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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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E

el retorno

Member
jamesinclair said:
Wsj had an image today showing the European to tax rates.

Strong correlation between high rates and successful society. Russia was bottom.

On phone, someone post please
Click to expand...

what was the article on?

I assume it was this
WO-AM224_DEPARD_G_20130103180307.jpg


And it really doesn't show what your saying. Spain is no where near as successful of a society as germany. It also doesn't take in consideration that Russia gets a lot of its revenue through natural resources which those European countries don't have. Its like pointing out there are no taxes in Saudi Arabia and saying look we don't need any. There is a lot that goes into tax rates and just comparing the ending numbers isn't always the best way
 
E

el retorno

Member
800px-Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg.png


Ireland Japan and Australia have lower taxes but offer more beneftis. On the other hand Turkey taxes more than us but has worse results. We need better spending priorities to make a better society and we don't even need radically higher taxes for that. We just need to reform how we do a bunch of things.

We waste money on a lot of things. We could spend less on medicare but get better results if we had single payer or cost controls, we could shift money from food and corporate subsidies to infrastructure projects. We could reduce deductions and get more revenue. None of these require increases in taxes.

Liberals shouldn't obsess about the tax rate as much as what we spend our money on and how. We have enough money
 
S

speculawyer

Member
el retorno de los sapos said:
what was the article on?

I assume it was this
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AM224_DEPARD_G_20130103180307.jpg

And it really doesn't show what your showing Spain is no where near as successful of a society as germany. It also doesn't take in consideration that Russia gets a lot of its revenue though natural resources which those European countries don't have. Its like pointing out there are no taxes in Saudi Arabia and say look we don't need any. There is a lot that goes into tax rates and just comparing the ending numbers isn't always the best way
Click to expand...
This. Most of Russia's people don't make much. The government coffers are largely filled with taxes/royalties on timber, oil, natural gas, etc.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
CyclopsRock said:
In fairness though, you could build a road that travels all the way from Paris in the West to Kiev in the East and it wouldn't even be long enough to drive from one side of Texas and back again. The US is a big ol' place.
Click to expand...

Our roads are designed to fail by corrupt local shit
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
el retorno de los sapos said:
Ireland Japan and Australia have lower taxes but offer more beneftis. On the other hand Turkey taxes more than us but has worse results. We need better spending priorities to make a better society and we don't even need radically higher taxes for that. We just need to reform how we do a bunch of things.

We waste money on a lot of things. We could spend less on medicare but get better results if we had single payer or cost controls, we could shift money from food and corporate subsidies to infrastructure projects. We could reduce deductions and get more revenue. None of these require increases in taxes.

Liberals shouldn't obsess about the tax rate as much as what we spend our money on and how. We have enough money
Click to expand...

But it's not all about affording stuff. Taxes are also a good way to reduce inequality. Hell, part of the reason that it's hard to do the sorts of things you're talking about is that economic inequality breeds political inequality, and people with money don't care much about or actively don't want single payer health care and use a lot of private infrastructure.
 
E

el retorno

Member
Gotchaye said:
But it's not all about affording stuff. Taxes are also a good way to reduce inequality. Hell, part of the reason that it's hard to do the sorts of things you're talking about is that economic inequality breeds political inequality, and people with money don't care much about or actively don't want single payer health care and use a lot of private infrastructure.
Click to expand...

No I do agree with that and I'm not saying 40% taxes are bad. But there are a lot of other ways to increase enconomic equality without just high taxes. Estate tax I think is a lot more important that income tax. Also a social safety net that is actually strong increase that as more businesses succeed and lead to more wealth. I'm not disagreeing but just saying just taxing the rich of their wealth isn't going to lead to a magically equal society you have to do more. Thats the kind of stuff the soviets and cubans did.

Political issues are why we have most of the trouble were in now IMO not that we have most of the money to do the things we want.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
el retorno de los sapos said:
what was the article on?

I assume it was this
WO-AM224_DEPARD_G_20130103180307.jpg


And it really doesn't show what your saying. Spain is no where near as successful of a society as germany. It also doesn't take in consideration that Russia gets a lot of its revenue through natural resources which those European countries don't have. Its like pointing out there are no taxes in Saudi Arabia and saying look we don't need any. There is a lot that goes into tax rates and just comparing the ending numbers isn't always the best way
Click to expand...

That's it, yes.

Slovakia or Sweden?
Russia or Belgium?

Choice is easy
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
el retorno de los sapos said:
No I do agree with that and I'm not saying 40% taxes are bad. But there are a lot of other ways to increase enconomic equality without just high taxes. Estate tax I think is a lot more important that income tax. Also a social safety net that is actually strong increase that as more businesses succeed and lead to more wealth. I'm not disagreeing but just saying just taxing the rich of their wealth isn't going to lead to a magically equal society you have to do more. Thats the kind of stuff the soviets and cubans did.

Political issues are why we have most of the trouble were in now IMO not that we have most of the money to do the things we want.
Click to expand...

So, first, it's not just Communists. European countries tend to be much more equal, have much more progressive taxes (and much higher income taxes on high earners, per your chart), and half of their politics isn't parties that represent the interests of the rich. I think all of these things are related.

The big problem with the estate tax is that it's just not very good at preventing intergenerational wealth transfer. Even if it weren't fairly easy to get around in a variety of ways, people live to be 80+. It's a little pointless to worry about an 80 year old giving a bunch of money to a 55 year old after the 80 year old already spent ridiculous sums giving the 55 year old every advantage for the last 55 years. People who inherit from huge estates are already rich. It's hard not to be when your dad has those kinds of connections and you've got a few degrees from Ivies.

And income differences are sufficient by themselves to produce massive inequality. *Insert CEO to average worker pay ratio* This is problematic in itself. We can't stop that short of high taxes on high incomes or a very high minimum wage (or a very generous guaranteed income).
 
P

Piecake

Member
Gotchaye said:
But it's not all about affording stuff. Taxes are also a good way to reduce inequality. Hell, part of the reason that it's hard to do the sorts of things you're talking about is that economic inequality breeds political inequality, and people with money don't care much about or actively don't want single payer health care and use a lot of private infrastructure.
Click to expand...

Any info out there about whether a revenue neutral tax swap that gets rid of corporate taxes for a higher capital gains/dividend rate? My guess is that it would. I would do it anyways if it didnt have an impact on inequality since it just sounds like better tax policy to me.

Im not sure how politically likely this is. I mean, it sounds like something doable, but who knows, maybe all those rich, powerful people like their low low personal tax rates more than a zero corporate tax rate
 
G

gcubed

Member
el retorno de los sapos said:
I think that also has to do with the fact they way that money is spent is often out of politician's hands. The EU commission does all that work and they aren't elected. They're pooling a lot of european money and having technocrats spend it all.

Its not like the europeans were always good at infrastructure. Spain's for example SUCKED up until the EU came and and funded the shit out of everything, southern Italy's still sucks, they've been building a highway for 20 years or something (there was a NYT article on it). Their roads are 10-20 years old compared to ours which are 50+ and subject to much more interference from the national all they way down to the local politics

Edit: the highway as been under construction for 50 years. It started in the 60s
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/w...rained-by-corruption.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Click to expand...

Well I would also say higher taxes on gas with higher tolls for road use also affords them proper money to maintain the roads. The same critical highway in the US would have been about a ~$8-10 toll vs 27 euro.
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Piecake said:
Any info out there about whether a revenue neutral tax swap that gets rid of corporate taxes for a higher capital gains/dividend rate? My guess is that it would. I would do it anyways if it didnt have an impact on inequality since it just sounds like better tax policy to me.

Im not sure how politically likely this is. I mean, it sounds like something doable, but who knows, maybe all those rich, powerful people like their low low personal tax rates more than a zero corporate tax rate
Click to expand...

I'd consider getting rid of corporate taxes in exchange for capital gains being considered income instead of separate income at a lower rate.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Huh, Sanders brought up something interesting on the Ed Show (don't ask... it was on for some reason and I noticed Sanders, so yay). He said we should do a transaction/speculation fee of less than a percent (like .2 or .25) on the sale and purchase of credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures.

Sounds like a good way of making a little revenue that shouldn't really do much harm to the economy. I guess England has one of 0.25 percent.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
RDreamer said:
Huh, Sanders brought up something interesting on the Ed Show (don't ask... it was on for some reason and I noticed Sanders, so yay). He said we should do a transaction/speculation fee of less than a percent (like .2 or .25) on the sale and purchase of credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures.

Sounds like a good way of making a little revenue that shouldn't really do much harm to the economy. I guess England has one of 0.25 percent.
Click to expand...

A transaction tax would actually probably help economic stability by limiting computer-assisted trading speed.
 
E

el retorno

Member
RDreamer said:
Huh, Sanders brought up something interesting on the Ed Show (don't ask... it was on for some reason and I noticed Sanders, so yay). He said we should do a transaction/speculation fee of less than a percent (like .2 or .25) on the sale and purchase of credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures.

Sounds like a good way of making a little revenue that shouldn't really do much harm to the economy. I guess England has one of 0.25 percent.
Click to expand...

That's a toobin tax I think

Gotchaye said:
So, first, it's not just Communists. European countries tend to be much more equal, have much more progressive taxes (and much higher income taxes on high earners, per your chart), and half of their politics isn't parties that represent the interests of the rich. I think all of these things are related.

The big problem with the estate tax is that it's just not very good at preventing intergenerational wealth transfer. Even if it weren't fairly easy to get around in a variety of ways, people live to be 80+. It's a little pointless to worry about an 80 year old giving a bunch of money to a 55 year old after the 80 year old already spent ridiculous sums giving the 55 year old every advantage for the last 55 years. People who inherit from huge estates are already rich. It's hard not to be when your dad has those kinds of connections and you've got a few degrees from Ivies.

And income differences are sufficient by themselves to produce massive inequality. *Insert CEO to average worker pay ratio* This is problematic in itself. We can't stop that short of high taxes on high incomes or a very high minimum wage (or a very generous guaranteed income).
Click to expand...
I dont think you understand what I was trying to say. I don't disagree with high rates I just don't think a 90% tax rate to promote equality is the best way to do it. Higher minimum wage, rules on executive compensation of public companies, equaling out income and capital gains taxes I think do a good job of making income equality a reality. I don't think income inequality is a problem unless it prohibits the lower incomes from gaining. Like if we had the CEO employee spread of 431-1 but each was getting a 10% raise I don't think it'd be as much as a problem. I only have a problem with income inequality when a. people aren't getting humanities and rights or b. the growth in one comes at expense of the other or it hurts overall growth.

My point about communism was that they confiscated wealth for the sake of everything being equal and didn't provide the actual programs that grow and help a country prosper. European Social Democracies don't do that.
 
S

soul creator

Member
a thief who falls in love and attempts to get out of the game for good gets a mysterious call from a stranger offering him one last job. Putting together a ragtag team (the tech guy, the driver, the inside man, the brains, the brawn, the woman), the crew heads to Washington DC to complete the perfect heist. Stealing the trillion dollar coin.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt star in: Ocean's Trillion. This summer, the debt ceiling is getting breached.

get on it, Hollywood!

edit for twist ending: empty vessel comes out at the end in an Architect-style monologue and explains that money is pretty much just numbers on a computer screen, so the whole caper was pointless.

weebay.gif
 
S

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
sounds better then some of the shit produced
 
C

cartoon_soldier

Member
el retorno de los sapos said:
800px-Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg.png


Ireland Japan and Australia have lower taxes but offer more beneftis. On the other hand Turkey taxes more than us but has worse results. We need better spending priorities to make a better society and we don't even need radically higher taxes for that. We just need to reform how we do a bunch of things.

We waste money on a lot of things. We could spend less on medicare but get better results if we had single payer or cost controls, we could shift money from food and corporate subsidies to infrastructure projects. We could reduce deductions and get more revenue. None of these require increases in taxes.

Liberals shouldn't obsess about the tax rate as much as what we spend our money on and how. We have enough money
Click to expand...

We should probably have a line for defense spending added to easily know where all that US money is being spent.
 
E

Effect

Member
Haven't been paying much attention over the last few days. At least outside of the fiscal cliff stuff. Is the filibuster reform not going to happen?
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Mario said:
Hmmm I think this image could really do with a dash of crying eagle.
Click to expand...

I once had an internet theory. Anyone with an American flag and/or bald eagle as an avatar/sig/whatever on a message board/twitter/fb/whatever is automatically a terrible poster unless it was done ironically.

I've yet to see this theory invalidated. Like it's 1 million out of 1 million so far.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
“They’ve got to find, in the House, a totally new strategy. Everybody’s now talking about, ‘Oh, here comes the debt ceiling.’ I think that’s, frankly, a dead loser. Because in the end, you know it’s gonna happen. The whole national financial system is going to come in to Washington and on television, and say: ‘Oh my God, this will be a gigantic heart attack, the entire economy of the world will collapse. You guys will be held responsible.’ And they’ll cave.”
Click to expand...
-Newt Gingrich

Mr. Obama will say Republicans are risking national default and recession, most of Wall Street will echo him, and the Treasury will maneuver to apply maximum political pressure — for example, by claiming it can’t pay Social Security benefits. We’ll support efforts to cut spending and reform entitlements, but the political result will be far worse if Republicans start this fight only to cave in the end. You can’t take a hostage you aren’t prepared to shoot.
Click to expand...
- WSJ Editorial

But PD said!


If the Fiscal Cliff showed us anything it's that the GOP will cave on the debt ceiling in the end. They have no other choice. I can't believe people don't think Obama has leverage. He has the carrot of defense cuts from the sequester and the GOP not raising the debt ceiling will be their own political death. Obama has more leverage now, imo, than before.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
Black Mamba said:
If the Fiscal Cliff showed us anything it's that the GOP will cave on the debt ceiling in the end. They have no other choice. I can't believe people don't think Obama has leverage. He has the carrot of defense cuts from the sequester and the GOP not raising the debt ceiling will be their own political death. Obama has more leverage now, imo, than before.
Click to expand...
Not disagreeing, but it's more than that. The fiscal cliff deal doesn't just give us some neat information that helps predict how the debt ceiling will go. It showed everyone, including Obama, that Boehner's bluffing. Boehner's negotiating strategy on the debt ceiling and the cliff has always been to say "my caucus is so crazy that they'll shoot themselves in the foot politically and massively damage the economy unless you give them X". And evidently that's basically true for a large number of them, but not a majority*. They voted down the idea of amending the Senate bill with spending cuts. It's not just that we now know they're not willing to shoot the hostage, it's that it's impossible for them to pretend to be willing to shoot the hostage because we now know they're not willing to shoot the hostage. Their whole negotiating strategy is shot all to hell.

*Yes, several claimed to only be going along with this because they were expecting to get something back in the debt ceiling fight, but this is still a level of rationality that makes "I'm crazy!" much less believable. And it only takes 30 plus Boehner (who is not himself crazy).
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Chichikov said:
They're investing on average more than double than the US (as percentage of GDP) on infrastructure.
I think that's a better explanation than population density, especially when you consider as European countries which are sparser than the US like Denmark and Sweden still have much superior roads.
Click to expand...
Sure? My point was that they invest less because of the lowered density (and thus there is less economic incentive for a road to be in good shape). Obviously on its own, the density means nothing. And smaller countries like Denmark and Sweden can't practically offer intra-national flights as a valid alternative to road use, as the US can (and does). I don't even think we are disagreeing on anything here.
 
C

ClassyPenguin

Banned
From my experience, if you want to travel in quality roads in Spain those are heavily tolled. In Los Angeles, some roads are getting slightly better through much cost and it's still a joke how some roads are.
 
G

gkryhewy

Member
CyclopsRock said:
And smaller countries like Denmark and Sweden can't practically offer intra-national flights as a valid alternative to road use, as the US can (and does).
Click to expand...

Aout 60% of all trips in this country are 2 miles or less. The proportion of road travel that can be substituted with air travel is microscopic.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
CyclopsRock said:
Sure? My point was that they invest less because of the lowered density (and thus there is less economic incentive for a road to be in good shape). Obviously on its own, the density means nothing. And smaller countries like Denmark and Sweden can't practically offer intra-national flights as a valid alternative to road use, as the US can (and does). I don't even think we are disagreeing on anything here.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make any sense.
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
el retorno de los sapos said:
Liberals shouldn't obsess about the tax rate as much as what we spend our money on and how. We have enough money
Click to expand...
Cart before horse logic. Why do we have to work with existing rates? Is it really enough money, particularly when you consider the gap between your chart and effective tax rates?

Cutting tax rates down then insisting we deal with it is the Norquist MO.
 
C

codhand

Member
Black Mamba said:
If the Fiscal Cliff showed us anything it's that the GOP will cave on the debt ceiling in the end. They have no other choice. I can't believe people don't think Obama has leverage. He has the carrot of defense cuts from the sequester and the GOP not raising the debt ceiling will be their own political death. Obama has more leverage now, imo, than before.
Click to expand...

Yes, but it's not like Obama has a record of sticking to his line in the sand. Two months is gonna creep right up on him. I want 14th amendment as I don't think bond prices would fall unlike Eric Cantor who held short positions in TBT (treasury double-short) in 2011 during the credit downgrade.
 
R

Rubenov

Member
Rocket Scientist said:
How is this legal...?
Click to expand...

TBT is a piece of shit, and its counterpart (TLT) actually shot up after the debt ceiling debacle and credit downgrade.

Imagine that, the downgrade of US debt made people sell stocks and rush into said US debt.

Thanks, S&P.

Edit: In simple terms, Cantor lost money (a lot) here. Don't know about the legality.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Black Mamba said:
I once had an internet theory. Anyone with an American flag and/or bald eagle as an avatar/sig/whatever on a message board/twitter/fb/whatever is automatically a terrible poster unless it was done ironically.

I've yet to see this theory invalidated. Like it's 1 million out of 1 million so far.
Click to expand...
This is not an internet theory.

RustyNails said:
So... Gingrich finally 2016 Republican nominee for president?
Click to expand...
I don't know man, by 2016 he should probably be on his 5th wife, and I think the family values crowd draw a line in the sand at 4.

Link said:
Pfft, maybe you do.

marty_doc.jpg
Click to expand...
10/10
 
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