jakee

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Posts posted by jakee

  1. 22 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

    Hi Joe & jakee,

    Once again, I disagree:  Gerald Ford: Domestic Affairs | Miller Center

    I consider Jerry Ford one of the most decent men to ever hold the job of POTUS.  

    Jerry Baumchen

    That very link says that Ford pardoned Nixon for self serving reasons, not for the good of the country. Never mind that even his public justification was more concerned with the wellbeing of the criminal than the country. Imagine the outcry from the Right today if it was ever suggested that prosecutors should be careful not to harm the mental health of a suspect!

     

    Ford told Americans on September 8, 1974, that he had granted the pardon because Nixon had suffered enough, because the threat of prosecution was damaging Nixon's health, and because a trial of the ex-President would reignite bitter and divisive passions and prevent the country from moving forward. Privately, Ford worried that a trial would seriously harm his ability to govern, and he yearned for a presidency free from daily questions about the fate of Richard Nixon.

  2. 45 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

    Hi Sky,

    I disagree.  While one [ his pardon ] was a factor in his non-election, I do not believe it was a factor in his [ Ford's ] decision making, as regards the pardon.

    He wanted to put the past behind us & move forward.

    Jerry Baumchen

    Wouldn’t it be nice to believe the VP of the (2nd?) most corrupt President ever had such noble motives. 

  3. 3 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

    Please tell us what tax horrors the "D's" are likely to visit on suburban house dads? Or is your fear the fear of uncertainty alone? That can be scary.

    15 years or so ago an extremely wealthy British investment fund manager announced in all the papers that because of a 5% hike in the top tier income tax rate he was leaving London to live in a channel island tax haven. Last year he announced that he'd been a total idiot, and losing access to all the City networking, power lunches and old boys' clubs had been far more damaging to his business than the tax he'd saved.

    Even funnier is the fact that the 5% rise he'd decided was too much, was abolished again only a couple of years after he left.

  4. 3 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

    But if your point is that corporations use their financial powers to buy politicians to tilt what should be a level field. I'd agree.

    No, I think his point is that corporations go to the government and say ‘give us what we want or we’ll sack X hundred/thousand people’.

    • Like 1

  8. 52 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

    I guess my point is, if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were excessively taxed earlier, we would not have the Tesla, SpaceX, and Amazon that we have today.

    So let’s tax them fairly instead, and raise an enormous amount of money - some of which will recoup the subsidies that allow Bezos and others to so dramatically underpay the employees whose effort generated their wealth.

    55 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

    They earned it, they followed the rules of the game I don’t begrudge their success. 

    Why are you fixated on the idea that begrudging has anything to do with it? It seems pretty clear that if you were in charge you would like to build a system that taxes only the people you feel are unworthy, but in the real world that’s not how it works. 
     

    Society has to be paid for, hence we need a system of taxation that works. 

  9. 1 hour ago, ryoder said:

    Newsweek: Letitia James to Begin Claiming Donald Trump's Properties

    She's going to grab him by the properties; Because when you're Attorney General, they let you do that.

    You couldn’t make it up. To post a bond so he could appeal his massive fine for inflating assets and breaking NY law, he teamed up with a company which does not have enough assets and does not think it has to comply with NY law.

  12. 1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

    Nobody just sits on their money. All of it is working doing something in the economy. Unless you count Scrooge McDuck rolling around in his vault for of gold and cash.

    As has been pointed out before, this is wishful thinking. We live in a world of Scrooge McDucks.

    https://www.ft.com/content/7ebfa850-bf2d-11e9-9381-78bab8a70848

    Rich people are hoarding cash, and wealth managers are getting frustrated.

    High-net worth individuals (HNWIs) — people with at least $1m in investable assets — are increasingly shunning equities. In the first quarter of this year, HNWIs held nearly 28 per cent of their portfolios on average in cash, according to the Capgemini World Wealth report.

  13. 3 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    Average salary here in bodunk Pennsylvania is $50,000, no government assistance needed.

    Or to put it another way, needed.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-on-food-stamps-2018-8

    "In 2017 nearly one in three Amazon employees in Arizona was on food stamps, or lived with someone who was, according to data obtained by nonprofit New Food Economyfrom state governments. In both Pennsylvania and Ohio, one in 10 Amazon employees was on food stamps."

    3 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    (BTW you sound like a conservative pining for the good old day of brick and mortar business)

    If it's conservative to point out the reality that Amazon is not a job creator, why do you do the opposite?

  14. 7 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    They have created more jobs and societal wealth than Nancy Pelosi ever did. There would be no Tesla, SpaceX or Amazon if their personal capital was sucked out of them when they were mere millionaires 

    The SpaceX that only a lefty would call success? You relly are showing yourself to be quite a fan of socialist economics today.

  15. · Edited by jakee

    7 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    I am juxtaposing the tax cheat and the politician who enriched themselves while creating no value to society with, admittedly, super wealthy billionaires that have actually created real value.

    Hunter Biden founded or had ownership in several businesses that did with rich people's money exactly what you think rich people should do with their money. According to you, Hunter Biden is very valuable to American society.

    You're also conflating Hunter and the politician, but as far as I'm aware there are no reasonable allegations that the politician cheated on any taxes. Further - as you're very fond of saying, Tesla gets big government subsidies to run its business and pay its employees. Amazon gets away with paying its employees so little they also need government support to survive. This is a huge subsidy for Amazon. So according to you, the politician is instrumental in creating real value in America.

  16. 5 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    Question: would you rather have a society where there was massive income inequality yet everyone was better off or a society where everyone was equal yet poorer?

    No-one's talking about equal. That's the strawman you fall back on when you realise that what you're saying is indefensible.

    BTW, Amazon is a primarily a retailer. Is it really creating societal wealth by selling things cheaper than independant brick and mortar shops coud, driving those business owners nder, and paying its employees so little they have to rely on benefits from the government, funded by the taxes that Jeff Bezos pays so little of?

    If you want to get the economy moving and that's your priority, then you really should want to take money from the rich and give to the poor. The ultra rich just sit on vast swathes of their money. They literaly have too much of it to bother doing anything with. The very poor will spend every single extra dollar they get.

  17. 13 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    There’s an old Russian fable about two poor peasants, Ivan and Boris. The only difference between them was Boris had a goat and Ivan didn’t. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp and, when he rubbed it, a genie appeared telling him she could grant just one wish, but it could be anything in the world.

    Ivan said, “I want Boris’ goat to die.”
     

    Lefties = Ivan

    I mean, sure. Making Jeff Bezos, a man who pays thousands of employees so little they have to rely on food stamps yet who is so rich he can afford to build a space rocket on a whim, pay a similar tax rate to normal people would be exactly like killing a poor man's only goat. Because Bezos is the peasant in this fable, not the Csar. Obviously.

     

    I'm not sure whether you think you're covering it up, but honestly you don't half make it obvious when you realise your arguments run out of juice.

  19. 50 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

    FWIW

    ProPublica's report showed that between 2014 and 2018, Bezos paid $972 million in total taxes. 

    So what’s that, a 10% tax rate or even less? Yeah, he couldn’t possibly be expected to contribute more, there wouldn’t even be any point left in being rich. What are we, Marxists? 
     

    It’s also probably fairly similar to what he spent on a toy boat, once you factor in a few years of support costs and bridge rebuilding. If we want just a smidge of context.

  20. 1 hour ago, SkyDekker said:

    Do you really think Jeff Bezos would not have built Amazon if he had ended up with only $150 billion?

    You are talking to the man who once advised against raising tax rates on the ultra rich because they might not be able to afford to eat out at nice restaurants anymore.

    So really, asking Jeff Bezos to settle for maybe having to choose between going to the moon and building a yacht so big it needs bridges to be demolished really is going too far. What are we, Marxists?

  21. 17 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

    Because anyone who pays more than they are required is an idiot 

    Or maybe they just care about providing healthcare and helping the poor, like you... do? Don't? I don;t know anymore. Do we have to open the box and collapse the waveform to find out which position you're taking in any given 30 second block right now?

  22. 26 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

    What’s is happening is billions of dollars are being wasted on green boondoggles when that money would be better spent on schools, healthcare and providing for the poor.

    Are you gonna tell that to the guy in the other thread who think taxes are just pointless envy? I don't think he wants to redistribute any money from wealthy people to poor people.

    • Like 4

  23. · Edited by jakee

    4 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    I have my hand full just trying to convince you guys that a few more PPM of CO2 won’t destroy civilization. (And even if it did, windmills, solar panels and EVs wouldn’t change anything)

    What are you doing with your other hand?

    Anyway, if you think that’s not ever happening anyway, why the rush? The election is happening this year - so maybe you could prioritise?