Occupy Wall Street

[sme]

Quote from piezoe:

Not disagreeing with your post, but just wanted to point out a common misconception that low paid workers pay no taxes. In truth they can end up paying a higher percent of their income in taxes then some highly compensated workers. They just don't pay the income tax. (They get that returned to them.)

+1

The flipside is the case for multinational corporations.

It is key to understand the difference between effective tax rates (what is actually paid net of deductions and transfer pricing) versus marginal tax rates (the "headline" rate).

A lot of multinationals due to globalisation (through pitting tax jurisdictions against one another) are able to have low effective tax rates, but can claim they have high marginal tax rates back home.

This global tax arbitrage is rampant:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/11/ftse-100-subsidiaries-tax-havens?newsfeed=true

ActionAid has analysed the list according to the definition of tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions compiled by the government accountability office of the US Congress, including in addition the US state of Delaware and the Netherlands, which are not on the GAO list but are acknowledged to offer tax and minimal disclosure advantages to foreign companies. By this measure, it emerges that 98 of the FTSE 100 companies use tax havens, with only Fresnillo, a Mexican-based mining company, and Hargreaves Lansdown, a Bristol-based financial services group, declaring no offshore subsidiaries.

Martin Hearson, a tax policy expert at ActionAid, said: "When companies use tax havens to dodge taxes, ordinary people in developing countries and the UK lose out. Our research today lays bare the extent to which the use of tax havens is rife among Britain's biggest multinationals, who have serious questions to answer."

Whether one thinks corporate tax rates are too high (or too low) at home is a separate discussion.

Like any "riskless" trading arbitrage opportunity, the incentive for tax arbitrage opportunities are to push them to the max regardless of the home country tax rate. Tax arbitrage is not reasonable.

 

[Covertibility]

Quote from sheda:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...99-percenters/2011/10/10/gIQA70omaL_blog.html

The comments in that article regarding the Stockholm Syndrome are spot on.

 

[FireWalker]

Quote from Pekelo:

I don't understand it either. Profits are privatized, losses are socialized. Is that how capitalism supposed to work?

Quote from piezoe:

It's how it can work if allowed to. In fact, it's how it will work if allowed to!

If "allowed to" is the operative phrase.

Capitalism is asking permission for cash.


Just like asking mommie and daddy for a raise in your allowance. That is capitalism.

 

[FireWalker]

Quote from FireWalker:

Quote from piezoe:

It's how it can work if allowed to. In fact, it's how it will work if allowed to!

If "allowed to" is the operative phrase.

Capitalism is asking permission for cash.


Just like asking mommie and daddy for a raise in your allowance. That is capitalism. [/QUOTE]

So... understanding that...

Who do we ask permission for a raise in the populace's allowance? Hmm... Congress? No. President? No. Wall Street? No. Oh... there is no mommy or daddy to ask.

So who is preventing access to capital? Oh. That is understanding sucking up to the hierarchy. Nowhere to go except volcano of ashes. Stairway to Heaven. Sitting in Hotel Californication.

 

[deThommo]

Quote from stock777:

lol, you're the morons that allow ceo's to make hundreds of millions running public companies into the ground.

it should be illegal to make that much money as an employee of any kind. if you OWN the company thats another story.

thieves and con men will do what they can get away with. since I'm not the anointed king, they get away with quite a lot, on your watch.

i am the 99

I'm Spartacus!

 

[Bob111]

Quote from ElCubano:

Occupy Miami is no where to be seen....de pinga

cause it's already occupied

 

[Chicago_CTA]

These people outside the Chicago Board of Trade need to take their protests to Washington...where their beloved Barry Soetero and a traitorous Congress spent $4 TRILLION USD in the past four years and achieved NOTHING.

Lots of people in finance work hard for a living and are NOT BEING BAILED OUT BY ANYONE.

 

[piezoe]

Quote from Chicago_CTA:

...

Lots of people in finance work hard for a living and are NOT BEING BAILED OUT BY ANYONE.

They are TLTBO. "To little to bail out"

 

[GordonTheGekko]

Lol are they peeing on CBOE too? (The rings around NYSE keeps getting bigger)

 

[GordonTheGekko]

Market direction, fyi