Under Bush US's 400 richest doubled their wealth

[auditor0007]

What makes an earned wage more important than a dividend that a dividend should be taxed at a higher rate?

Is it because you perceive that a guy who works 40 hours a week adds more to the economy than a guy with a multimillion dollar investment portfolio?

Or does the multimillion dollar investment portfolio create more return economically when that money is used by banks and companies to build a hospital, to produce a product that changes people's lives for the better?

Whose production did more for the economy as a whole, the assembly line worker of the idle rich guy who invests his money?

Because average working people have to live on their wages. The majority of their income goes to basic living expenses.

Extrodinarily wealthy people who live off dividends, only spend a tiny fraction of their wealth on basic human needs.

That's why wage earners need to be given more consideration than trust fund babies.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

-- ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Republican

even though the money in the investment portfolio makes a job possible?

without the capital for business to invest in capital improvements, equipment and R&D, that assembly line wrench turner would not have an assembly line on which to work would he?

Taxing capital gains at the same rate as earned income is not going to hamper investment. Much of what the government provides us is required and must be paid for. Yes, there are things that can be cut to reduce expenditures, but you're not going to be able to cut spending in half.

If government does not provide a safety net, the wealth and power will become so limited that what remains will force changes that go against everything we wish for in a free society. We need the investment money that the wealthy provide, but we also need a strong middle class that is capable of buying goods to keep the economy going. Otherwise, the rich will become poor very quickly because there certainly aren't enough of them to support themselves.

 

[auditor0007]

Great Republican President Abraham Lincoln is right.

Anonoymous, rush limbaugh worshipping message board poster Skull Pilot is wrong.

Labor can exist without capital.

Captial cannot exist without labor. Its completely dependent on it.

Capital makes our lives better, and makes our economy more efficient. But people would survive without capitalism. It just wouldn't be as good.

Capitalism cannot exist without labor.


People are more important than captial.


Great republicans like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt knew this. Labor deserves more consideration than capital.

Skull Pilot, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity don't get it.

They get it, but there needs to be forces on both sides pulling to keep us from moving too far to one side or the other.

 

[auditor0007]

The Republicans emptied the Treasury and then rode out of town.

And left the mess in the lap of the Dems who will humiliate themselves in an attempt to prove socialism is the answer. In which case, four years from now the republicans will run a Romney-ish type who will defeat Obama, thus ending any chances the dems had for turning this country into a marxist dictatorship.

I'm already writing the book.

Romney would have made a great President. It's too bad so few people get it. Romney does.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Great Republican President Abraham Lincoln is right.

Anonoymous, rush limbaugh worshipping message board poster Skull Pilot is wrong.

Labor can exist without capital.

Captial cannot exist without labor. Its completely dependent on it.

Capital makes our lives better, and makes our economy more efficient. But people would survive without capitalism. It just wouldn't be as good.

Capitalism cannot exist without labor.


People are more important than captial.


Great republicans like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt knew this. Labor deserves more consideration than capital.

Skull Pilot, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity don't get it.

hey dip shit, I do not listen to Limbaugh and in fact i think I tuned in his show once or twice when slick Willy was president quite frankly , i find him boring, predictable and pedantic and haven't listened since. you probably listen to him more than I ever have.

and labor does exist without capital. but what the labor produces is more important than the labor itself. i take it you subscribe to Marx's value of labor theory right?

You believe the chair that takes 40 hours to make is somehow worth more than the same chair made in 10 hours by a better wood worker right. after all labor is more important than the end result.

you would rather have endless government road crews resurfacing existing highways and spray painting existing bridges all funded by tax payer money before you would have a company get a tax break for building a new research facility that will produce a commodity that actually has value.

what i do get is we will soon be seeing higher income and payroll taxes on everyone not just the "rich", higher gas and excise taxes and most likely an additional value added tax not to mention local taxes that will be piled on top of it all.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Because average working people have to live on their wages. The majority of their income goes to basic living expenses.

Extrodinarily wealthy people who live off dividends, only spend a tiny fraction of their wealth on basic human needs.

That's why wage earners need to be given more consideration than trust fund babies.

even though the money in the investment portfolio makes a job possible?

without the capital for business to invest in capital improvements, equipment and R&D, that assembly line wrench turner would not have an assembly line on which to work would he?

Taxing capital gains at the same rate as earned income is not going to hamper investment. Much of what the government provides us is required and must be paid for. Yes, there are things that can be cut to reduce expenditures, but you're not going to be able to cut spending in half.

If government does not provide a safety net, the wealth and power will become so limited that what remains will force changes that go against everything we wish for in a free society. We need the investment money that the wealthy provide, but we also need a strong middle class that is capable of buying goods to keep the economy going. Otherwise, the rich will become poor very quickly because there certainly aren't enough of them to support themselves.

then tax income at the same rate as capital gains. I'd like to have more money in my paycheck wouldn't you?

and just what is the government safety net you speak of. welfare, foodstamps, social security? with the exception of SS all very small budget items. and we all know that SS is nothing but a government slush fund an endlessly replenished petty cash draw. you think Madow had a Pozi scheme running, just what do you think SS is?

the government takes money from you to pay its obligations to people collecting. there is not one dime in the SS system. it's shameful really.

if I paid my employees like that, I'd be arrested but it's not illegal if the government does it right?

 

[garyd]

Okay the first thing the leftist tools here need to understand is that the only time the rich don't get richer is when we are all freaking starving. Capital gains? Give me a break you sell a house it is a capital gain. Interest on a checking account beyond certqain amounts is a capital gain. Interest earned on any investment is a capital gain so is dvidends on stock holdings. When you say you want to increase the capital gains tax rate you are saying you thing we should have a smaller economy with less investment and fewerjobs because that is waht you will get. I made about 30k last year I'll mkae about 30k this year my house is paid for so It doesn't really matter.

Tell me at what point it is cheaper to pay tax attorneys $500 an hour to save you maybe 10 k on your taxes. Less than 20 hours.

 

[Care4all]

Okay the first thing the leftist tools here need to understand is that the only time the rich don't get richer is when we are all freaking starving. Capital gains? Give me a break you sell a house it is a capital gain. Interest on a checking account beyond certqain amounts is a capital gain. Interest earned on any investment is a capital gain so is dvidends on stock holdings. When you say you want to increase the capital gains tax rate you are saying you thing we should have a smaller economy with less investment and fewerjobs because that is waht you will get. I made about 30k last year I'll mkae about 30k this year my house is paid for so It doesn't really matter.

Tell me at what point it is cheaper to pay tax attorneys $500 an hour to save you maybe 10 k on your taxes. Less than 20 hours.

all this is is right wing jargon.... j/k u

The point of the matter is that the very wealthiest paid 15% capital gains tax on 63% on average of his earnings that he made OFF OF investing in SOMEONE ELSE'S labor, with no SS or Medicare taxes on it as well, while the guy making 150k, working 55 hours a week, and using his labor to earn his fruit, is paying 35% or so on what he makes....and pays SS taxes up to the 100k and medicare taxes on his entire earnings.

There is something WRONG with this....how could you not agree?

care

 

[rayboyusmc]

I have never understood what some people have against the rich.

Pointing out inequities in our pay system has nothing to do with having something against the rich. It has to do with why top executives get paid over 200 time what the average worker gets. If you look at how pay has increased, theirs has gone up at astrological rate while the workers moves at a snails pace. That is inequity.

Please don't tell me I hate corporations or that they supply the jobs. The people supply the labor. It's a fifty fifty situation. Add in that 85% of our businesses are small businesses that don't get the frigging golden parachutes and 23 million dollar bonuses.

Then, like the banking industry, they prove to be totally incompetent in their job.

If you have no problem paying people for breaking the company, that's your issue and your future problems.

 

[DiamondDave]

Amanda makes sense by using simple common sense and not clouding issues up.

Basically what she said is, she does see it right to take from others, simply to hand out to others.

Gee, what a good basic value.

She doesn't want hand outs or what another has worked for, but, she wants the right to keep what she is able to achieve herself.

Hmmm ........... sounds fair to me.

Seems she chooses to live without making excuses and blaming others.

This is true in a lot of what I have seen Amanda post... I give her a lot of credit... she appears to be a hard working young woman... with the proper attitude of people earning their way, not supporting a Robin Hood mentality

 

[RodISHI]

Amanda makes sense by using simple common sense and not clouding issues up.

Basically what she said is, she does see it right to take from others, simply to hand out to others.

Gee, what a good basic value.

She doesn't want hand outs or what another has worked for, but, she wants the right to keep what she is able to achieve herself.

Hmmm ........... sounds fair to me.

Seems she chooses to live without making excuses and blaming others.

This is true in a lot of what I have seen Amanda post... I give her a lot of credit... she appears to be a hard working young woman... with the proper attitude of people earning their way, not supporting a Robin Hood mentality

When the rich or white collar workers take from the poor this is okay though?

Come on guys when you use and abuse someone elses labor you are in effect a thief for the rich or the upper middleclass with investments.

When you use a poor man's lower credit score to justify higher insurance rates you effectively robbed from the poor to give to the rich. Low credit scores are not necessarily from non payment of bills. If you have not borrowed money you may have a lower credit score and therefore be charged extra by the rigged system that is now in place.

When credit companies make loans to people they now do not have enough to actually make timely payments and charge that extra 45 bucks a month for a ten dollar two day late payment you have basically allowed and assisted the rich to steal from the poor.

A poor family with two parents working 40 and 50 hour weeks are considered lazy by a few of the posters because they work at jobs that produce a product via a service industry that creates paper debt using other peoples money. And people wonder why this countries economy is in the shitter.

 

[dilloduck]

Amanda makes sense by using simple common sense and not clouding issues up.

Basically what she said is, she does see it right to take from others, simply to hand out to others.

Gee, what a good basic value.

She doesn't want hand outs or what another has worked for, but, she wants the right to keep what she is able to achieve herself.

Hmmm ........... sounds fair to me.

Seems she chooses to live without making excuses and blaming others.

This is true in a lot of what I have seen Amanda post... I give her a lot of credit... she appears to be a hard working young woman... with the proper attitude of people earning their way, not supporting a Robin Hood mentality

When the rich or white collar workers take from the poor this is okay though?

Come on guys when you use and abuse someone elses labor you are in effect a thief for the rich or the upper middleclass with investments.

When you use a poor man's lower credit score to justify higher insurance rates you effectively robbed from the poor to give to the rich. Low credit scores are not necessarily from non payment of bills. If you have not borrowed money you may have a lower credit score and therefore be charged extra by the rigged system that is now in place.

When credit companies make loans to people they now do not have enough to actually make timely payments and charge that extra 45 bucks a month for a ten dollar two day late payment you have basically allowed and assisted the rich to steal from the poor.

A poor family with two parents working 40 and 50 hour weeks are considered lazy by a few of the posters because they work at jobs that produce a product via a service industry that creates paper debt using other peoples money. And people wonder why this countries economy is in the shitter.

ok--how can a family with two regular incomes be considered poor ?

 

[editec]

I have never understood what some people have against the rich. I'll probably never be super rich but I hope to do ok and I sure don't want some helpful wealth redistribution plan to punish me for being successful by giving what I worked for to someone that didn't.

And the above is EXACTLY the conceit which explains why, for example, most people object to the inheritence tax.

The largely delusional belief that perhaps someday with luck and pluck you too might be invited to the banquet of the superwealthy.

One doesn't need to have anything against the superwealthy to think that they're having too large a share of the economy's overall wealth can be detremental to the society.

Just as one can understand without hating the working classes, that if the workers make too much money, that can cause inflation, one should be able to ALSO understand that if too few people have too much of the money, that can ALSO cause economic woes much like we are experiencing now...DEFLATION.

But after decades of proponents of supply sider economics propaganda hammering anyone who points out the above as a communist, I suppose I should not be surprised that most people simply don't get it.

A capitalist society needs both wealthy people, AND working people making a living to be a truly wealthy and productive society.

Too few owning too much or too many with too little, will screw up a consumer driven economy, as we can PLAINLY SEE, right now.

What I think too few people understand, I think is that all wealth comes from human LABOR.

Money, which in our society seemed to begat STILL MORE money, tends to make us think that the RICH create wealth.

They don't. They ar epart of the equasion since they ammass the capital (the respresentation of stored wealth) which is invested to put people to work to make still more wealth.

But notice the equasion?

No wealth is created until somebody does some WORK.

WORK generates wealth...money merely keeps score.

 

[editec]

who the hell is working here? Do you consider Capital Gains working?

if you do it right it is.......work you ass off ..... buy a house....fix it up sell it....capital gains.....

anyway thank god obama is here to take away all the rich folks money and pass it ot to the incompetent.....

Depends doesn't it?

If you are selling you HOME there are no capital gains taxes.

If you are in the homeflippig business, then of course, you will be subject to capital gains on the profit you make after expenses.

There's nothing wrong with taxing capital gains.

It's merely taxing intellectual labor instead of physical labor.

 

[DiamondDave]

Amanda makes sense by using simple common sense and not clouding issues up.

Basically what she said is, she does see it right to take from others, simply to hand out to others.

Gee, what a good basic value.

She doesn't want hand outs or what another has worked for, but, she wants the right to keep what she is able to achieve herself.

Hmmm ........... sounds fair to me.

Seems she chooses to live without making excuses and blaming others.

This is true in a lot of what I have seen Amanda post... I give her a lot of credit... she appears to be a hard working young woman... with the proper attitude of people earning their way, not supporting a Robin Hood mentality

When the rich or white collar workers take from the poor this is okay though?

Come on guys when you use and abuse someone elses labor you are in effect a thief for the rich or the upper middleclass with investments.

When you use a poor man's lower credit score to justify higher insurance rates you effectively robbed from the poor to give to the rich. Low credit scores are not necessarily from non payment of bills. If you have not borrowed money you may have a lower credit score and therefore be charged extra by the rigged system that is now in place.

When credit companies make loans to people they now do not have enough to actually make timely payments and charge that extra 45 bucks a month for a ten dollar two day late payment you have basically allowed and assisted the rich to steal from the poor.

A poor family with two parents working 40 and 50 hour weeks are considered lazy by a few of the posters because they work at jobs that produce a product via a service industry that creates paper debt using other peoples money. And people wonder why this countries economy is in the shitter.

We are to have the legal level playing field, to ensure freedoms, and ensure we are not discriminated against...

Infringing on one's freedom, even if it is Robin Hoody and feels nice to hand out to others, is not a good thing...

And if one company does try and 'stick it to' the 'poor' for whatever reason, and there is a market there with profits to be made, another will inherently take advantage of that situation and open up to take advantage of that business opportunity, to loan to lower income people who show they can pay, etc

It is up to you to not only pay your bills and be responsible for what you earn, but to sit back and realize the consequences of your choices/actions and take it upon yourself to play the game that is out there.. as long as the game is fair for all and the same for all, we and the govt are not there to sit there and dry your tears when you cry or complain about it

 

[editec]

How about taxing income less?
How about that?

How about the government leave us all more of the money we earn

how about that?

We're all onboard for that.

Even liberals.

But today's liberals also think that we need to pay as we go, rather than the Republican plan which was to spend and borrow, borrow and spend.

 

[Red Dawn]

This is nothing but pure jealousy.

I was going to make a long post, but this pretty much sums it up perfectly. The rich get richer because they work at it, the poor stay poor because they sit on their ass bitching about the rich. Get off your lazy fucking ass people and go make some money.

I wanted to add to this a little. I work in a call center that supports a company that is in the financial industry. Occasionally we have bankers come in and they have classes where they learn more about our products and services. Sometimes these are fairly low level people like me, but sometimes they are pretty high up, it depends on the FI in question. Anyway, because I'm pretty knowledgeable I often get to sit with them and answer the questions they have. So, why do I mention all this?

I didn't grow up around anyone that could be considered rich, not even close. I used to have some of the same attitudes about them not working hard for their money, but I've had my mind changed by interacting with them. I am truly amazed how hard some of these people work, and the higher up they are the harder they work. You wouldn't believe the long hours they put in, and no one tells them to do it, and they don't bitch about doing it, they are simply driven. I think this makes Jsanders point very well... they aren't lazy and they don't make excuses, they just work their asses off.

I agree. But I don't think anyone on this thread is begruding high paid white collar workers. The vice presidents and presidents of bank aren't among the super wealthy or the trust fund babies. I know bank vice presidents. I think they're average salary is around a hundred grand. I bet if you googled the average salary of a bank president, it wouldn't be much more than 150K. Those people aren't fantastically wealthy. They're part of the wage earning class, albeit in the upper echelon.

White collar working people work their asses off. At least most of them do. I've been working seven days a week for the last month.

I don't think anyone on the thread was talking about white collar professionals.

The point is that a few thousand people own much of the nation's weatlh. The super wealthy investment class. People who don't have to earn a wage. Maybe some of them deserved it, maybe some of them worked 6 and 7 days a week to earn it. Maybe some of them inherited it. Maybe some of them live in a mansion, take it easy, and live off dividend income. Who knows?

The point is, I think, that when a nation reaches a certain point of income inequality, where most of the wealth and power is concentrated in a tiny minority of people, its dangerous. It leads to plutocracy. History proves it over and over. And our founding fathers knew this, and fought against a system gamed to protect the wealth in interests of a tiny minority of elites.

 

[editec]

even though the money in the investment portfolio makes a job possible?

without the capital for business to invest in capital improvements, equipment and R&D, that assembly line wrench turner would not have an assembly line on which to work would he?

And if you are sitting on a deserted island with ten thousand pounds of gold and piles of money and NO WORKERS?

How rich are you? You are only as rich as the amount of work YOU PERSONALLY can do.

Just as the wealthy provide capital for investment, so too do workers create wealth for future investments.

I know you imagine that the wealthy carry the workers, but that's a very jaundiced view of economics.

The SOURCE of wealth is always the labor which it took to produce it, sport.

Either the intellectual work to devise what tasks will be done, or the physical/intellectual work to do the tasks, but in both cases, it was the actual WORK which created the wealth.

 

[Skull Pilot]

How about taxing income less?
How about that?

How about the government leave us all more of the money we earn

how about that?

We're all onboard for that.

Even liberals.

But today's liberals also think that we need to pay as we go, rather than the Republican plan which was to spend and borrow, borrow and spend.

which is also the current Dimocat plan no?

 

[editec]

The Republicans emptied the Treasury and then rode out of town.

And left the mess in the lap of the Dems who will humiliate themselves in an attempt to prove socialism is the answer. In which case, four years from now the republicans will run a Romney-ish type who will defeat Obama, thus ending any chances the dems had for turning this country into a marxist dictatorship.

I'm already writing the book.

OR....

The Dems plan to save exploitive capitalism this time around won't work, the Republicans will offer more of the same shit they gave us for the last eight years, and this time people won't be fooled by their voodoo economy theories.


Then things might really get interesting.

 

[Truthmatters]

Bloomberg.com: U.S.


Are you begining to get it?



Capital gains made up 63 percent of the richest 400 Americans’ adjusted gross income in 2006, or a combined $66.1 billion, according to the data. In all, the 400 wealthiest Americans reported a combined $105.3 billion of adjusted gross income in 2006, the most recent year for which the IRS has data.

“The big explosion in income for this group is clearly on the capital gains side, although there are also sharp increases in dividend and interest income,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington.

You mean the repeal Clinton signed:

Billionaire Sanford I. Weill, who according to Louis Uchitelle made "Citigroup into the most powerful financial institution since the House of Morgan a century ago," has what I call the Wall of Me leading to his office, which he has decorated with tributes to him, including a dozen framed magazine covers. A major trophy is the pen Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a move which allowed Weill to create Citigroup. Fittingly, Citigroup is a major contributor to guess which current Democratic Presidential candidate


When Bill Clinton gave that pen to Sanford Weill, it symbolized the ending of the twentieth century Democratic Party that had created the New Deal. Although the 1999 law did not repeal all of the banking Act of 1933, retaining the FDIC, it did once again allow banks to enter the securities business, becoming what some term "whole banks."

Do you get it yet?

Sweetie I have been saying this for over a year.

Phil Gramm was the guy who wrote GLB 1999 act which did this and I have said Clinton was an asshole for signing it.

This was a bill driven by the republicans and dreamed about for years, They wheeled and dealed Clinton and talk him into signing it in return for other things.

Hes an asshole for giving it up.

Bush and the entire republican party had YEARS to fix this , they didnt , they in fact stopped the states from trying to protect themselves with their own laws.

If Clinton is an asshole for signing it what does that make the Entire Republican party for dreaming it , making it happen and doing nothing when it was obviously screwing this country up?