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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (176631)	12/1/2005 4:06:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Ridiculously huge" tax means anything over 20% and definitely anything over 30% and to even think about 40% is insane. But think about it and enact it is what hordes of bludging voters demand of their candidates. Even higher than 40% is common and something like 60% is the fact for swarms of taxpayers in New Zealand for example, if one includes hidden taxes such as petroleum products taxes, goods and services taxes, government owned business charges, city and council and other 'rates', tobacco, alcohol and import duties, taxes and imposts, permits, fees, licenses, passports and all sorts of government rorts. It is amazing to me that people go on voting for more of the same like turkeys voting for an early Xmas and an extra Thanksgiving. Negative net worths don't normally run to the $millions or hundreds of $000s, or even tens of thousands. Negative net worth is mostly credit card type debt by the financially incompetent. <Of course there's a negative net worth. Indebtedness can't be wished away just because people have a negative net worth. Do you understand the new bankruptcy bill? > Only a small proportion would have a negative net worth and that would be of relatively small amounts. No, I haven't read the new bankruptcy bill but get the impression it means bankruptcy isn't such an easy out for crooks who run up debts and don't want to pay them. Good. When I was young I used to believe this ideology. But then I bumped into reality and thought about it. <I'm more optimistic than you are. I see the possibility of a world where no one is poor and no one outrageously rich. People aren't that much different from one another and it's only our collective society that allows for amazing wealth accumulation. I believe it's an ill society that has a very large gap between rich and poor. > I'm much more optimistic than you are. I see amazing possibilities for continuing great accumulations of wealth. Nobody is really poor in the USA. Check out the obesity levels and think about what actual poverty used to mean. Think about the type of clothes poor people had when there actually was poverty. Not many people are roaming around the USA almost naked for lack of sufficient clothes. Not many are wearing recycling sugar bags. Around the world, wealth for the poorest 10% is amazing compared with 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. You will find watches in poor countries now. In the USA even poor people have watches and some even have a tv and in an incredible but true phenomenon of the 21st century, and thanks to me [and others], some poor people even have cellphones. Can you imagine that? Do you know that in China, land of poverty and famine in living memory, some 300 million people have cellphones and millions of cellphones are selling daily? Do you know that CDMA cyberphones are going to be everywhere in India soon? Do you know that even poor people can own a calculator without getting a bank loan to buy one? Yes, even poor people in the USA can afford one. Not that they would have a clue how to use it. Which is a clue to why they are "poor" and will stay that way, no matter how much they vote to steal from people who can use a calculator and computer and take the trouble to do so. You say people aren't that much different from one another. You need to meet more people. I have worked in a sheltered workshop for the mentally and physically disabled and I can tell you that those adults were vastly different from Dr Irwin Jacobs of QUALCOMM fame. Taking less extreme examples, the difference between an IQ 80 person and IQ 140 is huge in what they are capable of achieving. Even the gap between an IQ 90 and IQ 110 person is substantial in earning ability, meaning ability to do useful things. Apart from ability, there is attitude. Some people are bludgers and layabouts. Others are go-getter workers keen to do things well. Some are personable charmers who can do a lot and others are nasty pieces of work who will steal the boss's cash and smash things. The difference between people is huge and getting huger. Then there is luck. Some are unlucky. Some are lucky. Some are very very lucky. Some are extremely unlucky. Nature works like that. Stealing from people you deem to be "lucky" and giving it to those you favour is envy. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. As is greed. Greed is the root of all evil. Stealing property from other people and enslaving them, as you are keen on, is greed and evil. It's an ill society that is full of envy, greed and legalized theft by politicians and their supporters. Yes, it's our "collective society" which enables amazing wealth creation - and that wealth is produced by the producers within that society, not the bludgers, though the bludgers manage to hide in the society, like viruses in a person, fooling the body into tolerating them. Mqurice