Say You, Say Me--Part I

Say You:

I try not to get too terribly worked up over columns on the business pages of newspapers--there's a logical explanation for why they lean strongly pro-business or pro-market forces.  I'd be willing to bet a sizable chunk of a newspaper's readership doesn't even look at the business section, so it's not as if their viewpoints are as widely read as, say, the op-ed page.  But every now and again...you get a piece like today's column in the Free Press from Susan Tompor on the effects of the special tax on capital gains being used to help fund Obamacare.  Note this tax is if you sell a second home, a vacation home, stocks, or other investments north of $250,000.  Tompor uses the example of someone making $80,0000 per year, selling a $400,000 vacation home, which would result in an extra tax of slightly less than $11,000.  To which one of the people cited in the article, tax expert Clint Stretch, replied "It's not like having a lot of capital gains makes you sick when you retire and go on Medicare."

Say Me:

Unlike republicans and their ugly step-sisters the Antoinettes, I am not prone to having a lot of economic sympathy for  anyone sporting the kinds of household worth numbers noted above.  I mean, fucking really?  I'm supposed to feel sorry for someone a) making $80,000 a year, b) able to afford a second home worth $400,000, and c) having to pay an extra $11,000 in taxes to help more Americans have health insurance? My guess is somewhere around 95% of Americans would absolutely fucking love to pay that $11,000 special tax to get to have those kind of dollars in their households.

I'll tell you what, though.  Anyone who is so unhappy with it can sell that property to me for a dollar and I'll gladly pay that special tax.  Hell, I'll fucking pay double that--and smile all the way to the bank.

Frankly, someone has to point out to people that greed is fucking ugly, and not a character trait to be proud of.

Peace,
emaycee