The Biden Economy

[whell]

Originally Posted by Chicks

Whell's an HR guy. The reason they are so despised among workers is that they never have even a fundamental understanding of the business. Hell, even Finance guys know what's being produced, because they have to count widgets. HR can't have a conversation with factory floor or white collar workers about the business, because they don't have a clue what the business does.

Once again, this demonstrates how absolutely clueless you are. More often than not you expound on topics you know absolutely nothing about.

My background is not exclusively HR, jackass. It's not even the discipline that I've been working in for the last 22 years. My career includes retail operations, distribution, product implementation, distribution, marketing, client relationship management, legal compliance, and most recently program development and management.

But please keep flapping your stupid soup cooler, 'cuz its always good for a laugh.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Once again, this demonstrates how absolutely clueless you are. More often than not you expound on topics you know absolutely nothing about.

My background is not exclusively HR, jackass. It's not even the discipline that I've been working in for the last 22 years. My career includes retail operations, distribution, product implementation, distribution, marketing, client relationship management, legal compliance, and most recently program development and management.

But please keep flapping your stupid soup cooler, 'cuz its always good for a laugh.

Yet you espouse the economic policies of a business and tax fraudster who filed for bankruptcy 6 times and who appointed a guy with a BA in History (and no further degrees in economics) as his chief economic advisor. Moreover, you have advocated for Art Laffer's cocktail-napkin-doodle of an economic policy (whose foundational graph has only two identified data points, both where the ordinate crosses the X axis at zero).

With all due respect, this reflects the economic understanding of a middle schooler.

[Rajoo]

^^To a MAGAt, in Biden Economy, only operative is Biden.

[Dondilion]

Originally Posted by finnbow

It's not even remotely all about energy costs. It's more about a lack of innovation, an advantage the US has always had (they don't really even have a tech sector, for example).

From the article: “Germany has nothing to offer in any of the most important future-oriented sectors,” said Marcel Fratzscher, the head of Germany’s DIW economic institute. “What exists is old industry.”

So the manufacturers are going to other parts of the world because they want to innovate?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

So the manufacturers are going to other parts of the world because they want to innovate?

Did you even bother to read the article you linked to? For example:

In biotech, Mainz-based firm BioNtech was as the forefront of the development of the mRNA vaccine that proved crucial in helping the world overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. But on the back of that success, the company announced plans in January for what its founder called a “huge” investment in cutting-edge cancer research — in the U.K.

Germany is pretty much my second home. I know the country well, speak the language with native fluency and lived there for 11 years in 3 different states (Baden-Württemberg, Hessen and Bavaria) and still travel there frequently. What they do, they do very well. Unfortunately, innovation is no longer one of those things as the article makes clear.

I understand that you look at everything through a Russian lens (e.g., Russian natural gas sales to Germany), but energy costs are but one of many factors impacting the German economy.

[Dondilion]

German economy at risk as companies plan to leave countries.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/pol...leave-country/

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Yet you espouse the economic policies of a business and tax fraudster who filed for bankruptcy 6 times and who appointed a guy with a BA in History (and no further degrees in economics) as his chief economic advisor. Moreover, you have advocated for Art Laffer's cocktail-napkin-doodle of an economic policy (whose foundational graph has only two identified data points, both where the ordinate crosses the X axis at zero).

With all due respect, this reflects the economic understanding of a middle schooler.

1) You would throw out a book because you don't like the cover? You don't like the messenger so you disagree with him even if he states that the sky is blue? Sounds about right for you.
2) Speaking in middle school, "Art Laffer's cocktail-napkin-doodle of an economic policy" is a criticism of someone drawing a picture of the idea versus the idea itself, which is pretty juvenile of you. An honest discussion of Laffer's model isn't if it is valid or not. I don't think that's arguable - of course it is valid. The argument, and why model became "political", is where "T" is, and how far to the right or left of "T" is "over-stimulative" of growth or "overtaxed" and negatively impacting growth. That's it. That's all it is.
3) It was you just a few years back that expounded on the fact that Trump's tax cuts would be overstimulation and result in inflation. Your argument is easily explained - the fact that you were wrong about it is a different matter - by the Laffer curve. You were essentially saying that tax policy was already at "T" or close to it, and Trump's proposed (at that time) tax cuts would have been over-stimulative and result in inflation.

So, Finn, how can you use the Laffer curve to explain yourself, and at the same time criticize the theory?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

1) You would throw out a book because you don't like the cover? You don't like the messenger so you disagree with him even if he states that the sky is blue? Sounds about right for you.
2) Speaking in middle school, "Art Laffer's cocktail-napkin-doodle of an economic policy" is a criticism of someone drawing a picture of the idea versus the idea itself, which is pretty juvenile of you. An honest discussion of Laffer's model isn't if it is valid or not. I don't think that's arguable - of course it is valid. The argument, and why model became "political", is where "T" is, and how far to the right or left of "T" is "over-stimulative" of growth or "overtaxed" and negatively impacting growth. That's it. That's all it is.
3) It was you just a few years back that expounded on the fact that Trump's tax cuts would be overstimulation and result in inflation. Your argument is easily explained - the fact that you were wrong about it is a different matter - by the Laffer curve. You were essentially saying that tax policy was already at "T" or close to it, and Trump's proposed (at that time) tax cuts would have been over-stimulative and result in inflation.

So, Finn, how can you use the Laffer curve to explain yourself, and at the same time criticize the theory?

Once again, you show your lack of understanding of Art Laffer's curve (what it purports to show and what it doesn't). Laffer's curve doesn't address overstimulation of the economy. It only addresses tax rate and revenue. Moreover, it's truly useless to explain anything other than at 0% and 100% tax rate, revenue goes to zero because it never bothers to show where the current tax rate is on the curve (are we at a point where an increase in tax rate increases or decreases revenue?). However, supply-siders always insist we're to the right of the apex whereby tax cuts always increase revenue. Empirical evidence shows clearly that this is plainly bullshit.

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Once again, you show your lack of understanding of Art Laffer's curve (what it purports to show and what it doesn't). Laffer's curve doesn't address overstimulation of the economy. It only addresses tax rate and revenue. Moreover, it's truly useless to explain anything other than at 0% and 100% tax rate, revenue goes to zero because it never bothers to show where the current tax rate is on the curve (are we at a point where an increase in tax rate increases or decreases revenue?). However, supply-siders always insist we're to the right of the apex whereby tax cuts always increase revenue. Empirical evidence shows clearly that this is plainly bullshit.

Pro tip: Just because you don't know something or are clueless about it doesn't mean that I don't understand it.

1) "Laffer's curve doesn't address overstimulation of the economy." Bullhshit. In fact, the Laffer was very critical of the Keynsian Phillips curve bases "solutions" enacted at the time for failing to cure inflation in the early-mid 1970's Their "solutions" lead to the "stagflation" of the 1970's.

By 1975, Ford was able to persuade Congress - the Washtington crowd no doubt looking to the 1976 elections - to cut taxes. However, Ford also asked Congress to freeze or reduce spending. Ford got his tax cuts, but the Democrat congress showed him the middle finger on his spending requests and increased spending.

Politically, however, he had little choice but to sign the bill, for a veto would only play into Democratic critiques that he had done too little to help the economy. Thereafter, Ford insisted that he would not accede to any more hikes in government spending. The Democratic Congress, however, believed that economic recovery necessitated additional government expenditures; it kept sending spending proposals to the White House, most of which Ford vetoed. For the rest of his term, Ford waged a war with Congress over the appropriate balance between tax cuts and government expenditures.

Laffer's curve was born out of the previous two administrations' failure to manage inflation and a sagging economy. One could argue whether it was Volker's contrarian approach to money supply that cured stagflation, Reagan's application of Laffer's model, both, or neither that resulted in the "cure" for the 70's economic issues.

2)As far as your comments on "stimulation", Keynesian theory holds that government spending is stimulative, and more effective than tax cuts in stimulating the economy. Laffer argued that tax cuts are more efficient as a stimulus: lowering tax rates motivates people to earn more money, resulting in greater tax revenue. Conversely, as tax rates increase there becomes a point where economic activity is curtailed and the disincentive to work increases.

Keynsians see tax cuts as inflationary, and is one of the criticisms that they use - and that YOU used - to push back against tax cut proposals. Keynsians would, in fact, favor tax increases to control an overheated economy.

If you're going to argue that Laffer's curve doesn't address "overstimulation" of the economy - and in the same breath desired adherents to the Laffer model (which you always do) - then you need to explain why you and the Kensians trot out the "lower taxes lead to inflation" argument whenever someone points to the Laffer curve as a justification for tax cuts.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Pro tip: Just because you don't know something or are clueless about it doesn't mean that I don't understand it.

1) "Laffer's curve doesn't address overstimulation of the economy." Bullhshit.

Instead of spinning a tale, show me where the Laffer Curve overstimulation when it only has two values - tax rate and revenue, nothing more.

2)As far as your comments on "stimulation", Keynesian theory holds that government spending is stimulative, and more effective than tax cuts in stimulating the economy. Laffer argued that tax cuts are more efficient as a stimulus: lowering tax rates motivates people to earn more money, resulting in greater tax revenue. Conversely, as tax rates increase there becomes a point where economic activity is curtailed and the disincentive to work increases.

The only problem with Laffer's supposed theory is that it has never been borne out in the real world. In the real world, the only thing that tax cuts reliably do is reduce revenue. Indeed, the half of his curve that the GOP ignores shows exactly that. If you were willing to accept economic reality, you'd realize that the supply-side model adopted as the fundamental economic tenet of the GOP is all about providing a rationale for cutting taxes for the wealthy regardless of its impacts on the overall economy and deficit. Trump's tax cuts proved that once and for all (not only did he say so, but a Congressional Research Service study confirmed it).

Advocates of the tax cuts insisted it wasn’t about letting the makers keep their hard-earned money rather than handing it over to the takers. It was about incentivizing business to repatriate funds and ramp up its investments, thereby increasing growth and wages.

The Congressional Research Service, a kind of in-house think tank for Congress, has a new paper analyzing the effects of the Trump tax cuts. It finds that none of those secondary effects have materialized. Growth has not increased above the pre-tax-cut trend. Neither have wages. After a brief and much smaller than expected bump, repatriated corporate cash from abroad has leveled off.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019...nvestment.html

Listen, I fully understand supply-side theory and wish it were true. The trouble is that it isn't. I guess you still buy into Steve Mnuchin's sophistry when he said of Trump's tax cuts, “Not only will this tax plan pay for itself but it will pay down debt.” How'd that work out?