US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1304

On September 21 2014 11:51 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

No one serious is making that argument. Most of his wealth came from an ownership stake in a company he helped found, not compensation for work rendered. For him to have not gotten so rich he'd have to have sold a stake in his company really, really cheap and probably would have regretted it later when he saw how rich the investors had gotten.

A woman who recently relocated from California says the Texas Department of Public Safety refused to issue her an accurate driver’s license because her last name was changed through a same-sex marriage.

After Connie Wilson married her partner of nine years in California last year, she took her wife’s last name, Wilson, which now appears on both her California driver’s license and her Social Security card, in addition to all of the couple’s financial and medical records.

This summer, the couple relocated to the Houston area with their three children for work. With her California driver’s license nearing expiration, Wilson took her documents to a DPS office in Katy last week to obtain a Texas driver’s license. When a DPS employee noticed that Wilson’s name didn’t match her birth certificate, she produced the couple’s California marriage license identifying her spouse as Aimee Wilson.

“Her only words to me were, ‘Is this same-[sex]?'” Connie Wilson recalled. “I remember hesitating for probably 10 seconds. I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t want to lie, but I knew I was in trouble because I wasn’t going to be able to get a license.”

Wilson eventually responded that although California doesn’t differentiate, she happened to be married to a woman.
“She immediately told me, ‘You can’t use this to get your license. This doesn’t validate your last name. Do you have anything else?’” Wilson said. “She told me I would never get a license with my current name, that the name doesn’t belong to me.”

Texas has both a state statute and a constitutional amendment prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriages from other states. However, Wilson contends she isn’t asking DPS to recognize her marriage, but rather trying to obtain an accurate driver’s license reflecting her legal name according to the state of California and the U.S. government.

“I’ve been deprived the freedom to drive a vehicle once my current California driver’s license expires,” Wilson said. “I’m further being deprived the freedom to use air travel, make purchases that require a valid photo identification, seek medical attention for myself or my children, as well as other situations that would require proving who I am legally as an individual.”

Wilson said the DPS employee, who turned out to be a supervisor, suggested that she should apply for a driver’s license using her maiden name. However, Wilson said she lacks the necessary documentation to do so.

Fewer than 50 days before an election that may give Republicans control of the Senate as well as the House, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Saturday skipped past those contests entirely to focus on one in which he may play a more central role — the 2016 presidential race.

Paul, the featured speaker at the California Republican convention, made no mention of the party’s national advantages this year. He blasted President Obama and potential Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton as insufficient present or future commanders-in-chief. He insisted that the GOP must dramatically expand its reach in order to win presidential contests — a strategy that coincides with his pre-presidential efforts.

He accused Obama of confounding the Constitution when he expanded Obamacare, moved against overseas targets without specific congressional authorization, and announced plans — since delayed — to use executive action to change the nation’s immigration laws.

“It is a terrible tragedy, it is a danger to us as a country, and we need to do everything we can to stop him from abusing our laws,” Paul said. He said later, "We have a president who basically has created a lawless atmosphere in Washington.”

Speaking about Clinton, he used her famous 2008 primary ad, which argued that she more than Obama would be the president capable of answering a phone call about a middle-of-the-night crisis:

“I think she had a 3 a.m. moment. She didn’t answer the phone, and I think it absolutely should preclude her from being [president],” he said after detailing what he termed her failings leading up to the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

On September 21 2014 12:24 IgnE wrote:
Yes. The United States in the 50s and 60s had extradordinarily high income tax rates and also had the highest growth rate seen this century.

On September 21 2014 12:24 IgnE wrote:
Yes. The United States in the 50s and 60s had extradordinarily high income tax rates and also had the highest growth rate seen this century.

On September 21 2014 12:25 IgnE wrote:


And why does he deserve more money for simply having an ownership stake? I don't see how your argument addresses the compensation argument at all.

On September 21 2014 13:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

First, it isn't compensation. He didn't get paid $100B in compensation over a number of years. He owned something that grew in value - there's a distinction there.

Second, it either goes to Bill Gates or the investors. So, why do you think the investors deserve more and Bill Gates less?

Third, if you had forced more to go to the investors it could very well have been that Gates would have balked at the deal. When this happens in other countries, like India, they often either balk at the deal or come to the US.

Keep in mind how all of this is structured. Gates was never offered $100B to do a task. He was offered investment money to grow the business in exchange for an ownership stake. For him to have gotten less, he would have had to give up a greater portion of his ownership stake than he otherwise did.

WASHINGTON –- The Obama administration plans to emphasize strongly its climate change efforts at next week's United Nations climate summit in New York, officials said this week.

"We are taking this summit seriously both to show the world that the U.S. is leading on climate change, and to call on other leaders to step up to the plate," John Podesta, who serves as a counselor to President Barack Obama, said Thursday in a call with reporters. "Expect to hear about tremendous progress that the U.S. has made under the Climate Action Plan," he said, referring to the steps Obama laid out last year to cut domestic emissions.

Obama will address the U.N.'s General Assembly session on climate change on Tuesday. Podesta said the president will announce additional actions the administration is taking on climate change and "use the speech to call on other leaders to keep their ambitions high."

Podesta said Obama will not unveil a target for cutting post-2020 emissions at next week's meeting. Within the current negotiations through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, countries have been asked to submit targets by the first quarter of 2015, in preparation for negotiations in Paris at the end of that year.

The U.N. climate day is expected to draw 120 heads of state. China and India's heads of state will not be there, however; the countries are sending their vice premier and environment minister, respectively. Podesta said he thinks the U.S. will be able to "fully engage with China and India's leadership" despite this.

On September 21 2014 13:24 IgnE wrote:

First, he's accumulated $100B based on what amounts to some "intellectual property." Just because you say it isn't compensation doesn't make it so.

Second, that's false. It could have been sold more cheaply. The workers at Microsoft could have been compensated more. Etc. Don't be stupid.

Third, irrelevant.

Gates created and maintained an effective legal monopoly on computer software for years. Everything he did would have eventually gotten done, as the success of Linux, Apache, and multitudes of other free software shows.

On September 21 2014 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

First, the distinction matters. You're trying to tie Gates' wealth to the idea that his compensation was required to motivate him as an employee to work and then claim that his high compensation wasn't necessary. You're setting up a straw man to take down yourself. But the reality is that Gates wasn't offered $100B to work, and so your claim that "Bill Gates probably would have been very happy with a few million" is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he would have been happy with less or not, that's not a situation that ever existed!

Second, no, it's true. While they could have charged a bit less for the product and paid the employees a bit more, you can't go hog wild here without the new owners complaining that they want to be compensated too.

Third, no, it's highly relevant. Your initial argument was that $100B was more than enough to motivate Gates. This is the part where I'm arguing against that point directly. As I addressed earlier, he was never offered $100B to work. He was offered ? to work and we only know ex post how much that was. So structurally, he would have had to give a better deal to the new investors which, ex ante, may have seen crazy and caused him to either balk or scale back his ambitions for the company.

On September 21 2014 08:48 coverpunch wrote:
Wait, but you understand this is a supply and demand problem, right? There are lots of people who can dig in the ground and mine resources. There are not many people who can come up with an idea for a touchscreen smartphone, or at least there weren't in 2007. Similarly, there are people who are willing to dig holes and mine for very low wages, and there are very few people who are willing to generate revolutionary new ideas that lead to world-beating sales for very little money.

On September 21 2014 14:14 IgnE wrote:


We are talking about whether the wealth Gates acquired was a requirement for his alleged contributions.



This is simply false. There are many people who can come up with an idea for a touchscreen smartphone. There are also many people who are willing to generate revolutionary new ideas that lead to world-beating sales for very little money. Ever heard of Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds?

Your second and third points are talking about ownership structures that were not a prerequisite for the successful creation and dissemination of software that he made. I can go hog wild. It's you who are the one adding in arbitrary conditions for investment and ownership. The entire point is that 1) Gates's contribution would have been made regardless of the $100B he eventually made and 2) therefore he didn't need to make the $100B, that could have been distributed more evenly among the population and/or software engineers.

On September 21 2014 12:24 IgnE wrote:
Yes. The United States in the 50s and 60s had extradordinarily high income tax rates and also had the highest growth rate seen this century.

On September 21 2014 14:25 coverpunch wrote:

But you should note that tax rates were kept high to pay for the military-industrial complex and support the wars in Korea and Vietnam, not in the interest of fairness and equality. Traditionally the American government only raised taxes to pay for war expenses.

This stuff is very "be careful what you wish for". High taxes on the wealthy comes with the cost of giving much more power and leverage to the wealthy, particularly if it is for redistributive purposes. If we're complaining about Bill Gates, we should be talking about the way he paid $200 million and rammed Common Core through the system, making faster and more significant change to the education system than anything in our lifetimes. Forcing him to pay high tax rates gives him the influence to make such changes and pushes America in the direction of an elitist, aristocratic society.

EDIT: I would also note that neither Bill Gates' kids, nor President Obama's kids, goes to a school where they teach Common Core, so the elites aren't eating their own dog food.

On September 21 2014 14:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I'm not adding "arbitrary" conditions. I'm working with how things really do work, rather than your own fantasy.

Your point 1) is not only incorrect, but it's incorrectly stated. Tell me the ex ante value of Bill Gates' shares before he made his contribution and the minimum ex ante value required for him to make his contribution or go home. Until you do that you can't even discuss point 2.

On September 21 2014 14:25 coverpunch wrote:

. Forcing him to pay high tax rates gives him the influence to make such changes and pushes America in the direction of an elitist, aristocratic society.

On September 21 2014 14:43 IgnE wrote:


What are you talking about? High taxes give more power to the wealthy than letting Bill Gates spend $200M on common core of money that wasn't taken by taxes? What?