Forums

I already said I’m against the income tax, you don’t have to sell me on it.

You're presenting this analogy like you're smarter than everybody else because you've figured out something everyone has known since 1980. Are you going to argue Star Wars is fake? No one is pretending that it isn't. Pro-wrestling isn't presenting itself as a fair play competition regulated by a code of rules and ethics. It's entertainment. WWE. Dumb analogy, but congrats, at least it doesn't involve consuming human waste. More progress. It's like raising a child, getting one to make good choices doesn't happen overnight, but if your patient and persistent, you can change their behavior, and it's very rewarding. The second paragraph is almost unintelligible. What specific "on the ground" claim was bogus? You're dancing around the issue again but not articulating it. And who is this "we" that provided "what" examples? You're like the dog that yips and yaps at everyone on the other side of the fence, but is afraid to go through an open gate. Here's a fun one for you. I often watch/read UNSC testimonies just to see what's happening up there.  Found this one from yesterday. It's a former State Department and CIA official who also worked counter-terrorism until about 2016. Before you overload your Google search bar in a frantic search for an ad-hominem attack, try to read it and look for signs of factual information and signs of bias yourself. There are both. This guy clearly has a bone to pick, but is he a Russian agent? Is it a complete fabrication produced by a Russian Psyop? I don't know. Let's read it and see. Use your critical thinking skills.  

You're thinking short term. In the long term suppressed interest rates have inflated the assets that are usually financed, such as houses and cars. And now the workers can't afford those things. Inflation affects everyone, but when the wealth y have quadrupled their wealth, even a 50% haircut due to inflation means they're twice as well off. The rest of us however have not experienced a similar increase in wealth, and are there for much more affected by inflation. Fuck with the economy at your (our) peril. Food is not financed, so that's not a factor. And for those who are financing food, they are way past the interest rate mattering.   You are delusional if you think property tax primarily affects people who are "entirely way too well off." Honestly it's kind of hard to conceptualize anything after that statement. It indicates that you live in an alternate universe. Also, ethical arguments don't have to take into account second and third order effects? What? So ethics only matter on the date of legislation? Honestly if this is how you think about anything it starts to make a little bit more sense that you support these emotional "fairness" policies. Sure, this is a Biden problem. It was a trump problem. It was also an Obama problem. And it was definitely a bush problem since QE was invented under his watch. But really this was a Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Bush H.W. problem too since we unpegged from gold in 71. Yeah dude, once again, second and third order effects. I care more about my children and grandchildren having a brighter future than I do the continuance of cheap TVs and meme stocks. The sooner we jam a stick in the spokes of modern monetary theory, fiat currency, and Keynesian economics, the better. We are now in a economic cancer situation. Taking the chemo now is going to suck, but it's going to suck a whole lot more if you wait till stage 4. Biden is not tightening. Powell is tightening. To the great consternation of many Democrats. And don't worry, when Trump wins the election it will be the Republicans spending trillions that we don't have. There are no responsible parties anymore. However the real problem is that we aren't actually tightening yet. The drawdown of fed assets has been exceeded by the drawdown in the reverse repo facility, which is why liquidity has increased rather than decreased. Once the RRP runs dry, if, and it's a huge if, the Fed continues to tighten, only then will we see the effects.  

You apparently haven't been paying attention to what's actually happening in China.  They have none of these advantages anymore.  The one thing they had going for them was being the world's workshop...but that was economics planned by central committee.  It came at many costs, one of them being technological innovation, and it's over.  They are in the process of a demographic collapse thanks to 40 years of the one child policy.  Even if they implemented a national breeding campaign, it would take 30-40 years for them to reap the economic benefits...and they haven't.  The wage 'advantage' is no more.  Mexican labor is cheaper by almost three times now.  Mexican production quality is ALSO better.  China may be able to make things, but they can't do it cheaply anymore (their middle class wages have skyrocketed) and they can't produce anything of high quality.  What's more, they never had a national unity advantage.  Everything their government does it to control their people, not dominate the world.  We don't have to do anything to beat the Chinese economically besides wait.  Militarily, all we'd have to do is close the Strait of Malacca and watch them starve in the dark, as they import so much food and energy.  Oh-by-the-way guess what kind of weapons we just leant to the Australians in Darwin: Cruise missiles that can hit ships in the strait of malacca from over the horizon.  As for national debt?  You think we're hurting?  Go google Chinese hyper financialization.  The dollar may or may not remain the reserve currency, but the Yuan will NOT be taking it's place in our lifetime. Yes, the Chinese are great at long term intellectual planning, but NONE of their execution has followed any of that planning.  They are screwed and all we have to do is not save them. Multiple historians, demographers, and geopolitical analysts have reached the above conclusions.  Ray Dalio would be one exception, but reading his work it's clear his love of china is underpinned by strong emotional ties that clearly color his analysis.  But even he doesn't paint a very rosy picture for them, specifically because of their economics and debt. Don't listen to the rhetoric, look at the details and facts. 

-Not talking estate tax.  Just the mechanics of technique.   The heir pays the debt rather than allowing the estate to cover it, which makes it gone and frees the burden from the estate and allows the step-up trick to work.  Got it. I don't care at all about your last point.