If Romney wins the GOP, I forsee bad things for....

[Shegokigo]

My point to prove Gas, was that there are hundreds of thousands of similar stories to that one. It actually had less to do with Romney and more to do with your "People are only poor because they're lazy."

Also, you're right, Romney probably doesn't even believe most of the scripts he's reading. Thankfully, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. I'm sure they'll televise it as a "close loss" but it's going to be Obama for another 4yrs easily.

I was never concerned that Romney had a chance at winning, I just found it hilarious that someone so out of touch with the way the real world is, due his having no idea how it really works, would continue to read those ridiculous scripts.

Oh and if your argument is really that I made up the story, I can gladly give you his name, phone number and physical address. Give him up a call and ask him about how he got to where he is.

Hell I can give you 5 people that can tell similar stories. If you still are so ignorant to believe that it's not true and they'd just lie to you over the phone, you can easily verify the information based on job histories, school records and income sheets that would be easy to obtain.

 

[GasBandit]

Yeah, anti-intellectualism does seem to go hand in hand with your kind of philosophy in the US, which is kinda weird to me, as you'd think being smart would be something that would help with "education, hard work and risk taking", and thus would be a good thing...

Anti-intellectualism is an antibody with unfortunate side effects that comes up because of an even more rampant problem - pseudo-intellectualism. It's so omnipresent you can't go a single day without seeing it. It's especially bad on the left, who wears it as armor while they wield appeals to emotion like a weapon... see above in this thread.

 

[Krisken]

 

[GasBandit]

My point to prove Gas, was that there are hundreds of thousands of similar stories to that one. It actually had less to do with Romney and more to do with your "People are only poor because they're lazy."

You oversimplified my position. There were several qualifiers on my statement having to do with tragedy (like, for example, the DEATH OF ONE'S FATHER WHILE STILL IN SCHOOL?), defect, etc.

Also, you're right, Romney probably doesn't even believe most of the scripts he's reading. Thankfully, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. I'm sure they'll televise it as a "close loss" but it's going to be Obama for another 4yrs easily.

A lot of people disagree with you. I'm not calling it one way or the other at this point... 10 months is a long, long time in politics.

I was never concerned that Romney had a chance at winning, I just found it hilarious that someone so out of touch with the way the real world is, due his having no idea how it really works, would continue to read those ridiculous scripts.

So, by your argument, the real world works by the complete abandonment of capitalism and the embrace of socialism?

Oh and if your argument is really that I made up the story, I can gladly give you his name, phone number and physical address. Give him up a call and ask him about how he got to where he is.

Hell I can give you 5 people that can tell similar stories. If you still are so ignorant to believe that it's not true and they'd just lie to you over the phone, you can easily verify the information based on job histories, school records and income sheets that would be easy to obtain.

Even were I to do so, or let's go back even another step... even if I believe you and accept your story as true, it's still anecdotal and subjective. It doesn't prove your point any more than if I were to present the story of another person who started off a farmer's son whose family was so poor they lost siblings to influenza and ended up putting 5 kids through college on an air force salary... and say it proved mine (that's a real person's story too, btw).

Individual stories don't back up an argument about a system, or "who is out of touch with reality." Income mobility is huge. 60% of the lowest economic quintile moves up within 30 years, and the number of millionaires increases by about 8-9% every year. Do you think people will still strive for the top if they believe the fruits of their labors will be confiscated? Who will feed the hungry when they say "screw it?"

 

[Shegokigo]

This is honestly why I don't usually get involved into political discussions, everytime a point is proven, one way or the other, the other side will deflect and change direction of the topic. I can't gather enough "give a shit" to continue it.

The only reason I posted this, was because I've seen hard working people, barely live through the system there is now (so I'm not by any means saying the one we have now is good) just to hear politicians that are almost always born with a silver spoon in their mouth, talk about how the poor are only poor because they're lazy. If they tried harder they'd have a better life. Then they have the audacity to say "Like I did!" or "You failed because you didn't try hard enough" or "You're just envious, disparity in incomes isn't a real problem in this country".

How to fix it, why it's broken, or what's really wrong aren't questions I can answer or retort responses to. Guess I'm just too lazy to learn.

 

[GasBandit]

This is honestly why I don't usually get involved into political discussions, everytime a point is proven, one way or the other, the other side will deflect and change direction of the topic. I can't gather enough "give a shit" to continue it.

The only reason I posted this, was because I've seen hard working people, barely live through the system there is now (so I'm not by any means saying the one we have now is good) just to hear politicians that are almost always born with a silver spoon in their mouth, talk about how the poor are only poor because they're lazy. If they tried harder they'd have a better life. Then they have the audacity to say "Like I did!" or "You failed because you didn't try hard enough" or "You're just envious, disparity in incomes isn't a real problem in this country".

How to fix it, why it's broken, or what's really wrong aren't questions I can answer or retort responses to. Guess I'm just too lazy to learn.

It will never be "fixed," not completely. There will always be tragedy, there will always be poor. There will always be wealthy and powerful, and some of both sides will always be undeservedly so. How we can best apply our efforts to reducing it is a decades old debate. But what we have observed is that redistributionist social programs create as many poor as they eliminate, while simultaneously causing a drain on the economy. For every of your friend who clawed his way up, there's at least another who would rather collect welfare and accept that standard of living rather than work. The same largely applies even to unemployment benefits - If you get laid off from a 50k/year job, you may decide to continue to collect unemployment benefits for 99 weeks that is the equivalent to 22k/year after taxes then take a 25k/year job that you consider beneath you (or, "not in your field" as the parlance goes)... an extra 9 hours of free time a day can do wonders for one's stress level and quality of life.

But now I AM getting off on a tangent...

 

[jwhouk]

I seem to remember someone saying something about "You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to."

 

[Dei]

Personally, I think it's going to come down to the Independents, and it won't matter piss all what the Republicans think. God knows my husband would rather hold his nose and vote for Obama rather than let any of the current candidates win. Of course, I might just think that way because I live in a swing state.

 

[@Li3n]

Anti-intellectualism is an antibody with unfortunate side effects that comes up because of an even more rampant problem - pseudo-intellectualism. It's so omnipresent you can't go a single day without seeing it. It's especially bad on the left, who wears it as armor while they wield appeals to emotion like a weapon... see above in this thread.

Anti-intellectualism as a response to pseudo-intellectualism....

And you don't actually see that as worse...

That's like hating oranges because you one bit into a plastic orange...

And you're talking abut appeals to emotion after bringing out the " Biff Tannens of the world who spent high school getting drunk, stoned, and laid"...

When did I say that?

I'm saying that people should not be limited by the government as to what they can earn and do with their lives.

I'm a big fan of the welfare system.

You said that when you supported Romney's statement that Shego quoted... and added no caveats or clarifications...

What have I, or Romney, for that matter, said that is anything like, "Get rid of welfare and dump everyone on the street."???

Tenuous interpretation combined with hyperbole isn't useful, and I don't know why you, shego, and others keep resorting to it.

When he made the argument that they're envious and undeserving...

I was never concerned that Romney had a chance at winning, I just found it hilarious that someone so out of touch with the way the real world is, due his having no idea how it really works, would continue to read those ridiculous scripts.

Oh, seee, that's your problem, he's not reading it for the world, he's reading it for the republican base... we'll have to wait until he's the nominee to see the scripts that are meant for the world...

 

[Hailey Knight]

an extra 9 hours of free time a day can do wonders for one's stress level and quality of life.

I think that's a matter of the individual. My wife's been out of work a couple months now and she's starting to crack.

 

[Dei]

My mom and grandma are the same way, my mom goes stir crazy if she's not working.

 

[PatrThom]

The trouble is not that there are so many poor people, the trouble is that those entities with the majority of wealth are rather attached to their position and are doing what they can to make sure they never have to give it up, whether by propaganda, legislation, or subterfuge. This makes it very hard to justify the "Just looking out for Humanity/It's only natural/Everyone gets what they deserve" rhetoric when they are seen actively jacking up their end of the playing field when they think nobody is looking.

--Patrick

 

[Bowielee]

The trouble is not that there are so many poor people, the trouble is that those entities with the majority of wealth are rather attached to their position and are doing what they can to make sure they never have to give it up, whether by propaganda, legislation, or subterfuge. This makes it very hard to justify the "Just looking out for Humanity/It's only natural/Everyone gets what they deserve" rhetoric when they are seen actively jacking up their end of the playing field when they think nobody is looking.

--Patrick

For example Corporate personhood.

 

[@Li3n]

This makes it very hard to justify the "Just looking out for Humanity/It's only natural/Everyone gets what they deserve" rhetoric when they are seen actively jacking up their end of the playing field when they think nobody is looking.

Well obviously that's just part of what make them more deserving... screwing people by your own power (aka money) = good, having a 3rd party make sure everyone plays by the same rules = evil....

 

[ElJuski]

Well, let me tell you guys something. These rich people and these corporations, just because they've used our roads, infrastructure and constitutionally sound American securities to make billions upon billions of dollars, it would just be outright un-American for them to even consider giving something back to support the nation that fostered them into wealth, and it would be downright vile if these millionaires thought of forking over some extra cash to help out those dumb, lazy bastards that decided to not become business monguls.

But then again, I know jack shit, because I'm a glorified babysitter for a living, and we live fat off the glut of the American system.

 

[@Li3n]

our roads, infrastructure and constitutionally sound American securities.

Whose roads, you pinko-nazi-communist?

 

[GasBandit]

I'll have to admit, I often have a rather un-libertarian thought in pertains to how to start to fix the income gap... and that thought is usually, specify by law that the highest paid person's total compensation of any company can only make up to 30 times what the lowest paid person's total compensation is. IE, if the CEO is to be paid $1,000,000, then even the part timer in the mail room has to be paid 16.66/hour - and still get benefits.

I know, shocking, right?

 

[@Li3n]

I'll have to admit, I often have a rather un-libertarian thought in pertains to how to start to fix the income gap... and that thought is usually, specify by law that the highest paid person's total compensation of any company can only make up to 30 times what the lowest paid person's total compensation is. IE, if the CEO is to be paid $1,000,000, then even the part timer in the mail room has to be paid 16.66/hour - and still get benefits.

Now the effect of something like that on the labour market is something i'd pay to see...

 

[Overflight]

I'll have to admit, I often have a rather un-libertarian thought in pertains to how to start to fix the income gap... and that thought is usually, specify by law that the highest paid person's total compensation of any company can only make up to 30 times what the lowest paid person's total compensation is. IE, if the CEO is to be paid $1,000,000, then even the part timer in the mail room has to be paid 16.66/hour - and still get benefits.

I know, shocking, right?

...yes...shocking. Uh... do you mind handing us a blood sample so I can wave this flamethrower heated wire over it for absolutely no reason?

 

[strawman]

I'll have to admit, I often have a rather un-libertarian thought in pertains to how to start to fix the income gap... and that thought is usually, specify by law that the highest paid person's total compensation of any company can only make up to 30 times what the lowest paid person's total compensation is. IE, if the CEO is to be paid $1,000,000, then even the part timer in the mail room has to be paid 16.66/hour - and still get benefits.

I know, shocking, right?

Oh great. So now I need to form a management company with all my highly paid employees, who are purchased as a service by my other companies for all the lowly grunts.

If you're going to force me to use a loophole, at least make it challenging.

 

[GasBandit]

Oh great. So now I need to form a management company with all my highly paid employees, who are purchased as a service by my other companies for all the lowly grunts.

If you're going to force me to use a loophole, at least make it challenging.

That's a pretty easily closed loophole.

 

[strawman]

That's a pretty easily closed loophole.

I don't see how. There are millions of ways to structure shell corporations and investments that would result in the "president" receiving all the gains while distancing the workers enough to avoid having to pay them according to your schedule. That doesn't even count having the management corporation exist in another country's jurisdiction.

But it's all academic and not worth arguing over.

However I have yet to meet someone who said, "I can close that loophole" (in reference to business law and taxes) who actually could after extended discussion, so you're welcome to try.

 

[GasBandit]

I don't see how. There are millions of ways to structure shell corporations and investments that would result in the "president" receiving all the gains while distancing the workers enough to avoid having to pay them according to your schedule. That doesn't even count having the management corporation exist in another country's jurisdiction.

But it's all academic and not worth arguing over.

However I have yet to meet someone who said, "I can close that loophole" (in reference to business law and taxes) who actually could after extended discussion, so you're welcome to try.

Observe - The statute stipulates that those who are part of a staffing/human resources company or any company providing a service that bills any single client over $30,000 in one year have to have their individual incomes and clients reported so that they can be taken into account for enforcement of the statute. Suddenly even your landscaping service's minimum wage drones count. Sorry, CEO, you "only" get to make $435,000 this year! Ha-ha! (/nelson)

 

[strawman]

So I merely need to have thousands of "contractors" which individually make under $30k/yr each. No problem.

 

[Necronic]

Well, let me tell you guys something. These rich people and these corporations, just because they've used our roads, infrastructure and constitutionally sound American securities to make billions upon billions of dollars, it would just be outright un-American for them to even consider giving something back to support the nation that fostered them into wealth, and it would be downright vile if these millionaires thought of forking over some extra cash to help out those dumb, lazy bastards that decided to not become business monguls.

I believe what you are talking about are called taxes. And they do pay them.

One thing i've found interesting is that the left will point out "the top 1% hold more 50% of the nations wealth!" and the right will point out "the top 1% pay 50% of the nations tax burden!". Now, if you do a little thing I like call 'synthergizing' you can figure out that both points effectively cancel each other out.

Also (can't remember who said it) please don't say that the scale is Capitalism <-> Socialism, the scale is Capitalism <-> Communism. There's a pretty important difference there. Socialism is the thing that exists at some qualitative point between capitalism and communism.

 

[Krisken]

I believe what you are talking about are called taxes. And they do pay them.

One thing i've found interesting is that the left will point out "the top 1% hold more 50% of the nations wealth!" and the right will point out "the top 1% pay 50% of the nations tax burden!". Now, if you do a little thing I like call 'synthergizing' you can figure out that both points effectively cancel each other out.

And then you include the income disparity and the rate of cost of living vs. income increases over the last 80 years and they no longer cancel each other out.

 

[ElJuski]

Yeah, but in my opinion, not enough taxes.

 

[GasBandit]

Yeah, but in my opinion, not enough taxes.

You could tax them at 100% and still not make enough to cover spending.

So I merely need to have thousands of "contractors" which individually make under $30k/yr each. No problem.

No differentiation between employees and "contractors." They do work for you, they count. They report their income for tax purposes, that income comes from your company and is reported as such, subsequently it figures into your limits.

 

[Krisken]

No differentiation between employees and "contractors." They do work for you, they count. They report their income for tax purposes, that income comes from your company and is reported as such, subsequently it figures into your limits.

As an independent contractor, I can tell you that this is false. They are not interchangeable, and follow different rules where the law is concerned.

 

[GasBandit]

As an independent contractor, I can tell you that this is false. They are not interchangeable, and follow different rules where the law is concerned.

I meant, for the purposes of this hypothetical legislation.

 

[Krisken]

I meant, for the purposes of this hypothetical legislation.

And how would you prevent a clause in the contract that would contradict the law? Contracts are funny things.

 

[GasBandit]

And how would you prevent a clause in the contract that would contradict the law? Contracts are funny things.

Everyone already has to report income for tax purposes. The source(s) of that income is already enumerated. Thus, enforcement of the law is as easy (for the government) as catching a tax cheat.

 

[Krisken]

Everyone already has to report income for tax purposes. The source(s) of that income is already enumerated. Thus, enforcement of the law is as easy (for the government) as catching a tax cheat.

My point is, it's not cheating if it is explicitly written in the contract to allow for it.

 

[GasBandit]

My point is, it's not cheating if it is explicitly written in the contract to allow for it.

Contracts that are in violation of law are, by definition, not lawful contracts.

 

[Krisken]

Contracts that are in violation of law are, by definition, not lawful contracts.

Gas, I am an independent contractor. I get paid per paper delivered depending on the size of the paper. I'm telling you flat-out this law you propose is IMPOSSIBLE to make apply to all contractors/employees.