TCbroad, are you calling hiring someone to work on your house creating a job?
That's hiring paying for a service or hiring a company.
If you are saying that it is easy and anyone can create a job that is self-sustainable because the employee's output is greater than the cost of the employee then your credibility just flew out the window.

Envy is such a deadly sin.

And there we go. I guessed as much. Tettleton did mute me. Not sure when or why exactly. But whatever. Time to add a little badge of honour to my profile.

Muted by: Tettleton Chew
Apparently some people can't stand seeing logical discourse.

I'm not entirely sure it is worth responding to his nonsense given that he can't see what I'm saying but I might as well.

Tettle: If we define a job as something which is self-sustainable then a huge percentage of American jobs, are not jobs. A large portion of the economy in America is tertiary jobs. Which is to say the service industry, while you can place a value on some of these services. They could hardly be described as self sustainable. Most of the jobs value is primarily emotional, rather than economic.

At a department store for example, the employees who go around helping customers, aren't creating a net positive economic output, or at least a proven economic output. However the company desires to have a positive image, additional the money these employees make is then funnelled back into the store through employee discount plans.

If fact most jobs that are not in manufacturing cannot be quantified easily in terms of output, as opposed to input (salary)

However their is a valid point in amongst what you said which is that a job has to be sustainable for it to have any impact on unemployment. Which is true, and while creating jobs may not be easy, TCbroad's point as read it is that everyone has the potential to create jobs. Although many will not capitalize on the opportunity.

@Gunfighter, "Not very many dumb people are rich."
What do you base this assertion on? Has there been a study showing an inverse correlation?

"If the taxes on the rich go up by a lot, the rich will squirrel away their money in tax shelters, pay their employees less, or raise prices on their consumers. Taxes on rich people get passed onto everyone else."
By that logic, we might as well eliminate all taxes for the rich, since they won't feel them anyway... Would your recommend that?

The rich stole the money from everybody else. It doesn't belong to them. They're leeches and parasites who don't work for a living.

Yeah - it cracks me up when they claim that rich people work harder... on what do they base this? I thought the whole idea of being rich was so that you could work less... But besides that, they offer no statistics or studies to back it up. Basic fallacy: For B (being rich), you must have A (hard work)... therefore A necessarily leads to B. ...similarly, they make another fallacy about poor people and them being necessarily lazy... For B (being rich), you must have A (hard work)... this is again the assumption... therefore, if your are not B, you must also not A. Neither of these are valid logical operations... not to mention that I dispute the assumption (that one must work hard to be rich)... there are clearly examples of people not working particularly hard and simply getting lucky, knowing the right people, inheriting money, etc.

...and once rich, they can simply hold onto that power over others and not work hard (remember, that's the capitalist's dream... to get others to do your work).

Well, presumably someone somewhere had to work hard to build up that wealth, even if we're talking all the way back to the beginnings of civilization. Nowadays, though, there's certainly no guarantee that someone worked hard to be wealthy.

@TC: no... I'm just saying that in theory, anyone could create jobs. All they need to do is get a little money, copy a business idea, and charge less for it.

@ dexter

"What do you base this assertion on? Has there been a study showing an inverse correlation?"

Common sense. Most rich people are smart enough to manage their wealth, or else they wouldn't be rich for very long.

"By that logic, we might as well eliminate all taxes for the rich, since they won't feel them anyway... Would your recommend that?"

No, I am in favor of a flat tax or a national sales tax.

"Yeah - it cracks me up when they claim that rich people work harder."

For the record, I never claimed that. I just said that not every rich person stole or manipulated money to get rich. Some of them actually did work very hard. But all of that is irrelevant.

@ Putin

"The rich stole the money from everybody else. It doesn't belong to them. They're leeches and parasites who don't work for a living."

How do you back that up, Putin?

That's what accountants are for, Gunfighter.

I think that everyone should pay fifty percent of their income to the State government. That way everything is fair and if the national government needs money, they take it from the state.

TC Broad, Then why do we have 9+% unemployment?
Anyone who is unemployed could get a "little" money, follow a business plan someone else came up with, and employ themselves?

@Putin - Please explain how the rich are stealing that which, by yoyur philsophy, one cannot own anyhow? Stealing is taking something from someone who lawfully owns it, yet your philsophy says we don't own anything, right? So please explain this conundrum to me.

Obama is rich. Is he a leech and a parasite?
Obama doesn't work hard?
Pelosi is one one of the richest people in the House of Representatives.
Is she a leech and a parasite. Her money belong to someone else. She doesn't work for a living?

It's so easy to demolish the rants of the frustrated who envy the rich.

TC Broad, Then why do we have 9+% unemployment?
Anyone who is unemployed could get a "little" money, follow a business plan someone else came up with, and employ themselves?

"Is she a leech and a parasite(?)"

Yes.

"Obama is rich. Is he a leech and a parasite?"

On a bad day, yes.

"Please explain how the rich are stealing that which, by yoyur philsophy, one cannot own anyhow? Stealing is taking something from someone who lawfully owns it, yet your philsophy says we don't own anything, right? So please explain this conundrum to me."

Draugnar + 1

Can someone define exactly what is "fair."
Is it fair for someone to have more money than another?
Is it fair for someone to work harder than another?
Is it fair for one women to be called more beautiful than another?
Is it fair for one husband to love his wife more than another husband loves his wife?

If "fair" is such an easily understood label that we can use it to take property from one individual and give it to another we should be able to easily define such an overarching and powerful doctrine.

Who did Mark Zuckerberg take money from when he made Facebook?
You sign up for free on facebook?
Where did his money come from? Why is he rich?
What is unfair about Mark being rich?

Do people bash the rich out of envy or because they are ignorant of what it takes to be rich?
Do they bash the rich because public demagogues manipulate them to do so?
Demagogues who themselves are rich?

Gunfighter,
Pelosi personally isn't a leech. Here husband is an extraordinary real estate investor and from what I understand a vintner.
I personally admire President Obama's life story. He grew up in a single-parent home and made good.
How can you not be inspired by his personal ability?
I am disgusted with his politics, but not with him. He loves his wife and his children.
He is just inept at economic policy and can't escape the corrupt Great Society political mindset he grew up under.

Sorry, TC. I was just poking fun at Comrade Pelosi and Comrade Obama.

We live in a complicated society where privacy is protected, with hundreds of millions of people conducting their daily lives completely hidden from everyone outside their closet friends.

We offer up explanations why someone is poor without even know them by putting forth a stereotype which of course is quite irrational.
Yet you see stereotypes applied to people with incomes over a quarter million annually or with million dollar net worth that are irrational as well and completely disconnected from the individuals life story.
You don't have the faintest idea how an individual in North Dakota came to be worth a million dollars in their lifetime, yet you can label them irrationally and stereotype them irrationally.
Bigotry worked the same way. Bigotry is blind to the individual and stereotype groups based on irrationality.

@TC No, not a national sales tax. Sales taxes are regressive taxes because they take up a larger portion of lower incomes. Bill Gates and Joe Blow would pay the same tax on food (fair by some people's standards), but would Bill really eat enough to pay 6% of his total income on food? Joe, because he is in poverty would wind up paying 6% of his income. Joe could eat less, but is that realistic?

Define income then flat tax it.

The rich (and by rich I mean capitalists, there are some rich people who don't own businesses, certain celebrities or professionals) live off the labor of others. They pay others to do work and profit off of that work. They pay their workers less than the value of that work in order to make said profits. Obama makes most of his money off books he wrote. His income fluctuates wildly based on book sales. He isn't profiting off the back of others but is making money off of his name recognition and celebrity. He's a unique case in which he actually produces something. Nonetheless he thinks it's perfectly appropriate to tax more of his income and he donates a good deal of it to non-profits. Pelosi is essentially a giant landlord and investor. Land ownership is theft. What exactly is she producing? Her family profits from the workers of Apple, among others.

"Stealing is taking something from someone who lawfully owns it, yet your philsophy says we don't own anything, right? So please explain this conundrum to me."

People own their own bodies and the labor that they do. Yet they're paid less than the value of the labor they do. They produce goods and services but the capitalist expropriates these finished goods and services for their own profit. In terms of land ownership, who decided who was the original owner of a particular property? In early capitalist societies land titles were gained through an enclosure process in which peasants were kicked off the land and the land was handed over to the nobility. That's theft. The property was held in common but became private property. Why does ownership need to be privately owned in order for their to be theft? If someone steals, say, property belonging to the government that's still theft is it not?

A flat tax is regressive because most of the rich make their profits off investments while the poor and middle class do not.

Is life a matter of sheer luck?
Does intelligence, ambition, honesty, work ethic, and frugality play no part?
Are we all the same, equal, egalitarian.
Is there nothing that separates President Obama from a homeless individual besides luck?
Is it only accident that Obama isn't homeless.
It is only accident that someone is rich and someone is poor?
It is all because the "system" (whatever that completely vague and undefined 'thing' is) is rigged?
Was Michelangelo a great painter out of luck?
Is one athlete better than another just because of luck?

Is it impossible for someone to strive for excellence while another individual has no ambition whatsoever?

Czech, if Bill Gates and I took the same plane flight and he flew first-class and I flew coach who would pay more tax for the same trip (even though he flew more comfortably)?

Czech, If you and I go to Las Vegas and you play poker at the same table in the Bellagio, but you stay in the Penthouse and I stay in the cheapest room in the joint do we pay the same tax?
The rich will pay more under a national sales tax because they buy more expensive items.
The percentage of what the rich and poor pay is the same.

""By that logic, we might as well eliminate all taxes for the rich, since they won't feel them anyway... Would your recommend that?"

No, I am in favor of a flat tax or a national sales tax."

That seems rather arbitrary. If taxing the rich is truly a waste of time as you claim, then I believe we shouldn't tax the rich - at all... that would be silly. Tell me why you believe that taxing the rich makes any sense... they are, as you said, only going to pass the cost on to the rest of us. Also by the same logic, taxing them more would not hurt them... so why not do it? (based on your own assertion, you should be shrugging your shoulders in indifference at the idea) Commonly I hear two mutually exclusive arguments from flat tax advocates and other conservatives: 1) taxes to the rich hurt the economy because the rich are our job creators - so therefore we shouldn't hurt them, 2) it's not like they're going to get hurt by it anyway, they'll pass the cost on to us. So, which is it? Cause you can't logically have both... (even though conservatives try for both all the time). Now granted that you can still argue that the flat tax is "fair"... but these other two arguments cancel each other... and are clearly just BS.

Also: I thought the market created demand and demand naturally lead to people providing goods and services, but conservatives claim that rich people "create" jobs... I'm confused, if it is supply rather than demand that creates jobs, then it follows that the federal government also creates jobs, doesn't it? After all, they can supply jobs and goods and services, therefore, like rich people, they must be the job creators. You all say you're conservative, but you don't believe that demand drives the market?? Very odd. I think that conservative just means holding on to the money and has nothing to do with making an efficient economy. Cause really, an efficient economy would put money in the hands of the poor and middle class, because they drive demand... they spend everything they earn, more often than not, so the money keeps moving and driving the market. Demand, in turn, provides opportunity for the rich to invest in businesses that address the demand. If, as conservatives claim, rich people drive the economy and create jobs, then the middle ages should have been the richest time in our history - because of the concentration of money in the hands of a few rich people... the jobs and opportunities created must have been enormous. How come I never heard about the vast economic engine that was the middle ages?

@Putin - So you keep capital gains as taxable. And you tax *all* forms of income in the flat tax. Then it isn't regressive. As far as a national sales tax, that can be non-regressive as well if you don't tax necessities. Most states (all the ones I've ever lived in at least) don't tax food (exception being pop) at the grocery store, although they do tax some household cleaning supplies like TP and paper towels which is stupid. Determine what products are necessities and what are luxuries and only tax the luxuries.