CharmsD
Posts: 411 +257
It's the tax on fuel, like who doesn't pay a 'gas' tax?
Bill Gates withdraws from Microsoft board to become a full-time philanthropist
- Thread starter mongeese
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It's the tax on fuel, like who doesn't pay a 'gas' tax?
Evernessince
Posts: 5,469 +6,158
Gates wants to look like a nice guy and says the rich should be taxed more or that he helps the poor. The fact is those very people he claims to be helping are a byproduct of the system he benefits from.
Call me when gates starts spending billions on lobbying for higher taxes on the rich (which he is on record as agreeing with) or actually addressing the cause and not the effect of disadvantaged people. Until them he is just paying lipservice to these people as he purposefully avoids attempting meaningful wide ranging positive changes.
Many companies do and given the current tax code, many pay a fraction in percentage of what your average american does. That's what lobbying gets you, legalized robbery.
cliffordcooley
Posts: 13,141 +6,441
First of all, he shouldn't have been allowed to take billions from us. That is creating too large a divide from the bottom to the top.
That Dude There
Posts: 172 +41
Why have more than 1,300 CEOs left their post in the past year? Going to bunkers IMO
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/bu...Z-PIjrASuPBOVgzYfmhzziLa9NQ_OonguUMSHzS8JvB-k
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/bu...Z-PIjrASuPBOVgzYfmhzziLa9NQ_OonguUMSHzS8JvB-k
Bluescreendeath
Posts: 397 +620
The system benefits the majority of the developed first world, and benefited much of the developing world too. The "system" has lifted a billion people out of extreme poverty in countries such as China and India, and created a new middle class of hundreds of millions of people. The system has increased median wages in the US and has helped more Americans move into the upper class than the lower class over the last few decades.
Sure, the system needs more work and income gaps need to be addressed, but the fact that you and I are typing on our computers on this forum in our leisure time shows that we have also benefited from this system.
Isn't he addressing the root of what causes disadvantages for people by funding programs for education, disease treatment, anti-poverty programs, sanitation & hygiene, abortion rights, nutritional improvements, etc? Those are all issues that create inequality and disadvantages in both developed nations and around the world.
People are disadvantaged for hundreds of different reasons, and Bill Gates is literally addressing a handful of these reasons.
Business taxes are always lower than individual personal income taxes. This is true for basically every single country in the world. The US actually had some of the highest business/corporate taxes a few years ago.
Businesses are organizations made up of groups of people, and the money that goes through businesses/corporations gets taxed one way or the other. If somebody takes advantage of all the money a business makes, that still gets taxed when the money goes into somebody's pockets.
Evernessince
Posts: 5,469 +6,158
1. You are, without proof, attributing any rising middle class (which is also false) to capitalism. Have you been to india? That don't have paved roads or in indoor plumbing. Both Indians and Chinese have low standards of living and lack basic human rights. What a system /s
2. It helps Americans? Median wage has increase approx $3,000 over 10 years while the average cost of a house has DOUBLED. Not accounting for inflation or other goods either. Income inequality is at french revolution levels and inflation makes it even worse if you look at 1980 to now. The average American is very close to the poverty line.
These are numbers pulled directly from government resources: https://www.usdebtclock.org/
And once again, you assume that other government policies like social security (cough socialism) and unemployment have nothing to do with it, which they most certainly do. It isn't capitalism that provides public schooling, that's a socialist policy.
Once again, making a ton of assumption. Not to mention, I have a lot of online people I play games with from countries with a low poverty line. It doesn't really prove anything other then you having access to a computer.
Not at all. One off programs that are addressing the symptoms, not the cause. For example, there would be no need for outside education programs if the education system wasn't sorely lacking in funding. Teachers are paid a pittance and schools are understaffed and under equipped.
If you are giving funding to education because there is a gap in the system to the point where americans are now critically disadvantaged compared to the rest of the world, helping even a few thousand people is still just a drop in the bucket and does not address the overarching problem.
That's not how businesses work. Only LLCs are passthrough organizations for tax purposes. Otherwise corporations are considered their own entities and should be taxed appropriately.
"that still gets taxed when the money goes into somebody's pockets."
Except that a majority of the money doesn't go into people's pockets. Apple has a massive cash stockpile.
You are essentially arguing for zero taxes on businesses. If they didn't want the benefits of being treated as a separate entity they should not have registered as an S-Corp. I hear this line all the time from people who do not understand how taxation works. Also, just because other people are paying taxes who a part of an entity does not in any way cover their tax bill. Businesses already deduct employee pay as a expense to begin with so in essence that amount is already accounted for on their taxes.
Bluescreendeath
Posts: 397 +620
1) China and India have low standards of living thanks to their many decades of rigid state socialism that stagnated if not outright ruined their economy.
Do you realize India was actually a heavily state socialist nation until their capitalist market reforms of 1991? Their economy stagnated for decades until their reforms. Ever heard of Mao's Great Leap Forward that was a collectivist farming policy that starved tens of millions to death? Leaders in socialist China realized Mao's pure socialism wasn't working and so Deng Xiaoping implemented their market reforms in 1979. China lacks basic human rights thanks to the Chinese Communist Party creating an authoritarian one party state to implement socialism when Mao took over - that has nothing to do with capitalism. Indoor plumbing in India is actually a cultural issue as much as an economic issue, and India recently built several hundred million indoor toilets with money generated from their booming economy.
2) Both countries greatly improved their economies after implementing market capitalist reforms. There is plenty of proof that capitalism created their middle classes. The Chinese themselves state that they need to continue moving away from state owned industries to more private enterprises in their government white papers to sustain their economic growth. In the early-mid 1970s before China's capitalist reforms, the average Chinese person was literally as poor as people in some of the poorest countries in SubSahara Africa - their GDP per capita was around $150-200 USD per capita (nominal). It 2017, they had $9000 USD per capital in nominal dollars, which comes out to something like $15,000 per capita adjusted for living differences with purchasing power parity. Their economic growth was directly attributed to adopting capitalist market reforms. If you look at the economic growth of India, their economy took off after abandoning pure state socialism and implementing market capitalism.
Thanks to its market capitalist reforms, China today actually has a decent standard of living for hundreds of millions of people and is considered a middle income country.
No, housing prices have not doubled. Even if you take the lowest value of the houses in the middle of the great recession of 2010 when the housing market collapsed, housing prices would still only have increased ~40-45% from then to now (median or average prices), not adjusted for inflation. It's less if you adjust it for inflation.
If you take the housing prices before the Great Recession and compare it to today, housing prices would only have increased about 22-25%. And most of the high costs are driven by the overvalued prices along the east and west coasts, and that's just a housing market bubble that will crash in the next recession.
Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
Graph and download economic data for Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (ASPUS) from Q1 1963 to Q4 2023 about sales, housing, and USA.
fred.stlouisfed.org
Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
Graph and download economic data for Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (MSPUS) from Q1 1963 to Q4 2023 about sales, median, housing, and USA.
fred.stlouisfed.org
Average household income on the other hand has increased by 28% from 2006 to 2016 (not adjusted for inflation). However, most of this has gone to the top half of the population...which goes back to my point about how more people are better off, but the income disparity is still a problem. https://www.multpl.com/us-average-income/table/by-year
Read this article about how the middle class is shrinking because 7% of the middle income moved up to the upper income while only 4% moved down to the lower income. That means there are more Americans who got wealthier than Americans who got poorer.
The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class
In the post-World War II economy, most Americans lived in middle-income homes. But that has been shifting for decades. Today, middle-income families make up less than 50 percent of all households.
www.npr.org
The rising debt has less to do with the economic system and more to do with the fact that certain American politicians don't want to do the sensible thing of raising taxes and cut spending during economic growth years because that would lose them voters. The problem is especially bad for Republicans who are fake-fiscal conservatives who increase government spending when they get into office. On the other hand, Bill Clinton managed to balance the budget, create a surplus, and cut the national debt.
Keynesian economics states that the government should cut taxes and increase spending only during recessions to help the economy (but incur more debt), and raise taxes and cut spending during boom years to lower the debt.
You are the one making incorrect assumptions. I never discounted the role of socialism to the US economy. No nation is purely capitalist. The USA, like European nations, is a mixed economy that is primarily capitalist with some socialist policies. Capitalism is what makes the funding of socialist policies possible.
How do you think it is even possible that even poor people have access to cell phones and computers? Market capitalism making cheap electronics readily available to almost everyone around the world. Even random poor villagers in India have access to cell phones nowadays. Capitalist production have made consumer electronics dirt cheap.
Your claim is false if you are talking about primary and secondary education funding in the USA. Education is actually highly funded in the US, and education spending per state in the US exceeds that of most developed nations. The US in 2015 spent $12,800 on education per student for elementary and secondary education. For comparison, France, Japan, UK, Germany, etc spends less with about 10k-11.4k per student. The problem in the USA is not the lack of funding, but how funding is distributed/spent. ).
Furthermore, teachers in the US actually get paid more on average than teachers in France, Italy, Austria, etc. Teacher wages on average is competitive with European countries, but the problem with teacher wages is that some states have great wages while poorer states have poorer wages.
How the job of a teacher compares around the world
Chinese teachers are treated with the greatest respect, while Finland’s education system offers the best value for money
www.theguardian.com
No, other businesses such as Partnerships or LLPs also qualify as pass through organizations. Furthermore, I'm not talking about how businesses are actually taxed on paper, but a general idea/theoretical discussion of what is a business and how it should be treated. I am specifically talking about the realm of raising government revenue - what the burden of taxes should be and whether it should fall more on the people running the business or on the business entity itself.
The majority of money does go into people's pockets. Profits are usually a small fraction of the total revenue. In 2018, Amazon had a revenue of ~230 billion and profits of 10 billion. That means they spent 95% of their revenue on margins/expenses...which is money going into the pockets of other companies and people and getting taxed. Even an extremely profitable company like Apple with their crazy high markups + lower margins/costs than other companies still only has maybe 20-25% of their revenue as profit.
Amazon sales grow 14% in Q4
Amazon sales beat analyst expectations, coming in at $170.0 billion for Q4 and $574.8 billion for 2023, in part due to a successful holiday.
www.digitalcommerce360.com
No, you are making a false assumptions. I am not arguing for zero taxes. I know very well that cost of employees are already deducted from costs so they don't factor into the businesses' profits that are taxed. I am arguing that the government should tax the people who run the business more (eg. CEOs, shareholders, etc) rather than taxing the businesses more if it is trying to raise additional revenue to fund government programs.
Why do the Nordic European countries, who Bernie Sanders hold up as a great example of what the US should aspire to, all have fairly low business taxes and business friendly policies? Their business friendly laws and environment is what allows them to fund their generous socialist social programs and allow unions to negotiate a decent wage.
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Evernessince
Posts: 5,469 +6,158
China is / was communist. Why do people always mix this up with socialism?
Mao zedong was communist
Mao Zedong - Wikipedia
"Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary "
The great leap forward was communist
"The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1958 to 1962. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes. "
FYI there is no such thing is "Pure Socialism" . This is another common misconception. Socialism is a very broad political ideology. Not a set of practical steps to implementation. Just the difference between 1960s socialism and democratic socialism is huge. There are always some difference between ideas on paper and actual implementation as well, it is never a 1 to 1 translation.
I could just as easily say that China's economy took off due to them opening their markets to globalization in addition to allowing foreign businesses access to their markets / labor force. You completely gloss over literally hundreds of other factors that contributed to changes in said countries. China and India were also transitioning from having power almost soley vested in a single individual to diversifying that power. If there's one thing that's for sure, it's that regardless of the system employed, having a single person wield great power almost never works out well. Very rarely when it comes to countries can you point to single factor that was solely responsible. I have not seen evidence here that would sufficiently support your point of view.
No, housing prices have not doubled. Even if you take the lowest value of the houses in the middle of the great recession of 2010 when the housing market collapsed, housing prices would still only have increased ~40-45% from then to now (median or average prices), not adjusted for inflation. It's less if you adjust it for inflation.
If you take the housing prices before the Great Recession and compare it to today, housing prices would only have increased about 22-25%. And most of the high costs are driven by the overvalued prices along the east and west coasts, and that's just a housing market bubble that will crash in the next recession.
Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
Graph and download economic data for Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (ASPUS) from Q1 1963 to Q4 2023 about sales, housing, and USA.fred.stlouisfed.orgMedian Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
Graph and download economic data for Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (MSPUS) from Q1 1963 to Q4 2023 about sales, median, housing, and USA.fred.stlouisfed.org
Average household income on the other hand has increased by 28% from 2006 to 2016 (not adjusted for inflation). However, most of this has gone to the top half of the population...which goes back to my point about how more people are better off, but the income disparity is still a problem. https://www.multpl.com/us-average-income/table/by-year
Median Home Now
$312,706
Mediam Home 2010
$162,665
Numbers directly from the national association of realtors. So yes, housing prices have approximately doubled. I posted this link before, you must have ignored it the first time.
Average household income don't mean squat as the super rich bring everyone else's value up and it gives you a far overinflated value. Median is a MUCH more accurate measure of what actual Americans are getting.
Once again from the link above
Median Income now
$33,861
Median Income 2010
$30,553
Numbers directly from government.
Read this article about how the middle class is shrinking because 7% of the middle income moved up to the upper income while only 4% moved down to the lower income. That means there are more Americans who got wealthier than Americans who got poorer.
The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class
In the post-World War II economy, most Americans lived in middle-income homes. But that has been shifting for decades. Today, middle-income families make up less than 50 percent of all households.
The rising debt has less to do with the economic system and more to do with the fact that certain American politicians don't want to do the sensible thing of raising taxes and cut spending during economic growth years because that would lose them voters. The problem is especially bad for Republicans who are fake-fiscal conservatives who increase government spending when they get into office. On the other hand, Bill Clinton managed to balance the budget, create a surplus, and cut the national debt.
Keynesian economics states that the government should cut taxes and increase spending only during recessions to help the economy (but incur more debt), and raise taxes and cut spending during boom years to lower the debt.
The problem with the graph in that article from which you draw your conclusion is that if $126,000 is considered upper class in the 1970s and they use that same value for 2015, the increase in "upper income" can be explained solely on inflation. Those aren't people becoming upper class, it's the graph's failure to take inflation into account and adjust the "upper income". The data I provided earlier does take inflation into account. If you take into account inflation for the value provided in your link, inflation total was 183.6%.
You can use the inflation calculator here to see the difference: https://westegg.com/inflation/
It's absolutely massive. $126,000 now is in no way anywhere near what it was in 1971.
I definitely agree with cutting spending myself and Keynesian economics (I wasn't aware it was called that) is the way I've always believed the government should levy taxes during expansions and recessions.
Or ya know, mass production, automation, ect. Capitalism alone doesn't suddenly give people the ability to mass produce goods for cheap. I'd more willingly attribute this to globalization then capitalism, as without access to world wide markets prices would be higher.
Your claim is false if you are talking about the USA. Education is actually highly funded in the US, and education spending per state in the US exceeds that of most developed nations. The US in 2015 spent $12,800 on education per student for elementary and secondary education. For comparison, France, Japan, UK, Germany, etc spends less with about 10k-11.4k per student. The problem in the USA is not the lack of funding, but how funding is distributed/spent.
).
Furthermore, teachers in the US actually get paid more on average than teachers in France, Italy, Austria, etc. Teacher wages on average is competitive with European countries, but the problem with teacher wages is that some states have great wages while poorer states have poorer wages.
How the job of a teacher compares around the world
Chinese teachers are treated with the greatest respect, while Finland’s education system offers the best value for money
Sure, if you ignore all the money that's funneled to private and charter schools. In addition, later on in your link you see cost of post secondary schools. In many countries the government covers those costs. In the US, not only are those costs not covered, they are by far the highest. This hampers potential high skill workers, which is exactly what America is lacking.
I think you already realize the problem with teacher pay in the united states. The erosion of union rights means that in a good chunk of states, pay is bad. Ranking number 7 on teacher pay is nothing to brag about either. In addition, in the highest paying states teachers require a master's degree. Given the current state of the college system and the starting pay of teachers even in New York, it is not a good outlook for prospective teachers. In Oklahoma, over half of all teachers earn less than $33,630.
I'll just leave this here: https://www.businessinsider.com/10-...019-10#over-20-of-teachers-have-second-jobs-5
Being "competitive" with countries that have a fraction of the GDP isn't impressive. I don't remember American's being proud by being middle of the pack. I went to a college that had a well known Teaching program so I naturally know a lot of them. Pointing to the numbers and saying things are fine does not at all connect with reality. Many young teachers are struggling to get by and I know quite a few that had to move back in with their parents for a number of years. I'd appreciate it if you didn't just ring your buzzer on everything on first sight. Dig a little deeper.
I think you are mistaken when you said Nordic European nations have a lower tax rate. You likely looked at the low federal rate when in fact countries like switzerland have federal, cantonal, and municipal taxes. That's for the profit tax. There's also the capital tax. At minimum you are looking at 24.2% altogether. So in fact, even in the best case scenario, you are still paying far more in switzerland then Amazon's -5% tax rate.
I'll be honest I'm not a student of Nordic tax systems and I had to dig to look this information up from wikipedia. If information seems too good to be true on face value, it often is.
Of course I would be completely fine with just taxing individuals part of a corporation but the bigger problem right now is that they aren't paying much to begin with anyways.
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tkabou
Posts: 148 +179
You obviously have no idea what his "foundation" stands for and does. Don't be a sheep, or ignorant. Educate yourself on its practices and on the ties that his foundation has. It's all anything but benevolent.
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