Somebody finally had the nads to do this....

[Capitol Shock II]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/09/ceo-threatens-fire-employees-if-obama-reelected-and-raises-taxes#ixzz28qF4kybK

There's a bunch of us that feel this way...glad somebody finally let their employees know.

[Aargh]

You've picked a really bad example to hang your hat on. Have you seen the house that guy is building? That thing would irritate people making only $20 or $30 mill a year. With what he's already spent on that house, he could have employed 100 people at $50K a year for 10 years. And he could have deducted that $50 mill from his income and avoided paying taxes on it.

Construction on that house is stopped. It's not exactly clear if he overspent or if his fricking wife can't decide what she wants to do next, but it's uninhabitable and is sort of a laughingstock in the area where he's building it. That house is one of the most obvious homages to absolute ego and greed that exists in the USA. If he could have settled for a nice comfortable $30 mill house like other really rich people have done, he might not be in the position of having to downsize.

50% tax rate? That's not money he's making from investments - that's wages he's paying himself. And it's not on all the wages he pays himself. He pays the exact same tax rate on the first $100K as anyone else making $100K. He's paying the same tax rate on the first $250K as anyone else making $250K.

It's people like this guy that really irritate those on the "have not" end of the scale. His greed and self-indulgence goes way beyond what the "robber barons" of the 19th century ever did. Carnegie built public libraries for thousands of towns, so more people could have access to books. Bill Gates has a foundation that does a lot of good for huge numbers of people. Carnegie didn't have a problem with taxes, but I've never heard Gates complain. One of the greediest, most self-indulgent, and egotistic guys in the nation is threatening to fire people if Obama is elected. I call BS. He employs 7,000 people. He's probably making $5K - $10K per year for every employee he has. The true way to wealth is to hire people for less than you can sell their production. He's shooting himself in the foor if he downsizes - unless his business isn't efficient or effective in the marketplace.

The guy who owns Oracle is an absolute egomaniac. There's a joke about him. What's the difference between Larry Ellison and God? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison. He's not complaining about taxes. Apple is the most valuable company in the USA. None of the ultra-rich at the top of the Apple structure are complaining.

That house has been featured in televised documentaries. The house is his wife's design. She wanted to duplicate Versailles. Then she went on a spending spree and a change of plans spree during construction and ran the cost up to astronomical numbers.

Citing this guy as an example of the effect of taxing businesses and the ultra-rich does not further the cause of the Republican party.

Are the Rockefellers threatening to fire people if Obama is elected. Are they threatening to downsize their charitable work if Obama is elected?

The Republican party needs to distance themselves from the ultra-rich who are also ultra-greedy. There's an old saying about lying down with dogs and waking up with fleas.

[pinstripers]

You think he should take his money and hire more people?

[Kung Wu]

You've picked a really bad example to hang your hat on. Have you seen the house that guy is building? That thing would irritate people making only $20 or $30 mill a year. With what he's already spent on that house, he could have employed 100 people at $50K a year for 10 years. And he could have deducted that $50 mill from his income and avoided paying taxes on it.

Construction on that house is stopped. It's not exactly clear if he overspent or if his fricking wife can't decide what she wants to do next, but it's uninhabitable and is sort of a laughingstock in the area where he's building it. That house is one of the most obvious homages to absolute ego and greed that exists in the USA. If he could have settled for a nice comfortable $30 mill house like other really rich people have done, he might not be in the position of having to downsize.

50% tax rate? That's not money he's making from investments - that's wages he's paying himself. And it's not on all the wages he pays himself. He pays the exact same tax rate on the first $100K as anyone else making $100K. He's paying the same tax rate on the first $250K as anyone else making $250K.

It's people like this guy that really irritate those on the "have not" end of the scale. His greed and self-indulgence goes way beyond what the "robber barons" of the 19th century ever did. Carnegie built public libraries for thousands of towns, so more people could have access to books. Bill Gates has a foundation that does a lot of good for huge numbers of people. Carnegie didn't have a problem with taxes, but I've never heard Gates complain. One of the greediest, most self-indulgent, and egotistic guys in the nation is threatening to fire people if Obama is elected. I call BS. He employs 7,000 people. He's probably making $5K - $10K per year for every employee he has. The true way to wealth is to hire people for less than you can sell their production. He's shooting himself in the foor if he downsizes - unless his business isn't efficient or effective in the marketplace.

The guy who owns Oracle is an absolute egomaniac. There's a joke about him. What's the difference between Larry Ellison and God? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison. He's not complaining about taxes. Apple is the most valuable company in the USA. None of the ultra-rich at the top of the Apple structure are complaining.

That house has been featured in televised documentaries. The house is his wife's design. She wanted to duplicate Versailles. Then she went on a spending spree and a change of plans spree during construction and ran the cost up to astronomical numbers.

Citing this guy as an example of the effect of taxing businesses and the ultra-rich does not further the cause of the Republican party.

Are the Rockefellers threatening to fire people if Obama is elected. Are they threatening to downsize their charitable work if Obama is elected?

The Republican party needs to distance themselves from the ultra-rich who are also ultra-greedy. There's an old saying about lying down with dogs and waking up with fleas.

As always I love your passion even though it's hit and miss whether I agree with it.

I don't understand what's up with the people that lease time shares -- they seem like arrogant pricks. I just watched a rerun of Undercover Boss that documented the CEO of some time share leasing company -- a complete arrogant jerk. In the end he was just throwing money at individuals and didn't implement a single process to truly improve his company.

That said, if this guy that you are hating on truly spent astronomical numbers on the turd of a house he DID employ a ton of construction workers and fueled the construction goods industry at the same time.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

I find it bothersome that only republicans are considered "greedy". They should "share" the wealth=give me money=greed without sweat.

Just saying.

[Kung Wu]

I find it bothersome that only republicans are considered "greedy". They should "share" the wealth=give me money=greed without sweat.

Just saying.

Reminds me of this Thomas Sowell quote:

I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.

-- Thomas Sowell

[moshock]

If you dig a little on this guy - he stopped construction on his house because he didn't want to take money out of his business and lay off his workers. What a greedy jerk !!!

[Capitol Shock II]

My point is, that if at this level of income and business scale owners are feeling this way, how do you think the owner of a business of half this size and success is feeling? There are a bunch of business owners out there that want to sell to avoid this disaster of a government / economy but are trapped for a variety of reasons. More and more are deciding to say the hell with it, it's not worth it anymore.

Additionally, employees need to know that there are consequences for their voting. If you vote Socialist, don't complain when you are standing in the bread line.

[MoValley John]

I will give a quick post (or not so quick) on how Obama has impacted my family and the family business.

My parents were in the transportation sector of the economy. At one time, they had their own authority, but as they grew older and were winding down, they leased trucks onto other carriers. This business is very tight. Operators are working with literally less than a penny to cover overhead for every dollar in revenue brought in. That said, a fleet of trucks literally costs millions to maintain and income is made in volume, several trucks operating and millions of miles being driven. Good drivers, good management, good maintenance and enough trucks and you could make a pretty good living.

In came Obamacare. Suddenly, this small business that had scaled down to 14 drivers, suddenly had a 4% tax levied for healthcare reform. Never mind the fact that my parents always provided healthcare, now they were getting taxed for this great, new health mandate. Well here is the rub. They were too big to fit under the umbrella of what constituted a small business (keep in mind, you have millions in equipment and 14 drivers, all good drivers who put on a lot of miles, so both the net value of the business and the payroll was too high to be excluded from the new, 4% tax. They filled out waiver requests twice, but were turned down. I guess those waivers were only for the people well connected to the Obama administration.

Anyway, the 4% took my parents from making a fraction of a penny for every mile to losing big money for every mile driven. If they had four trucks, they would have fit under the umbrella, but not with 14, so every mile driven, they lost money. The business model was not only looked over and scrutinized by family members but by six different accounting and tax professionals. At the end of the day, based on the size of the company, there is no way for this business model to work anymore. My parents, as evil and greedy as liberals try to paint them as business owners, had this twisted loyalty to their employees. They wouldn't cut their wages and they were deeply committed to providing them jobs. They worked and worked at finding a solution or workaround for Obamacare. They did it for over a year. All that did was took more than a million and a half dollars out of my parent's retirement (very close to $2,000,000). They finally had to shut down. So now we have no income coming to my mother (my dad has since died) and when they sold the equipment, it wasn't worth what the IRS booked it at and it was less than the depreciation scale they used. In fact, each $150,000 truck (price for each new) brought in less than a $15,000 average. Worse than that, nobody was buying trucks, so they were sold to a company in Mexico. Now with NAFTA and all of that, those trucks travel back in forth across the Mexican border, employing Mexican drivers and there is no 4% being paid toward Obamacare.

All Obamacare did was run jobs to Mexico, steal a boatload of money from my parents and put 14 drivers out of work.

This is how great liberal ideas really play out. Carry on.

[Kung Wu]

Now that we all recognize that DEMAND is necessary but not sufficient for PRODUCTION and SUPPLY, then if we have lots of demand out there (albeit reduced), then why aren't there any jobs being created?

Because along with DEMAND you need a good profit incentive (prices must be favorable to supplying demand) and a reasonable regulatory environment.

Businesses are hoarding cash like we haven't seen in our lifetime. That tells us demand is still strong enough for growth. Why are they hoarding cash though? Because of UNCERTAINTY in the regulatory environment.

The single biggest component is OBAMACARE. Couple that with other anti-business maneuvers and language like:
- increase in average major federal regulations per year
- GM takeover
- hellbent to push through offshore drilling moratorium
- prematurely shutting down coal factories
- "somebody else made that happen"
- pushing federal stimulus funds to big business with big unions but ignoring the rest
- raising taxes on those earning over $250k
- "spread the wealth around"
- temporary instead of permanent cuts
- cronyism in the form of Obamacare waivers
- and so on
and the business community is simply not going to increase their risk in uncertain economic times by putting more pressure on their payrolls. Nor should they, if they are good stewards of their company's and shareholders' money. Better to sit on cash and wait until there is certainty reestablished in the market place.

Ask any senior banker why their clients are sitting on so much cash. Answer: ObamaCare. Businesses are simply waiting for the election to see what will happen. If Romney wins and were to push for and cause the repeal of ObamaCare (never happen) watch the job market gates flood open.

[Kung Wu]

I will give a quick post (or not so quick) on how Obama has impacted my family and the family business.

My parents were in the transportation sector of the economy. At one time, they had their own authority, but as they grew older and were winding down, they leased trucks onto other carriers. This business is very tight. Operators are working with literally less than a penny to cover overhead for every dollar in revenue brought in. That said, a fleet of trucks literally costs millions to maintain and income is made in volume, several trucks operating and millions of miles being driven. Good drivers, good management, good maintenance and enough trucks and you could make a pretty good living.

In came Obamacare. Suddenly, this small business that had scaled down to 14 drivers, suddenly had a 4% tax levied for healthcare reform. Never mind the fact that my parents always provided healthcare, now they were getting taxed for this great, new health mandate. Well here is the rub. They were too big to fit under the umbrella of what constituted a small business (keep in mind, you have millions in equipment and 14 drivers, all good drivers who put on a lot of miles, so both the net value of the business and the payroll was too high to be excluded from the new, 4% tax. They filled out waiver requests twice, but were turned down. I guess those waivers were only for the people well connected to the Obama administration.

Anyway, the 4% took my parents from making a fraction of a penny for every mile to losing big money for every mile driven. If they had four trucks, they would have fit under the umbrella, but not with 14, so every mile driven, they lost money. The business model was not only looked over and scrutinized by family members but by six different accounting and tax professionals. At the end of the day, based on the size of the company, there is no way for this business model to work anymore. My parents, as evil and greedy as liberals try to paint them as business owners, had this twisted loyalty to their employees. They wouldn't cut their wages and they were deeply committed to providing them jobs. They worked and worked at finding a solution or workaround for Obamacare. They did it for over a year. All that did was took more than a million and a half dollars out of my parent's retirement (very close to $2,000,000). They finally had to shut down. So now we have no income coming to my mother (my dad has since died) and when they sold the equipment, it wasn't worth what the IRS booked it at and it was less than the depreciation scale they used. In fact, each $150,000 truck (price for each new) brought in less than a $15,000 average. Worse than that, nobody was buying trucks, so they were sold to a company in Mexico. Now with NAFTA and all of that, those trucks travel back in forth across the Mexican border, employing Mexican drivers and there is no 4% being paid toward Obamacare.

All Obamacare did was run jobs to Mexico, steal a boatload of money from my parents and put 14 drivers out of work.

This is how great liberal ideas really play out. Carry on.

Thanks for putting this out there. These types of stories need to be heard. They are heartbreaking warning signs of exactly the type of policy that is paralyzing this country.

[Ixiah]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...#ixzz28qF4kybK

There's a bunch of us that feel this way...glad somebody finally let their employees know.

Koch issues something similar:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/koch-industries-sends-pro-romney-packet-employees-195709471--election.html

[tropicalshox]

Koch issues something similar:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/k...-election.html

Haven't the Kochs gotten a few billion richer in recent years?

[Capitol Shock II]

No thanks to the Federal Government.