TOM THE DANCING BUG: Harry Potter and the Deathly Deficit!

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Anonymous

Its sad that some people are just beaten over the head with the truth, and yet they still demand lower taxes for the rich etc…
And claim that it will solve everything.
dheisel

Taxes are theft under the threat of violence. Tax breaks do not equal giving money to the rich. People who don’t pay any, or very little, taxes (the majority of Americans) should stop whining about how the rich are not paying their “fair share”. Many seem to want free health care, free education, free this, free that, and “the rich” should have to pay for it, why? This sense of entitlement is the true problem with our culture.
- ackpht
  
  And when someone walks off with your property, you of course will not expect help from the police and the courts, because those are fueled by the evil taxes.
  - dheisel
    
    I’d rather pay for a security service of my own choice, that actually cares about client satisfaction, instead of the one-size-fits-all government monopoly on those services. Surely you have never had something stolen from you, or else you would know how little the police actually care, and the chance of them actually recovering said property.
    - Todd Knarr
      
      And we had that kind of security service one time. It was called the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and it was very good at satisfying it’s customers. The problem was that it put satisfying it’s customers above everything else, including the actual guild or innocence of the people it’s customers wanted dealt with. It got bad enough that there’s actually a Federal law on the books prohibiting the Federal government from hiring anyone who works for Pinkterton.
      
      We moved to government-operated police agencies because of a general consensus that there were things that ought to be more important to the police than satisfying their customers, eg. making sure the people they were prosecuting were the people who appear to have done it and insuring that the accused had an honest opportunity to see the evidence against them, respond to it and generally defend themselves. Things which tend to horribly annoy the people who’d want to hire private security, because they interfere with getting on with punishing whoever they think did it.
  - aynrandspenismighty
    
    Totally, right. I mean it’s working wonders in Somolia.
    - dheisel
      
      Maybe you should actually investigate the history of governments in “Somolia” before you try using it as an example. Here’s a hint to start you on your research, it’s spelled Somalia.
      - aynrandspenismighty
        
        Indeed, my point is entirely without merit because of a spelling error. The shining example of libertarian governance that is Somalia is certainly preferable to that socialist hellscape of Sweden. I concede the argument to you, good sir.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        Perhaps the libertarians actually mean to refer to the legendary and paradisiacal original capitalist homeland of Semolia – you know, where all the semolians are thought to come from.
- Anonymous
  
  and when someone wants to dump used motor oil in your drinking water to save a few cents, or tries putting melamine in your chinese baby food, naturally you feel that it’s an obscene waste of money to hire someone to keep them from doing it, right?
- Neon Tooth
  
  This sense of entitlement is the true problem with our culture.
  
  If there’s a sense of entitlement it’s among the wealthiest Americans who pay a smaller percentage of their taxes than the rest of yes, and have been increasingly been paying less and less for decades. I’d say the bigger problem is an infantile selfishness, a delusional sense of self importance, and an addiction to fantasy ideas about free markets. If the world goes Mad Max and tribal, I can assure you that annoying libertarians will be the first uncooperative, unhelpful, useless tribe members to be exiled from the warmth and shelter of the camp. Left to freeze in the snow or rot in the desert.
  - Wally Ballou
    
    I have no desire to see America go “Mad Max and tribal”, I’d be quite content to have the amount of civilization we had in say, 1978, when federal spending was about 18% of GDP compared with the current 24%.
    
    I’d be delighted to let you take more from the rich if we get the total “take” back to its historic post-WW2 normal level.
  - Giovanni
    
    Actually rich people pay more in taxes as a percentage of their income. Checkout the handy chart in this article http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/who-pays-taxes
    - knoxblox
      
      Thanks for that link. I’m having a difficult discussion with a gentleman on another website who, like the man mentioned in the article, refuses to see the matter in context and thinks that 50% of the population pay no taxes whatsoever.
      - Giovanni
        
        Glad it was of use. Another article I love is on factcheck. http://factcheck.org/2011/07/fiscal-factcheck/
        
        They go through and show spending and tax revenue’s as a percentage of GDP. It’s a great read to get an idea of what exactly has happened. tl;dr We’re spending more than ever while taking in less taxes than ever.
Anonymous

Would that be the fiscally conservative party that’s $17.5 million in the red? Apparently even they aren’t get any trickle-down boost (insert your own scatological joke here. I can’t be arsed).

By the way something, Re-pube-lickins and Tea Party baboons, not raising the debt ceiling isn’t like missing a Visa payment. It’s like those “strategic defaults” that so many have decried as reprehensible. Except, of course, y’all have neglected to find a new place for us to live when we get foreclosed upon. Smooth, baby, smooth.
- Wally Ballou
  
  Anon @ 4:
  
  Is the current debt ceiling, failure to raise which you believe will bring crisis, the same debt ceiling which every Democratic senator voted against raising in 2006?
  
  Or have those two words come to mean the diametric opposite of what they meant five years ago??
Cook!EMonstA

“Is there a spell for making your opponents think they are compromising when they are really giving up?”

Yes, yes there is, it’s called Bipartisanship.
- Neon Tooth
  
  Bipartisanship as Obama “bargaining” and faux-Clinton “triangulation”:
  
  Obama:
  We need to end the failed Bush tax cuts and a majority of Americans have my back on this is.
  
  Republicans: No!
  
  Obama: awww shucks….ok.
Unmutual

Trickle down is a weird concept.

Trickle down is economic “theory” on par with young earth creationism.

Trickle down could work if not for a few pesky realities . . . such as

1. The US economy is not a closed system. Putting more money into somebody’s pocket here, does not guarantee the money will be spent here. Long and short of it is, plenty of rich folks are investing their money overseas instead of in the US, and that does not translate into wealth “trickling down”.

2. What trickle down will do, is create a larger and larger service class of people, because basic services like food and housekeeping and so forth, the rich will still need domestic workers to provide. But they will do everything in their power to drive down the wages paid to these service workers. End result is job creation, but not jobs that anyone can live on.

3. There is a natural tendency to hoard wealth, not go out and blow it all so it can “trickle down”. The upper class is good at this, which is why most of the upper class is second, third or fourth generation richies. They find ways to pass their wealth down to their kids, and this is natural, none of us would want our kids to potentially be poor someday. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam used to at least be able to take a bite out of these inheritence transactions and get some revenue from that, but excise and estate taxes have been largely gutted over the past decade.

4. Cutting taxes on capital gains supposedly encourages more investment, but all it really does, is reduce the incentive to go long on smart investment, and encourages silly and dangerous speculation. The end result is the kind of bubble-based economy we now have, where the rich basically make all their money playing the market roller coaster, not building solid, productive companies.
fnc

The tax cuts enacted by George Bush have certainly worked wonders. Maybe for somebody else’s economy more than ours but hey.

BARKEEP, ANOTHER ROUND!
- benher
  
  What? You still HAVE beer money?! Bourgeois swine!!!
kpkpkp

Bipartisanship = Corporations Win
- MrJM
  
  Bipartisanship = Corporations Win
  
  Only in those instances where the corporations have more money than other political interests.
  
  Oh, wait…
Julien Couvreur

Hehe, funny.

One small detail that is obvious to a kindergardener: giving and taking are distinct concepts. You may want to consider that sometimes.
Anonymous

Taxes are theft under the threat of violence. Tax breaks do not equal giving money to the rich. People who don’t pay any, or very little, taxes (the majority of Americans) should stop whining about how the rich are not paying their “fair share”. Many seem to want free health care, free education, free this, free that, and “the rich” should have to pay for it, why? This sense of entitlement is the true problem with our culture.

The alternative view is that taxes are the cost of living in a stable society in which private property is largely respected, and in which the force of law is applied to protect private property when it is not respected. Large amounts of money are not made in a vacuum; if you get rich, it is in part because you are part of a society that has enabled you to get rich. Taxes are the price of living in such a society.

A society with no taxes also has no legislature to write laws to protect private property, no judicial system to adjucate private property disputes, and no executive system to physically protect private property and its owners.

Welfare states are intended to protect rich folks from desperately poor people by minimizing the number of desperately poor people. Bear that in mind before throwing the poor folks under the bus. Some day they might not be so shy about doing the same to you.
Gulliver

Republicans as fiscal conservatives? No that’s fantasy!
Anonymous

From the start of the US until WWI, the US taxed property and luxuries like tobacco, booze and sugar.

This is important because property is even more unequally distributed than income.

Also, when taxes are not paid on property, it can easily be seized compared to investment income is comparatively easy to hide.

It should also be noted that from the start of the US until the US Civil War all corporate charters were for limited time periods and in order to be renewed a company had to prove that it was ‘of benefit to society at large.’ Corps today abuse the 14th Amendment which was written to protect the rights of former slaves, not shield robber barons.
knoxblox

Wait, wait!

Does this mean Marcus Bachmann is represented by Madam Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge?
Trent Hawkins

A Wiccan Republican candidate? Yeah thet’ll be the day.
- jacques45
  
  I’m looking forward to the first ad saying “My name is … and I am a witch!”
Neon Tooth

Obvious 16 year old libertarian troll is obvious.
Broken Window

The somalian life expectancy, infant mortality, gdp, access to internet etc. improved after the collapse of the socialist regime, that had to be upheld by soviet support. The return to local tribal tradition in somali societies was ofcourse against the anglocentric ideology of UN, and the it tried to force seperate groups under one dominant group to upheld old western imperial concepts of “Somalia”, unified under one rule and divided from other people by borders. Ofcourse the groups resisted, as they knew the misery the old regime had imposed. This made the extremist islamist(funded by US foreign “aid”) more welcome as an opposing force against western forces.

The somalians may seem backward to modern americans, but at least they are not waging five simultanious imperialistic wars aroud the globe. Maybe Obama could cut some spending by ending those unneccessary wars?
- aynrandspenismighty
  
  Yes, it was a paradise when I was there over 15 years ago. Burnt-out cars lining the streets, power poles with no wires because they were torn down and had their copper harvested and the local rule of law (I have a gun, do what I say) worked wonders. It is backwards, barbaric and utterly without merit. Tell me, would you want to be the richest man in Somalia or the poorest man in Finland?
  
  Think real hard.
Anonymous

Republicans cut spending until it comes to military welfare, I mean spending.

Based on the right’s logic the best way for a family to balance their check book isn’t just to spend less but also take in less. So the parents should quit their jobs, that will cause an increase in household income!
Hoshiko

I think everybody should be taxed at the exact same rate regardless of income and NO ONE should be excluded from paying taxes. This would be fair. Rather then give handouts to the poor, we should create jobs (similar to the WPA of the Great Depression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration) This would ensure people have income, would keep people trained in valuable skill sets, and could greatly improve our cities and national infrastructure. (Think of all the broadband a WPA could bring to rural areas…) Everyone (save maybe people in vegetative states) can do something to contribute to our country and society. (Office work, manual labor, etc…) What is wrong with US economics isn’t that we spend money on social projects, it’s the social projects we spend money on. It’s the confusing and unfair tax system. It’s trying to level the playing field to make everyone poor. Rich people got rich by being innovative. We don’t want to punish that. At the same time poor people become poor due to bad luck and poor choices, we need to create a society in which people CAN dig themselves out of such undesirable circumstances. Right now I don’t think people can dig themselves out. There are no jobs and companies aren’t training in the skill sets we need. Rather then spend millions on teaching a robot how to fold towels ( http://news.discovery.com/tech/senator-calls-robot-projects-wasteful-110617.html ), we need to spend the money on proactive projects to help PEOPLE. When we dig out of this economic mess we can then start to look at these research projects again. Think Maslow’s Hierachy… ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs )
Ugly Canuck

Gee, I post that, and then I immediately come across this on the newsfeed:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/19/us-africa-drought-idUSTRE76I48B20110719

…and now I feel bad about even indirectly joking about that area… truly rotten news.
Gulliver

People keep using the term libertarian. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Anonymous

Entitlement? The rich earn their money because of the society we have put in place. The rich are lucky to be able to profit so much. The entitlement of earnings is that of the rich, not the poor.

Without a working society the rich could not exist via ethical means.
Anonymous

Harry Potter in this comic is played by Mo of Dykes to Watch Out For
knoxblox

On trickle-down theory:

I think that a certain sector of society feel that it would only truly work if it were urine instead of money.
Anonymous

Trickle-down economics = the wealthy pissing on the poor.

OR

Trickle-down economics is the rich saying “we have all of the wealth and power. If we happen to drop any crumbs, they’re all yours. Unless we’re attached to those crumbs, in which case we’ll stomp on your face if you dive for it.”
- Anonymous
  
  I’ll never forget Keyne’s explanation of the trickle down theory as the sparrows and the oats theory…if you feed the horses enough oats the sparrows will never go hungry….
Giovanni

The problem with this comic, and discussion on economics in general is that very few people seem to understand so called “vodoo” economics. The truth is that there is very little debate as that the principles demonstrated in the laffer curve are real. They are real, the disagreement isn’t on whether there is a maximum revenue point beyond which the government actually looses revenue by disrupting the economy too much. The disagreement is on where that point is.

Most of the people arguing for so called “reganomics” are either arguing that the laffer’s fulcrum lies somewhere below current tax rates (unlikely) or that current tax rates are immoral (a different discussion).
- Wally Ballou
  
  Given the number of posters on this thread who fail to grasp the concept that there are many, many options intermediate between “the Democratic party’s budget” and “Mad Max in Somalia”, I tend to doubt that economic alternatives are likely to be seriously addressed here.
  
  Wait a minute….perhaps there are no such options after all, since in the last two years, the Democrats have not proposed a budget!! So maybe it is nihilism versus nihilism…..
  - Neon Tooth
    
    I don’t see anybody defending the Democrats budget but I *do* see people calling taxes “theft” and talking about private security forces. The Democrats aren’t much better than the Republicans.
    - Wally Ballou
      
      OK, then let’s try to climb out of the silos and reach a compromise. First question:
      
      How much of our current 1.45T budget deficit should be eliminated by spending cuts, and how much by higher taxes on the rich?
      - Neon Tooth
        
        Bring tax rates up to what they were under Eisenhower, stop hemorrhaging cash in 3 wars, drastically cut the defense budget, tax speculative trading, start closing all corporate tax loops. Just a few things for starters.
        
        Also, I’m suspicious of your tax percentage numbers. That said, regardless, we know that the tax burden on those that are not wealthy is tougher than it is on the extremely wealthy. For example taking the exact same percentage away from a wealthy person doesn’t affect their actual wealth and prosperity in anyway like it does for a working class person.
        
        I’ll refer you to the “tax challenge” that Warren Buffet gave to his fellow Forbes’ listers, of which all have cowered away from:
        
        He told Brokaw: “I’ll bet a million dollars against any member of the Forbes 400 who challenges me that the average (federal tax rate including income and payroll taxes) for the Forbes 400 will be less than the average of their receptionists.”
        
        http://www.cnbc.com/id/21708265/Warren_Buffett_s_Fellow_Billionaires_Don_t_Bite_on_Million_Dollar_Tax_Challenge
      - Wally Ballou
        
        That’s not the question I asked.
        
        The question I asked was “How much of our current 1.45T budget deficit should be eliminated by spending cuts, and how much by higher taxes on the rich?”
        
        You tell me how much needs to come from the rich, and I’ll show you from the IRS data how far down the income scale we have to go, and what percentage the taxes have to go up, in order to get the requisite billions.
        
        As I have said here before, I’ll gladly go back to the Eisenhower tax code. The whole Eisenhower tax code, not just the top marginal rate.
        
        And no one is more in favor of eliminating corporate loopholes than me. I want one flat rate on all corporate profits, regardless of what the industry does, and no sweetheart subsidies or loans for politically-connected companies. We could easily lower our overall corporate tax rate to the level found in China or in Canada if we got rid of the cronyism.
        
        The source for taxes as a percentage of income is the director of the Congressional Budget Office:
        
        http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=2371
      - Wally Ballou
        
        Oh, and I forgot….
        
        stop hemorrhaging cash in 3 wars
        
        I think we’ll have to get Dubya and Cheney out of the White House to accomplish that, don’t you??
Anonymous

I live in communist Finland. I’d be happy to pay taxes at rate 60% if I’d make 75k(â‚¬). Sure, goverment can be a bitch and makes wrong decisions often. The alternative to me is much scarier. (In Finland) people don’t seem to understand that fex. addicts who live on welfare would get their money one way or the other. Welfare is small price to pay for safe streets where small children can walk 2km to school without fear or that you can go on a binge and passout in our capital without your organs harvested. Something like 85% of our violent crimes are done drunk and against friends. Also, our high school-uni-college students actually get money for studying.

I think that the greatest threat to Finnish society are politicians and their friend CEOs who try to steer this place to Americanism. (I envy and respect many aspects of America but money and politics)
Anonymous

One small detail that is obvious to a kindergardener: giving and taking are distinct concepts. You may want to consider that sometimes.

Are you sure you want to compare yourself to a kindergartner?

Here’s a hint: taxes need to be collected BEFORE you can justify the concept of private property. You need legislative, judicial, and executive apparata to define and enforce property rights before they exist. Taxation isn’t theft. Theft is theft. The primary purpose of taxation is to prevent theft.

Libertarian philosophy makes me think of someone finding a bicycle and getting really excited that when they spin the wheel the pedals move.
wrecksdart

Oh dear…first? Oh to the M to the G.

Next lesson for Potter? An explanation of hacker versus hackee.
Magnus Redin

Lowering taxes to get higher governmnet revenue has worked in Sweden. But you need to start with a severly over taxed society and lower taxes for lower or under middle class people that actually respond with working more.

USA is not over taxed like Sweden were after an about 20 year long period of fairly concentrated socialism and USA has lowered the taxes for high income people that dont work more but are supposed to “trickle down” wealth.

Trickle down is a weird concept. I figuer wealth is built bottom up, most people need to be productive for a society to build wealth.
- The Mudshark
  
  Trickle Down

TOM THE DANCING BUG: Harry Potter and the Deathly Deficit!

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