Also Worrisome: 100% Of ‘Billionaire’s Tax’ Paid By Top 0.02%


Above: Hobbit of Questioning

Michael Gormley, The Associated Press:
Wisdom of taxing rich questioned

  • New York’s friendless Gov. Paterson said at a luncheon with AP editors that the rich should not have had their taxes raised, lest New York be destroyed. Reached by phone, rich people sobbed about the outrageous hardships they are suffering, and agree that they will destroy New York, but show no sign of liking Paterson any better. Taxing the rich makes bad? Things say so!

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


Note:

See here for a more complete version of this exemplary AP story than the one above from the wingnutty Albany Times-Union (which was nearly impeccably truncated as though for maximum boobification — ‘as though’ being a phrase added for form’s sake). The current version also brought forth a particularly supple-wristed patting of Jim Geraghty’s back by Jim Geraghty today, over at NRO — the conservative’s notion of reporting being, after all, to tell you what you already know and to collapse the banal suspenses between one’s small you’ll-sees and their consummate and only slightly smaller I-told-you-sos.

 

Comments: 122

 
 
 

Back in the good old days of the 1920s and 1930s, many of the richest Americans and corporate leaders were proud to contribute more to keeping the national economy and society going, so that they’d be rich long in the future, rather than being a bunch of venal jackasses who didn’t care if everything fell apart within a decade or so.

 
 

He’s got a good point, and not the just the one on his head. If the uber-rich will leave the state to avoid taxes, the state should confiscate everything now.

 
 

I prefer his mother, Eydie.

Oh, and his funny brother, Ed.

 
 

Eat them. Also.

 
 

Eat them. Also.

That one? Hafta?

 
 

NY’s high yacht taxes are forcing billionaires to flee to Nebraska.

 
 

Isn’t this an article about RW (‘Conventional’) Wisdom, drummer for the band Axing Rich, being interrogated about what happened to that hotel room?

 
 

No mention of G20, S,N!? For shame.

 
 

Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the Paychex founder and billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year.

If you want to make me cry you can just strangle a puppy or something.

 
 

…and media mogul sex-tourist Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year.

Poor Rush.
~

 
 

This is exactly the sort of rhetoric that does not win friends outside the Beltway — class warfare. Instead of trying to take what a man has worked hard for by fiat, why not work a little harder and bite your tongue? That is the sort of thing reasonable people would do, have some logical debate with civil interactions, not pure envy and class warfare driven hate. As Joe the Plummer said, and it resonated with the solid people of the Midwest, why punish success? Why take away one’s incentive to become rich. The American dream is still alive and available with some hard work, and most Americans know this and know punishing billionaires is only hurting themselves. Time to be reasonable.

 
 

How dumb are these people (who aren’t even remotely close to being billionaires so WTF?)?

 
 

Is that from a David Broder quote generator?

If so, I must have it.

 
 

You may want to consider that it is the billionaires who provide employment and so much of what civil, reasonable society holds dear, and most do it freely. But when liberals ramp up their taxes in the name of “social justice”, they only end up hurting themselves, as those of means have no more incentive to create, produce and innovate. Unless they leave the country.

 
 

I would be happy to become quite rich and pay more taxes. If someone would like to start the experiment, I’m available.

Seems to me we have a bunch of whiny, lazy, rich people. My SO’s been talking about bringing back the luxury tax.

 
 

…is that from a David Broder quote generator?

It appears to be standard parody troll product.
~

 
 

Unless they leave the country.
I call parody-troll failure. No way could the real Broder be so clueless as to switch directly between (a) appeals to patriotism and (b) sycophantic encomia for wealthy people whose nationality is for sale to the highest bidder.

 
 

billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes

Poor man! That leaves him with what now?

 
 

Wow. Boring, moronic parody troll manages to be both boring and moronic- but not a terribly successful parody.

I give it a “D”.

 
 

Parody troll is quite Serious, in an inside-the-Beltway type of way, I must say.

 
 

The epitome of unfairness:

The state’s wealthiest pay new higher income tax rates, higher taxes for limousines and yachts, more to enter a horse in a race and more to dabble in real estate.

Meanwhile, many are losing millions from the closing of business tax loopholes and those making over $1 million are losing tax deductions others get.

Taxes on fucking limousines, yachts and racehorses? WTF! Talk about grossly unfair. Speculating in real estate? Not now after that huge land transfer tax. AND you’re losing loopholes that you were exploiting to keep your income in the seven or eight figure range.

TALK ABOUT UNFAIR!!!!! I want my thoroughbred quarterhorse drawn limousine to be racing on my yacht, and now with all my tax loopholes closed I can only afford to race them on the empty subdivisions I evicted the dirty masses out of. Talk about UNAMERICAN!

 
 

I’m with Substance McG above. Pardon me while I don’t shed a tear for someone who can actually afford to pay $4.75mil a year in taxes and still be called a “billionaire.”

 
 

Did somebody say David Broder?

Soulless demented fish-carcass David Broder has recently discovered why Obama is awful and will fail: “But Obama has made it even more explicit, regularly proclaiming his determination to rely on rational analysis, rather than narrow decisions, on everything from missile defense to Afghanistan — and all the big issues at home.”
~

 
 

I think his name is properly spelled “Gormless.”

 
 

Is that from a David Broder quote generator?

If so, I must have it.

It is. Unfortunately, it’s called, “David Broder.”

 
 

I suggest that we resolve this issue by returning to the Republicans’ favorite historical era, the 1950s under Eisenhower. Back in the good old days the top marginal income tax rate , on incomes over $250,000, was a mere 90%.

 
 

Is that from a David Broder quote generator?

How do you think those tedious, oblivious WaPo columns get written? The “real” David Broder died around 1993.

 
 

It’s hard to tell where things will be in the next three to six months. Nonetheless, the world will continue to globalize, or indeed “flatten.”

 
 

OT – sorta.

Norman Podhoretz wrote a book – about how jews are all billionaires, but also traitors for paying taxes. Stuart Silverman reviews it.

 
 

How does wanting billionaires to pay for the society they live in = class envy? they get untold amounts of boot licking from the david broders for free as it is.

 
 

There should be a law making it illegal to make a statement of the form “the richest X% of the population pay Y% of the taxes” without also including “for reference, the richest X% of the population earn Z% of the income”.

Without the second statement, the first is a meaningless metric.

 
 

Norman Podhoretz wrote a book – about how jews are all billionaires, but also traitors for paying taxes.
Also, black people are racists for playing identity politics and thinking of themselves first and foremost as members of a group defined by who their ancestors were.

 
 

It would have been funny if, when Irving Kristol died, they’d buried Norman Podhoretz instead.

Is “funny” the word I’m looking for?

 
 

and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became (an) ex-New Yorker this year.

Doesn’t the pigfaced pigbag spew his pighate from his sty in Fla?

 
 

g said,

September 25, 2009 at 2:08

Best Malkin screen cap evah!
=========================

HALP! M.M. is scaring me!
~

 
 

Ah, yes, the Times-Union. Every time I go back home it has shrunk another 20 pages and three inches. It used to at least look like a real paper.
At least they gave me Thomas Sowell columns to recognize as stupid in my adolescence, I guess.

 
 

Is “funny” the word I’m looking for?

“Hilarious Karmic justice” is what you’re looking for, I think.

 
 

it has shrunk another…three inches

Well, it is fucking cold.

 
 

Stuart Silverman reviews it.

Ouch, abNormal Podhorror says. Well he would, if he was capable of self reflection, a capacity he clearly lacks.

 
 

HALP! M.M. is scaring me!
Compare and contrast.

 
 

it has shrunk another…three inches
We call this “The Malkin Effect”.

 
 

Compare and contrast.

(wev) d00d. Amanda Donohoe is ridiculously hawt.

 
 

and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became (an) ex-New Yorker this year.

Doesn’t the pigfaced pigbag spew his pighate from his sty in Fla?

I recall that he never actually made good on his promise. He still owns a palce in NY. Notice too, that in the Gorn, er, Gormley orignal, he quotes that most admirable of entrymanures Donald the Trump, and have spurred several of his millionaire pals to talk about leaving.

Which is precisely what the hateful whale Limbaugh did: Waaaah. If you won’t play my way I’m picking up my marbles and going home! phtphtpht

 
 

g said,

“Best Malkin screen cap evah!”

Mr g,
I am sorry to inform you that I clicked your link and it caused my cat to throw up on my new carpet. Please provide a valid email address or fax # forthwith so that I may contact you with an appraisal of my damages. I hope we can reach a fair and equitable resolution to this issue soon. Thanks in advance.

gocart mozart, esq,

 
 

Re: the pic –

He’s every other guy in every goddamn SF/gaming convention I’ve ever been to. Really.

I would not be surprised to either find him behind a game screen telling me my halfling-double elf bard/fighter/masseuse had just been eaten by a black pudding, or to be sitting on the other side of the mapboard announcing he just made a massive breakthrough into Russia and Moscow would be Hitler’s playground before winter.

 
 

and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became (an) ex-New Yorker this year.

Thereby dealing a death blow to the local underage rent-boy industry (while doubling their life expectancy.)

 
 

my halfling-double elf bard/fighter/masseuse had just been eaten by a black pudding

d00d, even the crappiest bards can totally school black pudding.

 
 

He’s every other guy in every goddamn SF/gaming convention I’ve ever been to.

I liked him better when he played “H.R. Pufnstuff”.

 
 

This year, the deep pockets of New York’s rich were tapped like never before.

He gets it wrong in the very first paragraph; their pockets were being tapped a lot harder back in the 50s as someone noted above.

But beyond that, people can pretty much declare any state in which they own a domicile to be their legal residence, can they not? I seem to recall Dick Cheney claiming Wyoming residency, even though he hadn’t lived there or represented the state in a very long time. How many billionaires or uber-millionaires only reside in New York?

 
 

even the crappiest bards can totally school black pudding.

See, the thing is that Toby Keith, much like the D&D black pudding, has hundreds of tiny mouths all drooling acidic saliva and I was going somewhere with this and I forgot where but it probably has to do with beer and warhorses.

 
 

I’d tap Amanda Donohoe’s pockets like they were never tapped before.

Seriously, if I ever get it on with a British bisexual socialist atheist, that’s the one I’d like to get it on with.

 
 

I liked him better when he played was “H.R. Pufnstuff”.

Phiqded.

 
 

It’s a good point to ask: where are they going to go? Sure, a few nutty millionaires go all Winchester and keep busy, but most of them will not want to move to a tax haven like Armpit OK or Swampy Bottom AR.

How are you going to keep them down on the farm… etc.

 
 

He gets it wrong in the very first paragraph; their pockets were being tapped a lot harder back in the 50s as someone noted above.

*sigh* You remember all those Bugs Bunny cartoons where Elmer has inherited a bajillion dollars and he has to be nice to Bugs to get it and at the end it’s all taken up in taxes and he gets $1.95 and chases Bugs offscreen with a flaming +6 pitchfork?

The top tax rate was really like that, up around 80-90% or so. And, funny thing, there was nobody back then complaining that it was keeping them from doing pretty much anything.

Of course, people who called themselves “Socialists” were allowed to run around loose, so there’s that.

 
 

Unless they leave the country.

Good luck finding a Western democracy with lower taxes.

 
 

I swear to God, anyone who makes more than poverty level in this fucking state bitches about taxes.

I mean, the billionaire types complaining is one thing, but the next time I hear some upstate suburbanite whining about taxes there will be a body count.

 
 

Did not mean to destroy anyone’s concentration with the Amanda Donohoe picture. However can I make amends?
Here, compare and contrast #2.

 
 

Here, compare and contrast #2.

Odd, your assumption that the pic in question would not, in fact, cause a similar whirlwind of erotic thoughts amongst the denizens.

[ducks, runs for cover]

 
St. Trotsky, Pope-in-Avignon
 

You remember all those Bugs Bunny cartoons where Elmer has inherited a bajillion dollars and he has to be nice to Bugs to get it and at the end it’s all taken up in taxes and he gets $1.95 and chases Bugs offscreen with a flaming +6 pitchfork?

All right-wing pundits are people that didn’t get what was so funny about “pwease wemit”.

 
 

your assumption that the pic in question would not, in fact, cause a similar whirlwind of erotic thoughts

I cannot see how it could possibly lead any of the commentariat into a lubricious reverie. It does not, after all, involve chickens, ostriches emus, or the tailfins of old cars.

 
 

Of course, people who called themselves “Socialists” were allowed to run around loose, so there’s that.

Actually not, since Joe McCarthy (MM’s hero) was busy locking them up and getting the3 fired and blacklisted. Ike’s top tax rate was 90% on incomes over $250,000. Somehow did not stop one of the largest economic expansions in US history, huge growth in average incomes, and a historic expansion in the middle class.

 
 

I cannot see how it could possibly lead any of the commentariat into a lubricious reverie. It does not, after all, involve chickens, ostriches emus, or the tailfins of old cars.

Guilty as charged. Report me to the (im)proper authorities.

 
 

Guilty as charged.

I know what you mean – I have this thing going on with a 1959 El Dorado convertible. We’re counting the hours until they legalize human-car marriage and other auto-eroticism.

 
 

Guilty as charged. Report me to the (im)proper authorities.

I take it that you are a regular patron of the Cadillac Ranch?

 
 

I know what you mean – I have this thing going on with a 1959 El Dorado convertible.

I went to a grand concours in L.A. once where someone was showing a ’59 Biarritz coupe with a brushed aluminum roof. Very embarrassing. Had to run home and change my jeans.

 
 

C’mon now. The Albany Times-Union isn’t wingnutty. It’s small-time, focus-tested, a Hearst paper, and is generally a poor product, but it’s not like they are boosting tea parties or anything like that. Give them the miniscule amount of credit they are due for that.

 
 

Good luck finding a Western democracy with lower taxes.
I hear that Galt’s Gulch just hasn’t been the same since the recent massive wave of immigration.
Or was that Sealandia?

 
 

Assuming a billionaire has “only” one billion dollars, and he’s paying just under 5 million a year in taxes, that’s what, 0.5% of his total worth? Jeez. I know I pay a bigger part of my total worth. But that’s like a dent in the interest earned on a billion dollars, (40 million dollars a year, assuming you put it in a savings account rather than actually investing it).

 
 

“Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday at a gathering of newspaper editors at an Associated Press event in Syracuse. “We’ve done that. We’ve probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state.”

Absolutely because the core of New York’s economy is bellhop, maid, limo driver, golf caddy, mistress, kitchen help, baggage handler, yacht maintenance, gardener, laundry folder and of course, general ass-kissing groupie so-called journalist.

All of which the last, which will afford one membership in the Ass kissing, groupie journalist get to join the Broder/MSM Privileged Idiot Who Has Some Imagined Access to Power Club, usually garner a comfy studio and possibly a nice cardboard box for retirement.

Yes, New York and possibly the rest of the world will ceast to exist, very soon, maybe, sort of.

 
 

Well I fucked up that comment. Can someone get me a job at WaPo?

 
 

$13,000 a day in taxes for somebody who has ONLY a billion dollars equals out to an income tax of .001 percent for the whole year.

Should we shed a tear? That amounts to virtually nothing…

 
 

What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion anyway?

 
 

What DrDick said.

I think his name is properly spelled “Gormless.”

As they say in teh UK, “exactamundo.”

Gorm

Shortened version of the word ‘Gormless’ Used to describe a stupid individual looking seriously deprived of intelligence.

gormless

stupid or slow-witted; adjective – (Oxford English Dictionary definition) also describes one who is lacking in composure, grace, intellect, style etc.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Major Kong said,

September 25, 2009 at 6:19

What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion anyway?

The Presidency, if your opponent only has $20 billion.

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

I’ve been working for no one but the taxman my entire adult life, and he’s never even sent a card of appreciation.

*Sigh* Should’ve majored in something more lucrative than basket weaving…

 
 

“Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the Paychex founder and billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year.”

Think of it as pre-emptively outsourcing those high-cost geriatric felons.

 
 

Lurking Canadian: There should be a law making it illegal to make a statement of the form “the richest X% of the population pay Y% of the taxes” without also including “for reference, the richest X% of the population earn Z% of the income”. Without the second statement, the first is a meaningless metric.

And in addition, there should be a second law which says that whenever, in any analysis of which economic class in the U.S.A. pays what fraction of Federal “taxes,” if the analyst only compares income taxes and excludes FICA and Medicare payroll taxes from his comparison, then that deliberately dishonest right-wing fraud of an analyst shall be… what’s an appropriate penalty? I’ll consult an expert on justice, the late H. L. Mencken, ah yes here it is: “…shall be hauled to the top of the Washington Monument and there shot, poisoned, stabbed, strangled, and disemboweled and his carcass thrown into the Potomac.”

 
 

Well. ask John Phillips-like millionaire Noah Cross what he buys with all that money, and he replies, “The future.” I guess he bought it, considering how many depressingly undertaxed billionaires we’ve got running around in 2009.
I thnk the master plan is to squeeze as much money as they can out of this mortally injured nation and then relocate to some place in the Caribbean or maybe Dubai.

 
 

…and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year.

So here’s the plan. New York raises state taxes, so Limbaugh et al decamp to, say Connecticut. Then Connecticut raises its state taxes, so they move on to, say, Ohio. Then Ohio raises its state taxes, and so on, until 49 out of the 50 states have raised their taxes, and thus herded the billionaires’s club to only one state, preferably one of those low-population, isolated states out West.

Then we bomb that state flat.

 
 

What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion anyway?

The first John Jacob Astor, in the mid-nineteenth century: “A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if he were wealthy.”

 
 

What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion anyway?

Which brings me to an observation and some questions.

People with “not enough money” are in a continual state of seeking income (or managing their expenditures). For obvious reasons, they aren’t making “enough money”. Further up the spectrum of income we can see a place where there is “more than enough money” and the main focus is keeping the wealth you have, kinda like Mr. $40B.

Where do you think the line is where the concern for making money is replaced with a concern for keeping the wealth you already have? Is it different for different people? Is that comfort level $1Million/yr, $50Million, $75K? Is there some objective way at arriving at such a value?

I think that above whatever that comfort line is (the killer is getting a consensus on what that level is) taxes should be onerously high.

 
 

How dumb are these people (who aren’t even remotely close to being billionaires so WTF?)?

Yes, they are not real bright (The Gormless One’s photo sort of screams that, doesn’t it?) but they also see themselves as inferior to the people they cover, be it elected officials or the wealthy. I knew lots of mainstream reporters who viewed their positions as an entry to the Club of the Powerful, they were little more than scribes for these people. And the Club member came to expect and demand such fawning. This dynamic is resident up and down the journalistic food chain, from editorial boards down to the cub reporters on the night police beat. It is really rare (and very hard) to buck this trend as a reporter. You certainly incur the wrath of those you cover. The real battle, however, is inside the news organization, where the resistance to pissing off powerful people is intense. Does the Gormless One look like he has the stuff to fight such a sustained battle? Not so much.

 
 

The Presidency, if your opponent only has $20 billion.

Running, of course, on the message that your $20 billion opponent is a lazy Socialist who would confiscate all your money and leave you destitute with only $1 billion to face the cold cruel world, red in claw and tooth.

And all the shitheads who make $15k a year and have delusions of someday matching you in wealth will vote for you so Mr. $20 Billion won’t take it all away from them either.

 
 

W. Kiernan said,
September 25, 2009 at 12:44

So here’s the plan. New York raises state taxes, so Limbaugh et al decamp to, say Connecticut. Then Connecticut raises its state taxes, so they move on to, say, Ohio. Then Ohio raises its state taxes, and so on, until 49 out of the 50 states have raised their taxes, and thus herded the billionaires’s club to only one state, preferably one of those low-population, isolated states out West.

Then we bomb that state flat.

I like the way you thinch, Fink.

 
 

Then we bomb that state flat.

Or:

We drive the billionaires from state to state, finally forcing them off the continent altogether and onto a fleet of extremely luxurious cruise ships, sporting the best of food, wine and class-appropriate company.

Then we sink the boats.

 
 

We wouldn’t even need to sink the boat. Boats like that draw icebergs like moths to a flame. Add a couple billionaires, and it will summon enough icebergs to end global warming.

 
 

$13,000 a day in taxes for somebody who has ONLY a billion dollars equals out to an income tax of .001 percent for the whole year.

Should we shed a tear? That amounts to virtually nothing…

Well, that’s not fair. Those are his assets, not his income. Let’s say his income is $100 million. That works out to about 5%. Still low, without mistating the case.

It would be equivalent to a cup of Starbucks coffee every day for someone making $13,000 a year. Equivalent to a copy of the NY Times every day, including Sundays, to someone making $18,000 a year.

We need to make these comparisons as concrete as possible. Talking percentages, even miniscule ones, forces people to stop listening and to either do math in their heads or ignore us.

 
 

billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes

I found out several years ago that the CEO of my company was making $10 million a year. I worked it out that he was making almost $5,000 an hour. So that’s not even close to what someone like Limbaugh is sucking out of the Clear Channel cheese-whiz cannister on a yearly basis, and yet he could have taken care of that tax bill for the day by around 11:00 in the morning. Which is about when most 8-5 office workers have, according to my calculations.

 
 

Also this is the emptiest threat ever. Nobody of importance is going to leave the US if taxes go back to pre-Bush levels, or even if they go back to pre-Reagan levels. They’ll throw hissy fits in front of Congress but they’re not going to give up the lifestyle they have here, nor are they going to give up their social network. The super-rich have a social network just like the rest of us and regardless of how portable they think their wealth is, a good part of how they get along in the world is undoubtedly due to who they know, and a mastery of the system that’s required to function at that level.

I’m sure one or two tea-bagging morons at that level will decide they’re going expatriate but where? Canada? hahaha. And are they going to be able to escape US taxes? Really? Because I can see someone like me getting away with that; I am not wealthy and I could drop off society’s radar without much of an impact and go overseas and avoid paying taxes. But the IRS taxes people living overseas anyway — you don’t avoid them just because you’re not here. They wouldn’t have much trouble finding a billionaire who left the U.S. unless that person took their giant pile of fucking money and went into a jungle. In which case, the whole advantage of being super-rich goes out the window.

And if they do leave it’s because they’re hoarding their money and not contributing to the economy anyway. Think about how much of the nation’s wealth is tucked away in the bank accounts of these folks and is clearly not circulating in the economy. Are we going to actually miss that money? Hell, no.

 
 

We wouldn’t even need to sink the boat.

I want to sink the boats. I have to sink the boats.

 
 

Looch, if it means that much to you, go ahead, be my guest. Sink the boat. but I would like to add a suggestion, if I may: Shark infested waters.

 
 

Slippy has a point: All US citizens, no matter where they live, are subject to US income taxes. In order for, say, Richard Mellon Scaife to give up paying US income taxes, he’d have to renounce his citizenship in favor of whatever island nation he had bought.

 
 

Pardon me, 77 and Looch, but isn’t an iceberg a way of sinking the boat?

 
 

Think about how much of the nation’s wealth is tucked away in the bank accounts of these folks and is clearly not circulating in the economy. Are we going to actually miss that money? Hell, no.

I have to clear something up here: this money actually is circulating in the economy. Sort of.

It’s the money a bank lends to make mortgages, to be as simplistic as possible here.

 
 

I like the whole rounding up the billionaires and sinking the boat idea, but without a good solid estate tax in place it’s not going to do much good.

 
 

Think about how much of the nation’s wealth is tucked away in the offshore bank accounts of these folks and is clearly not circulating in the economy. Are we going to actually miss that money? Actuall we’re missing it already.

 
 

I like the whole rounding up the billionaires and sinking the boat idea, but without a good solid estate tax in place it’s not going to do much good.

Well, see, we put the heirs on a boat….and so on. Eventually, some generation will wise up and voluntarily pay us our extortion taxes.

 
 

Pardon me, 77 and Looch, but isn’t an iceberg a way of sinking the boat?

Obviously, I am not speaking clearly.
I want to push the button that sinks the boats.

Actually, not “want to”, but “need to.”

 
 

but I would like to add a suggestion, if I may: Shark infested waters.

That’s kinda hatin’ on the sharks, don’t ya think?

 
 

I once worked for a newspaper chain based in a rich suburb that considered itself the center of the universe. These were the most selfish bunch of assholes I ever encountered. The basic Rule of the Road there was that the more expensive car or (more often) SUV had the right of way. One guy bought a house next door to the high school so his son would have a place to park.

Whenever property tax bills arrived, I could count on getting phone calls from these people screaming with outrage about having to pay for other people’s children’s education, some of whom were—wait for it—brown-skinned! I finally got tired of puking my guts out with disgust and got another job.

 
 

I want to sink the boats. I have to sink the boats.

I like the boat plan better than the bombing-a-state one, because it’s probably my state they’d end up in.

 
 

I call the increased frequency of shark heartburn and high cholesterol the lesser of two evils.

 
 

Looch you got it when you nailed it with the reporters sucking up to power but I have seen this behavior at work among certain classes of people, most all of whom are of the Republican bent. Once on a jobsite, a very angry, struggling lunch wagon proprietor said to me when I started a speel about taxation, “What right do you have to take Bill Gate’s hard earned money away from him?”

I shot right back until someone intervened because, well, I was known not to stop.

Anyway, that’s out culture — look up as high as you can — “Dream it and you’ll be it!”

When your heat is pending shut-off this winter and you don’t have enough to pay the bill…just close your eyes and think of the struggles of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Aren’t you glad you aren’t in their shoes? Don’t you feel rich now? Isn’t it rubbing off?

 
 

I call the increased frequency of shark heartburn and high cholesterol the lesser of two evils.

Well, we could equip the ships with lifeboats made of Alka-Seltzer. Much hilarity would ensue, of course, and the sharks would get some relief from the heartburn, at least.

 
 

Here’s another way to view it. Somebody who is a billionaire (who has $1B in liquid assets) can stuff his money in a mattress, pay himself $10M per year out of the principal for the next century, still live higher on the hog than probably 99.9% of the population, and never pay a dime in income tax.

(Incidentally, this is the only form of “Going Galt” that makes any damn sense at all, unless you want to go live in a cave and trap muskrats to make stew.)

Of course, should Daddy Warbucks choose this path, he would still gripe about how he’s being robbed at gunpoint by being forced to pay property tax and sales tax. The idea that the “plight” of this selfish fucker should be a political point of interest to anybody except his hundred closest friends is laughable.

 
 

I have to clear something up here: this money actually is circulating in the economy. Sort of.

It’s the money a bank lends to make mortgages, to be as simplistic as possible here.

Actor, I hate to drop the snark and disagree, but if that money were in circulation as anything useful to us, you would see it trickling down in the form of more jobs, which would decrease the available labor pool, pushing up wages, increasing the standards of living for all Americans.

However, I saw a chart published a few weeks back which really made the case crystal-clear: when taxes for the wealthy go down, so do incomes for the average slob. It’s so closely correlated in this chart that it makes your mouth fill with warm spit. During the rise in taxation rates that followed the Depression, average incomes rose as well. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the incomes of the average American grew and remained there. After Reagan started slashing taxes for the wealthy, the graph of the percentage of wages starts going down, and it takes a freaking nosedive during Bush’s term.

In point of fact, cutting taxes on the rich does exactly the opposite that it is claimed to do — it causes a loss in wages amongst the rest of us, and the only reason it’s doing that is patently obvious: those who receive tax cuts on huge wads of cash take that cash and stuff it in a hole.

I wish I could find the actual chart but it’s been kidnapped by Daily Kos and I have no clue where it went. However, the data is still out there.

 
 

Following up on slippy the bank – if it’s American at all – may not circulate much depositor cash in America.

 
 

Actor, I hate to drop the snark and disagree, but if that money were in circulation as anything useful to us, you would see it trickling down in the form of more jobs, which would decrease the available labor pool, pushing up wages, increasing the standards of living for all Americans.

But as the basis for the loans the bank makes, that’s precisely what it does.

After all, where does the bank come up with the money to make those loans?

It “borrows” it from its depositors. The interest you and I earn can be directly traced to the interest the bank charges on loans and mortgages.

The FDIC insures those deposits (to $250,000), which gives the bank a little leeway in the risk it can absorb, but if the bank’s mortgages and loans begin to default, that’s when depositors make a “run” on the bank, effectively draining it of its capital and shutting the bank down.

 
 

In point of fact, cutting taxes on the rich does exactly the opposite that it is claimed to do — it causes a loss in wages amongst the rest of us, and the only reason it’s doing that is patently obvious: those who receive tax cuts on huge wads of cash take that cash and stuff it in a hole.

That’s not sticking it in a bank, however.

I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head…sadly, I should…but I would wager the real problem we need to focus on comes in investments in hedge funds and what are called “private equity” investments, where, for tax reasons, the wealthy put money into funds that are designed to minimize the tax burden while investing in companies around the world.

Some of these funds can, or rather did, return upwards of 50% per annum in phantom untaxable income, taking advantage of shit like undervalued assets and stuff. So while an investor of $1 million might make $500,000, until he takes it out there’s no way the IRS can get its hands on it, probably because most of these funds are deliberately based in Bermuda or the Caymans.

(which by the way charge little or no tax in their own right)

 
 

Well, if you Meanie McMeanerson leftist fiends are going to continually insist on taxing the rich, just because of the niggling little trivial detail that they have more money than any human can possibly spend in their entire lifespan even if they could somehow go on a 24/7 Platinum-Card shopping orgy from the moment the Doctor snips their umbilical cord … then that means they’re just going to have to kidnap more of you & harvest your limbs & organs, you know.

So when you wake up in a tub full of ice with a holowed-out abdomen & your limbs all hoicked off, don’t you come running to me & start … oh, wait.

the conservative’s notion of reporting being, after all, to tell you what you already know and to collapse the banal suspenses between one’s small you’ll-sees and their consummate and only slightly smaller I-told-you-sos.

The banal – it numbs!

 
 

PS – Tintin swiped my other “L” from “hollowed” for his barrell.

 
 

The banal – it numbs!

That’s what you get for substituting banalgesic for the K-Y…

 
 

Actually, shark-infested waters won’t help. Sharks won’t eat billionaires (professional courtesy).

 
 

Well, if you Meanie McMeanerson leftist fiends are going to continually insist on taxing the rich, just because of the niggling little trivial detail that they have more money than any human can possibly spend in their entire lifespan even if they could somehow go on a 24/7 Platinum-Card shopping orgy from the moment the Doctor snips their umbilical cord … then that means they’re just going to have to kidnap more of you & harvest your limbs & organs, you know.

What’s really interesting about this notion — and I’m speaking to the 24×7 lifelong shopping orgy specifically — is that the Founders deliberately sought for ways to prevent an aristocracy from cultivating itself. One of those ways was by preventing a child from just outright inheriting everything his father owned. Thus, the dreaded Death Tax which is really meant for people who are trying to form a dynasty of inherited wealth. They meant for us to work for our riches if we got ’em, not just sit there and have cash piped into our pockets from our daddies.

Unfortunately, dynasties have been created anyway. Does anyone doubt, at all, that Bush could have done anything in his life other than be a stumbling drunk if his daddy weren’t George HW, and his granddaddy Prescott the Nazi arms supplier?

 
 

Poor Tom Golisano. His plight made my heart break. Just think about having to pay thirteen thousand dollars a day in income taxes on ONLY a couple billion dollars. What a horrible pain to endure. That puts those whiney bastards who continually harp about “needing” a home for their families because they were “fired” to shame. This clearly shows our country’s descent into CommuNaziFasciSocialism.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

You remember all those Bugs Bunny cartoons where Elmer has inherited a bajillion dollars and he has to be nice to Bugs to get it and at the end it’s all taken up in taxes and he gets $1.95 and chases Bugs offscreen with a flaming +6 pitchfork?

That’s a reason for anyone to “go Fudd”.

Whaddaya mean, you haven’t read “Atwas Shwugged”?

Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the Paychex founder and billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year.

Whew, now the fucker can’t run for governor!

 
 

“go Fudd”.

I think I’ll remember that one.

 
 

Go Fudd, yourself.

 
 

America has one party with two right wings.

You are spending your precious time defending one right wing from the other, in obscurity and with no compensation.

Your family would be better off if you spent this time working at McDonalds, and used the money to help pay the rent or buy food.

 
 

(comments are closed)