New Mars Forums

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

It just make the name calling dumb....RobertDyck I know your shoes all to well....

The Rich will get Richer due to there greed for the life style to which they wish and the poor will be devided into 2 camps one that will struggle and claw there way up from the bottom, while the other will leach off from support systems.

Also living in the cities do yield quicker oportunity but the there is the higher price of being able to live there which is not being considered. You are not able to grow your food comes to mind in a very populated city to which a more rural area you can.

To answer Palomar's question in the "ghost disease" (radiation poisoning) there have been a few that have crossed the borders of north to south which have been afflicted....

Palomar7

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2017-12-20

Posts: 81

Re: Politics

To answer Palomar's question in the "ghost disease" (radiation poisoning) there have been a few that have crossed the borders of north to south which have been afflicted....

Yes. Defectors.

I've written a poem about it.

...and wouldn't it be (pardon the pun) poetic justice if Kim dies of that himself?

But how horrible all the other lives ruined during.

Last edited by Palomar7 (2018-01-03 19:01:36)

---

Original registration - May 2002

[i]I want that Million Year Picnic on Mars[/i]

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

No poetic justice for KIM's people as North Korea accidentally hit one of its own cities with a missile, report says last spring accidentally hit the city of Tokchon, which has a population of more than 200,000.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

I've dealt with employers my entire life who believe this delusion. That hold the fantasy that anyone who wants work can get work. I've heard the fairy tale that anyone who really wants work can get it within 2 weeks. That's complete bullshit. You have been privileged and lucky. In real life it normally takes many months to get a job. One of the problems is those idiots who believe this fairy tale refuse to hire anyone who isn't already employed.

Tens of millions of other people across all industries, with markedly different upbringings, and with a very diverse set of life experiences all seem to be capable of holding jobs.  All of that can't be privilege or dumb luck.  It's true that you can't control what other people think or how they act, but you can control how you think and act.

Actually, this shows a major character flaw. I've met some women who don't find certain men attractive because they're available. If other women find that guy attractive, they suddenly want the guy. That's not a woman you want, they're fickle and shallow. But there are men who follow this same principle when hiring employees. They won't hire someone who's available, only someone who is currently employed by someone else. Those guys are behaving like petty teen-age girls. For one thing, if an employee is willing to leave his current employer for you, then he'll leave you for the next employer who comes along. No loyalty.

I will probably die clueless about what women think is important, but I think it varies from one to the next.  Sometimes I ask my wife what goes on in her head, sometimes she actually tells me, and on rare occasion I will actually understand it.

I've been married to the same woman for over ten years now.  Maybe it'll work out and maybe it won't.  Time will tell.  Oddly enough, both of us have the expectation that the other spouse will maintain stable employment.  That's a requirement when you have several kids, one of which just graduated from college.

And you wonder why this is getting bad. When you demonstrate arrogance and ignorance like that, you will be treated ever worse.

You're the one here constantly calling other people names and belittling them.  The fact that you completely discount points of view that differ from your own says a lot more about you than it does me.  You've explained enough about your situation that I gather life has been rough for you.  You're hardly the first person to have financial problems in life.

Then you're stupid. Period.

Do you exhibit this same attitude towards potential employers?

and have resources to pay, while private individuals don't. Most importantly, when civil servants blatantly violate tax law and take extreme action to take what simply isn't owe under the law, a corporation has the resources to hire accountants and lawyers to defend itself. Individuals do not.

You raise the taxes on corporations and the people running those corporations will pass those taxes right along to you without thinking twice about it.  Taxing yourself more, every time you buy the necessities of life, is not a very good strategy for creating wealth.

You just blathered that you do. Inconsistent.

I've worked for someone else my entire life.

My experience is from actually being on welfare. First hand experience. Not some holier-than-thou arrogant individual who doesn't understand realities of life. Yes, you can lose everything for things that have nothing to do with anything you did. You may not accept it, but that's reality. I've dealt with arrogant condescending pricks my whole life.

I thought it was obvious that my point of view is from what I see happening here in America and not what goes on in Canada.  I've never been on welfare before, so I've no idea what it's like.  I never claimed to know, either.  I do know that what I see at Wally World is common enough that I get to see it nearly every time I go there.  I don't think living off of other people's money is supposed to be an "alternative lifestyle" that comes with great perks, but opinions clearly differ.

Sure, you can lose everything you have.  That's something that can happen in life and it happens all the time.  You can also get it all back and more.  You probably won't do that with your attitude towards other people.

Don't try to respond. Drop it. You have demonstrated that you can't learn.

I understand your belief system pretty well at this point, but the entire world has already told you it's not going to work the way you think it should.  If your current belief system hasn't brought the financial success you believe is owed to you, then perhaps you owe it to yourself to try changing your beliefs a bit to see what else changes as a result.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

The title tells what some already know about the president in that he is not fit to be one...
Lawmakers briefed by Yale psychiatrist on Trump's mental health

Trump is scheduled for his first physical exam as president on Jan. 12. His military physician will make the results public.

karmah ...no he would call it deep state....they are all out to get him...crazy much

25th Amendment, which allows for the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and remove him.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

It has come to my knowledge that some do not like all the name calling, drama and are lurking because of it, in away as to not be part of it.

This folder and topics have always been rather loose in the rule enforcment that pervails on the rest of the forum and as such its up to the forums actual owners to make that change to make it such that we will no longer tolerate such events. At one time in the past the poltical folder was removed and that would be also up to the web master to do as I am not the one to make those changes.

We did lose 2 members earlier in the year as a result of racism, name calling and such in the other parts of the forum and that was taken care of by the web master after such content was reported.

I for one do not wish to lose any more members due to these types of events. We all are a bit passionate and need to reign it in from time to time as others that do frequent forums here may be not so apt to post due to the intolerance that seems to be here to these events of name calling and more.

Every post that is marked is reviewed as reported especially in the remaining parts of the forum.

Moderators are few but they can change what is there, move the content and elevate the circumstances of the post to the admin levels to which I am not the only name in the list.

Do not be afraid to report as I would like to see the forum membership of those that post continue to grow and not retreat as it has in the past.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

SpaceNut,

Do you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome?

From the article:

"The country is in the throes of a major epidemic, with no known cure and some pretty scary symptoms. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, and it’s rapidly spreading from the point of origin – the political class – to the population at large.

In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion.
...
The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of hyperbole.
...
In the advanced stages of the disease, the afflicted lose touch with reality. Opinion is unmoored from fact. Life resembles a dark fairy tale in which the villain – Trump – is an amalgam of all the worst tyrants in history, past and present, while the heroes –Trump's critics – are akin to the resistance fighters of World War II."

I've never seen such a bizarre obsession over one man.  People who have never met him, spoken to him, or know the first thing about him, apart from their blatantly obvious burning hatred for him, seem to have lost their ability to separate what goes on in their minds from reality.  It's like he has his own stalker fan club full of people who hate him.

Anybody who disagrees with regressive ideology receives everything from name calling to death threats to actual attempted murder for daring to have a different opinion.  That seems to be where arguments with people in America who call themselves "liberals" or "progressives" end up these days.  A good portion of the voting American public has a fundamental disagreement with them about how to run America.  Calling them all stupid or crazy or actually threatening or committing acts of violence against them is not going to change their opinion.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

It has come to my knowledge that some do not like all the name calling, drama and are lurking because of it, in away as to not be part of it.

This folder and topics have always been rather loose in the rule enforcment that pervails on the rest of the forum and as such its up to the forums actual owners to make that change to make it such that we will no longer tolerate such events. At one time in the past the poltical folder was removed and that would be also up to the web master to do as I am not the one to make those changes.

We did lose 2 members earlier in the year as a result of racism, name calling and such in the other parts of the forum and that was taken care of by the web master after such content was reported.

I for one do not wish to lose any more members due to these types of events. We all are a bit passionate and need to reign it in from time to time as others that do frequent forums here may be not so apt to post due to the intolerance that seems to be here to these events of name calling and more.

Every post that is marked is reviewed as reported especially in the remaining parts of the forum.

Moderators are few but they can change what is there, move the content and elevate the circumstances of the post to the admin levels to which I am not the only name in the list.

Do not be afraid to report as I would like to see the forum membership of those that post continue to grow and not retreat as it has in the past.

SpaceNut,

I'm not any sort of shrinking violet who will go off and pout because someone called me a name on the internet.  I'm not so overly-sensitive to criticism that I will get upset and leave over every little thing someone has to say about me.  People can call me names all they want, but that won't change my opinions because it indicates what happens when emotion overrides logic.  If that's the extent of their argument, then it's a pretty weak argument.  People who claim to be intellectuals should probably recognize that for what it is.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

2018 is still in a negative jobs growth... Here's a map of where the Sears', Kmart's and Macy's stores are going dark

To start the year and building on previous announcements, Sears will be closing 64 Kmart stores and 39 Sears stores, all of which are expected to shut between early March and April.

Macy's has revealed 11 locations (as part of a previously announced plan to close 100 stores, beginning in 2017) that will also shut in early 2018, with liquidation sales beginning as soon as next week.

J.C. Penney CEO Warns Sears: We're Coming for Your Appliance Business

Penney, which resumed selling large home appliances two years ago after three decades away from the category, saw comparable appliance sales rise 30% in the November and December holiday period, a significant contributor to Penney’s better-than-expected 3.4% holiday season sales growth, Ellison told Fortune in an interview on Thursday.

Toys R Us, the behemoth that filed for bankruptcy last year. Penney increased its assortment for the holidays by 40% and is making its toy boutiques a permanent fixture in its stores, beyond the holidays.

RobertDyck

Moderator

From: Winnipeg, Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 7,811

Website

Re: Politics

kbd512, I could post links to those who have given detailed arguments for tax systems that charge higher tax rates for those more wealthy. I haven't because I don't think you would read them, and frankly that's not what I want to support. I have said before, the final goal we want to achieve is the same. At least I think it is. Our belief in the best way to get there is different.

As I said before, income tax was created during World War 1 as a temporary war tax. It was created in the US in 1913, in Canada in 1917. The bill in Canada that first created income tax was called "Temporary War Income Tax Act", I like to point out that acronym spells "TWIT Act". I posted ideas for Mars, how a Mars settlement would be governed. The principle is libertarian, drastically reduce regulation, and absolutely no tax. A city on Mars would charge a fee, this would basically pay for the same things that municipal property tax pays on Earth. A domed city on Mars would change a fee for a developer to construct a building within the dome. I've also argued that a more likely design would be a series of connected pressurized buildings, like a shopping mall. There would still be a fee for a unit inside that building. That fee would pay for pressure, oxygen recycling, heat, garbage collection, roads or more likely corridors and escalators. It would also pay for parks, police, etc. There would be utility bills for water, sewer, internet. But no tax.

Any homestead outside any city would not have that fee. The homesteader would have to build his/her own pressurized habitat, oxygen and water recycling, heat, etc. But no tax, no fee of any sort.

A number of years ago, I decided to look at this Utopian vision and see how much we could achieve here on Earth today. We could get rid of income tax. In the late 1970s when I was in high school, and early 1980s when I was in university, I believed we had to drastically cut Canadian federal government spending, treat the federal debt as a mortgage, pay the whole damn thing off. Once the debt was gone, we could drastically cut taxes. During the 1984 federal election, one candidate did promise to do that. Not eliminate the debt, but he promised to eliminate the deficit, reduce the debt, reduce taxes. This would be accomplished by cutting government spending, and reducing the number of individuals hired in the federal civil service. The voters responded by saying "our saviour has arrived"! And gave him the largest majority in Canadian history. He became Prime Minister, his party had an overwhelming majority in the House. (Canada has a House of Commons.) Unfortunately for Canadians, he proved to be the biggest liar of all. He did the opposite to everything he campaigned on. He increased the deficit, tripled the debt, and drastically increased taxes. He increased government spending, and increased the size of the federal civil service. He was re-elected in 1988, his party had a smaller majority in the House, but still in control with a majority. The next election was 1993, voters were out for revenge for tax increases. That party elected so few members to the House that they were no longer considered a party.

In the mid and late 1990s, the other major party was elected. They cut spending, shrunk the civil service, eliminated the deficit, reduced the debt, reduced taxes. In year 2000 the Finance Minister announced a $17.1 billion surplus! Realize Canada had 1/10th the population of the US, so all budget figures are 1/10th the size of the US. That got me excited. I did a calculation, if we treat the debt as a mortgage, that would not only reduce the debt further, it would allow us to completely pay off the debt. And once gone, we could completely abolish federal personal income tax. In the spring of 2004 I did approach the party office in my province about being the candidate in my riding. That's the Canadian term for "electoral district". Actually the Canadian government that was in office 2006-2015 changed the term to "electoral district". During the 2006 federal election I was web master, IT coordinator, volunteer coordinator, office manager, and general all around staffer for the local candidate. She let me post my policy ideas on the local campaign website. My biggest idea was to apply all of the surplus that existed at that time to the debt, do not spend any of it. No need to cut spending, just don't increase it. Treat the debt as a mortgage, pay the whole damn thing off, and and once gone completely abolish federal personal income tax.

That doesn't achieve the Mars goal of no tax, but eliminates the largest tax.

America could do something similar. Donald Trump has promised to significantly reduce regulation. They just passed a bill that claims to cut tax. The only question now is how effective is this tax cut. One key feature: corporate income tax. Economic experts from the US have appeared on news programs in both the US and Canada, they claimed that even though the official tax rate was 35%, after deductions most American large corporations paid 19%. The tax bill just passed cuts the rate from 35% to 21%, but takes away the majority of those deductions. Before the bill was finalized, I saw Congressmen on American political talk shows. The host asked bluntly what does this do after deductions? The Congressman refused to answer. Every time. Now I have to ask if this bill actually increased total corporate tax payable from 19% to 21%.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-01-05 15:15:38)

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

SpaceNut,

The brick-and-mortar stores have done a terrible job adapting to the online shopping revolution.  It is entirely possible that many of the big retail stores will fail unless they get smarter about what they sell.

Here's the jobs report:

U.S. Added 148,000 Jobs in December; Unemployment at 4.1%

Palomar7

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2017-12-20

Posts: 81

Re: Politics

I've never seen such a bizarre obsession over one man.  People who have never met him, spoken to him, or know the first thing about him, apart from their blatantly obvious burning hatred for him, seem to have lost their ability to separate what goes on in their minds from reality.  It's like he has his own stalker fan club full of people who hate him.

Fresh accusations of his supporting KKK.

--->said by a woman married 25 years to a Hispanic man and also residing that long in a Hispanic neighborhood<---

Which worries me for any future of NASA, space exploration, etc. Want to bet it'll be denounced as "Whiteness"? If it hasn't already.

Last edited by Palomar7 (2018-01-05 15:23:18)

---

Original registration - May 2002

[i]I want that Million Year Picnic on Mars[/i]

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

kbd512, I could post links to those who have given detailed arguments for tax systems that charge higher tax rates for those more wealthy. I haven't because I don't think you would read them, and frankly that's not what I want to support. I have said before, the final goal we want to achieve is the same. At least I think it is. Our belief in the best way to get there is different.

If you have something to post to support your arguments, then post it.  Stop claiming to know things about me that you don't.

America could do something similar. Donald Trump has promised to significantly reduce regulation. They just passed a bill that claims to cut tax. The only question now is how effective is this tax cut. One key feature: corporate income tax. Economic experts from the US have appeared on news programs in both the US and Canada, they claimed that even though the official tax rate was 35%, after deductions most American large corporations paid 19%. The tax bill just passed cuts the rate from 35% to 21%, but takes away the majority of those deductions. Before the bill was finalized, I saw Congressmen on American political talk shows. The host asked bluntly what does this do after deductions? The Congressman refused to answer. Every time. Now I have to ask if this bill actually increased total corporate tax payable from 19% to 21%.

Small businesses are 99.7% of US employers, they produce 64% of all new jobs, account for 49.2% of private sector employment, and 42.9% of payroll.  Killing small business with excessive taxes and regulations kills jobs.  Small businesses pay higher corporate tax rates, many actually do pay at the advertised rate because they don't have any of the tax shelters large corporations can use (off-shoring profits by investing in their overseas operations to avoid paying taxes).  If you want to argue that large corporations should pay what they owe instead of transferring their profits overseas so they don't have to pay taxes, then we're in 100% agreement.  That's not how taxation actually works and small business growth was decimated because of it.

I worked for a Canadian man for 8 years.  He was a small business owner and a great guy to work with and for.  We paid 100% of what the corporate tax rate was for the profits produced.  I don't have to guess about anything since he was totally transparent about all of it (our cash flow, our salaries, our insurances paid).  Between taxation and insurance, we were unable to grow.  Every cent was spoken for and our salaries did not come close to matching the going rate for our line of work.  We burnt ourselves out taking on all sorts of jobs we should've declined because we needed the income.  We eventually went our separate ways.  We never could afford to hire one extra consultant to take on more work or ease the travel and administrative burdens on ourselves.  We did good work for our clients and transformed a lot of projects that other consultancies had run into the ground into complete successes for our clients.  We even created new software products our clients wanted with what little spare time we had.  That still wasn't enough.  You can be successful at what you do, but still fail.  Small business grows or dies and it happens all the time.  Excessive tax and regulatory burdens consumed all available profits in our case because we didn't have a vehicle to transfer those taxes to our clients, which were other corporations.

The Congressman probably doesn't know what the new tax bill does for actual corporate tax rates because nobody there reads or understand what they sign their names to.  Damn near every one of them are grossly ignorant of what life is like for the average American and of what goes on in the private sector unless someone gives them a little eye-opener.  Doctors and lawyers are not a representative cross section of America.  It'll remain that way until we equalize who pays into the government, thus the influence we have over our government, thus the sort of representation we get from who we elect to office.  I want to diminish the influence that the most wealthy have in government by not having them pay what comes close to confiscatory tax rates (meaning they pay more to the government on what they earn than what they keep).  Our problem is spending, not taxation.  You were the one who pointed out that we already pay more for less service.

RobertDyck

Moderator

From: Winnipeg, Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 7,811

Website

Re: Politics

kbd512, I find this discussion ironic. Here in Canada I'm a "fiscally responsible Liberal". One member of our party has accused me of being Conservative, and actually campaigned to have me removed from any position within the party. Our current Prime Minister has demanded that party in-fighting stop. I really would like him to have strong words with the guy fighting against me. But you treat me as a tax-and-spend liberal?

Small businesses...

Sure. But I still argue that a small business with a 6-figure income should pay higher tax than an individual below the poverty line.

Here in Canada, federal corporate income tax for corporations with taxable income below half a million dollars was just cut from 11% to 10.5%. That's effective January 1st, so last Monday. I wrote a long document to the Finance Minister and a short note to the Prime Minsiter's office. I got a response from the Prime Minister's office this morning; the staffer said this is under authority of the Finance Minister, so forwarded my note to him. Since this actually got someone to read it, hopefully he'll read my long document.

My point is to cut personal income tax deeply, freeze corporate income tax for small corporations at 11%, and increase tax for large corporations to 19%. That means the small cut to tax for small corporations will have to be repealed. Note: the US just cut federal corporate income tax to 21%. That would still leave Canadian tax lower.

If you want to argue that large corporations should pay what they owe instead of transferring their profits overseas so they don't have to pay taxes, then we're in 100% agreement.

Ok, we found a point of agreement.

The Congressman probably doesn't know what the new tax bill does for actual corporate tax rates because nobody there reads or understand what they sign their names to.  Damn near every one of them are grossly ignorant of what life is like for the average American and of what goes on in the private sector unless someone gives them a little eye-opener.  Doctors and lawyers are not a representative cross section of America.  It'll remain that way until we equalize who pays into the government, thus the influence we have over our government, thus the sort of representation we get from who we elect to office.

This I believe.

I want to diminish the influence that the most wealthy have in government by not having them pay what comes close to confiscatory tax rates (meaning they pay more to the government on what they earn than what they keep).  Our problem is spending, not taxation.  You were the one who pointed out that we already pay more for less service.

This I don't agree with. Paying tax does not give you influence. I have worked for government, management in the civil service (from junior supervisors on up) treat tax revenue as a right. They don't see it as your money, they see it as theirs. So cutting tax for the rich will not cut influence of the rich. What does give them influence is campaign donations. You need to limit election campaign donations. Congress tried, but it was challenged in court. It went through several appeals, the last was the Supreme Court decision known as "Citizens United". That decision has to be repealed.

Here's one video. I don't agree with everything this guy says, but this video is short.

Here is a better video, and even shorter. (1 minute, 43 seconds) It lists a few bad decisions by the Supreme Court:

• 1886: rules corporations are people

• 1976: money is speech

• 2010: Citizens United allows unlimited corporate money in US elections

Here's a longer one: 10 minutes, 29 seconds.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

In the advanced stages of the disease, the afflicted lose touch with reality. Opinion is unmoored from fact. Life resembles a dark fairy tale in which the villain – Trump – is an amalgam of all the worst tyrants in history, past and present, while the heroes –Trump's critics – are akin to the resistance fighters of World War II."

Funny....
Well the shoe seems to fit Trump and by the way Trump did come to my little hick town which had a split vote in the election to which were all lies....

SpaceNut,

The brick-and-mortar stores have done a terrible job adapting to the online shopping revolution.  It is entirely possible that many of the big retail stores will fail unless they get smarter about what they sell.

Here's the jobs report:

U.S. Added 148,000 Jobs in December; Unemployment at 4.1%

Some what true for jobs but the gotcha is these were mostly holiday temporary employment and not fill time long term jobs whish is what people need. Then again the drop of unemployment is not the complete number as we all know.

Brick an mortar stores have tried to adapt with online stores but these products come from the warehouse and not the local store for the most part that is near the patrons local. Many stores were honoring the online price when you went to the store but the main reason for the stores failing is the high lease agreements for the foot print used, a drop in sails of course from other things such as a slowing employment dollars to make purchases with, rising cost of product even when importing a cheap alternative and thats just the start of this as the locations have many walmarts now in the area and the buy imports have cause the last fork in the coffin to happen....

Store fronts from the small shop owners are also failing, this is just plain cost to rent the store front and amount of dollars coming in not at all effected by online sails....

A staggering amount of U.S. retail stores closed in 2017

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

I've never seen such a bizarre obsession over one man.  People who have never met him, spoken to him, or know the first thing about him, apart from their blatantly obvious burning hatred for him, seem to have lost their ability to separate what goes on in their minds from reality.  It's like he has his own stalker fan club full of people who hate him.

Fresh accusations of his supporting KKK.

--->said by a woman married 25 years to a Hispanic man and also residing that long in a Hispanic neighborhood<---

Which worries me for any future of NASA, space exploration, etc. Want to bet it'll be denounced as "Whiteness"? If it hasn't already.

TDS is a real mental disorder.  The afflicted eventually lose touch with reality, generously presuming they were ever in touch with reality to begin with.  If President Trump farted on someone who was a member of the KKK, it would be proof positive of his support for such vile ideology.  He doesn't want to even acknowledge that they exist because he doesn't want to lend credibility to what the media have done for their disgusting cause.  I've never even seen a KKK member, except in the liberal media, and I live in Texas.  I'd never put people who walk around wearing bed sheets and dunce hats on TV, since I don't condone or agree with what they believe, but that's just me.  We can find someone who believes the earth is flat if we look hard enough, but we shouldn't put them on TV.

NASA is NASA, but brain dead ideologues out there with more hatred than uncommon sense will try to link NASA to racism, and thus to President Trump, who just has to be racist because someone on TV said so.  Only the most narcissistic people on the planet actually want to be on TV.  I don't want to be on TV, unless it's an educational program intended to get people interested in math or science, and I refuse to watch TV.  TV was supposed to be an educational tool, but that's not what it's being overwhelmingly used for these days, so the fewer people who watch TV, the better.

I didn't vote for President Trump in the Republican primary, but between him and Clinton, the choice was easy.  I've never seen so many heads explode over a good bit of nothing.  It would be comical to watch if the people involved weren't considered adults.  I didn't vote for Bush or Obama because I thought they'd start wars over trivial pursuits and spend money like we had any to spend.  I wasn't wrong, either.

I'm married to a Buddhist Vietnamese woman who is a first generation immigrant from Viet Nam.  The notion that I hate people who are immigrants or who come from different cultures or ethnic backgrounds simply because I voted for President Trump is so funny I lose my shit whenever someone suggests that sort of stupidity.  It's that comical.  No one in my family asked me why I married her, apart from asking if we loved each other and intended to stay together because my family are devout Christians, like her own mother, and that's important to them.  Anyway, the only question my wife constantly gets from her relatives and friends is, "Why did you marry a white guy?"  They've mostly gotten over themselves now, but it took the better part of a decade (we lived with each other for a few years before we married, another cultural taboo for them) for them to accept that I wasn't going anywhere.

I'm an atheist and think all religion (whether related to beliefs about social status or money, skin color, sky wizard(s) of choice, or special kinds of government that can solve every problem in life, etc) is absolute malarkey.  That may have had something to do with my astounding popularity during my brief stint in Catholic school.  I won't waste my time criticizing anyone else for believing whatever they want about things we can't prove or disprove, so long as they don't try to get me to share in their beliefs.  I asked too many questions the adults didn't have answers for.  If you can't explain why you believe something to a kid in kindergarten, then it may be time to choose another profession, but that's just my take on it.  I learned to quit worrying about who was right or wrong along the way and learned to love them for who they were, rather than who I thought they should be.  There's quite a bit of imperfection in the human condition, but that's part of what makes life interesting.  Life would be boring as hell without the diversity and constant changes.

My wife refers to me as her "white guy", which is pretty damn funny considering her freckled skin is even paler than a man of Irish and German stock.  Ever seen an asian kid with red hair and green eyes?  Whenever she goes to the asian stores, she gets asked how much she gets paid to babysit.  When she comes home, she asks me how much money I'm going to pay her for babysitting my kids?  I tell her I didn't hear any such complaints when we were busy making our kids and mommy gets paid in hugs and kisses from her children.

That brings me to my final point, which is that people need to learn to get over themselves for their own good.  If you believe you know anything at all simply because you saw or heard something on TV, you're going to have MAJOR issues in life.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

For informational purposes:

The complete list of American Cities Where the KKK is Know to Operate

Top 10 Most Racist States in America

25 states with kkk chapters according to the southern poverty law center

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

kbd512, I find this discussion ironic. Here in Canada I'm a "fiscally responsible Liberal". One member of our party has accused me of being Conservative, and actually campaigned to have me removed from any position within the party. Our current Prime Minister has demanded that party in-fighting stop. I really would like him to have strong words with the guy fighting against me. But you treat me as a tax-and-spend liberal?

You want more money from Peter to pay Paul.  There's no mandate that Paul do anything for Peter.  That's the issue I take with your "let's increase the taxes on the rich scheme".  If Paul is spending more of his time sitting at home than working when he's perfectly capable of working, it's a pretty one-sided transaction for Peter.  Determine how to correct that imbalance and then we have something to discuss.  I'm not talking about cases where someone is truly disabled, either.  I have already stated a number of times that if someone really can't work, then we should provide for them.

Sure. But I still argue that a small business with a 6-figure income should pay higher tax than an individual below the poverty line.

Small businesses in the US already pay more taxes and at higher rates than poor people do.  Arguments that they don't are demonstrably false and there's enough information from our state and federal government to bury any such argument.  Poor people don't pay up to 50% in taxes (when local / state / federal taxation schemes are combined, as they are in real life) the way small businesses can and do.

Corporations need flat taxes that remain invariant from state to state.  There is no reason for any mass exodus from one state to the next, as businesses gravitate towards states with lower tax rates.  We have an incredible influx of liberals here in Texas whining that their taxes in Commiefornia are too high.  These people then try to re-create the stupid they ran away from.  State and local governments shouldn't tax corporations.  If corporations need to pay more taxes, then it needs to be invariant, inescapable, and done at the federal level.  There's no gaming that system because there's no game to play.

My point is to cut personal income tax deeply, freeze corporate income tax for small corporations at 11%, and increase tax for large corporations to 19%. That means the small cut to tax for small corporations will have to be repealed. Note: the US just cut federal corporate income tax to 21%. That would still leave Canadian tax lower.

My point is that someone has to pay, corporations always have a vehicle for transferring the tax as long as they sell products and services, and that there should be no special exemptions for large corporations, known as deferrals here in the US.  The government needs to learn how to spell the word "budget" and then it needs to look up the definition of that word and apply it to their spending habits.

Edit:
Removed the response quotation the following:
"I want to diminish the influence that the most wealthy have in government by not having them pay what comes close to confiscatory tax rates (meaning they pay more to the government on what they earn than what they keep).  Our problem is spending, not taxation.  You were the one who pointed out that we already pay more for less service."

This I don't agree with. Paying tax does not give you influence. I have worked for government, management in the civil service (from junior supervisors on up) treat tax revenue as a right. They don't see it as your money, they see it as theirs. So cutting tax for the rich will not cut influence of the rich. What does give them influence is campaign donations. You need to limit election campaign donations. Congress tried, but it was challenged in court. It went through several appeals, the last was the Supreme Court decision known as "Citizens United". That decision has to be repealed.

You still haven't learned how this "golden rule" thing works, have you?  He who has the gold makes the rules.  I want the gold given to our government to be supplied from roughly equal sources to diminish the influence one group has over the next.  I want to accomplish that by diminishing the driving reason behind corporations and the rich using their money to influence the decision makers.

You may think it's your money, the tax collectors may think it's their money, but the rich don't give a damn what you think and they have enough money to buy off, coerce, imprison, or kill anyone who disagrees.  Anyone who believes the rich don't think that way has another thing coming.  Life at the top engenders a degree of ruthlessness you clearly don't understand.

The rich can always find ways to influence government decision making using their money.  I want to ensure it's not worth their while.  You believe some level of perfection in government that will never be achieved will prevent that.  I don't.  The Democrats and Republicans and the courts have had numerous opportunities to reform campaign finance, but they haven't and they won't.  Absent an outside force that compels change, we stand a slightly better chance of living to see the second coming of Jesus than campaign finance or lobbying reform.

If you want to demonstrate how much you care about poor people, then figure out how to employ them in better paying jobs.  Handouts don't work.  If they did, then we wouldn't have so many poor people, would we?

Last edited by kbd512 (2018-01-06 00:35:17)

RobertDyck

Moderator

From: Winnipeg, Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 7,811

Website

Re: Politics

The province of Ontario just hiked their minimum wage from C$11.60/hour to C$14/hour, with a statement it will be C$15/hour in 2019. Tim Horton's is a doughnut shop in Canada, so well known for coffee that many people think it's a coffee shop. Tim Horton's franchises in that province announced they're cutting employee benefits to compensate. I've complained about increasing costs. Raising minimum wage isn't the answer, employers just pass the cost to customers causing inflation. We need to keep cost down. Some people hate Walmart, but I think they did a good job of reducing cost.

I think Premier of Ontario just jumped on the proverbial bandwagon after Bernie Sanders campaigned for $15/hour in the US. But today's exchange rate: C$15 = US$12.08. And I keep pointing out when I was 18 and got my first job, I was paid minimum wage. In Manitoba in 1980 that was $3.15/hour. Adjusting for Canadian inflation, that's $8.99 in 2017 dollars. Last fall certain people campaigned to raise Manitoba's minimum wage. The Progressive Conservative government didn't want to, but caved. They increase it from $11/hour to $11.15/hour. I point out that after inflation it was higher than I got when I was 18. But at least they didn't do what Ontario just did.

Does that make me sound like a hard-nose conservative? But I'll still argue for reasonable health insurance. That isn't a handout, it's cost control.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

Kbd512 the "Corporations need flat taxes that remain invariant from state to state" needs to be to all taxation methods and levels which includes the people that work for them. No avoiding to pass it on by waging a game to reduce full time employment to partial employment.

RoberDyck "Raising minimum wage isn't the answer, employers just pass the cost to customers causing inflation" this is the vicious circle that needs to be broken as well as the taxation, non members of insurance, ect that is why people keep needing higher wages to compensate for the pass it on game..

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,866

Re: Politics

Here the status of the jobs programs....2017 Walmart to close 154 stores in the US; 10,000 workers reported back in Jan 15, 2016 · Walmart is closing 269 stores, more than half of them in the U.S. and another big chunk in its challenging Brazilian market.

America's 24 dying industries

Palomar7

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2017-12-20

Posts: 81

Re: Politics

There's quite a bit of imperfection in the human condition, but that's part of what makes life interesting.  Life would be boring as hell without the diversity and constant changes.

That brings me to my final point, which is that people need to learn to get over themselves for their own good.  If you believe you know anything at all simply because you saw or heard something on TV, you're going to have MAJOR issues in life.

Agreed.

Thanks for sharing about your family life. I'll soon be reading Vietnamese poetry (translated of course). To the Chinese of old, northern Vietnam was "Nam Viet" - Realm of the Red Crow / Vermilion Bird / Fire God ( "The Vermilion Bird" by Edward H. Schaefer - fascinating book).

I've recently seen one of the worst (flabberghasting) examples of TDS: Joe Scarborough (?) asked Trump if he can read.

Meanwhile MSM complains and complains about him Tweeting.

Obviously if he can compose Tweets he can read.

Grown, highly educated adults...asking brazenly stupid questions like that.

Last edited by Palomar7 (2018-01-07 11:21:36)

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Original registration - May 2002

[i]I want that Million Year Picnic on Mars[/i]

GW Johnson

Member

From: McGregor, Texas USA

Registered: 2011-12-04

Posts: 5,459

Website

Re: Politics

Whoever said that politics had anything to do with smarts?  Not in my experience,  it don't.

GW

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GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

You think the rich can threaten or kill the IRS? Try it. They can call the US military if necessary. You think a rich guy can out-do the military?

I would've thought that you'd have learned something from your own experience with politics, but I guess not.

Only amateurs threaten people at the IRS.  Wealthy people don't stay wealthy by not knowing how to influence people with their money.  The fact that you made such a statement indicates your level of thinking regarding this matter.  Who writes tax laws?  Why is it that the laws are what they are?  After the politicians are elected to office, what stops them from ignoring the desires of the people who paid to put them there and simply doing what they know is best for everyone?

But you just contradicted yourself. You said "the rich...have enough money to buy off...anyone who disagrees". That's what I said. Tax money doesn't matter. Tax collectors really do think it's their money. But campaign donations or other bribes are are everything. That's what corrupted the US government.

The politicians and courts have had multiple opportunities to limit campaign contributions from wealthy donors and corporations.  The politicians and courts decided not to limit the flow of money from those sources.  If a rich person can simply buy tax breaks using campaign contributions or lobbying, then tell me how you intend to stop that.  Laws that our politicians won't pass?

I have suggested that. Canada has higher literacy rate than the US. When I lived in Virginia and Miami, I read newspaper articles and heard people go on and on about how bad the public school system is. But I also heard that at least in Virginia, money per student in core areas was the same as wealthy suburbs. Why? I don't have an answer. Canada's public school system isn't better than an American middle-class or wealthy suburb. The difference is that Canadian core area schools may not be as good as those in wealthy neighbourhoods, but the difference isn't nearly as great as in the US. Why? Better education means better jobs. I ran into people from poor neighbourhoods who complained that school was "mind control", and hated school. But it isn't. Or isn't supposed to be. School is there to provide you with skills and knowledge to get a good job.

There is a youth counter-culture within the US that glorifies ignorance and criminal behavior.  It has quite a following because of poor parenting.  The so-called liberals here in America prop up this culture of ignorance using our welfare system.  That is a major part of why I detest them so much.  Classical liberalism would never enable such behavior.  Here in America, that political identity label has been hijacked by people with arrogant or outright evil intentions.  That behavior obviously doesn't apply to all liberals, but the people who actually implement the welfare system aren't doing anyone any favors, least of all the people they claim they want to lift out of poverty.

Blaming the kids who think that way is not the solution, even if they are the problem.  You have to resolve the root cause of the issue, which is a core belief that no better life is possible and that there's nothing wrong with being ignorant because there's nothing left to do except give up.  I think it started when I was a child.  At first, being considered ignorant was an insult.  Nobody I knew, no matter how poor, wanted to be thought of as being ignorant.  As I grew up, it was adopted by some like a badge of honor.  As time passed, I noticed more and more young people with that attitude.  Burning the stores and cars in your own neighborhood is part of that cultural attitude about poverty that condones ignorant or criminal behavior as if that's some form of "protest" against your own living conditions.

I have submitted my ideas for post-secondary education reform to the provincial Minister of Education. When I was a university student starting second year in the fall of 1981, I complained to one professor that first year was a waste of time and tuition money. University entrance high school science covered all of first year university science and some of second year. Turned out that professor took my complaint to heart. He raised the idea of coordinating curriculum with high school so we could skip first year entirely. He brought the idea to university senate. However, administrators treated first year students as cash cows, so instead formalized first year. A little over a decade later, some high schools adopted Advanced Placement, others International Baccalaureate, still others cobbled something directly between that high school and local universities. Then during the 1999 provincial election, I wrote a formal document to the Minister of Education. They proceeded with their plan, not even reading mine. But voters were outraged, they had to back off. They had to do something different, so that's when they read my document. I had been an instructor at the largest local community college, so that gave me some credibility. The Minister started to implement my whole plan. But since it meant reducing tuition in a practical way, and it meant the largest university in the province would no longer have a monopoly on certain degrees, administration for that one university hated it. They got it all killed. Now the other major party is in power in this province, I sent my document to the new Minister. Let's see if he does it. If you want, I could post a copy here. You could convince American high schools and universities to do it.

If you still have it, then I'd like to see it.  I still think the real problems start long before the students get to high school.  It may be a great plan, provided we could improve the general level of knowledge of the students here to the point where the plan would have the desired effect of reducing the cost of a formal secondary education.  When I went to college, I noticed that a lot of time in the first year was spent teaching things I already learned in high school because others didn't.

I have also posted several ideas to reduce American government spending. Reduce spending, eliminate the deficit, reduce the debt, that will reduce debt service charges (interest). Doing that will allow government to reduce taxes without cutting services. Why waste tax dollars on interest to banks? Canada did it in the mid-1990s. The first few years the cuts hurt. People complained, but then the economy responded. People love having a good paying job. Eventually government spending on certain crucial programs could be restored. But every time I do suggest this, you argue against everything I say.

I argued against certain points in your proposals regarding things I have actual experience with.  You belittled that experience and then accused me of the same thing when it came to living on welfare.  I admitted to having no experience living on welfare, so maybe you can admit to having no military experience.

I have never supported war without end, nation building, or maintaining military bases in foreign countries.  However, I also recognize that we can fight smaller skirmishes over time or global conflicts every half century or so if we let regional geopolitical problems metastasize.  I think that if having a couple forward deployed carrier battle groups in the South China Sea and a contingent of Marines in Japan prevents China and North Korea from attacking Japan and South Korea, then that's a reasonable trade in monetary resources for regional stability.  Any sort of major regional or global conflict will likely involve the US, so I want to use our military to prevent that from happening.

Our military has been decimated by two continuous wars.  The damaged or destroyed equipment must be refurbished or replaced.  A functional military requires working machines and adequate training.  Only a third of our major systems are actually capable of being used in a shooting war at this point.  The material condition of our equipment didn't degrade in a month or even a year, so it can't be refurbished or replaced in a month or a year.  I'm of the opinion that none of our current major acquisition programs address existing threats, being mildly to grossly inappropriate for those use cases, but that's just my opinion from my own assessment of actual threats using public sources.

The training required can't be taught in a week or a month.  In the schools I attended, we covered a chapter or two per day and never saw the same material twice, except on the exams.  It can't be taught any faster than it is.  We had to read the material before showing up to class to even know what the lecture was about.  There are limits to how much information you can cram into someone's head and have them retain and apply it in a practical setting under time constraints.  Training in our military is comparable to other professional militaries, such as the British military.  It's not precisely the same, but the end result fulfills the same requirements in the same amount of time or less.

New technology doesn't replace the need for training, either.  It typically makes training more complicated and time consuming.  The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are no longer the major impediments to attack that they once were.  Waiting until there's a problem you don't have the time or resources to solve is an unacceptable risk.  The outcome of any major conflict in the future will be decided in a month or less.

If the Republicans take an axe to our military budget, the Democrats will be more than happy to start spending more on new or expanded entitlement programs that won't make the poor any less poor and won't help lift anyone out of poverty, either.  I think we could reasonably save about $100B or so by closing overseas military bases.  I would terminate a variety of programs that don't solve existing problems and refurbish or upgrade existing equipment, rather than purchasing brand new systems, some of which require extensive development programs.  There also needs to be a serious reduction in active duty and reserve personnel.  We now have more civilians involved in the war effort than we did in WWII.  There's something basically wrong with that.  Pinning down actual numbers is difficult because it depends on how it's done.

If Democrats were willing to reduce spending on entitlement programs, dollar for dollar with military program reductions, then we could reasonably eliminate deficit spending.  When we can get both parties to agree to that, then we have something to discuss.  Until then, the blame game will continue.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,429

Re: Politics

There's quite a bit of imperfection in the human condition, but that's part of what makes life interesting.  Life would be boring as hell without the diversity and constant changes.

That brings me to my final point, which is that people need to learn to get over themselves for their own good.  If you believe you know anything at all simply because you saw or heard something on TV, you're going to have MAJOR issues in life.

Agreed.

Thanks for sharing about your family life. I'll soon be reading Vietnamese poetry (translated of course). To the Chinese of old, northern Vietnam was "Nam Viet" - Realm of the Red Crow / Vermilion Bird / Fire God ( "The Vermilion Bird" by Edward H. Schaefer - fascinating book).

I've recently seen one of the worst (flabberghasting) examples of TDS: Joe Scarborough (?) asked Trump if he can read.

Meanwhile MSM complains and complains about him Tweeting.

Obviously if he can compose Tweets he can read.

Grown, highly educated adults...asking brazenly stupid questions like that.

Palomar7,

Politics has devolved into personal attacks because one side has run out of actual arguments.  If they had any arguments, then they would make their arguments and begin piling on evidence.  Since they never had any arguments to make, other than their party of choice lost and they're upset about that, they've started in with personal attacks.

The liberal news media has nothing of value to share with the American people.  They will say or do anything to get attention now because they want other people to join them in their temper tantrum.  They've no objectivity left nor valuable service to provide.  It's just cheerleading and fit pitching.  I miss the days when our mainstream news media (liberal or conservative) could actually critique the activities of a politician and ask questions that mattered.  I haven't seen that since I was a kid.