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Originally Posted by califdadof3

and set a $1.00 per gallon tax and start paying off the national debt and we would all still be ahead of the game.

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Hello again, dad:

That looks to me like a tax on the middle class. I'd rather soak, I mean tax the rich... That's not a mistake... The superrich have gotten spectacularly richer over the last four decades while their fellow citizens either treaded water or lost ground. The top 1 percent of American earners took in 23.5% of the nation's pretax income in 2007 — up from less than 9% in 1976. It's time they paid their fair share.

Plus, if these lower rates are supposed to encourage the superrich to create jobs, they've HAD these rates for the last 10 years, and we LOST jobs. What's up with that?

excon

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Originally Posted by tomder55

It was sold to the country as that ,but when Social Security was challenged in court ,the Roosevelt cabal quickly changed their story and said the collection was a tax. This is the same bait and switch the Obots are using on ObamaCare.

The politicians here still talk about there being a Social Security "Trust Fund" ,and perhaps on paper there is...
However ,their borrowing against it to support their spending makes it for all practical purposes non existent .

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Yes the term Social Security must have entered our language about the same time it did yours along with income tax. When it was implemented we were told that when our population reached 20 million there would be no need for income tax, now it's true tax has been greatly reduced from the heady days of 95% but the Social Security contribution has long since being merged and now we have entitlements, but rather than giving discounts against a rate what we do is manipulate the thresholds so that our top rate has remained much the same for a long time but you have to have an above average income to pay it.

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Same here... there is serious talk of VAT being implemented . They also have their eyes on peoples personal retirement funds ,as 401K accounts represent one of the few untapped sources for their theft.

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VAT or GST has proven to be one of the better ideas where it is traded off for a lot of inefficient taxes like sales taxes and stamp duties, it certainly traps those who are able to manipulate their declared income or the cash economy. The trap lies in the level of documentation, as you are finding out with the Obama health care legislation but if you keep small business out of it, and work with gross figures not transactions it can work well. As to retirement we have taken a liberal view and reduced taxes associated with such contributions to promote the idea of people not being dependent on government in the long term. What this means is the individual retains control so long as the funds are quarantened and has a favourable tax regime but withdrawal has a penelty component

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, dad:

That looks to me like a tax on the middle class. I'd rather soak, I mean tax the rich... That's not a mistake.... The superrich have gotten spectacularly richer over the last four decades while their fellow citizens either treaded water or lost ground. The top 1 percent of American earners took in 23.5% of the nation’s pretax income in 2007 — up from less than 9% in 1976. It's time they paid their fair share.

Plus, if these lower rates are supposed to encourage the superrich to create jobs, they've HAD these rates for the last 10 years, and we LOST jobs. What's up with that?

excon

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Its because they found something better then tax breaks. Its called outsourcing. The cheap labor overseas is what is driving the jobs from here. We can't compete with 10 cents an hour.

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Originally Posted by califdadof3

Its because they found something better then tax breaks. Its called outsourcing.

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Hello again, dad:

Then extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is nothing more than a gift for the people who need it the LEAST, that you and I, and our children will be paying for, for a long time to come. I don't like it one bit.

The tax cuts for the wealthy were passed, if you recall, because there was a period of prosperity, and a huge surplus.. It made sense to give some back... Now, the surplus has been replaced with a deficit, and we're in a slump. It makes sense for the rich to give some back.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

It makes sense for the rich to give some back.

excon

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Come on, ex, none of it makes any sense, when those cuts were made it was made obvious that it was temporary, just like prosperity, now they want tax cuts without prosperity. All this has proved is that you should never cut taxes. Where I come from we understand the process better, the idea is to cut the maximum fleece with a minimum of bleeting

The tax cuts came in the wake of the Clinton recession . It led to a quick recovery and a period of strong growth. There is no such thing as a permanent tax rate as you know so calling them 'temporary' is a political game. What is being proposed here is a tax increase. And as I've pointed out already... I can't think of any economist who thinks tax increases is a good idea in a recession.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The tax cuts came in the wake of the Clinton recession . It led to a quick recovery and a period of strong growth. There is no such thing as a permanent tax rate as you know so calling them 'temporary' is a political game. What is being proposed here is a tax increase. And as I've pointed out already .....I can't think of any economist who thinks tax increases is a good idea in a recession.

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You see Tom there's the rub, if they had been permanent look at all the debate that would have been avoided and you could have had a different debate, something about paying the piper, so let's see now; you had a recession under Clinton and a depression under Obama and a war fueled period of growth in between and you do think some sort of fiscal measure isn't needed because your economy is over stimulated to the point of inflation.

Taxation is the only tool you have left, all the others have been stripped away, the alternative might be cutting jobs in the public sector

I think the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire, they will just make the debt worse without benefiting the economy. I would cut taxes for the middle-class and introduce a national sales tax similar to the goods and services tax in Canada. It was very unpopular but it got Canada out of debt. Americans need to get over their sense of entitlement about not paying their fair share of taxes. If Canadians and Europeans can pay, so can Americans. Unfortunately, American politicians don't seem to have the will to do things that are necessary but unpopular.

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Originally Posted by earl237

I think the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire, they will just make the debt worse without benefiting the economy. I would cut taxes for the middle-class and introduce a national sales tax similar to the goods and services tax in Canada. It was very unpopular but it got Canada out of debt. Americans need to get over their sense of entitlement about not paying their fair share of taxes. If Canadians and Europeans can pay, so can Americans. Unfortunately, American politicians don't seem to have the will to do things that are necessary but unpopular.

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Yes the GST is a good idea and it is a growth tax so the better the economy the greater the revenue, we found when we implemented it here that the potential revenue was vastly underestimated, pointing to a cash economy that was much bigger than estimated. The negative impacts were also vastly overestimated as it allowed general tax cuts to be made and a fairer tax regime to be implemented. Look at our economy today, we don't talk about recession, but how to control inflation. The truly wealthy have an ability to use loop holes to reduce tax anyway so the lower the tax rate the less incentive to do so. People need to realise the debate is wrongly oriented, tax is not 100% and you need income to pay tax, so concentrate on generating income, tax doesn't drive the business

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and you do think some sort of fiscal measure isn't needed because your economy is over stimulated to the point of inflation.

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Huh ? You know why there is a risk of inflation. Our Fed and Treasury have been lousy managers of our monitary policy;letting the dollar steadily decline ;and now with QE2 ,potentially pushing the dollar over the cliff. I took some satisfaction watching the President getting lectured by the likes of Hu Jintao (the phony hypocrite) and Angela Merkel at the G20 meeting last week.
It was comical having our
President being the only world leader thinking that pumping money into the economy would fuel a recovery .He and Bernanke got the wrong ideas about the way FDR handled the 1930s depression.
The truth is that his policies turned it into a decade long event . Obama and Bernanke are hell bent on repeating the mistakes .

Now that I think of it... what Roosevelt did is what is being proposed by various posters on this thred.

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Roosevelt, too, pursued the dual purposes of revenue and social good. In 1935 he signed legislation known as the "soak the rich" law. FDR, more radical than Obama in his class hostility, spoke explicitly of the need for "very high taxes." Roosevelt's tax trap was the undistributed-profits tax, which hit businesses that chose not to disgorge their cash as dividends or wages. The idea was to goad companies into action.

The outcome was not what the New Dealers envisioned. Horrified by what they perceived as an existential threat, businesses stopped buying equipment and postponed expansion. They hired lawyers to find ways around the undistributed-profits tax. In May 1938, after months of unemployment rates in the high teens, the Democratic Congress cut back the detested tax. That bill became law without the president's signature

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Amity Shlaes - Obama threatens to follow in FDR's economic missteps

Read the rest... there are interesting quotes by prominent business people of today and the 1930s about regime uncertainty also .

History shows that tax increases never stimulate an economy... nor does excessive pump priming with borrowed or printed currency.

Yeah yeah I get it... it feels good to "soak the rich" because people think they are responsible for the economic situation today. Me ,I blame it part on the natural business cycle and a large part on government policies that were enacted to "command" the housing market towards a specific goal.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Yeah yeah I get it ...it feels good to "soak the rich" because people think they are responsible for the economic situation today. Me ,I blame it part on the natural business cycle and a large part on government policies that were enacted to "command" the housing market towards a specific goal.

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Tom you don't get it, for the rich tax rates aren't what it is about because they have discovered tax havens so raising a tax rate just collects the unprepared.

The housing market is just one aspect of economic activity. You can't expect to have a housing market led recovery when the market is oversupplied with cheap houses. What you need is a method of preventing foreclosures so that the pool of cheap housing doesn't grow. That might be a legislated moritorium on foreclosures or the government acquiring all those mortgages before forced foreclosure. There is a basic problem, with housing prices low the mortgages are more than the property value. If you had a system where the borrower could not walk away, you might be able to get more emphasis on restructuring. Here's a thought for you, why doesn't your government invite migrants to buy up the cheap housing with government loans. I'm sure you know migration feeds economic growth and with a fresh pool of cheap labour you could bring some of your industries back from overseas.

Yes, you had some foolish policies which came from social engineering, but politicians will always back a dream. When a government implements social policy it should come with guarantees, an insurer of the last resort.

Here is what they should've done with the stimulus funds...

Buy up toxic assets like foreclosed homes ;hire construction crews to bull doze them to get the excess inventory off the market .

I think in most cases bubbles are caused by government command manipulations .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I think in most cases bubbles are caused by government command manipulations .

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Nope, they are caused by personal greed, the impression that someone can make a quick buck or have the opportunity to get an asset that makes them appear wealthy - case in point the dot-com boom (see irrational exuberance)

I would argue that the Clintoon's and Greenspan's attempt to keep interest rates artificially low caused the dot come bubble. It burst when the Fed made a series of adjustments and raised rates.

Then you don't understand technology and business. Interest rates had nothing to do with the dot com boom.

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Then you don't understand technology and business. Interest rates had nothing to do with the dot com boom.

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Like you said, unadulterated greed. Someone on another site (grammarmudge.cityslide.com) said: "The guys who wrote the sub-prime mortgages were sleazy, but not illegal (in most cases - some exceptions). The real bad actors were the investment bankers who securitized the bad paper, and then paid the ratings agencies to give them the highest AAA ratings, knowing full well they were garbage, and then selling the worthless stuff to pension funds, municipalities and others.

Putting the blame on Congress is a right wing talking point to divert from the truth.

Were the regulators sloppy? Yes. Did Congress push too hard to promote home ownership? Yes. Did Congress issue fraudulent ratings for toxic bonds? NO. Did Congress pay millions for these ratings? NO. Did Congress gain BILLIONS OF DOLLARS by selling this known garbage to unsuspecting victims? NO!

The core problem is NOT Congress - it is the FRAUD perpetrated by Wall Street investment banks and Wall Street ratings agencies. It's really as simple as that."

Over 1999 and early 2000, the Fed increased interest rates six times. That was seen as a correction for the fact that there was too much money looking for a home. The Dot com collapse happened in March 2000 . It is not greed... capital is always looking for the best investment... What ? You mean you wouldn't change banks for a point or two difference in a CD ?
After the collapse the Fed went right back to an easy money policy ,and again the die was cast... Money looking for investment ,and Government policies encouraging that the money go into the real estate market because administrations for the last 20 years bragged about the increase in home ownership in the country .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Over 1999 and early 2000, the Fed increased interest rates six times. The Dot com collapse happened in March 2000 .

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Not the cause. Read more here: Dot-com bubble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I know you believe that the government has to control everything but I believe in personal responsibility. People excited by this new emerging technology bought in without doing their due diligence i.e. checking the business plan of the companies they invested in. Yes some people made money (I made a little) because they got out knowing that it was unsustainable.

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I know you believe that the government has to control everything

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Quite the opposite... command economy is a socialist dogma.

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People excited by this new emerging technology bought in without doing their due diligence i.e. checking the business plan of the companies they invested in. Yes some people made money (I made a little) because they got out knowing that it was unsustainable

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By extension the people who bought homes were irresponsible investors too. I thought the mimi was that they were duped suckers.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Quite the opposite.... command economy is a socialist dogma.

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Everything you've written as causes relate to the government, never once did you mention a person's choices in the market.