Time to Talk About the Buffett Rule

[ApatheticNoMore]

You're right. He would never have settled for 30%.

Really I'm not sure he would have wanted anything of the sort, more like worker control over the means of production .

[loosechickens]

I do NOT think it fair that we owed no Federal income tax this year, while a person with earned income of similar amount would have paid several thousand. Because we are NOT greedy is why I support changes that would not give such unfair preference to unearned income. It might be in MY interest, but it is not good for our country or fair to working people.

[Alan]

Really I'm not sure he would have wanted anything of the sort, more like worker control over the means of production .

No, it's actually the second 'plank' of his '10 Planks', memorialized in the Communist Manifesto. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...festo/ch02.htm

It's interesting to see how many of the 'planks' have already been instituted, in whole or part, in the United States and other western countries.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I disagree that almost any have.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

no

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

this is debatable, and 30% is not heavy (based on what middle class people are already paying now!) and that's merely a proposal. A somewhat progressive income tax (with many loopholes) that we have, whose progressivity is somewhat offset by all the other regressive non-income taxation in existence.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

no, how heavy inheritance hits mostly depends on your ability to set up trusts I think

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

may have a point there. It is costly to leave, and property will be confiscated in drug raids and so on.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

We have a central bank, but we don't actually have the kind of central bank talked about here. Banks are not nationalized. Money creation is actually run through nominally private (bank of american, wells fargo, chase etc.) banks who profiteer from it. Now a lot of credit is government *backed* these days but even that throws off privitized profit (like the housing market, ginnie mae, fannie mac etc.). If you are looking for a word to best describe this, I think corporatism is the best word.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

tricky when the state was actually the main player in the invention of the major means of communication in the world today, so that's kinda a thorny problem in and of itself eh? Roads have long been public, Ike's fault for the interstate highway system?

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

erm? I suppose by some wild stretch something like emminent domain could be likened to the cultivation of waste-lands but it's a stretch. Of course soil is not improving.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

not really, though we do have prison labor.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

not really

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

to some degree yea

Anyway this conversation is so ridiculous at this point that I'm defending Marxism, which isn't actually anything I particularly favor. I think what is defendable to some degree is some European style welfare state measures, and also small scale socialism as in worker co-ops ala Mondragoon etc., and also unions.

[loosechickens]

There hasn't been this much hysteria on the right about socialism, commies, Karl Marx, etc., since the days of ole Joe McCarthy, and I see that they are dredging up much of the same scare tactics, (and considering some of the folks touted by people like Glenn Beck), even the same people and books much lauded by the John Birch Society, etc. back then......

If we have ANYTHING in this country, it's about as far from socialism or Karl Marx, as it could be......we've been moving far more toward the dog eat dog social Darwinism of the very far right wing folks than anytime certainly in MY lifetime. I'd laugh, but it's serious.

[Yossarian]

I find myself amused that a discussion regarding whether or not immensely rich people, those with taxable incomes after all deductions of over a million dollars per year should pay at least as much of a percentage of their income as ordinary, middle-class working Americans. Especially when that 30% tax level would be far lower than the top tax bracket for ordinary wage earners in this country, and wouldn't even be affecting highly paid attorneys, doctors, etc., but only those really, really, really rich people who have the ability to arrange their investment income into everything from Swiss bank accounts, to Cayman Island corporations, to utilization of every possible tax avoidance loophole that could have been shoehorned into the tax code by politicians

For the record I defended Kerry here when it came out that he and his immensely rich wife only paid about 14%. There were good reasons for it, but I guess it is always more fun to try to grab your pitchfork than use your brain.

[Yossarian]

I do NOT think it fair that we owed no Federal income tax this year, while a person with earned income of similar amount would have paid several thousand. Because we are NOT greedy is why I support changes that would not give such unfair preference to unearned income. It might be in MY interest, but it is not good for our country or fair to working people.

Put up or....

https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/for...ormId=23779454

And are you still claiming residency in that state tax haven?

[bae]

... only those really, really, really rich people who have the ability to arrange their investment income into everything from Swiss bank accounts, to Cayman Island corporations, to utilization of every possible tax avoidance loophole that could have been shoehorned into the tax code by politicians anxious for that next big campaign donation from the sugar daddies.........

Hogwash.

While "everybody knows" that the wealthy take advantage of strange and mysterious "tax loopholes" and offshore bank accounts, that isn't reality, and hasn't been for ages. It's just another divisive myth, for the usual divisive reasons.

I have had access to simply the best tax attorneys on the planet. There are no such legal loopholes or evasive techniques of any real-world utility to most wealthy people. And you can take that to the bank.

I have asked on these forums time and time again for specific examples, and the only one usually offered is "oh, well, they can deduct 'paper' capital losses". Showing a distinct lack of understanding, methinks....

[loosechickens]

Yep, we are still residents of that reddest of states, Texas, where ALL those far right, "business friendly", free market right wing ideas of governance hold sway. All the stuff you guys believe in most, shines brightly in Texas. If we give up our nomadic life, we will probably settle in CA, but since you pay CA tax based on your Federal return, probably not much would change except that we wouldn't be throwing our Presidential vote away. Not much chance President Obama will carry Texas, that wonderful example of right wing governance run amuck. ;-)

[loosechickens]

Maybe you just need Dick Cheney's or Mitt Romney's tax attorneys, bae, and they can show you how to have tens of millions in income every year and pay less than 15 percent in Federal taxes. You may be paying way too much.