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| Thread: America is corrupted |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 03:55 PM |
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@fred
If you want to rant on about how governments snow people, be my guest, especially when it comes to the Bush administration, I think I don't need to emphasize I'm not a great fan of them either. Don't be mixing up apples and oranges though, blending in non-sense, just because it is anti-government and serves your cause, will only weaken your criticism.
@kanya & fred
Kanya, I don't think you're doing it deliberately but you atomize the context and ignore what I already replied to, because you're skipping out the bigger picture. Let me try again, what have I told you in the first place:
Quote:
If you use demolition, you simply don't need to fake the planes, they become a completely unnecessary risk for your plot to be detected. That's why the most internally consistent conspiracy theorists take it as far as claiming the planes did not exist at all. "It may sound ludicrous," they say, "but that's the only way it makes sense!" I don't know about you, but in an age where average people walk with cameras in their pockets, faking two commercial planes crashing into skyscrapers right in the center of a big city during broad daylight, with the intention of a black op that is supposed to stay secret forever is not much different than putting your coin on the genie I mentioned above.
Now, you asked me something specific about smelted metal being shipped off (it was you who emphasized the exportation to China and India, not me), I checked it out and there is nothing irrational or stingy about the explanation. That was just me clearing out an additional detail, out of common courtesy. Because, the real important part that you should be focusing on is this:
In the context of agreeing or disagreeing to a conspiracy, technical details about how the metal was smelted ONLY matters if there were explosives (and there is no evidence of that, as you can read in the PDF I linked and which you haven't objected to), and explosives only make sense IF THERE WERE NO PLANES, simply because, even if there was a conspiracy, once those planes hit the towers, the conspirators already have all they wished for, (even if the towers don't collapse), additional demolition will only serve as an overwhelmingly unnecessary risk to expose you. And that's why, even if we take a mystical stance for the sake of argument and assume all the investigations concluding there were no explosives were rigged, those "theories" about explosives don't make the slightest sense.
And that's why I didn't even bother to reply to the other "valid" questions about the explosives. What you observe as a "decrease of quality" is me losing interest. You get stuck on technical details (which had been replied to by experts for many years and many times over and over, if you are not lazy, it's all out in the open for anyone to read and check facts from credible sources), and you forget to ask yourself HOW should it matter where the metal was exported to, in the first place.
The pile of conspiracy theories about 9 11 create the illusion of blur and suspense when they flood in all together, however, if you take the time to check them out one by one, Occham's Razor alone shreds them into pieces, exactly like the one about the BCC reporter. When it comes to your question about how does things look from Turkey, well, not much different on a logical basis, facts are facts everywhere, but on a sociological basis, naturally, more people are ready and willing to believe it was the Americans themselves who did it, simply because there is a harsh reaction to their Middle-East politics and average people feel more comfortable blaming the West for everything. So here, the amount of conspiracy believers is much much higher even among people who can be considered healthy skeptics otherwise.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 08, 2015 04:40 PM |
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artu said:
@fred
If you want to rant on about how governments snow people, be my guest, especially when it comes to the Bush administration, I think I don't need to emphasize I'm not a great fan of them either. Don't be mixing up apples and oranges though, blending in non-sense, just because it is anti-government and serves your cause, will only weaken your criticism.
yeah, you definitely don't get it, even after i spell it out for you. corrupt officials don't care. they DON'T CARE. they DO NOT CARE. i wouldn't put something like this past them, because they have a history of doing nasty things to people, and why? because
THEY
DO
NOT
snowING
CARE.
god, i sure love breaking things down for adults like i would a 5 year old. do you think it is "apples and oranges" now? you're missing the point entirely: you're discussing the possibility of action(and i don't even know how you can DOUBT IT, based on WHO we are talking about), when you're NOT even considering the mentality behind what could EASILY do the action, based on how that entity thinks of, uses, and abuses the public.
if i don't care about something, and in fact abuse it all the time, do you think i won't use it however i see fit, to get what i want? the "it" here being the non-powerful public, and the "i" here being politicians and the like; just so you understand, in case this example confuses you.
you keep avoiding the point i'm repeating, and act like it doesn't matter; when it is ALL THAT MATTERS in this case. and you never did answer my hypothetical scenario, either, artu. "blending in nonsense", indeed. you might want to look in a mirror on that one, man.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 04:50 PM |
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So, they probably did it because that's how those people are. Subtle. Let's burn their puppets and be done with it then.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 08, 2015 04:53 PM |
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NOW you got it. thank god. 
and, i'll start working on the little onion men. are you gonna bring the chicken blood?
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 05:04 PM |
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Chicken blood is for amateurs, only rooster blood works efficiently. I'll get some.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 08, 2015 05:06 PM |
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artu said:
Chicken blood is for amateurs, only rooster blood works efficiently. I'll get some.
of course, what was i thinking. it's been too many years since i last practiced voodoo.
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted November 08, 2015 05:53 PM |
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Edited by Kayna at 17:59, 08 Nov 2015.
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"If you use demolition, you simply don't need to fake the planes, they become a completely unnecessary risk for your plot to be detected."
They're not an unnecessary risk. The attack itself is already a risk, making it a two stage strike isn't more or less risky than a single stage coup. It might even be better.
Adding absurdity, irony, or even fantasy to a crime increases the chance of getting away from that said crime. It's one of the things I learned during my years of gang stalking. let me give you two examples.
You're a man. Someone sneaks in your house when you're sleeping and rapes you. He goes away and you call the police. The police responds and things happen as they should. Now --
You're a man. Someone sneaks in your house when you're sleeping to rape you. He does, but this time, he's disguised as a martian. He even got a fake homemade flying saucer stuck in your window. Once he's done, he flees the scene, bringing his flying saucer from your window with him. He even recorded a few sound effects. You call the police. They respond. You tell them you've just been raped by a guy in an alien looking suit. They laugh. They don't believe you. It's gonna take a lot more time and effort to get the justice you deserve, and during that time, the guy that did that to you has more time to get away and a higher chance of getting away.
You're a man. Someone doesn't like you and wants to kick the snow out of you. He studies your habits and knows you like to jog in the forest every friday evening. He waits on your favorite trail to sucker punch and beat you up.
Now, this time, same thing, except he dresses up like the fabled Big Foot. You call the police and tell them someone that looked like the big foot just kicked your ass. The cops laugh at you even if your face now looks like a hamburger steak. You know the rest.
What I mean to say is, saying "the smartest way to do things would've been to do it X way, therefore they wouldn't do it the Y way" is not an argument as fool proof as you think it to be. Everyone evolves, and certain people in power has evolved new ways to fool us, the little people. To go back to 9 - 11, all the different oddities you can find about this ( not only explosions, metal smelted or whatever ) sparks many conspiracy theories that melds perfectly into the North American context of introducing mental illnesses to destroy people's credibility, thus destroying the credibility of anyone who would dare question anything about it, mostly who the perpetrators were. A single staged attack of explosions ( or planes alone! ) without any media manipulation of information and all other oddities would have given those questioning this atrocity a more credible voice.
Use your imagination to picture how you can screw up someone else's life with a 3 staged coup or even 4 staged coup or etc. The more you spread on that toast, the higher the chances you get away with it. As for the planted explosives that I think happened, I just don't think the twin towers would've completely disintegrated like that. I mean, one of them was hit by a plane midway, so yes, once the top part falls on the bottom, it would've trashed the place up, but the other tower had like not that many stories above where the plane hit. Its true that such a mass would create quite an impact even if it was to fall but five meters, but I firmly believe that what was left of the tower below would've absorbed the impact enough to grind that mass to a halt about midway through. But nothing was standing from both towers, nothing past the fourth floor. And no, I don't care about your experts that would be, and their families, persecuted by the government for the rest of their lives if they reported anything that the government wouldn't want them to report.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 07:33 PM |
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Okay, first of all, "experts on leash" is not a valid argument since this is a thing of global scale and even a super power like the US does not posses the power to silence every expert around the world. If something was physically fishy, we would have heard it by now, from sources much more credible than your usual Youtube crap. So:
kanya said:
I just don't think the twin towers would've completely disintegrated like that. I mean, one of them was hit by a plane midway, so yes, once the top part falls on the bottom, it would've trashed the place up, but the other tower had like not that many stories above where the plane hit. Its true that such a mass would create quite an impact even if it was to fall but five meters, but I firmly believe that what was left of the tower below would've absorbed the impact enough to grind that mass to a halt about midway through.
That's very nice but based on what, your five senses? My five senses tell me if the world was really revolving around the sun with such speed, the weather would be windy all the time but somehow it isn't. Also, they tell me if everything was really made of those electrons that keep buzzing around, that piece of rock over there wouldn't be this hard.
Now, let's come to your actual argument: "I know it sounds illogical and absurd, but hey, they deliberately stage it illogically to make you dismiss their plot."
I must go back to the basics here again and emphasize the difference between skepticism and mysticism. Skepticism is not taking any information for granted and keeping an open mind to probabilities if you have a sufficient enough reason to do so. Mysticism on the other hand, is a devouring line hole of thinking where anything is possible, just because it's possible. The problem with it is, when everything is possible, nothing is knowable. I can propose that the Twin Towers did not collapse, the US doesn't even exist and it is actually China who projects a hologram from Mars to make us believe the US is in power. (The Chinese live on Mars now, they just don't want the rest of the world to know it, since the Earth's ecology is in danger and they want to keep the Red Planet for themselves) and when you go "get real, man" I can replicate your argument: I know it sounds absurd, but that's how they deceive you in the first place, use your imagination.
A cop may dismiss your story because it's very unusual and it sounds funny, but then again, a better cop may see through that and decide to follow the evidence, and he can arrest the intruder by finding the traces of the "fake homemade flying saucer stuck in your window." Is there any evidence to assume what you assume, when it is very unlikely and unreasonable? No. To imagine and to conclude are quite diversified actions. You need imagination for fresh conclusions but your conclusions shouldn't be your imagination's lap dog.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted November 08, 2015 07:47 PM |
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Edited by Kayna at 19:49, 08 Nov 2015.
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Meh. The only thing mystical and metaphysical here are your strawmen of suns orbiting and fireballs and hadokens and magical lightning and DRAGON SLAAAAVE!!!!!, not the insane conspiracy theorists. Yes, some of what I think is based on my "imagination", but also based on how corrupt people in power can be and how coward people can be. I'd rather trust my instinct and my imagination ( and some evidence too duh! ) than the word of people that has proven to be deceitful liars and schemers time and time again. And with this I give up this debate, because I'm clearly already more tired of talking about this than you.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 08, 2015 07:58 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:13, 08 Nov 2015.
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Sure. But a mystical line of thinking does not necessarily contain the super-natural. That's just a common association caused by their historical flirtation.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 12:16 AM |
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u.s. taxes, regarding the wealthy vs. the rest of the populace
because this article won't be up forever, here's some info:
Quote:
America’s superrich are hiding their wealth from taxes quite legally here in the U.S., without having to send it to Panama, or the British Virgin Islands, or any other sunny place for shady people.
The big news this week in finance has been the so-called Panama Papers, the massive leak of documents from dubious Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, an expert in offshore shell companies and tax-avoidance maneuvers. All sorts of famous foreign names have been caught up in the ongoing dump of documents online. British, Russian and Chinese politicians have been named. The prime minister of Iceland has resigned. Police have launched investigations in multiple countries.
But if you’re American, it’s all a distraction.
A country’s laws express its values. Our tax laws place people who work for a living at the bottom of the pile — and those who inherit money at the top.
Here in the U.S., the oligarchs are hiding trillions of dollars in plain sight, and it can hardly be touched — thanks to the generous provisions of the U.S. tax code.
Say what you like about our Congress, but it’s the best legislature money can buy.
The furor over the Panama Papers is obscuring this much greater scandal.
In a nutshell: Working stiffs are actually taxed, proportionately, much more heavily than the superrich.
Income is taxed, but wealth isn’t. Someone earning $50,000 a year must pay payroll, state and federal taxes. Someone with $10 billion in assets needn’t pay any taxes at all. Indeed, many of the super-rich successfully tap into their wealth tax-free by just borrowing against it.
Even if they decide to cash in some of their capital gains, the tax rates are generous. The top rate of long-term capital gains is 20%. Meanwhile, a kid busing tables on minimum wage is paying at least that in payroll, state and federal income taxes. (Payroll taxes are 15.3%, but they hide half of it from the wage earner by saying the “employer” pays it — which is like saying we’re only draining that water from the other end of the swimming pool.)
The rich can shelter fortunes by making “charitable donations” to their own foundations.
The most obscene of our onshore Panama-style capers, of course, is the “carried interest” loophole. Someone makes $10 million a year running a hedge fund or private equity fund, you’d think he’d pay 39.6% in income tax, right? Wrong. He pays nothing, so long as the salary is paid into the fund he’s running. And he can roll that up, year after year, like a massive, free 401(k). And when he cashes it out, eventually, he doesn’t pay 39.6% either. He pays 20% because it’s not “income”; it’s “capital gains.”
You couldn’t make it up. It’s one of those laws they get away with because when you try explaining it to the average voter, they refuse to believe you.
Why would anyone go to Panama when you’ve got this here in the USA? Why go out for hamburger when you can eat steak at home?
It doesn’t stop there, either. Pulitzer-winning writer David Cay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal” is a must-read guide to the shenanigans. As Johnston has pointed out, a rich property tycoon like Donald Trump could pretty much avoid taxes altogether by taking non-cash “depreciation” charges against his cash income each year.
You? Not so much.
When it comes time to die, the super-wealthy have ways and means of making sure their kids don’t have to pay too much tax on the vast amounts they inherit. These include the creative use of estate and gift tax exemptions, life insurance and limited liability corporations. The top rate of estate tax is theoretically 40%, but in reality the children of the super-rich can pay a fraction of that.
A country’s laws express its values. Our tax laws place people who work for a living at the bottom of the pile — and those who inherit money at the top.
According to the IRS, the average person in the top 400 taxpayers earned $264 million but paid just 22% in taxes. That was actually higher than in previous years. And it still grossly misrepresents the picture, because many of the super-, super-rich don’t even feature in the top 400 for reasons just explained.
The entire discussion of taxes here in the U.S. is a bait-and-switch. Working people — particularly the upper-middle class — get whacked fairly hard with taxes. For them, the overall tax burden is lower than in Europe but not enormously so.
It’s the rich, especially the parasitic rich, who get the biggest breaks. For them, America is “Panama North.”
neat article, i think. something for all the lower-class u.s. taxpayers to think about. just keep working those jobs, and electing people who don't represent you. things'll work out. surely.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted April 08, 2016 12:31 AM |
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Here I thought those elections are a double-edged blade; no matter which side the voters pick (Hillary or Trump), there will be consequences. Since complaints to both sides are in numerous, at least what I heard.
Maybe we really need a new order, new laws and new priorities to get such things straightened up.
This makes me wonder - what is holding the US presidency to send armies to invade the filthy rich? If it is scandal, laws or moral, wouldn't such a price be worth when such money could be spent on better things, like health care?
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted April 08, 2016 12:40 AM |
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There is no such thing in America as a taxed inheritance and donation? This country surprises me more and more.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 12:45 AM |
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Pawek_13 said:
This country surprises me more and more.
you too, huh?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 12:47 AM |
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 01:14 AM |
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Stevie said:
Murica? Surprising?
HAH!
that's because you keep your expectations spectacularly low. i try to at least keep my expectations in the middle with people, since i think they have the CAPABILITIES to do/be better. hell, i'm living proof that people can change for the better. and i'm sure i'm not alone with that.
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Gryphs
Supreme Hero
The Clever Title
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posted April 08, 2016 01:43 AM |
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Edited by Gryphs at 01:44, 08 Apr 2016.
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I would say low is already too high when it comes to the US.
____________
"Don't resist the force. Redirect it. Water over rock."-blizzardboy
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 02:02 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 02:08, 08 Apr 2016.
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fred79 said:
that's because you keep your expectations spectacularly low.
That's an exaggeration. Spectacularly low would still mean having some expectations. I'd rather go with none. And I believe I'm just being realistic about it. I definitely do agree with you that people can do incomparably better than what we have now, if they couldn't then they'd have an excuse. Because it's obvious that in spite of all their "capabilities", the **** show just keeps on rolling every single day of the week. And you know why? Because in reality they don't WANT to do better. And the majority of those who claim they do take refuge in pointing fingers and self pitying their situation, because admitting they'd be of the same kind with those they despise given the right opportunity would be too much for them to bear.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 08, 2016 02:28 AM |
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oh, i can be a whole hell of a lot worse than any of them. but i choose to be cute and cuddly instead. it cracks me up. 
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Atronach
Hired Hero
Fired Hero
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posted April 13, 2016 04:21 AM |
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Income and wealth are both flawed measures. All of it is useful only because it's ultimately consumed, so why not cut through all the complicated and wasteful tax code and enact a progressive consumption tax? Who cares if some rich guy is earning tens of millions per year? As long as he's not spending it, the only thing he can do is invest it to make more money, which again doesn't do anything for him until he spends it. The real inequality it makes sense to care about is consumption inequality, like when he buys an airplane or a yacht, so that's what we should tax, instead of discouraging work with the income tax or capital formation with the capital gains tax.
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To the victor go the spoils.
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