I actually agree with that ranking except for France, much more corrupt than the US from my personal busines experience. Since when are Italy Spain and Portugal not part of the western world? As an Italian I am deeply offended Size, diversity, and a split Federalist system facilitates corruption so it is remarkable to me that the US is 20th. A better comaprison would be individual US sttaes with European countries. I have been involved with starting companies in Europe (southern), Asia, and in the US and the only place that I have not had to pay someone 'a little something extra" from the utility guy to the clerk with whom I register the business and in one case even protection money (so the office would not be robbed or burnt out) was in the US.
Wow I was completely wrong about Huckabee, he supports the Fair tax proposal (it is an ideal tax system devised by some of the best economic minds from around the country if they were able build a tax system from the ground up) that advocates eliminating the income and the corporate tax and relying on sales tax, supported by 80 independent economists, 67 members of the house and 5 in the Senate. Only Ron Paul and Huckabee has said they would sign it, Romney Guliani and McCain all have said they would not sign it even if passed by congress (and they say they listen to the people LOL) To find out more check out this link: http://www.fairtax.org/ http://www.fairtaxcalculator.org/ I dislike Huckabee's religious overtones but this is very positive.
I donât get how no income or corporate tax helps in the long run. Itâs a pipe dream. You need to stop fucking with the money supply and rates. You need to let the economy work itself out. Itâs mean to say but some people wonât have a job. This is a global economy and there is good with the bad. I think social welfare is the future to some degree.
We can definitely cut tax, and in fact get rid of the IRS. I don't need to tell you how much money we spent on having our military staying in Iraq and we have bases all around the world. If we can just withdraw the troops back home, we can save a hell lot of money. I cannot believe that we scarify health care so we can stay in Iraq.
Its a solution that HAS to be accompanied by Debt caps. Then you take away the revenue and with debt caps you are FORCED to cut spending. As far as vaibility, the economic effect that cutting income tax would have would be a drammatic increase in growth from investment rather than leverage that would drive economic growth and high paying jobs for decades.
Impossible. It is absolutely impossible to ever eliminate the federal deficit under the current financial system. Money IS Debt right now. A Debt ceiling would crash the system. The Debt cannot stop growing, because there is not enough cash out there to ever cover it. Not even close. Simple concept. Day 1 of the new USA. The nation needs its first injection of money. The Fed issues $100 and expects back $100 plus $5 interest. Where does the $5 come from? Once you get your head around that, you will understand why Ron Paul wants to first abolish IRS, then the Fed and go back to hard money system. Whatever you, I and everyone else pay in income tax pretty much goes to pay the interest on the government debt. As for US affording a tax cut, why not ask yourself whether US can afford its current military bases & wars. How about the growing welfare system? Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security? An interesting side note, while the government expands the welfare system (which really exists due to mass exodus of industrial jobs), it makes zero attempt to help solve it. In fact, there are tax incentives for companies to move their operations offshore. Marinade on that one for while.
'An interesting side note, while the government expands the welfare system (which really exists due to mass exodus of industrial jobs), it makes zero attempt to help solve it. In fact, there are tax incentives for companies to move their operations offshore.' If the mass offshoring was hurting the US population and unemployment was ramphant then MASS PROTESTS would have resulted. Do you see any mass protests other that extreme right wing Lou Dobbs? On the contrary, we see 10s of millions of illegal immigrants who ARE able to find jobs in the US and no one says anything because they do not have enough people to fill those jobs. Is offshoring cutting into company bottomlines........no! it is helping the Fin Statements and hence the stock markets and economic efficiency on the whole. Also this initial stages of upliftment of Asian and South American economies is a boon for Technical goods of the west. China can sell 100M T-Shirts at a price of $1 each and in turn BUY 1 B787 for $100M to cancel out the transaction. Down the road rising economies like China, India, Russia, Brazil where these jobs are mostly going will stand to buy more high ticket western goods. Idiots like Barak Obama are actually the left left left type socialist who will hurt the economy in the long run. Centerist folks like Hillary, McCain, Romney are the one who will take it forward. Hope one of these three also face off the debt and deficit and bring some sense to fiscal numbers.
Something very significant happened in NH yesterday when Hillary defeated Kid on the Block - the little Bama!
I agree its just that I don't trust the politicians in Washington to do the right thing. If Income tax is done away with and no debt caps, if there is any shortfall (or even if there isn't) they will just keep borrowing rather than cutting spending which is what absolutely needs to happen.
You're missing my point. Debt caps will just make USA declare Bankruptcy in a very radical fashion. Just the concept of paying off the debt is impossible. Forget the Clinton budget of 1992-2000, all he had was an operating surplus while logging away future obligations into the footnotes. The system of a central bank which issues the nation's currency as DEBT has only one direction --- more debt. There is NOTHING any politician can do about this unless they attack the real heart of the issue, like Ron Paul is doing. A good hearted politician which does not understand this fiscal system has to increase spending to issue more debt, or at the least, just issue more debt. Otherwise, you cannot pay the interest.