The Fed is about to dump water on the economy to prevent "inflation". What they really mean is "wage inflation". The funny thing about people who gripe about stagnant wages is that they aren't smart enough to fight to keep interest rates low long enough to raise wages. They fight for tax increases, which will be stolen by contractors and won't create jobs. They fight for minimum wages, which doesn't prevent illegals, outsourcing, insourcing, etc. from removing the job market from minimum wage requirements. But they never, ever, ever, enter the discussion when everyone on every national business news program in the world is fighting to raise interest rates so that not enough jobs are created to raise wages. Why do you think that is? Maybe it's because they don't get a piece of the action when people actually have a job.
>I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years.
>Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise."
I mean that there is an call to increase the taxes we just raise twice in the last few years.
>What do you mean when you say: "If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get
>rid of corporate taxation."
I mean don't tax the corporation on money you will tax the person on later. I mean don't tax nominal gains only real gains.
>you're saying they should only owe tax on the first million that was given to them as "compensation" or "pay for performance"
You don't understand how stock options work. First stock options are earned income. So no capital tax treatment without filling to get that treatment. Second you don't tax the first million. Only option value over strike price is income at the time of exercise
What I am actualy saying on inflation is if I buy a stock for $100 and later sell it for $200 then I get a capital gain of $100. In the time I held the stock though. The present value of that $100 in the past was $130 because the government inflated the dollar then I should only be taxed on $200 - $130 = $70. India for example uses this much fairer mechanism.
Of course taxing capital is a mistake anyway but that's secondary to the calculations being theft.
>If we don't tax capital gains at all (as some have suggested), how will the government make up for the lost revenue?
The government already taxed it at the corporate level. The stock in a company is a share of the assets. So somebodies office is owned by the shareholder. That worker occupying that office generates income the government taxes as well.
>And if you want to cut the budget, where do you suggest the cuts come from?
All the places people get stuff for free. I have no love for the military either. There is never a plan to cut stuff only a plan to get cleaver about taxing.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years. Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise."
The capital gains tax used to be near 40% before Jimmy Carter lowered it 28%. Reagan lowered it again to 20%, but then back to 28%. Clinton lowered it back to 20%. Then Bush lowered it to 15%. Obama extended those Bush tax cuts for 2 more years in 2010, until the capital gains tax rate went back to 20% starting in 2013 — but with the 3.8% surtax added under Obamacare (to expand Medicaid for poor single people without kids).
What do you mean when you say: "If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get rid of corporate taxation."
If a CEO and his hand-picked members on the board all agree to pay each of themselves with stock option grants worth $1 million in 2015, and then a year later (after buying back $1 billion of their own company stock to increase the stock value of the remaining outstanding shares), and the stock shares for each company exec become worth $2 million, you're saying they should only owe tax on the first million that was given to them as "compensation" or "pay for performance" — and that they should not be taxed on the increase in value of the shares over one year before their gains are realized?
One more question: If we don't tax capital gains at all (as some have suggested), how will the government make up for the lost revenue? Or should we cut the federal budget more to compensate for the loss in tax revenues? And if you want to cut the budget, where do you suggest the cuts come from?
Capital gains taxes apply to gains that aren't real. You pay tax on the inflated value of assets as the gain is not indexed for inflation. Income on the other hand is an absolute gain of dollars and the bands are indexed for inflation.
Companies can deduct wages from their taxes to avoid wages being subject to both the corporate tax rate and the personal income tax rate. Both dividends and retained earning that lead to capital gains are taxed at both the corporate level and the individual level.
This two things alone mean the rate has to be lower.
The next thing to consider is that taxing capital in the long term reduces the capital stock. The capital stock lets employees increase their productivity and hence their standard of living. Currently America is seeing no real standard of living improvement.
The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years. Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise. If things aren't good now then maybe it's because you raise the capital gains rate twice already? Federal reserve is saying the country still needs emergency rates at 0%?!?1
If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get rid of corporate taxation.
Then you can have the joy of progressives in a REIT like structure. Heer you get to tax them at 39.6% + 3.8% which is higher than income tax rates.
Finally each Apr the government boot is on my neck as I submit at 50+ page tax return to the IRS. Takes months to prepare. No longer a problem for me though as I just quit working.
Despite the howls of Republicans that raising taxes on their wealthy owners would bring about economic disaster Obama allowed taxes to rise to pre-Bush levels on the top 0.7% of taxpayers. Twenty years earlier Republicans had predicted the same economic disaster when Clinton raised taxes on this wealthy group. The result as you should remember was the longest peacetime non-inflationary economic growth period in 100 years. An average of 229,000 jobs was created over these 8 years culminating in a balanced budget.
A few months later despite howls of Democrats that cutting government spending would bring about economic disaster the sequester was allowed to happen. The result of these two actions as you should remember was an increase in the GDP from the previous quarter and continued economic growth. Thus it can be inferred that rather than one side is right and the other is wrong that indeed both sides can be wrong simultaneously and no one admit it.
I said they put up taxes in the ACA and they did. They added the 3.8% even you mention. I said they raised again later that included the 39.65 income bracket and the 20% capital gains tax rate.
You can't compare 39.6% + 7.65% to 23.8%.
First your numbers are wrong. It would have to be 39.6% + 1.45%*2 + 0.9% (more obamacare). That's 39.6% + 3.8%.
Next your ignoring the fact that capital gains are not indexed for inflation so you pay that tax on gains that aren't real. So the rate on real gains is much higher. Next of course you neglect that retained earnings of corporations are taxed at a marginal rate of 35%.
Hey Obama got tax increases. Now you say stuff isn't good. You want more increases.
I looked at my tax return and quit working.
I have no idea what you're talking about. The last time the Democrats were in "control" was before the 2010 mid-term elections.
Then in December 2010 Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for two more years (when it was still 15% on capital gains under Bush). The Bush tax cuts were originally set to expire (by Republicans) at the end on 2010 --- but they were extended throughout 2011 and 2012 by Obama.
The payroll tax holiday was enacted in 2011, which reduced the employee share of the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. It was only meant to be temporary to help working people in the post-recession. The payroll tax cuts (like the Bush tax cuts) were not renewed when they expired at the end of 2012.
Obamacare (which passed in 2010), included a meager 3.8% surtax on capital gains (to expand Medicaid), and didn't even go into effect until 2013 --- when the tax rate on capital gains went back from 15% to 20% --- adding 3.8% to make the tax rate 23.8% on capital gains.
The capital gains tax used to be near 40% before Jimmy Carter lowered it 28%. Reagan lowered it to 20%, then back to 28%. Clinton lowered it to 20%. Bush lowered it to 15%. Under Obama, after extending it 2 years, then went back to 20% --- with the 3.8% surtax added.
Compare the current 23.8% tax rate on capital gains to the top margin tax rate on regular wages (labor) at 39.6% + 7.65% Social Security tax on income up to $118,500 (There's no Social Security tax on capital gains income).
Bill O'Reilly once said if Obama raised his taxes, he couldn't afford to work any longer and would retire too (just like you) --- but Bill O'Reilly is still on Fox News five nights a week.
Democrates have increased taxes on the rich twice since they got control. Once in the ACA and once in that 'stop a tax increase bill'. Your complaining that things aren't good. Maybe those tax increases caused it?
My tax return said retire so I did.
Less regulation would mean less auto and safety recalls; less people to clean up oil spills; less people to oversee food and drug safety; less people in inspect containers at ports and airports; less people to audit tax dodgers; less people to monitor safety conditions at work places; less people to inspect bridges, roads and railways; less first-responders at FEMA; less regulators at the SEC; less people overseeing medical and old-age facilities; less building inspectors; less people fighting wildfires in the northwest; less air traffic controllers; less inspectors investigating plane crashes; less government research; less people at the EPA testing the air and water (etc.) — and probably less people at the DMV processing driver license renewals.
They want less regulation and less government. They want the wild west all over again, where anything and everything goes, with no law and order. They want anarchy.
With a growing population, we don't need LESS government workers, we need MORE government workers. But there is also lot a fraud in government (like bank regulators), so we also need BETTER government. Which means, we'll also need more oversight of government workers, which means, hiring more government workers!
The climate change tax is your grandchildren dying on a despoiled world left unfit for human habitation, devoid of basic resources, poisoned by ignorant, uncaring selfish people who will go to their grave taking the future of their progeny with them.
There are a number of influential politicians who feel the only functions of a central government are the military, policing, and subsidies to business and industry. A big cause of the fall in wages is the massive loss of government jobs at all levels and as they fall and the services get worse then denounce government for poor service. As nation we seem to have an aversion to government except as a coercive force, we are rapidly becoming just a country and not a nation.
Brookings Institute: "The typical male U.S. worker earned less in 2014 than in 1973. The typical man with a full-time job — the one at the statistical middle of the middle — earned $50,383 last year, the Census Bureau reported this week."
The climate change tax is going to be the final nail in the middle class coffin. This is a massive $ 1 trillion tax hike that will be paid out in terms of higher electric bills. If your bill is 3x higher, so is the grocery down the street. This is going to create a massive inflation bomb. Between that and the ever-rising insurance premiums we pay, the monthly budget continues to get hammered, and the middle class has very little left over.
The BLS has just released March 2015 benchmarks, preliminary. OMG, -208,000 total and -255,000 total private for just the month of March as a revision.
Senator Bernie Sanders is my ONLY choice for POTUS if I have to write him in. No more holding my nose to vote or voting for the lesser of 2 evils. Sanders voted against TPP, against NAFTA, against Iraq War, against the Patriot Act (twice) and he isn't a bought politician, just for starters. He doesn't have a Super PAC, he has fought for veterans, living wage jobs, etc.. and he's hot on Hillary's derriere.
People mistakenly refer to him as a "socialist" "commie" and such, but if they weren't brainwashed by mainstream propaganda, they would see he's been working FOR the people against the 1% for decades. If they really did their homework and comprehend that he is a Democratic Socialist not a National Socialist, they would look closer to what he has done for the past 30-40 years. Hillary and the rest of the bought politicians and war pigs can #FeelTheBern He is drawing huge crowds despite being denied more debates. ALL grassroots, people who are sick of low wage jobs, working but not getting ahead and wanting a better quality of life. Bernie 2016.
import prices down 11.4%, export prices down 6.2%, core of both down too...the commodities crash and the stronger dollar is probably the cause of a lot of that...
import prices declined 1.8 percent and export prices declined 1.4 percent in August, so to maintain the real growth in our balance of trade noted above, the nominal August trade deficit will have to improve by 0.4% from July...
Where are the signs of strength in the overall labor market? If the labor market was beefing up there would be upward prices on labor. The price of labor has been flat or down for years and it is not going up. Even skilled labor is falling behind due to understated rates of inflation eroding its real buying power. Corporate Republicans and pandering Democrats are salivating at the prospect of legalizing millions of undocumented slaves. Only the Progressive fringe opposed the job stealing TPP while they were otherwise busy throwing everyone making less than $20 per hour under the immigration bus. The bottom and middle of working America, now underwater, is being torpedoed again. Do we really need a bombastic xenophobic racist war mongering climate denying blowhard with bad hair to save working America? I’d ask a Democrat but they’re all appearing on Univision supporting Gay Marriage and Women’s Rights.
The Fed is about to dump water on the economy to prevent "inflation". What they really mean is "wage inflation". The funny thing about people who gripe about stagnant wages is that they aren't smart enough to fight to keep interest rates low long enough to raise wages. They fight for tax increases, which will be stolen by contractors and won't create jobs. They fight for minimum wages, which doesn't prevent illegals, outsourcing, insourcing, etc. from removing the job market from minimum wage requirements. But they never, ever, ever, enter the discussion when everyone on every national business news program in the world is fighting to raise interest rates so that not enough jobs are created to raise wages. Why do you think that is? Maybe it's because they don't get a piece of the action when people actually have a job.
>I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years.
>Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise."
I mean that there is an call to increase the taxes we just raise twice in the last few years.
>What do you mean when you say: "If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get
>rid of corporate taxation."
I mean don't tax the corporation on money you will tax the person on later. I mean don't tax nominal gains only real gains.
>you're saying they should only owe tax on the first million that was given to them as "compensation" or "pay for performance"
You don't understand how stock options work. First stock options are earned income. So no capital tax treatment without filling to get that treatment. Second you don't tax the first million. Only option value over strike price is income at the time of exercise
What I am actualy saying on inflation is if I buy a stock for $100 and later sell it for $200 then I get a capital gain of $100. In the time I held the stock though. The present value of that $100 in the past was $130 because the government inflated the dollar then I should only be taxed on $200 - $130 = $70. India for example uses this much fairer mechanism.
Of course taxing capital is a mistake anyway but that's secondary to the calculations being theft.
>If we don't tax capital gains at all (as some have suggested), how will the government make up for the lost revenue?
The government already taxed it at the corporate level. The stock in a company is a share of the assets. So somebodies office is owned by the shareholder. That worker occupying that office generates income the government taxes as well.
>And if you want to cut the budget, where do you suggest the cuts come from?
All the places people get stuff for free. I have no love for the military either. There is never a plan to cut stuff only a plan to get cleaver about taxing.
Those were the Bush tax cuts expiring...after Obama extended them for two years.
...And that rate is for capital gains realized after 1 year --- the rate was lower if assets were held longer before being sold.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years. Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise."
The capital gains tax used to be near 40% before Jimmy Carter lowered it 28%. Reagan lowered it again to 20%, but then back to 28%. Clinton lowered it back to 20%. Then Bush lowered it to 15%. Obama extended those Bush tax cuts for 2 more years in 2010, until the capital gains tax rate went back to 20% starting in 2013 — but with the 3.8% surtax added under Obamacare (to expand Medicaid for poor single people without kids).
What do you mean when you say: "If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get rid of corporate taxation."
If a CEO and his hand-picked members on the board all agree to pay each of themselves with stock option grants worth $1 million in 2015, and then a year later (after buying back $1 billion of their own company stock to increase the stock value of the remaining outstanding shares), and the stock shares for each company exec become worth $2 million, you're saying they should only owe tax on the first million that was given to them as "compensation" or "pay for performance" — and that they should not be taxed on the increase in value of the shares over one year before their gains are realized?
One more question: If we don't tax capital gains at all (as some have suggested), how will the government make up for the lost revenue? Or should we cut the federal budget more to compensate for the loss in tax revenues? And if you want to cut the budget, where do you suggest the cuts come from?
Capital gains taxes apply to gains that aren't real. You pay tax on the inflated value of assets as the gain is not indexed for inflation. Income on the other hand is an absolute gain of dollars and the bands are indexed for inflation.
Companies can deduct wages from their taxes to avoid wages being subject to both the corporate tax rate and the personal income tax rate. Both dividends and retained earning that lead to capital gains are taxed at both the corporate level and the individual level.
This two things alone mean the rate has to be lower.
The next thing to consider is that taxing capital in the long term reduces the capital stock. The capital stock lets employees increase their productivity and hence their standard of living. Currently America is seeing no real standard of living improvement.
The capital gains rates has been put up twice in the last few years. Each time progressives conveniently forget the last raise. If things aren't good now then maybe it's because you raise the capital gains rate twice already? Federal reserve is saying the country still needs emergency rates at 0%?!?1
If you want capital gains to be taxed as income then allow inflation adjustment and get rid of corporate taxation.
Then you can have the joy of progressives in a REIT like structure. Heer you get to tax them at 39.6% + 3.8% which is higher than income tax rates.
Finally each Apr the government boot is on my neck as I submit at 50+ page tax return to the IRS. Takes months to prepare. No longer a problem for me though as I just quit working.
Despite the howls of Republicans that raising taxes on their wealthy owners would bring about economic disaster Obama allowed taxes to rise to pre-Bush levels on the top 0.7% of taxpayers. Twenty years earlier Republicans had predicted the same economic disaster when Clinton raised taxes on this wealthy group. The result as you should remember was the longest peacetime non-inflationary economic growth period in 100 years. An average of 229,000 jobs was created over these 8 years culminating in a balanced budget.
A few months later despite howls of Democrats that cutting government spending would bring about economic disaster the sequester was allowed to happen. The result of these two actions as you should remember was an increase in the GDP from the previous quarter and continued economic growth. Thus it can be inferred that rather than one side is right and the other is wrong that indeed both sides can be wrong simultaneously and no one admit it.
I said they put up taxes in the ACA and they did. They added the 3.8% even you mention. I said they raised again later that included the 39.65 income bracket and the 20% capital gains tax rate.
You can't compare 39.6% + 7.65% to 23.8%.
First your numbers are wrong. It would have to be 39.6% + 1.45%*2 + 0.9% (more obamacare). That's 39.6% + 3.8%.
Next your ignoring the fact that capital gains are not indexed for inflation so you pay that tax on gains that aren't real. So the rate on real gains is much higher. Next of course you neglect that retained earnings of corporations are taxed at a marginal rate of 35%.
Hey Obama got tax increases. Now you say stuff isn't good. You want more increases.
I looked at my tax return and quit working.
I have no idea what you're talking about. The last time the Democrats were in "control" was before the 2010 mid-term elections.
Then in December 2010 Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for two more years (when it was still 15% on capital gains under Bush). The Bush tax cuts were originally set to expire (by Republicans) at the end on 2010 --- but they were extended throughout 2011 and 2012 by Obama.
The payroll tax holiday was enacted in 2011, which reduced the employee share of the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. It was only meant to be temporary to help working people in the post-recession. The payroll tax cuts (like the Bush tax cuts) were not renewed when they expired at the end of 2012.
Obamacare (which passed in 2010), included a meager 3.8% surtax on capital gains (to expand Medicaid), and didn't even go into effect until 2013 --- when the tax rate on capital gains went back from 15% to 20% --- adding 3.8% to make the tax rate 23.8% on capital gains.
The capital gains tax used to be near 40% before Jimmy Carter lowered it 28%. Reagan lowered it to 20%, then back to 28%. Clinton lowered it to 20%. Bush lowered it to 15%. Under Obama, after extending it 2 years, then went back to 20% --- with the 3.8% surtax added.
Compare the current 23.8% tax rate on capital gains to the top margin tax rate on regular wages (labor) at 39.6% + 7.65% Social Security tax on income up to $118,500 (There's no Social Security tax on capital gains income).
Bill O'Reilly once said if Obama raised his taxes, he couldn't afford to work any longer and would retire too (just like you) --- but Bill O'Reilly is still on Fox News five nights a week.
Democrates have increased taxes on the rich twice since they got control. Once in the ACA and once in that 'stop a tax increase bill'. Your complaining that things aren't good. Maybe those tax increases caused it?
My tax return said retire so I did.
Less regulation would mean less auto and safety recalls; less people to clean up oil spills; less people to oversee food and drug safety; less people in inspect containers at ports and airports; less people to audit tax dodgers; less people to monitor safety conditions at work places; less people to inspect bridges, roads and railways; less first-responders at FEMA; less regulators at the SEC; less people overseeing medical and old-age facilities; less building inspectors; less people fighting wildfires in the northwest; less air traffic controllers; less inspectors investigating plane crashes; less government research; less people at the EPA testing the air and water (etc.) — and probably less people at the DMV processing driver license renewals.
They want less regulation and less government. They want the wild west all over again, where anything and everything goes, with no law and order. They want anarchy.
With a growing population, we don't need LESS government workers, we need MORE government workers. But there is also lot a fraud in government (like bank regulators), so we also need BETTER government. Which means, we'll also need more oversight of government workers, which means, hiring more government workers!
The climate change tax is your grandchildren dying on a despoiled world left unfit for human habitation, devoid of basic resources, poisoned by ignorant, uncaring selfish people who will go to their grave taking the future of their progeny with them.
There are a number of influential politicians who feel the only functions of a central government are the military, policing, and subsidies to business and industry. A big cause of the fall in wages is the massive loss of government jobs at all levels and as they fall and the services get worse then denounce government for poor service. As nation we seem to have an aversion to government except as a coercive force, we are rapidly becoming just a country and not a nation.
Brookings Institute: "The typical male U.S. worker earned less in 2014 than in 1973. The typical man with a full-time job — the one at the statistical middle of the middle — earned $50,383 last year, the Census Bureau reported this week."
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2015/09/17-male-us-worker-ear...
$50,383 a year?
Is that "gross" annual income or "average" annual income or annual "median household" income? Because wage data from Social Security shows:
"50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $28,031."
http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2013
The climate change tax is going to be the final nail in the middle class coffin. This is a massive $ 1 trillion tax hike that will be paid out in terms of higher electric bills. If your bill is 3x higher, so is the grocery down the street. This is going to create a massive inflation bomb. Between that and the ever-rising insurance premiums we pay, the monthly budget continues to get hammered, and the middle class has very little left over.
The BLS has just released March 2015 benchmarks, preliminary. OMG, -208,000 total and -255,000 total private for just the month of March as a revision.
Senator Bernie Sanders is my ONLY choice for POTUS if I have to write him in. No more holding my nose to vote or voting for the lesser of 2 evils. Sanders voted against TPP, against NAFTA, against Iraq War, against the Patriot Act (twice) and he isn't a bought politician, just for starters. He doesn't have a Super PAC, he has fought for veterans, living wage jobs, etc.. and he's hot on Hillary's derriere.
People mistakenly refer to him as a "socialist" "commie" and such, but if they weren't brainwashed by mainstream propaganda, they would see he's been working FOR the people against the 1% for decades. If they really did their homework and comprehend that he is a Democratic Socialist not a National Socialist, they would look closer to what he has done for the past 30-40 years. Hillary and the rest of the bought politicians and war pigs can #FeelTheBern He is drawing huge crowds despite being denied more debates. ALL grassroots, people who are sick of low wage jobs, working but not getting ahead and wanting a better quality of life. Bernie 2016.
import prices down 11.4%, export prices down 6.2%, core of both down too...the commodities crash and the stronger dollar is probably the cause of a lot of that...
That's just monthly, which shows some serious deflation globally but there is no Sept. out yet.
import prices declined 1.8 percent and export prices declined 1.4 percent in August, so to maintain the real growth in our balance of trade noted above, the nominal August trade deficit will have to improve by 0.4% from July...
Where are the signs of strength in the overall labor market? If the labor market was beefing up there would be upward prices on labor. The price of labor has been flat or down for years and it is not going up. Even skilled labor is falling behind due to understated rates of inflation eroding its real buying power. Corporate Republicans and pandering Democrats are salivating at the prospect of legalizing millions of undocumented slaves. Only the Progressive fringe opposed the job stealing TPP while they were otherwise busy throwing everyone making less than $20 per hour under the immigration bus. The bottom and middle of working America, now underwater, is being torpedoed again. Do we really need a bombastic xenophobic racist war mongering climate denying blowhard with bad hair to save working America? I’d ask a Democrat but they’re all appearing on Univision supporting Gay Marriage and Women’s Rights.
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