Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
And, this my friends, is why I don't trust Dems with tax policy.

And the dividend tax cut is why I don't trust Republicans.

But at least we're back to focusing on things that actually affect us as voters.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk
And the dividend tax cut is why I don't trust Republicans.

But at least we're back to focusing on things that actually affect us as voters.

True dat. I'm actually tiring a litlle of the mud. But I do have 1 prediction. The NG story will not affect Bush. It is old news, having been raised in several of his election bids. However, I predict we haven't heard the last of the DUI type charges. Look for something fairly big to break the first or second week of October.

Now, back to the issues: I assume you are referring to your view that the dividend tax doesn't help middle america because most of their equity is held in tax deferred accounts?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Coke

eta: We have a choice this year between a former base head (who is since redeemed) and a former war criminal. Take your pick.

Hey Marie Anoinette, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Kerry was in Cambodia and the Swiftees are lying sacks of vindictive shit or Kerry wasn't a war criminal. You only get to pick one.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub
True dat. I'm actually tiring a litlle of the mud.

Just a little? Good lord -- it's sick, and they'd both rather focus on the mud because neither of them has any cogent ideas about actual solutions to actual problems.

(sebby rant over)

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
True dat. I'm actually tiring a litlle of the mud. But I do have 1 prediction. The NG story will not affect Bush. It is old news, having been raised in several of his election bids. However, I predict we haven't heard the last of the DUI type charges. Look for something fairly big to break the first or second week of October.

Now, back to the issues: I assume you are referring to your view that the dividend tax doesn't help middle america because most of their equity is held in tax deferred accounts?

Yep. And that's ignoring the fact that the dividend tax cut doesn't help the vast number of Americans who have no stock investments at all. We can also talk about the fact that the elimination of the top tax bracket helped wealthier people far more than the expansion of the 10% bracket got poor people off the tax roles.

Or the fixation on the estate tax, which hits so few people it's almost voluntary, but it produces revenue which has to be made up elsewhere in the tax system if repealed.

There are all kinds of things I don't like about the Bush tax cuts. But they pale in comparison to the basic fact that he keeps talking about simplifying the Code, but keeps making proposals or backing Congressional proposals that make it more complex and fucked up than before.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Yep. And that's ignoring the fact that the dividend tax cut doesn't help the vast number of Americans who have no stock investments at all. We can also talk about the fact that the elimination of the top tax bracket helped wealthier people far more than the expansion of the 10% bracket got poor people off the tax roles.

Or the fixation on the estate tax, which hits so few people it's almost voluntary, but it produces revenue which has to be made up elsewhere in the tax system if repealed.

There are all kinds of things I don't like about the Bush tax cuts. But they pale in comparison to the basic fact that he keeps talking about simplifying the Code, but keeps making proposals or backing Congressional proposals that make it more complex and fucked up than before.

1 (honest) question and then a few comments:

When the money is eventually pulled from the tax deferred account, at what rate are the dividends taxed?

eta:

Put aside supply side economics (which you must do in order to have the view that you have). I think you are not looking at the big picture. From a corporate finance prospective, a reduction in the dividend tax makes dividend payments more likely (see, e.g., Microsoft), which often makes equity financing more attractive/less expensive then debt, which allows the savings to be spent in other ways (R&D, new hirings, etc.).

[bilmore]

I've found a Kerry site I can live with:

http://iraqwarwrong.blogspot.com/

A sampling:

-----------------

Indespicable
Well, we knew it would happen. Now that Kerry has lofted his Big Salvoe over the barricades of Team Bush, they have responded with the only thing they know best: questioning KErry's patriotism (+ fitness to be President ect.).

I don't have the link or the article with me but a reader (a dhinger reader - gloating, I think) sent me in this quote which was given in response to the brilliant (and thought provoking) "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" trifecta, and the quote I still have, it goes like this:

... those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.

I'm assuming this quote is from Team Bush, and it just goes to prove, is there NO new low to which Bush will not sink?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
1 (honest) question and then a few comments:

When the money is eventually pulled from the tax deferred account, at what rate are the dividends taxed?

When the money is distributed out of deferred accounts, it is taxed as regular income at the taxpayer's applicable marginal rate, not at the deferred dividend rate. So the tax cut truly does only benefit the minority of investors who hold a material amount of corporate stock directly.

Put aside supply side economics (which you must do in order to have the view that you have). I think you are not looking at the big picture. From a corporate finance prospective, a reduction in the dividend tax makes dividend payments more likely (see, e.g., Microsoft), which often makes equity financing more attractive/less expensive then debt, which allows the savings to be spent in other ways (R&D, new hirings, etc.).

Equity financing is seldom less expensive than debt for two reasons. The fees taken by underwriters are larger on equity issues than on debt issues, and significantly larger than on standard bank borrowing or the CP market. In addition, corporations, all things being equal, would rather incur debt because interest is deductible, while dividends are not.

The dividend tax cut was put in place because (i) wealthy campaign contributors wanted it and (ii) it was an artificial boost to a moribund stock market. Investors, not corporations, like dividends. They are willing to pay more for stock paying dividends. That is why Microsoft paid dividends.

Yet again, the Republican party is robbing the future to pay short term benefits to the current party faithful.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
Yes, and I deal daily with fucktards who've been lawyers for longer than you've been alive.

Where is the Slave who would have torn a new asshole into logic as flawed as this?

I merely said it was amusing.

[SlaveNoMore]

Was this famous memo nothing but a forgery? Stay tuned folks.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Was this famous memo nothing but a forgery? Stay tuned folks.

I wouldn't be surprised if CBS got burned, but so what? The most damning thing in my book is that Bush was ordered by a superior officer (see the order here) to report for a flight physical within 10 days, and blew off that direct order.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I wouldn't be surprised if CBS got burned, but so what? The most damning thing in my book is that Bush was ordered by a superior officer (see the order here) to report for a flight physical within 10 days, and blew off that direct order.

If they got burned, they got burned twice. Look at #2 in the .pdf order - it has the same smaller-font, subscript-placement "th" after the "111" that is causing the controversy in the other docs. Since the issue is, typewriters back in '72 certainly couldn't do that, they are equally suspect.

(Note that "equally" implies no specific point on a continuum, merely similarity of placement.)

(ETA - or is it "superscript"? I never remember.)

[Replaced_Texan]

Confession: I don't really care about what Bush and Kerry were doing around the time I was born. I honestly don't. I don't care at all. Not one single bit. I sort of take the official record (Vietnam war decoration(s) honorable discharge, and Texas air national guard, honorable discharge) at face value, figure that everyone has his or her own story about how it went down, and move on from there.

I don't care whether Bush was AWOL or not. I don't care if Kerry's decoration was a little over the top for what he did. I don't care about any of it.

That police action ended years and years ago, and I was an infant at the time. I'm much, much more concerned about what's going on now, and all of this bickering back and forth about whose recollection trumps whose documentation makes me want to scream in frustration.

Yes, I understand that a man's past actions shape his character yada yada yada, and I understand that a central theme in this campaign is "who is fit to lead" but goddamnit, this whole thing has gotten everyone sidetracked and I'm just sick of it. We're going to have another three weeks of bickering over Bush's record, which will keep the R.s happy because 1) NO ONE CARES and 2) it side tracks everyone from economy, Iraq, healthcare etc. And then we'll have another wave of attacks that will go into the VN war protests, and I'm just sick of it all.

Uh, that was a little more ranty than I had initially intended it to be.

[SlaveNoMore]

Our favorite golddigger, Zsa Zsa, is at it again:

• Teresa Heinz Kerry says "only an idiot" would fail to support her husband's health care plan.
  
  But Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, told the (Lancaster) Intelligencer Journal that "of course, there are idiots."

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Confession: I don't really care about what Bush and Kerry were doing around the time I was born.

No one does. These are simply subjects with which the various sides can screw each other into the floor. It's too close of an election to actually speak of issues - might alienate an undecided somewhere.