Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Mark Fiore said he was thankful that Governor Jan Brewer vetoed Arizona’s “religious freedom” bill last week. If the bill became law, Fiore said, it “would’ve given people carte blanche to discriminate against gay people (and others, for that matter).” Fiore also said what he found most baffling about the whole thing was the existence of a state legislature that would pass such a bill.
Bron,
Why would I move to another state? I didn’t complain about living where I do–nor about paying taxes. You, however, don’t appear to be happy living in this country because you’re required to pay taxes.
Elaine:
I am all for keeping the money you make, it is yours after all.
Elaine:
you can always move to another state, I hear TN is very inexpensive.
Bron,
No…the particulars are extremely important to this discussion. You claimed that I could give up a good portion of my retirement pension and still be able to live comfortably. Now, prove to me how that would be possible. Maybe you’re under the impression that my pension is much more generous than it actually is. Maybe you think it would be better for me to give up most of my pension and then have to ask for assistance to pay my heating bills…my electric bills…my grocery bills…my gas bills, my healthcare bills, etc. Is that correct? Would you like me to become someone your heroine would call a “moocher?”
Why don’t you take the advice I gave you instead of telling me how to live my life when you have no knowledge of my altruism? BTW, I don’t/have never objected to paying taxes to fund social safety net programs. I don’t bitch about paying my fair share to help my fellow Americans who may have fallen on hard times/lost a job/be elderly. You seem to be upset about being required to pay a penny in taxes to help the needy/those less fortunate than you.
Elaine:
I never claimed to be an expert on cost of living. The particulars are unimportant to this discussion. We were talking altruism, I used giving up your retirement or a good portion of it as an example.
You seem to be rather upset at the prospect of funding the homeless from your retirement yet you have no problem with expecting people who work to give up a sizeable portion of their income to similar programs.
Bron,
BTW, as you seem to be an expert on how much money I need to live comfortably–why don’t you provide me with a ballpark figure as to the annual income required for me to live comfortably up here in the Northeast?
Maybe he could go to China and convert the Communist Capitlists! 😉
Bron,
You live your philosophy as you will. I have never suggested what you should do in your personal life. If you don’t like things the way they are at the present time, you are at liberty to work to change them. Maybe you should run for Congress…or for state office. Maybe you should start an Ayn Rand Anti-Altruism Movement and camp out near the White House…or some other venue.
Elaine:
You could give up most of it to the poor and still have enough to live comfortably especially if you opened your house as a homeless shelter.
Then you could live your philosophy, which is as it should be. You shouldnt inflict it on those who have a different philosophy.
That is the great thing about liberty, if you dont like freedom you are free to impose constraints on yourself.
Elaine,
Those nice big corporations couldn’t be just welfare queens, could they?? 🙂
Bron
Elaine:
I just like capitalism, it paid your salary for many years and allowed you to have a nice standard of living.
If alrtuism is so good, give up your retirement to the poor and open a homeless shelter in your home. And while you are at it, ask your children to give up their careers and come work with you ministering to the poor. When your grandchild is old enough to be married tell her not to marry for love, that it is better to sacrifice and marry someone you dont love.
*****
One can be altruistic and still keep one’s retirement pension. What good would it do if altruistic retired people gave up their pensions? How would they support themselves? The Randians would castigate them and call them moochers if they asked for financial help.
Golden parachutes are nice too.
China is a political dictatorship which uses the power of capitalism to fund the state.
Economic freedom without political freedom is not capitalism.
Elaine:
Always work toward the good even if it is unattainable.
I found a good deal on socialist utopias but not much on capitalist utopias. Capitalism isnt a utopia, you have to work and you have to rely on yourself.
Seems to me that Sir Thomas is describing a socialist society or something very close.
China.
Bron,
They pretend to be capitalists. Unfortunately, capitalist systems get perverted very easily. It’s a fact of life. Those at the top want to remain at the top…and have the money to buy the people who can help them remain on their golden thrones. I don’t know where you’ll find the capitalist Utopia that you dream about.
Elaine:
those rich arent capitalists, sorry to disapoint. They make deals with government to supplement their bottom lines. That is a hallmark of socialist economies of which we are one, unfortunately.
Elaine:
I just like capitalism, it paid your salary for many years and allowed you to have a nice standard of living.
If alrtuism is so good, give up your retirement to the poor and open a homeless shelter in your home. And while you are at it, ask your children to give up their careers and come work with you ministering to the poor. When your grandchild is old enough to be married tell her not to marry for love, that it is better to sacrifice and marry someone you dont love.
NO ONE has spoken here about corporate welfare than myself. I’ve gone on several rants about fat cat owners of sport teams always feeding off the public trough to get new stadiums. That’s in my top 3 pet peeves.
Yes, self sufficiency is to be admired. Too bad so many of our capitalist corporate bigwigs depend on the government for help.
*****
No, really, you didn’t build that: How the rich became dependent on government subsidies
A new report reveals America’s largest companies aren’t the models of self-sufficiency their CEOs seem to think
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/27/no_really_you_didnt_build_that_how_the_rich_became_dependent_on_government_subsidies_partner/
Excerpt:
Remember when President Obama was lambasted for saying “you didn’t build that”? Turns out he was right, at least when it comes to lots of stuff built by the world’s wealthiest corporations. That’s the takeaway from this week’s new study of 25,000 major taxpayer subsidy deals over the last two decades.
Titled “Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent,” the report from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First shows that the world’s largest companies aren’t models of self-sufficiency and unbridled capitalism. To the contrary, they’re propped up by billions of dollars in welfare payments from state and local governments.
Such subsidies might be a bit more defensible if they were being doled out in a way that promoted upstart entrepreneurialism. But as the study also shows, a full “three-quarters of all the economic development dollars awarded and disclosed by state and local governments have gone to just 965 large corporations” — not to the small businesses and start-ups that politicians so often pretend to care about.
In dollar figures, that’s a whopping $110 billion going to big companies. Fortune 500 firms alone receive more than 16,000 subsidies at a total cost of $63 billion.