BoatBanter.com - Donna Lange runs aground

Cuba ,, I actually am considering Cuba. Fidel is about to retire and it is
a beautiful country.

The other countries you mentioned ,, no thanks. Although S Vietnam is very
nice.

Seriously,, take a look around. Where does Madonna live? England. The
very rich live where they want. They plan out there lives, as well as their
business so that they live at one level and the rest of us get F......ked.

The USA that I grew up in , served in the Army of,,, supported by voting and
I even ran for office is GONE. Doesn't exist. We are a corrupt former
great country.

Just the other day, I see an article that goes on to show how the middle
class is getting pushed into poverty. We are so overtaxed it is crazy.

Just ask yourself this question and answer it honestly.

Why is my government allowing millions of people to break into my country?
To enter my country illegally. They are here, illegally. They work and pay
no taxes. They get free health care at the local hospital emergency room.
They send their illegal children to our schools.

Yet ................ if you want to go on a trip to the Bahama's,, you must
have a passport or you will not be allowed back into the USA.

Just this one example should be enough to show you that the USA is finished.
No country that does not control its borders, or allow millions of people to
invade ... has ever lasted long throughout history. The Roman Empire was
defeated by an invation from the north.

If there are no borders ............... there is no country.

What makes a country? Borders, common language, common customs, laws which
are enforced, .........

We are slipping into the abyss of history. And we, the citizens, are
allowing it to happen. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican .. it
does not matter. Both parties are completely corrupt. Do you think these
people actually care about you and me? We, the former middle class?

Great speech just the other day by Bill Moyers ..
http://www.freepress.net/news/20357

part of the speech.

"Today, a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt's death, those words ring just
as true. America is socially divided and politically benighted. Inequality
and poverty grow steadily along with risk and debt. Too many working
families cannot make ends meet with two people working, let alone if one
stays home to care for children or aging parents. Young people without
privilege and wealth struggle to get a footing. Seniors enjoy less security
for a lifetime's work. We are racially segregated today in every meaningful
sense, except for the letter of the law. And the survivors of segregation
and immigration toil for pennies on the dollar, compared to those they
serve.

None of this is accidental. Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow, not known
for extreme political statements, characterizes what is happening as
"nothing less than elite plunder" - the redistribution of wealth in favor of
the wealthy, and the power in favor of the powerful. In fact, nearly all the
wealth America created over the past 25 years has been captured by the top
20 percent of households, and most of the gains went to the wealthiest. The
top 1 percent of households captured more than 50 percent of all the gains
in financial wealth, and these households now hold more than twice the share
their predecessors held on the eve of the American Revolution.

The anti-Federalist warning that government naturally works to fortify the
conspiracies of the rich proved prophetic. It's the truth today, and America
confronts a choice between two fundamentally different economic visions. As
Norman Garfinkel writes in his marvelous new book, The American Dream vs.
the Gospel of Wealth, the historic vision of the American dream is that
continuing economic growth and political stability can be achieved by
supporting income growth and economic security of middle-class families,
without restricting the ability of successful business men to gain wealth.

The counter-belief is that providing maximum financial rewards to the most
successful is the way to maintain high economic growth. The choice cannot be
avoided. What kind of economy do we seek, and what kind of nation do we wish
to be? Do we want to be a country in which the rich get richer and the poor
get poorer, or do we want a country committed to an economy that provides
for the common good, offers upward mobility, supports a middle-class
standard of living, and provides generous opportunities for all?"

Too bad.. we had a chance. But we allowed the rich to suck us dry. When a
hard working guy with a good family can't afford to go for a sailboat ride
...............

I'm not going to miss the destruction of what I am seeing as the USA..

==============================================

"krj" wrote in message
...
NE Sailboat wrote:
"That reasoning goes a bit too far. I take it you're one of those folks
who
figures it's all right to evade income tax by skimming the receipts from
the
cash register, because the bureaucrats would just misuse the money
anyway."

YES! Say it loud and proud! YES, YES, YES! F'm. I hate paying taxes,
expecially when I know the money is going down a big huge
empty hole. My money so some Arab who hates me can have electricity? No
thanks. My money so someone who is so stupid that he/she owned a home
below the water level of a levee down the street but didn't see fit to
purchase flood insurance?

I truly wish a movement got started so that every American just didn't
even file his/her income tax. Then what would the likes of Ted Kennedy
do?

As to the bad behavior example; ever hear of the Boston Tea Party?
Kinda bad behavior, wouldn't ya say.

As to the sales tax example. You answered my argument for me. Where
does the boat sales tax money go? Who knows? The government takes it
and puts it in a "general fund". What percentage of that "general fund"
goes for boating related issues? Almost nothing. The money is spent on
wasteful nonsense.

What I don't understand is how American keeps going. We are broke, on
paper. If it weren't for China buying all our debt we would be standing
in donut lines.

You may think that this Republic is the greatest. Not me. As far as I
am concerned the American I grew up in has disappeared. We are a corrupt
joke of a country on the precipice of falling into the "Was a great
power" category.

Go ahead , just keeping throwing money to the local, state, federal
government. Give them more, more, more, more, more, more, more. ......
they need it for the next Katrina.

Or to build a tennis club in Iraq.

Not me..

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:12:07 GMT, "NE Sailboat"
said:

Dave ,, why do you refer to smart business practices as a "scam"?

There is nothing wrong with trying to avoid taxes. In fact, when it
comes
to boats .. I think it is crazy not to avoid taxes.
I fully agree with a well-known quote from, Judge Learned Hand:

"[A] transaction, otherwise within an exception of the tax law, does not
lose its immunity, because it is actuated by a desire to
avoid,.....taxation. Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes
shall
be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will
best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase
one's
taxes."

Problem is that people tend to ignore the first part of the
sentence--the
part about "otherwise within the exception of the tax law." I referred
to
the incorporating/documenting as a scam because it wasn't tax avoidance.
It
was tax evasion. The tax was legally due, and people tried to pull the
wool
over the tax authorities' eyes by not leaving a paper trail that the
authorities could easily find.

What does the state do with all the sales taxes it collects from the
poor
boaters?
I dunno. Does it keep collections from the poor boaters in a separate
kitty
from collections from the rich ones? Must be a pretty small kitty.

Does it use this money to improve the harbors? Or add docking
areas? Nope, it takes this money and ****es it down the drain. Some
fat
ass crook will get the money.

Screw that.
That reasoning goes a bit too far. I take it you're one of those folks
who
figures it's all right to evade income tax by skimming the receipts from
the
cash register, because the bureaucrats would just misuse the money
anyway.

If the government is so concerned with collecting taxes, why does it
let
corporations such as Canival Cruise Line operate here almost
exclusively yet
have all their boats registered offshore?
An argument sometimes called trying to justify bad behavior by pointing
at
other bad behavior.

If you hate it so much in America why don,t you move to Cuba, N. Vietnam,
Sri Lanka, China, Venezuela, Bolivia or someplace else