Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Kudlow: Biden's plan would have our taxes higher than China - is that what we want?
Kudlow slammed Biden's remarks that big companies don't pay taxes, calling the statement 'utter nonsense'

By Larry Kudlow

"Just a few hours before, President Joe Biden gave his class warfare pitch to level the playing field as he calls it, punish success though he denies it, and falsely charge that wealthy people and large companies don't pay any taxes—all of which is far-left progressive, woke, democratic pap—with not an ounce of truth in any of it.

Just a few hours before we had to sit through all of this, the Commerce Department retail sales release was a blowout. Instead of down big from Wall Street, the number was up big—even taking out the glitch for lower car sales.

The number was even bigger than anyone dreamed of and the core retail sales number that feeds into GDP came up even bigger than all of that.

In recent days, we had a big release for industrial production, manufacturing and business equipment spending. Regional Fed manufacturing surveys are strong. The ism supply managers are strong.



The 11 million unfilled jobs demand for workers is strong off the chart and broad inflation measures may be simmering but still running at a too high 4%.

Now with all that, President Biden with a straight face tells the nation this afternoon we need a $6 trillion federal spending package. Really?

Do you think anybody in their right mind believes that? Is there any common sense to this story at all?

Playing the class warfare card is not going to work. Polls show clearly that the nation favors free enterprise capitalism, not big government socialism.

Do you think there’s a groundswell of support for picking out small businesses and punishing them with the worst tax increases in the Ways and Means package?

Do you think that working folks want the U.S. to have the highest corporate tax among developed countries? We would be number 1, except for Columbia and Portugal. China will be substantially lower.

Is that what we want? China? — With a capital gains tax that will be over 40% effectively. Again, much higher than China.



Is that what ordinary folks want? Or, how about this? We've had record profits in recent years and record corporate tax payments on those record profits following the Trump tax cuts of 2017.

Mr. Biden telling folks today that big companies don't pay taxes is utter nonsense, cognitive dissonance. People know that's not true. The government stats show it's not true.

Now, here's a key point on profits: Biden and the left may hate profits, but profits are the mother's milk of stocks and the lifeblood of the economy.

If businesses large and small aren't making money, then they can't expand. In fact, they'll have to lay off workers and surely cut wages.

Our pal Dan Clifton estimates that the Ways and Means bill could cut S&P 500 profits by a hundred billion dollars — nearly half of the expected profit gain next year. That means no wage increases for the blue-collar middle-class workforce.

That means no investment in new business equipment and technology to make the workforce more productive and that means going back to the zero stagnation days for family income that was the hallmark of the Obama-Biden period before Trump's tax cuts.



That's right, tax companies and you will go into wage stagnation and you will slow the entire economy down. The Biden plan will throw a wet blanket over a very healthy pandemic recovery.

You know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Smart policy would make the Trump tax cuts permanent because they work so well for record low unemployment, including women and minorities, and record-high real wages and record declines in poverty and income inequality.

Mr. Biden wants to level the playing field. That suggests to me he wants to make all of us poorer not more prosperous. I don't like leveling. I like increasing. I like opportunity. I like rewarding success. These are all reasons why I firmly believe we must save America by killing the bill.

There's more—a lot more to say—but I want to get to Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy.



Just let me note finally that all these good left-wing intentions to increase subsidies for childcare, dependent care, nutrition, the child tax credit, free community college, more Obamacare, more Medicaid, more, more, more—none of these mores have a single workfare requirement — none.

This is government welfare dependency on a grand scale. This cuts to the very heart of America’s social fabric which the Dems want to transform into big government socialism and, in some sectors like healthcare and energy, they literally want to take over the means of production—more insanity.

So, I’ll conclude. Save the country."

Let’s start a pool:
How many people do you think will actually show up to the “Support the Political Prisoners Rally” at the Capitol this Saturday?

I’m thinking like 200 or so.

I don't have a number in mind, but I suspect your number is pretty close. I think they figure the number will be low, so they (Trump and friends) are talking it up as a trap. Like you would have to "trap" morons like these people.

We'll see.

I know nothing about it, Snood’s post was the first I heard.

the R's in congress want absolutely nothing to do with it... not even the ones who egged the rioters on that day
and the days leading up to the insurrection...

Knowing how stupid a lot of these people are I'd guess around twelve hundred.

Absolutely nothing about it on the BBC website, presumably not considered newsworthy enough.

Sounds a bit like Homer Simpson’s definition of political prisoner.

“I kicked a giant mouse in the butt.”

Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem


sciencedirect

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below. She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"
"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."
The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."
"I am, replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

You realize of course you could interchsange the psrty designations in the two repsonses and it would still be just as accurate or more actually, inaccurate. and that in either case, the man in the boat is an antisocial asshole.

Which tells you what, exactly, about the current situation politically?

It tells us exactly nothing about the current situation politically. As MontereyJack pointed out, you could easily switch the party names and the joke wouldn't be any different. You could do this during any administration and the joke wouldn't be any different. Here's a similar (stupid) joke:

Scott Morrison is out jogging. He passes a young boy selling puppies.

"Buy a puppy, sir?" asks the lad.

"Oh no sorry," says Mr. Morrison. " We have a cat already you know."

"But they are Coalition puppies, sir" asserts the enterprising lad.

Morrison smiles, but again declines. The boy nods, Morrison jogs on.

The next day Morrison is jogging by the same spot. There again is the boy still trying to sell the puppies. As Morrison jogs by he over hears the youth telling the potential customer, "But sir, these are Labor puppies."

Morrison stops & says "Young man yesterday you told me those were Coalition puppies, and today you are saying they are Labor puppies"

"Well yes, sir," the child says.

Morrison then asks " well, if they were Coalition puppies yesterday, how could they be Labor puppies today"?

" Well, sir, " explains the child. " Since then they opened their eyes."

These are simply generic setups which count on the fact that everyone hates the politicians and parties they don't vote for. And why would any woman be alone in a hot air balloon over Mertzon, Texas?

You are right on the money.

Amid high security, small pro-Trump crowd rallies at U.S. Capitol

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-capitol-high-alert-pro-trump-demonstrators-converge-rally-2021-09-18/

Dang it! Wish we’d started a pool!😁

Got to hand it to you, my man!

Well, to be fair the Capitol Police estimated it as being closer to 4 or 5 hundred. We’ll probably get a more accurate count in a few days.

Because ballooning is her passion.

That's probably the most sexist comment I've read in a long time.

You and creepy Joe would get along like a house on fire.

i believe his point is that the alleged boater was according to his gps, in fact in the middle of a texas desert,, not a whole lot of fish there, so he was , an oaf, he was an idiot as well as being a prick, a pedant, antisocial, as well as repiublican. You sure know how to pick em.

FDA says nope to third booster jab, defying the Biden push for it.

The first two don't work, so what's the third one supposed to achieve?