US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012

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MichaelS said:
But it does not seem that their plan in reality lowers taxes for the Middle Class.

And taxes in US are already quite low compared other rich countries. Mitt Romney himself who belongs to the 1% paid a 14% tax rate in the last decade according to the latest report anyway. That is incredibly low.

And their proposed tax cuts will vastly increase the deficiet

I can emphasize why people want someone else than Obama, I just don't believe that Romney and his ilk are the right people. And frankly pricks like them don't deserve to become the most powerful people in world
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You know the reason why that tax rate is so low? In reality, he has to pay the same taxes rates as any tom, dick or harry. Though his effective tax rate lowers due to the lower capital gain taxes.

Any good business needs money to grow. Where does that money come from? That money comes from investments and savings made by us, the general public. You want businesses to have access to cheaper money. If you tax savings and investments at a higher rate people would just go ahead and spend a part of that money. Which would leave lesser money and increase the rates when corporates want to raise money. Which in turn would increase prices and cause inflation.

Also, capital is already taxed at corporate level. Levying more tax would result in double taxation.

There may be a good case to increase the taxes a little for people with higher earnings but you don't want to increase capital gain taxes or levy a french like 75% tax on earnings above a certain level.
 
Forevergiggs said:
There may be a good case to increase the taxes a little for people with higher earnings but you don't want to increase capital gain taxes or levy a french like 75% tax on earnings above a certain level.
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The French 75% top tax band will be a live experiment. I think that I shall watch how that develops and affects the French economy and society, rather than taking your word for it.
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
The French 75% top tax band will be a live experiment. I think that I shall watch how that develops and affects the French economy and society, rather than taking your word for it.
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:lol: Please don't.

History suggests that when you increase tax rates, people try and find ways to not pay them and the loss to the exchequer is higher. A live example is India, where during the emergency period increased taxes led to the creation of a huge black economy, which is still very rampant. The real estate in the country is flooded with black money and makes it tough for the middle class to secure loans for the full property price.
 
Forevergiggs said:
History suggests that when you increase tax rates, people try and find ways to not pay them and the loss to the exchequer is higher.
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What history actually suggests is that people who can find ways to avoid paying tax do so, and invariably those most able to do this are the super-wealthy. It's a complete joke to suggest that there's a sufficiently low tax rate which will see the very rich will suddenly stop avoiding and evading tax.

The answer to people circumventing and, y'know, breaking laws, is to properly enforce those laws. Funnily enough, that's an argument that those who decry reasonable levels of taxation usually have a lot more sympathy for...
 
Chabon said:
What history actually suggests is that people who can find ways to avoid paying tax do so, and invariably those most able to do this are the super-wealthy. It's a complete joke to suggest that there's a sufficiently low tax rate which will see the very rich will suddenly stop avoiding and evading tax.

The answer to people circumventing and, y'know, breaking laws, is to properly enforce those laws. Funnily enough, that's an argument that those who decry reasonable levels of taxation usually have a lot more sympathy for...
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But do you deny that when the higher tax rate fell from 80%+ in the 80's tax revenue increased massively.

The treasury also investigated the impact of a higher rate of tax: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2012/excheq-income-tax-2042.pdf
 
Sounds like a straw-man as no one is advocating 80% or 97.75% marginal tax rates (as it was under Indira Gandhi). Under Eisenhower it was 91% anyway.

Krugman, some time back, cited a study http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.4.165, which found that the optimal highest marginal tax rate is around 70%, above which revenues drop, but until which (level) revenues steadily increase.

[EDIT: This is, of course, a far cry from the 39.6% rate being proposed. Far enough, to make them two separate and very nearly unrelated discussions.]
 
Raoul said:
:lol: There's already a GOP group questioning the timing of the sudden drop in numbers.
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...and these people are Americans right???

..lose the battle and win the war.




I see the GOP is driving the always reliable racist narrative.

'Obama is lazy and not too bright'


I cant wait to see these fecks having to take orders from a Hispanic some day.

...and it will happen.
 
Forevergiggs said:
Let's try and ignore the cut in budget deficits, the universal health insurance, the recession before he took office,
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Oh really, so you're saying that circumstances BEFORE Romney took office should be taken into consideration? Funny, Romney doesn't seem to apply that standard to the president.

the annual job growth that moved Mass. to 28th position in his last year in office,
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"We're #28! We're #28!" cried no one, ever.

the fact that the unemployment rate dropped one percent from 2003 to 2007 when he was in office.
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Of course the unemployment rate dropped. 220,000 workers left the state during his term. What'll he do as President to repeat that feat, deport the unemployed?
 
The GOP wouldn't be complaining if the unemployment number had risen. Sigh.

I noticed the 75% tax mentioned above. Hmm, perhaps if salaries/bonuses over a million dollars were taxed higher we would see more distribution of funds to actual workers within these companies. Or maybe I'm just dreaming.
 
MrMarcello said:
The GOP wouldn't be complaining if the unemployment number had risen. Sigh.

I noticed the 75% tax mentioned above. Hmm, perhaps if salaries/bonuses over a million dollars were taxed higher we would see more distribution of funds to actual workers within these companies. Or maybe I'm just dreaming.
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Probably not, since even taxed at 75% it still means they big earners are getting more money right. I mean would you turn down pay because it was getting taxed at 75%, you still get the other 25% right.
 
Raoul said:
:lol: There's already a GOP group questioning the timing of the sudden drop in numbers.
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Red Dreams said:
...and these people are Americans right???

..lose the battle and win the war.




I see the GOP is driving the always reliable racist narrative.

'Obama is lazy and not too bright'


I cant wait to see these fecks having to take orders from a Hispanic some day.

...and it will happen.
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Aside from the usual bullshit.

One of the arguments against using unemployment figures is the the number of people no longer in labour market tends to rise in recessions, it effectively underestimate unemployment. This happened hugely in the UK after the 90's where people effectively declared themselves "incapacitated" from work, or chose early retirement (50's).

One way of checking this is to look at labour force participation and if it's changing. And it has (for once)!
 
for a strat we simply need to go back to the Clinton tax rates for both corporations and individuals.

Then just look at cutting military spending.

For Social Security we should move to liftting the caps but capping payouts to those at the highest income brackets.

Health Care should ultimately go to Single Payer but have a second tier for those who want the 'extras'. summat like they have in Australia.
 
Jaz said:
Aside from the usual bullshit.

One of the arguments against using unemployment figures is the the number of people no longer in labour market tends to rise in recessions, it effectively underestimate unemployment. This happened hugely in the UK after the 90's where people effectively declared themselves "incapacitated" from work, or chose early retirement (50's).

One way of checking this is to look at labour force participation and if it's changing. And it has (for once)!
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err. all the 'bullshit' has been always included in previous numbers...so we are comparing like to like.

This will be killing Romney and his handlers...which means he will never be President.
 
I was once in favor of a flat tax rate but now that I sort of understand economics and politics, at least more than I did five/ten years ago, I do not see how the math can work if taxes are reduced further. Especially when 90% of the wealth is controlled by 10% of the nation (or whatever the statistic is). High earners need to be taxed higher to alleviate the burden from the majority of citizens.
 
Red Dreams said:
err. all the 'bullshit' has been always included in previous numbers...so we are comparing like to like.

This will be killing Romney and his handlers...which means he will never be President.
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This is hardly game changing. I don't think people are going to wake up today and think "wow Obama's economic plan works" after 4 years of it not working.

Unemployment can fall in the figures, but in reality might not: a section of people left the workforce (i.e. no longer actively looking for work) over the sample period (monthly or quarterly) and it will make unemployment rate fall, when in truth it hasn't.

However, the big news is that participation rates increase, so we're seeing a real fall in unemployment.
 
MrMarcello said:
I was once in favor of a flat tax rate but now that I sort of understand economics and politics, at least more than I did five/ten years ago, I do not see how the math can work if taxes are reduced further. Especially when 90% of the wealth is controlled by 10% of the nation (or whatever the statistic is). High earners need to be taxed higher to alleviate the burden from the majority of citizens.
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That's socialism!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
If I am every fortunate to earn say 500k in a year, I'll gladly pay 200k in taxes. That's still 300k net take, which is plenty more than I currently take home.
 
MrMarcello said:
I'm still trying to understand where this magical 23 million unemployed number stems from. Did it get pulled from a Tea Party member's ass?

The real number is around 12 million. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
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I believe it's from extrapolating the unemployed percentage figure over the whole population of the US. So basically, it's epically retarded (at best, outright lying at worst).
 
Jaz said:
This is hardly game changing. I don't think people are going to wake up today and think "wow Obama's economic plan works" after 4 years of it not working.

Unemployment can fall in the figures, but in reality might not: a section of people left the workforce (i.e. no longer actively looking for work) over the sample period (monthly or quarterly) and it will make unemployment rate fall, when in truth it hasn't.

However, the big news is that participation rates increase, so we're seeing a real fall in unemployment.
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I know all about people leaving the workforce. That is not anything new.

I think it is 'game changing' from a political sense.

This plays perfectly into the Clinton/Obama narative that we are seeing growth, but we need to keep doing the sensible things instead of coubling down on Bush economics which Romeny was suggesting...err until the debate when his etch-a-sketch of doing nothing came in to play.

agree with your last statement which for econmists is a good indicator.
 
MrMarcello said:
Are you angry at me or just horsing around?
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Didn't work as well without the context

Bill Maher:

Between 1980 and 2005 80% of all new income generated in this country went to the richest 1%. Let me put that in terms that even you fatass teabaggers can understand. Say a 100 Americans get together and order a 100-slice pizza. The pizza arrives, they open the box, and the first guy takes 80 slices.... And if someone suggests "Why don't you just take 79 slices?" THAT'S SOCIALISM!!!
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Of course, right-wingers would make the argument that for the analogy to work the guy didn't take 80 slices, he earned it.
 
Rasmussen has Romney ahead by 1 in Virginia.

Alot of other polls have Obama by +2.

Very tight in the state. This time in the Mccain vs Obama 2008, Obama had a wider lead in the polls in the state at this stage.
 
Jaz said:
We've already had these experiments in the 70's.
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Are you wearing flares, are you listening to T-Rex and driving a Ford Cortina. I would hang my hat on the answer being no because 1. You are not that cool and 2. it is not the 1970's. Lets see how it works out in the modern world, shall we.
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
Are you wearing flares, are you listening to T-Rex and driving a Ford Cortina. I would hang my hat on the answer being no because 1. You are not that cool and 2. it is not the 1970's. Lets see how it works out in the modern world, shall we.
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Please look at the second sentence mentioned in the same post :rolleyes:, that's why I mentioned the 50% tax rate introduced in the UK for high earners and then REMOVED because it didn't raise the revenue expected.

Edit: a post after that infact :lol:
 
Jaz said:
Rasmussen has Romney ahead by 1 in Virginia.

Alot of other polls have Obama by +2.

Very tight in the state. This time in the Mccain vs Obama 2008, Obama had a wider lead in the polls in the state at this stage.
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Rasmussen is a GOP pollster. His numbers have been consistently skewed away from the RCP average, even during Obama's post convention surge.
 
Jaz said:
Please look at the second sentence mentioned in the same post :rolleyes:, that's why I mentioned the 50% tax rate introduced in the UK for high earners and then REMOVED because it didn't raise the revenue expected.

Edit: a post after that infact :lol:
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The 50% tax rate was removed because this government is run by rich people for rich people
 
Raoul said:
Rasmussen is a GOP pollster. His numbers have been consistently skewed away from the RCP average, even during Obama's post convention surge.
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Even if they have a GOP bias, this doesn't explain away the trend in the state getting tighter recently by all pollsters.

Also Rasmussen had Obama leading in Virginia since April.
 
Forevergiggs said:
You know the reason why that tax rate is so low? In reality, he has to pay the same taxes rates as any tom, dick or harry. Though his effective tax rate lowers due to the lower capital gain taxes.

Any good business needs money to grow. Where does that money come from? That money comes from investments and savings made by us, the general public. You want businesses to have access to cheaper money. If you tax savings and investments at a higher rate people would just go ahead and spend a part of that money. Which would leave lesser money and increase the rates when corporates want to raise money. Which in turn would increase prices and cause inflation.

Also, capital is already taxed at corporate level. Levying more tax would result in double taxation.

There may be a good case to increase the taxes a little for people with higher earnings but you don't want to increase capital gain taxes or levy a french like 75% tax on earnings above a certain level.
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How will Romney fund 5 trillion dollar tax cuts?

Do we honestly believe that their unspecific plan of closing loopholes will yield 5 trillion dollars?

And do we trust a vulture capitalist like Romney to do that?
 
MrMarcello said:
I was once in favor of a flat tax rate but now that I sort of understand economics and politics, at least more than I did five/ten years ago, I do not see how the math can work if taxes are reduced further. Especially when 90% of the wealth is controlled by 10% of the nation (or whatever the statistic is). High earners need to be taxed higher to alleviate the burden from the majority of citizens.
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If more people sort of understood economics and politics (particularly things like filibustering) the GOP wouldn't have a hope in hell's chance at this election...Or in the foreseeable future.

Mozza said:
The 50% tax rate was removed because this government is run by rich people for rich people
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The best one was the GOP blocking a bill to alleviate the medical bills of 9/11 responders because....erm...tax was too high.

 
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