Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

dorminWS wrote:Trouble is, the minute the gov't subsidizes something, it draws all the drones and free riders and builds in disincentives to the type of productivity and industry that you applied to make your life productive. You'd probably have figured out some way to do it anyway. I'm not saying there shouldn't be aid for education in the "hard sciences" and other fields where graduates are actually in demand; just that we oughtn't let the US Department of Education be in charge of it because they'll screw it up and minimize the benefit from it just as sure as God made little green apples.

And you shouldn't give the government credit for all you've accomplished. They just helped you get educated. It was then up to you not to sit on your kiester and collect welfare for the next 50 years. You "done good", and it is you who deserves the credit for it; not the government.

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I'm not sure that you told the whole story because government, i.e. the tax payers subsidize lots of things. Right or wrong politicians claim there is a valid reason for doing so. I'm not going to pass judgement but I'm going to list a few subsidies that cost far more than chump change. I'll leave it to others to say whether they brought out drones, free riders and the built in disincentives that you spoke of.
1. Professional sports stadiums are built with public funds for owners who are sometimes billionaires. The New Yankee Stadium is one example. A public park was deeded over to the Yankees for the stadium. Close to home let's look at the Nationals. DC spent over $600 million for a new stadium. The Lerner Group, Lerner is a billionaire mind you gets to keep the naming rights for the stadium that taxpayers built. That's $20 million a year. Once the Nats moved in they then increased ticket prices by over 40%. In the end Lerner acquired the Nats essentially for free.
2. Sugar producers
3. Dairy product producers
4. Nuclear Power Plants
5. Large retailers such as Walmart, Target, Bass Pro, Cabela's, GEICO, and more, in turn they often use the subsidies to leverage their business and run small businesses owners in the same community out of business.
6. Freight Railroad Corporations
7. Startup airlines: Established airlines are usually required to give up airport slots to the new comer.
8. Nuclear Power Plants:
9. The oil industry
10. Live stock poducers
11. Certain Premium Golf Courses
12. Billions and billions in earmarks
13. Corporate Jets
14. Homeowners
15. Burglar alarm industry: Tyco's subsidy for example is about a half billion annually.
16. Large Agribusiness
17. Farmers
18. Title Insurance Companies
19. Student Loan Industry
20. Hedge Fund Managers
21. Big Banks and Investment houses
22. Pharma Industry
23. Medical supplies industry
24. Health Care Corporations
I'll stop here because the list is virtually endless. Every last one is accounted for in some piece of legislation. Often it's only a phrase or sentence or two buried in some obscure or omnibus bill. How did these subsidies and more get into the tax code and other legislation? Here's a clue. In 1975 Washington Lobbyists collected less than $100 million in fees, by 2006 that figure was $2.5 billion. There were more than 35,000 registered lobbyist in Washington in 2006. There are many more, like Newt Gingrich, doing the same work but who are not required to register. There are thousands more lobbyists at state and local levels. And they are worth every penny when you calculate the handsome return on investment for these subsidies.
And you would have to say that the strategy is brilliant. They often create astroturf groups masquerading as common citizens to push their private causes. At the same time they pit disparate political groups into arguing over ideological issues and who gets the most crumbs off the table, while they enjoy a veritable banquet of tax payer provided funds.

So does anyone know how to change this? Or does anyone really want to change this system?

Gat6

gatlingun6 wrote:.

So does anyone know how to change this?

Gat6

Gallows and chopping blocks Gat, gallows and chopping blocks.

They usually set things right for a few generations, then they need to make a comeback. Rinse and repeat.

I'm at the 82%. I also save like crazy and had $30K cash when I was 27, now I have considerably more because I S.A.V.E and invest. If you came to my house and looked for material goods, you will not find them. My house is sparse, but, it is a nice house.

I'm 52 and went first to the local community college, then had a FT job and went to a local university at night. I paid my own tuition. I chose a career in IT not because I liked it (I didn't at first), but, rather it was the future (back when I made my decision in 1980). I often read to keep my IT skills up. My father taught me to work hard, study, and be the best that you can be.

In my field we often have to hire people from overseas (India). Why? There are no qualified people at the price (the company I work for) wants to pay. For 20 years I have interviewed US citizens that applied, a good portion of them just cannot do (or are not willing to do?) their job. They want training, then more training when they can't do it right. But, I can pickup a book and spend a month (at home, not companies time) and learn. But in defense, there are some US citizens who can pickup IT rather quickly and constantly read to learn the latest technology.

My point is that 1% have earned what they have. Many working 7 days a week at countless hours per week. They deserve it.

Here's a sidetrack on a history lesson: In the late 1890's-early 1900 England heavily taxed the rich and they left the country. What do you think the 1% US wealthy will do?

This other crowd (OWS is just part of them) will fall behind in their careers (we all have a career while on this planet, even a housewife is a career). My prediction is protests will become commonplace and get more violet. That is sad to say, but, appears to become 'the norm' in US society.

chuckjordan2 wrote:I'm at the 82%. I also save like crazy and had $30K cash when I was 27, now I have considerably more because I S.A.V.E and invest. If you came to my house and looked for material goods, you will not find them. My house is sparse, but, it is a nice house.

I'm 52 and went first to the local community college, then had a FT job and went to a local university at night. I paid my own tuition. I chose a career in IT not because I liked it (I didn't at first), but, rather it was the future (back when I made my decision in 1980). I often read to keep my IT skills up. My father taught me to work hard, study, and be the best that you can be.

In my field we often have to hire people from overseas (India). Why? There are no qualified people at the price (the company I work for) wants to pay. For 20 years I have interviewed US citizens that applied, a good portion of them just cannot do (or are not willing to do?) their job. They want training, then more training when they can't do it right. But, I can pickup a book and spend a month (at home, not companies time) and learn. But in defense, there are some US citizens who can pickup IT rather quickly and constantly read to learn the latest technology.

Here's a sidetrack on a history lesson: In the late 1890's-early 1900 England heavily taxed the rich and they left the country. What do you think the 1% US wealthy will do?

This other crowd (OWS is just part of them) will fall behind in their careers (we all have a career while on this planet, even a housewife is a career). My prediction is protests will become commonplace and get more violet. That is sad to say, but, appears to become 'the norm' in US society.

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ChuckJordan:
Congratulations on a very successful career. If I may, let me add a few things to what you said. Our economy is based on consumer spending, 70% of GDP. Consumer spending is the fuel that drives and expands our economy. Now there was a time when like you Americans were savers, but as earned income stagnated over the past 30 years the middle class stopped saving but continued to spend, they were encouraged to do so. Since the wealth that most owned was in their home. It became their ATM. The savings rated dipped into negative territory, and the average American family increased the family deficit to well over a trillion dollars.

It's not just that the 1% earned what they made, it's that anyone who did honest work for a living earned what they made. The 1% is far from the only ones who worked 7 days a week, there are millions more who are working poor, and middle class who work 2 and 3 jobs, and work extra hours. The American worker gives back over 2 billion annually in vacation days not taken. In 1960 20% of mothers worked, today 70% do. Approx 90% of American males workers work more than 40 hours a week, for women it's 70%. Productivity per worker is up 400% since 1950.When my corporation, a large one,I announced less than 200 openings, more than 2,000 applied. I'm not into class warfare, but I'm also not into slamming hard working Americans from all economic classes that I see every single day all over this great country.

I'm also not going to slam the OWS and others who PEACEFULLY protest. Protesting is as American as apple pie to paraphrase H Rap Brown. I do not however condone violence, or the threat of violence. As far as I know only one survey was done to answer the question: Who are the OWS crowd. The answer was most were employed, over 80%, some were students, some were retirees, some were union supporters, some were unemployed to the tune of 1% greater than the general unemployment rate. And I'm not hearing a message that says essentially: "we want a free lunch".

This is not left, right, Democratic, Republican, 1% or a 99% issue. Something fundamentally wrong is going on and has been going on for decades. Even Alan Greenspan, no one's liberal, spoke to the issue of economic unfairness and there are plenty of the 1% doing the same.

But that's not the question. My question was, and it's not just the 1%, do some deserve special tax subsidies, and hidden subsidies that are not available to the average citizen. Do they deserve special consideration because of who they are, or what they do, and how much money they have? The subsides I listed and more come out of the taxes that all of us paid, and the taxes that the subsidized did not pay. Work is work and earned income should be taxed at the same rate without government judging that what you do is more important that what the neighbor does.

This is not to say that all subsidies are bad. Some are a good thing when they produce a worthwhile public good. However what we face is once subsidized always subsidized. For example, it probably made sense to throw all kinds of subsidies at the petroleum industry in the early to mid 1900s. How do we justify many of those same subsidies continuing into the 21st century?

If the so-called 1% want to turn their backs on America, I say bye bye don't let the Statue of Liberty smack them in the ass when they leave. To say that somehow they can't be replaced by others who are equally if not more talented buys into the rubbish that the elite propagates. Btw where can they go that would give them the opportunities that they have here in America. Excepting 4 countries, Mexico, Korea, Turkey and Japan tax rates are higher in all the countries of the developed world.

Our nation is like a great ship, an aircraft carrier if you will. The ship can't operate effectively or efficiently without the Captain and people on the bridge, but neither can it do so without the cooks in the galley, or the rest of the crew. So we can hang together, or surely we will hang separately.

Gat6

dorminWS wrote:

Skeptic wrote:Spot on

I grew up poor, some due to bad luck my parents had, and a lot due to a series of bad choices they made after that.

I was active in protests and in liberal politics, because I was raised to be quite liberal and see things in terms of class struggle, especially by my honors teachers.

But that just simply ignores the facts. It took a while for me to "get it". We truly live in a world of miracles.

The Occupiers in Richmond say that our society has had hundreds of years to get our act together, so they need to "have a conversation" to "decide the new systems to replace this failed one".

It is sad, they see what we have gained in the past 200 years and deem it a failure. We have health measures from sanitation to thousands of wonder drugs that even most of the poor in our nation can afford. We have expanded our food production (not always for the best) and our ability to share, communicate, and to travel. Electricity. Simple things like running water , hot water on demand! I thank God for those simple things every morning.

Look at the wealth of the average American turn of the 20th century and compare it to today. We have telephones, TVs, radios, computers, mp3 players, good shoes that don't fall apart, we have refrigerators and freezers in almost every household. People have more than one or two sets of clothing Many if not most have washing machines and cars, etc. Starvation is so rare it makes the news, obesity is the biggest health problem for the poor (perhaps second after smoking)

How did this wealth spread? Was it through redistribution? Did we storm the mansions of the rich and cast down the walls of the nobility and shoot the idle elite in their county manors and take their stuff?

No, it was through INDUSTRY. We made MORE stuff. and BETTER stuff. and NEW stuff.

As I said, it is sad, they live in a world of miracles and they see it as a failure. Somehow all these riches are not enough because someone else has more.

Is this world perfect? No. Does it suck that others might have so much more than they cold ever spent. Perhaps. But I grew up poor, and now I am well into the top 20%, income wise. Where else in the world has that kind of mobility from economic classes?

The answer isn't having the government or the mob knock down the rich. It is to get the government out of the business of picking winners and losers. If they don't have the power to make and break, then they aren't worth buying.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BRAVO! ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND VERY WELL SAID.

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Yes it was well said but somewhat incomplete, let me add what's missing.
Skeptic wrote:" It was through INDUSTRY. We made MORE stuff. and BETTER stuff (that one I don't know about). and NEW stuff." Here's something to add, and there was an unwritten agreement between capital and labor that as productivity increased the worker's wages would also increase. About 30 plus years ago that bargain disappeared. With increases in productivity, capital stayed at the top and wages remained pretty much where they were. Now it seems that corporations have found new customers in emerging nations, so they no longer need the buying power of the American middle class to drive corporate profits. Today without middle class spending many multi-national corporations are doing a booming business. Corporate profits are up, while wages of the average worker has barely ticked upwards.

Skeptic also wrote: "It is getting the government out of the business of picking winners and loser." In theory and in an ideal world I could agree with that. However, our government,and governments everywhere have ALWAYS been in the business of picking winners and losers. It has always picked the elite over the masses. The Constitution was set up exactly that way. In fact many of the founders talked about who should rule. The Senate was intended to be a legislative body of elites who would act as a brake on the impulses of the masses in the House of Representatives.

One glance at the thousands of pages of tax code and other legislation is an often an exercise in government which winners and losers the government chose. The subsidies I mentioned earlier were exactly that, a list of government picked winners. Earmarks which name specific organizations to do a project are handpicked winners. In times past, railroads were considered winners so they were granted millions of acres of free land. Much of the wealth of private railroads today comes from what they did with that free land. No railroad was profitable until government stepped in and controlled prices, and rights.

Petroleum companies were picked as winners, so they were also subsidized. Homeowners are winners because government writes special tax rules for them, but nothing for renters. Families and families with kids are winners, families without kids, or people who just live together are not. Again there's special treatment. People who owe their income to capital gains and dividends are winners because their income is treated more favorably than the income of the average worker.

In the early years of the Republic business owners were winners, workers were not. Thousands died or were injured on the job and government did nothing to stop it. In fact, when workers said enough, government sided with owners to suppress workers often through the use of violence.

Am I arguing against all subsidies, or things like interest deductions on mortgages? No I'm not passing judgment. Governments every where use their tax codes to promote certain things and discourage others, at least that's what they say they are doing. Look at the airline industry, without government subsidies Air Bus Industries would have never gotten off the ground (They were subsidized by several European countries) without massive government subsidies. If you start a new airline today, government will assist you in that effort. They will bar older airlines from some competitive practices. They will literally take airport slots from older legacy airlines to give to the newbie airline

If it's one thing Americans have never begrudged others, or complained about it's the wealth of others. However, when Americans sense that the system is unfair they have always protested. What we see now is absolutely nothing new, it's the story of America.

What I do find upsetting, is the attempt to blame the ills of America on average Americans, the poor and the working poor. They become the whipping boy. If we just stopped supporting shiftless, lazy people, these free loaders, and others who want something for nothing, the economy would be fine. There would be full employment, everyone would have health insurance, a great education, and no child would go to bed hungry.

Many of the posters talked about growing up poor and the efforts they took to make a better life. Why would we think that there aren't millions just like you, who are trying to do the same thing, and are working every bit as hard as you did. Conversely, why would we assume that people in the 1% work any harder than anyone else, or should have advantages from government that everyone else does not have. The common thread is they are better off, simply because they are better. That to me is an elitist attitude, and is exactly what some want us to believe.

To that group, of which Donald Trump is the embodiment of, they do think they are better than you or I. Trump in everything he does and says makes sure that we should know he is a cut above the average working smuck. They try to convince you that they succeeded on merit alone, and if you didn't it's simple, you are not as smart as they are, and you didn't work hard enough; therefore you got what you deserved. Nothing is farther from the truth, but it's absolutely essential for the masses to believe the propaganda for unfairness to continue.

Some historians subscribe to the great man theory of history. For the U.S. that says you will find all you need to know about the U.S. by following the actions of the Great men. Others say, that's only half the story, and in some cases not even half because it misses out on, and does not tell the story of what the average people were doing, and how their actions affected what the Great men did.

The so=called elite and the so-called smartest men in the room got us into this mess, and now they want to go blameless? I don't think so.

Gat6