Herman Cain

Josh wrote: Because it's BS. A billionaire benefits from public services vastly more than I do

It most definitely is NOT BS, and a billionaire most definitely doesn't benefit from public services inhernatly more than you...

- he and his business place

And here is why this and everything else that follows is wrong. You've already comitted category error by simply asserting a wealthy person and a business as a single entity to the exclusion of any other consideration of fact.

I mean I could go on with a point by point discussion, but its meaningless to do so because none of that would make a difference in your mind so long as you're framing the discussion in this incorrect context.

(aside unrelated to your comments; I find it entertaining how much anti corporatists and anti capitalists assert that corporations aren't people, but in the next breath over-anthropomorphise them as evil beings.)

I have a question:

Assuming we lump corporations together with rich folk who own them as essentially one entity, and then eliminate any difference between regular income and capital income, give me some ideas on how we would then encourage job development.

Starting a business is risky. If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't do it if there was no incentive. I'd invest my money in safer investments.

If that were to happen on a large scale, there would be a lot of jobs lost.

Snowdoggie wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

Otto Maddox wrote: Cain says Jesus Christ was the perfect conservative who was killed by a liberal court.

I heard he was a lousy carpenter and not much of a fisherman either. Bit of a wino.

He also hated bankers and like to help the poor.

Plus... jewish republicans are as rare as unicorns with tits. Total democrat.

SVreX wrote: I have a question: Assuming we lump corporations together with rich folk who own them as essentially one entity, and then eliminate any difference between regular income and capital income, give me some ideas on how we would then encourage job development. Starting a business is risky. If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't do it if there was no incentive. I'd invest my money in safer investments. If that were to happen on a large scale, there would be a lot of jobs lost.

a fair question, but a shakey premise. I see where you're trying to shine the light tho.

The problem is a large majoriy of people who vote not figuratively but LITERALLY have no idea what 'capital gains tax' is. Without even this most basic understanding of the tax code, they are still more than happy to inject their shallow and emotionally rooted opinion into what is appropriate tax policy.

This gross ignorance means they are more easily manipulated by media input and political propoganda than they are willing to admit.

In reply to madmallard:

I can tell your post is unbelievably condescending ("I could argue with you, but what would be the point considering how stupid I think you are...."), but I can't actually figure out what you're saying. Do you actually not believe that businesses use and profit from public resources? If so, would you mind explaining that position? I don't think it's a problem that businesses use public resources, hell, that's what they're for. I just think it's really silly to pretend that the only people who benefit from public services are the (easily and frequently attacked) lower income individuals who get some form of direct assistance.

Just to make myself clearer, let's just say we assign some value to the use of a shared public resource. I have a truck, I use it to deliver something using a public road and I get paid for that. That road is worth $X in my pocket. Now let's say I own a hundred trucks, and I pay a hundred people some amount less than I take in to drive those trucks and deliver things. To each of my drivers, that road is worth $X-Y in their pocket, and to me that road is worth $100Y even though I never even drove a truck on it. That's what I mean when I say that the wealthy stand to benefit more than I do from public resources.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: What principle is it exactly that you are doing it for?

As I said before - skin in the game. If you're going to participate in the direction of the country via the voting booth, you should bear some responsibility for the consequences of your vote.

Someone should not be able to vote themselves a raise out of my pocket without it also hitting their pocket on some level.

An alternative would be to remove the voting privileged from those who don't pay taxes, but I have a feeling you would not see this as a superior alternative.

Josh wrote: In reply to madmallard: I can tell your post is unbelievably condescending ("I could argue with you, but what would be the point considering how stupid I think you are...."), but I can't actually figure out what you're saying. Do you actually not believe that businesses use and profit from public resources?

Sorry if it read like that.

But I think you missed the specificity with which I identified what you were working on.

Its not that I don't think business use and profit from public resources, but its the exclusivity you give the symbiotic relationship of a rich billionare with a business that is the category error. Your text reads like you're identifying them as one entity, irrevocably tied to eachother.

However, the business that uses public resources is not reserving that benefit exclusively to the rich billionare. The lesser earning general public also receives that benefit that the company enjoys simultaneously and irrespective of whatever mutal benefits the rich are receiving. Understanding that, its hard to go on with the rest of your points from there, because if everyone benefits in some way when a business uses public resources (spefically infrastructure that you're focusing on), then there is no difference.

My original intent in even invoking the comparison of use of public resources to begin with was on the individual basis.

DILYSI Dave wrote: As I said before - skin in the game. If you're going to participate in the direction of the country via the voting booth, you should bear some responsibility for the consequences of your vote. Someone should not be able to vote themselves a raise out of my pocket without it also hitting their pocket on some level.

thank you, that summarises alot of the reflections.

People who play the game of life like they don't have to put any skin in the game really upset me.

Josh wrote: Just to make myself clearer, let's just say we assign some value to the use of a shared public resource. I have a truck, I use it to deliver something using a public road and I get paid for that. That road is worth $X in my pocket. Now let's say I own a hundred trucks, and I pay a hundred people some amount less than I take in to drive those trucks and deliver things. To each of my drivers, that road is worth $X-Y in their pocket, and to me that road is worth $100Y *even though I never even drove a truck on it*. That's what I mean when I say that the wealthy stand to benefit more than I do from public resources.

But you are also paying 100x the fuel taxes and registration fees that somebody with 1 truck is. So it is fair you get 100 times the benefit.

Josh wrote: Just to make myself clearer, let's just say we assign some value to the use of a shared public resource. I have a truck, I use it to deliver something using a public road and I get paid for that. That road is worth $X in my pocket. Now let's say I own a hundred trucks, and I pay a hundred people some amount less than I take in to drive those trucks and deliver things. To each of my drivers, that road is worth $X-Y in their pocket, and to me that road is worth $100Y *even though I never even drove a truck on it*. That's what I mean when I say that the wealthy stand to benefit more than I do from public resources.

Josh, I get what you are saying, but I think you are missing that though the business is benefiting more, they are also paying more for the privilege of using those services, therefore a wash.

Do you pay ad valorum taxes on 100 trucks? How about over-the-road taxes? Title and registration taxes and fees? Do you pay the payroll taxes on the employees, or the fuel taxes?

You are recognizing the "benefit" without recognizing the expense.

I live in a town which has always had trouble making it's budget. It is a reasonably wealthy bedroom community of a larger city. You would think that the property taxes should cover things like fire houses, police, libraries, etc. But the truth is that property taxes don't cover these things, communities use a huge chunk from sales tax collections to pay for them, and my town does not have enough retail sales (they are mostly in the larger city). They can't pay for stuff because there is not enough business.

It is highly likely that roads are likely paid for mostly from the over-the-road taxes and fuel taxes by trucks and businesses. As a resident and an individual income tax payer, YOU are probably not paying YOUR fair share. So, now that we have established that it is not the big bad businesses failing to pay their fair share, are YOU prepared to pay more for the use of the public property that you are benefiting from without paying your fair share?

SVreX wrote: Starting a business is risky. If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't do it if there was no incentive. I'd invest my money in safer investments.

Until the jerks in DC get their collective heads out of their butts, the "safer investments" is exactly where money will stay. The 99ers are complaining about all this cash the big corporations and banks have on hand. What they don't seem to realize is until corporate types can figure out which way the DC wind is going to blow, the safest thing business can do is nothing. Businesses likes stable rules. What we have now is anything but. Money that doesn't move isn't taxed, so the safest thing to do with your millions is park it somewhere safe until you know what the new rules of the game are going to be. I'm figuring the economy is probably going to suck until after the next election. If Obama gets re-elected, it's going to probably suck for four more years because the business people don't trust him. That and he's not a leader plain and simple. That fact has been driven home during his campaign tour in the last week.

Cain's biggest advantage is he knows business. The business types would trust him to not do anything stupid to business as POTUS. On the other hand, I don't think he will make a great president either. To me he doesn't have the diplomatic side necessary to deal the the other side of the isle, much less the other side of the ocean. I can definitely see him telling congress to berkeley off and then the entire thing will come to a grinding halt. The smartest thing he could do right now is change his name to Not Obama. He'd win by a landslide.

Edited the last paragraph for clarity.

In reply to SVreX:

You're missing my point. I wasn't attempting to examine a specific case of a real world trucking business, I was just trying to illustrate the fact that the benefits of public resources aren't limited to those that are directly applied to an individual (a welfare check, a public education, etc). It's extremely disingenuous to imply that public services paid for via tax revenue are akin to stealing from the rich to give to the poor, because the wealthy benefit from those resources as well, even if not directly. I would still argue that they benefit to a greater degree than others, not just on an individual basis, but also on a proportional basis. The actions of government create the framework that allows the wealthy (or anyone else) to achieve and retain wealth (shared resources, protection of property rights), and I can't see why it's so ludicrous to suggest that those who have the most have in actuality derived the largest benefit from that framework.

Because it ignores the benefit you also receive indirectly thru your interaction with the very same business. Thats why it's a wash.

And thats why I didn't even mention it, I was trying to corellate on an individual basis, which is what most people do when they try to invoke a discussion on 'fairness.'

madmallard wrote: Because it ignores the benefit you also receive indirectly thru your interaction with the very same business. Thats why it's a wash.

Huh? You're comparing apples with dishwashers. I'm talking about quantifying the benefit that an individual derives from government services so as to define what a "fair" level of taxation for that individual would be. The exchange between employer and employee is irrelevant to the discussion, given that I don't pay taxes to my boss.

In reply to Josh:

I didn't miss your point.

I tried to show you that your logic was in error. Businesses pay more toward the public resources than individuals. Significantly more.

Your point is too esoteric to make any sense. You are essentially saying, "Well, since the military (or any other resource) protects us, and the wealthy have more to protect, they benefit more from it's existence".

But they PAID for it.

Examine the converse. How about they STOP paying for it- then where would we be?? Don't forget- they pay the majority.

The existence of public resources is not a huge benefit to the wealthy. They are the ones that don't need it- they own their own island, a place in France, their own security forces, etc. If anything, it is a drain on their wealth. But it is the cost of doing business, so they put up with it. They couldn't be wealthy without spending it.

Josh wrote:

madmallard wrote: Because it ignores the benefit you also receive indirectly thru your interaction with the very same business. Thats why it's a wash.

Huh? You're comparing apples with dishwashers. I'm talking about quantifying the benefit that an individual derives from government services so as to define what a "fair" level of taxation for that individual would be. The exchange between employer and employee is irrelevant to the discussion, given that I don't pay taxes to my boss.

No Josh, he pays taxes to YOU. (or at least on your behalf)

Half of your payroll taxes are paid by your employer. Plus the unemployment insurance, etc. Another cost of doing business.

Josh wrote: I'm talking about quantifying the benefit that an individual derives from government services so as to define what a "fair" level of taxation for that individual would be.

So, if someone gets a greater benefit from a gov service (even if they don't "USE" it more, as in, take more of its dollars per person), they should pay more?

How is that fair? You pay a certain amount, you get a certain amount of item/service. Just because you can earn more money off of it doesn't mean you took more to begin with. Your logic befuddles me...

By that logic, veterans (who spend years living in gov owned housing, using gov owned equipment, get insurance, VA loans, medical care, housing for spouses and family, shipping costs to move their stuff around the world, lifetime tax preparation service, etc. etc. etc) would owe hundreds of lifetimes worth of taxes to pay for the government resources they benefited from!

Not to mention Politicians

SVreX wrote: Half of your payroll taxes are paid by your employer. Plus the unemployment insurance, etc. Another cost of doing business.

Which is, as you well know, smoke and mirrors that is primarily in place to keep wage earners from figuring out how much their labor is actually being taxed. It costs an employer X dollars to employ me, if he paid X dollars directly to me instead of putting me on the payroll, I'd just have to pay all of those taxes, so in reality the taxes are on my wage, not the business itself. Not that this has anything to do with what I was talking about though.

SVreX wrote: Examine the converse. How about they STOP paying for it- then where would we be?? Don't forget- they pay the majority.

Well, we have laws, so those who disobey them would be punished. If instead you are referring to a scenario in which we eliminated any functional form of government whatsoever and descended into chaos, the wealthy would presumably be even more screwed than everyone else because most of the skills they have learned and power that they have gained would become irrelevant once the monetary system evaporates into the thin air it was created from (unless of course they were lucky enough to have spent their money building a fortified home and hoarding weapons).

I am genuinely puzzled by the notion that we should consider the taxes of the wealthiest people as some sort of largesse on their part, or worse, an undue burden that they bear, just because it's more in dollars than the typical person pays. They should pay more because they get FAR more for it.

SVreX wrote: The existence of public resources is not a huge benefit to the wealthy. They are the ones that don't need it- they own their own island, a place in France, their own security forces, etc. If anything, it is a drain on their wealth. But it is the cost of doing business, so they put up with it. They couldn't be wealthy without spending it.

There's a huge difference in motivation between one rich man hiring private security in a functional society, and a world in which people HAVE to hire private security because there is no government in place to protect their rights. To say they don't "need" the police because they have a guard at the gate is just silly. Even if they don't need a service directly, they still reap enormous benefits from that service's existence in the world at large. They have more direct interest in the maintenance of rule of law and civil order than I do, because mine will definitely not be the house everyone tries to rob.

SVreX wrote: Examine the converse. How about they STOP paying for it- then where would we be?? Don't forget- they pay the majority.

They pay the majority as they have the majority. When they stop doing that generally the populace at some point rises up and kills the berkeley out of them. Anarchy has its own forms of wealth redistribution, it just happens to be a lot less pleasant.

^^Correct!^^

madmallard wrote: Its not that I don't think business use and profit from public resources, but its the exclusivity you give the symbiotic relationship of a rich billionare with a business that is the category error. Your text reads like you're identifying them as one entity, irrevocably tied to eachother.

Ah, indeed, but I believe if you examine your extemporaneous prose in a critical manner you will discover that it is captious to a fault. Extrapolating from your thesis that there is no relationship, symbolic or otherwise, between the pecunious citizen and the lucrative métier which he makes his life’s work, I postulate the conjecture that copious resources procured through public patronage prove disproportionately salutary to said opulent mortal.

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HiTempguy wrote: So, if someone gets a greater benefit from a gov service (even if they don't "USE" it more, as in, take more of its dollars per person), they should pay more? How is that fair? You pay a certain amount, you get a certain amount of item/service. Just because you can earn more money off of it doesn't mean you took more to begin with. Your logic befuddles me...

You do realize that you are currently arguing directly against the core principle of free market economics, right? The reason a Bud Light costs 50 cents in a 30-pack at the grocery store, and $7 in the stands at a football game is that the customer at the football game derives more utility from that beer, and thus happily pays more for it. Why it wouldn't be "fair" to apply similar logic to the pricing of one's government eludes me (especially considering that we did so quite clearly in our tax policies through a huge chunk of the 20th century).