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Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

nytimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#271

Post by ddw »

forkandwait wrote: post #186
ck2 wrote: post #22

The problem is getting low to middle income people to stop voting against themselves. Good luck with that, they all seem to think they are going to be billionaires someday so better keep those billionaire taxes low. Either that or by bribing the wealthy with low taxes they might only ship out half the jobs overseas instead of all of them. It's just dumbfounding. Election after election, over and over.

I keep trying to formulate my take on this, and failing, but here goes anyway: The democratic party and American leftists no longer understand non-college working people and, for the most part, no longer reach out to them. Working people think that the left today advocates either for weirdos or for the completely screwed up, and wants everybody to pay for its programs to help said weirdos and fuckups. There is some v…

> However, working people don't see themselves as fuckups (because they're not), and they don't have a lot of patience with weirdos. So they aren't going to feel comfortable with the gay marriage/ social worker part of the left (the old union guys were socially very conservative for the most part).

I'm not sure if this was always the case though. In the 60s and 70s it seemed that the weirdos and labor guys were able to work together because they had the same goals. And we have seen this recently with the labor protests in Wisconsin: they were started by university TA's but picked up by sanitation workers, cops, firefighters and the like.

I don't think it's fair for the working class folks to just write off everyone else just because they're "weirdos." Social issues can be just as important economic ones. Plus I think it's extremely shortsighted that someone will not be able to work with me on shared goals just because I don't go to church or eat ribs. I know these are just examples you brought up, but it's dangerous for people to never reach beyond "one of us."

The mistake of the Democratic Party was to abandon the unions and to embrace corporations as a source of funding. This continues to this day as Obama never supported the Wisconsin workers.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#272

Post by [deleted] »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #168
BrainScraps wrote: post #16

Reading this just makes me think of all of the lobbying dollars and campaign contributions that must have been paid by the super-rich to get these tax breaks. Am I the only one that feels some populist rage welling up when he hears how much money is wasted on campaigning for office and influencing people in office? Aren't there more worthy uses of wealth and scarce resources? And it just pains me that so many people…

I'm not overly put-out by the amount of money "wasted" on campaigns and elections. I understand that there are many different ideas on the nature and function of government and I believe debates on such subjects (and campaigns and elections, which are effectively the same thing) to be extremely important. Personally I think we should do much better and have higher quality campaigns and higher quality candidates, but…

[deleted]

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#273

Post by JabavuAdams »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #168
BrainScraps wrote: post #16

Reading this just makes me think of all of the lobbying dollars and campaign contributions that must have been paid by the super-rich to get these tax breaks. Am I the only one that feels some populist rage welling up when he hears how much money is wasted on campaigning for office and influencing people in office? Aren't there more worthy uses of wealth and scarce resources? And it just pains me that so many people…

I'm not overly put-out by the amount of money "wasted" on campaigns and elections. I understand that there are many different ideas on the nature and function of government and I believe debates on such subjects (and campaigns and elections, which are effectively the same thing) to be extremely important. Personally I think we should do much better and have higher quality campaigns and higher quality candidates, but…

The thing is, this is the root of the problem. Without campaign finance reform, the rest is just noise.

It's not just the amount of money, it's where it's coming from.

See: http://fixcongressfirst.org/

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#274

Post by gaius »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #270
gaius wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's relevant. At his level, he can pay however much tax he wants, anywhere in the world, and this will always be the case. What he's calling for is other people paying more tax.

Other people with incomes of more than $1 million. Would you have the same problem if that were $10 million, instead?

Why not $100,000? That's a lot of money too.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#275

Post by JabavuAdams »

mmorett wrote: post #159
hans00 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It's all of our money, because we all share the same society. Sorry, "it's mine, all mine" doesn't cut it outside an Ayn Rand fantasy novel or a Ron Paul forum.

No. Let me repeat that. It's not your money. You are not entitled to someone else's money by virtue of their mere presence in the country. Want money? Work for it. Save it. Earn it.

Want a nice society? Pay your fair share for it.

You've focused on one half of the equation to come up with obvious but irrelevant conclusions.

For instance, how does inheritance fit into your model?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#276

Post by ZachPruckowski »

epscylonb wrote: post #263
seabee wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a flat percentage rate of tax with an exception for very low incomes That's not a flat tax, then, is it? It's progressive with two bands, 0% and x%. There is a real case for tax simplification, but the progressive nature of income tax is probably the simplest thing in the entire tax code ! It's the classification of different kinds of income and capital gains, exemptions and penalties for particular uses of money/a…

The reason I put fairer in quotes is because it is a term that can be argued over. Yes two bands, with the focus on making it attractive for people to earn money and pay tax, ideally the 0% band would be just enough to clothe, feed yourself and pay rent in a bad neighbourhood. Progressive is a word that seems to mean different things to the left and the right, I notice you didn't define it. As I said a flat tax is ec…

>Progressive is a word that seems to mean different things to the left and the right, I notice you didn't define it.

"Progressive" has a very specific meaning when you're discussing tax structure, independent of its political meaning. Specifically, a progressive tax is one in which the effective rate you pay rises with income.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#277

Post by arethuza »

niels_olson wrote: post #173
rdtsc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a another process that takes place "I am not poor, I am just pre-wealthy". The biggest scam is that the wealthy have managed to convince even the poorest that they are just a "little hard work" away from being a successful owner of family business or the next Donald Trump. It is the American Dream. So ... they should vote accordingly and just get their future selves those nice tax cuts for when they become w…

Steinbeck: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

I was pretty surprised when I learned about Huey Long - he was a genuinely left-wing US pre-war politician (including Governor of Louisiana and Senator).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

Unfortunately he was assassinated in 1935 :-(

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#278

Post by JabavuAdams »

kahawe wrote: post #257
makecheck wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself how much you need to make in order to live comfortably, and feel "rich enough". Maybe $100,000/year would do it in most parts of the country? And probably a lot less. Now suppose you had a million dollars (and just a million, ignoring these billionaires for the moment). That mean you could risk, without really blinking an eye, $900,000 on any investment; even if you lost every penny, you'd still be left…

What I have always wondered: there has got to be a certain amount of money that by all normal standards HAS to be enough for a human being. If you are so rich, you can only have so many houses and cars and all sorts of other toys that you don't even need half of... then you want to leave something for your kids and their kids and generations to come, your relatives and family but still, that is considerably little. A…

Because no such limit exists.

Yes, there are a lot of people spending mega-bucks on what I consider frivolities -- utter waste.

But, there are others starting space programs. I don't want to lose the latter.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#279

Post by krschultz »

gaius wrote: post #266
JabavuAdams wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the least bit relevant. It's almost a category error. Buffet's talking about setting the rules of the game, not about optimizing within the rules that have been set.

Of course it's relevant. At his level, he can pay however much tax he wants, anywhere in the world, and this will always be the case. What he's calling for is other people paying more tax.

You fundamentally miss his point. Even without finding a thousand loopholes to get out of his taxes, he will pay a lower percentage just based on HOW he makes his money.

1) The payroll tax is capped, so a guy making exactly the income it is capped at, and a guy making 100x that, pay exactly the same payroll tax. No accountant required and it is an enormous difference. For Warren, that is millions of dollars right there.

2) Money made from investments is taxed at a lower rate than salary, EVEN IF INVESTING IS YOUR JOB. I personally believe that money you have paid taxes on before should never have capital gains taxes on it - basically you are getting taxed twice. If I choose to take my money and invest it and then buy a car later I pay more tax than a guy who just takes his money and buys a car. So i'm not fan of capital gains taxes. But a guy who gets paid by investing and has no other income should be paying income taxes, not capital gains taxes. How you distinguish the two is definitely hard, but smarter people than me can figure out a way to make that happen.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#280

Post by gaius »

ZachPruckowski wrote: post #276
epscylonb wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I put fairer in quotes is because it is a term that can be argued over. Yes two bands, with the focus on making it attractive for people to earn money and pay tax, ideally the 0% band would be just enough to clothe, feed yourself and pay rent in a bad neighbourhood. Progressive is a word that seems to mean different things to the left and the right, I notice you didn't define it. As I said a flat tax is ec…

>Progressive is a word that seems to mean different things to the left and the right, I notice you didn't define it. "Progressive" has a very specific meaning when you're discussing tax structure, independent of its political meaning. Specifically, a progressive tax is one in which the effective rate you pay rises with income.

It's a word that has been at best deliberately overloaded, and at worst hijacked. Who would want to stand in the way of "progress"? It could equally well mean, the more you earn they more you get to keep.
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