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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label billionaires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label billionaires. Show all posts
04 March 2026
VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 4MAR26
30 December 2025
18 July 2025
25 April 2022
SIGN THE PETITION:BILLIONAIRE TAX NOW! & President’s Budget Rewards Work, Not Wealth with new Billionaire Minimum Income Tax 25APR&28MAR22
UNLIKE the previous administration the Biden-Harris administration is attempting to address American income tax inequality by presenting legislation that will tax households valued over over $100 MILLION at 20%. Please sign this petition from Demand Progress and then take the time to e mail your representative and senators and demand they support and vote for the Biden-Harris billionaire tax (I did) and unless you are worth $100 million or more I can not understand why you would not want this tax legislation passed. This post also includes the legislation announcement from the White House ......
Breaking news: Elon Musk is about to take control over Twitter.1 Multiple reports indicate a deal is imminent that would hand control over one of the world's most important communications channels to one of the world's richest men. He might even let Donald Trump back onto the platform. Musk claims he wants free speech. But the reality is Musk, like most billionaires, has spent a long of time and money silencing his critics.2 It's alarming that he has the money to even make this deal a possibility. It's yet another example of what happens when our government allows people to become as rich as this: they try to grab power over other parts of our lives. The US needs a billionaires' tax now to stop these American oligarchs. Click here if you agree. We already knew the US's tax code was rigged, but a recent ProPublica The only reason Musk faces income tax from last year is that beginning in November 2021, Musk began moving his Tesla shares around. Billionaires only face taxes once they start to pull their money out of the stock market. Musk may be paying $11 billion in taxes for 2021, but that sum doesn't include any taxes for the wealth he still holds in stocks. And even though Musk himself paid taxes last year, his company, Tesla, avoided paying any US corporate taxes whatsoever, despite recording record profits.4 Luckily, President Biden just released a new plan for making sure billionaires pay their fair share, and he's beginning talks with Joe Manchin and other key swing votes on the proposal.5 By taxing just 0.01% of American households, experts estimate the tax will raise around $360 billion over the next decade. That's federal money that can go towards public programs that help us all — instead of lining billionaires' pockets and helping them control our everyday lives.6 A billionaire's tax is key to reining in the American oligarchy, and helps reallocate funds to where we sorely need them: healthcare, housing, the Child Tax Credit, and government initiatives to counter the runaway corporate power that enriched Musk in the first place. It's the ideal time to slap a tax on Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the rest of the billionaires. Congress needs to hear from you — President Biden's new billionaire's tax proposal must pass! Sign the petition: Congress must approve President Biden's new billionaire's tax! Thanks for taking action, Izzi and the team at Demand Progress Sources:  PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter. |
MARCH 28, 2022
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PRESS RELEASES
For too long, our tax code has rewarded wealth, not work, and contributed to growing income and wealth inequality in America. Under current law, when an American worker earns a dollar of wages, that dollar is taxed as they earn it. But when a billionaire earns income because their investments increase in value, that gain is too often never taxed at all.
America’s imbalanced tax code means that many millionaires and billionaires end up paying lower tax rates than middle class workers. In 2021 alone, America’s more than 700 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1 trillion, yet in a typical year, billionaires like these would pay just 8 percent of their total realized and unrealized income in taxes. A firefighter or teacher can pay double that tax rate.
President Biden is a capitalist and believes that anyone should be able to become a millionaire or a billionaire. He also believes that it is wrong for America to have a tax code that results in America’s wealthiest households paying a lower tax rate than working families. President Biden has long called for taxing capital gains as ordinary income and for eliminating the stepped-up basis loophole that enables the capital gains of the very wealthy to go untaxed forever. As part of his fiscal year 2023 budget, President Biden is calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring the wealthiest American households to pay a minimum of 20 percent on all of their income, including unrealized investment income that currently is untaxed.
President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will make America’s tax code fairer and reduce the deficit by about $360 billion in just the next decade. This will put the United States Government on firmer financial footing, building on the progress the Administration has made to reduce the deficit by over half by the end of this year compared to President Trump’s last year in office. Through the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax and other measures, the President’s budget will reduce the deficit by another $1 trillion over the decade.
The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will require America’s wealthiest households to pay as they go, just like everyone else:
The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will ensure that the very wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, including unrealized appreciation. This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters.
The tax will apply only to the top one-one hundredth of one percent (0.01%) of American households (those worth over $100 million). Over half of the revenue will come from households worth more than $1 billion.
If a wealthy household is already paying 20 percent on their full income – standard taxable income plus unrealized income – they will pay no additional tax under this proposal. If tax-free unrealized income allows a wealthy household to pay less than 20 percent on their full income, they will owe a top-up payment to meet the 20 percent minimum. As a result, this new minimum tax will eliminate the ability for the unrealized income of ultra-high-net-worth households to go untaxed for decades or generations.
The proposal allows wealthy households to spread initial top-up payments on unrealized income over nine years, and then five years for top-up payments on new income going forward. Stretching payment over multiple years will smooth year-to-year variation in investment income, while still ensuring that the wealthiest end up paying a minimum tax rate of 20 percent. Illiquid taxpayers may opt to pay later with interest.
In effect, the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax payments are a prepayment of tax obligations these households will owe when they later realize their gains. This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations.
19 November 2017
03 March 2014
VIDEO: Bill Maher's excellent commentary on income inequality 1MAR14
HE may be rude and crude but he calls a spade a spade in this "new rule".....
Last night, Bill Maher delivered an excellent final New Rule on how some of the 1% are whining about feeling persecuted.
Sat Mar 01, 2014 at 08:00 AM EST
Bill Maher's excellent commentary on income inequality
Last night, Bill Maher delivered an excellent final New Rule on how some of the 1% are whining about feeling persecuted.
Did you know that during World War II, FDR actually proposed a cap on income that in today's dollars would mean that no person could ever take home more than about $300,000? OK, that is a little low. (audience laughter) But wouldn't it be great if there were Democrats out there like that now, who would say to billionaires, "Oh, you're crying? We'll give you something to cry about. You don't want a minimum wage? How about we not only have a minimum wage, we have a maximum wage?" (audience applause) That is not a new idea. James Madison, who wrote our Constitution, said, "Government should prevent an immoderate accumulation of riches." Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, they all agreed that too much money in the hands of too few would destroy democracy.Video and full transcript below the fold.
And finally, New Rule: Someone must tell me what is with this new trend of people who have all the power acting like they're the oppressed ones? Heterosexual Christians under siege from gays. White people complaining that reverse racists are trying to strip them of their right to shoot unarmed black men. And most bizarre, the recent wave of billionaires sobbing that they're being demonized and under attack. And the thing is, it's not just having all the money in the world that's getting them down, it's that the rest of us don't often enough look at them and say, "You are the most brilliant industrious person on Earth. Can you teach us how to be more like you while we buff your cock with this fine Sham-Wow?" You know, I used to think Hollywood egos were the neediest, but these Masters of the Universe? More like babies on a plane. Stock trader Steve Schwarzman — net worth $8 billion — once said that Obama raising his taxes 3% felt like when Hitler invaded Poland. Sounds like something Sarah Palin would tweet after huffing paint thinner. (audience laughter) But with the super-rich it's becoming a meme. Now we have Tom Perkins — net worth $8 billion — saying the richest 1% are so persecuted in America, they feel like Jews in Nazi Germany. Which is why just to be safe, last week Tom built a panic room inside his mansion that's a full-size replica of Anne Frank's house. (groaning audience laughter)
Is it really that hard out there for a pimp with $8 billion dollars? You know, even when your shady financial tricks tanked the economy, nothing happened to any of you. Nobody went to jail, nobody went broke, Justin Bieber didn't even egg your house. You just got richer while everybody else got poorer. The Oxfam committee released a report this year on global inequality, and the 85 richest people — 85 — owned more than the bottom 3 1/2 billion put together, which is half the planet. This is a real problem, and not just for when they go halfsies on a wedding present.
And not that that Nazi/Jew analogy deserves to be taken seriously, but the Jews didn't do anything to deserve the hate they got. But America's super-rich? In the last 30 years, even though worker productivity went up 90%, income only went up 8%. If I was working twice as hard, and someone else was reaping almost all the reward, I'd hate them. And I'd also want to know, how could that happen?
Well, billionaire Sam Zell knows the answer to that. He said the rest of America should stop bitching about the 1%, and realize they are the 1% because they work harder. OK, now we do need to come after you with pitchforks. (audience laughter and applause) Is talking on the phone in a comfortable office really more degrading than working in a slaughterhouse, or a sweatshop, or on a reality TV show? With just one real estate deal last year, Sam Zell made a thousand times what this guy makes.
Did he really work a thousand times harder? By the way, that's a coal miner, not John Boehner. (audience laughter)
Did you know that during World War II, FDR actually proposed a cap on income that in today's dollars would mean that no person could ever take home more than about $300,000? OK, that is a little low. (audience laughter) But wouldn't it be great if there were Democrats out there like that now, who would say to billionaires, "Oh, you're crying? We'll give you something to cry about. You don't want a minimum wage? How about we not only have a minimum wage, we have a maximum wage?" (audience applause)
That is not a new idea. James Madison, who wrote our Constitution, said, "Government should prevent an immoderate accumulation of riches." Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, they all agreed that too much money in the hands of too few would destroy democracy.
What can you buy with $2 billion dollars that you can't buy with one? You couldn't spend that kind of cash if you lived forever and your money manager was MC Hammer. (audience laughter)
And you know, there are some billionaires today who get that.
And that's why they give most of their money away. (massive audience applause)
As Warren Buffett once said, "I should write a book on how to get by on $500 million, because apparently there's a lot of people who don't... know how to do it."
Originally posted to BruinKid on Sat Mar 01, 2014 at 08:00 AM EST.
Also republished by Electronic America: Progressives Film, music & Arts Group.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/01/1281312/-Bill-Maher-s-excellent-commentary-on-income-inequality?detail=email
14 October 2010
New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified 24SEP10
TELL IT LIKE IT IS BILL!!!!!
New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.
And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn't believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben -- so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn't know Broadway Danny Rose was still working.
Ben whines in his article about how he's worked for every dollar he has -- if by work you mean saying the word "Bueller" in a movie 25 years ago. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest, it's just that at a time when people in America are desperate and you're raking in the bucks promoting some sleazy Free Credit Score dot-com... maybe you shouldn't be asking us for sympathy. Instead, you should be down on your knees thanking God and/or Ronald Reagan that you were lucky enough to be born in a country where a useless schmuck who contributes absolutely nothing to society can somehow manage to find himself in the top marginal tax bracket.
And you're welcome to come on the show anytime.
Now I can hear you out there saying, "Come on Bill, don't be so hard on Ben Stein, he does a lot of voiceover work, and that's hard work." Ok, it's true, Ben is hardly the only rich person these days crying like a baby who's fallen off his bouncy seat. Last week Mayor Bloomberg of New York complained that all his wealthy friends are very upset with mean ol' President Poopy-Pants: He said they all say the same thing: "I knew I was going to have to pay more taxes. But I didn't expect to be vilified." Poor billionaires -- they just can't catch a break.
First off, far from being vilified, we bailed you out -- you mean we were supposed to give you all that money and kiss your ass, too? That's Hollywood you're thinking of. FDR, he knew how to vilify; this guy, not so much. And second, you should have been vilified -- because you're the vill-ains! I'm sure a lot of you are very nice people. And I'm sure a lot of you are jerks. In other words, you're people. But you are the villains. Who do you think outsourced all the jobs, destroyed the unions, and replaced workers with desperate immigrants and teenagers in China. Joe the Plumber?
And right now, while we run trillion dollar deficits, Republicans are holding America hostage to the cause of preserving the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 1% of people, many of them dead. They say that we need to keep taxes on the rich low because they're the job creators. They're not. They're much more likely to save money through mergers and outsourcing and cheap immigrant labor, and pass the unemployment along to you.
Americans think rich people must be brilliant; no -- just ruthless. Meg Whitman is running for Governor out here, and her claim to fame is, she started e-Bay. Yes, Meg tapped into the Zeitgeist, the zeitgeist being the desperate need of millions of Americans to scrape a few dollars together by selling the useless crap in their garage. What is e-Bay but a big cyber lawn sale that you can visit without putting your clothes on?
Another of my favorites, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, "I don't know where they're going to get all this money, because we're running out of rich people in this country." Actually, we have more billionaires here in the U.S. than all the other countries in the top ten combined, and their wealth grew 27% in the last year. Did yours? Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit. Here's the truth: When you raise taxes slightly on the wealthy, it obviously doesn't destroy the economy -- we know this, because we just did it -- remember the '90's? It wasn't that long ago. You were probably listening to grunge music, or dabbling in witchcraft. Clinton moved the top marginal rate from 36 to 39% -- and far from tanking, the economy did so well he had time to get his dick washed.
Even 39% isn't high by historical standards. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91%. Under Nixon, it was 70%. Obama just wants to kick it back to 39 -- just three more points for the very rich. Not back to 91, or 70. Three points. And they go insane. Steve Forbes said that Obama, quote "believes from his inner core that people... above a certain income have more than they should have and that many probably have gotten it from ill-gotten ways." Which they have. Steve Forbes, of course, came by his fortune honestly: he inherited it from his gay egg-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor fag-hagging father, who inherited it from his father. Of course then they moan about the inheritance tax, how the government took 55% percent when Daddy died -- which means you still got 45% for doing nothing more than starting out life as your father's pecker-snot.
We don't hate rich people, but have a little humility about how you got it and stop complaining. Maybe the worst whiner of all: Stephen Schwarzman, #69 on Forbes' list of richest Americans, compared Obama's tax hike to "when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Wow. If Obama were Hitler, Mr. Schwarzman, I think your tax rate would be the least of your worries.
Bill Maher is host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", Friday's at 10:00PM
New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.
And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn't believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben -- so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn't know Broadway Danny Rose was still working.
Ben whines in his article about how he's worked for every dollar he has -- if by work you mean saying the word "Bueller" in a movie 25 years ago. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest, it's just that at a time when people in America are desperate and you're raking in the bucks promoting some sleazy Free Credit Score dot-com... maybe you shouldn't be asking us for sympathy. Instead, you should be down on your knees thanking God and/or Ronald Reagan that you were lucky enough to be born in a country where a useless schmuck who contributes absolutely nothing to society can somehow manage to find himself in the top marginal tax bracket.
And you're welcome to come on the show anytime.
Now I can hear you out there saying, "Come on Bill, don't be so hard on Ben Stein, he does a lot of voiceover work, and that's hard work." Ok, it's true, Ben is hardly the only rich person these days crying like a baby who's fallen off his bouncy seat. Last week Mayor Bloomberg of New York complained that all his wealthy friends are very upset with mean ol' President Poopy-Pants: He said they all say the same thing: "I knew I was going to have to pay more taxes. But I didn't expect to be vilified." Poor billionaires -- they just can't catch a break.
First off, far from being vilified, we bailed you out -- you mean we were supposed to give you all that money and kiss your ass, too? That's Hollywood you're thinking of. FDR, he knew how to vilify; this guy, not so much. And second, you should have been vilified -- because you're the vill-ains! I'm sure a lot of you are very nice people. And I'm sure a lot of you are jerks. In other words, you're people. But you are the villains. Who do you think outsourced all the jobs, destroyed the unions, and replaced workers with desperate immigrants and teenagers in China. Joe the Plumber?
And right now, while we run trillion dollar deficits, Republicans are holding America hostage to the cause of preserving the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 1% of people, many of them dead. They say that we need to keep taxes on the rich low because they're the job creators. They're not. They're much more likely to save money through mergers and outsourcing and cheap immigrant labor, and pass the unemployment along to you.
Americans think rich people must be brilliant; no -- just ruthless. Meg Whitman is running for Governor out here, and her claim to fame is, she started e-Bay. Yes, Meg tapped into the Zeitgeist, the zeitgeist being the desperate need of millions of Americans to scrape a few dollars together by selling the useless crap in their garage. What is e-Bay but a big cyber lawn sale that you can visit without putting your clothes on?
Another of my favorites, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, "I don't know where they're going to get all this money, because we're running out of rich people in this country." Actually, we have more billionaires here in the U.S. than all the other countries in the top ten combined, and their wealth grew 27% in the last year. Did yours? Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit. Here's the truth: When you raise taxes slightly on the wealthy, it obviously doesn't destroy the economy -- we know this, because we just did it -- remember the '90's? It wasn't that long ago. You were probably listening to grunge music, or dabbling in witchcraft. Clinton moved the top marginal rate from 36 to 39% -- and far from tanking, the economy did so well he had time to get his dick washed.
Even 39% isn't high by historical standards. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91%. Under Nixon, it was 70%. Obama just wants to kick it back to 39 -- just three more points for the very rich. Not back to 91, or 70. Three points. And they go insane. Steve Forbes said that Obama, quote "believes from his inner core that people... above a certain income have more than they should have and that many probably have gotten it from ill-gotten ways." Which they have. Steve Forbes, of course, came by his fortune honestly: he inherited it from his gay egg-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor fag-hagging father, who inherited it from his father. Of course then they moan about the inheritance tax, how the government took 55% percent when Daddy died -- which means you still got 45% for doing nothing more than starting out life as your father's pecker-snot.
We don't hate rich people, but have a little humility about how you got it and stop complaining. Maybe the worst whiner of all: Stephen Schwarzman, #69 on Forbes' list of richest Americans, compared Obama's tax hike to "when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Wow. If Obama were Hitler, Mr. Schwarzman, I think your tax rate would be the least of your worries.
Bill Maher is host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", Friday's at 10:00PM
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