Charlie Rose

JohnGelles  08/28/2011 06:58 AM Report

BenEzraa ~

You say : "...it's a wonder that anyone has any disposable income left to tax."

You speak the truth. It is unbelievable that the American people have no clear understanding of the purpose of effective tax systems and the vast damage done to a private enterprise economy when ignorant authority sits astride the law on which we all depend.

IMO we need a tax free economy -- like a tax free zone we find in most airports from which we depart one nation for another.

If America were tax free on the inside and paid for governance with import duties and certain monopolies we can give to government -- like issuing money and renting mineral rights and broadcast spectrum or similar natural monopolies -- we might simplify business entry enough to rapidly raise the minimum standard of living high enough to end wage slavery in the land of the free we were meant to be.

IMO government must sponsor anyone looking for work with loans enough for self-employment and systems enough to allow very attractive wages for people who prefer jobs to self-employment. Where would we get the productive output to pay for all such benefits? From steel collared workers organized by the sane genius that can design and build them.

If we have robots to our left and right, in front of and behind us, even our slowest workers will be faster than the very best without them.

BENEZRAA  08/24/2011 10:16 PM Report

FEDERAL MORTGAGE DEDUCTIONS AND SIMULTANEOUSLY LOWERING FEDERAL INCOME TAX RATES

Eliminating federal mortgage deductions and simultaneously lowering federal income tax rates may or may not be a good idea. One must ask, "What effect might such changes have at the state and local level?" Will the states take advantage of federal rate changes that may favor individuals and households in order to then raise their own rates? Taxation is as much market driven by competing governments, as business costs and prices are market driven. As a nation we are so regressively taxed by the constant taxation shell game by competing governmental bodies that it's a wonder that anyone has any disposable income left to tax.

JohnGelles  08/23/2011 01:09 AM Report

I think we all do care. Sincerely. In our own way. But from top to bottom (on the power/wealth spectrum) we all care mightily (except for a very few retards -- and some so hungry for power and wealth they keep crossing the line between benign ambition and malignant ambition.)

Admittedly, it is really hard to prove if Perry is or is not attached to malignancy, or if Bachmann is firmly attached to retardation.

If either of them is so attached to the negative their rivals believe they may be, then the reason we are in trouble partly the simple fact that in the corridors of power there are enemies of the people.

I usually try to deny that possibility. I usually like to think all those malignant people are only ignorant. But others swear to me I am wrong. They say evil stalks the land.

I have a feeling Charlie will be all over Libya tonight. It is so far a great victory for President Obama. I am glad for that.

I may have wished we had acted faster to save innocent lives. But the President should be presumed right. Leading from behind will save MORE lives in the long run.

My list of related CR Shows at my file, a-crs.htm , may be missing key dates/interviews. Please comment here in the comment pages additions for my action.

NeilMacCallister  08/22/2011 08:21 PM Report

We don't need just 'Tax Reform'!! ..We need to get these 20-year-sitting Senators like Bill Bradley out of government!!!!

What? ..he is now going to "re-study" the issue of America's current death-spiral into societal oblivion???????

Just how much will this "partner at investment bank Allen & Company in New York City" charge us for this "re-evaluation" of what he and other Democrats have been saddling this nation with for more than 30 years???????

Do you have a nice home, Senator Bradley?? ..with a pool? ..and a basketball court????

***

Now, Charlie Rose is over there talking with the movie stars for a while, ..and our President is out of this office for his "respite" on another vacation....

Is there anybody here to stop this nation's life-destroying train-wreck????

Does anybody even care anymore???

JohnGelles  08/21/2011 05:42 AM Report

http://ustaxreform.us/a-crs.htm

Link above ties recent related interviews together.

JohnGelles  08/20/2011 02:57 AM Report

TelltheTruth ~ your defense of the guy who saved the building and the people who would use it after 2008 is interesting. He had promised to build new buildings to accomodate all our people -- especially we who voted him into office. But he broke his promise.

If he now, at this late hour, decides to build those new buildings, he will be OK. If he decides to reduce the deficit he risks having no means with which to build the new buildings. He may hang out there with people in the cold who are hungry -- when with full employment they would be prosperous and still behind him.

His lame adoption of deficit hawk positions is inexcusable. They put Herbert Hoover in the dog house. They will put him in there with his ghost.

Obviously the Republicans who want office more than the good of this nation ought to be defeated soundly. They are right about taxes but wrong about spending.

Taxes should not fall on income of good guys whose profits are used to defend democracy and America. Our tax system does not even ask for what our profits are going to be used.

We make the crazy call that a doctor who puts his profits into the health care of more people should pay the same taxes as the Al Capone who put his profits into murder and graft.

Democrats who want to tax the rich regardless of how they spend their profit are not democrats -- thay are down-right stupdid agents of anarchy and chaos.

The easy solution is to end all income taxes and tax, if necessary, specific activity for the specific need to avoid hyper-inflation.

All else is counter-productive legacy law written before modern revolutions took place in production, commnications, computation, and high technology.

TelltheTruth ~ please address the adequate demand issues. It is no accident that Europe is also hung up on unemployment and inadequate demand created when you only use profit-based money.

Please read http://ustaxreform.us/kwod

where "Keynes Without Debt" is written by Professor Ron Morrison. He would not have saved only the building.

..... ..... If there were people alive and unemployed he would have put them to work building more room for all of us.

If you will read Morrison and discuss his points, I will vote for Obama (if he is the best one running). I already voted for him once.

JohnGelles  08/20/2011 02:22 AM Report

TelltheTruth ~

Health care and/or Medicare and Medicaid and VA Hospitals, etc. are perfect examples of the general problem of HOW WE PAY for NECESSITIES -- LIKE DEFENSE, PROSPERITY, EDUCATION, RESEARCH, JOBS AND TRUE EMERGENCIES, outside the profit condition or potential but inside the real economic system:

1. Imagine new cures and medical science is discovered and we have to double our cost of health care in terms of equipment, surgeons, nurses, doctors and support staff and systems. The reward to society is less pain and more life.

2. To pay for all this new medical miracle we use debt free greenbacks as we did to win our wars.

3. All this extra money must be matched by shelter, food, necessities and luxuries the people reciving the extra medical costs will be spending as soon as possible -- so we can proove to them they have not been cheated by our payment to them in greenbacks.

4. So the high medical costs have forced us to employ more people if there are any and more machines and robots instead of people if they can help produce the aforementioned shelter, food, necessities and luxuries.

5. Instead of health care breaking down America, it becomes a DRIVER -- to raise all living standards in America. Just as millions of Americans were poor and idle in 1940 -- and WW II put the nation to work to raise all living standards immediately and therafter (until demand fell off) after 1946. Demand soon picked up based on accumulated savings from WW II and spending from th Korean war and th Cold War.

In other words, the partnerhip between (1) the for profit economy that thives on competition, and (2) the cost accounting government contract economy that thrives on strategic planning for prosperity and progress in such things as those developed by the Advanced Research Products Agency of the Department of Defense and other similar government strategic activities -- is the answer to SHOULD WE CUT MEDICARE BECAUSE WE CAN'T AFFORD IT.

........... The opposite is the truth. We cannot afford to starve Medicare -- because it will eventually raise our economy to new heights and keep our people healthier and happier.

TelltheTruth -- it pains me to think how many people do not see the need to add to our "for-profit" money and credit system the full power of our "for-progress" cost accounting money system. Profit is always uncertain if it constrained by illogical debt. Progress is always certain if you work at it night and day and remove all contradicitions from the logic of how it works.

Our system today is like a train with two engines -- one at each end pulling in opposite directions. The lead engine is PROFIT the rear engine is DEPT. The train is being pulled apart.

We must make both engines pull in the same direction. Let the one be called PROFIT and the other MONEY. The affordable DEBT we chose to have will carried in one of the cars. If necessary we will change it to EQUITY (shares in an enterprise) to prevent a dead weight from causing a train wreck.

TelltheTruth  08/20/2011 01:52 AM Report

I disagree with David Leonhardt to this extent. The president didn't overestimate the recovery. He wasn't focused on the recovery. His focus since Day One has been on the salvation of the system.

He has been like an engineer who has come upon a building that was crumbling under the strain of an earthquake. Rather than to let the building crumble outright and let the people still within it perish, he set to stabilizing the building to allow those within to leave with their lives. After fixing the structure, some folks were allowed to remain in the building.

You can argue it has been a futile effort, but that's the choice he made. He set to keep the economy from collapsing completely by helping the financial markets and businesses instead of focusing on job growth. The markets are now stable and so are the businesses that have survived the crash of '08.

Left in the streets are the people who got out of the building and can't get back in. After the quake, only fewer people can reside in the building.

TelltheTruth  08/20/2011 01:41 AM Report

The Tea Party is the emerald ash borer of American politics. As Martin Feldstein noted, the Tea Party chose not to leave the Republican party and form a new party, as most new movements have done in the past.

Instead, the Tea Party has chosen to bore under the bark of the Republican Party. In so doing, it will destroy the GOP from within.

Don't confuse the Tea Party with the decendants of Reagan. The Tea Party are the same folks that Reagan courted (like Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right) and then dismissed as he governed IN THE REAL WORLD.

TelltheTruth  08/20/2011 01:18 AM Report

Where are the people who were saying during the health care reform that they wanted the government to keep its hands off their medicare? Don't these people realize that the Republicans want to make serious cuts to Medicare?

JohnGelles  08/19/2011 07:17 PM Report

Winter~

Thanks -- you obviously got it all -- because you restate it perfectly:

..... ..... ..... "You lost me after, we're going to be appointed the four Messiahs and the rest of America was going to keep our bank accounts topped off while we sit and dream up how things ought to be run. I'll wait here."

You may fight the logic all you like, but MONEY talks and profits are currently out of reach.

Keynes, the English lord who found us the money to defeat Hitler and Stalin, put it in slightly different words:

..... ..... ..... "Government pays good money for unemployed workers to bury GOLD. And pays them again to dig it up. The money paid to the workers is spent by them to allow private producers to make a profit. Such profit primes the pump of production and consumption, and full employment is sustained."

At the time this burying gold system did not work UNTIL WW-II raised spending high enough for the primed pump to work.

The original Keynes equation was faulty - UNTIL Nixon floated the world's currencies and gold was out of the picture. The equation still did not work long because debt based money built up debt faster profits could retire.

The final form of this equation is from Keynes Without Debt. Under this version, only half the money is debt-based that needs dollar profit to retire. But the other half is output based money -- the only kind that responds to real work and real wealth.

So as you and the rest (including me) sit on topped off savings accounts, everyone works at something and the chance of ever being constrained by inadequate demand is reduced to zero.

The constraint of inadequate supply or over-supply of money must be successfully overcome as we did in WW II.

You say you do not follow this.

Well try to see that TODAY more jobs cannot be created by private parties who will find too few customers and too little money for sellers to make a profit. That is what Keynes faced in the 30's.

There is no doubt that some of your fear of this solution is justified. If we get hyperinflation, instead of prosperity that reflects mass production at its best, your fear and challenge of (post-Nixon) Keynesian (debt-free) logic will prevail.

To recap the issue:

In favor of profit-based money as we have it: we have nothing new to learn but must wait for debt to be removed over normal write off histories -- 2 to 5 years -- maybe.

In favor of 50 50 debt-free money and debt-based money: we must relearn WW II mobilization systems. Full employment in less than 6 months. Start with Bradley wage subsidies for net-new-hires. Start with 24 month contract subsidies that pay 50% of new hire wages. Continue subsidy contracts for 12 months, with contract subsidy rate declining 2% per month over the whole contract.

A deal such as this would be predicated on zero tax or revenue increases. There would be no spending cuts except where graft or fraud are proved to be the target of the cuts.

Our ultimate aim includes as stated before to replace all debt with equity on the investment side where possible.

It includes as much real wealth as possible as the minimum endowment at birth. If technology makes it possible, real homes and food health will be maximized by best practices and rational economic systems.

charlizecourriers  08/19/2011 04:44 PM Report

Several Fridays ago Obama claimed that it was necessary to raise the debt ceiling in order pay for programs "that Congress had racked up." Would that include Bradley and Obama? Let's all be responsible without anybody being held responsible!!! Please use you your most responsible voice, Bill. And how's that pension, buddy?

winter  08/19/2011 04:24 PM Report

You lost me after, we're going to be appointed the four Messiahs and the rest of America was going to keep our bank accounts topped off while we sit and dream up how things ought to be run. I'll wait here.

JohnGelles  08/19/2011 03:16 PM Report

amazon.com has a million forums that invite unlimited post-send edit. So does my wiki-net. Unlimited editing and the public domain can add great efficiency to forums. I am sure Jeff Bezos wojuld lend his spurce code to Charie Rose any time Charlie asked.

JohnGelles  08/19/2011 03:10 PM Report

[ CORRECTION TO ADD ANOTHER "FOR" ]

as it is for all the people FOR whom our system works.

JohnGelles  08/19/2011 03:05 PM Report

Winter,ttt, and gevdarg, contribute experience and powerful thought to these comments.

That said, can it be joined to Gelles' longer piece in order to build an agenda for change we want?

The BIG CHANGE we ultimately must have IS:

..... In every bank account owned by these four people (Winter,ttt, gevdarg & JohnGelles,) and the accounts of similar people here and abroad who are on democracy's side, -- there must be lots of money to pay their keep and sit as savings for their peace of mind.

Now don't scoff or turn a deaf ear. This money must be there -- as it is for all the people whom our system works.

That is what our system DID DO for all alive in WW II -- here in the USA and in many other places.

YES the system meant very hard work was done by the real working people (including engineers and knowledge workers) that Winter identified in his comment.

But in return for that work, money was distributed to EVERYONE by the whole system -- because there was enough money.

There was even too much money -- so much was SAVED to be spent later, after people grew older.

And some was TAXED back away from taxpayers and to government as the driving spender for all this successful SYSTEM.

There was even too much after TAXES and SAVINGS for it to be spent on meat and gasoline. So they were rationed. And all else was placed under price and wage control.

The profit-driven free market was replaced by a money driven command program that left many free market practices alone.

The issue before us TODAY is how to command that prosperity and jobs continue as many free market sub-sytems are left alone.

..... BECAUSE ANY FOOL CAN SEE A TOTALLY FREE, PROFIT DRIVEN ECONOMY cannot exist when profits are not possible.

We could create sufficient profit with more money and all the tools we had in WW II. But that would be stupid. We would wreck the planet and go to war.

Rather than JUST more money, we must put strategic purpose behind dollars government spends. Education, training, research, development, infrastructure, energy, and health care no longer a burden on employers (paid for government and rich sick people).

All that I wrote below still goes.

As I slowly improve http://ustaxreform.us

You guys should help by offering improvements or writing separate pages that will form the whole wiki-net.

We can collaborate without argument simply by copying what we like from each other and allow future editing to create choices we can vote for.

I have started this plan with the "Second Bill of Rights" and "Keynes without Debt" as fundamental doctrine.

Possibly other doctrine will emerge to be added to those two.

If all you want is a profit-driven money system like the one we have, I will probably break my links to your version of the agenda we need.

Let's get together, people are out of work -- and it's not their fault. It's my fault -- because I have not been more persuasive.

Bartholomew  08/19/2011 02:05 PM Report

I was just watching the show with Mr's. Feldstein, and Leonhardt and Sen. Bradley. The thing that struck me more than anything else is that when they talk about housing, they talk about home value going down. The people who need their houses for shelter, to house their families are not concerned with the dollar value. They're concerned with housing their families. Likewise the argument about contributing to healthcare, people on a fixed income are not concerned with how much they have to pay, they are concerned with who's going to die for lack of a pacemaker.

When Democrats start adding up the number of homeless people from each Republican proposal, and the number who will die from each adjustment to Medi-care, the Republicans will talk about sensationalism, but the people with aging parents and grandparents and the people who themselves are retired know that people will die.

And when people with children become homeless, children die. The argument has got to tell the truth about the choices. Middle-class people don't care about the value of their investments, they care about food, shelter, and medical care. And without those things, people will die. When subsidized housing is cut back, people will die. When health-care is converted to vouchers, people will die.

It's not about money on main street, it's about shelter, and homelessness, and living in your car with your children.

Feldstein talked about house values being upside down as being the reason people default on their mortgages - B.S. People defaulted on their mortgages because they're not sophisticated, and when the A.R.M. adjusted, they couldn't make the payments. No-one chose to be homeless because their house value dropped. And the prices fell because people couldn't afford to pay the mortgages. People don't take their families and live in a car because of the value of their house. They do it because the bank sold their house and they were evicted.

The reason democrats are disaffected with Obama has nothing to do with taxes, or TARP, it's because their brother and their cousin, or their own family is jobless and on the street. It's because there was no JOB Czar. Why weren't there any shovel-ready projects? Because there weren't enough contracting officers. Because Office of Personnel Management didn't get the word to hire people. Hire them NOW.

Recession is a word that describes the stock market. Homeless people don't care. Jobless people don't care. Only people with money care about the stock market. If people were working, stocks would be up & the markets would be up. If the government had invested the TARP into: First buying out failing mortgages at a market value, and refinancing by giving the low interest rates to home owners; and Second bringing industry back to this country (we even buy our higher tech rail cars overseas), by giving the R&D money that oil companies get to manufacturing (not buying from overseas); We would be booming. And you sunset the tax expenditures over five years.

My other beef is that lower taxes encourage profit taking that discourages hiring. Higher taxes (on businesses) encourage and reward spending (to lower tax liability) which encourages hiring. Lower taxes on businesses rewards miserliness and job reduction.

The hard work on hiring is doing it one company at a time.

winter  08/19/2011 01:35 PM Report

Its been said a hundred times by numerous talking heads that America doesn't manufacture what they used to and its left us to revert to finding profit and liquidity from within like an autoimmune disease. Real estate, Merger and acquisition discovers inefficiencies only to let staff go and relegate the remaining employees to do the work of two and three and work weekends only so M&A ferrets can keep the difference. What adds new value in an economy are things like construction, mining, manufacturing but doing what you love has taken such a hold that we're left with entertainment, talking heads of every variety, finance majors and managers all inserting themselves into GDP and transferring wealth more than creating it anew. We have Twitter, Facebook, a thousand different varieties of cell phone as our growth industries yet social networking can only stand in for real value and should be considered one of the inserted value occupations if not a preoccupation for our little Vampires. Of course you'll never get anybody to admit that their occupation serves themselves and takes away from more than adds to the national lot. America is going to entertain itself right into third world status.

Too much faith is placed in The Market to lead us out of the desert ...all hope and no strategy, like an untied, filled up balloon let go in the room and trying to predict its path back into your lap. What better group to run with so faith based a belief than the religious right. And the notion that merit always prevails in the competition resembles the NFL where its baked in that some coach will be fired every year in that musical chairs curve grading. I dunno, watching CNBC and all these money managers who want to watch people work and bet on them gets me thinking this way. Noone wants to work, its part of the reason people go to school, to get out of work work. Who wouldn't prefer to sit around and shoot the shit and get paid for it instead of carrying two by fours or digging.

TelltheTruth  08/19/2011 08:23 AM Report

It's funny how people keep posting throughout the internet that poor people don't pay taxes.

I haven't seen a poor person yet who was able to say to the retail clerk, "Don't include a sales tax on my purchase. I'm poor."

SALES TAXES are what they are. TAXES!

gevdarg  08/19/2011 04:39 AM Report

I have a question. My household takes in between $100,000 and $125,000 a year. According to Bradley, the big money is in mortgage deductions, property tax deductions, charitable contributions, life insurance, and exclusions from income for healthcare and pension buildup. Now, we get deductions and exclusions for all of these.

According to Bradley, if we lose those deductions, then enough revenue will be raised to lower tax rates and reduce deficit. Now, let's say our household was willing to give up those deductions and exclusions, will our tax rates be lowered (and I mean federal, state, local, payroll, etc.) or will it only be lowered for the super-rich and corporations?

Another question, if this went through as Bradley described, I'm not making more money. My wife works full-time, I don't. I'm severely underemployed, so wouldn't our household income take a huge hit with relatively little to no benefit by having our tax rates lowered, but more income is being collected in taxes because we no longer enjoy the deductions or exclusions we used to get?

With all due respect, with wage stagnation, I'm not seeing how my household benefits with this strategy. When times were "good," the job creators were downsizing and not paying a decent wage, so can someone please explain what's in this for me?

JohnGelles  08/18/2011 09:47 PM Report

Sugarland~

Thanks for your common sense and clear understanding of the issues. Now please listen carefully:

You have said:

The private sector is well capable of creating demand [sufficient for rapid recovery]. The Government should force them into doing it.

1. If you are content with demand that supports 91% employment and 9% unemployment, you are right -- private business for profit is doing it with the help (?) of our current crazy taxes and almost adequate defense investments.

2. Taxes already FORCE compliance with a system that seems to most to be unfair.

3. Quantitative Easing offers the sovereign debt-free money explained in Keynes Without Debt.

See http://ustaxreform.us/kwod.htm

This money can be used to create prosperity and full employment NOW.

4. The global economy has the same problem of inadequate demand and the same potential to create the demand with QE.

5. You or any observer who would be reluctant to use this sure cure of unemployment should recognize how much the middle class (and aspirants to it) hate their government because their needs are not being served and they are forced to pay taxes and fees they cannot afford.

6. If we want democracy we must prove to people that it works.

Please respond. Please join our wiki-net to put your opinion on what to do on record -- so that we can make this Internet and TV communications power house do some good in the real world. You can communicate to this network through these comments pages of the CR Show. I will help you. Or, if you have a site, that would be easier for me.

nateruss35  08/18/2011 07:45 PM Report

I believe a fact that has escaped everyone is that prior to the 2008 financial crisis the rosy job numbers and the economy was a hoax. The real estate market which we all know was facilitated by faulty loans made things look better than they actually were. Look at the jobless claims after the initial Bush tax cuts and it goes up incrementally for 13 months straight. We were headed here anyway. It's just that the real estate situation made the problem worse. We have to have some form of concrete tax reform. While I am queazy to suggest that the wealthy foot most of the bill, it is the wealthy who have had the resources to exploit the loopholes within our tax system. As far as deep cuts into Medicare and Medicaid, I do not believe that any of these learned people have any idea the carnage they could potentially cause to a great deal of Americans. Social Security must be fixed. The rest of the Western World are pushing back the retirement age and we should as well. Bottom line is we must have a balanced approach and I am not sure that anyone who signed a pledge to a non-elected entity or person on taxes can be a vauled partner in a balanced approach to these very important issues.

Sugarland  08/18/2011 06:01 PM Report

JohnGelles

The private sector is well capable of creating demand. The Government should force them into doing it.

JohnGelles  08/18/2011 05:31 PM Report

Sugar~ let's get real.

1. You are basically right about the FED. It has strengthened the private sector to take for-profit risk and supply what it can do best -- IF THERE IS ADEQUATE DEMAND.

2. Until there is adequate DEMAND in the private sector IT IS OUR DUTY AS AMERICANS (OR CITIZENS IN A DEMOCRACY ON EARTH) to scream out loud for government to seed prosperity with spending on the macro needs of our economy (and the same goes for all the nations in the global economy).

3. Obama does not yet get it. He should be SPENDING on robotic (maybe non-lethal) weapons to end terrorism at least cost in the blood of our children. Thousands of robot mine destroyers, drone planes to capture Alqaeda leaders and followers with fine nets and knock-out gas that does not injure innocent dupes and bystanders.

..... He should be investing trillions in energy independnce -- the hydrogen economy.

..... He should be transferring all health care cost away from business and on to government debt-free sovereign MONEY. Just think of the extremely high cost of the best care on earth for every American child and potential parent: if it cost too much, as it should, no employer can afford it.

..... BUT IF GOVT PAYS FOR IT, IT JUST PAYS TO EDUCATE, TRAIN AND EMPLOY PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS whose shopping will pay all this NOT WITH SCARCE PROFIT-DEPENDENT MONEY, but with unlimited SOVEREIGN MONEY TO BUY WHAT YOU WANT in any market.

.... He should wake up or pick a successor. We have had enough of him if he has no clue on jobs, money, govt investment, and the need to see that money originates both inside markets for profit and outside markets for civilized pogress and effect.

Sugarland  08/18/2011 04:18 PM Report

Tired discussion on tax reform. How about some out of box thoughts:

The FED has been successful in it’s monetary stimulus plan to build up balance sheets of the companies and reserves in the banks. However, stagnant money makes for a stagnant economy. To get the economy going maybe we need a “use it or lose it” tax to provide the tension between socking it away or taking some risk.

Also a tax on useless financial transactions could slow down the financial casino and generate a significant amount of cash. Trading, naked credit default swaps etc….those financial engineered products that really accentuated the problems in the building bubble would be a target.

What about the $600 T derivatives market. A 10 % tax on that would solve the world’s problem.

JohnGelles  08/18/2011 02:35 PM Report

http://ustaxreform.us/a-crs.htm

Link above ties recent related interviews and debates, etc., together.

JohnGelles  08/18/2011 02:15 PM Report

"The Debate over Tax Reform", with Martin Feldstein, Bill Bradley and David Leonhardt on Aug 17, 2011, was the WORST show on intellectual TV in a dozen years.

The "Debate over Tax Reform" is supposed to clarify the JOBS issue in relation to TAXES.

It is true--that, IF Obama is fired by TeaParty-type ANGER, it will be because there is anger over SPENDING and DEFICITS that seem to involve taxes more than jobs.

But that anger, spending, jobs, taxes, and anti-Obama-ism are so tightly bound together, no separation is really possible.

The "JOBS", "TAXES", "GLOBAL ECONOMY", "NEW WORLD ORDER", and "FATE OF CIVILIZATION", issues are on our plate at the moment. Although no single lousy TV treatment of taxes will destroy civilization, it will contribute to future disasters and ought to be stopped in its tracks before it does.

In this unbelievably bad show, the subject of taxes is taken into the weeds of nonsense so deep that not one of the participants--especially the host--left a single useful understanding of why we pay for GOVERNMENT (big or small).

We pay for government to provide forces to defend us in war.

And we pay for government so that we will have the industrial and technological means to create those forces AND enjoy the highest minimum standard of living possible -- (NOT the highest life-style for one individual with a diamond as big as the Ritz.)

Taxes to balance a budget whose purpose is not defense and not to raise the minimum standard of living SHOULD NOT govern our economic fate. A deficit from such a budget is necessary for survival.

Bill Bradley made the only comment worth remembering: It was not about taxes--it was about SUBSIDIES to business that hired net-more workers than it had at a particular time.

Such a scheme makes sense as a rapid hire system -- where the workers added to a payroll (80% of which is paid by an existing taxpayer) make sense. The chance that such workers' output will be worthless (as may be the case for direct govt hire for pork or sympathy) are very low.

As to TAXES versus SUBSIDIES, as a general problem in economic arithmetic, either one can be abused.

We use subsidies to create our food supply. On balance we have a good food supply and a lousy job supply.

We use taxes against jobs--not in favor of more jobs.

You may ask where do we get money for subsidies? Where does all money come from?

That question must be answered.

The in the weeds guys on the Rose show were not asked anything on this fundamental question.

If money comes from sweat doing the right thing, how come I'm not paid to exercise?

Our money comes from profit--and no one can be sure of that. In fact the huge profit on owning my home is what destroyed my country's economy in 2008.

Our money must be made to come from necessary production of defense forces and standard of living ingredients.

This is not communism or fascism. It is capitalism--fully funded by government as the national banker. It is not the class struggle Marx worked on. It is the solution to the MONEY puzzle Keynes worked on.

Join me on http://ustaxreform.us

There we will create a new wiki (really a wiki network of sites -- not a single site.)

We will finance the hydrogen economy, the full employment economy, the defense forces to keep the peace, end poverty and war, and the first responders forces to meet nature's storms and furies the moment we suspect they're there.

Financing the essentials of governance by spending money into circulation will start money off.

Debt-based money loaned for private profit will follow.

Luxury taxes MAY be useful. Anti-inflation taxes (on transactions not on wealth) may also be useful.

All income, wealth and death taxes will be repealed. Our democracy will be able to afford FDR's Second Bill of Rights.

I may sound as angry as my conservative opponents (and friends). I am. Feldstein ought to know how important it is for the global economy to switch from profit not in sight to money in hand to finance output of clean water, food, shelter for the homeless, homeland defense, help for victims of every descriptions, etc., etc.

If we fear hyperinflation, as we feared it in WW II, we prevent such hyperinflation the same way we did in WW II.

All that detailed weed nonsense these guys batted back and forth did nothing for mortgages underwater, jobs out of sight, and states, countys, citys, and taxpayers, now in need, who can be trusted to spend what we give them or pay back what we lend them.

MarieIsenburg  08/18/2011 02:09 PM Report

I still like Mr. Buffet's simple-sounding solution because it could get enough popular support to create some movement toward that "balanced approach". Theoretical discussions are worthwhile on many levels, but a program that re-establishes some level of confidence might create time to negotiate constructively-again, with public pressure since I don't think DC has incentives otherwise. Mr. Bradley's job creation ideas might similarly get enough people back to work to encourage growth prospects long enough to calm voters and the markets. I'm not sure how DC could pull that off since that would make re-election of an incumbent more than likely. At this stage, it's really popular support v DC incentives. In times of stress, "Make it real. Keep it simple."

REMant  08/18/2011 11:33 AM Report

I am tempted to say this as worth more than the whole hour with Mr Buffett. Not that he didn't make sense, or say anything wrong, but he didn't really treat the topic as these panelists did, and without the usual rancor or bias. Everyone seemed to agree on the principles, even Bradley, despite mystifyingly alleging to dislike a flat-tax. You need to broaden the base, not just soak the wealthiest to get the job done. But making it more equitable will lower rates overall. However it isn't a poll tax where everyone pays the same amount. The Reagan code revision had essentially this objective. Tax expenditures are analogous to the coupons and sales used by stores with high prices to attract customers, which I think everyone finds irritating, and they should certainly be able to see how it affects spending decisions. It should be mentioned that the 1986 act, which eliminated many of these and shrunk the rate schedule, also increased incentives for home-buying.

The fault for "hiding" the tax expenditures lies, of course, with the special interests which devised them, and they can be expected to squawk. It's the same as taking programs off budget, and levying sales and excise instead of direct taxes. The idea is to prevent people from being able to see the size of their total tax bill, or the govt's total spending, or the Fed's balance sheet.

Buffett, as several ppl have pointed out, would have paid more absolutely if he had sold more of his assets, necessary to trigger the tax, but holding them as long as possible to avoid doing this has been a stratagem of long-standing with him. One can consider this laudable, of course, but raising the capital gains rate would reduce selling, as much as buying, which would harm those who speculate more, probably all those hedge funds with their computers. Whether you think that a good idea depends on what you think of markets generally, but up to 1997 there had long been incentives to hold investments longer. The Reagan act taxed capital gains as ordinary income.

The jobs question is whether spending, or lower taxes, which amounts to the same thing, would be more effective or saving and disinflation would. This is, of course, the Keynesian vs classical economics issue beginning to emerge in the campaign with Gov Perry's remarks the past few days. I understand there is no love lost between the Bush's and the governor, and this issue has the potential to further split his party. I would hope not, since, as in 1992, there's nowhere else for them to go. For his part the president is preparing to offer American Recovery and Reinvestment Act II. It is I suppose Bernanke's recommendation as much as Krugman's and his party's radicals, but the only thing a combination of tax cuts and infrastructure outlays can do now is help get him re-elected and put America deeper in debt and it should in the words of the eloquent Senate majority leader be dead on arrival. I would take issue, too, with the statement that our number one priority is to create jobs. The CCC and WPA did that. Our priority is to create employment, and there is a world of difference despite what Keynesians with their magic multiplier think.

hitz1986  08/18/2011 11:30 AM Report

Let's take a look at some numbers. Bill Bradley has it all wrong.

If you have dividend income from 100,000 shares with a 1 dollar dividend.

That equals 100,000 dollars. Subtract 15% capital gains tax, which equals 85,000. (100,000-15,000=85000.)

Corporations pay corporation tax ( profits tax). Mr Bradley gives the example of 25% corporation tax before the company pays out dividends of 1 dollar each.

So "125,000 is taxed down to 100,000." This Is WRONG.

If a company had 125,000 and paid tax of 25%. That would leave 93,750 for dividends. NOT 100,000. ( 25% of 125,000 is not 25,000. The answer is 31,250)

I agree the principle is correct. Investors are taxed twice with dividends, which is why some investors insist on share buybacks. What does it say about America when a former Senator can't do basic grade five math?

hitz1986  08/18/2011 11:30 AM Report

Let's take a look at some numbers. Bill Bradley has it all wrong.

If you have dividend income from 100,000 shares with a 1 dollar dividend.

That equals 100,000 dollars. Subtract 15% capital gains tax, which equals 85,000. (100,000-15,000=85000.)

Corporations pay corporation tax ( profits tax). Mr Bradley gives the example of 25% corporation tax before the company pays out dividends of 1 dollar each.

So "125,000 is taxed down to 100,000." This Is WRONG.

If a company had 125,000 and paid tax of 25%. That would leave 93,750 for dividends. NOT 100,000. ( 25% of 125,000 is not 25,000. The answer is 31,250)

I agree the principle is correct. Investors are taxed twice with dividends, which is why some investors insist on share buybacks. What does it say about America when a former Senator can't do basic grade five math?

hitz1986  08/18/2011 11:30 AM Report

Let's take a look at some numbers. Bill Bradley has it all wrong.

If you have dividend income from 100,000 shares with a 1 dollar dividend.

That equals 100,000 dollars. Subtract 15% capital gains tax, which equals 85,000. (100,000-15,000=85000.)

Corporations pay corporation tax ( profits tax). Mr Bradley gives the example of 25% corporation tax before the company pays out dividends of 1 dollar each.

So "125,000 is taxed down to 100,000." This Is WRONG.

If a company had 125,000 and paid tax of 25%. That would leave 93,750 for dividends. NOT 100,000. ( 25% of 125,000 is not 25,000. The answer is 31,250)

I agree the principle is correct. Investors are taxed twice with dividends, which is why some investors insist on share buybacks. What does it say about America when a former Senator can't do basic grade five math?