[Psudo]

CommanderSock wrote:

Too big to fail.

What does that mean? What about: "The bigger they are, the harder the fall."

fire_i wrote:

while the free market can be okay enough in rather quiet, peaceful times, it's not exactly apt to put an end to any crisis it ends up causing, and we've had at least one enormous example of this through history (think 1929).

If you take out loans and gamble with the proceeds in the stock market, the free market suggests you should be allowed to suffer from your own stupidity. In that sense, the free market operated exactly as expected in 1929. The problem with the free market is humanity's incessant need to protect and serve those who make bad decisions and give them a second chance. It was the attempt to save everyone that prolonged the Great Depression. The free market advocates 'Let them die; they killed themselves.'

I wouldn't have supported that policy as it pertains to the Depression-era poor, but I would have among the massive financial institutions... if the government hadn't forced the stupidity on them in the beginning. The taxpayer shouldn't pay for this bailout; the government should in spending cuts. They should suffer for their own stupidity, not pass it on to the financial institutions or taxpayers they manipulated.

[Biron]

Kjorteo wrote:

Yes, I frequently lie about having to pay almost $2,000 in tax when I only make $11,000 a year, because that's just so much better than the depressing truth of only having to pay $500 or so. If only I could pay almost $2,000....

Seriously, though, it's because I'm technically self-employed. According to the Schedule SE part of my 1040 in my last return, my net earnings (which you evidently get by straight-up taking 92.35% of what I actually made, the $11,000 or so) turned out to be $10,490, and the self-employment tax was 15.3% of that, or $1,605. The reason my quarterlies for this year add up to $1,800 is because they're estimated taxes on what the total will be next year, which I foolishly guessed would be slightly higher than this year due to the possibility of raises and such and not having anticipated major market collapses.

That would be your Social Security and Medicaid tax. The same as paid by everyone else, that does not go towards the running of the government. You are still not paying an income tax.

[Psudo]

How does that affect the consequences, Biron? $2,000 out of $11,000 is some pretty absurdly steep taxes whatever the type.

[Kjorteo]

I was going to say something more or less along those lines, but I completely failed to think of a suitable way to phrase it. Thank you for the assist, Psudo.

[Biron]

How about because you were complaining that you would be paying for this when you aren't? That money you pay doesn't go towards the general fund, it goes to your Social Security and Medicaid. You still aren't paying anything in income taxes. If you don't like it, don't keep a job or try to eliminate Social Security and Medicaid.

[Psudo]

You make a reasonable point about the separate divisions of the government budget, but "If you don't like it, starve." is not reasonable advice. Also, the more general complaint that the government has way too much of Kjorteo's money (and everyone's generally) still stands. If the government wasn't operating at ~21% of GDP, they wouldn't be tempted to make ill-advised near-trillion-dollar bailouts.

[JJ]

I like this speech from Democrat Peter DeFazio, it very much sums up what I was trying to illustrate in my comic:

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=ANGsBNMY1_c&feature=bz303

[CommanderSock]

Quote:

What does that mean? What about: "The bigger they are, the harder the fall."

Its a policy.

[Psudo]

Not a good one.

[fire_i]

Psudo wrote:

fire_i wrote:

while the free market can be okay enough in rather quiet, peaceful times, it's not exactly apt to put an end to any crisis it ends up causing, and we've had at least one enormous example of this through history (think 1929).

If you take out loans and gamble with the proceeds in the stock market, the free market suggests you should be allowed to suffer from your own stupidity. In that sense, the free market operated exactly as expected in 1929. The problem with the free market is humanity's incessant need to protect and serve those who make bad decisions and give them a second chance. It was the attempt to save everyone that prolonged the Great Depression. The free market advocates 'Let them die; they killed themselves.'

True enough, but not only those who made mistakes end up paying... everyone does, hence why I have no fear talking of a "crisis" the free market isn't apt to put an end to.

In fact, I don't think it's possible for people to ever learn from their mistakes - so long as a quick buck is possible, there will always be people to run for it. The collective memory is short... that's why we need laws to regulate, because even if we had let things collapse, the same situation, or rather any similar one, could very well happen again 50 years from now, after everything recovered, simply because people who had learned the lesson will have left the scene, and newcomers don't really care about textbook disasters they've never seen. If we're to rely on people learning from their mistakes alone, we'll not see much improvement in the long-term.

I'm very favorable to tighter regulation, if only because the short-term costs are pretty much always lesser than the damage caused by the long-term risk that, reasonably enough, always ends up blowing in our face after a while.

Kjorteo wrote:

Oh hey, totally irrelevant, but it seems like it's been a while since you and I were in the same Filibuster thread, fire_i. I like your new icon.

Back to the subject, I thank you for your sympathy, at least. It's a very unpleasant situation all-around.

That's unsurprising, I don't visit Canadaka much lately, I only post for the Filibuster cartoons that interest me, so we don't get to catch each other very often out here. Yet I'm still far more likely to be found here than on any other part of this site, haha!

Thanks about the icon! Drew it myself, because I'm a big kid now. :3

And oh, who would I be not to have sympathy? It's already bad enough to know governments are unable to get rid of income taxes for the poor at all, that they're likely to be *raised* is simply painful.

[Kjorteo]

fire_i wrote:

True enough, but not only those who made mistakes end up paying... everyone does, hence why I have no fear talking of a "crisis" the free market isn't apt to put an end to.

In fact, I don't think it's possible for people to ever learn from their mistakes - so long as a quick buck is possible, there will always be people to run for it....

That, and even people who had absolutely nothing to do with excessively greedy investments or predatory loaning are feeling the effects of the general market collapse. See also: me, who never had anything to do with the real estate market in his life (do you honestly think I'd have anything other than an apartment with $11,000/year?) and still has to deal with the tax-related consequences of the bailout (depending on whether other people on this fine forum believe what taxes I pay count, I suppose.) Also, there's the very real threat of a sour market cooling the demand for excessive luxury items like the throws I weave, and oops, there goes my job, maybe. (We'll see, I guess....)

Oh, anyone who's just about to retire and has a company-offered 401(k) is in danger of seeing that fizzle just in time to have to live on that, and it's not like it's their fault for not planning their retirement better or something--usually, having a 401(k) or something offered through your employment is planning your retirement better, as opposed to just relying on Social Security benefits.

[Biron]

Psudo wrote:

You make a reasonable point about the separate divisions of the government budget, but "If you don't like it, starve." is not reasonable advice. Also, the more general complaint that the government has way too much of Kjorteo's money (and everyone's generally) still stands.

Note I also said work for the elimination of Social Security and Medicaid. Do that, and it will drop. I'd also add some other programs, but I don't feel like going through the whole list right now and those two are the leading ones.

Quote:

If the government wasn't operating at ~21% of GDP, they wouldn't be tempted to make ill-advised near-trillion-dollar bailouts.

I think you're arguing two different things here. I don't think the size of the federal government, relates to it trying to keep the economy running. For instance, during the Great Depression, Government Spending as a percentage of GDP was MUCH less than it is now. You remember learning about the New Deal, right?Chart for you Look at the %GDP from '29 through '40.

[Kjorteo]

I suppose it's worth mentioning that I'm technically on Medicaid, since, you know, a technically-self-employed weaver can't really get anything through his job and God knows I'm not going to find any decent private out-of-pocket plans on an $11,000 salary. Eliminating Medicaid wouldn't exactly help me, unless it really did cut my taxes by at least an entire digit (and the difference wasn't just spent again on some other government adventure, like, say, $700 billion Wall Street bailouts) and I could find decent private out-of-pocket insurance that cost less than what I would be saving in taxes.

I could technically say the same of Social Security since I don't have much of a retirement plan, either, though I'm at least trying to set some of my money aside each month for IRA CDs.

Don't get me wrong; the government is gigantic and its budget is obscene as a result, but which programs are necessary social responsibilities and which are blatant wasteful spending are an entirely separate debate.

That being said, $2,000 out of $11,000 is ridiculous even for programs I do support and don't want to see cut. I thought that's what progressive taxation was supposed to be for.

[CKASlacker]

JJ wrote:

I like this speech from Democrat Peter DeFazio, it very much sums up what I was trying to illustrate in my comic:

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=ANGsBNMY1_c&feature=bz303

Thanks for the link - I think DeFazio nailed it pretty much bang on.

I do find it amusing how much of the right in America use words like "liberal" and "socialism" like they're evil, 4-letter words... yet it's the ultra-capitalists on Wall St. that are advocating a *huge*, statist, government intervention into their free market.

[Zipperfish]

CKASlacker wrote:

JJ wrote:

I like this speech from Democrat Peter DeFazio, it very much sums up what I was trying to illustrate in my comic:

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=ANGsBNMY1_c&feature=bz303

Thanks for the link - I think DeFazio nailed it pretty much bang on.

I do find it amusing how much of the right in America use words like "liberal" and "socialism" like they're evil, 4-letter words... yet it's the ultra-capitalists on Wall St. that are advocating a *huge*, statist, government intervention into their free market.

This is the part that always slays me as well. For the last few presidents, unless I'm mistaken, Clinton--a self-confessed liberal--was the only one that ran a surplus, at least back to Reagan.

I guess "conservative" has come to have a moral connotation (i.e. social conservatism) as opposed to an economic one (laissez faire free market).

Although, to their credit, I don't see a lot of conservatives/repoublicans that are too hapy about the current economic state of affairs.