Svartalf wrote:Cast iron stoves? I thought the one in my granmother's home was a legacy from the house being built back in the 1890s... You have to have your own woods to make feeding that kind of apparatus economically viable.Clinton Huxley wrote:Splendid news - Aga sales are on the rise!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... k-in-black
If they really think that higher taxes help the economy, as they've been saying for years, then they'd want the taxes up as soon as possible to prove to everyone that they are right. What's the only conclusion from their desire to delay? They must not be sure that higher taxes will help the economy, or more than likely they know for a fact that repealing the tax cuts will, in fact, hurt the economy.Svartalf wrote:What do you expect with the midterms coming up? At best, they'll delay any taxing till after the vote... my own guesstimate would be that Obie would wait till he gets his second term before dropping the hot potato and ruining biden's presidential hopes.Coito ergo sum wrote:And the Democrats set out to destroy the economy! http://thehill.com/homenews/house/11025 ... s-may-wait
Although for 7+ years now, Democrats have stated that the Bush tax cuts hurt the economy by sending deficits soaring, they now want to extend the tax cuts in order to help the economy....makes perfect sense....
After all, taxes were higher under Clinton, and the economy better, so raising taxes would help the economy.
That it will.....Leibnitz was on to something. No matter how bad this world sucks, it's still the best of all possible worlds.Clinton Huxley wrote:Everything will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds!
http://positiveeconomicnews.com/
They want the taxes... they just don't want to lose control of parliament, and they know that increasing taxes could tip the upcoming vote, what with Obama coming under so much fire for not making miracles?Coito ergo sum wrote:If they really think that higher taxes help the economy, as they've been saying for years, then they'd want the taxes up as soon as possible to prove to everyone that they are right. What's the only conclusion from their desire to delay? They must not be sure that higher taxes will help the economy, or more than likely they know for a fact that repealing the tax cuts will, in fact, hurt the economy.
Wouldn't improving the economy be the best help to maintaining control of Congress?Svartalf wrote:They want the taxes... they just don't want to lose control of parliament, and they know that increasing taxes could tip the upcoming vote, what with Obama coming under so much fire for not making miracles?Coito ergo sum wrote:If they really think that higher taxes help the economy, as they've been saying for years, then they'd want the taxes up as soon as possible to prove to everyone that they are right. What's the only conclusion from their desire to delay? They must not be sure that higher taxes will help the economy, or more than likely they know for a fact that repealing the tax cuts will, in fact, hurt the economy.
What do you mean FUBARed "again?" They are FUBARed now, and getting worse, and being made worse by the policies of this Administration and the actions of this Congress. The Democrats have had 18 months now to enact any reform they wanted. This has been an unprecedented amount of control in the hands of one party. If they couldn't get anything done, then they only have themselves to blame.Svartalf wrote:Pshaww, that's long range strategy, and winning elections is pure tactics... the votes won't rally until you have results, and you don't have time to do that... If they started the taxtaking now, they'd get everybody with their panties in a bunch over the extra money they have to pay in taxes, but no serious improvements yet... and if the GOP wins the mid terms, they won't be able to do anything anymore until the Republicans get everything FUBARred again enough for the voter to reject them again.
If Mccain had won, everybody would puke on him as the heir of bush.
Hey, if they are learning, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.Coito ergo sum wrote:Although for 7+ years now, Democrats have stated that the Bush tax cuts hurt the economy by sending deficits soaring, they now want to extend the tax cuts in order to help the economy....makes perfect sense....
How will higher taxes hurt the economy? You need to ask that question?Svartalf wrote:OK, I take it back... Upped the FUBAR level by another order of magnitude. Happy now?
And how will the upped taxes hurt the economy? the skill of the Taxman is in taking the money where it lies, and there are lot of stockholders and companies that are swimming in cash that does no good to the economy where it is anyway.
First suppose that we lived in a society without taxation. We'll worry about how the government finances its programs later on, but for now we'll assume that they have enough money to finance all the programs we have today. If there are no taxes, then the government does not earn any income from taxation and citizens do not spend any time worrying about how to evade taxes. If someone has a wage of $10.00 an hour, then they get to keep that $10.00. If such a society were possible, we can see that people would be quite productive as any income they earn, they keep.
Now consider the opposing case. Taxes are now set to be 100% of income. Any cent you earn goes to the government. It may seem that the government would earn a lot of money this way, but that's not likely to happen. If I don't get to keep anything out of what I earn, why would I go to work? I'd rather spend my time reading or playing baseball. In fact, going to work would risk my ability to survive. I'd be much better off spending my time trying to come up with ways to get the things I need without giving them to the government. I'd spend a lot of my time trying to grow food in a hidden garden and bartering with others for the things I need to survive. I wouldn't spend any time working for a company if I didn't get anything from it. Society as a whole would not be very productive if everybody spent a large portion of their time trying to evade taxes. The government would earn very little income from taxation, as very few people would go to work if they did not earn an income from it.
While these are extreme cases, they do illustrate the effect of taxes and they are useful guides of what happens at other tax rates. A 99% tax rate is awfully like a 100% tax rate, and if you ignore collection costs, having a 2% tax rate is not much different from having no taxes at all. Go back to the person earning $10.00 an hour. Do you think he'll spend more time at work or less if his take home pay is $8.00 rather than $2.00? I'd bet you that at $2.00 he's not going to spend a lot of time at work and he is going to spend a lot of time trying to earn a living away from the prying eyes of government.
Productivity declines as the tax rate increases, as people choose to work less. The higher the tax rate, the more time people spend evading taxes and the less time they spend on more productive activity. So the lower the tax rate, the higher the value of all the goods and services produced.
Government tax revenue does not necessarily increase as the tax rate increases. The government will earn more tax income at 1% rate than at 0%, but they will not earn more at 100% than they will at 10%, due to the disincentives high tax rates cause. Thus there is a peak tax rate where government revenue is highest. The relationship between income tax rates and government revenue can be graphed on something called a Laffer Curve.
http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/mzuc ... story.htmlThe Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History
Current federal budget trends are capable of destroying this country
By MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN
Posted: August 26, 2010
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There is an instinctive conclusion among the American public that President Obama's stimulus package has failed to create a sustained recovery. Unemployment has increased, not declined; consumers have retrenched; housing starts have crashed along with mortgage applications; and there is a fear that a double-dip recession may very well be in the pipeline. The public perception, reflected in Pew Research/National Journal polls, is that the measures to combat the Great Recession have mostly helped large banks and financial institutions, and that's a view common to Republicans (75 percent) and Democrats (73 percent). Only one third of either political leaning thinks government policies have done a great deal or a fair amount for the poor.
There is another instinctive conclusion among the American people. It is that the national deficit, and the debts we have accumulated, are of critical political importance. On the national debt, the money the government has spent without the tax revenues to pay for it has produced mind-numbing numbers so large as to be disconnected from reality. Zeros from here to infinity. The sums are hard to describe; it is hard to describe an elephant, but you know one when you see one. The public knows that, shuffle the numbers as you may, the level of debt is unsustainable.
Who could be surprised since millions of voters have discovered that for themselves? As one realizes the morning after the night before, there is an unavoidable penalty for excess. It is unnerving to wake up and learn that you have a mortgage on your home that exceeds the value of the property. Or, and too often both, you have a credit card line that you cannot repay and the issuer has you on the rack for ever bigger compound interest on the debt. The lesson has been well and truly learned that debt catches up with you. Millions understand that they are just going to have to find a way to live within their means—and then still eke out some savings to pay down debt. And there are well over 14 million Americans without a paying job, so the level of discontent is very high. Just how are they going to regain control of their lives?
In a usnews.com post on July 26, Jodie Allen of the Pew Research Center reported that in recent weeks more academic and market economists have been urging the government to defer budget cuts and tax increases and instead provide additional stimulus to a still-fragile economy, some by continuing the Bush tax cuts. But among the public there has been a suggestive shift of opinion the other way, reflecting worries about debt. "Deficit and government spending" has jumped from 10th or 11th place as a priority for the federal government to one that is second only to job creation and economic growth. The drift of opinion is manifest in other recent polls. For instance, a CBS poll conducted July 9-12 assessed the most important problem facing the country as the economy and jobs (38 percent), with concern about the budget deficit and national debt way down at 5 percent. Yet CNN (July 16-21) has 47 percent preoccupied first with the economy, and 13 percent with the federal deficit. In a recent Time magazine poll, two thirds of the respondents say they oppose a second government stimulus program and more than half say the country would have been better off without the first one.
People see the stimulus, fashioned and passed by Congress in such a hurry, as a metaphor for wasted money. They are highly critical about the lack of discipline among our political leaders. The question that naturally arises is how to forestall a long-term economic decline.
The Fed has lowered rates dramatically to keep the economy ticking and maybe continue the painfully slow recovery, but at the receiving end there is no feeling of relief at all. People know that the stimulus is about to stop stimulating. They know that money is petering out. They know that states are preparing to cut $200 billion to balance their budgets. They realize that the Great Recession has wiped out huge amounts of wealth and that, unlike other recessions, this will not be followed by the kind of economic boom when people who had sat on their money during the lean years unleash pent-up demand for all sorts of goods and services.
There is no sign of that happening this time around. Households and businesses have kept their hands in their pockets. And so while many think that the only way to revive the economy and to inject more money into it is through governmental spending, the general feeling is that we can't afford that right now. The government will be writing more IOUs on top of those we already can't afford. Why plan a second stimulus if the first stimulus couldn't prevent high unemployment?
Don't make me discuss the sheer amount of time Bush spent on vacation.Coito ergo sum wrote:Don't worry, though, the Obamas are on a bike ride and playing some more golf: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs. ... /100829798
As the economy drops, Obama's vacations increase directly proportional....
Coito ergo sum wrote:Don't worry, though, the Obamas are on a bike ride and playing some more golf: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs. ... /100829798
Any time a president like one of those spends on vacation is time he doesn't spend mucking up the economy. The more vacation the better, I say.Ian wrote:Don't make me discuss the sheer amount of time Bush spent on vacation.
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