conservation of Euros

[JosephKK]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:04:22 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.
Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

Gosh, are your savings all that significant? Don't you pay (an ever
increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference.


The difference is this: Yes, I do save for retirement. And yes, one has
to make sacrifices to do that.

So do I.

Such as not buying a new car every five
years.

Let's see, my car is model year 1994, bought used. Do you want to
continue?

As said several times this money _has_ already been taxed. So if
the income of the paycheck-to-paycheck guy gets taxed only at
consumption he has only paid tax once.

Same for me. You have not made a case for yourself yet.
This hypothetical person does not exist yet.

I have then paid twice. That is
simply unfair.

A. Life IS unfair.

B. I would be in the same boat. Pretty much only kids would "benefit"

Are you really thinking CA will give up their "normal" sales tax? You
must be dreaming ...

It'll also lead to tricks that people play. Lots of Europeans who must
pay a painfully high VAT come to the US and buy tons of stuff.
Electronics, clothes, you name it. If they manage to sneak it past
customs when going back home the vacation they enjoyed was often largely
"free".

SO NOT NEWS. 'Murcans do it too.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:29:11 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 15, 12:18 am, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 21:26:28 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.

The point is that that money has already been taxed.  It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht.  Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).

As I suggested, eliminate income taxes and go to sales tax. Then
things are only taxed once.

You're missing the point.  Those millions of people who have saved all their
lives will be taxed a second time.  They've *already* been taxed on that
money.

The defense the Fair Tax people offer is that it really isn't an
increase at all--you're already paying that 2nd tax today. It's
hidden in the price of everything you buy.

How so? Inflation? That increases investment values, as well.

The price of anything always includes all the taxes--ihe income, SS,
Medicare, and other taxes--paid by the people who made it. Take those
out and the price of goods will fall.

Sure, but the *INCOME* tax has been paid and the new sales tax will also have
to be paid. Without the change, there isn't a second tax on the income. Yes,
the "fair" tax will include the income tax of the people paying now, but it
will also increase the real cost of the product the same as another income tax
would on the buyer.

The Fair Tax--now separated and out in the open for all to see--is
simply the tax which you would've paid before anyhow, but without
knowing it.

No, it's not. Yo can't tell me that money that has already been taxed has the
same value as money that hasn't. Which would you rather have, $1M in an
conventional IRA (no tax yet paid), or $600K ($1M after tax) in a Roth, when
they change the tax to a consumption tax?

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:20:36 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 16:00:15 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 13:54:00 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.


Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

Gosh, are your savings all that significant?

Many do have significant savings over their lifetimes. Having enough to live
on the rest of their lives, isn't uncommon.

Actually it is quite uncommon according to BLS data.

Balloney.

Don't you pay (an ever
increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference.

Compound interest tends to cancel inflation.

Not all that well. It really fell behind during Carter era.

And has recovered, quite nicely. You can prove any crackpot theory you want
if you cherry-pick the data. It's called a "lie".

Interestingly, credit card rates never came back down.

Not so interestingly, it's completely irrelevant, particularly to this
discussion (millionaires tend to not pay credit card interest).

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Mon, 17 May 2010 00:10:33 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
<mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

"krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote:

Where have the aliens taken Slowman?


Who cares, as long as they don't bring him back.

....but what did they leave it it's place?

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:41:10 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 16, 10:38 pm, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:03:01 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.

The point is that that money has already been taxed.  It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht.  Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).

So, i am not the only one to notice the recent attacks on them for tax
money.  I know people who have actually had attempts to tax their Roth
IRA savings.

Do you have more information on this?  I know it's been rumored that the
Demonicrats want to seize all IRAs, but I've seen nothing about it already
occurring.

I think the buzzword is "GRA" or something like that. Guaranteed
return annuity. Basically, give Obama your IRA today, and he'll
gladly pay you back Tuesday with interest.

The chatter is this as a way of refinancing our debt. That is, 38% of
the national debt comes due this year, and if the Chinese won't buy
it, Mr. Obama will have to get it somewhere pronto, or we default.
So, the reasoning goes, why not nationalize--excuse me, 'reform'--a
few trillion in IRAs?

It probably won't go anywhere--it's an election year, and, besides,
the euro's collapse is driving everyone into dollars.

But, a government that can make you buy its crappy health insurance
can make you buy its crappy bonds. So, maybe next year, or maybe in
five or ten.

Maybe in five or ten I'll have moved it into my mattress.

 

[JosephKK]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 19:05:54 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 14, 2:31 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk
wrote:
On 14/05/2010 06:16, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

   Of course Marx himself was a n'er-do-well who never earned his keep,
a pseudo-academic parasite sponging off patron Engels.  Engels in turn
coasted off the family business.  Marx made his living guilt-tripping
Engels with econobabble, a fine tradition carried on by Marxists
today.

Engels saw first hand what greedy industrialists were doing to their
workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. Boiler explosions were
commonplace up until the Vulcan insurers made a stand and insisted on
proper boiler safety inspections. And in cases of tampering with safety
relief valves they would not pay out.

It was common practice to overstoke the fire before the first shift and
add weight to the pressure relief valve - this resulted in several large
scale boiler explosions destroying big mills in the early morning and
killing many workers in the Lancashire cotton industry.

Destroying your factory is a bad business model. That quickly self-
limits. Besides, nowadays we sue or jail those people. Too much, in
fact.

http://www.camdenmin.co.uk/technical-steam/historic-steam-boiler-expl...

Articles on the history of boiler insurance show that the US had a worse
record despite having the advantage of seeing the innovations in UK
boilers. Some element of NIH played a part but mostly it was that
industrialists greed was paramount and the workers powerless. eg.

http://www.casact.org/pubs/proceed/proceed15/15407.pdf
first page and page 7 under Normal Loss Hazard

Interestingly and ironically enough, that emphasizes the need to
identify defects and eliminate high risk insureds to minimize
underwriting loss rates.

"Experience has also shown that the scientific examination and
inspection of insured boilers produces a
declining loss ratio."

   "To each according to need" really means "From you to me."  "Dear
Fred, I need that grocery money, and I deserve it, luv Karl, xoxoxoxo
P.S. Stop exploiting me! KM"

It makes reasonable sense to pay your workers a living wage for the work
that they do rather than pay them less than they can sensibly live on.
Ford was about the first in the USA to actually do this.

In the UK there were some decent industrialists mostly of quaker
families who did treat their workforce fairly - examples include some
household names like Pilkingtons, Cadbury, Bournville, Marks&Spencer.

But most of the rest were complete bastards who built large factories
and employed the equivalent of bonded labour stuck very high density
slum housing. It was not surprising that unions were formed in some
cases the manager really did hold the whip hand - literally.

As John pointed out, that was a transient effect, an unusual, historic
dislocation. Machines meant that few could farm what had previously
required the toil of many. So there were lots of workers looking for
work.

Short term, that's painful. Long term, that's creative destruction,
society re-allocating resources from something no longer needed, to
something people do want and need.

Would it have been better to destroy the farm equipment that made
growing food so easy, or the mills that made clothing cheap for
everyone? Or go the Obama way--carve up the factory and give it to
the workers? Divvy up the greedy farmer's land? That makes factories
disappear and farms go fallow (witness Zimbabwe).

The dislocation at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution was
especially traumatic since motive power meant so many human-muscle-
powered occupations were displaced at the same time. Would it have
been better to keep them all in subsidized green jobs making wagon
wheels with sustainable, carbon-neutral technology, as they were,
after all, before steam?

No. Pre-steam life was NOT carbon neutral. That is one of the myths
used by liberals.

Longer term, profitable business attracts competition. Outrageous
profits are almost never sustainable for that reason. Competitors
have to compete for workers, with both wages and conditions.

Sharing the wealth? That comes immediately through cheaper goods,
making it easier and cheaper to live, and through better wages and
working conditions with time, as described above.

Everyone wins. And yes, the industrialist does very well for a time--
there's a phase delay. That's his reward. Take it away, and he won't
do it at all.

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:09:07 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 15, 9:27 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 10:52 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:29:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 5:18 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 9:51 am, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:16:49 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those
with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load.

Right.  That's how the Little Red Hen got a hold of all the other
animals' bread, greedy thing that she was.  She had broad shoulders.

This falls a
long way short of Marx -

Marx was kind of an idiot.

"The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e.,
that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely
requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer."
  --The Communist Manifesto

 See what I mean?

Yeah, he wouldn't understand a female plumber making $150K.

What created our modern wealth was engineers applying science.

Yep.  They made machines to relieve human toil, to improve the human
condition.

Evil capitalists.  Marx the Moocher should've stopped 'em.

Some of the capitalists were quite evil, as Martin Brown has pointed
out elsewhere in this thread. Trade unions were one of the mechanisms
that reigned in the greedy, evil, short-sighted minority.

No. Competition did.

Comptetion was one of the other mechanisms, once anti-trust
legislation had forced the greedy, evil and shorted sighted
capitalists to compete rather than conspire.

Conspiring is harmful. Why, though, is it bad for capitalists, yet
infinitely good for labor?

Conspiracies among competing capitalists are inherently unstable. Like
OPEC, the players have competing interests; squabble, the alliances
fall apart, and they resume competing for advantage. It's a beautiful
thing.


James Arthur

So we don't so much need anti-trust laws, as long as murder is
illegal?

John

 

On May 16, 8:53 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 15, 11:05 am, Greegor <greego...@gmail.com> wrote:
On May 14, 4:49 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

The Bolshevik version of Marxism, with its emphasis on the "leading
role of the party" has damaged a lot of countries, and killed a lot of
people.

The problem isn't with Marxism, but the concentration of power
into the hands of an unrepresentative and irresponsible elite -

Like politicians, whom you'd have save us all with their wisdom.
Socialism inevitably degenerates into tyranny. (That's what's
happening here, as we lose civil and economic rights.)

the
Communist party in Stalin's Russian, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's
Cambodia killed a lot of people, but the Nazi Party in Hitler's
Germany, the Fascist parties in Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain
weren't far behind, despite their violently anti-Marxist ideologies.

You say violently anti-Marxist, but Fascism is just government control
of industry, instead of socialism's government ownership of same.
Fascism is just socialism, leveraged.

What?  Your GOD didn't foresee the greedy
limitations in the real world?    An ACADEMIC??  Nah.

That Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot used Marx's writings to justify
mass murder doesn't say much about Marx,

To say that, you haven't understood the first word of his Manifesto,
which advocates nothing less.


"The Communists are further reproached with desiring to
abolish countries and nationality."
(Which, Marx then acknowledges, is his goal.)

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest,
by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize
all instruments of production in the hands of the state,
i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and
to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as
possible.

"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected
except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of
property, and on the conditions of bourgeois
production; by means of measures, therefore, which
appear economically insufficient and untenable, but
which, in the course of the movement, outstrip
themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the
old social order, and are unavoidable as a means
of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

"These measures will, of course, be different in different
countries."
--The Communist Manifesto

Marx speaks of the need of separating children from their families,
husbands from wives, of destroying nations and their cultures,
eliminating all old morality, law, and religion, and seizing and
socializing (spreading) the wealth of nations.

That's the very recipe Pol used in his pot. Of course it's all just
despotism and tyranny, under color of morality. Econobabble,
rationalizing self-interest. Like Al Gore's ecobabble.

Marx was an idiot--a dangerous idiot--and a blowhard.


James Arthur

 

On May 15, 9:27 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 14, 10:52 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:29:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 5:18 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 9:51 am, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:16:49 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those
with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load.

Right.  That's how the Little Red Hen got a hold of all the other
animals' bread, greedy thing that she was.  She had broad shoulders.

This falls a
long way short of Marx -

Marx was kind of an idiot.

"The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e.,
that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely
requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer."
  --The Communist Manifesto

 See what I mean?

Yeah, he wouldn't understand a female plumber making $150K.

What created our modern wealth was engineers applying science.

Yep.  They made machines to relieve human toil, to improve the human
condition.

Evil capitalists.  Marx the Moocher should've stopped 'em.

Some of the capitalists were quite evil, as Martin Brown has pointed
out elsewhere in this thread. Trade unions were one of the mechanisms
that reigned in the greedy, evil, short-sighted minority.

No. Competition did.

Comptetion was one of the other mechanisms, once anti-trust
legislation had forced the greedy, evil and shorted sighted
capitalists to compete rather than conspire.

Conspiring is harmful. Why, though, is it bad for capitalists, yet
infinitely good for labor?

Conspiracies among competing capitalists are inherently unstable. Like
OPEC, the players have competing interests; squabble, the alliances
fall apart, and they resume competing for advantage. It's a beautiful
thing.


James Arthur

 

On May 15, 12:18 am, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 21:26:28 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.

The point is that that money has already been taxed.  It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht.  Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).

As I suggested, eliminate income taxes and go to sales tax. Then
things are only taxed once.

You're missing the point.  Those millions of people who have saved all their
lives will be taxed a second time.  They've *already* been taxed on that
money.

The defense the Fair Tax people offer is that it really isn't an
increase at all--you're already paying that 2nd tax today. It's
hidden in the price of everything you buy.

The price of anything always includes all the taxes--ihe income, SS,
Medicare, and other taxes--paid by the people who made it. Take those
out and the price of goods will fall.

The Fair Tax--now separated and out in the open for all to see--is
simply the tax which you would've paid before anyhow, but without
knowing it.

James Arthur

 

On May 16, 10:38 pm, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:03:01 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.

The point is that that money has already been taxed.  It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht.  Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).

So, i am not the only one to notice the recent attacks on them for tax
money.  I know people who have actually had attempts to tax their Roth
IRA savings.

Do you have more information on this?  I know it's been rumored that the
Demonicrats want to seize all IRAs, but I've seen nothing about it already
occurring.

I think the buzzword is "GRA" or something like that. Guaranteed
return annuity. Basically, give Obama your IRA today, and he'll
gladly pay you back Tuesday with interest.

The chatter is this as a way of refinancing our debt. That is, 38% of
the national debt comes due this year, and if the Chinese won't buy
it, Mr. Obama will have to get it somewhere pronto, or we default.
So, the reasoning goes, why not nationalize--excuse me, 'reform'--a
few trillion in IRAs?

It probably won't go anywhere--it's an election year, and, besides,
the euro's collapse is driving everyone into dollars.

But, a government that can make you buy its crappy health insurance
can make you buy its crappy bonds. So, maybe next year, or maybe in
five or ten.

James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 16, 1:11 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested  nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's).
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.
Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.
Do pay attention:

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears....

Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."

It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently.
It's still a collective decision.

So, what exactly does "state-backed" mean in your opinion?

That the individual states guarantee that their particular portion of
the loan will be paid by that particular loan if Greece goes bankrupt?
What else would it mean?

Your notion that "The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece" will IMHO not come to pass.

You are making a prediction, based on the little you know about the
situation, heavily influenced by what you've read in the US mass
media. As opinions go, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.

They are unlikely to be able to fix the
damage that living beyond their means for years has done.

Why? The US - which has been running a hugge balance of payemnts
deficit since Regan was president - would suggest that you might be
right, but the money market hasn't yet got around to labelling US
treasury bonds as risky investments.

The Greek credit rating has now gone through the floor, and they've
got no option but reform.

It's other European countries who will fix it, also countries
overseas such as the US (via IMF).

The IMF has a one-size-fits all solution for every country that gets
into serious debt. It does seem to be based on the prescriptions of a
group of particularly unrealistic US economic theorists, and tends to
do serious damage to the real economy in the process of restoring the
credit rating, but international credit rating never did have much to
do with reality, as we got to see when the sub-prime mortgage crisi
hit the fan.

Be that as it may, the Greeks have run out of options, and they will
do what every other government has done when they fall into the hands
of the IMF, which is to follow the - stupid - prescriptions.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 16, 9:54 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sat, 15 May 2010 15:26:08 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested  nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's)..
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.

Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.

Do pay attention:

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears....

Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."

It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently.
It's still a collective decision.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7127621.ece

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqquuYOAN_sE

It's bizarre that this is happening. But you may recall that I've been
ranting for years about Europe's demographic time bomb. I didn't
realise that there was a shorter-fuse fiscal bomb too.

So currency traders think that they can talk up the sort of wobbles in
the exchange rate on which they can make money. It's bizarre that you
can't recognise this for what it is.

But you've been out of touch with reality for years. If the current
generation's choices about family size were to persist for ten or
twelve generations, they might make a significant difference to
Europe's racial make-up, but this does implicityl assume that they are
genetically determined, rather than primarily influenced by the local
culture, which changes rather faster. Immigrant groups reliably get to
look like the host population in a couple of generations, as you'd
know if you had gone to the trouble of finding out about the subject,
rather than recyclig idiot editorials from right-wing web-sites

If there is a short fuse fiscal time bomb under anybody's economy, the
victim is more likely to be the US which has been running a massive
balance of payments deficit since Regan was president. That is more
than twenty years now, so perhaps that particular fuse isn't all that
short.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 16, 3:15 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sat, 15 May 2010 15:48:29 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 6:27 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 08:53:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

Actually, I know that it isn't important - if you have a tertiary
qualification from a European educational institution, you are going
to be fluent in English. What I don't know is why you think otherwise
- I could ask you to explain, but I don't fancy being directed to the
irrational output from some right-wing propaganda mill.

So, you don't know much about the world.

Or so you'd like to think. You still haven't told me why you think
that language is important in this context, but retreated behind your
earlier - unsupported - claim. Bankers have been managing financial
trasactions across linguistic boundaries for the past few thousand
years. It isn't difficult, and they've had lots of practice.

I'd explain, except that you told me just above not to explain.

No. I told you not to get your explanation from your usual suppliers.

I do my own thinking, so I'm the usual supplier.

One could scarcely dignify it as "thinking".

But surely, as worldly as you are, you can figure it out yourself.

As I've done. I've also figured out that you don't know what you are
talking about, and seem to think that repeating a fatuous claim is all
that you need to do to establish it's credibility.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 23:51:07 -0500, the renowned
"krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:20:36 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 16:00:15 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 13:54:00 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.


Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

Gosh, are your savings all that significant?

Many do have significant savings over their lifetimes. Having enough to live
on the rest of their lives, isn't uncommon.

Actually it is quite uncommon according to BLS data.

Balloney.

Don't you pay (an ever
increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference.

Compound interest tends to cancel inflation.

Not all that well. It really fell behind during Carter era.

And has recovered, quite nicely. You can prove any crackpot theory you want
if you cherry-pick the data. It's called a "lie".

Interestingly, credit card rates never came back down.

Not so interestingly, it's completely irrelevant, particularly to this
discussion (millionaires tend to not pay credit card interest).

We need a new word to replace millionaire. The guy who owns a hot dog
wagon is probably a millionaire. My plumber certainly is.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 15, 10:15 am, Greegor <greego...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

Sloman seems to be some kind of idealogue,
a sort of cartoon of liberal thought.

What other people might easily recognize as
indoctrination and propaganda, he blithely
considers to be factual scientific education.

Any ideological challenge is an assault on his religion.

Gregor post his opinions without reference to any external evidence,
and complains that what I post - which does refer to objective and
widely recognised facts, which I do point to - is "indoctrination and
propaganda" while it is actually pointing out that his kind of opinion
does reflect his exposure to precisely that kind of misinfomration.

It seems like when liberals live in very liberal places
they start believing their own BS and they get
into the "crowd mentality" or "riot mentality"
where they presume they are superior and
they are large and in charge.  Sometimes they get
so carried away with this they do outrageous
things.

Like invading Irak?

It seems to be akin to "risky shift" in juries
or "confirmation bias" in scientific endeavors.

Police routinely whack a few heads and it
breaks the mental spell.

Reality bashed Dubbya's head quite hard in Irak without breaking the
mental spell that had taken hold of the neo-cons, and still seems to
infest whatever it is that you use instead of a brain.

Consider Sloman's advice and ""proof""
almost as you would advice on US
economics from a Russian Stalinist.

Consider Gregor's advice and **proof** exactly was you would economic
advice from a US monetarist. Not that Gregor bothers to point to
anything remotely ressembling objective evidence to support his silly
ideas. If I thought that he could think, I could claim that it was
because he knows that such evidence doesn't exist, but in fact he
doesn't understand the concept of evidence in the first place, and
thinks that his delusions have to be true just because he believes
them.

Ask him how he likes capitalism!  

Unbridled free market capitalism generates a series of booms and busts
in the economic environment. The free market is a good device for
matching supply and demand, but it does need a stabilising mechanism.
Keynes described one such mechanism which works pretty well, though it
can stall the economy in a state where it grows more slowly that it
ideally could. His followers have worked out some improvements, but
politicians don't like their prescriptions and prefer the plausible
nonsense they get to hear from monetarists, so we get more booms and
busts.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 4:22 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin
Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes
productivity.

Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits
of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and
labour.

Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are
shared.  Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation,
risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a
regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations
and petty ministration of their rulers.  Showing up for a paycheck at
a factory does not entitle you to the factory.

Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those
rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you
can't, to a larger and larger extent.

Society as whole provides the environment where you can hire
technically educated employees, communicate with them, and have them
travel around and get looked after when they get sick.

Your taxes support that society. Try setting up an innovative business
in a third world country where the tax rates are lower (or easily
evaded by bribing the right people).

Showing up for a paycheck at a factory doesn't entitle you to the
whole factory, but the last hundred years has demonstrated that the
optimum split for rewarding capital versus labour comes out at around
fifty-fifty.

As the brilliant innovator who made whatever it was possible, you
think that you deserve a larger proportion of the gravy, but societies
where people like you have managed to hang onto more of the profits
don't turn out as well as places where labour gets a roughly equal
slice of the pie.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 5:39 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 19:22:18 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:



On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin

Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes
productivity.

Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits
of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and
labour.

Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are
shared.  Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation,
risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a
regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations
and petty ministration of their rulers.  Showing up for a paycheck at
a factory does not entitle you to the factory.

Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those
rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you
can't, to a larger and larger extent.

People consume and business invests. Any society must balance
short-term consumption against long-term investment. That is what the
"sharing" is about.

People invest in feeding and educating their children, and in keeping
them healthy enough to continue eating and learning. That too is a
long term investment, and the US is currently investing rather less
than it should in that particular area.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 1:33 am, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 17:53:22 +0100, Martin Brown

|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
On 14/05/2010 16:06, John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk>  wrote:

<snip>

A decent industrialist realizes that a partnership with workers is
mutually beneficial, but must still compete with company owners who
don't agree with this philosophy. A company can't arbitrarily give
away high wages without achieving corresponding competitive benefits.

This wasn't about competition though it was about screwing the poor sods
at the bottom of the pile into the ground knowing full well that they
were individually powerless and a consumable item.

You are rather completely bought in to the liberal version of history
based on the content of your post.  Look again through the records, your
previous instructors have both understated the worst excesses of the
"owners" and underreported the decency of the average to best cases.

Martin Brown cites evidence that supports his point of view. You don't
adduce any evidence to support your claim that his reports are biased.

Whoever your intructors were, they didn't teach you how to respond to
a fact-based argument.

In fact - as Martin Brown pointed out - the decency of the average to
best cases wasn't all that relevant, because the evil, grasping
employers could sell their product for less than the product produced
by the average to best cases, who risked being driven out of business
if they were too considerate of their workers.

Afew years ago, Texas introduced minimum wage legislation, which
appreciably raised the wages of fast food employees. The whole fast
food industry was terrified that their slender profit margins would
evaporate in the higher labour costs, but in the event the fast food
businesses started making more money after the legislation came into
force.

It turned out that the fast food employees hadn't been getting a lving
wage, and they'd only stay in the jobs for a short while until they
could get something better. the minimum wage wasn't all that much
higher, but it was high enough to appreciably reduce staff turnover.
More experienced staff did a better job, which sucked in more
customers, which meant that the store owners were making more money
even though they were paying out more in wages.

Unrestrained free markets don't automatically produce an optimal
distribution of resources, particularly when the employers don't
appreciate the real costs and benefits of hiring and firing.

In the UK, during the first world war, a spate of industrial accidents
caused by over-tired workers forced legislation to control the maximum
number of hours of per day that a worker could do. The immdeiate
effect of the enforcement of this legislation was that production -
not just productivity - went up, because over-tired workes were much
less productive than people who had had enough sleep.

In this case it was patriotism as much as greed that had inspired the
excessive hours of work, but the pressure had again produced a sub-
optimal solution.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 1:10 am, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:06:18 -0700, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 14/05/2010 06:16, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org>  wrote:
On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

It only makes sense if the money comes from somewhere. If all the
employers arbitrarily doubled wages, inflation would take it all away
within weeks, maybe days.

In late 1930s Germany it was hours to minutes.  Israel had a similar
problem twice since. (well over 1000% per year inflation).

German hyper-inflation peaked in 1923, under the Wiemar Republic. In
the late 1930's Hitler was in power, and used Keynesian pump-priming
(mostly investing in weapns of war) to sustain a tolerably stable
economy. If you can't get fact like that right, why on earth should
anybody take you seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

If a single employer did it, he's go out of
business. Shuffling paper money around is meaningless; productivity is
real. Ford increased wages because he had a revolutionary
super-efficient way of making cheap cars, and most workers found the
pace and discipline tiring and tended to quit after a few months. He
needed the best workers to stick around, so he golden-handcuffed them;
this was *before* they were unionized. The "invisible hand" was at
work. Productivity was the key.

This is good:

http://www.amazon.com/Ford-Men-Machine-Robert-Lacey/dp/0517635046/ref...

While i will not argue that the assembly line was(or not) an important
innovation, it did tend to make humans into robots, and people are
notoriously mediocre robot machines.  Way too much people as
robot/machine(/assembly line) thinking still permeates management
thinking today.

Taylorism. It isn't all-pervasive. Volvo did it differently.

http://home.kpn.nl/Kiebeler/homepage%20Hans/teams-between-neo-and-anti-Taylorism.htm

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen