Christianity Today Op Ed

[Jaecp]

Sean, I watched the first clip in that and it just looks like people talking. The person yelling "nazi scum off our streets" is clearly much closer to the microphone than the old couple and they're just talking. I'm not even sure if the "this is Canada, man" comment is from them or another person

Again, I'm from Portland, that's first clip is from Ontario. Antifa is overwhelmingly local people.

[seanD]

Sean, I watched the first clip in that and it just looks like people talking. The person yelling "nazi scum off our streets" is clearly much closer to the microphone than the old couple and they're just talking. I'm not even sure if the "this is Canada, man" comment is from them or another person

Again, I'm from Portland, that's first clip is from Ontario. Antifa is overwhelmingly local people.

They're just talking LOL. Dude, you are delusional.

[Jaecp]

Um, that's not what causes negative numbers. Money is fungible. When looking at who pays we also have to look at who receives. When you factor in government programs the lowest class actually receives more than it pays. Factor in indirect benefits and the middle class is on the receiving side of the scale.

I agree income inequality is a big problem but from what I have been reading we can't tax our way out of it. My understanding is that the financial markets are siphoning off so much and investing so little in tangible terms that they are not doing their normal functions of providing capital and growth. People are wealthy on paper that ties up the money that would otherwise have been invested in capital. Increasing taxes, if that's really the case, just drives even more money out of the real economy.

Uh, so, I don't think thats really the core issue. High tax rates pre-Reagan incentive reinvesting in companies/workers. Post-Reagan, its much easier to loot a fortune out of a thriving business and leave the little guy to rot. Also, and like its been a week, but I'm fairly certain MM was sharing federal income tax charts, as he tends to do, so it wasn't actually an aggregate data, but a single data point that he was trying to use to make his point. Wall Street is definately an issue, and there are ways to go after that, but the big thing is that we need to raise business taxes so that companies pay their workers more and invest in tangible things. That aspect of the problem can, 100%, be attacked using taxes as a way to push society in a better direction.

Also, while it might be true that the lowest class receives more than it pays you're describing people living in literal poverty and the thing about the middle class just, I don't really want to tangle with that stuff since there's nothing supporting it, but its also a bit tangential. The one thing I'd be curious about is where you get this "we can't tax our way out of this" because the wealthy have a lot of think tanks and the like that pump out "research" about how ineffective the kinds of things we want to do are at affecting the rich :)

[Jaecp]

Dude, you are delusional.

Its only 24 seconds long Sean, a women walks up to protesters, they talk, the video cuts out for some reason (which is suspicious), the guy in orange has his hands in his pockets the whole time and the people talking to the women in blue have their hands at their waists the whole time.

If thats all that happens in the first clip featured then why would I watch more of that? Its boring.

[seanD]

Its only 24 seconds long Sean, a women walks up to protesters, they talk, the video cuts out for some reason (which is suspicious), the guy in orange has his hands in his pockets the whole time and the people talking to the women in blue have their hands at their waists the whole time.

If thats all that happens in the first clip featured then why would I watch more of that? Its boring.

They're trying to cross, they can barely walk. The antifa goons intentionally block their path, yelling "nazi scum" at them. I"m done with you, man. I'm thinking now you're a probably a member and your bias is unyielding to the obvious.

[Jaecp]

They're trying to cross, they can barely walk. The antifa goons intentionally block their path, yelling "nazi scum" at them. I"m done with you, man. I'm thinking now you're a probably a member and your bias is unyielding to the obvious.

[Jaecp]

I agree with much of this. The wealthy have the means to game the system in ways that the rest do not. And the wealthy also have greater means of actual cheating. And no, it's not okay to have an unfair advantage or to actually cheat. We should do something about this.

But taxation won't solve it. The wealthy have one very big ace - mobility. They can not only move to another state; they can also move to another country.

I've seen charts indicating that the US government collects about 17 percent of GDP regardless of the tax rate. If that's true then mucking around with the tax rates has no useful effect.

I'm beginning to believe that the real reform is going to have to be in the financial markets and it's not going to be pretty.

The thing with "can move to another country" arguments is that people generally like living where they do. America, unlike a lot of countries, can actually raise taxes because people like to live here, their money is stored at banks registered here, and a whole host of other regions. America is also a global leader so if we chose to do a course of action to address this problem then we can work with other western democracies to basically box out the kinds of places those people would flee to.

You also made a really good point in that other post about paper wealth and I think that wealth taxes or other stuff that targets the speculation will be very helpful there. In a lot of ways, the extremely rich just have to much damn money and being poorer would be in their own best interest. The guy who made Minecraft is insanely rich now and spends a lot of his time just losing his mind slowly at his gigantic mansion in LA.

Also, taking your 17% as fact, the tax rate is useful still because if we push that 17% of GDP onto our poorest people then that is crushing, but if its spread out more equitably then it won't meaningfully impact as many people. Also, if democracy is for sale then no one should be rich enough to buy it. Teddy Roosevelt is one of my favorite politicians and he taxed the rich more explicitly so that they'd have less money to much about trying to control the entire country's political system. We've gone the wrong direction since him!

So, I think you're underestimating the effects of taxes and overestimating how mobile the rich really are!

We can beat this people, Teal. We just need to get all the people in the bottom half to stop fighting over silly stuff and work on class solidarity!

[Sam]

I agree with much of this. The wealthy have the means to game the system in ways that the rest do not. And the wealthy also have greater means of actual cheating. And no, it's not okay to have an unfair advantage or to actually cheat. We should do something about this.

But taxation won't solve it. The wealthy have one very big ace - mobility. They can not only move to another state; they can also move to another country.

I've seen charts indicating that the US government collects about 17 percent of GDP regardless of the tax rate. If that's true then mucking around with the tax rates has no useful effect.

I'm beginning to believe that the real reform is going to have to be in the financial markets and it's not going to be pretty.

The distinction there is where the taxes come from. Today, corporate and high-income individual taxes are significantly less of the percentage than they were historically. So if the ~17% continues to hold, it's because our tax code has become more regressive, taking a higher percentage of revenue from the other categories.

--Sam

[Jaecp]

The distinction there is where the taxes come from. Today, corporate and high-income individual taxes are significantly less of the percentage than they were historically. So if the ~17% continues to hold, it's because our tax code has become more regressive, taking a higher percentage of revenue from the other categories.

--Sam

Does that conflict directly with any bible verses on ursury?

Also, since this goes to my panama papers thing, it would be interesting to see if there are ways to capture back the panama money indirectly.

Sam, are you read up on the Magnitsky Sanctions? It froze assets of a bunch of russians up to and including Putin. I'm thinking we could do something similar with the panama paper stuff and, say, if we know for a fact that Prince Andrew illegally stashed untaxed income in Panama so that he denied England 2 million dollars of taxes that we could, say, just force BoA to transfer that money to whomever and then, by whatever statute gets written to make this legal, declare that the money sitting in that panama account is not able to be legally brought into the country and will not need to pay any sort of taxes on it.

Basically, since so much of the worlds financial infrastructure runs through our country we could "garnish the wages" of the super wealthy if we've got prove of financial malfeasance?

100% off the cuff spitballing here

Oh, and Teal, one of the neatest things about the Magnitsky act is that it straight up banned a bunch of russian oligarchs from comings to the United States. They like to keep their money here because Russian banks can just be seized by the state without warning, the "mafia capitalism" of modern russia is a fascinating and disturbing read

[rogue06]

Corporations have never paid taxes. They collect them.

[Jaecp]

Oh, also, my "they're just talking dude" was because I was expecting a video that involved someone getting hit or shoved or something. Is the worst antifa violence you can think of from Canadians picketing?

[Jaecp]

Corporations have never paid taxes. They collect them.

Lets fix that then?

[rogue06]

I mean, you're not talking about John Blum are you? That guy came spoiling for a fight, baton and all, but after he got his [ATTACH=CONFIG]41935[/ATTACH] kicked in the fight he came for local right-wing media figures like Andy Ngo portrayed him as just some old man that Antifa attacked for vague reasons

There's a lot of misinformatiom, Sean, but so long as the examples you've got are from Portland I'll probably be able to provide more information as a local than you're going to get from googling :)

Considering how bad some of your information was concerning the Occupy riots I'm not too sure that you are a trustworthy source.

[Teallaura]

And fails to forcefully, repeatedly, and unambiguously condemn such behavior. It would really help if Trump said the opposite of "good people on both sides" when something like this happens. "Hate has no place in America. I condemn this cowardly act in the strongest possible terms. America is the land of opportunity to all and its justice protects all colors and religions." It even fits in a tweet (probably).

Read the whole thing.

[Mountain Man]

That also is just another evasive post. You gonna go for strike three?

The discussion was about Charlottesville and false claims that Trump called Neo-Nazis "very l fine people" and Sam's ridiculous insistence that there is no distinction between peaceful protestors and those itching for a fight. You suggest Jaecp has firsthand knowledge, but he wasn't at Charlottesville to the best of my knowledge, so...