Where is the US economy headed?

That makes sense. One example is UPS and FedEx hires alot of temps every season to help with the increased rush and volume of package delivery. The guy on my route now shows up with an assistant during this time. I think they also use alot of temps at airports and so forth to load and unload stuff within their system of conveyors, vehicles, etc. The way they use the temps is an efficient way to handle the seasonal needs, plus it gives them a chance to look at and evaluate people that are trying to get a permanent job, and the pool of temps is from which they choose new permanent hires. It also gives the temps a look at the jobs closeup and allows them to evaluate whether they actually could handle the fulltime job and like it longterm. So when the people are hired longterm, it helps the companies choose the best people, and it also helps the people choose jobs they will stick with, and thus cuts down on those people either quitting or being laid off later for non-performance.

okie seems to have missed the big change from last year; more retail companies are providing "free" shipping this year vs all the past years. That created the bigger demand for shipping companies.

more importantly online is tax free, so between that and free shipping there is no good reason to use brick and mortar retail. The downsizing of retail, both as it relates to property use and use, is going to be brutal.

Experts have claimed for a long time that the retail sector of the economy was a bubble, and this bubble looks to be popped. This could get to be as bad as the housing bubble pop, both for the banks and for the job market.

I assume that government will be quick to move to tax internet sales.....if they dont all hell is going to break loose.

hawkeye, Also true; many retailers outside your own state doesn't charge sales tax; in California that means (at least for those of us in Santa Clara County) another "savings" of 9.25%. The feds have been trying to add a sales tax on internet purchases, and they'll probably succeed with this new trend in buying from outside the state growing bigger every year.

that is not going to help the states any, nor counties nor cities. Adjusting taxation to account for the modern world is going to be difficult. I have not even heard a good idea how to do this, which is why no one is in hurry to deal with this problem. We are going to have to move it to the front burner though, retail is changing rapidly and most jurisdictions are now having a hell of a time raising money from taxes enough to operate.

I don't think "the feds" will try or would succeed in getting a national sales tax. Instead you will see the states work on enforcing sales tax collection at the seller's level (say Amazon).
In VA we have a 5% Sales & Use Tax. The Use tax should cover out-of-state purchases but it is (supposed to be) collected from the consumer who reports such purchases on his/her tax return. Few folks actually report their purchases, however.
The states want the tax collected by the vendor. Initially, the vendors said it would be too cumbersome because of the different tax rates. Then they claimed that they didn't have to collect the tax because they didn't have a presence in the jurisdiction they would be collecting the tax for.
The last time I checked (I am doing this from months' old memory) the test case working its way through the courts involves NY vs Amazon.
There is a huge amount of money involved. Something like a billion dollars for CA a year.

that aint going to work, because Internet sellers can be located anywhere, location does not matter to them. This being the case they will all go to which ever states offer the best tax deals, it will be a race to the bottom. Much as credit card operations go to DE and SD because the laws in those states allow for max profit.

We need a national sales tax, which is handed out to lower level government by way of some formula. This is going to be hell to hash out, and a problem as everyone argues for a bigger piece, constantly.

We need The FairTax plan to be adopted and implemented ASAP!

hawkeye, when you say all hell is going to break loose, what you are referring to is the free market finding better ways to do things, better ways to deliver what people need to people that need it, and what this does is make the economy more efficient, thus raising everyone's standard of living. What if the government had tried to preserve the old pony and express simply to preserve it, that is my point? So if brick and mortar is somewhat outmoded, let it fall by its own weight, that is my opinion.

Examples of what I see in this, one is the issue that I deal with, office supplies for business, which may include toner cartridges, mailing supplies, paper, tape, and so forth, I find it cheaper and more efficient for me to order online than I do to waste my time going down to the brick and mortar place. My prices are better, even without sales tax, and the stuff is delivered very fast and efficiently, usually within one day or two days. I can see reasons why this is the case, one being it costs the companies money to transport and store the stuff in a brick and mortar place, and it takes more manpower to serve the public there than it does to take orders via phone or internet. Energy costs, property taxes, employee costs, and advertising are all probably higher at brick and mortar, for the companies that are in the office supply business. I noticed Staples bought Quill, which was and is a large online office supply business, that I have done business with a long time now. With the highly efficient on demand ability to transport goods and services in this day and time, it makes sense for online businesses to do well in the market place, and if it is more efficient, my opinion is let it happen.

Now as regards a national sales tax, I am in favor of a national sales tax, if and only if the national income tax is totally eliminated across the board, for both businesses or corporations and individuals. We might see a pretty high tax rate, but the advantages would be numerous and very significant, and if instituted it would create an economic boom in this country that would be very very significant if not huge. Unfortunately, I don't think such a thing will see the light of day in Washington because the bureaucrats love to be able to control people's behavior by tweaking the income tax system. It is their little plaything, and they would not want to give it up. But a sales tax on top of income tax is simply not acceptable in my opinion, it is inviting more economic disaster by taxing the producers even more than now, which is way too much, which is the reason junk can be made in China and shipped clear over here for less and sold for less. If we placed the entire tax at the consumer level, we would place our production capacity at the same level playing field as the production in China, Vietnam, India, Mexico, and everywhere else.

We need a VAT, but not in addition to our state sales tax. I think VAT rates run around 17%.

The VAT is not needed.

Yes, the Fair Tax, but only if and only if the national income tax is forever buried with its lousy legacy.

Before listing the advantages of the national retail sales tax,note this is not a value added tax at various points in the economic stream, that is far too burdensome on the economy. The advantages are:
It taxes consumption, not production, so the production of wealth here in this country can become much more competitive with production in every country of the world, this is key, and this could be huge. This would create large numbers of jobs for businesses in this country, which presently may be farmed out to other countries by our businesses or operated by foreign businesses in other countries.
It taxes the underground economy as it exists today, such as drug dealers, criminals, and numerous other people that somehow avoid taxes in numerous kinds of ways. This includes also capturing the taxes avoided for the income produced by the millions of illegals in this country, because when they bought something, they pay tax. There would be attempts at a new form of underground economy, but it would be much easier to detect and crack down on.
Sales tax is already collected by the existing infrastructure of most states and local entities, such as counties and cities, so no new bureaucracy on the scale of the IRS would need to be created. We could then decrease the size of the current IRS accordingly, although we would need a portion of the bureaucracy to collect social security tax, Medicare tax, and to possibly provide a rebate to the very poor, to provide the progressivity in the system that the political establishment would likely want. Progressivity could however be established by simply exempting federal sales tax on food, and on housing over a certain threshold such as price of house or rent. Exemption of sales tax on food is already done by some states, and it works very well, this is very easy to do with the barcoding system in place in this country.
By eliminating taxing of production. price of goods would drop significantly before the addition of the retail sales tax, so that the final price might not be that much different than it is now, plus people would have more money in their pockets to buys stuff.
A final very good point is that everyone would see the amount that is paid to the federal government in tax every single time they buy something that is taxable, which would make everyone more engaged in how the tax revenue is spent. As it is now, almost 40% or more of people pay absolutely no income tax, and so they don't care how it is spent, and they are not engaged politically, and they tend to vote for more big spending and big spenders.

Having lived in Germany for many years, I think that going to VAT has merit. I dont think that we can get around the need to redistribute tax collections though. I dont see how it solves the major problem of governments squabbling over shares.

That's always a problem, but that doesn't stop any country from having it. What we have now in the US is the same without the VAT; they are fight over tax revenue whether it's federal, state, or local.

I'm in favor of a federal flat tax: a tax on each and every dollar of gross personal income such that the tax rate is the same regardless of how many dollars of personal gross income a person has earned. I would totally terminate the present tax system: no corporate or other business tax, no death tax, no federal excise taxes, no progressive income taxes with deductions and exemptions. I am opposed to a value added tax.

With a flat tax equal to what I have proposed, everyone in the country would find it in their interest to keep federal spending and the flat tax low. There would be less temptation and effort by the federal government to buy for one group that which other groups are forced to pay for.

Your "proposals" mean zilch; nada, nothing, far off the track, impossible, and stupid.

What you propose is an extremely regressive system of taxation; it punishes the poor and rewards the rich to an extreme degree. Not that you give a **** about that...

Cycloptichorn

That's what conservatives want; lower taxes for the rich, and phuck the middle class and the poor. They can stew in their poverty!

What I am proposing would increase the total number of people employed, because it would make more of the earnings of the wealthier available for them to increase their investments, thereby increasing the number of good job opportunities for everyone.

A 10% FLAT TAX (that is allegedly extremely regressive)
$ Annual Gross income.......$ Annual Tax
.........................10.....................1
.......................100.....................10
.....................1000.....................100
..................10,000.....................1,000
................100,000.....................10,000
.............1,000,000.....................100,000
...........10,000,000.....................1,000,000
.........100,000,000.....................10,000,000
......1,000,000,000.....................100,000,000
....10,000,000,000....................1,000,000,000

Not only is a flat tax not "extremely regressive," it isn't even regressive. In the above example, each gross income level ten time its preceding level, pays ten times as much tax as the previous level.

With the current income tax system, the upper income levels can legally reduce the taxes they pay to amounts that are generally less than a flat tax on gross income would require. In some cases, their income taxes are zero. For example, if they do not receive any wages and invest all their money in mutual bonds, they don't pay any tax at all on the revenue they get from those bonds. Also with the current income tax system, income taxes are zero for almost half of those in lower income levels.

OMG, are you really this clueless? The test of regressiveness is the tax load after basic survival has been obtained.