Tonight's Presidential Debate

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HeIsHere

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May 21, 2022
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Very misleading. Berkshire Hathaway paid $8 billion in taxes. When you buy and sell stocks there is a capital gain tax that must be paid, so every person who owns the stock paid a portion of this tax, but in total it was $8 billion.

Amazon.com paid $2.1 billion in the US, they pay taxes in other countries as well.

Now Tesla did not pay any tax on income of $96 billion in 2018. Why? I don't know but I suspect they bought a whole lot of equipment that they were able to write off for depreciation. That law is favorable to domestic manufacturing and encourages companies to invest in new equipment. So even though they did not pay taxes you should also look at all their suppliers. Did they pay taxes? Also Tesla employs 121,000 people, did they pay taxes?

I am all for billionaires paying their fair share, but the word fair means everyone is treated the same. If Warren Buffet is trying to minimize the tax burden on his fund that benefits everyone investing in his fund fairly. He has long term investments so when he sells he gets the lower long term capital gains tax, and only when he sells. These laws encourage investors to invest. That is why capitalism works because money flows quickly to reward the winners and punish the losers. All that money they invest is being used by businesses to employ others and to keep their businesses competing with the rest of the world.

Ask yourself what "loophole" are these billionaires using to lower their tax rate? The write offs they have are available to everyone. Most of them do not take a salary which would be taxed at a higher rate, they profit when the stock goes up. As a rule investors want the CEO to profit when the stock goes up and to lose when the stock goes down.

One way they can cut their taxes is by taking a capital loss on a stock trade and carrying that forward to the next year. By law you can carry forward capital losses indefinitely. Perhaps they took big losses in 2008 and 2015 that they are still carrying forward. Again, this is fair, all investors get to do this.

Do not try to twist this as a defense of billionaires. I have no idea what their tax return looked like, or how they are able to pay such low taxes. What I do know is that simply looking at this one number does not fairly tell us anything.

That is a very detailed response.
The ultra wealthy typically seek ways to minimize their salary like Steve Jobs and be compensated via other means.

Holding companies are good way to spread to defer taxes.
 

HeIsHere

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May 21, 2022
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It was a failure of policy by DJT who never reads anything. Virtually every one of his former secretaries whom he fired because they disagreed with him has endorsed Harris.
That would be correct his style of leadership is "I can just wing it."
Yeah it does not really work that way.
 

Cameron143

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Mar 1, 2022
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What a strange response to a discussion about capitalism, corporations and taxation.
Once again you have to go all personal you and your side kick.
It is really sad.
Capitalism is what has forged America into the position it now is in. That some companies are bad apples and that government has gotten in bed with a number of large corporations and industries does not negate all the positive benefits of companies for the last 250 years.
It's not personal with me. I'm merely reacting to what you are revealing about yourself. If you don't want to be seen as ungrateful, be thankful instead of complaining.
 

HeIsHere

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May 21, 2022
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My first wakeup moment into American politics after being in US for 5-6 years at the time, was on 9.11.2001
Or more specifically after 9.11 when the Patriot act was enabled.
It was then that i learned that the Republicans and the Democrats are two sides of a same coin. Because when i found out that they passed a 600 page document overnight without reading what was in it, i was shocked. And this shock came after the culture shock that i experienced over the past 5 years at that point.
It was then that i realized that politics are not based on logic or facts but on popularity and presentation.
This is why i keep saying that everything is a show, and like i told our two liberal friends here Ted and Jaybird, when you try to show some kind of fact against Trump, even if it's true, nobody is going to care about that. Because it's not about facts at all.
It's a culture war.
This sentiment is also found in our day to day lives, as i mentioned in another topic about my job and the mindset there.
Nobody cares about work or logic anymore, but about perceptions and public relations.
It's a reality show, so enjoy it.

Engineers actually do care about work and logic/math, they have to.
 

cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
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Another day, another massive scandal by Democrats.
This is criminal election tampering IMO.

https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1835347966586171523

@kylenabecker


BREAKING. ABC News whistleblower swears under penalty of perjury that the Kamala Harris campaign dictated the terms of the questions during the presidential debate. Furthermore, the Harris campaign insisted upon live "fact checking" of Donald Trump during the debate. ABC News "fact checked" Trump at least five times and did not fact check Harris once, despite the Democratic candidate telling provable lies, such as the "fine people hoax" and the blo*dbath hoax." The whistleblower signed the affidavit in New York and has sent a copy to Speaker Mike Johnson, the notarized document states. The unnamed individual states that he or she is in possession of secret recordings that will prove that ABC News rigged the presidential debate. ABC News committed election interference. This is a MASSIVE scandal.
 

gb9

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2011
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Another day, another massive scandal by Democrats.
This is criminal election tampering IMO.

https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1835347966586171523

@kylenabecker


BREAKING. ABC News whistleblower swears under penalty of perjury that the Kamala Harris campaign dictated the terms of the questions during the presidential debate. Furthermore, the Harris campaign insisted upon live "fact checking" of Donald Trump during the debate. ABC News "fact checked" Trump at least five times and did not fact check Harris once, despite the Democratic candidate telling provable lies, such as the "fine people hoax" and the blo*dbath hoax." The whistleblower signed the affidavit in New York and has sent a copy to Speaker Mike Johnson, the notarized document states. The unnamed individual states that he or she is in possession of secret recordings that will prove that ABC News rigged the presidential debate. ABC News committed election interference. This is a MASSIVE scandal.
once again, conformation of what we pretty much already knew...
 

cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
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cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
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(1) Kyle Becker on X: "JUST IN: The FBI official who just briefed America about the latest Trump assassinat*on investigation, Jeffrey Veltri, is a notorious Trump hater. Veltri, the head of FBI Miami Field Office, was so outspoken about his Trump-deranged Facebook posts that agents were ordered to https://t.co/e5IvPTulW0" / X

JUST IN: The FBI official who just briefed America about the latest Trump assassinat*on investigation, Jeffrey Veltri, is a notorious Trump hater.

Veltri, the head of FBI Miami Field Office, was so outspoken about his Trump-deranged Facebook posts that agents were ordered to scrub them before he could be promoted to head the Miami field office.

The whistleblower told the House Judiciary Committee that Mr. Veltri was “adamantly and vocally anti-Trump."

The whistleblower added that FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Deputy Director Paul Abbate and Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Moore were all involved in directing Veltri to disinfect his social media.

This is who Americans are being asked to trust for reliable information about the Trump assassinat*on attempt and the security failures leading up to it.

Maybe the FBI should stop promoting hyper-partisan extremists to head field offices.
 

cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
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If you missed the point, let me make it clear:
Its only "too late" after the mother enters the abortion clinic.
Unborn human beings/children (you would call them "fetuses") go in, but they never come out alive.

"I draw your attention to the fact that I have actually been born alive and not aborted beforehand.
Evidently, the insidious influence of the Progressive Leftist eugenicists was not effective in my case. "
Nobody ever passed a law forcing you to make a decision so why does everyone else have to live by your rules??
 

cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
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Nobody ever passed a law forcing you to make a decision so why does everyone else have to live by your rules??
Murdering children may not cause you grief or distress. But why must everyone else murder their own conscience as you and the abortionists have done?
 

HeIsHere

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May 21, 2022
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Please don't get me going. :D
Trump is sort of a counter-culture icon. Not sure if you live in US or not, but he's a counter culture icon who goes against current domestic and global trends and he is also loved by many because he speaks in a way which the common people speak on the daily basis, while hated by the left who don't like that people don't speak their confusing language about their confused reality.
Trump only minimally pushes against a few small global trends with his words, let us see what he does with his actions.
Trump cares about his Wall Street buddies who fund his campaign, he will do what he is told.

If he were truly counter culture he would not be beholden to the financiers who fund him.
 

Cameron143

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Mar 1, 2022
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Trump only minimally pushes against a few small global trends with his words, let us see what he does with his actions.
Trump cares about his Wall Street buddies who fund his campaign, he will do what he is told.

If he were truly counter culture he would not be beholden to the financiers who fund him.
This is a false premise. On the one hand, you present Trump as out of control and unhinged, a classic narcissist and infantile. Then you present him as reasoned enough to recognize he needs support and is under the control of others.
Both cannot be true.