Why Is Bill Gates Being Criticized For His Skepticism Over Warren's "Wealth Tax?"

a reply to: Edumakated

I live in NYC. The economic disparity here is obscene. I am not poor. I have a pretty nice lifestyle. I also pay a ridiculous amount of rent. The nations middle class would choke within a year if the average person tried to live and play in the large cities.

It is clear to me that the upper class and middle class do not play the same game and live by different rules. My double Ivy PHD girlfriend who was able to get herself out of near poverty in Alabama will be straddled by student loans for years and years to come. The ones who come from wealth are able to attend those prestigious schools while not accruing the same debt.

The system is rigged.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: pexx421
And another thing to keep in mind. For most in those “tax brackets” only a small percent of their annual earned monies come from “income”. The vast majority of their annual accrual comes from that “wealth” they are talking about taxing.

Which makes it even more idiotic. Wealth isn't always liquid and the value can constantly change. Make someone sell an asset just so you can tax it is dumb. It is the equivalent of taxing a car, but then making someone sell the car to get the tax.

Actually it would be more like somebody bought 50000 cars, and then they need to sell 500 of them to pay the taxes. Oh noes! And it’s actually not even that. It’s that they bought 50000 cars, and then have to pay the taxes from the 5 trillion dollars they have sitting in off shore accounts to dodge taxes.

a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

He's one of the wealthiest people in the world because he came up with a product that everyone wanted--at the time--and he worked his scrawny little ass off to make it sell, and work--at the time--

Yeah, shame on him for wanting to keep it. Poor guy is just so evil.

originally posted by: TheAlleghenyGentleman
a reply to: Edumakated

I live in NYC. The economic disparity here is obscene. I am not poor. I have a pretty nice lifestyle. I also pay a ridiculous amount of rent. The nations middle class would choke within a year if the average person tried to live and play in the large cities.

It is clear to me that the upper class and middle class do not play the same game and live by different rules. My double Ivy PHD girlfriend who was able to get herself out of near poverty in Alabama will be straddled by student loans for years and years to come. The ones who come from wealth are able to attend those prestigious schools while not accruing the same debt.

The system is rigged.

System isn't rigged. You just choose to live in a high cost big city. Supply and demand. We won't even get into how liberal policies like rent control have jacked up rent in NYC as that is another topic.

I've had opportunities to live in NYC. Had job offers on Wall Street out of college. I didn't find 100 hour work weeks and insane cost of living to be all that attractive.

For many people NYC is the center of the universe and they rather live there and are willing to pay a lot to do so.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

He's one of the wealthiest people in the world because he came up with a product that everyone wanted--at the time--and he worked his scrawny little ass off to make it sell, and work--at the time--

Yeah, shame on him for wanting to keep it. Poor guy is just so evil.

The lady that created Spanx is a billionaire. The author of Harry Potter is a billionaire. George Lucas of Star Wars fame is a billionaire (actually worth about $4 billion).

Amazing isn't it? You create something that billions of people decide they want to freely pay money for and all of a sudden you are evil because of it.

Warren lied again the other day, saying to the crowd she only wants billionaires to pay “2 cents”. What her plan really says is 2%, meaning about a million dollar payment these billionaires have to pay out.

She does not like billionaires, no reason Bill should like her.

originally posted by: spiritualarchitect
Warren lied again the other day, saying to the crowd she only wants billionaires to pay “2 cents”. What her plan really says is 2%, meaning about a million dollar payment these billionaires have to pay out.

She does not like billionaires, no reason Bill should like her.

The other thing she lies about is that it is a billionaire tax.... yeah, if you consider $50 million equal to $1 billion.

Lefties always do that... show pictures of Bill Gates and then write the tax code to affect people making $250k/yr as rich.

a reply to: pexx421

It's the Mud Pit.

I get so tired over people hating on the few who have so much so that they buy into this crap. Then when they get bit by the taxes created they see it as some magical new problem and buy into the same tired rhetoric all over again.

Politicians rely on you to do this over and over and never, ever learn. What else can you call a person like this? One who falls for the same trick over and over and never gets what they think they will and always suffers more for it, yet falls for the same trick?

I don't know what else to call it. I've tried insanity, but that gets me nowhere.

None of you will be happy until all the rest of us are forced to be as miserable and unhappy as you all are. How dare we make things work and succeed? It's like you all take it as a personal insult.

I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: pexx421

It's the Mud Pit.

I get so tired over people hating on the few who have so much so that they buy into this crap. Then when they get bit by the taxes created they see it as some magical new problem and buy into the same tired rhetoric all over again.

Politicians rely on you to do this over and over and never, ever learn. What else can you call a person like this? One who falls for the same trick over and over and never gets what they think they will and always suffers more for it, yet falls for the same trick?

I don't know what else to call it. I've tried insanity, but that gets me nowhere.

None of you will be happy until all the rest of us are forced to be as miserable and unhappy as you all are. How dare we make things work and succeed? It's like you all take it as a personal insult.

The other thing is not one of them can say exactly how their actual lives will be improved if government took money from Bill Gates and other mega-rich. Politicians use envy to get themselves elected. Blame everyone's problems on a handful of mega rich while doing nothing to actually help the people supporting the politician.

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

Again, demonstrating complete ignorance of financial markets.

The money isn't "concentrated". These people are not hoarding billions of dollars under their mattresses in nickels and dimes. The money is flowing through the economy as it is INVESTED in the markets. That money is given out as loans, angel investments, venture capital, private equity, freaking car loans, etc. Not to mention charitable giving.

If they were hoarding the money, the markets and economy would crash as there would be no credit markets and money flowing for investments.

Nobody of any means keeps a lot of cash on hand. I have clients who are multi-millionaires. Many often only have maybe $100k in cash at any given time. The rest of their money is usually in stocks and bonds. They've have to sell off the assets to get any substantial amount of money.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: pexx421

It's the Mud Pit.

I get so tired over people hating on the few who have so much so that they buy into this crap. Then when they get bit by the taxes created they see it as some magical new problem and buy into the same tired rhetoric all over again.

Politicians rely on you to do this over and over and never, ever learn. What else can you call a person like this? One who falls for the same trick over and over and never gets what they think they will and always suffers more for it, yet falls for the same trick?

I don't know what else to call it. I've tried insanity, but that gets me nowhere.

None of you will be happy until all the rest of us are forced to be as miserable and unhappy as you all are. How dare we make things work and succeed? It's like you all take it as a personal insult.

That’s because you completely lack the ability to understand what we are really concerned about. You misconstrue it into patterns you would recognize such as greed, selfishness or laziness, rather than what is repeated and explained. Because you fail to understand the broader issues that concern us when we look to places like Columbia, where capital control is completely unrestrained, and the wealthy elite are perfectly happy living in a world where they literally own everything and those who serve them live in abject poverty.

We live in a system where the pattern is following a trend of the wolves amassing all the surplus, and the sheep largely being forced to do more work for less return. But this butts up against your world view and ideology, so you just don’t get it.

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

Accept "wealth" isn't usually cash; it's mostly assets.

My parents would get hit hard by a wealth tax, but they're poorer than my husband and I in terms of cash and income. They're retired seniors on fixed incomes. Their "wealth" that makes them look richer on paper is in the form of land and a family trust.

It generates a modest amount for them annually, and the land generates modest income in rents paid by farmers who work the land.

In total, it amounts to less than my husband and I realize in our annual income.

But a wealth tax would operate off the value of the land which would make them "wealthy" and hit them very, very hard - harder than they could likely afford.

a reply to: pexx421

And policies that affect the US and my life here will do nothing to alleviate the problems in Columbia which are ruled by the governments there.

If Columbia is what you are worried about, then go there and take up the struggle.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

Again, demonstrating complete ignorance of financial markets.

The money isn't "concentrated". These people are not hoarding billions of dollars under their mattresses in nickels and dimes. The money is flowing through the economy as it is INVESTED in the markets. That money is given out as loans, angel investments, venture capital, private equity, freaking car loans, etc. Not to mention charitable giving.

If they were hoarding the money, the markets and economy would crash as there would be no credit markets and money flowing for investments.

Nobody of any means keeps a lot of cash on hand. I have clients who are multi-millionaires. Many often only have maybe $100k in cash at any given time. The rest of their money is usually in stocks and bonds. They've have to sell off the assets to get any substantial amount of money.

Again, demonstrating your complete lack of understanding that 5 trillion dollars are sitting in off shore accounts. I’m sure you think money sitting in banks makes the world go round, but this is simply not true. Banks are wealth extractors, not creators. They aren’t building car manufacturers in the US, or steel mills or microprocessor factories. They make the vast majority of their money by extracting it from the surplus of those who work.

In fact, the vast majority of the us gdp currently comes from financialization, speculation, bubbles, and cutting wages, benefits, and pensions.

Too bad you don’t get it. If it worked your way, us production would be growing. Middle class would be growing. Working class participation in Wall Street would be growing. Instead, debt is growing.

originally posted by: pexx421

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

Again, demonstrating complete ignorance of financial markets.

The money isn't "concentrated". These people are not hoarding billions of dollars under their mattresses in nickels and dimes. The money is flowing through the economy as it is INVESTED in the markets. That money is given out as loans, angel investments, venture capital, private equity, freaking car loans, etc. Not to mention charitable giving.

If they were hoarding the money, the markets and economy would crash as there would be no credit markets and money flowing for investments.

Nobody of any means keeps a lot of cash on hand. I have clients who are multi-millionaires. Many often only have maybe $100k in cash at any given time. The rest of their money is usually in stocks and bonds. They've have to sell off the assets to get any substantial amount of money.

They aren’t building car manufacturers in the US, or steel mills or microprocessor factories. They make the vast majority of their money by extracting it from the surplus of those who work.

That statement alone disqualifies you from having any other conversations on this topic. You clearly don't know WTF you are talking about.

How do you think manufacturing plants get built? Where do companies get the money to make large capital investments so they can grow - build plants, buy equipment, hire employees? Mortgages? Car Loans? Venture capital? Private equity?

Seriously, go take some basic finance course and then come back with at least a rudimentary understanding of how markets work and the functions they provide.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: pexx421

And policies that affect the US and my life here will do nothing to alleviate the problems in Columbia which are ruled by the governments there.

If Columbia is what you are worried about, then go there and take up the struggle.

Again, you fail to grasp a very simple point. The companies that are bankrupting South American nations are mostly American corporations who instigated the policies creating those situations there, and we are not foolish enough to think they aren’t working to instigate similar ones here. It’s what neoliberalism, austerity, and the imf and world bank are all set up to do, and we would rather not sit by idly and support them in this endeavor, as you seem to be happy doing. It’s the vaster goal of almost all our Republican and Democratic policy initiatives, and even though I may be doing well off, I’d rather not see it happen to my peers and fellow citizens as I understand the effect that their poverty has on me, from increased crime, depression, greater social controls, militarized police etc.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: pexx421

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
I look at a wealth tax as keeping individuals from having too much control over the available money supply. Just like we need to prevent corporate monopolies, we also need to prevent money monopolists. It's not like anyone is saying that you can't have more than you ever need, you still can, just at a certain point is becomes injurious to an economy when the available money is concentrated in only a few hands.

Again, demonstrating complete ignorance of financial markets.

The money isn't "concentrated". These people are not hoarding billions of dollars under their mattresses in nickels and dimes. The money is flowing through the economy as it is INVESTED in the markets. That money is given out as loans, angel investments, venture capital, private equity, freaking car loans, etc. Not to mention charitable giving.

If they were hoarding the money, the markets and economy would crash as there would be no credit markets and money flowing for investments.

Nobody of any means keeps a lot of cash on hand. I have clients who are multi-millionaires. Many often only have maybe $100k in cash at any given time. The rest of their money is usually in stocks and bonds. They've have to sell off the assets to get any substantial amount of money.

They aren’t building car manufacturers in the US, or steel mills or microprocessor factories. They make the vast majority of their money by extracting it from the surplus of those who work.

That statement alone disqualifies you from having any other conversations on this topic. You clearly don't know WTF you are talking about.

How do you think manufacturing plants get built? Where do companies get the money to make large capital investments so they can grow - build plants, buy equipment, hire employees? Mortgages? Car Loans? Venture capital? Private equity?

Seriously, go take some basic finance course and then come back with at least a rudimentary understanding of how markets work and the functions they provide.

This statement clearly disqualifies you from making any further statements about the American situation. Because you are obviously so out of touch that you fail to grasp the monolithic fact that the us has largely become a low wage service sector economy. 50% of Americans make less than $15 an hour, the number of factories and plants are on the decline, the middle class lifestyle is limited to less than 10% of Americans. You could take a walk around and get a clue.

a reply to: Edumakated

Your problems are that you think you’re clever and others are all idiots. And yet strangely you buy into the idea that there’s mass discontent and frustration at a time when the economy is working great for the majority. And this causes no cognitive dissonance for you because you completely misunderstand human nature. You look at fabricated statistics like gdp, and employment and think this means everyone is better off. But you completely ignore actual markers like poverty levels, suicide, crime, debt, drug use, prison population etc.

You assume that people would prefer not to work, and that people value free stuff more than earning. You put all your arguments behind the rich deserving everything they earn, but support the ideas that the workers deserve only what the rich thinks their work is worth, not understanding that for many corporations like Nike, apple, Chiquita, etc that “worth” is along the lines of 1/1000th of what the worker creates.

You see the poor, workers, and victims as lazy, greedy, and opportunistic, and refuse to recognize those same flaws in the the wealthy elite, many often born into prosperity, and often seeing other people as disposable, literally and figuratively, in their drive for profit.

a reply to: pexx421

So do what Obama and the Democrat Congress did and attempt to soak those companies and what do you think happens?

It's pretty simple. They move to other countries who do want them there. It doesn't mean they stop all business in the US, but they will cease to be US companies and their business largely won't change.

And the problems caused by the new tax policies will only impact those companies not nearly as large that can't simply move their HQ overseas and become non-American. In short, you kill the locally grown competition you all claim to champion with you hamfisted attempts to soak the evil rich.