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To: mishedlo who wrote (200338)	10/25/2002 6:33:04 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

very good -- tax code is IMMORAL -- that's the only word for it (never has been about revenues to support government functions -- total illusion -- it's all redistribution of economic wealth and government control). So is the monetary system -- time to reap the results of the evil perpetrated for years -- Rostenkowski should still be in prison -- no better yet -- exiled ...

To: mishedlo who wrote (200338)	10/25/2002 7:04:58 PM
From: Simba	Respond to of 436258

You left out an important pre-amble to the story. The tenth man was Ken Lay and the nine others were ENRON share holders or employees from whom Ken has nicely appropriated a large sum of money. He now can afford to pay a lerger portion of the cost of dinner compared to his impoverished shareholders. No wonder the other nine want to beat him up! Simba

To: mishedlo who wrote (200338)	10/25/2002 7:23:35 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

The only way to get money distributed properly is by lots of honest trading. (aka "temperature" in the theory explained below) Government needs to handle international politics, the military and civic infrastructure. A lot of that can be handled by private business too. Extra money should not be given to governments as they just waste it. Money is best left in the hands of the rich who know how to handle it and make it work. 80% of the money is owned by 20% of the people at best. If you cut off the heads of the rich, new rich guys appear. The theory was field tested by the French during the revolution. Yep, theory confirmed. It's proven true of every economy in the world since the 1800's. Mind you one of those "econophysics" guys interpreted the results as saying increased taxes would help the poor. F**king commie -g- =========================================================== science-finance.fr Do we care if the rich are always here, as long as we get a bite at the cherry? Illustration: Brett Rider WATCH out, here come the econophysicists! OK, so they may not come from a branch of science you've heard of, but you soon will if the physicists now invading the quasiscience of economics have anything to do with it. Not to make money, of course, but with that usual physicist's hubris that they can explain the world more simply than everyone else. And, judging by the work of two Parisian econophysicists, they are making a controversial start at tearing up some perplexing economics and reducing them to a few elegant general principles--with the help of some serious mathematics borrowed from the study of disordered materials. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard set out to explain why every country in the world has a few rich people and then a long tail of poorer and poorer people, distributed according to a simple and unvarying statistical rule (see p 22). In much of the Western world, 20 per cent of the people always own 80 per cent of the wealth. Economists have tended to look for explanations in human terms--in the distribution of talent, for example. But why should the distribution vary so little across cultures or over the past century? According to the physicists, it is all very simple. The distribution arises from the unpredictability of life: if returns on investment are uncertain and each person trades with a network of others, then inequalities in wealth will arise wholly naturally. Even if we all started life with precisely the same abilities and the same amount of money, over time we'd still end up with the same distribution of rich and poor. It's not just a law of economics but a law of nature--the rich will always be with us. If that sounds gloomily fatalistic, don't abandon hope yet. Although the new breed of econophysicists are a welcome breath of fresh air for economics, their theories remain very general. They say nothing about individuals. Although the mathematical distribution of rich and poor might be a law of nature, nothing is said about who is going to be rich or poor. That remains dependent on the individual, their opportunities and all the social policies that governments must try to get right. After all, do most people really care if the rich are always there, provided we have a chance to be among them? Bouchaud and Mézard's theory might even add something to social theory. From the equations they have borrowed from materials science, they predict that societies will grow more equal if their economic "temperatures" are higher. A high temperature means lots and lots of vigorous trading between more and more people. Perhaps the fever-pitch Internet trading boom could prove an antidote to inequality as more and more people participate in the random ebb and flow of wealth. Still feeling enraged that physics predicts the rich are an inescapable fact of life? If you are an idealist, look at it another way. If the rich will always be with us, so will the revolutionaries who want to terminate them with extreme prejudice. If a new class of rich inevitably emerges after every levelling, then so will a new class of malcontents to chop off their heads. If those French physicists have it right, they might one day be able to predict when the wheel will turn full circle and it is time to start sharpening the guillotine again. Danton would be proud of them. To hear the views of the econophysicists visit www.unifr.ch/econophysics From New Scientist magazine, 19 August 2000.

To: mishedlo who wrote (200338)	10/25/2002 7:50:39 PM
From: Clever Nick Name	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

This is the most narrow minded opinion on taxes I have seen in ages. Why should the rich pay more taxes? (And I include myself in that category BTW). It's simple, they derive far more benefit from government services. From the roads and buses that bring their servants to their homes, to the education system that trains their workers to the government that enforces contracts for them. Take this example and chew on it for a while. If the US government didn't own aircraft carriers, Bill Gates would need to or his copyrights would be worthless on most of the planet.

To: mishedlo who wrote (200338)	10/25/2002 8:29:57 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

That's a a really dumb supposed example. I don't blame you for it but whoever thought it up is an idiot who imagines he is a smartass. I make enough money to be in the "upper" brackets and I don't pay anything like my share in comparison with the unfortunate guys trying to support a family lower down the income scale. Years ago no one making a basic living wage had to pay any taxes. Now with social security, sales taxes, and the lower brackets of income taxes the burden falls quite heavily on moderate income people. That is the stupidest piece of Reagonomics apology I have read. See Krugman's piece in last week's NY Sunday Times Magazine.