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February 21, 2009 04:53 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 73 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”

–Alexander Pope

Comments

73 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

        1. It’s when the name is Sir Allen Stanford where you have to worry.

          And speaking of Sir Allen, from the N.Y. Daily News we learn that we do not need to be worried, Sir Allen is ok, Sean Hannity tells us so.

          A big booster of Stanford has been Fox News host Sean Hannity who intones on his radio show, “Stanford Coins & Bullion, a member of the Stanford Financial Group – their name as good as gold.”

  1. I’m sure many of you have been following or at least heard that Justice is going after US citizens who evade taxes hiding their money in offshore and secret accounts. From AP online:

    UBS rejected a new US government lawsuit filed Thursday asking that the bank disclose the identities of some 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes.

    It’s been estimated upwards of $100 billion a year in taxes are evaded with offshore and secret accounts. I could pretty much guarantee you that the people who do this are obviously well off (shall we say 90% Republicans) who are the first to wave the flag and tell you how great this country is. You bet its a great country for them, because they reap the benefits of being an American, but don’t pay for it.

    It’s interesting to note if the above lawsuit would have been filed under the Bush administration.

  2. from HuffPo

    In an interview with a conservative talk show host, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has once again embarrassed herself. Posted by the blog Dump Bachmann and picked up by the MN Progressive Project, the clip has the Minnesota Republican telling KLTK’s Chris Baker that she opposes she stimulus because we’re “running out of rich people in this country.”

    We should introduce her to Doug Bruce, they would probably really hit it off.

    1. Progressive taxation. Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of it before?

      Frankly, wealth is insanely undertaxed in America. The polarization of wealth and poverty in America, and the inequitability of the distribution of wealth as measured by the gini coefficient, has been growing for decades. Acording to a survey sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board, “the wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3%  of the nation’s net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%.”

      http://www.faculty.fairfield.e

      How can any society so wealthy abide by a system which allows such gross inequality of opportunity? It is based on one of the most absurd of all conservative myths (and there’s some tough competition in the absurdity department): That wealth in America is distributed according to merit. What a coincidence, then, that those who happened to be victims of historical institutionalized discrimination are statistically far more likely to be poor: I guess that discrimination was justified after all, right? Or, could it be, that the discrimination is responsible for the statisitical skewing of the distribution of wealth? Hmmmm. What an idea.

      The reality is that we are not just a bunch of individuals with no more independence, and no more responsibility to one another, than some happenstance coexistence within a geographically circumscribed area. We are members of a single society, within a single institutional framework, carrying legacies of history and current distributions of power and privilege from past, through present, and into the future.

      The wealthy are undertaxed in America, not because they deserve to be punished for being wealthy, but because we all deserve to live in a more just society, characterized by a sense of responsibility each to all others that we so many have so foolishly turned into an ideological taboo.

    2. Here’s the thing people like Libertad don’t understand, the key issue is not what percentage of the pie I get, it’s a combination of how nice a world I live in (which is why libertarians don’t move to Somalia) and what my total income is.

      So when the federal government raises my taxes, but does so to invest in this country and in the future, then the pie grows larger, my piece of the pie, after the addional taxes, is more, and I also have a higher quality of life because others are also doing better.

      The only logical reason to oppose this is where you want to see a larger difference in income between yourself and others. Or you’re too stupid to figure out it takes an investment to make more money.

      1. I favor a simple tax formula, something like 15-20% of income for those >= 200% of FPM, adjusted for household size up to 8.

        I know, I know those freaking big religious families will get massive benefits as they cling to their religion and procreate, but the 8 head cap does give them an incentive.

        The following jumps would occur:

        15% for 201-300% of FPM

        16% for 301-400% of FPM

        ….

        20% for 901%+ of FPM

        No death tax and no cap gains.

        1. First of all it’s not a death tax – we don’t tax dying at all. If someone leaves all their money to charity (Andrew Carnagie, Warren Buffet, David Packard, Bill Gates) then there is no tax event.

          But for those kids in the “lucky sperm” club, why should there be no tax on the giant gift of money they are given? Without that we will have a permanent upper class and America is all about those who work hard move up and those who sit on their ass move down.

          As you are someone who favors the market setting wages with no outside influence like unions, how can you favor some people just being handed large amounts of money?

          1. Which to presents us the fact that you are irrational.

            As to the fact of this favored position, I don’t have the data to make the calcs on the revenue (aka tax) growth this would create.

            One thing I do know is every greedy accountant and corrupt lawyer would come unglued, thus causing a massive lobby effort to be launched by those who maximize the thousands of tax loopholes.

            1. favored putting money in the hands of the poor rather than the rich is because the poor would spend it right away, out of necessity, while the rich wouldn’t. The richer you are, the less value additional money has, because the less it changes the reality of your life. People engaged in careers that have earned them, and continue to earn them, amounts of money beyond what they are likely to spend in their lifetime are generally motivated more by the intrinsic rewards of their career than by the additional money, else they retire with their large sums of money and pursue activities that they enjoy more. In other words, taxing extreme wealth has almost no effect on the production of wealth, other than directing investment through “the corporation of the whole” rather than through a corporation of a few.

              The facts you haven’t addressed that demonstrate either irrationality or viciousness (or some combination of the two) are the facts above about the inequitability of the distribution of wealth in America, and the empirical refutation of the myth that wealth in America is distributed primarily in response to merit rather than chances of birth. I’ve yet to see your response to these facts, and, to be honest, I almost dread seeing it now: It’s bound to incite despair that we can ever live by the rule of reason and good will. Because reason and good will (not to mention dominant economic theory) simply do not favor your extreme and ill-conceived views on political economic reality.

              As for the “collateral benefits” to those professionals who benefit from this arrangement or that, independently of the main effects: That is no more an argument then to say we should not invest in solar energy development because those who are engaging in solar energy development will unfairly benefit from it. In any policy choice, those favorably positioned will “unfairly” benefit. Good policy is not about cutting off our nose to spite our face: It’s about keeping our eye on what best serves the public interest in the most fair, efficient, and sustainable way.

              1. As for the “collateral benefits” to those professionals who benefit from this arrangement …

                Here you go supporting the very people that directly created and benefit from a complex and loophole laden tax regime that is ‘regressive’, showers the rich with greater economic leverage, restricts the proper re-distribution of wealth, and keeps the working classes down with the effect of multi-generational ratchets.

                As for the death tax … what say you about the single widowed mother who lives on the margin, puts her kids on the right path then tries to leave them the $20k or $2 mill she has socked away for 20 or 40 years. You are an ignorant slut.

                  1. Then you support screwing the ranching family who is cash poor, living on the margin but hold millions in land … maybe they can sell out to corporate farming interests.

                    … and screw the family that built the burrito or electronic connector factories, employ 200-500 souls, and have no way to avoid your version of ultimate fighting.

                    … and screw their customers/vendors who will now face a supplier/customer who is viable only as long as the heart of the owner continues to beat.

                    Aren’t what you really trying to get at are the descendants that wind up with homes in Aspen, Mercedes, Porsches and a multi-million dollar Lodo loft. But these people are sometimes HS dropsouts, addicted to drugs, single unwed parents … is it a good idea to toss these souls onto the state dole.

                    1. Conservatives always go to the family farm canard when defending their utterly indefensible position on the Paris Hilton Tax.

                      It’s been debunked repeatedly. Family farms are not impacted by the estate tax except in very rare cases. The U of Iowa did a study a few years back and couldn’t find a single example to back up the right-wing’s assertions about family farms.

                1. I argue that it is important to understand multiple levels of analysis, and the fact that it is impossible to understand social systemic phenomena when by reference only to carefully (and conveniently) selected individual level results. With contortions that would put the best circus performers to shame, you manage to argue that a tax on inherited wealth, that kicks in only at a level of considerable accumulation, does a disservice to “the single widowed mother who lives on the margin,” completely ignoring the fact that in all those developed countries that engage in more progressive taxation and redistribution of wealth, there are no single widowed mothers living on the margin in the first place!!!

                  My argument is not that it is a reasonable objective to support people who “benefit from a complex and loophole laden tax regime,” nor that a complex and loophole laden tax regime is necessary to a well-designed progressive taxation regime, but rather that any economic regime will inevitably benefit some who are not necessarily deserving of such benefits, and that the most reasonable goal is not to focus on minimizing such collateral benefits, but rather on maximizing public and broadly distributed benefits.

                  Again, you argue fictions when facts are available. The results you describe are not the results that have been realized in developed nations with more progressive taxation regimes. Just the opposite, in fact: Lower incomes are off-set by provision of more extensive public goods, providing a reasonably comfortable and pleasant minimum quality of life that the United States fails to provide, to the widely and highly self-reported happiness of the people who live in such systems.

                  But, Libertad, why deal with well-evidenced realities when you are emotionally and ideologically so well served by arbitrary and empirically discredited assumptions? In your bizarro world, the definition of “ignorance” is “reason applied to evidence,” and the definition of “wisdom” is “believing that which has been thoroughly disproven, is manifestly unfair and dysfunctional, and which clearly belongs on the trashheap of failed ideas.” You and Hugo Chavez have more in common than you realize.

            2. In a word: Less, not more. If it were truly revenue growth that were motivating your economic philosophy, and it were reason and data that were informing it, you would be screaming for increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and some degree and form of redistribution to the poorest. Economic research indicates that a poor distribution of assets is counterproductive to economic growth.

              http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa

              Furthermore, poor distribution of wealth decreases economic mobility, indicating not only a facially more unfair society, but also a profoundly more unfair society. Amnerica is characterized by both greater inequality in the distribution of wealth, and less social mobility, than other industrialized nations.

              http://www.reuters.com/article

              But, you know, Libertad, why let little things like data, reason, and basic human decency get in the way of your blind ideological convictions? Shoot, that would just be un-American….

              1. Yet all you do is flameout. And man do you babel.

                Let me guess. English major at some third tier school, mom and dad paid the freight, you worked summers at DQ and yet you were still too weak to apply for a solid position in corporate PR, DPS or a junior copy editor at a publishing firm … all who wanted to start you at $25-30k+benefits.

                What your doing now. You got let go from some cush non profit policy shop because the boss wouldn’t follow the direction you set for the organization.

                1. To coin a phrase…….

                  It is an inheritance tax, not a death tax.  

                  It only kicks in on the uber-wealthy.

                  It’s purpose is not so much to bring money into the treasury, it is TO STOP FAMILY DYNASTIES, just as Jefferson wanted to be sure didn’t happen.

                  Oh yeah, second purpose is for the wealthy to give their wealth away while living, creating or gifting charities.  As Andrew Carnegie said, “To die rich is to die disgraced.”  

                  Yeah, tough tooties for the heirs, especially if Mom and Dad didn’t do good estate planning, which mostly negates the inheritance tax if well done.

                  Finally, the driving political force into fooling, uh, fools like you are America’s wealthiest 18 families.  Like the Walton’s.  Yeah, they suffer so much at our unjust tax policies, don’t they?

                  And there you are shilling for them like JOe the Plumber in some tax masturbation fantasy thinking it will ever effect you.

                  1. …and yet we have all of you standing up for the status quo … supporting the very people that directly created and benefit from a complex and loophole laden tax regime that is ‘regressive’, showers the rich with greater economic leverage, restricts the proper re-distribution of wealth, and keeps the working classes down with the effect of multi-generational ratchets.

                    Then laying in a death tax and a 1970’s style income tax.

                2. But, back to reality, the best you seem able to do in response to my arguments about the topic at hand, rather than addressing the published data, the overwelming thrust of professional economic analysis, and the actual historical experience of other countries with more progressive taxation than the US, is to invent a supposedly insulting biography for me as arbitrary as your political economic ideology. Of course, in the process, by recourse to such absurdities, you make the case for the intellectual poverty of your position with unintentional eloquence.

                  1. .

                    What’s insulting about that biography ?

                    As a past candidate for political office, my bio, recited by Mr. Liberty, with a couple errors, is a source of pride for me.  

                    I also was patriotic enough to enlist in the Army during the VietNam war, but he left that out because he thinks that raises questions about my smarts.  Thanks.  

                    ……..

                    Why not come right out and say it ?

                    The Inheritance Tax is VOLUNTARY.

                    If someone is rich enough to invoke its provisions,

                    and you gotta be really rich for it to kick in,

                    then you can completely avoid it by simply sharing the wealth BEFORE you die.

                    For example, the cash-poor small business owner or rancher with a net worth of $5 Million probably has a pretty good idea of who stands to inherit their wealth when they die.  You think ?

                    Well, there’s ZERO inheritance tax if you bring that person or persons into the management and control and ownership of the business, or the ranch.  You may need an attorney for the paperwork.

                    Don’t want to do that ?

                    Not ready to share control ?

                    Now we get to the heart of the matter:  

                    the inheritance tax is actually a tax on VANITY.

                    .

                    1. in describing the biography he attributed to me: I agree with you, Barron, that it’s not actually insulting. Everyone has a biography, and if it happens to include working at DQ, and whatever other irrelevant little bigotries he threw in, that doesn’t really say anything about the content of the person’s character.

                      Interesting analysis of the inheritance tax. I think it’s accurate, within the range of situations to which it applies. Of course, if the wealth to be inherited is in the form of assets for which coownership can not be easily assigned, one is limited to the untaxed amount that can be given in the form of gifts per year (around $11,000 to each person, from each person, I believe). Though I’m really not sure of the law on this, off-hand: Can the owners of an estate simply put their hiers names on the estate as co-owners, tax free? Enlighten me, if you know. It seems too easy.

  3. Keep in mind the only reason California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t the Republican nomineee in the last election is that he was born outside the U.S. (although that didn’t stop McCain). from ABC News

    California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger repeated today on “This Week” that he’d take any state aid money GOP governors like Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. turn down — a position that has raised the ire of many of his Republican colleagues in Washington, D.C. this weekend.

    “Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: ‘I’ll take it.’ I’m more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn’t want to take this money, I take it, because we in California need it,” Schwarzenegger said.

    He also suggested his party’s ideological opposition to tax cuts isn’t always tenable.

    “I think that the Republican Party or any party has to always think, when you make a decision, ‘Do I want to make a decision that’s based — that’s best for the party? Or am I a public servant and have to serve the people, what is best for the people?'”

    1. its the Terminators only option. I bet he wishes he had TABOR.

      So why is our Gov out hustling CA businesses … they can’t take it in CA. Yet here we have many of you proposing and supporting most of the same CA policies – special taxes, trial lawyer handouts, more government programs and no personal responsibility.

      Here is hoping Chinese sovereign wealth funds become your landlords, illegal aliens breed into your sons and daughters and your taxes rise to redistribute your wealth.

      1. special taxes, trial lawyer handouts, more government programs and no personal responsibility.

        Do you have anything to back up the above statement? Anything at all? A speech by Ritter, a bill introduced in the legislature, anything?

        No?

        I thought not.

        1. Those are facts:

          Our Guv is out hustling CA jobs to come to Colorado. Do you doubt CO has a better business environment then CA?

          CA has been wrecked with special taxes, trial lawyer handouts, and massive govt programs.

    2. If R governors don’t believe that their state needs the money, they can save a little face by making a public gesture of “giving” the money to a state that does need it. It would just be a nice coincidence that Schwarzenegger is also a Republican.

      Honestly, I’d love to see Jindal and Sanford explain why they didn’t take the money if their states start circling the drain, and to see their presidential aspirations dissipate.

        1. out of the money he will be taking, and it accomplishes a sort of right-wing judo. Without extended benefits, unemployed Louisianans will move out of state, Then he can claim there are fewer people looking for work in Louisiana.

  4. Both governors of two of the biggest states. One because he’s foreign-born, and the other because he’s what, too metrosexual or something?

    At this rate, it’ll be Palin-Jindal 2012!  

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