OT: Stupid Party Gets Smart

Doesn't help that personal "credit scores" are basically BS; your credit score goes up and down for various reasons like making payments on time, being delinquent on balances, paying off loans, taking out loans, opening cards, canceling cards, leasing things, and all the stuff that on average you basically shouldn't be dong.

Not if you want to build actual wealth, that is.

Well, Illinois "balanced" the budget for about 40 years by not paying much into the state pension system. The pension shortfall continued to grow, but they just kicked the can down the road to the next legislature. Now, the shortfall is something like $120 billion, and it is likely to take them 40 -

So, a balanced budget can be rigged just like any financial fooling around.

Jon

No. The people who buy the most expensive stuff pay the most tax.

It's common to exempt food from sales tax, for example. Other basics can be exempted. Used goods need not be taxed, so poor people can buy used jeans and cars and such. Or buy cheap stuff. A sales tax is sort of voluntary.

The great thing about a consumption tax is that it doesn't kill jobs like a corporate income tax. It's easier for people to pay taxes when they have a job.

The current US tax system discourages domestic employment. We got a tax credit for buying a million-dollar pick-and-place line. We get punished for hiring and paying people.

The natural interest rate for low-risk loans seems to be in the 3 to

When Federal debt is 120% of GDP and interest is 5%, then 6% of GDP will go to interest payments. Guess what the Feds will do then.

Spend less.

balanced budget.

When I was living in NY, the state sold I84 to the NYS Thruway for $4B, IIRC. They then borrowed the $4B, selling Thruway bonds, and spent the money. Not only did they "find" $4B to balance the budget but kept tolls on the Thruway for years to come (tolls must be removed when all the bonds are paid). Two birds, one fraud.

Does that include pension shortfalls? If it did, I think CT and IL should be leading the pack.

Not even. That doesn't include pensions (SS and government).

Then why not remove corporate taxes? They're passed on to consumers anyway.

But costs between corporations are roughly equal. The market will force the prices down if the costs go down (taxes). Zero corporate taxes will make goods more attractive in countries where they do tax corporations.

What's the difference? Corporations do that now.

Absolutely but it also drives behavior. Tax planning becomes more important than actually making things.

Like doctors? That sounds like a mess.

I'm not sure I buy it all, but this is a good primer on the idea.

You're nuts!

If I did that, my prices would be too high, and the customers would disappear.

Another reason to have low, simple taxes.

Every right winger always that, and it never happens.

e:

The converse is a little impractical. Those that haven't haven't got anythi ng to be taken away.

John Larkin hasn't worked out how socialism makes the elite happier - they do have to pay out more of their income in taxes, but their tax money is in vested in a healthier, better trained, happier and more cooperative work fo rce who turn out to be more productive, giving the elite higher incomes to pay more tax on.

A smaller slice of a bigger pie often turns out to be more pie.

Town Hall seems to be saying that while the Republicans have been acting li ke completely useless dimwits for most of this year, they've raised their g ame to point of trying to appear to be in the process of doing something, e ven if what they want to do is still standard right-wing moron tax cuts to make the rich even better off, further wrecking the rest of the country in the process.

That doesn't factor in the "externalities" of psychology, i.e. a better trained, happier people might have a shot at replacing "the elite" at some point. The stupid and poor are less of a threat.

Also dividing the world into haves and have-nots is part of the "fun" as a "have"; it seems clear that the South at some level recognized slavery had ceased to be a profitable enterprise long before the Civil War, so why did they keep doing it? Because a lot of it wasn't about money, it was about "tradition", that is to say owning, raising, and breeding slaves was an enjoyable past-time, like having pets or collecting baseball cards.

People don't generally net lose money to do things that they don't enjoy.

It's hard to tease out causalities in economics, and impractical to do experiments. Theory is useless because economists are mostly idiots.

But you can look at different states and different countries and see how their public policies are working.

Ireland has a 12.5% corporate tax rate, a public debt of 75%, and per capita GDP considerably better than the USA.

The US corp tax rate is 39.1% (and more in some states) and public debt that is theoretically 106% of GDP but actually much higher.

Do you have a jet?

I'm certainly not arguing with you.

I haven't looked into this, but... Ireland is a notorious tax haven for the megacorps, they put their corporate "headquarters" there and declare most of their income there, just to avoid paying tax. Doesn't mean they actually employ anyone or contribute in any other way. And if "per capita GDP" includes this it is a meaningless measure isn't it?