Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Part of that, actually a great bit of that had to do with the ridiculously strong dollar. More interesting would be the exchange rate between the CAD and EUR, GBP, or CHN.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Listening to the Leafs-Kings game on radio tonight. They were doing a commercial for the news and they were talking about the oil collapse has tanked the Canadian $.

How bad? 4 years ago the Loonie was worth $1.01 US. Now it is at a 10 year low of $0.71 US.

Anybody think the price of oil is going to go up so we can revive the $5 gas thread? Gas in NJ is $1.67. Around me it is slightly below $2. FYI Alaska is around $2.40.

Remember the mid-90's when the ratio was about 3:2?

Oil is going to stay low until the non-OPEC countries stop trying to cash in on harvesting. Then it's headed back up.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Sure, but not anytime soon unless WWIII breaks out.

Oil will rebound, just as the $.90 gas from my high school days was never going to last. Whether it happens in 5 years or 15 years depends on a lot of unpredictable stuff, though.

I still don't think it'll hit $5/gal until that's the same as about $3/gallon today inflation wise, though.

Those waters were obviously tested in the US in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and there seems to be a bit of a drop-off of discretionary purchasing of fuel around $4/gallon. Welcome to the foot/roach game of capitalism, where although pretty much anyone can get into the game (which is why it's not true cronyism), the big feet can't squash the cockroach whenever it plans to show its head, so their next trick is to make it undesirable for the cockroach to be there in the first place.

[St. Clown]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Remember the mid-90's when the ratio was about 3:2?

Oil is going to stay low until the non-OPEC countries stop trying to cash in on harvesting. Then it's headed back up.

Too many non-OPEC nations have made it too high of a percentage of their government funding and economy as a whole to have many of them back out of that market any time soon. Russia and a few of the smaller, poorer markets will kick out as much oil as they can regardless of the price, but other nations might scale back their production.

[Kepler]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Excellent article and exactly the kind of thing that needs to be publicized. I'd advocate going after these loopholes one at a time. For example, proposing taxing carried interest at the 39% tax rate in order to pay for college tuition grants.

I'm all for going after the legal tax cheats, but I never like targeting revenue for particular expenditures. In the socialist republic of Keplaria, all state revenues go into the general fund and all expenditures are appropriated from the general fund. There are no special inbound or outbound lanes.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

I'm all for going after the legal tax cheats, but I never like targeting revenue for particular expenditures. In the socialist republic of Keplaria, all state revenues go into the general fund and all expenditures are appropriated from the general fund. There are no special inbound or outbound lanes.

If you want to go after anything, how about the tax shelters known as "non-profit organizations" and "charities" (quotes in context)? Look, I understand that there are many groups that do good things, but I wonder how many of said "legal tax cheats" have non-profit organizations set up where all of their income goes, and then they draw a salary from there to live off of and be taxed appropriately? Heck, isn't that how sports leagues consider themselves non-profit, by using the Hall of Fame as a "charity" to shelter the money, and then draw from it as needed?

As for "special lanes", that and "revenue neutrality" are complements. Social Security is no longer revenue neutral because many administrations have been stealing from it to fix budgets, therefore no longer part of a "special lane".

[Kepler]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

I found a wonderful site with the complete history of all the marginal income tax rates.

I have always wanted to find a calculator that told me the history, for a specific income in inflation-adjusted dollars, of the total effective federal tax burden (income tax, FICA, etc). I can build one from that data, but does anybody know if this already exists?

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

I found a wonderful site with the complete history of all the marginal income tax rates.

I have always wanted to find a calculator that told me the evolution for a specific income of the total effective rate, in inflation-adjusted dollars. I can build one from that data, but does anybody know if this already exists?

Can't wait to see 1944... (I think that's where the highest bracket was 94%)

[joecct]

Can't wait to see 1944... (I think that's where the highest bracket was 94%)

If the tax law was static and the rates were dynamic then we could probably draw valid comparisons. But tax law constantly changes depending on the whims of Congre$$.

[St. Clown]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

If the tax law was static and the rates were dynamic then we could probably draw valid comparisons. But tax law constantly changes depending on the whims of Congre$$.

What makes for better comparisons is not the nominal tax bracket information, but the aggregated effective tax rates. The IRS keeps that information, segregated by tax brackets. It makes for a better judgment of the overall tax code, but you do lose the ability to track the market-segment distortions created by the various targeted deductions and credits.

[Kepler]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

What makes for better comparisons is not the nominal tax bracket information, but the aggregated effective tax rates. The IRS keeps that information, segregated by tax brackets. It makes for a better judgment of the overall tax code, but you do lose the ability to track the market-segment distortions created by the various targeted deductions and credits.

You can probably do a decent job of allowing for the latter by just comparing year by year tax policy on the heavy hitters (i.e., deductions from home interest income). But almost all of that washes out when you hit incomes below median, anyway. It may be inaccurate when comparing highest incomes, but for we mere mortals looking at effective tax rate for inflation adjusted income x over the last hundred years is likely very interesting.

[St. Clown]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

You can probably do a decent job of allowing for the latter by just comparing year by year tax policy on the heavy hitters (i.e., deductions from home interest income). But almost all of that washes out when you hit incomes below median, anyway. It may be inaccurate when comparing highest incomes, but for we mere mortals looking at effective tax rate for inflation adjusted income x over the last hundred years is likely very interesting.

I'd have to research the numbers, but the effective tax rate was actually up shortly after the Reagan Tax Revolt, because when he made the TMR 25%, he removed all of those various deductions. The different wasn't staggering by any means, only a few tenths of a percent, but it's still something to note when talking about the reality of historical events and popular perception.

[Kepler]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Another nail in the coffin of conservative economics.

It’s a doctrine that doesn’t make much sense, but it conveys a clear message that, whaddya know, turns out to be very convenient for the elite: namely, that injustice is a law of nature, that we’d better not do anything to make our society less unequal or protect ordinary families from financial risks. Because if we do, the usual suspects insist, we’ll be severely punished by the invisible hand, which will collapse the economy.

Economists could and did argue that history proves this doctrine wrong. After all, America achieved rapid, indeed unprecedented, income growth in the 1950s and 1960s, despite top tax rates beyond the wildest dreams of modern progressives. For that matter, there are countries like Denmark that combine high taxes and generous social programs with very good employment performance.

But for those who don’t know much about either history or the world outside America, the Obama economy offers a powerful lesson in the here and now. From a conservative point of view, Mr. Obama did everything wrong, afflicting the comfortable (slightly) and comforting the afflicted (a lot), and nothing bad happened. We can, it turns out, make our society better after all.

[St. Clown]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Again, Krugman's doing nothing more than skimming the surface of nominal tax rates instead of looking at effective tax rates. Effective tax rates in the 50s and 60s looked atrocious to many, but the effective rates, due to so many deductions and loopholes that they'd make modern day lobbyists blush, were on par with the effective rates we saw when Reagan was in office. It wasn't until the 1990s that we saw a real decline in effective rates, and even then it was only a couple percentage points. Nominal rates are window dressing.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

What makes for better comparisons is not the nominal tax bracket information, but the aggregated effective tax rates. The IRS keeps that information, segregated by tax brackets. It makes for a better judgment of the overall tax code, but you do lose the ability to track the market-segment distortions created by the various targeted deductions and credits.

Here's a quick graph. I pulled the data into Excel. It's angering.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...Individual.png