I only considered federal income tax because of the different state minimum wages and tax standards and so on. Washington, my state, has no income tax but rather a sales tax (which I disagree with.) I don't really want this to turn into an anally/complex discussion on a variety of taxes to figure out who makes what and is paying what and the difference and if it's equal, progressive, or regressive. It would be kind of pointless seeing as most of this thread is theoretical.

I don't think any of my ideas are going to be accepted into the United States government and when I vote I'm not voting for the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party or the Communist party. I'll vote for Ralph Nader or since he's getting old whichever Republican/Democrat appears the most fiscally responsible and least aggressive on foreign policy. I'm getting kind of sick of discussing this for a variety of reasons so I'm going to stop now.

Sounds good to me, I really enjoyed the discussion. Look forward to the next one.

It's a mixed economy; mostly capitalist w/ socialized roads, schools, and medicine.

Somehow, a lot of laissez faire capitalist's calling card is Adam Smith, yet they forget that Adam Smith was very cautious about too little government oversight. He believed in government intervention, to keep too much power out of people like Morgan's and Melon's hands, to keep greed, monopolies, oligopolies, and collusion in check.

Inuzuka: in one of your posts you said something like - 'money makes you happier, maybe' That's ridiculous: money gives you access to better food, better schools, better health care. Are these not advantages?:confused:
Also, some of you talk about handouts. People want to work. Have you ever pulled up to a stoplight in some city, and seen a guy with a rag and a few teeth jump up and run to your car, with the chance that he might make .50 cents or so? Do you think that pays better than your average 9-5? Do you not think it's humiliating for this person to be sneered at, to be completely ignored by half the people driving by, when all he wants to do is make a little cash.

People want to work, and everyone ought to be given the chance to work making at least $10 per/hr. with benefits, with the option to unionize. A strong middle class is what built up our economy. Under FDR all the way up until Carter we had that because the highest tax bracket paid over 70% beyond $3 mil./yr. Also, corporations had to pay an extremely high rate on profits, either that or they had to reinvest that money back into the company. That equalled more machines, and more factories, and more jobs. That's before Reagan came in and dismantled everything. During his administration, we were only able to keep the illusion of a strong economy, by him bilking S.S. $ and putting it into debt, which he was growing at an alarming rate. He rounded up 4x as much debt in his 8 years, as the country had ever accumulated in it's entire 200 previous years of existence. This is your conservatives' free market hero?

Stem cell research, and public option health care would go a great deal towards helping some of these heavier people lose weight through surgery, or reversing genetic dispositions. You don't think these people who are so overweight that they can barely move around their house are ashamed? You think they like living like that? You think they're just too godd*amn lazy? What arrogance.

What? Adam Smith believed that the government which governs best is the government that governs least, as Jefferson put it and that an unseen hand would keep the market okay (a lie) as opposed to any intervention. It was Keynes, not Smith, who called for oversight and regulation.

Last time I ever come to your side in an argument.
No, if you look it up, Adam Smith believed strongly in government oversight.
It's in Thom Hartmann's book Screwed. You'd like it, he mostly talks about failed Reaganomics, and getting back to a strong middle class through unionization, and reversing Reagan's tax cuts. A lotto #'s in that book. :thumb:

No Philosophy or Political Science book agrees with you. Adam Smith didn't agree that the government had to regulate to ensure that monopolies and the like wouldn't be created. He specifically stated that the free market would take care of that itself - that's what the unseen hand idea of his was all about.

From Economics for Dummies:

'He believed in invisible hand yada yada...............But Smith was not naive. He believed that businnessmen prefer to collude rather than compete whenever possible, and that governments have a very important economic role to play in fostering the robust competition needed for the invisible hand to work its magic. He also believed that governments must provide essential public goods, like national defense, that aren't readily produced by the private sector.'

too easy :tramp:

I think one of the points the anti-socialists don't see in this thread is that in a more socialistic America, you guys would have more. Some of the millions that lil Wayne spent on getting diamonds in his teeth, Bill Gates spent on some mansion or hundreds of other rich people spent on their palaces would go to your health care, your kids education, your roads, your pensions and so on.

The idea is if USA was a more socialist democracy, you wouldn't suffer because the system would more than anything take from the top where there's an excess and feed more into the bottom where people don't have enough. Lil Wayne, Paris Hilton and Martha Stewart might get a little worried, but frankly they don't need all their billions to do just fine. They could still run businesses and create jobs for people and so on without the extreme excess. The little socialism would take from you guys, you would get back and since you also get something from all those at the top, it's a net bonus to the middle and lower classes.

Of course for that to happen, something would probably have to change in the american mindset. Right now it sounds like some of you would rather have less today and have the opportunity to become as rich as Oprah than having much more now traded for the mere opportunity of becoming filthy rich instead of Oprah rich.

I want Bill Gates and Oprah to become mega rich if they did not they'd not have spent the billions of dollars they have building schools, hospitals and parks around the United States and the World, that's better then giving i to our government and handing out check for nothing to a bunch of unemployed unmotivated people.

Above all else Tore, the more I see the argument, the more immoral it becomes, it's stealing really, to take only from the top and give only to the bottom. Robin Hoodesque sure, but it's still theft.

In a socialist society it takes a lot longer to become wealthy and as you mentioned the ceiling is lower, the major difference in philosophy is I don't believe giving people money makes them better off, in fact I think it cripples them. That's how Paris Hilton ended up like she did.