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- Sassenach
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03 Nov 2015, 12:01 pm
Another useful tax approach would be the institution of a Sales tax/ or transaction tax on business to business transactions. Especially on the trade of shares. (This would eliminate the short term trades that computers make and which are in no way "investment". ) At the same time I'd eliminate capital gains tax.
What you're referring to here is a Tobin tax (known somewhat laughably in the left-wing press over here as a 'Robin Hood tax'. It's a remarkably terrible idea. All that happens if you levy a financial transaction tax is that those transactions move to different jurisdictions where the tax doesn't apply. They tried it in Sweden during the 80s and it led to a catastrophic collapse in trading volumes. 50%of Swedish equity trades had moved to London by the end of the decade, while the volume of bond trades fell by 85% in the first week after the tax was extended to them, and by 90% in derivatives. As a result it raised far less money than had originally been envisaged. The predicted revenues were about 30x higher than the actual amount of money yielded by the tax, and when you factored in the lost revenue from capital gains tax it ended up being a net revenue loser for the Swedish state.
Of course, your proposal also envisages abolishing capital gains tax. This would be even worse, since the money raised by CGT is much higher than what you could make from any kind of plausible Tobin tax. You'd have to levy your Tobin tax at an eye-watering level to offset those losses, which would just ensure that all business would flee overseas and leave a massive hole in government finances. It's a great way to kill Wall Street but not such a great way of making money for the government.
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- rickyp
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03 Nov 2015, 2:02 pm
sass
All that happens if you levy a financial transaction tax is that those transactions move to different jurisdictions where the tax doesn't apply
Its easy to avoid an individual small state like Sweden. Harder if the US, and the EU and other G8 nations instituted a similar tax.
Sass
Of course, your proposal also envisages abolishing capital gains tax
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Not in favor of the Tobin tax, but in favor of a VAT or BST tax...
The Tobin tax idea is really just to eliminate the wasteful share trading.
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- Sassenach
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03 Nov 2015, 2:32 pm
Its easy to avoid an individual small state like Sweden. Harder if the US, and the EU and other G8 nations instituted a similar tax.
It would need to be global, which is impossible. If say, Singapore refused to sign up to the global Tobin tax then vast quantities of financial business would flood into Singapore, generating an enormous amount of revenue for Singapore and encouraging others to follow suit.
Not in favor of the Tobin tax, but in favor of a VAT or BST tax...
The Tobin tax idea is really just to eliminate the wasteful share trading.
So let me get this straight. You want to scrap CGT and replace it with a sales tax ? The Koch brothers would love you...
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- rickyp
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04 Nov 2015, 7:24 am
sass
So let me get this straight. You want to scrap CGT and replace it with a sales tax ? The Koch brothers would love you.
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Maybe. But they wouldn't like the concept of virtually zero deductions for corporate taxes.
And remember that the sales tax applies to property sold whether it is profitable or not...
There are too many possible loop holes on capital gains that a straight sales tax (or business transaction tax) would eliminate.
(I haven't calculated what the levels of taxation required would need to be ...)
BTW I'd also institute Medicare for all which would eliminate the need for business to buy health insurance for employees... I think simplifying things for businesses improves the business environment.
Philosophically I think capital gains puts the government in the business of taxing the winners and subsidizing the losers. (You get to deduct capital losses right?) And I think that's essentially wrong. Pay tax on a transaction to support the infrastructure that allows your company to run.... whether successfully or not.
And I get it about tax havens... But there are ways to isolate tax havens now and change their ways. . For instance Switzerland is no longer harboring tax cheats in their banks...
It is possible to isolate states that refuse to put a transaction tax on share sales... I agree it would require a buy in globally. I'm not sure it would be as hard to implement as you think. There is generally only one or two markets to regulate in each state. Many have none.. And the technological automation that allows the sales also allows for quick implementation of taxation protocol.
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- freeman3
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06 Nov 2015, 10:27 pm
Saw O'Malley in an extended interview with MSNBC and he was much more impressive than I had seen before. He outlined his accomplishments as a progressive governor. I was quite impressed. I always knew that Sanders was not presidential material ...but I would like to see O'Malley get more traction.
Best lines: "the symbol of America is not barbed wire, it's the Statue of Liberty"
"I believe in the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the party of JFK"
I was fired up after that.
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- freeman3
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07 Nov 2015, 10:52 am
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- Doctor Fate
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09 Nov 2015, 2:40 pm
Because politico is believable. Many of the emails she received were "born classified," meaning the material was inherently classified.
Further, here's a decent question: was Chelsea cleared to receive info that no other American was told? Was it cool that her mom told her that an AQ-like group attacked our building in Benghazi while she was telling everyone else it was a spontaneous protest over the Mohammed video?
But, it's not surprising--you don't care that she's lying.
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- Doctor Fate
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08 Jan 2016, 12:42 pm
*Cough*
Let's have another look, shall we?
The conclusion:
Ordering the headings stripped, and Sullivan’s apparent reluctance to work around the secure fax system, makes it all but certain that the material was classified at some level — and Hillary knew it.
More here:Where to begin? Let's start with the least serious revelation, and work our way up: (1) Hillary evinced surprise that a State Department underling had used his personal account to send an official email. How rich. Yes, the State Department had explicitly instructed employees to follow the rules and only use secure means to disseminate official information. State sanctioned at least one top diplomat for disregarding those rules. Mrs. Clinton may have been especially "surprised" at Godfrey's actions because they came after she'd been issued a dire warning that foreign entities were aggressively targeting State Department officials' personal, unsecure email accounts. But lest you need reminding, Hillary Clinton exclusively used such accounts to conduct all of her official business -- via an improper, unsecure, private server -- before and after this urgent red flag was brought to her attention.
(2) "Clinton...has repeatedly maintained that she did not send or receive classified material on her personal account." This assertion has been disproven by the more than 1,000 classified emails discovered on her private server, including 66 additions from this batch alone. Her myriad excuses for this have been debunked piece by piece.
(3) Her final justification -- which is legally irrelevant, as Hillary herself has personally attested -- is that none of the sensitive material that she wrongfully transmitted through her unsecure server was "marked classified" at the time. Again, this is meaningless, especially when it comes to highly secret material that she was obligated to recognize and protect as soon as it was produced. But the email chain referenced above includes an instruction from Hillary Clinton to a State Department aide (who now works on her campaign) to strip classified information -- it remains redacted to this day -- of its classified markings ["identifying heading"] and "send nonsecure." Ed Morrissey, who posts a screen shot of the exchange, reviews the relevant criminal statute and thinks this looks like a smoking gun:
Of course, she will get away with it.
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- bbauska
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20 Jan 2016, 4:34 pm
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-server-classified-ig-report/index.htmlIs this an example of "flickering out"? It is my understanding that the IG is an Executive branch non-partisan agency.
Does the presence of highly classified material change anyone's opinion of Mrs. Clinton yet? If not, what does it take to look at her in a negative light regarding her mis-handling of material?
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- Doctor Fate
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20 Jan 2016, 7:55 pm
Honestly, I don't think liberals care what laws she breaks.
Here's another question: if experts say that others who did lesser crimes were convicted, would that change anyone's mind?
For the record: many of my conservative friends are praying that Trump is not going to be the GOP nominee because we think he's a jerk (at the very least).
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- rickyp
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21 Jan 2016, 8:03 am
fate
For the record: many of my conservative friends are praying that Trump is not going to be the GOP nominee because we think he's a jerk (at the very least)
With Sarah Palins help he looks to be winning Iowa. He's way ahead in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The only question is who's going to remain in the fight on Super Tuesday, ? If its too many Trump walks away with the nomination. (I think, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Bush will be left ...And Bush just because he has so much money....)
If its too many Trump walks with the nomination. OR if its someone the anti Trump vote can't get excited about, like Cruz, he wins anyway.
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- freeman3
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21 Jan 2016, 8:51 am
Well if Trump is a jerk what about Cruz? Former Senator Bob Dole said no one likes him in Congress and that if Cruz were the Republican nominee on Election Day he might "oversleep".
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- bbauska
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21 Jan 2016, 9:17 am
Yes, yes, yes... the GOP is more interesting to those on the left. I get it. This forum is about Mrs. Clinton, and why she is the presumptive nominee. Trump and Cruz can be all the focus, but there is a problem with Mrs. Clinton.
She has an IG report that shows MAJOR security violations that others have gone to jail for. Does this change anyone on the left's vote?
Freeman? You said you would vote for Mrs. Clinton regardless. Is that your position still? Are you not concerned for her actions if indicted? Especially if indicted by an Executive branch office?
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- Sassenach
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21 Jan 2016, 9:50 am
So far as I can tell, the number of Americans who might conceivably vote for either party is vanishingly small. At best if a candidate with high negatives is selected (which could be almost all of them from either party this time) then we might see more abstentions, but there's too much polarisation now to expect very many voters to switch. Freeman's position all along has been that for all her faults, Hillary is preferable to him over any of the Republican candidates. DF has an identical position vis a vis Trump, who he loathes but will certainly vote for this year if he has to. It's not difficult to understand really. There's no point trying to pin down what Hillary would have to do to lose Freeman's vote because the answer would inevitably be "not be up against a Republican".
I'm willing to bet that I can predict how all of the Americans here at Redscape will vote this year, regardless of who wins the primaries. The only one I think there's any doubt about is RJ, and then only if he's faced with the prospect of a Trump candidacy. Minds are already made up and it has little to do with the merits of the respective candidates.
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- rickyp
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21 Jan 2016, 10:04 am
bbauska
She has an IG report that shows MAJOR security violations
Did you actually read the letter ?
This isn't actually clear. Apparently the classified information may have been classified some time after the email was originally sent. Or the email was of a news paper report about the classified information.
At any rate, its unlikely to change any minds about Hillary unless something a good deal more substantive is released. And thats not likely.
sass
I'm willing to bet that I can predict how all of the Americans here at Redscape will vote this year, regardless of who wins the primaries
Polarized society ?
The general election match up polls are interesting though. Its the 40% of "independents" who may be swayed .... The republicans appear to be going "rogue" with Trump. And the "rogue" on the left would be Sanders... Who beats Trump head to head (according to WSJ poll) by 15 points.
If it ends up being Clinton versus Trump its two of the three politicians with the highest negatives.... Meaning that most of the electorate will have their decision made by who they hate more.
