[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[AEF]

On Dec 4, 5:51 am, c... at wvnet.edu (George Cook) wrote:

> Arguing against leftist dogma is futile, so I will respond no more after
> this.  Kool-Aid has no antidote.

Neither do blinders. Neither does putting words in my mouth, i.e.,
making unwarranted, misleading, and outright false assumptions of what
I'm saying.

So arguing against conservative dogma is any better? Really? "What
universe do you live in?"

When something pointed out to me convinces me I'm wrong about
something, I admit it quickly, say "OK", and move on (okay, maybe not
every time, but most of the time). I have yet to see anyone else in
this group do this even once. OK, if not, point it out and I'll
quickly admit error on my part! I don't mind.

Your claims about "the left playing God" don't hold water. Your ideas
are somehow not? Actually, I'm beginning to think you know better and
are just goading me. Just in case that's not the case, I continue:

Just a few things to sum up:

My brother-in-law's father is an accountant with many business
customers. He said that no one, and he means no one, ever hired
someone because of a tax break. EVER! (his emphasis) And his son, also
an accountant and who can be fairly described as a "fiscal
conservative", agrees.

A change in tax rates for the rich makes a negligible difference to
their livelihoods. If you didn't tell them they probably wouldn't even
notice unless they do their own taxes. A similar change in tax rates
to middle-class and the poor makes enormous differences to them. The
rich make the most and they make huge amounts of money only because a
huge number of others exist to buy their products; therefore, I think
a progressive tax system is quite fair. Try redoing your stats with
disposable income. Remember Mark Twain when he said: "There are lies,
there are damned lies, and then there are statistics." OK, statistics
are not always misleading. OK.

The poor should pay *more* taxes? That's cruel and uncivilized. The
middle class is already paying 25 - 50% of their income in taxes. (My
guess.) That's not enough? (OK, married homeowners with children may
pay less, with single, childless renters picking up the slack.)

Demand. You can invest all you want, you can lower taxes on the rich,
businesses, and what not, but no one is going to produce product that
no one will buy. You have yet to explain what's wrong with this claim.
(Well, maybe I missed it.)

Yes, I know about the negative income tax. Boy, what a horror story!
People are being payed to stay poor! You're saying that people prefer
this to a well-paying job? I think not!

Please, there are plenty of huge handouts for rich people and
corporations: tax breaks and subsidies galore, corporate welfare, etc.
I even heard, but can hardly believe, that in some cases there are tax
breaks for companies that move (U.S.) jobs overseas! I don't see you
railing against any of this.

> >> What's wrong with someone making something which causes them to become
> >> super rich? =A0You would prefer they created only 1/10 the jobs, built

Do you purposely misunderstand me? I didn't say there was anything
wrong with becoming super rich; I'm simply saying that for the same
amount of work and ingenuity, the payoff is proportional to how many
people are around to buy their product. And this should be taken into
consideration. You can say "without the rich there'd be no jobs." The
other side of the coin is "without a lot of other people working those
jobs and buying the product, there'd be no rich." And those with those
jobs and those who buy shouldn't be cast aside as irrelevant, or
forced to put up with crap. And rich sending lobbyists to Congress to
make laws favorable to their particular industry? This is somehow
fair? On what planet?

You need to stop putting words in my mouth (or work on your reading
skills), or stop goading me, whichever apply. If I haven't explained
my views clearly, I apologize.

> >> only 1/10 the factories, created only 1/10 the wealth for their stock
> >> holders, paid only 1/10 the taxes, spent only 1/10 as much, invested
> >> only 1/10 as much in startups, donated only 1/10 as much to charity,
> >> etc? =A0That logic is why socialism and communism are doomed to fail.

That wouldn't happen. The only difference is that someone like Bill
Gates would be worth $8 or $9 billion instead of $90 billion. The only
way your scenario would play out is if they spent all that money! And
they don't. And I don't care about their stockholders -- that's their
problem. Sorry, your claim doesn't add up. Charities? Many are just
sitting on piles of cash. The gov't "forces" them to spend 5% of it
per year (or something like that) (for charities of the tax-deductible
type). Many make charitable contributions that are semi-bogus,
delayed, and what not, to get tax breaks today, or so I read recently.
Yeah, maybe that's not totally right, but I wouldn't be surprised. One
of the main problems today is too much cheating, and I mean cheating
in the most generalized sense.

Also, I don't advocate 90% taxes for anyone. I'm simply pointing out
that their huge income would not be possible without huge numbers of
people to buy their product. They would do almost the same work either
way. The value is roughly proportional to the population, and this
should be taken into consideration. Because of this and other reasons
you can't say that the rich earned all this money entirely on their
own. Put them on a desert island far from civilization and see how
well they do.

Another "evil" of gov't: Anti-trust legislation. Yes, your world would
be one of unregulated monopolies, accountable to no one.

No, this is not why socialism and communism fail. There are plenty of
other reasons.

And I repeat: George Will, a conservative by any measure, once said or
wrote: Socialism saved capitalism.

The problem (or one of the biggest) is that there is too much cheating
going on, not too much of what you call "socialism".

I simply cannot believe what you wrote below:

> > Life must be pretty rough for those at the top.
>
> So?

See above. Why should the bottom suffer more so that there can be tax
cuts for those at the top, for which there will no noticeable change
in their quality of life or the economy? Increasing taxes on the poor
will reduce demand further, causing cutbacks in production, reduced
profits, layoffs, etc.

> > What's more important is disposable income.
>
> So, everyone should be forced to have the same amount of disposable
> income?  Who made you (and your comrades) God?  You and your comrades

You are putting words in my mouth. I clearly meant that taxes should
be based on disposable income, among other factors; not that everyone
should have the same disposable income. I think you are simply goading
me here.

> have by what right the power to decide who can keep how much of their
> earned disposable income?  So, you claim the god like power to determine

By what right do you have the power to decide things, either? When you
say how things should be, that's fine. When I say it, suddenly I am
pretending to be God.

> who can have what?  That is what separates the right from the left.
> The left believes it has the power of god, and the right doesn't.

Absolutely ridiculous.

> Not saying I believe in God, but I believe I don't have the right to
> play God over the lives of others.
"

And how are you not playing "God"?

OK.

[...]
>
> George Cook

AEF