OT: US 30 year treasury above 5% for the longest period since 2007

[She Mate Me]

Thats it? Yeah, every smart person appears great on TV for every minute of hundreds of hours of interviews. Sure.

I linked a short clip because nobody’s going to spend more than two minutes listening to her. Even you, I imagine.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

So, to maintain your centrist views, you believe the far left runs the Democratic Party? Like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries?

There is some hyperbole in my TLDR (par for the course) but governance of the Democratic Party is largely and famously a generational struggle between the older liberals and younger progressives

And the older liberals are dying

 

[mstateglfr]

There is some hyperbole in my TLDR (par for the course) but governance of the Democratic Party is largely and famously a generational struggle between the older liberals and younger progressives

And the older liberals are dying

And the younger progressives are also turning into older liberals as time marches on.

 

[JackReacherDawg]

There is some hyperbole in my TLDR (par for the course) but governance of the Democratic Party is largely and famously a generational struggle between the older liberals and younger progressives

And the older liberals are dying

True. But also a textbook centrist answer. No indication of a clear difference between the Parties, just a justification for a centrist position at odds with reality.

(This is usually where the centrists go on tilt.)

 

[JackReacherDawg]

I linked a short clip because nobody’s going to spend more than two minutes listening to her. Even you, I imagine.

 

[She Mate Me]

True. But also a textbook centrist answer. No indication of a clear difference between the Parties, just a justification for a centrist position at odds with reality.

(This is usually where the centrists go on tilt.)

You really like yourself a lot it seems. Modern schooling has done it’s job.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Here’s what AOC was doing 8 years ago (it’s kinda painful to watch)…

before she won her first congressional race. anything more recent?

ain't gonna lie, to me, she's looking pretty cute in this clip.

Keep 'em coming.

 

[She Mate Me]

before she won her first congressional race. anything more recent?

This was in response to what JD was doing 10 years ago. Context matters.

 

[johnson86-1]

Uh huh. Thats what happens in a much wealthier nation.

PER PERSON. yeah, because we're wealthier. We also run a lot more transfer payments. Money coming in that goes right back out as a check to an American is not the same as money spent on goods and services.

Right, we are squeezing people more because we think they can afford more. We have 60% more money to spend per person in inflation adjusted terms. It's really better than that because there are a lot of expenditures that don't scale with people, so we should be getting economies of scale there. We should be in fabulous shape. Instead we've chosen to spend like drunken sailors and waste a bunch of money. We didn't need to do that. Politicians bribed voters with a lot of spending that would hurt future people and the voters were happy to go along with it.

i believe we tax those making several hundred thousand to a million or two, more than anyone else. That is the cohort whose taxes should be raised last.

They still don't pay as much as richer people with a few exceptions but I agree they are getting hammered. If you fix borrow/spend/die and eliminate things like tax deductibility for muni's and government bonds, you'd eliminate most of the exceptions on the tail end.

The math says otherwise. But if its part of a broad package, im ok with it.

$1.8 trillion a year deficit that is projected to get worse. If you start with the billionaires and above and confiscate their wealth, that buys you bewteen 3 and maybe 5 years, if you pretend they can just liquidate their wealth and you ignore all the bad effects on the economy from the US just seizing assets. If you confiscated the assets of the top 1% of households (somewhere around $11 to $13M in net worth), you get $55 Trillion. So that would buy you a good bit of time, but that ignores the economic harm of just seizing their assets. Lots of those $11 to 13M net worth are small business owners that may be showing $500k a year in income or $2M in income depending on how they like to invest in their business. You can't really just seize that business and it be worth that though, and even if you could, the disruption would knock enough off the economy to offset a huge amount of that new tax revenue.

In a given year. Some pay income tax in some years, not in others, as their income and credits fluctuate.

Right, but taxes would apply to a tax year. If somebody in the 50th percentile one year, they should pay taxes in that one year if you want to keep spending close to the same.

Not to mention other costs that have been off loaded onto them.

Not sure what this is referencing.

Backing off the credits seems the fair and politically possible approach. But this is also the group that gets the least advantage from retirement accounts.

I don't know how politically possible that is. I guess it's easier than raising taxes on the 25th to 50th percentile. For the retirement accounts, those are basically a way for middle class people to turn the federal income tax into a progressive consumption tax. Until you can afford to do more than max them out, that's basically all it is and that seems like a good thing to me.

not as much in practice. Cali, for example, doesnt get total choice on how much they should spend for earthquakes and wildfires.

State taxes are not really driven by that though. Plus we have federal programs to shift those burdens around, or at least smooth them out.

In part, I agree.

Well then 1, it shouldnt be a problem to tax it then right? And 2, sequence matters. If im paying down debt, maybe i should tax all that now rather than later.

I mean, it definitely could be a problem for the person depending on their expenditures. Letting them draw the money out as they need it and taxing it over ten years after their death seems reasonable. Plus, for the time being, the US still borrows at a low enough rate that we earn a spread taxing future growth rather than taxing them earlier.

thats a take. You didnt really offer any support of it.

Don't we?

I mean, if we were responsible, accelerating future tax revenue to now could be good in certain situations. Obviously we're not responsible. And again, for the time being, we still earn a spread by giving a deduction now but taxing future growth on that extra money that goes into retirement, even if we are having to borrow for it. Granted, different tax rates between working years and retirement years complicate that. But not overly punishing people for having lumpy income doesn't seem like a bad thing, even if it does reduce revenue collected.

Im speaking of the rich avoiding selling assets (and incurring a tax on them) by taking loans against them as collateral, thus a near zero interest loan.

You're talking about the borrow, spend, die strategy. Those rates are not near interest nor are they below market. They are low because they are super secure. Borrowing 3% against a stock portfolio has a virtually zero chance of default, so you get rates that reflect that. It's the same reason mortgage rates are less than unsecured loan rates. Getting rid of the stepped up basis upon death would fix that.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

This was in response to what JD was doing 10 years ago. Context matters.

It most certainly does.

She proved she can learn more.

JD proves he can brown nose more.

Context.

 

[JackReacherDawg]

You really like yourself a lot it seems. Modern schooling has done it’s job.

Naw. We've all got our strengths, this is just one of mine.

Not really getting where that's coming from though. I'm being a bit of an internet douche cause....its six pack, dawg. I dont feel I've been out of place.

 

[She Mate Me]

It most certainly does.

She proved she can learn more.

JD proves he can brown nose more.

Context.

I hope they debate each other. I’ll leave it at that.

 

[ckDOG]

Can y'all switch from critiquing dumbasses that will never be president to critiquing the dumbass that currently is President? Please and thank you.

 

[Barkman Turner Overdrive]

Radical centrism (or the radical centre) is a political philosophy that combines a pragmatic, market-driven approach to the economy with a progressive, reform-minded stance on social issues. Rather than occupying the traditional "mushy middle," radical centrists push for fundamental, structural reform of institutions by borrowing and melding the best ideas from both the left and the right.

The concept is often summarized as "idealism without illusions," relying on realism and evidence-based solutions rather than strict adherence to partisan dogma.

Key tenets of the radical centre typically include:

• • Economic Security: Innovative social contracts, such as portable health and retirement benefits that are tied to the individual rather than a specific employer.
  • Market-Based Problem Solving: Utilizing market mechanisms to achieve public interest goals, heavily backed by strong government oversight.
  • Institutional Overhaul: A willingness to challenge the status quo, streamline bureaucracies, and redesign systems to better fit the modern Information Age.

The term gained notable traction in the early 2000s following the release of the book The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics by Michael Lind and Ted Halstead. Proponents argue that it provides a vital, future-proof blueprint for governance that avoids the gridlock and echo chambers of the far-left and far-right.

I just want an option that is neither a Bolshevik nor a Zionist.

 

[JackReacherDawg]

Right, we are squeezing people more because we think they can afford more. We have 60% more money to spend per person in inflation adjusted terms. It's really better than that because there are a lot of expenditures that don't scale with people, so we should be getting economies of scale there. We should be in fabulous shape. Instead we've chosen to spend like drunken sailors and waste a bunch of money. We didn't need to do that. Politicians bribed voters with a lot of spending that would hurt future people and the voters were happy to go along with it.

This is not true. The MEDIAN person barely contributes more than in 1980.


The top 1% contributes much more. But this still pales in relation to how much more they make. The math says we're not squeezing the middle class more. We just relaxed taxes on the rich.


Their share of income.went up 50%. Their share of taxation didn't. And it looks far worse for the top 0.1%. And this doesnt even include state and local taxation, which we know is even more regressive than the federal system.

They still don't pay as much as richer people with a few exceptions but I agree they are getting hammered. If you fix borrow/spend/die and eliminate things like tax deductibility for muni's and government bonds, you'd eliminate most of the exceptions on the tail end.


$1.8 trillion a year deficit that is projected to get worse. If you start with the billionaires and above and confiscate their wealth, that buys you bewteen 3 and maybe 5 years, if you pretend they can just liquidate their wealth and you ignore all the bad effects on the economy from the US just seizing assets. If you confiscated the assets of the top 1% of households (somewhere around $11 to $13M in net worth), you get $55 Trillion. So that would buy you a good bit of time, but that ignores the economic harm of just seizing their assets. Lots of those $11 to 13M net worth are small business owners that may be showing $500k a year in income or $2M in income depending on how they like to invest in their business. You can't really just seize that business and it be worth that though, and even if you could, the disruption would knock enough off the economy to offset a huge amount of that new tax revenue.

$1T a year in extra revenue from the rich. Resolve the rest with spending cuts and taxes on everyone else.

You're talking about the borrow, spend, die strategy. Those rates are not near interest nor are they below market. They are low because they are super secure. Borrowing 3% against a stock portfolio has a virtually zero chance of default, so you get rates that reflect that. It's the same reason mortgage rates are less than unsecured loan rates. Getting rid of the stepped up basis upon death would fix that.

Agreed. The issue is the are used by the filthy rich to sidestep taxes. Fix it. A wealth tax helps.

 

[grinningmule]

Can y'all switch from critiquing dumbasses that will never be president to critiquing the dumbass that currently is President? Please and thank you.

 

[JackReacherDawg]

I just want an option that is neither a Bolshevik nor a Zionist.