MattM

The problem here is that they are basically policing themselves--"hello, fox, please guard this henhouse...."

Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner. I'm not a Michael Moore fan at all, but I must admit that he nailed that one right in Fahrenheit 911--the recruiters talking on the record about how they "don't go to the fancy mall in the rich part of town, because....well....we don't too well over there" or the incredulous looks on the Congressmen's faces when he asked them if they had kids serving or if they were going to talk to their kids about serving in the military. About 20% of the guys in my high school class were in the service within one year of graduation. I read in my local paper a year or two ago here in my Westchester town that they had 3 kids join the service out of a class of 350. Before I get jumped on about being anti-military, there's obviously nothing wrong about being in the service, but once again, the working class is asked/pushed to serve, while the upper middle class and wealthy generally are not. BTW, my wife is a fairly astute woman--I think it's much more likely that she didn't see them because they weren't there for the same reason that the two recruitersin F911 talked about not going to the "good mall". Want to get really depressed? Do some reading on the number of men killed in Vietnam who were Ivy League graduates versus the general population, or better yet, urban, inner city high schools much smaller in size...... I'd like to thank Timmo above for the polite nature of his response--we can disagree on some things, but that doesn't mean people have to get nasty and personal in their attacks. Something that seems to be forgotten all too often on these boards and in society. Alphadawg, we'll have to agree to disagree, as I'm not sure you read all of my posts based on your responses. I find it a little tough to say "it's their fault for not growing up "winners"" when you're applying it to many people who never had a chance to start with--compare the case of a kid with poor, uneducated parents who don't know any better for their kids living in a place that doesn't exactly inspire hope or a sense that they can better themselves, with no role models to point the way towards sucess with your typical upper middle class kid living in a stable home, with educated, connected parents, who can teach the kid the right way to succeed and who can provide a successful role model. I'm not saying it's impossible to succeed in the former case, but it's a heckuva lot harder to do so than it is in the latter case, but I often find latter case folks blaming the poor for their own ills, when they've never experienced those situations themselves. Who are they to judge is usually what I think in those cases, but oddly enough that doesn't stop them from judging. I could go on, but I suspect I'm barking up the wrong tree looking for empathy for others from someone who's self-chosen the name "Alphadawg"......

Personally, I think that many (but by no means all) folks vote Republican because the Republicans have been very effective in using cultural issues (abortion, church and state, gay marriage, etc.) to get non-wealthy or even middle class people to vote Republican/conservative even if it's against their own economic self-interest. You'll find few libertarian/economic conservatives, who have generally run the party, who care about those cultural issues (in fact the position taken on these issues by the cultural conservatives sometimes goes against the freedom arguments libertarians make) but know they need them to get votes in order to progress their economic agenda. JMO. On your last point, I agree that taxation is about incentives, both positive and negative, and those need to be kept in mind in making tax policy. I think we disagree in terms of where those lines should be drawn. As you'll see in the part of my post you chose not to highlight, I'm not a far-left bomb thrower on this issue, but am fairly moderate actually. I just happen to believe that for policy (fear of oligopoly, incentives to be productive) and fairness reasons we do indeed still need an inheritance tax of some kind--where we set it is open to debate. Similarly, as I noted above, I'm not a "soak the rich" guy--we all need to pay our fair share of taxes. Again, what fair is is open to debate. I'm against the "millionaire tax" in NYS and think that if we have a huge federal hole to get out of and need to raise taxes, it should be done more broadly than solely on the backs of people making over $250k/year. In terms of your argument about lowering the taxes on your boss in order for that to "trickle down" into the economy, I must admit that I always wondered why people never seem to support "trickle up" policies. Seems to me that poor folks are much more likely to spend extra money than rich folks are, being closer to the bone--perhaps it's the difference in how they're spent, but in terms of "bang for the buck" in getting money into the economy, I would anecdotally at least think that trickle up has a better chance of working as an economic stimulus. Again, that may just be me......

A few thoughts: 1. You and RF seem to be tilting at different windmills--you don't like the fact that relatively small businessmen may have their inheritance taxed. He's talking about the multigenerational whale wealth. A fix would be to set the exclusion level at a point where most small to mid-sized businesses don't get hit or don't get hit hard. One can argue as to where that point is. 2. I won't bother with the double taxation argument, as it's been discussed many times before, but you don't seem to get it (maybe because it undercuts your point). Again, it applies much more to the whale level wealth, but also to any business. Wealth and businesses get taxed upon transfers to third parties--the difference here is that family transfers get an exemption from this and are treated somewhat differently (they get a large initial exemption, but are taxed at higher rates than normal capital gains at the higher end). Again, one can argue about the relative fairness of the relative rates. 3. I'll explain where I'm coming at this from--I grew up a blue collar kid in a blue collar town (as a Roch guy, Mr. WEO might be familiar with my hometown of East Rochester). I then spent four years at Columbia and three at Harvard Law School. I didn't see many people of my kind at either institution. I've lived and worked in corporate law/finance in NYC ever since and live in a nice suburb of NYC. Again, don't run into too many of "my kind" here either. To further the point, my wife grew up in an upper middle class suburb of DC and attended Yale and Wharton. As couples do, we periodically reminisce about our childhoods and pasts--the differences in certain experiences is very stark (her middle school never got the "the best thing you can do for your country is die for it" speech that the American Legion or some such gave my middle school, complete with a local CMH winner, for ex., that I got in 4th grade, and her HS never had perma-recruiters from the military in their lunch room cafeteria like mine did, among many other differences). I don't say this to pat myself on the back, but to point out that unlike I suspect a lot of the posters on this topic, I've lived in both worlds and seen how the world works. I believe that if working class people understood the advantages that rich and upper middle folks have in our society and how those folks view them, they'd be a heckuva lot less likely to be voting Republican (if there wasn't an outright class revolution). It's laughable to think that those folks don't have a massive leg up in the world upon birth. I think many of them don't like to acknowledge this since their worldview is based on the fact that they got where they are at the top of the heap because we are a fair society--evidence to the contrary doesn't register to them--and is some kind of justification for letting the world work just the way it is without any attempt to change things that are unfair. 4. As you might guess, the estate tax may in fact affect me via my wife's family her father, who was interned as an "enemy combatant" as a child, worked hard and did well for himself and his family. That said, I don't mind paying it, as my wife and I have made our own way in the world. I don't think he minds paying it either, but I could be wrong about that. Similarly, depending on where the level is set, it will probably be an issue for my kids, too, but, again, if they can't make it in the world with all the advantages they're likely to have, then that's on them. I don't have a problem paying the tax, again, depending on where it's set. So be careful before calling other people hypocrites. I don't mind paying my share (or even more) of the taxes, since I remember the 4-year old me growing up in public housing in Roch before our move to ER and the ways I've been helped myself over the years. When paying my taxes I think about people like my mom and dad, who worked hard their whole lives and the benefits they get from things like SS and Medicare, for ex., or things like HeadStart that help kids who need it. Not all govt spending is good, but it's not all bad, either. 5. I'm not a "soak the rich" guy as you try to paint your opponents here, nor am I a NIMBY on this issue. In my view the rich should pay their fair share of taxes (to my mind the rollback of the Bush tax breaks is about the right level), but not the entire burden. I think what NYS did was ridiculous in raising the top rate and think their idea of a "millionaire's tax" on incomes over $1m is counterproductive and unfair. I also think Obama's pledge to not tax people over $250k was not wise--if there's pain to be felt, all should feel it, if in different degrees. (As you might imagine, one will affect, but the other may not--even so, I don't think it's fair.) Time to get back to work.

I agree with some of what you said, but have also run into many, many upper middle class and wealthy people who were basically "born on third base and thought they hit a triple" to quote Ann Richards many moons ago. Policy arguments for an inheitance tax include that large inheritances lessen the impetus to be productive and work in offspring of the wealthy and that we want to avoid having a rigid/static class structure, where status and wealth are simply passed down from one generation to the next. That said, I, too, have seen rich kids work their butts off to make something on their own (I recall finding out after graduation that a law school friend of mine was the daughter of folks who are probably billionaires and you would never have guessed that for a second knowing her), but I've also seen more than my share of rich kids acting more like a James Spader character in a John Hughes movie--unfortunately, in real life, folks like that don't often get their comeuppances, but instead get coveted internships and jobs and other connections that help insure success care of mommy and daddy, whether they work hard for them or not.....

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/...arity1.fortune/ http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/colyrmn/yrmn081.htm As you'll see from the articles above, both Gates and Buffet are indeed passing their children over to a large extent and donating their estates to charity. Gates is planning (or was planning, as it's an old article admittedly, although I don't ever recall reading that he's changed his mind) to give away almost all of his money to charity, leaving his kids $10m each. A whopping sum to the average person, but an infinitessimal fraction of what he's worth. Ten million is more than a few thousand sheckles, but comparatively to what he's giving away, not by much. These guys are practicing what they're preaching. From what I've read, Gates fears that the kind of wealth he has would destroy his kids' drive and make them less likely to be worthy contributing members of society (having known the kids of some of the wealthy, I'd tend to agree in many, but certainly not all, cases.) You may not agree with them, but you may want to check your facts before making statements such as those bolded above.

As noted several times above, in most cases of estates of the super rich it's not double taxation. The truly superwealthy (other than perhaps traders or entertainment folks) don't usually get that way through income from a job that is taxed, for ex., but from capital gains on a business or company (ie., increases in value over the period held). Since that is not taxed until sold or transferred or deemed transferred it has not yet been taxed. People can certainly have differing views on this issue, but let's get the facts straight.....

Actually, in many cases, no, it hasn't (see the example above re: the Bills capital gain). I've also read other articles by economists and tax experts saying the same thing--certain assets, like capital assets, don't get taxed on their gain until realized/sold.

To wit, the ads several years ago talking about people "losing the family farm" or some other small business, which rarely if ever happens at current or even prior estate tax levels (one survey I read said that no one has ever lost the family farm over the estate tax, for ex.). Turns out, those ads were financed by an organization supported by the super-wealthy (many of which were multigenerational wealth beneficiaries it also turned out) who were embarrassed when this was made public.

FWIW, some of the wealthiest folks around (like Warren Buffet, George Soros and Bill Gates (via statements from his father)) are in favor of the inheritance tax, as without it, we run the risk of becoming an oligopoly and since it saps the need for second, third, fourth generation rich kids to be productive and do anything other than waste mommy and daddy's hard-earned money. I'd say we're already a good way there towards being a de facto oligopoly--look no further than the fact that most major candidates for political office tend to be multimillionaires, if not billionaires in some cases, self-funding their own campaigns (or, like Eliot Spitzer, having mommy and daddy doing it for him), or the fact that the largest determinant in how well a child does financially in life is how well-off their parents were socioeconomically (it has a higher correlation than even IQ as per one of my old Columbia sociology profs from the '80s.) While America does indeed have more social mobility than many societies, I still don't think we've come anywhere near our potential in that regard.....

Problem is, being a monopoly allows them to do things like provide (and I use that term very loosely) "customer service". I subscribe only during the season, as in my current house, I can't get their HD satellite since it's blocked by a tree in a neighbor's yard. I'm moving next month so may have better luck then. That said, their customer service is absolutely atrocious when it comes to things like scheduling service appointments. Not once, but twice, I've had a first slot in the morning appointment (8 to 12) and not only were they late, but they never showed up at all that day. Of course you have to be home to get them to hook you up, so that was two whole days burned. When you call them to complain they try to placate you with things like $60 off your bill. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like a fair trade to me (maybe if they added a 0). If you think that has nothing to do with their having a monopoly you're on crack......

Fixed--it was the ellipses.....

..... https://twitter.com/Adam_Schefter/status/15213763055

Plus 1.....

You're probably right--that's how a Cheatriot* would look at it. He'd weigh up the costs of getting caught with the benefits the cheating would bring and make a decision on that basis, never mind the fact that it's cheating. Morality of any kind wouldn't enter into the equation at all.....

You know it, baby--Rodney probably hooked him up....

I'm not so sure about that. I've been a season ticket holder for the last 7-8 years (I live near NYC, but give them to my dad) and in the past few years had trouble getting an upgrade. This year, no problem at all--I went from about the 45 in the 11th row of the upper deck to the lower bowl sixth row up on about the 30. They also had lower level seats, 20th row on about the 10 to 15 as well, both unlike years past.....

I've said before and will say again, the media treats us like we've gone 3-13 four years in a row, instead of three years of 7-9 followed by a 6-10 (which could easily have been a 7-9 yet again had Leodis not braincramped against the Pats*). We're not a good team, and may not even be a mediocre team anymore, but I'll bet we pick no better than 5th or 6th in next year's draft, and more likely 8th or 9th. We've lost TO and probably lost Schobel, but we've also added Spiller, Troup, Edwards and Davis and lost Jauron, while our young guys including our 2009 rookies, who, other than Maybin, played pretty well last year (Wood, Levitre, Byrd and Nelson all come to mind) all have a year in the NFL under their belt. All while adding a coach who seems to know how to mask a QB's weaknesess, of which ours admittedly have many. If we can keep our QB upright and generate any kind of passing attack, I think this team will suprise some people and may win up to 8 games this season, although 5-6 is probably more like it.....

Hard to argue too much with our rating--we're probably somewhere between 20 and 30--but from reading most sportswriters you'd think we finished 3-13 3 years in a row rather than 7-9, followed by a 6-10. We've been a mediocre franchise, not a horrible one, at least record-wise. Groupthink lives nowhere better than in sportswriters, who seem to regurgitate each others' nonsense year in and year out. Look who Schein has as number 1, the Cheats*. Not the Colts or the Steelers, but the Cheats*, a team that really hasn't done jack squat or lived up to expectations over the last five years or so and whose prior "accomplishments" we all now know were tarnished by cheating. The Steelers have two Lombardi's in that time and the Colts have one, plus a SB appearance, for ex., while the Pats* didn't even make the playoffs two years ago and got blown out in Rd 1 last year. Another example of groupthink, that what happened in the past will somehow project itself into the future ad infinitum. Critical thinking is not a strong point among that group.....

Ex-Bill and great SI.com columnist Ross Tucker recently wrote that despite fan's views, his estimate is that it's only about 5-10% of players who use some form of PED. I'd believe him a bit more than most on topics like this, FWIW. Anyone else notice from the ESPN article that there were two folks in Boston that Galea visited last August, including one he visited twice that month? Who knows, maybe Tommy Boy needed a little extra help recovering from his knee surgery before the season and his buddy Rodney hooked him up with a sure-fire way to get better quickly? (Then again, it could just be Big Papi needing his fix.) Also noticed that Galea treated an eye-popping 11 athletes in Cleveland. If those were NFLers and not Indians, Mike Holmgren might have stepped into a big mess.....

Nothing--they don't have to, they're the Patriettes*, and have been getting a pass from NFL beat reporters for years. Personally, I think this is the year those wheels fall off.....

What people seem to forget is that we didn't really lose much outside of perhaps TO (not worth much with no QB to throw to him) and Schobel if he doesn't come back. No "end of the line" vets playing one year too many. Our young team is one year older and more experienced. The coaching change is almost certainly going to be a positive, if only because the bar was set so low by Jauron. We added two upgrades at LB and DE and potentially one at RT in FA, while adding Spiller and two potential front 7 contributors in the draft. IMHO, if we add Gaither somehow at LT, this team will be a good bit better than last year's team, although due to the tough schedule, it may not show up in the W-L column right away....

Pats* fans are going to go absolutely nuts with him ranking them 14. Even I'd rank them more in the 11-12 range myself. He's usually such a Pats* homer that he must be trying to even things out somehow.....

That's awesome--we went last year when Eric Wood was there and had a great time, but no can do on the babysitter front this year (we had another event in the city last year after McFadden's to justify it to my wife). Great to hear that these guys are just normal dudes without the attitude that you hear so much about in conjunction with pro athletes. Too bad that the Ben Roethilsberger's of the world get most of the ink....

From Wikipedia: "After graduate school, she went to work for a major chemicals manufacturer doing market research. While traveling for work, she met Bob Slaughter, in San Antonio, Texas, and later married him. After marrying, the couple moved to Fairport, New York, a suburb of Rochester, where Bob had been offered a job. However, to this day, Slaughter still speaks with a pronounced Kentucky accent. They have three daughters Megan, Amy and Robin." Sounds to me like she came to WNY as young adult well before running for office, so I wouldn't call her a carpetbagger. I agree with you on Kennedy and Clinton (and Ford, had he decided to run).