Steely Dan

How has that gain been taxed? His yearly operational profits were taxed but not the gain on his investment. That's not taxed until it's sold. I've sold stocks and bought stocks and I only pay taxes on the gains when I sell. This is a very similar thing. So explain to me the double taxing of the teams value, please.

Those of you who picked Stephen Virgil as one of cuts that's riiiigggghhhhttt! Link To make room for Calloway on Buffalo’s roster the Bills released cornerback Stephan Virgil. The rookie from Virginia Tech was an undrafted free agent signing of the club last month.

How old were you and how old was she at the time? Sorry, I should have been more clear. The maybe section includes the times I have the beer goggles on.

I didn't, but I'm not a millionaire. If I won the lottery I wouldn't take any tax deductions because I think the current rate for the uber wealthy is about right where it should be, without deductions. You are trying to twist my words to make it look like I support the government taking ALL of somebodies estate. I don't. You might as well just cut the checks directly to the poor souls rather than go on a political initiative to have the government bill you for it. It seems your distaste for government doesn't include them raising your taxes in order to give the top 2% a significant tax break. Assuming you're one of the 98%. So how much are you sending to the kids of the uber rich who've suffered the loss of money due to the estate tax? How many times do we need to go through this? The majority of this stuff has NEVER been taxed!!! Do you think RW's family shouldn't pay anything on the almost billion dollar profit he's made on the Bills? Taxes he would have owed if he sold the Bills the day before his death? If, God forbid, your friend died before selling the business do you believe his family should pay tax on the sale? Taxes that had he not died he'd be paying mostly anyway? The double tax BS is a propaganda tool to make it sound like double taxing when that's far from the truth. If you choose to buy that lie that's up to you but don't make me pay higher taxes to make up the difference of lost revenue, Shilly. Keep buying that old company line no matter how much it's a lie. I admire people who work hard and make it. There is no denying though that had he born to Donald Trump his life would have been so much easier. So spare us the pity the rich crap and screw the poor as if not being born wealthy is a good thing. No, we both don't know that. In fact Bill Gates and WB's kids don't seem to be and I wouldn't either. If I was some kind of self entitled lazy ass Paris Hilton wannabe I would cry about it. According to someone in this thread BG's kids will get $10 million when he dies instead of the billions they would have gotten, even after the estate taxes. Somehow BG realizes that $10 million is a $#!+load of money and more than enough to set them up for life. I can't even remember Paris Hilton bitching about the estate taxes. I guess she's less whiny than you are. You want a few people in the country to control the wealth and therefore become rulers of the country. I don't. Your buddy was able to make it because we live in a land where the wealth isn't concentrated and upward mobility is possible. We live in a meritocracy and not an aristocracy and that is as it should be. If money is so much more important to you than country leave. I'd be more than happy to pay more if it guaranteed that the whiny uber rich apologists like you left and were never heard from again. We don't need self centered money hungry people anyway, we need people committed to building a stronger country not somebody crying about only receiving a half a billion dollars for free instead of a full billion. You should start a charity to help them pay off these unfair taxes. I'll help you by writing your first TV ad for you. Look at the bottom of this post for it. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound by your reverse Robin Hood logic? You make it sound like it sucks to be very rich. Are you one of the guys who would have to pony up significant money that you never earned if the estate tax returns? Because that's how you come off. How do you make your money and how much of what you have did you earn? Before accusing me of ignoring questions maybe you should read my posts first. Lookie below. Then lookie at the time it was posted. Go back to make sure I didn't fudge anything about the times. Come back and read again. Do you see that I DID respond to your question so stop accusing me of ignoring questions and read things. So here's a question for you to not ignore. How much money are you sending to the people who've suffered at the hands of an evil estate taxing government? Alphadawg7 seems to believe that being born wealthy is a curse that holds people back or something like that. Sorry, I could have been more precise; The Unintended consequences of the BP Oil Disaster The first commercial for the "Hood Robin Foundation"; (Camera zooms in on a man emerging from a Mercedes with expensive tennis clothes on and a racket in hand) Voiceover: This is Bobby Richass. (The man opens the trunk and removes some golf clubs and luggage.) What you are witnessing is the sale of Bobby's third car. One of his most prized possessions, his 1954 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing Coupe. This is one of the gifts he received for his graduation from high school. Why is he selling such a prized possession, one with so many happy memories? He has to because his dad died. You see Bobby's dad ended up being worth 3 Billion dollars after his death and the government ran in and took $1.5 billion. (Overlay of colorized footage of Nazis storming business' during kristallnacht) Unfortunately Bobby's father never set up shell game tax dodges so now Bobby is suffering because his bank account is tapped out. Sure he has almost a billion dollars worth of investments but now would be a very bad time to sell them. In addition to losing the 1.5 billion stolen by the (More footage of kristallnacht) government he would lose at least another 5 million off his initial investment if he sold any the investments he wouldn't mind parting with now. So in order to have cash on hand he has to sell this car, the car he loves so much. The car is worth $800,000 but Bobby is so hard up for cash he is selling it for $500,000. Why? Because he has too. Country club memberships and European getaways aren't free. In fact last year Bobby spent over $500,000 on his leisure activities alone. (More kristallnacht footage) Just last week Bobby's Gold Mastercard was declined due to his being over limit and, in front of his date, he had to use another card!! (footage of simulated dinner incident with Bobby handing another card to the waiter and putting his head in his hands and crying from embarrassment. The woman politely excuses herself and walks away shaking her head at what a loser he is.) Every year almost 10's of people are affected by the "death tax" and every year those people's lives are destroyed. If you were never left with $1.5 billion after your parents die...(Camera zooms in on a closeup of Bobby's face all sad and despondent) "Lucky you." If you sympathize with Bobby send a check or money order to the "Hood Robin Foundation" p/o box 666 Beverly Hills California 90210, or call 1-800-IMA-SHIL and pay by credit card. (Bobby hands the keys over to a skeevy looking dude and runs away crying) Fade out.

Just gonna gloss over that whole being unaware of the Enron thing and criticizing me without even knowing the facts? Gonna gloss over that you believed "corn in the gas" was the major factor behind high gas prices. I know gas goes up every summer. (Everybody who buys gas does) It doesn't go up that much though. They're still putting corn in the gas and what's the price of a gallon of gas now. (Hint: it's about 25% than in 2008) I know you are too wuss to admit when your wrong publicly and you call people idiots in an effort to deflect closer analysis of the things you write but that's not happening here. For someone who didn't even know about one of the biggest scandals in US history that had been exposed less than eight years before you sure seem to be unjustifiably proud of yourself.

By your definition the government isn't entitled to any money from people and I believe they are. I want them to protect me with a strong military and local police force. I want the FBI to have the best crime busting technology available to man. I like smooth roads to drive on, I want to make sure that there is an institution that sets guidelines and safety requirements for airplanes, I want my streets cleaned, I want smooth traffic flow, I want good schools, I want to be sure that the food I eat is safe and there are a lot of other things I pay the government to do for me. I want those things so they are entitled to some of my money to pay for them. If you like those things too then realize somebody pays for them. Also, why do you want this country to become an aristocracy and not a meritocracy? I love how easy it is for people to deny the huge advantages the wealthy have over everybody in society. Now that I've spelled it out for you you do. What's really funny is that you don't seem to know what communism is.

Why do I have the feeling that I need to go to Hollywood and kill some innocent people and smear their blood on the walls. Anyone else getting that?

Just Jack off! I stepped in a poodle. BA DUM BUM Ptsch! I'm about to embark on a lifetime of not giving a damn so I deserve to win. AND AGAIN!!! YOU CAN'T WIN THIS THREAD!! God I miss cable with Discovery.

masochist Main Entry: mas·och·ism Pronunciation: \ˈma-sə-ˌki-zəm, ˈma-zə- also ˈmā-\ Function: noun Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary, from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch †1895 German novelist Date: 1892 1 : a sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation especially by a love object — compare sadism 2 : pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering — mas·och·ist \-kist\ noun — mas·och·is·tic \ˌma-sə-ˈkis-tik, ˌma-zə- also ˌmā-\ adjective — mas·och·is·ti·cal·ly \-ˈkis-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb egomaniac Main Entry: ego·ma·nia Pronunciation: \ˌē-gō-ˈmā-nē-ə, -nyə\ Function: noun Date: 1825 : the quality or state of being extremely egocentric — ego·ma·ni·ac \-nē-ˌak\ noun — ego·ma·ni·a·cal \-mə-ˈnī-ə-kəl\ adjective — ego·ma·ni·a·cal·ly \-k(ə-)lē\ adverb egocentric Main Entry: ego·cen·tric Pronunciation: \ˌē-gō-ˈsen-trik also ˌe-\ Function: adjective Date: 1894 1 : concerned with the individual rather than society 2 : taking the ego as the starting point in philosophy 3 a : limited in outlook or concern to one's own activities or needs b : self-centered, selfish — egocentric noun — ego·cen·tri·cal·ly \-tri-k(ə-)lē\ adverb — ego·cen·tric·i·ty \-ˌsen-ˈtri-sə-tē\ noun — ego·cen·trism \-ˈsen-ˌtri-zəm\ noun

Is it your belief that they don't receive any benefits from being born wealthy before their 50's and 60's? It is possible that Paris Hilton could survive that long. Our fundamental difference here is that it seems you believe that being born wealthy gives someone little advantage over the rest of society and I believe it gives them a great advantage. You are for an Aristocracy and I'm for a Meritocracy. I guess we'll agree to disagree. Coming from you I take that as a complement. Cheers masochistic egomaniac.

In my first couple of years in college I pumped gas at an NSI gas station and the manager had to go out every week and write down gas prices for every other station in a 5 mile radius and submit it to his supervisor who would then determine that weeks price. That's all I can give ya.

Ok, let's summarize and then I'm done. I stated market manipulation was behind the high gas prices. (True) I assumed it was common knowledge. I didn't press the specifics because then I would have gotten the LINK? response and I didn't feel like looking into then. I know there was or is still a government investigation (there's a link) into the possibility of illegal market manipulation and that recent legislation had been passed to limit the abilities of speculators. (If anyone knows how that investigation ended or if it's still ongoing I'd like to know. I'm too tired to look. I couldn't easily find an outcome and so I think it may still be ongoing and if it is there is nothing to find.) You tried to tell me that certain speculators would be going against their companies interest to drive up prices. I tried to tell you companies are made up of individuals who a lot of the time care more about themselves than the company and therefore are available for sale. You ignored that because it seems you believe that corruption is almost impossible. I also told you that the first suspects to look at are those who benefited the most from the illegal activity. It seems the oil companies are the people who did here. You seem to think that isn't true. I tried to tell you I didn't know how they did it but it stank to high heaven, but you want facts not circumstantial evidence. I hope you never end up on a jury. I have no idea how a laser works but I can tell you what they can do. You don't need to know how something works to know it works. You then asked me how and who were manipulating the contracts. I got tired of being called an idiot and so went looking for evidence to back up my claims. I supplied two articles answering your two questions. One stating they thought up to 60% of gas prices could be due to speculation. You called the first article one man's opinion after not even, I'm pretty sure, looking at the link. Had you you would have seen that the first article had been written by the former head of the IPECMR. A guy who knows more about this subject than probably everybody on this board combined. I haven't finished it yet but we both could learn from it. I then showed you that both the Democrats and Republicans were so spooked what happened they hammered out a bipartisan regulation on speculators. And I just showed you the feds are investigating or were investigating the circumstances. So our fundamental disagreement it seems is this. You feel there isn't enough proof to accuse oil companies of being behind the price gouging. I think there is. There was less evidence to go by in the California brownouts and that was very simple to sniff out. I didn't know who was doing it or how it was being done but I knew power problems that severe don't happen overnight. I was proven right. You seem to think I need to know how they did it to know they did it. I know OJ killed his wife, I don't know exactly how he did it, I just know he did it due to the circumstantial evidence. While there was a lot more circumstantial evidence in the OJ trial but give me the bruno mali (sp?) footprints in blood matching his shoe size and the testimony of the limo driver and you've got a very good start. So everything I said has been proven true except for the smoking gun that oil companies were involved. You want a smoking gun and nobody has one. I don't think one is necessary. You do. So at this point there is no more point to this. We'll have to agree to disagree. I guess. Even though we fight I really do respect your opinion. You believed it was the main problem with gas prices. You were wrong. You even ridiculed me for suggesting it could be an Enron like conspiracy because you weren't aware of the Enron conspiracy. I was right about Enron and I'm right about speculation being a cause of the high gas prices. 'Nuff said. BTW, I'll save you the trouble of pasting the last paragraph of the investigation article. I suspect you would anyway and then put a next to it. While Dingell points to loopholes that he says allow distortions in the energy market, the commission says it would be hasty to jump to conclusions until the investigation has been completed. In recent testimony to Congress, the agency's chief economist, Jeffrey Harris, attributed most of oil's meteoric rise to other factors, including a supply and demand imbalance, as well as a weak U.S. dollar. I never said speculation was the sole factor, but IMO the biggest factor.

I understand people are heavily involved in this. 11 workers were killed and 17 injured by the disaster. I think letting the idle workers collect unemployment for now is a good idea until they figure out how to keep something like that from ever happening again. I'm still mystified by the fact that nothing had to be pre-planned for a situation like this. I guess less government involvement is a good thing.

I think your time would be better spent on working for solutions for the USA and not fantasy land. How long will it take for you to realize spending will almost never go down. Spending is how our government justifies itself. Thanks for stopping by with that inspired post. If you're a true Christian you should want to help any way you can. Did you donate your stimulus check to charity? If enough people gave to charity there would be no need for social programs. So the reason government has to get involved is because there isn't enough charity to deal with all of the social problems. So forcing you to care is necessary, that is if you really give a flying !@#$ or are just giving Christianity lip service. If somebodies parents are millionaires they are being handed a huge leg up on life by that alone. If somebody has worked hard and made it themselves why do they want that money? There are so many trust fund babies in this country it's sickening. Even the children of the rich who work get a a much easier lot in life. So yes it is being handed something on a silver platter. It's incredibly ignorant to think it isn't. JMO If you still don't think it is then get rid of all of your money and start from scratch. That will let you know how fortunate you or those people are. If you come from privilege you have no idea what it's like to choose between food or electricity. There are a lot of problems in this society that way too many people don't give a **** about because it doesn't affect them. If it does eventually affect them then the arms fly up and the whining begins. I'm just waiting for the first conservative here that gets stuck with a $20,000 medical bill that won't be paid by insurance due to pre-existing conditions. I doubt anyone here would have the balls to post about it.

Record profits and refusal to be sworn in by the Senate committee are a good place to start. If I were head of a company called before congress for some sort of suspected criminal activity and I was innocent I would beg them to put me under oath. I wouldn't try to keep them from putting me under oath. JMO Dude, you asked; Who was holding back contracts? Specifically who? I supply you with two articles telling you who and how and you just gloss it over and continue to push your agenda. Those articles prove I was right to say that market manipulation was responsible for high gas prices and bi-partisan legislation (that includes the business friendly Republicans) proves it was a real problem. If you admit there is market froth then what are we arguing about? The one article believes that up to 60% of oil prices are due to speculation. That enters into market manipulations in my mind.

Not really. Stopping pumping in the gulf needs to be done to ensure another tragedy doesn't happen again. If it costs me fifty extra cents at the pump for the next few months so be it. It's worth it. It's not worth it to line some aholes pockets. Nobody knew if Enron was involved in market manipulation in California until they found the smoking gun. Unfortunately, smoking guns are few and far between. Most cases in US courts are tried on circumstantial evidence. So if you want to believe that the widow who raised her dead husbands life insurance just weeks before his death is innocent then it's your right. It's a silly belief but your entitled to it.

Are you aware that recent legislation was passed to curb speculative excesses? Both the House and the Senate have approved strict legislation to reform financial markets with the passage of S. 3217, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, and H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. Congress must quickly reconcile these bills and maintain the strong Dodd-Lincoln derivatives provisions to protect consumers from the Wall Street manipulation of energy prices. These bills will prevent banks and speculators from exploiting loopholes and weak oversight in the commodity markets. These necessary reforms will help lower energy prices and limit volatility for American families and businesses. You can help make a difference on this important issue by telling your senator to support this legislation. Dude you asked me a question and I found information from Chris Cook former head of International Petroleum Exchange of Compliance and Market Regulation. It's not just one man's opinion it's one man's very informed opinion. How long were you head IPECMR? How long were you on it in any way? I think I'll take my info from him rather than you, thanks. If you really want informed opinions then there it is. As I said above there is no proof the oil companies were involved, yet, but there is circumstantial evidence.

Here's more from the above article; All this is well and official. But how today’s oil prices are really determined is done by a process so opaque only a handful of major oil trading banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley have any idea who is buying and who selling oil futures or derivative contracts that set physical oil prices in this strange new world of “paper oil.” With the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures over the past decade or more, the way has opened for the present speculative bubble in oil prices. It's not surprising that almost nobody has a firm grasp on this.

Link PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION By F. William Engdahl, 2 May 2008 The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How? Keep reading at the link if you want to know how.

The ABC's of Oil Manipulation Market Strategy If you are an end user, then market volatility is your enemy – indeed, that is why end users began to use derivatives in the first place. But if you are a middleman, then volatility is your friend, and the only bad news is no news. Likewise, good access to market data is essential to end users – whereas privileged or “asymmetric” access to market data is beneficial for intermediaries. The temptation is therefore always there for intermediaries to create artificial volatility through “hyping” or even creating news, and to move the market around. Whether or not BP and Goldman Sachs trading arm J Aron were involved in such collaborative behaviour during the late 90s is an interesting point, since they were uniquely well placed, but if they did, they wouldn’t have been the only ones. Certainly by 2000 manipulation of settlement prices – for the purpose of making trading profits “off exchange” – was rife on the IPE to the extent that the opportunity for profit to which it gave rise was affectionately known by IPE locals as “Grab a Grand”. When I discovered it by chance, and blew the whistle on it, my allegations were buried by the UK’s Treasury, FSA and IPE between them, and so was I, personally and professionally. Meanwhile, in 1999, Goldman Sachs managed to convince the US regulators, the CFTC, that they were entitled to the same regulatory “hedge” exemptions as those market participants who were genuinely hedging their physical requirements. This, combined with the collapse of Enron in December 2001, cleared the way for the complete takeover of the global energy marketplace which has followed in trading on (and off) the ICE platform, and prepared the ground for making money out of the growing constituency of financial investors. It's not a moratorium for some silly reason. It's a moratorium for a very good reason.

IMO, the New Testament can be boiled down to this; Be the best person you can be. Always remember that people are more important than money and try very hard to understand the plight of the needy and assist them in any way you can. JMO

Thank you!! Somebody else gets it too! I'd put it this way; that thoughtless cold hearted people could disagree on this point. How about this one from JC himself. Matthew 19:24 (New International Version) 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." So if you're a Christian Conservative who believes that we'd be better off if we practiced Christianity in government (I don't know if you are or not, it's more of a comment for those reading this who are.) then you should support taxing the rich into poverty in order to save their mortal souls. It's funny how I have yet to meet a Christian conservative with that viewpoint. I've met many who think gays are going to hell but not rich people.

Right, holding back contracts had nothing to with it. Why don't you try understanding something first. Your hypothesis back then was it was solely the corn in the gas. I don't remember you saying anything about the weakening dollar which was public knowledge back then. You also couldn't understand that cheap gas prices are an economic necessity. We all say dumb things sometimes. I actually respect your opinions on things when you aren't calling me an idiot.

My mistake, you ever make any?

Thank you, back atcha. The Republicans repeatedly make an issue of how hard people work for their money. I'm just throwing it back in their faces and they don't seem to like it. They rail against entitlements and yet expect entitlements themselves. Obviously hard work scares a lot of them, they are terrified that they might actually have to work for something rather than have it handed to them. I think "Family Guy" put it best when they said the Republicans help those with the means to help themselves.