Democrat Nomination for President

[Craig Lamson]

Good one Slobo, but I much rather enjoyed the article in response to AOC bootstrapping interview.

AOC: 'You Cannot Literally Wrap Your Head Around Something, You Would Get Hurt'

But anyway, getting back to the primary, I'm rooting for Amy.  She is the only sane one right now and it was nice to see her do well.  (Mayor Pete is pretty radical and a horrible Mayor; he will get eaten alive.) 

But anyway, aside from this, the other big story is turnout was low at 2016 level.  It just does not look like the enthusiasm is there this year.  Meanwhile, on the Trump side of things, 50,000+ showed up to a NH rally of which 25% were registered Dems.

Amy has problems going forward.  She reportedly has a very small ground game in Nevada where a large one is needed as it’s a caucus.  It also seems she is low on funds which makes it harder to compete in SC.  Perhaps her showing last night will boost her fundraising. 

Don’t give up on CIA Pete. He’s “programmed” to win by the best spooks our taxes can buy😂.  At this point it’s any port that shelters the Dems from tropical storm Bernie. 

The biggest questions the Dems will need to answer if Amy, Pete or Mike make it to the end is how many die hard Bern voters stay home and refuse to vote, and how much the Hispanic and Black votes move towards Trump.

[JoeKitchen]

It seems like Yang is now out. 

Yang Campaign Collapses After It's Revealed $1,000/Mo Giveaway Would Be Paid For With $1,000/Mo Tax Increase

[Rob C]

This has sorta been uttered....By BS

Hmm... why would anyone need more than, say, fifty million for the living of a very good life? I've had a very good one for way, way under any of that!

To suggest, perhaps, that we would otherwise not have people like the founders of Apple etc. unless they were able to amass huge sums of loot is a nonsense: these inventive people do what they do because it's what they do: they can't help themselves from inventing things.

I would be inclined to set a flat, top limit of personal/family worth beyond which the earnings would be obliged to be ploughed straight back into the company or group of companies creating the wealth. And if there are none, then make it a pure tax penalty. That way, you might actually see a redistribution of wealth, a trickle-down effect at last. As much as I admire some of the people with the ability to create fortunes, I do not feel sympathy with them when it comes to having more money than anybody but a madman needs.

It would also level the playing field and stop places like Ireland offering tax haven taxation levels to globals. It hasn't even worked in Ireland: that's why the political arm of the IRA has, a couple of days ago, won as much electoral support as the other two parties in the race. Why? Because they have taken a stance to speak for the rest of the Irish people who do not work in finance or tech, people for whom it has become impossible to find homes to buy or even to rent. What's not to like?

If that hurts some sensibilities, mostly misplaced theoretical ones held by folks who will never see that kind of dough any more than will I, then too friggin' bad.

Time for less theory and more reality in politics, and some muscle in the interests of the commonweal.

Rob

[Craig Lamson]

Maybe he is standing by some of the stuff 40 years ago. But now, there is much more stuff, on which he changes his stand overnight.

I have zero problem with someone who’s mind gets changed when better details become known. 

[JoeKitchen]

Hmm... why would anyone need more than, say, fifty million for the living of a very good life? I've had a very good one for way, way under any of that!

To suggest, perhaps, that we would otherwise not have people like the founders of Apple etc. unless they were able to amass huge sums of loot is a nonsense: these inventive people do what they do because it's what they do: they can't help themselves from inventing things.

I would be inclined to set a flat, top limit of personal/family worth beyond which the earnings would be obliged to be ploughed straight back into the company or group of companies creating the wealth. And if there are none, then make it a pure tax penalty. That way, you might actually see a redistribution of wealth, a trickle-down effect at last. As much as I admire some of the people with the ability to create fortunes, I do not feel sympathy with them when it comes to having more money than anybody but a madman needs.

It would also level the playing field and stop places like Ireland offering tax haven taxation levels to globals. It hasn't even worked in Ireland: that's why the political arm of the IRA has, a couple of days ago, won as much electoral support as the other two parties in the race. Why? Because they have taken a stance to speak for the rest of the Irish people who do not work in finance or tech, people for whom it has become impossible to find homes to buy or even to rent. What's not to like?

If that hurts some sensibilities, mostly misplaced theoretical ones held by folks who will never see that kind of dough any more than will I, then too friggin' bad.

Time for less theory and more reality in politics, and some muscle in the interests of the commonweal.

Rob

Rob, this statement shows a complete lack of understanding about wealth and business! 

The fact is that although Bezos is very wealthy, he has very little cash on hand and does not receive a salary, aka earnings, any where near the amount that he is worth.  I would be very surprise if he even had a $1M in the bank.  Nearly all of his wealth is tied up within Amazon, not in cash, but in the business itself.

The only way that he could retrieve that wealth would be to sell part of the business, or his stock. 

And this is the problem with Sander's tax proposal.  He wants to tax people based on wealth, not salary.  If Bezos is taxed 6% (Sander's top tier) on his total wealth today, that would be a tax bill of almost $8B.  In order to pay that, he would need to sell $8B worth of stock, but in doing so, this would crash the price of Amazon stock. 

This, combined with all of the other stocks suddenly being flooded on the market from other wealthy people selling to make the tax bill, would crash the stock market.

Then, we start getting into trying to figure out how much to tax people who's wealth is not tied up in public companies that dont have a stock price.  How do even determine the value of a private company?  (I dont know my company's value.  I know how much I made this year, and the past, but value is more then just that.  To put an exact dollar figure on it would be impossible.)  Sure, public is easy, you multiply the stock price by the total shares, but what about private where neither of those things exist? 

Bernie's whole plan is doomed to failure due to him not understanding the scale to which this would effect the economy and the sheer complexity of trying to figure out how wealthy a wealthy person actually is. 

Insofar as you saying people do what they do, how well is that working out for Venezuela?  I know a couple of photographers who left because the economic system did not let them do what they do.  How about Cuba?  I seem to remember all those people who do what they do leaving and building up Miami, Dominican Republic, etc. while Cuba fell into the abyss. 

[JoeKitchen]

Amy has problems going forward.  She reportedly has a very small ground game in Nevada where a large one is needed as it’s a caucus.  It also seems she is low on funds which makes it harder to compete in SC.  Perhaps her showing last night will boost her fundraising. 

Don’t give up on CIA Pete. He’s “programmed” to win by the best spooks our taxes can buy😂.  At this point it’s any port that shelters the Dems from tropical storm Bernie. 

The biggest questions the Dems will need to answer if Amy, Pete or Mike make it to the end is how many die hard Bern voters stay home and refuse to vote, and how much the Hispanic and Black votes move towards Trump.

Although I have hopes for Amy, I agree with you.  But she is the only Dem I would be sort of comfortable with. 

I still think Bernie will get the most votes but not enough to break 50%, which means he fails to get it on the first vote.  Then the super delegates go with someone else.  This causes total mayhem in Milwaukee, imploding the party, and making the Dems look even worse then they do now.  Trump then uses this to his advantage along with getting some Bernie Bros to vote for him to spite the party.  The rest just stay home. 

The only wrench in this would be Bloomberg.  Perhaps he does win it, however, as Slobo aluded to earlier, he will more then likely need to apologize for stop and frisk.  One of the main things he has to stand on is making NYC a safer place, but if he reneges on stop and frisk (the main reason for this), it will only make him look weak in the general election.  That, combined with him wanting to disarm every American (our last stop against tyranny), will kill his chances. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... these inventive people do what they do because it's what they do: they can't help themselves from inventing things....

And yet they come to the good, old, greedy US of A to help themselves. Elon Musk could have stayed in South Africa to pursue his inventions... how far would that get him? There is a reason Europe and the rest of the world do not have Apples, Googles, Microsofts, Teslas, etc. of the world. Those inventions require enormous amounts of money to take off. If you limit how much money one can make, you limit how much money would be in the ecosystem as well.

It is like mice determining just how much grass is enough for elephants.

[Alan Klein]

Rob, this statement shows a complete lack of understanding about wealth and business! 

The fact is that although Bezos is very wealthy, he has very little cash on hand and does not receive a salary, aka earnings, any where near the amount that he is worth.  I would be very surprise if he even had a $1M in the bank.  Nearly all of his wealth is tied up within Amazon, not in cash, but in the business itself.

The only way that he could retrieve that wealth would be to sell part of the business, or his stock. 

And this is the problem with Sander's tax proposal.  He wants to tax people based on wealth, not salary.  If Bezos is taxed 6% (Sander's top tier) on his total wealth today, that would be a tax bill of almost $8B.  In order to pay that, he would need to sell $8B worth of stock, but in doing so, this would crash the price of Amazon stock. 

This, combined with all of the other stocks suddenly being flooded on the market from other wealthy people selling to make the tax bill, would crash the stock market.

Then, we start getting into trying to figure out how much to tax people who's wealth is not tied up in public companies that dont have a stock price.  How do even determine the value of a private company?  (I dont know my company's value.  I know how much I made this year, and the past, but value is more then just that.  To put an exact dollar figure on it would be impossible.)  Sure, public is easy, you multiply the stock price by the total shares, but what about private where neither of those things exist? 

Bernie's whole plan is doomed to failure due to him not understanding the scale to which this would effect the economy and the sheer complexity of trying to figure out how wealthy a wealthy person actually is. 

Insofar as you saying people do what they do, how well is that working out for Venezuela?  I know a couple of photographers who left because the economic system did not let them do what they do.  How about Cuba?  I seem to remember all those people who do what they do leaving and building up Miami, Dominican Republic, etc. while Cuba fell into the abyss. 

First, taking someone else's money to give to someone else is stealing.  Sure, since government does it, we can make believe it's righteous, but it isn;t.  The entire Soviet Union was based on this and look what they had for 70 years.  Gulags to enforce it and a lot worse.  That's what it leads too.  Oh, did I mention Venezuela, Cuba, etc.?

Of course, we have to have some taxes to run the government.  But taxing wealth is a poor way to accomplish it.  First off, wealth that is in the form of stock, farms, companies, real estate,  and other investments is the very capital savings needed to stir business investment and help an economy including jobs.  You don't want to tax it while it's capital.  In any case, the owner of the capital isn't using it for personal expenditures at that point.  It's busy creating wealth for everyone in the economy.   The time to tax would be when he takes it in cash and/or spends it personally.  That's what we do now when we tax at the time the stock or capital is sold.  If there's a problem with the 15% capital gains tax, then adjust it there.  But not while it's doing its work as capital. 

I remember a few decades ago they were going to "punish" the rich by imposing high taxes on yachts and other large boats.  The tax went into affect and collapsed the American boating manufacturing industry because no one would order new boats.  Thousands of workers were laid off as businesses closed their doors.  They had to do a quick turn-around and eliminate the law.  Taxes on all wealth would do the same only worse as it would affect every industry.  Only a Marxist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union would recommend something like that. 

[Craig Lamson]

Then, we start getting into trying to figure out how much to tax people who's wealth is not tied up in public companies that dont have a stock price.  How do even determine the value of a private company?  (I dont know my company's value.  I know how much I made this year, and the past, but value is more then just that.  To put an exact dollar figure on it would be impossible.)  Sure, public is easy, you multiply the stock price by the total shares, but what about private where neither of those things exist? 

Thats the problem for businesess like ours, they have very little real value.  Unless you have some business real estate, they true value of oyur business is YOU.  When you retire, you can sell equipment and that has some value.  You can try to sell a client list but thats not worth much because the clients are really buying YOU.  Not much is left to add a real value to the business.

There is nothing wrong with being a lone wolf, and I actually prefer it to all the other forms my lifetime career has taken.  You just need to understand going that there is really nothing of real value in your business other than yourself.  I'm rather enjoying my end of career trajectory.  I work with my wife, we are making good bank and we work maybe 100 days a year.  We have pretty much zero overhead and our billing rate has never been higher.  I can't put  a dollar value on that   I don't think Bernie could either   I'm having a ball. Working on my toy car, in the process of getting my part 107 remote pilot cert and playing with drones.  Oh yea, shooting for some select clients. too.

Life is good.

[JoeKitchen]

First, taking someone else's money to give to someone else is stealing.  Sure, since government does it, we can make believe it's righteous, but it isn;t.  The entire Soviet Union was based on this and look what they had for 70 years.  Gulags to enforce it and a lot worse.  That's what it leads too.  Oh, did I mention Venezuela, Cuba, etc.?

I agree on this, and although I tend to lean towards the logical in these arguments, we really need to start talking about this morally. 

What Bernie is suggesting is immoral.  It goes directly against thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods.  Many people incorrectly define covet as just jealousy or being envious, but it is much more then that. 

To covet thy neighbor's goods means you are so envious that you feel you should have a right to the exact goods of your neighbor for no other reason then for your sense of envy.  This is what Bernie is promoting, and it is evil. 

(FYI, I am not a religious person, but an atheist.  However, I still see the commandments as a base for morality.) 

[Alan Klein]

You do beautiful work Craig. 

[JoeKitchen]

Thats the problem for businesess like ours, they have very little real value.  Unless you have some business real estate, they true value of oyur business is YOU.  When you retire, you can sell equipment and that has some value.  You can try to sell a client list but thats not worth much because the clients are really buying YOU.  Not much is left to add a real value to the business.

There is nothing wrong with being a lone wolf, and I actually prefer it to all the other forms my lifetime career has taken.  You just need to understand going that there is really nothing of real value in your business other than yourself.  I'm rather enjoying my end of career trajectory.  I work with my wife, we are making good bank and we work maybe 100 days a year.  We have pretty much zero overhead and our billing rate has never been higher.  I can't put  a dollar value on that   I don't think Bernie could either   I'm having a ball. Working on my toy car, in the process of getting my part 107 remote pilot cert and playing with drones.  Oh yea, shooting for some select clients. too.

Life is good.

True, but here is the thing, this is the case with all business, even real estate. 

Lets say you own a bunch of buildings that you rent out.  Well, how much are those building worth?  Some would say just add up the sale price of those building, but what is the sale's price?  If you bought them 20 years ago, they are certainly worth more now then when you bought them, especially if you did renovations.  So, you cant go by the numbers you bought them at. 

What about adding on inflation and the cost of the renovations?  Well, that does not work, since many renovations increase the value of a building by more then what is invested?  Not to mention, you need to take into account how the neighborhood has changed too. 

What about looking at comps and recent sales of buildings in the area?  Well, that does not really take into account any unique aspects of your buildings, so ...

See the point, even with real estate, it become impossible to put an exact value on the value of the business.  Take for instance my house, which I bought for $158K and then put $50K in work into it.  Is it now only worth $208K?  But that 50K was really mainly supplies since I did all the carpentry, flooring and masonry myself, so how much do I add on for my time?  Well houses in my neighborhood sell for around $260K right now, so maybe $260K?  But my kitchen is all new and I know for a fact my house is one of the few that had all the knob and tube replaced with modern wiring, so is it more then $260K? 

And this is the problem.  The only way I could figure out how much my house is worth is by selling it, but I am not interested in doing so right now.  Same thing with all private businesses. 

Putting an exact dollar figure on a person's wealth in order to tax it becomes a conundrum, and, as a person's wealth increases, it becomes an impossibility. 

[Alan Klein]

I agree on this, and although I tend to lean towards the logical in these arguments, we really need to start talking about this morally. 

What Bernie is suggesting is immoral.  It goes directly against thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods.  Many people incorrectly define covet as just jealousy or being envious, but it is much more then that. 

To covet thy neighbor's goods means you are so envious that you feel you should have a right to the exact goods of your neighbor for no other reason then for your sense of envy.  This is what Bernie is promoting, and it is evil. 

(FYI, I am not a religious person, but an atheist.  However, I still see the commandments as a base for morality.) 

The prohibition against covetousness leads to the other commandment:  Thous shall not steal.  One follows the other.  One justifies the other.  It also leads to murder, which is justified governmentally when citizens fail to follow the socialist rules.  Government becomes God with power over people including life and death.  It decides on personal property.  It decides on which medical procedures they;ll pay for and what coverage you have or don;t have. It decides just how much freedom you have or don;t have.  Why anyone would want an old Socialist like Sanders to decide how they should run their life boggles my mind.  Yet, half the Democratic party see socialism as something good.  Well, that comes from covetnousness where we started this conversation. 

[Alan Klein]

True, but here is the thing, this is the case with all business, even real estate. 

Lets say you own a bunch of buildings that you rent out.  Well, how much are those building worth?  Some would say just add up the sale price of those building, but what is the sale's price?  If you bought them 20 years ago, they are certainly worth more now then when you bought them, especially if you did renovations.  So, you cant go by the numbers you bought them at. 

What about adding on inflation and the cost of the renovations?  Well, that does not work, since many renovations increase the value of a building by more then what is invested?  Not to mention, you need to take into account how the neighborhood has changed too. 

What about looking at comps and recent sales of buildings in the area?  Well, that does not really take into account any unique aspects of your buildings, so ...

See the point, even with real estate, it become impossible to put an exact value on the value of the business.  Take for instance my house, which I bought for $158K and then put $50K in work into it.  Is it now only worth $208K?  But that 50K was really mainly supplies since I did all the carpentry, flooring and masonry myself, so how much do I add on for my time?  Well houses in my neighborhood sell for around $260K right now, so maybe $260K?  But my kitchen is all new and I know for a fact my house is one of the few that had all the knob and tube replaced with modern wiring, so is it more then $260K? 

And this is the problem.  The only way I could figure out how much my house is worth is by selling it, but I am not interested in doing so right now.  Same thing with all private businesses. 

Put an exact dollar figure on a person's wealth in order to tax it become a conundrum, and, as a person's wealth increases, it becomes an impossibility. 

Of course the main problem is how do you pay taxes on wealth that's tied up in the property?  Let's use your real estate exdample.  So you own a hotel or a golf course that's worth $10 million.  Leave aside how that's determined right now.   But it's not in cash.  So you have to pay a wealth tax of let's say 2% a year. That's $200,000.  Where do you get it from.  It's not under your pillow.  It's tied up in the property.  So now you actually have to sell off part of it to raise the cash for taxes.  So you have a fire sale and the value of the property is lost.  Same if you own a farm.  Everything is tied up in the land, and tractors, and barns, and milking machines.  So you have to sell your farm to get cash to pay the taxes?  That's nuts.  That's why the tax law is currently written, for good reason, to pay taxes when the property is sold.  That's the only real time cash is available to pay the taxes.  It's also the time that the capital is no longer needed as an investment.  It's also the time that the owner get the real wealth in a form he can spend it on himself and use it personally.

[Craig Lamson]

True, but here is the thing, this is the case with all business, even real estate. 

Lets say you own a bunch of buildings that you rent out.  Well, how much are those building worth?  Some would say just add up the sale price of those building, but what is the sale's price?  If you bought them 20 years ago, they are certainly worth more now then when you bought them, especially if you did renovations.  So, you cant go by the numbers you bought them at. 

What about adding on inflation and the cost of the renovations?  Well, that does not work, since many renovations increase the value of a building by more then what is invested?  Not to mention, you need to take into account how the neighborhood has changed too. 

What about looking at comps and recent sales of buildings in the area?  Well, that does not really take into account any unique aspects of your buildings, so ...

See the point, even with real estate, it become impossible to put an exact value on the value of the business.  Take for instance my house, which I bought for $158K and then put $50K in work into it.  Is it now only worth $208K?  But that 50K was really mainly supplies since I did all the carpentry, flooring and masonry myself, so how much do I add on for my time?  Well houses in my neighborhood sell for around $260K right now, so maybe $260K?  But my kitchen is all new and I know for a fact my house is one of the few that had all the knob and tube replaced with modern wiring, so is it more then $260K? 

And this is the problem.  The only way I could figure out how much my house is worth is by selling it, but I am not interested in doing so right now.  Same thing with all private businesses. 

Putting an exact dollar figure on a person's wealth in order to tax it becomes a conundrum, and, as a person's wealth increases, it becomes an impossibility.

In the case of real estate, someone is going to appraise it. and they are goingt o consider condition, upgrades and current market value of similar properties.  Thats the number.  Most banks are going to consider that number as a basis for what the value of a loan might be for that property.  It  matters not a whit if you have put in far more in renovations than the value of the property at the time its appraised.  If you want to sell it the true value is what someone is willing to pay at that instant. If the value it greater than the bank value ( if a loan is required) the purchaser could pony up more money.  The question is...would they?

I can imagine thats what would happen in a Bernie world.  Someone would appraise the business and decide what the tax would be.  Just like your home is appriaised for taxes. 

Trust me, if this were come to pass they would create a mechanism to value your wealth.  I cant image there will be a robust way to challenge the assessment

[Alan Klein]

The problem is even smart people don;t understand the rules of how an economy works.  We don't teach our kids these things in school.  In fact, we have socialists who teach redistribution.  So then people, nice people, vote in guys like Maduro and Chavez in Venezuela.  Than 15 years later, when the economy collapses, people are wandering around looking for a slice of bread to feed their families and wondering what went wrong. Guys like Sanders and Warren know better.  Their selfishness and hunger for power makes them support economic policies that would destroy the country.  It's disgraceful. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The problem is even smart people don;t understand the rules of how an economy works.  We don't teach our kids these things in school.  In fact, we have socialists who teach redistribution.  So then people, nice people, vote in guys like Maduro and Chavez in Venezuela.  Than 15 years later, when the economy collapses, people are wandering around looking for a slice of bread to feed their families and wondering what went wrong. Guys like Sanders and Warren know better.  Their selfishness and hunger for power makes them support economic policies that would destroy the country.  It's disgraceful.

I know that things are heading down-hill in the USA, but to compare the political system in the USA with that of Venezuela looks like a bit of a stretch to me ...

[RSL]

Just what do you include in "down hill,," Bart? Employment is booming, wages are rising, the stock market is rising. Please explain what you mean by "down hill." It sounds as if your news sources may be out of touch.

[Alan Klein]

I know that things are heading down-hill in the USA, but to compare the political system in the USA with that of Venezuela looks like a bit of a stretch to me ...

We're getting there.  We had a trillion dollars in deficit spending last year.  Trump just recommended a budget for next year continuing with another trillion dollar deficit.  That's 20% more than the entire GDP of your country The Netherlands.  Think about it.  That trillion dollars could buy the entire productivity of your country, pay all salaries and buy all your products including windmills and solar panels.    And all we did is to print some more dollars.  And that's from Trump.  Can you imagine if Sanders won?   

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Just what do you include in "down hill,," Bart? Employment is booming, wages are rising, the stock market is rising. Please explain what you mean by "down hill." It sounds as if your news sources may be out of touch.

The inability of your Senate to uphold it's oath to protect the constitution, for example. But that's a topic for another thread. We're supposed to mock the Democrats here, if I'm not misunderstanding the OP's intentions?