US Politics Mega-thread - Page 561

On October 23 2013 09:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

You don't need that option. If you want to spend more now, and increase taxes / spend less later you can do that. Just run a smaller deficit / bigger surplus in 2020 than you otherwise would to pay back the money you want to borrow today.


I don't think either repealing the bush tax cuts or cutting the military in half has much public support. Could be wrong.

JPMorgan Chase has struck a tentative deal with the Justice Department to pay a record $13 billion over dodgy mortgage products — but the biggest U.S. bank may be able to slash that bill by paying Uncle Sam less in taxes.

Details of the pact are now being finalized, but it is expected to include $9 billion paid to the government and $4 billion in relief for wronged customers.

The silver lining for JPMorgan: The bank will likely be able to write off a good chunk of those funds by calling them business expenses, tax experts said.

Section 162(f) of the tax code bars deductions for fines and penalties paid to the government, but JPMorgan might be able to negotiate an agreement to classify the payments as something else. Those payments labeled compensatory or for restitution are more likely to be deductible.

“These are big numbers,” said Alan Feld, a law professor at Boston University. “I’m not sure that I as a taxpayer am so happy about helping JPMorgan to pay.”

The settlement documents may or may not talk about the taxes, but they will characterize the payments.

“Sophisticated counsel have this in mind” when they are negotiating, said Feld, who added it’s possible the deal could be structured so the bank might legally deduct nearly all of the payments.

How certain payments are described in the final deal very well may have been a factor in getting JPMorgan to agree to the $13 billion figure, some tax lawyers and other experts said.

“There might be a reason for the government to negotiate an agreement which assures the deductibility of [certain] payments by JPMorgan Chase,” said George Yin, a law professor at the University of Virginia and former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “In that case, [JPMorgan] might be willing to agree to a larger gross settlement amount, which might play well for the government.”

The Justice Department and JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/jpmorgan-deal-tax-breaks-98688.html?hp=f2

On October 23 2013 09:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

No, what's stupid (and I mean really, really stupid) is the idea that poor people should be allowed to break the law simply because they are poor.

On October 23 2013 09:25 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well yeah, of course that's stupid and I don't know anyone who is suggesting that. Do you care to respond to the heart of my post, or are you just going to snipe with complete strawmen?

On October 23 2013 09:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Strawman? YOU wrote that policing the poor is stupid.

As for the rest of your post - what of it? I'm not arguing that we should end the EITC or food stamps. People that don't qualify for assistance shouldn't get it.

On October 23 2013 08:40 DoubleReed wrote:
Where's the "spend money to get employment back up" option?

Seriously. Priorities. The debt does not matter when unemployment is at 7.2% after five years. Labor participation is at a historic low.

Fix debt problems with growth.

On October 23 2013 09:45 zlefin wrote:
The military expenditures are essentially welfare in many ways; and the US military budget could be cut in half and we'd still have military hegemony over the world.
As to debt, it's gonna hurt, now or later. The question is will spending now actually fix it, or just delay the pain until later?
I'd rather reform the spending so it enables growth.
There's a difference between CREATING jobs and employing people; too much government expenditure merely employs people without truly creating value (either short or long term).


Greenhorizons, you're just wrong, I looked through the post list; and you called it morally reprehensible to deal with people who are breaking the law; you then lowered that to it merely being stupid to deal with people who are breaking the law. That still seems a bit much for an action that may well be fraud and/or perjury. It also ignores the point that they'd go after EVERYONE who's breaking the law, both rich and poor. It's a basic and needed rule in law enforcement to not only go after the most egregious offenders, but the lesser ones as well from time to time. It's also not a strawman, from what I can read of your posts and the posts on your side, they really do seem to imply we should ignore the poor who are breaking the law because they're poor; that may not have been your intent, but that is how it reads.

On October 23 2013 09:45 zlefin wrote:
The military expenditures are essentially welfare in many ways; and the US military budget could be cut in half and we'd still have military hegemony over the world.
As to debt, it's gonna hurt, now or later. The question is will spending now actually fix it, or just delay the pain until later?
I'd rather reform the spending so it enables growth.
There's a difference between CREATING jobs and employing people; too much government expenditure merely employs people without truly creating value (either short or long term).

On October 23 2013 11:00 Wegandi wrote:


You'd think this line of thought would be dead after the Carter years. If spending was the answer, why not just print up a few hundred thousand for every individual to spend, or better yet, few million. I heard Zimbabwe spent trillions - maybe we can play imitator. You can't spend something you don't have, and going into debt means you're printing the money, or mortgaging assets value. The USG will end up having to give over large chunks of land to foreign powers or, they'll just print the money and find ourselves in Weimar. The Federal Government let alone local municipalities are incompetent boobs at best and malicious thieves at worst. Besides, we all ready spent a trillion dollars we didn't have to give to the Bankers, which they mortgaged on the basis of your future labor. Hooray! (That's not on top of the trillions and trillions they all ready spend!)

How about, instead of giving the power of spending your money to these assholes called politicians to dole out to their cronies and themselves, that you instead support a program of spending the money you make yourself on what things you prefer at prices you determine to be worthwhile. I'm sure you're not going to spend a few thousand on a toilet, or 3 million on a one room shack along the Illinois River (The amount of pissing away money I saw while stationed in Milwaukee...). I am sure we can get our money's worth from Solyndra, or Northropp Gruman, or XE, or GE, or Goldman Sachs, or Citigroup...yay Jobs! Lol. The ignorance.

The Government only destroys jobs (the unseen) giving only the illusion of job creation (the seen). If the Government took all of our money and with it produced 15 jobs you would probably say they created jobs, but the effect of such a policy would be destroying millions of jobs, but you can't see this, because the jobs that would have been created if such a policy never was enacted is invisible to everyone except the sharp mind (logos!). This is why the people who poo poo logic in economics are helpless. You can't show someone who refuses to string chains of causal reality together the errors of their viewpoint.

On October 23 2013 10:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


I guess you chose the latter but I'll indulge your careless mischaracterization none the less.

What I was saying was that if that to think you'll get anything significant from using precious resources on an increased policing of poor people "gaming the system" that idea is stupid.

If you add up all they gain from "gaming the system" it pales in comparison to the people who are really damaging this country and our economy to a degree that is simply incomparable to the most egregious violators of programs for the poor.

So if you are going to use our limited policing resources to go after someone it would be stupid for the primary target to be the poor. Truly it is little more than a distraction and detracts from the real bandits.

Increased pursuit/demonizing of bad actors in the poorest tiers of our society would be equivalent to having a nation wide man hunt for a shoplifter while allowing armed bank robbers to pay a fine (significantly less than they stole btw). Which is painfully close to where we are now when we look at things like the JP settlement just above.

But if you think going after individuals fiddling an extra couple hundred dollars a month each from the system are more logical targets than individuals personally making decisions costing BILLIONS than you are likely a lost cause for me.

The argument is not that we don't do one or the other it's how do we use the resources allocated for such work in the most reasonable and responsible ways. So what I am saying is, that if you are suggesting either to spend more resources on targeting the poor who abuse the system or to balance it by spending less resources on the pursuit of wealthy people who abuse the system, such a suggestion is simply a fools errand.

The Government only destroys jobs (the unseen) giving only the illusion of job creation (the seen). If the Government took all of our money and with it produced 15 jobs you would probably say they created jobs, but the effect of such a policy would be destroying millions of jobs, but you can't see this, because the jobs that would have been created if such a policy never was enacted is invisible to everyone except the sharp mind (logos!).

On October 23 2013 11:12 KwarK wrote:

You don't understand how maths works. If you're borrowing money at below the rate of inflation you're receiving free money for doing it. The US government is not about to sell Alaska to finance its debts. You think you're right but it's just because you don't know what you're talking about, your post was a long string of failures to understand the subject and shitty examples (the US is not Zimbabwe).

On October 23 2013 07:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

It's a little out of date at this point, but here:

Make Your Own Deficit-Reduction Plan

Go nuts Here's mine, hopefully the data sticks with the link.

Edit: I'd prefer a bit less in tax hikes and a bit more in military and entitlement cuts (maybe ~100B each way), but I had to work with limited options.

Mitch McConnell wants to make it absolutely clear: He’s not the one who came to the rescue of a troubled dam project crucial to his home state.

The Senate minority leader steadfastly denied any role in a provision saving 250 jobs at the lagging and over-budget Olmsted Locks and Dam project. National conservatives are blasting the measure that was included in Wednesday’s government spending bill, calling it a “kickback.”
Continue Reading

McConnell’s statements show a shift in tactics as the lawmaker tries — a least for now — to shed his image as the consummate rainmaker of federal money for his home state amid the current political environment that frowns on any special project funding as pork-barrel politics.

On October 23 2013 11:09 DoubleReed wrote:


No, the debt's not going to hurt now or later. That's a false dilemma. There's no pain that comes from the debt, unless you do austerity measures, which is stupid, because it shrinks the economy and then forces more austerity. You can manage debt with growth. There's no need to slit our wrists.

This is the problem with talking about the debt with high unemployment. People suggest things that will do serious, lasting harm to our economy when our economy is still not very strong. People use scare tactics to make people think that debt needs to be managed RIGHT NOW at the cost of our economic growth, when the only solution is our economic growth.

We need to get people employed right now. The fact that we still have a sluggish economy means that many people have been out of work for several years. Those people become less desirable to hire the longer they are out of work. This essentially creates a lasting, unnecessary employment problem, which does far more harm to our economic outlook (and long-term estimates of our deficit) than budget items in a single year.

And yes, the key is government spending. The private sector has mostly recovered, and is growing a reasonable rate. The public sector, however, is lagging.