Can someone explain "Occupy Wall Street"

Parent Cafe
101

<p>In some quarters, it’s axiomatic that coddling the wealthy will create jobs. And I certainly understand why the wealthy would want to convince the rest of us that that’s true. The only problem is, it just isn’t. In fact, the inverse is true: Lower marginal tax rates are actually correlated to stunted job growth (and GDP). This has been studied, going back to the inception of the income tax. Here are the facts; the methodology is in the linked article.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>[The</a> Relationship Between Tax Rates & Job Growth](<a href=“http://thecivildiscourse.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2011/04/22/the-relationship-between-tax-rates-job-growth/]The”>The Relationship Between Tax Rates & Job Growth | The Civil Discourse)</p>

<p>I know you don’t want this to be true, but do you have any actual FACTS to refute it?</p>

102

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes. With tariffs. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No. So the jobs, the earnings, and the dignity of work all stay inside our borders. Yes, goods will get more expensive. But fully employed consumers will have more money to spend. We’ll actually start getting the virtuous cycles we were supposed to get from foreign competition, cheaper goods, and trickle-down. </p>

<p>The USA had high tariffs for most of its history. The Hamilton Tariff (1789) was the 2nd statute enacted by the fledgling federal government.</p>

103

<p>Doct,
[PowerOptionsApplied</a> - Tax Advantages of Broad-based Index Options](<a href=“http://www.poweroptionsapplied.com/tax-advantage.asp]PowerOptionsApplied”>http://www.poweroptionsapplied.com/tax-advantage.asp)</p>

104

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/kristof-the-bankers-and-the-revolutionaries.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/kristof-the-bankers-and-the-revolutionaries.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I don’t think the wealthy get it.</p>

<p>It is better to pay a little more…than pay nothing because your business is gone.</p>

<p>If a financial tax is passed…I won’t have to worry about paying taxes from a trading business…because the business will not exist. But yay…no taxes. Yay…</p>

<p>PS…on an aside…as I stated before…the revenues from a financial tax will come up very short…but it doesn’t matter…because when people are angry…they want revenge…and frankly…the people should be angry.</p>

<p>There are a lot of pigs that do not create wealth for society on wall street.</p>

105

<p>"So for those who want to channel their amorphous frustration into practical demands, here are several specific suggestions:</p>

<p>¶Impose a financial transactions tax. This would be a modest tax on financial trades, modeled on the suggestions of James Tobin, an American economist who won a Nobel Prize. The aim is in part to dampen speculative trading that creates dangerous volatility. Europe is moving toward a financial transactions tax, but the Obama administration is resisting — a reflection of its deference to Wall Street.</p>

<p>¶Close the “carried interest” and “founders’ stock” loopholes, which may be the most unconscionable tax breaks in America. They allow our wealthiest citizens to pay very low tax rates by pretending that their labor compensation is a capital gain.</p>

<p>¶Protect big banks from themselves. This means moving ahead with Basel III capital requirements and adopting the Volcker Rule to limit banks’ ability to engage in risky and speculative investments. Another sensible proposal, embraced by President Obama and a number of international experts, is the bank tax. This could be based on an institution’s size and leverage, so that bankers could pay for their cleanups — the finance equivalent of a pollution tax.</p>

<p>Much of the sloganeering at “Occupy Wall Street” is pretty silly — but so is the self-righteous sloganeering of Wall Street itself. And if a ragtag band of youthful protesters can help bring a dose of accountability and equity to our financial system, more power to them."</p>

<p>See…this writer doesn’t seem to think of himself as radical…but I bet there are many posters who do.</p>

<p>We either share the wealth a little bit more…or we are going to share it a lot more.</p>

106

<p>Dstark and others, why don’t you folks get it that government should stop spending money that it doesn’t have? It was never intended that the US government would become a nanny state. I am not talking about things like roads, so please…There is no need to take even more of people’s money. Just reduce expenses.</p>

<p>Almost fifty percent of the people in this country pay no taxes at all. Yet you want to go to the people who are already paying many times more than their fair share, for programs and entitlements they never wanted, and ask them to pay more? I get it – you think if someone is rich that his or her fair share is something different than your fair share or my fair share. That is a bunch of baloney, and it is class warfare plain and simple. It’s anti-American. We celebrate success here. Well, we used to.</p>

<p>There are two issues here. One is that, where the heck does the nerve come from to tell people that they get to keep even less of their own money? I really think that some people live in this imaginary world where they believe there is a fixed pile of wealth, and that “rich” people just grabbed more (beyond their fair share, so they need to give that back). That is more than slightly delusional, actually. </p>

<p>I am not a billionaire, yet why does it not bother me one bit that billionaires have so much more than me? They pay so much more than I do in taxes already. I would be ashamed to propose that they give even more, yet some people obviously have no shame. I salute them for playing the game better than me. In no way did their wealth acquisition get in the way of my game. What I did or did not do was my own fault. I believe that character is more important than anything, and just because I can join a mob and vote myself a portion of Donald Trump’s money doesn’t mean I ever would. My mother raised me better than that.</p>

<p>The second issue…No matter how often people like Brian Ganz put together an argument that statistically speaking, increased taxes create more jobs, someone else can put together an opposing one that statistically speaking, increased taxes hurt job creation. And we can go on and on and on posting links. Or we can join the campers on Wall Street and waste time there. All the while this is happening, recent history in Europe and here at home will tell us that nanny states are not sustainable. Even small percentage increases in that direction will delay a recovery even further.</p>

<p>The bottom line with people like Ganz…Why doesn’t he publish a copy of checks that he has written to the IRS that go beyond the taxes he was required to pay for the past ten years? How about the past five? Three? Why don’t people like him put their money where their mouth is? I don’t want to hear, as I often do when I make this point, about what charities he supported. We all support charities. I would like to specifically see individuals like Ganz, who are the minority of business owners advocating higher taxes, to JUST PAY A HIGHER AMOUNT. Why wait for Congress to tell you to do it? Pull out your checkbooks today. If you believe it, walk the walk. Give more, whether you have to or not.</p>

107

<p>I just donated $100 to the ragtag band of youthful protesters.</p>

108

<p>dstark

There are also pigs who are labor leaders, living lives of wealth and elbow-rubbing with the rich and powerful (folks who are not always acting in the best interests of the people whose needs they are supposed to be advocating).</p>

<p>There are pigs who fan the flames of fear about the environment, and manipulate government investments, so that they can become fabulously wealthy in the process.</p>

<p>Pigs can be found in a lot of places.</p>

109

<p>

</p>

<p>Where are those statistics?</p>

110

<p>

</p>

<p>That is a big fat lie.</p>

111

<p>“Dstark and others, why don’t you folks get it that government should stop spending money that it doesn’t have?”</p>

<p>For those capitalists out there, do companies spend money that they don’t have??</p>

112

<p>Dstark:</p>

<p>Thanks for the info, I’ve never traded those types of options.</p>

113

<p>Spurster wrote–

</p>

<p>Spurster is correct in questioning the accuracy of this statement if it refers to taxes of all kinds.</p>

<p>He or she is incorrect when federal income taxes are the taxes in question–and federal income taxes are the taxes about which an increase is being discussed.</p>

<p>The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation concluded in a memo with the subject “Information on Income Tax Liability for Tax Year 2009” dated April 29, 2011, that approximately 19% of tax units will have zero income tax liability, approximately 29% will receive a refundable credit, and 52% will have a positive income tax liability. </p>

<p>This means that it is accurate to say that 48% (that is, almost 50%) of tax units pay no federal income taxes at all.</p>

<p>This illustrates the problem of people being unclear about the types of taxes under discussion. Warren Buffett lumped together two types of taxes (federal income taxes and federal capital gains taxes) on two types of income (income primarily from a salary and income from capital gains) when comparing the percentage of taxes he paid (on both types of income, a large amount of which was on capital gains) with the percentage of taxes his secretary paid (on her income from her salary and perhaps a small amount of capital gains).</p>

<p>Spurster, whoever he or she is, can probably be excused for not specifying the types of taxes he or she was considering.</p>

<p>Warren Buffett knows better.</p>

114

<p>

</p>

<p>If in your mind, taxes only means Federal income taxes on earned income (meaning wages or salary in the form of a paycheck), this is true. However, as a percentage of income, most low to middle class wage earners pay more of their income in the form of taxes of various kinds than the richest Americans. As a matter of fact, the richer one becomes, the less one pays in taxes (Federal and otherwise) as a percentage of income. And the bottom half of wage earners doesn’t get out of paying Social Security & Medicare taxes, State and federal sales taxes, State income taxes, Federal gas taxes, property taxes (both real estate (assuming they even have such an asset) and personal property), excise taxes, etc. As a percentage of their income, they pay plenty in taxes.</p>

<p>

[Who</a> Really Pays Unfair Taxes?](<a href=“http://jeffberndt.hubpages.com/hub/Who-Really-Pays-Unfair-Taxes]Who”>http://jeffberndt.hubpages.com/hub/Who-Really-Pays-Unfair-Taxes)</p>

<p>Yes, they pay the same dollar amount in taxes on an equivalent amount of gasoline, but it squeezes the resources of the lower income earner harder than those of the higher income earner. This might result in the poor guy having to cut back on basic necessities, while the more well off would more likely be in the position to comfortably absorb the effect of the tax on his lifestyle.</p>

115

<p>Spideygirl, pigs can be found in a lot of places…but the pigs that blew up the economy work in the financial sector.</p>

116

<p>Actually the pigs that blew up the economy were doing President Bush’s bidding. It was his goal that everyone should be able to afford home ownership so they, foolishly, created a system to make it so.</p>

<p>Other causes of the collapse - people buying waaaaayyy too much on credit without any thought as to how to pay for this consumption. My nephew is a perfect example of one of these people. He and his wife bought a house before they could really afford one and then kept borrowing and refinancing so that they could afford ridiculous things that no one in their financial position should afford.</p>

<p>I will agree that it is piggish greed that caused the collapse, but there was enough of that for all to share the blame.</p>

117

<p>Your nephew could not buy a place or borrow without the financing…</p>

118

<p>Au contraire…Bush continued the ‘everyone should have a home’ manta, but Clinton started it…</p>

<p>The National Homeownership Strategy began in 1994 when Clinton directed HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros to come up with a plan, and Cisneros convened what HUD called a “historic meeting” of private and public housing-industry organizations in August 1994</p>

119

<p>^^^Except that housing prices in most of the US didn’t begin to rise until after 2000, so blaming the real estate crash on Clinton is absurd. </p>

<p>How do current prices compare with 1994 prices?</p>

<p>What are you au contrairing?</p>

120

<p>Without a solid manufacturing base the US needs a strong construction industry to have decent job numbers. A policy that assists in a strong home ownership rate is good policy. Completely taking any safe guards off loan policy is stupid. To me the main culprits are the rating agencies because if they rated these financial products properly the bundled products could have never been sold and thus the awful loans would never have been written in the first place.</p>