There is no excuse Warren buffet is begging gov

[joverby]

How do you stay so ignorant to the fact that rich people(and big business) have been progressively paying less in taxes over the years. Now is an all time high and look at our economic state.

This guys way more rich than you and he's asking to be taxed more becasue he knows it's gotten out of hand.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Being rich is a choice.

Yep. And you can have it. Obviously, I don't know you at all and hope you are living well in a larger sense than financially. Most of the rich people I have met are not. They either work all the time, or spend all their time obsessing about who is trying to rip them off, and they're miserable to be around.

Financial wealth, although necessary for living, is a burden when you have more than what your needs require. I've been lucky enough in life, in the past at least, to have enough money to get bored with it. I learned that doesn't take much money to meet my own psychological needs; the rest just sits there and seems kind of pointless if it doesn't make me happy.

 

[Quiksilver]

A fallacy with the concept of "poor hard workers deserve more" is the concept of hard work vs. market value.

A man whose job is to shovel coal into a boiler may work hard, but the market value for such labor is so low due to the low barrier to entry. Any man--practically--can do that job.

On the other end, an astrophysicist may sit at a desk, drink soda, and not break a sweat, but he is doing things that a man shoveling coal into an oven could never do.

It is Hard Work vs Smart Work.

I believe we should be payed according to how intelligent we work, with how hard we work being fairly standard across the board.

Is that brain surgeon not entitled to the rewards of his efforts as much as the man shoveling coal into an oven?

Both are doing hard and exhaustive work, but one is using his mind more than the other.

This idea of "janitors work hard they deserve more" is flawed, because your market value (wage) is determined by the skill and level of mindfulness applied to your task, not 'how hard you work'.

--

We have a lady at work who believes she is working hard enough that our general manager should be paying her almost double. She is a very hard and loyal worker, but how does our gm tell her that she could be fired and replaced easily by someone who works just as hard, because the job is menial and does not require much thought.

Meanwhile, the founder of the company who is making 'the big bucks' and living the high life, may not have appeared to work hard, but instead used his mind and worked smart to build a robust company. Does that intellectual property belong to the people doing laborious and menial tasks or the people working hard with their brains?

Tired of hearing about how hard people work as an excuse for transferring wealth from the 'lazy rich' to the 'hard working poor'.

In a nation and economy that prides itself as being based on merit and smart work, a (graduated) income tax can be seen as a tax on merit and a tax on smart work, redistributed to the less meritous and people who do less mind-intensive work.

And regarding "paying the poor to keep them pacified", how is that any different to a criminal holding a gun to your head and demanding money in exchange for your safety?

I would rather spend my money on a security system that 'neutralized' all threats to my private property (physical and intellectual) than pay somebody for them to not attack me and my property.

ie. Spend X on a gun and body guard to keep the animal away from me, than pay X when the animal says "give me your money or else..."

In one case, the parasite lives, in the other it rightfully dies.

 

[Stagger Lee]

But my point is anyone can be under or overpayed. The market is set up to place barriers to the supply for professional jobs. Colleges only admit so many students and without the degree you can't get a licenses. Even with all those barriers we all ready have an oversupply of professionals, lawyers, computer sciences, even nurses in some areas. If you extend the free market idea no one would make any money but the controlling class. And you can import workers or outsource.

And just because you have a degree and a professional position that does not make you worth more. Some fields are wealth consuming while others are wealth producing. An autoworker or steelworker creates wealth. A healthcare worker with an associates, for instance, consumes a lot of wealth through insurance premiums. And a lot of workers doing physical work are highly skilled. Try repairing the modern car as an auto mechanic. Ever watch the show Undercover Boss? The CEO usually struggles with the jobs of the lowest worker, and is amazed at the amount of effort, skill and how dumb some of their corporate directives are.

The point isn't just hard work but productivity and wealth created by that work. Pushing papers around and financial schemes does not create the wealth of making things. But the people make things and actually doing something useful that creates wealth sees it mostly passed on to the the few that control the payroll and money supply.

It's a huge fallacy that line workers are easily replacable and many people are willing to do that much productivity at minimal pay. The truth is there are more people willing to go the route of the professional job but the barriers prevent the oversupply. Barriers that are other than intellect.

Anyway, none of this is really the point. Why do middle class and upper middle class professionals argue on the behalf of multi-millionares and billionares?

 

[5string]

OK. Gonna fire this up and take some hits. I'll qualify this by saying everyone, and I mean everyone within reason, needs to pay their fair share for services, those less fortunate, etc. But for any one of you to tell another man that he should pay more because he has more resulting from sacrifice and hard work are just fvcked up. Those of you that have these beliefs, well, you can kiss my a$$, drive off to Starbucks in your Subaru, and grab a tasty double tall non fat cafe latte and ponder your misguided beliefs.

Within reason, a man should be able to keep what has worked so hard to obtain. Nobody has the right to demand otherwise.

 

[Drdeee]

No amount of tax will overcome

A) gigantic defense spending

B) ever decreasing worth of money


They need to both stop all wars including war on American people at home, and stop printing money.


Warren buffet is a globalist, and it's obvious globalists want to crash the economy. This latest cry of his is to completely kill the job market.

Wealthy have money invested, otherwise money tend to evaporate through inflation. Tax that money and what you get? You get fired.

 

[DJ Logic]

I think that a distinction must be drawn her between "highest tax bracket" and the top 0.0001% wealthy in this nation. Leave the top earners of the middle class alone. They are the ones creating opportunities. Warren Buffet is referring to the exclusive club of multi-billionaires who pay about 15% tax on their income. But if you go one level up and look at a lot of global corporations (Bank of America, GE, Exxon) they pay ZERO taxes. That's right, zilch, zip, NADA! In fact some of these organizations get tax bonuses. I'd really love for someone to explain to me how this is fair:

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2...erica-paid-no-federal-income-taxes-last-year/

So yeah, don't tax the rich more - go after the über wealthy. They can afford it and are currently paying less taxes than we are

 

[d!ckmojo]

The flat tax doesn't work, because it does not allow businesses to deduct expenses against income, especially small businesses.

For example, if I bought a lawn mower on credit and started mowing yards, but I only made enough money to pay for the payment on the mower and the gas used, then under the current scheme of taxation, I have zero income and don't have to pay income tax. Under the flat tax scheme, I would have paid a giant 20-30% tax on the mower without actually having any net income. There are a lot of small businesses that barely break even, especially when getting started, and the flat tax would crush them all.

For a even simple reselling business, If I had to pay a 20-30% tax on goods initially without being able to deduct that cost, then unless my profit margin is greater than the amount of the giant flat tax, then the business doesn't work. All small-margin businesses that get by on volume would be gone, or at least they would have to markup everything 40-60% to offset not being able to deduct their initial cost like they do now. And that's only if goods trade hands once, which is optimistic.

If the answer were to simply exempt corporations from paying the flat tax, then everyone is suddenly going to pay the $100 and get an llc or corp and we are back to having worse tax evasion than we do now.

That's why there's no flat tax, other than in 3rd world countries where the government is so weak that they would never be able to collect an income tax. Kazakhstan, home of Borat, is one of them. When the US collapses into the dark ages, which will happen any time between next week and never, depending upon whom you ask, then we'll be ready for the flat tax.

Hey Bible Belt, check out the GST in Australia: businesses don't pay the GST. Only private consumers do.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I noticed that AU didn't get rid of their income tax when they enacted the GST; now they have both. There's a flat tax that I could see happening in the US, one that they just add on top of the taxes we already have now.

The GST scheme rebates back to a business the portion of a good's price that was the GST tax. Supposedly, this gets them back to even. But with all of the exemptions, reports, and filing for refunds, the GST scheme quickly begins to look as complex as the US income tax. I also don't know how they define 'business.' In the US, like I said, for about $100 any individual can become a corporate business.

I also doubt that businesses get interest credit on the tax money for the time it takes to get a refund. That would mean that the government gets a lot of short-term interest-free loans, similar to the way that Americans often intentionally pay more income tax out of each paycheck so that they get a refund at the end of the tax year. People love getting that check back, but they don't think about how they just loaned money to the government for free.

 

[Leporello]

A flat tax is basically a way to shift the burden away from the very upper classes to the lower-and-middle classes. Same with a national sales tax. Neither one, by the way, would raise the revenue we need to pay off our debts.

Nowadays it's almost impossible to get rich by 'working' in the way we usually think of it. Most of the multimillionaires and billionaires out there got rich by shuffling other people's money around and not getting stuck holding the bag at the right time.

Occasionally you hear people say that 'raising taxes on the highest brackets removes the incentive to work more'. The evidence on that is basically non-existent.

 

[Leporello]

Lepo,

A flat tax is a way to shift the burden onto people who *consume* the most. The "rich" would still bear a higher burden of the payments.

It's not a question of who consumes the most but who consumes more of their annual income, and when your income is lower you are obligated to spend a larger proportion of that income to meet the necessities. The more money you have, the more 'excess' there is to save.

The result of a flat tax would still be a tax hike for the vast majority of people and a tax cut for those who actually have all the money.

 

[Leporello]

Without meaning to be offensive, your justification for taxation is to take it simply because they have more to take. That is the very definition of socialism.

I'm not offended, because taxing the rich isn't the 'very essence' of socialism. Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production.

How is it fair to take from someone just because they make more?

Fair? How is it fair that one person should be born to every material advantage and another should be born to poverty and deprivation? How is it fair that one's success or failure in life is largely determined by factors completely outside your control?

People who make lots of money are, by definition, being well-served by the political and economic order. It's perfectly just that they be expected to pay back into the system which has served them so well.

Is it not more fair to tax on consumption? Being that consumption implies more use of resources (roads, production, labor, etc,...)?

Again, you're missing the point that by conflating consumption with spending you end up punishing people with lower incomes, because they have no choice but to 'consume' a larger part of their earnings.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

Leporello, the day you discover self-esteem, is the day you will wince to recall all the times you have whined about unfairness and the futility of your existence.

Do not whine about people who are born into circumstances better than yours; you must realize the golden rule of money: no one can be smaller than their money. If a man is equal to his money (as a self-made man who earned it most obviously is), his money will serve him; if he is not equal to his money, it destroys him. Look at all those rich kids who had it so easy and so good-what happens to them when they grow up? Justice catches up with all of them. The content of their characters determines the verdict of justice and the conditions of their lives; how many of us have heard and seen that classic cliche of the rich kid, who you used to envy, that grows up to die of an overdose, or gets drunk and dies in a car accident, or who goes to prison, or who just settles down into a living-dead state of booze and cheap thrills to pretend he is alive? Or the mega lottery winner who is dead five years later? The rule is absolute and unyielding: no man can be smaller than his money.

Believe in yourself. Not as an act of irrational defiance against whatever secret feelings of inferiority you harbor, but know that you exist, that your mind is your tool of survival and the arbiter of your existence. You must believe in your worthiness of whatever you desire, and you must understand that only your virtues can achieve anything that is worth having. If I gave you all my money today, it would mean nothing to you, you would still feel frustrated and hopeless; but it means everything to me, because I know the excruciating discipline and inhuman effort and ruthless devotion I exacted from myself to achieve it. And it's not that I've arrived at the pinnacle yet, but I got myself off the ground (which is the brutally hardest part) and I'm making strides, and I'm not looking back. It's wonderful. FYI, my greatest goal is to be a self-made millionaire.

Know that there is a hero inside you, but you can only realize him by your own free will. Recognize that you possess free will, the ability to judge reality and to choose one course of action over another. Know that virtues and morality are the only navigators who can take you where you want to go-others may offer a shortcut, but despair and destruction are the only places they end up. Be honest enough to admit the virtues you lack, and realize that through your own free will, you possess the ability to mold and create yourself in the image of your ideal.

An amazing thing happened when I really, truly, absolutely took responsibility for every condition of my life: I discovered self-esteem. Real self-esteem is not the aggressive posturing of clowns you have been taught to hold as evidence of self-confidence; they seldomly even possess a real 'self' in which to hold esteem. Self-esteem is self-reliance. Self-esteem is the act of believing yourself worthy of whatever happiness you desire to achieve--and the knowledge that to be worthy of it, it must be earned. Whether it is your self-concept or your fortune, you can only value that which you earned for yourself; everything else is largely meaningless.

Self-esteem is earned. It is earned by having goals and being your own ruthless, impervious judge of the extent to which you have sought to achieve them. Believe me, it is a price worth paying, no matter how hard and how awful it gets.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

Whew!

Regarding a national sales tax, Leporello should understand that included in the FairTax is a prebate which recompensates everybody for the taxes they paid on basic necessities in a given year. This prebate was put in explicitly to keep the poor from getting hosed on taxes--but it is far past time to admit that the system we have now, where (at least) half the country pay no taxes at all and we expect a smaller and smaller minority of payers at the top to support them, is completely unsustainable and morally unfair--for those at the top who are punished for their success.

The flat tax was a great idea, the FairTax is the flat tax on steroids with all of the bugs worked out of it. It has been put through a volley of extensive models to look for kinks--and every time, the answer is more jobs, more prosperity, more savings, more GDP growth, more tax revenues, less debt, less stress, more "pursuit of happiness", you know, that idea this country was founded on.

Look at the irreducible primary of the income tax-it punishes you for being productive. Look at irreducible primary of the FairTax-it punishes you if you spend indiscriminately. Go to FairTax.org boys, check it out, I've been a part of the FairTax movement for two years and we are growing by leaps and bounds, we are going to see it happen.

 

[Bible_Belt]

The flat tax was a great idea, the FairTax is the flat tax on steroids with all of the bugs worked out of it. It has been put through a volley of extensive models to look for kinks--and every time, the answer is more jobs, more prosperity, more savings, more GDP growth, more tax revenues, less debt, less stress, more "pursuit of happiness", you know, that idea this country was founded on.

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

http://www.factcheck.org/demos/fact...isc/Fair Tax Distribution Slide by Income.JPG

By this analysis, the very poorest people and the very richest people get a tax cut on the FairTax scheme, everyone else gets a tax increase. Although somehow I doubt it is the very poorest people who thought it up. Anything with the word "Fair" in it is propaganda.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

http://www.factcheck.org/demos/fact...isc/Fair Tax Distribution Slide by Income.JPG

By this analysis, the very poorest people and the very richest people get a tax cut on the FairTax scheme, everyone else gets a tax increase. Although somehow I doubt it is the very poorest people who thought it up. Anything with the word "Fair" in it is propaganda.

BB, the AFFT has long since decimated Joe Miller's false argument against the FairTax. You'll notice, on his chart that purports to show that anyone making less than 200K will get hosed under the FT, that the chart was designed by the Treasury Dept. for an entirely different proposed system that has nothing to do with FairTax.

Also, he did a poor job of muddying the waters with his accusation that the consortium of PhD economists who designed the FairTax did not understand the principle of "inclusion", but Joe Miller, whoever the **** he is, is perfectly qualified to lie and slander economic systems of which he has ZERO understanding. He and his kind are running hog wild saying "They want to add 23% to your taxes!", a blatant, ugly lie, because they omit the fact that the FairTax repeals every Federal tax out there, removing the imbedded taxes from everything you buy and as a net effect lowering the purchase price even with a 23% tax on top of it! And while putting more money in your pocket, less stress in your life, and less government in your hair.

You must have just googled "fairtax scam" or something of a similiarly predetermined nature. I thought you were supposed to be an impervious officer of the court, a blind centurion of truth and justice? At least make the effort to see what the people who designed the FairTax, and who made the effort to understand it, are using as evidence to support it, before you blindly grope for the first (false) antagonist you can find.

 

[Leporello]

We don't need to speculate what would happen under a national sales-tax scheme. Florida already tried that and it was a disaster, I highly reccomend 'The Great American Tax Dodge' for anyone who's curious about this kind of thing.

JS, I won't bother responding to any of your silly accusations since you clearly haven't read my earlier posts in this thread. RTFF and get back to me.

D, to be perfectly honest I cannot see the logical connection between my statements and your responses to them. Until you explain yourself I won't be able to respond to those either.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

We don't need to speculate what would happen under a national sales-tax scheme. Florida already tried that and it was a disaster, I highly reccomend 'The Great American Tax Dodge' for anyone who's curious about this kind of thing.

JS, I won't bother responding to any of your silly accusations since you clearly haven't read my earlier posts in this thread. RTFF and get back to me.

D, to be perfectly honest I cannot see the logical connection between my statements and your responses to them. Until you explain yourself I won't be able to respond to those either.

Just keep blaming everyone else for your life and let us know how that works out for you.