Millions of jobs to dissapear as robotics advance

No, I'm not making the presumption. When you receive income, it becomes your property. That's what income means.

If income was not your property, why would you be responsible for paying taxes on it?

And companies don't threaten people with force. Only government, and other criminals, threatens people with force.

 

Let me ask you a question, since you love to call everything stealing. If a bunch of guys steal $50 million from Warren Buffet (about 1/1000th of his net worth), is it theirs?

Don't pay your bills to a company and see what happens.

 

Yes.

<yawn>

You are merely pretending that because taxes don't modify your income AFTER THE FACT, they also don't modify it BEFORE the fact.

But that claim is false.

But your income occurs AFTER you know it is going to be taxed.

GET IT??????

No, first tax legislation is passed, then income is OBTAINED, THEN it is received, and THEN taxes are assessed on it.

GET IT????

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They TAKE (almost all of) it by dint of privilege.

 

You're asking my opinion? No.

If you buy something and then refuse to pay for it, then you have stolen. The person you purchased from and refused to pay would have a legitimate claim against you, IMO.

 

OK. We've established that possession doesn't mean it is theirs.

So why isn't it theirs?

And they would threaten people with force to get their money. And you've proved my point. Contrary to your assertion that "companies don't threaten people with force", they definitely do.

 

Because ownership was lawfully transferred to them by the person who gave them their income.

Yes. If someone buys from you and then refuses to pay you, you have a legitimate legal claim against them.

So, these questions are your attempt to rationalize using government force to seize people's property and redistribute it. Again, you continually carp about people receiving too much income, but it appears that your actual agenda is to increase the seizure and redistribution of people's property. You're a gentle soul standing up for individual rights.

 

Countries rarely get stronger by getting rid of people, but I'd be fine with reducing many of the policies you mention. As a result, you may be pleasantly surprised by who leaves of their own accord.

Personally, I could care less how my neighbor got here. I'm more concerned with what he asks and offers as my neighbor.



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I think you misunderstood my question, which was why isn't the $50 million the guys stole theirs?

OK. So so we have established that it is OK to threaten people to use force as long as it is a legitimate claim. I agree.

The government has a legitimate claim on the income its policies allows people to get in the form of taxes.

 

when mexico pays for the wall, millions of jobs will reappear as robotics advance.

 

Because stealing something doesn't make it your lawful property.

Not really, no. We haven't established that.

Yes, I see now that all your carping about people having incomes that you consider too high was just hand waving. What you really object to is people not having their property seized and redistributed by the state.

 

You may want to step away from the word steal to express your concern about the unfairness of certain tax laws. Stealing means taking something illegally. As much as I might sympathize with your frustration about certain tax laws, if those laws were legally established, enforcing them isn't theft.

Using the word steal or theft may help folks understand how you feel about the unfairness of the laws, but it distracts from and undermines the real message you may be wanting to communicate. Because taxes are not theft. By definition. Even if it feels that way.

Sadly those taxes are also probably unavoidable. At the end of the day, we need to keep the lights on. The annual bill for doing so is so high, it will never be possible for most of the people in this country to pay their fair share. So we need to ask more of those who can. It ain't fair, I wouldn't call it right. But it is necessary for now.

And the only way it could become possible to remove that unfairness would be to substantially increase the ability of most of us to produce value (not likely to happen anytime soon) or to decrease federal spending (even less likely).



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It wasn't about taxes. It was about this:

 

Look at the comment Irie was quoting when he asked you that question. Irie's a pretty sharp person. I believe his question was intended to make a point about taxes even if the illustrative scenario he proposed wasn't one of taxation. I could be wrong.



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value is open to interpretation, if Trump imposes tariffs then value will change.

companies that want to sell to America must create jobs in America, and those new jobs will allow most people to pay their 'fair share' of the countries bills, instead of appearing as irresponsible patriots to their country when compared to the rich.

if businesses want to sell to china, brazil, india, they are more than welcome to leave, and we'll keep the companies that sell here and create jobs here.

 

You have needs. Some people can meet those needs. Some cannot. Feel free to interpret the latter as valuable. Pay them if you like. But if you are only giving someone money, so he can give it back to you--you are accomplishing nothing.



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i would rather give someone money and have it returned to me to accomplish nothing, than have negative returns on my investment when my living wage job is given to robots and foreigners, who accept less than i in exchange for their labors.

the poorer half of Americans get negative returns while the richer half get positive returns in this trade.

 

Then accomplish nothing. Just don't ask anything of me while you do.



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i would have to vote for lawful government force to take your wealth and give it to someone else who can find better solutions.

i would also vote for lawful government force to take your wealth to provide for my upkeep until a living wage job can be made available.

finally i will accept any risks that come with those choices.

 

Right. So we have established that it is not possession that makes something "theirs", but how they acquired it.

And we have policies and rules that say that if you acquire something by unlawfulling taking it (stealing) then it is not yours.

So let's talk for a minute about policies.

Suppose we adopted a policy of pure communism, where everything produced belonged to the government, and all income was distributed equally amongst workers.

Would you agree that that policy would affect how income is distributed in the country?

We haven't?

You: And companies don't threaten people with force.
Me: Don't pay your bills to a company and see what happens.
You: If you buy something and then refuse to pay for it, then you have stolen. The person you purchased from and refused to pay would have a legitimate claim against you, IMO.
Me: And they would threaten people with force to get their money. And you've proved my point. Contrary to your assertion that "companies don't threaten people with force", they definitely do.
You: Yes. If someone buys from you and then refuses to pay you, you have a legitimate legal claim against them.
Me: OK. So so we have established that it is OK to threaten people to use force as long as it is a legitimate claim. I agree.

It sure sounds like to me you're saying that if someone has a legitimate claim, they may threaten to use force.

So let's clear this up before we move on.

If you buy something but refuse to pay for it, a corporation has a legitmate claim, but now you're saying someone with a legitimate claim may not threaten to use force, even if they do?

If not, please clarify what you were saying the in exchange above.

No, what I really object to is what I've stated above. "Trickle down" policies that have redistributed trillions from the middle class to the richest.

 

that assumes a fixed amount of money when in reality the rich getting richer has nothing to do with the middle class getting poorer. 1+1=2.

middle class problem is caused directly by liberal unions, taxes, and budget deficits which directly ship jobs off shore. And less directly by the liberal war on the families schools and religions of America. Do you understand?

 

Under those circumstances you have have no incentive to find a living wage job which is why worker participation is always going down, and being lazy is a bigger and bigger problem in America. The sad truth is that only life and death situations motivate us to take action and even then many people still don't take action.

 

under ethical capitalism 'force' is never needed because no one has to steal, living wage jobs are abundant and there is freedom of choice for the consumer from healthy competition in a free market.

under crony capitalism where the government works for the rich there is no freedom of choice, so the government does threaten the people with force on behalf of the crony capitalist.

 

slaves were well fed and had good housing because they were investment property that had to be well maintained for good returns on investment, their motivation to work was the sad truth of life and death situations.

 

When people actually have a choice about whether or not to join unions, unions have trouble getting members because the workers do not see value in them. That is a union problem. They are not delivering things of value to the workers. Union membership is increasingly the equivalent of having to pay a huge annual fee for a credit card you don't ever use.

 

Under pure communism, not trade would exist, so how could people receive income?

I would be happy to clarify.

Let&#8217;s say that you agree to purchase an item from a store. You enter into a contract whereby they transfer ownership of the item contingent upon you transferring ownership of, say, $100. After the contract, the store now owns the $100 you gave them ownership of. If you then refuse to give them their property, you are violating their property rights. You are withholding something they own. Because of this, they ought to have a legal claim to their $100, and it would be reasonable for force to be used to recover their property.

Yes, by &#8220;trickle down&#8221;, I understand that you mean letting people be free to act peacefully and to not have their money taken forcibly by the government.