Worst. Socialist. Ever.

[Velokid1]

Stock markets surge as Dow closes at all-time high

Traders jubilant on both sides of Atlantic as service sector growth pushes London market above level last reached in 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013 ... ck-markets

[Amskeptic]

Stock markets surge as Dow closes at all-time high

Traders jubilant on both sides of Atlantic as service sector growth pushes London market above level last reached in 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013 ... ck-markets

There is a party going on on the upper deck . . . AGAIN.
SteerageColinWhyIsThisStairwellLocked?

[Bleyseng]

With the Capital gains tax at all time lows I view the stock market (fueled by investment income from the "Rich") as legal online gambling. No wonder its at a all time high as the interest rates are still at all time lows so where are the 1% going to make a living? Day trading and all this online trading wasn't so crazy when the Gains rates were 25-30% on stock gains. Time to rein it in with a transaction tax and raise the taxes back to where they were pre-Bush.

[Velokid1]

Raise taxes!!! How un-American!

Raising taxes is criminal, even after lowering them!

;)

Getting really tired of the anti-government rhetoric over here; excuse the sarcasm.

[Bleyseng]

We have a government that according to the GOP can run on very little money, mostly just taxes collected from the poor and middle class as the "Rich" are the job creators and shouldn't have to pay taxes.

[Velokid1]

Well put.

The rich are doing better than ever. Where are the jobs?

[Amskeptic]

Well put.

The rich are doing better than ever. Where are the jobs?

The outline, I hope, is getting ever more clear. There is a "class war", but the false "outrage" that we are "attacking the rich" is looking pretty foolish.

I do not care what political affiliation a person happens to be, there is NO moral justification whatsoever for the obscene transfer of wealth that has occurred upwards.

Their excuse that "entitlements" (since when is Social Security an "entitlement") are robbing the future from this country is insane when you look at the history of the Social Security Trust Fund and realize that it has been robbed by our own government to pay for services that we could have paid all along if we had kept the marginal top tax rate at 74% (like it was under Nixon). It is not that we "can't afford" to run a modern industrial economy properly, it is that we have *chosen* to be in this stupid stupid stupid predicament.
Colin

[Bleyseng]

We (the 99%) have been lulled like sheep into thinking all these wonderful conservative ideas were for the betterment of the people. Catch phrases like "trickle down" "job creators" etc have been deliberately sold to us as amazing new and better ways and the "old passe" economics of "social safety net" "entitlements" are Socialist (ie communist) liberal laughable ideology. Now that we are waaay down this path can we turn back?
The Unions are not backed by the Supreme Court anymore as Reagan broke the air traffic controller union.
As Colin said, Social Security is now sold as a "entitlement" not as a Social Safety Net and no one talks about how the working class thru their payroll taxes (since the taxable income cap is $110,000) provide the funding for this. Congress doesn't fund Social Security and now the GOP wants to turn it into something else so the "rich" can somehow get their hands on this money thru stock or security investment accounts. (How many people's here IRA accounts were devastated in the 2007 crash?) Do we want Wall Street which is too big to fail or prosecute to handle our "Social Security" funds?
Medicare is a whole nuther ball of wax....
I wish Obama had a bigger set and held out for greater tax increases to the "rich" instead of this crappy $600 billion!

[yondermtn]

We should think about getting government workers into the SS system and out of the pension system. Don't we want to level the playing field?

And it's hard to believe that congress doesn't enjoy these "deadlines" for debt ceilings, fiscal cliffs, sequesters, etc. Congress is essentially the inside of insider trading. Why would they want to stop that gravy train.

[Bleyseng]

oh no as workers are the takers and don't deserve this "entitlement" like its a "Boon" that congress grants them.

[hippiewannabe]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and people of good will can have an honest debate. But we should at least start from the same understanding of the facts.

Day trading and all this online trading wasn't so crazy when the Gains rates were 25-30% on stock gains

When you are talking about day trading and rapid turnover of investments, you are talking about short-term capital gains. These are taxed at ordinary rates, 35% for the last several years, 40% this year. Only long-term gains, on assets held for more than a year, pay the lower rate.

..raise the taxes back to where they were pre-Bush.

That was just completed for the 1%. The 2% got a bit of a break, and stay at the Bush rates. The 98% also keep the tax breaks Bush gave them. Are you saying that the group between 1% and 2% is the problem? Or should everyone, middle and lower classes included, also pay the higher rates they paid pre-Bush?

We have a government that according to the GOP can run on very little money, mostly just taxes collected from the poor and middle class as the "Rich" are the job creators and shouldn't have to pay taxes.

What on earth?

Percentiles Ranked by AGI
AGI Threshold on Percentiles
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid

Top 1%
$343,927
36.73

Top 5%
$154,643
58.66

Top 10%
$112,124
70.47

Top 25%
$66,193
87.30

Top 50%
$32,396
97.75

Bottom 50%
<$32,396
2.25

The top 5% pay 59% of the Federal income tax, the bottom 75% pay 13%. These are facts. Asking the rich to pay more is your perogative, but don't pretend the poor and middle class are funding the budget. Social Security and Medicare taxes are more level, but the rich pay more, and don't forget corporations match dollar for dollar everything their employees pay.

I'm a wage slave, and make very little from capital gains. So I resent Warren Buffett and the rest of the investor class paying a lower rate as much as the next guy. But the truly rich can move their money anywhere in the world, and if you crank the rates too high, the money will leave, and you'll get nothing. When politicians say "soak the rich", the middle class should hang on to their wallets. Those of us who went to school for 20 years, work our asses off, make a nice living, but have every penny flow through W2, get screwed. If you include federal income tax, SS and Medicare (not including our employer's contributions), state income tax and sales tax, our marginal tax rate is over 50%. How much more do you want? My wife often says "why the hell should I work to give half of it away?" Indeed; the Laffer Curve is real.

For half of the world's population today, and most of the world's population through history, getting enough food to live is the main concern. I really shake my head at people that are well fed and have a roof over thier heads, and think the biggest problem is that other people have it better than they do.

[Amskeptic]

The top 5% pay 59% of the Federal income tax, the bottom 75% pay 13%. These are facts. Asking the rich to pay more is your perogative, but don't pretend the poor and middle class are funding the budget.

When the top 5% are vacuuming up 93% of all gains in national wealth over the past twelve years, they can pay more than 59% of the Federal Income Tax. When the bottom 30% have seen *nothing* in the way of gains over the past thirty years, they can pay LESS, because their local and municipal and sales taxes sure as heck have gone up as states and municipalities have to make up Federal cutbacks due to RECORD LOSSES IN CORPORATE TAX REVENUES.

GAO
Corporate Taxes as a Percentage of Federal Revenue
1955 . . . 27.3%
2010 . . . 8.9%

Corporate Taxes as a Percentage of GDP
1955 . . . 4.3%
2010 . . . 1.3%

Individual Income/Payrolls as a Percentage of Federal Revenue
1955 . . . 58.0%
2010 . . . 81.5%

But the truly rich can move their money anywhere in the world, and if you crank the rates too high, the money will leave, and you'll get nothing.

Let them leave along with their money, the traitorous greedy turncoats who don't give a damn, let them leave! But make damn sure that the tax codes are not celebrating their shocking lack of patriotism, their selfish-at-all-costs bullshit blather about how they are so "terribly sorry about the layoffs but it is a global marketplace, see, and we have to be 'competitive'." It is greed. You wanna play a trans-national big shot, but don't want to pay your Federal income taxes? Leave. That is what Dick Cheney should have done when Halliburton became a " citizen of Dubai." Do you think they pay too much income tax? If the rich pay so too very much income tax, why are they getting richer and richer and richer and richer and richer? We have a deficit, we need more revenue, history shows we are taking in less as a percentage of GDP now than we have in sixty years, and you BLAME us for looking at raising their taxes as a possible solution to this problem? And they cry and cry that they'll just go away? And we are afraid of that? We are held hostage to that? If the rich want to blackmail us by saying "my money is more important to me than my nation" I will personally help kick their asses out the door.

My wife often says "why the hell should I work to give half of it away?"
I really shake my head at people that are well fed and have a roof over thier heads, and think the biggest problem is that other people have it better than they do.

You and your wife may need a tune-up in your perspective too. If you "shake my head at people that are well fed and have a roof over thier heads, and think the biggest problem is that other people have it better than they do" you need look no further than the mirror.
Some people have no choice but to work, period. Some people have to work no matter how quickly their money just disappears back into the coffers of the system's "job creators". Why the hell should so many people slave their lives away at WalMart stuck just under full-time so WalMart doesn't have to pay benefits, they are not just giving half their incomes away, they are giving their precious time on Earth away. For what? To whom? You think they waste their time on envy? I say there are those who waste their time THINKING that others waste their time on envy.

In the grand sweep of American history, the rich are doing just FINE! Remember that. Recognize that. Be grateful for that. Is their current thinking that the average American's biggest problem is that other people have it better than they do? The self-proclaimed great corporate economic engine builders did NOT build this country! We all did. A lot of hard-working small entrepreneurs and laborers and service people who change the linens at hotels everywhere. There is no reason on EARTH! why their lives should be so deeply constricted that they are just indentured servants now. You blame social expenses and I once again remind you that the costs of these services are just going into rich people's pockets AGAIN.
Colin

[Bleyseng]

plus SS income tax is exempted after $110,000 so yes, the middle/poor class pay more as in if you make $1million, $900,000 is exempted from SS tax. Of course the employee's SS Tax is matched by the business. I still say that this should be lifted to make it fair. Why does a employee making $1 million have this exemption?

[dingo]

Democracy is a fiction when no matter who you vote for, the banks and bondholders win control of the national income stream and private wealth.

Democracy is a fiction when the policies protecting banks and bondholders from losses remain in place regardless of which political party, coalition or politico is nominally in power.

Divide and conquer is the propaganda order of the day. The Power Elites are attempting to set the serfs of the periphery against the serfs of the core, the goal being to keep both sets of serfs from realizing they are equally indentured to the core's pathological political-financial Aristocracy.

quotes from Charles Hugh Smith

[BellePlaine]

Democracy is a fiction when no matter who you vote for, the banks and bondholders win control of the national income stream and private wealth.

Democracy is a fiction when the policies protecting banks and bondholders from losses remain in place regardless of which political party, coalition or politico is nominally in power.

Divide and conquer is the propaganda order of the day. The Power Elites are attempting to set the serfs of the periphery against the serfs of the core, the goal being to keep both sets of serfs from realizing they are equally indentured to the core's pathological political-financial Aristocracy.

quotes from Charles Hugh Smith

Thank you.

If the rich pay so too very much income tax, why are they getting richer and richer and richer and richer and richer?

It's because the banks and government contractors spend newly created money first before anyone else. New money has more value/purchasing power then money already in circulation. New money dilutes the value of the whole the moment after it is spent.

Think of money, as dollar bills, as representing a debt owed by someone to someone. The more dollar bills we make the more something is owed and the more we strap the middle class with that debt. Our Federal Reserve/unlimited spending/perpetual wars/artificially low interest rates/stimulus/bailouts/etc is a wealth transfer from the low/middle classes to the elite.

My solution: ditch the buck for something backed with a precious metal.