Oh the irony. Didn't you just start a thread where you were calling people idiots for wanting the 1950s back? Sounds like you are a MAGA supporter.
Wealth and Income Inequality
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Oh the irony. Didn't you just start a thread where you were calling people idiots for wanting the 1950s back? Sounds like you are a MAGA supporter.
1950s were good economically because of high taxes on the rich. Maga chuds such as yourself don't get that and want the 50s back and think we need to lower taxes to get there.
Basic chud. The 1950s weren't good because of high taxes, they were good economically because we had a highly trained workforce that came back from WW2 with a great work ethic and a sense of national pride.
I’ve grown so tired of all this wealth inequality BS. My father died when I was young, I started out with nothing. Paid my own way through school and first job was $16,000 a year after college.
I’ve worked for what I have l, took chances during my career. I’ve been fortunate to have been part of a couple of corporate sales/IPO and I’m in a position to leave my children in a much better place than I ever could have imagined. I have passed up on so many vacations, cars and other material things so I could continue to save. Elizabeth Warren or any of her communist followers should have zero influence over what is left to whomever I want to leave it to.
I’ve worked for what I have l, took chances during my career. I’ve been fortunate to have been part of a couple of corporate sales/IPO and I’m in a position to leave my children in a much better place than I ever could have imagined. I have passed up on so many vacations, cars and other material things so I could continue to save. Elizabeth Warren or any of her communist followers should have zero influence over what is left to whomever I want to leave it to.
You literally married a rich person and worked at an employee owned company.
Employee ownership and board representation is a massive liberal platform. Congrats on highlighting an example of a liberal policy helping a young struggling imbecile build a life that he's proud of.
Everyone "works for what they have" and "takes risks" you were lucky enough that your company is employee owned so you were given some money back for your profitability. For most of america that works hard and takes risks, the owner just takes the profit.
You're too stupid to try and argue. You're continuously getting dunked on about your own damn life. How do you not see that if it was Kroger and not Publix and if it you didn't marry a rich woman you'd be a broke ass after working just as hard. Everything you have was made by liberal ideas and generational wealth. Congrats.
I’ll respond to you this once because I’m going to enjoy making you look like a fool.
Is my wife rich, well she sure is successful. She was an SVP for the largest staffing company in the world. She was a VP for one of the largest media companies in the world. She also was downsized five years ago. She has not received a dime from her family since she graduated college. Does she have a trust fund, yes, someday we might actually see what’s in it.
As to me, yes I worked at Publix for nearly 20 years. I also left that job and took a chance in another venture that failed miserably. Worked my way back up the corporate latter and became part of leadership teams at several Fortune 500 companies. I’ve left major roles there to join startups where my pay was Zero but received equity.
People like you crack me up, it was a decision to stay at Publix because of what they were. If it was Kroger I would never have stayed. I was an accounting manager with a CPA making $50,000 a year at the age of 27 and quit to go back to Publix where I worked on the night stock crew working from 10PM to 10 AM five days a week making $9.00/hour. How many people would have done that? I did it because I wanted to get back into Publix, a company that I worked though college with. You’re a moron if you think that people don’t control their own destiny. Some people want to play it safe, some are willing to take risks. With risks come rewards, unless your are a socialist.
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I love stories like this. That's pretty awesome that you left a safe job to pursue something better even if it meant starting at the bottom.
You’re a loser with a failed business who feels it necessary to steal from his own grandmother to compensate for your failures in life
Did you really just write that?
It was scary but as I tell my son’s you have to enjoy what you do. I knew when it was Saturday and I was dreading Monday I had to make a change.
Just a side no to the douche who called me out, I married my wife at the age of 35. Before that I was a single dad raising two boys. I have little sympathy to those that don’t have the will or work ethic to try. After she was downsized she could have gone right back into another senior roll but she chose to stay at home and help my boys with school. To do that we sacrificed things like new cars and vacations. To this day I still drive an 18 year old car. I’m willing to bet 30% or more of your destitute class have a nicer car than I do.
Again, choices, don’t ever try to compare me to anyone you know. You obviously don’t know any self made people.
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Main take away, employee owned companies are great, publicly traded companies suck, sir g owned companies fail, and coming from a wealthy family opens doors including having the freedom to take jobs earning no money because you thought there was a chance to make it big. How are you so oblivious to your own advantages throughout life? Why don't you give some credit where credit is due?
Just because you failed and only survive from daddy don’t put that in everyone. Maybe you missed the part where I said I joined some startups. What wealthy family did I come from. My father died when I was young and my mom worked as a school lunch lady.
I can tell you have little real life experience outside of your family bailing you out.
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You want to know what is funny?
3 of the top 6 states with the largest income inequality? New York, California, and Massachusetts. All liberal democrat havens.
I won't bother you with most of the bottom of the scale ... because you probably already know the answer.
So why do liberal democrats LOVE to talk about wealth inequality when the states they have run almost exclusively for 50 years are the biggest offenders? It's because they don't really CARE about the inequality ... they just think it is a winning political narrative.
3 of the top 6 states with the largest income inequality? New York, California, and Massachusetts. All liberal democrat havens.
I won't bother you with most of the bottom of the scale ... because you probably already know the answer.
So why do liberal democrats LOVE to talk about wealth inequality when the states they have run almost exclusively for 50 years are the biggest offenders? It's because they don't really CARE about the inequality ... they just think it is a winning political narrative.
Soooooo, let me understand your rationale here:
- The wealthiest Americans want to live in Democrat states instead of a hayseed or hicksville red state.
- This, in turn, creates the biggest wealth inequality gaps in these states.
- Democrats see these gaps and talk about them.
This is an interesting discussion. While I appreciate Crazy's ideas and perspective on the issue , I would like somebody , anybody to look into the Constitution in Article 1 Section 8 where it gives the Federal government any authority to take my personal property and give it to another person to make sure life is fair. It doesn't. No where in the Constitution does it authorize the government to confiscate wealth and property to distribute it among the people. That's the core problem here.
The other issue is for 3 decades or more we have allowed mass migration of people who are essentially functionally illiterate with no high school education much less college or trade school to live in our nation. They are poor. If you factor out 10 to 20 million people living at the poverty line who are not even US citizens then perhaps this gap of income and wealth is not what it truly is?
Then you have the government itself which is nothing more than wealth vacuum cleaner. It does not create wealth nor does produce anything. It only consumes via taxation which is compulsory. Our government system is a big problem here. The way we tax and spend is not sustainable at all.
I spent 15 years of my life either working in government or for government as a consultant. I am a recovering environmental planner and scientist. We all talk about sustainable energy, sustainable food, sustainable development and on and on. All of these ideas have merit but when do we ever discuss sustainable government? When do we discuss that the Constitution places limits on government and not the people? To me our core concern is the unsustainable nature of government growth over the last 20 years and it scares the hell out of me of those wanting more government control of everything from energy, healthcare and wealth. The path is not sustainable.
Some of Warren's ideas seem hunky dory, I suppose, but again, where in the Constitution does it authorize government to tax the way she wants? Furthermore, the 14th Amendment is there for equal protection under the law. Her tax policies fail to give anybody equal protection under the law by targeting a specific group. I also truly want to know why anybody thinks it's the government's job to confiscate from citizen A so that citizen B can feel better about life? How is this Constitutional? I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's what the government's primary job is here to ensure a blanket of liberty for all of us to pursue what ever it is we were born to do.
Nobody needs to tell me how unfair life is. I have 3 kids. Two of them have neurological issues. One had meningitis at 24 days old and it destroyed half his brain. Another developed epilepsy at the age of 13. It's not anyone's responsibility here to care for my kids. None. My youngest is at UCF epilepsy and all. I saved for his education. I sacrificed for him.
I work my butt off. I own some real estate and have another business with two stores. I spend 50,60 sometimes 70 hours a week building my business and frankly I don't owe anybody anything. My labor,my time and my energy to build my wealth is mine. My government which I fund generously already is more concerned with the welfare of noncitizens than it is say for my permanently disabled 21 year old son. If I sound a little upset about all this, I have a right to be. I see wealth redistribution as wrong and it's clearly unconstitutional. If you are 40 years old making minimum wage that is not the responsibility of government. It's clearly not a federal issue to remedy your plight. Perhaps , just perhaps if you are 40 years old with a family of 4 making minimum wage, perhaps you should look in the mirror not look for ways to confiscate wealth you neither created or earned from others.
If you desire such things then pack your bags and go live in a communist country with an authoritarian government who will Guarantee to you minimum sustanance. Live in a country with the top 1% wealthy are elite party members and the rest are trapped subjects under authoritarian rule.
Lastly, if you want to free up capital then treat it with respect and not tax the crap out of it for investing, saving or even spending. Frank Dodd really tightened capital for businesses, especially small businesses. Everyone looks to government to fix their lives when they in fact should look at their lives and their own choices first.
The other issue is for 3 decades or more we have allowed mass migration of people who are essentially functionally illiterate with no high school education much less college or trade school to live in our nation. They are poor. If you factor out 10 to 20 million people living at the poverty line who are not even US citizens then perhaps this gap of income and wealth is not what it truly is?
Then you have the government itself which is nothing more than wealth vacuum cleaner. It does not create wealth nor does produce anything. It only consumes via taxation which is compulsory. Our government system is a big problem here. The way we tax and spend is not sustainable at all.
I spent 15 years of my life either working in government or for government as a consultant. I am a recovering environmental planner and scientist. We all talk about sustainable energy, sustainable food, sustainable development and on and on. All of these ideas have merit but when do we ever discuss sustainable government? When do we discuss that the Constitution places limits on government and not the people? To me our core concern is the unsustainable nature of government growth over the last 20 years and it scares the hell out of me of those wanting more government control of everything from energy, healthcare and wealth. The path is not sustainable.
Some of Warren's ideas seem hunky dory, I suppose, but again, where in the Constitution does it authorize government to tax the way she wants? Furthermore, the 14th Amendment is there for equal protection under the law. Her tax policies fail to give anybody equal protection under the law by targeting a specific group. I also truly want to know why anybody thinks it's the government's job to confiscate from citizen A so that citizen B can feel better about life? How is this Constitutional? I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's what the government's primary job is here to ensure a blanket of liberty for all of us to pursue what ever it is we were born to do.
Nobody needs to tell me how unfair life is. I have 3 kids. Two of them have neurological issues. One had meningitis at 24 days old and it destroyed half his brain. Another developed epilepsy at the age of 13. It's not anyone's responsibility here to care for my kids. None. My youngest is at UCF epilepsy and all. I saved for his education. I sacrificed for him.
I work my butt off. I own some real estate and have another business with two stores. I spend 50,60 sometimes 70 hours a week building my business and frankly I don't owe anybody anything. My labor,my time and my energy to build my wealth is mine. My government which I fund generously already is more concerned with the welfare of noncitizens than it is say for my permanently disabled 21 year old son. If I sound a little upset about all this, I have a right to be. I see wealth redistribution as wrong and it's clearly unconstitutional. If you are 40 years old making minimum wage that is not the responsibility of government. It's clearly not a federal issue to remedy your plight. Perhaps , just perhaps if you are 40 years old with a family of 4 making minimum wage, perhaps you should look in the mirror not look for ways to confiscate wealth you neither created or earned from others.
If you desire such things then pack your bags and go live in a communist country with an authoritarian government who will Guarantee to you minimum sustanance. Live in a country with the top 1% wealthy are elite party members and the rest are trapped subjects under authoritarian rule.
Lastly, if you want to free up capital then treat it with respect and not tax the crap out of it for investing, saving or even spending. Frank Dodd really tightened capital for businesses, especially small businesses. Everyone looks to government to fix their lives when they in fact should look at their lives and their own choices first.
There's an awful lot to unpack there and you make a lot of really good points, but let's focus on the constitution aspect of this.
1. The constitution was not created to be an economic guide, which is a good thing.
2. When the constitution was crafted, free market economics was a relatively new thing so it was impossible and impractical for the founders to place safeguards in it for what we are experiencing. Also a good thing.
3. While the constitution is a document intended to limit the power of government, it is also a document intended to protect people from oppression of all kinds. The precursor was the Declaration of Independence, and its sole purpose was to lay out the basic tenets of our rights to life, liberty, and property.
Rightfully so, we have judicial oversight when it comes to private matters of property division and civil suits for a variety of monetary reasons. While I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of government confiscation of wealth, I'm not so sure that wealth consolidation is outside of the realm of our governments role in protecting our liberties. Few people take issue with anti-trust laws or rulings that go against people who try to take advantage of copyright/patent laws. I'm not sure where this falls into that spectrum but we probably need to figure that out before it's too late.
You're probably not as successful as you think you are, no one wants your money unless you're sitting on 50M which I doubt.
Nauti, no one cares how hard you work, they just care about what you have that they don’t. If you’re successful, well clearly you are because of the easy time you had while those that failed at life had it harder.
Now obviously I’m joking to to many on this board they actually believe that crap. I’ve never in my life looked at others and felt they owed me. This is a sign of weakness and damn do I hate weakness.
You succeeded at not understanding my rationale at all. Congrats.
Don't over complicate things. States with strong Democrat rule for a very long time often have the largest wealth inequality. Their policies are in full effect in these states. They aren't "seeing" gaps....they are creating the gaps. Also, democrat districts have higher inequality than republican districts.
There may be a lot of reasons for this .... but one thing is for sure ... the Dems do a lot of talking on the subject ... but they haven't figured it out even in their own areas where they have total control.
Thanks, I'm trying to do my part.
Sooooooo...Democrat policies are such that the rich are becoming richer and the gaps are getting wider???!? Clearly I'm continuing to succeed at not understanding your rationale at all.
Weird thing is, if those stupid Dems are such "spread-the-wealth" socialists, shouldn't the wealthiest in our country live in poor, 'keep all your money and screw us over' red states rather than the liberal havens they reside in?
Not to nitpick, but you're conflating income inequality with wealth consolidation. Those are 2 separate issues. Any person who isn't an outright socialist shouldnt have a problem with income inequality, some jobs are just worth more than others and some people are better than others at what they do.
You are going too far when you make the argument that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are intended to protect from “oppression of all kinds.” They were solely intended to protect the people from the tyranny of government. This tyranny is expressly mentioned in the DoI. The founding documents refer to and protect and individual’s rights from the combined mass of the government. As the most powerless person in society is the individual and the most powerful is the government, so is our foundation designed to protect the individual and to require government to serve the individual.
To extend these protections from the government to include oppressive social conditions not explicitly imposed by governments, especially those of people’s own doing, is to give justification to “corrective” actions far beyond any of the freedoms that our founding documents addressed. In a way, you’re twisting them to justify an oppression of the mob in the pursuit of some abstract concept of fairness. To force the government to damage the individual using the power entrusted to government for no other reason than that individual has been more successful than another. This was never the intent of the founders nor should it be the intent of any current American citizen.
In my earlier posts you will find that I am not advocating the government do anything other than possibly find a way to encourage MV and downward movement of wealth. Confiscation is absolutely off the board.
That is true. However, from a societal perspective, the societies that fare the best are those with a strong and thriving Middle-Class. If policies are such that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the Middle-Class, it hurts everybody.
Agreed. But how does increasing taxes on the rich help the middle class? It only feeds government.
I am talking about things like our rusty 'anti-monopoly' laws. Once upon a time, we thought Ma Bell was too big for her britches. But nowadays, we turn a blind eye to companies like Amazon. The way Amazon has grown has cost the country jobs and hurt Middle-Class wages. Yet nothing is being done about it.
Amazon is nothing like Ma Bell. I have maybe bought 3 or 4 things off of Amazon, and there are no products that I can't buy anywhere else. Walmart was accused of being a monopoly in the 80s and 90s, and yet look at what Amazon has been able to do.
Amazon has been able to become The Online Superstore because their business practice has been to assume huge initial losses in selling everything imaginable in order to under sell their competitors and drive them out of business before "market-correcting" their pricing.
And yet Walmart, Costco, and Target are thriving. Amazon just has a great business model for their niche and people like it but they aren't monopolizing the market any more than Dollar General is monopolizing the "crappy cheap stuff" market.
I never said I was super successful. I am building a small nest egg. I have 6 pieces of real estate, all residential and 4 of them are vacation rentals. I am guessing market value in total around $1.5 million. Since they are income producing properties the day I sell them, the difference between what I paid for them and what I sell them they are subject to cap gains.
Now over that time I maintain them, put new wells in them, new roofs, remodel them and so forth. Over the years I help guests with everything from being stuck in the snow to fixing hot tubs and doing what ever. Point is, it's work. It's my time and it's my money not yours , none of it. So, why after 30 years of ownership should I have to pay the government 28% or 39% of the difference between what I bought and sold it for?
The government gets property taxes, electrical taxes, satellite TV taxes, phone taxes and lodging taxes plus private personal property taxes all along the way. Most of my vacation properties are on private roads which the government does not maintain. My homes do not send kids to government school either. Lastly, when the recession hit us hard, the government did nothing to reduce the tax burden even though market value of property fell significantly.
I am taking all the risks here not the government. So why do we write tax laws where the government gets all the benefit of the risks and none of the shared responsibility for said risk?
I have two retail stores and depending on the season up to 12-15 employees. My payroll tax obligation is significant for me. For you, paying the IRS $10,000 may be nothing, but for me it's a real dent in our expenses. I also pay sales taxes, property taxes, and on and on.
Your comment is the issue here. Sometimes we think oh, they will only come after the billionaire or what ever, no they come after everyone. I stick with my original thought that the Constitution does not give the Federal government authority to redistribute wealth. With that said, we have this notion in our culture that it's ok to stick to one class or group simply because of envy, jealousy or spite. Sticking it to the guy who has 50 million in the end never makes guy making $18,000 better off. He is still making $18,000 and will continue to do so.
The only thing you have done is confiscate somebody's property and washed in the pit of waste that is the government. The crazy thing is we have real world data for more than a century of the failures of promised wealth redistribution and creating communist states where only those who are close to power enjoy the fruits of the promises of being a place of the workers while the workers suffer from the authoritarian boot on their neck with that same government saying you will get your fair share. That's a fair share of misery.
In the end I still think the Constitution matters and for those wanting a socialist state at least have the courage to amend the Constitution to allow for your wealth redistribution schemes.
you are replying to one of the most disingenuous people on this board. not only that he is prone to lashing out and saying some pretty terrible things. i think most people generally disregard what he has to say.
The capital gains should be taxed the same as regular income when you sell the properties. The expenses you incur while you have the properties are deductible and the net income during each individual year should be no different than active earnings. Income should be treated as income regardless of the source.
We should just go to a flat 15% tax on all income and call it a day.
Crazy, you're spot on. Here is the thing, the founders understood tyranny because they lived it first hand. The government is force. It's power and the government can remove our rights and toss us in jail. Contrasts this to the market where we have choices. U may find Wal Mart labor practices repulsive and I can say, hey I don't like Walmart and there is not a damn thing Walmart can do to my liberty. I
I find GMs $49 billion bailout disgusting and I hate that company. I will never buy a GM product because they are huge hypocrites. They take tax money to save their sorry butt and then turn around and build factories in Mexico and China. Screw that. That's a huge wealth transfer through crony capitalism. GM can rot in hell.
If you want wealth to filter down then stop taxing wealth. Stop penalizing investment. I would love to hand my wealth down to my kids but when government swoops in says pay me 39% for your gains, well the 39% less I can give to my kids. Here is something for you to consider. Let's say I sell all my real estate in 10 years for $2 million dollars.
For discussion purposes the cap gains on it will be around $780,000! That's a crap load of money! I love boating and my disabled son loves boating. My dream boat is a Grady White Express 330. New that boat sells for around $450,000. When the government confiscates that $780,000 they essentially take enough money for me to buy almost 2 Express 330s. So. When I buy that boat, I support Grady White, The dealer, Yamaha outboards, Garmin, Taco outriggers, all the companies who sold Grady the parts. So, in my decision to either invest the gain or blow it, I decide what's best for me and my family, not the government. When the government confiscates wealth it erodes it plain and simple.
At my very core I trust everyone reading this thread that YOU KNOW what's best for YOU not me, and damn sure not the government. Keep wealth moving by stop penalizing it, stop taking it when people die and allow people to simply run their lives.
We have a tax code that wasn't designed for the shift in scale that companies are now able to achieve. Thats caused us to see the increasing speed at which wealth is consolidating at the top. Meanwhile as were allowing the ultra rich to keep more and more wealth our deficit is the highest its ever been spreading that burden to the entire population when we should just be collecting taxes.
Republicans always talk about "free stuff" but allowing people to pay no taxes when the country doesn't have a balanced budget is just "free stuff" for the rich. Its a free loan to be paid off by US citizens at a later date.
