Politics

[Tom Servo]

In the latest example of moving the goalposts, you must believe that only flat taxes are fair unless you can come up with the optimum progressive tax that pleases Billi.

But just to the take bait - taxes that make it so the lowest wage earners make enough that they can afford housing, food, healthcare, and furthering their education, even if that means taxing the richest to help subsidize those things. Adjust as necessary, preferably while ignoring anybody who utters the words "trickle down."

There are lots of good examples to look at. Emulate those and adjust, erring to the side of taxing the rich because the consequences for them are less severe than for those that are barely able to provide for their basic necessities.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Erring on the side to make the rich pay more sounds reasonable but still not fair, right?

If we could really find this magical progressive tax curve that fair for all, I can definitely abandon my flat tax idea.

Anyway, right now, although we supposedly have a progressive tax system, special deductions still make things particularly unfair for the middle class. I think to further change goal posts, we really need to only allow tax breaks/deductions to lower than average income earners and make the rest of us pay according to the ‘fair’ curve. No exceptions.

[Tom Servo]

Nope, sounds fair to me.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I think my problem is that I define words differently compared to you guys?

To me, if we’re erring to make anybody pay extra, that’s just not quite fair.

Plus, not all rich are like Jeff Epstein. Those type of rich could all die and I wouldn’t care, but don’t forget Elon Musk spent his own money developing his rockets! He was down to his last rocket and if that final launch failed, he’d have to close shop and we’d never have SpaceX. Imagine if we taxed Elon a bit more to cause him to close shop earlier?

Tesla was close to bankruptcy many times as well. Yeah, even if Elon failed both of his companies, I’m sure he’d still do very well and probably better off than most of us…

But this world would be without Tesla and SpaceX!!!

So it’s not like taking away money from the rich is totally without consequences.

[Tom Servo]

Not sure if the link will work, LA Times doesn't seem to have the same sharing capability that NYTimes and WaPo have.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-...531-story.html

Elon Musk's companies, as of 2015, had received just shy of $5 billion in government subsidies. That seems very unfair, where's my $5 billion? I wonder how much of that he tanked in his own net worth when he baselessly publicly accused someone of being a pedophile just because the guy (correctly) mocked his stupid submarine idea?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Okay, so it’s open season for goal posts, right? To me, pedo comment is probably better than actually being one? He also didn’t initiate the mean tweets. Anyway, 2015 is already when he has managed to turn his laugh stock pie in the sky companies into viable companies. If you can employ a bunch of people, you can probably get some govt subsidies too? There’s no reason why if you are a major employer who needs help and your government ends up gladly seeing you fail without giving you some sort of helping hand to save some jobs?

My justifications for flat tax really has nothing to do with any of these things… I think they’re separate issues? But I can understand why some of you hate Elon just because he’s now rich and have so many options all because he had a better CoO than most of us and now richer than most of us so it okay to take more money away from him?

[FaultyMario]

Elon Musk's mind is full of stupid ideas. He's got great connections, though.

[Tom Servo]

I'm just saying that a) Elon isn't the saint you seem to think he is, but similarly, b) you don't get taxed based on how good of a person you are. You might get fined for violating the law, but your tax rate doesn't change based on some algorithm that determines your worthiness as a person. I'm not aware of any tax code that would tax Epstein more than Musk.

Anyway, 2015 is already when he has managed to turn his laugh stock pie in the sky companies into viable companies. If you can employ a bunch of people, you can probably get some govt subsidies too? There’s no reason why if you are a major employer who needs help and your government ends up gladly seeing you fail without giving you some sort of helping hand to save some jobs?

Doesn't this completely invalidate your point that if we tax Musk too much, that he might launch his last rocket and not be able to afford any more? (I'm honestly not entirely certain, I had a hard time parsing that last sentence there, but I think you were arguing that the government would subsidize you if it meant a lot of people losing their jobs.)

I think my biggest problem with your fairness argument is that it cherry picks the fair part. Nothing else in the capitalist system is "fair." It even just picks which part of a tax system you think is fair - Musk still gets taxed exactly the same on his first $100K of income as someone making $100K.

We have a wealth gap problem that is only getting worse. Raising taxes on the poor while lowering it on the rich will only exacerbate that. That might be fair to the people living now, but what about their kids? If the playing field continues to be less and less level, where's the fairness in that?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Swervo, never tried to paint Elon as a Christian saint. He’s likely not a very good husband nor a good dad. A fair tax code is should also not give special considerations whether someone is good or bad. Everyone should just pay their fair share, whether if you’re Jeff Epstein or Jeff Bezos or Jeff nobody. Now if you are really bad and did something illegal, then you’ll be forced to pay more than just taxes.

Also I am well aware of the wealth gap. This is an inevitability in a capitalistic society, hence I do believe we need socialism to balance things out a bit.

I AM antiestablishment, remember? Who are the ‘establishment’? Do you really think Elon is part of that? Maybe he will eventually be part of it and become just as a cancerous tumor sucking up resources without contributing to anything productive, but at least I don’t believe Elon’s there yet.

Anyway, enough about Elon… wealth, power gaps IMHO just cannot be completely avoided! People shouldn’t be drowning in poverty, but as long as the rich make their honest buck, I don’t think we should put a cap on how much they can take home such as steal rob or assess huge progressive taxes on them.

Equality in that respect is just unreasonable. Even in Star Trek universe, everyone can’t possibly get to command their equally sized starships! Captain Picard and Lt. Barkley are simply not equals!

There are also people who’d gladly give majority of their money away such as Bezos ex wife! The difference is she’s doing that willingly. Not being robbed by people nor the government.

Speaking of governments, US government definitely won’t spend our tax dollars wisely. Having them rob from the rich simply to fatten our politicians up? Or to invade other nations unjustly? No thanks.

Back to our initial discussion, for me to fork over my tax dollars cheerfully, regardless of % amount, I’d gladly hand over 100% of my income if we all could be taken care of. Knowing that we don’t have to worry about getting sick, what our next meal is gonna be, shelter over my head that’s not a dump, and something interesting to work on and be a contributor and of course decent education for my kid.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Elon Musk's mind is full of stupid ideas. He's got great connections, though.

Boy you like to post long videos…

Anyway, one of the main reason why I like capitalism is that people can invest their own money on their own stupid ideas!

If it works out, great! They get to make money! If it fails, oh well, and they lose their own money! Of course we could technically still try to find other investors to fund our ideas, but back to Elon… I’m not sure I would fund Tesla and SpaceX in the very beginning because I’ve seen so many failed ventures before him.

One of the biggest reasons why I admire him is that I think he pulled something nearly impossible off!

I think even his ‘friends’ were trying to persuade him to not waste his own money! Besides EV, who was ever successful at starting up a new car company in recent history? I’ve also seen and heard of so many failed rocket ventures… and he what? He wants to land and reuse rockets?!?!

How stupid and crazy that is!?!?!?

Anyway, I have accomplished very little in life professionally so I can take comments like my ideas are crazy and stupid…

However, what makes you so qualified to judge Elon Musk’s ideas?