Photographer Compares Microstock Sites To Pollution And Drug Dealing

bmattock said:
To hell with that noise. Families work hard to make a better life for their own children and have something to pass along to them. Then the government takes it away - to prevent feudalism? Yeah, my wife's family was fabulously wealthy and controlled the lives of thousands of serfs. Oh wait; they didn't. Guess it only harmed decent hardworking middle-class people who wanted to keep what their family had owned since the beginning of our nation.

Liberals love to give away other people's money. How I hate them.
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Bill, Your family lost their farm because of bad financial planning, pure and simple. Inheritance tax is a percentage of the value of an estate, if they lost the farm entirely, then something else was going on. There are also exemptions to the inheritance tax for family farms (are now...how long ago did your family farm get 'lost' ?) and in any case a farm is a business and should have been structured as one: A corporation with members of the family as shareholders. That way, if one family member dies, the amount of value passed on is too low to qualify for inheritance tax. I've never known a middle class person to EVER pay inheritance tax, ever. It only applies to very large estates. Farms sometimes fall in there because of the land value...but like I said it can be protected, if you're smart.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Bill, Your family lost their farm because of bad financial planning, pure and simple. Inheritance tax is a percentage of the value of an estate, if they lost the farm entirely, then something else was going on. There are also exemptions to the inheritance tax for family farms (are now...how long ago did your family farm get 'lost' ?) and in any case a farm is a business and should have been structured as one: A corporation with members of the family as shareholders. That way, if one family member dies, the amount of value passed on is too low to qualify for inheritance tax. I've never known a middle class person to EVER pay inheritance tax, ever. It only applies to very large estates. Farms sometimes fall in there because of the land value...but like I said it can be protected, if you're smart.
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Maybe Bill, like most libertarians, believes in Darwinism except when it applies to him....
 
ernstk said:
So who takes care of the physically and mentally disadvantaged, who through birth or circumstances beyond their control cannot earn enough to live? Who provides food, shelter and healthcare for those that would want to work but are so disabled that they can't?

"F*ck them" Is that what you're saying?

Ernst
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Taxes are a necessary evil. Excessive taxes are an unneccessy evil. I am against unneccessy evil.
 
climbing_vine said:
Again respectfully, you're not very familiar if you think it's true.

You're right that it's not a "theory". It's propaganda that was cooked up specifically by the WSJ to protect the folks who are the WSJ patrons.

The short version of why it's a transparent lie, an impossibility, is that Fannie and Freddie's problems were a drop in the overall bucket compared to sub-prime loans and bad corporate real-estate loans.

It's popular wisdom because of this propaganda to think that Fannie and Freddie were the standard-bearers of subprime, but this is just a flat-out-lie. Fannie and Freddie were forbidden by statute from engaging in sub-prime loans. They had nothing. At all. To do with it. They like many others were a victim of investments that turned out to be full of packaged fund garbage from Wall Street.
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You keep saying it's propaganda. Show me the proof that it is.

It's not all that complicated and not difficult to show, if what you say is true.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Bill, Your family lost their farm because of bad financial planning, pure and simple. Inheritance tax is a percentage of the value of an estate, if they lost the farm entirely, then something else was going on. There are also exemptions to the inheritance tax for family farms (are now...how long ago did your family farm get 'lost' ?) and in any case a farm is a business and should have been structured as one: A corporation with members of the family as shareholders. That way, if one family member dies, the amount of value passed on is too low to qualify for inheritance tax. I've never known a middle class person to EVER pay inheritance tax, ever. It only applies to very large estates. Farms sometimes fall in there because of the land value...but like I said it can be protected, if you're smart.
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It was my wife's family and it happened long before I met my wife. But sure, let's make it my fault. I'm surprised the liberals haven't figured out a way to tax me for what my wife's family failed to plan for well enough.
 
bmattock said:
Taxation is a neccessary evil. Excessive taxation is an unneccessary evil.
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First of all, I don't think taxes are fundamentally evil. If there were no taxes, there would be no army for instance. (Actually, there would probably be some militias, but they'd have names like "The Bill Gates Squadron," or "General Motors Battalion.")

Where is the line drawn between necessary and unnecessary? That's what separates the libs from the cons.
 
wgerrard said:
Who owns the yardstick?
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Why should there be arbitrary limits to anything?

Who is to say what is too much wealth for someone to acquire?

Let's see Bill Gates has plenty, but he also employs tens of thousands of people, bringing an amazing amount of quality of life to them and their families. Not such a bad thing in my book.

Show me a government program that creates wealth instead of simply taking it from those who do...
 
antiquark said:
First of all, I don't think taxes are fundamentally evil. If there were no taxes, there would be no army for instance. (Actually, there would probably be some militias, but they'd have names like "The Bill Gates Squadron," or "General Motors Battalion.")
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We had a standing army long before we had personal income taxes.

http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml

Taxes are necessary. Income taxes are a necessary evil, IMHO, given what we've become. Taxes that amount to confiscation of wealth and are actually described as being for that purpose, as opposed to funding some aspect of government function, are evil and unnecessary, again IMHO.

When a tax is described as being designed to cure some real or imagined social ill, it is evil, immoral, wrong, and those responsible should be tried for treason and if found guilty, hanged.

Where is the line drawn between necessary and unnecessary? That's what separates the libs from the cons.
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Well, something has to.
 
digitalintrigue said:
Whoa.

Feel free to send me what you earn, then. :)
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Meaning....??

What is there in libertarianism that would prevent wealth and power from accumulating in the hands of a small minority? That is how human societies organize themselves in the absence of any countervailing power. Millennia of history provide ample evidence. The playing field is never level.
 
bmattock said:
It was my wife's family and it happened long before I met my wife. But sure, let's make it my fault. I'm surprised the liberals haven't figured out a way to tax me for what my wife's family failed to plan for well enough.
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No one said it was your fault. I said your family didn't plan ahead and paid the price...I did not realize it was your wife's family. I went back and read your original post about the farm and you did say it was her family..sorry.
 
antiquark said:
Teaching elementary kids reading, writing and arithmetic, goes a long way to creating wealth in society.
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The Interstate Highway System.

Schools (as mentioned by antiquark)

Federally funded scientific research

and since wealth is really those pieces of paper the government prints and forces us to accept as 'valuable' (money) then I nominate the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
 
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