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Greenspan Talks Economics on Hardball

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-16 3:30

Greenspan Talks Economics on Hardball
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=e6ed2f93-a265-433d-bd08-45ee090e6edc

Greenspan talks about current issues such as Medicare, The Fairtax, Taxes, and the current state of our economy.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-16 6:11

Mike Gravel is so right on issues like the Fairtax.
http://www.gravel2008.us/issues.php

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-16 6:28

>>2
Close, but not quite right.

Abolish the IRS, replace with nothing.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 9:14

Fantastic, but the libfags will never permit the fairtax to pass.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 9:59

>>4

The Fairtax makes the assumption that those who are in higher income brackets buy more "stuff" than people who are not.

I'm not sure how this claim is to reassure the average political consumer that this plan will work as it is already the case that the rich avoid excessive taxes via loopholes and lawyers.

Who is not to say that the fairtax in implimentation will be shielded from this overarching control they have on how much of their money will go toward state policies?

Everyone seems against taxes, but those people who are against taxes are most assuredly the ones who will be calling the fire department should a room in their house catches fire -- and I assure you of that.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 10:54

>>5
Fairtax would make loopholes fewer more difficult to exploit and get away with. Quit coming up with retarded excuses to maintain the huge size of the state libfag.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 12:02

>>5
Nobody is objecting to the fire department.  What a fucking lame objection to a tax proposal.  In addition, fire departments are funded at the STATE level, not the FEDERAL level.  The Fairtax is a FEDERAL proposal.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 14:50

>>7

So how will we buy all these bombs and shit?

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 14:55

Rich people SHOULD be taxed more.  A flat tax would disproportionately target the poor.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 15:17

>>9
it's not a 'normal' flat tax, it's a flat sales tax. Rich people buy more, so they'd have to pay more. (though they don't buy proportionally much more than poorer people, a poor person may use 95% of their income on consumption and living, it is not the same for rich people)

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 15:35

>>10

that's what i'm saying.  a poor person might spend 95% of his income and thus be taxed on 95% of his income.  a rich person might only spend 50% of his income, and thus only be taxed on 50% of his income.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 16:17

>>11
The goods and services poor people use would be taxed proportionally less than the goods and services rich people use. A poor person goes to the market and buys fruit, fish and vegetables from a stall. A rich person drives across town to a posh restaurant which imports crabs from alaska and wine from Burgundy. They are not just more expensive, they require more state services per $ to obtain and thus the rich pay more tax as long as they are more of a burden on the economy.

If the rich don't take from the economy and instead re-invest their money then there is no reason to tax them. Likewise the poor can make savings to send their kids to college without the taxman pinching a slice.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 17:13

>>12

you're ignoring my point.  someone who makes $20,000 a year is probably going to spend 95% of it.  even though they're not quantitatively paying as much in taxes as a rich person, they are paying more as a proportion of their overall earnings.

This would make it EVEN HARDER for the poor to save money.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 17:29

>>6

Flat tax supporters are fucking retarded, like this one. Our current progressive-tax system also started with a few loopholes and the amount of exceptions grew overtime. Even with a flat tax system, there will be more exceptions in the future because rich people will always find a way to save a buck.

The only incentive for not exploting this system as much is the fact that the rich awill save a shitload under this system, you dumb fuck. Also, flat tax never worked in any places that it was implemented in.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 17:31

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 19:11

>>13
It is only a flat tax if everyone buys the same things in the same amounts. The state expenses needed to secure the transfer of potatoes to walmart is astronomically less than the expense needed to ship Mercedes' from Germany.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 19:14

>>13
If their tax was fair then their costs could be lowerred as much as 8% for the same standard of living. Assuming VAT is around 17.5% and they spend 50% of their income on groceries that need next to no state services to get them into walmart.

>>14
It is only a flat tax if everyone buys the same things in the same amounts. The state expenses needed to secure the transfer of potatoes to walmart is astronomically less than the expense needed to ship Mercedes' from Germany.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 22:33

although its an interesting idea, lets look at the expenditures overall:

6-7% sales tax local level
+17% national income tax

Firstly, this would reduce the overall tax on poor people, if we look at the average household paying something like 30% tax.

However, the rich are taxed upwards of 35%. Plus, its a known fact that most money that the rich has is "invested" which usually means its sitting in a trust fund somewhere. This money doesn't change hands often, if ever, and the growth of the trust fund only benefits those that do invest.

The problem is that too many of the rich in this country are not spending enough, or that the places they do spend have little to no "trickling down" throughout society.

Social Security is fine, the US would do a whole lot better if we cut some of our ridiculous defense budget.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-18 23:33

>>18

but today poor people only pay about 10% national income tax.  so a flat tax would increase their burden

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 0:40

Isn't it funny that almost all Libertarians were born into wealth?

I can remember one Objectivist female who I made the honor of meeting by giving an argument of relativism to which she reacted with disgust. Sure enough upon inquiry, the girl was from a Prep School background with parents who are loaded with money.

Libertarians/Objectivists, it would serve your interests further if all of you weren't born into wealth and use the position of the "Free Market (TM)" to maintain your caste.

That fucker William F. Buckley Jr. is the most prominent example I see of this shit. Come a socialist revolution, William F. Buckley Jr. (that Corporatist hack) will not be received well, as with all of the Libertarian and Objectivists who believe the "Free Market (TM)" to be a leveled field where the work you put in is the reward you receive (total bullshit).

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 0:47

>>19
Yes, BUT, the cool thing is that the poor would get a rebate back for the taxes they spent on food, clothing, and medicine back. Since poor people aren't buying much else besides necessities, this helps them get out of the tax.

So this isn't so bad of an idea, it simplifies the tax code down, the only problem is we still need to curb government overspending in areas.

If medicare was reformed or destroyed and replaced with a national health program, I'd be happy. We also need to do away with our Cold War level defense spending. If we cut out that and focus on paying back our national debt, we could institute a lower tax in the future to keep our budget balanced.

Unfortunately, I think that the US should get Nationalized health services, but we could only afford it if we reduced the amount we were spending on the national debt. we need to curb our spending and get out of the hole before we start any new programs.

Name: RedCream 2007-10-19 0:52

Why the fuck does anyone actually believe that the elite want a simpler tax code?  The more complicated it gets, the more loopholes that their accountants can take advantage of.  THEY can afford accountants and brokers and lawyers and investment bankers to find each and every little way to avoid taxation.  YOU, on the other hand, can't, hence the system is quite simply designed to push off more tax burdens upon you.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 7:54

>>18
>>19
>>21
You are not looking at the whole picture. These problems are too complex for the human mind to calculate the perfect answer so we use statistics and empirical study to form solutions, this is all the think tank did, implement scientific method. You are fixating on just a few factors when there are much more important and obvious factors in view.

Firstly most people are rich because they use their money to make money thus earn more than their salaries.

Secondly, because tax would be added into the cost of certain products rather than the exchange of money, the businesses rich people own and invest in would see a decrease in profits whilst having to keep wages above the cost of the new products.

Consider a bar graph with these 3 bars.

1: Company revenue, capital. People who own this capital can withdraw it to spend it on luxuries or re-invest it. As profits go down a higher proportion is re-invested.
2: Average middle/low earner salaries. Salaries subtract from profits. Salaries need to be higher than production costs
3: Average middle/low earner production costs. Production costs subtract from profits.

Notes: I am using only middle and low earner's products and salaries to prevent confusion. Profits used to buy luxuries can be considerred the salaries of the rich.

In a fairtax economy all tax would be added to production costs meaning profits will be reduced. Because wages need to be higher than production costs they would need to increase further cutting into profits. As a result the tax burden would be subtracted entirely from salaries.

Before you suggest that a company could choose to reduce wages to make up for the shortfall instead of accepting lower profits consider the fact that the wages a workforce demands is correlated with their standard of living the cost of which is determinned by production costs and the marketability of their skills. If the company could give it's workers a lower standard of living it would have done so already, as a result it has no choice but to increase wages in relation to the new cost of the same standard living.

>>20
If you read the above it is obvious to see that the people in this think tank are of far superior critical thinking and analysis skills than socialist intellectuals. They are not deluded rich boys (in fact many are women who succeeded through merit and not feminism), no one cares about "this one time" when you spoke to a random retarded objectivist on the internet. Besides your entire ideology and beliefs are bullshit anyway, the workers of the world want to follow intelligent charismatic leaders into a thriving economy not to be ruled by a bunch of goateed coffee house types.

>>22
That's all well and good 900 years ago or in Iran (same thing?), but one of the requirements to becoming a member of the elite in America is to dangle your balls precariously above the bear trap of public opinion. Granted the public are infested with fickle whims and can't think properly but this arrangement is nowhere close to the level of corruption needed for every member of the elite to be in on this, it is unfeasible. Rather we have a situation where different groups push for specific laws that provide loopholes rather than an all consuming jewspiracy.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 7:58

>>18
>>19
>>21
Oh and bear in mind that because the tax burden has been lifted from salaries a slightly higher proportion can be saved. Also because companies no longer have as much profit for investment, mutual funds will provide better deals to extract capital from the workforce to use. Finally because average consumer goods require astronomically less state regulation than expensive luxuries, middle/low income earners will be paying a lower proportion of their money in tax. If a rich person decides to live a middle class standard of living, whilst having a net worth of $2000000, although he is paying less tax he is taking less from the economy yet serving it to a greater extent than a common technician. So until he decides to splash out on luxuries he doesn't deserve to pay any more tax.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 13:50

The thing with a state founded only with fairtax is that it only works in a world where more or less everything is privaticed, since the state won't have as much weight to throw around. If you don't want a state(or lack of same) like that, then a fairtax simply wouldn't provide with enough funds for the state.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 13:56

you know what would be better than fucking with the tax code?  cutting the military budget by half!  we could lower taxes and still have a surplus.  but then all those rednecks would wonder where their precious blood-money welfare is

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-19 15:04

>>26
What about America?

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-24 22:03

>>26
Yeah, I mean, who needs a military, right?

>>25
Yes it would.  The only problem is getting the 'political will' to get it passed.. something we don't presently have.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-24 22:16

>>25
If another country attempts mercantilism then they might be superior in one sector of the economy but at the expense of the rest, even if that sector scores them a lot of profit they will be more dependant on foreigners propping up the rest of their economy and as a whole they will lose out. If the US sets the example quickly a culture will arise which views mercantilism and state monopolies as corruption and these practices will diminish to but a few enclaves.

>>28
Ron Paul 2008

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-25 14:19

>>29

wrong.
Like communism, the free market/nightwatcher-state will only work if the entire world does it at the same time.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-25 15:14

>>30
(not 29)
Like communism, the free market/nightwatcher-state will only work if the entire world does it at the same time.
Not at all. Communism would only work if the entire world does it at the same time because it is fucking ridiculous and wouldn't work properly in a family, not to mention a country and because any competition would crush it down like the shit-system it is.
A free market state can compete with the mixed systems of today just fine.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-25 16:06

>>30
If it is wrong it should be easy to prove it is wrong. I'll wait until you complete this simple task.

>>31
Truth. The free market is about competition, if one country starts corrupting their economy they lose out as a whole. Only in the most extreme examples can one country use mercantilism to gain an advantage over another and the advantage is risky and only temporary.

Name: Anonymous 2007-10-25 23:23


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