You realize the fact that an IRS form isn't required has absolutely nothing to do with whether you owe tax, right? The fact that you don't report your capital gains on sales of assets doesn't mean that you weren't legally required to do so.
Gold. GOLD!!!!! Gooooollllllllllddddddd!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter ChesusRice
- Start date
You realize the fact that an IRS form isn't required has absolutely nothing to do with whether you owe tax, right? The fact that you don't report your capital gains on sales of assets doesn't mean that you weren't legally required to do so.
kpmarine
Well-Known Member
If it's adjusted, it's not at a local level. In places like CA; you have a difference of over $1000 a month in rent prices (Between various locales.).
Didn't you have a point about wages and inflation? I see that you seem to have abandoned it, even though it was the most meaningful thing we discussed.
Everyone here--owners of silver especially--knows that silver hasn't been beating every asset class out there in the past few years. This is meaningless. Of course, we aren't talking about present returns anyway, we're talking about compound annual returns in history. The point was that many things beat or equaled silver, which is undeniably true. That's why you can't contradict it and instead have tried to assault every other asset class in the present.
The Fed is a government agency. The Board is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The Fed is not a "private corporation" in any meaningful sense. The Federal Reserve banks don't control monetary policy, pay nothing in profits, and aren't controlled on the basis of stock ownership by their member banks anyway.
Yes, and that's why people on fixed incomes shouldn't try to live in Malibu or Manhattan. I think we can agree that they don't.
Are you suggesting the federal government should be paying for people on the government dole to live in places with elevated costs of living...?
The fact that someone is irrationally willing to pay $10 more for the same 1 ounce of silver is irrelevant. Obviously they aren't paying the price based on the silver content of the coin, which means your price wasn't a market price at all, which means you have no point. The spot price of silver isn't $40 an ounce.
Of course, Silver Eagles can't be purchased for their face value in silver in the first place, otherwise the Mint would be selling them at a loss. Of course the price of a Silver Eagle is above the spot price for its silver content, otherwise anyone selling them would be selling them at a loss over what they paid just to get them from the Mint in the first place.
kpmarine
Well-Known Member
It's not just Malibu, it's just about anywhere within reasonable distance of a hospital in so-cal. My grandmother spent the majority of her life in the LA/Ventura/Orange County area; paid taxes there; held gainful employment (When men told you to "Get a husband" if you wanted a raise.); and got diagnosed with MS there. Are you saying that the pay in she contributed should be diluted by the horrendously low costs of living elsewhere? She's not trying to live on a beachfront property. She's renting a shitty 2 bedroom on my mother's (Who also has MS.) and her collective SSDI. When your state has one of the 10 largest economies in the world, and a highly diversified one; you're going to have a variety in cost of living. You fail to realize the diversity of California.
I chose Malibu to be hyperbolic. Everyone knows the cost of living throughout California is outrageous over the cost of living in other places. This is partly because it's California--taxes are extremely high, regulations are unmatched, and building housing is extremely difficult to do.
But to answer your question, no, I don't think the government should be paying to support that high cost of living. If you can't support yourself and choose to pay more for what you need to live than you have to pay, why should the government be covering that for you?
kpmarine
Well-Known Member
Well, if you pay more; your wages are more. That means you pay more in taxes and social security. If you paid into the system in one area that has a high cost of living; why should you have to move? In CA, that would mean moving to a place where cost of living is lower due to shitty living conditions. She would have to move somewhere where a hospital was so far away that the transportation costs for my mother's regular checkups would rapidly outpace savings in rent; or she would have to move the equivalent of going from Maine to Virginia. Not to mention the fact that the skilled MS doctors tend to live and practice in places with a high cost of living. It's hard to get treatment for your illness in Washington when the specialist practices out of UCLA. Especially when you're so bed-ridden that a plane trip is impossible. Where you live isn't always a choice. Sometimes it's simple survival.
Your empathy as a family member is overriding your rationality and your logic as a taxpayer. Your exception becomes tens of millions of exceptions, with the cost ballooning by hundreds of billions of dollars.
kpmarine
Well-Known Member
I can understand how I may be emotionally attached. However, it has not overly biased my capacity for reason. You failed to address why a person who pays above the average is only entitled to the average.
ChesusRice
Well-Known Member
OH OH!!
You just touched the third rail of the Ron Paulbots and those that believe in the "Evil Joo Banker" cabal
heckler73
Well-Known Member
From Wikipedia:
The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) (codified in the Internal Revenue Code) imposes a Social Security withholding tax equal to 6.20% of the gross wage amount, up to but not exceeding the Social Security Wage Base ($97,500 for 2007; $102,000 for 2008; and $106,800 for 2009, 2010, and 2011). The same 6.20% tax is imposed on employers. For 2011 and 2012, the employee's contribution was reduced to 4.2%, while the employer's portion remained at 6.2%.[SUP][59][/SUP][SUP][60][/SUP] In 2012, the wage base increases to $110,100.[SUP][15][/SUP] For each calendar year for which the worker is assessed the FICA contribution, the SSA credits those wages as that year's covered wages. The income cutoff is adjusted yearly for inflation and other factors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the input is capped, then so is the output. It's unfortunate, but that's how the scheme works (i.e. defined benefits).
There is a way that California could work around this by using a Complimentary Currency system akin to the WIR in Switzerland, which would allow the State of California to issue supplementary income as needed, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to do that (although, they came close to it post-GFC when they issued "vouchers" in lieu of payment to state employees IIRC).
It's too controversial, especially when so much of what the rest of the world considers public services is treated as private industry in the US.
kpmarine
Well-Known Member
That's pretty much what I've chalked it up to: a simple accounting problem. If you want to level things out, then some folks get the shaft. It does suck to be the one getting the shaft though.
budsmoker87
New Member
Of course the president "appoints" the board, in front of us all, to create the theatrical effect that IS politics. And he himself selects the members from a pre-determined list that's given to him, much like his nominations for all other major positions in higher offices...like say, for instance, the treasury...whom always just happens to be a high-ranking member from a big bank that owns the FED. Get real
budsmoker87
New Member
Also, nobody seems to be accounting for the changes that rating agencies make to inflation numbers based on improvements in product quality or safety (say for instance, with a car)
heckler73
Well-Known Member
Rating agencies?
You are talking about hedonics, and yes, that is accounted for, but we haven't been discussing it. What's your opinion on it?
Well, with social security payments, they are based on how much you paid in. Someone who paid more in social security taxes is entitled to a higher benefit. This may be true for disability payments as well, but I don't know how those are calculated.
I think this is perfectly fair. Do I think payments should be based on cost of living where someone lives outside of that? No. What do you do if someone lives in Los Angeles for 10 years, Idaho for 20 years, and then Los Angeles again for 5 years? Should they get Los Angeles cost of living? Should the formula for future payouts reflect the different costs of living and time spent in those different places?
Social security and disability are really anti-poverty programs that are supposed to keep destitute people from starving in the streets. They aren't meant to ensure that people can maintain their pre-benefit standard of living.
The president selects appointees from lists because he couldn't possibly make independent, informed decisions about hundreds or thousands of presidential appointments. But those lists are compiled by the president's hand-picked staff, not delivered by the banking cartel, as you seem to be implying. Of course, if the president is particularly knowledgeable about something and cares a lot about the appointment, he probably makes his own decision (I doubt this fits Obama when it comes to the Board, but he's probably very comfortable with labor, judges, etc.).
Banks don't "own" the Fed. The Board of Governors--which has the real power--is a federal agency that banks have nothing to do with. The Board is composed almost entirely of academics and lifelong public servants, not bank cronies. Of course, you mean the regional Federal Reserve banks, but those aren't meaningfully "owned" either. All national banks must own stock in a regional Federal Reserve bank, and many state banks own the stock as well. The stock in those banks doesn't carry control rights, and the banks aren't entitled to the regional bank profits, just a fixed dividend on the capital they're required to hold as Federal Reserve stock. Any bank can buy stock in one of the regional banks.
The Board sets monetary policy and the profits of the regional Federal Reserve banks are surrendered to the Treasury. You'll have to identify the nefarious conspiracy in all of this for me.
echelon1k1
New Member
What are you smoking?