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Forums - Politics - Cut the taxes of rich conservatives, and raise them on all liberals. Problem solved!

Aielyn on 23 June 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
Ah, so liberals just want to tax everybody else more, and not themselves.

And, yet, to the people on the streets, I'd be the selfish one, because I'd want to eliminate all the tax that they pay.

Need I point out that most conservatives actually say that they think the poor pay too little tax? That liberals primarily want to only raise tax on the rich? That "the people on the streets" don't generally pay tax (after various tax credits, etc)? That many rich liberals have been calling for taxes to be raised on themselves?

Why have the conservatives in this thread repeatedly cast aspersions on "all liberals" and other such nonsense? Are you incapable of comprehending nuance, requiring everything to be distilled down to black vs white? I guess we'll find out, based on how you respond to what I just said.



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SamuelRSmith on 23 June 2012
Aielyn said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Ah, so liberals just want to tax everybody else more, and not themselves.

And, yet, to the people on the streets, I'd be the selfish one, because I'd want to eliminate all the tax that they pay.

Need I point out that most conservatives actually say that they think the poor pay too little tax? That liberals primarily want to only raise tax on the rich? That "the people on the streets" don't generally pay tax (after various tax credits, etc)? That many rich liberals have been calling for taxes to be raised on themselves?

Why have the conservatives in this thread repeatedly cast aspersions on "all liberals" and other such nonsense? Are you incapable of comprehending nuance, requiring everything to be distilled down to black vs white? I guess we'll find out, based on how you respond to what I just said.

And conservatives are just as bad as the liberals.

Because that's how the thread was started, as a generalization.



Aielyn on 23 June 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
And conservatives are just as bad as the liberals.

Because that's how the thread was started, as a generalization.

Ah, have I misinterpreted your post? I can see an alternative reading, but both readings are equally valid.

If it was a misinterpretation, then I apologise.



SamuelRSmith on 23 June 2012
Aielyn said:
SamuelRSmith said:
And conservatives are just as bad as the liberals.

Because that's how the thread was started, as a generalization.

Ah, have I misinterpreted your post? I can see an alternative reading, but both readings are equally valid.

If it was a misinterpretation, then I apologise.

 
Well, to know whether you misinterpreted my post, I'd need to know how you interpreted it.

I didn't bother conveying my entire point over, because I was responding to Rich. And, hopefully, by now, Rich will know both what I'm saying and what I don't need to say. If I was responding to someone else (that is, somebody who I don't have disagreements with on a daily basis), I'd convey more of my point in my writing.



richardhutnik on 23 June 2012
sperrico87 said:
TWRoO said:
I say we eliminate all rich people, then burn all their assets. Then the assets of everyone else will be worth more.


How about we burn the assets of the politicians who rob us blind by destroying our currency?  Rich people run businesses that employ people.  The "I hate rich people argument" is lost on me, unless you're specifically referring to cronies that are ripping people off, or businesses that get contracts or are involved with government.  Politicians and bureaucrat busy-bodies rip us off, not "rich people". 

Thing is, if they don't employ me, and there are a number of alternatives out there, and I have nothing to gain from certain people existing, why should I care what happens to them or not?  Apparently, the way corporations lay off people and downsize, hiring people isn't exactly a top priority and in no way is done nice.

Corporations will polute, create negative externalities, and do a bunch of nasty things, including lobbying to change the rules to make what they do bad legal, and also lobby to get subsidies.  Politicians only do things when driven by people who get them elected and special interests that pay for their campaigns.  

There is nothing regarding rich people that is intrinsically good or bad.  It is to what end they do things that determines whether they are or not.



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richardhutnik on 23 June 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
richardhutnik said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Doesn't this already exist? If you don't think you're being taxed enough, cut a check to the treasury.

Funny thing about this.  Almost everyone doesn't think they pay too little taxes on a personal level.  But they feel that the upper class, rich, and corporations, pay too low taxes.  A decent percentage also feel that the poor don't pay enough (over 20%):

 http://www.gallup.com/poll/1714/taxes.aspx

 

Most people feel what they pay now is fair though.  That is the thing, no one thinks that they don't pay enough.  The thing is that paying the government isn't something done for giggles in its own right, but to do things with it.

Ah, so liberals just want to tax everybody else more, and not themselves.

And, yet, to the people on the streets, I'd be the selfish one, because I'd want to eliminate all the tax that they pay.

Modern liberalism is where collectism currently rests.  Collectists won't do anything alone, but will do it, if everyone else will do it, if the end result is that the greater good is served.  That is how it works with that political perspective.



Kasz216 on 23 June 2012
Aielyn said:
Kasz216 said:

That's because the US tax  isn't noticeable.  The few countries that still have noticeable ones... aren't exactly strongholds of trading.

And as for the local brokerage point... well, that's really all you can do.  Afterall that's why despite germanys prodding almost nobody wants to go at it in a smaller group.  They know if they do, those who refuse to go with it will reap big economic gains.

 

There are MUCH better policies for eliminating high frequency trading.

Something as simple as forcing a position to be held for 1 minute would do more to stop high frequency trading then any tax would.

Or allow stocks to be traded in fractions of cents.

Also like I said before, I'm neither for tax raises or cuts.  I think both are fairly useless, with one slightly more damaging then the other.

What keeps economies running smooth is consistency.

How do you define a "stronghold of trading"? I note that Taiwan and Switzerland both have a "noticeable" tax... but I have no metric to determine if you would consider them to be "strongholds of trading".

And as I pointed out, Sweden's system didn't recover until the tax was removed entirely in 1990, despite the fact that, in 1989, they reduced it to lower than the US one. So apparently, it wasn't the "noticeability" of the tax that was the issue.

Another thing to note is that Sweden applied the tax to Swedes, not to the transactions themselves. This encouraged "offshoring" (as Wikipedia puts it, "Avoiding the tax only required using foreign broker services"). Had they instead applied it to transactions within Sweden, it would have worked just like a sales tax, and not have had such an extreme effect.

And you seem to contradict yourself when you reject the US's instance of the tax as "not noticeable", while simultaneously arguing that forcing trading to only be able to occur at one minute intervals would help to address high frequency trading. Applying the tax at 0.003% (the US tax is higher than that), and assuming just one trade per minute for the duration of a year, you would be left with just 0.000014% of the money left over at the end of it (the rest would go to taxes). Even one trade every six minutes results in only keeping just over 20% (just under 80% go to taxes).

Indeed, in order for just half of the money to go to tax, you would only have to trade once every 22.75 minutes. So clearly, such a tax would pretty much work the same way as your assertion, in that regard. As another way to put it, at 0.003% tax, if they were to undertake a trade once every minute for 24 hours, they would lose 4.23% of their money to tax.

So no, the US tax is definitely noticeable.

What keeps economies running smoothly is appropriate regulation. When governments strip the regulation away, you get massive corruption and massive financial crises. After all, the GFC's root cause was the repeal of Glass-Steagall (and other such removals of regulations).

Ever think it took time for the market to rebound?  That tends to be how stockmarket works. 

As for the bolded... only because you don't really know how High Frequency trading works... note that despite said tax, the US has the biggest instances of High Fequency Trading...

Why is that? The main problem with high frequency "trades" is that many don't actually end in a transaction for which to tax.  High Frequency Traders will  put out orders and immediatly cancel them allows them to unfairly feel out the market and maximize profit. 

It's impossible to undercut someone using a HFT computer.

They'll make there offer, you'll undercut it, then as soon as your offer is made, they will automatically cancel their last order, and undercut you.

If you've never invested.  It's like being in an ebay auction and only one person has the "max bet" limit.

The reason you make them hold it, is so they can't unfairly outbid regular investors.  THAT is the big issue and what would be increasing or decreasing volatility.

The "Market Making" aspect of HFT is perfectly fine and just replaced something that already existed. 

 

I swear too... I never get why people blame Glass-Stegal.  It's like nobody actually looks at what the repeal of Glass Stegal did... which was... not much, and led to the market still being more regulated then Europeon Banks.  Glass Stegal allowed investment banks and commercial banks to merge.

Ignoring the fact that banks were already allowed to offer both consumer banking and investment banking.



Gunman121 on 23 June 2012

Just want to throw a few things at how flawed the original article is. Not sure if anyone addressed this,

but ...

Jon Stewart isn't avoiding the taxes, neither are the rich people. Their firms that handle their taxes are doing it... Why? That's their job, they're suppose to file their taxes for them, and if they can find ways to save them money -- legally they're bound to it.

Now as for the debate about republicans/democrats. It goes both ways, some republicans do want higher taxes .. but they're in the minority. By advocating for tax reform, it would end the loop holes that tax locations can use.



Aielyn on 23 June 2012
Kasz216 said:
Ever think it took time for the market to rebound?  That tends to be how stockmarket works.

As for the bolded... only because you don't really know how High Frequency trading works... note that despite said tax, the US has the biggest instances of High Fequency Trading...

Why is that? The main problem with high frequency "trades" is that many don't actually end in a transaction for which to tax.  High Frequency Traders will  put out orders and immediatly cancel them allows them to unfairly feel out the market and maximize profit.

It's impossible to undercut someone using a HFT computer.

They'll make there offer, you'll undercut it, then as soon as your offer is made, they will automatically cancel their last order, and undercut you.

If you've never invested.  It's like being in an ebay auction and only one person has the "max bet" limit.

The reason you make them hold it, is so they can't unfairly outbid regular investors.  THAT is the big issue and what would be increasing or decreasing volatility.

The "Market Making" aspect of HFT is perfectly fine and just replaced something that already existed.

 

I swear too... I never get why people blame Glass-Stegal.  It's like nobody actually looks at what the repeal of Glass Stegal did... which was... not much, and led to the market still being more regulated then Europeon Banks.  Glass Stegal allowed investment banks and commercial banks to merge.

Ignoring the fact that banks were already allowed to offer both consumer banking and investment banking.

Well it seems to me that, if that's what they're doing, they should just remove the "cancel" option.

Or apply the transaction tax to the initial order (or rather, orders that are cancelled, rather than outbid), rather than the final transaction. People would be far more hesitant to put in orders and then cancel them if every time they did it, it cost them money. There's so many ways one could address it.

And I'd say that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was really just a formalisation of the fact that they were already not-really-enforcing it, as you say. That's often how it works - regulations are ignored first, before being repealed. And "more regulated" doesn't mean "better regulated" (nor does "less regulated"). Glass-Steagall was intended to prevent banks from doing exactly the sort of thing that they did in the leadup to the GFC. Had it been enforced, rather than repealed, the situation wouldn't have arisen.

 

Meanwhile, here's a question for someone who has actually had experience with capital gains tax. Does it get applied to dividends, or do dividends get treated as just regular income?



Kasz216 on 23 June 2012
Aielyn said:
Kasz216 said:
Ever think it took time for the market to rebound?  That tends to be how stockmarket works.

As for the bolded... only because you don't really know how High Frequency trading works... note that despite said tax, the US has the biggest instances of High Fequency Trading...

Why is that? The main problem with high frequency "trades" is that many don't actually end in a transaction for which to tax.  High Frequency Traders will  put out orders and immediatly cancel them allows them to unfairly feel out the market and maximize profit.

It's impossible to undercut someone using a HFT computer.

They'll make there offer, you'll undercut it, then as soon as your offer is made, they will automatically cancel their last order, and undercut you.

If you've never invested.  It's like being in an ebay auction and only one person has the "max bet" limit.

The reason you make them hold it, is so they can't unfairly outbid regular investors.  THAT is the big issue and what would be increasing or decreasing volatility.

The "Market Making" aspect of HFT is perfectly fine and just replaced something that already existed.

 

I swear too... I never get why people blame Glass-Stegal.  It's like nobody actually looks at what the repeal of Glass Stegal did... which was... not much, and led to the market still being more regulated then Europeon Banks.  Glass Stegal allowed investment banks and commercial banks to merge.

Ignoring the fact that banks were already allowed to offer both consumer banking and investment banking.

Well it seems to me that, if that's what they're doing, they should just remove the "cancel" option.

Or apply the transaction tax to the initial order (or rather, orders that are cancelled, rather than outbid), rather than the final transaction. People would be far more hesitant to put in orders and then cancel them if every time they did it, it cost them money. There's so many ways one could address it.

And I'd say that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was really just a formalisation of the fact that they were already not-really-enforcing it, as you say. That's often how it works - regulations are ignored first, before being repealed. And "more regulated" doesn't mean "better regulated" (nor does "less regulated"). Glass-Steagall was intended to prevent banks from doing exactly the sort of thing that they did in the leadup to the GFC. Had it been enforced, rather than repealed, the situation wouldn't have arisen.

 

Meanwhile, here's a question for someone who has actually had experience with capital gains tax. Does it get applied to dividends, or do dividends get treated as just regular income?

 

Except... they were enforcing Glass Steagall... most people just don't know what Glass Steagal was.

As for removing the cancel option... that would just be a disaster.  The facebook IPO is a good example of what would happen if you did that.

As for a transaction tax right away... then your just punishing regular traders very hard.  Something like 40-60% of American households own stock at any time... and most "ametuer" investors tend to play the short term game.   Your average stock is only held 7 months.

Which sounds like a long time, until you take into account the numerous pension funds, fixed income funds and the like that tend to buy stocks of juggernauts and just lets them sit for a decade or so.

The tax, and getting rid of the cancel button would harm those with less money disproportionatly and also cause them to hesitate more and miss out more.  While the 1 minute waiting time?  Won't effect them at all... except by leveing the playing field. 

Well okay, 1 minute might.... but the SEC is actually looking for a smaller time penalty then that. 

As for Dividends.  Dividends have their own tax... which is either taxed at Income tax or Capital gains depending on the dividend.  It will be going back to purely income tax rate in 2013.