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St. John of San Francisco
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12 comments:
Guess it's time to obtain that 21 trillion dollars stashed away in secret bank accounts by our betters.
ummm Please refrain from making idiotic comments. There isn't $21 Trillion stashed in secret bank accounts. According to the Federal Reserve there is only about $1.2 Trillion in circulation (M1 & M2) and if you calculate M3 the number rises to perhaps $1.4 Trillion.
Don't tax me,
Don't tax thee,
Tax the man behind the tree.
or in this case, it is our children who are behind the tree.
different anon. however, it is absurd to say that the US can't fund social policies, when clearly it can. We can easily fully fund social programs in the us by cutting the "defense" budget by 50%. That would still give us an enormous military that would be more than adequate for our defense needs. Cutting it by 90% would be even better.
Moreover, sharply progressive taxes would help on many levels as would tax penalties on US companies that refuse to repatriate cash holdings.
Time to stop orienting our policies to protect the wealthiest at the expense of US society.
Anon - Europe has done all that-- slashed defense spending, sharply progressive taxation--and they are still going broke.
I find our bloated military budget and byzantine tax code appalling, but I don't see any evidence that a democratic state can sustain a welfare system.
or in this case, it is our children who are behind the tree.
Except we aren't having them. And I don't think millions of immigrants are going to put their shoulders to the wheel and pay the nursing home bills for a bunch of old strangers.
John (Ad Orientem),
You really need to be less in awe of your "betters". They're thieves, not superior gifted individuals.
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy
So what? Taxes are as immoral as ill-gotten gains by private individuals, and probably worse.
That money is "onshore" somewhere, and so widely dispersed thru investments in the global economy that it's a stretch to call it "offshore" to anywhere. If you want to repatriate that wealth, then follow Monaco's lead and end your government's confiscatory taxation.
Amazing! The brainwashing of the population by those employed by the very wealthy has been extremely effective as Stephen shows.
I think it's quite evident that Christianity, along with other major religions that have a social component, has failed.
Although I don't tend to favor euthanizing useless eaters, I'd like to remind everyone that the distinctive mark of being poor is greater than average vulnerability to life's vicissitudes and greater than average dependence on others' charity. One could appropriately state that the poor leech off the positive externalities from rich folks' capital employment. Lowering taxes by locating capital in countries that welcome it as well as otherwise decreasing income taxes' progressiveness increases those externalities.
Henry lumps such homely venues as Delaware, Alaska, Nevada, and South Dakota with the more stereotypically exotic offshore asset locales. Golly, I could be an offshore magnate without leaving my La-Z-Boy.
Anon - you confuse voluntary charity, which Christianity encourages if not requires, with redistribution of wealth at the point of a gun, i.e. taxes.
This assumes that gov't is doing its job in holding all men equal before the law. But of course, the same people who propel themselves to power by promising some the money of others in exchange for their votes, are also the ones who seek to exempt themselves and their buddies from the law. Solyndra, Wall Street etc come to mind. George Orwell considered these people to be the "pigs" of Animal Farm, which was always a slur against pigs.
and, btw., it'd be nice to read an attempt at a logical retort, rather than a pointless diversion to "brainwashing". Unless, of course, no retort is possible.
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