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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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#201
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
" wrote:
On Feb 26, 11:22 am, jim wrote: " wrote: On Feb 26, 12:21 am, Hawke wrote: Then look at taxes and you see the government is only taking in 14 or 15 percent of GDP, which is really low. Hawke you really should not use numbers that are obviously wronge and that are easily checked. According to the OECD the tax rate is 24.0 % of the GDP. Your prejudice is showing again. Dan Last year Federal revenue was 2.303 Tn and 15.294 Tn for GDP That was 15% of GDP Okay, I am confused. http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/ gives total Federal revenue as 5.1 trillion. If $5.1 Tn were federal revenue, there would have been a $1.5 trillion federal surplus last year. Federal taxes were last down at 15% of GDP back in 1951. By comparison federal taxes were 17% of GDP when Reagan was in office. |
#202
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On 2/25/2012 10:58 PM, jk wrote:
wrote: On 2/25/2012 11:07 AM, jk wrote: And what is that dividing line? Some where, between 1:1 and 100:1 you say crosses the line between fair and unfair. Again I ask just WHERE. Sorry but I don't have the perfect number to give you right off the top of my head. I don't think there is one ratio you would use across the board. Fair enough To be fair I think you should go on a case by case basis. I might even buy that, since each case is indeed different. I will point out that doing that invites corruption. It's like having judges decide things. They can be corrupt or they can be fair you take your chances. The main thing is that most people do think the guys on top are getting paid too well. When you know the upper class has seen its income climb very well over the years and everyone else's incomes are flat you can see why they think that. I can tell you that the boss getting 500 times what the average worker gets is out of line. They don't pay bosses like that in Japan and India. They didn't pay them like that here either. But then now we have the boards of all the big companies comprised of other CEOs from different companies. And I will grant that it is a problem. I don't agree that 500 is in and of itself, out of line, or that 50 is even "in line". You might be able to make a case that 500 times what a worker makes is fair but some get far more than that. Is is not unfair that some of them are getting much more than 500 times what the workers get? As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an estate of more than 100K when they die. Truly irrelevant. Especially if you are not going to adjust that number for both location and year. In fact not doing that adjustment truly destroys one of your little arguments. No it doesn't. Oh it certainly does, but it was the argument that people are worse off now than in earlier times. I don't recall saying people are worse off now than in earlier times. Unless you mean from 2000 on. Then it would be true because Americans lost trillions in wealth from their homes and retirement portfolios when the economic crisis hit. I saw where Hispanics were hit particularly hard because they had most of their wealth in their homes. When they lost value it cost them a ton. My argument isn't an argument it's an observation of what is. The reality is that over 90% of Americans don't have an "estate" to leave on their demise. I just saw recently on CNN that the average net worth of blacks in the U.S. is less than 6,000. I am relaying the facts to you about how poor Americans are. Their home is their most valuable asset. It is usually about all they own worth anything. Only 2% of people are able to live well just on what assets they have to retire on. Only 2% leave an estate. Now maybe I'm wrong and it's 3% but my point is the same. Only a tiny percentage of people are leaving any substantial money when they croak. If you don't think that's true then do some research and tell us otherwise. If you don't inflation adjust those numbers, I think you will find that a LOT more people leave 100K+ estates than did in say 1950. But what does that mean, NOTHING, since you can't buy a load of bread for what you paid for one in 1950.'' Look, most people would not call 100K an estate. Most people leave nothing or close to it. Which "most" are you talking about in which line? I think that the "most people" who leave nothing, would be the same "Most people " who DO think that $100k IS an estate, and a good one. It all depends on the terminology. To most people an estate means one thing to lawyers it means something else. To lawyers any assets you have when you die becomes part of your estate. It could be ten bucks. But the commonly held idea of what is an estate is a lot of wealth. If you are successful then you should have a lot of money left when you die. I disagree. If I am successful, I will die happy, contented, leaving my wife well off, leaving no estate for the government to tax. You say that but when you get very successful it gets harder and harder to spend it all. Newly rich people spend a lot initially but as time goes by they spend less. If you make a lot of money you probably won't be able to spend it all and you will wind up with a good sized estate. Unless you die young. Arguable. There are lots of ways to transfer wealth that don't do that. We aren't talking about tricky ways to hide wealth or divest it before death. I'm saying if you made a lot of money you will most likely have an estate to leave your kids. Or you will give it to them before you go, or tell them to earn their own damn money, and spend it all. Any way you slice it if you make a large amount it's likely you won't spend it all and you'll wind up with surplus assets that would go into your estate when you die. Most of us are not going to have much to go into our estate. Having a good adviser means that on your demise there is nothing to show for it? I don't think so. I think it's the opposite. With good advice and tax planners you should have a lot to show for it. You would have a lot to show for it, but no actual estate for the government to tax. I don't know how you could still own the assets and not have it go into your estate when you die. You would have to divest of the assets before your death to avoid all taxes. I don't see why you SHOULD leave an estate. That's just a matter of personal opinion. Most people do want to leave something to their kids. It's up to the individual though. They have children they care about? If you aren't going to leave your estate to them then who? Or what, just spend it up frivolously in your eighties or nineties? Why not. My parents are in their 80s. Some would call them rich. You can barely get them to spend any of their money on anything. You would probably be the same at that age. A house is usually about all most people have. And if they held on to it, rather than trying to float at the top of a housing bubble, that is likely to exceed your 100K number. Could be. But then if they had a house worth 180K and owed 80 or 100K on it and had three kids they wouldn't be leaving each kid very much money. Do you have any idea what the average price of a house is in America? Yes, and California too. I checked the figures out yesterday. It's like mid 150K and most people have a mortgage on them. But if they held on to the house and did not get a second and third, it is small relative to the value of the house. That's a pretty big But! Most people took money out of their homes when they went way up. So you can see most people's homes don't have all that much equity in them to leave when they die. That is because they took the equity out, and largely spent it. Which is the middle class way of screwing the tax man. Or of having a better life by spending more money on themselves. Can you blame them? I can't. That doesn't mean they were not successful. My figure came from the National Association of Realtors. Did I tell you I used to be a real estate agent? No, but I don't see that it is relevant. I just said that to let you know that having been a real estate agent I know something about real estate. Hawke |
#203
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
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#204
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On 2/25/2012 10:13 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 2/25/2012 10:27 PM, Hawwke-ptooey wrote: On 2/25/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote: Don't have a cite. Didn't make it up. What the **** is with you people? You think I make this **** up to win an argument? Yes. I don't. Never have. I don't now and have never done that. Tell us again what Ralph Nader said. Or kinda said. Or may have said... Why do you think I saw what I say? I saw, hear, read these things and pass them on. I sure don't make anything up. I wouldn't even think of that kind of thing. I'm not a cheater and never have been. I'd like to see how accurate you would be after seeing a TV program one time over two weeks earlier, and not having made any effort to remember it. I did misremember what Nader said. In my memory of the show I thought he said 130 million workers had ten dollar an hour jobs. After checking it out what he really said was 1/3 of the workforce was making Walmart wages. So regardless of what he said, the truth is the same, and that is we have a third of our workers making ten bucks an hour or less. That means we have around 50 million people working for really bad wages. Does my memory have anything to do with that fact? Is it important that didn't remember the numbers exactly? I don't think so. Maybe a bit... imprecise... in memory, though? Uh, yeah. I reiterated I only saw the show one time and wasn't taking any notes. I just watched it for entertainment and after two weeks of not giving it any more thought I forgot some of it. Who wouldn't? If I can't win an argument fairly I don't want to win it. Besides if you cheat you didn't really win. But no I didn't not make it up I saw that on TV somewhere. Therefore it must be true, I'm sure we all see that. The longer it's been since you saw something the less of it is remembered. It's the same for you as it is for me. I've seen every Superbowl live. I don't remember a lot of any of them. No one can. It was another depressing statistic showing America's decline. If you are lower class in America your chances of getting out of it are now worse than for a European. That's what they said. It's fine with me if you don't want to believe it. I know it's true. Or has a lot of truthyness. Not at all. I saw the statistic. But I see all kinds of stats all the time. I can't keep everything I see straight and neither can anyone else. But I do remember it when it show something significant. Something like Europe passing the U.S. in the ability for young people to move up. That kind of thing I remember. The other trivial stuff, no. How so? My point is that America has declined and that young people are doing worse in getting ahead here than they are in Europe. That was never the case in the past. So we have gone down hill. I don't like that. While I'm glad to see the Europeans do better I don't want us to have to get worse, and I don't think we have to. I just think we've been doing things wrong for thirty years and now it has all caught up with us and we're paying for our stupidity. Hawwke-ptooey Unless the reps come up with something better than we've seen so far, we're in for another 4 years of that stupidity. But he looks nice in a suit and reads what he's been told to say from the teleprompter well. David If you really think that empty suit, Romney, will do better you are dreaming. Hawke |
#205
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
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#206
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On 2/26/2012 3:21 PM, Hawwke-ptooey wrote:
On 2/25/2012 10:13 PM, David R. Birch wrote: On 2/25/2012 10:27 PM, Hawwke-ptooey wrote: On 2/25/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote: Don't have a cite. Didn't make it up. What the **** is with you people? You think I make this **** up to win an argument? Yes. I don't. Never have. The problem is that you have displayed so little credibility, maturity and accumulated wisdom in your typical posts that no one takes you seriously. You come on like a little boy trying to join an adult conversation, but you just don't have enough depth of insight to be able to make a useful contribution, plus you're too petty and obnoxious to even be amusing. You make big noises about your alleged poli sci degree, but all that you show us is that left = good, right(as in, anyone who points out your errors)= bad. You can't even recognize that there are valid political stances other than left/right or that there are people like me far to the left of you who see you for the shallow poseur that you are. I don't now and have never done that. Tell us again what Ralph Nader said. Or kinda said. Or may have said... Why do you think I saw what I say? I saw, hear, read these things and pass them on. I sure don't make anything up. I wouldn't even think of that kind of thing. I'm not a cheater and never have been. I'd like to see how accurate you would be after seeing a TV program one time over two weeks earlier, and not having made any effort to remember it. I did misremember what Nader said. In my memory of the show I thought he said 130 million workers had ten dollar an hour jobs. After checking it out what he really said was 1/3 of the workforce was making Walmart wages. So regardless of what he said, the truth is the same, and that is we have a third of our workers making ten bucks an hour or less. That means we have around 50 million people working for really bad wages. Does my memory have anything to do with that fact? Is it important that didn't remember the numbers exactly? I don't think so. Oh, gee, I guess if I couldn't precisely remember what was said, I WOULDN'T REFER TO IT AS PROOF OF ANYTHING!! Maybe a bit... imprecise... in memory, though? Uh, yeah. I reiterated I only saw the show one time and wasn't taking any notes. I just watched it for entertainment and after two weeks of not giving it any more thought I forgot some of it. Who wouldn't? Oh, gee, I guess if I couldn't precisely remember what was said, I WOULDN'T REFER TO IT AS PROOF OF ANYTHING!! If I can't win an argument fairly I don't want to win it. Besides if you cheat you didn't really win. But no I didn't not make it up I saw that on TV somewhere. Therefore it must be true, I'm sure we all see that. The longer it's been since you saw something the less of it is remembered. It's the same for you as it is for me. I've seen every Superbowl live. I don't remember a lot of any of them. No one can. Oh, gee, I guess if I couldn't precisely remember what was said, I WOULDN'T REFER TO IT AS PROOF OF ANYTHING!! It was another depressing statistic showing America's decline. If you are lower class in America your chances of getting out of it are now worse than for a European. That's what they said. It's fine with me if you don't want to believe it. I know it's true. Or has a lot of truthyness. Not at all. I saw the statistic. But I see all kinds of stats all the time. I can't keep everything I see straight and neither can anyone else. But I do remember it when it show something significant. Something like Europe passing the U.S. in the ability for young people to move up. That kind of thing I remember. The other trivial stuff, no. So it's OK with you to cite something a true that you only vaguely remember. Oh, gee, I guess if I couldn't precisely remember what was said, I WOULDN'T REFER TO IT AS PROOF OF ANYTHING!! How so? My point is that America has declined and that young people are doing worse in getting ahead here than they are in Europe. That was never the case in the past. So we have gone down hill. I don't like that. While I'm glad to see the Europeans do better I don't want us to have to get worse, and I don't think we have to. I just think we've been doing things wrong for thirty years and now it has all caught up with us and we're paying for our stupidity. Hawwke-ptooey Unless the reps come up with something better than we've seen so far, we're in for another 4 years of that stupidity. But he looks nice in a suit and reads what he's been told to say from the teleprompter well. David If you really think that empty suit, Romney, will do better you are dreaming. Hawwke-ptooey So you didn't read this or you didn't understand it? Which? "Unless the reps come up with something better than we've seen so far, we're in for another 4 years of that stupidity." Which? David |
#207
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On Feb 26, 4:25*pm, Hawke wrote:
Dan, as an American I though it would be self evident to you that it's inherently better for the middle class to have more of the country's wealth than a small group of elites. You need to be told why that is? Having a prosperous middle class is a fundamental American value. But are you saying you don't know why and that I need to give you the reasons? I am looking for something more than" it would be self evident." I am sure you think it would be self evident, but do you have any good theories on why it would be better. If you can not give any reasons, then I conclude you really do not know why. For example if the middle class got 50 % more and the lower class got 50 % more and the wealthy got 75% more. That would mean the wealthy had an even larger percentage of the wealth, but the middle class would still be better off. Or for example the wealthy got 20% less and the middle and lower classes got 3% more, then the wealthy would be less well off , but the middle and lower class would not be as well off as when the wealthy got 50% more. In that in one case they got 50% more and in the other case they only get 3% more. I also particularly singled out Plimpton because any economist worth his salt should be able to explain that one right off the top of his head. But then I assumed virtually any American could also do the same thing. Are you saying you need to have it explained to you? Hawke Yes, I am saying that I want you to explain it to me. I do not think you have thought about it very much and doubt if you can come up with any good reasons. Dan |
#208
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
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#210
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:03:33 -0800, Hawke
wrote: On 2/25/2012 10:58 PM, jk wrote: wrote: On 2/25/2012 11:07 AM, jk wrote: And what is that dividing line? Some where, between 1:1 and 100:1 you say crosses the line between fair and unfair. Again I ask just WHERE. Sorry but I don't have the perfect number to give you right off the top of my head. I don't think there is one ratio you would use across the board. Fair enough To be fair I think you should go on a case by case basis. I might even buy that, since each case is indeed different. I will point out that doing that invites corruption. It's like having judges decide things. They can be corrupt or they can be fair you take your chances. The main thing is that most people do think the guys on top are getting paid too well. When you know the upper class has seen its income climb very well over the years and everyone else's incomes are flat you can see why they think that. I can tell you that the boss getting 500 times what the average worker gets is out of line. They don't pay bosses like that in Japan and India. They didn't pay them like that here either. But then now we have the boards of all the big companies comprised of other CEOs from different companies. And I will grant that it is a problem. I don't agree that 500 is in and of itself, out of line, or that 50 is even "in line". You might be able to make a case that 500 times what a worker makes is fair but some get far more than that. Is is not unfair that some of them are getting much more than 500 times what the workers get? I think that this is where you make your basic error. The correlation of one salary to another, in a corporate sense, is a meaningless exercise. For example, during my salad days I was operations manager of a medium sized construction and services company. I prepared all bids for new work, negotiated contracts, selected and supervised project staffing, and so on. Due to my efforts the company either gained a new source of income or lost it and at the time was bringing, probably a million dollars of new business annually into the company. At the same time we had a bloke named Suderman who was a gofer, fetched coffee, carried mail around to offices, carried the boss' briefcase in from the car, etc. How can you compare one individual, who's efforts accounted for probably 1/3rd of the company's annual income to that of a lad carrying coffee? And I don't think that I am unique. From my experience with other companies in the same field I'd say that I was a typical of people in my position. -- Cheers, John B. |
#211
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
Hawke wrote:
You might be able to make a case that 500 times what a worker makes is fair but some get far more than that. Is is not unfair that some of them are getting much more than 500 times what the workers get? It doesn't matter where you draw the line. It is THAT you draw a line in the sand, and can't justify it, that I see as a problem. As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an estate of more than 100K when they die. Truly irrelevant. Especially if you are not going to adjust that number for both location and year. In fact not doing that adjustment truly destroys one of your little arguments. No it doesn't. Oh it certainly does, but it was the argument that people are worse off now than in earlier times. I don't recall saying people are worse off now than in earlier times. Oh COME ON. That is exactly what you said, specifically that we were worse off now than we were in the 50s and at the turn of the previous century. The discussion even digressed back to the medieval guilds when you made another statement. Unless you mean from 2000 on. Then it would be true because Americans lost trillions in wealth from their homes No they didn't, that "Wealth" was largely never there. Yes they THOUGHT it was. and retirement portfolios when That I will agree with. the economic crisis hit. Which "most" are you talking about in which line? I think that the "most people" who leave nothing, would be the same "Most people " who DO think that $100k IS an estate, and a good one. It all depends on the terminology. To most people an estate means one thing to lawyers it means something else. To lawyers any assets you have when you die becomes part of your estate. It could be ten bucks. But the commonly held idea of what is an estate is a lot of wealth. No, the commonly held idea of an estate, matches almost exactly that which you say the lawyers call it. If you are successful then you should have a lot of money left when you die. I disagree. If I am successful, I will die happy, contented, leaving my wife well off, leaving no estate for the government to tax. You say that but when you get very successful it gets harder and harder to spend it all. Newly rich people spend a lot initially but as time goes by they spend less. If you make a lot of money you probably won't be able to spend it all and you will wind up with a good sized estate. Unless you die young. Logic error,........... If I make a lot of money, I will STILL have a "good sized estate" if I die young. More than if I die old. Arguable. There are lots of ways to transfer wealth that don't do that. We aren't talking about tricky ways to hide wealth or divest it before death. I'm saying if you made a lot of money you will most likely have an estate to leave your kids. Or you will give it to them before you go, or tell them to earn their own damn money, and spend it all. Any way you slice it if you make a large amount it's likely you won't spend it all and you'll wind up with surplus assets that would go into your estate when you die. Most of us are not going to have much to go into our estate. You would have a lot to show for it, but no actual estate for the government to tax. I don't know how you could still own the assets and not have it go into your estate when you die. You would have to divest of the assets before your death to avoid all taxes. You don't have to own it to have exclusive use and control of it. I don't see why you SHOULD leave an estate. That's just a matter of personal opinion. Most people do want to leave something to their kids. It's up to the individual though. They have children they care about? If you aren't going to leave your estate to them then who? Or what, just spend it up frivolously in your eighties or nineties? Why not. My parents are in their 80s. Some would call them rich. You can barely get them to spend any of their money on anything. You would probably be the same at that age. There you go again, making assumptions. I don't think it is the age they are, it is where and when they were brought up. A house is usually about all most people have. And if they held on to it, rather than trying to float at the top of a housing bubble, that is likely to exceed your 100K number. Could be. But then if they had a house worth 180K and owed 80 or 100K on it and had three kids they wouldn't be leaving each kid very much money. Do you have any idea what the average price of a house is in America? Yes, and California too. I checked the figures out yesterday. It's like mid 150K and most people have a mortgage on them. But if they held on to the house and did not get a second and third, it is small relative to the value of the house. So you can see most people's homes don't have all that much equity in them to leave when they die. That is because they took the equity out, and largely spent it. Which is the middle class way of screwing the tax man. Or of having a better life by spending more money on themselves. Can you blame them? I can't. I don't blame them, they made a choice. [ I made a different one, and now OWN my house and cars.] That doesn't mean they were not successful, which is what you claimed. That doesn't mean they were not successful. My figure came from the National Association of Realtors. Did I tell you I used to be a real estate agent? No, but I don't see that it is relevant. I just said that to let you know that having been a real estate agent I know something about real estate. And it's still irrelevant. jk |
#212
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
Hawke wrote:
I'd like to see how accurate you would be after seeing a TV program one time over two weeks earlier, and not having made any effort to remember it. But I am not the one putting those number out there to support an argument. I did misremember what Nader said. In my memory of the show I thought he said 130 million workers had ten dollar an hour jobs. After checking it out what he really said was 1/3 of the workforce was making Walmart wages. So regardless of what he said, the truth is the same, and that is we have a third of our workers making ten bucks an hour or less. That means we have around 50 million people working for really bad wages. Does my memory have anything to do with that fact? Is it important that didn't remember the numbers exactly? I don't think so. It became important when you claimed those WERE the numbers and that Nader had documentation for them. Maybe a bit... imprecise... in memory, though? The longer it's been since you saw something the less of it is remembered. It's the same for you as it is for me. I've seen every Superbowl live. I don't remember a lot of any of them. No one can. And I can't say that I have EVER seen ANY of them live. Complete waste of time. [I may have though, at my parents we usually had games on in the background while we played chess. Depends on which side I was sitting on if I saw it. More often the rose bowl than the superbowl, that would be for sure.] If you really think that empty suit, Romney, will do better you are dreaming. Better the empty suit, than the truly scary sweater that could be his alternative. jk |
#213
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
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"Why do you have a right to your money?"
On Feb 26, 8:55*pm, Hawke wrote:
Yeah, see how it works Dan? Sometimes you get it wrong. That's what happens when you actually say something. Now you know what it's like. Should we consider you a liar now? That's the kind of thing you said about me. You question every statement I make like it can't be trusted. Now you have proven not to put up accurate information. Is that a mistake or did you do it on purpose. How can I believe anything you write when you get things so wrong? How do you like it? We all make mistakes. I'd appreciate it if you acted decently in the future if I happen to be the one making the mistake. Hawke Actually I hope you see how it works. Jim said I was wrong so I checked and sure enough I was wrong. So I admitted it and posted that I had made a mistake. I did not claim it was actually correct. I went back and checked my sources and posted real numbers. And I do not like the fact that I screwed up. I hate to be wrong and try to be correct. So yes I was lying when I said you were wrong. And I apologize. And hope you will always check my statements and not just believe them. Dan |
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