What is a properly functioning democracy?

Z

Ok so you want to get rid of all publicly funded education?

How is that meant to help the people I’ve described? I mean the only alternative you seem to have is personally paid for direct home schooling, which would be extremely problematic for many if not impossible.

Can you please address that criticism?

 

Z

Your system would still seem to advantage the already advantaged.

Someone with advantage wouldn’t need much if any direct government assistance, while someone who is disadvantaged might need a lot more.

So it is likely that someone with advantage might not feel like paying much into government.

That is the reason why progressive taxation is a good thing.

Let us imagine a plague, a disease that could affect anyone but will actually end up only affecting half of the population* But nobody knows which half.

In such a situation I think most sensible people would want the community’s government to try and do something about it and be willing to pay the taxes to tackle the situation.

Now lets say that half a population are born into disadvantage and half not. But since no one can choose beforehand to which half they are to be born, it basically means disadvantage could affect anyone.

The difference with that situation is that there is the problem of hindsight, when those born into advantage are taxed to help the disadvantaged, they don’t go ‘oh I could have been born disadvantaged myself’ they might go ‘why should I help them’. It is like knowing who would be affected by the disease and who not.

(*And I’m not saying disadvantage is a disease, I’m just using the plague idea as an example)

 

Z

You rant about taxation but 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 – 50% in 1982) 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.”

 

yes please :sunny:

see, the thing is we're discussing taxation and the spending of revenue, in a country full of people that throw billions of dollars at lotteries and then bitch about over taxation.

if the boatloads of money thrown down the lottery sewer hasn't fixed public "education", then to my way of thinking it's a bottomless pit.

 

sort of true but......the rich like to muddy the issue(or people who they suckered). what gets lost in the tax issue is
there is a difference between profit and labour. labour is a direct trade the is nothing extra gained. there is NO LAW stating you have(says it's voluntary) to pay taxes on your labour. though try tell that to the thugs in uniforms of brutality.
so profit is an increase on an investment(of any kind). and why shouldn't we tax the shit out of people who make profit off the labour of others or "capital gains".

 

yeh, government induced inflation in collusion with private foreign banks. Debt as money, a covert tax.

 

Well if you want to call it a covert tax my point is that the profit motive itself is an assault on equitable exchange and in your terms profit is a tax on the worlds systems, i.e. environmental degradation of all kinds.

 

Education, growth, proceeds from the center outwards. Government policies have increased literacy but the system now suffers from too much academic inbreeding. We have to make investments in order to extend. Research and development and education should be the same department. At this point virtual classrooms of reliable and consistent excellence are possible. This would radically alter school administration greatly reducing costs while improving product.

Voting is such a wasteful lottery as you describe and it's rewards belong to very few big winners. It's proxy representation that is wasteful.

 

ok so on the premise that is a huge disabling ordeal, playing devils advocate here, then why not have government issued vouchers where people still can exercise their choice?

People could also claim that anything less than room service is problematic, however if they do not have time to raise their children then it seems to me that other problems exist that may be systemic and resultant of the society thrust upon us.

 

The selling of your labors produces your profit. The more you are paid the greater is your profit, the less you are paid the less is your profit. No labor, no profit. The same holds true for savings or investments, you expect a return greater than the original amount saved or invested, and that greater amount is your profit.

If you put $100 in the bank and receive a 2% APR, giving you $102 at the end of the year, and the government allows the dollar to devalue by 3%, you have suffered a loss, and that is essentially how things have been working for many decades now.

 

no your labor is a direct exchange no increase. profit is is an increase on an investment. people have been duped into thinking they are the same to try to keep the real working from realizing how deeply a screw they're are getting

Congress has taxed INCOME, not compensation."
- [Conner v. U.S., 303 F Supp. 1187 (1969)]

"Income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment and the Revenue Act means, gain ... and, in such connection, gain means profit... proceeding from property severed from capital, however invested or employed and coming in, received or drawn by the taxpayer for his separate use, benefit and disposal." - [Staples v. U.S., 21 F Supp 737 U.S. Dist. Ct. ED PA, 1937] -
Home
A FEW CASES ON INCOME
H
OM
E
"There is a clear distinction between `profit' and `wages', or a compensation for labor. Compensation for labor (wages) cannot be regarded as profit within the meaning of the law. The word `profit', as ordinarily used, means the gain made upon any business or investment -- a different thing altogether from the mere compensation for labor." [Oliver v. Halstead, 86 S.E. Rep 2nd 85e9 (1955)] -


"The claim that salaries, wages, and conpensation for personal services are to be taxed as an entirety and therefore must be returned by the individual who has performed the services which produce the gain is without support, either in the language of the Act or in the decisions of the courts construing it. Not only this, but it is directly opposed to provisions of the Act and to regulations of the U.S. Treasury Department, which either prescribed or permits that compensations for personal services not be taxed as a entirety and not be returned by the individual performing the services. It is to be noted that, by the language of the Act, it is not salaries, wages, or compensation for personal services that are to be included in gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal services."
- [Lucas v. Earl, 281 U.S. 111 (1930)] -


"... whatever may constitute income, therefore, must have the essental feature of gain to the recipient. This was true when the 16th Amendment became effective, it was true at the time of Eisner v. Macomber Supra, it was true under Section 22(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1938, and it is likewise true under Section 61(a) of the I.R.S. Code of 1954. If there is not gain, there is not income ... Congress has taxed income not compensation."
- [Conner v. U.S., 303 F Supp. 1187 (1969)]


Edwards (vs) Keith, 231 F110, 113 (1916)
Stated: "The phraseology of form 1040 is somewhat obscure .... But it matters little what it does mean; the statute and the statute alone determines what is income to be taxed. It taxes only income "derived" from many different sources; one does not "derive income" by rendering services and charging for them... IRS cannot enlarge the scope of the statute."


State court rulings coincide with the Federal courts. "... reasonable compensation for labor or services rendered is not profit."- [Lauderdale Cemetary Assoc. v. Mathews, 345 PA 239; 47 A. 2d 277, 280 (1946)] -


"There is a clear distinction between profit and wages, or compensation for labor. Compensation for labor cannot be regarded as profit within the meaning of the law." - [Oliver v. Halstead, 196 VA 992; 86 S.E. 2d 858 (1955

 

Or not. If you have to back your claims with resources that puts a limit on corporate excesses. The majority are being hoodwinked by the promise of economic fortune and that is a function of their greed.

 

good post/research and thanks for the case law.

yes it really is the wealthy, and their governments ducking and dodging the people as we constantly catch up with their games and find ways to defeat them using their own laws against them. So they create a new word usually commingling more ingredients into the stew to create greater confusion and a requirement for judicial determination and of course they own the judges so people get to bend over and take it. The thing is they are organized and the people fighting for their rights are not so one by one they are easily picked off, run into bankruptcy and they are forced to pay for their own demise.

These so called atrocities under the title democracy and republic never cease to amaze me.

This is from the wisconsin historical society University libraries have something called....it sounds like arcat or something like that, and you can order historical documents and review them in locked rooms that they send back and forth by courier. Fortunately this one was on the net so it made it easy.



begs the question what these constitutions are "really" about.

oh and 60,000 free inhabitants (meaning franchised tax payers), just happens to be the precise number used in european monarchial feudal systems to set their feudatory government up. Its a very small world yes it is!

 

people (inhabitants generally) do not understand how to distinguish whos economic interests they are talking about in that promise. gotta be part of the the big club! lol

 

I could accept that definition, but how would you define the payment made by government to persons who perform no labor at all? Would you consider that profit, considering no exchange takes place at all?

 

I'm unaware of how corporate excesses has anything to do with what I posted.

 

totally beside the point. but no because"Profit is an increase on an investment" if you did not invest anything you can't make no profit on said non-existent investment. "I"would define it as charity, or an "investment" of the government(or insurance payoff ss extc.)

 

Charity is a defining term I can accept, but I still maintain that government should not become the primary source of charity, as it can have devastating effect on how and by whom we are governed. Or would you say that a persons vote is nothing more than a direct exchange for what they receive in return from the government.
Should not a persons vote be seen as an asset, which depending on who it is invested in results in a profit or a loss? Have not most voters come to expect something in return for investing their vote in one or the other candidate?

 

What you call the way it works doesn't work equitably. Big companies buy little companies with no more expertise or interest than as profitable or potentially profitable enterprises. That is they buy bakeries without being themselves bakers or buy oil futures with out possessing oil. When the musical chairs stop and it is time to put up or pay up for this credit or debt as profit guess who gets stuck with the bill.

 

I'm with you there but I choose my own small domain, equal terms in my own life.