Tax Cuts Steal Democracy

[The Derp]

A tax holiday at this point would best serve as a testing period for a long-term overhaul of the U.S. taxation of foreign earnings.

We did a tax repatriation in 2004 at rates lower than what Trump is proposing today. It's effect was wholly negative as 20,000 jobs were lost. Fact is, when businesses are "allowed to keep more of what they earn" the only incentive they have is to continue reducing expenses as revenues stagnate because they have profit margins they must meet to satisfy the majority shareholders who are almost always the Board of Directors.

 

[The Derp]

scientific experiment requires that that you hold all variables constant except the one being studied.

Well, this isn't science, it's economics. But the facts remain, doing things your way results in poor growth, debt, and job loss. So you enter things into a debate, then whine that it's not fair for me to pick them apart.

Stop being such a snowflake.

 

[The Derp]

but liberals, including Krugman, always argue that military spending ended the Great Depression?

Because we were fighting an existential threat. The only existential threat we face today is from the environment. And you choose not to accept that threat because you don't accept science. Because you're not smart.

 

[The Derp]

1) specifically the Stinger Missile used in Afghanistan, at the time the latest greatest weapon on earth thanks to our huge Republican military budget.

???? Stinger missiles do not cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And Stinger missiles had been around since 1967. So it wasn't Reagan's budget that magically invented them when they'd been around for 13 years already.

Doofus.

 

[The Derp]

2) they might have collapsed into a more liberal and severe communism but Reagan's clarity about freedom, democracy, capitalism and our huge spending advantage left them no moral, intellectual, or practical choice. Similarly Republicans converted China to Republican capitalism and freed 1.4 billion from liberal communist slavery and brought peace to the planet. Do you know why our liberals spied for Stalin and Mao??

So that's just a Russian Active Measure. It's clear you have reached the end of your script, so now you are reduced to regurgitating word salad because you have no secure argument to make.

Grow up.

 

[The Derp]

Your logic is almost non-existent here. Tax cuts don't redistribute wealth

Look at the charts again. They clearly do. As taxes are cut, household debt skyrockets and the wealth of the 1% grows. Are you denying the facts that more income has gone to the top since the start of your economic schemes? Do you just refuse to accept reality?

If tax cuts don't redistribute wealth to the top, how do you account for the massive wealth gap that exists? the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90%. That wasn't the case 37 years ago. So what changed? The tax rates.

 

[The Derp]

if a rich guy like Trump pays $25 million in taxes as he did in 2005 and poor guy pays $1000 that is a huge huge flow of wealth from rich to poor. Its a bad thing since it is anti evolution or anti science to make the poor guy think he can reproduce just like the rich because the rich guy will support his children.

So curious as to why only the 2005 returns were leaked. Why not release all the tax returns. Seems like 2005 was released because it was the only year Trump actually paid any taxes.

 

[The Derp]

By 2008 they had cut rates. So what?

So, as I said, cutting rates alone isn't the solution. In 1983, Congress increased spending significantly, particularly in defense. That translated to welfare jobs for midwesterners to make tanks and planes. So the economy was buoyed by military welfare spending in addition to lower borrowing rates. In 2008, even though the rates were lower, borrowing was frozen. Banks were not lending money like they should have. Instead, they took the money from the government and just paid it back to themselves via executive compensation, dividends, etc. Lending by banks continues to be below pre-Bush Recession levels. So that's why, even though interest rates were lowered in 2008, it did not translate to economic growth. Banks simply weren't lending, instead choosing to sit on their bailout money, stash it overseas, or continue gambling with it. But they were not lending out to consumers and new businesses.

Semantics? LOL! You said 1983, you were wrong. No semantics about it.

By 1983 the rate was lowered. So the rate in 1983 was lower than the rate in 1982. So you are trying to make a red herring argument over the word I used when we both know what happened. That's a Russian Active Measure on your part, comrade.

Because you're an idiot.

So you didn't say "Federal Funds Rate", you just said "Fed Funds" and you did that in order to allow yourself wiggle room in the debate because you recognize your argument has no real facts to support it. You do this constantly, I find...all that shows is that you're not very knowledgable if you have to build yourself escape hatches in your argument. Putin would be ashamed of you. Grow up or do better. Stop being lazy.

Dude, real GDP means adjusted for inflation. Current dollars means not adjusted for inflation.

LOL! In other words,"let me have my way so I can continue pretending Reagan's GDP growth was higher than it actually was, because I'm so desperate to have a win in this subject, I'm willing to just ignore convention for alternative reality."

Is everyone who points out your idiocy Russian, or just me?

You have pointed out nothing, but unfortunately until we know the full scope and scale of Russian's infiltration of the Conservative Movement, we must work from the assumption that anyone who posts in support of Conservative policies is acting in Russia's best interests, not ours. I mean it just came out this weekend that a local GOP politician running for office in Montana's Special Election has Russia ties! Yes, another Conservative with questionable ties to Russia. Sensing a pattern, here. This is what I am talking about when I say we don't know how deep Russia's fingers are in the GOP. We know it's not just Trump, but the party itself. GOP = Russia.

Prove his Q2 1983 GDP grew 4% and not 9.4%

9% growth is something this country has never experienced since WWII. In fact, even China didn't see 9% growth during its last economic expansion (the highest it got was 8%). So you skew the percentage by not using chained dollars, so the economic performance looks better than it actually was. Aside from the fact that it was buoyed primarily by increased borrowing (as household debt rose) as a result of lower interest rates, and increase defense spending.

 

[The Derp]

I doubt anyone of the smaller firms would be able rise to prominence as high as the big banks we see today, but even if they did, they wouldn't be any such notion of TBTF, and one would hope they'd recognize how and why they came to such prominence (BC of the jackasses before them were jackasses).

Well, relying on faith isn't a sound strategy. We've seen over and over that big firms simply do not care about consumers or their workers, and maximize profits not by increasing revenues, but by buying out their competitors and slashing workforce. These days, most businesses make profits that way. Any business in the consumer market will tell you that it's not easy because there's been no increase in demand, which has to do with wage stagnation. If people have more money to spend because they are paid more, then revenues will increase for businesses, which will lead those businesses to expand. If you're slashing the corporate tax rate, you're not doing anything to give consumers more money to spend. All you're doing is increasing profits, which doesn't mean there's increased growth. A business can increase its profits by reducing expenses...doesn't mean there's a compensatory increase in revenues. There is no connection between the two. At all.

 

[The Derp]

And that's very very debatable that Reagan defense spending never forced the soviets hand to try to keep up. Not to mention, we also propped up the mujahideen during their war with Afghanistan. Our Most notable contribution was the stinger missle...brought upon by reagans increased defense spending. Yea Afghanistan was a big accelerator, but they most certainly felt the pressure with tech embargoes to try to keep up with weapons developments.

So stinger missiles had been around since 1967, and aren't expensive to produce. So that doesn't account for the massive increase in defense spending on things our military never used in combat because wars of the late 20th century were not fought in the same way they were in the early part of the 20th century, and certainly not at all how warfare is waged today. So it's hard to credit Reagan's defense spending, particularly the subversive way we were arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, when that spending compared to other defense spending was so minimal. How much did we actually spend arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan? Probably not that much. A couple more nuclear submarines or aircraft carriers made no difference to Russia's quagmire in Afghanistan.

 

[The Derp]

stupid lie of course!!! bank shareholders lost millions so had most incentive in world not to fail then and now!!! Plus, banks were too big to fail. Their failure would have cause a Great Depression and were doing exactly that when the Fed rescued them and the entire world's economic system!!

The bank shareholders lost millions? I guess it depends what kind of shareholder you were. If you were a majority shareholder, you most likely sat on the Board of Directors and were made whole either by TARP, or by the Fed's Discount Window. Both of which came with no strings attached. If you were a minority shareholder with a diversified portfolio, then you probably did get screwed. Unlike Wall Street banks, the auto industry bailout screwed over shareholders...yet the bailout kept people employed and the industry afloat as it changed direction to adapt to new energies and demands. Wall Street, on the other hand, did not change one iota. They continue trafficking in the same kind of fraud they did pre-collapse. Which is why the government should stop bailing out Wall Street and offer consumers a Public alternative to private banking; namely converting the Post Office into a government-backed S&L (not dissimilar from what they do in North Dakota) that is subject to regulatory oversight, can provide basic savings, checking, and small loan servicing, while offering consumers a choice that isn't a for-profit too-big-to-fail bank that everyone fucking hates. Plus, the infrastructure is already there. You've got the Post Offices already built. A few minor tweaks and they can easily be turned into S&L banks.

I would certainly transfer my accounts from SunTrust to the USPS if the USPS offered basic savings & checking.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

A tax holiday at this point would best serve as a testing period for a long-term overhaul of the U.S. taxation of foreign earnings.

We did a tax repatriation in 2004 at rates lower than what Trump is proposing today. It's effect was wholly negative as 20,000 jobs were lost. Fact is, when businesses are "allowed to keep more of what they earn" the only incentive they have is to continue reducing expenses as revenues stagnate because they have profit margins they must meet to satisfy the majority shareholders who are almost always the Board of Directors.

We did a tax repatriation in 2004 at rates lower than what Trump is proposing today. It's effect was wholly negative as 20,000 jobs were lost.

Why would a company that repatriated funds be more likely to reduce their workforce than the same company that didn't repatriate?

Walk thru the well thought out steps of your theory.

 

[Never3ndr]

Your logic is almost non-existent here. Tax cuts don't redistribute wealth

Look at the charts again. They clearly do. As taxes are cut, household debt skyrockets and the wealth of the 1% grows. Are you denying the facts that more income has gone to the top since the start of your economic schemes? Do you just refuse to accept reality?

If tax cuts don't redistribute wealth to the top, how do you account for the massive wealth gap that exists? the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90%. That wasn't the case 37 years ago. So what changed? The tax rates.

I clearly explained how they don't redistribute wealth to the top. I asserted that flow of cash from the bottom to the top is the natural state of our economy and taxes reduces that flow...in other words taxes redistribute wealth the other way around. Tax cuts...which, by default, are inaction rather than action allow for this. Maybe you are just young, or maybe you haven't taken a basic course in anything scientific, but correlation does not imply causation.

 

[The Derp]

Why would a company that repatriated funds be more likely to reduce their workforce than the same company that didn't repatriate?

Greed.

 

[The Derp]

I clearly explained how they don't redistribute wealth to the top.

You didn't "clearly explain" it, instead you ignored the math and facts in favor of emotion and theory. Which is fine. Bill Maher nailed it this past weekend when he said Trump voters aren't interested in facts because they don't think with their brains. They think with their guts and emotions. It's hard for them to reconcile the fact that their instincts aren't correct, so they lash out with "alternative facts" in order to placate their own fragile egos.

Yeesh, what a bunch of snowflakes.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

By 2008 they had cut rates. So what?

So, as I said, cutting rates alone isn't the solution. In 1983, Congress increased spending significantly, particularly in defense. That translated to welfare jobs for midwesterners to make tanks and planes. So the economy was buoyed by military welfare spending in addition to lower borrowing rates. In 2008, even though the rates were lower, borrowing was frozen. Banks were not lending money like they should have. Instead, they took the money from the government and just paid it back to themselves via executive compensation, dividends, etc. Lending by banks continues to be below pre-Bush Recession levels. So that's why, even though interest rates were lowered in 2008, it did not translate to economic growth. Banks simply weren't lending, instead choosing to sit on their bailout money, stash it overseas, or continue gambling with it. But they were not lending out to consumers and new businesses.

Semantics? LOL! You said 1983, you were wrong. No semantics about it.

By 1983 the rate was lowered. So the rate in 1983 was lower than the rate in 1982. So you are trying to make a red herring argument over the word I used when we both know what happened. That's a Russian Active Measure on your part, comrade.

Because you're an idiot.

So you didn't say "Federal Funds Rate", you just said "Fed Funds" and you did that in order to allow yourself wiggle room in the debate because you recognize your argument has no real facts to support it. You do this constantly, I find...all that shows is that you're not very knowledgable if you have to build yourself escape hatches in your argument. Putin would be ashamed of you. Grow up or do better. Stop being lazy.

Dude, real GDP means adjusted for inflation. Current dollars means not adjusted for inflation.

LOL! In other words,"let me have my way so I can continue pretending Reagan's GDP growth was higher than it actually was, because I'm so desperate to have a win in this subject, I'm willing to just ignore convention for alternative reality."

Is everyone who points out your idiocy Russian, or just me?

You have pointed out nothing, but unfortunately until we know the full scope and scale of Russian's infiltration of the Conservative Movement, we must work from the assumption that anyone who posts in support of Conservative policies is acting in Russia's best interests, not ours. I mean it just came out this weekend that a local GOP politician running for office in Montana's Special Election has Russia ties! Yes, another Conservative with questionable ties to Russia. Sensing a pattern, here. This is what I am talking about when I say we don't know how deep Russia's fingers are in the GOP. We know it's not just Trump, but the party itself. GOP = Russia.

Prove his Q2 1983 GDP grew 4% and not 9.4%

9% growth is something this country has never experienced since WWII. In fact, even China didn't see 9% growth during its last economic expansion (the highest it got was 8%). So you skew the percentage by not using chained dollars, so the economic performance looks better than it actually was. Aside from the fact that it was buoyed primarily by increased borrowing (as household debt rose) as a result of lower interest rates, and increase defense spending.

So, as I said, cutting rates alone isn't the solution. In 1983, Congress increased spending significantly,

I'll bet the spending increase in 2009 was bigger.
So in 2009 we had bigger spending increases, much lower interest rates but no tax cuts.
Is that why 2009 sucked and 1983 was awesome?

Lending by banks continues to be below pre-Bush Recession levels.

Add much higher capital requirements and a shit ton of additional regulations, banks lend less.

So that's why, even though interest rates were lowered in 2008, it did not translate to economic growth.

You need banks to loan for economic growth, so let's beat up on banks. LOL!

Banks simply weren't lending, instead choosing to sit on their bailout money,

They paid back all their bailout money. The US Treasury made tens of billions.

So you didn't say "Federal Funds Rate", you just said "Fed Funds"

It's true, you didn't know what Fed Funds meant. DURR.

In other words,"let me have my way so I can continue pretending Reagan's GDP growth was higher than it actually was

Reagan's GDP growth in Q2, 1983 was 9.4%. What was Obama's best rate after he raised taxes?

You have pointed out nothing,

Just your idiocy and ignorance.

9% growth is something this country has never experienced since WWII.

Real Gross Domestic Product

Except Q2, 1983, when our GDP grew 9.4%.

And I have to say, your 20 year moving average chart is cute.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Why would a company that repatriated funds be more likely to reduce their workforce than the same company that didn't repatriate?

Greed.

So you have no reason why a company with more money is more likely to be greedy than one with less.
Thanks for admitting your failure.

 

[The Derp]

I'll bet the spending increase in 2009 was bigger.

Bigger how? Proportionally to the economy? Again, this is yet another example of you being vague and generalized, as to give yourself wiggle room later for you to shift the goalposts. Accuracy is not something you are terribly concerned with, which is fine. The major difference between 2008 and 1983 was that in 1983, getting credit was easy. That's why household debt spiked when the taxes were cut. Middle class families went into debt because their wages didn't grow. The economy grew, but only because of the credit bubble that was forming (and would eventually pop with the S&L's collapsing by the end of the decade, thus wiping out any gains). In 2008-9, credit was not easy to get. The credit markets were frozen and the attempt to defrost them via TARP and the Fed Discount Window did not end up trickling down to consumers as theorized. The idea was that the Fed would buy up all that bad debt, thus freeing funds for banks to resume lending. Only the banks didn't resume lending. So what did they do with the money they get for the bad debt? Paid it to themselves by way of executive compensation, or dividends which benefit majority shareholders and Board of Directors, not consumers.

The spending Obama did in 2009 was primarily revenue-neutral tax cuts for the middle class, state aid so the dumb ones that had BBA's could balance their budgets, and about $130B in infrastructure spending.

Add much higher capital requirements and a shit ton of additional regulations, banks lend less.

What regulations? I keep hearing about these phantom negotiations, but most of Dodd-Frank is tied up in the courts. Are you referring to the CFPB? How exactly has that resulted in banks lending less? You mean making banks accountable hurts banks? Wow. Shocking assessment there, professor.

As far as we know, the regulations for banks to lend to consumers hasn't changed. But the banks willingness to lend to consumers has. The banks make more money taking funds meant for loans, and pouring it into secondary markets where they are essentially gambling. I think that if a bank is going to do that, then we should tax those profits as we would any other income. After all, they tax gambling winnings in Las Vegas, yet people still go there to gamble. So taxing Wall Street gambling won't result in less Wall Street gambling. Because, why would it? If you sit on the Board of Directors of a TBTF bank, and you see that you can get more bang for your buck gambling in the secondary markets while giving yourself dividends and compensation with what you don't gamble with, why on earth would you lend to consumers????? The interest they pay is going to be far, far less than the gains you see gambling or in dividends. This is why I argue that the USPS should become a bank. The profit motive for current banks wholly determines their willingness to lend to consumers. If they are going to make more gambling in the market than they are handing out business loans, they are going to go for the gambling. Every time.

You need banks to loan for economic growth, so let's beat up on banks. LOL!

The problem is the banks aren't loaning, and not because they're victims (hardly). Because they're greedy and are run by the same folks who are the majority shareholders and Board of Directors. So what I say is fuck those banks. Turn the USPS into a bank, offer basic checking and savings services, offer small loan services, no ATM fees, free checking, and thousands of locations across the US, even in rural areas not served by TBTF banks (or are served and raked over the coals by them). Problem solved. Why not offer consumers that choice? Why do the choices have to be only greedy banks who don't give a shit?

It's true, you didn't know what Fed Funds meant. DURR.

No, it was you trying to allow yourself room to move the goalposts. Pretty transparent. Whatever. I can let it go. Maybe be more detail-oriented next time?

Reagan's GDP growth in Q2, 1983 was 9.4%. What was Obama's best rate after he raised taxes?

Reagan did not grow GDP 9.4% in 1983. That is a lie. You have to skew the numbers pretty unconventionally to get that number. Which you've done. Then you misrepresent those numbers.

 

[The Derp]

o you have no reason why a company with more money is more likely to be greedy than one with less.

Do you know what the word "greed" means? And what companies are you talking about? Or is this just another vague, generalized statement designed to give yourself wiggle room to redefine parameters? You do that a lot, you know.

The corporate repatriation we did in 2004 resulted in 20,000 jobs lost. And that rate was lower than the one Trump is currently proposing. So if it didn't work 13 years ago, why would it magically start working today?

 

[The Derp]

So you have no reason why a company with more money is more likely to be greedy than one with less.Thanks for admitting your failure.

You understand the difference between revenues and profits, right? And that they are mutually exclusive things, yes? You get that, don't you?