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Land is not being created. Real estate investment opportunity is expanding. When someone develops the land he creates or expands opportunity to invest, such as condos, that were not there in the first place. I don’t have the time or inclination to buy, develop and improve the land, but I am certainly interested in an investment of such a condo or new real estate that has been created by such a developer. The developer has expanded the real estate investment pie without creating new land.
The government bailouts are like potato chips, you can’t have just one. I agree “let them fail!” Then we will have a free market and opportunities will present themselves.
As far as zero-sum there is always opportunity and the pie is always increasing, even in real estate.
I agree entirely Lotus. But that is the problem. The government does a poor job handling money, and do you think they will get better at it. I think there should be a system in place to help people with retirement, but it should be controlled by the individual. Like you said it’s “OUR money.” You trust the government with that fiduciary responsibility? I don’t.
Scott, I think people can save for retirement better if they do it themselves. When social security started it was only 1% of income. Now its 15%. When it started the life expectancy was about the same age when you were aloud to start collecting your benefit. Now people can start taking it at 62. Life expectancy is almost 80. My solution for the next 30 years is to allow people to collect their benefit but increase the age to at least 65 for boomers, 72 for people born after 1964, life expectancy for those born after 1986.
We have to change the mindset that Social Security is part of your retirement. We need to teach our children and people entering the workforce to save, invest and stay out of debt.
My solution is sacrifice and education. If you want to retire from a working life you can do it. Social Security will be there for the less fortunate as a safety net, which was the original idea of the plan, not a retirement program. I think moving the age out to where it was originally set at (life expectancy) we can fix the problem without taxing ourselves into oblivion, creating a wedge between generations.
As far as McCain is concerned I think he is the only person right now talking about Nuclear Power, which I’m all for to solve our energy problems. I don’t think he’ll raise taxes. I think he’ll nominate justices who don’t legislate from the bench. And I think he will win this war gainst terrorism.
With all this talk about hope and change I still don’t know what Obama wants to do except make government bigger and more expensive.
What do you think about Obama? I remember you being very supportive of Ron Paul, but these to guys are on opposite sides.
Edited on Aug 17, 2008 22:11
Simple math is now fear. The revolution should come when we will be taxed to the breaking point of our economy thanks to the socialism in this country.
Tax To The Max
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 08, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Entitlements: The day of reckoning is coming for the costs we’re running up to keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits flowing. Judgment will be painful — as in a 150% increase in our current tax bills.
Read More: Budget & Tax Policy | EconomyIn an analysis prepared for Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, the Congressional Budget Office outlined the ghastly details:
“The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket,” the CBO told Ryan, “would have to be increased from 10% to 25% (or 150%), the tax rate on incomes in the current 25% bracket would have to be increased to 63% (or 152%); and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35% to 88% (or 151%).”
The top corporate tax rate would also move from 35% to 88%.
It could happen. Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Barbara Boxer have acknowledged they’d support raising taxes to fund the estimated $36.3 trillion that will be needed to pay for the next 65 years of Medicare benefits, just one of the three problems. Lawmakers tend to like tax hikes.
In the understatement of the year, the CBO says increased “tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity.”
The new top rate would not be the highest ever — but it would be close. As the chart shows, America’s all-time maximum rate was 94% in 1944 and 1945, years when the war machine needed the cash and the public endured government rationing of cars, gasoline, tires, meat, cheese, butter, sugar, silk and shoes.
Rates fell after the war, but climbed back near their previous highs in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Then Presidents Kennedy and Reagan successfully pushed tax cuts that spurred a recovering economy (under Kennedy and President Johnson) and a recession (inherited by Reagan from President Carter) into growth cycles.
Allowed to grind on without real reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will do what no invading army or cabal of terrorists has done or will ever do: bring this mighty republic to its knees.
Increasing federal taxes by 150% will strangle economic growth. Economies need investment, not wealth redistribution, to expand, and taxes suck money from the capital pools that provide it. The entrepreneurs who fuel economic growth are denied the lifeblood that their ventures need.
High taxes also dim productivity, another key ingredient in economic growth. Why should small-business owners work hard to boost enterprises that provide jobs and income to tens of millions if Washington is going to get a bigger bite of their profits?At the micro level, those rates would wreck the personal finances of all but a few people in this country. It’s unfair to ask — actually, to force — Americans to begin living ascetic existences when our heritage is the promise of prosperity. The four years of malaise that Carter oversaw would be nothing against the economic sinkhole that would follow the enactment of those rates projected by the CBO.
The coming entitlement crash has to be solved without increasing the tax burden. A doubling of rates is out of the question.
The country had better hope the next president and Congress will deliver us from the dilemma — and soon, because the longer we go without a solution, the more difficult the task becomes.Email To Friend | Print | View All Editorials | Search
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Thank you for the clarity Maravilla. So you do trust the government to run our healthcare system. The same government that allowed 9/11. With that kind of logic, Obama is sure to lose thank God.
Al Gore says it is 20 feet over the next 100 years, I don’t know where he got that from. All other credible people say it is another 1-2 feet, the same as it was during the last 100 years. The reason for the rise is that the ocean water is expanding due to higher temperatures. The reason for this is from the sun getting hotter, that apparently is a cyclical phenomenon that has been happening longer than I care to imagine. Isn’t it a little arrogant to think anyone of us knows what the optimum temperature of the planet should be when it has been getting hotter and colder for millions of years.
“I don’t have to worry about anyone taking any of my money because all my income is tax free,” So you want everyone else to pay for your healthcare. Sounds hypocritical Maravilla… and are you saying you trust the federal government to run the whole healthcare system, the same government you don’t trust that “let” 9/11 happen?
Is this what cognitive dissonance is?
It is relevant to the socialist because they will want to know how much they can take from you, all nice and legal like. I asked the question because I really want to know from you how much money the government should be allowed to take from you?
Do you really trust the federal government more than big business?
And if you do, aren’t you the Maravilla that believes in 9/11 conspiricies, set up by the federal government?
davidcmurray, “At least give Obama credit for coming up with new ideas” There is nothing new about socialism and Obama is a Socialist. I’ll give credit where credit is do, he has no new ideas, just more socialism. And not every new idea deserves credit when the idea may be very stupid.
I support Bush… and have no hatred for the man. But I’m probably not “well informed” like you Sprite.
There is not one religion or moral philosophical system, East or West, in history that has ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex. Not one, even putting the Bible aside.
I think this redefinition will do society harm. Lotus, you know Costa Rica better than I, do you think it is a country that would redefine marriage this way?
