The Absurdity Of The Tax Bill

[RVonse]

All wealth comes from labor

Wealth also comes from:

1. brains (both management and labor)
2. minerals from the ground.

Though I guess you could also say that the brains are labor too at the level goods are produced.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

What you are missing is that most of the wealth in question is in the form of the tools of production.

Spreading it out converts money from future development to current consumption. Today's standard of living rises, tomorrow's falls.

All wealth comes from labor.

All of it.

All the tools of production were paid for by workers, from the theft from workers, which is a ubiquitous feature of top down dictatorial capitalism.

If this were true, was is there so much more wealth in South Korea compared to North Korea? Do you think that the North Korea workers just aren't working hard enough? Or maybe there are other factors that create wealth?

 

[untermensche]

All wealth comes from labor

Wealth also comes from:

1. brains (both management and labor)
2. minerals from the ground.

Though I guess you could also say that the brains are labor too at the level goods are produced.

Thinking is labor.

Herding humans is labor.

Forcing your will upon others so you can steal from them is labor.

 

[untermensche]

All wealth comes from labor.

All of it.

All the tools of production were paid for by workers, from the theft from workers, which is a ubiquitous feature of top down dictatorial capitalism.

If this were true, was is there so much more wealth in South Korea compared to North Korea? Do you think that the North Korea workers just aren't working hard enough? Or maybe there are other factors that create wealth?

Why is that?

All the wealth in North Korea came from labor.

All the wealth in the US came from labor.

All the wealth in the world came from labor.

There is labor few can do.

And the labor anybody could do. Giving orders is labor anybody could do.

 

[coloradoatheist]

All wealth comes from labor.

All of it.

All the tools of production were paid for by workers, from the theft from workers, which is a ubiquitous feature of top down dictatorial capitalism.

If this were true, was is there so much more wealth in South Korea compared to North Korea? Do you think that the North Korea workers just aren't working hard enough? Or maybe there are other factors that create wealth?

Why is that?

All the wealth in North Korea came from labor.

All the wealth in the US came from labor.

All the wealth in the world came from labor.

There is labor few can do.

And the labor anybody could do. Giving orders is labor anybody could do.

What matters is the organization of labor, not labor itself.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Lets just take my personal situation as an example.

I live in st louis but work in 2 states (missouri and illinois). Plus I am the designated trustee for my son because my parents wanted their money left to him that way.

So each year I have to file 2 federal forms (the trust and myself) plus the associated Missouri and Illinois forms.
Thats a LOT of taxes to do for someone who makes their normal living as an electrician!

Im ready for simpler taxes!

And the Republicans are advertising simpler so I like it.

You can go forward and explain how filing will be simpler than the 1040EZ is already.

- - - Updated - - -

Im not even expecting the $300. I will be happy enough if they just make filing simpler.

Wow, that is just dumb. This bill doesn't make the tax code simpler. It takes away options for deductions used a lot by the middle class.

- - - Updated - - -

However, the tax bill doesn't affect SS/medicare.

PAYGO (https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/advocacy/info-2017/senate-tax-medicare-cuts-fd.html)

And of all things, this seems to be getting the least amount of press. ACA repeal was the first thing they attempted for a reason. It was to free up spending so they could pass this tax "reform" bill.

 

[untermensche]

Why is that?

All the wealth in North Korea came from labor.

All the wealth in the US came from labor.

All the wealth in the world came from labor.

There is labor few can do.

And the labor anybody could do. Giving orders is labor anybody could do.

What matters is the organization of labor, not labor itself.

Organization is labor. Just another form.

But generally humans can work without direction after a very short period.

What motivates humans most is autonomy and feeling appreciated.

What bosses are needed for is to support an artificial dictatorial hierarchy. Something humans naturally resist.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why is that?

All the wealth in North Korea came from labor.

All the wealth in the US came from labor.

All the wealth in the world came from labor.

There is labor few can do.

And the labor anybody could do. Giving orders is labor anybody could do.

What matters is the organization of labor, not labor itself.

Organization is labor. Just another form.

But generally humans can work without direction after a very short period.

What motivates humans most is autonomy and feeling appreciated.

What bosses are needed for is to support an artificial dictatorial hierarchy. Something humans naturally resist.

unter, you believe way too much in absolutes. Socialists didn't believe management has no value to a company. It was the relative lack of value the laborers had that was the issue. You need someone to produce and someone to sell/market. You also need a level of upper management to ensure stability and efficiency. Sure, you can be top heavy, but there needs to be management.

 

[untermensche]

Organization is labor. Just another form.

But generally humans can work without direction after a very short period.

What motivates humans most is autonomy and feeling appreciated.

What bosses are needed for is to support an artificial dictatorial hierarchy. Something humans naturally resist.

unter, you believe way too much in absolutes. Socialists didn't believe management has no value to a company. It was the relative lack of value the laborers had that was the issue. You need someone to produce and someone to sell/market. You also need a level of upper management to ensure stability and efficiency. Sure, you can be top heavy, but there needs to be management.

Management in top down dictatorial systems is one thing and necessary to maintain the artificial structure humans naturally despise and management in democratically controlled systems is another.

All I propose is control of all economic institutions revert from dictatorship to democracy.

Like control of government switched at one time.

We recognize the immorality of dictatorship in government.

Some are brainwashed to not see the immorality in other forms of dictatorship. They believe in it like a religion. No questions asked.

 

[jonatha]

Lets just take my personal situation as an example.

I live in st louis but work in 2 states (missouri and illinois). Plus I am the designated trustee for my son because my parents wanted their money left to him that way.

So each year I have to file 2 federal forms (the trust and myself) plus the associated Missouri and Illinois forms.
Thats a LOT of taxes to do for someone who makes their normal living as an electrician!

Im ready for simpler taxes!

And the Republicans are advertising simpler so I like it.

You could have made it simpler long ago by taking the standard deduction all along.

At the cost of paying more in taxes, very likely. But you'll be doing that anyway in a few years, so why not get used to it now?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

What you are missing is that most of the wealth in question is in the form of the tools of production.

Spreading it out converts money from future development to current consumption. Today's standard of living rises, tomorrow's falls.

All wealth comes from labor.

All of it.

All the tools of production were paid for by workers, from the theft from workers, which is a ubiquitous feature of top down dictatorial capitalism.

All you are doing is preaching.

And note that if you're right then in your society the vast majority of the population must die as there's no way to create means of production. We would fall back to what individuals can do--and lacking easily obtained resources that means early stone age.

 

[funinspace]

I thought it would be worth quoting some of these newly minted deficit friendly Republicans, as they seemed to be singing a very different tune just a year ago and back. The below guys were big 'deficit hawks' under the Obama Administration. At least a few like McCain and others had to be dragged/bribed into supporting this foolish bill...

Ted Cruz in January 2014:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...sible-on-debt-ceiling/?utm_term=.3e2e075586d0

“What the president is saying is he just wants a blank credit card to keep growing and growing the debt, and I think that’s irresponsible,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I think it’s irresponsible to our kids and grandkids to stick that debt on them because we can’t live within our means.”

Mitch McConnell in March 2011:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...0/gIQABJ5DdU_blog.html?utm_term=.5808669e2981

Using sharp rhetoric reminiscent of last summer’s fight over the issue, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said President Obama “needs to become the adult” in discussions with congressional leaders on spending and debt.

“The Speaker and I have been the adults in the room, arguing that we ought to do something about the nation’s most serious long-term problem,” McConnell said
<snip>
McConnell said on CBS. “We don’t control the entire government, we control the House of Representatives only. We’d like to do something about the nation’s biggest problem, spending and debt, which of course is the reason for this economic malaise.”

Rob Portman in Nov 2011:
https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/articles?ID=EB1D180E-624B-4ADF-9D2F-0191C9B90132

As he met with about 20 reporters the night the bipartisan supercommittee collapsed last week, Sen. Rob Portman was clearly frustrated. As one of the 12 panel members, he had been the optimistic one, convinced they could agree on a compromise that would reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion during the next decade.

“I felt that given the crisis that we could figure out a way to come together,” said Portman, R-Ohio. Then he added, “I was wrong.”

For Portman, the panel’s failure was the dreary culmination of weeks of intense work. Portman, who served as budget director under former President George W. Bush, took this job seriously.

 

[Copernicus]

Another crazy thing in this bill is the self-defeating calculus that removal of state and local tax deductions is safe for Republicans, because the states that have such taxes are full of Democrats, i.e. the accursed class that does not vote for Republicans. A state like Pennsylvania is a good example. Trump defeated Clinton in that state by a thin margin, and Pennsylvania has been trending Republican. There are lots of Republican politicians in those states and lots of rural Republican counties that send Republicans to state and local offices. The Republican margins in such states are bound to be affected by this stupid "red state vs blue state" mentality.

 

[SimpleDon]

The most vibrant and healthy economy is the economy where expendable wealth is spread into as many hands as possible.

A minority of millionaires and billionaires have nothing to do with a vibrant and healthy economy. They are in fact a hindrance to one.

What you are missing is that most of the wealth in question is in the form of the tools of production.

Spreading it out converts money from future development to current consumption. Today's standard of living rises, tomorrow's falls.

What you are missing is that capital is just money. Money to buy capital machinery. Money to buy the tools of production. And that money is not a scarce resource. Money is created by people taking out debt either for consumption or investment and by the government spending more money into the economy than they take out by taxing.

What drives the economy is demand. Demand is generated by wages, money in the hands of consumers. If there is the demand for products, there will be capital for investment. There is no trade off between development and consumption. You have to have consumption to have development.

Putting more money into profits instead of wages reduces the amount of consumption and the amount of development. Increasing the amount of money collected in taxes doesn't increase the amount of money available for investment, it increases the amount of national debt. Debt does create money, but in this case the money created isn't available for either development or consumption, it is in the form of a Treasury bill held by an investor. The money created is locked up in savings.

There is a trade off between profits and wages. The split between profits and wages is determined by the various economic policies of the government. If the government artificially supports profits instead of artificially supporting wages the government suppresses demand and reduces the money circulating in the economy and reduces growth in the economy. This is what has happened over the neoliberal period, under supply side economics. The government decided to artificially boost profits by doing everything that they could to suppress wages.

I have often asked you how much in profits do we need to guarantee we keep the capitalist machinery running? I think that we don't need any more than twice the amount of business investment made in a year. Of course, this is what profits are suppose to fund, the amount of business investment that is made every year and the returns to capital, the historical amount that is returned to the shareholders, a more than reasonable return considering the prevailing interest rates.

Currently, before this bill increasing the profits paid to the shareholders, we have nearly six times the amount of profits to actual investment made by businesses. This doesn't count the profits earned in the US but illegally off shored in tax havens.

I am somewhat surprised, you seem to be defending this tax cut bill. Tell me it isn't so. You seemed to understand the arguments above. This discussion always comes down to the same thing. Keynesians describe how the economy operates and suggest that we use that knowledge to improve the economy for the greatest number of people. Non-Keynesians tell us how they wished that the economy works and how to make the rich even richer.

 

[laughing dog]

Serious question:

Is there anyone around here who sincerely believes that this tax cut plan either...

1. Will benefit the middle class and below long term?

2. Was actually designed to do so?

Ive heard that it will get rid of a lot of itemized deductions but will double the standard deduction. If thats true I like that because it closes loopholes and simplifies the filing. In my particular case I might even do better because I alway take the standard deduction anyway (I paid my house off a long time ago).

But the main point to be made is this. Even if I have to pay the same amount its much better if I only spend an hour doing taxes versus all day long. They are supposedly making the form simpler. And that cant be bad.

Suppose you have to pay more but it takes you less time to figure that out?

 

[coloradoatheist]

Serious question:

Is there anyone around here who sincerely believes that this tax cut plan either...

1. Will benefit the middle class and below long term?

2. Was actually designed to do so?

Ive heard that it will get rid of a lot of itemized deductions but will double the standard deduction. If thats true I like that because it closes loopholes and simplifies the filing. In my particular case I might even do better because I alway take the standard deduction anyway (I paid my house off a long time ago).

But the main point to be made is this. Even if I have to pay the same amount its much better if I only spend an hour doing taxes versus all day long. They are supposedly making the form simpler. And that cant be bad.

Suppose you have to pay more but it takes you less time to figure that out?

It will come down to the amount of each of the deductions. Wouldn't it benefit the poor and lower middle class more who don't itemize?

 

[Trausti]

The passed Senate tax bill repealed the ACA individual mandate. The House will surely oblige. Good.

 

[Copernicus]

Suppose you have to pay more but it takes you less time to figure that out?

It will come down to the amount of each of the deductions. Wouldn't it benefit the poor and lower middle class more who don't itemize?

I think that the bill is structured to give everyone a modest to hefty tax break in the first year, with the heftiest breaks going to upper income levels. However, those tax benefits taper off and evaporate, unless Congress decides to renew them. For the most part, the breaks given to corporations and wealthy individuals are permanent. So there is a bit of bait and switch going on there. Giving everyone a tax cut initially was to get the peanut gallery cheering. Senator Corker, who ended up being the only Republican to vote against the bill, tried to insert a provision where the tax benefits would evaporate sooner, if the extraordinarily optimistic growth estimates failed to materialize. Still, none of this was enough to fund the shell game with tax cuts and reshuffling of deductions, so a trillion dollars is deficit-funded over the next 10 years, meaning that it explodes the public debt, assuming Congress never decides to pass a trillion dollar tax hike to repair the hole in the budget.

 

[Copernicus]

The passed Senate tax bill repealed the ACA individual mandate. The House will surely oblige. Good.

Because you want to return to the status quo ante, where premium inflation rose at a higher rate and millions fewer had any health care coverage? The individual mandate was necessary, because insurance does not work unless people who don't collect benefits pay premiums into the common pool. That's why the individual mandate existed--to induce young, healthy individuals to start paying into the fund as a means of insuring the health care of those who most needed it. That would be a terribly unfair burden on those with bodies that never aged or got sick, but most of us are mortal, unfortunately, even if we like to pretend otherwise.

 

[Trausti]

The passed Senate tax bill repealed the ACA individual mandate. The House will surely oblige. Good.

Because you want to return to the status quo ante, where premium inflation rose at a higher rate and millions fewer had any health care coverage? The individual mandate was necessary, because insurance does not work unless people who don't collect benefits pay premiums into the common pool. That's why the individual mandate existed--to induce young, healthy individuals to start paying into the fund as a means of insuring the health care of those who most needed it. That would be a terribly unfair burden on those with bodies that never aged or got sick, but most of us are mortal, unfortunately.

I don't care about your moral preening. It is tyrannical for the government to force individuals to purchase a private product just for living. Are people just serfs to you, to be used by this or that bureaucrat to advance someone else's economic policy? If the government has this power, then the government should also force people to rent/buy a home so we can eliminate poverty; or force people to buy cable so all those cable channels no one watches don't go defunct.