Mark Davis

There is, and you, I and MDC likely all disagree on the levels it should be. The problem isn't so much me, or even worried necessarily about the ultra wealthy, but that the average worker with a modest 401K for his retirement is tethered to the system. He's relying on equities in his retirement and if we incentivize those large players to sell off assets in an expedited timeframe, the people that will be hurt most are those older people with retirement accounts.

The best I could come up with is a slow and incremental change to the cap gains rate. Maybe 1-1.5% uptick every year or two years so that you make it where it's not as cut and dry about selling your gains to remove the tax burden. If you're only gaining 1-1.5% do you really want to take the hit today? I'd say probably not but there are some situations you would, I'd really have to think it through and I'm sure there are angles there I'm not considering. I get what you're saying and I don't think either side politically wants to hurt the average person putting money in their 401K, but if you're say 50-60 years old and congress did make this change all at once to up the rate to ordinary income or even say 28%, it would devastate your 401K, not because they changed your rates, but the effect all the selling of those who it did impact would have on the market and value of your account.

Let me kind of give you an example from me personally. I've done pretty well but I'm no Warren Buffett for sure. Back in 2007 I made some extra money in my business. I put that money into a few mutual funds. Let's look at one specific example: I bought Vanguard Prime Cap Core Fund (VPCCX) with $17,500 in money over 3 buys at the end of 2007/early 2008. I've never sold any of it. Today, those shares are worth a bit over $142,000. Along the way, I have been taxed on distributions/cap gains that were reinvested to the fund of $65,900. So my tax basis is now $84,400 ($17,500+$65,900). If I sold the shares today I'd owe tax on the gain of $56,600 ($142K-$84,400) at 20% cap gains rate, or $11,320 in taxes. If say I was at a 37% fed rate and we changed the law to where I had to pay that rate on cap gains, I would be a fool to not sell those shares the year prior to that change taking place. Otherwise I'd owe $20,942 in taxes at 37% vs $11,320 at 20%. I could even sell those shares today and repurchase them tomorrow if I wanted. There is no "wash sale" rule for gains. If everyone started selling it would create a rush to the exits in the market.

The biggest issue with adjusting the capital gains rate upward would be the fallout it would have on our stock market and people's retirement accounts. Let's say we passed a cap gains increase today to ordinary income levels, or even a more modest increase of say 5% to the cap gains rate, you would have a cascade of selling activity of people clearing their unrealized gains at this year's lower rates. It would spiral the market in ways I'm not sure we can really estimate and for those who are retired or nearing retirement, would deal them a devastating blow. Longer term things would correct, but short term you really hurt some vulnerable people as well as send a massive shock wave through the entire economy.

On extreme cases like Romney, Buffett, that ilk I agree. The issue is when politicians discuss tax increases, and because they are increases they are mostly D's, they talk about the incremental rates. You and I both know why, the donors and the politicians themselves want to act like they are addressing the issue via the tax brackets while not truly addressing why those people are paying a 15% for instance. If Mitt Romney's effective rate is truly 15%, it's not because the top tax rate is 37% and needs to be higher. Changing the brackets does nothing, and people across the entire political spectrum need to realize it, whether you are for more taxes or less taxes. Social Security taxes are capped because benefits are capped. Most high end earners won't recover their money anyway, but it seems to me unfair to tax those folks even more for no more benefits. This goes back to the whole earned income and tax bracket question. The reason removing the SS cap is so popular amongst the D politicians are that this has no impact on the ultra high net worth individuals. Those folks aren't making much subject to SS earnings, the people making large salaries subject to the SS tax are already paying the highest rates across the board on that income.

Yeah I used to have some of those "Coca Cola" uppers they called them. Team took those a few years back. What they are doing is holding the resale market for themselves. It works until they do what the Seahawks did this past week and email anyone selling their seats that they were subject to revocation for selling that one game. The premise was we want "12s" in the stands. Of course the Seahawks themselves didn't mind selling SRO for around $500 each at one point I saw them on the resale market, even though it was the team listing them. So I guess in that case it's ok if the visiting team's fans buy them. Their threats created the environment for sure. Colleges have started that too even though they are risking brand loyalty erosion already with their changing model. Ticketing has turned into a VC type business these days.

No team has 100% renewals obviously. Someone dies at the very least. What the Chiefs prefer not to say, and as someone in the business I can tell you and would bet $1 against my last breath, those seats went to their resale partner Tickets for Less rather than to fans or a waitlist. They want to control the secondary, Tickets for Less allows them to do so while acting like brokers are evil. Well, Mahomes and the Hunts invest in Tickets for Less. When you call their number Patrick Mahomes’ voice was the greeter for their hold time!

Well they also didn’t include the PSL cost, which is huge if you are in any modern stadium

I despise Don Lemon. But from Trump's perspective, he's doing some good PR things for him. They should just let him keep it up.

I agree with you here as well.

As much as we differ, that statement is correct. It's like I told Tim one time recently in a discussion, the issue has become that there are differing views now on what we view as successfully living together and what country we want. In the 90s you had Clinton and GW Bush largely. Those sides were politically different, but by in large those who supported both wanted many of the same things for the country, even if they disagreed on how to get there. I think our fracture has become more than the methods to the end now, the end is different and that is a huge issue. I don't know how we fix it without some transformational leader who unites everyone. In our system where states are rushing to gerrymander districts and therefore our reps become more and more extremists and are politically rewarded for taking extreme views, it seems very unlikely.

He's trying to be relevant again. Imagine interrupting anyone's worship service and thinking you are going to change anyone's mind. He's seeing unrest and a controversial topic and taking the hard left action to try and get relevance.

I wonder how many of these same folks have called the Confederate soldiers from a long ago era "traitors".

I would be good if we had a temporary pullback. I have some distributions coming from my S-Corp I need to rebalance into some equities. The cheaper the buy point the better.

Yep, 100%. Let him get everything he wants. No half measures.

Buying it long term would be a winner. The Danes know that and are unlikely to sell it. We aren't going to invade it, I wish that wasn't the rhetoric. America has wanted to buy Greenland for a long time. I do think it's highly likely what Trump is angling for more than a true takeover is more bases, security, and/or rights and ability to provide security to some of those rare earth minerals. We will end up with some/all of that and it will die down.

There's a lot going on here, but access to, and financial rewards from, the rare earth minerals is a long way from being a reality for anyone at those sites. Greenland has like 100 miles total of roadway, so you are looking at a 15-20 year time horizon if you started today to extract and produce from those sites. That's not to say there isn't long term value, there is, but odds are those in the headlines about it won't be around to see much personal gain there. All that said, something will get worked out, we aren't invading Greenland.

You're kind of like me. I voted for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, never GWB. Now my views are deemed to the right, although I'm not near right enough I'd fit in what the Republican party in my state is. I really haven't changed other than being OK with gay marriage, yet somehow I'm now more right in the scope of things because I think this looney idea that you can impede law enforcement and stir up unrest is wrong and dangerous. I don't know when it became ok for local leaders to just say "we won't comply" with federal laws and more so then to just assume the federal authorities would and should back down to them.

Is Trump still a Russian agent or was that last week?

Shameful. It's been shown how far students fell behind during Covid closures.

Collectivism/Socialism does tend to make things uninvestable. When the government seized all their assets once, you can't blame them.

There’s one sure way to stop these tragedies, don’t run from law enforcement. Bad things can happen.

That's not really what the nuts and bolts of the FTC suit are about you have it kind of backwards. The FTC suit I believe to be anti-capitalist because it's end result would limit resale and open markets. These actions actually increase the prices of tickets on the market. I have my own issues with Ticketmaster from my company's perspective but a lot of this is scapegoating them into full blame when the truth is they just have some issues and will do whatever it takes to maintain their market position. Ticketmaster is definitely high on fees but what they are doing with the FTC is taking out individuals with multiple accounts in an effort to allow the "rightsholders" (teams and artists) to limit resale. Well, when that is allowed the promoters or teams/artists become the resellers under TM premium packages or they send tickets only to their consolidated resale partners. By limiting the tickets that can be bought by individuals, whether brokers or general public, the artists and teams can dictate resale volumes and terms and force prices higher. These silly 10% cap on resale prices that some states, specifically in New England, have enacted is only going to drive prices even higher because it allows the supplier to choke off and hide what is really available at any given time. Since the team/promoter sets face value, they can always just change that so they can get around the law while you the consumer cannot. Often times Ticketmaster doesn't show you what is truly available in totality either. That's not a Ticketmaster choice, just like Ticketmaster doesn't mind resale, but they block it if the team/artist tells them to in order to keep their business. Ticketmaster doesn't have nearly the monopoly it used to on the primary with AXS and more specifically Seatgeek gaining larger market share. When it comes to pricing though, most events end up selling below original face values, if you limit resale and enforce price caps and floors, those last minute deals you can find would cease. It's easy to point to the 5-10% of events that explode to 2-3x face and say that's bad, but nobody considers the $250 face value ticket they paid $50 for to go see their favorite team on a Thursday night.

When politicians get involved in ticketing it always becomes more monopolistic and expensive. The FTC suits against Ticketmaster are only going to drive prices higher.

I was never that big of a 2A person, certainly not an absolutist. But when you see stuff like this and the fact that someone who supports these positions was elected, that moves me more in the 2A direction.