American Politics during the Obama Presidency

On the one hand, fuck Cuba, but on the other hand, our policy towards them could have been changed as soon as the Berlin Wall fell and by now we would have another playground similar to the DR but easier to get to. From an economic standpoint there is little reason for [B]us[/B] to pursue [B]them[/B] since they are just a bunch of broke dick motherfuckers. But Cubans could possibly make better wetbacks than Mxicans or Central Americans, because there is a higher educational level there. By extension, a better educated hooker is a more interesting hooker. Perhaps now we will see more cubanas in places like Costa Rica or at Campo Alegre. I had to go all the way to Spain to fuck a cubana. There was one at Catto's for a while but I would never meet her price. She was a real [I]borracha[/I] and I think she was more interested in hanging out and drinking.

The whole embargo thing is so 19th century, and to try to exclude a market that is 90 miles away seems doomed to failure anyway. We've wasted resources on that stupid island far beyond its economic importance ever since we stole the thing from Spain. Plus there aren't any Muslims there. Islam is the threat, not fucking Communism which was given a thorough trial in various areas and did not do too well in any of them.

What's funny now is that the Republican Cuban-Americans in Florida weren't even born when Batista bit it, and you [I]still[/I] can't tell those fuckers a thing. They know it all. Here's a news flash for all those assholes: Batista was a sadistic dick. He raped the treasury before he left, and he ended up just fine in quiet iberian luxury. Castro did him a favor because someone would have popped a cap in his ass sooner rather than later. But what the fuck do we know? We supported Efraín Ríos Montt, to say nothing of Anastasio [I]'Nicaragua es mi finca'[/I] Somoza Debayle, for christ's sakes. Under Republican presidents, of course, but it's still pretty hard to believe from an historical standpoint.

[QUOTE=Jackson;443029]This particular restaurant decided to add the Obamacare costs to the bill as a surcharge instead of raising all of their menu prices by 3%, but one way or another, the cost of providing health care to the employees is absolutely going to be passed onto the consumer. Period.[/QUOTE]Absolutely. This has the nature of a sales tax. Sales and excise taxes are passed onto the consumer, regardless of whether the business is a monopoly or in a competitive industry where returns are reduced to the cost of capital.

With respect to the larger picture, I would have said that most costs are passed onto the consumer, not all costs, but that's nitpicking.

[QUOTE=Jackson;443033]No, "trickle down" theory is when the entrepreneur running the popcorn stand makes a profit and then uses it to buy a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th popcorn stand, thus hiring more employees himself, and motivating the popcorn supplier and the manufacturer of said popcorn stands to hire more employees, etc. etc. etc.

Somehow, the liberal media has cast this phenomenon as something evil, I guess because it only rewards those who work hard.

Thanks,

Jax.[/QUOTE]Great analogy. This ties in with your first point. Profits are a small percentage of revenues. Most profits are re-invested, thus growing jobs and the economy. Good luck trying to convince ideologues though, they're convinced profits are spent mostly on luxurious houses, cars, etc. , and nothing's going to change their opinions.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;443043]Absolutely. This has the nature of a sales tax. Sales and excise taxes are passed onto the consumer, regardless of whether the business is a monopoly or in a competitive industry where returns are reduced to the cost of capital.[/QUOTE]Well, actually, no:

[URL]http://thismatter.com/economics/tax-incidence.htm[/URL]

And, in fact, sales taxes and excise taxes do not behave similarly. I think this situation also has elements of a [B]payroll[/B] tax:

[URL]www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/.../bush_tax...[/URL]

Not sure if that link will work but you can google 'who bears the burden of payroll taxes' if it does not. This next one is probably the best overall explanation of who pays what taxes and to what extent. Note that it is authored by a [B]conservative[/B] think tank.

[URL]http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/tax-incidence-tax-burden-and-tax-shifting-who-really-pays-the-tax[/URL]

Jackson and Tiny are both just flat out wrong on this one.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443044]Well, actually, no:

[URL]http://thismatter.com/economics/tax-incidence.htm[/URL]

And, in fact, sales taxes and excise taxes do not behave similarly. I think this situation also has elements of a [B]payroll[/B] tax:

[URL]www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/.../bush_tax...[/URL]

Not sure if that link will work but you can google 'who bears the burden of payroll taxes' if it does not. This next one is probably the best overall explanation of who pays what taxes and to what extent. Note that it is authored by a [B]conservative[/B] think tank.

[URL]http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/tax-incidence-tax-burden-and-tax-shifting-who-really-pays-the-tax[/URL]

Jackson and Tiny are both just flat out wrong on this one.[/QUOTE]WT69 paid a tax of 3% of sales. How is that not a sales tax?

Your link says, "Generally, because sales taxes are assessed on many items, buyers bear most of the burden of sales taxes, since there are few other things that they can buy that are tax-free. On the other hand, excise taxes, which are taxes on particular products, would, in many circumstances, hurt the sellers more because buyers can buy untaxed goods. This elastic demand pushes the tax burden on the sellers. However, there are some items where demand is inelastic because there are no close substitutes, such as alcohol and tobacco, so the tax burden for these items falls more on the buyers. ".

So since this is a sales tax, I think they're saying you're flat out wrong. An excise tax is a sales tax. The only distinction is that it's levied as a function of weight or volume instead of cost. I've looked at closely at several companies that bear excise taxes on alcohol and gasoline over periods when excise taxes increased. The excise taxes were passed onto the consumer. The margins of the companies, using gross revenues less excise tax in the denominator, weren't affected in the long term.

Why do you think sales and excise taxes are regressive? It's because they're passed onto the consumer.

Umm, it's a tax on a [B]particular product or service[/B], so it's excise and not sales. By the way, I don't argue that [I]most[/I] of the burden of a [I]sales[/I] tax falls on the consumer. That is consistent with a lack of (non-taxable) substitutes, which would decrease elasticity of demand and increase the incidence of the tax on the consumer. This tax can be avoided by eating at home or driving a bit farther away, or avoided by multiplying the pre-surchage, pre-sales tax amount by 115% and then adding the sales tax, and then paying that total amount (which is what I would do). That ability to substitute increases elasticity of demand and decreases the incidence of the tax on the consumer.

Now, while it is clearly not a sales tax ("Excise taxes (insert ellipses here) are taxes on [I]particular products[/I]"), I believe it to have elements of a [B]payroll[/B] tax because it is an alternative to paying higher wages. It bears repeating that the whole idea of employer-paid health care, which makes no particular logical sense other than having certain economies of scale available, arose due to the [B]inability to pay higher wages[/B] because of WWII wage and price controls. And, the burden of a payroll tends to fall on the employee, meaning that most of it does [B]not[/B] get passed on to the customer.

But righties are barking up the wrong tree even talking about the [B]incidence[/B] of a tax, which is what we are discussing here. The Heritage article I cited should put you on the right track. You supply siders want to talk about the [B]deadweight loss[/B] from a tax. [B]That's[/B] the argument you should be making. Trickle-down claims to reduce the "deadweight triangle" over time.

I do find it interesting that the one article claims there are no close substitutes for alcohol. I've certainly found a number of them over the years.

Good news, there are Cuban chicas in Quito.

Here is a post from a monger in country:

"That's a good guess for US $20 chongos, except for 155 which is full of beautiful Cuban girls. The most beautiful Colombian girls stay in their homeland, the ones who work in Ecuador are average (for Colombia, for Ecuador they are stunning). Doll House and Extasis are the high class night clubs (obviously very expensive) but in those places Cuban girls are majority (and just as the same level as the ones of the 155). ".

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443042]On the one hand, fuck Cuba, but on the other hand, our policy towards them could have been changed as soon as the Berlin Wall fell and by now we would have another playground similar to the DR but easier to get to. From an economic standpoint there is little reason for [B]us[/B] to pursue [B]them[/B] since they are just a bunch of broke dick motherfuckers. But Cubans could possibly make better wetbacks than Mxicans or Central Americans, because there is a higher educational level there. By extension, a better educated hooker is a more interesting hooker. Perhaps now we will see more cubanas in places like Costa Rica or at Campo Alegre. I had to go all the way to Spain to fuck a cubana. There was one at Catto's for a while but I would never meet her price. She was a real [I]borracha[/I] and I think she was more interested in hanging out and drinking.

The whole embargo thing is so 19th century, and to try to exclude a market that is 90 miles away seems doomed to failure anyway. We've wasted resources on that stupid island far beyond its economic importance ever since we stole the thing from Spain. Plus there aren't any Muslims there. Islam is the threat, not fucking Communism which was given a thorough trial in various areas and did not do too well in any of them.

What's funny now is that the Republican Cuban-Americans in Florida weren't even born when Batista bit it, and you [I]still[/I] can't tell those fuckers a thing. They know it all. Here's a news flash for all those assholes: Batista was a sadistic dick. He raped the treasury before he left, and he ended up just fine in quiet iberian luxury. Castro did him a favor because someone would have popped a cap in his ass sooner rather than later. But what the fuck do we know? We supported Efran Ros Montt, to say nothing of Anastasio [I]'Nicaragua es mi finca'[/I] Somoza Debayle, for christ's sakes. Under Republican presidents, of course, but it's still pretty hard to believe from an historical standpoint.[/QUOTE]

An interesting example of the behavior of sales taxes and excise taxes can be found in Hawaii. Hawaii alleges not to have a "sales" tax but rather a "general excise" tax. It applies to things like gross rental revenue as well as to all purchases. Now, landlords can pass this tax on explicitly to tenants if they choose to, and separately identify it. But in the case of long-term leases to residents (as opposed to short-term vacation rentals), they mostly don't. Why?

Here we can see that what matters is not whether a tax is labeled "sales" or "excise," but rather how it actually functions. I go shopping for food. Yeah, I could go fishing or fly to the mainland and bring back food from Oregon where there is no tax, or something like that. But mostly, I'm going to have to pay the 4.16 (repetend)% tax and suck it up. Demand inelastic in the short run, burden of tax on consumer. In the long run, if it pisses me off enough, I actually could move to OR, and in the long run many islanders fish to supplement their grocery purchases. So in the long-run a local who fished might avoid 20% of the tax or something like that.

Now let's look at shopping for an apartment. Totally different elasticities. Both food and shelter are necessities but each shelter purchase occurs much less frequently and is much more avoidable. I have to eat but I don't normally have to move. I can't be standing in a line of people at the grocery cashier and try to bargain away the tax. But, I sure can when I'm negotiating a lease. More elasticity for the consumer equates to sharing less of the burden of the tax.

The "excise" tax in HI is way too general to meet the requirements of an excise tax. In both the food and the shelter case, the tax works like a "sales" tax. But, it works very differently between the two classes of products. If we want to leave Intermediate Microeconomic Theory 356 and return to Econ 101, the popcorn stand owner can pass virtually none of a tax on to its customers, because they have a largely undifferentiated product but a fine dining restaurant can pass a fair amount of it on, because they have a differentiated product.

WT69's tax is applied to all classes of a particular product, and so works like an "excise" tax. Fine dining will be more successful in passing it on than casual dining. It can be seen why in Tiny's two examples of excise taxes, they will fall on the consumer. Many of the conditions for inelasticity are met: shortage of close substitutes in the short run, each purchase is a relatively small portion of income, consumer views product [B]class[/B] as necessity and not luxury, purchase price not commonly negotiated, and so forth. Similar research on a luxury product would be interesting. Jewelry, or precious metals, or something. I do not agree that excise taxes are inherently regressive. I think they are the opposite when applied to luxury goods.

In accounting everything boils down to the matching rule, in finance everything boils down to the time value of money, and in economics everything boils down to elasticity of demand. Mostly everything, anyway.

So I don't know if the "San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance (SFHCSO) Surcharge" is what WT69 "had" to pay, but if that's the case, it isn't a sales tax, an excise tax, or any kind of tax, since it goes directly into the pocket of the business owner and never gets remitted to the government. [B]If[/B] the business owner [B]chooses[/B] to employ the surcharge, they [B]have[/B] to allegedly and eventually spend the same amount or more on employee health care. Many cheated and charged way more than they spent. Anyway, that ain't a tax. That is no different than saying "tomato slice surcharge, 10 cents," instead of raising the price of the BLT by ten cents. It's a complete load of malarkey.

Politically this again begs the question of why employers should be involved in or responsible for their employees' health care. I can't think of an argument in favor. I think any advanced government should make sure that affordable health care is available to its citizens, so I like the ACA much more than I like employer mandates. I still haven't made up my mind on the individual mandate. I think it depends to some extent on the degree of safety net involved. So, let's start with a situation where there is absolutely no safety net. No insurance, the hospital lets you die in the parking lot. At that point, it looks like vehicle insurance and registration. I could never buy health insurance and never get sick. If I'm going to die in the parking lot, I'm more likely to buy the insurance. Similarly, I could drive without a license and never get caught. But they will impound my vehicle and blah blah so I pay the fee for the license. Seems like just a matter of degree.

Now let's put in safety nets. You make laws that say for example the public hospital has to take you. Right away fewer people are going to buy health insurance. In one state if I drive my one car with the plates off my other, I get in trouble but it's not an automatic license suspension. In another state, it is an automatic suspension. I risk it in one but not in the other.

So I'd rather see a public hospital system paid for out of general revenue. You could go there when you had to, and they couldn't turn you away, but you would owe that money forever. How much of that the system can recover versus how much gets written off would be an issue, but the general fund might as well bear that burden. Seems like that would just be a minimum of socialistic wealth transfer to keep from having a bunch of dead bodies in hospital parking lots. Then you might want to look at what might actually be cost-effective from an overall societal standpoint to provide for free, whether that's vaccinations or flu shots or whatever, and add that in as a basic "entitlement" if it would cost the other taxpayers more [B]not[/B] to provide it (your kid getting measles because I can't afford to vaccinate mine, and so forth). That would make good political sense even if it did benefit a bunch of shiftless lazy bastards, right?

Here's an example of how trickle-down economics works.

Let's suppose Wall Street and the top 1% make $100 Billion a year. They do this by getting the best information and financial management services money can buy, high-speed trading, writing activist letters to profitable companies, collecting dividends and interest, lobbying for lower tax rates than their secretaries and to be bailed out by taxpayers when their risky bets go bad, and other various means of collecting basically "free money" on the backs of productive American workers.

Now let's suppose this group spends $5 Billion into the US economy. That money trickles down and benefits the other 99%.

So with trickle-down everyone shares in the pie of prosperity: a small group gets $95 Billion and everyone else gets $5 Billion.

Joe Scarborough: Top 1% took 95% of gains since 2009
[URL]http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/22/joe-scarborough/scarborough-top-1-took-95-gains-under-obama/[/URL]

Well, if they do "high-speed trading" and make a couple of million, and they are in the state and city of New York, they will pay a marginal tax rate of 39.6 federal + 3.9 medicare + 8.82 state + 3.648 city = 55.968% marginal rate. And, the incremental rate will be very close to the marginal rate.

Now let's assume for the sake of argument the secretary makes $100,000. That's a decent salary for a secretary, even in NYC. Assuming single tax status, that would be an 18.334% federal tax rate. The state tax would be 5.133% and the city rate would be 3.066%. The income would be subject to 7.65% FICA. So, that's 34.183%. These numbers assume 2014 and the standard deduction. The incremental or average rate for the high-speed trader would be a tiny bit lower than the 55.968%, but I doubt by even a percentage point, but that would depend on how much of this theoretical $100 billion was made by one taxpayer.

Hence, we can toss out that inaccurate and bloviated rhetoric as there is no set of actual circumstances under which it could occur. The Wall Street fat cats' sins are cancelling each other out. They can't possibly be high speed trading [B]and[/B] paying a lower rate than their secretaries! It reminds me of when Willie Mays was playing for the Giants, a reporter wrote that the only things he was interested in were hitting home runs and resting. Willie said, "If I'm hitting home runs, I'm not resting, and if I'm resting, I'm not hitting home runs. If those are my only sins I [B]gotta[/B] get to heaven!"

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443054]Well, if they do "high-speed trading" and make a couple of million, and they are in the state in city of New York, they will pay a marginal tax rate of 39.6 federal + 3. 9 medicare + 8. 82 state + 3. 648 city = 55.968% marginal rate. And, the incremental rate will be very close to the marginal rate.

Now let's assume for the sake of argument the secretary makes $100,000. That's a decent salary for a secretary, even in NYC. Assuming single tax status, that would be an 18.334% federal tax rate. The state tax would be 5. 133% and the city rate would be 3. 066%. The income would be subject to 7. 65% FICA. So, that's 34.183%. These numbers assume 2014 and the standard deduction. The incremental or average rate for the high-speed trader would be a tiny bit lower than the 55.968%, but I doubt by even a percentage point, but that would depend on how much of this theoretical $100 billion was made by one taxpayer.

Hence, we can toss out that inaccurate and bloviated rhetoric as there is no set of actual circumstances under which it could occur. The Wall Street fat cats' sins are cancelling each other out. They can't possibly be high speed trading [B]and[/B] paying a lower rate than their secretaries! It reminds me of when Willie Mays was playing for the Giants, a reporter wrote that the only things he was interested in were hitting home runs and resting. Willie said, "If I'm hitting home runs, I'm not resting, and if I'm resting, I'm not hitting home runs. If those are my only sins I [B]gotta[/B] get to heaven![/QUOTE]Who was that idiot reporter?

I don't remember the reporters' names but he talks about it in his autobiography. He also does a very good job of explaining Republican / supply-side vs. Democratic / Keynesian / demand-side economics. Check it out. Basically he gives a description of trickle-down policy, followed by a description of transfer payments. Then he says they probably come out about the same in the long run. Then he says something like, "But I've seen what happens in the meantime, and that's why I'm a Democrat. " Willie's a bit of an Uncle Tom but he has a way of making sense. A lot of righties are devotees of Joseph Schumpeter and the so-called "Austrian School," but maybe they should be reading Mays' autobiography instead of worrying about Kondratiev cycles.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443058]I don't remember the reporters' names but he talks about it in his autobiography. He also does a very good job of explaining Republican / supply-side vs. Democratic / Keynesian / demand-side economics. Check it out. Basically he gives a description of trickle-down policy, followed by a description of transfer payments. Then he says they probably come out about the same in the long run. Then he says something like, "But I've seen what happens in the meantime, and that's why I'm a Democrat. " Willie's a bit of an Uncle Tom but he has a way of making sense. A lot of righties are devotees of Joseph Schumpeter and the so-called "Austrian School," but maybe they should be reading Mays' autobiography instead of worrying about Kondratiev cycles.[/QUOTE]Stretching doubles into triples comes to mind.

I know he hit 20 triples one year and that's hard to do. But the park had a lot to do with it.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443058]I don't remember the reporters' names but he talks about it in his autobiography. He also does a very good job of explaining Republican / supply-side vs. Democratic / Keynesian / demand-side economics. Check it out. Basically he gives a description of trickle-down policy, followed by a description of transfer payments. Then he says they probably come out about the same in the long run. Then he says something like, "But I've seen what happens in the meantime, and that's why I'm a Democrat. " Willie's a bit of an Uncle Tom but he has a way of making sense. A lot of righties are devotees of Joseph Schumpeter and the so-called "Austrian School," but maybe they should be reading Mays' autobiography instead of worrying about Kondratiev cycles.[/QUOTE]I had one macroeconomics class. The professor, who was one of the top advisers to a president that was slightly to the left of Obama, was a big fan of Kondratiev cycles. They seemed like bull sh*t to me, along with a lot of the rest of the course material.

Keynes was right, deficit spending is a great tool during recessions. The problem is that USA federal politicians don't run budget surpluses when times are good. They run perennial deficits, getting the nation deeper and deeper into debt. I do not think you are correct in believing this is benign because the USA Dollar is currently the world's main reserve currency. Some day there will be hell to pay.

Just as bad is the belief that the private sector should be highly taxed and shrink relative to the size of federal government, which is implicit in Democratic demand-side economics. The private sector is much more efficient than the USA federal government. Please note I didn't say Keynesian demand-side economics. While I never studied Keynes, I don't believe he had a preference one way or the other, for tax cuts or government spending increases during recessions.