News Us politics - read first post before comment

[blackemerald1]

Yes I want to talk tax and politics! We are experiencing a similar debate in my country. Our Government explains it as 'trickle down' economics. I'm not completely satisfied with the model they are wanting to follow. It's the same model that T has just got passed into legislation. Simply put it tries to make the US a more viable place for companies to invest their money, expand etc. Well that is part of the idea I think. And he's given the wage earners tax relief that is almost not worth speaking of. Certainly better than nothing but not much more.

I think the big winners from T's tax plan are the really big companies. They get a super duper tax break.

However what I do not understand is the Government has no control over what private companies actually do with the extra dollars they have saved by having a lower tax rate. They might pass it on to their workers :) or they might give their CEO a big fat pay rise.

Trickle down economic models have not worked very well in the past. Does anyone think they will now? Seriously I am asking not telling?:wideeyed:

 

[Sideways]

Stimulating the economy through tax breaks, rather than investing in infrastructure? I’m not the biggest fan.

But if that’s the approach that’s going to be taken, I still don’t buy the ‘trickle down’ argument. There’s a good case to be made that delivering tax breaks to individuals is a good way to stimulate the economy through increased consumer confidence and higher disposable income. And further, that when the stimulation is coming from individuals, it’s more likely to target indistries such as primary producers, manufacturing and industry, fairly quickly.

If you throw in tax breaks from the top, to large corporations, and wait for it to trickle down...you may be waiting a long while. Corporations are primarily responsible to their shareholders, not society at large, or to the little guy at the bottom waiting for the trickle to reach him.

Hoping that corporations use their tax breaks in a way that will ultimately ‘trickle down’ seems to largely ignore the role of shareholders in the priorities of the corporations set to receive the tax breaks. So, I’m not sure that I buy the trickle down theory. It seems more like a theory that has been designed to fit a forgone policy conclusion, rather than a tax policy which is responding to observed economic phenomena. IMO!

 

[scout86]

When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure we need to stimulate the economy, at least in this country. Unemployment is really low. The problem is, people, regular people, aren't earning enough money to keep up with their costs. It wouldn't matter what health care costs, if you were earning enough to pay for it. In the case of big companies, the CEO might earn thousands of times what an ordinary worker earns. Profits go to stock holders, not workers. The purpose of the company isn't to produce a product, it's to make money for the stock holders.

I know there are people who believe trickle down economics works. I've never heard a convincing argument that it works for anyone but the people near the top.

 

[blackemerald1]

for anyone but the people near the top.

@scout86 ...which means that its not trickling down, it sticking to the top? So even now when various people are stating that the US is 'booming' economy wise the disparity btwn the really rich and the poor is growing wider. The middle/working class are working harder and not getting anywhere bc of stagnant wage growth.

So logic ..I know there is no logic in politics but for want of a better word...how did this trickle down economics make ground and get passed? Nothing else skewed by T has got through...why this then?

 

[scout86]

how did this trickle down economics make ground and get passed?

This is just my take on it. I hope we get some opposing views, because I know they're out there.

"Trickle down economics" has been a Republican thing since at least the Reagan administration. (At the time, Bush 1 called it "voodoo economics".) So it's something where the current administration & the party are in alignment.

I'm totally sure some of them honestly think this works. I'm equally sure a bunch of them know it works for THEM, because they're at the top. What's happened, here, is that "the top" has gotten to be a really small part of the population. Most small business owners, for example, are nowhere near that income level. "The top" is basically a small group that earn their living by speculating, not working. They don't PAY workers, they buy & sell them.

There is a piece of the Republican party that's very enamored with Ayn Rand. She wrote a lot about a version of reality where rich industrialists were thought of as "givers" who were responsible for most of the good in society. The rest of us were "takers" who made life miserable for the poor beleaguered givers. I'm thinking everyone wants to think of themselves a one of the good guys....

Anyway, my take on it is that it's a combination of people who are misguided and people who are out for their own benefit. The way our political system is set up, now, money has an outsized influence on election results.

Ayn Rand didn't talk about the "speculator class" at all. Personally, I think that's where things ran off the rails. The ultra rich often get that way buying and selling, rather than producing. THEY aren't paying workers and their goal is to hold on to their money. No reason not to.

 

[SaharaSon]

When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure we need to stimulate the economy, at least in this country...

@scout86. Personally, I like Ayn Rand and think think her to be a realist and an economics genius. I also disagree with you that all the " regular people" are not making enough to keep up with bills. I am making more this year than I have in the previous three years. Ditto most of the people I know who are working. I frankly think that it is not for you to say how much a person should earn. If a CEO is making a lot more than the average worker in a corporation it is probably because his skill set is worth much more than your average line worker. Your typical CEO is not "average" in any respect. He or she earns what the market will bear. God bless them. Are you for redistrubution of the wealth of some to others who haven't earned it ? If you are, Marx would be proud of you. You seem to be quite jealous of those who have more than you. It may be time to stop complaining and get to work on delevoping a valuable skill set like the "rich". By the way, most of those "stock holders" you deride are average Americans who benefit from the profits of corporations. You have not thought the economics through. Corporate profits "trickle down" to the average person many, many ways including direct stock ownership. I could care a less what the socialist agenda thinks about corporate profits and who benefits from them. To me they are leaches, living off the sweat equity of those who are working. :tup:

 

[SaharaSon]

When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure we need to stimulate the economy, at least in this country...

@scout86. Your statement "I'm not sure we need to stimulate the economy, at least not in this country." Is bizarre at best and un-American at worst. Your logic is convoluted, on the one hand you say that average folks in the US don't have enough income to pay their bills, on the other hand you are saying we do not need to stimulate our economy so that those same people can earn more income. Which is it? Also you finish your statement with the implied recommendation that we, I assume you mean Americans, need to stimulate other economies. Well, other countries can stimulate their own economies. The US is not the welfare mother of the world. I think most Americans are tired of our government reaching into our pockets to fund other people in the world. Enough of that mess. If you want to play Santa Claus, donate to your favorite corrupt UN organization. This smacks of redistribution of wealth on an international scale. Sorry, but I ain't interested in being forced to fund other nations. What... I am going to be a slave for Zimbabwe's economy? In your dreams! That is coming uncomfortably close to servitude (slavery). If you want to, help yourself. :whistling:

 

[blackemerald1]

@SaharaSon I'm not sure how you could attribute @scout as being un-American for holding a personnel view different to the current administration's tax policy... and then aligning an alternative tax model of ' economics with slavery. :wideeyed::speechless::confused:

But anyway ... back to economics and tax policy. :cautious: As an alternative tax model - if the general population have extra or more money for discretionary spending aside paying huge companies for utilities, car, roof etc., that money more than likely will then be spent within their communities or at least within the country?

This then raises living standards, education standards, health and I guess everything from the bottom up..doesn't it? And then these ppl pay personal income tax which heads back into the Nations piggy-bank for stuff that everyone in the economy needs. :)

I do understand that companies pay dividends to some wage earners (the mob at the bottom of the trickle down model) However if their income is modest (lets say middle income) and they receive a dividend and the company has already received a tax break which the little guys via the government have to underwrite by virtue of less revenue for the government...doesn't that mean the little guy who WILL pay tax on his dividend have paid tax twice? Not including the his normal tax for earning a wage?

Also what happens to all those wage earners who do not receive a dividend? There are quite a few of them.

Please don't get me wrong I know companies have to be strong to grow and employ to offer better wages. What I would like to know is who will make sure these companies spend it in the right spots and not just give themselves bigger bonuses? Skill sets aside there are very few CEO's compared to workers. Bit like a bee-hive economy?:happy:

 

[SaharaSon]

@SaharaSon I'm not sure how you could attribute @scout as bein...

@blackemerald1 If you are arguing that, we, as a people, are paying too much in taxes, with our income being taxed repeated at several different levels, you will not get any arguement from me. I just don't want yet another tax put on the tax payers, to pay for subsidizing other countries. Excessive taxation is slavery, no question about it. High taxes control everything you do. A corporation, has the right to earn billions and billions and billions of dollars, as long as it was done within the just confines of the law, and you do not have the right to tax any of that income just for the heck of it. If you do, you are stealing from the thousands and millions of stock holders and millions of other indirect benficiaries of that corporation. Something that you need to understand, is the no matter how much you tax corporations, they will simply pass that expense onto the consumers in the form of higher costs of products and services. What you end up doing is taxing the consumer yet again. Nice. The fact that some people do not invest in corporations is their problem. Maybe, the solution is to develop mechanisms to make it even easier for those not invested, to become invested. The truly handicapped have to be cared for. Those who choose not to invest anywhere have that right, but they can not complain that corporations are making too much money and that their CEOs are making too much money. Frankly, it's none of their business, they are not invested. :cool:

 

[blackemerald1]

@SaharaSon - wow - :eek:

ong as it was done within the just confines of the law, and you do not have the right to tax any of that income just for the heck of it. I

See I don't know if I am agreeing with you or not now. Of course I agree with the rule of law. However if the law (taxation) in this discussion - is changed by a political party to suit a minority of ppl., at the expense of the majority. Is that good public policy? Is that good law? Is that good for a Nation? Is that good for ALL of it's citizens?

A political party in a democratic country is supposed to be voted in for the good of all it's citizens. Lofty ideal I know. I'm guessing the current administration think they are doing good for everyone in the USA with this new taxation discount that private corporations are going to enjoy. This means the normal taxation that once applied will be reduced.

That is everyone's business to know and to know why it is being introduced and to know who is going to fill the revenue void left by giving these corporations a tax break. Especially if the beneficiaries of the new laws are making billions of dollars already and their CEO's are making millions of dollars to already minimise their taxation burden by following the law as it once stood and will effectively be making even more billions with a new taxation law introduced on a model called 'trickle down' economics.

Does this mean that the majority should have to pay for the few to get that discount? Is that fair to all citizens?

he truly handicapped have to be cared for.

Pleased we can mutually agree this ^^is okay.:) I hope you have compassion for people in your own country who by no fault of their own find themselves getting old, disabled or ill and not up to do doing their jobs anymore or should they upskill themselves? Work to the grave and beyond? Or perhaps live off those dividends?? That's another red herring not so subtly thrown my way @SaharaSon so I won't run with it.:roflmao:

no matter how much you tax corporations, they will simply pass that expense onto the consumers in the form of higher costs of products and services.

Not suggesting at anytime so far @SaharaSon that the administration should increase anyone's taxes. Obviously costs of production lead to higher prices at the consumer end.

We are discussing lowering taxation by a really super duper amount for a few, just a few - very large corporations. How does this model of taxation help everyone when the burden to fill the revenue void must then fall on taxpayers down the other end of the spectrum. The small business owners and wage earners? How does this help citizens of the USA? These voters?

The fact that some people do not invest in corporations is their problem.

This is a bit harsh and whole lot of unrealistic. Two reasons. Wage earners are generally not in the position to behave like non wage earners. They are too busy being consumers and making sure their necessities are met. Which incidentally is what private corporations want. They like lots of people to buy their product or services.

Secondly and probably more on point, there are only so many shares any one corporation can have. You cannot keep printing shares. Just like you cannot keep printing money. Well you can but they will not be worth the money they are printed on :wacky: There are quite a few demonstrations in history of this idea being applied and it doesn't end well ever. Same as a game of monopoly really. :) So I think corporations would be dead set against that idea themselves. Ever wondered why there are buy-back situations occurring with some companies? Besides there is a huge amount of power involved in owning shares in any company if you own enough of them. Ever heard of take-over's? I hear a collective shudder from every Board of Director and CEO of every corporation in the entire world at that idea. :speechless: And anyway isn't that heading towards being a touch undemocratic? ..everyone owning a bit of everything... sounds like a couple of countries I've seen doing some (soft) power economics of their own to leverage smaller countries to see things their way recently??

but they can not complain that corporations are making too much money and that their CEOs are making too much money.

But you see @SaharaSon they can complain.... with their feet when they walk back to vote in the mid-term's and the USA's next full term election. And they just might it is their right. I am watching:wideeyed:

 

[SaharaSon]

@SaharaSon - wow - :eek:


See I don't know if I am agreeing with you or not no...

@blackemerald1 You have more red herrings in your arguement than the Atlantic Ocean. I don't have time to address them all right now. However, two points. The tax burden for corporations and individuals has been oppressive for the last thirty years, that is why so many people are stuggling. They are being enslaved. Reducing taxes to a half way normal rate is not a "discount". Please don't regurgitate this socialist propaganda. Secondly, let me try this again, you don't seem to get it. If you tax corporations more, they simply pass those taxes on to millions and millions of consumers. You are taxing everybody again! You are undercutting the consumer, which is everyone. As for the elections ( I thought you wanted to talk economics) , you and your ilk are going to loose, and loose bigtime, because the electorate is learning, day by day, how badly they have been injured by Keynesian economics. Your economics has failed, time for real productive change. :cool:

 

[Fadeaway]

The solution to the extreme wage gap between CEOs and workers would be to say that no CEO Can make more than a certain percentage than the lowest paid worker. If a CEO wants a pay raise, all workers should get the same percentage increase.