How's this working for you Libs?




Obamacare is tossing another out of control medical plan on top of the other 2 we already have.

2 billion dollars = If I made $200,000 a year, I'd have to work for 10,000 years.

Another analysis of Obama's spending you won't see on CNN. Good find, Sum

Here's what I see happening, and have for some time.

Over the next few months, the economy will come back enough that the democrats can claim success for the "stimulus" (the vast majority of which, of course, hasn't kicked in yet). They will then claim that this "success" gives them a "mandate" to enact the rest of Obama's agenda. They'll pass health care "reform" and cap-and-trade (which I actually don't think is a bad idea if it's offset by stimulative tax relief elsewhere, but their version won't be). Neither health care "reform" nor "cap-and-trade" will be designed to kick in until after the 2012 election, so that Obama can run for re-election on the same pie-in-the-sky promises that won for him in 2008, without having to account for the real impacts.

That is the plan, and they have a decent shot at pulling it off, particularly if the republicans don't pull their heads out of their @$$e$. The republicans need to quit acting like this is a personal vendetta with Obama, drop all that rhetoric, and replace it by being very specific about the problems with these proposals, and by offering specific plans of their own to address the problems.

What happens if the democrats pull this off?

As soon as the ink's dry on these new laws (if not long before) every business in the US is going to start evaluating the impacts on themselves. If the Obamacrats stick with their plans to pay for all this by taxing corporations and "the rich," it will quickly become obvious to anybody doing business internationally that the cost of taxes, plus regulatory compliance, plus higher costs for labor and overhead, provide hurdles that put them at a significant disadvantage versus their competitors in foreign countries (including not just undeveloped countries but also the EU and places like the BRICs and the Asian Tigers). The US will simply have become a very unfriendly place to do business.

If physical proximity to the US customer base is critical to your business, you'll stay put. Your neighborhood Starbuck's won't be moving to Brasil. Otherwise you'll be faced with the need to move at least your corporate headquarters in order to remain competitive (the US maverick policy of worldwide taxation, particularly if some of Rangel's proposals get into law, is particularly prohibitive here). So the exodus will begin.

The Obamacrats will react, predictably, by legislating all sorts of penalties for moving. These penalties will be sufficient to deter some (particularly companies already in trouble, who don't have the cash to absorb the penalties). Of the Fortune 500, I'm guessing maybe 100 are so wedded to the domestic market that they don't move, and another 100 will be deterred by the penalties. The other 300 or so will determine (correctly) that their survival depends on getting out, and will suck it up and pay the penalties and be gone. I would expect a similar pattern with small and medium-sized companies. So you're left with retail and service companies, and those who are already in too much financial trouble to be able to fade the heat on moving. Lovely base for an economy. The primary impact of the penalties will be to ensure that, once they're gone they're never coming back, and nobody is going to move here to replace them.

How many jobs will go with these moves? Will they just be paper moves, or will the executive suites and lots of jobs go with them? If the taxes on "the rich" go to expected levels, there will be great incentive for the execs to go too. This will be tempered a bit for American citizens, who will continue to be taxed on worldwide income, but I'm guessing a lot of them would look for places where they can change passports fairly quickly (3-5 years). These guys tend to be patriotic, and I'm also guessing a number of them would keep their US citizenship even at some net tax cost. What will be a decision-maker is health care. If Obamacare ultimately does not allow a reasonable opt-out, so that they don't have the chance to keep the level of health care they enjoy now (and the house version doesn't) those guys and their families will be long gone.

Where will they go? Almost anywhere will be better than the US for them, so it really won't matter. How many jobs will this cost? Only a few million. A lot of R&D will stay so long as the current favorable tax treatment remains. Obama will protect the jobs of his liberal academic intelligentsia friends. The executive suite and the blue-collar manufacturing jobs will be gone. Ross Perot's website says we have lost 1.9 million manufacturing jobs in this downturn. I would expect those to be permanent, and probably that many more, plus the multiplier effect on those jobs. Unemployment regularly runs in the 15% range in western Europe. I expect that to be our floor. This is where I get my 20-50 million unemployed estimate. But unemployed people vote democrat, right; no problem for the Obamacrats.

Now comes the real problem. The stimulus spending starts, Raise taxes to pay for it, right. But on whom? You've just taxed the corporations and "the rich" out of the country. You don't have anyone left to tax. So, you print money. Hello, hyperinflation, 20% to 50% or more per year. China and Japan and the Emirates get PO'd because they've loaned you all this money and now you're devaluing the currency you're paying them back with. They can dump your debt (which craters the dollar) or stop lending (which craters what little is left of your country).

How do we fight back? Well, we still have the strongest military in the world. Why don't we just nuke them?

Timing is always the hard part. I'm guessing the unemployment will hit in 2011, the hyperinflation in 2013. If Obama gets a second term, and given the fawning media and the tendency of unemployed people to vote for democrats it's not unlikely, then I'm guessing he'll hand off the nuke or don't nuke decision to his successor.

I don't think this is the only possible outcome, but I think this is well within play as a likely outcome. Some of you may think my assumptions are pessimistic. I would point out that I've assumed no international crisis, no problems with Iran or North Korea or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, and that is probably unreasonably optimistic.

If you see it unfolding differently, lay it out.

(07-26-2009 11:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Here's what I see happening, and have for some time.

Over the next few months, the economy will come back enough that the democrats can claim success for the "stimulus" (the vast majority of which, of course, hasn't kicked in yet). They will then claim that this "success" gives them a "mandate" to enact the rest of Obama's agenda. They'll pass health care "reform" and cap-and-trade (which I actually don't think is a bad idea if it's offset by stimulative tax relief elsewhere, but their version won't be). Neither health care "reform" nor "cap-and-trade" will be designed to kick in until after the 2012 election, so that Obama can run for re-election on the same pie-in-the-sky promises that won for him in 2008, without having to account for the real impacts.

That is the plan, and they have a decent shot at pulling it off, particularly if the republicans don't pull their heads out of their @$$e$. The republicans need to quit acting like this is a personal vendetta with Obama, drop all that rhetoric, and replace it by being very specific about the problems with these proposals, and by offering specific plans of their own to address the problems.

What happens if the democrats pull this off?

As soon as the ink's dry on these new laws (if not long before) every business in the US is going to start evaluating the impacts on themselves. If the Obamacrats stick with their plans to pay for all this by taxing corporations and "the rich," it will quickly become obvious to anybody doing business internationally that the cost of taxes, plus regulatory compliance, plus higher costs for labor and overhead, provide hurdles that put them at a significant disadvantage versus their competitors in foreign countries (including not just undeveloped countries but also the EU and places like the BRICs and the Asian Tigers). The US will simply have become a very unfriendly place to do business.

If physical proximity to the US customer base is critical to your business, you'll stay put. Your neighborhood Starbuck's won't be moving to Brasil. Otherwise you'll be faced with the need to move at least your corporate headquarters in order to remain competitive (the US maverick policy of worldwide taxation, particularly if some of Rangel's proposals get into law, is particularly prohibitive here). So the exodus will begin.

The Obamacrats will react, predictably, by legislating all sorts of penalties for moving. These penalties will be sufficient to deter some (particularly companies already in trouble, who don't have the cash to absorb the penalties). Of the Fortune 500, I'm guessing maybe 100 are so wedded to the domestic market that they don't move, and another 100 will be deterred by the penalties. The other 300 or so will determine (correctly) that their survival depends on getting out, and will suck it up and pay the penalties and be gone. I would expect a similar pattern with small and medium-sized companies. So you're left with retail and service companies, and those who are already in too much financial trouble to be able to fade the heat on moving. Lovely base for an economy. The primary impact of the penalties will be to ensure that, once they're gone they're never coming back, and nobody is going to move here to replace them.

How many jobs will go with these moves? Will they just be paper moves, or will the executive suites and lots of jobs go with them? If the taxes on "the rich" go to expected levels, there will be great incentive for the execs to go too. This will be tempered a bit for American citizens, who will continue to be taxed on worldwide income, but I'm guessing a lot of them would look for places where they can change passports fairly quickly (3-5 years). These guys tend to be patriotic, and I'm also guessing a number of them would keep their US citizenship even at some net tax cost. What will be a decision-maker is health care. If Obamacare ultimately does not allow a reasonable opt-out, so that they don't have the chance to keep the level of health care they enjoy now (and the house version doesn't) those guys and their families will be long gone.

Where will they go? Almost anywhere will be better than the US for them, so it really won't matter. How many jobs will this cost? Only a few million. A lot of R&D will stay so long as the current favorable tax treatment remains. Obama will protect the jobs of his liberal academic intelligentsia friends. The executive suite and the blue-collar manufacturing jobs will be gone. Ross Perot's website says we have lost 1.9 million manufacturing jobs in this downturn. I would expect those to be permanent, and probably that many more, plus the multiplier effect on those jobs. Unemployment regularly runs in the 15% range in western Europe. I expect that to be our floor. This is where I get my 20-50 million unemployed estimate. But unemployed people vote democrat, right; no problem for the Obamacrats.

Now comes the real problem. The stimulus spending starts, Raise taxes to pay for it, right. But on whom? You've just taxed the corporations and "the rich" out of the country. You don't have anyone left to tax. So, you print money. Hello, hyperinflation, 20% to 50% or more per year. China and Japan and the Emirates get PO'd because they've loaned you all this money and now you're devaluing the currency you're paying them back with. They can dump your debt (which craters the dollar) or stop lending (which craters what little is left of your country).

How do we fight back? Well, we still have the strongest military in the world. Why don't we just nuke them?

Timing is always the hard part. I'm guessing the unemployment will hit in 2011, the hyperinflation in 2013. If Obama gets a second term, and given the fawning media and the tendency of unemployed people to vote for democrats it's not unlikely, then I'm guessing he'll hand off the nuke or don't nuke decision to his successor.

I don't think this is the only possible outcome, but I think this is well within play as a likely outcome. Some of you may think my assumptions are pessimistic. I would point out that I've assumed no international crisis, no problems with Iran or North Korea or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, and that is probably unreasonably optimistic.

If you see it unfolding differently, lay it out.

Wow. I like the way you are using the scare tactics of the right. "Oh my god! All the companies are going to move out!".

(07-26-2009 11:41 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Wow. I like the way you are using the scare tactics of the right. "Oh my god! All the companies are going to move out!".

Should we assume that your failure to provide substantive commentary means that you have nothing worthwhile to say?

(07-27-2009 12:24 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-26-2009 11:41 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Wow. I like the way you are using the scare tactics of the right. "Oh my god! All the companies are going to move out!".

Should we assume that your failure to provide substantive commentary means that you have nothing worthwhile to say?

Hey, I am not going to spend the time to write up some BS that is just a guess with a tiny amount of history.

(07-26-2009 11:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Over the next few months, the economy will come back enough that the democrats can claim success

I'm all ears, what will trigger this? Another Muzzie attack? War?

(07-27-2009 01:02 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  

(07-26-2009 11:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Over the next few months, the economy will come back enough that the democrats can claim success

I'm all ears, what will trigger this? Another Muzzie attack? War?

Nothing, really. I don't think it will really come back. But that won't stop them from claiming success. They already are.

(07-27-2009 01:06 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-27-2009 01:02 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  

(07-26-2009 11:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Over the next few months, the economy will come back enough that the democrats can claim success

I'm all ears, what will trigger this? Another Muzzie attack? War?

Nothing, really. I don't think it will really come back. But that won't stop them from claiming success. They already are.

There will likely be a short term recovery due to companies running very lean and running extremely low inventories. At some period inventories will likely be increased, giving the manufacturing sector a boost. It won't last though IMO.

(07-27-2009 12:31 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-27-2009 12:24 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-26-2009 11:41 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Wow. I like the way you are using the scare tactics of the right. "Oh my god! All the companies are going to move out!".

Should we assume that your failure to provide substantive commentary means that you have nothing worthwhile to say?

Hey, I am not going to spend the time to write up some BS that is just a guess with a tiny amount of history.

You're not going to spend time on it because you are a moron who could never debate Owl on any issue without getting destroyed.