Despite what Bernie Sanders and Robert Reich would have you believe capitalism is ethical and is a corollary to freedom. Capitalism is Ethical
What's sad is that in all 4 of these, the biggest factor is the government getting involved and screwing up or failing to perform one of its basic functions. But by all means, let's let the government do more and make more of the economy look like the healthcare and higher education sectors.
In my view, Sanders and Reich are cynical narcissists speaking to useful idiots. The EASIEST thing in the world is to give things away. The EASIEST thing in the world is to point out problems. The EASIEST thing in the world is propose raising taxes, minimum wage and redistribute wealth by government power. That is all they are good for. Their ideas are destructive and full of egomania.
I think the issue is that Reagan capitalism is good and facilitates growth. The current model of capitalism is regressive. The masses pay, the billionaires don't. If things go badly for certain things they get bailed out. Put tax rates back to where they were at the end of the Reagan years.
Helping folks economically are good goals but they want to enact systems that don’t work or never shown to work.
Pass a law that there will be no reparations paid. Pass a law that the budget must be balanced. Otherwise, the money shall remain with the people.
Reasonable. I could get on board. Pass a law that Jeff Bezos (who's about to go into space based on his huge income) should pay at least as much tax as I pay to support a Longhorn message board.
Ah heck, don’t need to raise taxes a single percent, just eliminate the deductions they lawfully take if you want them to pay. Happened to me with Trumps tax changes, making me take the standard deduction for the first time ever. If they really wanted to tax the big boys they could do the same thing, change all the so called ‘loop’ holes, but that ain’t gonna happen.
They pay too much for that to happen. I recently read an article that demonstrated the uber wealthy will get personal exceptions written into the tax code just for a single individual. Need to cash in $100M of stock for that yacht? Pay a lobbying firm to write your own personal exemption into the tax code in some footer somewhere, likely in a completely unrelated bill. As long as the right politician gets their $$, either in a campaign donation or other means, they'll be lining up to do that wealthy individual a favor.
The "masses" largely don't pay. The upper middle class, upper class, and non-billionaire wealthy (rich enough to be in the high brackets but not rich enough to basically get their own personal tax code) get the 10-incher with no KY jelly.
I can attest to that last sentence. We have ~50% that don't pay any income tax (though sales tax is a ***** for them). It seems there is a threshold of ~$100k that you move from paying a limited tax to getting hosed. Then there's a sweet spot for the government tax man between those with that income to the billionaire-class. 8yrs ago a major remodel was completed on the house, a 6-figure remodel. The contractor that handle's much of the work in my neighborhood told me "as long as I keep my income under ~$100k on paper my kids can go to school for free, practically." His daughter recently graduated from Columbia and he has 2 kids in private colleges. Realistically speaking, I'd guess that I'm fortunate to make double or more than he does. Still, I can't afford to send my 3 sons to private school. In the 2008 economic crisis it became popular for CEO's to take a $1/yr salary, but a massive stock stake. It's now clear that there was a significant tax benefit to those CEOs to borrow against their stock portfolios, look on paper like they have no income and avoid the regular tax bills. They got the benefit of looking magnanimous to their employees but it really being a sound financial decision.
Yes Deez. In the US, the bottom 2/3 don't pay much at all. In Europe it is much different, the working and middle classes pay a much larger amount of the taxes.
Don't pay much income tax. Sales tax and other items though equal for all eat a much more significant portion of the low-income class wealth.
Dude, think it through. You realize they have to pay the loan back, right? They pay it back with after tax money, plus they pay interest on the loan. Not a smart thing to do.
Well, they get hammered with the VAT in Europe, which is more than double the sales tax in most states.
Property tax, sales tax, charitable donations and investment "losses" into the algorithm that determines income tax exposure. Oh...those loans against their wealth? Tax deductible too. (Yes, I realize the difference between tax credits and deductions and that whenever they sell that stock they'll pay, unless they have some other tax avoidance vehicle equivalent to a 1031 real estate exchange.) Property/sales tax are generally local taxes. They are going to pay for your safety (police/fire) and schools. From the leaks of those 25 wealthiest people, there are some years their income reaches "zero" or at least below the threshold of having to pay anything. Elon Musk paid $0 in income tax in 2018. Let that sink in. At that point he was worth $115B. The way that our tax laws are written is appears anyone taking a paycheck as income are the schmucks.
The problem with the premise is that Capitalism nor Socialism exist in a vacuum. The world has never seen a 100% Capitalist system nor Socialism. It's a false argument to think it's an either/or solution. Both need governance. In fact, there isn't an economic system at scale that doesn't need some regulation to squeeze out the misuse of the system. I'd rather look at Capitalism and Socialism as a scale. The only question is where is the sweet spot. We are not there currently.
Property taxes are huge in Texas and your "quotes" around investment losses reveals your emotional bias. Realized losses are real. They represent the risk taken to invest. It doesn't bother me at all that they can deduct those REAL losses.
I think you're making a case for "it takes money to make money". Marketplace Tech today discussed Masa Son, the founder of Softbank, the worlds largest Venture Capitalist. For all the funding failures like WeWork (and there are MANY!) it only takes a handful to hit and increase the fund exponentially. I get it that these are bets that overall help the economy. Still, on a smaller scale, deducting those "real losses" is like a direct subsidy of Capitalism. We do it because we WANT risk taking but we socialize the loss. Not sure even @Monahorns would agree with that.
I don't like socialization of risk. It incentivizes very risky behavior and makes others pay for mistakes.
Yep, and we allow people to deduct property tax from their taxes to incentivize home ownership, directly encouraging housing price inflation.
I am generally for less taxation. I don't have a problem with tax breaks but that is different from sending tax dollars from one person to others to cover up their problems. The real comparison to socializing risk would be to give homeowners money to pay off mortgages when they are about to default.
We are masters as socializing risk, especially in recent decades. Whether we bail out the auto industry, the banks, insurance companies or individual home owners the only thing that changes is who is bailed out.
Yes, and it actually impoverishes all of us and makes us more beholden to government. The bailouts are also the driver of income inequality in our country. They go to the rich and those political tied in. It corrodes our culture. It's awful.
