Pfft. No I didn't. You're still making a self-serving assumption or two, there. That the tax burden as a whole cannot be reduced for everyone, and that failing to jump on the "nail the rich guy" bandwagon automatically implies consent to pick up the slack for the non-payroll tax loopholes, under the assumption that there is no other way to make up for it. So no, your assertion doesn't follow. Not without a stated intent on the part of the person you're attributing it to, which you can't supply because it was never there.
One share is hardly serious investing. It's a gift some people give to get a kid off on the right foot (the right attitude would be a better way of putting that). The fact that he left it alone shows he had the sense to let that investment grow - that's part of the way people grow rich investing. As well, just leaving it alone has, indeed, shown that the stock market can and does work. Even now, it's not a lot of money, but it's a nice emergency stash if he needs it. The bigger thing that I noticed from reading that post and many others of his was that some hard work had caused him to be debt free and had produced some real estate investments that had given him some pretty good wealth for a person his age. Not spectacularly wealthy, but pretty comfortable and, with a better economy over the last few years, would be even better. All because of his hard work. So, yeah. It's possible for hard work to move you ahead in this country. He's certainly well ahead of the average (unless he's been lying his tail off all this time.)
I'm not talking about how well the investment did or did not become. My comment was on his use of who did what action. Yes, I knew he meant someone else made the investment for him. But, he said he did the investing. Please, you guys are not really this stupid.
No, really, the "Please" is, you are not this stupid. Everyone else knew just what he meant but you "caught" him.
Yes. I really thought he thought he'd get away with everyone thinking he popped out and said "I've got to go invest".
Talking about closing loopholes: http://publicola.com/2011/09/28/cola-fact-check-on-gregoire-shes-wrong-on-tax-break-for-big-banks/ That's right folks, a State audit found that giving away EIGHTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR to the banks had no noticeable effect on the rates paid by Washington State Residents compared to other states without the tax give away. In fact if anyone would like some hard data on loopholes in relations to results, check out the audit yourself. And from last years proposal to cut out the loophole, the main opponent: http://publicola.com/2011/05/11/bill-repealing-bank-tax-exemption-moves-out-of-committee/
There is no such "false pretense." And have you never heard of "ceteris paribus"? If you raise taxes on job providers, you will lose jobs. Even if you believe tax rates are not the current obstacle to employment. What "benefits"? The benefits of keeping the money they earned? The "benefits" of not paying so much of everyone else's tax burden? So raising taxes, in your own words, is "robbing the rich of capital"? Of course, I knew you felt that way, I just didn't think you'd ever actually use that word. Thank you for the unusually honest characterization of your own dishonest philosophy. The higher rates certainly caused higher unemployment than if they'd been lower. But other forces that caused employment were higher. If you impose higher rates (which work against employment) without the corresponding forces which drove employment in the first place, then you will see fewer jobs. Ceteris paribus -- higher taxes on job providers costs jobs. It's simple math: Jobs are created with the dollars employers keep. Ah, you are learning. Even when the tax rate is not the driving factor, it still has the same effect on a lower scale. Higher taxes on employers cause fewer jobs to be created, you stupid, stupid liberal fuck.
Liberal rationalization: Theft, which is criminalized primarily because it's morally wrong, becomes legal, just and moral if we simply decriminalize it. Or, even better, if we just turn it over to the state. Do you have scars on your forehead, or did they go in through your nose to do the lobotomy, Demi? No. Spending overseas is not "a transfer of wealth to another country." Watch closely: It's the transfer of paper to another country. Money itself is not wealth. When that other country spends that American money, then that spending is the source of American jobs. Just as if it was being spent by Americans. "We"? "Our"? You're free to do whatever you want with "your" money. What the rich do with theirs is simply none of your business. Using the US tax code for anything other than funding government as originally intended by the Constitution is TYRANNY.
Read a book. Missing the point - I don't care if the jobs which are not being created here due to misappropriation of the tax code are not created in India. The benefits of paying a lower tax rate based on the assumption that doing so will create more jobs in the country and therefore is a group benefit to the country as a whole. No jobs, no rationale for these tax cuts and the army of tax loopholes created specifically to spur job creation. It's a REALLY simple premise. Even you should be able to understand it. I was characterizing your argument, dummy - not that I felt that way myself. All you've got is 'gotcha' bullshit, trying to twist meanings of words that simply aren't there. I enjoy it however - it shows how intellectually bankrupt your conceits are. Thanks for playing along. No. Jobs are created with money that employers SPEND to make new jobs. They are KEEPING their dollars just fine. They've kept more than ever before. They aren't creating new jobs. If they spent those dollars in this nations economy, it would make sense to continue to grant them cuts so others would be advantaged. That is a win-win system and I backed it before globalization destroyed it. But globalization did destroy it, but the rich continue to lie their asses off stating that we should continue to grant them the privileges that they enjoyed when they were spurring our economy too. In the mean while the other groups take it on the chin. Don't condescend to me, Rick. You aren't capable of it. I supported supply side in the Reagan era, because it was the dominant factor and in large measure it did work. I don't now because conditions have changed, and any benefit granted is being massively overwhelmed by globalization, and that is being driven more quickly by the communications age. I'm a moderate - it means I don't just take the information I have and regurgitate it, I consider it. We live in a time of massive transformation. Understanding the changes is critical. Your shit is old, and it doesn't work any more, and it is fucking this country up. Closing the loopholes that have allowed the hyper rich to create a massive wealth disparity while the middle and lower class have stagnated or regressed isn't devolving into class warfare. It's STOPPING class warfare. Especially as this class warfare allows them to manipulate the political environment, giving them even more ability to corrupt the governmental structure to do the same. Since 1980: Productivity of the average worker is up 75% Said workers wages are up 3.5% Top 1% average income: Up 240% http://www.economywatch.com/in-the-...-to-be-a-ceo-in-the-current-economy.29-09.htm They don't need any tax breaks to help make jobs. Unemployment is up 50% over the same time period if you go by the way they calculated in 1980 - and 1980 was a recession year too.
A crime isn't what is morally wrong, plenty of immoral acts that aren't crimes, and there's even a few moral acts which are crimes. It's what's legally wrong and capable of being prosecuted. You are just crying 'they legally are allowed to tax us, and that's NOT FAIR!' Just goes back to your own bullshit preconceptions, and how you don't even understand your own hypocrisy. Absolutely, categorically, undeniably wrong. Investing in a Chinese company that makes Chinese goods for a Chinese market does not create American jobs, dumbass. It may create wealth for the investor, but that doesn't make American jobs either. It depends on whether he saves the money, reinvests it, and of course where and to what end that investment goes. You fail econ 101. It is when they are getting it because they say they are creating American jobs - and then don't. Yes, how they are taxed then is very much my business. They are not only benefiting from a deceptive practice, they are increasing the deficit and the debt that my family will have to pay off as our share of the governmental debt. 16TH AMENDMENT, DUMBASS. It's amazing how inconvenient idiots like you find the rule of law. It's great, as long as it allows you to exploit others. But the parts the protect people from the tyranny of the rich? Then it's all whining about how it was never intended to do so. Congress has the power to set taxation. Period. Don't like it? Get the fuck out. Taxation isn't a moral injustice. Taxation without representation was, and you could even argue that destructive levels of taxation could be. But something like an minimum tax to close loopholes so a billionaire is paying the same % as a school teacher? Only a complete loon would call that tyranny. But then, your drooling dogmatic rhetoric has been shown over and over again. You are a complete fucking loon.
Missing the point - you will lose American jobs too. Stupid fuck. This would be far more interesting if you were arguing that there's simply not enough government, or that our nearly-$4-trillion government just needs more walking around money to solve our employment problem. As it is, you're just pissed off that people whose money isn't being confiscated by the government are doing the most profitable thing they can with the money they earned. Too bad, so sad. Now go fuck yourself. No, jobs are created with money that employers RISK in order to profit from ventures that require additional workers. Right now, there is greatly reduced demand (due to widespread overextension of debt brought about more by loose monetary policy than by any other factor). In that clime, the ingredient for continued investment is reduced risk. But leftist government policy (and its complete disregard for property rights, as witnessed by your drooling at the thought of new tax revenues) is only RAISING risk. Who the fuck would want to hire new employees when there's a multi-thousand-dollars-per-year premium on each employee looming around the bend??? It amazes me how liberals (or "moderates" like yourself -- ROTFLMAO) pile on policy after policy in order to enslave people who just want to work for themselves. Because the truth is that you'd be happier in a universally poor country, using the media apparatchik to tell people they're rich, than to live in an actually rich country with the nagging burning vaginal itch of knowing that some people are even richer while others living below the "poverty" line only have one car and one Xbox. It's true, I may never be able to get all the way down into that gutter where I can reach you, Demi. I don't believe you. I thnk you're lying. Give me a link to anything you've ever said in support of supply side economics. And a link to previous statements that you once supported supply side doesn't count. Let's see you actually saying it, Marxist. You are a turd. You don't operate or reason on a principle, except to pretend that being half as liberal isn't liberal. My "shit" is that basic economics are sound, that people want to be free, and that "free" doesn't always produce what everyone wants. What's "fucking this country up" is that people want a sum total greater than what they're actually producing. The rich own mostly paper money, office buildings, factories and machines. And they're not putting any of it to work because people like you are clamoring to steal from them. Legally, of course. The rich do not view the economy as a struggle between themselves and the poor. Therefore, the only class warfare involved is the one waged by people who do view it as such -- and their democratically elected leaders. That added productivity isn't due to the increased education, effort or work ethic of the average worker. In fact he's less educated, more coddled, more protected and more expensive than ever. The productivity increases are due to infrastructure improvements made by entrepreneurs and engineers -- why on earth shouldn't they get all the gains if they created them?
Yes, the 16th is tyranny. I'm not going to pretend that the Constitution is some magical sanctuary where no evil dwells. The 16th was lodged in the Constitution specifically to immunize it from everything else in the Constitution. The 16th isn't there because of some "oversight." It's there because the Constitution explicitly prohibited it. It's there because that liberty was just too much freedom for people like you. LMAO at this "tyranny of the rich" nonsense. You're a fucking idiot. As if "the rich" want nothing but to torture everyone else.
At a far lower percentage because those jobs aren't being created here in the first place. You can stimulate local job creation through small business tax cuts, and I'm all for that. Use the nations tax code to help build a stronger nation, not advantage the hyperrich even more than they already are. Aww, is baby sad that his bullshit is so easily seen through? Baby can always go on Ameritrade. Same bullshit. No reason to give a tax cut to the hyper rich if they aren't creating jobs here. And they aren't. The risk requires them to spend it. You originally said KEEP - no, it isn't money they keep. You were wrong. End of story. This is your little fantasy that exists nowhere except your own little head. An AMT to close loopholes, one that already exists for the middle class I might add, isn't going to impoverish the nation. We have historically LOW tax rates now. Look it up. That hasn't brought universal prosperity. Rick, the bums have been pissing and shitting on your head for decades. You are as morally vacuous an individual as I've ever seen. What an idiot. What a complete fucking idiot. You do know that I won't be able to provide a link to something on the interwebz before globalization, don't you? You do know that the database here is purged ever year or two? You do know that the last thing I give a shit about is what you think I need to prove to you? What a pathetic loser. ROTFLMAO... there's the heart of it of course. You are so far to the right that a moderate appears to be a liberal to you. Fundie extremist. Being half a liberal - and half a conservative - IS the definition of a moderate, moron. They are paying a lower percentage of taxes than anytime in the last four generations. They've been doing so for a decade. They haven't put that money to work during that decade here - but it's all everyone else's fault because we have been saying they need to pay a the same percentage of taxes as everyone else for the last year or two? Interesting reality you live in there Ricky. Like hell they don't. That's why THEY are screaming bloody murder over having to pay the same percentage of taxes as a secretary or librarian. No one was using the term class warfare until the wholly owned subsidiaries of the hyperrich in the Republican party started talking about it. Class warfare was brought into this conversation to define the concept that asking the top 1% to pay an AMT was an attack against them. If anyone is focused on the concept of class warfare, it's the rich. Surely no class warfare going on in that analysis. Those lazy shift abouts - taking our hard earned money. They should thank US for letting them work a 12 hour day with no guaranteed vacation, health care or maternity leave (unlike EVERY other Western country). Do you intentionally TRY to come off as a caricature of Mr. Burns?
The damndest thing - I'm not saying raise the tax rate to levels which punish the rich. I'm saying that because the justification to lower the tax rate on the wealthy was to spur job creation which didn't pan out in that manner isn't valid, we should raise the rates to their historic levels, not increase them past that to bleed the rich. And the rich are frothing at the mouth because the feel justified in paying lower tax rates in the country they live in even though it isn't stimulating job growth here. Talk about a sense of entitlement.
I'd love to participate in this thread, but with Demi foaming at the mouth, don't really see a point. No one on the left side of the politcal specturm has presented anything even resembling a cogent argument or even a point worth countering (c'mon Anc, a billion savings from repeal of B&O preference item, really? all that leaves is like trillions and trillions left). [Y'know how Congress recently put a price control on debit card swiipe fees? So next year the banks will start charging monthly fees to use a debit card. Geez that was a hard law to step around. As if any of congresses social engiennering effectively hits a nail on the head. What a fuckin joke you believers in government are.]
Other considerations aside, the fact that the lower tax rates were sold on the notion of job creation doesn't necessarily mean that's the only possible justification for keeping the tax cuts in place.
Huh. Now seems like a perfect time to say "correlation does not equal causation". High tax rates on the wealthy were also just plain wrong. That alone justified them being lowered. Job creation has been killed as well by an overbearing, burdensome regulatory environment. Let's do some serious work on getting that mess straightened out. (Obama himself has been forced to start advocating this, if only a little, in light of electoral realities.) Getting a tax system that is fair to all and requires something of everyone (reform of loopholes is a good idea) is needed. But the primary focus should be on restraining out of control spending. Without that, Congress has historically shown it will always spend every dollar and more that it receives.
Weak sauce. Come up with a valid one, and I'll listen. But so far it's all been 'it will create jobs!' No, it hasn't. It has helped create a massive debt - that will have to be paid for at some point.
If you care about the debt, I'll not hear of raising taxes or letting cuts expire unless accompanied by some serious, drastic spending cuts, where no department, program, or agency is immune.
Or, to phrase it the way I just did to my cat..."oh, gawd, what did you eat? What did you eat? Come here...*finger down throat* give it, give it...".
Agreed. The premise that low tax rates on the rich will cause more jobs hasn't been proven. Hell, there's not even any correlation. It's much more complicated than that, and is a shitty and sophomoric thing to predicate the nation's tax policy on. Yes, I know, it just isn't 'fair.' Excellent idea. However, that doesn't mitigate the other issue one damn bit. Certainly regulation did not increase in scope during the Bush years dramatically. Fair taxation, eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation, cut taxes on the real job creators, small business, all while cutting back spending and finding ways to improve the efficiency of the spending we have now. That's a hell of a good plan to getting us out of the mess we are in. More of the same? Pretty fucking dumb. The first spot is right on. The later part is needed as well, but I think the focus needs to be equally on ensuring tax loopholes are closed. As it stands now, the rich have a hugely disproportionate impact on the democratic process. If that continues, democracy itself will be in trouble. It's played out a dozen times in a dozen bannana republics - let's head it off and have proper checks and balances to help prevent popular uprsings in the first place. Hell, that's why Marx's dialectic failed - because the capital class realized that if they only worked to their own profit than the masses which supported the system would rise up. They chose to do so out of their own self-interest. Between the financial crisis and the massive scam that is the tax cuts, they seem to have forgotten that maxim.
Well, great. When the big spending cuts start happening, we can revisit the subject of raising taxes.
"Both" is good. Either one by itself is unnacceptible. I don't wanna fucking hear "We'll look into spending cuts later on, but we gotta raise taxes now!"
They've starting on the spending cuts, $1 trillion of the next ten years already passed as part of the debt ceiling bill, another $1.2 trillion happen across the board automatically if they can't agree on what should be cut next. Not enough by far, but not insubstantial either. I'd say close the loopholes next, and we'll see what shape we are in. If they are small as those with self-interest claim they are (so they aren't worth doing) then we can cut additional spending. If they are larger (and every indices I've seen shows there's been about $3-4 trillion in various tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest 1% since 2001) then we'll have substantially closed our deficit problem.
I love how the corporatists just ignore the research showing that even though Washington gives way $80 Million dollars a year in tax subsidies to banks on mortgage loans, IT HAS HAD NO EFFECT ON THE RATES WASHINGTON CITIZENS GET. And yet according to them, dare to cut these subsidies and all sorts of economic chaos will ensue.
Actually I think you misread a lot of those people that contradict or disagree with you. I think you'll find very few -if any- advocates of corporate welfare, or corporate preference items. When we raise objections to the populist crap (and class warfare as The Obama <praise Him> has been practicing it) that says we need higher taxes on the rich, it's based on fundamental differences of philosophy re (1) the role of the Fedgov in the first place, (2) disfavor for any tax-preferenced item (but don't pick and choose which ones to abolish because that's always proven to be stupid, in hindsight and often with foreknowledge), or (3) a global market that will eventually punish, usually with interest and penalties, every single form of protectionism, every single encroachment on free international trade (whether it's a surtax on capital, price support for inefficient industries, tariffs in imports, or tax on stock traders' bonus etc). Capital will respond in kind - it'll move offshore if 'overtaxed' (relative to other states), it will lead to bankruptcy and displaced workforce (as with Solyndra when a local solar plant can't compete with solar panel makers overseas), it costs consumers higher prices (as with the tariffs on light trucks that dampened competition from Japan throughout the past 5 decades), and trader jobs will move somewhere else (see what happens in London). I certainly don't think banks or financial service firms need 'corporate welfare' that's preposterous. But what you lefties and need-more-taxes-on-the rich short-eyes plainly fail to realize is the extraordinary amounts of regulations that effectively impose 'taxes' in the billions, little things like the effete Dodd-Frank which changed almost nothing of what led to the expensive consequences of the '08 crash in the first place, it's all still there: too-big-to-fail, the credit ratings firm's protected oligopoly, both GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, wall street paying bonuses that may prove unaffordable over the long terms, absence of a clearinghouse for the famed collateralized debt obligations (though thankfully they no longer represent hundreds of billions in black holes on bank and investment firms' balance sheets). Bad regulation when we were promised smart regulation (okay, false promises from the O-man isn't really saying anything). So, for example, I certainly don't think Big Oil needs subsidies, but I'll object to any so-called reform that strips incentives from carbon-based energy producers while maintaining or accelerating "green" energy projects, when Nat Gas-fired plants generate electricity at a cost of $63 per megawatt hour, versus offshore wind ($243 per megawatt hour) or solar thermal plants ($311 per megawatt hour). Stupidity is when we spend half a billion ($500000000, or a five with eight zeros) to fund a company that makes panels that cost $6 to produce which can be sold for $3 a panel. Clinton imposed a millionaire tax on anyone who makes over $1 mm., so executives were compensated instead with stock options. The AMT was created and designed precisely for the same needs Obama claims are present in today's tax code - impose a tax on anyone who benefits too much from tax preference items, so they will pay a "minimum tax". Except now instead of reaching dozens of taxpayers as designed, it hits over 21 million people (though that's probably fewer today, thanks to 3 years of Obamanomics). We're just re-treading the same ground. And instead of 3.5% economic growth we've seen over past 5 decades, we'll step down to the more sedentary 2-2.5% growth that Europe and Japan has seen since since the 70s.
