Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor

Re:Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor by toss1 on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @12:32PM (#17811076)

Interesting idea, although it seems that it would more likely wind up forcing the creation of money-laundering schemes than doing real good.

While it wouldn't really solve the activist investor issue, I favor a strongly time-based capital gains tax system, designed to favor long-term investment, over short-term financial extraction. The rate table might resemble: <1 minute = 95% cap gains tax rate

<1 hour = 80%

<1 day = 70%

<1 week = 60%

<1 mth = 50%

<1 qtr = 40%

<1 year = 30%

<2 yrs = 20%

<5 yrs = 10%

<10 yrs = 5%

>10yrs = 0

Obviously a mere first-draft, subject to tuning. But the general concept should be clear - the short end would eliminate the volatility, unfairness and flash-crashes created by submillisecond trading. The encouragement to the longer end would get everyone to think longer-term. The 0% for decade+ holdings would prevent a lot of silliness around inheritance (e.g., you inherit a few shares from your grandfather, and have no records or reasonable way to figure the cost basis, but are required to assert one).

Of course, I doubt it would happen because it isn't in the short-term interest of the bankers.

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Re:Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor by bawana on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @01:22PM (#17811678)

yes this reminds me of the 70s when marginal tax rates on short term income was as high as 90%. But the problem here is that the money from tax goes to worthless, fat, lazy, stupid, ancient, corrupt, ineffective politicians.And the trickle down to the people is as weak as the urinary stream from those decrepit politicians with prodigious prostates.

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Re:Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor by toss1 on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @01:32PM (#17811806)

Yes, some of it goes to the politician's waste, but the trickle-down via government is FAR better than the trickle-down from merely expecting the extractive class to create jobs and maintain a robust middle class.

Heck, when the tax rates were that high, we had: * the GI bill, enabling all vets to go to college for free, * built road systems like the Interstate highway system * built schools * built libraries * WENT TO THE MOON.

Seriously, if you want to complain, you will find waste in absolutely ANY large organization, corporate, philanthropic or govt. -- it just comes with scale -- there's economies of scale and inefficiencies of scale.

But it does not follow from the existence of nontrivial inefficiency/waste/fraud/etc. that large organizations and their projects are therefore worthless; only that improvements might be sought.

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Re:Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor by bawana on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @09:37PM (#17815532)

Back in those days, tax rates were raised to pay ofr projects. I am opposed to increased tax rates that are not specifically earmarked for a purpose. Yes we went to the moon, but that was driven by cold war politics. Yes we had other good things too - the GI bill, infrastructure investment, etc. I'm all for that. Perhaps my vitriol got us off topic. I just feel that taxation is not the optimal way to redistribute financial profits. It's not sufficiently granular. And when we try and codify the granularity - we get a complicated, byzantine tax code that tries to accomodate all the 'nooks and crannies' that no one can really grasp. Rather, I would like to see a 'wall' in Trump lingo against the recycling of financial profits into more financial instruments which is just speculation. And an incentive for the reinvestment of financial profits into the REAL economy. Sure the ROI is greater in financial markets, but that is in large part because greater profits create greater demand for financial instruments which just raises their price.

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Re:Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor by toss1 on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @10:16AM (#17818812)

ok, fair enough, so this is more a regulatory than a tax approach.

I'm not against it, but I wonder at it's effectiveness, as regs are subject to many of the same loopholes, exclusions, and workarounds as taxes, along with regulatory capture (see FCC and Net Neutrality).

Neither is perfect, and I think we need both.

E.g., rags/taxes to cap CxO pay multiples -- so they have to bring up the pay of the average worker if they want higher exec pay. Regs for minimum wage above the poverty line...

either way, I think we need to get the masses of idle capital back into the middle class if we want a robust country and society.

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