Originally
posted by
tellarion:
Sam, you've been making some great points so far, but this latest one is straight from the mouth of the GOP. Just because you might be a beneficent employer, doesn't mean ANYONE ELSE is. Sure, that may be a bit of fear-mongering and conjecture on my part, but it highlights the reason why laws and regulations are necessary. People have had the ability to purchase their own healthcare for years, but a MASSIVE chunk of people refuse to until they actually get sick. And by then it's too damn late. If people were forced to have some basic health insurance, would they be more or less likely to visit a doctor instead of an emergency room?
And like Dissident just pointed out, do you really think the rich are better able to manage their money than most people? Well you're right, because they manage to siphon the bulk of it offshore and abuse tax loopholes with their armies of lawyers and tax professionals. There's a reason Romney isn't making his records public: It's EMBARRASSING to the average American.
Let's just go back to deregulating the system, because that has worked SOOOO well!! And trickle down economics? How many godamn times do we have to keep making the SAME MISTAKE and expecting the outcome to be different! Go look up 1929 and the Great Depression and come back and tell me how wildly different the current situation is from back then. Tell me how the Democratic government put programs in place under FDR that gave the rich HUGE tax breaks and DEREGULATED business so that it could pull the rest of us lowly peons up into prosperity with them.
Oh wait, you can't possibly tell me that, because IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
Thank you for the compliment, tellarion. However, the first line of this response is an example of the red-v-blue attitude that frustrates me so much. I stated what i believe on the subject of wealth theft/redistribution, and on class warfare in general. It happens to line up with what republican politicians *claim* to believe. So what?
I'm someone who in recent years has come to consider himself a libertarian. This means that i believe the only legitimate function of the federal government is to protect our liberty. That's it. Nothing more. It's not their job to take care of me, or to make sure that i don't make bad decisions. It's not their job to make sure that i save for retirement, or that i plan for medical disaster. It's also not their job to save me if i do fail to plan for those events.
I also believe that the federal government has absolutely zero business telling people who they may or may not marry. I don't think they have any business telling people which intoxicants they may choose to consume, even if those intoxicants are horribly bad for them. Do those beliefs make me a mouthpiece for the democrats?
I think we need an immigration system that allows people an affordable way to stay here, *if they are working*. I do not believe that we should reward those who have already come here illegally by moving them to the front of the line ahead of those who play by the rules, but i do believe that if they can demonstrate a willingness and desire to make it on their own, they should have an easy way to do so while applying for citizenship. No law-abiding person, willing to live on the fruits of their own labor, should be denied residency here. I do not think that people who are not citizens should be able to vote however, and i believe we must have methods in place to ensure the integrity of our election process. So which party do i line up with on this one? Am i a repblicratodemican?
And back to my initial post, i want to clarify something. I'm not against big business either. I cannot understand the mindset that because a business has become successful, it all of a sudden becomes this evil entity that must attone for its sins by being forced to give up more of its profits.
I am against federal meddling in business, because the end result is virtually always corruption, and a less level playing field. I don't begrudge my big competitors their success. However, they should not be able to buy politicians, and get themselves exemption from regulations that i have to try to find some way to follow. As long as we allow the federal government to overstep its bounds and engage in regulation that should be left to the states or local governments, this corruption will continue.
And btw, maybe i'm mistaken here, but i thought the financial industry was one of the most heavily regulated industries in the u.S. *before* the big collapse. All the regulation in the world isn't going to help, when giant bureaucracies rule the roost. And you bet i hate the fact that my tax dollars went to those companies which should have been allowed to fail.
I know my company is not an example of a model that all businesses follow. My point though is that it doesn't matter. When you take more money from the successful business, there are two places it will come from. Increased prices - which eventually hit you, the consumer - or lower wages. In the case of a smaller, less profit obsessed business like mine, there simply is no other place for those funds to come from.. For a larger or more profit obsessed company, it just won't come from anywhere else, even if it can. And that does not make the ceo of that company evil. He is choosing to use the fruits of his labor how he sees fit. If his employees think the pay structure is unfair, nobody is forcing them to remain employees there. They have the liberty to leave.
One last thing. I never said "the rich" are better able to manage their money than most people. I said they're better at it than federal bureaucracies, and i think anybody who thinks otherwise is being willfully blind. I think the federal govt rates just barely above the guy in the cardboard house for money management skills.
