OT: Can anyone explain this to me?
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@jethreauxdawg , that so few Americans understand this simple historical truth, is a primary reason we are completely screwed. Its also a simple explanation of why Andrew Jackson is so demonized in “modern higher education”. God bless him, he tried.
a joke. I didn't view the video. I don't have any way to discern deep fakes unless it is obviously manipulated or way off brand. I'm awaiting the online tool that let's you check such things. I'm almost certain that nobody who views a video that supports their current worldview will use that tool...
The printed money is simply created out of thin air. It dilutes the monetary supply of the dollar. To some extent this is good. To explain this in overly simplistic terms…. imagine your nation has a population of 100 people now and a total money supply of $100,000 ($1,000 per person on average). But in 25 years it has 300 people. If your money supply doesn’t grow with increasing population and production, then in 25 years you only have $333 per person. This can cause crazy levels of DE-flation where prices fall. It’s not good for an economy if you can always save money by deferring spending and investing. So your money supply needs to grow over time if your economy is healthy.
But if you print and spend too fast, you can get crazy inflation. Borrowing instead of printing can mitigate that effect. Because when you borrow, whether it’s from you own citizens or other nations, you are just redirecting buying power from one place to another. Borrowing money from China for instance reduces the ability of the China and its people to exert demand on our goods and services. This is why borrowing is better than printing for minimizing inflation, at least in the present day.
And it gets complicated because currencies are always changing value relative to each other. That valuation is in essence in how responsible a country is acting in terms of spending, printing, and borrowing and how the long term health and stability of the currency is viewed.
Now I understand two things
Why we are in this kind of shape - economy.
Why Biden is so confused every time he's on TV. He's listening to these ******** talk I just regurgitating what they say.
Even when they say nothing
Just another one of the people in Washington who are in charge of our lives and make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
ETA: I don't think it's a left or right problem. It's the people in charge, no matter who they belong to.
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Not taxing people is not giving it away. It is not taking it away. I’m shocked you’d even make that statement.
If you take it from me and don’t give it to Haiti and instead pay down our debt, that’s a lot damn different than not taking it from me because I have a mortgage interest deduction.
“The best argument against democracy is a 5-min conversation with the average voter.” - Sir Winston Churchill
Not making that statement would have been the better decision.
Your innocent statement ignores all the awful realities that would appear for so many across the country, if it were enacted.
People who complain that the US is no longer on the gold standard are so totally ignorant of why we aren't on it, or so removed from reality, make it easy know when it would be a waste of time to further discuss the topic.
For in person discussions, these people get an 'Oh yeah? Huh. Well that would be one way to do things.' and then maximum effort on my part to change the topic to something less crazy.
For in person discussions, these people get an 'Oh yeah? Huh. Well that would be one way to do things.' and then maximum effort on my part to change the topic to something less crazy.
With the standard deduction being $27k, few people even benefit from the mortgage interest deduction. I’ll bet you don’t. Maybe for MS purposes but not federal.
I know it’s semantics, but I don’t think anyone benefits from the deduction. Instead, I think people are penalized for not having mortgage interest to deduct. The mindset that the government is helping you by not making you pay is problematic.
And back to your point, you are right that a lot of people use the standard deduction rather than the mortgage interest deduction.
It was Woodrow Wilson that supported the Federal Reserve Act which gave the United States monetary authority to the world banks, that’s when the gold standard was done in, very few people understand the the federal reserve can do whatever it wants, it’s not part of the US government, just a conglomeration of banks
I run into this all the time. Not trying to be a dickk, but my patience is done with people who feign curiosity about a subject but don’t want to take more time than a TikTok clip to understand it.
Example: Just the other week a co-worker about to take her P.E. exam came into my office and asked some questions about my field. Honestly trying to help, I went into the answers and the reasons behind those answers. After about 3 minutes she glazed over and said “I ain’t got time for all that, I just want to know the answer to this question.”
And yes, she is about 25 years old, not long out of college. I will never help her again, because her time apparently is more valuable than mine.
I would be happy to read a bit of why the gold standard is a bad option
I'll just make the observation that every fiat currency that has been backed by nothing physical has ended up being worthless.
And, when fiat currencies are in their inevitable death spiral, the citizens who once depended on and believed in the government backing of those currencies scramble for physical things, like precious metals.
Not an efficient system at all, but it puts very much needed constraints on out of control politicians, who always end up running things in the end.
The gold standard failed because gold's attributes lead to centralization.
Two things can be true at once:
- The failure of gold as a monetary standard was inevitable.
- The system we replaced it with is broken.
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Lyn also made the accompanying chartbook available online.
My original post was tongue-in-cheek to get a discussion going. However, I do think that if we truly understand something, we should be able to explain it to a five-year-old.
Our money is broken, and the vast majority of people don't know the first thing about how it works. And the level of understanding barely increases with the level of education. This seems odd given how much of our lives it touches. It's almost as if people not understanding is part of its design.
If you want to learn more, I recommend a book by Lyn Alden:
Now Available: Broken Money
I’m excited to announce that my new book, Broken Money, is now available. It can be purchased in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats on Amazon here. It’s also available at Barnes & Noble here, and you can ask your local bookstore to order it for you. It can also be purchased at...
www.lynalden.com
What you listed is allowing people to keep money they have. That is hardly a gift.
But when those same people expect their services and preferred govt spending to continue unabated?.....
It is still not a gift, regardless of your statement. They may expect services for all of the other taxes being paid.
For example, I’m happy when I can keep the money I earned if a deduction is available. I also expect my roads to not have potholes and for emergency services to respond quickly if called upon. Both can be true at the same time.
I
I get some hefty deductions, and I appreciate them. But it's not my money, my taxes are my bill for running my country.
If anyone is getting something for less than it costs, then it's a gift. That they tell themselves that they're "owed" it doesn't change the reality.
I get some hefty deductions, and I appreciate them. But it's not my money, my taxes are my bill for running my country.
I can’t imagine looking at anything more differently than this. What if congress passed a law that you are taxed at 100%? After all, it’s not your money. Then they spread out the money evenly with services regardless of how hard you work, if you work at all, or if you provide any value whatsoever.
You can’t seriously believe the tax code is perfect and it’s not your money if they say it isn’t. I don’t believe you.
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Ignoring the fact that most of what you're referencing isn't free ****,
Sure. Phase it out. Already capped at what, $750k? Reduce the deductability like 3% a year. So 100% deductible this year, 97% the next, and so on. Gone in 30 years and change. That will unfairly benefit investment housing, which will get to deduct interest, but that's somewhat offset by the imputed income not being taxed.
Not really justifiable to allow one and not hte other from a principled standpoint, but the MID mainly just convinces stupid people to put too much money into housing.
Dividend rates are super high. Unless it's a nonprofit, you're paying pretty high taxes on dividends. Usually it's going to be in the 36% range. Even if somebody falls below the threshold for dividend taxation because of not showing much income, they're still probably paying 21%, which is higher than most people's average tax rate.
Sure. Phase it out. Already capped at what, $750k? Reduce the deductability like 3% a year. So 100% deductible this year, 97% the next, and so on. Gone in 30 years and change. That will unfairly benefit investment housing, which will get to deduct interest, but that's somewhat offset by the imputed income not being taxed.
Not really justifiable to allow one and not hte other from a principled standpoint, but the MID mainly just convinces stupid people to put too much money into housing.
Dividend rates are super high. Unless it's a nonprofit, you're paying pretty high taxes on dividends. Usually it's going to be in the 36% range. Even if somebody falls below the threshold for dividend taxation because of not showing much income, they're still probably paying 21%, which is higher than most people's average tax rate.
Sure. It was always a stupid way to fix other stupid tax policy.
Parents already get massively screwed with social security, and the screwing gets worse with every additional child you have. But I'd also be fine with replacing child tax credits with Social Security rebates. Probably need to make the employer side available also for the math to work for lower wage employees.
Unless you are talking about at the state level, 401k/457/403b etc. are all taxed when withdrawn, including the gains. It sort of converts an income tax into a quasi consumption tax. I'd be fine getting rid of roth treatment.
All of that would move tax policy in a slightly saner direction, but except for the child tax credit, none of it would even slightly change the fact that more than half the money the US spends each year are handouts. That ****'s not sustainable if we're going to have a military, fund infrastructure, pay interest on our massive debt, etc.
That's pretty much true of all countries that have had sovereign debt crises and hyper inflation. Certainly easier for some countries than others and it should be really easy for the US. But based on our current voting population, I think we will go the Argentina route and essentially vote to continue handing out money and create an inflation crisis rather than trying to act responsibly. We're going to keep taking on debt as long as people will let us before we address the ponzi-like entitlements or slow down the pork.
Really sounds like you've got it figured out. Run go enact all this and let us know how Americans like it.
If there is a standard rate, and a taxpayer pays less - that taxpayer received a handout. All the mental gymnastics in the world cannot explain this away.
There is no "standard rate". There are tax brackets that apply to taxable earnings. Low income people aren't getting a handout because they're not paying 37% on any of their taxable income. There are deductions that are better or worse from a policy standpoint, but for the most part they are not handouts although I'm sure there are some that are particularly unjustifiable that might qualify. None of what you listed is even arguably a handout except for the child tax credits. And again, for people not receiving a "refundable" part of the tax credit, even then it's arguably just balancing out the screwing they get on FICA.
Someone legally earning money and legally keeping it = handout?
And he's doing mental gymnastics?
My son hates it when I don't let him have my credit card to buy unlimited Robux every month. He just doesn't understand it. But I'm still not going to let him do it. Someone has to be the adult and make good decisions.
Not that I'm sure any politician is capable of that, just saying.
The next time you find an economist who is being touted as "calling it" wrt to market conditions, go check his/her history and see if they haven't been calling for bull/bear market for pretty much ever and just got it "right" by virtue of sticking with their position long enough for market conditions to eventually line up with it.
As an Econ grad this is 100 percent correct. It’s the inside joke with most economists. “It could happen this way, but then again it might not.”
"Give me a one-handed economist. All my economists say 'On the one hand' and then 'on the other hand.'" Harry Truman
Not sure if that's apocryphal or not.
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