So was it a good move to go and live next door to the religious nuts;-)

Interesting, so the US tax code that prevents the write-off of capital loss against income acts to increase the risk of those who have venture capital to invest. So any tax on a venture (corporation) increases the risk to the venture capitalist. Interesting. Perhaps society should tax the retention of capital that is not invested in ventures, e.g. in a mattress, and not tax ventures e.g. corporations.

I'm in favour of "Ad-Venture" capitalism. i.e. where the money is invested in startup companies and used to fund research on new products and ideas. Investing in Production is what Capitalism is all about, not playing silly games with CDO's. Persons who invest in start up companies should be entitled to a tax break. No tax break for investing in Blue Chip companies though. they should be rewarded for taking the risk

Now as to population, today the planet has far too many. The conquest of resources is at an end. So it looks like not just one society but all are at risk. Of course society could adopt mandatory birth control, e.g. Zero Population Growth.

+1

I had no clue you were so conservative.

Not a conservative, I hate the terms liberal and conservative, they have become so bastardised they're now meaningless. I'm a fence sitter, I can see good and bad in both ideologies. The good I support, the bad I either ignore or oppose as required.

T.A.

Here's a nice bit of disingenuousness. There is talk that the Conservatives are willing to allow the deadline to pass, allow the breaks tax breaks to end, and then when they actually negotiate a middle tax rate can claim to have "lowered" taxes.

Technically, that is a true statement but another is the lower taxes are actually more than the wealthy are currently paying. So they are lowering taxes but the wealth would still pay more.

The end result is an odd face saving that isn't really.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Britain was glad to see the back of them. We sent all our criminals to Australia and all our religious nuts to America. ;)

I really shouldn't giggle, but it is hard not to do so ....

;-)

Sorry

+1 LOL...
Britain does have a long history of shipping people off to other continents, huh.
Maybe it's time to build colonies on the moon :-). Lets practice in Antartica first.

Seriously though there is lots of good discussion in here as I read through everything. I must agree that it is probably cheaper to provide *better* assistance at the government level than to say cut programs which would in turn bring more costs elsewhere.
Gary has a point in mentioning the method in which investment capital is taxed. I do not think cutting corporate taxes is the answer, but perhaps restructuring the tax code so corporations are more motivated to spend and less motivated about consistently higher profits.

Here's another question that I cannot believe I'm going to ask. What has happened to any society that ends up in that "bread and circus" phase? Has any society come out of this and grown into power again, or have they all withered away as history has taught me?

I guess a good question is what comes next. We have the "bread and circus" already, so what now. Yes smarter spending habits, and limits on austerity, but where do we go from there, how do we stay afloat and enter another golden age? Personally I don't think it's mathematically possible.

And @Skil, this is why I cannot buy into that party. They have an agenda and it's NOT the American public. The Dems, while not really any better at least try to attempt to meet in the middle, where as the Repubs just wanna help their fat old white buddies.

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#resist

The sin-gal largest power the fed exercises over states is to with hold money.

with all fed money come rules, rules that by their fed nature must be 1 size fits all.

The united way used to take care of a lot of local or regional problems but now

can't because they administer fed funds.

Indian tribes that take large amounts of fed money do worse than tribes that don't.

In almost all cases solutions tailored to local conditions will do more good for

less money than 1 size fits all fed solutions.

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Example:
RETURNS ON COST OF LEAD ABATEMENT = $210,000,000,000

Even if you don't care about the suffering averted and the higher probability that their pursuit of happiness will be successful for adults who will have had less exposure to lead as children, government programs that remove lead from the environment mean both more revenue and lower expenses to your government overall.

Why would anybody not be for that?

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Why would anybody not be for that?

Taken in isolation, of course not. But the world doesn't work in isolation. If the money cut from that can be put into a slush fund to be doled out to potential contributors to the reelection campaign, then it makes sense to cut it.

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Once enacted by a majority of the governed or our representatives, all laws are enforced by, duh, force.

You're sounding a lot like the Khmer Rouge, the Chinese Secret Police, Che Guevara, the Gestapo, and the NKVD.

If civil war breaks out, I'll know which side you're on.

Hint: we're already seceding from you before you can. We are well past the process of petitions. You have lost and will continue to lose. Be sure to gather all your friends and relatives in TX.

LOL! Your unarmed! LOL!

Care to test that hypothesis? ;)

Care to test that hypothesis? ;)

Aaaaaand that that, this thread just got ridiculous.

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**Check out my wifes cupcakes**

Aaaaaand that that, this thread just got ridiculous.

Then you have a higher threshold for ridiculousity than most.