What does “fairly” mean? That’s not a gotcha question, I honestly want to know what that means in your opinion.
We already have the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the world.
How about the 20% Capital Gain rate (The rate you’re going to pay when your investments come to fruition)? It’s already been raised relatively recently. You think it should go up again? Do you understand the implications on cost of capital here? Do you understand the implications on project selection, capital investment, and corporate hiring practices?
Higher payroll taxes… No thank you, they are high enough.
No it was not. There were a number of factors. Wall-street deserves some of the blame. So do several other parties. This is just a Bernie talking point that is easily discredited.
I think these types of assertions should be backed up with proof.
What laws were broken and by whom?
You know that almost every dime of TARP has been paid back with interest, right?
Did you also know that the banks were practically forced to take TARP by the Fed even if they didn’t want it.
…Bernie doesn’t want to reform higher education, which I agree is a total crock of shit, though, he just wants those of us that work to pay for it.
Are you aware of the role government backed student loans has played in the rising cost of inflation? FAFSA isn’t the government lending students money for the heck of it.
There was a small bank that played a very interesting role in the crisis, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name. I’ll post if I can find it.
Im not going to be able to keep up with a flood of replies from the bee hive that will grow. If you want to debate PM me. Right now Ill leave you this which is a paper published by Pew Research. It is 74 pages (not short read) summarizing the middle class shrinking.
I cant give you a specific number for fairly, but I can tell you I think capital gains tax should match your income and not an arbitrary 20%. Mitt Romney, for example, pays low taxes because most of his income come from stocks. I pay about 30 percent, but with health insurance and social security about 40% of my income is taxed. 50 years ago the tax for the ultra wealthy was much higher. And of course we have issues like the panama papers. The rich simply have the means to utilize loopholes. I also believe the tax code grew by a factor of 10. It should be burnt, rewritten, made concise, with no arbitrary deductions.
The 2008 meltdown was caused by mortgage fraud. The lenders were responsible, but stupid borrowers also share responsibility. Further, the god damn Obama bailout made things 10x worse. They basically got money for speculating. If I go to a casino and put it on all 7, do I get a bailout if I lose everything?
See, the panama papers for an example. Wells-Fargo funneling money for drug lords in Mexico. Credit card companies with interest rates in the double digits. How is that even legal? They might as well be the mafia. Student loans being held in the same category as child support payments so you cant discharge them if you become disabled or die (there have been cases of lenders going after family members after death). The list goes on. I don’t want to get my blood pressure up further.
Fraud, I don’t have names of specific people. The lack of regulation is an issue in and of itself.
Our government does not spend its money wisely… I work for a government contractor and we charge about $150 for a service guy to get a desk phone out of the supply closet and connect the cord on some ones desk. The entire process takes 20 minutes. The person doing the phone rigging gets like $15 an hour.
I think the lenders you are talking about is Goldman-Sachs
This is just a talking point. What loopholes? I ask this all the time, no one ever answer with actual code.
Do you have proof of this?
Yes they do as do other parties.
I don’t mean to disagree on every one of your posts, but this is debatable and I am not in favor of bailouts or corporate welfare.
Not sure how this is relevant?
You don’t have to use a credit card. There is no coercion involved and the terms are disclosed when you sign up.
Lol, okay.
Government set this policy so what I can’t figure out is why you think a pro-government guy is going to fix it?
Don’t take it personal, but that is the typical response. It’s even the response Bernie himself has used. Name laws that were broken and the people that broke them and I will gladly support throwing them in prison for the rest of their lives.
No argument there.
Completely agree that government contracting is another reform worthy issue.
It’s New Century Financial Corporation. The entire financial crisis can be traced back to the collapse of this lender and no ones heard of them. Very interesting to read about.
Here’s a quick piece (I just googled it not sure how good it is) on it.
that post wasn’t for you. It is just the length of the tax code. You cant tell me it could be trimmed down and reformed.
Id argue that it is very relevant. Most of the election is centered around the shrinking middle class. There are many reasons for this, it is worthy of a thesis all by itself. The paper provides numbers and trends describing this phenomena.
Based on the fact that someone with a sufficient amount of money can get filthy rich of capital gains taxes. I received a $10,000 check from some stocks I inherited years ago. I only paid $900 in taxes. Now, if you are a millionaire, you can make much more. I don’t see what is unreasonable about making capital gains taxed at your income rate, as you would if you owned rental property (the rent would be added to your income I believe)
I think Bernie makes $180 grand a year. That would put him in the top 5% I believe according to 2013 income data I found awhile ago but left at my house. 60 grand a year is the 81st percentile.
No, I know what I bring home before and after taxes. It isn’t fun. Federal+State+SS+Health+Roth401k = 40%
The article you showed me summarized the combination of fraud (faulting mortgage ratings), speculation, risky investments, and dubious lending practices.
The Obama bailout was bad. I don’t get a bailout when I gamble my money away or mismanage my finances.
The point I was illustration was that financial institutions such as wells-fargo are above the law. If you or I set up a weapons smuggling and money laundering business we would be jailed for life and our operation shot down.
I don’t have a credit card and have 0 credit card debt. I still don’t agree with the high interest rates. It is one big fucking loan shark business.
I don’t think Bernie is pro government in the sense you are thinking. I also don’t see why someone cant be pro government but favor improving it. Liking government and fucking it up aren’t necessarily hand-in-hand, though there is a correlation.
I am not a lawyer or a tax expert so I cant name them specifically. Hell, I think reading legal documents is more difficult than vector calculus. However, I do feel the lack of accountability, and the lack of clearly stated laws are serious issues. Many hundreds of people should be in jail for giving people bad mortgages.
I could tell you a story about a woman I know who was approved to buy a house when she clearly did not have the money to finance it. I was right there when the real-estate agent and the lender were on the phone. I was appalled that nobody told her flat out “We will not finance you because your income is not stable”. Maybe I should have spoke up but it was none of my business. She was stupid on her part for thinking she could afford a home.
I have typed lol many times but in reality I was only chuckling. Your comment above brought out very loud laughter…you hit that one on the head my friend.
I guess you didn’t read the paper I posted which cites 43 publications describing wealth decline in the middle class. I also think it is silly for you to expect something like a thesis for an argument here on T-Nation. This is a lifting website. I wouldn’t chew you out for not knowing the derivation of the time value money equation (you work in finance if I remember correctly) if we got into a discussion about loans, as my expectations for a forum are more conversational. At the end of the day we are debating opinions, not facts. Facts can only be debated at the very leading edge of science.
If you are curious it can be solved through a series expansion
It probably could be and it is actually reformed quite a bit. I don’t see the benefit in setting fire to it and starting over.
It’s sort of like the whole IFRS GAAP conversion that’s been going on for at least a decade now. I don’t think people understand how complex some of the situations are.
I didn’t say it’s not relevant in general. I said I don’t see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand as it relates to taxes. If anything it’s relevant in that higher payroll taxes will hurt lower income and middle class workers more so than higher wage earners thus shrinking the middle class even further. You could also argue higher corporate and capital gains taxes will reduce employment, which also shrinks the middle class. So, again, I’m not seeing how it’s relevant to this discussion or your arguments in this discussion?
They can also lose everything.
That was likely related to your tax basis of the stock.
It’s unreasonable for a couple of reasons. 1) There is risk involved in capital investment and that risk, in part, drives investment choice. The tax rate figures into the investment risk assessment and your required rate of return. There is no risk involved in working for someone else for a guaranteed wage. 2) You’ve already paid income tax on the money you’ve invested, you take all of the risk, and the government now gets even more. 3) This:
Rental property has their own rules with their own tax benefits.
That sounds about right.
If you are including all of those things (not sure why you’d include healthcare… and I assume you’re only including the tax on the Roth?) I can see it being closer to 40%.
Bernie’s plan will make all those costs go up.
This article doesn’t list or even allude to one single code section… The author clearly doesn’t understand there’s a difference between accounting for taxes under GAAP and under IRS code.
You’re thinking too small. There’s enough evidence to suggest the recession could of been worse had the bailouts not occurred. I’m not saying I agree just that it’s not so black and white.
Because those two things are against the law. So again, point out where the law was broken and I will gladly call for an investigation and trial.
That’s fine, but it’s just your opinion.
He thinks every solution needs to come from the government, what would you call that if not pro-government?
He can be anything he wants. Government needs improving. My opinion is that we need less of it, though.
I’m sorry Aero, you’re a nice guy, but wanting to put hundreds of people in jail because you “feel” a certain way is not how our country operates and is dangerous honestly. We have Due Process for this very reason.
That’s a shame, but not illegal. She made a choice to enter into that loan. There was no coercion.
Ah, not necessarily. Taxes are taken out after all of your costs have been accounting for (out of EBT). It’s likely a company would try and pass some of a tax hike on, though. What it would do is reduce future investment and liquidity.
Now if the tax raise was coupled with a code restructuring, say for example tax was taken out of gross revenue or directly after cost of goods sold is take out, and If one of the government’s goals is to maintain current levels of purchasing power then yes you would more than likely need to institute some form of price control, which is definitely a step in that general, direction.
No, but thank you.