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#752 Dec 01 2017 at 2:22 PM Rating: Good
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CNN says that some of the Flynn plea agreement details include:

Future interviews with Federal Prosecutors
No attorney will be present for those interviews
He will not be able to plead the 5th, and still retain the benefits of the plea agreement
He may be subject to a lie detector test
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#753 Dec 01 2017 at 3:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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Agreement and admission of guilt for the curious.

Quote:
Your client acknowledges that your client's cooperation may include, but will not necessarily be limited to: answering questions; providing sworn written statements; taking government-administered polygraph examination(s); and participating in covert law enforcement activities.
Think anyone will want to have Mr. "totally not wearing a wire for the FBI" over for dinner in the near future?
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#754 Dec 01 2017 at 3:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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Also vacation time now, so see all you crazy people in a week and a half.

Hawai'i beckons. Smiley: cool
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#755 Dec 01 2017 at 5:48 PM Rating: Decent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I'll repeat my point: Which Senator? What is this Senator's name? Is there a quote? Which two White House members? What are their names? Is there a quote?


Never heard of a trusted source asking to remain anonymous because of a fear of backlash?


Of course I've heard of it. But that doesn't mean that's the case here. Surely you've also heard of anonymous sources making stuff up, and wanting to remain anonymous specifically so that they don't get caught in the lie. Or news organizations printing "anonymous sources", so that they can make stuff up without ever having to provide any evidence.

When your entire story is "The actual person publicly said X, but we've got an unnamed source claiming he said Y n private", then you have no story. Period. It's not even like the difference between X and Y is significant. If X was "I didn't steal the nuclear weapons", and Y was "I did steal the nuclear weapons", there might be some significance to the unnamed source's statement, since it calls into question an action that may be being concealed. But in this case "X" is Trump admitting that a voice on a recording was his. So Y is.... What? Nothing.


Quote:
I would have assumed you would know all about all the different forms of fear, and how you can protect yourself from them. But, whatever, let's not trust any news source except the wild gbaji's high-value opinions.


When the news source's "story" is that Trump admitted to something in the past, but someone's claiming that at some time, in some place, in front of some people (none of whom are named) he claimed otherwise, it's certainly questionable. There's literally no story there. Nothing. It's nonsense. How anyone puts any weight at all on it is just plain bizarre.

The statement itself if the claim, not anything about the significance of said statement. So yeah, having no support for the claim more or less shoots down the entire thing. Surely you can see that? Or maybe not...
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#756 Dec 01 2017 at 6:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
CNN says that some of the Flynn plea agreement details include:

Future interviews with Federal Prosecutors
No attorney will be present for those interviews
He will not be able to plead the 5th, and still retain the benefits of the plea agreement
He may be subject to a lie detector test

Interestingly, it also explicitly only covers the charges outlined (the false statements) that he's pleading guilty to and leaves open the possibility for numerous other charges.

Although, and this was the case for Manafort as well, there's a suspicion that Mueller is holding back on some violations that also violate state laws. The idea being that if Trump decides to buy people's silence with pardons, they can still be tried and imprisoned for state law violations without getting into double jeopardy territory.
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#757 Dec 01 2017 at 6:49 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
When the news source's "story" is that Trump admitted to something in the past, but someone's claiming that at some time, in some place, in front of some people (none of whom are named) he claimed otherwise, it's certainly questionable. There's literally no story there.


Unless the story is that he is unhinged. Surely you can blah blah blah.
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#758 Dec 01 2017 at 6:56 PM Rating: Good
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It's like when Trump retweets three Islamophobic videos, one of which was faked, one of which seems to have been Muslims killing a Muslim during a riot over a coup, and thanhas his mouthpiece say "the videos may be fake, but the threat is real"! What is the story there?

But you miss the point so hard, sometimes I swear you must be trying to.
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#759 Dec 01 2017 at 7:21 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
I'm waiting for "Contact with Russians could mean anything! Maybe Trump just has Flynn contact them to see if they had any of that Russian salad dressing!"


So, in before something completely obvious and the most likely explanation?

Have we forgotten that the purpose of this investigation is supposedly about alleged collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government to illegally manipulate the US election, specifically as it pertains to the hacking and releasing of information stolen from the DNC servers?

Preempting the obvious response doesn't invalidate it in any way. As the incoming NSA, it would be quite normal for Flynn to "make contact with foreign officials", yes, including Russian foreign officials. The only thing he did that was illegal, and it certainly has shades of Scooter Libby all over it, was lie about it to the FBI, presumably out of concern that in the existing media hype conflating any "contact/communication" with Russians as being wrong/illegal/whatever.

None of the communications he had were illegal. The fact that he claimed he didn't have them when he did, was.

I'm still waiting for anything remotely close to the allegations about collusion. Still nothing there. Just media hype, wordplay, and innuendo.

Quote:
In other news, McConnell says he has the 50 votes to pass his terribleoutstanding and long needed tax bill.


Just making a few corrections to your post there. You actually don't think that the current proposed tax changes are good? That's... strange.
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#760 Dec 01 2017 at 7:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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No, I don't think new tax revisions heavily favoring the rich at the expense of short term cuts for lower brackets leading to higher rates and giving an excuse to slash services because of an exploding deficit are a good thing.

That said, I don't find it strange at all that you do.

Edited, Dec 1st 2017 7:31pm by Jophiel
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#761 Dec 01 2017 at 7:32 PM Rating: Good
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IBTimes article
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#762 Dec 01 2017 at 7:36 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Quote:
In other news, McConnell says he has the 50 votes to pass his terribleoutstanding and long needed tax bill.

Just making a few corrections to your post there. You I actually don't think that the current proposed tax changes are good? That's... strange.


Just making a few corrections to your post there. The fact that you think this is a well thought out tax plan is...strange. Pic is an actual page from the plan, which was just handed to the Senators.
Screenshot
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#763 Dec 01 2017 at 7:38 PM Rating: Good
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Senator Jon Tester on the plan he was handed tonight
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#764 Dec 01 2017 at 7:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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Gbaji cried long and loud about the ACA being "shoved through" despite a year of committees, hearings and the bill being available so I'm waiting expectantly for his complaints about the GOP on this one.

Hahaha... just kidding. He'll just make excuses like the tool he is.

Edit: I'm actually in a bracket that won't really be hurt and could potentially see some gains from this bill. It's still an incredibly shitty bill being passed under ridiculous circumstances by a party that is obviously desperate to pass anything they can call a "win" regardless of how poorly constructed it is. I suppose since I'm probably not being really hurt by it, I can take solace in the bajillion ads and protests coming when people find out that the vast majority of America just got fucked so the rich can get richer.

Edited, Dec 1st 2017 7:44pm by Jophiel
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#765 Dec 01 2017 at 7:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
He'll just make excuses like the tool he is.


Tools have uses, he is more like a tumor.
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#766 Dec 01 2017 at 7:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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I suppose eliminating deductions for state and local taxes should be good for sweeping out a few moderate region red seats. I wouldn't want to be Reps Roskam, Davis or Hultgren come 2018.

Or any other day, really.

Edited, Dec 1st 2017 7:49pm by Jophiel
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#767 Dec 01 2017 at 8:16 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
I suppose eliminating deductions for state and local taxes should be good for sweeping out a few moderate region red seats. I wouldn't want to be Reps Roskam, Davis or Hultgren come 2018.

Or any other day, really.


One of the Senators from your state, Dick Durbin, is pretty funny.
Sen. Durbin on Twitter wrote:
Senate Republicans can’t put their own scribbled amendment into the record because nobody can read it. This is what we’re voting on. #Page257


Twitter link with CSpan Video
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#768 Dec 04 2017 at 8:53 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Gbaji cried long and loud about the ACA being "shoved through" despite a year of committees, hearings and the bill being available so I'm waiting expectantly for his complaints about the GOP on this one.
I'm sure it'll come right after his rants about inappropriate behavior towards other world leaders and badly timed golf games.
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#769 Dec 05 2017 at 9:06 AM Rating: Excellent
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Looks like the RNC isn't nearly as concerned with old dudes touching and stalking teenagers as they've started funding Moore again after a week of pretending principles mattered.
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#770 Dec 05 2017 at 10:53 AM Rating: Excellent
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Well, they did the exact same thing with Trump and his scandal so it's not especially surprising.

Cutting bait was entirely about not wanting to back a loser, not because of any moral principles.
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#771 Dec 06 2017 at 10:15 AM Rating: Good
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Looks like 45jr will be next in line to hang out with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed door session.
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#772 Dec 07 2017 at 5:03 PM Rating: Good
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I can't be the only one who sees similarities between Trump's White House (saying that he was slurring because he was thirsty, and not because his dentures were slipping) and the North Korean statements like Kim Jong-il had a supernatural birth, or that Kim Jong-il invented the Hamburger (called double bread with meat!), or that Kim Jon-il never used a toilet, because he didn't need to urinate or defecate.

How long until Trump says that he can control the weather?
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Dandruffshampoo wrote:
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#773 Dec 07 2017 at 5:20 PM Rating: Excellent
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Well, he already lies about his golf game.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#774 Dec 07 2017 at 5:24 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
No, I don't think new tax revisions heavily favoring the rich...


All tax cuts "heavily favor the rich", for the simple fact that the rich pay the vast majority of taxes. Even if you hand "the poor" 10x the percentage tax reduction, it'll still result in a larger dollar reduction for "the rich". It's somewhat baked into the fact that we have a progressive tax system. It's also meaningless to argue about.

Quote:
... at the expense of short term cuts for lower brackets leading to higher rates...


Could you clarify what exactly you're talking about here? What "short term cuts" are being lost (or gained, or whatever, since I have no clue what you're saying)? What lower brackets are going to be lead into "higher rates"? Higher rates of what? Who's affected? I honestly don't have a clue what you were trying to say here.

Quote:
... and giving an excuse to slash services because of an exploding deficit are a good thing.


Ah... Yes. Because taxes are a zero sum game. Got it. You still live under that fallacy, despite it long being disproven.

Quote:
That said, I don't find it strange at all that you do.


Because I honestly can't understand how someone can have lived on this planet as long as you have, in this country, over the same historical time period that I have, and still not see that when businesses in this country are allowed to retain more of their profits, they don't react by just locking that money into Richy Rich style vaults and rolling around in it or something. They invest that money back into the economy (cause you know, people in business have already made the decision to put their own personal short term benefits behind longer term goals, somewhat by definition). And that investment, very directly, and very measurably, increases job creation rate, and upward mobility among the workforce.

So, you know, instead of treating the symptoms of poverty like the Dems love to do with their tax and spend policies, it actually reduces the rate of poverty in the economy as a whole. It provides jobs instead of hand outs. More importantly, it expands the tax base, so that over time, despite lower rates, we actually collect more tax revenue.

We just spent 8 years of Obama complaining about all those evil corporations moving their money offshore to avoid paying taxes (using "loopholes", as he put it), never once grasping that if maybe the tax rates weren't so high, they wouldn't go through the bother. But instead of taking the obvious course of lowering corporate tax rates, so that the corporations would earn that money in the US (and pay taxes in the US), he tried to "close the loopholes", which only made those corporations fully sell of their offshore assets into even less connected forms, or move their entire operation offshore, so that no part of the company can be touched (except, I suppose that which does business directly in the US, which just means higher costs for those products, passed on to US consumers).

35% of nothing is nothing. 20% of something is more. That's the math here Joph. If you can't see that, then yeah, I think that's strange.
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#775 Dec 07 2017 at 5:41 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
And that investment, very directly, and very measurably, increases job creation rate, and upward mobility among the workforce.
Can do those things is not the same as absolutely does do those things, but you know that.

gbaji wrote:
More importantly, it expands the tax base, so that over time, despite lower rates, we actually collect more tax revenue.
From the workers, not the rich...welcome to the point.

gbaji wrote:
We just spent 8 years of Obama complaining about all those evil corporations moving their money offshore to avoid paying taxes (using "loopholes", as he put it), never once grasping that if maybe the tax rates weren't so high...
Given that the supreme court decided that corporations are people, they should be taxed like people (ie 36% max).

ALSO: They don't offshore to make sure they can improve pay for the workers and hire more people, they offshore because they believe they are better than them poors and should have to pay. It's called arrogance and greed....but you know that, too.

ALSO: ALSO: They should pay into Medicaid/Medicare at the same rate as the rest of us.
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#776 Dec 07 2017 at 7:37 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And that investment, very directly, and very measurably, increases job creation rate, and upward mobility among the workforce.
Can do those things is not the same as absolutely does do those things, but you know that.


Your statement is technically correct, but not applicable here. In this case, we can say that it "does" do what I said. What percentage of the increased profits is re-invested can certainly be subject to debate, but it's always a percentage, and it's always a positive percentage. Any positive increase in investment *does* increase job creation rate, and upward mobility among the workplace, everything else remaining the same.

Usually, the gating factor for a business to expand is profit rate over time. If it takes 10 years to earn enough profits to expand, then it takes 10 years to create the jobs associated with that expansion. If the net profits double, then the time it takes for the same expansion (and same job creation) will decrease to somewhere between 5-10 years, depending on the percentage of those profits that are put into expansion. No matter how low that percentage is, no business is going to respond to increased net profits by deciding to *decrease* the total dollar amount of money allocated to expansion.

Your argument more or less rests on the ridiculous assumption that business owners have no interest in expanding their businesses. But if that was the case, they wouldn't be business owners in the first place. It's axiomatic that they'll use profits this way, because they already made that decision by deciding to put money they already owned into a business instead of just spending it on themselves directly.

Quote:
gbaji wrote:
More importantly, it expands the tax base, so that over time, despite lower rates, we actually collect more tax revenue.
From the workers, not the rich...welcome to the point.


It comes from either the workers or the rich in direct relation to how much increased earnings they have, right? So if it all comes from the workers, then all of the benefits of the tax cuts went to the workers, right? So you kinda stepped on your own argument there.

And if we assumed that 100% of the increased dollars earned was to workers, and *not* the rich, then are you seriously arguing that someone would prefer to make $30k/year and pay little to no taxes or earn $60k/year and pay more? I don't know anyone who would have that preference. Do you?

You get that you are basically complaining that the tax changes would put so much more money in the hands of workers, via increased job creation and upward mobility, that they will be paying a larger share of the taxes. Um... Isn't that a good thing? I mean, if we did it by raising taxes on the working class, you'd have a point. But we're not. We're making more people earn more money. I would hope you'd be on board with this. A person making $60k/year is certainly going to pay more dollars in taxes than someone making $30k/year, but the increase in earnings is always going to be far greater than the increase in taxes.

Would you rather earn $30k/year and pay $2,474 in taxes, or earn $60k/year and pay $8,139 in taxes? (yes, I ran these numbers through a tax calculator, assuming a single person claiming only themselves).

It's not even a close comparison, right? The first case nets you $27,526 take home pay, the second case nets you $51,861 take home pay. And, of course, this assumes that the tax rate is unchanged. But in our scenario, the tax rate you'll pay on that higher earnings is lower, so... um... even more better for you, right? Specifically, the Trump tax plan will double the standard deduction. So for most people, this will be a significant reduction in total taxes paid. And yes, I get people complaining about state tax exemptions and whatnot, but the reality is that unless you have a high five figure or higher salary, and own your own home, you're going to be paying less taxes. You pick either the standard deduction *or* itemize. So unless your itemized deductions last year were higher than $9,600 (I believe that was the value last year), then you were not taking any advantage of the state income tax deduction, or property tax deductions, or the mortgage interest deduction. Since the standard deduction will double, it's unlikely anyone remotely near what we'd consider "poor" will pay more in taxes, even if they live in a high income tax state (like I do).

Heck. Even my itemized deductions were not over $19,200 last year (at least I don't think so). Mostly due to the fact that I'm in the last third of paying off my mortgage, so I'm not paying much in interest. But yeah, someone in my income range, with a largish mortgage, and in a high tax state, will likely pay more (but not much more). I'm pretty sure that group aren't the poster children of "Poor people being hurt by proposed tax reform" that most of the liberal pundits are screaming about. I even saw one guy earlier this week claiming that "students will be hurt by this". Um... How exactly? Not many students even pay income taxes at all, much less own homes, or pay anywhere near enough to be harmed.

There's a ton of crazy screaming about this going on, but not a lot of fact to support it. Which is par for the course these days.

Quote:
]Given that the supreme court decided that corporations are people, they should be taxed like people (ie 36% max).


You're kidding, right? What's bizarre is that I'm pretty sure you've made this same absurd claim several times in the past, and each time I've corrected you. Have you learned from this? No. Anyway, let's try this again:

The court ruled that corporations have the same 1st amendment protections as individuals do. Nothing more. They did not rule that "corporations are people". If your interpretation of the ruling leads you to absurd conclusions, then it's a good bet your interpretation is wrong. Which is exactly the case here.

The problem with corporations paying income tax is that it's effectively an additional tax on earnings in addition to taxes that are already paid before the money enters anyone's pockets. Let's imagine that for some reason, you and I decide to go into business together. We pool our cash, start the business, and start earning money. Let's say that we each take our salaries out of the net profit of the company (so 100% of the profits go into our pockets). Let's also say that the company earns $200k, giving us each a nice $100k/year salary.

In the case of a partnership, you and I would each get $100k in income, and pay income taxes on that number.

If we form a corporation (a full corp in this case, subject to the 35% tax rate). the corporation first pays taxes on the net profit. So the $200k gets reduced by that tax rates. Then, we would divest the earnings to us as dividends, based on the shares of the corporation we each own. So assuming we each own 50% of the corporation, we each get 50% of the resulting earnings (after corporate taxes are paid). Guess what? We then pay our personal income taxes on those dividends as well.

Of course, we could instead just set ourselves a salary of $100k/year each, which would then come out of the corporations profits (reducing them to zero in this specific case). Which would be exactly like the partnership scenario, except we're jumping through additional hoops. And, of course, zero corporate taxes are paid in that case, so having a tax rate exist at all doesn't matter.

And that brings up the real issue with corporate taxes. What it basically encourages corporations to do is spend money in some way over the year to minimize that number. And it's really easy to do, if you want to. Just buy some office furniture if you want. Or some more computers. Or company cars. Or a jet. Whatever. Anything you can call a business expense reduces "profits" (but, in this case, increases "assets" for the corporation). Which means that corporations only pay taxes on earnings that they want to save as "cash on hand" (which is usually a good thing to have at least some amount of), or if they want to pass those profits on to their shareholders in some way (like via dividends).

It's a silly tax if you really stop and think about it. And it absolutely encourages some silly behavior by corporations which may or may not actually make them more effective operations, nor encourage them to create more jobs, etc. IMO, the real debate should be about getting rid of it entirely. At the end of the day, all "profits" are taxed, no matter what path they take to get into a person's hands. Taxing it twice if it travels via one route, or only once if it goes through another doesn't make any sense. It's the kind of thing that I assume was done to appease people who don't actually understand how corporations are structured, how they calculate profits, how they share profits, etc.

Which is a really dumb way to create tax policy IMO.

Quote:
ALSO: They don't offshore to make sure they can improve pay for the workers and hire more people, they offshore because they believe they are better than them poors and should have to pay. It's called arrogance and greed....but you know that, too.


They offshore if it makes financial sense to do so. In the same way that you make financial decisions based on relative cost. If you could buy the exact same product from one of two stores, and one of them is selling it for 30% less, are you honestly going to claim you'd buy it from the more expensive store? You're just as "greedy" and "arrogant" as the folks running these businesses. If you can make the 30% more net profit by operating your business in country A versus country B, you'd be an idiot to operate in country B, right? Why would you do that? No one would do that. YOU would not make that decision either, so stop trying to pretend there's some kind of moral high ground here.

Trying to approach the issue of disparate costs by insisting that companies should just take a loss by operating in the US is a super dumb approach. In the exact same way someone insisting that you buy a product from store A, even though it costs more than store B would be. You'd laugh at them, while walking into the less expensive store, right? You know that you would.

Quote:
ALSO: ALSO: They should pay into Medicaid/Medicare at the same rate as the rest of us.


Why? Do corporations get sick as they get old and need medical care? That's perhaps the most absurd thing I've read from you, and that's saying quite a lot.

Edited, Dec 7th 2017 5:57pm by gbaji
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