How are we going to pay for all this shit?

[rexdutchman]

^^ Because they have NEVER had to live in reality
Just look to what Jen,Jen said about tax's and prices , its either there insane or the dumbest people on the planet .
Anyone with 2 brain cells understands that if amazon's tax's go up 5 % the cost of well EVERYTHING is going up at least 5 %

[Texas Contrarian]

.

Originally Posted by Tiny

Do you know whether the 28% rate, more or less, that's supposed to maximize revenues includes state income taxes? I'd guess it probably does, in which case some states are already above it.

Actually not 100% sure, but my sense of the aggregation of all discussions is that most of those who have written topical papers, theses, or dissertations on the issue considered that the all-in rate (including state capital gains taxes) is the one that needs to be considered.

Since many states levy a rate in the 5-6% range (much higher in California and a few others), even the 23.8% rate might be well beyond the point at which aggregate revenue actually begins to decline. At the recently proposed federal rate of 28.8%, the capital gains tax in many states would be high enough to significantly depress realizations in the view of most analysts.

Originally Posted by Tiny

How would that work with Elon Musk? While I've been tempted to short Tesla from time to time (thankfully I never did), he does appear to be creating something special. Could he have done it if the CaptainMidnight scenario came to past? He's dumping shares to pay taxes, which affects the valuation of the shares, which makes it more difficult to raise money for the business. OK, this isn't a great analogy, because Tesla is so liquid, but there are undoubtedly mere centimillionaires and one digit billionaires with private businesses who would be screwed in this scenario. Not to mention the employees and consumers and shareholders who benefit from their businesses.

Progressives like AOC and Bernie argue, of course, that the government can more wisely spend the money by distributing it to millions of people who'd rather not work very hard (if at all) and to "green new deal" rent-seekers and crony capitalists, but I happen to believe that if capital is allowed to be deployed by those with more fertile brains, the whole economy -- and therefore society -- will derive far greater benefits.

Although Musk is one (mega) example, and a good one, innovation is mostly driven in my view by thousands of centimillionaires and "smaller" billionaires.

Originally Posted by Tiny

Good point. The House Ways and Means Committee can't even come up with a proposal that does away with preferential taxation of carried interest.

I think the reason for that may very well be that it's not something that can be explained to the average voter in just a few words or so, and in such fashion as to signal that they're now really going after all those "fat cats!" It's so much easier to simply explain that you're jacking up the capital gains tax rate, since almost everyone knows what the hell that is. Of course, that wouldn't raise much (if any) additional revenue. But who gives a fuck? This is about fairness!

Back in 2007, there began to be a lot of talk about eliminating the carried interest break after a few news reports raised the issue. The two New York Senators at the time were, of course, recipients of quite a bit of hedge fund and Wall Street cash, and saw to it that consideration of any such action got smothered in the cradle. (Of course, I'm talking about Chuck and Hillary.)

Someone said at the time that Schumer was, if nothing else, an "honest politician."

That is, when he gets bought, he stays bought!

.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by rexdutchman

^^ Because they have NEVER had to live in reality
Just look to what Jen,Jen said about tax's and prices , its either there insane or the dumbest people on the planet .
Anyone with 2 brain cells understands that if amazon's tax's go up 5 % the cost of well EVERYTHING is going up at least 5 %

You're right. Reason Magazine put it more eloquently than we did. Psaki's comment below cracks me up,

Just this week, for example, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question about the tax impact of the $3.5 trillion spending plan now working its way through Congress by declaring that "there are some…who argue that in the past companies have passed on these costs to consumers…we feel that that's unfair and absurd and the American people would not stand for that."

When taxes are raised on corporations—the "companies" in Psaki's response—corporations often respond by passing that tax on to others. In some cases, they pass costs to consumers. In others, as the Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome wryly notes on Twitter, they reduce the amount they would have otherwise spent on wages. They have to pay more to do business, and so they make adjustments accordingly. Costs create consequences and tradeoffs.

Empirical research has consistently shown that a large portion of corporate tax increases is actually paid by labor down the line. There are some reasonable academic debates about the precise percentage of the tax paid by labor, and how that might change under certain circumstances. But there is little real debate about whether or not some of the costs are passed on. The point is that it happens. Workers, not owners, pay at least some share of higher corporate taxes.

https://reason.com/2021/09/29/democr...sic-economics/

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

.

Progressives like AOC and Bernie argue, of course, that the government can more wisely spend the money by distributing it to millions of people who'd rather not work very hard (if at all) and to "green new deal" rent-seekers and crony capitalists, but I happen to believe that if capital is allowed to be deployed by those with more fertile brains, the whole economy -- and therefore society -- will derive far greater benefits.

Although Musk is one (mega) example, and a good one, innovation is mostly driven in my view by thousands of centimillionaires and "smaller" billionaires.



I think the reason for that may very well be that it's not something that can be explained to the average voter in just a few words or so, and in such fashion as to signal that they're now really going after all those "fat cats!" It's so much easier to simply explain that you're jacking up the capital gains tax rate, since almost everyone knows what the hell that is. Of course, that wouldn't raise much (if any) additional revenue. But who gives a fuck? This is about fairness!

Back in 2007, there began to be a lot of talk about eliminating the carried interest break after a few news reports raised the issue. The two New York Senators at the time were, of course, recipients of quite a bit of hedge fund and Wall Street cash, and saw to it that consideration of any such action got smothered in the cradle. (Of course, I'm talking about Chuck and Hillary.)

Someone said at the time that Schumer was, if nothing else, an "honest politician."

That is, when he gets bought, he stays bought!

.

Great post, agreed 100%. One minor thing, the House has proposed a top federal rate on capital gains of 31.8%, when you include the 3% surcharge on higher income earners.

[lustylad]

Hey guys... I think the OP's thread-starting question was "How the fuck are we gonna pay for all this shit?"

Well, we can all rest assured now. Comrade Biden told us last week it's all free!


White House ‘Zero’ Hour

His spending blowout in jeopardy, Biden claims the cost is ‘nothing.’

By The Editorial Board
Sept. 24, 2021 6:50 pm ET


Democrats in Congress are proving to be harder to corral behind a $3.5 trillion multiplicity of tax increases and entitlement expansions than their leaders had hoped. So behold the new White House spin: The agenda that was being sold a few weeks ago as the modern equivalent of the New Deal or Great Society is actually so modest it doesn’t cost a thing.

“Every time I hear this is going to cost A, B, C, or D—the truth is, based on the commitment that I made, it’s going to cost nothing,” President Biden said at a press conference Friday, trying to restore momentum to the reconciliation package, “because we’re going to raise the revenue.”

We didn’t know that when you pay for something that makes it free. But the White House apparently thinks it has a winner. The clip of Mr. Biden was shared on Twitter by a National Economic Council flack with the claim that “Building Back Better is going to cost zero dollars,” which was retweeted by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Axios, “The bill’s price tag is $0 because it will be paid for by ending failed, special tax giveaways for the richest taxpayers and big corporations, adding nothing to the debt.” One requirement of a modern political flack is being incapable of embarrassment.

And so a talking point is born, or at least trying to be: The largest tax increase as a share of GDP and the largest entitlement expansion since the 1960s costs nothing. And money grows on trees.

In the real world, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation says the bill raises $2.1 trillion over 10 years. Somebody must be paying more. Among the tax hikes are a 5.5 percentage point increase in the corporate income tax rate that will be paid by workers in lower wages, consumers in higher prices and investors in lower returns. Though they’ll be pleased to know this all adds up to “zero dollars.”

As for the spending, the $3.5 trillion figure that Bernie Sanders considers a “compromise” doesn’t even capture the full cost of what Democrats are proposing. As we explained Friday, that amount is based on budget gimmickry including entitlement phaseouts and phase-ins, and the real cost will be at least $5 trillion, probably far more.

So even after $2.1 trillion in tax hikes, the entitlements in the reconciliation package that include the child allowance, college tuition, national pre-K, universal child care, expanded Medicare and a new Medicaid program will add to the U.S. debt for decades to come.

If the White House thinks these programs are worth the cost, it could make that case. Instead the political situation is apparently so desperate that it’s resorting to deception that is transparently ludicrous.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-whi...ng-11632522084

[lustylad]

Deja vu, anyone?

"We need to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it..."


Joe Biden’s Economic Fantasy World

He seems to think that if you pay for something it doesn’t cost anything. Hold on to your wallet.

By Gerard Baker
Sept. 27, 2021 12:39 pm ET

‘Every element of my economic plan is overwhelmingly popular,” President Biden said last week. “But the problem is, with everything happening, not everybody knows what’s in that plan.” This is an eye-opening observation, to put it mildly.

First, notice how much work the phrase with everything happening does—a breezy parenthetical euphemism presumably for the roll call of mayhem this highly experienced and competent president is now delivering: humiliation in Afghanistan, chaos at the border, a sharp escalation in the pandemic, confusion and misdirection over vaccine mandates, a stalling economic recovery.

It is as though Mrs. Lincoln had said of that fateful 1865 Ford’s Theatre production of “Our American Cousin,” “It was a very good play, but the problem is, with everything happening, not everybody knows what was in it.”

Then there’s the curious but potentially revealing juxtaposition of the claim that Mr. Biden’s plan is overwhelmingly popular with the claim that there is widespread ignorance about it. I’ll leave you to guess what might have been the response from a scornful media if Donald Trump had said something like this, but logically it does suggest the strong possibility that the reason the plan might be popular, as Mr. Biden claims, is precisely because people don’t know what’s in it.

No one would surely ever respond to widespread ignorance about the details of a massive policy innovation by simply plowing ahead and passing the legislation, would they? Oh wait. The Democrats have been here before. A decade ago, you may recall, Nancy Pelosi said it was necessary to pass a bill that rewrote the rules governing a fifth of the U.S. economy to find out what was in it.

Before repeating that master stroke Democrats might want to consider the possibility that one of the reasons people don’t know what’s in the economic plan is that Mr. Biden and his friends keep saying things about it that are false. As the plan faces its moment of truth this week, under pressure from all corners of his own party, the falsehoods have proliferated.

“Every time . . . I hear, ‘This is going to cost A, B, C or D,’ the truth is, based on the commitment I’ve made, it’s going to cost nothing. Because we’re going to raise the revenue,” Mr. Biden said Friday. This appears now to be the plea to those doubtful about the bill’s price tag—it costs zero because everything in it is paid for.

First, this is not true. As these pages have pointed out, the bill’s total likely real price tag is much higher than the advertised number and most of that isn’t paid for. But second, even if the expenditures were covered, this is a novel way of estimating the cost of something. That eye-wateringly expensive dinner you had last week didn’t really cost you anything because you paid for it.

You had choices. You could have used the money to invest in your children’s college fund. You could have paid off some of your credit card bill, the debt on which has quadrupled in the last year. But you chose instead to blow it on a few morsels of raw fish and a couple of bottles of 1982 Château Lafite Rothschild. Don’t worry, It didn’t cost you anything.

The Biden bill is paid for by the largest tax increase in history. You are entitled to argue that is a cost worth paying, but you can’t argue it costs nothing.

Which brings us to the other fiction the president and his friends have been aggressively promoting of late: the idea that the bill is good because the rich deserve to pay more. “I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter last week. But this favored Democratic talking point, whether articulated from a White House podium, or daubed in blood-red ink on a fancy dress, is bathed in mendacity. Corporate taxes end up being paid by much of the population. Individual income taxes have already become more progressive.

According to the Tax Foundation, in 2018, the top 1% of American taxpayers paid more than 40% of all federal income taxes. That is up from 33% two decades ago. The bottom 50% paid less than the top 3%.

This kind of rhetoric and policy is many things, but a recipe for social justice isn’t one of them. It is a stimulus program for tax accountants, a disincentive to investment and entrepreneurship, and a catalyst for further disintegration in a country already coming apart at the seams—where a larger and larger federal government is funded by a smaller and smaller proportion of the population.

With everything happening, you’d think a president who once promised to heal the nation’s wounds would know that.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bid...es-11632758152

[lustylad]

NEWSFLASH: Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 6.6 percent in the second quarter of 2021... In the first quarter, real GDP increased 6.3 percent.*

*(For historical comparison, this is more than TWICE as fast as the average rate of economic growth (3.1%) experienced in the US from 1947-2021.)

https://www.bea.gov/news/2021/gross-...ts-2nd-quarter


"The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity..."

- John Maynard Keynes, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", 1936


Gee, maybe the Democrats ought to re-label their $5.5 trillion spending extravaganza as an "austerity plan".

Why not? That wouldn't be any less dishonest than calling it an "infrastructure program"!

[Texas Contrarian]

.

Originally Posted by lustylad

Hey guys... I think the OP's thread-starting question was "How the fuck are we gonna pay for all this shit?"

Well, we can all rest assured now. Comrade Biden told us last week it's all free!

Spot on, Lustylad! I mean, what the fuck could I have been thinking?

I almost forgot about the time back in 2009 when our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief (then vice president) was touting Obama's "stimulus package." At some stop where he spoke to a small group, Joey said something like, "You're asking whether I mean we need to spend money now to save money later? Yeah, that's what I'm saying!" (Apparently he thought the fiscal multipliers of all the non-shovel-ready "infrastructure" projects were really something otherworldly!)

Originally Posted by lustylad

Deja vu, anyone?

"We need to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it..."

Well, I haven't seen a clip yet of her saying something like that, but suppose Nancy might be teeing up such a statement as we speak.

Originally Posted by lustylad

[B]NEWSFLASH:"The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity..."

- John Maynard Keynes, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", 1936

Although I've been around for quite a few years now, I have yet to hear a student of his work claim that Lord Keynes was in favor of (or would remotely have approved of) permanent structural deficit spending.

Time to crank up professor Stephanie's beloved MMT machine and hope for the best!

.

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

I almost forgot about the time back in 2009 when our esteemed Slumberer-in-Chief (then vice president) was touting Obama's "stimulus package." At some stop where he spoke to a small group, Joey said something like, "You're asking whether I mean we need to spend money now to save money later? Yeah, that's what I'm saying!" (Apparently he thought the fiscal multipliers of all the non-shovel-ready "infrastructure" projects were really something otherworldly!)

Haha... Joey is an "otherworldly" kind of guy. By that I mean he lives in a parallel universe, like the one Alice in Wonderland encountered when she fell down the rabbit hole! "It's all free, folks!" Nowadays Joey struggles to remember what he said yesterday, so good luck reminding him of his disingenuous pro-stimulus remarks from 2009!

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Well, I haven't seen a clip yet of her saying something like that, but suppose Nancy might be teeing up such a statement as we speak.

I've heard estimates ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 pages for the length of the $5.5 trillion dim-retard spending blowout/reconciliation bill. The 2010 Obamacare bill was around 2,000 pages, and as you will recall Nancy didn't like the way some uppity dims whined about not having enough time to read it. Just give me the Cliff Notes, please!!

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Time to crank up professor Stephanie's beloved MMT machine and hope for the best!

It's already cranked up and running at top speed! I saw something yesterday, on Kudlow's show I think, saying the Fed has bought up 57% of all Treasury debt issued since the pandemic started! Yikes! We're deep into Banana Republic territory!

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

.Well, I haven't seen a clip yet of her saying something like that, but suppose Nancy might be teeing up such a statement as we speak.

She said it,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To

[Tiny]

This is fantastic LustyLad! This doesn't cost anything! We can get all this stuff for free!

And what's all this bull shit about Keynes and austerity? Milton Keynes never said anything like that. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has a degree in economics and she studied the works of Milton Keynes. She says if we run up the debt another $50 or $60 trillion with the Green New Deal then we'll be fine. Modern Monetary Theory tells us so. Just as long as we tax the hell out of the rich too.

And not only that, the famous economist Milton Keynes said that by 2030 everyday people will only have to work 15 hours a week!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3v5xqVlgzg

But that's only for everyday people. I guess the top 1% will have to work 90 or 100 hours a week to pay for everything.

Seriously, if they're able to make these programs permanent entitlements, they're going to have to raise taxes on the people Biden said he wouldn't tax. $400,000 isn't going to cut it.

Here's an excerpt from a WSJ column titled Democrats Pursue Europe’s Welfare State on American-Style Taxes, by Greg Ip,

The $3.5 trillion fiscal package Democrats hope to pass soon represents an ambitious expansion of the social safety net, offering regular child allowances, paid sick and parental leave, universal preschool and free college.

What would most Americans pay for all these new benefits? Nothing.

Led by President Biden, Democrats seek to emulate the comprehensive welfare states common in Western Europe, without the high taxes Europeans routinely pay. Under the Democrats’ proposal, 90% of American households would either pay less or the same taxes, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Tax Policy Center. The richest 1% would pay all of the net new taxes levied next year.

Ip goes on to describe the social programs the Europeans have, like what Biden's proposing, in more detail. Which leads to,

....Yet if other countries’ welfare states are a template for American progressives, their taxes aren’t. In Germany, the typical worker pays 49% of her labor compensation in income and payroll taxes (including the employer’s contribution); in France, the proportion is 47%, in Sweden, 43%. In the U.S., it is just 30%. The U.S. alone, among major advanced economies, doesn’t impose a value added tax on consumers of goods and services.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democra...ts_pos4&page=1

So are everyday Americans ready to step up and fork over 49% of their paychecks in return for a social welfare paradise? I suspect not.

[Tiny]

And a question for the economists. How do you get a degree in economics and not know how to pronounce “Keynes”? (See YouTube link in previous post.)

[rexdutchman]

A prefect storm is a making in his ( puddens) economy ,,, anyone remember to big to fail

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by Tiny

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has a degree in economics and she studied the works of Milton Keynes.

And not only that, the famous economist Milton Keynes said that by 2030 everyday people will only have to work 15 hours a week!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3v5xqVlgzg

Originally Posted by Tiny

And a question for the economists. How do you get a degree in economics and not know how to pronounce “Keynes”? (See YouTube link in previous post.)

Hmmm... wasn't Milton Keynes the leader of the "Chicago Boys" school of economic thought? The guy who once said "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"?

Or am I getting him confused with that other guy, the one who hung out with the Bloomsbury Set, enthroned the US dollar at Bretton Woods and endorsed counter-cyclical deficit spending to shore up aggregate demand during economic contractions?

Help me out here, AOC! Are we "free to choose" which famed economist you are citing?

To be fair, Milton Keynes is halfway between Oxford and Cambridge, as the crow flies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes


AOC stands for Alex and Ria Occasionally Court-me... and everyone knows you pronounce Keynes as "keeeeens". I learned that in college when I studied "Keen-knees-yen" economics!

[rexdutchman]

AOC = bartender Hmm we should take all are advise on the economy from her ,,,,,,Insanity