Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

[DSpencer]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

Given the cost of things these days its upper middle class. Depending on where you live for instance a "good" home with a nice acre of land or great location (ie. CA or maybe one of the other more bubbly states) can easily be several times that alone. Want to send your kids to college? $30-40k a pop easy. More like $100k a piece if they want to go to a BIG LAW law firm and a top 5 school, or if they want to be a doctor. Engineer school costs are cheaper than that but I think they still hover around $50k-60k. Of course you have to pay for your own schooling too, which likely cost a similar amount. Healthcare is mind blowingly expensive, I'm not sure if you want those prices broken out in detail though... And then of course they have to save for retirement so knock off around 10-20% of their income for that, and voila!

I guess I feel that if you live in a $750K house with an acre of land, can send your kids to law school, med school, engineering school, pay your own college back, have good healthcare and also save for retirement....you're doing pretty damn well.

I live in Ohio and cost of living is pretty reasonable so maybe that plays into it.

Regardless of the perception of what standard of living should be considered middle class, I think there are other ways of thinking about it.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec...ion_makes.html

For simplicity, we'll just focus on the over-$250,000 group. Those reporting adjusted gross income of more than $250,000 to the IRS are projected to make up 2 percent of households next year, when the new president will take office.

I guess to me if you're in the top 2% of household income, it's hard to be considered middle class. Maybe if both income and net worth were considered it would change my perception. If you make $250k, have no debt and inherit some money that is a totally different lifestyle then someone making $250k and paying back college loans until they are 40.

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

Oh, I see, it's "because we're supposed to..."

Yep. The US was always supposed to have a progressive tax system right from the get go. Oh they didn't call it that back then, I guess the term didn't exist or something at that time, but de facto that is what it was supposed to be.

If you like I could drop some Smith and Jefferson (some FF'ers as it were) quotes on you as evidence of that though I'm guessing you seen them before?

Yes, I realize that rich people have more money left over after they buy stuff than poor people buying the same things....It doesn't do anything to prove your argument.

Maybe, but it does demonstrate clearly how good the rich have it and how ivory tower and ideological the arguments are that they shouldn't be taxed more.

So using your logic, why is 50, 60, 70% the farthest you will go to tax the rich (and which is it)?

It isn't, I was just using some nice simple round numbers to illustrate just how much money is left over even after tax rates that high. FWIW taxes for the rich, on wages anyways, were once higher than 70%, yes even in the US. I have absolutely no problem with that for the very richest of the rich, IOW the multi billionaires, though being pragmatic I'm willing to accept less if only to vastly improve the situation.

If the goal is to equalize the marginal utility, then shouldn't everyone be taxed to where they have the same amount of money left over?

Nope. I have no problem with those who _genuinely_ (IOW not through fraud or rentier gate keeping) earn millions a year through hard work or ingenuity. They should be rewarded for that and by all means give them some, note that word some, more to spend on what they want. The exact amount will be at least somewhat arbitrary no matter what you do, but then that is true of any tax system in the end. If you want to argue that there shouldn't ever be any taxes ever then fine but you can't have that particular cake and eat it too, with no taxes there will be no government either.

I also think that taxing the rich does not solve the problem.

By itself it doesn't, but then I'm not only just advocating taxing the rich/mega corps more. I also think entitlement spending needs to be reformed (ie. means testing, revamp Medicare Part D or get rid of it entirely, allow the gov. to negotiate drug prices down and/or buy drugs from foreign producers, etc.)and I think we should spend lots less on the military. Doing those 2 things + taxing the rich/mega corps more would almost certainly solve our short and long term budget issues and make the country on the whole a hell of a lot better place to live than it is now.

Yes, many of them are rich through improper ways. But you wouldn't suggest taxing bank robbers to fix the problem of them having too much money. The roots of the problem need to be addressed.

Except we're not dealing with bank robbers and taxing their ill gotten gains away is probably the easiest (politically and legally), fairest, and most effective way to resolve the situation we have.

Otherwise, they will just buy a new tax loophole anyway!

You got it. We would definitely have to shit can most if not all of our current politicians to prevent new tax loopholes from being bought and/or regulators paid off to look the other way. Of course you'd also have to do that anyways to get the tax system changed, to get less spent on the military, and to get proper reform (IOW not just cuts like Simpson-Bowles proposes) of entitlements. Which will almost certainly not happen to say the least.

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

I guess I feel that if you live in a $750K house with an acre of land, can send your kids to law school, med school, engineering school, pay your own college back, have good healthcare and also save for retirement....you're doing pretty damn well.

Oh yea, no question about that. That is what I meant by upper middle class. They can live very well but they're not really rich per se. Upper middle class folks have the really nice McMansion's to chest beat in front of, the rich have the massive estates worth 10's of millions and tens or hundreds of acres to play with. Big big difference between the 2.

I guess to me if you're in the top 2% of household income, it's hard to be considered middle class.

I think 20 years ago you'd be spot on. These days what you have to really look at is what the top 1-.5% make. It really is quite shocking when you look at it from that perspective just how much wealth is in the hands of so very few.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

This is one area where I am interested to learn more. There's some areas where if I'm being honest, it's not likely I'll change my opinion. But, while I have some issues with the implications of taxing static assets (mainly I think it undermines the idea of property rights) I do see some of the problems of rentier income.

It's at least an idea where in the fantasy land of itulip forums creating a new political system, I could accept this as a compromise for a much improved system.

My friend, I wish to leave you a quote from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations
Book 5, Chapter 2 -

Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent.

[WildspitzE]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

No I haven't, but that doesn't change anything that the chart you quoted demonstrates.

I thought so... I told you why it doesn't react to the upside (which is what you claim it should do) or downside at the same rate as Corp profits.

Except during most recoveries jobs and wages tend to rebound fairly quickly, within a year or 2. We are going 2 years into this "recovery" now and yet unemployment and underemployment levels are still hovering around the highest we've seen post WWII, and that is going by fudged gov. numbers. Just how long term are we talking here? 5 years? 10? 20?

Do you think this dip was the same as all those post ww2? How many people running businesses now a days even know what a pre ww2 shellacking feels like and what consequences does it have on their expectations? The number of years is not a fixed thing, it's a moving target.

I'm not sure any of these big companies think more than a quarter or 2 off into the future these days anymore. We've had going on 2 years of fantastic profits for them and they still aren't doing shit with it but redistributing it amongst them selves, I fail to see any reason to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are somehow being prudent.

When it comes to full time employment decisions it certainly is more than two qtrs, for the reasons I stated. It costs them something if they have to fire people (with no cause) - hence the higher than expected employment vs profits dip and tempered re- hiring. Also, while it doesn't seem that way from the outside, companies hate the negative franchise repercussions that layoff headlines produce.

The other factor here regarding you chart is, how much of that corporate profit is attributed to cost savings (including savings on labor)? If they restock the floors with people, what does it do to profits? In a way your graph is circular.

[WildspitzE]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

Yep. The US was always supposed to have a progressive tax system right from the get go. Oh they didn't call it that back then, I guess the term didn't exist or something at that time, but de facto that is what it was supposed to be.

If you like I could drop some Smith and Jefferson (some FF'ers as it were) quotes on you as evidence of that though I'm guessing you seen them before?

I'd like to see them, as I haven't and I'm always up for learning something new re: FFers and American history. Smith?

That said, perhaps their vision of progressive taxation was a little different as they certainly didn't allow an income tax. Meaning, it wasn't a progressive income tax that they had in mind or advocated. While I can certainly understand the need for taxes, philosophically I'm in disagreement with the income tax. It's in essence a government claim on my life, akin to the draft. The debate often focuses on how much I'm going to be allowed to keep. To take it to the extreme, if I was allowed to keep nothing, then I'd be a slave to the government and those running it. This feudalistic convention that is linked to our need to provide for ourselves has allowed the government to expand beyond belief since 1913 (coupled to the other big tax, inflation).

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

I thought so... I told you why it doesn't react to the upside (which is what you claim it should do) or downside at the same rate as Corp profits.

It doesn't have to change at the same rate but they should be going up way way faster than they are right now and have in the past.

Do you think this dip was the same as all those post ww2?

What would you argue has changed in the last 10 years or so to explain why hiring and wages still aren't rebounding? When do you expect them rebound? Remember in previous recessions unemployment would usually bottom out 6 months or so after the end of the recession and then begin to recover. This is even true of the .com bubble bust which took a long time to recover from fully. Yes this recession (depression really) has been bigger than others but that won't change the fundamentals.

When it comes to full time employment decisions it certainly is more than two qtrs, for the reasons I stated.

Well you said it takes a long time but didn't give much reason other than "people aren't inventory". And if you notice on that chart again it didn't take long at all for the corps to start firing people when profits dropped. If the decision process takes more than 2 quarters it sure as heck does not seem to take years, much less one, not at all. If we go by the chart profits started to drop in Q407 and firing started in Q208, that is 3 quarters lag time for a start. Firing didn't really start in earnest until Q408, a full year.

It costs them something if they have to fire people (with no cause) - hence the higher than expected employment vs profits dip and tempered re- hiring. Also, while it doesn't seem that way from the outside, companies hate the negative franchise repercussions that layoff headlines produce.

Tempered re-hiring? You mean no re-hiring. And while I've never run a corp or business I've had plenty of experience with working for them, and have watched them fire people at the drop of a hat. IME they only give a shit about firing people if it gets headlines, as you note, and even then they'll still do it anyways so that counts for nothing at all.

The other factor here regarding you chart is, how much of that corporate profit is attributed to cost savings (including savings on labor)? If they restock the floors with people, what does it do to profits? In a way your graph is circular.

Yes profits would probably go down if they hired more people, but its better for the economy at large to have some already rich people at the top make some less money by giving more people blue collar jobs and/or raise wages. Which in the end is the whole point. Are you perfectly OK with corps firing people and lowering the rest's wages to increase the profits for a few already very rich people at the top? Not to save the company remember, but to increase their piece of the pie, a piece that is already too big at that. That is some seriously anti social, perhaps even sociopathic, behavior don't you think?

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

I'd like to see them, as I haven't and I'm always up for learning something new re: FFers and American history. Smith?

FF'ers=Founding Fathers. Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson to be exact are the best to read up on since not only were they pretty smart in general they were also effective communicators.

dc posted a very good one as it relates explicitly to land tax but there are others as well I think.

The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state ....[As Henry Home (Lord Kames) has written, a goal of taxation should be to] 'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the poor and burdening the rich.'
...
The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Those are far and away my 2 fav's from him on taxation. Another great but unrelated one from this article on him:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

That said, perhaps their vision of progressive taxation was a little different as they certainly didn't allow an income tax.

AFAIK they didn't even have the concept of an income tax as its used today. Income was income. Meaning any source of money was income, be it wages, rental properties, capital gains, whatever. Those are all artificial constructs of law that have been lobbied into tools to be used by the rich and the banks so that they end up having their money taxed different from workers. That is why the rich end up paying effectively less taxes than the middle class or even poor. That is right, even the poor effectively pay more (22% of income) than the rich do (17% of "income").

While I can certainly understand the need for taxes, philosophically I'm in disagreement with the income tax. It's in essence a government claim on my life, akin to the draft.

Philosophically others having power over you in any way shape or form may be undesirable but in the end short of living alone on a deserted island it'll be a fact of life anywhere you go, so this seems pretty silly to me. Especially since the taxes, while often mispent in part, on the whole actually benefit you since they're what pay for the roads, police, utilities, schools, etc. edit: Not only that the taxes pay for things that otherwise you'd have absolutely no hope of paying for yourself short of being super rich. So not only would you have to live on your deserted island alone you'd have to live without modern convenience and comfort as well.

[DSpencer]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

If you like I could drop some Smith and Jefferson (some FF'ers as it were) quotes on you as evidence of that though I'm guessing you seen them before?

Who considers Adam Smith to be a Founding Father of America? I'm not even sure he ever set foot in America.

Since you forgot to mention Jefferson...
From "Property Rights in the Colonial Era and Early Republic" by James W. Ely
This is following a quote in favor of progressive (estate) taxation:

However, Jefferson repudiated progressive taxation toward the end of his life. In 1816 he wrote: "If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the state, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it"

So the message is mixed. It was a far stretch to begin with since we were talking about income tax and his quote was in relation to property/estate. I feel pretty comfortable in thinking that Jefferson would be appalled by your ideal taxation scheme and probably your overall idea of government:

"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

Sounds pretty anti-income tax to me. 0% across the board is not very progressive...

So using your logic, why is 50, 60, 70% the farthest you will go to tax the rich (and which is it)?

It isn't, I was just using some nice simple round numbers to illustrate just how much money is left over even after tax rates that high.

Oh really? Silly me.

50, 60, or maybe even 70% effective tax rates is about is about as far as I go down the "eat the rich" rabbit hole when it comes to taxing away some of their wealth.

What are you, a politician? Did your cat run across the keyboard? This all from the same page of the same thread. How can you be taken seriously?

[WildspitzE]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

It doesn't have to change at the same rate but they should be going up way way faster than they are right now and have in the past.


What would you argue has changed in the last 10 years or so to explain why hiring and wages still aren't rebounding? When do you expect them rebound? Remember in previous recessions unemployment would usually bottom out 6 months or so after the end of the recession and then begin to recover. This is even true of the .com bubble bust which took a long time to recover from fully. Yes this recession (depression really) has been bigger than others but that won't change the fundamentals.


Well you said it takes a long time but didn't give much reason other than "people aren't inventory". And if you notice on that chart again it didn't take long at all for the corps to start firing people when profits dropped. If the decision process takes more than 2 quarters it sure as heck does not seem to take years, much less one, not at all. If we go by the chart profits started to drop in Q407 and firing started in Q208, that is 3 quarters lag time for a start. Firing didn't really start in earnest until Q408, a full year.


Tempered re-hiring? You mean no re-hiring. And while I've never run a corp or business I've had plenty of experience with working for them, and have watched them fire people at the drop of a hat. IME they only give a shit about firing people if it gets headlines, as you note, and even then they'll still do it anyways so that counts for nothing at all.

Tempered re-hiring? It certainly looks to me like the downward slope of # of jobs has flattened out for the time being. This could change again of course. An immediate drop is obvious to anybody running a business and knowing that hiring decisions are not perfect in either direction, but did you notice how tempered this was vs. the drop in corporate profits? It's indicative of the tendency towards a LT view (vs. inventory, the illustrative counter example).

Should be? Why? I think it is funny that you believe that it is formulaic decision. These are human decisions; to illustrate the non static nature of this: how long the "good times last" affects your sense of optimism and how long the "bad times last" affects your sense of doom. Perhaps they understand, better than you or I, that most of those corporate profits come from shedding those jobs (the expense items, especially when other input costs are rising), and that it's not the revenue side of the equation that is adding to them (or maybe just beginning to add to it, so they are waiting longer than they would). That the biggest flaw in your chart and thinking regarding this specific subject is that it's self referential. You also seem to ignore or give less weight to what happened on the downside and how expectations and views change over time.

What has changed during the last 10 years? Ah, I suggest that you re-read iTulip.

Yes profits would probably go down if they hired more people, but its better for the economy at large to have some already rich people at the top make some less money by giving more people blue collar jobs and/or raise wages. Which in the end is the whole point. Are you perfectly OK with corps firing people and lowering the rest's wages to increase the profits for a few already very rich people at the top? Not to save the company remember, but to increase their piece of the pie, a piece that is already too big at that. That is some seriously anti social, perhaps even sociopathic, behavior don't you think?

I'm sorry but this is rubbish.

[c1ue]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

What would you argue has changed in the last 10 years or so to explain why hiring and wages still aren't rebounding?

The change hasn't been just in the last 10 years; it started well before that in the '70s.

The difference now is very easy to understand: when you have a large percentage of overall employment as a function of manufacturing, a recession leads to a drop in demand for manufactured products and in turn leads to a drop in employment. When the recovery begins, said demand increases and thus the jobs increase.

When you have an economy based instead on a 3rd world banana republic type system - where wealth creation is primarily a function of government and/or monopoly/oligopoly, and jobs are a function of serving those few tied into said wealth creation, there is no significant impact when a recovery occurs. While there is some increase of jobs due to increased demand by the wealthy - the reality is those wealthy don't change their labor-based spending dramatically. Someone with 5 servants doesn't ramp up/down without major changes in their wealth profile.

As for the why - you can point a finger directly at the combination of the floating dollar and the subsequent turbocharging of FIRE in the US economy.

One item rarely talked about - at least IMO - is the role of Bretton Woods in limiting offshoring. When there is a negotiated fixed exchange rate plus a mechanism for conversion of excess foreign reserves into tangibles, this provides a feedback mechanism for combating the otherwise irresistible desire to tap into cheaper labor.

Without this, and throw in a floating US dollar as medium of exchange, the result is a system which does not have similar equalizing tendencies. As Dr. Michael Hudson notes, the ability of the US to print endless dollars with minimal consequences allows completely different forms of imperialism - why conquer when you can buy with money printed out of thin air?

Why manufacture in the US when you can ship things offshore and then get your fat bonus check and buy another Lear jet now?

Why allow the system to work unimpeded when you can buy your politicians using money acquired from pet politician pork barrel and/or cheap Federal Reserve lending?

[WildspitzE]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

FF'ers=Founding Fathers. Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson to be exact are the best to read up on since not only were they pretty smart in general they were also effective communicators.

dc posted a very good one as it relates explicitly to land tax but there are others as well I think.

I'm sorry, I'm no history scholar, but Smith is considered a founding father? He certainly was an important influence to the likes of some founding fathers, but I don't think he was one.

Those are far and away my 2 fav's from him on taxation. Another great but unrelated one from this article on him:

Interesting quotes, thank you. It's been a long time since I've read Smith. While Smith was right about a lot of things, he was wrong about a lot of things too -- and often sounding much like Marx. Well, actually it's the other way around but you know what I mean. Labor theory of value (or cost theory to be more precise) is so wrong but still pretty much alive today in the minds of people and their views about employment and those who take the risks and provide employment to people.

AFAIK they didn't even have the concept of an income tax as its used today. Income was income. Meaning any source of money was income, be it wages, rental properties, capital gains, whatever. Those are all artificial constructs of law that have been lobbied into tools to be used by the rich and the banks so that they end up having their money taxed different from workers. That is why the rich end up paying effectively less taxes than the middle class or even poor. That is right, even the poor effectively pay more (22% of income) than the rich do (17% of "income").

They didn't have an income tax because they were philosophically opposed to it for the reasons I stated, they did have taxes on corporate profits and tariffs for example. There are differences and they understood them well, taxation was in the list of grievances of the declaration of independence for a reason.

You seem to put the car in front of the horse. While I try to avoid the whole rich vs poor rubbish, could it be that once the federal government continued on its path to consolidate power (which needs to be funded) decided to tax the only thing missing, that the rich then began their efforts to change how they earn "income" and lobby for changes that would be beneficial to them?

Philosophically others having power over you in any way shape or form may be undesirable but in the end short of living alone on a deserted island it'll be a fact of life anywhere you go, so this seems pretty silly to me. Especially since the taxes, while often mispent in part, on the whole actually benefit you since they're what pay for the roads, police, utilities, schools, etc. edit: Not only that the taxes pay for things that otherwise you'd have absolutely no hope of paying for yourself short of being super rich. So not only would you have to live on your deserted island alone you'd have to live without modern convenience and comfort as well.

I don't even know where to begin with this paragraph, so I won't. To me it sounds like it was spoken like a proper slave, using red herrings as an excuse to justify the reason why he has given up to the parasitism that enslaves him. Just remember that I wasn't talking about taxes in general (based on things people have a choice on or on entities like corporations, it was specifically about the income tax).

[chr5648]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

This thread reminds me of a quote and a recent article.


Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn't be noticed - Nationality did not really exist, only humanity.
But in the camps, one learns; if you belong to a successful nation you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity, too bad for you.
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 200 years together

We may not live in gulags/labor camps but, we sure don't have a strong nation protecting us. Todays "universal human"/multicultural societies don't have the ability to stand up together, they are fighting biology and thousands of years of evolution. They are an easy target to be preyed upon, and the fire/elites are very good at that. No wonder the elites/democracies/corporations despise any sort of nationalistic uprisings.



The article below describes the attitude and mentality of the elites very well.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...al-elite/8343/

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

Who considers Adam Smith to be a Founding Father of America? I'm not even sure he ever set foot in America.

AFAIK most historians do, you even mention he had a huge impact on the ones you'd agree are Founding Fathers so yea, you kinda mooted your own point.

Since you forgot to mention Jefferson...

Yea he started to change late in life, one other too I think. I'm not sure what to think of that other than perhaps they became cynical and developed a fatalistic attitude towards a society's ability to manage or distribute wealth fairly. edit: Refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike and all that.

So the message is mixed. It was a far stretch to begin with since we were talking about income tax and his quote was in relation to property/estate. I feel pretty comfortable in thinking that Jefferson would be appalled by your ideal taxation scheme and probably your overall idea of government:

The thing was it was such a different world back then its really hard to look at his views on land/property tax in isolation and he wouldn't tax income because what we would say is income today is different from back then. I don't think you can do that, and AFAIK even historians argue over that.

What are you, a politician? Did your cat run across the keyboard? This all from the same page of the same thread. How can you be taken seriously?

Nope, I said that in relation to the "eat the rich" quote and later mentioned for the multi billionaires I would like to go higher but would accept less. I think I noted it as an edit..

[mesyn191]

Re: Proposal to Strip Corporations of Constitutional Rights Gains Momentum in Wisconsin

Tempered re-hiring? It certainly looks to me like the downward slope of # of jobs has flattened out for the time being.

The curve hasn't reversed though, taken as a whole the net gain of jobs is effectively zero.

Should be? Why? I think it is funny that you believe that it is formulaic decision.

Its not but its also not some black art either. You're saying you understand the hiring/firing process better than I do. OK fair enough, draw some sort of line in the sand to point as a rough guide to work from.

What has changed during the last 10 years? Ah, I suggest that you re-read iTulip.

I haven't seen him say much on the hiring/firing process though, which is what we're talking about.

I'm sorry but this is rubbish.

Sure seems spot on to me. You've already seen the wealth distribution charts, you know how little the middle/poor make vs. their expenses, and you probably have a really good idea too of unemployment and under employment. You're really OK with how these corps are ran and how much they're able to influence the gov?