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The Hill: Democrats and the lemmings of the left

POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 17, 2024 20:48
VIEWED: 2418
PAGE 2 of 6

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, December 12, 2024 9:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't see a direct connection between tax rates on the rich and their investment behavior. What would be the motivation to plunk $ into investment?

First of all, you're talking about INCOME tax, but the wealthy (now, anyway) make most of their money thru cap gains.

Second, the whole investment mileu was different back then. Globalism and financialism ... commodities futures, hedge funds, M&As, LBOs, stock buybacks, high frequency trading ... didn't exist back then. Glass Steagall was in force. Reserve requirements

Right. So how do you break it without BREAKING it?

Quote:
USA industry dominated the globe. Tariffs were in force until about 1950. What else was there to invest in? Where else would you plunk your $$?

So I think the correlation between high income tax rates and investment was somewhat coincidental, and I'm not sure that drastically raising income tax rates on the wealthy would increase investment in industry, since there are so many other- more profitable- ways to shelter wealth from income taxes.

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.

Do CEO's even really draw a paycheck anymore even, unless it's some sort of legal consideration? I'm sure if they do it's meaningless compared to all the other benefits and stock options they're getting.

Quote:
OTOH, SIX makes a good point that there is no ROI on infrastructural development. And, BTW, no ROI for things like pollution control and living wages healthcare and other things that make the USA a decent place to live and work. There have to be sources of funding for what are called "the public good".

Then take that to the logical conclusion and you get Chicago Mayor Daley's parting gift to the city and the state of Illinois when he sold the profits for ALL PARKING METERS IN CHICAGO FOR 99 YEARS to foreign interests in the Middle East for 2 Billion and then spent that 2 Billion before the Daleys were finally history.

Taxpayers still fund the cops and meter maids to monitor them and give out tickets, but the only revenue the city sees now is from the tickets they give out. While taxpayers are funding the police to give them tickets for not paying to park, all of those profits from the meters that our taxpayer dollars are managing go out of the country for about another 75 years still.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

SECOND

Thursday, December 12, 2024 6:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

All I was saying is that I don't think that increasing INCOME taxes on the wealthy will cause investment in reindustrialization.
You didn't get that point either.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Signym, all I am saying is that you live in error and always have. For example: Henry Kissinger did NOT say what your signature says. He said the exact opposite. You have had years to discover the true origin of that so-called Kissinger quote and correct your signature, but you have not done it, despite the effort being trivial:

Did Kissinger say "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

https://www.google.com/search?q=Did+Kissinger+say+%22It+may+be+dangero
us+to+be+America%27s+enemy%2C+but+to+be+America%27s+friend+is+fatal.%22

Signym, if you can't even understand how you misquote Kissinger, you can't understand anything. It is a waste of time communicating with Trumptards about anything complicated.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

SECOND

Thursday, December 12, 2024 6:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.

I sure would love to argue with you and persuade you (I'm kidding because you are an overly articulate blockhead) but why bother?

I love capitalism, when sensibly regulated, and love and admire more than one billionaire myself. The ones I know support fair taxation. This guy is not one of them: How One of the World’s Richest Men Is Avoiding $8 Billion in Taxes.

How Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, Is Avoiding Billions in Taxes

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/business/nvidia-jensen-huang-estate
-taxes.html

The chief executive of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has taken advantage of popular loopholes in the federal estate and gift taxes, which have quietly been eviscerated.

Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, is the 10th-richest person in the United States, worth $127 billion. In theory, when he dies, his estate should pay 40 percent of his net worth to the government in taxes.

But Mr. Huang, 61, is not only an engineering genius and Silicon Valley icon whose company, the world’s second-most valuable, makes the chips that power much artificial intelligence. He is also the beneficiary of a series of tax dodges that will enable him to pass on much of his fortune tax free, according to securities and tax filings reviewed by The New York Times.

The savings for his family are on a pace to be roughly $8 billion. It likely ranks among the largest tax dodges in the United States.

The types of strategies Mr. Huang has deployed to shield his wealth have become ubiquitous among the ultrawealthy. Blackstone Group’s Stephen A. Schwarzman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and top executives at Google, Coinbase, Eli Lilly, Mastercard and Advanced Micro Devices have collectively shifted billions of dollars into financial vehicles in order to avoid the federal estate tax, according to a Times analysis of securities disclosures.

It is just one sign of how the estate tax — imposed solely on a sliver of the country’s multimillionaires — has been eviscerated.

Revenue from the tax has barely changed since 2000, even as the wealth of the richest Americans has roughly quadrupled. If the estate tax had simply kept pace, it would have raised around $120 billion last year. Instead it brought in about a quarter of that.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, December 12, 2024 8:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.
I sure would love to argue with you and persuade you (I'm kidding because you are an overly articulate blockhead) but why bother?

That would have been a first on your part.

Pity... It could have been amusing.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

SIGNYM

Thursday, December 12, 2024 10:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.
I sure would love to argue with you and persuade you (I'm kidding because you are an overly articulate blockhead) but why bother?

I love capitalism, when sensibly regulated, and love and admire more than one billionaire myself. The ones I know support fair taxation. This guy is not one of them: How One of the World’s Richest Men Is Avoiding $8 Billion in Taxes.

How Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, Is Avoiding Billions in Taxes

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/business/nvidia-jensen-huang-estate
-taxes.html

The chief executive of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has taken advantage of popular loopholes in the federal estate and gift taxes, which have quietly been eviscerated.

Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, is the 10th-richest person in the United States, worth $127 billion. In theory, when he dies, his estate should pay 40 percent of his net worth to the government in taxes.

But Mr. Huang, 61, is not only an engineering genius and Silicon Valley icon whose company, the world’s second-most valuable, makes the chips that power much artificial intelligence. He is also the beneficiary of a series of tax dodges that will enable him to pass on much of his fortune tax free, according to securities and tax filings reviewed by The New York Times.

The savings for his family are on a pace to be roughly $8 billion. It likely ranks among the largest tax dodges in the United States.

The types of strategies Mr. Huang has deployed to shield his wealth have become ubiquitous among the ultrawealthy. Blackstone Group’s Stephen A. Schwarzman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and top executives at Google, Coinbase, Eli Lilly, Mastercard and Advanced Micro Devices have collectively shifted billions of dollars into financial vehicles in order to avoid the federal estate tax, according to a Times analysis of securities disclosures.

It is just one sign of how the estate tax — imposed solely on a sliver of the country’s multimillionaires — has been eviscerated.

Revenue from the tax has barely changed since 2000, even as the wealth of the richest Americans has roughly quadrupled. If the estate tax had simply kept pace, it would have raised around $120 billion last year. Instead it brought in about a quarter of that.

The point you seem to keep missing is that these tax dodges are LEGAL. You've been on a bender about Trump, taxes, and enforcement when IN REALITY the problem is our TAX LAW.

So, how would you change our TAX LAW?

Personally, I'd start with corporate taxes.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

SECOND

Friday, December 13, 2024 6:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The point you seem to keep missing is that these tax dodges are LEGAL. You've been on a bender about Trump, taxes, and enforcement when IN REALITY the problem is our TAX LAW.

So, how would you change our TAX LAW?

Personally, I'd start with corporate taxes.

Writing tax legislation is like designing and building an engineering project. Projects inevitably malfunction and maybe even fail when the worst people are allowed more than minor input to the project.

I'm biased by my experience in constructing engineering projects. In my experience, problems enviably come down to somebody sabotaging the project for their benefit, money most often, but sometimes egotistically insisting their opinions are good despite being proven as bad. A supplier who delivers crap, a subcontractor who is crap, an employee or engineer who has crap for brains. How to handle these people who are sabotaging the project for personal reasons? Fire them. How does that apply to politics? You can't fire them. (Well, you can but Lincoln, for example, was awfully slow at realizing the only way to handle Confederates was to kill their stupid asses rather than talk them to death. In turn, Lincoln got killed because he assumed his temporarily defeated enemies were reasonable and could be persuaded to behave better than before the Civil War. They couldn't. I've never seen a bad person come to the light. I have only seen them fake it. I have seen evil people temporarily beaten back from their worst behaviors or get too old, tired, and weak to be as harmful as they once were. )

So, if you want to rewrite the tax code, saboteurs must be excluded from writing it. HOW TO DO THAT WITHOUT KILLING THEM? Get the voters to exclude them from the project and Congress. How to do that?

The Conversation Democrats Need to Have

By Jon Favreau | December 10, 2024

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/democrats-need-ch
ange-minds/680950/

In the weeks since the election, I’ve been thinking about the woman who told me she’d heard that Kamala Harris “let in all the illegals who killed all those cops.”

I met her when a few of us from Pod Save America were knocking doors in Las Vegas the Sunday before the election. She was listed in the voter file as a 72-year-old registered Democrat who hadn’t voted yet, so we rang the doorbell and were greeted by a small Asian woman and a very large dog. Her broken English wasn’t easy to understand, and the barking didn’t help, but her concern about the cop-killing immigrants was clear.

We skipped the fact-check and assured the woman that Vice President Harris promised to crack down on illegal immigration and close the border if it got out of control. She seemed mildly encouraged, but not sold. We told her that Harris also wanted to make prescriptions cheaper for her and cut her taxes. Then she pointed to a photo of the vice president on the campaign literature we were holding: “Is that her?” We nodded. The woman gave us a thumbs-up and a promise that she’d vote for Harris.

This wasn’t the type of exchange we’d expected, but only because the outcome was successful. Most interactions with voters aren’t as satisfying as you hope, and some are just bizarre. When I was conducting focus groups for a podcast I host called The Wilderness, a Latino voter in Vegas told me that his two favorite political leaders were Governor Ron DeSantis and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, because they were both “outsiders” who were willing to “take on the establishment.” An older Milwaukee voter said that he had voted for Barack Obama and then Donald Trump because “they both felt like change.” A young Black man in Atlanta said that because of crime and inflation, he regretted his vote for Joe Biden, and that “at least Trump is an honest liar.”

The show would sometimes get harsh reviews from Democrats, whose reactions to these focus groups I’d charitably describe as frustrated disbelief: “Infuriating.” “Depressing.” “Couldn’t listen.” “Why

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 14, 2024 12:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The point you seem to keep missing is that these tax dodges are LEGAL. You've been on a bender about Trump, taxes, and enforcement when IN REALITY the problem is our TAX LAW.

So, how would you change our TAX LAW?

Personally, I'd start with corporate taxes.
Writing tax legislation is like designing and building an engineering project. Projects inevitably malfunction and maybe even fail when the worst people are allowed more than minor input to the project.

After that, your entire post is all misdirection.

TAX LAW is written by LOBBYISTS and voted in by politicians who are, for the most part, tied by apron strings to those lobbyists and to their party central committees.

There's one answer to bad legislation:

Get money out of Congress.

So, why do politicos and their parties need so much $$$ ?

Well, what did Harris spend $1.5 BILLION dollars on?

Advertising.

So, one thing that could happen is that the broadcast media ... those licensed by the FCC ... be REQUIRED to donate hours of prime time to each candidate.

And then, of course, there should be no "deplatforming" and censorship on the internet. Every candidate should be able to reach out directly to Americans.

My personal favorite idea? Banning paid political adverts from ALL media for 3 weeks immediately before the vote. A kind of "cooling off" period.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 14, 2024 1:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't see a direct connection between tax rates on the rich and their investment behavior. What would be the motivation to plunk $ into investment?

First of all, you're talking about INCOME tax, but the wealthy (now, anyway) make most of their money thru cap gains.

Second, the whole investment mileu was different back then. Globalism and financialism ... commodities futures, hedge funds, M&As, LBOs, stock buybacks, high frequency trading ... didn't exist back then. Glass Steagall was in force. Reserve requirements

Right. So how do you break it without BREAKING it?

Quote:
USA industry dominated the globe. Tariffs were in force until about 1950. What else was there to invest in? Where else would you plunk your $$?

So I think the correlation between high income tax rates and investment was somewhat coincidental, and I'm not sure that drastically raising income tax rates on the wealthy would increase investment in industry, since there are so many other- more profitable- ways to shelter wealth from income taxes.

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.

Do CEO's even really draw a paycheck anymore even, unless it's some sort of legal consideration? I'm sure if they do it's meaningless compared to all the other benefits and stock options they're getting.

Quote:
OTOH, SIX makes a good point that there is no ROI on infrastructural development. And, BTW, no ROI for things like pollution control and living wages healthcare and other things that make the USA a decent place to live and work. There have to be sources of funding for what are called "the public good".

Then take that to the logical conclusion and you get Chicago Mayor Daley's parting gift to the city and the state of Illinois when he sold the profits for ALL PARKING METERS IN CHICAGO FOR 99 YEARS to foreign interests in the Middle East for 2 Billion and then spent that 2 Billion before the Daleys were finally history.

Taxpayers still fund the cops and meter maids to monitor them and give out tickets, but the only revenue the city sees now is from the tickets they give out. While taxpayers are funding the police to give them tickets for not paying to park, all of those profits from the meters that our taxpayer dollars are managing go out of the country for about another 75 years still.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

That is the everlasting problem of corruption.

And by corruption, I don't mean just simple pocket-lining. I mean putting personal wealth, power, and even personal agendas and ideologies (i.e. globalism) ahead of the interests of those you're supposed to be representing.

In my experience in government, I would say that generally "The fish rots from the head" holds true. For the most part, employees just want to do their jobs and while they may take home office supplies or not put in a full day's work, they don't have the authority to do much damage or set the tone of the entire organization. (Accountants and tech people are kind of the exception, since they have a lot of access.)

If you want to stop corruption, start at the top.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, December 14, 2024 2:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I don't see a direct connection between tax rates on the rich and their investment behavior. What would be the motivation to plunk $ into investment?

First of all, you're talking about INCOME tax, but the wealthy (now, anyway) make most of their money thru cap gains.

Second, the whole investment mileu was different back then. Globalism and financialism ... commodities futures, hedge funds, M&As, LBOs, stock buybacks, high frequency trading ... didn't exist back then. Glass Steagall was in force. Reserve requirements

Right. So how do you break it without BREAKING it?

Quote:
USA industry dominated the globe. Tariffs were in force until about 1950. What else was there to invest in? Where else would you plunk your $$?

So I think the correlation between high income tax rates and investment was somewhat coincidental, and I'm not sure that drastically raising income tax rates on the wealthy would increase investment in industry, since there are so many other- more profitable- ways to shelter wealth from income taxes.

Raising income taxes would have almost no impact on anything, outside of maybe some of those who make stupid amounts of money but aren't in the 1%. I'm thinking your good lawyers and plastic surgeons here. People that are actually paid for a service that has a tangible value. I'm sure they're able to hide a good deal of it, but they've also got to pay a lot as to not raise suspicion too.

Do CEO's even really draw a paycheck anymore even, unless it's some sort of legal consideration? I'm sure if they do it's meaningless compared to all the other benefits and stock options they're getting.

Quote:
OTOH, SIX makes a good point that there is no ROI on infrastructural development. And, BTW, no ROI for things like pollution control and living wages healthcare and other things that make the USA a decent place to live and work. There have to be sources of funding for what are called "the public good".

Then take that to the logical conclusion and you get Chicago Mayor Daley's parting gift to the city and the state of Illinois when he sold the profits for ALL PARKING METERS IN CHICAGO FOR 99 YEARS to foreign interests in the Middle East for 2 Billion and then spent that 2 Billion before the Daleys were finally history.

Taxpayers still fund the cops and meter maids to monitor them and give out tickets, but the only revenue the city sees now is from the tickets they give out. While taxpayers are funding the police to give them tickets for not paying to park, all of those profits from the meters that our taxpayer dollars are managing go out of the country for about another 75 years still.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
That is the everlasting problem of corruption.

And by corruption, I don't mean just simple pocket-lining. I mean putting personal wealth, power, and even personal agendas and ideologies (i.e. globalism) ahead of the interests of those you're supposed to be representing.

In my experience in government, I would say that generally "The fish rots from the head" holds true. For the most part, employees just want to do their jobs and while they may take home office supplies or not put in a full day's work, they don't have the authority to do much damage or set the tone of the entire organization. (Accountants and tech people are kind of the exception, since they have a lot of access.)

If you want to stop corruption, start at the top.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Yup.

And in the case of United Healthcare, it appears somebody was alre

SECOND

Saturday, December 14, 2024 4:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If you want to stop corruption, start at the top.

Yup. I got way too much to lose to be doing anything stupid like that myself.

Nope.
If you start at the top, you are starting with a target that is out of reach.
Start with yourself, 6ix.

Donald Trump Is the Authentic American Berserk
(berserk, adjective, out of control with anger or excitement pretty much describes every Trumptard I have known. One word explains why Trumptards can’t seem to prosper in America.)

Far from being an alien interloper, the incoming president draws from homegrown authoritarianism.

By Jeet Heer | December 13, 2024

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-authentic-american-be
rserk/

Elie Mystal wrote with characteristic eloquence about Trump’s essential Americanness:

Quote:
We are not “better” than Trump. If anything, thinking that we are better than Trump, thinking there is some “silent majority” who opposes the unserious grotesqueries of the man, is the core conceit that has led the Democratic Party to such total ruin. America willed Trump into existence. He was created from our greed, our insecurities, and our selfishness. We have summoned him from the depths of our own bile and neediness, and he has answered.

Democrats will never be able to defeat Trumpism unless they realize that Mystal is right. Trump is as American as baseball and apple pie. He’s the dark side of American individualism and lawlessness.

Biden’s failure was not just personal but also political and ideological. Although he defined himself as the anti-Trump, to a significant degree Biden misunderstood what Trump and Trumpism are all about. His error can be seen in the remark: “This guy just isn’t really an American president.”

The great error that Biden and other centrist liberals have made is seeing Trump as an alien import into an otherwise healthy America.

To understand Trump, one must look to the long and hidden history of right-wing anti-system politics in America, which is now being uncovered by historians such as John Ganz, David Austin Walsh, Nancy MacLean, and Nicole Hemmer. What these writers have shown is that, while right-wing anti-system politics only achieved national power with Trump, it’s long been percolating at the corners of public life, often influencing mainstream conservatives.

The tradition that created Trump goes back to the racist reaction to Reconstruction, to the Ku Klux Klan in its many manifestations, to the demagoguery of Huey Long and Joseph McCarthy. Trump himself was inducted into this dark tradition by his mentor Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s acolyte.

As Trump returns to power, we can no longer afford the illusions of Joe Biden. As a lifelong centrist, Biden could never come to terms with the genuine power of right-wing anti-system politics. He thought it was fringe and anti-American, though it has been a deep-running tendency festering throughout modern American history. To fight right-wing anti-system politics, centrist illusions about the essential innocence of American history will have to be abandoned.

Biden staked his political fate on his faulty understanding of Trump. Seeing Trump as alien to America, Biden had no understanding of the homegrown appeal of Trump’s message. Nor could Biden comprehend the fact that in a period of anti-system sentiment it was counterproductive to appeal to traditions of bipartisan comity as bulwarks against this allegedly alien threat. Biden’s frequent evocation of bipartisan blather (which came to fruition with Kamala Harris’s embrace of Liz Cheney) only reinforced Trump’s claim to be an outsider fighting against a corrupt bipartisan elite.

Democrats followed Biden’s preference and cast themselves as a pro-system party. This strategy failed— spectacularly. In the wake of that failure, we now have to turn to the political traditions that never had any illusions about right-wing anti-system politics — or about American innocence.

http