patrick.net

Lets add some spice..

How about getting rid of the Mortgage Interest Deduction...

there is no use for it since interest rates are at a far lower rate than decades before.
the original tax regulation was a to reduce the interest burden.. that burden is minimal. Today its no more than a subsidy and point of abuse for the Realtors.

How about getting rid of the phase out of the 1997 capital gains on sale of home..

Might as well.. it was a contributing factor to home purchase speculation and the bubble. There is no reason to continue this in our tax laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_taxpayer_relief_act

Melmakian says

I've never gotten a paying job from a poor man/woman in my entire life. Have you?

This is the old If-we-had-no-rich-people-who-would-we-work-for fallacy.

Very handy philosophy if you happen to be the plantation owner.

david1 says

I mean, never mind all of the other tax laws passed in the meantime, or other factors that might have played a part in it.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=dBo

blue is debt/GDP
red is fed funds rate.

leverage shot up in the 1980s, but conservatives don't want to put that in their thesis. It was the magic of Reaganism they'll say.

Guys,

Are you suffering from amnesia? How was the housing bubble created?

We had too much investment money which forced many risky transactions in the housing market. I can't write on my iPhone; I need to get back.

Nobody says

We had too much investment money which forced many risky transactions in the housing market. I can't write on my iPhone; I need to get back.

That money didn't "force" the system to its full crimogenic operation 2004-2007.

Suicide lending -- liar loans, teaser rates, IO/negative amortization (!), automated underwriting -- was the primary mechanism as to how borrowing got detached from affordability.

Plus there was a feedback loop of higher valuations -> more equity -> equity withdrawal -> economic activity -> higher valuations that was working 2002-2005, too. But by 2006 that engine was running on fumes.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

The rich need human sacrifices to be cajoled into providing work for the unwashed.

You have to get them to look up from the hookers and blow.

Wake up, taking money from the rich will not create jobs either.

Peter P says

Wake up, taking money from the rich will not create jobs either.

Actually, taking money from the rich would create more jobs.

Jobs come from consumer demand. The 1% is clearing between 1/6th and 1/5th of the TOTAL national income.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2012

This is one out of 100 households receiving one out of five of the dollars in the economy.

The top 5% -- one out of twenty -- is taking one out of THREE dollars.

This 1% winning cohort simply cannot consume this income flow -- they are clearing over $1M/yr on average.

So instead of redirecting this flow back into the consumer economy, it ends up in investments.

But what productive investments are there when the 95% are being sucked dry by the parasitical 5%?

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GINIALLRH

Tripling the corporate income tax:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FCTAX

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP

would knock corporate profits back to 2005 levels, the horror.

And with that extra $600B in revenue we could NOT raise taxes on the middle class while we restructure the rest of the system to be more efficient in wealth accretion.

We really suck at that, now.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NETEXP

Lowering the top tax rate to 15% from 90+% (Eisenhower) destroyed any semblance of self control, and productive USA based investment, the ambitious may have had. The price of bimbos, real estate, and all things bright and shiny suffer from inflation because that is what people who don't need to work hard for income blow it on. And we have an epidemic of corruption thanks to the concentration of wealth that is willing to pay bribes of every type. With productivity gains, bread (albeit tainted) can be given away, unless it gets burned for fuel. With technology gains the circus is now nearly free.

Again, any research can be tailored to "prove" anything.

Why pseudo-rationalists hate the rich?

Bellingham Bill says

Nobody says

We had too much investment money which forced many risky transactions in the housing market. I can't write on my iPhone; I need to get back.

That money didn't "force" the system to its full crimogenic operation 2004-2007.

Okay, so "encouraged" would be a better word than 'forced' but his point is true. That demand for investment vehicles and the response of "the market" with fraudulent mortgage backed securities, was a factor, along with all the idiots that somehow thought they better not miss out on the continued double digit increases in housing.

I wonder whether the history books will frame it as a uniquely American thing - focusing on the abstract - too many people trying to essentially make easy money? Or will they focus it just on govt encouragement via GSEs, mortgage bankers, and heard mentality.

Same thing I guess.

We had the debate here. I go along with those who say that the shadow banking market and those fraudulent securities were a bigger factor than congress and or the GSEs.

marcus says

We had the debate here. I go along with those who say that the shadow banking market and those fraudulent securities were a bigger factor than congress and or the GSEs.

They bought all three branches of government so that's a fair conclusion.

marcus says

were a bigger factor than congress and or the GSEs.

The GSEs were bystanders in this. Well, their main contribution was taking the 80% slice of Countrywide's incredibly dodgy 80/20 business.

What CFC would do was syndicate out the 20% first-loss piece in CDOs etc, selling the 80% piece to the GSEs. Traditionally, 80% was perfectly safe, but CFC was also gaming qualifications with the GSE's automatic loan underwriting software, changing numbers on applications until they were approved.

Congress' problem was doing nothing in the 2002-2005 period to stop this feedback loop in its tracks.

I don't know how much active agency the executive had in this. They were the same operators that gave us the 1980s S&L crisis, so I suspect they knew what they were doing in allowing the system to go on tilt again.

Or they could just be colossal idiots. Tough to tell with conservatives, the old 'stupid' vs. 'evil' argument.

How many jobs were lost each month at the end of the Bush fiasco?
I don't know how to search. lol

Excel Spread Sheet inputs. Tax 2 Million families more than a year more, = ~ . But the US with its needs (need large screen, ne car, not an entitlement!).

Can anyone explain the effect of $40 Billion per year of new tax revenue on $1Trillion dollar per year deficit spending plus new baseline of $16T?

Expected value brackets dont work in this forum. Should say $40T per year revenue.

HEY YOU says

How many jobs were lost each month at the end of the Bush fiasco?

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=dE9

shows the monthly declines were 200,000 per month for the first half of 2008 and then 800,000/mo during the worst of it (4Q08/1Q09).

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=dEb

yikes, that graph is looking pretty weak at the end.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=dEu

ah, that's better

Why do people think that once Bush was out of the office, he was no longer damaging our economy, and blame Obama? It took 8 years for Bush to do the damage. How do you think it can be fixed in 8 years? Don't you know fixing something takes more effort and time than to damage?

While letting out of control Liberal pipe dreams creates Jobs in China.
Obama's golden boy company 123 battery manufacture, has been sold to China

CaptainShuddup says

While letting out of control Liberal pipe dreams creates Jobs in China.
Obama's golden boy company 123 battery manufacture, has been sold to China

Another failed investment scheme to create jobs. So what's new? People gotta realize it is not the investment that creates the jobs. It is the profit. The investment is merely there to drive the slaves to work harder, so they can extract more money from the slaves. And the rich people are just denying this.

If you had too much money to invest, you will soon realize that you are running out of resources to invest in. Then you need to create the resources to invest in by engaging in a risky, almost criminal type, investment. Well, the investors demand that their money being used to create more money, not jobs. The balance should be maintained between the resources and the investment in a healthy economy.

So I don't deny investment. But you need to consider the reason for investment. It is always for the return. I have never seen any investors demanding their money be used to create jobs. (Well, Wang said to this effect, but I highly doubt he is an investor. He is just a lying troll from China.) So to create jobs, you will ultimately need to keep the rich investors happy by giving the investors the portion of your hard earned money. The relationship is like a parasite and a host. If there are too much parasite, it will kill the host. Too much investment has the similar effect. Hence my thread.