Occupy Wall Street's statement

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I would definitely support anything that reduced American political campaign finance. The ridiculous year long section campaign process you guys go through is ridiculous and must waste billions of dollars on its own. If OWS is actually all about cutting that process down to a couple of weeks, then I'll get my tent now.

 

I agree. Anything that gets all of the union money out of the election cycle is a good thing. Also getting ridding of moveon.org and Acorn would go a long way to removing election fraud from the process. Unfortunately, OWS doesn't care about any of them as they have drank the Kool-Aid and blame everything on the big bad evil corporations.

 

Why moveon.org and Acorn? Move On is primarily an activist group, and from my understanding all Acorn did was help low-income families register to vote.

 

Russell Simmons enunciated fairly clearly that they support a constitutional amendment to ban private donations to persons running for federal office.

From a disinterested person's point of view, and setting aside the merits or faults of this particular idea for the moment, the thing that strikes me about this tendency in general (stop this, put an end to that, make sure the other thing never happens again, etc.) is that it would require a tremendous amount of enforcement. Who would do that, and who would pay for it? It seems that you'd at least be talking about new divisions within existing agencies to investigate and police this stuff (which means new investigators), and at most entire new agencies with all their retinue and infrastructure.

 

I don't see why you would need new agencies or infrastructure when this was all supposed to be regulated under the FCC laws in the first place. It would be a simple policy change, and this time the policies are treated as laws and not just something you "should" do but it doesn't matter since you won't get in trouble for it anyway. Treat those who expose falsified news stories as whistle blowers, and they will take care of a large part of the investigative work.

 

Yeah, obviously activist groups that don't agree with Snook's political beliefs should be "gotten rid of."

 

Well, it could be that most of the people there believe corporations are a lot more influential and powerful than unions, and a lot more involved in (and benefiting from) what has "gone wrong". Considering the work of politicians in the last 30 or so years has generally been more in favor of corporations than unions, and how the overall fortunes of the two groups have gone, I am inclined to agree.

Still, if a law did put a hard and fairly low upper limit on contributions from any private actors - corporations, unions, little green men and whatever - I would be mostly ok. Of course, that may have to involve the whole election spectacle getting a fair bit shorter - right now a candidate does need a ridiculous amount of money for over a year of campaigning, and this tends to involve kissing a whole lot of backsides.

 

As far as private donations to political campaigns are concerned, this year will be the worst we've seen yet. With the SC's decisions that corporations are considered people (something that has been on the books for eons), and that as such that they can donate to political campaigns just like people (that is the new part), means that we will see more dollars than ever pouring into political campaigns.

 

Yeah, power and influence have NEVER been factors in politics until the OWS geniuses noticed it. FFS no matter what you do or what laws you enact, those with money and power will find a way to get access the rest of us don't. These tools think that camping out for months on end is going to change that? Or that aggravating some mid sized company by trespassing on its property is going to change the world?

If they want to change the world and help the downtrodden, they can get their lazy butts over to Africa or Southeast Asia or even go work for Habitat for Humanity. Hell, ladle soup at a soup kitchen. Volunteer as a Big Brother or a Big Sister. But don't camp out and be a lawbreaking pain in the butt and expect law abiding people to support your rambling, incoherent, unrealistic crap.

 

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. If MLK didn't protest because he thought there would always be ways to discriminate than no positive change would have been made. Can they eliminate it entirely? Probably not, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed to run rampant either. Protests can and do work. The Union Movement, Gandhi's civil disobedience, civil rights, etc. Noncompliance is probably the most effective means of nonviolent resistance.

Aside from the fact that some of them probably do, I think you are missing the goal of the OWS movement. It's trying to change an unjust system, and you don't do that by putting patchworks on the current one, as the unjust system they are under is the reason they are where they are in the first place. If we truly wanted to alleviate suffering we would help to get rid of the warlords in Africa who control the trade of precious resources we need on the backs of slaves and at gunpoint, not just throwing money or time at the problem. Thankfully the U.S is doing a little about that now, but fair trade policies is also something the country needs and i'm skeptical of them getting that in any large measure, simply because First World countries profit too much from the downtrodden.

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One more thing the OWS movement should be standing against that goes hand in hand with taxing the rich. The abolishment of dynasty trusts. Want to buy an enormous piece of property in Alaska, Colarado, Wyoming, or Utah? Through the use of this you can make it tax free- for a 1,000 years! But don't worry, the rich will start paying their fair share a little sooner in places like Florida and Nevada- they will start paying taxes in 360 years. You really can't speak of an estate tax without mentioning this type of insanity. Government gives all benefits to the wealthiest citizens, makes the lower classes pay for the intentional sabotaging of the economy by Wall Street institutions and then lowers the social safety net because of this "crisis" created because our so-called public servants didn't want to bite the hands that fed them. I don't see how the motto "we are the 99%" could be any more clear.

 

I don't know which idiot is trying to explain taxes and dynasty trusts to you, but that is so wrong it has made everyone who reads it slightly dumber. Dynasty trusts only help people avoid the "generation skipping tax" component of the "estate tax" (which for the record I consider morally wrong anyway). They also don't do away with the entire GST they only preserve the amount up to the GST exemption you have so that future generations don't have to use their exemption on the same money. There are also limits based on state law as to how long a trust is allowed to be in existance which limit things.

Dynasty trusts pay income taxes every year on their undistributed net income and the trusts rates are the highest rates there are and the beneficiaries pay the taxes on the distributed net income.

 

"Getting dumber by reading it" indeed. You can save up to 80% of your estate in two generations alone, that would normally be taken in taxes, and the "time limits" are ridiculously high. Also, some states don't tax the undistributed income at all. Not only that, but it is resistant to claims by creditors. Even if you owe millions upon millions in debt they can't take your tax-exempt mansion away from you, since it's technically in the name of the beneficiaries. You can't pretend like this isn't yet another massive advantage to the super-rich that the common people could only dream of. The maximum GST exemption was 3 million in 2009, unlimited in 2010, and is 5 million now. That in itself is a ton of perpetually untaxed income, poor them for having to pay beyond that.

 

@Damedog, I believe Snook is a CPA (and I think there may be some others here as well). When it comes to matters of expertise, it's generally a good rule of thumb to let professionals in any given field hold forth on a thing within that field and then go from there - e.g. if you think he's lying, incompetent, or just wrong and can make a compelling case as such, fine. Sorry if I'm reading you wrong, but it sounds like you're trying to tell him - and all of us - just exactly what the story is here to begin with. I don't understand that. In what way are you considered an expert or even particularly well-informed about dynasty trusts?

Personally I don't have a clue about them.

 

No, No, No.

Nobody funds a dynasty trust with more than what their exemption is. That means people with greater than $5 million of assets would only put in $5 million. All the trust does is exempt that $5 million (plus whatever it grows to) from the estate taxes of future generations (until the trust expires). The trust pays taxes on what the trust makes.

Yes, putting the assets in a trust can make them exempt from creditors, but so what? You can do that in a multitude of ways, heck if you live in Florida you can just file a "homestead election" with the state and that accomplishes the same thing ( See O.J. Simpson vs. The Goldman family). Something tells me the great unwashed masses at the OWS protests aren't really concerned about "the man" being able to shield his assets from creditors and even then it is only the $5 million. It isn't going to shield Bill Gates very much is it now?

Claims of saving 80% of your estate taxes may be valid if your estate was $5,000,001. For Billionaires it is a savings, but a drop in the bucket to what their total estate taxes will be.

In closing sayings like "That in itself is a ton of perpetually untaxed income, poor them for having to pay beyond that" are complete falsehoods. The income is being taxed the same as always, it is just a different entity that is paying the tax.

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Thank you. That is one of my major problems with the OWS movement. It is populated by a bunch of kids who have never had a real job in their life (McDonalds in high school and Starbucks post college don't count in my book) and somehow they think they are qualified and knowledgeable enough to set economic policy.

 

How do you know that? So you are a conservative CPA? So what? It's like when you try to explain, or describe what a "liberal" is. You are completely clueless on the subject. Like has been suggested, stick to what you actually know something about.

 

Real simple. I watch the news and I read the papers. These protestors (if you don't count the homeless, released inmates, and union employees) are clearly young people in their twenties. Looking at their lists of demands is another way to figure this out. They want student loans forgiven, they want high paying jobs to be given to everyone, etc. They also clearly have the time to just hang out in tents and dance to rhythmic drums. People who work for a living tend to not be able to do such things.

You can call it ageism if you want, but as with most things in life experience is required. I know 44 year old Snook is way smarter and experienced then I was twenty years ago. I also don't think that turning over the paying of the Snook family bills to Teen Snook would be a good idea either. I'm assuming you and Mrs. Red make the decisions in your household (at least the important ones). In the olden times you weren't considered an adult unless you had a family and owned land. There was a reason for that, as after a couple of years of doing so you have a better understanding of how the world works.

 

Real simple? I'm not meaning to come across as rudely as you have towards those whom you disagree with on this thread, however, you should consider some night classes in reading comprehension to go along with your CPA skills:

 

The people making over 75K per year are the "highest income earners" now? I was expecing that bracket to include most of the middle class and up.

 

Gaear- Your credentialism argument doesn't apply. Of course i'm not a qualified expert in dynasty trusts, but i'm not giving what is solely my own analysis in the least bit. If you really want qualification, South Dakota Trust Company has a list of how much money the rich can get from these here: http://www.sdtrustco.com/About-Sout...y-Trust.aspx?gclid=CIKfqKrx4awCFciC5QodIQinpQ

Notice how you can literally save billions off this rather than paying the normal transfer tax. This is also one of the states where trusts are perpetual. Professor Ray Madoff did a New York Times article about it called "America Builds an Aristocracy" here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/opinion/12madoff.html?_r=4&th&emc=th

These clearly aren't just thoughts of an uneducated mind.


Snook- First of all, when did I say they put in more money than what they are exempt from? You're ignoring the immense savings that comes from doing this. If you put in 5 million into an estate in a place without perpetuity laws you can keep it transfer tax exempt essentially forever, and the value of that asset can grow immensely where it should have been shrinking from the passing of generations. I should have said assets, not income, but the point stands. It almost seems like you are essentially saying the same thing I am, which is that they are dodging estate taxes for future generations, from anywhere to 300 years to 1,000 to forever.

At least that's what I got from this statement. But then you say:

Which then confuses me. Are you talking about other estates a billionaire might have, or simply that they might have estates that are worth more than that amount?

I've made it pretty clear that I don't believe I am in a position to shape national policy in a previous post. Some of our national policy makers actually see it the same way as I do. Obama tried to reinstate the limit of a dynasty trust to 90 years.

 

I respectfully disagree. Professor Madoff's not debating Snook about dynasty trusts, you are, and reading a few of his articles and looking at a flow chart or two doesn't make you qualified to hang with a professional/expert/degree-holder/what-have-you. Even if you read 100 of Madoff's articles you'd still be squarely in the category of layman. I'm sure CPA is at least a four year degree (I really haven't a clue so sorry to any CPAs out there if I'm selling you short), so after you complete that and then put in a few years on the ground level of an accounting firm as an entry level functionary, maybe then you'll start to get a grasp of all the nuances involved.

If all that was happening is that you and I were debating it here as a couple of people who don't know what we're talking about, that would be fine ... we could go round and round and neither of us would really know when we stepped in sh*t and it wouldn't really matter anyway because no one would be taking us seriously in the first place. But you seem to want to presume to play hardball with facts and figures and theory and everything else. Sorry, but I just can't give you much credence against a twenty year professional.

Please note that this is not me saying you're not allowed to support OWS. What I am saying is that you're foolish to try to argue details with an industry professional about his or her area of expertise if you're not equally well-informed.