Where is the US economy headed?

@realjohnboy,

I'm amazed at the many on a2k who tries to have a rational discussion with this genoves guy who opines like a teenager with nary a worthwhile contribution on any subject.

I've been relieved of that torture by putting him on "Ignore."

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@mysteryman,

All right--How many of them are working? and How many are making enough money to pay income tax? Need I remind you that the left wing hollered bloody murder when most of the bottom half of the US population DID NOT GET ANY INCOME TAX CUTS BECAUSE THEY DID NOT PAY TAXES.

I can reference a specific article if you wish.

And, I really must make a comment, Mysteryman. It is directed towards others, not you, who really could have attacked my statement and dared me to show that it was correct. Now, I have only to say to them( not you) to make a copy of my post in which I gave the figures on the number of adults who are functionally illiterate in the United States, and jam it where the sun does not shine.

But, perhaps I had better be more forgiving--People who are dyslexic and people who spend most of their time under a sun lamp really can't be counted on to examine evidence.

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@realjohnboy,

Real John Boy--That was a quote from Wikipedia. Wikipedia got their information from the National Center for Education Statisics. You are welcome to check this information. When you do, please let us know what you found>

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@cicerone imposter,

Are you upset that you are included in the thirty million illiterate group,Cicerone Imposter?

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@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

What are you talking about?

If I make $25,000 and I claim exempt on my taxes, when I file my return at it shows that I owe zero taxes...there are no penalties or interest.

No, it doesn't. You receive a W-2 showing your $25,000 income and the FICA taxes deducted. It shows zero deductions for federal income tax. You transfer this information to your 1040whatever, subtract exemptions and deductions from gross income, and pay your taxes on the balance. You do this because copies of w-2 forms are sent to SS Administration (not IRS) by the end of January, each year.

1 Reply

@roger,

I'm not going to jump in with any particulars, but roger is essentially correct; if you worked and received a W-2 showing your gross income and tax deductions, it's up to the taxpayer to show whatever "legal" exemptions they can claim to arrive at Net Taxable Income. Anyone making $25,000 and not filing a tax return will have missed receiving their share of the tax rebate last year, but that's their choice. (Mostly MACs, I presume.)

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Some observations:

genoves is highly sarcastic, which rubs alot of people the wrong way, even mysteryman, but genoves has alot of points that are essentially correct. The illiterate percentage, there is a large portion illiterate, just a fact, which is a commentary on the dropout rate and the failure of our culture, and the public education system.

Secondly, I find it interesting cyclops insists that for example if I pay the government 50 dollars in taxes, then they pay me $100 refund for my taxes, instead of just giving me my $50 back, it is just a tax cut. And if they increase the refund to $125, it is a bigger tax cut. I don't know about other people, but this strikes me as using some very strange reasoning. You cannot cut what you didn't pay in, in my opinion. It is instead a giveaway or bonus. And the argument that the $50 or $75 was loaned to the government at 0% interest is of little or no consequence because the interest would be very very small as to not be an issue.

Now to be clear, Bush did this as well. I know people that receive thousands in tax rebates, due to having children, through the earned income child credits. But when this was going on, liberals right here on this forum claimed the taxcuts did no good whatsoever. I remember some pundit saying it would buy no more than a muffler, so what good was it. Liberals also claimed that Bush's tax cuts only benefited the rich and wealthy, his buddies. We now see all of those arguments have now been revised completely because it is Obama doing it.

Last observation, the stimulus bill, Pelosi, Obama, and other Democrats claim there is no pork in the bill. No earmarks. What a joke. The entire bill is a giant collection of earmarks, standalone earmarks, not attached to a specific legislative issue. Such claims of no earmarks or pork is so intellectually dishonest, and completely shows the hypocrisy of the liberal Democratic Party.

1 Reply

@okie,

Quote:

Secondly, I find it interesting cyclops insists that for example if I pay the government 50 dollars in taxes, then they pay me $100 refund for my taxes, instead of just giving me my $50 back, it is just a tax cut. And if they increase the refund to $125, it is a bigger tax cut. I don't know about other people, but this strikes me as using some very strange reasoning. You cannot cut what you didn't pay in, in my opinion. It is instead a giveaway or bonus. And the argument that the $50 or $75 was loaned to the government at 0% interest is of little or no consequence because the interest would be very very small as to not be an issue.

I didn't say it was a 'tax cut.' I said that the people pay taxes and then receive a refund or, if they have the child tax credit or the other couple of credits which exist, a rebate. You give the government money at the beginning of the year and for some people they give it all back at the end of the year, for most they do not, and many end up paying quite a bit.

If I had two kids and made 25k a year - not my real situation, thank jeebus - I would pay say 3-400 dollars in tax per month to the US gov't in taxes. Over the course of 2009 I would have paid 3600-4800 in taxes. Then, the gov't gives me back all that (and likely more!) after I file at the end of the year.

It is erroneous to claim that these people do not pay taxes in to the system, it simply isn't true. A refund at the end of the year doesn't help people who are on the edge of viability right now. I agree with you that tax 'rebates' such as the child tax credit should be done away with, but both Republican and Democrat politicians want to keep it so it probably will be kept.

I also think that it would have been perfectly appropriate to simply add the amount given, in dollars, to everyone's tax burden at the end of the next year. This would have made the tax cuts nearly revenue-neutral but still given people more money to spend right now, when it is needed.

Now, on the other topic - do you know what an earmark is?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

The end result of the process is they pay no taxes, cyclops, face it, and they get money back in addition to paying nothing. If you have to have it your way, yes, some do pay taxes, perhaps that they don't need to if they fill out their W-4's right, but they get the money back, so its a wash, and the government pays them more money, which is not a refund, its a bonus. The portion they paid in and then got back is a refund, but the money that they get that was never paid in can't be a refund. If you never paid them the money, it isn't a refund, to be perfectly accurate. I know its called a refund, but that part of the money is not. If the "funds" were never given to the government, they cannot be considered "refunds."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/refund
To give back, especially money; return or repay: refunded the purchase price.
To make repayment.
1. A repayment of funds.
2. An amount repaid.

1 Reply

@okie,

Isn't that the reason they called it a "stimulus/recovery plan?" To get money in the hands of people who'll spend it?

That said, I don't for a moment think that's a very good way to stimulate our economy. Job one for our government should be "job creation." Extra-ordinary social programs can wait until tax collected can support them.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Extra-ordinary social programs can wait until tax collected can support them.

We are in complete agreement on this point.

I think Obama will be regretting this bill for a long time.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I don't for a moment think that's a very good way to stimulate our economy.

I agree compeltly here too CI...why do people insist that the only way out of our current crisis (caused by borrowing & spending) is to borrow and spend more?

It's like an alcoholic who's hit rock bottom insisting that the only way he will cure his alcoholism is by drinking.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Isn't that the reason they called it a "stimulus/recovery plan?" To get money in the hands of people who'll spend it?

It will stimulate the economy, but mostly only for a while. Permanent tax rate reductions would stimulate over the longer term, hello again the Laffer Curve. And in regard to this, I believe tax rate reductions to business is a better way to stimulate the economy, because you enhance domestic business ability to compete in the global market place, and you potentially sell more products made here in the U.S., thus enhancing profits, and creating more jobs. In fact, I believe all taxes on business profits should be totally eliminated, and we should find another way to collect taxes. People pay taxes, not corporations anyway, they only pass it on to the consumers. Tax breaks to people may stimulate the economy, but a large amount of it may be spent on foreign imports, and useless plastic junk from Walmart made in China that will end up in landfills.

Quote:

That said, I don't for a moment think that's a very good way to stimulate our economy. Job one for our government should be "job creation." Extra-ordinary social programs can wait until tax collected can support them.

Agreed. But remember Obama's right hand man, Rob, the dead fish, Emanuel, he said crisis or problems create opportunities to get things done that won't get done otherwise. I believe they therefore used this crisis to sneak in all kinds of their social engineering and pet projects, under the radar, in the name of stimulus. Its all been a big snow job, deceptive, and mis-represented.

The end result of all of this will be rapidly expanding deficits, and humongous debts that can never be repaid with current value of money. It will ultimately result in higher rates of inflation, I think.

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@okie,

"Trifecta"

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@okie,

Great Post-Okie. But I feel so sorry for Cicerone Imposter. He has been taken in by the Obama machine. He thinks that the stimulus/recovery plan will get money in the hands of people who'll spend it.

I don't know if the quotes I am going to give you will make you laugh or cry but it is part( feel free to access the rest) of an article entitled:

Next challenge on Stimulus: Spending all that money--from the Wall Street Jou rnal--Feb. 13, 2009.

quote:

Other agencies face steep challenges, too. An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million budget and fewer than 20 grant officers could end up in charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report said it could take eight years for those grants to be issued because the amount of money would "far exceed" the agency's traditional budget and require the deployment of technology that is "not widely available today."

end of quote--

INCREDIBLE!!!! EIGHT YEARS TO ISSUE GRANTS!!!!!

It would seem, according to the article, that the new Energy Cabinet head,Dr. Chu, has bitten off more than he can Chu.

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@cicerone imposter,

realjohnboy---Dopn't let Cicerone Imposter spook you. He, like a few others on the far left wing, have been drubbed so often by me on these threads, that they fear debating with me. Therefore,I can post anything I want about their ideas and they will not know how thoroughly I am refuting them.

If Cicerione Imposter had any cojones,he would just do some research and show where I am wrong. Alas , he has never been able to do that so he hides.
Poor fellow!!!

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Anyone else noticed that the FDIC is closing banks on Fridays??? Four this week, two last week as I recall.

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@hawkeye10,

Yes, reported in the Wall Street Journal blogs. How strange. Haven't those bank directors read the news about the stimulus package? Or,perhaps they have.

One of the funniest( or saddest) comments came from a WSJ column-2/13/2009.

Maybe the bank directors read that column:

Note:

Other agencies face steep challenges, too. An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million budget and fewer than 20 grant officers could end up in charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report said it could take eight years for those grants to be issued because the amount of money would "far exceed" the agency's traditional budget and require the deployment of technology that is "not widely available today."

end of quote:

I don't think the bank directors were willing to wait eight years!

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Quote:

Mr. Geithner deserves a chance, I suppose, to do it his way first. And we should pray that his plan works. Returning the banking sector to health is far more pressing than the stimulus package. But we don’t have a lot of time. Every month that passes without a healthy banking system means more jobs lost, an economy that slips deeper into recession and an ever-deeper hole the banks will have to climb out of, and taxpayers will have to pay for.

“Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing,” said Winston Churchill, “after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” As we run out of possibilities, nationalization is looking more and more like the right thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/business/14nocera.html?8dpc

DAMN STRAIGHT!

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye 10--I read your link. I hope that you don't mind if I replicate a part of it.

quote

As I polled my Talking Business kitchen cabinet this week, gauging reaction to the Treasury secretary’s plan, I kept hearing the same refrain. “We’ve got to get on with it,” said Christopher Whalen, the veteran bank analyst who publishes Institutional Risk Analyst. “Just do it,” said Joshua Rosner, a managing director of the research firm Graham-Fisher.

“When I talk to experts, after about two minutes they say, ‘we should just nationalize,’ ” said Simon Johnson, a banking expert (and blogger) at the Sloan School of Business at M.I.T. “That tells me that the consensus is moving in this direction, and we are all just afraid to say it.”

Nationalization. I just said it. The roof didn’t cave in.

end od quote-

We may as well nationalize. Anyone who has studied Obama's background knows that he, as a worker in an organization founded by the esteemed Socialist,Saul Alinsky, is heading to Socialise as much of the economy as he can. Let it rip!!!!!!!!!

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Where is the US economy headed?

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