obnoxious

Where's Waldo (NES)

7 hours ago, mbd39 said:

Shows how influential AVGN is. People just regurgitate the opinions of a fictional Youtube character.

Maybe there's a coincidence here. We're talking about bad games and AVGN is based on bad games...

I mean, the character's been running for more than a decade, it's very hard not to pick something he already reviewed

1 hour ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

If families can afford more goods, suppliers will raise the cost of goods to balance out the demand. Isn't that Macro 101?

That's true as long as the number of such goods remains the same.

5 hours ago, Link said:

Zero surprise that someone named @obnoxiousdoesn’t understand the real world.

Come on, leave my username alone already 

Also I never said it would  severely impact the price of goods because it doesn't, not by itself. Economy isn't that simple. Don't strawman me, please.

45 minutes ago, Shmup said:

Don’t know enough about Brazil but if they’re similar to Colombia, probably not. But that’s due to corruption in government and not the actual tax system unfortunately.

Maybe that's why I'm skeptic about it. 

15 minutes ago, Shmup said:

E.g someone earns $0-$18000 no tax, $18 001-$45k you pay X percent. $45 001-$80 000 you pay a higher X percent etc etc. until you get to say $200 000 and anything over that is the highest tax rate, maybe 45%. Anyone earning over $200k is doing very well in my book and should help society provide services to help those less fortunate

Yeah, that's how it works here in Brazil

• up to R$ 1.903,98: 0%
• From R$ 1.903,99 to R$ 2.826,65: 7,5%
• From 3: De R$ 2.826,66 to R$ 3.751,05: 15%
• From 4: De R$ 3.751,06 to R$ 4.664,68: 22,5%
• From 5: R$ 4.664,68 and above: 27,5%
  
   

Good luck implementing that and promising quality health care and such... The idea is great, tho.

3 minutes ago, Shmup said:

How much is enough for what?

Sorry for not specifying. How much minimum wage is enough to make it a living minimum wage?

 

4 minutes ago, Shmup said:

If you’re talking about minimum wage, well, that’s the job for the treasurer to work out. Our minimum wage for an adult is $19.84. Whether you’re working as a waiter or flipping burgers, you must be paid that amount. We’re functioning fine and people are still buying food and going to restaurants. 

Ok, let's consider the treasurer set it to $19.84. Why not $22 or $60 or whatever? What are the impacts and consequences of going higher than $19.84?

12 minutes ago, Shmup said:

It absolutely blows my mind that people actually advocate to not pay someone a living minimum wage. Why should a dude flipping pizzas or serving tables not earn a living wage? You could wipe out your tipping system overnight by paying someone properly. They also then feel like a member of society and can actually buy things and contribute.

That's an old discussion in South America. So here's a question: how much is enough?

Wouldn't it be easy to just set it to 3k dollars or something? How about 5k? Well, let's make it 10k. Any ideas on why it doesn't work?

Oh we also still have tipping, it's usually 10%. Guess why?

3 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Actually, the United States tried it before, and it did work.

I assume you're not familiar with the history of taxes in the US, which is why you keep bringing up extreme examples like Russia. During World War II, we had a top marginal tax rate of 90+%.

90+%!

And that lasted through the mid 60s. AKA, the era that conservatives want us to go back to. We had infrastructure, a strong middle class, and the rich were still rich. They didn't pay 90% of their income. It was tiered, so they were actually paying a bit less. And they could pay less if they invested back into their own company to improve their workers' livelihoods and improve the overall economy. And it worked.

Those tax rates were lowered slowly through the 60s and 70s, but then decimated in the 80s during the Reagan era to a historical low of 28%. Clinton brought it back up to about 39%.

That's about all anyone wants to bring it up to. 39% or so, so we can pay for some things like roads and health services. No one is saying we should be like Soviet Russia.

 

Socialist Russia is an extreme example but the specific example I used was not extreme, because it's being used, right now, in Argentina. They are freezing prices just like Brazil did in the 80s and totally ruined the economy.

No, I'm not familiar with all US taxes history. I also don't know the economical context from your example, except that World Wars mess up every possible aspect of economy.

Well then, let's wait for the laws taxing rich people to start collecting money and see where it takes the US economy. Guess they know what they are doing.

Thanks for the nice talk and being respectful. We don't have to hate each other because we disagree on stuff.

3 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Lol except "Stealing from the people" is the only way governments make money. That's like...the definition of taxes? How can a government make money except by taking it from people or companies (which are effectively just groups of people)?

Do you think there's a limit that separates "money to keep wheels turning" from "we want more money because we can take it from you"? For me, there is and this is what I meant. Sorry for not specifying this.

But then, we'd enter another realms of discussion like "how much is enough" or "when it's fair or not". Discussion-wise, taking money from people who already paid their taxes because they have a lot of it is just like kids making new rules when they are losing a game.
 

7 minutes ago, Khromak said:

That's kinda like...not how economies work? Money doesn't disappear into the aether once it's spent.

That's a way it may work but not a good one. Consider the context of my statement: getting rich people's money and distributing it. It will be a one-off thing that will totally distort the production chain because the industry will see things (food, electronics, everything actually) flying off the shelves and will produce more of it. Next month most people spent their share and all that extra production will gather spider webs and a lot of money was put in producing stuff without buyers. This is the most simplistic and short way to explain one of the possible consequences.

I never said that money disappears, although it's possible and also can be created from practically nothing (with consequences, both cases).

15 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Yeah I mean that's the problem. I'm not talking about government seizing the means of production or anything...

Me neither, I was talking about freezing prices or just messing with it and how it causes hunger and kills poor people. Price is a consequence not a cause, it's like feeling too young/old and changing your age. Like the bell curve thing, it takes statistics knowledge, a precise definition of what's plotted in it and very good arguments to turn it into some law. You want that right line to be higher or to turn it into a linear increasing graph, I understand it. But maybe things aren't that simple and we may end up scratching our heads with another bell curve, trying to figure out what the hell happened.


Look, I knows this subject makes people uncomfortable and makes them fight/dislike each other. Long story short, all I'm saying is: it was tried before, did not work. If we're going to risk messing up the economy and starving some people to death, let's do it with new ideas.

And I'm taking this topic as a chance to practice my written english

On 10/20/2021 at 12:37 PM, Khromak said:

 I'm getting the impression from your responses on this topic that you're really jaded about trying to tax rich people. Maybe you're right that it's too difficult to tax these people because of their influence in law writing and/or their access to high skilled accountants. That still doesn't make it any more right morally.

Not jaded, I think we have enough practical examples on why it doesn't work as intended. Good intentions do not imply good outcomes.

Is every law moral? No. Is it possible to make immoral laws based on moral intentions? Yes, absolutely. I have a personal rule: I don't agree to laws made under a government I "like" that a government I "don't like" would abuse. Today we have a "tax the rich" law, tomorrow we'll have a "tax everyone who has a car and college education". It's a very dangerous slippery slope giving such powers to politicians.

 

On 10/20/2021 at 12:37 PM, Khromak said:

Sure, you can insist all day that it will stifle innovation and nobody will ever bother to put any effort in because they are turned off by how much their new income will be taxed, but I don't buy that BS.

I don't mean to be rude and I'm totally not being rude but wether you buy that or not is totally irrelevant. I really like this quote: "Ideology is the adequacy of the thing to the thought. Philosophy is the adequacy of the thought to the thing."

Reality is what it is, we must accept it, risking making very bad decisions by ignoring it. We do have examples in the past when governments messed with the reward mechanism of the free market and it always ended up bad to the lower and middle classes, and I'm talking about socialist Russia stuff here. If reality clashes with my solution to something, I must reconsider my solution, putting aside good intentions.


Personally, I think that "tax the rich" has nothing to do with inequality, for the elites who advocate for it. It solves nothing. Sum up every fortune in the US. Now split it equally among every citizen. Everyone gets a little and that money will be spent and never seen again. That money is better serving society making services/goods cheaper (by raising efficiency). Here's a simple example: let's say that distributing Jeff Bezo's wealth will force Amazon's delivery chain to end. What will that do to the cost of shipping by different companies?


This is a complex subject, everything I'm writing doesn't even touch the tip of the problem. All I'm sure is that governments should find a way to raise money besides stealing from people, no matter where they money came from.

5 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Whelp another one to add to the ignore list - have fun everyone!

We are having a civilized discussion here.

I guess....
 

"we’ve become so divided we can’t get out of our own way to help each other anymore."

Disgusting really

15 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Yeah that’s totally working

"Working" is subjective. It depends on parameters of what it means "to work".

We can say that 'not getting money that was already taxed' is fair. It is "working" if we consider that people already paid their "debt to society" when they paid their taxes. It is "not working" if we think that distributing half this money would people make every poor less poor, forever.

I was once for this kind of stuff, it works well in our imagination and good intentions, but does not in reality. Economy is a very unstable mechanism and messing with it will cause problems that will demand more laws to correct it, which will cause more problems... and so on. 

But ok, don't trust what I say. Let's see that in practice and it's outcome (ignoring all the times it was tried and went wrong).

6 minutes ago, KokiriChild said:

When people hear "tax the rich," they think we mean "take that small business owner who makes 200k-2m a year's hard work away and give it to the poor." What we're really talking about are the 0.01%.

Create the laws and see this statement getting mangled by politicians. Why the 0.01% (which once were the 1%) want laws to enforce it to themselves when they could just donate that money?

Doesn't make sense to me.

1 minute ago, a3quit4s said:

Yeah I’m not talking about people who inherit $2 million from mom and pop who ran a pizza shop for 40 years. 

It doesn't matter where the money came from, considering it's not from a crime.

Pizza shop? Taxes paid
Previous inheritance? Taxes paid
Lottery? Taxes paid

Doesn't matter where the money came from. It's theirs. If there are plenty of ways to donate there's no reason to make laws forcing everyone to do it.

22 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

take 1/2 of it away because...death

Government and "politicized" people can't leave others alone even when they DIE. There's a family mourning and they are asking "hey, where's the money, give me the money"....

That's fucking cruel no matter how much money we are talking about, even when you think about the "fat capitalist with a top hat" stereotype.

The curious thing is that people who support this kind of taxation are often those who don't have an inheritance to pass forward. And when they do have, they don't donate 50% because it's undeserved, they ask for laws to enforce it to himself and others. They just don't live by their own words.

Also, when this kind of taxation is implemented and things go wrong, people start pointing fingers at each other and demanding more taxes and lowering the cutoff line, because it's more comfortable than saying "Well, we were wrong... AGAIN. Let's stop doing this.".

5 minutes ago, Khromak said:

"Someone who did absolutely nothing for this money and is suddenly being given $2m for the arduous task of being born to a rich parent is being taxed for their lottery winnings"

If this person's parents took risks, failed, tried again, worked their fingers to the bone to save those $2m, generating value as services or goods to society, so their children wouldn't have to do the same, that means we should take part of it to distribute to other people who also did nothing to earn it? Will we punish people for being successful?

It's theirs, they do what they please with their own money. If you think that this money is not deserved and it's yours, then you should donate, distribute or do whatever.

It's very simplistic and far from reality to call everyone receiving an inheritance "spoiled little brats" but the fact is that the majority of people work very hard and live on a shoestring to save that amount of money. If we start stealing from their kids the right to those savings, they will just spend everything or evade taxation.

TL;DR: doesn't work and when it does, it's unfair.

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

tax the rich, implement an inheritance tax

You know that taxing the rich doesn't work right? I know your intentions are good but that only makes rich people richer and goods more expensive to everyone. I mean, if the richest people in the world are for this crap why they just won't donate or ask for a "voluntary tax" (if that even makes sense) so that they can give money to the government?

No, they want all their smaller competitors to go broke.

And inheritance taxation? A person pays taxes all his life and when he dies, he has to pay more, because someone thinks he should be distributing his money. And the richest? They hire lawyers to evade the tax. Once again, the richest people don't get a scratch but those just ascending economically get punished.

Many countries had high inflation rates before but never so many of them at the same time.

Over 40% of the Money US has EVER printed in its history was printed in 2020. 

It's gonna get ugly.

1 hour ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

Okay, thanks for the reply and the help. Thanks to some of the little hints from Arnpoly I finally managed to beat Days of Thunder!   

You are a legend. I've been trying for two weeks to beat this damn game.

inspect bucket

26 minutes ago, Strange said:

That opening cutscene vs. Kraid in Dread is so good. Samus walks in all defensive, sees who it is, and is like “Oh.”

Talk about knowing your public...

5 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

@obnoxious Are you from Brazil or have ties there? I am looking for a contact from that region, who can help me obtain some games for my collection. Now is not the right time, but maybe in a few months. I am glad to make your acquaintance, and will surely make it worth your time

Yes, I live in Brazil. Feel free to PM me.

10 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I would love to have one of each of those.

There's a brazillian ebay-like site called Mercado Livre. I could be an intermediate in buying them and sending to you, if the seller can't ship intl (they most probably can't or won't). Here's a search result for this kind of cartridges, so you can look around:

https://lista.mercadolivre.com.br/atari-cartucho-tron-t#D[A:atari cartucho tron T]

Cartridge = "cartucho" or "fita"

If you use the next quote answer's linked URLs you can get some keywords to search for more. PM me if you need any help.
 

9 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Those look sweet. How many different titles were available?

Here's a 30-page long post made by an AtariAge user named "Sr. Ferraz" and it's awesome. It goes from cartridges to ads and everything. From it you can see how prolific Brazil was in making third party stuff for the 2600
https://atariage.com/forums/topic/83572-items-for-atari-2600-manufactured-in-brazil/#comments

And a more organized database:
http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-2600-vcs-tron-t-handle_label_157_2_G.html

1 hour ago, nrslam said:

Love the T handles. Brazil had an interesting 2600 scene and I got a bunch of Brazilian 2600 and Odyssey2 stuff in trade way back, but none of the Tron titles.

We had SO MUCH clones and unofficial publishers that i think MAYBE we were a big part in the 80s vg crash lol.
 

What are your thoughts on these? Are collectors outside Brazil interested in them?