patrick.net

Who's more corrupt, Hillary or Trump? Not expecting an answer, cogent or otherwise. Dodged a bullet when we elected Donald.

marcus says

This is obviously true.

Except you cant explain why or back up a single claim w facts. Orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad!

jazz_music says

Watch Trump can’t keep his lying straight

www.youtube.com/embed/H9HY7Aw_jdU

“Trump is in an unethical league all his own“

What specific quote do you feel is a lie? Is it "Putin called me" OR "I dont know putin" in response to a question about collusion w putin.

The funny thing is you think these statements are contradictory.

ORANGE MAN BAD ORANGE MAN BAD ORANGE MAN BAD

Onvacation says

Who's more corrupt, Hillary or Trump? Not expecting an answer, cogent or otherwise. Dodged a bullet when we elected Donald.

A better question is, who has done more harm and whose actions have resulted in more American deaths, GW Bush with his Iraq lies or trump's lies, which usually are centered around him stroking his oversized ego? And why do we have 100 times more ORANGEMANBAD in media than we had BUSH BAD provided that Bush is personally responsible for deaths of more than 4000 American servicemen, while tRUMP can at most be held responsible for concussion of a dozen soldiers?

AF, you are getting mildly repetitive. I am hearing this for last 3 years now, and I have some confidence that we will hear this for next 5 as well.

Trump is the Saturn of Corruption! A Gas Giant surrounded by endless rings of invasive, orbiting crime!

Micheal Cohen
Trump is going DOWN!
Micheal Avanati
Trump is going DOWN!
Perv Parana's with a fucking ankle bracelet
Trump is going DOWN!

What do all of these people in common?

They are going to pound me in the ass prison while Trump is making historical trade deals, and making America Great Again.

Wait - taxes were cut - and business is booming!
1. Manufacturing took a hit but looks like it's bouncing back
2. Unemployment is WAYYYY down
3. Inflation is low
4. Interest rates are low
5. Wages are up
6. Stocks are crushing it
7. Housing starts had a record month

But this is BAAAAADDDDDD! The sky is falling! Run to the bomb shelters!
I grow tired of Forbes.

Yes, the corporate tax rate went down to 21%, in line with the rest of the OECD:

"The 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. This large rate reduction was necessary because the U.S. had fallen far out of step with global corporate income tax rates. For example, the average rate in the OECD was below 25 percent, while the U.S. was still at 35 percent. The rate cut helped all U.S. businesses, including banks, and created incentives to expand operations." [https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2019/12/corporate-tax-rates-and-a-financial-transactions-tax-in-2020/]

This differs entirely from GWB's tax breaks for the rich, which focused on estate tax and capital gains. Trump's cuts had a stimulatory effect on business, encouraging US firms to redomicile cash and reinvest in the US.

"Thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law in December, U.S. companies will no longer have an incentive to stash profits generated overseas to avoid high taxes at home. The new law dropped the U.S. corporate rate from 35% to 21%, put minimum levies on low-taxed foreign earnings, and imposed a one-time tax of 15.5% on cash parked outside the U.S.—which BofA Merrill Lynch estimates to be a total of $1.2 trillion for S&P 500 nonfinancials. In a survey, companies told BofA they were most likely to use the repatriated cash to pay down debt and buy back stock." [https://fortune.com/2018/02/22/us-companies-overseas-cash-tax-cut/]

The middle class, outside of the high tax / house price coastal regions, benefited from the tax plan. The standard deduction increased to 24K for a married couple, 12K for single, and gave the average, non-itemizing family reduced taxes (for us, 4K less than 2017).

The upper-middle class paid more. Those hammered with high state and local taxes, plus mortgages, found themselves owing more than the previous year. They were unable to write off more than 10K (roughly) on the itemized form after 2018. Those most affected live in high tax, Democratic-controlled states, within pricey enclaves.

Tax cuts work for people who actually work.

Loan forgiveness works for deadbeats who don't want to work but make the taxpayer (aka workers) foot their bills.

So, which party is the more reprehensible again?

Tax cuts are great. Let us spend money our way.

Politicians hate it, they lose ability to plunder us legally.

Dems will lose faster than a whore loses virginity.

Please more tax cuts. One more reason to Re elect president Trump!

thomasdong1776 says

The problem with Trump promising a new round of tax cuts — this time for all the rest of us — is we’re not paying for the tax cuts Trump already gave. The Trump administration (with the blessing of the majority of voters) chose to save the rich by tapping the economic strength of future generations in order to pull money forward for our benefit now.

His mistake is not pairing tax cuts with spending cuts, which has been the case for politician actions...basically forever (that does not exonerate tRUMP in my eyes - he was supposed to be different). He actually INCREASED bloated military spending.

Tax revenue has not decreased with his tax cuts: https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762 which means that taxes were too high and that his tax cuts were good for country. Thanks to someone on Patnet for pointing this out, I thought that tax decreases will mean less revenue, but it appears to not always be the case.

HEYYOU says

“This is what you can expect to happen … at an average of 3C [above pre-industrial levels],

Is this guy saying that global warming turns people into arsonists?

Two weeks before the Election when Hillary is the "Shoo In" Candidate: "Ignore Deficit Scolds" Krugman pre-emptively advises her
After Trump takes the oath: "Deficits Matter" sez Krugman

So how much has the temperature gone up the last century?

Great news. Bring them on! Taxation = legalized theft by govt coercion. We shouldn't be paying a dime before all illegals and deadbeats are reigned in.

Tax receipts are slightly up from before the tax cut.
Spending is way up.
And you’re saying that the tax cut is the problem?
LOL!

There is nothing like a tax cut to buy votes?

You mean...letting people keep their own money?

thomasdong1776 says

And future deficits are projected to grow parabolically like this:

The old hockey stick graph. Hasn't this been debunked elsewhere?

:
rocketjoe79 says

1. Manufacturing took a hit but looks like it's bouncing back

NO it doesn't. It's not even half the waty back from the recession lows, to 2007 levels. And way more of that bounce happened before Trump than after. '
'
I should qualify that. I'm talking about manufacturing employment. The truth is that manufacturing never lost nearly as much ground as manufacturing employment. Turns out right wing political propagandists don't want to distinguish between automation and globalization as factors affecting manufacturing employment.

rocketjoe79 says

2. Unemployment is WAYYYY down

This stat is a measure of the percentage of people eligible for unemployment benefits. Labor participation rate is actually surprisingly flat.

rocketjoe79 says

3. Inflation is low
4. Interest rates are low

This is in spite of Trump maneuvers that would be inflationary if not for the huge amount of debt out there.

AS for the others ? Sure the economy is pretty decent. Largely becasue of low interest rates. Which is not Trump's doing.

Some say when the economy is good deficits should decrease. But we manage to run trillion dollar deficits. The republican deficit hawks say nothing, and instead talk about increasing the deficits even further to win votes.

"Wippeeeeeee !!!"

:
TrumpingTits says

anything that leads to future Starving of the Government Beast works for me.

I'm not sure that defaulting on our debt, and losing global reserve currency status is exactly the same as starving the beast. Or at least not in a good way.

"anything that leads to future Starving of the Government Beast works for me"

Such a transparent and ethically revealing rationale. It goes something like this. "We'll deficit spend like drunken sailors, even at a cost to the public good, running up deficits when we are in power, so that we can advocate all the more strongly against deficit spending when the democrats are in power."

thomasdong1776 says

The tax cuts are deficit-financed which … means that “resources will be taken away from future generations as well as today’s working class.” Forbes

Yes, some conservatives (or a few anyway) are true conservatives in the traditional American meaning of the word.

Right wing is something anti-American and all together different. In fact right wing is actually what we fought in WW2, no matter how much the dimbulb liars want to deny it.

thomasdong1776 says

The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment.

Nothing wrong with share buybacks - sometimes it's the best way to invest money instead of spending more and more. Most of these companies have a large war-chest but given a steep recession they really only have enough money for a few months to 2 years of losses, exactly because they are employing so many. Plus long time investors deserve to make money for sticking with the company and committing their money for so long.

thomasdong1776 says

So, Trump deserves failing grades not just on essential tasks like upholding democracy and preserving our planet. He should not get a pass on the economy, either.

lol Record low UE, strongest wage growth among the lowest earners - there may be many things you can at least make a weak case against Trump, but the economy is certainly not one of them - that's why Trump will win by a landslide in 2020.

thomasdong1776 says

The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment.

Tax cuts did not lead to increased deficits unless FACTS DO NOT MATTER:

U.S. Tax Revenue by Year
FY 2020 - $3.64 trillion, budgeted
 FY 2019 - $3.44 trillion, estimated
FY 2018 - $3.33 trillion
FY 2017 - $3.32 trillion
FY 2016 - $3.27 trillion
FY 2015 - $3.25 trillion

Seems to me that problem is NOT tax receipts and tax cuts (receipts went up after cuts), but out-of-control spending, which is the thing tRUMP should be criticized for.

Agree with share buybacks tho, this should be made illegal - but it was allowed long before tRUMP became ORANGEMANBAD in chief. Blame Ronnie's SEC.

For most of the 20th century, stock buybacks were deemed illegal because they were thought to be a form of stock market manipulation. But since 1982, when they were essentially legalized by the SEC, buybacks have become perhaps the most popular financial engineering tool in the C-Suite tool shed. And it’s obvious why Wall Street loves them: Buying back company stock can inflate a company’s share price and boost its earnings per share — metrics that often guide lucrative executive bonuses.

...Stock buybacks enrich the bosses even when business sags.

rd6B says

thomasdong1776 says

The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment.

Tax cuts did not lead to increased deficits unless FACTS DO NOT MATTER:

U.S. Tax Revenue by Year
FY 2020 - $3.64 trillion, budgeted
 FY 2019 - $3.44 trillion, estimated
FY 2018 - $3.33 trillion
FY 2017 - $3.32 trillion
FY 2016 - $3.27 trillion
FY 2015 - $3.25 trillion

Seems to me that problem is NOT tax receipts and tax cuts (receipts went up after cuts), but out-of-control spending, which is the thing tRUMP should be criticized for.

Agree with share buybacks tho, this should be made illegal - but ...

How is a company supposed to shrink shares from the float if they deem it necessary? Why shouldn't they be able to buy back their own shares? I can see nothing wrong with it. The market is "manipulated" at all times, when you announce news, share dilution, etc. etc. If you can dilute shares there must also be a way to shrink them besides a reverse split which also changes the price proportionally and is essentially a no-op.

mell says

How is a company supposed to shrink shares from the float if they deem it necessary? Why shouldn't they be able to buy back their own shares? I can see nothing wrong with it. The market is "manipulated" at all times, when you announce news, share dilution, etc. etc. If you can dilute shares there must also be a way to shrink them besides a reverse split which also changes the price proportionally and is essentially a no-op.

Problem is that share buyback can and is used by executives to goose their compensation.

rd6B says

Problem is that share buyback can and is used by executives to goose their compensation.

Wouldn’t this be better resolved with laws against excessive executive compensation?

rd6B says

mell says

How is a company supposed to shrink shares from the float if they deem it necessary? Why shouldn't they be able to buy back their own shares? I can see nothing wrong with it. The market is "manipulated" at all times, when you announce news, share dilution, etc. etc. If you can dilute shares there must also be a way to shrink them besides a reverse split which also changes the price proportionally and is essentially a no-op.

Problem is that share buyback can and is used by executives to goose their compensation.

True, but they could simply raise their base salary or yearly bonus, at least with the share buyback the investors (and many employees) participate too.

Shaman says

rd6B says

Problem is that share buyback can and is used by executives to goose their compensation.

Wouldn’t this be better resolved with laws against excessive executive compensation?

I'm really uncomfortable with "compensation laws", but surely one has to ask what happened between the times where executive to worker comp ratio was anywhere between 10:1 and 50:1 and nowadays where it is pretty much anywhere from 500:1 to 10000:1. Maybe we need some sort of inner/outer bounds for compensation codified into law.

Shaman says

Wouldn’t this be better resolved with laws against excessive executive compensation?

I don't know, perhaps executive compensation needs to be delayed for a few yrs to see if what they did to company works. Otherwise, we will have Boeing buying shares back like crazy and hiring "engineers" in foreign countries for $6/hr to design and program airplanes, with predictable results...no doubt money saved on hiring Americans was well-spent on buybacks.

mell says

I'm really uncomfortable with "compensation laws", but surely one has to ask what happened between the times where executive to worker comp ratio was anywhere between 10:1 and 50:1 and nowadays where it is pretty much anywhere from 500:1 to 10000:1. Maybe we need some sort of inner/outer bounds fro compensation codified into law.

Agreed.

Unfortunately, Wall Street Weasels will find a way to get around any laws...remember how they paid themselves $TRILLIONS in bonuses after Obama and Bush bailed them out on backs of taxpayers...

What we could use is some more shareholder control.

For example, demanding the Board demonstrate how 1000:1 compensation for executives provides returns superior to a 50:1 ratio, of course that cannot be done.

I believe many excellent Asian companies have senior Execs making a fraction of US Execs, but are the market leaders with superior sales and ROI.

I also don't like that many of the same Fortune 500 companies have shared board members across multiple huge multinational companies.

Shouldn't board members be focused on basically one huge company? Can they execute the same oversight of 8 companies vs. 1? Probably not.

Some dishonesty here, perhaps:

"The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits"

The stock buybacks were redomiciled corporate cash, formerly outside the US, brought back under Trump's 15.5% tax offer. Additional cash in the US economy, whether used for buybacks or not, is NOT the cause of deficits. As Mell above points out, tax receipts have increased under Trump. But yes, spending (particularly military) needs to be reduced.

"Likewise, Trump’s trade wars, for all their sound and fury, have not reduced the US trade deficit, which was one-quarter higher in 2018 than it was in 2016."

The NAFTA rework has only recently been adopted. 2018 will not show those results (nor will 2019). Likewise tariffs have only been levied against China in 2019. The 2018 results tell us nothing about the efficacy of Trump's "trade wars."

"And despite Trump’s vaunted promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the increase in manufacturing employment is still lower than it was under his predecessor, Barack Obama, once the post-2008 recovery set in, and is still markedly below its pre-crisis level."

I would like to see proof of this. Does manufacturing here mean "sandwich creator" as it did under GWB?

From a Quartz article (left-leaning), the top 10 industries that grew faster under Trump than Obama are heavy industry and resource-extraction related: mining (support), oil/gas, primary metals mfg, machinery mfg, mining (primary), fabricated metals mfg, rail transportation, electrical equipment mfg, computer/electronics mfg, rental/leasing services.

The top 10 industries that grew faster under Obama than Trump are service related: warehousing and storage, motion pictures/sound recording, other information services, department/general good stores, travel arrangement services, health/personal care stores, textile product mills, clothing stores, specialized design services.

https://qz.com/1347200/the-jobs-created-under-trump-are-different-than-under-obama/

"the low employment rate is not a surprise, not least because unhealthy people can’t work. Moreover, those on disability benefits, in prison – the US incarceration rate has increased more than sixfold since 1970"

Unhealthy people, disability, prison -- none have increased under Trump, compared with Obama. The low unemployment rate on the other hand IS improving under Trump.

goofus says

But yes, spending (particularly military) needs to be reduced.

Disagree here because for the most part, our boys aren't getting killed under Trump.

https://patrick.net/post/1329577

What Trump is doing is feeding the Pentagon cash but not allowing them to send the boys into harm's way w/o his oversight.

Remember, if you don't feed the Pentagon, you get assassinated. Just ask Jack (or Bobbie) Kennedy.

True enough, Rin. Some parts of the swamp are more lethal than others.