Do You Agree With Income Tax

[JesusIsMySuperHero]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1515428' date='Apr 30 2008, 06:24 PM']They were also interviewing people about how they were going to spend their extra tax credit money. None were going to pay off any debt with their rebate.[/quote]

I know.

I keep on telling my debtors over the phone, you can use your stimulus pymt to pay more than what you owe on this, and very few give me a a commitment to it. I hate (don't hate, appreciate) being a debt collector. It is really is the hardest job on the planet. Especially when you know the real reason isn't these people are just plain unresponsible. Many are responsible, and would like to pay it off, but can't because of the messed up economic system we 'enjoy'!

I said I hated the economic system in the world after I called another 70 year old woman who owed more than a thousand on an charged off Credit card. He asked me if I meant it. I looked him in the eyes and said yes. I hate (don't hate, appreciate) this system because it is destroying people.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' post='1513620' date='Apr 28 2008, 11:02 PM']This isn't about taxes per se but it is a good and interesting documentary that is at least somewhat related to this thread.

[url="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4840432044369494646&hl=en"]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4...94646&hl=en[/url][/quote]
This documentary is complimentary to the one I posted above.

[url="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/"]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/[/url]

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1513972' date='Apr 29 2008, 11:29 AM']laud said he thought it was wrong to tax labor, but didn't really say why, and pointed to some countries that don't have the income tax without saying why they don't.[/quote]
The point was simply that they don't, and they seem to be doing pretty well (it was a point against your absolutist statement about income tax). Some countries with little or no income tax manage to provide free health care to all people among other things. American propaganda would suggest that our system of health care is the best and that universal healthcare is some kind of backwoods Communist nightmare, but in fact this is a fat lie. Andorra (on my list) is number 4 in the world for quality of health care according to the World Health Organization's rankings and they have a much, much higher life expectancy than we do. Monaco is number 13, also with a higher average life expectancy and Britain is number 18 (and its free!). The United Arab Emirates is number 27 which isn't too shabby in my opinion. Our health care quality is ranked at number 37 and tens of thousands of our citizens die every year because they are denied treatment for reasons that essentially boil down to their income level. I think our system would appeal most to extortionists and social Darwinists. But hey, at least we're just above Cuba (39) and Slovenia (38); although I think our infant mortality rates might be worse.

My first guess would be that emphasizing the common good over self-serving corporate interests (Washington is quite dominated by health care industry lobbyists) and world empires (we have something like 600 military bases in 130 countries and spend trillions on this) leaves a little more money to spend in house. Heck, in France every citizen gets free health care (they are number one in the world as far as health care quality is concerned), free college, virtually free childcare (also very high quality), et cetera, et cetera. Although in this case they have an income tax comparable to ours except I understand that it is apportioned. What may temper this is that I have heard the French people have very little debt compared to us Americans who are on average quite indebted to all manner of financial institution.

Of course America is a phat country with many great qualities, and every country has its problems. I’m not trying to suggest that any country is perfect and utopian or that American is croutons, but there are some serious issues that I personally find to be disturbing. I am also not that interested in comparing countries; I don’t think we should copy France, Britain, Malta (well, maybe Malta ), Andorra, or anybody else. We are very different and we have our own strengths that could be spoken of at length if it was not off topic. My only point here is that the possibilities for other ways of doing things are interesting. If the revenues from our income tax were handled in a transparent manner and clearly put to use for the common good I doubt there would be as much of a stink about it. The social security funds have become the private ATM machine for various “interests” within our government that often appear to have little to do with the common good. Capitol Hill is in the pocket of the health care industry and the big financial monsters (including the credit card companies that make more profits than McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Microsoft by charging criminal interest rates and truly insane fees on the masses of desperate American serfs) – as an aside I find it interesting that prior to the Nixon administration states had usury laws that made it criminal to charge interest greater than 5, 10 or 15% depending on the state but through the drama of the late 70’s and early 80’s a handful of states erased their usury laws and the credit card industry was born; notice that all the major companies are based in one of those few states with no usury laws. The evidence is clear that sell out politicians have enabled and allowed these insanely massive financial groups to exploit the American people with this system that would be considered below the dignity of a loan shark several decades ago. But I’m going way off topic by now… Oh, and for the record I don't believe that the U.S. should adopt socialized medicine.

[Laudate_Dominum]

More fun propaganda. Moore's entertaining movie followed by Stossel's partial rebuttal. In my opinion both shows are kind of true and kind of asinine.

Michael Moore - Sicko
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpjh-3Gr58&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpjh-3Gr58...feature=related[/url]

John Stossel - Sick in America
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJz81lAwY0M&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJz81lAwY0M...feature=related[/url]