AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@cicerone imposter,

I happen to believe we should have more presidents with business experience, and I agree that Obama is not the first without enough experience in that regard. I believe the founders believed that politicians should all come from a successful private livelihood, such as farming, etc., and that when their service was over they should go back to their livlihood again. I don't think they thought that politics or being a politician should ever be a full time life long work.

The sad part is that many politicians think it is their legitimate career to do their whole life, and thus becoming a lawyer and studying political science prepares them well for it, that must be their thought on it.

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@okie,

Quote:

That was followed in the 1920s by massive tax cuts for the wealthy under successive Republican administrations, which resulted in a torrent of money flowing into the stock market. Meanwhile, mortgage debt in the U.S. tripled between 1920 and 1929, before the financial bubble finally burst.

http://www.straight.com/article-352558/vancouver/billionaires-and-busts

Once bitten twice shy. However, Republicans never learn. They caused the first Depression and almost the second one and if it weren't for the Democrats, we would be in another Depression, probably even bigger.

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@talk72000,

Who are you quoting in your quote box? It wasn't me, in case anyone is wondering. I am also curious, what caused all that mortgage debt in the 20's, was it another government program like Fannie and Freddie? I wasn't able to take the time now to read much, but I do offer this article:

"Is this your grandfather’s mortgage crisis?"
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5486

1 Reply

@okie,

Quote:

A century-long view of the 1930s mortgage crisis

To place events in the 1920s and 1930s into perspective, Figure 1 presents a long-run view of developments in the housing and residential mortgage sector using annual series of non-farm residential building starts and growth rates of inflation-adjusted residential mortgage debt.

* Between 1921 and 1929 the nominal volume of non-farm residential mortgage debt tripled, and inflation-adjusted debt grew faster than in any decade before or since.
* The rapid expansion financed a home-building boom and an increase in the rate of home ownership from 41% to 46%.
* Nominal mortgage debt started to contract abruptly in 1930, but remained constant in inflation-adjusted terms over the next decade as the visible manifestations of a mortgage crisis unfolded – record levels of foreclosure, widespread distress among mortgage lenders, a collapse and weak recovery in home building, large decreases in home values, and the reversal of the gains in home ownership made in the 1920s (Wheelock 2008).

All under Republican Administrations.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932 to correct the Republican errors.

1 Reply

@talk72000,

FDR's Secretary of Treasury admitted their Democratic policies did not work.
http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/68841-henry-morganthau-fdrs-treasury-secretary-got-right.html
"No less an authority than FDR's Treasury secretary and close friend, Henry Morganthau, conceded this fact to Congressional Democrats in May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work."

1 Reply

@okie,

It prevent the Depression getting worse. There were no more soup lines. There were no more jumping off the building from stock collapse.

FDR supported the fledgling aviation industry with mail transport. It wasn't until MacDonald Douglas came up with a good wide plane that could make it on its own that the aviation industry survived. A sick person cannot walk on his/her own for a while.

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@okie,

Quote:

I believe I have not only earned the right to express my opinion, but I also believe that my life experience, education, and accomplishments qualify my opinions to be not only valid, but sensible and reasonable.

That is rather funny okie. You are free to express your opinion but when you claim it is sensible and reasonable then it moves into "bragging" territory, especially when it turns out your claims are often false and you apply different standards for what is reasonable for other people than you do for yourself.

Quote:

I have now owned my own business for more than 25 years, and have paid my taxes every year, most years around $20,000 or more.

It is statements like this that make me question how reasonable you really are okie. I seem to recall your claiming at one point or another that taxes cost you 50% of your income. As a businessman you should know what taxes really cost you compared to your income but you don't seem to know some of the basics.

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@okie,

Quote:

My posts are based upon reason and common sense, not ridicule of others as you seem to have a habit of doing.

Really? So you think it is reasonable to call Obama a traitor? You think it is reasonable to say Obama is destroying this country? You think it is reasonable to call for impeaching Obama? You think it is reasonable to deny you said things even after I post your quotes?

You spend a lot of time ridiculing others okie and then you try to pretend it is reasonable? If you were reasonable then you would allow that your statements are open to interpretation just like anyone else's.

Let's see what you think this is a reasonable -
Person A sits in a bar and tells Person B that his daughter destroyed his car.
Then Person A tells Person C that his daughter ruined his car.
Then Person A tells Person D that his daughter wrecked his car.
Person D replies, "So your daughter destroyed your car".
Person A then claims he never said "destroy" and no person could possibly think wreck and destroy mean the same thing.
In fact Person A spends over a month claiming no one could possibly think destroy and wreck mean the same thing.

Now..
Are person B, C and D reasonable if they assume destroy, ruin and wreck mean the same thing to Person A. Is Person A reasonable to attack Person D for thinking that?

You see okie you aren't really reasonable. You live in your own world when your **** can mean whatever you want it to even if you would agree that if someone else did it, they would probably be certifiable.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

okie wrote:
I have now owned my own business for more than 25 years, and have paid my taxes every year, most years around $20,000 or more.
It is statements like this that make me question how reasonable you really are okie. I seem to recall your claiming at one point or another that taxes cost you 50% of your income. As a businessman you should know what taxes really cost you compared to your income but you don't seem to know some of the basics.

Perhaps you are cheating on your taxes.

If yours is a C corporation then you pay a 35% Federal Income tax on profits (income). States vary and some have no corporate income tax: others have taxes as high as 8%. My company practices in about 30 states and we pay an average of 4.6% in state income taxes. In addition in several states (Hawaii is an example) we pay gross receipts taxes of 2% - 3% - these are taxes on gross revenue, and, in terms of profits they represent about 20%. We pay federal and state payroll taxes amounting to about 9.3% of our total payroll cost. We own a couple of our offices and pay substantial property taxes on them as well. Finally there are sales and use taxes on materials we purchase, ranging from office equipment to boats, trucks, piping, chemicals and other materials used for environmental analysis, sampling and remediation. There are exemptions for some materials in some states, but on average this amounts to about 4% of the total cost of these materials - a substantial sum. .

We employ all the lawful accounting providsions to lower our tax liability including depreciation, loss carryforwards and the like. However they don't amount to much. All these things included our total tax bill is easily over 50% of our Operating Income

If, however, yours is an S corporation you don't pay Federal or State income taxes, but any money you or other owners take from the company is taxed at ordinary personal income tax rates. If the amount is over about $240,000/year you will pay an even higher income tax rate than will a C corporation. If it is a self operated corporation, you will also pay federal & state self-employment taxes that simply replace the payroll taxes.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

If yours is a C corporation then you pay a 35% Federal Income tax on profits (income). States vary and some have no corporate income tax: others have taxes as high as 8%. My company practices in about 30 states and we pay an average of 4.6% in state income taxes. In addition in several states (Hawaii is an example) we pay gross receipts taxes of 2% - 3% - these are taxes on gross revenue, and, in terms of profits they represent about 20%. We pay federal and state payroll taxes amounting to about 9.3% of our total payroll cost.

Try adding up those numbers and see what you get other than an F on Jr High Algebra.

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@parados,

It appears to me that you don't know much about business, or at least that your experience in it is very narrow. Our labor cost (an engineering & science consulting business) is about 55% of our net revenue, and a tax of 9% on that is a very large fraction of our earnings. We are a good deal more profitable than the average in our industry, with pretax operating income of about 15% of net revenue. Since you make yourself a judge of arithmetic I'll let you do the calculation. Even without sales & use taxes the total is well over 50% of operating income.

1 Reply

@parados,

No response from parados. Is he still stuck on the arithmetic, working our the percentages?

It turns out that okie was right and parados wrong.

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I am doing this on the back of an envelope, based on my interpretation of what Georgeob is saying re the hypothetical company, G'OB.

(1) $1,000 Revenue. George refers to "net" revenue. I need it to be "gross" before the cost of Labor.
(2) $550 Labor
(3) $50 Payroll taxes @ 9+%
(4) $30 Gross Receipts Tax. That strikes me as being extremely high.
(5) $370 Income Subject to Tax (1) - (2+3+4)
(6) $20 State Income Tax @ 5%
(7) $350 Income Subject to Federal Tax
(8) $125 Federal Tax

(9) $225 Total Taxes (3+4+6+8) .
Do I get at least a gentleman's C, so far?

1 Reply

@realjohnboy,

Net loss of $445, and I used a calculator. A good business venture - to write off the loss for the other "profit" centers. No depreciation taken.

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@georgeob1,

I see you can't do the math. But then that was obvious when you jumped in with your numbers.

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@georgeob1,

I'm not stuck on the numbers at all george. I had other things to do.

If Okie paid only $20,000 in taxes then he didn't pay a corporate tax rate of 35%. It would be impossible. If he earned $75,000 in corporate income his tax paid would be almost $20,000 and his highest corporate rate would be 25%.

You get an F for failure to do the math george.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

No response from parados. Is he still stuck on the arithmetic, working our the percentages?

It turns out that okie was right and parados wrong.

Not too unusual in my opinion, george. I am not a corporation by the way. I am talking Schedule C of a personal income tax return, and of course it includes a 15% tax rate right off the top of all business profit, so for many years, the FICA and Medicare took a bigger bite than personal income tax.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:
I have now owned my own business for more than 25 years, and have paid my taxes every year, most years around $20,000 or more.
It is statements like this that make me question how reasonable you really are okie. I seem to recall your claiming at one point or another that taxes cost you 50% of your income. As a businessman you should know what taxes really cost you compared to your income but you don't seem to know some of the basics.

I do not remember saying that, but most people know that total taxes in this country, not just income tax, take far more than simply income tax. If you add up all taxes, corporate, personal, property tax, sales tax, all taxes, it seems like I read that it was approaching 50%, but I was unable to get a search to find the information now. If anyone knows, I am interested. I think total income taxes are between 25 and 30%, but I don't think that includes sales tax, property tax, excise tax on tires, vehicle license tax, the list is long, all those kinds of things.

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@okie,

I took several graduate classes in business school. After the first two, they were boring and repetitive. I have never worked for a business that was run as well as any of several employees could have run it, including myself. Running a business just isn't rocket science.

3 Replies

@okie,

We should have more presidents with business experience? Why? That old saying should be revamped: those that can't do, run a business.

0 Replies

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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