Letters to the Editor
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Dear Andrew
I hope you wrote out your post on a legal pad in longhand or better yet dictated it to a secretary. Then she or he, could type it up for you (in triplicate) on a manual typewriter. Finally you could have it typeset and distributed to people in parking lots througout the land...
After all, that system would generate vastly more jobs than posing on the internets. Just think of the clerical staff, typesetters, distribution folks, postmen, etc. that you put out of work by having a blog.
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I don't know why the previous quote posted to this thread
I was writing it for the previous thread. My bad, presumably.
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wage caps
Been there, done that (sorta). It doesn't work. Folks just incorporate, create trusts, etc.
Not only that, but who supposes that folks like bill gates would stay in the US if their salary was capped. Hmmm, never mind, lots of 'em are going to dubai anyhow.
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not the point anymore...
The tax problem, the way I see it, is not between the individuals who have and have not, it's the corporations who get away with paying little to no taxes because of their favorite new anti-tax ploy.
Take the payout to Blackwater co-founders Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson where they, along with a few others are due to pay $700 million in taxes (15% of the 4.7 billion they made during the IPO) for example. Blackwater has setup a tax scheme which will relieve Schwarzman and Peterson of roughly $400 million of that tax burden. Here's how, from the CNN article.
By shuffling lots of paper, Blackstone Group LP - remember, that's the public company - set up a wholly owned corporation that created a very large asset (called goodwill, if you really want to know) that's tax deductible over 15 years at the 35% corporate rate. The public Blackstone agreed to give Schwarzman, Peterson, and the other sellers 85% of what it realizes from this deduction.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/08/06/100141304/index.htm?cnn=yes
They aren't alone. I've read other articles in the past few weeks describing this similar behavior, though corporate tax avoidance is nothing new. The Cayman Islands are synonymous with corporate tax evasion.
It's only right that corporations should have to step up and shoulder the majority of the tax burden. After all, they are the new citizens in American life. They are the only ones with enough cash to bend the ear of our politicians and they're the ones that pay the wealthiest their paycheck.
Close the corporate tax loopholes and let them pay. That would be a wonderful start.
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except
The poll results they've printed don't mention anything at all about taxing the rich.
There's a big difference between wanting to set some sort of limits on CEO compensation(scaled to employee wages I would assume) and wanting to raise taxes on the wealthy. Further, without any past polling information we really don't know how much of a new phenomenon it is. A point of view being dismissed by pundits still might be held by the majority of a society for quite some time.
Lastly, these richest countries aren't the ones complaining about globalization the most. They're just the ones that the FT deigned to ask. What do you want to bet that a bunch of the other 186 UN members states have significantly more negative views of globalization's effects?
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Who's rich?
If we look at the GINI index for those countries they're all far down the list (the higher the ranking the less the income dispersion.) Yes even the US relatively speaking
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_dis_of_fam_inc_gin_ind-distribution-family-income-gini-index
So it's a bit odd. I guess they cold bring back the days of stratospheric tax rates for the super wealthy, aka 98% marginal rates at the top end. All that did and does and make those people leave for tax havens. Better they should work out some fix to the clunky tax codes that assume that the middle class is rich and tax the hell out of them. Because even in the executive ranks in the EU they are given non cash perks now in lieu of cash which just gets taxed away. Taxing them more on income they don't show won't fix anything. Of course it will screw the middle class just out of inflation and bracket creep alone.
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Taxing the wealthy
Well it seems that it would be better to just close some loopholes that allow wealthy people and corporations to hide or shelter money they should be taxed on.
The salary cap may not be that horrid an idea even though as a capitalist pig I kind of shy away from caps. But hey, we have salary caps in Football so one team can't continually win all the time just because they're located in a wealthy city so they make the most money, allowing them to buy all the best players.
Conversely, I think sometimes baseball teams suffer because there is no salary cap.
From what I understand, public companies have boards, many CEO's sit on boards of other public companies. So when it's time to vote on raises, they vote yes becuase that means they can increase their salary at their company to remain competitive. I personally don't mind perks, part of a liking a job is the perks or benifits it offers you above your wage, so I don't really mind those too much.
But at least in this country, it really does feel like us middle classers get taxed heavily while my more wealthy friends brag about how little they pay, they make 3 times as much a year, but their accountants figure out to move all their money around with their end result being that they pay less than my husband an I. Crap like that has to stop, so a flat tax is obviously unreasonable, but I think there are too many places for rich people to hide their money from the tax man.
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All I know...
...is that under the Bush tax cuts, my solidly middle class income (about $55K per year) has receivedvirtually no tax relief in the last six-odd years. I think we figured out I saved $300 back in 2003 or something like that. I'll have to remember to ask my tax guy next time I talk to him.
Meanwhile, the CEO of the company I work for — a rabid Bush supporter, incidently — bought a new, custom-built 38' sailboat with his most recent bonus. His salary just got boosted, according a blurb in an industry trade journal, and the company stock is supposedly increasing in value. Too bad it's hard to get any because it's preferred or something. All I know is I can't buy into the company, nor can any of the rest of us grunts who do the work and have seen stagnant wages over the last five years. (And let's not get into the health insurance issue, which is the main reason most of us don't just throw in the towel and go work for Taco Bell or something. It's getting more expensive and covering less every year.)
No one who actually works at the company is quite clear on what the CEO's bonus or raise were for, since sales have dropped during his tenure, growth is a thing of the past, and employee morale is at an all-time low. Most of us would leave if we could actually find another job in this, er, thriving economy.
Oh, wait. He fired a bunch of people. That probably explains it. I suppose we'll get bought soon. The CEO and the other top level managers will recieve hefty tax-sheltered buy-out bonuses, and most of us remaining workers will be laid off.
But, hey, the rich get richer, so the system works.