Over the past two weeks, there's been this continual chatter about the President's concept of increased taxes on the wealthy....to cover the cost requirements of the government. Here's the prospective you ought to think about.
You line up one hundred guys who each make precisely $10 million a year from their company.....all precisely at the same level....all facing an imaginary level of say 35% taxation (the President can use any number he desires). So you would sit there and imagine that roughly $3.5 million of their income will come to the IRS. The plain truth is that you might have three guys who hand over the $3.5 million, but the other 97 guys will hand over anywhere from $3 million, all the way down to zero dollars for taxation.
Each guy hires some taxation expert. One guy will create a foundation where he tosses half of the ten million toward the charity foundation. He'll pay almost no taxes. On the hidden side....his trips to the foundation headquarters in San Diego are always covered by the foundation's tangled empire.....same for the hotel stay...the food....etc.
Another guy will move quietly the majority of his ten million to an off-shore bank....paying the one-time tax on it, and then letting the money disappear into various banks in Thailand, the Bahamas, or Africa.
A dozen guys will buy up fake farm land in Ohio, and pretend they actually farm land....when they don't. Some guy will plant two thousand Oak trees on his 500 acres and take various tax credits via both the state and the federal government.
So when the President chats about fairness or how taxes need to be increased against the evil rich people.....he really has no idea how much they currently pay, how they are structured to beat his tax efforts, or what he might get out of the deal in the end. It's sad in a way.....a massive media device is working to convince you how this will all work. But they haven't the slightest idea of how one hundred millionaires think. And don't even bother asking these guys how they got rich or how they intend to stay rich....they'll just grin.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Bad Photo Strategy
Just Observations
The Southern Baptists folks came up with an oddball suggestion this week.....a possible name change. They decided at the national meeting that they needed to expand, and go international.....so, this meant a possible name change. I sat and pondered over this. Growing up in Bama....that was almost the state religion. What kind of name would they stick on themselves? Baptists International? Baptists United? Baptists Unlimited? Remember, this is only a discussion and I'd suspect a full year to pass before anyone pulls out the new name.
It is an odd situation The number guys finally sat down and looked over the President's new tax rate deal for the rich guys. Sadly, the billions that they will take from the guys....won't come anywhere near the income required to fix our national debt issue....even if we did some marginal cuts around the corners. So even if the Republicans were idiot enough to sign on and push this through.....they'd likely have to return by 2013 (the continued period of the Obama administration), and pass yet another bill to tax the rich even more. And by 2015, they'd likely have to return a third time, to tax the rich guys even more (if there are any rich guys left at that point). I suspect by 2015.....most rich folks would have vacated America and whisked their money off to Argentina or Thailand....to safely wait out this storm.
Some audit against the Justice Department and one of it's meetings in DC determined that they'd spent $16 a muffin and $8 for cup of coffee. It was all done on government funds. Since I'm a government charge card overseer.....I can understand how this works. A new guy shows up....never used the government VISA card and some folks jump up to demand that he buy some items. Then in the middle of this....an idiot with no knowledge of what you can or can't buy....jumps in the middle....demanding an immediate purchase of donuts and coffee for a function. What you can spend....is a grand total of $5 per person, for a major government function....period. Nothing more than $5 per person. So if you got a hundred folks....you can spend $500 max. That usually covers some cheap coffee and one single cheap pastry. The charge card guy screwed up big-time in this case with the $16 muffin.
LightSquared and GPS. Last week, a Air Force general said that the White House tried to change his words on LightSquared and its efforts to bring nation-wide WI-FI to America. The argument? When GPS satellites got put into space, they were given a band on the radio dial. All GPS devices, from civilian to military, run off that band. LightSquared bought up this band that is very close to LightSquared's band. The General and his science guys came to realize that LightSquared would have to broadcast at a major rate.....thus cutting over into their band. It would create a huge mess with the US military and make all of our GPS devices questionable to operate. So the CEO stood up yesterday and said that they were all correct....but a simple 10-cent filter device on all military equipment items would fix this bleed-over. I sat and pondered over this. Ten cents? How would you manufacture it so cheaply? China? Somewhere in China, you can imagine this Chinese general gleefully smiling.....he's got all these programmed filter sets that they built for $10 each....and he's willing to sell them for 10 cents each....for a good reason. And for some reason, the more you hear from LightSquared....the more comical it sounds.
Finally....off in Europe....and likely not to be repeated in front of US reporters very much....Erik Holder, our Attorney General, said that they were going to move literal mountains in closing Gitmo by election time of 2012. It would have been nice if he'd said this in the US for American reporters, but obviously, it wasn't that important. It did make some German and French reporters weep a bit and slobber over themselves that Obama would accomplish something wonderful in appreciation of getting their Nobel Peppy Prize. I'm guessing some of the guys down in Gitmo will hear about this today....having gotten use to the tropical weather and enjoying the local atmosphere of Cuba. The thought of moving to Illinois....probably wouldn't be on their top five places to re-locate to. As for the actual possibility of moving? I give it a ten-percent change of occurring. The Republican House would have to pay for the move, and that's not on their top 500 agenda item list right now.
It is an odd situation The number guys finally sat down and looked over the President's new tax rate deal for the rich guys. Sadly, the billions that they will take from the guys....won't come anywhere near the income required to fix our national debt issue....even if we did some marginal cuts around the corners. So even if the Republicans were idiot enough to sign on and push this through.....they'd likely have to return by 2013 (the continued period of the Obama administration), and pass yet another bill to tax the rich even more. And by 2015, they'd likely have to return a third time, to tax the rich guys even more (if there are any rich guys left at that point). I suspect by 2015.....most rich folks would have vacated America and whisked their money off to Argentina or Thailand....to safely wait out this storm.
Some audit against the Justice Department and one of it's meetings in DC determined that they'd spent $16 a muffin and $8 for cup of coffee. It was all done on government funds. Since I'm a government charge card overseer.....I can understand how this works. A new guy shows up....never used the government VISA card and some folks jump up to demand that he buy some items. Then in the middle of this....an idiot with no knowledge of what you can or can't buy....jumps in the middle....demanding an immediate purchase of donuts and coffee for a function. What you can spend....is a grand total of $5 per person, for a major government function....period. Nothing more than $5 per person. So if you got a hundred folks....you can spend $500 max. That usually covers some cheap coffee and one single cheap pastry. The charge card guy screwed up big-time in this case with the $16 muffin.
LightSquared and GPS. Last week, a Air Force general said that the White House tried to change his words on LightSquared and its efforts to bring nation-wide WI-FI to America. The argument? When GPS satellites got put into space, they were given a band on the radio dial. All GPS devices, from civilian to military, run off that band. LightSquared bought up this band that is very close to LightSquared's band. The General and his science guys came to realize that LightSquared would have to broadcast at a major rate.....thus cutting over into their band. It would create a huge mess with the US military and make all of our GPS devices questionable to operate. So the CEO stood up yesterday and said that they were all correct....but a simple 10-cent filter device on all military equipment items would fix this bleed-over. I sat and pondered over this. Ten cents? How would you manufacture it so cheaply? China? Somewhere in China, you can imagine this Chinese general gleefully smiling.....he's got all these programmed filter sets that they built for $10 each....and he's willing to sell them for 10 cents each....for a good reason. And for some reason, the more you hear from LightSquared....the more comical it sounds.
Finally....off in Europe....and likely not to be repeated in front of US reporters very much....Erik Holder, our Attorney General, said that they were going to move literal mountains in closing Gitmo by election time of 2012. It would have been nice if he'd said this in the US for American reporters, but obviously, it wasn't that important. It did make some German and French reporters weep a bit and slobber over themselves that Obama would accomplish something wonderful in appreciation of getting their Nobel Peppy Prize. I'm guessing some of the guys down in Gitmo will hear about this today....having gotten use to the tropical weather and enjoying the local atmosphere of Cuba. The thought of moving to Illinois....probably wouldn't be on their top five places to re-locate to. As for the actual possibility of moving? I give it a ten-percent change of occurring. The Republican House would have to pay for the move, and that's not on their top 500 agenda item list right now.
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