About those tax breaks for the 'rich'

[Michael Hardner]

6 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Says it all about this site. Where do I hand in my mea culpa? 

?  'mea culpa' means 'It's my fault".  Are you saying it's your fault that all contra-Argus folks are Marxist ? ?

We're having a major problem with language on here.

[cannuck]

Michael:  If I may be allowed to be so presumptive - I believe Spanky was taking responsibility to invoking the Eyeball response.

[Argus]

16 hours ago, cannuck said:

I could care less about the "morality", I am far more concerned with sustainability.

I speak for Main Street - people who actually produce things or provide services that are supportive of production.  It is the ONLY way that any wealth is created.  You speak for Wall Street,

That's crap. You speak for your own ideology. I speak for guys who don't have fat government pensions to keep them warn and cozy through their winter years and are trying to make enough on the stock market (the only way you can earn extra money) to build up a sufficiently large portfolio as to have a comfortable retirement. 

[Argus]

Well, here you have it in the plainest language possible, how much each segment of the population pays in income tax compared to what they make in income.

The top 1% pay 22% of all income tax.

The top 5% pay 41.5% of all income tax

The top 10% pay 54.9% of all income tax.

The top 50% pay 95.5% of all income tax

William Watson: Thank the rich. They’re the ones paying for everything
When someone signs a cheque for three-quarters of a million dollars to the revenue minister, the rest of us should tip our hats

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/william-watson-thank-the-rich-theyre-the-ones-paying-for-everything

[cannuck]

and that is relavant how????

If you are trying to do some kind of phallic measureup:  one of my US office addresses is in the 300 block of Madison Avenue.  You don't pay that lease on pauper's wages.

Edited November 28, 2017 by cannuck

[Argus]

1 hour ago, cannuck said:

and that is relavant how????

It's awfully relevant to how heavily taxed various economic groups already are. Had you forgotten that was the discussion?

1 hour ago, cannuck said:

If you are trying to do some kind of phallic measureup:  one of my US office addresses is in the 300 block of Madison Avenue.  You don't pay that lease on pauper's wages.

Yeah, okay. Everyone is a multimillionaire on the internet, and has a supermodel girlfriend. How is that relevant, other than your own phallic trumpeting?

[cannuck]

14 hours ago, Argus said:

It's awfully relevant to how heavily taxed various economic groups already are. Had you forgotten that was the discussion?

 

I have yet to encounter ANYONE in the top 0.1% income bracket that pays PROPORTIONATELY what the peons in the top 1%.  Yes, the very top earners pay a lot of DOLLARS, but the business of tax avoidance takes a lot more time and money than those who earn less than some magic cutoff line - let's just assume a mil a year - can be bothered with.  Similarly, those who WORK for their money by producing something or delivering a useful service, regardless of how much they earn, are generally too busy to play games.  Those who produced diddly SHIT are at their leisure (or more likely in the business) of doing nothing but running the greed machine to deprive their fellow taxpayer of earnings from the casino and payments into the tax base.

[Bonam]

On 11/26/2017 at 6:41 AM, cannuck said:

BTW: you keep using the term "I invest money in a company".  Unless you are buying an IPO or PO, or making a private placement, you are investing in nothing.  Not one red cent of what you for a stock that is trading goes to the company.  You put a bet on the value of the stock, you are not in any way investing in anything.  You seem to understand capital markets and equites about as well as Marxism.

Hmm, you don't seem to understand how the stock market works. Why do you think people invest in IPOs of companies? Most companies don't even pay a dividend for many years after having an IPO, and even if they did, it would take many decades for the original stock price of an IPO to be recovered from the dividend. No, the reason people buy shares at an IPO is the expectation that they will be able to sell those shares later on the market (preferably at a profit). So if there wasn't a market where people (like Argus) could buy those shares, then companies could not raise money through IPOs. The existence of the market and the liquidity of the market that is enabled by the fact that people trade large volumes of shares on a daily basis is what enables companies to use the market to raise capital. 

[cannuck]

3 hours ago, Bonam said:

Hmm, you don't seem to understand how the stock market works. Why do you think people invest in IPOs of companies? Most companies don't even pay a dividend for many years after having an IPO, and even if they did, it would take many decades for the original stock price of an IPO to be recovered from the dividend. No, the reason people buy shares at an IPO is the expectation that they will be able to sell those shares later on the market (preferably at a profit). So if there wasn't a market where people (like Argus) could buy those shares, then companies could not raise money through IPOs. The existence of the market and the liquidity of the market that is enabled by the fact that people trade large volumes of shares on a daily basis is what enables companies to use the market to raise capital. 

If you read my posts, you would have noticed I clearly make the exception for IPOs, POs and private placements.   What you need to consider is that actual investment is far less than -.1% of anything that Wall Street and Bay Street does.  They spend 99.9% of their time churning the stock that was long, long ago issued.  When you see things such as Microshi....er soft with a market cap of 1,000x book value, and similar silliness for almost any equity chosen to be a subject of running up (or sometimes down), you realize that the business of recovering the value of the IPO is nothing but an excuse for chips to be put on the table at the casino.

From that frame of reference:  take the leap into hyperspace and just think about what the entire world of derivatives and other synthetic instruments represents.  Derivatives represent a block of "investments" that are nothing but a bet on a bet - backed by sweet diddly shit - that have an exposure of 10x to 100x (no way to exactly calculate) WORLD GDP.   And you don't think this is out of control????

Having been an officer of a couple of publicly traded companies, and I am ashamed to say, in one case, the guy who ran the stock value up and down at the financiers' requests (not as an officer, but as an independent advisor), I have a pretty good idea of how that market works.  I also have business partners who were once Wall Street (and one Bay Street) whiz kids - who have come to realize exactly what I am trying to tell you here.

Edited November 30, 2017 by cannuck