Just need to vent...

Let’s do away with laws then, because people can still break them.

 

It's not illegal for a person that makes a lot of coin (because they have a successful business that may have risked everything) to get Big Time deductions. Yet it builds resentment among many, even though successful businesses are the backbone of the nation, & then hiring most of us citizenry - if it were better in Cuba where the state controls all businesses you'll have the downside of no motive to succeed

.

 

I have no problem with anyone who makes a superior product making a buck. So I'll buy stuff from either Amazon or eBay. I've replaced my iPhone 7 with an iPhone 14. My PowerBook with a MacBook. My end-fo-life JuiceBox 40 Pro with a Tesla Universal charger. Sell me a quality product and I am there.

Bob Wilson

 

+1

Gee....
Almost like HOW a free economy is supposed to work.

 

Yuck ..... as you see looking out the back windows - still not even December yet - & it just started snowing. Usually it holds off till mid December or later. Usually.



All that dirty frozen muddy slushy gravelly slop comes into the garage - stuck on the belly of the 2 cars ... turning the slab into a nasty nightmare as it melts, & floods the slab w/ gravely mud water.
Back the car out so the 3½ foot wide floor squeegee can shove all the melted filth out into the driveway.
Let the driveway shoveling begin.
Then there's melt & refreeze, & walking on a downward sloped iced over backyard to pick up after the dogs. Doesn't take long to figure out how important it is to wear ice cleats
Yea - what a way to end one's 60s



oh yea .... then there's ice dams where the water can back up & it manages to find a way under the membrane. Requiring breaking open the ceiling to find where the leak is, mold remediation, (brand new) roof repair ... drywall repair ... kid you not .... all that last winter.
.

 

It is interesting how we as individuals will sometimes focus in on wealthy people and make them the Boogeyman.

Take Mr. Musk he is an easy target (It could be just as easily - Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton and Family or any one of hundreds of other enterprising individuals) -very wealthy- should we tax the living bejabbers out of him?

Look at all the employees of his many, many different businesses.
What do they have in common - they all -everyone of them pay taxes to their local, state and federal governments.

Look at their many Corporations - Tesla, Starlink, AI spinoffs, Energy business etc. etc. - what do these corporations have in common - they all pay taxes to local, state and federal governments.

Look at their individual wealth they have built and sacrificed for - what do these individuals have in common - each year they will have to pay local, state and federal governments.

.... and yet this is not enough for some - these successful individuals must be demonized, vilified and then have their wealth taken from them- with absolutely no appreciation for the - jobs they provide individuals - the business contributions to the area they have businesses in with the accompanying contributions to that areas business climate.

I kind of wish we had about 10 times more wealthy individuals like that creating jobs and opportunities for individuals in our Country.
They are contributors, enablers and the engines driving the economy - they are not sitting at home drawing money and living off the Government and others tax money

 

There are businesses that operate honestly and businesses that operate dishonestly, and either kind can make a little or a lot of coin. Sometimes that dimension seems to get overlooked in discussions about demonizing the job creators and all.

One that operates dishonestly can sometimes make extra helpings of coin, by disadvantaging honest competitors. So it's then not only bad for its customers, but also bad for its sector as honest competitors are driven out, and bad for its employees (who are getting, yeah, jobs and opportunities, but the kind that strip them of the ability to look in the mirror or explain their job to their kids).

 

yep....

WX = Climate.
Climate = WX.

 

Yeah, we got about 4-inches of snow in my small town of Monument, Colorado on Wednesday night....was very pretty and makes one want to put up the Christmas tree! But the warm sun came out for Halloween so the kids had a pretty nice trick-or-treating window last night...although the temps dropped pretty fast after the sun went down. I ended up giving out a big bag and a half of candy which is more than normal. (My neighborhood are mostly all older folks, retired or doctors, RNs, engineers, and a realtor down the way who's always bugging everyone to sell....nope!)

Did see one car, Thursday morning, way off into the ditch on the drive into work....a big Jeep SUV....those 4x4 folks think they don't have to slow down for snow and ice....wrong!!

 

The job creators are the average people, the masses. Take cars, if one maker goes out of business, do people buy fewer cars? A rich person may have 100 cars, means nothing to car production. A million average people having one car means something. If there are no car makers, but people want new cars, someone steps up to fill the demand and takes the reward risk.
it’s not about being against the wealthy either, another talking point from their teams. Oh, say they are against being wealthy as a defense to our paying taxes. A person is not against the wealthy because of saying they should pay more income tax.

 

Yeah...I've pulled some of those out.
At least AWD owners can be credited for not knowing much about driving or cars.
4X4 drivers are WORSE because they don't know that they don't know, what they don't know.

Disclosure:
My company car is a 4x4.
I retired my company-issued 2006 F150 4x4, and am now driving one of those itty-bitty little 'Jeeplet' 4x4s.
My boss is a new jeep owner, but he's not completely irredeemable. He didn't order a box of rubber ducks to give out to other Jeep drivers.

On our first conference call after the strike, I told him that I would be charging mileage for at least a week since my company car is a Jeep and OF COURSE that meant it would be down for maintenance following a month of sitting in the parking lot.

I was wrong.

....it was two weeks.
(He took it well.....)

 

All of Musk's companies are being investigated for violations of financial, environmental, labor, and safety laws. Some companies have multiple ones. Plus, at least one civil case against them from a private party I am aware of.

VW employed a lot of people selling diesels. The taxes generated form that did not cover the harm the emission cheating caused the public and competitors.

The call isn't to tax the 'bejabbers' out of the wealthy. It is to get them to pay a level of tax rate that is inline with what the majority pays. Not only do they have the means to best reduce their tax burden not available to the rest of us, those measures taken are actually legal. Something is wrong if someone like Buffet can pay less in taxes than their secretary.

 

[QUOTE="Trollbait, post: 3490504, member: 12239]Not only do they have the means to best reduce their tax burden not available to the rest of us, those measures taken are actually legal. [/QUOTE]
I'll bet they have better health care, and they can live in nicer neighborhoods.
Legally, even.

Perhaps we ought to try forcing poor people to innovate, build factories and hire people, etc...

[QUOTE="Trollbait, post: 3490504, member: 12239]Something is wrong if someone like Buffet can pay less in taxes than their secretary.[/QUOTE]
Do they even still use the word 'secretary?'
Did ABC just use that as a diminutive?
IIRC his [administrative assistant?] paid nearly 36% in income taxes - which makes me wish I could have to 'over-pay' like she does.
Buffet paid a about half of that (as a percentage!!!) which, of course means that he paid more in taxes that year than the rest of his home state of Nebraska, probably.
It also makes him a pretty good lib - woke-splaining all of this to other people instead of voluntarily paying "his fair share."

Of course all of this was before P45 gave ultra-rich people like me a tax break, which put me in the mid 20% range.

 

No all of Mr. Musks companies are not being investigated - you also conveniently forgot to mention Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sam Walton and family, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and the millions of other Americans who are millionaires.
(How Many Millionaires Are There in the U.S.? - Ramsey
According to a recent study, almost 24.5 million millionaires live in the U.S. today.)

Let's once again do a basic economics lesson.

First lets' look at yourself
Hom much taxes do you pay?
How may jobs have you created for others in your life?
How much of your income do you freely give to charity?
How have you contributed to the scientific technology innovation to progress society?
Are you simply a consumer or a creator?
What is your overall impact and contribution to the Country's economy?
Remember this your contribution not others - yours.

Now stop that thought process- we are now moving on to another concept - we will use Mr. Musk since you picked him out of the rest of the millions upon millions of wealthy Americans.

Lesson 1.
How many jobs in America has Mr. Musk Companies created - Tesla, Space X, Twitter, AI Research, Robotics, Energy Sector etc., etc.
Do all these employees of his companies pay taxes?

Lesson 2.
Do each of these Companies have to also pay Federal, State and Local taxes?

Lesson 3.
Who created these jobs and companies with their innovation?
Does this individual also pay State Federal and Local taxes as required by law?

We will hold off on Lessons 4,5 and 6 right now as they will begin to describe all the positive spinoffs of this one person's innovations ex:
doesn't each vehicle require 4 tires that individuals and companies are supplying, who and where is the metal, motors, wiring, batteries, switches, screens etc. necessary for a vehicle being manufactured?
Don't all these individual jobs and companies also pay taxes? We will hold off on the examples of spinoff industry from Space X, AI, Robots and the Energy Sector Products to keep from confusing you.

We could also discuss Charitable contribution people like Bill Gates make of their own free will but this could again possibly confuse you.

Compare yourself to Mr. Musk - your both basically the same - a person- who is contributing more to our country and its tax base?

I don't particularly like Mr. Musk or his loudmouth, but recognize he is an American and making contribution to our Country's economy providing jobs and giving people opportunities to realize their dreams and improve their lot in life like so many of his successful and fellow innovators and job providers.

We will also hold off on discussing the enormous waste of taxpayer money or the moral, ethical and economic contradictions of taking money from someone to give to someone else as this is guaranteed to cause confusion.

People have different views - understanding another persons views is interesting and I respect your opinion and where you are coming from - I have a different perspective- it is no better or worse than yours just different

 

https://www.cbpp.org/research/...xpensive-and-failed-to-deliver

This article seems skewed in its political party blame. Last civics class I had - many decades ago ... legislation was authored & voted on by the (very often well-to-do) house & senate members (requiring bipartisan effort) before executive branch signs off on it. No?
.

 

Someone bought each Tesla or no more Tesla jobs. I don’t know the details, but spacex has a lot of government funding I believe, Twitter wouldn’t tweet with all those customers. So you say Musk created those jobs, which isn’t going to get a no from him.
As for taking money from someone to give to someone else I guess you are talking about each person should live on an island and not a society of millions. If the one on the other island dies, who cares type of existence.

 

I knew someone would say the article is skewed and not look at the facts. The increased standard deduction was lipstick to keep people quiet. I am not sure what party was responsible for adding the increased standard deduction it was a long time ago. I doubt trump did anything but sign the papers, as long as he got his tax cut.

 

Interesting that they still call it 'civics.'

A skewed article?
...oh my!

I noticed that Musk has come under a lot more criticism and review since he's been red-pilled.
I fully expect that the government will stop giving him so much money under a Harris regime....and give it to....????
Boeing?
The ChiComms? (I know....a redundancy)
The Russians?
Who else can successfully put 'beans in orbit?
(Or rescue those stranded?)
Musk gets more government money from space in the form of one of SpaceX's subsidiaries.
No.
Not Starlink - unless they too get USF money for 'conquering the digital divide.'
The government pays for Starshield.
Mush gets 'car money' from some "act" that was signed that had to do with inflation.....causing....prolonging.....I can't remember which one since it was sooooo 2021 years ago.

Where Musk does NOT get bucks from dot.gov is "formerly known as." a company that he bought in what I have heard describerd as the single greatest humanitarian act ever by any of our centimillionaires.
What about those others?

When Jobs offshored money, he used wire transactions.
Gates perhaps did 'otha stuff offshore that people don't like to talk about.
Bezos has some side hustles, but he's got some explaining to do with his dark-democracy rag. I have heard where he might be giving SpaceX some competition.

SLA?

Hard Pass.
This is 2024.
Lead Acid batteries famously caused the first alleged phone call.

Is there a LiFePo4 alternative?