Extending the Bush Tax Cuts

To play off eggs post http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-voyager-20101215,0,1817696.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29 there are two spacecraft. Another going in the opposite direction. The idea is to diversify. My son owns his own business. With a few stokes of a computor keys yesterday, he made a bunch for his business + $ 10,000.00 for his personal account. Roofing isn't your only option. B) :) :) B) Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

MikeH: perhaps, I say "Social Safety Net" you say "Welfare". :)

A lot of good has come from protecting the average American from financial disaster. Americans who have contributed greatly to this society. To me it is not simply about rich or poor. Or fairness. It is good economic sense .....and good business. Until it becomes "welfare". Then I stop supporting it.

We leave it to our leaders, our chosen and wisest to sort it out...... then they happily send us all through the meat grinder

:woohoo:

Well, all I know is that high taxes cause me not to have the money to buy more cars, take more vacations, offer higher pay,benefits, etc etc etc.

It does stick in my craw that, for instance, select individuals such as hedge fund managers only pay 15% capital gains on their incomes while the rest of us are taxed at much higher rates.

It's a little puzzling, but even Warren Buffet has seemingly complained that his secretary pays relatively much higher income taxes than he does.

The obvious solution to it all is to cut govt spending, which just ain't gonna happen. Too many corporate sponsors, govt employees, and welfare recipients' votes are bought with the taxes.

I'd venture to say that (in another world) any mediocre businessperson could stop the bleeding within a year, but there sure would be a bunch of pissed off mofos.

Strap in for the ride, it's a rocket sled downhill. If anyone sees something in the works that would change that, I'd like to hear what it is.

You did not derail it all egg. if I didn't need to eat or would not die of the cold, I'd like to be with Voyager........Nah. The boredom between asteroids would drive me nuts :P

Sometimes, it feels quite comfortable to be a simple dumbass with high ideals. It's a lot easier to focus on what you're doing instead of worrying about everyone else.

Stephen, I'd be happy to carry on a conversation about business models and "entitlement" mentality, but not here. Will say the only place I hate giving money to is the government. Pouring it out on employees, community and underpriviledged is a real joy.

Lastly, a brief note from one of America's all time greatest knotheads. (You better know that's not how I feel)...

In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

I don't mean to derail this discussion so I count on you boys to ignore this post if you view it as doing that. Recently I was talking to an electrician about short circuits and ground wires and rehabilitating an older home. The subject of mice came up. He mentioned that a client of his reported a loss of power in one circuit and when he opened up a wall trying to chase down the break he found a fried mouse stuck to the wiring. Now we can call mice (and rats and squirrels, etc.) vermin. We can call them rodents. We can call them worthless pests, or anything else we like. But they are in fact mammals and though we have some pretty distinguishing characteristics, we share a lot in common with them. Looking for food, heat, comfort, and safety in a semi-random, half-conscious manner is one of them.

As a group, we are not terribly careful. Most things that look soft and chewable end up covering a hard line that packs more wallop than we could ever have imagined. There are some soothsayers of course, some little red hens, and some very reasoned minds among us, but if not for hindsight, most of us would never know anything about how the world works or what the side-effects of anything we do might be. We just roam from room to room looking for a better deal. Most of that is further constrained by an over-weaning self-interest. I am finding it pretty discouraging. But all about us and among us are people doing whatever they can, with optimism, energy, valiant spirit, and high ideals, to force things down a better path. It has always been hard to do that. It will always be hard to do that. But what else is there?

Voyager is now almost eleven billion miles from the sun. Solar wind is clocked at zero there and it is preparing to leave the solar system. We've been haggling with each other ever since it set sail. It has no damned idea about any of that. It just keeps sending back information.

Stephen in Big Business that might be referred to as ROI....Return on Investment. Altho ROI is not counted in # of employees, there could be a commonality. If you could find it.

These Big Business companies tend to be in the Mfg. sector or aging industries/ companies. They tend to get shunned on Wall St. too. Lower stock prices. Not Growth Stocks.

In my smaller business I could look for "gross $'s per employee" such as: 4 field workers, $500K gross. Would equal $125,000 per field employee per yr.

Which on its own means very little until, Wages, benefits and O/ Head are factored in. But it is a general comparison, a base if you will, to look at. In the end, the NET per employee would be a better guage, and then of course if you could crunch the numbers, which employee nets you the most/ least?

woody, you asked what I think is an interesting question. I suspect that you and I have internally made much the same calculations. Basically- I don't think "standard of living" is "deserved" based on the number of employees. That would be focusing on the wrong side of the equation. Standard of living comes from what you actually earn.-different from deserve.

mentally pick a "standard of living"- the dollar figure is inconsequential because because highly similar "standards of living" might have very different dollar figures assigned to them in California,New York,Mississippi,or Ohio.

Let's call that standard of living "x".

As I suspect you have already personally determined------ if co. A can earn the owner "X" with 4 employees-and company "B" is earning it's owner "X" with 40 employees you have an interesting situation. Company "C" might be earning "X" with ZERO employees.

Which of those 3 companies would you say has a problem with it's business model? which would you choose to personally invest in? which would you personally prefer to be?

you might have 3 different answers there-or concievably you might have 3 identical answers. But- I don't see number of employees = any specific standard of living

someone might have a really great business model but in the wrong enviornment.Recognizing that- it's going to be much more effective to adapt the business model to the ACTUAL enviornment- than it is to pee in the wind trying to change the enviornment.

Remember "X" can be whatever you want it to be- but you have to focus on the proper side of the equation. As a business man- do you want to set up an equation where x=q+w+e or do you want an equation where x=q+w+e(2+3)/s-(34%x786)(278/R) +18 ? in the second equation-we might ALL wonder why X isn't instead 5X----or indeed 50X--------- but that isn't going to change the mathmatics of the situation. Best wishes, Stephen

Tarrifs, especially against a country like, China, is the ONE thing the Government failed to do. Other 'n that, "We the People" sold the place for beads, not unlike the natives sold Long Island to the Dutch for some trinkets.

Tariffs however have political baggage too. The "Nanny State Syndrome" We Americans don't need any damned Government protecting us from ....ourselves. We are big enough to make our own decisions......even inside of a China Mart.

And of course the "Free Marketers" will always drive a stake into the heart of what is left of that vanity argument. The problem is and always has been, is that it is not a "Free" market, or "Free" Trade for that matter.

The twillster has plenty of Chinese made goods in his house too. There used to be some choice on the store shelves between USA Made & Foreign made. It seems that in the last decade, it has grown to almost 100% foreign.

OTOH, I don't recall EVER seeing GM, Jefferey Immelt, or any other USA manufacturer pushing congress for tariffs, Except for the Socialist USWA and our local US Rep. Pete Visclosky (Dem). And our local economy has done "better" than a lot of places because of it.

I understand that for the Manufacturers, like anyone the path of least resistance is easiest. Taxes are only one of the issues they face however. Not just regulations and the wage difference too, but how about pollution and employment laws?

Tariffs would of been great. But that ship has sailed. REAL Leadership would've taken the ball out of the consumers hands a decade ago and made up some of those lost revenues and protected some of those jobs somehow.

Instead we grant China "Favored Nation Status" WOW and Dis Belief!

But that would be our Red Blooded" "strong" "All-American" "conservative" "Patriotic " (LOL) Republicants who sucked up to the Chinese (a nicer word than phucked) as opposed to some pencil necked geeky sinful "liberals" who "Hate America"

Ultimately, I would guess, no BET on it, that the Chinese are taxing these fellas QUITE WELL over there. How else could they be investing in the infrastructure (How unfamiliar that sounds) to make so much of this possible? So is taxes the the #1 issue? Or the Red Herring? My guess is that the workers and the environment are paying a much higher cost than anyone else.

OTOH kudos to the Chinese for attempting to build a Middle Class. Too bad about ours tho.

Mike before I read the article: "Class warfare is just so much easier than the tough decisions" Right. That says a lot.

"No Bush fan"... Seems like the majority of folks are either still blaming Bush or blaming Obama for what Bush did. I think B & O are both private business failures, perhaps their biggest common trait

"My Bible (which doesn't seem contradictory to me) tells me to be generous." Thanks for that hit on the head Mike :) I can't seem to boil it down like that. But that is the way I am wired, to take things too literally. Seriously, thank you.

"And what is a deduction? Just means you don't pay taxes on that money, not that you get to deduct that much from your taxes." Correct, it is a deduction from your gross income. Separation of church and state must be maintained. Government does not provide charity, they seek votes. Churches seek members (see illegal immigration) How do we sort it out?

What Woody Said: "With all the ecomomists, accountants and staticians employed by the government, somebody by now should have determined the top rate that revenues begin to decrease if raised higher. That point should be known by every politician and voter. Anything higher than that would be understood as revenge on achievers by the spiteful, not as actually increasing revenues."

And I'd like to add what I said about the line in the sand: Why, oh why, was it drawn at $200/250K? To maximize revenue? To punish? To maximize votes? Is there a dumbazz fault line there? This is something very key, that I don't think was explained. I think of woody's words and tie the two together.

Now...onto the article

PS: You do know I'm not a Bush fan, right? I just think he's a helluva lot better than OneBigAssMistakeAmerica.

Here's a little article I recently read. Now keep in mind, a lot of these companies ARE my customers. They were committed to this country, it's people, it's workforce, and many of them will tell you that the American worker is STILL the most productive worker in the world. But many of them are racing to China. Some of my contacts are spending as much time in China as they are here. Why? Because they can't make their product here, and sell it at a profit. CONSUMER'S WON'T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS MADE IN AMERICA !!! They buy the cheaper Chinese product next to it. I have not talked to a SINGLE customer that wanted to move to China, but they did it to save their business. That's a fact. I don't care who you blame, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush or Obama, but I can tell you it DIDN'T START WITH REAGAN. The simple fact is that unfair trade tarifs, consumer greed, and a screwed up tax system that punishes success and ingenuity are all to blame.

Nineteen Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind....

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2 Dell Inc., one of America's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States ..

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you. If anyone can explain how a deindustrialized America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so below in the comments section.

America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up

I'm not going to argue with you on this. And I can't even begin to comprehend what Stephen is saying.

Twill, in my roofing career, the worst year was $20,200.00 plus a few grand I put in my pocket on some side jobs. My best year was pretty darn good. I can tell you that I had more cash in my pocket when I was making 70-90K.

When you can say you've seen all points on the spectrum, then and only then, will I continue a meaningful discussion on the topic. Until then, it would like me telling a brain surgeon how to do his job. Not worth a squat.

My Bible (which doesn't seem contradictory to me) tells me to be generous. I'm not going to start patting myself on the back. All I'll say is I agree with most of your first reply to me. But when you get to the point where you can really accomplish some good with your money, the Gooberment starts saying "Sorry Charlie, you can give it to the poor, but since we really need to keep those poor people voting for us, we need your money to keep our programs in place, and you're gonna pay the tax on what you gave away, anyway!... all while we paint you as Mr. Evil when we have the podium."

Corp's maximum tax deductible donations are 10% of net income. Read again.... NET income. So, you have a good year, let's use Wywoody's 600K for an example, and you buy a few trucks, give some nice bonuses, take some money for yourself, and get real generous with charity.... maybe get you're total net income down to 70 or 80K, just enough to assure operating capital for the winter..... and what do you get to deduct? 7 or 8k. And what is a deduction? Just means you don't pay taxes on that money, not that you get to deduct that much from your taxes. All Hail our Mighty Government and their spending wisdom!!

Personal, starts to max out at 30%.

It really sucks when you want to give away your blessings, get penalized by the government for it, and get played as the evil rich by the politicians and a willing press. Class warfare is just so much easier than the tough decisions.

That's all I got to say...... I can only degenerate from here. Sorry for the initial tirade. It's a real sore spot.

Roofguy Said: Those who will not work, shall not eat. ---Apostle Paul

The Bible is full of contradictions. We could use up the whole internet and all of the Government's paper sorting it out :)

According to this mornings "news" program, the American people support this illusion 60-40% --- approx. (Wall St Journal/ NBC Poll)

WOW! We are even digging our own grave for them.......