>> ^cosmovitelli:

Reid just said 'He's a thief and he should show what's in his backpack'.
Romney says 'Fuck you I dont have to show you what's in my backpack and you can't make me'.
They're both right.
But one of them wants to be fucking president..


should have said: both WITHIN their rights..

You can't legally shelter funds from taxation in Swiss bank accounts. You are taxed on your worldwide income when you are a resident of the US.

The olly olly oxen deal was for Corporations -- businesses that aren't US residents, that only do business in foreign countries with lower tax rates. They can't bring the cash back to America without paying US taxes. The olly olly deal was to let the corporations bring cash back into America at lower rates than normal.

I understand that Rmoney doesn't want his tax returns to be picked apart.

But he can easily provide Page one and page two, which have no details, just totals. Then we can see what rate of tax he paid. But he isn't doing that. And that makes me think that he probably did pay very low taxes for some of those years.

His earnings on his Swiss bank accounts were taxed in America though -- they were on his tax return and that is why we all found out that he had a lot of money parked over there. And that is why he doesn't want to release his full tax returns -- folks read "Swiss bank accounts" and get all in a tizzy. I can understand him wanting to avoid that kind of ignorance. So? Release page one and page two.




>> ^ObsidianStorm:

I suspect that Romney was one of the guys who sheltered massive amounts of money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid US taxes and then took advantage of the 2009 ollyollyoxenfree that allowed that money to be moved back into the US without penalties.
Just my guess...

@renatojj dont worry, I too am enjoying our conversation. Back to the topic at hand

My definition of coercion: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/coerce
"persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats"

That means in any situation where one has a higher degree of power then the other person, there is risk of coercion. Especially in cases of employment there is a large discrepancy between the power of the employee vs the power of the employer. Employers can coerce in numerous ways, by saying you will get fired if you dont, you will not get a raise, you will not be promoted, you will be demoted, and so on.

What can the employee do? He or she can stop working there. Unless there is a shortage of workers (which country in the last 50 years has had that?) that will not overly upset the employer, so the employees negotiation power is limited.

So what is coercion in practical sense? Working 14 hours for 8 hours of pay or get fired? Working 14 hours for 8 hours of pay to get a promotion? If you look at the definition both are coercion as the employee does something he would otherwise be unwilling to do (work unpaid hours) because of (the unspoken) threats. Threat to lose the job or threat to not get the promotion.

So what do I mean with powerful? Exactly that, the ones with more power in any situation. They can be rich, but they dont have to be. Off course, where power reside, usually riches follow or vice versa.

Laziness is part of the human condition. Everyone is lazy, and everyone is not. I have seen toilet ladies work 14 hours shift 6 days a week and I have seen CEOs spend most of their time on golf courses and vice versa. Laziness is dependent on your motivation and on what you can get away with. Nobody will do work they dont have to if they dont like it. And everyone will work their butt of if they really like and want to do it. If the other option is starvation, trust me, no one is lazy.

Employees actually are entitled to something. Employment is a contract between one giving his free hours and the other giving goods (or money) in return. Charity is not. Coercion can follow as many things are not clarified in the contract, or are clarified but later are demanded or not given anyway. In charity there is no contract, hence no agreement on what should be given or received hence no coercion as there is no base of power. You can argue that as the receiver needs the money, it is possible to coerce him or her by offering and asking something he doesnt want to give in return, ie persuading him to do something he would otherwise not have done. That is not charity, that is employment ;-)

>> ^lantern53:

Hasn't the IRS had 10 years to look at Romney's tax return from 2002? And nine yrs to look at his return from 2003, and eight years to look at his return from 2004, etc?
If the IRS has no problem with them, why should anyone else?
Has Obama released his tax forms from 10 yrs ago?
Obama hasn't even released his college transcripts, admission papers, thesis paper, his Illinois state senate schedule, his medical records, and on and on. All these things are sealed. As is our fate if he is re-elected.


The IRS doesn't "look" at returns and analyze them. There are too many. They only respond to certain red flags and that's it. And they don't "look" at them because they're political candidates as that would be unethical not to mention illegal to just start looking through a return for shits and grins and to dig up dirt.

In all likelyhood, everything Romney is doing is technically legal, just crammed full of loopholes and dirty tricks. It probably wouldn't be bad per him per se, it would just highlight the extent the super-wealthy exploit the tax codes.

I don't think you understand how much corporate influence has over the gov't

I work IT in state revenue and while I'm not privy to details, I've talked to enough of the attorneys to know that some of the bigger companies will come in and argue essentially that they don't feel they owe that much tax. no facts, no figures, no calculations. simply "we feel our tax is too high" And deals get made...they get made all the time.

We supposedly live in a land of laws, but those laws get dodged and skirted and bent all the time and its usually the wealthy that get to do it.

I think their issue is probably based a lot of illegal immigrant workers, places using them can hold deportation over their heads, pay them a lot less, work them a lot more, and avoid minimum wage US workers.

Minimum wage is a useless tool if they can bypass it by hiring people who willfully don't seek it for one reason or another. Deportation even if they are a legal immigrant due to lack of job keeping them here on their work visa.


Then the other is the "taxes are so high" excuse, where your paycheck isn't broken down properly and they are taking things out that they shouldn't be and just blaming it on taxes. Or overtime goes unpaid because "We don't pay overtime, yet we'll work you 80 hours a week and never inform you of this." Or you work through breaks and lunch, but they subtract lunch/etc from your pay because they need to do so to appear to be meeting labor standards if anyone ever looks into them. So they can use the "He worked through lunch? We didn't pay him for it...why would someone do that? He must have taken lunch."

And people who can't speak or read english or have poor comprehension. They spend more effort on ripping these people off because whose going to listen to them? They can't communicate well enough with their employer to argue one way or the other. Non-English speaking is a huge bias in the US work force, and I can somewhat see it. But there's still labor practices, if you don't want to hire someone who can't speak English...don't. But it's easier to break labor practices and rip them off if you do, which is why they hire them.


And they get away with it because they are 1) Huge corporations or 2) So shady without seeing it first hand someone wouldn't know something is up because their reports are so full of lies. Both categories will also fuck with your unemployment benefits despite it not costing them anything to let you have them. Why? Because it makes other people in the company unwilling to risk quitting with cause and trying to draw unemployment while they pursue legal matters against them. If they can keep you poor and on the edge, you don't have the ability to do anything about...you'll be out on the street before anything happens. And it's pretty hard to do anything court related if you don't have a mailing address, plus all of the other things that will happen to you, your kids, etc if you choose to try to fight and lose your job over it.....like inability to find work ever again because you complained and they let people know you did. And good luck proving they are hindering your ability to find work or that you are on some sort of unofficial black list.


I don't doubt for a minute that what they say is 100% true. It's already taking place out in the open with CEOs and what not raking in money and driving down wages of everyone else or laying off major swathes of their work force while they post record profits. And no one in government is batting an eye at that display of greed and the questionable nature of the finance industry still dictating the terms of the economy even after they got bailed out massively and changed nothing.


Corporate corruption is going to be a bitch to handle when the government relies on it for it's donations/bribes.

>> ^Sagemind:

Oh, not to worry...., I kid - mainly because I know that pay is always a sore spot with teachers.
Teachers put in a ton of unpaid overtime for everything from sports, extra-curricular and even time at home marking.
Since this was a parody video, I assumed the sarcasm was implied
>> ^JiggaJonson:
>> ^Sagemind:
Hold it, Teachers make $800 a week? - I had no idea it was so much.
Time to re-think that pay scale.....

@Sagemind
I hope you're joking, first of all. Why do I hope that? Because teachers should be paid abundantly more for the work we put in. It's a hard job. If you want more specific, detailed, cited reasons why it's a hard job, I hashed a lot of that out on an old post here.
If you're too busy to pine over all of that information though, I think Donald Quinn nailed it on the head with this:
"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." ~Quinn
Finally, no, I've got 5 years of experience and make about $950 every 2 (that's two) weeks.



actually i believe most schools pay their teachers more if they're in charge of extra-curriculars. the highest payed teacher at my high school was a one of the gym teachers because he was in charge of so many clubs on the side.

Oh, not to worry...., I kid - mainly because I know that pay is always a sore spot with teachers.
Teachers put in a ton of unpaid overtime for everything from sports, extra-curricular and even time at home marking.
Since this was a parody video, I assumed the sarcasm was implied
In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
>> ^Sagemind:

Hold it, Teachers make $800 a week? - I had no idea it was so much.
Time to re-think that pay scale.....


@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Sagemind" title="member since April 2nd, 2008" class="profilelink">Sagemind
I hope you're joking, first of all. Why do I hope that? Because teachers should be paid abundantly more for the work we put in. It's a hard job. If you want more specific, detailed, cited reasons why it's a hard job, I hashed a lot of that out on an old post here.

If you're too busy to pine over all of that information though, I think Donald Quinn nailed it on the head with this:
"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." ~Quinn

Finally, no, I've got 5 years of experience and make about $950 every 2 (that's two) weeks.

Oh, not to worry...., I kid - mainly because I know that pay is always a sore spot with teachers.
Teachers put in a ton of unpaid overtime for everything from sports, extra-curricular and even time at home marking.
Since this was a parody video, I assumed the sarcasm was implied
>> ^JiggaJonson:

>> ^Sagemind:
Hold it, Teachers make $800 a week? - I had no idea it was so much.
Time to re-think that pay scale.....

@Sagemind
I hope you're joking, first of all. Why do I hope that? Because teachers should be paid abundantly more for the work we put in. It's a hard job. If you want more specific, detailed, cited reasons why it's a hard job, I hashed a lot of that out on an old post here.
If you're too busy to pine over all of that information though, I think Donald Quinn nailed it on the head with this:
"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." ~Quinn
Finally, no, I've got 5 years of experience and make about $950 every 2 (that's two) weeks.

>> ^notarobot:

I applied for a job outside of my field with decent pay that needed no education beyond high school, but did ask for a little experience, which I did not have. I approached it with the attitude that I had lots of education and even more enthusiasm. I did not hear back from the company. Later, they brought in a hundred workers from the Philippines. There were no domestic hires.


And this reply is to what @Edgeman2112 said as well.

It's yet another logical disconnect in our society. Where they expect you to be able to buy their goods, but they will not employ the people they want to buy them for a myriad of reasons. Some of them might even be legitimate, as in having a lot of education for a job might mean you end up going to something new when it's presented. But the flipside of that argument is that they are hiring un-educated workers simply because they know it's unlikely they will ever have the ability to leave........which is worker exploitation. Not because they are most qualified, but because they are least likely to be able to leave.

And more specifically to edgeman2112, two parents working is fine if both want to work and can make a good wage. Specifically being able to afford childcare or have parents who willing and able to watch their kids. The point is that when one is unable to draw a wage high enough to make it feasible to work and still earn beyond the costs of child care, etc....you are stuck with choices of education costs. And higher education often makes it harder to find work because your education works against you when it comes to getting any job like above...and you are stuck in the "need to know someone" zone to get anywhere in a reasonable time frame. Which likely if you knew someone, you probably would have taken advantage of that relationship if it was going to provide you with a overall beneficial and financially productive job.

There are lots of financially unproductive jobs... like one's that require you to travel longer and longer distances for work...eventually you make less at the job than you would minimum wage flipping burgers if they don't comp your travel or fuel costs to make up for vehicle wear, etc. And this goes back to them picking worker's that are unlikely to be able to hop to another job due to some circumstances, not the best qualified candidates...because they need to be able to exploit them for lucrative contracts that require them to drive nearly as much as they work or rent elsewhere to cut drive times.

Work and employment overall is becoming a dishonest or "cover-your-ass" practice more than just honest employment. "An honest day's work" seems less likely to happen now than 40 years ago. There's just too much bullshit associated with employment now, mostly in office politics and trying to peer beyond the language of your employee contract to decipher how they are going to fuck you in the future. Just look at non-rolling vacation days where they are all too happy to not inform you or suggest you take a vacation day if you need to do something instead of taking an unpaid day........it happens a lot. They use their organization to actively work against you, and use their bureaucracy to make it hard to invoke your rights in the contract.


Personally in my region, I see a lot of businesses and government agencies going out of their way to list their job postings in weird locations or for like 3-5 day windows. The only good reason I can come up for this is that they already know who they want to hire, but they post it publicly to reduce the chance of someone crying foul when they just hire the guy they wanted all along. Keep in mind that if they end up hiring at all, it comes 2-3 months minimum after the listing...especially for government. You'll also notice a lot of fathers and sons, wife and husband, or other nepotism rich hiring practices in these places. Should not be taking place in any business that accepts government money or any government facilities. It's rampant on military bases, and not just for active duty couples which I understand the need for.

@hpqp

Rational debate often isn't what happens here on the Sift, unfortunately, which is why I have indeed moved on to other sites--sites where the majority of discussion challenges people's assumptions without the need for cheap theatrics like sarcasm or insults or condescension.

I have no problem with upvoting or downvoting comments (you seem to have misunderstood my point there). I have a problem to the pandering for upvotes through insulting another poster without addressing the content of their post in any rational way (and thereby dismissing the original poster's argument--ad hominem in its purest form). That's a practice that is becoming a bit too frequent here in my opinion and the way this thread has developed is damning evidence for it (to your credit, you started out in this whole thing by actually addressing the point of Shiny's post rather than just harping on his evangelicalism--it's too bad things went downhill from there).

As I posted in @ChaosEngine's profile, whether Hitchens is or is not an alcoholic is a matter of opinion--and I happen to believe very much that he is. I posted my rationale for why I believe he is an alcoholic in that post, so check out Chaos's profile if you're interested in reading why.

As I also said in that post (on Chaos's profile), regardless of whether he is an alcoholic or not we can all agree (Hitchens would absolutely agree, I think) that he has been an excessive drinker. And this excessive drinking is likely one factor in the development of his cancer. Which brings me back to the original point which everyone seems so intent on missing--toasting an alcoholic excessive drinker is incredibly ironic, particularly when it is said alcoholism excessive drinking that's a contributing factor in his early death.

You disagree that he is an alcoholic? That's fine. Go ahead write your support for your point of view here. In fact, I can already guess what you'd provide as support: Hitchens "60 Minutes" interview in which he is asked point-blank whether he believes he is an alcoholic. And I would refute that interview and you could provide more support for your opinion and so on... But we'd just be arguing semantics at that point and missing out on Shiny's original point.

Now, we could have a fine and friendly disagreement about this whole issue without the name-calling, without the sarcasm, without egos getting in the way.

But this is the Sift and, as you have once again proven to me, this is not the place for that to happen.

By the way, while I did rather enjoy the condescending arrogance of your "FTFY" in your original reply to me, had you actually bothered to ask me why I wrote it we could have probably had an interesting discussion about a number of things, such as whether insulting someone's beliefs does or does not insult them personally and how some of Hitchens' comments are not actually directed against beliefs but specific people (Mother Teresa, for instance). But so convinced of your position were you that you chose to burn that bridge of dialogue before we could even cross it.

Also, I never answered your other post because I have a full-time job with unpaid overtime and a 6-month old at home, so I only get a limited amount of Net time. Given how this thread has gone, I now have zero inclination to continue talking with you. I said my peace in that thread. You replied. Let people who come later read the comments and decide for themselves what they want to believe or whether they even care. I simply don't anymore.

Thanks for reminding me about why I don't post comments on the Sift (at least, not anything that expresses much of an opinion).

Happy Sifting to you.

Just for the record, I'm discussing government unions; not corporate unions. Sorry if there was some confusion in my posts. >> ^ghark:

Looks like the propaganda machine can't leave this one alone Yogi
Corporations = seek profit (not debatable).
Unions are a counter to the result of this motivation (loss of rights in favor of profit).
Simple.
Anyone that supports unchecked profit has their heads buried a little to deep in the think tank and not in reality. That doesn't mean I'm for or against unions, I'm simply saying that if unions aren't around there needs to be an alternative that does the same. In China there is some god-awful abuse of the workers, and recently I've heard of cases where unpaid or laid off workers mob/kill the person in charge to vent their frustrations. I think unions are a better alternative to that because they promote discussion rather than killing.

Looks like the propaganda machine can't leave this one alone Yogi

Corporations = seek profit (not debatable).
Unions are a counter to the result of this motivation (loss of rights in favor of profit).

Simple.

Anyone that supports unchecked profit has their heads buried a little to deep in the think tank and not in reality. That doesn't mean I'm for or against unions, I'm simply saying that if unions aren't around there needs to be an alternative that does the same. In China there is some god-awful abuse of the workers, and recently I've heard of cases where unpaid or laid off workers mob/kill the person in charge to vent their frustrations. I think unions are a better alternative to that because they promote discussion rather than killing.

1. the us does not have paid maternity leave, some companies do, most don't. it's at their discretion.

2. what many corporate operations will have is short term disability insurance, which is paid by employee and employer.

3. many corporate operations will also offer paid time off, the day i found out i was pregnant, i did not spend any of my pto, saving it all up for my 6 weeks maternity leave.

4. the first few months of life are EXTREMELY VITAL to proper human development. even if you think people should have less babies (and most of them seem to be agreeing with you, btw) we still need a significant amount of new people born each year. unless you want ignorant malnourished sociopaths changing your pants in your nursing home, it's in your best interest to be supportive of strong prenatal and post partum policies.

5. capitalism is built on the backs of women. 1000's upon 1000's of unpaid hours creating future workers for the machine. if you want the best workers possible, even if you want less of them, it's in societies best interest to be supportive of motherhood. it's doing a piss poor job right now. and you pricks wonder why kids are so stupid and bratty and burning their cities to the ground? i bet not a little of that is due to the increasing difficulty of balancing being a mother, with paying all the bills. and in the end, motherhood is the single greatest risk factor for poverty in old age.

6. fuck your patriarchal bullshittery "live within your means, if i want bicycle around europe blah blah" arguments.

7. thinking that good maternity policies "incentivise" people to have more kids is silly. people who are actually fortunate enough to have planned pregnancies realize they're going to be raising the kid longer than a few months. and birth rates are on the decline in the developed world.

I think debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have much larger debts (per capita).
They do all have soverign currency still, don't they? I thought they all just added the euro, not replaced their currency. If you're right, YIKES!
I disagree that we have control of our currency since we left the gold standard, but that's a different discussion althogether. We certainly do have the control to devalue it, just maybe not re-value it.
You say 'at worst, inflation' as if that's just fine, but remember Germany after WW1, they 'just' had inflation to pay their crushing debt, it started with them needing a wheelbarrow full of deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread, and ended with the creation of the Nazi's and WW2. I think they also defaulted in the end. Inflation can be a nation killer.
I have repeatedly said the same thing to you about ballance, but reversed. There's no need to focus solely on taxes either, it's a ballance thing. You seem to be focused solely on raising taxes as a way out of the problem, I'm saying that's only 1/2 the solution (that should not translate into 'I don't think low tax rates are a problem' or 'I think overspending is the only problem', it seems that's what you're incorrectly gleeming from my words). Maybe it's just that you don't like the WAY I said it, but you agree with my point? I don't get it.
We are NOT the rich and powerful country we claim to be, and have not been for a while...that's the issue. We need to consider ourselves a second world country and decide if we want to continue on the path of fiscal irresponsibility and become a third world country, or do we want to regain first world status. Our 'friends across the pond' will shortly not be supplying these programs to their citizens either, they bankrupted themselves with these kinds of programs and lack of revenue, and now their bankrupting their partners in the EU. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare our social programs to theirs and say 'they can, why can't we?'...theirs bankrupted them. If we had the money, I would be all for it, and 3 months paid vacation, guaranteed retirement benifits, low or no taxes, etc., as long as we never spend more than we have, I'm fine with it. It's just not fiscally possible without going into the hole even farther, and that leads to disaster. Right now, we are in debt more than the entire country produces in a year, and that only counts the debt on the books, and counts our GDP at 09 levels, which we no longer meet. That means if every person/corperation was taxed at 100%, it could not erase our debt in a year (assuming we also stop spending a dime on anything). That's a HUGE problem that should never have been allowed to happen, if you don't think it is, I think you aren't responsible with money. Living above your means on credit is irresponsible, and usually passes the bill on to others or leaves it unpaid. I have no children to worry about there, but I'm not the kind of a$$hole that plans on leaving YOUR children deep in debt in a third world country...and I don't want to end up there myself before I die.
>> ^NetRunner:
>>
The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.
Debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have sovereign debt without having a sovereign currency, and don't have an established EU-wide fiscal policy.
In the US, we have control of our own currency, and have a federal fiscal policy, so a debt crisis for us would at worst lead to inflation, not to default.
Not to mention, there are two halves of a balanced budget, spending and revenue. One way to balance a budget is by cutting back on your social safety net, another way is to raise taxes. There's no reason to focus primarily or solely on cuts, if your overall goal is fiscal balance.
More broadly, I think paid maternity leave is a pretty good idea, and if we're really the rich and powerful country we claim to be, then we can afford the taxes to pay for it. If we can't afford it, then we need to think of ourselves as an impoverished 3rd world nation who aspires to one day be able to provide such a valuable benefit to our citizens. If we're simply unwilling to pay for it, then we're less humane than our European friends across the pond.

I can really appreciate the first part of your comment. I think that people have babies at the drop of a hat, and I also think that helping to put a cap on overpopulation (through education, and maybe even tax reform) would help fix a ton of the problems we have, from the economy to the environment, and hunger and a million other things.

But the government guaranteeing 3 months of unpaid leave is not an incentive to have children. And it is certainly not a "racket". If money is a problem for someone who's had a baby, then they're not going to be able to take that time off anyway. Very very few people, especially the ones struggling, are not looking forward to three months without income. A "racket" brings in income. No income = no racket.

The fact of the matter is, it's cruel to expect a person who has just gone through the trauma (whether personal choice or not) of giving birth (not to mention gestating a human for ten months) to return to work immediately or lose their income permanently. The sad part is that we need to make laws like this in the first place. That time people use for recuperating and connecting with their child can be the most important part of their development. So again you arrive at "hurting children", only from this end it's all so an employer can save a few bucks on not having to screen a temp. It's totally ridiculous.

If an employer is not ready to treat their employees like human beings, then maybe they shouldn't have started up a business in the first place.

>> ^gorillaman:

Society has a limited capacity to provide for and eductate its youth. Once that threshold is crossed every excess birth makes every other child poorer and dumber. Those of you who support policies that allow for explosive population growth are actively harming children.
The short-sighted, entitled attitude of the modern parent will drag us into poverty and squalor. It's necessary for compassion to be grounded in reason.