This is what gets me about a lot of people who argue against anything related to increases in taxes despite the practicality of it. They refuse to look at it in an objective light and take up ideological arguments. Really? A 4% increase on 2% of the population is going to destroy the country? You don't even care about it. It's against your "principles" despite the fact that we're hurting and that makes it wrong.
I'm not so sure you're being objective about it. He responds with a logical response that explains why he makes the claim that the OP is missing the point. Your response to him is; "Really? A 4% increase on 2% of the population is going to destroy the country?" Which doesn't say anything at all, especially in response to what the poster said.
Furthermore, in my experience it is exactly the opposite. Most of the people who advocate raising taxes do so for ideological reasons. While those in favor of lowering it are for practical. I'm not saying everyone, there are people who believe raising taxes will stimulate the economy, and there are people who are ideologically opposed to taxes; Ayn Rand for example (although she is opposed for practical reasons also.) That's just been my experience.
I think you misunderstand those who argue against increases in taxes. The argument is not "principles" but practicality of it. It is never %4 on %2. For instance the "bush tax cuts" would have cut the taxes of the poorest brackets in half, but the democrats wouldn't allow that. That there was %7 on %90 or so.
High taxes are why we're hurting in the first place. It is government that has so damaged our economy. Take the housing bubble, for instance. Ideologues want to pretend that "banks" caused it, but the reality is it was clinton and bush.
During the clinton era, they decided that "lending money only to people who can pay it back is racist" and changed bank regulations to make the "american dream" available to "all". Then under bush, the interest rate-- controlled by the government via the federal reserve-- was lowered below inflation, which means you could borrow money and earn a zero-risk return on it higher than the cost of borrowing. The primary mechanism for this was the housing market.
Thus, housing bubble. Leftists like Krugman praised it claiming that the housing bubble was just what the economy needed. Meanwhile, practical people who understand economics warned against it.
Now, after half a decade of listening to political types claim there was no housing bubble, or that the bankers caused it, you're now claiming we need to raise taxes because its "practical".
The CRA required the same lending standards for good credit risks in minority neighborhoods, not lower standards. And it didn't even apply to the shady mortgage banks who fueled the housing bubble. They were eager to write loans to anyone who could fog a mirror, because they knew they could get a bent rating and dump even the stupidest loan on Wall St.
Actually, the CRA has very vague requirements, which led it to be used as a tool in a political process whereby community activists worked to block expansion of banks which did not meet their criteria. When stuck between the requirement that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner and the vocal opposition of politically powerful groups, the regulators did the logical thing in their situation and avoided bad publicity by relaxing standards. In addition, the law was changed to require Fannie and Freddie to do more business in low to moderate income areas in the early 2000s, which defacto reduced their standards and allowed a great deal of crappy subprime paper to be stamped with an implicit (later explicit) government guarantee. If it weren't for this last part, a lot of those loans could not have been securitized. The flood of low quality mortgages did not come as a result of regulatory laxity but of legislative intent, and that is the story that is not being told.
I'm talking about taxes on the top earners, not 'middle class' taxes. It's "practical" in the sense that it would help reduce the deficit which a certain group of people seem to be so outraged at. Of course, we can cut benefits, which I'm assuming is your preferred mechanism for balancing the budget. The problem is that cutting benefits seems to negatively affect a higher percentage of the population who are not top earners vs. scraping some bucks from the top of the incomprehensibly rich. Whether or not private enterprise is actually more "efficient" at spending money is something I would also like to see proven.
"Raising taxes on the top 2% of households, as Mr. Obama proposes, would bring in $34 billion next year: enough to cover nine days’ worth of the deficit,"
This conversation is a waste of time and is pure political rhetoric for election season. $34 billion is insignificant and simply a means to incite class warfare.
Letting these cuts expire is the lowest-hanging fruit for boosting revenue — there are a lot of others above it, like expanding the estate tax before the boomers all die. They're just doing the simplest thing first.
It was really annoying when the company I worked for last year told us all to 'follow' them on their latest social account. A blog, facebook, and twitter. Really? You really think that people give a fuck about your latest value-add print marketing data hygiene curation enhancement? Unless you're an Apple or some game developer, It's only your employees and some industry top management that read that shit. What a waste of time.
This is what is different about valve as a game developer. They will learn from their failures and talk about them with the public. It's a constant feedback loop. If you participate in the valve community your voice will be heard. I've never seen this type of interaction from another company.
This guy has a good point. I'm using FreeBSD 8.1 at the moment. I push my app up to a git repository and then pull it down to Linux(debian) to test it and it works. My friend pulls it down to a Mac and it works.
Have any of you detractors even played starcraft? I'd like you to try it. For all intents and purposes, starcraft (or any other real time strategy game) is essentially training for effective resource allotment, time based strategic planning, and command/control skill. All managers should be have to be excellent players.
This is what gets me about a lot of people who argue against anything related to increases in taxes despite the practicality of it. They refuse to look at it in an objective light and take up ideological arguments. Really? A 4% increase on 2% of the population is going to destroy the country? You don't even care about it. It's against your "principles" despite the fact that we're hurting and that makes it wrong.