The Mentally Disabled State Of Texas (Loud And Clear)

No but people dependent on the government tend to vote for Democrats because they promise to give them other peoples' money. Just as Democratic politicians are more than happy to forever keep those people dependent on them for their livelihoods instead of attacking the roots of poverty.

I take it then that you have a solution for poverty?

A blanket statement if I ever heard one so I'll follow it up with my own nonsensical ravings.

Less educated people tend to vote Republican because they hear buzzwords like God, freedom, patriotism and liberty all while the very same candidates vote effortlessly to make the country more of a military aggressor abroad and police state at home. These very same defenders of freedom oppose legalization of recreational drugs, want the government regulating every aspect of private life and would probably be at home creating an office of Christian Affairs as a new cabinet level position.

Fiscal responsibility? Well, it'd be irresponsible to not give God his fair share of other peoples money.

Republican candidates are more than happy to continue promoting worship of trickle-down economics while being fully aware of the reality that the sharp push for deregulation and union busting will inevitably lower QoL for their constituency.

RED VS BLUE VS RED VS BLUE VS RED

I think you need to define other peoples money better. Hostess is a good example for this. The heads at hostess blamed the unions for them having to close down. However Hostess was trying to force their bakers to work for an unlivable wage. Meaning the bakers who actually make the products that make the CEO and upper heads money would not even be making enough money to afford to pay for their family and would loose benefits. However if the board of hostess had taken a pay cut equal to just half of what they wanted the bakers to take the company would have lasted many more years without declaring bankruptcy. Instead they blame the bakers, declare bankruptcy, thousands of people loose their jobs, and the big wigs are walking away with all the money that their employees made for them. This is what republicans encourage.

If I supply a solution for poverty, would you listen?

I mean actually listen, not automatically dismiss it because it is not your idea.

Damn democrats need to stop accepting federal money and being dependent on the government
Seriously, this really isn't a red vs. blue issue. Both take government money and use it in pretty much the same way. You have people who take advantage on the personal and business level.

OK so is anyone that replied denying that people dependent on government money tend to vote for Democrats? Didn't think so. Is anyone denying the culture of dependency created in densely populated cities that are the strongholds of Democratic votes? Didn't think so.

Erm, yes I denied this. Quick edit, not denied but expounded on the fact the republicans do the same damn thing

And republicans are religious zealouts and, quite puzzlingly, totalitarian warmongers. I'm not sure I understand how your point fits in though, beyond the tautological statement of "people that believe we should pitch together to achieve a baseline quality of living vote people who preach that."

Besides, speaking as a libertarian here, you have to remember something: in reality, ideals and moral asides, it's far more efficient for everyone involved to put a little money up to build the roads that everyone uses and infrastructure that everyone uses and such and such and such on the money of the people, because it's for the people. This whole "using other people's money" argument puzzles me.

In reality, we're far too heavily taxed, particularly to pay for things we don't need, but I don't particularly see it as a problem when someone says "you know, in 2013, we shouldn't really have a society where you die because you got cancer and are poor". I mean, I don't really think your problems should be my problems, but I also understand it to be far more complex than "they want my money to pay their welfare".

This whole thread is strawmen, boogiemen, and chasing ghosts.

K listening! Go!

Yeah. Become the liberal Utopia that is:

Amandarius

Could you please provide the bill number and Republican Congress members who are currently trying to get rid of or defund social security?

Thanks.

First off, we create a friendlier business environment. One that does not fine every business for selling products made from other companies for not being "safe," whatever definition the EPA and OSHA defines that to be at that day. It is perfectly ok for EPA and OSHA to fine the companies making the products that fall under their own jurisdiction, but overreaching their own bounds, that HAS TO STOP!

*Bolded for emphasis*

Secondly, the government needs to enact a special tariff. One that imposes a 15% tax on fair market value of a domestic company that produces it's products overseas. This will not be added to foreign companies that produces their products overseas and ship them here to sell, nor a foreign company that produces their products in USA and either sells it here or ships it back home. Just domestic companies that produce their products overseas and ships it back here to sell.

There will be an exception to this tariff if a domestic company produces less than 40% of the product overseas, and assembles it here (to keep Ford/GM from throwing a hissy fit) or one that has to have a specialized part produced in a different country because of cost/intelligent property reasons. This tariff will apply to companies that have subsidiaries overseas produce their products. As you all know, a subsidiary company is one that the parent company owns or controls at least 50% of the company. If they are required to file a tax return as a combined entity, then this tariff applies if applicable.

Thirdly, no tax breaks if you are hit with the above tariff. No exceptions.

Fourth, pass laws that lower the amount of power unions have. Unions had their day. Until they show less corruption in both political and economic policies, then their usefulness will come back. Right now, the biggest deterrent of jobs are unions, because of their absolution and corruption, where the unions would rather have the company fail and EVERYONE lose their jobs than compromise with the company when hard times happen. See Twinkies as a perfect example of unions destroying companies that the media reported.

Fifth, in order to try to bring more jobs to states that have lower employment, especially towards manufacturing, there will be a specialized corporate tax break, around the same as the Empowerment Zone credit for restaurants and other similar industries. This break will focus on companies who bring jobs to those states. This will be a 5% off the entire tax bill after AMT for the first 5 years of the company being there. After that, the break expires, and hopefully the business thrives from there.

That is just a small portion of my plan. So, go ahead and pick it apart and say why you don't like it.

You forgot to address poverty.

Um...

Best way to get rid of poverty is to get people working.

In order for people to get working, there has to be jobs.

Thought you would have made the connection. I guess not.

Will this fully get rid of poverty? No, but there is no way to fully get rid of poverty when there are people out there who's only job is to produce offspring and collect welfare checks. I can't help with them.

But I can help get rid of poverty by creating jobs and increasing the standards of living for everyone. Simple as that.

And this, ladies and gentleman is a textbook straw man.

So I guess if I think the regulations that mandated every public pool, including those in every hotel, to have a crane to drop and pick up quadriplegics into and out of the pools, then I must hate the handicapped... I mean, since you think it's an all or nothing...

I don't like it because while it focuses on deregulation, you basically say "well, let's also just regulate the ***out of these things I don't like" or "give special exemptions to companies I like".

Makes it a really, really shitty argument.

Better way is to abolish the need to work.

Say what you will, but if we can mechanize the food industry, there's very little reason to have a society that works itself to death.

Yeah. That will never happen.

Too many jobs outside of manual labor out there, you know that, right?

I'm giving you a reasonable, real solution. Not one that is a fairy tale.

So, create jobs... yada yada yada... I fixed poverty?

How do you address the disparity in education associated with poverty? These jobs do no good if people are not qualified to hold them. If little education is required, then do these jobs actually pay enough to elevate someone out of poverty? Are these companies required to provide health benefits for their employees in order to prevent a simple hospital visit from causing a slip all the way back down into poverty? And you admit that you'd completely ignore the culture of poverty that exists in some areas so those people are on their own I guess.

I didn't make a connection between your plan and a solution to poverty because there isn't one.

Did I say the South doesn't have the problem? Sorry if facts infuriate you, but you are a libertarian so that was bound to happen. The overall implication from the left is "Hyuk hyuk, look as those damn teabaggers who say they don't want the government's help wiping their butts like we do, and they need more toilet paper than we do!" In reality, where there are democratic majorities, there is more poverty, North, South, or "other", more need for assistance, more crime, etc., so it is a damn fair assessment that Democrats are less independent and less self-reliant. I mean, you REALLY think conservatives are no more independent or self-reliant than liberals? What in history has led you to that idea?

The problem here is that the truth is offensive to some, and this is no surprise. You can't just say "well everyone is exactly the same and it's not fair to draw a line politically... unless we want to call you war-mongering religious zealots, because that's fair, but don't do it in a way that insults US!" Reality wins every time. I can only show you the door. You have to walk through.

There are technical requirements and standards that products have to maintain. Government agencies have to have the right to refuse products to be sold if they are potentially dangerous.

If a toy has lead paint and your kid is sucking on it all day, you might be a little pissed when they have high levels of lead in their bloodstream. Or if your dog/cat dies because the manufacturing plant had contaminated the food supply, this might piss you off.

So, I disagree with you here. I will say make these rules and requirements easily available and clearly written so businesses do know what they can and cannot do.


Great idea, would not work in practice. You would have a problem with companies moving their headquaters to another country and claiming the foreign company exemption. This has happened before with credit card companies, iirc, in the Cayman Islands.

If you could somehow restrict those who want to move or penalize them for tax evasion, that might work. Similar to how if a US citizen wants to renounce citizenship it cannot be for tax purposes.


Hostess did not fail because of unions. Hostess failed because an M&A company bought them sold off assets, gave the governing board hefty salaries and bonuses, and the company started failing due to a variety of reasons. M&A companies are sharks.

However, I am willing to give up Unions if states get rid of at-will work laws. Make a mandatory trial period where both the employee or employer could opt out (3-6 months) and not get penealized. Then make it a requirement for companies to give employees a certain amount of notice before they are fired or payout that salary to them, to get them gone immediately. Same for employees, they have to give the same amount of notice to an employeer or risk fines. This can be a gradual increase based on how long the person has worked for the company (e.g. Start at 2 weeks after the trial period ends. Work for 1 year must have 1 month notice, work for 2 years must have 2 months notice, etc until a capped time period).


I would change this a bit, but I like the idea. Decrease the amount gradually or offer something besides tax break.

In Denmark there is a law where foreigners who are highly valued by their companies (this translates to football players) receive a seriously reduced tax rate of 25% for 3 years. After this time period the rates return to normal. A study found that most people just moved out of DK after the 3 year period. Rather than integrating into society, which was the goal.

My additions:
Simplify the tax code for both individuals and corporations. Get rid of a lot of the tax write offs, loop holes, etc. Taxes in the US are all about playing who has the best accountant and tax lawyer.

Also, big one for poverty, work on the US educational system. The US needs to be competitive. The US has 320 million people, the EU has 500+ million, China has over 1 billion, India has close to or over 1 billion. Just playing the numbers the US needs to keep innovating, investing in R&D, and education. US citizens are the best resource it has.

FIFY

And you call yourself a Texan... tsk tsk tsk

So when prices skyrocket because companies can no longer pay workers $0.50 / hour in developing countries to manufacture their products do we just end up with a net zero effect or do we just allow them to pay Americans $0.50 /hr ?

The simple concept of job creation is flawed. That metric led to low unemployment and an ever growing class deficit over the last 30 years. It's not enough to get people working, you need to increase the quality of employment, which none of the conservative economic plans do.

There are already a lot of companies in the US that offer these trial periods to their employees. It's also a great liability saver, which protects the employer (an in many cases, also the employee) from certain hiring liabilities. On the flip side with bad businesses, it creates massive turnover rates, of course not nearly as high as we all may have seen or heard about with the Kitchen Nightmares episode with Amy's Bakery, where they were proud to have had over 100 employees come and go in less than a year.

Canada already has something similar to this effect. The longer you are with a company, regardless of wage or salary, determines how much notice you must give to receive your final pay, how much notice must be given, and a valid reason, or receive an equal amount of pay in leu of notice, as long as you are within good standing upon termination of employment (IE. you were terminated due to lack of work, rather than terminated for theft. This is what is called a Severance Pay or Severance Package.

Yes, the it's in place in Denmark too. There is more to the system as there are unions here (different structure than in the US) but this was just a quick run through. I'm pretty sure most western countries have implemented something along the same lines. It helps employers and employees.

Like you said there will be companies who try to abuse the system but you can't fully eliminate that from anything, just mitigate when you can or prosecute them.

That's pretty much how it works in France and UK, in my experience.

Except that on top of that, we have unions.

The US system has had a 90-day "trial" period for a while, prior to getting particular benefits/other things. However, the concept of severance pay/notification of termination is severely limited, essentially placing all of the risk on the employee and minimizing risk towards the business.

Which is stupid (and unfair), considering the relative levels of ability to absorb risk. A business which tries to force its employees to bear its own risks is generally speaking a business you should try to not work for if possible.

Currently in DK, the employer notification period is maximized at 6 months prior to termination (I believe this is reached after two years, but it has been a while since I've looked at this). The employee notification period is typically one month.

Not necessarily. If you assume the same level of productivity, the labor cost is distributed among however many units are produced in the time interval; so generally speaking you aren't going to get huge improvements in per-unit cost for most of your everyday consumables. The big question is exactly how much does the hourly salary actually contribute to the cost of the product, and what the profit margin is.

The smart money is on that the labor cost isn't necessarily the biggest piece of the pie.

And this is why we can't take liberals seriously.

Just make a 100% tax on all income earned, then make a government program that provides food / shelter and other necessities. *Poof* communism in a can.

Anyhow he's not that far off from what needs to be done. Right now unions are the #1 killer of business in the USA. Through various technical requirements unions possess the ability to completely shut down a company, that's more power then the CEO or the board of directors. Why would I ever invest any money into a company that can be utter destroyed at any point in time by someone who has no vested interest in the company succeeding? If they provided some form of credentialing or worker quality control (licensing / certification / vouching for capability) then they would have a use. As it stands their nothing but corrupt political programs existing to siphon off a company's profits.

EPA and OSHA are great in theory and for years they remained a very viable entity. Now their just political enforcement arms of the democrat party and are used to punish whatever industry the democrats don't like (especially the EPA).

Social welfare is fine when used in moderation but when brought the extreme's you see in Europe it will create massive problems.

Most Europeans have their head shoved so far up their rectum they don't see it coming. The use of a common currency has masked many of the issues and their governments keep going heavily into the red with no realistic way out that won't cause their populations to riot. I won't even go into the huge windfall all those nations receive from the USA due to them not needing to field anything that resembles a functionally capable military.

Anyhow FFXI is a liberal circle jerk.