Border Adjustment Tax Is Worthy of Support

[The Sage of Main Street]

Most of our manufacturing jobs which have gone away did not go overseas. 88 percent of them were obsoleted by technology which has increased worker productivity.

Those jobs are never coming back, period.

We are manufacturing more stuff than ever. It just takes less workers to do it.

The big money is still flowing, but the number of jobs is shrinking.

Some of our low-skilled manufacturing, like T-shirts, has moved to places like Bangladesh and Vietnam, but the vast majority of our jobs are simple obsoleted by machines.

And by bringing back companies/jobs that DO utilize human labor (which is why they went overseas), we increase the # of jobs available in the US.

Blue Collar and Blueblood Can Never Coexist

Before this betrayal by the leisure-class absentee owners, there were plenty of high-paying working-class jobs and prices the majority could afford. But the working class was getting too much economic power, which made the obsessively selfish and paranoiac plutocratic parasites feel threatened. Sons of blue-collar workers were even rising up to the middle classes, making it even more uncomfortable for the HeirDads and their dream of establishing an exclusivist medieval hereditary oligarchy and crushing the growing democracy.

 

[protectionist]

We all have to pay a higher individual tax rate, and a higher corporate tax rate, and now a BAT, because of tax expenditures.

Just as I have been saying for YEARS.

Who's "WE" (that has to pay for a BAT) ?

 

[g5000]

We all have to pay a higher individual tax rate, and a higher corporate tax rate, and now a BAT, because of tax expenditures.

Just as I have been saying for YEARS.

Who's "WE" (that has to pay for a BAT) ?

All of us. Did you watch the video in the link I provided?

I also quoted the relevant part a couple posts back.

Every time the working group created a lower tax structure in thei reform, special interests got the politicians they own to put their carve outs back in. This required the tax rates to be increased right back up again.

So...BAT. Its the cowards way out.

 

[protectionist]

All of us. Did you watch the video in the link I provided?

I also quoted the relevant part a couple posts back.

Every time the working group created a lower tax structure in thei reform, special interests got the politicians they own to put their carve outs back in. This required the tax rates to be increased right back up again.

So...BAT. Its the cowards way out.

How do you jump from a tariff to a tax ? I'm still wondering who has to pay for a BAT (other than the outsourcer and his stockholders)

 

[AsherN]

Clearly, you don't understand the tariffs that will be imposed. The US exports many cars now and that will not change. What the tariffs will do is to make foreign cars sold in the US more expensive, therefore giving US manufacturers an even playing field on which to compete. So if Ford manufactures cars for sale around the world in Mexico, the tariffs will not effect it, but if exports those cars to the US, it will be hit with the tariff. Since the other part of the President's plan to save US jobs is to provide significant tax relief to US manufacturers, US cars will have the flexibility to become even more price competitive around the world.

And then other countries impose tariffs on US manufactured cars.

Besides that, do you have any idea how integrated the NA car sector? That Ford coming out of a Mexico plant, has components from Mexico, US and Canada. Many of those parts have crossed the borders many times before finding their final assembly place. So you put duty on what?

 

[g5000]

All of us. Did you watch the video in the link I provided?

I also quoted the relevant part a couple posts back.

Every time the working group created a lower tax structure in thei reform, special interests got the politicians they own to put their carve outs back in. This required the tax rates to be increased right back up again.

So...BAT. Its the cowards way out.

How do you jump from a tariff to a tax ? I'm still wondering who has to pay for a BAT (other than the outsourcer and his stockholders)

You don't think the cost of the BAT will be passed on to the consumers?

The Republican task force assigned to reform our tax system tried to lower the tax rate to 30 percent. They achieved this by eliminating tax expenditures.

You all know I have been lecturing about tax expenditures for as long as I have been a member of this forum. I have never been able to penetrate the pseudocon skulls around here as to the direct relationship between tax expenditures and higher tax rates. The poor, dumbed down bastards have had a trillion dollar lie ("I get to keep more of my own money!") so deeply embedded into their puny minds that they can't see straight.

And now we find the Republicans trying to lower tax rates by eliminating all those thieving tax expenditures, and thereby leveling the playing field, only to be coerced into putting all the tax expenditures back in by special interests.

Therefore, being unable to lower the corporate tax rate the right way (eliminating tax expenditures), they had to do it by creating the BAT.

That is what Nunes tried to get across: To lower the expenditure-laden tax rate to 30 percent, they had to create a new tax. The BAT.

What the tards around here do no understand is that every dime you spend on tax expenditures has to be made up for by higher/more taxes.

This is what Nunes was communicating in the video in the link I provided.

It is something which, if we had an educated voting populace, would and rightly should have resulted in extreme outrage across the country. You can tell Nunes is pissed, and so am I.

 

[protectionist]

You don't think the cost of the BAT will be passed on to the consumers?

I KNOW it won't, and I taught this to freshman college students, 40 years ago. See the OP.

And if you believe the run-of-the-mill so common scare talk poppycock, you're not ready for this thread. And your talk about taxes is unrelated to the BAT. The BAT is a tariff, that's all. It makes outsourcing no longer economical for the outsourcers, and forces them to return to the US or go out of business.

 

[g5000]

You don't think the cost of the BAT will be passed on to the consumers?

I KNOW it won't, and I taught this to freshman college students, 40 years ago. See the OP.

And if you believe the run-of-the-mill so common scare talk poppycock, you're not ready for this thread. And your talk about taxes is unrelated to the BAT. The BAT is a tariff, that's all. It makes outsourcing no longer economical for the outsourcers, and forces them to return to the US or go out of business.

Watch. The. Video. In. The. Link.

The whole reason we are talking about a BAT right now is because of tax expenditures in the corporate tax rate.

 

[g5000]

Pricing experience reveals what the market price is, and any change up or down, results in reduced income.

Any change up or down in the profit margin from higher taxes has an effect, too. Which you are completely ignoring.

 

[g5000]

A border adjustment tax is a stupid idea. It is another name for a tariff. It will invite retaliation. In addition, it will increase costs for consumers and consumers will have fewer choices. Taxes are paid by consumers not corporations so the idea that consumers will not suffer is ridiculous. Businesses cannot operate at a loss no matter what kind of curve you use.

You don't understand, it's not a zero sum game. As a result Trump can reduce other taxes.

The BAT has been created precisely to compensate for lowering the expenditure-laden corporate tax rate.

Instead of eliminating the tax expenditures and lowering the corporate tax rate that way, which is the RIGHT way as it levels the business playing field, our politicians caved to special interests.

 

[Brain357]

You don't think the cost of the BAT will be passed on to the consumers?

I KNOW it won't, and I taught this to freshman college students, 40 years ago. See the OP.

And if you believe the run-of-the-mill so common scare talk poppycock, you're not ready for this thread. And your talk about taxes is unrelated to the BAT. The BAT is a tariff, that's all. It makes outsourcing no longer economical for the outsourcers, and forces them to return to the US or go out of business.

And what really happens:
According to our calculations, explained in this policy brief, the total cost to American consumers from higher prices resulting from safeguard tariffs on Chinese tires was around $1.1 billion in 2011. The cost per job manufacturing saved (a maximum of 1,200 jobs by our calculations) was at least $900,000 in that year (see table above).
2009 tire tariffs cost US consumers $926K per job saved and led to the loss of 3 retail jobs per factory job saved • AEI

 

[g5000]

If a manufacturer has to pay higher taxes, or a tariff, which bites into his profit margin, and the consumer will not accept higher prices, then the only means left to the manufacturer is to seek out even lower paid labor or cheaper, shoddier materials.

Or else it becomes more economically feasible to automate, and lay off workers.

 

[protectionist]

Watch. The. Video. In. The. Link.

The whole reason we are talking about a BAT right now is because of tax expenditures in the corporate tax rate.

So you think Trump's big campaign thrust about outsourcing, job losses in the rust belt, and all those votes and states he won there, was about taxes ? I'm not buying it/ Video or no video.

 

[g5000]

Once again:

"If people wanted to drop the corporate rate from 35 to say 33, 32, maybe 30, we could probably do it. But if you go back to several years that we looked at doing just that, the goal was to get to 25 percent, and by the time every lobbyist, every special interest group in town, representing every major corporation in this country, the tax rate was automatically all the way back above 30 by the time you put everybody's special loophole in."

 

[protectionist]

If a manufacturer has to pay higher taxes, or a tariff, which bites into his profit margin, and the consumer will not accept higher prices, then the only means left to the manufacturer is to seek out even lower paid labor or cheaper, shoddier materials.

Or else it becomes more economically feasible to automate, and lay off workers.

Like raising prices, laying off workers also is not an option. Both of these are widely disseminated MYTHS. Automation is typically not an option, simply because if it was, it would already have been used.

Cheaper, shoddier materials might work temporarily, but word gets around fast.

 

[g5000]

Watch. The. Video. In. The. Link.

The whole reason we are talking about a BAT right now is because of tax expenditures in the corporate tax rate.

So you think Trump's big campaign thrust about outsourcing, job losses in the rust belt, and all those votes and states he won there, was about taxes ? I'm not buying it/ Video or no video.

Trump's campaign rhetoric was populist pandering by a completely clueless dumb shit.

And the rubes bought it.

As I said at the top, 88 percent of the manufacturing jobs we have lost are obsoleted. They didn't go overseas. Machines are doing them now and those jobs are NEVER coming back, period.

The jobs that do go overseas are low skilled jobs. T-shirts in Bangladesh. Why the hell would we want our children making T-shirts for minimum wage?

We should be training our kids for the jobs of tomorrow, not bringing back yesterday's jobs.

 

[toobfreak]

I am 100% all for border adjustment. I say we get Trump, put together a kickass, take-no-prisoners army, and move the northern border up about 200 miles further up, and move the southern border about 200 miles further down and just TAKE THE LAND. Kill everything that gets in our way. Then we will have the room we need, maybe cut off California and New England as foreign hostile territory, put up a wall and send all the undesirables there. Come across our border, and pay a 100% tax or die.

 

[g5000]

If a manufacturer has to pay higher taxes, or a tariff, which bites into his profit margin, and the consumer will not accept higher prices, then the only means left to the manufacturer is to seek out even lower paid labor or cheaper, shoddier materials.

Or else it becomes more economically feasible to automate, and lay off workers.

Like raising prices, laying off workers also is not an option. Both of these are widely disseminated MYTHS. Automation is typically not an option, simply because if it was, it would already have been used.

Cheaper, shoddier materials might work temporarily, but word gets around fast.

Automation IS being used. As I said, 88 percent of lost manufacturing jobs are due to increased production brought about by technology. It is happening, and you are nuts if you think it is going to stop.

See for yourself: http://conexus.cberdata.org/files/MfgReality.pdf

Almost 88 percent of job losses in manufacturing in recent years can be attributable to productivity growth, and the long-term changes to manufacturing employment are mostly linked to the productivity of American factories.

 

[g5000]

Auto manufacturing 40 years ago. You can see at least a dozen humans in the photo working on four cars:

 

[g5000]

Auto manufacturing today. Spot the two humans in this photo. What are they doing?