The Next President is...

[brickhistory]

God bless Texas!  (And Nebraska, Indiana, Wisconsin, Louisiania, and Kansas)

https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/ag-paxton-wins-multistate-obamacare-tax-lawsuit-recoups-over-839-million-in

Texas stands to be repaid $304,730,608.

The court’s decision also means that five other states stand to be repaid Obamacare fees by the IRS: Indiana ($94,801,483), Kansas ($142,121,776), Louisiana ($172,493,095), Wisconsin ($88,938,850) and Nebraska ($36,238,918).

 

Nearly a billion dollars in unconstitutional taxes taken from these states to be returned.  A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking some serious socialist money...

[Lord Ratner]

But because the toxic label of "socialism" is applied by anything the Republican party disagrees with, we can't have an honest debate on the merits of such social policies as the estate tax, universal basic income or tuition free college for everyone, and whether or not those make sense economically for the country.
 

F#$k what Republicans say. There are Democrats who happily use "socialist" to describe themselves. They are the enemy of the Free world.

Also, Dude, stay away from cable news and the MSM. The world of podcasts has the discussions you seek.

[Seriously]

1 minute ago, Lord Ratner said:

 

F#$k what Republicans say. There are Democrats who happily use "socialist" to describe themselves. They are the enemy of the Free world.

Also, Dude, stay away from cable news and the MSM. The world of podcasts has the discussions you seek.

lol... I see this discussion is going nowhere. I'll show myself the door.

[Lord Ratner]

lol... I see this discussion is going nowhere. I'll show myself the door.

It went exactly where you took it. You talked about the terminology of socialism, and used the example of conservatives calling everything socialist. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about liberals who call themselves socialist. You either don't know what the term means, or your willfully misrepresenting yourself, or you're in favor of the most dangerous political philosophy in the history of mankind.

Then I pointed out that the conversations you seem to be interested in having are actually happening on the internet.

What exactly is your question, since your estate question seems targeted for Brickhistory?

[brickhistory]

3 minutes ago, Seriously said:

 I'll show myself the door.

A great leader once claimed, "You didn't build that."

[Seriously]

3 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

It went exactly where you took it. You talked about the terminology of socialism, and used the example of conservatives calling everything socialist. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about liberals who call themselves socialist. You either don't know what the term means, or your willfully misrepresenting yourself, or you're in favor of the most dangerous political philosophy in the history of mankind.

Then I pointed out that the conversations you seem to be interested in having are actually happening on the internet.

What exactly is your question, since your estate question seems targeted for Brickhistory?

Did someone piss in your Cheerios or have you always been this abrasive?

I want to know if you think it's a good idea to repeal the estate tax. 

[Lord Ratner]

... where your success in life is determined by your own personal effort and not by who your parents are. 
 

Also, isn't this tired at this point?

Bill Gates
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
Steve Wozniak
Fred Smith
Jeff Bezos
Larry Page
Sergey Brin
Sheldon Adelson
George Soros
Steve balmer
Almost every airline pilot
Countless doctors and attorneys
The entire silicon valley

Exactly where is this nation of aristocrats you speak of?

[Lawman]

Did someone piss in your Cheerios or have you always been this abrasive?
I want to know if you think it's a good idea to repeal the estate tax. 

It didn’t “repeal” the estate tax. It moved the number which hasn’t changed in decades to reflect the inflated dollar amount of a given value of fortune. It’s also not permanent and expires in 2025 moving back to the old Obama and previous era rate.

You can stop acting like this law only effects the Rockefeller’s/Gates/Bezos types of the country whose children will simply live in perpetuity of a fortune like the aristocracy of Versailles. A few million dollars (where the exemption ends) is not a fortune to a lot of independent entrepreneurs. They shouldn’t have their family punished for being successful after taking the risk to make the gains in the first place. But hey “they didn’t build that or anything” or pay taxes on it the whole damn time they made that fortune.

F me is there anything some people hate more than success and fortune borne independently of the government.


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[Lord Ratner]

Did someone piss in your Cheerios or have you always been this abrasive?
I want to know if you think it's a good idea to repeal the estate tax. 

"I'll show myself the door" is sulking. And yes, I have.

Yes, it's a good idea. Wealth is not hoarded, it is not finite, it is created, it grows. Rich families are not depriving the poor of money, any more than you are depriving your neighbors of food if you raise a garden in your backyard and don't share.

The estate tax implies that you don't get to determine where your wealth goes. Obviously this is not a novel concept for progressives. Nor is it surprising that fiscal conservatives would oppose it. The only difference here is the application of death as some way to make the penalty for success more palatable.

I am against all progressive taxation, so the estate tax is no different.

[Seriously]

1 minute ago, Lord Ratner said:

"I'll show myself the door" is sulking. And yes, I have.

Yes, it's a good idea. Wealth is not hoarded, it is not finite, it is created, it grows. Rich families are not depriving the poor of money, any more than you are depriving your neighbors of food if you raise a garden in your backyard and don't share.

The estate tax implies that you don't get to determine where your wealth goes. Obviously this is not a novel concept for progressives. Nor is it surprising that fiscal conservatives would oppose it. The only difference here is the application of death as some way to make the penalty for success more palatable.

I am against all progressive taxation, so the estate tax is no different.

It was a rhetorical question, I know you have always been this way. /kidding

Wealth is absolutely hoarded, and wealthy families passively deny everyone else wealth when they hoard it because it ultimately hurts the economy. 

Simply put, what makes an economy go is money exchanging hands. When wealth sits in a portfolio, it is not generating any more wealth for the country.

The economy is like blood in the body. There might be a constant amount in a system, but there's a big difference in one's health between it constantly flowing, versus it pooling in one place.

Example: Ten people, 20 dollars. Two dollars a piece. I might pay you $1 for cooking me lunch, and then you might pay $1 to John for babysitting. John needs his car fixed, which I do for $1. In the end, we have the same amount as we started, but our lives are all better through the transfer of goods and services.

Now, let's hoard the wealth. You get $17 of the dollars, and Bob, John and I have $1 each. Six others have nothing.

It sounds great for you at first, but the economy will struggle. Nobody will purchase from the store you open. The poor six can't buy, and they can't invest in their economic growth (like buying the supplies to sell me a lunch). The three with $1 need to save it for a rainy day, and overall most trade will cease.

We see this in times of economic inequality. The top two times of American economic inequality were about 1929, and again around 2007. Interesting how that factor predicts a crash..

- companies have fewer purchases in a depression, because some people have no income
- the poor can't invest in their personal growth. College would allow them to earn more, but they can't pay for the costs to attend.
- There becomes an excess of inventory, since people can't afford it anymore (Great Depression cars, 2008's foreclosed houses and vacant new-build homes, plane tickets, etc.)

The best thing to do to jumpstart economic growth is to lower the inequality by enhancing the income of the poor. Bill Gates does this with his foundation, taking his billions and spending it on healthcare and education. Henry Ford did it by raising wages to $5-a-day (in a $5 a week era) for his workers. The turnaround was that these workers now had the money to buy his cars and increase his sales.

Or they could sit there with the money hoarded. Which choice is better? source

 

This is why property taxes and the estate tax are good. They disincentivize the hoarding of wealth which demonstrably hurts the economy. Of course, you still need to find a balance. The answer isn't a 100% tax, nor is it a 0% tax.

 

 

[MooseAg03]

So now you’re just re-quoting anonymous people on an internet answer site to support socialist ideas?

 

What do you think happens to money in a rich person’s portfolio? Does it just get locked away in a vault somewhere to gather dust? No, it is invested in companies through stock purchases or maybe as venture capital, hell even if it is just sitting in a bank account it is loaned out to support other economic activities. Just because someone has a large portfolio doesn’t mean that wealth is not utilized somewhere else in the economy. The general state of the economy and financial institutions’ outlook has a lot more to do with the availability of capital than rich people ‘hoarding wealth.’

 

Wealth is not finite either. If it was, we would all be trading beads still. So your argument of the $20 is moot, because the poor six who have nothing would go work somewhere there is money and they would be paid for it. Geeeez man, where did you go to school?

 

Universal income is not the solution, people don’t need to be disincentivized from working. Free college is not the answer either, as a large portion of college degrees don’t apply in the real world which is why you see psych majors working retail and people with liberal arts degrees working as baristas. Welfare with job training in a needed skilled labor area is what works. If we want to give any sort of schooling away for free/reduced cost then it needs to be in the area of the trades. Kids today are taught as long as you get a college degree you will be successful, however when everyone has a BS/BA because government guaranteed loans make them easy to get, it has now become the new high school diploma. People focus on 4 year degrees and ignore well paying trade jobs like electricians, plumbers, auto mechanics, etc.

 

I forgot to address estate and property taxes. Estate taxes are a bad idea because how fair is it to pay taxes on income twice? If I’m ‘rich’ I’ve already paid upwards of 30%+ on any income I’ve made or capital gains taxes if it is investment income. So because I’m smart with my money and I actually have a nest egg to give to my children or grand children, the government now wants to take another piece of my pie? No thanks. Also the other issue raised with that is large farms that are passed down to future generations but because of the value of the land they fall under the estate tax, now junior has to take out a loan or sell part of the property to cover the taxes after Paw dies. It’s un American.

 

Property taxes I have an issue with because many public school districts piss away the money and give a poor product in return. If we had vouchers where my money that I PAY in property taxes was portable to private education, guess what, it decreases class sizes in the public school and gives my kid the kind of education I choose (since it is my money after all), instead of being indoctrinated with left wing views like kindergarteners learning about a transgender teddy bear. F that noise.

 

 

[Lord Ratner]

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how wealth works. And I've already addressed it. Wealth is not finite. There is not just $20 to spread around. The guy with $17 CREATES hundreds more through the invention of new demand. And one of the hardest truths is that the poor do not create much at all.

There's a reason economies are rated based on GDP growth. Growth. It is the creation of wealth that makes a country strong. And our "poor" people are a hell of a lot better off than the poor people in socialist nations. And in more progressive capitalist nations.

And guess what? When you create new wealth, it makes you fantastically rich.

I believe that you think the things you wrote. I'm not calling you disingenuous or otherwise questioning your character. And I think you believe those things out of a genuine desire for a better world. But you're just wrong.

Do you think it's a coincidence that the greatest advancements in the elimination of poverty and improvements in the standard of living worldwide has been entirely driven by capitalist nations? Entirely.

[Seriously]

1 hour ago, MooseAg03 said:

I forgot to address estate and property taxes. Estate taxes are a bad idea because how fair is it to pay taxes on income twice? If I’m ‘rich’ I’ve already paid upwards of 30%+ on any income I’ve made or capital gains taxes if it is investment income. So because I’m smart with my money and I actually have a nest egg to give to my children or grand children, the government now wants to take another piece of my pie? No thanks. Also the other issue raised with that is large farms that are passed down to future generations but because of the value of the land they fall under the estate tax, now junior has to take out a loan or sell part of the property to cover the taxes after Paw dies. It’s un American.

 

Property taxes I have an issue with because many public school districts piss away the money and give a poor product in return. If we had vouchers where my money that I PAY in property taxes was portable to private education, guess what, it decreases class sizes in the public school and gives my kid the kind of education I choose (since it is my money after all), instead of being indoctrinated with left wing views like kindergarteners learning about a transgender teddy bear. F that noise.

One thing at a time so we don't digress on tangents.

Estate tax: How fair is it to pay taxes twice isn't a concern. Yes it's fair to tax money twice. The estate tax doesn't tax the income twice, it taxes the fact that you decided to hoard your money instead of putting it back into the economy. You pay taxes twice on a lot of things. You pay income tax (maybe even twice if your state also taxes that income, you pay sales tax, you pay property tax, you pay for the increase in prices caused by tarriffs, etc. So do you think that all of those taxes are unfair as well? 

For the farm example, I honestly don't feel that bad about a son having to sell some of the land. The current exemption is $11.18 million, so I'm not sad if he only gets $6 million. He can easily make up the difference in less than a decade, and that money would go back towards repairing the infrastructure that keeps our country running.

Again, I don't endorse a 100% estate tax, and I do agree that you should be able to pass on a certain amount of money to your children if you wish, but there needs to be a limit. I don't want a future in which anyone with the last name of MooseAg03 automatically gets the best education. 

 

 

[Lord Ratner]

So you're just going to ignore the parts where your view of hoarding is completely out of touch with reality?
Let's start with a soft ball. Who's money will the banks loan out in your scenario?

[MooseAg03]

One thing at a time so we don't digress on tangents.
Estate tax: How fair is it to pay taxes twice isn't a concern. Yes it's fair to tax money twice. The estate tax doesn't tax the income twice, it taxes the fact that you decided to hoard your money instead of putting it back into the economy. You pay taxes twice on a lot of things. You pay income tax (maybe even twice if your state also taxes that income, you pay sales tax, you pay property tax, you pay for the increase in prices caused by tarriffs, etc. So do you think that all of those taxes are unfair as well? 
For the farm example, I honestly don't feel that bad about a son having to sell some of the land. The current exemption is $11.18 million, so I'm not sad if he only gets $6 million. He can easily make up the difference in less than a decade, and that money would go back towards repairing the infrastructure that keeps our country running.
Again, I don't endorse a 100% estate tax, and I do agree that you should be able to pass on a certain amount of money to your children if you wish, but there needs to be a limit. I don't want a future in which anyone with the last name of MooseAg03 automatically gets the best education. 
 
 

You say hoard, I say being smart. Would I rather have $20 million in the bank or blow it all like some stupid NFL Star and be broke?

As for taxes, anyone that chooses to live in a state with an income tax is just giving away money. Thankfully Texas doesn’t have one. How is sales tax paying twice? How is property tax paying twice? How is a tariff paying twice? Two of those are based on consumption, the other is based on the value of real estate I choose to own. I’ve already explained how I think local governments can be wasteful with property taxes, but luckily that is the level of government that we can mostly impact because the elections are decided by a relatively small number of votes.

We’ll see how you feel about family farms when 1 or 2 corporations are producing 90% of our food supply. Oh wait, you would then nationalize them “for the good of society.” I, for one do not think it’s ok to take a portion of someone’s inheritance to pay for the mistakes of our politicians in managing their tax revenue. Infrastructure? Where did the $900 billion in stimulus for those ‘shovel ready jobs’ under Obama go? Oh yeah, to Solyndra and a bunch of other waste and slush funds.

As for the schools, I bite the bullet and pay for private schools so my kids don’t end up like you. Without a f*cking clue.


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[Vertigo]

5 hours ago, brickhistory said:

GDP is up significantly.   

 

 

Federal spending goes into GDP. Thanks to huge deficit spending we get a high GDP and the national debt goes into overdrive.

[Seriously]

47 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

So you're just going to ignore the parts where your view of hoarding is completely out of touch with reality?
Let's start with a soft ball. Who's money will the banks loan out in your scenario?

Banks loan out the money that kept in those banks. Whether that money is held by 1 million people or one thousand people doesn't matter. And I don't think saving money is dumb. I invest and I save roughly 50% of my pay check. If we're going to increase the wealth equality gap in America, then I'm gonna be on the right side of that gap. But this isn't a system that is sustainable. We've had a good economic run since the great depression because of the "socialist" policies that we've had over the past 90 years that have kept the money moving.

 

To answer your earlier comment, the effectiveness of trickle-down economics is debatable. 1 person just doesn't spend as much 1 million people, even if that one person is Elon Musk. On the other hand, we need people like him. Those entrepreneurs are absolutely vital to our country's continued dominance and the progress of the world, but the chances of his children (if he has any) turning out to be just like him are slim. Freakonomics radio did a good piece on this (https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-the-church-of-scionology/). This is why I am for an estate tax, not a 100% tax, but something more akin to what we had before the recent changes. It puts money back into the economy, keeps inflation at a healthy level, and gives the government funds to maintain and grow our infrastructure. 

 

Edit: And thank you for your earlier comment about everyone here wanting what's best for the country. That doesn't get said enough, and if we ever want to actually get stuff done, then we need to work together to make compromises. 

Edited August 26, 2018 by Seriously

[Clark Griswold]

34 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

Federal spending goes into GDP. Thanks to huge deficit spending we get a high GDP and the national debt goes into overdrive.

This.

I have disagreed with @Vertigo over other topics but the man (assuming) is honest, borrowing a shit ton of money to boost GDP, is a Polish Blanket trick, no offense to Poles...

 

 

[SurelySerious]

55 minutes ago, Seriously said:

Random copy and paste from some advocacy website 

Unless you’re just playing devil’s advocate by trying to piece together random snippets from actual socialist propaganda, I think you’re the one that doesn’t know what socialism is, nor do you understand money and markets.

[MooseAg03]

Actually, I’m quite happy. I’m raising my kids to be self sufficient, to work hard, and to give back and be charitable to their fellow man. We don’t need government to make people do that with the threat of prison.

I hope you understand what our nation was founded to be. A place for liberty and opportunity, not a nanny state to care for people from cradle to grave.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/04/dont-believe-limited-self-government-youre-not-american-patriot/


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[Seriously]

Cool... I agree with that author and everything he said, but he didn't really say anything of substance. He said loving your country is good, you shouldn't burn the flag (but you have the right to), living in America is great, and that the American government was meant to be limited and self-governing. Then he lists a bunch of stuff that we get for free... 

Quote

Running water, indoor plumbing, and a grocery store with stocked shelves. 

That stuff doesn't just happen. It happens because we have a well-funded government that is generally not corrupt. You get safe to drink water and a sewage system because of the government's regulations. You get a well built house because we have building codes and inspectors to ensure construction companies are complying with those codes. You get generally safe to eat food in the grocery store because our government has rules in place to safeguard them and the means to enforce those rules.

The free market didn't magically give us all of those things. Why is Nogales, Mexico a complete shithole, and Nogales, Arizona is only partially a shithole? Because good laws and the means to enforce them make a difference. 

So then what exactly is limited government? Because I feel like we're having a pointless debate right now.

[pawnman]

7 hours ago, Seriously said:

One thing at a time so we don't digress on tangents.

Estate tax: How fair is it to pay taxes twice isn't a concern. Yes it's fair to tax money twice. The estate tax doesn't tax the income twice, it taxes the fact that you decided to hoard your money instead of putting it back into the economy. You pay taxes twice on a lot of things. You pay income tax (maybe even twice if your state also taxes that income, you pay sales tax, you pay property tax, you pay for the increase in prices caused by tarriffs, etc. So do you think that all of those taxes are unfair as well? 

For the farm example, I honestly don't feel that bad about a son having to sell some of the land. The current exemption is $11.18 million, so I'm not sad if he only gets $6 million. He can easily make up the difference in less than a decade, and that money would go back towards repairing the infrastructure that keeps our country running.

Again, I don't endorse a 100% estate tax, and I do agree that you should be able to pass on a certain amount of money to your children if you wish, but there needs to be a limit. I don't want a future in which anyone with the last name of MooseAg03 automatically gets the best education. 

 

 

So, you are in favor of larger corporations getting ever larger stakes in their industries, while small business owners are unable to pass their business to the next generation?

Remind me again which one has more wealth, a small business owner or a corporation like Monsanto or Google.   A corporation that, BTW, will never pay an estate tax because it will never die.

[Lord Ratner]

The free market didn't magically give us all of those things. Why is Nogales, Mexico a complete shithole, and Nogales, Arizona is only partially a shithole? Because good laws and the means to enforce them make a difference. 
So then what exactly is limited government?

The government's job is to ensure fair free enterprise. That's the difference. If you think there is free enterprise in Mexico then you're even less informed than I thought. Incredible levels of private and government corruption are the enemies of a free capitalist society.

Regulation is not socialism. It is a necessary function of government to ensure a fair system. But it must be conservatively applied, and every new regulation scrutinized to ensure it is not picking winners rather than preventing cheaters.

But these are details. The bottom line is that your philosophy ignores human nature, and you yourself are proof. People will always take care of themselves first. Always. You saving masses of wealth, contributing to the very problem you cite, is all we need to know about the possible success of your desired system. You have to be literally forced by the government to do something that you claim to believe in, how on Earth will that work for people like me who don't believe in your cause? And when I say no, then what? I suppose we should just be forced harder, maybe imprisoned? Killed? Don't scoff, no one in the USSR thought the grand plan would kill 60 million. But it did. Liberals never look past today.

Oh, and it's not even theory. Go ahead, show me all the ways redistributive systems have helped the world. Your plans, so loosely applied in the United States over the past century, have improved the lives of millions in America by the most generous estimates (aside from creating an entire class of dependant humans). Capitalist enterprise has improved the lives of billions across the globe with all the incredible invention you seem to think would just happen no matter what.

You say we need the Elon Musks if the world, but don't you think it's odd they never pop up in socialist, redistributive nations? Must be a coincidence.

I've said it before. I'm not for capitalism because I have no sympathy for the poor of today. I'm for capitalism because I don't want YOUR grandkids to know what a poor person is.

[TreeA10]

Hugo Chavez, a man of the people, a believer in socialism, died worth billions. His sister is also worth billions. Odd how those that sell a concept certainly don't want to live under that concept. 

[MooseAg03]

Federal spending goes into GDP. Thanks to huge deficit spending we get a high GDP and the national debt goes into overdrive.

So then explain to me how the record deficits under Obama (most of which were approved by a Republican Congress) didn’t result in better GDP growth. We had 8 years where for the highest growth was 2.9% with very high deficits. Somehow now the 4% growth is because of deficit spending? I don’t follow the logic.


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