#1
The problem with this is it cuts out opportunities for crony capitalism and graft. Why pony up big campaign contributions if you can't get the tax code jiggered in your favor?
That and it puts lawyers and accountants out of work. (anguished Oh Noes! of dismay rise from the audience)
#2
The problem is potential future abuse by providing the politicians with another cash stream that they might abuse without eliminating one of the current streams. I'm not sure I'm all that worried about that 'potential' but I do prefer the flat tax idea Perry started shilling this morning.
#4
Our local and state sales tax is 9.25%. Nine percent on top of that gets to be stiff. Add in property taxes, booze tax, gasoline taxes, vehicle registration taxes, and various other taxes and inflation effects and taxes get to be too damn high.
#8
Our local and state sales tax is 9.25%. Nine percent on top of that gets to be stiff.
This point is one of my great frustrations with the right-wing radio talkers who are desperately trying to drive a Romney nomination.
The corporate tax rate in the US hits 34% @ $75k. For the sake of discussion let's stipulate that most of the goods & services we purchase (by total dollar value) are provided by businesses in at least the 34% bracket and that most businesses are therefore paying income taxes at at least this rate (in theory for large corporations, in reality for small & medium sized corporations, and at rates above that for pass-through entities taxed at personal rates + double payroll rates).
To believe that Cain's 999 plan would cause you to expend an additional 9% on goods & services you have to believe that lowering the best-case business tax rate from 34% to a worst-case of 9% will result in no corresponding drop in the prices consumers pay for goods & services provided by these now lesser-taxed businesses.
To actually persist in that belief you must believe all of a number of things including but not limited to: that cartel pricing mechanisms that are inherently unstable and nearly impossible to enforce for any length of time even among cartels with few members would be perfectly enforced forever across the entire US economy among millions of participating businesses of all sizes; that no business would ever initiate price competition with any other; that consumers would never choose cheaper brands over more expensive ones; etc..
In other words you must believe that there is no sliver of free choice or competition in any US market and that none will ever exist. Because as soon as there is ANY competition or free choice on the part of consumers businesses will compete on price, prices will fall by an amount equal to part of the additional profit realized by businesses via lower tax rates, and your additional 9% will be 9% of a price that will significantly lower than the price you paid for the identical good or service before the new tax plan was implemented.
That Hewitt, Medved, et al. are trumpeting the idea that the price of goods & services will not fall as the cost of providing goods & services fall because neither Cain nor anyone else can absolutely quantify with complete certainty the amount by which prices will fall is sickening in its disingenuousness.
rjschwarz has identified the real practical problem with Cain's plan. Namely that future politicians will rejigger rates and almost certainly morph a national sales tax into an invisible but far more expensive and damaging VAT.
Pretty much everyone discussiong the matter is demonstrating the political problem, namely that the US public is too stupid to realize that competition will drive prices down as business tax rates come down. Thus Cain's plan is easily demagogued as an additional 9% sales tax when the net effect will be much smaller and may well (will probably IMHO) actually result in lower net costs of goods & services to consumers.
#10
By my calculations, a single person making $75,000 with a standard deduction will pay 11.84% effective income tax (Do the math if you don't believe me). A 9% income tax plus a 9% sales tax addition (I spend the great majority of my check) would be an enormous increase in taxes. It would be awesome for corporations as Galt states, taking them from 34% to 9% at $75,000. But since I spend most of my check with the exception of savings and retirement, I would once again bear a heavier burden.
Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent.
Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 2, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses
#12
Yah, and if we all die, then there is no problem with older people owning the places that younger people rent. This is because younger people become older people.
Only the end of mortality would change this, which is not currently in the scope of reality.
So shut up, you are arguing against your future self, you stupid fuck.
[Dawn] IN 2002, there were reportedly only two suicide kabooms in Pakistain, but at the end of 2010, 49 such terror attacks in the year have proven that modern Islamic militancy is a hydra-headed problem.
Intelligence services are in a quandary when it comes to short-term preventive strategies, with bigwigs conceding that stringent public security measures at civilian and government institutions and places of worship including Sufi shrines do not act as deterrents.
The continuous flow of volunteers willing to train at jihad boy camps in Pakistain, Afghanistan and Iraq indicates that those involved are willing to travel continents, driven by a cause that hasn't run dry of recruits and trainers.
In fact, interviews with thwarted bombers, recruiters and family members from Pakistain, Afghanistan, Iraq, Leb and Paleostine have shown how middle-class, devout and aggressive young men, many with a university degree, are drawn for various reasons to the process of indoctrination.
Since 9/11, the surge in suicide kabooms is said to be in reaction to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to poor economic conditions in the Mohammedan world. The effects of these events have catalysed a blend of global jihad boy trends drawing potential jacket wallahs.
The indoctrination of young men, angry and bereft of economic opportunities, is not based solely on religious and sectarian reasoning. And with recruitment, jihad boy activism and venues varying after 9/11, the religious indoctrination package isn't exclusive to a local mosque (no longer prime recruitment ground with private homes, cafés, Islamic centres attracting 'self-starters' searching for Taliban contact and training).
This widely available package includes the insertion of a global narrative infused with strong anti-western or anti-American sentiment.
In Pakistain or in Europe and America, suicide bombers are led to the process of radicalisation, often created by certain
conditions. With many paths to radicalisation, whether it is a wide cultural generation gap that could either lead to radical secularism or extreme religiosity, or humiliation faced by communities when dehumanised by armed security forces, it has
been difficult to determine the psychological portrait of a suicide bomber that fits all regions.
It has been claimed that they are driven by poverty, hopelessness and ignorance.
In fact, interviews with thwarted bombers, recruiters and family members from Pakistain, Afghanistan, Iraq, Leb and Paleostine have shown how middle-class, devout and aggressive young men, many with a university degree, are drawn for various reasons to the process of indoctrination.
This contradicts the stereotype of the fanatic. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... it doesn't hold true for child recruits as young as seven who are easy prey because of economic circumstances, especially in Pakistain's tribal region where buying, (and bartering) children, who can come closer to their target or escape security checks, is not uncommon.
Since 9/11 there have been several hundred suicide attacks in Pakistain in which thousands have been killed.
In April this year, when Qari Hussain's Fedayeen-i-Islam, also part of the Pakistain Taliban, claimed that its North Wazoo camp had 1,000 suicide bomber 'graduates', it boasted three separate facilities with 350 'students' each. That was the same time when US rhetoric grew angrier about attacks orchestrated by the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.
In the same month, three would-be-suicide bombers were placed in long-term storage in the Spinboldak district in southern Kandahar. Two of them, Pak boys aged 15, trained at camps in Quetta were more likely sent over the border through the Chaman route, a Taliban region that allegedly comes under Mullah Zakir, a former Gitmo detainee in Quetta.
The 2010 Bajaur suicide attack by a veiled woman killing 45 people at a World Food Programme distribution queue raised the question of security and easy access.
In August this year, the burka bomber re-emerged with a 17-year-old veiled girl in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar attacking a police check post.
Similar attacks, many by girls as young as eight (June 2011, Uruzgan province) are examples of how the Taliban are using suicide bombers cleverly, ensuring vulnerability doesn't attract attention. Failed female suicide bombers have alleged that either they were forced to or kidnapped and coerced to attack Pak troops.
Depending on the region, reasons include nurturing a volatile mix of bitterness and despondency at life and political governments (unemployment, or in the case of Paleostinian bombers, the occupation has enraged many young people, most have lost family members).
Motivations differ but appear more political than faith-based. Most global recruits come ill-equipped in jihad boy philosophy and combat training, wanting to act against injustices and make a change.
In The 9/11 Wars Jason Burke meets British-born Pak Hanif Qadir, a successful businessman who leaves London to fight alongside the Taliban, travels to Peshawar and then decides to turn back en route to Afghanistan. Qadir's bus ride across the border makes him realise how international volunteers are treated as 'cannon fodder'.
During the Intifada, reasons included the humiliations caused to Paleostinians (Israeli-controlled check posts, curfews) that motivated many from Gazoo to go to Israel on suicide missions. And with no shortage of recruits to die for the cause there was no typical profile of a suicide bomber: they were aged between 18 to 38 years, came from middle-class families and had jobs.
All were religious, and some gave up their luxurious lifestyles to kill.
Researchers say that typically men from broken homes, and under-achievers are more vulnerable but intelligence services have found that recruits (the 2004 UK Crevice Plotters and the 7/7 attackers) were educated and from stable backgrounds.
There was little that made the 7/7 bombers any different from other young men sharing similar backgrounds.
What has been noted was how jihad boy handlers ensured recruits were isolated, spent time together alone; that taped sermons by beturbanned goons holy mans and television images of Mohammedans suffering globally played an important role in their training.
Young 'self-starters' with profiles like the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad are most vulnerable to adopting hard-line ideologies, making contact with senior jihad boy figures for logistical aid and direction to carry out large missions.
This 'raw material' waiting to be exploited in the theatre of jihad must compel governments to chalk out strategies for political and economic progress, targeting the youth of their country before the cult of the suicide bomber becomes a celebrated violent alternative.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
The Occupiers might just have to settle for images of a ragtag bunch of squatters, signs poorly spelled, litter and garbage everywhere, an occasional rape, and a BM on a police car.
Kent State was a set-up deal with people like Bill Ayers pushing and organizing behind the scenes.
Patrick Buchanan at his worst. When we snicker at the progressive left, remember that that nutbar right is, well, just as nutty...
John Hope Franklin, the famed black historian at Duke University, once told the incoming freshmen, "The new America in the 21st century will be primarily non-white, a place George Washington would not recognize."
In his June 1998 commencement address at Portland State, President Clinton affirmed it: "In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States." The graduates cheered.
The Census Bureau has now fixed at 2041 the year when whites become a minority in a country where the Founding Fathers had restricted citizenship to "free white persons" of "good moral character."
With publication today of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? this writer takes up what this portends. And while many on the left are enthusiastic about relegating the America of Eisenhower and JFK to a reactionary past, I concur with the late Clare Boothe Luce.
In this world, she said, there are optimists and pessimists.
#3
Color doesn't matter. Culture does. That is our problem as a nation is we've given up on the assimilation into our culture so now there is fragmentation and folks that don't feel they 'belong' to the culture. The culture that has led to success after success after success throughout our short time as a nation. Very sad, hopefully its not to late to restore once the last gasps of commie thought are excised in the next election.
#7
In his June 1998 commencement address at Portland State, President Clinton affirmed it: "In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States."
Yeah, and Clinton should know better than anybody. He made damn sure of it by refusing to secure the border.
#8
Again, depends on what you mean by "white." If you mean that by 2041 there will be a shortage of non-Hispanic, non-Asian, and non-Semitic people who have blond/red hair, blue/green eyes, and light skin all at once... then sure. Frankly, there's never been a lot of us in the fist place.
I think the situation will be more like this: by 2041 60%-80% of the population will still be all or part "white," the better parts of boring old "white" culture will have endured (even if they are largely practiced by people who are not 100% "white"), 80%+ of the population won't care one way or the other, and Patrick Buchanan will still be a racist idiot at 105 who writes books about how WWII wasn't really the German's fault and doesn't like Israel.
#9
Demographic projections? This s**t again. Here's another player -
The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich (who was uncredited), in 1968.[1] It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. Fears of a "population explosion" were widespread in the 1950s and 60s, but the book and its charismatic author brought the idea to an even wider audience.[2][3] The book has been criticized in recent decades for its alarmist tone and inaccurate predictions.
They used to stone false prophets. Now they get book deals, TV time, and Nobel prizes.
#10
I have to pick door #3. "our problem as a nation is we've given up on the assimilation". Melting pot of races is the way to go. Much better pool of genetic opportunities. Darwin and the Nazi pure race nuts only sow the seeds of their own demise. I always ask on the subject of evolution, how many believe they have a monkey in their family tree?. Wait, I take that back. I can think of several who might have.
#12
The mind is a terrible thing to waste. and a wasted mind is a terrible thing to use. My daughters are 1/4 Puerto Rican so are identified by the US Gubmint as Hispanic. I really don't care if whites will be in a minority.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/19/2011 20:02 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Race just seems to be a handy tool for govts to use as they like.
My brother is half Mexican, to look at us side by side, you'd say we were both white. Brown hair versus black, that's the only difference. But like deacon's daughters, he's "Hispanic" in the eyes of our govt. He's 50/50, so why does the Hispanic half always decide his ethnicity?
There are a myriad of reasons behind this I'm sure.
None of which I care to contemplate.
Isn't it fascinating that the same 'Left', that decried the formulas used by the 'evil' apartheid South African government to classify people by race, have no qualms about employing the same technique of administration.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Wazoo
