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SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997 |
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#46 |
Wayfaring Stranger
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Dude the Dems have controlled both houses of Congress since 2006...
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#47 | |
Stowaway
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How many times have they been exposed and said they will change their ways and then got caught doing the same again? OK maybe it wasn't a bad example, as clearly you was trying to make my point for me . ![]() |
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#48 | |
Navy Seal
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I remember reading about it, and hearing that they said they'd do something about it. Most all my news comes from when I listen to NPR every morning, BTW. Having travelled quite a lot in Asia (spent the better part of a year backpacking around central and SE Asia a long time ago), I'd suggest that kids not employed making sneakers, etc, would likely be doing something worse, or starving. Before suggesting radical changes, I'd ned to see a cost-benefit analysis telling us what might become of these newly unemployed workers. Better to work 15 hour shifts in a factory than be forced into prostitution, for example. |
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#49 | |
Sea Lord
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If a family can live a good life with, for example, €20.000 a year, and the CEO of some fancy company makes €20.000.000, that means he can miss €19.980.000 and still live a happy life.
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#50 | |
Wayfaring Stranger
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![]() Flanked by life and the funeral pyre. Putting on a show for you to see. |
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#51 | |
Eternal Patrol
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Another problem. Several years ago I pulled out my little pocket calculator and figured something out. At that time Bill Gates was listed as being worth $60,000,000,000.00. Yep, sixty billion dollars. What my calculator told me was this: if we took it all away and made him just like the rest of us, every man, woman and child in the US of A would receive a whopping $200. I think I said that before but it bears repeating - we would all be two hundred dollars richer. Microsoft has it's own separate worth, so the 93,000 people employed there would probably not be out of work, but then they wouldn't have a chairman anymore, so who knows what would happen.
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#52 |
Sea Lord
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If that's how you want to call it, do so, I won't mind.
I'm from a middle-class family, studying at a university now, and have never in my life had any money problems. At the present I only receive money from the government, but when I've finished my study I'll earn MUCH more then the average John Doe, and thus will pay above average taxes. That's how it works, you receive when you need money, and pay when you don't. With my job/salary prospects you can hardly point any accusing fingers to me for being "free with other peoples money". Yes I am, but I count myself to the "other people" too. Once my study is finished, I'll be glad to pay my taxes 'cause I can miss them then. I don't see how it can possibly be fair that, in general, the rich guys don't have to do crap for their money, while the poor have to do hard work 24/7. Just because they weren't lucky enough to be born in a millionaire family. Grew up in a bad neighbourhood. Were born in the wrong country. Or simply didn't have the brains to learn for a better job. Yeah sure, there are people abusing the system. But blaming that on social security, would be like blaming your local supermarket for its high prices cause there are thieves stealing their goods and thus get it for free.
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#53 |
Navy Seal
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Explains so much... when you have lived on handouts your whole life, you don't have any sense of the responsibility the people doing the handing out have.
Darkfish, since a FAMILY can easily live well on €20,000/year, I assume that you'll be donating ALL of your take home pay above that to 3d world charity. We'll all look forward to seeing the report from your accountant to prove it. Or do you only think that that is "right" when forced by the government? You live in a dream world. Wait til you have kids, and not handouts from the government or mommy and daddy. "Honey, don't buy those new shoes, they look like all your other black shoes—we should send that money to India, instead." That'll go over well. ![]() |
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#54 | ||
Sea Lord
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If you'd spend it on the bottom 20%, they'd get $1000 a man. According to wikipedia, the personal income for the bottom 19,71% is around $5000 average. That makes a whopping 20% increase in income for 42.000.000 people!
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#55 | ||
Sea Lord
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Besides, the Dutch government already pays for some degree of development aid to 3rd world countries from our taxes. So whether I like it or not, I will be spending a part of my salary to charity. 2nd - of course I'd keep as much as I can. I would be a huge hypocrite to say otherwise. Mankind likes money. I'm just saying that it'd be fair if I had to pay lots of tax money. I'm not saying I'd like it. Quote:
Sure, with kids you won't be as wealthy as before. But I've yet to hear any stories about families here in the Netherlands who became poor because they got kids. Either they weren't poor before, and weren't poor after, or were poor both before and after.
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#56 |
Dipped Squirrel Operative
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" ... Explains so much... when you have lived on handouts your whole life, you don't have any sense of the responsibility the people doing the handing out have. ..."
LOL Handouts, well - when i studied, i also got some money from the government, not much but enough to finish the studies together with the money i earned. I worked almost every holiday to earn the money for the studies, and expensive excursions, let alone books, bus, train, and a room to sleep. It is a nice time because you are young, not because you have much money - you just have enough to live, and that is what Darkfish meant. " ... Or do you only think that that is "right" when forced by the government? ..." So you prefer to give the money to companies, and people who run it, already have billions, and give a damn ? Exxon Mobil does not pay taxes in the US, does it ? Did ENRON ? Who changed the books, and who then did rescue Bush, and the other oil companies ? Who paid the bankers, Leman Brothers, Goldman Sachs ? The government had to help the companies out because they are incompetent , greedy, feel no responsability and give a damn about the country they produce or sell their stuff in. I would have let them go bankrupt, and give the responsible managers a kick in the face. At least. Living in a state with a goverment usually means that people help each other, othewise you can shoot anyone who is past 50 to 60, and cannot work as hard anymore as it is expected. And i mean states with any kind of democracy, not Idi Amin's Uganda, or China. It is a contract that collected taxes are spent for the better of the whole community, and common sense. I trust the ****tiest government more, than any of those company egoists. If you do not like this kind of civilization and caring for other pepole go become Tarzan. Or live in an anarchy, or move to Texas, or even better, to China. I hear it's the morning of capitalism there, without health care insurance and loans of 65 cent per hour. And when the hands of the children become too big for electronics or carpets, they can be used as prostitutes, before working in the coal mines. Golden times over there. Don't think market economy in the US would be any other than that, without a government. Don't you think something's wrong with the western perception, when buying shoes for 300 Dollars are preferred to feed someone and give him an education and a chance somewhere else in the world, with this amount of money ? Greetings, Catfish |
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#57 | |||
Eternal Patrol
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http://alphavictim.blogspot.com/2006...net-worth.html Divide that by 300,000 people (we're not going to subtract the National Debt) and everybody gets $200,000. That's a one-time deal, so everybody is stuck with it. What becomes of it is determined by personal habits. We've all read about people who have won this-or-that lottery and then blown it all, being poor again in two or three years (or less). So a lot of folks are going to spend it quickly and then be in big trouble. Some more are going to put it to good use and manage to survive on it. A few are going to know what to do and create something with it, and make more. And then what? The folks who can actually accomplish something are going to become rich and the folks who can't are going to become poor, and have to work for the rich ones all over again. Like the old Blue Oyster Cult song said, "Tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no rich no more." Quote:
Actually I only made around $5000 last year. I worked for two months full time until I was laid off, and I worked some through a temp agency and I collected some unemployment. I would give my eye-teeth just to have a full-time job making minimum wage. I'm afraid you still have a lot to learn about life that they don't teach in school.
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#58 |
Stowaway
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What works fine in Europe will never work in the States. Failed states have ingrained problems that can't be solved from the outside. And also, the rest of the planet shouldn't suffer because of the US alone.
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#59 | |||||
Eternal Patrol
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But what about the $170,000 per year each and every congressman "earns", and what about the extra $194,000 each one gets for "expenses", for what is supposed to be a public service? Quote:
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People who run governments are just like any other people - good, bad, and everything in between. The difference is that they are much harder to control, because once they are there they can take whatever they want and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it if it gets out of hand. Two quotes to end with: "It is the natural tendency of things for Government to gain ground and Liberty to loose." -Thomas Jefferson "Any government big enough to give you anything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." -Gerald R. Ford
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#60 | |
Sea Lord
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![]() There are people who do "work when they feel like it for beer money", sure. But that's not a problem caused by the system. There'll always be thieves, whether they steal a TV, or steal government money by abusing the system. It's an argument I hear quite often, that because of those people social welfare expenses should be cut. But there are lots of people like you too, who want to work but for some reason or another can't find employment. Or people that do have a job, but very hard work for only minimum wages.
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