How are we going to pay for all this shit?

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by texassapper

The taxes on unrealized gains is insane... I think most liberals are too math illiterate to even understand it.

Simply put if you bought you home in say 2018 for 200K and it's now worth 500K (market estimation) you have 300K in unrealized gains that you will be taxed on.... year after year after year...

If that actually happens it will be the end of home ownership in the US and the globalists will have been half right... YOU WILL OWN NOTHING, whether you are happy are not depends on how stupid you are.

(Circling back to this discussion, as the abysmally bad idea of taxing unrealized capital gains keeps coming up in policy discussions -- and like a bad rat infestation, it seems to be very hard to permanently get rid of.)

To be clear, Biden's advisors (and many other Democrats) call their proposal to tax unrealized gains a "billionaire's tax" and claim that it would only apply to the very wealthy. Actually, notwithstanding their characterization of it as a "billionaire's tax," they say they want it to apply to anyone with net worth exceeding $100 million.

But Texas sapper makes a good point in the following respect:

Once they get the basic idea through the door, what's to stop the threshold from being reduced to $10 million? Then, progressively, to $1 million or less? In fact, pretty soon the argument could be that in a land where there's even one child going hungry, or one elderly person judged to have inadequate access to medical care, shouldn't middle-class savers nearing retirement who have a couple hundred thousand in a 401k or other account pitch in their "fair share?"

Once a camel gets its nose into the tent, the whole stinkin' body is likely to follow soon enough.

You likely recall the old adage:

"First they came for the ..."

(Well, you know the rest.)

[Tiny]

A lot of this is done for political advantage, with no regard for the longer term effect on the economy and peoples' welfare.

Borrowing lots of money to pass out pork and cash is popular. Taxing the rich and corporations at high rates is popular, even when it doesn't significantly increase government revenues. Even when it hurts GDP growth and employment. Biden's and the Progressives' latest strategy is blaming inflation on big corporations, to deflect from the inflationary pressures that came from their handouts and pork.

Now some of this stuff is positive for the economy and peoples' pocket books in the short term. In the long term we'll have to pay the piper. The public's recognition of that and price inflation that's outpaced wage growth is why the majority of Americans believe Bidenomics is a farce.

[Tiny]

Waco Kid, Moving to a thread where your post is relevant, and, more importantly a thread that's MINE!

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

Trump's tax breaks benefited the middle class the most by percentage

the corp tax rate was the second highest in the g20 nations. only Japan had a higher rate

by the way .. corp tax revenue has skyrocketed.

what disastrous pandemic rollout?

the so-called border bill was full of billions to Ukraine and Israel once again Republicans blocked this wasteful Democratic spending,

Harris has one policy .. tax everyone at 99% so the Government can take care of the people.

democratic socialism


bahahhahahahaa

I am Tiny the Magnificent and I approve this post!

Two slight corrections however. The USA had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, tied with Malta at 35%. And that's not counting state income taxes, which ranged from 0% to 12%. Adding the average state rate, the USA had the highest corporate rate among developed countries, by far!

My second clarification is about your claim that "Harris has one policy .. tax everyone at 99% so the Government can take care of the people." Harris' rate on many or most people with net worth over $100 million would be well over 100%, because of her mark-to-market capital gains tax. Many would have to slowly liquidate their businesses to pay the tax. The USA has been the driving force behind technology created by companies like Alphabet and Microsoft. Will that continue with this new tax? What happens when entrepreneurs like Gates, Allen, Page and Brin have to sell off their businesses bit by bit to pay the tax? Well, if that happens, maybe China will step up to the plate and provide new products like the Google search engine and the Microsoft Office Suite!

As you imply, the top 1% or 1/2 of 1% or whatever don't have enough money to PAY FOR ALL THIS SHIT Harris wants, so presumably taxes will go up on others as well. Unless we monetize the debt! Wouldn't that be grand, especially for mongers like us! Like Venezuela we'll have a booming economy for maybe 10 years. Yeah, a crash will come. But then we'll have hot and cold running hookers at 100 Renminbi a pop!(1) Now it might cost $10,000,000,000 for GFE/CFS, but if you’ve got Chinese money who cares? What's not to like about Modern Monetary Theory? (2)

Footnotes:

(1) The Renminbi is the Chinese currency. There are currently about 7 Renminbi per dollar.

(2) Modern Monetary Theory or MMT was popularized by Professor Stephanie Kelton, who was Bernie Sanders economic advisor. Kelton believes we don't have to worry about deficits and the national debt. We can just print more money! To be fair, I don't think Harris would implement MMT, but it's hard to say, given she and Bernie mostly agree on economic policy. She's not going to be pinned down on issues like that until after the election.

[Texas Contrarian]

The Waco Kid was correct when he noted that middle class taxpayers benefited far more than the wealthy in terms of the percentage that their taxes were cut by the 2017 legislation. For example, the 15% bracket was cut to 12%, the 25% bracket to 22%, and the 28% bracket to 24%. (For equivalent income ranges, adjusted for inflation.) That's a lot larger cut than the top bracket received (39.6% to 37%). And, remember, the capital gains rate (23.8% since 2013) was not cut at all. Neither was the tax rate on qualified dividends (which is the same at 23.8%).

And those who think the corporate tax rate (21%) should be raised ought to take a glance at this:

https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/p...worldwide.html

The US is right smack in the middle of the OECD. A corporate tax increase would reduce US competitiveness and incentivize offshoring and inversion deals pursued by some of the largest American companies in the earlier part of the '10s.

If there's any good news in the political world today (and there isn't much!), it's that there's a virtually 0.0% probability that progressives will be able to shove through the incredibly harebrained idea of taxing unrealized capital gains.

Democrats would probably need a 60-40 majority in both the House and the Senate to enact that lemon, since so many wealthy Democratic campaign donors purchase a bit of "insurance" in order to head off the most destructive policy proposals.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by adav8s28

I have to disagree with you on paragraph #5. Trumps tariffs are stupider than the American Rescue plan. The main cause of the 8% inflation was the supply chain problems caused by the pandemic that Trump mishandled. Remember Trump did not believe in trying to test people and isolate the positives so the spread of SARS_CoV2 virus was worse than it should have been. Remember Dr Birx (the Dr with the colorful scars) advised Trump to test people before CoVid19 spread out of control, but he would not listen to her.

The American Rescue plan bought a lot of jobs and helped get the unemployment rate down below 4%. The GDP numbers, the Stock market and the unemployment rate were good measurement numbers under Biden/Harris despite Biden's decline.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-d...y-year-3306306

Hi Adav8s28,

Out of an abundance of caution I'm replying to your post in a relevant thread, to keep the topic police happy. Sorry for the delay getting back.

There's certainly lots of room for argument as to whether Trump's trade wars or the American Rescue Plan was stupider. You may be right.

What caused the supply chain problems in the first place? There were several factors but the largest arguably was the overhang of savings in the USA from excessive stimulus spending. When people started spending the money there was too much demand and prices spiraled upwards, starting in the USA and following months later in other places. Texas Contrarian has posted on this. From memory, I believe he wrote that there were around $2.3 trillion in excess savings in the USA by the summer of 2021. For comparison, please note the American Rescue Plan cost $1.9 trillion.

In the view of Larry Summers and Jason Furman, two heavyweight Democrat economists, we were about where we needed to be with respect to stimulus in November of 2020. And Summers is no fiscal hawk. He played one of the biggest parts in the Treasury Department's response to the 2008/2009 recession, and he believed the amount of money pumped into the economy at that time was insufficient. Anyway, in December, 2020, the USA passed the $900 billion Consolidated Appropriations Act. Trump and Pelosi wanted to spend more, but Senate Republicans held them back. That was followed by the American Rescue Plan in March, 2021, and the rest is history. Reaction in the CPI was immediate, as the $1400 checks were mailed out in March. In April, YoY inflation was 4.2%, and it was 5% in May. Inflation in Europe, Japan, etc. remained subdued.

I'm not sure that the American Rescue Plan helped get the unemployment rate down. The ARP extended unemployment benefits, and provided $300 weekly supplemental pay for people receiving unemployment. For some that was a disincentive to work.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by Tiny

What caused the supply chain problems in the first place? There were several factors but the largest arguably was the overhang of savings in the USA from excessive stimulus spending. When people started spending the money there was too much demand and prices spiraled upwards, starting in the USA and following months later in other places. Texas Contrarian has posted on this. From memory, I believe he wrote that there were around $2.3 trillion in excess savings in the USA by the summer of 2021. For comparison, please note the American Rescue Plan cost $1.9 trillion.

In the view of Larry Summers and Jason Furman, two heavyweight Democrat economists, we were about where we needed to be with respect to stimulus in November of 2020. And Summers is no fiscal hawk. He played one of the biggest parts in the Treasury Department's response to the 2008/2009 recession, and he believed the amount of money pumped into the economy at that time was insufficient. Anyway, in December, 2020, the USA passed the $900 billion Consolidated Appropriations Act. Trump and Pelosi wanted to spend more, but Senate Republicans held them back. That was followed by the American Rescue Plan in March, 2021, and the rest is history. Reaction in the CPI was immediate, as the $1400 checks were mailed out in March. In April, YoY inflation was 4.2%, and it was 5% in May. Inflation in Europe, Japan, etc. remained subdued.

I'm not sure that the American Rescue Plan helped get the unemployment rate down. The ARP extended unemployment benefits, and provided $300 weekly supplemental pay for people receiving unemployment. For some that was a disincentive to work.

Yes, I recall seeing a $2.3 trillion estimate of excess savings at about that time. Among other sources, it came from JP Morgan analysts who track such data as they try to estimate trends in credit card usage, consumer loan demand, etc.

Although there were some significant supply chain disruptions early in the pandemic era, they were largely resolved well before inflation peaked. Nowadays, outside of a few dead-end partisan apologists for Biden's recklessness, no one is claiming that the sharp inflation spike of a few years ago wasn't caused primarily by the tsunami of cash the Treasury poured into the economy.

By early-to-mid 2021, America was opening up and going back to work, so I agree that the ARP made little difference in the unemployment rate going into 2022 and beyond. In fact, some economists whose opinions I respect even suggested that all the government transfer payments actually might have slowed new job creation for at least a few months, as several million people had enough cash in the bank that they were in no hurry to re-enter the labor force, as you noted above. But it's hard to know for sure, as there were a lot of moving parts in an economy that was on its way back from the unfortunate covid lockdown experience.

[eccieuser9500]

An amazing thread that stands the test of time, Chiquito.

Haven't read the latest, just sayin'.