IndependntLogic
Senior Member
- Jul 14, 2011
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- #41
I got kinda interested again in your "example" about Abbott Labs and LexaPro.. Besides the fact that you impugned my southern honor and TOTALLY MANGLED the size of the Irish Operation that Abbott ligitimately runs ---- I can't find an INKLING of any evidence that Abbott DEVELOPED or has ever sold LEXAPRO or it's generic.. Either IN the U.S. or anywhere else in the Milky Way...
Now ain't that odd??? The question really is -- do you have any credibility at all? Or isn't credibility an assett for a psychic of your esteem? OR (my favorite theory) --- is this just a desperate cry from a head case who's misplaced his LEXAPRO???
I guess you missed the part where I explained it's been a while since i'd read about it andadmitted I was mistaken and that it's Forrest Labs that is doing this.
I would much rather discuss policy than practice my ad hominem attacks.
What policy am I concerned about? Sadly there is nobody that is going to try to advance the ideas I espouse. I'll tell you what I want to see done which I believe would begin to fix the mess that we find ourselves in.
I would like to see government divorce itself from both business and labor. I would like to see a day when government gets back to the practice of enforcing contracts and stops the practice of dictating the contracts. I am fine with having unions but not with unions advancing "labor laws". Conversely I am not ok with corporations having laws passed to benefit them. Ultimately there is no way to divorce them from government so I would ultimately like to see the concentration of power diluted and decentralized. I think it is far too easy for both labor unions (who are nothing more than a corporation which sells labor to other corporations) and other corporations to access power though policy.
There are so many things wrong with this country that I don't know where to begin. First, we need to end the practice of fractional reserve lending. We can have a fiat currency but we cannot have a pretend currency.
We need to stop government spending. If a candidate would come out and announce that we are cutting all government spending across the board by 30% then I would pull a lever with joy. I don't think that it makes sense to debate about what we are going to cut and by how much because nobody will every cut anything that way. Instead lets figure out how much we need to cut to pay our debt down and cut it that far. I don't want a 10 year plan to get to a balanced budget (by my estimate that would mean we would have a debt of about 72 Trillion). I want to start paying it down YESTERDAY.
I want to work to reduce dependence on government. I want a candidate who will make social security voluntary. If you take the amount that I pay into SSI and let me invest that same amount of money I make about 300% more than SSI makes for me in a year, even in this economy. If you are going to use my SSI to subsidize other people then just come out as tell me that I am paying a "social contract" tax or something like that.
As for tax policy, I believe that we need to simplify our tax code. Our tax code has over 3.5 Billion words in it. Want to make the government more efficient? Make it easier to pay taxes. I want to eliminate all loop holes. Agree on a percentage and tax it. Stop exemptions, stop subsidies and just tax one rate across the board. I also want to eliminate capital gains tax. It is taxing me twice.
That's a start.
Mike
That's a pretty good start!
BTW, I found an old article on transfer pricing. I trust Bloomberg isn't "too Liberal" a source?
U.S. Companies Dodge $60 Billion in Taxes With Global Odyssey - Bloomberg
I'm aware of the offshoring of profits I just don't think it changes much. I don't think that our government has a revenue problem, I think we have a spending problem. If you begin taxing these companies they will only pass the taxes onto the consumer. If there is anything we should have learned from the deficit it is that the government is not the best arbiter of our capital. I think that a lot of the functions the federal government undertakes are unnecessary. I believe that most of them are best serviced by the private market. That being said, if they tax "profits" of these companies they will only be taxing the consumer. This kind of gets to my reason for wanting decentralization of power. I have zero desire to hand an extra $60B of taxpayer money to the same entity which has accrued a $14T debt. I would much rather see the consumers keep that money. Solving the debt problem will not come because we give the government an extra $60B. The only way that problem gets solved is by the government spending $60B less.
Mike
Yes I'm familiar with this argument. So we'll agree to disagree.