dagblog - Comments for "Record Levels of Median Income (Not What It Seems)"

I wonder if you are really

Peter — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 03:32:17 +0000

I wonder if you are really this confused or you're just sowing confusion. The working poor, who i didn't mention, pay their own way and support the system with consumption and some taxes while about 60,000,000 other people don't work or pay taxes because of various disabilities. These people, through no falt of their own will never support the system and must be cared for with programs such as Medicaid, SNAP and other support.

You are confusing venture capital investors with corporate raiders that do get their money from commercial banks, Bain Capital is an example.I'm fairly certain that taxes must have been paid by these venture capital investors on the profit they are investing so there is nothing to hide in the Caymens although I wouldn't be surprised if some of them might try to hide their profits. What i was refering to was that they are free to take their investments to other countries that may offer lower tax rates or they may just reduce their investments here reducing the chance for more jobs and new businesses paying taxes.

That's the spin that

ocean-kat — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 01:56:06 +0000

In reply to Venture capitalist may be

That's the spin that republicans and conservative economists want us to believe. But as always it's much more complicated than that. That huge nonproductive segment is actually mostly productive. They're doing work that needs to be done and they're doing it forty or more hours a week. If they stopped doing it the system would collapse. The problem is that this group that we call the working poor don't get enough money from those forty hours of work to pay for a place to live and raise children and enough food for their family to eat and health insurance when someone gets sick. Something on that list has to give. Live in what used to be called a hovel, now its a crappy trailer. Let the children go hungry, don't treat them when they get sick or even have a cavity. No glasses if their eyesight is weak even though that affects their performance in school which relegates them to an inevitable cycle of poverty. Something has to give when there's not enough money for even the necessities. Should we care? They're only white trash, trailer trash. Most people getting food assistance and other aid to the poor are not the unproductive unemployed. Most have jobs. They're the working poor. let them and their children rot in their poverty or help them? With food or housing assistance, with health care? Or adjust the system so those who work earn enough to live on?

Venture capitalist many be nasty rich people or they may be kind caring rich people. They may serve a useful purpose in our economy or they may not. They may supply the funds that make startups possible or they may swoop in like vultures, borrow and mortgage the company, sell off the assets, plunder the retirement funds, and eventually put the company through receivership and bankruptcy with everyone in the end as losers, except the venture capitalists. There was a time when the system incentivized long term growth. Now it incentivizes short term stock gains, borrowing, and selling off assets. That's a choice we've made through our government. So are we talking about the venture capitalist or the vulture capitalist?

It's true that the wealthy can hide their money in places like the Caymans. Isn't that a problem in and of itself? It's not an argument for or against raising taxes. We can debate whether the tax rate should be higher or lower but what ever the tax rate taxes should be paid and stashing assets in hidden accounts off shore is a problem that needs to be addressed. Isn't it?

Beautifully put, OK. I have

CVille Dem — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 00:42:42 +0000

In reply to That's the spin that

Beautifully put, OK. I have nothing to add.

Venture capitalist may be

Peter — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 22:04:02 +0000

In reply to Venture capitalists mitigate

Venture capitalist may be nasty rich people but they do serve an inmportant piurpose in our economy. They venture to supply the funds that make some startup businesses possible and if they are successful then often high paying jobs are created. This makes possible the growth of people with good incomes to carry the weight of the huge nonproductive segment of our population.

Doing anything to penalize these investors will reduce that job creation so higher taxes are adding to the risk faced by job seekers or holders.

I understand the desire and need some people feel about judging and punishing the wealthy but these taxing schemes will punish moderate income earners more than the wealthy when their retirement accounts and small investments are targeted. The wealthy can move their wealth and investments offshore while wage or salary earners must face the tax man.

I'd suggest maybe you're

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 19:30:13 +0000

In reply to Venture capitalists mitigate

I'd suggest maybe you're seeing too much of VC's in New York & Silicon Valley. Out here in the real world, early stage investment is fraught with peril, and the rate of failure is sky high. One reason for Germany's overall slowness to capture tech markets is they're very reluctant to take the risks on this kind of investment that we do. If anything, Our recent careful approach with all these overtuned "incubators" may effectively rig the system against the actual innovators and in favor of the investors - asking too much equity for piddling up-front cash for desperate entrepreneurs. Said simpler: it ain't that simple.

Thanks Michael. I appreciate

HSG — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 19:04:00 +0000

In reply to Venture capitalists mitigate

Thanks Michael. I appreciate this thought-provoking blog and your informative comments.

Venture capitalists mitigate

Michael Maiello — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 17:35:22 +0000

In reply to Venture capitalists are not

Venture capitalists mitigate the risks they take through research, conviction and portfolio construction. The principals of these funds risk only the personal capital they can afford to lose and their investors, generally high net worth individuals, family offices, endowments and public or private pensions, do the same.

The risks to investors in responsibly practiced venture capital are well managed and the rewards are so great that the whole structure hardly relies on a preference for capital gains over income baked into the tax system.

I'd argue that the risks to wage earners are, in fact, so much higher and more existential that we should flip the paradigm and tax wages at a lower rate than unearned income.

Venture capitalists are not

Peter — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 17:16:18 +0000

In reply to The risks that wage earners

Venture capitalists are not entrepreneurs they are investors with a high tolerance for risk though they may end up owning part of the companies they fund. That risk was shown after the huge losses some of them suffered when the dot-com bubble burst.

Life is risky but this is about investors taking financial risk for large rewards if they choose wisely and are lucky.

We don't live in the past and

Peter — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 16:45:09 +0000

In reply to Our basic needs include food,

We don't live in the past and the present is the IT age where even the production of the basics you list are dependent on current technology. It certainly isn't all good but IT has changed the way people do business and with whom they can trade. I found buyers for classic car parts in Japan and Europe along with all the US that were unreachable before the internet.

Liberals need to get past their fixation on taking people's wealth with tax and spend schemes and produce ideas on high paying job creation but not with the Potemkin Green agenda.

I don't think that commercial banks make many venture capital type loans, they require lower risk and some collateral.

The risks that wage earners

Michael Maiello — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 01:39:25 +0000

In reply to You miss the important

The risks that wage earners take are far greater than the risks entrepreneurs and VCs take. Remember the Facebook movie? The conflict was decidedly not that anyone involved, from the inventors to the early investors, were going to wind up financially ruined. It was all about who was going to control the final product and whether or not it would prove to have been worth all the effort.

Entepreneurs are typically privileged. Professional investors worth their salt never invest more than they can afford to lose.

The real risks in this economy are to the wage earners -- people who go to work every day but do not control their fates.