I am advocating nothing of the sort. I don't begrudge the multi-billionaires, nor do I advocate taking away their money. I create wealth for others too, every time I consume a product or service, but that doesn't give me the right to pay fewer taxes.
All of the anti-government rhetoric started by Reagan really leaves me cold too. This fantasy that the titans of industry and uber-wealthy who never work, are somehow smarter, and able to make better decisions for all of us, by starving the country they depend on, is something that has been tried throughout recorded history, and it didn't work any better then than it does now. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : They already pay/do their *fair share*! Not only do they pay taxes but they also invest in other businesses, creating more jobs, which in turn creates more tax payers but they also provide capital for others. They also contribute to charities, if not out of interest in helping others, then out of their own desire to reduce their own tax burden or *greed* as you would put it. They get to choose who they want to help with their tax deductions. Their money isn't just sitting in a vault doing nothing except collecting dust. The reason people who are predisposed to getting rich get rich, is that they know how to make their money work for them and it usually benefits many others as well. They generate more wealth, which in the long run benefits everyone. What you're advocating is taking their *seed* money and giving it to someone who will do little or nothing with. You can eat a hundred percent of your crop or you can save some to plant next season and make more. I say let them keep their wealth and manage it instead of letting a politician who only wants to buy votes to stay in power have it . From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 2:17 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article Sounds like paranoia, Mike. Remember those old guys who insisted we escalate the Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese call it, "The American War"), so that "The Domino Effect" would not occur? Sounds like the same baseless fear; if we raise the taxes on the ultra-wealthy, people so rich they couldn't spend their fortunes in 2,000 generations, the government will soon want it all. Delusional, greedy, and mentally ill. They can choose to participate in this country and pay their fair share like the rest of us, or be forced to. It is their choice. We'll see how long their wealth continues to insulate them from democracy. I am talking about the ones who are far, far wealthier than any CEO. Those corporate leaders use tax dodges too, but the uber-wealthy even make the multi-millionaires look like paupers. Wake up and smell the rip-off. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : And just how many CEO's do this, enough to finance all the programs Bernie wants? We're talking about a minuscule number of people out of a population of 350 million. You could confiscate all of their wealth and not have diddly for you guys want. All it amounts to is punishing success, getting even with someone who has more than others. Why would anyone work hard and take responsibility for a company, it's investors and employees if they were going to have the fruits of their labor taken from them? From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 7:41 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article Right, for earned income. However on investment income it is 17%. This is why many CEO's take a modest or even zero annual income, and a large amount of stock options instead. Tax advantage. To say nothing of the many multi-billionaires who don't work, deriving all of their income from investments. Tax advantage. They don't play by the same rules as the rest of us, and we have the most to lose as a result. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : You are aware that the current top bracket on income is about 39%. The 17% you refer to is, I believe, on trading stocks or dividends paid by stock holdings. From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article The wealthy need to pay an equal percentage of taxes as the middle class - 30 to 40 percent of annual income. Of course it sounds like a lot when you say 70 percent of taxes are contributed by these multi-billionaires, but that would only make sense if they were making what we do. Since they make in a month what most make in a life-time, they can open their pockets a little wider than 17%. This idea you promote below, with the poor acting as leeches, is slight-of-hand propaganda - don't watch the endless corporate welfare, and crony capitalism, and tax evasion, instead focus on someone who is less fortunate, and stigmatize them as stealing from us all. Very cynical and anti-social, too. Those spreading such thinking are addicted to greed, projecting it on everyone but themselves. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : Their *fair share*? And who determines what is fair? There we go again, *free* stuff! Nothing is free. Would *free* health care and education be enough? Hell no! Next it will be housing transportation, child care, energy, food, clothing, entertainment, drugs etc etc. And will all this stuff is *free* why the hell should I have to work? I want free vacation time, 24/7 365! Oh yeah, what's free vacation time without free spending money? I want a free master card with no limits! We already have a heavily regulated market and the wealthy *do* pay for 70% of the safety net. From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 12:01 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article No one will actually hand anyone else any money when the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Free higher ed and health care would work though. There really isn't anything wrong with treating people humanely. If the wealthy insist on an unregulated market, then they can damned well provide a safety net for the millions of ordinary citizens who regularly fall through the ever more common cracks in the economy, by paying their fair share of taxes. Nothing radical about it. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : What do the uber- wealthy have to *give* you so that you can get ahead and be prosperous? You can give many people millions of dollars and in a few short years they are broke again. You can't give wisdom or management skills. They are learned. From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 6:56 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article The uber-wealthy share of taxes paid is down to 17% of their income. I never paid a tax rate that low. Ever. Considering that they control 25% of the wealth of the entire country, they ought to pay much more than 17%. That is obscene. And the reason I refer to it mental illness, is that they have cornered not only this staggering amount of wealth, but the entire country is now rigged to increase their wealth, at our expense. We are not talking about a wealth of millions of dollars, a sum that would make the rest of us unimaginably rich. No, these are all multi-billionaires. A billion dollars is equal to a person living to a hundred years of age, and spending ten million dollars annually, nearly a million bucks a month, from infancy. That is just ONE billion. Incomprehensible. Any time there is a bump in the economy, who benefits? The rest of us, who haven't seen wages rise in 55 years? Nope. Always the wealthy. We keep hearing from the servants of the rich, the media and politicians, how we are a mighty and wealthy country, a world super power, and yet the game is now so strongly rigged *against* the efforts of the populace to get ahead, to have stable, prosperous lives, that no one is listening. This could be easily fixed, by bumping the rate on taxable investments to say, 30 to 40%, what the middle class typically pays of its stagnant wages to the Feds in taxes. Close some loopholes too. I am not asking the one percent to contribute unfairly, only to the degree that the rest of us do. There should not be this unspoken rule, that once we achieve a certain level of wealth, we are then above the law. The truly galling thing about this, is the rich would never miss it, wouldn't even notice. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : The wealthy pay less in taxes? C'mon now! The top 10% pay 70% of tax revenues. The remaining 90% pay 30%, while 47% pay next to nothing. 66% of spending is on Social programs i.e. SS, Medicare , Medicaid, Welfair, CHIP, etc. The remaining 34% is on the military and the cost of running the government and various discretionary spending. From: "olliesedwuz@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2016 3:11 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article Its deeper than that. All of those voting have watched their parents work hard without getting ahead, and profits skimmed by the wealthy who pay less taxes. In addition, the 1.2 trillion in student debt hampers many graduates the chance for a fresh start, and they are the group supposedly driving the economy. Its a rigged system, now more than ever, and the incremental change offered by all of the candidates except Sanders, amounts to treating the symptoms but not curing the underlying cancer of growing economic inequality. Your quote by Benjamin Franklin is spot on, in light of all the crony capitalism going on, off shoring profits to avoid taxes, while pointing the finger at someone collecting food-stamps, or throwing people out of jobs that go overseas, and then complaining about them collecting unemployment for too many weeks. That kind of greed is a mental illness and must be stopped for the good of us all. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : Yeah, Bernie definitely offers more *free* stuff than Hillary. Bernsie wants to offer *free* higher education to all. Hillary just wants you to pay lower interest rates on your student loans. If you were a student, who would you vote for? When the people discover that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Benjamin Franklin. From: "emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 8:45 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: very compelling article You know, he makes some excellent points. It is true that Hillary is not a great campaigner and she gets defensive, which doesn't come across well all the time. Politically, neither her logo or her slogan say it's about the people. They say it's about her. It is true that Trump will do everything he can to lynch her and he won't let up. If she defends, she loses. He will continue to play on people's fear and she will be facing plenty of sexism, the kind that isn't talked about, but that surely exists in the minds of both men and women. The undermining has already started and has been quite effective. I will agree that the more interesting match that would force us to choose ideologically would be a Sanders/Trump choice. SuperTuesday is around the corner. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : This is a very well argued article saying that Clinton cannot beat Trump but Sanders can. Unless the Democrats Run Sanders, A Trump Nomination Means a Trump Presidency | Current Affairs http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency Unless the Democrats Run Sanders, A Trump Nominati... http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency With Donald Trump lookingincreasinglylikely to actually be the Republican nominee for President, it’s long past time for the Democrats to sta... View on static.currentaffairs.org http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency Preview by Yahoo
