EPTBut they've raised the threshold and farmers are incorporating more these days so it isn't a problem. A couple of my uncles have some rather impressive operations and this has been an amazing growing year.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5158
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13750 Posts
But they've raised the threshold and farmers are incorporating more these days so it isn't a problem. A couple of my uncles have some rather impressive operations and this has been an amazing growing year. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:31 Liquid`Drone wrote: I am totally pro nationalization of natural resources.  As a Norwegian though, I can fairly confidently state that even with this in place, tax revenues are still highly necessary. Despite our oil riches (and to be fair, while Norway does have more expansive public programs than the US does) 80% of government income comes from taxation.that depends on how much you want to spend. iirc alaska (state budget, so doesn't need as much) gets the bulk of its money from oil revenue. I think the saudis (Despite being a country) likewise get most of their gov't budget from oil rather than taxes. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:23 Liquid`Drone wrote: 2009 levels which he references starts off at $3.5 million, top tax rate 45%. Right. The trouble analyzing the effects is how easy it is to dodge (Hillary included). It's like a souped up talking point on making the rich pay their fair share, when really it's a stimulus package for lawyers because more would need them with a lower exemption. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22724 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:32 Plansix wrote: We would just wait for it to be dealt the old fashion way. The problem of wealth disparity solves itself through the free market, mostly by the market collapsing as all the violence and civil unrest. That just means to be ready for the buying opportunity. "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets." | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:27 zlefin wrote: I see, so tha'ts how you're using it. sometimes people use effective rate to refer to what's actually really gonna be paid (factoring in valid deductions and such; since a high nominal rate may have a lot of available deductions). how would your desire for them to be similar handle the issue of deductions? I'm not a tax expert, I think just think it's too complex in its form, making it all about finding all the deductions you can, hiring accountants, etc... It's just loopholes in the system. I'm in favor of removing almost all deductions (I'm not sure to their extents), and lower the tax rate to compensate a little bit. My idea of how taxes should work in the US is that roughly, 30% of all wealth created should go to the government function. -The overwhelming number one way to collect taxes should be a progressive federal income tax rate, I think the tax brackets should be roughly 2/3rds of what they are now, and remove the 10% bracket for 0%. (assuming you make the effective tax rates match up) -I think state taxes should remain where they are, if not be a little bit higher, I think local governance is better for social issues. -Property taxes are an effective way to collect local revenue, they are just a good tax that's hard to cheat. -Sales tax and excise tax is a very stupid tax, I would scrap it completely. I would prefer the sale of any US good is not taxed at all, instead, only foreign goods are taxed, or it's all done at the border and already included in the price. That's the tariff of 10-20% I'm in support of, unless it's countries with similar infrastructure, for example Canada and the EU. -Alcohol, lottery, tobacco taxes seem reasonable, even though they are very regressive taxes that I don't like, I see their purpose. -Corporate tax rate should be low, that's how you keep companies staying here... The only "things" that don't leave when you have higher taxes is people, if they like life here. And the one really big change that would completely revolutionize taxes in the US is make US healthcare public, which means it'll be taxed progressively, instead of how it's in its current form in payroll taxes and not included in taxes charges. I have to cite the figure over and over, but US pays 17-18% of their GDP on healthcare, we pay 10-11% in Canada (and if you guys weren't so crazy about your patents and your markets that screw people who buy from you, closer to 7-8%)... And 95%+ of our population gets more bang for their buck than you guys from what I've read. Right now it's just a mess, Obama care did nothing... It's just making sure everyone has insurance for really expensive shit, instead of making the said shit, cheaper. That requires a huge teardown, but the US will be better for it in the long term. edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States Here you can find a lot of the information for you beginning search, what I was referencing was §2.3. There is a huge gap between these two rates at every level. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
I've watched every presidential debate ever broadcast, including the little-remembered John F. Kennedy-Hubert Humphrey contest just before the 1960 West Virginia primary, and for nearly 40 years I've analyzed how candidates win and lose them. But when I ask myself what kind of strategy I would devise for Hillary Clinton tonight against Donald Trump, I’m pretty much baffled. The problem is not just the unpredictable (to put it mildly) nature of her opponent. (Will Trump be low-key and calm? Will he attack her honesty? Will he turn on Lester Holt after the first tough question and walk off the stage?) The problem is that almost all of Hillary Clinton’s strengths, in this strange election year, can so easily be turned into her weaknesses—especially her vast experience in government. The more she emphasizes her qualifications, the more Trump is likely to respond with some version of: “You’ve been at the center of power for 25 years? Then you’re one of those who’s created the mess we’re in.” So reciting her work with foreign leaders, for example, and contrasting it with Trump's utter lack of grounding in the world, doesn't seem to be promising. Indeed, this debate offers Trump the chance to perform what I’ve called “political judo”—turning an opponent’s strength against her. (“Yes, Mrs. Clinton, your experience helped drag us into Iraq, and turned Syria, Libya, the whole Middle East into a staging ground for ISIS. Maybe that’s why your husband's CIA director, and Bobby Kennedy’s chief speechwriter, are backing me.”) Further, there's a sense—a highly limited sense—in which Trump is in something like the position Ronald Reagan was in back in 1980. Among college-educated whites, who have resisted him so far, his task is to use the debates to say, “I'm a reasonable person who knows what's gone wrong and who has the instincts to fix it.” It's a second cousin of the 1980 situation where many voters did not want Carter, but needed reassurance about Reagan, which they got. (There is a limit to this analogy, because for all of her difficulties, Clinton is in a much stronger position than President Carter was). By contrast, how does she try to gain strength on the issue of “honest and trustworthy”? If Trump can be convinced by his handlers—assuming they exist—to avoid overkill here, all he has to do is to note what the FBI director or the New York Times editorial page has said. She can of course cite chapter and verse on Trump—bankruptcies, Trump University, David Farenthold's expose of his charities in the Washington Post—but those issues are ill-suited, I think, to a face-to-face debate. One of her problems, longstanding, is that the stuff of which campaign collapses are made have been leveled at Trump—and he's still standing. Does any of this mean that Clinton is facing doom Monday night? No. It does suggest that her campaign should remember what debates do and don’t do, based on a half-century or so of history. Source | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28559 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:38 Sermokala wrote: The estate tax is only really a problem with family farms particularly crop farmers. Corn country land is worth a ton of money and on top of that the combines, the gmo seed, the fuel, pesticides, and you can easily hit the estate tax threshold. Stress kills and if you've had a bad year or two you can be in trouble with it. But they've raised the threshold and farmers are incorporating more these days so it isn't a problem. A couple of my uncles have some rather impressive operations and this has been an amazing growing year. I think this is the one area where the estate tax runs into some trouble. I also don't really know how to fix it, but I think combating the formation of an aristocracy is a highly desirable political goal and I'd rather see some amendments to how the estate tax is applied to these types of businesses rather than scrap it entirely. I also don't want to die on the 'make the cutoff smaller'-hill - if you wanna argue it should be $5.5 rather than $3.5 then I have no real strong opinion on the matter, but in principle, I think the estate tax is basically the very best tax there is. Like, I get the argument of 'should not parents be encouraged to provide for their children's future well being', I just don't see how losing up to 45% of wealth above $5.5 (or even 3.5 to be honest) is ever really gonna impact this. I don't want family businesses to have to sell or split up their company though, but I'm sure that must be possible to address somehow. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28559 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:39 Danglars wrote: Right. The trouble analyzing the effects is how easy it is to dodge (Hillary included). It's like a souped up talking point on making the rich pay their fair share, when really it's a stimulus package for lawyers because more would need them with a lower exemption. That seems like an application/implementation issue rather than one of principled opposition to the estate tax though. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:39 Danglars wrote: Right. The trouble analyzing the effects is how easy it is to dodge (Hillary included). It's like a souped up talking point on making the rich pay their fair share, when really it's a stimulus package for lawyers because more would need them with a lower exemption. It's true that there's more leeway for lawyers and other shenanigans when it comes to property taxes,but there's plenty of implementations that limit the scope. Land value taxes for example are pretty hard to circumvent. (and at the same time they incentivize to use land productively) | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17852 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:06 zlefin wrote: danglars -> I'm generically laughing at scott adams and his well documented silliness. Back in terms of real discussion: policies are inherently distasteful in this context; if they were sound and likeable, they'd already be law, so noone would be campaigning for them. equivalently if it tastes great AND is healthy for you, people would already be eating it. The problem is a lot of policies are like vegetables/medicine, good for you, but a lot of people don't want to eat them because they taste bad. Vegetables are delicious if you cook them right. | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
On September 27 2016 03:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: I think this is the one area where the estate tax runs into some trouble. I also don't really know how to fix it, but I think combating the formation of an aristocracy is a highly desirable political goal and I'd rather see some amendments to how the estate tax is applied to these types of businesses rather than scrap it entirely. I also don't want to die on the 'make the cutoff smaller'-hill - if you wanna argue it should be $5.5 rather than $3.5 then I have no real strong opinion on the matter, but in principle, I think the estate tax is basically the very best tax there is. Like, I get the argument of 'should not parents be encouraged to provide for their children's future well being', I just don't see how losing up to 45% of wealth above $5.5 (or even 3.5 to be honest) is ever really gonna impact this. I don't want family businesses to have to sell or split up their company though, but I'm sure that must be possible to address somehow. If someone very rich in the US pays taxes how they should be paid, without hiring several lawyers (like wtf, why should you have to?) They will have to pay 39.6% in federal income tax, some 7% in provincial income tax, 3% payroll tax... Then you're paying say 7% in sales taxes for everything you buy, you're paying property tax, etc... And then 40% of your family when you die. And the thing is, we're here talking about raising them, I'm not super rich, but come on, we need to decide together what is right. France has a real tax rate of 57%, is that something you'd like to see in the US? And then add a huge estate tax of 50-65% (that's what it seems like some people are pushing for)? To me that's just not right, it's not the freedom of choice that imo the US was built on. Of course we see a disconnect between the rates actually paid, and what we want, so that should be looked at first, and treated with. I don't like the approach of of hey, our tax rate is 100%, but we're only getting 20% of the gdp, so let's just raise it to 150%, so we get 30% of the gdp. edit: Like I said, I think a reasonable economic relationship between the individual and the collective is 70/30, with that money, we provide the best we can. To a large extent this is a philosophical problem, because we're asking what role the government should play in society. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22724 Posts
it's not the freedom of choice that imo the US was built on. Is the US propaganda that strong in Canada? In order to envision the US as being "built on freedom of choice" or as a "Christian" nation you have to ignore our history or just not regard black people (and other minorities) as people. | ||
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Rebs
Pakistan10726 Posts
On September 27 2016 04:02 GreenHorizons wrote: Is the US propaganda that strong in Canada? In order to envision the US as being "built on freedom of choice" or as a "Christian" nation you have to ignore our history or just not regard black people (and other minorities) as people. Not at all, thats all his own thinking.. | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
On September 27 2016 04:02 GreenHorizons wrote: Is the US propaganda that strong in Canada? In order to envision the US as being "built on freedom of choice" or as a "Christian" nation you have to ignore our history or just not regard black people (and other minorities) as people. Look, I'm not trying to get into specifics. Before they these people weren't treated as people, and the people with the rights are the one's I referred to as the people, now that these people have rights, they also received freedom of choice. I come from a communist country, so yes, relative freedom of choice was why everyone would try risk their lives and flee for Western Europe. Some of the ideas that people here have... They're getting to the level of socialism but through markets and heavy regulation achieving community ownership of the factors of production. From an ideological standpoint, I don't agree with it. @Rebs Are you now going to try and downtalk every post I make, because I gave you a clear reason why I am choosing to no longer discuss with you? | ||
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Rebs
Pakistan10726 Posts
Edit: Also I dont see the need to get butthurt about it. You made plenty of posts since your earlier implosion on having flawed beliefs and pretending that running away behind the facade of "dont make me repeat myself is an answer. Safe space, please. I had nothing to say on them and that will probably continue to be the case. plenty of other people to point them out, most of them much smarter than me. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Taxes have nothing to do with “freedom”. If you are paying the amazing 50% tax rate, you are likely so wealthy that all doors are open to you anyways. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22724 Posts
On September 27 2016 04:05 FiWiFaKi wrote: Look, I'm not trying to get into specifics. Before they these people weren't treated as people, and the people with the rights are the one's I referred to as the people, now that these people have rights, they also received freedom of choice. I come from a communist country, so yes, relative freedom of choice was why everyone would try risk their lives and flee for Western Europe. Uhm again using an ahistorical context you might be right, but you know, history is still kinda a thing. Contrary to popular teaching/interpretation, civilization didn't start with the Greeks and Romans, disappear, then reappear after Europe developed. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On September 26 2016 15:07 FiWiFaKi wrote: I'll reply to your last part first: "we don't hate anyone, we just think the US ought to remain majority white" is what basically every white supremacist ever has said? I think that almost every person in the world would rather be surrounded by more people like him than not. Like I said in my post, it doesn't have to be a color (though I will ask the reader this - would you date/marry a person of your skin color, would you date/marry a person who is white/chinese/hispanic/native/black/indian/middle eastern/philipino?... If you said yes to all of them, good on you, most people wouldn't. It's an easy point to drive the notion that we have some inherent bias towards certain groups)... "I'm not racist, I just wish the US didn't have so many minorities around." "I'm not racist, I just don't like being around non-whites." Yes, these are racist. No, they're not equivalent to a Christian wanting to proselytize or a racial minority wishing they weren't the only member of that minority in any given room. I'd even go so far as to call this exhibit A for my point from a few pages ago. Here we have an apparently reasonable person who thinks, apparently as a result of the Trump movement, that a) someone who said blacks are inferior because they're innately lazy is not a racist, and b) "I want America to have fewer racial minorities" is not a racist sentiment, but a legitimate basis for public policy. In other words, exactly what I described. Things that once would have been considered completely racist and beyond the pale are now perfectly reasonable bases for policy making. The things that really matter are the beliefs and values (though some very small amount will sometimes depend on skin color, as hopefully demonstrated through the above example), and the culture that is derived from it... Skin color is only a correlating factor, as like people like to stick together, whether that's gay communities, black communities, church communities, etc... And hence it's like that black people will be fairly similar if they stick together. The big takeaway here is that people don't prefer certain people because of their skin color, but because of their values that are frequently strongly correlated to skin color due to the discussed reason. So sure, the white supremacist said that we want more white people, but the chinese said that I wish more chinese lived here, the Christian said i wish more people were Christian, the feminist said that I wish more people were feminists. There's a big difference between not marrying a racial minority and not wanting them around. And even then a statement like "I would never date a Mexican" seems a little racist. Nowhere near so much as "I don't like to be around Mexicans." The Christian and feminist comparisons are a little bizarre, because Christians believe they're "right" on religion and other religions are wrong; feminists believe they're "right" on gender issues and other positions are wrong. Do you think it's okay for white people to think they're the "right" race and other races are wrong? You say it's about values, not race, but the weird thing is, a lot of these immigrants' values are more in line with traditional conservative America. They're very Christian, they support family values, they're skeptical of the alternative lifestyle stuff the left is pushing (e.g. genders, sexuality). Culturally blacks and Latinos are way in line with conservatives, and Muslim immigrants are such a tiny portion of our immigration even if we tripled our intake of Syrian refugees. So if you're worried about whites becoming a statistical minority because those other races don't "share our values," you're talking mostly about blacks and Latinos. As for your other post, with your logic that opinions can't change from age 50 to age 70, then probably 95% of the people in the US that are age 70 would be disqualified from being president on that criteria alone (I welcome some historic statistics of racism vs year of different age groups going back to WW2). He might have some slight personal racism inside of him, but I don't get the impression that it's affected his campaign, the message he's sending, or the decisions he'd make in office. Some things are business, some things are personal... Bill Clinton's affair was personal (or should have been), and his vice didn't take away his professional performance in office. Two things: I very much hope that 95% of 70+ year olds didn't think blacks are naturally lazy because of their race within the last 25 years (or that blacks shouldn't be accountants, because nobody but Jews should be accountants). How is that "slight" or "personal?" It's a blatant essentialist belief about the inferiority of other races that he claimed to believe, and make employment decisions based on that belief. Hell, my grandma's racist but at least she doesn't think blacks are inferior, she just thinks the Bible says races shouldn't mix. And why should the idea that 95% of 70 year olds, or even of the general population, aren't fit to be president? It's a really difficult and important job, we should have very high standards for it. That a racist shouldn't be in a job that involves representing Americans of all races, I would have thought would be a given. In my eyes you're grasping at straws. Trump's whole life, much like Hillary's, has been very well documented... Nobody in the world is a saint, and I can guarantee you that anyone with as much exposure as Trump or Hillary... We'd be able to dig up so much dirt on any of these people. The good news is, we're able to also dig up a lot of the good they've did, and I think for Trump, he did immense good. But unlike Hillary's, he has a demonstrable history of racism, and unlike Hillary, is employing blatantly racist rhetoric. The bit about him having done "immense good" is sort of a different subject, but worth addressing: has he? His whole thing, even according to him, is being such a great negotiator that he always gets way more than whoever he's negotiating with. He treats deals like a zero sum game, and brags he got more than his opponent. That's not doing good - that's taking from other people and keeping for yourself. The businesses themselves are often in industries like casinos and gambling that at best, offer an expensive form of entertainment and at worse, prey on people's poor understanding of probability to rob them of money. I guess you could call creating jobs "doing good," but surely that's more than offset by all the money he cost shareholders each of the 6 times he went bankrupt. If you trust businesses so much, why not look at how investors judge his credit (i.e. How much they trust him to take their money, do good with it in a profitable way, and return what he promised)? He's blackballed by every major American financial institution because when they give him money, they tend not to get it back. | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
On September 27 2016 04:09 Plansix wrote: The US has had higher tax rates than we do now. Back in the 50s and 60s they were even higher than France’s current rate. And the country was functional, the economy did not die. Taxes have nothing to do with “freedom”. If you are paying the amazing 50% tax rate, you are likely so wealthy that all doors are open to you anyways. I think that tax collected right now is reasonable in the US, 27-28% of GDP, but I'd also add healthcare insurance to that, so it's fairly close to my golden standard of 30% (for a first world country with a GDP/capita of 30k-80k 2016 US dollars). My issue is tax rates =/= people actually pay. Close the loopholes, and lower the tax rates until it's roughly revenue neutral. I think that's what people mean when they say simplify the tax code. I'm having trouble finding some good data for tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, I don't really care income tax brackets, as especially in the US, it seems like there's so much they don't tell. | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3942 Posts
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