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It's amazing to watch Vladimir pull these strings.
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The hysteria around the tax cuts is fuckin ridiculous. I have no idea why people seem to think it is best if their money is in the hands of government officials to completely mis-spend it as they always, always do.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
The hysteria around the tax cuts is fuckin ridiculous. I have no idea why people seem to think it is best if their money is in the hands of government officials to completely mis-spend it as they always, always do.
EU Fears 'Unfair' U.S. Tax Bill Will Incentivise Companies to Move to America
They go on to lament the tax bill will unfairly put "America First, again."
[...] If the reforms go through, Hentze said, the US will go from being a high-tax to a low-tax country. Until now, the tax burden on companies has been significantly higher in the US, with a tax rate of 39 percent, compared to 30 in Germany or 34 in France. [...]
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Hilarious, after Ireland's reforms they have the nerve to complain about the US?
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It’s been more than a year, and this is their “smoking gun”.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
The hysteria around the tax cuts is fuckin ridiculous. I have no idea why people seem to think it is best if their money is in the hands of government officials to completely mis-spend it as they always, always do.
The mis-spend part always exists. The hysteria is due to a President pushing a plan through which he benefits (nothing particularly wrong there) but lying continually in saying 'this will cost me personally' and 'I will lose large amounts' only to concede after the bill passing that he benefits.
Putting aside any arguments around the actual structure of the tax system, once again the behaviour, bullshit and plain lying of the leader of the state is incredible. -
@Crucial sorry the hysteria I'm referring too is people coming up with estimates on how many people will die as a result of tax cuts, and how apparently they screw over the poor as they won't benefit (uh you have to pay taxes to benefit from tax cuts). All this screeching "won't somebody think of the poor?!" gets tiresome.
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality. I'm bloody annoyed that Labour in NZ cancelled the planned tax cuts and now want to introduce more fucking taxes. I pay through my teeth and for what? Politicians to piss most of my money away?
I'm sick of this attempted wealth re-distribution through tax upon tax upon tax. If I'm American I'm over the moon about keeping more of my hard earned coin, regardless of who the President is. I don't particularly like any politicians so I don't get overly invested in the emotional side of things, though I'm sure the criticisms you lay on Trump are valid.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality
It's a little more complicated than that. It's amazing how many Americans are a medical emergency away from being destitute.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality.
I find that quite an incredible pov.
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@antipodean said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality
It's a little more complicated than that. It's amazing how many Americans are a medical emergency away from being destitute.
Yeah, it’s always been hard for me to get my head around that.
Obviously some people are poor because of piss poor decisions and we shouldn’t be expected to have the cost of their shitty life choices dumped on us but some people are poor through shitty circumstances out of their control and I have no problem supporting them.
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@jegga said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality
It's a little more complicated than that. It's amazing how many Americans are a medical emergency away from being destitute.
Yeah, it’s always been hard for me to get my head around that.
Obviously some people are poor because of piss poor decisions and we shouldn’t be expected to have the cost of their shitty life choices dumped on us but some people are poor through shitty circumstances out of their control and I have no problem supporting them.
Totally agree. With the amount of wealth created, it would be farked up in the extreme if there wasn't a safety net available to those who need it. The caveat is of course that it's to help them back on their feet or to give them the opportunities to be able to have a good life. What it should not be is a permanent line of credit to people who can't be arsed contributing themselves.
As for the tax thing. Here in Norway the report I saw was saying that a normal family would "only" get about 2 thousand dollars back of what they pay in tax. Interesting that 2k is apparently nothing these days. Yes, much better giving that 2k to the govt to spend. Whatever could a working family do with 2k extra.
There's obviously ideological bullshit about this on both sides, but it's utter crap to claim that only the rich and fat cats will benefit from this. 2k is a shit load of cash for some people and claiming otherwise shows how out of touch some of the so-called experts truly are.
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@crucial said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality.
I find that quite an incredible pov.
OK. If we put aside people with serious medical or mental health issues, convince me otherwise. Convince me that people are poor because of other hard working people, and that their decisions have nothing to do with it. I'm open to any arguments and happy to change my stance.
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@antipodean said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality
It's a little more complicated than that. It's amazing how many Americans are a medical emergency away from being destitute.
Yeah we are incredibly lucky to have ACC in NZ. I know a lot of Americans choose not to play sports as an injury would screw them. I've got no problem supporting people that are unable to work, I thought that would be fairly obvious but I guess I should have stated that.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
@crucial said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality.
I find that quite an incredible pov.
OK. If we put aside people with serious medical or mental health issues, convince me otherwise. Convince me that people are poor because of other hard working people, and that their decisions have nothing to do with it. I'm open to any arguments and happy to change my stance.
Well, economically the arguments are actually pretty straightforward. If you choose to reduce your income (in this case tax revenue) without reducing your expenditure you need to either draw down on savings or borrow. The US doesn’t have savings and isn’t making any real efforts to reduce spending. Presumably this is because the hard working people want both tax cuts and continuation of services they have become used to.
In any event, without equivalent cuts increased borrowing, in the form of deficits, is a pretty safe bet. Deficits lead to higher interest rates, which push up inflation, which always hurts the poor.
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@no-quarter said in US Politics:
@crucial said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality.
I find that quite an incredible pov.
OK. If we put aside people with serious medical or mental health issues, convince me otherwise. Convince me that people are poor because of other hard working people, and that their decisions have nothing to do with it. I'm open to any arguments and happy to change my stance.
It was the second half of your statement that I was referring to.
"People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality."Are you really saying that the majority (and let's not talk about extremes like in most of this thread) of 'poor' had every option available to them to become 'not poor' but decided otherwise.
We live in western societies that have decided that the best way forward is through competition and rewarding certain skills and abilities over others. That's fine, it would be massively hypocritical of me to argue otherwise. I get paid as much in a day as many hard working people do in a week. I have no problem contributing more to society's costs because I can. Because I not only benefit from the upside but also from having cheap labour available to empty my bins, clean my toilets, make my coffee, stock my shop shelves. I am very aware that some people work very hard and long hours just to make ends meet as people like myself drive their costs up by being able to pay more for housing etc. that's without even mentioning that I will buy goods made in countries with even less money being paid to workers and remove jobs from some around me.
This argument of "the poor have a choice" is plain dumb. Let's say everyone on minimum wage got higher education and flooded the job market. The competitive nature we have set up we mean that we would pull away from them again through supply and demand. You want a competitive society to drive growth? Cool, but acknowledge that in any competition there are winners and losers. The winners create the losers by virtue of winning.
I just think that the winners have a responsibility to ensure that the losers aren't completely downtrodden and that there is a fine balance that needs to be maintained. -
Jackson Lears in the new London Review of Books states the obvious (that the gang presenting us with the Rooskigate hoax is the SAME load of scammers who concocted the WMD hoax) and cuts to the heart of the matter - that Trump Derangement Syndrome is a mass hysteria cult.
What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking
[...] With stunning speed, a new centrist-liberal orthodoxy came into being, enveloping the major media and the bipartisan Washington establishment. This secular religion has attracted hordes of converts in the first year of the Trump presidency. In its capacity to exclude dissent, it is like no other formation of mass opinion in my adult life, though it recalls a few dim childhood memories of anti-communist hysteria during the early 1950s.
The centrepiece of the faith, based on the hacking charge, is the belief that Vladimir Putin orchestrated an attack on American democracy by ordering his minions to interfere in the election on behalf of Trump. The story became gospel with breathtaking suddenness and completeness. Doubters are perceived as heretics and as apologists for Trump and Putin, the evil twins and co-conspirators behind this attack on American democracy. Responsibility for the absence of debate lies in large part with the major media outlets. Their uncritical embrace and endless repetition of the Russian hack story have made it seem a fait accompli in the public mind. [...]
Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is confused and largely fact-free ...[...]
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@Crucial that's a pretty good argument, but I disagree with you on a few points.
Firstly, the idea that western society and capitalism is a zero-sum game, and that there will always be "winners" and "losers". I don't agree with that at all, capitalism generates wealth and has dramatically increased the standard of living for everyone in the west. Basically, the middle class got rich (compared to where they were historically).
There will always be people wealthier than others, that's a given. The two biggest indicators of success in the west are IQ and conscientiousness. As you would expect, those people contribute the most to society so should be rewarded - it would be unfair any other way.
I'm not suggesting a lot of poor people make a concious decision to be poor, I'm saying many of them display repeated behaviour that contributes massively to their economic situation, such as: multiple bad habits, self destructive behaviour, blaming external circimstances for their own faults, and generally not accepting responsiblity for their own lives. I've met and known countless people like this.
I don't accept that we have some rigged system that keeps the poor downtrodden. If you work hard, sort yourself out and make good decisions then you will live a comfortable life. I get that not everyone starts with the same benefits, but absolving poor people of all responsibility for their own situation is not helpful.
As I said, happy to help people that are unable to work due to medical or mental health issues, but not happy with trying to redistribute wealth through ever increased taxes to an ever increasing group of entitled people. As you say it's a pretty fine balance, but when you give the state too much power and influence the results are disastrous.
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@jc said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
@crucial said in US Politics:
@no-quarter said in US Politics:
Poor people are not poor because of other hard working people. That's not how it works. People are poor because of the decisions they make - that may sound harsh but it's the reality.
I find that quite an incredible pov.
OK. If we put aside people with serious medical or mental health issues, convince me otherwise. Convince me that people are poor because of other hard working people, and that their decisions have nothing to do with it. I'm open to any arguments and happy to change my stance.
Well, economically the arguments are actually pretty straightforward. If you choose to reduce your income (in this case tax revenue) without reducing your expenditure you need to either draw down on savings or borrow. The US doesn’t have savings and isn’t making any real efforts to reduce spending. Presumably this is because the hard working people want both tax cuts and continuation of services they have become used to.
In any event, without equivalent cuts increased borrowing, in the form of deficits, is a pretty safe bet. Deficits lead to higher interest rates, which push up inflation, which always hurts the poor.
Thanks, that helps to answer my question about how tax cuts can potentially impact the poor if the government has not taken decreased expenditure into consideration.
Out of interest, were you supportive of Nationals planned tax cuts?
US Politics