The title says it all. Sociopathic through and through.
Now it is on the table for all the world to see. Billionaire are now openly trying to control American "democracy" through the power that wealth bestows in a corporate republic.
Beat the Press
Mike Bloomberg’s Billionaire Blackmail
Dean Baker
6 comments:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/26/robert-gates-republican-presidential-candidates-national-security
"He condemned the media for failing to challenge candidates from both parties on promises he believes are unaffordable, illegal or unconstitutional."
"He did not mention Bernie Sanders by name but did suggest both Democratic and Republican candidates are being given an easy ride by the media. “Frankly, I think that the press needs to be more aggressive,” he said. “A lot of people in both parties are making huge promises and commitments.
“In some cases, the things they’re saying they’re going to do are unconstitutional or merely against the law and others are, from a budgetary standpoint, inconceivable, and so it seems to be that the press has not hammered hard enough and been relentless in saying, ‘How the hell are you going to do that?’”
Gates condemned National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden as a traitor, called on tech companies to put security ahead of business interests and cooperate with intelligence agencies on encrypted data, and repeated his past description of Putin as a “stone-cold killer”, which, in the light of the Alexander Litvinenko inquiry, “the British now seem to reaffirm”."
Outside of NY, does anyone know who Bloomberg is?
Bernie is doubling down on a big tax increase it wont work and Dems know it...
They are huddling in Baltimore this week:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/267236-pelosi-distances-dems-from-sanderss-plan-to-raise-taxes
Right or wrong it is not a pragmatic political approach at this point... if you say you are going to raise taxes you lose...
Taxes are too high for the amount of leading flow here at $4.2T with current savings desires... textbook MMT 101....
Matt-
Boy do I agree with this:
"Taxes are too high"
because I had a strange work year helping my brother remodel his house under the table, I was able to claim the minimum of taxable income ($16,500) that maximizes my ACA tax credit (like $110 a month for my silver plan).
With that level of stated income (135% of the poverty line for a single person) my effective tax rate w\ FICA, Income, and state taxes was like 25% because I had to file a 10-99 and thus may all 15% of FICA myself directly.
So according to the Govt, people living just above the poverty line should forfeit 25% of their income.....why? Its not like our benefits are generous. I mean thats a fucking huge chunk of that income. Luckily, its not that bad for me cause I made alot more money in cash on the side but certainly thats irrelevant from the POV of taxation rates in this example.
The US tax system is not very progressive, and these high taxes on the working poor are killing consumption when combined with expensive health insurance premiums, rents, cable and internet costs, not to mention the crappy raises people are getting if any at all.
Why dont they do something much more sensible like maybe
up to $25K= 0% rate
25K to 100K = 15%
100K to 1M = 25%
1M to 20M = 35%
20M + = 90%
And relieve this terrible tax burden on the consumers driving this baby.
(ON a personal political note, I would much rather increase investment in science, R&D, education, and infrastructure by $1 trillion a year than cut taxes by $1 trillion.)
This is one of the things that bothers me about Kervick's position that we need to raise taxes for single payer otherwise we are going to "definitely get double digit inflation". Bullshit!!! we are so far from an overheating economy that the idea we are the verge of a supply shortage and thus an inflation breakout if the deficit goes up by a trillion is ludicrous.
Not to mention the fact that given the combination of both the current national income distribution share thanks to our institutional structure and the crazy savings desires of already rich people, deficits get soaked up into rich people's savings so quickly that there is very little circular dollar flow going on. If the rich save 90% of every dollar in additional income then once they get their hands on it via corporate profits and capital gains, it never gets back out into the real economy. This is Neil's brilliant "voluntary private taxation" at work. Its not like rich people are starting up new business ventures left and right or expanding supply via hiring and investment to keep up with demand (this is the way rich people's savings get back out into the economy).
So lets say the govt does a $1 trillion tax cut for one year and we could identify and follow every individual deficit dollar that flows through the economy. How long before all $1 trillion either end up as savings of rich people never to be seen again?
This is a great example of why the size of the Govt's "debt" doesnt matter. Once that money gets saved in a stock of TSY CDs, there is nowhere it can go. There is no mechanism by which all that money could be spent at once. If one party sells to spend, another party necessarily buys to save. You could have TSY CDs outstanding at 500% of GDP and nothing could happen. Of course this necessitates a permanent ZIRP since the fiscal adjustment that comes with an interest rate increase becomes ridiculously large when you have alot of IOUs outstanding.
which leads to another point. You cant have hyperinflaiton without high interest rates!!!! Zimbabwe had like 900% interest rates. Its crazy how large a deficit can get to drive inflation with high interest rates on high levels of Govt IOUs.
stream of consciousness over. Back to my coffee
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