New at Reason

June 25, 2007

Katherine Mangu-Ward asks whether Congress knows enough to tell Americans how to invest.

Comments

|6.25.07 @ 12:49PM|#

Katherine Mangu-Ward asks whether Congress knows enough[.]

Not even close.

Gilbert Martin|6.25.07 @ 1:13PM|#

If Congress is so "concerned" about people's money being put at risk, perhaps they should concentrate on the trillions of fictional assets that constitute the social security trust fund and investigate themselves for their complicity in a system that has ensured that taxpayers "investments" in the social security system will result in them receiving a negative return on investment.

Edward|6.25.07 @ 1:14PM|#

Who on earth does know how to tell others how to invest?

BTS|6.25.07 @ 1:32PM|#

Yesss, President Camacho and Secretary of the interior Not Sure!

BTS|6.25.07 @ 1:32PM|#

*Interior

|6.25.07 @ 1:41PM|#

I think I learned about some sort of correction for bad investment decisions. Whassit called? "Share Price" or something like that?

|6.25.07 @ 1:50PM|#

Excuse me, but why is asking people to pay income tax on income "slimy"? And where in any of the proposed legislation does it say that only Stephen "Cruisin' for a bruisin' Schwarzman have to pay income tax? On the contrary, the Baucus-Grassley bill would simply disallow the special deal that operators of private equity funds currently receive--the taxation of their fees as capital gains instead of income.

As for the rest, yes, it is hot air from the left. Blackstone is not evil, and poor helpless investors don't need to be protected against private equity funds. In fact, I'm even down with Stevo inviting Patti LaBelle to his birthday party. It's his money. (And I love the two Harlem choirs! Ass-covering paternalism at its best! But he forgot to give Jesse Jackson his annual $1 million consulting fee! You have to stay on top these things!)

|6.25.07 @ 1:55PM|#

"On the contrary, the Baucus-Grassley bill would simply disallow the special deal that operators of private equity funds currently receive--the taxation of their fees as capital gains instead of income."

Agreed. This provision for this reason is nothing to get excited about.

|6.25.07 @ 2:11PM|#

Why should the GPs of private equity firms be allowed to funnel their incomes through their companies? Why should ANY LP, LLP or LLC be allowed to do so when the common man and women has no "system" to take home more of their own money? I say, the American market is anything but free and fair and is geared toward the wealthy know know the ins and outs and have the $$ to hire expensive tax attorneys to allow them to take home more $$. I say a flat (or no) income tax and then just a national sales tax for revenue creation. Let those with the $$ pay their fair share since they consume far more than anyone else and more consumption leads to more waste, more industrial cleanups and more pollution. Hell, the wealthy and those who profit from business (the shareholders and executives) should be the ones paying for the clean-up and effects of their profit-generating vehicle.

|6.25.07 @ 3:20PM|#

"Why should ANY LP, LLP or LLC be allowed to do so when the common man and women has no "system" to take home more of their own money?"

Eh, this is a tad more complicated than what you are letting on. The line around whose income is whose isn't a bright one. A lot of small companies wouldn't be able to get off the ground if you took this very far.

Gilbert Martin|6.25.07 @ 3:33PM|#

Here we go with the liberal whine about what is "fair" again regarding taxes.

What is fair is that each person pay for the value of his pro-rata share of the cost of those particular government services that have provided him personally with a demostrable benefit (i.e. pay on a user fee basis).

Income has nothing to do with it. One's income level is not a gift from or service provided by government.

ed|6.25.07 @ 3:36PM|#

I avoid all this by being lazy and poor.

anonymous|6.26.07 @ 12:03PM|#

interesting article

|6.26.07 @ 9:55PM|#

Has anyone else out there read "Atlas Shrugged?" This is exactly the kind of thing Rand wrote about. Who is John Galt?

Ventifact|6.27.07 @ 4:05PM|#

Nonetheless, paying less than half the normal taxes on income because of the legal channels through which it arrives does not go over well with a lot of people, myself included.

|7.1.07 @ 12:16PM|#

You think it is the politicians. Ha, George Soros et al do not want this new member of their club. Or, maybe, the elites just want their cut of the loot. How many lobbyists need to be hired and how many lawyers from Harvard, Princeton or Yale will it take to bribe the powers that be to leave him alone?