DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Income for Lower 50% of Americans Collapsing: Failure of Supply-Side Economics

Why?

JMO - make college free. And, we'll have people treating the free college exactly the same as they now treat free high school.

And next thing you know, you'll have to have a college degree to work at the fast food places.

The master's degree will become what today's bachelor's degree is.

Not everyone can be an attorney, teacher, business person, cpa, doctor, "professional", so to speak.

JMHO, but "free college" isn't free, and those that abuse their free h.s. education would do the same in college.

It would take a republican to think that way. Bernie want to restore the middle class and make the country strong again by leading in a positive rational way. Investing in education increases the tax base while reducing crime and poverty. Investing in infrastructure makes us stronger. Putting restrictions on the Wall Street thieves limits the chaos they can cause but keeps the fair market. Taxing them and the one percent to provide social programs that help everyone is called leveling the playing field. The economy has been rigged in their favor for 40 years, they can pay more to help the rest and still be the wealthiest humans to ever roam the planet... but like wishful sheep you feel sorry for them because one day you want to grow up and be a wolf too. smh

Bernie would do more good in a month than Trump will do in 4 years.

Ummm, ever heard of Social Security?

SS is a mandated Ponzi scheme.

I'm sure some would treat it that way. But many others might go on to be high income earning taxpayers that they would never have been before. Give a fish, teach to fish...

Social Security is not a Right.

Heck, it's not even a Guarantee like it's supposed to be. It's simply Forced Theft.

Bernie is a doddering old fool.

Has he sold off his 2 extra houses yet (How Middle Class ) I'm sure there are plenty of poor people living on the street that could use what one man has more than he knows what to do with.

like the pastors and their 10 million dollar mansions that they could house the homeless with...but don't?

Yes, in fact, just like them. But with pastors you are talking about 1 in a 1000 with that kind of cash... with democrats in congress you are talking about pretty much all of them.

True, it is not a right but a social safety net. Republicans could very well take it away with their efforts to privatize (steal) it. But nonetheless, retirement was addressed long ago and we agreed that people should be able to retire with some dignity.

I don't understand how anyone would not want to take care of their old and their young. Retirement, Education and Health Care are just absolutely topics we should all get behind but somehow fear mongering prevents this time and time again.

I'm a firm believer in hard work. I believe that capitalism when combined with social programs like these that keep profiteering and greed in check is the best economic system. While unchecked capitalism is a recipe for disaster. And pure socialism derails creativity, innovation and individuality.

If we want countries that practice 'communism' on there shouldn't we have 'capitalist' countries as well?

i agree.

however, we've had this convo before about the pay of congress and such. and i dunno. i know you argued that they should be paid more that way they can't be bought off.

but i would argue they need to be paid less, because the reality is that regardless of which way you lean, these cats in congress aren't affected by their own economic policies because they got mad bread.

but if they got paid like an average american, then i wonder how the economic policies, as well as more or less bipartisan support, would look like.

Sure, put a country on there that is smaller than Arizona and is less than 20 years removed from a brutal civil war and has had 4-7% growth per year since then.. if you think that proves anything.

I guess. I'm not religious so that might be better asked of other Dawgs here. But if the pastor is telling people to rid themselves of excess, and they aren't, they're just as bad as Bernie.

The one distinction I'll make however, is that the only thing that is coercive about donating to a Church is that you are ultimately afraid you'll burn in Eternal Damnation. Aside from that, you aren't forced to put anything in the collection basket. I don't subject myself to that kind of coercion, because I choose not to.

What Bernie wants to impose is different. His coercion is not based in the Afterlife. He wants a system where I am forced to "donate" my excess under the threat of punishment (fines, jail). Not only do I not have the choice to subject myself to that type of coercion, Bernie doesn't care if my donations to someone else negatively impacts myself or my own family.

Both the Pastor and Bernie tell us what they think we should be doing, but only Bernie is willing to put a gun to your head to make you do it.

There's a lot more pastors than Democratic congressmen...

So, I have a question. If Bernie claims the system is rigged, but still amasses a ton of things, wouldn't that be evidence of a rigged system? Why should Bernie or anyone else be criticized for being successful? Republicans in Congress have just as much success working the same rigged system, but they are celebrated for it.

our constitution keeps pastors from being able to put a gun to people's head and do it. remember that.

the church use to collect taxes back in the day.

now it's "donations". and to be fair, i'm more aimed as these megachurches, not the local joints on the corner. i actually like those cause they do a ton of community work.

as far as bernie, i have to agree with that. own as many houses as you wish, but when you start arguing for a tax plan like that? come on guy, we all know he wasnt gonna pay that. we were.

You realize that my post was a response to someone who wanted Venezuela and North Korea on the, right?

Pastors won't put a gun to your head until you talk about aborting an embryo...

At least it would show Bernie is at a minimum a hypocrite, at worst an outright fraud. Either way, I would think it wouldn't make him the best poster boy for the cause?

Whether it's the Church or the State, a gun to my head is a gun to my head.

I do have to take a moment to give you credit: IIRC you were rather partial to Bernie, but you always said his tax plan was not workable. Not many people are willing to have such a critical disagreement on a subject of that scale.

You mean like this guy? [video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pastor+under+investigation[/video]

Or this guy?

That's because the embryo doesn't yet have the strength for a 2 and half pound trigger pull on it's own...

damn Arch they had to rent a helicopter to show the entire property? lmao jesus....oh wait!!

thanks.

and yea, the tax plan sucked, bro. Columbus had said it best too. if he was talking about a 1-2% increase just to get the ball rolling, then whatever.

but this dude was talking about taking 40% and MORE of people's crap. screw that. This is America, bro. i like some of the things that Europe does. but that ain't one of em.

Turns out an embryo ain't [censored] huh

During the most prosperous time in America the effective tax rate for the highest class was ~60%. It was essentially capped income. So where did that money at the top go? Well our Republican friends know that line.

it's way more complicated than that.

Europe still manufactures a ton of their own products.

it's easy for them to have a high tax cap like we did in the 50's when we manufactured everything.

but we've transitioned to a service based economy and labor force. that was inevitable under capitalism, so there's nothing wrong with that.

but being serviced based means you can't have crazy high taxes like we used to, since we import a lot of goods now.

Also, I've never quite understood how it works, but a lot of European countries use the VAT tax right? I know that's been tossed around a bit over here.

yes.

i'm not well versed on how the VAT tax works for all, but i know being stationed over there, the Army gave us VAT forms for major purchases on the German Economy, that way we wouldn't be stuck paying 19% tax on goods like American spec German cars and such.

side story: we abused the dog crap out of those forms. we would go to MediaMarkt( german version of Best Buy) and buy subwoofers and amps for our cars all the time. and not pay the 19% on a 100 euro product haha. good times being cheap.

Could have saved you the military service and just moved to Oregon. No sales tax.

yo, how is your state with no sales tax?

i've heard mixed reviews on it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't some dealerships, especially high end dealerships, allow you to register your car - or r.v. in Oregon, even if you don't live there?

And I shouldn't say the "dealerships" let you. I know someone that has had numerous r.v.'s, and they've run the gamut from $500,000 to almost a million, and they have had oregon plates.

Bro they do that in Europe too lol.

the italian guys will buy their Ferrari's, but then register it in Switzerland to avoid paying taxes on the cars.

Way out of my tax bracket to even have a need to know of such loopholes.

As to the rest of 'no sales tax'... it's nice to pay what's on the sticker. Honestly though it has generally little effect on me as I'm not a 'consumer' as such. I'm tight with my money so if I can buy used or cheaper online that's how I do it.
I often wish they'd implement a sales tax but only if it decreased our property tax. The sales tax would hurt me less in the long run and it'd also have the benefit of grabbing the money from tourists to help fill our city coffers.

So property taxes are high?

Let's face it, every state gets theirs, somehow.

Some states don't have income tax. Their sales tax is generally high.

Some states don't have sales tax, other taxes are quite high.

On and on. Gubmint gotta get theirs, right?

But, I do find it interesting that you say this:

You're all for others paying taxes, as long as it saves you money?

Eh. The way the 1% accumulates their wealth now, I think it'd be easier to tax them. Most wealth is generated via the stock market currently. That's what you need to tax. Bernie wanted to tax it at 50 cents per $100 in a transaction and tax analysts and economists said would almost pay for free college entirely. However, I will say that if we do go the free college route, then we need to remove two grades from k-12. There's a little padding in the grades, in an attempt to give everyone a well rounded education, as it will be their guaranteed final formal education. But, if college is free then we need to remove that padding. However, I think that money could obviously be spent somewhere else, and just as well.

We are getting hosed in NC.

We just got down to around 5.3% state income tax

We have 6.7% sales tax

And our gas tax is just shy of $0.60/gallon! NC getting about $0.42/gallon of that.

Sales tax here in cuyahoga county is 8%

Can't even by a mcdouble for $1. Gotta be 1.08 at the window lol

I guess if you want to see it that way. I see a sales tax as, if you consume you get taxed. If you choose to live more modestly you don't get taxed as much. It's not as though I'm asking for higher taxes on others but not me. I'd pay the same sales tax as everyone else.