Ben Stein agrees with Buffet - raise taxes on the rich
- Thread starter dddooo
- Start date
This is a legitimate position and point of view, I only wish you conservatives start campaigning on the elimination of medicare, medicaid etc as opposed to campaigning on generic, misleading and meaningless concept of a smaller government. My guess is you'd get about 20-25% of the vote if you offered to eliminate medicare.
PS let me also try to explain why you can't opt out - a responsible developed civilized society does not want to have people dying in the streets, people who opt out when they are young and fail (for whatever reason) to save enough. Letting them die without help is not an option in a civilized society which will have no other choice but to take care of them even though they "opted out".
As a freakin' scumbag trader, I'm the last guy who's going to pass judgement on CEO salaries. Unless we own stock in a company what business is it of ours anyways how much they compensate management? There's Formula 1 drivers and sit com actors making more than top CEO's. It's a free market, bit.
The Forbes list folks you're speaking of don't "earn" billions. Earnings are income. Being IPO'd into a zillion is capital gains. Guy's like Gates, Dell, Ellison etal are paid pedestrian salaries. Their wealth is in stock. Hence that wealth is not subject to INCOME tax. Thus income tax really only hits the rich guy who can't capitalize his earnings as a public company. For most people who make 500k in a year it's a one shot deal. A lucky trend follower, a one hit wonder pop star, a lawyer who wins a big suit, a salesmen who lands a mother lode account, a running back with four years career expectancy, ect.
How much you wanna bet if we asked Buffet about bumping cap gains to 35% he'd hem and haw telling us how it would "cut investment spending"....
Has his own axe to grind.
The Forbes list folks you're speaking of don't "earn" billions. Earnings are income. Being IPO'd into a zillion is capital gains. Guy's like Gates, Dell, Ellison etal are paid pedestrian salaries. Their wealth is in stock. Hence that wealth is not subject to INCOME tax. Thus income tax really only hits the rich guy who can't capitalize his earnings as a public company. For most people who make 500k in a year it's a one shot deal. A lucky trend follower, a one hit wonder pop star, a lawyer who wins a big suit, a salesmen who lands a mother lode account, a running back with four years career expectancy, ect.
How much you wanna bet if we asked Buffet about bumping cap gains to 35% he'd hem and haw telling us how it would "cut investment spending"....
Has his own axe to grind.
Quote from Bitstream:
understand u and mav's point but u gotta put it into perspective. i mean, i am all in for a permanent cut for the middle class, hell i am all in even for a cut to those who earn more than 1mln a yr. afterall i voted berlusca for this very reason.but those who earn 100s of millions or billiions of dollars are freakin' filthy rich, take away some of it they are still gonna enjoy their luxury lifestlye no matter what. in the end a higher tax is not gonna affect them one bit other than piss em off that they cant beat their rivals to the last million. tax the middle class and they are gonna suffer hard no matter how small the tax itself. those that should benefit the greatest from tux cuts should be the freakin' middle class not the pigs...or are u happy exxon ceo gets a bonus at your expenses.
Yep, the wealthiest americans paid more taxes under Clinton and did not leave, they themselves say that they are not paying their fair share of taxes, yet the Pabsts of the world are trying to convince everyone that Bill Gates and Larry Silverstein would move to Switzerland or settle in Jamaica if their tax rate goes from 36% to 38%.
That's what friends and family are for. If you are a halfway decent person, and are in financial trouble, they will help you. Maybe people would be nicer to each other and behave themselves better if they knew that someday they might need the help of a friend or relative.
Why should I pay taxes to people that do not have it anywhere near as bad as I do?
Do you seriously expect an average american family to afford a 100k heart transplant or 300K cancer treatment? It won't happen to every family of course but those unlucky ones to which it does happen will be financially ruined and/or unable to pay the price. And again the society will face a dilemma of either letting those people die in the streets without help or paying for those who opted out. Sorry, your theory is good, it just is not applicable to the real world.
hey, that's such a typical reply of neokunts, when they think about the less fortunate they always look at 'emseves and what they got available and then think the same situation apply to everyone, sayin': 'well if i got friends they gotta have friends too and if my friends can afford to help me their friends can as well'...if they go trough all this process in the first place, rofl.