Prove it. The big brouhaha over the Koran was with Keith Ellison (MN-5), a different statist fuckbag from Barack Obama.fadedsteve wrote:
NO he was sworn in on the Quran and thats a FACT!!! He took MAJOR heat for it too!! as he should!
thompson dropped out weeks ago.GorillaTicTacs wrote:
Since when is keeping your career from becoming a celebrity media circus until you absolutely have to a bad thing?fadedsteve wrote:
Maybe he didnt lol. . . . Was it Ellison I'm thinking of??? I dont know
FACT REMAINS is Obama is a media fixture. . . . . He hasnt done a goddamn thing in Congress and expects people to just anoint him as the Democrap candidate. Its a fucking joke!!
I will also say Teddy Kennedy's endorcement isnt exactly a good thing for him!! What a drunk, miserable, liberal asshole he is!!
I agree with the OPINION you stated however, he has a relatively slack career on standing his ground, always toes the party line (cave to the GOP no matter what), but unfortunately he's the least of all evils running. He's also currently working very hard on the campaign trail, unlike say, Fred Thompson, so it does mean something.
I applaud your Clinton-like efforts to smear him though, her current tactic seems to be to throw shit Obama's direction and see what sticks, with a little help from her friends in Fox News.
Florida didn't have any delegates, losing there meant nothing.fadedsteve wrote:
He sure is licking his wounds after getting smoked in Florida!! Jesus Christ he lost big! lol
Your mistake here is that you're counting the entire population in your "vast majority" figure. That includes a baby who was born ten minutes ago. How much of a tax cut do you think that baby deserves? The real figure you should be looking at is employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there werea little more than 138 million people employed in December of 2007. That leaves a gap between your figure of 116 million persons who receive a lower tax burden (wherever you got that...) and the number of people who are employed at 22 million. Paltry, when compared to your original gap of 187 million (based on the current population estimate at 7:35PM EST on 2 Feb 08 of 303,352,277).PureFodder wrote:
Listen to the guy, 116 million Americans will save an average of $1,800. So the other nearly 200 million won't ie. the vast majority.
NEWSFLASH: It's the rich who already pay the vast majority of taxes in the first place! Just the top one percent of income earners in 2005 (the last year for which data is available at irs.gov) paid a hair shy of FORTY percent of the total individual income tax share. The top half of income earners paid a staggering 96.93% of all individual income taxes. Which means, of course, that the bottom fifty percent of wage earners paid a measly 3.07% of all income taxes. So who should benefit from a tax break? You can't cut taxes for people who, for all intents and purposes, don't pay much of any in the first place. If you do, they end up making a profit on April 15, getting more money back in their refund than they paid out in withholdings over the course of the year. (This already happens anyway, but "cutting taxes" for them again would mean it would happen even more often.) And what should we call such a system where they get more back than they paid in? Welfare. They're getting money they didn't earn, and taking it from someone who did. Welfare, not tax cuts.Plus the $1,800 value is the average across mainly the richest people in the country. Bill Gates etc. won't be saving $1,800 he'll be saving millions. The ultra rich people are massively skewing this figure. Even amongst these 116 million Americans who are having lower taxes, the median of that group will be massively less than the $1,800 figure.
Here's Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. It lists all the things the federal government is allowed to do:Spend the tax cut money say on reducing everyones healthcare costs for the country.
Perhaps your eyes are better than mine, but I cannot endeavour to lay my finger upon that clause which authorizes the federal government to get involved in medicine and health care.Article I, Section 8 wrote:
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
If you cannot identify such a clause, you must either renounce your position that the government should be doing what you suggest sans an constitutional amendment, or you must admit your hostility to a government that follows its Constitution. The Constitution does not provide for such a power to be exercised by the federal government: there is no middle ground. A government that operates within its constitutional boundaries or a hulking leviathan that can disregard the Constitution on a whim based on whatever popular fad is the passion of the moment: that is the choice. DECIDE NOW.
If so, then we should be taxing the lowest income earners at the highest rate.What's being proposed is a trickle down effect which has been tried endlessly in various countries for decades and actually does exactly the opposite to what is proposed. Giving rich people more money means they don't have to bother expanding their business to make more money because the tax break did it for them without any effort or risk on their behalf.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/busin … wanted=all
It turns out that in reality, the best way to make rich people expand their businesses is to tax them MORE, not less.
What he said^^
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Fair enough, but clearly the median amount saved is absolutely nowhere near the average amount saved. As you clear agree, tha majority of tax money comes from the rich, hence saying that the average saving per person is £1,800 is a massive mis-representation of the reality of the situation, Rich people save millions, the rest save a few dollars. The implication being used is that the average American will save $1,800 which is simply not true.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Your mistake here is that you're counting the entire population in your "vast majority" figure. That includes a baby who was born ten minutes ago. How much of a tax cut do you think that baby deserves? The real figure you should be looking at is employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there werea little more than 138 million people employed in December of 2007. That leaves a gap between your figure of 116 million persons who receive a lower tax burden (wherever you got that...) and the number of people who are employed at 22 million. Paltry, when compared to your original gap of 187 million (based on the current population estimate at 7:35PM EST on 2 Feb 08 of 303,352,277).PureFodder wrote:
Listen to the guy, 116 million Americans will save an average of $1,800. So the other nearly 200 million won't ie. the vast majority.
Ok, you simply didn't read what I said. I never suggested tax cuts for the poor, I simply said the tax cuts for the rich are very bad for the poor as it requires cut backs on public spending. Tax cuts for the rich make the poor poorer. Yes the rich pay most of the taxes, but since the income of the top 1% QUADRUPLED in the last 25 years while the median real income DROPPED why exactly do the rich folks NEED a tax break? Ever heard of corporate welfare? Giving free money to rich people? That happens all the time. Companies making billions of dollars get tax breaks and incentives which is good, but helping the poorest people to survive is bad? Things you may not be aware ok, US patenting laws are an unbelievable welfare cheque to the rich (see the pharmacuticals industry for details). The massive amounts of public money spent on R&D through universities and the Pentagon which is then handed over to businesses to make profits. Again an almost unimaginable amount of public money gets given to rich businesses through this. The companies didn't earn any of this, yet they get it in the form of welfare. Why can't the populace get a trivial percentage of this welfare money too?HollisHurlbut wrote:
NEWSFLASH: It's the rich who already pay the vast majority of taxes in the first place! Just the top one percent of income earners in 2005 (the last year for which data is available at irs.gov) paid a hair shy of FORTY percent of the total individual income tax share. The top half of income earners paid a staggering 96.93% of all individual income taxes. Which means, of course, that the bottom fifty percent of wage earners paid a measly 3.07% of all income taxes. So who should benefit from a tax break? You can't cut taxes for people who, for all intents and purposes, don't pay much of any in the first place. If you do, they end up making a profit on April 15, getting more money back in their refund than they paid out in withholdings over the course of the year. (This already happens anyway, but "cutting taxes" for them again would mean it would happen even more often.) And what should we call such a system where they get more back than they paid in? Welfare. They're getting money they didn't earn, and taking it from someone who did. Welfare, not tax cuts.Plus the $1,800 value is the average across mainly the richest people in the country. Bill Gates etc. won't be saving $1,800 he'll be saving millions. The ultra rich people are massively skewing this figure. Even amongst these 116 million Americans who are having lower taxes, the median of that group will be massively less than the $1,800 figure.
Where does it say anything about corpotare welfare? If you're happy about screwing your populace for the sake of an ancient document then I guess that's up to you. The USA is a democracy last time I checked and the masses want the government to be responsable for healthcare. The constitution has and will be altered repeatedly. Other temporary whims of the people are banning slavery, votes for women and equal rights. The people want the constitution to change so change it. There are more ammendments to the constitution than original articles.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Here's Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. It lists all the things the federal government is allowed to do:Spend the tax cut money say on reducing everyones healthcare costs for the country.Perhaps your eyes are better than mine, but I cannot endeavour to lay my finger upon that clause which authorizes the federal government to get involved in medicine and health care.Article I, Section 8 wrote:
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
If you cannot identify such a clause, you must either renounce your position that the government should be doing what you suggest sans an constitutional amendment, or you must admit your hostility to a government that follows its Constitution. The Constitution does not provide for such a power to be exercised by the federal government: there is no middle ground. A government that operates within its constitutional boundaries or a hulking leviathan that can disregard the Constitution on a whim based on whatever popular fad is the passion of the moment: that is the choice. DECIDE NOW.
The problem with that is there's little scope for poor workers to work longer hours as they are already one of the world leaders in terms of working hours. Nice avoidance of the whole 'trickle down effects never work, never have, never will and simply screw the vast majority of the populace' point. If you have any evidence that the trickle down effect works then present it. If not then accept that the tax cuts will benefit only the rich and are going to be terrible for the majority of the populace.HollisHurlbut wrote:
If so, then we should be taxing the lowest income earners at the highest rate.What's being proposed is a trickle down effect which has been tried endlessly in various countries for decades and actually does exactly the opposite to what is proposed. Giving rich people more money means they don't have to bother expanding their business to make more money because the tax break did it for them without any effort or risk on their behalf.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/busin … wanted=all
It turns out that in reality, the best way to make rich people expand their businesses is to tax them MORE, not less.
Last edited by PureFodder (2008-02-02 03:53:49)
As long as that figure is arrived at by dividing the total amount being saved by the number of taxpayers, it's precisely true. That's the definition of an average.PureFodder wrote:
Fair enough, but clearly the median amount saved is absolutely nowhere near the average amount saved. As you clear agree, tha majority of tax money comes from the rich, hence saying that the average saving per person is £1,800 is a massive mis-representation of the reality of the situation, Rich people save millions, the rest save a few dollars. The implication being used is that the average American will save $1,800 which is simply not true.
Since it was money over which the "poor" never had a legitimate claim, I can't call that a bad thing.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Ok, you simply didn't read what I said. I never suggested tax cuts for the poor, I simply said the tax cuts for the rich are very bad for the poor as it requires cut backs on public spending. Tax cuts for the rich make the poor poorer.
I refuse to grant your question legitimacy by answering it. The point of taxes is to fund the proper roles of government. Those roles are the ones I listed in my previous post. If the people are motivated sufficiently to add to those roles, there is a process to amend the Constitution. The point of taxes is NOT to take resources from people who don't "need" them (what arrogance for you to assume you have some sort of authority to decide what someone else needs and what they do not) and hand them out to others.Yes the rich pay most of the taxes, but since the income of the top 1% QUADRUPLED in the last 25 years while the median real income DROPPED why exactly do the rich folks NEED a tax break?
Strawman. Please do not assign arguments to me that I have not made.Ever heard of corporate welfare? Giving free money to rich people? That happens all the time. Companies making billions of dollars get tax breaks and incentives which is good, but helping the poorest people to survive is bad?
Bullshit. A company (or individual) spends countless hours and resources on developing a new product. They deserve protection for their intellectual property. That authority, by the way, actually IS an authorized function of the federal government.Things you may not be aware ok, US patenting laws are an unbelievable welfare cheque to the rich (see the pharmacuticals industry for details).
Well for one, I don't think the federal government should be involved in R&D with universities. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, they take their requirements to defense contractors who accept payment for the advancements they develop. It's getting paid for a service. The Pentagon didn't come up with the materials for making the F-117 nearly radar-invisible, Lockheed did. The Pentagon simply paid them for it.The massive amounts of public money spent on R&D through universities and the Pentagon which is then handed over to businesses to make profits.
You strawman a lot, don't you?Where does it say anything about corpotare welfare?
Then I guess that would put you in the group of people who doesn't care if the government is constrained by its Constitution and the rule of law.If you're happy about screwing your populace for the sake of an ancient document then I guess that's up to you.
Well I don't know when it was you checked because we've never been a democracy. We are now, and always have been, a constitutional republic.The USA is a democracy last time I checked
What you really mean is that there are many individuals who want other people to be responsible for their own health care. It's the height of selfishness.and the masses want the government to be responsable for healthcare.
My point is, however, that it has not been altered to allow for what you have suggested. As such, it is unconstitutional.The constitution has and will be altered repeatedly.
How many hours a week do you think the CEO of General Electric works?The problem with that is there's little scope for poor workers to work longer hours as they are already one of the world leaders in terms of working hours.
Whether it "works" or not is really well beyond my scope of giving-a-crap. Tax rates should be low for everyone because the government is supposed to be limited in the first place. My argument isn't based on economics, in case you hadn't noticed. It's based on the proper roles of a limited government that uses only the powers the people have delegated to it.Nice avoidance of the whole 'trickle down effects never work, never have, never will and simply screw the vast majority of the populace' point. If you have any evidence that the trickle down effect works then present it. If not then accept that the tax cuts will benefit only the rich and are going to be terrible for the majority of the populace.
Actually there are loads of different definitions of average, If you looked at the median value I'm sure these tax cust would look a whole lot different. It's like if Bill Gates visited Somalia then on average everyone in Somalia would be a millionaire, the median average would show a more realistic account.HollisHurlbut wrote:
As long as that figure is arrived at by dividing the total amount being saved by the number of taxpayers, it's precisely true. That's the definition of an average.PureFodder wrote:
Fair enough, but clearly the median amount saved is absolutely nowhere near the average amount saved. As you clear agree, tha majority of tax money comes from the rich, hence saying that the average saving per person is £1,800 is a massive mis-representation of the reality of the situation, Rich people save millions, the rest save a few dollars. The implication being used is that the average American will save $1,800 which is simply not true.
I'm always amazed at how much some people manage to hate their fellow countrymen. The workers are the company, they did the vast majority of the work, the owner also does work, but gets almost all the financial advantages from it. Higher tax rates on the rich redresses this to some extent. But again, you simply can't adress welfare without also adressing corporate welfare, which the rich get without earning too.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Since it was money over which the "poor" never had a legitimate claim, I can't call that a bad thing.PureFodder wrote:
Ok, you simply didn't read what I said. I never suggested tax cuts for the poor, I simply said the tax cuts for the rich are very bad for the poor as it requires cut backs on public spending. Tax cuts for the rich make the poor poorer.
Yep I'm arrogant, I think people living in poverty need money more than multimillionaires need a little bit more money. Again, you can't talk about welfare without also talking about corporate welfare.HollisHurlbut wrote:
I refuse to grant your question legitimacy by answering it. The point of taxes is to fund the proper roles of government. Those roles are the ones I listed in my previous post. If the people are motivated sufficiently to add to those roles, there is a process to amend the Constitution. The point of taxes is NOT to take resources from people who don't "need" them (what arrogance for you to assume you have some sort of authority to decide what someone else needs and what they do not) and hand them out to others.Yes the rich pay most of the taxes, but since the income of the top 1% QUADRUPLED in the last 25 years while the median real income DROPPED why exactly do the rich folks NEED a tax break?
I can point out important things directly to do with the argument at handsd that have been avoided.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Strawman. Please do not assign arguments to me that I have not made.Ever heard of corporate welfare? Giving free money to rich people? That happens all the time. Companies making billions of dollars get tax breaks and incentives which is good, but helping the poorest people to survive is bad?
Yes some form or protection for intellectual property is needed, but in can go way too far. For example in the US pharmacuticals industry, for every dollar a company spends on research on new drugs, they earn 8 dollars form their patents. That's why they have so much money and so many lobbyists. Some intellectual property rights are needed, but that's going way too far.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Bullshit. A company (or individual) spends countless hours and resources on developing a new product. They deserve protection for their intellectual property. That authority, by the way, actually IS an authorized function of the federal government.Things you may not be aware ok, US patenting laws are an unbelievable welfare cheque to the rich (see the pharmacuticals industry for details).
But the patents etc. onm the new mterials all end up in the hands of private companies, whereas the public paid for the research. Surely the benefits of the publicly funded research should go to the public?HollisHurlbut wrote:
Well for one, I don't think the federal government should be involved in R&D with universities. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, they take their requirements to defense contractors who accept payment for the advancements they develop. It's getting paid for a service. The Pentagon didn't come up with the materials for making the F-117 nearly radar-invisible, Lockheed did. The Pentagon simply paid them for it.The massive amounts of public money spent on R&D through universities and the Pentagon which is then handed over to businesses to make profits.
I'm simply pointing out the context in which the argument lies, I'm asking you to comment on corporate welfare.HollisHurlbut wrote:
You strawman a lot, don't you?Where does it say anything about corpotare welfare?
The populace of a country is more important than the laws of the land. The constitution was writtten by people who thought that. They were so driven by the idea of populace > rule of law that they had a war to change the laws to improve the lives of the populace.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Then I guess that would put you in the group of people who doesn't care if the government is constrained by its Constitution and the rule of law.If you're happy about screwing your populace for the sake of an ancient document then I guess that's up to you.
Poor and the near poor simply can't afford modern healthcare. The average healthcare costs per person inthe US are well above $5,000 per person per year and are steadily rising faster than the average wage is. This is accepted by pretty well every industrialised country in the world except for the US. Medical expenses are the single greatest cause of bankrupcy in the US. A third of the population has avoided seeking medical treatment for a serious injury or illness due to not being able to afford it. Surely deciding to buy another house or sportscar rather than increasing wages so your workers can afford healthcare is the height of selfishness?HollisHurlbut wrote:
Well I don't know when it was you checked because we've never been a democracy. We are now, and always have been, a constitutional republic.The USA is a democracy last time I checkedWhat you really mean is that there are many individuals who want other people to be responsible for their own health care. It's the height of selfishness.and the masses want the government to be responsable for healthcare.
The masses want it so change the constitution and then do it.HollisHurlbut wrote:
My point is, however, that it has not been altered to allow for what you have suggested. As such, it is unconstitutional.The constitution has and will be altered repeatedly.
He works plenty of hours, the difference is their slightly different pay scales (oh and if you do a little research on how CEO pay is decided you'll find out what an utter scam that is. Essentially CEOs decide what CEOs get paid and the only way to change it is to get 51% of the inversors to agree to change it, a fairly Herculean task) Compaire US CEO pay to that of Europe and Japan and you'll see how well the system works at giving CEOs a reasonable income.HollisHurlbut wrote:
How many hours a week do you think the CEO of General Electric works?The problem with that is there's little scope for poor workers to work longer hours as they are already one of the world leaders in terms of working hours.
HollisHurlbut wrote:
Whether it "works" or not is really well beyond my scope of giving-a-crap. Tax rates should be low for everyone because the government is supposed to be limited in the first place. My argument isn't based on economics, in case you hadn't noticed. It's based on the proper roles of a limited government that uses only the powers the people have delegated to it.Nice avoidance of the whole 'trickle down effects never work, never have, never will and simply screw the vast majority of the populace' point. If you have any evidence that the trickle down effect works then present it. If not then accept that the tax cuts will benefit only the rich and are going to be terrible for the majority of the populace.
who here would root hillary?
You have to look at the median and the mean for the same data set to draw a useful conclusion. Looking at only one or the other ends in skewed results.PureFodder wrote:
Actually there are loads of different definitions of average, If you looked at the median value I'm sure these tax cust would look a whole lot different. It's like if Bill Gates visited Somalia then on average everyone in Somalia would be a millionaire, the median average would show a more realistic account.
I would like to see the source for your numbers, Fodder. Does it take into account the large number of research projects that don't result in a patented product that can be sold for revenue? I'm guessing not.PureFodder wrote:
Yes some form or protection for intellectual property is needed, but in can go way too far. For example in the US pharmacuticals industry, for every dollar a company spends on research on new drugs, they earn 8 dollars form their patents. That's why they have so much money and so many lobbyists. Some intellectual property rights are needed, but that's going way too far.HollisHurlbut wrote:
Bullshit. A company (or individual) spends countless hours and resources on developing a new product. They deserve protection for their intellectual property. That authority, by the way, actually IS an authorized function of the federal government.
Regardless, in a capitalist economy, producers charge what the market will bear. If they've got the only drug for a given disease, then the supply/demand curve is clearly in their favor. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. They are the ones who risked their capital to research something that may not have panned out at all. Why shouldn't they reap the commercial rewards?
So the public should have stealth technology? You're missing the point. There is a difference between publicly funded research and R&D done by a company to meet a contractual obligation. One is open-ended, one is not.PureFodder wrote:
But the patents etc. onm the new mterials all end up in the hands of private companies, whereas the public paid for the research. Surely the benefits of the publicly funded research should go to the public?HollisHurlbut wrote:
Well for one, I don't think the federal government should be involved in R&D with universities. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, they take their requirements to defense contractors who accept payment for the advancements they develop. It's getting paid for a service. The Pentagon didn't come up with the materials for making the F-117 nearly radar-invisible, Lockheed did. The Pentagon simply paid them for it.The massive amounts of public money spent on R&D through universities and the Pentagon which is then handed over to businesses to make profits.
You won't get affordable healthcare until you get tort reform...which the liberals in the US government are vehemently opposed to.PureFodder wrote:
Poor and the near poor simply can't afford modern healthcare. The average healthcare costs per person inthe US are well above $5,000 per person per year and are steadily rising faster than the average wage is. This is accepted by pretty well every industrialised country in the world except for the US. Medical expenses are the single greatest cause of bankrupcy in the US. A third of the population has avoided seeking medical treatment for a serious injury or illness due to not being able to afford it. Surely deciding to buy another house or sportscar rather than increasing wages so your workers can afford healthcare is the height of selfishness?
If "the masses" wanted it to change bad enough, it would have been done already.PureFodder wrote:
The masses want it so change the constitution and then do it.HollisHurlbut wrote:
My point is, however, that it has not been altered to allow for what you have suggested. As such, it is unconstitutional.The constitution has and will be altered repeatedly.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Dean Baker wrote:
Efficient Mechanisms for Supporting Innovation and Creative Work
While it is not easy to determine the most efficient mechanisms for supporting innovation and creative work, it is not difficult to identify the key issues involved. The first part of the story is measuring the costs associated with maintaining patent and copyright protection instead of allowing free competition. The way to measure the static economic losses that result from the higher prices charged on patent and copyright-protected items is exactly the same method that economists use to measure the losses that result from trade protection like tariffs and quotas. The main difference is that the size of the losses are much larger in the case of patent and copyright protection. While tariffs or quotas on imports rarely raise the prices of the protected items by more than 15-20 percent, patents and copyrights raise the prices of protected products by several hundred percent, or more.
For example, patent-protected brand drugs sell for more than three times the price of generic drugs that sell in a free market.3 This means that the country could save approximately $140 billion a year on its $220 billion annual bill for prescription drugs if the government did not provide patent protection and drugs were instead sold in a competitive market. In addition to raising the price for people who buy drugs, the higher patent protected price makes many people unable to afford drugs. These people either go without certain drugs or use less than their prescribed dosage because of government patent protection.
The fact that so many people can afford to buy drugs at the free market price, but cannot afford them at the patent protected price, is one of the inefficiencies of the patent system. This cost is known by economists as “deadweight loss.” Economists usually get upset over deadweight losses when they are the result of a 10 percent tariff on pants or a quota on shirts. However, they are generally less troubled by the deadweight losses associated with patent and copyright protection, even when the losses are far more than the losses due to trade protection.
By raising prices above the competitive market price, patent protection also leads to a black market in unauthorized versions of prescription drugs. To a large extent this black market takes the form of drugs that are imported from countries that have lower prices. This can raise issues of drug quality for patients. While drugs imported from other rich countries with high safety standards, like Canada or Germany, are unlikely to pose problems, drugs imported from developing countries may be of more questionable quality. However, this flow of unauthorized imports is inevitable when a government enforced monopoly causes drugs to sell at prices far above their free market price. The government will be no more effective in eliminating this flow of imports than it has been in eliminating illegal drugs like marijuana or cocaine, or the Soviet Union was in preventing black market sales of blue jeans.
4 This is taken from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (2005, figure 1.1).
The pharmaceutical industry justifies the vast economic waste associated with patent protection for prescription drugs by claiming that patents are necessary to finance research. According to the pharmaceutical industry, it spent $41.1 billion on research in the United States in 2004.4 This means that the country spends more than three dollars in higher drug prices for every dollar of drug research supported through the patent system. The rest of the additional spending went to marketing, high CEO pay, and drug company profits.
But this picture is still far too generous to the patent system. As any good economist would be quick to point out, government patent monopolies provide perverse incentives to pharmaceutical companies. They want to maximize the profits from these monopolies, which leads them to waste resources in ways that would not make sense in a free market.
One way that the pharmaceutical industry wastes resources is by engaging in copycat research, spending tens of billions of dollars developing drugs that duplicate the functions of already existing drugs. For example, once Pfizer developed Claritin, other drug companies rushed to develop comparable drugs to cash in on Pfizer’s multi-billion dollar market. This behavior makes sense when a government-granted patent monopoly allows Pfizer to sell Claritin at a price that is much higher than its cost of production. (Copycat drugs actually are desirable in a world with patent protection, since they provide some competition in an environment where there would otherwise be none.) However, if Claritin were sold in a competitive market, it would make little sense to spend money developing a new drug that did the same thing as Claritin.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, approximately two-thirds of all new drugs fall into this copycat category.5 The pharmaceutical industry estimates that copycat drugs cost approximately 90 percent as much to research as breakthrough drugs, which means that approximately 60 percent of the industry’s spending on research is to develop copycat drugs (Ernst & Young LLP, 2001). This means instead of getting $40 billion in research on breakthrough drugs for the $140 billion that patents add to drug costs, we are only getting about $17 billion. In other words, we spend more than $8 in higher drug prices for every dollar that the industry spends researching breakthrough drugs.
Maybe just to be twistedNappy wrote:
who here would root hillary?
You know, I don't even know a statistician who uses the word "average" to refer to any indicator of central tendency indicator other than the mean. And yes, I do know some statisticians.PureFodder wrote:
Actually there are loads of different definitions of average, If you looked at the median value I'm sure these tax cust would look a whole lot different. It's like if Bill Gates visited Somalia then on average everyone in Somalia would be a millionaire, the median average would show a more realistic account.
Regardless, claiming the average is a certain figure is completely accurate, as long as the figure is derived properly.
Oh, I see. If I don't think compelled wealth transfer is a legitimate function of government, I must hate the recipients thereof. There's no other possible reason I could be opposed to it.I'm always amazed at how much some people manage to hate their fellow countrymen.
Grow up.
Workers may do the physical labor, sure. But who owns the factory buildings? Who owns the fabrication equipment? Who took the risk to invest in all that in the first place? Who makes the strategic decisions that can make the company prosperous or drive it out of business? Who's responsible for millions, perhaps billions of dollars worth of assets? If the business goes under the worker is out of a job, but the owner of the company is out a lot more. Perhaps it's time you realized what determines wages: the market. How skilled is the labor being performed? How easily are the needed skills found in the general population? How dangerous is the job itself? How willing are people to do the work?The workers are the company, they did the vast majority of the work, the owner also does work, but gets almost all the financial advantages from it.
THAT'S NOT WHAT TAXES ARE FOR. Taxes are not your vehicle for engineering the societal structure you prefer, especially when you take it upon yourself to punish some people for their successes and reward others for their failures.Higher tax rates on the rich redresses this to some extent.
I agree that taking tax revenues and giving them to companies is just as wrong as taking tax revenues and giveing them to anyone else who didni't earn it. Keep in mind however, that tax cuts do not meet that criteria.But again, you simply can't adress welfare without also adressing corporate welfare, which the rich get without earning too.
No, that's not why you're arrogant. You can think that all you want and not be arrogant. What makes you arrogant is that you seem to think you have some sort of authority to decide what someone needs and what they don't, then confiscate what you think they don't need and hand it over to someone else. That's what makes you arrogant.Yep I'm arrogant, I think people living in poverty need money more than multimillionaires need a little bit more money.
I "avoided" them because they weren't mentioned. But you decide to not only bring it up, but also to assume that I support corporate welfare. So there's your strawman.I can point out important things directly to do with the argument at handsd that have been avoided.
They have so many lobbyists because the thumb of the regulation state is constantly hanging over their heads. If the government wasn't constantly adding regulations or threatening to do so, the lobbyists wouldn't be needed to ensure the corporations have a say in their future.Yes some form or protection for intellectual property is needed, but in can go way too far. For example in the US pharmacuticals industry, for every dollar a company spends on research on new drugs, they earn 8 dollars form their patents. That's why they have so much money and so many lobbyists. Some intellectual property rights are needed, but that's going way too far.
Even so, I don't care what the profit is from a drug. I'd rather have many lifesaving concotions and pay a lot for them than a few cheap ones.
No. If you pay me to come up with a device that does a certain task, if I can do it the intellectual rights to that device belong to me. The fact that you paid me for my services is irrelevant.But the patents etc. onm the new mterials all end up in the hands of private companies, whereas the public paid for the research. Surely the benefits of the publicly funded research should go to the public?
Ah, so the ends justify the means? As long as we're acting in the "best interest" of the people, we can disregard the law? I think there are many in the Bush administration who would be very firendly to that notion.The populace of a country is more important than the laws of the land.
NO! They fought a war because the rule of law was ignored by the British! If they thought as you believe they did, why would they even bother with a Constitution?? You are severely undereducated on the founding of this nation.The constitution was writtten by people who thought that. They were so driven by the idea of populace > rule of law that they had a war to change the laws to improve the lives of the populace.
I guess the accuracy of that statement depends on what definition of "average" you're using.Poor and the near poor simply can't afford modern healthcare. The average healthcare costs per person inthe US are well above $5,000 per person per year and are steadily rising faster than the average wage is.
Obviously they don't want it badly enough for Congress and three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution. You say "do it" like it's something I could do. Telling me to amend the Constitution is a command that will bear as much fruit as telling me to grow wings.The masses want it so change the constitution and then do it.