If the government can even efficiently accomplish a tenth of what he proposes... Nope, not gonna happen.

give us some of that internet money...

From the individual to the collective we go. He sounded like Marx at the end. I think I heard the word "fair" 15 times. He gave himself more power with a royal fiat...errr...executive order etc etc

For anyone that wants to get a better sense of the manufacturing sector in this country (as I was relatively ill-informed as well): http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america...
It's a much more nuanced problem than simply "taking away tax subsidies to outsourcers and giving them to insourcers" (paraphrasing, of course).

Generally, his populism-mongering," let's demonize success," speech made me want to vomit. But I suppose it struck the appropriate tones and sentiments that will help him get elected.

I'm gonna try to see him this Friday... pretty excited to actually see a President in person

Okay, forgive me for being intellectually lazy and appealing to the same demagoguery I despise when coming from him (and virtually all politicians). Much of his recent rhetoric has been pretty openly hostile towards the "rich," accusing them of not paying their fair share, etc. Sure, I think it may be intuitively unfair that carried interest in our tax system allows certain extremely high-income people to pay a much lower percentage of their income in taxes (though the fact that they are taxed at the corporate level should always be mentioned) but focusing rhetoric on those like Warren Buffett (who make up very few people in our population) while glossing over lots of people (those making somewhere between the upper middle class and those making millions) and emphasizing a need to "pay their fair share" as justification for actions that would affect both groups (letting Bush tax cuts expire) is necessarily antagonistic towards both groups.

"We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right."
He presents a false choice between people suffering because the greedy rich are unwilling to pay their fair share and an alleviation of economic hardships and deficits if the greedy rich pay up. While I think generally Americans admire financial success, economic hardships, in my opinion, understandably switch that admiration to sentiments of envy and unwarranted inequity. Obama seems to be appealing to that sentiment and does so by focusing attention on the rich and letting the others know he's on their side.

Also, I believe his effective tax rate was in the realm of 26%? Why hasn't he written a check to the US Treasury for another 4% to meet the 30% minimum threshold for those making over a million he suggested in this speech?

ANT I rarely agree with you, but you're 100% right on this.

To clarify: I'm not advocating anything when it comes to taxes, I just think it's absurd to say he's demonizing the rich by suggesting tax rates similar to what we had under Clinton.

I do, however, find the carried interest tax loophole for money managers (including people in my own industry) to be total bullshit. Cap Gains should only apply to money you yourself have invested, not on the 20% of the fund returns you get via investing other people's money. That's the kind of thing that one could classify as "unfair."

Eliminate the income tax, which the US didn't have until the early 1900s. Obviously government is currently too big to finance without an income tax, but, over time, the govt could be shrunk enough to completely eliminate the income tax. It would take a while to do that and even longer to get our debt under control, but after that, eliminate the tax. Now that is the fairest system of all - every individual keeps every penny they make. Govt could be financed by a 25% flat rate on all business, no loopholes.

Too bad that will never, ever happen.

"The only thing unfair about the tax system is the fact that people who benefit from the Federal government pay nothing into it and have a say on what others should pay. Nothing can be more unfair than the poor telling someone else to pay for more of their free shit. "

This

Why should we have to pay money because you lived beyond your means or because you are just accepting unemployment.

I'm getting a pretty awesome tax return this year. Not relevant but I'm pretty happy about it.

No kidding? You just now figured that out?

He didn't mention guns even once. I like guns. He didn't even talk against them.

The rest of the speech was alright, I liked that he's putting colleges / schools on notice about training people for actual jobs and charging too much...what he does about it remains to be seen.

You mean hes talking about possibly fixing shit (education) that he fucked up (with the federal government bulling every private lender out of the market with a bit of totally unrelated legslation in obamacare). Yes thats just a great talking point. "I fucked up people, instead of taking the blame and fixing it I am going to blame the instutions that because of what I did are able to increase rates at an even faster rate thene before."

I think it was fucked up long before he came around

And yeah, "possibly". People have been talking about fixing it for a long ass time, so I'm not holding my breath.

Ah, gotcha. I'm referring to the entire rotten system.

yeah, let's not

I think the president making something of himself and leading by example does more for that demographic than anything else.

I was having this discussion with a couple of the Partners in my shop today. While all of us are incredibly biased, I don't think the issue is as 100% black/white as you would describe. I will admit that there is a pretty compelling argument for changing the law. There are also reasonable arguments for why carried interest should be treated as capital gain.

That said, I kind of take offense to the classification of the law as a "loophole" or a "cheat code." The law isn't ambiguous or even secret. It is incredibly clear and well known -- carried interest is currently treated as capital gains under the existing laws. The President and Congress have known about it for many years. They are the ones who write the laws and the HF/PE guys are the ones who follow them. Instead of blaming HF/PE guys for the current laws, you should be complaining about the administration that permits them to exist. Don't begrudge HF/PE guys for paying exactly what the IRS says they owe.

I would completely agree with this except for the fact PE/HF managers have a tremendous amount of sway in terms of lobbying expenditures and political contributions, both of which are used frequently. The blame should be shared, at least a little bit. I think this really points to some more fundamental flaws in the US political process and the role money plays.

An arguement for carried interest. The carried interest that my business generated would have been eaten up by taxes however, I took that and started a business that now employs 12 people. That is the all the defense that is needed for it.

Can that same argument not be used for people who get W2's and pay 30%??????

Heister -

We are talking about Private Equity and Hedge Fund guys, not entrepreneurs. I don't understand the argument you are making here.

Counterpoints to heister:

--PE guys, for the most part, invest in companies with other people's money.

--I have zero issue with PE guys getting capital gains tax rates applied to money of their own that they invest in the fund. I do, however, have an issue with them getting the capital gains tax rate on the 20% of returns they earned using other people's money.

--If I'm an individual business owner of an s-corporation (for example), I take dividends out of my company's earnings and they are taxed at the appropriate personal income tax rate, not at the capital gains rate. I only see the capital gain tax rate if I sell part or all of my company.

--I absolutely do not believe that getting rid of the carried interest tax rule would drive people out of the industry. If anything, I'm of the mindset that there are already waaaay too many PE shops out there, so that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

--I don't think your arguments hold much water for PE, and basically don't apply at all to hedge funds.