OT – Who are you voting for?

[UCGal]

[quote=Ren]So I never actually said “if prop 30 passes, we’re leaving the state,” because that would be overly dramatic and silly. There’s a lot holding us here and 30 by itself wouldn’t do it. However, now that it has passed, it’s enough of a push in that direction that we’re putting feelers out. If I wanted a very small town with low crime and good schools, where in WA would I look?[/quote]
I lived in Bellingham, WA for several years and still have friends there.

It’s a college town with more businesses now than there were when I lived there. (When I worked/lived there, there was only one employer for enginerds… now there are many.)

My best friend’s hubby teaches science at the high school there – good reputation for the school system in the city, less so for the unincorporated parts of Whatcom county.

[CA renter]

[quote=ctr70][quote=CA renter]And “capitalists” who speculate on commodities, stocks, bonds, etc., and house flippers, etc. are “hard workers”???[/quote]

You lose all credibility with this comment. Typical Dem who has a low financial IQ & has the poor mans mindset of how all the rich are evil. Flippers work their butts off and are entrepreneurs that take risks and help fix up neighborhoods and renovate houses to make a profit. But you wouldn’t get something like that. Maybe if you posted a little less on this board and hustled a little and got out there and started a business you might make over $250k and get the privilege of paying most of the bills in this country as you get skinned alive with income taxes. And you might also learn a little about S Corps and how passive income is taxed vs. w-2 income, and why Romney and others with high financial IQ’s pay 13% tax rate as they are incentivized to by the U.S. tax code.

These comments remind me of my dad and sisters who are far left and clueless about ecomomics or business and hate those “evil rich people” making over $250k who start companies create jobs, research cancer, perform heart surgeries in ER’s, etc… All they know is to go out and get their w-2 wage slave jobs and “rail” against those evil rich and vote for politicians to tax them more. Why not? It’s not them that have to pay all this extra shit like prop 30 and Obama Care. It’s those evil rich people making over $250k that have to shoulder it.[/quote]

Hate to burst your little bubble where you think your financial IQ is higher than others, but we’re not poor, and all of my earnings are from investments. That being said, even I can discern that those who make the world go ’round are the wage-earning workers of the world, not the speculators who create boom/bust cycles and who destroy economies while expecting everyone else to clean up their mess.

Perhaps your superior financial knowledge has blinded you to the fact that the mess in Europe and here in the U.S. was caused almost entirely by speculators, not workers and their pensions (though the Wall Street takeover of pension funds did get them into serious trouble as they chased yields as the Fed manipulated rates in an effort to boost asset prices and goose speculative investments).

BTW, you do realize that the $100K+ club comprises only ~2% of CalPERS retirees, don’t you?

FYI, you might want to check out why “the rich” are paying more in taxes than those who have no money to pay taxes:

The Wealth Distribution

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2010, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 35.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.1%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details, drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2012).

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Carry on, almighty capitalist with the high financial I.Q.

[CA renter]

One more…many W-2 wage earners are paying higher taxes, as a percentage of income, than Mitt Romney.
————

And I don’t hate “rich people” who innovate and improve upon existing technology, or who create new goods and services that benefit society. I hate rich people who buy and sell existing assets (creating nothing/zero sum) while thinking that they are entitled to special tax treatment and who have managed to convince themselves that they are somehow “special” and superior to everybody else.

[paramount]

[quote=CA renter]rich people who buy and sell existing assets (creating nothing/zero sum) while thinking that they are entitled to special tax treatment and who have managed to convince themselves that they are somehow “special” and superior to everybody else.[/quote]

That sounds like the definition of a California gov’t worker.

[Coronita]

delete.

[Coronita]

delete.

[CA renter]

[quote=paramount][quote=CA renter]rich people who buy and sell existing assets (creating nothing/zero sum) while thinking that they are entitled to special tax treatment and who have managed to convince themselves that they are somehow “special” and superior to everybody else.[/quote]

That sounds like the definition of a California gov’t worker.[/quote]

Government workers aren’t asking for any kind of special tax treatment (they’re often the ones paying a higher tax rate than the speculators), nor do they think they’re better than anyone else.

Try again.

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=CA renter]

Government workers aren’t asking for any kind of special tax treatment (they’re often the ones paying a higher tax rate than the speculators), nor do they think they’re better than anyone else.
[/quote]

CAR:

Here is one special Romney tax treatment that was recently uncovered but people missed it,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations.html

[bearishgurl]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea][quote=CA renter]

Government workers aren’t asking for any kind of special tax treatment (they’re often the ones paying a higher tax rate than the speculators), nor do they think they’re better than anyone else.
[/quote]

CAR:

Here is one special Romney tax treatment that was recently uncovered but people missed it,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations.html%5B/quote%5D

. . . The current investing strategy favors the Romneys over the charity because they get a guaranteed payout, said Michael Arlein, a trusts and estates lawyer at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.

“The Romneys get theirs off the top and the charity gets what’s left,” he said. “So by definition, if it’s not performing as well, the charity gets harmed more.”

The trustee for Romney’s CRUT is R. Bradford Malt, chairman of the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, and manager for Romney’s various family trusts as well as his personal attorney. Ropes & Gray has also been for years the main outside counsel for Bain Capital.

If the CRUT maintains the same investing strategy, assets will continue to shrink, said Jerome M. Hesch, a tax and estate planning attorney at the law firm Carlton Fields. The trustee acted prudently in protecting against losses during a stock market decline, he said.

Nevertheless, “what’s going to go to charity is probably close to nothing,” Hesch said.

(emphasis mine)

Sounds like a good excuse for Romney to appear (to the public) as if he is actually a “philanthropist,” LOL!

[CA renter]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea][quote=CA renter]

Government workers aren’t asking for any kind of special tax treatment (they’re often the ones paying a higher tax rate than the speculators), nor do they think they’re better than anyone else.
[/quote]

CAR:

Here is one special Romney tax treatment that was recently uncovered but people missed it,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations.html%5B/quote%5D

Isn’t it amazing how “the rich” have created so many laws over the years that exempt them from paying what Joe Sixpack has to pay on his meager wages?

And yet the speculators continue to whine about taxes going back to levels (20-25% on cap gains/dividends) that are still well below historical norms.

[ctr70]

Come on CA renter…I know your entire life is pretty much made up of posting on this message board…but I know you can’t possible be dumb enough to think Greece’s & Spains current financial problems were caused by Wall Street. Their problems have nothing to do with their massive Governments, massive pensions, unions and stagnant economies and private sectors. Of course not. You just once again re-enforced your loss of all credibility.

[svelte]

[quote=ctr70]Come on CA renter…I know your entire life is pretty much made up of posting on this message board…but I know you can’t possible be dumb enough to think Greece’s & Spains current financial problems were caused by Wall Street. Their problems have nothing to do with their massive Governments, massive pensions, unions and stagnant economies and private sectors. Of course not. You just once again re-enforced your loss of all credibility.[/quote]

Come on ctr you can’t be dumb enough to believe that all of what ails us is caused by unions and the government. It couldn’t possibly be the far right’s constant attempt to reduce taxes to well below what is necessary to cover expenses, as the Bush tax cut did when the Republicans controlled the White House, the House AND the Senate in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Of course not.

[CA renter]

[quote=ctr70]Come on CA renter…I know your entire life is pretty much made up of posting on this message board…but I know you can’t possible be dumb enough to think Greece’s & Spains current financial problems were caused by Wall Street. Their problems have nothing to do with their massive Governments, massive pensions, unions and stagnant economies and private sectors. Of course not. You just once again re-enforced your loss of all credibility.[/quote]

The controversy has become the hottest of Greece’s political hot potatoes. Former ministers and judicial officials have sought to shift responsibility for the fact that information turned over to Greek authorities in 2010 wasn’t used to combat tax evasion in a country where it is endemic and the government is struggling to pay off enormous debts.

…The machinations surrounding the Lagarde List have stoked anger among Greeks suffering through the fifth year of a grinding recession and facing another round of government spending cuts and tax increases. Athens’ efforts to crack down on tax evasion by small-time entrepreneurs and the self-employed have been publicly scorned amid the widespread perception that those with wealth and political connections aren’t sharing the pain.

Tax evasion costs Greece €28 billion, according to a study by Margarita Tsoutsoura of The University of Chicago Booth School of Business—an amount equivalent to up to 15% of the country’s gross domestic product. Many Greeks openly blame the nation’s political and business elite for having taken a fortune out of the country over the past decade. Few tax-dodging cases have been successfully prosecuted.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203937004578076801161935378.html

Tax evasion is a national pastime in Greece (and most other bankrupt countries).

One thing I will admit all day long: you can either have a country with a thriving middle class, well-functioning infrastructure, social safety nets, all while keeping the fiscal house in order, *OR* you can have a country where tax evasion is the norm. You cannot have both.

[Author]

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