You'd probably be calling yourselves the United States of Canada if they had, so I guess you'd have more land/oil/Inuits. A net positive to  voting with your feet?

One reason I joined the blogging world was to learn about other peoples opinions on things I was interested in. While I enjoy the occasional fight, name calling and finger pointing, I actually look for some middle ground in the serious arguments or debates. I refuse to believe that we all somehow have to be right and the opposing view has to be wrong. I don't like thinking others are stupid just because they see things differently than me but at times can't help pointing it out cause as oppose to trying to understand but still hold their ground, they like not only to make their point but burying you in the process and that is what I dislike most about some of these arguments.

People need to learn that we should not be fighting each other when the point of the argument is to raise awareness of the topic at hand. Nothing funnier than the Gov't doing something wrong and we hating each other for it as oppose to hating the Gov't for it. Well hating is such a strong word but you get my point.

Doubtful. We'd probably be living under Nazi Germany now. lol.

Canada, even taking its population into acocunt, hasn't exactly been a dynamo. No offense. 

What has made the United States what it is is precisely because we tend to argue and fight for what we believe in. When we disagree, we often learn from it.

It's painful to read that one has to comment on something so obviously understood. Nowhere but Ameica.

Hrmm...I don't think I've heard many rich or middle-class people say something like "move to another country!".  It's not very reasonable.  You make it sound like something you hear everyday.

The only rich people complaining that bother me are the ones saying "BAIL US OUT PLZ".  The main reason I'd want to move is because I have tried complaining but the government still decided to bail out idiotic corporations.

I don't know how you run your business Draginol, but since you're an engineer also, I'd assume you don't do stupid things with your company's returns and then go in front of congress and say "oh...just pay us...it is too complicated for you commoners to understand"

 

On a side note, you mentioned before that you don't like being told by the goverment what to do with your money (or essentially what happens when they tax you).  Have you considered giving a portion to philantrophic causes you deem worthy and writing it off?

Look I dont hate Dems...in fact some of the ideas of Dems i do agree with....

 

Heres my point. I blame politicans and in fact willing to meet in the middle when it comes to issues. Most times ideas will not be the same.... the problem is WE THE people dont hold the politicans accountable. Add into the fact that most of america does not have the ability to form any kind of simple thinking besides what the media on tv feeds them, makes it even more agravating ....

 

Also, you should be thankful that we have the ability to openly talk about things like this with out the fear of the "men in black" knocking down the doors and then never being heard from again.

 

 

I already do.

 

Oh

 

This is none of my business but I've seen alot of your recent posts are about your issues with the tax system.  Are your issues with the tax system more from an ethical or intellectual curiosity then?  If you're writing off alot of your taxes, I'd imagine you pay a lower tax rate than most "normal" middle-class people do.  Though I don't know if your company being private causes some issues on the amount of deduction--no experience with that.

Like I said, none of my business, but I've noticed a good amount of recent posts being really critical of the tax system.

You simultaneously flatter me with attention while misconstruing my point. I guess there’s truth to the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Again if you do the "boiling down" and come up with this then there's little I can say that will change your mind, but yet again that was *not* the essence of my point. My point in that case was a direct response to your statement (which you fail to include in your quote) that

In a similar manner your statement can be "boiled down" to saying that taxes paid by the minority (i.e. the rich) represent theft by the majority (i.e. the not rich). My primary point was that you, Bill Gates, a single mom on welfare and I, all have to abide by the same tax code. Make more pay more, make less pay less, the same rules apply to all. This by no means represents the "looting" of the minority by the majority and to suggest so is insulting to everyone that pays their taxes.

As far as your point that

I never said anything like shut up or leave. In fact just 5 replies earlier in the same thread quoted in the OP I posted the following.

Let me repeat the essence lest it be boiled down into something entirely different.

"Certainly it's their right (just like anyone else) to complain about how much they pay or what is done with it once it is paid."

I never told anyone to shut up or that they shouldn't complain, I simply made the point that once they paid their taxes the money ceases to be *theirs* and becomes *ours*. Even so I clearly stated that it's still their right to complain. The only right they no longer have is the exclusive decision over how the money is spent.

I agree.

It just seems to me in my humble opinion that the discussion and debate on this site is entirely one sided and therefore there is no learning going on here. The predominance of what goes on here comes under the heading of preaching to the choir. Those that tend to disagree with the prevailing opinion simply leave, leaving the rest with the misguided opinion that their views are in the majority when in fact in the real world these views are in the minority. If there's any point that I'm trying to make then that's it. That plus objecting to the attitude that every opinion on the left is wrong and every opinion on the right is correct.

Complain all you want. That's fine. Nothing could be more American. But you would think that even if it was by mere chance you are not 100% right at every turn and everyone that disagrees with you is 100% wrong.

I'm Mrs. Draginol so I'll field this one.  The people who are advising to just donate and write it off demonstrate how little they know about our taxes and it is totally understandable since I would need a CPA to explain the complexities that occur when you have to take privately held corporations along with personal taxes all into consideration.  I'll put it simply like this, you don't just pay your bills and payroll, say hey, we have some extra money, we'll just donate it and then subtract it from what we'll have to pay in taxes.

Codrunner, I don't think you are that simplistic but that is the basic impression I get from many who chime in about how we can just "write off" donations.  Most people are familiar with doing taxes once a year.  When you have a company, tax time is ALL THE TIME.  We pay tax estimates constantly.  You are probably thinking that we will end up getting some of that back in the end.  It doesn't seem to ever happen and in the mean time, the government is using that money and we don't have access to it in order to donate it or invest it and make money off from it.

I won't get into how Stardock does business other than to say that it was built without outside capitol.  Brad has always reinvested in the company and projected and saved in order to not have to rely on investors or bail outs.  He's been more financially responsible than anyone I know, can you blame him for being fed up with be taxed to oblivion and still having people say he doesn't pay his "fair share"?

Oi! them's fightin words boy!

We give you William Shatner, John Candy, Shania Twain AND Alex Trebek and this is the thanks we get???

Oh, and one more thing-

We've always had less than 10% of the population of the U.S but we fought in both world wars from the very beginning until the very end, AND it was all volunteer troops too.

-AND- you'll be glad to know that it was troops from the British colony of Canada that carried out the only succesful military attack on Washington- in the war of 1812 (actually the war of 1813) we marched into Washington and set fire to the Whitehouse. Then promptly left- didn't want to be impolite and all, right?

Hey, the Wardells immigrated to the US from Canada too (about 100 years ago). My great grandfather was a Canadian mountie.

But it doesn't change the fact that OUR ancestors didn't accomplish nearly as much, even taking population into account, as their American cousins. Not because the people are better or what have you but because the culture of the United States has tended to be more capitalistic than other cultures (warts and all).

Mumblefratz: Not to interupt your narcisism but the post isn't all about you.  I used your comment as a snapshot example of the attitude of "Hey, if you don't like it, you can move somewhere else" which is precisely what you said.

We live under a tax system that everyone "lives by" in the sense that the majority (who pay little or no taxes) have used the power of the poll to get a tiny minority to pay for nearly all of it.

I think you're showing a lack of knowledge of the tax system, Coderunner. You seem to have bought into a lot of urban legends that somehow "the rich" are able to get out of paying their taxes. 

My general issue with the tax system is not that I object paying taxes but rather the current political climate that seems to focus on getting fewer and fewer people paying taxes which I think is going to lead to disaster.

One of the reasons our health care costs are so high, for instance, is because insurance insulates us from the actual costs of things and people don't tend to care how much things cost.

Similarly, if the majority of Americans pay nothing in taxes, then they won't care how the government spends money that is taken from an ever smaller minority.

 

i Jill,

Please don't take my mini-rant on bail-outs as directed towards your husband's company.  I get the impression from reading his other posts that stardock isn't run like the irresponsible corporations that are making the news so I really did get off tangent and on a little rant there.  The whole issue bugs me and I see red and start foaming at the mouth   It was not directed to Stardock though.

 

Brad,

 

Ah, I see. 

Yes, I admit I did believe the myth that "the rich" are able to write off a significant portion of their income.  Not totally from people complaining about "the rich" though...I remember hearing or reading (I forget) warren buffett talk about how his taxed income was ~19% which seemed surprisingly low for someone with his income so I made the assumption that much of it must have come from deductions to his large philantrophic donations. 

 

I agree that just getting fewer people to pay taxes will lead to continual problems down the road.  On the one hand, I'm interested in the economic issues b/c it's "neat" (same reason I do other geek things I guess) but on the other hand I'm also invested in it myself b/c of personal investments and how the irresponsible end up affecting the responsible with their actions.  I guess you're in a similar boat.

 

Both,

The actual impression from reading Draginol's posts about his bad experiences with previous game publishers (thinking galciv 1) gives me the impression that Brad would be a good guy to do business with because he was so vehement against those kinds of practices.  (I do understand how difficult it is to find a good business partner...there are some legal issues with me also in a new small company that basically is boiling down to....big company in partnership wants us to work for "free" and are sicking their giant team of lawyers on us when we refused...another case of "business" or "marketing" types being totally unreasonable when the "technical" types try to explain something to them).