Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary

I love this topic ... All the socialists crawl out of the woodwork on a trading website.

we understand YOUR definition of "fairness in the taxation system" perfectly well.

if Person D's rate was not capped as you're proposing, would you argue that Person D should be paid a corresponding percentage back in Social Security Benefits when he is eligible? (probably at age 90 in the not-too-distant future, or when he convinces somebody he can no longer work and is disabled. It is an INSURANCE plan after-all.)

This guy's definition of fairness is a percentage... At 38% Person D pays $3,800,000 annually in income taxes versus perhaps $2,000 for Person A, yet likely sees no discernable difference in services from the government. Now, shall we talk about "fairness" more?

http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv2-&ei=UTF-8&p="illegal aliens" social security disability

 

The problem with your explanantion is that social security or FICA payments are not really tax. They are payments into a government-run pension and health insurance system for the elderly. That is the only fair way to do it, unless you think the cost of insurance should vary with your ability to pay.

 

Stupid example. (see AAA's post above)

Apparently you've never been self-employed.

Here's the tax burden of a self employed person earning $100,000 a year in NYC.

Self employment tax: $14,412
New York State tax: $6850
NYC tax: $3700
Federal Income tax: $22,000

If you live in a $400,000 home in Queens you can throw in perhaps 9k a year in property tax. Plus God forbid if you smoke cigs, pay a telephone or utility bill or consume any goods.

If you don't think this tax burden is a CRUSHING blow then PLEASE share the drugs you're using.

 

Exaclty which side are you trying to prove this is unfair to?? person D) is coughing up 6045 dollars per year which he will never see again, you really think that person D is gonna go for Social security??? The real person making out like a bandit is person A who will live on social security his entire time past 65 (assuming it works like cpp) and will also take advantage of elderly health care, something which person D was smart enough to plan ahead for.

are you suggesting that person D should also have to pay 6.2% per year or roughly 600,000 dollars per year so that he can have old age security benefits, and collect his 750$ per month past age 65, hahaha that is absolutely insane. This would mean if he lived for an extra 10 years past 65 hed get 1 YEAR OF HIS CONTRIBUTION BACK. So since you are paying for 10 years for every 1 you take out this would mean he is paying for roughly (lets just say he does 20 years of earnings like this) 200 years of social security. So that he can maybe get back 10. 20 dollars for 1 seems real fair doesnt it? When you actually become profitable lets see if you like coughing up 2000% over the amount you will ever be eligible for, in terms old age benefits.

You lefties really should think of a better example than this if you dont want to embarass yourself.

(i am referring to canadian pension plan in this example but assuming it will be very similar to how the U.S. one works, where everyone gets the same amount per month back should they choose/be eligible to take advantage of it)

LOL i posted this before i saw that you got raped 4 times in a row, nice try though......

and all of this is beside the fact that person D will easily pay 200 times more in taxes over his lifetime than person A who will also more than likely figure out other ways to live off the system.

 

somewhat related, (an interesting analysis anyways, George Will-UberGeek)



Conservatives, liberals and reality

By George Will

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Conservatism's recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable. Today's political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand. The argument, like Western political philosophy generally, is about the meaning of, and the proper adjustment of the tension between, two important political goals — freedom and equality.


Today conservatives tend to favor freedom, and consequently are inclined to be somewhat sanguine about inequalities of outcomes. Liberals are more concerned with equality, understood, they insist, primarily as equality of opportunity, not of outcome.


Liberals tend, however, to infer unequal opportunities from the fact of unequal outcomes. Hence liberalism's goal of achieving greater equality of condition leads to a larger scope for interventionist government to circumscribe the market's role in allocating wealth and opportunity. Liberalism increasingly seeks to deliver equality in the form of equal dependence of more and more people for more and more things on government.


Hence liberals' hostility to school choice programs that challenge public education's semimonopoly. Hence hostility to private accounts funded by a portion of each individual's Social Security taxes. Hence their fear of health savings accounts (individuals who buy high-deductible health insurance become eligible for tax-preferred savings accounts from which they pay their routine medical expenses — just as car owners do not buy insurance to cover oil changes). Hence liberals' advocacy of government responsibility for — and, inevitably, rationing of — health care, which is 16 percent of the economy and rising.


Steadily enlarging dependence on government accords with liberalism's ethic of common provision, and with the liberal party's interest in pleasing its most powerful faction — public employees and their unions. Conservatism's rejoinder should be that the argument about whether there ought to be a welfare state is over. Today's proper debate is about the modalities by which entitlements are delivered. Modalities matter, because some encourage and others discourage attributes and attitudes — a future orientation, self-reliance, individual responsibility for healthy living — that are essential for dignified living in an economically vibrant society that a welfare state, ravenous for revenue in an aging society, requires.


This reasoning is congruent with conservatism's argument that excessively benevolent government is not a benefactor, and that capitalism does not merely make people better off, it makes them better. Liberalism once argued that large corporate entities of industrial capitalism degraded individuals by breeding dependence, passivity and servility. Conservatism challenges liberalism's blindness about the comparable dangers from the biggest social entity, government.


Conservatism argues, as did the Founders, that self-interestedness is universal among individuals, but the dignity of individuals is bound up with the exercise of self-reliance and personal responsibility in pursuing one's interests. Liberalism argues that equal dependence on government minimizes social conflicts. Conservatism's rejoinder is that the entitlement culture subverts social peace by the proliferation of rival dependencies.


The entitlement mentality encouraged by the welfare state exacerbates social conflicts — between generations (the welfare state transfers wealth to the elderly), between racial and ethnic groups (through group preferences) and between all organized interests (from farmers to labor unions to recipients of corporate welfare) as government, not impersonal market forces, distributes scarce resources. This, conservatism insists, explains why as government has grown, so has cynicism about it.


Racial preferences are the distilled essence of liberalism, for two reasons. First, preferences involve identifying groups supposedly disabled by society — victims who, because of their diminished competence, must be treated as wards of government. Second, preferences vividly demonstrate liberalism's core conviction that government's duty is not to allow social change but to drive change in the direction the government chooses. Conservatism argues that the essence of constitutional government involves constraining the state in order to allow society ample scope to spontaneously take unplanned paths.


Conservatism embraces President Kennedy's exhortation to "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country," and adds: You serve your country by embracing a spacious and expanding sphere of life for which your country is not responsible.


Here is the core of a conservative appeal, without dwelling on "social issues" that should be, as much as possible, left to "moral federalism" — debates within the states. On foreign policy, conservatism begins, and very nearly ends, by eschewing abroad the fatal conceit that has been liberalism's undoing domestically — hubris about controlling what cannot, and should not, be controlled.


Conservatism is realism, about human nature and government's competence. Is conservatism politically realistic, meaning persuasive? That is the kind of question presidential campaigns answer.

 

I'm late to this thread but I gotta say it.

Boy you guys are pitiful, trying to impeach the unimpeachable. You can disagree with Buffet all you want, shit, I don't agree with a lot of his shtick, but trying to discredit his motives is fucking weak.

Bottom line, he gave away practically all his money. "Oh boo hoo, if he feels that way about taxes he should have given it to the government." "Oh boo hoo, he's avoiding taxes by donating it." HE'S DONATING IT ALL TO SOMEONE ELSE'S FOUNDATION. You want to talk about moral high ground, buddy, that's moral high ground. Trying to undermine that shit is so damn lame, it is beneath all of you, and that's saying something.

This thread really makes me ill. I know our society is rank with partisan politics, spin, and manipulation. But when people can't recognize someone who really doesn't give a shit, says it the way he sees it, who has more fuck-you money than anyone but hasn't let the money go to his head, sure you can disagree with him, but trying to impugn his motives is just fucked up.

Martin out

 

I read the article, and its largely meaningless, point being, (and to sparohok 2) if your not questioning the "motives" of people who could buy and sell your very lives, should they choose too, then your playing with dice basically, as great a system as you think you may have.

Howard hughes shaped large portions of us defense spending, and strategy, created a state based on gambling profits when the mob left-opportunity, or opportunism?

We can all agree , he was loaded to the max, he tried to bribe nixon historian's would have us beleive. and nixon knocked him back, you have to love that irony, still.

Buffet? He did it slightly differently, but he still did it.
The oracle of omaha?
Rubbish, he bought out companies in the top echelon of his performance standards, lets see mom and pop BUY COMPANIES, or do any of that top flight corporate /legal gear to increase net gains, AND just happened to stay alive long enough to manage the stuff personally.


Doesnt happen.
Hes a glorified business accountant, who just happened to have a peculiar skill and a dedication to something that would drive the average person to their graves years before their time.

He's an aberration, in human terms is what im saying-a statistical abnomality.

If he gets his kicks from driving sububanite cars, or eating lentils every night, or wearing a horsehair friggin shirt, hes welcome to it, but if you think a guy like this cant influence whatever he wants , via his "motives", then thats the real issue, i would say.

 

not to mention the oracle lived across the street from the President of Coca Cola during its growth phase.

 

Again I don't understand what you are trying to say. First off you are attacking Buffett not his argument. Regarding his argument you don't seem to be saying much.

Regarding Buffett you are implying he has less than noble motives for expressing his views. As has been stated sparohok, he's as rich as just about anyone out there and he's set to donate the greater part of his fortune to charity. Moreover he's in his late seventies and one would think more concerned with his legacy rather than making another buck. What are these base self interested motivations that you think are driving him? You refer to Howard Hughes, are you saying what drove Howard Hughes is what is driving Buffett? Aside from their wealth that seems like a dead end comparison.

Next you attempt to assail Buffett's competence saying in effect his success is a statistical aberration. Are we supposed to believe skill had nothing to do with his success? It was just luck?

Forgive me if I think Buffett is generally competent and speaking what he genuinely thinks would better the nation.

 

"motives" ... is anyone motivated to be wrong?

the dude is calling for higher taxes, plain and simple. what's the motive behind that? Patriotism? Fuel the Federal Beast More?

I'm calling for the government to stop encroaching upon every aspect of my life, stop its recklessly spending, AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.

If you agree with Buffet you're in luck. The reach of government into every facet of your life is like a weed that has been under control for the last 30 years, it's about to go through a huge growth spurt.