American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[B] WT 69 we can play games if you want, it's up to you.[/B]

[QUOTE=WorldTravel69;443027]Punter that sounds like an English phrase. But I know in my heart Punter, you are a truly great American.[/QUOTE]Yes WT 69 I'm from one of the free states, people from free states tend to be very different than you [B]ignorant assholes[/B] from the Peoples Republic of California. Not only am I from a free state but I supposedly have Native American in my ancestry, but not the same tribe as Elizabeth Warren.

My apologies to the few normal people from California, but I needed to get down to a level that hopefully WT 69 will be able understand.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443028]As his posts themselves generally constitute a better argument against his positions, I don't bother with polemics in his case. [/QUOTE]I agree about WT 69's post but somebody needs call him and the other village idiot out from time to time. IMHO.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443028]In your case there is a faint ray of hope[/QUOTE]Thanks, (I think) some times I see a "faint ray of hope" in some of your post as well, I even agree with you once in a while. lol

But fair enough for now I guess.

Sorry for the slow reply I'm on a road trip and have limited internet time.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;443065]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.[/QUOTE]Keynes did, in fact, prefer government spending because it works faster. I don't think I ever said more debt was "benign. " I just view the value of a currency differently than you do. I believe it stems from the power of a government to tax its citizens. I don't know if you are a gold bug, you often talk like one, but I don't think specie currency is necessary so any given dollar amount of debt becomes less onerous when you don't have to dig gold out of the ground to meet your A / P.

You and I will never get past the "private sector should be highly taxed" until you understand the futility of corporate taxation. Some day there will be hell to pay for a lot of things, but I'm honestly more worried about what aggressive capitalism is doing to the environment than I am about the US dollar collapsing.

Kondratiev waves are normally a righty thing and not a lefty thing.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;443054]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.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Hence, we can toss out that inaccurate and bloviated rhetoric as there is no set of actual circumstances under which it could occur. [/QUOTE]The problem with Dickhead's analysis is that nobody is claiming that high-speed trading [I]alone[/I] enables someone to pay a lower tax rate than their secretary. I did not claim that, rather I listed high-speed trading and lobbying for lower tax rates as two of numerous things that Wall Street does to increase their take. And the many articles that have been written on the topic of effective federal tax rates do not claim this either. In fact the media articles are very clear that the lower tax rates some of the ultra-wealthy enjoy are due to qualified dividends, long-term capital gains and especially the "carried interest" provision that hedge fund managers enjoy. The low tax rates reported by folks like Buffett and Romney are well-documented. Even Republicans have proposed legislation to end some of these wasteful provisions for the wealthy. Ironically, the only "inaccurate and bloviated rhetoric" here is an argument that Dickhead himself has invented.

None of this changes the fact that Wall Street is leeching massive sums off the US economy, little of which is trickling down.

[QUOTE=Esten;443050]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.[/quote]And yet, paradoxically, if these investors didn't do everything that you've enumerated, there wouldn't be any jobs for "[I]productive American workers[/I]"

Esten, once again you are proffering the false narrative that wealth is a zero sum game, which I will torpedo with a single statement: Are you any poorer because these investors made some money?

[QUOTE=Esten;443050]Now let's suppose this group spends $5 Billion into the US economy. That money trickles down and benefits the other 99%.[/QUOTE]It's their money, and in a truly free society they can spend it where ever they choose.

[QUOTE=Esten;443050]So with trickle-down everyone shares in the pie of prosperity: a small group gets $95 Billion and everyone else gets $5 Billion.[/QUOTE]Let me correct this for you: "So with trickle-down everyone shares in the pie of prosperity: a small group [u]of investors who risked their money[/u] gets $95 Billion and everyone else [u]who didn't risk a single cent[/u] gets $5 Billion, [u]plus their salaries, benefits, pensions and whatever else is in their agreed upon compensation package[/u].

[QUOTE=Jackson;443090]"So with trickle-down everyone shares in the pie of prosperity: a small group [u]of investors who risked their money[/u] gets $95 Billion and everyone else [u]who didn't risk a single cent[/u] gets $5 Billion, [B]plus 55.968% of $95 billion, collected in taxes and redistributed[/B], [u]plus their salaries, benefits, pensions and whatever else is in their agreed upon compensation package[/u].[/QUOTE]Fixed that for you!

[QUOTE=Jackson;443090]And yet, paradoxically, if these investors didn't do everything that you've enumerated, there wouldn't be any jobs for "[I]productive American workers[/I]" [/QUOTE]Wrong. There are many, many ways to make money and become wealthy enough to invest in job-creating ventures. Investment money won't dry up if hedge funds stop high-frequency trading, or if activists stop threatening profitable corporations, or if taxes go up. 2014 has been the best year of job creation since 1999, but the wealthy are dealing with the highest tax rates since the Bush Tax Cuts. Predictably, you've made a simplistic statement with nothing to back it up.

[QUOTE]Esten, once again you are proffering the false narrative that wealth is a zero sum game, which I will torpedo with a single statement: Are you any poorer because these investors made some money?[/QUOTE]I'm doing well. Others have lost their jobs, in part because of Wall Street greed. Here's how it works. Investors (AKA Wall Street) communicate their expectations to corporations for financial performance. The CEO, Executive team and BOD all basically take their marching orders because their finances are largely determined by their stock awards and the company stock price, which Wall Street controls. Guidance is passed down the organization. Operating costs are a common focus, and labor is a key component here. Any project that can eliminate a few headcount gets attention. The more the headcount reduction, the more attention the idea gets. Such projects are continuously getting implemented across corporate America every year. Not to mention M&A which is great for Wall Street but typically leads to job losses. The net effect is a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. With all due respect, I wouldn't expect a small businessman to have much direct experience with this.

[QUOTE]It's their money, and in a truly free society they can spend it where ever they choose.[/QUOTE]Thank you for this succinct statement of why we should not rely on trickle-down economics.

[QUOTE]"So with trickle-down everyone shares in the pie of prosperity: a small group [u]of investors who risked their money[/u][/QUOTE]You're confusing leeching free money off the US economy with actual risk-taking that creates jobs. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that the wealthy must be allowed to accumulate obscene profits (95% of all income gains in recent years) to sustain jobs for everyone else.

What's all this about high-speed trading? Somebody read Michael Lewis's book. "High-speed" trading is a pretty relative term, but in and of itself it provides liquidity and marketability. It's true that a lot of that is intraday, but it still benefits me as a small investor when I want to say enter a limit order between the bid price and the ask price. A lot of the "high-speed" trading takes place in the futures market, where, in contrast to the spot equity market, for every winner there is an equal and opposite loser. Of course futures traders do benefit from the 60/40 rule, which has a very dirty history (hint: where is the futures exchange located? Who was the US Rep. from there for a long time? What key committee position did this person hold?), and so they would not face 55.968% taxation due to this graft they receive. I'd have to do the math again but I think it would be [B]approximately[/B] 10 percentage points lower. But aside from that break, it benefits me as an individual and largely passive investor to have a bunch of people trading against each other and beating each others' heads in, in the futures market.

And hopefully we have established by now that I only care about myself, so I think "high-speed" or program trading is great!

Esten, It's interesting you choose to highlight 2009 to 2012. During this period President Obama's party controlled one or both houses of Congress.

The USA has the most progressive tax system in the developed world. Look at the OECD studies, which were done before Obama further raised taxes on high income earners and successful unincorporated businesses. If you want to know why an increasing share of income was / is going to a small percentage of the population, look at the following.

1. Long term unemployment benefits. I would have preferred lower taxes on business (marginal rates are the highest in the world) and investment and spending on infrastructure to boost employment during the recession.

2. More people who are able to work going on social security disability.

3. The Affordable Care Act encouraging part time employment over full time employment.

Of course if people work less, or not at all, they make less money.

The biggest long term reasons the middle class and poor are losing out is because of globalization and technology. The cure is better education. If politicians would stop kowtowing to teachers unions and get an education system in place that works, there's a solution.

You don't seem to appreciate that improvements in productivity, getting more work out of fewer people, is the most important long term way to grow income. And it requires some of the actions you dislike. If you can improve productivity, increase employment participation, and control the politicians' spending, you've put the nation on the track to long term prosperity.

I agree that crony capitalism, like carried interest, should be stamped out of Wall Street.

Nobody's really mentioned one of the biggest advantages Wall Street has: the specialist gets to see the limit order book. That inherent advantage alone will doom many who try to trade against them. I'm trying to figure out how to turn that into some kind of conspiracy, but I can't decide if it's a left wing conspiracy or a right wing conspiracy. It has been ever thus back to Charles Dow and Edward Jones, but I bet fewer than 10% of stock investors understand the implication.

Tiny, the system that enables such lopsided wealth accumulation in the US is far too entrenched and expansive for any one president or administration to change significantly in a short period of time. The first few years Obama was cleaning up the mess his predecessor left him, and while the middle class was getting squeezed the rich still had plenty of cash to ride the stock market back up. Obama did take at least some steps to address the issue (ACA, tax changes, etc), without them economic inequality would be even worse.

Here's the distinction we need to make. There are investors who risk their money to start and grow a company. Along the way, jobs are created and at some point, hopefully, the company becomes profitable and the investor makes a profit off his investment.

Then there are those who come along to make money off already profitable companies. Like a parasite, they attach themselves to the host whether the host wants it or not. These leeches typically don't create jobs, but in a passive mode they don't generally cause job losses either. In an active mode, these leeches can and often do cause job losses. Here's a good example.

Amgen, bowing to hedge fund pressure, to cut up to 1,100 more jobs
[URL]http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amgen-job-cuts-20141029-story.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]In a surprise statement at an investment conference in New York, the Thousand Oaks firm said it would eliminate up to 1,100 jobs, boosting the total announced cuts this year to as many as 4,000, about 20% of its global workforce. Wall Street cheered, sending shares up 6% on the day to $157.19, a gain of $8.99.

The job cuts were part of a sweeping set of financial maneuvers the company intended as a way to funnel money back to Wall Street investors. The company also said it would buy back $2 billion in stock and increase its dividend 30%. It also made an ambitious promise of double-digit earnings growth for the next three years.

The fight between management and activist investor Daniel Loeb is part of a broader argument over whether such high-stakes face-offs result in short-term benefits to shareholders at the expense of a company's ability to invest in its operations and thrive long term.[/QUOTE]

Question for the Obama haters. Are you happy with the dollar being at its highest value for 11 years, or is this another sign of the 'communist dictator' ruining the economy?

[URL]http://www.wsj.com/articles/dollar-surges-to-11-year-against-biggest-rivals-1420221525[/URL]

[QUOTE=SteveC;443241]Question for the Obama haters.

[URL]http://www.wsj.com/articles/dollar-surges-to-11-year-against-biggest-rivals-1420221525[/URL][/QUOTE]IMHO the words of an average run-of-the-mill Kool-Aid drinking progressive apply well here.

[QUOTE=RevBS;441282][b]Hate is such a strong emotion.[/b]
And such a heavy burden to carry around. I prefer the word "dislike" better. "Irritated" or "annoyed" might even be more correct. [/QUOTE]BTW I can't read your linked article without a paid subscription, perhaps after I get my whopping thirty one dollar Social Security raise this month. Gee thanks Berry.

Just for the record I support replacing John Boehner as speaker of the house, IMHO he has proven himself to be nothing more than leftwing light.

But none of this really matters anyway because Obama is yesterdays news as the 2016 campaign is well underway.

[URL]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/opinion/paul-krugman-presidents-and-the-economy.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0[/URL]

"Do those who were blaming Mr. Obama for all of our economic ills now look like knaves & fools? Yes, they do. And that's because they are. ".