Election 2016

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Duck07
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Re: Election 2016

Post by Duck07 »

Funny that all the people wanting to leave the U.S. want to go to Canda and not Mexico.

Not funny all the rioting going on and it's foundation of hatred for those they disagree with.
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lukeyrid13
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Re: Election 2016

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I think another dumbed down response, is that a lot of people, most specifically the right are pushing back against political correctness. Trump is the antithesis of that for sure.
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StevensTechU
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Re: Election 2016

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Phalanx wrote:
I have to be honest: I don't have the time or inclination to have a big discussion about the country, role of government, and taxes with you. My own views are pretty libertarian, and while I don't view health care as a function of government, government has injected itself into the healthcare equation such that it has become the president's responsibility that the costs are skyrocketing. Everything in that industry is being controlled, from prices to supply.

I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that taxation is decreasing, but I see a pointless semantic argument on the horizon that i would rather avoid. Inflation is a tax, and government policies that spike housing prices, college prices, and health care prices are also taxes. It saves time simply to look at wealth statistics and realize that the majority of Americans are growing poorer, while government steadily grows. Some would like to arrest this trend.
It's unnecessary research because people have already done in. Here's completely non-partisan Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates

Regarding size of government, according to NPR there are about 2.75 million non-military federal employees, which includes 600k postal service workers. That's pretty close to unchanged from the 1960s.

Suggesting inflation is a tax while saying you subscribe to a libertarian ideology is a bit confusing. You're suggesting the government control inflation, but saying you're for a more free market? You can be for anything, I just think that's the wrong terminology.

Personally, I think the gov should only be in the operations of things where profit margins should not be any kind of driving force: education, jails, fire stations, et al. One can argue about health. Everything else, effective regulation is important to protect you and I from predatory practices.
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Re: Election 2016

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StevensTechU wrote:

It's unnecessary research because people have already done in. Here's completely non-partisan Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates

Regarding size of government, according to NPR there are about 2.75 million non-military federal employees, which includes 600k postal service workers. That's pretty close to unchanged from the 1960s.

Suggesting inflation is a tax while saying you subscribe to a libertarian ideology is a bit confusing. You're suggesting the government control inflation, but saying you're for a more free market? You can be for anything, I just think that's the wrong terminology.

Personally, I think the gov should only be in the operations of things where profit margins should not be any kind of driving force: education, jails, fire stations, et al. One can argue about health. Everything else, effective regulation is important to protect you and I from predatory practices.
Government contractors are never included in those statistics, so they really aren't that informative.

I have always found it helpful, when examining these matters, to avoid looking at isolated numbers and instead view the whole picture and the results. Government officials swear that tax rates haven't increased, and yet somehow, revenues since the 60's have quadrupled in real dollars, even though population only went up by around 60% in the same period.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statisti ... ay-summary

Amazing, isn't it? I know the county assessor and the county councilors in my county personally, and I watch them making the 'tax rate isn't going up' argument all the time, even though the budget far outstrips inflation every year. It's a game that is quickly ended when one just looks at aggregate numbers.

Inflation is controlled by the government now (that is, if you view the Fed as a government entity). A libertarian is allowed to notice this and at the same time argue that it shouldn't be. Further, he is allowed to notice that the government profits by inflation, both domestically and via exports, and to conclude that inflation is actually a form of taxation. Watch this clip and note that Bernanke concedes that point himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4yBrxmEOkY
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Re: Election 2016

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Phalanx wrote:
Government contractors are never included in those statistics, so they really aren't that informative.

I have always found it helpful, when examining these matters, to avoid looking at isolated numbers and instead view the whole picture and the results. Government officials swear that tax rates haven't increased, and yet somehow, revenues since the 60's have quadrupled in real dollars, even though population only went up by around 60% in the same period.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statisti ... ay-summary

Amazing, isn't it? I know the county assessor and the county councilors in my county personally, and I watch them making the 'tax rate isn't going up' argument all the time, even though the budget far outstrips inflation every year. It's a game that is quickly ended when one just looks at aggregate numbers.

Inflation is controlled by the government now (that is, if you view the Fed as a government entity). A libertarian is allowed to notice this and at the same time argue that it shouldn't be. Further, he is allowed to notice that the government profits by inflation, both domestically and via exports, and to conclude that inflation is actually a form of taxation. Watch this clip and note that Bernanke concedes that point himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4yBrxmEOkY
Yes! Now we're getting into productive conversation.

First for clarity- If the government brings in $4.3 trillion, and is spending $4.8 trillion, you're arguing that our nation's people are poorer? There's a reallocation taking place, but I struggle to see how that simple arithmetic means they're taking money out of the economy and stashing it away.

Now to debunk the 'We're paying more than ever!' argument.

I'm not sure if you did this intentionally or unintentionally, but you didn't mention receipts as a percentage of GDP which was on the table you linked to. If you're trying to argue that modern-day taxes are making us poorer than before, Receipts/GDP is a lot more accurate and informative than Receipts/Population. Receipts/GDP tells you what part of our income the government is collecting, which* means it's the best basis for comparison as our economy grows and shrinks. So how much is the government getting as a percentage of the country's income? In 2010-2014, government receipts were 15.8% of GDP, down from 17.6% from 1969-1974 when Nixon was president. Conclusion: Obama's America was keeping more of its income than Nixon's America. We are not paying more than ever, and taxes aren't making us poorer. That's all perception.

If inflation arising from an increase in the money supply has tax-like effects, that means decreasing the money supply, which happens just as often as increasing it, would be like a negative tax. Net-net, it would make no difference. I'd like to go further into this, but I'm already running long and think that's a good place to start.
Last edited by StevensTechU on Fri Nov 11, 2016 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Election 2016

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This is a different comment than the discussion Phalanx and I are having, but it's a story I just want to share with people who care about these things.

Right now I'm working on an engagement with the government agency that guarantees pension benefits for large employers. One of the companies they sponsor the pension for has been doing worse and worse for over 10 years, selling off pieces of the business just to have the cash to stay afloat, and the outlook of the pension has looked bleak. Now, they're selling off the only major part of their business that is growing, which makes the future of the company, which has 40,000 employees, look extremely dire. So the government entity contracted with us to provide third-party support to show that the company should be on the hook for funding the pension now with the cash from selling off its growth business, because if it doesn't do so now then these 40,000 people will never see their retirement unless the rest of us tax payers pay for it. But here's the problem: This agency knows based on conversations with upper management and based prior cases that if they take action, this company will launch a full-fledged attack on them. They'll contact their lobbyists and representatives in Washington, decrying 'heavy handed government intervention,' and they'll spin this to their employees that the reason things may get dark in the future is because the government stepped in and interrupted business (which is untrue - it's just a shitty business).

This agency is in an almost no-win scenario, even though they're trying to protect U.S. citizens whose employer made a promise to them. The employer is outright skirting its responsibility to its employees, instead electing to maximize shareholder wealth.

I'm on both sides of the concept of not trusting government. On the one hand, one of the main reasons Americans give more on average in charity and philanthropy than any other country is because we don't trust the government to get the job done for issues we care about. It's also one of the reasons why the power of the American press is greater than in nearly any other country. But having a natural inclination to not trust government can also cause us to screw ourselves, like in the example above. I wish people were more open-minded to the idea that the government isn't just made up of a bunch of snakes, and that the power of democracy does more good than bad, rather than apply one narrative of 'everything the government does is terrible and an invasion of our rights.'
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Phalanx
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Re: Election 2016

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StevensTechU wrote:
Yes! Now we're getting into productive conversation.

First for clarity- If the government brings in $4.3 trillion, and is spending $4.8 trillion, you're arguing that our nation's people are poorer? There's a reallocation taking place, but I struggle to see how that simple arithmetic means they're taking money out of the economy and stashing it away.

Now to debunk the 'We're paying more than ever!' argument.

I'm not sure if you did this intentionally or unintentionally, but you didn't mention receipts as a percentage of GDP which was on the table you linked to. If you're trying to argue that modern-day taxes are making us poorer than before, Receipts/GDP is a lot more accurate and informative than Receipts/Population. Receipts/GDP tells you what part of our income the government is collecting, which is means its the best basis for comparison as our economy grows and shrinks. So how much is the government getting as a percentage of the country's income? In 2010-2014, government receipts were 15.8% of GDP, down from 17.6% from 1969-1974 when Nixon was president. Conclusion: Obama's America was keeping more of its income than Nixon's America. We are not paying more than ever, and taxes aren't making us poorer. That's all perception.

If inflation arising from an increase in the money supply has tax-like effects, that means decreasing the money supply, which happens just as often as increasing it, would be like a negative tax. Net-net, it would make no difference. I'd like to go further into this, but I'm already running long and think that's a good place to start.
Yes, now we are getting somewhere. It turns out, you have quite a bit invested in viewing the government as a benevolent force. This is why I find these discussions a waste of time. People always argue toward their interests.

I brought up receipts for a superficial point about total tax revenue going ever up, even in terms of population. Introducing GDP is really beside that point and opens up a whole different argument about how that is calculated, what it has to do with the price of tea in China, etc. I realize citing government numbers plays to your view - they are crafted for just such a purpose. My argument, however is that our tax system, which is a combination of various creative forms of overt taxation as well as the regressive inflation tax, is making people in the middle poorer. If I am wrong, I would expect to see it in things like median net worth statistics and other measures of wealth, as well as home equity/ debt ratios over time, since homes are the largest asset class we have. Actual inflation would also be a consideration, but I would be looking at that in terms of gold, oil, land, or maybe health care, college, and housing rather than doctored CPI numbers that don't include any of those. I might even look at median incomes, since maybe people are making stupid investments that subtract from their net worth which isn't necessarily the government's fault.
So if you can make an argument in those terms, it would be a lot more effective than launching into GDP and other worthless measures that have little or nothing to do with how people on the ground are doing. We are, after all, talking about people voting and what their issues are, right?
The bottom line is that costs are rising on those things far faster than incomes for middle America, and people have noticed that their standard of living is dropping, particularly people in the rust belt where they changed their vote away from the globalist political/ media establishment toward a nationalist populist political outsider. In terms of their shrinking wealth, they are 'paying more than ever' and bringing up GDP does nothing to 'debunk' that. I just got a funny picture of Hillary standing up somewhere in Ohio and telling everything that it's okay that they lost the jobs her husband shipped overseas when he passed NAFTA because taxes over GDP is still constant. I'm sure that would have worked, if only she had said it louder.
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Re: Election 2016

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Phalanx wrote:
Yes, now we are getting somewhere. It turns out, you have quite a bit invested in viewing the government as a benevolent force. This is why I find these discussions a waste of time. People always argue toward their interests.
You basically just said gross domestic product doesn't matter because it doesn't feel like it matters. I'm not sure what the offer you to change the way you feel; I can only give you cold hard facts. Is that because I'm biased? Because this year 3 of the approximately 40 engagements I have had have come from a government agency, while the other ~37 were from boards of directors, CFOs, and high net worth individuals (edit: and commercial banks)? Take those 3 projects away, and both my paycheck and job security is the same. In that attempt to make it sound as if I was looking out for my own interests, you were better off playing the angle that I don't want to be the taxpayer who then has to foot the bill for all of these pensions that should've been paid by their employer. As far as my job goes, all it does is grant me insights into things that not everybody gets, to which you're welcome.

To address most of your second paragraph, you're taking the complex issue of a shrinking middle class and trying to trace it down to a single variable, which is the crux of why I don't think we agree on everything here. Does taxation make a difference? Yes. Is it the only thing that matters? Obviously not, because as I just showed, we're paying less of our income to taxes yet we have this trend. Energy and effort needs to be spent on other issues- maybe the fact that we're skipping the Mom and Pop shop for cheaper goods at a chain store is why it went out of business; maybe reducing the tax burden on corporate interests and the very wealthy (~37 of 40 of my clients this year) hasn't resulted in as many middle class jobs as we were told; maybe the skills our people have don't match up well with the jobs of today....

Since we're talking about quality of life, I should mention I have an issue with measuring the country's quality of life solely on private wealth. Private wealth matters about as far as the end of my driveway, after which the quality of my surroundings is much more affected by how we as a society use our collective resources. Are we spending on schools, on roads, on safety, on environmental protection, on ensuring everyone has a shot at the American dream? It's a balance between these things, which get paid for from our tax dollars, and my getting to keep every penny of my paycheck so I can get a bigger TV. If my 401(k) is underfunded but everyone in my family has their own cell phone, who have I to blame?
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Re: Election 2016

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StevensTechU wrote:
You basically just said gross domestic product doesn't matter because it doesn't feel like it matters. I'm not sure what the offer you to change the way you feel; I can only give you cold hard facts. Is that because I'm biased? Because this year 3 of the approximately 40 engagements I have had have come from a government agency, while the other ~37 were from boards of directors, CFOs, and high net worth individuals? Take those 3 projects away, and both my paycheck and job security is the same. In that attempt to make it sound as if I was looking out for my own interests, you were better off playing the angle that I don't want to be the taxpayer who then has to foot the bill for all of these pensions that should've been paid by their employer. As far as my job goes, all it does is grant me insights into things that not everybody gets, to which you're welcome.

To address most of your second paragraph, you're taking the complex issue of a shrinking middle class and trying to trace it down to a single variable, which is the crux of why I don't think we agree on everything here. Does taxation make a difference? Yes. Is it the only thing that matters? Obviously not, because as I just showed, we're paying less of our income to taxes yet we have this trend. Energy and effort needs to be spent on other issues- maybe the fact that we're skipping the Mom and Pop shop for cheaper goods at a chain store is why it went out of business; maybe reducing the tax burden on corporate interests and the very wealthy (~37 of 40 of my clients this year) hasn't resulted in as many middle class jobs as we were told; maybe the skills our people have don't match up well with the jobs of today....

Since we're talking about quality of life, I should mention I have an issue with measuring the country's quality of life solely on private wealth. Private wealth matters about as far as the end of my driveway, after which the quality of my surroundings is much more affected by how we as a society use our collective resources. Are we spending on schools, on roads, on safety, on environmental protection, on ensuring everyone has a shot at the American dream? It's a balance between these things, which get paid for from our tax dollars, and my getting to keep every penny of my paycheck so I can get a bigger TV. If my 401(k) is underfunded but everyone in my family has their own cell phone, who have I to blame?
I'll take that as the punt it was intended to be. maybe get back to me with those median net worth statistics in terms of real inflation. Or maybe the costs of the things I mentioned, college, housing, health care? You asked what people's problem was, and I answered it.
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Re: Election 2016

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Phalanx wrote: I'll take that as the punt it was intended to be. maybe get back to me with those median net worth statistics in terms of real inflation. Or maybe the costs of the things I mentioned, college, housing, health care? You asked what people's problem was, and I answered it.
Punt on what exactly? I believe I've answered everything except how to make you feel better. But I'll try-

It costs less to get to work and back than it did 4 years ago. Flights are as cheap as they've been in a decade. Taxes are down. Little Caesar's is still somehow $5 for a whole pizza. Housing prices are up in Portland -- the market is still very reasonable in Louisville.

Healthcare is up because we insist on brand name drugs and putting people on expensive life support when they're 90, and because we won't go to the 2nd best hospital in our area and instead drive farther to go to the one that just had a $300 million expansion of their campus which is getting paid for by our astronomical insurance premiums. College tuition is the same story - 30 years ago we lived in dorms that looked like army barracks, and now parents won't send their kids to a school unless they have plush studio apartments for freshmen. On top of that, Oregon is subsidizing it's athletic support programs with tuition dollars, and increasing costs so they have a bigger advertising budget to convince prospective students that it's better than Oregon State, who in turn is doing the exact same thing, all the while there's no change to the number of professors or their salaries. Simultaneously, Donald Trump is charging $10k for a sham real estate class - So blame the Fed and put in a gold standard? I don't see the connection.

We have a lot of places to grow as a country. Getting big-money interests out of government is no less than hugely important, but so is self-reflection and understanding what we as individuals are doing things that are also causing a problem.
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Re: Election 2016

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Duck07 wrote:Funny that all the people wanting to leave the U.S. want to go to Canda and not Mexico.

Not funny all the rioting going on and it's foundation of hatred for those they disagree with.

I expect every single one of the celebs to back out of their threats...many already have.

Such a shame, I feel like I wasted my vote. (j/k on the wasted vote part)
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Re: Election 2016

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fpsduck wrote:
Duck07 wrote:Funny that all the people wanting to leave the U.S. want to go to Canda and not Mexico.

Not funny all the rioting going on and it's foundation of hatred for those they disagree with.

I expect every single one of the celebs to back out of their threats...many already have.

Such a shame, I feel like I wasted my vote. (j/k on the wasted vote part)
Well you know Snoop Dogg wouldn't leave after CA legalized recreational marijuana.
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Re: Election 2016

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Duck07 wrote:Funny that all the people wanting to leave the U.S. want to go to Canda and not Mexico.

Not funny all the rioting going on and it's foundation of hatred for those they disagree with.
Why is it funny? Seems to make perfect sense to me, care to extrapolate on your thoughts?
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Re: Election 2016

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The protests are getting out of hand in Portland. Where is Obama to call this out and tell people to stop? The governor of Portland just needs to send the military out there to put a stop to this, why let businesses have their windows be smashed, innocent citizens get assaulted, and people be unable to drive home from the Blazers game? This needs to stop now but our government is doing absolutely nothing.


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Re: Election 2016

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I'm all for peaceful protests. Hell I did it waaaaaaay back when I was young and knew everything. But this bunch of professional anarchists are just out to riot and be subversive to our way of society. In the aftermath of this kind of BS we hear "oh, we'll have to look at video from cameras in the area and TRY to bring charges. I've got a better idea. The next time it turns into a riot, surround the area with national guard and police and arrest the whole damn bunch of a$$holes. Then charge them with the toughest offenses you can. Let the whole damn bunch of them spend some "quality time" incarcerated. Think it would help stop this $hit? This crap makes we embarrassed to tell anyone I'm a native Oregonian...
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