101–110 of 593 posts
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How does IRS win here?
Unless the tax brackets are adjusted, inflation with rising wages means more people in higher tax brackets. If corporate earnings go up, there's more for the IRS too though that might be wiped out by the lessening value of each dollar.
This is a typical overcorrection (the Fed is run by humans after all). US debt is over $23x10^12, so such rates are unsustainable even in the short term (12-24 months). Algorithmic Monetary Policy > Dictated Monetary Policy(TM) IMHO.
The raise is 75 bps not 0.75%.
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I think you would need monarchy (or something more tyrannical) to get that. Democracies seem reliably short-sighted. The personal responsibility of taking on debt is so thoroughly attenuated in a democracy that piling on ($90k per citizen and counting, in the US) debt is the expedient thing to do, and it's seemingly impossible to overcome the electoral price paid for trying to reject that expedient option.
AFAIK it was how Keynesian economics was supposed to work. Also AFAIK the only country that did intentionally tighten at the top always Israel as they were worried that an economic crisis would leave them vulnerable to attack from their neighbors * * source is from a bar talk with an economist, I didn’t do my own research here…
You can argue either side to this, and make a good case. My personal preference is to trigger a recession and reduce inflation. The easy cop-out solution is to say a "big f*ck off" to pensioners, lower middle class, and poor people and let inflation soar, but I believe that long term this would be more destructive to the general economy. Better take the long term view here and not kick the can down the street.
Here's another perspective to this. An induced recession at a time when most people and businesses are recovering from historic losses that came about in the pandemic, is the worst. In a recession, spending from the top 10% of the population slows down, which in turn stops the trickle down economics, and hits the lower 90% of the society the hardest. And when that happens after a 2 year long period where they were al…
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I'm sure the lower middle class people who lose their job will appreciate it.
What's the good play here? Cause a recession or price those lower middle class out of being able to afford the cost of living? Typically they aren't the ones with the best negotiating power.
Some specific areas that are getting hit hard like housing have specific problems that need to be fixed, like zoning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does IRS win here?
Unless the tax brackets are adjusted, inflation with rising wages means more people in higher tax brackets. If corporate earnings go up, there's more for the IRS too though that might be wiped out by the lessening value of each dollar.
Most IRS brackets and thresholds are tax adjusted [1][2]. Tax brackets certainly are, as is the personal standard deduction.
[1] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-provides-tax-inflation-adju...
[2] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/580961-irs-announces-infl...
The fed is aggressively raising rates as the economy goes into recession. The last time something similar to this happened was in 1980. A very bad unusual situation, but on the other hand, the worst may be over. I think Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and other large cap tech stocks are good buys at these levels and are more immune to macro factors (compared to other sectors ) and can hedge inflation by raising…
Google is a shitshow right now. I don't think they can do B2B. Chrome Extensions. GSuite Free. Google Workspace App security audits. I can list of dozens of other disruptions like that. No one trusts them. At the same time, cost structure is astronomical; employee count has grown exponentially, to match revenues, with little to show for it.
Amazon is a cesspool of knock-offs, scams, and rip-offs.
Facebook's reputation is in the toilet right now and internal incentives are completely misaligned.
Microsoft is, oddly enough, doing the best of the bunch. They recovered from their evil hay day in the nineties, their incompetent '00s, and seem to be doing okay.
I think the move to degooglify will spiral. I think an Aliexpress might take down Amazon within the next decade or two. And Facebook might be Myspaced.
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When America shuts down or reduces its own oil supply, those holding the rest of the world's supply get more leverage.
We reduced our oil production before the invasion. Gas prices were multiplying before the invasion. Putin did not force the reduction of our own supply. The current administration did. The invasion may have been the consequence of the reduction of our production and amplified the "price hikes", but it wasn't the cause of the "price hikes", the initial action of reducing production and relying on foreign imports was.
This is a typical overcorrection (the Fed is run by humans after all). US debt is over $23x10^12, so such rates are unsustainable even in the short term (12-24 months). Algorithmic Monetary Policy > Dictated Monetary Policy(TM) IMHO.