The Forgotten Man

[underdose]

Yojimbo, I agree with most of what you are saying. But would you say the same for Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan?

What seems to be lost in this most delightful discussion is that we currently have the new “republicans” flavor of socialism: give to the upper 1% today and tax the other 99% tomorrow. I don’t think anyone in this class warfare battle likes this plan. Shouldn’t we, instead of bickering among ourselves, be united in our concern that the government is corrupt and dangerous, and its actions are harmful to all of us.

I haven’t read the book, but I think the point is that a government, made up primarily of people who are more skilled at winning popularity contests than they are at understanding finance, is not qualified to manage something as big and complex as the economy. Even their most well meaning efforts have unintended adverse consequences. How much should we trust these people to “fix” things? Not much, no matter where you land on the class spectrum. The idea of America is “individual freedom”, and our founders recognized that freedom for the citizens can only occur when the government’s powers are limited.

[underdose]

Yojimbo, I agree with most of what you are saying. But would you say the same for Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan?

What seems to be lost in this most delightful discussion is that we currently have the new “republicans” flavor of socialism: give to the upper 1% today and tax the other 99% tomorrow. I don’t think anyone in this class warfare battle likes this plan. Shouldn’t we, instead of bickering among ourselves, be united in our concern that the government is corrupt and dangerous, and its actions are harmful to all of us.

I haven’t read the book, but I think the point is that a government, made up primarily of people who are more skilled at winning popularity contests than they are at understanding finance, is not qualified to manage something as big and complex as the economy. Even their most well meaning efforts have unintended adverse consequences. How much should we trust these people to “fix” things? Not much, no matter where you land on the class spectrum. The idea of America is “individual freedom”, and our founders recognized that freedom for the citizens can only occur when the government’s powers are limited.

[underdose]

Yojimbo, I agree with most of what you are saying. But would you say the same for Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan?

What seems to be lost in this most delightful discussion is that we currently have the new “republicans” flavor of socialism: give to the upper 1% today and tax the other 99% tomorrow. I don’t think anyone in this class warfare battle likes this plan. Shouldn’t we, instead of bickering among ourselves, be united in our concern that the government is corrupt and dangerous, and its actions are harmful to all of us.

I haven’t read the book, but I think the point is that a government, made up primarily of people who are more skilled at winning popularity contests than they are at understanding finance, is not qualified to manage something as big and complex as the economy. Even their most well meaning efforts have unintended adverse consequences. How much should we trust these people to “fix” things? Not much, no matter where you land on the class spectrum. The idea of America is “individual freedom”, and our founders recognized that freedom for the citizens can only occur when the government’s powers are limited.

[yojimbo]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”? Falling back on the false choice defense as an intellectual argument is weak. Most any political, economic, or social issue has more than two distinct and exclusive alternatives. I suppose I could have asked the Google employees whether Sergey’s tie was blue or red. Would that have satisfied you?

I asked those particular questions to make a point. They were somewhat rhetorical. Besides, what is your point? I think quite a few employees would not like the fact that Sergey pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes (assuming of course that he actually does – I will also assume that you have no idea if that is factually true or not). Then again there are probably some that would not care one bit. I would be one of those people. Look at what he’s created and the jobs he’s provided. Why should I care if he pays any taxes or not?

The true false choice is looking only at the amount of taxes he pays individually and comparing that with what one of his employees pays. What about Google’s corporate taxes? If he hadn’t created Google then all those employees would probably not be paying as much in income taxes either. How about the sales taxes that result from the sale of products? Sales taxes on the products and services Google employees buy with their income? Shouldn’t he get some credit for all of that as well?

Underdose, I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that there are not CEO’s, politicians, or certain rich citizens that try , and do, take advantage of both the system and the lower earning population. Jamie Dimon is definitely taking advantage of his situation and will make millions because of it. In fact, I’m not really posting to defend the rich etc. I’m posting because certain posters on this board continuously insinuate that if you don’t see things their way you are essentially a close-minded uneducated idiot. The behavior is a common quirk of left leaning “intellectuals”. I normally do not post because I usually have more productive things to do. Sometimes, however, I can not take the incessant condescending arrogance.

The real problem for Kewp, TheBreeze and others in their everlasting quest to have government help others is that I just don’t really care about others. Why should I fund a health care system for a bunch of obese, smoking, drinking blobs that refuse to take care of themselves? Why should I bail out someone who extracted every last dime out of their property to spend on idiotic toys to prop up their own self esteem and are now getting foreclosed? Why should I bail out Lehman, or Fannie, or social security, or medicare. I don’t care about any of them. Let them all crash and burn.

A top and bottom purge would be nice. And, if the money spigot shuts off a purge will occur. But it won’t be pretty.

[yojimbo]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”? Falling back on the false choice defense as an intellectual argument is weak. Most any political, economic, or social issue has more than two distinct and exclusive alternatives. I suppose I could have asked the Google employees whether Sergey’s tie was blue or red. Would that have satisfied you?

I asked those particular questions to make a point. They were somewhat rhetorical. Besides, what is your point? I think quite a few employees would not like the fact that Sergey pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes (assuming of course that he actually does – I will also assume that you have no idea if that is factually true or not). Then again there are probably some that would not care one bit. I would be one of those people. Look at what he’s created and the jobs he’s provided. Why should I care if he pays any taxes or not?

The true false choice is looking only at the amount of taxes he pays individually and comparing that with what one of his employees pays. What about Google’s corporate taxes? If he hadn’t created Google then all those employees would probably not be paying as much in income taxes either. How about the sales taxes that result from the sale of products? Sales taxes on the products and services Google employees buy with their income? Shouldn’t he get some credit for all of that as well?

Underdose, I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that there are not CEO’s, politicians, or certain rich citizens that try , and do, take advantage of both the system and the lower earning population. Jamie Dimon is definitely taking advantage of his situation and will make millions because of it. In fact, I’m not really posting to defend the rich etc. I’m posting because certain posters on this board continuously insinuate that if you don’t see things their way you are essentially a close-minded uneducated idiot. The behavior is a common quirk of left leaning “intellectuals”. I normally do not post because I usually have more productive things to do. Sometimes, however, I can not take the incessant condescending arrogance.

The real problem for Kewp, TheBreeze and others in their everlasting quest to have government help others is that I just don’t really care about others. Why should I fund a health care system for a bunch of obese, smoking, drinking blobs that refuse to take care of themselves? Why should I bail out someone who extracted every last dime out of their property to spend on idiotic toys to prop up their own self esteem and are now getting foreclosed? Why should I bail out Lehman, or Fannie, or social security, or medicare. I don’t care about any of them. Let them all crash and burn.

A top and bottom purge would be nice. And, if the money spigot shuts off a purge will occur. But it won’t be pretty.

[yojimbo]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”? Falling back on the false choice defense as an intellectual argument is weak. Most any political, economic, or social issue has more than two distinct and exclusive alternatives. I suppose I could have asked the Google employees whether Sergey’s tie was blue or red. Would that have satisfied you?

I asked those particular questions to make a point. They were somewhat rhetorical. Besides, what is your point? I think quite a few employees would not like the fact that Sergey pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes (assuming of course that he actually does – I will also assume that you have no idea if that is factually true or not). Then again there are probably some that would not care one bit. I would be one of those people. Look at what he’s created and the jobs he’s provided. Why should I care if he pays any taxes or not?

The true false choice is looking only at the amount of taxes he pays individually and comparing that with what one of his employees pays. What about Google’s corporate taxes? If he hadn’t created Google then all those employees would probably not be paying as much in income taxes either. How about the sales taxes that result from the sale of products? Sales taxes on the products and services Google employees buy with their income? Shouldn’t he get some credit for all of that as well?

Underdose, I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that there are not CEO’s, politicians, or certain rich citizens that try , and do, take advantage of both the system and the lower earning population. Jamie Dimon is definitely taking advantage of his situation and will make millions because of it. In fact, I’m not really posting to defend the rich etc. I’m posting because certain posters on this board continuously insinuate that if you don’t see things their way you are essentially a close-minded uneducated idiot. The behavior is a common quirk of left leaning “intellectuals”. I normally do not post because I usually have more productive things to do. Sometimes, however, I can not take the incessant condescending arrogance.

The real problem for Kewp, TheBreeze and others in their everlasting quest to have government help others is that I just don’t really care about others. Why should I fund a health care system for a bunch of obese, smoking, drinking blobs that refuse to take care of themselves? Why should I bail out someone who extracted every last dime out of their property to spend on idiotic toys to prop up their own self esteem and are now getting foreclosed? Why should I bail out Lehman, or Fannie, or social security, or medicare. I don’t care about any of them. Let them all crash and burn.

A top and bottom purge would be nice. And, if the money spigot shuts off a purge will occur. But it won’t be pretty.

[yojimbo]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”? Falling back on the false choice defense as an intellectual argument is weak. Most any political, economic, or social issue has more than two distinct and exclusive alternatives. I suppose I could have asked the Google employees whether Sergey’s tie was blue or red. Would that have satisfied you?

I asked those particular questions to make a point. They were somewhat rhetorical. Besides, what is your point? I think quite a few employees would not like the fact that Sergey pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes (assuming of course that he actually does – I will also assume that you have no idea if that is factually true or not). Then again there are probably some that would not care one bit. I would be one of those people. Look at what he’s created and the jobs he’s provided. Why should I care if he pays any taxes or not?

The true false choice is looking only at the amount of taxes he pays individually and comparing that with what one of his employees pays. What about Google’s corporate taxes? If he hadn’t created Google then all those employees would probably not be paying as much in income taxes either. How about the sales taxes that result from the sale of products? Sales taxes on the products and services Google employees buy with their income? Shouldn’t he get some credit for all of that as well?

Underdose, I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that there are not CEO’s, politicians, or certain rich citizens that try , and do, take advantage of both the system and the lower earning population. Jamie Dimon is definitely taking advantage of his situation and will make millions because of it. In fact, I’m not really posting to defend the rich etc. I’m posting because certain posters on this board continuously insinuate that if you don’t see things their way you are essentially a close-minded uneducated idiot. The behavior is a common quirk of left leaning “intellectuals”. I normally do not post because I usually have more productive things to do. Sometimes, however, I can not take the incessant condescending arrogance.

The real problem for Kewp, TheBreeze and others in their everlasting quest to have government help others is that I just don’t really care about others. Why should I fund a health care system for a bunch of obese, smoking, drinking blobs that refuse to take care of themselves? Why should I bail out someone who extracted every last dime out of their property to spend on idiotic toys to prop up their own self esteem and are now getting foreclosed? Why should I bail out Lehman, or Fannie, or social security, or medicare. I don’t care about any of them. Let them all crash and burn.

A top and bottom purge would be nice. And, if the money spigot shuts off a purge will occur. But it won’t be pretty.

[yojimbo]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”? Falling back on the false choice defense as an intellectual argument is weak. Most any political, economic, or social issue has more than two distinct and exclusive alternatives. I suppose I could have asked the Google employees whether Sergey’s tie was blue or red. Would that have satisfied you?

I asked those particular questions to make a point. They were somewhat rhetorical. Besides, what is your point? I think quite a few employees would not like the fact that Sergey pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes (assuming of course that he actually does – I will also assume that you have no idea if that is factually true or not). Then again there are probably some that would not care one bit. I would be one of those people. Look at what he’s created and the jobs he’s provided. Why should I care if he pays any taxes or not?

The true false choice is looking only at the amount of taxes he pays individually and comparing that with what one of his employees pays. What about Google’s corporate taxes? If he hadn’t created Google then all those employees would probably not be paying as much in income taxes either. How about the sales taxes that result from the sale of products? Sales taxes on the products and services Google employees buy with their income? Shouldn’t he get some credit for all of that as well?

Underdose, I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that there are not CEO’s, politicians, or certain rich citizens that try , and do, take advantage of both the system and the lower earning population. Jamie Dimon is definitely taking advantage of his situation and will make millions because of it. In fact, I’m not really posting to defend the rich etc. I’m posting because certain posters on this board continuously insinuate that if you don’t see things their way you are essentially a close-minded uneducated idiot. The behavior is a common quirk of left leaning “intellectuals”. I normally do not post because I usually have more productive things to do. Sometimes, however, I can not take the incessant condescending arrogance.

The real problem for Kewp, TheBreeze and others in their everlasting quest to have government help others is that I just don’t really care about others. Why should I fund a health care system for a bunch of obese, smoking, drinking blobs that refuse to take care of themselves? Why should I bail out someone who extracted every last dime out of their property to spend on idiotic toys to prop up their own self esteem and are now getting foreclosed? Why should I bail out Lehman, or Fannie, or social security, or medicare. I don’t care about any of them. Let them all crash and burn.

A top and bottom purge would be nice. And, if the money spigot shuts off a purge will occur. But it won’t be pretty.

[kewp]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”?

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Btw, I do happen to know *exactly* what Sergey and Larry’s salaries are. One dollar each, look it up. They make their money (billions) from capital gains, which results in a lower relative tax rate when compared to their salaried employees.

You are again making the assumption that the super-wealthy are somehow *blessed* and deserving of extra-special bennies above and beyond already being super-rich.

Larry and Sergey are nothing special. They are in my peer group, in fact. I’ve known thousands of engineers exactly like them. They owe their success to a *tremendous* amount of luck as much as their innovation and hard work; Google would have gone under during the dotcom bust if it wasn’t for angel funding, for example.

Anyways, my point, in a nutshell, is we should all be taxed fairly and progressively; relative to our real income. Both ditch-diggers and day-traders alike. And re: healthcare, no disagreement there. I’m all for a nationwide sales tax to fund socialized healthcare, with the excises determined by the relative harm of the product. I have no problem with cigarettes and sugary sodas costing 10-20 times as much.

[kewp]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”?

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Btw, I do happen to know *exactly* what Sergey and Larry’s salaries are. One dollar each, look it up. They make their money (billions) from capital gains, which results in a lower relative tax rate when compared to their salaried employees.

You are again making the assumption that the super-wealthy are somehow *blessed* and deserving of extra-special bennies above and beyond already being super-rich.

Larry and Sergey are nothing special. They are in my peer group, in fact. I’ve known thousands of engineers exactly like them. They owe their success to a *tremendous* amount of luck as much as their innovation and hard work; Google would have gone under during the dotcom bust if it wasn’t for angel funding, for example.

Anyways, my point, in a nutshell, is we should all be taxed fairly and progressively; relative to our real income. Both ditch-diggers and day-traders alike. And re: healthcare, no disagreement there. I’m all for a nationwide sales tax to fund socialized healthcare, with the excises determined by the relative harm of the product. I have no problem with cigarettes and sugary sodas costing 10-20 times as much.

[kewp]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”?

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Btw, I do happen to know *exactly* what Sergey and Larry’s salaries are. One dollar each, look it up. They make their money (billions) from capital gains, which results in a lower relative tax rate when compared to their salaried employees.

You are again making the assumption that the super-wealthy are somehow *blessed* and deserving of extra-special bennies above and beyond already being super-rich.

Larry and Sergey are nothing special. They are in my peer group, in fact. I’ve known thousands of engineers exactly like them. They owe their success to a *tremendous* amount of luck as much as their innovation and hard work; Google would have gone under during the dotcom bust if it wasn’t for angel funding, for example.

Anyways, my point, in a nutshell, is we should all be taxed fairly and progressively; relative to our real income. Both ditch-diggers and day-traders alike. And re: healthcare, no disagreement there. I’m all for a nationwide sales tax to fund socialized healthcare, with the excises determined by the relative harm of the product. I have no problem with cigarettes and sugary sodas costing 10-20 times as much.

[kewp]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”?

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Btw, I do happen to know *exactly* what Sergey and Larry’s salaries are. One dollar each, look it up. They make their money (billions) from capital gains, which results in a lower relative tax rate when compared to their salaried employees.

You are again making the assumption that the super-wealthy are somehow *blessed* and deserving of extra-special bennies above and beyond already being super-rich.

Larry and Sergey are nothing special. They are in my peer group, in fact. I’ve known thousands of engineers exactly like them. They owe their success to a *tremendous* amount of luck as much as their innovation and hard work; Google would have gone under during the dotcom bust if it wasn’t for angel funding, for example.

Anyways, my point, in a nutshell, is we should all be taxed fairly and progressively; relative to our real income. Both ditch-diggers and day-traders alike. And re: healthcare, no disagreement there. I’m all for a nationwide sales tax to fund socialized healthcare, with the excises determined by the relative harm of the product. I have no problem with cigarettes and sugary sodas costing 10-20 times as much.

[kewp]

That’s funny Kewp. Isn’t it called a “False Choice”?

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Btw, I do happen to know *exactly* what Sergey and Larry’s salaries are. One dollar each, look it up. They make their money (billions) from capital gains, which results in a lower relative tax rate when compared to their salaried employees.

You are again making the assumption that the super-wealthy are somehow *blessed* and deserving of extra-special bennies above and beyond already being super-rich.

Larry and Sergey are nothing special. They are in my peer group, in fact. I’ve known thousands of engineers exactly like them. They owe their success to a *tremendous* amount of luck as much as their innovation and hard work; Google would have gone under during the dotcom bust if it wasn’t for angel funding, for example.

Anyways, my point, in a nutshell, is we should all be taxed fairly and progressively; relative to our real income. Both ditch-diggers and day-traders alike. And re: healthcare, no disagreement there. I’m all for a nationwide sales tax to fund socialized healthcare, with the excises determined by the relative harm of the product. I have no problem with cigarettes and sugary sodas costing 10-20 times as much.

[yojimbo]

Ok, false choice it is.

I see the difference between us. You believe the predominant amount of those who are well off were lucky. I believe they probably worked hard, educated themselves, adapted to market conditions, saw a product or service that they felt would provide value to people and pursued it. Luck certainly helps though.

Once again, let’s try to generalize. I know that is difficult for engineers, but my use of Brin as an example was just that – an example. Pick any founder of a successful startup. Of course, I guess it wouldn’t matter who I picked if you truly believe success is only a product of luck.

Also, you are not in their peer group. I’m sorry. It’s nice that you have a high level of self esteem but you are not part of their group. You may be smarter, or more detail oriented, or better at writing terse, more intellectual-than-thou posts on boards than they are but they managed to break free of the routinized world of nine to five by creating something of value, taking risk, and competing successfully in the marketplace over a long period of time.

“Blessed”? Who said anything about being blessed? I’m not putting them up on a pedestal I just respect the fact that they’ve done something productive. I mean they could have just stuck with the 9-5 routine and driven to work everyday, done what they were told, earned their paycheck, driven home, watched TV and posted on boards about how sad it is that the rich are shafting the poor and the government needs to step in and help.

As for health care. I’ll take care of myself thanks.

[yojimbo]

Ok, false choice it is.

I see the difference between us. You believe the predominant amount of those who are well off were lucky. I believe they probably worked hard, educated themselves, adapted to market conditions, saw a product or service that they felt would provide value to people and pursued it. Luck certainly helps though.

Once again, let’s try to generalize. I know that is difficult for engineers, but my use of Brin as an example was just that – an example. Pick any founder of a successful startup. Of course, I guess it wouldn’t matter who I picked if you truly believe success is only a product of luck.

Also, you are not in their peer group. I’m sorry. It’s nice that you have a high level of self esteem but you are not part of their group. You may be smarter, or more detail oriented, or better at writing terse, more intellectual-than-thou posts on boards than they are but they managed to break free of the routinized world of nine to five by creating something of value, taking risk, and competing successfully in the marketplace over a long period of time.

“Blessed”? Who said anything about being blessed? I’m not putting them up on a pedestal I just respect the fact that they’ve done something productive. I mean they could have just stuck with the 9-5 routine and driven to work everyday, done what they were told, earned their paycheck, driven home, watched TV and posted on boards about how sad it is that the rich are shafting the poor and the government needs to step in and help.

As for health care. I’ll take care of myself thanks.

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