eddieroolz
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- Sep 6, 2008
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[citation][nom]sundragon[/nom]It's really criminal to make money and put it in the bank! How immoral of Apple! What bastards!!Go move to Soviet Russia (wait, they became like us)...[/citation]
Nice way to twist the meaning and sound like a McCarthy commie hunt at the same time.
Microsoft pays its top man a tenth of what other companies do for a similar role and gives vast sums to charitable concerns.
Apple pays its top man 4 times what other companies do for a similar role and banning apps from donating to charities is simply vile.
Nice way to twist the meaning and sound like a McCarthy commie hunt at the same time.
Microsoft pays its top man a tenth of what other companies do for a similar role and gives vast sums to charitable concerns.
Apple pays its top man 4 times what other companies do for a similar role and banning apps from donating to charities is simply vile.
sundragon
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- Aug 4, 2008
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[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Nice way to twist the meaning and sound like a McCarthy commie hunt at the same time.Microsoft pays its top man a tenth of what other companies do for a similar role and gives vast sums to charitable concerns.Apple pays its top man 4 times what other companies do for a similar role and banning apps from donating to charities is simply vile.[/citation]
Hehe, I have to make you work for your point 😉
Now please cite your sources.
Hehe, I have to make you work for your point 😉
Now please cite your sources.
[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]I would spend more time trying to get a job where I could choose or be given stock compensation, than spend time criticizing those who have one; But that's just me...[/citation]
That's because of your deficient personality and lack of character then I guess. That's also probably why you're so quick to assume others are motivated by envy rather than moral outrage. Some people have morals, and find it unacceptable for the less well off to be paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than multi-millionaires.
That's because of your deficient personality and lack of character then I guess. That's also probably why you're so quick to assume others are motivated by envy rather than moral outrage. Some people have morals, and find it unacceptable for the less well off to be paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than multi-millionaires.
Oh and Motaba1, you seem to have a confused understanding of the "American Dream" (which is long dead, by the way). The American Dream was an ethos that in the United States everyone has the same opportunity to make a success of their life, regardless of their social class, religion, racial background, etc. Frankly it was BS from day one, but it especially is now,
Ballmer had rich parents, went to prep school, then Harvard, then Stanford. Due to connections afforded to him by this kind of privileged upbringing (meeting Gates at Harvard) he secured a job at Microsoft early on. This isn't in any way what the American Dream was about, it's just the standard biography of a fortunate person. How is he more deserving of his wealth than someone without those advantages that works just as hard? That's rhetorical, the answer is he isn't, but people like you are so conditioned by capitalism that you think it's the case.
Ballmer had rich parents, went to prep school, then Harvard, then Stanford. Due to connections afforded to him by this kind of privileged upbringing (meeting Gates at Harvard) he secured a job at Microsoft early on. This isn't in any way what the American Dream was about, it's just the standard biography of a fortunate person. How is he more deserving of his wealth than someone without those advantages that works just as hard? That's rhetorical, the answer is he isn't, but people like you are so conditioned by capitalism that you think it's the case.
And before I'm voted down and labelled "just jealous" or whatever, people like Warren Buffet have expressed exactly the same sentiment as I just have and has been a long-term proponent for higher taxes on the super-rich. Which presumably is why he lives a fairly normal middle class lifestyle, despite his wealth, and intends for the vast majority of it to be donated to charity upon his death.
[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]It's great how people like you actually believe what people who make 1m+ a year tell you about what you should believe. [/citation]
All of this is true, and thank goodness for Tom's Hardware, where many of the readers are still sane. If this were Anandtech, the Ayn Rand-roids that frequent there for whatever reason would downvote you to oblivion, praise Ron Paul and Penn Gillette, then rant about global warming being an international conspiracy.
All of this is true, and thank goodness for Tom's Hardware, where many of the readers are still sane. If this were Anandtech, the Ayn Rand-roids that frequent there for whatever reason would downvote you to oblivion, praise Ron Paul and Penn Gillette, then rant about global warming being an international conspiracy.
[citation][nom]sundragon[/nom]It's really criminal to make money and put it in the bank! How immoral of Apple! What bastards!!Go move to Soviet Russia (wait, they became like us)...[/citation]
Yes it is immoral to hoard your wealth rather than help others like Bill Gates is. Are you saying there's nothing more moral about Gates using his fortune and tech know-how to be working right now on systems to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria with the aim of eradicating the disease from the African continent (which killed a million people last year, and accounts for 20% of all childhood death in Africa) than someone who has billions and just sticks it into the bank to make millions more? You see no difference in the behavior there? None? Really?
I saw something yesterday that really summed it up well; the new libertarianism has completely destroyed the sense of "the common good". I like to think of it as all of us being on a ship (which the earth in many ways resembles). It's not good for anyone to not have a stake in the success of that ship. If people on the ship are trying to catch fish to feed those onboard and you've got 100 cans of Beefaroni hoarded in your cabin (which you don't intend to share), you don't care what happens. If you're deathly allergic to seafood, you might be starving, but you also don't have any interest in the outcome of the fishing either. It's not good for society if someone has so much or so little that the rest of the world going to hell won't affect them much at all. Of course, if the ship springs a leak we're all going down, but some people don't seem to realize that.
When the top 1% of Americans own 40% of the nation's wealth (up from 33% 25 years ago), take home 25% of the nation's pay (they took home 9% in 1975), own half of the country's stocks, bonds and mutual funds, have only 5% of the nation's debt, and are taking in more of the nation's income than any time since the 1920's, we've got a heck of a problem. It's even dangerous for democracy - with the courts allowing corporations unlimited political spending, one man one vote goes out the window. Remember the Citicorp leaked memos that they only sent to their wealthiest investors? They quoted data like this and declared the U.S. a "plutonomy". It warned:
------
At the heart of plutonomy, is income inequality. Societies that are willing to
tolerate/endorse income inequality, are willing to tolerate/endorse plutonomy.
Earlier, we postulated a number of key tenets for the creation of plutonomy. As a reminder, these were: 1) an ongoing technology/biotechnology revolution, 2) capitalist friendly governments and tax regimes, 3) globalization that re-arranges global supply chains with mobile well-capitalized elites and immigrants, 4) greater financial complexity and innovation, 5) the rule of law, and 6) patent protection.
We make the assumption that the technology revolution, and financial innovation, are likely to continue. So an examination of what might disrupt Plutonomy - or worse, reverse it - falls to societal analysis: will electorates continue to endorse it, or will they end it, and why.
Organized societies have two ways of expropriating wealth - through the revocation of property rights or through the tax system.
...A third threat comes from the potential social backlash. To use Rawls-ian analysis, the invisible hand stops working. Perhaps one reason that societies allow plutonomy, is because enough of the electorate believe they have a chance of becoming a Plutoparticipant. Why kill it off, if you can join it? In a sense this is the embodiment of the “American dream”.
-------
The document goes on to cite "one man one vote" as one of the potential threats to plutonomy. What we're seeing with campaign finance non-reform seems to be aimed at eliminating that threat. It's like the 1% has electrodes in the brains of half of the 99%, able to get them to do even the most outrageous things to keep the 1%'s status inviolable.
Yes it is immoral to hoard your wealth rather than help others like Bill Gates is. Are you saying there's nothing more moral about Gates using his fortune and tech know-how to be working right now on systems to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria with the aim of eradicating the disease from the African continent (which killed a million people last year, and accounts for 20% of all childhood death in Africa) than someone who has billions and just sticks it into the bank to make millions more? You see no difference in the behavior there? None? Really?
I saw something yesterday that really summed it up well; the new libertarianism has completely destroyed the sense of "the common good". I like to think of it as all of us being on a ship (which the earth in many ways resembles). It's not good for anyone to not have a stake in the success of that ship. If people on the ship are trying to catch fish to feed those onboard and you've got 100 cans of Beefaroni hoarded in your cabin (which you don't intend to share), you don't care what happens. If you're deathly allergic to seafood, you might be starving, but you also don't have any interest in the outcome of the fishing either. It's not good for society if someone has so much or so little that the rest of the world going to hell won't affect them much at all. Of course, if the ship springs a leak we're all going down, but some people don't seem to realize that.
When the top 1% of Americans own 40% of the nation's wealth (up from 33% 25 years ago), take home 25% of the nation's pay (they took home 9% in 1975), own half of the country's stocks, bonds and mutual funds, have only 5% of the nation's debt, and are taking in more of the nation's income than any time since the 1920's, we've got a heck of a problem. It's even dangerous for democracy - with the courts allowing corporations unlimited political spending, one man one vote goes out the window. Remember the Citicorp leaked memos that they only sent to their wealthiest investors? They quoted data like this and declared the U.S. a "plutonomy". It warned:
------
At the heart of plutonomy, is income inequality. Societies that are willing to
tolerate/endorse income inequality, are willing to tolerate/endorse plutonomy.
Earlier, we postulated a number of key tenets for the creation of plutonomy. As a reminder, these were: 1) an ongoing technology/biotechnology revolution, 2) capitalist friendly governments and tax regimes, 3) globalization that re-arranges global supply chains with mobile well-capitalized elites and immigrants, 4) greater financial complexity and innovation, 5) the rule of law, and 6) patent protection.
We make the assumption that the technology revolution, and financial innovation, are likely to continue. So an examination of what might disrupt Plutonomy - or worse, reverse it - falls to societal analysis: will electorates continue to endorse it, or will they end it, and why.
Organized societies have two ways of expropriating wealth - through the revocation of property rights or through the tax system.
...A third threat comes from the potential social backlash. To use Rawls-ian analysis, the invisible hand stops working. Perhaps one reason that societies allow plutonomy, is because enough of the electorate believe they have a chance of becoming a Plutoparticipant. Why kill it off, if you can join it? In a sense this is the embodiment of the “American dream”.
-------
The document goes on to cite "one man one vote" as one of the potential threats to plutonomy. What we're seeing with campaign finance non-reform seems to be aimed at eliminating that threat. It's like the 1% has electrodes in the brains of half of the 99%, able to get them to do even the most outrageous things to keep the 1%'s status inviolable.
I disagree with increasing his salary. Balmer's modesty and used car salesman pitches makes his Windows 3.1 commercial a timeless placement on any major windows release. You can just write down what Balmer says and replace 3.1 with ... 8 and it will all still be true.
For a company like microsoft to maintain a price point around $100 for the same product for 2 decades is amazing despite inflation and massive improvements.
For a company like microsoft to maintain a price point around $100 for the same product for 2 decades is amazing despite inflation and massive improvements.
[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]How's that? Taxes are on a percentage of pay. So are you saying that being paid well is ripping you off and being paid very little is also ripping you off? Sounds like simple envy to me.[/citation]
It's not envy, it's being part of a society. Jobs was payed through stocks on which he would pay capital gain tax and that is collectible only in case of sale of them. So, he was evading paying income tax every one of his employees had to pay. It's about chipping in and supporting society based on how much you gain from it's functioning. That's why taxation is always in percentages. Society is like a big family and everyone must chip in so it would not just continue functioning on the same level but also to progress forward.
It's not envy, it's being part of a society. Jobs was payed through stocks on which he would pay capital gain tax and that is collectible only in case of sale of them. So, he was evading paying income tax every one of his employees had to pay. It's about chipping in and supporting society based on how much you gain from it's functioning. That's why taxation is always in percentages. Society is like a big family and everyone must chip in so it would not just continue functioning on the same level but also to progress forward.
[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I disagree with increasing his salary. Balmer's modesty and used car salesman pitches makes his Windows 3.1 commercial a timeless placement on any major windows release. You can just write down what Balmer says and replace 3.1 with ... 8 and it will all still be true.For a company like microsoft to maintain a price point around $100 for the same product for 2 decades is amazing despite inflation and massive improvements.[/citation]
Well because of inflation real price is lower than 20 years ago despite nominal staying the same.
Well because of inflation real price is lower than 20 years ago despite nominal staying the same.
[citation][nom]alcalde[/nom]Yes it is immoral to hoard your wealth rather than help others like Bill Gates is. Are you saying there's nothing more moral about Gates using his fortune and tech know-how to be working right now on systems to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria with the aim of eradicating the disease from the African continent (which killed a million people last year, and accounts for 20% of all childhood death in Africa) than someone who has billions and just sticks it into the bank to make millions more? You see no difference in the behavior there? None? Really?I saw something yesterday that really summed it up well; the new libertarianism has completely destroyed the sense of "the common good".[/citation]
Well, first one correction. Libertarianism is non existent word and something that is not recognized by political science. In truth that libel is put on radical reactionarism that is masked by some liberal ideas. If you want to know what liberalism is read works of John Locke and forget about Democrat extremists.
Why it's immoral to hoard the capital? Not because of baby seals, rain forests, mosquitoes or plumbing problems in Africa. It's because of social contract, every company or corporation has moral obligation to reinvest most of it's profit in development of new and better products or to increase of wages of all employees. Why? Because that same profit comes from society, it's development and need for the products one makes and it's ability to consume them. Ability to consume them is highly dependent on ability of one company to distribute it's products. Distribution is based on level of development of roads, which are usually built by governments from tax collected. If taxes are fair with reinvestment of profit you have expansion of business and taxation base, thus tax collections grow in volume and give ability to government to build new and better roads. New roads mean faster and safer and cheaper distribution of products and procurement of raw materials, thus decreasing expenses of production and increasing profits.
Why I've mentioned increase of wages for all employees? Because it is investment in buying power of consumers of your products. Higher wages mean higher spending, higher spending creates higher demand, not only of your products but also of other products too. This creates chain reaction of economic development that in the end creates more potential consumers of your products.
This also has higher level of impact on charities. Not a single charity gets gross of it's donations from big buck, but from small donations. When someone gives a million bucks to some charity there is at least 20K people who give 15-20 bucks every month, and reinvesting profit causes more people to be able to spare 15-20 bucks per month for some charity.
Well, first one correction. Libertarianism is non existent word and something that is not recognized by political science. In truth that libel is put on radical reactionarism that is masked by some liberal ideas. If you want to know what liberalism is read works of John Locke and forget about Democrat extremists.
Why it's immoral to hoard the capital? Not because of baby seals, rain forests, mosquitoes or plumbing problems in Africa. It's because of social contract, every company or corporation has moral obligation to reinvest most of it's profit in development of new and better products or to increase of wages of all employees. Why? Because that same profit comes from society, it's development and need for the products one makes and it's ability to consume them. Ability to consume them is highly dependent on ability of one company to distribute it's products. Distribution is based on level of development of roads, which are usually built by governments from tax collected. If taxes are fair with reinvestment of profit you have expansion of business and taxation base, thus tax collections grow in volume and give ability to government to build new and better roads. New roads mean faster and safer and cheaper distribution of products and procurement of raw materials, thus decreasing expenses of production and increasing profits.
Why I've mentioned increase of wages for all employees? Because it is investment in buying power of consumers of your products. Higher wages mean higher spending, higher spending creates higher demand, not only of your products but also of other products too. This creates chain reaction of economic development that in the end creates more potential consumers of your products.
This also has higher level of impact on charities. Not a single charity gets gross of it's donations from big buck, but from small donations. When someone gives a million bucks to some charity there is at least 20K people who give 15-20 bucks every month, and reinvesting profit causes more people to be able to spare 15-20 bucks per month for some charity.
[citation][nom]crewton[/nom]$1mil salary = 35% tax
$1mil stock = 15% tax
easy way to take home 200k more on the same money.[/citation]
Not really. For salary, or income tax you are correct. But for stocks or capital gain tax it's actually a bit different.
When you get stock option as a compensation you pay $0 tax, all annual profits and gains from those stocks do not get taxed. But if you sell those stocks you pay 15% of difference in value between moment when you acquired them and when you sell them.
For example if you get $1 mill in stocks and later you sell those stocks for $1.000.100 you pay $15 capital gain tax.
But if value of those stocks goes down you can choose whether to get 15% of that decrease in value as tax credit or tax return after the sale of stocks.
One key thing to keep in mind is that all taxation on stocks happens after sale and not annually, even if you collect dividends based on them. Dividends are exempt from personal income taxation by Bush tax cuts.
$1mil stock = 15% tax
easy way to take home 200k more on the same money.[/citation]
Not really. For salary, or income tax you are correct. But for stocks or capital gain tax it's actually a bit different.
When you get stock option as a compensation you pay $0 tax, all annual profits and gains from those stocks do not get taxed. But if you sell those stocks you pay 15% of difference in value between moment when you acquired them and when you sell them.
For example if you get $1 mill in stocks and later you sell those stocks for $1.000.100 you pay $15 capital gain tax.
But if value of those stocks goes down you can choose whether to get 15% of that decrease in value as tax credit or tax return after the sale of stocks.
One key thing to keep in mind is that all taxation on stocks happens after sale and not annually, even if you collect dividends based on them. Dividends are exempt from personal income taxation by Bush tax cuts.
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