OT: Scary Graph

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 11:10:58 AM UTC+11, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable productivity.

Well, Trump said he'd be the greatest jobs president in the history of
the known universe and he's proved it!

The Cursitor Doom's and John Larkin's satisfaction. More competent auditors are more sceptical.

Cursitor Doom and John Larkin are both remarkably gullible, and that is the group that Donald Trump plays to. The rest of the world remembers his string of bankruptcies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-has-trump-declared-bankruptcy-four-or-six-times/

If he continues making bad choices for the US it may too end up being sold off for cents on the dollar.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 2:31:32 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.

Dream on. It might, but the small business isn't going to do that if it can't expect to sell the extra production from the extra employees.

With an erratic egomaniac busy making a mess of the economy by starting trade wars nobody can win, sensible small businesses think defensively.

Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses.

Except where there's technological change. John Larkin isn't speaking from personal experience.

> A modest tax cut, compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

A modest budget deficit cuts investment in infrastructure, which isn't.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

John Larkin has a funny idea of what most people understand.

The proposition that Donald Trump's cut in the corporate tax rate would lead to more business investment is even funnier.

People invest in perceived opportunities. If they don't see an opportunity, they don't invest.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:57 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Sure they do: "we let you keep what we think you need to survive. No
more."

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

So what? The government doesn't take stock certificates, or bits in a
computer somewhere, as tax payment. It want's cash. What you have to
do to convert bits of paper or bits of magnetism into cash is your
problem.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

Of course. "If you need it, it will be supplied by government." Then
it's a small step to "if it's not supplied by government, you don't
need it". The left *wants* the US to be the next Venezuela.

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:27:59 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:21:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:21:42 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:36:13 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

It's amazing that you can *always* be wrong, AlwaysWrong. Truly
amazing. Not amazing at all that you and Slowman would be in a
circle-jerk, though.

I don't think either has a job. Certainly neither designs electronics.

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable
productivity.

I work for a living (own no corporation) and have about as simple of a
tax filing as you can imagine. I saw about a $3600 reduction in my
taxes last year from the year before (year-end payment/refund plus
withholding, something most forget).

Did you form an S-corp or an LLC? I think that qualifies you for a
huge tax break now.

How do I pull that off? I'm a salaried employee.

Oh, misunderstood. I thought you might be self-employed.

You'd have to have outside income to benefit from s-corp or LLC
status.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:05:30 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
<curd@notformail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:19:29 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

Economists, like any other market commodity, are for sale.

That is *so* true. And I've learned over many decades that whenever I
hear a newsreader announce, "a panel of 34 eminent economists all agree
that [insert claim of choice here]" I know they've been hired to say it
and whatever they're predicting will simply *not* come to pass. I've seen
it over and over and over and over again.

"If you want ten opinions on an economic issue, ask five economists."

They write papers and do calculus and win Nobel prizes for their
theories. But macroeconomists can't experiment to test their theories.
And their predictions are miserably, uselessly predictive. So their
world is all about concensus and fad and politics. Group, tribal
delusion.

Lots of "sciences" are like that.

Microeconomics is subject to experiment. But hardly anybody wants to
be a microeconomist, and they don't get much glory. Economists want to
turn the big knobs.

That's ironic, because macroeconomics is just the sum of all
microeconomics.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:21:42 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:36:13 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

It's amazing that you can *always* be wrong, AlwaysWrong. Truly
amazing. Not amazing at all that you and Slowman would be in a
circle-jerk, though.

I don't think either has a job. Certainly neither designs electronics.

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable
productivity.

I work for a living (own no corporation) and have about as simple of a
tax filing as you can imagine. I saw about a $3600 reduction in my
taxes last year from the year before (year-end payment/refund plus
withholding, something most forget).

Did you form an S-corp or an LLC? I think that qualifies you for a
huge tax break now.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:21:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:21:42 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:36:13 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

It's amazing that you can *always* be wrong, AlwaysWrong. Truly
amazing. Not amazing at all that you and Slowman would be in a
circle-jerk, though.

I don't think either has a job. Certainly neither designs electronics.

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable
productivity.

I work for a living (own no corporation) and have about as simple of a
tax filing as you can imagine. I saw about a $3600 reduction in my
taxes last year from the year before (year-end payment/refund plus
withholding, something most forget).

Did you form an S-corp or an LLC? I think that qualifies you for a
huge tax break now.

How do I pull that off? I'm a salaried employee.

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:37:03 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:57 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Sure they do: "we let you keep what we think you need to survive. No
more."

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

So what? The government doesn't take stock certificates, or bits in a
computer somewhere, as tax payment. It want's cash. What you have to
do to convert bits of paper or bits of magnetism into cash is your
problem.

Same thing. They force Zuckerberg to sell shares to pay the
government.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

Of course. "If you need it, it will be supplied by government." Then
it's a small step to "if it's not supplied by government, you don't
need it". The left *wants* the US to be the next Venezuela.

Yes. Preferentially before the next election.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 1:29:04 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

The European examples take of the order 1% rather than half.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

You do have to have an appreciable amount of wealth before you have to pay the tax at all, and the house you live an pension funds do seem to be exempted.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

The US scheme seems to be to stop the lower and middle classes from ever getting enough to be able to save. The real income of the bottom 99% of the income distribution hasn't gone up for decades, and the top 100% has appropriated pretty much all the growth of the US economy since Reagan came to power.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 1:19:09 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:05:30 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:19:29 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

Economists, like any other market commodity, are for sale.

That is *so* true. And I've learned over many decades that whenever I
hear a newsreader announce, "a panel of 34 eminent economists all agree
that [insert claim of choice here]" I know they've been hired to say it
and whatever they're predicting will simply *not* come to pass. I've seen
it over and over and over and over again.

"If you want ten opinions on an economic issue, ask five economists."

They write papers and do calculus and win Nobel prizes for their
theories. But macroeconomists can't experiment to test their theories.

It's an observational science, so it gets tested against observations. This is an aspect of science that John Larkin can't understand at all, and every attempt to educate him about fails, because he can't believe that he's ever wrong.

> And their predictions are miserably, uselessly predictive.

The sort of economists that James Arthur worships really are that bad.

In the 1980's, when Margaret Thatcher had installed a coven of monetarists in the UK Treasury, Will Hutton was the Guardian;\'s economics correspondent.

He was on good terms with a bunch of neo-Keynesian university economist, and had the habit of writing that the Treasury had done "x" with the intention of achieving "y" but were going to get effect "z". Six months later he'd write "told you so".

So their world is all about concensus and fad and politics. Group, tribal
delusion.

That pretty much describes the Chicago School. Others do better, but John Larkin doesn't know about them

> Lots of "sciences" are like that.

John Larkin has a extensive pool of ignorance to draw on

Microeconomics is subject to experiment. But hardly anybody wants to
be a microeconomist, and they don't get much glory. Economists want to
turn the big knobs.

That's ironic, because macroeconomics is just the sum of all
microeconomics.

Sadly for John Larkin's comprehension, the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Chemistry looks like an application of physics - to physicists. Biochemistry looks like an application of chemistry - to chemists - and biology looks like a branch of biochemistry - to biochemists.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 2:14:46 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:37:03 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:57 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Sure they do: "we let you keep what we think you need to survive. No
more."

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

So what? The government doesn't take stock certificates, or bits in a
computer somewhere, as tax payment. It want's cash. What you have to
do to convert bits of paper or bits of magnetism into cash is your
problem.

Same thing. They force Zuckerberg to sell shares to pay the
government.



Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

Of course. "If you need it, it will be supplied by government." Then
it's a small step to "if it's not supplied by government, you don't
need it". The left *wants* the US to be the next Venezuela.

Yes. Preferentially before the next election.

The left doesn't need to do anything to achieve that. The US right wing has made a lot of progress along that path already, and seems to want to do lots more.

The US has much more economic inequality than any other advanced industrial country. It life expectancy is 31 down from the top at 78.88 years, about four year less than Australia (which is eighth) and almost five years better than Venezuala (which is 93rd at 73.95 years.

Apparently US life expectancies are now falling so you may yet fall behind even Venezuala.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 19/10/19 03:19, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:05:30 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:19:29 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

Economists, like any other market commodity, are for sale.

That is *so* true. And I've learned over many decades that whenever I
hear a newsreader announce, "a panel of 34 eminent economists all agree
that [insert claim of choice here]" I know they've been hired to say it
and whatever they're predicting will simply *not* come to pass. I've seen
it over and over and over and over again.

"If you want ten opinions on an economic issue, ask five economists."

Ditto engineers, if they are any good and include a "it
depends on whether..." caveat.

They write papers and do calculus and win Nobel prizes for their
theories. But macroeconomists can't experiment to test their theories.
And their predictions are miserably, uselessly predictive. So their
world is all about concensus and fad and politics. Group, tribal
delusion.

Lots of "sciences" are like that.

Not just economics, unfortunately.

That's captured in the very old semi-serious joke, probably
in the excellent "A Random Walk in Science" or its successor.

A physics student meets his professor in a corridor and asks
him to explain an experimental graph. The professor confidently
gives an explanation.

The student notes the professor is holding it upside down,
and rectifies that. The professor confidently gives another
explanation.

Microeconomics is subject to experiment. But hardly anybody wants to
be a microeconomist, and they don't get much glory. Economists want to
turn the big knobs.

The unavoidable problem is that they can never repeat an experiment, since the
conditions will have changed.

That's ironic, because macroeconomics is just the sum of all
microeconomics.

Not necessarily; emergent phenomena scupper that hope.

The physics of a pile of sand is not the physics of an
individual grain. If you can locate where the 35degree
half-angle of a pile of sand is encoded in an individual
grain of sand, you would win awards.

None of that implies I have too much faith in economists,
but I would prefer to blame them for things that are
their fault.

 

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:14:39 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:37:03 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:57 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Sure they do: "we let you keep what we think you need to survive. No
more."

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

So what? The government doesn't take stock certificates, or bits in a
computer somewhere, as tax payment. It want's cash. What you have to
do to convert bits of paper or bits of magnetism into cash is your
problem.

Same thing. They force Zuckerberg to sell shares to pay the
government.

Exactly. Now, what does that do to investment when all owners of
corporations have to do the same thing, at the same time?

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

Of course. "If you need it, it will be supplied by government." Then
it's a small step to "if it's not supplied by government, you don't
need it". The left *wants* the US to be the next Venezuela.

Yes. Preferentially before the next election.

The left has already turned the House into that of a banana republic.

 

[amdx]

On 10/18/2019 9:34 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:27:59 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:21:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:21:42 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:36:13 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

It's amazing that you can *always* be wrong, AlwaysWrong. Truly
amazing. Not amazing at all that you and Slowman would be in a
circle-jerk, though.

I don't think either has a job. Certainly neither designs electronics.

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable
productivity.

I work for a living (own no corporation) and have about as simple of a
tax filing as you can imagine. I saw about a $3600 reduction in my
taxes last year from the year before (year-end payment/refund plus
withholding, something most forget).

Did you form an S-corp or an LLC? I think that qualifies you for a
huge tax break now.

How do I pull that off? I'm a salaried employee.

Oh, misunderstood. I thought you might be self-employed.

You'd have to have outside income to benefit from s-corp or LLC
status.

Even sole proprietorships benefited from the 20% pass through.
Mikek

 

[amdx]

On 10/19/2019 12:25 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 1:29:04 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

The European examples take of the order 1% rather than half.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

You do have to have an appreciable amount of wealth before you have to pay the tax at all, and the house you live an pension funds do seem to be exempted.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

The US scheme seems to be to stop the lower and middle classes from ever getting enough to be able to save.

I didn't find that to be true. I always thought I had a lower middle
class income and probably did for 19 of the 37 years included in our
wealth accumulation period. The last 15 years we had a higher income,
but never up to a $100k.
Our inflation adjusted income over 37 years is about $71k, a little
higher than the mean.
We managed to save and invest our way into the 95 percentile while
having two kids and putting them through college.
So, my advice is very simple, "live below your income"
That first year of marriage we saved 30% of our income.
So what you say is just not true.
In fact the tax code gives you lots of ways to pay very little in
taxes, I had many years when I only paid 2% to 4% of my gross income
in federal taxes.


The real income of the bottom 99% of the income distribution hasn't
gone up for decades,

and the top 100% has appropriated pretty much all the growth of the US
economy since Reagan came to power.

Ya, such a bad place to live we are putting up walls to keep people
from leaving. Oh, wait, those are to keep illegals from breaking in.
What you say has some truth, but all that top 1% of wealth is
concentrated in a few stocks and and would only hurt the middle class if
they were forced to liquidate that stock. Just because the wealthy are
doing better doesn't mean the middle class is not also doing well also.
There is plenty of info to say we are doing extremely well, just look
at what society is arguing about.
Gender identity, what bathroom to use, social media, a kneeling
football player, Flat earthers, 6000 year old earth, and even attacking
area 51. Americans are doing so well, they have time, energy and money
to push for almost any cause.
Do people that are truly hurting buy 42" TV's and pay a monthly $130
cable bill, have internet and at least one computer if not several.

And not one is missing their cellphone.
It seems odd but these people under government guidelines, would be
considered be poor.
You should come for a visit, we have it made here.
Oh, I might add, even what I consider the least wealthy of my immigrant
relatives drives a nice BMW. The relatives came here legally, several of
them would be considered millionaires even though they still speak poor
English. Things are just not bad, they are great! These ARE the good times.
Mikek

 

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 08:48:13 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 10/18/2019 9:34 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:27:59 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:21:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:21:42 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:22:43 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:36:13 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

It's amazing that you can *always* be wrong, AlwaysWrong. Truly
amazing. Not amazing at all that you and Slowman would be in a
circle-jerk, though.

I don't think either has a job. Certainly neither designs electronics.

After the tax changes, we were able to instantly expense a couple
million in building improvements and equipment. Affordable
productivity.

I work for a living (own no corporation) and have about as simple of a
tax filing as you can imagine. I saw about a $3600 reduction in my
taxes last year from the year before (year-end payment/refund plus
withholding, something most forget).

Did you form an S-corp or an LLC? I think that qualifies you for a
huge tax break now.

How do I pull that off? I'm a salaried employee.

Oh, misunderstood. I thought you might be self-employed.

You'd have to have outside income to benefit from s-corp or LLC
status.

Even sole proprietorships benefited from the 20% pass through.
Mikek

It's a huge incentive for people to start up things. And some of those
things will grow. T's tax changes are about the only pro-business
thing the feds have done in decades [1]. The real benefits will kick
in slowly.

[1] there were some accelerated depreciation changes for small
businesses that were helpful, but the numbers were small.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 08:04:02 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 19/10/19 03:19, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:05:30 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:19:29 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

Economists, like any other market commodity, are for sale.

That is *so* true. And I've learned over many decades that whenever I
hear a newsreader announce, "a panel of 34 eminent economists all agree
that [insert claim of choice here]" I know they've been hired to say it
and whatever they're predicting will simply *not* come to pass. I've seen
it over and over and over and over again.

"If you want ten opinions on an economic issue, ask five economists."

Ditto engineers, if they are any good and include a "it
depends on whether..." caveat.

But we build stuff and, if it doesn't work, pay consequences.

They write papers and do calculus and win Nobel prizes for their
theories. But macroeconomists can't experiment to test their theories.
And their predictions are miserably, uselessly predictive. So their
world is all about concensus and fad and politics. Group, tribal
delusion.

Lots of "sciences" are like that.

Not just economics, unfortunately.

Concensus is not reality. The fuzzy "sciences" wander all over the
place, about once a generation on average, but do tend to converge on
self-interest.

That's captured in the very old semi-serious joke, probably
in the excellent "A Random Walk in Science" or its successor.

A physics student meets his professor in a corridor and asks
him to explain an experimental graph. The professor confidently
gives an explanation.

The student notes the professor is holding it upside down,
and rectifies that. The professor confidently gives another
explanation.


Microeconomics is subject to experiment. But hardly anybody wants to
be a microeconomist, and they don't get much glory. Economists want to
turn the big knobs.

The unavoidable problem is that they can never repeat an experiment, since the
conditions will have changed.


That's ironic, because macroeconomics is just the sum of all
microeconomics.

Not necessarily; emergent phenomena scupper that hope.

The physics of a pile of sand is not the physics of an
individual grain. If you can locate where the 35degree
half-angle of a pile of sand is encoded in an individual
grain of sand, you would win awards.

To make a useful predictive model of a pile of sand, you have to
understand the grains. Smooth round sand grains will stack differently
from irregular jaggy ones. A simulation or math analysis must start
with grain behavior. Even experiments have to control for grain
characteristics.

None of that implies I have too much faith in economists,
but I would prefer to blame them for things that are
their fault.

"If you're an economist, how come you ain't rich?"



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 09:46:40 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 10/19/2019 12:25 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 1:29:04 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

The European examples take of the order 1% rather than half.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

You do have to have an appreciable amount of wealth before you have to pay the tax at all, and the house you live an pension funds do seem to be exempted.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

The US scheme seems to be to stop the lower and middle classes from ever getting enough to be able to save.

I didn't find that to be true. I always thought I had a lower middle
class income and probably did for 19 of the 37 years included in our
wealth accumulation period. The last 15 years we had a higher income,
but never up to a $100k.

Anyone not starving can save some, and certainly not rack up credit
card debt. I have saved all my life, starting with my first job at 85
cents per hour.

Our inflation adjusted income over 37 years is about $71k, a little
higher than the mean.
We managed to save and invest our way into the 95 percentile while
having two kids and putting them through college.
So, my advice is very simple, "live below your income"
That first year of marriage we saved 30% of our income.
So what you say is just not true.
In fact the tax code gives you lots of ways to pay very little in
taxes, I had many years when I only paid 2% to 4% of my gross income
in federal taxes.


The real income of the bottom 99% of the income distribution hasn't
gone up for decades,

and the top 100% has appropriated pretty much all the growth of the US
economy since Reagan came to power.

Immigration has flooded the market with cheap, often off-the-books
labor, which has hurt working-class people. Cheap imports, ditto.

Around here, painters and construction guys used to be mostly
Irish-American citizens. Now a few of them own businesses, but employ
mostly Spanish-speaking new immigrants.

Ya, such a bad place to live we are putting up walls to keep people
from leaving. Oh, wait, those are to keep illegals from breaking in.
What you say has some truth, but all that top 1% of wealth is
concentrated in a few stocks and and would only hurt the middle class if
they were forced to liquidate that stock. Just because the wealthy are
doing better doesn't mean the middle class is not also doing well also.
There is plenty of info to say we are doing extremely well, just look
at what society is arguing about.
Gender identity, what bathroom to use, social media, a kneeling
football player, Flat earthers, 6000 year old earth, and even attacking
area 51. Americans are doing so well, they have time, energy and money
to push for almost any cause.
Do people that are truly hurting buy 42" TV's and pay a monthly $130
cable bill, have internet and at least one computer if not several.

And not one is missing their cellphone.
It seems odd but these people under government guidelines, would be
considered be poor.
You should come for a visit, we have it made here.
Oh, I might add, even what I consider the least wealthy of my immigrant
relatives drives a nice BMW. The relatives came here legally, several of
them would be considered millionaires even though they still speak poor
English. Things are just not bad, they are great! These ARE the good times.
Mikek

Some people do manage to wreck their lives with drugs, debt, or
climate anxiety or equivalent neuroses. Progress doesn't much change
our nature.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:36:43 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:14:39 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:37:03 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:57 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:24:40 -0400, krw@notreal.com wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:31:23 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:20:26 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in
news:29e69d9f-8308-49fe-8b95-e11a79a1d170@googlegroups.com:

Trump's corporate tax cut was touted as if was such a stimulus,
but in fact it was just Trump giving rich people - like him -
extra money at the expense of regular tax payers.


That is EXACTLY what it was. +1

No. It allows small businesses to invest in employees and in growth.
Business building is slow: it takes decades and generations of
investment and learning to build most businesses. A modest tax cut,
compounded over many years, will be good for the economy.

Most people don't understand "money." Business investment is not "at
the expense of regular tax payers." Billionaires mostly hold stock
shares in their companies, not sacks gold under their beds.

Can you imagine how destructive the Democrat's dream of a "wealth tax"
would be? Real, dynamic, cash leaving the economy to pay the taxes on
all that static "wealth"?

I don't understand how that would work, and I don't think they do
either.

Sure they do: "we let you keep what we think you need to survive. No
more."

Take a Gates or a Bezos or a Zuckerman. Their "wealth" is mostly stock
shares, which aren't even certificates any more; just bits on a hard
drive somewhere. So the government takes away half their shares. Then
what does it do, try to sell them? That drives down the market, which
takes wealth from retired people and pension funds and such. That's a
middle-class tax!

So what? The government doesn't take stock certificates, or bits in a
computer somewhere, as tax payment. It want's cash. What you have to
do to convert bits of paper or bits of magnetism into cash is your
problem.

Same thing. They force Zuckerberg to sell shares to pay the
government.

Exactly. Now, what does that do to investment when all owners of
corporations have to do the same thing, at the same time?

One of my employees lives in a small apartment just next door to
Zuckerberg. His wife is still a working MD, and he still codes.

Which I suppose is what the elites really want, to steal everyone's
savings.

Of course. "If you need it, it will be supplied by government." Then
it's a small step to "if it's not supplied by government, you don't
need it". The left *wants* the US to be the next Venezuela.

Yes. Preferentially before the next election.

The left has already turned the House into that of a banana republic.

Sadly, almost anyone who spends his/her entire "working" career in
politics gets sucked into the big government pass-more-bills
spend-more-money mentality.

Texas is more sensible than most:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Legislature






--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics