So basically, Portland is closed for business. The moose outside should have told you.
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A couple of points:
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On principles alone this is yet another way the government attempts to control the “free market”. In this case, it’s attempting to control wages. The bottom line is that this is just an attempt at redistribution of wealth.
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The concept of evil boardrooms is kinda silly. Most executives don’t sit around smoking cigars trying to figure out how to line their pockets. Most CEOs don’t even make as much as an average NFL player.
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I can appreciate trying to isolate this tax as a single variable, but that’s incredibly difficult at best.
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The tax revenue generation is almost non-existant. The city’s business tax rate goes from 2.42% to 2.75%. So, basically nothing. However, all other things equal a business will now choose somewhere else to operate of that’s possible. Not good…
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Most CEOs don’t give themselves raises to begin with and it’s certainly not at a rate of 200%. High level exec pay usually tied to productivity and profitability.
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Most people don’t know or think about this, but their compensation is more like 125% of their base pay. This includes their vacation, health insurance, 401(k) contributions, etc…
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Employees are already expensive because of regulations. As I posted above, the cost of federal regs alone is north of $10k per employee. That doesn’t include, unless I missed it, taxes.
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Speaking of taxes, some of the highest in the world…
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You’re right, though. This is supposed to be a deterrent, but it’s just going to deter businesses from coming to Portland.
All that together and plenty more illustrates that the cost to do business in the US is quite high. Many will complain, not necessarily you, that wages aren’t fair or that high income earners make too much. That’s just a short sighted scapegoat. All these taxes and regulations have driven business out of the country. Yet another tax isn’t going to change anything.
If you want to see businesses come back to the US or for wages to increase across the board you have to create an environment conducive to business. That means reducing the cost of business by undoing BS regs and reducing taxes.
We need an environment where people want to risk their life savings in order to create even greater wealth. That’s how jobs are created. Taking from x to give to y won’t change anything.
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^For what it’s worth, I agree with most/all of what you wrote here, I was just kinda spitballing from the idle “why this sounds like a good idea” perspective (and I think you can see that my tongue was pretty firmly planted in my cheek describing the evil corporate boardroom, lol)…which might have been a waste of time since everyone in these forums is smart enough to understand that without my spelling it out.
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To anyone who believes this nonsense, I buy them the book “Hard Things about Hard Things”
All people see is that Schwarzman took home $680M
Yep… Anyone remember the largest class action lawsuit against Walmart? The plaintiffs tried to prove that Walmart, as a whole, discriminated based on gender when giving out raises. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, Walmart won by simply proving that their raises are tired - and limited - to yearly evaluations. This same model is adopted by nearly every large corporation.
Lol, ya, I know you were being facetious, but some cough Zeppelin cough believe that shit.
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Ha, I was waiting for you to come in and make that distinction. I almost edited my initial post.
Other journos have said average, while this particular link I posted says median. It seems journalists use those two words interchangeably, most of the time.
“According to the New York Times, companies located in the city will see a 10 percent tax increase if their CEO makes more than 100 times the average pay of their workers and 25 percent tax increase if the CEO makes 250 times the average worker salary.”
and
“Under the new rule, companies must pay an additional 10 percent in taxes if their chief executives receive compensation greater than 100 times the median pay of all their employees. Companies with pay ratios greater than 250 times the median will face a 25 percent surcharge.”
You’d probably be surprised to know I voted for Gary Johnson,
Mr. BibleThumper McProLife Von TheyTerkErJERBS III
But in either case, I dont care if you think Im wrong. I used to get annoyed in these debates and now I just feel sorry for people with your views. Those who have your mindset are going to get taken to the cleaners when the economy collapses, just like those people working for Enron who though their retirements were safe and those who foolishly viewed a home as an investment back in 2007. You seem to have this blind trust that the corporations (those in charge, specifically) and the government care about the economy, they only do in so far as it serves their interests. Unfortunately, their interests are not aligned with the health of the country, and especially not someone like you and me who’s net worth is less than a few million. We are primed for a new bubble, Ill be sure to stay away from whatever firm you work for.
Yes, they do.
Sometimes they probably don’t know the difference, sometimes they might know the difference but just use “average” because they think most readers understand that term more easily. I mean, I’m a statistician and occasionally I use the word “average” a little recklessly to get a point across.
Okay.
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No, and I don’t care.
Only one of those fallacies are correct. But it’s really pro rights, not pro life, in that I believe in rights being protected, which includes life…
I don’t think it, I know it.
This is the dumbest statement I’ve seen to date. If the economy collapses to the degree I get “taken to the cleaners” you’d better hope you have gold, clean water and ammunition. (Protip: I do. ;))
If they were appropriately diversified, they were safe. Harmed by the fraud? Sure, but not unsafe.
My house that I bought in 2007 is worth more today than what I paid for it… So is every comp in my neighborhood that isn’t abandoned…
You ever read a newspaper? No, you don’t.
lmao… This fucking talking point has been used by you pinko commies since the late 19th century. For the love of Christ can you come up with something new?
Moronic, as usual in this post…
You think either of their interest involve anything but total and complete economic growth? lol, just lol.
You’ve never ran a business have you?
How do you know what my net worth is?
Already in one dipshit. Read a fucking newspaper. Shit we’re in a couple…
Like I told you last time, you couldn’t afford me anyway.
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Well, you said that more eloquently than I was typing out.
The issue wasn’t that people (edited: defined as individuals, not those who re-packaged shitty rated mortgages) saw houses as an investment, the issue was that people saw houses as a get stupid fucking rich in less than one week investment. Read a book.
And you, sir, seem to make blanket-commie-drive-by-cliche statements. You also, in my few conversations with you, seem to want to silence anyone you disagree with…
Lol at this real life example as to why Donald fucking Trump won.
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Looks like lil’ Novick got his dream, a national interview.
If we’re talking about the average worker, that might just mean typical worker. And you can make an argument that the typical worker’s salary is the median, or even the mode. Mean, median, and mode are well-defined statistical terms. Average can mean different things in different situations.
The idea that a finite resource like land (and subsequently the living space on it if maintained) isnt’ an investment, in a world with ever increasing populations is dumb as hell.
You must of graduated prior to 2008, I was in the middle of college at the time. From September-December of 08, I listened to my professor indoctrinate us under the notion that homes are never investments, but a necessary expense.
Clearly your education is outdated 
If you want to be technical, politics aside, the mean, median, and mode are metrics that are useful in-so-far as your data is distributed in a certain way. For example, the exponential distribution, which is heavily weighted near the Y axis and trails off as x goes to infinity, cannot be quantified using the mean. The median would probably be a better description.
The gaussian distribution is special in that the mean, median, and mode, are all equal (0 if it is normalized), however, Gaussian distributions are good for first approximations. The Black Scholes Model (a stochastic differential equation used in econometrics) assumes derivate prices are normally distributed throughout the day. In fact, this is completely wrong, which is why the B-S model should not be use to estimate stock prices.
FWIW, two famous books, The Millionaire Next Door, and Rich Dad Poor Dad do not view homes as investments, nor does Dave Ramsy I believe.
Now, rental property is an investment, but anything you have to go into massive debt for (a house) is not an investment.
You’re right, thank you for bringing self help books to my attention.
What if I go into debt for an investment property?
And, how do you suppose the world operates? Ben Bernanke would disagree, he believes the reason for the great depression was because of a lack of available credit.
I was working in 08 lol… I got the shit kicked out of me as one of the partner’s lost his shirt chasing the market.
When we were looking, I knew we were in a bubble so we bough a cheap “fixer upper” and declined the more attractive variable rate garbage we were offered to no end. My wife (liberal politics) is VERY conservative when it comes to money, etc, refused to get our note through anyone but a major bank. (Santander). So it all worked out in the end.
But of course you should see your home as an investment, otherwise you fuck the whole neighborhood. Put money into it, improve it, maintain it, and ultimately everyone around you wins if you all do that.
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I mean, yeah…
That said we’re, as a globe, over leveraged on the whole, but after 2008 a lot of balance sheets look a hell of a lot better than they did in 2000-2006.
I don’t know that many people that aren’t surprised the equity bubble hasn’t popped yet, and some are actually thinking it might never. (lol @ that idea myself.) But… Post election we’re way the fuck up again. I contemplated pulling out into bonds and paper 100 times, but at this point, I’m resigned to continue to dollar cost average and ride out the coming “reset” as I’m young enough to get it all back plus some.
Either way, this is what you get under fractional banking and fiat money. The good news is, the pie can’t be fixed. Which means no one is poor because someone else is rich. Doesn’t work that way in this system as long as people still put value in the fiat money.
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