Steve Jobs's widow attending tonight's US State of the Union address

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    Second, the estate tax dates back to the times of barons like the Rockefellers. The worry rightful so was hoarding such wealth in a particular family would be a threat to the american way of life. The more money you have, the easier it is to make more. Eventually in time, your family can acquire all the countries wealth. Essentially certain families could bypass government and control the american way of life, turning us all into slaves. Allowing a few families to acquire all the wealth is dangerous.



    OH GIVE ME A BREAK!



    The more money you have, the easier it is to make more? In a free market, which people like you are constantly trying to dismantle, it doesn't work that way. That's why the richest people in our country today came from families that weren't even on the map a generation or two ago!



    Steve Jobs, the founders of Google, Microsoft, Fed Ex, Genentech, Intel, WalMart, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, etc. etc. etc....they don't come from The Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Fords and Carnegies, do they?



    No, they don't. And when the Rockellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Fords came up in the world, they all came from incredibly modest families as well. None of them were scions of the old rich families that came before them.



    The idea of great families amassing all the wealth and controlling the country is ridiculous, and is completely DISPROVEN BY THE FACTS. In a free market, wealth is destroyed as easily as it's created because the market is always changing in unpredictable ways (until, of course, government regulation turns the churning waters of a free market into a static lake), and the people that amass a lot of wealth in one generation are rarely ever the top players in the next generation.



    Plus, the record shows that much of inherited money is invested in business, and whether those businesses succeed or fail, the investments generate a lot more legitimate economic activity for the country than the government taking the money and using it for god know's what. More free entitlements that depress human initiative, instead of encouraging it?



    It's so sad that our country can defend itself from any foreign powers on the face of the earth, but increasingly looks like it will succumb to the naive attempt to "spread the wealth around" without understanding or encouraging the traits that created the wealth in the first place. You can't encourage human initiative by taking money from the earners and handing it over to the non-earners.
  • Reply 42 of 66
    swiftswift Posts: 436member
    That late thing where Steve was so pitably emaciated?



    He said, as reported in the NYT, that he wouldn't put up a factory in the US because the Chinese capital base is huge, and the mobility and complexity of it there, and the number of very good engineers, makes it necessary for an American electronics company to use the big ol' Chinese fab. The low wages? More or less held down to a false level by lending us billions. Making sure we don't reinforce our educational and business infrastructure. We need plants, and and need manufacturing here, too.



    That's my guess.



    The function of the Estate Tax is, during a time when fortunes were rising very high, the Estate Tax was to ensure that we weren't getting a hereditary nobility. Bully!
  • Reply 43 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by k2director View Post


    OH GIVE ME A BREAK!



    Steve Jobs, the founders of Google, Microsoft, Fed Ex, Genentech, Intel, WalMart, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, etc. etc. etc....they don't come from The Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Fords and Carnegies, do they?



    No, they don't. And when the Rockellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Fords came up in the world, they all came from incredibly modest families as well. None of them were scions of the old rich families that came before them.



    And Microsoft founders are such a great example. Like M. Gates is not a big Boston Lawyer. Like Mrs Gates is not a big Bank of America decider (board member... but surely unimportant). Like the current Microsoft boss doesn't come from a rich family himself. Purely irrelevant.
  • Reply 44 of 66
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs told Obummer! And I agree with Steve Jobs.
  • Reply 45 of 66
    bugsnwbugsnw Posts: 717member
    Steve wasn't impressed by Obama and told him he was going to end up a 1-term president. I hope Steve is right and those words are in Obama's thoughts as he discusses the American dream tonight.



    Maybe he can explain how more burdensome regulations and higher taxes create an environment where entrepreneurs and small businesses feel emboldened to take risks to create something great or expand.
  • Reply 46 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs told Obummer! And I agree with Steve Jobs.



    I agree too, for the exactly opposite reasons. Amazing.



    Imho, Obama did not show the requisite strength of a great reformer. He should have let big banks fail (instead of using taxpayers money to save some rich asses), let fools lose their fool's money, set up (with the saved money) proper health insurance, invested in long and short term education programs targeted at industry jobs. He would even be popular again.
  • Reply 47 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bugsnw View Post


    Maybe he can explain how more burdensome regulations and higher taxes create an environment where entrepreneurs and small businesses feel emboldened to take risks to create something great or expand.



    Good question. I believe, properly thought regulations give more strength to companies that really bring imaginative work to the table. Lack of regulation only strengthen old dinosaurs. Bad regulation is bad for every actor.



    Pick your choice.
  • Reply 48 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bageljoey View Post


    The key words in your comment are "when you earned it." Estate taxes are not taxing the person who "earned" the money at all. Growing up in a well to do household gives one many advantages, at some point, people should have to earn some of their own money instead of ghoulishly living off the bones of their parents or grandparents...



    BTW, there is an exemption for spouses...



    But you can ghoulishly live off other people if you are a member of the US congress.



    It was already taxed when Steve earned it, double taxing it is friggin stupid. It should be Steve's decision who his money goes to in full when he is gone and the government can get their greedy hands out of it.
  • Reply 49 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ricochet View Post


    No tax if you give it to charity. What else would she do with it?



    It's assets, not just a wad of cash. That's the problem, you might inherit millions in "assets" and get taxed on that but then a chunk of those assets might be the very house you live in & car you drive.



    My aunt had this happen to her when her husband got cancer, problem is the taxes amounted to more than she could pay & none of those assets could be sold in time to cover that cost (not to mention for the price the government claimed they were worth). She lost everything right after loosing her husband to cancer.



    The death tax is immoral & people who support it are really brainless.
  • Reply 50 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post


    Good question. I believe, properly thought regulations give more strength to companies that really bring imaginative work to the table. Lack of regulation only strengthen old dinosaurs. Bad regulation is bad for every actor.



    Pick your choice.



    The problem with regulation is it also falsely props up business failures. We haven't had a truly unregulated system for decades, fact is now the government uses regulation to pick winners. The people should be the only ones with the power to regulate, you do it with the choices you make in what to buy & from where. It's not complicated, businesses serve the almighty dollar and in the end they'll keep behaving badly as long as their customers are complacent to it.
  • Reply 51 of 66
    roos24roos24 Posts: 170member
    I guess that she will now have to vote for Obama come November
  • Reply 52 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ktronix View Post


    You're correct, but estate taxes are all about redistribution of wealth. That's communism and patently un-American.







    Agreed; but the same goes for most welfare recipients living off the sweat of their neighbors (and the bones of the earner's parents and grandparents).



    If you had an honest concept of Estate Tax you'd know any half-wit assigns their estate to their children long before they die and thus have jack to tax.
  • Reply 53 of 66
    hudson1hudson1 Posts: 800member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    If you had an honest concept of Estate Tax you'd know any half-wit assigns their estate to their children long before they die and thus have jack to tax.



    You might want to explore that a little more. What you gift to children ultimately reduces your estate tax exemption.
  • Reply 54 of 66
    hudson1hudson1 Posts: 800member
    How can the president and his mouthpieces keep railing against the "one percent" and then invite them to the State of the Union address to offer up some platitude?
  • Reply 55 of 66
    bkerkaybkerkay Posts: 139member
    So Apple just released insane numbers.

    Last week they announced iBooks 2, iBook Author and iTunes U App.

    They already had 600,000 DLs of iBook Author.

    3 million DLs of iTunes U App.

    $97.6 Billion in cash.

    Laurene Powell Jobs is invited to be at the State of the Union address tonight.



    Obama will announce that every student in the US will get an iPad.... for free.



    You heard it here first.



    Why you ask?



    Laurene is a big supporter of education. She is and/or on: Emerson Collective, White House Council for Community Solutions, College Track, New America Foundation, Teach for America, NewSchools Venture Fund, Stand for Children, and Conservation International.



    She inherited a lot of money (Apple and Dsiney stock). She and her kids only need so much. She will take the money and give it away to improve the US education system.



    Thoughts?
  • Reply 56 of 66
    tundraboytundraboy Posts: 1,884member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bugsnw View Post


    Maybe he can explain how more burdensome regulations and higher taxes create an environment where entrepreneurs and small businesses feel emboldened to take risks to create something great or expand.



    Do you include the regulation of financial markets as part of these burdens? You know the lack of which allowed Wall Street to plunge the whole world into the great recession?
  • Reply 57 of 66
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    Your government makes me angry.



    Fine. It's our government. Not yours. I'll spare you my opinions about how your government manages its finances, or the fate of so many of your land's retired racing greyhounds.
  • Reply 58 of 66
    jd_in_sbjd_in_sb Posts: 1,600member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by k2director View Post


    The money was already taxed when it was earned. What's left belongs to the owner to do what they want, including leaving it to family or organizations when they die.



    If you don't think the direct heirs of a wealthy person have claim to their parents' or their relatives' or supporters' money, then how could you think the government has a claim? What did the government and "the people" do to earn the money? ABSOLUTElY NOTHING. But they want to take it and spend it on themselves and their pet projects (much of which are incredibly wasteful and do no general good), rather than letting the people who created the wealth decide where it goes.



    P.S. There's nothing "ghoulish" about living off of what your family left you. What's ghoulish is the government taking advantage of a person's passing to pad its pockets.



    I agree. Good post.
  • Reply 59 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hudson1 View Post


    How can the president and his mouthpieces keep railing against the "one percent" and then invite them to the State of the Union address to offer up some platitude?



    There's the baaad part of the 1% and then there's the goood part of the 1% that vote Democratic. Just like there are those baaaad corporations that use off-shore labor to compete and make obscene profits and then there's Apple, who of course MUST use off-shore labor so as to maintain goood record profits.



    Hypocrisy rules in all levels of government and in all parties. just one of many reasons why what the government does, and how much it takes from us, needs greater limitation.
  • Reply 60 of 66
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bkerkay View Post


    So Apple just released insane numbers.

    Last week they announced iBooks 2, iBook Author and iTunes U App.

    They already had 600,000 DLs of iBook Author.

    3 million DLs of iTunes U App.

    $97.6 Billion in cash.

    Laurene Powell Jobs is invited to be at the State of the Union address tonight.



    Obama will announce that every student in the US will get an iPad.... for free.



    You heard it here first.



    Why you ask?



    Laurene is a big supporter of education. She is and/or on: Emerson Collective, White House Council for Community Solutions, College Track, New America Foundation, Teach for America, NewSchools Venture Fund, Stand for Children, and Conservation International.



    She inherited a lot of money (Apple and Dsiney stock). She and her kids only need so much. She will take the money and give it away to improve the US education system.



    Thoughts?



    Come on now, it's only president Obama.

    He's not Oprah.
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