Quote:
Originally Posted by RichieRich
I think you called me old?  I'm not 50 yet but older than 40 but true enough I do have some older ideas, many of which were inherited from the parents. I was brought up without much (ie: yes I was that kid that had hand-me-down underwear), have travelled a lot and seen true true destitution where people might be "lucky" to live another day. So, to me, I see excess examples of consumerism, wastage, expectations and demands exceed potential to support them. I see far far too many failures where "the man" is to blame instead of personal accountability and self-awareness of immediate and long term decisions. For example, I have "poor" friends whose T4's are near $200k/annual who whine and moan about how they're only freedom-75 plan... yet they travel a lot, regular new cars, kids in many expensive sports that require travel, all kinds of toys, etc... and they actually feel they're hard done by. It's wrong, IMO, to expect the government to be your saviour. It's also wrong to expect any society to tax their way to prosperity, or to take from the richer and give to the poorer like we are headed towards. F that.
That said.. I support your concept of certain tax-exempt items, but lets also throw in consumption-based taxes. Even though I pay a fair bit of tax I do see some value in a graduated taxation too, however enough is enough at some point. Those that pay the least tax may be victims of their situation (earned or inherited or just crap luck) indeed, and that sucks, however it's not reasonable to expect those that scrimped and saved and worked their @$$e$ off to now be penalized. |
Totally agree. I think people who are well off more often than not don't understand just how well off they actually are. Especially compared to others in their area. If you can't live
well, not just comfortably, but
well off 200k then that is your fault and your fault alone and I agree that under no circumstances is it the government or society's job to give one #### about helping you. But for those who actually are struggling, like families of four making 80k household or less, something needs to be done because that becomes a vicious cycle.
And I think we agree on tax, I may have worded it poorly. I think higher consumption taxes are needed (with essentials exempt for everyone regardless of income) and a flat tax that applies to everyone equally (so whether you're making 30k or 1M, you're paying 20%, or whatever). You could set an exempt amount, so, no tax on the first 30k and 20% on everything above, but in general I think there are ways to ensure everyone pays their fair share without progressive taxation.
I do wonder what effect extreme regulation around debt would make. Debt is so high and I know a lot of people who got into debt early and got in bad, and will struggle for a long time just to service that debt and pay it off, which has a huge impact on quality of life.