There Goes the Economy

[Andylusion]

And will diminish in time. Beware of air.

Nah baby. Market is blowing up for Biden. Make it rain!

You are part of the ignorance that created this dilemma.
Energy drives the economy. Every ebb and flow has been driven by energy going back to the robust 50’s and 60’s through the hardships from the post-Arab-oil-embargo through the boon of the 80’s and 90’s and then through the hard times generated by an accelerated global economy and its squeeze-down on supply.
W’s removal of the offshore moratorium dropped prices dramatically, then enter Obama. He reinstated the moratorium and the subsequent energy costs drove the economy into the ditch until fracking (which Obama opposed but couldn’t prevent) came along. Trump exacerbated that supply line by removing regulations and we became robust to the level of the 50’s and 60’s again.
Now that communists have won and forced this forfeiture of our Cold War victory, energy will go back up and we will suffer again.

Energy is not what drives an entire economy. Hong Kong is entirely dependent on energy imports. Japan is mostly dependent on energy imports. Singapore, Tiawan, South Korea, Israel, dozens of countries have first world economies, while having no energy supplies.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, and Russia today, have tons of energy all over the place, and are poor.

Venezuela has the most known oil reserves in the world, and they are now in ruins. And no, it's not because of sanctions, unless you don't know how sanctions work.

Energy per growth. Venezuela has the energy part but no capitalism. Hong Kong and Japan are very small geographies so the dynamic is very different. However, if you take energy away from any of them and you will still have failure.

Somehow, everyone missed the point I was trying to make.... or more likely I did a terrible job of making my point.

The prior poster made the claim that energy is what drives the economy. He wasn't talking about being able to get energy to drive the economy.

Any economy can get energy. All you have to do is earn money, and buy it.

He was referring to the natural supply of energy. Meaning we have coal, and oil, and other sources of energy here in the US.

My point to everyone is that, even if we had zero natural supply of energy, we would still have a booming economy, because we can buy the energy we need. We know this because.... we do that now. We buy energy from all over the world.

As long as you work and produce goods and services, you can buy any energy you need. This is why Hong Kong with zero natural energy sources, has a 1st world economy. Same with all the other countries I listed.

As for the Arab Oil Embargo..... it did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The reason we had gasoline shortages in the US, was because of price controls.

Remember what I just said before, anyone can get all the energy they need, if they are willing to pay for it?

The reverse is also true. It doesn't matter how much natural energy sources you have, if you are not willing to pay for it.

When the government put in place price controls in the 1970s, that was effectively us refusing to pay for energy. Then you act shocked we had a gasoline shortage nation wide?

You see this in Venezuela today.

Venezuela's Fuel Shortage Upends Longtime Colombian Border Gas Smuggling Trade

Motorists near Colombia's border with Venezuela used to opt for cheaper, smuggled gas from the neighboring country. Now the tables have turned.

www.npr.org

Venezuela Gasoline Prices

Gasoline Prices in Venezuela remained unchanged at 0.02 USD/Liter in April. This page provides the latest reported value for - Venezuela Gasoline Prices - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

tradingeconomics.com

Venezuela has a nation wide gasoline shortage. Left-wingers like to try and blame US sanctions, but all you need to do is look at the government controlled prices for gasoline, and you can clearly see why they have shortages.

2¢ per liter. Translation... The government set price for gasoline in Venezuela is 7.6¢ per gallon.

Then you wonder why they don't have money to produce and refine oil in Venezuela, and why the nation with the most known oil reserves has a nation wide shortage of oil and gasoline?

You want to blame US sanctions, when they are charging 7.6¢ per gallon of gas?

So my whole point is, no economy is entirely dependent on energy, unless you make it dependent on energy. As long as you produce goods and services of value, you can buy all the energy you need, provided you are willing to pay for it.

By the way, this is yet another reason people should automatically be suspicious of any politicians that says he can lower prices on something. California tried capping electricity prices, and the result was rolling blackouts.

Venezuela, by the way, also cut electricity prices after Hugo Chavez nationalized the electric companies, and now they have routine blackouts that are nation wide.

 

[Andylusion]

rump

Congratulations, Mr. President-elect.

I'm confident you won't be the hyper-Keynesian you are replacing, and that you'll bring sanity to our fiscal policies.

Among other things.

Everyone knows you're a partisan fraud.

Give it up, what you know about, markets, economics, etc would fit in a thimble

Creepy Joe is as clueless as you are and will rely on people as clueless as you

Now hit the funny and Jack off....lil ole Mac

Let's see.

Should I believe Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions, or some nasty, miserable, ignorant Trumpster on an internet message board?

Hmm. This is a tough call!

Goldman Sachs Thinks the Economy Will Recover Faster With Biden in Office

Investment bank Goldman Sachs says a Democratic sweep could work wonders for our sluggish economy. Find out how Biden's plans could help the country's finances.

www.fool.com

So dishonest. They said this because there would not be a logjam and more government spending would occur with the US taking on even more debt. Short term gain for long term pain. I would recommend a college degree for you.

.. combined with higher tax rates on the top end so that we can slow down this insane Trumpian deficit spending.

I recommend nothing for you. You're just a Trumpster.

You’re still looking at more debt. Higher tax rates means fewer hires. “Trumpster”...I would have voted for Tulsi Gabbard, something I said multiple times here. You’re just a liar who needs a college degree. Enjoy the return of corporate inversions.

Higher tax rates do not mean fewer hires. Let's say a company has a profit of one million dollars. They could hire ten employees for a hundred grand each. The tax rate is twenty percent. How much does it cost them to hire those employees? If the tax rate is forty percent, how much does it cost them? Go college boy, tell me the answer.

Unbelievable. Do you really honestly believe that? How can any rational person believe that.

Higher taxes do not mean fewer hires..... are you stupid?

See it's comments like this, that allow me to understand how people like AOC can get elected into office, while spouting stupid crap like she's going to 'spend' a tax deduction, on education and health care.

Say you are a business owner, and you run a store. A McDonald's store costs roughly $2 Million dollars to build. You earn roughly $500 Thousand a year from your store. (that's high, but let's pretend.).

Now that doesn't include you taking out a salary for yourself. So let's say you live on $100,000 a year.

That means you have $400 thousand in profit, beyond what you yourself live on.

You decide you want to open another store. How long will it take for you to save up enough to open another store, and hire 20 people to run it?

5 Years.

Now let's add in that 35% corporate income tax rate. Your income after taxes is $325, minus the $100K you live on is $225. How many years before you can open another store, and hire 20 people to run it?

9 years.

Did taxes reduce your ability to hire people? Yes, stupid, it did. You are an idiot, if you think employers having fewer dollars, can't possible translate into fewer jobs created.

Let's say a company has a profit of one million dollars. They could hire ten employees for a hundred grand each. The tax rate is twenty percent. How much does it cost them to hire those employees? If the tax rate is forty percent, how much does it cost them? Go college boy, tell me the answer.

I don't need to go to college, because I learned enough math in elementary school to know that one million reduced by 20% is $800 thousand, and you can't hire 10 people at one hundred grand, with $800 thousand. Or that one million minus 40% is $600 thousand, and you can't hire 8 people at one hundred grand with $600 thousand.

Let me ask you directly.... if your income was reduced by 20%.... would you be able to buy as much products and services after having your income reduced by 20%, as you do today?

If you admit your own purchases of products and services would be reduced.... please explain which person in this entire country would not reduce their purchases of products and services by having their income reduced?

Wow, posted all that just to show you are an IDIOT. Businesses don't hire people, McDonald's franchisees don't build additional restaurants, with profits. They build them with earnings, and they make those investments BEFORE they pay taxes. Even if the McDonald's operator saves his "profits" for a couple of years to buy another location, he writes the entire amount of his purchase off his taxes. Hell, even Trump knows how to do that.

When the corporate tax cut was passed notice how all those companies handed out bonuses to employees. But they did it under the OLD TAX RATE. They hurried up and got them done before the new year and the new lower rate started. Why would they do that if those bonuses came from profits? I mean this might seem counterintuitive but even a basic level managerial accounting course would demonstrate my position.

So your question about reduced income is irrelevant. The earnings in both cases were the same. The only difference was, with a higher tax rate, you reduce your income LESS by making those hires, than you would at the lower tax rate.

What are you smoking? I know a man who did exactly that. He saved money from working at one restaurant, specifically to open his own.

Then he opened a second store a few years later, by saving money from running his own store.

They did EXACTLY what I described.

They build them with earnings, and they make those investments BEFORE they pay taxes.

You are crazy. You are telling me, that you can earn money, and build stores, and never pay taxes? Are you crazy?

Then why, when I look up Walmarts Investor relation page, do they use post-tax money, to invest in new stores?

Think about what you are saying. You are saying that Walmart could making hundreds of billions in profit, and as long as they spend all the money on building new stores, they would never pay a penny in taxes?

The way you build new stores, and hire new employees, and expand or renovate exist stores is with profits. The more profits you lose in taxes, the less you can build new stores, expand exist stores, and hire more people.

Even if the McDonald's operator saves his "profits" for a couple of years to buy another location, he writes the entire amount of his purchase off his taxes.

0.o Really?

Are Franchise Costs Deductible?

Buying a franchise offers an aspiring business person a way to hit the ground running. By running a business under an established brand name, you benefit from all the work that others have put in to build up that brand in the eyes of your potential customers. The tax code allows you to deduct...

smallbusiness.chron.com

An upfront fee paid to acquire a franchise for a particular area is treated for tax purposes as a startup cost, regardless of whether you buy a brand-new franchise from the franchisor or an existing franchise from someone else. The tax code classifies initial franchise fees as "Section 197 intangibles," after the section of tax law that applies to them. You cannot immediately deduct the full cost of a Section 197 intangible as a business expense. Instead, you must put the intangible on your books as an asset, the same as you would a building or equipment you purchased to start the business. You then amortize the intangible over 15 years, gradually expensing the cost. In other words, you''ll be able to deduct the expense, but not all at once.​

​

Even if you could deduct the entire cost of buying a franchise..........

A: Tax deductions reduce your taxable income. $2 Million dollars in a tax deductions reduces your taxes by your tax rate on the deduction. 21% of $2 Million is what? $420 Thousands. You saved $420 thousand, by spending $2 Million?

B: You *STILL NEED* $2 Million dollars.

So your question about reduced income is irrelevant. The earnings in both cases were the same. The only difference was, with a higher tax rate, you reduce your income LESS by making those hires, than you would at the lower tax rate.

I don't know how to explain that any clearer. You are just wrong.

The way you invest in new buildings, new equipment, new employees, is with post-tax profits.

Again, I can get the Walmart investor relations publication, and show you exactly where it says they spent PROFIT.... Post-Tax Profit, on building new stores, and renovating existing stores.

If you could avoid all taxes, by just opening new stores, Walmart would spend every freaking dollar on new stores and renovating stores every single year, and never pay a dollar in taxes ever.

In fact all companies would do that. Every single company would spend every dollar they 'earned' on investing and expanding, and not a single company would ever pay a penny in corporate tax ever.

Because I don't know what you think companies spend their profits on. That is the primary use of profits, is to grow and expand and invest into the company. If you are telling me, that they can do that, with pre-tax dollars.... then virtually no company should ever pay corporate income taxes.

Well first you need to get out that Walmart bit about using post tax revenue to build new facilities. I mean you are so full of shit. Walmart is not building shit, they have cut back on new locations and focused on the omni-channel online experience. And those investments are made with pre-tax dollars.

And sorry, but your friend, if he did save money to build his restaurant, is a dumbass. Yes, I can understand, saving money from your job to start your own business. But every single dime you spend on that new business is a tax deduction. The way it works is simple. You open your first location, honestly, it should be with borrowed money. Once you plow all the "profits" of that new restaurant in to paying off the loan, you use the now paid for restaurant as collateral on a loan for your next location. Here is an accounting reality, the weighted average cost of capital is inversely related to the marginal tax rate. Now I am quite sure that just sailed right over your head. Don't sweat it. But you have to understand, low corporate tax rates encourages businesses to take money OUT OF THE FREAKING BUSINESS. High corporate tax rates encourages them to PUT MONEY BACK IN TO THE BUSINESS. I mean can you possibly explain to me why we have not had double digit GDP growth since the corporate tax rate was axed? I mean DU HUH.

LOL But you are just wrong!

And those investments are made with pre-tax dollars.

Really? You want me to get the investor relations page?

And sorry, but your friend, if he did save money to build his restaurant, is a dumbass.

Um... no? During the great depression when all the businesses were closing down, and filing bankruptcy, there was one store that continuously expanded during the entire 1930s. White Castle. You know why? No debt. They run off of saved profits.

So when the economy tanked, their income declined, but it never went below their ability to pay debts... because they had no debts.

During the 1990s, when Apple Computer was crashing hard in the market, they never went bankrupt, or were forced to sell off to investors... why? Because they run debt-free. Apple computer has consistently operated on saved profits since it was created.

No Debt: 11 Big U.S. Companies Borrow Nothing

Rising corporate debt is another worry for investors. Those looking for a solution might want to check out the companies resisting the urge to borrow and have no debt.

www.investors.com

While it is true that many foolish people borrow their way into business.... there are many large companies that operate with zero debt.

My friend who runs the restaurant, is not dumbass, because while many stores have closed up and gone bankrupt during this down turn, he's operating just fine. And of course he is.... because he has no debt. Yes, his income has declined, but no one is going to call the loans on his store, because he has no loans. No one is going to force him into bankruptcy, because he has no debts.

But you have to understand, low corporate tax rates encourages businesses to take money OUT OF THE FREAKING BUSINESS. High corporate tax rates encourages them to PUT MONEY BACK IN TO THE BUSINESS.

WHAT? LOL

That is stupid.

View attachment 413396

View attachment 413398

So let's review.
Ireland has the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU.
France has the highest tax rate in the EU

Ireland has 6 million people, and 32K sq.miles.
France has 66 Million people, and 247K sq.miles.

Ireland number one in all of Europe for investment.
France doesn't even get on the top 10 list.

How is this possible? By your logic, all those businesses in Ireland should be dumping money out of their companies, instead of investing in Ireland!

You said low tax rates causes companies to take money out of the business!

No, you are an idiot now. I don't even know how you could say that, given Apple openly admitted the reason they invested $300 Million, and created 7,000 jobs in Ireland, was specifically because of the low corporate income tax.

According to you, their low corporate tax, should have cause Apple to not invest in businesses in Ireland.... right?

Are you stupid?

Yes, damn skippy, I want you to post quotes and links from Walmart about them using after tax profits to pay for new stores. I know you are full of shit. And Ireland, well you might want to take a look at them, not really kicking ass. And as far as I am concerned, Apple can eat shit. They spent two billion dollars on a facility less than ten miles from where I am at right now. It is their Northern Hemisphere facility. Order something on I-tunes, it runs through that facility. But guess where the revenue goes, TO IRELAND. How does that make sense. They depend on the small town of Maiden to provide them fire protection, hell they put a new fire department right beside the facility. They employee a handful of people, and suck enough power out of this area to power a small town. Yet they pay income taxes in Ireland. That is FUBARED. The only thing that illustrates is the dysfunctional corporate tax system we have. So I am not impressed with the whole Ireland bullshit.

Here is what you have not provided a rebuttal for. The weighted average cost of capital is inversely related to the marginal tax rate. Yes, low corporate tax rates encourage businesses to take money OUT of the business. High corporate tax rates encourage businesses to reinvest their profits and avoid the income tax liability. When you purchase a stock of a company, you want them to increase the Return on Capital by expanding their business. You dumbasses seem content with them buying back their own stock, which simply means they have no acceptable capital investment options. They are giving the money back, saying, sorry, we don't see any investment opportunities so here is your money back. I want the economy to expand, I want the frontier curve to go outward. Of course, I doubt you even know what the damn frontier curve is. And I want rent seeking, taking more of the pie that is already there, to be replaced by MAKING MORE DAMN PIE. We now have an economy based on rent seeking. No damn wonder personal income has languished and GDP growth is anemic. Time to reverse that trend. But make no mistake about it, Biden is not going to do it, Trump did nothing but accelerate the rent seeking. But every economist worth two shits knows exactly what I am talking about. But the one thing that I am damn sure about, you have no clue as to what I am talking about, no clue as to what Macroeconomics is all about. And from what I have seen, no clue as to basic Microeconomics as well. Peace out.

Order something on I-tunes, it runs through that facility. But guess where the revenue goes, TO IRELAND. How does that make sense. Yet they pay income taxes in Ireland. That is FUBARED.

Really simple.... if you take the profits here, then you lose 35%. If you take the profits there, you only lose 12%. That's how it makes sense.

I don't know why this is so hard. If you lived in an apartment, and the apartment across the street resulted in you paying 10% less in taxes on your income... you would move.

Moving to Ireland, for Apple, is the equivalent of you moving across the street.

If you charge too much in taxes, people are going to change how they behave to fit those incentives.

When France enacted a wealth tax, people left the country by the thousands.

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

This is normal all over the world. Why do you think that directly after the 'head tax' in Seattle, that Amazon started looking for where to open an HQ2 location?

This is normal! What is so hard about this concept?

We now have an economy based on rent seeking. No damn wonder personal income has languished and GDP growth is anemic. Time to reverse that trend.

If you think that increasing taxes is going to result in high economic growth, and increased personal incomes, and companies bringing more money back to US, instead of investing over seas... you are crazy.

Here is the problem. Apple creates a product. China copies that product. Apple wants the U.S. to protect it's property. Screw that. Get Ireland to protect it.

Really?

So you should only have your property protected if you pay taxes? Because last I checked a little less than half the countries pays zero income tax.

So if your son or daughter works at McDonald's and doesn't pay tax, then I can steel their car? Rob their house?

Or are you full of crap?

 

[Andylusion]

Didn’t take long.
Watch energy costs go up while the economy crashes around us, creating a greater dependency class, the goal of Marxist democrats...

Rolling back Trump's rollbacks: Biden seen reversing climate deregulation

In case you are too fucking stupid to notice, we have been in a recession. Trump will likely leave office with neghative job grown & record debt=.

Again, I'm against deficit spending. Please tell me which Democrat has pushed a platform of cutting spending?

If you can't answer that, then you have no argument against Trump on the debt. Obama had record debt, if you forgot. Didn't hear left-wingers crying about that. Now Trump has record debt, and you suddenly decided it mattered when it wasn't your guy in office?

Practice what you preach, or stop preaching.

And as far as the recession.... Trump didn't do that. Trump was against the ridiculous lock downs from the start, and rightly so.

The people on the left wing demanded lock downs, and then you want to blame what lock downs Trump didn't do, on Trump? Hypocrite?

 

[Andylusion]

rump

Congratulations, Mr. President-elect.

I'm confident you won't be the hyper-Keynesian you are replacing, and that you'll bring sanity to our fiscal policies.

Among other things.

Everyone knows you're a partisan fraud.

Give it up, what you know about, markets, economics, etc would fit in a thimble

Creepy Joe is as clueless as you are and will rely on people as clueless as you

Now hit the funny and Jack off....lil ole Mac

Let's see.

Should I believe Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions, or some nasty, miserable, ignorant Trumpster on an internet message board?

Hmm. This is a tough call!

Goldman Sachs Thinks the Economy Will Recover Faster With Biden in Office

Investment bank Goldman Sachs says a Democratic sweep could work wonders for our sluggish economy. Find out how Biden's plans could help the country's finances.

www.fool.com

So dishonest. They said this because there would not be a logjam and more government spending would occur with the US taking on even more debt. Short term gain for long term pain. I would recommend a college degree for you.

.. combined with higher tax rates on the top end so that we can slow down this insane Trumpian deficit spending.

I recommend nothing for you. You're just a Trumpster.

You’re still looking at more debt. Higher tax rates means fewer hires. “Trumpster”...I would have voted for Tulsi Gabbard, something I said multiple times here. You’re just a liar who needs a college degree. Enjoy the return of corporate inversions.

Higher tax rates do not mean fewer hires. Let's say a company has a profit of one million dollars. They could hire ten employees for a hundred grand each. The tax rate is twenty percent. How much does it cost them to hire those employees? If the tax rate is forty percent, how much does it cost them? Go college boy, tell me the answer.

Unbelievable. Do you really honestly believe that? How can any rational person believe that.

Higher taxes do not mean fewer hires..... are you stupid?

See it's comments like this, that allow me to understand how people like AOC can get elected into office, while spouting stupid crap like she's going to 'spend' a tax deduction, on education and health care.

Say you are a business owner, and you run a store. A McDonald's store costs roughly $2 Million dollars to build. You earn roughly $500 Thousand a year from your store. (that's high, but let's pretend.).

Now that doesn't include you taking out a salary for yourself. So let's say you live on $100,000 a year.

That means you have $400 thousand in profit, beyond what you yourself live on.

You decide you want to open another store. How long will it take for you to save up enough to open another store, and hire 20 people to run it?

5 Years.

Now let's add in that 35% corporate income tax rate. Your income after taxes is $325, minus the $100K you live on is $225. How many years before you can open another store, and hire 20 people to run it?

9 years.

Did taxes reduce your ability to hire people? Yes, stupid, it did. You are an idiot, if you think employers having fewer dollars, can't possible translate into fewer jobs created.

Let's say a company has a profit of one million dollars. They could hire ten employees for a hundred grand each. The tax rate is twenty percent. How much does it cost them to hire those employees? If the tax rate is forty percent, how much does it cost them? Go college boy, tell me the answer.

I don't need to go to college, because I learned enough math in elementary school to know that one million reduced by 20% is $800 thousand, and you can't hire 10 people at one hundred grand, with $800 thousand. Or that one million minus 40% is $600 thousand, and you can't hire 8 people at one hundred grand with $600 thousand.

Let me ask you directly.... if your income was reduced by 20%.... would you be able to buy as much products and services after having your income reduced by 20%, as you do today?

If you admit your own purchases of products and services would be reduced.... please explain which person in this entire country would not reduce their purchases of products and services by having their income reduced?

Wow, posted all that just to show you are an IDIOT. Businesses don't hire people, McDonald's franchisees don't build additional restaurants, with profits. They build them with earnings, and they make those investments BEFORE they pay taxes. Even if the McDonald's operator saves his "profits" for a couple of years to buy another location, he writes the entire amount of his purchase off his taxes. Hell, even Trump knows how to do that.

When the corporate tax cut was passed notice how all those companies handed out bonuses to employees. But they did it under the OLD TAX RATE. They hurried up and got them done before the new year and the new lower rate started. Why would they do that if those bonuses came from profits? I mean this might seem counterintuitive but even a basic level managerial accounting course would demonstrate my position.

So your question about reduced income is irrelevant. The earnings in both cases were the same. The only difference was, with a higher tax rate, you reduce your income LESS by making those hires, than you would at the lower tax rate.

What are you smoking? I know a man who did exactly that. He saved money from working at one restaurant, specifically to open his own.

Then he opened a second store a few years later, by saving money from running his own store.

They did EXACTLY what I described.

They build them with earnings, and they make those investments BEFORE they pay taxes.

You are crazy. You are telling me, that you can earn money, and build stores, and never pay taxes? Are you crazy?

Then why, when I look up Walmarts Investor relation page, do they use post-tax money, to invest in new stores?

Think about what you are saying. You are saying that Walmart could making hundreds of billions in profit, and as long as they spend all the money on building new stores, they would never pay a penny in taxes?

The way you build new stores, and hire new employees, and expand or renovate exist stores is with profits. The more profits you lose in taxes, the less you can build new stores, expand exist stores, and hire more people.

Even if the McDonald's operator saves his "profits" for a couple of years to buy another location, he writes the entire amount of his purchase off his taxes.

0.o Really?

Are Franchise Costs Deductible?

Buying a franchise offers an aspiring business person a way to hit the ground running. By running a business under an established brand name, you benefit from all the work that others have put in to build up that brand in the eyes of your potential customers. The tax code allows you to deduct...

smallbusiness.chron.com

An upfront fee paid to acquire a franchise for a particular area is treated for tax purposes as a startup cost, regardless of whether you buy a brand-new franchise from the franchisor or an existing franchise from someone else. The tax code classifies initial franchise fees as "Section 197 intangibles," after the section of tax law that applies to them. You cannot immediately deduct the full cost of a Section 197 intangible as a business expense. Instead, you must put the intangible on your books as an asset, the same as you would a building or equipment you purchased to start the business. You then amortize the intangible over 15 years, gradually expensing the cost. In other words, you''ll be able to deduct the expense, but not all at once.​

​

Even if you could deduct the entire cost of buying a franchise..........

A: Tax deductions reduce your taxable income. $2 Million dollars in a tax deductions reduces your taxes by your tax rate on the deduction. 21% of $2 Million is what? $420 Thousands. You saved $420 thousand, by spending $2 Million? Idiot.

B: You *STILL NEED* $2 Million dollars.

So your question about reduced income is irrelevant. The earnings in both cases were the same. The only difference was, with a higher tax rate, you reduce your income LESS by making those hires, than you would at the lower tax rate.

I don't know how to explain that any clearer. You are just wrong.

The way you invest in new buildings, new equipment, new employees, is with post-tax profits.

Again, I can get the Walmart investor relations publication, and show you exactly where it says they spent PROFIT.... Post-Tax Profit, on building new stores, and renovating existing stores.

If you could avoid all taxes, by just opening new stores, Walmart would spend every freaking dollar on new stores and renovating stores every single year, and never pay a dollar in taxes ever.

In fact all companies would do that. Every single company would spend every dollar they 'earned' on investing and expanding, and not a single company would ever pay a penny in corporate tax ever.

Because I don't know what you think companies spend their profits on. That is the primary use of profits, is to grow and expand and invest into the company. If you are telling me, that they can do that, with pre-tax dollars.... then virtually no company should ever pay corporate income taxes.

Please stop. Organization and people always want to pay higher taxes. Always. Why take accelerated depreciation and why pay accountants for tax advice when you can just pay pay pay and pay?

How damn stupid. This is not about what organizations and people want. This is about influencing behavior. You want corporations to invest in their people, in expanding the frontier curve, in MAKING MORE PIE, you tax the shit out of them. If you want them to seek rents, cash out their investments, and buy more of their stock, you cut those taxes. I mean it is a sign of economic inefficiency and misallocation of resources when corporations hold TRILLONS of dollars in cash. I mean we have tried this whole low taxes bullshit. It has not turned out so well, anemic economic growth, negative income growth, and piles and piles of cash along with unprecedented rent seeking. The proof of my position is in the reality of our modern economy.

That is the dumbest nonsense I have read in some time. I don't even know where to start, with a mound of stupid stacked that high.

I literally work in management consulting and tax avoidance or at least tax minimalization is one of the primary goals of all my clients. Bet Winston never heard of an ESOP.

LMAO, yeah, I know about Employee Stock Ownership Plans. You can't be much of a consultant if you believe hiring people comes from profits and not earnings. And you can't know much about tax minimization if you don't understand that capital investments from earnings reduce a company's tax liability. But hey, if you want to play, what is WACC? And how about IRR? And tell me, how does the IRR react to the marginal tax rate? If the marginal tax rate increases, does then IRR for an acceptable investment increase or decrease? And what about risk premium? If the marginal tax rate increases does the risk premium for a potential capital investment go up, or does it go down?

Weighted Avg Cost of Capital. What about risk premium? LOL Paid for your risk. You're talking archaic finance school stuff. People look at at EBITDA multiples so taxes are irrelevant there and profits and earnings? What are you talking about? Higher taxes, lower EPS.

I asked you again, is 100% tax rate good or bad?

That is a stupid question. Of course a 100% tax is bad. But do you believe a 0% tax would eliminate the federal deficit? What part about curve do you not understand? But hey, let's go with that zero percent tax. What would the IRR for an acceptable investment be to the firm? What would be the risk premium if the marginal tax rate was zero?

I will try this again, it really is simple if not counter-intuitive. And the current environment demonstrates it rather clearly. When the corporate tax rates are low firms are incentivized to take money out of the business. That Internal Rate of Return of acceptable investments increases and the risk premium becomes higher. Firms are unwilling to take risks, seek out only investments with little risk and of course, the returns are smaller. The current environment spells that out because of anemic GDP growth, piles of cash sitting in corporate coffers, and the excessive amount of rent-seeking that is going on. It is really quite simple, when corporate tax rates are low company's lose more money when they make the wrong investment. If nothing else, the tax rate subsidizes losses. That decreases the risk premium. In our current environment companies find it more acceptable to attempt to gain more of the pie that is already there instead of make more pie. That contracts the frontier curve, it does not expand it.

When corporate tax rates where higher companies were more willing to take on risk. They invested to make more pie, and GDP growth reflected that reality. Furthermore, they were more willing to invest in their people, not just higher wages and more labor, but training, benefits. The contraction in the benefits offered employees, the lack of training, companies now seek to hire employees already trained, steal them from the competition, rather than train the employees themselves, it all stems from a lower corporate tax rate. And the lack of income growth for the last forty years is directly related to a lower corporate tax rate.

The contraction in the benefits offered employees, the lack of training, companies now seek to hire employees already trained, steal them from the competition, rather than train the employees themselves, it all stems from a lower corporate tax rate.

Please explain by what logic, you believe any of this?

If the corporate tax rate was 70%, would companies not seek to hire employees already trained?
Why would the corporate tax rate being lower, or higher, cause a company to hire untrained employees?

Explain the logic there. "The government is going to take 70% of our profits.... so we better hire people who can't do the job, and train them at a loss......"

That is ridiculous. Do you really not see how dumb that logic is?

One of the nice things I have had in my life, is working for fantastic CEOs and executives, and management, that would openly talk with you about some of their business decisions.

I worked at a car dealership for a well known luxury brand. In the 1970s, 80s, they had total of FOUR apprenticeship positions. Three were for mechanics, where they trained you on repairing cars. One was a body shop tech, where they trained you on doing car bodies, and sanding, painting, touch up, and other related things.

When I worked there in 2000, the company had only TWO apprenticeship positions, and that year, 2000, was the last year they were going to have those positions. Basically the two people in those apprenticeship positions would be the last apprentices they ever had.

I was eating lunch with the senior repair manager, and asked him why they were discontinuing apprenticeships.

He gave me two specific reasons why. Nothing to do with taxes.

Reason A: The minimum wage. The 1960s and 70s, you could pay someone $1 or $2 an hour. By 1997, it was $5.15 an hour.

Apprenticeships are horribly expensive. The managers own words "You pay people to lose money, and break things".

Not only that, but you have pay someone to train you. And that person, every minute they are training you, they are not earning the company money.

So they are paying their experienced techs to be less productive, and paying you to not be productive, and they paying for everything you break.

With the higher and higher minimum wage, the cost to pay you to lose the company money, and break things, becomes more and more impractical.

This is why, by the way, places like the UK have a lower apprenticeship minimum wage.

So reason A... is the higher minimum wage, makes it expensive to pay someone to lose the company money, and break things, by being an apprentice.

Reason B, is that you lose all this money, wasting valuable time of your experienced employees, to have the apprentice find another job later.

Back even in the 1970s, people usually found a job at a corporation, and then stayed there for life.

Even in the 1980s, job hopping was not common.

Today people jump from one job to the next.

What is the point of losing money on training someone, only to have them jump to the next job, and make the new employer tons of money, while you only lost money paying to train them?

There is a couple of reasons for this. First, I think there is simply a cultural shift. People simply not interested in spending the rest of their entire life, working for one company.

Second, is simply that there are more options today. When that luxury car dealership was built in the 60s, there were only a few large dealerships in the whole area. Now there are dozens.

I remember reading the story of a locksmith, who ran his own business. He decided that he needed help, and decided to bring on a trainee. One year spent training the guy, and he quit the job, and started his own locksmith business competing directly against the guy who trained him.

Of course he swore he would never train another apprentice again. And I've heard this from a couple of companies for the same reason. My last company, sent two employees to Chicago to get training on a new product, and a month later one quit, and 6 months after that, the other quit.

So the two reasons why companies do not do apprenticeships and training, is because A: The minimum wage makes it too expensive to pay people to lose money and break things. B: Because employees do not have loyalty to the companies anymore, and will leave whenever they please.

Again.. I got this directly from CEOs and Managers who made the decision to end their apprenticeship programs.

Now where do you see "If the government taxes away more of our profits, we'll start apprenticeships again" in that discussion?

By what logic, do you think jacking up taxes is going to cause more job training? Don't be ridiculous.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

And will diminish in time. Beware of air.

Nah baby. Market is blowing up for Biden. Make it rain!

You are part of the ignorance that created this dilemma.
Energy drives the economy. Every ebb and flow has been driven by energy going back to the robust 50’s and 60’s through the hardships from the post-Arab-oil-embargo through the boon of the 80’s and 90’s and then through the hard times generated by an accelerated global economy and its squeeze-down on supply.
W’s removal of the offshore moratorium dropped prices dramatically, then enter Obama. He reinstated the moratorium and the subsequent energy costs drove the economy into the ditch until fracking (which Obama opposed but couldn’t prevent) came along. Trump exacerbated that supply line by removing regulations and we became robust to the level of the 50’s and 60’s again.
Now that communists have won and forced this forfeiture of our Cold War victory, energy will go back up and we will suffer again.

Energy is not what drives an entire economy. Hong Kong is entirely dependent on energy imports. Japan is mostly dependent on energy imports. Singapore, Tiawan, South Korea, Israel, dozens of countries have first world economies, while having no energy supplies.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, and Russia today, have tons of energy all over the place, and are poor.

Venezuela has the most known oil reserves in the world, and they are now in ruins. And no, it's not because of sanctions, unless you don't know how sanctions work.

Energy per growth. Venezuela has the energy part but no capitalism. Hong Kong and Japan are very small geographies so the dynamic is very different. However, if you take energy away from any of them and you will still have failure.

Somehow, everyone missed the point I was trying to make.... or more likely I did a terrible job of making my point.

The prior poster made the claim that energy is what drives the economy. He wasn't talking about being able to get energy to drive the economy.

Any economy can get energy. All you have to do is earn money, and buy it.

He was referring to the natural supply of energy. Meaning we have coal, and oil, and other sources of energy here in the US.

My point to everyone is that, even if we had zero natural supply of energy, we would still have a booming economy, because we can buy the energy we need. We know this because.... we do that now. We buy energy from all over the world.

As long as you work and produce goods and services, you can buy any energy you need. This is why Hong Kong with zero natural energy sources, has a 1st world economy. Same with all the other countries I listed.

As for the Arab Oil Embargo..... it did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The reason we had gasoline shortages in the US, was because of price controls.

Remember what I just said before, anyone can get all the energy they need, if they are willing to pay for it?

The reverse is also true. It doesn't matter how much natural energy sources you have, if you are not willing to pay for it.

When the government put in place price controls in the 1970s, that was effectively us refusing to pay for energy. Then you act shocked we had a gasoline shortage nation wide?

You see this in Venezuela today.

Venezuela's Fuel Shortage Upends Longtime Colombian Border Gas Smuggling Trade

Motorists near Colombia's border with Venezuela used to opt for cheaper, smuggled gas from the neighboring country. Now the tables have turned.

www.npr.org

Venezuela Gasoline Prices

Gasoline Prices in Venezuela remained unchanged at 0.02 USD/Liter in April. This page provides the latest reported value for - Venezuela Gasoline Prices - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

tradingeconomics.com

Venezuela has a nation wide gasoline shortage. Left-wingers like to try and blame US sanctions, but all you need to do is look at the government controlled prices for gasoline, and you can clearly see why they have shortages.

2¢ per liter. Translation... The government set price for gasoline in Venezuela is 7.6¢ per gallon.

Then you wonder why they don't have money to produce and refine oil in Venezuela, and why the nation with the most known oil reserves has a nation wide shortage of oil and gasoline?

You want to blame US sanctions, when they are charging 7.6¢ per gallon of gas?

So my whole point is, no economy is entirely dependent on energy, unless you make it dependent on energy. As long as you produce goods and services of value, you can buy all the energy you need, provided you are willing to pay for it.

By the way, this is yet another reason people should automatically be suspicious of any politicians that says he can lower prices on something. California tried capping electricity prices, and the result was rolling blackouts.

Venezuela, by the way, also cut electricity prices after Hugo Chavez nationalized the electric companies, and now they have routine blackouts that are nation wide.

Way off.
Anyone can buy energy but the price is dictated by supply. When the US has enough potential supply to reduce the price, the economy thrives. When Arabs cut supply, the price increases and that slows economies. When governments apply superficial price controls during an energy drought, the supply runs out and you have shortages.

 

[pknopp]

Really?

So you should only have your property protected if you pay taxes? Because last I checked a little less than half the countries pays zero income tax.

So if your son or daughter works at McDonald's and doesn't pay tax, then I can steel their car? Rob their house?

Or are you full of crap?

Really. Is this not how the argument goes?

Doesn't the argument go that if you are here and not a citizen paying taxes like a citizen you do not deserve the same as a citizen?

If you are an American company that runs off to another country to avoid paying taxes to support the system you want to use to protect you, you do not deserve that protection. Run to the country you ran off to.

I should pay taxes to protect the property of a company that ran off to avoid paying taxes?

 

[Mac1958]

Now, if you believe Goldman Sachs and that does hold true, then Trump took Obama’s good economy, kept building it and kept it pretty damn healthy for 3 plus years to survive the massive losses over the last 6 plus months.

Trump exploded the spending, exploded the deficit, exploded the debt, benefited from the NY Fed pouring $1.5T into short term credit markets in 2019 to keep the economy afloat, created a protracted manufacturing recession, caused bond yields to crash by 60% and only reached a 2.4% GDP growth before the virus hit.

It was phony. It was a sugar rush. It was paid for with profligate, hyper-Keynesian spending and using other people's money. Gold-plated only.

Funny, just like his "personal empire".

 

[pknopp]

Now, if you believe Goldman Sachs and that does hold true, then Trump took Obama’s good economy, kept building it and kept it pretty damn healthy for 3 plus years to survive the massive losses over the last 6 plus months.

Trump exploded the spending, exploded the deficit, exploded the debt, benefited from the NY Fed pouring $1.5T into short term credit markets in 2019 to keep the economy afloat, created a protracted manufacturing recession, caused bond yields to crash by 60% and only reached a 2.4% GDP growth before the virus hit.

It was phony. It was a sugar rush. It was paid for with profligate, hyper-Keynesian spending and using other people's money. Gold-plated only.

Funny, just like his "personal empire".

And now his supporters refuse to pay for it all. They loved their free stuff but bitch when people want to affordably see a doctor.

 

[Mac1958]

Now, if you believe Goldman Sachs and that does hold true, then Trump took Obama’s good economy, kept building it and kept it pretty damn healthy for 3 plus years to survive the massive losses over the last 6 plus months.

Trump exploded the spending, exploded the deficit, exploded the debt, benefited from the NY Fed pouring $1.5T into short term credit markets in 2019 to keep the economy afloat, created a protracted manufacturing recession, caused bond yields to crash by 60% and only reached a 2.4% GDP growth before the virus hit.

It was phony. It was a sugar rush. It was paid for with profligate, hyper-Keynesian spending and using other people's money. Gold-plated only.

Funny, just like his "personal empire".

And now his supporters refuse to pay for it all. They loved their free stuff but bitch when people want to affordably see a doctor.

I just wish people would look under the hood a bit, and not just believe everything they hear because it sounds good.

 

[Aletheia4u]

Actually Biden and the rest of these political figures are not the ones in power. They are servants to these Global or world Elites. They've all has came from re-educational camps like Boys Town in Lincoln Nebraska where they were sexually abused and beaten until they became adapted to this treatment, but these camps burned up those that couldn't adapt And which some of the other members are apart of the Lincoln Project. But the only one that wasn't recruited from these re-educational camps was Bill Clinton/ Rockefeller. He didn't need to be re-educated because it was in his blood. But the others were abducted at birth.
These Global cabal have been around for centuries. They've been around since Rome and which the spirit of God enter into one of their rulers causing the empire to fall. And so they had infiltrated into the next kingdom, and Christianity had won over them during the Revolutionary war. And then these Global cabal infiltrated the new colony right after the war under the name The Illuminati and the Klu Klux K.an and etc., which they are using Greek words because Rome is their mother land that they want the world to return too.
They've look at their history to see where they have went wrong. And so they're trying to demoralized the world and remove the book of Moral from our history which it is the Bible, by changing its content. And then secretly create their army by manipulating the public into funding them.
When Pres. Trump win this court case. He needs to create interest-free money and put a banned on patenting any life form, conventional or GMO which it will cause their empire to collapse again.
Our taxes are just the interest from what we have borrowed. But these Globalist have nothing at all to backed their money. They've killed Gadhafi because he wanted every country's currencies to be backed by gold and which these bankers don't have.
It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

 

[pknopp]

It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

The Bible doesn't say that.

 

[Aletheia4u]

It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

The Bible doesn't say that.

I'm just paraphrasing. But if you want to find where something or someone has originated from. You trace down its history to the core.

 

[pknopp]

It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

The Bible doesn't say that.

I'm just paraphrasing. But if you want to find where something or someone has originated from. You trace down its history to the core.

That's fine. Make that argument but don't hide behind the Bible to make it.

 

[sparky]

And will diminish in time. Beware of air.

Nah baby. Market is blowing up for Biden. Make it rain!

You are part of the ignorance that created this dilemma.
Energy drives the economy. Every ebb and flow has been driven by energy going back to the robust 50’s and 60’s through the hardships from the post-Arab-oil-embargo through the boon of the 80’s and 90’s and then through the hard times generated by an accelerated global economy and its squeeze-down on supply.
W’s removal of the offshore moratorium dropped prices dramatically, then enter Obama. He reinstated the moratorium and the subsequent energy costs drove the economy into the ditch until fracking (which Obama opposed but couldn’t prevent) came along. Trump exacerbated that supply line by removing regulations and we became robust to the level of the 50’s and 60’s again.
Now that communists have won and forced this forfeiture of our Cold War victory, energy will go back up and we will suffer again.

Energy is not what drives an entire economy. Hong Kong is entirely dependent on energy imports. Japan is mostly dependent on energy imports. Singapore, Tiawan, South Korea, Israel, dozens of countries have first world economies, while having no energy supplies.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, and Russia today, have tons of energy all over the place, and are poor.

Venezuela has the most known oil reserves in the world, and they are now in ruins. And no, it's not because of sanctions, unless you don't know how sanctions work.

Energy per growth. Venezuela has the energy part but no capitalism. Hong Kong and Japan are very small geographies so the dynamic is very different. However, if you take energy away from any of them and you will still have failure.

Somehow, everyone missed the point I was trying to make.... or more likely I did a terrible job of making my point.

The prior poster made the claim that energy is what drives the economy. He wasn't talking about being able to get energy to drive the economy.

Any economy can get energy. All you have to do is earn money, and buy it.

He was referring to the natural supply of energy. Meaning we have coal, and oil, and other sources of energy here in the US.

My point to everyone is that, even if we had zero natural supply of energy, we would still have a booming economy, because we can buy the energy we need. We know this because.... we do that now. We buy energy from all over the world.

As long as you work and produce goods and services, you can buy any energy you need. This is why Hong Kong with zero natural energy sources, has a 1st world economy. Same with all the other countries I listed.

As for the Arab Oil Embargo..... it did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The reason we had gasoline shortages in the US, was because of price controls.

Remember what I just said before, anyone can get all the energy they need, if they are willing to pay for it?

The reverse is also true. It doesn't matter how much natural energy sources you have, if you are not willing to pay for it.

When the government put in place price controls in the 1970s, that was effectively us refusing to pay for energy. Then you act shocked we had a gasoline shortage nation wide?

You see this in Venezuela today.

Venezuela's Fuel Shortage Upends Longtime Colombian Border Gas Smuggling Trade

Motorists near Colombia's border with Venezuela used to opt for cheaper, smuggled gas from the neighboring country. Now the tables have turned.

www.npr.org

Venezuela Gasoline Prices

Gasoline Prices in Venezuela remained unchanged at 0.02 USD/Liter in April. This page provides the latest reported value for - Venezuela Gasoline Prices - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

tradingeconomics.com

Venezuela has a nation wide gasoline shortage. Left-wingers like to try and blame US sanctions, but all you need to do is look at the government controlled prices for gasoline, and you can clearly see why they have shortages.

2¢ per liter. Translation... The government set price for gasoline in Venezuela is 7.6¢ per gallon.

Then you wonder why they don't have money to produce and refine oil in Venezuela, and why the nation with the most known oil reserves has a nation wide shortage of oil and gasoline?

You want to blame US sanctions, when they are charging 7.6¢ per gallon of gas?

So my whole point is, no economy is entirely dependent on energy, unless you make it dependent on energy. As long as you produce goods and services of value, you can buy all the energy you need, provided you are willing to pay for it.

By the way, this is yet another reason people should automatically be suspicious of any politicians that says he can lower prices on something. California tried capping electricity prices, and the result was rolling blackouts.

Venezuela, by the way, also cut electricity prices after Hugo Chavez nationalized the electric companies, and now they have routine blackouts that are nation wide.

I predict another wave of 'save the planet subsides' on the Dem controlled horizon. In fact, i may have to get company masks and capes....

~S~

 

[RealDave]

Didn’t take long.
Watch energy costs go up while the economy crashes around us, creating a greater dependency class, the goal of Marxist democrats...

Rolling back Trump's rollbacks: Biden seen reversing climate deregulation

In case you are too fucking stupid to notice, we have been in a recession. Trump will likely leave office with neghative job grown & record debt=.

Again, I'm against deficit spending. Please tell me which Democrat has pushed a platform of cutting spending?

If you can't answer that, then you have no argument against Trump on the debt. Obama had record debt, if you forgot. Didn't hear left-wingers crying about that. Now Trump has record debt, and you suddenly decided it mattered when it wasn't your guy in office?

Practice what you preach, or stop preaching.

And as far as the recession.... Trump didn't do that. Trump was against the ridiculous lock downs from the start, and rightly so.

The people on the left wing demanded lock downs, and then you want to blame what lock downs Trump didn't do, on Trump? Hypocrite?

Wow, you live in Trump lala land. Republicans slashed revenues & increased spending. Which Democrats supported that?

Obama debts stemmed from the Bush recession he inherited. No one cheered them. But when you create the worst recession ion. 80 years, debt happens. Trump had us back at a trillion dollar deficit in 2019. He thern grossly mismanaged the pandemic.


QUIT BLAMING DEMOCRATS FOR NOT STOPPING THE REPUBLICANS.

 

[Aletheia4u]

It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

The Bible doesn't say that.

I'm just paraphrasing. But if you want to find where something or someone has originated from. You trace down its history to the core.

That's fine. Make that argument but don't hide behind the Bible to make it.

I know the Bible more than some. I've had gotten many spankings to prove it. We had to memorized it as a child like the scribes in the Bible had to do the same for their sacred recordings. As parents had said, "You will one day thanked them for pressuring us to stay in the Word".
But I don't hide behind it. I actually live it.

It Is Impossible to Rightly Govern a Nation Without God and the Bible | Bible or Not Bible Quotes & Famous Sayings

Quotes attributed to our nation's founding father George Washington quotes. It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible. George Washington (1732 - 1799)

bibleornot.org

.

 

[pknopp]

It says in the Bible in order to get to the bottom of evil, it is to follow the money. And there is another saying that all roads leads to Rome.

The Bible doesn't say that.

I'm just paraphrasing. But if you want to find where something or someone has originated from. You trace down its history to the core.

That's fine. Make that argument but don't hide behind the Bible to make it.

I know the Bible more than some. I've had gotten many spankings to prove it. We had to memorized it as a child like the scribes in the Bible had to do the same for their sacred recordings. As parents had said, "You will one day thanked them for pressuring us to stay in the Word".
But I don't hide behind it. I actually live it.

It Is Impossible to Rightly Govern a Nation Without God and the Bible | Bible or Not Bible Quotes & Famous Sayings

Quotes attributed to our nation's founding father George Washington quotes. It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible. George Washington (1732 - 1799)

bibleornot.org

.


View attachment 414184

That's great.

 

[Andylusion]

And will diminish in time. Beware of air.

Nah baby. Market is blowing up for Biden. Make it rain!

You are part of the ignorance that created this dilemma.
Energy drives the economy. Every ebb and flow has been driven by energy going back to the robust 50’s and 60’s through the hardships from the post-Arab-oil-embargo through the boon of the 80’s and 90’s and then through the hard times generated by an accelerated global economy and its squeeze-down on supply.
W’s removal of the offshore moratorium dropped prices dramatically, then enter Obama. He reinstated the moratorium and the subsequent energy costs drove the economy into the ditch until fracking (which Obama opposed but couldn’t prevent) came along. Trump exacerbated that supply line by removing regulations and we became robust to the level of the 50’s and 60’s again.
Now that communists have won and forced this forfeiture of our Cold War victory, energy will go back up and we will suffer again.

Energy is not what drives an entire economy. Hong Kong is entirely dependent on energy imports. Japan is mostly dependent on energy imports. Singapore, Tiawan, South Korea, Israel, dozens of countries have first world economies, while having no energy supplies.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, and Russia today, have tons of energy all over the place, and are poor.

Venezuela has the most known oil reserves in the world, and they are now in ruins. And no, it's not because of sanctions, unless you don't know how sanctions work.

Energy per growth. Venezuela has the energy part but no capitalism. Hong Kong and Japan are very small geographies so the dynamic is very different. However, if you take energy away from any of them and you will still have failure.

Somehow, everyone missed the point I was trying to make.... or more likely I did a terrible job of making my point.

The prior poster made the claim that energy is what drives the economy. He wasn't talking about being able to get energy to drive the economy.

Any economy can get energy. All you have to do is earn money, and buy it.

He was referring to the natural supply of energy. Meaning we have coal, and oil, and other sources of energy here in the US.

My point to everyone is that, even if we had zero natural supply of energy, we would still have a booming economy, because we can buy the energy we need. We know this because.... we do that now. We buy energy from all over the world.

As long as you work and produce goods and services, you can buy any energy you need. This is why Hong Kong with zero natural energy sources, has a 1st world economy. Same with all the other countries I listed.

As for the Arab Oil Embargo..... it did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The reason we had gasoline shortages in the US, was because of price controls.

Remember what I just said before, anyone can get all the energy they need, if they are willing to pay for it?

The reverse is also true. It doesn't matter how much natural energy sources you have, if you are not willing to pay for it.

When the government put in place price controls in the 1970s, that was effectively us refusing to pay for energy. Then you act shocked we had a gasoline shortage nation wide?

You see this in Venezuela today.

Venezuela's Fuel Shortage Upends Longtime Colombian Border Gas Smuggling Trade

Motorists near Colombia's border with Venezuela used to opt for cheaper, smuggled gas from the neighboring country. Now the tables have turned.

www.npr.org

Venezuela Gasoline Prices

Gasoline Prices in Venezuela remained unchanged at 0.02 USD/Liter in April. This page provides the latest reported value for - Venezuela Gasoline Prices - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

tradingeconomics.com

Venezuela has a nation wide gasoline shortage. Left-wingers like to try and blame US sanctions, but all you need to do is look at the government controlled prices for gasoline, and you can clearly see why they have shortages.

2¢ per liter. Translation... The government set price for gasoline in Venezuela is 7.6¢ per gallon.

Then you wonder why they don't have money to produce and refine oil in Venezuela, and why the nation with the most known oil reserves has a nation wide shortage of oil and gasoline?

You want to blame US sanctions, when they are charging 7.6¢ per gallon of gas?

So my whole point is, no economy is entirely dependent on energy, unless you make it dependent on energy. As long as you produce goods and services of value, you can buy all the energy you need, provided you are willing to pay for it.

By the way, this is yet another reason people should automatically be suspicious of any politicians that says he can lower prices on something. California tried capping electricity prices, and the result was rolling blackouts.

Venezuela, by the way, also cut electricity prices after Hugo Chavez nationalized the electric companies, and now they have routine blackouts that are nation wide.

Way off.
Anyone can buy energy but the price is dictated by supply. When the US has enough potential supply to reduce the price, the economy thrives. When Arabs cut supply, the price increases and that slows economies. When governments apply superficial price controls during an energy drought, the supply runs out and you have shortages.

Simply not factually true. The Arabs didn't cut supply at all.

Further, the cause and effect relationship between oil and the economy, is the reverse. When the economy increases, the price of oil generally goes up. When the economy crashes, the price of oil general goes down.

Now what is true, is that the price of oil sold by Saudi Arabia, was a fixed price. That fixed price, meant that the inflation price of gasoline was decreasing year over year, because the Arabs were getting less money. $20 for a barrel of oil, was not worth as much in 1970s, as it was in 1960, or 1950, or 1940 even.

The Saudis made do with this, because the value of the dollar was declining very slowly.

Well, that changed when Nixion decoupled the dollar from the gold standard. This was unavoidable, and has repercussions, namely that the Saudis started floating oil sales at market price, which was a shock...... that's why they called it "The Nixon Shock".

Nixon shock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But the idea that the Arabs cut off supply, is a complete and total fabrication. It's not true at all, in any sense.

The reason is fairly simple. Imagine if you will, that you and another person are buying and selling goods.

Now imagine if you get angry at that person, and you decide you will not sell that person goods anymore. Does that mean you simply stop selling goods? Think about that very carefully, does that mean you simply close down, and stop selling anything, and go be homeless? Family out on the street?

No of course not. Well, to this day, most of the Saudi government is entirely built on oil revenue.

Saudi Arabia: breakdown of revenue by source 2021 | Statista

The government of Saudi Arabia estimated that 558 billion Saudi Riyal of its revenue for 2021 was generated from oil.

www.statista.com

To this very day, 68% of the revenue into the Saudi government is exclusively oil exports. You shut that off, the entire nation of Saudi Arabia would end in chaos, and anarchy.

So what you are you going to? You are going to keep selling your products.

In steps me, the capitalist. I'll buy your products.

You know why I'm going to be willing to buy up all the products you sell? Because I know someone right now, who is very much in need of your products.

The guy you are no longer selling to.

I'm going to buy your products up at a discount (because your biggest buyer you are not selling to anymore), and then I'm going to sell them to that guy you won't, for a profit.

He's still going to get the products.

This is exactly what happened during the embargo. The Arabs all still sold the oil, just not to the US. But buyers in Asia and Europe, and Africa, seeing a golden opportunity, spun right around and sold that oil to the US.

There was no cut in supply.

The cause of all shortages was due to price controls.

As for the over all price of oil causing real harm to the economy, I've seen precious little to suggest it does.

When oil Spiked to $140 a barrel in 2008, the change in airline fares to cover that cost was roughly $20. When the cost to fill up the tank was $3/gallon, compared to $2/gallon today, was about $45 a month.

That assumes people don't buy more fuel efficient cars when the price goes up, which we know they do, and thus offsets that increase in cost.

Now obviously cheaper energy will result in at least some amount of benefit to the economy. But again, Japan with half the population, and almost.... not quite but almost no natural energy sources at all.... still 3rd largest economy in the world. *shrug*.

 

[Andylusion]

Didn’t take long.
Watch energy costs go up while the economy crashes around us, creating a greater dependency class, the goal of Marxist democrats...

Rolling back Trump's rollbacks: Biden seen reversing climate deregulation

In case you are too fucking stupid to notice, we have been in a recession. Trump will likely leave office with neghative job grown & record debt=.

Again, I'm against deficit spending. Please tell me which Democrat has pushed a platform of cutting spending?

If you can't answer that, then you have no argument against Trump on the debt. Obama had record debt, if you forgot. Didn't hear left-wingers crying about that. Now Trump has record debt, and you suddenly decided it mattered when it wasn't your guy in office?

Practice what you preach, or stop preaching.

And as far as the recession.... Trump didn't do that. Trump was against the ridiculous lock downs from the start, and rightly so.

The people on the left wing demanded lock downs, and then you want to blame what lock downs Trump didn't do, on Trump? Hypocrite?

Wow, you live in Trump lala land. Republicans slashed revenues & increased spending. Which Democrats supported that?

Obama debts stemmed from the Bush recession he inherited. No one cheered them. But when you create the worst recession ion. 80 years, debt happens. Trump had us back at a trillion dollar deficit in 2019. He thern grossly mismanaged the pandemic.


QUIT BLAMING DEMOCRATS FOR NOT STOPPING THE REPUBLICANS.

Republics did not slash revenues. Revenue increased. That's a fact.

They did increase spending way more than they should have... in fact I would have cut spending.

But again... name one Democrat that support entitlement reform? None? Then I'll stick with Republicans.

Your only support for Democrats on this is that will increase taxes. Well that's not a selling point for me. I don't to live in Denmark, where I'm going to lose 60% of my income in taxes, and then lose 25% of what I have left in sales taxes.

I want to cut spending. You show me a Democrat that openly plans to cut spending.... we have something to talk about.

You don't. All you have is "Democrats will tax the ever living crap out of you... and that's good"... is not a 'win' in my book.

He thern grossly mismanaged the pandemic.

How? Name one specific way he mismanaged anything? Name a SPECIFIC way that he failed on that?

Wasn't it Democrats that were trying to pass the NO BAN act, to stop Trump of banning travel to China in April because it was "xenophobic"?

You people spout endless accusations, and stand on graves to gain political power. You are sick and disgusting people.

 

[Andylusion]

Really?

So you should only have your property protected if you pay taxes? Because last I checked a little less than half the countries pays zero income tax.

So if your son or daughter works at McDonald's and doesn't pay tax, then I can steel their car? Rob their house?

Or are you full of crap?

Really. Is this not how the argument goes?

Doesn't the argument go that if you are here and not a citizen paying taxes like a citizen you do not deserve the same as a citizen?

If you are an American company that runs off to another country to avoid paying taxes to support the system you want to use to protect you, you do not deserve that protection. Run to the country you ran off to.

I should pay taxes to protect the property of a company that ran off to avoid paying taxes?

So I should be able to steal your son or daughters cars and property, because I guarantee they are not paying tax.

You agree with that, or not?