White House Slams Bezos Criticism of Biden Tax Comments (axios.com) 306
The White House slammed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Monday after the billionaire accused President Biden of "misdirection" in his comments on inflation and corporate taxes. From a report: Biden tweeted Friday that the wealthiest corporations must "pay their fair share" to help bring down record-high inflation. Biden also recently met with Amazon labor organizers after their union victory. Bezos responded to Biden claiming inflation and corporate taxes aren't related. "Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection," he tweeted.
"It doesn't require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share," deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement per the Washington Post. "It's also unsurprising that this tweet comes after the President met with labor organizers, including Amazon employees." Bezos fired back shortly after, saying the White House is trying to "muddy the topic." "They know inflation hurts the neediest the most. But unions aren't causing inflation and neither are wealthy people. Remember the Administration tried their best to add another $3.5 TRILLION to federal spending," he tweeted. "They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40 year high."
"It doesn't require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share," deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement per the Washington Post. "It's also unsurprising that this tweet comes after the President met with labor organizers, including Amazon employees." Bezos fired back shortly after, saying the White House is trying to "muddy the topic." "They know inflation hurts the neediest the most. But unions aren't causing inflation and neither are wealthy people. Remember the Administration tried their best to add another $3.5 TRILLION to federal spending," he tweeted. "They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40 year high."
Basic Economics (Score:3, Informative)
As the great Milton Friedman once explained, only the government can and does create inflation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The great Milton Friedman was wrong.
Inflation occurred in the late middle ages and early modern era due to an influx of gold (and other metals) due to finding better mining locations and improved mining and seafaring technology. No matter how great, Milton Friedman cannot logic away reality.
Re:Basic Economics (Score:5, Interesting)
Inflation can occur from (A) more money, or (B) a shortage of goods/services, including (C) timing skews of demand for goods/services.
While one can certainly argue that (A) is a contributor to the current inflationary situation, it's also hard to deny (B) and (C) as well.
Re:Basic Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
To present an example: assume war breaks out in the Middle East. Nobody changes monetary policy. What happens to oil prices? They rise (oil price inflation). And subsequently to a lesser extent, everything depends on oil inflates as well.
Inflation doesn't require changes in monetary policy.
We have a world where consumption - after having stagnated for years due to COVID - has surged. During a labour shortage. While China enforces its Zero-COVID policy. Shortly after honking truckers blocked the US's northern border. And a whole bunch of other things. Now we have a war as well with a massive, growing trade embargo. These are all things that cause inflation.
Re:Basic Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, (B) is the correct answer, this inflation event is primarily supply side driven. Since the primary issue we're dealing with is that supply remains constrained, the Fed has 1 of 2 options, increase supply or reduce demand. The Fed doesn't have effective tools to increase supply, though one could argue low rates could stimulate capital investment to eventually increase supply, so the Fed has chosen to pursue demand destruction via increased effective rates. Bezos may not be my idol, but he's right, inflation and wealth taxes are completely uncorrelated. The issue is the only tool available to fight inflation right now is to inflict intense financial pressure on lower / middle class consumers so they pull down the demand curve. Biden is dragging the wealthy into the discussion is a political move to make it appear they will "share the pain" which is complete nonsense. They will share the pain about as much as Putin is noticing how expensive groceries are in Russia. Confiscating the entire 4.5T in wealth from the 400 richest Americans would have virtually zero impact on this inflationary cycle.
Re: Basic Economics (Score:2)
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inflation and wealth taxes are completely uncorrelated
No, they're not. Increasing taxes (without increasing government spending -- this is important!) reduces the money supply, which reduces inflation and could in theory even cause deflation (though that would be bad).
I'm not saying that increased taxation is necessarily the right way to fight inflation, but it is one way. Modern Monetary Theory (which I think is dumb in many ways, but isn't completely wrong) suggests it should be the primary way.
The issue is the only tool available to fight inflation right now is to inflict intense financial pressure on lower / middle class consumers so they pull down the demand curve.
And wealth taxes on the rich would do that. This side of "tr
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Make it more like the time before Reagan, it wasn't unconstitutional then. How about, if you make more than $500K in *total compensation* (so no hiding it in stock options) then you're taxed 50% on that amount, and if over $1M then 70%. That should hit pretty much only the upper 1% or 2% of wage earners.
You're talking about high marginal income tax rates, not about wealth taxes. Two completely different things. Someone like Elon Musk can see his net worth increase by billions of dollars while receiving $0 of income and therefore paying $0 in taxes no matter how high the income tax rates are. Any percentage of $0 is $0. It's called unrealized capital gains. He can even effectively spend some of that money by borrowing against it and spending the borrowed cash. Eventually he'll have to repay those loans, an
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The full equation is MV = PQ, so money supply * velocity = inflation.
It's true that money was being created starting in 2008 as you say, but the velocity was dropping to make up for it until recently, as can be seen in this graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]
There's nothing mysterious about this, like suppliers being greedier than normal or something.
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Yeah, printing an extra $2.2T will certainly be a "contributor" to the current inflationary situation.
Remember boys and girls, "inflation" is NOT the same as "prices are going up". Prices can go up for a variety of reasons. But when whomever is in charge of controlling the money supply says words to the effect of "I don't have enough money to spend. Let's print more" that's a sure sign of both inflation and that
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
And in this particular case he's 100% wrong. Go map out inflation and corporate profits over the last few years, and you'll find out exactly what's going on.
It's not inflation, not in the least! It's almost 100% corporate price-gouging. You can account for almost 100% of our current "inflation" with corporate profit increases alone.
It's actually pretty fucking dishonest for the media to keep talking about inflation, when that's not the root cause of the price increases we're all seeing. The cost of raw mate
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We are still a net exporter of oil under Biden. We both import and export oil for a variety of reasons. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The great Milton Friedman was wrong.
Inflation occurred in the late middle ages and early modern era due to an influx of gold (and other metals) due to finding better mining locations and improved mining and seafaring technology. No matter how great, Milton Friedman cannot logic away reality.
I'm sorry, what? Do you not understand Milton Friedman or do you not understand history? Because your argument actually supports Friedman's statement.
In the Middle Ages, when everyone's currency was based on gold or some other precious metal, the mining of gold and the minting of coins and even the collection of taxes was entirely controlled by whatever state was in charge, either directly or through some franchise with very heavy authoritarian control. When using precious metals as the basis of curre
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In the Middle Ages, when everyone's currency was based on gold or some other precious metal, the mining of gold and the minting of coins and even the collection of taxes was entirely controlled by whatever state was in charge, either directly or through some franchise with very heavy authoritarian control. When using precious metals as the basis of currency, mining new locations is the equivalent of printing money. Choosing to allow more gold to flow into the economy is the equivalent of increasing the pool
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wowzers the Friedman fans have got a lot of modpoints today. Time to hit that "-1 disagree" button!
Re:Basic Economics (Score:4, Informative)
You really think the world is an awful lot simpler than it is.
And just who do you think funded that...
A mixture of interests. Royalty, rich houses, merchant cartels and so on. The structures then don't even map cleanly onto the modern conception of government.
One could of course argue that the government always is the root cause of inflation because the government ultimately enforces property rights (and if left to private interests, they are de-facto government). Without the government there is no money and no inflation and no private property.
But that hardly fits with the discourse centred around "herp teh gubbmint si teh ebull!111one" .
Ultimately we get better at doing stuff which means fewer resources are needed to do stuff. That means the stuff is essentially worth less and so inflation happens. This is sort of the essence of why the free market works too. So arguing that the government is what causes inflation is essentially arguing that the government is the only thing capable of improvement and the free market is a complete waste of time.
MF wins again, as he always does.
You should probably stop worshiping him as a god and engage your brain. Then again he does come across as an anti-government loonie, frankly so no wonder you're in agreement.
"The great enemy of human freedom is the Government. By taking money out of our pockets and spending it, it destroys our freedom. " - MF
If you believe that, then let me know when you have moved to the Governmentless Liberty Paradise of the Congo. There's no freedom-hating government to steal your hard earned dollars. Live by your convictions and then we can continue the discussion.
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only the government can and does create inflation.
That's nonsense. The government can cause inflation, but so can circumstances. The government regulates inflation, but that's not the same thing.
Re:Basic Economics (Score:4, Insightful)
It is mostly based on Supply and Demand. While the government can manage Supply and Demand it tries to let the markets do it thing until it really gets out of control.
Pandemic hits, sometimes the Government (local, state, or federal) may force business to stop, however there are also a lot of employees of said businesses will quit vs continue to work in such a condition.
That means there is less production. Causing a drop in supply (This raises prices)
The drop in production, means the companies need to hire more people again, to attract them they will need to pay more, these new hires (and existing employees get a raise as well so they don't jump ship) So they are getting paid more, thus want to buy more things. Causing a rise in demand (This raises prices)
Having a company with a lot of new hires, do not perform as well as established workers and can take a few years for them to get up to speed. So this will last a while until production improves, as well these workers will get caught up on getting stuff they wanted. So this could slow inflation in the future.... However if left unmanned, it could go into recession as a sudden drop of demand, means the companies will over produce, thus start laying off people...
Taxing or not Taxing the rich will do little in terms of inflation. It will help manage the governments budgets which they could use it to help create safety nets, and or have regulations with insensitive for people to do things that won't cause a recession shortly after.
Voters however, during good times, push the government to stop spending money on safety nets, when they have more money, and when things go bad, they demand their safety nets, when the governments are getting less tax income.
Re:Basic Economics (Score:5, Informative)
Milton Friedman, who was *wrong*? Who invented "trickle-down economics", which is and always was bullshit?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
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You should read this. http://www.taxhistory.org/civi... [taxhistory.org]
Re:Basic Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
In the real world. After Raygun cut taxes, the CEOs and corporations increased profits, but actual wages for everyone were static for decades (except for a while under Clinton).
Taxes were cut... and companies moved jobs overseas, to sweatshops. But that's ok, you're in a sweatshop, putting out wrong-wing propaganda, and you're probably not even being paid for it, sucker.
Re: Basic Economics (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Basic Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it doesn't, not by itself. If the taxes are spent paying down the Federal Debt it can cause the currency to "deflate" because it becomes stronger, but if they're spent elsewhere it just keeps circulating.
Even if the taxes are used to reduce the amount by which the debt increases, they reduce inflationary pressure. But, yeah, if every new dollar of taxes is taken by Congress to mean that they can spend another dollar, it doesn't help.
In practice, our debt-based government finance system has largely decoupled taxation and spending. Both parties regularly increase spending without increasing taxes and the Republicans take every opportunity they can to cut taxes without cutting spending. Also, much of our federal budget goes to non-discretionary spending which is decoupled from taxation by law. So in the context of US federal spending and taxation as it exists today, spending increases all the time without tax increases, and tax increases generally don't increase the rate of spending increases. This means that increasing taxation will reduce inflationary pressure (which isn't exactly the same thing as saying that it will reduce inflation, but it might have that effect on balance).
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Economist Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was explained to me, a long time ago in my economics classes, inflation is typically caused by printing a lot of money and handing it out to people, ie: cheap money.
Inflation came right after the government handed out Trillions of dollars, while at the same time reducing the capacity of the economy with lockdowns. In other words, when you increase wages, or decrease labor, prices for the masses tend to go up. Here, both happened simultaneously.
While I agree that it would be a thing for rich guys to pay "their fair share," I don't seem to get the relationship between the two.
Do we have an economist that can explain to us why the two are causally related?
--
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax. - Albert Einstein
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As per the standard slashdot reply, I will say: correlation does not equate causation.
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Your statement is true on its face. But there are proven instances where correlation does reflect causation. In economics, printing money does indeed cause inflation.
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A decrease in supply can certainly contribute to inflation as well. Certainly that's a big factor with energy prices and Russia. Also the pandemic hitting supply chains and altering demand patterns all over the economy.
Anyways, as to how soaking the rich might ease inflation - if you increase taxes without matching increases in governme
Re: Economist Anyone? (Score:3)
Anyways, as to how soaking the rich might ease inflation - if you increase taxes without matching increases in government spending you take money out of circulation and cool off the economy.
Not exactly, inflation isn't based on how many bills or coins are in circulation, not since we left the "metals" standard. The mechanism at the Federal level is the National Debt; borrowing more is "printing" money, paying the debt down "removes" it. The Treasury effectively maintains a "zero balance" at least from the PoV that every $ it brings in has to get spent. If we actually paid off the National Debt then other mechanisms might have to be used to take money out of the economy if we needed to, but the
Re:Russia not reason for high U.S. oil prices. (Score:4, Informative)
You would be surprised how much energy prices outside the US are affected by the prices outside the US.
If a producer in the US can sell their oil at a higher price on the international market, don't you think they will? That in turn will increase the domestic price.
Just look at the insane profits the oil companies are raking in now after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Re:Russia not reason for high U.S. oil prices. (Score:5, Informative)
Where's the decrease?
Forbes says [forbes.com] the US oil industry has a stockpile of unused leases but isn't in any huge hurry to increase production since "Investors have demanded that producers maintain capital discipline and grow volumes modestly. Returns have taken priority over growth. Up until recently, a producer planning to significantly grow production volumes would likely have been punished by investors. However, that sentiment may be changing with oil prices where they are and the potential need to replace Russian barrels on the global market. "
This is another way of saying they are making a killing and why mess with a good thing. It's not like foreign suppliers are going to come in and compete with them while they're selling to Europe at a huge premium due to Russia.
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Regarding fuel prices Europe is not at all the US, in say Germany and The Netherlands prices at the pump shot up after Putin started his war, in Italy they also had an increase but only a few cents because they have a law that windfall profits are taxed at 50%
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Seriously, if the President says he is going to put you out of business, how much do you think you're going to invest in futu
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The futures markets care not for where oil is produced and who it is going to. We shuffled supply and demand to the side in order to let commodities traders make more money. Funny how gas prices shot up immediately afterwards.
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Really? You're saying President Biden issued an edict to cut domestic oil production on day one. That's where you're going?
More oil was produced (pumped) in this country during President Biden's first year than in the first year of the con artist who had a rising economy. Further, there are 9,000 oil lease permits sitting unused [politifact.com] by the oil industry. Is that President Biden's fault als
Re:Economist Anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
We are experiencing widespread price increases and calling it "inflation." But the price increases might have multiple contributing causes. For example: a shortage of labor supply (because everyone was staying home from pandemic) will naturally cause any stockpiles to be used-up, and then suddenly there will be a shortage of a desired commodity. Such a shortage will drive prices right up, whether or not any new money is printed. And such shortages can spill over into secondary products that consume the first as a production input, too.
So, are we seeing food prices go up because farming yields have dropped, because farmers were staying home? I don't know if that was the cause or not, but if that is the cause, simply throwing more money at farmers won't do anything to fix it. Getting them back to the workload they had before will address it, but it will still take time (the food must grow, be harvested, be distributed, etc....the missing product must trickle through all the layers of usage before we will feel the prices dropping again).
Or maybe we are seeing food prices go up because of a shift in demand. Some shortage in some other product resulted in a compensatory increase in demand for grain, or maybe an increase in demand for sugar cane which resulted in the planting of significantly less grain, or similar. If that's the case one thing that may help is if the USA stopped its policy of paying farmers to abstain from growing food (they do this to keep prices high enough that farmers can make a living off producing it....but if the prices have spiked anyway then it is safe to increase supply and the farmers will still be fine, though they would probably grumble). Something like this wouldn't cost taxpayers any money at all, but it again would take time to work its way through the layers needed to impact our prices.
I CAN see a simple connection in the form of....the government is printing money that it wouldn't need to print if it could instead just take it from Jeff Bezos. So, that could reduce inflation by reducing the amount of money-printing going on. But I am unsure if numbers along those lines are actually very impactful.
Oh and I am not an economist. I just play one on slashdot.
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We are experiencing widespread price increases and calling it "inflation."
Yeah, that's actually the definition of inflation, so that's why we call it that.
But the price increases might have multiple contributing causes.
Of course they do! Everything is complicated.
For example: a shortage of labor supply (because everyone was staying home from pandemic) will naturally cause any stockpiles to be used-up
What stockpiles? JIT inventory, baby!
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I couldn't tell you if you're in the minority or not, but I will say that it makes sense to call anything that looks like inflation that, but you may need additional words to describe the situation fully. It doesn't really matter to the average person why prices go up in the immediate sense, only in the sense of what should be done about it. Price rises are just that, prices rising; prices rising generally across many markets adds up to what we call inflation, where all prices tend to rise because of interr
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There are two potential definitions ...
Personally, I think it is clearer to cause the former price rises and the latter inflation ...
I appreciate the sentiment, but I wouldn't bother trying to aid discussion by using clear and concise terminology. The ambiguity is obviously intentional.
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They might. But we should keep in mind the $2.2Trillion added to the money supply recently. Adding 10% or so to the money supply without bothering to add 10% to the supply of things to buy with money sounds like a pretty classic case on "inflation"....
Re: Economist Anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
The inflation in farming isnâ(TM)t being driven much by the farmers.
The live in rural areas, in red states. They stopped caring much about Covid in the summer of 2020. Honestly, I live here, and work with farmers. That spring there was some attempt to social distance when buying parts and supplies.
Also, most farmers live on their farms. So, they have been working from home forever. (Itâ(TM)s one of the reasons why farming as partially survived the green agenda. You might not like all the farming practices, but these people are literally raising their own kids in an industrial zone. They are highly motivated to both use the chemicals they need for yield, yet keep it out of the ground water their own kids are drinking).
Weâ(TM)ve been dealing with a shortage of fertilizer since last fall. Nitrogen fertilizers are literally âoebuiltâ from consuming a large LARGE amount of natural gas. The spikes it pricing of natural gas due to ⦠not wanting to frack and build pipelines ⦠has considerably restricted the supply. And ESG isnâ(TM)t helping, even if you can get a license to drill, will a bank loan you the money? (ESG is political redlining)
Labor shortages at animal processing facilities early in Covid also caused some issues in the pipeline. Because in summer 2020 plants were unable to take animals, farmers slowed down their breeding programs. Because you can only keep so many animals on site. So if you canâ(TM)t move out the full grown ones, you have to stop making new ones. The lack of breeding in 2020 is starting to finally show up as reduced animal heard sizes for sale now.
Ukraine, also, is not helping. Many grains have an amount of âoesubstitutability.â So, Ukraine grows a lot of wheat. But you can feed a cow on corn or wheat. But you can only make bread from wheat. So, the cereal / bread companies are pushing up the price of wheat (for human consumption) which then makes things like beef production shift harder into corn and drive those prices up too. And this repeats across many MANY commodities and products.
Also, the idea that US farmers should just grow more wheat is kinda non-starter. Most farmers have their seed ordered several months before they plant. The US market had their seed bought and plans set for 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. There simply wasnâ(TM)t a lot of acres that were in a position to pivot.
I could keep going ⦠but this seems like enough.
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Yet another clueless post from the poop drinker.
Here's a hint - farmers don't want the fertilizers and pesticides they use do go into ground water. Why? Because crops don't fucking grow below ground.
Fertilizers and pesticides cost a LOT of money. As in ~300-600USD minimum per acre of crop planted. Fertilizers not going to the actual crops is thousands and thousands of dollars wasted.
Woopsies, did some common sense burst your wittle bubble thought of some evil farmer just dumping stuff down his well? Sorry.
Re:Economist Anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
1: Prices GLOBALLY are rising.. in literally every corner of the globe.. so while its certainly fair to say "printing money" will impact inflation a little.. its not the root/primary cause.
2: Prices were on the rise for a LONG time before the current "emergency".
3: Many of these SAME companies are reporting record profits.. (again, nothing to do with inflation).
So its not really muddying the water to discuss corporations (who are publicly via financial reports) netting record profits and corporate taxes while discussing inflation, since the government has to print money so that the standard of living doesn't drop.. The US has a middle class that for many exist at the very bottom edge of that "class" and can easily become poor (or possibly homeless).. so its cheaper for state/local/federal governments keeping them IN their homes and working than being on the streets.
Also considering that these price rises are global, its an indication that more is at play than the US federal inflation level.. (COVID and related elements) are certainly going to impact things as some places have more strict rules (but the ones with the strictest set of rules also have provisions in place to keep people at home and at their current "income zone") the ones with the least rules ( looking at you US) typically had no such rules in place (which dragged things out far longer which meant a minor stockpile would quickly deplete.. causing prices to rise due to high demand and low inventory. Some of this again falls on US businesses since they outsourced a LOT of manufacturing and production elsewhere, which means during a global pandemic, supply chains are basically cut.
But a lot of this is simple greed.. because CEO's and companies have the option of diluting the share price or taking pay cuts at the top to offset temporary losses at the bottom to maintain the company... which means prices WOULDN'T rise (or not rise as much as fast).. but they would prefer to pass those additional costs (goods, fuel, transportation, raw goods, etc...) on to the consumer which again circles back to the government needing to step in to stem the blood.
In short, there is no silver bullet with these issues, they are often intertwined... but corporations paying their fair share has been a big concern for a LONG time.. The pandemic just ripped off the band-aid to make the wound worse and expose some additional issues but many of these problems have been there for a while.. just explained away or people too busy to really take a hard look.. but with the pandemic, far more people have more time to dive in and say "WTF????"
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It's not that hard. The government gave itself a huge loan to hand out that money. Now Biden wants to actually collect taxes from the wealthiest to pay that loan off. That is, to un-print all that money.
Note that while a lot of small to medium businesses have taken a beating, a few very large corporations have made record profits but somehow have not paid record taxes.
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He's not wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)
Inflation and corporate taxes don't have much to do with each other. However, inflation and the gross underpayment of low-end employees at mega-corporations like Amazon do go together.
And while you're talking about that, it's fair to bring up the added tax burden that these employees pose by requiring government support because their job doesn't pay enough.
And then while you're talking about taxes and mega-corporations, it's fair to bring up the corporate tax rate.
It's like six degrees of Jeff-Bezos-should
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Define "gross underpaying". What should a retail or warehouse employee be paid? Why?
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You answer first.
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Workers deserve the wage they agree to when they accept the job. If they are not offered enough they can negotiate for more or say no.
Re:He's not wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Define "gross underpaying". What should a retail or warehouse employee be paid? Why?
They should be paid a living wage, plus whatever additional amount is necessary to induce them away from other potential employment which sucks less than warehouse work.
All workers should be paid a living wage because anything less is unsustainable, and essentially Slavery Lite(tm). Permitting anyone to pay less than a living wage for any job only creates the motivation to treat people like they don't deserve to be alive.
There you go, what and why.
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Anyone working 40-50 hours a week should be paid enough to afford food, shelter, healthcare and utilities in the town or city where they are employed. That varies on the local costs of living but that's what the metric should be in my opinion.
Everyone gets 168 hours a week to live, that's it, no getting around it.
1/3 of ones life every week is enough to devote to work. Our economy can still grow and even thrive under that metric.
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They aren’t bright enough to realize that they’re subsidizing low wages through corporations with their taxes. Wages go up and the government doesn’t send out as many welfare checks. Simple as that.
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Define a living wage. The problem with the left's arguments is they use nebulous terms like "fair share" and "living wage" that don't mean anything other than "I'm jealous of rich people and want more of their money for myself".
That doens't do anything (Score:2)
However, inflation and the gross underpayment of low-end employees at mega-corporations like Amazon
Amazon revenue last twelve months is about $470 billion.
Lets say you took that al. Just how much of the U.S. budget does that cover?
Well out of 4.79 TRILLION dollars, that is 0.1%.
So how again is a shift in what Amazon pays in taxes, or indeed a whole bunch of corps pay in taxes, going to do anything?
Here's a question for you - if printing money is not a problem why should anyone pay any taxes?
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There is no such thing as "hoarding money".
Money is an IOU on goods and services, not the goods and services themselves. Production of goods and services tends to full capacity (and is considered a failure of policy if capacity is far from actual production). A person having money does not change the availability of goods and services to others. Quite the opposite - money is invested in companies, which they use to increase their capacity for producing goods and services.
It is wealthy people spending their
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There is no such thing as "hoarding money".
Yes, there literally is. Corporations and individuals alike currently hold unprecedented amounts of actual cash money, not just liquid assets.
A person having money does not change the availability of goods and services to others.
Yes, it absolutely does. If a person has too much money and doesn't spend it, then money can't do the things you say it does.
It is wealthy people spending their money - not simply owning it - that alters the supply of goods and services to everyone else.
That is fundamentally incorrect. If wealthy people do not spend their money, nor invest it, then it negatively alters the supply of goods and services to everyone else. And that is happening with more and more of the currency in existence. Again
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Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't add ~30% to the money supply and not get huge inflation. This is not difficult to understand and is really not arguable.
So they're idiots, or they are intentionally pandering to their clueless constituents. Which is it?
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You don't add ~30% to the money supply and not get huge inflation. This is not difficult to understand and is really not arguable.
That's arguably true. So how much currency was destroyed over the same period? Was the net increase actually 30%? What if you extend the period?
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Remember almost all of the money created over the last few decades is mostly virtual, it's never really "destroyed" like physical bills are over time
That's nonsense. Of course it is. For example, a bank "creates" money when it loans it out to multiple parties. When the loans are repaid, the bank profits from the interest, but the "copies" of the money are destroyed. The fed is the same. When the money they created comes back, it's also destroyed. The only problem is when the wealthy hoard cash, which is what they are actually doing now — not liquid investments, but actual cash money. Corporations and the wealthy alike are holding onto actual money
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Inflation consists of decisions (Score:2)
Inflation consists of a lot of individual actors raising their prices, for whatever reason.
Corporate taxation really has nothing to do with inflation, unless the entity decides to raise prices due to higher taxes.
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Corporate taxation really has nothing to do with inflation, unless the entity decides to raise prices due to higher taxes.
If you raise all corporate taxes, then all corporations will tend to raise prices. That's not a reason not to do it; a few corporations won't have to because they have superior business models, and the so-called invisible hand only "works" (makes the market freer) if they are rewarded (among lots of other things that have to happen.)
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Taxes are due on a company's profits. Raising corporate taxes will have no effect on how profitable a company is unless that company deliberately sets out to not have profits so it doesn't pay taxes.
Tire of hearing "inflation" (Score:2)
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Gouging != inflation, but gouging can cause inflation, because any general and widespread increase in prices is called inflation.
If the majority of stuff is made by a handful of conglomerates who all raise their prices, then it's inflation due to gouging... it's both things.
I've seen estimates that anywhere from 20-60% of the inflation is due to gouging. I wonder if it's even possible to nail that down or if the system is too obfuscating.
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Bezos is correct in many ways (Score:3)
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It's my understanding that the government can't legally tell corporations they can't sell to other countries without invoking the war powers act, a national defense excuse, or similar.
Corporations don't pay taxes (Score:2, Insightful)
The business writes a tax check, but taxes are just another expense that gets passed along to the consumers in higher prices.
Re:Corporations don't pay taxes (Score:4, Interesting)
Those higher prices are due to greed, not taxes.
https://fortune.com/2022/03/31... [fortune.com]
Rich Bezos Slammed by Illogical Biden (Score:2)
Oligarchs vs. Political Class (Score:3)
While I tend to agree with Bezos, and think its insane for the Biden administration to just ignore the impact of printing tons of money and handing it out to people, the most important thing to remember here is that NONE of these people have the best interests of the poor and middle class in mind. They are fighting over who gets to dick the average person over and in what way, nothing more.
Global inflation - domestic focus (Score:2)
It's weird, how virtually every country on Earth is suffering from inflation, yet people choose to criticize domestic policies instead of solve the issues that are causing inflation - namely a supply change crisis exacerbated by COVID lock downs in China, and a war in Eastern Europe.
Goods are increasing in price because of supply and demand - namely demand is increasing at a relatively constant rate and supply is going way, way down.
Politicians and figureheads looking to capitalize on inflation are charlata
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Won’t someone think of the billionaires?
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It was pretty clear last time. Only if you made over $400k your taxes would be going up.
Re:Protip: (Score:5, Insightful)
Won’t someone think of the billionaires?
The previous president and both Republican-controlled houses of Congress did take note of the special needs of that group - and thoughtfully handed them a permanent one trillion dollar tax cut. But Biden selfishly wants to take part of that away from them again.
Re:Protip: (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem unfamiliar with the concept of paying a portion of your income to fund the government and public infrastructure. These past few years I’ve paid more than Trump.
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I'm very familiar with the fact that the top 1% pay 40% of all income taxes and the top 5% pay roughly 58% of all income taxes.
Who's not paying their fair share?
Re:Protip: (Score:5, Informative)
I'm very familiar with the fact that the top 1% pay 40% of all income taxes and the top 5% pay roughly 58% of all income taxes.
Who's not paying their fair share?
You sure about those figures? https://www.seattletimes.com/b... [seattletimes.com]
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Yep, a bunch of the 1% pay no taxes. I have no trouble believing the top 10% pays most of the taxes or what have you, but the 1%? NFW. They've bought themselves a comfortable tax-free niche atop the pyramid.
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Well, you can believe what you want but you are wrong. The IRS's own data shows the same thing. Facts don't care about your feelings.
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Hear hear! A flat tax, so everyone is in the same voting boat and no more deductions, ever.
A flat tax with no deductions, rebates or credits is inherently regressive because the poor spend a greater percentage of their income on taxable necessities.
In order to make a flat tax fair, you have to have enough rebates and bullshit added onto it that it no longer fulfills its supposed primary function, simplification of taxation.
Instead, how about just taxing investment income the same as any other income, and otherwise generally removing or at least reducing tax loopholes? That alone solves budget pro
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That's a funny soundbite, but have you really? You know he donated his entire salary as president (about $1.6M) back to the government, right? Did you pay more than $1.6M in taxes the last few years?
Source:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Re:Protip: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think they earned that wealth, when they did none or nearly none of the work?
Re:Protip: (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't get to that level without working 24x7x365.
Bezos probably did work hard at one point. Now he can just make evil decisions and reap profit. That's why he has time for space dick riding.
Musk never had to work that hard. He was born into money and he used his money to make more money.
The fact you think that these people work as hard as the workers who are actually doing the stuff that earns the money is pretty pathetic.
Re:Protip: (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention Bezos also got a $250,000 investment from his parents in 1995 to start Amazon.
To his credit he made it a success but that's a serious minority of people that are able to get that type of jump start.
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Musk never had to work that hard. He was born into money and he used his money to make more money.
Musk was born into money, but didn't directly use that to build his fortune. AFAICT, his father did make one smallish investment into a later funding round of his first company, but that seems to be the extent of his use of family money, and it doesn't appear that that investment was crucial.
That said, anyone with family money like Musk had is in a much, much better position to take the kinds of risk that Musk took, and which ultimately allowed him to build a huge fortune. Even if he didn't actually use h
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The fact that you think guys like Bezos and Musk don't do any work is mind blowing and illustrates how little you understand about how the world works. People don't get to that level without working 24x7x365.
Musk's "work" consists of posting to twitter.
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Just be honest with yourself and admit you are jealous instead of trying to invalidate someone else's success. I guarantee that if you stop worrying about people like Musk and worry about yourself and what you are doing then you will be a) happier and b) more successful.
Successful people aren't sitting around fretting about how much money Bezos or Musk have.
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Check the unemployment rate.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]
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The unemployment rate was a lie under Trump and it is still a lie under Biden.
To determine exactly what kind of lie it is requires a lot more than just looking at the number.
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So what is it then?
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That's a great question, but we know that even the U-6 doesn't count people who need work and can't get it. Nobody should ever report on the U-2 rate in particular, which doesn't count people who have given up looking for work and are just dying in a gutter somewhere, or even people who just have been looking for too long. Anyone who ever reports on the U-2 rate as if it were the actual unemployment rate is trying to sell you a lie, period.
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Check the labor force participation rate [stlouisfed.org], first. We still have fewer people employed in America [stlouisfed.org] than we did before covid hit.
Unemployment rate is not a good indicator of the health of the overall economy without more information.
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Oh no how terrible. They want healthcare and better wages for people.