GE pays no taxes, receives tax bonuses, ships jobs overseas, and its CEO is into job creation

[aurik]

We should also try lowering taxes, because maybe if we lower them enough they will wrap around and tax revenues will go through the roof.

[Rhinox]

I guess what swampy is getting it is no one can do anything about spending therefore the only recourse is support the party that complains about it the most even if they themselves spend just as bad.


Conservative argument equivalent of a guy complaining the girl never accepted his call after he fucked her to hide the fact that he didn't want anything to do with her to begin with.

[Gwathuial]

A bit late, but Zealot (and Kuya) have you read 23 Things they don't tell You about Capitalism (by Ha-Joon Chang), Shock Doctrine (by Naomi Klein) or A Brief History of Neoliberalism (by David Harvey), or other books by these authors?

[Kuya]

I saw a lecture about the subject by Ha-Joon Chang and Naomi Klein. I don't think i've heard anything from David Harvey although the title of that book sounds familiar.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

We should also try lowering taxes, because maybe if we lower them enough they will wrap around and tax revenues will go through the roof.

Almost a good caricature. Except the purpose of lower taxes would be to increase GDP which in turn would increase revenues, or so the theory goes.

[Senoska]

Cutting taxes is spending though.. I dont get it, lol.

[Kuya]

Almost a good caricature. Except the purpose of lower taxes would be to increase GDP which in turn would increase revenues, or so the theory goes.

Or so the theory goes.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Cutting taxes is spending though.. I dont get it, lol.

That would mean your money isn't yours.

[Kurokikaze]

^ exactly theory... That hasn't worked since it was introduced.

If they cut 300 billion from defense they could take that money and use it wisely on things that are going to create jobs and bring more revenue into the country going forward. If theres a strategy for how that money is going to be spent and how we'll make it back then whats to say don't do it cause its "omg spending".

It takes money to make money.

[Alarial]

^ exactly theory... That hasn't worked since it was introduced.

If they cut 300 billion from defense they could take that money and use it wisely on things that are going to create jobs and bring more revenue into the country going forward. If theres a strategy for how that money is going to be spent and how we'll make it back then whats to say don't do it cause its "omg spending".

It takes money to make money.

Not defending the perpetual tax cuts for corporations with the lame excuse of "hurting them hurts us", but not all Defense spending is detrimental to the job markets. My husband and I work in the Defense industry and about half of the Defense budget goes to supporting American jobs (we're complaining about 60 million in missiles shot at Lybia, but that 60 million went to Raytheon, which houses about 72,000 employees IN America.)

Specifically, cutting defense without cutting how often we're actually sending/maintaining/deploying troops to occupy foreign nations, only means cutting domestic contracts (which means companies like Raytheon get half their contracts cut for example, costing thousands of jobs).

We DO need to cut defense, but we need to do it by getting out of countries where we're pissing money. We are BURNING cash in Afghanistan, and yet when we finally cut defense budget areas, we only do it in the contracts area, which hurts American jobs.

[Kuya]

Actually, part of the problem with military spending in the US is precisely the fact that it is closely tied into the US economy. So when you try to get rid of some useless military project, you can't, because the parts for it are made in numerous locations throughout the US, and stopping the project would mean a loss of jobs. So representatives are prone instead to tack on as many useless military projects as they can muster and drag them to their districts for the job creation that it brings. This is part of what is known as the military industrial complex.

The military in the US is kind of like a parasite. Except that its purpose is not defense, but keeping the military economy going regardless of whether all that spending is actually responding to a legitimate threat to security.

[archibaldcrane]

Specifically, cutting defense without cutting how often we're actually sending/maintaining/deploying troops to occupy foreign nations

is not ideal, I agree.

However, you're painting a classic broken window fallacy. That 60 million that Raytheon doesn't get would hurt Raytheon, but it would be better to hurt Raytheon to the tune of 60 mil for wasteful spending and use taxpayer money somewhere that is actually productive. 60 mil to Raytheon is 60 mil not spent somewhere else. Now, we waste a lot of taxpayer money outside the military also, but ideally that money could be put to better use.

[Alarial]

is not ideal, I agree.

However, you're painting a classic broken window fallacy. That 60 million that Raytheon doesn't get would hurt Raytheon, but it would be better to hurt Raytheon to the tune of 60 mil for wasteful spending and use taxpayer money somewhere that is actually productive. 60 mil to Raytheon is 60 mil not spent somewhere else. Now, we waste a lot of taxpayer money outside the military also, but ideally that money could be put to better use.

I was agreeing with you that we need to cut defense, but also pointing out that you can't ignore that not all of Defense spending is "inherently wasteful money", as a large portion of Defense spending goes towards American jobs. I then pointed out that 100% of the time, Defense spending cuts goes directly towards Defense industry job loss and 0% towards "cutting where we're wastefully spending money".

We don't need to "cut 20% of the Defense Budget". We need to "Cut 20% of the Defense Budget by getting the hell out of Afghanistan and several other areas".

[archibaldcrane]

It's akin to paying 60 million to build a road no one will drive on. Jobs will be lost in defense contracting, and they should be - there are too many people employed in the defense industry.

I could go around breaking windows and the window repair guys wouldn't want me to stop because they'd lose their jobs, but that's still a shitty argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable..._broken_window

[Alarial]

It's akin to paying 60 million to build a road no one will drive on. Jobs will be lost in defense contracting, and they should be - there are too many people employed in the defense industry.

I could go around breaking windows and the window repair guys wouldn't want me to stop because they'd lose their jobs, but that's still a shitty argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable..._broken_window

That's where I'd disagree. Certainly there are a few projects we could get rid of in the Defense industry, but you're correlating some waste to an entire system as being wasteful.

We can keep a strong military with large Defense projects aimed at keeping our military up to date on equipment and defense packages (yes other countries are developing newer and better stuff every day and yes we need to be able to defend against them), without having to pour billions of dollars every year into sinkholes like Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya. (I added Libya not as a reference to the 60mil in missiles, but to the inevitability of us having to send millions in aid/support/troops now that we're involved). Cutting military spending is done properly by wise decisions being made on how we use our military, not by crippling our defense research and development.

For example, if the Defense budget for 2012 is 500billion:

300billion of which is spent on the current wars in Afghan/Iraq and support of those country's infrastructure.

30 billion is spent on Defense industry R&D contracts and American jobs.

And 170 billion is spent on supporting the rest of our bases,

Cutting 15 billion (which would come solely from R&D contracts and American jobs) doesn't solve the problem or help our economy. Now cutting the billions we're wasting in Afghan would.

[archibaldcrane]

Plenty of other countries (in fact, all of them) spend way less of their GDP in defense, and somehow they aren't getting invaded either.

We spend too much, period, across all facets, on the military - R&D AND active troop activities.

It's not worth borrowing that much money from China to pay for it. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan is a start.

A start.

[aurik]

That would mean your money isn't yours.

As I said. Don't bother arguing with Swampy, he will never understand that "not receiving $1000 from person A" is mathematically equivalent to "receiving $1000 from person A and then spending $1000 by giving it directly to person A".

Not even remotely possible.

[Yugl]

Actually, part of the problem with military spending in the US is precisely the fact that it is closely tied into the US economy. So when you try to get rid of some useless military project, you can't, because the parts for it are made in numerous locations throughout the US, and stopping the project would mean a loss of jobs. So representatives are prone instead to tack on as many useless military projects as they can muster and drag them to their districts for the job creation that it brings. This is part of what is known as the military industrial complex.

The military in the US is kind of like a parasite. Except that its purpose is not defense, but keeping the military economy going regardless of whether all that spending is actually responding to a legitimate threat to security.

Hurray, we're early 20th century Japan.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

As I said. Don't bother arguing with Swampy, he will never understand that "not receiving $1000 from person A" is mathematically equivalent to "receiving $1000 from person A and then spending $1000 by giving it directly to person A".

Not even remotely possible.

I get the math, what I don't get is the idea that I don't own my money.

[aurik]

I get the math, what I don't get is the idea that I don't own my money.

How does that imply in any way that you don't own your money?