Even though it seems counter-intuitive for those of us who think it’s the gov’s job to “Do something!” to fix the economy, it really is better NOT to lean on the 1% too heavily for taxes, because they make more money for themselves by using their wealth as venture capital (Shark Tank™) in helping other businesses to grow for a portion of the profits. Obviously that's good for the economy -- the normal cycles of trade and commerce in the markets. It is notable that of all the investment instruments available to the moneyed class, venture capital to invest in business is the most lucrative of them all, and staying out of the way of that is the way to help the economy to thrive. If the taxes become intolerably high for the wealthy, it will literally make it more profitable for them to lock the bulk of their wealth up in some form of interest-bearing instrument, where they legally only have to declare the part they didn't lock away as taxable. Consequently, when the politicians notice that the amount of tax revenue they expected to make doesn’t come after-all, they will be forced to turn those tax lasers onto the poor and middle class, deepening the quicksand pit of the struggling economy.
Get out of the way of the Free Market and let it work.
Chester Moyle - Absolutely right. Plus if you took all the wealth from the top one percent you could run the government for about 1 week, maybe two. The bulk of all taxes comes from the middle class and small business. Blaming the rich is just blaming others for the failure of the government to control spending.
Muhammad Rasheed - Chester Moyle wrote: "Blaming the rich is just blaming others for the failure of the government to control spending."
It's not really a matter of "blaming the rich," but of many citizens thinking that it's somehow the government's job to roll up its sleeves and hands-on "fix" the economy. This is 100% not true, even though politicians are often under that delusion themselves (while ironically ignoring the advice from the expert economists). Meanwhile, the government's REAL job is to maintain the system of laws that enable the markets to thrive, and to protect the Free Market from sabotage and interference, even from itself.
Geoff Hassing - Sorry Muhammad, but I have to totally disagree with you.. Heavily taxing the 1% is exactly what we should be doing. Up until Reagan became president, the 1% were taxed at almost 75%, and that was since the early 1900's. And because of that, they were constantly looking for ways to grow what money they had left, which spurred them to invest and grow their money, instead of now, with a low tax rate, they just sit on it and spend it on themselves. With low tax rates for the wealthy, there's no motivation to try and grow your wealth to maintain your lifestyle. The higher tax rates created motivation.
And the argument that that will discourage people from trying to get rich doesn't work either, because if someone truly wants to be wealthy, they will find a way, regardless of what the tax rate is.
Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society. But it's also you're responsibility as a member of your country to support your country . Taxes pay for infrastructure, education, defense, utilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a million other things. The more society give to you, the more it requires from you.
The Bush years proved Trickle Down economics don't work. If you cut taxes for the rich, they're not going to invest it so it can benefit everyone and trickle down to the poor, they're going to spend it on themselves, that's just human nature.
But the law also needs to be structured to that if you're caught gaming the system or hiding your money, you lose it all! Same with corporations, and especially with corporations. If you do business in this country, you pay for that privilege, it's part of the cost of doing business. But if you cheat the system and are caught, you and your company are outta' here!
But at the same time, the laws should also be structured to encourage investment here. If you create jobs, you get a tax break. If you pay your taxes honestly, you get a tax break. If you build factories here, you get a tax break. Those are the things they should be giving tax breaks for.
Muhammad Rasheed - Your post is dripping with fictions that politicians actually believe, and are the very reason why the economy isn't as strong as it could be.
Jeremy Travis - Are the taxes on corporations and on the wealthy not low enough or should they be lower?
Travis Hollaway - If everyone paid what they actually owed without loopholes and offshore accounts things could get interesting
Geoff Hassing - Muhammad, what are my fictions? The periods of the highest taxes on the wealthy, happens to also coincide with the periods of greatest growth for both corporations and the middle class in this country from post Depression until around 1973.
Between tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for oil companies that are posting record profits already, and large corporations, like GE, dodging out of paying over $4 billion in taxes, and even managing to get $350 million back from the government, while maintaining a bloated military the size of the next 20 countries combined, it's no wonder we don't have any revenue coming into the Treasury.
If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
Here, Warren Buffet explains it pretty good...
http://zfacts.com/node/118
Ali Rashada - This discussion is simply a variation on the Emperors new clothes. The economy is based on a fiction - namely that the government has to get into debt in order for a currency to exist, and then has to tax the people and businesses to pay that debt. Start at the beginning if you want to fix the problem
Daniel Stone - so many issues with this argument.
1) saying the rich have many ways to hide money away is an excuse, not a fact of life that cannot be avoid. There was, once upon a time, a thing called "regulation' which held people accountable for their finances. But allowing corporations and the rich to buy politicians allowed for the regulations to be dismantled, and trade agreements are made solely to create loopholes to send money around the world under the guise of free trade and job creation. It's willful ignorance to not even acknowledge that.
2) during the most prosperous time in our country, the post WWII modern era, the rich were taxed at about 50% of their income. Why and how did this lead to the biggest economic boom in history? Those taxes were poured into infrastructure, creating highways and public transportation, building entire cities and communities, economic incentive to build factories and increase production, the educational boom kicked off by the space race. ALL of which required people to be employed with a steady paycheck. If people have money, they will spend it. This era echoed positive growth for america for nearly 60 years. What is being argued by saying, "the rich know how to use money," is a misnomer. They HAVE money, they don't know how to use it. They know how to HIDE it, they know how to shuffle it around and keep it out of other people's hands. But don't make the mistake of thinking the last 30-40 years of economic mismanagement by these so-called financial geniuses isn't completely damning evidence that they either have no clue what they're doing financially, or they really just don't give a shit about the economic community and are only serving themselves. So no, it's not counter-intuitive, it's called being flim-flammed by semantics.
3) Politicians are whores. Straight up. They follow political trends and will essentially go with the flow of whatever banner they've decided to back. There simply aren't enough independently acting politicians to even consider that they might be trying to make any decisions on their own. That's not how it's worked in decades. How it works is, your party leader is told what the overall strategy for you biggest investors are (the rich) and how you will all fall lock step towards making that strategy play out the way they want it to, and each congressman and senator essentially acts as a PR representative to sell that strategy to the public.
So you can't say it's the politician's fault for not knowing that increasing taxes won't work out or that regulations will even be effective. Most likely, any small group that is working independently and is actively trying to make a difference will have their bill coopted by bigger, badder groups, the bill is gutted and made impotent, or worse, is changed around to have the opposite desired effect.
4) the idea of the 'free market' has been hijacked by parties that use regulation to create what is essentially a rigged market, while pretending it's free. We do not have a free market. This has been argued since the 60's and before, that, most often the ones calling for a free market are the first in line to use government regulation and law to make sure everything is rigged in their favor. It's baffling to me that people are still being fooled by this.
Daniel Stone - so regulation both helped and hindered the american economy. It is a gun and basically, whoever is in control of it gets to call the shots. more often than not they'll use it for selfish advantage.
when it comes down to it, you'd have to change humanity's fear based greed impulse before you'll have a "fair," non-predatory economy.
Tcapr Washington - Not to mention that it just isn't fair. People need to work to achieve the same successes
Geoff Hassing - Very well said Daniel! Right on the mark! : )
Muhammad Rasheed - Are we celebrating early when I haven't even responded yet?
Geoff Hassing - I'm still waiting for your response.
Muhammad Rasheed - I'm working on some smaller items first because of my schedule. I anticipated this discussion was going to be a bit more involved, so I have to set some time aside for it. Patience.
Geoff Hassing - No prob, whenever you have time, I understand how that goes. Besides, Facebook debates are a never-ending thing... there's always one going on somewhere. LOL!!
Jeremy Alexander Love - Yeah, the biggest hole in the argument is that it actually did work in the 90's starting with Bush Part One raising taxes and continuing through Clinton.
Muhammad Rasheed - Geoff Hassing wrote: “Sorry Muhammad, but I have to totally disagree with you.. Heavily taxing the 1% is exactly what we should be doing. Up until Reagan became president, the 1% were taxed at almost 75%, and that was since the early 1900's.
You’re implying that it was the process of taking money from them that was somehow improving the economy. Meanwhile, during an era of innovation, entrepreneurial and industrial growth, the gov decided it was the best time to tax the crap out the people that could afford it.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “And because of that, they were constantly looking for ways to grow what money they had left, which spurred them to invest and grow their money, instead of now, with a low tax rate, they just sit on it and spend it on themselves. With low tax rates for the wealthy, there's no motivation to try and grow your wealth to maintain your lifestyle. The higher tax rates created motivation.”
I don’t think we’re talking about the same group, Geoff. The wealthy are always looking for ways to invest and grow their wealth. You must be talking about the top crust of the middle class… the high income earners who like to spend a lot.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “And the argument that that will discourage people from trying to get rich doesn't work either, because if someone truly wants to be wealthy, they will find a way, regardless of what the tax rate is.”
If it is easier and more profitable to put their money away and draw down interest on it than it is to lose big chunks of it in taxes while trying to make it work for them, then they will take the former option.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society. But it's also you're responsibility as a member of your country to support your country . Taxes pay for infrastructure, education, defense, utilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a million other things. The more society give to you, the more it requires from you.”
No one has a problem paying the taxes as a citizen of the country. The problem comes from taxing me higher so that they can generate revenue to make programs or schemes that don’t work and waste money. Government systems that are mismanaged, inefficient, money drains (like education, defense, and a million other things) should be equally as shame-inducing to a US citizen as stepping up to our responsibilities is a source of pride.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “The Bush years proved Trickle Down economics don't work. If you cut taxes for the rich, they're not going to invest it so it can benefit everyone and trickle down to the poor, they're going to spend it on themselves, that's just human nature. “
That’s a strawman. Anything “trickling down” anywhere is not my argument. My argument is that the economy booms by way of the normal cycles of trade and commerce, which requires the unobstructed movement of capital through the markets. When people have disposable income, they use it to spend and invest. They look for opportunities to improve the quality of their lives, and they have the money to experiment. It creates a flow of quality change up the socio-economic ladder as the poor enter the middle class, and the middle class enter the upper class. But when that disposable income is taken away from them, they find themselves just getting by, and the over-taxed wealthy become a lot less likely to invest in experimental ventures, becoming more risk adverse.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “But the law also needs to be structured to that if you're caught gaming the system or hiding your money, you lose it all! Same with corporations, and especially with corporations. If you do business in this country, you pay for that privilege, it's part of the cost of doing business. But if you cheat the system and are caught, you and your company are outta' here!”
I think the law needs to be structured so that the government stays in its lane. Programs that it takes taxes to support that have well-intentioned but dismal performances should be discontinued and if the people still want them, allow the Free Market to compete for that business. The taxes that the gov used to take and waste, can be used by people to build companies, and for others to spend on those companies, which is the perfect picture of what a thriving economy looks like.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “But at the same time, the laws should also be structured to encourage investment here.”
That would involve leaving people’s disposable income alone so they can spend it on what they want, and maintaining/enforcing the laws that make conducting business safe in all areas.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “If you create jobs, you get a tax break. If you pay your taxes honestly, you get a tax break. If you build factories here, you get a tax break. Those are the things they should be giving tax breaks for.”
The frustrating thing is that in its inept attempt to “help” the economy, the government often sabotages it by creating programs in areas that function as monopolies preventing free competition so that processes and services can improve over time. If only it would just get the heck out of the way, jobs would form like dandelions, there would be much fewer taxes because they wouldn’t be desperate to take our money to hold up their broken programs, so that the offer of a tax break would be as serious as grabbing a few pennies out of the convenience store tray.
Muhammad Rasheed - Jeremy Travis wrote: “Are the taxes on corporations and on the wealthy not low enough or should they be lower?”
The taxes across the board should be lower. Why? The gov collects a lot of taxes they use to attempt to fix things they don’t need to be trying to fix. If they stayed in their lane they wouldn’t need as much taxes as they do.
Muhammad Rasheed - Travis Hollaway wrote: “If everyone paid what they actually owed without loopholes and offshore accounts things could get interesting”
Monopolies are what slow down the economy, and cause inefficiency bottlenecks in industries that make it struggle. Monopolies pop up whenever the government tries to fix a problem itself, and they need more taxes to patch ridiculous holes that would get patched by efficiently run private companies competing against each other, with the gov’s security/safety oversight. In that scenario what we “owe” wouldn’t account for too much and people wouldn’t need to be ducking it.
Muhammad Rasheed - Geoff Hassing wrote: “Muhammad, what are my fictions? The periods of the highest taxes on the wealthy, happens to also coincide with the periods of greatest growth for both corporations and the middle class in this country from post Depression until around 1973.”
FICTION #1: That it’s the gov’s taking money from the rich that made the economy better.
FICTION #2: The government itself has the business savvy to fix the economy, if only it had enough tax revenue to do it.
The government taxed them more during prosperous economic times because they got greedy watching all of that wealth moving around out there. They started getting big ideas too, and the voters encouraged it because… why not? Everyone was doing great! “Come on, everybody! Let’s vote for THIS guy! He said he can use some of this money to build an Imperial Star Destroyer on Uranus! I say, ‘Let’s do it’!” Big Ideas! cost money and when politicians have them, they cost tax money, and suddenly they find all of their disposable income is going to these bs programs.
Geoff Hassing wrote: “Between tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for oil companies that are posting record profits already, and large corporations, like GE, dodging out of paying over $4 billion in taxes, and even managing to get $350 million back from the government, while maintaining a bloated military the size of the next 20 countries combined, it's no wonder we don't have any revenue coming into the Treasury. If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.”
But these are all the very examples of the government being in the way of the economy working that I’m talking about. That first item is just the wealthy using their influence to try to get themselves out of the problem that’s plaguing us all. The taxes are too high when they don’t have to be.
Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “This discussion is simply a variation on the Emperors new clothes. The economy is based on a fiction - namely that the government has to get into debt in order for a currency to exist, and then has to tax the people and businesses to pay that debt. Start at the beginning if you want to fix the problem”
The markets are running on the funny money of the Fed’s fiat system which is a fiction, this is true. The capitalism markets are able to function in that ‘fiction’ because of the trust that the people themselves place in the currency. The main benefit of the fiat system, that benefits the ruling classes pretty much exclusively, is its ability to generate enormous sums of credit to finance wars and other mega-purchases without instantly bankrupting a nation. The bank cartels will be able to artificially hold the nation up within their debt craft magic. The system of course devalues the currency steadily over time, and when it eventually collapses, they will have no choice but to use money of actual substance to restore the faith of the citizens. And then they will probably put them back on the fiat system as soon as they are able.
This IS a problem as you’ve said, Ali, and one that contributes to keeping us from being as prosperous as we could be.
Manipulation and sabotage of the Free Market is another. All of these items lead to one big one: The government is doing things it has no business doing, and has overextended itself to our detriment.
Muhammad Rasheed - Daniel Stone wrote: “1) saying the rich have many ways to hide money away is an excuse, not a fact of life that cannot be avoid. There was, once upon a time, a thing called "regulation' which held people accountable for their finances. But allowing corporations and the rich to buy politicians allowed for the regulations to be dismantled, and trade agreements are made solely to create loopholes to send money around the world under the guise of free trade and job creation. It's willful ignorance to not even acknowledge that.”
Would you expect the wealthiest of us to be stagnant after working so hard in the last 100 years to establish this new system that benefits them so? As of today, the government itself is heavily indebted to them, so that unlike in the past, whenever the banks – and corporate partners of the banks – make a mistake, they simply call the gov to bail them out, and THEY HAVE TO DO IT. With no argument. As of today, the banks have had many of the toughest regulations removed from around their necks so that they can regularly and literally perform immoral, unfair, illegal-if-anybody-else-did-it, finance schemes at will with zero repercussions. As of today, the latest Tax Code was written, not by an objective outside body, but by a committee of the wealthiest corporatists in bed with powerful government bodies.
Daniel Stone wrote: “during the most prosperous time in our country, the post WWII modern era, the rich were taxed at about 50% of their income. Why and how did this lead to the biggest economic boom in history? Those taxes were poured into infrastructure, creating highways and public transportation, building entire cities and communities, economic incentive to build factories and increase production, the educational boom kicked off by the space race.”
Again this is reflecting the same fallacy mentioned above. It was the innovations and high entrepreneurial achievements of a booming economy that caused the gov to level those high taxes upon the people and spend all of that money, not the other way around. When the gov saw them living fat and spending it made them want to spend TOO.
Daniel Stone wrote: “ALL of which required people to be employed with a steady paycheck. If people have money, they will spend it. This era echoed positive growth for america for nearly 60 years.”
Right, and it changed once the gov started mucking around in it and it took a nose dive.
Daniel Stone wrote: “What is being argued by saying, "the rich know how to use money," is a misnomer. They HAVE money, they don't know how to use it. They know how to HIDE it, they know how to shuffle it around and keep it out of other people's hands.”
The argument is that the wealthy do know how to take care of themselves; that’s why they are wealthy (even the legacy wealth and trust fund babies have to learn how to take care of their inheritances). During a down economy, those left out in Poor Land see the wealthy with envious eyes and believe the rhetoric that says ‘if only the gov will take their money from THEM, everything will be magically better.’ This is not true. Things were better when the gov didn’t overextend itself with over-sized dreams, and simply stayed in its lane by maintaining and defending the laws and markets that encouraged people to do business and help to generate wealth and prosperity for everyone.
Daniel Stone wrote: “But don't make the mistake of thinking the last 30-40 years of economic mismanagement by these so-called financial geniuses isn't completely damning evidence that they either have no clue what they're doing financially, or they really just don't give a shit about the economic community and are only serving themselves. So no, it's not counter-intuitive, it's called being flim-flammed by semantics.”
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it was the politicians of the past who were responsible for those booming economies. The politicians who did the least resided over the most prosperous economies. The ones with the rolled up sleeves and dirty fingernails were the ones messing it up.
Daniel Stone wrote: “Politicians are whores. Straight up. They follow political trends and will essentially go with the flow of whatever banner they've decided to back. There simply aren't enough independently acting politicians to even consider that they might be trying to make any decisions on their own. That's not how it's worked in decades. How it works is, your party leader is told what the overall strategy for you biggest investors are (the rich) and how you will all fall lock step towards making that strategy play out the way they want it to, and each congressman and senator essentially acts as a PR representative to sell that strategy to the public. So you can't say it's the politician's fault for not knowing that increasing taxes won't work out or that regulations will even be effective. Most likely, any small group that is working independently and is actively trying to make a difference will have their bill coopted by bigger, badder groups, the bill is gutted and made impotent, or worse, is changed around to have the opposite desired effect.”
Right now we are in a position where the citizen masses are under the illusion that the government is supposed to make the economy better by ‘doing stuff,’ and the wealthy are simply taking advantage of it by pushing them around to ‘do stuff” that benefits them exclusively. If the government got the hell out of the way of the economy, we would all prosper, but the wealthy don’t care; either way they know how to work the system to get richer.
Daniel Stone wrote: “4) the idea of the 'free market' has been hijacked by parties that use regulation to create what is essentially a rigged market, while pretending it's free. We do not have a free market. This has been argued since the 60's and before, that, most often the ones calling for a free market are the first in line to use government regulation and law to make sure everything is rigged in their favor. It's baffling to me that people are still being fooled by this.”
We have a limited Free Market economy in that the system is set up to allow for new innovation, and companies to compete against each other with new products born from those innovations that the people benefit from. The Free Market is sabotaged when monopolies and cartels are allowed to form that halt that competition… sometimes it is sabotaged by the government itself in its ridiculous efforts to “help.”
Ali Rashada - Muhammad Rasheed, you do realize that you argued for both sides of the coin here. You continually say that the government gets in the way of the free market, which (unlike reality where the strong prosper and weak shoulder the burden) if left unfettered, would allow everyone to prosper (impossible since money is finite and everyone cannot posses larger quantities and it retain its value). Yet you say monopolies and cartels are "allowed" to form that halt the competition. Consortiums and conglomerations are the natural evolution of the economic darwinism we practice - they are the multi-celled organisms that dominate the wilds of international economics. The real solution is civilization - the understanding that humanity has banded together, giving up some things to gain others. We need to realize that the economic systems have always been man made, and we need redesign a new system from the ground up using all the knowledge we have gained in our struggle to become civilized to allow a prosperous and healthy life for all humans on the planet while showing respect and stewardship for the plant and animal life.
Ali Rashada - That means ending the profit and competitive variable when it comes to obtaining the necessities of life, which humanity has obtained dominion over thru agriculture, animal husbandry, architecture and education, to name a few.
Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “@Muhammad Rasheed, you do realize that you argued for both sides of the coin here. You continually say that the government gets in the way of the free market, which if left unfettered, would allow everyone to prosper. Yet you say monopolies and cartels are "allowed" to form that halt the competition.”
The government has a very specific role to play: Using its force to maintain and enforce the system of laws that enable our civilization to function. That’s its job. Monopolies and cartels are the natural enemy of the Free Market which prevents the little guy from being able to compete with the bigger businesses, and if the gov would concentrate on policing the markets to prevent them from forming, instead of trying to “fix” them by creating its own inept monopoly, the economy would thrive.
Ali Rashada wrote: “Consortiums and conglomerations are the natural evolution of the economic darwinism we practice - they are the multi-celled organisms that dominate the wilds of international economics. The real solution is civilization - the understanding that humanity has banded together, giving up some things to gain others.”
In a thriving market, with strong laws that protect a safe & secure environment for investment, the people aren’t overburdened with taxes and are at liberty to use their disposable income to aid their fellow man who is less fortunate than himself as dictated by his values, creeds and religion.
Ali Rashada wrote: “We need to realize that the economic systems have always been man made, and we need redesign a new system from the ground up using all the knowledge we have gained in our struggle to become civilized to allow a prosperous and healthy life for all humans on the planet while showing respect and stewardship for the plant and animal life.”
Not necessary. We just need to enforce the laws that we already have, and restrict the gov from overextending itself into areas it has no business being in.
Ali Rashada wrote: “That means ending the profit and competitive variable when it comes to obtaining the necessities of life, which humanity has obtained dominion over thru agriculture, animal husbandry, architecture and education, to name a few.”
That’s the very system that enables the average person to achieve socio-economic success, and improve the quality of his life in a fundamentally fair system using the efforts of his own mind and hands. It’s the monopoly that restricts him from doing so, making it illegal for the average person to grow his own food on his own small stretch of land to support himself. This is immoral, and why the monopoly must be destroyed and guarded against.
Ali Rashada wrote: “(unlike reality where the strong prosper and weak shoulder the burden)”
It’s our reality now for a variety of reasons. It doesn’t have to be if we only do what we are supposed to do and the gov stays in its lane protecting what it is supposed to protect. Right now, it is so overextended -- with the politicians so desperate to see to fruition their own failed and broken pipe dream visions at the tax payer’s expense -- that the government has become quite derelict of its duties.
Ali Rashada wrote: “(impossible since money is finite and everyone cannot posses larger quantities and it retain its value)”
It’s not impossible. Under ideal circumstances we would return to a precious metals standard (or even a digital currency), where we would need less of a higher-valued currency because it would purchase more as the economy boomed.
Ali Rashada - Pardon...how can the market be "free" when you keep speaking about laws to prevent this, and enforce that? You have decided what aspects of the economy please you, and so have no problem with government "interference" there to maintain it. That's not a free market. All the various laws are created to allow a specific outcome - currently geared towards those already with money and power. If we acknowledge that law and control are necessary to maintain the system as we want it, then we should do so with our eyes open and direct goals in mind.
Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “Pardon...how can the market be "free" when you keep speaking about laws to prevent this, and enforce that? You have decided what aspects of the economy please you, and so have no problem with government "interference" there to maintain it. That's not a free market.”
The “Free Market” isn’t an empty term, or a synonymous term for “anarchy” just because it has the word ‘free’ in it, or otherwise a mystic word that everyone should be encouraged to come up with their own definition for, or anything like that. It’s a very specific economic term that means a very specific thing:
free market – market in which there is little or no control or interference by government or by any powerful economic force or entity, such as a monopoly, cartel, or collusive oligopoly. [Barron’s Business Guide – Dictionary of Business Terms, 3rd edition, by Jack P. Friedman, Ph.D., CPA]
That system allows for individual business owners to compete freely for the consumers' spending dollars. Like any other civilizational system, it requires some form of security protection to prevent the dedicated criminal from encroaching on the rights of other citizens. Other than that, it should be left alone.
Ali Rashada wrote: “All the various laws are created to allow a specific outcome - currently geared towards those already with money and power. If we acknowledge that law and control are necessary to maintain the system as we want it, then we should do so with our eyes open and direct goals in mind.”
Currently the laws designed to protect the people have been abandoned (protect the Free Market from monopolies) in favor of special interest policies and laws lobbied to give unfair advantages to moneyed cliques. All of that must be removed and the gov’s focus returned to protection of the markets in a Free Market capitalism economy. That’s where our true strength lies (in a secular point-of-view, of course) and where the American Dream is fully active.
Ali Rashada - in the year 2014, why should the market be left alone? How can we justify in this day and age, maintaining a system based on profit (acquiring cheaply then selling expensively) and competition (someone has to lose) when this system causes international poverty and abuse?
Muhammad Rasheed - Because when it's left alone it is the little guy... start-ups and consumers... that benefit, and when it is interfered with, it's the most powerful who benefit, by exploiting the little guy.
Ali Rashada - When left alone, there will always be winners and losers (rich and poor), by design of the system. Now it could be argued that this is a facet of life, therefore so be it, but I say when we have the ability to design a system that encompasses the very sustenance and education and health of humans, neglecting to care for EVERYONE when we have the ability and resources, is a sin of unforgivable porportions
Muhammad Rasheed - We will have the ability to care for everyone. Mentioned above, as dictated by our values, creeds and religions. If the economy was booming, the average citizen was economically stable, you don't think we would take care of each other?
That's not the gov's job. It's our job.
Muhammad Rasheed - Politicians don't have that skill. They waste money, and in their effort to create those kinds of programs, they ONLY invite opportunity for corruption.
Ali Rashada - We the people, the government is made up of humans...
Muhammad Rasheed - The government is made up of elitists who think they know your life better than you do.
Muhammad Rasheed - We don't need them making those kinds of decisions; that's a big part of the problem now.
Muhammad Rasheed - Keep your money, and help the people closest to you.
Muhammad Rasheed - Don't delegate that to government officials.
