(02-23-2012 01:24 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Regardless of what it is. I think we can all agree that the Republican house would never pass it, much less ever bring it up for a vote.

Neither party should want to pass this. It's another political game being played by Obama to arm him with more ammunition for the dimwitocrats so they feel better about pulling the lever for an abject failure in November.

I always find these sorts of studies hard to believe... Especially when you consider places like The Vanderbilt mansion in north Carolina, built by people living mostly in tents and eating what they foraged and hunted. I'd say that income gap was about as wide as anything we see today. What has changed is how we define wealth and income. Someone with $1mm in overhead and equipment and 200k in income is wealthy... Someone who gets $30,000 in public support (that costs taxpayers 60k) "makes" nothing

(02-23-2012 01:00 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  Right on cue for this discussion, the Obama administration appears to want to double down on stupid. The Obama/Geithner corporate tax overhaul plan was released.

James Pethokoukis reacts to the plan.

Quote:So instead of a carrot, Corporate America gets the stick. Instead of lowering the U.S. rate to a competitive level, Obama would raise the penalty on keeping profits overseas. Indeed, the United States is a huge outlier in that it taxes the foreign profits of multinational companies. Here is Obama’s own Jobs Council:

While most other developed nations have adopted territorial systems that exempt most or all foreign income from taxes when they are repatriated, the U.S. subjects all worldwide earnings to the corporate income tax when they are brought home to the U.S. This approach actually encourages U.S. companies to keep their earnings abroad rather than investing them here at home. Adopting a territorial tax system would bring us in line with our trading partners and would eliminate the so-called “lock-out” effect in the current worldwide system of taxation that discourages repatriation and investment of the foreign earnings of American companies in the U.S.

Obama's debt commission made a similar recommendation, which was also ignored.

http://blog.american.com/2012/02/geithne...hike-plan/

I'd say that this speaks to your final paragraph, Owl. This plan sounds so dumb that I have to wonder if it isn't another trap that was never intended to be passed. How, I'm not sure yet.

Obama isn't "raising" the penalty on keeping profits overseas---there is no penalty. The system we currently have of taxing only when the overseas profits are repatriated (if ever) is a terrible idea. It's a loophole designed to make them more competitive overseas against companies in territorial tax systems, but it doesn't do a lot of good if the money never comes back. You might as well remove that incentive so the company can invest here at home instead of abroad. The other more conservative (but still better than what we have) route is just to go to a territorial system so they're never taxed on the overseas profits at all, but I don't think Americans are in the mood for giving corporations tax breaks and make up for it by slashing Medicare or whatnot.

(02-23-2012 02:47 PM)Max Power Wrote:  

(02-23-2012 01:00 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  Right on cue for this discussion, the Obama administration appears to want to double down on stupid. The Obama/Geithner corporate tax overhaul plan was released.

James Pethokoukis reacts to the plan.

Quote:So instead of a carrot, Corporate America gets the stick. Instead of lowering the U.S. rate to a competitive level, Obama would raise the penalty on keeping profits overseas. Indeed, the United States is a huge outlier in that it taxes the foreign profits of multinational companies. Here is Obama’s own Jobs Council:

While most other developed nations have adopted territorial systems that exempt most or all foreign income from taxes when they are repatriated, the U.S. subjects all worldwide earnings to the corporate income tax when they are brought home to the U.S. This approach actually encourages U.S. companies to keep their earnings abroad rather than investing them here at home. Adopting a territorial tax system would bring us in line with our trading partners and would eliminate the so-called “lock-out” effect in the current worldwide system of taxation that discourages repatriation and investment of the foreign earnings of American companies in the U.S.

Obama's debt commission made a similar recommendation, which was also ignored.

http://blog.american.com/2012/02/geithne...hike-plan/

I'd say that this speaks to your final paragraph, Owl. This plan sounds so dumb that I have to wonder if it isn't another trap that was never intended to be passed. How, I'm not sure yet.

Obama isn't "raising" the penalty on keeping profits overseas---there is no penalty. The system we currently have of taxing only when the overseas profits are repatriated (if ever) is a terrible idea. It's a loophole designed to make them more competitive overseas against companies in territorial tax systems, but it doesn't do a lot of good if the money never comes back. You might as well remove that incentive so the company can invest here at home instead of abroad. The other more conservative (but still better than what we have) route is just to go to a territorial system so they're never taxed on the overseas profits at all, but I don't think Americans are in the mood for giving corporations tax breaks and make up for it by slashing Medicare or whatnot.

Yet your hero the big O proposes to do exactly the opposite of what you advocate. This proposal includes a "global minimum tax" that will be yet another disincentive to repatriate earnings from abroad. Skipped right over that part, didn't you Max. That is why I said "doubling down on stupid."

Pethokoukis:

Quote:Bottom line: Real pro-growth corporate tax policy would eliminate tax breaks, dramatically lower tax rates, and only tax profits earned at home. The Obama plan would actually make the corporate tax code and the U.S. economy less competitive and less productive. But the proposal does neatly fit into the president’s Occupy-inspired campaign theme that wealthy Americans and greedy corporations are to blame for the Great Recession and rising income inequality.

The real knee slapper is that the reduction in tax rates would be paid for by................wait for it.......... "greater fiscal responsibility."



Sure, if you say so.

Here's another view, this time with the bias from the other side.

Quote:The framework recommends a minimum tax on foreign earnings, but the administration has yet to decide what the rate would be. Business interests have expressed concern that the minimum tax would put their overseas operations at a disadvantage.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73152.html

From the first sentence this entire thread is flawed. It assumes that the policies that you agree with will help the poor and that your way is the only way.

(02-22-2012 08:15 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  Ah, so you're arguing about the fact that there is growing lack of jobs. Could that be because the society as constructed is highly effcient? I hope you're not saying that we should impliment a jobs program or start digging trenches with shovels instead of backhoes to raise employment. The truth of the matter is that as technology progresses we are going rapidly approaching a post-scarcity society, where the cost of manufacturing effectively goes to zero for 90% of goods and services. That's why corporations went global, because the margins are so thin for things like food and clothing that employing economy of scale is the only way to turn a profit. Thus, the employment of low wage workers simply a pit-stop along the road toward full automazition.

The problem of course is how do you make the transition. To date, food production, despite all of the modern tools employed remains very labor intensive. So to does medicine as well as waste removal. How do you convince 10% of any society to pursue these endeavors while the other 90% sits on their collective duffs? People far more intelligent than me have given this considerable though and remain thoroughly stumped.

Well, I was arguing (or the original author was arguing) about the negative effects of growing inequality, such as shrinking of the job market and lower wages for those jobs.

I'm saying economic globalization has been devastating for the 99% and if nothing is done about it the inequality will reach a breaking point. Corporations went global because they could thanks to free trade agreements, and to keep up with each other they had to cut margins to the bone and exploit workers. That makes it impossible to for anyone but a megacorporation to compete and to compete with each other and squeeze profits those megacorps press down wages and slash jobs. Eventually you're going to have the vast majority of wealth concentrated in the hands of the owners of these machine operated corporations who hold more power than governments, and a massive underclass with massive unemployment.

There will always be scarcity for some goods and services. As the first article you listed pointed out corporations will create artificial scarcity if we ever get close to achieving true non scarcity, because they own the means of production. I think socialism is probably inevitable in the long run but the speed at which we're seeing inequality grow and global corporations merge and achieve new efficiency we're getting there much faster. What's ironic is how the greed of the people at the top will ultimately be their undoing, and they can't see it.

Quote:The Columbia prof didn't mention that the upper 1 percent accounts for 37 percent of all federal taxes paid. It doesn't necessarily render his points useless, but it's a little key fact that often gets "forgotten."

And in spite of that the wealth gap continues to grow rapidly.

Quote:And he falls into the trap of internationl comparisons, such as those to the Middle East states. It's particularly telling that he uses "air-conditioning" to emphasize the luxury of which their 1 percenters live. Using countries overseas as benchmarks has and always will be questionable, as the definition of poverty is subjective and oftentimes agenda-driven. We've seen the material ownership percentage tables - of computers, cell phones, video game consoles, cars, etc. - of those considered below the US poverty line, not to mention the percentages have increased given that products once unattainably expensive have become more affordable due to free market competition.

The definition of poverty is relative with each country, sure. An American poor person isn't going to compare his plight to a poor person in Somalia, or a poor person from the Dark Ages. They compare themselves to the rich people they see around town. If you're making less and working the same amount and the rich guy is making more hand over fist and paying a lower tax rate than you you probably don't care if the price of computers is falling.

Quote:Further, while a narrower gap in income may look nice on the surface, where has it narrowed? Has the poor stayed relatively poor, and everyone above them gotten poorer, thus closing that dreaded "gap"? I contend that deep down, leftists are primarily concerned with getting everyone 'more equal', even if that 'more equal' means equally poorer. i.e., 9 families living in mud shacks is far better than 3 living in mud shacks, 3 living in middle class houses and 3 living in rich mansions. It's why Cuba's model is viewed so glowingly.

If the gap is due to unfairness, I want it to be more equal, yes. It's possible to have a gap and be fair though. I and I don't think many leftists want to guarantee equality of outcome.

Quote:But I still wait to see the inverse correlation between government welfare benefits and poverty, where as the former increases, the latter decreases. Had that been the case, Eastern Europe would've been the prosperous and thriving half of the continent from 1944-1991, not Western Europe. Shanghai and Havana would be free of slums and shanties. And more locally, Detroit would be the shining star of the country.

Well the goal of welfare is not only to reduce poverty but also to keep the poor alive and meet their needs. But studies show it does reduce poverty. See the chart in this Wikipedia article about poverty rates before and after welfare is implemented in the 20th century. Poverty fell in all cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s...on_poverty

And see these charts. The top one shows welfare spending per recipient (rising since the Great Society and peaking around 1980), and the bottom shows the poverty rate (falling since the Great Society and begins rising around 1980). Now with the cutback of welfare spending to pre Great Society levels poverty is fast approaching.

(02-23-2012 03:16 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  Yet your hero the big O proposes to do exactly the opposite of what you advocate. This proposal includes a "global minimum tax" that will be yet another disincentive to repatriate earnings from abroad. Skipped right over that part, didn't you Max. That is why I said "doubling down on stupid."

No he's doing exactly what I advocated. Maybe you missed that part where I said "the other more conservative (but still better than what we have) route" before mentioning that we could go to a territorial system. A global minimum tax eliminates the perverse disincentive currently in place to repatriate foreign earnings. I endorse this wholeheartedly.

(02-23-2012 05:25 PM)Max Power Wrote:  

(02-23-2012 03:16 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  Yet your hero the big O proposes to do exactly the opposite of what you advocate. This proposal includes a "global minimum tax" that will be yet another disincentive to repatriate earnings from abroad. Skipped right over that part, didn't you Max. That is why I said "doubling down on stupid."

No he's doing exactly what I advocated. Maybe you missed that part where I said "the other more conservative (but still better than what we have) route" before mentioning that we could go to a territorial system. A global minimum tax eliminates the perverse disincentive currently in place to repatriate foreign earnings. I endorse this wholeheartedly.

The global minimum tax will actually create a huge disincentive for a multinational corporation to have any contact with the US. As a good friend of mine (who may be even further left than you) has said, it will force US companies to decide between doing business here or doing business overseas, but not both. My guess is that, faced with such a choice, many of not most will detach totally from the US and move overseas. If someone can explain how that's good for the economy, I'd like to hear it.

If I were CEO of a US-based multinational, I'd have my best people working on a plan to get us out of the US in a hurry if this even looks like passing. I can't believe Obama's economic advisers haven't thought this through to realize that it would put US companies at such a huge competitive disadvantage as to require them to leave or face ruin.

Quote:An American poor person isn't going to compare his plight to a poor person in Somalia, or a poor person from the Dark Ages. They compare themselves to the rich people they see around town. If you're making less and working the same amount and the rich guy is making more hand over fist and paying a lower tax rate than you you probably don't care if the price of computers is falling.

There are reasons some people 'working the same amount' make more money. More schooling, more value to their employer, more demand for his skills, etc.

And defining "so-and-so works harder" is fuzzy, at best.

Is it time spent working? -- A surgeon walks into a hospital, spends two hours on a routine operation, calls it a day and goes home. A factory worker works a double-shift and is exhausted. But the reasons why the surgeon makes a lot more are obvious.
Is it type of work? -- A factory job requires a lot of physical demands, but not much intelligence. A statistician requires a lot of intelligence, but not much physical demand. A customer service rep's job doesn't require physical strength or smarts, but hearing people gripe and scream at you on the phone all day may drive you batty.

I understand you're not saying that everyone should make an identical salary. But you seem to place a lot of weight on who works more/less than someone else as a determinent of income. Personally, I don't care one bit if you and I both put forth the same work effort during our days, yet you - a lawyer - likely make more than I do.

Though certainly not always the case, often, higher pay is the result of sacrifice at some point by someone. It could be your parents giving you a 72 toyota when you turned 16 as opposed to a new Camaro or living in a small house in a mediocre part of town or homework instead of parties or a graduate degree and 4 years internship while living at home instead of getting your own place... Or working 80 hours a week to build your business for what is effectively $6/hr while paying your employees much more

Certainly this isn't always the case, and the sacrifice isnt always by the person who benefits most, but it's true a multiple more times than not