Wrestleknownothing

Ahh, we are in coo-coo territory. Your happy place.

It does not contain any plans for an insurrection.

I knew I was on shaky ground as I typed that.

You guys hilariously and conveniently forget that Trump was a democrat and has changed his political affiliation five times. Ol' Wind Sock Donnie.

Set your excuses up early. A tried and true technique for someone preparing to lose.

Another way to think about it is that the women, who had no historical basis to favor one style over the other, chose freestyle, suggesting that free is on the up swing while greco is stagnant.

This year at U17 Euros - Men's free had 174 entrants from 31 countries - Men's greco had 197 from 34 - Women's free had 153 from 29 This year at U20 Euros - Men's free had 181 entrants from 28 countries - Men's greco 262 from 32 - Women's free had 151 from 26. So if you are comparing men's to men's outside of the US among the next generation, greco still has the edge. But a valid argument can be made that because there is no women's greco, greco is no longer the more popular style.

For years the local (Chicago) ESPN talk radio affilate has had a segment called Florida or Ohio. Someone reads a bizzare news story and the hosts need to guess if it happened in Florida or Ohio.

That is a loving mom.

Yes, that is where the gains go.

My proudest moment came when I was visiting my wife's cousin who I had been helping due to an accident he suffered. His 20 year old daughter, who is very blunt, came up to me and said, "I want you to make me rich." I told her I had no get rich quick schemes, but I knew how to make her rich slowly. But first she would need to read several emails I was going to write. I wrote the emails and figured that would be the end of it. A few months later she called me to say she had read the emails, and opened an account at Vanguard that she funded with $500, was she done? With a tear in my eye I told her almost. She now regularly makes deposits to her account and invests it wisely. She isn't close to being a millionaire yet, but she will be.

Except 401k, IRAs, 501c3, etc. are categorically different from what I poorly described. All of those are structured to encourage investment/capital formation by deferring taxes, not avoiding. And they are specifically identified in law (hence names like 401k which refers to section 401, paragraph k of the Revenue Act of 1978). The trades I am refering to are to allow asset owners to synthetically sell appreciated assets without paying taxes on gains. These trades are not available to any but the ultra-wealthy because they need to be large enough for Wall Street to care. A classic, simple trade is called "buy, borrow, die". Buy an asset, if it appreciates significantly rather than sell borrow against it in a way that is tied to the price of the asset, then include the asset in your estate so that when you die the basis is marked to market and your heirs pay little to no taxes on the gains, but also don't get the gains because you borrowed against those. There are many, more clever trades that do not require death.

A whole lot of modern structured finance is about tax avoidance. Clever Wall Street traders and sales people make butt loads of money dreaming up structures to help avoid large tax hits for a less large, but still large fee. Over time some of those trades get roped into the tax code by clever bill writers to make them taxable. But, then new, more clever, trades are dreamt up. Whixh then creates a need for newer, more clever bills. And the cycle continues. The rewards for cleverness are high. So I would not be surprised to see some of the clever borrowing transactions get roped into tax code. Most of the trades take the form of a loan in some way, but are economically identical (or very close to identical) to a sale, leaving the person who borrows against the asset with no economic exposure to the asset. These are the types of "loans" that do not aid in capital formation. It is these trades that should be targeted rather than some generic sense of unrealized gains. That only the wealthiest can do these trades also achieves the desired effect. A generic tax on unrealized gains is problematic in so many ways. Determining the size of the gain is impossible, even for publicly trade stocks with a constant stream of prices, if you own any appreciable size. I just feel like an unrealized gain tax should be dead on arrival.

Imagine what kind of sucker listens to someone named Insurrection Barbie

All evidence to the contrary

I don't know what that means. But I am not alone. It is clear you don't know either.

He clearly could not have meant that it is a roadblock to something that has been going on since 1913. That is why I asked for clarification.

Roadblocks to what?

With the right growth and interest rate assumptions we are all billionaires.

Are we all just now realizing that we have a progressive tax system?

Nope. The question was always about the Biden-Harris proposal to tax unrealized gains for billionnaires. As people like to do around here when they do not know what they are talking about, they attempted to "prove" that billionaires pay the majority of taxes by posting a stat that not even the 1% highest earners pay a majority of taxes. Never mind that the top 1% of earners by AGI does not equate in any way to the 800 billionaires in the US. Just a bunch of foolishness. Even that 800 billionaires is an overstatement. It includes people who do not have a billion or more, but could be said to be worth a billion on a capitalized basis. For example, Taylor Swift is a newly minted "billionaire" even though she does not have a billion dollars. However, if she were to sell the rights to her future royalties and concert revenue she would likely be able to do so for about a billion dollars, so Forbes puts her on their billionaires list. There are a lot of this kind of "billionaires" in this category. None of these would be covered. So, now we are talking about a lot less than 800 people the tax would apply to. Even if all of those people are in the 1% by AGI (they are not, which is the point of the proposal) they constitute a whopping 0.0005% of the 153.6 million taxpayers. So if the top 1% pay 45% of total taxes, then clearly any 0.0005% do not pay the majority of taxes.

Sounds like a fantastic trip. I have done a few of those things, too. The wife and I circumnavigated Lake Michigan and Pictured Rocks was the highlight. There is a 12 mile hike there where you go 2 miles through the woods from the parking to the shoreline, then hike 8 miles along a cliff overlooking Superior, then 2 miles back through a forest to the car. Amazing views. If you ever get there again it is highly recommended.

Any chance you got to Pictured Rocks in the UP?

You guys do not seem to understand the difference between income and assets. AGI is not assets. The proposed tax (which will never get passed) is on appreciated assets.

A start. Then it helps to understand what you are reading and follow it up with critical thinking.