Greece Riots!

[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:

1. Reduce entitlements (free health-care, and other stuff that we don't need)
2. Find tax equilibrium (Economic classes touch on the subject, but basically, more taxes does not mean more revenue)
3. Promote business by reducing corporate taxes (which creates jobs, by the way)
4. Lessen gun laws (how can you complain about that?)
5. 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.

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; 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 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/im...l-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... 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/im...l-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, 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.