Terrorism is only terrorism if you keep using the word terrorism though... If you stop saying terrorism every damn 5 minutes, people don't feel terrorized =P
Lies =P There was violence long before any form of government was formed. Governments just organise said violence =P
As to keeping governments on a tight leash, that I agree with, but that doesn't mean governments can't have a lot of responsibilities, it just means everything must be made transparent. Ironically nobody says governments should have less power when they're calling the police, firebrigade, ambulances, or even send their kids to school. =) There is a reason we put up with its downsides, which is why I've always thought the libertarian view is a bit naive.
On another note though, Don
Everything tends to accumulate. This is only a half-serious analogy, but everything in the universe clumps up unevenly. Sub-atomic particles clump up to create atoms. Atoms clump up to create molecules. Molecules clump up to create bigger structures of matter. Those bigger structures clump up until you have asteroids, planets, suns, galaxies, and the entire universe.
All this analogy was there to say that growth in general is exponential. And anyone familiar with how exponents work will know how the most minute differences create huge gaps.
I am a fan of analogies, but this one doesn't quite make sense. Growth is by no means always exponential :3 (I see a whole different discussion coming xD)
Back on topic!
My major gripe with Capitalism is that it encourages a bull market, market speculation (remember home derivative trading?), and a profit based economy, whereas I believe that an economy should be based on efficiency and sustainability.
This sounds really nice and logical, but it wouldn't actually make a difference. Poverty will always exist, no matter what you do. Why? Because the more resources we get, the bigger we allow our world population to get. Say we solve world hunger today by doubling the amount of food available in the world. More food makes for a healthier population, and healthy populations reproduce faster than deprived populations. This will inevitably keep up untill the population is deprived once again, stabilizing the growth rate. Difference is, there would be more people, but relative to the entire world population, there would be the same amount of hunger.
I know little about this, it just confuses me more than anything, but I just wanted to say: Where I live, middle class pays the most, something like 45% of our pay. Knowing that, I frankly would not give a **** if the rich would pay 70%. A good system is one that puts everybody on a fair level. No one should ever be considered "higher" than another, and none should ever seek to be higher than others. This is an ever-flawed way of thinking to me.
You can just not mind my post, I'm not really here to take part in this debate, I can't hold my own when it comes to economic discussions.
Yet any comment deserves a reply
You described communism =P And it's been proven to not work. =) No offense
Well you not trusting the american gouvernment I can understand. With so many organisations that operate completely in the dark, combined with your system of election is just begging for corruption.
Other than that, I'd like to postulate that Americans are stupid... x) *hides*
Americans have democrats and republicans... Only one thing they both agree on, and thats that the system of gouvernment is deeply, deeply flawed. Yet nobody does anything but bitch and moan about it =P
If you don't trust your gouvernment, get a new one! Even Egypt can do that
Well I'm from Holland, which actually is a socialist country.
Now all American alarms go off, "oh no, communism!" but this is due to a misconception concerning socialism. You see, every form of economy that taxes high incomes more than low incomes is socialist, though it can be in varying degrees.
Your idea of making the different classes pay different taxes has been incorporated in our tax system, in an adapted form. You see, if you decide someones class based on their income, and then decide how much taxes they should pay, this leads to a problem. Say, for arguments sake, that the lower class makes upto 20k a year. 20k-40k can then be considered middle class.
So, if you make 19.999 dollar a year, you have to pay 10%, equalling ~2k, giving you a net income of ~18k.
But, if you make 21.000 dollar a year, you have to pay 20%, equalling ~4k, giving you a net income of 17k.
This actually means that going forward in life is being punished. This is very detrimental to economic growth and a reason not to seek progress.
Our system?
Say the classes are divided like this;
Lower: 0-20k
Middle:20-40k
Upper middle: 40-60k
Elite: 60k+
Now lets say we got someone with a before taxes income of 80k a year. This person would then have to pay 10% taxes over the first 20k, 20% over the second 20k, 30% over the third 20k, and 50% over anything above that. In this case that would be 2k + 4k + 6k + 10k = 22k.
This way it is never detrimental to your net income to make more money. This is glorious you say? Why doesn't the entire world quickly adapt this wonderfull system? Well here's why...
On paper, it sounds great. The people who have the most, contribute the most. But things that sound great on paper don't always work out as well.
Why do people spend years in college learning tremendously difficult things, and busting their brains, living on a diet of coffee? Because the reward is big. What happens when you cut down the reward? People's aspirations go down. This is the same problem communism had, though to a much higher degree.
Second is a very practical problem. Poor people may rejoice at this system, rich people are surprisingly un-fond of it, especially in a country like the USA, where anything resembling socialism is nearly equalled to satanism. A result is that big companies will move their business to other countries, that aren't as social in their tax policies.
I wholely agree that a socialist structure would be an ideal. Problem is, how do you sell it to the people who have to make it happen?
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As to keeping governments on a tight leash, that I agree with, but that doesn't mean governments can't have a lot of responsibilities, it just means everything must be made transparent. Ironically nobody says governments should have less power when they're calling the police, firebrigade, ambulances, or even send their kids to school. =) There is a reason we put up with its downsides, which is why I've always thought the libertarian view is a bit naive.
On another note though, Don
I am a fan of analogies, but this one doesn't quite make sense. Growth is by no means always exponential :3 (I see a whole different discussion coming xD)
Back on topic!
This sounds really nice and logical, but it wouldn't actually make a difference. Poverty will always exist, no matter what you do. Why? Because the more resources we get, the bigger we allow our world population to get. Say we solve world hunger today by doubling the amount of food available in the world. More food makes for a healthier population, and healthy populations reproduce faster than deprived populations. This will inevitably keep up untill the population is deprived once again, stabilizing the growth rate. Difference is, there would be more people, but relative to the entire world population, there would be the same amount of hunger.
You described communism =P And it's been proven to not work. =) No offense
Other than that, I'd like to postulate that Americans are stupid... x) *hides*
Americans have democrats and republicans... Only one thing they both agree on, and thats that the system of gouvernment is deeply, deeply flawed. Yet nobody does anything but bitch and moan about it =P
If you don't trust your gouvernment, get a new one! Even Egypt can do that
Well I'm from Holland, which actually is a socialist country.
Now all American alarms go off, "oh no, communism!" but this is due to a misconception concerning socialism. You see, every form of economy that taxes high incomes more than low incomes is socialist, though it can be in varying degrees.
Your idea of making the different classes pay different taxes has been incorporated in our tax system, in an adapted form. You see, if you decide someones class based on their income, and then decide how much taxes they should pay, this leads to a problem. Say, for arguments sake, that the lower class makes upto 20k a year. 20k-40k can then be considered middle class.
So, if you make 19.999 dollar a year, you have to pay 10%, equalling ~2k, giving you a net income of ~18k.
But, if you make 21.000 dollar a year, you have to pay 20%, equalling ~4k, giving you a net income of 17k.
This actually means that going forward in life is being punished. This is very detrimental to economic growth and a reason not to seek progress.
Our system?
Say the classes are divided like this;
Lower: 0-20k
Middle:20-40k
Upper middle: 40-60k
Elite: 60k+
Now lets say we got someone with a before taxes income of 80k a year. This person would then have to pay 10% taxes over the first 20k, 20% over the second 20k, 30% over the third 20k, and 50% over anything above that. In this case that would be 2k + 4k + 6k + 10k = 22k.
This way it is never detrimental to your net income to make more money. This is glorious you say? Why doesn't the entire world quickly adapt this wonderfull system? Well here's why...
On paper, it sounds great. The people who have the most, contribute the most. But things that sound great on paper don't always work out as well.
Why do people spend years in college learning tremendously difficult things, and busting their brains, living on a diet of coffee? Because the reward is big. What happens when you cut down the reward? People's aspirations go down. This is the same problem communism had, though to a much higher degree.
Second is a very practical problem. Poor people may rejoice at this system, rich people are surprisingly un-fond of it, especially in a country like the USA, where anything resembling socialism is nearly equalled to satanism. A result is that big companies will move their business to other countries, that aren't as social in their tax policies.
I wholely agree that a socialist structure would be an ideal. Problem is, how do you sell it to the people who have to make it happen?