"By God, I've lost me leg." ". . So you have."

[dlaing]

OK I will answer the damn question!

 

There is no pure market economy at present. I don't deny that some level of regulation is necessary and desirable, but in the EU and the US, it is not an ideal balance, and there is too much "pork barrel" politics.

 

If you want a couple of examples where they are at least trying to avoid the evils of progressive taxation and over-regulation try Estonia and Lithuania, where the idea of "flat tax" has taken root. I think these countries will become very successful in the future.

 

I don't want to talk about China and India as these countries simply pay lip service and no more to any kind of environmental or social responsibility and they are not really democratic in any true sense. In India the majority are disenfranchised by a lack of education and grinding poverty, and China is a totalitarian state.

 

I think excessive transportation is wasteful and irresponsible, which makes globalisation bunk. We need to get back to smaller, more local, government and industry, and people's overall level of wasteful consumption needs to come down to a more sustainable level. At the same time, radical population reduction is essential.

 

(I still don't accept the GW scare though)

Thanks for the answer...sorry I missed it earlier.

No doubt you won't be surprised that I like progressive taxes and despise the regressive taxatiion in the USA. I think a flat tax with a deductible greater than the poverty line would be a great idea.

I suspect the US is currently experiencing an all time high in tax evasion that is going unreported in the news.

We could go on for ever and ever about which works better, market economies or whatever. Benevolency is the key.

I think that is one thing the UK has going for it a little more than the US.

I also think a few of the "liberated" soviet states will be sucessful because of the optimistic benevolence that followed years of oppression.

I like the last point about globalisation.

Not sure about radical population reduction.

Radical condom production, sure thing.

Mandatory castration of the philistines, no thank you.

[dlaing]

Here is an interesting Act of government interference.

http://www.righttorepair.org/

From a laissez faire perspective it is a bad idea.

But to help Davey survive in a world of Goliaths it is a good idea

[Guest ratchethack]

No doubt you won't be surprised that I like progressive taxes and despise the regressive taxatiion in the USA. I think a flat tax with a deductible greater than the poverty line would be a great idea.

Errr, I'm not at all surprised to read this, Dave. You at least got that part right. It explains a lot and also fits lots of the other hysterical, hallucinogenic Leftist delusions that you seem to suffer so horribly from so often. How long have you been paying taxes, Dave? You ARE referring to US Federal taxes, and not Remulac Outer Galactic taxes??!!

 

I was hoping someone else would take mercy on you and chime in - but looks like (once again) the job falls to me. [sigh] I grow so very weeeeeaaaaary, SO VERY VERY weeeeeeeeaaaaarrry. . . . .

 

The US tax system, like nearly every other National income tax, is progressive, NOT regressive. If you can find a regressive tax system somewhere on THIS planet, please let me know where, and I'll start up a few businesses there ASAP.

 

Now before you take your familiar ridiculous and baseless knee-jerk defensive posture and start calling me "partisan" again, consider:

 

JFK, one of our most famous Presidents, a Democrat, was a strong proponent of the principles in the following article (see copy below). By today's standards, he would have been considered firmly in the camp of Fiscal Conservatism.

 

One of your fellow San Diego County residents is mentioned in this article. It is his economic model and famous "curve" that became the basis of the most successful tax reform in history. If you had much of any awareness level at all of how the largest part of nearly HALF of your income is taken from you, you'd already know this.

 

The following article describes the most significant tax reform in the history of the planet (Earth) . It has served to substantially elevate US incomes and standards of living at an unprecedented rate from the very lowest levels, bringing many many millions out of poverty (moreso than any tax reform in history), right up to the highest levels, in the largest single period of economic growth and wealth creation in the history of our Nation. As the article mentions, this tax reform model has served as the model for many Nations worldwide (see list at end of article below), including what was formerly the darling of y'er precious Hard Left, Russia (formerly the USSR).

 

Now please don't tell me it was only the rich that got richer. I don't care how many of y'er favorite propagandist Leftists tell the lie. That tired old saw never had any truth to it, and the numbers prove it. When I was a paper carrier in Michigan, making my first money (for 3 years, starting at age 10) I heard and still remember the words of JFK very well. Speaking of tax reductions that create both higher tax revenues and increased individual prosperity AT ALL LEVELS, He was famously quoted: "A rising tide lifts all boats." JFK was The Darling of the American Left at the time. Being a New Age Lefty, Dave, you might want to remember this yourself. Today JFK would be burned at the political stake for such blatant heresy by y'er pals in the captive Leftist media - even though it's a universal truth that still applies today and always will.

 

You see, despite you & y'er pal's continued mind-numbing insistence that The New & Improved Marxist 5-Year Plan is still The Wave of the Future, the USSR never had a single 5-year Plan that made it past the first 6 months before it collapsed from the gargantuan weight of the sheer folly and wishful thinking of which it was composed. Ditto every other economic plan of every single Marxist Nation in history. Now Russia, China, and others have embraced the introduction of CAPITALISM (that most filthy of Leftist dirty words), and NOW, it is US HERE IN THE US who have a MORE PROGRESSIVE TAX than many of THEM!

 

This is NOT opinion, and it is NOT debatable. Every budget release by the CBO corroborates and supports the content of this article.

 

Dave - Please, please PLEASE learn at least a few basic fundamentals of our Fed and State tax system before you vote next time? I'm begging you. . . . .

 

Please don't miss the chart below that goes with the article. Learn it. Love it. Live it.

 

[sigh]

 

From today's Wall Street Journal. Again - the WSJ is the most historically credible, most historically accurate, and arguably the most widely respected news daily on the planet. (Er, that's Earth, for those who seem to be confused)

 

Reaganomics at 25

The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2006; Page A8

by Paul Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, et al.

 

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act. The bill cut personal income tax rates by 25% across the board, indexed tax brackets for inflation and reduced the corporate income tax rate. The anniversary is worth commemorating as a seminal moment that continues to influence policy for the better in the U.S., and around the globe.

 

The achievement of Reaganomics can only be fully understood by recalling the miserable state of affairs a quarter-century ago. Newsweek summarized the national mood when it wrote in 1981 that Reagan "inherits the most dangerous economic crisis since Franklin Roosevelt took office 48 years ago."

 

That was no exaggeration. The economy was enduring a cycle of rising inflation with growing levels of unemployment. Remember 20% mortgage interest rates? Terms like "stagflation" and "misery index" entered the popular vocabulary, and declinists of various kinds were in the saddle. The perception of American economic weakness encouraged the Soviet empire to ever bolder adventures, as reflected by Soviet tanks in Kabul and Communists on the march in Nicaragua and Africa.

 

The reigning Keynesian policy consensus had no answer for this predicament, and so a new group of economic ideas came to the fore. Actually, they were old, classical economic ideas that were rediscovered via the likes of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, Arthur Laffer, Robert Mundell, and such policy activists in Washington as Norman Ture and Jack Kemp, among others. These humble columns under our late editor, Robert Bartley, led the parade.

 

For every policy goal, you need a policy lever, Mr. Mundell likes to say. Monetary restraint was needed to break inflation, while cuts in marginal tax rates would restore the incentives to save and invest. With Paul Volcker at the Federal Reserve and Reagan at the White House, those two levers became the essence of the "supply-side" policy mix.

 

The results have been better than even some of its supporters hoped. The Dow Jones Industrial Average first broke 1,000 in 1972, but a decade later it was barely above 800 -- one of the worst and most enduring bear markets in history. In the 25 years since Reaganomics, however, the Dow has climbed to about 11,000, accounting for an increase in national wealth on the order of $25 trillion. To match that increase in percentage terms, the Dow would have to rise to some 150,000 in the next quarter century. American living standards have risen steadily, and U.S. businesses have created entire industries that didn't exist a generation ago.

 

Obviously, the economic policy path from 1981 to the present day has not been a straight line. The biggest detour occurred from 1990 through 1994, when George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton forgot the Gipper's lesson and raised marginal income-tax rates; they suffered for it in the elections of 1992 and 1994. The arrival of the Gingrich Republicans in Congress stopped this slow-motion repeal of Reaganomics, however, and even helped to extend it at the margin with a cut in the capital-gains tax rate to 20% in 1997.

 

Adherents of Rubinomics -- after Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin -- are still not converts, arguing that tax increases are virtuous if they reduce the deficit. We've addressed that argument many times and will again. But even the Rubinites haven't dared to repeal indexing for inflation (which pushed taxpayers via "bracket creep" into ever-higher tax rates), and even the most ardent liberals don't propose to return to the top pre-Reagan income tax rate of 70%. They also now understand that, at some point along the Laffer Curve, high rates begin to yield less tax revenue. The bipartisan consensus in favor of sound money has also held.

 

Thus today, the top marginal personal and corporate tax rates are 35%, compared with 70% and 48% in 1981. In the late 1970s the tax on dividends was 70% and the capital gains rate was 50%; now they're both 15%. These reductions have increased the rate of return on capital, and hence some $3 trillion more was invested by foreigners in the U.S. between 1981 and 2005 than was invested by Americans abroad. One result: 40 million new jobs, more than the rest of the industrialized world combined.

 

The rest of the world, meanwhile, has followed the Gipper down the tax-cut curve. Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation finds that the average personal income tax rate in the industrialized world is now 43%, versus 67% in 1980. The average top corporate tax rate has fallen to 29% from 48%. This decline in global tax rates has been the economic counterpart to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of Eastern Europe has adopted flat tax rates of 25% or lower, and the Russians now have a flat income tax of 13%. In Old Europe, Ireland's corporate and personal income tax rate cuts have helped generate the swiftest economic growth in the EU.

 

Not bad for a President dismissed as a dreamy former actor. In his 1989 farewell address, Reagan said that "People say that I was a great communicator. It would be more accurate to say that I communicated great ideas." He was right, and a remarkable global prosperity has followed in his wake. The challenge for current and future political leaders is not to forget it.

 

DOWN THE LAFFER CURVE

Top income tax rate

 

COUNTRY 1980/2004

 

Australia 63%/47%

Canada 60%/39%

France 60%/48%

Germany 65%/46%

Ireland 60%/42%

Italy 72%/47%

Japan 75%/50%

Korea 89%/40%

Spain 66%/35%

Sweden 87%/54%

Switzerland 31%/26%

U.K. 83%/40%

U.S. 70%/35%

OECD Average 67%/43%

_____________________________________

Sources: OECD and The Heritage Foundation

[todd haven]

Here is an interesting Act of government interference.

http://www.righttorepair.org/

From a laissez faire perspective it is a bad idea.

But to help Davey survive in a world of Goliaths it is a good idea

 

Wow, Dave,

I didn't expect to see right to repair here.

Are you opposed or in favor of repair technicans having access to the

information required to repair a vehicle?

 

You will notice Guzzi tech info is readily available on the web.

This is as it should be. No secrets.

Not so with some manufacturers.

 

BMW has been the worlds worst in providing this information.

We own a $16,000 GT-1 tester for working on BMW cars.

The precise same tool is sold to BMW M/C dealers in the US.

A different cable and software are required to access M/C info.

 

Said cable and software are not available to the aftermarket.

At any price. No how, no way.

 

Sound Fair?

[dlaing]

The US tax system, like nearly every other National income tax, is progressive, NOT regressive. If you can find a regressive tax system somewhere on THIS planet, please let me know where, and I'll start up a few businesses there ASAP.

The tax system is both regressive and progressive.

Now that I make enough money to buy a house and have a mortgage, I actually pay a lower percentage of my income to the IRS.

Wealthier people are somehow elligibe for more tax write-offs. This makes the tax regressive.

Also FICA contributions are capped, effectively creating tax relief for the least needy.

The wealthy pay a lower percentage of their income on taxes. This is REGRESSIVE taxation....maybe we need a tea party?????

[dlaing]

Wow, Dave,

I didn't expect to see right to repair here.

Are you opposed or in favor of repair technicans having access to the

information required to repair a vehicle?

 

You will notice Guzzi tech info is readily available on the web.

This is as it should be. No secrets.

Not so with some manufacturers.

 

BMW has been the worlds worst in providing this information.

We own a $16,000 GT-1 tester for working on BMW cars.

The precise same tool is sold to BMW M/C dealers in the US.

A different cable and software are required to access M/C info.

 

Said cable and software are not available to the aftermarket.

At any price. No how, no way.

 

Sound Fair?

It does not sound fair.

As I said, it is a matter of weighing the laissez-faire that benefits big corporations vs. small businesses right to repair enforced by government interference, so I tend to side with the small businesses and the government interference.

I don't know exactly how a law would be written but I would hope it would be reasonable. I do think the auto-makers are entitled to some profit on the distribution cost associated with disseminating the information.

Personally I think the auto makers are shooting themselves in the feet if they don't make the information available. I would wish the fear of making a bad name would be incentive enough, but I don't think it is.

I wish Marelli would make available the detailed info on the 15M to the general public, but they don't, and I am not sure they should have to.

Maybe if I owned an Alfa Romeo authorized shop, I could access the information, but it would not be fair if a Guzzi shop could not access the information.

It does get kind of complicated about what should be open information.

Do you guys have the Axeone software or the TechnoResearch software?

I'll bet you had to pay serious money for it.

Maybe Guzzi should switch to Cliff Jeffries ECUs which use free software to control it and almost all the parts are available on the open market.

I like open source freeware and wish the same attitude would proliferate more businesses.

[Guest ratchethack]

The tax system is both regressive and progressive.

Now that I make enough money to buy a house and have a mortgage, I actually pay a lower percentage of my income to the IRS.

Wealthier people are somehow elligibe for more tax write-offs. This makes the tax regressive.

Also FICA contributions are capped, effectively creating tax relief for the least needy.

The wealthy pay a lower percentage of their income on taxes. This is REGRESSIVE taxation....maybe we need a tea party?????

OMG. There's no dealing with the willfully ignorant.

 

Tax write-offs DO NOT make a progressive tax table regressive. Regardless of write-offs, the highest income earners carry by far and away the highest proportion of the overall tax burden -- and they pay it on a progressive scale. Dave, if you can understand progressive springs, you oughta be able to handle this.

 

Again - I'm begging you. Please, Please PLEASE learn and understand some tax basics before you vote again. This is not a small semantic problem. It's as fundamentally important to the way our Nation operates - and to being a Citizen of the US - as night follows day. It's also kindergarten-level political basics. I had a full grasp of the principles involved by age 15. If you don't comprehend this by the time y'er an adult, your profound ignorance makes you a political cripple and a victim, subject to all manner of propagandist manipulation. Yes, I'm both sad and sorry, but not afraid to say that it explains a great deal about your grossly distorted perspectives. You need to get with the program here on planet Earth, my friend.

 

Dave, the following will more'n likely come as a shock. Take this to y'er favorite Leftist propaganda sources and just try to refute it:

 

In the US, the top 5% of income earners carry 50% of the overall income tax burden.

 

The top 20% of income earners carry 80% of the overall income tax burden.

 

The bottom 43% of income earners pay NO TAXES AT ALL. YOUR TAXES SUPPORT THEM.

 

SOURCE: CBO (Congressional Budget Office) See Analysis of CBO numbers at this link. Please, please PLEASE (I'm begging you, Part III) pay careful attention to the graphs starting halfway down the page under the section, "Who Pays Income Taxes?":

 

http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/#Head-0.htm

 

Let me never again forget - your understanding of the Nation you live in and the entire world around you (just to clarify - that's Earth, the 3rd planet from Sol) is derived from Leftist propaganda. Your entire world view and its nebulous ties to reality are other worldly. You live on the REVERSO WORLD of REMULAC - it's upside down and backwards from that of earthlings.

 

I can only conclude that as an Alien Resident of the US, the IRS and Franchise Tax Board somehow permit you to be taxed on the Remulac Regressive Tax Tables. . . . . . Y'er the only one on this planet (again - that's Earth, if y'er still confused).

 

Now how do I establish residence on Remulac, and where do I find a CPA with the Remulac Regressive Tax forms???

 

The dark, purply world of Remulac from outer galactic high orbit approach:

[todd haven]

I do think the auto-makers are entitled to some profit on the distribution cost associated with disseminating the information.

Personally I think the auto makers are shooting themselves in the feet if they don't make the information available. I would wish the fear of making a bad name would be incentive enough, but I don't think it is.

I wish Marelli would make available the detailed info on the 15M to the general public, but they don't, and I am not sure they should have to.

It does get kind of complicated about what should be open information.

Do you guys have the Axeone software or the TechnoResearch software?

I'll bet you had to pay serious money for it.

Maybe Guzzi should switch to Cliff Jeffries ECUs which use free software to control it and almost all the parts are available on the open market.

I like open source freeware and wish the same attitude would proliferate more businesses.

 

 

I'm all for profit. Profit is good.

The $16K machine referred to above is a Siemens unit.

A customer and friend in the computer biz sells identical Siemens units

for $1500, plus software. Makes Exxon/Mobil look like pikers.

 

We use the TechnoResearch software.

Have not found anything the latest software won't do on any new bike.

Breva 100 and Griso included.

We have asked Piaggio Technical for an explanation of what additional functions can

be performed with an Axone. No added benefit equals No Sale.

I think the TR software was ~ $500. No tall grass.

 

I don't expect Marelli to offer up detailed internal ECU info.

Bosch never has, in the 25 years we have been working on those systems.

Even as a Bosch Authorized Service Center, we cannot get the info.

It is proprietary. I can live with that.

Ditto Siemens or VDO.

 

Emissions control, ABS, body and climate control systems should not be proprietary.

 

Right to repair is as much about the consumer's right to have his/her car worked on

by the person of their choice.

It seeks to provide access(not a gift) to the same information provided by manufacturers

to their franchised dealers.

Internal ECU schematics, etc, are not available to your local Chevy dealer.

Therefore, this information would not be made available under RTR.

 

Believe it or not, there are some people out there unhappy with their local

franchised dealers who would prefer to either fix it themselves,

or pay an independent.

 

BTW, Right to Repair Act does not apply to motorcycles.

We, along with another combination BMW car/bike shop,

nearly had the EPA officer investigating BMW convinced.

She was reassigned, and her replacement canned the idea.

 

This information is becoming available.

Kia and Hyundai give it away for free.

Seen the CSI numbers lately?--

I see a connection

http://www.aftermarket.org/Government/Reso...EM_Websites.asp

 

Scroll down the attached link and see what info costs.

No more Porsches for us.

No ROI-- ther's that ugly word, profit, again

[dlaing]

 

This information is becoming available.

Kia and Hyundai give it away for free.

Seen the CSI numbers lately?--

I see a connection

http://www.aftermarket.org/Government/Reso...EM_Websites.asp

 

Scroll down the attached link and see what info costs.

No more Porsches for us.

No ROI-- ther's that ugly word, profit, again

I may have to go back to driving a Hyundai!

Thanks for your insight

[Pierre]

OMG. There's no dealing with the willfully ignorant.

 

...

 

Again - I'm begging you. Please, Please PLEASE learn and understand some tax basics before you vote again.

 

Back at ya' Ratchett.

 

 

Take this to y'er favorite Leftist propaganda sources and just try to refute it:

 

In the US, the top 5% of income earners carry 50% of the overall income tax burden.

 

The top 20% of income earners carry 80% of the overall income tax burden.

 

The bottom 43% of income earners pay NO TAXES AT ALL. YOUR TAXES SUPPORT THEM.

 

SOURCE: CBO (Congressional Budget Office)

 

Softball, big guy. You're focusing on wage earners. And rather than waste my time parsing that particular report you cite, let's just say it falls under the "statistics can be made to say anything" category. The truth is, by focusing on "wage earners" you have deliberately skewed the argument. The real tax savings are not available to "wage earners" - never have been, though there are some "policy" imposed as David has noted. The real game is played "above the line" - schedule C for the self employed, or even more common on corporate returns, whether they be closely held one man entities or the behemoths like Exxon.

 

Either you know that and deliberately ignore it, or you don't know it, in which case I'd suggest you take your own advice given above.

[Guest ratchethack]

Pierre, there's no focus whatsoever on wage earners in any of the data. The data does not separate wage earners from other sources of income.

 

Where do you think "wage earners" fall on the graphs generated by the CBO numbers (see link provided above)??

 

Where do you think the schedule C income earners fall on the graphs?

 

Can you be more specific about how you think I've "skewed" the argument? The CBO numbers are what they are. There never has been any room for even the most hyperbolic "interpretation" here -- or perhaps you have a different idea?

 

Are you suggesting that the CBO numbers themselves are "skewed" or misleading in some way?

 

Are you suggesting that the US tax tables are NOT in fact progressive??

[dlaing]

 

 

http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/#Head-0.htm

 

 

What a bunch of crap.

They really got you hook, line and sinker.

 

Here is a much better analysis...

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxModel/tm...amp;DocTypeID=1

Depending on how you look at it you can say it is progressive or regressive.

Perhaps unfairly, from memory of statistics from years ago, I only took into consideration Individual Federal Income Tax and Payroll Tax(social security,etc.) I guess I assumed people work for a living.

Add in all the corporate and estate taxes and then the average effect is progressive.

There are many wealthy with lots of write-offs and many without lots of write-offs. So some of them are paying tax progressively, relative to you and me and some are paying tax regressively, relative to you and me.

But I am surprised to learn that average million plus per year pays more.

Add in sales tax, state tax, local tax, excise tax, property tax, etc. and I am not sure what happens.

[Pierre]

Pierre, there's no focus on wage earners in any of the data. The data does not separate wage earners from other sources of income. Where do you think "wage earners" fall on the graphs generated by the CBO numbers (see link provided above)??

 

Where do you think the schedule C income earners fall on the charts?

 

Can you be more specific about how you think I've "skewed" the argument? The CBO numbers are what they are. There never has been much room for "interpretation" here -- or perhaps you have a different idea?

 

Are you suggesting that the CBO numbers are "skewed" or misleading in some way?

 

It's pretty simple. If you're talking about "assigning" tax revenue to various categories (as the cited report does), then you're talking about taking the tax revenue pie and divvying it up. Has zero to do with who PAYS what percentage of their own income to the government. Yet you offer those numbers to make that point.

 

What you have in that report you cite is further evidence of what IS very true. The gap between the rich and the poor widens - and has widened at an unprecedented rate during this administration. I'm not surprised that if you "assign" tax revenue to "groups" the wealthy are over represented. Makes perfect sense. However, nowhere in that report you cite does it talk about the taxes payed by the various groups as a percentage of their own income. Your use of the terminology "carrying" an income tax "burden" is misleading in the extreme in the context of your post.

 

So now I've parsed the damn thing for you - and frankly I have better things to do. So I go back to my original post. When you talk who pays what as a percentage of income, focus on schedule C and corporate returns and you'll see that the guy who only earns a wage pays the highest percentage of what he earns in taxes. The smaller the wage, the higher the percentage. If you factor in across the board taxes like fuel and sales - it's off the chart.

[dlaing]

 

 

Are you suggesting that the US tax tables are NOT in fact progressive??

Nobody is saying the tables are not progressive.

It is the write-offs and payroll tax that can have a regressive effect.

Not to mention the use of tax havens that I'll bet does not fall into the average.

[Guest ratchethack]

. . . .I am not sure what happens.

Well, you've made this much perfectly clear.

 

Dave, just answer two questions if you will.

 

1. Are you saying that the CBO numbers at the link I provided and the graphs generated therefrom are incorrect or misleading in some way? (please specify)

 

2. Do you think you can find one gainfully employed CPA, Financial Adviser, or Tax Attorney anywhere (on our planet - Earth) who would seriously make a public statement that the US Federal tax and State taxes are regressive taxes?

 

The dark, purply world of Remulac from outer galactic high orbit approach: