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Defund the IRS


MeerkatBong

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You know who else is a drag on the system by flattie's standards?  The elderly whose primary income is social security, which is entirely untaxed unless you have other income, from investments or employment.

There is no safety net in the State of Texas for the elderly without substantial savings or who have run through and have major health problems like dementia.  You are disqualified from Medicaid if you make more than 2,523/month as a single person, say widowed or divorced.  And that's not near enough money to pay for assisted living or a nursing home.

And if you don't have family to take you in or financially assist, you're absolutely fucked.

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Step 1: Flatty dreams of a place where all is good, people have jobs, no poors, low unemployment, industries have high barriers to entry.  This paradise has a name.  It is . . .

Step 2: Scandinavia.  Or Northern Europe.  And then he hears about THE TAXES.  Holy shit, he thought taxes were bad things and made life bad.  Turns out maybe that's not the case.  That a nation can have taxes -- even on the rich -- and lo and behold, the job creators haven't fled to Monte Carlo.  Welp, they may have taxes but at least they they are all blond and haven't been invade by teh browns people.

Step 3: Turns on TV watches the World Cup.  Wut?  Netherlands goal scoring dude seems awfully. . . . Moluccan or something.  

Edited by Bullneck
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7 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It’s weird how many people still don’t recognize an obvious fascist when they see one. He couldn’t be any more obvious unless he started wearing an armband with a swastika on it. Fatty would gladly vote to exterminate a billion people.

Amazing your hot take rate is higher than Rocko ever dreamed.  Just swinging, and missing, over and over.  I’m absolutely embarrassed for you. 

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4 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

Amazing your hot take rate is higher than Rocko ever dreamed.  Just swinging, and missing, over and over.  I’m absolutely embarrassed for you. 

Rocko was a damaged, insecure poster.  And a better person than you. 

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13 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It’s weird how many people still don’t recognize an obvious fascist when they see one. He couldn’t be any more obvious unless he started wearing an armband with a swastika on it. Fatty would gladly vote to exterminate a billion people.

Oh, he's obvious.  But no one believes they're the bad guy.  They craft their stories to justify their evil.  Including dehumanizing others.  It doesn't matter if poor people's children starve or if a McDonald's worker can't afford cancer treatment.  Because they're lazy, undeserving, and less than human.  He's justifying being a horrible person by feigning outrage over those lazy, stupid, greedy poors.

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9 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Preferential treatment from the government literally created and sustains the middle class.

Indeed. The 20th century US was one great big pander to the middle class.

Edited by G650
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7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


I’m grateful every fucking day that 1) I was born with some gifts (I’m smart - I wanted to be fast, and to be able to throw a football 80 yards, but that wasn’t in the cards), 2) I was born to parents who stayed married and sacrificed for me, 3) I lived at a time when the State of Texas still invested in its universities, and me in particular, 4) no major calamity has befallen me to set me back on any of those counts, etc.

And I see people who didn’t have those things….and I sure as fuck don’t resent them, or think “man, I wish I had it as easy as they do.”

Exactly. There by the grace of God go I

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11 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Do you want equity?   Surely you see the disconnect?
 

Lower taxes would be great. What would be even better is if we didn’t have such a large population who have preferential financial treatment at the hands of the government.  Taxes at the current rates are fine, too.  But apparently people can’t afford an American lifestyle if asked to pay equitably. 

If the poor have it so great why are you still working?

Quit your job and join them.

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My favorite part is being educated by folks who daily drive their Aston Martins to their transatlantic races in their carbon fiber boat, guys who spent (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars on private primary AND international secondary education for their kids, while watching their homes turn from nice, to deep 7 figure values.  Grew up in the Park cities, cool.  Please, please continue to tell me how well you are dialed in with the poor in our country. 

By the grace of God we go, indeed. 

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My favorite part is being educated by folks who daily drive their Aston Martins to their transatlantic races in their carbon fiber boat, guys who spent (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars on private primary AND international secondary education for their kids, while watching their homes turn from nice, to deep 7 figure values.  Grew up in the Park cities, cool.  Please, please continue to tell me how well you are dialed in with the poor in our country. 
By the grace of God we go, indeed. 

Well, my daily driver is a dented Hyundai with 115k miles, and if I was gonna spend money on a boat, it’d be a bay boat, but I don’t have one…and I sure didn’t grow up in the park cities. But otherwise….yeah, I do very well today, and my house has appreciated to stupid levels.
BUT…I was born and lived my first years in a tiny apartment, then grew up in a generic super cheap house that, at the time we bought it, was at the end of a poorly maintained road at the edge of town. My mother survived on food stamps for much of her childhood. Our family friends were all different variations on oilfield trash. My kids first Europe trip…was MY first Europe trip (8 years ago). And my folks paid for it. I still fly coach and shop fare bargains.

More directly, we have actual, real friends who live paycheck to paycheck, and/or live in a dinky one bedroom apartment, etc.
It doesn’t take much to see and understand how the working poor in this country live, and how close to the edge they are (and yes…we have given plenty of them money when they faced a crisis. Because we can, and because we should. $1000 doesn’t materially impair our well-being - although I’d rather keep it in our account, all things considered - but it can be a difference maker for a lot of people).

It doesn’t take a lot to have a broader perspective and empathy. You should look into it.
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21 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

My favorite part is being educated by folks who daily drive their Aston Martins to their transatlantic races in their carbon fiber boat, guys who spent (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars on private primary AND international secondary education for their kids, while watching their homes turn from nice, to deep 7 figure values.  Grew up in the Park cities, cool.  Please, please continue to tell me how well you are dialed in with the poor in our country. 

By the grace of God we go, indeed. 

 Not exactly Fitzgerald, but entertaining nonetheless.

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2 minutes ago, G650 said:

I will also say @fattyflattiethat I haven't attached you, called you a cunt, a fascist or anything like that. But if you are going to state something as insane as the American poor have it too good, which is so bizarre on the face of it, I feel like I'm entitled to a WTF gif.

Sometimes the American poor get free lead delivered to their homes.  

I like the idea that we have a society that is entirely built of people who can move up and just earn more.  The rest of the society that is below average intelligence, or health, just needs to.....

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1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

My favorite part is being educated by folks who daily drive their Aston Martins to their transatlantic races in their carbon fiber boat, guys who spent (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars on private primary AND international secondary education for their kids, while watching their homes turn from nice, to deep 7 figure values.  Grew up in the Park cities, cool.  Please, please continue to tell me how well you are dialed in with the poor in our country. 

By the grace of God we go, indeed. 

We're not all nurses you cunt. 

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We absolutely need to rescind the tfg tax cut.

More importantly, we need the R party to die, and a new Conservative party take its place. Rs have worked diligently to ‘prove’ government does not work by undercutting it’s ability to function. Further, they say we cannot afford social safety nets, and ‘prove’ it by burying the USA in more, and more, debt whenever they hold the reins of power. There is fifty plus years of data on this. Just more facts for the ff-Rs to ignore.

Edited by Willfully Horn
Spellfuct
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14 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

But, because your idea of “equity” is so important, person A….literally dies. He no longer had enough food to sustain life, and he eventually dies.  But hey, at least it’s equitable, and you can feel good that he paid “his fair share.”

According to Lassalle, wages cannot fall below subsistence wage level because without subsistence, laborers will be unable to work. However, competition among laborers for employment will drive wages down to this minimal level. This follows from Malthus' demographic theory, according to which population rises when wages are above the "subsistence wage" and falls when wages are below subsistence. Assuming the demand for labor to be a given monotonically decreasing function of the real wage rate, the theory then predicted that, in the long-run equilibrium of the system, labor supply (i.e. population) will rise or fall to the number of workers needed at the subsistence wage.

Flattie, I'll assume you didn't read this ^^, so just look at the cartoon below.

image.jpeg.287932846420cb04c6ba05b81903f314.jpeg

Edited by Bullneck
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3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

surlys who drive an Aston Martin, please raise your hand.  I can think of one who has owned cars at that price point.

My 7-year-old Toyota sedan and 4Runner laugh at the idea.

Yeah, so does my 5 year old Honda.  And, yeah, instead of envying people who can afford Aston Martins, and sure, I'd rather have a sexier car than a Honda, I can appreciate that I'm fortunate enough to own a reliable car, and be able to afford maintenance so it stays reliable, and repairs if something goes wrong.  If it is in the shop, I can get a loaner or an uber, and it's not a huge chunk of my paycheck.  Hell, I live in a part of the country with access to public transportation options.  If I get a parking ticket I can afford to pay the $40, instead of getting late fees tacked on to it.  All things most of the poor in this country do without. 

And I also recognize I'm a medical emergency, where I can't work and deplete my savings, away from having any of this.  I'm not sure what interplay of sociopathy or Fox News bubble Flatty lives in.  But, fuck, I hope he's not really a UT alum.

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4 hours ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

He’s a total cunt.  

Lol.  10,000 spoons and all that.  

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

and I sure didn’t grow up in the park cities.

I was referencing Twice. 

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

BUT…I was born and lived my first years in a tiny apartment, then grew up in a generic super cheap house that, at the time we bought it, was at the end of a poorly maintained road at the edge of town.

Sounds like we have more in common than you'd think. I didn't learn Spanish in school. 

3 hours ago, G650 said:

He is talking about me.

 

But ironically I'm the one calling for higher taxes on the top and more support for the bottom.

 

Plus, I spend all my days with guys who are working poor. I see how hard they struggle and the costs of being poor first hand.

Correct.  And you do make those calls, as do several other well heeled posters we have on this board.  I often wonder if I'd feel the same once it was no longer a concern.   I don't know if you recall this or not, but we work in similar fields.  I get to see plenty of the same.  I don't have the ability to help in the ways you did.  Good on you.  I also know what the local shop labor rates are up there, too.  None of those guys are getting refunded their income taxes, so largely, not part of this discussion.  

3 hours ago, G650 said:

I will also say @fattyflattiethat I haven't attached you, called you a cunt, a fascist or anything like that. But if you are going to state something as insane as the American poor have it too good, which is so bizarre on the face of it, I feel like I'm entitled to a WTF gif.

I appreciate your civility, and wouldn't expect less. I hope you can, and think you do,  understand that I wasn't making a dig at any of the 3 posters I was using as examples.  I actually have loads of (internet) respect for all 3 of you.  It has never even crossed my mind that each of you didn't fully and completely earn your share.  And I hope to hell (and it appears) that you are enjoying the fruits of your labors.  BUT, I do find the irony to be too much, at times.  I'm glad you can "see it", but I would bet dollars to donuts you're a long, long way from feeling it.  

53 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

Yeah, so does my 5 year old Honda. 

Imagine how my 14 year old truck feels (my fault, I like old vehicles)

Edited by fattyflattie
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3 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Correct.  And you do make those calls, as do several other well heeled posters we have on this board.  I often wonder if I'd feel the same once it was no longer a concern.   I don't know if you recall this or not, but we work in similar fields.  I get to see plenty of the same.  I don't have the ability to help in the ways you did.  Good on you.  I also know what the local shop labor rates are up there, too.  None of those guys are getting refunded their income taxes, so largely, not part of this discussion.  

 

Of course I remember man, while this whole thing was going on I was thinking to myself we are probably the only ones in the thread that have spoken to each other.

 

To be honest, my philosophy is it could disappear at any moment. I don't ever feel secure because you what, life is capricious. Hell I probably have more anxiety about things now than when I couldn't rub two nickles together. But more than anything I'm fortunate. Yeah I work my ass off and sacrifice a lot, but I was also blessed with good parents, reasonable intelligence and not a predilection for addictive past times. Some people aren't through no fault of their own, and the stark reality is we have a choice to improve society as a whole or cast those people off who are not equipped to do professional sector work. It's really that simple. And one thing that the posters here are correct about and you are mistaken is that the poor are the net takers. Not the deadbeats or whatnot, but people who's situation and ability means they are stuck in low wage occupations. They literally pay more to function, it's about way more than tax receipts. It's a pipe dream to say they can boot strap themselves, they literally do not have the ability for the kind of work that would get them out of that level. And we have gutted the wages for the work that they can do. So it's a very binary choice, we can either assist, or let them perish.

 

The only ones who are really taking are the corporations who get to pay people wages below the survival line because all the rest of us pay taxes that fund the effects of that.

Edited by G650
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22 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

You sick fucking asshole. The government can take 1/3 from me, and I’m plenty fine. If it takes 1/3 from someone who can barely afford their tiny apartment and the food on their table, that person is toast.

And guess what? Even though you ignore the truth, the government DOES take a chunk from the poor. And every bit of it hurts. Your position is simple: they need to hurt more.

Unlike Fatty, you apparently never fapped to Ayn Rand as a youth. 

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4 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

Listen, I’ve been called a fascist and a cunt, among other things.  But a libertarian?  

Your tax lunacy, which edges up on "FLAT TAX NOW" is absolutely "Libertarian" (the dumbest fucking name ever, they are anything but in favor of liberty).

Own your words and thoughts.  We all know exactly what you are.

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42 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

The poor being lazy or defective in some way is such a bullshit take.  

It's part of his fundamentally hierarchically structured world view: the wealthy are so because they're better, the poor are so because they're worse.

"Why should we reward people for being worse, and punish people for being successful?", to paraphrase his objection to social safety nets and taxation in general 

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These threads are always fun, Fatty getting dunked on repeatedly by multiple posters from various backgrounds and with different dunking styles all coming together to just dunk repeatedly. Then you get some of the posters noted for being actually rich and wealthy doing the same and he goes back to his ball gargling routine. I'm sure Fatty would suck a dick to move up a class bracket. 

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What it is, like Arendt said about Eichmann, is basically a lack of empathy and understanding of the "lower classes.'

About half of the population is below-average in intelligence, so there's always the "what do we do with the morons" problem.

But it is at least theoretically possible for the ignorant to work really hard and smart and achieve some upward mobility, if not "the American Dream."  But, as a practical matter, I think the ability to do that has diminished significantly in the time since between the Depression and WWII and the 80s, when "trickle down economics" and other things started biasing everything toward the capital-holding classes and against the labor classes.

I'm still fundamentally a capitalist, but part of the philosophy underlying capitalism is the "Protestant work ethic," and, setting aside "Judeo-Christian," Protestant, and other loaded terms, I think many of those philosophies carried a significant bit of altruism, both personally and in governmental policy.  And we've lost sight of that.

Or, if you want to look at it another way, the Gekko way, "greed is good."  To an extent, yes it is because it is one of our baser instincts, so it is a reliable motivator and policy basis.  History has seemed to prove that it is a more reliable motivator and policy basis than pure altruism, as those societies seem to have rapidly become corrupted to the point of failure (because the ineluctable greed and self-interest wiped out any benefit).  That utterance in Wall Street was intended by Stone to be shocking and kind of horrific, but, because 80s, it wasn't entirely viewed that way.

But, greed remains one of our baser instincts, and isn't really "good" at all.  From the perspective of most of the world's religions/moral philosophies, it's actually evil and a sin.  It must be tempered by altruism or the society based on it will become corrupted and fail, as well.

I'm guilty as hell of patting myself on the back (and I still find what my parents achieved between WWII and their deaths to be remarkable, but note the time period).  But the longer I've lived, the more empathy I have gained and the more gratitude for the benefits I received that I didn't really earn, like Brisket said.   I have made some horrific "decisions," including the predilection for alcohol addiction, but due to many of those same "lagniappes" I have received in the game of life, it wasn't a killer like it would be for someone less fortunate.

Life is nasty, brutish, and short, for all of us.  I think we're duty bound to make it less nasty and brutish for ourselves and our fellow man.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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