Lurker > red sox 777

Legally though, the state is allowed to do it if it can show a reason necessitating it. And the standard of how necessary it needs to be is different for different classes (which may not be terribly logical, but is the law as set by the Supreme Court right now). For race, it's very difficult to show a reason good enough to justify discrimination. For, say, income, it's very easy. A state could pass a law banning all people with less than 30k in income from having driver's licenses, no problem, under current jurisprudence. Their lawyers would just argue: poor people are more likely not to be able to afford insurance, people driving without insurance creates danger, so we are going to stop all poor people from driving.

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How do you define "equal protection" though? The issue of marriage isn't really an issue of "protection." No one's making it illegal to BE gay (yet). It's just an issue where one subset of people through voter referendum is being denied equal opportunity and equal recognition by the state of their relationship. That's not an issue that should even need to be VOTED on.

That's exactly the kind of thing that's included under "equal protection of the laws." Discriminatory state action.

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That's fine. Indeed, equal protection is an area where the (amended) Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate states. Because the 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War no doubt.

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If the EU hadn't been formed, France wouldn't be in bad shape right now, so the voters wouldn't have turned to a Socialist.

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...why, exactly? It's perfectly fair to believe the state is more apt at handling certain things, and the government at other things. Really don't understand why this has to be as black and white as you're making it out to be.

Yeah, but you need to have a logical distinction between two things other than "I like this one but not that one."

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Yeah, Obama is going to lose WV in a landslide.

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I'm not against State's Rights, I'm against using State's Rights as an excuse to disallow gay marriage. I'm against State's Rights doing things I don't want anyone, state, federal, or local, doing. I'm totally cool with State's Rights allowing gay marriage, medical marijuana, whatever, but State's Rights doing something like this is terrible and needs to be stopped.

Yeah this boils down to I want what I want because I want it.

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You say this as if Newt Gingrich wasn't just a potential candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

I'm sure the politicians could think of a way to protect themselves. Maybe something like, any act of any member of Congress that helps them relate to another person in any way shall be deemed to an essential and necessary part of their Congressional duties. As such, under the US Constitution, they shall not be subject to arrest for the performance of their duties.

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That's like how McDonald's hires people to work 37.5 hours a week. So they're not full time and don't qualify for government-mandated benefits.

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It may be unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court is going to have to rule on these amendments somewhere down the line. Maybe with Prop 8- the 9th Circuit found it unconstitutional (on narrower grounds that would not apply to this NC amendment, because the NC amendment also does away with civil unions). The Prop 8 decision is likely going to be appealed to the US Supreme Court, which may rule on the constitutionality of all these laws.

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Either way, the people who pay the most taxes in America are the rest of the top 10% after the top 1%. So doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. People who make in the 150k-300k range. Especially if they work in a state like California or New York with high taxes.

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I'm pretty sure he pays more. Long term capital gains are taxed at 15%, and Buffett's earnings are basically entirely long term capital gains and dividends.

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What if conservatives don't mind gay people at all and just want to save them from themselves so they can have happy, productive, marriages that produce children?

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Under the proposal, the president would be the one doing something illegal.

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The President needs to grow a pair and issue an executive order making gay marriage legal everywhere. If some state doesn't like it, do what Eisenhower did and send in the National Guard. It's time we stop oppressing minorities in this country once and for all.

That's highly unconstitutional. Unlike Eisenhower, Obama does not have either judicial or legislative authority to do that.

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Oh man, just imagine a national ban on extramarital sex. With the penalty being revocation of voting rights. We could get rid of the Democratic Party's power in one fell swoop!

Or, we could try the old rule. If a man and a woman have sex outside of marriage, and they are caught, the man must offer to marry the woman. If she accepts they will be wed, and if not, he will be treated as a rapist.

Santorum 2016

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Wait, there are states with cohabitation statutes that thought of gay couples? I thought cohabitation statutes required a man and a woman.

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if I'm getting this clear, if you and your buddy lived together, you'd have to prove to the government that you weren't boinking each other.

Am I getting this right?

The burden of proof is always on the prosecution.

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Sorry, I wasn't clear. By illicit, I mean any relationship outside of marriage that involves sex, living together, or any other act that is traditionally the domain of married couples.

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By the way, I think Obama is paying a 20% tax rate this year. The Obama family does qualify as top 1%, I believe.

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The real comedy is going to be when non-married straight couples get screwed over by this.

That's part of the intent. No illicit relationships outside marriage.

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

I said they were in no particular order other than parents' wealth being first.

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Well, the laziness and moral deservingness comes into play when you discuss why certain people are rich and certain other people aren't.

The alternative is to just attribute it all to random chance, which seems a little silly, particularly from a group of people who tend to pride themselves on belief in science and evolution and all that crap!

It's not random chance. You can predict a person's wealth pretty well by looking at:

1. Their parents' wealth (this is the most important factor)
2. Education
3. Willingness to take risks
4. Social skills
5. Work Ethic
6. Intelligence
7. Race
8. Sex

Dunno what the order should be, other than that parents' wealth is by far the most important factor. A lot of people refuse to acknowledge any of these factors other than work ethic, however!

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That's a fair argument. Again, the answer seems to be to treat work income and investment income differently, because investments have forward consequences while work income does not.

And yes, the rich definitely do more for the economy than the poor could hope to, but that is because the rich in the aggregate are more capable people with more means. It has nothing to do with laziness or moral deservingness, which is what a lot of people on the right keep suggesting.

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Also, I take some issue with the phrase "tied up in investments." I'm not sure if this is your intention, but people who act like somehow rich people just "sit on their money" and it doesn't do any good for anyone are ridiculously misinformed. Any money Buffet has "tied up in investments" is doing just as much (if not MORE) good for the economy as a whole than whatever money he spends on consumption.

Of course it's doing good for the economy, didn't I say that with the stuff about how important the top 1% was? Sorry if I wasn't clear.

My point is that additional taxes are less painful to rich people, because they do not need them for short run purchases or safety. If you have 10 million and lose 10% of your wealth, it hurts less than if you have 10,000 and lose 10% of your wealth. The proof of this is that the one with 10 million is able to put of a lot more of his wealth in investments that tie up the money- tie it up in the sense that you can't access it immediately if you need it.

Everyone pays the inflation tax (except those who are insolvent). But hey, at least it's not progressive!

Actually, the inflation tax is progressive. You recognized that insolvent people don't pay it. True, and the more of your income comes from working as opposed to investing, the less inflation tax you pay as a percentage as well. Because inflation tax does not apply to future income from work, because work income rises with inflation.

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If he doesn't sell, he has nothing to tax. Oh my god, he could be paying ZERO taxes! Get Obama on this right away!!!

According to Buffet, he pays the inflation tax, which he considers to be a lot bigger than capital gains tax. For an investor with his strategy, it's true. Say he holds on average for 20 years. At 3% inflation, after 20 years a dollar is only worth 55 cents. In other words, he's paying a 45% inflation tax on top of his 15% capital gains tax.

Of course, capital gains tax is much bigger than inflation tax for short term investors. Short term investors naturally would thus prefer lower taxes and higher inflation. Whereas Buffet would prefer lower inflation and higher taxes.

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And I hope you see the logic of progressive taxation from this example. If you are a person with 50k in assets, you can't afford to put 95% of it in investments because then you have nothing to live on. If you are a person with 5 million, you can invest 95% of it and still have 250k left over to live comfortably on. If you are Warren Buffet, you can have well over 99% of your wealth tied up in investments no problem. For the same reason, higher tax rates are less painful if you have more wealth/income.

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As far as net worth = returns goes, that's just not the case. My net worth right now is somewhere around 50k. About 1/3 of it is my car, which decreases in value. Most of the rest is in checking, low-yield savings, or long-term investments. Last year, my capital gains were NEGATIVE because I suck at picking stocks, and the stocks I *did* pick well I didn't sell.

If you had 7 million net worth, you wouldn't have 1/3 of it in cars (unless you're really bad at managing your money, in which case you probably wouldn't have become rich in the first place). Also, if you have 7 million, you don't need to keep more than a small fraction of that in stuff like checking and savings accounts, whereas with 50k, you need a lot more to ensure you have enough money to get by. You are probably able to invest over 90% of your 7 million in stuff that produces returns (including real estate).

Also, I'm not talking about capital gains as reported on your income taxes, I'm talking about actual capital gains. For example, Warren Buffet buys and holds forever, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have capital gains.

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But someone who has seven million in investments (different from "net worth" which usually consists of things like property which don't really generate regular/tangible returns) probably also has a job where they make a lot of money too.

Stuff like real estate also generates returns, you just don't see them on an annual basis. But they're very real. And sure they make a lot of money at their job, but probably not 700k. If you make 700k and invest prudently, you'll have more than 7 million dollars pretty early in your career. I used 7 million net worth because that's the number I think a Forbes magazine survey said was necessary to consider yourself rich nowadays in America. I think it probably matches up fairly well with the "more investment income than work income" test.

I'm just saying, we're now arguing about something that applies to almost nobody. How about we stop that and argue about how all taxes are theft in all circumstances?

The top 1% have 24% of income, 35% of wealth, and 50% of financial wealth in the country. How does that apply to almost no one? That's half the liquid wealth in the country, and it's also the people responsible for probably half of all economic growth.

As for taxes as theft, I thought about it a bit and.......it seems to me that progressive taxes are no more theft than ordinary taxes. If the govt can tax, then it can choose criteria to tax on, like whether you have a mortgage. Or, how much pain you will feel from paying taxes. If progressive taxation is wrong, it's because all taxation is wrong. Your thoughts?

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Ehhhh, aside from like, retired people or people living off legal settlements or whatever, I'd say this probably applies to LESS than the top 1% of the population.

You mean people who make more from capital gains than working? No, that's probably around 1% of the population, excluding retired people. Probably more if I had to guess. If you have a net worth of 7 million, for example, and you make 10% a year on your investments, that's 700k right there.

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I think that makes him a true American patriot. He wants other countries to suffer so we can enrich ourselves.

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Better than naming your kid Francois in England.

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Well, maybe? Could be it isn't worth the time to work more when the marginal tax rate is too high. So you furlough your employees and take the rest of the fiscal year off. Bad for the working class.

Not a problem if the investment tax rate is low. As CEO, you are paid more if your company does well because the company's stock is worth more, and you own stock in the company, or are rewarded with stock options. On the other hand, CEOs can be and are paid huge salaries even if the company tanks. There doesn't have to be a correlation between company performance and CEO pay on the salary side.

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I'm rather uncomfortable with a marginal tax rate above 50% though. Psychologically, there's something significant about giving the government a greater share of your earnings than you get to keep yourself.

And even tax rates of 50% should not be approached until we get really really high incomes. At least 1 million USD, probably more like 10 million. For people who only make 250k a year, even a 35% tax rate is a major burden that significantly impacts their economic decisions. For example, should I become a doctor or not? A 35% tax rate at the 250k level is sufficient to have a major chilling effect on people's willingness to attend medical school. This is in large part the same reasoning for why investments should receive a lower tax rate than work.

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And we all know that massive crippling tax burdens on the wealthy and corporations have no effect on their economic behavior whatsoever.

It's more true than you might think. The elasticity of work is probably closer to 0 than you think. Are you actually going to work less because you get taxed more? No, because I still make more money when I work more.

The elasticity of investment relative to taxes is probably higher however. And the reason is that investments can go bad, so you need enough of a reward to justify the risk, and taxes lower that reward, without mitigating the risk. Unless you have the government give handouts for capital losses.

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1 million euros is a much more sensible cutoff for the start of the marginal tax rate than 250k dollars. Does the proposed tax rate in France include investment capital gains, by the way? Roughly speaking, you are rich if you make more from capital gains than working.

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Exit polls are showing a victory for the Socialist Party candidate in the French presidential election. 52-48.

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Some states have laws binding their electors for the general election. Though my understanding of that is, if the electors nonetheless voted otherwise, their actual vote would count for determining the president, and the state could pursue civil or criminal action against them for violating the state law.

I'd guess this is similar. Massachusetts can have a law binding its delegates, but the RNC is free to toss the state's votes.

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I'd think state laws binding the delegates would trump RNC rules. For the delegates I mean- they'd just follow their state laws. If the RNC wants to toss their votes for breaching its rules, it could then do so.

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Romney could just run for president anyway even if he lost at the RNC. It won't change things, except maybe to get us an Obama victory if RP decides to keep running in the general election.

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It'd be pretty great if Ron Paul could win the California primary. 172 delegates, winner take all. Would propel him into 2nd place by itself. Might make Romney's first ballot majority at the RNC too close for comfort too.

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It works like this. Suppose you have a credit card with a $10,000,000 limit where you don't have to make any payments for 25 years. But, somehow, your kids are responsible for paying it off eventually if you die before repaying it. Naturally, you spend like a top 1% person even though you don't have much income or assets. In fact, pretty soon you're deeply in debt. But it doesn't matter, because you still have millions more before you hit your credit limit, and you don't have to make any payments for 25 years. You can continue your lifestyle of parties and summering on the Maine coast for the foreseeable future.

Now suddenly, your remaining credit line is taken away until you can repay what you've already run up. What's going to happen next? You're going to stop summering on the Maine coast. And the US consumer is going to stop buying things. And the US company is going to stop hiring.

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Why not? After WWII, the greatly reduced federal spending was counteracted by all the soldiers coming home and spending money domestically. Lack of income tax would help that, too.

The government spending is the tip of the iceberg (and is probably wasteful and highly inefficient). The real impact is coming from the Federal Reserve printing trillions of dollars. And if they stop printing money, there will be less money in the country. So people will have less money to spend.

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Now, something counterintuitive for you to think about: if you could borrow money at 2% when inflation is at 3%, wouldn't you do it? You'd be paying negative interest, AND you get the money up front. You're literally being paid to take someone else's money.

Now then, our government is in exactly this situation right now. It borrows money at 2% interest, when inflation is at 3% and rising. So.....why not borrow more? As long as there people out there willing to lend the money at such ridiculous rates, why not take advantage and borrow as much as we can? You've gotta figure eventually people will realize the stupidity of lending money at less than inflation and will desist. For decades, the US government had to pay an average of around 2% above inflation on treasury bills. Why is it that now, when the Treasury has the worst financial position its ever had, that it pays less?

Who knows, but as long as this is the case, why not borrow like a drunken sailor? We may as well cut taxes and create an even bigger deficit so that we can take advantage of this wonderful borrowing opportunity. Then when the interest rates for the government go up, we stop borrowing and resume taxing.

So.....what's wrong with this strategy?

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If you don't look at the big picture, then yeah it seems really bad. Higher interest rates and such will make current debt hard to pay back. But if you look at all the elements together, it makes more sense. Let's say I have $100K in debt now at 1% interest. If it goes up to 10% after RP, then that sucks, right? But in that case there won't be an income tax, there won't be inflation, I will actually be able to get a job if I couldn't before, etc., so my prospects for paying off that $100K are way better.

What I mean by lost short-term prosperity is mostly that you won't be able to find a job. You will have a better chance of finding a job in the future- but for the next few years, things are going to be super rough, unemployment could easily hit 25% as in the Depression. And that will be because people won't have money to spend on buying products or on hiring.


Let's say I have $100K in debt now at 1% interest. If it goes up to 10% after RP, then that sucks, right?

Not really. The vast majority of debt held by individuals in this country is at fixed rates.

Real rates. If you are paying interest at 4% and inflation is at 3%, you are only paying 1% in real interest. If we have 10% deflation, you are now paying a real interest rate of 14%.

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Oh, if you mean that no person could plan the economy better than the free market, yes, you are absolutely right on that. Doesn't mean that we can't analyze the consequences of policy decisions though. And if you want the market to weigh in on this issue, just watch the Dow every time Bernanke speaks. When he promises more easing it goes up. Of course, the people whose Ron Paul's policies would primarily benefit, future generations, get no say in the stock market right now because they haven't been born yet.

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That's not fair either. The question should be, which is more plausible; that the private sector can provide roads, or the government can provide roads. And on its face, I'd definitely go with the private sector there.

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What I'm saying is that we can't draw broad cause/effect relationships from those facts.

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Sears, Roebuck, and Co. - founded 1886
US Interstate system - built in the 50s.

Hmm....which caused which to be built?

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