StrangeSox

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:57 AM) Lets say ATT makes 86,902,000,000 in profit. Lets say you give them a 5% tax break incentive. Thats a 4bil tax break. Att has 247k employees. That would work out to approximately 16k benefits per employee. The problem with the tax cut, is you just gave it away, when you could have tied them to something and made it better for average employees, while still giving the company something significant. You could have just cut a $16k check to every household in the country for the price of this tax plan.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:53 AM) No it doesn't. The spike in workers who are no longer in the labor force occurred starting in 2008. That spike has yet to be fully removed. Labor force participation rate declined from 2008 and has been flat for several years, but how much of that is due to Boomers aging out of the workforce? https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/...ticipation-rate QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:55 AM) This is their own metric, but yes the U3 unemployment rate is at levels seen in the late 90s but the U6 rate is not. That right there tells you there is still additional slack in the job market - and notably, the late 90's were the only time we saw broad wage growth in the last 30 years. So yeah, that gap widened in 2008 and it still has not come back down. U-6 is basically back where it was in 2006. It was lower for about two years in the late 90's. 8% U-6 may not be the lowest ever, but it's still really low. If the only way to get broad-but-still-not-great wage growth in our economy is to get to historically low U-6 levels, then something is fundamentally wrong with the structure of our economy.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:47 AM) See when republicans point out that the poor pay no income tax either, the response is they pay taxes, just in other ways. So does Trump. I'm sure the amount he spends on sales and property taxes is more than our combined income taxes. As a percentage of his income, it is far, far less.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:42 AM) This is akin to people complaining about minimum wage and workers' benefits but balk when companies start to raise prices on their goods. You can complain about the tax cuts favoring the wealthy when they don't need the extra help. But if you're complaining about the poor losing out on certain programs or whatever, and you go ahead and take the benefit of the cut anyway, then yes, you're a hypocrite. If you want to pay more in taxes, do it. Pay more. Don't stick to what you're obligated to pay. Your contribution isn't meaningless if everyone does it. I think minimum wages should be raised but I don't voluntarily pay more money for goods and services because that doesn't actually raise wages or benefit low-wage workers in any way. Your last sentence is so close to getting it but then falls apart. It's meaningless unless it's codified policy against which revenue expectations can be set. It's also meaningless because even if everyone earning less than $100k foregoes this tax cut, it's still a drop in a bucket compared to the corporate and wealth tax cuts. I want better public policy and broader social services. That may result in higher taxes for me to fund them. I believe the wealthy and corporations pay too little in taxes, and a good majority of the country agrees with me. Me paying extra taxes right now won't change anything at all. Me and a million other people doing it won't change anything because it doesn't produce any sort of reliable, predictable revenue streams on which to base national policy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:35 AM) Ok, i'll accept. I'll also say these people are fools. This was easily done because there is still a large portion of workers who have left the job market - here's an EPI version with some interactive graphics summarizing. Also worth noting that the opiod epidemic is probably at this point large enough to matter. Does EPI's "missing workers" get captured in any of the other BLS U-rates? Or is this their own metric? Because while U-6 isn't at the lowest point it's ever been, it is the closest we've been since the late 90's.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:31 AM) The old tax brackets were 10,15,25,28,33,35,39.6. the new tax brackets are 10, 12,22,24,32,35,37 so other than the lowest bracket the benefit of the tax cut decreases for the wealthiest but the benefit is the greatest for the middle tiers. There's a lot more to it than just those tax brackets, though. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/ch...he-middle-class In absolute terms, 83% of the benefits of this tax cut go to the top 1%. If you actually wanted to have a "middle class" tax bill, there would be ways to bring that ratio way down. That it's targeted mainly to favor the wealthy really comes through in relative benefits shown above. the $50-75k household, which is right in the "middle class" sweet spot, sees about half the tax breaks a $1M+ household sees in relative terms, and that's before even considering the actual life impacts of 1.6 or 3.3% cut on the day-to-day life of those two households.

Trump, Diplomatic Genius: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/943877719292563456

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:27 AM) Oh, so if I am mayor of soxtalk and I take out a 1 billion dollar loan and I give 900 million to myself and the other 99.95 million to my friend brett05 for always supporting me, but then give you and all other posters $1000 and know that the rising debt payments that will raise costs and be inequitably distributed, you can't say this is bad policy because I gave you $1000? I can think something is bad even if it benefits me. I think the zoning policy around me is bad, but it certainly contributes to inflating the equity i have in my house. Should I take out a home equity loan and give it to a family to move there? Maybe that would be a good idea. I could also just try and cobble together a working majority to change how zoning policy is done so it is more fairly distributed. This would at least be directly helping someone. In Jenks' scenario, you should instead take out a home equity loan and then give the cash to The City of Oak Park because you're a hypocrite otherwise.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:21 AM) If you take the benefit of the tax cut just like the wealthy it is absolutely a double standard to b**** about the fact that the wealthy are being helped. No, you're not getting the same degree of a benefit, but you are getting one relative to your income. Less of one, and substantially so in many cases, for whatever it's worth. I want different tax policy. I live in a world where this is the current tax policy. An individual voluntarily paying more is completely meaningless, and following the current rules doesn't make one a hypocrite. I'd gladly give up whatever tiny benefit I may see from this tax plan for something different, but that's not an actual choice I have.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:15 AM) The complaint rings a little hollow if you're going to take the benefit of the tax cut and not "give back" or at least continue to pay what you would have paid but for the tax cuts. Me voluntarily paying more in taxes has zero impact on federal policy or anyone who has less than me. Even if I may personally immediately benefit from the tax plan (don't know for sure, probably close to a wash either way), I can still oppose it and think it's bad public policy. How does me paying a little less in income tax invalidate criticisms about cutting estate taxes or corporate taxes or the top tax bracket? Or that these cuts will have large negative effects on public spending for programs I think are important? This will have large structural changes to our economy and to wealth distribution in this country. Even if we're talking about Warren Buffet levels of income and paying a little more, it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

We have unemployment and underemployment levels near what economists think are the absolute minimum in a thriving economy and there are still a lot of jobs out there that don't pay living wages.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:10 AM) I agree to an extent. By my problem is the double standard here - people complaining about how this tax rate screws the poor while they do nothing. If you want to pay more in taxes, go for it. Take the tax cut you're going to get and give it back to the government. Nothing is stopping you. That doesn't do anything to help the poor, though. There's no double standard.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:04 AM) Honest question - how many people here complaining about the tax cuts removing wealth from the lower class pay more in taxes than they actually need to? An arbitrary number of individuals overpaying by an arbitrary amount is irrelevant to construction of functional and coherent fiscal and social policy.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 09:58 AM) Here is some information from the Bureau of labor and statistics. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers increased to 15.9 percent in November. The jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), adult women (3.7 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (7.3 percent), Asians (3.0 percent), and Hispanics (4.7 percent) showed little change. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 4.8 million, was essentially unchanged in November but was down by 858,000 over the year. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.) still seems to me that there are far too many full time unemployed workers. The "involuntary part-time" workers especially. Many companies are now considering 30 per week "full time" to cut back on wages and benefits for workers, especially in retail. I don't think you can force companies to change the policies but if there were a shortage of workers the companies would become the "buyers" not "sellers" and may get them to change. This website has a graph showing "official" U-3 unemployment as well as U-6 unemployment, which includes underemployed and discouraged workers. http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate While we're a little bit above the low point of 7% U-6 of the late 90's boom economy, we're still at only 8% U-6 which is pretty low. Real wages have climbed somewhat but not nearly at the pace they did since 1970, when productivity and wage gains were essentially 1:1. http://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ You're right that there are a lot of factors that go into wages and jobs, but we don't really see a lot of evidence that full employment produces enough upward pressure on wages to get them up to a minimum livable wage for everyone.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 09:54 AM) If our only two options are lot's of people employed, but still poor or mass unemployment. Maybe we live in a broken system. The wealth is obviously there, it's a matter of how our economic systems end up distributing it. We've already got worse income and wealth inequality than the peak of the Gilded Age.

The earlier the better thanks to compounding interest. "If you can" is a pretty good and short intro guide on retirement investing. https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf General guidelines I've seen and follow are: --Save in your 401k up to your employer's match. If they match the first 5%, put in that much. It's free money. --Beyond the employer match, put your next chunk of retirement savings into an IRA or Roth IRA. Which makes more sense for you depends on your current income levels (both phase out as income goes up) and your current and expected retirement tax brackets. The reason to go with your own IRA over your work's 401k is you can choose someone like Vanguard or Fidelity (and I think Schwab) who offer very-low-cost funds whereas you're going to be pretty limited in your options in your 401k. --Once you've maxed your IRA contribution limits ($5.5k/year right now), increase your 401k savings. That caps out at 18% of your income a year. If you max your 401k and your IRA space, congrats, go see a real financial professional because you've got a good problem on your hands.

Full employment should have an upward effect on wages, but we're near full employment now and have been multiple times over the last few decades while wages have largely remained flat.

The Republicans’ first legislative triumph of 2017 will ensure a financial windfall for the president and his family in a way that is virtually unprecedented in American political history. Living in a kleptocracy sucks.

She also came out of the gate strong and unapologetically opposed to Trump and the GOP agenda while most Democrats including leadership still seem to be searching for a spine. good timing: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-i...llibrand-up-to/ What Is Kirsten Gillibrand Up To?

Well that's also why they ended up tamping down the top tax rate a little more than either the House or Senate bills originally called for. Their wealthy donors in blue states called and complained, so they cut the top bracket a little more to ease the burden. The rest of us can go pound sand, though. This is from Pew, last April. People's #1 concerns with taxes in this country are that the wealthy and corporations don't pay enough. So Republicans slashed both group's taxes massively after they were ushered into power on a populist wave led by a man who told them all he wasn't going to sign a tax plan that benefited himself or the wealthy at all. They've already literally called this "cashing out." Looting the country and stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 08:52 AM) I thought I saw they removed all 501c3 deductions. This is why I have an accountant. Yeah definitely check with an actual accountant instead of my second-hand understanding from accountants. It's a way to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy, and that it punishes blue states is even better in their eyes. A couple of Republican Senators were even pretty explicit about their glee in punishing San Francisco and New York.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think you can still deduct the full value of charitable deductions if you're still planning on itemizing. The expected decline is because a lot of people who currently itemize will instead be using the increased standard deduction, removing some incentives for charitable giving. The big change is that $10k state/local/property tax cap, which is going to push a lot of middle or upper middle class people out of itemizing and into the standard deduction. For more wealthy individuals with complex finances and taxes, they'll probably still be itemizing and could still take advantage of charitable deductions.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 07:10 AM) So I will be making about half of the deductions I usually make once this is in effect. What is particularly disheartening is taking away tax deductions for charitable contributions. Estimates range from $10B to $15B or so in declines for charitable giving. Tax advice from my accountant: go ahead and front-load your planned 2018 contributions before the end of this year if you can so you can deduct it all from 2017 taxes if you won't be able to deduct them for 2018 taxes because you'll be switching to the standard deduction.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 02:35 PM) In Illinois, evidence of subsequent remedial measures is inadmissible to prove negligence. That's good, otherwise it'd set up a pretty bad incentive to not fix problems. QUOTE (FT35 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 02:40 PM) To the replay: In the frozen frame here you can see the knee making contact with the box and the box at a slight angle back from the impact. I'm sure Fowler's camp is saying that the box being at the angle is proof of the knee hitting the box itself. I'm sure the GRF legal staff is arguing that of course the box would move--it was attached to the protective padding--which his knee hit as it was designed to--CAUSING the box to slightly move. To me...this logic makes the replay inconclusive from a legal standpoint--as it's not conclusive that the box didn't move from the top of the padding it was attached to--which was being moved by Fowler's knee. I watch too much Law and Order... Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

QUOTE (InTheDriversSeat @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 01:02 PM) I see the right knee hitting the padded wall, not the box. The box appears to be a few inches behind the wall (not even with the wall), therefore both legs make contact with the wall. When he makes impact with the wall, his left arm reaches out far enough so his left hand is in front of the box. If had struck the box initially, his body would be obstructing view of the box, but actually his body (except for his left hand) is to the right side of the box. . In the head-on view you linked, you can't actually see his knees in the frame during the collision at all.