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#777 Mar 23 2018 at 8:21 AM Rating: Excellent
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Why do you care about passing money on to your heirs? Didn't we hate the generational money and Lords system of Europe? Why do we suddenly think this is awesome?

Do you want to go back to the days of rich Lords who control everything and hand it down over and over? Because that's definitely bad for the middle class.

That's ignoring that there are vehicles for retirement investment that are already in place, and aren't affected by capital gains tax. When a change affects predominantly one portion of the population, it's disingenuous to say it affects everyone equally because of some theoretical proportionality.

Edited, Mar 23rd 2018 9:26am by Xsarus
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#778 Mar 23 2018 at 9:10 AM Rating: Good
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Didn't we hate the generational money and Lords system of Europe?
Well, we also hated Christmas.
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#779 Mar 23 2018 at 10:06 AM Rating: Good
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Didn't we hate the generational money and Lords system of Europe?
No, they hated that they weren't part of it. That's all.
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#780 Mar 23 2018 at 10:08 AM Rating: Excellent
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#781 Mar 23 2018 at 1:18 PM Rating: Good
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
When a change affects predominantly one portion of the population, it's disingenuous to say it affects everyone equally because of some theoretical proportionality.
What Jophiel said.
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#782 Mar 23 2018 at 7:19 PM Rating: Decent
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Why do you care about passing money on to your heirs? Didn't we hate the generational money and Lords system of Europe? Why do we suddenly think this is awesome?


Um... Because we didn't hate the ability to inherit wealth, but that the Lords had all of the wealth. Totally different things. So your argument is that now that the "common people" have the ability to earn enough wealth to pass on to their families, we should abolish the concept? That seems odd. Like "OMG! We can't let those common people have anything nice, now can we?".

Quote:
Do you want to go back to the days of rich Lords who control everything and hand it down over and over? Because that's definitely bad for the middle class.


Um... What? Back in the days, there was no real middle class. That's why it was bad. If you weren't born to wealthy nobility (ok, a small merchantile class too) you had no chance to be anything other than poor. Now that we have one, and the ability for anyone with decent skills to become middle class, maybe we should allow them to share in this concept called "inheritance". Shocking concept!

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That's ignoring that there are vehicles for retirement investment that are already in place, and aren't affected by capital gains tax.


Care to elaborate?


Quote:
When a change affects predominantly one portion of the population, it's disingenuous to say it affects everyone equally because of some theoretical proportionality.


I said it was fair. Not that it affects "everyone equally". You'd be hard pressed to find anything that affects "everyone equally". It's an absurd standard to use, especially when you're selectively using it.


I'll ask, again, for like the fourth time: How would you do things differently? What do you think the rate for capital gains taxes should be, and why? I've explained, at length, the various reasons why it's a good idea to have capital gains tax rates set to be lower than normal income tax rates. In response, all I've gotten are whines about how "the rich" benefit more. Um... They'd "benefit more" from any tax rate. If you tax at the same rate as income, then... OMG! The guy who invests $60M/year still comes out way ahead, even after paying income taxes, and even after paying his higher rate of income taxes, than the guy who invests $1200/year.

Are we seriously going to make a determination based on this? Let's do the freaking math:

PersonA invests $1200. After one year, his investment increases by 5%, earning him $60. Let's say that capital gains tax rates are set at 20%. Let's also say that for this person's income tax bracket, his normal rate on these dollars would only be 10% (you get the lower of the two btw). So he pays $6 in taxes, and gets to keep the remaining $54 after taxes. The fact that capital gains rates exist have no bearing to him. If, he did have a higher income such that his income tax rate was higher than the capital gains tax rate, he'd pay no more than $12 in taxes, leaving him with $48 after taxes.

PersonB invests $60M. After one year, his investment increases by 5%, earning him $3M. Same capital gains tax rate, but his personal income tax rate would be 35%. Capital gains tax rate at 20% means that he pays $600K in taxes, leaving him with $2.4M in earnings to put in his pocket. If we eliminate capital gains tax rates, he would pay 35%, which is $1.05M ($1,050,000), leaving him with $1.95M after taxes.


So, the person who invested very little maybe gets anywhere from $48 to $54 in his pocket this year. The person who invested $60M gets anywhere from $1.95M to $2.4M in his pocket. Sure, your elimination of capital gains taxes did manage to force that rich person to pay an extra $450k in taxes. Um... So what? He still got a maserati compared to your freaking bag of beans. OMG! So instead of getting wealthier at the rate of $2.4M/year, he's got to suffer with just under 2 million more dollars in his bank account. Every single year. Oh the horror! How will he ever live off that paltry sum?

This makes no difference in terms of who is rich and who is poor. None at all. You're certainly not going to help "the poor" in any way by doing this. And, as I've said repeatedly, there are a host of things that the rich guy can (and will) do to adjust for that fact. So now, knowing that there's no tax benefit for investing in things that pay out solely in capital gains taxes (like say stocks in publicly traded companies). He'll "invest" his money directly into businesses he owns. He'll hide the profits in "business expenses" that include things like company cars, and company executive retreats at expensive resorts, which as owner and CEO of the company, he'll naturally need to use. For company business of course. And let's not forget the company jet(s0), which must be of the highest quality, and of course, are there for the executives of the company to use, which all just happen to be close friends and family members.

You know. Since he has to pay the same tax rate either way, he may as well do it in a manner in which he has greater control of the books and business expenses and can wiggle things in his favor. That's what I meant by "return to the robber baron style of business". While there's certainly cases of abuses like this today, the fact that capital gains taxes do exist gives "the rich" a lot of incentive to put their money into publicly traded funds, so as to maximize return after taxes. Remove that incentive and there's far less reason for them to do this.


And, also as I've said before, you're ignoring the middle. While the amounts we were examining earlier may seem minimal, when we get to the middle areas, they become less so. Capital gains tax rates can make a significant difference for folks in that range, if say, they're cashing in some stock to buy a house. Or they're planning on using the after tax dollars from the growth of their investment portfolio that they slowly built up over 30-40 years of working to live on in their retirement years. It can easily make the difference between living comfortably in retirement to barely squeaking by. And, even more significantly, it can make the difference between being able to live off the growth of the portfolio alone rather than having to consume it over time. Which, in turn, makes the difference in terms of how much you have left over when you die (or if you run out for committing the horrific crime of living too long). Do you hand your grandchildren an estate that worth something, or just a pile of debt?

It's terrifically easy to just dismiss this as "stuff that only benefits the rich". But the reality is that the "rich" are generally rich enough that it doesn't matter much what rate you tax them directly on. It's the folks in the middle that it really matters for. Those are the people you are punishing if you decide to eliminate capital gains tax rates.
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#783 Mar 23 2018 at 11:59 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Now that we have one, and the ability for anyone with decent skills to become middle class, maybe we should allow them to share in this concept called "inheritance". Shocking concept!
Bolded statement proven wrong here in the past. Somehow, you still think it's valid. You're weird, dude.

gbaji wrote:

I said it was fair. Not that it affects "everyone equally". You'd be hard pressed to find anything that affects "everyone equally". It's an absurd standard to use, especially when you're selectively using it.
gbaji thinks it's not absurd to give the wealthy more wealth at the expense of the entire country just because of how the money was made. Absolutely no one is shocked.
gbaji wrote:
Sure, your elimination of capital gains taxes did manage to force that rich person to pay an extra $450k in taxes. Um... So what?
So he helps the country that allowed him to succeed and help everybody else (if nothing else, infrastructure and such, before you go off on a tangent about "welfare queens" again).
gbaji wrote:
He'll hide the profits in "business expenses" that include things like company cars, and company executive retreats at expensive resorts, which as owner and CEO of the company, he'll naturally need to use. For company business of course. And let's not forget the company jet(s0), which must be of the highest quality, and of course, are there for the executives of the company to use, which all just happen to be close friends and family members.
Since they do all these things anyway, what was your point? Reward them for being tax-evading douches?


As for the rest of your rant about investment helping everybody, so it's worth doing (capital gains), where do you stop? Dairy farmers are pretty important, right? Do they get the 20% tax rate? In my opinion, teachers are equally useful to the country as an investment broker. Do they get a 20% rate?
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#784 Mar 26 2018 at 10:02 AM Rating: Good
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Friar Bijou wrote:
In my opinion, teachers are equally useful to the country as an investment broker.
Yeah, but teachers and waiters are paid as much as Brigadier Generals.
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#785 Mar 26 2018 at 11:42 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Sir Xsarus wrote:
Why do you care about passing money on to your heirs? Didn't we hate the generational money and Lords system of Europe? Why do we suddenly think this is awesome?
Um... Because we didn't hate the ability to inherit wealth, but that the Lords had all of the wealth. Totally different things. So your argument is that now that the "common people" have the ability to earn enough wealth to pass on to their families, we should abolish the concept? That seems odd. Like "OMG! We can't let those common people have anything nice, now can we?".

Right, but what you're proposing doesn't affect the middle class. Capital gains isn't something that really affects them, as they typically use the capped retirement options that bypass this, and aren't affected by estate tax.

gbaji wrote:
Quote:
Do you want to go back to the days of rich Lords who control everything and hand it down over and over? Because that's definitely bad for the middle class.


Um... What? Back in the days, there was no real middle class. That's why it was bad. If you weren't born to wealthy nobility (ok, a small merchantile class too) you had no chance to be anything other than poor. Now that we have one, and the ability for anyone with decent skills to become middle class, maybe we should allow them to share in this concept called "inheritance". Shocking concept!
But what you're proposing will allow the very rich to concentrate the wealth in their hands. History clearly shows that when people can focus wealth and power and entrench it along generations it's only hurts mobility and power among people not among that group. You're justifying things based on it's theoretical effect on people that won't actually feel it.



gbaji wrote:
So, the person who invested very little maybe gets anywhere from $48 to $54 in his pocket this year. The person who invested $60M gets anywhere from $1.95M to $2.4M in his pocket. Sure, your elimination of capital gains taxes did manage to force that rich person to pay an extra $450k in taxes. Um... So what? He still got a maserati compared to your freaking bag of beans. OMG! So instead of getting wealthier at the rate of $2.4M/year, he's got to suffer with just under 2 million more dollars in his bank account. Every single year. Oh the horror! How will he ever live off that paltry sum?
So what I'm reading here is that you're fine with capital gains being taxed as income. Great. No issues from my end. I don't have a problem with someone having a ton more money, so this seems reasonable to me.
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#786 Mar 26 2018 at 8:08 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Now that we have one, and the ability for anyone with decent skills to become middle class, maybe we should allow them to share in this concept called "inheritance". Shocking concept!
Bolded statement proven wrong here in the past. Somehow, you still think it's valid. You're weird, dude.


What's weird is assuming that the ability to do something is disproved if less than 100% of the population statistically achieves that thing. Having the ability to do something is no guarantee. I get you want to wallow in your world view that the deck is magically stacked against you and it's just impossible to succeed, but the reality is that most people are one good job from the middle class. That's it. It's hardly some impossible condition to achieve.


Quote:
gbaji thinks it's not absurd to give the wealthy more wealth at the expense of the entire country just because of how the money was made.


First off, your response bears zero resemblance to anything I said. You were claiming that something which doesn't "affect everyone equally" was "not fair". I disagreed. And you respond with... this? Huh?

Ignoring the completely out from left field of your response, you're wrong on multiple levels:

1. We're not "giving wealth" to anyone. Investing in something, and then having that something increase in value after a year, is not the result of someone else "giving you" anything. And no, a lower tax rate also isn't "giving wealth" to someone. It's "taking less wealth", from them. Once again, the old mental block between absence of a negative, and presence of a positive rears its head into the discussion. How many times have I pointed this out as a logical flaw? Yet, how many times do people continue to argue as though it's valid? Well, that's +1, I guess.

2. It's not "at the expense of the entire country". OMG you have such a martyr complex going on! I've specifically argued, in fact, that the whole point of the lower capital gains tax rate is to encourage investment in things that actually experience real growth over time, rather than just quick "gambling" style gains. The whole point is to get folks to put money into things that benefit other people instead of just things that benefit themselves. How on earth you equate that to being at the expense of the rest of the country is beyond me.

Could you even just try to understand what I'm talking about? I wouldn't mind if you argued against me and at least had some kind of economically sound position. But you don't. It's just associative mumble jumbo.

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So he helps the country that allowed him to succeed and help everybody else (if nothing else, infrastructure and such, before you go off on a tangent about "welfare queens" again).


Sigh. And what do you suppose said rich guy would have done with that money if it hadn't been taxed? Hide it under a mattress? We even went through a case (which you brought up IIRC), about different tax rates and a small business. I pointed out that to get the capital gains tax rate, the owner would have to use the money in some way that actually increased the real market value of the business. Which, most of the time for a small business means expanding in some way, which usually means hiring more people. Which, shockingly, might just be better for the economic outlook of "other people", than what the tax dollars might otherwise have been used for.

If your argument is valid, then why not just argue for 100% tax rates for everything and everyone? Then all our money would be used to "help everyone else"? Clearly, there's a balance between money taxed by government and money left in the hands of private owners, right? It's not an absolute "Taxes are good/bad" versus "private money is good/bad". My argument addresses this nuance by arguing for tax structures that reward "good" investment of private money. So we tax higher that which is gained by "gambling", and less that which is gained as a result of real economic growth. I'm not sure why this is a problem.

Oh. And I'll also point out that you just changed the subject. Your original argument wasn't about whether the taxes would be beneficial for others, but that the rich guy personally benefited more from capital gains then those with less wealth, so it was somehow "unfair". Remember your whole "he gets a maserati, and I get a bag of beans" bit? Where did that argument go?

Quote:
Since they do all these things anyway, what was your point? Reward them for being tax-evading douches?


No. As I've already explained like 8 times now. Reward them for investing their money in ways that are most likely to benefit other people, rather than ways that are least likely. Again, it's not like it's "zero tax" I'm arguing for here. Just that if we're going to tax income, why not do it in a way that encourages the best use of the money within the private market?

I'll ask again: What is your alternative proposal? Why is that "better"? I've argued at length the benefits of having a lower capital gains tax rate. What's funny is that you haven't actually countered a single point I've made. All you've said is that since "the rich" engage in such investment more than others, it's somehow a bad idea. But "the rich" are going to engage in any investment form more than others anyway, right? Investment that doesn't fall under our current long term capital gains requirements is still going to overwhelmingly be engaged in by "the rich". Any tax adjustments we make will affect "the rich" more than anyone else, because they have the most money. It's a nonsense argument to make.

The question isn't about who has the most money, or who is in a position to invest the most money, but whether our tax policies encourages uses of that money which we view as "good", or ones we view as "bad", or somewhere in between (so even just "better" is a positive choice here). You're trying to apply a black and white argument here, but it just doesn't work.


Quote:
As for the rest of your rant about investment helping everybody, so it's worth doing (capital gains), where do you stop? Dairy farmers are pretty important, right? Do they get the 20% tax rate? In my opinion, teachers are equally useful to the country as an investment broker. Do they get a 20% rate?


What the heck does this have to do with anything? Money earned by a dairy farmer in the form of a capital gain, gets taxed as a capital gain. So he buys a calf, and sells it a year later, he pays capital gains tax on the difference. Anything earned as income is taxed as income. So his salary as a dairy farmer is income. His net profits from the sale of milk or whatever is income.

The teachers salary is taxed as income. Cause it's... wait for it... income. The investment broker's salary is *also* taxed as income (you do understand that most brokers are actually paid a salary, right?). He pays income tax on that, just like everyone else.

You just have a bizarre way of looking at this. As though the tax rates are some kind of indication of the value of the people or something. That's not the case. If a school teacher invests money into the market, and gets a return, guess what? He pays capital gains on that gain. Just exactly like the investment broker who puts his own money into an investment does. And just like the dairy farmer does. I'm not sure why you have this mental block for this.

It's not about what you do to earn money in the first place. It's what you choose to do with money you have already earned. Capital gains taxes are about rewarding people for taking money they already have, which they could simply spend on things for themselves, but choose to risk that money buying some kind of investment. The argument is that this kind of spending is more beneficial to the economy as a whole than simple consumption. You're free to argue that this isn't the case, but that's not what you have done. All you've done is make some really weak identity associated claims about who is "good" and "bad". We don't (or shouldn't) reward people based on whether we like or dislike them, but based on their actions. And guess what? The "action" of investing money for a long(ish) term, is something we like to encourage. So or tax code encourages it. And it does so for anyone and everyone who does that action with their money.

You're the one trying to make this about the "who", and not the "what". I totally disagree with that approach.

Edited, Mar 26th 2018 7:14pm by gbaji
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#787 Mar 26 2018 at 8:39 PM Rating: Decent
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Right, but what you're proposing doesn't affect the middle class. Capital gains isn't something that really affects them, as they typically use the capped retirement options that bypass this, and aren't affected by estate tax.


If by "typically" you mean "sometimes". There's a lot of discussion and decision making involved in deciding to do a pre-tax capped option, or post-tax investment. There are pros and cons to each. It's more than disingenuous to suggest that folks in the middle class don't look at these options and make decisions (usually amounting to pay more tax now, or pay more later).

There are also a heck of a lot of middle class folks who have more investments than just a 401k, or certain forms of IRAs. I'll again point to the difference of having the ability to do something, versus the rate at which people choose to do those things. Most people go for the capped plans, not because they are the best choices in the long run, but because they are relatively simple, and come with some protections. Most people I know augment those plans with direct post-tax investments as well.

Quote:
But what you're proposing will allow the very rich to concentrate the wealth in their hands.


No, it wont. It actually provides a greater degree for wealth to be shared among many people than the alternative (ie: no capital gains tax rate). I've explained why, several times. Just declaring it to be so doesn't make it so.

Quote:
History clearly shows that when people can focus wealth and power and entrench it along generations it's only hurts mobility and power among people not among that group.


Great. But given that my entire argument is that lower capital gains tax rates actually have the opposite effect, you need to do more than just declare that this is "bad". We both agree that this is bad. What we disagree on is which tax structure is more likely to result in this result. You need to actually make an argument that eliminating the capital gains tax rates would result in a greater spread of wealth than not doing so. I've made several arguments about how capital gains encourages money to be invested in ways that economically benefit others (both in terms of better job opportunities *and* by increasing the amount of publicly traded investments thus allowing the "less than rich" to participate).

What do you have? Please explain how eliminating the capital gains tax rate would affect the resulting wealth distribution in our nation? I'll wait.

Quote:
You're justifying things based on it's theoretical effect on people that won't actually feel it.


And you're assuming that no one will feel it except a small group that you've decided deserve to be punished or something. I literally personally know at least a hundred people who are regular salaried workers, who have invested in a stock portfolio, and later cashed in various amounts of that portfolio for various things. The most common is to put a down payment on a home. Get back to me when you've sold a large chunk of stock to make a large purchase like this, and are looking at a doubling (or more) of that years income. The tax difference is pretty freaking massive in that case. And it's a case that really only matters to the middle class because that one year of what is for him possibly a once or twice in a lifetime "big sale" would otherwise result in a huge increase in his tax burden that year because it's a one time big increase of his salary. But it's not indicative of his normal yearly salary, so that tax burden really hurts.

Someone who is "rich" and is buying and trading stuff all the time doesn't care nearly as much. As an academic matter? Sure. He'll take the lower tax rate if he can. But it's not like it hurts him if he doesn't get it.

Quote:
gbaji wrote:
So, the person who invested very little maybe gets anywhere from $48 to $54 in his pocket this year. The person who invested $60M gets anywhere from $1.95M to $2.4M in his pocket. Sure, your elimination of capital gains taxes did manage to force that rich person to pay an extra $450k in taxes. Um... So what? He still got a maserati compared to your freaking bag of beans. OMG! So instead of getting wealthier at the rate of $2.4M/year, he's got to suffer with just under 2 million more dollars in his bank account. Every single year. Oh the horror! How will he ever live off that paltry sum?
So what I'm reading here is that you're fine with capital gains being taxed as income. Great. No issues from my end. I don't have a problem with someone having a ton more money, so this seems reasonable to me.


And... you missed the point too. The point is that the rich guy still has a maserati versus a bag of beans, regardless of which tax method we use. So the whole "he has more money than me!" argument doesn't work.

My argument, on the other hand, is about what the rich guy invests his money in, and how he invests it. He's going to be rich either way, but if we can get him to use his wealth in ways that help others, that's a good thing, right? Long term investments tend to do that far far more often than short term ones. That's the whole difference here.
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#788 Mar 27 2018 at 12:36 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
And what do you suppose said rich guy would have done with that money if it hadn't been taxed?
Bank it. Are you retarded?

By every measure the very richest have gotten vastly richer, while most of the country has had low income growth and lost real buying power (since about 1980). I get that your head is so far up the ass of Ayn Rand and the "trickle down" people that you're coming out their noses, but, c'mon.

If you think having rich, powerful dynastic families rule the country is good, just say so. Don't pussy-foot around.
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#789 Mar 27 2018 at 7:34 AM Rating: Excellent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Are you retarded?
Strives for average at best.
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#790 Mar 27 2018 at 12:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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Well, that's certainly not worth responding to. Have fun there.

Also, what Bijou said.
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#791 Mar 27 2018 at 1:13 PM Rating: Good
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Have you ever been so bored that you forced yourself to read an entire gbaji wall o' text?




























Yeah, me neither. Smiley: tongue
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#792 Mar 27 2018 at 2:34 PM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Yeah, me neither.
Practice for speed reading. I'm up to two War & Peaces an hour.
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#793 Mar 28 2018 at 11:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Have you ever been so bored that you forced yourself to read an entire gbaji wall o' text?

Yeah, me neither. Smiley: tongue

I did once, about ten years ago, but don't feel the need to rehash the same tired bullshit over and over. If I wanted to do that I'd go read The Stand another thirty times.
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#794 Mar 29 2018 at 1:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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Debalic wrote:
Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Have you ever been so bored that you forced yourself to read an entire gbaji wall o' text?

Yeah, me neither. Smiley: tongue

I did once, about ten years ago, but don't feel the need to rehash the same tired bullshit over and over. If I wanted to do that I'd go read The Stand another thirty times.
I both Smiley: mad and Smiley: inlove right now.


Smiley: laugh
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#795 Apr 02 2018 at 12:46 PM Rating: Excellent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
By every measure the very richest have gotten vastly richer, while most of the country has had low income growth and lost real buying power (since about 1980). I get that your head is so far up the ass of Ayn Rand and the "trickle down" people that you're coming out their noses, but, c'mon.
Yes, but they made a really nice infograph about the evils of globalization and Obamacare.


Edited, Apr 2nd 2018 11:47am by someproteinguy
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#796 Apr 03 2018 at 8:41 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And what do you suppose said rich guy would have done with that money if it hadn't been taxed?
Bank it. Are you retarded?


False, and no.

What do you mean "bank it"? You mean actually just put it in a savings account?

What the rich do with the money is invest it. You know, in the sort of things that are taxed lower (like, capital gains). The very things which I just pointed out tend to produce economic growth which benefits everyone else and not just the rich person. They don't just stick their wealth in a freaking mattress.

What's funny is that your entire argument is based on how unfair capital gains rates are because it benefits the rich, but then you somehow assume that, upon becoming "rich", they stop investing in things that grant them capital gains rates? That makes zero sense. The continue to re-invest the wealth. And along the way, the benefits to everyone else far outweigh the increase in the number of zeros in the rich folks net worth.

Quote:
By every measure the very richest have gotten vastly richer, while most of the country has had low income growth and lost real buying power (since about 1980).


By a very narrow set of measurements, and only if we ignore buying power for anything other than staple goods. The reality is that during the same time period in which "the rich get richer", the standard of living for "everyone else" has consistently improved. You have to contrive economic measurements to arrive at any other conclusion.
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#797 Apr 03 2018 at 10:24 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And what do you suppose said rich guy would have done with that money if it hadn't been taxed?
Bank it. Are you retarded?


False, and no.

What do you mean "bank it"? You mean actually just put it in a savings account?

What the rich do with the money is invest it. You know, in the sort of things that are taxed lower (like, capital gains). The very things which I just pointed out tend to produce economic growth which benefits everyone else and not just the rich person. They don't just stick their wealth in a freaking mattress.

What's funny is that your entire argument is based on how unfair capital gains rates are because it benefits the rich, but then you somehow assume that, upon becoming "rich", they stop investing in things that grant them capital gains rates? That makes zero sense. The continue to re-invest the wealth. And along the way, the benefits to everyone else far outweigh the increase in the number of zeros in the rich folks net worth.

Quote:
By every measure the very richest have gotten vastly richer, while most of the country has had low income growth and lost real buying power (since about 1980).


By a very narrow set of measurements, and only if we ignore buying power for anything other than staple goods. The reality is that during the same time period in which "the rich get richer", the standard of living for "everyone else" has consistently improved. You have to contrive economic measurements to arrive at any other conclusion.


Not me. I care about balance. And too much money concentrated in too few hands equals too much power in too few hands. It needs to be more distributed. Not like in democracy, heavens forfend I am not that naive, but some middle ground to still protect the minority of opulent from the unwashed masses and some way to keep this society thing going without breaking down.

******* balance. That is all I ask for. We can quibble over over the point where too much is too much. How do you feel about two islands in French Polynesia limit of wealth? Everything after that, taxed at 100%.
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#798 Apr 03 2018 at 10:38 PM Rating: Good
GBATE!! Never saw it coming
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gbaji wrote:
What the rich do with the money is invest it. You know, in the sort of things that are taxed lower (like, capital gains). The very things which I just pointed out tend to produce economic growth which benefits everyone else and not just the rich person. They don't just stick their wealth in a freaking mattress.
They also buy things you fucking imbecile. Whether those things are real estate or Lear jets or mansions, they buy them. They sock money (fungible and non) away for their children. They donate. They give to politicians and PACs. They bribe people and buy their silence. They try to cure malaria. They shoot rockets into space.

All of those things require that, yes, you dumb-fucking cockstain, they bank it. You can't cash a check or swipe your card without money in the bank.

Until you show me in the Constitution where people have a right to buy political power and keep other people in financial thrall, just shut the hell up.

Your mom's Catholic, right? Does she know the extent of your hatred for your fellow man? Your unmitigated sin? Likely not, you coward.

KYS
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#799 Apr 04 2018 at 7:24 AM Rating: Good
Worst. Title. Ever!
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angrymnk wrote:
How do you feel about two islands in French Polynesia limit of wealth? Everything after that, taxed at 100%.

Bijou spontaneously orgasms at the thought.

Edit:
If he could actually see it.

Edited, Apr 4th 2018 9:25am by TirithRR
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#800 Apr 04 2018 at 7:38 AM Rating: Good
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angrymnk wrote:
keep this society thing going without breaking down.
Society is binding. It's filling in the cracks with concrete. No cracks to slip through. everything is recorded, filed, blogged, chips in our kids so they don't get lost -- Society needs to crumble. We're all too chickenshit to let it.
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#801 Apr 04 2018 at 10:52 AM Rating: Decent
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lolgaxe wrote:
angrymnk wrote:
keep this society thing going without breaking down.
Society is binding. It's filling in the cracks with concrete. No cracks to slip through. everything is recorded, filed, blogged, chips in our kids so they don't get lost -- Society needs to crumble. We're all too chickenshit to let it.


Dunno, I like not having to hunt down wild tacos, or grow organic big macs. As an old person, I want to my status quo.
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