US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9222

On November 13 2017 05:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Tax policy and monetary policy would be the two big levers that come to mind.

For tax, there are estate taxes, but also progressive taxation in general.
For monetary, low rates + inflation (low real rates) would erode the value of current assets over time. The US did this post- WW2 to help get out of all the war debt. Short run could see asset values rise as rates fall... would need to give it time to play out.

The maths are a balancing act. You'd want plenty of saving / investment in the economy (need positive rates of return) and yet have the marginal saver at the top end of the wealth spectrum getting squeezed out more so than other savers.

Probably need incentives for low/middle income savers to save more and more lax bankruptcy laws for low/middle income borrowers (boost savings) in addition to taxes discouraging saving at the top end.

Two companies have said they will no longer advertise during Fox News’s “Hannity” after critics called for the companies to pull their ads over Sean Hannity’s coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R).

Realtor.com and Keurig both said they are stopping their ads from airing during the show after being questioned about the advertisements on Twitter. Neither company specifically said their decision was over Moore coverage, but only made the announcement in response to critics.

“Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We are adjusting our media buy to no longer include this show placement. –MS,” Realtor.com wrote to a Twitter user on Friday who tweeted a clip of Hannity’s Fox News show at the company.
Keurig said in a tweet to the president of liberal group Media Matters for America that the company is stopping its ad during Hannity’s show.

“Angelo, thank you for your concern and for bringing this to our attention,” the Keurig account wrote to Angelo Carusone. “We worked with our media partner and FOX news to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show.”

Another company, Eloquii, said Hannity is blocked from its advertising list, but did not specify on what medium.

Media Matters has for months tried to put pressure on Hannity’s advertisers. In May the group published a list of the Fox News host's advertisers on its website.

The latest push comes after Hannity during his Thursday night show urged viewers not to rush to judgment regarding the allegations against Moore.

“Every single person in this country deserves the presumption of innocence,” Hannity said. “With the allegations against Judge Moore, none of us know the truth of what happened 38 years ago. The only people that would know are the people involved in this incident.”

Hannity also said Moore should drop out of the race if the allegations against him are true.

“If it’s true he should step aside and leave the Senate race,” Hannity said.

Hannity then interviewed Moore on Friday during his radio show, which is nationally syndicated.

Moore in the interview denied accusations leveled against him by a woman who said he initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32. The Washington Post reported the allegation and also included accounts from three other women who said Moore attempted to court them around the same time period, when they were between 16 and 18 years old.

On November 13 2017 05:21 a_flayer wrote:

Just raise low-end wages... If the rich assholes that own everything and keep it stashed off-shore don't pay out livable wages to the massive amount of people they employ (they're job creators, right, not just people shuffling paper around on the stock market and skimming shit off the top) then of course people are going to end up piss poor and dependent on government support even when working 40+ hours/week.

If, however, people are paid decent wages, then they will not be dependent on government handouts, and will even contribute more in taxes.

"But muh inflation!"

Back in '56, you could apparently make $2 selling potato chips, which should translate to $18 in 2017. But it really doesn't, does it? What do you actually get paid for working a similar job? $10/hour? And it's not just minimum wage that should go up, but wages for all working class jobs. Factory jobs, teachers, nurses, etc. All of it needs to go up at the expense of rich fuckers who deliberately keep money out of the country.

Oh right, people need more motivation to earn more money. Yeah. That's the problem. Because if people have a high income, they stop having motivation to earn more money, right? That's why the rich are all losing money to offshore accounts nowadays - no motivation to earn more money.

Or maybe all those teachers and nurses should just start trading in stocks if they want to be able to afford to live. That makes sense, right? Everybody has the same chances! Who needs teachers and nurses anyhow. They don't contribute more to the economy than rich assholes who do everything they can to avoid paying taxes.

On November 13 2017 04:45 KwarK wrote:
LegalLord, you just don't get it. And that's okay. But when you act like you have anything worthwhile to contribute on the subject you make yourself look silly.

On November 13 2017 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:


I don't think this is an argument. Is this an argument to you?

On November 13 2017 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:
Mohdoo, I don't why you waited so long to let all this latent hostility toward black people to come out.

The chairman of the House tax-writing committee said on Sunday he was confident that chamber would not go along with a Senate proposal to eliminate the deduction for property taxes, setting up a major flashpoint as Republicans aim to put a tax cut bill on Donald Trump’s desk before Christmas.

Republican leaders are moving urgently on what would be the first rewrite of the US tax code in three decades. Key differences promise to complicate the effort.

The House bill allows homeowners to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes but the Senate proposal unveiled by GOP leaders last week would eliminate the entire deduction. The difference is among the biggest in the two bills to emerge so far.

The deduction is particularly important to residents in states with high property values or tax rates, such as New Jersey, Illinois, California and New York.

Kevin Brady, the Texas Republican who chairs the House ways and means committee, said he worked with lawmakers in those states to ensure the House bill “delivers this relief” and he was committed to ensuring it stays in the final package.

“It’s important to make sure that people keep more of what they earn, even in these high-tax states,” Brady said on Fox News Sunday.

Both the House and Senate bills would eliminate deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes paid. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Republicans should fully restore what is referred to as the “Salt” deduction, or millions of middle-class families would end up paying higher federal income taxes.

“The House’s so-called ‘compromise’ would be saying to the middle class, ‘We’ll only chop off four of your fingers instead of all five,’” the New York Democrat said in a statement.

A reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% is a feature of both bills, but the Senate version delays the cut for one year. The US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said on CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday he was confident the issue would not be a stumbling block to reaching an agreement.

“Obviously we would prefer if they kicked in sooner rather than later, but we’re going to work with the Senate on that issue,” Mnuchin said.

Mnuchin also rebuffed projections that the proposed tax cuts would increase the national debt. He said creating sustained economic growth of 3% or higher would generate trillions of dollars in additional revenue to the government, though he did not specify over what time frame that would occur.

“This is all about growth,” Mnuchin said.

On November 13 2017 06:44 Mohdoo wrote:


I don't think this is an argument. Is this an argument to you? He went well out of his way to elaborate on why he thinks what he does and you basically just stuck your tongue out at him.

On November 13 2017 06:53 Mohdoo wrote:


Just the ones that latch on to extremism as a form of empowerment. I struggled a lot with racism during my childhood and I never let it bring me down. I frown on the types who let their frustration get the better of them. I am better than that. They can be too.

On November 13 2017 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:


What was "extremism" in that article?


+ Show Spoiler +

On November 13 2017 06:53 Mohdoo wrote:


Just the ones that latch on to extremism as a form of empowerment. I struggled a lot with racism during my childhood and I never let it bring me down. I frown on the types who let their frustration get the better of them. I am better than that. They can be too.

On November 13 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:

This is the part that the BLM/every white person is a racist crowd always misses. Who are they really helping by pushing this narrative that minorities are all victims of white supremacy in this country? Do we really want to be raising generation after generation of minority children who are trained to believe that they cannot succeed in this country because whitey is holding them down? All this accomplishes is the creation of a bunch of invalids with an undue sense of entitlement who are more or less pre-destined to fail.

On November 13 2017 06:59 Mohdoo wrote:


The problem is that you aren't willing to see that a lot of the ideals you hold on to are only appealing to you because they finally make you feel in control of the situation. You don't need to feel in control of the situation. You can continue on, powerless against a lot of the forces negatively impacted, just like me, and work towards making the world a better place without the polarization. These ideas don't come across as extreme to you because they are what you see as the only way to actually feel like you're making a difference. They are extreme, they polarize situations and they make people less likely to listen to your message. So sure, you pat yourself on the back for feeling like you're making a difference, but you're not.

Edit: to answer your question, the "with us or against us" is the extremism.

On November 13 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:

This is the part that the BLM/every white person is a racist crowd always misses. Who are they really helping by pushing this narrative that minorities are all victims of white supremacy in this country? Do we really want to be raising generation after generation of minority children who are trained to believe that they cannot succeed in this country because whitey is holding them down? All this accomplishes is the creation of a bunch of invalids with an undue sense of entitlement who are more or less pre-destined to fail.

On November 13 2017 07:07 xDaunt wrote:

This is the part that the BLM/every white person is a racist crowd always misses. Who are they really helping by pushing this narrative that minorities are all victims of white supremacy in this country? Do we really want to be raising generation after generation of minority children who are trained to believe that they cannot succeed in this country because whitey is holding them down? All this accomplishes is the creation of a bunch of invalids with an undue sense of entitlement who are more or less pre-destined to fail.

On November 13 2017 07:16 LegalLord wrote:

Ok, that much is not yet unreasonable. Do you think, then, that throwing out the baby with the bathwater and assuming everyone is a “pretentious Patrick” and treating them as such is productive? That casting a wide net and taking an “if you’re not with us you’re against us” attitude is more liable to get people to say “fuck you and fuck your cause” than to win them over? Because honestly the result, even if not the intent, turns into a division by race.

And what about “pigs in a blanket” and “big beautiful brown wall” and the like? I don’t know to what extent you agree with that approach, but I also don’t know to what extent you disavow it. I’m curious where that falls into the scheme of the approach you support. I will mention that there’s definitely a leftist/“liberal” divide in how this matter is addressed, and that BLM and Clintonesque identity politics are not necessarily overlapping, but it is certainly worth asking how much of that you are willing to lay claim to.