$5000 GOLD?

[Ralph Greene]

I agree in principal Ralph, but how do you decide which millionaire is worthy? If you ran your own business and now it's a major corporation your ok, but if your a wall street guy you deserve higher taxation? How about the difference between wall street guys who did, and didn't receive bail out money? How can you legally limit one person without causing discrimination lawsuits?

 

Welll....I definately think any company who still has TARP money should have their executives pay watched closely. After all....they wouldn't have jobs without public assistence.

 

How about the companies who took tarp money in order to survive and who have now paid it back once the liquidy crisis passed? Whose assets were in a tailspin thru no fault of theirs? That's a tougher call.

 

What about energy and Ag companies, like some ethanol producers (Archer Daniels Midland as an example), who are operating in a government protected market, free of cheaper Brazialian competition? How much profit would they make without public price support. And....how much extra are we paying for groceries because of those policies? How about the protected sugar growing industry....how much does that cost us? And on and on and on. What a mess.

 

I bet if we put our thoughts together, we could come up with a bunch of business who currently prosper, who pay huge salaries to a few of their top people, who couldn't operate that way without public support in some way.

 

This is where I'm saying they should pay more back into the system.

 

I have no problem with what anyone makes who does it on their own....actually I think tax policy should encourage that with a low tax rate. Because those people create jobs for people who then pay taxes, make productive citizens, etc. That's what our tax policy should be doing....not transfering money from the pockets of the masses to the pockets of a few. When Warren Buffit and others like him say the rich could easily pay a little more taxes without stifling their entrepreneurial activity....this is what he is talking about. A lot of people are making huge amounts of money from government programs and policies that are favorable to their businesses....policies that are subsidized by the tax payments of more ordinary tax paying Americans. They can afford to give some back....especially in this time of huge gov't deficits.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Ralph Greene

[goinbroke2]

I agree..oh wait, hold on, Warren Buffet? Ah no. When somebody make billions then decides to be a philanthoper and tries to encourage all they should follow his lead and be a "good guy" like him..no.

 

Yes he's a great guy, I just don't like people who made it big then decide we should all be like him and give massive amounts of money away. (some of us can't, even if I made a million, it should still be my free choice not guilt)

 

How about, if you received tarp funds, you keep the pay in check.(which goes against my frre market thinking but once they took the money it wasn't free market was it?)

And if you never got tarp then do what you want.

 

And everybody should pay a flat tax of say 10%. No exceptions, no deductions. (which raises a whole lot of issues with worthy causes) but perhaps if we had more take home after only losing 10% to tax we would be more willing to spare some change for donations?

[Trimdingman]

I agree..oh wait, hold on, Warren Buffet? Ah no. When somebody make billions then decides to be a philanthoper and tries to encourage all they should follow his lead and be a "good guy" like him..no.

 

Yes he's a great guy, I just don't like people who made it big then decide we should all be like him and give massive amounts of money away. (some of us can't, even if I made a million, it should still be my free choice not guilt)

 

How about, if you received tarp funds, you keep the pay in check.(which goes against my frre market thinking but once they took the money it wasn't free market was it?)

And if you never got tarp then do what you want.

 

And everybody should pay a flat tax of say 10%. No exceptions, no deductions. (which raises a whole lot of issues with worthy causes) but perhaps if we had more take home after only losing 10% to tax we would be more willing to spare some change for donations?

 

How about if everybody paid a tax of $5000 per year, regardless of income? An even fairer system than that would be for everybody to pay as much tax to the government as they wanted. That way, we would have exactly as much government as we want.