Replies to post #369882 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[B402]

He gave a good speech today...It Should scare Repubs because he was talking to their new base and the dems old one...

America needs it, one way or the other I hope it makes it through..

[fuagf]

Bidenomics Is as American as Apple Pie

"Corporate America tears down Biden's infrastructure plan
"Jeff Bezos says Amazon supports a corporate-tax hike, arguing that Biden's plan will..." "


Christopher Griffith/Trunk Archive

By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist

April 1, 2021

Related: Democrat presidents are good for the economy. Why? Pragmatism. Resulting in Democrats acting on
evidence of what economic policies have been successful. And under what particular circumstances.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=161477508

I just heard that machin won't vote for ending the fillibuster, so that kind of screws infrastructure unless some repubs come to their senses.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=163046612

House Democrats are hoping to pass President Biden’s infrastructure bill by July 4 .. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/31/us/biden-news-today#infrastructure-july-4-republicans-democrats , because of course they are. The Biden team is making a point of wrapping its economic initiatives firmly in the flag. First came the American Rescue Plan; now we have the American Jobs Plan paid for by the Made in America Tax Plan.

And why not? Trumpism was, in part, about the appeal of economic nationalism, so it makes sense to try to snatch away that appeal on behalf of good policy. It’s also a pre-emptive defense against the inevitable Republican attacks; Donald Trump, who still exists, has already denounced Biden’s plan to raise corporate taxes as a “classic globalist betrayal .. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/trump-accuses-biden-of-classic-globalist-betrayal-over-plans-to-raise-taxes-to-pay-for-infrastructure/ar-BB1fb7pl .” No, he isn’t making sense.

There is, however, more going on here than marketing. Bidenomics consists, roughly speaking, of large-scale public investment paid for with highly progressive taxation. And both of these things are as American as apple pie.

The Biden administration infrastructure fact sheet alludes to part of that history, declaring that the plan “will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the space race.” Indeed, one way to think about the Biden program is that it’s an attempt to bring back the Dwight stuff — that is, in fiscal terms it would represent a partial return to the Eisenhower era, when we had much higher government investment .. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=CvnV .. as a share of gross domestic product than we do now, and also much higher tax rates on both high-income individuals .. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates .. and corporations .. .

The era of big government investment and high taxes on the rich coincided, not incidentally, with the U.S. economy’s greatest generation — the postwar decades of rapidly rising living standards .. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=Cvpa .

But the story of public investment and progressive taxation in America goes back much further than the ’50s.

We’ve relied on government infrastructure investment to jump-start economic growth ever since the construction of the Erie Canal .. http://www.applet-magic.com/eriecanal.htm#:~:text=The%20original%20Erie%20Canal%20cost,which%20the%20bonds%20actually%20paid. .. between 1818 and 1825. Unlike the privately owned canals .. http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/Canaltradehistory.htm .. that had proliferated in 18th-century Britain, the Erie Canal was built by the government of New York State, at a cost of $7 million. This may not sound like a lot, but the economy was vastly smaller then, and prices much lower too. As a share of state G.D.P., the canal was probably ..

Having a bit of fun delving into the history of infrastructure spending. Q: how big a deal was the Erie Canal? It cost $7 million, which sounds trivial. 1/ pic.twitter.com/NanE6cT1Zy

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 1, 2021

.. the equivalent of a $1 trillion national project today.

And a big public role in infrastructure continued down the generations. Land grants were used to promote railway construction and higher education. Teddy Roosevelt built the Panama Canal. F.D.R. brought electricity to rural areas. Eisenhower built the highway network.

So when Republicans denounce .. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/31/infrastructure-problems-biden-478785 .. the American Jobs Plan as an “out-of-control socialist spending spree,” remember, large-scale public investment is the American way.

We can say much the same thing about Biden’s tax proposals.

Actually, given extremely low borrowing costs ..

Real interest rate over time (using previous 3-year core inflation) 3/ pic.twitter.com/eViZnWxARf

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 31, 2021

.. it’s not obvious that we would even need ..

MACROECONOMIC/FISCAL. Given that interest rates are still too low & I'm worried about demand over the medium-term, $2T in *unpaid for* well-designed investments, some temporary, would be beneficial. As such I don't think this should all or even mostly be paid for.

— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) March 31, 2021

.. a tax hike if infrastructure spending were the end of the story. But we will need more revenue to pay for the whole Biden program, which everyone expects will eventually include another round of spending targeted on families. So it makes sense to tie tax hikes to the jobs plan; polling .. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000178-87a0-d59d-a7f9-bfefa78a0000 .. suggests that paying for public investment with taxes on corporations and the rich increases support for an infrastructure plan, and that something along the lines of the Biden proposals will command very high public approval.

Republicans will no doubt denounce the idea of taxing the rich as un-American class warfare. In reality, however, such taxation is another long tradition in this country. As Thomas Piketty, the inequality scholar, likes to put it .. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/piketty-u-s-birthplace-freedom-progressive-taxation , America basically invented progressive taxation.

What about Trump’s assertion that raising corporate taxes is a form of sinister globalism? The claim here is that reversing some of the 2017 tax cut would drive investment and jobs overseas, a claim that might have some credibility if that cut had in fact induced multinational corporations to bring investment and jobs back home. But it didn’t .. https://www.cfr.org/blog/trump-tax-reform-seen-us-balance-payments-data .

In practice, the Trump corporate tax cut amounted to a giveaway to shareholders, with no visible benefits to the broader economy. And since we’re talking globalism, it’s worth pointing out that foreigners own about 40 percent of U.S. stocks .. https://t.co/r4hCplNzOh?amp=1 .

Wait, there’s more. There’s a reason Biden’s people put “made in America” in the title of their tax plan. They believe that the Trump tax cut wasn’t just a huge money-loser, it was badly designed in ways that actually encouraged corporations to invest abroad, and that they can do better. I’ll try to get into those weeds in another column; what seems clear is that the Biden tax plan is unlikely to cause job losses and could lead to significant job gains.

There will and should be extensive debate over the details of Biden’s spend-and-tax plan over the next few months. In its broad outline, however, the plan represents a turn away from the free-market extremism that has ruled U.S. policy in recent years, back to an older tradition — the tradition that prevailed during America’s years of greatest economic success.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/opinion/biden-infrastructure.html

[Zorax]

What our actual U.S. government need to do, is cancel the fed reserve. Since 1913 the banks and the individuals that owned them at the time have taken control of our government and charged them interest on making the governments own money.

The fed res is a private cartel of a handful of power broker private banks around the world that own governments. This is beyond money riches. The feds have owned the private and absolute right to control the money markets for 115 years.
And they fight every day to keep ownership and NOTHING is beneath them.
Anyone's life but their own is meaningless. Wars are not mistakes, but country and debt grabs by these banks.

There's a universal thread through the far right, far left, center and as far away as mars and that's the Fed Reserve are a private cartel and owns the worlds debt. No conspiracy needed. Just do a search for Fed Res ownership and it doesn't matter what site it comes from but the answer will always be privately owned. They 'helped' the United States in 1913. We haven't been the same since. It's not space ships, or computer chips the banks need to control us, tin foil won't help. It's simple. It's called zero backed up for currency, but instead credit and debt. The bank cartel got the government to sell out, created the IRS as their personal sheriffs and continue handing out credit cards. To whole governments.

Like a bank helping out a stressed shoe company by giving them high interest loans they can never pay off, the bank cartel goes to stressed countries and offers their 'help'. If no countries aren't stressed enough, the banks make sure they become needy.

[fuagf]

Tech giants and tax havens targeted by historic G7 deal
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"Corporate America tears down Biden's infrastructure plan
"Jeff Bezos says Amazon supports a corporate-tax hike, arguing that Biden's plan will..."
[...]
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday pressed developed countries to adopt a global minimum tax as a way to reduce possible anti-competitive disadvantages that could arise from Biden’s proposal.

But business groups say discussions over a global minimum tax have been going on for years and there is no guarantee any agreement will be reached soon. “Sure it would be great if we had a system where all the advanced countries worked in harmony,” said a tax expert working with businesses opposed to Biden’s plan in its current form. “But we’ve been talking about this for years and tax competitiveness and the right to set your own rates has always been a big issue of national sovereignty for other governments.”

The White House, in turn, says its plan encourages but does not rely on an international tax agreement. “We address that with a reform that if you are a foreign company based in a country that does not adopt a minimum tax then you would face denial of deductions,” Kamin said. “That means we are really in fact leveling the playing field.”"
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Only a first step, still it is a first step. Yes, it is about time.

David Milliken Kate Holton
June 6, 20212:57 AM AEST

VIDEO

The United States, Britain and other large, rich nations reached a landmark deal on Saturday to squeeze more money out of multinational companies such as Amazon and Google and reduce their incentive to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens.

Hundreds of billions of dollars could flow into the coffers of governments left cash-strapped by the COVID-19 pandemic after the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies agreed to back a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15%.

Facebook (FB.O) said it expected it would have to pay more tax, in more countries, as a result of the deal, which comes after eight years of talks that gained fresh impetus in recent months after proposals from U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration.

"G7 finance ministers have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age," British finance minister Rishi Sunak said after chairing a two-day meeting in London.

The meeting, hosted at an ornate 19th-century mansion near Buckingham Palace in central London, was the first time finance ministers have met face-to-face since the start of the pandemic.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the "significant, unprecedented commitment" would end what she called a race to the bottom on global taxation.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the deal was "bad news for tax havens around the world".

Yellen also saw the G7 meeting as marking a return to multilateralism under Biden and a contrast to the approach of U.S. President Donald Trump, who alienated many U.S. allies.

"What I've seen during my time at this G7 is deep collaboration and a desire to coordinate and address a much broader range of global problems," she said.

Ministers also agreed to move towards making companies declare their environmental impact .. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/g7-backs-making-climate-risk-disclosure-mandatory-2021-06-05/ .. in a more standard way so investors can decided more easily whether to fund them, a key goal for Britain.

TAXING TIMES


EU's Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe, World Bank President David Malpass, Italy's Finance Minister Daniele Franco, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Canada's Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva, Germany's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Mathias Cormann, Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso pose for a family photo during the G7 finance ministers meeting at Lancaster House in London, Britain, June 5, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen poses as finance ministers from across the G7 nations meet at Lancaster House in London, Britain June 5, 2021 ahead of the G7 leaders' summit. Alberto Pezzali/Pool via REUTERS 1/7

Current global tax rules date back to the 1920s and struggle with multinational tech giants that sell services remotely and attribute much of their profits to intellectual property held in low-tax jurisdictions.

Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice-president for global affairs and a former British deputy prime minister, said: "We want the international tax reform process to succeed and recognise this could mean Facebook paying more tax, and in different places."

But Italy, which will seek wider international backing for the plans at a meeting of the G20 in Venice next month, said the proposals were not just aimed at U.S. firms.

Yellen said European countries would scrap existing digital services taxes which the United States says discriminate against U.S. businesses as the new global rules go into effect.

"There is broad agreement that these two things go hand in hand," she said.

Key details remain to be negotiated over the coming months. Saturday's agreement says only "the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises" would be affected.

European countries had been concerned that this could exclude Amazon (AMZN.O) - which has lower profit margins than most tech companies - but Yellen said she expected it would be included.

How tax revenues will be split is not finalised either, and any deal will also need to pass the U.S. Congress.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he would push for a higher minimum tax, calling 15% "a starting point".

Some campaign groups also condemned what they saw as a lack of ambition. "They are setting the bar so low that companies can just step over it," Oxfam's head of inequality policy, Max Lawson, said.

But Irish finance minister Paschal Donohoe, whose country is potentially affected because of its 12.5% tax rate, said any global deal also needed to take account of smaller nations .. https://www.reuters.com/business/ireland-confident-g7-tax-deal-wont-dent-multinational-investment-2021-06-05/ .

The G7 includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

https://www.reuters.com/business/g7-nations-near-historic-deal-taxing-multinationals-2021-06-05/