If you eliminate capital gains.

Or you can put the money in the bank and sit on it for years. That won't create jobs.

 

Eliminating capital gains will invigorate the housing market which is what is needed in the US right now.

 

How do you figure???...please do tell.

Educate me.

 

You can use any stock to show that buying and selling at just the right time can lead to huge gains or losses. Regardless, 2006 is a lot less than thirty years ago. People who did buy then will have to hold the stock for a while until it comes back, or sell at whatever loss they are willing to handle. GE will likely recover eventually (faster if cap and trade gets passed.)

As for the retirement account penalty and taxes, that only applies if you take money completely out of the account. You can buy and sell stocks, bonds, etc. within a retirement account as much as you want, as long as you never take the money from the retirement account.

 

I can say, with certainty, that if you open a diversified porfolio at age 25, and consistently invest money each month/year until you retire at at 65, then you will see a net gain on your investment. Don't believe me? Then show me a point in history when an index has decreased in value over a 30 or 40 year period.

What are you talking about? GE's stock is much higher than it was decades ago. It seems that YOU should be the one reading up on investment basics, not me. Also, owning one stock (GE in your example) does not constitute a DIVERSIFIED PORFOLIO. Thus, your example here is nothing more than a failed strawman attempt.

Your right: Nobody has a crystal ball. I may get run over by a bus on my way to work. Thus, is the mere act of going to work "gambling" since there is an inherent risk? According to your definition, it is. We should all just quit our jobs and lock ourselves up in padded rooms I guess, according to your brilliant logic here.

You can "minimize risk," but the house ALWAYS has >50% odds of winning. Hence, this is why it's called GAMBLING (since the odds are that you will lose money). On the flip side, if you open a diversified porfolio and contribute money into it over the course of many decades, the odds GREATLY favor that you will make a profit on your investments.

 

A loss of social handouts is not STEALING, unless your definition of "stealing" is warped to the point of absurdity. If my grandmother gives me $100 on my birthday every year, and she suddenly cuts back to giving me $50 on my birthday, is she stealing $50 from me? Was I always ENTITLED to $100 of her money?

 

You're right. Banks don't employee people or loan money to people. What was I thinking.

 

More cash available to investor-buyers. No taxes for folks who buy homes when their profit exceeds the exclusion limit. Transfer of non-real estate money into real-estate more likely.

 

Taking away handouts is "extortion?" How? Please explain.

I was clearly being sarcastic. I thought that was obvious to everyone (hence the bored smiley-face rolling his eyes). Did you really think that I believe that banks do not hire any employees or loan money?

 

If people using these programs are getting more out of them than they put in, then where is that money coming from? Isn't that a handout?

Although I disagree with unequal rates of taxation for different income levels, I NEVER stated that "lower tax rates for poor people" is a handout. However, if a poor person is paying NO taxes, and yet benefiting from programs paid for by hardworking taxpayers like myself, then that is indeed a handout.

No it's not. The natural tendency of capitalism is for individuals to work up and save money to make a better life for themselves and their family. The success of capitalism is clearly visible by looking how a lower-class family can, in one generation, rise to the middle or upper class.

How? Who is "funneling" the wealth? Where is this "funnel?"

My parents are better off than their parents. I am now better off than my parents. Capitalism ensures that if you work hard and work smart, you and your family will prosper, and future generations should be able to enjoy the fruits of all of those MANY hours of hard-work and sacrifice. Your comments about the poor make no sense at all.

Hard-working people keeping more of their hard-earned money is "extortion?" I don't think so.

??? Really? It didn't seem that way at all according to what you wrote.

 

Because many of them are.

I quoted politicalcenter because I was responding to his post. It is common practice, when responding to someone's specific post, to quote the statement from the prior post that you are referring to.

For example, if you pay no taxes, and are getting some form of handout (e.g. welfare, foodstamps, Medicare, charity care, etc) then you are BENEFITING on someone else's hard-earned dollar.

That's not true at all. There is no such thing as "income immobility" (unless you are referring to a socialist system). In a capitalist society, EVERYONE has the opportunity to make money, save money, and make a better life for themselves and their family.

I looked at the first graph, and there are no explanations at all regarding a "funnel" of wealth to the "top." The graphs merely show that the top 1% have made more capital income than the bottom 80%. This is excepted, and it does not buttress your "funnel" theory in any way.

Another graphs illustrates an "income gap" (whatever that means), but again there is nothing that supports your argument that money was "funneled" to the wealthiest members of society.

Both graphs are misleading. Of course the "top 1%" make a significant amount more than everyone else (just like the fattest 1% are significantly heavier than everyone else), otherwise they wouldn't be the "top 1%."

HOW!? How does paying less capital gains tax "shift the burden" onto the poor? It just doesn't. If the long term capital gains tax is decreased from 15% to 0%, this will benefit EVERYONE (no matter what class you are in) who owns stock. Can you not see that?

Yup. Do you? What was wrong with my explanation? My grandparents worked very hard and saved money so that their children would live a better life than they did. Both of my parents did the same. Now I live by the same example. My parents and grandparents were able to save money because of Capitalism. If taxes were punitive, like you seemingly to want them to be, then all of their years of hard work would have been in vain.

You mention that "the poor will have no choice but to bend to the will" of the rich, but you provided no explanation. So what if the wealthy have more wealth than the poor (Duh again)? Just because fat people have a greater caloric intake, it does not mean that they control all food and thin people have "no choice" but to bend to the will of the obese. This line of "reasoning" is nonsensical.

All EVERYONE has to do in life is to work hard, work smart, and live within their means (obviously there are exceptions for those with disabilities and serious health conditions).

You said, "And the more wealth the top controls, the more the poor will have no choice but to bend to their will. That is the definition of extortion."
Are you going to deny this now?

You have utterly failed supporting your argument. I still want to know how a a hardworking person paying less capital gains taxes "forces" anyone to "do their bidding." This concept is absurd to me.

You did a poor job in conveying this.

 

It does not help the problem of liquidity being added to corporations that send jobs overseas.

And the money the government does not bring in (because of loss of revenue from capital gains) will have to be made up elsewhere.

Who is going to pay?

The jobs created by banks loaning more money will not be substantial...more like a drop in the bucket. Banks are not going to employ millions to loan more money.

 

I have paid into social security all my life...it is not a handout.

I am entitled to that money. And some social programs are needed such as benefits for people unable to work because of injury or illness, welfare babies (not guilty just for being born by a "welfare queen"), unemployment insurance, and some food stamp programs (so you won't have to be bothered stumbling over the starving masses).

Of course there is waste that needs to be eliminated, and some people get benefits they do not deserve.

No capital gains tax is a tax cut cut that people do not need and do not deserve.

Funny how the economy did just fine with a much higher capital gains tax for many years...so that does not translate into the real problem facing this country...and that problem is jobs for the average American.

If we had a very low unemployment rate illegal immigration would not be the problem it is today...we would be begging for workers.

 

Every time I read what the socialists write, I tend to chuckle. The alternative to people managing their wealth and their economy, is the government doing it. That is socialism. The government has proven itself as incapable of managing itself, let alone the world's largest economy. You envy the rich now? Wait until you get socialism. Then you wil envy capitalists everywhere else in the world at evey income level.

 

why should I receive a penalty for exchanging my labor for currency ?

 

How dare you use the same logic!!!

good post.

 

Because we need to fund a government.

 

but as we all know, the wealthy and powerful will make sure that the penalty I pay on my labor will be much greater than the penalty they pay on their gains.

Worse, my gains penalty( if i have any) is likely be raised with no relief in my laboring penalty. In actuality my laboring penalty will likely be raised in conjunction with the raise in my gains penalty, and will still far exceed their capital gains penalty. The whores in washinton will create many new ways for their wealthy friends to avoid claiming "income" or "gains", while the rest of us get soaked. This will all be in the name of "taxing" the rich, which is by far the biggest joke on the face of the earth.

Buffet will make large sums of money risking other peoples capital, and claim all of the income at gains rates. His whores in washington will allow it, even as they raise our income taxes.

 

no, we need to fund the bastards on wall street who empower their whores in washington to transfer our money to them.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-regulators-over-moving-merrill-derivatives-to-bank-unit.html

 

Why do you think we need to fund them?

 

Everything I have heard from Buffett is that he wants taxes raised on the wealthy.
He claims that civil unrest will be the result of the direction we are heading.
And I think he is right.

That was my point...the lack of revenue will have to be be made up elsewhere...by raising taxes on those least able to afford it...at the same time cutting social programs.

I mean really...the richest Americans paying the lowest tax rate???...and wanting more cuts???

 

apparently you do, ergo "we need to fund the government".