Romney doesn't earn his own money*

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

-Abraham Lincoln

Now, I want to bring something up. I want to talk about Mitt Romney for a moment.

I have no idea why, but once in awhile I force myself to watch the GOP debates. I find it a most perverse task which I force myself into. I usually don't make it all the way through--either boredom with the political circus or the the empty rhetoric or something particularly awful makes me shut the youtube window.
But I was watching the debate in Florida the other night and Mitt Romney was defending himself from Gingrich. Gingrich was attacking Romney for some of Romney's investments. Here is, word for word, what Mitt replied with:

first,
my investments are not made by me

my investments in the last ten years have been in a blind trust
managed by a trustee...

In the interest of fairness, he does go on to say "second" and talk about other stuff. The important point here, the all important point, is that Mitt Romney does not make the investments that earn him millions.

Some will be saying "of course he doesn't do his investing himself!" and that's when I go: and that's why he doesn't "deserve" millions of dollars.

Romney isn't even putting in mental labor when investing. He just has someone else do it. Romney is not an important part of the process. Romney's money is being managed by someone else, yet Romney is taking home the wealth produced by the trustee playing with Romney's money.

This is yet another reason that Romney NEEDS to be taxed higher. He isn't even WORKING for his millions. Not even in the sense that investors are working. He isn't investing. Someone else is. Romney just waits for his big fat checks to arrive, and then he blows his money on rich-man stuff, like giving money to voters.

So I'm sick and tired of people claiming Romney (and those like him) are working hard for their millions. BULLSHIT. Someone ELSE is working hard, to make Romney millions. Romney doesn't even do his investing himself.

Man oh man, I wish someone else would do work for me, and let me collect the millions of dollars that some other person earned.

Fuckit. If you are earning money from other people's labor, you should be taxed considerably higher than 14%.

Fuck you Mitt Romney.


*Romney does earn some of his own money, via speaking fees. He has described the money he earned from speaking fees as "not a lot of money" so while Mitt earns some of his money, most of his income, at this point, is from someone else's labor

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Say my uncle dies and leaves me his vast ranch out in Utah somewhere. I never visit it. I hire some local guy to oversee it, and he leases it out to people. I get a profit from this.

Do I deserve the profit I earn from leasing my uncle's land?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

If you are earning money from other people's labor, you should be taxed considerably higher than 14%.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Come on, it's not about "deserving or not deserving profit". This is about the taxation on wages versus investment revenue. One is reported with a 1099 or W-2.

Publication 550 is where investment revenue is reported.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

If that investment manager is such a genius as to bring so many millions to Romney, then why don't they invest some of their money on their own and make a fortune? Investment managers should hoard some money at some point, no?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

No. Hoarding money isn't healthy.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I'm more amused by Trump's posturing as the "successful entrepreneur", whereas he got all that treasure through inheritance.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Which time? he's been bankrupt more than once.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I don't want him or any other bootstrappy investor/hedge fund managers to be taxed HIGHER than the rest of us, how about just the same as the rest of us?

If some double-taxation burden can be demonstrated to be hurting the economy, or even exist, I'd be willing to hear the arguments. Otherwise, the whiners who want their millions without paying a fair share can move aside for more enterprising types who don't mind paying tax at the same rates as working people.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You are a flat-tax type?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I pity the fool who thinks shuffling money around is the same as laboring.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh, the irony of citing one of the great proponents of the current status quo to attack a Mormon who's done very well under the order built by Mr. Lincoln. I mean really, if we're going to use the father of American capitalism to argue against capitalism.....

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Some will be saying "of course he doesn't do his investing himself!" and that's when I go: and that's why he doesn't "deserve" millions of dollars.

Do you deserve the vegetable that you just paid (at some remove) a farmer to nurture and grow for you?

Man oh man, I wish someone else would do work for me, and let me collect the millions of dollars that some other person earned.

Choose better parents next time.

If simply working harder made one richer, Africa would be full of female millionaires.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Choose better parents next time.

Then you admit the system is flawed, and the OP is correct. If the person who labors are taxed at a higher rate than the person who has labor performed for them, then all the talk about "work harder in order to succeed" is just all talk.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I would prefer my politicians all have their investments in a blind trust. While I know they make decisions that personally benefit them, and that's in no small part how they continue to be politicians, I like them to at least pretend they aren't doing everything for their personal gain. A blind trust helps maintain that illusion.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

I love that it's *legal* for them to trade on inside information. That's pretty much the last vestige of the illusion of equality between the populace and our owners.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

He "deserves" it by virtue of being the owner, because property rights.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

As many people have pointed out, the difference isn't between "labor" and "not labor", it's between, on one side, labor, and on the other, risk.

In 2008, Billionaires lost 1/3 of their total net worth, and 2.5 million millionaires ceased to be. That's 27% of millionaires. They *could* have kept their money in "safer" investments, gold, bonds, etcetera, and lost *nothing*, but instead, they risked it, which kept that money circulating and the "laborers" laboring.

There are *reasons* for the capital gains rate to be a separate number. It's also worth mentioning that capital gains recently became subject to medicare taxation. That's a 20% bump-up in cap gains effective tax rate.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

An economist would say that Mitt's "work" arises not from the work he's doing but from the risk of capital loss he's taking on. I don't think that's the same thing as work nor is it as deserving of reward, but in general I think it makes sense for the owners of things to be able to charge other people rent for using them, proportional to the "expected utility" to the owner - a weighted average which takes into account the possibility that the thing being rented will lose value.

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

Most of the replies in this thread make me feel a little better about humanity.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I will bet *any* money tht the managers of the trust that handles Romneys money is *also* a millionaire.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I think yours is an awful reason he (and any other investor who uses professionals) to be taxed more.

I think he should be taxed more because he can afford to be taxed more. Not because he didn't personally labour for his earnings. I mean that's absolutely ridiculous.

I'm a simple tradesman. And like any other tradesman there are several ways I earn money.

#1 hourly labour; the more I work the more I get paid. Pretty simple.

#2 quoted labour; I get paid when the job is done. Sometimes a little up front, but the majority upon completion. The faster I get the job done the more I get paid in an hourly sense, but also the sooner I can move on to the next job (assuming there is a next job).

#3 subbing labour; For any number of reasons I won't do the labour I'm being paid for. I don't have the want to dig a ditch so I'll hire Joe for $15/hr but charge the customer $30/hr. Or sometimes I don't have the skill to do the labour I'm paid for. I'll hire Sam the electrician to wire in 110v breakers, transformers, etc for the boiler I installed, so I'll pay Joe $50/hr by charge my customer $85/hr

#4 profiting on materials; I drive a pretty stocked van. I try to have at least two of everything. It costs me money to carry things. It's taken me my entire career years in the business to acquire my stock. It's an ongoing investment. It comes at some risk as I have bought things that are extremely rare or obsolete. So things have been tossed around so much they have gotten broken. As a result I charge more then retail for goods I purchased wholesale. There's no real labour involved in having stock, but it is profitable.

#5 loans; I've acquired a number of tools that are expensive to buy and difficult to rent. I have loaned/rented out my threader to other plumbers that needed it and accepted $$ for the loan. And my boss has loaned me out to plumbers/etc who need an extra hand or my expertise.

Just because there's no (or little) labour involved doesn't mean there should be higher tax rates. As others have said above, investments take risk and don't necessarily inspire profits.

Sliding tax rates are more or less based on what taxpayers can afford... or at least should be. Not on how much they laboured (or didn't labour) for the wealth they acquired.



#4

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I think he should be taxed more because he can afford to be taxed more. Not because he didn't personally labour for his earnings. I mean that's absolutely ridiculous.


"He can afford it" is even a worse reason.

How about we stop discriminating based on income?

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

where exactly did the money he invests come from?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Oh that's a charming story. Basically by fucking over companies (http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/) and putting thousands out of work.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

Amen.

The only difference between him and a person in benefits is that he's taking way, way more than he needs to survive and is therefore the real parasite.

He should live on the money he makes from making appearances only--oh, wait, if he did that, nobody would care to hear from him.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

so we shouldn't be able to earning money on our investments now?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Some will be saying "of course he doesn't do his investing himself!" and that's when I go: and that's why he doesn't "deserve" millions of dollars. -- How incredibly ridiculous!

People invest in the stock market everyday through brokers who earn a commission. If by some chance I invest in a stock that, over time makes millions of dollars, by your logic I'm not deserving of those funds?

That's insane logic!

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

does that mean we don't have to take our losses either?!

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

I'm confused.

If basic investment advice says I should have a minimum of $500K set aside to retire in my sixties, and I start at $0 say, at age 50, and I make risky but successful investment decisions that actually net me that $500K by retirement age -- is that wrong?

I'd be making money without laboring. I'd be risking losing everything I put into those investments. I'd want to keep as much of that money for my own purposes as possible, hence I'd be against higher capital gains taxes.

That would be making money beyond what I need for "survival," day to day. If I haven't saved anything by age 50, I'd say I probably did my share of hand-to-mouth most of my life. So would I be wrong? Greedy? Prudent? Smart?

Most investment funds aren't making money for the individual bazillionaires, but for retirement and pension accounts. Should we tax those capital gains at higher rates? If not, why not? What is the difference?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

non-profit charities aren't the same as for-profit private pockets

world of difference