Billionaire Bill Gross: Wealthy didn't 'build that,' they 'rode it,'

[cali]

<snip>I

n his latest Investment Outlook, titled "Scrooge McDucks," the outspoken Pimco co-founder said that with tax reform back on the radar, the focus should be on taxing the wealthy. Yes, he knows the rich work hard. And yes, he knows they pay an outsized share of the taxes.

But Gross said the wealthy really didn't earn all of their wealth. They are lucky beneficiaries of a decades-long credit boom that poured money into the hands of the financially skilled.

"You did not, as President Obama averred, 'build that,' you did not create that wave," he wrote. "You rode it. And now it's time to kick out and share some of your good fortune by paying higher taxes or reforming them to favor economic growth and labor, as opposed to corporate profits and individual gazillions."

Specifically, he said the lower tax rate on capital gains should end. (The idea was also raised by Jim Stewart in his New York Times column Saturday).

The piece echoes a similar Investment Outlook that Gross wrote in 2007, when he said the wealthy got rich by "taking risks with other people's money" and low taxes. He added that America coddles the rich and that "it is in fact society's wind and its current willingness to nurture the rich that fills their sails."

<snip>

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101167431

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. Why should Capital Gains be given protected status....than my hard earned

sweat equity job? They want to simplify the tax code....there's a good one right there.

[silverweb]

2. Absolutely.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Capital gains should be taxed as regular income.

[cali]

3. What I find gratifying is his saying that the rich are riding a wave not building something