Interesting rant by Gary Hart.

[JD Barleycorn]

Now don't get nasty. I was conservative before they starting calling themselves conservatives.

[DSK]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

Just break the big banks and investment houses into a lot of smaller ones that operate in segregated markets so the fire can't spread from one division to another.

And once the banks are no longer too big to fail, DO NOT bail them out. Send a message to all the other banks that they are on their own for their risky investments.

You don't need a big government to stop companies from replacing American workers with foreign workers. You simply SHUT DOWN the H1B visa program because it is horribly corrupt and always will be. No need to pay any lobbyists to tell you what the "right" level of foreign engineers is to provide skills Americans don't have, because that is pure bullshit. American workers HAVE the necessary skills, they just want more pay than their foreign replacements.

You don't need a big government to decide where we need to intervene in foreign countries, you just reduce our military substantially and stay OUT of other countries, especially Muslim ones. It is far cheaper to pick the least evil faction and sell them weapons to eradicate the jihadists.

Very wise words.

[andymarksman]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

Let's pretend the capital gains rate is 50% as you said.

If a new company wants to raise $500M from a billionaire to develop a better solar panel, they have to convince the billionaire to sell $1B of his current holdings, pay half of it to the government and then give them the other half. Yes, if he profits $1B by selling his current holdings.

The new company, if it is lucky will start turning a profit after about 4 or 5 years. And that assumes it doesn't go broke, like Solyndra and a bunch of other alternative energy companies.

So, in order for the billionaire to get back JUST TO EVEN, the company has to double his original $500M investment within about 5 years so that he gets his original $1B back.

But if he had left the $1B where it was and it had continued to grow in value at a modest 5% rate, then his $1B would be more than $1.25 billion. Yes, if he never intends to sell it.

How can you "lose" if you don't even "gain" in the first place?

[andymarksman]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

You don't need a big government to decide where we need to intervene in foreign countries, you just reduce our military substantially and stay OUT of other countries, especially Muslim ones. It is far cheaper to pick the least evil faction and sell them weapons to eradicate the Jihadists.

Are you prepared to do businss with Assad?

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by andymarksman

Are you prepared to do businss with Assad?

Our Secretary of State is ....



... that's your "man" isn't it, andy?

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by DSK

Go bake some Muslim a cake that says "Death to Fags".

JLIdiot strikes again!

You should have bet a donation to a Holocaust museum. You'd still be in good standing.

[shanm]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

Stop thinking like a progressive (i.e., engaging in wishful thinking) and think rationally.

Investing is NOT like work.

By and large, work is unavoidable for the vast majority of people, even the wealthy. You have to do it, so government can tax you at 40+% on the high end and there is nothing you can do about it.

On the other hand, investing is entirely elective. No one can force you to sell your property to invest in another property and skim off 50% on the transaction;

Let's pretend the capital gains rate is 50% as you said.

If a new company wants to raise $500M from a billionaire to develop a better solar panel, they have to convince the billionaire to sell $1B of his current holdings, pay half of it to the government and then give them the other half.

The new company, if it is lucky will start turning a profit after about 4 or 5 years. And that assumes it doesn't go broke, like Solyndra and a bunch of other alternative energy companies.

So, in order for the billionaire to get back JUST TO EVEN, the company has to double his original $500M investment within about 5 years so that he gets his original $1B back.

But if he had left the $1B where it was and it had continued to grow in value at a modest 5% rate, then his $1B would be more than $1.25 billion.

So, realistically, his $500 million has to grow to $1.25 billion within about 5 years, just to get the billionaire back to even.

But the investment could turn to ZERO if the company doesn't work out (like Solyndra).

So, why would he make that investment? The return would have to be MUCH higher than $1.25 billion to offset the risk of loss.

But the odds of getting back his original $1 billion (or getting to $1.25B) is a lot better if the capital gains rate is only 20% instead of 50%.

That is why high capital gains taxes can kill economic growth. If the new company isn't created in the first place, then there are no jobs or tax revenues of any kind.

But just as new billionaires are made all the time, old billionaires die all the time. And when they do, THEN you can take 60% or 80% or 95% of all of their estate over and above the first X dollars.

In the end, the government gets the tax money anyhow, but it does so without killing off the incentive to invest and take risks.


No, you don't have to define it properly, because you CAN'T.

It is the ego of progressives that makes them think that they know what is the right place for government to be big and what is not the right place for it to be big. NO ONE has that much knowledge. Definitely NOT Barack Obama, or Hillary, or Warren or Sanders.

You don't need a big bureaucracy to prevent mergers (or take down the big companies). You simply don't allow them to merge. And you don't allow the big investment banks to expand into new areas they did not previously operate in, like housing loans.

And you don't underwrite housing loans, like with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Just break the big banks and investment houses into a lot of smaller ones that operate in segregated markets so the fire can't spread from one division to another.

And once the banks are no longer too big to fail, DO NOT bail them out. Send a message to all the other banks that they are on their own for their risky investments.

You don't need a big government to stop companies from replacing American workers with foreign workers. You simply SHUT DOWN the H1B visa program because it is horribly corrupt and always will be. No need to pay any lobbyists to tell you what the "right" level of foreign engineers is to provide skills Americans don't have, because that is pure bullshit. American workers HAVE the necessary skills, they just want more pay than their foreign replacements.

You don't need a big government to decide where we need to intervene in foreign countries, you just reduce our military substantially and stay OUT of other countries, especially Muslim ones. It is far cheaper to pick the least evil faction and sell them weapons to eradicate the jihadists.

Now the thing is, numbers are very important in the example you use. You can make an argument seem silly by taking it to illogical extremes.

To make it simple, lets just call it spending vs saving. Like you suggest, a billionaire would rather have just "saved" the money (5% is not modest btw) and gained a certain amount of interest rather than investing and facing heavy taxation (I do think 50% would be too ridiculous).

Here's the catch though, if you look at the real world, that isn't even close to happening. If you have a stock portfolio, go look at its gains and tell me you would have had the same return if you had "left the money where it was". Thats why the numbers are important here. The empirical evidence would suggest that we are far from a place where taxation is high enough to encourage investors to just save their money instead. That is why we have such a huge gap between what (percentage) the rich pay, and what percentage the poor pay. The rich have more of their income invested in capital. A "closing in" of the gap between income and capital gains would take at least some of that shielding advantage and break it down so that the rich are paying a little more. But the thing is, we have to look FAAAAAAAR beyond capital gains rates if the goal is to raise a higher amount of taxation money.

I'll agree with the second part of what you said, although you still have to explain how exactly the government would break down the big banks, if it doesn't have power through legislation and judiciary. If it is a multinational company, we can't have different states enforcing different laws for the same or different companies, that would be unfair and we all know that politicians can be bought away.

And btw, war is a huge business. A lot of people make a lot of money off of war. Shutting that industry down would not be very good for them, which is why it will probably never happen.

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by andymarksman

How can you "lose" if you don't even "gain" in the first place?

Try again. I never said he won't sell.

I simply said that he is much less likely to sell and reinvest when the capital gains rate is 50% instead of 20%.

And, even if he does not sell, he still can receive dividend payments on the $1.25 billion without selling. The new company won't be paying any dividends until after it starts making a profit. Which may be never.

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by andymarksman

Are you prepared to do businss with Assad?

If he is killing ISIS, yes.

We can also pull him away from Iran.

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

If he is killing ISIS, yes.

We can also pull him away from Iran.

With what? And by whom?

[andymarksman]

Originally Posted by LexusLover

Our Secretary of State is ....

Please provide links, thanks.

[andymarksman]

Originally Posted by LexusLover

Our Secretary of State is ....



... that's your "man" isn't it, andy?

No, since you and I tend to express our thoughts in quite similar fashions....

[andymarksman]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

If he is killing ISIS, yes.

We can also pull him away from Iran.

If, against all odds, a nuclear deal is reached with Tehran, would you even contemplate the "unthinkable"......?

Of course I don't mean arms deals. Chinese, Russians and our staunch allies in that region would be very upset if we venture that far....

Just doing business a shrewd businessman like you would have....

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by andymarksman

Please provide links, thanks.

cuff links? Let me see if there is a shot that close ...

Kerry is "known" for "fraternizing" with the enemy ....



... and lying under oath as well.