by liberal japonicus
Somehow, the original is always better. Discuss.
190 thoughts on “Your OBL is still dead open thread”
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"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
by liberal japonicus
Somehow, the original is always better. Discuss.
Comments are closed.
Doctors describe his condition as “stable.”
Since this is nominally an open thread, I figure this is as good a place as any to get this off my chest:
This past weekend, in between the British royal wedding and the bin Laden take-out, I had dinner with an old friend of mine. We were suite-mates at MIT, last millennium. He is a mechanical engineer, too, but there our similarity ends. He lives in Texas, is a Life Member of the NRA, is a born-again Christian, and used to be a dedicated Republican but now considers himself a Tea Partier. We still get along famously, however, and I always look forward to his annual visit to Boston.
Naturally, part of our multi-hour conversation touched on politics — specifically his frothing rage over the high-handedness of Obama and the Democrats, who passed a health-care bill without debate and without even letting the Republicans read it first. As I tried to explain to him how ludicrous that storyline is, it transpired that he seriously believes “Obamacare” contains a “public option”!
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, the conversation meandered toward common ground. My friend laid out, in forceful tones, exactly what health care reform SHOULD have looked like, and WOULD have looked like if he, as a proud Tea Partier, had his way:
1) Any private company should be free to sell any health insurance policy it likes, so long as the coverage meets certain minimum standards;
2) Health insurance companies should NOT be free to turn customers away because of pre-existing conditions;
3) Everybody should be required to buy at least the minimum-coverage policy, but everybody should be free to buy better coverage if he wants to;
4) Anybody who does not buy health insurance should pay a tax penalty.
I told him, in equally forceful tones, that he was describing the “Romneycare” we have had in MA for several years, and of which “Obamacare” is the spitten image. I don’t think he believed me.
Now, I assure you: my friend is a smart and capable guy. You might think that his problem is mere ignorance, curable by knowledge. But he is not remotely a recluse with no access to facts: he has at least eight e-mail accounts, some of them directly linked to his Blackberry; he travels a lot on business; he reads the Wall Street Journal; he belongs to a number of professional societies. Lack of access to facts is NOT his problem.
And yet here he was, dead sure that “Obamacare” has the public option in it, and dead ignorant of how closely “Obamacare” conforms to his idea of the proper, sensible, honest health insurance reform that the Tea Party would bring about if only it could triumph over those corrupt Democrats and those useless Republicans in Washington.
We shot some pool in Kendall Square after dinner, then had a nightcap in Harvard Square, and parted good friends as always. But I am left in despair by the crushing realization that reality no longer means anything in American politics.
My friend laid out, in forceful tones, exactly what health care reform SHOULD have looked like, and WOULD have looked like if he, as a proud Tea Partier, had his way
Oy.
Pardon me while I go beat my head against a wall for a little while.
The recent killing of Bin Laden provides an interesting contrast between President Obama and his critics in the Republican party.
During the last two years, while the CIA was working at Obama’s behest to capture Bi Laden, what was the Republican party working on?
1. Opposing health care reform. They had no realistic proposals of their own to put forward. They are had no legitimate basis for opposing the Affordable Health Care Act, which was based on Republican Mitt Romney’s healthcare policy for Massachusetts. The Republican opposition to the AHC was based primarily on lies. There were no death panels, the AHC creates jobs, and it isn’t a socialist proposal.
2. Promoting voter suppression laws. Laws which intended to make it harder for elderly people, students, people who do to have cars, and the disabled to vote are under consideration in Republican-dominated states across the US.
3. Attacking the economic security of state employees. In Wisconsin the Republican controlled legislature created a budget deficit and is now using the deficit as an excuse to end collective bargaining. Similar efforts to end collective bargaining or to strip state employees of health benefits are underway in Republican controlled Ohio and Michigan.
4. Blaming the national budget deficit, which is primarily the responsibility of the Republicans in Congress, on everyone but themselves. The Bush administration inherited a very nearly balanced budget from the Clinton administration. During the six years in which Republicans had a majority in Congress they passed tax cuts for the rich while borrowing money to fund two wars. Anyone who can do third grade arithmetic can figure out what that will do to the budget deficit. When Obama took office he inherited a budget deficit of early 1.3 trillion dollars created by the Republican policy of cutting taxes for the rich while hemorrhaging money for the two wars. Now Republicans are proclaiming that the deficit (their deficit) is the most terrible thing ever to happen to this nation and are using their deficit as a excuse to attack the economic stability of the middle class. The budget which passed the Republican controlled House would gut Medicaid, slash funding for infrastructure and education, but includes another tax cut for the rich!
5. Trying to change Medicare into a underfunded voucher system that will leave all Americans except the rich with little or no protection from medical expenses their old age.
There’s more: the Republican decision to redefine rape, that attacks on disabled people and children through the effort to defund Medicaid, and the decision to keep the subsidies for big oil which they think we can afford even though they think we can’t afford medical care for kids.
Quite a contrast! While Obama was going after Bin Laden, Republicans were attacking their own neighbors and fellow citizens.
That friend from Texas has been massively propagandized, of course. Only Big Lies could keep all the wings and generations of the GOP together.
In fact, the Tea Party membership and leadership’s record, both now and before, back to when they loved Reagan, was both huge government and disinterest in paying for it. I bet your friend’d have a very different opinion if he realized that.
Those same Big Lies also now threaten our fiscal future. We Dems need a massive counterpropaganda campaign for paying attention to facts and reality on many issues from econ 101 to the fact that embryos are regularly lost in regular pregnancy as well as abortion.
I’m just going to throw this out there as this is an open thread, in hopes people more well-versed than me can comment.
Has anyone else been struck by the way in which the various views about the bin Laden action, generally defending its legality, expressed by scholar-supporters of international law (IHL/IHRL) have been halting, unsatisfactory, and even contradictory? You just have to read OpinioJuris.org, making sure to follow the link there to Mary Ellen O’Connell’s longer explication at ForeignPolicy.com to see what I mean. This intellectual community seems not to have it’s story straight at this point, though by all means it is a complicated question, and there isn’t any particular reason to expect that they would. It’s still interesting to observe.
Would be interested in any informed commentary (read: speculative ruminations) from anyone similarly intrigued by the discussions currently going on in these circles.
…should say, I don’t meant that they are fully unsatisfactory, especially individually, and not internally contradictory — only when compared to each other. There are various good, internally coherent analyses out there. It’s just that on the way to arriving a common bottom line, they make factual judgment (Is there a state of war in Pakistan?) and adopt analytical assumptions (…Therefore, was this an act of war or a law-enforcement action? …Among others) that are significantly at odds with each other, leaving the impression of a lack of agreement on the relevant body of law among some of the more preeminent (American) analysts of these type of question.
Mike D,
I’m not surprised at all, because our notions of citizenship and the role of the state are still completely unsettled. Bin Laden operated outside of a nation state framework, which is why folks have had to hearken back to notions of pirates and buccaneers.
Or rather, seemed settled until an actor like Bin Laden appeared. The questions of statelessness and how one qualifies to be part of a national polity, are ones that have been faced by various over the past couple of centuries, but those people have never really had the ability to do what Bin Laden did.
lj:
I agree. the only problem is that this is a problem that international alwyers can contend with only for so long before the fundamental solidity of the doctrine they want to uphold becomes more the question than the novelty of the situations the world presents them with. We’re fifteen years into the period during which the U.S. has been trying to assassinate UBL now. And again, the problem is not that there aren’t good arguments about why doing so is legal – it’s just that those who do want to both uphold IHL etc. and defend that legality seems as a groups still not to have their story straight. In domestic law analysis, that’s totally fine – there are actual authorities around to settle the question. But in the anarchy of IR, law comes down largely to what scholars can agree represents whatever law arises from the willing concessions of stte and other actors. In that environment, it would seem to me that coordinating accounts of these kinds of legalities would take on more importance. So I find it interesting that they don’t seem to have done so. On the other hand, I may simply be reading more disagreement into these articles than is really there.
“Now Republicans are proclaiming that the deficit (their deficit) is the most terrible thing ever to happen to this nation and are using their deficit as a excuse to attack the economic stability of the middle class. The budget which passed the Republican controlled House would gut Medicaid, slash funding for infrastructure and education, but includes another tax cut for the rich!”
Thank you, Laura. Some would say that the Grover Norquist agenda is just going according to plan.
Lack of access to facts is NOT his problem.
What this reminds me of is that on the subject of climate change, Republicans are more likely to reject the scientific consensus if they expose themselves to more information. Either all the scientists studying the subject really are wrong and only Republican pundits and politicians have a true picture of atmospheric physics, or… something else is going on.
The varying views on the legality of the bin Laden action remind me of the somewhat shifting story line of exactly what happened during that action.
Now I have a friend (an otherwise relatively sensible man, outside the occasional conspiracy theory) who seriously doubts everything about the accounts available. His reason? The fact that the story, or at least some of the details, has shifted several times over the past week.
Personally, I find it easier to accept that kind of account than I would if every detail from every source over time was identical. Reality is characterized by partial information, and by differing perspectives from different people. If every account was identical, then I would be thinking fabrication. But a slowly emerging picture of what happened? Sounds like every event where I was close enough to fact check details.
Which raises the question, in my mind: what level of initial consistency is too much, and what is too little, for credibility?
Mike, I’m not really sure about that, UBL is (one can hope) sui generis and he was able to exploit a particular set of circumstances (Muslim discontent, Afghanistani or more particularly, the Mahsud tribal customs, backing of one of the wealthiest _Saudi_ families, which adds another layer of opacity and unaccountability) that made his existence extremely problematic, but not something that makes it necessary to recast the whole framework of international law, as threadbare and tattered as it may seem.
There are any number of people who raise or have raised these questions, but most of them are relatively harmless or relatively powerless, or can be made an example of, so the system putters along without needing to be overhauled. Some various examples, chosen off the top of my head (and they are a wide ranging crew because they each indicate particular problems with the fabric of IR, so this isn’t to claim that there is one unifying condition) include Ronnie Biggs, Adolf Eichmann, Alberto Fujimori, John Demjanjuk, as well as groups of people, such as the Cossacks repatriated to the USSR after WWII, Koreans residing in and repatriating from Japan after WWII, various native American tribes, Gastarbeiter, and any number of other groups. All of these folks are, in one way or another, a challenge to the fabric of IR. At least that is my take.
I think it is also complicated by the fact that the Bush administration didn’t seem to have any concern with consistency, and was more interested in flexing its power, and I think you see the situation that you have now.
“I think it is also complicated by the fact that the Bush administration didn’t seem to have any concern with consistency, and was more interested in flexing its power…”
Change “Bush administration” to “the US government” and I think this would still be correct.
Jon:
In fact, the Tea Party membership and leadership’s record, both now and before, back to when they loved Reagan, was both huge government and disinterest in paying for it.
I think the best, though not perfect, measure of ‘size of government’ is spending as percent of GDP.
Federal spending as percent of GDP rose in the first years of the Reagan administration, then peaked and declined. It was lower at the end of Reagan’s second term than when he took office.
This indicator continued to fall under the next two administrations. (Bush the elder and Clinton.) It went down in every year of the Clinton administration, including the two in which Democrats controlled Congress.
Federal spending as percent of GDP began to rise as soon as the next Bush became president, and by the end of his administration was at about the same level as at the end of the Reagan administration. Under Obama it has continued to rise, and is now setting a post-WW2 record.
David,
Federal spending as a percentage of GDP has trended upward throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
See This chart for example.
This ratio also increases during recessions, as your narrative above aptly demonstrates.
@Bobbyp
Some of us think it would be desirable for that trend to flatten out somewhere below 100%.
Would a dictatorship that spends 10% of its nation’s GDP amount to a “smaller government” than a democracy that spends 20% of GDP?
What’s “government spending”, anyway? The US government is an insurance company with a side business in military operations. When an insurance company pays out on a claim, is that “insurance company spending”?
These may seem like snarky questions, but they are actually sincere attempts to nail down a couple of definitions.
–TP
A, now rather traditional, meme is that government is a protection racket and that to be expected to be pro-government is like the thief expecting you to thank him for giving parts of the loot to a charity you might benefit from. It’s always surprising that those who publically love this meme often also love to employ the thug/thief for their own purposes (esp. if they own the charity and its purpose is to benfit exclusively themselves).
As far as dictatorships go, they often start more efficient than democracies but tend to decay even faster in that regard, i.e. corruption sneaks in and spreads until the ‘overhead’ goes far beyond the healthy.
Brilliant dictators tend to have incompetent successors (I forgot who said that but I think the saying is pre-20th century).
@Tony P.
‘Yes’ to both.
Some of us think it would be desirable for that trend to flatten out somewhere below 100%.
A truly stunning riposte. All my arguments asserting the inevitability of socialism now lay in ruins.
‘It’s always surprising that those who publically love this meme often also love to employ the thug/thief for their own purposes (esp. if they own the charity and its purpose is to benfit exclusively themselves).’
Surprising it is not and the remainder of the sentence is misleading, at best. In the recent economic crash in the U.S., the real estate sector had enjoyed a very long-term experience with the ‘protection racket’, as described, with the principal thugs being the government and the financial industry working together. Now that all the real estate assets are in the tank, and the government (the bigger thug) has taken possession of the de-valued assets, the thugs continue to work cooperatively to insure that only a select few can enter and participate in the marketplace of transactions designed to move these assets back into private ownership. HUD and other government agency owners of real estate and banks are making a few asset managers, retained to manage the disposal of REO, rich, and in so doing are frequently accepting less than market values for properties because of the corruption of those same benefactors of the bigger thug’s favoritism. While this is going on, many long-term, honest and hard-working, real estate professionals are shut out of the market by this failure of the ‘government of the people’ to act equitably and responsibly in the disposition of real estate that should not be owned by the government in the first place.
Is that the consensus opinion? And is the advice, as a result, that Republicans actively avoid information so as to be more in line with the mainstream?
Not really serious questions, in case that wasn’t dead obvious.
GOB – that wouldn’t surprise me, though, do you have a link or two laying that all out? For example, the real estate assets that the government has taken possession all and the relevant asset managers being made rich? I would happily read them.
Hartmut:
‘A, now rather traditional, meme is that government is a protection racket and that to be expected to be pro-government is like the thief expecting you to thank him for giving parts of the loot to a charity you might benefit from. It’s always surprising that those who publically love this meme often also love to employ the thug/thief for their own purposes (esp. if they own the charity and its purpose is to benfit exclusively themselves).’
In Utah, the Republican dominated state legislature recently refused to extend unemployment benefits, and a Federal dollar contribution, which is consistent with the offered meme.
I suggest this has a lot to do with differing approaches to supporting livelihood between those who prefer to be self-employed (lean Republican) and those who choose to labor on behalf of others (lean Democrat). The former would like the government to get out of the way and the latter seem to be always looking for some intervention between the government and their employer to protect them from their own choices. These are the ones involved in the thuggery. Certainly, when the thug is powerful enough, those who oppose will often be enmeshed in its processes.
Ugh:
‘GOB – that wouldn’t surprise me, though, do you have a link or two laying that all out?’
I don’t. I have some connection to the real estate sector and I reach these conclusions from specific information to which I have access. Information that I have indicates, for example, that certain real estate brokers, with the right connections to get on the approved lists, can acquire, with little effort, large numbers of listings, far in excess of the number that any one licensed professional could reasonably service. When this happens in a given geographic area, large numbers of other well-qualified real estate professionals are effectively excluded from the process. The result is, as often lamented in postings here, that a few insiders are making extraordinary sums on these transactions while others have seen their ability to earn a living substantially reduced by their exclusion, since, in markets where the RE market has been hard hit, these transactions types predominate.
I suggest this has a lot to do with differing approaches to supporting livelihood between those who prefer to be self-employed (lean Republican) and those who choose to labor on behalf of others (lean Democrat). The former would like the government to get out of the way and the latter seem to be always looking for some intervention between the government and their employer to protect them from their own choices.
Right. “Protect them from their own choices.” ‘Cause we all know that our economy (and indeed, society) is set up to allow for every person on the planet to be self-employed, that it would indeed be possible for everyone to do so, and none of those self-employed people need to have employees. Or something.
If those choices you so blithely disparage are something requiring protection from, then at least some of the gloriously self-employed folk you’re fetishizing are exploiting their fellow citizens for personal gain. That’s not rugged self-reliance, that’s callous predation.
those who choose to labor on behalf of others (lean Democrat)
I’m a teacher, so the whole point is to labor on behalf of others, so I guess I’m busted. As are the doctors, therapists, any number of other professions. Busted all. Unless we are willing to get our requisite pound of flesh. I guess this is why doctors make more than teachers.
‘I’m a teacher, so the whole point is to labor on behalf of others, so I guess I’m busted.’
I worked as an employee of various organizations for over 40 years, half in the private sector, half in the public sector. All the time in the private sector was at-will employment. I started at minimum wage and ended in the top 1% of salaried employees in the nation. What I mean by ‘on behalf of others’ is to have a ‘boss’ who supervises or directs your work and many or most aspects of the work process. I chose what field of endeavor to labor in and found an employer to meet that requirement, so I guess I was busted with all the rest who cannot run their own show. My expectations were obviously too meager though, since I only thought the employment ‘agreement’ was good as long as both parties were satisfied. I was never fired, laid off, or otherwise released, but I chose to make moves when I was no longer satisfied. Today, there seems to be no end to where expectations can go, including some who think when their chosen employment no longer exists where they live, they can draw unemployment benefits for some indeterminate period. Utah offered 26 weeks of benefits, followed by 47 weeks of Federal benefits when the state declined to extend if further.
Maybe what should happen, if we are to have such a system of benefits at all, is that employees should negotiate with their employers to pay higher unemployment compensation payments to the government so that when that employee becomes unemployed the benefits will run longer.
I think the whole notion self-employed/working-for-the-man correlating with political leanings is a bit silly. For one thing, there are many fields where being self-employed doesn’t really work. My wife used to design power systems for telecom satellites. You can’t really do that as a one-person self-employed firm. You can’t even do that as a 5-person small company. It just doesn’t work like that.
There was a time when Americans could conceive of aspriations larger than running a dry cleaning business.
‘I think the whole notion self-employed/working-for-the-man correlating with political leanings is a bit silly.’
I get what you are saying here and concede that you may be correct. One thing though, many highly competent technical types cease working-for-the-man and become consultants in the area of their technical expertise. This changes the boundaries of where they can go, what they can do, as well as compensation.
In Republican Utah where they decided to stop umemployment, did they also decide to charge market value for grazing rights on public land? Are the taxpayers still maintaining at our expense access routes on pulbic land for the subsidized exploiutatio of pulbic owed resources
on behalf of loggers, miners and ranchers? Are our tax dollars still being used to kill our wildlife on our public land to reduce losses for “self-employed” ranchers who have been parasites on the public for generations?
Conservative philosophy is really just “Social Darwinism for thee but not for me.”
What I mean by ‘on behalf of others’ is to have a ‘boss’ who supervises or directs your work and many or most aspects of the work process.
You know, if you equate the two above, we might have an outline of the problem. This is not to write some passionate defense of teaching, or fire fighting or policing, just to point out that you may want to think about what ‘on behalf of others’ means for a society that has so many points of mutual inter-dependence.
Yes, I can imagine the discussion in Utah: Republicans who have been parasites on federal dollars for generations arguing that other people should just have to sell their houses, pack up and move if they lose a job since it’s just their own fault for not employing themselves like those real American Republican ranchers and loggers who are so indepedent and self-supporting!
” Republicans who have been parasites on federal dollars for generations arguing that other people should just have to sell their houses, pack up and move if they lose a job since it’s just their own fault for not employing themselves….”
So, Laura, when you are unemployed and there are likely no jobs where you live, should you just live indeterminately on unemployment? I am just curious what the ultimate outcome of this thought process is, those freeloading ranchers aside. Isn’t there some point where packing up and moving to where there is a job the right answer?
One thing though, many highly competent technical types cease working-for-the-man and become consultants in the area of their technical expertise.
This seems in tension with your earlier comment that what I mean by ‘on behalf of others’ is to have a ‘boss’ who supervises or directs your work and many or most aspects of the work process. Most every consultant is supervised by a boss who directs their work; if you’re hiring consultants and not supervising them, then you’re just lighting money on fire in my experience.
‘Most every consultant is supervised by a boss who directs their work; if you’re hiring consultants and not supervising them, then you’re just lighting money on fire in my experience.’
We are probably in semantics-land here. What I was attempting to describe is where there is a one-off need for some expertise that a given employer may not even be capable of supervising except insuring the delivery of the agreed upon product, more often than not done on a contractual basis rather than through direct employment. I agree with you where the consultant is hired like an employee and supervised as such, a consultant in name only, more like a temporary employee.
I suggest this has a lot to do with differing approaches to supporting livelihood between those who prefer to be self-employed (lean Republican) and those who choose to labor on behalf of others (lean Democrat).
The words “prefer” and “choose” are doing so much heavy lifting here it’s a wonder you haven’t torn a quad.
I would suggest that there is one really significant difference between those who “choose” to be self-employed and those who choose work for a company or other organization. To make it self-employed, you absolutely must have one characteristic — regardless of what you are doing. You have to be a salesman, and a good one.
Now salesmanship is not something that everybody is good at. Starting with those of us who are seriously introverted. Which means that, unless you are both an extrovert and a good salesman (definitely a minority even of extroverts), you are not going to prosper on your own. It doesn’t really matter how good you are at whatever you are doing, even if you are one of the top 1% of your field, if you don’t get out and hustle for contracts, you aren’t going to get much work.
I think what we have here is a collision of incompatible viewpoints. One viewpoint has that one’s life is more or less a series of choices, and dealing with the consequences thereof, and another viewpoint has one’s life subject to just whatever circumstances occur.
I don’t think either point of view is necessarily “right”, in any general sense. But one is definitely more appealing than the other, for me. Certainly there are people whose circumstances are more of a powerful influence than others (e.g. someone who has muscular dystrophy); I am definitely not diminishing their struggle.
‘To make it self-employed, you absolutely must have one characteristic — regardless of what you are doing. You have to be a salesman, and a good one.’
This is a valid point, but I think communication more than salesmanship. Communication is a skill that can be developed and improved through effort. Self-employment also includes partnership arrangements that allow for a division of labor based on skill sets. Many successful businesses have started this way.
I think what we have here is a collision of incompatible viewpoints. One viewpoint has that one’s life is more or less a series of choices, and dealing with the consequences thereof, and another viewpoint has one’s life subject to just whatever circumstances occur.
My goodness, if we can get some more binaries up in here, we can start an astronomy club.
I always thought of the self-employed as being, primarily, more risk-tolerant than those who choose to be employed by others, speaking very generally. And most of the sellers I meet work for someone else.
To go all-out with the anecdota, I have a neighbor with his own auto-body shop, which is pretty successful by all appearances. The dude barely makes eye contact and doesn’t seem very interested in conversation.
It was your point that The words “prefer” and “choose” are doing so much heavy lifting here, Phil. I don’t think I was the first to try and erase the middle.
Well, maybe you weren’t trying to erase the middle. Maybe you were trying to lighten up the end that imagine they have choices in life, or just have some extremely delicate quads. Or some in-between place.
I was pointing out that recategorizing “these two things” into “these two other things” doesn’t really get us any closer to understanding people. YMMV, obviously, if you’ve already got people sorted into “this group” and “this other group.”
Point taken, Phil.
Marty, How long should the Republicans of Utah be willing to support the unemployed? How about as long as they expect the taxpayers of the nation to support them. How about as long as the politicias of their party support welfare for the corporatios that fund their party?
I object to people who claim to have a ideology but refuse to accept responsibility for the consequeces of the application of their ideology to others, refuse to apply it to themselves and refuse to modifiy it whe it doesn’t work in the real world.
That’s really the heart of my objection to the political activities of people who call themselves coservatives and/or vote for Republicans..
Tony P.’s story about his healthcare discussion w/his friend is both depressing and unsurprising. It’s been this way for a while, hasn’t it? When Democratic policies are described in a poll (w/o saying “the Dems want to do this”) they tend to poll much better than if you ask someone “do you support the D’s policy on X?”
Though I have to say I’m amused at a self-identified Tea Partier being pro-mandate. That’s something that, in my experience, was latched onto very early as THE WORST THING EVER (despite being a Republican idea from the 90s).
“How about as long as they expect the taxpayers of the nation to support them. How about as long as the politicias of their party support welfare for the corporatios that fund their party?”
This is an apples and oranges comparison with lots of complexities, some where I agree with you, others where I probably don’t. Corporations fund both parties, ideology hasn’t impacted the rationale behind many of the things you seem to object to across decades of different Congresses controlled by both parties.
It’s kind of like talking about oil company subsidies, which don’t exist. There are tax laws that apply to oil companies that provide them with some advantages, most of which apply to other companies also. In fact, it’s hard to take them away from “big” oil without just specifying “big” oil as not getting them, because you really don’t want to take them away from everyone. As the Congress starts “getting rid of the big oil subsidies” it is worth paying attention to what exactly they are actually doing.
Liberal democrats have ceded a large measure of party policy control over land and natural resources to the extreme environmentalists who, with the help of the displaced communists, have no qualms about shutting down the economic capacity of the U.S. and keeping us in our current state or worse.
President Obama continues to mouth platitudes trying to create an impression that the administration has eased its direction toward favoring and subsidizing non-economic green energy while allowing, even encouraging, actions such as Salazar’s holiday announcement of a new wild lands policy (order 3310) that has the potential to stop any constructive use of federal land.
It is my sincere hope that the current strains created by high costs of energy will continue through the next eighteen months so that the American electorate can wake up and see these shut down efforts for what they are.
“displaced communists”
Did someone remove them from under your bed while you weren’t looking?
I worry about John Birchers with spastic colons speaking from high places.
Incidentally, what do we call fine entrepreneurs and small businesspeople of all political persuasions put out of business by Walmart and Target across the country?
The selfunemployed.
Yokay, back to lurking.
I’d love to see a front-page post heavily-laden with facts (displaced or otherwise) about U.S. domestic hydrocarbon energy use and production (including on public lands) compared to hydrocarbon importation by the U.S. and use and production around the world.
Also, estimated recoverable reserves on a worldwide basis.
“displaced communists”
Well, they were until Obama was elected.
Salazar’s holiday announcement of a new wild lands policy (order 3310) that has the potential to stop any constructive use of federal land.
You say potatoe, I say potahtoe. Maybe you meant some word other than “constructive” there.
Liberal democrats have ceded a large measure of party policy control over land and natural resources to the extreme environmentalists who, with the help of the displaced communists, have no qualms about shutting down the economic capacity of the U.S. and keeping us in our current state or worse.
How strange it is that “extreme environmentalists” and “displaced communists” are begging and pleading for market pricing of CO2. Not so long ago, this policy was thought of as a conservative notion but now I guess it was a notion invented by Karl Marx himself.
Well, they were until Obama was elected.
Can you please list some of these displaced communists?
Extreme Environmentalists = anyone who is interested in environmental protection. At all.
Just like any liberal is part of the “Hard Left” or a “Communist.”
You say potatoe, I say potahtoe.
From the Dan Quayle School of Spelling.
That’s “Skool of Speling” to you, HSH!
Jack Kennedy never misspelled “potato.”
So, since we’re in open thread here and Tony P. gave us a tale of the misinformed, I’d like to let everyone know about the 500 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation that we’re sitting on the US. The “extreme environmentalists” (aka “tree huggers”) are preventing us from tapping into a reserve that outsizes those of the entire Middle East. If everyone knew about this, they’d go NUTS!
That’s the gist of the e-mail my dad circulated a few days ago, of the type that is absurd on its face and that it takes all of about a minute to debunk. What makes people think that mind-blowing, game-changing information comes by way of e-mail, while the world’s subject-matter experts either remain in the dark or are attempting to maintain a worldwide conspiracy to keep the information a secret (so we don’t all go NUTS!)?
More specifically, how many times do I have to show my father that these e-mails are BS before he generalizes the lesson and becomes more skeptical?
‘More specifically, how many times do I have to show my father that these e-mails are BS before he generalizes the lesson and becomes more skeptical?’
HSH:
More importantly, if we have presumably insignificant reserves, or so little that it won’t make a difference in production, why don’t we go ahead and drill for it and dispense with this argument once and for all.
Sorry Ugh, I think the correct spelling is ‘Skul’ for that one.
HSH:
Do the emails contain the words “Stansberry Research?
Google his SEC fraud record.
Long-time liar in the penny-stock investment business. Also locked into the end-of-the-U.S.-as-we-know-it-under-Obama grift.
Also in on the hate-the-government grift.
Most of his claims regarding the Bakken Field have been obliterated by, you know, petroleum geologists.
Yeah, the Bakken is pretty good oil-shale territory and drilling proceeds there full-bore, despite the evil Ob(s)ama. The proven recoverable reserves might give us a year or two supply of oil, if I remember correctly.
Stansberry claims 100 years, replacing all imported oil.
Stansberry’s SEC fraud conviction, which funnily enough, given his destroy the government creds, was for lying about his connections to ….. government.
His Bakken claims also depend on quoting the hated government, U.S. Geological Survey, out of context. Since debunked by said U.S. Geological Survey.
Advertises at Redstate. Saw his ad right there underneath one of Moe Lane’s screeds on some daft micro-point about liberal hypocrisy of one kind and another.
Funny that. Middling liar pointing out motes while being financed by even bigger liars.
Stansberry’s what we call self-employed, falling over all the way Right. When one penny scam bites the dust, he quickly displaces himself to another.
He works for himself, alright.
Now quit bothering me.
Stansberry, yes.
GOB, see Count’s comment for the drilling status. There’s some oil there, like under 3 years’ of consumption, some portion of which will never be recovered. But production there has helped US production overall, which means that the e-mail was false on two counts (at least): that there was 500 billion barrels and that evil environmentalists were preventing drilling.
Here’s my preferred domestic fossil fuel production policy: let’s use their’s up first, hence, the more obstacles to domestic drilling, etc., the better.
HSH, you might also point out to GOB that we’d have to go all communist and stuff in order to make the oil under the US belong to “us”. I get the feeling he doesn’t quite get the idea that when (B)ritish (P)etroleum manages to extract oil in the US (instead of spilling it) then BP is happy to sell it to China. Same goes for Exxon. Only way GOB gets to “consume” that “American” oil is if he outbids the Chinese for it.
I’d mention all that to GOB myself, but I’ve had enough frustration for a while.
–TP
The Dems have won their major objectives: high unemployment, high gas prices, high out of wedlock birth rates (that Dan Quayle is just sooo stupid), high government spending, high government debt, high inflation (just in food prices alone).
What’s not to like? We will soon get high speed railroads!
‘HSH, you might also point out to GOB that we’d have to go all communist and stuff in order to make the oil under the US belong to “us”. I get the feeling he doesn’t quite get the idea that when (B)ritish (P)etroleum manages to extract oil in the US (instead of spilling it) then BP is happy to sell it to China. Same goes for Exxon. Only way GOB gets to “consume” that “American” oil is if he outbids the Chinese for it.
I’d mention all that to GOB myself, but I’ve had enough frustration for a while.’
This is all pretty much irrelevant since the objective is jobs, not domestic oil for domestic consumption. On the other hand, if we pursue available natural gas reserves (also requiring drilling), and converted much of our domestic needs to that resource, we would reduce our dependence on imports and provide needed jobs. None of the administration’s green initiatives will do either at great cost to taxpayers.
None of the administration’s green initiatives will do either at great cost to taxpayers.
I don’t think this is true; a cap and trade regime should incentivize natural gas production quite nicely.
GOB, can you please supply us with a list of the not so displaced communists?
‘I don’t think this is true; a cap and trade regime should incentivize natural gas production quite nicely.’
A cap and trade regime was passed by one house in the last 2-year administration. The current administration could not pass such if their lives depended on it. Some of those Commies lost their seats for that vote and we’ll get more of them next time.
Natural Gas development and use needs no incentives other than get the government out of the way.
If I’m not mistaken, only 25% of our energy use depends on natural gas. Further conversion will depend on ever higher oil prices, but wait, you don’t want that.
“If we converted” sounds commie to me. Especially the “we” part, kemosabe.
How many commies does it take to convert a muscle car to natural gas?
And to Dave: high unemployment=offshoring jobs to China, India etc, among other problems, high gas prices=increased energy use by China and India (oil prices reached $140/barrel under the previous Republican regime); high-out-of-wedlock birth rates=maybe our daughters our getting knocked up by Chinese entrepreneurs but good luck securing birth control from Planned Chinesehood; high government debt=when did that start?; inflation in food prices=see aforementioned demand from China, India, other emerging economies along with drought in major economies.
You guys wanted capitalism in those countries. Nothing wrong with that except for the incessant, truly annoying whining and obliviousness about the fact that their demand is outbidding your desire for cheap resources.
Am I the only one that feels that the “story” of Bin Laden’s death was merely a “trump” card, to be used in a time of need? What better way to distract the American people of the seriousness of what’s going on domestically.
I think the bigger story on TV should be about the fact that 1 in 7 people are on food stamps. That’s how bad things truly are.
GOB, I’m going to ask you for the third time: who are these communists? What are their names and what evidence do you have that they are communists?
Natural Gas development and use needs no incentives other than get the government out of the way.
Natural Gas development that doesn’t pollute major sources of drinking water or turn kitchen faucets into Bunsen burners is another story. I mean, GOB, you aren’t suggesting completely uncontrolled fracking at the whim of drillers, are you? If so, why? If not, why not? (Maybe you’re a commmie, too.)
Just guessing, Turbulence, that this might be part of what GOB is talking about.
If a person lives in the intermountain West or the dry areas of Washigon and Oregon sooner or later they will be exposed to the self aggranidizing mythology of the “independent, self-reliant” rural citizen who lives, uslaly quite directly, on federal tax dollars and the esploitation of resources belonging to all of us. It is part of the mythology to bitch endlessly about extremist enviros who are interfering with the free eterprisze of these parasites. Never mind that the so-called idependent folks are operatig o resources they don’t own, subsidized by other people’s taxes–if they don’t want to abide by pullic intersest regulations maybe they should get thehell of pullic land. But wait–they can’t! Or they would be out of a job! How come that isn’t OK? SUrvival of the fittest for people employed in Salt Lake City, endless goverment support for people who run their cows, sheep, logging equipment or mining operation on public land.
The lie of the enviomentalist extremist locking up public land is just another example of Republican demonizing. My use of the term “parasite” is deliberate as a couter-demonization, of course. I don’t mind aqctually supporting miners, ranchers, and loggers. I just despise the selfishess and dishonesty that is too frequently a major component of their political outlook. I think all federal subsidies and access to federal lands should be contingent upon the recepient issuing a public statement ackowleding the help they are recieving and ackowledging the federal government’s resposiblity to regulate their use of public resources in the public’s interest. I don’t mind uspprt my fellow Americas. I just do’t like the lying and hypocrasy that is essential to the Republican point of view in red states of the West.
Oy, Stansberry. My mother gets those emails and has sent them on to me, including the oil one.
I have told her, repeatedly, that Stansberry is an obvious charlatan and pointed out the SEC fraud thing. Lalalalala…
Step 1: receive wingnut email forward from mom, full of obvious lies, exaggerations and, of course, Obama/Dem bashing.
Step 2: send reply rebutting the nuttery, completely with quotes and links.
Step 3: no response. None whatsoever. No defense of the absurd email, no thanks for the info, nothing.
Step 4: receive another nutty email.
Rinse, Repeat.
On the upside, she swears she’s never given them a cent of her money to invest. So in the end it’s really about her lapping up some tasty Obama/Dem bashing. Hey, we all have our hobbies…
GOB, if the point is jobs, why not employ people to build mass transit (and repair existing mass transit infrastructure) that would also vastly reduce our dependency on foreign oil?
I’d want to see how the numbers fall out on that one. Mass transit that people choose to use, and that services a regardable section of the populace to the point where it has palpable effect on oil consumption…I’d want to see the analysis.
Because those would be gummint jobs, which, as we all know, are not real jobs. Plus, such projects smack of central planning. The displaced communists are ready and waiting to do that planning, the better to destroy America, precious…
😉
I kid, but only a little.
That doesn’t work, though, because it doesn’t advance the more-important unstated objective of smashing the rampant and widespread American Eco-Communist movement, while drilling for oil and selling it to the highest bidder is pure capitalistic goodness.
Think before you ask these silly questions, Julian! I mean, seriously, which is more important: increasing energy independence (and thus increasing national security), or crushing teh crypto-commies (and thus increasing the purity of our essence)?
“That doesn’t work, though, because it doesn’t advance the more-important unstated objective of smashing the rampant and widespread American Eco-Communist movement,”
Or, maybe, it just doesn’t work. The latest good decision by a Republican, even if it is Rick Scott,is passing on high spped rail between Tampa and Orlando. A foolish premise if ever there was one.
There is almost no centralized business district in either city, no adequate public transportation to be used once you reach your destination at either end, no real expectation that ridership would pay for ongoing upkeep and management, so the total value of the initial investment is lost very quickly in paying for the albatross that would be left behind. But, but, but, we would have had high speed rail.
Just one of the marvelous nuggets of knowledge I picked up on that Pajamas Media post and thread Slart referenced:
“Jews are generally smarter than we are simply because over the centuries of pogroms and discrimination the surviving Jews became smarter – you see, the stupid ones were eliminated.”
Along with the usual “Hitler was a piker compared to Mao” argument, which I’m never quite sure is supposed to educate me about Mao, as if I didn’t know, or somehow persuade me that Hitler, like Avis, just should have tried harder.
You gots the history of the Jews, the Catholics, the Mexicans, the blacks, the Commies, the Nazis, the unions, the foreskinfathers, Obama’s parentage, Anne Frank’s low test scores despite the homeschooling, the end days Rapture, etc all in one handy, easy to read thread, with a parting shot about how one might get in the pants of the hottie sporting the Commie sign, which I think was from the rapture fan.
But, by far, the best new item I picked up was the story of Marlon Brando, Liz Taylor, and Michael Jackson renting a car the day after 9-11 and fleeing New York City for the cross-country road-trip to the West Coast.
Now that is a road movie idea sure to outdraw “Atlas Shrugged”, the musical.
Brando: I coulda bin a contenda.
Taylor: (drunkenly) You were neva good enough, you has-been. (Or some such line from “The Taming of the Shrew”)
Jackson: Hoo!
No advice on converting the remaining 75% of domestic energy consumption to natural gas, including all automobiles, but …..
plenty of methane venting.
Slarti, as usual, makes a fair point and I double any of us dispute that a cost/benefit analysis should be applied to any project (the FL rail project Marty mentions may, in fact, have been a bad idea. I don’t know). Mass transit makes a lot of sense in certain places, and not much sense at all in others. Indeed it may be that mass transit, alone, would have very little impact on our energy dependence.
Unless I’m mistaken, the preferred liberal policy approach at this time is to have the market come up with solutions that make sense, after having provided the market with the right incentives (by, for instance, internalizing the current externalities of various things like burning coal, gasoline, etc). The devil is undoubtably in the details and I too would worry about special interest rent-seeking and regulatory capture. But then I also worry about pollution, global warming, and the possibility of future oil shocks. What’s a reasonable fella to do?
Stupid typos. Doubt, not double.
GOB, I’m going to ask you for the third time: who are these communists? What are their names and what evidence do you have that they are communists?’
Individual names are not important to these participants, only their affiliation to the larger group. The use of the term ‘communist’ is symbolic of the devotion of the members of the set to the political objectives emanating from the group. The groups are known by the policies they support (largely oriented to the extinguishing of the concept of the individual) and individual names for participants are meaningless since there are no distinguishing characteristics among members.
@GOB:
Whether or not names are important to the participants, they are important to us, and hopefully to you. Cf. The Big Lebowski. Even though the nihilists did not believe in anything, it was possible to point them out.
So can you?
It’s always an eye-opener to realize that someone with whom you interact, however casually, is a crazy person. Like, literally.
Individual names are not important to these participants, only their affiliation to the larger group. The use of the term ‘communist’ is symbolic of the devotion of the members of the set to the political objectives emanating from the group. The groups are known by the policies they support (largely oriented to the extinguishing of the concept of the individual) and individual names for participants are meaningless since there are no distinguishing characteristics among members.
Wow. Just wow.
This reads like a parody of leftist academic post-modern literary theory analysis. Or the rantings of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I really have no idea what to do with this.
Or, what Phil said.
No, Bennett, that’s three down and seven guesses to go for the $50 jackpot.
Orson Bean, stop trying to remove your blindfold. Do you have a question for our mystery guest and a guess to his or her identity?
Bean: Do you exchange bodily fracking fluids with your fellow travelers?
Mystery Guest: Ummm ….. when necessary, but not in the light of day.
John Daly: Yes or no answers, please.
Mystery Guest: Yes
Bean: Are you T. Boone Pickens?
Guest: No
John Daly: Four down, six to go. Dorothy Kilgallen, your question, please.
The use of the term ‘communist’ is symbolic of the devotion of the members of the set to the political objectives emanating from the group.
And my use of the term “teabagger” is symbolic in exactly the same way. Individual names are not important, as GOB says. No need to offend particular individuals. You can disparage the shoe without specifying who it fits.
And if somebody pipes up to complain that the shoe fits him, that’s his problem.
–TP
Evidence that the producers among us have Gone Galt™ in the face of unnamed and unnamable formerly displaced communists now walking (stalking!) the halls of power!
•The Top 400’s average AGI fell 21.5%, to $270.5m (down from $344.8m in 2007)
But alas, even the most limber of the Atlas Shruggers are no match for those who sip at the cup of Mao:
•The Top 400’s average tax rate increased 8.2%, to 18.11% (up from 16.62% in 2007).
As a wise, goldenrod, mindless philosopher* once said: We’re doomed!
*C3PO, in case you’re wondering.
You’ll be malfunctioning within a day!
‘•The Top 400’s average AGI fell 21.5%, to $270.5m (down from $344.8m in 2007)’
‘•The Top 400’s average tax rate increased 8.2%, to 18.11% (up from 16.62% in 2007).’
Let’s see. Is this the right direction? The ‘rich’ are getting less as a percentage of total income and they are paying a higher percentage of that income in taxes. Doctor Obama’s prescription must be working for the long described malady.
Alright, folks. You must admit things have been pretty tame around here of late, considering the biggest bust up was the discussion on whether to ban Countme-In or not.
Rinse, Repeat.
Posted by: Rob in CT | May 11, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Rob, we may be cousins.
Income tax year …. 2008.
Says so right at the top of the chart in Ugh’s link.
Doctor Obama was but a gleam in the still-as-yet-unnamed Commies’ eyes at that point.
Hadn’t yet been sworn-in but the swearing at was just getting started.
Osama bin Laden now dead and tax increases since 2008 to pay for the mission are still as difficult to name as the mystery Commie meat bringing down the country.
The Chinese essentially financed bin Laden’s death. Are Navy Seals self-employed and how do they lean as the Chinese finance their military pensions and benefits?
By now, Ronald Reagan would have raised taxes — twice at least — to help bring down the deficit.
But that was before the “com” in compromise became synonymous with the “com” in commie.
Obama. Osama. Obama. Osama. Obamasamalamabingbang.
We all live in Frank Luntz’s world now.
A tongueless, mute Luntz is a dream of mine, so the rest of us can go back to speaking an honest language.
Frank, in your own words, tell me the list of adjectives to describe liberals again.
Aauunnnnnnnggggg!
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, Frank. What did he say, Grover?
See ya’ll maybe in the summer.
@Julian:
Whether or not names are important to the participants, they are important to us, and hopefully to you.
There you go again. Ya nut. This is utterly ridiculous. Didn’t you read how the individuals he’s discussing don’t care about their individual identities? We must respect their unique philosophical and cultural outlook! Next thing you’ll be saying that we must identify anonymous serial killers, despite the fact that anonymity is part of the core of their self-image!!!!!!!!
That’s just crazy talk; don’t even lead us down that slippery slope. We must all support GOB’s steadfast refusal to offend these society-dismantling communists by identifying them, no matter what cost his principled stand against hurting their feelings will have on all of us!
HSH – nah, man. We’re brothers, man! No, that’s not it… we’re COMRADES!
“•The Top 400’s average tax rate increased 8.2%, to 18.11% (up from 16.62% in 2007).”
The only saving grace is that when you look at more of the stats the top 400 also pay 18% of the income tax in the country. The top 1% pay 38% of all taxes, and the top 5% pay 59%, the top 10% pay 70%. That leaves 30% for the 40% of taxpayers between 50% and 90%.
So, really, its hard not to raise taxes on the rich.
I mean the the cut off for the top 10% is $113,000 dollars.
If everyone would quit talking about it and just raise taxes across the board 60% of the increase falls on those in the top 5%. And while my math is sometimes suspect I believe that means we geta lot more out of those that make more than 250k than the projected 700B because the lower marginal rates are also increased.
But heck, lets keep arguing about who should pay and not pay, it get votes.
I wouldn’t trust anything the Tax Foundation says without asking an expert to examine their statements and the underlying basis for them, if any (see, e.g.).
And Marty it’s the top 0.1% of taxpayers that pay 18% of the income tax in the country, which is 140,000 taxpayers not 400 (assuming the numbers the Tax Foundation reported are correct, as to which see above).
And while my math is sometimes suspect I believe that means we geta lot more out of those that make more than 250k than the projected 700B because the lower marginal rates are also increased.
Some more, not a lot. You’re talking about a fairly small percentage of the population and a small percentage (how small depends on how much more than $250k they make) of their income that is subject to the lower marginal rates. And since we’re talking about the lower marginal rates we’re talking mostly about earned income.
Most of the additional revenue gained from raising the lower marginal rates would come from the multitudes of people who don’t earn enough to pay the higher marginal rates.
Yeah, we’re talking about a group of people who probably aren’t paying nearly all of the upper-bracket rate anyway, because lots of their income is capital gains, which is taxed at the capital gains rate.
hsh,
There are 4M returns between 1% and 5%, 7M between 5% and 10%, and then 20M between 10% and 25% when the laws of bigger numbers kick in.
So, my guess, is that in the 1% to 5% group you still get a pretty nice chunk of individuals over 200K and couples over 250K out of that 4M, plus the 1.3M returns in the top 1%. But your right, it isn’t 20M.
“Yeah, we’re talking about a group of people who probably aren’t paying nearly all of the upper-bracket rate anyway, because lots of their income is capital gains, which is taxed at the capital gains rate.”
This seems always seems to me to question how much we get by raising the top marginal rate in the first place, but everyone keeps using 70B a year.
I bet myself a beer that Dobie’s link would be about INCOME TAX statistics.
I won.
Dobie may suspect his own math, but I am sure he is good enough at it to understand this: if we had a DEAD FLAT income tax, and the top 10% had 70% of ALL INCOME, they would be paying 70% of all INCOME TAX. They’d still bitch and moan about it, of course. But it does not take a math genius to recognize that statistics like “the top 10% pay 70%” say more about the unequal distribution of INCOME than about the iniquity of the TAX CODE.
But back to the reality that the bottom 90% pay the majority of FICA, which the bitch-and-moan crowd tries so hard to ignore. One reason they try to ignore it is embarrassment over this fact: that tax, paid by the little people, generates a SURPLUS, while the oppressively progressive income tax paid so preponderantly by the bitch-and-moan crowd generates a deficit. The little people are effectively lending money to the bitch-and-moaners, and have been doing so for about 3 decades, when you look at the overall federal tax structure.
And just incidentally, Alan Simpson is an old coot who has no business worrying about the long-term finances of anything. When I hear him babble about 75-year projections for Social Security, I keep wondering which will happen first: the birth of the first American who will be retiring 75 years from now, or Alan Simpson’s funeral.
–TP
Whenever I hear folks go on about the worthy self-employed, and personal choices and their consequences, etc etc etc, my first thought is “Who’s going to make the donuts?”
A hell of a lot of stuff – the vast majority of stuff – doesn’t happen because somebody has a clever idea. It happens because a sh*t load of somebodies get up, eat breakfast, and go to work.
And *none* of the clever ideas actually make money – not a dime – until and unless a sh*tload of somebodies get up, eat breakfast, and go to work.
Just saying.
An entrepreneur without staff is an annoying guy with a stack of PowerPoint slides who wants your money.
Just saying.
As far as taxes, US income taxes are flat above about $380K, and most folks that have very large incomes make a lot of their money via capital gains, which as slarti notes are taxed at a much lower rate.
Net/net, wealthy people are doing perfectly well tax-wise, thank you very much.
Folks who claim that we need to leave their income alone or they will stop creating jobs need to get off of their @sses and start creating some MFing jobs.
tp,
I would like you to point out any word that I typed that was complaining about taxes. I didn’t eveen start the discussion.
Ugh, thanks, 140,000 is right, it is .1%.
russell’s comment has me picturing a couple of electricians in a dirty manhole splicing together a 5kV line that feeds an entire enterprise. (Talk about keeping the lights on.) We’d be really and truly fncked if a good number of those guys went Galt. Somehow I think we’d get by without most of the hedge fund managers.
Whenever I hear someone going on about who is going to make the donuts I remember one of my first jobs in a donut shop.
I got up at 2, went to work at three, made donuts until 5. (It was a small donut shop, most started earlier.) Then the owner came in and took over making the donuts. I then became the breakfast shift dishwasher until 10.
I got the job because my Dad taught me to make donuts when I was 12, we made them for church donut sales.
What that, or most of what russell wrote, has to do with being an entrepeneur, I am not sure.
The guy who saved up, rented the space, bought the equipment, worked seven days a week, hired me and the other five people that worked there, bought the materials, washed the dishes the day I quit, well he worked for himself. He probably would make more than 250k today, surely would if managed to have two donut shops. I have a lot of respect for him. And yeah, most of the time he made the donuts.
CCDG,
Where did I type that you were “complaining about taxes”?
–TP
HSH, your mental image is quite close to the reality.
If the garbagemen and the plumbers go Galt it’ll be time to call it day.
An entrepreneur with no staff is a guy who is not delivering product, whatever “product” happens to be. No deliver product, no revenue. No revenue, nobody and I do mean nobody gets paid.
And yeah, I work in the software industry, so I know lots and lots of expert consultants. Some of them are great, some of them are full of crap. Most are kind of somewhere in between.
Folks that come in to actually *produce something* on a for-hire basis can be worthwhile if their participation is managed well.
Folks that come in with bright ideas for sale about how *you* should produce something in a wonderful new and exciting way, not so much. The number of wonderful new and exciting ways that actually create value are, sadly, few and far between.
That’s my experience.
In any case, expert consultants for hire are pretty much all expensive, and that comes off of somebody’s bottom line.
The moral of the story is you deliver product, or you don’t get paid. So it is, so it ever shall be.
Somebody has to make the freaking donuts. The number of situations where “making the freaking donuts” can usefully be done by one industrious bright up-by-the-bootstraps individual is, actually, quite small.
Of course, these days, quite a variety of donuts can now be made in the third world. Our big export is scrap cardboard, which turns into boxes in which the donuts can be shipped back to us.
My suggestion to young people starting out is grow your own food, don’t borrow money, and learn plumbing. Plumbing can’t be outsourced.
And to repeat my point about taxes:
1. US income tax is flat above $380K
2. Most high income folks get a significant amount of their money from cap gains, which are taxed approximately half what income is taxed at those income levels.
Those are the plain and simple facts of the matter. Rich folks are fine tax-wise.
Tp,
“Where did I type that you were “complaining about taxes”?”
I guess i interpreted this as such, if not my apologies.
As far as FICA goes, I have no problem with how it’s paid in, I do have a problem with how it’s paid out.
Putting it here just because.
Well, because of tribute to the godfather.
What that, or most of what russell wrote, has to do with being an entrepeneur, I am not sure.
I’m responding to this:
I suggest this has a lot to do with differing approaches to supporting livelihood between those who prefer to be self-employed (lean Republican) and those who choose to labor on behalf of others (lean Democrat). The former would like the government to get out of the way and the latter seem to be always looking for some intervention between the government and their employer to protect them from their own choices.
And this:
some who think when their chosen employment no longer exists where they live, they can draw unemployment benefits for some indeterminate period
And this:
many highly competent technical types cease working-for-the-man and become consultants in the area of their technical expertise. This changes the boundaries of where they can go, what they can do, as well as compensation.
And this:
Isn’t there some point where packing up and moving to where there is a job the right answer?
And any of the other 1,000,000 million comments per day that basically view folks who work for a living as somehow a drag on the productive economy, and/or that view folks being out of work as being somehow due to their own lack of initiative, cleverness, or ability.
People who work for a living *are* the productive economy.
It’s great you had a constructive and formative early work experience. I hope the guy you worked for did, in fact, make the equivalent of $250K a year. He sounds like he was a hard-working dude, more power to him.
But what that has to do with the realities of unemployment nowadays escapes me.
People who are out of work these days are quite often out of work not by their own choice. Sometimes they can find other things to do, sometimes they can’t. Sometimes they can move, sometimes they can’t.
I haven’t looked at the U6 numbers lately, but last time I looked they were bumping up in the high teens. That’s something like 1 in 6 people who could work, but who aren’t working.
That’s a freaking disaster, and it’s not one that’s going to be solved by people hanging out a shingle as “expert consultants”, or going into real estate, or opening donut shops.
Even just looking at the U3, you’re talking about almost 15 million people unemployed. We don’t need 15 million expert consultants, or real estate agents, or donut shop owners.
We need broad-based middle class employment.
The personal virtue and gumption of the folks who are out of work is not the problem.
Well, because of tribute to the godfather.
Trevino is not the guy he was when he hung out here. Not even when he hung out at RedState.
He’s gone down the clash of civilizations rabbit hole.
Too bad.
Ahem, perhaps props to our daddy as well.
As much as the Count would protest that mimes are integral and necesary to the functioning of are society and couldn’t we all pitch in $0.001 to presverve and protect, I challenge you to show where did Rich Little ever ever ask for money from the gummint. What are we going to do now with the cowboy poets, jugglers, and yodelers and the like.? Pu them out on the streets? I’m pretty hard hearted and say that they can make what they can at county fairs or farmers’ market days.
If the village pays so that I can see Blue Oyster Cult for free, or maybe Marshall Tucker,I can dig that, but not this lame, French, Commie crap, that the effete left coasters go for.
Sorry Count, I confused you with russell. I heard you were establishing a helper monkey farm and are going to sell them at TheBurningMan. Make sure you pay all your sales taxes. You know what, you could set up a little kiosk for the other venders to submit their 1099s for a small fee.
…with the help of the displaced communists…”
I hold in my hand a list….
“And to repeat my point about taxes:
1. US income tax is flat above $380K
2. Most high income folks get a significant amount of their money from cap gains, which are taxed approximately half what income is taxed at those income levels.
Those are the plain and simple facts of the matter. Rich folks are fine tax-wise.”
After reading this about seven thousand times I am wondering who you are trying to convince? Rich folks are fine. Taxes are flat above 380k for all 1.4M people that qualify.
On the other hand everybody else is doing ok tax wise also. You always leave that part out.
The bottom fifty percent average paying 2.6% (most don’t pay any income tax, yes TP they pay FICA). The next tier (25-50%)average paying 6.75%, 10-25% average 9.29%, 5-10% average 12.44%.
Everyone in the top 5% pays over 20%.
And yes, the 6% matters more than the 20%, so does the price of food, rent, gas,etc. It is better to be rich, it just is.
“Rich folks are fine.”
Heh. Well, they shouldn’t be.
Russell is SO spot on with this:
These two sentences should be written in gold letters a foot high on marble tablets, and set to music.
Nonetheless, in this sad world many people make a nice living doing the second thing. They make a nice living because they get paid well. By willing customers. Who value their advice because it’s so expensive.
Old joke: a vigorous young bull once peed on an electric fence; when he reappeared in the pasture he was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. “I’m a consultant now,” he explained.
–TP
On the other hand everybody else is doing ok tax wise also. You always leave that part out.
Everybody else isn’t b*tching about being gouged by Uncle.
Hence, the omission.
And for the record, I’m cool with rolling back the marginal rates to the pre-Bush rates, across the board.
I’m not sure what this was intended to mean, but what it says is an opinion. Which is approximately equal to useless, as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s what I think: get rid of the capital-gains classification completely. See what happens to revenue. Then consider raising the upper-bracket rate, which either is or isn’t effective, depending on whose statistics you want to believe.
Always tax capital gains as income when realized. You can tax-shelter the gains for all I care, but when they’re income (i.e. transferred out of tax-shelter, or inherited), they get taxed.
JMHO of course. I personally would be just fine and dandy when the top income earners pay at least as much tax, percentage-wise, as the middle class. Or the upper middle class, for all that.
Always tax capital gains as income when realized.
Every time I think about that, I remember that the world is full of capital LOSSES as well as capital gains. What’s the right way to treat realized capital losses in the tax code?
We have evolved an income-based tax system at the federal level, and go through all sorts of contortions to make it “fair”. If we could start over, I would advocate taxing wealth, not income. That’s how we fund government at the local level — although we stick to taxing mainly one particular form of wealth, namely real estate.
I can make a plausible argument that a federal tax system based on taxing wealth instead of income could work and be “fair”, but not tonight.
–TP
Maybe one day Earth (or at least the US) will not go Galt but Golgafrincham. But keep the telephone sanitisers.
And I say, we’d live in paradise, if emperor Frederick III hadn’t listend to his WASP wife to get a second medical opinion on that throat cancer.
Tax elective plastic surgery and porn and the deficit will take care of itself.
These two (€) cents were brought to you by the Slightly Silly Party.
The bottom fifty percent average paying 2.6% (most don’t pay any income tax, yes TP they pay FICA).
You mean federal income tax, right? And, aside from FICA, there’s sales tax, gas tax (and other excise taxes), property tax (even if you rent), all sorts of licensing and permitting fees, and stuff I can’t think of that others could probably add to the list.
Everyone in the top 5% pays over 20%.
Do you mean on average?
And yes, the 6% matters more than the 20%, so does the price of food, rent, gas,etc. It is better to be rich, it just is.
Of course it is. I don’t see anyone denying that or suggesting that it should be otherwise. The question is how much better should it be (in certain respects, anyway)?
Eighty obne Catholic academics have signed a letter to Boehner, condemnig the immorallity of Repulbican policies toward the disabled, the elderly, and the unemployed. To that I add my own complaint about the immorality toward those of us who still have a living wage at a union job.
The policies of Republicans–destroy the few remaining living wage jobs, favor corporations and the weatlhy, lie, lie, lie, deliberatley create deficits and blame everyone but themselves, further impoverish the children and disabled people who use Medicaid, turn Medicare into a poverty program and under fund it, create a policy to destroy uemployment benefits and, with delibertate deceptiveness name it the JOBS act…these are not the sorts of policies supported by moral people.
I know what the ratioalizations are. Mostly there are two catagories: “I have a ideology!” and “Those other people are undeserving!”
The “I have an ideology” rationalization puts a person’s ego investment in their little personal get-out-of -thinking-for -free cop-out ahead of the effect of the ideology on real people. That’s selfish.
The “Those other people are undeserving” ratioalization comes from people who do not
need what the Repulbican politicians are attacking and don’t care about the people who do. They only care about some perceived benefit to themselves that they think they will get by supporting Republicans. It is interesting that the unemployed are being portrayed as dummies who should be self employed, who can just magiccly transport themselves to some new place and get a McJob somewhere since after all back in the day it was easy to get jobs so why bother understading anything about the current job market? Just blame the unemployed for being unemployed and use that as an excuse to defund unemployment.
That’s how it works. It always comes back to ratioalizations for beig selfish. And, as the Catholic academics observed, the Repulbican approach to domestic economic issues is fundamentally unChristian. Also unBuddhist, un-any kind of responsible moral code.
Sh!t happens. I get hit by a hurricane, have to replace my roof but my insurance company disagrees; is there a place for me to write that loss off? No, there isn’t. Or at least, there are limits on fire, storm and theft loss that don’t map well to capital loss. They’re only effective, for example, to the extent that they exceed 10% of your AGI.
I’m a little torn on this one, honestly, but the federal government is not a hedge on your investment IMO.
Just my POV, anyway.
Capital losses that offset capital gains only, just like now, at least most of the time. Once you have your net (with a lower limit of zero), add that to the rest of your income to be taxed at the applicable rate. It’s conceptually what we do now, except for treating (net) capital gains just like earned income and getting rid of the special rate. That would be my first swipe at it.
‘That’s how it works. It always comes back to ratioalizations for beig selfish. And, as the Catholic academics observed, the Repulbican approach to domestic economic issues is fundamentally unChristian. Also unBuddhist, un-any kind of responsible moral code.’
I have no idea where you may be trying to get to with the kind of discourse in your comment. If you are just venting, fine. If you are trying to persuade someone that your POV is valid and someone else’s is lacking, it seems your sweep is too broad and loaded with strong condemnations and is an attack on the very voters who have sent many of these politicians into office (and recently). And many who supported these elected officials do not view themselves as Republicans. Certainly your invective delivery is not unique, even among those who comment here, so it remains to be seen if your approach will yield the results you seek.
I mean can I just
… an attack on the very voters who have sent many of these politicians into office …
Why should voters be exempt from attack? Or condemnation? Or ridicule? It’s not news to me that the current crop of clowns and hooligans in Congress with an R after their name were voted into office BY VOTERS.
And many who supported these elected officials do not view themselves as Republicans.
So what? How people “view themselves” is not the same as what they look like. I view myself as handsome and charming, for instance.
–TP
Here’s what I think: get rid of the capital-gains classification completely. See what happens to revenue.
And see what happens to business formation, expansion and everyone’s pension funds when long term risk is taxed as if it were ordinary income. Money invested in a new business is money at risk. A part of what makes that risk worth the effort is the reduced tax burden when and if a gain is realized. That risk continues for the life of the company, whether public or private. That is, each new investor/owner is banking on the continued success of his/her investment in the hopes of selling someday at a decent rate of return. One of the key features that makes buying an existing operation attractive is the fact that when it’s sold, the tax treatment is more favorable.
Capital losses that offset capital gains only, just like now, at least most of the time.
What losses does someone have against their earned income? None. Expenses of living, but those aren’t losses in any accounting or financial sense. There is no risk in working and making a salary, other than the risk of losing your job which is unavoidable. An investment is by definition a risk and not every risk pays off. Long term capital losses are offset against long term gains and then any net long term loss is amortized at the princely sum of $3000 a year (or, at least this was the number when I last looked, several years ago). If you have way more losses than gains–that would be me–you have to get back to even before you ever pay the reduced tax rate.
A part of what makes that risk worth the effort is the reduced tax burden when and if a gain is realized.
So what you’re saying is that society encourages risk taking by reducing the risk of taking a risk. Thus we bring you another example of government policy shaping behavior. It follows that since this is a government action, it is “skewing incentives”, encouraging “economic misallocation”, and borderline evil.
Interestingly, the correlation of countries with zero cap gains taxes and low standard of living seems high (i.e., many developing countries have no cap gains tax).
You would think all the Galtian overlords would move to these places….but there must be something more to this. More study is warranted.
This is not to be construed as an opinion, which of course, is useless (Slarti’s postulate).
😉 :):):)
So, what’s your point? This is how the law currently works, and I don’t think anyone is saying that (and I’m not even sure how this would work) capital losses should also be taxed. You lose money on your investments, and realize that loss, and you pay no taxes because there is no gain. Please don’t argue for small government and then expect the IRS to indemnify you against investment losses; if that’s what you’re doing, it makes no sense.
But I think that you make a decent point, even if incidentally. The reason capital gains exists as a completely separate category of income, with a different tax structure, is that the government has decided to incentivize certain behaviors (in this case, obviously, investment). When the government (through the tax code) elects to try and influence people’s behaviors, it does two things (at least): it distorts the market, and it adds complexity to the tax code. Oh, and a third: there are always unintended consequences.
And yes, I realize that the above logically argues for the removal of the home mortgage interest deduction. I’m ok with that, provided it’s done in a way that’s revenue-neutral.
So what you’re saying is that society encourages risk taking by reducing the risk of taking a risk. Thus we bring you another example of government policy shaping behavior. It follows that since this is a government action, it is “skewing incentives”, encouraging “economic misallocation”, and borderline evil.
Slarti makes a similar and similary erroneous observation. First, you had capital and capital growth long before you had an income tax. The tax regime was imposed on the pre-existing economy and its initial drafters were intelligent enough to recognize that taking investment risks were necessary to growing and maintaining an economy, that capital appreciation builds up over time and that discouraging capital investment by making the risk unacceptable by taxing the gains excessively would be bad for the economy onto which the tax regime was being imposed. Here, the egg came first, then the chicken.
You lose money on your investments, and realize that loss, and you pay no taxes because there is no gain. Please don’t argue for small government and then expect the IRS to indemnify you against investment losses; if that’s what you’re doing, it makes no sense.
You are taking my statement out of context. There is zero risk to earning income as an employed person, other than your employer going out of business or downsizing you. However, that is not a risk that arises from showing up at work and getting paid for your work at the end of the day. Capital investment, however, is a risk ab initio. Sometimes the risk pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. Treating lost investment as if it were an expense of doing business fails to recognize the fundamental difference between capital and expenses generated in the course of earning income. For example, if someone buys a business, they don’t get to deduct the purchase price of the business from earnings in the out years. They only deduct current expenses attendant to operating the business. Capital assets can be depreciated, but not more than the asset’s basis. Intangibles, good will, etc are paid for but not deducted. The gain from those assets isn’t realized until the company is sold, assuming it is sold at a profit. If you want people to start new businesses, to buy and expand existing businesses, don’t tax their capital at rates that will discourage precisely what you want.
Put differently, an investor looks for a rate of return on his/her capital. If a stock is going to be held for a year or more, with the attendant risk of the price falling or the business failing (I owned a lot of Indymac, thanks Sen. Schumer!), the rate of return the investor anticipates is tied directly to the tax imposed on the gain, gain and rate of return being the same thing. Raise the tax rates such that return rates diminsh and people will put their money in safer, lower rate-of-return opportunities.
Put differently still, a business owner is at risk everyday. He/she pays ordinary income rates on earned income, reinvests previously taxed dollars in the business, hoping someday to sell some or all of the business and make it all worthwhile. Raise the rates, and suddenly, it’s not all so worthwhile.
Raise the tax rates such that return rates diminsh and people will put their money in safer, lower rate-of-return opportunities.
Those safer opportunities would also be for a rate of return subject to tax on earnings or gains. People will put their money where they think they have the best chance to make the most money. Whether that best chance becomes somewhat less gainful than it is now is only relevant if it becomes not the best chance to make the most money.
Frankly, considering the silly risks that the FIRE sector has deemed best in recent years, I’m not so concerned about reducing risk taking. In fact, I like the idea.
Which is to say: definitely nonzero risk. The millions of additional people who are not working today (as compared with a few years ago) would beg to differ with you.
I’m not talking about taxing capital; I’m taling about taxing realized capital gains. Taxing capital is akin to a wealth tax, which I’m not in favor of.
From Political Animal:
“When it comes to raising the debt ceiling, House Republican leaders have been sticking to an aggressive hostage strategy: give them the (unspecified) cuts or the GOP will create a recession on purpose. Thus far, Senate Republicans haven’t played much of a role, though that started to change yesterday.
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said Thursday that the debt ceiling debate provides Congress with a rare opportunity to make sweeping changes to entitlement programs and spending, and that he would not vote to raise the level without significant budget cuts and revisions to Medicare and Medicaid.
“Divided government is the best time — and some would argue the only time — where you can do really big stuff,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference after a meeting between President Obama and Republican senators. He said he had thought the meeting would be a waste of time but was pleased that it was a “candid exchange.”
This is, of course, identical to the House leadership’s threat. McConnell will help cause an economic catastrophe, deliberately, unless Democrats give Republicans what the GOP demands.”
This is Norquist’s plan coming to fruitition. Everyone who continues to support Republicans owes the rest of us one heck of a apology. Invective? So what?. It is way more offensive for people to rationalize policies that harm one’s neighbors than to object with invective to those policies and the rationalizations.
I would acknowledge McKinney’s point about investment risk versus employment risk. The risks are different in that losing your job means that you no longer get paid for work you are no longer doing. You don’t have to pay back the money you already made (normally). You don’t get fired retroactively (normally). That’s different from losing money that was once yours.
With that, there is an aspect of risk for someone who has lost a high-paying job and is now unemployed taking a new job that might not last very long, particularly if it doesn’t pay nearly as well as the previous one, given the way unemployment insurance works.
The millions of additional people who are not working today (as compared with a few years ago) would beg to differ with you.
Of course, but the sole risk is that of unemployment. There is no investment, no essential, paid-in-advance cost of taking a job that is put at risk by the simple act of accepting employment. To illustrate: just to open my doors on day one, I was upside down roughly 150K. I had one partner (who did not sign the LOC, or the lease or anything else), two associate attorneys and 3 clericals. If I flopped, I was out the 150K plus the non-realized profit, i.e. not only did I lose money up front, I didn’t make any. My partner and employees got paid up until the day they last worked. Their risk: that I wouldn’t generate enough clients to keep the doors open. Their loss: whatever income, less unemployment payments, until they found their next job. Relatively speaking, a minimal risk.
You don’t have to pay back the money you already made (normally). You don’t get fired retroactively (normally).
But those things shouldn’t happen to normal investors either. A reasonable investor should invest in a risk-balanced portfolio of assets such that the probability of losing most of it in a short time is zero. If an investor decides to behave like a drunken casino goer and bet it all on red, well, taxing the daylights out of such behavior doesn’t really trouble me.
Link to the article Laura referenced, above, but didn’t link to.
Of course, but the sole risk is that of unemployment.
This analysis ignores how people actually live. In practice, most employed people are massively upside-down on mortgages: if they lose their job, they don’t just forgo income, but they also face a substantial risk of losing their home and all the equity they built up. Right?
There is no investment, no essential, paid-in-advance cost of taking a job that is put at risk by the simple act of accepting employment.
Well, now, that depends on what kind of job it is, and how much training you had to undertake — sometimes at your own expense — to get it. If you pursue a college degree, incurring loan debt to do so, and find yourself jobless and unable to pay that loan, you’re kinda screwed. Or substitute vocational training for college degree if it suits you.
(Cue a bunch of semantic gobbledygook from McK about how that has nothing to do with the job qua job, and thus he shouldn’t have to pay taxes.)
Sure. There’s always the possibility that you fail. Is it reasonable for you, a small-government conservative, to expect government to indemnify your risk for you?
If the risk isn’t worth the return, don’t take it.
Let’s suppose I bought a house back in, say, 2006, and I paid $700k for it. That same house is now valued at $400k, and I’ve got to sell because I lost my job. Who’s going to indemnify my risk?
A reasonable investor should invest in a risk-balanced portfolio of assets such that the probability of losing most of it in a short time is zero. If an investor decides to behave like a drunken casino goer and bet it all on red, well, taxing the daylights out of such behavior doesn’t really trouble me.
Putting it all on the line to start a business is akin putting it all on red. Are you sure you want to discourage that type of investment?
I’m not proposing we discourage it, just that we encourage it less.
Your decision, whether you want to still form a business and go for it. IIRC you’re already in, so your concerns don’t apply to you right now.
Actually the capital-gains discussion was targeted more at the people who make most of their income from capital gains, in the top bracket. If you feel that this unfairly affects you, we can discuss possible changes to the rules attendant to small businesses.
But, once more: what I’m proposing is a tax on capital gains when realized. To my knowledge (and my knowledge in this area is somewhat limited) capital gains are normally not taxed until realized. In other words, taken as income.
Which is what it really is. You seem to want some kinds of income to be more special than others.
Putting it all on the line to start a business is akin putting it all on red. Are you sure you want to discourage that type of investment?
Yeah, actually, I am. If you can’t afford to lose it all, then I don’t think your gambling, er, “investment” should get special tax breaks.
I mean, I really don’t think people should be encouraged to take crazy reckless risks with *all* of their wealth. If you want to take crazy reckless risks with a chuck of your assets that you can afford to lose, that’s fine, but by definition, that’s a much safer endeavor.
If there is a good reason to think that your business will be successful, you should be able to secure financing or partners. If you can’t convince anyone in the world that your brilliant plan is a win, well, maybe it is a stupid idea….
If the risk isn’t worth the return, don’t take it.
Exactly, and if you don’t want people taking those kinds of risks, feel free to raise the rates, and folks won’t have to worry about losing a job that never came into existence and there won’t be any revenue from the business that never started to tax. We can all feel happy about taxing those rich, capital gains bastards, regardless of the pain we inflict on ourselves.
If anyone wants to read something that discusses capital gains rates in great detail and their effects on investor behavior and tax revenue, here it is:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/84xx/doc8449/88-CBO-007.pdf
From what I’ve read so far, it’s not terribly predictable. Rates have changed over the years, so there are data, but the effects are hard to tease out, given other variables in play.
Exactly, and if you don’t want people taking those kinds of risks, feel free to raise the rates, and folks won’t have to worry about losing a job that never came into existence and there won’t be any revenue from the business that never started to tax.
I see. So there was no investment and there were no jobs in the past when rates where higher. And if we didn’t tax capital gains at all, we’d be living in nirvana. No one will invest in anything if we tax capital gains, when realized, as undifferentiated from earned income. People will just sit on their money, happy to make nothing, for fear of only making some percentage of some amount of money, rather than some other percentage of some amount of money.
Note that I haven’t included any rhetoric demonizing or otherwise condemning the rich, or (really) anyone at all. Or, for that matter, placing any emphasis on my own level of happiness.
See, I have this thing about not basing my arguments 100% on to what extent a given policy change causes me advantage or disadvantage. What you’re doing in this thread, McKTx, could be excised whole and placed next to reactionary as a case in point. You’ve already disposed of it as a bad idea, and you’re just going to poke at it.
You might actually have a good argument in there somewhere, but as far as I can see your whole point seems to be based on this would suck for me.
That aside, and riffing off of hsh’s comment above: for you, what do you think the ideal capital gains rate is? 0%? What it is now? Some other value?
Once you’ve answered that, I’d like you to say a few things in response to my inquiry as to why you think capital gains income is special or privileged.
Thanks!
but as far as I can see your whole point seems to be based on this would suck for me.
That aside, and riffing off of hsh’s comment above: for you, what do you think the ideal capital gains rate is? 0%? What it is now? Some other value?
Once you’ve answered that, I’d like you to say a few things in response to my inquiry as to why you think capital gains income is special or privileged.
In order of your inquiries/comments:
1. You’ve misread me. I think lowering cap gains is really, really bad idea for the country.
2. Two brackets: 20% up to 500K in gains, 25% above 500K in gains off of publicly traded securities and 15% of the first 5mm and 20% above 5mm on the gain realized off of the sale of a closely held business, as in where someone sells their life’s work to another purchaser, the gain is taxed at 15% then 20%. For the most part, you are looking at a once in a lifetime windfall and I think the business owner/risk taker shouldn’t be taxed much at all on that one deal.
3. It is special or privileged because what makes starting a business or buying an ongoing business, or a part of that ongoing business, attractive is the favorable tax treatment on the gain realized on that business when it is sold. The risk/reward calculus is materially impacted by the tax rates applied to profits. I want a growing economy where investors take risks because that produces more jobs, goods and services. The idea that you can jack cap gains rates up to 35 or 40%, or higher, and get the same willingness to invest is simply wrong-headed.
Slarti, my cap gains income is minimal by any objective standard. However,I know and represent many small business owners. Their retirement hinges on selling their businesses, usually to employees but sometimes to other buyers, and having a nest egg to live off of. Some of these sales will be in the tens of millions of dollars, meaning capital has to be raised, even if the gain is somewhere in the 3-5 million range. Where is that capital going to come from if the risk is no longer worth the investment?
I see. So there was no investment and there were no jobs in the past when rates where higher. And if we didn’t tax capital gains at all, we’d be living in nirvana. No one will invest in anything if we tax capital gains, when realized, as undifferentiated from earned income. People will just sit on their money, happy to make nothing, for fear of only making some percentage of some amount of money, rather than some other percentage of some amount of money.
Long term cap gains were never higher than 20% and have never been taxed at ordinary income rates, so your rejoinder describes a non-existent time and place. People will not risk losing some or all of the money they have already earned and already paid tax on just to have the next round of profit on a sale, if any, taxed at rates that make the risk itself not worth taking.
Or, the carrying charges on the investment will be so prohibitively high that only the wealthy can afford to pay them. So much for upward mobility.
Or, the carrying charges on the investment will be so prohibitively high that only the wealthy can afford to pay them. So much for upward mobility.
Heaven forfend we sacrifice upward mobility.
Thanks for your answers, McKTx, although your answer #1 really wants a great deal of unpacking. A bad idea…why?
I’m not talking about tax on operating profits, I’m talking about tax on capital gains. Aren’t those really two completely separate things?
I’m not talking about jacking up the capital-gains rate; I’m talking about taxing gains as if they were ordinary income. Why aren’t they ordinary income?
The answer to your life-savings hypothetical could be permit such businesses to be valid tax-sheltered investments. In such a case, you could realize the gain inside the tax shelter, but only pay taxes on them when you’re taking money out.
…and I’m back to why other taxpayers must shoulder the burden of risks taken by entrepeneurs. Why is that? Do you agree that’s what is happening? If not, why not?
Note, again, that I have nothing against entrepeneurs. I have some of those in my family, and I realize how difficult it is to start your own business. But we’re not talking business income, here; we’re talking about what happens when you sell the business, which is another thing altogether.
Inequality and immobility are different things, Phil. I suspect we have income mobility issues as well, but that’s not what the Gini coefficient gauges.
Slarti, I feel like we are talking about two totally different concepts. If I borrow a million dollars to buy or start a business, and then I make a living off of that business, but reinvest my after tax profits, then I sell that business, I am realizing a gain off of my initial loan (which is paid back with after tax dollars, i.e. are not an expense charged against current earnings) plus my reinvested, after tax dollars. That is a risk of capital far above and beyond simply taking a job with someone else. That risk produces a steady stream of income that is taxed, employees who get jobs (and pay their taxes), provides a service etc.
Your response to this is why [should} other taxpayers . . . shoulder the burden of risks taken by entrepeneurs? The business owner is a tax payer too. He/she has added value not only to the country through his/her annual tax payments but has also created jobs. How is that a burden on taxpayers? Because, at the end of the day, his/her return on capital is taxed at a lower rate?
If you find that burden to great to bear, how about the burden of people deciding that taxes are too high, so less business get started and less people are employed? Why isn’t that a burden?
You state, several times, that capital gains and ordinary income are different, and yes, they are different. Business income is ordinary income. Capital gains is the return on invested capital. One carries a higher risk factor and also produces benefits beyond the reward to the investor. Ergo, different tax treatment.
Long term cap gains were never higher than 20% and have never been taxed at ordinary income rates, so your rejoinder describes a non-existent time and place.
You should read the PDF at the URL in my 11:32 AM comment, McKinney. You will then know that what I quoted above from you is false.
People will not risk losing some or all of the money they have already earned and already paid tax on just to have the next round of profit on a sale, if any, taxed at rates that make the risk itself not worth taking.
The question is whether the rates we’re talking about will make the risk itself not worth taking. You’re begging the question here by burrying your conclusion within your premise.
I will acknowledge that there very well may, almost certainly, be instances where the reduced potential return on an investment will push it into the “not worth the risk” category were we to raise tax rates on capital gains. But, again, I don’t think insufficient risk taking is a particular problem in today’s market – quite the opposite.
Personally, I’d probably be amenable to treating the sale of one’s own business differently from the sale of stock in publicly traded corporations for the purposes of capital-gains taxation, depending on the details. Maybe that’s more of what’s got you bothered, and I think there’s a valid distinction between the two situations.
I’m sure the country is properly grateful for your contribution, but that’s not really why you put your own business together, is it? To help others?
I’m not getting you, McKTx. It still sounds as if you think you deserve your own special tax rate because you’re doing what you really wanted to do in the first place. And another thing: at the end of the day is particularly poor phrasing in the context of a capital gains discussion. Who takes capital gains on a daily basis, that I should be careful about discouraging?
If you think that the risk that small business owners are worth the reward of a lower effective tax rate, I am just peachy with moving that entire discussion over into different tax accounting for business owners, and concentrate on a sane level of taxation for people who earn nearly all of their income from investments in e.g. stock.
Which, I remind you, is the primary reason why Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than does his secretary. I’ve got nothing against Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or any of those other fabulously wealthy folks, but I’m not all that enthusiastic about indemnifying their risk.
HSH:
Me:
I think we’ve encountered one of those improbable events on the scale of my coffee spontaneously heating itself back up at the expense of other objects in the room.
Cats and Dogs living together… Mass Hysteria!
It still sounds as if you think you deserve your own special tax rate because you’re doing what you really wanted to do in the first place. And another thing: at the end of the day is particularly poor phrasing in the context of a capital gains discussion. Who takes capital gains on a daily basis, that I should be careful about discouraging?
If you want to personalize this, I won’t be paid a penny for my lawfirm when I retire that is taxed at anything other than ordinary tax rates, assuming I can find someone to buy me out. “At the end of the day” refers to the one time sale of someone who has started and then sold a business, the end of the day being the day of the sale.
One carries a higher risk factor and also produces benefits beyond the reward to the investor.
Ah. The social case for capital gains treatment. This tax creates a special form of income effectively subsidizing a particular behavior (entrepeneurship). As I said, it reduces the risk of taking certain kinds of financial risk. McKT argues this “creates jobs” as if there would be no jobs otherwise…That cannard aside, there are social costs to encouraging this type of behavior–social stratification, concentration of political power in the hands of those whose wealth (and income thereby derived) can now grow faster due to special tax treatment, etc.
The entire treatment of capital is also a socially sanctioned (i.e., codified into law) subsidy. A social action implimented by the government. Wealth can accummulate and grow without being subject to tax–reinvestment. Only recently have wage earners been provided with a similar financial vehicle (IRA’s, etc.).
There is also scale. Nearly all start-ups fail. The overwhelming number of businesses in this country are so small that they effectively constitute a class of people who saved up enough money to buy themselves a job. A juicy cap gain payoff in the distant future is generally not a factor in the decision to open the enterprise…the ability to generate a good income and run a lot of day to day expenses through as “business expense” is. Most of these firms die a peaceful death by being liquidated when the owner decides to call it a day. You can’t live very handsomely off a $300,000 investment in t-bills, but a successful small restaurant? Perhaps.
And the allegedly common outcome of “selling it to the employees”? Please. Don’t insult our intelligence.
No, I don’t. Consider “you” in that context as “you small-business owners that happen to agree with McKTx”.
This isn’t really about your personal preferences other than to the extent that your wants together with everyone else that agrees with you tend to drive tax policy. That kind of thing is, IMO, a good chunk of why we have a nearly impossibly complex set of tax law.
I highly suspect but can’t prove that a lack of the latter is what leads to an increase in the former.
Dylan Matthews explains here that the US is near the bottom of OECD nations when it comes to income mobility. I think that pretty conclusively demonstrates Phil’s point.
Phil: …a class of people who saved up enough money to buy themselves a job.
An old friend of mine used to describe his little machine shop business as “owning my own job.” I always liked that phrase.
McTx: I want a growing economy where investors take risks because that produces more jobs, goods and services.
Something bothers me about that phrase. “Goods and services” are things we consume; “jobs” are not. Our standard of living (individually and in the aggregate) is increased by consuming more goods and services, not by having more work to do. “Jobs, goods and services” is a list of three things, not a category.
Slarti: Taxing capital is akin to a wealth tax, which I’m not in favor of.
A wealth tax is a radical idea (except, as I keep noting, at the municipal level) but I think it’s worth considering in place of, not in addition to, our income-based tax structure with all the contortions it contains in pursuit of “fairness”.
I hear that there are hedge funds, mutual funds, and other “investment vehicles” whose fee structure is essentially the same as a “wealth tax”: you pay (quarterly? annually?) X% of your portfolio value to the fund managers. Never mind whether people are nuts to sign up for a such a fee structure. The important point is that paying 1% or 2% of your “wealth” every year is not unheard of — and can even be a good deal.
I would like to see a tax system based on wealth rather than income because wealth is a better measure of “ability to pay” than income is. Some people’s wealth amounts to a slow and patient accumulation of savings out of their income. Other people’s wealth is inherited. Still others own wealth in the form of appreciated assets. However acquired, wealth is in fact what each of us pays his bills — from groceries to taxes — out of.
Just to be clear: if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, your “wealth” goes up a few hundred bucks on payday and you draw it down to live on until (you hope!) next payday. That’s what I mean by “wealth is what each of us pays his bills out of”. But I am not proposing a weekly wealth tax, any more than I would propose a weekly real-estate tax.
No, I am dreaming of a situation where your weekly or monthly bills do not include taxes. Money is NOT withheld from your paycheck to be forwarded to the IRS. You could spend the extra money on “goods and services” and be as flat broke at the end of the year as you were at the start. You would owe no “wealth tax” — but you would have “stimulated the economy” in the meanwhile. And we all want a stimulated economy, right?
–TP
Elites who gather unto themselves an overwhelming amount of wealth tend to blow it off recklessly to society’s detriment. It strikes me this is exacerbated in our modern society with its technological progress, economic growth and wealth accumulation.
Reigning in this tendency is thus a social good, and a tax on wealth would serve nicely.
But that’s just my useless opinion.
I say we institute a wealth tax and a consumption tax, and let them fight it out.
The challenge is fundamentally redefining all of our metrics of economic growth so that job growth/sustainability is the number one metric, with other metrics being secondary.
Then GDP and other metrics become supportive to that goal. Taxation becomes a function of fairness across a fully employed workforce, inflation becomes a less invasive problem, etc.
And we should tax wealth, not income.
So, I agree with everybody.
Here’s a metric I would use to measure the economic health of a society: what fraction of his or her life does the average person spend working?
Opinions might differ on how to interpret the metric. In Country A, the average person works 80% of his waking hours between the cradle and the grave. In Country B, it’s 40%. Which country has the higher standard of living?
–TP
I think that would monkey with most people’s retirement planning, a bit. Maybe not in a bad way, though, but it would definitely change things.
I suspect it would definitely change, or would have to change, the way we currently operate life insurance and annuities. And you know that sooner or later (most likely sooner) someone is going to create tax shelters for wealth, and probably only people with a lot of money (and, hence, incentive) can take advantage of those shelters.
Germane to the tax discussion here (listen twice, a little disjointed), especially in defining terms like “income”, “wealth”, “productivity”, etc. Also, the history of the income tax and the way in which the discussion about taxation has turned to pure shite in this country.
http://michael-hudson.com/2011/01/why-america-had-a-90-income-tax/
Sorry for the dead link. Resurrect.
Interesting factoid: the average stock, in the stock market, was held for an average of 22 seconds this year, compared to 20 seconds last year.
Real estate flipping — same useless, damaging activity.
What was produced from those “investments”?
Surely something far inferior to and much more eminently taxable than MckT’s capital investment in his law practice.
None of us really know what we’re talking about regarding taxation, which is just the way Andrew Mellon, Eric Bolling, Grover Norquist and Arthur Laffer have planned it.
Also, for Goodoleboy, there’s a very balanced article at Washington Monthly (see the banner on top or on the sidebar) on the dangers facing your natural gas boom in the U.S., and the dangers don’t all come from the direction you propagandize.
I’m interested in your thoughts from a lurking perspective.
Just a note to the Count’s note, any profits on stocks held for 20 seconds are already taxed at the same rates as ordinary income.
For you and me, yes, but not for hedge funds.
I suspect, but don’t know exactly, that most or all of the gains made from high frequency trading through hedge funds, which accounts for most of the volume on exchanges in recent years, is taxed at capital gains rates.
And I’d wager, if I had wages, that much of that is not taxed at all through whatever strategems these “people” have devised.
Eric Bolling, of Fox Business News and hedge fund infamy, is a racist bug in his attitudes toward Obama, but the Adminstrations’s proposals to tax hedge fund gains as ordinary income is what really motivates his despicable Lester Maddox act.
Correction, I think:
Hedge funds trades, nearly all short-term, are taxed as ordinary income.
The very high fees and service charges, which are “income” to the hedge fund managers under any sane definition of the word, are taxed at the lower capital gains rate.
This is a specially carved out loophole for them.
Still, the economic value of high frequency trading to a productive economy is much more questionable, to say the least, than MckT’s job-creating capital investment in his law practice.
If I could high-frequency trade McKinney, McKinney and Kvetchky, Inc eight million times a day, it would do absolutely nothing do improve the productivity or pay of his beleaguered file clerk. In fact, I’d probably demand (during one of my 22-second stints as an “owner” of the business) that he fire the poor guy to raise the unemployment rate and improve the return on my “investment”.
I usually only get one thing right in my comments — in this case: Eric Bolling is a racist bug.
“The very high fees and service charges, which are “income” to the hedge fund managers under any sane definition of the word, are taxed at the lower capital gains rate.”
Well, it’s kind a of fees and service charges. It is the fund managers pay which is usually split into a fixed fee for assets under management that is taxed as ordinary income and a percentage of the profit for the year that is taxed as capital gains.
The underlying logic is the annual profits are a piece of what is usually a partnerships profit, thus a gain on the partnership,earned over a year thus long term thus a capital gain.
It is not specific to hedge funds, it also applies to VC funds where the logic is clearer and the timelines are usually longer.
Countme-In:
‘Also, for Goodoleboy, there’s a very balanced article at Washington Monthly (see the banner on top or on the sidebar) on the dangers facing your natural gas boom in the U.S., and the dangers don’t all come from the direction you propagandize.
I’m interested in your thoughts from a lurking perspective.’
Thanks for pointing to that article. I agree that it is balanced and I generally support efforts like that of Fox to reveal things going on that are not getting the exposure they may warrant. Sometimes, zealotry in the interest of one side or the other, when there is a tension, can mar otherwise commendable reporting of facts. Don’t know if any of that is present here, but the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission raised several points of interest regarding the cases of methane gas in drinking water supply and concluded that not all of the documentary accorded with their understanding of the facts.
I support safeguarding the environment from serious damage caused by commercial exploitation of natural resources. My suggestion that the government get out of the way is directed primarily at the concept of ‘bans’ on such exploitation without definitive evidence that such is needed.
My suggestion that the government get out of the way is directed primarily at the concept of ‘bans’ on such exploitation without definitive evidence that such is needed.
Really? Please provide an example of “definitive evidence” that would sway you to endorse a ban on such exploration.
IIRC the case for taxing capital gains at a lower rate is: (i) to offset the bias against saving (because w/o a tax deferral it’s done with after tax dollars and gains from savings are also taxed); (ii) to reflect that not all gains are “real” gains due to inflation; and (iii) to reduce the incidence of double taxation from the corporate income tax.
As to each: (i) those who hold their investments in the form of 401k, IRA, or other pension plan, get nothing from the reduced rate, I forget what % of, e.g., publicly traded stocks are held in these forms (alot, I think); (ii) this helps a little but there are other ways for taking into account inflation, plus it’s not like inflation doesn’t eat into non-capital gain income too; (iii) the lower capital gains rate applies not only to assets held in corporate solution, but to assets held directly or via pass-through entities, thus not all gains have been taxed twice (and, to the extent corporations pay a lower rate than the 35% statutory rate, not all are taxed twice at the full marginal rate).
I would also note in this regard that the capital gains tax rate on assets held by corporations is 35%, i.e., the 15% rate applies only to individuals (directly or indirectly through pass-throughs).
Also, regarding (iii), double taxation = so what?
Also, regarding (iii), double taxation = so what?
That’s a fair point in that to the extent corporation’s are to be treated as separate legal entity with its own set of rights and also have limited liability, then they should be taxed separately too. Though to be fair such a tax would need to also be imposed on S-corporations and limited partnerships/LLCs as well, which provide limited liability these days without the extra tax burden.