Why do you feel socialism is bad?

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Congress is fickle. When Congress is in session, we do not know what to expect. Congress believes in salvation by law. If only there were a perfect law, there would be a perfect society.

There is a difference in equal opportunity and equality of outcome. Congress believes in equality of outcome, which is a socialist idea. I do not think that IRAs, etc. for “rich” Americans are safe from the socialist ideals of Congress.

This is the taxation plank of the Socialist party platform of 1928:
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“Increase of taxation on high income levels, of corporation taxes and inheritance taxes, the proceeds to be used for old age pensions and other forms of social insurance.”
According to Milton Friedman, the highest personal income tax rate in 1928 was 28%. In 1978 it was 70%. I think that the total taxes paid by the average American is over 50%. Perhaps we should not have rebelled against King George. I think that King George only charged 17% in taxes.

This country was not founded on income taxes. Income taxes were unconstitutional until Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment.
 
There was a time when the United States was the only game in town. If you wanted freedom, you had to come to the United States. However, the United States is no longer the only game in town.

Money follows freedom. Economic freedom and political freedom go hand-in-hand.

India, for example, learned some very bad socialist ideas from England and the United States. They had a marginal tax rate of 85% and excise taxes of 100%. Is it any wonder that they never exported any jewelry? Today India is a major exporter of jewelry. I visited some of those factories, and they are more modern that our jewelry factories in the United States! Why? The Indians call it an “economic miracle.” I call it no taxes. There are no corporate taxes on exported jewelry!

I also visited New Zealand for three weeks. This was a country that was down and out because of socialism. Now the country has embraced political and economic freedom in a big way. Listening to New Zealand’s politicians and its people was like a breath of fresh air compared to what I get from the politicians in the United States.

Perhaps the best example was Hong Kong before it was turned over to Communist China. Maids and plumbers became multi-millionaires. “Hong Kong has no tariffs…no government direction of economic activity, no minimum wage laws, no fixing of prices…Low taxes preserve incentives. Businessmen can reap the benefits of their success but must also bear the costs of their mistakes (Freidman).”

However, Hong Kong is now in the hands of Communist China. When people left Hong Kong, very few settled in the United States. Our taxes were too high. When Clinton passed the $500 billion tax bill, I think that we surpassed England as the most heavily taxed industrial nation. Most people from Hong Kong settled in Canada, which is not exactly a tax haven.
 
CPA2 said:
I think that the total taxes paid by the average American is over 50%. .
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Yes. Everyone pays some taxes, and a lot of those which we end up paying are hidden.
But is it not a form of socialism, socialism for the rich, for the government to bailout companies like AIG, while at the same time AIG hands out bonuses of one million dollars or more to its already overpaid executives? I say that they are overpaid based on a comparison of their salaries with that of the worker, and based on a comparison of their salaries with that of those with similar jobs in Japan or Europe.
 
sidbrown said:
Government can promote the general welfare, promote freedom and promote virtue. I don’t see anything wrong with promoting the welfare of the working class and everyone else, but I do see something radically wrong with promoting the welfare of multimillionaires who work for AIG and Wall Street by first bailing them out with taxpayer dollars and then allowing them to hand out multimillion dollar bonuses after the hard working taxpayers have bailed them out.
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Welfare to to the poor and elderly (food stamps, medicaide, medicare, etc, minus education) is 6% of the Federal Budget. How much of the federal budget counts for corporate welfare. Answer: Much much more.
 
People pay taxes, not corporations. The actual tax burden does not always fall on those who are statutorily assigned to pay the tax. I always considered the corporate tax as a cost of doing business. I marked up my merchanside to cover the corporate tax and the ad valorem tax (inventory tax).

“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, “How do you hold down government spending?” Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes (Friedman).”
 
You have to remember that the “loop holes” were put into place, at least the legal ones, by the politicians and Congress.

Social, economic and equity considerations provide the justification for many tax laws. I am skeptical. I lump all such considerations under the umbrella of misallocation of resources. The law of unintended consequences is alive and well. Let me give some examples.

Congress justifies home ownership on social and economic grounds. However, this places people who rent at a disadvantage. Isn’t this unequal treatment?

I did not stay in the city of New Orleans when I was a salesman. I resented the very high hotel occupancy tax. Excessively high taxes could discourage conventions and sporting events.

I understand that New York City has very high tobacco taxes. The intended purpose is to raise revenue and curtail smoking. I do not think that the high tobacco taxes do either. New York City will actually lose revenue. People will buy their cigarettes in New Jersey where the taxes are lower. (Does anyone know the tobacco tax in New York City and New Jersey?)
 
josephdavid said:
Welfare to to the poor and elderly (food stamps, medicaide, medicare, etc, minus education) is 6% of the Federal Budget. How much of the federal budget counts for corporate welfare. Answer: Much much more.
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Yes. And why handout taxpayer backed payments of one million dollar bonuses to executives who are already paid much more compared to what executives in other countries such as Japan and others make?
 
sidbrown said:
Yes. And why handout taxpayer backed payments of one million dollar bonuses to executives who are already paid much more compared to what executives in other countries such as Japan and others make?
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Crazy corporate welfare system of the past 30 years. It has failed us miserably. Our infrastructure is crumbling more and more, wages have descreased over the years taking away purchasing power thus only credit (debt) has filled in the gap for demand versus productivity.

All so we can support our corporate welfare system.
 
josephdavid said:
Crazy corporate welfare system of the past 30 years. It has failed us miserably. Our infrastructure is crumbling more and more, wages have descreased over the years taking away purchasing power thus only credit (debt) has filled in the gap for demand versus productivity.

All so we can support our corporate welfare system.
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Why is welfare for the rich and well to do OK, but not for the poor and underprivileged?
 
tjm190 said:
“Corporate welfare” is required to be repaid silly
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Not all of the bonuses were repaid. Further, consider the failure of LTCM. Among the chief executives of LTCM, there was a former Federal Reserve vice chairman. And as well, there were several other principals of LTCM who had some association with the Federal Reserve System. . The Federal Reserve intervened in the bailout and rescue of LTCM to the extent that they applied pressure on the creditors of LTCM to participate in the rescue plan. Further 10 of the 14 Consortium members who participated in the rescue plan had existing or subsequent business applications pending Federal Reserve approval.
 
sidbrown said:
Not all of the bonuses were repaid. Further, consider the failure of LTCM. Among the chief executives of LTCM, there was a former Federal Reserve vice chairman. And as well, there were several other principals of LTCM who had some association with the Federal Reserve System. . The Federal Reserve intervened in the bailout and rescue of LTCM to the extent that they applied pressure on the creditors of LTCM to participate in the rescue plan. Further 10 of the 14 Consortium members who participated in the rescue plan had existing or subsequent business applications pending Federal Reserve approval.
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The bonuses were completely lawful and warranted- those who received bonuses were entitled to said bonuses under their contracts, and failure to pay those bonuses would have been grounds for a lawsuit.

The ‘bailouts’ in TARP were loans. Those loans have by and large already been paid back, and the government is working on retrieving the rest of their money.
 
Who is going to protect us from the greedy people in government?

This is one thing that I learned: Without more regulations there is less need for Federal employees. Here is how it works: In order for a Federal employee to become a supervisor he or she must supervise a specific number of individuals. In a friend’s case, he had to supervise a total of 14 people before he was promoted to a GM-15. However, to support these 14 people there must be some work for these individuals to conduct. Now, enter a major regulatory proposal to expand reporting requirements or institute some new form of regulatory burden. An example of this would be the Sorbane Oxley Act or Enron Act (SOX). However, in his case, the major regulatory burden was the bringing of open-access transportation of natural gas. This increased regulatory burden has provided many new jobs in the Federal Government and produced many new supervisors into the Senior Executive Service. This is very similar to the SOX situation. You have new regulations being instituted, thus causing the need for many new jobs in the Federal government, and in most cases unnecessary additional burden for private companies.

The sad thing about Federal regulations is they are excessively expensive and in most cases have no return to the taxpayer for the services they offer. Take for example, the US Department of Energy. It has an annual operating budget in excess of $4.0 Billion; however, they have yet to produce any form of energy or develop any new energy source.
 
tjm190 said:
The bonuses were completely lawful and warranted- those who received bonuses were entitled to said bonuses under their contracts, and failure to pay those bonuses would have been grounds for a lawsuit.

The ‘bailouts’ in TARP were loans. Those loans have by and large already been paid back, and the government is working on retrieving the rest of their money.
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It is not clear that the bonuses were warranted when the company was going bankrupt and begging for the taxpayers to bail them out.
 
tjm190 said:
The bonuses were completely lawful and warranted- those who received bonuses were entitled to said bonuses under their contracts, and failure to pay those bonuses would have been grounds for a lawsuit.

The ‘bailouts’ in TARP were loans. Those loans have by and large already been paid back, and the government is working on retrieving the rest of their money.
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A true Corporatist at heart.
 
sidbrown said:
It is not clear that the bonuses were warranted when the company was going bankrupt and begging for the taxpayers to bail them out.
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So? They were given loans. If your company was given an emergency loan, and used that as an excuse to ignore a large part of your contract (such as the part saying you were entitled to a performance based bonus if you preformed XXX well), what would you do?

Regardless of what you would do, you would be entitled to sue. And there’s a good chance you would win. And you might win a good bit more than you would have made originally for your trouble. And of course, while suing you probably wouldn’t be working. So the company would suffer further. And of course, the lawyers your employer would have to hire aren’t cheap.

Bankruptcy laws do give companies some lenience- but the entire point of the bailouts were to keep key firms from having to declare bankruptcy.
 
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