Re:My attempt to define a wealth number
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
·
· Score: 1
Oh, and I didn't mean to say your post was complete bull, I was annoyed at the absurdity of the Dept of Health definition of poverty...
My point is a one-fits-all formula just doesn't work when looking at individual requirements for minimum sustenance. Shelter is expensive in California. Food is expensive in Hawaii. Taxes (both progressive and regressive ones) vary state to state. Health care costs, for example, can vary tremendously family to family, and year to year.
I agree with your basic point that wealth is more than just property (living an extravagant lifestyle with nothing to show for it in the end does seem like a form of "wealth"). Butt he GP's comment of "having wealth doesn't magically kick in at some number" definitely has merit as well.
I think you missed my point, actually:) I am not arguing against paying of property tax, just the massive discrepancy of property taxes from house to house in the same area, when pretty much the same services are provided to everyone. Police and fire service (which everyone keeps bringing up for some reason) are two of the worst examples because of this.
As I said, schools and neighborhood are the main reason prices vary in one area. That accounts for some of it, but beyond that it's just supply and demand. A person with a $1M house in CA clearly doesn't get 5x the fire service or school quality as someone with a $200k house in Arkansas.
He now has MANY BILLIONS after taxes, why would he want to make himself an enemy of the US government by renouncing citizenship? (besides the fact he might actually WANT to support his country!) Notwithstanding, it's already an American company, hindsight is 20/20 and it ain't going to happen (relocating the company or himself) so it's a pointless argument anyway.
And actually as far as taxes you have no idea what you are talking about. Like other plenty of other countries, there is an income cap before foreign income is counted, and based on widely adopted international treaty you don't get double dipped in any case.
Have you ever shopped for a house?? It's really mostly 2 things: schools and neighborhood. The roads, fire, and police in a city are distributed and service has little to do with property value, but the makeup (income, race, whatever - I'm not saying it's right, just a fact) and the quality of education mostly determine the value.
And "property taxes make it worth 500k" is clearly proven wrong by CA Prop 13 - two houses can be worth the same but one has 30% of the property taxes of the other just because one person has lived there for 20 years longer...
I agree with you that it's a wealth tax, though. But your trying to say it's fee-based for services AND a wealth tax just doesn't jibe...
While there is a principle of eminent domain, that's as far as the Constitution went towards state control of property. Jefferson was a big proponent of allodial title (look it up). It's not in any way "rented", but there is a right to purchase it for an established fair value if it's proven to be necessary for public use (and many court decisions have shown that's not a blanket right).
And I have no idea what you are talking about at the end, title is used all the time for land - I bought a house a year ago and never heard the term "deed" used once, but I most definitely have a title...
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
·
· Score: 1
So we should drop the tax rate for those making most of the money and raise it for those making almost nothing... yeah, the math has been done on this, and it would make the current deficit look pretty good...
I mean, seriously? People want to pretend that most of the super-rich in the US made all that money through amazingly hard work and deserve every penny. The reality is almost all of them made it through either inheritance or pure dumb luck. Do I think we should hang them and raid their fortune? No. But since the 19th century robber barons the system has been fixed with government consent, and it will continue to be so until people admit that the privileged class in fact do get all of the breaks and vote out of Congress those feeding off of that system...
Oh, and unrelated to my other post - Mark Zuckerberg is still an American citizen, so the location of his company has nothing to do with the income taxes he owes...
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
·
· Score: 1
Actually, very few of the tech companies with billionaire majority owners even pay dividends. Though I agree that the dividend (and cap gain tax in general) should be the same as ordinary income tax. How the government justifies taxing people for manual labor more than capital gains I still can't fathom...
Re:My attempt to define a wealth number
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
·
· Score: 1
Except that's complete bull, given that it's just some arbitrary number from a government agency that doesn't take into account location or circumstances. $22k in the metropolitan area I live in barely covers 1 person, let alone 4.
I understand your point, but as a homeowner I pay plenty for sewer and garbage collection... you must rent;)
And also, it *is* much more of a wealth tax than a fee to pay back usage. Every expense you mention is more dependent on the number of people involved (who are generating about the same amount of waste, fire hazards, road usage, and educational needs per capita), not the value of their land based on an arbitrary property location (in my city, at least, the property is worth at least 2x the structure). And property taxes go to the country as much as the city, so the wealthy communities are in some ways subsidizing the poor ones (and in other ways the poor ones are getting completely shafted, of course - especially "public" education).
Not to mention with Prop 13 my neighbor pays half the property tax I do just because he's lived there for 15 years (not to mention he has 3 kids at the public schools and I have none).
If property taxes were a usage tax it would be about the same for every resident. As it is, I'd call it primarily a wealth tax.
If the parents sunk all of their money into a $500k house and that was their only asset (thus leaving him no inheritance), then blame the parents for poor financial planning.
If someone leaves you a $500k house free and clear that's a pretty damn good inheritance and hardly poor financial planning on their part.
But aside from that, why should someone who only makes $20k/year (or whatever a barista might make...not much) be expected to be able to live in a $500k house?
Because it's bought and paid for, and his property. The question is, why should someone with low income but fully owned property NOT be allowed to live in it?
And have you seen the military budget? I don't expect people who spend $800 on toilet seats are going to worry about getting a discount on old iPads...
One source I read (look it up yourself, took me all of 10 seconds) said Foxconn currently has "over a million" employees (Wikipedia says 920k+ in 2010, and it has likely grown significantly), and several sources (including the New York Times) estimate Apple to be ~40% of Foxconn's business.
And that's just Foxconn. There are plenty of other subcontractors, suppliers, etc. that employ many more people in China in order to fulfill Apple's manufacturing needs. That's close enough to 500k (for which I clearly said "some estimates say", because they DID) to be in the ballpark. Could be more for all you or I know.
Dishonest my ass - and it's called math, not implication. Please get a clue before posting next time.
Well, I guess of course it doesn't have to be an all or nothing deal. Apple has been talking about expanding their production to Brazil anyway (which makes business sense - this current co-dependence shows one problem with locating all of your factories in one place!) They could just ramp up that plan and start spreading out their production, making China much less of a critical element to Apple's success. It would be a clear but subtle message (in keeping with the way China loves to send their indirect political messages...)
It's the Chinese government playing politics. The same government that does pretty much nothing to stop Chinese manufacturers from violating foreign company copyrights and trademarks is now claiming Apple is violating some bankrupt company's (who they already paid for the use anyway) trademark? They are trying to make it look like the "big American company" is just as guilty as they are for condoning trademark infringement...
It's not about hurting Proview, it's about hurting China's economy. If Apple threatens to move all of their device production out of China, that's incentive not to rule against Apple (or at least not rule on the order of $1B+). Some estimates say Apple subcontractors in China employ over 500,000 people building Apple products...
Hah. Those are either 2 bedroom (we are talking about having kids here, too - might as well keep renting an apartment at that point), in the worst neighborhoods in Oakland (ie. you will regret the purchase after the first stray drive-by bullet goes through your window), or in places like Tracy (which would give you a 4 hour daily commute, so you'd never actually see anything other than your bedroom).
No, not really. At ~30, most people will have a mortgage, and young children either here or on the way, if they are going to have them. That's the most expensive time of life. By 50 - 60, most people will have paid off their mortgage (unless they're continually trading up), and their kids will be independent, or very nearly so.
For MANY people, yes, really. A lot of/. readers are in the Bay Area, CA, where almost no one can afford to buy a house and have kids at 30, and many people don't even get married until their early/mid 30's. A *very* common sequence around here is get married early 30's, and manage to buy a house and have kids sometime in the next 10 years after that (pressured by the biological clock in many cases). It depends on the area, but those who do have a mortgage and kids have probably had to choose between the $1M+ house (Australia is far more expensive than that!? I doubt it) in a neighborhood with good public schools, or a $600-800k house/condo in one where they will be paying $20-30k+ a year per child for private schools if they want their kids to have any hope of a decent education.
Then - when the parents are in their mid 50's, their kids want to go to college. The CA public universities are bad enough, but if they want to go private or out of state it's $40k+ a year - and if you are "middle class" good luck getting any financial aid. Have 2 or more kids and it's practically like a 2nd mortgage.
Oh, and are you referring to social security? That's really a joke as far as supporting anyone in retirement, at best it would cover about 1/3 of the monthly cost of living in the Bay Area (assuming that mortgage and student loans have been paid, which is not likely). And until people hit Medicare (which is also inadequate) at 65, health insurance costs continue to rise rapidly (if you are not on a corporate plan) once you get into the 40s+, sometimes $1000+ per MONTH.
Anyway - life definitely gets more expensive where I live as you get older. Then as far as I can tell once you finally do pay off most of your commitments, you end up throwing all of your money into healthcare... wow, now I'm really depressed, thanks;)
When you have 20,000,000 heavily armed troops (and enough missiles - conventional, nuclear, and/or chemical - to more or less obliterate each other's capitals) supplied with modern equipment by Russia, China, and the US separated by about 2 miles of DMZ, no one's going to win...
And even so, it was stated on one of the articles that they believe the recording was an audio file attached to an email anyway (ie. a police recording of it that was sent to those who missed the call). So, they didn't likely even listen in on the call, it was all just email hacking...
That's like saying the Germans and the British in WW2 had a huge combined military.
Yeah, and after WWII they joined forces to dominate the European economy together - I'm sure Russia before the fall of the USSR had wished it had been able to keep West Germany under its thumb instead of joining NATO. China clearly relishes their position as North Korea's closest (and almost only) ally, and use that leverage constantly when negotiating in the UN on Asian politics.
But the point was comparing Korea to the Dutch Antilles is silly. Korea is a major military power, no matter how it became that way, and as you said yourself, a unification of Korea would cause a lot of worry and headache for China (probably a bit more than if Aruba unified with St. Martin).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and I didn't mean to say your post was complete bull, I was annoyed at the absurdity of the Dept of Health definition of poverty...
My point is a one-fits-all formula just doesn't work when looking at individual requirements for minimum sustenance. Shelter is expensive in California. Food is expensive in Hawaii. Taxes (both progressive and regressive ones) vary state to state. Health care costs, for example, can vary tremendously family to family, and year to year.
I agree with your basic point that wealth is more than just property (living an extravagant lifestyle with nothing to show for it in the end does seem like a form of "wealth"). Butt he GP's comment of "having wealth doesn't magically kick in at some number" definitely has merit as well.
I think you missed my point, actually :) I am not arguing against paying of property tax, just the massive discrepancy of property taxes from house to house in the same area, when pretty much the same services are provided to everyone. Police and fire service (which everyone keeps bringing up for some reason) are two of the worst examples because of this.
As I said, schools and neighborhood are the main reason prices vary in one area. That accounts for some of it, but beyond that it's just supply and demand. A person with a $1M house in CA clearly doesn't get 5x the fire service or school quality as someone with a $200k house in Arkansas.
He now has MANY BILLIONS after taxes, why would he want to make himself an enemy of the US government by renouncing citizenship? (besides the fact he might actually WANT to support his country!) Notwithstanding, it's already an American company, hindsight is 20/20 and it ain't going to happen (relocating the company or himself) so it's a pointless argument anyway.
And actually as far as taxes you have no idea what you are talking about. Like other plenty of other countries, there is an income cap before foreign income is counted, and based on widely adopted international treaty you don't get double dipped in any case.
Have you ever shopped for a house?? It's really mostly 2 things: schools and neighborhood. The roads, fire, and police in a city are distributed and service has little to do with property value, but the makeup (income, race, whatever - I'm not saying it's right, just a fact) and the quality of education mostly determine the value.
And "property taxes make it worth 500k" is clearly proven wrong by CA Prop 13 - two houses can be worth the same but one has 30% of the property taxes of the other just because one person has lived there for 20 years longer...
I agree with you that it's a wealth tax, though. But your trying to say it's fee-based for services AND a wealth tax just doesn't jibe...
That's not true in any legal document in the US.
While there is a principle of eminent domain, that's as far as the Constitution went towards state control of property. Jefferson was a big proponent of allodial title (look it up). It's not in any way "rented", but there is a right to purchase it for an established fair value if it's proven to be necessary for public use (and many court decisions have shown that's not a blanket right).
And I have no idea what you are talking about at the end, title is used all the time for land - I bought a house a year ago and never heard the term "deed" used once, but I most definitely have a title...
So we should drop the tax rate for those making most of the money and raise it for those making almost nothing... yeah, the math has been done on this, and it would make the current deficit look pretty good...
I mean, seriously? People want to pretend that most of the super-rich in the US made all that money through amazingly hard work and deserve every penny. The reality is almost all of them made it through either inheritance or pure dumb luck. Do I think we should hang them and raid their fortune? No. But since the 19th century robber barons the system has been fixed with government consent, and it will continue to be so until people admit that the privileged class in fact do get all of the breaks and vote out of Congress those feeding off of that system...
Oh, and unrelated to my other post - Mark Zuckerberg is still an American citizen, so the location of his company has nothing to do with the income taxes he owes...
Actually, very few of the tech companies with billionaire majority owners even pay dividends. Though I agree that the dividend (and cap gain tax in general) should be the same as ordinary income tax. How the government justifies taxing people for manual labor more than capital gains I still can't fathom...
Except that's complete bull, given that it's just some arbitrary number from a government agency that doesn't take into account location or circumstances. $22k in the metropolitan area I live in barely covers 1 person, let alone 4.
Plus a yearly property tax based on the value of the house (making it largely a wealth tax) that they may not be able to afford after inheriting it...
Argh, meant "county" not "country". Spell check not helpful :) Oh well.
I understand your point, but as a homeowner I pay plenty for sewer and garbage collection... you must rent ;)
And also, it *is* much more of a wealth tax than a fee to pay back usage. Every expense you mention is more dependent on the number of people involved (who are generating about the same amount of waste, fire hazards, road usage, and educational needs per capita), not the value of their land based on an arbitrary property location (in my city, at least, the property is worth at least 2x the structure). And property taxes go to the country as much as the city, so the wealthy communities are in some ways subsidizing the poor ones (and in other ways the poor ones are getting completely shafted, of course - especially "public" education).
Not to mention with Prop 13 my neighbor pays half the property tax I do just because he's lived there for 15 years (not to mention he has 3 kids at the public schools and I have none).
If property taxes were a usage tax it would be about the same for every resident. As it is, I'd call it primarily a wealth tax.
If the parents sunk all of their money into a $500k house and that was their only asset (thus leaving him no inheritance), then blame the parents for poor financial planning.
If someone leaves you a $500k house free and clear that's a pretty damn good inheritance and hardly poor financial planning on their part.
But aside from that, why should someone who only makes $20k/year (or whatever a barista might make...not much) be expected to be able to live in a $500k house?
Because it's bought and paid for, and his property. The question is, why should someone with low income but fully owned property NOT be allowed to live in it?
And have you seen the military budget? I don't expect people who spend $800 on toilet seats are going to worry about getting a discount on old iPads...
And how much would you bet that he just happens to be backing/investing/working at a "social media" company of some sort now?
One source I read (look it up yourself, took me all of 10 seconds) said Foxconn currently has "over a million" employees (Wikipedia says 920k+ in 2010, and it has likely grown significantly), and several sources (including the New York Times) estimate Apple to be ~40% of Foxconn's business.
And that's just Foxconn. There are plenty of other subcontractors, suppliers, etc. that employ many more people in China in order to fulfill Apple's manufacturing needs. That's close enough to 500k (for which I clearly said "some estimates say", because they DID) to be in the ballpark. Could be more for all you or I know.
Dishonest my ass - and it's called math, not implication. Please get a clue before posting next time.
...at least I learned about pork brains in milk gravy! Almost made it worth reading.
Well, I guess of course it doesn't have to be an all or nothing deal. Apple has been talking about expanding their production to Brazil anyway (which makes business sense - this current co-dependence shows one problem with locating all of your factories in one place!) They could just ramp up that plan and start spreading out their production, making China much less of a critical element to Apple's success. It would be a clear but subtle message (in keeping with the way China loves to send their indirect political messages...)
It's the Chinese government playing politics. The same government that does pretty much nothing to stop Chinese manufacturers from violating foreign company copyrights and trademarks is now claiming Apple is violating some bankrupt company's (who they already paid for the use anyway) trademark? They are trying to make it look like the "big American company" is just as guilty as they are for condoning trademark infringement...
It's not about hurting Proview, it's about hurting China's economy. If Apple threatens to move all of their device production out of China, that's incentive not to rule against Apple (or at least not rule on the order of $1B+). Some estimates say Apple subcontractors in China employ over 500,000 people building Apple products...
Hah. Those are either 2 bedroom (we are talking about having kids here, too - might as well keep renting an apartment at that point), in the worst neighborhoods in Oakland (ie. you will regret the purchase after the first stray drive-by bullet goes through your window), or in places like Tracy (which would give you a 4 hour daily commute, so you'd never actually see anything other than your bedroom).
No, not really. At ~30, most people will have a mortgage, and young children either here or on the way, if they are going to have them. That's the most expensive time of life. By 50 - 60, most people will have paid off their mortgage (unless they're continually trading up), and their kids will be independent, or very nearly so.
For MANY people, yes, really. A lot of /. readers are in the Bay Area, CA, where almost no one can afford to buy a house and have kids at 30, and many people don't even get married until their early/mid 30's. A *very* common sequence around here is get married early 30's, and manage to buy a house and have kids sometime in the next 10 years after that (pressured by the biological clock in many cases). It depends on the area, but those who do have a mortgage and kids have probably had to choose between the $1M+ house (Australia is far more expensive than that!? I doubt it) in a neighborhood with good public schools, or a $600-800k house/condo in one where they will be paying $20-30k+ a year per child for private schools if they want their kids to have any hope of a decent education.
Then - when the parents are in their mid 50's, their kids want to go to college. The CA public universities are bad enough, but if they want to go private or out of state it's $40k+ a year - and if you are "middle class" good luck getting any financial aid. Have 2 or more kids and it's practically like a 2nd mortgage.
Oh, and are you referring to social security? That's really a joke as far as supporting anyone in retirement, at best it would cover about 1/3 of the monthly cost of living in the Bay Area (assuming that mortgage and student loans have been paid, which is not likely). And until people hit Medicare (which is also inadequate) at 65, health insurance costs continue to rise rapidly (if you are not on a corporate plan) once you get into the 40s+, sometimes $1000+ per MONTH.
Anyway - life definitely gets more expensive where I live as you get older. Then as far as I can tell once you finally do pay off most of your commitments, you end up throwing all of your money into healthcare... wow, now I'm really depressed, thanks ;)
When you have 20,000,000 heavily armed troops (and enough missiles - conventional, nuclear, and/or chemical - to more or less obliterate each other's capitals) supplied with modern equipment by Russia, China, and the US separated by about 2 miles of DMZ, no one's going to win...
And even so, it was stated on one of the articles that they believe the recording was an audio file attached to an email anyway (ie. a police recording of it that was sent to those who missed the call). So, they didn't likely even listen in on the call, it was all just email hacking...
That's like saying the Germans and the British in WW2 had a huge combined military.
Yeah, and after WWII they joined forces to dominate the European economy together - I'm sure Russia before the fall of the USSR had wished it had been able to keep West Germany under its thumb instead of joining NATO. China clearly relishes their position as North Korea's closest (and almost only) ally, and use that leverage constantly when negotiating in the UN on Asian politics.
But the point was comparing Korea to the Dutch Antilles is silly. Korea is a major military power, no matter how it became that way, and as you said yourself, a unification of Korea would cause a lot of worry and headache for China (probably a bit more than if Aruba unified with St. Martin).