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Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Kepler said:
Are there numbers to back up that this is what happens? If true, this is really bad news. It implies we'll never save, because when times are tough we can't and when times are good we won't.

I would love to see policy and politics that rewarded Americans saving and being forward-looking instead of inciting them to spend more and indulge themselves in the present, but I'm told our economy is based on consumption and I fear a significant, system-wide shift in favor of personal savings habits would probably seriously damage employment.

I'm sick today (note: being sick sucks), but I've rarely been so depressed over a piece of new information.
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You can get the raw data at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, but this link does a good job of writing a brief synopsis within its already relatively concise write up of savings rate trends. It was written in 2010, but the general trend still holds, and the guy sources the BEA directly for his data.

In the first month that the BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) provided us with data (January 1959), the personal savings rate in the United States was 8.3%. So, this means that, on average, Americans were able to save 8.3% of their disposable incomes.

For the next decade or so, the personal savings rate remained more or less the same, in the 7.5% - 8.5% range...

By January 2000, the average savings rate was 3.5% - it would end up falling below 1.0% multiple times between 2000 and 2010.

When the economy nearly collapsed in 2008, the savings rate started to trend higher, moving from 1.3% in January of 2008 to 4.2% in December of 2009...

It's pretty simple - when people are feeling good about their circumstances, they spend more. When people are worried about their futures, they save more...
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Mind you, the Personal Savings Rate does not include pre-tax savings accounts, as defined by the BEA.

Disposable Income = Personal Income less Personal Current Taxes

Personal Saving = Disposable Personal Income - Personal Outlays

Personal Saving Rate = (Personal Saving / Disposable Personal Income) * 100

Note: Personal outlays will include such things as food, housing, transportation, in addition to interest payments on non-mortgage debt and transfer payments to government or social services
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The best businessman in the world folks:
Negotiators have been drafting [Memorandums of Understanding] on areas such as agriculture, non-tariff barriers, services, technology transfer, currency and intellectual property as the two nations work toward a deal.

Trump told gathered reporters that the memorandums would “be very short term. I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything. To me, they don’t mean anything.”

Lighthizer then jumped in to defend the strategy, with Trump looking on. “An MOU is a binding agreement between two people,” he said. “It’s detailed. It covers everything in great detail. It’s a legal term. It’s a contract.”

But the president, unswayed, fired back at Lighthizer. “By the way I disagree,” Trump said.

The top Chinese negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, laughed out loud.
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The Chinese laughed out loud? Can’t be true, someone on here told us that trump was the first president to get tough on Jhina
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Kepler said:
OK, economists, a little help.
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They're arguing, through the concept of MMT, that gov't can pay for something by simply producing (printing) the dollars for it. And they're arguing that inflation will not be a runaway train. I don't fully understand it, having been just introduced to the concept with this article, but I'm skeptical. It feels like something that was contrived with the idea that they simply wanted to be the opposite of St. Ronnie.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

St. Clown said:
They're arguing, through the concept of MMT, that gov't can pay for something by simply producing (printing) the dollars for it. And they're arguing that inflation will not be a runaway train. I don't fully understand it, having been just introduced to the concept with this article, but I'm skeptical. It feels like something that was contrived with the idea that they simply wanted to be the opposite of St. Ronnie.
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I understood what I read. I want to know what economists think of the substance of the theory.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Kepler said:
I understood what I read. I want to know what economists think of the substance of the theory.
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To me, they're arguing that government spending happens within a bubble, that the economy as a whole won't react to this injection of newly fabricated money by bidding up the prices of products we all use. OR they're counting on the calculations used within the CPI that discounts technological advancements against the CPI calculations. I think it's all hogwash because prices on milk and bread (as the example) are still going to be impacted by an influx of dollarinos into the economy and they're not going to have significant technological changes to those two products that families buy in great volume.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

My first glance opinion is that it's the left's version of supply side economics.

To the extent it moves the Overton window back from the far right, great. If it ever got implemented, bad.

That's just my off the cuff reading of it, though.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Elon Musk announces the quote-unquote "$35,000" Model 3.

Bare bones options but does have the touchscreen, 220 mile range, $36,200 before rebates (though Tesla's website has one at exactly $35K.)

$2K option to extend the range to 240 miles and add most of the nice things (like power seats) back in.
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

220 miles. Lol. You can probably cut that by a third for cold weather.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

unofan said:
My first glance opinion is that it's the left's version of supply side economics.

To the extent it moves the Overton window back from the far right, great. If it ever got implemented, bad.

That's just my off the cuff reading of it, though.
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Seems what they're saying is that tax revenue is irrelevant in terms of covering new spending because the USA's credit is so good that it can simply print new money (most likely via increased borrowing) to fund the Green New Deal. That borrowing will have little negative effect because the US is able to borrow at a really low rate (which is true at present) and will never default on its debt (most likely true as well). Left unsaid in the article is why the USA's credit is good and if that would ever change. One reason is because the dollar is the world's currency with little competition for that title (the Euro is going through Brexit and the Yuan can be manipulated by Chinese dictatorship to suit domestic needs at a whim) hence its in demand. The other is presumably the US Govt has collateral (natural resources, real estate, etc) enough to backstop any borrowing which again is most likely true.

I personally think its irresponsible as all hell and will be misused by the treasonous money laundering cult to justify a zero % tax rate for billionaires the next time they're in power. Lizzy Warren has the right idea. Start taxing wealth every year in addition to raising the top level tax rates. You don't need to resort to smoke and mirrors to find the $$$ needed to put some of these programs in place.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
220 miles. Lol. You can probably cut that by a third for cold weather.
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30 to 40% loss on the regular in very cold weather.

Here's an interesting real world test drive article I found, but it's for the Chevy Bolt.

The thing is, Tesla's (or any EV) arent quite made for you, I, or anyone who does long distance driving with any frequency. We would need to much more plentiful supercharger stations as frequent as gas stations. EV's will continue to get better, and they're going to become much more popular short distance cars: mostly in cities or suburbs where you don't travel far often.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Rover said:
I personally think its irresponsible as all hell and will be misused by the treasonous money laundering cult to justify a zero % tax rate for billionaires the next time they're in power. Lizzy Warren has the right idea. Start taxing wealth every year in addition to raising the top level tax rates. You don't need to resort to smoke and mirrors to find the $$$ needed to put some of these programs in place.
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Knowing nothing at all about the specifics I gotta say this is my knee jerk reaction, too. I hope I'm wrong.

It's a rare day when Rover and I can even agree on the diagnosis of a problem, let alone the prescription.
 
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