OT: Barry Obama - Please Shut Up!

Yep.

He should be setting up programs to identify why there are no jobs. Oh wait, that would mess up his globalism.

If Hillary gets elected, don't expect any job increases. She outsourced the only job she ever had to Monica Lewinski.

The stock market will take a plunge with his threats of a $320 billion tax hike. Buckle your seatbelts. A long 658 days until we can dump this fucking asshole.

Obummer has had a government job his whole life. He has no concept of the risks taken by most small business owners to get where they are today. Not every one percenter inherited their money. If hell froze over and he were able to give more money to the middle class, it would mainly be spent on tattoos, rims, and cigarettes. Good news if you are in one of those industries.

Wall street reacts to interest rates, not tax programs.

@rockstar: actually it's the other way around. Interest rates react to the markets.

Just one comment: For the first time since the great depression of the 30's more businesses are closing than starting. The reasons given for not starting are a regulatory minefield that make it to expensive to risk everything and taxes that take everything after you risk everything.

Would Barry's wife make money as a stripper?

"He has no concept of the risks taken by most small business owners to get where they are today"
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Yes, for example, Romney took huge and harrowing risks to get over $100M in his tax-subsidized IRA. What a great achievement! How did he do it?

Obama is essentially in a Lame Duck term. In about six months the media will have moved on to the 2016 Prez contenders, so his time is basically over.

If you guys are hoping for a Republican President in 2016, good luck. Hillary is a strong campaigner, a strong fundraiser who is popular with her base and can draw moderates. She's older, and she's a woman, which both might hinder her a bit.

But look at the current slate of probable Republican candidates... can ANY of them win a national election? The republican brand is already hamstrung nationally by Religious Conservatives. To win the nomination you have to be Anti-Evolution. A sane, moderate immigration policy doesn't play to the base either. The electoral map already sucks for Republicans, and every four years young people and minorities actually bother to vote, unlike midterms.

Hillary is at least a 3:2 favorite at this point, possibly even 2:1. Democrats will win back some seats in the Senate in 2016. Even without coattails, Republicans just have a lot of seats they have to play defense on, and there could be some retirements in the next year that make things even tougher.

Anyways, don't worry about the stock market. Republicans are likely to keep the house, and if there's one thing the markets love, it's the stability of a divided government.

ECONOMIST= Is a professional in the social science discipline of Economics
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics policy.

Some of you pathetic losers, should apply for Secretary of Commerce, or maybe OMB Director.

josh43: ", Romney took huge and harrowing risks to get over $100M in his tax-subsidized IRA. What a great achievement! How did he do it?"

I haven't kept up on Romney. Even the Republicans aren't crazy enough to run him again. No idea what planet his is living on if he thinks he should.

Was the mystery of the IRA ever solved?

Really brilliant insight Dugly. A lame duck president pointlessly running their mouth? Shocker!

"A lame duck president pointlessly running their mouth? Shocker!"
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Well that might reflect the view of a site like this which is slightly to the right of yer average Klan rally.

Note that Obama's approval rating is up to 50%. Obama is is actually doing a good job of fucking with the GOP and making them look bad. First with the EO on immigration. How can the GOP slam Obama on immigration without losing the Latino vote (again)? Asking for a cap on IRA contributions makes Romney look like a fool without actually calling him out by name. How can the GOP effectively deal with a plan to tax the 0.1% without alienating everyone else?

No, Obama is good at fucking with people. It that sense he is like the Dougster of the American political scene.

The masses be like:

"Yeah, tax the banks! We had to bail them out! Tax the 1% who pay lower effective tax rates than we do!"

Then some guy be like "Wait that's just wealth redistribution. Which is communism".

Then masses be like

"No! No wealth redistribution! No communism! No tax hikes!"

@josh: Looks like it will affect many more than 0.1%:

"The latest plan, released on Saturday, would increase the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 28 percent from 23.8 percent and impose capital-gains taxes on asset transfers at death."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-19…

So it looks like it would be for incomes above $400k which include capital gains and dividends (which is probably nearly all of them at level), although I won't rule out that the plan actually kicks in where the NII does which can be as low as $200k. Even if it's the former that would be about 1% of the population affected.

I don't really understand the logic behind this. The US already has a phenomenally high corporate tax rate and capital gains and dividend taxes, especially, are like double taxing on top of that already high rate.

If there need to be tax hikes, ok, fine, but everyone should have pay since they all, in theory, will receive the benefits of the taxes.

I do question the need for tax hikes at all with revenues rising like they are, however.

I am disturbed to find myself in agreement with Dougster -- perhaps it's time to examine my premises :)

I certainly disagree with Josh43. To address a couple of his "points": Obama's executive order on immigration is an inexcusable, quite possibly unconstitutional attempt to enact by decree what Congress was unwilling to do by legislation. The Republicans need to handle this bombshell carefully, but let's be realistic, folks: They're not going to get more than 40% of the Latino vote in any case. No GOP presidential candidate in modern times has gotten more than 40%; 28-32% is more typical. Republicans can't out-pander the party of pandering. Their only long-term hope with respect to this portion of the electorate is that as Latinos move into the middle class, they will also assimilate to middle-class voting patterns like previous waves of immigrants (Irish, Italians, Poles, etc.) and vote more Republican. If this doesn't happen, the GOP appears to be doomed, at least at the presidential level.

@dougster... First of all. The Super wealthy, you know that 1%, make their money on capital gains. That's free money. That putting money they're great grandmother worked hard for, not them, into a passive account guarantee return. We have people on welfare because they get free money they didn't work for, but we don't hate on the Uber wealthy for their free money.
And if they raised the tax on capital gains, them bitches would still be getting free money. Wealth redistribution my ass.

You're one of two things if you are Republican. You're either really fucking rich, or really fucking stupid.
Nothing else makes sense otherwise. Wouldn't benefit you.

... And call me old school but I believe that every individual should make their own wealth in life, not have it handed to them by mommy and daddy or greater great great grandpa.

Don't worry guys, Obama's speech tomorrow will once again detail his college thoughts about wealth distribution he developed with his Marxist cronies; most of which he had to throw under the bus once he became president.

"every individual should make their own wealth in life"

And when the die? What? Give it to the government so they can spend it on all the people who didn't work for their own?

I wish Obama was more of a Marxist and less of a Nixon Republican. Seriously, the Democrats of the past 6 years are the Republicans of the 70s.

Lots of smart talk on this thread,

"The masses be like:

"Yeah, tax the banks! We had to bail them out! Tax the 1% who pay lower effective tax rates than we do!"

Then some guy be like "Wait that's just wealth redistribution. Which is communism".
Then masses be like

"No! No wealth redistribution! No communism! No tax hikes!""

True

I have some sympathy with the notion that capital gains and dividends should be taxed at the same rate as earned income. But only if there was no corporate tax. And then you would need things like mark-to-market to determine yearly capital gains so people didn't set up corporations so they could grow their money tax deferred. But then with mark to market you would have to get rid of the $3k limit on most capital gains. And... On and on... Won't be any easy change but I can see the notion that it would be fairer.

As for inheritance - if you say people can't pass along after they die they will just set up creative ways to do it while they are alive. If you say you want to block that, I think you are taking away one of the most powerful incentives people have to work hard - to build up something to pass along to future generations of their families.



I don't know details of what Obama has in mind, but If there instances where you can escape capital gains taxes by dying and avoid them in your estate than he is right to close those loopholes.

^^^Do you ever sleep, Dougsteer?

Yes, there's that delightful "stepped-up basis" loophole which allows you to reset your capital gains when you die. It's a huge gift to rich people. Closing the loophole is just one of many reasonable things in the Obama proposal.

Do y'all right-wing nuts want to live in an oligarchy?

Looks like Josh a little pissed off because we went and did a fact check on him and he flunked. Cry, josh, cry!

@Josh, dude...no, Dougster never sleeps. I think he was a coke-snorting Wall St. dude in the '90s who once snorted a truly heroic amount of nose candy and hasn't slept since.

My alternative theories regarding Dougsta are:

1. He is uber-rich and he simply hires people to be his TUSCL voice. Every day he sits down at 4pm with a nice Sancerre and listens to his troll report.

2. He's actually a collective of guerrilla artists and they're using TUSCL to produce a work they plan to call "Dances with cranky old gun-totin' white dudes". After they reach 20,000 posts they'll produce a fascinating interactive visualization of the replies to Dougster posts.

3. He's kind of a nutjob (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I recognize that #3 is the most parsimonious hypothesis, but Ockham's razor seldom produces the most amusing hypothesis. Zippy's razor says the truth is the "Dougsta took too much coke in 1995 and hasn't slept since!" hypothesis.

GAC: "The Super wealthy, you know that 1%, make their money on capital gains. That's free money. That putting money they're great grandmother worked hard for, not them, into a passive account guarantee return."

Actually that would be interest income which doesn't receive breaks. If you want capital gains treatment then you are going to have to take on some risk.

One more thing @Josh, seriously dude...do you really need to ask a bunch of folks who think they ARE the oligarchs if they want to live in an oligarchy?

I just think it's ironic that we complain about people not working and how it affects our taxes when we aren't talking about the "other" people who don't work. And it affects our taxes with all their breaks. To me fair is fair.

Also, the advantages given to children of wealthiest parents puts them far ahead in life without them also having the additional advantage of inherentance. Don't want your hard earned money going to government then leave a legacy building or foundation.

@naytch88 wow damn good article!!!