Revive Main Street by Taxing Wall Street

[Avatar4321]

Or everyone could just get out and start working.

 

[uscitizen]

Or everyone could just get out and start working.

Let them eat cake!

 

[shintao]

What product does Wall street produce?
Once the stock is sold by a corporation then all the money from there on out is just made by stock trades which produce nothing except more money for more stock trades.

So mostly Wall Street just produces more money to trade more stock and no real product.

Sounds a whole lot like gambling doesn't it? And yet win yourself $500,000.00 in a casino or state Lotto and see how fast the feds are at your door step.

 

[shintao]

Or everyone could just get out and start working.

Not so fast, I want an incentive to go to work, a subsidy to stay working, a bonus after my first week if I decide to stay,....... but first I want to be bailed out like wall street, and pampered like the banks. Send the limo to take me to my jet please.

 

[shintao]

What product does Wall street produce?
Once the stock is sold by a corporation then all the money from there on out is just made by stock trades which produce nothing except more money for more stock trades.

So mostly Wall Street just produces more money to trade more stock and no real product.

Why of course, so government will take it's share in stocks, say 5% of corporate stocks sold, and 2% of stocks bought, and 1% of stocks traded. This way corporations will be invested in America, so even if they leave for cheaper wages, etc., the profits will continue to roll in from the country that bank rolled them.

 

[BrianH]

Instead of cutting the federal deficit, put more money into the pockets of average working families by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include people earning up to $50,000 per year and reduce their income taxes to $0.

Exempt the first $20,000 from payroll taxes.

Pay 10% on incomes between $50,000 - $90,000/year.
Pay 20% on incomes between $90,000 - $120,000/year.
Pay 30% on incomes between $120,000 - $250,000/year

Make up the missing money by increasing the taxes on those responsible for causing our Great Recession:

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000.

"It’s called progressive taxation."

Robert Reich

What they should have done with the "Bail Out" money is split it evenly between all persons who pay federal income tax and let them decide what to do with the money. They would have paid off their mortgages and loans and the banks would have still gotten their money and stayed afloat. People would have kept their homes and had a little extra money in their pockets to spend on things--thus stimulating the economy. Our government screwed the pooch when it comes to the federal deficit.

The main problem is that our government keeps sending BILLIONS overseas. Money we obviously don't have. I say cut all of the overseas aid and quit printing out money.

 

[MSNY]

If the richest 1% of Americans have increased their share of national income by 2% during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, it is NOT because of "equal treatment by government."

Who gives a shit?? It is a free society (except less so because of the policies supported by your ilk)...

But you, and your ilk, call for equal treatment by government ONLY when it suits you, and you fully support unequal treatment, when it suits you.... I.E. selective equal treatment...

Go up your daily intake of lead by about .357... right thru the palate... you'll do the world a favor and increase the average IQ in your neighborhood

Is your daily lead intake high enough to believe the US economy is still lousy because government's too big?

Are you that suicidal? (and stupid)

Maybe your ilk think cutting heating oil for low income Americans over the next five years will bring more freedom to big American companies sitting on almost $2 trillion in cash because there aren't enough customers to buy additional goods and services.

Shit like you should have been aborted thereby increasing the national IQ and the quality of debate on USMB.

Maybe I'd like to keep my money in my own pocket?

Live like the rest of us, within your own means.
You stick your hand in my pocket you liberal shit, I'll cut it off.

Liberals need to get a job, make a living and stop taking handouts.
You want my resources, you will be met with gunfire.

 

[MSNY]

Instead of cutting the federal deficit, put more money into the pockets of average working families by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include people earning up to $50,000 per year and reduce their income taxes to $0.

Exempt the first $20,000 from payroll taxes.

Pay 10% on incomes between $50,000 - $90,000/year.
Pay 20% on incomes between $90,000 - $120,000/year.
Pay 30% on incomes between $120,000 - $250,000/year

Make up the missing money by increasing the taxes on those responsible for causing our Great Recession:

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000.

"It’s called progressive taxation."

Robert Reich

Robin Hood mentality, take from the evil rich and give to the
poor downtrodden?

So why would anyone WANT to make more money, above $250,000?
No incentive for me.

I'll stay poor and let the OTHER rich guy pay my way to entitlements,
give a aways, and freebies.

You want fair?

Abolish the IRS first. Reduce the tax code to one page, flat
tax, done.

Do you prefer a Dooh Nibor (Robin Hood backwards) mentality?

From Phil's Stock World:

"As this chart shows, the US is cranking out multimillionaires at a record pace with super-rich (more than $10M) households doubling in the past decade.

"What’s scary is that doubling the amount of people who have more than $10M per household (from 300K to 600K) means there’s $3,000,000,000,000 less available for the other 98% of the of the households as MONEY IS A COMMODITY and can only be possessed by one person OR another.

"Another 5M households gathered up $1M of wealth for another $5T and our nation’s 1,000 Billionaires added another Trillion desperately needed dollars to their household budgets to pay for, according to travel and liesure; Yacht Rentals, Villa Rentals, 'Experimental Excursions', Luxury Cruises, Vacation Home Rentals, Spa Services.. (and have you seen the price of Cristal these days?).

'The cost of the AVERAGE high net worth individual’s summer spending on these luxury items was $1.2M."

Before you claim the high net worth individual has the right to spend her money on any damn thing she pleases, consider the possibility she only has that much money because of campaign bribes paid to Republicans AND Democrats to write tax codes that benefit the richest 1% of Americans at the expense of everyone else.

Wrong assumption, your assuming ALL rich people are crooks?
If they earned it, why do you want to have the goverment steal it?

Everyone has the oppurtunity, to make there own American Dream.
Taking part of someone else Dream, is theft, and not part of what this
country is all about.

There are a few bad apples in every barrel, it seems you think there ALL
bad.

Not so.

 

[georgephillip]

Would you agree all rich people have benefited from the $13 trillion taxpayer bailout of Wall Street?

"...while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s 'bottom 98 per cent' – this happy 2 per cent of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75 per cent) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains).

"This is nearly double what it received a generation ago.

"The rest of the population is being squeezed, and foreclosures are rising."

Crooks are to rich people as hypocrites are to politicians.

They are both stealing your money, and they're laughing at your knife and gunfire talk.

Obama's Greatest Betrayal

 

[georgephillip]

Who gives a shit?? It is a free society (except less so because of the policies supported by your ilk)...

But you, and your ilk, call for equal treatment by government ONLY when it suits you, and you fully support unequal treatment, when it suits you.... I.E. selective equal treatment...

Go up your daily intake of lead by about .357... right thru the palate... you'll do the world a favor and increase the average IQ in your neighborhood

Is your daily lead intake high enough to believe the US economy is still lousy because government's too big?

Are you that suicidal? (and stupid)

Maybe your ilk think cutting heating oil for low income Americans over the next five years will bring more freedom to big American companies sitting on almost $2 trillion in cash because there aren't enough customers to buy additional goods and services.

Shit like you should have been aborted thereby increasing the national IQ and the quality of debate on USMB.

Maybe I'd like to keep my money in my own pocket?

Live like the rest of us, within your own means.
You stick your hand in my pocket you liberal shit, I'll cut it off.

Liberals need to get a job, make a living and stop taking handouts.
You want my resources, you will be met with gunfire.

The richest 1% of Americans have increased their share of national income by two percent during the last two years and you think I'm the one with my hand in your pocket?

 

[JWBooth]

And do what with the proceeds?
Redistribute them? To who? Who decides what is fair and what is not, who gets what and how much?

The government? An organisation so inept that it gives tax refunds to dead people and animals? Thats going to be the arbiter of who wins and who loses?

Stupidest goddamn idea since people started thinking elections changed anything.

 

[boedicca]

I'd prefer to let Main Street revive itself by the government Getting The Hell Out Of The Way via lower taxes for everyone, less onerous regulation, and much much much lower government spending.


IOW, I'd prefer to implement F.A. Hayek's Top 10 Dos and Don'ts in a Recession.

1. Recessions are bound to happen: Shifts between periods of economic growth and periods of stagnation or decline are a necessary and unavoidable part of a free-market monetary economy. Downturns are not aberrations but rather painful and necessary medicine for restoring equilibrium to the economy.

2. A stimulus will only stimulate the deficit: Past experience with trying to fine-tune the economy shows that counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy can sometimes make matters much worse (as in the 1970s). Wise politicians would therefore be advised not to meddle, however much their instincts tell them to show voters they’re doing something.

3. Pure laissez-faire doesn’t work either: Some regulation is necessary for individuals to carry out their plans and for the market to function. Hayek therefore endorsed “general rules, equally applicable to all people and intended to be permanent (even if subject to revision with the growth of knowledge), which provides an institutional framework within which the decisions as to what to do and how to earn a living are left up to the individuals.”

4. Central planning and excessive regulation sure as hell don’t work: The desire to plan and to subject the economy to the rule of experts endangers liberty. As Hayek succinctly noted: “the more the ‘state’ plans, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

5. The economy is too complex for precise forecasting: As Yogi Berra could have said: “I hate making economic predictions. Especially about the future.” It’s not that we don’t know anything, but rather that what we do know reveals the limits of our knowledge, and consequently, of our ability to plan and forecast.

6. Remember the rule of unintended consequences: History shows that when trying to realize certain ends—particularly when their achievement involves interfering with the workings of the price mechanism—all sorts of pernicious effects will occur that were not part of the original plan.

7. You won’t believe how much you’ll learn in Econ 101: While Hayek repeatedly pointed to the limitations inherent in a discipline that deals with a complex system like the economy, the basic principles of economics—scarcity, supply and demand, division of labor, etc.—can explain a lot about the world and, more importantly, help rule out certain inappropriate policy responses (e.g. price ceilings).

8. Leave social justice out of it: Free markets necessarily lead to an unequal distribution of wealth and, just as inevitably, fuel calls for egalitarian social justice. Hayek viewed such cries as misguided—justice has nothing to do with an impersonal market process—and dangerous—redistributive schemes presume that we possess knowledge that we in fact can never possess (see #5).

9. Nothing beats the free market: Hayek admitted that if we had more knowledge we could do a lot more to improve the world through planning and regulation. But we don’t, and in the world of dispersed knowledge we live in, much of the knowledge we actually do possess is due to the workings of the market mechanism.

10. As a rule of thumb, government cures are not only worse than the disease, but lead to further disease: When you consider that bureaucrats have an incentive to maximize bureaucracy, that politicians who seek reelection—and which ones don’t?—have an incentive to increase spending and decrease taxes, and that corporations have an incentive to squeeze out the competition through government conferred advantages, you’ll conclude that the free market remains our best option (see #9).


Hayek

 

[boedicca]

What product does Wall street produce?
Once the stock is sold by a corporation then all the money from there on out is just made by stock trades which produce nothing except more money for more stock trades.

So mostly Wall Street just produces more money to trade more stock and no real product.

Wall Street Produces Inequity

"There is also the serious matter of equity.

"When people, who pay 6 percent to 8 percent in sales taxes on necessities every day, learn that there is zero sales tax on daily purchases of billions of shares, bonds and derivatives, they understandably get upset.

"It doesn’t matter whether they are conservatives or liberals, or whether it is during normal years on Wall Street or the recent massive collapse and bailout.

"If anything, the political climate for a financial transactions tax has never been better.

"It is time for a robust public initiative to replace the stagnant taboos now plaguing Congress and the White House.

(Ralph Nader is the founder of Public Citizen and author of the book “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” The opinions expressed are his own.)"

You are making an assumption that inequity of results is bad.

It's not. It's in the nature of Individual Liberty that some do better, some don't.

The costs to liberty of enforcing Equality of Outcomes isn't worth it, as we have seen demonstrated repeatedly by authoritarian and socialist regimes - and in the failed social programs in the U.S. itself.

 

[georgephillip]

Is it good or bad if the richest 1% of Americans have increased their share of national income by two percent during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression?

Is it good or bad that Warren Buffett and others pay income taxes at half the rate of their bodyguards?

It's hard to see how Buffett and the richest 1% could have done better than others without government socializing cost and privatizing profits.

The costs to liberty of enforcing Inequity could prove far greater.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Instead of cutting the federal deficit, put more money into the pockets of average working families by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include people earning up to $50,000 per year and reduce their income taxes to $0.

Exempt the first $20,000 from payroll taxes.

Pay 10% on incomes between $50,000 - $90,000/year.
Pay 20% on incomes between $90,000 - $120,000/year.
Pay 30% on incomes between $120,000 - $250,000/year

Make up the missing money by increasing the taxes on those responsible for causing our Great Recession:

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000.

"It’s called progressive taxation."

Robert Reich

Oh I get it. Let's have even FEWER people paying federal income taxes....
Look, genius, history proves that when government raises taxes on the producers not only does economic activity suffer, revenues to the federal government decrease.
Your "tax Wall Street" notion is a class envy straw man argument.
What you propose is not progressive taxation, it is confiscation of wealth.
Admit it. You believe in the redistribution of wealth from the producers to the non-producers. You believe in unfettered "fairness"...
Look, if you think the government needs more money, here's an idea that is a virtual certainty to work...
Tax all incomes above $30k for an individual and $50k for a family of 4 a rate of 15% of their gross income after State taxes are deducted. NO write offs. No deductions of any kind. A true flat tax.
And don't start screaming about how it's unfair because 15% of $50,000 leaves a family of 4 with just $42,500 while 15% of $100,000 leaves another with $85,000....Realize that the person who has more SPENDS more and stimulates the economy while doing it.
The more well off person buys more expensive homes which contribute locally to property taxes. The more well off person is more likely to invest in business which creates jobs. The more well off person buys more consumables....see where we are going here sunshine?
The federal government does not need more of our money. The federal government needs to learn to spend LESS..
BTW, Obama's budget proposal has $1.5 trillion in unfunded expenditures.
What he calls" drastic cuts" in spending are not cuts at all. In his budget all federal agencies respective budgets are getting a 1% increase in funding....When Obama and democrats refer to "cuts" what they really mean is a lower increase in the next FY budget.
BTW, the GOP's $100 billion in cuts is a joke....It should be 5 times that. However the GOP leadership knows well that any cuts to entitlements are politically unpalatable.

 

[georgephillip]

I'd prefer to let Main Street revive itself by the government Getting The Hell Out Of The Way via lower taxes for everyone, less onerous regulation, and much much much lower government spending.


IOW, I'd prefer to implement F.A. Hayek's Top 10 Dos and Don'ts in a Recession.

1. Recessions are bound to happen: Shifts between periods of economic growth and periods of stagnation or decline are a necessary and unavoidable part of a free-market monetary economy. Downturns are not aberrations but rather painful and necessary medicine for restoring equilibrium to the economy.

2. A stimulus will only stimulate the deficit: Past experience with trying to fine-tune the economy shows that counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy can sometimes make matters much worse (as in the 1970s). Wise politicians would therefore be advised not to meddle, however much their instincts tell them to show voters they’re doing something.

3. Pure laissez-faire doesn’t work either: Some regulation is necessary for individuals to carry out their plans and for the market to function. Hayek therefore endorsed “general rules, equally applicable to all people and intended to be permanent (even if subject to revision with the growth of knowledge), which provides an institutional framework within which the decisions as to what to do and how to earn a living are left up to the individuals.”

4. Central planning and excessive regulation sure as hell don’t work: The desire to plan and to subject the economy to the rule of experts endangers liberty. As Hayek succinctly noted: “the more the ‘state’ plans, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

5. The economy is too complex for precise forecasting: As Yogi Berra could have said: “I hate making economic predictions. Especially about the future.” It’s not that we don’t know anything, but rather that what we do know reveals the limits of our knowledge, and consequently, of our ability to plan and forecast.

6. Remember the rule of unintended consequences: History shows that when trying to realize certain ends—particularly when their achievement involves interfering with the workings of the price mechanism—all sorts of pernicious effects will occur that were not part of the original plan.

7. You won’t believe how much you’ll learn in Econ 101: While Hayek repeatedly pointed to the limitations inherent in a discipline that deals with a complex system like the economy, the basic principles of economics—scarcity, supply and demand, division of labor, etc.—can explain a lot about the world and, more importantly, help rule out certain inappropriate policy responses (e.g. price ceilings).

8. Leave social justice out of it: Free markets necessarily lead to an unequal distribution of wealth and, just as inevitably, fuel calls for egalitarian social justice. Hayek viewed such cries as misguided—justice has nothing to do with an impersonal market process—and dangerous—redistributive schemes presume that we possess knowledge that we in fact can never possess (see #5).

9. Nothing beats the free market: Hayek admitted that if we had more knowledge we could do a lot more to improve the world through planning and regulation. But we don’t, and in the world of dispersed knowledge we live in, much of the knowledge we actually do possess is due to the workings of the market mechanism.

10. As a rule of thumb, government cures are not only worse than the disease, but lead to further disease: When you consider that bureaucrats have an incentive to maximize bureaucracy, that politicians who seek reelection—and which ones don’t?—have an incentive to increase spending and decrease taxes, and that corporations have an incentive to squeeze out the competition through government conferred advantages, you’ll conclude that the free market remains our best option (see #9).


Hayek

What if government and Wall Street have no intention of allowing Main Street revival? What if it's in the class interest of those who fund 90% of Republican AND Democrat election campaigns to continue widening the class divide in America.

Let me try to respond to Hayak's Top Ten one point at a time:

"1. Recessions are bound to happen: Shifts between periods of economic growth and periods of stagnation or decline are a necessary and unavoidable part of a free-market monetary economy.

"Downturns are not aberrations but rather painful and necessary medicine for restoring equilibrium to the economy."

The stock view from the left is that our Great Recession was NOT due to the natural workings of the free market but, rather, was induced from massive securities and control fraud inflicted by Wall Street and aided and abetted by the government.

There is no market solution to institutionalized fraud enforced by government.

One possible political solution would start with a majority of US voters FLUSHING every Republican AND Democrat from DC in November 2012.

 

[georgephillip]

And do what with the proceeds?
Redistribute them? To who? Who decides what is fair and what is not, who gets what and how much?

The government? An organisation so inept that it gives tax refunds to dead people and animals? Thats going to be the arbiter of who wins and who loses?

Stupidest goddamn idea since people started thinking elections changed anything.

Are you encouraging voters to reject ALL Republican AND Democratic candidates in 2012?

 

[thereisnospoon]

As many others have suggested, a flat tax of around 15% on every cent earned, without ANY write-offs would, (I think) be the way to go.
But without a little restraint in spending, and someone with the balls to tell these useless tits with their hands out to "fuckoff", it won't matter what convoluted taxing system you use to "get the rich".

"Every cent earned" is the key phrase, I think.

What about unearned income?

It's my understanding the Forbes flat tax proposal, for example, would exempt FIRE sector income. (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate)

Any solution that doesn't reverse the widening divide between the rich and the rest of America won't revive the American economy.

Your understanding of the Forbes plan may be correct, however that is immaterial.
Income, profit etc should be taxed only once.
The current system gives government several bites at the apple.
For example....Mr Jones gets his paycheck. He then takes some of that money and puts into a savings account. At the end of the year, the government looks at the statement form the bank and then bills Mr. Jones for the amount of money earned on the interest paid by the bank.
Mr. Smith makes a good living....He decides to dabble in a couple of solid blue chip stocks. He is a buy and hold guy. His investments pan out and yield him a few thousand in dividend income.... The government steps in and taxes that few thousand. Oh,during that year Mssrs Jones and Smith bought tires, opened cell phone and internet accounts, bought 5 oil changes each. All subject to federal excise tax or US tax. MOre federal biting of the apple.....So you see, there is much more to taxation than just income tax from wages.
If a flat tax of all income was policy,we could get rid of tons of un needed federal IRS workers at a huge savings, eliminate/simplify the complicated US Tax Code, etc....
Of course there is a "soak the rich" agenda on the political Left. These people will never be satisfied until the federal government sets up a system of total redistribution of wealth.

 

[georgephillip]

Instead of cutting the federal deficit, put more money into the pockets of average working families by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to include people earning up to $50,000 per year and reduce their income taxes to $0.

Exempt the first $20,000 from payroll taxes.

Pay 10% on incomes between $50,000 - $90,000/year.
Pay 20% on incomes between $90,000 - $120,000/year.
Pay 30% on incomes between $120,000 - $250,000/year

Make up the missing money by increasing the taxes on those responsible for causing our Great Recession:

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000.

"It’s called progressive taxation."

Robert Reich

What they should have done with the "Bail Out" money is split it evenly between all persons who pay federal income tax and let them decide what to do with the money. They would have paid off their mortgages and loans and the banks would have still gotten their money and stayed afloat. People would have kept their homes and had a little extra money in their pockets to spend on things--thus stimulating the economy. Our government screwed the pooch when it comes to the federal deficit.

The main problem is that our government keeps sending BILLIONS overseas. Money we obviously don't have. I say cut all of the overseas aid and quit printing out money.

Obama made sure he took care of those who financed his campaign first:

"Obama seems to be campaigning for his own defeat!

"Thanks largely to the $13 trillion Wall Street bailout – while keeping the debt overhead in place for America’s 'bottom 98 per cent' – this happy 2 per cent of the population now receives an estimated three quarters (~75 per cent) of the returns to wealth (interest, dividends, rent and capital gains).

"This is nearly double what it received a generation ago.

"The rest of the population is being squeezed, and foreclosures are rising.

"Baudelaire quipped that the devil wins at the point where he manages convince the world that he doesn’t exist.

"Today’s financial elites will win the class war at the point where voters believe it doesn’t exist – and believe that Obama is trying to help them rather than shepherd them into debt peonage as the economy settles into debt deflation."

Michael Hudson

 

[JWBooth]

And do what with the proceeds?
Redistribute them? To who? Who decides what is fair and what is not, who gets what and how much?

The government? An organisation so inept that it gives tax refunds to dead people and animals? Thats going to be the arbiter of who wins and who loses?

Stupidest goddamn idea since people started thinking elections changed anything.

Are you encouraging voters to reject ALL Republican AND Democratic candidates in 2012?

They can do as they please, but it is silly to pretend that it makes a great deal of a difference.
Though it is not nearly as silly as the premise presented in the op.