|
Post by big_electron on Dec 22, 2011 12:57:00 GMT -5
I knew that Romney was an outsourcer, serial flip-flopper, but these are flat-out lies. Unemployed and adding to his multi-million dollar mansion?
|
|
|
Post by discoberry on Dec 22, 2011 13:26:16 GMT -5
What part of this is lies exactly?
|
|
|
Post by big_electron on Dec 23, 2011 12:27:38 GMT -5
What part of this is lies exactly? "Unemployed" and at the same time expanding a mansion? Where's the income to pay for it? I guess he could have been using money leftover from past "jobs".
|
|
|
Post by N. De Plume on Dec 23, 2011 12:46:15 GMT -5
Capital Gains, I suppose. With the right situation, you can make quite a bit of money without doing any work. So perhaps the “Unemployed” bit isn’t exactly a lie. But it is quite disingenuous for the idle rich to claim this status as a badge of identification for people who are unemployed, but quite badly in need of work.
|
|
|
Post by Vene on Dec 23, 2011 13:15:35 GMT -5
When you're that wealthy employment and unemployment aren't really things.
|
|
|
Post by Dragon Zachski on Dec 23, 2011 13:55:04 GMT -5
When you're that wealthy employment and unemployment aren't really things. Yeah, it's more like attending or not attending a hobby.
|
|
|
Post by N. De Plume on Dec 23, 2011 16:24:47 GMT -5
Politics is all about being pedantic. As long as he doesn’t have someone giving him an actual paycheck, he can claim “unemployed.” Doesn’t matter what are “really things” at that level. It’s about technicalities, not reality.
|
|
|
Post by big_electron on Dec 23, 2011 21:23:23 GMT -5
Right now, Iowa is a three way tie between Romney, Gingrich, and none of the above.
The GOP race has been Romney, plus one sideshow who steals the spotlight and later loses it. Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain...
|
|
|
Post by Napoleon the Clown on Dec 24, 2011 1:58:06 GMT -5
Capital Gains, I suppose. With the right situation, you can make quite a bit of money without doing any work. So perhaps the “Unemployed” bit isn’t exactly a lie. But it is quite disingenuous for the idle rich to claim this status as a badge of identification for people who are unemployed, but quite badly in need of work. Capital Gains would be an awesome counter-example to "rich people worked hard for their money!" thing if it weren't for the sheer skill people can possess in mental gymnastics. The best part of Capital Gains is that you don't have to do SHIT to make money. Just pick the right place to put money and then you can sit around in your underwear eating Cheetos and watching shitty hentai and by the end of the year you may be worth millions. Even better, Capital Gains tax is only 15%. Period. If you made ten bucks in Capital Gains you'll pay a dollar fifty in Capital Gains tax. If you made, say, $15 million in capital gains (your name just might be Mike Duke) you'll only pay $2.25 million in Capital Gains on that. Doesn't matter how much you made. It's a flat rate. Which is kind of fucked up. And why Warren Buffet payed 19% or less in income tax one year. The vast majority of his income is Capital Gains.
|
|
|
Post by N. De Plume on Dec 24, 2011 8:26:42 GMT -5
Yeah, that’s the reason I figure capital gains tax should be progressive, like regular income tax and higher than the base income tax to begin with.
But there’s not any chance of that actually happening.
|
|
|
Post by Armand Tanzarian on Dec 24, 2011 8:43:26 GMT -5
Capital Gains, I suppose. With the right situation, you can make quite a bit of money without doing any work. So perhaps the “Unemployed” bit isn’t exactly a lie. But it is quite disingenuous for the idle rich to claim this status as a badge of identification for people who are unemployed, but quite badly in need of work. Capital Gains would be an awesome counter-example to "rich people worked hard for their money!" thing if it weren't for the sheer skill people can possess in mental gymnastics. The best part of Capital Gains is that you don't have to do SHIT to make money. Just pick the right place to put money and then you can sit around in your underwear eating Cheetos and watching shitty hentai and by the end of the year you may be worth millions. Even better, Capital Gains tax is only 15%. Period. If you made ten bucks in Capital Gains you'll pay a dollar fifty in Capital Gains tax. If you made, say, $15 million in capital gains (your name just might be Mike Duke) you'll only pay $2.25 million in Capital Gains on that. Doesn't matter how much you made. It's a flat rate. Which is kind of fucked up. And why Warren Buffet payed 19% or less in income tax one year. The vast majority of his income is Capital Gains. I'd just like to add that it takes a fuckload of money to make a substantial income from capital gains tax, let alone live off it. Due to the volatility of the market if you actually depend on capital gains to survive you need the investments to be safe, thus you compromise higher returns as a result. Usually this means investing in "safe" stocks and bonds that will never see above 5% return; factor in brokerage costs and other fees and you're talking about 2% annual profit probably (assuming all US assets). So if you're expecting $100,000 profit per annum which you can live on, you need $5 million lying around. And it must be money you don't reasonably expect to need to use in that year; it must be lying around, excess of all your regular spending needs. Even making $1000 on cap gains on a Warren Buffett-level of profit requires about $10000; keep in mind only Buffett has the knowhow and resources to sustain over 11% profit year-on-year. A more reasonable amount for people whose job isn't to play the market, like you or me or Romney post-Bain, is 2-5% sustained profit. So if you're earning cap gains by any way, your profits unless extraordinary will have little impact on your regular way of life, either because they're so miniscule it doesn't matter in the short run, or you already have such a nest egg a few hundred grand doesn't add much to your wealth.
|
|
|
Post by N. De Plume on Dec 24, 2011 13:00:30 GMT -5
And that’s why all the rich folks who go on about how easy it is to get rich with the proper investments are total assholes. You need the money to invest, first.
|
|
|
Post by Napoleon the Clown on Dec 25, 2011 3:57:50 GMT -5
Capital Gains would be an awesome counter-example to "rich people worked hard for their money!" thing if it weren't for the sheer skill people can possess in mental gymnastics. The best part of Capital Gains is that you don't have to do SHIT to make money. Just pick the right place to put money and then you can sit around in your underwear eating Cheetos and watching shitty hentai and by the end of the year you may be worth millions. Even better, Capital Gains tax is only 15%. Period. If you made ten bucks in Capital Gains you'll pay a dollar fifty in Capital Gains tax. If you made, say, $15 million in capital gains (your name just might be Mike Duke) you'll only pay $2.25 million in Capital Gains on that. Doesn't matter how much you made. It's a flat rate. Which is kind of fucked up. And why Warren Buffet payed 19% or less in income tax one year. The vast majority of his income is Capital Gains. I'd just like to add that it takes a fuckload of money to make a substantial income from capital gains tax, let alone live off it. Due to the volatility of the market if you actually depend on capital gains to survive you need the investments to be safe, thus you compromise higher returns as a result. Usually this means investing in "safe" stocks and bonds that will never see above 5% return; factor in brokerage costs and other fees and you're talking about 2% annual profit probably (assuming all US assets). So if you're expecting $100,000 profit per annum which you can live on, you need $5 million lying around. And it must be money you don't reasonably expect to need to use in that year; it must be lying around, excess of all your regular spending needs. Even making $1000 on cap gains on a Warren Buffett-level of profit requires about $10000; keep in mind only Buffett has the knowhow and resources to sustain over 11% profit year-on-year. A more reasonable amount for people whose job isn't to play the market, like you or me or Romney post-Bain, is 2-5% sustained profit. So if you're earning cap gains by any way, your profits unless extraordinary will have little impact on your regular way of life, either because they're so miniscule it doesn't matter in the short run, or you already have such a nest egg a few hundred grand doesn't add much to your wealth. Well, Warren Buffet's annual salary is only $100,000. Which is trivial for most CEOs. Every single penny he makes per year beyond that is Capital Gains. So... yeah. The dot com boom happened under a 20% Capital Gains tax. It would not strangle the economy for that to come back...
|
|
|
Post by Armand Tanzarian on Dec 25, 2011 8:56:01 GMT -5
I'd just like to add that it takes a fuckload of money to make a substantial income from capital gains tax, let alone live off it. Due to the volatility of the market if you actually depend on capital gains to survive you need the investments to be safe, thus you compromise higher returns as a result. Usually this means investing in "safe" stocks and bonds that will never see above 5% return; factor in brokerage costs and other fees and you're talking about 2% annual profit probably (assuming all US assets). So if you're expecting $100,000 profit per annum which you can live on, you need $5 million lying around. And it must be money you don't reasonably expect to need to use in that year; it must be lying around, excess of all your regular spending needs. Even making $1000 on cap gains on a Warren Buffett-level of profit requires about $10000; keep in mind only Buffett has the knowhow and resources to sustain over 11% profit year-on-year. A more reasonable amount for people whose job isn't to play the market, like you or me or Romney post-Bain, is 2-5% sustained profit. So if you're earning cap gains by any way, your profits unless extraordinary will have little impact on your regular way of life, either because they're so miniscule it doesn't matter in the short run, or you already have such a nest egg a few hundred grand doesn't add much to your wealth. Well, Warren Buffet's annual salary is only $100,000. Which is trivial for most CEOs. Every single penny he makes per year beyond that is Capital Gains. So... yeah. The dot com boom happened under a 20% Capital Gains tax. It would not strangle the economy for that to come back... Yeah, me mentioning Buffett is pretty much because he is the only person (or rather his company is the only company) who has been able to get double-digit growth year-on-year. No other company does that. And the reason he can do it now is because he's been investing in stocks since, literally, he hit puberty (that's one of his stories, his annual reports read like the stories your nice grandpa read you about his childhood days). I see Romney as the opposite of what Buffett stands for, and my investing style is closer to Buffett's than Romney's. With his style of investing, Romney's more at risk of losing money from cyclical booms and busts; or even from brokerage fees, than any capital gains tax increase anyone can propose. While I think Buffett is a very good investor and great businessman, no one, even rich people, should look to Buffett think what happened to him can happen to us. Because he spends his life, all 80+ years of it, playing stocks and running the markets. He plays a very, very long game of nurturing certain companies and growing others (he holds stocks he bought in 1962, for instance). Romney's old jobs on the other hand, smack of precisely the kind of quick-buck, destructive capitalism that has become indicative of wall street behavior. He walks into a company and makes it as 'efficient' as possible (read: firing a lot of people) until it becomes profitable. Because that's the quickest, easiest way to save costs when your cost/income ratio goes to the roof; lay off workers and make the rest work like hell (incidentally, that's why I left my current job, so this paragraph may not be objective). Most companies go through this reactive wave of hiring and firing according to the economic times. Along the same principle is the spate of reactive buying and selling of assets which cause a great deal of the cyclical economic problems we face. Romney is a great example of the active asset management system; reactive to take advantage of short-term gains but ultimately destructive in the long run. Buffett is the champion of passive asset management; while he still loses every once in a while, he's still won more battles than any other investor in history. Edit: wow what a rant. I still I better stay off business-related threads for a while.
|
|