Bob Brinker Free Discussion Site 59,820+
- permabear
- Bill_Duffy
- BrianMcG
- SteveT
- permabear
- JeffChristy
- JIMMY62
- honeyoneohone
- arommel88
- arommel88
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» permabear - Lifting the cap is a good idea
For the following reasons:1. Everyone, including Brinker, admit that the Social Security tax is not being held in a lock box for future Social Security recipients. The money is all going into the general fund. With a cap of $90,000, it is basically a regressive tax impacting the poor much more thant the rich.
2. Private accounts are not the solution to solving the demographic problem or Social Security's future finances. There is only one solution. Either raise revenues or reduce benefits. The ultimate political solution will be a combination of the two.
3. The country is running a budget deficit of $427 billion dollars this year....HELLO!!!! Since Bush's tax cuts (for the rich), revenues as a percentage of GDP are the lowest they've been since the 1950s. Spending cuts alone will not solve the budget problem. We need revenue increases from many different sources if we are going to ever balance the budget again in the future.
4. The concentration of wealth in this country has never been greater. The rich (like Bob Brinker) are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. And the middle class is shrinking. One of the main reasons why the rich are doing so well these days: massive tax cuts for the rich. If we want to avoid ending up like another Latin American type country with the small wealthy few dominating the masses of poor, than keep on with these ridiculous supply side policies. Progressive taxation is the only way to protect the poor and middle class.
-- posted by permabear
» Bill_Duffy - Re: Re: Lifting the cap is a good idea
Funny how this discussion evolved into the Social Security debate.Kirk I agree with your model, but I think we ought to exempt a person's first $10K per year from the tax. That would encourage companies to create more jobs.
It always bothers me that my daughter's summer job had income taxed at 15% (SS+medicare) on her first dollar of income. Furthermore, I think SS benefits should be means tested. Why should millionaire retirees get an income transfer from college-aged summer workers?
And yes, SS is a wealth transfer.
-- posted by Bill_Duffy
» BrianMcG - Re: Re: Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up
In response to Re: Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up posted by Kirk:
Brinker’s threat to quit his radio show if the current Social Security income cap is lifted raises some interesting questions.
1. Is he aware, as Lita points out, that the proposals are only to raise the cap from the current $90,000 to $200,000?
2. If not, does he have even a casual knowledge of current tax proposals?
3. If so, would he be stupid enough to kiss off a $36,000,000 annual income because he refuses to pay $13,640 a year in additional tax?
4. If he is not that stupid, does he really make $36,000,000, or anything close to that?
Perhaps we are overestimating (1) Brinker’s familiarity with the tax law, (2) his desire to keep up with current tax reform proposals, (3) his sense of the proper relation between income and taxes, or (4) his actual earnings. Or maybe all of the above.
-- posted by BrianMcG
» SteveT - Re: Re: Re: Lifting the cap is a good idea
In response to Re: Re: Lifting the cap is a good idea posted by Bill_Duffy:
What if they borrowed a page from the Medicare drug benefit? I don’t recall what they called it but for some reason donut comes to mind. Where they get partial coverage after deductible up to $2500 and no benefit from $2500 to $5000. They benefits kick in again after $5000.
Would it be beneficial to stop collecting SS tax at 90K and then resume again after 150 or 200K and continue doing so up to a determined level? All things considered I would rather pay 50% or marginal tax rate on 200K or more vs. paying 15% like the college-aged summer worker earning a few thousand.
-- posted by SteveT
» permabear - Re: Re: Re: Re: Lifting the cap is a good idea
((What if they borrowed a page from the Medicare drug benefit?))You're joking right? The Prescription Drug bill is turning out to be the biggest fiasco since they passed the longterm care bill a couple decades ago and had to rescind it. What a huge mess of a bill the Prescription Drug bill is. I think Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives can all agree that this bill is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to pass. The doughnut provision is only one of the things that is a mess. The fact that it won't let Medicare negotiate prices with the drug companies is just a windfall to the drug companies. All the provisions to require hmos to provide services are actually going to increase rather than decrease costs. Personally, as a so-called liberal, I was never in favor of the prescription drug benefit to begin with. We've got a massive entitlement liability ahead of us. To add hundreds of billions more to the liability makes absolutely no sense. A simple solution could have been one of Bush's original ones: a discount card for low income seniors. That's all they should have done. All the rest is a joke.
-- posted by permabear
» JeffChristy - Re: Re: Re: Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up
In response to Re: Re: Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up posted by BrianMcG:Brian
>>>Perhaps we are overestimating (1) Brinker's familiarity with the tax law,
Brinker's lack of knowledge with respect to the tax code was one of the first things that tipped me off that he was a phony. I heard him saying things that I knew were wrong because I had faced the same issue that callers were asking him about. I mentioned it to my tax preparer and he said that he also noticed Brinker giving the wrong advice on taxes. Brinker is more careful about giving tax advice today than he was when i first started listening to him in the 90's. Now he frequently tells callers to consult a tax expert.
-- posted by JeffChristy
» JIMMY62 - Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up
In response to Re: Brinker Will Quit Radio Show if Taxes Go Up posted by Kirk:
It has been a while since Bob said anything of interest.
Perhaps I should have said
: I agree with Brinker that raising the cap on Social Security would be a mistake and a disincentive for those making over $1,000,000 a year to work.
Would you agree with that?
Disincetive, yes.
Mistake, no; that issue is in doubt.
Also, they could double his Social Security check and it would be noise.
The relevant question is what would be the return on investment.
If the max pay-out is not increased with the maximum pay-in it will be a bad deal. It does not occur to me that the max pay-out would not rise. How much, we do not know. That is why the issue is in doubt.
Well, do the math… he has a good reason to complain.
Complaining and quitting are not the same response.
Reduction of annual income from $36 mill to $30 mill is unpleasant.
Further reduction from $30 mill to $0 mill (result of quitting) is worse yet.
If and when Bob quits, taxes will not be the controlling reason.
-- posted by JIMMY62
» honeyoneohone - Brinker, Off and On
.I listened to some of Brinker's show yesterday--off and on. It sounded like he said that the market is still in it's cyclical-bull cycle, but will return to secular-bear at any time.
Does this mean that the market has been going up, but at some point will go down? LOL!
-- posted by honeyoneohone
» arommel88 - Re: Brinker, Off and On
In response to Brinker, Off and On posted by honeyoneohone:I think he does not expect to see the SP 500 to hit its 2000 high for some time. He is probably right.
-- posted by arommel88
» arommel88 - Re: 50:50 Equities:Bonds is UP 18% since 1/1/00
In response to 50:50 Equities:Bonds is UP 18% since 1/1/00 posted by Kirk:Good stuff! I think sitting in cash over 10% should be a rarity indeed(maybe once in a life time, even if it is to gain experience in its ineffectiveness). If anything, using bonds and balancing to smooth out stocks for people who cannot stomach the ups in downs should be very instructive. One should slide themselves up and down the scale where they will not panic themselves out of the market or out of their allocations.
What is also interesting is that this does not include balancing within the asset classes.
I have decided that my time spent on investing is best used on avoiding stupidity rather than trying to discover my untapped genius. Too many dry wells. One needs to keep themselves from a panic sell.
-- posted by arommel88
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