US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2882

On December 08 2020 17:41 Wegandi wrote:
As far as debt spending direct payments are the least worst. There's less corruption (though there is some still), it mitigates the Cantillon effect, there's no apparatchiks picking winners/losers so less market distortion re: resource allocation and profitability signaling, and well, if you're into solely politics it likely polls the best (see: every entitlement program on Earth being a big electoral boon to those who shovel money to the voters (LBJ/FDR)). If Republicans were smart politically they'd push for like a 3,200$ check and cut out all the other junk. You could also make it progressive if you wanted to - 150k+ = 1750, <150k = 4000.

I'd imagine Dems would almost be forced politically to support such a "skinny" bill, but these types of bills are almost a no-go because politicians like wielding their power and being wooed by interests and cronies (and rewarding "their side").

On December 09 2020 07:42 pmh wrote:


As far as debt spending direct payments are the least worst.

I used to agree with this but I am not sure i still do,there is more to it i think.
Direct payments to citizens only stimulate direct consumption. That consumption then stimulates investments but there is a rather large time gap between those 2. Direct payments often translate directly into inflation of consumables.
The indirect stimulation of investments by first stimulating consumption has advantages as you pointed out,the market can do her (or is it his?) work to allocate the investments properly according to the demand.
But there still is a risk of misallocation as the consumption is beeing driven up artificially and concentrated within the group of consumers. It only very indirectly stimulates industry consumption (and with that even more indirectly industry investments) and the stimulus is initially restricted to the sectors that produces those direct consumables for the consumer.
It could for example create a large demand for consumables which give a lot of utility for private consumers in the short run but not so much in the long run and as a result of that allocate investments to produce those short term utility goods over an allocation of investments in areas which would take longer to show a return but which in the end are more important for the economy in the long run.

Its all very complicated.

On December 09 2020 07:06 KwarK wrote:

Yes, but that's not the same thing as the poor paying for tax cuts for the rich unless the poor are the ones who will have to repay the deficit.

On December 09 2020 06:56 Belisarius wrote:
Is that statement not true?

Ignoring covid, companies appeared to significantly improve their bottom lines after the Trump cuts, and the deficit was comfortably rising under the party of fiscal conservatism. By definition, this increases the strain on the public purse. No?

On December 09 2020 08:05 Nevuk wrote:

Well, it's depicted that way since the last tax GOP cut literally increased taxes on the non-rich through some semantic redefinitions and making the cuts expire automatically for the poor but not the rich.

Sure, the poor aren't going to be paying more in taxes than the rich holistically even after that, but they're going be paying a larger part while the rich pay a smaller part (using poor to refer to anyone making <150$k here) compared to before the cuts.

(I'm ignoring the removal of SALT deductions, which mostly hit wealthy people the hardest).

The poor also are going to have to be the ones to repay the deficit, simply because so much of the youth in the country is extremely unwealthy: millennials and younger have an absolutely pathetic portion of the wealth in the country compared to boomers at the same ages (3% vs 21% source).

On December 09 2020 08:09 Wegandi wrote:


You think when deficits go up the poor pay for it? Then you must believe that deficit spending increases CPI inflation which means that the necessary goods of items go up more in relation to the individuals earnings. That's not exactly a typical leftist position (it is in fact, a libertarian one though). You do realize that often deficit increases are not about taxation policy it is about Government spending (something generally at least rhetorically the left is much more gung-ho about).

As a measure of non-relative accounting, the "rich" are responsible for the vast amount of tax revenue (and thus Government funding) in the US (the top 1% of earners pay more of the tax burden in the US than comparable OECD countries top 1%). KwarK will then point out that the recipients of the tax money in the EU countries goes more towards those bottom earners, but fails to account for the large welfare state the US runs itself and many of those benefits (like "free" college) are often more used by the middle-class. Dismissing cultural habits that tend to show up more in the poor (less likely to utilize preventive healthcare measures even when "free", poor money management skills/life planning, etc.) and only looking at one area gives a large bias. To me, the best way to help the poor is by raising the standard of living of the entire country and markets best achieve this. Our poor in the US are better off than the poor in poor countries (it is why people argue poverty in relative terms, not objective because they can't really argue this fact so they distort reality to paint socialist policies in rosy terms).

On December 09 2020 08:09 Wegandi wrote:
To me, the best way to help the poor is by raising the standard of living of the entire country and markets best achieve this.

(the top 1% of earners pay more of the tax burden in the US than comparable OECD countries top 1%)

On December 09 2020 12:12 Salazarz wrote:


Top 1% earners also have disproportionately higher earnings and hold disproportionately more wealth than the 1% in comparable OECD countries. Going off official data, 1% in the US holds nearly 50% of all the wealth in the country. In the UK, it's 15%. It takes an income of around $550k to be a top 1% earner in the US. It's £160k in the UK. Median income in the UK is £30k; it's $35k in the US.

On December 09 2020 14:10 Gahlo wrote:

How? If we assume full time (37.5 hours/week) 35k is almost $18/hr.

On December 09 2020 14:12 Anc13nt wrote:


For some reason I would've thought it was at least like 40 something grand because US gdp per capita is really high.

On December 09 2020 14:12 Anc13nt wrote:


For some reason I would've thought it was at least like 40 something grand because US gdp per capita is really high.

On December 09 2020 15:58 Danglars wrote:

Several measures put US median income in the 40k area.

Median household income was $68,703 in 2019, an increase of 6.8 percent from the 2018 median of $64,324 (Figure 1 and Table A-1).

The 2019 real median earnings of men ($57,456) and women ($47,299) who worked full-time, year-round increased by 2.1 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively (Figure 4 and Table A-6). The 2019 female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.823, not statistically different from the 2018 ratio (Figure 5).

On December 09 2020 16:55 Salazarz wrote:


You should really start posting sources for claims like this. Not that it would make any difference, since even if median income in the US was 'in the 40k area' (it's not, but let's say it was), my point would still be just as valid.

On December 08 2020 17:41 Wegandi wrote:
As far as debt spending direct payments are the least worst. There's less corruption (though there is some still), it mitigates the Cantillon effect, there's no apparatchiks picking winners/losers so less market distortion re: resource allocation and profitability signaling, and well, if you're into solely politics it likely polls the best (see: every entitlement program on Earth being a big electoral boon to those who shovel money to the voters (LBJ/FDR)). If Republicans were smart politically they'd push for like a 3,200$ check and cut out all the other junk. You could also make it progressive if you wanted to - 150k+ = 1750, <150k = 4000.

I'd imagine Dems would almost be forced politically to support such a "skinny" bill, but these types of bills are almost a no-go because politicians like wielding their power and being wooed by interests and cronies (and rewarding "their side").