If you worked in Germany for years and finally come back to Albany, you wonder where the boutiques are. Either you go to the mall (outside Albany), or sneak to those private houses where seamstresses probably don't pay taxes...

If you see all those small businesses in German cities, you end up amazed. Where start shopping in this exorbitant variety?

That's Keynesian, folks! The present U.S.A. look like the communistic east of Germany, at that time when it still was ruled by communists. Pretty much dead. That's the inheritance of GOP austerity and present gridlock, folks. As devastating as communism.

You're crazy! Germany is doing fairly well. Your political mind is so horribly messed up -- you don't get a thing.

I give you a well-intented tip: Kick out the crazies and let the GOP come back to senses. I have a sense for tradition too and don't care to see the Gallant Old Party go under forever. This is possibly going to happen: Palace coup within the GOP. Go back to the progressive roots. You would be surprised to meet all the irritated Eisenhower Republicans I met, who say they're going to vote for president Obama in November.....

Send those anarchistic libertarians and teabag-lunatics to the nuthouse, where they belong!

Thanks for taking me seriously. :o)

We already know that small businesses are the job creators. They are also the places we turn to buy local. As our consciousness grows the "buy local movement" will lift small businesses over their corporate competitors. Of course a mileage tax on everything consumed will hasten the transition to the hopeful future we are fighting for.

Your last paragraph reminded me of an old quote by Chief Seattle 1885 -

Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. What he does to it - he does to himself.

When we destroy precious portions of our enviroment for immediate and temporrary proffits, everything suffers in the end.

The tar sands project makes absolutly no common sense in my mind.

Watching most, but not all the Mom 7& Pop Shops disappear from my own small previous city forced me to boycot the Franchise Operations that are squeezing them out, one by one. With some great ingenuity however, I am very pleased to tell you that such has resulted in new, better and innovative ways of creating and maintaining some terrific privatley owned businesses, from hospitality to media, endless.

Dare the people to fight for themselves and - THEY SHALL! DARE the people to encourage memebers of their communities to support local initiatives and - THEY ARE! End of day, not all bad. TRAGIC for those who lost their life's dream to retire on and often their financial saving and investments for maintenance, overhead costs, inventory, often their homes - EVERYTHING! But NOT - in all cases, their spirit. The last 30 years wiped out many people, and brought all the perils of socail downfall raining relentlessly upon them.

My particualr Government's response? Why - a Government Charity Casino of course! Brilliant! Truly. What a marvelous way to rake back Welfare dollars, drug deal money, Social Securty cheques, Disability funds.... LOTS of money to be had! Their doing marvelously! The community is dying fast, but - who cares? They can relocate when the next victim community surfaces, as I'm sure is solidified many times over, in the province of Ontario. Why, the Capitol of Canada lives there. Where better to work from. Couldn't have better resources to draw from to ensure success. I left the dying community 4 months ago. My life said "stay & die" or run like hell. Choosing the later, I'm doin fine, Landing myself in Oil Country, where prosperity abounds at the expense of the envirnment and the land.....

WE DARE them!!!!!! to rescind their intentions. The voices are rising and the people are ready to march, blockade, what ever it takes to stop the Pipeline reaching the West Coast Pacific Ocean. What a great time to be here, to witness and partake in History in the Making - yet again! The Six Nations Peoples, Canada's greatest leaders and voices shall do what they do SO well, and save themsleves, the land AND the happless employees of The Tar Sands Project. No dollar value can buy what's left of our great nation. We want it, as is, long term, like - forever. The land belongs to Mother Earth and it's our DUTY to protect her from death and destruction. Mankind can destroy and/or mankind can save. Wars to save Her, but THOSE battles are worth fighting for! Money buys their war. We come FREE!

Have a great week end!!!!!!

Stupid, oh really, one I never said it's evil to tax businesses, I said the fact should not be hidden as it is. Secondly, competition will force businesses to pass along the tax savings in most situations. As I said to mathboy, the ONLY point I am making is where the money comes from to pay taxes. Grabbing the cash and running is a big corp tactic that could and should be discouraged. Rather than taxation and fines (that the customer again pays for) as a punishment for bad behavior some form of corporate capital punishment should be meted out to irresponsible corporations.

As for your statement the worker pays for everything, the same question must be asked, who pays the workers, businesses, with their customers money. So you see we are all dependent on the movement of money, from the customer to the business, from the business to the worker, ad infinitum.

I believe the fairest taxation would be to scrap the system that we have that taxes productivity and consumption for a tax on the movement of money. The majority of money changes hands electronically and by skimming a quarter to a half percent of every transaction (a few lines of code on a computer) of the trillions of dollars that change hands in America annually government would have more than enough money to carrry on their duties. Yeah, it means businesses are taxed, but everyone would know who is taxed and by how much.

David

Okay, David, let's say a company spends $10 to make a product, and charges the customer $30 for it. They made $20 of profit. Then let's say the company pays a flat 30% tax on their $20 of profit, which is $6. After tax, they made $14, not $20.

If you then restructure corporate tax to have low rates on lower brackets (say 0%), and high rate on higher brackets (say 100%), you can get the same effect as above (0% on the first $14 per unit, 100% after that), but the company couldn't raise profits by raising their prices above the level where they start paying 100% tax. In a more realistic situation, a tax rate below 100% can still have that effect by making the profit per unit inadequate to make up for the reduction in total units sold at the higher price. So a bracketed corporate tax system can keep prices down.

The fact is that a corporation needs enough revenue to cover their costs, plus some profit to be able to expand the business, and that's it. They always like to make more than that, but taxes can discourage such price gouging.

Businesses will take the money from consumers regardless of its disposition. To say it's evil to tax a business because the consumer pays ignores that the business will take that money anyway and just shove it into its vault.

The worker pays for everything, and the business must pay taxes to support the society that allows it to profit. To allow a business to just grab the cash and run to Switzerland is irresponsible and stupid.

Thom, the irony of the "Buffett" rule is that it is fair that the wealthy pay a higher rate of tax, especially when their income exceeds a million dollars a year. However, Buffett has, for years, made aggressive use of the tax code for his own benefit. Nothing illegal but he is the master of the tax code and has used it to accumulate much of his wealth. He is also a major shareholder in two of the most despised corporations in America, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs from which he receives tax benefits for the loophole that minimizes taxes on dividends paid from one corporation to another. He will also avoid most or all estate taxes by leaving his wealth to the Gates Foundation which will eliminate most or all of his estate tax liability. The "Buffett" rule is a good one, but someone should do more due diligence on Buffett, his use of the tax code and his investment portfolio before making him a poster boy for tax reform.

The American NAZI party and the "civil rights" gunslingers in Florida: "Separate but Equal."

Would be nice if instead of voting to close debate, that the Senate would have to vote to continue debate.

N

Why isn't this whole system falling from its own weight? Well, it probably is, but conservatives are too busy blaming school teachers or Social Security for our economic problems.