"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:
WS.
You mean when the Dems were in charge of Congress?
You'll note that I didn't say the Republicans did it. At least in that
paragraph.
(That's a pre-emptive strike (g).
g
(-: But you'd have to be living in a deep, dark cave not to
know that they generally support less regulation and believe that the
free
market is the perfect solution to all our woes. And yet their hands
were
out to Uncle Sam when the free market threatened to collapse the entire
system. Still, they are pushing to roll back or neutralize every
attempt at
reform. Why? Because an unreformed market lets them get away with
robbery
of the middle class with almost nothing to stop them. People are
realizing
this all over the globe.
As do the Dems until it comes out to bite their asses and then they
Take Great Amounts Of Umbrage and blame the GOP. The ONLY Dem to my
mind who has any credibility in this is Barney Frank who was the only
currently serving Dem in either House that voted against ALL the
changes. The Dems voted in overwhelming numbers for all of the bills
that made this possible.
As he's so fond of saying "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants
to die."
"We don't have a crisis at Freddie Mac and especially at Fannie
Mae", Maxine Waters in 2004.
Gregory Meeks is actually ****ed off (his words) at the GOP for
bringing this up since he sees no problems with the GSEs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
YouTube doesn't work so well with dial-up.
Never have been able to figure out if this is plain old selective
perception or Soviet-style rewriting of history.
The whole world's engaged in Soviet-style rewriting of history. That's why
Wikipedia finally had to put a stop to the "everyone can edit" mode for the
more controversial subjects. It's a form of political Alzheimer's where
people don't remember the sins of their own party but never forget the sins
of the opposition. When I owned a small business, I was a die-hard
Republican but the belief that the free market can solve all the world's
problems eventually drove me wild. Corporations have no social conscience
or sense of morality. It has to be imposed externally as business has shown
time and time again. That's not a bad thing, it's just a fact of life.
Even the founding fathers realized that every process had to have checks and
balances. Government balances the interests of businesses against the
interests of citizens.
I laughed when Ron Paul suggested we abolish the Interior Dept. Who's going
to manage oil and gas leasing? The IRS? Speaking of which, the latest
interesting example is how a Canadian company, TransCanada is trying to
condemn American properties on the route of the proposed pipelines. In
Texas, it was a cinch for a foreign company to ram the pipeline through
anywhere they wanted. Texas laws, as you might imagine, favor oil companies
over citizen's rights. In other states, the routing has not been quite so
easy.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/articl...Canadian-Twist
http://tinyurl.com/65trhl6
"In addition to enraging those along the proposed pipeline's 1,700-mile
path, the tactics have many people questioning whether a foreign company can
pressure landowners without a permit from the State Department - the agency
charged with determining whether the project is in the "national
interest."
And they pay for them. The top 20% (actually) pay a greater %age of
the income taxes than their %age of income.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Kurt. Much more of the
wealthy's
income derives not from paychecks, but from investments so fair comparis
ons
are hard to make. But just like HeyBub claiming our corporate tax rate
is
among the highest in the world, the truth is that it's only on paper.
GE
pays NO taxes along with a boatload of companies, some of whom even get
money back from the government.
Nonsense this the amount of taxes paid.
Are you *sure* you were a journalist? (-: I really do have some serious
trouble figuring out what you're trying to say at times. This is one of
them. I pasted the above sentence into Word and even it's confused. Please
say again.
The amount of income they get and the amount of taxes they pay.
Ditto. Do you post these messages during or after cocktail hour. g
The top 1% get 16% of the income yet pay 34.3% of income taxes.
What's the problem? They have made the most of the system's many benefits.
While I can understand, in principle, that people should get to keep
everything they've earned, in reality, it doesn't bother me much that a
hedge fund boss earning $100M gets to part with a lot of it especially since
I'm pretty sure part of it came from MY pension fund. When wealth gets
overconcentrated, the whole economy suffers and social unrest begins to
form, especially if they just sit on the cash and don't invest in productive
AMERICAN businesses. If that money helps build up China's manufacturing
prowess, I'm for having them pay 50% or more of their income in taxes. As
HomeGuy's post noted, the uber-rich make lots of money just by having money.
This is income on their income taxes. The top 1% pay an effective rate
of 20.4% while the two lowest
quintiles have a negative rate because they get more back than they put in
(credits over and above whatever they get back in withholding). If you
do the total effective rate (including SS and excise taxes (the rate
runs around 31% and 4.5% respectively.
I can only assume from your familiarity with how the rich are taxed that
you're among them. More power to you. If that's true, it can't be from
working as a nurse for the VA. I assume it's family money. The question I
have is this: Which quintiles would you rather be in, even with the
egregious tax rates?
Those in the top 1% who pay no taxes at all ran to much less than
1/10 of a percent of the total. IRS records show over the last few years
the middle class is the group that has seen the highest growth (in
numbers anyway) of those paying no income taxes. (All of these are from
readily available IRS tables if you want to look around.)
All of which sadly supports my premise that the middle class is losing so
much ground that they're dropping into the well where the government helps
them instead of vice-versa. That's not good.
It's a complicated picture, but the bottom line is that people at the
bottom
are doing a hell of a lot worse, percentage-wise in nearly every
economic
measure while the wealthy get even richer. They pay a greater
proportion of
their income in taxes, payroll taxes and sales taxes than the rich.
That's
why Cain's 9-9-9 proposal is going to fall flat on its face. It gives
the
rich an even GREATER break than they've been getting. That's a recipe
for
disaster and widespread social unrest. Ironically, his campaign will
probably fail because he can't raise enough money to be an actual
player.
But they don't pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes, as
the effective rates show.
Poor pronoun reference. I am going to send the ghost of my seventh grade
English teacher, Miss Mayefsky to haunt your PC. Which 'they' are you
referring to?
The Total shows that doesn't even occur when you fold in SS and excise
taxes.
The Total? Is that like that guy from the Jersey Shore, the "Situation?"
(-:
The money came out of the stock market in 2008 because a lot of people
(like
me) think it's no longer an investment in America but a way for the
uber-rich to amass even more wealth through means that do not help the
country's economy grow in a productive way. With their access to high
speed
trading and other "unfair" maneuvers, they can exit a bear market with
far
more skin than the mom and pop investors of the country, who get stuck
with
the largest percentage of the loss. Until there's some serious reform
on
Wall St. our economy is going to stay flat - or worse.
Too bad. I started buying and am WAY up since then, even with the
pullbacks. There has never been a 10-year period (including this one)
where the S&P has returned less than 8% on an annualized basis. Not my
fault (or the bankers for that matter) that most people pull their money
out at exactly the wrong time.
My pension's in CREF stock. I cashed out all my other stock. CREF's down a
Ferrari's worth but fortunately my cash out, even though it was a little
early, preserved my principle. Cashing out a little too early is still a
lot better than being a little late. The problem with that adage about
"never been a 10 year period" is that people who invest in the market can
get, as Hank Paulson so glibly said, "zeroed out." When you get to your
sixties, 10 year averages don't mean quite so much as when you're in your
thirties and can ride out the valleys.
What I was trying to say is that when GM stockholders lose everything, they
lose confidence in the market as a whole. Same with Enron. That has an
effect. I think the OWS protests might have an initial bad effect as well.
In the long run, much needed reform that restores confidence in the market
could be very helpful.
You don't get out of bear markets by high speed trading, or other
unfair methods.
Why are they so enormously popular and under the scrutiny of the SEC, then?
If you see trouble coming and you can execute trades faster than most other
people, you have an advantage and the recent closing and rolling back of a
stock whose name I can't remember shows how fast the bottom can fall out
with automated trading that reacts to falling prices. If my sell order
beats yours to the floor, I'm in much better shape. Brokerages are always
going to favor their richest customers. The stock market needs some serious
reform and I am hoping OWS triggers some of it.
Bear markets are by definition falls of 10% or more. You
get out of them by paying attention, and selling for cash when you think
it is time. This is psychology (one of the things I am fighting is the
fact that people often wed their ideas more strongly than their spouses.
I hate to sell my children and when that happens I hold on longer than I
KNOW I should. THat is what messes people up.
My gut churned for weeks after I closed out my non-pension related holdings.
Ironically, when my CREF account dropped like a paralyzed falcon this
quarter I actually felt GOOD about it because I still had the cash from my
big sell-off although chasing even a mediocre return outside the market is
getting difficult. I'm starting a real estate venture with my god-daughter
using some of that cash on the belief that getting her started, even at a
loss, means that she'll be able to hit the ground running with a lot of
experience under her belt when the market returns.
I've discovered a secret - bidding super low on empty, foreclosed properties
and then reporting all the code violations I can find on that property to
the county. I assume that sooner or later the bank is going to think "it's
costing us a LOT of money to hold this property so we might as well take the
lowball offer." I think we're coming close to acquiring a house for an
outrageously low price as a result. (-:
--
Bobby G.