why don't you prevent them from subverting the government?
Who Represents the Rest of Us?
- Thread starter Daniel1611
- Start date
why don't you prevent them from subverting the government?
PureX
Well-known member
Why don't you? You're the one who votes entirely on one issue, and ignores all the ways your republicans encourage the legalized bribery of government, unfair corporate tax advantages, and business monopolies that are crushing the middle class.
In the end, we voters are the only real over-seers of government. If we don't make them act in our best interest, they won't. And this is true of every and any government on Earth. Governments don't become corrupt because they are so clever or efficient. They become corrupt because we let them. And we let them because we are stupid, and lazy, and selfish, and we ignore them until it's too late.
maybe I am misunderstanding you
but
it sounds like you want the government to control the corporations because you can't control the government
did I get that right?
Important news correction: Obama is not the AntiChrist.
http://www.chron.com/news/strange-w...spaper-calls-Obama-the-Antichrist-6080177.php
http://www.chron.com/news/strange-w...spaper-calls-Obama-the-Antichrist-6080177.php
OCTOBER23
New member
DAN-16 said,
For abolishing the Federal Reserve and the Federal income tax.
===========================
In ten years -2024 , JESUS will intervene in Foreign Police for the better.
There will be NO Federal Reserve - just Farming & Preserves.
No abortion - blessings of the womb.
Bad people destroyed = Hamas
Elderly made young again with New Bodies after they pass on .
Everyone given excellent health
2nd Amendment => Obsolete
No need of welfare = just eat the abundant Fruit of the Field and live long and prosper.
NO CONGRESS => Saints Rule the World under JESUS.
=======================================
For abolishing the Federal Reserve and the Federal income tax.
===========================
In ten years -2024 , JESUS will intervene in Foreign Police for the better.
There will be NO Federal Reserve - just Farming & Preserves.
No abortion - blessings of the womb.
Bad people destroyed = Hamas
Elderly made young again with New Bodies after they pass on .
Everyone given excellent health
2nd Amendment => Obsolete
No need of welfare = just eat the abundant Fruit of the Field and live long and prosper.
NO CONGRESS => Saints Rule the World under JESUS.
=======================================
PureX
Well-known member
The government is how we control ourselves. We set up governments to keep ourselves from abusing and destroying each other, and to protect ourselves from outsiders who would abuse and destroy us. But the governments we set up won't do that for us if we don't keep control of them. And we can't control our government when we're divided against each other over selfish ideological issues. Which is exactly why those who want to take control of government away from us do all they can to stir up those selfish ideological issues, and why they pay anyone who'll take their money to help them do the same. And every time we fall for it, and we blame each other, and act against each other in the voting booth, we play right into their hands.
At this point we have almost completely lost control of our own government. Except that we do still have the means of gaining it back. And that means is the voting booth. But to gain back that control we have to STOP letting ourselves be divided by selfish ideological issues, and start acting and voting for the sake of OUR UNIFIED INTERESTS, and not just for our own self-centered ideological issues. We need to start voting out ALL incumbents of any party that do not actively seek reforms that will stop the wholesale bribery of legislators. And we need to vote to encourage alternative party candidates however and whenever possible. And we need to do this en masse, so they will see that we mean business.
You have got to stop voting for liars and thieves just because they promise you some pet-agenda legislation. That's how they control you, when you are supposed to be controlling them.
OCTOBER23
New member
PUREX,
Proverbs 29:2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice:
but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Daniel 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers,
and the demand by the word of the holy ones:
to the intent that the living may know
that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will,
and setteth up over it the basest of men.
Proverbs 29:2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice:
but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Daniel 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers,
and the demand by the word of the holy ones:
to the intent that the living may know
that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will,
and setteth up over it the basest of men.
Morpheus
New member
Technically you are correct since corporations can simply pass along any taxes through increased prices, thereby causing those taxes to be paid by consumers. But economically that was never the purpose of taxing corporations. Corporate tax rates once were graduated like income taxes. By charging exorbitant high-end rates, both corporate and personal, it deincentivizes holding or passing along massive profits and incentivizes reinvestment in capital and labor (through wage increases). Reducing or eliminating corporate, capital gains and high income rates is one of the major causes for our crumbling industrial base and stagnant wages. Corporate taxation is a tool for regulating the national economy for the good of all.
It was mentioned earlier, but simply put the trickle-down, rising-tide theory of economics was disproven long before the Reagan administration began pushing it into policy and law. The people behind the push (using Donald Regan in Reagan's ear) knew well where it would lead. Boosting corporate profits, and thereby the bank accounts of a very wealthy few, at the expense of the rest of us was the goal from the beginning. Honest economists (those not ultimately financially dependent on corporate grants in exchange for favorable results) know what has been well understood for centuries, that demand drives the economy. When consumers have money then their buying power determines what gets produced, the quantity and, in most cases price (except for commodities like gasoline and essential services like medical care with inelastic demand, which need to be regulated by government). In other words, corporations don't create jobs, we do, that is when the economy, government and judicial aren't manipulated by wealthy individuals and corporations.
We no longer have a capitalist economy, or even a capitalist-socialist blend; it has become an oligarchy.
Daniel1611
New member
I'm not split between the 2 parties. Neither of the parties represent me on any major issue. There may be certain individual congressman who hold a particular view, but as for the parties in general, none of them are for abolishing the Federal Reserve or Federal Income tax; none of are single payer healthcare; none are for regulating banks; none are for noninterventionism.
As for social security, the income tax doesn't pay for it. The social security tax does. Abolish the federal income tax and we can still have social security. The federal income tax mostly just pays the interest on the national debt. The game is rigged.
shagster01
New member
Any time my income is taxed, I consider it to be income tax regardless of how it is renamed.
PureX
Well-known member
I would like to clarify that this is simply not true.
I know a lot of people on TOL and conservatives in general believe this, and reiterate it all the time, but the fact is that it's just not so. Taxing businesses will not cause the business to "pass on" the tax to consumers via higher prices because they are already charging as high a price as they believe they can get away with for their products and/or services. No business owner or investor in a capitalist system is refraining from charging a higher price because they got a tax break. Or for any other reason. Their sole purpose for engaging in the business enterprise is to gain a maximum return on the capital they've invested. And they can't do that by charging less when they could be charging more.
The capitalist profiteers like to threaten us whenever it is suggested that they pay taxes on their profits, because they don't want to pay taxes on their profits. They tell us that such taxes increase the cost of their products and services, forcing them to raise the price of those products and services to us. But they are lying. Because taxing profits is not a cost of production, and therefor there is no need to raise the price. All the tax does is decrease their profits. It does not increase their costs. Nd because they are already charging as much as they believe they can safely get away with, they are not likely to increase their prices, further, just because their taxes have cut into their profits, some.
Also, business profits are a direct result of our overall physical and social infrastructure. So that it stands to reason that a tax on those profits should be paying for the bulk of the cost of all that physical and social infrastructure. Businesses profit directly from our educational system, our transportation systems, or communication systems, our social health and security systems, and our government. They should bear their share of the costs.
Capitalism inevitably leads to oligarchy, and then to total social and economic collapse. Capitalism is a system of money making more money. And money is, of course, also power. S0 capitalism is about power being use to garner more power. And that leads inevitably to the totalitarianism of money and power: to oligarchy.
Morpheus
New member
I never intended to give the impression that a tax reduction could lead to decreased prices. That would never happen since consumers are already conditioned to present prices. The airline industry is a perfect example, although not so much from tax reduction, but from cost reduction due to fuel prices plunging. Yet I still contend that a general tax increase, unless properly structured, would likely be passed along in increased prices over the course of a couple of years. Supply and demand has less affect today then in the past. Conditioning of consumers through marketing rules demand (manufacturing demand). Some products with less demand would likely get squeezed out, but slightly higher demand would gradually raise prices to maintain profit margins. That is why I said that corporate tax increases would have to be properly and thoughtfully structured to regulate production and economic impact. If you truly don't think consumers would accept unreasonable price hikes, I give you Starbucks.
PureX
Well-known member
But you're missing my whole point: that an increased tax on profits is NOT an increase in product or service costs. There is no reason to pass it on to the consumer except greed. And that being the case, in spite of all the threats and grumbling, the capitalists will be reluctant to actually do so, because they are already maximizing their prices. They always maximize their prices. If at any point they thought they could have demanded more, they would already have done so. And they will do so in the future.
Some of them will use a tax increase on their profits as an excuse to raise prices, but frankly, they would use any excuse to raise their prices that they believe they can get the consumer to accept, whether it was true or not. So their threats and objections are both moot and disingenuous, either way.
Morpheus
New member
In a way I think we're saying the same thing. Some would use a tax increase as a public excuse to raise prices, much like the petroleum industry does about everything, yet an increase in percentage of profits does cut that much out of profits. In the cases where supply and demand actually regulate prices overall demand is regulated by available family income. When corporate taxes increase the revenues must originate somewhere, which is the consumers' family income. Since that income is relatively stagnant it will initially be absorbed by corporations through reduced profits, but gradually the economy will seek a new equilibrium as the higher demand products, wishing to regain their profits, begin small periodic price hikes. Consumers, being properly conditioned, will grumble, but pay the increased price. Since family resources are stagnant, products toward the middle of demand will either raise prices modestly, absorbing part of the lost profits, or absorb them all, depending on what the new market will bear. Products with the least initial demand will lose their share of the overall market as increased portions of family incomes go elsewhere. Their marginal demand falls off the table.
Personally I believe that corporate taxes need raised, capital gains taxes need to be eliminated and capital gains need to be grouped in with wages, as well as greatly increasing the top marginal income tax rate, both corporate and individual, to where keeping that income is detrimental, thereby incentivising reinvestment in infrastructure and wages.
It won't happen, but I like the idea of a wealth tax of 100% on all wealth over 1 billion dollars. Talk about stabilizing the economy.