The Election Autopsy

[nitro]

If youtube and twitter are an echo chamber, then the MSM is the king of persia.

 

[ajcrshr]

I'll try to explain the "left/right" economic paradigm (Both have been failures). You have to consider everything on the fiscal side as debt spending if you have significant national debt (US for sure). Supply side hasn't worked well because the leadership has never done the most important part needed for Supply Side economics to work which is cutting debt spending. That's why democrats generally win the argument short term because Demand Side spending is debt spending put back into the poorest hands which spend the highest percent of their wealth and stimulate the economy. Supply Side (without reducing debt spending) works less well because the debt spending is generally put in the more wealthy hands (which spend a lower percentage of their wealth). Reagan's situation is a prime example where debt spending was not cut and he chose to raise taxes again instead of cutting spending. This put us in an even worse situation.

Demand side spending is just a temporary boost in an unsustainable system. No nation has ever paid off its debts once they start debt spending. The maintenance of the debt is a continual and compounding negative on the economy. The optimal economic course requires 3 things:

• low taxes for all (individual wage earners are the most efficient allocators of their $$)
  
• absolutely no debt spending
• a sound/stable currency (Fed).

Too bad we have had such terrible leadership for decades and we have none of these.

 

[nitro]

Algorithms might be destroying your free will, without you knowing it. Every time you interact with a computer online, algorithms are influencing the next person that comes along.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy Kindle Edition
by Cathy O'Neil (Author)

 

[ajcrshr]

Algorithms might be destroying your free will, without you knowing it. Every time you interact with a computer online, algorithms are influencing the next person that comes along.

Having used the internet since Prodigy online (lol) and can tell you that it is much harder to search and find what you are looking for. Way to much guessing or advertising based on past searches by algos. I think there is room for a new "unbiased" search engine. Unfortunately most alt search engines are still essentially powered by google.

 

[der_kommissar]

Same old for thousands of years.

I am an optimist at heart. But will we ever learn? When does humanity evict this malevolence from its collective consciousness?

A good start is the weakening of the mainstream media and its decades long vice hold on the collective minds of millions of people.

 

[piezoe]

That is the convoluted, misleading and vague argument of someone trying to wish away the reality that after all 4 major tax cuts... tax revenues went up.

So what are the ills of supply side you speak of? Is it your claim that borrowed money causes the massive inflation we experienced.

as far as income tax revenues to the government... look at how they grew...




1983 -- $326 billion

1984 -- $355 billion

1985 -- $396 billion

1986 -- $412 billion

1987 -- $476 billion

1988 -- $496 billion

1989 -- $549 billion

Critics point out that Reagan also signed a few tax increases. However, the fact remains that the total tax burden was far, far lower when Reagan left office than when he took office. In other words, even counting the two tax increases that Reagan signed, taxes overall were still much lower in Reagan’s last year than they were in his first year. For example, when Reagan became president in January 1981, the top marginal tax rate was 70%--yes, 70%--but by the last month of his presidency in January 1989, it was 28%. (Furthermore, Reagan signed those tax increases with the understanding that there would be spending cuts later on, but Congress broke its word and never passed the promised spending cuts.)

As a result of the Reagan tax cuts, tax payments and the share of income taxes paid by the top 1% climbed sharply. For example, in 1981 the top 1% paid 17.6% of all personal income taxes, but by 1988 their share had jumped to 27.5%, a 10 percentage point increase. The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10% of taxpayers increased from 48.0% in 1981 to 57.2% in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of taxpayers dropped from 7.5% in 1981 to 5.7% in 1988.

The economy grew impressively during Reagan’s presidency. The economic expansion of the Reagan years is particularly impressive when we remember that Reagan inherited a weak and staggering economy. In January 1981 the unemployment rate was 7.4% and was on its way to climbing to over 10%. Double-digit inflation had pushed interest rates into the high double-digit range. Real pre-tax income of the average American family had been dropping since 1976, and after-tax income was falling even faster. With these facts in mind, the Reagan economic record seems especially praiseworthy. Economists William Niskanen and Stephen Moore:

Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years.

Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years.

I guess you didn't notice that revenues also increased after tax increases.
Did you know that the economy was in an intentionally induced recession when Reagan took office. Did you know that the great amount of Keynesian stimulus , i.e., domestic government spending, helped bring us out of recession? Do you know what happens to revenues when a nation is recovering from recession? (Don't bother to answer. I am not interested in your answer.)

 

[gwb-trading]

I guess you didn't notice that revenues also increased after tax increases.
Did you know that the economy was in an intentionally induced recession when Reagan took office. Did you know that the great amount of Keynesian stimulus , i.e., domestic government spending, helped bring us out of recession? Do you know what happens to revenues when a nation is recovering from recession? (Don't bother to answer. I am not interested in your answer.)

The bottom line is that the most effective taxation rate vs. the amount of total revenue generated runs on an "efficient frontier" type of curve.

Lower or higher taxes are not necessarily always better; it depends where you currently are on the taxation efficient curve as well as the country's current economic situation.

Politicians should seek to find the optimal taxation rate for revenue generation in context of the economy --- but they never do because they are too stuck on the left vs. right political arguments for always higher or lower taxes.

 

[nitro]

The bottom line is that the most effective taxation rate vs. the amount of total revenue generated runs on an "efficient frontier" type of curve.

Lower or higher taxes are not necessarily always better; it depends where you currently are on the taxation efficient curve as well as the country's current economic situation.

Politicians should seek to find the optimal taxation rate for revenue generation in context of the economy --- but they never do because they are too stuck on the left vs. right political arguments for always higher or lower taxes.

The problem with all economic analysis is that it does not fully model all aspects of what matters to all stakeholders, in particular:

• It doesn't model human happiness directly, only as a third or higher derivative if you are lucky.
  
• It doesn't model effects on the environment either on purpose or because it is too hard.
• feedback effects, positive and negative (hardest of all).

It is like an options model that is blind to higher derivatives. It loses money. Nordic countries try at one. I don't know anyone that does two. And three is "impossible" because of Chaos Theory.

So the picture will always come out skewed which then is blamed on left and right and politics and....

 

[jem]

exactly correct... gwb.

and taken to the next level of thought... since govt is always spending. The optimal thing to do is to keep cutting taxes and letting the economy grow and more people keep their own money until you cease having increased revenue. Then stop.

then... taken to the more speculative level...

What the bankers and cronies do not wish for us to understand is that as the world economy grows demand for digital dollars grows. The people making those digital dollars get to spend or give away trillions and trillions of dollars over time.
I have just called this digital seigniorage for the world currency. Right now all those trillions in free money profits goes to the Federal Reserve members and their crony friends when it should be going to our Govt. That seignorage might even match up with our budget shortfall.

Now before lefties call me a moron... try to understand this. We have no idea how much money the FED creates each year because they no longer even report M3 which would only be an imperfect proxy of how much money the FED creates for its members accounts.

If that digital seignioriage is not known.... you have no basis to argue that Regan's tax cuts or any other tax cuts caused problems.

The bottom line is that the most effective taxation rate vs. the amount of total revenue generated runs on an "efficient frontier" type of curve.

Lower or higher taxes are not necessarily always better; it depends where you currently are on the taxation efficient curve as well as the country's current economic situation.

Politicians should seek to find the optimal taxation rate for revenue generation in context of the economy --- but they never do because they are too stuck on the left vs. right political arguments for always higher or lower taxes.

 

[nitro]

While I agree with the premise, no question in my mind, people forget that if Bernie had won the democratic candidacy, Bloomberg would have jumped in as an Independent. Now the MSM controlled by the corporations would have turned against the democrats. Anything to keep them in power, and at least Trump was business friendly. Who cares that he bordering on pathology. Money more important than crazy.

We know that the powers that be (the corporations) don't want a Socialist because that is obviously worse than a misogynist, racist, pathological liar, so they would have interviewed Bloomberg ten times for every once they mentioned Bernie at all, and that was the 3% of the time they didn't talk about Trump's new inane crap no one cared about of the day.

So yeah, if the Bern had magically gone head to head against Trump (forget Stein and Johnson), he probably would have won, except in that scenario the disbelief by the pundits and MSM would have been that Trump lost!!!