I have a question regarding the environment and libertarians?

25

No it is mainly just increases the power and influence of wealth, people at the low end of the scale don’t receive back anything like those at the top. It give disposable wealth to those who least need it and going by history would only use to further their own interests.

Let us say that there was a simple 10% tax and it was returned.

So someone earning 1000 gets back 100 dollars not much

10,000 = 1000 still not much

(Average wage in US is around 40,000 = 4000 dollars)

100,000 = 10,000 now that’s better

“According to the census bureau, 21.8% of FAMILIES made over $100,000 a year” even fewer individuals)

1,000,000 = 100,000 now you’re getting serious money

10,000,000 = 1,000,000 that will buy a lot of influence

100,000,000 = 10,000,000 and that a whole lot more.

To me that’s bad enough but actually there is progressive taxation meaning the wealthy pay more and so would get vastly more back if taxes were reduced.

 

25

Free market/neo-liberal based ideas increased the power and influence of wealth.

We have been through this many times -

When the US was doing well economically and there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class was in the period from the end of WWII to the rise of neoliberal ideas. During that period the top tax rate was much higher (94% in 1945) and the national debt was reduced from the war time high of 117% of GDP to a reasonable 32.5% in 81.

But in the thirty odd years of free market/neoliberal ideas there was a huge increase in the wealth of a few while the real term incomes of those below have either stagnated or fallen. While the policies pursued have also caused a ballooning of the national debt and brought about a social and political system where wealth has gained great power and influence.

The problem I see with right wing libertarian ideas…is that it would most likely increase the power and influence of wealth while making life worse for most people in society through the implementation of even greater neoliberal policies.

Here is something I posted earlier

After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%

Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that had risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=453435&page=130

 

25

And it would help the lame walk and the blind see – oh come on this is just hollow rhetoric promising much but having little or no substance.

Can the right wingers stop posting assertion, rhetoric and slogans and start actually addressing the many outstanding criticisms that remain unanswered?

 

it is not rhetoric. I paid 1/5th of my paycheck (over 100 out of 400) that extra money every single week would've helped me more than the government ever has!

Currently the working class/middle class gets NOTHING from government, only people who don't work, or better their education, can receive government money! As soon as you go back to work or school they drop you!

Liberalism encourages people to have babies and collect a government check.

 

And you proved my point for me. We did best under classical Liberal ideas. What changed that was government policies, regulations and war, which benefit the top 1%. I don't support JUST tax cuts for the rich (like it is currently) but tax cuts directed to the middle class/ working class

 

25
You are still not addressing the criticisms all we get is more rhetoric and assertion -

But the point is that you would gain a little while wealth would become vastly more powerful and influential

The individual average wages in 1950 was around 2000 to 4000 dollars paying a tax on that of 22-26% those earning 100,000 to over 200,000 paying a tax of 89-91%

The individual average wage in the US toady is around 40,000 you’d pay 25% on that (36,000-87,000) but those at the top are now only being taxed 35-39%.

So basically the average person is still paying the same tax level while those at the top are paying far less.

Actually a lot of assistance goes to working people that are not getting enough in wages to live on. The middle class often receive tax relief (a form of benefit) mainly middle class families putting a child through college can receive as much as $10,000 of help over four years from the tax credits. Then there is the home-mortgage interest deduction, medicare etc.

 

25

The implication seems to be that women get pregnant because they know they can get welfare. To me it would seem more of a problem of education, expectation and healthcare access.

Now if it were true one great indicator of it would be teenage pregnancy and thanks in large part to government sponsored educational programmes and greater access to contraception in the US teenage pregnancy has dropped dramatically in the last decade (44 percent drop from 1991 to 2010) although they are nine times as many teen mothers in America than in other developed countries.

Now once again since many of those other countries have rather generous public assistance but vastly smaller rates of teen pregnancy, the implication that such things are linked to generous welfare doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny.

(The US rate is 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19 BUT Sweden has a rate below 8 and the Netherlands is close to 4.)

And a number of studies indicate that high teenage pregnancy rates seems more linked to religious beliefs against contraception than welfare.

 

25

Where do I prove your point?

Could you back that up please?

So are you saying you would tax wealth a lot more and cut the taxes of those below?

 

Where? In the UK? Because I know here in the US, the middle/working class gets NO help from government, and most can't live. Middle class mothers have to work today, to afford what one working party could back in the day.

Plus, we're making the same amount of money that we were in the 70's, but the value of that money is hardly anything compared to what it was worth in the 70's.


This is because of Liberalism; (Constantly increasing government and budget.)


Our government was really tiny for most of our history, It didn't cost much money. But today, the middle class is shrinking due to our overblown government. We are 18 trillion in debt. That means if I have a kid, they'll owe 20,000$ to this government that has done nothing for them.


In all my 24 years of life, the government really hasn't done anything for me either- not compared to what I've contributed. Furthermore, there are tons of people I've met personally in the US who live off of government benefits- a lot in the UK as well. People live off of "disability" for mental disorders or sell their medication that government insurance buys them.

But in the meantime, it costs me 400$ a month, just to call myself American and pay into the pot. Meanwhile, I can hardly afford to live day-by-day. One I pay for my doctors, meds and, rent- I'm totally broke. Meanwhile I'm spending almost a full paycheck per month on another whole families food.

That's why Liberalism isn't right! Any given Working class family can use that money, MUCH more than the Entitlement Class. (They're entitled to my money, since they sit on their buts smoke crack and, have babies)

 

Some libertarians are very green, others are not so much. Like anything I think it would all depend on your dully elected officials

 

Same is true for each and every political tilt. We'd do much better voting based on the individual running for office rather than the party affiliation, but as Obama said "Blacks then wouldn't know who to vote for."

 

Just took a look, and at the moment a child born would owe a debt of $53,348 or if you included unfunded liabilitie $395,035.

Considering the fact that not all persons pay tax, the debt owed by those who actually do, is at the moment $395,035 or including unfunded liabilities $1,095,946.

 

Can you please point out a right wing libertarian with these supposedly green policies?

- And their ideas and the policies that are based on those ideas.

Thing is that some ideas stand up to scrutiny better than others

The thing about right wing libertarian ideas is that they don’t seem defendable from criticism even by the very people promoting them.

The problem is that some people seem to support ideas without questioning just because they fit in with indoctrinated bias and prejudice.

I’m in favour of democracy of being able to vote in officials but for democracy to function properly you need open debate of the ideas and policies and as is very evident from these forums right wingers don’t seem willing or able to do that.

This to me is one of the problems with the American political system, real debate has been sidelined by expensive advertising and hidden lobbying, it gets cut down to slogans and unsubstantiated assertions.

And that gets accepted at ‘debate’ by many Americans who happily regurgitate such things as if they were valid argument only to find that when questioned they are unable to defend them.

Some can defend their ideas from criticism others can’t

Some people like Indie seem totally incapable of defending their ideas form criticism.

As long as their ideas seem good - that is they seem able to stand up to scrutiny and can be defended from criticism.

I’ve not been able to find this quote anywhere can you tell me where you have got it from?

Why pick out blacks?

 

Here’s something I’ve posted earlier -

After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%


Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that has risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

 

To recap –

The right wing libertarian environmental policy seems to come down to two things -

1 Deregulation to make things ‘simpler’

2 A reliance on property rights and torts to deter wrong doing.

*

Others are sceptical that these would work and think they are more likely to make things worse and the right wing libertarians don’t seem able to refute their criticisms.

Thing is that some things need to be regulated and most right wing libertarians agree with that but beyond slogans and assertion they don’t seem able to say what regulation they would have and what they would remove and don’t seem clear on who would be setting the regulations.

Many of us seem to think that there needs to be more than property rights and torts as a deterrent and they are there anyway, we think there needs to be robust bodies backed up with strong regulation that can investigate and inspect, to stop things from going wrong.

And there is another concern right wing libertarian seem to want to vastly increase the power and influence of wealth (through changes in the tax structure etc) and this in a political system dominated by money I fear that wealth would have a greater influence on how regulation was formed and that it would be formed to advantage themselves rather than the environment.

 

Ok, after looking up tort law - it's not so complicated to understand what it means in the end, in the UK we call it civil law - I reckon personally Balbus has a point.

Libertarianism is the liberty of the wealthy. If society was deregulated and disputes or wrong-doing were mostly matters for civil law... doesn't that mean the people who can afford the lawyers do what they want?

As far as I can tell, the libertarians point to all the things in US society that aren't working very well as reasons for reform. But the reform they want would only make everything worse.

It is (almost literally) the equivalent of telling someone bleeding from a cut, the best thing you could do is slit your wrists.

 

There is a difference between unemployment benefits and welfare assistance. It used to be that you could receive unemployment benefits for up to 26 weeks, if you lost your job, due to no fault of your own, though currently I believe it remains to be 99 weeks.

 

Labels, when no single clearly defined definition exists, serve no useful purpose in political conversation other than a means by which to denigrate the views of those who oppose you without exposing your own views more clearly.

 

What makes bigger government 'good'?

How does big government reduce the influence of power?

Where does a poor person possess and exercise greater power, in his/her home, in his/her local government, in his/her State government, or in his/her national government?

Where can a rich person gain the greatest amount of benefit from their wealth, in his/her home, in his/her local government, in his/her State government, or in his/her national government?

Where is the highest concentration of Lobbyists?

 

Indie

Your point being?

What are you going on about, can you explain.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck, does calling it a duck denigrate it?

Indie really have you ever thought of having your memory tested?
To repeat its not about ‘big government’ or ‘small government’ its about good governance and as shown a number of times you don’t seem interested in that.

You really just want to go backwards all the time don’t you – we have been through all that many times really can you not actually remember?

What are you going on about can you explain your thinking in this because I’ve read it several times and I’m honestly unsure what it is you are getting at?

Oh man we have been through the lobby thing in a thousand other threads –

I think lobbying should be regulated, I’m unsure exactly what your views are because you normally evade, but I get the impression that you view is that if ‘government’ was small and weak they wouldn’t be lobbying which as has been explained to you by me and many others seems a bit irrational because lobbying would most likely carry on it would be just easier for them to get what they want.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=314393