America’s Dependent Class – The cause of Political Decay in Our Society

I lost my bippy during the Bush stock market crash and have never gotten it back. As to what Warren Buffett meant, you may be able to read his mind, but I cannot. I'm constantly amazed by how much you know about what is going on in other people's brains, even though they are far away from you. I wish I had been born with long-distance mind-reading capabilities.

 

Try singing your funny song to those who arrive in the west as refugees, with nothing, and make good in a single generation. Must be magical pixies which sees only those who veer off course via drugs, drink, etc fail - while the majority (who have that good solid Asian work ethic) thrive. Yeah, that's it ... it's magical luck pixies.

 

it's the Bad Luck Pixies!

 

Trust me, they do. They laugh and point. Loudly.

 

Pandering politicians bringing out the lowest common denominator in folks, in exchange for votes of course

 

The great failure is the abandonment of age-old knowledge, in favour of the immediate feelings of 'children'. We used to understand (and many cultures still do) that very often, you must be cruel to be kind. Somehow we decided that temporary kindness was better, even when it resulted in spoiled 'children'.

 

Damn Crank, I'm envious of your ability to put things so succinctly. Can you share some of that skill with me, in the name of fairness?

 

Nope. You'll have to work for it, just like I did.

jokes

 

Like what special tax breaks and be specific. And you can't tax "tax breaks".

 

If his secretary was paying a higher effective rate than he was she would have to have been making around $350,000 a year. That's puts her in about the top 5%, you know one of those filthy rich high earners you want to tax at higher rates.

 

It was a stupid statement on his part unless he is paying her about $350,000 a year. I'd love to see the leftist here proclaim she is paying to high a rate and too much in taxes.

 

Which make spoiled leeching adults

 

Study from 07, which listed that 43 percent of the poor own their own homes? So a stat from before the crash. And all of those bad loans to the poor went bad. Lost their homes. Loaning to people who could not afford the payments, poor folks inflated the number. It isn't that today, no way it can be. And this 43 percent did not own their homes, so that is a false claim. The bank held the deed unto the home is paid of, and many of them lost those homes that never owned.

So with home ownership dropping, with millenials not buying as earlier generations did, how can so many poor own their homes, er, make payment on their homes which they do not own? And I would imagine, in fact I would claim that those poor who are making payments on their homes are being subsidized by the gov't as they are too poor to make those payments. FHA loans? Ever hear of them? We have lots of them here in my area and my state. When you can pay a hundred and fifty bucks a month, for a small home, because the gov't picks up the rest, of course the poor can buy homes, or make payments on them. But they cannot be passed on to kids at the death of the poor person unless what the gov't paid during those years is paid back to the gov't. Otherwise upon the death of the poor home owner, it goes back to the gov't. So you need to understand how this works. And of course the heritage study does not really go into that, as they want us to believe that our poor, 43 percent of them, own their homes. But it isn't like a middle class person getting a conventional loan, with payments that only a middle class person can afford. So even paying a couple hundred per month is something poor people can do, if they have a working poor low wage job. A helluva lot cheaper than rent.

 

You may think that Warren Buffet is a liar. I find him quite open and honest. In 2011, Warren Buffet wrote an op ed for 2010 was 17.4 percent compared to an average of 36 percent paid by the 20 people working for him in his office.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

 

You can read what he wrote for yourself in his New York Times op ed.

But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent. ​

And yes, he suggested the tax rate of capital gains for the super rich like him be raised.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more​

Read his op ed for yourself. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

I guess I am still in possession of my bippy.

 

First how does he know what those people pay in taxes and second they would all be millionaires at that rate.

 

Should the rate at which we tax capital gains be set base on envy and jealousy or at which encourages the most economic activity and resulting tax revenues?

 

They should not get handouts from the government

 

High capital gains tax and high dividend income tax are a roadblock to investment and business formation -- and hurt the teachers' pension funds, too.

 

Taxes aren't supposed to encourage anything.

 

Sure they do and can, is it in the interest of the country to pass tax laws and rates that discourage economic activity and economic growth? What do you believe should be the governing factor when setting the rate of taxation on capital gains? How much we can take from those who earn it to make it "even" or what rate produces the most revenues without harming economic growth and expansion?