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When you discuss single sex marriage with Conservatives you discover early on that they really don’t have a problem with single sexes marrying and living together over a lifetime in a relationship of trust; they just don’t like gay sex.

For them, as soon as sodomy laws went off the books, society went to hell…

Not every one is going to enjoy gay sex.  Just like everyone is not going to enjoy heterosexual sex. People are different. People want different things.

But Gay Marriage is not about gay sex.  Just like heterosexual marriage is not all about vaginal sex.  How do we know this? Because before Viagra, heterosexual marriages still lasted till the end of a partner’s lifetime, way long after sex was a distant memory.

Marriage has nothing to do with sex. Never has. Never will.  Marriage is about the pursuit of happiness.  It is a) about being wanted, b) about showing your love, and c) about taking care of the one you love after you’ve passed on.

Conservatives have big misconceptions when it comes to what marriage is… It is not about family.  Large numbers of heterosexual couples do not have children.  It is not about the particular God of their ancestors;  marriage stretches across all religions.  It is not about sharing lives together till the end;  that doesn’t happen very often these days. Divorce does.

And Marriage is not about wholesomeness.  I could meet someone of the opposite sex and walk into a courthouse somewhere, get married and that document would be honored anywhere in the world.  It makes no difference to anyone if I just met a perfect stranger and tied the knot on a whim.  All that matters to them is that I have a document…

For you see, because I’m heterosexual and because Conservatives even though they dispise women still don’t hate heterosexuals, as one, I can marry…. and so can you.

So in essence, the sole reason boiling down to having a sanction as to why gays cannot marry, is because if we do allow them to do so, then they are no longer subservient to us.  They are not a “caste” beneath us.   They are equal and can then heaven forbid, be free to climb up the status ladder to levels even above us. Yep. that is the only Conservative argument still standing as to why gays should not get married….

The way they say it when they’re stone-ass drunk?  You can’t get married because I’m a bitter old fart and my life sucks so you are going to have to be more miserable than I am… , so suffer bitch….

I couldn’t have characterized conservatives any better myself….

Whereas that characterization may have been perfectly fine if we lived in Idi Amin’s Uganda all the way back in the 70′s, it doesn’t represent the values within our Declaration of Independence.  Nor does it reflect the principles of our Constitution.

All men are created equal.  It does say “all”, correct?

Granted.  It took America too long to realize that people with melanin in their skin were people too.  It took America too long to realize that people with estrogen and breasts, were people too.  It has likewise taken too long for America to understand that people who like people who happen to be of the same gender as themselves,  are people too….

It is simply time, ladies and gentlemen.

(And who says they have to have sex?  You?  Who probably haven’t gotten “the good stuff”  in your marriage for… how long?)

It is simply time.

  • In case you are waking up, you won’t get this story until noon.

The Daily Mail London just opened a can of worms on Benghazi….

Breaking News: The Daily Mail is reporting from inside sources that General Petreaus and the Ambassador Stevens were not informed that parts of the CIA had one day before, attacked the very same group of Libyan insurgents who returned the next day to attack at Benghazi. Furthermore, the Petreaus scandal was orchestrated by a rogue element of the CIA itself(7th floor) who were the ones behind the pushing of the FBI into investigating General Petreaus bedside manners.. (remember that fishiness of how the rogue FBI agent kept pushing his superiors? It makes sense now.)

Now get this. The same John Brennan who just testified to become the next CIA director, was who ordered the clandestine attacks the night before and who did not brief Petreaus, or the official side of the CIA, that they had done so.

So not only are Republicans completely wrong on Benghazi, they are now laughingstocks for every single word they said about it….

  • We did know about the security threat.
  • We did do something about it.
  • We didn’t tell Obama, Clinton, Panetta, or Petreaus.
  • All were in the dark, not to propagate deceit, but because they had no idea….

Every Republican needs to apologize to every Democrat starting now by getting down on their knees, and bowing their head to the ground in supplication… :) (Dick Morris can lick our toes).

One always fails if they bluster against competent people when all they have is their own hot air.  That’s why good Democrats always win over bad Republicans.

Wow, that has to be a joke A headline like that jumps right out.

What? It’s true? Can’t be. Not even the NRA is that stupid, …. are they?

Really? They ridicule someone who shoots skeet, but won’t lift a little finger to prevent someone from killing their mother, then breaking into a school, shooting the principal and guidance counselor who try to disarm him, then methodically point and click an assault rifle at little children who have always trusted everyone they know, looking up at him with big eyes, maybe a smile, and he pulls the trigger?

Really, the NRA isn’t doing anything to stop him? Really? The NRA isn’t even saying they are sorry? Really?

I’m finding this a little hard to believe… I always thought the NRA was just normal people who liked guns. Wait a minute. I know lots of people in the NRA… They are terribly upset over the Newtown killings….

Oh, it isn’t them? Who is it?

Ohhhhhhh, the NRA leadership… What’s that guys name, Wayne LaPierre? So he came right out and said that it was too bad that little kids have to get killed, just so he can have a gun that should be illegal? It’s ok to have dead children laying on the tile, as long as Republicans get to keep their guns? He said that? Really?

And let me get this right…. This kook, this goofball, this sicko, is making fun of someone who shoots at clay?

You need to use your chemical weapons and you need to use them now.

You really have no choice. Conventional weapons have failed you. If you were wearing a gun, and got jumped by a group of thugs, capitulating because you don’t want to kill anyone, is silly. Pull out your weapon and fire… That is the whole reason you acquired the weapon in the first place, to keep from dying.

They will run, since they don’t have weapons with which to respond.

People will say you shouldn’t have. But you will be alive to hear it. Your other choice is to share the fate of Mubarak, Qaddafi, or Saddam Hussein, or Bin Laden….

Assad, you really don’t have any other alternative. Use them.

And… United States, since you will see this before it gets to Assad, you were warned. He has no other choice. Threats are meaningless at this point. So what if he kills innocent children? If their deaths are what will keep him alive, what is to stop him?

Smoking Gun
Chart Courtesy of NY Times

Call it temporary insanity but let’s pretend, let’s just say, …that at one moment in time, if I chose to donate my youth out for my country, to be compensated back in the form of low pay; to completely and unjudgingly offer my fate up to the will of bureaucrats, all for the loss of my own self esteem, all for unending stretches of boredom, sparsed with interludes of a few intense seconds, that fortunately thorough my reactions and training, enabled me to continue living as I do today………….

I could reasonably be expected to be honored for that service to my nation, right?

In a perfect world, that is….

One would think, that in a perfect world, as needs were being debated across the universe of public funding, that a hierarchy resembling this, would sort of be the guideline, if not the rule?

National Heroes…..

over

We, The People…..

over

LLC corporations….

After all, if it weren’t for us, there’s a good chance those LLC. corporations wouldn’t be able to do business in a free and prosperous society, you would think?….

One would think, that if one of these heroes needed medical care, with the tremendous amounts of money being thrown away by our government daily, in the forms of corporate tax breaks enabling corporations to make “record breaking profits”…. that they would be put at the top of the list.. don’t you think?

Sorry, CEO… your operation will have to wait… We have a veteran who is in dire need ahead of you….

In a perfect world….

One would think, that a voucher system would be in place, or a blank check, where any veteran could walk into any hospital, and get immediate, necessary medical attention, have his prescriptions filled as a privilege for his service, and that the bill would be willing be paid by those with monetary resources more than adequate for their own needs?

One would think, (right?)… that it would be CEO’s, those who give pink slips so they can break profit records, those who cut benefits so they can break profit records, those who don’t invest in America so they can break record profits, ….who should be the ones finding themselves regulated to CEO hospitals, where they would then have to settle in on a waiting list for the next opening to occur, where they had to endure budget cutbacks and go without life-saving medicine because there was no money left in the CEO fund, perhaps because it had all gone to Veterans to pay THEIR expenses?

In a perfect world…..

In a perfect world, veterans would need no freebies…. They would not need welfare, or a pension, or a humble stipend to eke an existence… They would be working, contributing to society, in any way they could… If they had no legs, they would be outfitted at corporate’s expense, so that would not be an issue… If they had no arms, they could be outfitted at corporate’s expense so that was not an issue. If they had psychological damage, (and who wouldn’t?) they could be treated at corporate’s expense… so that was not an issue.

If they were so badly damaged that they create an efficiency drain on society, they could be honored for their sacrifice, and a useful voluntary capacity could be created to honor that commitment once made so long ago… Perhaps speaking about serving one’s country in every class, in every school, in every county? Can you think of any better civic’s lesson?

There’s a lot that can be done…

The problem is that veterans are deemed as just another expense…. Because to corporate America, that is just what they are… An expense, an obligation to be met that gets in the way of their making more money…

Unfortunately, our Congress is owned by Corporate America….

What should and does need to happen, is this relationship needs to be exposed. We need to call them out on it…

Republicans and Democrats are both complicit in allowing corporate raiders this unprecedented power. But Republicans are the symbol of Corporate America. Republicans are the ones who championed the Corporate Takeover. Republicans are the ones who dismanteled the safeguards that had been put in place to prevent that takeover from happening. That is why they need to go. Disappear… Whoever is left, the remainder, most likely after seeing the elimination of a large majority of their peers, will think twice before following their Dark Lord, now a soul less wanderer eking existence.. ……

In a perfect world…

Unfortunately, today we need to contend with obscene amounts of money saying Corporate is Good; Government Fairness is Bad….

But we have our lives telling us the opposite… It will take courage and strong will, to override all the overload of sensory data being pipelined into our soul, but we still have hearts, and those hearts are attuned to what makes America special. great, and the best place to live on this earth….

WE can still dream….

And those dreams should include a perfect world… one we CAN make happen, at least for those without whom we would not have the freedom, the resources, the nation, we have today….

Here’s to a perfect world?

Raise top marginal rate to 40%.

Remove all existing tax credits for corporations. Keep current corporate rate at 35%….

Hire 35,000 additional accountants for the IRS….. Just do it.$35,000,000,000.

Allow dollar for dollar, a one time tax credit over these next two years, for every dollar spent on new construction here within the boundaries of the United States. A small business making $60 million this year, .. times the corporate rate of 35% stands to pay $21 million in corporate Federal Income tax. But with the “kavips deduction”, it instead decides to build 4 new locations with a start up cost of $5 million each…. and pay NO FEDERAL TAXES that year.

Those four new locations, each pump $5 million into their respective economies, which as it changes hands, gets taxed over and over and over again. If each unit has sales over $2 million, at a 30% payroll cost, they over the course of a year, pump an additional $660,000 into each local economy… As that $660,000 changes hands, it gets taxed over and over and over again as well….

So what do we have?

Whereas we had no investment under Republican Tax plans, (all that free money was going to Chinese investment since they worked for $1 a day), now under the kavipsian tax plan, we have in the first year, $21 million invested domestically, and a combined $2.6 million each year in brand new jobs, flowing out through the economy……

That $2.6 million if all in one state with a top rate of 5%, puts $131,000 into the state treasury that was not already there. At 2.5%, it puts $65,000 back into local government…..

If the corporation choses to do the same for a second year… then, those amounts get doubled!

Now, here’s the beauty of the kavipsian tax plan…. Imagine, every business, corporate or private, doing this exact same scenario simultaneously…

Ironically, by raising the rate on the amount of taxes we take from the wealthy and/or corporations, but allow them to deduct dollar for dollar what they spend that year on physical capital (something that gets built) we force businesses to choose between giving the Federal Government more of their money…. or keeping it themselves.

We all benefit when they keep it .. themselves…

When your mom gets cancer. You don’t hate your mom. You hate the cancer.

Likewise, it was hard not to like the German people during WWII. It was easy to hate the fact that they were trying to kill you.

And so it is with Republicans… 99% of them are just like us. They too love their country; they too want it fixed; they too are angry, frustrated that events are not moving at fast-forward..

They are wonderful people; who also, happen to be Americans. We can never forget that if we were together in a bar with beer, wine, and spirits flowing like milk and honey, we’d all have a “gay ole time” (Flintstones’ reference) …

We want the same things, and we should be working together on fixing America… but we can’t….

Because of the Cancer…..

That cancer is not necessarily the Republican Party, but it is, the force that IS currently manipulating the Republican Party. That cancer is not a single person in the Republican hierarchy… It is instead that revision of the old cancer, that originally was against recognizing new states into the Federal Union. It is that old cancer that kept slavery legal for thirty years beyond when it should have been eliminated. It is the revision of that old cancer that kept blacks as second class citizens across the South. It is the cancer that fought against giving the Negro their Civil Rights. It is that cancer that denied Tobacco caused cancer. It was the same cancer that encouraged the killing of 4 students at Kent State, to teach those dirty hippies who listened to the Doors, a lesson they wouldn’t forget. It is the same cancer that denied the process of evolution, denied birth control, denied NPR, and ran rampant against all evidence of global warming…… Each time; they were wrong.

It is the same cancer that blew up a building in Oklahoma City.

It is the same cancer that fired bullets into working men and women who were refusing to work, until they got a raise…

It is the same cancer that took out Gabby Gifford……

With all these offenses, it is easy to point your finger and say, “Damn you Republicans..” It is in fact, way too easy.

But is not the people voting Republican who are to blame… They, like the German people, are bystanders. often gaping wide eyed when shown the truth, of what their support for the force of evil did to innocent men and women.

It is easy to turn all Republicans into demons if you don’t talk to them. But listening to them talk, (and we’re talking real people here, not their David Korsch’s) it is very easy to find common ground.

That common ground is this: sure, you tax the wealthy, and we’ll cut spending and together we’ll have high revenue with less expense, and be out of this mess in no time….

This is what every card carrying Republican is telling me, that is of course, if they don’t subscribe to the “cult-like” Republican meetings…. They say: “tax the fuckin’ wealthy; it won’t affect me; Just make sure that extra money is not wasted but is used to pay down the waste we already spent!”

Democrats have already offered to cut Medicare, Social Security, Defense Spending, all those things dear to their heart… So the problem isn’t them.

The problem is with the Republicans, who have balked on the tax issue, especially when it comes to raising taxes on millionaires… yet they have no qualms raising taxes on the middle class and poor. Republicans have shut down the Federal Government four times this year. Four times! They did so each time because the obvious was about to happen. WE were about to get a consensus among the rational members of both parties on how we were going to raise taxes and cut expenses (at the same time) which would bring us into line.

They pulled out of negotiations and said: we will not raise taxes one penny… and also, we will not do any business either in the House or Senate, until the Bush Tax Cuts are permanent.

And that,in one sentence, is why nothing gets done.

It’s as if a terrorist broke into your workplace. Under gunpoint he straps C4 to several of your firm’s employees, and starts firing his gun out the window to get everyone’s attention….

Rule Number 1: You don’t negotiate with terrorists.

That is the problem Obama and the rest of America is faced with, raising this question:

Do we attack (shut down government) and later clean up, or do we negotiate something we can both live with?

What do you do with cancer… Leave it? live with it?

There’s your answer to today’s political gridlock.

Removing all Democrats will be like having the Brits flee France across the channel, leaving the Nazi’s to run France without contention….

Removing all Republicans will be like marching triumphantly into Berlin.

It is pretty obvious who is the cancer and who is not. WE, THE PEOPLE, can’t let it linger any longer. The cancer must go, preferably without killing its host in the process…

First his argument, then my rebuttal. Most of you have already read the article by Warren Buffet: Stop Coddling the Super Rich.

Jeffery Miron rebuts that with Why Buffet Was Wrong

Encapsulated (read the whole in the link above), Miron says Buffet was wrong because

1) number of $uper-rich too few to make a deficit dent.
2) focusing on the $uper-rich fosters a counter-productive attitude towards material success;
3) focusing on the $uper-rich distracts us from the real problems: “policies that make no sense”;
4) the tax on capital gains needs to be zero prevent economic stalemate.
5) High taxes on income/capital gains, drive investment overseas.
6) Buffet errs by focusing on outcomes, not policies…

His closing jab…. In economics, as in sports, we should adopt good rules and insist that everyone play by them. Then we should stand back and applaud the winners.

Agreed: As in sports, we should adopt good rules and insist that everyone play by them……

But which rules?

Take football. Formulated in 1873 the original rules representatives from Yale, Princeton, and Rutgers met to discuss formulating rules for this new game of football. The new rules consisted of reducing the number of men on the field from fifteen to eleven. Adding a fourth down before surrendering the ball. Tackling below the waist was allowed. …..

Yet the first legal forward pass wasn’t attempted until 1906, 33 years later… after a change in rules. So when one discusses following the rules, the immediate question is, which rules are we going to go by?

When it comes to football, obviously not the purest approach, instead we go by those rules reached by a consensus by those who represent those on the field who will be playing… (Incidentally, the previous year’s (1905) season saw several on-field football deaths and serious injuries around the country. President Theodore Roosevelt (The Bull Moose) met with universities officials to find ways to make the game safer. That’s when rules were modified to allow passing.) One can see why they would want to change…..

So something like the forward pass which we take for granted, was added as an innovation 33 years after the game was formulated…

Whose rules is Miron talking about? Keynes? The Chicago School of Business? This Libertarian’s Take?

Here are the fallacies of Miron’s argument.

Are the number of the $uper-rich too few to make a difference? Miron takes Buffets 10% surcharge and multiplies it out giving an optimistic $73 billion off of the top 1% adjusted gross income of $727 billion.

Allow me to ask a question? Would it be easier to balance the budget and cut back on the deficit if we had this additional $73 billion, or if we didn’t?

That is a no-brainer. Is $73 billion everything that we need? No, it is not $4 Trillion.. It is a $73 billion that should have already been in our system had the Bush Tax Cuts not been extended…. It is one simple step towards that $4 Trillion.

Furthermore, just playing with averages, taking this $73 billion in taxes, that Warren Buffet says his group would feel good about giving, especially since 99% of the population are suffering so much,…. This top 1% would at the end of one year…(.assuming they paid Buffet’s average of 17%, plus the proposed 10% surcharge, ie 123 billion plus 73 billion) ….be responsible for $196 billion of America’s Revenue.

Leaving $531 billion of their aggregate income left over for private investment. If receiving a return of 3% on that money (I earned 40%), just sitting their money gains an additional profit of $16 billion the subsequent year, which will will in itself, yield the following year at (17% + 10%), an additional 4.3 billion in revenue once it is taxed…..

So exactly the amount the Bush Tax Cuts are costing us per year of income by continuing them for the top 1% using the figures compiled by the extinguished Mr. Miron, is…. $75 billion if their rate of return that year, was 3%.

This year alone, we will be borrowing $1,270 Billion just to fund our Federal Government Spending…. So how can someone realistically say ,,, NO NEW TAXES! and continue borrowing $1270 Billion at hopefully less than 3% ($38 Billion) when they have the $uper-rich lining up to cut them a check for $73 Billion? And all they need to be, is asked? Instantly our budget deficit drops slightly and we now only have to borrow $1195 Billion which costs us at 3%, $35 Billion… We just saved $3 Billion in interest a year!….

How can anyone say this is a bad plan? Especially when it impacts ONLY 236,833 taxpayers….a number slightly less then the number of citizens of the nation’s second smallest state (Delaware), who have a bachelor’s degree or higher (246,932)

So Take Down 1: Miron says Buffet is wrong because the $uper-rich can’t make up all the difference! Correct: but that doesn’t make Buffet wrong; it makes not raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% wrong, because that $75 billion that is a difference, is one that will be paid at some point by 99% of Americans making less than $1 million a year.

Next:

2) Focusing on the $uper-rich, fosters a counter-productive attitude towards material success.

No offense to the distinguished Mr.Miron, but this is simply a stab in the dark. It, believe it or not, is attempting of all things, to use… the discipline of psychology, as an economic instrument. Most psychologists, can’t tell me what psychology is… As a science, it is very imprecise. In fact, I remember back in the day, when psychology was called “the discipline without discipline.” because it was mostly made up. Those students who could make up theories on a dime, and find threads of reality to defend those theories, did well. Back then, it wasn’t real science. There was no way to invade the brain to test ones theories… (Seriously, everything we do, is phallic? That’s what that discipline’s founder Freud said…)

Miron’s own words: The way to promote a hard-working, entrepreneurial and innovative society is to celebrate great wealth so long as it has been earned by legitimate means. When this is not the case, policy should target the wrongdoing directly, not demonize everyone who hits it big. This is called: preaching to the choir; it is repeating back what those listening want to hear; it is not something based in reality.

I know where he is coming from. Anyone who’d stood in West Berlin, and looked out across East Berlin, knows that the economics used on West Berlin side, were the more preferable. Communism wiped out wealth, and eventually they had no bread. But they had to actually kill millions of citizens to reach that point.

Denmark is pretty cool place to live; it’s top tax rate is 51$. Norway is ranked the best place to live in the world: it has a 40% tax rate. Belgium is a marvelous place: taxed at 50%… So there is a balance that can be achieved. Higher taxes do not necessarily imply an East Berlin. In fact, these three countries, for its own citizens, are the equivalent of a cruise ship. You pay one price (taxes) that you can afford, and everything thereafter is free. Really, if there was something wrong with that concept, why would so many Americans take cruises?

With those two myths out of the way, let’s look at his statement stripped of bluster, and poke at the skeleton of fact…. A quick question rather illustrates the inanity of the remark…

Dear Reader: you who can barely pay your bills, if you could make $28 Billion a year, would you want to? (Oh, I forgot the part where you really make $56 billion but give $28 back to the government, but that doesn’t really affect your choice now, does it?) Are you really going to stick with your $30,000 assembly line job, because if you made $56 billion, the government would take 50%?

So that line, that celebrating wealth is a requirement to motivate an entrepreneurial society, I can buy only if confined in certain contexts. It certainly doesn’t mean that the out-paying by the top 1%, of 10% more of their income to the Federal Government is going to stop all entrepreneurial activity… Did every business close its door, when our local electric company jumped its rates 60% over the previous year? No? Not one? And those same businesses won’t shut down if taxes go up. Paying taxes is just an additional cost of business. Fortunately people will always worship money, and will always work to make it, irregardless of the amount they pay out in taxes, provided that the amount they do make, is still deemed worth their effort…

Remember, the top marginal rate in 1944 was 94%… Back then the economy was booming; an entire Liberty ship was being built in 17 days! Again, we had boom years during the 1950′s (top marginal rate 82%) and again in the 1960′s (70%) and again in the 1970′s (70%)…. Real History disputes that statement by the distinguished Mr. Miron and his implication that increasing taxes on the wealthy, cause a lack of effort and growth.

Take down number 2: Just because a person says values are important for entrepreneurship and a productive economic system, doesn’t mean they are. The Amish do quite well in their business endeavors, but I doubt anyone would believe they worship and celebrate wealth. Certainly taking 10% more from the top 1%, will not destroy America’s work ethic and cause people to stop trying to better their financial lot.

So next.

3) Focusing on the $uper-rich draws our focus away from the real problems: policies that don’t make sense. Most specifically, policies that make no sense in the first place because they inhibit economic growth and that simultaneously redistribute from low-income households to the middle and upper classes.

Examples he offers: The deductibility of home interest rates; the favorable tax treatment of employer-paid health insurance; numerous loopholes for favored industries; Excessive licensing requirements, permitting fees, restrictive examinations and other barriers to entry into medicine, law, plumbing, hair styling and many other professions; crony capitalism; the too big to fail doctrine.. all of which inhibit an entirely free market place from functioning as it theoretically could.

He argues; the home interest rates benefit upper income levels, because the poor continue to rent. Employer based health insurance gives the wealthier greater benefit than the poor, causes excessive use, raises the cost for all; loopholes for favored industries, interfere with economics because what you sell, is not as important as “who you know”.
Excessive permits restrict competition, raising prices for the privileged few. Being too big to fail props up bad companies and swells executives salaries.

He argues these policies are what shifts the money flow upward: benefiting those more who make more, and taking money from those who now make less…. For example, bailouts allow a few to receive great gains in times of good, and taxpayers to pay the costs in times that are bad… Obviously a big shift of money upward.

Back to his original statement: focusing on the rich draws our attention away from these real problems…

No it doesn’t… Take Down #3: Each of these factors is a piece of the puzzle. Just taxing the wealthy 1$ an additional 10% does not take attention off or away from these problems. All pieces of the puzzle need to be in place before the puzzle is deemed completed. And though some of those other items mentioned might theoretically cause an upward shift of money, it appears you failed to see that a majority of these items pump extra money into our economy at the bottom. That money flowing upward through the economy, is the best thing that can happen for the two quintiles of Americans resting on the bottom.

Fourth, he argues that capital gains needs to be taxed at zero. Reminds me of my Santa Clause wishes when I was tiny. Of course anyone with money, would “wish” that capital gains need to be untaxed… The inherent problem with that scenario, is that it benefits only those already endowed with wealth. Those others who can’t save, see no benefit aat all, from it…

Mr. Miron states: Economists agree broadly that an efficient tax system should avoid taxing income, dividends and capital gains to promote savings, investment and growth… But are they right? If so… why then does it never work?

When tax rates were extremely high, the economy boomed. Think about that. Of course it would. If you were about to be charged 94% of everything you made after expenses, ….. you would do everything within your power to raise your expenses higher so that you had little or no income to be taxed!… You might build another factory; you might add on to your business; you might increase your sales force figuring more salesmen, more sales possibilities; you might decide to give a raise or two or three, because better to have experience by your side, than have it walk because someone else was less stingy with their money that they had to spend or lose too. Great things happen when you raise the top marginal tax rate.. And they happen for this very reason: so the amount of tax paid to the entity demanding it, is as small as possible….

Does this decrease the amount corporations pay to the treasury? Yes, but, those new, additional people now working for that corporation, will be paying income taxes; all that money was unavailable before. And once those people who are now working, are buying, the sales tax revenues climb back into each state’s coffers.

But lets look at the opposite spectrum. What happens when capital gains actually go to zero? In a global economy, money does flee the country. And it should. Why should a business build a manufacturing plant here, when he can build overseas for 1/10 of what his cost would be if built domestically? Currently, the unfortunate truth is this: there is no reason to build here in the US, unless one is forced to by a higher tax rate.

After all, what’s the point in building a US factory with ones current profits, a factory that may lose money it’s first ten years (costing you to have opened it), only to barely break even in it’s tenth year?

When instead, one could put those profits into a high-growth foreign investment fund and make 40% this past year alone! When tax rates are low, or close to zero… what incentive is there to invest in the United States? Absolute zero.

Conversely, if one owns a manufacturing site overseas when tax rates go up, one is better off to close it down, move back here, and open a new plant in the US, where one can expand, then write-off their taxes to zero because of all those expansion expenses.

And that is the problem that occurs when one follows the Chicago Business School’s model in a global economy. It doesn’t keep money in the US. If Reagonomics had said,”we will cut taxes but only on that amount of physical capital you put inside this country, then it might have worked. Unfortunately when it passed, it didn’t make that specification.

But that is exactly what higher tax rates do. If you raise the corporate and top marginal tax rates, expansion quickly follows as all that profit (1.7 Trillion this past quarter) tries to find somewhere to go… For example, if you are a bank, you make loans. Capital suddenly becomes available again.

Take down number 4: Contrary to what economists say, historians are right when they point out that an economy was far more lively and productive, and investment in physical capital flourished, when tax rates were higher. As soon as taxes were cut, jobs were as well.

Buffet is scolded in this remark.

“Buffet asserts that taxing capital income has never deterred anyone from investing. Well, then he has never discussed the issue with me or many of my friends.”

Again, a shallow statement. Are you telling me that you really expect us to believe that those with money put it under their mattress, in a tree with a hole, or under their squeaky floorboard, because tax rates go up?

You really expect us to believe that a person is going to choose to settle for a loss, just because tax rates are going up, instead of settling for some solid wins, minus the amount taxed off the gains?

If so, your friends are fools.. No personal offense; it’s just that only fools would pursue such a policy. Granted, I’ve met some; they are out there.

But I highly agree with you on this point.

More importantly, taxing investment returns plays a huge role in what kinds of investments occur, and where, even if it has minor effects on the amounts..

It sure does. If you want economic growth, and put that 2nd quarter’s $1.7 Trillion dollars of profit back into the economy where it can grow jobs, then you’d better raise the rates on capital gains and the top marginal tax rate of the top 1% of income. Suddenly there is an incentive, one that has been missing since 2003, to build and expand your business here in America.

Take Down Number 5: high taxation of investment drives investment overseas…. History proves this wrong: high taxes keep businesses here. Low taxes send companies overseas because that is where the higher profit is. If you can keep more of your money by burying it back into your business, then that’s what you do. If you build overseas, and Uncle Sam insists that you pay 40$ of that profit over here to this fed, you soon will realize it is better off to have put that profit into an expansion facility here in the US, and make more money per day, per week, per year through increased volume (all of which comes to you), as opposed to investing and then turning 40% over to the IRS…

Take down #6: Buffet focuses on outcomes; not on policies.

In fact, most citizens of this country are tired of policies being argued back and forth. They want outcomes.

Outcomes are what it’s about. All proper focuses need to be on outcomes. The outcome is what is important. Whatever policy which can reach that desired outcome is desirable. Some policies may work at different time and different people. Some policies may not work at all. But focusing on the outcome is exactly what the American people are saying they want. Forget policies and philosophies.

Fix it please…Make the top 1% bear more of the burden, please? It worked so well before, make it work that well again, please?

So it comes down to deciding which set of rules we are to follow. A set of rules desired for by a very small select group of people, the top 1% of the wealthy? Or… rules that will benefit the other 99%…

Sometimes when the results don’t quite work out, changing the rules is deemed a good thing…….

It’s time to tax the wealthy. We’ve starved the economy long enough.

You heard it from the Republicans from both sides of the rotunda. THIS BILL WILL CREATE JOBS.

Because it was said legitimately I took it hook, line, and sinker, and said… “good, we need more jobs….”

Four hours later, it came back up. Wait, a minute, how does trimming $100 billion a year out of our economy, create more jobs?

If the Fed cuts jobs, that’s fewer jobs. Who’s going to hire them? And if you create MORE jobs with this bill, you have to hire not only all the people you’ve cut, but many more besides…. Who’s hiring?

The same people who haven’t hired anyone back since 2008? After all, what incentive does corporate America have to hire people? They’re doing fine just as they are.. In a quarter where strong second-quarter earnings from companies like McDonald’s, General Electric and Caterpillar were just the latest proof that booming profits have allowed Corporate America to leave the Great Recession far behind, UNEMPLOYMENT WENT UP!

When the US Corporations banked $1.7 trillion in profits… UNEMPLOYMENT WENT UP!!!

Not to mention, when unemployment increases as the Fed itself begins to layoff workers, there will be less spending-money in those communities that experience layoffs.

Who hires when the revenue stream is predicted to collapse?

More than likely, those making a living off these same Federal employees, will be out of work too…..

Now we got, even more unemployment….

So how can Republicans stand in front of a microphone, and say this bill is a “job creator”… “It will grow more jobs”?

Someone explain it….. please!

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