Denial of Service? Just say no.

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by bricklayer, Dec 8, 2019.

  1. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Anyone can choose to not trade with anyone else. No one is compelled by law to trade with anyone else. It's just that simple. Complications arise when deniers of service give their reasons for denying service. Just say nothing, or no thank you, even if 'no thank you' is a non sequitur. No one is compelled by law to trade with anyone else, nor do they have to give a reason for not entering into a trade with them.

    I have declined to work for people for a number of reasons. I do not disclose my reasons. I very politely, and quite simply say no thank you. I've never said that "I don't take drug money" or "I know that you stiffed the last contractor that did work for you." I don't even trade ideas with those people. No trade. No exchange. No thank you.
     
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is not necessarily true in a Socialist/Communist run country. Government takes money and then decides how it is spent. That means every decision is political. From healthcare, to education, even some of the most minute aspects in people's lives.

    Many of the countries in Western Europe are petri dishes to look at this.

    Oh, throw in anti-discrimination laws and sometimes you can't say "no" without risking a lawsuit and your business being shut down.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2019
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  3. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The primary purpose for the US tax code is not to collect revenue for the federal government. The primary purpose for the federal tax code is to influence how what does not get taxed gets spent, saved, invested or given.

    Politics are public relationships. Government is the legal use of force. The worst problems in human history happen when politics are governed by the legal use of force. In other words, the worst problem come from people thinking 'government' every time they hear 'politics'. Our personal relationships are not governed by the use of force; they wouldn't last long if they were. Public relationships (politics) also degrade in the same way for the same reasons when they are governed by force, legal or otherwise.
     
  4. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You got that right! Donald Dork lowered upper-income taxes so that his "friends" could give the tax-avoidance "gift" to his reelection committee.

    One has to be deaf, dumb, blind and bonkers not to see what is going on.

    And politically infantile helps a lot too ...
     
  5. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How can we collect taxes from those who currently pay no net taxes?
     
  6. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Uh, we can't. Our entire tax-system is deeply, deeply unfair. First of all, because it does not sufficiently tax high-income earners.

    Why should it? Here's my argument:
    *Clearly, in order to incentivize economic activity (aka "work") net incomes must be acceptable and not punishing. If punishing, they simply urge people to tax-avoidance.
    *But, when net-incomes get too high, they create abusive Income Disparity. Definition of the phrase from Investopedia: "Income inequality is an extreme disparity of income distributions with a high concentration of income usually in the hands of a small percentage of a population. When income inequality occurs there is a large gap between the wealth of one population segment compared to another."
    *Economists measure Income Disparity and the OECD has done so.
    *Note here in the graphic what the OECD measures it too look like in its club-of-comparable-economies. The US has the highest Income Inequality of any developed nation.

    Need more be said? Except a note on what can change that dire fact. Which is higher Upper-income Taxation that is wrenched into the Civil Law of any nation. When we talk about "freedom" certainly we do not mean, for America, the 14% of the population incarcerated below the poverty-threshold. For a family of 4, the threshold in the US is an annual income of $25K - which is why the hourly-rate should be at the very least above that sum ...
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2019
  7. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Before we go any further, let's make sure that we have the same top two government priorities in the same order. I believe that government's first priority is to protect and defend individual liberty. (The individual's authority over and responsibility for their self)The second priority is to promote the general welfare. The first priority should never be violated in pursuit of the second priority. That's what I am left to believe. What I do not believe is that the first and second priorities are not in opposition to each other. I believe that they compliment each other.

    Even if socialism achieved everything that it promises, it wouldn't be worth it to me. I wouldn't trade my liberty in exchange for absolutely everything else. Give me liberty, or give me death.
     
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  8. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Discrimination is against the law.... if one can't sell something without discriminating..... don't sell it.. simple

    now one can created a private club where zoning permits if they want

    but one can not demand to be given public space and not follow the rules

    what's next, it's my personal car, so I do not have to follow the speed limit or traffic signals\signs

    if one wants to use public roads, they have to follow the rules
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2019
  9. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    In a family of 4, two would be, at minimum, working adults. To fulfill this...expectation... at 40 hours a week, that means the hourly wage would be $6.01. But of course, I am sure your scenario is only one working adult, to which the employer would be required to pay $12.02 per hour, full benefits and health insurance. No matter if what the person provides in the way of production is equal to that, or that the person should have to work more than 40 hours per week to earn it.
     
  10. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Purely conjecture on your part. A significant cost elements you do mention. It is health-care cost on average, which is found here:
    Which is why nobody around the poverty threshold working at the minimum-wage is going to be covered by healthcare insurance cost. As I keep nagging in this forum, Healthcare is far more important than Defense of the nation - for which THERE IS NO EMINENT THREAT!

    Moreover, there is no good reason why a GP should be making on average $210K a year - except to help cover his/her educational debt. From here: Average Medical School Debt In 2017 - Student Debt Relief :



    University Student-Debt is the highest component of Total National Debt in the US!

    [​IMG]

    So shall we:
    *Stop cry-babying about the Massive National Debt of the US, when its most-significant component (cost) can be very easily treated? That is
    , by reducing the cost of Tertiary-education in state-schools of all students including medical-care specialists at NO SIGNIFICANT COST. Let's say, to $1K a year. And thus,
    *Build a National Healthcare System that assumes the
    Total Cost of Care by these healthcare-students graduating at a much lower cost-per-person. (Who will nonetheless work a decent salaries in healthcare institutions.)
    *
    Which cannot be done overnight, but such an objective is attainable in a decade!


    Such would seem to most intelligent minds a "good idea" and is why it is done in Europe. In fact,
    the fees of all tertiary-level education in Europe never reach above 1000 euros per school-year*. (The percentage difference between the euro and dollar is around 10%.)

    But not in America ...

    *How does Europe provide for such lower schooling costs? The Defense Budgets average at about 5-to-10% of the total in most EU-countries - and not 55% as in the US.
     
  11. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Right. And how about the Individual Liberty of life?

    And why do shooting-deaths amount for such a high percentage of life's "accidents" in the US:
    [​IMG]

    Firearms are the major means of homicide in the US and far, far more than other countries ...
     
  12. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is an update to the previous information regarding gun-deaths per country (OECD):
    [​IMG]

    Uncle Sam looks somewhat better. Nonetheless, compare countries that are comparable - that is, the European countries at the other end of the scale (where firearms are very largely controlled).

    How comforting ...
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2019
  13. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    Wow, talk about going off on a tangent, or as most say today, found a shiny object, did you?

    Would you like to reel in the unrelated stuff, and discuss the production of a $25,000 household of 4 in the employment workplace?
     
  14. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I suspect it is the other way around. It expects that one adult works and the other takes care of the children. (But if interested go ask those responsible for the statistic.)

    Moreover, that $25K for a family of four is just a guideline. Even if the both parents worked at $25K and therefore earned $50K a year together, the family would still be below the US average family income.of $63.7K (from here).

    And no, the minimum-salary does not change regardless of how many constitute the family, since that is not a variable worth even considering from the POV of setting minimum salary-rates ...
     
  15. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    Not sure where you are getting this 'minimum salary-rates' from but here in the US, most wages and salaries are based on position, responsibilities, experience, production, aptitude and attitude. There is a minimum wage for hourly workers, and allowances for overtime for certain salaried workers. There are no requirements for anyone to 'have to' make the average income regardless of number of family members.
     
  16. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The annual income for all measures of the Poverty Threshold of the US are in dollars, and that is all you need consider. For a family of four, the Poverty Threshold rate is $25K a year.

    Now, if it pleases you to count that in dollars per hour, I could care less. It does not change the fact that fourteen percent of American households (with two kids) that earn less than $25K a year are squarely living below the Poverty Threshold. And the Minimum Wage should be that - $25K a year. (Which, if you must have it in per-hour, is $12/hour and variable according to whatever annual verification of the Poverty Threshold is calculated)...



    Yes, I know that. I know also - wow! - that prices rise annually, which is why the Minimum Wage should do so also. It has been pegged at $7.25/hour in the United States for a donkey's age!

    Moreover, here follows are the actual minimum wages per state:
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    The visual above shows clearly which are the "cheapskate" states and which are not ...
     
  17. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Look, even at $12 an hour, and since it is national in scope, all that happens is that cost-prices rise. And if National Healthcare is introduced, then companies need no longer price it in to the products/services in order to recuperate it.

    It's dead simple, because that's the way Europe does it. And cost-structures here are slightly more expensive than the US - but nothing exaggerated.

    None of that is consequential. What labor provides is a cost-of-production that is recuperated by any company in resale. Total costs of building a Mercedes in Germany are much more expensive than in the US - but they still sell a good many cars there. And, the Mercedes factories are running full-time.

    Not only that, but those who work in those factories have decent salaries that allow them a decent lifestyle. And the rest of Europe is more or less about the same. Nobody complains about the high-taxes because those taxes offer in return damn fine Healthcare and Tertiary Educations that don't cost an arm-and-a-leg (pun taken for Healthcare!).

    We are about half a 800K Yanks who live in Europe and though I get around from time-to-time, I have never met one fellow-Yank who said that it was a "bad idea". And I also have known a good many who went back stateside (after a working a few years in Europe), and later said they regretted the move "home".

    It's true that it takes a bit of courage to out-root oneself from one kind of existence in the US to another in Europe. And, yet, there are around 800K Yanks who have done it on a permanent basis*...

    *What we don't like is that despite the fact that we live in Europe, we are obliged to pay US taxes for absolutely nothing in return ...
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2019
  18. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Discrimination is not against the law in almost all cases. There are a very few exceptions of course.
    I am not indiscriminate towards anything, anyplace or anyone. I am a highly discriminating person.
    However, I do not parade my disassociations; I just say no. In those moments, I would never explain myself to someone from who I disassociate. I just do it. I don't explain it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2019
  19. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You seem to be possessed by the idea that guns made life more dangerous. Do you believe that? Do you believe that life was less dangerous or less violent or that one was less likely to die a violent death at the hands of other people before the invention of guns?

    More than half of gun deaths, in the US, are people killing themselves.
    More than two thirds of the balance are criminals killing other criminals. (Mostly gang violence)
    I do not see how disarming the remaining truly innocent 15% makes them any safer.

    My self defense is, first and foremost, my responsibility. Police may or may not be of some assistance after the fact.
     
  20. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've showed you the data, which clearly shows deaths from guns kill one helluva lot more people in the US than in, for instance, the EU (which has a population larger than the US).

    If you cannot understand the factual-evidence - that countries that do not permit guns have lower death-rates - then this conversations stops here ...

    PS: And, btw, where I live here in France I never fail to see (and hear) the hunters hunting. There is no ban on hunting. There is only a ban on machine-guns. One can own a handgun, but damn few people are killed with a such a weapon. And the same goes for the rest of Europe, which has the same laws and the same attitude.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2019
  21. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    I have a family member living in Germany, 7-8 years now. Of course, he was a far left liberal when he moved there, so he was happy as a clam with the set up there. If he had been even slightly right of center, I wonder what his position would be.

    Trying to place a FMW of $12.00 across the board does not take into account the variances in COL across the country, which would far exceed the UK.
     
  22. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    America's economy has many grave faults and failures:
    *A massive debt brought about by healthcare being a "privatized" when it should be regulated to provide adequate healthcare to all at a much reduced cost. Which is why its lifespan is lesser than that of Europe's by four years. (Just this past year it dropped behind one year.)
    *The lack of free Tertiary Education at a time when the economy has left the Industrial Age and has entered the Information Age. It took the US 40/50 years starting in the 19th century to make Secondary Schooling available freely throughout the US. Uncle Sam cannot take another half century to bring its kids up to the level necessary. Other countries are doing much, much better at graduating postsecondary degree students.
    *The very stoopid diminishing of Upper-income Taxation that has created immense Wealth that serves only the families that it adorns. The origin of that Wealth are the entire population, which deserves much higher taxation of the rich necessary to provide the above services (Healthcare and Tertiary Education for the population as a whole).
    *A drastic reduction of the 55% of the Discretionary Budget spent on the DoD, which has no necessity whatsoever of that expenditure. The US is at war with nobody. (And the kids come home in body-bags, to be buried - their lives served no useful purpose.) Nothing has been gained by our waring in the Middle-east. Absolutely nothing.
    *The massive loss of life because of automatic weapons that get into the hands of some very, very sick people.

    I'll stop there. The above is sufficiently sickening ...
     
  23. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    if one sells gas and refuse to sell to people of color, that is discrimination

    now, one can choose to sell gas to no one, but they can not discriminate based on race or gender

    if one can not sell something with decimating, then just don't sell that item, easy
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2019
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  24. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Apples and oranges. European gun death statistics do not include suicide. European gun death statistics make no distinction between criminals killing criminals, innocents killing criminals and criminals killing innocents.
     
  25. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No seller of gas is obligated to sell their gas to anyone. No seller of gas is obligated to disclose their reasoning for not selling their gas. All of the problems start when vendors parade their reasoning. In my experience, the people that I have declined service to are exactly the type of people who would misrepresent any explanation that I would offer them anyway.
     
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