Only if not reframed as Christian Capitalists, which they are without religiosity. I can't support it but some suggest Evangelicals are waking up about Trump.
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Only if not reframed as Christian Capitalists, which they are without religiosity. I can't support it but some suggest Evangelicals are waking up about Trump.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Here is an interesting take ...
Former Chinese trade envoy wants four more years of Trump. Here’s why
Paul T. Haenle on Twitter
Former Chinese trade envoy wants four more years of Trump. Here’s why
Paul T. Haenle on Twitter
China's former trade negotiator says China wants to see Trump reelected in 2020 because he is easy to negotiate with and only cares about China purchasing more American products (not pressing China to make important structural changes to its economy).
EVNow
Well-Known Member
What we need is rest of the electorate to vote at the same rate as Evangelicals.
Evangelicals have voted at higher and higher rates even as their population as a % of total electorate reduces. This is the main reason for Republican victories.
Public hearings set for impeachment inquiry next week. This might impact the stock market for near term.
Removing the problem? Trump will be in office until his term expires or he is called to the next world. The House might impeach him, but the Senate will not convict.I do think removing the problem will help the market. But I don't think it will be as quick as people would like. But who knows, maybe the market will respond positively just from the possibility of it.
People are leaving NY, Illinois, and California and moving to Florida and Texas. According to this Texas stands to gain 3 House seats, and Florida 2 from the 2020 census. People are also moving to Montana. A friend my SO is a judge in Montana. Last time we had dinner with him he was talking about the changes he's seeing in Montana. A lot of Californians are retiring to Montana. It's probably a contributing factor why they have a Democratic governor and a Democratic Senator.
Alaska will never have a huge influx from California because of the cost of living. Taxes may be lower, but food and energy are expensive.
States Expected to Gain or Lose Congressional Seats After the 2020 Census (Updated) | Insights Association
So many people are worked up about the wealth tax, but it will never happen. Warren would need to get a constitutional amendment through to make it work and the resistance to it will be savage, even if the politics of the country suddenly becomes dramatically bluer in 2020.
For one thing most wealthy people derive most of their income from long term capital gains. That is 20% for high income people. Medicare is only paid on W-2 income and a number of the super wealthy have no W-2 income at all, or pay themselves a very small salary out of the corporate entity where they derive the bulk of their income.
The only local jurisdiction in California that has an income tax is San Francisco, though every city and country has their own addition to the sales tax. But the super wealthy pay proportionally less sales tax because they don't spend as much of their income as poorer people.
Anyone who is super wealthy who is paying 50% of their income in taxes has the worst accountant in the country.
I do think the wealth tax, if it did happen, would be a disaster for the US. Someone else pointed out that people who have the bulk of their wealth tied up in stock in a company they built, they would have to sell a chunk of the company every year to pay the tax. As the company owners sold their stock, the stock market would dip, and bargain hunters not subject to the tax would swoop in. Most of those investors would be foreign and over time they would take over the country. Then they would simply move the company offshore to avoid US taxes completely.
Imagine how much worse Facebook would get if the Russians or Chinese owned it?
A restructuring of the capital gains rates could encourage the super wealthy to pump their money back into the US economy. Make returns on investments in US companies that produce what they sell in the US a much lower rate than companies that import. Also incentivize investment in US start ups.
There will be a gold rush of money flooding into investments in US companies. Lots of those companies will fail, but the people who pumped their wealth into them will have been separated from that wealth and it will have circulated in the US economy been taxed. It's a back door wealth tax that doesn't harm entrepreneurs with most of their wealth tied up in the companies they built, and doesn't require any changes to the constitution, just the tax code.
There would be a shortage of skilled people to pull this off. Short term, reduce defense spending and encourage the plants making defense items the DoD doesn't want to make consumer goods instead. A plant making electronics for weapons could easily be retooled to make iPhones and other electronic gadgets. To bring manufacturing back to the US would involve significant automation, but there would still be jobs for tech running the automated plants and for warehouse workers moving the goods around.
Longer term, we need to incentivize STEM education. The free college tuition idea is often criticized, but the government will definitely get back far more in taxes than it spends if it pays tuition for degrees that the economy needs. We need more 2 year degree tech people as well as more 4 year and some graduate level STEM degree people. Give a free ride at state schools for the degrees needed and the kids with the talent to do those jobs will flock to them.
On average those kids will make much more over their lifetimes, which will benefit the economy. We did it once before with a segment of the population. With the GI Bill after WW II a generation of young men who had served in the war got free educations. There weren't even any limits on what degrees they could get. The US saw a huge economic boom fueled by a new middle class who had money and minimal debt.
My father was one of those people. His father was a factory worker in Michigan. He started college in Los Angeles (Art Center School of Design) before WW II, had his education interrupted by the war, and finished after. He said he had enough points to get a free ride through to a PhD and regretted not doing that. He was always a frustrated engineer doing art.
But as a photographer he was able to afford a house in the burbs in the mid-50s with two cars, and all the trappings of that life. We didn't live a lavish lifestyle, but it was typical middle class. They rode the real estate boom in Los Angeles, sold out in 1984 and moved to a small town near San Luis Obispo, which also boomed thanks to other people of his generation doing the same thing. We're able to house him now in a rather expensive assisted living place on his investment income. He'll be 100 in February.
The country would probably benefit from helping everyone who can do it get a college education, but politically it probably isn't feasible. Investing in degrees that we know will improve income as well as help the country overall will definitely pay for itself over the long run.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
There is a long term trend of people moving from cold areas to Sun belt. As Boomers age, we should see more of this.
Ofcourse people are moving from Bay Area to Seattle as well. Its mainly driven by real estate prices in the Bay Area - anecdotally talking to a ton of such people I know. Similarly people are moving from Bay Area to Texas (Dallas, Austin etc).
If billionaires move from US because of wealth tax - good riddance. We can control their political influence better and they won't be able to buy politicians and disrupt Democracy as they have been doing for decades.
ps : US can also put pressure on other countries to increase wealth tax.
This is a big problem. We need to transform the economy where a degree education is not needed to live a middle class life. You don't need a degree to perform a large number of job roles, yet they need to be able to live a happy life.
I suggest listening to this - a Conservative / Trumpist explanation for whats happening. Otherwise demogogues will take over our politics just like it is happening in a number of countries.
The Ezra Klein Show
The Ezra Klein Show
What a smarter Trumpism would sound like
Michael Lind discusses the new class war, China
What a smarter Trumpism would sound like
Michael Lind discusses the new class war, China
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When I moved to Seattle in the late 80s there was already a flood of Californians there and the locals were not happy. I started telling people I was from the Southwest instead of California.
Seattle has gotten expensive. In 2003 I sold my starter house in Kent and moved to near Vancouver. We bought a house almost 3X the size on a larger lot.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Yes, that's why people are now moving to Texas instead. BTW, I hear even Austin is getting expensive. My company is now hiring some roles only in Dallas.
One of the many things I like about Andrew Yang, and mirrored here by many, is his concern about a minimum income for all because of displacement by machines. Having spent most of my life in the trade of course I applaud your position on education.
I do take issue with utilitarian arguments for it. You never know what you may need to meet the challenges of the future. I was really lucky to start off with a first class engineering degree and then shifted to the social sciences. Both continue to fertilize my thinking and acting. I never had a college English class so feel insecure about my writing and lack a great deal of polish better grounding in the humanities might provide. I did moonlight offering a one-shot course under our humanities rubric called "Future Mythology." Turned out to be the best class I've ever had because of the students. One was a professional astrologer.
In the elitist version of a favorite radio mystery program in the forties, "Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men. (Then maniacal laughter, followed by) 'the Shadow do.'"
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Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
Yes, in an impeachment inquiry proscribed by the Constitution the House of Representatives are the investigative prosecutors, and the Senate are the jurors who weigh the evidence - but Moscow Mitch already made it clear that the Republican Senate will acquit Trump - no matter how the facts will turn out to be about Trump's felony extortion of Ukraine.
(Btw., real jurors would be dismissed for saying anything like that before the trial, and a mistrial would be called if they said it during the trial.)
Anyway, the outcome is clear: the Senate will acquit Trump - and will probably try to make it real quick, to not have to talk too much about Trump's crimes.
So market reaction will be pretty muted IMHO, with the exception if the impeachment inquiry causes Trump triggers a government shutdown as a distraction, or Moscow Mitch decides to cut Republican losses and removes Trump to have a more electable Republican run in November.
bhtooefr
Active Member
Which is why I've suggested that in a wealth tax system, you provide some sort of structure to encourage the wealthy to transfer shares to employees of the companies they hold. Alternately, encourage actually transferring the shares to the government at market-equivalent rate, but that's even more controversial.
You actually need to do things to prevent the concentration of wealth in this country, and also reduce the already ridiculous extent to which it's happened. And, when you want to do something, doing something that has the desired outcome as a side effect isn't right - income taxation can prevent concentration, but it doesn't reduce concentration after it's already happened. Wealth taxation specifically reduces concentration after it's already happened.
Paracelsus
Active Member
AOC brings the crowd to their feet over Climate in the 1 minute video link below
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter
STARR X
Member
larmor
Active Member
should have mentioned how many naval bases are at threat from rising sea levels...
But the ships already float. "Why me worry?"
Off Shore
Off Topic Member
Rated "funny" because there's no "I'm crying."
My Thai wife and her friends laugh when they're scared. Only years later did I learn what I thought were funny quips were actually scary because my voice is such a boomer. Reverse of Teddy Roosevelt.
Norbert
TSLA will win
Do you any of you have kids in college? I do. Over half the kids there are just partying and avoiding classes according to my kids.
I don't have any data but I do know we graduate more students more than ever yet many are still unqualified for the jobs available. Throwing money at the problem isn't working and making it free probably won't either.
Norbert
TSLA will win
Side note:
Asking a foreign government to interfere with the election by harming a personal rival is not "perfect" by any means.
Asking a foreign government to interfere with the election by harming a personal rival is not "perfect" by any means.
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