Trump 2.0

billvon said:
It will literally do that.

Like I said.

Well, it would end the deficit for three and a half years; the math is simple.

But you want a real plan that's practical. So here's one:

Anyone with a net worth of $100 million or over (including foundations and trusts they control) has a progressive wealth tax levied. It starts at 1% * X at $100 million and goes up to 50% * X at $500 billion. X is a number calculated to zero out the deficit.

X is determined a year ahead of time. So they don't have to pay anything this year, but after X is determined for this year, it results in that wealth tax a year later.

What would this do? The Elon Musks, Jeff Bezoses and Warren Buffetts of the US would put their huge financial clout behind balancing the budget, and it would happen within a year.
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It would reduce most incentives for innovation and it would do nothing to curb US spending. It would just encourage more negative behavior until eventually you ran out of wealth to take.
 
Sarkus said:
Hey I didn't say it wouldn't have problems, but it would stop there being a deficit. :). And that was the question, wasn't it? ;)
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Well OK, but in such discussions I'm always conscious of the phrase printed on the mug my son got me for my birthday, a couple of years ago: "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that." :)
 
Seattle said:
It would reduce most incentives for innovation and it would do nothing to curb US spending. It would just encourage more negative behavior until eventually you ran out of wealth to take.
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It would have no effect on incentives for innovation. Innovation does not occur because a billionaire wants to make a fifth billion. It happens because inventive people discover new stuff. Those inventive people are almost never billionaires.

It would instantly curb US spending by threatening the wealth of the people who wield the real power. They would then take action to curb spending, in order to maintain their wealth.
 
billvon said:
It would have no effect on incentives for innovation. Innovation does not occur because a billionaire wants to make a fifth billion. It happens because inventive people discover new stuff. Those inventive people are almost never billionaires.

It would instantly curb US spending by threatening the wealth of the people who wield the real power. They would then take action to curb spending, in order to maintain their wealth.
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How much innovation do you see in countries with your preferred economic system? Are you implying that there should be no curb on spending other than running out of other people's wealth?

Are you trying to make a distinction between innovative people and the people who are able to hire them? Isn't that a distinction without a difference?
 
Sarkus said:
Warren Buffett gave a very good way of eliminating deficits, back in 2011:

“You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

I'm assuming the 3% is to allow for an inflationary increase in debt, but the principle seems sensible enough. ;)
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Except for a wee "guilt by association" problem. Potentially tosses out members who were deficit hawks acting in good faith and working to balance the budget, but were thwarted by the big spenders, pork barrelers, oligarch lackeys, et al. A better method is one that just punishes the guilty. (I know you were mentioning this with a wink, but I just wanted to cut Buffet down to size - business guys often think they have all the answers on governance)
 
TheVat said:
Except for a wee "guilt by association" problem. Potentially tosses out members who were deficit hawks acting in good faith and working to balance the budget, but were thwarted by the big spenders, pork barrelers, oligarch lackeys, et al. A better method is one that just punishes the guilty. (I know you were mentioning this with a wink, but I just wanted to cut Buffet down to size - business guys often think they have all the answers on governance)
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I'm sure Buffett was saying that with a "wink" as well, don't you think?
 
Question for the group...

When the cry in the media is against "tax cuts for the rich" which is what they call extending the prior tax cuts that are now expiring do you think most people repeating this realize that it means that everyone who pays taxes, including the middle class would now be seeing their taxes go up too?

I don't think many of them do. The bottom 40% don't care because they don't pay much or anything in Federal Income taxes but for the rest do you think they know if these cuts aren't extended, their rates go up too?

It's cynical for the very party that wants progressive tax rates to call a tax cut a tax cut for the rich. It's a tax cut for everyone. The reverse should be true (logically). A tax increase for everyone is a benefit for the middle class so lets increase everyone's taxes and lets do it for the middle class!
 
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Seattle said:
How much innovation do you see in countries with your preferred economic system?
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I have proposed no economic system, simply a change in taxation.

If you are asking whether wealth taxes and/or high taxes on the rich allow innovation, the answer is yes. The US had a >75% top tax bracket from 1936-1965, during which a tremendous amount of innovation occurred. Countries including Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have wealth taxes; there is no shortage of innovation coming out of those countries.

Are you implying that there should be no curb on spending other than running out of other people's wealth?
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Of course there should be curbs on spending. This method guarantees those curbs.

You claim you want to reduce government spending - but then vote for the party that increases it the most, and oppose new taxation systems that would reduce spending. Sounds like you (and people like you) are your own worst enemy in this matter.

Are you trying to make a distinction between innovative people and the people who are able to hire them? Isn't that a distinction without a difference?
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Nope. Let's take some huge innovations that shook up the US, and see if they could have occurred without billionaires.

CDMA technology (what all cellphones and wifi systems use now.) Invented by Andy Viterbi, hired by Irwin Jacobs during the beginning days of Qualcomm. Jacobs was worth about $30 million at that point.

Aircraft. Powered flight was invented by two successful - but not wealthy - bicycle mechanics. At their death the Wright Brothers were worth about $1 million each ($32 million in today's money.) Even after reaping the rewards of their invention this tax wouldn't have touched them.

The Internet, invented by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn. They were both working for the government (DARPA) at the time. A good argument that government funded research is critical.

Lunar exploration. Two people did the most for this. One was Robert Goddard, a physicist who went begging for money, and got it from universities and WPI. Later he was funded by the government. The other was Werner von Braun, a Nazi immigrant who did not have much money to his name when he got here. All his work was paid for by the US government.

So none of those required billionaires for either funding or the researchers themselves.
 
Seattle said:
It's cynical for the very party that wants progressive tax rates to call a tax cut a tax cut for the rich. It's a tax cut for everyone.
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A tax cut for everyone is a tax cut for everyone. A tax cut for the rich only affects the rich. This is straightforward.

The reverse should be true (logically). A tax increase for everyone is a benefit for the middle class so lets increase everyone's taxes and lets do it for the middle class!
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Sure, propose the tax increase and let us know how it would work.
 
TheVat said:
Except for a wee "guilt by association" problem. Potentially tosses out members who were deficit hawks acting in good faith and working to balance the budget, but were thwarted by the big spenders, pork barrelers, oligarch lackeys, et al. A better method is one that just punishes the guilty. (I know you were mentioning this with a wink, but I just wanted to cut Buffet down to size - business guys often think they have all the answers on governance)
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Snap!
 
Back on the important stuff, have you seen Trudeau's speech:


Quite a powerful speech and very clear - quite unlike Trump's rambling, whining, wheedling and bullying. He rightly takes very seriously Trump's threat to cripple Canada economically and then annex it.

Trump seems to be setting out to wreck all the USA's alliances deliberately, as a prelude to tying up with Russia.
 
billvon said:
I have proposed no economic system, simply a change in taxation.

If you are asking whether wealth taxes and/or high taxes on the rich allow innovation, the answer is yes. The US had a >75% top tax bracket from 1936-1965, during which a tremendous amount of innovation occurred. Countries including Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have wealth taxes; there is no shortage of innovation coming out of those countries.
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Clinton managed to balance the budget with Reagan era tax rates and there was a lot of innovation as well. The Great Depression and WWII are hardly analogous.
 
Is there a serious argument for Canada and Mexico to retain their retaliatory tariffs on USA even while Trump has withdrawn them(for his customary month)?
 
exchemist said:
Back on the important stuff, have you seen Trudeau's speech:


Quite a powerful speech and very clear - quite unlike Trump's rambling, whining, wheedling and bullying. He rightly takes very seriously Trump's threat to cripple Canada economically and then annex it.

Trump seems to be setting out to wreck all the USA's alliances deliberately, as a prelude to tying up with Russia.
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Beautiful speech, strong, eloquent, dignified. As per the recent Biden speech.
 
geordief said:
Is there a serious argument for Canada and Mexico to retain their retaliatory tariffs on USA even while Trump has withdrawn them(for his customary month)?
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Nothing sensible, I think. The clue is in the word "retaliatory". ;)

I mean, they could say: "Look, you overweight sexual-assaulting orange felon, stop being a dick! We're going to slap you with tariffs for a while, until you remove the threat of tariffs entirely, not just keep posturing with your one-month delaying tactics!" but that would only embolden Trump to apply at least those tariffs he has threatened, if not then also an additional escalation on top. All while Russia laughs.

I mean, there possibly is a case for trying to get Trump to go one way or the other and just stick to it, as pissing around with on/off/on/off is the least stable situation, and the economy favours stability. Pissing around the way he is may well have exactly the same deleterious effect than just imposing them in the first place. At least then businesses would know where they stand, and can plan/budget accordingly.


One has to think that the more frequently Trump applies tariffs, then backs off, then applies, then backs off, the weaker he looks - especially when it can be shown that he's pretty much getting nothing new for his threats. He'll undoubtedly go through the same shtick with the EU and UK. And at the end of it he'll brag to his base how he got each country to bow down before him, and look how powerful he is, how much better off the US is... when in reality the "better off" will be nothing more than the current status-quo. Which I guess is better than it will be with tariffs applied.
 
Sarkus said:
Interesting series of polls over on Smerconish.com, but one stood out:

March 01, 2025
Who bears the most responsibility for the Oval Office argument? (Percentage of 112,859 votes)
50.32% - Donald Trump
41.32% - J.D. Vance
4.35% - Volodymyr Zelensky
4.01% - All equally

(https://www.smerconish.com/daily-poll/past-poll-results/)
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I saw that too and it was interesting and very unequivocal but does it reflect his viewership rather than a general sentiment?


I wonder if that question (or similar) has been asked elsewhere.
 
Sarkus said:
Nothing sensible, I think. The clue is in the word "retaliatory". ;)

I mean, they could say: "Look, you overweight sexual-assaulting orange felon, stop being a dick! We're going to slap you with tariffs for a while, until you remove the threat of tariffs entirely, not just keep posturing with your one-month delaying tactics!" but that would only embolden Trump to apply at least those tariffs he has threatened, if not then also an additional escalation on top. All while Russia laughs.

I mean, there possibly is a case for trying to get Trump to go one way or the other and just stick to it, as pissing around with on/off/on/off is the least stable situation, and the economy favours stability. Pissing around the way he is may well have exactly the same deleterious effect than just imposing them in the first place. At least then businesses would know where they stand, and can plan/budget accordingly.


One has to think that the more frequently Trump applies tariffs, then backs off, then applies, then backs off, the weaker he looks - especially when it can be shown that he's pretty much getting nothing new for his threats. He'll undoubtedly go through the same shtick with the EU and UK. And at the end of it he'll brag to his base how he got each country to bow down before him, and look how powerful he is, how much better off the US is... when in reality the "better off" will be nothing more than the current status-quo. Which I guess is better than it will be with tariffs applied.
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The thing is that the more he vacillates, the more business loses confidence that any eventual tariff regime will be permanent. Nobody is going to spend three years to build a billion dollar car plant, just on the off-chance that the investment will be justified, over a payback period of say a decade, by these now-you-see-them-now-you-don't tariffs. Lifting them for a month achieves nothing except to create yet more uncertainty and ridicule. And now there's this nutty idea of mandating the Fed to hold part of its reserves in crapto. (I'm not sure the president has authority to mandate that, but no doubt we shall see.) And aside from investments, any business subject to these on-off tariffs has no idea how to price its goods, how to forecast demand for them, or on what basis to negotiate a supply contract.

This is banana republic mismanagement and extremely damaging to the credibility of the USA as a stable economy. I read in the FT that some international investors are now starting to question whether the USD will remain the world's reserve currency. (!) They are thinking about increasing their Euro holdings instead.

Make America great again my arse.
 
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