How are we going to pay for all this shit?

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by NoirMan

Doesn’t mean a correlation, which is obvious actually. Low unemployment drove increased real wages along with extraordinarily high consumer spending, all accompanied by low interest rates. All of these things were coming anyway.

The unemployment rate at the end of the Obama administration was around 4.7%. This is not an exceptional number. It's been at that level or lower during many periods. At the end of 2019, it was 3.6%. It hasn't been that low since 1969, and it hasn't been appreciably lower since 1953. Part of the reason it was so low was because of deregulation and lower corporate income taxes.

As to all of these things were coming anyway, I don't buy it. I'm not an economist but have spent most of my career forecasting future cash flows for projects and companies. If I could accurately extrapolate future income just from the past trend, which is kind of analogous to what you think can be done for GDP anyway, work would have been a whole lot easier and I'd be incredibly wealthy.

[NoirMan]

We can agree to disagree. I’m not an economist either. And forecasting with hindsight would be great for all of us. We can only look at trends that were in place and where they were headed. Your argument as to “it’s like forecasting into the future” is not at all analogous.

Unemployment was progressive with a steady downward trend for years across the board and for all genders races etc. the economy was growing as well. And interest rates were artificially low. There was nothing that could be foreseen to occur in the economy that would have adversely affected those trend lines so it’s reasonable to assume that barring some significant change those same trends would have continued.

Had there been some significant percentage wise inflection point after trump’s tax cuts then you might have an argument but as I noted, if you looked at the charts associated with all the economic indicators, and just put 2010 on one and 2019 on the other end, you couldn’t identify when the tax cuts were made or when they cause some precipitous decrease in unemployment or increase in growth. What you can tell by looking at those charts is when govt increased its deficit spending.

That’s why it’s meaningless to try to look only at the year prior and year after the tax cuts without the context of looking at a longer period of time. I understand also that you have a difficult time admitting that the Obama economy actually had better hard numbers all around than the Trump economy. Percentage change in every measure from the start of the Obama years to the last Obama year are significantly better than Trump through 2019 and definitely better than Trump through 2020 (which I’d never use as a fair comparison).

Taking your unemployment example. What was unemployment when Obama took office 9-10% and was down to 4.7 when he left. While Trump went from 4.7 to 3.6. That’s all well and good but he took a pretty damn good economy and chose not to fuck it up. There’s simply no comparison between cutting unemployment nearly in half and shaving a point.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by NoirMan

We can agree to disagree. I’m not an economist either. And forecasting with hindsight would be great for all of us. We can only look at trends that were in place and where they were headed. Your argument as to “it’s like forecasting into the future” is not at all analogous.

Unemployment was progressive with a steady downward trend for years across the board and for all genders races etc. the economy was growing as well. And interest rates were artificially low. There was nothing that could be foreseen to occur in the economy that would have adversely affected those trend lines so it’s reasonable to assume that barring some significant change those same trends would have continued.

Had there been some significant percentage wise inflection point after trump’s tax cuts then you might have an argument but as I noted, if you looked at the charts associated with all the economic indicators, and just put 2010 on one and 2019 on the other end, you couldn’t identify when the tax cuts were made or when they cause some precipitous decrease in unemployment or increase in growth. What you can tell by looking at those charts is when govt increased its deficit spending.

That’s why it’s meaningless to try to look only at the year prior and year after the tax cuts without the context of looking at a longer period of time. I understand also that you have a difficult time admitting that the Obama economy actually had better hard numbers all around than the Trump economy. Percentage change in every measure from the start of the Obama years to the last Obama year are significantly better than Trump through 2019 and definitely better than Trump through 2020 (which I’d never use as a fair comparison).

Taking your unemployment example. What was unemployment when Obama took office 9-10% and was down to 4.7 when he left. While Trump went from 4.7 to 3.6. That’s all well and good but he took a pretty damn good economy and chose not to fuck it up. There’s simply no comparison between cutting unemployment nearly in half and shaving a point.

We had a very long and anemic recovery from the 2008/2009 downturn compared to past recessions, during the time Obama was president. LustyLad, who I believe is an economist, and a damn smart one at that, has posted on this.

Again, if trends were as meaningful as you think they are, every Mickey Mouse technical analyst would be a billionaire. You need to understand what's behind the numbers. Gramm and Solon provided part of the answer in LL's link to a WSJ article. Businesses compete for labor and they compete for customers. There's some acceptable after tax return on capital, in theory set by borrowing rates plus a risk premium, that affects how much businesses can afford to pay their employees, what they can set their prices at, and what they will invest in. If they pay less taxes, the savings aren't going mostly to shareholders. The businesses can pay higher wages, set prices lower which results in greater purchasing power for consumers, and they can expand and invest and hire more workers. Please note this equates with higher real (inflation adjusted) wages and more jobs. Thus higher median household income and lower unemployment.

We had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, by far, before the Ryan/Trump tax cuts. That should tell you something.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Now, now... go easy, wtf. You're not the only dumbfuck who gets lost and confused around here!

Still having those gay flashbacks, eh?

hes still having a hangover from the reach around gang.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by WTF

Lol

I keep having nightmares an old horse voiced bitch wants to stick her finger up my butt...I'm sporting a extra extra large dreaded Yankee pinstripes baseball uniform with the greatest Yankee of all..... the Big bambino stitched on the back. Butt instead of hitting homers, I'm stuffing the ballot box with "Grab'em by the Pussy" stickers.

really, that means she's your honey that you can really grab'em.

[IMG]https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/web03/2012/7/6/16/enhanced-buzz-28835-1341607215-1.jpg?downsize=800:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto[/IMG]

[NoirMan]

Originally Posted by Tiny

We had a very long and anemic recovery from the 2008/2009 downturn compared to past recessions, during the time Obama was president. LustyLad, who I believe is an economist, and a damn smart one at that, has posted on this.

Again, if trends were as meaningful as you think they are, every Mickey Mouse technical analyst would be a billionaire. You need to understand what's behind the numbers. Gramm and Solon provided part of the answer in LL's link to a WSJ article. Businesses compete for labor and they compete for customers. There's some acceptable after tax return on capital, in theory set by borrowing rates plus a risk premium, that affects how much businesses can afford to pay their employees, what they can set their prices at, and what they will invest in. If they pay less taxes, the savings aren't going mostly to shareholders. The businesses can pay higher wages, set prices lower which results in greater purchasing power for consumers, and they can expand and invest and hire more workers. Please note this equates with higher real (inflation adjusted) wages and more jobs. Thus higher median household income and lower unemployment.

We had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, by far, before the Ryan/Trump tax cuts. That should tell you something.

Sure our tax rates were the highest in world except no one paid that high of a tax rate. I’ve owned several businesses and still own a couple. We’ve always paid significantly less that what the rate says on paper because we have one of the most gameable tax codes there is.

As a business owner, tax rates have had zero influence on any business decisions I’ve made with respect to hiring and growth or wages paid to my employees. It may come as a surprise but since operational costs come from the pretax (taxes aren’t determined on revenue but on profit) monies so there’s no significant impact on the amount of tax paid.

Like I said, we agree to disagree, which I’m ok with. But there’s no disputing that the numbers are what they are, and you’ve not disputed them. There’s no real difference between the percentage changes in the economic indicators for the 5-6 years prior to the tax cuts and the year after the tax cuts through the end of 2019. I maintain that if the percentage changes increased significantly there might be an argument favoring the tax cuts being the cause of those changes but with them being pretty much within the standard deviation it’s hard to state that the trend would not have arrived at a similar point regardless.

There’s simply no measurable evidence that I’ve seen that supports your belief.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

. LustyLad, who I believe is an economist, and a damn smart one at that, has posted on this.

Yea and he has a 12 inch dick and is a gay porn fluffer...

Wait , one of those may be true!

Which is true about LL?

1. Brilliant Economist

2. Has a 12 inch weenie

3. Is a gay porn fluffer

[nevergaveitathought]

what has undoubtedly been demonstrated time and again is lusty's pointed skewering of your nonsense

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

We had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, by far, before the Ryan/Trump tax cuts. That should tell you something.

Two questions

1 What was the actual tax rate when deductions factored in?

2 Did the tax cuts pay for themselves as advertised?

[NoirMan]

Don’t expect Tiny to admit this so I’ll put the answer out there in simple terms.

Lower than advertised. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federa...able-countries

Or ask GE Exxon and Microsoft

And

Absolutely not. Hence the deficit spending.

Now I expect to hear argument from Tiny trying to avoid admitting that no company really pays anywhere near the listed rate because our tax system is full of loopholes.

[rexdutchman]

Zero , the apocalypse is here ,,,,,,

[oeb11]

Originally Posted by Tiny

We had a very long and anemic recovery from the 2008/2009 downturn compared to past recessions, during the time Obama was president. LustyLad, who I believe is an economist, and a damn smart one at that, has posted on this.

Again, if trends were as meaningful as you think they are, every Mickey Mouse technical analyst would be a billionaire. You need to understand what's behind the numbers. Gramm and Solon provided part of the answer in LL's link to a WSJ article. Businesses compete for labor and they compete for customers. There's some acceptable after tax return on capital, in theory set by borrowing rates plus a risk premium, that affects how much businesses can afford to pay their employees, what they can set their prices at, and what they will invest in. If they pay less taxes, the savings aren't going mostly to shareholders. The businesses can pay higher wages, set prices lower which results in greater purchasing power for consumers, and they can expand and invest and hire more workers. Please note this equates with higher real (inflation adjusted) wages and more jobs. Thus higher median household income and lower unemployment.

We had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, by far, before the Ryan/Trump tax cuts. That should tell you something.

the DPST addiction to tax and spend is insatiable - even to teh level of spending far more than teh US GNP.



Tiny - thank you - Unfortunately - the indoctrinated marxist lemmins are unable to comprehend outside their idiotology.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by NoirMan

Don’t expect Tiny to admit this so I’ll put the answer out there in simple terms.

Lower than advertised. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federa...able-countries

Or ask GE Exxon and Microsoft

And

Absolutely not. Hence the deficit spending.

Now I expect to hear argument from Tiny trying to avoid admitting that no company really pays anywhere near the listed rate because our tax system is full of loopholes.

Exxon's tax rate from 2006 to 2017, before the lower tax rates took effect, was 38.5%. I picked 2006 because that's how far back my database went. Microsoft and GE are multinationals that historically paid low tax rates by realizing income in low tax jurisdictions like Ireland. The were gaming the system, like what you said you do in your previous post. The 2017 TCJA passed by Republicans, which cut the corporate tax rate and changed how foreign income is taxes, caused multinationals to recognize more taxable income in the USA and less in places like Ireland and Luxembourg. They are now paying more tax on their foreign income than they were under the previous tax regime. And they've brought a lot of money back from foreign subsidiaries to the U.S., because they can no longer avoid paying U.S. tax as long as they keep the money overseas.

Your CBPP piece is deceptive. They say the tax rate of U.S. MULTINATIONAL corporations was comparable to the tax rate in other countries. I just explained why. The other point is that the U.S. tax rate on NEW INVESTMENTS is only 14% higher (24% vs. 21%) in the USA. I suspect this is largely because of accelerated depreciation. The tax rate on the front end may be 24%, but it it's perhaps 40% on the back end, after the depreciation has expired. And the other reason is because of corporate welfare (i.e. crony capitalism) like tax credits for certain industries that have bought off politicians.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by NoirMan

Sure our tax rates were the highest in world except no one paid that high of a tax rate. I’ve owned several businesses and still own a couple. We’ve always paid significantly less that what the rate says on paper because we have one of the most gameable tax codes there is.

As a business owner, tax rates have had zero influence on any business decisions I’ve made with respect to hiring and growth or wages paid to my employees. It may come as a surprise but since operational costs come from the pretax (taxes aren’t determined on revenue but on profit) monies so there’s no significant impact on the amount of tax paid.

Like I said, we agree to disagree, which I’m ok with. But there’s no disputing that the numbers are what they are, and you’ve not disputed them. There’s no real difference between the percentage changes in the economic indicators for the 5-6 years prior to the tax cuts and the year after the tax cuts through the end of 2019. I maintain that if the percentage changes increased significantly there might be an argument favoring the tax cuts being the cause of those changes but with them being pretty much within the standard deviation it’s hard to state that the trend would not have arrived at a similar point regardless.

There’s simply no measurable evidence that I’ve seen that supports your belief.

This explains a lot. You've been able to game the tax system to the extent that operating expenses don't make a significant difference in the amount of tax you pay?

I've been confused as to why wealthy Democrats support tax proposals like Biden's 43.4% rate on capital gains, which would reduce government revenues. Or why they would support extortionary tax rates advocated by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that would decimate the private sector and kill jobs. Well, it's because only the little people pay taxes. James Simons, founder of Renaissance Capital and one of the largest Democratic donors, appears to recognize most of his income through a tax free Roth IRA. The incredibly wealthy couple, John and Teresa Heinze Kerry, got most of their income from tax free municipal bonds. And how about the Wall Street private equity managers who got the Democratic controlled House Ways and Means Committee to continue the preferred tax treatment of carried interest.

Then I have friends who "game the system" by continually growing their businesses and borrowing more money. The interest and depreciation expense mean they pay very little tax. About half of them go broke.

I'm not so lucky. I pay taxes out the ass. I was looking at project recently that would have made about $40,000 a year, pre-tax to my share. I couldn't do it because the business would have to pay a 30% foreign tax. Then I'd have to pay a 37% GILTI tax on top of that. And finally an additional 40.8% tax on the dividends to be able to pocket the money. That's insane! Why would I risk the money? The total tax rate is close to 100%. Now yes, I could game the system, and cut the rate to around 50% by making an election to be taxed as a corporation instead of an individual. But then I'd pay a big tax if we ever sold out. And the compliance headache would be huge. As it is I spend about 20% of my time working on tax compliance, and have someone helping me who spends about 50% of her time on it. How the fuck are you supposed to make any money when you're spending all your time on taxes?

Fuck the politicians. And double fuck the ones on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee who write the tax laws.

[NoirMan]

We don’t fully disagree. I would love lower taxes as long as the exemptions and shelters go also I suspect my effective tax rates are lower than yours. They are about 60% of my mother’s, who was a school teacher, to which she complains to no end.

I game the system legally because I can. There’s been years that I’ve made 300K+ in person income and paid zero income taxes. I think in 2008 I made 450 and paid around 20K. The tax system is flawed. I’d pay more tax but I’d be bothered if someone else had the opportunity to pay less than me so I’ll always use the tools at my disposal.

I’ve had businesses go under. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Just change the name and get ‘em back active. It’s the American way. But that’s a story for another day.