From elastic!jaywon.pci.on.ca!ftn.net!n2tor.istar!tor.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!panix.com!dmeyers Sat Jul 20 08:22:47 1996 Xref: elastic can.general:51209 ont.general:46818 soc.culture.canada:29877 soc.culture.usa:13842 tor.general:49150 Path: elastic!jaywon.pci.on.ca!ftn.net!n2tor.istar!tor.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!panix.com!dmeyers From: dmeyers@panix.com (David Meyers) Newsgroups: atl.general,ga.general,soc.culture.usa,tor.general,ont.general,soc.culture.canada,can.general Subject: Tax Corporations to help the poor (was Re: USA Perverse OLYMPICS More So) Date: 16 Jul 1996 09:00:37 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC Lines: 82 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <31c9ddac.9403379@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <4s4l2a$i3t@mordred.gatech.edu> <4s5adj$qf0@ns1.vrx.net> <4seqr2$b9d@ns1.vrx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com In-reply-to: bob@news.vrx.net's message of 15 Jul 1996 21:21:38 -0400 In article <4seqr2$b9d@ns1.vrx.net> bob@news.vrx.net (Bob Allisat) writes: > Donate? Corporations donate nothing without > strings being attached. I say tax these > corporate entities to force them to support > the poor. Tax them and not the working people. Bob, you are truly a remarkably stubborn idiot. Corporations do not pay taxes. They pass them on to their customers through higher prices. Their customers are those very people you are trying to help. Raise the corporate taxes and you hurt those working folks even more - they cannot afford products, they lose jobs, and even more of them end up impoverished and homeless. > And build homes, clean water, cleanse air. People do this out of self interest. That is the only way they do these things. People who _own_ things and have an interest in them take much better care of them than do people who believe that their things will be taken at the whim of the government or people who are abusing "public" things. > Until that is done No Olympics. In fact as long > as there is poverty and ecological devastation > let there be no profits, no luxuries no rich. And you are just the comrade to take these things away from those who paid for them. And as long as people are pretty sure that their property will be confiscated by the people's government, led by folks like you, bob, nobody will have any incentive to protect property or the ecology. The only horrible thing about the Olympics is the government subsidy and pathetic political incest which takes place on the road to getting them. So long as no tax money is used and people participate freely, there is no conflict and no problem. Of course, this last is not the case, but it is not nearly as bad as the scenario you envision wherein fascists like yourself sieze the property of the productive, redistribute at your own whim, claim you are "helping" by killing off economic growth and job opportunities for the very folks you claim to be trying to help. > The Olympiad is obscenity defined and perfected. No no no. Redistributive taxation and property confiscation is obscenity defined and perfected. It undermines the economy, eliminates incentive to care for that property, and has no moral basis to begin with. Nuff said. I can't believe I'm actually responding to a post from old bob. For what its worth, I lived in Atlanta while they were begging for the Games, and nobody asked me what I thought (if that's the kind of representation we have now, could you imagine how much worse it would be under bob?). I was opposed to the whole spectacle, and am still convinced that in the long run it is _not_ good for the city. It helps the city officials, some of the big corporate interests, and actually, plenty of the poor, but it does not help those who will be left holding the bag - the taxpayers and middle class folks who will get no benefit except further traffic and congestion and poorly planned city growth. But at least the disaster called Techwood homes was destroyed and the environment around GaTech and GaState is vastly improved as a consequence thereof. Pitiful, though, that further tax money is being used to continue to provide those folks who so abused Techwood with new homes. --D -- dmeyers@panix.com "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."