No, dumbshit. More nonsensical bullshit and lies. Trump was not right, not with this baseless accusation or any other. He was making an admission that HE takes bribes from China.

Hunter made money through a private investment company portfolio he invested in/earned after his father left office that included Chinese government owned companies, so he technically made money from China (uncaptured capital gains not distributed yet btw)…just like Trump did except Hunter reported it to the IRS while Trump hid it in secret bank accounts in China, preferring to pay taxes to China and defraud the USA. He wasn’t paid bribes by the Chinese government like Trump alleged and Joe denied…BUT TRUMP AND HIS FAMILY WERE.
And yes, Hunter was paid for his work in Ukraine. Shocker!

This is just another attempt to play on people’s poor memories and dishonestly edit clips to confuse the issue and lie by obfuscating and misrepresenting, bob.

You are never anywhere near honest. Every single thing you post or say is an outright lie. What a waste of skin you are.

Elon is dumping Tesla to pay some enormous capital gains and income taxes he’s avoided for the last decade by taking out loans against his stocks instead of selling any. He likes to say he’s paying the most taxes anyone ver has, and right wing propaganda is trying to back that up, but he didn’t pay any taxes for over 10 years while becoming the richest man ever…so divide by 10 and try again, liar, and his stock gains are also from his companies making artificially high profits by not paying taxes.
If reports are to be believed, he’s worth $200 billion now, so really that amounts to 5.25% total taxes (fed and state)….hardly his fair share…because he’s really a socialist welfare queen!
Be prepared for a massive slump in its value. He’s planning on selling off 10%, but prices will drop far more.

if the rich didn't take all of the money, there would be a larger middle class and they would pay more taxes; at this point, the rich have made most people into poor people and why should poor people pay more taxes when they're poor?

I have two opinions on this... 1. the tax code rate for capital gains was around 80% 40 years ago and now it's 15%; that's money for doing nothing 2. all improvements in automation and technology have driven down wages and the benefits of this have all gone to the top either in CEO pay or money made from increases in the stock market

As they mentioned, Warren Buffett famously bragged for years that he pays less in taxes than his secretary. The rich get such value on deductions, loopholes, capital gains rates, etc. that they can avoid taxes overall.
I'm in the bottom 20%...my uncle Sam has never even sent me a birthday card, he sure hasn't ever paid me a dime of assistance. Has Trump ever taken public funds for his projects? Hmmmm.

Another fail, Dimitri.

for the most part I agree; Obama did sunset some of the bush W trickle down economics which is code for more money to the rich and that did help some; the molester has promised more of the same with tax cuts to the rich; I'd like to see it go back to the 70s where capital gains were taxed at 40%

wow, you've been brainwashed. how's that "soon to have" mentality working out for you? How much in capital gains tax did you pay last year? Let me guess...none.

you are the poster child for voting against your own interests.

nice strawman. I don't see a lot of people sitting around, I see people trying to change things. and *gasp* making it part of the national conversation is part of that.

the right loves to rail against the European mentality of people being born into wealth, but that's exactly what we are creating. Romney - born into wealth. The Bush family - born into wealth. maybe a long time ago, someone in their family did work hard to get where they are, or in all likelyhood, they got lucky, they were in the right place, right time. From then on, it's just a game of maintaining that wealth. which buys you politicians to help you keep that wealth.

You probably can't hear me, probably still planning out what you're going to do with your lottery winnings.

read your response.
a lot of postulating and assumptions.
i know (or assume) not with ill-intent,but still there.
gonne have to go bullet form here..blech..loathe bullet form.
please forgive.

1.i did not suggest "full-blown" socialism.nor did i suggest we do what has been tried in the past.
silly,un-imaginative tripe fed by over-paid and dull thinking professors.
ever wonder why there is an economics course and a business admin course?
there is a reason for that.one is theory the other practical application.
and economists get it wrong...and often.

2.you mentioned twice socialism in relation to fascism.
are you aware they are not even on the same playing card?
meh..i guess we could call the corporate socialism we have now a form of fascism...but it would be a stretch.
do not confuse a political system with an economic one.

3.you think everything should be subject to a free market.even firefighters,police and roads.
i do not think you thought that particular nugget through.

the problems with socialism are well documented and well understood.
as are the problems with capitalism.
the real problems arise when things are not taught properly.

problems arise when people are taught that democracy and capitalism are somehow like peas and carrots.meant for each other.
that they are the end all be all and make jesus smile.

corporate propaganda bullshit.
france is a democracy.
they have capitalism AND socialism.
in fact..when you look how how many of the european socialist countries are doing and compare them to..well..us.they seem to be doing quite well for themselves.
so i dont know where you get your "socialism is a failure" idea from.

i guess i owe you an apology.you thought i was attacking you in some manner.not at all.
i was stating your right to disagree with me.

i was not conflating that somehow socialized medicine is somehow better or produces better health and that somehow a free market person wants death to all kittens.

my point is that health care should be a collective project but i believe i also entertained a free market solution as well.
BUT..the playing field has to..MUST..be level for all players.
it appears that some of my comments you took as directed towards you my friend.
this is not the case.
unless you ARE healthcare and in that case i am in the matrix.

the quote i posted is from adam smith.from his stellar book 'wealth of nations".
too bad his words have been twisted and contorted to not even have the same meaning anymore.oftentimes it is professors who perpetrate this travesty.

what adam smith was trying to convey is that for a free market to truly work as balancing agent and force corrector there had to be absolute liberty.
but we dont have that do we?
therefore it stands to reason we cannot have a free market.

ok ok.
i do not "feel" we live in a plutocracy.
i know it.
a legislation that has been purchased by wall street and corporate elite to enact laws which benefit them and their companies in the form of capital gain is..by definition..plutocracy.

smart ass

look man.
i think we are coming from the same place but have come to different conclusions.
you know..opinions.

you mentioned cuba as an example of poor socialized medicine.
well allow me to point out bangledesh slums,or somlia and their roving band of warlords.
they have free markets.

the discussion you and i are having is really 'what is governments role".
i agree with so many of your points..truly.
in my opinion the governments role in regards to commerce should be that a fraud police.thats it.
AND to dissolve the corporation and go back to the 1864 model.
if we cant do that at least..the very least...rewrite the corporate charter.
if we cant do that can we at LEAST put back the line "for the public good" (removed in 1967 or 68).
and make these huge entities accountable for their actions and made liable for any and all :death,destruction,disease and suffering.

could we..could we ..please pa..could we?

weeeeell,thats never gonna happen.the reason the west developed was due to governments and corporations getting in bed with each other.
no way america would have the standard of living we have without that ugly beast.

people think america goes to war for ideology?
ha! not a chance.
its fucking business baby!

so..yeah.
my friend there are no easy answers.
and i apologize if you took my previous comment as an attack on you in any way.
never..ever ever.
i respect and admire you immensely.
though i disagree with you on this,that will never take away on how i perceive you.

i am a dissident.
an anarchist.
i have unplugged from the system many moons ago.i refuse to feed the beast.
i did my duty and gave this country a few years and then turned my back and walked away.
which i know may seem in contradiction to what i am proposing in regards to healthcare.
maybe i am naive in some respects,but government does have a role and i would prefer it to be at the betterment of its citizens.
social security has been a great success (not according to some people but look at the stats..it has been fantastic).

you are so right that this is not an issue handled and packaged in one easy sitting.it takes discussion of hard truths.
but for that to happen there has to be respect and i respect you immensely my friend.
it is getting late and i am one pooped lil puppy.
but i am fully enjoying my conversation with you.

let me end with sharing a man who makes an argument so much better than i could.
he is an economist.so he is probably wrong.

Property ownership makes more sense in some situations than others.

In countries where long term rental is common, there tend to be safeguards in place to protect renters. In countries where ownership is more common, not so much.

For me, buying a house made sense. Right now, I am paying as much as possible of my income on the mortgage. In a few years, the house will be paid for, and I'll have saved roughly $100k in interest payments.

My mortgage currently costs me ~ 1.5 times what renting the equivalent house would. But the mortgage payments stay the same, so they actually grow less over time (as a combination of inflation and salary increases). Rent, OTOH, goes up to match inflation, and you have to pay it until you die.

All that said, I think buying your own house for a capital gain is a stupid investment. You will always spend more than is necessary on it, because it's your home.

Hard to argue with him. Having said that, not every country is as obsessed with owning property as Britain (and Australia). People rent the same property for decades in Germany, I believe.

From where I sit, property ownership = debt = uncertainty = limited capital gains these days. Breaking the property fetish may not in itself be a bad thing for a generation.

Perhaps if your beloved so called "job creators" paid people a living wage rather than horde more and more of their profits for themselves there wouldn't be a war on poverty. They can't even pay their employees a rate that keeps up with inflation. Worker compensation goes up 5.7% since 1978, while CEO pay 726.7%. You right wing folks cry foul if the government taxes the rich about "spreading the wealth" but don't care that the rich are stealing the money earned by the hard work of the working class and keeping it at the top. Want to stop spending so much of your tax dollars helping the poor? How about your heroes paying everyone a living wage? How about they start hiring people again rather than fire people so they can have a jet? When the job creators start doing that then we can complain about how much tax money goes to helping the siftless who refuse to work and "want a handout". When some rich guy, <cough>Romney</cough> making $20 Million a year off investments actually spends $15 to $19 Million of that making businesses that just run off those investments rather than just holding it for their own greed, then we talk about a war on poverty... if I made that kind of money I wouldn't need even $1 Million a year, I'd stop around $150k (+/- cost of living adjustments from this area to whatever area I was in) and the rest I'd put into making stores or something, paying people living wages... $20 million a year would pay a lot of people a living wage.

And to be clear, I believe in the right to start your own business, and to be compensated for the risk, but when over half of your workers need food stamps, and you are making $18.7 Million a year, most of that in very low tax capital gains, then I start having issues. Nobody needs that kind of money, nobody. I'm not saying that everyone should cut off at the $150k (+/- cost of living for a given area) that I'd stop at, but after $250-$500 or so it starts to get bad if they aren't paying everyone under them a living wage (and if they are all being paid a living wage, then start hiring more people rather than keeping minimum staffing).

But no, they hold it for themselves, they fire thousands of people and keep the rest an minimum wages for over 3 years so they can have and keep their jet, their incomes greatly increase year to year compared to the rate of inflation while the few people they keep aren't keeping pace, and you people on the right complain about the poor rather than looking at the people responsible. You complain about how the poor are all just lazy... stop your job, work with the poor, take a job in retail working minimum wage for 10 to 20 years of your life. Most of those people want better jobs, they don't want a hand out, they want something better for themselves and their kids. Most of the poor want out, not by a handout, they want good jobs, but the "job creators" care only about increasing their pockets rather than helping their employees. Every person I know who gets government assistance (and that is a very large percentage of the people I know) would love to make a living wage and be off government assistance, a great many of them are embarrassed to be on the government roles and take it only because the only other choice would be take their kids and live on the streets, while the business owner or CEO hired by the company they work for jets around from mansion to mansion.

All that might be true if the very rich made most of their money off regular job-type income, but they don't. They make it off capital gains. Those funds are literally taxed at poverty rate. Rupert Murdoch and Mitt Romney, are the classic examples. If we take their word for it, they pay less than working class people while earning millions each year. Do you think that's right?

False. First of all, the top 10% aren't rich, most of them are middle class. Second of all, the top 10% don't pay 70% of "the tax" per your own link they pay that high a percentage of the INCOME tax. What percentage of the payroll tax (40% of federal revenue, and equal in magnitude to income tax) do they pay? If we count their capital gains as income, what's their effective tax rate? How about if we count all taxes (e.g. sales), and break down the effective tax rate?

I'm fine with cutting spending, so long as the spending getting cut in lieu of tax increases comes entirely from the spending funded by the income tax which you are apparently complaining is too progressive. That means slashing the defense budget exclusively because frankly that is the only significant contributor to the deficit paid out of the general fund (other than interest on your party's debt, much of which is owed to the Social Security fund). Medicare and Social Security are both financed by FICA which is not the unfair tax you seem so concerned about.

Any dollar cut from Social Security and Medicare should be repaid by a dollar of payroll tax cuts, not income tax cuts.

Lame.

No one has ever claimed that doing one thing will fix the financial situation of the US.

What is your point here? If it doesn't fix everything don't do it?

Bringing the top tax brackets to where they were (OH MY GOD ITS THREE PERCENT MORE!) before Bush cratered the economy, will help two entire shitloads. Taxing capital gains and other tricks as normal income will also help two shitloads more.

The math has already been done fifteen gazillion times and shows the same thing over and fucking over again. Mother of fuck, what is wrong with you people?

Cenk mentioned a possible raise of the Capital Gains rate in almost every one of his comments regarding the grand bargain since the election. The gist of it: raising it to the low twenties is window dressing.

Whether he's right or not remains to be seen. And they don't claim to be balanced, they claim to be objective and fact-based.

This is why I hate Cenk. Way to be "fair and balanced." How about the Capital Gains rate they are talking about hiking?