Author Topic: Tax Cut Predictions?  (Read 6050 times)

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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #30 on: February 14, 2018, 11:29:33 pm »
I don't know how much this is tied to the tax cuts, but...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/14/us-consumer-price-index-jan-2018.html

The US economy might just be about to come crashing down.

CPI inflation in January was 0.5%. That doesn't sound like much... but if the same rate is sustained over the whole year that would be inflation of about 6.05%. Then, prices go up, demand goes down, jobs are lost...

And Trump alternates between putting his head in the sand and melting down on Twitter.
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Offline Id82

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #31 on: February 15, 2018, 01:05:56 am »
Now are they going to pull a Reagan and raise taxes or let the economy come crumbling down?
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Offline dpareja

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #32 on: February 15, 2018, 01:10:33 am »
Now are they going to pull a Reagan and raise taxes or let the economy come crumbling down?

It's not just taxes. It's also the massive deregulation (which has been going on since Clinton with the repeal of Glass-Steagall).
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Offline Dappler

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #33 on: February 15, 2018, 03:56:57 am »
CPI inflation in January was 0.5%. That doesn't sound like much... but if the same rate is sustained over the whole year that would be inflation of about 6.05%. Then, prices go up, demand goes down, jobs are lost...
Trump would have a Trumpgasm if inflation hit 6%. He's be sad it wasn't 10% because China had 7%, but all of that is why he's a fucking moron. As the article mentioned, the bump put annual inflation up to 2.1%, and that (paraphrasing) this is in the Goldilocks zone for economists, which means a decade of artificial stimuli might be about to unwind. [And that anything noticeably above 2% might force the Fed to fight inflation, and if Trump fights that, he's dumber than dumb.]

January data is too soon to be due to the taxes (and is a preliminary estimate only). Inflationary pressures tend to take a little while to trickle through the economy.

(And despite what Republicans wish, and despite that smattering of cash bonuses, that will not boost inflation or GDP, and will end up sucking money out the economy in the short term* with worse effects over the medium to long term)

*this one is debatable, because there is an increase in government spending earmarked over this period, and some of the money corporations save might trickle out to the economy through dividends, etc., but against this is the fact that irrationally bullish consumer confidence may pull back a bit and the U.S. is an economy which is massively driven by consumer spending, so if this dials back... (Not to mention it covers the discretionary spend. Do I feel optimistic? Will I upgrade my car, or hang on to my current model for another bit, etc.? (Ignoring all the other decisions and the science of separating people from their money, and that this is exponentially harder if people are unhappy with their current position or are afraid of their situation worsening.)

Offline rookie

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #34 on: February 15, 2018, 11:14:17 pm »
 Not a prediction, but I've noticed our taxes came down $20/ month while health insurance went up $50/mo with the copay going up to $30 per sick visit, wellness is still $20.
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Offline dpareja

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #35 on: February 15, 2018, 11:40:23 pm »
Not a prediction, but I've noticed our taxes came down $20/ month while health insurance went up $50/mo with the copay going up to $30 per sick visit, wellness is still $20.

So between your public and private taxes (which is, let's face it, what health insurance premiums are), your tax bill went up, what, $30/mo with a reduction in health coverage?
Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline rookie

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #36 on: February 16, 2018, 12:05:40 am »
Federal, yes. But then we still have state and local taxes. Plus new taxes on stuff. Plus water doubled.

We've always had gov't health care. One upon a time it was very good. Sure, it was expensive but for what it covered (and if you remember how many dependents we covered) it was really really good. Then some GOP congressman (I don't remember woo) threw out a bill to put all gov't employees on the exchange. We'll ignore for now that ACA was supposed too be for those without insurance. Anyways, our premiums tripled. But the copays went down to $20 for a wellness visit (checkup) as well as sick visits. So while $30 isn't a lot of money at all, especially if you're at the doc's bee cause you have to be. But a 50% jump is still 50%.

Oh. While I'm on the subject, hospitals have a new(ish) trick I've seen since ACA. Once upon a time, you went to the hospital and got A bill. It might have been several hundred thousand because you were there 6 months. But it was one bill. Now, every doctor that comes to see you charges. For the last baby, there was a bill for; general admission, labor and delivery, aneste..anastes.. guy who knocks you out safely, NICU, and maternity. There's $20 a piece. Plus 10% of the bill. Plus parking (seriously). And my personal pet peeve. $45 for less than basic cable. The nurse comes in, turns on the tv and shows you how it works. Boom, $45. But I turned it off as soon as she left and it hasn't been on since. We're showing it was turned on during your stay, $45 for cable. I know I know. But that's the chicken shit stuff that really gets to me.

ETA: No, health insurance became a tax when it became a fine not to have it.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2018, 12:07:43 am by rookie »
The difference between 0 and 1 is infinite. The difference between 1 and a million is a matter of degree. - Zack Johnson

Quote from: davedan board=pg thread=6573 post=218058 time=1286247542
I'll stop eating beef lamb and pork the same day they start letting me eat vegetarians.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #37 on: February 16, 2018, 12:16:35 am »
ETA: No, health insurance became a tax when it became a fine not to have it.

I would say that health insurance premiums are the price you pay for not going broke (in theory) just to stay alive. That's a tax by another name to me.
Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline Dappler

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #38 on: February 17, 2018, 08:05:01 pm »
Still don't have time to dig into this. Will probably also forgot 90% of the stuff that's been buzzing around my head that I didn't have the time to put down earlier, but let's start with Trump and inflation.

Despite his serial bankruptcies, paternal nepotism and welfare, Trump doubtless probably believes he's a great businessman even though all his truly successful ventures were someone else's pitch and someone else did all the work, whether it's his books, his brand licencing, his TV shows, etc. All of that was someone else. Trump didn't even like most of the ideas when he first heard them.

But his actual bricks and mortar relics - well if a property was worth 10M, he'd try and buy it for 3-4, with dirty tricks to boot if he could. He'd then swear to the tax people it was only worth 1, while telling everyone else it was worth 30-40. (Ignoring all his dubious subcontracting and hiring 'practices'.

And so in an inflationary market, while real estate tends to outstrip inflation in most markets, a 10M building would have to be worth 26.5M, 20 years later to keep pace with annual inflation of 5%. Trump would be the last person ever to think in real terms for anything, let alone economics, so inflation doesn't devalue things, it makes him look successful (in his own eyes).

And so when you look at the giants of economics of the 20thC, Keynes and his countercyclical management did win the sensible battles despite being terribly out of fashion by those that wanted to wish otherwise, but his main counterschool came from Hayek, and Hayek was actually motivated by his experiences in Austria post WWI, where the Central Powers countries were crippled by reparations and the status quo with all of its inequality was routed by hyperinflation, and all the old money and family fortunes vanished in a twinkling. Hayek blamed governance. But the spectre was actually inflation. And so you have Western macroeconomic interventory monetary policy for a very long time focusing on ensuring inflation stayed at manageable levels, and then you had Japan's largely demographically initiated lost decade, and then decades later the GFC, and the countries that had aimed to indirectly reduce inflation to 2% to maintain a healthy economy, suddenly thought a healthy economy meant they should indirectly try to raise inflation to 2%. And so here we are now, with markets flirting with 2%, a change in Fed chair, and the softly, softly, let's not spook the markets woman has gone. (Not to mention the Fed gets oversight for some of the financial measures the lobbyists want Trump to repeal) The first time Yellen wasn't doing a 'I don't understand why this isn't showing up yet', or her other phrases to calm things down and this happened. And Trump wants to pour rocket fuel on it.

Fucking moron. He probably still can't understand while certain 'good fundamentals' are bad for equity bubbles.

(too tired to write anything that makes sense, or to check I'm not full of shit)

Offline Dappler

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #39 on: February 17, 2018, 09:13:00 pm »
Which also connects to the deficit.

There was that debunked paper which doctored figures which claimed that once government debt reached 90% of GDP, things were just going to spiral out of control. They fudged the numbers to strengthen their case, but they do have half a point in the fact that a very large debt burden does actually become a thing!

The Trump 'budget' is insane. (And mean, and cruel, and illogical) And so the debt ceiling is an issue, and the annual deficit is an issue, and financing all that is an issue. You have Keynesian doctrine that dictates you save in the good times and spend in the bad times. You run deficits if you have to stimulate the economy, but if the economy is doing OK, run a surplus, pay down your overall debt and future proof your economy and invest in sensible forward looking programmes where the private sector is not looking to invest. Trump loves Norway's and Saudi Arabia's sovereign funds. Saudi Arabia's nearly evaporated when the oil price plummeted and they refused to increase their practically non existent taxes or decrease spending. Norway's however is doing fine, mainly because no one's talking about insane tax cuts (and they pay a lot) and hacking into it. Point being, Obama ran some horrendous deficits, but he had to. The bailouts were necessary. The economy was struggling and severely depressed, etc. People needed help, etc. Raising taxes would've made things worse (depending on how the money would've been spent, but it's a case of economy vs deficit, taxes are assumed to pay down the deficit, and extra spending vs a bigger deficit still is a debate independent of taxes.) Trump is potentially going to run a $1.2T USD deficit this year for NO REASON apart from making the filthy rich even richer, in a country that is now ranked #2 in the world for tax evasion, ignoring unethical avoidance. That is an insane number.

That puts government debt at > 100% of GDP in the near future. It puts servicing the debt at a higher cost than the entire US military within a decade, even assuming current incredibly cheap levels of repayments. (Something that will change if Trump has his way.) And so what does that mean exactly? That means US tax payers will be forking out many hundreds of billions of dollars every year just for the interest payments on the debt, let alone issuing new stuff. And who own the debt? Foreign countries. Corporations. Rich fuckers. Off shore tax havens. (Some retirees). The middle class will be working themselves to the bone so rent seekers can divest some of the risk in their portfolios and off shore hidden accounts can offer attractive annual rates of interest on deposits, without even looking at the beneficial programmes that money could have been spent on. The US is also about to hit the problem Japan had in the 90's in terms of demographics and retirees. Japan's problem was they all had super and payments in became payments out and equities took a huge hit, and there was a ton of bad debt and it had followed a decade of financial exuberance and success. The Nikkei 225 went up 700% between 1980 and 1990. It was about 15,000 for most of the 90's (down from nearly 40,000). It's going to add massive problems on the US deficit in terms of spending pressures, and also on assets if they do not keep their 401K's invested and cash them out.

All governments like cutting taxes, and like spending dollars. The Republicans are the government's that massively blow out the deficits for no reason though, even though Hayek would've hated that (and Keynes for different reasons, but they don't like Keynes). The US didn't have  noticeable deficit problems until Reagan, and now, thanks to Bush, and the GFC, inability to pass proper non-profit gouging healthcare legislation, and Trump, it's about to hit insanely scary, horrific to maintain, super uncontrollable levels, which will be too painful to ever think about dialing in. Small surpluses would have no impact, and if you need to find more than a trillion dollars in revenue every year, just to simply balance the budget, it's a world of pain to inflict, to not even put a dent in the problem.

So yeah, insane numbers. Child's play compared to what's coming by 2025. Particularly if the economy starts to retract.

It's a budget for kleptocrats by kleptocrats, with a bunch of malicious idealism thrown in for good measure.

Offline rookie

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #40 on: February 17, 2018, 11:01:18 pm »
Is anyone surprised by this? Everything he has done has been too profit personally. He's been trying for how long to put up a hotel in the city with the highest per capita of millionaires. He's trying to get one in Beijing as well, but with a different tract (bluster then befriend). The old saying goes follow the money. The man, and his cronies in office, aren't worried about a damn thing other than what they can personally get out of it.
The difference between 0 and 1 is infinite. The difference between 1 and a million is a matter of degree. - Zack Johnson

Quote from: davedan board=pg thread=6573 post=218058 time=1286247542
I'll stop eating beef lamb and pork the same day they start letting me eat vegetarians.

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #41 on: February 17, 2018, 11:38:45 pm »
So...Rapture?
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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Tax Cut Predictions?
« Reply #42 on: February 18, 2018, 12:29:57 am »
So...Rapture?

I wouldn't be surprised. While it probably wouldn't have the ideological underpinning of Ryan's utopia, I could see Prima Donald building a real-world Rapture. Or at least trying to.

Though I have to wonder who his Fontaine would be...
« Last Edit: February 18, 2018, 12:31:43 am by Lana Reverse »
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