Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

The Koch Brothers and other billionaires

Aug 23, 2012 1:20AM PDT

Just curious, does anyone here really believe these people have raised around $400 million for the Romney campaign because they really want to make sure that they are going to get a president who will finally let them create some jobs?

Anyone who replied, "Why yes, of course," wanna buy a bridge, cheap?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
"THEY" built their business on their own
Aug 23, 2012 3:40AM PDT
- Collapse -
(NT) why do YOU think they did it?
Aug 23, 2012 4:13AM PDT
- Collapse -
Sweetheart favors and even bigger tax breaks
Aug 23, 2012 4:27AM PDT

Why else?

- Collapse -
what if those
Aug 23, 2012 4:41AM PDT

favors and tax breaks creates more jobs and the taxes from those wages more than makes up for the tax breaks on the company?

- Collapse -
And that's my question
Aug 23, 2012 5:14AM PDT

Who seriously believes that two guys with as much money as they have can't create jobs now, and won't be able to create any unless Mitt Romney gets elected?

I guess we can count you as one of them?

- Collapse -
You're talking about "Make Work"
Aug 23, 2012 6:51AM PDT

Which is creating jobs that may function overall at a loss to the employer, simply to pay someone wages. That's not the way business world works. That's the way govt "make work" projects work, unless spent on infrastructure such as rails or roads which benefits the economy in some fashion. I suppose someone could do "make work" as a philanthropic pursuit, but typically those who do philanthropic projects do those which are intended to benefit many while also keeping their name known even after they leave this world. For instance Arcadia National Park from Rockefeller.

Also, if talking about "start ups", such business often is in the red for some years anyway due to the startup cost.

- Collapse -
I'm talking about....
Aug 23, 2012 6:57AM PDT

.....the people the Republicans keep referring to as "job-creators." Their new term for "rich people." So again, if the Koch brothers are "job-creators," please spell out why they are unable to create jobs now, being that they're billionaires, why that would change under a Romney presidency, and if you think that's the reason they're raising and donating so much money to his campaign.

- Collapse -
I think it has more to do with tax structure
Aug 23, 2012 8:01AM PDT

Obama has threatened to raise taxes on dividends. Many wealthy enjoy low tax rate on dividends, such as Romney obviously did. They and all dividend fund managers (such as those who run pensions funds) would like to keep it that way. If that risk goes away, they might be willing to assume added risk of business venture and hiring workers as needed. It always comes back to the money.

- Collapse -
Of course it does
Aug 23, 2012 10:11PM PDT

They're in this for their own personal gain. Again, these guys are billionaires. No reasonable person can look at their wealth and conclude that they're being hampered from "creating jobs" due to the current tax structure.

- Collapse -
They have to feed their babies right
Aug 24, 2012 1:37AM PDT

There's a whole special way of being raised and trained even in the proper diet one must follow if you are in the 1% . This begins even while an infant.

What rich babies eat.

- Collapse -
I'll assume from that non-response....
Aug 24, 2012 12:35PM PDT

.....that you don't have one.

- Collapse -
Assume away
Aug 24, 2012 1:40PM PDT

but the rich are under no more obligation to create jobs than you are. I suspect however they do, even if just for domestic help, gardners, paying high property taxes, buying more expensive things created by workers, and so forth.

- Collapse -
Good
Aug 24, 2012 11:21PM PDT

Then you agree that giving the rich even more tax breaks does not translate in to more "job-creation."

If you want to create jobs, you have to create demand for products and services. You do that by increasing the buying power of the consumer class, not by giving more tax breaks to the owners of the corporations.

- Collapse -
Josh
Aug 25, 2012 6:43AM PDT

are you finally saying the rich should pay the same tax rate as everyone else? I can agree with that. They should pay the same on wages as everyone else, and the same on investments.

Anyone can buy dividend paying stocks, or into a dividend based fund.

- Collapse -
RE: Anyone can buy dividend paying stocks,
Aug 25, 2012 8:45AM PDT

Anyone can buy dividend paying stocks, or into a dividend based fund.

UNLESS you have NO money to invest/speculate with.

- Collapse -
They already had the gain
Aug 24, 2012 1:36PM PDT

They just want to keep some of it. What are you going to sell them on? Create jobs for loss? How's that been working out so far? Everyone who works does so for gain, invests for gain, save to keep gains. Why do you have a problem with this? Why do people who have less money feel they should tell those who have more what to do with it? Rich people should have less rights to the use of their money?

- Collapse -
(NT) What they want is to keep ALL OF IT. Not just "some". Rob
Aug 26, 2012 12:16PM PDT
- Collapse -
A non-reply reply if ever I saw one. You were asked
Aug 26, 2012 12:13PM PDT

specific questions and chose instead to bring up the rotten herring of Tax Policy. But Tax Policy includes Inheritance Taxes which you oppose and a Tax System which would benefit the less well off by reducing their tax burden and passing it up the line to those who have been prospering while everybody else has been losing since the early 80's, which you would likely call Income Redistribution and oppose.

I would also suggest that there be a tax on importation by American companies of goods made in other countries for them to sell in the US. Like Nike does and all the other American companies who have moved their production facilities to cheaper labour markets and less stringent protection for workers and lower Environmental regulations. By depleting the demand side of the job market Corporations have put massive downward pressure on wages and job availability in the US. There has to be a countervailing tax policy to redress this imbalance, not least because it has also reduced the Corporate Tax portion of government revenues.

Oh, and there's precisely that fairness argument made in Leviticus as well, as a good Christian boy like you should know. There is a chapter about dealing fairly with others of your tribe (i.e country) and not cheating them or paying them low wages. Or don't you read that part of the Bible? I've noticed a lot of New Evangelicals neglect the Old Testament, whereas real original Evangelicals like John Wesley and Methodists and the Anabaptists (Baptists to Americans) embraced it in the early days of Evangelism and right up until the 1960's. In fact it wasn't until the 70's and the new crop of Conservative Evangelists came along that the Old Testament was chucked away as sort of "foreign" (meaning too Semitic). Of course nobody said that very loudly, they just belittled it and shuffled it off to the side and made up a lot of unfounded (in the Bible) teaching to replace it.

There was an old saying that "A Christian is a man who prays on his knees on Sunday, and preys on his neigbours the other 6 days of the week." It was an Evangelical putdown of the Roman Catholic Church. And if you know the history of Chicago, or Kansas City, or New York or any number of other cities run by the Irish mafia, was a deserved putdown.

Rob, raise a good Presbyterian/Episcopalian, despite my mother's latent Methodism, which fit well with Presbyterianism. Episcopalian was my choice when I was in the 6th grade.

- Collapse -
Don't forget that it was Paul
Aug 26, 2012 10:01PM PDT

in the New Testament that said that a workman was worth his hire. In short don't cheat him.

Diana

- Collapse -
But Paul also said that
Aug 26, 2012 10:42PM PDT

wives should be submissive to their husbands. Devil Devil Devil

- Collapse -
He also appointed the first woman deacon
Aug 26, 2012 11:00PM PDT

and had Priscilla teaching Apollos. He also admonished husbands to love and protect and die for their wives. He also said that husband and wife should submit to each other.

He taught the Roman paterfamilias but always added to it, like his admonition of children to obey their father but also not to have the fathers provoke their children.

Diana

- Collapse -
Wow...you actually agreed with me on something
Aug 29, 2012 3:01AM PDT

>>>I would also suggest that there be a tax on importation by American companies of goods made in other countries for them to sell in the US. Like Nike does and all the other American companies who have moved their production facilities to cheaper labour markets and less stringent protection for workers and lower Environmental regulations. By depleting the demand side of the job market Corporations have put massive downward pressure on wages and job availability in the US. There has to be a countervailing tax policy to redress this imbalance, not least because it has also reduced the Corporate Tax portion of government revenues.>>>>>

Read your second sentence very carefully........'moved their production facilities to cheaper labour markets and less stringent protection for workers and lower Environmental regulations'.

OSHA (our government agency for safety regulations for the workers) has been around since around 1930, and isn't an issue with regard to moving production overseas. However, the other two items ARE the main reasons for the moves (in our case HIGHER Environmental regulations). Unions driving the costs for labor up to ridiculous levels and tree-huggers being overzealous to the point that we can no longer be competitive in the world markets.

- Collapse -
A question for you
Aug 29, 2012 8:54PM PDT

Do you really believe that BO's bundlers gave all that money to BO without getting it all back via paychecks and bonuses plus some on failed green company start-ups? How many of the Koch brothers' companies have failed? Heck, even Corzine, another bundler for BO, got let off the hook by BO's DOJ.

- Collapse -
A slightly other question.
Aug 29, 2012 8:57PM PDT

How many of Romney's bundlers do their bundling without expecting some payback when he gets elected? There's no such thing as free lunch, is there.

Kees

- Collapse -
There has always been
Aug 29, 2012 9:41PM PDT

expectations of favors repaid by political donors........I don't think anybody who can actually think believes otherwise. The DEGREE of favors returned is what more and more people are becoming concerned about....and how much of the taxpayer's money is going to be used to repay those favors. There is a real backlash from the voters about this going on now. Union members are sick of having their union dues being used to fund political candidates they personally don't like, tax payers don't want their tax money being spent on loans by the EPA for special interest projects, etc. They are tired of bailouts because it's become obvious that they are nothing more than favors being returned that protect some and not all. Picking and choosing winners isn't being swallowed anymore. This has happened on both sides of the political table.......but it's become so flagrant and abusive to the taxpayer footing the bills that accountability has become the battle cry of late. Some die-hard politicians are not seeing the hand-writing on the wall because they honestly believe this is a 'temporary' revolution by the voters.......and those politicians are dumb-founded when they lose their primaries to others either new within their own party or from the opposite party. The 'dinosaurs' in Congress and at the State levels are being voted out because they refuse to change......the Congress and State level politicians are being taken over by younger people every election. The new generation is tired of 'business as usual' and it shows.

- Collapse -
So do you think the Koch brothers....
Aug 29, 2012 10:52PM PDT

.....are just donating and raising all that cash in exchange for a few fountain pens and a photo op?

- Collapse -
No more than than
Aug 29, 2012 11:13PM PDT

the Solyndra bundler, et al expected 'a few fountain pens and a photo op'. What's your point? The only difference I can see is that perhaps the Koch people aren't expecting a 'loan' on the backs of the taxpayers? I also believe that the 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' days are getting closer to being over, because of the younger generation politicians coming into play.

- Collapse -
The "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" days.....
Aug 29, 2012 11:44PM PDT

......will surge if Romney wins. His backers will get what they wanted, and the tradition will continue.

The Koch brothers are expecting (and would likely get) plenty on the backs of folks like you and me. They might not be called "loans" but you and I will be paying for it.

- Collapse -
unlike the "weathermen" and Resko?
Aug 30, 2012 12:17AM PDT

It's betting money

- Collapse -
The Weathermen invested in the Obama campaign?
Aug 30, 2012 12:23AM PDT

A group that disbanded decades ago?

LOL