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Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

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It's the admission price for living in a civilization.

And yet, for the most part, we didn't have/need an income tax until a century or so ago. Duties and excise taxes, sure. But confiscating personal income? Nada and they needed a constitutional amendment to do it.

Our federal government is notably inefficient. Give them $1, they'll spend $2. Give them $2, they'll spend $3. Toss in a foreign entanglement and spending goes though the roof. THAT'S when you need an income tax. Once the entanglement ends, abolish the tax.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

And yet, for the most part, we didn't have/need an income tax until a century or so ago. Duties and excise taxes, sure. But confiscating personal income? Nada and they needed a constitutional amendment to do it.

The vast majority of people living in dire poverty, and we didn't "need" an income tax until they had the vote and newspapers that espoused their views?

What an incredible coincidence!
 
And yet, for the most part, we didn't have/need an income tax until a century or so ago. Duties and excise taxes, sure. But confiscating personal income? Nada and they needed a constitutional amendment to do it.

Our federal government is notably inefficient. Give them $1, they'll spend $2. Give them $2, they'll spend $3. Toss in a foreign entanglement and spending goes though the roof. THAT'S when you need an income tax. Once the entanglement ends, abolish the tax.

If you think that the standard of living in 19th century America was anywhere close to today's, I've got a bridge to sell you.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

The vast majority of people living in dire poverty, and we didn't "need" an income tax until they had the vote and newspapers that espoused their views?

What an incredible coincidence!

And yet who does the income tax target? Those you're trying to protect. The wealthy CEOs receive their "pay" in stock options and other not-yet-taxable instruments.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

And yet who does the income tax target? Those you're trying to protect. The wealthy CEOs receive their "pay" in stock options and other not-yet-taxable instruments.

Oddly enough, that practice went into overdrive when Pres. Clinton signed into law a pay ceiling for CEOs, limiting how much cash they could be paid. Had he not done that, they would still receive more cash than stock, and the government would receive slightly more aggregated tax income.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Oddly enough, that practice went into overdrive when Pres. Clinton signed into law a pay ceiling for CEOs, limiting how much cash they could be paid. Had he not done that, they would still receive more cash than stock, and the government would receive slightly more aggregated tax income.

Reminds me a bit of FDR.

Is that law even still on the books, BTW? Sort of like how Dodd-Frank was amended so Congress could still do insider trading?

Also, I wonder how many of these CEOs have "charities", similar to the Clinton Foundation, from which they take salary?
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Oddly enough, that practice went into overdrive when Pres. Clinton signed into law a pay ceiling for CEOs, limiting how much cash they could be paid. Had he not done that, they would still receive more cash than stock, and the government would receive slightly more aggregated tax income.

Yep, and we've been regretting it ever since as it incentifies CEOs to build up the shareprice and cash out, and the hell with the future.

Far better for options to be on a long time scale -- no cash out for, say, 25 years. Make the CEO build a company that will last.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Yep, and we've been regretting it ever since as it incentifies CEOs to build up the shareprice and cash out, and the hell with the future.

Far better for options to be on a long time scale -- no cash out for, say, 25 years. Make the CEO build a company that will last.

Not to mention the stock price jumps that come with merger announcements...

But I'm not sure the options would necessarily help. Take a look at what Mark Cuban did when Yahoo bought Broadcast.com... lots of puts to protect his money.
 
If you think that the standard of living in 19th century America was anywhere close to today's, I've got a bridge to sell you.

2017 is better than 1917 which was better than 1817 which was better than 1717, etc. Unless there's a plague, a collapse of civilization or a global catastrophe the standard of living will get better
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

2017 is better than 1917 which was better than 1817 which was better than 1717, etc. Unless there's a plague, a collapse of civilization or a global catastrophe the standard of living will get better

Actually, fallout from the Black Plague is what created the middle class in the first place. Labor became a premium, and the lords had little choice but to increase the pay of highly skilled serfs that eventually became the merchant class.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Actually, fallout from the Black Plague is what created the middle class in the first place. Labor became a premium, and the lords had little choice but to increase the pay of highly skilled serfs that eventually became the merchant class.

Not really a middle class, more of a first working class, as distinct from serfs who were essentially slaves.

The Middle Class was created when the Ruling Class figured out it needed healthy, educated and numerous citizens for industrialization and especially for industrialized warfare. That fueled the workers rights movements through the 19th century and then the populist movements, and finally the blossoming of the Middle Class in the 20th century.

Now that industrial labor has been superseded out by robotics, the Ruling Class no longer needs us, so we are gradually being reduced back to serfdom.

The only way anyone ever took power from the Ruling Class was coercion: either by the gun or because it was also in the cold equations of their economic necessity. The former is inherently stable, so the simplest and most effective method has always been the latter. But the problem with the latter is times change, and the fist is always there waiting to strike.

What conservatives have done for the last fifty years, some knowingly, many as dupes, is removed the chains we had briefly put on that fist, and removed our shields. They loathe democratic government because it protects everyone equally. They long for the freedom of wolves in the fold. That, for them, is "fairness."
 
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Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Cries fake news, cites one of the least objective sites out there.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Mnuchin said he doesn't support returning to Glass-Steagall but said he supports a "21st century GS"

I'm interested what this means and what he proposes.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Mnuchin said he doesn't support returning to Glass-Steagall but said he supports a "21st century GS"

I'm interested what this means and what he proposes.

I'd be curious too but invariable what happens is there ends up being no enforcement dollars in the budget and the loopholes are exploited and no one goes to jail.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Mnuchin said he doesn't support returning to Glass-Steagall but said he supports a "21st century GS"

I'm interested what this means and what he proposes.

The man comes from Goldman Sachs, an institution that's intertwined with everything that Glass-Steagall forbade. Supporting GS would be to tear that company apart, create a lot of expenses in the process, and create what many would view as simple accounting trickery. Who will be the owners of the new companies if you split apart the banks? Well, it would be the people who own stock in the current banks that get split. It's the same net effect in ownership, only now you're paying the salaries of multiple boards, executive teams, etc. He would make some sort of economies of scale argument against the split.
 
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