Egan-Jones Downgrades U.S. Debt

[clarkatticus]

A sales tax would actually be a Regressive tax with the poorest paying the highest percent of there income in taxes...I don't know how thats Fair.

No tax on meds, food and health services. Tax increases on non essential items. This prevents the poor from buying above their revenue and evenly distributes the rest. Automatic means testing. I think it would lead to more prudent buying habits, and taxing financial transactions like Europe would bring in more revenue and transparency.

 

[Openmind]

No tax on meds, food and health services. Tax increases on non essential items. This prevents the poor from buying above their revenue and evenly distributes the rest. Automatic means testing. I think it would lead to more prudent buying habits, and taxing financial transactions like Europe would bring in more revenue and transparency.

Agreed. Actually there should be a "luxury tax" on quite a few items, including cars.

Owning a car is for most people a necessity. It is needed (especially in this country with poor public transportation development like high speed trains) even to sustain a job for most people. But, there is a very big difference between purchasing an efficient car (both in price and energy consumption) and purchasing luxury cars that cost as much or more than some people's houses! So, cars above a certain price (and level of energy efficiency) should be taxed at a higher rate.

 

[dogtowner]

Egan-Jones has downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, with more to come if the debt situation is not gotten under control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sti35XmZkDE

E-J is not one of the big, respected agencies like Moody's and S&P, but it is one of the best out there, in part because it's funded by institutional investors, not issuers, so it has no incentive to bias the ratings positively. Surely a sign of bad things to come.

Considering the amount of unfunded (and unfundable) obligations we have I can't understand why anyone would byuy our useless paper.

 

[dogtowner]

In what way are the poor and middle class supposedly going to be saddled with this on their own?

The free ride for "the poor" will end and the middle class, as always, will get stuck with the tab.

 

[clarkatticus]

Considering the amount of unfunded (and unfundable) obligations we have I can't understand why anyone would byuy our useless paper.

Because if our paper is useless, then their paper is less than useless.

 

[BigRob]

The free ride for "the poor" will end and the middle class, as always, will get stuck with the tab.

So again, in what way are the middle class specifically getting struck with the tab here?

 

[Openmind]

So again, in what way are the middle class specifically getting struck with the tab here?

Because the poor have nothing more that can be taken away from them. . . without actually letting them die of starvation!

And the wealthy won't participate at all in the "budget balancing" and "deficit reduction," they will just keep on getting wealthier. . .

So. . . the middle class (especially the lower middle class) will bear the brunt of the burden!

 

[Dr.Who]

Agreed. Actually there should be a "luxury tax" on quite a few items, including cars.

Owning a car is for most people a necessity. It is needed (especially in this country with poor public transportation development like high speed trains) even to sustain a job for most people. But, there is a very big difference between purchasing an efficient car (both in price and energy consumption) and purchasing luxury cars that cost as much or more than some people's houses! So, cars above a certain price (and level of energy efficiency) should be taxed at a higher rate.

Is there any purchase at all in which the gov could not decide that one man's purchase was a luxury and another's was a necessity. By your logic the gov should be involved in every purchase ever made.

My lunch was a luxury but that guy's lunch was a necessity...

And if the gov is involved in every purchase ever made then we are no longer a free people.

 

[Dr.Who]

Human nature establishes it. Your rights derive from what is necessary to obey natural law; and since every individual has duties to himself, his family, and his community, he requires a body of property to discharge them.

But that right is not unlimited; you literally have no more right to private property than is necessary for you to satisfy your obligations under natural law. Thus, you have a right to be free from trespassing, but this right is not so unlimited that you could, for instance, licitly sue a person for trespassing who runs across your property to escape a murderer pursuing him.

I'll explain more later if you like, but for now, I'm off to bed.

But you do have as much a right to your property so long as you do not harm another person.

If you pick an apple it is yours completely. If you pick more than you can eat then sell the rest they are still yours. The apples are only not yours when you interfere with the right of the other guy to pick his own apples, like knocking over his ladder. then the solution is to stop people from interfering with other peoples rights, not to take the apples from the guy who harmed no one but is selling apples.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

But you do have as much a right to your property so long as you do not harm another person.

If you pick an apple it is yours completely. If you pick more than you can eat then sell the rest they are still yours. The apples are only not yours when you interfere with the right of the other guy to pick his own apples, like knocking over his ladder. then the solution is to stop people from interfering with other peoples rights, not to take the apples from the guy who harmed no one but is selling apples.

and then some people start taking all the apples some have none...and the people with all the apples say I want even more apples ...make it easier for me...so they give there apples to someone with even more power...who helps them get more apples and sell those apples...the guy with few...well who the F cares right?

 

[ThisTooShallPass]

But you do have as much a right to your property so long as you do not harm another person.

The question is not of harm. Do I do harm to a homeless person if I fail to give him a five dollar bill I don't urgently need? No; I have simply failed to do good. I have nevertheless done evil by failing in my duty to be charitable to others.

As I said, under natural law, rights are relatively limited. They are the inverse of duty; so that my duty to care for my children under natural law entails a right to be obeyed by my children, and likewise a right on the part of my children to be cared for by me and a duty of my children to obey me.

Insofar as property is necessary for the discharge of many of our duties, we have a relatively broad right to it. But again, that right is not so unlimited to allow you to licitly deny others the bare minimum of resources necessary to discharge their own duties.

 

[clarkatticus]

The government is already involved in all retail purchases. Insofar as we have to audit all business, might as well go to a sales tax instead of income tax. Next we could make a single payer plan for health insurance and take that problem away from the business, funding it again through the sales tax. Omit food,drugs and necessary services from the sales tax and only consumer items will get taxed, if you are poor, then you cannot afford to buy things that are luxury, if you are wealthy, then you will pay for what extras you feel the need to buy-consumer responsibility with means testing. We could use the trained IRS auditors to beef up the ranks of the financial regulators.

 

[Openmind]

The government is already involved in all retail purchases. Insofar as we have to audit all business, might as well go to a sales tax instead of income tax. Next we could make a single payer plan for health insurance and take that problem away from the business, funding it again through the sales tax. Omit food,drugs and necessary services from the sales tax and only consumer items will get taxed, if you are poor, then you cannot afford to buy things that are luxury, if you are wealthy, then you will pay for what extras you feel the need to buy-consumer responsibility with means testing. We could use the trained IRS auditors to beef up the ranks of the financial regulators.

I agree, with one added twist. REAL luxury items (i.e., cars over $50,000, Jewlery, furs, yachts, houses over 200% of median in any specific area, etc. . .) should be taxed at a higher level.

 

[BigRob]

I agree, with one added twist. REAL luxury items (i.e., cars over $50,000, Jewlery, furs, yachts, houses over 200% of median in any specific area, etc. . .) should be taxed at a higher level.

The place you are going to find the most houses at 200% or above median in a specific area are transitional areas that people are attempting to revitalize. You don't want to punish that...

I mean lets be real, if you build in a mansion in an neighborhood of mansions, odds are you won't be at 200% of median value.

 

[Openmind]

The place you are going to find the most houses at 200% or above median in a specific area are transitional areas that people are attempting to revitalize. You don't want to punish that...

I mean lets be real, if you build in a mansion in an neighborhood of mansions, odds are you won't be at 200% of median value.

I am looking at a much broader area to establish "median value."

For exemple, a whole County, not a whole "street!"

And the median value already takes into account the "high" and "low" in any area. I don't want to "punish" anyone. But, although I believe that revitalization of a ghetto area is a good thing, it can easily turn into gentrification fo that area, which is VERY negative, as it take the (inferior, certainly, but still )only home poor people have ever known, and displaces those people with no affordable place to go to. . .while the "new gentry" drives the price up far beyond the original residents' affordability.