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[quote=Brutus]
Stop listening to rap “music.”
[/quote]

You just made a good argument for cultural sensitivity training.

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[quote=zach347] Lets keep the capital gains tax at 15 % to a certain amount, lets say 500K annual, and all income above that is taxed normally.[/quote]

Did you mean only long term capital gains tax or all capital gains tax?

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[quote=flyer]If they are going to quote controversial percentages, IMHO politicians would probably be better off launching a verbal battle about why only 5% or less of the US population has $1M+ in assets (excluding real estate). I know I’ve mentioned this before, and it still astounds me.

A number like this definitely does not bode well for the future of this country–unless, of course, we end up in a a society that is primarily supported by the government. If, or until then–it’s a real concern going forward as to how the majority of people plan to support themselves long-term–especially in retirement.[/quote]

Is your concern that only 5% or less have assets above $1M or is it that 5% is too many?
If its not too many, what would make you comfortable? 15%? 18%?

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[quote=ctr70][quote=dumbrenter]Dinesh D’Souza and his views on colonialism gets him to the closest to uncle Tom of 21st century.
He is factually incorrect when he talks about the colonial experience in India, actually his position is almost a historical negation-ism which if done in another european country today relating to negating the jewish experience is a crime.

He made his fortune and fame riding on the Reagan coattails and good for him. I saw him once pitching Reagan for the best president ever on a show and it was the closest I ever saw somebody performing a verbal blowjob on television.

I can understand a man singing for his dinner, I get it that he exists to fulfill a need for the nostalgic views some people in this country expect to hear from former house servant, but is there a need to go over the top for it?

The more he writes about Obama, the more he pushes me, a Republican, to go vote for Obama.
If he can get more than 1 european-american to go the other direction, then net-net I guess he comes out ahead.[/quote]

That is the classic load of BS that everyone who is not a white male and happens to be on the right is a “uncle Tom” or Puppet. What a bunch of baloney.[/quote]

If you associate falsifying history to claim colonial experience was good, or attacking a person’s history instead of his ideas as being on the right, then you and I have a very different opinion on what ‘right’ is.
Even remotely suggesting that the colonial experience was good for countries that got occupied is a bunch of baloney no matter when it comes from a white male or the ‘uncle Tom’s.

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[quote=craptcha]

The US did break off from GB, like India did, but I’m guessing you are talking about Kenya. Obama was raised by his mother and his Anglo grandparents, then the mother and her Indonesian husband (former Dutch colony) and finally the Anglo grandparents. If I’m not mistaken he spent a couple of days with his father when he was a kid and he first went to Kenya in his late twenties. It is a major stretch to see an Indian immigrant and Obama as people with common background.[/quote]

India did not break off from britan like US did. This is very misinformed. India was occupied. US was colonized. Big difference.
And those events happened out of phase: i.e. british occupation in India happened because they made a conscious choice to use their resources to expand in India as opposed to US. A look at events around the world during the american revolutionary war will make this very obvious. Of course this goes against the popular narrative here where the starving continentals fought off the redcoats simply with courage and conviction.

You are right about the differences in the background though..Dinesh D’Souza & the family/community he comes from represents a tiny Indian elite experience that actively collaborated with the british during their occupation of India. And prospered.
Another big difference is that while folks who supported the redcoats simply migrated north after the American war of Independence, Dinesh’s community or of those who did not migrate never toned down their loyalty for the british even after they left. Except the transfer of loyalties occurred pretty fast with him as he immigrated here.

I guess this is why he feels very threatened by Obama senior, a person who came from a similar historical experience but with a different outlook. One chose to sing for dinner, the other chose to hunt instead and take a chance he might starve in return for keeping his self-respect intact.

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Dinesh D’Souza and his views on colonialism gets him to the closest to uncle Tom of 21st century.
He is factually incorrect when he talks about the colonial experience in India, actually his position is almost a historical negation-ism which if done in another european country today relating to negating the jewish experience is a crime.

He made his fortune and fame riding on the Reagan coattails and good for him. I saw him once pitching Reagan for the best president ever on a show and it was the closest I ever saw somebody performing a verbal blowjob on television.

I can understand a man singing for his dinner, I get it that he exists to fulfill a need for the nostalgic views some people in this country expect to hear from former house servant, but is there a need to go over the top for it?

The more he writes about Obama, the more he pushes me, a Republican, to go vote for Obama.
If he can get more than 1 european-american to go the other direction, then net-net I guess he comes out ahead.

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All arguments here can be condensed into:

Taxes are killing businesses theme by AN and like.
OR
Extract cash from companies in form of taxes and spend it to ‘create’ demand theme by harvey and like.

Both are wrong.
Instead, how about government taking on debt and then spend it to create demand? If they are so sure it is a good investment, they should be easily be able to pay off the debt from the returns. Why bother with taxing individuals or companies for that capital?

The Fed is doing exactly that same thing now anyway….except the money is mostly going to banks and not to ‘shovel-ready’ projects.

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[quote=squat250]i have had strong demand for leather gloves lately. Ive bought 3 pair recently. nice work gloves.

I wear them all the time, just around …
I think they are going to help preserve my hands from looking like old people’s hands.

i am trying to alert the market to keep up glove production.

maybe more of us should start wearing gloves more.

good int he car when the sterring wheels hot. think on how much sun your hands get.

try it.[/quote]

Didn’t you say you got off the sauce sometime ago?
Anyway, who am I to judge? Just because of your advice, I’ll get some leather gloves. Ihope you are not pitchign life insuranc enext. Because I’d buy that too.

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[quote=harvey][quote=jstoesz]Saying businesses is sitting on tons of cash is like saying, homeowners who HELOC’ed their paid off residence are flush with cash. Yes, they have cash, but net, they have nothing…[/quote]

No, it isn’t the same. Not even close.

Apple computer has more than $27 billion in cash.

Exxon has $17 billion.

We could go on all day with this list – many large companies have similar positions.

No go find us a single HELOC borrower who still has any cash from the original loan.

Brian is right, businesses today have plenty of cash but they are choosing not to invest it.

It’s a so easy to spot a “Tea Party” dimwit these days: They don’t check even the most basic facts. Much easier to spout off whatever mythology they’ve been told to obey on Fox news.

BTW: That “chart” comparing debt vs. cash is a joke of a distortion. Here’s a little homework for ya: calculate the cash/debt ratios for each.[/quote]

Harvey, giving examples of a couple of companies to dispute Jstoesz’s overall data does not make sense. If you dispute Jstoesz’s data or source of data, I’m interested.
Apple could be sitting on a trillion dollars, but at the same time, many other infra/auto/transportation companies are up to their necks in debts. And they employ more people than Aapl/goog/msft kind of companies.

Actually, I think that HELOC example is a good analogy: companies took on debt to build assets but those assets are not worth as much as the companies spent on them. Maybe those companies should have bought new cars and taken vacations to Hawaii instead, like the homeowners!!

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[quote=AN]dumbrenter, to make it clear, my friends aren’t blaming anyone. You’re making an assumption and it’s completely wrong. I actually didn’t ask for their opinion. I just look at their actions over the last 4 years and extrapolate what would happen if their net income decrease further. When demand start decreasing a few years ago, they didn’t do anything, hoping their demand will come back. When it didn’t and it start to affect their net take home, they start to reduce their employee’s time. So, based on their action then, I would extrapolate that if their net income decrease due to higher taxes, they would decrease their employee’s time, so that their net take home would maintain at the same level. This is also common sense to me, because I would do the exactly the same thing. If you can offload the cost to someone else, you would. The employees will always get hit first before the employer. These businesses area already running at bare minimum and there’s no fat left to cut. These business owners have expenses to pay (life expenses), which they rather not cut. They can easily offset the increase taxes by cutting the cost of paying their employee and have the spouse who are currently working part time to work full time. Their net pay would maintain at similar level. This is also inline with what I was saying that during good times when demands are increasing, they would gladly take less growth due to higher taxes. However, during bad time, they will squeeze everyone else first before they squeeze themselves.[/quote]

AN, like I told you, I was just speculating. You once again state that it is decreased demand that is forcing them to cut their employee’s time. Which makes sense. But then you make an extrapolation from there to include a causation of taxes which is incorrect. As net income goes down, the tax liability goes down too….reduction of employee’s time is because the employee’s time is not translating to increased top line. Again, not related to taxes.
On a convoluted note, increasing employee’s compensation will actually decrease the tax liability (due to compensation being a deductible expense), but again, no sane person would do it.

I wish your business friends the best, and agree with you that everything gets cut before the take home living expenses; just differ about the cause.

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[quote=AN]
In a growing environment where demand is increasing, I agree with you that people will absorb the higher taxes because their net is increasing. However, in a flat to declining economy, I’m not so sure they would absorb the higher taxes. My guess is, they probably would reduce their cost (lower employee’s wage or lay them off). Employers will be the last one to eat the cost. I know a few mom and pop shop owners and they’ve been telling me business suck right now. So, increasing advertisement, etc. won’t help, since their clienteles don’t have the money to spend.
[/quote]

AN, your mom & pop buddies are cutting back due to business being bad, not due to taxes. You pretty much said that yourself and reiterated in paragraph above.
They will reduce their costs (e.g. firing employees) if their outlook is negative, not because the taxes are going up.
If my net is going down, then it follows that my taxes are going down too, so where does the issue of absorption of the taxes come from?

It is possible, and I am just speculating here, that your mom & pop store owners are in trouble and need somebody/something to blame. It is a lot easier to blame others/government/foreigners/taxes than for a flawed execution of business strategy. Easy for them to say, “Them taxes are killing my business” rather than “Knowing what I know now about slow demand for my product/services, I should not have made that capital investment last year”.
This is why I hate to take personal examples since it might come across as a little harsh. But we all know that “it is always somebody else’s fault” and we have played that card a few times in our lives. Maybe that explains your observations better than blaming the taxes.

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[quote=AN]Do you or him can show me the evidence/data which proves that higher marginal rates on businesses owners are simulative? I know my counter is only anecdotal but I haven’t seen any data to counter my example either. The logic of higher marginal rate is stimulative is counter intuitive for me. I have a few anecdotal examples to confirm my thinking that it’s counter intuitive. Maybe the data is really counter intuitive, but I haven’t seen any data to prove it.[/quote]

AN, Consider the following 3 potential outcomes:
1. Higher rates are regressive and per your account make businesses fire employees.
2. There is no relationship between tax rates and an employer’s decisions to hire employees.
3. Higher rates are stimulative.

You take position 1 above while I claim position 2. the first one is also popularly claimed by many conservative & right-wing sites & media i.e. a small business owner complaining that he would have to fire employees if his tax rates go up.
To me, this claim does not make empirical sense as explained earlier and I’d like to know if I am missing something.

But in support of item#1, you respond with an argument against item#3.

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[quote=bearishgurl] Knowing what I know and have seen throughout life, I don’t think people should have kids who can’t afford them. It’s akin to asking taxpayers who did not create the problem to help pay to support them. It’s a parasitic request.[/quote]

Interesting how you pointed out the similarity between the two issues of children & tax payers.
I see your point of view, but I am sure you can understand that you cannot force parents NOT to have kids and there is no way you can stop taxpayers from getting the goodies & shifting the pain to a future point, UNLESS there is a change to the representative type of government that we have today.
So either we live with the current system where we suck up and pay for our neighbor’s mistakes or have a new system where we have more say on how others lives are run.

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AN, other than the personal observations which is hard/easy for me to make up a counter story/observation, do you have any data that supports the following claim: Increasing business taxes results in employees getting fired.

Note, I am expanding on SK’s point of just addressing highest tier tax rate.
Businesses hire employees (or do anything else ) to get more net income. In this equation, the taxes are already accounted for. If an employer forecasts increasing demand for his/her products which in turn means increasing revenue, they will hire help. Business taxes or tax rates have nothing to do with that decision. Similarly, if the business outlook is bleak, they will fire the employees. Again, taxes have nothing to do with that decision.

So unless I am missing something basic here, the question is: what is the relationship between business taxes and hiring/firing employees?

[quote=AN]
Thanks for clarifying and I agree with these points except for the business taxes. What make you think business won’t just pick up and move to a lower taxed country. Most countries do have lower corporate tax rate than ours. Btw, how small is small. I know a few mom and pop businesses and they would just fire their one employees if their take home is less. I also know one business owner of a company with 150 employees and they haven’t given a raise in 3 years. If their net profit goes down, they’ll either lay off or just not give raise for a few more years until they get their desirable net profit. They can also fire their American employees, except for their sales force, and hire more employees for factory in lower cost countries.[/quote]

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It is very short-sighted view. Those same children are the market of tomorrow. They are the next doctors/lawyers/convicts, the next set of spenders who keep economy going and next set of savers who ‘might’ take care of their old folks.
Imagine that everybody decides not to have kids. In 5 years the elementary schools close, daycare business is bust, in 10 years all the school related jobs are gone. No more new workers entering workforce…so who is going to pay for their unemployment and your social security? Who is going to rent your properties and take your bank loans?
There is a reason why all agrarian cultures place a lot of value in having kids.
Children are not luxury (whining and personal stories about neices notwithstanding), and since the society as a whole benefits from them, the society as a whole should shoulder the responsibility for them too, like giving better tax breaks.

[quote=briansd1][quote=davelj]
My point is that children should be *viewed* as a luxury good prior to their arrival. As long as I don’t have to support them, then fine. And as long as the folks that have them don’t bitch and moan about how difficult their life is because they have them, then fine. But when I hear folks talk about how expensive it is to live, and they have children, I just think, “you made your bed… time to lie in it.”[/quote]

I agree.

Once children pop out, it’s the parents reponsibility to take care of them.

Although they are not my kids, I kinda feel the responbility to be nice to my nieces and do little things for them. I want to be the nice uncle. But I kinda resent that responsbility has been foisted on me, not of my own choosing.

I hear plenty of people bitching about having to take care of their kids. And the parents doing the bitching are not poor people.[/quote]

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