Post: #151

deleted... not worth the effort.

Post: #152

(10-05-2013 02:11 AM)speakeasy Wrote:  Dude, nobody is saying that people can't make a shitload of money from their efforts. They clearly do as is evidenced by how much wealth the top 10% of this country own and the fact that the gap is actually GROWING, not shrinking. As such, this nation is clearly one of the best places in the world to be to make lots of money if that's your goal. If someone is trying to shit on the wealthy, it sure as hell isn't working.

If you make a lot of income, you pay a lot of tax. That's just the way it is. We have a progressive tax system. It has to be that way to make up for the fact that all other taxes are regressive. Think about it, the poor guy and the rich guy are both paying the exact same tax on the $50 they spend refueling their car. Yet that tax is going to hit the poorer person much harder than the rich. Or if both of them buy $100 of groceries, the tax on it is is the same regardless of income, but it's a much bigger hit to the poor guy given his vastly smaller wealth. Same with airplane tickets or a million other things. Income and capital gains is the only place where we can try and balance that out a bit.

No one in DC is trying to shit on the wealthy. Both major parties are owned by the wealth.

Of course wealth disparity is getting worse and worse. Obama is a socialist, and socialists are the best friends of the wealthy elites. They pass laws to protect their companies "too big to fail" and then punish the small and medium sized competition companies with 1,200 page healthcare bills full of nonsense regulations.

Post: #153

(10-05-2013 03:58 AM)It_is_my_time Wrote:  No one in DC is trying to shit on the wealthy. Both major parties are owned by the wealth.

Of course wealth disparity is getting worse and worse. Obama is a socialist, and socialists are the best friends of the wealthy elites. They pass laws to protect their companies "too big to fail" and then punish the small and medium sized competition companies with 1,200 page healthcare bills full of nonsense regulations.

The problem is people grouping those small and medium sized businesses and business owners into the wealthy brackets. Anyone making 400k is now considered wealthy when they really are not. People in that bracket are not representative in the "wealth facts" that are getting thrown around in this thread. A lot of those guys could go bankrupt pretty fast because they have everything tied up in their businesses.

Most of the people who haven't seen that type of money or built their own business normally can't comprehend. That is why they throw around facts that have no basis for most of the people affected by what they think should happen.

I don't recall Buffet saying the tax system wasn't fair when he was first starting out while times were lean. Yet, after he amassed 33 billion it is time to come out and tell the truth. hah It still doesn't stop him from taking advantage of tax breaks including charity deductions.

Post: #154

(10-05-2013 04:10 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  The problem is people grouping those small and medium sized businesses and business owners into the wealthy brackets. Anyone making 400k is now considered wealthy when they really are not. People in that bracket are not representative in the "wealth facts" that are getting thrown around in this thread. A lot of those guys could go bankrupt pretty fast because they have everything tied up in their businesses.

Most of the people who haven't seen that type of money or built their own business normally can't comprehend. That is why they throw around facts that have no basis for most of the people affected by what they think should happen.

I understand that many people in the income bracket you've mentioned do not feel rich - though comfortable - and are quite nervous about their futures, particularly retirement.

One of my friends used to be a corporate lawyer at a global firm making almost 300K per year during his zenith there, yet was living check to check (largely due to his own financial recklessness from partying/drinking all the time).

I actually posted an article about this feeling of vulnerability among "the rich" long ago on the forum.

That said, it's still a weak argument for opposing higher taxes against that bracket given the average American earns one-tenth - more or less - of 400K per year. How much time you got to hear those problems? Cry them a river.

Post: #155

(10-04-2013 10:12 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

(10-04-2013 09:36 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  Obama was willing to make cuts? Any link to what he was willing to cut and how much more money he was asking? I bet those two weren't even close.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum...ding-cuts/

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/13/news/eco.../index.htm

Quote:Rich pay over 70% of all taxes yet you guys want more. The rates for the rich went up when Republicans agree to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. By wealthy, I mean people making over 400k a year. Don't worry, those asking for more from the rich will end up paying more once the rich cow has been milked.

Cry me a river...

Quote:Good luck on the insurance. Roosh posted a link to a young guy in Georgia who will end up paying close to $200 deductible without any
vision or dental.

That's better than the $2900 deductible I'm about to pay. I have Blue Shield PPO by the way.

Quote: I really wish some of you guys that want more money from successful people would start companies and start giving back more instead of crying.

Look dude. Believe it or not, I used to be VERY right-wing. I voted Republican during my 20s mostly. I listened to conservative talk radio religiously. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. If you could see my archives on some other forums I used to debate on a decade ago, I sounded more conservative than you do. Obviously, I've had an ideological transformation, like someone who was raised religious who ended up an atheist.

You know what pisses me off? It's knowing that we had a balanced budget and projected surplus but the right-wing fucked it up with their hawkish foreign policies and tax cuts for the wealthy. We didn't have to be in this situation.

No offense Speak, you I know I like you dude. But it's too bad you never met any intelligent conservatives, because if you actually understood things you wouldn't be preaching such lame liberal talking points.

Take a look at your chart above: 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the people.

So you think, "MORE TAXES!" But this is a misleading statement.

Why? It's because liberals are only interested in income taxes which do not affect the rich. The rich don't fucking work! Higher income taxes do not touch people who live off trust funds. Higher income taxes do not touch people who inherit billions. Higher income taxes only punish the poor who have yet to taste wealth.

If liberals were actually interested in taxing the rich, they'd propose a net worth tax because that's the only way to get at the top .01% who control 50% of the countries wealth.

But democrats aren't actually interested in hurting the rich, because the democrats need the rich for their donor campaigns. So instead of going after the rich with net worth taxes, they instead propose higher income taxes, which of course, do not hurt the rich, and somehow makes poor Americans feel better because "all those greedy rich people are getting what they deserve!"

So the hard working people in America are kept peptually under the yoke, while the rich sit pretty as their wealth remains untouched (after all, their dads made money when they weren't being taxed up the ass nor was there insane regulations in America) and the rich keep voting in higher income taxes so there can't be any NEW rich kids on the block to challenge them.

The rich don't need to work, because they just use the government to tax any would be up-and-coming rich people and making it as difficult as possible for new competition to challenge the old rich.

Meanwhile, as income taxes are pushed higher and higher, and corporate taxes are pushed higher and higher, the actual distribution of wealth remains unchanged! JESUS I WONDER WHY? No one is touching the wealthy!

But I bet you 99% of the liberal members on this board have never even heard of a net worth tax, because they are too busy repeating liberal talking points made over and over by the Jewish media.

By the way - it's not anti-semetic to point out that the Jews have their own political agenda. Every liberal talks about how Isreal has their own political agenda, and yet when people talk about how Jewish run media has it's own political agenda in America suddenly it's racism? So lol.

Post: #156

Quote:A man who set himself on fire on the National Mall in Washington Friday afternoon has died, a spokesperson for the Washington police said Saturday. Passers-by helped to extinguish the flames when they saw the unidentified man on fire, officials and witnesses said, before the man was flown to a hospital, where he died.

The reason for the self-immolation was not immediately clear, but the incident in a central gathering place rattled nerves in the nation's capital, still shaken a day after a high-speed car chase that ended with a woman being shot nad killed by police, and weeks after a mass shooting at the nearby Navy Yard.
The man was standing by himself in the center part of the Mall Friday when he emptied the contents of a gasoline can on his body and set himself on fire moments later, said Katy Scheflen, who said she witnessed the incident as she walked across the area.

Police said they responded at about 4:20 p.m. Friday.

Scheflen said passing joggers took off their shirts in an effort to stifle the flames. A police department spokesman said the man had been conscious and breathing at the scene.

MedStar Washington Hospital Center said on Twitter that the man was taken there Friday and was in critical condition.

Scheflen said he may have said something before he acted, "but it was nothing intelligible." She said she did not see him holding any signs before he set himself ablaze.

Nicole Didyk, an environmental engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration, told Reuters she was out for a run when she spotted a man with small flames on him.

"There were five gentlemen hitting him with their T-shirts," she said. "When he fell over, his arms were all white. He was burned really bad."

The man thanked people who helped put the fire out, Didyk said.

Lt. Pamela Smith of the U.S. Park Police, which is investigating along with the D.C. police department, said, "I'm not aware of any signage or any articulation of any causes."

The D.C. police department has dispatched its violent crimes branch, which responds to cases in which a person suffers serious injury.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/20...lmall.html

Post: #157

(10-05-2013 04:10 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

(10-05-2013 03:58 AM)It_is_my_time Wrote:  No one in DC is trying to shit on the wealthy. Both major parties are owned by the wealth.

Of course wealth disparity is getting worse and worse. Obama is a socialist, and socialists are the best friends of the wealthy elites. They pass laws to protect their companies "too big to fail" and then punish the small and medium sized competition companies with 1,200 page healthcare bills full of nonsense regulations.

The problem is people grouping those small and medium sized businesses and business owners into the wealthy brackets. Anyone making 400k is now considered wealthy when they really are not. People in that bracket are not representative in the "wealth facts" that are getting thrown around in this thread. A lot of those guys could go bankrupt pretty fast because they have everything tied up in their businesses.

Most of the people who haven't seen that type of money or built their own business normally can't comprehend. That is why they throw around facts that have no basis for most of the people affected by what they think should happen.

I don't recall Buffet saying the tax system wasn't fair when he was first starting out while times were lean. Yet, after he amassed 33 billion it is time to come out and tell the truth. hah It still doesn't stop him from taking advantage of tax breaks including charity deductions.

Exactly. I agree with everything you say.

Just blows my mind that guys call themselves "red pill" then support feminist socialism. That isn't "red pill" that is just as blue pill as the white knight out crying why he can't meet any girls when he is such a nice guy.

Socialism = feminism and feminism = socialism. They don't exist without each other.

I could see this country falling off the cliff back in the 1990's and I knew it would go to the left. As soon as I got out of college 13 years ago I stated working 2 jobs and reading every investing material I could get my hands on. I wanted to get ahead of the curve.

I was lucky, I made it. But seeing these young men support socialism, just sad. They are so uniformed in supporting a feminist govt. all the while complaining about the evils of that feminist govt.

Post: #158

What is "Rich" though. The Government classifies it as anybody whom banks more than 150K a year which isn't jack shit in the grand scheme of it all. Income/wage levels have been in coma since the 70s and with inflation 120k a year is just a standard 1960's middle class income if you adjust the numbers.

The top .0001% pay no taxes and hide shit offshore, but for the doctors, high end professionals, Business owners, lawyers and whomever else at the top end of the professional pay scale they are indeed getting raped.

Post: #159

(10-05-2013 01:08 PM)kosko Wrote:  What is "Rich" though. The Government classifies it as anybody whom banks more than 150K a year which isn't jack shit in the grand scheme of it all. Income/wage levels have been in coma since the 70s and with inflation 120k a year is just a standard 1960's middle class income if you adjust the numbers.

The top .0001% pay no taxes and hide shit offshore, but for the doctors, high end professionals, Business owners, lawyers and whomever else at the top end of the professional pay scale they are indeed getting raped.

Stop looking at income! Income doesn't matter. Rich people don't have income!

Post: #160

(10-05-2013 01:29 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(10-05-2013 01:08 PM)kosko Wrote:  What is "Rich" though. The Government classifies it as anybody whom banks more than 150K a year which isn't jack shit in the grand scheme of it all. Income/wage levels have been in coma since the 70s and with inflation 120k a year is just a standard 1960's middle class income if you adjust the numbers.

The top .0001% pay no taxes and hide shit offshore, but for the doctors, high end professionals, Business owners, lawyers and whomever else at the top end of the professional pay scale they are indeed getting raped.

Stop looking at income! Income doesn't matter. Rich people don't have income!

Capital gains?

Post: #161

(10-05-2013 11:46 AM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  I understand that many people in the income bracket you've mentioned do not feel rich - though comfortable - and are quite nervous about their futures, particularly retirement.

One of my friends used to be a corporate lawyer at a global firm making almost 300K per year during his zenith there, yet was living check to check (largely due to his own financial recklessness from partying/drinking all the time).

I actually posted an article about this feeling of vulnerability among "the rich" long ago on the forum.

That said, it's still a weak argument for opposing higher taxes against that bracket given the average American earns one-tenth - more or less - of 400K per year. How much time you got to hear those problems? Cry them a river.

I don't really disagree with higher taxes HC, I disagree with the constant mention of increasing the taxes in those brackets as if that will take away all of our budgeting problems.

Others are posting how the rich are getting most of the assets. It is misleading when you add in those income brackets into the mix because only a small percentage of the mega wealthy control those assets.

Also, these income backets are the ones supplying over 50% of the jobs through small businesses. If they go belly up, you should be crying a river... for all the employees that will be unemployed. Business is cut throat and all depends on cash flow. A bad year and everything can be lost. So increase taxes on them, add in taxes for obamacare, add in taxes for internet sales (not passed in yet) and more and more regulations and you got a hostile business environment that only the big companies can absorb.

Look at what is happening in many industries putting a good deal of employees on part time status to avoid health care taxes. I know some people like to gloss over this stuff and say it won't trickle down but the trickling down is more part timers in that instance.

Post: #162

(10-05-2013 01:31 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:  

(10-05-2013 01:29 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(10-05-2013 01:08 PM)kosko Wrote:  What is "Rich" though. The Government classifies it as anybody whom banks more than 150K a year which isn't jack shit in the grand scheme of it all. Income/wage levels have been in coma since the 70s and with inflation 120k a year is just a standard 1960's middle class income if you adjust the numbers.

The top .0001% pay no taxes and hide shit offshore, but for the doctors, high end professionals, Business owners, lawyers and whomever else at the top end of the professional pay scale they are indeed getting raped.

Stop looking at income! Income doesn't matter. Rich people don't have income!

Capital gains?

Capital gains isn't considered income which is why it is taxed at a lower rate. That same money is already taxed at the corporate lever before it is even delivered to the investor to be taxed again.

Raising the tax rate on capital gains could slow down investment and hurt business that require cash injections which wouldn't be a good thing.

You would also be hurting retirement funds with a tax increase since many require those dividends for living expenses.

Post: #163

It's gonna get a lot worse folks. It's revolution baby.

Post: #164

The thing about the mega rich though is they already take part in philanthropy (part of their culture). In the case of very public ones like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, they are giving away the vast majority of their wealth to charitable causes.

Post: #165

The thing about the mega rich though is they already take part in philanthropy (part of their culture). In the case of very public ones like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, they are giving away the vast majority of their wealth to charitable causes.

"Philanthropy" is the biggest scam and tool of the elite wealthy ever invented. Take one guess who "invented" it?

J.D. Rockefeller.

Know how it works?

It's the exact same reason why every single President that leaves office establishes a "Library fund."

Supposedly people are not allowed to "donate" money to a candidate or politicians personal finances. No problem.

You donate it to their "Presidential Library" or their "Philanthropic Foundation." Now the "director" can then bank on tax exempt "donations" and spend it as "Library" or "Foundation" operating expenses.

So the "Philanthropist" "Donates $100,000,000 to his or her Foundation, none of which gets taxed at all. The Foundation spends a fraction of that on "charitable works" (which always works out to far less then what would have been paid in taxes on that amount of wealth), and the rest of it can be spent as the director sees fit.

I.e. - "charity fundraisers" at exotic locales in 5 star resorts, eating fine dining and the best liquors and traveling to and from in private jets and limousines with personal bodyguards etc. All of that extravagance is "operating expenses" of the "Philanthropic Foundation" or "Presidential Library Fund" etc.

Ever wonder why Politicians will spend millions of campaign dollars to "win" an office that only pays low 5 or 6 figures salary? Because they don't make much money, but they get to live like they're elite wealthy, all under the guise of tax exempt "operating expenses."

This is precisely why the wealthy elite promote "tax the rich" political rhetoric. THEY don't pay those exorbitant tax rates, it's all sheltered in their Foundations and off shore bank accounts or invested in assets that can't be taxed as income.

When the progressive tax rate puts in the $400,000 income at the highest (aka "rich") bracket, they are essentially using the tax code to keep the productive income generators from amassing too much wealth and eventually entering the same class of power and wealth the "philanthropists" are in.

It's also precisely why the top level athletes in MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA who receive multi-million dollar contracts almost always create Foundations to "do good for their communities." No doubt some good work gets done, and many of them actually mean to help kids or poor or whoever out....but the overriding impetus is to avoid the huge tax hits and preserve their wealth in a form they can still access it to keep living large while appearing to be "GENEROUS PHILANTHROPISTS!"

It's one big fucking racket.