
I agree we don't need to spend that much on a hammer, but where did you find that info? Sounds akin to the whole $10 muffin debacle, except I hadn't heard of a $3,000 hammer story. I'd love a link to it though.
Half is probably way too much, we have to make sure we continue advancement in technology, without spending so much doing it. The point is to stay about a decade ahead of everyone, at all times. You don't want a fair fight on the battlefield, you want a swift & efficient one (i.e. us having much much better technology than anyone we might come up against).
When I say half, I just mean half of the DoD. That would mean things like instead of $3000 on a hammer, you spend $10. Simple things like that.
And you could cut far more then half and still have huge advancement, I'm just trying to be conservative. (Haha, puns are funny.)
You have to make sure the soldiers don't lose any of the pay/benefits/care they currently receive, and that our tech still (like the F-22 Raptor) has something along the lines of a 241-to-2 kill ratio. That's how ahead of the enemy I would like to stay.
Because the government isn't supposed to only help people who want to give back, it's supposed to equally help everyone who is applicable. Do we want to run a nation based on morals or do we want to run a nation based on fairness? That's not so much a rhetorical question as much as it is an actual one to ask yourself. I, for one, would rather see logic and fairness prevail.
We want to run a nation that protects it's people. Whether that means protecting one guy from killing another or from a corporation trying to ass rape the consumers.
It's not a morals vs fairness debate, it's a protect vs hands-off debate. If our government just steps back and lets everyone do what they want, then what use is the government in the first place?
It has no use in that case and should be abolished.
The government has to have it's nose in every single aspect of human life? That might be excessive don't you think? If a company wants tax breaks and help (help that it should get if it's in the parameters for the help) then who gives a flying fuck if they don't want to give back? Tax breaks and such don't have a little asterisk at the end that reads "oh and afterwards we want you to be kind & give back".
Couple of things here. 1) The cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an explosion from pockets of natural gas in the ocean. More regulation wouldn't have stopped the explosion from happening.
Wrong. They had devices that would of cut the oil spill off nearly instantly. It was not implemented in order to save money. With more regulations, regulators, etc, this would not of been the case.
How is that wrong? You essentially agreed with me, I specifically said the cause of the oil spill was the explosion. I didn't say 1 word on the cause of the continuation of oil spilling. With more regulations the initial explosion would've still happened, and thus the oil spill would have still occurred. So no, I'm not wrong, I'm quite correct.
2) There's no amount of "higher pay" that could ever keep everyone from double dipping, unless you don't know the definition of the word greed.
That is why you have stiffer penalties, including long prison time, for those that choose to double dip. The higher pay would stop most, (And lets face it, they would deserve it for protecting us and keeping the corporations legit) and then long, long prison time for those that still want more. (IE Double dip)
And when they're all double dipping and having cocaine parties (I still don't believe that they really had coke parties but whatever) and no one can rat anyone out because they're all rolling in cash? Then these regulators are all corrupt and the system is just as bad as you said it was in the first place and ONTOP of that we're wasting shittons of money on these double-dippers. No thank you.
3) Why should we (the U.S.) have to pay for all these regulations when we're not the only ones using the oil being drilled? Absolutely no reason we should cover all the costs, period.
Because it directly affects us. We cannot trust the corporations to have our best interest in hand, BP has shown that. And we cannot rely on other nations.
I'm not saying trust the corporations to handle their own regulation-infractions, but I refuse to pick up the bill for the entire world. We've been doing that for decades and other countries still bitch about America. So what will we do to deal with their bitching? Good luck making it without us, we'll foot our percentage of the bill and the rest of you can fuck off & die, or do your part.
Quote from name="GhostLoad" timestamp="1324276914" post="719663"Still sounds like threatening "do this or else we will make you pay, literally". Part of your idea, I do like though. Employ X amount of Americans = tax cut. Build X factories here of Y size = tax cut. Donate profits giving a tax cut sounds like a waste of time on legislation unless the amount saved from the tax cut is sizable amount larger than the amount you"d have to donate. Also, whether you like it or not, corporations are people (Dartmouth College v. Woodward & Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad).
Corporations are not people. The Supreme Court can kiss my ass.
And if any of the members of the Supreme Court read this, KISS MY ASS MOTHER FUCKERS!
Anyway, yes, it is basically threatening "Don"t be a dick to your consumers, or we will bitch slap you." I don"t see where that is bad. I simply don"t see where or why that is bad.
[/quote »
Haha thanks for the good laugh. Also, thanks for proving I'm right, you don't like the fact that corporations are people but they are. If I want to be a dick to my consumers then I should be allowed to. Either they will deal with it and I get both the first & last laugh, or they boycott me and I suffer for my dickery. No reason the government has to get involved, it's just more overreaching. Since corporations are people, and you want this done to corporations, you're pretty much saying it's okay for the for the government to be threatening dicks to the average citizen. That's a terrible thing for you to say, LinkX.
[quote=GhostLoad;/comments/810648]Hypothetical scenario; I want an iPod, I'd like for it to be as inexpensive as it can be (realistically). Please tell me how I'm taking it up the bum.
Well, because you want a cheap iPod, (Key word is "want". Just sayin'.), we can A ) work on making the construction process better, and take less profit per iPod (Or go the Nintendo route and go with a negative income, and make the money through the iTunes) or B )e can send the factory overseas, throw your father and a third of your town out of a job, reduce the tax revenue and thus the number of police on the streets, not to mention the quality of the streets themselves, and give you a cheaper iPod. (That is, if you can then afford it, with the factory shutting down. Lets just hope that factory and the factories and stores that depended on it didn't lay you off as well.)
Alright I'll reply to each of these in turn and then give you an overall better scenario. A) No, if I run a huge company like Apple I'm not going to just "make less profit". Fuck that nonsense, this is a company and I'm supposed to make as much profit while keeping the consumer happy as humanly possible. This made me laugh, complete and total outlandish sensationalism. You make it sound like 1 closed factory will make everyone I've ever known suddenly unemployed, and simultaneously make the government lose billions of dollars every year. Just ridiculous.
Now for the better option; C) Offer companies tax breaks that make manufacturing in the U.S. competitively priced against other countries, and tax incentives that make it JUST as profitable to make things here as it does overseas. If there's no additional money to be made overseas then they'll have no reason to go. Plus they'll get the patriotic P.R. from keeping operations in the U.S. Win-win.
Nothing is changing for the poor, so how are they getting poorer? They'd be paying the same tax rate they are now...
When you lower the taxes for the rich and raise taxes for the poor, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, which is what happens with a flat tax system, which is exactly why the rich want a flat tax system.
But that's not what either of us said, or anything I've heard for that matter. A flat tax system would keep in place the current tax rates for the lower-end of the spectrum, and lower the tax rates for the higher end to that of everyone else. Pretty much lower everyone's taxes down to that of the poor's tax rates. Then, make sure there are tax breaks and cuts in place for the especially poor, to help them keep a higher portion of their already-low income.
How do you make up for the loss of "income" from the rich being more heavily taxed? Cut federal spending budgets.
Two things to keep in mind here, the only types of regulations I was referring to were ones that have nothing to do with safety or quality of the product. Secondly, if a company wants to pull all their workforce out of the U.S. and fire those hundreds of people, let them. If people are upset about it, the free market will speak for itself. That company will be boycotted and take massive losses, and in the end might move back. THAT would be their punishment for pulling out. If they move all their operations and nothing changes, then obviously people don't really give a shit, and good on them (the company) for figuring out a way to increase profits.
The Laissez-faire style of governing has shown time and time again that it simply does not work. History speaks for itself.
As for the people, the people are generally lazy and only care about getting another big mac or Whooper. Additionally, the people are generally stupid, especially when you compare the number of scientists to the number of priests in America.
However, the American populace being lazy should not be what allows individual corporations and companies to ass rape the American government and American populace. There needs to be deterrents to protect the people.
Eh I don't know if I completely agree with the last part of what you said. I guess I'm more libertarian-leaning when it comes to this viewpoint but, let stupid people be stupid and let them suffer. It's the Darwinian way. If we coddle morons into being safe morons, then what is there in place to make people become less moronic? Over time society will become more & more ignorant (almost like Idiocracy) and we'll just have to keep implementing more protection for the dumb citizens. I don't want to live in a world full of idiots... sorry.
If Uncle Sam trimmed the fat on their annual budget they wouldn't need to charge these high rates on companies in the first place.
I just wanna say, I completely agree! For example, the defense budget (Or, as I call it, the Offense budget) is so bloated that it engulfs the economies of many other entire nations. If we could trim that, a great deal of good could come from that. (For example, money towards EDUCATION)
Let's just make it crystal clear, cut some defense budget spending when it comes to development of weapons and equipment. Not all of it, we need to stay much more ahead of our counterparts & enemies, but we can tone down the budget and save a LOT of money.
Federal spending is wildly out of control as is. There are tons of places to cut spending, one of which (I think) being DoD spending SPECIFICALLY in the area of weapons and technology development. Don't touch the budgets for our troops pay & benefits or else I'll have to go out and protest my damn self.
Yea... Cut the DoD in half and you would still have the most powerful military in the world.
Half is probably way too much, we have to make sure we continue advancement in technology, without spending so much doing it. The point is to stay about a decade ahead of everyone, at all times. You don't want a fair fight on the battlefield, you want a swift & efficient one (i.e. us having much much better technology than anyone we might come up against).
Additionally (and let's be realistic) who the fuck WANTS to give back to anyone if they don't have to? Few people, very very few people. The people who normally DO want to give back have so much money that they could give back for the rest of their lives and never notice it in their bank accounts. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
If they don't want to give back, then why the fuck should the American government care about what their feelings are anyway? They are cold hearted bastards so why should anybody care about them? (Honestly, why should anybody care about them if they are so cold.)
Because the government isn't supposed to only help people who want to give back, it's supposed to equally help everyone who is applicable. Do we want to run a nation based on morals or do we want to run a nation based on fairness? That's not so much a rhetorical question as much as it is an actual one to ask yourself. I, for one, would rather see logic and fairness prevail.
In either direction (more or less regulation being better/worse) it's all hypothetical. If BP was already loop-holing the regulations in place, who's to say MORE regulation wouldn't get loop-holed by them? It could end up being a BIGGER pain in the ass with NO benefit.
More strict regulations, better paid regulators, and more regulators, and the oil spill wouldn't of happened. More strict regulations to give the regulators more power, higher pay to keep them from double dipping, and more regulators to help watch the companies.
Also, strict penalties for regulators found not doing their jobs.
Cut the DoD in half, and use 5% of the money gained to do this. Guaranteed never to have a BP spill like the Gulf spill again.
Couple of things here. 1) The cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an explosion from pockets of natural gas in the ocean. More regulation wouldn't have stopped the explosion from happening. 2) There's no amount of "higher pay" that could ever keep everyone from double dipping, unless you don't know the definition of the word greed. 3) Why should we (the U.S.) have to pay for all these regulations when we're not the only ones using the oil being drilled? Absolutely no reason we should cover all the costs, period.
There is a massivemassivemassive difference between asking and demandingunder federal law, with huge negative consequences if you don't decide to cooperate.
Alright, if you donate a small portion of your profits, you get a tax cut. If you employee more Americans, you get a tax cut. If you do this, or do that, you get a tax cut. If you don't your taxes are higher.
And, again, the federal government is here to protect the people, not to protect the corporations. "We the people" and all that jazz.
Still sounds like threatening "do this or else we will make you pay, literally". Part of your idea, I do like though. Employ X amount of Americans = tax cut. Build X factories here of Y size = tax cut. Donate profits giving a tax cut sounds like a waste of time on legislation unless the amount saved from the tax cut is sizable amount larger than the amount you'd have to donate. Also, whether you like it or not, corporations are people (Dartmouth College v. Woodward & Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad).
You do know most (correct me if I'm wrong) of Apple's product manufacturing is overseas, right? It's too expensive to make iPods, iPads, etc here in the U.S. because of taxes & regulations. It's ridiculous to say you want to grow a company until it hits a certain size but then stifle it's continued growth by penalizing them. I wouldn't want to start a business here if it means I can't move it where I want to increase profits, that's just ridiculous IMO.
I don't want to stifle any corporation. I simply want corporations to not put the consumer and the employees in a position where, essentially, they are taking it up the bum.
Hypothetical scenario; I want an iPod, I'd like for it to be as inexpensive as it can be (realistically). Please tell me how I'm taking it up the bum.
This is an awesome video, Kyle Bass is a true gun, his insight is remarkable.
For any who wonder about all this economic doom and gloom talk. Understand that our it's very, very, easy to see what is happening with sovereign debt of nations because it's all out there for everyone to see. It's not doom and gloom, it just numbers. Like a marathon dance contest all the nations have been on their feet for about 20 hours, you know hey are going to fall out, the only question who's going 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Why do I hammer about people taking their money out of the market or banks? Kyle Bass explains this beautifully in this video, I only wish they let him finish about the US at the end.
Moving right along however, all of that kind of confused me. I'm not really a broker or anything (and I'm kinda sleepy at this hour) but what he said seemed to make sense (relatively). That being said, I'm glad people can make a fortune betting against or in favor of, a country's economy. I'm not being sarcastic there, I like the concept of a speculation market, it's a pretty neat concept in general.
I understood what you meant & how you said it, but I completely don't agree with the point you're trying to get across here. Both people in your example made their income the same way and paid the same % on their taxes, so what's wrong? The way to fix the whole "rich pay less taxes on most of the money they get because it's invested" is to lower their income tax rates and adjust their capital gains taxes to that of their new income tax rates (which will be equal to the income tax rate that everyone else pays, in the interest of fairness).
And with your system, the rich get even richer and the poor get even poorer.
Nothing is changing for the poor, so how are they getting poorer? They'd be paying the same tax rate they are now...
So if you lessened regulations and lowered the taxes on the companies who would like to stay here but cannot afford to do so, how does that negatively affect Americans? Also, if you have these pull-out taxes it's going to cost a company a good deal of money, possibly forcing them to lay off some employees (i.e. Americans losing jobs because of these taxes).
You lessen regulations and quality goes down, raising recalls, lowering quality, and raising taxes on the consumers themselves to pay publicly funded medical and fire departments, along with paying to force companies to perform recalls, which would of never been needed if regulations had been in place.
Additionally, if they are pulling out, they are not going to be taking their American work force to China to pay said Americans 30 cents an hour to get by with lower taxes, almost no laws and regulations on the quality of products that are being produced, and no annoying labor unions demanding fair working conditions.
Two things to keep in mind here, the only types of regulations I was referring to were ones that have nothing to do with safety or quality of the product. Secondly, if a company wants to pull all their workforce out of the U.S. and fire those hundreds of people, let them. If people are upset about it, the free market will speak for itself. That company will be boycotted and take massive losses, and in the end might move back. THAT would be their punishment for pulling out. If they move all their operations and nothing changes, then obviously people don't really give a shit, and good on them (the company) for figuring out a way to increase profits.
The problem arises when the company is getting taxes significantly more in the U.S. than it would abroad, thus increasing their production costs. In order to maintain profit with the higher production costs they have to increase the price on the consumer. If taxes were lowered they would produce a product for less money and charge the consumer less, giving them more business and letting more people who need/want the product to be able to buy it. Win-win.
Not quote a win-win, more like win-draw-loose.
When you lower taxes on the companies, the consumers still have to pay the taxes, because uncle sam still needs those taxes to be able to function. The taxes just come out somewhere else. And if you can force the companies to bite the bullet and pay even partially some of those taxes that helps the consumers be able to buy more.
Additionally, why should the company not pay taxes to be in America? One, the company is a "citizen" as per the scotus, no? And two, why would they not want to give back to the country that helped make them what they are today?
If Uncle Sam trimmed the fat on their annual budget they wouldn't need to charge these high rates on companies in the first place. Federal spending is wildly out of control as is. There are tons of places to cut spending, one of which (I think) being DoD spending SPECIFICALLY in the area of weapons and technology development. Don't touch the budgets for our troops pay & benefits or else I'll have to go out and protest my damn self.
Point is, there's lots of places to cut costs, and lots of money being overspent.
Additionally (and let's be realistic) who the fuck WANTS to give back to anyone if they don't have to? Few people, very very few people. The people who normally DO want to give back have so much money that they could give back for the rest of their lives and never notice it in their bank accounts. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Also, there's tons of regulation already in the oil industry and accidents still happen. Accidents happen, that's a fact of life, you'll never stop every accident from happening. Since it's purely a hypothetical situation no one can really say what less regulation will have. Maybe having to cut corners in other places (because they're having to keep profits up for investors while meeting regulations) will overall lead to an increase in safety? Maybe not? We can't really know.
There are very, very little regulations in the oil industry, and those regulations that are currently on the books have so many loopholes that the oil industry laughs at them.
As for accidents, if BP, for example, had followed the regulations of just some odd years ago, they would not have had the oil spill. And if regulations were stronger, many other spills, along with recalls (Remember, for a child's toy to be recalled, five children must die) and other such things, would be reduced to such a lower rate, akin to the rate that they were at before this anti-regulatory rhetoric became so popular in politics.
In either direction (more or less regulation being better/worse) it's all hypothetical. If BP was already loop-holing the regulations in place, who's to say MORE regulation wouldn't get loop-holed by them? It could end up being a BIGGER pain in the ass with NO benefit.
Because who spent years employing people in that country and not that country has double-crossed you. It's either time to leave or time to sit down with the country and fix things before your "break up".
And how did that country double cross you? For asking that you give back to the system that made you what you are today?
That's like belonging to a club, and that club making you famous, then when that club asks for some aid, you tell the club to go fuck itself because it double crossed you for asking for some aid. (Not a perfect comparison, but pretty close.)
There is a massivemassivemassive difference between asking and demandingunder federal law, with huge negative consequences if you don't decide to cooperate.
But how are they supposed to continue to grow if taxes & regulations hold them back? Isn't the system supposed to help them grow? Or is it supposed to help them grow until they hit a certain size, and then at that point it's supposed to hold them back?
How did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs grow with these supposedly evil taxes and regulations on his back? They didn't exactly "hold him back". Claiming they hold these companies back is completely false.
As for the taxes and fees to attempt to keep American companies in America, that is designed to keep American companies in America because it makes no sense to grow a company just to ship it off to another country because they save a few pennies per person.
You do know most (correct me if I'm wrong) of Apple's product manufacturing is overseas, right? It's too expensive to make iPods, iPads, etc here in the U.S. because of taxes & regulations. It's ridiculous to say you want to grow a company until it hits a certain size but then stifle it's continued growth by penalizing them. I wouldn't want to start a business here if it means I can't move it where I want to increase profits, that's just ridiculous IMO.
Well, unlike a thief or mugger, rich people aren't criminals. That's not to say some people on Wall Street didn't break the law though, and those people should be investigated and punished if guilty of course.
Not all rich people are thieves or muggers, just like not all poor people are thieves and muggers. That's exactly my point. (Except, rich people can usually buy themselves out of jail time.)
See, the main difference here is you were comparing them to criminals and I wasn't comparing the poor to criminals. Also, you said "a good many are not good people" which isn't the case, most rich people haven't done anything wrong. Let's not forget the difference between moral wrongs and legal wrongs. Morals are based on opinion (what you or I consider to be "wrong") as opposed to breaking the law which is directly a crime.
I know it's more complicated than this, but isn't the most fair system of taxation a set percentage that everyone pays? Then remove the loopholes allowing people to skip out of paying of their taxes, and put in some breaks for the very poor & low income so they can retain a bit more of their annual earnings.
One would think, yes. But you have to remember that rich people make money differently then poor people. We (You and I) work at a job and earn income via pay checks, whereas a rich person invests money and makes money that way.
Additionally, even if they did make their income like we did, think about this for a moment. Lets say person A makes 20k a year. Person B makes 200k a year. Taxes are 10%. Person A just lost 2k, and person B just lost 20k. This looks like a lot until you remember that person B still has 180k, whereas person A only has 18k. This is why a progressive tax system makes the most sense.
I hope I explained that well enough to be understood.
I understood what you meant & how you said it, but I completely don't agree with the point you're trying to get across here. Both people in your example made their income the same way and paid the same % on their taxes, so what's wrong? The way to fix the whole "rich pay less taxes on most of the money they get because it's invested" is to lower their income tax rates and adjust their capital gains taxes to that of their new income tax rates (which will be equal to the income tax rate that everyone else pays, in the interest of fairness).
I don't see the equivalency between the national government threatening companies who wish to take their manufacturing outside of the US, with protecting the American people. Also, who's going to protect the companies & those who manage them (who are possibly Americans as well, and deserve the same protection).
Americans loose jobs, tax revenues from the companies are lost, taxes on the American people go up to make up for the lost taxes, etc, etc.
So if you lessened regulations and lowered the taxes on the companies who would like to stay here but cannot afford to do so, how does that negatively affect Americans? Also, if you have these pull-out taxes it's going to cost a company a good deal of money, possibly forcing them to lay off some employees (i.e. Americans losing jobs because of these taxes).
That makes technical sense, though it doesn't make sense as far as what is & isn't fair. If I don't want to manufacture something here (in the U.S.) because taxes and regulations make it more profitable to make it somewhere in eastern Asia, what's wrong with that? I want consumers to have to pay low prices instead of hiking up consumer costs to make up the profit margin from higher tax rates and regulation. Either reduce taxes and regulation so I decide to keep my business here, or I'll go elsewhere where I can make the product for less money and thus charge consumers less for my final product.
You are still legally permitted. You just have to pay taxes to take your assets out, and if you still want to sell your products in America, the products are taxed when they enter America. Additionally, fees are placed on the products to make sure they meet American regulatory standards which would not of been levied on said products if they were in America.
I don't want consumers to have to pay more, and if the competition in America can sell it for less, then why would the consumer pay more for the company that left America?
As for reducing regulation, that makes zero sense. That is akin to allowing BP to cause even more oil spills.
The problem arises when the company is getting taxes significantly more in the U.S. than it would abroad, thus increasing their production costs. In order to maintain profit with the higher production costs they have to increase the price on the consumer. If taxes were lowered they would produce a product for less money and charge the consumer less, giving them more business and letting more people who need/want the product to be able to buy it. Win-win.
Also, there's tons of regulation already in the oil industry and accidents still happen. Accidents happen, that's a fact of life, you'll never stop every accident from happening. Since it's purely a hypothetical situation no one can really say what less regulation will have. Maybe having to cut corners in other places (because they're having to keep profits up for investors while meeting regulations) will overall lead to an increase in safety? Maybe not? We can't really know.
That's not threatening the American people. That's just how it is. Why stay somewhere, when you can move and make more money? These are businesses after all, their job is to produce a product and make money.
Of course, why stay in the country that helped to nurture your company into what it is?
Because who spent years employing people in that country and not that country has double-crossed you. It's either time to leave or time to sit down with the country and fix things before your "break up".
You do know that at one point MOPAR, GE, BP, etc were Mom & Pop businesses right? If there was a certain cap at which these "pull-out taxes" were implemented, then growing companies would monitor their growth and leave just prior to getting to the point at which they'd be considered for the taxes. Every company starts out tiny, and shouldn't be punished for wanting to get bigger and more profitable.
You are right, they shouldn't be punished for wanting to grow.
They should, however, be punished for taking advantage of the American capitalistic system. The American capitalist system is designed to help companies grow, not to grow companies then send said companies off to other nations to reap the rewards of America but not pay the costs of America.
But how are they supposed to continue to grow if taxes & regulations hold them back? Isn't the system supposed to help them grow? Or is it supposed to help them grow until they hit a certain size, and then at that point it's supposed to hold them back?
Each point in and of itself tries to do the same thing on the opposite end of a spectrum. One tries to make the rich seem like otherworldly evil creatures while the other makes billionaires look like Tom, Dick, and Harry. Isn't there some logical middle-ground? Rich people are still people after all.
I am not saying they are otherworldly evil creatures, but a good many of them are not good people. Yes, there are good people, Bill Gates comes to mind, but people like him are exception, not the norm.
Yes, they are still people. The person that just mugged you is also still just a person, right?
Well, unlike a thief or mugger, rich people aren't criminals. That's not to say some people on Wall Street didn't break the law though, and those people should be investigated and punished if guilty of course.
Pre-Reagan taxes & regulations, hmm I don't know off the top of my head what those exact numbers or regulations were but I think I can confidently say regulations then and regulations now might not completely line up. What he was saying about how companies end up passing off their taxes onto shareholders and consumers makes a lot of sense though. They'll pay them but then they'll charge everyone around them more so they end up spending $0. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but maybe if those taxes weren't there in the first place there would be less of an increase in costs in that sense?
I don't remember off the top of my head the taxes and regulations over the last couple decades like I used to, but I distinctly remember prior to the Reagan years, and even in the Reagan years, taxes were up and regulations were up.
I know it's more complicated than this, but isn't the most fair system of taxation a set percentage that everyone pays? Then remove the loopholes allowing people to skip out of paying of their taxes, and put in some breaks for the very poor & low income so they can retain a bit more of their annual earnings.
I'm curious how you could tax a business for leaving the U.S. though. That seems pretty nonsensical, not to mention it sounds like you're trying to fix companies threatening to leave by instead having the government threaten companies to stay or else.
Basically, yea. The government needs to step in and protect the people. Otherwise the companies are going to do whatever they want. If the government isn't protecting the people, what use are they?
I don't see the equivalency between the national government threatening companies who wish to take their manufacturing outside of the US, with protecting the American people. Also, who's going to protect the companies & those who manage them (who are possibly Americans as well, and deserve the same protection).
Couldn't these company CEO's make a new company overseas and transfer the assets of company A to the newly created company B as a way around the silly tax?
The assets would still be taxed, regardless of how he moved it. (Technically, you cannot tax a company for leaving, but you can tax the movement of everything, if that makes sense?)
That makes technical sense, though it doesn't make sense as far as what is & isn't fair. If I don't want to manufacture something here (in the U.S.) because taxes and regulations make it more profitable to make it somewhere in eastern Asia, what's wrong with that? I want consumers to have to pay low prices instead of hiking up consumer costs to make up the profit margin from higher tax rates and regulation. Either reduce taxes and regulation so I decide to keep my business here, or I'll go elsewhere where I can make the product for less money and thus charge consumers less for my final product.
I dunno if that's an EXACT way to do it but I'm pretty sure there's at least one loophole or work-around to avoid being taxed. Besides, what other taxes are implemented when you choose you no longer want to do something? IIRC most (if not all) taxes hit you when you decide to do something, as opposed to no longer doing something.
Leaving the states would be considered doing something. Moving assets would be considered doing something. Threatening the government and the American people would be considered doing something.
Hypothetical - I don't want to stay here because it's too expensive to make my product. I'm going to move somewhere where it's cheaper to produce, unless of course things changed here prior to me making the final decision to leave.
That's not threatening the American people. That's just how it is. Why stay somewhere, when you can move and make more money? These are businesses after all, their job is to produce a product and make money.
Don't forget that this would be a MASSIVE deterrent to even make a company in the U.S. in the first place. If you intended on creating a new company and this was in place, it'd be a smart move to leave the country with restrictive taxes before building your business.
Obviously this wouldn't be in place for smaller companies and ma & pa shops. But for companies like Mopar, GE, BP, or anything else, this would hit them hard and where it counts - their money.
You do know that at one point MOPAR, GE, BP, etc were Mom & Pop businesses right? If there was a certain cap at which these "pull-out taxes" were implemented, then growing companies would monitor their growth and leave just prior to getting to the point at which they'd be considered for the taxes. Every company starts out tiny, and shouldn't be punished for wanting to get bigger and more profitable.
Saying things like if you have no debt and ten bucks in your pocket you got more money then a quarter of America makes it sound as though the obscenely rich are not obscenely rich. It brings them back down to earth, where they do not live.
Each point in and of itself tries to do the same thing on the opposite end of a spectrum. One tries to make the rich seem like otherworldly evil creatures while the other makes billionaires look like Tom, Dick, and Harry. Isn't there some logical middle-ground? Rich people are still people after all.
As for what the tax rates should be, I'd personally like to take them back to pre-Reagan years, with pre-Reagan Regulations and pre-Reagan taxes.
Pre-Reagan taxes & regulations, hmm I don't know off the top of my head what those exact numbers or regulations were but I think I can confidently say regulations then and regulations now might not completely line up. What he was saying about how companies end up passing off their taxes onto shareholders and consumers makes a lot of sense though. They'll pay them but then they'll charge everyone around them more so they end up spending $0. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but maybe if those taxes weren't there in the first place there would be less of an increase in costs in that sense?
Additionally, there should be a steep tax to take a business out of the states, and a tax on businesses that have factories and call centers and whatnot overseas. Why? Because then the corporations (Which are not people, and the SCOTUS can lick my nuts) can stop threatening to take their companies overseas unless they want massive taxes levied on them.
Could this be considered harsh? Hell yes. Could it save America from going even further under? Hell yes.
I'm curious how you could tax a business for leaving the U.S. though. That seems pretty nonsensical, not to mention it sounds like you're trying to fix companies threatening to leave by instead having the government threaten companies to stay or else.
Couldn't these company CEO's make a new company overseas and transfer the assets of company A to the newly created company B as a way around the silly tax? I dunno if that's an EXACT way to do it but I'm pretty sure there's at least one loophole or work-around to avoid being taxed. Besides, what other taxes are implemented when you choose you no longer want to do something? IIRC most (if not all) taxes hit you when you decide to do something, as opposed to no longer doing something.
Don't forget that this would be a MASSIVE deterrent to even make a company in the U.S. in the first place. If you intended on creating a new company and this was in place, it'd be a smart move to leave the country with restrictive taxes before building your business.
Edit: Finally decided it was time to give myself an Avatar photo.
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Good companies can make poor decisions and still be good companies. Anyways, most thing in life have some varying degree of danger attached to them and no one working on an oil rig doesn't know it's dangerous. I wouldn't call that a bad person/decision/idea. Again though, not everyone would agree that putting money over lives is a bad thing. That's what makes morals so much of a pain in the ass (and yet simultaneously interesting), they're based on opinion.
Yes, but what I meant is, maybe the government doesn't really give a fuck if a company they helped out decided to not give back. /shrug
Nope, can't say that I do, but luckily the supreme court has also decided that money = speech!
I <3 legislation hehe.
I'm telling you different kinds of people receive different punishments for the same crime. If a person (child) murders another person, they rarely get the same punishment that a person (adult) would. So is it that much of a stretch that if a person (company) is found guilty of murder that their punishment most of the time would be different from the other 2 aforementioned types of persons? I say no.
Let me ask you this, would you prefer companies not considered persons (I know you're nodding your head so far), so that if someone dies due to their company they are not at all liable? If an idea kills someone, no action is taken (i.e. Nazism).
Sure, sounds good, if the documents exist proving they paid for falsified documents that deemed their actions safe, then that's a whole different thing altogether.
Most people at one point in their life have menial jobs (i.e. burger flipper) and it means absolutely nothing about them as far as intelligence or leadership skills go.
First of all, who said the idea (i.e. some particular company) is a bad idea? Is it a logically bad idea, like a waste of time & money, or a morally bad idea which shouldn't matter to the government since morals are based on opinion.
Also, who said they aren't enjoying the proverbial anal sex? Anyways, the court has agreed that one of it's patrons happens to take the form of an idea. I'm not going to delve back into this discussion since it'll go nowhere, just wanted to remind you of that fact.
It could be accomplished in some form, even if you or I can't think of an easy way to get it done.
Can you prove they paid to get positive results, or that they paid the costs of the testing? If you try to bribe an officer and get caught then there is proof you tried to bribe the officer. Also, here's a simple example. Under the law we give different punishments to different people, for the same crimes. No we don't, you say. Yes, we do. Children can commit murder but not face the same charges as an adult, so if a company hypothetically committed murder maybe the punishment for a corporate-person is a financial toll as opposed to one paid with jail time?
Still, if you can't prove B.P. paid to get positive results (which is wholly different from covering the costs of the testing) then I have no reason to believe they're guilty.
Wait a second you're saying a soldier doesn't know how to make informed leadership decisions, for example while under enemy fire? That's bullshit and you know it. A small business owner doesn't mean that the business is successful, they could be driving it right off a cliff and still be small business owners. Someones profession should have nothing to do with their potential candidacy.
The club does treat women & blacks fairly now, and progress is coming along for gays as well. Just because they mistreated people doesn't mean it was right. That being said, in a proper setting the club doesn't have ridiculous and weak emotions that humans have (like holding a grudge, which is what the club would do if they didn't do their job equally for everyone, including the ones who don't go out of their way for them).
Just spin the shit out of it. You aren't in favor of this, [insert country here]? So what you're saying is you're against national accountability? Etc, etc.
Okay hold on a second here, let me see if I'm getting this right. I don't recall hearing the tests were forged, but for the sake of what I'm about to say I'll take what you said at face value. Is there any proof that B.P. is responsible for the forging of these documents? If there's no proof, then why would you blame them? Innocent until proven guilty, that's how it works in this country.
The back & forth on this isn't really getting us anywhere. I'm gonna go ahead and move on to the next topic at hand.
Most if not all soldiers have leadership skills, a higher-than-average ability to functionally operate during extreme stress environments, etc. You don't have to be really smart to lead others, you just have to know when to turn to experts in various fields for information on what should be done (like speaking to scientists etc). Also, you brought up small business owners but not veterans (which is what confused me more than any of the others) and you also don't have to be smart to be a small business owner. My stepdad is a fucking moron and he's been running his business fine for a couple decades now.
The way I see it is atheism is a religion who's basis revolves around the belief in no God whatsoever. Agnostic (for me) is similar to that, without completely ruling out either possibility. I.E. a religion who's basis revolves around the belief that we don't know completely if there's a God or no God whatsoever, so we're open to either result. Best of both worlds, know what I mean? Kinda close to having no religious affiliation at all, whereas atheism specifically believes there's no God.
Haha yep, I wouldn't be surprised if the club didn't like me in that scenario. Luckily I also wouldn't give 2 fucks if the club didn't like me in that scenario either. Luckily whether or not the club likes you, doesn't change the fact that you still have rights and they have to treat you fairly, even if they don't like you.
Yes because the horror of being raped and/or murdered isn't punishment lol. There's a lot wrong with the prison system, let's just say that much for now.
It won't work at all if we don't try. Lets give it a go and try to make accountability something you see in this day & age.
You analogy is ludicrous. Please tell me what they did wrong? How did they have every possibility to have that pocket of natural gas NOT explode? Tests were done on the area and it was deemed safe to continue drilling. Not changing your brake pads when they're worn out is deliberately putting yourself in a known unsafe situation. The situation on the Deepwater Horizon site was deemed safe by the testing authorities. Obviously huge difference between what happened and your analogy.
Christianity is a religion (i.e. a collection of beliefs), math is a field of study, and 3 is a number. All of these are RIDICULOUSLY different from a corporation.
No one said veteran status makes you good congress material, you just left out a very reputable profession from your list. You can be a retired firefighter, a good guy, and a complete fucktard too. Getting people to realize that science is important is something that will happen, in due time. Look how far we've come since Galileo's day. That's about all the comfort you'll get as far as that goes though, progress will eventually occur. Also, what happens when you have an informed populace that doesn't give a shit? If the populace is uninformed there's only 2 possible reasons; 1) they're being lied to, 2) they're not TRYING to be informed. If you don't care enough to know what's going on, then that's your fault, and your fault alone.
I don't think we all need a safety net though. I know you're all about coddling the morons and keeping lemmings from walking off cliffs, but not all people are like that. How about a system of optional opt-in/opt-out, where people who are responsible can collect more of every paycheck to save towards their own retirement. Those who are idiots and spend themselves into debt can just let social security keep going the way it is (post re-work, the current system is too much of a mess to keep going at all). If you want the government to handle your retirement, they will. If you don't, they won't.
Eh, IMO any organized thought of belief on higher entities (like God or the non-existence of God) qualifies as a form of religion. That's just me.
Yeah, he's that guy who in the face of massive opposition got re-elected. How'd he do it? Professional politician-ing.
Agree to disagree. I think if you want to take & take & take, then not give back, then fine. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Really? Part of the problem with prison is it turns non-hardcore criminals into hardcore criminals because you're putting these people together. It sounds like you just want to further the already existent issue. It's supposed to be a punishment to the offender, not a punishment to society by making people worse than they were when they went in.
If we're held liable for the companies on our lands, it sets a good example for everyone else. In order to continue the example you want to make sure you follow-through when incidents happen. We can't really do all THAT much to a company (in this example, B.P.) because of legal-standings, since they're not mainly in the U.S. That's where England comes in, and that's where sending them part of the bill comes in. It pressures them to enforce laws & regulations on companies in their borders by putting the possibility of a bill coming directly to England. Safety net!
Those people died when the explosion happened. B.P. was responsible for excess amounts of oil spilling into the gulf. The explosion was an accident. These workers signed waivers by the way releasing B.P. of legal settlements if any accident would occur, so they are safe on that front too. No one could have stopped that pocket of natural gas from detonating. Blame nature for the deaths, that or the combustion engine.
No problem, so long as you whole-heartedly recognize that you opinion has no legitimate standing on what is and isn't a person. No one said corporations are human, just that they're people. Maybe one day an android with artificial intelligence will be granted person-hood status. Who knows, I sure don't, but it'd be neat. ^^
Last I checked most people have access to a wide network of communication (the internet) and last I checked there's a box on the voting ballet where you can jot down a write-in candidate. Rally your troops, write in your scientist, and if the general population agrees maybe it'll pan out. You forgot 1 really important and highly admired profession of people who aren't running for office; veterans. Oh wait, veterans do run for office...
So if you change it for the poor but keep it the same, no longer is it just the normal system, now they're getting screwed and then getting hush money? Wow talk about the spin-game.
Who gives a shit about how someone got the money? Was it legal? Yes? Then I don't care how you're so rich. It's not raising taxes if they get a bunch more breaks. The poor wouldn't see a difference.
But, I never said cut education, I said re-appropriate it. There's no way there isn't some wasteful spending in the education system with the way it currently is. It's highly likely you could get more bang for the buck when it comes to education. Same amount of buck, but much bigger bang. No one should be against that.
Social security is a ponzi scheme to the very letter. The government takes money from workers and promises them payments later on. The same is told to newer workers, and the money collected from these newer workers are used to pay the last ones.
The same hierarchical concept was used by Bernie Madoff, and look where that got him.
Yeah, I'm fine with that. I don't like the concept of morals and other peoples opinions being pushed on others because they're deemed "morals". Oh well, let's call this a draw! ^.^
I'm agnostic (last I checked) which is the ultimate religion of reason. I don't directly believe or disbelieve in either direction, and I'm open to the possibility of their being a god, or no god at all. Woo-hoo!!!
Come now, that's just solid pandering to make sure the religious right is behind you without a shadow of a doubt. No (sane) person would actually mean that if they said it. You say it, aloud & on television, to rally the believers behind your standpoint. That's what giving speeches is all about.
Because unlike a club, if you're a U.S. citizen you don't have to be nice to the government to benefit from it. Thank God. *wink wink* Besides, aren't you glad that you can shit talk the government but you're still protected by it's laws? I know I'm glad I fought for our rights to do just that.
The mob still exists even with those fears looming over them. Besides, most of these guys would be assured by the palm-greasers that if they DO get caught they'll go to a bed-and-breakfast white collar penitentiary. It's not hard to pull the wool over someone's eyes when they've already got on a money blindfold.
Ummm, you should've quoted the part you replied to so I could read that instead of alt-tabbing to re-read my post lol. ~alt tabbing~ Alright, let's see. I was saying we shouldn't have to cover the costs of the regulations for all these companies. We cover the ones who have most of their operations housed in the U.S., and we tell the rest of the world they can do the same. That way if B.P. causes a spill because their regulations weren't enforced, we draft up an invoice and send it to B.P and to England. One of the 2 of them will pay the bill. If B.P. doesn't pay, we pull all their drilling rights off our shores (which would be covered under a clause on all the contracts we sign with drilling companies for example). If England doesn't pay, we make life very hard for them and cut off all our exports to them. How to know how much money to divide up between them as far as the invoice goes? I'm not sure, I'm confident someone could figure out a fair way to do that.
There's no legal precedent of imprisonment for the laws companies break. There are however, punishments. Plenty of broken-laws don't (and never have) resulted in prison time. When they break laws, there is a penalty, and it's normally financial. The punishment fits the crime, as far as the judicial system is concerned. Fine by me.
By the way, the definition of human doesn't mean just homo-sapiens. It covers homo-erectus, neanderthal, etc. Anyways, person-hood doesn't rely on the person in question being humanoid (at least in this country). Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think corporations should be considered people, I'm just saying that they are considered people. ^^
Apple isn't making the music, they're paying a little royalty fee to sell it. I bet they're making a larger profit margin. We would have to investigate further to find out.
Well, my hypothetical scenario is pretty accurate and realistic though.... *pout*
If you think everything will go wrong from the start then there's not much anyone can say to convince you otherwise. The goal is to elect officials you're confident will handle re-appropriations correctly. Move money around in the education budget to get more bang for the buck. Cut wasteful spending on defense budgets. Fix goddamn social security so it's not a ponzi scheme. Do not cut abortions as something covered by low-income health care, or whatever the hell the Republicans were trying to do. Take your religion out of my politics. I'm a registered Republican but no, just no. Peanut butter + chocolate = awesome. Religion + politics = gut-wrenching.
Tax breaks don't affect your tax rate, you just get additional money back on your tax returns (in my proposed system at least). The rich will complain, it'll be explained to them, aaaaand then I dunno. I can't have every answer or else I'd be in office runnin' the joint.
We need to re-appropriate how we use funds for education. Tax cuts AREN'T spending. You don't go around rewarding people for not murdering you, do you? We need to cut spending on Social Security (a.k.a. the Old Folk's Pyramid Scheme).
Morals are gay. Let the idiots die. That's just my 2-cents.
Hard facts & documentation or I can't outright believe that particular story. However, I'm sure it happens all the time.
Our leaders don't ask Jesus who to bomb next, come on be reasonable here. >.< We're always gonna have enemies when people want to kill us for being decadent or too slutty or whatever excuse terrorists come up with.
There's nothing "not fair" about a company not wanting to donate money to the government after the government spent years helping them build-up with tax breaks. I don't want morals interfering with good business practices. As far as the American people getting upset about what their money is spent on, money needs to be spent on things that not everyone likes. You know how I know that? Pick 1 thing everyone likes or dislikes. That's right, it's impossible. Child rape, everyone hates that right? Nope, some don't and those some paid taxes.
The explosion itself dispersed SOME oil into the gulf, thus there was a spill, and I am correct. How much is inconsequential.
Because your 100k a year is being cushioned by another 200k a year. Money corrupts people quite a good distance beyond rational thought. Who's gonna catch me if we're all doing this? It's safe, we're all safe, let's all take the money!
So then we cover American businesses and let other countries cover their own. If there's an incident we come after the nation behind the country for not enforcing regulations. If they don't want to pay, we have a 241:2 kill ratio, let them think about that for about 3 seconds.
I'm sorry but just because you refuse to accept corporations as people, and thus U.S. citizens, doesn't change a thing. Accept it or not, they are. If you want that changed then petition the courts to overrule the current precedents.
I'll bet you a shiny nickle that Apple has a larger profit margin than Nintendo.
Then everyone in that town rallies up and gathers support from other towns, citizens, etc. Big businesses who use DuPont currently but would like more time in the limelight to draw attention to their product will formally denounce DuPont and instead pick up an American-made alternative. DuPont loses tons of money from the abrupt and sudden backlash, and either apologizes and opens more factories than it closed, or re-opens the original factory. One way or another they would lose money for their decision, thus the free market has spoken.
I love how George Bush gets the blame and Congress/Senate get none of it. Same as when Obama is blamed for every tiny thing (though some of it is legitimately his fault). Where do we get the money from? From some of those massive cut-the-fat changes to our federal spending. Re=appropriations my friend, re-appropriations.
Hard to cash out your investment when we nuke you... I <3 explosives.
Or you could set the flat-tax-rate to a point higher than the poor's tax rate, and just give them additional tax breaks so that they see no effective difference.
There's a LOT of wasteful spending, a LOT. Let's scrape every bit of caviar off our buttered bread before we eat it, shall we?
I'm fine with billions dying because of their own stupidity though. Oh well. I will never be in favor of the government doing it's best to try and tell idiots "hey were trying to save you, do you want help with this?" and them staring silently back at the government. Do what you can to help the lemmings I suppose, but if you give them the choice to succeed or to fail, and they pick fail, FUCK 'em.
I agree we don't need to spend that much on a hammer, but where did you find that info? Sounds akin to the whole $10 muffin debacle, except I hadn't heard of a $3,000 hammer story. I'd love a link to it though.
You have to make sure the soldiers don't lose any of the pay/benefits/care they currently receive, and that our tech still (like the F-22 Raptor) has something along the lines of a 241-to-2 kill ratio. That's how ahead of the enemy I would like to stay.
The government has to have it's nose in every single aspect of human life? That might be excessive don't you think? If a company wants tax breaks and help (help that it should get if it's in the parameters for the help) then who gives a flying fuck if they don't want to give back? Tax breaks and such don't have a little asterisk at the end that reads "oh and afterwards we want you to be kind & give back".
How is that wrong? You essentially agreed with me, I specifically said the cause of the oil spill was the explosion. I didn't say 1 word on the cause of the continuation of oil spilling. With more regulations the initial explosion would've still happened, and thus the oil spill would have still occurred. So no, I'm not wrong, I'm quite correct.
And when they're all double dipping and having cocaine parties (I still don't believe that they really had coke parties but whatever) and no one can rat anyone out because they're all rolling in cash? Then these regulators are all corrupt and the system is just as bad as you said it was in the first place and ONTOP of that we're wasting shittons of money on these double-dippers. No thank you.
I'm not saying trust the corporations to handle their own regulation-infractions, but I refuse to pick up the bill for the entire world. We've been doing that for decades and other countries still bitch about America. So what will we do to deal with their bitching? Good luck making it without us, we'll foot our percentage of the bill and the rest of you can fuck off & die, or do your part.
Alright I'll reply to each of these in turn and then give you an overall better scenario. A) No, if I run a huge company like Apple I'm not going to just "make less profit". Fuck that nonsense, this is a company and I'm supposed to make as much profit while keeping the consumer happy as humanly possible. This made me laugh, complete and total outlandish sensationalism. You make it sound like 1 closed factory will make everyone I've ever known suddenly unemployed, and simultaneously make the government lose billions of dollars every year. Just ridiculous.
Now for the better option; C) Offer companies tax breaks that make manufacturing in the U.S. competitively priced against other countries, and tax incentives that make it JUST as profitable to make things here as it does overseas. If there's no additional money to be made overseas then they'll have no reason to go. Plus they'll get the patriotic P.R. from keeping operations in the U.S. Win-win.
Hope ya feel better
But that's not what either of us said, or anything I've heard for that matter. A flat tax system would keep in place the current tax rates for the lower-end of the spectrum, and lower the tax rates for the higher end to that of everyone else. Pretty much lower everyone's taxes down to that of the poor's tax rates. Then, make sure there are tax breaks and cuts in place for the especially poor, to help them keep a higher portion of their already-low income.
How do you make up for the loss of "income" from the rich being more heavily taxed? Cut federal spending budgets.
Eh I don't know if I completely agree with the last part of what you said. I guess I'm more libertarian-leaning when it comes to this viewpoint but, let stupid people be stupid and let them suffer. It's the Darwinian way. If we coddle morons into being safe morons, then what is there in place to make people become less moronic? Over time society will become more & more ignorant (almost like Idiocracy) and we'll just have to keep implementing more protection for the dumb citizens. I don't want to live in a world full of idiots... sorry.
Let's just make it crystal clear, cut some defense budget spending when it comes to development of weapons and equipment. Not all of it, we need to stay much more ahead of our counterparts & enemies, but we can tone down the budget and save a LOT of money.
Half is probably way too much, we have to make sure we continue advancement in technology, without spending so much doing it. The point is to stay about a decade ahead of everyone, at all times. You don't want a fair fight on the battlefield, you want a swift & efficient one (i.e. us having much much better technology than anyone we might come up against).
Because the government isn't supposed to only help people who want to give back, it's supposed to equally help everyone who is applicable. Do we want to run a nation based on morals or do we want to run a nation based on fairness? That's not so much a rhetorical question as much as it is an actual one to ask yourself. I, for one, would rather see logic and fairness prevail.
Couple of things here. 1) The cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an explosion from pockets of natural gas in the ocean. More regulation wouldn't have stopped the explosion from happening. 2) There's no amount of "higher pay" that could ever keep everyone from double dipping, unless you don't know the definition of the word greed. 3) Why should we (the U.S.) have to pay for all these regulations when we're not the only ones using the oil being drilled? Absolutely no reason we should cover all the costs, period.
Still sounds like threatening "do this or else we will make you pay, literally". Part of your idea, I do like though. Employ X amount of Americans = tax cut. Build X factories here of Y size = tax cut. Donate profits giving a tax cut sounds like a waste of time on legislation unless the amount saved from the tax cut is sizable amount larger than the amount you'd have to donate. Also, whether you like it or not, corporations are people (Dartmouth College v. Woodward & Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad).
Hypothetical scenario; I want an iPod, I'd like for it to be as inexpensive as it can be (realistically). Please tell me how I'm taking it up the bum.
Haha just want to say first and foremost, the whole time I read your post I saw "Kyle Bass" as "Kyle Gass" and kept playing this song in my head...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UECltzOaGf4
Moving right along however, all of that kind of confused me. I'm not really a broker or anything (and I'm kinda sleepy at this hour) but what he said seemed to make sense (relatively). That being said, I'm glad people can make a fortune betting against or in favor of, a country's economy. I'm not being sarcastic there, I like the concept of a speculation market, it's a pretty neat concept in general.
Nothing is changing for the poor, so how are they getting poorer? They'd be paying the same tax rate they are now...
Two things to keep in mind here, the only types of regulations I was referring to were ones that have nothing to do with safety or quality of the product. Secondly, if a company wants to pull all their workforce out of the U.S. and fire those hundreds of people, let them. If people are upset about it, the free market will speak for itself. That company will be boycotted and take massive losses, and in the end might move back. THAT would be their punishment for pulling out. If they move all their operations and nothing changes, then obviously people don't really give a shit, and good on them (the company) for figuring out a way to increase profits.
If Uncle Sam trimmed the fat on their annual budget they wouldn't need to charge these high rates on companies in the first place. Federal spending is wildly out of control as is. There are tons of places to cut spending, one of which (I think) being DoD spending SPECIFICALLY in the area of weapons and technology development. Don't touch the budgets for our troops pay & benefits or else I'll have to go out and protest my damn self.
Point is, there's lots of places to cut costs, and lots of money being overspent.
Additionally (and let's be realistic) who the fuck WANTS to give back to anyone if they don't have to? Few people, very very few people. The people who normally DO want to give back have so much money that they could give back for the rest of their lives and never notice it in their bank accounts. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
In either direction (more or less regulation being better/worse) it's all hypothetical. If BP was already loop-holing the regulations in place, who's to say MORE regulation wouldn't get loop-holed by them? It could end up being a BIGGER pain in the ass with NO benefit.
There is a massive massive massive difference between asking and demanding under federal law, with huge negative consequences if you don't decide to cooperate.
You do know most (correct me if I'm wrong) of Apple's product manufacturing is overseas, right? It's too expensive to make iPods, iPads, etc here in the U.S. because of taxes & regulations. It's ridiculous to say you want to grow a company until it hits a certain size but then stifle it's continued growth by penalizing them. I wouldn't want to start a business here if it means I can't move it where I want to increase profits, that's just ridiculous IMO.
See, the main difference here is you were comparing them to criminals and I wasn't comparing the poor to criminals. Also, you said "a good many are not good people" which isn't the case, most rich people haven't done anything wrong. Let's not forget the difference between moral wrongs and legal wrongs. Morals are based on opinion (what you or I consider to be "wrong") as opposed to breaking the law which is directly a crime.
I understood what you meant & how you said it, but I completely don't agree with the point you're trying to get across here. Both people in your example made their income the same way and paid the same % on their taxes, so what's wrong? The way to fix the whole "rich pay less taxes on most of the money they get because it's invested" is to lower their income tax rates and adjust their capital gains taxes to that of their new income tax rates (which will be equal to the income tax rate that everyone else pays, in the interest of fairness).
So if you lessened regulations and lowered the taxes on the companies who would like to stay here but cannot afford to do so, how does that negatively affect Americans? Also, if you have these pull-out taxes it's going to cost a company a good deal of money, possibly forcing them to lay off some employees (i.e. Americans losing jobs because of these taxes).
The problem arises when the company is getting taxes significantly more in the U.S. than it would abroad, thus increasing their production costs. In order to maintain profit with the higher production costs they have to increase the price on the consumer. If taxes were lowered they would produce a product for less money and charge the consumer less, giving them more business and letting more people who need/want the product to be able to buy it. Win-win.
Also, there's tons of regulation already in the oil industry and accidents still happen. Accidents happen, that's a fact of life, you'll never stop every accident from happening. Since it's purely a hypothetical situation no one can really say what less regulation will have. Maybe having to cut corners in other places (because they're having to keep profits up for investors while meeting regulations) will overall lead to an increase in safety? Maybe not? We can't really know.
Because who spent years employing people in that country and not that country has double-crossed you. It's either time to leave or time to sit down with the country and fix things before your "break up".
But how are they supposed to continue to grow if taxes & regulations hold them back? Isn't the system supposed to help them grow? Or is it supposed to help them grow until they hit a certain size, and then at that point it's supposed to hold them back?
Well, unlike a thief or mugger, rich people aren't criminals. That's not to say some people on Wall Street didn't break the law though, and those people should be investigated and punished if guilty of course.
I know it's more complicated than this, but isn't the most fair system of taxation a set percentage that everyone pays? Then remove the loopholes allowing people to skip out of paying of their taxes, and put in some breaks for the very poor & low income so they can retain a bit more of their annual earnings.
I don't see the equivalency between the national government threatening companies who wish to take their manufacturing outside of the US, with protecting the American people. Also, who's going to protect the companies & those who manage them (who are possibly Americans as well, and deserve the same protection).
That makes technical sense, though it doesn't make sense as far as what is & isn't fair. If I don't want to manufacture something here (in the U.S.) because taxes and regulations make it more profitable to make it somewhere in eastern Asia, what's wrong with that? I want consumers to have to pay low prices instead of hiking up consumer costs to make up the profit margin from higher tax rates and regulation. Either reduce taxes and regulation so I decide to keep my business here, or I'll go elsewhere where I can make the product for less money and thus charge consumers less for my final product.
Hypothetical - I don't want to stay here because it's too expensive to make my product. I'm going to move somewhere where it's cheaper to produce, unless of course things changed here prior to me making the final decision to leave.
That's not threatening the American people. That's just how it is. Why stay somewhere, when you can move and make more money? These are businesses after all, their job is to produce a product and make money.
You do know that at one point MOPAR, GE, BP, etc were Mom & Pop businesses right? If there was a certain cap at which these "pull-out taxes" were implemented, then growing companies would monitor their growth and leave just prior to getting to the point at which they'd be considered for the taxes. Every company starts out tiny, and shouldn't be punished for wanting to get bigger and more profitable.
Haha I'm sure we agree on plenty! I just dunno what he meant by that comment, so I didn't pay it much mind.
Each point in and of itself tries to do the same thing on the opposite end of a spectrum. One tries to make the rich seem like otherworldly evil creatures while the other makes billionaires look like Tom, Dick, and Harry. Isn't there some logical middle-ground? Rich people are still people after all.
Pre-Reagan taxes & regulations, hmm I don't know off the top of my head what those exact numbers or regulations were but I think I can confidently say regulations then and regulations now might not completely line up. What he was saying about how companies end up passing off their taxes onto shareholders and consumers makes a lot of sense though. They'll pay them but then they'll charge everyone around them more so they end up spending $0. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but maybe if those taxes weren't there in the first place there would be less of an increase in costs in that sense?
I'm curious how you could tax a business for leaving the U.S. though. That seems pretty nonsensical, not to mention it sounds like you're trying to fix companies threatening to leave by instead having the government threaten companies to stay or else.
Couldn't these company CEO's make a new company overseas and transfer the assets of company A to the newly created company B as a way around the silly tax? I dunno if that's an EXACT way to do it but I'm pretty sure there's at least one loophole or work-around to avoid being taxed. Besides, what other taxes are implemented when you choose you no longer want to do something? IIRC most (if not all) taxes hit you when you decide to do something, as opposed to no longer doing something.
Don't forget that this would be a MASSIVE deterrent to even make a company in the U.S. in the first place. If you intended on creating a new company and this was in place, it'd be a smart move to leave the country with restrictive taxes before building your business.
Edit: Finally decided it was time to give myself an Avatar photo.