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Alleyooper said CEOs were making obscene wages, not small business owners like the ones you mentioned.
The hardest working people I've ever met have been small business owners. I concur with you on that much. I wonder what would happen if small business owners and labor got together politically? It's not as far-fetched as one might think. The GOP pretends to be "pro-business", but it does not help all businesses equally. It promotes the interests of large corporations over small mainstreet establishments, finance over manufacturing, and multi-nationals over those that do business only in the US.
These days, corporations are sitting on huge cash reserves instead of hiring or investing in new equipment or expanding research. And those CEOs and executives are still taking home huge compensation packages. The money is out there. We do not have to cut public services or employee wages and benefits to balance the budget. We could just tax all the wealth that is currently going to those who already have more than they know what to do with. Cutting public payrolls at a time of high unemployment is stupid, especially when the private sector is not hiring despite the fact that the recession has been officially over for some time now.
Deficits are a serious problem, but unemployment is worse. And here's a case where the needs of workers and small business coincide: cutting public payrolls means fewer customers for local businesses.
Here's something to think about: why are so many of our brightest minds going into high finance to make their fortunes? Why are they coming up with crazy new derivatives and financial "products" instead of inventing new technologies or curing diseases? Why aren't they starting their own enterprises like your small business owner friends?
We should be taxing the @#$% out of the people who make millions moving other people's money around and then have to be bailed out when their schemes collapse. Likewise for those who have never done a day of honest work in their lives but have inherited vast wealth. People who want to make millions should have to take real risks of their own, come up with products and services that serve genuine human needs, and put people to work at wages they can live on. Real enterprise should get incentives, not just "business" in the abstract.
The market should serve society, not vice versa.
Most CEOs are small business owners. Every business has a CEO and there are thousands of small businesses. There are only a tiny number of CEOs of mega corporations and, although they make an absurd amount of money, they are too few to make a real difference. They make a popular target, but they are really irelevant.
Most tax cuts or other govrnment incentives apply to small as well as large businesses. What incetive or other programs are available only to multinational businesses? I am not aware of any.
I have said before. We need to tax the snot out of any large cash reserves that are just sitting there. Now more than ever money needs to be put to use, not conserved for some other day. If they want to put it to use conservatively, that is fine, but people or companies who are willing to take risks with their money shold be given breaks while people who just sit on their money taxed heavily.
The huge compensation packages are ridiculous, and they are very popular to discuss, but they are essentially irrelevant in most buisnesses. They jsut do not amount to enough in the big picture to make a significant difference. I would be all for taxing heavily personal income over say $2 million - way more than anyone can possibly need or use. (Maybe we should make it $2.5 million so Obama can avoid the heavy tax and support the idea). However even a heavy tax on income over $2 million will not result in a noticable reduction in your tax or mine. Nor will it fund any signficint programs. It is just a drop in the bucket.
However it seems massively popular to tax the people in the range of $200,000 to $500,000 i.e. the successful small business owner. People with more money have too much policitcal clout and tax avoidance measures. Thus, it is easier to describe the upper middle class as "rich" and tax them out of existience. In which case, why take all the risks? Why not just go work for a corporation and make $150,000 a year with no risks and no heavy taxes.
I am ok with taxing big inheritances, but on the recieving end, not on the giving end. Thus, if someone has a $40 million estate and they want to give it to 80 people and charities, the tax should minimal or none. However is someone recieves over $2 million individually, sure, tax it. I dislike the idea that estate taxes are based on the size of your estate, rather than the size of an individual gift.
We need to do a lot of work on tax reform, but that is only reditribution. It will not solve the current crises. Eventaully people will wake up and realize a lot of money is gone. We cannot continue to live like we used to. We cannot have all the weekend toys, fancy meals, $100 bottles of wine, 5 or 6 televisions and computers in each houshold, etc. I drive around working class neighborhoods and it is hard to find a house that does not have either a boat, snowmobile, ATV, ski-doo, or, for the inactive, one or more giant television sets.
Frankly I think that if everyone would take all of the various weekend toys, pool them and share them, everyone would be able to use them as much or more than they ever did and half of the middle class could save a small fortune. Do we really need 1,000,000 boats sitting at docks 90% of their time, or 4 million ATVs parked in garages for all but 10 days of the year. I have never understood why people do not start up toy sharing coops.
Not to many small bussness owners I know call them selves CEO's they call them selves bussness owners. No reason to have a ceo when it is a small factory of a couple hundred workers or less. Also many of those small bussness owners know their empolyees and treat them very well as they both know they need each other to make a living. It is when your company get so big you do INDEED have a CEO where it gets to the point of the greedy trying to live off the backs of the workers.
My daughters old boss was such a person. Never called him self a CEO but figured that lots of wages were going to be cut so he was going to get his done before the dust settled.
Well now he is out of bussness till at least when the colleges finish handing out duplomas. Then I can't think of any one who would work for his wages long when they can make more as a sales clerk at a mall store. Plus there will be no experince people to break in the new.
What a lot of people seem to be missing in Wisconsin where only 48% of voter aged people voted is the big tax cuts to bussness. They don't seem to under stand if Walkers plan lives THEY WILL NOT SEE A TAX CUT.
It is just going to be the state workers giving up wages and beifits so bussness can have a tax cut. No minium employement needed just a tax cut because you are a bussness.
Maybe you will hire some one and, again you don't really need to.
Same thing is planed here in Michigan. Big tax cuts for bussness, no tax cuts for the tax payers and a tax increase for retirees.
Any one with any reasoning could have figured out the rich who have been elected are for the other rich who have not.
true story::
It is coming on to Christmas, man and his wife both here in Michigan drew their last unemployeement check in Oct. Dems in Washington want to give them an extention so they could maybe have some money for christmas.
What the GOP did was say NO can't do that UNLESS the rich people also get an extention of the Bush tax cuts.
Lets see how much is Snyder worth in Millions? For every Million he got a $47,000 tax cut. and the laid off couple got 600.00 for a few more weeks.
Even I do not make $47,000 a year retired, disabilty from Veit Nam and our honey bussness.
Unions may not be ideal but they sure have made working conditions and wages a bunch better in nonUnion shops.
By the way My daughter now works for 3M and will be in Hastings Minnesota to start. Brian has applied for a transfur at his bank so they can say good bye to Wisconsin. Once they move I'll also make every effort to not spend one nickle in Wisconsin on my way to visit.
Not to many small bussness owners I know call them selves CEO's they call them selves bussness owners. No reason to have a ceo when it is a small factory of a couple hundred workers or less. Also many of those small bussness owners know their empolyees and treat them very well as they both know they need each other to make a living. It is when your company get so big you do INDEED have a CEO where it gets to the point of the greedy trying to live off the backs of the workers.
My daughters old boss was such a person. Never called him self a CEO but figured that lots of wages were going to be cut so he was going to get his done before the dust settled.
Well now he is out of bussness till at least when the colleges finish handing out duplomas. Then I can't think of any one who would work for his wages long when they can make more as a sales clerk at a mall store. Plus there will be no experince people to break in the new.
What a lot of people seem to be missing in Wisconsin where only 48% of voter aged people voted is the big tax cuts to bussness. They don't seem to under stand if Walkers plan lives THEY WILL NOT SEE A TAX CUT.
It is just going to be the state workers giving up wages and beifits so bussness can have a tax cut. No minium employement needed just a tax cut because you are a bussness.
Maybe you will hire some one and, again you don't really need to.
Same thing is planed here in Michigan. Big tax cuts for bussness, no tax cuts for the tax payers and a tax increase for retirees.
Any one with any reasoning could have figured out the rich who have been elected are for the other rich who have not.
true story::
It is coming on to Christmas, man and his wife both here in Michigan drew their last unemployeement check in Oct. Dems in Washington want to give them an extention so they could maybe have some money for christmas.
What the GOP did was say NO can't do that UNLESS the rich people also get an extention of the Bush tax cuts.
Lets see how much is Snyder worth in Millions? For every Million he got a $47,000 tax cut. and the laid off couple got 600.00 for a few more weeks.
Even I do not make $47,000 a year retired, disabilty from Veit Nam and our honey bussness.
Unions may not be ideal but they sure have made working conditions and wages a bunch better in nonUnion shops.
By the way My daughter now works for 3M and will be in Hastings Minnesota to start. Brian has applied for a transfur at his bank so they can say good bye to Wisconsin. Once they move I'll also make every effort to not spend one nickle in Wisconsin on my way to visit.
Al
A bit of misunderstanding here I am afraid.
First all corporations must have a CEO (President). Most companies need to incorporate for liability and tax purposes.
Second the tax breaks for businesses apply to all businesses big, small, tiny, giant. The idea is to stimulate business and stop driving them away. Michigan is well known in the business community as an unfriendly to business state. IN orther words, we are known as a bad palce to do business, you get much better deals elsewhere. They are trying to put a stop to that.
Third. People are taxed on their income, not on ther worth. Thus, it is irrelevant what Snyder is worth. He will be taxed on his income. Any businesses that he owns will not have to pay the taxes that are normally charged to busiensses. I am not sure whether Snyder still owns a business or not. If I remember right he was an owner of Gateway, but he got out. He may just be living on the proceeds. I am not certain.
What a lot of people seem to be missing in Wisconsin where only 48% of voter aged people voted is the big tax cuts to bussness. They don't seem to under stand if Walkers plan lives THEY WILL NOT SEE A TAX CUT.
It is just going to be the state workers giving up wages and beifits so bussness can have a tax cut. No minium employement needed just a tax cut because you are a bussness.
Maybe you will hire some one and, again you don't really need to.
Not going to spend much more time debating this stuff. But you really should stop thinking of taxes in such a simple way. You can lower taxes on "the people" and raise taxes on businesses if you want, but it still ends up affecting "the people." Who do we work for and buy things from? Businesses. Businesses are composed of people. There is no evil monster named "business" that is out to get you. Businesses are your friends, neighbors, family, etc. If you take "the people" out of a business, it no longer exists.
ALL TAXES ARE TAXES ON "THE PEOPLE." It is either taken from us directly, or it is taken from a business, and then the business pays people less and charges more for goods and services. It still affects "the people" or "labor" or whatever you want to call it.
The important thing is that we do whatever creates an environment where "the people" benefit the most. If a business tax cut makes that happen in an indirect way by creating jobs, that still counts, right? Would you rather get a tax cut and have no job, or let the businesses get a tax cut and get a job? Maybe it wouldn't work out that way, but we haven't tried it in this state in a long time. I say we give it a shot.
michigan83 -- I was talking about the GOP in general, not just Michigan. Of course Michigan's elected officials from both parties will favor the manufacturers that are based here.
Thanks for the link. I did read it and I did learn something, but I'm going to take anything coming from the 'Daily Libertarian' or the Cato Institute (or the 'Washington Times', for that matter) with quite a few grains of salt. Still, let's suppose that the widely-reported increase in corporate cash reserves is greatly exaggerated. The fact remains that they're not hiring. Until unemployment comes down, we should not be reducing public payrolls.
Re. taxes on business: if businesses are unaffected by taxes -- if they can simply pass all taxes on to their customers and workers in the form of higher prices or lower wages -- then why do they need a tax cut? And why do they spend so much effort lobbying for tax loopholes?
While I applaud your self-reliance and initiative, hardly anyone is completely independent in this society. We are interconnected and independent. If your parents worked 40-hour weeks, or got overtime when they worked more than that, then you too have benefited from unions. There are many other things that organized labor has fought for that have benefited non-unionized workers.
Coldjensens -- people managed to get rich before the Bush and Reagan tax cuts, and they would continue to do so if those tax cuts were rescinded. Likewise for the supposed disincentive effects of higher marginal tax rates.
Is the money gone, as you say? I doubt it. Productivity continues to increase. Technology continues to advance. This economy is still generating massive wealth. It's just going to too few hands.
But I may be wrong. Maybe the combined burdens of paying for past extravagance, more elderly and disabled people, environmental cleanups, higher energy costs, etc. will combine to force us to change our ways. What kind of spending should be the target of austerity measures? Cutting public payrolls and closing universities is not the way to go. I would agree with you that the toys are what should go*. But to me that means that taxes should be higher on all income levels, not just the rich, so that we can support good schools, maintain public safety, repair infrastructure, and invest in research.
But even if the money is not gone, until unemployment goes down, we should be willing to forgo a few toys so that our neighbors can keep their jobs.
*BTW I do know people who have pooled their resources to jointly purchase boats, as you suggest, and of course that's how university sailing clubs work. If nobody could afford their own big screen TV, maybe they'd all just go watch the big game at a bar that had one. Or maybe church groups would buy them for their community centers. Maybe a little austerity would make us more sociable.
While I applaud your self-reliance and initiative, hardly anyone is completely independent in this society. We are interconnected and independent.
Late edit: I meant to say that we are interconnected and interdependent.
Also, when I mentioned the disincentive effects of higher marginal tax rates, I meant the disincentive effect on business creation. People started new businesses back when tax rates were higher, and they would continue to do so if tax rates returned to those levels. With jobs scarce and businesses demanding more from employees and offering them less, there is more incentive to be one's own boss than ever.
"Frankly I think that if everyone would take all of the various weekend toys, pool them and share them, everyone would be able to use them as much or more than they ever did and half of the middle class could save a small fortune. Do we really need 1,000,000 boats sitting at docks 90% of their time, or 4 million ATVs parked in garages for all but 10 days of the year. I have never understood why people do not start up toy sharing coops."
I bought my boat, my ATV, and my snomobile it gave a jobs to some one in AMERICA. I worked for the money to buy my boat,atv, snowmobile and pay the taxes on them every time they are due. It is my right to use that boat, atv, snomobile any hour, any day, any month and any year I have paid the taxes on it AND CAN AFFORD THE FUEL to run them.
With the ATV I don't have to have my name on a list as to when a day may arrive I want to use it to run back to the woods and get a load of fire wood.
With the boat I can go when a friend called last night and said lets go fishing tomorrow.
With the snomobile I can wake up in the morning to 10 inches of freash snow and go ride no waiting since I waqsn't on the list to useit today
Do you or have you told your neighbour that they are welcome to use your car when it is just setting in your drive? Of course not you don't want to share either, they might wreck it then you would be with out.
I've heard all about the time share horror storys how places are left a trashy mess.
You spend you vacation cleaning up oreven worse in a motel waiting for it to be cleaned up.
If you give busness a tax cut then it should be tied into empolyment levels plain and simple. At my age I get taxed so a bussnes sgets a tax cut but can not get hired by that same bussness because I'm to old. Lots of towns in the past gave tax abaitments to companies just to have them there. Then the companys jumped to other countrys because of slave labor leaving thousdands of workers with out jobs, needing trainng, needing wefare and a whole lot of other things. today most places will not give abaitments with out a employeement level over a amount of time. Guess they smartened up on that score
Al
Last edited by alleyyooper; 03-02-2011 at 08:11 AM..
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Al
