Today's Stock Market Crash: Mr Reasonable

Bit wouldn’t a state like California or others in a similar state have problems with social projects which need more money?
So Your assertion points to a tautological equation , more money for the infrastructure, the higher the tax. The average taxpayer can not afford any more for the infrastructure, it may take a different different route to find it?

The dems are broke and their policies bespeak of their futility

K: as a long term Californian?, I disagree…we have one of the best run
states in the nation…and there is not a single, not one, republican
on the state level and the state legislature is all democratic…we have
an excellent governer in Jerry Brown…we were in debt hell and have made
great progress in lowering that debt…for the most part, the blue states
are the wealthy states and the red states are the welfare states…
in other words, we put in far more money in federal taxes then we receive
back in taxes, unlike the red states who mooch off of the blue states…

are there problems? of course, the cost of housing is insane and the
traffic is pretty bad…but having lived in several other states,
I can state that I would rather live here then anywhere else…

Kropotkin

@Zero Sum

Agreed, not only is the US economy unsustainable, but so is the world economy.
Myself, I’m thinking about these things long term, big picture.
The world has been fundamentally ascending economically and in many other, but not all ways for the previous several centuries.
The western world has been at the forefront of this ascension, the spearhead, but most of the rest of the world has now hitched their respective wagons to its star.

But it hasn’t been a steady climb, no climb is, there’s been setbacks along the way, but so far, these setbacks have been minor, even the depressions of the early 20th century and the latest one were relatively minor, because we were able to recover from them shortly afterward.
However, all the, reasonable economists, and ecologists, have been warning us we cannot continue growing forever, because, well, the economy is not a God, and it never will be, it is subject to the laws of physics, it has limits, a ceiling made of iron.
We may not be able to presently locate exactly where it is, but make no mistake, it’s there.
If we had any sense as a species we’d be willfully full stopping, and thinking more about what to do with all this wealth we’ve accumulated, how to conserve and spend it wisely, but instead we’ve chosen to deny such a ceiling exists.

Once we crash into it, it won’t be just another minor setback, it’ll deal a devastating blow, from which not only will we not be able to immediately recover, but will send us toppling, at best, much of the way down from whence we came, and at worst, to our demise as a species.
Historically we’ve never been this high before, and that should give us pause, for the higher the precipice from which you fall, the harder the crash.

Civilization is essentially a house of cards built on sand, removing just one card could cause a chain reaction.
There are so many hazards on the horizon, from global warming to another coronal mass ejection like the one we witnessed during the mid 19th century, which could destroy all or most of the electronics we’ve come to depend on.
From peak oil to food and water shortages, from the deflated middle class to nuclear warfare, and the list goes on and on.

If just one of these calamities were to befall us, it’ll likely trigger many or most of the others, for example famine and drought could precipitate nuclear war, and conversely nuclear war could precipitate famine and drought.
And the longer we permit ourselves to continue this climb: the more we pollute, the more dependent on electronics we become, the more non-renewable resources like fossil fuels and minerals like uranium we consume, the more we overpopulate and cultivate the land, the greater the chasm grows between rich and poor, the more weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, space based, viral and so on are built and tensions foment between west and east, north and south over diminishing resources, the more likely these catastrophes will occur, and the less likely we’ll be able to manage the aftermath, the fallout.

And to the aforementioned you can add deforestation, thousands of species dying due primarily to man’s activity, thousands of more following, leading to another mass extinction event.
epidemics, rising cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity rates due to all the unnatural, unwholesome foods and drugs we’re consuming, chemicals in the air and water supply, an increasingly physically and psychologically debilitated society, overmedicated and stimulated to the point of zombification.
Killer viruses, strengthened by antibiotics, or artificially concocted in a laboratories and (un)intentionally unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses by (mad) scientists or terrorists, fomenting tensions between the sexes (see feminism) and cultures largely isolated from one another for centuries-millennia, coming into contact for the first time, or cultures with centuries old bad blood, like Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, forced to live together in increasingly crowded inner cities.

And to all this, we’re adding genetically modified organisms and AI…because apparently the challenges we’re already facing are insufficient, now we want to tinker and toy with the very fabric of life itself, despite man, especially in the last few centuries, not having a very good track record with its haphazard, reckless and unnecessary meddling, we have the gall, the audacity to suppose, our civilization is unsinkable?
On the contrary, it’s a miracle we’re still here, we’ve been on the brink of annihilation several times already, like during the Cuban missile crisis.
No it’s by sheer dumb luck we’re still alive, and it will run out.

Sure, that is why that other billionaire fellow wants to put California cessation on the ballot. But there are problems with that
But the rest of the US are not fairing that well, and the overall problem dwarfs even California

Zero Sum

Agreed, it’s not a question of if, but when we’re going to fall, how fast and how far.
All civilizations at some point stagnate and either implode, or decline to a more primitive, less sophisticated state, which they may or may not have the capacity to recover from, in the distant future, and ours is no exception.
It’s natural law, it doesn’t matter whether we acknowledge it or not, but at least if we did, we could prepare for it.
The ‘recession’ of 08 was nothing, we’re talking about a worldwide permanent recession, where the economy and our capacity to extract resources from the ecosystem incrementally declines over the course of centuries, or implodes: nuclear and viral warfare, all hell breaking loose, another mass extinction event, the likes of which the earth hasn’t seen since the end of the cretaceous.

Right, the crumbling of the US economy would doom the world as we know it.

I’m not exactly looking forward to such a scenario, as I, perhaps a little less mentally than most, but as much materially, would be caught with my pants down, and would have as much chance of surviving as Joe average or in other words, next to 0.
I’m hoping for a more a gradual decline, which will give me a chance to make some preparations, but decline is inevitable, and in the long run, desirable, for valuable lessons can be learned from it, for ourselves as individuals, and as a species, if we survive it.
And I mean if it is going to be a massive, overnight plummet, a freefall free for all, there’s only so much you can do anyway, most, if not all people are probably going to die, and who, if anyone survives is going to be determined by luck as much as skill.

While there’s a few things I liked about him, his political incorrectness and such, he is all of the above: a Zionist, capitalist and megalomaniac.

I couldn’t care less about Israelis, I think they should have to fend for themselves alone, among the peoples they’ve antagonized.

I’m mostly against capitalism, either it should be replaced with different systems, each region of the world can go its own way, and/or we should have no systems at all, and let chaos reign.
We’ve built our civilization around the premise of limitless economic competition and expansion, and while it may’ve served us in some ways for a little while, and no system is perfect, it’s become totally unsustainable, we need to radically change course and/or prepare for death/destruction.

Joker, the government took half your money in spite of you being virtually indigent?

You should fire your accountant. I’ll do your taxes for free man.

HR Block man, they’ve been good to me for many years but here isn’t so much their fault as it is with horrific government legislation. They tried their best to find a way around the penalty tax circumventing it but couldn’t in the end. I hope Obama dies from testicular cancer or worse, that son of a bitch.

The mandatory penalty is gone come the same time next year and, will I get almost $1000.00 reimbursed back to me with the law gone repealed? Fuck no! It’s like $1000.00 just vanished into thin air within two years time that will probably go to paying lunches for black op marine units overseas in Syria.

I am so sick of hearing others say how the poor have it so great in Murica as it usually is clueless motherfuckers that say such. Clueless motherfuckers that I day dream about tying to a rope at an end of a car and dragging them on a highway 80 m.p.h. til they die, those kinds of clueless motherfuckers.

So yesterday the DOW dropped something like 450-500 points where the last twenty minutes to closing a mysterious buyer or intervener propped it up at the same margin. Looks like they’re going to prop up this sucker a little longer.

I am hoping for a deeply red Monday, we’ll see then…

It’s going to happen eventually and there is still a lot more of 2018 left to go.

I’ve already waited sixteen years where I can wait a few more years if necessary. The asshats in D.C. have no idea how many enraged people there are just like me just waiting to strike or lash out at this whole rotten decadent system. They’ve ignored us for decades but one of these days they won’t be able to ignore us any longer. That time is fast approaching.

If you strip a man or woman of everything leaving them with nothing all they have left to fall back on is the desire to see the whole world burn around them. I have a feeling I am not the only one out there…

You should post up the H and R block summary page of your return. I just don’t believe that you paid half your income in taxes. It’s not possible man. Did you owe back taxes? Were you making capital gains all year without making tax payments as you go? If they penalized you for not having insurance, then the idea is that you could have bought insurance but you didn’t. Did you go to healthcare.gov to see if you could have gotten a subsidy? Either you’re giving us fake numbers, or your accountant is an asshat.

The numbers work out assuming he lives in Oregon and $18k is after tax income. That would make his total earnings ~$27k, putting him in the 15% marginal bracket for federal taxes and 9% state taxes, plus Social Security (6%) and other nickle-and-dime taxes. All told, $9.5k seems plausible.

No back taxes or capital gains, the numbers are quite real. At this point I am thinking about either finding a loophole on my taxes or not paying them at all if possible. Every two weeks I am already paying two hundred something dollars in taxes concerning my paycheck from work.

coughs, coughs, Illinois

So yes, I live in Illinois on the Iowa-Illinois border which the nearest city in Iowa is like twenty five minutes away and why me along with Wendy like to think of ourselves as honorary Iowans because living in Illinois sucks that bad. As soon as the Obama super highway is built between Chicago and Springfield I want to take a photo of me taking a piss or giant dump on it. That will go into our collectible photo scrap book for sure.

Alright fuck it, I am filing exempt on all state and federal income taxes. I’m done feeding this parasitical beast. I would advise anybody else living in the United States to file exempt also if they can. I am getting ready to join the growing 47% of the American population that is doing the same. Research both state and federal tax laws before doing this otherwise they will come after you.

Markets are too quiet today…

Republicans are red and democrats are blue, neither political party gives a flying fuck about you…

Today’s deep insights is fear, uncertainty, panic, and extreme volatility or how to be in debt within the United States up to 40 trillion dollars in debt by 2028.

Stop using HR blockheads. All you had to do was specify that the insurance was considered “unaffordable” and there wouldn’t have been a penalty. Tax Act software had check boxes plainly displayed to that end. Anyone making $18k cannot afford insurance.

If you’re smart enough to post on a philosophy forum, you’re smart enough to do your own taxes.

I did specify unaffordability but that didn’t do anything and if you think that does I got a bridge to sell you in Hoboken, New Jersey. Seriously though, I doubt anybody here makes the amount of money I do yearly or much less to know where I am coming from. It doesn’t matter however as I’ve declared my exemptions where over the next nine months I’ll see most of that money returned back to me in another form. I’m already familiar with all the tax gimmicks out there. I think you and others underestimate the ability of the United States government to fuck over poor low income people thinking that somehow it’s a just government out to protect the little guy, in truth reality is the complete opposite but whatever believe what you wish.

The wheels are about to come off the United States economy and frankly I’m comfortably numb where I just don’t give a damn.