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Post by Whatever »

Were you also serious about the subdermal RFID tags? It was that plus the tax enforcement thing that really pushed my "crazy internet troll" button.
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Post by Koumei »

K wrote:Mitt Romney has 100 million in an IRA "retirement account"
...I assume you're not referring to the Irish Republican Army there?
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Post by erik »

Koumei wrote:
K wrote:Mitt Romney has 100 million in an IRA "retirement account"
...I assume you're not referring to the Irish Republican Army there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual ... rrangement

Part of what is amazing about his outrageous IRA amount is that you are only allowed to deposit so much each year into it. During most of the years that he contributed, that maximum limit was $2000.

To paraphrase what he did, he was able to do some sneaky dealings where what he invested into were essentially very high risk/reward funds that he controlled via Bain Capital, so he was able to leverage that to make those piddly $2000 contributions sometimes grow by ridonkulous percentages.

These are the kinds of things the uberwealthy can do in America that simply is not feasible for everyone else.

[edit]: I initially said "grow by 100X", because I recalled reading that previously, but I cannot verify/cite it right now, so adjusted wording. =-)
Last edited by erik on Sun Sep 02, 2012 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by K »

Individual Retirement Account.
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Post by Username17 »

It's important to note that having your IRA purchase stocks you are financially involved with is illegal. Also: people selling stocks to your IRA at below market rate is also illegal. It is inconceivable that an IRA could hit a hundred million dollars without dozens of crimes being committed over a period of years.

Romney hasn't made public what he did to get his titanic IRA, but it's a virtual certainty that he didn't do it legally.

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Post by Josh_Kablack »

erik wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual ... rrangement

Part of what is amazing about his outrageous IRA amount is that you are only allowed to deposit so much each year into it. During most of the years that he contributed, that maximum limit was $2000.
Sorry, erik as much as I enjoy pointing out Mitt Romney's financial shenanigans and his many probable but not-provable white collar crimes, that claim isn't accurate.

You legally can put however much you want into a IRA. However, when you exceed the contribution limits, the excess does not receive the tax benefits associated with IRAs and the excess contributions and interest on them are taxed. This means that for you, me and the vast majority of Americans, once we hit the contribution limits it's simply bad money management to put more in - we're better off putting the additional money into a money market account or non-retirement fund or heck just a savings account at the bank - since all of those allow access to a depositors money without early withdrawal and additional tax penalties.

Without anything to go on, my hunch is that this is not (as you seem to be implying) a Whitewater-esque bribe laundered perfectly through the financial markets, but rather that it is clever high end tax dodge whereby taking the tax penalties on excess IRA contributions lowered Mitt's overall tax rate. Dude is just powergaming the tax code with some optimized accounts - it's been pretty clear that Traders have ruled the system since the Reagan revision and only a fool would try to play the game as an Earner.
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Post by erik »

Hooo, you may be right. Every time I've ever read or heard about the limit it was treated in the language as some sort of absolute, but it appears there is only a 6% penalty tax for going over that is applied to the contribution and its profits.

Romney is old enough that he could have had some substantial 401k plans to roll over into his IRA as well.

Some shady use of tax rules to place profits into the IRA as a tax shelter for more than just retirement seems likely since there's little other reason to have such a huge IRA, but it may be that he didn't have to do so illegally as I was indeed implying.

It may well be that this is another example of legal tax avoidance rather than criminal. Hopefully after this campaign legislators will have a good long list of tax loopholes provided generously by Mitt Romney, such that they can remove them. Then for the first time he can be part of a solution rather than the problem.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Yeah, most of the literature on IRAs uses the phrases "contribution limits" and "allowable contribution" - which seem a lot more absolute than the rules actually are when you read them in depth.

Any clue whether Romney has these millions in a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA ? Or some in both?
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Post by erik »

From what I've read, sounds like Traditional IRA.

This looks like the best synopsis I've found yet.

I wonder if he's been jonesing to be president to help lower his tax rate. Heh.
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Post by Koumei »

From the very thing you linked, last paragraph:
On the other hand, Mr. Romney has a record of being a generous charitable donor.
There has to be some kind of "laughing old men" image macro to use here. Maybe Statler and Waldorf?

Edit: I am not claiming he hasn't donated vast amounts of money. But not in a generous (or indeed charitable) manner. Always to things that specifically benefit him, including to EvilCorp PTY LTDThe Church of LSD the LDS.
Last edited by Koumei on Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by erik »

Yeah, I saw that too, and thought that the writer was being more charitable than Romney has ever been.
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Post by npc310 »

I am not particularly enthused about the idea of the consumption based system. As a nation, we are going deeper and deeper into debt. This is not a good thing. Is the solution to tax more, or spend less? I am in the spend less crowd, but I do feel that the tax system does have room for improvement. There are far too many loopholes that benefit millionaires and billionaires only. Close all the loopholes, lower the tax rate for everyone.

At any rate, don't think the right solution is to grow the tax revenue to catch up with spending. I believe this will crush the American free enterprise system. I am more in favor of shrinking government to fit what we can actually afford. There are no sacred cows. Military spending, entitlements, subsidies, foreign aid, etc... all should be on the chopping block.

I also believe that any plans to increase costs on the rich are invariably funneled down. Raise taxes on corporations? They'll raise prices on the goods and services they provide. So who actually pays? The consumers.

An example of this is the Durbin Amendment to Dodd-Frank. This is the legislation that lowers the swipe fees that banks can charge merchants. The goal here is to punish banks for making money, lower costs to retailers, and therefore, to consumers. This is not how it is working out. Banks are charging more on other fees, inventing new fees to charge, cutting back on debit card reward programs, and this has offset the losses they've incurred. True, Bank of America suffered huge backlash when they tried to start charging $5 a month for the debit cards, but nobody said shit about all banks increasing overdraft and returned check fees from $25 to $30 dollars. The cost of paper checks has also gone up, as have closing costs and a myriad of other fees that banks charge for handling your money for you.

Retailers are not charging less for the goods they sell. The percentage they would have been paying to the banks is shifted to the profit column.

So who ultimately pays? The consumers who use an ATM are paying higher fees. People opening new accounts are paying higher fees, which disproportionately impacts young people. The minimum balance required to have a free checking account has gone up. The banks are not losing money as intended, and the consumers are not paying less. Retailers are benefiting, particularly online retailers who operate nearly exclusively with plastic. Bottom line, the government got involved, tried to do something to lower costs to consumers, and all they did was pad the pockets of retailers.
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Post by erik »

npc310 wrote:Is the solution to tax more, or spend less?
This is something that the Republican party has tried to set up as some sort of false dichotomy and so many people have bought into it rather than take a moment of serious consideration. The answer is obviously to do both. Increase taxes on those that can afford to be taxed, decrease spending where it does not cripple the economy. Hell, simply not getting into huge wars would be a great boon to cutting spending. Letting the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy simply phase out will be a huge boost in revenue as well.
Bank of America suffered huge backlash when they tried to start charging $5 a month for the debit cards, but nobody said shit about all banks increasing overdraft and returned check fees from $25 to $30 dollars.
Not actually true, but when has this ever stopped a Republican meme? People have complained. People complained strongly about such things. In fact the Obama administration tried to implement the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which would take on these exact concerns but the Republicans have stonewalled all possible advances that they could in this. If you have a problem with lack of banking reform, thank the Republicans who have prevented the possibility of any such reform coming to fruition. I suggest thanking them by voting Republicans out of office.

This is the whole conservative method these days. Impede, delay and ruin every government program and then complain that things aren't working so it should be removed. It is disingenuous and it is destructive.
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Post by Username17 »

npc310 wrote:I am not particularly enthused about the idea of the consumption based system. As a nation, we are going deeper and deeper into debt. This is not a good thing. Is the solution to tax more, or spend less?
It should surprise absolutely noone that every single thing npc says is wrong. The idea that we should necessarily reduce the deficit right now is utter madness. Yes, deficits are not a great thing to be running, but as was known even in biblical times (Genesis 41:20), responsible government practice is to run surpluses during booms and deficits during downturns. As long as unemployment is still north of 8%, it would be absolute madness to start paying down the debt. You do not save grain during the seven lean years.

Now there is a genuine argument to be had about whether it's better to run a larger deficit for less time or a smaller deficit for more time. That is a complex technical question with evidence on both sides. But there's no fucking argument that isn't stupid that we should stop running deficits right now. Ancient Hebrew prophets would have limited understanding of our complex modern economy - but at least they would understand that.

The argument you're supposed to be making as a conservative is that we should be running the necessary deficits by lowering taxes and leaving spending alone. As opposed to the argument by liberals that we should be running the necessary deficits by increasing spending against a steady state tax rate. Of course, you're not making that argument because the people who feed you talking points have no interest in fixing the economy and want to destroy the social safety net because they hate poor people. Of course, even that basic argument is flawed - because the reality is that we already have data on different tax rates and our economy grew much faster when the top marginal tax rate was literally double what it is now. The correct answer is actually far to the left of the argument that good little liberals are supposed to make. The correct choice is to raise taxes a lot and then increase spending even more so that we're still running a deficit.
I am in the spend less crowd, but I do feel that the tax system does have room for improvement. There are far too many loopholes that benefit millionaires and billionaires only. Close all the loopholes, lower the tax rate for everyone.
That's because you are a tool of the Cato institute. If Billionaires are using loopholes to pay a lower tax rate now, why should we lower their base tax rate? Why not just close the loopholes and leave their tax rate alone? Or raise that tax rate? The top marginal tax rate during the Johnson administration was seventy percent. And not only did those high taxes not collapse the economy, they landed our people on The Moon and gave us our best period of economic growth in the modern era. The top rate today is 35%, what possible reason is there to not double that?

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Post by npc310 »

Raising taxes on the rich will not work. In today's consumer-driven society, if you try to tax the hell out of Bill Gates, he'll charge more for Windows. Tim Cook will charge more for iPads. Doctors who are forced to see Medicaid patients at $15 $9 apiece will charge all their other patients more to offset the losses they incur. The doctor is not going to lose his own money.

As far as running deficits, quoting the Bible is not going to convince me that your opinion on the matter is right. In fact, it may do the opposite, but this is the way you have chosen to do this, so let's play.

The particular Bible chapter you are referring to is about dream interpretation for Pharaoh. He has a dream that 7 fat cows emerge from the Nile, and begin eating reeds on the riverbank. After them, 7 gaunt cows emerge, eat the fat cows, and then Pharaoh wakes up. Pharaoh calls for his magicians, who are not able to interpret the dream. He then sent for Joseph, who'd accurately interpreted dreams before. Pharaoh recounts this dream to Joseph, and another dream about seven withered stalks of grain consuming seven full heads of grain. Joseph interprets the dreams to mean the same thing, that Egypt will experience seven years of surplus followed by seven years of famine. The famine will be so severe that the time of surplus will be forgotten. Joseph recommends that Pharaoh appoint a wise man to ration grain during the fat years, holding one-fifth in reserve. This reserve will be used by the country to get them through the lean years. Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge, who then executes this plan. Seven years of surplus are followed by seven lean years. Joseph saves during the fat years, and releases the savings to the populace during the lean years. Then Joseph's brothers come along to buy some of the grain, and the story seems to lose relevance to our conversation, so I quit reading. Thank you for the trip back in time to Sunday school of my youth.

This bit of Judeo-Christian mythology is not describing a deficit.

Did we store grain during a time of surplus? No, we did not. Are we giving it out anyway during a time of famine. Yes, we are. But we're not giving away our own grain, because we don't have any. We're borrowing grain from our neighbor, and passing that out. Our kids are going to get stuck paying it back. (With as much as we've borrowed, their kids will probably be paying back our debt, too. I'm ashamed to pass on debt to my kids, and doubly so to pass it on to my grandkids.) We're not bothering to ration the grain we're borrowing, or borrow just enough to get by. We're borrowing more grain than we've ever borrowed before. We're coming up with new reasons to borrow grain. On top of all that, we're making it more difficult to bring an end to the time of famine. Only a liberal is dumb enough to say, "Yes, let's do more of this, for the Bible tells me so."
FrankTrollman wrote:because the people who feed you talking points have no interest in fixing the economy and want to destroy the social safety net because they hate poor people.
I disagree. First of all, they aren't feeding me talking points. Contrary to popular opinion, I think for myself. Second, we don't hate poor people. We hate liberals who seek to captivate the less fortunate in a permanent state of dependence. These liberals do this so there will be a voting base always re-electing them, so they can use and abuse their power. Legalized insider trading, the finest private jets, fleets of taxpayer-funded SUVs to drive them around at 12 miles per gallon, and campaign donations gifts that they can use to payoff their mistresses and hide their bastard children; these are all benefits of being a governor, congressman, senator, or president. And they cloak their lust for power behind a veneer of "caring" and "giving".

You have the gall to call those of us who want to end this cycle of dependence racists. That's not true. We want these shackles removed from everyone, not just brown people.

Liberals are the true racists. You want special treatment for particular groups of people based upon their race. It's all part of the plan to divide people, and section off a permanent voting block. I want all people treated the same. The white guy who is down on his luck should get the same kind of help as the brown guy who finds himself in an unfortunate situation. The difference between the politicians I support and the politicians you support is that my politicians want to help people get out of poverty, and help them avoid it altogether. Your politicians want to institutionalize it, and spread it to 51% of the electorate.

Republicans want people to be successful because the majority of hard-working successful people vote republican. Democrats want people stuck in poverty, because the majority of poor people vote democrat. Both groups are manipulating us, but I'll stick with the ones who want us to prosper. You can have the ones who want us trapped in poverty.
FrankTrollman wrote:it would be absolute madness to start paying down the debt
When exactly did I say we should? I said we should stop growing the debt, not that we were ready to start paying it back.
Last edited by npc310 on Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

1) According to you, when we lower taxes, rich people just keep more profits and don't lower prices. So why are you so stupid that you think they will raise prices if we raise taxes. It's really obvious that raising prices would result in fewer sales and fewer profits. Some additional taxes don't appreciably change that calculus.

We have lots of empirical evidence that when you raise taxes, it is not passed on to consumers.

2) Hey, you dumb shit. You are dumb as shit. No one but you is talking about race. Evil bad Leftists want to help poor white people too. All the things we think we should do like taxing rich people and using that money for constructive purposes that rebuild the economy, those things help poor white people as much as anyone else.

3) See above. No one is trying to create a legion of dependent poor people. Democratic policies are the ones that they think are going to bring people out of poverty. You know, like all those school loans and public education, that's not to create a legion of dependents.

Republican policies on the other hand, are certainly not to bring everyone up, they are clearly and explicitly to bring themselves, the richest up. Democrats don't believe that people should die starving in the gutter for being unworthy of living, but that is the obvious logical conclusion of Republican beliefs.
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Post by Ancient History »

Ghost, of all the ignorant shit to come off your keyboard, that might be the worst. It's hard to know where to start. Maybe the most offensive bit, where you start ranting against brown people.

"They owned nothing, because nothing but their freedom had been given to them." The slaves in the United States were emancipated, but with no capital and terrible social and legal restrictions were in many ways no better off than when they were slaves - even to sharecropping their former masters' land, and living in the same cabins. As a people, they continued to endure financial and social inequality for over a hundred years, so that the legacy of it is still with us in places today.

So yes, you can play Rush Limbaugh and call equal opportunity "reverse racism" - but you ignore the fact that federal action was required to enforce the end of segregation, and it was only after this had been achieved that African-Americans ceased to be second-class citizens in their own country.

Your fiction about the dole is not a new one, but let me break it down for you: you are unhappy because there are people that do not work, cannot find work, and yet receive enough food, medical care, and essential social services that they and their families do not die...because you think they are "lazy." You look at how hard you work for your paycheck and how miserable you are, and you look at them doing nothing and every little pleasure they might have in life - ever dollar they spend on beer, cigarettes, television, or sex - is something they have not earned and should be deprived of until they work for it. Basically, you want them to feel bad about being poor, and you want them to suffer for it. In all other aspects of life when someone of your own socio-economic class or above manages to game the system and squeeze some tax write-off or benefit from Uncle Sam you congratulate the on their cleverness, but for THESE PEOPLE, because they are poor, you decide they should feel ashamed and act properly miserable until by dint of hard work and scraping their pennies together and living in hell maybe they can aspire to break that threshold and become only lower-middle-class. You fucking hypocritical bastard. We support those who cannot support themselves because it is the right thing to do - and yes, we can afford it, so we should. What ever happened to "To support the soldier that has borne the battle, and his widow, and his orphan?"

You have a wonderful conspiracy theory about Democrats - but do you really not understand that everything you have claimed for them is as true for Republicans? The Military-Industrial Complex and Medical-Industrial Complex are sponsored and paid for by government contract, grants, subsidies, and tax credits - and those are the things the Republicans don't want to touch! The Democrats at least support unions and regulation that keep rampant business from running amok - or do you want a return to company towns and company stores, where you really are slaved to a wage, unable to escape the debt spiral until you're nothing more than an indentured servant of a corporation?

How exactly do the Republicans even plan on helping people get out of poverty? Teaching a man to fish sounds all well and good until he fucking dies of starvation in the middle of a lesson.
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Post by RobbyPants »

npc310 wrote:Raising taxes on the rich will not work. In today's consumer-driven society, if you try to tax the hell out of Bill Gates, he'll charge more for Windows. Tim Cook will charge more for iPads. Doctors who are forced to see Medicaid patients at $15 $9 apiece will charge all their other patients more to offset the losses they incur. The doctor is not going to lose his own money.
Actually, as the tax rate on the top-earners has gone down, the wage disparity between them and everyone else has only widened. If anything, evidence shows that if you give them lots of money back, they keep it.
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Post by tussock »

Frank Trollman wrote:The top rate today is 35%, what possible reason is there to not double that?
Rhetorical, I know, but the reason government don't double it is that it makes them less money in fairly short order (long before it makes some future government more money).

People who are taxed at 70% on income grow the economy because they leave all their money in their business and try to grow the capital base instead of buying super-yachts and shit. This is good for the economy where it helps future people who do not yet vote and future governments who are not yet in power, which means nothing to a democracy.

Historically the west only got high tax rates to avoid the growing threat of popular totalitarian uprisings. Rich people were scared shitless that the poor would literally cut all their heads off, so they socially engineered a massive and comfortable middle class. Once communism "died" (propaganda-wise, China isn't communist, and neither was India) the rich gave themselves the old tax rates back and are doing everything to remove that fat middle class again.
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Post by Koumei »

tussock wrote:Rich people were scared shitless that the poor would literally cut all their heads off, so they socially engineered a massive and comfortable middle class.
I think there's a very clear solution to the problem then.
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Post by Prak »

Koumei wrote:From the very thing you linked, last paragraph:
On the other hand, Mr. Romney has a record of being a generous charitable donor.
There has to be some kind of "laughing old men" image macro to use here. Maybe Statler and Waldorf?

Edit: I am not claiming he hasn't donated vast amounts of money. But not in a generous (or indeed charitable) manner. Always to things that specifically benefit him, including to EvilCorp PTY LTDThe Church of LSD the LDS.
Well, there's this:
But given that at least one of those two men actually does give to charity in very, very large amounts it seems disingenuous.
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Post by npc310 »

Where did Frank go?
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Post by Ted the Flayer »

Why do you care, did you want him to give you a kiss goodnight?
Prak Anima wrote:Um, Frank, I believe you're missing the fact that the game is glorified spank material/foreplay.
Frank Trollman wrote:I don't think that is any excuse for a game to have bad mechanics.
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Post by Ted the Flayer »

Also npc, do you even game? Because it seems like you wander in here, say moronic things to rustle the local jimmies, then disappear for a while. Don't get me wrong, I have rustled many jimmies in my time. I am merely curious.
Prak Anima wrote:Um, Frank, I believe you're missing the fact that the game is glorified spank material/foreplay.
Frank Trollman wrote:I don't think that is any excuse for a game to have bad mechanics.
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Post by DSMatticus »

npc310 wrote:Where did Frank go?
I'd guess he wandered off to greener pastures because your posts are stupid and useless, and talking to you directly is nothing but a headache. The best way to handle you is to correct a few of your giant fuck-ups and then go back to pretending you don't exist. But hell, if you genuinely want to know why your latest post was also stupid, I can help.
npc310 wrote:Joseph recommends that Pharaoh appoint a wise man to ration grain during the fat years, holding one-fifth in reserve. This reserve will be used by the country to get them through the lean years. Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge, who then executes this plan. Seven years of surplus are followed by seven lean years. Joseph saves during the fat years, and releases the savings to the populace during the lean years.

This bit of Judeo-Christian mythology is not describing a deficit.
Yes, it is describing a deficit. You apparently don't even know what that word means, why are you talking about it? The seven lean years, where Egypt consumes more grain than it produces? That's a deficit. During the seven fat years, where Egypt produces more grain than it consumes? That's a grain surplus. I'm guessing that you're confusing deficit and debt. This hypothetical Egypt ran a deficit without going into debt because it had existing reserves, but it's still a deficit because that's just what that word fucking means.

Egypt runs a deficit during times when grain is short, and they run a surplus during times when grain is abundant. The surplus pays for the deficit. Right now, we are in "the seven lean years," (a recession) and you are saying that we should aim to run a surplus. If you were running our hypothetical Egypt, it would starve because you'd be trying to save grain when no one can grow any.
npc310 wrote:Raising taxes on the rich will not work. In today's consumer-driven society, if you try to tax the hell out of Bill Gates, he'll charge more for Windows. Tim Cook will charge more for iPads. Doctors who are forced to see Medicaid patients at $15 $9 apiece will charge all their other patients more to offset the losses they incur. The doctor is not going to lose his own money.
Go forth, and learn economics! Seriously, that's bullshit. Anyone who's taken even an introductory economics course would laugh in your fucking face for this. The reality is that if you increase taxes, businesses cannot pass that burden all the way down to customers because increased prices means decreased demand. If businesses tried to raise prices to compensate for increased taxes, demand would cause profit to fall faster than the increased prices cause it to raise, and they would be pissing away money. If you can count on businesses to do anything, it's usually not to deliberately piss away money.

It's pretty simple, really; if you tax at the end (profit, CEO wages), it doesn't affect the cost to produce a good, it doesn't affect the demand for the good, and it won't affect the price of the good. The variables of the economic optimization problem that decides "what price do we sell at?" remains totally unchanged. The only thing that does change is that Ricky McRich makes ten million a year instead of twenty.
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