That's not enough though. Not even close.

Because someone takes a risk to start up a business and fails, they're screwed. That's just life.

But if they succeed, then they can look forward to the government taking half of it.  At some point, which differs from person to person, the tipping point occurs and people decide not to take that risk because the risk/reward ratio is no longer favorable to them.

Even seriously wounded veterans are fighting for the RIGHT to healthcare.  

Because it was in their contracts. If you make an agreement, you have rights under that agreement. I think your confusing contracts with something else. Nowhere is it written that you have a right to health care, unless you signed a contract with an insurance company. You stretching pretty far here.

I read this to my husband (a CPA) who said Brad's exactly right.  He also said to tell those out there the everyday Joe may save $1,000 in taxes and then lose his job. Yay! 

We're ok because we have no debt and we took our money out of the market last January  before the downward slide, but for everyone else out there who feels Obama is the Savior of mankind....you may find out real quick after the election how wrong you were when the pink slips start coming around and the small businesses fold up because they can't keep up with the tax burden. 

It  doesn't matter who is elected....Its almost guarateed that the economy will suffer for almost 2 more years regardless of changes in tax policy.

You are right to a point.  The economy will be in rough shape for a while, but which policies will benefit in the long run?  Lower taxes, less spending, or higher taxes and increased spending?

You forgot to mention increased deregulation that helped get us into this mess. Not all companies are like stardock, caring about their customers. Wal-Mart(and other similar corporations) have benefited greatly from deregulation while doing little to help us long term or short term.

From CNN.com

Sen. McCain said Obama's health care plan would fine businesses that don't offer insurance, but how true is that?.

The Statement:
At a campaign event Thursday, October 9, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain criticized Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama's health-care plan. "Under his plan, he will fine employers who don't offer health insurance to put their employees in government health care. He'll fine them," McCain said. "You know what that does? That costs jobs. That costs jobs for small business people in America."

Watch: McCain, Obama debate their health care proposals

Get the facts!

 

The Facts:
Obama's health-care plan, as outlined on his campaign Web site, would require that large employers either "offer meaningful coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees" or else contribute a portion of their payroll to a national fund that would help people who can't afford health care to pay for it.

The plan does not mention any criminal or civil penalties. And, by withholding a percentage of payroll, that portion of the plan seems more in line with a payroll tax than a fine — which would typically be a set dollar amount. In a section of McCain's Web site highlighting his health-care plan and criticizing
Obama's, the money in Obama's plan is referred to as a "tax," not a fine. The McCain campaign did not respond to a CNN e-mail asking for clarification on his use of the term.

McCain's suggestion that Obama's plan would impact small businesses is wrong. "Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement," Obama's Web site says.

The Verdict: False. McCain calling the plan's payment a fine is at odds with his own Web site, which calls it a tax. Obama's campaign says small businesses would be exempt from the plan.

It boggles how people swallow the party line without thinking things through.  It was not de-regulation that got us into this mess, it was bad regulation, misguided regulation, regulation with invevitable but unforeseen consequences that got us into this mess.

It can be argued, and strongly, that Wal-Mart has done more to raise the standard of living for lower income citizens than any other company in history, and certainly more than government.

How's that? putting americans out of work by nearly always buying from china, and that country's substandered conditions for their workers. Helping to crush small buisness by said practices? Then suckering in lower income citizens to sub-standered products because their ill-gotten goods are cheaper then those made by Americans. I won't argue they're one the great successes of Capitalism, and have made many wise investors wealthy. Aside from that they are an anti-union, poor employer(they actually offer classes on how to get on welfare for their employees because they don't pay them living wages), who is leeching off the poor.

How?

When I look at Wal-Mart I see a company that has FORCED its suppliers out of businees or into setting up shop overseas. Its business model has destroyed much of the US manufacturing base. It would be unfair of me to blame it all on Wal-Mart, I think most of the problem actually lies within certain poorly negotiated and enforced trade agreements. However Wal-Mart has lobbied against enforcement and actually got involved in court cases siding against US manufacturers.

Who are these low income citizens that work at Wal-Mart? Are they low income folks who have had an increase in their standard of living or are they folks who lost other jobs and have actually faced a decrease in their standard of living, or folks taking on additional employment because their other job or spouses job is not keeping their standard of living even?

I can tell you what happened in my area. When Wal-Mart came to town the local small business community fought to keep them out for almost 5 years. When they finally won and set up shop they put a lot of small busineess out of business very quickly. Long term I think or at least hope the Wal-Mart business model becomes a plus to the US economy.

I would argue that the problem actually lies in specific trade agreements which were poorly negotiated and more importantly have been poorly enforced. In particular China. Not easily resolved since it is a balancing act between economic and political gains.

No however laissez faire policy has everything to do with the implosion of the economy and the implosion of the replublican party. If the executive branch didn't allow the SEC to overthrottle the economy by allowing extremly high leverage, and not only turn a blind eye to predetory lending but also block states from trying to deal with it, then we would not be in the situation we are today. That said I would guess the swing vote would be more likely to vote  for McCain simply to keep the Dems from controlling everything.

That is a "Contractual" right.  Not an inalienable one.

Deregulation has nothing to do with this problem.  Please list the specific deregulation that supposedly caused this?  That is what McCain should ask 0bama tomorrow.

I love all the "fire/police/ER/schools are socialism already" argument. Never thouht any of these "socialist" programs were based on peoples income. So do any of these programs work differently based on the person income? Or do they all do their job regardless of how much you make?

BTW, I would like to ask all those people, with Brads permission of course, if any of them have a business that somehow they feel they can either contradict Brad's comments or give him advise as to how he handles his business? This seems very interesting for some people to argue based on what they have read against a person who actually does this for a living and have plenty of hands on experience. Please do tell how you believe you have the experience to advise Brad or even argue against his comments.

This is a legitimate question, not joking or insulting. I am looking for real answers here.

Richard, do tell of all the deaths of individuals killed by guns whose triggers were not pulled by humans.  Should be a suitably short list.

I sacrafice sheep to mine every equinox.

Why wouldn't it be enough though?

To give a (hypothetical) example, if you have an investment that costs $10k, and has a 50% chance of yielding $25k (inflation or 'risk-adjusted rate of return' adjusted figure depending on your preference), and a 50% chance of losing all that money, if taxes provide loss relief as well, will they really affect the decision? That is, if you taxed at 0%, you would be looking at an expected gain of $2.5k, which is more than 0 so you'd want to do it (ignoring time(/cash flow) issues, risk aversion, and a few other wrinkles for now). If you impose a 50% tax on any gain with no loss relief, you're now looking at an expected gain of -$1.25k. If however you impose a 50% tax on any gain, and a 50% rebate on any loss, you're back to looking at an expected gain of $1.25k (i.e. >0 so you'd still do it). Loss relief that allows you to carry forward a loss helps address this to some extent with an ongoing business, but doesn't typically with a new business which would likely fail, and then be unable to use those losses fully. Meanwhile by carrying forward the loss, due to the aforementioned inflation/rate of return issues, it's value would decrease over time, hence further decreasing it's mitigating effect. However an upfront rebate would deal with both of these problems.

Now to the other issues - firstly cash flow problems - that could be solved by taking out a loan to finance the investment. Obviously you'd pay interest on that loan, but the costs of such finance are typically tax deductable (I haven't looked into all the specifics of the US taxation system, but I'd be surprised if they weren't an allowable expense for any businesses, although there might be a difference between companies and indivs). That would mean your ultimate decision would then be based around whether the investment is a good one, which the tax shouldn't affect (unless I've overlooked something obvious, I'm pretty tired atm so can't be bothered to give the example+issue a more thorough look ). As for risk aversion for an individual, if that individual wouldn't be prepared to undertake the investment because they were very risk averse, a company could always come along and hire that person on a fixed amount in order to undertake the investment/work (if only that person could), or could just do the investment itself, since you would expect the company to be less risk averse and care more about if they were getting an appropriate return for the level of risk.

[edit] Knew I shouldn't have done that when I was feeling tired, forgot that taxes wouldn't factor in things like inflation and/or risk-adjusted rates of return (+hence should have incorporated those into it instead of just assuming the figures were already net of such rates). So yes the tax increase would have an affect on this, but the decrease in incentives overall would be greatly reduced since you would have removed the loss issue (i.e. only 50% of gain, 100% of loss) [/edit]

To go back to the premise though, if the tax rebate is immediate, it wouldn't mean you'd be screwed by taking the risk and failing, it'd mean you'd be partially screwed. Just as if you're successful, instead of being fully successful, you're partially successful, and hence it should balance out (unless you're arguing that if the business fails you'd declare bankruptcy in either event due to the scale of the losses/lack of other assets, but I'd have thought that would only be the situation for a minority of cases). Since you would expect money to be generated overall in the economy and not lost (ignoring the recent events, of course ), you could then rely on the system to generate tax revenues, and you could also impose higher taxes on higher incomes without such a severe impact on the incentive to make profits.

You shouldn't need to do something in order to be able to talk about it. For example take a politics forum where many people bemoan decisions that a politician has made. Are any of them politicians? No! Then how do they believe they have the experience to argue against what that politician has done?

Experience can be used to back up a persons credentials, and make what they say carry more weight, but if there's no argument there in the first place, it alone is not sufficient justification, just as if someone without that experience can make a strong argument, their lack of experience shouldn't be enough on it's own to nullify the argument raised.

Ok, here are a few quick ones: Cheap food (benefits the poor most, since they spend a higher proportion of their income on food (and other low cost items at Wal-Mart)

Employment - they provide jobs, and presumably at the market rate since otherwise they wouldn't be able to get enough workers. Many of these jobs will go to people on low incomes, since by nature they will likely be less skilled and therefore less capable of obtaining alternative, higher paying, jobs, and hence be more likely to apply for a Wal-Mart job.

Improved efficiency - often people complain about big supermarkets moving into a town, and causing all those local shops to shut down. Well assuming you have robust enough anti-competition rules (to prevent predatory pricing where the company lowers prices temporarily until all those businesses have gone and then increases them again), chances are this is because those businesses aren't able to compete with the supermarket on price (or more specifically price relative to other needs such as quality etc.). As such the firm that is able to serve the needs of customers best survives, while those that can't fail. If everyone wants local shops they can go to and get a personal service, then they wouldn't go out of business - people vote with their wallets, and if they all flock to Wal-Mart and away from their local businesses, it's because they choose to. It's the nature of capitalism - the strong survive, the weak either adapt or perish, and if you try and force protection of the weak (in this case a failing business), you end up with a less efficient economy. This also ties in the issue of imports, and suppliers going out of business - if a company imports its goods and 'costs good American jobs' (or whatever the more overdramtic way of putting it is in politics atm), that's good long term, not bad, since it's basically the same situation on a more global scale; those suppliers weren't able to produce the relevant goods as efficiently as the chinese ones, and you can enhance both countries economy if the one that's best (relatively) at producing X goods focuses on them, while the one that's best at producing Y goods produces them. I say relative in the sense of a comparative advantage - one of the two countries might be more efficient at both methods in absolute terms, but you would maximise the combined value of goods by both countries with specialisation+trade. This is more of a long-term effect of course, since in the short term you will suffer job losses as those suppliers attempt to aquire new skills/change business.