For those of you who think our financial problems are a lack of taxes watch this 9:00 video and see if you still feel the same way. The video is from last year I think, but it is still relevant.

(Eat The Rich)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K- ... r_embedded

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

The guy making the presentation seems a real jackass. It would appear by their presentation that we will be shutting down tomorrow. As the saying goes, figures don't lie but liars do figure. How ever did we make it to the year 2000 at that rate?

Found an interesting web site with all sorts of data charted. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php Seems like their data/graphs are legitimate. All nicely compiled in one place with sources listed. Anyone up for checking every little detail or have any base information on their validity?

Some graphs of interest. The first one is not from there but from the L-curve site that I listed earlier.
This is the graph that shows the yearly income of American citizens converted to the height of a stack of 100 dollar bills that represents the yearly income of the poorest on the left to the richest on the right. To give you perspective, the median income family on the 50 yard line (which he states on the site as about $40,000) gets a stack 1.6 inches tall. The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high. At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high. The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line. From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale! Does that possibly give you some perspective on the situation? It is those on or very near the right hand goal posts who pay the very least taxes on a percentage rate as they are mostly dealing in dividend type payments that pay only a low 15%. This is what leads the über rich, as they have been referred to, to pay less taxes, compared to their incomes, than their secretaries as has been commented upon. It is those progressive tax rates which once were paid by those über rich which have been cut, resulting in more and more of the burden of government falling upon the horizontal part of the L-curve, which means us my children, as opposed to those on the vertical part of the curve who have the real money and income.

Now do not do the usual and jump in with diversions. It is a really simple concept and that is the point of graphing it in this way.


This graph shows accumulating US debt. It is a frightening thing when viewed on this basis, is it not.


This graph shows the US debt as above replotted as a percentage of gross domestic product or all value produced. That brings it down more into size. These figures are not considered to be alarming or the sign of a need or reason for a country to declare bankruptcy and abandon their debt.


This is a graph of US government deficits and surpluses over this same period of years. Note some milestones. The First World War at the left and the fact that those deficits were being paid down and there were quite a few years of budget surpluses. Then came the Great Depression so called with gradual improvements in deficits but we were then hit with the Second World War and those really big deficits. But after that war was over, there were 3 significant periods of surplus income in a row. Finally we had quite a significant period of budget surpluses centered around the year 2000. Those were squandered by cutting the tax rates on again who? You guessed it, the über rich primarily.

This video you posted does not negate this chain of facts and logic. If you insist on disagreeing, why do you not attempt to do so based on counter facts and counter logic instead of digressions and confusion factors?

Ted

Those graphs are helpful, Thanks. I found a similar article that I believe adds to the information you just showed if anybody is interested.

http://nationalpriorities.org/resources ... les-guide/

What I wanted to talk about is how raising taxes is going to help when we are not cutting the budget at all and we continue to spend over a trillion dollars more than we take in each year? ...Keeping in mind that the more we stack up the debt the more interest we have to pay on it. Now, I agree with you that the uber rich should not have loopholes enabling them to pay lower tax rates than the lower income brackets in a progressive tax system, but I do not get how this is economically sustainable in the current state of the economy? Can you share your opinion on the matter?

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

Lumpy,

I am not an economist. I don't know all the answers or even some of the answers. I have said this before but I don't know if anyone believes me or has paid attention. I did not think up this chain of logic. I had a series of dreams in one night, partly lucid and only vaguely remembered now. In these dreams I went over and over the ideas of the Indictment of the US Congress for Malfeasance. The next day, I wrote this up. I sent copies of it to all the Congress members that would permit as most will not accept e-mail from someone who is not their constituent. The Congressional leadership will accept such mailings. I know no way to find out but perhaps someone paid attention to that write up because over 100 Congress members subsequently wrote a letter rejecting the pledge to Grover Norquist on the exact logic and facts of my Indictment. That is, that a pledge like this to never raise taxes is in conflict with the Congress members oaths of office to uphold the Constitution over all other considerations. Specifically under Amendment 14, paragraphs 4 and 5, to not default on the US government debt. This breaking of their pledge to Grover Norquist to never, ever raise taxes helped to break the deadlock or right wing ideologues who were preventing Congress from acting to make compromises to keep government functioning. I was later, so I feel, pointed at the various web sites that confirm this situation as I reported on the board originally. Why did I dream about this? Did it really have a 'real world' effect? Is that why so many Congress members had second thoughts and started to break the previous ideological deadlock that was locking up Congressional action on the created debt crisis? Was this all manipulation from the LCS. They can certainly do things like that, but did they? After all, what is Tom Campbell writing his MBT but gross interference and manipulation of what is happening in PMR by the LCS, all planned from there and Tom directed to do what he has done?

The more that you dig into the machinations of our government and governors, the more you see that it has a huge element of graft, corruption, greed and any other sleazy aspect that you can name. People do cheat to get welfare. People do cheat to get Medicare benefits and to get paid for Medicare services that they have not really provided. Graft and corruption exists from top to bottom of PMR politics in every society. All of that should be worked on to root it out. Things are not properly done in government to make it work in the long term for the benefit of all. They are instead manipulated for the benefit of the manipulators.

Alternatively, we have the principles presented in MBT which say that the purpose of this whole VR setup is to provide the opportunity for interactions of IUOCs. That this interaction reduces entropy of the participating IUOCs over the long term. That the best way to interact is to use your Intent to see that your interactions are aimed at optimum free will for all participants. This means that at times you have to give a little on your free will to produce a more optimum free will result for others. This means that at times you must act to prevent the free will of those who cannot help themselves in the present set up of PMR from being violated by those in power or simple circumstances. As noted, we are our brothers keeper.

It is clear that the present course puts more and more burden on the 99% by removing part of the burden from the 1%. This is part and parcel of what I have been trying to demonstrate. I do not know what must be done to make the system sustainable. Letting some of the most rapacious of the 1% freely have their way is not the solution, clearly. The Occupy movements, if not dissipated and led astray, are a turn in the direction of the 99% awakening to what is being done to them. The Tea Party movement was so led astray. Then throw on top of the heap the gross over population of the world, the uncertainty of what is happening with climate change and its involvement in politics, then there is the rampant disease and potentially rampant diseases, then there is the degradation of the environment and the loss of food production capacity, then there is the death of the oceans, then there is the over use of fresh water with so many rivers that have no flow that reaches the sea any more. Put all of this into your equation you wish to solve. I do not have such a solution and neither does anyone else. Part of that solution is likely to be an increase in the numbers of IUOCs leaving the simulation by way of their host identities demise.

Our part here is the dissemination of information on the true nature of reality as in MBT. To return the paradigm of science and society to Consciousness being recognized as the basis for everything as opposed to this being a simple WYSIWYG physical reality. But one part of this has been for me to point out that there are practical applications of this knowledge as has been discussed all along in these threads on the government and what it is doing to the 99%. This is not an intellectual understanding but a matter of reaching a being level understanding that alters your way of being within the world.

Ted

Hate to bring this thread back but I just talked to my friend who owns a cabinet business with only one other guy(they are the only workers) and he confirmed that he pays low 30's percentage state taxes and low 30's percentage federal out of payroll taxes (60+), on top of that they have to pay equipment taxes for their machines(which include one dollar calculators, staplers, ext..) and property tax. Is that crazy or what? They get barely anything after they pay the bills.

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

Lumpy,

Taxes are not additive in that way. The tax taking priority, typically the federal, is taken first. Then the state is taken on what remains. So cumulatively they combine as total tax equals 30% of (Net-30%). Tax is also taken on net income, not on gross income. Costs are subtracted from gross to give you net before taxes are taken out. I am not saying that it is not a steep rate in a state with that high a state tax rate. Just that it is not as bad as you imply. And if they have to pay a tax on the value of equipment used in a business, that is worse. Normally the expense of equipment can be taken out of profit on a formula basis, prorated over the life time specified for that type of equipment. You are not fully clear but I suspect a little overboard in your statements.

Ted

I don't think I am overboard. I agree that I might not be perfectly clear though. I still think taxing 60%+ of profit after costs is way too high, on top of other taxes. What do you mean about combining state and federal for the net percentage? Because the guy I know pretty much told me they get both taken out on top of each other. I don't see how which one gets taken out first matters if they both get taken out in the same month? I would be more clear but I can't like ask the guy I am referring to for his books. I do agree that a lot of it is the state. I'm sure it is also possible that they could probably find a way to shave a couple bucks on the equipment tax, but still, office supplies = equipment like CNC machines, really? I understand the CNC machine and other power tools but not office supplies. I mean, the guy's business I am talking about brings in what you would think would be a good amount of money and it's not like they don't have enough jobs to do, but they might have to go out of business soon because of the high taxes. The place I just got layed off from recently was doing pretty bad also and they were a smaller business with a good amount of work as well.

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

It's not lack of taxes it's the misuse of tax dollars to make the rich richer and the fact that the richer part is not taxed correctly because of Capital Gains tax BS. I'm having the state aid my son gets taxed without taxes coming out and then the next year the aid get garnished to pay those taxes. I don't think state aid should be taxed personally.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Lumpy,

I have experience with business taxation. It appears that you do not. What state is this in? It would be simple enough to find out how the taxes of state and federal work together just by knowing the state. I can tell you for sure that they both do not get figured on the basis of the net income and then added together. That would mean that you would pay taxes on taxes. It does not work that way. One is calculated and that tax is subtracted and the net reduced so that the next layer of taxes is based on the reduce net. It does not make the point that you wish to make, but it is a more accurate statement. The tax rates just do not add together that way. Your business owner buddy may not understand it himself and pays a service to do his accounting and may just wish to make the same exaggerated point that you do. I did not say that the rate was low. Just that your statements were not accurate.

Ted

I agree that they should not tax state aid.

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

Oregon. Oh, I didn't quite understand what you meant about them deducting the taxes like that until now. I agree that my statements are not accurate; I never intended to make it seem like I was very knowledgeable about what I was saying or that it was an absolute, was just simply discussing what I was told.

I do want to ask you that (unless you are bored or want to) to not look up the information before I do so that you don't waste your time on my misunderstandings. I will research it in a little while, provide links, and maybe ask questions before continuing this convo. Thanks for walking me through my misunderstandings.

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

You may find some useful information here Lumpy: http://www.movingtoportland.net/oregon/oregon-taxes