U.S. Politics: Comey, Comey, Comey, Comey, Comey Chameleon

[Inigima]

I didn't like Ailes but I'm not sure this is a thing that benefits from opinions

Edit: I'm not saying praise the guy, I'm saying it's pretty meaningless either way

[Mlle. Zabzie]

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

I'm nowhere close to being 1%, but if this goes through, the incentive for me and all my advanced degree-holding professional friends to establish our own sole proprietorships or S-corps to get in on that sweet pass-through action will be way too great to ignore. 

This would cost even more than what's being estimated.

I work in a profitable law firm.....

BTW - also a huge boon for the following:  (i) private equity (even if carried interest goes away - who cares about carry if you are taxed at 15% on everything anyhow); (ii) real estate (woo hoo!); (iii) oil and gas (really interested in how MLPs would be taxed under this rubric - assume also 15%).

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Something from the ponies I'm getting will trickle down.  Something.....

I mean seriously, I'm a tax professional.  I'm relatively conservative.  This is just gross.  Bad policy on multiple levels.

My prediction of the amount that will trickle down is exactly 0%,

As somebody that started out life in a working class Republican family, is from a culturally Republican background, knows and is friends with Republicans, it seems to me that many of them get extremely confused about how this is supposed to work. In short, they get confused between the demand side effects of these tax cuts and their supply side effects.

1. On the Demand Side. We’re closer to full employment and  closer to hitting our inflation target. So if we’re going to do demand side stuff we need to be really careful about what were going to spend on. We’re not in a situation were we need to spend money to in order to raise the velocity of money and to rapidly increase inflation expectations, like we were begging of 2008.

Plus, the marginal propensity to consume is lower for the wealthy. For the wealthy, the configuration of interest rates probably matter more for their consumption/saving decisions than their income.

In short, the demand side case for these tax cuts are not there. But, the “primer of pumps” doesn’t get this.

One the supply side. There is hardly any evidence that the wealthy will provide a greater labor supply because of tax cuts. I’ll start with Martin Feldstein’s 1989 paper, and that boy sure in the hell ain’t no Democrat, which would seemingly imply that the supply side effects of Reagan’s tax cuts were minimal.

In short, there will be no additional growth because of these tax cuts. None that the non-wealthy will enjoy. And that has always been the Republican selling point. But the empirical case for it is about nil.

Also, even if there was additional growth, then question arises “growth for whom?” There is a literature  out there that suggest that marginal tax rates can affect rent seeking. In other words, marginal tax rates don’t just affect post-tax distribution but pre-tax distribution. If this theory is correct, then lowering tax rates just makes rent seeking more profitable. This may very well be a reason, if not the only reason, why wealth inequality started to take off in the 1980s and why income gains, for the middle and lower classes slowed down.

[Trebla]

That press release the White House put out last night regarding the Special Counsel seemed professional, subdued, and well-crafted. Maybe they are learning!

But then there is him...

[Mlle. Zabzie]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

My prediction of the amount that will trickle down is exactly 0%,

As somebody that started out life in a working class Republican family, is from a culturally Republican background, knows and is friends with Republicans, it seems to me that many of them get extremely confused about how this is supposed to work. In short, they get confused between the demand side effects of these tax cuts and their supply side effects.

1. On the Demand Side. We’re closer to full employment and  closer to hitting our inflation target. So if we’re going to do demand side stuff we need to be really careful about what were going to spend on. We’re not in a situation were we need to spend money to in order to raise the velocity of money and to rapidly increase inflation expectations, like we were begging of 2008.

Plus, the marginal propensity to consume is lower for the wealthy. For the wealthy, the configuration of interest rates probably matter more for their consumption/saving decisions than their income.

In short, the demand side case for these tax cuts are not there. But, the “primer of pumps” doesn’t get this.

One the supply side. There is hardly any evidence that the wealthy will provide a greater labor supply because of tax cuts. I’ll start with Martin Feldstein’s 1989 paper, and that boy sure in the hell ain’t no Democrat, which would seemingly imply that the supply side effects of Reagan’s tax cuts were minimal.

In short, there will be no additional growth because of these tax cuts. None that the non-wealthy will enjoy. And that has always been the Republican selling point. But the empirical case for it is about nil.

Also, even if there was additional growth, then question arises “growth for whom?” There is a literature  out there that suggest that marginal tax rates can affect rent seeking. In other words, marginal tax rates don’t just affect post-tax distribution but pre-tax distribution. If this theory is correct, then lowering tax rates just makes rent seeking more profitable. This may very well be a reason, if not the only reason, why wealth inequality started to take off in the 1980s and why income gains, for the middle and lower classes slowed down.

Hah, you took me seriously.  I was making an obscure reference to the saying that $hit flows down.  Trickle down is bunkum.  The wealthy are marginal savers.  Now, we can have a serious discussion about what the correct set of rates is, whether wealth and income should be taxed differently, and on overall corporate tax policy.  But this trickle down stuff is just so much sewage.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Hah, you took me seriously.

Sorry. Guess I'm being a:

today.

My excuse is I took too many shots to the head when I was younger and watched Fox News. Though it's my guess watching Fox News proved to be far more damaging.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Even the people on MSNBC are praising him. He's one of the worst people to ever lived. He was a serial rapist who destroyed modern politics. He couldn't have died soon enough. 

Well yeah he was the president of CNBC and helped create MSNBC before beginning work on the death star, sure he still has lots of connections there.

Anyway, I'm just glad he was disgraced and fired before he died.

ETA:  Just noticed I share a birthday with Ailes.  Eeeeewwwwww!!!

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Fez said:

I'm nowhere close to being 1%, but if this goes through, the incentive for me and all my advanced degree-holding professional friends to establish our own sole proprietorships or S-corps to get in on that sweet pass-through action will be way too great to ignore. 

This would cost even more than what's being estimated.

Now allegedly, “allegedly” being the key term here, cutting these taxes will cause a such a boon in investment that laborers, if they were smart, would rather have taxes out of their labor income, and not capital income.

I'm deeply suspicious of a model:

1. That uses perfect foresight

2. Assumes that capitalist sorts of people just seek to maximize their life time consumption ie no wealth in the utility function

3. And, just assumes away, the fuzzy frontier problem, ie characterizing labor income as capital income, which you are alluding to here.

4. Ignores potential issues with rent seeking.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

26 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Well yeah he was the president of CNBC and helped create MSNBC before beginning work on the death star, sure he still has lots of connections there.

Anyway, I'm just glad he was disgraced and fired before he died.

ETA:  Just noticed I share a birthday with Ailes.  Eeeeewwwwww!!!

Hahahahahahahaha.

That said, nobody should be praising him. Not. A. Single. Person! 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Now allegedly, “allegedly” being the key term here, cutting these taxes will cause a such a boon in investment that laborers, if they were smart, would rather have taxes out of their labor income, and not capital income.

I deeply suspicious of a model:

1. That uses perfect foresight

2. Assumes that capitalist sorts of people seek to maximize their life time consumption ie no wealth in the utility function

3. And, just assumes away, the fuzzy frontier problem, ie characterizing labor income as capital income, which you are alluding to here.

4. Ignores potential issues with rent seeking.

Right, 2 is simply not empirically true except to the extent consumption and wealth coincide (e.g., real property).  And of course 4. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm simply saying using primary numbers to predict people not voting for Trump or supporting Trump now that he is POTUS seems suspect. He is still supported by over 80% of Republicans, and 40% support him 'strongly' - that's well above what you'd see from his primary numbers alone. 

You're right that many would stay home. But I think I'm right that you would not see the kind of outrage that some are expecting to see. Seriously, the news source that half the US apparently uses regularly wasn't reporting the Comey memo story at all, nor were they reporting the Russia leak at all. They simply ignored it. 

Well he got 44% of the primary vote, so the 40% that strongly support him are likely those voters plus the hyper partisans. It's fair to say that those people would forgive any transgression he commits. but almost everyone else would jump ship. 

[Maithanet]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well he got 44% of the primary vote, so the 40% that strongly support him are likely those voters plus the hyper partisans. It's fair to say that those people would forgive any transgression he commits. but almost everyone else would jump ship. 

Two of my friends who supported Trump are jumping ship.  They're still couching it in mealy-mouthed justifications like "Hillary would have been unacceptable too!", but they admit that Trump is a disaster and they never should have voted for him. 

Not that I think of them as a representative sample of Republicans, but there is definitely a contingent of Trump supporters that are turning away from him.  For them, firing Comey was a bridge too far. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I don't see anything in there where Nasty LongRider gets her pony.  I want my damn pony.

If only this forum had a pony queen...................

[Mexal]

Seems this was true...

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

Seems this was true...

 

What does he know?

[Mexal]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

What does he know?

Or what did he do?

also, is there any repercussions to this?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

What does he know?

That his mistress is called an au pair, not a nanny? 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Mexal said:

also, is there any repercussions to this?

Contempt of Congress.  So, no.

[Altherion]

25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well he got 44% of the primary vote, so the 40% that strongly support him are likely those voters plus the hyper partisans. It's fair to say that those people would forgive any transgression he commits. but almost everyone else would jump ship. 

I think you overestimate the number of people who are outraged. Also, keep in mind that there has to be a viable alternative. A lot of people are who are angry at a politician change their minds once they learn who else is in the running for this position. For example, Obama's approval rating was negative for the last few years of his presidency... right up until the spring of 2016, when it became clear that he'd be succeeded by either Clinton or Trump and then it suddenly occurred to many people that maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Contempt of Congress.  So, no.

Well, that can lead to an imprisonment of up to 12 months, though I believe the full chamber that was contempted (that's so not a word) has to vote on it.

Also, Trump could also pardon him. Which would be hilariously brazen.