For me today’s action by the House of Representative is very scary.
Today the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a bill which would tax employees of companies receiving bank bailout funds at 90%, if they made $250K or more.
“We figured that the local and state governments would take care of the other 10 percent,” said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Now if you read this blog regularly you will see that we are no fan of government bailout money or AIG the company that has reaped $180 Billion so far.
So yes, I’m just as pissed off as you, that our tax money is going to pay bonus to people who helped the company lose all the hundreds of billions in the first place.
However, that not the point here.
My point is way more fundamental.
You now live in a country where you can wake up one day and the government have passed a special tax just on you.
As domainers we know we are generally not liked by the public. People resent that we have these domains and that we can make money, some of us a lot of money, on them by serving up ads.
We get hate mail.
You know the general public thinks as of all domainers as cybersquatters.
We know there are groups out there labeling all domainers as cybersquatters.
So what if Congress woke up one day and passed a cybersquatter tax, with a 90% tax rate?
Think its impossible?
Not in today’s America.
Not after today.
Guess it’s good to take cash off the table and maintain diversified assets while we are fairly safe.
Elliot
The other problem with this, is how quickly it came from nowhere to being voted on.
It looks like this all happened in just days.
Go offshore
DUH
D
As US citizen cannot, like a Canadian, just “go offshore” and avoid the whole problem
Everyone is mad about giving bonuses to the executives that helped bring down AIG at the expense of taxpayers
I am mad about helping the irresponsible homeowners that helped bring down our economy.
In times of fear everyone relies on the government and that truly scares me. You just have to hope you are not in their cross hairs because few people will question their decisions.
They way it’s looking right now, I might simply leave the country and head to the Cayman Islands. As much as I love this country, our current office is taking a massive dump on all legitimate business practices and making alot of corrupt people very very rich.
There is nothing strange or new about the legislation. That power is there in the books specifically for unusuall situations like this. Mind you this is being passed by both parties. I believe the AIG people should be taxed 100% of the bonus plus an additional 10% of there income. Because in my books they should all be out of a job like the rest of the masses they help ruin. Mind you not everyone who is out of a job because of the economy took a housing loan.
Greed is not capitalizim
Sky
If there is nothing strange or new about this legislation tell me 2 instances in the history of the US where congress has instituted a separate income tax rate on a employees of a particular industry.
You have absolutely nothing to worry about, this is an extraordinary response by a Government to the systematic financial rape of the American people.
Obama had to take serious action when the whole country was given the two fingers by AIG, he has shown real courage and leadership in doing what he has.
Wall Street has turned into a shithole where the ordinary investor is being screwed from all angles to relieve them of their hard earned funds. Time for change. This day is a victory for the US.
If the U.S. Congress creates a special law to tax these bonuses, what happens if the people receiving the money are not located in the U.S. nor U.S. citizens?
I had heard once before that some of the people receiving the money were outside of the U.S.
And, last night one of the commentors (Keith Olbermann) from cnbc mentioned on The Tonight Show that the division receiving the bonus is located in London.
http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes/#vid=1066662
Excuse the 10 second commercial at the beginning.
Olbermann begins at the timestamp 30:29 .
And, he mentions the points around 33:25 .
If the the U.S. gov’t does not have any taxing opportunity of these people, isn’t it just another example of Congress misleading U.S. citizens.
“If” I worked for a subsidary company of a french firm, does the french gov’t have a right to tax me 90% of my income I earned in the U.S.?
This scares the sh*t out of me. What’s to stop them from creating a “fox news tax” or a “New York times” tax to go after the guys they don’t like. Doesn’t seem as far fetched as it did a week ago.
These idiots in congress have a lot of guts lecturing someone else about fiscal responsibility – especially charlie rangel and chris dodd.
The problem isn’t this measly $165 million (hell, merrill lynch gave out 2.3 BILLION) – it is the culture that makes people think that they deserve a big fat guarantee to go work for another company – no matter how that company does.
It’s a mess, but I hate that the president is suddenly shocked by this (they’ve known for a while) and is lecturing the poor CEO – a guy picked pick by his own team and who is earning $1 a year to run the place.
I say go after the bonuses. Where I come from you bonus on performance. A lot of corporate America has been living in La La land and there is a terrible disconnect between reality and what these people can get away with. The system has been corrupted for a while and drastic times need drastic measures.
@JS
Don’t buy into the urban legend (and Santelli’s logic) that it was simply irresponsible homeowners that helped bring down our economy. If those banks and lenders had been doing their homework most of those people wouldn’t have received their loans in the first place.
Why is AIG’s stupidity at creating horrible insurance products any different than their stupidity at giving contractual bonuses?
why not tax the recipients of the AIG payments too – how is that any different.
the whole thing sucks, but you can’t just make up laws like this.
They have known about these payments for quite a while, but once the public smells blood they run out and pass a new law.
UPDATE
This bill passed the House today by a vote of 328-93.
AIG is America is Greedy!!
David
No one interest, company or industry is responsible for this mess, however all share responsibility, including individuals who milked the system for what they could get.
I know 5 people personally that took all the money they could out of their homes on “equity loans” and proceeded to pissed the money away; 2 had plastic surgery, 2 went on vacation and the 5th put it into a start up restaurant which already went out of business.
Now they are all upside down in their house and want the government to forgive the amount over the present value, which means as a taxpayer I paid for their vacations, plastic surgery and the guy’s restaurant.
Nice.
The US Government has their hands in everything, but guess what; people voted for socialism. People were dumb enough to vote and support government spending. People should vote for LESS GOVERNMENT. That is capitalism and democracy. We live in a socialist republic, and it makes me sick.
Mike:
There is NO bailout – proposed or otherwise – that will cover what your friends did. If any of them say otherwise they’ve been reading Drudge Report too long.
David
Let’s agree that people that abused the system share in the blame of what had taken place.
But back to the topic at hand, if Congress can select one group of people to attack they might attack you next.
@ David J Castello
“Irresponsible homeowners that helped bring down our economy. If those banks and lenders had been doing their homework most of those people wouldn’t have received their loans in the first place.”
I absolute agree and I have comented about this in a different post here on “THE DOMAINS” Americans are credit monsters.
But the responsability is at the WHITE HOUSE and all BANKS and CREDIT INSTITUTES !!!
They all knew this financial disaster was going to happen. It was as clear as daylight.
There is only one way to run a household, a company, a state or a country and for sure its not by “RUNNING UP DEPTH” !!!
it was the perfect storm of greedy banks, greedy consumers and greedy mortgage brokers.
Just like I don’t feel bad for a bank that makes a stupid loan, I don’t feel bad for the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of idiots who signed onto a mortgage they can’t afford. Especially the ones who lied about their income.
@David, with the skill the government has shown at running everything else – I’m pretty confident plenty of the types of people MHB describes will be getting plenty of help.
And to top it all off I’m glad we have Charlie Rangel (tax cheat) , Chris Dodd (shady all around), Tim Geithner (tax cheat) and the rest of congress (crooks them all) lecturing us on this whole mess.
I absolutely understand your point and agree to a certain level however there is one important distinction between the AIG situation and the theoretical domain parking page situation that you posed.
The most important distinction is that the US Govt owns close to 80% of AIG while it of course does not own any of your domaining business, or my domaining business, or anyone else’s domaining business (that I know of).
I agree. The big problem with the U.S., as I see it, is that the Declaration of Independence was never codified in the Constitution. So we don’t really have a legal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (as long as we don’t infringe on the equal rights of others, of course). Instead the country is run, not by the military-industrial complex but by the media-activist-moralist-politician complex, fueled by special-interest bribery, and rights which should be guaranteed are trampled on right and left.