Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman <nnorman@incanus.net> writes:
> On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:17:16AM -0600, DvB wrote:
> > > I assume you are in favor of a "progressive" income tax scale.
> > > Shouldn't other taxes such as payroll taxes (not the same as income
> > > taxes!), sales taxes, and even taxes on investment income be
> > > "progressive" as well? If not, why not?
> > >
> >
> > I do believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. I
> > also don't see why there shouldn't be a "progressive" scale set for them
> > (this could even be seen as an incentive program for small businesses, I
> > suppose). I also wouldn't be opposed to taxing different goods at
> > different levels depending on how "essencial" they are.
> > As to investment income. It is income (as its name suggests) and should
> > be taxed no differently from any other type of income (be it normal
> > income or capital gains).
>
> Uh, but ordinary income and capital gains _are_ taxed differently.
> I'll assume you know this and that either I'm tired and don't grok
> what you wrote, or you're tired and didn't quite get your point
> across.
>
Ordinary income is taxed differently depending on whether or not it's
classified as capital gains and I have no problems with that. That's why
I took the time to make that distinction before someone else brought it
up.
> As far as "essential goods", who decides this?
>
The commonwealth of Pennsylvania currently (unless things have changed
since I last heard) doesn't tax goods classified as "foo" and
"clothing." I support this despite the obvious drawback that people
don't pay taxes on the purchase of designer clothing and caviar.
> I'd rather not live in a society where people tell me what I do and
> don't need based on some economic model.
People need food to live and are required by law to wear clothing. I'm
sure the vast majority of other goods can be classified fairly
accurately based on the same criteria.
Also, and this is just my personal opinion, taxing things that things
that aren't deemed to be "necessities" isn't telling you what you do or
don't need. You're still free to purchase those things.
> > > > > What kind of idiot was your economics prof?
> > > > >
> > > > More of an idiot than your fuzzy math prof, apparently.
> > >
> > > You must have really hated your economics prof.
> >
> > I only ever took one economics class and often missed half of it because
> > my Numerical Methods prof's tests took two hours to complete instead of
> > the one allotted, so I wouldn't really know :-)
> > Besides, the class didn't cover much in the way of stock investment.
>
> It's difficult to find good economics professors in my experience. I
> had one really good one in college but he was not given tenure, mostly
> because he gave honest grades
I've learned most of my economics by reading. I already knew, to some
extent or other, most of what the class covered before I took it.
> (the school was/is a farce).
>
That would explain a lot of things if your school was/is a farce ;-)[1]
[1] Note the smiley. Your arguments aren't totally bogus, even if I
don't agree with the vast majority of them.
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