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Ross Perot, Billionaire Former Presidential Candidate, has Died at age 89:
Billionaire, philanthropist and former presidential candidate Ross Perot has died, CBS News has confirmed. He was 89.
Perot died in Texas, the state where he was born, surrounded by family.
[...] In 1992, Perot made a name for himself when he became the most successful non-major party presidential candidate in 80 years, amassing 19 percent of the popular vote, running against President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.
As a boy in Texarkana, Texas, Perot delivered newspapers from the back of a pony. He earned his billions in a more modern way, however — by building Electronic Data Systems Corp., which helped other companies manage their computer networks.
Yet the most famous event in his career didn't involve sales and earnings; he financed a private commando raid in 1979 to free two EDS employees who were being held in a prison in Iran. The tale was turned into a book and a movie.
Perot first became known to Americans outside of business circles by claiming that the U.S. government left behind hundreds of American soldiers who were missing or imprisoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Perot fanned the issue at home and discussed it privately with Vietnamese officials in the 1980s, angering the Reagan administration, which was formally negotiating with Vietnam's government.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:44PM (10 children)
The national debt is never actually going to be paid down besides via hyperinflation. It never was going to either. The goal has always been to have the people who own the fed slowly purchase government properties/agencies ("privatization"), most of which the government shouldn't have been involved with to begin with, as it gets into greater and greater debt with the money they made from loaning the government money that was printed out of thin air.
So here is how it works:
Fed: "Print" money and buy treasury bonds, pay dividends to the "member banks" (along with all sorts of other schemes), cause constant inflation
Democrats: Government should do this new thing, raise taxes on "the rich" to pay for it
Republicans: Government shouldn't do that thing, sell the rights to someone of our choosing, lower taxes on "the rich"
People: Wait we are all "rich" now due to inflation so the taxes are on all of us, and our taxes aren't paying for the stuff we want, and the government is falsifying its budget, etc.
That is the republicrat party scam.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:46PM (8 children)
We are not "the rich" now. The gap between us regular people and the criminally undertaxed has never been larger.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:19PM (1 child)
According to the governments definitions we are all "rich". We all pay income tax now, which was only meant for the rich.
http://www.bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Endnotes/IRS_Form_1040_1913.pdf [bradfordtaxinstitute.com]
The price of gold was ~$20 per oz in 1913[1], so the lowest tax bracket ($3,000) was for people with income corresponding to ~145 oz of gold.
Today the price of gold is ~$1400.
So the value of the dollar has decreased by 1400/20 = 70x since then. But the lowest tax bracket has only increased ~3-4x to $9,525[2]
Likewise, look at price per acre of land[3]:
1913: ~$43
2018: ~$3,140
Ratio: ~70x
No one making under ~$200k per year should be paying any taxes according to the original definition of "rich".
[1] https://onlygold.com/gold-prices/historical-gold-prices/ [onlygold.com]
[2] https://www.creditkarma.com/tax/i/2018-tax-brackets/ [creditkarma.com]
[3] https://extension2.missouri.edu/g404 [missouri.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @07:01PM
You mean the chinese slowly purchase the government?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:12AM (5 children)
The point of the grandparent was that tax policy was based on thresholds which routinely aren't adjusted for inflation. The reference to normal people as the rich was sarcasm (hence, the "scare quotes", you know?) based on going through such tax thresholds due to inflation of base wages.
But having said that, it's pretty dishonest to claim that the "gap" has widened to unheard of levels. It's not like we've never had extremely rich despots prior to oh 1970. The Mogul emperors of medieval India were supposed to have presided over some of the greatest inequalities ever - certainly far greater than anything in the present.
And global income inequality has gone down in the past few decades, contrary to your assertion.
So what you're really complaining about is a modest increase in some country's wealth inequality in the last few decades, probably the US. That comes off of some of the lowest wealth inequality ever. So we're a bit off a peak equality. Ho hum.
Then there's the matter of just how valuable rich person wealth really is. I doubt derivatives are anywhere near as valuable as claimed. And you sure can't eat them. Meaning the wealth valuation of rich people just isn't all that valuable and inequality may be considerably lower than claimed? But that would run counter to the narrative, wouldn't it?
Finally, what's the end game here? Tax the rich is a great feelgood, but there isn't that much wealth there. I noted some time ago that the wealth of all the billionaires (well, at least all the ones that aren't their own governments, that is) of the world (not just the US) seized would only pay for a few years of the US's budget.
Maybe we should find a real problem to worry about instead?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:30AM (4 children)
Yes, why is the solution never "make the government 10% more efficient"? This would free up $400 billion dollars a year for new projects... But that possibility is *never* mentioned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:11PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @04:18PM (2 children)
Well, there's legal and then there's legal. You do realize that the "criminally undertaxed" have bought and paid for the politicians who write our tax code, no? While what the ueber-wealthy are doing may be[*] legal, moral or ethical could be another matter entirely.
[*] I have my doubts about how many of the tax breaks these ueber-wealthy are claiming are on the up and up; they typically have lawyers and accountants to make as many dodgy, weasally claims as they can muster with a semi-straight face. Just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:23PM
So you want the criminally undertaxed to give more money to their bought and paid for politicians?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:26PM
"Could be". Pretty weaselly even for the law. Meanwhile I'll note that even the allegedly moral or ethical tend to pay as little taxes as they can get away with.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:02PM
During the Bill Clinton presidency, and the dot-com boom was on, there were serious concerns and discussions about what would happen when the US paid off its national debt. It surely looked like it was going to happen! Then the dot-com boom went bust. (IIRC) the next president pushed through a tax cut that reduced the income over expense ratio and the national debt started to increase again.
So many financial instruments were based off the price of federal treasury notes, bonds, and bills. If the US paid off its national debt, then it would not need to borrow any money, and thus there would be no federal rates to base consumer rates off of. So, then comes the question of what should the interest rate be on a car loan? Credit cards? How about for a mortgage? This provoked a great deal of worry and concern and articles about what should be done.
To quote Maxwell Smart: "It was thiiiiis close."
Sadly, the US managed to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
Wit is intellect, dancing.