Wealth Is Created When the Rich Steal Things Fair and Square
I cut & paste this directly from Gawker, because two minutes from now it will not seem like snarky satire anymore. You’ve got have lightning fast satire reflexes these days.
The Way We Live Now: stealing everything in sight. Out of necessity, mind you. We’re not some common criminals. Common criminals can’t get jobs at all. We’re uncommon criminals, avenging economics itself, with bold, technically criminal action!
Yes, the rumors that you’ve heard about us stealing $5 million from Columbia University are true. But really, this is all in service of economic rationality. Do you really think that money will be put to better use by Columbia kids? We took it, and we put it to use on highly profitable inside trading. Which is the model of efficiency, fuckers.
It’s hard work out here. Everybody’s not lucky enough to get their ass whupped by a cop and start a fashion line with the proceeds. The rest of us here in the real world have to do things like insider trading, or ripping off colleges. Wall Street pay is nice and everything, but in this day and age, you need an edge. Not just the normal edge that we have over poor job seekers with criminal records. And knifelike mathematical edge, that constitutes nothing less than a post-crash model of economics, the holy grail that every smart quant guy or whatever is looking for.
Our working model is “The rich win again.”
And wealth is destroyed when government confiscates it under threat of force to give to someone who did not work to earn it.
Names please.
A list of names of the people whose wealth was destroyed because they had to give money to people who did not earn it.
A list of names? Anyone who pays taxes would be on the list. How many trillions have we spent on the war on poverty. Looks like we lost.
30% of what the government does at all levels is pretty much a waste of time, we keep sending $$$ and they keep spending it.
If you thought you had a dollar in the Social Security Trust fund and needed it for retirement guess what, it ain’t there. Stolen and destroyed.
If you thought anyone ever had a dollar in some mythical “Social Security Trust Fund,” you are a moron who doesn’t understand how Social Security is funded.
Sorry.
You made the claim that lots of people’s wealth was destroyed. If that is true, you can point to the list of people who — but for having to pay their fair share of the safety net that Americans want — who are busto for it.
So either you have the names of people whose wealth is now shot or you are full of shit.
A list of names of the people whose wealth was destroyed because they had to give money to people who did not earn it.
Enron investors, Lehman investors, GM investors… anyone with a 401(k)…
A better list would be those whose wealth wildly multiplied because they were excused from paying their share of the nation’s bills.
This “government confiscates” wealth nonsense ignores the fact that socialist hell holes like Germany, Norway, Sweden and France are net exporters. But whatever. Mention that they are getting hosed is like dropping a quarter in a wobbly juke box. These guys only know one effed up song.
Well in a way I guess Enron & Lehmann investors were hosed by the incompetent CEOs that ran those companies. Ken Lay certainly didn’t earn his wealth.
I am getting really sick and tired of this reverence of the rich. The tax rates we have now have encouraged these government handouts recipients to hoard their wealth and not reinvest it in business. What does it say that Wall St had their best quarter ever and they are still whining that Obama is mean to them. These rich guys talk about how we’re all supposed to sacrifice but then pitch a fit when we ask them to pay 3% more in taxes.
@cassandra m
You made the claim that lots of people’s wealth was destroyed. If that is true, you can point to the list of people who — but for having to pay their fair share of the safety net that Americans want — who are busto for it.
So either you have the names of people whose wealth is now shot or you are full of shit.
I have NO problem with the estate tax, but it is confiscatory. Yes, it impacts a small percentage of the population, but it’s confiscatory nonetheless.
Confiscatory? That depends on whether you think Paris Hilton needs another diamond studded dildo. But look – I think we can all agree that the amazing thing is not that super wealthy people want to invest less and less in a society that treats them VERY well – it is that $50k a year Republican dumbfucks who comment here want the super wealthy to contribute nada.
Yeah jason330,and those”$50k a year Republican dumbfucks” that pull the lever for them, I swear, for the life of me, I’ll never understand.
Social issues be damned.
It’s your wallet that matters in the end.
Can’t they understand that by voting Republican they are giving the powers that be the KNIVES they’ll use to slit their throats with?
About the estate tax – part of the problem in the U.S. now is that we reward wealth over work. Inheriting money should not be treated differently than money that is earned by working. Rewarding wealth is the reason the wealthy are hoarding so much.
im pretty sure “guest” is referring to the “welfare queens”
or those unemployed people who are lazy and could get a job if only we cut off their unemployment… there are TONS of job…. however it is all still obama’s fault.
guest,… go back to watching Glenn Beck and choking yourself.
Better yet “guest”: Go back to watching porn,choking your chicken and eating your CHEETOS.
We’ll look for you at the emergency room where you’ll arrive in a panic demanding a doctor immediately diagnose the “problem” with your orange penis.
And we the taxpayers will end up picking up the tab for your mindless perversions.
haha that was quite a leap cap…
not all people who yank it while eating cheetos are conservatives…………
A Boehner-colored boner? One orange dick is enough.
I used CHEETOS for alliterative purposes, sb.
Wail away, although socially it’s still usually done alone.
Erskine Bowles says: “the debt will cost the US one trillion every year, and thats just for the interest”. So why in the hell are we giving $3billion Israel, and millions more to continue paying off the Coalition of the Bribed in Iraq and Afganistan. Why are we spending 2 billion a month on a war in Afganistan NO ONE can figure out WHY we are there! Cant wait for the fascists to start screaming when one penny is cut from the defense budget. One thing Wiki told is that Karzais corrupt brother left the country with $59million US cash dollars to invest outside of Afganistan. Billions delivered on skids in Iraq under bush, but isnt Obama doing the same thing. Why is Obama not opening his mouth about ANYthing! Is this a leader, or this man a “wanna be one termer”?
It is obvious from reading these comments, start to finish that very few people understand taxation and its relation to economics.
Taking money from the rich, and giving it to the poor, actually increased the wealth of the rich. Those poor people have to buy something..
You take a 1000$ from a wealthy Thai coon, and give it to a single mom trying to raise two kids, she spends it all. $1000 flows through our economy. Out of that $1000, all of it flows back uphill, and in the process, creates additional wealth to all whose hands it touches.
The only problem behind this economic model is it’s fairness issue, so it will never work anywhere outside creative thinking. But that is how money works.
If you don’t have a system that takes money from the top and recycles it to the bottom, you have a dying economy. It is like building a skyscraper on a foundation that is always crumbling. You have to constantly rebuild the foundation of the economic system… That foundation is spending.
If you have wealthy who don’t contribute anything to society, you get a Latin America country from the Seventies. We, the United States of America, are almost there.
Expire the tax cuts only for those over $250,000, Take more from the rich. Take all from the rich. Even for just one tiny year. And watch this nation get back on its feet and start running again!
@jason330–
Yes, it’s confiscatory when the government takes more than half of someone’s property.
I’m not rich–I work for a living and I inherited ZERO dollars and a few mementos when my dad died.
I think the Estate Tax is a good idea, however the 55% rate is too high. I’d have no problem with an $100k exemption and a graduated rate that tops out at the highest marginal income tax rate OR the highest capital gains tax rate, whichever is higher. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if such inheritances were also subject to FICA taxes, so long as the total tax burden was less than 50%.
Other taxes are (theoretically) set to the minimum amount required for revenue. But the estate tax is different. It is intended to be confiscatory. If it isn’t confiscatory, it isn’t accomplishing its policy job.
another-anon, You are so damn stupid. Turn down the talk radio and Google the term “estate planning” you broke ass dumbfuck.
@anon–This is one of many points where “Liberals” lose me & most other Americans.
I know that Estate Taxes are supposed to prevent the super rich from creating a de facto Aristocracy, but
A) It’s just wrong to take more than HALF of what someone has accumulated over his/her lifetime and
B) The super-rich have always paid their Senators & Congresspersons well enough to provide tax loopholes big enough to drive a truck through.
When I’m King of the World, all citizens will pay something, and tax revenue will meet current needs with a 20% “rainy day” reserve. That won’t happen, but the model might be useful.
Wow, Jason. I love you too.
The only talk radio I listen to is Morning Edition, Fresh Aire and the Al Mascitti show.
I think I’ve heard your voice over the WDEL airwaves a few times, though I could be mistaken.
I wouldn’t have known about this website if it weren’t for Al mentioning it on the air for the last few years.
BTW, I’m not poor. I earn roughly what Mascitti earns, and unlike Al, I’ve never filed for Unemployment Compensation. I DO work a much more physical job, and like Al, I took a pay cut last year, but I wasn’t lucky enough to be furloughed, so I couldn’t collect UC.
I think I set the record for the most commas used in a sentence in my response above. My apologies.
What I meant to say was that nobody pays the 55%. The super wealthy have enough going for them without Al Mascitti listeners going around saying that they are getting a raw deal.
Ok…I didn’t say the super-wealthy were getting a raw deal. In my OPINION, it’s wrong to tax anyone more than 50%, regardless of where the money whether the money was earned, invested or inherited.
I realize that only the incredibly ignorant, yet somehow wealthy, pay the 55% inheritance tax. That would be virtually no one who is rich enough to be subject to the 55% tax.
The right-wingers love to trot out the “family farmer” example, but there are few real family farms these days & as you said above, those w/ significant assets should PLAN their estates accordingly.
another-anon: Good news, estate tax is zero percent right now. Hurry up while the savings last.
another-anon, you must be very upset then, that the rich pay a lot less in taxes than the rest of us. They pay absolutely nothing on inherited wealth, unlike people who actually work. Multi-billionaire hedge fund managers pay only 15% on their income because of the capital gains loophole.