posted
Ron, have you actually read Augustine? Because you're missng the point of City of God by a pretty wide margin.
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posted
Yes. And no, I'm not. The point is that the church is to create the kingdom of God on earth. This is the thinking that led to the Inquisition, and many other abuses by the ecclesiastical authority.
It is interesting to note, as most scholars do (even Protestant) that Augustine was probably a sincerely devout Christian, who thought he was doing good and advocating good things. He was just severely mistaken. Though there are some partisans of Papal supremacy who still have not given up on Augustine's vision. (See The Keys of This Blood, by Malachi Martin.)
I realize it is customary to refer to him as Saint Augustine, but I am reluctant to do that, because I do not agree with the Roman Catholic view of what it means to be a saint. I agree with the New Testament/Biblical view that all believers are saints (see for example Romans 16:15; Psalms 34:9).
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Yes. And no, I'm not. The point is that the church is to create the kingdom of God on earth.
No Ron, that is the exact opposite of the point. Augustine wrote The City of God specifically to distinguish between the earthly city and the heavenly city. Because people of his time were conflating them.
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quote: As a politician, Locke is a staid character. I covered him when I was starting out as a reporter in a small town in Washington state. When I interviewed him in 2001 he showed both a strong grasp of the varied issues important to the northwest corner of the state (where he wasn't very popular) and a remarkable ability to say nothing noteworthy. I had to prod and push him to utter anything semi-lively. Joe Biden he's not.
But what he lacks in flash he makes up in depth, especially when it comes to China. Locke was the first and so far the only Chinese-American governor in U.S. history, and his heritage is a key part of his identity. Since leaving the governor's seat he's work for a Seattle law firm and focused on China trade. He's popular in China, has close ties with the leadership in Beijing including President Hu Jintao, and has been quoted before talking about how important it is that both sides find benefit in the Sino-U.S. economic relationship.
quote:Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. ... But in the other [heavenly] city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, "that God may be all in all." ... The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men's wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so long as [the heavenly city] lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it, it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, as this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs to it.
The text is essentially about how the earthly city can never become the heavenly city, and that trying to set up an earthly city as the heavenly city is doomed to failure. They are by their very natures distinct entities.
The point of The City of God isn't to set up God's kingdom on earth, but to remind us that God's kingdom cannot be set up on earth. It is heavenly, not earthly, and trying to make the one into the other is exactly the wrong thing to do.
posted
It's important to keep in mind that a big chunk of that newly swollen deficit is the cost of the Iraq war. The Bush administration left the war costs entirely out of their budgets in order to give the impression of smaller deficits. Obama, in what I hope both sides can agree is a principled move, has restored war funding to the budget - part of that whole "accountability and transparency" thing.
Between the bank bailouts and stimulus bill, a massive increase in the deficit was inevitable anyway. The Republicans' tax cut-focused stimulus plan would have resulted in similar deficit increase.
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posted
I like how it extends ten years out instead of five years, like the previous budget(s?).
Still, ten years is not very long. Especially when looking at things like climate change and energy initiatives.
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quote:It's important to keep in mind that a big chunk of that newly swollen deficit is the cost of the Iraq war. The Bush administration left the war costs entirely out of their budgets in order to give the impression of smaller deficits. Obama, in what I hope both sides can agree is a principled move, has restored war funding to the budget - part of that whole "accountability and transparency" thing.
That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering where the sudden increase came from. Unfortunately, I figure this "huge budget increase" will just come back to bite him before the next election.
posted
When reading Augustine, you have to read between the lines, and see how elements in it were construed by the leaders of the Papacy, to justify their attempts to get the secular authorities to enforce the church's edicts.
This is apparent even in the selections you quoted, Claudia. Note this sentence:
quote:The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away.
Note the expression "makes use of this peace...."
The historic position of the Papacy has always been that it is entitled to command secular governments to enforce its edicts. This was the justification for the Inquisition, for the supposed right of the church to set up and put down kings and emperors, and for the expectation that secular authorities should recognize the legitimacy of Indulgences (which at times had humorous consequences, particularly where one indulgence-seller by the name of Tetzel was concerned, who granted an indulgence in advance of a crime, and then when the person who bought the indulgence robbed Tetzel, the authorities gleefully decided to respect the indulgence).
Devout defenders of the Papacy still hope for a re-establishment of the "Holy Roman Empire." See on this Malachi Martin, whom I mentioned earlier, in his book, The Keys of This Blood.Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Maybe not, he's been pretty good about getting people to understand that he's levelling with them. I think people will realize that the budget increase is him just being honest about how much money Bush's policies are costing.
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quote: But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.
Obama's "Read my lips" moment..... So when the taxes are increased much more than a single dime I wonder how he will spin it?
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posted
"Not one single dime." How about many dimes?
And what if like most people, your family has 401K retirement investments, or other investments in the stock market, or commodities, or mutual funds, and you are fortunate enough to realize some gain? You have to pay capital gains tax on that, on top of income tax. Obama said during the campaign that he intends to increase the capital gains tax from 10% to 30%. On everyone. So even if you only make $30,000 a year, you will pay an increased tax on any gains you make on your investments. And what if Obama reduces the amount the average family can deduct for the homestead allowance, if you own your own home?
Just look at history, folks. When has any Democrat ever reduced the tax burden on the middle class, despite whatever was claimed?
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posted
Rom: Criminey Ron how many people do you know making $30,000 a year and have serious money to invest?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... You have to pay capital gains tax on that, on top of income tax. Obama said during the campaign that he intends to increase the capital gains tax from 10% to 30%. On everyone. So even if you only make $30,000 a year, you will pay an increased tax on any gains you make on your investments. And what if Obama reduces the amount the average family can deduct for the homestead allowance, if you own your own home?
Is that first part right? AFAIK, in Canada, the federal tax rate on capital gains is 50% of the tax bracket in which your capital gains fall into. So for someone making 30k from only capital gains, that would be 7.5% and even for someone in the highest income bracket they would pay only 15%. If the US capital gains tax is going to be a flat 30%, thats pretty substantially higher.
Also, whats a homestead allowance?
Edit to add: For a house, capital gains on a primary residence should be exempt anyways, in Canada anyways.
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Also, AFAIK the $1.6 trillion budget deficit doesn't include much of the bailout money. That's all additional deficit left off the budget. Or am I wrong? I could easily be misreading the itemization of the budget and missing stuff. But if it does leave out bailout funds, I'd say that's at least as dishonest as Bush leaving the full costs of the wars off the budget.
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quote: But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.
Obama's "Read my lips" moment..... So when the taxes are increased much more than a single dime I wonder how he will spin it?
You clearly haven't read a single article about Obama's budget, because if you had, you'd know that it increases taxes only on households earning more than a quarter million dollars a year (and does so by rolling back the Bush tax cuts). It also provides a tax cut or refund for most of those who earn below that threshold. You know... exactly what Obama promised in your quotation.
Here, have a cite. It's even from Fox News, so you know it's not filtered by that pesky liberal media.
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quote:And what if like most people, your family has 401K retirement investments, or other investments in the stock market, or commodities, or mutual funds, and you are fortunate enough to realize some gain? You have to pay capital gains tax on that, on top of income tax. Obama said during the campaign that he intends to increase the capital gains tax from 10% to 30%. On everyone. So even if you only make $30,000 a year, you will pay an increased tax on any gains you make on your investments. And what if Obama reduces the amount the average family can deduct for the homestead allowance, if you own your own home?
Once again we are here to witness why the Republican Party lost touch with so much of the country.
Here Ron assumes that the Middle Class are people who can afford to play the stock market, dabble in commodities, and has to worry about the amount of money they will have to pay on Capital Gains from their investments.
What he doesn't realize is that the person making $30,000 a year can't afford to take 10% of their income and invest it in the market, doesn't have the specialized education to risk trading in commodities, and doesn't mind paying more on their capital gains, because they don't make any, or the little they make as "capital gains" is nothing compared to the services and security their taxes pay for.
posted
Maybe I'm weird, but I was able to put away money into investments while making very little money. I saved money while making 15k a year or less during college and grad school. By the time I got married I had never had a job earning more than 15k a year yet I had enough money to pay off my husband's student loans and I had half the down payment we needed for our house. I had additional money in Roth IRA's (which is still there).
Granted, I wasn't raising a family on that money or anything, but still, it wasn't much. I don't even look at the first 10% of my income and never have, no matter how little it is. (Well, except for the 6 months I was unemployed, during which time I was able to live off my savings.)
These things are possible. Extremely difficult. I never had much in the way of stuff and I didn't have nice apartments.
It may be unlikely, but maybe there should still be wording in the law to cover people who manage to save money while making a pittance.
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quote: You clearly haven't read a single article about Obama's budget, because if you had, you'd know that it increases taxes only on households earning more than a quarter million dollars a year (and does so by rolling back the Bush tax cuts). It also provides a tax cut or refund for most of those who earn below that threshold. You know... exactly what Obama promised in your quotation.
posted
Up here in Canada a lot of middle class people (say household income 50k to 100k) have to manage their own retirements via RRSPs and non-registered investments.
These people pretty much have to invest in the stock market for the long term and thus they will have to deal with capital gains at one point or another. Capital gains taxes are hardly only a upper class concern. In fact, 30k of income probably isn't that unrealistic at this juncture.
That said, I'm sure that there is some kind of progressive element to the actual proposed changes to capital gains taxes and that Ron is probably misinterpreting something.
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: Maybe I'm weird, but I was able to put away money into investments while making very little money. I saved money while making 15k a year or less during college and grad school. By the time I got married I had never had a job earning more than 15k a year yet I had enough money to pay off my husband's student loans and I had half the down payment we needed for our house. I had additional money in Roth IRA's (which is still there).
Granted, I wasn't raising a family on that money or anything, but still, it wasn't much. I don't even look at the first 10% of my income and never have, no matter how little it is. (Well, except for the 6 months I was unemployed, during which time I was able to live off my savings.)
These things are possible. Extremely difficult. I never had much in the way of stuff and I didn't have nice apartments.
It may be unlikely, but maybe there should still be wording in the law to cover people who manage to save money while making a pittance.
You are definitely not weird, just frugal and apparently wise with your money. Putting money away into savings or an IRA is not the same thing as having money to invest in the stock market or shop around in commodities. If you decide you want to sell your house then you will likely incur capital gains.
As a single student I was doing just fine with 15k a year in income. Now that I am married and childless 30k a year is still plenty of money. But there are myriad circumstance that can adjust costs of living to the point that 30k a year leaves little room to wiggle much less invest.
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posted
Most people who have jobs have 401K retirement accounts. Those funds generally are invested somewhere in the stock market. They are supposed to be tax exempt, but the instant you retire, or take money out for any reason, you have to pay capital gains tax.
Tom, I live in one of the the northern Detroit suburbs, not in Detroit itself. Out here, houses are still worth something. Though less than they were.
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quote: President Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.
He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.
The president also repeated some strained claims we've critiqued before.
Not that it seems to matter too much when President Obama gets it wrong but Fact Check reviewed his speech and found many errors. Even his tax 'cuts' for 95% of Americans is wrong. Plus his payback for union support executive order and all the other issues stacking up with him. I wonder how soon it will be until his supporters, especially the youth supporters, realize he is just another Democrat politician....which the way things have been going is not all too different from a Republican politician.
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quote:Obama said during the campaign that he intends to increase the capital gains tax from 10% to 30%. On everyone. So even if you only make $30,000 a year, you will pay an increased tax on any gains you make on your investments.
quote:ABC News' Teddy Davis, Arnab Datta, and Rigel Anderson Report: Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., top economic advisors announced on Thursday that he is seeking to raise the capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for those Americans making more than $250,000 per year.
Not only are your numbers wrong, but the increase Obama is asking for is income dependent, so no, it will not affect people earning $30,000 a year.
quote:Most people who have jobs have 401K retirement accounts. Those funds generally are invested somewhere in the stock market. They are supposed to be tax exempt, but the instant you retire, or take money out for any reason, you have to pay capital gains tax.
Given that the contributions are not taxed at the time they are added to the 401k, and remain untaxed as they grow over a period of (generally) decades, paying capital gains tax is still a better deal than investing after-tax money.
As for "taking money out for any reason," that's only true if you actually take money out of the account. The whole idea is that you get the tax benefit because you aren't supposed to take the money out at all, until you retire. Still, there is the provision that you can take a loan from your 401k, but you have to pay it back within 5 years, and you have to pay interest to yourself, which is actually a pretty good deal.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: IIRC, Ron lives in Detroit. You can get houses for $5 there.
Ouch.
$1 actually, but they aren't liveable. The average sale price for a liveable home in Detroit is $7K right now, but plenty are going for in thousand dollar range.
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posted
Holy crap. It boggles the mind to think how many house-equivalents I've lost in the last few months.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
Is a bankruptcy every minute instead of every 30 seconds even remotely more comforting?
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posted
Sure. That's half the bankruptcies! I mean, if there WERE a bankruptcy every 30 seconds, and through diligent effort we cut it to one every 60 seconds, we'd advertise that as major improvement.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Not that it seems to matter too much when President Obama gets it wrong but Fact Check reviewed his speech and found many errors. Even his tax 'cuts' for 95% of Americans is wrong. Plus his payback for union support executive order and all the other issues stacking up with him. I wonder how soon it will be until his supporters, especially the youth supporters, realize he is just another Democrat politician....which the way things have been going is not all too different from a Republican politician.
Actually, his "tax cuts for 95% of *working* Americans" was not exactly wrong, Fact Check just added some explanation that makes the number not seem quite as good as he was trying to make it sound. From the article you posted:
quote:Obama said his stimulus program provides a tax cut for "95 percent of working households" and later said that a cut would go to 95 percent of "working families." That calls for some explanation. The key words are "working" and "cut."
He's referring to the "making work pay" refundable tax credit, which is only available to workers. As we pointed out previously on The FactCheck Wire, there would be no credit for retirees or those who are unemployed. A Tax Policy Center analysis found that a more modest 75.5 percent of all households would benefit, whether their members are working or not.
It is also questionable whether all of the tax refunds can properly be called "tax cuts." The credit is refundable and, therefore, is going to many who earn so little that they pay no federal income taxes in the first place. The White House calls them tax cuts, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office officially scores the bill’s refundable credits under "direct spending."
As far as the rest of what you said -- I think we've all noticed that Obama is a politician. Whether or not he is typical remains to be seen. So far, though, I've noticed that while he makes mistakes and embellishments, he's less prone to outright lies than many others.
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posted
Overt, obvious taxes may be cut for some. But when the carbon fines to businesses and corporations are added, that will mean increased costs for virtually everything all people buy, as the costs are passed on to the consumer. This is a real "stealth" tax.
Also note that when taxes are raised for those who make more than $250,000 a year, this is talking about a large number of small businesses and start-up entrepreneurial ventures, since they are considered "individuals" in the eyes of the taxers. Since many Americans have their jobs through these small businesses, etc., and the businesses have to lay off workers and cut back on everything to deal with the increased taxes, this also is a way that higher taxes truly affect everyone even in the lowest tax brackets. Of all the "stealth" methods of taxation, this is one of the worst, since it actually costs people their jobs and careers.
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posted
If I've learned anything from my tax workshops and seeing many people's tax returns, it's that very few small businesses are making anything close to that $250,000 -- not officially. There are many, many deductions that apply only to small business owners. Someone who after all that is actually netting $250,000 is not getting a whole lot of my sympathy.
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quote:I wonder how soon it will be until his supporters, especially the youth supporters, realize he is just another Democrat politician....which the way things have been going is not all too different from a Republican politician.
I wish the conservatives would make up their mind and decide to either go with an equivalency argument ("He's just a politician, he's pretty much the same as a republican politician") or a Different And Wrong argument, and cease doing both.
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quote: I wish the conservatives would make up their mind and decide to either go with an equivalency argument ("He's just a politician, he's pretty much the same as a republican politician") or a Different And Wrong argument, and cease doing both.
He can be Different and Wrong when compared to my beliefs and be equivalent to Republicans when he has out of control spending like they did, or more correctly stated, greater than they did.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: If I've learned anything from my tax workshops and seeing many people's tax returns, it's that very few small businesses are making anything close to that $250,000 -- not officially. There are many, many deductions that apply only to small business owners. Someone who after all that is actually netting $250,000 is not getting a whole lot of my sympathy.
Now that Rivka has espoused this position I can be certain that it's not some personal failing on my part that I also feel this way. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: If I've learned anything from my tax workshops and seeing many people's tax returns, it's that very few small businesses are making anything close to that $250,000 -- not officially. There are many, many deductions that apply only to small business owners. Someone who after all that is actually netting $250,000 is not getting a whole lot of my sympathy.
Now that Rivka has espoused this position I can be certain that it's not some personal failing on my part that I also feel this way.
Me too!
I have no problem admitting that the wealthiest among us should be contributing more to social infrastructure. In fact, I think $250,000 is a very generous cut off. People in my income bracket which is less that half that could easily be paying more and I'd be more than happy to do that to support better schools, research, social services, and infrastructure. I have personally benefited from good schools, good science, good roads, and a good justice system -- I have no problem paying back into the system so others can benefit as well.
(Of course, right now I'm not a US resident so my US income taxes are virtually zero, but I was thinking more of last year when I did pay US taxes and future years when I will again.)
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: He can be Different and Wrong when compared to my beliefs and be equivalent to Republicans when he has out of control spending like they did, or more correctly stated, greater than they did.
Note my usage of the word 'conservative' as opposed to 'Republican.'
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posted
What about inflation? Printed money (not a product of the GNP) Isn't this a money bomb? Watch the price of gold. The value of gold does not change. If the price goes up it just means that the value of the dollar is going down. We would be better off if it was $30.00 an ounce.
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posted
The value of gold does not change? Where on earth do you get that idea?
How much food/housing/cellos I can get in exchange for a set amount of gold changes all the time. That's the value of gold changing, right there. There is no absolute measure of value, much less gold being it.
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posted
I don't know how many pre-tax deductions small business owners, especially in sole proprietorships, can claim. Aren't they taxed on gross, like individuals, rather than on net? $250,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it is only $20,800 a month. If it is some HVAC firm that installs and repairs furnaces, and employs only 5-10 technicians, that is not a whole lot of margin above breaking even.
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