Originally Posted by MtnGoat

pencils pens shoes cell phones wire glue food fridges wires nails insulation transistors titanium joints paperclips aspirin cars airplance computers look at anything in the store or nearly anything you use or eat

being angry because the type of interventionist, manipulatory govt you demand results in the manipulations it cannot NOT produce, is insane.

None of those things would have been possible without the government metric of providing infrastructure. We would still have a society of those who live off the land and trade with close neighbors. Commerce is limited, and early attempts as building roads for toll were pretty bad, they had no supplies to build a proper road, the best ones were plank roads, lumber laid down on poorly graded and often flooded areas. To make a simple paper clip, you need steel. The colonists imported all their steel. It was systems of canals and the devastation of the Appalachian forest that first produced American steel, using charcoal instead of the coal they were standing on top of while cutting the forest for charcoal.

This is the disconnect and the big lie you would have us believe about your ideology. That what commerce and manufacturing we did develop was not done strictly due to government intervention, by providing the means to transport and market materials and tooling and ultimately finished products.

The ideology you express would have allowed some development, but would have hobbled it to have created a nation far, far behind the rest of the world in industrial prowess, and wood shingles, well water, sustenance farming, labor intensive primitive products would have been the metric by which our country developed and we would have lagged so far behind as to present as a primitive culture by comparison.

You claim the existence of a mechanized and automated modern society that never would have developed to the extent it has under your ideology is the greatest of man's achievements. You praise and work for protections of corporations that would not exist without concerted effort of both private and government participation. Your ideology relegates government totally outside of that participation with the exception of protections of negative rights. You claim laws which protect civil rights are unconstitutional because they trample negative rights.

So you argue for an ethereal ideology out of one side of your mouth, and argue to protect the status quo out of the other side.

How can such be argued with, anything wrong with the system is due to its not following your ideology, and anything right with the system is due to it having followed your ideology. It is a false position. We all know the metrics of how we got to where we are today.

Originally Posted by Treetop

None of those things would have been possible without the government metric of providing infrastructure. .

There some truth to that and if only government would do exactly that what it use to do.
Instead it in itself has become the largest dysfunctional corporation the juggernaut year after year propping it’s self up with other people’s money our children’s money instead of failing like it should.
You can throw all the money in the world at it….you just can’t fix stupid.

Originally Posted by Treetop

So you argue for an ethereal ideology out of one side of your mouth, and argue to protect the status quo out of the other side.

Simple cause and effect, my friend.

Goat's right and you're wrong, proven by simple observation of the results of your ideology compared to the results of Goat's ideology.

Useful idiots abound today, exactly as they did to help Lenin conquer Russia and ensure it's degradation from within.
We see today the same path toward degradation, with the same Lenin inspired rhetoric, with the knowably same outcome that's heading our way.
Yet, the Pooh Party useful idiots march on, like lemmings, without an original thought in their heads.

I am observing the consequences of your ideology as we speak, and I see people who revel in the process of cutting off their nose's to spite their face, and the people who have chosen to follow the destructive way of your ideology are going to get EXACTLY what they deserve.
Once they realize what they made happen, it will be too late, just as it's now too late for Venezuelans to bring back sanity to their own country.

IIRC, I was one of the first people here in LTUP to warn that what was going on in Venezuela, where people "willingly" voted in a Socialist dictator, would be the path of America as well. I was right.
And one component of that sea change in Venezuela would be that once a Socialist gets power, they do not give it up, and voters no longer matter because they simply aren't needed anymore other than to create a "show" that "suggests" a democratic government, but isn't one.

As goes the useful idiots in Venezuela, so goes the useful idiots in America:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...79G65T20111017

I'll believe that "Corporations are People". When Texas executes one of them.


(not mine I stole it)

It's a good un.

We have the HIGHEST Corporate taxes in the WORLD. If you were allowed to keep your SS, how much could you put away/save/invest? Liberal congress, along with LBJ started this whole business of taking away our money, "for our own good" in the depression. It lasted 11 years until we were forced to get into a world war. Kennedy cut taxes and guess what, we prospered. Carter raised taxes, recession. Reagan cut taxes, Clinton did not cut them!!, and we had almosty 25 years of good living, until a liberal congress decided to bail out failing businesses. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi force through huge spending and guess what happens? Business has huge increases in their costs--recession! And what happened to "all men are created equal?" Shouldn't we be taxed equally then? If we tax the rich more, aren't we making them less than equal? What is congress's job? Defend our country and constitution, make sure we are all equally treated. Further than that, they are wasting our money in untold ways. Get local control of your money, state, county, city, and you will see money spent better.

Originally Posted by cyclops2

These big business improvements ....CREATE JOBS.....That was ALWAYS the intent of all companies..

Weird, I always thought the intent of business was to return a profit to the owners/shareholders by providing a product or service that others needed/desired.

Originally Posted by Big Foot 48

January 20, 2009?

LOL, except he was talking about corporations. so the correct anser is "when they were unionized".

Did anybody else notice that the economy took a dive when it became obvious that the liberals would control both congress and the White House?

Originally Posted by 1967250s

We have the HIGHEST Corporate taxes in the WORLD. If you were allowed to keep your SS, how much could you put away/save/invest? Liberal congress, along with LBJ started this whole business of taking away our money, "for our own good" in the depression. It lasted 11 years until we were forced to get into a world war. Kennedy cut taxes and guess what, we prospered. Carter raised taxes, recession. Reagan cut taxes, Clinton did not cut them!!, and we had almosty 25 years of good living, until a liberal congress decided to bail out failing businesses. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi force through huge spending and guess what happens? Business has huge increases in their costs--recession! And what happened to "all men are created equal?" Shouldn't we be taxed equally then? If we tax the rich more, aren't we making them less than equal? What is congress's job? Defend our country and constitution, make sure we are all equally treated. Further than that, they are wasting our money in untold ways. Get local control of your money, state, county, city, and you will see money spent better.

Hmmm? I heard we have about the LOWEST corp taxes, and that they had gone way down over the last few decades.

Originally Posted by aerogel

There some truth to that and if only government would do exactly that what it use to do.
Instead it in itself has become the largest dysfunctional corporation the juggernaut year after year propping it’s self up with other people’s money our children’s money instead of failing like it should.
You can throw all the money in the world at it….you just can’t fix stupid.

Government has been thowing money (and warfare ) around for a very, very long time...over many administrations on both sides of the fence.

Originally Posted by dll932

Hmmm? I heard we have about the LOWEST corp taxes, and that they had gone way down over the last few decades.

Here is a link to a chart of tax rates.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_849596.html

I have not yet found an international comparison, but will sometime in the next week.

You also might be interested in this question I asked in another thread:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...9&postcount=44

Kevin

Originally Posted by dll932

Hmmm? I heard we have about the LOWEST corp taxes, and that they had gone way down over the last few decades.

Wikipedia knows all. Our corporate rate is among the highest, although deductions and targeted loopholes reduce the actual taxes paid. Tax reform is needed to lower the rates and reduce the loopholes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Originally Posted by Big Foot 48

Wikipedia knows all. Our corporate rate is among the highest, although deductions and targeted loopholes reduce the actual taxes paid. Tax reform is needed to lower the rates and reduce the loopholes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Thank you for the data.

I wonder why the US data on the chart does not match what I found in several places -- the top marginal corporate tax rate is 35% on earnings above $18,333,333. I don't see how you can get a mean of about 38% when the top is 35%.

Kevin

Truth:

The United States has the second highest statutory corporate income tax rate in the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) behind Japan. Despite the high statutory
rate, the average effective tax rate paid by corporations is close to the OECD median, and the corporate
tax raises relatively little revenue—the fourth lowest in the OECD as a share of GDP.

It is all in the semantics. Statutory rates exclude the loopholes and credits, effective corporate tax rates in the US are around 25-29% As a percentage of GDP, the US corporate tax revenues fall very low (chart below), as the current tax system has many consequences which push income reporting to other forms. It also is complicated and costly to administrate (12% of revenues) and tends to change and favor some dynamics over others, such as debt over assets, some equipment favored over other types, and other consequences that pertain to investors.

I believe one of the reasons the corporate tax as a percentage of GDP is so low is the effect of moving income out of the corporate category and reporting in elsewhere. Reform of the tax code could save administration costs, make the tax more fair across the board, and cut the statutory rate to 27%, making it more in line with the effective rate.

This document is very interesting, shows how it works, different ways to reform, consequences of the methods, etc. (PDF file)

Report on Tax Reform Options