I’ve been playing around at www.wolframalpha.com and have been making some fun graphs. For example, this one: US unemployment vs corporate profits - Wolfram|Alpha
From 2006 to present, corporate profits and unemployment have almost the exact same slope. Money is obviously going to the shareholders. How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?
What’s the point of raising taxes without getting entitlement reform? There’s not enough potential revenue to keep us solvent, bad economy or good. It’s time to get serious spending reforms in place. To get those, sure I’d say compromise on taxes. But not a moment sooner.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What’s the point of raising taxes without getting entitlement reform? There’s not enough potential revenue to keep us solvent, bad economy or good. It’s time to get serious spending reforms in place. To get those, sure I’d say compromise on taxes. But not a moment sooner.[/quote]
Exactly. Not to mention the fact that approximately 50% pay no taxes at all and will not do so under any currently proposed legislation.
If my tax dollars are only going to further enable bad spending habits of congress, then I am out.
If my tax dollars are only going to be used to buy votes from those that pay no taxes and allow them to continue to vote for more of my money in the form of entitlements, then I am out.
[quote]borrek wrote:
I’ve been playing around at www.wolframalpha.com and have been making some fun graphs. For example, this one: US unemployment vs corporate profits - Wolfram|Alpha
From 2006 to present, corporate profits and unemployment have almost the exact same slope. Money is obviously going to the shareholders. How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?[/quote]
Nice graph. No sarcasm - it is interesting.
[quote]borrek wrote:
How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?[/quote]
A lot of taxes only come in place when you hire someone. For example, making employers pay for health care. I’m not saying that the employees don’t “deserve” health care or even really touching on that - but if I was an evil rich businessman, when you put a new tax like that… I would just lay people off. If I was rich and evil. You can’t outlaw greed, and when you kinda sorta try to - you get unintended consequences.
Now if I was a more middle class guy trying to open up a pizza place, I would need employees. But with these types of taxes I couldn’t afford to hire as many. So I wouldn’t. That lowers employment. But even past that, with fewer employees, my business may fail, and that KILLS the economy. (not only must I hire less people, but now I can hire no one.)
With any tax, you are not really taxing the buyer or the seller. You are taxing the transaction itself. In this case, you are taxing employment, NOT the employer, but both employer and employee. It is often framed in a way that is supposed to protect the poor and middle class from the rich, but from my view the true effect and purpose of these taxes is to prevent the poor and middle class from rising.
According to the CDC 68% of all fatal crashes were caused by sober drivers
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
Who’s the real fuckin’ problem, huh?
[quote]borrek wrote:
I’ve been playing around at www.wolframalpha.com and have been making some fun graphs. For example, this one: US unemployment vs corporate profits - Wolfram|Alpha
From 2006 to present, corporate profits and unemployment have almost the exact same slope. Money is obviously going to the shareholders. How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?[/quote]
This is interesting, and I am not saying it is at all wrong or dishonest, but really you’d need something like the trajectory of profits as a percentage of revenue (maybe per worker, by some kind of average) or something similar. This really isn’t apples-to-apples. You’re comparing an unemployment percentage with a raw number for profits.
[quote]borrek wrote:
I’ve been playing around at www.wolframalpha.com and have been making some fun graphs. For example, this one: US unemployment vs corporate profits - Wolfram|Alpha
From 2006 to present, corporate profits and unemployment have almost the exact same slope. Money is obviously going to the shareholders. How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?[/quote]
Are you implying a correlation between rates of unemployment and profits?
Why are they not always the same?
nope, my bad.
[quote]borrek wrote:
How am I supposed to believe that an increase in taxes is “jobs killing” and will be oppressive to the vaunted job creators of society, when they are filling their pockets now without hiring?[/quote]
If someone takes more of your money you have less to spend.
If it requires spending in order to create new jobs then less money means less new jobs.
New jobs does not mean added workers necessarily. It could mean a factory worker getting to keep his job because his employer can afford to maintain his business’ capital infrastructure, etc.
Taking more money from producers will increase unemployment.
Profits only come after a consumer has been satisfied and if the business owners did not profit would not create new jobs. It would be akin to you working and never getting paid.
There are two requirements to create new jobs. Profits and a capital infrastructure. If these are not present in an economy no jobs will be created.
Always and forever, amen.