(and yes I copy pasted it:P)

A CEO, a Tea Partier, and a union guy sit down at a table, where there is a plate with a dozen cookies.

The CEO sweeps eleven of the cookies off the plate for himself. He turns to the Tea Partier and says: "You better watch that union guy--he'll try to get a piece of your cookie."

let the flaming/trolling begin!
*runs off thread*

you made the office here lol

+1

well I could rephrase that joke in Canadian terms but I"m gonna refrain for the moment...

How do you know God isn't a woman?






...We're not all SANDWICHES.

the TEA in Tea Party stands for "tax everyone always", yes?

lol :)

I just want more cookies.

The joke would be more accurate if there were more cookies for the CEO to take.

Ah, to live in a world where cookies just appear out of nowhere.

To a socialist/communist, thats how the world should work - need is all that you need in order for something to spring into existence.

mmmm cookies....oh god my pants are tight

back in the cage capt

This is funnier than the joke itself.

Indeed

anyone that thinks socialism = communism is an idiot and needs to do some research ;-)

Its interesting reading the writings of anarchists, communists, and socialist political theorists. For the most part, they actually realize that they are making this assumption, and make some effort to address it. Unfortunately, modern socialist types don't seem to realize that they are making this assumption.

For about the last five months, I've been reading an anarchist critique of the varying philosophies of Proudhon, Bakunin, Bookchin, Kropotkin, Marx, and others. If you read political philosophy, they are aware of the weaknesses of their views. If you listen to politicians, they are completely clueless about what they are doing. Unfortunately, the book I've been reading doesn't have anything about Chomsky's views, but I'll fix that by reading some of Chomsky's writings next.

From what I'm reading right now, I get the idea that the normally pro-union anarchists would be against the current incarnation of unions. It is especially interesting to analyze the anarchist view of unions in regards to unions of government workers.

If you are talking about me, I know they are different, but they operate under many of the same assumptions. One of these assumptions being that need is sufficient to generate the right. They do not differentiate between the right to acquire something, and the right to have something handed to you. There are many differences between Socialism and Communism, but this is not one of them.

thats funny (weekly post:p)

It's equally interesting reading the theories of "modern conservatives" which are quite different in some respects than what Adam Smith wrote in his book.

"pro-union anarchists" indeed.. I think your views on the subject are quite clear from that statement.

There is little difference between a corporate oligolipoly/monopoly and communism put into practice in many respects except one is more blatant about the end result than the other. Do a little research on AUC or United Fruit Company for example.

"anarchists, communists, and socialist". You need to read about anarchism a little more carefully. The three don't operate on the same premise at all. I may as well list: "national socialist, capitalist, theocracy" together or more blatently, "neo-conservatism" and "feudalism".

No theory is perfect and none of the authors from Smith to Marx ever claimed that they were. These were all written in a historical context to address inadequacies in the current system as such.

All systems believe in exchange through one means or another. The mechanism/enforcement and the terms are all that differ. Socialism no more believes that you should get cookies for doing nothing than capitalism believes that you should make the cookies and hand them all to the CEO. There is a quote in the "wealth of nations" to the effect that there should be some kind of balance of power between the workers and the owners. In fact this is somewhat of a common theme through most theories. Anarchism is about not concentrating power (you only get cookies in proportion to what you do, otherwise no cookies for you).

Personally I'm a big fan of animal farm.

How so? That I acknowledge that there are pro-union anarchists and anarchists who aren't pro-union? What does that say about my views? Analyzing the attitude of anti-union anarchists towards these current unions would be trivial (to use a math term), as its clear that if they opposed unions back when unions were weak, of course they oppose them now. Looking at the syndical anarchists, though, the ones who had a more favorable opinion of unions, and analyzing their theories in regards to the modern unions, that is a non-trivial analysis.




I disagree with you there. Corporate oligolipoly/monopoly claim no responsibilities towards ensuring the well-being of the citizenry. Communism does claim a responsibility towards providing (however little they provide) to the common people.


They have many different premises, but they also share premises as well. There is more than one assumption made when forming a political theory. I think you and I have different definitions of what a premise is, since I talk about them in the plural and you talk about a premise in the singular as if there is only one premise.




And thats why I prefer political theorists to politicians. I like that they are aware of the shortcomings of their philosophies and attempt to address them. Politicians just pretend the problems don't exist.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the
release. The public buys your bull.

http://www.cbsnews.com/...national/main527923.shtml

guess the public got tired of buying fake bulls...

Communism hasn't worked in the most pure form except for small communities with less than 30 people.

Anarchy, by its nature won't last forever, once the theorised superior leader/system evolves.

Socialism to a degree works but pure socialist states have difficulty being any good at more than a couple of things.

who made the cookies?

Awesome, qzjul =) I love the cow-govt definitions. =)

The "Wealth of Nations" is one of the greatest macro-economic books ever written!!! And indeed, there must be balance. The question is WHERE that balance is, and how to achieve it.

Also, that book was written long enough ago that the current "small world" and the ability to simply relocate, or out-source, was not yet quite as feasible.

There must be balance, but Unions (even if good), heavy regulations (even if good), and high taxation (even if needed) all add up to "somewhere else" being a better place to conduct business. While it gets some tax revenue, or raises in wages for the workers, at some point they shoot themselves in the foot as well, as there is no way to force that rich CEO from just moving operations.

People ALSO frequently mix up CEO and executive pay, with the corporation itself which may be making next to nothing on a net profit basis. We usually see revenue figures when people point out "the rich".

For ME, I think Unions are bad, as things stand today, unless they back off some and take corporate profit into account. If the Exec pay is an issue, buy up stock and force the issue by that means. Other shareholders SHOULD be doing the same.

The government could further encourage balance by ELIMINATING all corporate taxes entirely. That money will be taxed anyway when it leaves the company in the form of wages, dividends, etc. This will encourage companies to retain more earnings for growth, profitability, AND pay for workers higher than they could otherwise afford. Balance this with tax increases on PERSONAL income at high wage brackets, or even create additional brackets at the high end. The tax revenue is then covered by those same CEO's. Now, they have a choice, retain earning and grow the company faster, or continue to take a huge salary that is taxed MUCH higher. Eliminating any LONG term capital gains tax while increasing short term capital gains would further increase that balance.

True not all the cookies go to the CEO, the CEO gives the owners a few to make them feel they got a return on their investment.

what kind of cookies ?

LOL very funny! :)

holy crap. This thread went from cookies to paragraphs.

Where is the fluff?

Surely CEO's shouldn't be making 200x the salary of an average employee?

Dex, a reason must be given other than class warfare in my opinion. How are we to know whether a pure capitalist society doesn't make the pie larger for everyone if we don't use logic? Capitalism at its root is greed. If there is no incentive to make the world go round, it won't. This to a different degree applies to all forms of economics, though some are hidden better than others. Someone always ends up making the rules and they always seem to skew them to their own advantage...its human nature.

I like DaGecko's idea...haven't thought it all the way through with any unintended consequences, but it looks good on the surface.

I have read part of "Wealth of Nations", but haven't had time to finish it yet. I did read "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville and found that a show of government rather than pure economics...and his book was not ideological, but rather an observation which I thought was refreshing. Though Im sure some around the world would bore themselves reading about the American government circa 1830 lol.

Theoretically a very good point, however look at Ireland, they pursued some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world and their country went gangbusters for quite some time. However when there is a large economic shift, the economic volatility is sharper when relying on personal income tax revenue alone.

During a downturn companies downsize and cut bonuses to retain profits, which can drastically reduce government tax income when a country is more reliant on personal income tax. With lower corporate tax, companies in Ireland took on more debt which meant that the dividend didn't increase as much as you would expect by lowering tax. Growth did increase by a lot, but this meant that many companies were overexposed during the financial crisis.

I was a wealth of nations fanboy until realising that economics is based on assumptions which aren't always true or rather aren't always very accurate or were accurate at one point in time.

They should increase corporate taxes, and raise tariffs! fluff globalization!

also the maximum tax bracket should go up to 80% on every $ over $1M per year; and anybody making over $250k should have to have pay at least 25% of their income in taxes, even after deductions and transfers and BS



and high-speed trading should be illegal... and having a government deficit should also be illegal...

I didnt go that far :x

If you raise corporate tax you could decrease the personal income tax for rich people whose income is from shares in companies that pay franked credits. Eg as the corporate tax is already paid then the get a tax reduction

heh; the rich are the only ones with money; they should simply be taxed until there is no defecit left; the middle class and lower class doesn't have that level of money

What about self managed retirees, they invest too

n1

i can has monies?

(for the points!)

That is an impossibility. If you give the government more money, they will just spend more money. The solution isn't to just tax the rich more, the solution is to actually address the problem and stop ridiculous spending. If you don't first solve the problem of out of control spending, then taxing the rich won't help.

Think of it this way - the government is like a teenager with his or her first credit card. The teen thinks the solution is just "my parents need to give me more money to get me out of this debt problem". But if the parents give the teen more money, he or she will just keep spending and racking up debt. The best way to handle the teen is to cut them off completely, not to try and give them money until they get out of debt. And that is the best solution for the US government. Cut them off completely.

I foresee one heck of an economic tantrum.

If the American government got no tax income, China would have a problem and Australia would then have a problem.

When they go bankrupt the same way that Greece did, China will have a problem anyways.

You have one good point rockman, but you forget part of it; the US had no deficit by only partway into the clinton era; then bush came in and turned that around rather rapidly; the "spend more" *WHILE* cutting taxes to the rich seemed to be the fastest way to do that.

If you rolled back US taxes & spending to 1999/2000 you'd be good to go.

And if we fixed the economy so that incomes were artificially bloated by the housing bubble and dotcom bubbles which would drive tax income for the government way up.

The economy was an empty bubble under Clinton, but at least he kept spending down, unlike Bush. I'm amazed at how the Democrats are unwilling to point out that the 'party of smaller government' is better at increasing spending than they are.

indeed... the red sections always tend to have a higher slope heh; and since regan the republicans sure have made things a little crazy


say what you will about housing/dotcom but clinton eliminated the deficit years before that was really an issue


http://en.wikipedia.org/...t_of_GDP_by_President.jpg

He also had Newt breathing down his throat about balancing the budget, so lets give some credit where its due here. Clinton did sign on yes, but it was driven by Congress.

Lol Paul Keating, an Australian Prime Minister in the early 90s pwned Australia's capital account deficit by hiking up interest rates to 24% and sending Australia into depression.

I nearly completely agree. I know others want no taxes on corporate income but that is BS. All it would do is help make the rich even richer. Another thing needed is to stop all short selling and betting in the stock markets. It does no good.

lol

well how would taxing the corporate make the rich less richer?