Show your support for Trump!

[Revoltingest]

It would feed his massive insatiable ego. Don't know if that counts as profit, but a megalomaniac (exactly the correct word to describe Trump) might want to be seen as a strong victorious warrior.

Such an unsupported claim would apply at least as much to Hillary.
The difference is that she has the record of a hawk.
So even if not for personal gain, she'll likely pursue war anyway.
It's who she is.

 

[fantome profane]

Such an unsupported claim would apply at least as much to Hillary.
The difference is that she has the record of a hawk.
So even if not for personal gain, she'll likely pursue war anyway.
It's who she is.

From wiki
Megalomania is a psychopathological condition characterized by fantasies of power, relevance, omnipotence, and by inflated self-esteem.

I agree that Hillary has shown a great desire for power, but of course that is true by definition of all presidential candidates (past, present, or future). But I have never seen Hillary bragging the way Trump does. I have never heard Hillary brag about how big her penis is.

Come on rev, you are better than this automatic knee-jerk response. You can't just say that everything wrong with Trump is just as true of Hillary. I know she has her faults, but she does not brag the way Trump does.

 

[Revoltingest]

From wiki
Megalomania is a psychopathological condition characterized by fantasies of power, relevance, omnipotence, and by inflated self-esteem.

I agree that Hillary has shown a great desire for power, but of course that is true by definition of all presidential candidates (past, present, or future). But I have never seen Hillary bragging the way Trump does. I have never heard Hillary brag about how big her penis is.

Come on rev, you are better than this automatic knee-jerk response. You can't just say that everything wrong with Trump is just as true of Hillary. I know she has her faults, but she does not brag the way Trump does.

Hillary just has a different public persona.
One must avoid the knee-jerk presumption that the quieter aspirant is any less ambitious & machiavellian than the louder one.

Note:
I never claimed the underlined portion of text above.
What I pointed out is that extreme speculative unsupported claims against one are equally applicable to any, which illustrates the uselessness of basing one's vote upon such a rationale.

 

[fantome profane]

Hillary just has a different public persona.
One must avoid the knee-jerk presumption that the quieter aspirant is any less ambitious & machiavellian than the louder one.

Note:
I never claimed the underlined portion of text above.
What I pointed out is that extreme speculative unsupported claims against one are equally applicable to any, which illustrates the uselessness of basing one's vote upon such a rationale.

Megalomaniac is my own assessment of Donald Trump, and I stand by it. It is based on every word that he has said about himself.

 

[Revoltingest]

Megalomaniac is my own assessment of Donald Trump, and I stand by it. It is based on every word that he has said about himself.

That's OK.
I just find all the leading candidates to be pretty similar in their desire to
claw their way to the top, different agendas & styles notwithstanding.

 

[Wu Wei]

megalomaniac is defined as a person who is obsessed with their own power.... I pretty much feel that is part of the job description to be politician

 

[Revoltingest]

megalomaniac is defined as a person who is obsessed with their own power.... I pretty much feel that is part of the job description to be politician

But the adjective is typically only to the opposition.
One's own candidate is called "hard working" & "dedicated to public service".

 

[Wu Wei]

But the adjective is typically only to the opposition.
One's own candidate is called "hard working" & "dedicated to public service".

I work with a lot of people who are hard working & dedicated to public service.... none of them are politicians though. I wold around a lot of politicians.... from both sides of the aisle and I do not think I would ever call any of them hard working & dedicated to public service...lying cheating power and money mad politicians maybe... but never hard working & dedicated to public service

 

[The Ardent Atheist]

Ron Paul seems different than most politicians. It's too bad that the left demonized him.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

That's OK.
I just find all the leading candidates to be pretty similar in their desire to
claw their way to the top, different agendas & styles notwithstanding.

While I agree with you here, I still (based upon the evidence provided in my earlier posts) both -- do not find Hillary to be a war hawk (though perhaps an easily deluded fool, and too proud to apologize for her error), and -- do find Trump (with Cruz a close 2nd) to be a violent and war-drum-beating egotist who thinks we will be met in the streets of countries we invade by cheering masses of relieved citizens who have been yearning for our arrival (exactly like Dick Cheney).

Ron Paul seems different than most politicians. It's too bad that the left demonized him.

Bernie Sanders is another politician that I see as more of a person wanting to help his country.

 

[Underhill]

I'm fully aware of the context.
But note that I was correcting a very specific erroneous post which claimed that Obama did not say that.
He did actually say...
"If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

I recognize that the context mitigates Obama's extreme claim.
But it doesn't lessen the wrongful mischief I see in his phrase. It's just slightly different.
What I read is that everyone is smart & hard working, & that these entrepreneurs weren't all that
responsible for their success because of infrastructure & help from others. His intent is to justify
taking more from them. But they already paid & still pay for their help (labor, material), & they pay
taxes & fees for infrastructure. It's simply an emotional appeal to the not so entrepreneurial masses,
convincing that they're entitled to more, & that businesses are obligated to give ever more.

Wrongful mischief?

Tell me something. What percentage of that wealth would be possible without that infrastructure? What percentage of that wealth would be possible without those people who work for him?

When we come up short, be it private employees who can't afford to get by without public assistance, or government who cannot afford to maintain infrastructure these companies need, taking more from people who have vastly more wealth than the rest is not unreasonable. Of course there are limits to these kinds of actions. We are no where near those limits. In fact I would say quite the opposite.

You may have a point if it weren't a fact that many of these people in the top earning category pay lower rates than those of us who actually work for our money. You may have a point if investors weren't paying less, as a percentage, than those of us working. But you just don't. You may have a point if we haven't seen the wealth gap increase by 700% in the last few decades.

Tax rates are set based upon two categories, popular opinion and economics. In both cases it makes perfect sense for investment income to carry a higher rate than earned income. I would also point out that the largest expansion of the middle class in American history happened when the top rates were over 70%. Most of it when those rates were near 90%.

This whole notion that a CEO earns his 20 million a year compensation is laughable. They get that much because they managed to convince a board, often consisting of their friends, they deserve that money. I would also say that many of the problems we're seeing with CEO's willing to push the boundaries of legality and what is ethically right stems directly from these obscene bonuses.

 

[Revoltingest]

Wrongful mischief?

This is a value judgement on my part.
To demonize entrepreneurs as unworthy of keeping so much of their money in order to create a climate enabling higher taxes & bigger government is "wrongful mischief" IMO.

What percentage of that wealth would be possible without that infrastructure? What percentage of that wealth would be possible without those people who work for him?

This is a good question because it addresses something which I hadn't yet.
Obama's suggestion that businesses must pay more taxes for this infrastructure is a slight of hand.
Why?
Businesses & shareholders already pay the income tax portion which provide this infrastructure.
And when it comes to property taxes, business & investment property is taxed at a much higher
rate than residential. Moreover, those of us with commercial property not only pay taxes for
roads, we also pay special assessments for improvements to the roads which front our properties.
I've had to do this several times. It's pretty costly.
Adding insult to injury, they increase property taxes at illegally high rates, which means I must
regularly hire legal help to fight these increases. It's a pretty high cost of doing business.
Obama thinks I don't spend enuf already. A pox on him!

When we come up short, be it private employees who can't afford to get by without public assistance, or government who cannot afford to maintain infrastructure these companies need, taking more from people who have vastly more wealth than the rest is not unreasonable. Of course there are limits to these kinds of actions. We are no where near those limits. In fact I would say quite the opposite.

There is no upper limit to the amount of wealth he'd take.....other than "all he can".

You may have a point if it weren't a fact that many of these people in the top earning category pay lower rates than those of us who actually work for our money. You may have a point if investors weren't paying less, as a percentage, than those of us working. But you just don't. You may have a point if we haven't seen the wealth gap increase by 700% in the last few decades.

I probably pay a much higher tax rate than those earning less.
Between state income, fed income, & fed self employment tax, I'm around 50%....that's half my income.
But this is in normal years.
Because of tax complexities which don't allow deduction of some expenses (eg, carry forward losses, energy related capital improvements) & taxing phantom income (eg, interest waived by a lender in a refinance), my tax rate has exceeded 100% in some years (using GAAP to calculate net income). I also pay income tax on the amount the dollar falls in value when I sell property. This is because capital gains tax doesn't account for inflation, so I can sell a property at a profit in terms of dollars, but no profit in economic gain (adjusting for the lower value of the dollars I received). Avoiding the tax by a 1031 exchange is made difficult by government.

Tax rates are set based upon two categories, popular opinion and economics. In both cases it makes perfect sense for investment income to carry a higher rate than earned income. I would also point out that the largest expansion of the middle class in American history happened when the top rates were over 70%. Most of it when those rates were near 90%.

Most taxpayers avoided those rates with the far more generous tax dodges government provided back then, eg, accelerated depreciation without recapture as ordinary schedule E income. The average rates weren't higher back then for high earners.

This whole notion that a CEO earns his 20 million a year compensation is laughable. They get that much because they managed to convince a board, often consisting of their friends, they deserve that money. I would also say that many of the problems we're seeing with CEO's willing to push the boundaries of legality and what is ethically right stems directly from these obscene bonuses.

You say it's obscene.
I don't....I trust the market more than government to set pay.
Obama's pandering is designed to appeal to people who don't have or make much money,
& don't understand taxation strategy or history. He only sows the seeds of envy & hatred.

 

[Adramelek]

I like Donald Trumps disruption of the political natural order of things. I like his more liberal take on social issues and more hard core stance on economics and immigration. And the more the political establishment and good old boys club in the Republican party seeks to take him down, the more fervent my support of him becomes. Donald Trumps only master is Donald Trump -- a true Chaos Magickian in the political world.

 

[Druac]

Trump would most likely be a nightmare, and if one is going to use Hillary's votes on going into Iraq and Afghanistan against her, which is fair game imo, let me remind people that this also is what Trump originally had proposed. Therefore, the issue of war between those two really cancel each other out.

That leaves the other issues, and I think that voting for Trump would be absolutely reckless. I'd be more comfortable voting for my 11 year old granddaughter because at least I know she's a nice person.

 

[metis]

The above sorta give me a warm fuzzy-- and I like warm fuzzies.

 

[Revoltingest]

The above sorta give me a warm fuzzy-- and I like warm fuzzies.

Caution!
If one searches for images of "warm fuzzy Hillary", be sure your content filter is on at least <moderate>.
Ew.

 

[Nietzsche]

Elmo doesn't immediately ruin everything he touches. So, Elmo 2016! ****, Oscar the Grouch would be better than Trump.

 

[Curious George]

This is a value judgement on my part.
To demonize entrepreneurs as unworthy of keeping so much of their money in order to create a climate enabling higher taxes & bigger government is "wrongful mischief" IMO.

This is a good question because it addresses something which I hadn't yet.
Obama's suggestion that businesses must pay more taxes for this infrastructure is a slight of hand.
Why?
Businesses & shareholders already pay the income tax portion which provide this infrastructure.
And when it comes to property taxes, business & investment property is taxed at a much higher
rate than residential. Moreover, those of us with commercial property not only pay taxes for
roads, we also pay special assessments for improvements to the roads which front our properties.
I've had to do this several times. It's pretty costly.
Adding insult to injury, they increase property taxes at illegally high rates, which means I must
regularly hire legal help to fight these increases. It's a pretty high cost of doing business.
Obama thinks I don't spend enuf already. A pox on him!

There is no upper limit to the amount of wealth he'd take.....other than "all he can".

I probably pay a much higher tax rate than those earning less.
Between state income, fed income, & fed self employment tax, I'm around 50%....that's half my income.
But this is in normal years.
Because of tax complexities which don't allow deduction of some expenses (eg, carry forward losses, energy related capital improvements) & taxing phantom income (eg, interest waived by a lender in a refinance), my tax rate has exceeded 100% in some years (using GAAP to calculate net income). I also pay income tax on the amount the dollar falls in value when I sell property. This is because capital gains tax doesn't account for inflation, so I can sell a property at a profit in terms of dollars, but no profit in economic gain (adjusting for the lower value of the dollars I received). Avoiding the tax by a 1031 exchange is made difficult by government.

Most taxpayers avoided those rates with the far more generous tax dodges government provided back then, eg, accelerated depreciation without recapture as ordinary schedule E income. The average rates weren't higher back then for high earners.

You say it's obscene.
I don't....I trust the market more than government to set pay.
Obama's pandering is designed to appeal to people who don't have or make much money,
& don't understand taxation strategy or history. He only sows the seeds of envy & hatred.

If you are paying 50% you are either earning a lot and poorly investing, or have a bad accountant.

The news flash is you pay the same rate on the same dollar as those who work for their money. That, my friend, is the bottom line. If you are paying a higher rate on a dollar it is because you are comparing a dollar you earned with one someone else didn't. Falling in the 39.6% tax bracket does not mean all of your income is taxed at that amount, so stop pretending.

 

[Curious George]

This is a value judgement on my part.
To demonize entrepreneurs as unworthy of keeping so much of their money in order to create a climate enabling higher taxes & bigger government is "wrongful mischief" IMO.

This is a good question because it addresses something which I hadn't yet.
Obama's suggestion that businesses must pay more taxes for this infrastructure is a slight of hand.
Why?
Businesses & shareholders already pay the income tax portion which provide this infrastructure.
And when it comes to property taxes, business & investment property is taxed at a much higher
rate than residential. Moreover, those of us with commercial property not only pay taxes for
roads, we also pay special assessments for improvements to the roads which front our properties.
I've had to do this several times. It's pretty costly.
Adding insult to injury, they increase property taxes at illegally high rates, which means I must
regularly hire legal help to fight these increases. It's a pretty high cost of doing business.
Obama thinks I don't spend enuf already. A pox on him!

There is no upper limit to the amount of wealth he'd take.....other than "all he can".

I probably pay a much higher tax rate than those earning less.
Between state income, fed income, & fed self employment tax, I'm around 50%....that's half my income.
But this is in normal years.
Because of tax complexities which don't allow deduction of some expenses (eg, carry forward losses, energy related capital improvements) & taxing phantom income (eg, interest waived by a lender in a refinance), my tax rate has exceeded 100% in some years (using GAAP to calculate net income). I also pay income tax on the amount the dollar falls in value when I sell property. This is because capital gains tax doesn't account for inflation, so I can sell a property at a profit in terms of dollars, but no profit in economic gain (adjusting for the lower value of the dollars I received). Avoiding the tax by a 1031 exchange is made difficult by government.

Most taxpayers avoided those rates with the far more generous tax dodges government provided back then, eg, accelerated depreciation without recapture as ordinary schedule E income. The average rates weren't higher back then for high earners.

You say it's obscene.
I don't....I trust the market more than government to set pay.
Obama's pandering is designed to appeal to people who don't have or make much money,
& don't understand taxation strategy or history. He only sows the seeds of envy & hatred.

Those of us with commercial or rental properties pass the cost of taxes to the renters or customers, so...no you don't pay those either.

 

[Underhill]

This is a value judgement on my part.
To demonize entrepreneurs as unworthy of keeping so much of their money in order to create a climate enabling higher taxes & bigger government is "wrongful mischief" IMO.

It isn't demonizing when it is the truth. As we talked about in the thread on shaming...

This is a good question because it addresses something which I hadn't yet.
Obama's suggestion that businesses must pay more taxes for this infrastructure is a slight of hand.
Why?
Businesses & shareholders already pay the income tax portion which provide this infrastructure.
And when it comes to property taxes, business & investment property is taxed at a much higher
rate than residential. Moreover, those of us with commercial property not only pay taxes for
roads, we also pay special assessments for improvements to the roads which front our properties.
I've had to do this several times. It's pretty costly.
Adding insult to injury, they increase property taxes at illegally high rates, which means I must
regularly hire legal help to fight these increases. It's a pretty high cost of doing business.
Obama thinks I don't spend enuf already. A pox on him!

If you are one of the 1% he does. The average income of the 1% is 1.2 million. Generally you need to be over 400k to make the list. I think you will get by with your 50% (which is about 5% more than I pay).

There is no upper limit to the amount of wealth he'd take.....other than "all he can".

Did you actually read my post?

I probably pay a much higher tax rate than those earning less.
Between state income, fed income, & fed self employment tax, I'm around 50%....that's half my income.
But this is in normal years.
Because of tax complexities which don't allow deduction of some expenses (eg, carry forward losses, energy related capital improvements) & taxing phantom income (eg, interest waived by a lender in a refinance), my tax rate has exceeded 100% in some years (using GAAP to calculate net income). I also pay income tax on the amount the dollar falls in value when I sell property. This is because capital gains tax doesn't account for inflation, so I can sell a property at a profit in terms of dollars, but no profit in economic gain (adjusting for the lower value of the dollars I received). Avoiding the tax by a 1031 exchange is made difficult by government.

Most taxpayers avoided those rates with the far more generous tax dodges government provided back then, eg, accelerated depreciation without recapture as ordinary schedule E income. The average rates weren't higher back then for high earners.

You say it's obscene.
I don't....I trust the market more than government to set pay.
Obama's pandering is designed to appeal to people who don't have or make much money,
& don't understand taxation strategy or history. He only sows the seeds of envy & hatred.

You do realize that some very wealthy people are saying you are wrong right? Buffet, Gates and many, many more.

But you are right about one thing. Privately held real estate isn't privy to the best of the tax breaks. Those are reserved for the stupidly rich.