[FoRK] Clarification on 401k, also further details of Obama's position re: investment income

[Jeff Bone]

On Apr 17, 2008, at 7:23 PM, Russell Turpin wrote:
>
> Jeff Bone:
>> Per Russell's comment re: 401k, Obama did not specifically mention
>> such funds. However it's important to note that eventual
>> distributions stemming from vanilla 401k contributions, unlike Roth
>> 401k contributions and their corresponding distributions, are taxed.
>
> Yes. And as ordinary income, even if all the gains would otherwise
> be long-term capital gains.

None of which matters a whit when the idea behind such a tax increase  
(ideology, "rich" - remember, above-the-mean wealth - people are evil,  
their gains are ill-gotten, screw 'em, and use tax policy to do so) is  
so disconnected from the reality (79% of capital gains payers in 2005  
earned under $100k.)  The clear statement is that investment income is  
in some way less legitimate than earned income.  We've already got  
that idea eating away at the corners of our system, do you really want  
to support a candidate that has made his opinion clear on the matter,  
particularly with the likelihood of a rubber-stamp Congress?  Do you  
*really* trust your retirement to this guy?  It's already prima facie  
clear that we don't trust our retirement to the failed nanny- 
government social-economic policies of the FDR sycophants of the  
past;  do you really feel like rolling the dice and betting that this  
guy and the left-wing arm of his party aren't going to come after the  
*private* retirement hedge you've constructed?  Or that they won't, in  
their exuberance at gaining the trifecta, throw our whole system even  
further into disarray thereby reducing the real value of said hedge  
even further than it already has been by the actions of the present  
administration?

That's not a bet I'm going to make, I'll tell you that right now.

> You're really haven't touched on the real issue, whish is the
> international aspects of tax policy. There's a very real sense in
> which nations are locking their citizens into their tax and
> retirement policies, and where picking an alternative later faces
> all sorts of bureaucratic barriers.

I'm not sure that *the* real issue, but it's certainly *an* issue.

jb