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Comment: Re:Come and get it, stupid future generations! (Score 1) 669

by kbolino (#46460743) Attached to: 70% of U.S. Government Spending Is Writing Checks To Individuals

If Warren Buffet pays a lower percentage tax rate than his secretary, I don't see how you can honestly claim taxes are progressive.

The principal reason for this is SS and Medicare taxes, which while definitely not progressive due to being capped, are tied to benefits that are also capped. Buffet will almost certainly have paid more into SS than he will have taken out by the day he dies.

Also, Buffet is roughly one-third owner of Berkshire Hathaway, while his secretary has no such holdings. Not only is he taxed on any realized capital gains, but the company paid taxes on its income, and so he paid a roughly one-third share of those taxes from his equity in the company.

The income tax by itself is definitely progressive; if you want to factor in other taxes, then you need to account for capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc. as well.


by kbolino (#46460673) Attached to: 70% of U.S. Government Spending Is Writing Checks To Individuals

The growth in income could not be described as even slightly balanced.

Income quintiles, 1960: 2,784 / 4,800 / 6,364 / 8,800
Income quintiles, 2012: 27,794 / 49,788 / 76,538 / 119,001
Change in quantiles: 998% / 1037% / 1203% / 1352%

CPI change from 1960 to 2012: 776%

Population change from 1960 to 2012: 175%

There are nearly twice as many people, yet even the lowest 20% of income earners are making 28% more in real dollars. How are they in any way harmed by the fact that the highest 20% of income earners are making 74% more in real dollars?


by kbolino (#46460587) Attached to: 70% of U.S. Government Spending Is Writing Checks To Individuals

These types of budget problems ... require higher taxes.

For 70 years, federal tax revenue has averaged 16-18% of GDP while expenditures have increased from 16% of GDP to 24% of GDP. Our budget issues are not revenue problems.

The richest have been undertaxed for decades.

The highest income earners pay the most in income taxes, the owners of the most valuable real estate pay the most in property taxes, and the largest consumers pay the most in sales taxes. How is this undertaxation?

Comment: Re:The Slashdot slant. (Score 1) 136

by kbolino (#46187749) Attached to: These Are the Companies the FAA Has Sent notices To For Using Drones

If the FAA didn't step in now, the first time that UPS's drone cargo 747 smashed into an airport terminal people would say, "Why haven't you been regulating these since the beginning?"

And the FAA can respond by making the case that regulations for their own sake would not have prevented it. Now, having witnessed the accident, they can investigate and determine an appropriate response. Just because some people tend to have irrational responses doesn't mean that everybody else has to give in to them.

The day they decide they can get away with running drone aircraft you'll see layoffs.

How is that relevant to aviation safety? New Jersey and Oregon say that self-service gasoline pumping is dangerous, but those of us in the other 48 states aren't blowing up all the time pumping our own gas. If the absence of a pilot proves to be an important factor in the likelihood of aviation accidents, then a case can be made for requiring one, but not until.

Comment: Re:Cannot disagree (Score 1) 134

by kbolino (#46185725) Attached to: NZ Govt May Gut Privacy Laws For US Citizens and Ex-Pats

I can go to a doctor and not be out of pocket. That's free.

No, it's not. The cost is paid indirectly, but it is still paid. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Now as for the taxation cost, that's a hell of a lot cheaper than private systems and better quality,

What private systems? Oh you mean the United States? The heavily regulated, mostly state-funded, highly corrupt system that will soon have state-run health insurance? Yeah, that's a private system alright.

I don't have to worry about the triage nurse having to do a credit check before stopping the bleeding.

Hospitals want you to die, don't you know? That's why they hire doctors and nurses, so that people will die right at their doorsteps! If you believe that people won't help you unless they're forced to do so, then you have a morally bankrupt view of the world. Why would you even want their help?

And you use the exact same assertion without evidence, except you're also using an appeal to authority.

What assertion? What authority? Are you arguing against what I wrote, or what you thought I wrote?

You can leave.

Such a welcoming attitude! Tolerance and diversity, all around.

Farewell and I wish you luck in your libertarian paradise, if you can find one that isn't a despotic nightmare.

There is no such thing as paradise. The first rule of economics is scarcity.

LoL, many businesses are set up that you cant do that.

You mean, you can't stop paying them and still receive the service they provide? Yeah, things have a cost, that's why they're not free.

Don't like the way petrol companies are colluding, erm... Public telco's, well they're the only one operating in your area.

And yet every attempt by the government to solve these problems only exacerbates them. Every once in a while, we're treated to the government solving problems by creating new ones! Price fixing and gasoline rationing worked out great in the 1970s.

As above, you can leave.

You first. No, I insist.

Even getting off the grid and living in some cabin in the woods would get you out of it.

What woods? Half the forests are owned by the government, and the other half you'd have to pay property taxes (= rent to the government) on.

However you simply dont want to because it would require you to give up too many creature comforts you've grown accustomed to.

I'll pay for them. What you can't accept is that I will pay for the things I want, and not pay for the things I don't want. It's choice that you don't want me to have.

This is less of a case of the GPP being wrong and more of a case of "waaahhhhh the world is not as I would like it"

What is the point of democracy if everybody is supposed to vote the same way?

Well grow up and get over it.

Yes, grow up and worship the state. Surely, you will find absolution in its bosom.

Comment: Re:Cannot disagree (Score 1) 134

by kbolino (#46185533) Attached to: NZ Govt May Gut Privacy Laws For US Citizens and Ex-Pats

And more cheaply than in the US, I might add.

Price != Cost

If you want to let the private sector take care of education, road maintenance, defense, and health care, then move to some place like Somalia or Afghanistan where that's effectively the case.

After 30 years of communist rule, Somalia was ruled by warlords and Islamists (aka Muslim socialists). The current "internationally recognized" government is secular socialist. Afghanistan was ruled by communists, then unelected Islamists, and now elected Islamists. There is no "private sector" to speak of in either country. Everything is confiscated in the name of the state, the religion, or both.

No, you get no choice.

Gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious!

That's the price of living in a society with civil institutions.

No, it's not. It's the "price" of living in a country that steals from its own people and then justifies it in the name of "civilization".

Again, if you don't like it, Somalia beckons... go there for a taste of anarchy.

How the hell is a failed communist state an example of what not paying taxes looks like?

That business could affect you in many other ways

Unlike the government...?

By polluting, through monopolistic market manipulation, through buying legislation, ... I'm sure you can think of many more.

Pollution can only be solved when people are wealthy enough to afford products made cleanly. China has a state-run economy, and yet pollution is rampant. The Soviet Union had a massive pollution problem. Governments don't solve these problems, wealth does.

What legislation can a business buy in a government that has no power to grant it favors?

Yes, that's the cynical view that's easy to promote via sound bites.

Statistics are cynical, now? The only reason you believe the system is accountable to you is because you are blind to its flaws. You are judging by intentions, not outcomes.

However, I would much rather live in a society like Canada's with our democratic system (flawed though it may be) than in any other society.

There really aren't a whole lot of choices. There's democratic socialism, communist kleptocracy, and brutal theocracy.

And migration patterns show that most people agree and vote with their feet.

You really don't get the whole "correlation is not causation" thing, do you? Countries like Canada and the US are the only ones that even make a pretense of private property and the preservation of wealth. That doesn't mean you have the right system, only the least wrong one.

Comment: Re:The Slashdot slant. (Score 1) 136

by kbolino (#46185201) Attached to: These Are the Companies the FAA Has Sent notices To For Using Drones

It isn't harassment to be told by the agency responsible for regulating aviation to put on the brakes until the rules are in place.

If the drones are not causing problems, then there is no need to regulate them. Regulation should only exist when it is useful in solving problems that a) people aren't resolving on their own and b) have severe consequences to the lives and freedom of others. A regulatory agency should not act like an ivory tower, passing decrees based upon arbitrary criteria. The rules should come from best practices; how do you determine best practices by forbidding the activity altogether?

It isn't difficult to imagine that alcohol deliveries on inland and coastal waters are going to present some special problems.

Alcohol as a payload does not present any hazards relevant to aviation.

Comment: Re:Cannot disagree (Score 2) 134

by kbolino (#46151589) Attached to: NZ Govt May Gut Privacy Laws For US Citizens and Ex-Pats

I'm quite happy to pay taxes ... because I get ... free medical care ....

Nothing is free, not least of all when you are obviously paying for it.

There are some things that simply can't be done effectively by the private sector (education, road maintenance, defense, health care)

Assertion without evidence. Correlation is not causation.

I'm very happy to pay the government to do those things

And I'm not. But do I get a choice in the matter?

After all, the government is run by elected officials who (at least in my opinion, and at least in Canada) are certainly more accountable to the public than CEOs of private corporations.

If I don't like the way a business operates, I stop buying its products, and it ceases to affect me. If I don't like the way the government operates, I have to continue paying taxes to it anyway.

What little say I get in the government, a single vote on occasion, is always discarded in favor of the majority opinion. It is not accountable to me at all.

Comment: Re:$136? (Score 1) 231

by kbolino (#46115597) Attached to: Would Linus Torvalds Please Collect His Bitcoin Tips?

the US federal government, a body worth $66.07 trillion

The U.S. federal government has a negative net worth (specifically, of -$10.6 billion). The number you quoted represents the net worth of U.S. households and nonprofits (currently at $77.2 billion). That is not money that the federal government would have an easy time getting its hands on.

Bitcoin, which is backed by mathematics and some currency speculators.

As opposed to the U.S. dollar, which is backed only by currency speculators? The "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government just means that the government will always accept its own money. It doesn't give anything of value in exchange for them, so really the entire currency is predicated on other people's willingness to accept the U.S. dollar as a medium of exchange.
