Busboy

I know, I know...It's the same significant factor that determines if a child grows up in wealth, gets the best medical care, best education and has access to all the right people that makes sure he remains wealthy.

They're born into it.

HIFLYR

No I am not I have never said get rid of government assistance! What I have said is get rid of the moochers, illegals and there would be more for the truly needy.

FDXLAG

Again you have income and capital gains confused. I will not explain it to you again. People with high incomes pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes. Now if you want to tax wealth I am all for it. Let me be the one that yanks the gold teeth out of Harry Reids mouth. But taxing capital gains and taxing wealth are not efficient ways to fund the government no matter how good it makes you feel.

See we agree on so much. Yes they are the ones born into a home with a mommy and a daddy.

JamesNoBrakes

Capital gains IS income, but there are many loopholes and credits that someone with more money can take advantage of, which again in the end, means less taxes.

You claim that people with a lot more money pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes, but I've seen plenty of numbers indicating the opposite. Why is this?

Busboy

Yes, but if you have so much money that you don't need to spend all of it on housing, food, medical needs, and basic living essentials...You can invest it and pay close to the lowest tax rate we have, on the income resulting from your investment.

And then...They'll call you a "Job Creator". And, warn the other 95% of Americans that taxing you at the same rate "Job Creators" paid during the budget surplus years will cause even greater unemployment.

It's ironic...the lowest tax rates for the "Job Creators" actually occurred just prior to the Great Depression.

jungle

James, if you take the 500 richest people in the US, their total assets are about 1.7 trillion. Now, can you tell us how long this will run the country-easy to answer. Less than a year-far less.

The hard part-what are you going to do next year?

Talking about tax revenue shows you have no grasp of the problem-spending is so far ahead of any revenue solution that there is but one answer. Spending is going to be reduced and that is a mathematical certainty.
But like Japan we may be able to kick the can down the road for years if our credit rating holds up, which right now looks quite doubtful.

Once they lose the race to print money in a zero interest environment it is all over. Spain, Greece and Ireland might ring a bell.

At some point there is going to be widespread pain and guess who is going to get hurt the most?

Capital is not infinite and spending has limits that have long been breached. Breached in a way that all of the assets in the country cannot possibly cover.

Busboy

You don't suppose that's why our president has proposed a $3 spending cut for every $1 of increased tax revenues?

jungle

Let us see how that promise plays out.

We all of course recall a similar promise to halve the debt made in 2008, we now know how that played out. It is a form of Kabuki practiced by many. The results have been the same for all.

FDXLAG

Is that a spending cut or a decrease in the rate spending increases?

If it is military spending I imagine our president will count one way if it is for Obamaphones I imagine he will count it another.

jungle

Colonel Cargill, General Peckem's troubleshooter, was a forceful, ruddy man. Before the war he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive marketing executive. He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work his way down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter. It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

P. 27
Catch-22