| Author | Message | ||
     Aesquire |
Blake, I'm not sure that ...the fed govt granting business loans to specific corporate startups... is "unconstitutional"... it's not a power the Federal gov is supposed to have under the Constitution, true. But based on that, MOST of what Congress does is unconstitutional. ( Ok, that's true too ) But in this 21st century... Holding the line would be a win, going back to limited gov will take a lot more. After all we are in a world where the Prez dislikes the Constitution because it... A: does not let him do as he pleases in taking money from people at gunpoint to give to those he want to. ( from the last 2 1/2 years that means those who bribe him. ) (A: is phrased different than Barack would like, but it's what he has said on record ) And... ( B: is my speculation, based on observation, and my own pre judging of authoritarian narcissists who advocate A: ) B: the restrictions it places on his power. I also ask you not ban Superdave. I admit I've gone over the line myself a few times, usually by calling someone a "useful idiot". ( so my pleas is also a plea not to ban ME for going too far. ) I'm sorry you are offended by the "skydaddy" crap, but that is to be expected from someone who has reached the adolescent rejection of daddy's teaching, and seems to have frozen his spiritual life there. I'm not a practicing Christian myself, ( though baptized in one Church, and confirmed in another.) I certainly don't push MY beliefs here, partly because I am annoyed ( not offended ) by proselytizing. I bet you SuperDave would be even more unkind to my faith.  ( even though a half billion $ grossing movie based on the comic version is out on DVD. I thought Hiddleston & Hopkins did their characters justice. The rest?? hey! it's a Comic book. Movie versions of Biblical stuff ranges from great to junk, too. ) I also have 2 comments that SuperDave should be able to respond to. 1. the use of straw man arguments ( stating that someone wants no laws against pollution, at all, Or want NO regulations, at all, ) is a bogus argument tactic. It's dishonest. It's rude. You don't win the argument, or even positively influence the other person to even look at your side, because it is a lie. Use of that tactic will get you nothing but derision, and lack of sympathy. Grow up. ( yes, I know politicians use straw man arguments. They are full of it, too. ) 2. If you accept the premise that You and I and all the customers of a company actually pay the taxes FOR that company...... then asking a company to pay more based on "fairness" means you want to pay more of those taxes. It does not ever mean that the company will suffer. Superdave correctly states that politicians make bad laws based, in part, on large bribes. That's why rich people and large companies get better deals. They bribed the politico's to get them. Making the rich poor does not in any way make the politicians honest. Do not confuse cause and effect. | ||
| Mtjm2 |
Nik ? I dont see them camping in front of the White house ! Capitol !were this all started .. Court , you live in it , +1 to you . Free food and drink , drugs . Better than living in moms basement . | ||
| Kenm123t |
The Consitution provides for Equal protection of all persons. There should only be one tax rate on income and every one pays it. | ||
| Nik |
They're at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza. Both are only a couple blocks from the White House. | ||
| Reindog |
I am against banning except for extreme circumstances. SDfft is immature and might not appreciate that he has pressed some pretty serious buttons with a person of faith("skydaddy" or "silly little book") or a red meat eating Conservative ("hate all cops" or "by any means necessary"). I pretty much don't want to have anything to do with that SOB but thats just my personal view. I don't want to see him banned either. Words, like actions, have consequences and SDfft needs to grow up and not urinate on someone else's carpet. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
If you accept the premise that You and I and all the customers of a company actually pay the taxes FOR that company...... then asking a company to pay more based on "fairness" means you want to pay more of those taxes. It does not ever mean that the company will suffer. Worse yet, it widens the trade imbalance and forces outsourcing. There are three main components to producing marketable goods: Labor Materials Taxes/Regulation The price for the good or service must be greater than the costs of these three components in order to provide a return on capital. Businesses have minimal ability to reduce the impacts of taxes and regulations. The higher the taxes and regulation, the more a business must either raise prices or mitigate other expenses. Raw materials are another area in which business has little control. Wood, steel, aluminum, electricity, etc. must all be purchased on the open market for whatever the market rate is. Businesses must compete on the open market for sales of the businesses's goods and services. This includes foreign and domestic products. Foreign products do not have the same corporate tax pressures US products manufacturers. As a result, foreign products are able to be priced at 15-40% less than US products. In addition, all the components used to build products in the US sourced from US suppliers have the costs of US taxes and regulations built in as well. This compounds the affect. EVERY component is 15-40% more expensive than foreign sourced materials. In order to compete, businesses outsource labor and production in order to lower the costs and attempt to keep prices competitive. | ||
| Gregtonn |
Well said Ft. It would be difficult to explain it better than that. G | ||
| Blake |
>>> Foreign products do not have the same corporate tax pressures US products manufacturers. As a result, foreign products are able to be priced at 15-40% less than US products. Consider a corporation that earns an adjusted net income of 10%. If the average price for its products is $100, then it pays tax on only the $10 adjusted net profit. At 35% that tax amounts to $3.5. If the price of the product were raised to entirely offset the tax and retain a 10% net profit after taxes, it wouldn't be 35% higher, just ~5.4% higher: $90 + $10/.65 = $105.38. | ||
| Sifo |
Anyone hear about what Lynchburg, TN is trying to do to Jack Daniels? They already provide most of the tax base for Lynchburg. Now they want another 10$ per barrel. I saw an interview last night where they said that 56% of the retail price on a bottle of Jack Daniels is already nothing but tax! What does Lynchburg plan to do when another town will let Jack Daniels operate for half the taxes? Who is John Galt? | ||
| Blake |
A bit over-generalized, but I like the point. Thirty five days every ten years might be even better. http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=6158 Bill Whittle speaks to the core issues. | ||
| Blake |
Sifo, how much tax does Jack Daniels already pay? $10/barrel isn't a lot, so it would be informative to know what the total local tax is. Most of tax on a bottle is likely from federal sin tax, entirely unconstitutional in my view. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
What does Lynchburg plan to do when another town will let Jack Daniels operate for half the taxes? Not likely to happen. The magic of Jack Daniels is tied up on THAT specific location. The water that is used comes from a cave aquifer that can't be replicated. The fermentation tanks are 100+ years old. It's amazing what efforts they have gone through to preserve the methodology. JD just built two new $70M aging houses. | ||
| Sifo |
Blake, that's a good question about how much JD already pays. I don't have that info handy. I do have a big problem with the concept of targeting any company simply because they have been successful though, I don't care how "small" the penalty is. You just shouldn't penalize success that way. They say it will be a tax in the range of 4-5 million dollars. Is it still a small tax? Just because you are successful? FB, that is exactly what Lynchburg is betting on. Keep in mind that Lynchburg already benefits greatly from tourism driven by JD. They get far more than just tax dollars from JD. What would happen if they set up shop down the road in Fayetteville? I bet Fayetteville would love to have them, probably cut them a nice tax deal for a few years to help offset the cost of setting up shop. They could still use the same water, they would just have to truck it in tankers about 15 miles. I'm willing to bet the fermentation tanks could also be moved. Could Lynchburg make any money on JD shipping water from the springs they own there? A bit on property taxes would be about it. Their losses however would be huge. At some point moving makes sense. Same thing as what happens when an auto maker decides to set up shop outside of US borders. There was a time when people couldn't conceive of the big three auto makers setting up shop elsewhere either. Now Motown is dead. | ||
| Sifo |
I did find this on their current taxes...
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/21/new-tax- on-jack-daniels-could-come-back-to-haunt-company-t own/ Not much detail, but you get some idea. | ||
| Barker |
IIRC: The Jack Daniel's gift shop is one of if not the largest contributor of sales tax in the county. Another IIRC: Not all JD in made in Lynchburg. I'm sure that they will not openly admit this, but I have heard it from an inside source. What happens when they downsize the plant. Move the production maybe even the ship out spring water to their other facilities in other states. Leaving a small tourist "show" of a factory. (Message edited by barker on October 22, 2011) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
The question is whether or not the additional tax is worth the loss of the Jack Daniels story. It isn't just a matter of the water. It's the complete story of the heritage. My guess is that JD is willing to take the additional $10 per barrel in stride. If you've never been to the location and taken the tour, it is amazing. 90% of what makes Jack Daniels Jack Daniels is the historical component. Rarely can one visit the original office of the original company with the original desk and safe where Jack Daniels himself kicked it, broke his toe, and precipitated his death. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
 | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
 The cave. Used since 1866. | ||
| Court |
Just . . as you read this . . .be mindful that there was a day when we say a successful person and said "I want to be like that" . . . we were willing to do the hard work, devote ourselves and make the commitment. I listen closely to these street clowns and the Obama administration . . . they see successful folks and don't want to BE like that . . they want THAT stuff and are consumed with how to get it. We used to earn . . now we take. Be aware and alert for changing behaviors from those who've earned . . including Jack Daniels. | ||
| Sifo |
Here's the part that really gets me. It's the sense of entitlement that people seem to have just because they happen to live near a successful business.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/21/jack-da niels-faces-more-taxes-from-cash-strapped-hometown -in-tennessee/ Why is he entitled to the profits of a business that he takes no part in? They are simply targeting a successful business to bleed it of what has been built. | ||
| Blake |
They need to tax all at the same rate. Special taxes for one industry is wrong. | ||
| Rwven |
Taxation should be about revenue generation and nothing else. | ||
| Rwven |
I think I've finally boiled the message of OWS down to this: We don't care about equal opportunity, we demand equal outcomes. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Besides the distillery and the few shops and restaurants on the town square, there ain't a damn thing in Lynchburg. The sad part is that it's STILL a dry county. You can't actually drink the product anywhere in Moore County. If I were JD, I'd make sure the next tax increase came with a revocation of the Blue Laws for Moore Co. and a presentation for the plans to exit Moore Co. | ||
| Blake |
You can drink it there, just can't sell it. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
If you can't sell it in a county, you can't make any money from it in a county. | ||
| Court |
Hey . . . wait a minute . . .  | ||
| Aesquire |
Long ago, the Feds decided that ATT/Bell was an evil monopoly, and broke the company up. This, we were told, would lower the price of phone service, and competition would make the world a brighter place. Well, that did happen. It took decades. It took a Finnish company, and a bunch of American businessmen, to create the cell phone system here we take for grudging granted. And, ok, the price never did go down. Now you have the privilege of paying lots of taxes in your cell phone bill. The Congress that wrote the law to tax you assured you that money would go to a good cause, and wrote in that law that the company you pay for phone service was FORBIDDEN to break that tax out on your bill. I bet you don't know how much of your bill is tax. It's more than that. With the breakup of ATT, The Deathstar had to get rid of the most advanced laboratory in the world. A lab that had taken Arthur C. Clarke's idea of communication satellites and made it real. A lab that followed the concepts of the Inventor Of The Twentieth Century, Tesla, and built some of the first, best computers and operating systems, ever. A lab that detected a faint hiss on the most sensitive equipment in the world and figured out what it meant, the echo of the big bang. The echo of the Word. A lab that has done things, invented things, that are still secret, and may be long after we are gone. A lab that invented the Telephone. Bell labs is pretty much gone now. Our loss. Evil corporation, right? If I'd been head of ATT back in the day the company had been declared evil, I would have handled it a bit differently. I would have gone to Congress, told them that the seriousness of the charges meant that I was not going to wait for the actions they proposed. That I was going to send everyone not involved in security and needed maintenance home. That with the sole exception of the Darpanet connections designed to survive nuclear war, that I would shut down all phone service by my company, world wide. I'd tell them to send me a letter when they decided what to do. And then the lights would go out. ( because the phone lines carried the electrical grid instructions } That was probably the last case in this country where you could actually pull a "John Galt". I would have been lynched, but that might, just maybe, shown the world that government is not a collection of Gods, but the parasite on humanity that we only tolerate because we know that anarchy is worse. Fleas shouldn't run the Dog. | ||
| Xdigitalx |
ROTFL! (Court's pic) | ||
| Whatever |
What the hell IS Court doing down there? LOOKING for hippie girls in minny skirts no doubt?  |
