independent economists overwhelmingly side with democrats on economic policy

[The Derp]

Lol. Theyre not even paying on it, just billions on the interest.

But when is the debt due? Personal debts come due at the time of the borrower's death. So since government isn't a person and doesn't "die", when does the debt have to be paid off?

And if your concern is really about the interest on the debt, why wouldn't you support moving the debt from Public Debt (where it incurs higher interest rates) to Intragovernmental Debt (where it incurs much lower interest rates because it's borrowing from ourselves)? Wouldn't that make sense to do if it resulted in less interest payments?

 

[bendog]

I think the following does a fair job of explaining my point, Winston...

No, it doesn't. You problem is that you jump from intergovernmental debt, to public debt, to total debt. But you never stay within a single context, instead you shift your argument around from type-of-debt to type-of-debt and hope no one notices.

It's a fact that Total Public Debt declined between 1998-2001. That isn't up for dispute. Now, total debt increased, but that increase came from intragovernmental holdings, not public debt.

OMG are you dense! Let me see if I can explain this in terms simple enough for even you to grasp.

If in a given year you earn $30,000 ...a friend loans you $5,000 and you spend $32,000, is that a surplus? While you can claim "I received $35,000 and only spent $32,000, thus I have a surplus," that's a pretty weak argument when you know that $2,000 of the money you spent was actually borrowed and has to be paid back later. That's pretty much what happened in 2000.

We still owe that intragovernmental holdings debt...which is why the National Debt increased while the Public debt decreased!

That example fails. But, if you borrowed the money from your life insurance policy and not a friend, it would stand.

I don't think analogies to govt finance and private finance are actually factually analogous.

But the fault in Derp's reasoning is that the public debt reflected future govt obligations to pay future money that weren't just somehow dischagable in bankruptcy or something. That is, we can reduce somewhat the soc sec and medicare benefits, but they're not really going anywhere, and we pay those benefits by taxing current workers for retirees' benefits.

 

[Winston]

I think the following does a fair job of explaining my point, Winston...

No, it doesn't. You problem is that you jump from intergovernmental debt, to public debt, to total debt. But you never stay within a single context, instead you shift your argument around from type-of-debt to type-of-debt and hope no one notices.

It's a fact that Total Public Debt declined between 1998-2001. That isn't up for dispute. Now, total debt increased, but that increase came from intragovernmental holdings, not public debt.

OMG are you dense! Let me see if I can explain this in terms simple enough for even you to grasp.

If in a given year you earn $30,000 ...a friend loans you $5,000 and you spend $32,000, is that a surplus? While you can claim "I received $35,000 and only spent $32,000, thus I have a surplus," that's a pretty weak argument when you know that $2,000 of the money you spent was actually borrowed and has to be paid back later. That's pretty much what happened in 2000.

We still owe that intragovernmental holdings debt...which is why the National Debt increased while the Public debt decreased!

That example fails. But, if you borrowed the money from your life insurance policy and not a friend, it would stand.

Fails in what way? You still have debt. You still spent the money. What is wrong with you people that you can't grasp this concept?

In your example you owe the debt to someone else. If you borrow from your life insurance cash value you owe the money to yourself. The government's intergovernmental debt is owed to itself, not to someone else.

 

[Winston]

Lol. Theyre not even paying on it, just billions on the interest.

But when is the debt due? Personal debts come due at the time of the borrower's death. So since government isn't a person and doesn't "die", when does the debt have to be paid off?

And if your concern is really about the interest on the debt, why wouldn't you support moving the debt from Public Debt (where it incurs higher interest rates) to Intragovernmental Debt (where it incurs much lower interest rates because it's borrowing from ourselves)? Wouldn't that make sense to do if it resulted in less interest payments?

Actually intergovernmental debt does incur interest and that interest is pegged at the average ten year Treasury bond rate. That means the interest expense is relatively the same.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Yes, idiots support lots of stupid things.

Well, it's hard for someone to support your position when your position is just a callback to the same trickle-down policies that have failed over and over and over and over and over and over the last 37 years. Are y'all just playing a game of averages? That eventually the policy will work and that no one goes 0-for-infinity? That's a pretty weak way to go about policy; having faith.

We should probably punish corporations by raising their rates as well.The best way to get them to stop hoarding cash overseas is to tax more, eh comrade?

So you work from the assumption and prejudice that taxation is punishment. To that, I would say taxation isn't punishment, and we've already done tax holidays in the past (most recently in 2004), of which none of the lauded benefits ever came to fruition. These corporations are holding money out of the economy for the purpose of greed; buying back stocks doesn't benefit the economy. Neither does hoarding cash overseas or paying it in bonuses to top executives. Conservatives have not been able to explain how cutting the corporate rate will result in businesses bringing their money here. We did that very thing in 2004 with Bush's Repatriation Holiday. It didn't work. It ended up costing us, and the money still stands overseas. So if it didn't work in 2004, why would it magically start working now?

Would cutting corporate tax rates increase economic activity?

No. We cut corporate taxes as part of the repatriation holiday in 2004 and it didn't result in increased economic activity.

Would raising corporate tax rates decrease economic activity?

No. Corporate taxes are on profits, not revenues. Corporations are already holding back their profits from the country, even with repatriation holidays. So if there was no increased economic activity when we tried this in 2004, what makes you think there will be if we do so today?

your position is just a callback to the same trickle-down policies that have failed over and over and over and over and over and over the last 37 years.

What are "trickle-down policies? How have they failed?

So you work from the assumption and prejudice that taxation is punishment.

Do you work from the assumption and prejudice that taxation is a reward?

and we've already done tax holidays in the past (most recently in 2004), of which none of the lauded benefits ever came to fruition.

Did corporations repatriate overseas cash? What were you hoping they would do?
Why do you feel it was a failure?

These corporations are holding money out of the economy for the purpose of greed; buying back stocks doesn't benefit the economy.

They can't buy back shares with cash they hold overseas.

Conservatives have not been able to explain how cutting the corporate rate will result in businesses bringing their money here.

I'll be happy to explain. First, explain how raising the corporate rate will get businesses to bring money home.

We did that very thing in 2004 with Bush's Repatriation Holiday.

Just to be clear, that didn't reduce the corporate rate. It has been unchanged at 35% since 1993.

It didn't work. It ended up costing us, and the money still stands overseas.

How did it "cost us"?

Would raising corporate tax rates decrease economic activity?

No. Corporate taxes are on profits, not revenues.

Holy shit!

If I have a choice between earning $1 billion in profits in the US, and paying a 35% tax on them, and earning $1 billion in profits in the UK, and paying a 19% tax on them, which should I choose?

 

[Oldstyle]

I think the following does a fair job of explaining my point, Winston...

No, it doesn't. You problem is that you jump from intergovernmental debt, to public debt, to total debt. But you never stay within a single context, instead you shift your argument around from type-of-debt to type-of-debt and hope no one notices.

It's a fact that Total Public Debt declined between 1998-2001. That isn't up for dispute. Now, total debt increased, but that increase came from intragovernmental holdings, not public debt.

OMG are you dense! Let me see if I can explain this in terms simple enough for even you to grasp.

If in a given year you earn $30,000 ...a friend loans you $5,000 and you spend $32,000, is that a surplus? While you can claim "I received $35,000 and only spent $32,000, thus I have a surplus," that's a pretty weak argument when you know that $2,000 of the money you spent was actually borrowed and has to be paid back later. That's pretty much what happened in 2000.

We still owe that intragovernmental holdings debt...which is why the National Debt increased while the Public debt decreased!

That example fails. But, if you borrowed the money from your life insurance policy and not a friend, it would stand.

Fails in what way? You still have debt. You still spent the money. What is wrong with you people that you can't grasp this concept?

In your example you owe the debt to someone else. If you borrow from your life insurance cash value you owe the money to yourself. The government's intergovernmental debt is owed to itself, not to someone else.

Well not really...they're borrowing money from Social Security which they owe to the people not to themselves! We pay into the Social Security Trust Fund and that money is supposed to be there for us when we retire. Only it's NOT there...because politicians like Bill Clinton borrowed it.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Clinton essentially borrowed money from Social Security to run the government (which was flush with cash because of the Dot Com Boom) which doesn't count against the Public Debt but instead goes into the Intragovernmental Holdings side of the ledger.

And? Why is this a problem? So Public Debt did shrink, then, and Clinton used funds that weren't subject to the same higher interest rates, thus saving us on interest payments on the debt...and that's a bad thing, why? If SS' Trust is running a surplus, which it has, why shouldn't we transfer the debt burden out of public debt, with its higher interest rates, to intergovernmental debt, with it's lower-to-non existent interest rates? It's like refinancing your house...if you can achieve the lower rate, why not? I'd personally feel more secure that our government owed money to itself than third party creditors, wouldn't you?

t's accounting sleight of hand. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. You still owe the money...it just doesn't go into the "deficit" side of the ledger!

You still owe money, yes, but the interest rate you pay on what you owe is lower if it's intergovernmental than if it's straight up Public Debt. So why wouldn't you do that? YHou screech about how much in interest we pay on the debt, well from where do you think that interest comes? From the Public Debt. So if you reduce or eliminate the Public Debt, you no longer pay interest on that Public Debt.

Clinton used funds that weren't subject to the same higher interest rates, thus saving us on interest payments on the debt...

The government pays the average rate on all debt to the Soc Sec fund. No savings there.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You'll be sure to win if you only raise rates high enough.

Seems like there's more support for raising taxes on the rich than there is cutting them. There are more arguments for raising taxes on the rich than there are for cutting them. I haven't heard a good argument for cutting taxes, other than the repeated lie that they'll pay for themselves in increased economic activity.

Seems like there's more support for raising taxes on the rich than there is cutting them.

Yes, idiots support lots of stupid things.

We should probably punish corporations by raising their rates as well.
The best way to get them to stop hoarding cash overseas is to tax more, eh comrade?

I haven't heard a good argument for cutting taxes, other than the repeated lie that they'll pay for themselves in increased economic activity.

Would cutting corporate tax rates increase economic activity?
Would raising corporate tax rates decrease economic activity?

Why?

US corp cash reserves are at alltime highs
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation | Cash reserves

and borrowing/interest rates are historically low. And US growth is around 2%. So, to answer your question: There's no logical support for US corporations being able to expand their sales over that growth rate.

The argument for lowering corp rates was that US companies would repatriate some of their foreign earned cash reserves if tax rates here were the same as "over there."
Top 50 U.S. companies hold $1.4 trillion in cash offshore

Thus the reasoning went, we'd be better off taxing a whole lot more profits at lower tax rate because the gummit would take in more revenue over the long haul.

However, if Apple's real corp tax rate is 40%, we'd have to drop the corp rate to very very low, to get corporations to bring back overseas profits.

And, as Paul Ryan has tried to get us to understand, those for countries often have VAT taxes. That is taxes added to the cost of produced items levied directly on the buyer/consumer rather than on the corp, which typically passes the cost onto the consumer.

Trump is right. The corporate rate should be 15%. But it's not that simple

So, those who look at Trump's call for a 15% rate are correct in saying it's just a tax cut for the rich paid for with more debt on our kids. And that is a sad state of affairs, because the country would be a lot better off to make out tax system mirror the real rates (figuring in VAT) that corporations pay elsewhere because then corporations might bring their profits here. And potentially that could both reduce deficits and make it even easier to expand production if we can cut workers taxes too so as let them keep more money to buy stuff

US corp cash reserves are at alltime highs

Are you surprised?

And US growth is around 2%. So, to answer your question: There's no logical support for US corporations being able to expand their sales over that growth rate.

You think US corps can only grow sales by 2%?

The argument for lowering corp rates was that US companies would repatriate some of their foreign earned cash reserves if tax rates here were the same as "over there."

Sounds good to me. You disagree?

Thus the reasoning went, we'd be better off taxing a whole lot more profits at lower tax rate because the gummit would take in more revenue over the long haul.

We've tried taxing their profits at the highest rate in the world, how's that working out?

However, if Apple's real corp tax rate is 40%, we'd have to drop the corp rate to very very low, to get corporations to bring back overseas profits.

How low? Why?

And, as Paul Ryan has tried to get us to understand, those for countries often have VAT taxes.

Yes, they're pretty good at screwing their consumers.

That is taxes added to the cost of produced items levied directly on the buyer/consumer rather than on the corp

Yes, they have a VAT and a corporate tax.

 

[Oldstyle]

Clinton essentially borrowed money from Social Security to run the government (which was flush with cash because of the Dot Com Boom) which doesn't count against the Public Debt but instead goes into the Intragovernmental Holdings side of the ledger.

And? Why is this a problem? So Public Debt did shrink, then, and Clinton used funds that weren't subject to the same higher interest rates, thus saving us on interest payments on the debt...and that's a bad thing, why? If SS' Trust is running a surplus, which it has, why shouldn't we transfer the debt burden out of public debt, with its higher interest rates, to intergovernmental debt, with it's lower-to-non existent interest rates? It's like refinancing your house...if you can achieve the lower rate, why not? I'd personally feel more secure that our government owed money to itself than third party creditors, wouldn't you?

t's accounting sleight of hand. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. You still owe the money...it just doesn't go into the "deficit" side of the ledger!

You still owe money, yes, but the interest rate you pay on what you owe is lower if it's intergovernmental than if it's straight up Public Debt. So why wouldn't you do that? YHou screech about how much in interest we pay on the debt, well from where do you think that interest comes? From the Public Debt. So if you reduce or eliminate the Public Debt, you no longer pay interest on that Public Debt.

Clinton used funds that weren't subject to the same higher interest rates, thus saving us on interest payments on the debt...

The government pays the average rate on all debt to the Soc Sec fund. No savings there.

The Derp only tried to run that up the flag pole when he figured out that he was 100% wrong about there being a Clinton "surplus", Todd! It was a rather pathetic attempt to shift the narrative to something he wouldn't look completely idiotic in.

 

[The Derp]

and you think white's want to be in that? why?

It didn't get like that until after they left.

thanks for at least admitting what the issue is and why whites want no part of it.

The white flight happened first, then the decay followed. White flight started in the late 1940's (really the 1930's) and continued until the Fair Housing Act of 1968. And even then, it's still very segregated and we can see that in loan #'s.

You don't want blacks to be able to defend themselves against illegal gang members?

The gang members wouldn't get the guns if they weren't trafficked in from out of state or outside of the cities.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You'll be sure to win if you only raise rates high enough.

Seems like there's more support for raising taxes on the rich than there is cutting them. There are more arguments for raising taxes on the rich than there are for cutting them. I haven't heard a good argument for cutting taxes, other than the repeated lie that they'll pay for themselves in increased economic activity.

Seems like there's more support for raising taxes on the rich than there is cutting them.

Yes, idiots support lots of stupid things.

We should probably punish corporations by raising their rates as well.
The best way to get them to stop hoarding cash overseas is to tax more, eh comrade?

I haven't heard a good argument for cutting taxes, other than the repeated lie that they'll pay for themselves in increased economic activity.

Would cutting corporate tax rates increase economic activity?
Would raising corporate tax rates decrease economic activity?

Why?

Would cutting corporate tax rates increase economic activity?

NO. First, remember, any expenses that a company spends on expanding comes from before tax income. The reality is that the weighted average cost of capital is INVERSELY related to the tax rate. What that means is that as the tax rate declines the actual COST OF CAPITAL increases. The end result is the pool of acceptable investment, those that have a sufficient internal rate of return, shrinks as the tax rate declines. Decreasing tax rates actually cause economic activity to decline.

The classic example, a poker table. If the "rake" on the table is low one would be more conservative with their bets, while if the "rake" on the table is high one would bet more aggressively. Remember, corporations are more concerned with the return OF their money than the return ON their money. When tax rates are high they get more of their money back if the investment does not pay off.

Would cutting corporate tax rates increase economic activity?

NO. First, remember, any expenses that a company spends on expanding comes from before tax income.

A company makes $1 billion in 2016 before taxes. Pays a 35% tax rate on these profits.
A company makes $1 billion in 2016 before taxes. Pays a 20% tax rate on these profits.

Which company has more money left over to invest in 2017?

What that means is that as the tax rate declines the actual COST OF CAPITAL increases. The end result is the pool of acceptable investment, those that have a sufficient internal rate of return, shrinks as the tax rate declines.

Why doesn't the higher after tax rate of return come into play here? Did you forget about that?

Decreasing tax rates actually cause economic activity to decline.

LOL! And increasing tax rates actually causes economic activity to increase? LOL!

When tax rates are high they get more of their money back if the investment does not pay off.

When tax rates are high they get less of their money back if the investment does pay off.

 

[jc456]

and you think white's want to be in that? why?

It didn't get like that until after they left.

thanks for at least admitting what the issue is and why whites want no part of it.

The white flight happened first, then the decay followed. White flight started in the late 1940's (really the 1930's) and continued until the Fair Housing Act of 1968. And even then, it's still very segregated and we can see that in loan #'s.

You don't want blacks to be able to defend themselves against illegal gang members?

The gang members wouldn't get the guns if they weren't trafficked in from out of state or outside of the cities.

it didn't get like that until after they left.

it took but one time to happen.

 

[The Derp]

If the government ran a budget surplus, Derp then the National Debt should have decreased.

PUBLIC DEBT DID DECREASE. From 1998-2001:

How come it went up? Quite obviously the government DIDN'T run a surplus...they simply shifted debt from one area to another and claimed to have a surplus. That debt didn't disappear.

So once again, you shift the goalposts. You talk about Public Debt in one breath, then talk about Intragovernmental Debt in the other breath, then talk about Total National Debt in the third breath. I don't know what more to say to you. The GAO confirms that as long as you run a budget surplus, which they did from 1998-2001, you can pay down Public Debt. That's why Public debt decreased indicated in the chart above. Public debt has a different interest rate than Intragovernmental debt.

No one ever claimed the debt disappeared. What you seem unable to comprehend is that you can reduce Public Debt while growing total national debt. But you can only do that if you run a budget surplus, according to the GAO.

Your fight isn't even with me...your fight is with the GAO.

 

[The Derp]

The Derp only tried to run that up the flag pole when he figured out that he was 100% wrong about there being a Clinton "surplus", Todd! It was a rather pathetic attempt to shift the narrative to something he wouldn't look completely idiotic in.

Sigh...there was definitely a budget surplus during Clinton and it definitely went to pay down the Public Debt. If there wasn't, and Clinton was simply borrowing from SS to pay down debt, why didn't he just exhaust the SS Trust Fund all in one shot? Because in 1998, the SS Trust Fund was at about $1T and total Public Debt was at about $3.5T. So then if what you're saying is true, why didn't Clinton use all of the SS Trust to pay down as much of the debt as he could? Because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

 

[K9Buck]

Where were these economic geniuses the past 8 years when Obama couldn't sniff an annual GDP of 3%? LOL. GTFO!

 

[The Derp]

it took but one time to happen.

It didn't happen. That's the point. Conservative racists instituted housing and redlining policies to keep the races apart.

 

[jc456]

it took but one time to happen.

It didn't happen. That's the point. Conservative racists instituted housing and redlining policies to keep the races apart.

what didn't happen?

 

[The Derp]

Where were these economic geniuses the past 8 years when Obama couldn't sniff an annual GDP of 3%? LOL. GTFO!

Obama had the same annual GDP growth rate Bush did: 1.76%.

The difference is that Obama reduced the deficit by 2/3 and created over 11,000,000 net private sector jobs. Bush erased a surplus and produced 4 record deficits and lost 460,000 net private sector jobs.

 

[The Derp]

what didn't happen?

"it took but one time"

The "one time".

 

[jc456]

what didn't happen?

"it took but one time"

The "one time".

for blacks to become violent at their neighborhood? yep one time, the whites said, we don't want that.