MATH

[leddy]

I propose we find out what the answer to my question is before declaring how much of the problem it is or isn't. When has someone flipping burgers - not a manager - ever been able to buy a house?

You understand the price of real estate affects rents, yes?

U.S. Rent Prices Are Rising 4x Faster Than Income (2022 Data)

Rent prices have outpaced income gains, forcing Americans to move to subpar units or spend significantly more of their earnings on rent.

www.realestatewitch.com

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

I am very much a capitalist but I think we are closing in on a day of reckoning and if we don't get ahead of it we will be reduced to armed camps. I would like to see us move toward a Star Trek future where everyone is at least comfortable and poverty is a vague memory. Crazy goal I know and a hugely complicated task but some places I would start:

Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Tax churches and universities. Churches can offset their tax with public housing subsidies and support to lower income folk. Universities can offset by providing tuition to students.

Flat tax for everyone; corporations, individuals, organizations and no deductions for anything.

Government housing and jobs/workfare programs. No cash welfare payments. Food and shelter only.

Free tuition at all state colleges for residents.

Yup - crazy shit. Imagine the bitching and lobbying flurry that would arise if these things were seriously proposed. It's time though. Better get started making a new wurld before this one burns down around us.


lou

 

[leddy]

I am very much a capitalist but I think we are closing in on a day of reckoning and if we don't get ahead of it we will be reduced to armed camps. I would like to see us move toward a Star Trek future where everyone is at least comfortable and poverty is a vague memory. Crazy goal I know and a hugely complicated task but some places I would start:

Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Tax churches and universities. Churches can offset their tax with public housing subsidies and support to lower income folk. Universities can offset by providing tuition to students.

Flat tax for everyone; corporations, individuals, organizations and no deductions for anything.

Government housing and jobs/workfare programs. No cash welfare payments. Food and shelter only.

Free tuition at all state colleges for residents.

Yup - crazy shit. Imagine the bitching and lobbying flurry that would arise if these things were seriously proposed. It's time though. Better get started making a new wurld before this one burns down around us.


lou

How would you feel about a national sales tax to replace the income tax? Years ago I used to listen to Neal Boortz (spelling?) and read his “Fair Tax” book. Made sense to me at the time.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

I don't know enough about a national sales tax to make an intelligent comment. I like a flat tax and a high threshold so it becomes an even playing field. Rich people can still be rich and poorer people aren't getting pounded. Seems like a sales tax for all casts too wide a net?

 

[leddy]

I don't know enough about a national sales tax to make an intelligent comment. I like a flat tax and a high threshold so it becomes an even playing field. Rich people can still be rich and poorer people aren't getting pounded. Seems like a sales tax for all casts too wide a net?

Boortz’s tax proposal included a rebate equal to the amount of money most people would spend on basic necessities. So say it was like an assumption that each person spends 2k a month on food and rent etc. If the tax rate is 25%, you get a monthly check for $500. That’s what makes it progressive rather than regressive.
The key component was the idea that there already is an embedded tax of about 20-25% in everything we buy: The payroll taxes of everyone involved in its production. If those are removed, prices will fall by those amounts through normal price competition. The sales tax puts it back in but now everyone gets 100% of their check without withholding and zero cost of compliance for businesses etc. Creates a huge advantage for exports, at least until everyone else follows suit. That’s it in a nutshell.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Interesting concept. I don't hate it. Anything would be better than what we have now.

 

[brassplyer]

I am very much a capitalist but I think we are closing in on a day of reckoning and if we don't get ahead of it we will be reduced to armed camps. I would like to see us move toward a Star Trek future where everyone is at least comfortable and poverty is a vague memory. Crazy goal I know and a hugely complicated task but some places I would start:

Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Tax churches and universities. Churches can offset their tax with public housing subsidies and support to lower income folk. Universities can offset by providing tuition to students.

Flat tax for everyone; corporations, individuals, organizations and no deductions for anything.

Government housing and jobs/workfare programs. No cash welfare payments. Food and shelter only.

Free tuition at all state colleges for residents.

Yup - crazy shit. Imagine the bitching and lobbying flurry that would arise if these things were seriously proposed. It's time though. Better get started making a new wurld before this one burns down around us.


lou

Much that you say after "I am very much a capitalist" contradicts that claim.

"Confiscatory inheritance tax" - means the government gets to appropriate the fruits of your labor and negate your right to do with it as you please and piss it away as the government is famous for doing. I.e. you're just working to subsidize the state taking away the motive to create wealth - someone who is "very much a capitalist" shouldn't need to be told that the profit motive is at the core of capitalism comrade.

There's no such thing as "free" tuition - someone is paying. It's just another form of leftist loan "forgiveness" skipping the paperwork of a loan.

Star Trek didn't have the burden of having to actually make their vague socialist fantasy notions work in real life.

You think there's nothing worse than people inheriting wealth? I can think of a lot of things that are worse - like a corrupt, senile fraud POTUS being directly complicit in the victimization of people like Laken Riley by illegal aliens. The government clandestinely colluding with big tech to suppress voices it doesn't like is worse. Bullshit like Letitia James persecuting an opponent of the Democrats is worse.

This is a lot worse.

 

[Serendipity Records]

Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Not a good idea. If people expect 50% of their money to be given up to the gov't when they die, no-one will invest in anything past retirement, they'll spend it all on themselves while they still have it.

Flat tax for everyone; corporations, individuals, organizations and no deductions for anything.

Agreed. Artificial tax brackets certainly do not help stimulate the lower classes to aspire to anything more than making enough to survive.

Government housing and jobs/workfare programs. No cash welfare payments. Food and shelter only.

If you have food and a roof, why would you want to do anything? Some people have had steady lives and gradually built up solid investments, i.e., a house, car, land, only to lose their job and have to let go of things one at a time to survive. This one in particular is probably best dealt with at the regional, NOT federal (or even state) level.

Free tuition at all state colleges for residents.

How could that possibly be sustainable, I don't know. But I certainly concur, tuition all around has gotten rawther outta hand.

 

[brassplyer]

This is a lot worse than inheritance of wealth.

Criminals in Black Robes

Jack Smith wants to put Donald Trump in jail because Trump aggressively interpreted aspects of the Electoral Count Act. However, other people (not connected to Trump) were far more aggressive. They decided to completely ignore a constitutional requir...

www.americanthinker.com

 

[brassplyer]

This is a lot worse than inherited wealth.

Victims of Illegal Aliens Memorial

 

[brassplyer]

Sky Blue Lou said:
Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Not a good idea. If people expect 50% of their money to be given up to the gov't when they die, no-one will invest in anything past retirement, they'll spend it all on themselves while they still have it.

You'd think someone who claims to be "very much a capitalist" would get this.

 

[RFR]

I am very much a capitalist but I think we are closing in on a day of reckoning and if we don't get ahead of it we will be reduced to armed camps. I would like to see us move toward a Star Trek future where everyone is at least comfortable and poverty is a vague memory. Crazy goal I know and a hugely complicated task but some places I would start:

Confiscatory inheritance tax. 50% minimum but a high starting threshold. Nothing worse than 2nd generation and beyond "landed gentry" that provide nothing to anyone but themselves.

Tax churches and universities. Churches can offset their tax with public housing subsidies and support to lower income folk. Universities can offset by providing tuition to students.

Flat tax for everyone; corporations, individuals, organizations and no deductions for anything.

Government housing and jobs/workfare programs. No cash welfare payments. Food and shelter only.

Free tuition at all state colleges for residents.

Yup - crazy shit. Imagine the bitching and lobbying flurry that would arise if these things were seriously proposed. It's time though. Better get started making a new wurld before this one burns down around us.


lou

With all due respect, I agree with zero of your plan. Every bit of it involves taking from someone and giving it to someone else. Smells like communism to me.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Abolish welfare, fire all public sector parasites, and cut taxes.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

lol Stirred up some shit. Good! Get some conversation going.

I know it sounds like rank communism but that is not where I am coming from. So the horn guy knows, I am not a dem or Biden supporter. I agree with most of the stuff you posted to one extent or another. I am talking about finding a way to slow and reverse the stratification of society most obviously defined by the distribution of wealth. There are a HUGE number of details to work out to make these broad strokes I described workable. More to follow...

 

[brassplyer]

lol Stirred up some shit. Good! Get some conversation going.

I know it sounds like rank communism but that is not where I am coming from. So the horn guy knows, I am not a dem or Biden supporter. I agree with most of the stuff you posted to one extent or another. I am talking about finding a way to slow and reverse the stratification of society most obviously defined by the distribution of wealth. There are a HUGE number of details to work out to make these broad strokes I described workable. More to follow...

So you do or do not believe as you stated that there's nothing worse than inherited wealth?

that is not where I am coming from.

It isn't? How much of what you stated in your post I originally responded to was just funnin' and you don't actually believe in? You do or don't believe confiscatory inheritance tax is a good idea?

 

[JAPOV]

I believe figures lie, liars figure, and governments always tend to "empower themselves" beyond the limits of the governed...

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

So you do or do not believe as you stated that there's nothing worse than inherited wealth?

that is not where I am coming from.

It isn't? How much of what you stated in your post I originally responded to was just funnin' and you don't actually believe in? You do or don't believe confiscatory inheritance tax is a good idea?

Hi. Sorry to be so hazy on the subject but as I said there are HUGE amounts of details to work out on any of these broad strokes.

So - I am a capitalist with libertarian leanings. I believe in free enterprise, free education, freedom of choice in abortion and drug legalization debates and freedom of and from religion. I also believe we are approaching a crisis point in societal stratification and wealth distribution that may prove existential. I mentioned Star Trek. My lady says we are headed for the Hunger Games. I want the former but tend to agree with her on the latter. I think we need to do something serious and soon. Conversation and debate - free and open - is a good beginning.

Inherited wealth.
There are huge family fortunes out there whose heirs and managers contribute nothing to society besides some token taxes. I have nothing against Elon Musk* and in many ways admire him for his bold vision for the future and efforts to get us there. When he passes it is likely that his companies will be taken over by money managers whose first directive will be to protect the assets. The innovation will be done. The benefit to society will be diminished and there will just be one more wealth fund with entitled assholes that have never worked a real job jetting around and contributing zero.

*All conjecture as far as Musk. Substitute any massive fortune from the industrial revolution forward. After multiple generations the fortune is larger and public benefit smaller.

What if when the creator of these fortunes passes the estate is taxed at 50%? 50% of a billion dollars is still a shitload of money for the heirs to live on for at least one more generation and with wise investment will still leave a sizable fortune for the next and the next after that. If one of those generations contains an innovator/inventor of even some fractional ability of the progenitor the financial ability to create another empire is there and free to employ.

All this is speculation on my part of course. I have read too much "future history" good and bad (both in outlook and quality of writing lol!) Blow it up, shoot it down. Suggest changes in percentages or thresholds. Tell us why it couldn't or shouldn't be but, first and foremost - got something better?

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Education
Time for a total do-over. Starting with kindergarten level the emphasis needs to be the three Rs (readin' 'ritin' 'rithmatic). After achieving competence we add in history then philosophy then civics all while expanding the breadth of the first three. At a certain point children test up (I believe this follows the Brit method - chime in guys) and the children go on to learn trades and the skills required for the trade life or higher educational pursuits. All of this through final "graduation" at whatever age or level, should be completely 100% provided by the government. At the college level state colleges should be "free" to residents. The wealthy can still send their children to private schools for whatever benefit they perceive but they can pay for it themselves. No government loans or tuition guarantees. The Harvards and Yales et. al. are free to provide free tuition to anyone they wish using any criteria they wish (and reducing their federal tax burden accordingly - unless the "criteria" are obviously racist or exclusionary, & etc...).

So tear this one down.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Politics
Government financing of all campaigns from municipality to federal level. Individual candidates may use their own funds as well. No contributions public or private. No non-candidate funded political advertising in any form. This would require some amendment or whatnot to suspend the freedom of speech clause on these matters but it needs to be done.

 

[grimtraveller]

some amendment or whatnot

If you're not using that as an album title Lou, don't sue me if I do and sell a million !