Sunday, August 23, 2015

Trump on Taxes: "Hedge fund guys are getting away with murder"...

...I guess this is as opposed to the tax breaks all over the real estate industry, and the fact that Trump got started in Manhattan building by getting huge tax breaks for his first major Manhattan prohect, converting the Commodore Hotel at Grand Central Station into the Grand Hyatt.

"The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky," Trump told CBS News. "They are energetic. They are very smart. But a lot of them—they are paper-pushers. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It's ridiculous, ok?"

Which means you can add arbitrage and entrepreneurship to the list of things Trump doesn't understand or pretends not to understand.

LaTi reports:
[Real estate billionaire Trump] managed to win a 40-year tax abatement for rebuilding a crumbling hotel at Grand Central Station — a deal that in the first decade cost taxpayers $60 million — Trump said, "Someone said, 'How come you got 40 years.' I said, 'Because I didn't ask for 50.' "
He told CBS,
Trump said his plan to make hedge fund managers pay more tax was part of his effort to “save the middle class” by lowering their tax rates. "I want to lower the rates for the middle class. The middle class is the one. They're getting absolutely destroyed. This country, it won't have a middle class very soon."
There is nothing wrong with tax loopholes there should be more of them and taxes should be lower for the middle class, but all that should be done by shrinking government spending, which does not appear to be Trump's plan.

The billionaire wants to create class warfare against the rich.

This is one dangerous dude.

 -RW

9 comments:

  1. Trump is a pretty ugly illustration for the fact that democratic decision making is driven mostly by tribal instincts. It's like the political process downgrades a complex refined civilization into hunter gatherer era social patterns.

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  2. You are right, he doesn't talk about reducing government spending. But in all fairness, are any of them?

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    1. Right, he is simply as bad as the rest---with one dangerous exception: He get the masses all riled up and enthused about his authoritarian schemes. In fairness.

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    2. What are you concerned that he would do?

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  3. "class warfare against the rich." umm not quite.i suggest trump is joining with Tommy Piketty in potting the Rich's Managers.

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  4. Then just say you will cut the middle class' tax rates! Or work with city and state governments to lower the tax rates that hit us much harder than the rich (like gas taxes, etc.).

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  5. Our views need to be represented as a political option to the public. The LP is not good enough, as your interview with Gary Johnson exposed. The Misesian Party was created to represent Ron Paul's and Ludwig von Mises's ideas. Rothbardian anarchism has kept us on the political sidelines. Mises was a minarchist.

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    1. I agree w/that. If I were a cointelpro type government agent whose mission was to weaken the libertarian movement I would promote anarchism and espouse the view that any libertarians who involve themselves in politics are sellouts. Austro-libertarianism could be politically popular as shown to some degree by Ron Paul & if we had charismatic, younger representatives of it in politics it could be even more so. Especially if we supported restricting immigration of people who are hostile to economic & political liberty.

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  6. I think the left has proven rather well that most American's are ok with class warfare, especially if they can be promised to benefit. The "middle class is dying meme" has been with us since the election of 1896 and I would imagine it will remain so until the middle class has been fully wiped out by all of the inane policies to save it. It would be refreshing if one of these statists running for President would actually promise to be the President for all Americans, rather than promoting one class over the other.

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