[Politics_Observer]

I support Biden's attempts at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. We need to get deficits under control and raise taxes to pay down the national debt.

The White House is looking to fulfill one of President Joe Biden's campaign promises by raising taxes for the wealthy and on corporations, White House press secretary Jen Psaki affirmed on Monday.

Psaki said at a White House briefing that Biden believes that "those at the top are not doing their part" and "obviously that corporations could be paying higher taxes."

Biden put forth several proposals during his presidential campaign that would raise taxes for the wealthy and on corporations by reversing some of the tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2017.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday suggested a tax hike could be on the horizon when she said she expects the White House to put forward proposals over time to get deficits under control.

"(Biden) hasn't proposed a wealth tax but he has proposed that corporations and wealthy individuals should pay more in order to meet the needs of the economy, the spending we need to do, and over time I expect that we will be putting forth proposals to get deficits under control," Yellen told ABC.

Then-candidate Biden proposed raising the top federal tax rate from 37% to 39.6%, its pre-Trump level. Under his plan, the corporate tax rate would rise from 21% to 28%. He would also establish a 15% minimum book tax and tax increases on international profits.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/15/politics ... index.html

[Finfinder]

I support Biden's attempts at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. We need to get deficits under control and raise taxes to pay down the national debt.



https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/15/politics ... index.html

A 1.9 trillion dollar bill of pork is your idea of reducing the debt?

[Rancid]

I think it would be more effective to leave taxes alone and to simply adopt MMT pricinpals. Basically, print money, give it to the middle and working classes (instead of banks). This effectively taxes the rich without actually taxing the rich.

[Patrickov]

Rancid's point is quite valid, although I suspect things are actually more complicated.

As for the original news, I will believe it when I see it, and even if it does, I doubt whether that solves the problem, as corps can simply move to places having less social justice.

[QatzelOk]

I think it would be more effective to leave taxes alone and to simply adopt MMT pricinpals. Basically, print money, give it to the middle and working classes (instead of banks). This effectively taxes the rich without actually taxing the rich.

No matter who you give trillions in helicopter money to, it will cause major inflation eventually.

You know, a loaf of bread suddenly costs a thousand dollars.

The floating USA currency exists in its actual state as a fiat currency ONLY as a way of enriching particular tribes. And this is obviously the cause of many, many wars and lots of vandalism against other nations.

The wealthy will always prefer foreign wars to proper domestic taxation. Which is why they need to be over-ruled by the less wealthy. Or else...

[blackjack21]

I support Biden's attempts at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. We need to get deficits under control and raise taxes to pay down the national debt.

You cannot get deficits under control without massive cuts in government spending. Taxing small businesses will kill the economic recovery. Obama did that too, and it led to the slowest post-recession recovery since WWII. Raising taxes on the rich might help a bit, but not enough to deal with the amount of money the government is spending to counter the effects of their own lockdown policies.

As for the original news, I will believe it when I see it, and even if it does, I doubt whether that solves the problem, as corps can simply move to places having less social justice.

Trump's goal was to bring US corporate tax rates in line with OECD countries instead of having the highest (and most uncompetitive) tax rates in the industrialized world. So they will move profits back offshore, and the stock market will cease its inexorable rise.

No matter who you give trillions in helicopter money to, it will cause major inflation eventually.

Yep. There's a reason Bill Gates is buying farmland, and it isn't the fat profit margins from farming.

[Oxymoron]

I support Biden's attempts at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. We need to get deficits under control and raise taxes to pay down the national debt.



https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/15/politics ... index.html

Stop spending like a drunken whore and you will get the deficit under control.

[Patrickov]

Which is why they need to be over-ruled by the less wealthy. Or else...

China is effectively being run by the less wealthy. I don't see it any better. Instead, I cannot even criticize them or hold surveys on public opinion about who should run the government without risking arrest for breaching "national security".

[Rancid]

it will cause major inflation eventually.

People have been yelling "hyper inflation" since the 2008 bailout, and inflation has been at all times lows since. Further, interest rates are at all time lows and we still don't see inflation.

Also, MMT say's this is not necessarily true. You can always soak up extra money with taxes to combat inflation. Further, if you give some money to the poor, what exactly are they going to inflate? Housing? Food? Then give them more money (by taking it from the rich via inflation). It can balance out.

MMT is interesting, you should read up about it. There is a pofoer called steve lion or something like that, that talks about it a lot.

Side note, I think the raising instability we see around the world is part of the reason for this. Oddly enough.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rancid

Printing money is not going to tax the rich but only harm the middle class and the poor. The rich know how to invest their money in assets such as Real Estate Investment Trusts to protect those assets from inflation as well as Inflation Adjusted US Treasury bonds in tax advantaged accounts. So, if you are going to tax the rich, you are going to have to directly tax them. The corporations and business owners will set up corporations in tax haven jurisdictions outside of the U.S. but laws could be passed to tax foreign income. US citizens as individuals, if they earn a foreign income, I think has to pay U.S. taxes on that foreign income currently. However, if a corporation earns foreign income, they might get a tax break on that currently but don't quote me for sure. I am not sure of all the specifics on the tax laws in regards to what kind of tax breaks corporations get on foreign income if that corporation is a U.S. corporation. Wealthy people who renounce their citizenship still have to pay an exit tax on their assets when they renounce their citizenship if I remember correctly what I read.

[late]

Printing money is not going to tax the rich but only harm the middle class and the poor.

It's more complicated than that.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=price+of+inequality&qid=1616196103&sr=8-1

[Rancid]

@Rancid

Printing money is not going to tax the rich but only harm the middle class and the poor. The rich know how to invest their money in assets such as Real Estate Investment Trusts to protect those assets from inflation as well as Inflation Adjusted US Treasury bonds in tax advantaged accounts. So, if you are going to tax the rich, you are going to have to directly tax them. The corporations and business owners will set up corporations in tax haven jurisdictions outside of the U.S. but laws could be passed to tax foreign income. US citizens as individuals, if they earn a foreign income, I think has to pay U.S. taxes on that foreign income currently. However, if a corporation earns foreign income, they might get a tax break on that currently but don't quote me for sure. I am not sure of all the specifics on the tax laws in regards to what kind of tax breaks corporations get on foreign income if that corporation is a U.S. corporation. Wealthy people who renounce their citizenship still have to pay an exit tax on their assets when they renounce their citizenship if I remember correctly what I read.

Naaaah, if you are giving the money to the middle class and the poor, you are effectively taxing the rich.

I SUMMON STEVE AMERICAN!

[Politics_Observer]

@Rancid

Not really when prices rise and the assets of the rich increase in the amount of dollars they are valued at with those price hikes but the value of the assets of the middle class and poor stay the same in terms of the amount of dollars they have....it's not really taxing the rich at all.

[Unthinking Majority]

People have been yelling "hyper inflation" since the 2008 bailout, and inflation has been at all times lows since. Further, interest rates are at all time lows and we still don't see inflation.

Housing prices have inflated from low interest rates. Housing prices have inflated from women working and the rise in 2-income families. You give the middle classes money it's going to go straight into bidding wars on housing prices. The middle class cannot raise their standard of living very much (without leaps in technological innovation), because they're all competing in bids for the same houses. It's a hamster wheel.

Some of the savings of baby boomers and old Gen Xers is going into down payments and sometimes mortgages to help their kids out in the bidding wars. So now you have 2 generations having their wealth sucked out from under them.

After COVID, housing prices will explode because a lot of this extra income people have in the stock markets and whatnot is going to go into housing.

MMTers who want to print money are insane. They want money to grow on trees because they're left-leaning idealists but reality isn't that simple, actions have consequences. Chaos theory. There's no magic pill to cure the global scarcity of resources that is and always has been our physical reality.

[Fasces]

Housing prices have inflated from low interest rates.

Housing prices in the West are inflated by extremely strict zoning laws and building codes. Housing could be solved in any major city in the US by building high-res neighborhoods. But people in Manhattan or Paris insist that housing must look like this:





Tear them down, build for the needs of the population and not just aesthetics, and increase the supply of low and middle income housing in city centers. Better for the environment, better for the people.



I lived one metro stop from People's Square in Shanghai, smack dab in the city center, for $520 a month. Can't do that in any major urban center in Europe or North America.

[Patrickov]

I lived one metro stop from People's Square in Shanghai, smack dab in the city center, for $520 a month. Can't do that in any major urban center in Europe or North America.

While Hong Kong also resembles that I am frankly against this.

Such concentration of people often means a need of extensive infrastructure and resources to maintain this condition.

Not to mention the shrinking of personal living spaces.

Not to mention the safety standards as well as social conditions in China is much worse that any higher price is simply not worth it.

[Fasces]

Such concentration of people often means a need of extensive infrastructure and resources to maintain this condition.

No, it doesn't. 100 people in 1 square KM use the same number of resources as 100 people in 100 square km. What this eliminates is logistical/transport waste, which is one of the largest contributors to climate change.

Not to mention the shrinking of personal living spaces.

The average apartment size in New York City is 890 square feet. That image is from Seoul, where the average apartment size is 1230 square feet.

Not to mention the safety standards as well as social conditions in China is much worse that any higher price is simply not worth it.

China today is not China from the 1980's. The building was three years old. It was better than the apartments I lived in while I was in Philadelphia.

They've spent millions of hours building shit - let's accept that they've gotten quite good at it.

[Patrickov]

No, it doesn't. 100 people in 1 square KM use the same number of resources as 100 people in 100 square km. What this eliminates is logistical/transport waste, which is one of the largest contributors to climate change.

Your picture seems to advocate for a 10000 per km not 100. What you said is not a one-way variable. Clean water, for example, has to be pumped excessively if you are to concentrate people in a small area, many of whom living in high-rises.

China today is not China from the 1980's. The building was three years old. It was better than the apartments I lived in while I was in Philadelphia.

Houses should sustain for decades if not centuries. Macao's buildings look flimsy even only a decade old. Also there are plenty of other aspects like seepage or so which is the devil in details.

Let's check again 10 years later.

[Fasces]

Clean water, for example, has to be pumped excessively if you are to concentrate people in a small area, many of whom living in high-rises.

And yet study after study after study has routinely shown high density centers to be more environmentally sustainable than low density.

Houses should sustain for decades if not centuries.

Why should housing sustain for centuries? That's precisely the problem in Western cities - trying to fit modern populations into housing built for a city with an order of magnitude fewer people. Old housing is less energy efficient, less space efficient, more expensive to maintain and refurbish, and generally to small to do the job. I'm imagining you in 18th century Paris trying to defend the old thatch huts, using identical arguments as you are now no less.

[Patrickov]

Why should housing sustain for centuries? That's precisely the problem in Western cities - trying to fit modern populations into housing built for a city with an order of magnitude fewer people. Old housing is less energy efficient, less space efficient, more expensive to maintain and refurbish, and generally to small to do the job. I'm imagining you in 18th century Paris trying to defend the old thatch huts, using identical arguments as you are now no less.

I am talking about structural strength. You don't want to live somewhere that will suddenly collapse don't you? And I already mentioned smaller problems like seepage, which can pester you to no end (and fortunately I have seldom meet).

As a matter of fact Paris and London have been torn down and rebuilt regularly. I guess they are heading the direction you like anyways.