rb
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Posts posted by rb
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The award winning reporter Sharyl Akitsonn wrote a book "stone walled" and it mentioned Benghazi many times. It is a appalling how it was mishandled.
When I see how Obama is busy on the golf course while LA was heavily flooded this year, I know he is incapable of handling Benghazi.
What's this whole thing with LA? The governor ask Obama and the presidential candidates not to come down because they would have to provide security which would detract from their efforts. All but one complied with the governor's request. FEMA was out there doing their job. What did you want Obama to do? Grab a bucket?
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Seriously, can someone explain to me this write in stuff? Cause I never understood that crap. Life is about choices. When you get to an intersection you can go ahead, left, or right. You can't start driving through buildings because you feel like it.
I could go on a long rant about individual rights, the political process, not compromising in life, being able to sleep at night, etc. but I'll just say this:
I don't endorse shitty companies, products, or people. If I'm putting my name behind something, it's something I think works. So I have the right to drive through all your damn buildings, and I will do so with a smile on my face.
So it's basically the tantrum in the cereal isle
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That's cute, but I was being serious. Was there ever a president that won a write in? A candidate that won a state a write in? I know the answers to these. My question was more about the mentality behind it. Is there some purpose or just some juvenile tantrum in the candy isle?
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Seriously, can someone explain to me this write in stuff? Cause I never understood that crap. Life is about choices. When you get to an intersection you can go ahead, left, or right. You can't start driving through buildings because you feel like it.
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I thought the argument for buying smaller companies is lack of competition from fellow investors. Buffett of course talks about fat wallet being the enemy of superior investment results.
Not really anymore, there's so much PE money out there chasing small cos, that it's probably easier to find big cos cheaper. As surprising as that may sound.
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The major ones as i see it, in no particular order:
1. Fed tightens too quickly ala 1937. They do seem pretty hawkish.
2. Market fatigue. Markets did have periods when they did go down without an external catalyst.
3. Foreign problem. Everyone is quite complacent now but there's a ton of issues out there. Middle East is... well the Middle East. European Union is a mess. Japan is looking a shaky again, and God only knows what's really going on in China. There's a lot places that are on the razor's edge.
4. US Election. Not so much the result. The markets may not the result and may react but I don't think it'll be major. More concerning is depending where the chips fall are there gonna be new big debt ceiling/gov't shutdown crises?
I don't see either inflation or deflation as big imminent problems for the US. Unless 1. happens. Then who knows?
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So why don't one of you guys start it?
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Yes Seattle, that place ruled by the extreme left has all the indications that it's collapse is imminent:
High Education
High Income
Low Poverty
Low Unemployment
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Thanks boilermaker,
I wanted to reference rolling coal in my post but I forgot the name of that abomination. The fact that someone would spend money and effort to purposely create more pollution boggles the mind. One parallel to these sort of attitudes is akin to someone who has indoor plumbing going like "screw that! I'm gonna use an outhouse. Including during the winter!." If someone said that you would think that person isn't 100% there.
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As a Quebecois, I must admit I find unbelievable that trump even stand a chance of being elected president. And I find scary that as many as 40% could vote for him. It tells a lot about the level of education in the country...really, democracy is the lesser evil, but you have as good a democracy as the level of education in a country...
And from a personal point of view, as a scientist, I can't even understand why the GOP is so entrenched on its stand about climate change and science in general, that's is really really sad.
It's pretty simple - there's a lot of oil and coal money that supports the GOP that is at risk if we make a dramatic shift to renewables.
While it's pretty easy to dismiss people that disagree with you by smearing their motives, there is actually a reasoned, thoughtful argument against the prevailing leftist view of climate change.
It has absolutely nothing to do with left or right!
Just some reading Don Fanucci: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
What surprises me is the kind of opposition to clean energy from certain quarters. I can understand oil or coal companies cause it's their living. But what about the rest? Even leaving aside whether climate change is real or not. (I believe in science so I think it's real) Does anyone actually believe that the stuff that comes out from the coal plants' smoke stacks or the stuff that comes out of exhaust pipes is good for you?
To me it seems that getting rid of pollution is reason enough to switch to clean energy.
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These conspiracy theories about voting are getting really ridiculous. Everything is rigged now. Rigged I tell you! I wonder why those illegals who hate donald trump so much didn't commit voter fraud and vote against him in the RIGGED! republican primary?
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Buffett and his wife opted to live a middle class life early in their life (20's). They kind of knew that wealth was coming their way but wanted their children to have a midwestern, middle class lifestyle just like they themselves or their parents/grand parents did. This was an informed personal choice. the wealth you are talking about is something he treats as excess that goes back to society, this is the way they always thought about it, even before accumulating it. He still lives that lifestyle which makes him a very credible messenger for the middle class; He is to me and apparently to a lot of other people. No message board poster with an alias is going to change that image of Buffett by banging at the keyboard.
+1 Very well and eloquently put.
I can relate a lot to that. I come from a family where for a couple of generations it was instilled in us that you have to work to make money. Out of the money you make you always have to live from income and never spend the savings. One side effect of that is that it builds a bit of wealth over time. But the main thing is that it instilled a lot of discipline in us and made us grounded. When faced with the fact that we should turn down a purchase that we want and could afford because it would violate those family rules, and sticking with those, i think it made us better individuals.
In Buffetts case, there's plenty of people that always say that because they befitted from the current system they should keep their mouth shut. But this is an individual who is asking for reforms that are to his financial detriment because he thinks that it would benefit the country. That is a breath of fresh air. Much different the a lot of the me, me, me, me first and screw the rest crowd. It is also uplifting that he is not the only one.
I should also add that he, a private citizen is the one that steps up and willing to release his tax return, without running for any office. The guy who is running for the office of president is declining to do so, in spite of the precedent set up by many before him. Nevermind his birth certificate and college transcripts that were requested from a certain sitting president (who was elected in a pretty decisive election) in order to prove his legitimacy.
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I appreciate the humor. Buy yea, if she wins it won't be big like that. I'd say it'll probably be around 300-330 EVs. Probably worse than 2008 for Obama. She'll probably take North Carolina, but she won't win Arizona or Georgia, and I'll be surprised if she wins Indiana, despite the fact than Mike Pence isn't exactly Mr. popular over there.
But I also don't think that the Democrats are going for a big blow out victory. I think they'll be strategic about it with the view that a win is a win and they'll go for a safe one rather than a flashy one.
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It may be nice to think that. But i think that's wrong. The way America is right now, i think that despite all the recent polling, it'll probably look like 2012 and best case scenario for Democrats is more like 2008.
Does Trump deserve a huge repudiation from America? I think so. But I think in the end, I think most people will hold their noses and vote along party lines.
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It's normal. When ur opponent is busy self destructing you don't wanna distract him. Just stay on the side and let him do his thing.
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I hate to say, but Trump train is unstoppable!
Truly!
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo
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Eric,
Dude, cmon, the council tax in Australia IS dependent on the value of the property.
You quote those tax rates for Australia which I assume you say that they are either high or regressive. But you fail to mention that for those taxes the Aussie blokes get free health care. You start at 37,000. Fail to mention the other brackets 0-18k tax is zero, 18-37k tax is 19%. There is also a progressive low income tax between 18 at 37k. There's a medicare tax credit of 2% which basically increases those rates by 2. For that they get free universal healthcare and pensions
In the US for federal tax you get 0-6k fed tax at 0%, 6-13k@ 10%, 13-50k @ 15%. On top of that they have to pay 7.65% flat (regressive) for social security and medicare. This along with higher property taxes makes the US system more regressive then Australia.
Also you bring up Santa Barbara here. A city in which only 40% of homes are owner occupied and 60% are rented. Which is 1: Not representative for the US as a whole and not even for California as a state. And 2: maybe the dynamics there are such that renters do get a good deal and so they choose to rent. Free market and all that. I also don't see why the landlord or the home owner are always entitled to a good deal. Sometimes it's better to sell the place and rent. It seems to be so in Santa Barbara and residents seem to agree.
All this being said, if you want to have an honest and constructive discussion I'm down for that. But up to now you seem to be picking unusual cases and leaving out facts to make your protest that taxes seem too high to you for certain assets. I'm not just gonna keep spending time to correct the record with the facts that you conveniently leave out.
You've yelled 60% is too high for investment property in Santa Barbara. Ok, we've heard you.
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My attitude towards taxation is shaped by Australia. I have a dual citizenship between Australia and the US.
The Australian society feels more fair overall. Yet they have no gift tax and no inheritance tax.
Your primary residence is exempt from property tax (so you don't lose your home if you run low on savings). The US system makes elderly folks insecure because most elderly don't have a lot of cash to survive a situation where property taxes rise sharply and thus property taxes could quickly double on them and make their savings look inadequate.
They have a dividend franking system (no double tax on dividends).
They have a capital gains tax that is 1/2 of their income tax rate.
So it looks like the system is designed for THE RICH ASSHOLES, but it's a fairer society.
Riddle me that.
The inheritance tax in the US is subject to a $5.5 million dollar exemption per deceased and $11 million if both mommy and daddy pass. Only 0.2% of estates in the US are subject to estate tax. This is a rare tax that is applicable only to certain very wealthy families.
US has preferential taxation for dividends and capital gains. Not as generous as Australia (mainly because of the dividend tax) but not that far away.
Australians do pay property tax. It's called council tax over there. However it is smaller than in the US mainly because public schools are funded by the federal government from general tax revenue not by local governments as in the US.
The reason why Australia is fairer is because it has a more progressive tax system then the US.
Also btw, local, state, and federal taxation put together is about 24-25% of GDP for US so there's not a lot of gouging on the tax side and not a lot of 60-80% tax going on.
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Eric,
I've been reading this for a while and I'm wondering if you are building up to a bigger point. Aside from the fact that in your opinion taxes are too high, are you getting somewhere? If the federal government (income) or municipalities (property) should lower taxes do you have a view on what services to cut? Are there some specific and glaring inefficiencies in the system that you would like to address in order to lower costs?
If there are inefficiencies to be made how would you like the savings to be distributed?
Thanks,
rb
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Yes that secret deal that has been public record for 7 months.
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I think someone already tried that in the 80s
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Eric,
When I was referring to the prop tax as a fixed cost I meant it just as how I would use it when i would model a real estate deal. I think I mentioned that. Of course it is a tax but it is mean as a resident tax. As in whomever lives there has to pay it. When I lived in England it fell on the tenant to pay that on top of the rent. Over here the owner pays it. But really in a markets system the rents adjust for that. So in England the tenant pays rent+prop tax. Here the tenant pays just tax so you figure that the rents would adjust upward to include the property tax. That's why it should be accounted as an expense. If you can't collect rents high enough to accommodate for that and provide a decent return on capital maybe the underlying asset is overvalued.
I haven't done the calculation, but in the situation you've described, if everything stayed the same but the house price would be 200,000 as you said instead of 1,000,000 you'd be making a very decent yield on your investment.
I'd be happy to go into this deeper in another thread if you want. But we're debating about local taxes in a thread about the general election. Plus as i've said before local+state+federal taxes as a % of GDP in the US are among the lowest in the industrial world. America is far from overtaxed.
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So should the government change its taxation policy in order to ensure that people in certain tax brackets are insured a certain real yield on all or specific classes of assets?
You can't ensure a yield with a tax rate, but you can ensure that taxes aren't in excess of your yield.
Market forces be damned!
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So should the government change its taxation policy in order to ensure that people in certain tax brackets are insured a certain real yield on all or specific classes of assets?
Should taxation policy change with the price level of assets? For example, I liked the return prospects of GOOG when it was in the 400s. Now it's in the 700s and the return is not as attractive. Should the government decrease in my tax rate of GOOG investments in order to increase my return?
If American - which presidential candidate will you vote for? (Sept. Edition)
in General Discussion
Posted
Now everyone is a medical expert issuing armchair diagnosis.
Next time one of you get sick, call your doctor (who also knows ur history well) and ask him or her to diagnose you over the phone. See what the doctor tells you.