I refuse Social Security and any other govt. assistance?

cause the Amish did it, who's to say I'd rather not pay taxes and be liable for my own future

10/11/2008 4:57:02 PM

You went to a public school didn't you?

[Edited on October 11, 2008 at 5:06 PM. Reason : ]

10/11/2008 5:06:34 PM

yes but i dont remember having a choice in that or paying income taxes while doing so

10/11/2008 5:23:33 PM

From a pratical standpoint - If you live outside the city on your own trading in kind with other people who also live outside of society then you can avoid taxes.

I am not sure whether legally you owe taxes if you recieve no income in USD. That is you do not use the currency at all. However, from a pratical standpoint I can pretty much asure you the IRS is not going to do anything about it.

10/11/2008 5:28:23 PM

i was just wondering, not trying to do it

10/11/2008 5:50:49 PM

Make sure you don't use any roads or electricity when you decide to not pay taxes.

10/11/2008 5:53:12 PM

There is stuff that I would gladly pay taxes for, such as roads and other basic infrastructure.

But I would give up everything I would get from social security if it meant I could opt out right now and not pay any more taxes towards it.

10/11/2008 6:08:18 PM

If Obama wins, they will take your pay out of your taxes instead of your taxes out of your pay.

10/11/2008 6:21:01 PM

ah yes, the evil commie democrats

watch out, they'll get ya

10/11/2008 6:23:41 PM

^^ so despite reality, you're still sticking to the Obama=more taxes line when that's not true for the VAST majority of people?

[Edited on October 11, 2008 at 6:24 PM. Reason : ]

10/11/2008 6:24:43 PM

soundbites, slgans, and bumper stickers my friend

it beats thinking

git thurr dun!

10/11/2008 6:30:30 PM

that's all Obama is.

10/11/2008 6:31:55 PM

sho is

10/11/2008 6:33:09 PM

So moron, if Obama was running on a platform of putting 10% of voters to death you would argue it doesn't matter since it would no affect the vast majority of voters?

10/11/2008 9:34:43 PM

Quote :

"any other govt. assistance?"

Like national defense and infrastructure?

Quote :

"So moron, if Obama was running on a platform of putting 10% of voters to death you would argue it doesn't matter since it would no affect the vast majority of voters?"

Wow, what a horrible metaphor. Would these 10% have significantly more lives than the other 90%?


[Edited on October 11, 2008 at 9:51 PM. Reason : ]

10/11/2008 9:49:48 PM

It is not a metaphore for anything. My assertion is not to compare taxation to execution, merely to argue that the effect of a policy cannot be ignored just because it impacts a minority of voters.

"^^ so despite reality, you're still sticking to the Obama=death line when that's not true for the VAST majority of people?"

If it is good to tax the rich more than they are currently taxed then argue that obama=more taxes is a good thing, don't pretend the moral question is irrelevant just because none of us here are rich.

[Edited on October 12, 2008 at 10:11 AM. Reason : .,.]

10/12/2008 10:09:04 AM

i guess we are going to pull national health care out of the asses of 1-5% of the population

10/12/2008 10:49:03 AM

It was suggested to let people opt out of Social Security back when it was getting started but FDR fired the man that suggested it.

10/12/2008 10:54:52 AM

^^^ what bcsawyer said was blatantly wrong, I was just pointing that out.

And there is no meaningful negative effect from taxing the rich about where they were under clinton, other than giving the middle class more income.

10/12/2008 11:41:44 AM

I, personally, welcome the higher taxes we will all assuredly pay when comrade Obama becomes President. Ya know... because I'm a socialist and shit.

10/12/2008 11:45:51 AM

the amish only get out of social security

10/12/2008 12:32:12 PM

Quote :

"so despite reality, you're still sticking to the Obama=more taxes line when that's not true for the VAST majority of people?"

im certainly not a mccain fan but i have a hard time believing this will stay true for long if Obama is president. see Bill Clinton.

10/12/2008 1:24:43 PM

Quote :

"And there is no meaningful negative effect from taxing the rich about where they were under clinton, other than giving the middle class more income."

And I would disagree. Taxing the rich tends to make the rest of society poorer by slowing the growth of new firms and preventing the competition they would have otherwise provided.

It was no accident that European companies tend to maintain their dominant market positions for substantially longer than American companies.

10/12/2008 2:11:29 PM

europeans are just better at making some things than we are.

oh and boo fucking hoo. the majority of people arnt making "new firms" and those making 20 mil with 10 mil bonus' arnt going to even feel a tax cut.

its a tired response lonesnark.

10/12/2008 6:47:34 PM

Quote :

"But I would give up everything I would get from social security if it meant I could opt out right now and not pay any more taxes towards it."

You and everyone else younger than 40. But then all those people who are getting Social Security still want their money -- and that's fair, I think, seeing as how they paid into it for most of their lives. So then the government has to come up with $texas to pay all the geezers. And they do this by borrowing still more money and/or cutting other services.

Or maybe they decide it's time to bail on SS altogether, and we've got a country full of enraged and sometimes starving old people. Of course, it's easy to say, "They should have planned better for their future," except it's a little old lady who looks like your grandmother and who did plan for her future. She planned, among other things, on having Social Security, because that's what she'd been promised and paid into her whole adult life.

Those are the outcomes of simply letting people opt out of paying Social Security. As much as it has been clusterfucked into the ground by incompetent and greedy politicians, I don't think this is the way to fix it.

10/13/2008 2:25:51 PM

Quote :

"oh and boo fucking hoo. the majority of people arnt making "new firms" and those making 20 mil with 10 mil bonus' arnt going to even feel a tax cut."

But all people are consumers and by slowing the growth of new competitors you keep prices high and new products off the market. Or are you perfectly happy with the current economic arrangments?

[Edited on October 13, 2008 at 3:06 PM. Reason : .,.]

10/13/2008 3:04:53 PM

95% of the population is going to have some more money which they're going to spend on shit. Lets say my plumbing is fucked up! Now I can call Joe the Plumber because I can now pay for is services.

also prices wont be high and products will not be kept off the market. If someone has a good product which they can make money on they will. If they have a shitty product the want to make a quick buck on well they might get fucked. But who the hell wants shitty products anyways?

Also prices high on what? Walmart is not going to raise their prices. You know why? Because people will go shop somewhere where the prices are cheaper. Did you go retarded?

10/16/2008 9:16:37 AM

It doesn't matter who you tax, or how much you tax them. In the long run the market will balance things out. In fact, it doesn't even matter if you don't tax anyone at all. With no taxes we just print more money, which is a form of taxation itself. What matters is how much is spent by the government, compared with how much is produced by the country.

Its easy for politicians to have you identify with how much you directly pay, by talking about "lower taxes for all," "the top 1%," "95%," etc. But one way or another, you are going to pay part of the cost of government. What you have to determine is if the cost of the service provided is worth it. Part of this analysis should include figuring out if the government is better at providing the service, when compared with the private sector.

10/16/2008 10:40:42 AM

and right now the private sector is sucking a cock

10/16/2008 11:03:18 AM

Quote :

"Also prices high on what? Walmart is not going to raise their prices. You know why? Because people will go shop somewhere where the prices are cheaper. Did you go retarded?"

Walmart is a perfect example. The vast majority of the money Walmart used to build all its stores came from the profits of operating other stores. If you had instead taxed the profits of those stores, they would have had less cash on hand to build all the stores they did. Fewer Walmart stores means less competition arranged against Walmart competitors, which use that breathing room to raise prices.

Now, this is a mathematically stable system; as fewer stores exist than there otherwise would have been, there is less competition so everyone gets to raise prices, even Walmart.

10/16/2008 4:50:51 PM

and then the middle class will have more money because of their tax cuts to buy at wal mart if they want to.

10/16/2008 5:00:07 PM

^^ That is not really as conclusive as you make it seem.

Once walmart has a minimum number of stores built where they can generate revenue to just fund the loan payments for however many years it takes for any one store to be profitable and pay off its initial investment, they can pretty much just keep cranking out stores, regardless of marginal tax rates.

It's kind of like single-cycle processors vs. superscalar processors. A rise in taxes might cause a pipeline bubble, but that doesn't affect the instruction completion rate once the bubble clears the pipeline.

In any case, walmart is going to keep building stores, if it makes money, no matter what the tax rate is, because they'll be making money. And they have enough revenues and profits at this point in time where this likely won't be a problem for them.

Business an economics is a complex enough system where no single idea can really represent what would happen anyway, otherwise it'd be more apparent what causes stock markets to behave the way they do.

[Edited on October 16, 2008 at 5:04 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2008 5:01:42 PM

Ok, I missed that. So every dollar taken from the $250k+ crowd will be return to the $100k- crowd as tax cuts? Well, then the net loss for society should be negligible. Congrats. But I still don't see why we can't just give everyone a nice big tax cut. Just slash federal subsidies, highway funding, regulatory funding, and military spending and then call it a day.

10/16/2008 5:03:56 PM

ha well i kinda agree with you on the other thread but ya.

no one is spreading wealth around but rather taxing some more and others less.

some guy making 5 mil will alittle less and abunch of people making 100k will be saving on their taxes.

10/16/2008 5:06:32 PM

Quote :

"the amish only get out of social security"

somebody hand me a fucking butter churn.

10/16/2008 11:05:44 PM

Quote :

"no one is spreading wealth around but rather taxing some more and others less."

EIC? Cutting taxes on people who already pay 0 in taxes? Sounds a lot like "spreading the wealth" around to me.

Fuck it, who is John Galt?

10/17/2008 7:20:13 AM

Quote :

"Once walmart has a minimum number of stores built where they can generate revenue to just fund the loan payments for however many years it takes for any one store to be profitable and pay off its initial investment, they can pretty much just keep cranking out stores, regardless of marginal tax rates."

I don't have the link, but about a year ago I read an academic study on the subject and it argued that the vast majority of new business investment comes from cash on hand or equity injection, not borrowing. Why this would be the case is pure opinion, but in my opinion it makes sense. Borrowing against current revenues in the name of expansion would risk the solvency of the existing business, as loans must be paid back with interest even if the expansion fails, risking solvency if current profits fall below the debt obligation, where-as waiting to raise your own money eliminates any potential future risk beyond that of the cash invested.

But, whyever entrepreneurs operate this way, if they do then raising taxes upon their profits would indeed directly slow business expansion below what it otherwise would have been without the tax drain. Which means fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer machines, and older established enterprises get to stick around longer before being bankrupted by upstarts.

This is also why many communists argue that modern tax policy is all that is propping up capitalist societies. With the taxes, business earns profits and government taxes it away, maintaining a good return on capital for next year. Without the tax, business earns profits and reinvests it, flooding the market with too much capital next year, bidding down the return to zero, causing a collapse where most businesses operate at a loss and unemployment runs rampant.

10/17/2008 8:41:43 AM

Quote :

"EIC? Cutting taxes on people who already pay 0 in taxes? Sounds a lot like "spreading the wealth" around to me."

eh I already said this.

someone making 5 million will be taxes alittle more thus allowing for several people making 100k to be taxed less.

Im pretty sure people making 100k a year pay a good chunk of taxes.

10/17/2008 8:48:32 AM