Romney loses election

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yes, Sesame Street and PBS is the epitome of a group of people sucking off the government tit with no real reason to do so.

You mean like Romney and his pals with their tax preferences so they pay a lesser rate on their earnings than somebody making 50k a year? Now there's a sense of entitlement.

[DinoDoc]

You mean like Romney and his pals with their tax preferences so they pay a lesser rate on their earnings than somebody making 50k a year? Now there's a sense of entitlement.

Economically I'm not sure the capital gains tax rate shouldn't be lower than it is.

Why Mitt Romney's Effective Tax Rate Is So Low And Why It Probably Should Be

[DinoDoc]

Are they paying into it? If so, it's not welfare. It wasn't for people too stupid - it was for people who (a) didn't want to dig a hole in their yard or stuff their mattress, and (b) didn't want their retirement vaporized by unsound and often illegal practices by banks and Wall Street types.

(b) describes the stupidity I was referring to. There's simply no way for someone to have more money for retirement than SS provides if they were allowed to have invested their SS contributions themselves. It would have saved them from being forced to have flushed their money into the current ponzi scheme at least.

[MichaeltheGreat]

(b) describes the stupidity I was referring to. There's simply no way for someone to have more money for retirement than SS provides if they were allowed to have invested their SS contributions themselves. It would have saved them from being forced to have flushed their money into the current ponzi scheme at least.

It wasn't stupidity - remember SS came about in 1934 and 1935, within a very short time of a slew of bank failures and a stock market crash that was largely a result of a fraud induced bubble? People had no reason to have any faith whatsoever in the financial system - bamking or equities, and this was in the pre-technology, paper trading days where it could take days for "the little guy" to execute and confirm stock trades. The government was deemed trustworthy - no financial institution was. A lot of people who *had* saved for retirement and were beyond working age (especially in the post crash employment market) were wiped out.

Every time some asswipe like Madoff, Boesky, Lay, Milken, Ebbers, Milken, etc. comes along, they're practically advertisers for social security to millions of people who trust banks and Wall St. even less than they trust the government.

I don't dispute the point that SS is a dinosaur that needs overhauling, but you have tens of millions of people who've coughed up billions into the system, so any fix is going to have to be long term, account for varying levels of vesting into the system, and deal with political reality.

[Dinner]

Like I said his charitable giving doesn't count because he's Mormon, right?

Giving money to a church isn't charity unless it goes to help actual needy people. Most churches give almost nothing to help actual people in need we're talking >5% of total donations. Sure, there are some which are better but when they're eating up 95% of donations with overhead then they suck as a charity.

Oh, and MtG SIGHTING!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, Sesame Street and PBS is the epitome of a group of people sucking off the government tit with no real reason to do so.

Oh, there is a reason, but one you aren't fond of (public broadcasting providing education & cultural programming not subject to the dictates of market control - which, btw, is also the reason that some of the greatest artists in history needed patronage by kings etc because they wouldn't make nearly enough if they had to sell their work on the open market). Markets being good to allocate scarce resources, but not necessarily terms of universal education or promoting culture.

[DinoDoc]

Giving money to a church isn't charity unless it goes to help actual needy people. Most churches give almost nothing to help actual people in need we're talking >5% of total donations. Sure, there are some which are better but when they're eating up 95% of donations with overhead then they suck as a charity.

LDS Humanitarian Services is a branch of the Welfare Services department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The organization’s stated mission is to relieve suffering, to foster self-reliance for families of all nationalities and religions, and to provide opportunities for service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDS_Humanitarian_Services

[DinoDoc]

Oh, there is a reason, but one you aren't fond of (public broadcasting providing education & cultural programming not subject to the dictates of market control - which, btw, is also the reason that some of the greatest artists in history needed patronage by kings etc because they wouldn't make nearly enough if they had to sell their work on the open market). Markets being good to allocate scarce resources, but not necessarily terms of universal education or promoting culture.

They don't seem to think they really need the money:

THR: You would have had a Tumblr, at least.

Ira Glass: I feel like the discussion as to whether the federal government should fund public broadcasting is a public one and, in my world, a very political one to comment on. But just a tiny, tiny portion of public radio’s money comes from the federal government. And when the Republicans say that public radio would survive without that money, the truth is, they’re right, it would survive. Certain things would go away; the smallest stations would be in danger of going out of business for sure, but if you live in a big market, most of the things that you hear on the radio would be just fine. Your station would exist, and most of it would stick around. Public TV, I don’t really know much about that part. I don’t know what the effect would be.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ira-glass-american-life-killing-393930

[DinoDoc]

I don't dispute the point that SS is a dinosaur that needs overhauling, but you have tens of millions of people who've coughed up billions into the system,

I'm sure Ephram Nestor felt the same way about the money he coughed up into the system.

so any fix is going to have to be long term, account for varying levels of vesting into the system, and deal with political reality.

Has anyone proposed a short term fix?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Economically I'm not sure the capital gains tax rate shouldn't be lower than it is.

Why Mitt Romney's Effective Tax Rate Is So Low And Why It Probably Should Be

There's that old saying that among economists, the real world is a special case. Economists know who pays them - they generally don't bite the hands that feed. Reduced capital gains, accelerated depreciation, etc., should be applied to venture capital and supplementary capital raises for business - the part of capital markets that actually creates jobs for those outside the capital markets. Capital gains on secondary sales of appreciated assets (which is the vast majority of capital gains) don't really have the same economic benefit except to the guy who makes the profit and his broker, so there really is no reason to subsidize those rates. Same thing with allowing accellerated depreciation on repurchased assets. That's just a piece of corporate/investor pork to allow a shift and deferral of operating income to capital gains when you flip the asset after a five year hold period, and the next guy comes in and repeats the cycle.

Since it's also risk capital, there's a good economic argument for making venture capital gains tax free, and doing the same, or else even lower rates, with gains on expansion/supplementary capital raises. The people who buy-sell-buy-sell ad infinitum after the fact, without actually injecting capital into the underlying business, don't deserve any special subsidy.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Has anyone proposed a short term fix?

Just bandaid fixed. Retirement age to 70, Bush's partial limited privatization of a little of it, etc. Reality is nobody touches it because one party or another will try to hack something onto the fix in time for the next election cycle.

The whole system needs to be redesigned, with something like a 40 year timeline to fully implement all changes,

[MichaeltheGreat]

Oh, and MtG SIGHTING!

Thanks. I'm working 24/7/365 with my snout in one of several computers with multiple 27" monitors and I have no other life at the moment, so you may see me around for a while.

[Imran Siddiqui]

They don't seem to think they really need the money:


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...killing-393930

Neither do some rich folks when it comes to tax rates, but you don't seem to care about their opinions on that .

And I tend to care more than just the big market stations (Ira Glass showing in that comment what people dislike sometimes about urban liberals).

[DinoDoc]

Neither do some rich folks when it comes to tax rates, but you don't seem to care about their opinions on that .

I care deeply. It's why I'd like to inform them that the IRS accepts donations.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Looks like some people gonna be movin' for the next four years.

Personally, I'm all in favor of secesh for y'all.