1. Are you telling me that The United States Of America can not make it without having a huge army that occupies countries around the world? Is that really what our country is now and forever forward? That's depressing.

2. My daughter's boyfriend's mother works at Walmart. And like most families her dad has a job too. They do NOT need welfare assistance. She makes a decent wage at Walmart (checkout) and has some benefits from it too because she has been there a while.

3.I've already pointed out that raising income tax rates will have ZERO effect on the rich (they make their money off of capital gains). Raising capital gains taxes will decrease investment.
And by the way....federal revenue does NOT necessarily rise with rate increase. It rises with employment:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hejRI6Ij80...d+Tax+Cuts.jpg

Yes...when people want a product they buy it which means you need more people to create that product and sell it.
That's not any different in the "21st century ecosystem" than it has been since the beginning of fucking time. lol

And those jobs don't appear by magic. People are hired by the guy who was smart enough to come up with the idea of marketing a particular product, put his blood sweat and tears in it, takes the financial risk, etc.

It IS the business owners who are the "job creators" (what a dumb phrase that is). Without getting hired by "rich" people....nobody would HAVE a job.

Robbie,

Raising capital gains taxes will NOT decrease investment by even one penny.

If someone is in the 30% income tax bracket and has 20M in wealth... and you raise the capital gains tax from 15% to 29%... what will they do with their 20M in wealth instead? Put it in their mattress? Buy CDs that pay 1%?

Investment will continue because even at a much higher tax rate it is still the best option. People are not suddenly going to pull 10M out of Apple to start a new business instead because the capital gains rate was identical to their income tax rate... and if they did it would actually benefit our economy tremendously. All those new businesses would actually create jobs, all that money dormant in the market doesn't.

Your thinking is based on the flawed belief that the stock market is still used by businesses that need capital. That is how the stock market is supposed to work, but it hasn't worked that way in a VERY long time. The stock market is now an online casino, little more. Most of the 'investment' is made by traders seeking to cash in and cash out, not to hold long term investments that provide security and liquidity.

If you want to allow a lower rate for investments of more than 5 years I would be for it, but short term investments being taxed at 15% to spur investment is ridiculous... it's a tax subsidy for people who can afford to invest... nothing more presently. It gets unwitting people to take on risk they can not comprehend while people with seats on the exchange push or pull the market after hours and pay 1/2 their income tax rate as a bonus.

Mark Cuban is 100% right that there should be a 10 cent tax per share on every share traded. It wouldn't hurt any investors and it would make high frequency momentum trading impossible... which would help make stocks a capital market again rather than a ponzi scheme of bubbles and busts. :2 cents:

I suggest to you that it would.

If I saw that I was going to lose a few million dollars from capital gains being raised...I would immediately (as would EVERY person with investments) be advised to move it to another country or some other method of NOT losing that money.
It's a great way to further lose investment in the U.S. and have people bitching about "rich" people having their money in other countries.

Also...guess what's going to happen to our little stock portfolios? They are going to be worth less to us because we are going to have to pay out more in taxes on them.

And grandma's retirement plan? It's gonna be fucked as well.

None of y'all are thinking about the ramifications of this.

I can personally tell you that my accountant's (3rd one I've had and they are all the same) main job is to save you money on your taxes.
And if my accountant can find where to put my money to get the optimal growth and least tax expense...then I know damn well that really "rich" guys have even better accountants. And if investment in the stock market loses it's appeal when taxes are raised. They WILL move that money to something else.

It's common sense. And it's how things work.

If you'd like to see money pour back IN to the U.S. , then lower capital gains to ZERO. Watch what happens.

As a matter of fact, you do. And now and in return you pay taxes to fund your schools which is educating the future crop of employees and business owners - and (gasp!) future politicians.

The difference is at the end of the day you drive home in your Lambo to your big house while your shipping clerk drives home in a six year old car and invests his entire paycheck into new tires for his car while wondering how he's going to get his kid's teeth fixed. You spend your weekend with your buddies on road trips who think nothing of putting gas into a car that gets 10 mpg, while your janitor freaks out when it costs him $40 to fill his tank for the week and then worries about how he's going afford gas for the rest of the month.

The investments made on foreign markets would result in taxable income to you here in the states at your standard income tax rate. There would not be a tax benefit to investing in other markets overseas unless you were no longer an American citizen.

They will be worth exactly the same as they are now... the value of your investments would not be changed a penny. The amount of taxes you pay on the PROFIT of those investments is the only thing that would change. You do not pay taxes on the amount you invest, you pay taxes only on the profit.

Actually that is not true at all. If capital gains was the same as income tax rates, little old grandma with an investment income of 25K per year would be paying LESS than the 15% she gets hit with now most likely. However, someone who makes 20M in profit would pay the same rate as someone who makes 20M in profit from owning a factory or any other business.

Yes, some of us are... :winkwink:

Anything they would move it to has the same income tax rate they would pay with a corrected capital gains tax. There is no tax benefit to 'not investing', the only thing changing is the loophole that currently allows investors to pay less than people who earn the same amount of money by actually doing work or owning businesses.

Earning money from money does not need to be taxed less than earning money from work. :2 cents:

Damn...the class envy is thick.

Nothing is stopping anyone here from doing what Minte did.

You're either a worker bee or you are a business owner.
To be resentful of a business owner for being able to enjoy the fruits of his work doesn't make sense to me.

Most businesses fail. And the guys who took the risk end up screwed. If you think it's easy...then go do it yourself and then YOU can drive home in YOUR Lamborghini.

Or maybe you prefer the security and safety of a weekly paycheck. And then having the luxury of working "business hours" and then shutting down.

Me? I work all hours. I work holidays, I work on my birthday. I work a little on Christmas. When I'm out having a beer on the weekend I have my smart phone and I do some work and handle any emergencies/support problems.

That is what a business OWNER does. An employee doesn't have to worry about the overall picture. He gets off after work and is DONE until the next work day. His weekends are his. He doesn't have to put in matching funds (the govt. double dipping) for his employees social security. He doesn't have to write a big tax check to the govt. every quarter.

It goes on and on and on.

Just go start your OWN business and quickly find out how tough that can be.

lack of access to capital to start a business stops most people. aside from building websites there really isn't any business you can just go into without having a good chunk of money to get you started and ride you out until you get things profitable. how does a person go from a worker bee to queen bee when they can barely make it by on a paycheck?

What special access to capital does a guy like Minte have when he first started out versus any other guy off the street? Lack of capital is an excuse. Businesses everywhere were started with squat.

You borrow from friends and family. You borrow from your house. You save up for years. You jump right in and shoestring it.

A service business, for example, takes practically nothing to start. If you are starting a handyman service, you already have the tools. If you want a plumbing company, you already have the tools.

So you're saying there are no tax shelter offshore countries? So all that talk about Mitt Romney having money there is bullshit?

And you're trying to tell me that I can't set up shadow corporations in other countries with a "partner" who lives there and move my money there?

Dude...you have NO idea how many ways a good accountant can help you keep your money out of the Federal Govt.'s greedy wasteful hands.

As for grandma...No, she wouldn't pay "more" if she paid capital gains tax (which she does by the way).

Also I was looking at Romney and Obama's tax plans. Obama is going to raise all capital gains tax. Romney has proposed leaving it at current rates for the rich and dropping it to ZERO for people like you, me, and grandma.

I like Romney's plan on capital gains better than Obama's.

But I personally think it should be ZERO across the board to further bring businesses BACK to the U.S. instead of driving them away.

We aren't getting any tax money from big corporations anyway because of having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. (General Electric paid ZERO taxes)

But if we stopped forcing companies to figure out ways to scam the system...and instead made it profitable to keep money and jobs in the U.S. then we would expand out tax base and job growth.

When I lived in South Carolina in the upstate...the economy was in shambles in the 1990's. The textile industry was the main thing there and it was gone. Then BMW announced they wanted to build a plant in the South.
South Carolina (Greenville/Spartanburg where I lived) got the plant!
How did they do it?
By cutting a deal on taxes with BMW and making it desirable to do business in South Carolina.

The result?
Thousands of high paying jobs at the BMW plant and the local economy ROARED from the money pouring in.

That is how you create jobs and raise govt. revenues. By CUTTING taxes and bringing business in.

I'm not sure what your point is? You get out of life what you put into it... Minte could have been a janitor too, but instead chose a different path for his life... :2 cents:

Lots of people have.

My brother opened a lawn service in Port Charlotte Fla.
He worked his ass off around the community (even joined a local church) and through his force of will and desire got the contracts of most of the major businesses and trailer parks.

He took that money and saved up for a boat. He then took more of the money he made with his lawn service and began courses to become a certified boat captain. He acheived that.

He shut down his lawn service company. Went to work as a boat salesman at a marina. And began doing charter fishing at the same time. Built the business up while continuing to sell boats at the marina.

He started all this in 2001 from NOTHING (coming off a bad divorce with no money).

By 2005 he quit the marina and now is a successful charter boat fishing captain and making a fortune.

THAT is how you do it. But not everybody (worker bees) have that kind of drive, intelligence, and ambition.

He did.

I'm for Obama but if I was wealthy I would cringe if I heard him say that. I'd still vote for him but I would cringe nonetheless. it's all fucked anyway

how did he manage to get by between starting and getting all good lawn contracts? sure, like sly said a service business can cost next to nothing to start but it might not be what their business idea is and even still you need to make a living wage in the meantime to get by. if someone wanted to open a pizza place they'd need money for a lease, equipment, money to pay employees, business registration all before they make a dime. same goes for anyone who wants to manufacturer something. its much harder and therefore of course less will do it, and some who try and fail will be worse off for trying. only a small percentage actually succeed. as long as the have-nots feel they can't rise above to become a 'have', they will never agree with what you or minte is saying, no matter how much sense it makes.

He barely survived is how. He lived in a trailer in an orange grove for 3 months at $50 a week.

Here's a big one for you: Steve Wynn.

Worked his ass off at the casinos on Fremont Street. Back then employees received shares in the casino. Most of the employees didn't care about that. So Steve took his little paycheck and started buying up shares from the dealers, janitors, etc.
At the same time...while other young men who worked the casino's were out partying...Steve was befriending and hanging out with the old school casino owners and learning the business and getting a "rub" from them.
Eventually he got enough shares to mean something in The Golden Nugget, and with the help of his new friends (the old casino owners) he later ended up owning it.
The rest is history.

That's how you take your destiny into your own hands.

Here's a pic of young Steve Wynn at a poker table with Benny Binion. That was a very VALUABLE person to be in the company of. And it's testament to Wynn's intelligence, drive, and ambition that he was able to do what he did while others simply could not:
http://gaming.unlv.edu/WSOP/Photos/T...inionpoker.jpg

It's pretty simple really. If we raise the janitor's taxes by 2% he might not be able to put gas in his car next week. If we raise Minte's taxes by 2% he will still be able to afford gas for his Lambo.

That is an enforcement issue, not a policy issue. Tax rates are set as a matter of policy, when people try to find LEGAL ways around them they can be adjusted to close loopholes and fix oversights. When people look for an ILLEGAL way to avoid taxes that isn't a reason to change policy, that's an enforcement issue for the IRS to deal with and there are plenty of very stiff penalties, criminal law tools and other remedies available for the IRS to use in that pursuit.

I have a much better understanding of tax law than you seem to think I have... Confusing an enforcement issue with a policy issue doesn't help you. If as a matter of policy we taxed capital gains at the same rate as income, investment would not suffer a single penny. The IRS is fully capable of enforcing policy.

You started by saying we need low cap gains rates to spur investment, that is not true as a matter of policy. Now you are saying people will cheat... stopping tax cheats is not a policy issue, it is an enforcement issue. People can pay nothing right now and they have less than 1% chance of getting caught. Getting caught and serving serious jail time will continue to be an excellent enforcement tool.

That depends on the grandma. If grandma earns 20M from investment income she will end up paying 30% rather than 15%... but the grandma making 20M from investments and the grandma subsisting on 25K per year are not in the same boat financially.

Tax free investment is an attempt at getting the same clueless people who just got roasted by the low rate mortgage market to throw their money into the stock market where they can get busted out again by after hours trades and exchange insiders. They aren't doing society a favor by giving incentives for uneducated people to put more of their money in a rigged market. That's like saying "I will give you 15 extra dollars for every 100 you gamble at my casino... but I will also be using marked cards and loaded dice to rig the games." Did I do you any favors by giving you 15 'free dollars' that way?

At the same time 'leaving rates the same for people like Romney' means 'keeping rates 1/2 of what people who work for their income pay on identical amounts instead of counting income as income whether it comes from work or investment.' He is not doing society any favors.

GE is not paying 0 taxes because capital gains rates are 15%, they are paying zero because they WRITE the tax code. Companies like GE do not try to find creative ways to 'hide income' - they know what their income will be from and they lobby to have exclusions written into the code to avoid having them taxed.

Publicly funded elections, no lobbying dollars, overturn citizens united, break up media consolidation, term limits.... that is what will fix things. A few points changed on this one tax or another is like trying to patch a hole in a condom with bubble gum... it may look 'fixed' but do you really want to rely on that? :2 cents:

Meh, a tax cut for the rich, or a tax cut hike for the rich isn't going to solve any of our problems.

It's not going to solve the Euro crisis. It's not going to solve a slowdown in China. And it certainly isn't going to drastically affect the long term decision-making or execution power of "job creators." If you had to ask "job creators" why aren't their hiring, they will most likely cite the first 2 reasons in my paragraph, followed by the uncertainty of the US gov't and the tax situation but successful people don't choose to opt out of trying to be successful over a 5% marginal tax increase.

Moreover, a guy like Mitt Romney, I wonder how much his effective tax rate would go up under Obama's plan. The sad reality is, not everyone is Mitt.

While all this is going on, our government is printing money at astounding rates, in an attempt to carry out the government mandate of full employment. The smart money argues, including Relentless, we have real structural issues with employment, as in - the jobs have left, and are never coming back.

You can argue about the ideologies all you want. All of this paints to one simple thing: extroardinary amounts of financial pain into the future. You can argue about politics all day or you can plan accordingly so you aren't fucked by that situation, but also so that you are prepared to make $ from it. What we're facing, is way too big for any singular politician to fix. And what the world has show is that the politics around the world are too broken to come together to fix it. We live in a much different world than 50 years ago. Politicans are elected 4 years at a time, and therefore there policies will always trade the short term for the long term.

Wow, what a thread.


Could it be because over his many years in adult he developed friendships here?

You say he is berating people; from the outside looking in it appears more like he is being attacked and so he is defending himself.

Robin Hood.

:thumbsup
I take it you do not truly understand the phrase. :2 cents: He wasn't born into it, he earned it.

Jealous much?

oh man :helpme

Wynn took over running the family's bingo operation in Maryland and that success gave him the money from that to invest in his first casino in las vegas.
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve...hy-2011-7?op=1

Your argument seems valid in theory, but on the other hand if Minte's taxes are raised by 2%, he will be out of 200k (assuming he makes 10M)...

it's not like he hides that $$ in a hole in his backyard...

so now it's likely he will no longer be able to afford a full time cook, a maid and a gardener.

so 3 people will lose a job... government will get an extra $200k, but so what? they will piss that $$ away by dropping an extra bomb or 2 somewhere in the middle east anyway...

I agree with your points but I am more optimistic on the results.
Dire circumstances can bring out the best in people.

Absolutely true. People on this board, maybe in this thread, who bought big houses with mortgages they can't afford are now in the crapper.

This is true in so many countries, the waste was supported by borrowing to make everything look rosy. To even fund some of the big houses people bought. The wasted money wasn't really wasted, most of it went into the pockets of Americans to fund the whole merry go round. Cutting that waste will take it out of the system.

Not in the last 5 years. Here we agree, shift the money to building the infrastructure will create jobs to replace those lost.

Adn you still haven't created any wealth. :Oh crap

Companies like yours are the future, how would you fair if the US Government hadn't of given you the contract? Is your order book so full you could of easily got another contract from overseas?

Then why is your order book so full and you aren't able to gear up? Lack of banks lending you money, lack of finding highly skilled personal you need or what?


The future lies in more companies creating goods that sell overseas. America no longer can rely on the captive markets.

Quote:

Growing them at a blistering pace of 22.7 per cent, India added another 23,000 more millionaires in 2007 to its 2006 tally of 100,000 millionaires measured in dollars, according to an annual Merrill Lynch Cap Gemini report that weighs such financial information for its wealth and asset management purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._10_.282011.29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...hones_in_us e

The West has to wake up and realise they have competition and if they can't compete with them. The West and it's citizens have to live on less at a lower standard of living than they were used to.

Because as Minte put it so well. "It's a simple fact of economics Paul, you can't go on forever spending more than you make." Which is what got us in this mess. And it's not the Governments who only over spent.

Look at the labels of what you buy to see where it's created. Where will the extra money come from to employ more shop workers? And then factor in the robots in todays world.

you would think better if you joined us in the 21st century. Your thinking is mid 20th century.

Where are the goods you buy made?

Bullshit. If you employed people you would now it's a businessman's biggest expense. It's his job to cut the bill. Which is why it says made in China on the underside of your keyboard, on your phone, shirt, trousers, pants, cameras and so much more. Don't nit pick you know precisely what I mean.

So Mitt banks in the US along with all of his other buddies. They will move their money and jobs to wherever they get the best return, because few of them give a shit about anyone but themselves. They would move it to the Caymans for a 1% better return and the Caymans will always be cheaper the the US.

Robbie, simple questions. If you found a way to earn an extra $100 a week, would you not take it. If you were only to get $85 of that money instead of $87 you get today? You pay 13% in taxes.

Or, if you were to earn $100,000 and get only $85,000. Would you not work harder to get the extra money back into your pocket. Than if suddenly you were to get $89,000?

In fact do you work harder today when it's tougher, than you did when it was much easier in online porn?

No wonder you want me quarantined.

Not at all. So Minte is out of $200k. He'll still have a cook, a maid, and a gardener. He'll still be able to put gas in his Lambo, still afford to take vacation in Hawaii, ANd STILL afford to buy yet another exotic sports car. (And chances are he'll write off the cook, the maid, and the gardener as "business expenses", the new car as a company car, and the trip to vacation as a business trip so he won't really pay that extra 2% anyhow.)

We are either going to tax the middle class or the rich. Which one is able to take the hit? Because it seems to me like we keep raising the taxes on the middle class which can't afford it.

And I suppose you would have no problem with this if you were the one paying the taxes.

It must be Friday...we found some common ground. The contract we have with the government of Vietnam was not brought to us through any US agency. We have sales reps all over the world that are sending projects in for us to bid. When we are successful and win a contract the salesrep gets anywhere from 2-5% of the total sale as a commission.

Repping for manufacturing companies can be very lucrative. THe way it works is that the salesperson not only gets the commission on the first order, they get it on all orders that come in the future from that account. The caveat is, they have to at least bring in 4 new bids a year to be eligible for any money. It keeps them from hitting one homerun and then thinking they can sit out the rest of the game.

15 years ago,maybe a person could get away with taking those things as write-off. There is not a real accountant worth anything that would even try to take those kinds of deductions today.

The biggest write-offs we take is rapid depreciation through new capital investments. Specifically,we buy new equipment. Then rather than taking a 7 year schedule we might write it off in one year. The upside is that the economy benefits because we continue to buy equipment and in most cases hire new people to run them.

Pretty much summed it up well what is very wrong with this country & why I can't stand the attitude of people like Minte. I could care less if they make a ton of money, good for them, but it's the piss shit attitude that they owe nothing to anyone and anyone that can't do the same thing they did is worthless.

My uncle has done amazing things in his life and is a self made multi-millionaire. I honestly don't have a clue as to what his net worth is, but I can wager a guess and say it's well over 500 mil if not quite a bit more.

I used to tell my friends some of the things he has done and most would usually think I was making stuff up or lying so I just stopped telling them. I'm taking stuff like he used to race car with Donny & Bobby Alison before NASCAR was big. (I used to play with Davy Alison when I was a kid when they were in Daytona for the races.)

He went to China on behalf of some business envoy for Reagan when I was a kid, yea he's a Republican but not the self righteous asshole type that is so common today.

He once told his wife, (my aunt) he was bringing home someone for lunch to make something good. It ended up being Jack Custo. My uncle's hobby was treasure hunting for old Spanish wrecks off the FL coast and in the Bahama's. He was partners with guys like Mel Fisher for some of these and he's been all over the world chasing his hobby.

Hell the summer I graduated high school, I received a phone call from my aunt asking if I wanted to go to the Bahama's the next day and if so be at the airport the next morning.

The next morning I was on a small twin engine plane landing at some tiny air strip on the main island that looked like it was just out of a war zone. I spent the next several weeks working on his boat diving on wrecks they were working.

The guy has had a few successful businesses most are now turned over to his two sons, but he still runs a very large fish farm with help from his daughter. In fact he likely has the largest sturgeon farm in Florida and probably one of the biggest in the country.

While I don't agree with everything he's done in his life, one thing is certain he didn't become what he is today on his own. He understands this and he has always given back to his community.

Hell the Universality of Florida holds part of one of their marine biology courses at his fish farm. He has even set up a small fish farm at one of the local grade schools so kids can learn from it. Not to mention who knows how much he's donated locally to his community to various projects.

It's not about people being rich and being jealous.. It's the fact that most of the rich today, are arrogant fucks that think the world should bow at their feet. They have forgotten what made this country great in their quest of greed and self worship..

They have forgotten that this country was built by people whom did great things, but then gave back so others could pull their selves up to also do great things.

Normally wouldn't post stuff about my private life, but this is a video on my uncle talking about his fish farm. I can't say if it's just because he's my uncle that I find it motivational, but perhaps others might as well.

http://growingbolder.com/media/money...43pi360sbv966d

There is just something clearly different in his attitude about what it means to be wealthy and what his responsibility's are in exchange for having that wealth. Perhaps Minte you can watch and pick up a positive trait or two.

I will say this I've never heard him complain about how much he pays in taxes. He simply doesn't focus on stuff like that, it's always about what he's doing next.

Realistically, both are equally able to take the hit... :2 cents:

middle class will be forced to replace their iphone every 2 years, instead of 1
rich class will be forced to fire some people and/or replace their $200k car ever 2 years, instead of 1...

Agreed, especially the last part. At some point the consumer society will slow down and go into reverse. We can't keep printing money, borrowing and spending far more than we earn. Either as a person or a country. America's and many other places in the world, standard of living is far in excess of what their country earns. Proof is in the printing of money and the borrowing.

Some still think 1960s solutions work toady.

Because we all vote for Governments, who will vote for anyone who says. "We will stop the spending, stop the borrowing, keep taxes as they are and put millions out of work?

No like sheep they go into the booths and tick the box of the man who promises to improve everything, make everyone richer, cut taxes and cut spending.

After Bush and WMD, anyone who believes one of his clones or cronies is delusional .

By the way how is Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan going these days. Are they turning to stable models of democracy like the West?

whats wrong with this picture though?
http://www.aflcio.org/var/ezflow_sit...cket_chart.jpg

judging by that the rich are much better positioned to take the hit. not that it would do anything.

That is a good point really. Everyone has a fucking smart phone.

I did the math the other day and figured out what I pay for cell service on a yearly basis and I was surprised. I wonder how those who make $55k a year can afford it.

Service industry is the easiest form of business to start because your product is your labor. I started a lawn service when I was in high school and by the time I was 21, I had bought my 1st house and was doing over $150k in sales.

This was done by hard work and going out to work soon as I got out of school for the limited few hours before it got dark then later as I was out of school by doing long hard days while others were out partying.

I later sold that business are started a commercial floor cleaning business as well as dabbled in selling used cars from a small warehouse. I did pretty good early on, but the car biz took a bit too much out of me money wise and coupled with the loss of a large contract in the cleaning biz I ended up going under.

This was before I came to adult, which ended up being sort of an escape from running a real business. As in adult I could finally be a bit lazy and sort of do what I wanted.

Far as service business, if you have no start up capitol, IMO it's the best route to take because most people don't realize how little you need to run & operate that type of business.

The problem with the lawn biz these days is so many people got into it down in FL, and prices are way too low. Added to this with the bad economy the lawn guy is the last guy getting paid when people are having problems.

Personally I couldn't deal with the hassle of trying to get paid from individual home owners accounts, so I did about 99% commercial accounts most of that being apartment complexes and industrial complexes.

Well, I don't have a maid, a cook, or a gardener (although I do have what seems to be the only white landscaper in California). But I take all of the tax breaks too. It's fucking stupid.

Is that a trick question? Nothing is wrong with that picture?

Business world became significantly more complex, demand for individuals with skills and expertise to manage companies in this climate increased significantly, and so did their wages?

Looks to me like it's best time ever to get an MBA, work hard so you could profit from high demand in this field? Are you reaching some other conclusions from that chart?

Why would you take tax breaks?

perhaps not to you but the general population, i am sure 95% would view such income inequality as 'wrong'. we are constantly told that companies won't hire if taxes are raised, yet ceo payouts have increased so much, it really makes it a foolish notion. they do it because they can but that doesn't make it right nor does it make good business sense.

so you are basically saying before 1980's you didn't need skill or expertise and that there was nothing complex about business? you could say the same thing about the average employee. before 1980 the average employee didn't need college or even a high school education to get a good job, didn't need to know anything about computers, etc, etc. now the world is much more competitive and complex and these things and more are required yet they are not seeing their income increase.

Because I can.

Yes, it's a huge double standard on my part. I write off everything I can while complaining that the rich jump through loopholes. Give the middle class a tax break; I have no problem paying a little bit more than my fair share.

If it was up to me.... We would go to a flat tax system, period. Any time money in the US changes hands, a percentage would go to the government - automatically. No tax write offs at all. You have six kids? No problem you pay the same as everyone else.

Some of us come here because we are industry hobbyists.

This thread illustrates that the USA has seen it's best days. :2 cents:


Let me be 100% clear. As a large business owner, when taxes reach an unacceptable level we simply move assets and generate revenue elsewhere. Ultimately we will only be taxed to the point it makes financial sense.