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On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses.
I am always amazed at things like that. You suffered the short end of the stick about the renting market, but you still hold on to your beliefs that "business freedom" is somehow more important that people living decently. Does it occur that the market can be played with, that there are a lot of illegal coordination between companies that skew the rules towards mega corporations and their profit, against regular people that can't hold a candle to their influence ?
Let's take a small example. 2/3 big promoters collude to keep the amount of flats low, thus raising prices. Other companies try to come and build things (the famed competition) and are bullied into submission or just bought out because they are smaller.
What can people do if the state isn't the one to intervene and regulate ? Nothing. The right to run a business is more important and absolute than the rest, even when it relates to people being able to live somewhere. It's great that you hold beliefs, but in no world will I be able to agree with that point of view...
I mean, even without talking about large promoters, it also works for small-time owners who just raise rent because it's rising in the area. Makes them more money ! Great right ? Their mortgage is not rising, why do they feel bound to increase the rent ? To squeeze more.
I own a flat that I rent (still paying the mortgage). I have not raised the rent for 10 years and 6 pairs of tenants, even when there was inflation or the law allowed me to. Why ? Because I am just trying to finish paying the flat with a little help, not break even every month or squeeze every ounce of profit I could. It's important to me that students are able to live decently close to their university. You can call me an idiot, but at least I'm at peace with myself.
There is in my mind a large difference between healthy competition between companies that try to deliver the best product at the lowest possible price, and things like the renting market where there is a competition to try to sell the crappiest product at the highest possible price. This freedom can be regulated with peace of mind. A freedom to gouge others is best let go of.
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On October 31 2020 03:44 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 03:20 Mercy13 wrote:On October 30 2020 23:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
I don't know what will be more bewildering for me, the disappointment from people who genuinely think Biden will get things done or the self-abasing rationalization for why whatever he does accomplish (likely things like austerity) is the best we could have hoped for. My hope is that (assuming the Dems take the Senate) they quickly push a big Covid-19 stimulus package. Republicans would filibuster, giving the Dems the leverage they need to abolish it. Republican's kneecapped the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis under Obama and I don't think Biden / the Dems will let them do it again. With the filibuster out of the way and a Senate majority the Dems would be free to pass their agenda. My hope is that they would start with the For the People Act, which the House passed in 2019. Passing this bill would make our system more democratic (limit partisan Gerrymandering, expand voting rights, campaign finance reform, etc.) which would pave the way for more progressive legislation like a healthcare overhaul or green new deal. I'm prepared to be disappointed though. I don't have much faith in the people of this country. Why do you need support for the filibuster. Just nuke it without even a reason. Its current format makes no sense. If democrats have a majority in the senate they can either revert it to its pre-1970 format or nuke it. Right now it's just a lazy method for the minority to mess with legislation.
I agree with everything you said about the filibuster, but I don't think the public would support abolishing it without a clear and obvious reason. Getting rid of it feels like a radical change (which it is), and Republicans would scream about a coup. A large percentage of the public would take them seriously. Dems have to be concerned with maintaining their majority (if they get one) after 2022, and abolishing the filibuster will make that more difficult unless the public supports the action.
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Norway28795 Posts
On October 31 2020 00:40 Nevuk wrote:
I think <500 people per year in the US even pay estate taxes. I'm not sure why anyone at all cares about the issue, given that it only applies to 10$ million or more estates.
What's your position on capital gains taxes? Those are the taxes on passive income - ie, invest in this stock, it goes up 500%, you sell that stock. Do you think that should be taxed?
I mean I care about it because I want way more of it. It's the one tax I cannot understand opposition to, aside from the virtual aristocracy that has to pay it.
I don't really see anyone saying 'yeah, I think it's good and fair and obviously meritocratic that children can inherit hundreds of millions of dollars through absolutely 0 effort on their own part', however, I see a bunch of people saying 'I support the system that enables children to inherit hundreds of millions of dollars through absolutely 0 effort on their own part'.
I understand that estate tax prolly wouldn't make up a big part of government revenue and I've posted about how scandinavian style social democracy is based around larger contributions from everyone, for example through VAT, but it's the principle of the thing. Nobody outside people who are part of dynasties or would be dynasties benefit from estate tax, virtually everybody not part of dynasties or would be dynasties think dynasties are a negative, yet a bunch of people support policies that enable them.
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United States43973 Posts
On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses.
You moving to a worse area is the system working as intended. The free market allows different rational actors to let the market know the value they would place on living in a specific area by bidding upon it. The one who is willing to sacrifice the largest amount of money to live there is viewed as the one who would provide the maximum social utility to society as a whole by living there because providing utility and having money are viewed as the same thing. If someone else is willing to pay more in rent than you are that means that they deserve to have it because they will put it to better use than you will.
For example you may think that it is a social good for doctors to live near a hospital so they can be less sleep deprived and respond more quickly when on call. But in reality it is better for that home to be the vacant city property of a foreign investor because they obtain more utility from it. If it was really valuable for the doctor to live there then that value would be reflected in the amount of money he could offer to rent it.
Once you strip away your subjective ideas of what a good result may look like and realize that the only real truth is found through the invisible hand then it all becomes very clear.
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On October 31 2020 02:59 pmh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 02:51 Gorsameth wrote:On October 30 2020 23:41 Slydie wrote:On October 30 2020 23:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
I don't know what will be more bewildering for me, the disappointment from people who genuinely think Biden will get things done or the self-abasing rationalization for why whatever he does accomplish (likely things like austerity) is the best we could have hoped for. One of the best things he could accomplish is to bring unity to a dividend nation. He is so squarely in the political centre he could possibly have ran as a moderate Republican, at least pre 2000. America is fractured well beyond the ability of 1 politician to heal. It would be a process that could easily take a generation, but worst of all its a process that can't even really begin because the damage is still being done every single day by places like Fox, Breitbart ect. (and yes there are probably far left places that feed into it aswell but lets be real, they are likely not nearly as bad as the right has been in recent times). I dont think it will take a generation (a generation is 20 years i guess?). It will be faster then that i think but its problematic. Polarization to this extend is not natural for a population. The problem is that polarization has become an instrument,an instrument to reach certain political objectives or certain goals. It is beeing stimulated by some parts of the media,both on the left as well as on the right because they see it as an opportunity. And many people are easily influenced while the options to influence people have risen dramatically with the rise of social media. That i think is the main reason why polarization has gone so far and has become a persistent phenomenon in recent years. I do hope (and think) that in the end both the part of the left as well as the part on the right who sees polarization as an opportunity will realize that they would all be better off without polarization because i dont think either side of the extremes will ever win. That moment will no doubt come but it maybe has to get a bit worse before it becomes better. (this is a tough call,somewhere i feel this is the peak of polarization or very close to it. i could be wrong with that though as the elections are a very uncertain factor which at first glance look like an event that will increase polarization even more). Current polarization is not healthy for either side let alone for society as a whole and i dont think it will last for more then 5 years even in the worst case. At one point people will get tired of it and the only thing they then want is a return to a more peacefull and less polarizing society,the support for the extremes will eventually deminish. (5 years would still be quiet a long time btw and not something to look forward to) Why would the right stop with the polerisation when they 'beat' Obama with it, stopping him from getting anything done and then got a Presidency combined with the House/Senate out of it?
Now Trump is to much of an idiot to keep the momentum but you could probably make an argument that this would be a close election if Covid didn't happen and Trump didn't completely shit the bed on it.
I fully expect the GOP to stay their current course but try to not get the (arguably) worse President in history as a candidate.
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On October 31 2020 02:32 pmh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 01:17 Mohdoo wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? In your eyes, why should someone be allowed to accumulate $10B of wealth? How does the cost:benefit of letting that happen play out in your ethics? I'd like to outline why I think it is morally wrong and I welcome your input: https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/This is the legal'ish basis I think we should be judging billionaires. Being a billionaire is essentially an extreme version of depraved indifference where they are seeking to hoard rather than save lives. Billionaires are an entirely different situation from "well then why don't you live in a 1 bedroom apartment and donate the remainder to UNICEF?" Because not only can they save thousands of lives but they can do it without or having a material impact on their own lives. It just impacts their obsessive pursuit of wealth, making their numbers, influence and power bigger. They can still live on a yacht and build free health clinics in love income areas, provide after school programs to prevent gang violence and other big bang for buck social programs. And that's why I see it as an extreme case or depraved indifference deserving of extreme punishment and at the very least seizure of assets 10b i think isnt the issue but it should be rare. Some people add huge amounts to the economic pie,they can be rewarded for that. People like steve jobs or besos have added way more then 10b to the economic pie. The problem is mostly when people get huge rewards while adding nothing to the economic pie,which unfortunatly also does happen. Say you made 10b and you then buy existing houses for that 10b to rent out. That doesnt add anything to the economic pie,the house was already there before you bought it. Yet you get huge rewards from it year after year. Same for gaining interest on treasuries and such,it doesnt add anything to that what is beeing produced. Gaining a little interest is fine imo but it becomes problematic when it becomes an enormous amount. (though in the end even making a considerable sum on interest is not problematic for the system as long as it does not go above the percentage of the real inflation). The whole system is based on people beeing proportionally rewarded for their contribution to the economic pie,thats one of the core priniples of capitalism and the free market. Rewarding people huge sums for contributing no production takes away from that because the pie can be divided only once. Giving people a little bit with wellfare doesnt contradict this btw,it only becomes problematic when the accumulation of capital becomes very large and as a result takes a larger and larger share from the shared pie as a reward. This accumulation of capital is natural in the system btw,its not a weird phenomenon. Piketty said that capital gains are larger then the growth of the economy. It sounds brilliant but what he basicly says with this is that the rich get richter. Gains on capital will on average always be larger then the growth of the economy,its natural due to natural selection and i am not sure if piketty realizes this. If a large amount of capital would make smaller gains then the economic growth it would slowly deminish in value and a different pile of capital who was more succesfull would take its place. Its a natural phenomenon but it could be corrected or limited by government policy. If it should is hard to say,you would not want to limit people like steve jobs or jeff besos but some limits eventually are needed. The more the capital is accumulated,the less room there is for other people to make money. In the end this makes the system stagnant. You want to make sure there is always many good opportunities for people to rise above themselves which in the end means there has to be a limit to how much wealth one can aquire,if only to make sure there is enough room for newcomers. If inequality is already at this point is difficult to say but inequality ultimately has its limits before it becomes a factor that limits the innovation and competitiveness of an economy.
No one is saying it isn’t a natural result of the system we have. What I am saying is that “nature” is never a sufficient ethical justification and that we can clearly do better than “yup looks natural to me”.
Edit: and to be clear, there is nothing that we can point to as evidence that when a current situation is true, it is for a good reason. As an example, slavery is a natural result of a certain group of people having a relative power wildly less than another group. But we decided "hey, that's totally fucked, we should make sure no humans are ever that lacking in power"
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
A current situation true never intrinsically means it is good.
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Bisutopia19345 Posts
On October 31 2020 03:45 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses. I am always amazed at things like that. You suffered the short end of the stick about the renting market, but you still hold on to your beliefs that "business freedom" is somehow more important that people living decently. Does it occur that the market can be played with, that there are a lot of illegal coordination between companies that skew the rules towards mega corporations and their profit, against regular people that can't hold a candle to their influence ? Let's take a small example. 2/3 big promoters collude to keep the amount of flats low, thus raising prices. Other companies try to come and build things (the famed competition) and are bullied into submission or just bought out because they are smaller. What can people do if the state isn't the one to intervene and regulate ? Nothing. The right to run a business is more important and absolute than the rest, even when it relates to people being able to live somewhere. It's great that you hold beliefs, but in no world will I be able to agree with that point of view... I mean, even without talking about large promoters, it also works for small-time owners who just raise rent because it's rising in the area. Makes them more money ! Great right ? Their mortgage is not rising, why do they feel bound to increase the rent ? To squeeze more. I own a flat that I rent (still paying the mortgage). I have not raised the rent for 10 years and 6 pairs of tenants, even when there was inflation or the law allowed me to. Why ? Because I am just trying to finish paying the flat with a little help, not break even every month or squeeze every ounce of profit I could. It's important to me that students are able to live decently close to their university. You can call me an idiot, but at least I'm at peace with myself. There is in my mind a large difference between healthy competition between companies that try to deliver the best product at the lowest possible price, and things like the renting market where there is a competition to try to sell the crappiest product at the highest possible price. This freedom can be regulated with peace of mind. A freedom to gouge others is best let go of.
First off, I think it's great that you care for tenants. It makes me really happy to hear that, honestly.
Regarding regulation, I agree there becomes a point where the private sector fails itself and intervention has to occur. But let's say government starts to control rent prices. What if there is one government employee or group who is in charge of regulating rent prices. And they say "Area A" should be at this price point and "Area B" should be at this price point. And they happened to have investments in area B and use their price control as a strategy to move rent traffic into areas where they have special interests. Suddenly you have corrupt officials controlling the market place instead of corrupt property owners.
That's where things get tricky. The government has the responsibility to prove to me you are going to
1. Do it better the private ownership
2. Be fully transparent about your control process and those involved in making the decisions
3. Put a vote on the ballot to end the program after x amount of time so the people know they have always have the option to end the program if it doesn't prove to be an effective program
This is why people like me fear change from both parties. Because both parties NEVER explain the process behind a plan and prove to the citizen why it is worth it to go forward with a plan. If we had a politician get on air and explain a thru z their plan, it wouldn't be exciting, but I'd vote for them in a second.
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On October 31 2020 07:13 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 03:45 Nouar wrote:On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses. I am always amazed at things like that. You suffered the short end of the stick about the renting market, but you still hold on to your beliefs that "business freedom" is somehow more important that people living decently. Does it occur that the market can be played with, that there are a lot of illegal coordination between companies that skew the rules towards mega corporations and their profit, against regular people that can't hold a candle to their influence ? Let's take a small example. 2/3 big promoters collude to keep the amount of flats low, thus raising prices. Other companies try to come and build things (the famed competition) and are bullied into submission or just bought out because they are smaller. What can people do if the state isn't the one to intervene and regulate ? Nothing. The right to run a business is more important and absolute than the rest, even when it relates to people being able to live somewhere. It's great that you hold beliefs, but in no world will I be able to agree with that point of view... I mean, even without talking about large promoters, it also works for small-time owners who just raise rent because it's rising in the area. Makes them more money ! Great right ? Their mortgage is not rising, why do they feel bound to increase the rent ? To squeeze more. I own a flat that I rent (still paying the mortgage). I have not raised the rent for 10 years and 6 pairs of tenants, even when there was inflation or the law allowed me to. Why ? Because I am just trying to finish paying the flat with a little help, not break even every month or squeeze every ounce of profit I could. It's important to me that students are able to live decently close to their university. You can call me an idiot, but at least I'm at peace with myself. There is in my mind a large difference between healthy competition between companies that try to deliver the best product at the lowest possible price, and things like the renting market where there is a competition to try to sell the crappiest product at the highest possible price. This freedom can be regulated with peace of mind. A freedom to gouge others is best let go of. First off, I think it's great that you care for tenants. It makes me really happy to hear that, honestly. Regarding regulation, I agree there becomes a point where the private sector fails itself and intervention has to occur. But let's say government starts to control rent prices. What if there is one government employee or group who is in charge of regulating rent prices. And they say "Area A" should be at this price point and "Area B" should be at this price point. And they happened to have investments in area B and use their price control as a strategy to move rent traffic into areas where they have special interests. Suddenly you have corrupt officials controlling the market place instead of corrupt property owners. That's where things get tricky. The government has the responsibility to prove to me you are going to 1. Do it better the private ownership 2. Be fully transparent about your control process and those involved in making the decisions 3. Put a vote on the ballot to end the program after x amount of time so the people know they have always have the option to end the program if it doesn't prove to be an effective program This is why people like me fear change from both parties. Because both parties NEVER explain the process behind a plan and prove to the citizen why it is worth it to go forward with a plan. If we had a politician get on air and explain a thru z their plan, it wouldn't be exciting, but I'd vote for them in a second.
Is there a reason these controls can't be applied at the state level? It's not the same, but in the province of Ontario, tenancy law is mostly under the province and works the same way essentially everywhere across this province. Rent controls in particular are related to inflation and are are capped at a certain %age per year, beyond which point the landlord needs the signature of the tenant. There is an absolute cap as well (3% I believe.)
Would "state-wide" be a broad enough jurisdiction to alleviate your "price routing" concerns?
This is an actual question, not a question-in-the-form-of-a-US-snub. I can empathize a bit with landlords, but I can't help but feel a lot more for tenants. I'm currently going through a minor dispute with my landlord, and I am again realizing that this is a person who feels they have a god-given right to have their property paid for by someone else without assuming any risk or responsibilty beyond putting up a down-payment once in their lives, and it's helpful to have the tenancy regulation there. They're not even super favorable to tenants, but they're something.
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Bisutopia19345 Posts
On October 31 2020 08:26 mikedebo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 07:13 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 03:45 Nouar wrote:On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses. I am always amazed at things like that. You suffered the short end of the stick about the renting market, but you still hold on to your beliefs that "business freedom" is somehow more important that people living decently. Does it occur that the market can be played with, that there are a lot of illegal coordination between companies that skew the rules towards mega corporations and their profit, against regular people that can't hold a candle to their influence ? Let's take a small example. 2/3 big promoters collude to keep the amount of flats low, thus raising prices. Other companies try to come and build things (the famed competition) and are bullied into submission or just bought out because they are smaller. What can people do if the state isn't the one to intervene and regulate ? Nothing. The right to run a business is more important and absolute than the rest, even when it relates to people being able to live somewhere. It's great that you hold beliefs, but in no world will I be able to agree with that point of view... I mean, even without talking about large promoters, it also works for small-time owners who just raise rent because it's rising in the area. Makes them more money ! Great right ? Their mortgage is not rising, why do they feel bound to increase the rent ? To squeeze more. I own a flat that I rent (still paying the mortgage). I have not raised the rent for 10 years and 6 pairs of tenants, even when there was inflation or the law allowed me to. Why ? Because I am just trying to finish paying the flat with a little help, not break even every month or squeeze every ounce of profit I could. It's important to me that students are able to live decently close to their university. You can call me an idiot, but at least I'm at peace with myself. There is in my mind a large difference between healthy competition between companies that try to deliver the best product at the lowest possible price, and things like the renting market where there is a competition to try to sell the crappiest product at the highest possible price. This freedom can be regulated with peace of mind. A freedom to gouge others is best let go of. First off, I think it's great that you care for tenants. It makes me really happy to hear that, honestly. Regarding regulation, I agree there becomes a point where the private sector fails itself and intervention has to occur. But let's say government starts to control rent prices. What if there is one government employee or group who is in charge of regulating rent prices. And they say "Area A" should be at this price point and "Area B" should be at this price point. And they happened to have investments in area B and use their price control as a strategy to move rent traffic into areas where they have special interests. Suddenly you have corrupt officials controlling the market place instead of corrupt property owners. That's where things get tricky. The government has the responsibility to prove to me you are going to 1. Do it better the private ownership 2. Be fully transparent about your control process and those involved in making the decisions 3. Put a vote on the ballot to end the program after x amount of time so the people know they have always have the option to end the program if it doesn't prove to be an effective program This is why people like me fear change from both parties. Because both parties NEVER explain the process behind a plan and prove to the citizen why it is worth it to go forward with a plan. If we had a politician get on air and explain a thru z their plan, it wouldn't be exciting, but I'd vote for them in a second. Is there a reason these controls can't be applied at the state level? It's not the same, but in the province of Ontario, tenancy law is mostly under the province and works the same way essentially everywhere across this province. Rent controls in particular are related to inflation and are are capped at a certain %age per year, beyond which point the landlord needs the signature of the tenant. There is an absolute cap as well (3% I believe.) Would "state-wide" be a broad enough jurisdiction to alleviate your "price routing" concerns? This is an actual question, not a question-in-the-form-of-a-US-snub. I can empathize a bit with landlords, but I can't help but feel a lot more for tenants. I'm currently going through a minor dispute with my landlord, and I am again realizing that this is a person who feels they have a god-given right to have their property paid for by someone else without assuming any risk or responsibilty beyond putting up a down-payment once in their lives, and it's helpful to have the tenancy regulation there. They're not even super favorable to tenants, but they're something.
I seriously would be open minded on a state or city level if a convincing plan was in place, but look at San Francisco and see how they failed to control rent and its growing homeless population. They are a great example of failed government intervention. I, however, would trust my county because they are really well run in Clay County Fl.
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On October 31 2020 05:29 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 02:59 pmh wrote:On October 31 2020 02:51 Gorsameth wrote:On October 30 2020 23:41 Slydie wrote:On October 30 2020 23:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
I don't know what will be more bewildering for me, the disappointment from people who genuinely think Biden will get things done or the self-abasing rationalization for why whatever he does accomplish (likely things like austerity) is the best we could have hoped for. One of the best things he could accomplish is to bring unity to a dividend nation. He is so squarely in the political centre he could possibly have ran as a moderate Republican, at least pre 2000. America is fractured well beyond the ability of 1 politician to heal. It would be a process that could easily take a generation, but worst of all its a process that can't even really begin because the damage is still being done every single day by places like Fox, Breitbart ect. (and yes there are probably far left places that feed into it aswell but lets be real, they are likely not nearly as bad as the right has been in recent times). I dont think it will take a generation (a generation is 20 years i guess?). It will be faster then that i think but its problematic. Polarization to this extend is not natural for a population. The problem is that polarization has become an instrument,an instrument to reach certain political objectives or certain goals. It is beeing stimulated by some parts of the media,both on the left as well as on the right because they see it as an opportunity. And many people are easily influenced while the options to influence people have risen dramatically with the rise of social media. That i think is the main reason why polarization has gone so far and has become a persistent phenomenon in recent years. I do hope (and think) that in the end both the part of the left as well as the part on the right who sees polarization as an opportunity will realize that they would all be better off without polarization because i dont think either side of the extremes will ever win. That moment will no doubt come but it maybe has to get a bit worse before it becomes better. (this is a tough call,somewhere i feel this is the peak of polarization or very close to it. i could be wrong with that though as the elections are a very uncertain factor which at first glance look like an event that will increase polarization even more). Current polarization is not healthy for either side let alone for society as a whole and i dont think it will last for more then 5 years even in the worst case. At one point people will get tired of it and the only thing they then want is a return to a more peacefull and less polarizing society,the support for the extremes will eventually deminish. (5 years would still be quiet a long time btw and not something to look forward to) Why would the right stop with the polerisation when they 'beat' Obama with it, stopping him from getting anything done and then got a Presidency combined with the House/Senate out of it? Now Trump is to much of an idiot to keep the momentum but you could probably make an argument that this would be a close election if Covid didn't happen and Trump didn't completely shit the bed on it. I fully expect the GOP to stay their current course but try to not get the (arguably) worse President in history as a candidate.
I think in general it is very difficult for the extremes that represent the polarization and who see polarization as a means to reach their goals to gain significant and long lasting support,the support ultimately has its limits because in the end most of the people prefer a stable society which oscilates around the centre.
Maybe i am to optimistic i dont know.
There have been extreme cases of polarization in the western history (maybe the french revolution can be seen as one and there is few more like the civil war in the usa) so its not impossible but it is kinda rare to go that far.
I might write a lot more on this tomorrow as its kinda interesting and i have many thoughts about it,even though its difficult to analyze and study as its pretty much a soft science which comes down to personal interpretation.
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On October 31 2020 05:29 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 02:32 pmh wrote:On October 31 2020 01:17 Mohdoo wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 22:50 BisuDagger wrote:
For those of you democrats hoping for a massive blue wave election and 4 years of have your cake and eat it too, what are you hoping to get out of the next term? What would make you say "Solid 4 years Biden. Well done!"? It's the answer to this question that honestly scares me the most as a fiscal conservative.
For me:
All I care about is economic stability, covid recovery, and staying out of international conflicts for the next four years. I'm worried that a blue wave will just like "hey we got this opportunity, let's push as many left agendas as possible." I get that it's an opportunity to accomplish an agenda, but I think regardless of party, it's a spit in the face to pass a bunch of things that don't have partisan support. I have huge problems with republicans trying to push agendas that sub 50% of America might support too. Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are. Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives : 1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them. I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? In your eyes, why should someone be allowed to accumulate $10B of wealth? How does the cost:benefit of letting that happen play out in your ethics? I'd like to outline why I think it is morally wrong and I welcome your input: https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/This is the legal'ish basis I think we should be judging billionaires. Being a billionaire is essentially an extreme version of depraved indifference where they are seeking to hoard rather than save lives. Billionaires are an entirely different situation from "well then why don't you live in a 1 bedroom apartment and donate the remainder to UNICEF?" Because not only can they save thousands of lives but they can do it without or having a material impact on their own lives. It just impacts their obsessive pursuit of wealth, making their numbers, influence and power bigger. They can still live on a yacht and build free health clinics in love income areas, provide after school programs to prevent gang violence and other big bang for buck social programs. And that's why I see it as an extreme case or depraved indifference deserving of extreme punishment and at the very least seizure of assets 10b i think isnt the issue but it should be rare. Some people add huge amounts to the economic pie,they can be rewarded for that. People like steve jobs or besos have added way more then 10b to the economic pie. The problem is mostly when people get huge rewards while adding nothing to the economic pie,which unfortunatly also does happen. Say you made 10b and you then buy existing houses for that 10b to rent out. That doesnt add anything to the economic pie,the house was already there before you bought it. Yet you get huge rewards from it year after year. Same for gaining interest on treasuries and such,it doesnt add anything to that what is beeing produced. Gaining a little interest is fine imo but it becomes problematic when it becomes an enormous amount. (though in the end even making a considerable sum on interest is not problematic for the system as long as it does not go above the percentage of the real inflation). The whole system is based on people beeing proportionally rewarded for their contribution to the economic pie,thats one of the core priniples of capitalism and the free market. Rewarding people huge sums for contributing no production takes away from that because the pie can be divided only once. Giving people a little bit with wellfare doesnt contradict this btw,it only becomes problematic when the accumulation of capital becomes very large and as a result takes a larger and larger share from the shared pie as a reward. This accumulation of capital is natural in the system btw,its not a weird phenomenon. Piketty said that capital gains are larger then the growth of the economy. It sounds brilliant but what he basicly says with this is that the rich get richter. Gains on capital will on average always be larger then the growth of the economy,its natural due to natural selection and i am not sure if piketty realizes this. If a large amount of capital would make smaller gains then the economic growth it would slowly deminish in value and a different pile of capital who was more succesfull would take its place. Its a natural phenomenon but it could be corrected or limited by government policy. If it should is hard to say,you would not want to limit people like steve jobs or jeff besos but some limits eventually are needed. The more the capital is accumulated,the less room there is for other people to make money. In the end this makes the system stagnant. You want to make sure there is always many good opportunities for people to rise above themselves which in the end means there has to be a limit to how much wealth one can aquire,if only to make sure there is enough room for newcomers. If inequality is already at this point is difficult to say but inequality ultimately has its limits before it becomes a factor that limits the innovation and competitiveness of an economy. No one is saying it isn’t a natural result of the system we have. What I am saying is that “nature” is never a sufficient ethical justification and that we can clearly do better than “yup looks natural to me”. Edit: and to be clear, there is nothing that we can point to as evidence that when a current situation is true, it is for a good reason. As an example, slavery is a natural result of a certain group of people having a relative power wildly less than another group. But we decided "hey, that's totally fucked, we should make sure no humans are ever that lacking in power" More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_natureA current situation true never intrinsically means it is good.
Oh no,i definitely didnt mean it as a justification. It was meant as an observation and a partial analyzis of the system and some of its aspects without any judgement. That and short comment and attempt to explain one of the things that piketty did notice.
I dont feel comfortable making moral or ethical judgement calls about these things.
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Justice at last. The New York Post restored access to their twitter account today. It had been locked out and unable to post since October 14th, more than two weeks ago. This was in response to publishing allegations of improper conduct from Hunter Biden related to emails and photos recovered from his laptop. They did the good journalist thing and reported faithfully the sourcing of the document, and their reporting led to numerous important conversations on social media censorship and fact checking exercises. The Biden campaign and Hunter Biden have not denied the authenticity of the emails.
Free at last, with some bonuses
It did take dragging Jack Dorsey to a Congressional hearing to bring a conclusion to the weird case. They are the fifth largest newspaper in the United States, and quite old too. It was founded by Alexander Hamilton.
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They don't need to deny the veracity because they're so unbelievably not credible and deserve 0 extra oxygen. Doesn't pass the laugh test. (And every new detail they've claimed makes it more insane. The latest claim is that apparently the FBI has been hiding Hunter Biden's child porn videos for the past year, while Rudy has been disseminating them to his friends and the media. Yes, he's been admitting in interviews that he's been committing a felony in order to bring Biden down).
Edit:
Oh, and NBC has clarified that they reached out to Rudy and Bobulinksi on the Hunter thing and were refused the necessary access to fact check (the HD, or even just copies of files). So the media blackout thing is total bs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/here-s-what-happened-when-nbc-news-tried-report-alleged-n1245533
Also, remember Trafalgar Group's polls and how weird they've been? Turns out they were hiding (or at the least, hadn't disclosed) that some of them had been paid for by the GOP.
Per 538. They had removed all of them since they were so weird, but have added them back in for a slight dem decrease in the senate.
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On October 31 2020 08:54 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2020 08:26 mikedebo wrote:On October 31 2020 07:13 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 03:45 Nouar wrote:On October 31 2020 01:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 31 2020 01:02 Danglars wrote:On October 31 2020 00:19 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:58 Nevuk wrote:On October 30 2020 23:47 BisuDagger wrote:On October 30 2020 23:14 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
What's economic stability? 0% growth rate? No volatility? Economic Stability in regards to the slowing the dramatic rate at which places are going out of business, shrinking joblessness, etc. Basically, all the signals that we have a healthy economy like in a pre-covid world. On October 30 2020 23:18 Nevuk wrote:
[quote]
Much of the wish list for dems is not economic. There are only three items that are.
Here's one that might satisfy fiscal conservatives :
1. Repeal of the tax cuts for those earning over 500k that Trump pushed through with no plan to pay for them.
I'd rather they remove loopholes from the tax system so you pay the percentage mandated. Wouldn't that make more money then raising the taxes on the wealthy (unless it's brought to an absurd amount)? No tax breaks unless it went to legitimate charities. Well, they will probably try to do both, but no, not really. I think Kwark or someone in finances can verify this for sure. There's the "minimum" rate that is the absolute lowest amount you can pay already, isn't there? A lot of 'loopholes' abused by the ultra rich and rich aren't really loopholes so much as just "not enforced by the IRS right now". That's what happened with Trump, for instance. Capital gains taxes are another area where they're just really low, nothing to do with loopholes, and those are disproportionately used by the super rich. Corporate taxes are an area where loopholes are an issue (vis a viz Amazon), but the individual tax rate I don't think is one. (PS: What's your definition of ridiculous? If we went back to 1950s rules then there would be 90% income tax rates on millionaires) I'd like to just post "Tax is theft" and not say more lol. More personally, I have hard feelings about income tax and death taxes. I think money earned should go to your pocket. I'm not so extreme as to say 0% tax for everyone, I understand why it exists. I am just willing to entertain other solutions besides a 90% tax on the top percent. I know this comes with more government control, but I'm more interested in discussions that help regulate the percentage of money earned going to a CEO versus their employees. We could come up with solutions that aren't "you cannot make x amount as a CEO". Instead maybe an internal tax that forces the CEO to pay a percentage of his earned income back into his own company. So even if he doesn't get to retain the wealth for himself, he gets to choose how to reinvest it back into the company. Also, to be clear, I am not arguing against corporate taxes, just taxes on income.With my theoretical suggestion, wouldn't that put more money in the corporate tax area for the government to collect anyway? Your heart is in the right place. You go a little astray at the intrusive solution to CEOs earning money. It’s just as bad as what you’re trying to fix, so you might as well have a progressive income tax rate with a lower ceiling rather than force the “money earned going into your pocket” to be spent in ways your hand wouldn’t choose for it. I agree. I feel icky proposing a solution that gets intrusive. It's like rent prices. I rented places for a decade, and only stayed in one apartment for two years in a row. The price of rent would go up several hundred dollars a month if I stayed, so I would move and find lower rents in crappier areas. So part of me truly understands rent prices are absurd and somehow need to be regulated, but I can't come up with a government enforced idea that I don't oppose due to taking to much control away from the owners and their rights to run their businesses. I am always amazed at things like that. You suffered the short end of the stick about the renting market, but you still hold on to your beliefs that "business freedom" is somehow more important that people living decently. Does it occur that the market can be played with, that there are a lot of illegal coordination between companies that skew the rules towards mega corporations and their profit, against regular people that can't hold a candle to their influence ? Let's take a small example. 2/3 big promoters collude to keep the amount of flats low, thus raising prices. Other companies try to come and build things (the famed competition) and are bullied into submission or just bought out because they are smaller. What can people do if the state isn't the one to intervene and regulate ? Nothing. The right to run a business is more important and absolute than the rest, even when it relates to people being able to live somewhere. It's great that you hold beliefs, but in no world will I be able to agree with that point of view... I mean, even without talking about large promoters, it also works for small-time owners who just raise rent because it's rising in the area. Makes them more money ! Great right ? Their mortgage is not rising, why do they feel bound to increase the rent ? To squeeze more. I own a flat that I rent (still paying the mortgage). I have not raised the rent for 10 years and 6 pairs of tenants, even when there was inflation or the law allowed me to. Why ? Because I am just trying to finish paying the flat with a little help, not break even every month or squeeze every ounce of profit I could. It's important to me that students are able to live decently close to their university. You can call me an idiot, but at least I'm at peace with myself. There is in my mind a large difference between healthy competition between companies that try to deliver the best product at the lowest possible price, and things like the renting market where there is a competition to try to sell the crappiest product at the highest possible price. This freedom can be regulated with peace of mind. A freedom to gouge others is best let go of. First off, I think it's great that you care for tenants. It makes me really happy to hear that, honestly. Regarding regulation, I agree there becomes a point where the private sector fails itself and intervention has to occur. But let's say government starts to control rent prices. What if there is one government employee or group who is in charge of regulating rent prices. And they say "Area A" should be at this price point and "Area B" should be at this price point. And they happened to have investments in area B and use their price control as a strategy to move rent traffic into areas where they have special interests. Suddenly you have corrupt officials controlling the market place instead of corrupt property owners. That's where things get tricky. The government has the responsibility to prove to me you are going to 1. Do it better the private ownership 2. Be fully transparent about your control process and those involved in making the decisions 3. Put a vote on the ballot to end the program after x amount of time so the people know they have always have the option to end the program if it doesn't prove to be an effective program This is why people like me fear change from both parties. Because both parties NEVER explain the process behind a plan and prove to the citizen why it is worth it to go forward with a plan. If we had a politician get on air and explain a thru z their plan, it wouldn't be exciting, but I'd vote for them in a second. Is there a reason these controls can't be applied at the state level? It's not the same, but in the province of Ontario, tenancy law is mostly under the province and works the same way essentially everywhere across this province. Rent controls in particular are related to inflation and are are capped at a certain %age per year, beyond which point the landlord needs the signature of the tenant. There is an absolute cap as well (3% I believe.) Would "state-wide" be a broad enough jurisdiction to alleviate your "price routing" concerns? This is an actual question, not a question-in-the-form-of-a-US-snub. I can empathize a bit with landlords, but I can't help but feel a lot more for tenants. I'm currently going through a minor dispute with my landlord, and I am again realizing that this is a person who feels they have a god-given right to have their property paid for by someone else without assuming any risk or responsibilty beyond putting up a down-payment once in their lives, and it's helpful to have the tenancy regulation there. They're not even super favorable to tenants, but they're something. I seriously would be open minded on a state or city level if a convincing plan was in place, but look at San Francisco and see how they failed to control rent and its growing homeless population. They are a great example of failed government intervention. I, however, would trust my county because they are really well run in Clay County Fl.
I suppose there's one obvious problem with my suggestion: California's population is larger than all of Canada's. Makes it a lot more challenging, I expect.
I lived in SF and the Bay Area in 2006. I enjoyed it first, but was so disgusted after a while that I left a fast-track SV job and never went back.
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Northern Ireland26765 Posts
It’s a shame that these apparently damning documents that would confirm some of these theories re the Bidens got lost in transit and apparently have no backups at all.
Sounds absolutely legitimate to me.
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On October 31 2020 10:13 WombaT wrote:
It’s a shame that these apparently damning documents that would confirm some of these theories re the Bidens got lost in transit and apparently have no backups at all.
Sounds absolutely legitimate to me. Its a literal "The dog ate my homework" excuse and yet people like Danglers still believe this story has legs.
Like, how blatantly do they need to lie to your face before you start to question them?
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If it serves the Republican hivemind, no questioning is necessary. Only acceptance. That's how it works.
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EPT
