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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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 Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 2:36 am Post subject: 1281 |
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One more thing that I left off my reply to Samadhi because I wanted to add it to my reply to Jedo (and then forgot about):
My #1 step would be closing corporate tax loopholes. Companies making tens of billions of dollars should not be paying no tax. They should not be receiving tax CREDITS. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/economy/the-top-7-corporate-tax-evaders.html/ Not the best website as a source, but it provides a concise list of some of the worst offenders.
I would raise corporate taxes before I would increase income tax rates on the super wealthy. The corporate welfare they received during the GFC should be paid back.
I figure it's not as much fun if I don't have a stance for people to attack  |
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Zag
Tired of his old title
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 3:12 am Post subject: 1282 |
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But you speak evil, Mackay. Taxing the "job creators"? Are you insane? Why, for every $500,000 they save in taxes or are given in hand-outs arranged for by the politicians that they bought got elected, they create one $40,000/year job. Of course, just having the government create the job would be rife with waste and overhead. We all know that the private sector is always more efficient. |
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Death Mage
Raving Lunatic
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:30 am Post subject: 1283 |
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Call me cynical, but I have more faith in the job created by someone who isn't holding a gun to my head and demanding half my money.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:37 am Post subject: 1284 |
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| Call me cynical, but you say that as though "the job" exists. |
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MatthewV
Daedalian Member :_
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:43 am Post subject: 1285 |
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We are so focused on "jobs" that we have lost the idea of "work".
I am pretty sure that I could meet by starting to wash windows full time. But I am fearful of a lawsuit, breaking tax laws, or other legal complications. So I put that idea aside and take from the teat of the University on a state or federally funded project.
I feel that millions of legitimate work opportunities exist in this country that haven't come to life because of fears similar to mine. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:26 am Post subject: 1286 |
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| Mackay wrote: |
| I would raise corporate taxes before I would increase income tax rates on the super wealthy. The corporate welfare they received during the GFC should be paid back. |
I'm with you on this - the big problem is that because globalisation has now kicked in, the corporations can pay tax wherever it best suits them. Companies transfer their assets and their losses around webs of "shells" that don't actually do anything other than loan money, borrow money and issue shares between themselves. We had the wake-up call with Enron and others at the start of the 2000s, but it was almost laughed off as an isolated incident...
It is much harder for individuals to "arrange" their tax affairs to benefit from this (although those who can afford to pay for the expert advice do their best) which is why personal taxation is often more effective - not because it is right but because it is easier.
The only way we can resolve the corporate tax issue is globally. And alas that's not going to happen.
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Samadhi
+1
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:34 pm Post subject: 1287 |
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Sorry to snip, again. Especially after graphs and stuff were used in responses. However I do want to say a couple of things:
| Scurra wrote: |
| To presume that the only person you can rely upon in a crisis is yourself is to take a view of the world which I do not and cannot share. |
In the crisis I described, I think it's a rather rational point of view (IE there are 2 sets of people, you and the people who broke down your door) What would I do if some people were banging on my door trying to get in? 1. Arm myself. 2. Call the police. 3. Declare loudly to the potential intruders of both those facts
Mackay:
Don't use a graph on wealth, use one on income. If you raised the tax to 100% on those making over 1 million you'd get an extra 900 billion a year. Not enough to cover it. As I said.
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| My #1 step would be closing corporate tax loopholes |
I'm really over this phrase. They are not loopholes. They were written that way. A loophole implies that it's unintended and the corporation went knee deep in the weeds to Ah Ha! find some exemption. No, far from it. It's crony capitalism (IE politicians writing laws that help out their friends incentivize certain business behaviors). Let's get rid of all that nonsense. INCLUDING all that green stuff and any defense stuff. Both sides of the aisle, across the board. But it won't happen. Because as you oft like to say "both sides do it" All you hear about from lefties is how evil corporations (presumably with conservative friends in congress) get special breaks. But you never hear about the special breaks for the left's favored elephants, they're different. They're noble, well intentioned tax breaks or some such crap. Bollux.
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| I would raise corporate taxes before I would increase income tax rates on the super wealthy. |
Corporations do not pay taxes. But go ahead and raise yours. They're not as high as the US's (highest in the Western world).
Zag: I'm reminded of ST:TNG "Hide and Q" What [you] may say with irony, I say with conviction.
| Sam in a very convincing voice wrote: |
| Of course, just having the government create the job would be rife with waste and overhead. We all know that the private sector is always more efficient. |
_________________
And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:42 pm Post subject: 1288 |
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| Samadhi wrote: |
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| I would raise corporate taxes before I would increase income tax rates on the super wealthy. |
Corporations do not pay taxes. |
Yeah, and guns don't kill people - people kill people. Sorry, but I think the argument advanced in that article is baloney. When I watch a commercial on tv I am paying for it because the cost of the advertising campaign is built into the price I end up paying for the product that I have just been seduced into buying. The easy solution to this is for companies to stop advertising anything and simply lower the price of their product. Isn't it? And I notice that you didn't address my comment about the contribution that globalisation has made to the whole corporate taxes mess.
(And I have to admit that I have given up on the argument about how the private sector is so perfectly efficient and the public sector is infinitely inefficient. We are never going to be able to see eye-to-eye on that one. You can carry on believing it and I shall carry on not believing it.)
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 6:55 pm Post subject: 1289 |
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| Samadhi wrote: |
Mackay:
Don't use a graph on wealth, use one on income. If you raised the tax to 100% on those making over 1 million you'd get an extra 900 billion a year. Not enough to cover it. As I said. |
I can't help but feel that you are attributing opinions to me which I have not expressed. I have not stated that *only* tax hikes would be required (in fact, I have repeatedly stated that both tax hikes and spending cuts would be required).
In addition, I think that only listing the small number of individuals who are billionaires is disingenuous. I went looking for numbers and ended up using numbers pulled from wikipedia (so take with as many grains of salt as you wish). The part of interest states
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| In 2007, all households in the United States earned roughly $7.723 trillion. One half, 49.98%, of all income in the US was earned by households with an income over $100,000, the top twenty percent. |
So if these numbers are correct, then income earners over 100k/year made ~3.86 trillion dollars. A 30% tax rate would generate ~$1.158 trillion. This is a lower tax rate than allegedly applies to your top income brackets anyway. I have no idea how this applies to the actual overall revenue of the USA, but just applying a reasonable tax rate to a more sensible section of the population has generated more "revenue" than your 100% billionaire's tax.
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| My #1 step would be closing corporate tax loopholes |
I'm really over this phrase. They are not loopholes. They were written that way. A loophole implies that it's unintended and the corporation went knee deep in the weeds to Ah Ha! find some exemption. No, far from it. It's crony capitalism (IE politicians writing laws that help out their friends incentivize certain business behaviors). Let's get rid of all that nonsense. INCLUDING all that green stuff and any defense stuff. Both sides of the aisle, across the board. But it won't happen. Because as you oft like to say "both sides do it" All you hear about from lefties is how evil corporations (presumably with conservative friends in congress) get special breaks. But you never hear about the special breaks for the left's favored elephants, they're different. They're noble, well intentioned tax breaks or some such crap. Bollux. |
OK. Whatever you want to call it, it's wrong and we both agree on that. It is in the best interest of neither political party to act against corporate interests, because they're all getting their pockets lined. It sounds like you're trying to argue against me/your idea of what my position is here, but... I don't know that I have an issue with anything you've said (though "all you hear from lefties blah blah blah" gets tiresome. You're hearing something different from me right now, and Democrats aren't lefties anyway).
You know, corporations here pay a flat 30% tax rate across the board. Somehow, my bosses are able to overcome that crippling financial hurdle to pay me $23-30/hr just for pulling beers. I didn't think that was that impressive till I read a discussion in which American workers were lamenting the lack of $12/hr jobs available in the last few years, and how they're working two $9/hr jobs instead. Maybe that's why I'd be OK with paying extra taxes? In any case, the US and Australian tax brackets don't look so different at the lower levels (admittedly we don't squeeze the extremely poor for cash), but I think the fact that the top tax bracket starts $200,000 lower and approaches 10% higher probably means your claim isn't that clean.
Sorry if my argumentation is sloppy - it's almost 5am here, There's more stuff I want to talk about (I haven't even touched that link of yours yet, I mean WOW that one's very, uh, worthy of comment, and I think I'd spend another hour on this post if I even tried to address it) but zzzzzzzz
(edited for weird phrasing related to stuff I wrote and then deleted while composing the post) |
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:33 am Post subject: 1290 |
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Good morning afternoon  It's a gorgeous new day, and that link still looks pretty silly to me.
| Americans For Tax Reform wrote: |
| Wage Earners. If you earn a wage, chances are you pay the corporate income tax. |
*GASP!*
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| You do so because your wages are thousands of dollars lower than they would be in the absence of the corporate income tax. |
Obviously there is no actual way to prove this one way or the other, but it REALLY strikes me as very similar, both in rhetoric and actual real-world effect, to "The job creators need more tax breaks!" i.e. the recipients of the tax break are really just going to sit on their slightly larger piles of money. These are troubled economic times and people are desperate for work. Highly talented people are snapping up whatever pittance is offered. Why would a corporation pay higher wages with zero incentive to do so, regardless of how much it pays in tax?
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| According to the Census Bureau, 77 million Americans work for companies which employ 100 or more people. That’s more than 6 out of every 10 Americans with a job. Most of these people work for corporations, who have to pay them a salary with money the government doesn’t take with the corporate income tax. |
See above. There is no evidence supporting the claim that corporations would pay higher wages if they paid lower taxes.
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| There’s an emerging consensus among economists that at least $0.60 out of every $1.00 the corporate income tax collects is paid in the form of lower wages (the other $0.40 is paid in the form of lower returns for shareholders, which we will get to in a moment). |
An "emerging consensus among economists", huh. Let's just leave this with a [citation needed] and ignore how similar it sounds to skeevy media outlets who use "Some people are saying X" to proliferate vile opinions.
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| So if your paycheck isn’t as high as you would like it to be, blame the corporate income tax. |
Yes, the private sector is wonderful and efficient and faultless, and if it's not paying you enough, blame the government.
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American Families. Corporations make money by selling things to people. If a corporation makes a profit of $1.00, and $0.40 of that must go to corporate income taxes, that “tax wedge” will be built into the price.
Let’s say a corporation wants to make $600 on a computer after taxes. It has to charge you $1000 for that computer, knowing it will have to pay $400 in taxes. You just paid the corporate income tax on that computer. All the corporation did was pass along the cost to you in the form of a more expensive computer. Families pay the corporate income tax. |
Actually, assuming wikipedia isn't lying to me, taxable income is "business and possibly non-business receipts less cost of goods sold", so (a) not only would it be $350 at most even if the entire cost of the computer was taxed due to that being the actual maximum tax percentage, but (b) if they paid $500 for the computer, then the amount of tax owing on that $1000 computer is $175. If a corporation wants to make $600 on a computer after taxes, they need to charge (cost of computer) + ~$925. But they should probably set their standards a little lower than $600/computer
Oh, incidentally: I'm probably wrong about the Australian tax rate being higher overall. I was too tired to check figures properly last night but throwing a few experimental numbers into the American corporate tax rate (mostly making sure the tax rate never actually cracks 35%) reminded me how much higher a graduated tax rate *looks* than it actually is. I offer a retraction and an apology.
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| Seniors and 401(k) Owners. It goes without saying that seniors and shareholders can also be wage earners and consumers, but they also have their own contribution to paying the corporate income tax. We mentioned above how $0.60 on the dollar in corporate taxes comes out in the wash in the form of lower wages. |
[citation needed]
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| The other $0.40 shows up in the form of lower returns on investment. |
*shrug* I don't know about the 40c to the dollar, but I suppose that paying taxes does, in fact, decrease the amount of money available for redistribution to the shareholder. So, fine
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Corporations are owned by the millions of 401(k) owners, IRA owners, pension plans, and individual shareholders who buy and hold corporate stock. A majority of adults in the United States are part of this “shareholder majority.”
When corporations have an after-tax profit, they can do one of two things with it: they can return the profit directly to shareholders (a “dividend”). Or, they can retain the after-tax profit in the company, re-investing it to grow the business. When the business grows, the share price rises, and the investor gets to benefit later when he sells the shares (a “capital gain”). Either way, after-tax profits eventually make it back to the investor. |
Mmm-hmm. I just included this part for completeness, as I'd already quoted the entire rest of the page. There aren't any cries of moral outrage or any immediately noticable exaggerations/fabrications in this part.
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| “After-tax” is the key term here. The corporate income tax results in after-tax profits being far lower than the pre-tax profits looked. Corporations also might engage in less-profitable activities in order to avoid paying the corporate income tax. |
...really? A corporation would make itself less money just to pay lower taxes...? Um. You probably shouldn't be investing in that company anyway - not just because they would be acting against their own best interests and those of the shareholders, but also because investing in a company run by imbeciles just seems like a bad idea.
| Quote: |
| At the end of the day, $0.40 out of every dollar collected by the corporate income tax ends up making your 401(k) smaller. |
The one small problem I *do* have is the weird way in which this is phrased. 40 cents to each dollar of tax paid is a meaningless number. First, that's 40% out of the maximum of 35% tax paid? And then that's multiplied by the percentage of profit which is paid out as dividends (what would that be, maybe 10%? I seriously have no idea) or it gets reinvested, in which case the amount of tax doesn't stack as income tax has already been paid on that particular amount and then it's divided by the number of shareholders and??? I have no idea, it's just such a convoluted and tenuous link to say that "40 cents to the dollar" even applies to anything, but please feel free to explain because this is hurting my brain. I'm trying hard not to just assume that the actual impact of the corporate income tax on anyone's shares/dividends is negligible, but my resolve is wavering. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 11:31 am Post subject: 1291 |
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I see your Corporations do not pay taxes
and raise you 10 Reasons we should tax Corporations
Both articles are equally biased - why should one of them be considered more trustworthy or accurate than the other? Except that our own political views colour our reactions.
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Fried Egg
Breakfast Cannibal
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:23 pm Post subject: 1292 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| As I said, a company payroll department is a "burden" - it employs a bunch of people* to do nothing actually productive in terms of the business itself at all. But I think that most companies would find not having one to be more of a problem. |
Sorry to go back to something you said way back but no one seems to have addressed this point so I shall take the plunge.
A company can quite easily assess it's profitability and determine whether it's revenues exceed it's costs. It's factors of production are priced by the market and it's products/services are priced by the market. So therefore whether it's a boon or burden to the market can quite easily be assessed.
Accordingly, it can evaluate the success or failure of changes it makes to it's own structure according to changes in it's subsequent profitability. If a comany thought it might be better off without a payroll department, the facts of the matter could be assessed by judging the effect of removing it on it's future profitability (assuming you can isolate this factor from all others).
With government, you can't do this calculation. While it's factors of production are priced by the market, it's products/services (for the most part) aren't. They are dispensed as seen fit and the money is taken through taxation irregardless of who actually uses and benefits from them.
So, while it is not necessarily the case that government is less efficient than the markets, we can see that there is a mechanism in place that rewards/punishes private companies in accordence with how well they serve the market. This mechanism is far weaker, almost non-existant with government services (I can elaborate on this in more detail if requried). In the absense of a mechanism to force an entity to be more efficient we assume that it will tend to be less so. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:48 pm Post subject: 1293 |
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Hmmm. That seems to assume that private sector "services" are all priced perfectly (through the market) but that public sector "services" are not. I'm not entirely sure that holds up to examination.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with your basic premise, but I suspect that we could swap endless anecdotal evidence "proving" that each of us is right. 
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:28 am Post subject: 1295 |
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This didn't make me angry or anything, but this seems to have become more of a political catchall thread - let me know if I'm wrong and I'll move it.
I just found this really interesting: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/dec10/Misinformation_Dec10_rpt.pdf
It's a study titled "Misinformation and the 2010 Election", and it's a really good read. It starts out with polling asking people what they think most economists/scientists believe about economic/scientific issues, and later on breaks it down by things like income, education level, news sources, and party affiliation. Unsurprisingly, people who vote Republican/watch FOX are more likely to believe misinformation that fits the Republican narrative, and people who vote Democrat/watch MSNBC etc are more likely to believe misinformation that fits the Democratic narrative, but it's pretty fun seeing just how stark the differences in beliefs are, and how far the popular opinion deviates from that of specialists. |
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mahes111
Icarian Member
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:42 am Post subject: 1296 |
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oh! nice web page , Relay fantastic
This site use full to all around the would, use it develop both.........
House Australia |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 9:32 am Post subject: 1297 |
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| mahes111 wrote: |
oh! nice web page , Relay fantastic
This site use full to all around the would, use it develop both.........
House Australia |
As if multiverses collided |
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Fried Egg
Breakfast Cannibal
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:17 pm Post subject: 1298 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| Hmmm. That seems to assume that private sector "services" are all priced perfectly (through the market) but that public sector "services" are not. I'm not entirely sure that holds up to examination. |
I certainly don't assume everything on the markets is always perfectly priced (or another way of putting it would be to say the markets are always in general equilibrium). Infact, markets are usually out of equlibrium because they are subject to continuously changing circumstances and it takes time for prices to adjust accordingly.
My point is that markets have a self-correcting tendency that does not operate (or at least operates far more weakly) on government services.
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| I am not necessarily disagreeing with your basic premise, but I suspect that we could swap endless anecdotal evidence "proving" that each of us is right. |
There's no objective yardstick by which we can assess the correctness of prices. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 9:57 pm Post subject: 1299 |
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| Fried Egg wrote: |
| My point is that markets have a self-correcting tendency that does not operate (or at least operates far more weakly) on government services. |
And I don't disagree with you.
When you can show me a real "market" then I might be convinced. The problem isn't that markets can't self-correct, it's that there are enough irrational people around to mean that they won't (and by that I mean people who are deliberately exploiting the market, not people who are making inefficient choices.) If markets could properly self-correct we wouldn't need government regulation, and even Adam Smith understood that this was essential. (The argument about government services is, I think, somewhat different since I think that a market is an inappropriate model for major parts of it, so naturally it will be weaker.)
And I'm getting a distinct sense of deja vu here - how many times have we been around this argument? We can bandy statistics back and forth forever and neither side will convince the other. Each side can make claims about the irresponsibility of the "other" side, and all of us can be right and wrong. (For instance, the UK has just published its latest employment figures. And although something like half-a-million new jobs have apparently been created in the last year - hoorah! - the total number of hours worked has decreased by something like 7 million hours, mostly amongst full-time workers - boo! You can guess which figures each side will use to justify their case...)
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Fried Egg
Breakfast Cannibal
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| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:19 pm Post subject: 1300 |
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Scurra
| Quote: |
| When you can show me a real "market" then I might be convinced. The problem isn't that markets can't self-correct, it's that there are enough irrational people around to mean that they won't (and by that I mean people who are deliberately exploiting the market, not people who are making inefficient choices.) |
What do you mean by "exploiting the market"? Exploiting price differentials (Arbitrage) and a superior knowledge of the facts are the kinds of ways speculators make money and are part of the self correcting mechanism I talk about.
And as for people making innefficient or wrong choices, that doesn't effect proper functioning of markets as long as people are suffering financial penalties for making such choices (i.e. making a loss or less profit than I would otherwise have made).
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| If markets could properly self-correct we wouldn't need government regulation, and even Adam Smith understood that this was essential. |
The regulations aimed at making markets more effecient (such as anti-trust) are based on a fallacy, the notion that one can objectively determine what the ideal form is a market should take. It is impossible to judge (from an efficiency point of view) whether there is too little competition in a particular sector of production, or whether it is too vertically integrated, or whether the product is not well enough aligned with consumer preferences. Only by viewing particular sections of the market myopically, set apart from the whole, leads governments to think thay can judge the efficiency of market outcomes. You cannot make changes to one part of the market without effecting many others.
As for Adam Smith, our understanding of economics has come a long way since then.
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| And I'm getting a distinct sense of deja vu here - how many times have we been around this argument? Revenge most foul! We can bandy statistics back and forth forever and neither side will convince the other. |
I like to avoid bandying statistics at each other. We can talk in general terms without resorting to statistics. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:05 pm Post subject: 1301 |
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| Fried Egg wrote: |
| What do you mean by "exploiting the market"? Exploiting price differentials (Arbitrage) and a superior knowledge of the facts are the kinds of ways speculators make money and are part of the self correcting mechanism I talk about. |
No, I mean when, for instance, a certain investment bank deliberate bundles "toxic assets" and sells them to clients knowing that (a) they are toxic* and (b) another client knows this and is using this information. That's exploiting the market, not a self-correcting mechanism.
Or perhaps you might call something a "superior knowledge of the facts" whereas I might call it "insider trading".
*Yes, I am using this term in the populist short-hand sense because it's easier that way.
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| Only by viewing particular sections of the market myopically, set apart from the whole, leads governments to think thay can judge the efficiency of market outcomes. You cannot make changes to one part of the market without effecting many others. |
I don't think anyone ever claimed that didn't happen (especially in ways we don't expect.) And we may not mean the same thing by "efficiency of market outcomes" here - for instance, I think that a government (which theoretically has the interests of the whole country at its heart) will and should judge those outcomes very differently to a participant in the market who will have very different motivations.
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| As for Adam Smith, our understanding of economics has come a long way since then. |
Well I could say the same thing about, say, Isaac Newton. That doesn't make Newton irrelevant. I wasn't saying that Smith was somehow the pinnacle of our understanding of economic theory, merely that he came to certain conclusions about the side-effects of "free" markets and considered some of them to be adverse. And for someone who is frequently cited (however inaccurately) as being some sort of "arch-capitalist", I still think it's worth mentioning that.
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Death Mage
Raving Lunatic
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:59 am Post subject: 1302 |
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Where is FEMA? Why aren't they in New York yet? President Obama wants New Yorkers to die.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
[YOUR AD HERE!] |
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JDTAY
obseletes now
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 11:48 am Post subject: 1303 |
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| Death Mage wrote: |
| President Obama wants New Yorkers to die. |
He's not alone there. 
_________________
Prohibit nothing. Disclose everything. |
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 1:22 am Post subject: 1304 |
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Speaking of New Yorkers dying, I just read that they're not evacuating 12,000 inmates who are incarcerated on an island made of landfill in the middle of the second-highest risk zone.
What is wrong with people 
It's weird how little I was able to find from actual American news sources on it though (I read it in a blog and went looking for an actual article) so PLEASE tell me I'm misinformed on this one. |
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Poisonium
annoyed by the old
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:18 pm Post subject: 1305 |
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The media exposure to the tragedy in Norway has been more than excessive here.
So I wondered if it was really warranted, and decided to have a look around in news for the summer to find out if there were any single events where more people were murdered than in Norway.
I found 5, not even including Libya.
I feel slightly less optimistic about humanity now.
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 12:03 am Post subject: 1306 |
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That's really interesting. Do you think it's just because it's close to home? (Pois, forgive me, I'm like 95% sure you're Scandinavian but I don't remember where you live. Until now I'd've said Norway if pressed to guess, but your post implies that Norway is a different place from where you are.) Were any of the others terrorist acts? The Norway attack was unusual in that the guy had a stated neofascist/racist agenda, so I guess I can see that as a reason for it getting a bit more focus.
Here's a tangential question which is probably going to sound really stupid: assuming you are in one of the Scandinavian countries, is most of your television and print media left-leaning? I have no idea whether media in general tends to follow public rhetoric, or just successfully shape it, but I imagine that in that situation an extreme right-wing terrorist is a lot scarier and a lot more effective in terms of getting a reaction out of the audience.
If you've been getting bombarded with news coverage regarding the Norway attack you probably know that Breivik's manifesto explicitly mentions former Australian prime minister, John Howard (responsible for an unimaginable amount of damage to race relations in Australia - made xenophobia mainstream and acceptable by making allowances to a racist fringe party for extra votes), as well as Andrew Bolt, a... media figure who seems to revel in intellectual dishonesty and hatred. Wants to be Glenn Beck, but isn't smart or charismatic enough (and, unlike Beck, fails to convince anyone that he actually believes what he's saying).
So here, despite having what the US, at least, would consider a rather socialist system, and the majority of the people holding at least a few socialistic beliefs when questioned, the rhetoric of the majority of our media is significantly right-leaning - usually on the subjects of immigration and the environment. The thing is though, we are the country that bred Murdoch, so I have no idea whether this is the norm or not. Does the mass media always end up skewing right? I mean, it makes sense given that corporations are the ones paying the bills through advertising etc. Or is it more dependent upon the actual leanings/system of the country?
Sorry to go off on such a wild tangent, but thinking about Scandinavian news coverage put the question into my head and now I'm intensely curious. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 12:27 am Post subject: 1307 |
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Well I think you'll find that those who might be caricatured as being "right-leaning" are more likely to say that the mainstream media is "liberal".
Naturally, being of the other persuasion, I find the mainstream media to be mostly ludicrously "right-leaning", although here in the UK we do have a couple of advantages: firstly, our television channels are not allowed to exhibit "political bias", meaning that this issue only really applies to the press, and secondly we have a large national newspaper that is owned by a Trust rather than a commercial body beholden to shareholders. And interestingly that paper is generally perceived to be "left-leaning".
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:50 am Post subject: 1308 |
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Well, as Colbert said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias"
I got defriended by a few people on Facebook after I had the temerity to point out that not only are there not even 1 million Muslims in Australia, but that if there were, their filling out their census forms correctly wouldn't cause Christmas carols to be banned for OUR CHILDREN or the decay of Australian society (whatever that is). Also controversial was my claim that Muslim Australians are, in fact, Australians and therefore part of "Australian culture" (again, whatever that is). Maybe there's, like, some alternate Australia that's being overrun by Islamic extremists or something that I don't know about?
Of course I'm just as partisan as those people, but it's certainly not a case where the truth is somewhere in the middle and both sides have a "bias". On the topic of race in Australia, I am right and the racists are wrong. On the topic of the environment it's less clear-cut, but I'm thinking the sensible side to take is the one with 90% of the scientists (and, I'm pretty sure, basically ALL of the climatologists). But if you were to listen to our media, our Prime Minister is lying about climate change to get her hands on OUR PRECIOUS TAX DOLLARS and she's killing the entire country by not torpedoing boatloads of starving refugees. Or something.
(edit to add: What she IS doing to asylum seekers is pretty damn bad, though. Screw the major parties.) |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 9:22 am Post subject: 1309 |
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| Mackay wrote: |
| Maybe there's, like, some alternate Australia that's being overrun by Islamic extremists or something that I don't know about? |
This is something that bugs me as well.
One of the problems is that most people have a great deal of difficulty in coping with certain sorts of numbers and especially in how to apply them to real life. So if you are told that e.g. there are a thousand people entering the country every week, it is not always easy to relate that to the entire population; instead you tend to picture them all arriving in your neighbourhood. Obviously that would give the impression that the country is being overwhelmed! And I don't think the media really helps to dispel this sort of faulty reasoning.
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New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Poisonium
annoyed by the old
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 3:26 pm Post subject: 1310 |
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| Mackay wrote: |
That's really interesting. Do you think it's just because it's close to home? (Pois, forgive me, I'm like 95% sure you're Scandinavian but I don't remember where you live. Until now I'd've said Norway if pressed to guess, but your post implies that Norway is a different place from where you are.) Were any of the others terrorist acts? The Norway attack was unusual in that the guy had a stated neofascist/racist agenda, so I guess I can see that as a reason for it getting a bit more focus.
Here's a tangential question which is probably going to sound really stupid: assuming you are in one of the Scandinavian countries, is most of your television and print media left-leaning? I have no idea whether media in general tends to follow public rhetoric, or just successfully shape it, but I imagine that in that situation an extreme right-wing terrorist is a lot scarier and a lot more effective in terms of getting a reaction out of the audience. |
Well, Denmark, where I live, is far left-leaning is comparison to pretty much every other country (we still score high on economic freedom indexes though).
Still, one of the other events was the Turkish shelling of 90-100 PKK members which is something far lefties at least used to be greatly upset about. As far as I'm aware, it was barely, if at all, reported in the mainstream media here.
Perhaps the most surprising absence in the news media here was the multiple cases of large massacres in ethnic violence in South Sudan - those killed were civilians and Christians (at least rules out the 'religion' excuse for not reporting it).
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:56 am Post subject: 1311 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
This is something that bugs me as well.
One of the problems is that most people have a great deal of difficulty in coping with certain sorts of numbers and especially in how to apply them to real life. So if you are told that e.g. there are a thousand people entering the country every week, it is not always easy to relate that to the entire population; instead you tend to picture them all arriving in your neighbourhood. Obviously that would give the impression that the country is being overwhelmed! And I don't think the media really helps to dispel this sort of faulty reasoning. |
See, for some reason people have a problem specifically with asylum seekers who arrive by boat (white illegal immigrants who arrive by plane? A-OK!), of which there were 6879 last year. I don't know how anyone can find that overwhelming. But I guess you're right that anyone who doesn't actually consider the relative numbers might think it's a lot. In England I imagine the numbers are a lot "scarier", too - I don't really get why immigration'/loss of culture' is a thing that people actually worry about, but if you're so inclined, at least in the UK the number of immigrants actually sounds significant, you're a lot easier to access via Europe, and you're in a small country with a high population. When we're in a country that is surrounded by vast amounts of ocean and full of empty space, it seems pretty stupid not to let a few people in when to send them back is often a death sentence, and always a horrible fate.
The one time our locking up of someone without a visa has made me happy was when it was Martin Brennan, English leader of the "Australian Defense League", a nationalistic, anti-Islamic hate group. He didn't fill out his visa paperwork properly and is now being detained as an illegal immigrant. Hee hee.
| Poisonium wrote: |
Well, Denmark, where I live, is far left-leaning is comparison to pretty much every other country (we still score high on economic freedom indexes though).
Still, one of the other events was the Turkish shelling of 90-100 PKK members which is something far lefties at least used to be greatly upset about. As far as I'm aware, it was barely, if at all, reported in the mainstream media here.
Perhaps the most surprising absence in the news media here was the multiple cases of large massacres in ethnic violence in South Sudan - those killed were civilians and Christians (at least rules out the 'religion' excuse for not reporting it). |
Hm, so it's most likely just the fact that it was close to home causing the discrepancy? Not that surprising, but I admit I was hoping there would be some cool revelation about the Danish press |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 10:20 pm Post subject: 1312 |
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| Mackay wrote: |
| at least in the UK the number of immigrants actually sounds significant, you're a lot easier to access via Europe, and you're in a small country with a high population. |
Yes, well, we made a slight mistake several hundred years ago in going out and colonising so much of the world. As a result, because English is a de facto second language for many people, they will tend to gravitate towards the places where it will be easily understood. And because of the EU, once a migrant has managed to enter Europe, they can travel much more freely, which makes reaching the UK a lot easier than, e.g. Australia.
(Note: I will stress at this point that I have no issues with the EU open border policy. I just think the migrant issue is being very badly handled all around because no-one wants to take proper responsibility for it. But that's a whole different argument!)
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New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:43 am Post subject: 1313 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| (Note: I will stress at this point that I have no issues with the EU open border policy. I just think the migrant issue is being very badly handled all around because no-one wants to take proper responsibility for it. But that's a whole different argument!) |
Is it a tangent you're interested in discussing? (I have to admit, I'm greatly enjoying having leftchat in the libertarian thread. It's a nice change from Republicans blaming Obama for things, for me at least. ) As silly as it sounds, I hadn't even considered the open-border policy when thinking about how easy it must be to access England, and now I'm sort of intrigued by the question of how anyone could take 'proper responsibility' for making sure people aren't migrating illegally. I imagine intra-continental migration is basically impossible to monitor - or does it generally come out when a person, say, seeks employment and has to provide ID? And even then, would it matter? For tax purposes, maybe?
I'm just now realising, thanks to these last few days of discussion, how ignorant I am of basically everything European. |
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Death Mage
Raving Lunatic
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:04 pm Post subject: 1314 |
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President Obama has no tact. And there won't be ANYTHING new in his speech then anyway. There's no reason for a joint session, let along to schedule one at the same time as a presidential debate.
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Zag
Tired of his old title
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 7:33 pm Post subject: 1315 |
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| Oh, please. You'd be cackling with delight if the party names were reversed. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 7:50 pm Post subject: 1316 |
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| Death Mage wrote: |
| let along to schedule one at the same time as a presidential debate. |
What presidential debate is this?! Have we skipped a couple of stages in the process already?
As far as I can see, it's a debate between several people who are currently offering themselves as potential candidates for the Republican nomination. If I understand correctly, there have been several of these already, and there will be plenty of others. Some of the people in it will later withdraw, and others may well join. Calling it a "presidential debate" is conferring a level of gravitas on it that it clearly doesn't merit. At best it is a Hustings (that's the UK term; not sure if the US use the same one.)
Please note that I do not necessarily disagree that the timing issue is something of a political game move rather than anything else, but it clearly isn't anything to get especially irate about.
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New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Death Mage
Raving Lunatic
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:14 pm Post subject: 1317 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| Oh, please. You'd be cackling with delight if the party names were reversed. |
Show me one instance where I have. Back up your claim or withdraw it, Zag.
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Zag
Tired of his old title
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:22 pm Post subject: 1318 |
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| Ok. I withdraw it. Sorry. |
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Mackay
Saviour of Spiders
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:01 am Post subject: 1319 |
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There are like 3 or 4 debates this month alone, right? It seems benign to me, simply because he killed an NBC debate rather than, say, a Fox one.
DM, who's your preferred candidate? I've been following the race a little, and I watched most of the recent Fox debate (after like an hour I lost my patience with it, and left the thing on but did other things while it was playing).
I expected to slightly prefer Huntsman because of his more-progressive-than-most-Republicans stance on the environment and gay marriage, but enough of his answers were kind of uncreative and uninspiring that he lost a bit of my interest. I mean, I disagree with basically everything that all of them are saying, and it still just sounded like he was reading the most boring passages out of his "Being A Republican 101" textbook. I've read people who are theorising that he's basically setting himself up for a more successful run in 2016, by getting himself out there as this moderate guy who doesn't have views as extreme as the other Republicans.
Other impressions I remember having:
Herman Cain has an absolutely beautiful speaking voice He also admits when he doesn't know things or has made a mistake. The Tea Party scares me, but I can't help but kind of like him as a person, despite not wanting him anywhere near the head of the US economy. Am I naive if I actually think he really believes what he is saying? (I think that Bachmann is a true believer as well, but while she speaks extremely well, everything she said was a segue into her chosen talking points, whereas Cain actually seemed to genuinely want to answer questions, too.)
I liked Pawlenty. And I don't think it was just because he and Bachmann were attacking one another. Though that was probably a lot of it, heh. He just seemed to.. make more sense than almost anyone else on the stage. Again, it seemed like he was actually trying to stay on topic rather than, say, get the audience to chant "one term president!"
Romney looks and sounds better than I had thought. He is as good as Bachmann at turning any question into the talking points he feels comfortable discussing, and better at disguising it (or his talking points are less crazy. Either way). Seems to be the designated not-Obama.
I went in actively hating Santorum, that batsh*t-crazy SOB. I went out hating him as well, but he gave me my best laugh of the night when he said that Iran "tramples the rights of gays". Ummmm... I thought you thought that was a good thing. I'm also pretty sure he was the only one who admitted that there might be a situation, out of every possible thing that could ever happen for the rest of time, where the government might need to raise revenues. But that was after I'd stopped paying attention and he kinda looks the same as Pawlenty, so I'm sorry if I have that bit wrong. Maybe I'd started hallucinating by that point; I was totally HIGH ON LIBERTY.
Was Ron Paul ever an independent? I have this indulgent affection for Ron Paul where he's like your kindly but horribly racist grandpa, so I kept an eye on him, expecting to agree with more of what he said too, but I really didn't. Obviously I like his stances on foreign policy and the drug war, but the latter never came up anyway, and he was forced to address a lot of things in the frame of reference of Republican rhetoric. Like Huntsman, he seemed to be trying to fit into a mould that was pretty clearly not him. If he was an independent before, he should go back to being one. If not, he should give it some thought.
This turned out way longer than I thought. Oops. I must have retained more than I thought. If there was anyone on the stage that I didn't mention, obviously they weren't very memorable. |
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Death Mage
Raving Lunatic
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:36 am Post subject: 1320 |
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| Mackay wrote: |
| DM, who's your preferred candidate? |
Right now?
Nobody.
Nothing happening right now matters. At all.* It won't matter for another 6 months.
Yea yea, the first primary is technically Janurary, and "Super Tuesday" is slightly under 6 months away. I still think those are too far ahead of time. It's stupid to have the political cycle go on this long. Most people don't care this far out, and will be more than sick of caring by the time elections roll around. Give the potential candidates 6 months from election time to campaign. 3 months for the primaries, 3 months for the presidential election itself. Same for house/senate seats, though those deserve far more local coverage, becuase they effect you more directly.
[Edit]I also firmly believe that all the states' primaries should be held on the same day, so that results from one election do not taint results from another.
Sadly, we live in a world his several national 24/7 news outlets with NOTHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT becuase there just isn't that much freaking news in the world. Especially not on a national scale that they, by definition, have to cater to (thus preventing them from tapping into local markets for more news.)
*That still doesn't mean that President Obama scheduling a political speech as a joint conference DURING a debate from his rival party isn't a dick move, pure and simple.
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