Dear Kids . . .

[Terry Stapley]

Dear Kids,

After perhaps the most significant presidential election of our Nation's history, your mom and I wanted to share some thoughts with you.

We know that you are adults now; you are very bright and perfectly capable of making your own decisions. Long gone are the days when your mom's and my political opinions impacted your own. I want you to know that I respect each of you and your ability to draw the best conclusion based on the facts as you understand them, and I know that you each cast your vote according to your conscience.

As a demonstration of our deep respect for your opinions, we have decided that because you have clearly supported Obama you will henceforth be removed from our will.

This will allow us to re-direct those funds to others in the country who are more in need. I would never want to insult you by suggesting that you would feel right accepting an inheritance when there are so many who have less than you.

Since we are apparently not capable of making the decision regarding the redistribution of that wealth, we will send your portion of our estate to the government so that they can determine the most worthy recipients.

I know you will all be pleased with this decision.

Love,

Mom & Dad

[Fred Douglass]

..that's the phunniest thing I've read here all day! If I had your real mailing address, I'd send you a copy of my Christmas Letter spoof. The latter was necessitated by a seemingly-endless (real) one sent to me by a family which is similar to the one Cobra de Capell hysterically recounted on the now-closed "Jamo" thread.

Maybe I can master the intricacies of scanning, transferring and posting this purposefully-irritating missal onto the CobraClub site. Now THAT would cement my reputation...

Chow (and keep posting!)

[Roscoe]

FRED! YOUR ALIVE!

Roscoe

[Fred Douglass]

You call this "ALIVE"?

Ar-ar-ar-ar-ar

Last day of sailing was three weeks ago. Wind: 25-30 kts. SSW. Temp: 35 deg. F (maybe).
Wind Chill? F*MFAO

*stands for "froze", I believe!

Ar-ar-ar-ar-ar!

Chow,

[trularin]

So Fred...how cold was it???

[Fred Douglass]

....let's just say a few things have yet to reappear!

Ar-ar-ar-ooooodle*


*did ya notice this was pitched a little higher than usual?

[HI Cobra]

No string attached aye? Aarroo.

[Bill Bess]

Terry, great letter and well said!

I told my adult kids that they wouldn't be getting much from Mom and Me due to the fact that our wealth has recently disappeared and everything will probably be gone by the time were dead.
Now perhaps this sounded a bit negative to them but I just said "hopefully you kids won't have to support us later on...so get over it".

Maybe the Great Obama will save us all from ruin....but don't hold your breath!

Happy Old Bill

[TButtrick]

Isn't it funny how it took eight years for Clinton's policy to take a grip on us but Obama's policy has already choked us even before he's inaugurated. Oh wait... you're talking about the redistribution of wealth in the future not the one we're conducting now. Yes, I'd much rather see our policy makers redirect my hard earned cash toward people who really need it like AIG, Fred and Fannie, GM, Ford, and whomever else is looking for hand outs. It's all Obama's fault!!!!

[cobra de capell]

Yikes......!

[Wes Tausend]

...

The Wealth Distribution

"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)."

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesam...er/wealth.html


Shucks, I feel sorry for all you guys in the bottom 99%.

Wes


...

[Roscoe]

The Tax Distribution



DESTROYING THE MYTH OF THE "DECADE OF GREED."

The left just loves to refer to the Reagan years as the "Decade of Greed." The implication is that higher income types got away with absolute murder during the '80's when it comes to paying income taxes. Well, let's take a look at some statics from the Internal Revenue Service to see just what the various income levels were paying in income tax in 1981, and what they were paying in 1991.

1983 -- THE BEGINNING OF THE DECADE OF GREED -- THE YEAR THE REAGAN TAX BREAKS TOOK EFFECT.

Here we find the top 1% of all income earners in the United States paying a total of 20.3% of all of the personal income taxes collected by the IRS. The top 10% were paying 49.7% of all income taxes, and the top 50% was paying 92.8%. The bottom 50% of all income earners were payign only 7.2% of all income taxes.

1993 -- THE DECADE OF GREED ENDS! CLINTON RAISES TAXES TO THE EVIL RICH WILL PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!

Ten years later, in 1993, we find the top 1% of all income earners paying 28.7% of all income taxes collected! Wow! Those rich SOB's really got away with murder, didn't they? The top 10% saw their share of total income taxes collected go from 49.7% to 58.8%. The greedy so-and-so's. The top 50% saw their share rise to 95.2% of all taxes, while the bottom 50% saw their share drop from 7.2% to 4.8%.

IT'S 1998 --- HOW ARE THE EXPLOITERS OF THE POOR DOING NOW?

The September 23, 1998 issue of The Wall Street Journal has the new numbers for us. The share of the taxes being paid by the top 1% has gone up again! For the year 1966 they are approaching 33%.

YEAH .. BUT THOSE RICH BASTARDS ARE EARNING SO MUCH THEY STILL WEREN'T PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE

OK, fine. What would you consider a fair share? If the top 10% was earning 70% of all the income but only paying 58% of the taxes, that wouldn't be fair, would it? Well ... let's see what the figures show.

In 1993, at the end of the Decade of Greed, the top 1% were paying 28.7% of all taxes. They earned only 13.8% of all earned income. Oops! sounds like they are paying a bit more than their fair share, doesn't it? What about the top 10%? They were paying 58.5% of the income taxes but earning only 39% of the income. The top 50%? Paying 95.2% of the taxes, earning 85% of the income. The bottom 50%? Earning only 15% of the income but paying just 4.8% of the income taxes.

Update ... In 1996 the share of the income earned by the top 1% reached 16%. Remember: They're paying one third of all the taxes. So ... who is getting away with not paying their fair share? Looks like the bottom 50% to me ... not the evil, hated, mean, nasty, wicked rich.

These figures came from The Tax Foundation and IRS Statistics, 1983 through 1993. You go and do your own research and verify them! Then tell me just what the hell Bill Clinton was talking about when he said that the rich need to pay "their fair share."

[Wes Tausend]

...

Thanks for chiming in with some support, Ro$coe. As you can see we are apparently going broke.

With figures like that it looks like wealthy guys, like you and me, are paying more than our fair share. It's just been tough since Warren Buffet admitted that his secretary pays more taxes than he does. That guys not one of us, he's a maverick, dang it.

As you know, most of our needs are taken care of by corporate benefits allowing us to invest most of our our paltry bonuses in tax shelters. Hey, I didn't go to "Tax Avoidance" seminars for nothing (not the same as tax evasion). Can't tax a guy if he doesn't need to use the bulk of the money to buy ordinary family stuff, eh? What we do pay tax on looks like a lot ...unless someone realises what we don't pay on, ha ha. Well that's basically how we got to be 1 percenters, what the heck.

I hope everybody buys the myth crusher data. It's terribly important they do for the peace of mind of us 1 percenters.

I don't think the Obamians will change much. Then what would the lefties do for a platform, eh? Gotta love the slick salemanship though.

Carry on, brother.

We$


...

[Roscoe]

Wes,
Ever hear of the Laffer Curve? It is a simple bell curve graph. At one end is 0 taxes = 0 revenue for government. At the other end is 100% taxes which also equate to 0 revenue. Somewhere toward the top of the curve is a place where government maximizes its revenue. Whenever we have gone beyond that point, revenues have dropped.

In the three times we have had major tax cuts (Kennedy, Reagan, Bush 41) revenues have increased dramatically accompanied by strong economic growth.

With high taxes human behavior takes over and the tax avoidance kicks in. With lower tax rates it is easier to pay the taxes than to avoid them.

Roscoe

[BeanCounter]

Wes,

Sounds to me like you not only want to tax yearly incomes but also want to tax accumulated wealth. Hmm, that sounds suspiciously like........communism?

You know there is absolutely no one holding you back from pitching an extra $1,000 per week into the pot of the US Treasury. Then you can live in this great country with a free concience that you have paid "your fair share". That would have to be a far better feeling than you determining what everyone else's "fair share" is and would be much less hypocritical. I've got a daughter and son in law who have both been out of work for 3 months. I've bailed them out and saved their home, not the government. Should I not get credit for that? Of course I'm willing to send you their address so that you can help out with your "fair share" if you're that adamant about it.

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by Roscoe

Wes,
Ever hear of the Laffer Curve? It is a simple bell curve graph. At one end...

Roscoe

Roscoe,

Your presentation reminds me (maybe you who posted it ) of this little anecdote :

"How Taxes Work . . .

This is a VERY simple way to understand the tax laws. Read on - it does make you think!!

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man - the richest - would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement - until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six - the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Where would that leave the rest? Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic!"

ATTRIBUTED TO:
T. Davies
Professor of Accounting & Chair,
Division of Accounting and Business Law
The University of South Dakota
School of Business

There is no doubt some truth to the Laffer Curve and it served to inspire some questionable economic policy, but the exact "sweet spot" point is in dispute. There are so many variables that the fellow in the anecdote above might not leave the table at all. In some ways it's that table or starve. In other ways it's go to a more friendly table overseas - while retaining all the security benefits of still being an American. Here's a couple of Laffer Curve links:
General info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve .
Left Winger: http://www.democraticunderground.com...ss=389x1539550 .

Originally Posted by BeanCounter

Wes,

Sounds to me like you not only want to tax yearly incomes but also want to tax accumulated wealth. Hmm, that sounds suspiciously like........communism?

You know there is...

Bernie,

Welcome to the One Percenters Club, Bernie!

You say communism like it's a bad word. Heck, it's just another word for socialism. As a matter of fact, I submit that any form of any elected government at all ...is socialism itself. Might be why pure capitalists advocate less government, zero preferably. And pure socialists conversely advocate 100% government. In between is that ever elusive balance point.

I have no problem with capitalism or socialism and prefer a democratic government balance of each. I do have a problem with communist countries where government is run by a few at the top. Run by a few at the top, like the good old USA is getting in a corporate capitalistic sense. I have a problem with too much of that. If Barry Goldwater were active today, I think he'd be fighting corporate power, not union power. Barry had a sense of balance IMHO.

I feel a deep need to pay my fair share. I just don't trust the mail so I would like to direct-deposit the bail-out money to you to distribute. Do you have a checking account number for your bank you can list here?

All kidding aside, I rather doubt anyone in this Lounge fits in anything but the "under 1%".
================================================== ========

Wes


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