Politics for dummies

[Maturin]

That's quite a progressive tax system there WW. The UK Conservatives or any of the current US presidential candidates, excluding Trump and Sanders, would never go for it as such a system would discourage all those idiots who class themselves as early adopters - think throwing out your year old iPhone in order to by the latest slightly better one. Fashion would take a hit, car sales etc. Virtually any big business that has either planned or unavoidable obsolescence built into it's products would suffer as the majority of people will be encouraged to hold on to their already bought goods or repair them.

I'm totally in favour of such a system for those reasons, the potential to save the enviroment by lowering the amount of shit we buy is huge but income tax as a concept works fine.  It is supposed to be paid by everyone yet the only reason it doesn't work as it should is the tax breaks that our governments give to large companies and individual wealthy people.  If we all were equally liable to pay our tax then there would not be an issue.

[TBG 150]

You have a very valid point there. But here in the US, the government gives away free money every year to those that squeeze out as many babies as they can in the form of exemptions. Take John and Jane Doe for example. More likely they are not a couple anymore, so they get more free money being single with the kiddies in tow. Jane has a job at the local fast food place making $9.00/hr. At the end of the year she has amassed a whopping $12,000 for her efforts. But she has 5 kids to feed. Her employer dutifully took out of her paycheck the 15% to cover her income tax, Medicare and Social Security Taxes. This totals up to $1800. Take the 25% off for the SS and Medicare and Jane has paid $1350 in income tax for the year. There are no refunds for SS and Medicare, only Federal Income Taxes.

 

Jane files her tax return at the end of the year claiming 6 exemptions. Herself and her 5 kids. The government allows for $3000 for each exemption. I'm not sure of the exact figure, but I think it's up to $3G's now per person. This is $18,000 just in exemptions. Not a bad haul for only grossing $12,000 for the whole year working. Now each one of these kids qualifies Jane for $XXX amount of dollars in Food Stamps, Welfare, Housing and whatever else they are given. There is so much I've given up paying attention to it. Instead of stopping at the initial amount of $1350 which Jane paid in taxes in the first place, she's given quite a tidy sum to go squander as she sees fit. Where is the logic and economics in this? Where is the incentive to get a job?

 

The Democrats want to give the poor more incentive to do nothing while Trump wants to faze all the entitlement programs out and put them back to work. I'm not saying I like Trump, I was just using him as an example. But if business was brought back to our country and given the so called tax breaks to get the populous employed again, the country and the business wins. Having businesses like General Electric paying NO taxes is absurd. Taxing people that got a business built by dedicating their younger lives to that business and making it a successful business instead of going to parties is also absurd. Just because they made it in life means they have to carry the dreges on their backs? I don't call that fair either. And the ability to 'write off' corporate yachts and jets as a business expense is plain ridiculous. Everyone leases cars now because it's a write off if you form an LLC for a few hundred dollars. That's a free car. All you do is pay gas and maintain it for the duration of the lease.

 

The flat tax or fair tax has everyone paying in no matter their status on the ladder. Everything you buy now has a tax attached to it. We are eliminating one tax which isn't fair (income) and implementing another which is more fair across the board. You still have to pay taxes in order to operate the government, maintain the roads and provide emergency services. It's just that with the fair tax everyone pays, not just select few and the government does have to pay out for welfare babies.

 

If you can't feed them, don't breed them.  

[Maturin]

These Panama papers leaks are exactly what I'm talking about.  There's  an estimate from them that around 21-31 trillion dollars are held in tax free offshore bank accounts.  Now that's 3,000 dollars per person not just for every American but for every single living person on this planet.  Now, I'm not saying that that money should be dolled out to everyone.  I'm not against individual wealth but these earnings should be taxed at the rate applicable to the countries these people live in.  Only this won't happen because these are the very people, national leaders and opinon makers who make the rules of the game up to suit themselves and keep us down. We allow ourselves to be divided by the sideshows of race, nationalism, left, right, religious belief and all the rest whilst the true enemies of humanity, the enemies of the planet and the enemies of our very future continue to hide away the wealth of our labour. When are we going to say enough is enough?

[Thestarider]

And for those who buy into this crazy global warming theory, and that polar ice caps are melting away and the ocean is going to swallow up our coastal cites. 

 

Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat

Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, totalpolar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

The timing of the 1979 NASA satellite instrument launch could not have been better for global warming alarmists. The late 1970s marked the end of a 30-year cooling trend. As a result, the polar ice caps were quite likely more extensive than they had been since at least the 1920s. Nevertheless, this abnormally extensive 1979 polar ice extent would appear to be the “normal” baseline when comparing post-1979 polar ice extent.

Updated NASA satellite data show the polar ice caps remained at approximately their 1979 extent until the middle of the last decade. Beginning in 2005, however, polar ice modestly receded for several years. By 2012, polar sea ice had receded by approximately 10 percent from 1979 measurements. (Total polar ice area – factoring in both sea and land ice – had receded by much less than 10 percent, but alarmists focused on the sea ice loss as “proof” of a global warming crisis.)

 

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

While the Antarctic sea ice yearly wintertime maximum extent hit record highs from 2012 to 2014 before returning to average levels in 2015,

 

A 10-percent decline in polar sea ice is not very remarkable, especially considering the 1979 baseline was abnormally high anyway. Regardless, global warming activists and a compliant news media frequently and vociferously claimed the modest polar ice cap retreat was a sign of impending catastrophe. Al Gore even predicted the Arctic ice cap could completely disappear by 2014.

In late 2012, however, polar ice dramatically rebounded and quickly surpassed the post-1979 average. Ever since, the polar ice caps have been at a greater average extent than the post-1979 mean.

Now, in May 2015, the updated NASA data show polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 average.

During the modest decline in 2005 through 2012, the media presented a daily barrage of melting ice cap stories. Since the ice caps rebounded – and then some – how have the media reported the issue?

 

[moibidule]

1 hour ago, Thestarider said:

And for those who buy into this crazy global warming theory, and that polar ice caps are melting away and the ocean is going to swallow up our coastal cites. 

 

Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat

Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, totalpolar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

The timing of the 1979 NASA satellite instrument launch could not have been better for global warming alarmists. The late 1970s marked the end of a 30-year cooling trend. As a result, the polar ice caps were quite likely more extensive than they had been since at least the 1920s. Nevertheless, this abnormally extensive 1979 polar ice extent would appear to be the “normal” baseline when comparing post-1979 polar ice extent.

Updated NASA satellite data show the polar ice caps remained at approximately their 1979 extent until the middle of the last decade. Beginning in 2005, however, polar ice modestly receded for several years. By 2012, polar sea ice had receded by approximately 10 percent from 1979 measurements. (Total polar ice area – factoring in both sea and land ice – had receded by much less than 10 percent, but alarmists focused on the sea ice loss as “proof” of a global warming crisis.)

 

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

While the Antarctic sea ice yearly wintertime maximum extent hit record highs from 2012 to 2014 before returning to average levels in 2015,

 

A 10-percent decline in polar sea ice is not very remarkable, especially considering the 1979 baseline was abnormally high anyway. Regardless, global warming activists and a compliant news media frequently and vociferously claimed the modest polar ice cap retreat was a sign of impending catastrophe. Al Gore even predicted the Arctic ice cap could completely disappear by 2014.

In late 2012, however, polar ice dramatically rebounded and quickly surpassed the post-1979 average. Ever since, the polar ice caps have been at a greater average extent than the post-1979 mean.

Now, in May 2015, the updated NASA data show polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 average.

During the modest decline in 2005 through 2012, the media presented a daily barrage of melting ice cap stories. Since the ice caps rebounded – and then some – how have the media reported the issue?

 

Ostrich policy

 

[albacore]

On 4/2/2016 at 2:40 PM, Maturin said:

That's quite a progressive tax system there WW. The UK Conservatives or any of the current US presidential candidates, excluding Trump and Sanders, would never go for it as such a system would discourage all those idiots who class themselves as early adopters - think throwing out your year old iPhone in order to by the latest slightly better one. Fashion would take a hit, car sales etc. Virtually any big business that has either planned or unavoidable obsolescence built into it's products would suffer as the majority of people will be encouraged to hold on to their already bought goods or repair them.

I'm totally in favour of such a system for those reasons, the potential to save the enviroment by lowering the amount of shit we buy is huge but income tax as a concept works fine.  It is supposed to be paid by everyone yet the only reason it doesn't work as it should is the tax breaks that our governments give to large companies and individual wealthy people.  If we all were equally liable to pay our tax then there would not be an issue.

I agree that ALL should pay some tax. Many people not just corporations pay no federal tax. They should pay some tax too.  I like the idea of a flat tax personally.  However, if the government and politicians only budget for expected revenues it would help a lot too. Right now the budgets have no relations to expected revenue - just cover what they want to spend it on.  If we as individuals did this we would all be bankrupt and in jail!  And the USA is not the only country in this situation.

[Thestarider]

Down votes for the truth LOL, I have no doubt the earth is warming, but it has not affected the arctic or antarctic ice caps as the scare tactics of politics would have you believe. The weather is cyclical, normal warming and cooling. If there is any real credence to the global warming theory it would be because the over population of our planet, I worked for one of those now bankrupt so called green energy companies, that as soon as the governments money that supported this company was cut off, in two years time went from being a company of 29,000 employee's to insolvency. and Spain's largest business failure to date. These green energy companies can not show a profit on their own without billions and billions of taxpayer money, Yes you would buy into this insanity, and continue to overtax the middle class of the world to death to pay such. I just have one thing to say (Brainwashed) by the politicians and the establishment. If Hillary goes into the White House, we will have four more years of the ice cream truck handing out the ice cream for free. and the middle class of the world will pay for it, not gain from it.