The Rich Are Superheroes, it's that simple! - Page 3

I imagine you are right. But...be careful...


Do you see the leap you just made?

Nope!

ANY crime has a bearing on the persons potential performance. They've already shown that they are willing to commit a crime. Stealing form their place of employment would also be a crime... something they've shown they are willing to do...

Yes, I see the leap I've made, but from the point of view of an employer, it's a valid leap.

Oh is the "desperation and poverty causes crime" hypothesis. Pay up or "hide your kids hide your wife".

Do you know what percentage of felons are thieves or embezzlers? What about the pot smokers? What about the forty year-old man who spray painted a wall when he was 20?

I've got the poverty causes crime hypothesis and you've got the 'give more money to rich people and they will raise salaries and hire more workers' hypothesis. Only mine has never been proved to be a failure.

And for you it's "taking less money from the rich is akin to giving money to them". Unless you haven't been paying attention the "poverty causes crime" hypothesis is on the ropes.

Yes there would be. What wage would those people be employed at with a minimum wage law?

The US federal government is expected to run a deficit of about $1.6 TRILLION in 2011. If you took every single dime of profit from every corporation in the Fortune 500, you would get only about $300 BILLION. It's clear that spending is the problem.

Exactly.

It doesn't matter how much is taken in in the form of taxes, or who it's taken from. The government feels obligated to spend every penny they bring in and then some.

We could be taxed at 100%, the federal government could bring in 10 trillion in tax revenue per year (made up number), and they would then spend at LEAST 10 trillion +1 dollars. Guaranteed.

Until they are forced (by constitutional mandate) to have a balanced budget, I don't see this pattern changing. The problem is, the very people who like spending all that money (and the power it garners them) are the ones who have to introduce a balanced budget amendment... so they've no motivation to do it.

Go for annihilation my assumptions and false facts. Have fun with that.

Your link refers to ALL corporate profits (which it lists at about $1.2 TRILLION). I referred only to the Fortune 500. The budget deficit is correct...$1.6 TRILLION.

So...if you not just raised taxes or "made corporations pay their taxes"...but took every single dime of corporate profits in the US...you would get closer to balancing the budget. In theory you would reduce the deficit to $400 BILLION ($1.6T - $1.2T).

Of course this kind of action would destroy the economy...but hey, in theory, the budget would be balanced. This is only theory of course. When confronted with the confiscation of every dime of their profits, how many of those corporations would chose to stay in business?

It is clear that government spending is the problem.

So, you're saying spending is NOT the problem ??

Well I'm guessing, like many big government supporters, he probably does think that. But I suspect he's wrapped up in a mis-reading of my post in which I mentioned only the Fortune 500 profits, while he posted a link to total corporate profits. My argument still stands of course...but this will not be admitted by any of our "soak the rich" and "tax the corporation" friends.

No it wouldn't. If you actually eliminated the loop holes and, effectively, raised corporate profit tax rates...there will be less profit to tax*. Which will lead to less (not more) tax revenue. I can almost guarantee this.

If you understand that the more you tax something, the less of it you'll get and the more you subsidize something, the more of it you'll get, the things you see happening will make more sense.



And the entitlement and welfare programs also.


*The tax accountants at all companies will find any number of ways to hide profit from taxation.

I don't think corporations should be allowed to keep any profits... what do they need them for anyway??? ... Every dime they bring in over the cost of doing business should be given to the government.
Same goes for people... nobody should be allowed to keep more than, say, $40,000 per year in pay or any other source of income. ANY person making more than that should have to give everything over 40k to the government. All those "impoverished" people manage to live on much less than that, and why should anyone else be better off than them?? ... It's only fair.

Some idiots dealing in absolutes once again...

Would we expect anything else?

So what makes YOUR arbitrary line in the sand any better than someone else's?

The last 30 years of history and how the poor in the US have NOT been helped despite letting the rich and corporations keep more money (and giving some of them free money). The fact that the countries with the lowest poverty level in the world are the countries with the highest level of social assistance. That's what.

Explain how the poor have not been helped in the US.

The poor have been helped. What you and I call poor are not really that bad off. Nations that have truly poor people look at our poor and wish they were that well off. Talk about being out of touch with reality. In a nation this size there are those that slip through the cracks. Yes it does happen and yes, it is heart breaking. But there is no way to ensure that this will never happen, just like there is no way to ensure that people will not cheat the systems that are there to help such a person who actually needs it.

But it is more fun to pretend that those who disagree with you ares heartless and cruel people who salivate at the opportunity to starve entire families to death. right? \

There is just as much poverty now as there was in the US before Reagan. That's how. I'm not talking about a changing definition of poverty. I'm talking about the fact that there are just as many homeless as there were before. There are just as many jobless head-of-households as there were before, and those people are struggling to put food on their table and clothe their kids just as much as they were before.

It's not from lack of trying. We have 50 years or so of social engineering and little to show for it. How's that different than any other country? Europe has a larger social safety net and higher unemployment especially among the young. Should we model them?

And we have 30 years of voodoo economics and nothing to show for that.

They have zero poverty in several countries yet there are still some people who can afford yachts and villas on Lake Geneva. So I say, "yes, we should."

Oh... and they have next to no violent crime.

um... which countries would those be???

The first question probably should be if this statement is based on a consistent, objectively measurable definition of poverty across all areas. My guess is it's not but, rather, probably based on self-reported government statistics that vary in each country.

A good example of this is infant mortality. The US takes a lot of grief from the left for this...but it turns out that the US is much more strict in how they measure and report this than other countries which makes the numbers look higher.

Well, try Denmark, for one. Not exactly zero violent crime, but less than half what the US has.

Have you been to Europe, MJ? Seriously. Have you been to a social democracy? Ever?

I'm interested in this. Have you got a link? Preferably not one by a self-proclaimed "conservative think-tank". Thanks.

I trust what you say might be true to some extent, but to an extent like maybe 10% difference. Show me how this is not the case.

Is this your attempt at mis-direction from dealing with a perfectly reasonable, logical and sensible question: Are the claims of "no poverty" based on the same, objective measure for every area where this claim is made?



I don't have a link handy and don't have the time at the moment to Google it. But I've read this multiple times. Basically the US declares a live birth at an earlier point in time...basically as soon as the baby exits the womb...no matter how premature, and even if there are very slight signs of life. Then, if this baby dies it is counted as a live infant death.

Many other (developed) countries have a different standard where pre-mature that die are not counted in the same statistic...or a baby that dies within several days are not counted.

I have no idea how much of a difference this would make in the overall statistics. It would be impossible to know unless you were counting all of this and looking at how different the statistics look. But I can say this the US infant mortality rate is around 5 or 6 per 1000 live births compared to the best in the world which is about 2 or 3 per thousand live births.

Comparing infant mortality rates:




The whole point of this is if you are trying to compare "poverty rates" (or any other statistic) among regions or countries, you need to be sure you're measuring it the same way in all areas. I'm not confident this is happening.

This might give you some perspective on what I'm talking about> Just one example:


I'm not a statistician or demographer, but if I were trying to create an objective measure of poverty I would start with some things like:

- earned income equal to or higher than personal spending
- ability to afford from self-earned income (i.e., without charitable or government assistance) enough food to satisfy basic housing, clothing and nutritional needs

Note that this doesn't necessarily mean they are actually spending their money well, it merely means that they could afford to have the things they need from their income. For example there might be some who don't appear to be able to afford food, clothes, housing, etc. but have XBoxes, cell phones and iPods. There's soda and chips in the house but not good, nutritional food. Like that.

This issue of poverty is much more complicated with many facets and many causes (some external, some internal) than many seem to realize. Comparisons are especially difficult. All of this is made much more difficult by the sloppiness and looseness with which this subject is discussed in the media and political realms.

Denmark in the US?

So you're retracting your previous statement ?

While I've never been to Denmark, I have been to more western European countries than not... I see the same poverty in their cities that I do in any U.S. city. They have the same dangerous neighborhoods to avoid that U.S. cities do. In practice, I fail to see any truth in your statement of zero poverty or crime.

Me neither. I've lived in LA and New York and traveled around all over the country, including the South and Midwest. I've also been to a dozen countries in Europe, and not just the "tourist spots". I've never seen as much homelessness as I've seen in the US. I've never seen soup kitchen lines around the block anywhere in Europe.

I think people in the US are really living in denial about American poverty. It's the innocent monkey syndrome. See no poverty, hear no poverty, speak no poverty. And then they blame the factual statistics (that can be observed if they simply look around) on reporting.

Note to self: Remember to use casual anecdotal observations instead of carefully researched data and reports when drawing conclusions about things that happen in the world. \

Nice try. You're the one who says we can't use the UN data; we can't use WHO data; we can't use internationally accepted standards like GINI. In response to that we're just saying look around.

Nice try. I haven't said any such thing. I merely suggested caution when using statistics that appear to be reporting the same things (because they use the same words) but may in fact be reporting different things or reporting the same things differently. A wise person would try to be aware of these differences and realize when they are comparing apples and oranges.

This is not at all the same as what you just said.

The statistics may be valid and useful but may present problems in making direct comparisons.

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