David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts, a real estate and timeshare company in the US, has written all of his employees a letter stating that he will start firing people if the current US presidential administration is re-elected.

Reported at ZeroHedge and NewsBusters.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...or-a-sucker/3/

Unless Im missing something these tax increases are not that drastic. As someone who as a couple was earning the kind of money they are talking about I would be "happy" to pay a few extra grand in taxes.

The rich don`t want to lose their Bush tax cuts. Is it really an increase or a return to the status before Bush? This article seems to indicate that Obama tax rates are still lower than before the Bush tax cuts.

What irks me is that for paying relatively high taxes in the USA, by the time you add Federal, State, SS and Medicare Levy, and City tax (while we were living in NY) you have a marginal tax rate between 40% and 50% plus a lot in property taxes but there are no social services.

Unemployment benefits are poor if existent, Healthcare is super expensive and the system forces people in lower middle class jobs to never retire.

All you seem to pay for is the biggest military budget in the world. Why isn't someone talking about cutting the crap out of that?

Meanwhile you have uber rich folks paying less than 15% tax on their income, corporations paying next to nothing because they avoid it, work around it.

If this guy if actually paying 50% marginal tax I feel for him because I think there is a point where the incentive to work leaves, and upwards of 50% is too high.

Doesn't make what he wrote correct, he's an absolute ass but he's not the only absolute ass who will bully employees. Of course he doesn't say it but guarantee he would find and pick on democratic voters. I know the type I used to work for one.

People only employ people to do work. I guarantee this guy employs the minimum number of people he can. Unless the workload changes he won't be firing too many.

Id love to see him sell up and retire to the Caribbean. Then he can deal with the ridiculous US tax laws for expats

This guy is a perfect example to me of what's wrong in Corporate America™.

So, here he is, wealthy wealthy, wealthy, building a house that is the largest in the US, a house which has been called "Versailles". Makes me want to scream - wealth does not make you a king AND likening yourself to French kings may not be the best... although in this case, seems actually pretty applicable.

You see, he is saying he'll have to cut jobs in his company due to having to pay taxes - but yet, he's having elevators and marble installed in his humongous house.

i think what he's saying is that if taxes go any higher, it's not worth the time and stress any more. he'll just pack it in and retire on his private beach in wherever.

Actually in his rant he says both, he says That if taxes go any higher I will be forced to reduce the size of this company, which is basically a threat that he's going to fire employees. Then he talks about retiring to the Caribbean.

Hes not exactly consistent in his messaging.

If he's truly paying marginal tax rate of 50% I can understand the frustration but he's bullying people and he's a complete Ahole. But I doubt it very much he pays that in taxes.

I imagine he's more upset about the expiring Bush tax cuts and he's probably takes his profits as dividends.

Unfortunately for him unless he has a foreign passport he's not going to escape the long arm of Uncle Sam and the IRS where ever he moves

Erm, not Romney. He wants to increase "defense" spending by a few trillion bucks, even though the top brass say it is not necessary.

Nobody's stopping you. Write your check to the IRS anytime. Just keep your hands out of my pockets, please. These "not so drastic" tax cuts might be the difference between paying for college outright or having to borrow money. They might be the difference between somebody buying a house or not. We can't just assume that because your income is x, this means you can "afford" to pay more in taxes. Everybody's situation is different. Not so drastic for you can be disastrous for me.

Always class warfare right? Many "rich" in the US live in middle-class homes, drive middle-class cars to their mid-level jobs. Other "rich" drive to the small businesses they own, where they work hard every day for the money they get. When they simply want to keep as much of what they earn as possible (behavior I see all people doing), they are vilified. Meanwhile, we have such a skewed tax structure in the US that the top 10% of income earners bear 90% of the federal tax burden and 50% of Americans pay no federal taxes.
Also, if the cuts belong to Bush, should we then call the increase, "The Obama Tax Increase?"

So if you are paying so much to the government and receiving so little, why would you be "happy" to pay more? Isn't that throwing good money after bad? Shouldn't people be saying, "Before you take MORE of my hard-earned money, you need to show me some results"? When we invest our money in businesses, we look at historical performance as an indicator of whether that business is a good investment or not; why don't we do the same with government? I'm not saying government always needs to turn a profit, but it DOES need to STOP LOSING SO MUCH MONEY.

In the US, individuals can qualify for up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. That's more than a year (almost 2 actually) of benefits. Many employers offer generous severance packages for laid-off employees. Of course these benefits don't equate to the income level the employee was earning prior; if they did, there would be no incentive to go back to work, and that's not the point of unemployment benefits.

Healthcare IS super expensive in the US; Obamacare will make it worse. The issue in the US healthcare is twofold: the extreme cost of college education and the extreme cost of malpractice insurance against potentially frivolous lawsuits. Obamacare does NOTHING to address either issue.

Cut what part? Research? Numerous civilian endeavors have benefitted greatly from military research, such as prosthetics. It is a terrible thing that soldiers were hurt and maimed in war, but their pain was not entirely in vain as prosthetic science has advanced in leaps in the past decade. Manpower? So now the government is paying "laid-off" military personnel, but getting no work for them. Equipment? If we don't have enough body armor or well-enough designed tanks and planes, and military personnel die because of this, would you still be okay with "cutting the crap out of that"? General funds? When we do this, then the US military doesn't have money for humanitarian relief, like when a hospital ship was sent to Haiti after the major earthquake there.

More class warfare.
Corporations pay NOTHING in taxes. Taxes are an expense that is built into the price of the good or service you buy; the end consumer pays all the tax. It is one of the biggest shams that governments and businesses have been able to put past the people. Meanwhile, because the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, companies are fleeing overseas wherever and whenever they can. There are estimates that as much as $13 TRILLION in USD-denominated funds exist outside the US, simply to avoid tax liability. Imagine if, instead of brutal laws that simply encourage American companies to move their money elsewhere, the US had the lowest corporate tax rates.

I agree 50% IS too much; however, for some, "too much" might be much less.


How is he "bullying" employees? This is more rhetoric without substance. He is saying that he believes that Obama will create an economic climate whereby this company cannot afford to employ as many employees as it does. It is ILLEGAL to "pick on" employees because of political affiliation. Any employee so wronged could and should file a complaint and possibly a lawsuit against the business owner.

Glad we nailed that one down...

I guarantee that also. This is how ALL businesses operate. They don't go around hiring people they don't need. Remember, people only employ people to do work.

So, are you saying that you'd love to see all his employees laid off and out of work? At least under this guy's model, he's not talking about sacking everybody...

labor unions have been threatening their members for years with respect to voting. although I think such a tactic is stupid, it is hardly new.

Blackmail?

Nevermind what Cardcheck will do to union voting.

Beware the politics of envy.

These are the benefits of owning your own business and making it successful! It's always easier to try and pull someone down to your level; it's much harder to better yourself and try to achieve more. Unsurprisingly, I see more people who prefer to get jealous of the achievements of others, than those who see it as inspiration to improve their lot.

I belong to the latter category and, frankly, I do not feel sorry for those in the former category. I don't even own a house, but I don't see that as a good reason to stop trying.

Jealousy is a path to the Dark Side

I too think that being able to own your own home is an admirable thing for which one should strive.

HOWEVER

I believe that if you decide to become an employer, you have a responsibility to your employees to be the best boss you can. If this means having to skip on the marble floors and elevators in your kingly mansion so that you can continue to employ them and ensure that they have a decent quality of live themselves, so be it.

Cutting the livelyhood of others while living a life of extreme ostentation is not a good thing. "Let them eat cake" does indeed come to mind in this case.

Your words in this thread compared to the words you used to berate me in another don't seem to match up much. This guy is behaving like a modern feudal lord, reaping the benefits garnered from his peasants, then cutting their lives when it suits him... a mindset that sounds a bit like some folks with more military bent in some African countries to me, and something which YOU seemed to find bad.

How does it work? It's only bad if you think it's bad, if I think it's bad, it's because I'm jealous? Envy is not the only deadly sin you know, so is gluttony and greed - both of which are seen by "conspicuous consumption" such as the particulars of this gentleman's private residence.

I think you need to do some reading, because you come across as astonishingly ignorant: The mandate of any company is to maximise the benefits of its shareholders, not its employees. In many countries, this is actually enshrined in law: Shareholders have the right to expect that their interests will be looked after if they invest in a company. Employees can, also, be shareholders - and in the case of any publicly-traded company, the choice is theirs. If you choose to work for a privately-traded company, that is also your choice!

Your beliefs don't matter one jot: Enterprise is based on the reward of risk, and those who found their own companies end up risking a lot in the beginning. Socialists have a lot to say of companies that have succeeded and made fortunes for their owners - but they are all astonishingly quiet when it comes to discussing those companies that swallowed considerable capital investment, at great risk to their founders, and folded. Operating any business isn't a 9-to-5 job at the best of times, and it's never as easy as it looks.

Otherwise you'd be doing it too, right?

I've often said (and heard this said, also) that the best antidote to socialism in the minds of the people is to force them to own and operate their own businesses. I knew one American who founded the Ugly American café in Düsseldorf, and she was a die-hard Socialist before she began. Being a company owner quickly disabused her of that notion, and now she is a die-hard capitalist. It's funny how quickly people wake up when they're splashed in the face with cold water.

You need to wake up: Employees are not serfs - they are people - and they are also free to found and run their own company, any time they damn well please.

Shouldn't it be stakeholders instead of shareholders?
Or are customers not important at all?
Then why do companies have mission statements? Is it indeed all marketing bullshit?

Agree

Disagree. As an employer/business owner, I am taking almost all of the risk. I am creating the job; without my having taken the risk to start this company, none of these jobs would exist. I have offered you what I believe to be a fair compensation for the work you do; apparently, you also believe this as you work for this wage. This isn't slavery or feudal serfdom; you have every opportunity to work for my competitor, or in any other field you choose. You can even start your own business, if you think you know better than I. Some of these options may be risky, scary, hard, or even dangerous, but so was my choice to start this company for whom you currently work. You may end up broke and unemployed, but so may I; I have accepted this risk, have you? I don't have an employer paying into an unemployment compensation scheme for me; I pay into that scheme for you. I don't have an employer paying my retirement contribution; I pay my own, and then I contribute to yours. I don't have an employer paying for my health insurance, I pay for my own, and, again, I contribute to yours. I pay business taxes, licensing taxes, property taxes, employment taxes for my business and then I declare my profits on my personal income tax statement, where I am taxed again and told that I "earn too much" and should pay more. After I have dealt with all this, if I have money remaining to build myself a lavish mansion, this money is MY money, I can do with it as I please. If I choose to provide work for an architect, engineer, marble layers,and construction workers by building this lavish home, that is my free choice. Why is any other person in a more moral position to judge me?

Ignorant, no. Idealistic, yes.

My ideals don't match yours, such is life.

Customers matter as long as they bring in the bacon.

Some companies know this. Other companies have forgotten. Depending on the customer's determination to seek value for his/her money, this may be a minor or a major issue.

I don't speak of ideals, here - I speak of cold, hard reality, of the 2+2=4 sort.

That is the difference.

All that may be true for a real entrepreneur who comes out of the gutter and sets out to make something out of nothing. Most of our CEOs, however, are far from being entrepreneurs. Many were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, went to expensive schools and grew up protected from hardships, got parachuted straight from college into management positions and fast-tracked to the top. And if they do fail there they get a golden handshake and a golden parachute. If their gambles fail and bankrupcy looms they can even apply for corporate welfare (the logic of market freedom has to be suspended when it suits them). The amount of risk they are facing in reality is pretty small. And yet they have the nerve to tell the rest of us that if it wasn't for them there wouldn't be jobs.

Life is about more than money. A good life involves ideals for each individual.

Mr. Moneybanks-CEO has ideals - his ideals include a ostentatious display of wealth for a house, rather than the ideal of ensuring that his employees have, and continue to have, a good quality of life.

We are talking about ideals.

Yes, yes, I understand the economics and academics surrounding the claptrap "shareholder" value, and I disagree with it now just as much as I disagreed with it while working in Corporate America™. Being forced to hire people only part time rather than full time (which meant they didn't get any benefits, not even sick pay) in order to ensure quarterly bonus for the people further up the food chain really left an extremely poor impression in my mind - and my heart.


So, you can have your ideals about how much money you and your shareholders can make, how big your house can be ... and I will hold onto my ideals that people shouldn't elevate themselves to extremes at the cost of the lives of others. It's not that I think the guy shouldn't have a good house and a good life - he worked for it, he deserves it... but the elevators and marble floor? LOL What a tool.