How much are getting back from taxes this year?

[devilof76]

I have faith in most individual people, but as a group, or a mob, or a government, or a corporation I don't.

Capitalism would be a lot more ideal if most business was run by private owners rather than large groups of anonymous investors.

That was how it worked, originally. But, distrust arose regarding large accumulations of wealth in the hands of single individuals, and in 1890, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed. It's telling that the men who were first persecuted under that law were the men who had done the most good for the American economy in the post-Civil War boom (J.P. Morgan and the railroad builder James J. Hill being the most notable victims).

Further, why are corporations so prominent today? All things being equal, who would pay more in taxes, an independent individual or a corporation? How much of the current investment climate has been molded by efforts to maximize profit in the face of excessive regulation/taxation?

If our society is moving towards collectivism, then you aren't going to see the kind of individual achievement that characterized capitalism's greatest era. The more it evolves in that direction, the more power collectives will have over the rest. The largest will have the most. It's that simple.

 

[Maglor]

@Devilof76:

You write more good than ah do!

Probably why the stuff you write seems "deep and convoluted" to me!



Seriously though, I have only scanned your posts enough to see that I need to wait until I have read them carefuly before I venture a response.

In the meantime: I assume "the dragon" refers to Ayn Rand. Is that right? What are the sources for your quotes? What book?

More importantly is their a cliffs notes version?!

 

[SnakeDoctor]

Oh, it's us loaning it to them? Is that why we pay interest if we pay them late?

It is a loan if you withhold too much and they have to give you a refund. We pay interest if we pay late ... but they don't pay interest if they take too much in October and give it back in April.

Under the same theory that if you give a mugger $10 in August, and he gives you back $5 in April ... he stole five, and the remainder was a no interest loan taken under duress.

SnakeDoc

 

[Master Wayne]

...$20....

 

[Maglor]

...$20....

Hey! What do you think your doing posting something on topic!

 

[devilof76]

What's been off-topic?

In the meantime: I assume "the dragon" refers to Ayn Rand. Is that right? What are the sources for your quotes? What book?

More importantly is their a cliffs notes version?!

Yes, it's Rand, no there are no cliff notes (that was taken from a 70 page radio speech in her 1957 novel, so that sort of was the cliff notes version).

But the basic idea was that volition is essential to moral action. Force is the opposite of freedom. Moral action is impossible under compulsion.

It is a loan if you withhold too much and they have to give you a refund. We pay interest if we pay late ... but they don't pay interest if they take too much in October and give it back in April.

Under the same theory that if you give a mugger $10 in August, and he gives you back $5 in April ... he stole five, and the remainder was a no interest loan taken under duress.

SnakeDoc

Well put. I would add that the mugger is only doing it for my own good, his intentions are noble, and if he didn't rob me, the world would go straight to hell.

 

[Maglor]

What's been off-topic?

He's been the first person in a few pages to actually post how much he's getting back from taxes.

 

[devilof76]

Can't expect a thread to go on for this long without a bit of light banter.