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Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

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Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

FlagDUDE08 said:
The oppressive government deserves this lawsuit. A complete waste of taxpayer money and the outright theft of property.
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The government profited $22.5 billion dollars, how is that a waste of taxpayer money if the government has more now than when they started with?

As for the shareholders, when (not if) the company would have been forced to file bankruptcy they would have ended up with nothing (no one but the federal government was going to risk $125 BILLION that was needed to save the company), I fail to see how the government's action made things any worse for the shareholders.

the only upside is that if AIG actually sues the Government, that should be the end of any federal bailouts for stupid companies because their is no way that this doesn't end up in front of the Supreme Court.
 
FlagDUDE08 said:
The oppressive government deserves this lawsuit. A complete waste of taxpayer money and the outright theft of property.
Click to expand...

Nice to see you siding with an 87-year-old ******* who was ousted for cooking the books rather than your fellow citizens.

From what I've read, AIG's current board is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Sounds like they don't want to sue, but they also don't want to be sued by the same ******* suing the gov't.

Edit: Besides, aren't you a big proponent of tort reform? Or is that only for issues that don't match your personal political views?
 
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Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

The IRS has a position which is called the Taxpayer Advocate.

In her report to Congress for 2012, Nina Olson has some strong words:


The existing tax code makes compliance difficult, requiring taxpayers to devote excessive time to preparing and filing their returns,” Olson wrote. “It obscures comprehension, leaving many taxpayers unaware how their taxes are computed and what rate of tax they pay; it facilitates tax avoidance by enabling sophisticated taxpayers to reduce their tax liabilities and provides criminals with opportunities to commit tax fraud; and it undermines trust in the system by creating an impression that many taxpayers are not compliant, thereby reducing the incentives that honest taxpayers feel to comply.”

Compliance Burdens.

The report states that the tax code imposes a “significant, even unconscionable, burden on taxpayers.” Since 2001, Congress has made nearly 5,000 changes to the tax code, an average of more than one a day, and the number of words in the code appears to have reached nearly four million.

An analysis of IRS data by the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) shows that individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. “If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States,” the report says. “To consume 6.1 billion hours, the ‘tax industry’ requires the equivalent of more than three million full-time workers [emphasis added].”

Individual taxpayers find return preparation so overwhelming that few do it on their own. Nearly 60 percent of taxpayers hire paid preparers, and another 30 percent rely on commercial software, with leading software packages costing $50 or more. In other words, taxpayers must spend money just to figure out how much money they owe [emphasis added].
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it seems to me that an ideal solution would be to require that every Senator, Congressional Representative, Cabinet member and White House employee, from the President on down, must complete their own tax returns themselves, in person, without using any software or paid preparer, and then be subject to audit afterward.

Hah, as if that would ever happen. Oh well.

I remember seeing a great cartoon. A person is reading "expenses incurred as a result of filing tax returns are deductible....Great, now I can deduct this six-pack!"
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

dxmnkd316 said:
So... We save AIG risking a commitment of over $100 billion,
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A common misunderstanding. We did not "bail out" AIG, we bailed out the counterparties to AIG (i.e., those firms who were on the other side of AIG's swap positions). Goldman Sachs was one of the biggest counterparties, and the Treasury Secretary at the time, Paulsen, was a former head of Goldman.

Crony capitalism at its ugliest. :mad:
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

FreshFish said:
A common misunderstanding. We did not "bail out" AIG, we bailed out the counterparties to AIG (i.e., those firms who were on the other side of AIG's swap positions). Goldman Sachs was one of the biggest counterparties, and the Treasury Secretary at the time, Paulsen, was a former head of Goldman.

Crony capitalism at its ugliest. :mad:
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No, we bailed out AIG, we allowed them to meet their swap position obligations. The money went to AIG and was repaid by AIG, what AIG did with the bailout money not withstanding.

It is clear that WHO AIG had contracted with influenced that the bailout happened and all those parties were beneficiaries of the bailout and that's the major issue. All of the major Wall Street firms are so intertwined that you can't impact one without having implications in all of the others.
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

I'll solve the tax problem with a simple, one sentence law that even conservatives can get behind.

No state shall get back from the Feds more than it pays in taxes.

Do we have a deal?
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Rover said:
I'll solve the tax problem with a simple, one sentence law that even conservatives can get behind.

No state shall get back from the Feds more than it pays in taxes.

Do we have a deal?
Click to expand...

Deal.
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Rover said:
I'll solve the tax problem with a simple, one sentence law that even conservatives can get behind.

No state shall get back from the Feds more than it pays in taxes.

Do we have a deal?
Click to expand...

No, or at least, not yet. First you have to define "get back." and also which taxes you mean by "pay in."

We need a navy, no? So are we going to spend money on the navy in states that don't have a coastline?

We need our army to have guns and ammunition. Are we going to site a manufacturing plant for each inside each state? What sense does that make?

Sure, those might seem to be trivial examples....

Or what about internal migration?

People in northern states pay into Social Security and Medicare their entire working lives. Then they retire and move to AZ or FL. That messes up your formula too.

Finally, the estate tax. The estate tax helps support general revenue yet in any given year only a few super-wealthy people die. Just because one really really rich person dies in any one year, all of that revenue goes only to one state?

Sorry, no deal, or at least not yet, too much unfairness and uncertainty.
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

unofan said:
The GOP's congressional fundraising arm tweeted in a non-sarcastic and earnest manner that you need $1 trillion worth of platinum to mint a $1 trillion coin.
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Sounds like you missed Rep Nadler's (D) original proposal, to which the tweet was merely a response: Mr. Nadler suggested exactly the same thing you are now ridiculing, you know....put up $1 trillion as collateral for a $1 trillion increase in the debt limit.

equal opportunity ridicule applies here: both parties are being absurd. :)
 
FreshFish said:
Sounds like you missed Rep Nadler's (D) original proposal, to which the tweet was merely a response: Mr. Nadler suggested exactly the same thing you are now ridiculing, you know....put up $1 trillion as collateral for a $1 trillion increase in the debt limit.

equal opportunity ridicule applies here: both parties are being absurd. :)
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That's not quite what he proposed. And as much as printing money to pay debts is inflationary and generally bad, it's arguably less bad than shutting down the government over a legislative hissy fit. (It also gives the president a nuclear option of his own to back the GOP away from their own). It also at least shows a basic understanding of fiat currency, which is more than can be said of the NRCC in this case.

So yes, both sides are bad, but not equally so.
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

unofan said:
That's not quite what he proposed. And as much as printing money to pay debts is inflationary and generally bad, it's arguably less bad than shutting down the government over a legislative hissy fit. (It also gives the president a nuclear option of his own to back the GOP away from their own). It also at least shows a basic understanding of fiat currency, which is more than can be said of the NRCC in this case.

So yes, both sides are bad, but not equally so.
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Um....I think you are missing something. If the supposed $1 trillion coin has anything less than $1 trillion in platinum in it, then what makes it "worth" $1 trillion? that makes it just another form of debt and to be posted as collateral for debt it then would have to be marked down to the market value of the platinum it contains.

Otherwise, why would we need a platinum coin at all? Why not simply print more dollar bills and simply post them as collateral?


(sadly, the Fed is doing just that with its incredibly risky and atrociously ill-advised bond purchases. I thought Bernanke at one time had some sense of history, he must have lost it somewhere long the way...:()
 
FreshFish said:
No, or at least, not yet. First you have to define "get back." and also which taxes you mean by "pay in."

We need a navy, no? So are we going to spend money on the navy in states that don't have a coastline?

We need our army to have guns and ammunition. Are we going to site a manufacturing plant for each inside each state? What sense does that make?

Sure, those might seem to be trivial examples....

Or what about internal migration?

People in northern states pay into Social Security and Medicare their entire working lives. Then they retire and move to AZ or FL. That messes up your formula too.

Finally, the estate tax. The estate tax helps support general revenue yet in any given year only a few super-wealthy people die. Just because one really really rich person dies in any one year, all of that revenue goes only to one state?

Sorry, no deal, or at least not yet, too much unfairness and uncertainty.
Click to expand...

Military one is easy. Any state with a large naval presence (say Virginia) wouldn't have any other military facilities for the Army lets say or the Air Force. Spread that around to all the states, who I believe all have bases/military facilities in one form or another. Makes it equitable and in the event of defense cuts you spread the pain around more evenly.

Regarding retirees, you'll be surprised to know that Florida is in fact a donor state after all. People are going to move around. So be it. Let the chips fall where they may on that.

Finally, it forces some choices upon leeching agricultural states like KS or NE and cesspools like KY or WVA. Want to keep your population on the dole? Great, but you'd better hope the rest of your citizens can make up for it instead of asking wealthy liberal states to do so. We'll all be enjoying our tax cuts thank you very much!

Lastly, yes, if a rich guy croaks in your state and pays estate tax, that counts. Again, given that the estates tend to be in the high wealth states that are propping up everybody else, the fairness of it all is once again evident.

So, what's not to like?
 
FreshFish said:
Um....I think you are missing something. If the supposed $1 trillion coin has anything less than $1 trillion in platinum in it, then what makes it "worth" $1 trillion? that makes it just another form of debt and to be posted as collateral for debt it then would have to be marked down to the market value of the platinum it contains.

Otherwise, why would we need a platinum coin at all? Why not simply print more dollar bills and simply post them as collateral?


(sadly, the Fed is doing just that with its incredibly risky and atrociously ill-advised bond purchases. I thought Bernanke at one time had some sense of history, he must have lost it somewhere long the way...:()
Click to expand...

Because the law contains a loophole allowing platinum coins to be minted in any denomination which the treasury secretary deems necessary. There is no such loophole for paper money or other forms of coinage.

Its not collateral, it's fiat money (or do you think a $100 bill contains $100 worth of paper and ink? ) It just has to be platinum because of the way the law is written.
 
Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

unofan said:
Because the law contains a loophole allowing platinum coins to be minted in any denomination which the treasury secretary deems necessary. There is no such loophole for paper money or other forms of coinage.

Its not collateral, it's fiat money (or do you think a $100 bill contains $100 worth of paper and ink? ) It just has to be platinum because of the way the law is written.
Click to expand...

If it's fiat money then it's debt and generally you can't post debt from one issuer to serve as collateral for new debt from the same issuer. So Nadler was absurd and the response was absurd. Both equally so. One absurdity was obvious to everyone while the other absurdity was only obvious to people who know how to reason logically.

If you disagree, then lend me $100, then I'll give you an IOU for $100 and ask you to lend me another $100 using that IOU as collateral for the second loan. :)
 
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