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Yoorah wrote on 2012-10-11 19:51
One of the richest men in the United States has threatened to shut down his company and lay off some 8,000 employees if Barack Obama is re-elected president.
David Siegel, the CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a letter to employees of the massive timeshare company saying he would rather shut down his company and retire to the Caribbean than pay the taxes Obama is promising to implement.
In the letter, published in full on several media sites including Gawker, Siegel insinuates that his employees would be best served to vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
"The economy doesn't currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration," Seidel wrote in an email time-stamped on Monday.
"Of course, as your employer, I can't tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn't interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.
"However, let me share a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest."
Siegel and his wife were the focus of the recent documentary "The Queen of Versailles," which follows the couple as they attempt to build the largest house in the U.S. – a 90,000 square foot palace near Orlando, Fla.
Siegel writes that the Obama administration has labelled the rich as the one per cent, claiming they are immune to the economic challenges facing the country.
He goes on to recount his own history, saying he built the company from the ground up, sacrificing fancy restaurants, new cars and vacations in order to invest in his dream.
"Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn't," Siegel writes.
"The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for."
The letter then recounts the pains placed on business owners who are forced to cover a larger share of taxes, before suggesting he will be forced to cut jobs if more taxes on the rich are implemented.
"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company," he writes.
"You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about."
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wealthy-ceo-threatens-to-lay-off-8-000-if-obama-is-re-elected-1.989991
A rather controversial statement, IMO. At the same time, I can't really blame him for feeling this way.
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Lan wrote on 2012-10-11 20:24
I don't even. Shocking but it's his company so he can do whatever he wants.
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BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2012-10-11 20:31
Costco's CEO prefers Obama to Romney
and he has the warehouse store company with highest consumer satisfaction and is regarded as the best employer in The U.S.
and is ridiculously successful since people who shop at Costco are usually those with incomes higher than middle class
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Ceui wrote on 2012-10-11 20:37
He can do whatever he wants, but it would suck to be his employee... Also he reminded me of this video.
[video=youtube;j2fZNVmiOS0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fZNVmiOS0[/video]
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MareneCorp wrote on 2012-10-11 21:06
Spoilered for pretty rough language/rant, feel free to skip right over this as, looking back, I might be spewing shit out of my ass, but nothing makes me more mad than people that can't see past their own little perfect bubble. Fuck this CEO, fuck his little Versailles dream, fuck this threat. I really hope one of those employees say something, this guy just made a fool of himself.
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]Sure he can do what he wants, but HOLY SHIT. This guy came off to me as a fucking retard. Going to cry about a little tax that you've never paid your whole life? Sure, why fucking not. Go and fuck with maybe 8000 employees while you're at it too and go to the Carribean and use your, I dunno, hundreds of millions (Maybe even trillions... Christ!) of dollars there??? I can't believe any of the shit these rich Romney supporters spew out from their dirty, gold-teethed mouths any more. Jesus, live in the real world for a second.
However, let me share a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest."
Haha. Yeah right, facts.
Siegel and his wife were the focus of the recent documentary "The Queen of Versailles," which follows the couple as they attempt to build the largest house in the U.S. – a 90,000 square foot palace near Orlando, Fla.
Siegel writes that the Obama administration has labelled the rich as the one per cent, claiming they are immune to the economic challenges facing the country.
Actually, yes, you are immune. Have you guys not seen poverty at all? Keep living in your cute little dream world, why don't you pay a little tax for once, it really couldn't hurt to spill out a little pocket change. I mean, look at your company's profits. YOUR profits.
He goes on to recount his own history, saying he built the company from the ground up, sacrificing fancy restaurants, new cars and vacations in order to invest in his dream.
I don't even want to respond to the bolded. How many middle class/working class Americans can even afford half of this? I don't give really a rat's ass about what you did in the past to earn your money, legitimately or not, but if you're "sacrificing" (Really, just wasting your own damn time over a "dream" which, I might add, he compares to Versailles, made by the French king some years back even though his citizens starved to death <--- You know what? That's already quite a handful of Americans out there already) restaurants, cars, and vacations which most normal people can't afford, I don't see how a tax which probably doesn't hurt your company AT ALL should make you shut your company down. Fucking greedy slob.
[/SPOILER]
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Odin wrote on 2012-10-11 21:51
You know what, I'm going to agree with this guy. I work hard for every penny, and yet all the time I see people living on government handouts that have never worked a day in their life.
We live in an age of acceptance, of accessibility. Most disabilities aren't bad enough to stop people from using computers, and that alone is enough to find work for them. There is no reason at all for the government to be giving handouts as easily as they do, other than to look good on camera giving money to the poor- money that wasn't even theirs to give away.
Yet I work hard for my money, every last penny, and every time I turn around I see complete bums driving around fancy cars and enjoying fine dining while I drive a car that rightly should have been flattened and live on canned beans.
If MY taxes, as part of the 99%, go any higher, I won't be able to afford to work for a living.
And I'm a business owner too. Although it is true that the successful business folk are widely known for abusing legal loopholes to cheat the tax man, the fact of the matter is if you irritate those people too much they simply pull out and either retire to live off their wealth or open up new businesses outside the US.
People love to point fingers at the other side, but really both sides are to blame here. The poor need to get out of their houses and do something about being poor, while the rich really should pitch in a little more.
And the middle class is forever stuck in the middle, no matter what happens.
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Chiyuri wrote on 2012-10-11 22:02
Quote from Odin;962242:
People love to point fingers at the other side, but really both sides are to blame here. The poor need to get out of their houses and do something about being poor, while the rich really should pitch in a little more.
In many case, these kind of action to stop been poor usually end up with bankrupt bad end that make them either in jail because they couldn't pay, or in even worst debts..
Luck is a powerful factor in successfulness in life.
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Tarvos wrote on 2012-10-11 23:04
You know, this guy may come off as a massive douche, but, I agree with him, this country gives way too many handouts. I would like if the system would change yet still help those who really need the help (students, disabled, etc.) but, what I've seen a lot of people deny is that there are those who abuse the system, and don't work at all and sit on their lazy asses collecting government handouts. My father who works as a debt collector has dealt with so called "welfare queens" and a friend of mine will take food stamps from someone at his job, only to have them whip out a huge roll of cash and buy a carton of cigarettes. These people are a huge problem.
However... Fuck this guy and the limousine he rode in on. Any government program needs money to work, naturally those who can afford to part with more of their money should be the ones to give and help the country.
I find it funny also how his whole gripe is about how those who work hard are being punished to help those who don't work, so, he's going to throw a hissy fit and fire 8000 possibly hard working men and women and leave them jobless...
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Ninjam wrote on 2012-10-11 23:46
The government should take care of its people. My father served the military for quiet a long time, came back home disabled with MS, which developed overseas. He could no longer work and my mother had to quit college and care for him full time.
And we still had to fight the government to get his veterans benefits and disability checks, along with spending months doing paperwork to get them to send the checks to the right place and on time.
Sure there are people who abuse the system, but there are also many people who dont.
My family has never gone on a vacation outside of a road trip to visit our family, never had a new car, and was general broke 99% of the time.
Not to mention how hard it would be for me to work now without some of those VA benefits to cover living expenses. As it turns out, taking more than the maximum number of credit hours gives you very little time to do anything else. I don't want to come out of college in deep debt, and considering my family has nothing to give me for college government grants are getting me through a lot of it, thankfully.
I think the amount of work I am doing is more than enough for the amount of money I am receiving in grants, especially considering it would be imposable for someone like me from a lower-mid class family(i think?) to even attend without them. Which would probably make his life easier as there would be less competition when people are denied the education needed to actually start up their own businesses and everything.
I wonder how much of a problem it will be for him to send his children to college, even with a raised tax rate.
Anyway, I think everything he said is a load of poop. He seems to come from the viewpoint that equality is widespread in america, which its not. Consider this dilimia, you need money to have a address, which is usually one of the first things a reputable employee looks for when he is hiring. So, without money, you can't work! Without work, you can't make money! That's not even factoring in money needed for food, or nice clothes for interviews.
I once read a book for class about a homeless person that went to Harvard. To get into a school, she has her father come in and LIE, saying she lives at an actual address, when in reality, she is homeless. That is something most places kick you out for, as lieing on an application for anything is generally very frowned upon. If someone had checked into the addresses or something, its possible she would have never gotten a chance to tell her story, because she will have been kicked out of school and still be homeless.
TL/DR- You need to spend money to make money! Which is not possible when your homeless and/or broke.
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Kaeporo wrote on 2012-10-11 23:49
I'm reminded of an old song which was referenced by Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby. "There's nothing surer: The rich get rich and the poor get—children."
This man is a shining example of Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy; both in his triumphs and perils.
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Cynic wrote on 2012-10-12 00:05
I wonder if all the people claiming the majority of the lower-class/people below poverty are simply poor because they choose to be have ever even seen how families like that work. I've met hundreds of poor families and all of them have been hardworking, honest people who just had a lot of bad shit happen to them.
But then again, it's easy to claim that poor people are lazy moochers when well-off people refuse to actually look at how society really is. Not even half the people others are describing are actually moochers. The money people get from the government is crap, most people are barely able to live off it, especially if they're trying to pay for their house, their kids are in college/university, etc. People act like we hand out thousands of dollars per family, when in reality all they get is table scrapes. I can't tell you how many people I've met and heard of who work their fingers to the bone day by day trying to get by and yet it's still not enough.
So if you want to act all high and mighty because you think you work hard and don't "mooch", then good for you. But if you're going to go around claiming the majority of poor people are only poor because they're lazy, I suggest you leave your precious little comfort zone for once, enter the real world and see how shit truly is before you go and make some bogus ass claim. 'Cause out of all the poor people in this world, only a small percent of them are actually lazy moochers. Just because you were able to do a little hard work and got rewarded for it instantly doesn't mean the rest of the world works the same way. Most things in life are based on luck and not hard work. I pity anybody who is too blind to realize it.
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paladin wrote on 2012-10-12 00:23
I understand his point
but he has to get off his ass
If he evades any taxes he has to pay them goddam it
Fine a part of the poor may live on hand outs but your also condemning your own workers
If the large majority of middle and underclassed stop working the economy would effectively freeze
He has to remember without his workers he would be among one of us
Have to argee with Odin
Encourage more people to work and less hand outs
but better tax enforcement
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Kingofrunes wrote on 2012-10-12 11:14
Tax enforcement would be a lot easier if they simplified the damn tax laws and threw out the damn tax shelters the rich abuse so easily.
This is disappointing. Really feel bad for his workers. If I were them, I'd quietly hunt for another job and put in my 2 weeks notice once I got another one lined up.
I'm all for a tiered flat tax rate. The rich pay a flat 30%, middle class pay 20%, lower class pay 10% or 0% pending on how little money they have. If you are just getting by, the government should not take any of your money.
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Juno wrote on 2012-10-12 14:40
I don't know where people get the idea that mass amounts of money go to unnecessary government handouts.
At any rate, while I can't say I completely understand the tax code, I get enough of it to know that any tax reforms should be a temporary fix until a complete overhaul. The complexity of it all is not in the best interests of anyone.
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BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2012-10-12 15:10
thing here is
Obama's plan for corporate tax is basically reducing from 35% to 25%
and yet remove certain tax breaks.
The CEO doesn't bother to explain anything and expect people to follow him like idiots.
Let the IRS take his money