Do you invoice for sales tax?

basspig said:
Steve, let me understand this... do you agree then that is it moral to commit armed robbery, so long as the proceeds from the theft go to help the 'needy'? Because that's what universal healthcare is.

I think one important factor that Socialized medicine and socialized anything overlooks is that in such a system, which punishes achievers and rewards leeches, the achievers will soon lose interest in their former ambitions and too becomes leeches. Once all of the achievers give up due to lack of fulfillment in a Socialist system, the entire of society will fall back into the Dark Ages. Is that what you want? Because that's what such a system ultimately leads to.

In a Laissez-faire Capitalist system (never before seen in America, except maybe some aspects of it prior to 1863), the market punishes wrongdoers and rewards those who do right by their customers. It has natural built in safeguards that filter out the bad businessmen and lets remain only the best businessmen with the best value of services/products.

As it is in Nature, so society needs to be, because it is the way that is harmonious with human nature. Government beyond the three moral purposes I mentioned earlier, is antithetical to human nature; as such, it will always be in violent conflict with humans. I don't know about you, but I would not want to live in a society full of retarded cripples, because we protected that which nature would have naturally eliminated. In fact, it is cruel to keep such persons alive when they cannot enjoy a life where they have the physical and mental ability to pursue and reach their full potential. It is monstrous to keep such persons alive, and criminal to do it by forcing others to pay for their life support care.


BTW, I am glad to see a few Objectivists here in the forum. At least two of you have the correct moral and political view, as expressed in your responses.
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Completely, 100% agree -- this is exactly right.

Healthcare is a right? Healthcare isn't part of capitalism? You have to be really naive to think that. What the hell are you even smoking over there?! So let me get this straight, somehow -- even though we have far fewer medical professionals than we need -- they should all be paid less money because it's a "universal need"? My gf is going to nursing school, do you think she is doing it to make $35,000, $40,000 a year? No way! She wants to make the big bucks! It's a free market economy and healthcare professionals work VERY hard and go to many years of school, especially top surgeons and doctors of all sorts, to get where they are. Universal healthcare basically says that supply and demand doesn't matter, every doctor is going to get X amount, and that will completely remove the incentive from going into medicine at all. My friend Sean, one of my best friends in fact, goes to KU for medical school now, a brilliant guy and a great student, but he wouldn't be going into medicine if he were going to make $50,000 a year. He wants to be making at least $250,000K/year, and he deserves it! Not only has he made great sacrifices to get into this field, working very hard towards this goal, but he will not even start making money until he's in his 30s, after spending a ton going to school.

Once you start saying what is free market and what is not, you get into some real problems. I would say absolutely as little as possible should be handled by the government.

I don't approve of a society that keeps people alive at all costs. That is what we call a WEAK society. A strong society should destroy / let die its weakest members, just like you see in 300. That's the best solution. Instead we make every effort to keep some hideous creature alive and grow up to realize how messed up it is, how it will never be happy or lead a normal life, which is just cruel if you ask me. Let nature take its course. It isn't hideous or cruel, it's natural -- it's nature, after all, it can't be anything but "natural." Medicine in its best applications isn't meant to keep horrible abortions of human beings alive, it's meant to help healthy people who are temporarily sick, or help cure diseases in people who otherwise can make solid contributions.

The profit motive is what keeps medicine strong. Without that, there is no incentive to develop new drugs, no incentive to research diseases, and no incentive to get into medicine in the first place. That is a failed system.

Universal healthcare is a GREAT evil, and if you can't see that, I'm sorry, but stick to simple filmmaking and don't vote, don't get into politics, and let people who actually think of the ramifications of actions make the decisions. Obviously that type of thought is beyond some people.
 
basspig said:
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For a more thorough perspective in context on understanding this, I recommend "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand, and also "Introduction to Objectivist Epistomology [Second Edition]" by Ayn Rand, if you want to delve deeper into understanding the nature of man and how to live in a free society and what it requires to have and maintain a free society.
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I have read Rand, that you very much, and since I did I have had over 40 years to contemplate whether she made any sense.
 
JonathanLB said:
Completely, 100% agree -- this is exactly right.

Healthcare is a right? Healthcare isn't part of capitalism? You have to be really naive to think that. What the hell are you even smoking over there?! So let me get this straight, somehow -- even though we have far fewer medical professionals than we need -- they should all be paid less money because it's a "universal need"? My gf is going to nursing school, do you think she is doing it to make $35,000, $40,000 a year? No way! She wants to make the big bucks! It's a free market economy and healthcare professionals work VERY hard and go to many years of school, especially top surgeons and doctors of all sorts, to get where they are. Universal healthcare basically says that supply and demand doesn't matter, every doctor is going to get X amount, and that will completely remove the incentive from going into medicine at all. My friend Sean, one of my best friends in fact, goes to KU for medical school now, a brilliant guy and a great student, but he wouldn't be going into medicine if he were going to make $50,000 a year. He wants to be making at least $250,000K/year, and he deserves it! Not only has he made great sacrifices to get into this field, working very hard towards this goal, but he will not even start making money until he's in his 30s, after spending a ton going to school.

Once you start saying what is free market and what is not, you get into some real problems. I would say absolutely as little as possible should be handled by the government.

I don't approve of a society that keeps people alive at all costs. That is what we call a WEAK society. A strong society should destroy / let die its weakest members, just like you see in 300. That's the best solution. Instead we make every effort to keep some hideous creature alive and grow up to realize how messed up it is, how it will never be happy or lead a normal life, which is just cruel if you ask me. Let nature take its course. It isn't hideous or cruel, it's natural -- it's nature, after all, it can't be anything but "natural." Medicine in its best applications isn't meant to keep horrible abortions of human beings alive, it's meant to help healthy people who are temporarily sick, or help cure diseases in people who otherwise can make solid contributions.

The profit motive is what keeps medicine strong. Without that, there is no incentive to develop new drugs, no incentive to research diseases, and no incentive to get into medicine in the first place. That is a failed system.

Universal healthcare is a GREAT evil, and if you can't see that, I'm sorry, but stick to simple filmmaking and don't vote, don't get into politics, and let people who actually think of the ramifications of actions make the decisions. Obviously that type of thought is beyond some people.
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If what you say is correct, how can you exlain the fact that Cuba, of all places, has a lower infant mortality rate, lower maternal death rate. In terms of overall life expectancy, the USA is down at number 30 in the world - care to explain that?

Never suggested that health care professionals should be paid blue-collar wages. I'm all for them to make pots full of money - they've earned it. Not so sure about the corporate health care industry of HMO's and for-profit hospitals. Their investors and owners are parasites living off the misery of others.
 
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Steve House said:
If what you say is correct, how can you exlain the fact that Cuba, of all places, has a lower infant mortality rate, lower maternal death rate. In terms of overall life expectancy, the USA is down at number 30 in the world - care to explain that?
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Maybe they don't have message boards in Cuba and just enjoy the nice, relaxing warm weather.

I'm all stressed out, this thread has shaved a few years off my life.
 
Wow... I looked at this back on page 2, then came to this page.

It went from "hey, just asking what I should do about charging sales tax on my invoice" to infant mortality rates, cuba, and a socialism debate

hahah
 
Steve House said:
If what you say is correct, how can you exlain the fact that Cuba, of all places, has a lower infant mortality rate, lower maternal death rate. In terms of overall life expectancy, the USA is down at number 30 in the world - care to explain that?
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Did I just hear you compare Cuba to the United States?

Holy sh_t. :huh:

I guess if Cuba is so great, then we better stop all of our people from getting on boats and trying to get there.......oh wait.....got that reversed.....
 
Back to the point of this thread briefly (lol), I really don't believe that in California you have to collect sales taxes for film services rendered. In fact, I find no precedent for this whatsoever, and my accountant says that only something like renting equipment would incur sales taxes, not providing business-to-business film services.

So I'm not sure what exactly the original poster is talking about, but I don't think most film production businesses need to collect sales tax when no tangible goods are exchanging hands, rather services are performed. And these services are not listed as part of what is taxable by sales taxes according to the state of California, from what I have found.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Did I just hear you compare Cuba to the United States?

Holy sh_t. :huh:

I guess if Cuba is so great, then we better stop all of our people from getting on boats and trying to get there.......oh wait.....got that reversed.....
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Not at all - the claim had been made that free-market capitalism has produced the best health care system in the world. If that was true, one would expect the USA to have the highest life expectancy on the planet. It doesn't, not by a long shot. The exact position depends on how you break out the political boundaries (ie, is Martinique counted as being in in France or as a separate country, that sort of thing). Looking at political entities, the USA ranks in 30th position. Looking at geographic entities, it's in 45th place, ranking well behind countries with publically funded healthcare systems. Hardly a stunning endorsement of the efficiency of a free-market, laissez-faire capitalism based healthcare system such as has been advocated by the extreme social Darwinists.
 
Steve House said:
Not at all - the claim had been made that free-market capitalism has produced the best health care system in the world. If that was true, one would expect the USA to have the highest life expectancy on the planet. It doesn't, not by a long shot. The exact position depends on how you break out the political boundaries (ie, is Martinique counted as being in in France or as a separate country, that sort of thing). Looking at political entities, the USA ranks in 30th position. Looking at geographic entities, it's in 45th place, ranking well behind countries with publically funded healthcare systems. Hardly a stunning endorsement of the efficiency of a free-market, laissez-faire capitalism based healthcare system such as has been advocated by the extreme social Darwinists.
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It has to be the healthcare system and not any of the personal choices individual citizens in these countries make. I would love to see the quality of care in socialized countries if they stopped using the Medical knowledge and Education non-socialized give them.

PS. I have been wondering and asking about this tax thing for years and even among professionals the info is far from consensus. Anyone from PA got the skinny.
 
Steve, you forgot to take into account DIET. In 3rd world countries, people eat a simple, healthier diet, walk for transportation and are living longer because of it.
In the USA, a large number of people eat trans-fatty processed foods, sit around all day either at the computer or watching television and own automobiles for transport.
When I lived in the Philippines, I was shocked when I read the labels on typical food items, like bread. They were about 5-6 words long, as opposed to the 40-50 words on bread sold here--there were only food ingredients--no laboratory chemicals. That had me wondering why we have to have these chemicals in American foods, while the Philippines gets by fine without them. The food tastes better there too, especially chicken. Our cows here are pumped full of hormones. There are so many FDA regulations on meat production that it makes me wonder if they do more harm to our health than good.
Diet is a HUGE factor and must not be overlooked. Healthy people don't need nearly as much medical care.
 
kgimedia said:
It has to be the healthcare system and not any of the personal choices individual citizens in these countries make. I would love to see the quality of care in socialized countries if they stopped using the Medical knowledge and Education non-socialized give them..
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As a for what it's worth non political bit of info. The Soviet Union (remember them... used to be a "super power") anyway they didn't have access to cheap antibiotics cuz us capitalists had a lock on the market. So they developed something called microphages that served the same function. They were more work and don't have much market potential since to culture versions for each bacteria you are targeting and bacteria mutates so the microphages need to be altered and you need a big collection and you can't stockpile. The upside is that they are much more effective than antibiotics and don't have the resistance issue of antibiotics. We are never going to have them in the US because they will never be cost effective. Unfortunately we are also lacking any really effective antibiotics any more because in pursuit of profit they were over prescribed as the universal cure all. Of course we ended up crushing the USSR so the system that kept the microphages up to date is in bad shape. I'm not interested in living in a communist state but there are pluses and minuses and it's just silly to not acknowledge that. Democracy (as spelled out by Americas founders) is not all that different than communism (as spelled out by it's founders). It's the implementation that has corrupted both. The fed is far more intrusive than the founders ever imagined, but then what they spelled out is a LOT more secular than the states turned in to also. Freedoms were very heavily curtailed at times and laws veered far from the ground rules the founding fathers laid out. On the flip side the USSR was about as far from the theory of communism as you can get. One should not confuse the "reality" and the "theory". People keep spouting about socialized medicine and then connecting it somehow to communism and the USSR. The US is just about the only "civilized" country that doesn't have "socialized" medicine. So unless your willing to argue that the US is the source of all medical developments then you have to acknowledge that "socialized" medicine isn't the greatest evil around. And if you are willing to make that argument you show a vast lack of knowledge.

I'm not going to go into the shear stupidity of the eugenics argument. Most of the folks making that argument would not be alive if it were not for the very things they scorn. Just plain weak minds.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm trying to kick an evil habit of posting at 6 AM but seems like after a gig I can't sleep, but I can sure rant. I don't think the USA way is the best way but it is the way we got. Plus if we were really worried about health and life span our business would be one of the first to go. In a race to have the best gear we are responsible for all kind of nasty **** being created, used for a couple years and then dumped. Anybody remember CRT's?
 
What you don't think it is the essence of healthy living to work 18 hr days and drink a gallon of coffee... Hey you forgot to mention the folks eating greasy popcorn and over sugared soft drinks while sitting and watching our "product". A movie a bucket and a trough, how we used to refer to it any way.... ah the good times!
 
..and that's the problem--the laws are so complex, how are artists like ourselves supposed to understand and comply with a thousand different, and often contradictory, laws, or to even know which laws are applicable to us. The government has us by the balls when they say "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Well, ignorance of common sense may be no excuse, but the way some of these laws are written, you'd have to be a psychopath to understand them.
 
basspig said:
..and that's the problem--the laws are so complex, how are artists like ourselves supposed to understand and comply with a thousand different, and often contradictory, laws, or to even know which laws are applicable to us. The government has us by the balls when they say "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Well, ignorance of common sense may be no excuse, but the way some of these laws are written, you'd have to be a psychopath to understand them.
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Well see I knew we could agree on something. If I'm on the jury ignorance will get you a break and obtuseness of the law will get you a break. Of course attitudes like this probably will keep me off most juries. I got bumped last time because I said I would not vote guilty on a third strike case unless I thought the crime merited life in prison. The prosecutor argued that we needed to blindly follow the law. I pointed out that it wasn't illegal to send jews to concentration camps in WWII Germany and that one had a moral obligation to judge the law as well as the "crime". That rubbed them wrong and about 1/2 the jury pool got bumped because they wouldn't promise to send someone to prison for life for a minor felony (such as stealing a bicycle). Turns out it wasn't a three strike case so we were bumped simply because we wouldn't promise not to think.
 
On the jurisprudence matter, I wholeheartedly-agree!
I'm due to report for jury duty this fall, and, depending on the proscecutor's questions, I may reveal my point of view in a similar manner. That was a great line about the concentration camps. I'll have to remember that for when I report for jury duty in September.
 
Noiz2 said:
Well see I knew we could agree on something. If I'm on the jury ignorance will get you a break and obtuseness of the law will get you a break. Of course attitudes like this probably will keep me off most juries. I got bumped last time because I said I would not vote guilty on a third strike case unless I thought the crime merited life in prison. The prosecutor argued that we needed to blindly follow the law. I pointed out that it wasn't illegal to send jews to concentration camps in WWII Germany and that one had a moral obligation to judge the law as well as the "crime". That rubbed them wrong and about 1/2 the jury pool got bumped because they wouldn't promise to send someone to prison for life for a minor felony (such as stealing a bicycle). Turns out it wasn't a three strike case so we were bumped simply because we wouldn't promise not to think.
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The point of the three-strike law, which I actually agree with, is not that you're inflicting major punishment for a minor crime, it's that the acccused has proven that he is incapable of learning from the punishment he has received from strikes one and two and he needs to be permanently removed from circulation for the protection of those who would otherwise certainly become his future victims. Still committing crimes after two strikes is proof positive that nothing can be done to redeem him and he will continue his criminal behavior. A minor crime today is a signal that he will committ a major crime tomorrow - he just doesn't care about the impact of his actions and is incapable of learning how to live without victimizing others. The only thing that can be done to neutralize him and stop his lifestyle of recurrent victimization is to put him in a cage and never again let him out.

I think you are correct in your notion that the jury should judge the law as well as the defendent. I think the term is "jury nullification," where the jury can effectively nullify the law by finding that the crime the defendent is accused of should not be considered a crime, either in general or just that the law should not be applied in the particular instant case.
 
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