Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

[alfablue]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Your candidate is bought and paid for by those 1%ers, too.

And?

Trump's stated policy is to reduce taxes, mostly up at the high end- which should have the effect of broadening the gap. (trying to bring back trickle down economics, which we know doesn't actually work thanks to the high savings rates at the top)

Clinton's stated policy is to reduce the breaks that the top get (and I hope she does it to the rule her husband put in) and use that extra money to build infrastructure. Which does 2 things- it gets us some better infrastructure AND gets some more middle money moving through the economy. Seems like nobody recognizes that a lot of government spending just cycles money through the economy- and given that we are a consumer based economy- that is not a bad thing.

Anyway, even if Hillary is "bought" by the 1%, they are the 1%'ers that recognize what is going on.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Last two Dem Presidents raised taxes on the rich. Two of the last 3 Goopers massively cut taxes on the rich. You do the math.

[alfablue]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Last two Dem Presidents raised taxes on the rich. Two of the last 3 Goopers massively cut taxes on the rich. You do the math.

(the break I don't like is the capitol gains tax- where you get a tax break on good gambling of the value of something. Income is income- should all be the same. If they want to benefit people in direct investments to companies- fine- do it JUST for people buying into IPO's, and for home owners, JUST the primary residence.)

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

(the break I don't like is the capitol gains tax- where you get a tax break on good gambling of the value of something. Income is income- should all be the same. If they want to benefit people in direct investments to companies- fine- do it JUST for people buying into IPO's, and for home owners, JUST the primary residence.)

I'm good with this. You have to filter Clinton's presidency through the times we lived in. During peace and prosperity, you should reduce the debt which is what he did, and make investments which he also did, but with the opposition party controlling Congress you have to throw them a bone and I suspect that's what the capital gains cut was about.

[alfablue]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

I'm good with this. You have to filter Clinton's presidency through the times we lived in. During peace and prosperity, you should reduce the debt which is what he did, and make investments which he also did, but with the opposition party controlling Congress you have to throw them a bone and I suspect that's what the capital gains cut was about.

The problem with that was the side effect. I think we are now more obsessed with Wall Street than we ever have, and it's not healthy. And with the long term gains that are taxed at 1/2 rate, it also leads to suspect ways to invest, as well as suspect ways to see the rules- a lot of which happened for the economic meltdown in '08. Pretty much all parts can be traced to lower taxed income as a selling point for your money.

That one needs to go away, even if we benefit by it.

[BassAle]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Oh, those poor poor 1%'ers, having to pay so much taxes. Hey joe, if you feel so bad for them, hand over your paycheck to Donald Trump and his pals if you'd like. Just don't try to make the rest of us.

Good article here about how Trump represents his party, and they're not going away even if he gets crushed.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...d-trump-214166

It's almost comical how much knucks like Joe care about the poor 1%'ers while at the same time not giving a **** about the less fortunate (especially if they are brown and don't speak English all that well).

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

That would have been a bit more honest had he also included how much the top 1% earn relative to the rest. I'm willing to bet it's significantly more than 38% of the wealth.

Depending on method or source you prefer it is in the neighborhood of 16-20%. Most likely about 18%, so no.

(the break I don't like is the capitol gains tax- where you get a tax break on good gambling of the value of something. Income is income- should all be the same. If they want to benefit people in direct investments to companies- fine- do it JUST for people buying into IPO's, and for home owners, JUST the primary residence.)

Can't agree with you here. As an example a roughly $250k earning CA resident would pay 33% plus 10.3% on long term returns in an environment where the real world average tax of this sort is around 18%. Investing has risk so there needs to be reward or Mr./Ms. California might just as well stuff the mattress with $100 bills. Setting aside the double taxation argument, raising long term capital gains rates in this manner, despite the notion that we'd all be really sticking it to the rich, would very likely have an extremely negative economic result. Since capital formation is critical to improved productivity and, therefore, to GDP and real-wage growth it is important to find a proper balancing point in which investment is still encouraged by real return incentives. (And it would hardly seem fair to me to advantage IPO's for capital investment over existing concerns that they are often entering the market to compete against.)

I think that unless we're prepared to just have the state seize assets of the rich above a certain valuation, the fact of the matter is that job growth, GDP growth, and even wage growth is going to come at the expense of some rich people getting even richer.

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Roger Ailes is joining Drumpf's campaign

Oh and the New York Daily News destroyed Guiliani

This is better than anything on tv

[alfablue]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Depending on method or source you prefer it is in the neighborhood of 16-20%. Most likely about 18%, so no.



Can't agree with you here. As an example a roughly $250k earning CA resident would pay 33% plus 10.3% on long term returns in an environment where the real world average tax of this sort is around 18%. Investing has risk so there needs to be reward or Mr./Ms. California might just as well stuff the mattress with $100 bills. Setting aside the double taxation argument, raising long term capital gains rates in this manner, despite the notion that we'd all be really sticking it to the rich, would very likely have an extremely negative economic result. Since capital formation is critical to improved productivity and, therefore, to GDP and real-wage growth it is important to find a proper balancing point in which investment is still encouraged by real return incentives. (And it would hardly seem fair to me to advantage IPO's for capital investment over existing concerns that they are often entering the market to compete against.)

I think that unless we're prepared to just have the state seize assets of the rich above a certain valuation, the fact of the matter is that job growth, GDP growth, and even wage growth is going to come at the expense of some rich people getting even richer.

You need to do a better job explaining why investments income gets some kind of advantage over regular income. It should not be treated any differently.

So if $250k family pays 18% on all of their income (thanks to other deductions), it will stay that way earning $10k on capitol gains. Nothing is going to change.

But it also means that if said family earns that money actually working and contributing to a companies bottom line, they would end up paying the same tax for someone earning $250k on that company's stock value change. Right now, one is at it's nominal tax bracket, the other is at 15%. It's kind of stupid that a CEO has to pay full tax rates on his $10M earned when a stock trader can pay a fraction of that earning more money.

I don't see "risk" as a reason to get a tax rate reduction. I risk my money betting on blackjack, too.

Again, I'm pointing out that I agree that there is a difference in an IPO purchase of a stock vs. trading. Yes, raising capitol is a big deal. But almost all stock sales are trades, and the company gets no money out of stock trades. So that's out.

Double taxation? If you gain $100k in buying stock- where is the double tax in that $100k of gain?

And big deal "sticking it to the rich"- all income should be equal. Nothing needs any tax break. Income is income, no matter where you get it.

This isn't seizing assets, this is taxing income evenly. Don't bring up that BS argument, also. Or the one that people pretend that they will take their money someplace else- there is no other market in the world that you can make this kind of money in stocks.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

There are standard things that happen every election. Want to bet once the meeting alleged to be scheduled between Donald Trump and some national intelligence personnel actually takes place, Trump is going to have his own personal spin on it? Something along the lines of how "the intelligence community knows I am actually running far ahead of Hillary and the polls are all wrong, so THAT'S why they took this meeting with me." He will make it look like it was his idea, its totally unprecedented, and the meeting itself was proof that he already knew more about whatever threats this country faces --real or imagined only in his heads and then the heads of his dumbest supporters -- than the "experts" and his minions will eat it all up. Never mind that this is SOP for any candidate of the two major parties once the conventions are done. But the troglodyte, mouth breathing idiots who are still supporting him despite all of the evidence he is treating them like the rubes they are will swear he is telling nothing but the truth.

I'm reminded that at the beginning of both Clinton's and Obama's second terms the conservative talking heads on TV, radio and the internet gleefully pointed out how many members of their cabinets and other high ranking aids were leaving the administration. Made it sound like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Never mind that it is often standard fare for these people to move on as the president's priorities often change from the first term to the second and new vision is both needed and expected, the fools who listen dutifully to Beck or Limbaugh took it as gospel and proof that their presidencies were corrupt, failing or both. They eat this slop up like starving pigs at a trough.

[unofan]

Depending on method or source you prefer it is in the neighborhood of 16-20%. Most likely about 18%, so no.



Can't agree with you here. As an example a roughly $250k earning CA resident would pay 33% plus 10.3% on long term returns in an environment where the real world average tax of this sort is around 18%. Investing has risk so there needs to be reward or Mr./Ms. California might just as well stuff the mattress with $100 bills. Setting aside the double taxation argument, raising long term capital gains rates in this manner, despite the notion that we'd all be really sticking it to the rich, would very likely have an extremely negative economic result. Since capital formation is critical to improved productivity and, therefore, to GDP and real-wage growth it is important to find a proper balancing point in which investment is still encouraged by real return incentives. (And it would hardly seem fair to me to advantage IPO's for capital investment over existing concerns that they are often entering the market to compete against.)

I think that unless we're prepared to just have the state seize assets of the rich above a certain valuation, the fact of the matter is that job growth, GDP growth, and even wage growth is going to come at the expense of some rich people getting even richer.

It's not double taxation. You're only taxed on the gains, and you can offset those with your losses, and even carry over losses to future years.

There's no reason to tax earned income higher than unearned income.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

You need to do a better job explaining why investments income gets some kind of advantage over regular income. It should not be treated any differently.

So if $250k family pays 18% on all of their income (thanks to other deductions), it will stay that way earning $10k on capitol gains. Nothing is going to change.

But it also means that if said family earns that money actually working and contributing to a companies bottom line, they would end up paying the same tax for someone earning $250k on that company's stock value change. Right now, one is at it's nominal tax bracket, the other is at 15%. It's kind of stupid that a CEO has to pay full tax rates on his $10M earned when a stock trader can pay a fraction of that earning more money.

I don't see "risk" as a reason to get a tax rate reduction. I risk my money betting on blackjack, too.

Again, I'm pointing out that I agree that there is a difference in an IPO purchase of a stock vs. trading. Yes, raising capitol is a big deal. But almost all stock sales are trades, and the company gets no money out of stock trades. So that's out.

Double taxation? If you gain $100k in buying stock- where is the double tax in that $100k of gain?



And big deal "sticking it to the rich"- all income should be equal. Nothing needs any tax break. Income is income, no matter where you get it.

This isn't seizing assets, this is taxing income evenly. Don't bring up that BS argument, also. Or the one that people pretend that they will take their money someplace else- there is no other market in the world that you can make this kind of money in stocks.

Sorry, I think I wasn't very clear regarding the 18% number. The average capital gains tax in countries around the world is about 18%. The US is the 6th highest at the moment with a top tax of 20% plus a 3.8% ACA surcharge for highest income earners. In the example of the CA residents, taxing it as ordinary income would result in them paying a total State and Federal rate of 43.3% as presumably it would be income on top of their normal 250k and taxed at their top rate. CA top earners would pay the top rate of 39.4 plus 13.3 for a total of 52.7%.

Now I'm not saying it isn't a bit of a complicated matter, so much so that there is considerable disagreement as to what the rate should be or if there should even be one. ( I believe in Switzerland and the Netherlands for example, it's 0% and in Denmark 42%) As to why there is a break at all though, (there has been since 1927) the original idea is to encourage saving and investment, which it seems, it does.

I appreciate the argument that all income should just be income and treated the same for everyone, but the argument for a lesser rate is to increase realizations (and probably market liquidity) and generate more revenue for the government, not to make the rich, richer. (By the way I believe Mr. Sanders, Mr. Trump, and probably Mrs. Clinton are all of one mind on eliminating the carried interest loophole for fund managers.) Capital gains tax is not a recurring tax like income tax is, it obviously only kicks in when an asset is sold and a gain is realized. Now if the rate on gains becomes putative, there is little incentive for a wealthy person to turn over their assets and reinvest. (just to be clear, cap gains taxes are currently paid on assets held more than one year, so for day traders and flippers etc. it's normal income. The time element for that has varied, it was up to 5 years under Bush and I believe Mrs. Clinton proposes a regressive tax rate for up to 6 years)

For a different example, let's say I was Steve Jobs college roommate (I wasn't) and I invested some money in his startup (sadly, I didn't) and today that is worth 1 billion dollars. I could divest and reinvest somewhere, paying the government a reasonable share of the profits I've realized. Or if the rate is rather high, like the normal income example in CA I could pay $530 million to the government and pocket $470 million on the sale. Or under the same rules you suggest I could simply borrow against it to live, keep it 'til I die and my kids receive it at it's stepped up basis of a billion dollars and the government never collects a penny on the gain. I know which of those 3 scenarios I prefer, but certainly there is disagreement on the subject.

We did the break for angel investors and IPO's during the bailout because there was literally no cash available in the market, but I'm not a fan. (established companies do sell their owned stock all the time to raise capital. Or they sell bonds.) The fact that a tax break generated investment under those conditions though may very well speak to a reasonable gains rate increasing market activity and therefore realizations and revenues.


Briefly on double taxation: A stock is ownership in a company. If that company makes a profit, the stock's value increases a corresponding amount. The profits of the company are reduced by the amount of tax the company pays the Federal government. The stock's value can then be said to have been reduced by an amount corresponding to the tax paid by the company it represents ownership in. The owner of the stock sells it and is again taxed on the profit he makes, which has already been reduced by federal taxes.

The argument has some merit but I'm not trying to force it on anybody.

[Craig P.]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The problem with that was the side effect. I think we are now more obsessed with Wall Street than we ever have, and it's not healthy. And with the long term gains that are taxed at 1/2 rate, it also leads to suspect ways to invest, as well as suspect ways to see the rules- a lot of which happened for the economic meltdown in '08. Pretty much all parts can be traced to lower taxed income as a selling point for your money.

That one needs to go away, even if we benefit by it.

Strongly agree. The imbalance between capital and labor is a big problem and causes a lot of negative distortions.

[Craig P.]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Briefly on double taxation: A stock is ownership in a company. If that company makes a profit, the stock's value increases a corresponding amount. The profits of the company are reduced by the amount of tax the company pays the Federal government. The stock's value can then be said to have been reduced by an amount corresponding to the tax paid by the company it represents ownership in. The owner of the stock sells it and is again taxed on the profit he makes, which has already been reduced by federal taxes.

The argument has some merit but I'm not trying to force it on anybody.

Multiple taxation is a canard. Every dollar gets taxed multiple times in its life. The only way to get rid of it is for the government to take a cut out of each dollar when it leaves the Federal Reserve.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

There's no reason to tax earned income higher than unearned income.

Sure there is. The rich get richer this way while doing less actual work than the poor. Makes perfect sense to me.