Greece Riots!

[Nocte]

Here is a short news story, I wrote up for a class of mine on what's happening in Greece. My teacher wanted me to write a story on Whitney Houston with the rest of the class, to which I said fuck that. I could give two shits less about Whitney Houston.

Many of you probably don’t know that Greece’s economy is a lot worse then ours is, and the people of Greece are really suffering. The country owes a massive amount of debt, sound familiar?

Well, just like our government bailed out the banks and auto industry the EU is now having to bail out Greece, and this weekend the EU voted on a bailout plan, and when the Greek people heard the news they began to protest. Peacefully at first of course, but sooner or later the anarchist showed up and started throwing gasoline bombs into buildings and just doing their whole anarchist thing of creating chaos.

The New York Times said, “About 150 stores were vandalized and looted, and about 45 buildings — including neo-Classical structures, two historic movie theaters, banks and cafes — were seriously burned, many beyond repair, according to the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry.”

Well some of you may ask why are the people of Greece rioting? I mean after all the EU is bailing them out!

Well, this bailout calls for cuts in the wage of the people, dropping month pay from 751 euros to 500 euros ($1000 to $795), and allows employers to cut new employee’s pay by 10%. The people are getting less and less, and now to fix the problem their government has to cut even more.

For the time being all we can do is sit back and watch and hope that our government leaders don’t make the same mistakes that Greece’s did and allowed themselves to be crushed by their debt.





http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/02/14/greece-riot-photos-protesters-rage-against-austerity.slide3.html

[Silko]

Well we have already been bailed out by Israel. So lord knows wtf is going to happen next with these dipshits in our congress. The only thing that gets a full bipartisan vote anymore is increasing the wages of Congress members. They even go ahead and do a 2/3 vote on it after the President votes it. (Happened back in both Obama's and Bush's Presidency) This pic pretty much sums it up

http://files.enjin.com.s3.amazon aws.com/120052/module_gallery/original/353680.jpg

I believe these figures are now out of date (by out of date I mean the debt is even bigger) but the pic serves its purpose

[VerbotenDonkey]

Foreshadow to our future.

[Nocte]

Just add another Trillion to our national debt >.<

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

Please tell me you aren't just now hearing about the Greece Riots?

[Mythonian]

Obama's newly proposed budget plan:

Raise taxes
Add debt
???
Profit

[Blackhawk570]

Obama's newly proposed budget plan:

Raise taxes
Add debt
???
Profit


Number 3 is to increase Lemonade Stands by 600%

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

Obama's newly proposed budget plan:

Raise taxes
Add debt
???
Profit


Every republican:

1. Fuck everything up
2. Ban Gay's rights
3. ???
4. Profit off war.

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

Obama's newly proposed budget plan:

Raise taxes
Add debt
???
Profit


Every republican:

1. Fuck everything up
2. Ban Gay's rights
3. ???
4. Profit off war.

[Mythonian]

Every republican:

1. Fuck everything up
2. Ban Gay's rights
3. ???
4. Profit off war.

Wars stimulate our economy more than any other time. WW2, for example, brought us out of the Great Depression. Because everyone had a cause and decided to actually do something instead of complain to the government, like everyone does now.

Conservatives:

Reduce entitlements (free health-care, and other stuff that we don't need)
Find tax equilibrium (Economic classes touch on the subject, but basically, more taxes does not mean more revenue)
Promote business by reducing corporate taxes (which creates jobs, by the way)
Lessen gun laws (how can you complain about that?)
Profit.

[Nocte]

Myth that was in a total war state, the wars we are fighting now aren't anything like World War II. Hell the soldiers come home and wonder why the fuck we are over there. The wars we fight now, stimulate nothing, but politician's and corporations who produce war materials pockets.

@Funk As for the Greece riots, nah I mean this said riot is new. However I knew Greece's economy was in the shitter.

Back @ Myth. Politicians whether Conservative or Liberal still find a way to fuck everything up. Republicans had their chance under Bush and nothing got done expect for wars and this countries debt rising to over a fuck ton....

Obama can't do a damn thing right now because those bastards we call a Congress all vote partisan instead of trying to fix this country.

Myth I can tell your a Republican though, because of how you said Obama's plan and then the Republicans plan.

Lessening gun control is fucking stupid. We need to update the Bill of Rights. (Reason why we can create New Amendments) The 2nd Amendment needs to include legitimate testing and no one who was a past criminal or who is deemed mentally insane should be able to own a gun and those tests have to occur every year.

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

The riots were going on for months now as well man.

[Spartanbh]

1. Put Jew in Office
2. Economy jumps up
3. ???
4. Everyone is happy and has money

[Blackhawk570]

1. Put Jew in Office
2. Economy jumps up
3. ???
4. Everyone is happy and has money

LOL

[Nocte]

1. Put Jew in Office
2. Economy jumps up
3. ???
4. Everyone is happy and has money

QFT!

[UNLUCKY NUM13ER]

^ Myth you never stop amazing me lol.

[Mythonian]

Myth that was in a total war state, the wars we are fighting now aren't anything like World War II. Hell the soldiers come home and wonder why the fuck we are over there. The wars we fight now, stimulate nothing, but politician's and corporations who produce war materials pockets.

@Funk As for the Greece riots, nah I mean this said riot is new. However I knew Greece's economy was in the shitter.

Back @ Myth. Politicians whether Conservative or Liberal still find a way to fuck everything up. Republicans had their chance under Bush and nothing got done expect for wars and this countries debt rising to over a fuck ton....

Obama can't do a damn thing right now because those bastards we call a Congress all vote partisan instead of trying to fix this country.

Myth I can tell your a Republican though, because of how you said Obama's plan and then the Republicans plan.

Lessening gun control is fucking stupid. We need to update the Bill of Rights. (Reason why we can create New Amendments) The 2nd Amendment needs to include legitimate testing and no one who was a past criminal or who is deemed mentally insane should be able to own a gun and those tests have to occur every year.

1. I never intended to imply these pseuo-wars in the middle east. I don't even consider it a "war" at all, just glorified "peacekeeping" mixed with feeble attempts to hold a share in oil reserves. The only economic relation they have is causing the middle east governments to hate us and charge us more for oil. The real "cost" in money is minimal. The military would cost the exact same if all the troops were back home.

2. Indeed. I agree that politicians screw things up. Which is why I don't usually vote for full-fledged politicians. I heavily prefer people with either business or military backgrounds. For example, Herman Cain was a prominent businessman who had turned corporations around and made significant profits, and I felt that he would be capable for doing it to the whole country as well.

However, I am not a Republican by heart. I am rather conservative in most areas, but I hate Republican politicians about as much as I hate Democratic or third-party politicians.

3. "Obama can't do a damn thing right"... lol. 100% of every single thing that he has proposed to Congress has been stupid, and I thank Congress for not passing each and every one. Obama is more a politician than anyone else I've seen in office this millennium, and he hasn't proposed a single thing which would help this economy or the country.

His failure has nothing to do with Congress's voting patterns. Please give me an instance where something he proposed would have been "good" and was stopped by Congress, because every single thing I've seen him do was propose plans which would only increase our debt, raise taxes, promote class warfare, or lead toward socialism. Please, give me an exception.

I hate Obama because he is a stupid politician who is screwing up this country, not because he is democratic. His liberalism I somewhat oppose, but I try not to lead into social issues much.

4. Any full-fledged "criminal" or whatever wouldn't care if they have a "permit" or not. In fact, if I remember correctly, the majority of all gun-related crimes are committed by people who have a gun, but never have a valid permit or anything, so passing laws would prevent effectively nothing, and would only prevent people from having guns in self-defense.

Also, I'm pretty such that there are conditions which make you ineligible for weapon permits, including insanity. As I said earlier, I don't care a whole lot for social issues, and I consider this a social issue, sort of, so I never really looked into it.


^ Myth you never stop amazing me lol.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s206/Mythonian/lawl/1222057924648.jpg

[Silko]

Agree completely with you Myth on the gun issue. Congress how ever I do feel that most of them are completely out of base with what the voters want.



Conservatives:

Reduce entitlements (free health-care, and other stuff that we don't need)
Find tax equilibrium (Economic classes touch on the subject, but basically, more taxes does not mean more revenue)
Promote business by reducing corporate taxes (which creates jobs, by the way)
Lessen gun laws (how can you complain about that?)
Profit.


I feel that several members of the Republican party have forgotten these issues (The real republican ideals) and they are just going for knee jerk reactions by saying "I'm a true Christan and I believe in God and if you don't listen to me your going to hell" and other stupid things like that. Media has however NOT helped with this issue. When it comes to social issues I often disagree with republicans simple because let people do what they want as long as it follows law (Ex: Gay marriage, abortion etc) I am not a Democrat. I am a liberal moderate. I do have some conservative beliefs but if you had to put it on a graph call me a liberal moderate. I do believe that the Bush Tax cuts are fucken stupid. I feel that people Romney are paying in the same tax brackets as people who live off min wage is wrong. I feel we need to both budget cuts and increase taxes. We should have followed Keynesian economics like we were before we started going to supply side economics. That in my opinion fucked us. We can't have this half and half system its killing us

[Mythonian]

I feel that several members of the Republican party have forgotten these issues (The real republican ideals) and they are just going for knee jerk reactions by saying "I'm a true Christan and I believe in God and if you don't listen to me your going to hell" and other stupid things like that. Media has however NOT helped with this issue. When it comes to social issues I often disagree with republicans simple because let people do what they want as long as it follows law (Ex: Gay marriage, abortion etc) I am not a Democrat. I am a liberal moderate. I do have some conservative beliefs but if you had to put it on a graph call me a liberal moderate. I do believe that the Bush Tax cuts are fucken stupid. I feel that people Romney are paying in the same tax brackets as people who live off min wage is wrong. I feel we need to both budget cuts and increase taxes. We should have followed Keynesian economics like we were before we started going to supply side economics. That in my opinion fucked us. We can't have this half and half system its killing us

Well, the reason so many Republicans have strayed from their party ideals (and the same for Democrats) is because it increases their likelihood of getting elected. That is all a politician cares about, so I'm not at all surprised to see it, and it's been happening for awhile.

However, I disagree with you on Bush's tax policy. A lesser-known fact: Bush actually had the highest tax revenue in history. Even with all of his tax cuts and everything, he brought in more revenue to the government than any other president has in history. (and that is all adjusted for inflation, too).



The reason his tax system was effective was because taxes and revenue are not proportional. Increasing taxes does NOT always give you more revenue.

It is actually a parabolic curve, and has a peak where you get the highest revenue. After that, increasing tax rates actually decreases how much revenue you get. Here is how it looks:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6xKnC2gQqCk/TJji--D5SQI/AAAAAAAAAK8/dlo6TSWq5Xo/s1600/laffer-curve1.jpg.gif

(NOTE: the midpoint of the tax rate is not equal to 50% in most situations, especially real-life).


I'll give an example: Iceland during the 1990s and 2000s.

Iceland had a corporate tax rate of 45%.

They decided to phase in cuts in that until it got to the current rate of 18%.

That's a HUGE decrease, isn't it?

In the process, though, their revenue from corporate income taxation [B]more than doubled.

Many government officials there still think the equilibrium is even lower, and a proposal to reduce it to 10% is under consideration.


But why did reducing taxes from 45% to 18% double their revenue? Well, because they were well past the equilibrium.


Now how does Bush relate to this? Well, he, after looking at historical data, decided that reducing taxes would yield more revenue, and he was right. Because of that, he had the highest revenue in history.


A lot of people think he was stupid and such, but he had brilliant advisers and had some economic policies which were excellent, including many of his "tax breaks".




And now, a bit about our own tax system:

Our corporate income tax is a progression tax system. Here are the details (courtesy of Wikipedia):





$0 to $50,000

15%


$50,000 to $75,000

$7,500 + 25% Of the amount over 50,000


$75,000 to $100,000

$13,750 + 34% Of the amount over 75,000


$100,000 to $335,000

$22,250 + 39% Of the amount over 100,000


$335,000 to $10,000,000

$113,900 + 34% Of the amount over 335,000


$10,000,000 to $15,000,000

$3,400,000 + 35% Of the amount over 10,000,000


$15,000,000 to $18,333,333

$5,150,000 + 38% Of the amount over 15,000,000


$18,333,333 and up

35%





It varies from 15% to 39% (plus a fixed value). It is a marginal tax system as well.

Now compare that to Iceland's corporate tax rate.

What do you think would happen if we reduced the corporate tax rates a bit? Well, it wouldn't double our income, but some economists predict that if it's adjusted appropriately, it could yield up to a 25% increase in revenue from corporate income taxation.


And I'm not even going to go into the rest of our tax system... But just realize that increasing taxes does NOT mean more revenue. For most cases, decreasing taxes would be the best bet.

[end economic-focused rant]


Well, why don't they change it? Don't they realize that it would single-handedly allow for a balanced budget and for us to begin fixing our national debt?

Well, they have people telling them this. They have economists on staff which will say so instantly. So why don't they?

Well, it's because of the first statement I said in this post: [B]they only want to be reelected.

If someone came and suddenly sliced taxes in half, the other party would be crying that they reduced taxes on the rich and that they are putting the burden on the poor (by the way, that is completely false; the rich already pay the majority of taxes to the government).

So, every blue moon someone actually adjusts the tax system a bit, and in Bush's case it helped. However, Obama is too focused on getting reelected (every speech he's gave since the State of the Union address was 100% a campaigning speech, and he never proposed real solutions to problems), so he is trying to raise taxes on the rich, raise capital gains taxes from 15% to 44.6%, and adjust numerous other taxes.

Basically, he is raising taxes so that:

Investing is less profitable.
Corporations don't want to employ people in America.
Rich people want to move to another country.
The government makes even less revenue than it does now
The national debt increases even more

Can someone tell me how that is a good idea?


I'll just leave with this...
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s206/Mythonian/lawl/p_0_2.jpg

[Nocte]

I will agree that raising taxes creates less revenue, because that means that people will spend less. They have less money, and I will agree that Obama is just another politician turning our election process into another gameshow. But hey all of the front running Republicans are doing it too, so it must be cool! (*facepalm*)

Sure the man had a lot of revenue, but under him our debt was raised to a fuckton. Yay deficit spending!

Well I agree Obama isn't doing much, I do like what he wants to do. I'll leave it at that because I can't find any proper news story, and I'm doing homework.

As for taxes, the reason why taxes are raised on the rich is because taxes are based on what you make. If the rich had the same tax rate as the middle or lower class, they wouldn't pay there fair share out of what they make. Simply because they can put money in off shore bank accounts.

Trickle-Down economics doesn't work anymore, because; 1. We don't have as many jobs in the U.S. funded by massive corporations. 2. The rich just want to get richer.

Don't get me wrong, trickle down economic is a great economic policy, but it doesn't work anymore and it hasn't for awhile.

Now on to Socialism.

Mythonian from past posts I can tell you really don't like socialism, and I have to ask why? I feel that creating a social-capitalist economy for this country would be a good thing. Lets face it, this country isn't about the "hard working American" anymore. The technology is here, and we need to focus on making all of our children smart not just a few. The only thing is that the people have to step up and start regulating the government like they are suppose to in this country.

We also need to get rid of the electoral college. It's a crock of shit and is another thing that takes away from the democracy we are suppose to have.

[d3ad1te]

Wars stimulate our economy more than any other time. WW2, for example, brought us out of the Great Depression. Because everyone had a cause and decided to actually do something instead of complain to the government, like everyone does now.

Conservatives:

Reduce entitlements (free health-care, and other stuff that we don't need)
Find tax equilibrium (Economic classes touch on the subject, but basically, more taxes does not mean more revenue)
Promote business by reducing corporate taxes (which creates jobs, by the way)
Lessen gun laws (how can you complain about that?)
Profit.


Everything sounds good except for the gun laws.

the majority of all gun-related crimes are committed by people who have a gun, but never have a valid permit or anything, so passing laws would prevent effectively nothing, and would only prevent people from having guns in self-defense.
This is a common misconception. Just started taking criminology, teacher is a police officer. There was this old guy in my class. He's in the Army. Tried to argue about handgun laws. Teacher destroyed him.

More regulation on guns, less regulation on drugs.




Also you can't even compare today's wars to WW2. WW2 was the birth of the military industrial complex. Also myth I guarantee you it would cost much less to keep the troops at home. Just look at how much the military's budget has increased over the past decade.

[Mythonian]

I will agree that raising taxes creates less revenue, because that means that people will spend less. They have less money, and I will agree that Obama is just another politician turning our election process into another gameshow. But hey all of the front running Republicans are doing it too, so it must be cool! (*facepalm*)

Sure the man had a lot of revenue, but under him our debt was raised to a fuckton. Yay deficit spending!

Well I agree Obama isn't doing much, I do like what he wants to do. I'll leave it at that because I can't find any proper news story, and I'm doing homework.

As for taxes, the reason why taxes are raised on the rich is because taxes are based on what you make. If the rich had the same tax rate as the middle or lower class, they wouldn't pay there fair share out of what they make. Simply because they can put money in off shore bank accounts.

Trickle-Down economics doesn't work anymore, because; 1. We don't have as many jobs in the U.S. funded by massive corporations. 2. The rich just want to get richer.

Don't get me wrong, trickle down economic is a great economic policy, but it doesn't work anymore and it hasn't for awhile.

Now on to Socialism.

Mythonian from past posts I can tell you really don't like socialism, and I have to ask why? I feel that creating a social-capitalist economy for this country would be a good thing. Lets face it, this country isn't about the "hard working American" anymore. The technology is here, and we need to focus on making all of our children smart not just a few. The only thing is that the people have to step up and start regulating the government like they are suppose to in this country.

We also need to get rid of the electoral college. It's a crock of shit and is another thing that takes away from the democracy we are suppose to have.

1. No, Bush did not raise our debt notably. Here is a graph (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Federal_Debt_1901-2010_.jpg).

2. Rich people wouldn't pay their fair share? You realize that if we are talking about "fair", that means that the top 1% richest people should pay 1% of the total taxes. However, currently, the top 1% pay about 40% of the total taxes. Please tell me how the hell that is "fair"??? And what is the problem with reducing that to 35% or something? Seriously... {2005 link (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gcA0ZuKGkI8/TSSCpSscTBI/AAAAAAAAJjM/aAjwo8ZPY8s/s640/federal+income+tax+distri bution.gif); latest I could find}

3. The reason why there aren't as many jobs funded by massive corporations is because of the raised taxes! They can make a much larger profit when employing people from other countries, and that is a valid business model, and I don't hold it against them. If our government pushes the business away, it is the government's fault. And they've pushed many businesses away because of the high taxes.

Think about the Iceland issue. They now have a 18% corporate tax rate. For a larger corporation, ours is in the 30%-39%. Why would they stay in America!? They would be stupid if that didn't affect them.

So, if we reduce our corporate tax rates, they would partially come back, create more jobs, improve the economy, and increase government revenue.

4. Socialism (just like pure democracy) is not a viable methodology for a successful economy. It cannot be sustained and leads to nothing but strife and suffering. I don't see how you can even consider this... >.>


Everything sounds good except for the gun laws.

This is a common misconception. Just started taking criminology, teacher is a police officer. There was this old guy in my class. He's in the Army. Tried to argue about handgun laws. Teacher destroyed him.

More regulation on guns, less regulation on drugs.


Also you can't even compare today's wars to WW2. WW2 was the birth of the military industrial complex. Also myth I guarantee you it would cost much less to keep the troops at home. Just look at how much the military's budget has increased over the past decade.

Can you elaborate on the guns a bit? I don't really see the logic, and if I've had a misconception, I'd like to understand the truth.

In the post after I said that, I stated that I never intended to imply that the current "war" we are in is comparable.

And I agree with you on less regulation for drugs. A good portion of them just don't make sense.

[d3ad1te]

What my teacher led me to believe was that concealed weapons don't deter crime. It may increase it and has only led to complications in his field of work.

One of his examples was comparing Seattle to Vancouver. Both in similar geographical areas with similar population sizes. The only difference was Seattle's crime rate was much higher than that of Vancouver's.

In Canada the regulations on Handguns are much tougher which is probably one of the major causes of their lower crime rate.


So banning guns isn't the issue, we just need stricter control. It's very hard to get a handgun in Canada(compared to US) and even harder to get a license to transport it.


So maybe misconception wasn't the right word but it seems to me that we need more control... not less.

[Mythonian]

What my teacher led me to believe was that concealed weapons don't deter crime. It may increase it and has only led to complications in his field of work.

One of his examples was comparing Seattle to Vancouver. Both in similar geographical areas with similar population sizes. The only difference was Seattle's crime rate was much higher than that of Vancouver's.

In Canada the regulations on Handguns are much tougher which is probably one of the major causes of their lower crime rate.


So banning guns isn't the issue, we just need stricter control. It's very hard to get a handgun in Canada(compared to US) and even harder to get a license to transport it.


So maybe misconception wasn't the right word but it seems to me that we need more control... not less.

I've never really looked into it much, but you urged me to try to do a bit of research.

After 15 minutes reading a few different websites, I found this site (http://hematite.com/dragon/reasons2own.html) quite interesting.

The combination of reading a book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (I recommend this book) and reading the above-linked website (in addition to about 4 other websites), I disagree with your assertion that increased gun control reduces crime rates.

However, this is an issue that would be debated continually, so maybe this would deserve a separate thread, since this thread is mostly on economic issues. I appreciate hearing the other side of the argument, though, and actually getting me to research it a bit, it was enlightening.

[Maxdoggy]

Mythonian for President in 2036 (or whatever year is closest, lol)?

Either you run or I will. I agree with you on like everything. :P

[Nocte]

Myth they left not because of the taxes, but because they pay the Chinese pennies for the dollars they pay Americans!

Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with why they are over there, instead of here!

As for their fair share, no I don't mean the 1 % pay one percent. That isn't even how our tax system works, once again you pay taxes on how much you make and if you have a flat rate of 35% of your income from lower to upper class. The lower and middle class will have to pay that 35% of their income, while the upper class would pay around 25% of their income because they can put money overseas where it can't be taxed.

As for the national debt, heres my graph. http://zfacts.com/sites/all/files/image/debt/US-national-debt-GDP.gif

Obama hasn't done anything to lower the debt, but look at what he has to work with. The only jobs he can create are government jobs which means more government spending.

As for gun control and such, Dead1te is dead on.

Ontop of that how can you even try to argue with his example? It isn't possible, stop trying to find answers when they're right in front of your face.

Now onto your number 4. Thats why I said Social-Capitalism. Not just pure socialism. Having some competition is very good. Removing it completely would be fatal to this nation.

[Fuzzy]

Mythonian for President in 2036 (or whatever year is closest, lol)?

Either you run or I will. I agree with you on like everything. :P

^This^! We either elect Myth as the American President or we have him closely advise the President.

[d3ad1te]

We could start a thread if you like.Anyway crime has decreased drastically since the 1990s which was the height of crime. But mentally unstable people such as this... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Lee_Loughner)are the problem. How could they let this man get a gun? He couldn't even hold down a job and was disqualified from the Army(unfit for service)

Anyway I knew a student from Greece. Said he got out of their before the shit hit the fan. Corrupt politicians put them in the shitter.

[Mythonian]

Myth they left not because of the taxes, but because they pay the Chinese pennies for the dollars they pay Americans!

Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with why they are over there, instead of here!

As for their fair share, no I don't mean the 1 % pay one percent. That isn't even how our tax system works, once again you pay taxes on how much you make and if you have a flat rate of 35% of your income from lower to upper class. The lower and middle class will have to pay that 35% of their income, while the upper class would pay around 25% of their income because they can put money overseas where it can't be taxed.

As for the national debt, heres my graph. http://zfacts.com/sites/all/files/image/debt/US-national-debt-GDP.gif

Obama hasn't done anything to lower the debt, but look at what he has to work with. The only jobs he can create are government jobs which means more government spending.

As for gun control and such, Dead1te is dead on.

Ontop of that how can you even try to argue with his example? It isn't possible, stop trying to find answers when they're right in front of your face.

Now onto your number 4. Thats why I said Social-Capitalism. Not just pure socialism. Having some competition is very good. Removing it completely would be fatal to this nation.

1. On the taxes: I never said a 35% flat tax. I said reducing the top 1% from paying 40% of all taxes (that is not a tax rate). Currently, the marginal tax rate goes as high as 35%, which is crazy. There is no reason for it. If it was reduced to 25%, the government would make more money.

And even if the rich put some of their money overseas, that is completely unrelated. That money is still taxed by whatever other country it is put in, and you have no logical basis for that. And also, we DO tax part of it. There is a tax that we have for foreign-based income and finances that any US citizen owns. Look it up.

And anyway, they do that to reduce their taxes (because our 35% tax is insane), so if we reduced that to 25%, they wouldn't put so much money overseas.

2. I think you misunderstand our economy a bit. In this modern age, it is a global, interconnected economy. We cannot be isolated from the rest of the world, and every action we take is in direct competition with every other country on this planet.

And if we make poor decisions, we will suffer for it.

Corporations are out to make a profit, just like everyone else. If (1) others offer to work for less, (2) we tax them to reduce their profit, and (3) we have unions that make it even less profitable for them, then what do you expect to happen? Should they just deal with it and lose profits? That makes no sense!

If someone is going to do anything at all, they need incentives. And if we have high taxes and unions, that is an incentive NOT to do it. Unions drive up prices and disrupt the demand/supply equilibrium. I can go on and on about these economic theories, but if we want to create jobs, we need to alleviate these negative incentives.

And you know what, Obama would be able to do that. But does he? No, he actually increased them to push businesses even further away. You say he doesn't have much to work with, but he was given every opportunity to do pretty much everything. When he got into office, the Democrats had control of the Congress and he was free to propose anything at all, but still never did a single thing that would actually help anything, and instead added the most debt out of any president in a single year in our history.

3. I lol'ed so hard when I saw that debt graph. And then I did a Google search and saw about a thousand other variations which vary from insanity to semi-insanity. It seems no one can agree on how to do debt vs GDP calculations. Lol.

Nonetheless, though, I never intended to defend Bush. I only said he knew that lowering taxes increases revenue. Which is true. And which would help get the economy back on track if it was done today.

4. If Obama would stop wasting money on foolish entitlements and such, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with him. However, he wastes billions of dollars doing things that any economist would tell him are foolhardy, naive, and won't help the economy at all. Please, explain why he does that.

5. Don't use a straw-man argument, please. As I said, gun control isn't an economic issue. We can argue about that in another thread, and I'll show you the logic then.

6. What possible compromise between socialism and capitalism would be wholly beneficial to the economy? Do you consider what we currently have to be a form of social-capitalism? (it sort of is, and that is part of the reason our economy isn't as strong as it could be, but I'll get into that later)




Also, on a side note, do you know how many times the Constitution contains the word "democracy"? ;)

[Nocte]

1. That 1% makes the most money and it makes sense for them to pay, I mean after all you don't need millions of dollars to live... Besides that I do recall many of people in that top 1% wanting to be taxed. But we both agree lower taxes means higher spending rates. As for off-shore banking accounts, sure they get taxed, but not like they do here. In fact places like the Caribbean didn't or don't tax at all right now or before. So those accounts are completely safe.

2. I understand our economy is global, things aren't black and white anymore.

I agree unions are bad, because it is a thing that is greatly ruining our education system.

As for Obama I don't know why I'm defending him, I really don't like him. At the same time the only Republican I would vote for is Ron Paul and he isn't even close to winning the election. (From what I've read Sanctorum has taken lead.....)

3. Ya I think I even saw two different looking graphs on the same wikipedia page >.<

4. I guess I kinda fell trap to Obama's State of the Union, because I've been very optimistic with him. Really kinda of boning me...

5. Shoot (http://fcwars.net/forums/showthread.php?5168-Gun-Control&p=59175#post59175), no pun intended :p

6. Like I said, the school system. We need to socialize it, because we are trying so hard to pass as many students as possible. A socialistic approach to that would be good, however need to keep the capitalistic competition so that the intelligent students can excess further. (Sidenote I would love to have a more freedomfied <-- My word :p version of China's education system. Where they find what you're good at and then teach you that the rest of your schooling. Only we get to choose that profession in High School. So me wanting to be a Journalist can take more English classes and less Math classes.

As for the word "Democracy" in the Constitution, I don't know if you mean it as a joke. Because we aren't a Democracy, we are a Republic and if you want you can call it a Democratic Republic.

[Mythonian]

1. That 1% makes the most money and it makes sense for them to pay, I mean after all you don't need millions of dollars to live... Besides that I do recall many of people in that top 1% wanting to be taxed. But we both agree lower taxes means higher spending rates. As for off-shore banking accounts, sure they get taxed, but not like they do here. In fact places like the Caribbean didn't or don't tax at all right now or before. So those accounts are completely safe.

2. I understand our economy is global, things aren't black and white anymore.

I agree unions are bad, because it is a thing that is greatly ruining our education system.

As for Obama I don't know why I'm defending him, I really don't like him. At the same time the only Republican I would vote for is Ron Paul and he isn't even close to winning the election. (From what I've read Sanctorum has taken lead.....)

3. Ya I think I even saw two different looking graphs on the same wikipedia page >.<

4. I guess I kinda fell trap to Obama's State of the Union, because I've been very optimistic with him. Really kinda of boning me...

5. Shoot (http://fcwars.net/forums/showthread.php?5168-Gun-Control&p=59175#post59175), no pun intended :p

6. Like I said, the school system. We need to socialize it, because we are trying so hard to pass as many students as possible. A socialistic approach to that would be good, however need to keep the capitalistic competition so that the intelligent students can excess further. (Sidenote I would love to have a more freedomfied <-- My word :p version of China's education system. Where they find what you're good at and then teach you that the rest of your schooling. Only we get to choose that profession in High School. So me wanting to be a Journalist can take more English classes and less Math classes.

As for the word "Democracy" in the Constitution, I don't know if you mean it as a joke. Because we aren't a Democracy, we are a Republic and if you want you can call it a Democratic Republic.

Yes, the top 1% should pay a good portion of the taxes. However, my only point is that their 35% income tax rate is causing them to want to leave the country, which should make it obvious that it's too high. If we want to compete in the global economy, we need to be willing to actually compete.

The way that companies and businesses compete is by making higher quality products and by charging lower prices. However, we as a country are increasing prices (high income taxes) and punishing successful corporations (high corporate taxes and unions).

If we want to fix the economy, the first and quickest way to do it is to reduce taxes and regulate unions.



I also don't like the Republican nominees very much. xD It's like trying to choose "who will screw up the least" because every one of them is a politician. Which is why I preferred Herman Cain.



I actually think the opposite of the school system. I think removing the socialization would be best. Currently, we are too focused on getting everyone to pass and not focused enough on letting the highest tier students succeed. But maybe that's just me, because I'm one of those guys that has been limited because the public school system doesn't like people who are too smart.



On the democracy part, I was intending to respond to this (since I apparently missed it the first time I read it):

We also need to get rid of the electoral college. It's a crock of shit and is another thing that takes away from the democracy we are suppose to have.
1. As you said, we are a Republic, and the electoral college is there because of that.

2. In my personal opinion, 99% of the people in this country (and in fact on this planet) are completely stupid. Therefore, I disagree with removing the electoral college and giving those 99% even more control over our government... >.>

[Nocte]

I completely agree with the education going to a more competitive structure, where the top tier people get the most out of their education. Only we have NCLB, which is a goddamn disgrace to the education system. I have kids who purposely fail out of actual school, just to go the board where they take easy tests online and only go to school for four hours a day, and they get their diploma that way.

You can't fight the fact that we need more intelligent people in this country, so socializing the education system so that all people can get a high quality education would be the best. The competitive system is dead and gone, no matter how badly people like me and you want it back. So we have to do something to ensure that students in primary education get all of that knowledge. Parents want their kids to succeed, but they want it to be easy on them in school.

If it was up to me I wouldn't worry about academics, and focus more on real world applications. Teach students how the world is, not teach them one thing and them push them off into another. If you take a High School Econ class I can guarantee they won't tell you, how difficult the actual world economy is to understand. They will give you this dumbed down version of it, and pass it off as you no know how the economy works. (Haven't take Econ yet, but am this year.) Why don't we teach Economics in school like we do Science or Math? I love Science, but I could give two shits less about Biology. I really like Chemistry and I can't wait for Physics.

But this is another issue :p Maybe I'll create another topic.

[Mythonian]

I completely agree with the education going to a more competitive structure, where the top tier people get the most out of their education. Only we have NCLB, which is a goddamn disgrace to the education system. I have kids who purposely fail out of actual school, just to go the board where they take easy tests online and only go to school for four hours a day, and they get their diploma that way.

You can't fight the fact that we need more intelligent people in this country, so socializing the education system so that all people can get a high quality education would be the best. The competitive system is dead and gone, no matter how badly people like me and you want it back. So we have to do something to ensure that students in primary education get all of that knowledge. Parents want their kids to succeed, but they want it to be easy on them in school.

If it was up to me I wouldn't worry about academics, and focus more on real world applications. Teach students how the world is, not teach them one thing and them push them off into another. If you take a High School Econ class I can guarantee they won't tell you, how difficult the actual world economy is to understand. They will give you this dumbed down version of it, and pass it off as you no know how the economy works. (Haven't take Econ yet, but am this year.) Why don't we teach Economics in school like we do Science or Math? I love Science, but I could give two shits less about Biology. I really like Chemistry and I can't wait for Physics.

But this is another issue :p Maybe I'll create another topic.

I completely agree that we need more intelligent people, but I disagree on the method of achieving it. However, like you said, it'd be best to do that in a different thread.


Basic Economics classes, for the most part, review general Economic models and theories. While it doesn't usually go into the finer details and minutia of the economy, the theories and models are still valid, so I think you underestimate the quality of the class.

(I can't truly speak about high school economics classes, since I've never taken any, but the above is true for college-level economics classes at least).

[Silko]

Thank god I took college level macro Econ in High school or I would be able to follow any of this lol

But you really should take Econ. It helps ALOT