Economics for idiots

[Duff Man]

43 minutes ago, Sixtimes Dog said:

 

Of these rich people who are dead against tax rises, but who are keen to tell all and sundry about their charitable foundations.

You've already mentioned one.

[Strontium]

5 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

You've already mentioned one.

 

Bill Gates? The guy who is planning to give 95% of his wealth away? This guy?

 

Quote

With a net worth of $97 billion, capitalism has been good to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and he thinks it’s a good system. 

Still, “There’s no free lunch here. You’d have to collect more money,” Gates told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.

That money should come from rich people in the form of higher taxes, he said. “As you go about doing this additional collection, of course you want to be progressive. You want the portion that comes from the top 1 percent or top 20 percent to be much higher,” Gates said.

Gates has been a frequent advocate of taxing the wealthy at higher rates. Gates told Zakaria last year, “I need to pay higher taxes … I’ve paid more taxes, over $10 billion, than anyone else, but the government should require people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes. ”

In particular, Gates suggested raising the capital gains tax, which is the tax levied on profits earned when a property or investment is sold. Currently the capital gains tax is 20 percent on net capital gains when the taxpayer’s taxable income is higher than the threshold for the regular 37 percent tax rate, according to the Internal Revenue Service; that’s $425,800 for single filer, $479,000 for married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er), $452,400 for head of household and $239,500 for married filing separately.

“The big fortunes, if your goal is to go after those, you have to take the capital gains tax ... and increase that,” Gates told Zakaria Sunday.

 

Shurely some mishtake.

[Jairzinho]

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism

 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/mark-zuckerberg-and-the-rise-of-philanthrocapitalism

[AngryOfTuebrook]

3 hours ago, SasaS said:

You'd be needlessly disincentivising people from owning shares, you should motivate them to own shares in companies they work in. In fact, I think it should be made mandatory for the employers to pay everybody partly in stocks, along the lines of Labour's proposal that profit sharing is mandatory, but with ownership instead of profit. That would do more against inequality than constantly trying to increase tax for highest earners they don't even pay at a lower rates. 

It wouldn't disincentivise anyone from owning shares, least of all in the companies they work for.  It would be progressive taxation; if it disincentivised anything, it would disincentive the hoarding of shares by a small number of extremely wealthy individuals or corporations - that would allow for shares to be distributed more equitably. 

[Jairzinho]

Wonder why Microsoft pay a lot of their taxes in Puerto Rico and Singapore?

[Duff Man]

Yep, that guy. All those quotes show is that even he's embarrassed by the current tax cuts of the Trump administration.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

39 minutes ago, A Red said:

There has to be a point in which the maximisation of tax revenue line meets the now harmful to private investment line. Has this worked anywhere before where unearned income such as property rental and share dividends are taxed at around 75%?

Yes.

 

It worked well throughout the Western world in the three decades after the war, when those sort of tax rates were common.

[Strontium]

5 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Yep, that guy. All those quotes show is that even he's embarrassed by the current tax cuts of the Trump administration.

 

Those quotes show that he's calling for much higher taxes when you have specifically accused him of calling for tax cuts.

[moof]

4 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Wonder why Microsoft pay a lot of their taxes in Puerto Rico and Singapore?

Do you know how hard bill gates has had to work for his earned wealth? At least 100 billion times harder than you. Yet you have the gall to sit here and question his steadfast altruism? It makes me sick 

[Duff Man]

3 minutes ago, Sixtimes Dog said:

 

Those quotes show that he's calling for much higher taxes when you have specifically accused him of calling for tax cuts.

No, I haven't. And context is a thing.

[SasaS]

5 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Yes.

 

It worked well throughout the Western world in the three decades after the war, when those sort of tax rates were common.

I think I read somewhere that no one actually paid that much tax. And didn't that system of high rates actually usher the era of Western world turning to "neoliberalism"?

[Strontium]

3 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

No, I haven't. And context is a thing.

 

Oh sorry, I thought that when you alluded to Bill Gates, it was in response to me asking:

 

1 hour ago, Sixtimes Dog said:

[Do you have any specific examples o]f these rich people who are dead against tax rises, but who are keen to tell all and sundry about their charitable foundations.

 

So since we have established that Bill Gates isn't against tax rises, do you have any examples of billionaire philanthropists who are against them?

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, Sixtimes Dog said:

Doubtless many billionaires feel that they can distribute their money better than the government does. For instance, Bill Gates donates hundreds of millions to family planning and reproductive health in the third world, which is not something you can imagine a Republican-led government doing.

Bill Gates is certainly a shining example of how to act if you are a billionaire. If we can get all wealthy people to have the same mindset as him, we wouldn't need to have mandatory redistribution. Unfortunately, one or two of them are cunts and don't do that. Quote the opposite, really. 

[moof]

One man having 100 billion dollars is immoral however much he gives away. Let’s abolish billionaires 

[Duff Man]

You said I accused him of asking for tax cuts. I didn't. As for your second point; he's against the tax rate increases proposed by Sanders, so there's an example. His pal at Dell, incidentally, also has the exact same position, and references his foundation whenever asked about it. But I'm not going down this dead end with you, because you're incapable of having an honest conversation, as shown above.

 

All you really need to know is that Bill and his ilk are happy with the status quo, and dead against any radical change. I completely disagree.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

19 minutes ago, SasaS said:

I think I read somewhere that no one actually paid that much tax. And didn't that system of high rates actually usher the era of Western world turning to "neoliberalism"?

Horrible rich cunts being cunts ushered in the era of neoliberalism. 

[Jairzinho]

21 minutes ago, SasaS said:

I think I read somewhere that no one actually paid that much tax. And didn't that system of high rates actually usher the era of Western world turning to "neoliberalism"?

This is true. No-one paid the 90% (or even a touch higher, I think). Nor did they need to. A good start now would be simply making people pay the tax they should pay.

 

And you're right, some cunts decided to be cunts.

 

 

[Jairzinho]

19 minutes ago, moof said:

One man having 100 billion dollars is immoral however much he gives away. Let’s abolish billionaires 

Have more tax rates, and be more stringent about actually collecting the fucking money.

 

I think it's ridiculous someone on £150k a year is paying the same rate as someone making billions. Well, in fact, they probably aren't because someone on £150k a year (admittedly an astronomical amount of money to the majority of us) is at least more likely to be paying their fair share of tax.

[Strontium]

13 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

You said I accused him of asking for tax cuts. I didn't. As for your second point; he's against the tax rate increases proposed by Sanders, so there's an example. His pal at Dell, incidentally, also has the exact same position, and references his foundation whenever asked about it. But I'm not going down this dead end with you, because you're incapable of having an honest conversation, as shown above.

 

All you really need to know is that Bill and his ilk are happy with the status quo, and dead against any radical change. I completely disagree.

 

Incapable of having an honest conversation? I asked for you to name someone who was dead against tax rises and you cited someone who had called for tax rises. I don't think that's me being dishonest.

 

So far as opposing tax proposals by the likes of Sanders, what he's actually said is that increasing income tax won't have as much effect as capital gains tax increases, precisely because the really rich get their wealth from stocks and investments, not as salary. In other words, he has criticised the Sanders plan precisely because it won't have much of an impact on the super-rich.

 

But yes, there is no debate to be had with someone who thinks calling for massive capital gains tax increases means supporting the status quo.

[Duff Man]

I could ask you to show me where I "specifically accused [Gates] of calling for tax cuts", which is just a complete fabrication, but what would be the point? Please conversing with you, mate.

[Strontium]

3 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

I could ask you to show me where I "specifically accused [Gates] of calling for tax cuts", which is just a complete fabrication, but what would be the point? Please conversing with you, mate.

 

It was a mistype on my behalf. I should have written "opposing tax rises". Either way, it has no impact the point I was making.

[Duff Man]

Ah, the Rory Stewart defence.

[Boss]

7 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Carnegie didn't build anything.  Brutally exploited workers built the railways that made him one of the richest men in the world.  When he grew old and started thinking about his legacy, he spent some of that vast fortune on libraries and concert halls he could put his name on. That is all. Much more good could have been achieved if he had treated his workers decently and been taxed properly throughout his career.

 

As for 75% CGT - and income tax for the highest incomes - yeah, why not? Around 3 decades of those sort of levels of progressive taxation right across the Western world fuelled a prolonged period of increasing prosperity. That progress has been reversed in many countries by low tax/low spending neoliberalism, leading to increases in murderous destitution. 

 

Long term investors that keep their money in the market are the reason behind the stock markets success. You'd be incentivising day trading, which is much more volatile, unless of course you want to increase income tax to 75% as well, in which case you'll make it virtually impossible for anyone to make money in stocks and the stock market will crash as everyone tries to pull their money out before your laws come into play.

 

As I say, go look around Liverpool. See the grade 1 listed buildings. They were built when income tax was low. The docks were built when income tax was low. The prosperity of the city happened during a time you claim was the worst of times. 

 

The era you're talking about was the era that destroyed the city. No industry, no infrastructure, no progress. The society of baby boomers created the cheap money, debt fuelled society we see today, and also the entitlement of that generation has left the millennial's in the state they are in now, unable to afford houses and walking out of universities jobless owing £50,000 in non-defaultable debt. 

 

[Bjornebye]

6 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Ah, the Rory Stewart defence.

[Strontium]

14 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Ah, the Rory Stewart defence.

 

Forgive me, I had momentarily forgotten what untrue claim you were making.