Minumum wage increase crashes stock market

Gee, I guess those high oil prices and the issues with the housing market and mortgage mess had no effect.

Besides, while a lot of the funds in the stock market belong to retirees and those who aren't rich saving for retirement.

And, I am a democrat, but believe it or not, I do own stocks and mutual funds, including ExxonMobil which is up 40% since i bought it (and down

Jeff

Hah, your 401k suffered today. However, the stock market is still at record levels thanks to GWB and Republican tax cuts.

Mine didn't go down a bit today. However, it doesn't matter. Until I start withdrawing, the value of my 401k is not that important.

Jeff

I try not to attend to my funds very much. If I make 10 percent a year I'm happy, if I make more I'm more happy.

The tax cuts for the rich has zero to do with the stock market, you brain washed twit. Unless of course you can cite a qualified economist that can explain how.

I disagree. Stocks are now more valuable to investors, because investors take home more when then hold on to an equity for more than a year or get dividends. I believe that this has increased the value of stocks. However, it has not increased the value of stocks to everyone, like people holding funds in their Roth 401k accounts.

Jeff

The tax cuts helped me and I'm not rich.

BTW what is your definition of rich?

This is true, but it still doesn't have much, if any, effect on stock prices. To quote the article:

The tax cuts had little effect on stock prices because such a significant fraction of U.S. corporate stock is held in tax-preferred accounts or by non-profits and pension plans. Dividends paid on such stock were already exempt from personal income taxes and thus could not benefit from the 2003 dividend tax cut.

Besides, in the end it's all about earnings.

No, in the end, it is about how much money people take in, which is more when the taxes are less.

Note, I didn't say that it increased the value of stocks a lot.

jeff

Like they say, watch what you wish for. Who do you think will pay management for those higher wages? The consumer of course, in tax credits to the company that pays the higher wage and in the prices you will pay for the services and products. The unskilled, who will not find as many first time jobs available, will pay a price as well.

Higher minimum wages are GOOD for the stock market. The higher the wages the more automated equipment that will be sold. McDonalds has an automated store that they are already installing in high minimum wage states like NJ. I was in one a few months ago, only a few people in the back and only one at the cash register. It is sort of like the old NYC Automats, except there is a machine in the back making the food, not people, and you pay at the end. No more kids at the register pressing a picture of the item you want and hollering to another kids in the back. You merely press a picture of the item you want and out comes the food or drink

Remember the Farm Workers Union when all of the Hollywood types were fighting for the down trodden immigrant lettuce pickers in southern California? They got the union and now the workers in those field are making big bucks. The hundreds of them that formerly pick the stuff are all gone however, replaced by a machine that picks the lettuce, cuts of the extra leaves, wraps it in plastic film and attaches a bar code, puts it on boxes on a truck that tales to the shippers. The price of lettuce tripled to buy the machines and to pay the relatively few trained American technicians that operate and repair the picking machines LOL

mike

I'm talking about the price of the stock. Of course if people pay less taxes on their dividends they will make more money.

Actually it doesn't increase stock prices at all, or at least not that anybody has been able to quantify.

These tax cuts were a gift to the rich that put Bush in office. The bulk of the tax cuts will go to the less than 1% that make more than 1 million a year. They have no effect on the economy, and only have helped increase the deficit and drain Social Security. These are quantifiable facts.

Not so, That is what the left keeps saying but it is not verified by facts. You can't talk about taxes in dollars without talking about taxes in percentages since we have a graduated tax code. SS taxes are unaffected by the tax code. SS funds come form FICA

The "rich" saved more money but that is because they pay a lot more money and their taxes are paid at a much higher tax RATE as well. The top tax rate payers actually received the lowest tax cut, as a percentage of their taxes paid, than any other class of tax payers. Many at the lower level were completely remove from the tax rolls, a 100% cut in taxes. Taxes when it comes do to it are ALL based on percentages, the Government would have it not other way. If they did they would enact a flat tax LOL

The Dims call anybody that earns 250K a year, rich.

mike

But they are plundered by deficit spending, one result of the tax cuts. We borrow from Social security to pay of the national debt.

Maybe Warren can explain it to you: " Buffett posed a hypothetical situation in which Berkshire Hathaway, which does not currently pay a dividend, paid $1 billion in dividends next year.

Through his 31 percent ownership of the company, Buffett said he would receive an additional $310 million in income that would reduce his tax rate from about 30 percent to 3 percent, while his office secretary would still have a tax rate of about 30 percent.

"The 3 percent overall federal tax rate I would pay -- if a Berkshire dividend were to be tax free -- seems a bit light," Buffett wrote. "

Since you have poor reading comprehension, I'll repeat that I was talking about those that making over 1 million a year, and yes I would call that rich.

As usual you spout crap with no proof and fail to even read or comprehend what you're replying to.

In message news: snipped-for-privacy@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com, ToMh sprach forth the following:

You cannot "gift" something that does not belong to you.

Letting someone keep what is already theirs is NOT a gift.

You are not referring to "the rich" but to those whose work has earned them above-average income. You know, like Oprah $246 million Winfrey.

You obviously do not know the subject on which you have chosen to comment and you are relying on the opinions of others. You are entitled to your opinion but you are making the mistake of mixing tax rates with percentage of income taxes paid. In the first place very few corporate dividends are tax free, so it is hard to say what Buffett was referring. Generally mostly government entities offer tax free dividends or bonds. Buffett or anybody else for that mater can pay more taxes if they chose, by not taking the deductions to which they are entitled.

Everybody, regardless of their graduated income tax rate, pay a smaller percentage of income because of their particular tax deductions. I. E. two people working at the same job with the exact same income, that is taxed at the same RATE will pay a different percentage if one is single and the other is married with children. Those that have over a certain amount of income, regardless of their allowable deduction, will be taxed at a higher percentage than others if they fall into the AMT trap. Unfortunately many farmers and families, with more than one income earner, are falling into that trap today

SS funds, by law are held in US Bonds which the government must pay back some day, with interest, and are thus PART of the national debt.

The budget is a separate item. Currently the tax cuts for all American, passed under President Bush, are NOT adding to the nation debt as the Dims would have us believe. Only expenditures can add to ANY debt. The tax rate cuts, that retuned money back into the economy, are the reason for the phenomenal growth in the economy that is paying so much money into the treasury, at such a high rate, that money is accumulating FASTER than expenditures. This has been true for the past two previous quarters as well, thus helping to bring the budget back into balance much sooner than expected. This in the first time in history that income to the treasury has exceeded expenditures for three quarters, in time of war, in our history. Get real

mike

Yup, that's what I said. And why are they part of the national debt when it is supposed to be self funded? Come on think real hard.

That's right, and they are spending more and getting less because of the tax cuts, thus adding to the national debt. It's not that complicated.

Except that this is not the case as I have pointed out. If you would care to point to quantifiable data from respected economists to prove this, go right ahead, until then your are just parroting the Rush Bimbo party line with nothing to back you up.

Get real. The SS "Trust Funds" are not currently in arrears, dummy, the problem is down the road when the boomers retire and the bonds and interest come due. Research FICA, WBMA

To prove to yourself that the government is taking in more than it is currently spending, search Congressional Record for reports from the US Treasury Department to the Senate and House Budget Committees.

mike

Never said that dumbass. It currently is taking in more money than paying out, but the extra money is being borrowed. All of the money in the Social Security Trust Fund has been spent! That's part of the National Debt. So Social Security is just a very large tax collection tool.

Yup.

What an idiot you are. We are currently expected to have a deficit of between 170-260 billion this year, depending on who's figures you are looking at. While an improvement, still a deficit. No moron other than yourself think we have a surplus.

Are you that slow? The treasury is taking in more than it is currently spending as a result of the growth in the economy over the past few years, as the result of reducing the tax rates. Whether you believe that or not is immaterial, its a fact. How can that increased income, in taxes collected. be considered as borrowed? You continue to confuse the nation debt with the budget deficit You are a waist of time LOL

mike