Wanna know something funny? As a permanent resident living in the US, I can’t legally vote in the US election. And since I don’t live in Canada (my home country) and have no intention to return, I can’t legally vote there, either. I am not able to vote in any democratic election in any country in the world.
I guess that means Toyama Koichi gets my non-vote.
He’d most certainly be better than B. Hussein Obama. He probably has more experience and isn’t dumb enough to want to raise taxes during a recession. Furthermore, he isn’t a black supremacist (Rev. Wright), a Chicago thug (Tony Rezko) or a terrorist pal (Bill Ayers).
I’m still reeling from the Irony of a Japanese guy telling anyoneus to leave Korea to the Korean people and not butt into others countries. This is gonna go down as a laugh riot in Nanking too
Whatever happened to the biosphere and ecosystems?
Has it not been established that nature works by everything screwing with everything else?
Every country interferes with every other country to varying degrees. The problem is that the US is such a large target because it’s where most of the money in the world is, and the rest of the world is geared toward “how can we get money out of the US, or people in the US?”
The answer is, apparently, pokemon.
Anyways, the point to all this is that whining is whining, even when it’s in Japanese.
I like the cut of his jib. And look at how much he’s already accomplished! When you make good on your campaign promises before even being sworn in, that’s not just raising the bar, that’s changing the whole game right there. Brilliant.
Sadly, I cannot vote for a Japanese man whose platform does not include a 3-story robot for everyone.
Just curious, Zim, can you tell us why raising taxes in a recession would be bad?
Government and business exist in a symbiosis. Gov provides infrastructure (currency, laws, etc) and business provides the economy (jobs, goods, services, etc). Democrats are into Socialism, which means that business and rich people are seen as bad and supplementing the poor is seen as good (and profitable politically). They, therefore, have a “tax the rich” mentality (Obama doesn’t hide his). The problem is there is no such thing. Their entire strategy is to talk about this new “rich tax” and convince you that you’re not rich.
When you raise taxes you increase the cost of that thing by the amount the tax was raised. This has a negative effect on that thing. If it’s a good, it’s bought less often. If it’s a service, you use it less often (or hire less). Right now we need to get out of the recession which is defined by GDP growth. Specifically new hiring, new investments and increased sales. If you raise, for instance, Capital Gains, you make it harder for people to invest in the economy because you have to account for those taxes later on. This affects many non-rich people because the non-rich can have 401k plans, stock options, money markets, mutual funds and other things that, at some point, pay capital gains.
Right now we need a tax cut. In 2002 we had one (the very ones the Democrats want to expire in 2010) and they had the desired effect of reviving the economy. Nowhere has it been proven that raised taxes had a net benefit on an economy.
While I love to read the right wing’s cliff notes on money and taxes, I’m always amazed at the right wings lack of understanding of currency strength and what massive debt does to a country that uses debt as currency.
God forbid you might actually think for yourself… Listen to Ron Paul on the Dollar. While most of the right wants to make him out to be a “loon”, he isn’t. I wish he was a loon, I really do. Sadly for all of us he isn’t a loon on money policy.
I don’t think you get where I’m going. Despite what the Republicans did in the earlier part of this decade, the conservative idea of government (which is not necessarily the same as Republican) is small. So you cut taxes and *gasp* cut spending as well. If you look at 1995 (when you had more conservative Republicans) that’s what happened.
But the Democrats seem to think that the Republicans had it upside down (and they did to a large extent for a while) only because they can’t ever see cutting things out of the budget. The cornerstone of the Democratic party is big government.
On top of this, do you really think that an Obama presidency with trillions in new taxes is going to pay down the debt first and only? They might pay some down but Obama has over one trillion dollars in new entitlements promised, things I see little change of him reneging on while in power (more Democrat ideals of big government) and most of them would be permanent increases in the federal budget (healthcare being chief).
Because, you know, some of us on the right still have brains and use them.
Well, Boanerges, you gave an answer that was equally as wrong as Zim’s, but probably more coherent. So, let’s discuss some of the flaws in your case:
1) You’re admitting that government services aren’t all bad. Roads are good, airports are good (as are planes that don’t fall out of the sky), police are good, presumably the military is good.
2) You’re repeating (probably without understanding) the talking point that Democrats are Socialist, and socialism is bad. Not a given that socialism is bad, but at any rate Democrats are not socialist for any meaningful definition of socialism.
3) “Tax the rich.” Wealth is made possible by the infrastructure provided by government. You can only become and stay wealthy as a result of the social environment made possible by road networks, airports, regulation of markets, and enforcement of contracts and laws. By definition the wealthy have benefited the most from society, and it is not only right that they should pay more, it is necessary.
3) There’s no point in taxing the poor. They don’t have any money. Almost any reason you can come up with for not taxing the rich will apply even *more* to the poor. And somebody has to pay taxes.
4) What you say about taxes increasing the cost of a good applies to sales or VAT taxes, not so much to anything else. Taxes on the wealthy reduces the bidding for luxury goods, and that’s about it.
5) Socialism. You people keep using that word, but I don’t think you actually know what it means. Just as a hint: Although single-payer or truly nationalized health care would be socialized medicine, that’s not what is on the table. On the other hand, trillion-dollar bailouts with no attached regulation or nationalization is “socialism of the losses”. Socialism for the benefit of rich people.
5) Capital gains has fuck-all to do with pensions, 401K’s, and IRA’s, because those are not taxed under the (much lower) capital gains rates, they’re taxed as income. For the most part, only the wealthy get to pay capital gains.
6) The answer to everything from Chicago School economists is tax cuts and de-regulation. We’ve been following their advice slavishly for the last 8 years, it isn’t working so good. Somehow I don’t think restoring the tax structure we had under Clinton or Reagan seems so bad.
7) GDP growth that consists of money swapping back and forth between Wall Street firms, or between insurance companies and healthcare companies, does fuck-all to help the real economy, and in fact both have been slowly strangling the rest of us for 3 decades.
Do you people actually understand *anything* you say about politics and the economy, or do you just regurgitate what you hear from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?
“Although single-payer or truly nationalized health care would be socialized medicine, that’s not what is on the table.”
Actually, we already have a socialized healthcare system. In many ER’s patients with zero insurance, zero ability to pay, and in many cases zero citizenship recieve hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars of free healthcare every year. All thanks to the tax dollars of those that actually pay taxes.
Actually our health care system is paid for by those that need who can pay. That’s why an aspirin in the hospital is literally $25.
Rather than dispersing the costs of health care across the entire payer base the cost is dispersed among those who need service and can pay at the time of service.
Ever seen those plastic buckets at gas stations begging for money for a child who needs medical care of some major sort?
Understand the scenario. It’s not about going to the ER with a cough.
The number one cause of bankruptcy in America is Medical costs. Over half of the people going bankrupt have medical insurance. Most people really don’t understand how limited their coverage is.
Yes, you can get services even if you can’t pay but the hospital turns you over to a collection agency, puts a lean on your house, and garnishes your wages…
Those Republicans are not good. What they did is, they want a big government for their needs, and instead of raising taxes, they borrow.
The Democrats are even worse. they want a big government for their needs, and they raise taxes directly.
Anyone with some economic knowledge will know, higher taxes equal lower productivity. there is a balance between how much service you want from government and how much tax you want to raise.
It is best to leave the tax to local level, the local people knows how to spend their taxes best (roads/police/fire etc).
When the tax are raised to the federal level, it is far removed from local people. And instead of spending wisely, the politicians will spend it on their interests instead of ours.
Both MaCain and Obama want to increase spending, BAD.
Obama wants to increase taxes too, BAD.
We need to go for the Libertarians, check out lp.org
I love how libertarians seem to think that once the money is out of the hands of the government and back in the hands of the people or local government it will magically resolve inefficiency and corruption in the system. Deregulation is bad, people game the system, and when you give them more leeway they just game it more. If you don’t game the system you are actually being a bad capitalist. This is not btw a plug for pure socialism, just about as bad but for different reasons, in truth the most solid form we have right now is a careful combination of the two.
Erm, the more rules there are in a system, the more likely those rules are to come into conflict–thus normally making the system easier to game. A system with no rules is inherently impossible to manipulate, though we avoid that situation because there are worse things than rule games.
What the spending situation really comes down to is that, leaving ideology aside, it’s in the interest of the party in power to get what they want (and therefore, spend) and the interest of the party not in power to criticize that spending. So, rather predictably, we end up in the situation that everyone is a dick.
about 1 year ago
Wanna know something funny? As a permanent resident living in the US, I can’t legally vote in the US election. And since I don’t live in Canada (my home country) and have no intention to return, I can’t legally vote there, either. I am not able to vote in any democratic election in any country in the world.
I guess that means Toyama Koichi gets my non-vote.
about 1 year ago
Is that really how Japanese talk when they are serious? He talks just like dudes in the old black and white samurai movies.
about 1 year ago
I like this guy. He has my non-vote.
But my vote is still for obama. So, let’s assume voting is like quantum mechanics, and this guy gets my non-vote that happens when I vote.
about 1 year ago
In that chaos post a couple days ago you linked the Palin Couric Russia interview. I just wanted to point out you didn’t get the best version of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caGjG_9nFwY
Also here’s another clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kO9TtHYzQ
about 1 year ago
He’d most certainly be better than B. Hussein Obama. He probably has more experience and isn’t dumb enough to want to raise taxes during a recession. Furthermore, he isn’t a black supremacist (Rev. Wright), a Chicago thug (Tony Rezko) or a terrorist pal (Bill Ayers).
about 1 year ago
Forget the commerntary on today’s political race.
I’m still reeling from the Irony of a Japanese guy telling anyoneus to leave Korea to the Korean people and not butt into others countries. This is gonna go down as a laugh riot in Nanking too
about 1 year ago
Whatever happened to the biosphere and ecosystems?
Has it not been established that nature works by everything screwing with everything else?
Every country interferes with every other country to varying degrees. The problem is that the US is such a large target because it’s where most of the money in the world is, and the rest of the world is geared toward “how can we get money out of the US, or people in the US?”
The answer is, apparently, pokemon.
Anyways, the point to all this is that whining is whining, even when it’s in Japanese.
about 1 year ago
Just curious, Zim, can you tell us why raising taxes in a recession would be bad?
–Dave
about 1 year ago
The Beatles were British, right? Just checking.
about 1 year ago
English, in fact. Which is also American.
about 1 year ago
Zim. Unhinged much?
about 1 year ago
“Leave matters in Iraq to the Iraqi people.”
“Leave matters in Iran to the Iranian people.”
“Leave matters in Korea to the Jap… oops… Korean people.”
about 1 year ago
I like the cut of his jib. And look at how much he’s already accomplished! When you make good on your campaign promises before even being sworn in, that’s not just raising the bar, that’s changing the whole game right there. Brilliant.
about 1 year ago
Clearly this man has not yet heard of Ohio
Sadly, I cannot vote for a Japanese man whose platform does not include a 3-story robot for everyone.
Government and business exist in a symbiosis. Gov provides infrastructure (currency, laws, etc) and business provides the economy (jobs, goods, services, etc). Democrats are into Socialism, which means that business and rich people are seen as bad and supplementing the poor is seen as good (and profitable politically). They, therefore, have a “tax the rich” mentality (Obama doesn’t hide his). The problem is there is no such thing. Their entire strategy is to talk about this new “rich tax” and convince you that you’re not rich.
When you raise taxes you increase the cost of that thing by the amount the tax was raised. This has a negative effect on that thing. If it’s a good, it’s bought less often. If it’s a service, you use it less often (or hire less). Right now we need to get out of the recession which is defined by GDP growth. Specifically new hiring, new investments and increased sales. If you raise, for instance, Capital Gains, you make it harder for people to invest in the economy because you have to account for those taxes later on. This affects many non-rich people because the non-rich can have 401k plans, stock options, money markets, mutual funds and other things that, at some point, pay capital gains.
Right now we need a tax cut. In 2002 we had one (the very ones the Democrats want to expire in 2010) and they had the desired effect of reviving the economy. Nowhere has it been proven that raised taxes had a net benefit on an economy.
about 1 year ago
“It was Fantastic!”
about 1 year ago
Boanerges,
Over ten trillion in debt.
While I love to read the right wing’s cliff notes on money and taxes, I’m always amazed at the right wings lack of understanding of currency strength and what massive debt does to a country that uses debt as currency.
God forbid you might actually think for yourself… Listen to Ron Paul on the Dollar. While most of the right wants to make him out to be a “loon”, he isn’t. I wish he was a loon, I really do. Sadly for all of us he isn’t a loon on money policy.
about 1 year ago
@D-One
I don’t think you get where I’m going. Despite what the Republicans did in the earlier part of this decade, the conservative idea of government (which is not necessarily the same as Republican) is small. So you cut taxes and *gasp* cut spending as well. If you look at 1995 (when you had more conservative Republicans) that’s what happened.
But the Democrats seem to think that the Republicans had it upside down (and they did to a large extent for a while) only because they can’t ever see cutting things out of the budget. The cornerstone of the Democratic party is big government.
On top of this, do you really think that an Obama presidency with trillions in new taxes is going to pay down the debt first and only? They might pay some down but Obama has over one trillion dollars in new entitlements promised, things I see little change of him reneging on while in power (more Democrat ideals of big government) and most of them would be permanent increases in the federal budget (healthcare being chief).
Because, you know, some of us on the right still have brains and use them.
about 1 year ago
Well, Boanerges, you gave an answer that was equally as wrong as Zim’s, but probably more coherent. So, let’s discuss some of the flaws in your case:
1) You’re admitting that government services aren’t all bad. Roads are good, airports are good (as are planes that don’t fall out of the sky), police are good, presumably the military is good.
2) You’re repeating (probably without understanding) the talking point that Democrats are Socialist, and socialism is bad. Not a given that socialism is bad, but at any rate Democrats are not socialist for any meaningful definition of socialism.
3) “Tax the rich.” Wealth is made possible by the infrastructure provided by government. You can only become and stay wealthy as a result of the social environment made possible by road networks, airports, regulation of markets, and enforcement of contracts and laws. By definition the wealthy have benefited the most from society, and it is not only right that they should pay more, it is necessary.
3) There’s no point in taxing the poor. They don’t have any money. Almost any reason you can come up with for not taxing the rich will apply even *more* to the poor. And somebody has to pay taxes.
4) What you say about taxes increasing the cost of a good applies to sales or VAT taxes, not so much to anything else. Taxes on the wealthy reduces the bidding for luxury goods, and that’s about it.
5) Socialism. You people keep using that word, but I don’t think you actually know what it means. Just as a hint: Although single-payer or truly nationalized health care would be socialized medicine, that’s not what is on the table. On the other hand, trillion-dollar bailouts with no attached regulation or nationalization is “socialism of the losses”. Socialism for the benefit of rich people.
5) Capital gains has fuck-all to do with pensions, 401K’s, and IRA’s, because those are not taxed under the (much lower) capital gains rates, they’re taxed as income. For the most part, only the wealthy get to pay capital gains.
6) The answer to everything from Chicago School economists is tax cuts and de-regulation. We’ve been following their advice slavishly for the last 8 years, it isn’t working so good. Somehow I don’t think restoring the tax structure we had under Clinton or Reagan seems so bad.
7) GDP growth that consists of money swapping back and forth between Wall Street firms, or between insurance companies and healthcare companies, does fuck-all to help the real economy, and in fact both have been slowly strangling the rest of us for 3 decades.
Do you people actually understand *anything* you say about politics and the economy, or do you just regurgitate what you hear from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?
–Dave
about 1 year ago
“Although single-payer or truly nationalized health care would be socialized medicine, that’s not what is on the table.”
Actually, we already have a socialized healthcare system. In many ER’s patients with zero insurance, zero ability to pay, and in many cases zero citizenship recieve hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars of free healthcare every year. All thanks to the tax dollars of those that actually pay taxes.
about 1 year ago
Shelby,
Actually our health care system is paid for by those that need who can pay. That’s why an aspirin in the hospital is literally $25.
Rather than dispersing the costs of health care across the entire payer base the cost is dispersed among those who need service and can pay at the time of service.
Ever seen those plastic buckets at gas stations begging for money for a child who needs medical care of some major sort?
Understand the scenario. It’s not about going to the ER with a cough.
The number one cause of bankruptcy in America is Medical costs. Over half of the people going bankrupt have medical insurance. Most people really don’t understand how limited their coverage is.
Yes, you can get services even if you can’t pay but the hospital turns you over to a collection agency, puts a lean on your house, and garnishes your wages…
The American health care system is broken.
about 1 year ago
Boanerges,
Actions speak louder than words. Look at what a Republican House, Senate and Executive did from 2001 – 2007.
Wake up.
about 1 year ago
D-One,
Those Republicans are not good. What they did is, they want a big government for their needs, and instead of raising taxes, they borrow.
The Democrats are even worse. they want a big government for their needs, and they raise taxes directly.
Anyone with some economic knowledge will know, higher taxes equal lower productivity. there is a balance between how much service you want from government and how much tax you want to raise.
It is best to leave the tax to local level, the local people knows how to spend their taxes best (roads/police/fire etc).
When the tax are raised to the federal level, it is far removed from local people. And instead of spending wisely, the politicians will spend it on their interests instead of ours.
Both MaCain and Obama want to increase spending, BAD.
Obama wants to increase taxes too, BAD.
We need to go for the Libertarians, check out lp.org
about 1 year ago
I love how libertarians seem to think that once the money is out of the hands of the government and back in the hands of the people or local government it will magically resolve inefficiency and corruption in the system. Deregulation is bad, people game the system, and when you give them more leeway they just game it more. If you don’t game the system you are actually being a bad capitalist. This is not btw a plug for pure socialism, just about as bad but for different reasons, in truth the most solid form we have right now is a careful combination of the two.
about 1 year ago
Erm, the more rules there are in a system, the more likely those rules are to come into conflict–thus normally making the system easier to game. A system with no rules is inherently impossible to manipulate, though we avoid that situation because there are worse things than rule games.
What the spending situation really comes down to is that, leaving ideology aside, it’s in the interest of the party in power to get what they want (and therefore, spend) and the interest of the party not in power to criticize that spending. So, rather predictably, we end up in the situation that everyone is a dick.