Taxes > 100% ?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]orion wrote:

What you are really saying here is that they have no money left you could “tax” away from them and so you are trying to squeeze the last drops out of the “rich”
[/quote]
Progressive taxes put the burden on those who can pay. In reality, the more money you have, the more money you can make; the wealthy can even get the help of those they employ at much lower wages. I’m not buying your suggestion that the rich are being taxed to their “last drops”.

[quote]orion wrote:

before, finally, trying to deal with bureaucracy and government pork?
[/quote]
Since you’ve brought up excess spending, do you find social programs wasteful?

[quote]orion wrote:
And they still benefit from it. Your point is?
[/quote]
Altruism isn’t a universal attribute therefore regressive taxation can’t be relied upon as a way to improve society.

22

[quote]Dr. Stig wrote:
hspder wrote:

And you also do realize that even though Bill Gates’ foundation has been great at spreading direct help, they have refused to support more sophisticated education initiatives, like the one from the MIT to create a $100 laptop to give all children in undeveloped countries?

They were probably Apple Laptops.[/quote]

LOL! Close – they are Linux-based.

http://laptop.org/

23

[quote]hspder wrote:
Dr. Stig wrote:
hspder wrote:

And you also do realize that even though Bill Gates’ foundation has been great at spreading direct help, they have refused to support more sophisticated education initiatives, like the one from the MIT to create a $100 laptop to give all children in undeveloped countries?

They were probably Apple Laptops.

LOL! Close – they are Linux-based.

http://laptop.org/

[/quote]

The irony of it. I was reading this interesting article about MS and their take on open source software which might be a good topic for offtopic, which is also ironic I’d consider that the place for it, when it has far more to do with politics and world issues than self congratulatory christianity.

24

[quote]Dawg1 wrote:
orion wrote:

What you are really saying here is that they have no money left you could “tax” away from them and so you are trying to squeeze the last drops out of the “rich”

Progressive taxes put the burden on those who can pay. In reality, the more money you have, the more money you can make; the wealthy can even get the help of those they employ at much lower wages. I’m not buying your suggestion that the rich are being taxed to their “last drops”.

orion wrote:

before, finally, trying to deal with bureaucracy and government pork?

Since you’ve brought up excess spending, do you find social programs wasteful?

orion wrote:
And they still benefit from it. Your point is?

Altruism isn’t a universal attribute therefore regressive taxation can’t be relied upon as a way to improve society.[/quote]

So the answer to the first question was basically yes?

Some social programms are wasteful, some aren`t. All of them however perpetuate the mentality of entitlement and even worse, the mentality of government as a cash cow.

Since the government does not make any money on its own, it perpetuates the ideology of enslaving people part time (hell, most of their work time) to work for the needs of others.

Imrovement of society? Defined by who?
You say a welfare state is a better society and use it as an argument for a welfare state.

This logic is kind of circular, isn`t it?

Plus, I try to run a business under the conditions of such a state. I cannot even begin where the problems are with an ever increasing attempt of re-distributing money or with a government that believes in making laws for every aspect of doing business they can think of.

I can tell you the consequences though:

Wealthy people that are self-employed or have have non- incorporated businesses (Personengesellschaften, whatever that is in English) cheat on their taxes and/or they work less.

A lot of businesses never get off the ground, they simply cannot pay all the taxes plus social security.

That means that yes, Europan companies are more productive than their US counterparts, unfortunately that is because they fired all the less productive ones who would still have a job in the US.

And then there are those, like the French above, who pull a John Galt, emigrate to Belgium and refuse to work any longer for the common good.

So, you can have excellent reasons for when, why , how and whom you`d like to tax, there cometh a point where the most able ones start to go off the flag.

25

That kind of taxation is actually oftem times done on purpose. it will force a certain demographic to vacate the country. There could be many reasons why. Some government officials don’t want to superwealthy to be buying up strips of land etc etc…

26

[quote]hspder wrote:
lothario1132 wrote:
Prime example: Bill Gates.

Hate him for being successful (if a bit shady back in the nineties), but what is he doing with his retirement? Only funding and marketing the largest charity to have ever graced this planet… no big deal.

Wait, are you praising Bill Gates, one of the most openly liberal people in this country, and a great patron to the ultra-liberal Stanford University (he basically donated a whole building to us)?

The same Bill Gates that is a close friend of Warren Buffett, another bleeding heart ultra-liberal that was a potential candidate for the Green Party in 2004? The ultra-liberal Warren Buffett that just donated a boatload of money (several billions) to Bill Gates’ foundation instead of leaving it for his children?
…[/quote]

Lothario is a self professed liberal himself.

Buffett is a bit of a phony. Why did he wait so long to donate his billions?
Seems like he is trying to buy his way into the afterlife.

Why is he holding back ~ $ 7 billion so he can live like a king?

His donations do not change his quality of life one iota.

The money I donate to charity could be used to buy an iPod, a decent TV and the NFL Ticket. I would enjoy all those things.

I am sure Buffett owns everything he wants to.

(I know you donate a lot more money than I do.)

27

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Lothario is a self professed liberal himself.[/quote]

He sure doesn’t sound like one these days – he even gave Bush one thumb up in another thread. I cannot forgive him for that… :slight_smile:

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Buffett is a bit of a phony. Why did he wait so long to donate his billions?
Seems like he is trying to buy his way into the afterlife.

Why is he holding back ~ $ 7 billion so he can live like a king?

His donations do not change his quality of life one iota.[/quote]

Sure. Hence, in case you didn’t notice, my use of “limo-lib” to characterize him and Bill Gates.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
The money I donate to charity could be used to buy an iPod, a decent TV and the NFL Ticket. I would enjoy all those things.[/quote]

That is very honest of you! :slight_smile:

You can always donate all those things to a community rec center and then be there every day to enjoy them.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
(I know you donate a lot more money than I do.)[/quote]

Well, I just believe it’s much better to donate $3 to a charity I trust than give $1 to this administration, who doesn’t really deserve a cent… Multiply that by 100,000 and it’s 100,000 times better.

In fact, I feel much more robbed with the 15% tax I pay here than when I paid 55% tax in The Netherlands – at least over there I got my money’s worth.

Unfortunately, I really haven’t found a way to pay less than 15% tax. But I’m working on it!

28

[quote]orion wrote:

So the answer to the first question was basically yes?
[/quote]
Not necessarily, but the money has to come from somewhere. I’d rather see less government waste than have anybody paying more tax.

[quote]Some social programms are wasteful, some aren`t. All of them however perpetuate the mentality of entitlement and even worse, the mentality of government as a cash cow.
[/quote]
In a diverse society, it will be unlikely to find unanimous agreement on what programs are worthwhile. It’s easy to label special interests as entitlements.

[quote]Since the government does not make any money on its own, it perpetuates the ideology of enslaving people part time (hell, most of their work time) to work for the needs of others.

Imrovement of society? Defined by who?
You say a welfare state is a better society and use it as an argument for a welfare state.

This logic is kind of circular, isn`t it?
[/quote]
You make it sound like you don’t benefit from roads, electricity, police, etc.

And you’re going to have to define “welfare state” and see what I have to say about that before you decide I stand for it, mkay?

[quote]Plus, I try to run a business under the conditions of such a state. I cannot even begin where the problems are with an ever increasing attempt of re-distributing money or with a government that believes in making laws for every aspect of doing business they can think of.

I can tell you the consequences though:

Wealthy people that are self-employed or have have non- incorporated businesses (Personengesellschaften, whatever that is in English) cheat on their taxes and/or they work less.

A lot of businesses never get off the ground, they simply cannot pay all the taxes plus social security.

That means that yes, Europan companies are more productive than their US counterparts, unfortunately that is because they fired all the less productive ones who would still have a job in the US.

And then there are those, like the French above, who pull a John Galt, emigrate to Belgium and refuse to work any longer for the common good.

So, you can have excellent reasons for when, why , how and whom you`d like to tax, there cometh a point where the most able ones start to go off the flag.
[/quote]
California had an exodus of businesses leaving and other businesses increased outsourcing for the same reasons. Usually costs are passed down to consumers rather than taken out of owner’s equity, so, guess what, the middle class absorbs the bulk of business taxes anyway.

29

[quote]Dawg1 wrote:
California had an exodus of businesses leaving and other businesses increased outsourcing for the same reasons. Usually costs are passed down to consumers rather than taken out of owner’s equity, so, guess what, the middle class absorbs the bulk of business taxes anyway.[/quote]

The “exodus” from California had much more to do with the absurd salaries than with corporate taxes. It’s easy to escape from paying a good chunk of high CA corporate taxes, by incorporating in, say, Delaware, while still having most employees here in CA.

And before you mention it – the salaries are not high here in CA because of high income taxes either; we have some of the highest net salaries too…

The biggest problem in CA is, by far, real estate costs. Not only companies and individuals get hit by it directly, even the government does too, because even though they get to charge a boatload of money in property taxes, they, in turn, lose a lot of money in income taxes because mortgage interest is deductible.

And what causes high real estate costs? Demand elasticity, one of the most fundamental forces of Free Market Capitalism…

30

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Buffett is a bit of a phony. Why did he wait so long to donate his billions?
Seems like he is trying to buy his way into the afterlife.
[/quote]

Buffett said that his reasoning was that there will always be a demand for charity. He felt that if the money is held by someone who knows how to grow it at a very high rate of return, it makes more sense for that individual to continue growing the fortune, and then donate it once it has appreciated the fullest value.

That is his economic reasoning, which doesn’t take into account the possible return on investment from donating the money earlier and giving the causes more time to do their thing.

Also, he always anticipated that his wife would outlive him, and would be the one to manage how the money was used.

His wife always wanted to begin donating more money earlier, but because of the above-mentioned reasoning, he wanted to hold it back.

His wife’s death made him reevaluate.

31

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Lothario is a self professed liberal himself.

He sure doesn’t sound like one these days – he even gave Bush one thumb up in another thread. I cannot forgive him for that… :-)[/quote]

Aw shit… you see? I knew somebody was gonna heckle me for that! :slight_smile:

C’mon, hspder, one fucking thumb. Just on account of him being a former cokehead and alcoholic, having to deal with 9/11 and whatnot. He’s doing semi-almost great when you take into account that he hasn’t sold us all out for a few grams of Bogota Blow yet.

GWB, I salute you… kinda.

32

Sorry, gents, back on topic:

[quote]hspder wrote:
Do you really believe that Bill Gates’ motivation was money and that if taxes were higher in this country he wouldn’t have as much money as he does?[/quote]

I think Gates was motivated by money, power, and success. St. Elmo’s Fire, if you will. My comment about the charity not existing was in line, I think, if you remember the context, we were talking about ultra-rich people being taxed 100% above a certain cut-off point. That means nobody is a billionaire – hence, no Gates charity.

[quote]And you also do realize that even though Bill Gates’ foundation has been great at spreading direct help, they have refused to support more sophisticated education initiatives, like the one from the MIT to create a $100 laptop to give all children in undeveloped countries?
[/quote]

Maybe we could agree to disagree about this initiative. Giving laptops to third world children who don’t have reliable services in power, water, medicine – kinda need to take care of some other shit first before we start sponsoring third world internet porn, dontcha think? :slight_smile:

Maybe it’s just me, but starting off by vaccinating the entire third world is an awesome and awe-inspiring thing. If we could just get some better electricity over there, we could get some refrigerators to keep the vaccines in, and then it would be easier to deliver services…

But I’m going OT again. Bottom line: France sucks.

33

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
we were talking about ultra-rich people being taxed 100% above a certain cut-off point. That means nobody is a billionaire – hence, no Gates charity.[/quote]

The whole WP article is a huge straw-man that HH took advantage of. What happened to this guy in the article happened to thousands of people right here in the SF Bay Area after the .com boom and bust. Yes, in the US. Exactly the same thing, due to the AMT. And they did fine – there are ways to go around the problem, other than fleeing the country like a cheap coward.

Basically, this problem is not unique to France. Only a few countries changed the tax laws since then to avoid it from happening again.

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Maybe we could agree to disagree about this initiative. Giving laptops to third world children who don’t have reliable services in power, water, medicine – kinda need to take care of some other shit first before we start sponsoring third world internet porn, dontcha think? :)[/quote]

A certain saying about teaching a man how to fish rather than giving him a fish comes to mind…

We can send as many vaccines and as much food as we possibly can, but until the fundamental problem – lack of education and ability to self-sustain – is solved, poor countries will remain poor. I’m not saying we should stop sending them food and medicine, what I’m saying is that giving them the tools to become educated and lift themselves from the dirt them is equally, if not more, important.

34

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
C’mon, hspder, one fucking thumb. Just on account of him being a former cokehead and alcoholic, having to deal with 9/11 and whatnot. He’s doing semi-almost great when you take into account that he hasn’t sold us all out for a few grams of Bogota Blow yet.[/quote]

Sorry, but I really can’t forgive you for that one. :slight_smile:

The fact that he is a former cokehead and alcoholic does not give him any excuse. On the contrary. Nobody falls accidentally into addiction, especially when you are coming from a wealthy family in a good neighborhood – he stepped into it by himself, he hardly is a victim here.

35

[quote]hspder wrote:
The fact that he is a former cokehead and alcoholic does not give him any excuse. On the contrary. Nobody falls accidentally into addiction…[/quote]

So sorry, my liberal brother, but I have to beg to differ here. I quite literally accidentally became addicted to Jenna Jameson videos nearly three years ago. Man, that was a tough monkey to beat (har! har!), but I’ve been clean now for like upwards of two hours.

One day at a time… one day at a time.

36

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
So sorry, my liberal brother, but I have to beg to differ here. I quite literally accidentally became addicted to Jenna Jameson videos nearly three years ago. Man, that was a tough monkey to beat (har! har!), but I’ve been clean now for like upwards of two hours.

One day at a time… one day at a time.[/quote]

And there you have it folks, a discussion among liberals inevitably has to fall into discussing Jenna Jameson. :wink:

Coming up next: self-proclaimed conservatives complaining about us talking about Jenna, revealing how hypocritical they really are ('cause if they actually were true conservatives, they would not know who Jenna is…).

Now seriously, if the only thing Bushie had ever been addicted to was good ol’, reliable Jenna, I’d probably almost like him…

37

[quote]hspder wrote:
Now seriously, if the only thing Bushie had ever been addicted to was good ol’, reliable Jenna, I’d probably almost like him…[/quote]

See THIS? THIS IS HOW WE BRIDGE THE IDEOLOGICAL GAP!!! We’ve fucking found it!!

Who would’ve thunk it hspder, but you and I have stumbled upon the way to unite our country – a bridge… a MIGHTY bridge… one made out of mountains of half-used Kleenex, astroglide, and dehydrated zygotes.

Remember what it was that did it, folks. It wasn’t compromise (pfff! that’s for pussies!), it wasn’t understanding (gimme a friggin’ break!), it was Jenna – her glorious rack, her pouty lips, and her shaven genitalia which has made even the staunchest of political adversaries find their first common ground in the new millenium.

I don’t know about you guys, but I am so full of hope right now… I can hardly stand it. :slight_smile:

38

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Lothario is a self professed liberal himself.

He sure doesn’t sound like one these days – he even gave Bush one thumb up in another thread. I cannot forgive him for that… :slight_smile:

Zap Branigan wrote:
Buffett is a bit of a phony. Why did he wait so long to donate his billions?
Seems like he is trying to buy his way into the afterlife.

Why is he holding back ~ $ 7 billion so he can live like a king?

His donations do not change his quality of life one iota.

Sure. Hence, in case you didn’t notice, my use of “limo-lib” to characterize him and Bill Gates.

Zap Branigan wrote:
The money I donate to charity could be used to buy an iPod, a decent TV and the NFL Ticket. I would enjoy all those things.

That is very honest of you! :slight_smile:

You can always donate all those things to a community rec center and then be there every day to enjoy them.

Zap Branigan wrote:
(I know you donate a lot more money than I do.)

Well, I just believe it’s much better to donate $3 to a charity I trust than give $1 to this administration, who doesn’t really deserve a cent… Multiply that by 100,000 and it’s 100,000 times better.

In fact, I feel much more robbed with the 15% tax I pay here than when I paid 55% tax in The Netherlands – at least over there I got my money’s worth.

Unfortunately, I really haven’t found a way to pay less than 15% tax. But I’m working on it!
[/quote]

Off topic: if you’re ever trapped in a Third World country, surrounded by terrorists, who’ll you scream for, to come bail you out?

The Netherlands Marines, right? There, at least, you got ‘your money’s worth’.

HH

39

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Off topic: if you’re ever trapped in a Third World country, surrounded by terrorists, who’ll you scream for, to come bail you out?
[/quote]

Definitely Jenna Jameson.

40

[quote]Ken Kaniff wrote:
The worst thing for business here arent the taxes, but the
infamously insanse german bureaucracy.[/quote]

You can’t have the red tape without the taxes. The latter feeds from the former.