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09-10-2010, 11:56 AM   #61
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how diplomatic

I'd just call it insane, based mostly on peoples gut reactions....... In the real world there is very little sympathy for the $500,00 plus people.......
QuoteQuote:
Oh, and by the way, somehow the economy managed to survive the Clinton era tax rates under Clinton. Growth was much higher under those rates than it was under the lower Bush tax rates. The theory that cutting the top marginal tax rates is an effective way to spur economic growth is, at best, unproven.


09-10-2010, 12:34 PM   #62
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... and let's not get confused here: the Law of the Land, as enacted by a Republican Congress, and signed by a Republican President, is a tax increase. Therefore, Obama's proposal is a tax cut, just as the Republican proposal is. Even for the highest earners, despite the marginal tax rate, this is a tax cut due to the lower brackets being cut back. That's what the Republicans tend to hide - if you cut the lower brackets, EVERYONE gets a tax cut, including those in the top bracket. If you listen to them, you get the impression that the wealthy won't get any benefit at all, and that will destroy the economy.

And I do wonder - please can they explain how Bill Gates and all those other high tech billionaires and millionaires managed to become such, under the awful confiscatory and redistributist Democrat tax policies? After all, Gates along the way had to pay a *shudder* high marginal tax rates of 50% (82-86), and around 39% since, all the way till Bush and the Republicans finally liberated him with the 35% rate in 2003. Seems to me, contrary to theory, the glory days of Microsoft were during the high marginal tax days, and that's when they grew fastest, hired fastest, and made most of their workers wealthy. The pattern is confirmed by looking at the other tech companies of the era.

According to Republican anti-tax theory, Bill should not have had any incentive to grow Microsoft and to become the wealthiest man on earth because his top tax rate was 50%. According to Republicans, 50% should have made Bill retire early, or settle for a middling existence, for after all most of the incremental dollars he made went to all those taxes.
09-10-2010, 03:58 PM   #63
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Perhaps Paul Allen may have bought a 3rd yacht.
Looks like he's scaling back in advance of those pesky tax hikes..........
QuoteQuote:
The 303-foot-long Tatoosh is number 26 on the world's largest yachts list, but don't worry too much about Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen: he still owns the world's ninth largest, the Octopus.

Allen's put Tatoosh up for sale at Fraser Yachts in Florida, with the asking price of €125,000,000 (around $158,564,719.54). It's a lot of money, sure, but you'll be able to ferry around 20 guests and keep 30 crew members, with the motorboat and helipad on standby for daytrips to the mainland for Windows software launches.
Paul Allen's Yacht Could Be Yours For $158,000,000

Inside Paul Allen's $162 Million Yacht Tatoosh, Now Available For Purchase
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Oh yeah, and you get a big weekly bill for upkeep. Paul's other yacht, the 404-foot Octopus, costs him $38,000 each week.
09-11-2010, 07:24 AM   #64
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
...
And I do wonder - please can they explain how Bill Gates and all those other high tech billionaires and millionaires managed to become such, under the awful confiscatory and redistributist Democrat tax policies? After all, Gates along the way had to pay a *shudder* high marginal tax rates of 50% (82-86), and around 39% since, all the way till Bush and the Republicans finally liberated him with the 35% rate in 2003.
Why stop there. Were there no fortunes made between 1932 and 1981 when top brackets were between 60% and as high as 90%?


Last edited by GeneV; 09-11-2010 at 12:15 PM.
09-11-2010, 03:31 PM   #65
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QuoteOriginally posted by GeneV Quote
Why stop there. Were there no fortunes made between 1932 and 1981 when top brackets were between 60% and as high as 90%?
I tell you, that was the nadir of America, for sure. No progress at all economically, and those years saw the erection of the socialist state. Even Eisenhower was a communist agent (per father Koch & the john birchers)... our high point came before 1913 when the Communist Sixteenth Amendment made it into our Constitution, before the Progressive Republican Trust Buster Communist Theodore Roosevelt, why, I believe the days of Commodore Vanderbilt were the only true American days of glory, and we ought to bring them back. What Reagan started must be finished.
09-11-2010, 03:47 PM   #66
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
I tell you, that was the nadir of America, for sure. No progress at all economically, and those years saw the erection of the socialist state. Even Eisenhower was a communist agent (per father Koch & the john birchers)... our high point came before 1913 when the Communist Sixteenth Amendment made it into our Constitution, before the Progressive Republican Trust Buster Communist Theodore Roosevelt, why, I believe the days of Commodore Vanderbilt were the only true American days of glory, and we ought to bring them back. What Reagan started must be finished.
Never again will be be forced to endure anything like the Great Depression of 1945-1960.
09-15-2010, 06:31 AM   #67
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Tax increase analysis

based on facts........
Who Would the Tax Increases Hurt? The Washington Independent
bit at the end:
QuoteQuote:
The Joint Committee on Taxation does estimate (PDF) that 750,000 individual tax filings with business income — about 3 percent of all tax filings with business income — would see higher marginal rates. The problem is in sorting out whose filings those are. Business income filed on an individual return might stem from anything from a hedge fund to a lemonade stand to a person who makes money selling items on eBay. The number and kind of small businesses that might see taxes on their profits rise is impossible to determine without access to private IRS files.

Still, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimates that the tax hit would not be too high for most small businesses. For one, the marginal tax increase impacts earnings, not revenue. A business would need to be clearing more than $250,000 a year after salaries and other costs in order to see a tax hit. And then, it would likely be small. “For the $250,000 to $500,000 a year bracket,” Baker notes, “the estimated tax hit is $700. That isn’t enough to hire anyone.”

Other groups have also estimated that the impact would not be great. Citizens for Tax Justice, for instance, examined (PDF) “data on individuals who get more than half of their income from a business that they actively operate.” Only five percent would lose any portion of earnings — many of whom would be partners in law firms, hedge fund managers and accountants.


09-15-2010, 06:44 AM   #68
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... and at any rate, this whole thing is a (religious) non-issue. The marginal tax rate differences won't make a bit of difference to the Free Market Economy. Whatever tax monkeying is passed will then be trumpeted as the cause of whatever happens in the economy. This of course is political bs. For whatever myriad causes, the economy will come back next year, the year after, whenever, and we'll experience another boom.

However, the things that do make a difference are tangible and demonstrable: government revenue and the size of the deficit. Both democrats and republicans (and soon enough tea partiers) understand and fear the results of real, meaningful spending cuts. And, given the pork exchange that is such a part of how anything gets passed, the thought of attacking deficits via spending cuts and tax cuts only is clearly a hallucination.

We all know this from our personal finances: we can make our nut smaller, but especially when operating a family, we can't go live under a corrugated sheet metal shelter for a few years in order to pay down debt. Realistically, we shrink the nut where we can, and seek additional income (while putting a stop to new shopping sprees).

The Republican stance on taxes is irrational and irresponsible and has features of religious fanaticism.


(Here's my hallucinatory daydream: what if Congress united with a message to all voters & pledged not to attack each other in the next elections... and changed the Pork Exchange to a Cut Pork Exchange in the interests of helping solve the budget crisis... i.e. each congressman or senator came up with a list of programs to cut in their districts, and then exchanged these cuts amongst each other in order to form a majority to pass a budget cutting bill...)
09-15-2010, 07:40 AM   #69
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote

The Republican stance on taxes is irrational and irresponsible and has features of religious fanaticism.

That has been a hallmark of Republican economic theory for the last 30 years. Blind faith that cutting taxes solves everything.

Equally religious is the blind faith that corporations will solve everything or a consumption tax will solve everything.

Of course, there is a leftist view that is equally religious and unrealistic, but we haven't seen much of it the last few decades. Even the Castro brothers don't drink that Kool-Aid any more.
09-15-2010, 08:24 AM   #70
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In a nutshell:

FAQ on Bush tax cuts: What you need to know - Sep. 15, 2010
09-15-2010, 08:57 AM   #71
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See the picture I posted on the prior page - what very few people on either side seem to mention, or perhaps even realise, is that due to the way taxes work, even those in the top bracket receive the 'tax cuts' relative to current law for the first $250K of income. So Obama in fact is proposing a tax cut to the rich, and they are actually only arguing about its size...


meanwhile, is it true that corporate tax rates affect employment - cut corporate taxes and you increase employment? Not so, per this analysis:

Corporate Tax Rates and Unemployment | Angry Bear

QuoteQuote:
So what does this say? Here's my interpretation. If you look at the entire data set, the correlation between tax rates and unemployment appears to negative. That is to say, lower unemployment rates tend to be associated with higher corporate tax rates, not lower ones. Fast forward to the 1970s, and you see some of the oft-stated effect; higher taxes do seem to be associated with lower unemployment, and that effect becomes even stronger when you focus on the 1980s and beyond. However, the whole thing falls apart when you move into the 1990s and beyond, when the correlation is clearly negative, at least for the early years. The effect in out years is positive, but once again, its hard to see how the effect would lag that long. If I had to guess, the 1970s and 1980s were an aberration but I don't have time to develop that thought right now.

My second interpretation... if I wasn't some random guy who enjoys looking at data in an attempt to understand the world, but rather someone determined to reach a certain pre-determined conclusion, I'd pick my time sample very, very carefully.


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