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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
invibe
The topic aside, that is incredibly boring and lame lol. Props I guess for risking blowing it with you over an issue he has zero control or influence over? lol. What a player. Politics should go back on the list of impolite dinner conversation, ASAP.
I'm OK with most conversations as long as they don't get rude or too personal. I will politely listen and ask questions, but I don't think this guy could handle talk about "Forever 21", "Selena Gomez" or "Sephora". What a player? You have no idea.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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That kind of sounds like our current social security system. Young working people paying for elderly retired people. That is pretty much how the human race has operated for 200,000 years. It seems to be working ok, so far.
While this is a bit off topic, it's probably worth throwing some factual info out there. US Social Security has 'worked ok' so far for one reason ... because it was established as a 'Pyramid Scheme'. In other words, immediately after Social Security was established and Social Security taxes were first imposed, everybody paid the taxes but practically nobody collected benefits - creating a huge 'surplus'. As the the years passed, a few more people paid the taxes ( due to population growth ) but many more people began collecting benefits ( upon reaching retirement age ). And we have recently reached the point where the number of total dollars being collected in Social Security taxes is LESS than the total number of dollars being paid out in Social Security benefits.
This puts America on a course where existing Social Security tax rates will have to be increased ( dancers, camgirls and escorts already pay 15.3% of their incomes towards Social Security tax ), or promised Social Security benefits will have to be reduced. This is attributable to the fact that the 'pyramid' has now collapsed . Actually, from an 8:1 ratio a couple of generations ago, there are now just 2.5 SSI taxpayers for every beneficiary. With the average annual Social Security beneficiary payout being ~$15,500, in theory every SSI taxpayer would need to pay $6,200 per year in SSI taxes for the Social Security System to 'break even'.
Obviously, lower earning American employees in combination with their employers are only paying $4,000 or less. So it will fall to higher earning Americans, like dancers, camgirls, escorts etc. - and their customers - to pay enough additional SSI tax to make up the difference. Thus if a high earning dancer, camgirl, or escort winds up paying say $75k * 15.3% of her income = ~$11,500 per year for the next 45 years, she'll have paid in a total of $518,000 in SSI taxes ... translating into $1,451,000 with ultra-safe 4% compound interest. With the maximum benefit being ~$31,000 per year, that dancer, camgirl or escort would need to live to age 113 to 'get her own money back'.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Melonie
While this is a bit off topic, it's probably worth throwing some factual info out there. US Social Security has 'worked ok' so far for one reason ... because it was established as a 'Pyramid Scheme'.
That sounds kind of like when the government starting collecting income tax, because they needed to makeup all the money deficient left by the repeal of prohibition. I forgot where I heard that.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
^^^ you're on the right track ... sort of. During the prohibition years ( 1920-1933 ), the US gov't missed out on billions of dollars worth of alcohol excise taxes. This forced the federal and state gov'ts to become more reliant on income taxes ... but income tax revenues were very low ( by today's standards ) in comparison to alcohol excise taxes they were no longer receiving. When Social Security taxes were first enacted soon after prohibition ended ( 1937 ), the very low number of qualified beneficiaries versus SSI taxpayers meant that lots of 'surplus' Social Security tax money was available for the gov't to 'borrow' and spend.
Coincidentally, the gov't 'borrowing' and spending of the Social Security 'surplus' ... which has continued ever since ( actually it stopped 2 years ago as the cost of SSI benefits finally exceeded SSI tax revenues ) ... now adds a new 'curve ball' to the question of who pays how much for Social Security. The 'curve ball' comes in because the 'cashed in' social security 'surplus' which is now necessary to keep sending out SSI benefit checks must actually be paid for out of general federal ( mostly income ) tax revenues ... into which lower earning Americans pay virtually nothing, while higher earning dancers, camgirls and escorts ... and their customers ... must pay a lot !!!
circling back to the ACA, with the Social Security system virtually every American will have spent quite a few years paying in some amount of SSI taxes before they begin receiving benefit checks ... meaning that at least a few years of their benefit check cost will be funded by money they themselves paid into the System. However, with ACA insurance, low income enrollees, enrollees with expensive to treat illnesses etc. will receive more in benefits than they themselves are required to pay in from day one of their ACA insurance coverage.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
invibe
Whenever someone wants to drag me into their $2 politics I can't resist poking holes in their beliefs. Don't try to convince me what the television told you is real and I won't question what the hell you mean by "supporting the troops", a.k.a don't question the foreign policy.
Wow -- I can't help gagging over the asinine suggestion that the troops actually have any say in foreign policy decisions.
To the OP -- I try to stay well-informed of things but I am NOT a political junkie by any means. That said, here's a light-hearted look at just how much worse your date could have been: :P
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Gee Melonie, you are talking about taxes as if they were his horribe and inhumane thing. Reading your posts, it sounds like you wish to go back to the colonial times where most people lived in farms and simply paid small taxes on their land and nothing else. We had advance, and thus taxation has become what it is now. Granted, it's not a perfect system and there are several failures (no system create by humans can possibly be perfect). Ben Franklin was right when he said that taxes and death are two surest things in life: taxes is the price to live in a cilized society.
Second, the tiresome "but young people are paying for old people" is like beating a dead horse: we all get old and die. Anyone that has that mentality could buy a deserted island and live isolated from the rest of society. Since the dawn of time, the younger had cared for the older. USA treats their elderly population in a horrendous manner: some people out there should feel ashamed about themselves about the way they treat their older relatives.
I am not advocating for a syndicalist society either nor for a communist one either. However, the complete opposite (anarcho-capitalism) is not a better option either.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jay12
Gee Melonie, you are talking about taxes as if they were his horribe and inhumane thing. Reading your posts, it sounds like you wish to go back to the colonial times where most people lived in farms and simply paid small taxes on their land and nothing else. We had advance, and thus taxation has become what it is now. Granted, it's not a perfect system and there are several failures (no system create by humans can possibly be perfect). Ben Franklin was right when he said that taxes and death are two surest things in life: taxes is the price to live in a cilized society.
Second, the tiresome "but young people are paying for old people" is like beating a dead horse: we all get old and die. Anyone that has that mentality could buy a deserted island and live isolated from the rest of society. Since the dawn of time, the younger had cared for the older. USA treats their elderly population in a horrendous manner: some people out there should feel ashamed about themselves about the way they treat their older relatives.
I am not advocating for a syndicalist society either nor for a communist one either. However, the complete opposite (anarcho-capitalism) is not a better option either.
Jay, history has proven, time and again, that high taxes are the anathema of a vibrant economy. They stifle incentives for individuals to innovate, create and produce, all the while entrenching a ruling class of those who were fortunate enough to become wealthy before the government started confiscating new earnings. Also, as seen time and again in country after country, personal and economic freedoms are inextricably linked and you give up one when you give up the other.
So yes, I share Melonie's concern about any further encroachment into our wallets. Now I will also agree that we treat our elderly horribly in the country. However, that is not a political problem, but a cultural one. Nowadays, too many people in the U.S. are all too ready to shove their elderly into assisted living and other places where the one goal is to not be burdened by them as they wait for them to die. In so many other cultures, they do a much better job of keeping their elders in the family unit. It is a sad state of affairs to be sure, but I'm not sure I see how taxing us further really solves that particular problem.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Jay12
Gee Melonie, you are talking about taxes as if they were his horribe and inhumane thing. Reading your posts, it sounds like you wish to go back to the colonial times where most people lived in farms and simply paid small taxes on their land and nothing else. We had advance, and thus taxation has become what it is now. Granted, it's not a perfect system and there are several failures (no system create by humans can possibly be perfect). Ben Franklin was right when he said that taxes and death are two surest things in life: taxes is the price to live in a cilized society.
… I am not advocating for a syndicalist society either nor for a communist one either. However, the complete opposite (anarcho-capitalism) is not a better option either.
I agree w/ you that taxes are a necessary evil -- but consider the fairly recent thread where one poster in England openly stated that many ppl there, including herself, hide a significant portion of their income bc 50% or more of it is going to the govt? Where do you consider the appropriate cutoff point to be for 'the price of living in a civilised society'?
I had a part-time job in high school working for a dr, alongside a relative who worked as his office mgr for several yrs. We had many patients come from Europe, as well as Canadian snowbirds who would schedule their procedures to be done during their vacations, bc the gov't healthcare systems in their home countries put them on yrs-long waiting lists.
SSI payouts are not even a guarantee anymore, not just for the reasons Melonie already covered, but bc receiving SSI payouts apparently conflict w/ certain other benefit payouts. One of my relatives is having this problem right now -- even tho he has paid into Social Security pretty much his whole working life, his pension from the police dept for sm reason conflicts w/ his being allowed to collect on it. Wonder where all that $$ is ending up, if it's not going to the person who actually earned it … ?
As Melonie mentioned previously, there were already requirements on the books b4 the ACA, that hospitals don't turn anyone away. Patients w/ insurance are actually often billed higher than patients w/o insurance, as a way of trying to balance the costs of treating those who can't (or claim inability) to pay. When you get right down to it, the ACA is really little more than these & other already-implemented 'safeguards' on steroids. You say you don't advocate for a communist society, but what your post here suggests is exactly that -- gov't-controlled redistribution of wealth, bc the gov't is better able to determine who deserves that wealth than the ppl who work for it.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Aniela
I agree w/ you that taxes are a necessary evil -- but consider the fairly recent thread where one poster in England openly stated that many ppl there, including herself, hide a significant portion of their income bc 50% or more of it is going to the govt? Where do you consider the appropriate cutoff point to be for 'the price of living in a civilised society'?
I had a part-time job in high school working for a dr, alongside a relative who worked as his office mgr for several yrs. We had many patients come from Europe, as well as Canadian snowbirds who would schedule their procedures to be done during their vacations, bc the gov't healthcare systems in their home countries put them on yrs-long waiting lists.
SSI payouts are not even a guarantee anymore, not just for the reasons Melonie already covered, but bc receiving SSI payouts apparently conflict w/ certain other benefit payouts. One of my relatives is having this problem right now -- even tho he has paid into Social Security pretty much his whole working life, his pension from the police dept for sm reason conflicts w/ his being allowed to collect on it. Wonder where all that $$ is ending up, if it's not going to the person who actually earned it … ?
As Melonie mentioned previously, there were already requirements on the books b4 the ACA, that hospitals don't turn anyone away. Patients w/ insurance are actually often billed higher than patients w/o insurance, as a way of trying to balance the costs of treating those who can't (or claim inability) to pay. When you get right down to it, the ACA is really little more than these & other already-implemented 'safeguards' on steroids. You say you don't advocate for a communist society, but what your post here suggests is exactly that -- gov't-controlled redistribution of wealth, bc the gov't is better able to determine who deserves that wealth than the ppl who work for it.
Americans also wait long time for procedures too; it's not exclusive to foreigners. I waited almost a GODDAMN YEAR to see a psychiatrist earlier this year. I could had tried someone else around November 2013...about 85 miles away and be seen in a similar amount of time or I could had driven to Mexico and see a doctor right away that would've prescribed me medications that aren't legal in the USA. OTOH, my husband used to volunteer for an internet radio station owned by a guy in Alberta...who barely waits to see his doctors.
Second, I'm not even defending Obamacare, so I don't get where you're getting the last bit.
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Originally Posted by
rickdugan
Jay, history has proven, time and again, that high taxes are the anathema of a vibrant economy. They stifle incentives for individuals to innovate, create and produce, all the while entrenching a ruling class of those who were fortunate enough to become wealthy before the government started confiscating new earnings. Also, as seen time and again in country after country, personal and economic freedoms are inextricably linked and you give up one when you give up the other.
Ok...then explain why the countries that follow the Scandinavian model have so many innovations yet have some of the highest tax rates in the world?! In Denmark, the highest rate is...62%. Please, explain using real world examples and not examples from "Austrian Economics For Dummies". Over and over, those countries are the happiest in the whole world.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Ok...then explain why the countries that follow the Scandinavian model have so many innovations yet have some of the highest tax rates in the world?! In Denmark, the highest rate is...62%. Please, explain using real world examples
- Jante Law ... see ... encourages Scandinavian people to voluntarily 'share' and to voluntarily be 'productive'.
- strictly enforced Scandinavian immigration Laws effectively keeps out non-Scandinavian people, so that said 'sharing' doesn't become burdensome on the Scandinavian people, Scandinavian gov'ts, or Scandiavian businesses.
- tax law establishes that ALL Scandinavians pay a significant amount of taxes.
- Scandinavian gov'ts and citizens substantially avoid having to fund an effective military defense, an effective intelligence network, etc. ... and thus depend heavily on EU and other Western countries to provide these at the expense of EU and other Western country taxpayers .
Again sticking with the financials, unlike the US and many other EU countries, Scandinavian countries simply do not have ( and will not allow into their countries ) a significant percentage of their populations who 'consume' far more than they 'produce'. This means that the large amounts of tax money paid by the 'productive' citizenry can be used to fund benefits for themselves ... as opposed to the US and other EU countries situation where a significant percentage of tax money paid by the 'productive' citizenry must be used to fund benefits for others who are less 'productive', leaving far less with which to fund benefits for themselves.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Jay12
Ok...then explain why the countries that follow the Scandinavian model have so many innovations yet have some of the highest tax rates in the world?! In Denmark, the highest rate is...62%. Please, explain using real world examples and not examples from "Austrian Economics For Dummies". Over and over, those countries are the happiest in the whole world.
Jay, you'll have to be more specific about which countries you are talking about besides Denmark.
Denmark has done a lot of things right (outside of their tax rates) and the country has a lot of natural advantages, including being net exporter of food and energy and having ocean access on multiple sides of the country. They are also a tiny country of less than 6 million people with a non-diverse population. To think that you could expand that model into larger predominately landlocked countries, with much larger and more diverse populations and fewer natural advantages, is unrealistic.
And Denmark is now experiencing its own problems as well, with unemployment currently at 7% and an anemic economic growth rate. So how are they looking to handle that? By cutting taxes on certain industries in order to preserve jobs. Gee, what a shocker. ;)
Conversely, I could list you 40 countries, each with much larger populations than Denmark, where confiscatory tax rates have stifled their economic growth for decades and have led to significant underground economies, including many European countries.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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They are also a tiny country of less than 6 million people with a non-diverse population. To think that you could expand that model into larger predominately landlocked countries, with much larger and more diverse populations and fewer natural advantages, is unrealistic.
Indeed, to form an 'apples to apples' comparison to the US in this regard, imagine the economic effect on 6 million Danes if 250,000 Mexicans, 150,000 central Americans, 100,000 middle easterners, 100,000 Africans etc. were to suddenly move to Denmark ... with limited Danish language skills, with few professional skills needed for 'productive' employment by Danish industries, but with full eligibility for Danish national health care and social welfare benefits. Undoubtedly, many 'diverse' people would move to Denmark if they could ... but the Danish gov't purposefully keeps them out via strict enforcement of immigration laws. And with today's slow economic growth and rising unemployment, Danes are seeking to tighten their anti-immigration policies even further ... see
Circling back on topic, for Western countries which do have 'diverse' populations and 'less than strict' immigration policies, the issue of 'wealth transfer' from the 'productive' to the 'non-productive' is a significant economic factor.
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one poster in England openly stated that many ppl there, including herself, hide a significant portion of their income bc 50% or more of it is going to the govt? Where do you consider the appropriate cutoff point to be for 'the price of living in a civilised society'?
This speaks to the concept of value received versus taxes paid. As mentioned earlier, it is somewhat easier for Danish etc. taxpayers to tolerate a 50% tax rate if indeed they will receive 'free' health care, 'affordable' quality college educations for their children, well maintained roads and bridges, well staffed police, fire and emergency services etc. It is somewhat more difficult for New York taxpayers to tolerate a 40% combined tax rate if they are also expected to pay for expensive health care, expensive college tuition, to pay road and bridge tolls plus tolerate potholes and detours, and potentially wait for long periods for police, fire, emergency personnel to show up.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Melonie is right. The fact is that what is happening is more and more unproductive people not only depend on the money from productive people but in fact are increasing their money by adding more to them because of this. Not just that but we are increasing our numbers due to unskilled people (some productive, some not)moving to this country and many also depending on the tax dollars of others. Until we solve these issues we will be in big problem. It's why Illinois (and many other states)are in big trouble.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Melonie
^^^ again, side-stepping political judgments in regard to 'good or bad', your additional data on increasing health insurance premiums for 2015 vs 2014 confirms the underlying financial facts. The ACA essentially transfers money from younger Americans to older Americans, and essentially transfers money from 'middle class' Americans to 'poor' Americans. Where the vast majority of dancers, camgirls, and escorts are concerned ( as well as the vast majority of their likely customer base ), this almost certainly means the ACA will cause their pre-tax incomes to be reduced due to reduced customer spending, and cause their after-tax / disposable incomes to be reduced even further due to the new ACA related taxes and / or significantly higher health insurance premium costs ( versus previously available options which the ACA has now 'outlawed').
The ACA doesn’t transfer money from younger Americans to older Americans when you consider Americans under 26 don’t pay anything for insurance. There’s no basis for your statement that ACA will result in reduced customer spending, other than you don’t like the law. The law has been in effect for close to a year, and there hasn’t been any impact on consumer spending. As I said before, the overall cost of ACA is not very significant in relation to a $17 trillion economy.
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Originally Posted by
Melonie
For the record, pre-existing US mandates on hospitals guaranteed this was already the case before the ACA was enacted. The major difference the ACA has produced is that the pre-existing situation could have resulted in an American who chose not to previously purchase health insurance and subsequently became seriously ill potentially being bankrupted by the cost of their own medical bills ... whereas the post-ACA situation allows that seriously ill person to purchase 'affordable' insurance after they have become seriously ill and thus avoid bankruptcy ( thanks in large part to money transferred from younger / healthier Americans with 'middle class' earnings levels ).
No it didn’t. Hospitals were required to do no more than stabilize the patient. If an uninsured person with cancer needs chemotherapy, he couldn’t just walk into a hospital and get the treatment every time he needs it without paying. I read about a woman without insurance who needed heart surgery. She couldn’t find a hospital that would perform the procedure unless she paid for it first. I think the cost was a few hundred thousand dollars. She ended up going to India, where the procedure could be done at an affordable price. If she didn’t have the means to go to India, she would have been out of luck.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
americans under 26 don't pay anything for insurance?? news to me, i always had to
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Aniela
Wow -- I can't help gagging over the asinine suggestion that the troops actually have any say in foreign policy decisions.
Exactly, they don't. I'll spare the forums the diatribe the poor bastards usually get from me when they thank me for my service, tell me how much they support the troops, and can't remember the name of a single place in Afghanistan; the longest war in U.S. history. It seems like you may have misunderstood, dunno.
Healthcare is a win/lose in virtually every scenario. I don't support those who need care going without, other than that I can't claim to care much about the details. Doctors can make thousands and get lavish perks just for giving their opinion on a drug or procedure by the people who want to sell it. There is more to it than taking money from peter to treat paul.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rickdugan
Jay, history has proven, time and again, that high taxes are the anathema of a vibrant economy. They stifle incentives for individuals to innovate, create and produce, all the while entrenching a ruling class of those who were fortunate enough to become wealthy before the government started confiscating new earnings. Also, as seen time and again in country after country, personal and economic freedoms are inextricably linked and you give up one when you give up the other.
No it hasn't. Income taxes in the U.S. were at their highest historical levels from the 1930s to the 1970s, and we saw unprecedented economic growth and technological advances during this period. We went from propeller-driven aircraft, to landing rockets on the moon and from adding machines to super-computers.
This is the aircraft that Charles Lindbergh used to cross the Atlantic in 1927, which was considered one of the major accomplishments of the decade.
http://www.mohistory.org/files/image.../lindbergh.jpg
By the 1960's, anyone could fly across the Atlantic in one of these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Volpati-1.jpg
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
simone87
americans under 26 don't pay anything for insurance?? news to me, i always had to
If your parents have insurance, you can stay on your parents' plan if you're 26 years old or under.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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The law has been in effect for close to a year, and there hasn’t been any impact on consumer spending
It's difficult to document effects to date, beyond the comparatively small number of Americans whose 'non-compliant' private health insurance policies were outlawed ( resulting in higher premium costs for ACA 'compliant' coverage ), beyond those Americans whose former full time paychecks were 'converted' to part time paychecks ( to reduce the Employer's ACA 'base year' full time employee head count ), etc. As discussed previously, the filing of 2014 individual income tax returns by next April 15th with the new 1% penalty tax + 'true-up' of ACA subsidies received versus actual income earned, the upward 2015 adjustment of both ACA exchange and employer provided health insurance premiums to more accurately reflect costs, and the actual 2015 imposition of employer penalty tax for failure to provide ACA 'compliant' health insurance, will be the first time that the ACA directly affects most Americans.
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Income taxes in the U.S. were at their highest historical levels from the 1930s to the 1970s, and we saw unprecedented economic growth and technological advances during this period. We went from propeller-driven aircraft, to landing rockets on the moon and from adding machines to super-computers.
While this is a bit off topic, it deserves a factual answer. On the topic of technological advancement in aerospace and computers, much of that stemmed from gov't funded 'research' which certainly isn't receiving funding today. Additionally, lots of key developments were actually developed by 'enemy' countries ... which the US / 'allies' essentially 'stole' as spoils of war. Google Von Braun, Van Ohain, Zuse etc.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Perhaps what is really needed is a single payer or a Medicare for all system like they have in Canada so we can take the insurance companies out of the mix but do we really want a system run entirely by the government? Not a pleasant prospect.
In any case we have ended up with the healthcare program originally presented by the Heritage Foundation and conservative Republican senators. Their new found opposition to the program was in part due to the rise of the Tea Party and the fact that a black man championed the program.
And yet while Rome burns the real elephant in the room is the fact that for two decades we have been outsourcing millions of jobs to China and India essentially destroying our middle class base while swelling the ranks of the poor. But that's the nature of capitalism to seek and exploit the cheapest labor pool. None of this should be surprise to anyway and yet it's never intelligently discussed or analyzed.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
sarah101
Perhaps what is really needed is a single payer or a Medicare for all system like they have in Canada so we can take the insurance companies out of the mix but do we really want a system run entirely by the government? Not a pleasant prospect.
In any case we have ended up with the healthcare program originally presented by the Heritage Foundation and conservative Republican senators. Their new found opposition to the program was in part due to the rise of the Tea Party and the fact that a black man championed the program.
And yet while Rome burns the real elephant in the room is the fact that for two decades we have been outsourcing millions of jobs to China and India essentially destroying our middle class base while swelling the ranks of the poor. But that's the nature of capitalism to seek and exploit the cheapest labor pool. None of this should be surprise to anyway and yet it's never intelligently discussed or analyzed.
I think you make some good points. You know, a significant part of the problem from your last paragraph is that the people going after the education required in high technology are from those countries.
The points being made a few posts above about sort of a golden age of American innovation and taxes etc. is interesting. That whole era is borderline socialism. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, just by comparison to today. The majority of men under 45 were practically war heroes, some were actual war heroes. Very different time.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Melonie
It's difficult to document effects to date, beyond the comparatively small number of Americans whose 'non-compliant' private health insurance policies were outlawed ( resulting in higher premium costs for ACA 'compliant' coverage ), beyond those Americans whose former full time paychecks were 'converted' to part time paychecks ( to reduce the Employer's ACA 'base year' full time employee head count ), etc. As discussed previously, the filing of 2014 individual income tax returns by next April 15th with the new 1% penalty tax + 'true-up' of ACA subsidies received versus actual income earned, the upward 2015 adjustment of both ACA exchange and employer provided health insurance premiums to more accurately reflect costs, and the actual 2015 imposition of employer penalty tax for failure to provide ACA 'compliant' health insurance, will be the first time that the ACA directly affects most Americans.
Millions of Americans have purchased insurance through ACA and the taxes on wealthy have gone into effect and there has been no noticeable change in consumer spending as a result of the law. Hiring has actually increased this year. There is also no evidence that full-time jobs are being converted to part-time jobs as a result of the ACA. BTW, the chart you posted earlier on full-time vs part-time jobs only goes up to the middle of 2013, which was before the law even went into effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Melonie
While this is a bit off topic, it deserves a factual answer. On the topic of technological advancement in aerospace and computers, much of that stemmed from gov't funded 'research' which certainly isn't receiving funding today. Additionally, lots of key developments were actually developed by 'enemy' countries ... which the US / 'allies' essentially 'stole' as spoils of war. Google Von Braun, Van Ohain, Zuse etc.
What difference does it make that aerospace and computer industries received government funding? High taxes didn't stop the innovation. If anything, it contributed, since the taxes were used to fund it. There is a HUGE difference between the V2 rockets captured in World War 2 and the rockets that took man to the moon.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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If your parents have insurance, you can stay on your parents' plan if you're 26 years old or under.
Yes ... IF ... the person under age 26 can also meet all of the parents' employer's requirements for 'dependent' insurance coverage. And even though the person under age 26 doesn't have to directly pay for 'dependent' insurance coverage, the parent - and / or the parent's employer do. So this is another case of 'wealth transfer', but in an unusual direction.
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There is a HUGE difference between the V2 rockets captured in World War 2 and the rockets that took man to the moon.
Actually, the Redstone rocket used to put America's first man in space was little more than a 'stretch' V2. Granted that, as head of NASA, Von Braun and various defense contractors came up with a new and better design for the Saturn rockets used for the Apollo moon missions. The point actually was that many of America's 'claims' toward technological developments were actually 'borrowed' from other countries. What America was uniquely able to do, however, is that private sector American companies like Boeing, IBM etc. were willing to invest huge amounts of their own money to develop new technologies that worked on a small scale into technological products that could be marketed on a large scale like the Boeing 707, the IBM 360 etc. If an such major new technological developments take place today, evidence is pretty clear that most of the resulting permanent jobs created are not likely to be created within the USA.
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Hiring has actually increased this year
Indeed this is true on the surface. What isn't mentioned, of course, is the high percentage of the new jobs are near minimum wage, and/or service industry related. For example, breaking down the most recent jobs report shows the following statistics ...
- 528,000 new jobs ... the vast majority of jobs added for the month ... went to the 18-24 age group
- of those new age 18-24 jobs, ~90% went to women
- of the new jobs, the majority occurred in the 'food service and drinking place' segment
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20Waiters.jpg
Pundits would also attribute some increase in hiring of women in the age 18-24 age group to the availability of ACA dependent coverage, which exempts the employer from potential ACA penalty taxes !!! And in keeping with 'those who live by the sword die by the sword', there may also be an abrupt change in employment prospects when that person reaches age 27 and loses eligibility for dependent insurance coverage ( thus subjecting the employer to potential IRS penalty taxes ).
The larger point stemming from this recent addition of age 18-24 waitress and barmaid jobs, which was touched on earlier in regard to American companies' hiring of age 65+ workers, is that the ACA is arguably altering the American 'jobs market'. Furthermore, it appears to be altering the American 'jobs market' in ways which clearly do NOT benefit dancers, camgirls, and escorts.
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Originally Posted by
Tourdefranzia
That kind of sounds like our current social security system. Young working people paying for elderly retired people. That is pretty much how the human race has operated for 200,000 years. It seems to be working ok, so far.
In reality it is higher earning people who pay more for the "old age pension" SS provisions. In general young workers don't earn as much as older workers, but not necessarily the oldest ones. (Younger people have defended the older ones for all of human civilization, and the oldest and the youngest are taken care of by the working people. This is called human civilization; generally it is not so in the animal kingdom.)
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Re: I spent most last evening listening to my "date" talk about politics.
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Perhaps what is really needed is a single payer or a Medicare for all system like they have in Canada so we can take the insurance companies out of the mix but do we really want a system run entirely by the government? Not a pleasant prospect.
Again tossing in a couple of pertinent facts. Canadian taxpayers don't actually have to pay anything close to the actual cost for providing their National Health Care. This is because the Canadian gov't offsets a lot of those costs via money earned from royalties paid to the Canadian gov't for oil, natural gas, exported hydropower, mining of metals and minerals, lumber etc. The US gov'ts royalty earnings are just a tiny fraction of the Canadian gov'ts royalty earnings, and of course there are also 10 + times as many Americans as Canadians who would be consuming health care services.