Obama Wins A&F Endorsement

let the chaos reign

walleroo locked up the Victoria's Secret endorsement - well, at least he has a stack of well thumbed catalogs under the porch.

This is definitely a half-assed post. Are statisticians in the real world taking into account whether the yabbos are wearing A&F, Tommy Hilfiger or Old Navy?

A shameful excuse for a post, indeed.

"This is definitely a half-assed post. Are statisticians in the real world taking into account whether the yabbos are wearing A&F, Tommy Hilfiger or Old Navy?

A shameful excuse for a post, indeed."

NICE!!!

To elaborate further, this is half-assed in that it's a lame attempt at Onion-style humor.

gee, how come this site never grabs a still from those "wascally wascals" at the fox news channel?

Hillary is hurting her party's chance at winning the Presidency.

Classic Clintons - concerned about themselves first, their country later.

I met a guy today wearing a harley davidson shirt. Talk about judging people, he talked about the economy and then expressed why he was voting for Obama. The guy was from Morris County and still a republican. I wish the media had a picture of him prior to the PA vote. Point is, if he can see the light, more of us need to break from the partsian bs and encourage others to at least consider voting for a person that represents the truth,hope and courage that we desire as American citizens.

I met a guy today wearing a harley davidson shirt. Talk about judging people, he talked about the economy and then expressed why he was voting for Obama. The guy was from Morris County and still a republican. I wish the media had a picture of him prior to the PA vote. Point is, if he can see the light, more of us need to break from the partsian bs and encourage others to at least consider voting for a person that represents the truth,hope and courage that we desire as American citizens.

Why in the world would anyone vote for Obama for econominc reasons? Isn't it patently obvious from his exchange with Charlie Gibson re the cap gains tax that the mas has no semblance of how the economy actually works???

Couldn't resist . . .

CHARLES GIBSON: You have however said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28%."

It's now 15%. That's almost a doubling if you went to 28%. But actually Bill Clinton in 1997 signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20%.

BARACK OBAMA: Right.

MR. GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15%.

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year ? $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair.

And what I want is not oppressive taxation. I want businesses to thrive and I want people to be rewarded for their success. But what I also want to make sure is that our tax system is fair and that we are able to finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it and that we're able to invest in our infrastructure and invest in our schools. . . .

MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what's happening on Wall Street and how business is going. I think the biggest problem that we've got on Wall Street right now is the fact that we've got a housing crisis that this president has not been attentive to and that it took John McCain three tries before he got it right.

And if we can stabilize that market and we can get credit flowing again, then I think we'll see stocks do well, and once again I think we can generate the revenue that we need to run this government and hopefully to pay down some of this debt.

The logic of raising the capital gains tax to get more money back from a handful of very wealthy hedge fund managers is ridiculous. If you want to get the hedge funds, change the tax law so that the 15-20% carry on hedge fund investment gains (the success fee paid to the managers) is treated as ordinary income rather than capital gains. That is an immediate increase from 15% to 35% marginal tax rate for most.

I don't have the numbers, but I would estimate that hedge funds do not account for a large percentage of the aggregate taxable capital gains in a particular year. That being said, the groups that would be disproportionately affected by an increase in cap gains taxes would be

1) Hedge Fund/Private Equity guys (very small percentage of the tax base)
2) Wealthy households that have a significant amount of annual income from investments (probably the top 1% or less of US households)
3) Seniors/retirees who derive most of their income from investments (not including distributions from tax advantaged accounts such as 401K/IRA which are taxed as ordinary income.) This is a large and fast growing group.

The average household in the US probably only has a couple thousand a year in capital gains (as a whole we are not big savers here in the US), so a 13% increase in the capital gains tax probably amounts to a couple hundred dollars per year in additional taxes.