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Wall Streeters with good connections were able to buy at 68 and sell at 94. Instant 38% profit.
Billions more flowed into the coffers of the 1%.
It's all good, Conservatives who promote free market capitalism tell us these profits will soon trickle down, and we'll all be better off.
[QUOTE=Esten;441384]Wall Streeters with good connections were able to buy at 68 and sell at 94. Instant 38% profit.
Billions more flowed into the coffers of the 1%.
It's all good, Conservatives who promote free market capitalism tell us these profits will soon trickle down, and we'll all be better off.[/QUOTE]Left standing out in the pouring rain & peeping through the windows.
[QUOTE=Esten;441384]Wall Streeters with good connections were able to buy at 68 and sell at 94. Instant 38% profit.
Billions more flowed into the coffers of the 1%.
It's all good, Conservatives who promote free market capitalism tell us these profits will soon trickle down, and we'll all be better off.[/QUOTE]Hey Esten,
So fucking what?
Did any of this make you any poorer?
Did any of this make anyone any poorer?
Then what's your complaint?
Oh, I get it, you just don't like that somebody else made some money.
Thanks,
Jax.
[QUOTE=Esten;441384]Wall Streeters with good connections were able to buy at 68 and sell at 94. Instant 38% profit.
Billions more flowed into the coffers of the 1%.
It's all good, Conservatives who promote free market capitalism tell us these profits will soon trickle down, and we'll all be better off.[/QUOTE]Socialists who denigrate free market capitalism believe that the private sector can grow out of thin air, without investment. Thus it's reasonable to suck as many tax dollars as you can from businesses, and spend the money on government and transfer payments.
Read the press. Jack Ma and others spent nine hours figuring out how to allocate the shares, and they ended up mostly in the hands of mutual funds who they believed were likely to be long term holders of the stock.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;441389]Socialists who denigrate free market capitalism believe that the private sector can grow out of thin air, without investment. Thus it's reasonable to suck as many tax dollars as you can from businesses, and spend the money on government and transfer payments.[/QUOTE]Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty that any other economic system in the history of the human race.
Thank you,
Jackson.
[QUOTE=Jackson;441390]Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty that any other economic system in the history of the human race.
Thank you,
Jackson.[/QUOTE]You don't go far enough. Communism, socialism, feudalism, economic fascism, and all other systems have been disastrous for people, except for those in government who ruled over the countries.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;441391]You don't go far enough. Communism, socialism, feudalism, economic fascism, and all other systems have been disastrous for people, except for those in government who ruled over the countries.[/QUOTE]Hmm. Denmark, a socialist country, has the highest self-reported life satisfaction of any country. Norway and Sweden score high as well. Switzerland's economy is highly socialized and they always score high on these types of polls, too.
Now feudalism, that was a pretty sucky system. [I]Droit du seigneur[/I] in particular would have been a bummer for the common man. I would say that Argentina under CFK is practicing a type of economic fascism, albeit ineptly.
[QUOTE=Dickhead;441392]Hmm. Denmark, a socialist country, has the highest self-reported life satisfaction of any country. Norway and Sweden score high as well. Switzerland's economy is highly socialized and they always score high on these types of polls, too.
Now feudalism, that was a pretty sucky system. [I]Droit du seigneur[/I] in particular would have been a bummer for the common man. I would say that Argentina under CFK is practicing a type of economic fascism, albeit ineptly.[/QUOTE]I stand by what I wrote. If you define socialism as "a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy" then your examples don't fit. In other words, those countries have capitalist systems. Not only that, but they arguably milk the private sector less than the USA. This is from KPMG's table of corporate tax rates:
Denmark 24.5%.
Norway 27%.
Sweden 22%.
Switzerland 18%.
USA 40%.
Socialism has been such an abject failure that the only remaining "pure" examples I can think of are Cuba and North Korea.
That said, I am wrong in implying Esten is a socialist, in the mold of Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Un. However, his statement that companies shouldn't be allowed to raise capital by selling stock was too good to pass up.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;441393]I stand by what I wrote. If you define socialism as "a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy" then your examples don't fit. In other words, those countries have capitalist systems. Not only that, but they arguably milk the private sector less than the USA. This is from KPMG's table of corporate tax rates:
[/QUOTE]The corporate tax is a fiction, as I've explained to you in particular, so the rates make zero difference and measure nothing. Sorry about that!
[QUOTE=Dickhead;441394]The corporate tax is a fiction, as I've explained to you in particular, so the rates make zero difference and measure nothing. Sorry about that![/QUOTE]After reading the paper by the Berkeley professor I agreed with you, that there should be no corporate income tax. However, there is no way politicians are going to pass up the opportunity to tax something that doesn't vote.
Eliminating the tax would be the best choice. Since that's not going to happen, lower rates, elimination of special treatment for certain special interests, simplification, and making it where the tax system doesn't discourage companies from bringing profits back to the USA are all very desirable. The USA has the highest marginal corporate rate in the developed world.
Is the corporate tax on Walmart and its competitors a fiction? Hell no, and it hurts the poor and middle class.
And as we know, the corporate tax in the US isn't a big % of total revenue. It's about 1/8 of all [B]tax [/B]revenue and obviously a smaller percentage of overall revenue. If I thought the corporate tax was in any way relevant other than as a nuisance and time and money waster, I'd probably be upset that this percentage has been declining over time. Regarding the tax on Wal-Mart, who pays it? Answer: Wal-Mart shareholders and Wal-Mart customers. The customers might be poor but the shareholders aren't. Which group pays what percentage? The excess burden of a tax falls mostly on the seller in a highly competitive, commodity-oriented market like Wal-Mart operates in. That means the burden of the tax falls mainly on the (rich) shareholders. Similarly, I don't think it's accurate to say that corporations don't vote. Corporations are merely an amalgamation of their shareholders (which is precisely why the corporate tax makes no sense), who vote (or could vote but being largely American probably don't, since our voter turnout is a disgrace).
Here's an interesting piece on Canada's experience with cutting the corporate tax rate. Didn't do shit.
[URL]http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/toby-sanger/corporate-tax-cuts_b_5844710.html[/URL]
But hey, a corporate income tax is not nearly as stupid as an export duty like Argentina put on beef. Now that is [B]way[/B] stupid.
Dickhead are you saying we should drop the corporate income tax or leave it as it is.
I think I understand your last post. Who suffers from corp taxs? The investors that make a profit on increased sales. DUH. A invested makes an investment and if the company does well the investor is rewarded. With that reward that investor pays a tax. So what is wrong with that?
Did I say there was anything wrong with it? I'm apolitical when it comes to economics. I'm just saying, all this talk about the corporate tax is much ado about nothing. The corporate tax is not important except that it's a cost-consuming, time-wasting nuisance. "The accountants' full employment act," is what we used to call the corporate tax. So yes, I am saying we should drop the corporate tax but I don't bother actually saying it since, as Tiny points out, it will never happen because the citizenry as a whole is unable to understand the economic principles involved and gets caught up in emotion and rhetoric.
In theory, I would say the ideal tax strategy would be a continuously progressive personal income tax rate (Obamacare uses a continuously progressive rate to calculate the subsidy) rather than brackets, no itemized deductions (works fine in the UK), no sales taxes because they are regressive, and municipal taxes based primarily on real and personal property. In actual fact, they can create whatever system they want and I will then attempt to fuck the snot out of it like I am doing now. And, my ability to fuck the current tax system is due to its insistence on discriminating among different types of income; I. E. , taxing dividends differently than interest income and so forth. I've also spent lots of time studying the tax system, so as to know exactly how to fuck it. My state government paid for me to learn how to fuck the federal government, so that is a nice touch as well.
I do not favor progressive taxation for moral reasons but rather because it's more effective. Lower income people have a higher marginal propensity to spend the next dollar received, so that increases the velocity of the money supply. That enables the country to function with a smaller money supply. The smaller the money supply, the more proportionate effect a given dollar amount of monetary stimulus or tightening will have. I'm not morally in favor of the estate tax either, but it is designed to increase the alienability or turnover of capital, rather than money; the basic principle is the same, velocity. Re-distribution of income and wealth increases turnover of money and capital and, [B]all else equal[/B], higher turnover leads to higher growth.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;441393]That said, I am wrong in implying Esten is a socialist, in the mold of Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Un. However, his statement that companies shouldn't be allowed to raise capital by selling stock was too good to pass up.[/QUOTE]Tiny's statement is typical of right wingers who don't understand or can't refute arguments from the left. He [B]lies[/B]. I never said companies shouldn't be allowed to raise capital by selling stock.
Lying, distortion and mis-characterization are staples of right wing politics and their media outlets.