Some thoughts on those charts:
It would be really useful if all the data points happened on the same date, or at least in the same year -- the ten year difference between India and the USA for example... well that makes a huge impact on what those percentages actually mean.
Also with so many different institutes presenting the information (many with what could be consider very radical missions that could easily bias the information they are presenting to say the least) there is no way to believe that the data sets were arrived at by the same methods. Which would be like everyone using the English alphabet while writing in different languages.
Finally while it presents the 'total tax bill' as a percentage of total income it doesn't tell us what is bought by that bill. Paying 26% and then another 25% for health insurance is a lot different than paying 40% but not having to pay for health insurance. Since the information isn't presented on a "cost per service render" basis it actually provides next to no information on deciding if you are getting a good deal or not:
Example:
Person 1: "I only paid 10k for this beat up used oldsmobile"
Person 2: "I paid 20k for this brand new porsche."
Person 2: "HA! You paid twice as much as I did for a car -- you must suck at buying cars!"
EDIT: Also a percentage based system can be misleading too without knowing what it is a percentage of. For example while 30% of an average income of 150k is going to be more than a 20% of a 10k income the person making 150k is much more likely to be able to afford having the 30% coming off his income than the person making 10k is to be able to afford having 20% coming off his. The person making 150k is still going to have 105k left after taxes while the person making 10k is going to have 8k left after taxes. This becomes especially relevant when cost of living is also included (which again is notably absent).
As such while these charts might manage to present an even data set spread across multiple years, collected and formulated by multiple people, with no guarantee of a universal standard being used -- it is quite pointless without contextual information of:
1. What that bill buys you.
2. Comparison numbers on cost of living.
3. Average income compared to burden to show actual 'harm done' by the tax burden, and amount of 'squeeze room' in the average income.
Oh I realize -- I wouldn't say that the Tax Foundation is the one I'm worried about necessarily -- the Adam Smith Institute on the other hand isn't one I would trust on first blush, and they are providing the information for the UK as an example.
I really wish I *did* have the time to correlate the data it would be a fun exercise honestly, however I just feel that a percentage left in a vacuum is a rather abhorrent thing.
Yes many tax systems are progressive, and flat precentages and averages wouldn't cover everything in and of themselves, however as a basis of a start of figuring out exactly what the number mean it would be highly useful.
Also something that is very relevant to the issue at hand is just how much the average US citizen's tax burden is overstated by the tax foundation -- similar to how people will try and suggest that we overtax our richer citizen's and corporations by pointing out the base tax rate without factoring in all loopholes, rebates, incentives and the like that they use to low the actual amount they pay (to be fair, much like anyone else).
All data does need qualifiers and needs to be realized as only being a part of any picture -- not the whole picture itself. I just feel that tax freedom day and what comes from it isn't well presented for what is supposedly claims to do -- after all do we have a "over this many miles driven and you are driving for free" day?
People seem to think that taxes are unfair because they don't get anything for them -- these people are ignoring what they do get such as roads, and services that no private company could hope to provide.
True and I should have said that we were one of the lowest on the list, not in the world. Still as you said the chart is biased to western industrialized countries and who else should we really be compared to.
Your second point is why I would like to see the income breakout. The federal income tax is our only real progressive tax and it isn't all that progressive. I've seen some data showing that, when you figure in all taxes, our system is actually regressive. It would be nice to have that in a convenient place and format to respond to claims that the poor are undertaxed.
I agree. That was a good link bit I wish they could show their work (ie do they include sales taxes? How about vice taxes on, for example, cigarettes?). I bet dollars to donuts that when all this is fogured in, our tax code is highly regressive. (plus I cannot resist saying "dollars to donuts")
I agree. That was a good link bit I wish they could show their work (ie do they include sales taxes? How about vice taxes on, for example, cigarettes?). I bet dollars to donuts that when all this is fogured in, our tax code is highly regressive. (plus I cannot resist saying "dollars to donuts")True and I should have said that we were one of the lowest on the list, not in the world. Still as you said the chart is biased to western industrialized countries and who else should we really be compared to.
Your second point is why I would like to see the income breakout. The federal income tax is our only real progressive tax and it isn't all that progressive. I've seen some data showing that, when you figure in all taxes, our system is actually regressive. It would be nice to have that in a convenient place and format to respond to claims that the poor are undertaxed.
They should - if the table is biased it should be biased to show that the people are overtaxed since that is the agenda of the organizations doing the calculations. It makes their point stronger to count every single dime of taxes they can possibly include.
Oh I realize -- I wouldn't say that the Tax Foundation is the one I'm worried about necessarily -- the Adam Smith Institute on the other hand isn't one I would trust on first blush, and they are providing the information for the UK as an example.
I really wish I *did* have the time to correlate the data it would be a fun exercise honestly, however I just feel that a percentage left in a vacuum is a rather abhorrent thing.
Yes many tax systems are progressive, and flat percentages and averages wouldn't cover everything in and of themselves, however as a basis of a start of figuring out exactly what the number mean it would be highly useful.
Also something that is very relevant to the issue at hand is just how much the average US citizen's tax burden is overstated by the tax foundation -- similar to how people will try and suggest that we overtax our richer citizen's and corporations by pointing out the base tax rate without factoring in all loopholes, rebates, incentives and the like that they use to low the actual amount they pay (to be fair, much like anyone else).
All data does need qualifiers and needs to be realized as only being a part of any picture -- not the whole picture itself. I just feel that tax freedom day and what comes from it isn't well presented for what is supposedly claims to do -- after all do we have a "over this many miles driven and you are driving for free" day?
People seem to think that taxes are unfair because they don't get anything for them -- these people are ignoring what they do get such as roads, and services that no private company could hope to provide.
You seem to be lamenting that the numbers don't grade the things you would like graded, such as how effective the bureaucracy is at delivering the things it delivers (those numbers are calculated as well I am given to understand - just not here). Your right of course but it seems kind of beside the point. Here we have a table that gives us one kind of piece of data. We can presume that there are certain methodological biases in the data, there usually is, but lamenting that the table is not a perfect representation won't really get you anywhere. In social sciences and economics the data is never perfect - its always scewed. Its questionable if they could make a perfect table since every country in the world uses a different - often pretty heavily different tax system. The result means that those entering the data have to make choices on how to represent the data they are inputting - choices that another individual might not evaluate or make in exactly the same way. The usual tactic is to use the other guys numbers and make your point with them - Chomsky famously admonishes all liberals to read the business section of the newspaper since that is where they are most likely to find the information they need to make the points they want to make.
So I could show you other statistics like what the OECD thinks the tax burdens or the populace are by country but even the OECDs figures have bias. Its not something that we can escape from.
The problem isn't simply bias -- that's to be expected to some degree -- the problem is the fact that the methods used aren't the same and the idea of percentage based presentations like the one provided are useless without knowing what you are getting for that percentage.
Again I use my car example:
"I bought a used banged up Oldsmobile for 10k"
"I bought a brand new Porsche for 20k"
"HA! I'm better at buying cars because I spent half as much as you did!"
When in reality he overspent for the Oldsmobile, and the other guy got a great deal on a Porsche.
Also services render has a huge impact on what your tax burden is -- after all if you are getting health care from your taxes that's going to raise your burden compared to a country where you get your health care on your own.
As such the information provided isn't meaningful -- regardless of who is providing it.
It doesn't actually provide any useful information at all, let alone grade how the people that the information is about are doing in comparison to each other. They couldn't even get data sets within the same time periods. Heck at least keep it within a 2 year time span, or state you are adjusting for inflation or something to keep your data from being hopelessly obsolete before you even do something with it.
Fair enough.
Sooo, whats everyone's thoughts on the "Super-Congress"?
Me-I dont like it.
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It's totally messed up. The Republicans have a minority of the government, but suddenly they put all of the power over the budget into a extra-constitutional body that is 50% Republican.
It's like no matter what, Republicans get their way. Which would be okay, if getting their way didn't mean destroying the economy to "prove" a black man can't be president.
You know with the gang of six involved I'm almost not worried -- its the other six that bother me however... anyone got a list of who those six are?
I don't like the fact that a simply majority will throw whatever they make to the floor... but at the same time it gives the gang more room too since if they hold together they'll only need to find one of the other six to ignore anything idiotic from someone like Pat Buchanan.
My feeling is they'll kick the can down the road,
just like every other Congress has done. They'll
all be dead in 30 years, and will just leave the
problem to the next generation, who will do the
same.And so on...
And then there is the OTHER option. Nationalise the fed, write off the intergovernmental debts and print intrestfree money by outlawing minimal banking reserves. Sure banks will drop into bankrupcy real fast, but the people will be free and prosperous.
The next problem would be a government busy spending all this free money. Unless circumbented by not allowing government access to the newly minted money. All such would be instead added to a foundation, much like the alaskan oil money.
There would still be a need to tax, and the money printing fund could be building infrastructure, feed the hungry and rescue cats. Which leds to corruption and special intrest groups infiltrating the fund... ow dear... direct democracy and one unsellable share a citizen along with perfect openness into the fund might get around that.
Heh, with a single share each and profits around a few trillion a year = 10.000 dollars a citizen a year, no more need for separate welfare..
Of course the rating is downgraded. What would you do to a company that goes through a debt managment crisis and manages only to cobble a deal that's going to have to be renegotiated in just a few months and it's clear that half the management is at war with the other half?And now the S&P rating agency downgrades our credit anyway.
This after they, and the other agencies, screwed up so badly before the housing collapse, rating junk derivatives AAA.
Now they get to determine US policy.
Bear Sterns... AIG... BOA... Citigroup... Morgan Stanley... Airline industry...
Oh wait... you mean there are different standards for a government than a corporation?
Also it's pretty bad when your a rating company and you make a $2 trillion error.
Nationalise the fed,
Um... right I'm sorry but that's simply funny. If you think giving the politicians full control over the fed will fix anything you need to revisit why the fed was set up exactly how it was on purpose.
write off the intergovernmental debts
That won't work since it means states will actually be hit harder than anyone else. The only reason Indiana is solvent for example is due to federal cash coming in (no matter what some republicans might try and tell you -- the federal government has been paying Indiana's biggest bills for a while now).
and print interest free money by outlawing minimal banking reserves.
Now you simply sound insane. Outlaw minimum bank reserves? So if I want to go withdraw money from my account, and you want to do the same but they don't have enough what then? Oh wait, we don't get paid. Also All interest free money will do is crash the economy -- it's worthless if all it amounts to is printed paper -- people won't put value behind it unless they are getting a return (what is what treasury bonds are).
Sure banks will drop into bankrupcy real fast, but the people will be free and prosperous.
People will be broke and miserable -- your plan here would accomplish nothing less than the insolvency of the USA and everyone in it.
The next problem would be a government busy spending all this free money. Unless circumvented by not allowing government access to the newly minted money.
Um... In a word... no -- let me give you a hint: Money is the Government. You can't have money without the government backing it up. Without such it's simply paper... worthless except to wipe your butt. Also since the debt is in large part the government's simply handing out all this money does two things:
1. Causes inflation.
2. Doesn't pay down debt.
All such would be instead added to a foundation, much like the alaskan oil money.
Very socialist of you. Question -- who is going to run this fund? Will they have the cash reserves to guarantee your money? How is that money going to do any good simply sitting in an account... or are you going to invest it like a hedge fund, or mutual fund? After all we see how well that's done us with the 401k plans, retirement accounts, and social security savings.
There would still be a need to tax, and the money printing fund could be building infrastructure, feed the hungry and rescue cats.
Um... so we print money that the government can't have except then we turn around and tax that money and use it to do the things the government does anyways... wait a minute I'm starting to think this is some sort of joke.
Which leds to corruption and special intrest groups infiltrating the fund... ow dear... direct democracy and one unsellable share a citizen along with perfect openness into the fund might get around that.Heh, with a single share each and profits around a few trillion a year = 10.000 dollars a citizen a year, no more need for separate welfare..
Oh here we go... that has to be the punchline...
I don't get it though.
That one percent of the populace controls over 90 percent of the wealth.
Hush!
btw, currency can (and has in human history) existed without government.
Recognized units of barter have existed but fiat money can't...actually come to think of it even recognized units of value can't exist without governments. Fiat money's intrinsic value is based on the fact that you can use it to pay your taxes or interface with the government in other ways...and ultimately that is true of every major recognized unit of barter we have ever used...even gold.
Recognized units of value are mainly held in place by the existence of diverse governments willing to take them as payment for taxes. Most things we have used as recognized units of barter in the past no longer have that purpose (coca beans, pretty stones, feathers, sea shells etc.) and they lost that value when they ceased to be acceptable payment to the government or whoever the ruling class was.
If we take the extreme outlier scenario this becomes intuitively obvious. When the world wide zombie apocalypse begins and 90% of humanity is zombiefied the remaining 10% will cease to accept gold for barter. Gold itself has only a really small intrinsic value. As a metal its pretty crappy, you can do a few things with it but mostly its to soft. It does have a nice lustre and its not much effected by the elements but in human terms the pretty rocks and glass beads where not terrible for that. Its rarity and chemical makeup make it pretty useful in the role of being a kind of meta-fiat unit of value but in reality it has almost no intrinsic worth.
Hence what made it valuable, even in ancient times, was mainly that ancient governments accepted it as valuable and would accept payment of taxes in it - where this did not occur it immediately reverted back to being near worthless...if I took some and showed it to 16th century Inuit they would not be all that impressed for example.
Another good example is that, during its later colonial period, the British had a mint that made silver Maria Theresa Thaler's because, in many of the places they where empire building, it was the only acceptable unit of barter. British gold pounds would be rejected outright.
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Of course the rating is downgraded. What would you do to a company that goes through a debt managment crisis and manages only to cobble a deal that's going to have to be renegotiated in just a few months and it's clear that half the management is at war with the other half?And now the S&P rating agency downgrades our credit anyway.
This after they, and the other agencies, screwed up so badly before the housing collapse, rating junk derivatives AAA.
Now they get to determine US policy.
Bear Sterns... AIG... BOA... Citigroup... Morgan Stanley... Airline industry...
Oh wait... you mean there are different standards for a government than a corporation?
Yes, there are. Corporations can get away with things that governments couldn't (e.g., "We'll have none of those damned homosexuals leading the Boy Scouts, do yah hear me, boy!").
You got it half right. Fiat money can't exist without government. Recognized units of value have existed without government - because those recognized units of value were exchangeable with the value they represented (ie. in the early days of currency, units of value were agreements between private interests - one of whom held the valued good and the other got a receipt, the one who got the receipt could hand that receipt over to someone else as a unit of value). No government need be involved. During the zombie apocalypse, it's much easier to be mobile with a little bit of gold rather than a couple of truck loads full of food (particularly if fuel is difficult to get).
Why would anyone give a damn about that little bit of gold, though? That's what you're missing - money has as much meaning as it is given and nothing more. It doesn't matter if you're using paper fiat or gold stasndard - if those in charge see no worth in your "currency," it's worthless. Literally so.
In a zombie apocalypse, paper money would be worth more then gold - you can burn the paper for heat or use it for...shall we say, sanitation. Gold would be functionally useless. And if you came to a shelter with some gold and wanted to "buy" food from them, they'd laugh you out every time.
In the absence of a government, trade becomes, well, just that - trade. Currency becomes worthless. Certainly some people might trade you a rusty hammer as a weapon for the gold because they think the gold is pretty, but in the absence of a financial controller, there is no such thing as currency.
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I'm not missing anything. What you're missing is that wealth in a zombie apocalypse has to be transportable. So, a symbol of wealth is needed. I may have 100 cans of beans, you may have 100 cans of medicine. We need an exchange system. Those two requirements (transportability and exchange) is all that's required for currency. The social contract will create the trust.
There is no social contract in a zombie apocalypse.
This is what libertarians seem to not understand. The social contract is a relatively new thing. Look at Somalia and Afghanistan. They live in a modern world, minus a functioning government.
I can't eat gold. I can at least burn paper. If it all went down you wouldn't need to worry about transportability, you would need to worry about defensibility.
Because gun trumps currency, and all your beans, medicine, base, will belong to most powerful faction.
As was the case for most of human history. How do you think the king became the king?
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The first thing a person is going to do in a zombie apocalypse (afteer the initial panic) is find people he/she can trust. Everyone has to sleep sometime. There's strength in numbers. This is your foraging stage where you find what resources are easily available. People organize into bands.
Yes, and if your group is weaker than another group, they will kill you and take your things.
Currency only exists when people believe in an enforcement mechanism greater than themselves they can call on for "justice".
In a small group, this will be the leader. In a larger group than your group, you will be the "enemy" and no one will care about your shiny rocks or governmental structure.
For examples, see Native Americans.
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Yes, and if your group is weaker than another group, they will kill you and take your things.More likely, you'll be assimilated. For example, see Native Americans
Currency only exists when people believe in an enforcement mechanism greater than themselves they can call on for "justice".The Social Contract provides such an enforcement mechanism.
You aren't a history major, are you.
If by "assimilated" you mean all your men and children will be killed and your valuables and women taken, then yes.
I would point out that gold is highly conductive and also soft, so it can be easily shaped into various uses. The main power grid will be down, so small communities will want to have their own sources and gold can help make that possible.
Also if the zombie apocalypse doesn't hit all parts of the world equally, that may mean that some parts still may have a direct use of gold as a currency. Thus traders will go between and gold may be useful for purchasing equipment from these traders.
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I would point out that gold is highly conductive and also soft, so it can be easily shaped into various uses. The main power grid will be down, so small communities will want to have their own sources and gold can help make that possible.
Also if the zombie apocalypse doesn't hit all parts of the world equally, that may mean that some parts still may have a direct use of gold as a currency. Thus traders will go between and gold may be useful for purchasing equipment from these traders.
Copper is better if only because it is more available. Gold is to soft to be useful as a tool relative to other more available things.
Gold is only a currency because we say it is, in the same way paper is only a currency because we say it is. And if the social contract is broken, "we" don't say anything.
Which is the point I'm trying to make.
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You aren't a history major, are you.
If by "assimilated" you mean all your men and children will be killed and your valuables and women taken, then yes.
https://secure.paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/DirectAction/creat eNewPost?post=v5748gbijb0v1&thread=v5748dmtz477i#newPost
Really? All the men and children of Native Americans were killed? Then how is it, exactly, that my great great granddad was a Chickamaw Cherokee chief? How is it that I had a Native American childhood friend?I'm not a History major, but I know enough to say with certainty that while Native American cultures often changed, many, many Native Americans weren't killed.
And if you are going to beat yourself on the chest about your History major, you should know that one of my Bachelors Degrees is Anthropology.
Because they still existed after King William's War (1689–1697), Queen Anne's War (1702–1713), Dummer's War (c. 1721–1725), and the French and Indian War (1754–1763).
But, as I said, we took their land and their resources and forced them off of it.
And the fact that one of your degrees is in Anthropology and you don't know what "assimilate" means is very, very interesting.
You can't assimilate the dominant culture of an area. You can commit genocide to the point that you become the dominant culture and then assimilate the survivors.
Which is what happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanization_%28of_Native_Americans%29
The reason I said you were not a history major, is that I thought that no one who has studied any history of the US and knows what the word assimilation means could possibly use that word to describe how the European Powers as a technologically advanced minority came to take over North America.
I didn't think it was possible. Unfortunately, you've proven me wrong.
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You brought it up. Same difference. It gave you the opportunity to posture yourself.
Not bragging, you asked.
No, I said it because the history of Native American interactions with Europeans, while relevant to the analogy of the Zombie Apocolypse, couldn't rationally be considered assimilation.
What I said was currency would not matter as the more powerful group would simple come and take your resources and kill anyone who stood in their way.
Which is what Europeans did.
The fact that some survived the genocide is kind of like saying that since the Jews in Germany were assimilated during World War II, or that Non-Christians were assimilated during the Spanish Inquisition, or that the Taliban was assimilating non-muslims.
The statement "not a history major" wasn't because I happened to be one (something that allows me to say "you want fries with that" with a certain sense of authority) but rather to point out LT doesn't know history if LT is going to say something so ridiculous.
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So...can we assimilate the debt ceiling?
What this was all in reference to was the concept of currency, which was a discussion of the social contract and how it relates to the fact that the value of the US dollar is all conceptual.
It is a belief we will pay our bills.
So when some people start saying a) We don't need to pay and b) We refuse to increase revenue even at the risk of default, it calls into question the legitimacy of our currency.
Hence the downgrade.
The Social contract works both ways. We all benefit from the fact that if some guy came to my house and tried to claim it as his own, the state would step in to return my home to me and detain that man. The state also agrees to pave roads, provide schools, assure food safety, create and support infrastructure projects (including this here internet) all in exchange for us paying taxes.
Now we have reached a point where the money coming in is less than going out, largely because we got involved in two external wars that didn't stimulate growth here while simultaneously cutting taxes which were supposed to make the economy grow, but didn't.
So I propose going to the two richest men in America, both more or less self made, and asking them what we should do.
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But, as I said, we took their land and their resources and forced them off of it.I never disagreed, but that's a far cry from saying that we killed all their men and children (what you said in your earlier post).
We went to war with them? The example was the local level Zombie Apocalypse fortification, which would likely be killing the men and possibly children (consumers of resources who don't benefit the group) while taking the resources and women.
You can't assimilate the dominant culture of an area. You can commit genocide to the point that you become the dominant culture and then assimilate the survivors.
"dominant culture"? In what way were the various Indian groups "dominant"? The Iroquis had the most serious claim to that title and they were being wiped out by disease and firearms. Note that when I say "firearms" I mean that the Iroquis couldn't effectively fight back (through military action) against the migration of a swarm of Europeans.
And, btw, I do know what "assimilation" means. I never said that "assimilation" was always all rosies and sunshine. But the European forces had guns, steel, and germs that the Native Americans simply didn't. Again, far cry from saying that Europeans killed all Native American men and children.
You are kidding right?
You are asking in what ways were the Native Americans, the native culture of North America by definition, were the "dominant culture"? Sure they were not a homogenous culture, but they were probably no more varied than "Europeans" which would encompass Spain, England, France, Portugal, etc...all with different languages and cultures but still under a "European" auspice for the purposes of the analogy.
I'm pretty sure the native people of an area would be considered the dominant culture of an area, prior to any type of invasion or external insurgence.
I guess I can amend it to "killed off all native american men and children who didn't run away or swear fealty".
Which back to the analogy means your side group of like minded people trying to escape during the zombie apocalypse, trying to trade shiny metal with the people with the guns will not all be killed if they run like hell or can somehow convince them you will serve them.
Yup, gold will work great in that economy.