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U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#91

Post by MagnumOpus »

stale2002 wrote: post #40
oneplane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that has anything even remotely to do with tariffs or trade. But if it did: those lows are for the EU, not the rest of the world. Same goes for GDPR. Nobody is required to trade with the EU, or sell to the EU or buy from the EU. But if you do, the rules of the agreements that are made apply. This is nothing new, and works the same way for trade or interaction with pretty much any country. Imagine trying…

The original comment is referring to ridiculous laws that the EU has passed. The law in question includes things like a link tax, which is pretty ridiculous, IMO, as is the copyright fines that they have. The rest of your comment is merely a "the law is the law!" kind of justification. Yes, the law is the law. And I gave reasons as for why these laws are ridiculous, as per the original comment. I can recognize that a…

> US trade tariffs are also the law

Except they aren't. WTO treaty obligations for equitable treatment of other nations (MFN obligations) supersede local laws. Overriding arbitrary local laws is the whole point of the WTO, and of every other trade treaty.

The only way these tariffs work is Trump pulling the "national security emergency" card -- and obviously 'punishing' the EU for building better planes isn't a national security issue worth dismantling the WTO over.

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#92

Post by kenneth »

throwawaysea wrote: post #86
arcticbull wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich already pay different amounts than the poor for goods and services in pre-tax dollars. That's kind of the idea, IMO. If my average tax rate is 28% and a poor person pays an average 5% then the same $5 SF coffee costs me $6.94 and them $5.26. The dictionary definition is quite clear: A progressive tax is a tax in which the average tax rate (taxes paid ÷ personal income) increases as the taxable amount increas…

And labels of ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ aren’t value judgments? IMO they are subjective judgments much more so than calling a true flat tax “fair”. Equal value contribution is fair, after all. The dictionary definitions you are quoting are in existence simply due to common use in modern times, but I am claiming they are nevertheless bad definitions that were engineered to color the discourse on this topic.

Exactly.

We're both kids. I have 12 marbles. You have 24 marbles. We need to give up some marbles for the common good. We could debate whether us both giving 6 marble is fair, or wether you giving 8 and me giving 4 is fair. I can see both arguments.

However… in no rational world is it fair for you to give 10 and me 2.

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#93

Post by arcticbull »

kmlx wrote: post #87
arcticbull wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO if you're basing your tax model on people dodging half of it you've kind of missed the point. People willing to dodge taxes will dodge taxes one way or the other. Re: consumption tax, just buy stuff on Amazon, boom, taxes dodged. Or on eBay, receiving "gifts" from your seller. The solution isn't to invent a whole new parallel tax system so the dodgers pay a little instead of what they owe, the solution is to get…

“The unpaid taxes on the amount of wealth squirreled away offshore by the wealthy right now would pay off the entire US national debt.” without a source i call BS on this. us debt: 22 trillion. assuming 25% as median tax rate means that people in the US have more than 100 trillion USD stashed in offshore. to put this in context, top 50 US companies have around 3 trillion USD in offshore.

About 11.5% of global GDP is hidden in offshore accounts, amounting to $8.7T, and unpaid taxes to the US would amount to $170B in 2016 alone. Another $70B avoided by companies, so around a quarter trillion dollars per years in net new missing taxes per year. Given that's less than the current deficit, it makes what I said unlikely, although depending how many years it's been going on that's a big piggy bank. I'll see if I can dig up what I was initially thinking, but I could have just mis-remembered.

[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2018/01/20/trillions-dolla...

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#94

Post by arcticbull »

kenneth wrote: post #92
throwawaysea wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And labels of ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ aren’t value judgments? IMO they are subjective judgments much more so than calling a true flat tax “fair”. Equal value contribution is fair, after all. The dictionary definitions you are quoting are in existence simply due to common use in modern times, but I am claiming they are nevertheless bad definitions that were engineered to color the discourse on this topic.

Exactly. We're both kids. I have 12 marbles. You have 24 marbles. We need to give up some marbles for the common good. We could debate whether us both giving 6 marble is fair, or wether you giving 8 and me giving 4 is fair. I can see both arguments. However… in no rational world is it fair for you to give 10 and me 2.

Marbles aren't a good analogy because they have equal marginal utility.

Let's replace marbles with hamburgers. You and your buddy Steve lay out your food for the day. You have 2 hamburgers, exactly enough to meet your daily caloric needs. Your buddy Steve has approximately 10 hamburgers. Dramatically more hamburgers than he needs to live. More than he could eat if he tried.

Now, we need 1 hamburger for the common good. If you take that one hamburger from the guy with 2, he's hungry, and if you keep doing it, he may die. Steve, on the other hand, can't eat all his hamburgers one way or the other, so taking one from him makes much less of a difference.

Now how does that change the equation? It's fair for Steve to donate 0.8 burgers and you to donate 0.2 -- this represents fair distribution on a marginal value basis. So yes, 10:2 is completely fair. In fact, 10:0 is fair if I'm making millions and someone else is making a handful of thousands per year.

I'm personally in one of the top tax brackets and I think it should be higher. We already pay 50%-ish marginally in California, so moving up to AOC's 70% isn't really a big difference. I should be paying more, because we live in a community and I want that community to be nice. I don't want to live in a world where I have nice things and walk by people with nothing, on the ground, doing heroin like I do on my way to work every morning here in SF. All because it's not "fair" to take a burger from me, when I have more burgers than I know what to do with.

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#95

Post by arcticbull »

throwawaysea wrote: post #86
arcticbull wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich already pay different amounts than the poor for goods and services in pre-tax dollars. That's kind of the idea, IMO. If my average tax rate is 28% and a poor person pays an average 5% then the same $5 SF coffee costs me $6.94 and them $5.26. The dictionary definition is quite clear: A progressive tax is a tax in which the average tax rate (taxes paid ÷ personal income) increases as the taxable amount increas…

And labels of ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ aren’t value judgments? IMO they are subjective judgments much more so than calling a true flat tax “fair”. Equal value contribution is fair, after all. The dictionary definitions you are quoting are in existence simply due to common use in modern times, but I am claiming they are nevertheless bad definitions that were engineered to color the discourse on this topic.

Progressive, as in, it progresses upward with income. Regressive as in the tax rate regresses (moves downward) with income. It's a descriptive term. Fair is a value judgement, "progression" is a description. While all words and names carry some value judgement I think "progressive and regressive" (as related to the marginal rate) carries less value judgement that ("fair and unfair").

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#96

Post by thorncorona »

h3throw wrote: post #41
matt4077 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every word of the article's headline is true, and the facts it contains (subject, object, action, and magnitude) are the most important facts of this story. The reasoning you want to see in the headline is in the first paragraph. If you're interpreting the headline as "Trump is unilaterally fucking up the world order yet again" then that is something that happens entirely in your head . It's somewhat bold to fault ot…

It's all in my head? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19629918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19629960 (now deleted) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19629995 I think wrt NYT, the facts are all true but purpose should also clearly be a part of it. Imagine a headline which said "Trump kills man on White House lawn with Colt .45" and the man was attacking him with a machete. When many (most?) people are a…

I think you're contriving viewpoints that simply aren't there. Nobody is talking about Trump, rather people are enjoying the irony of the US being one of the countries that subsidizes the most yet complaining about other countries.

On another note, I think your headline is fine. After all, surely the secret service is capable of non-lethally incapacitating a man with a machete. But even if not, it's false equivocation.

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#97

Post by stale2002 »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #91
stale2002 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment is referring to ridiculous laws that the EU has passed. The law in question includes things like a link tax, which is pretty ridiculous, IMO, as is the copyright fines that they have. The rest of your comment is merely a "the law is the law!" kind of justification. Yes, the law is the law. And I gave reasons as for why these laws are ridiculous, as per the original comment. I can recognize that a…

> US trade tariffs are also the law Except they aren't. WTO treaty obligations for equitable treatment of other nations (MFN obligations) supersede local laws. Overriding arbitrary local laws is the whole point of the WTO, and of every other trade treaty. The only way these tariffs work is Trump pulling the "national security emergency" card -- and obviously 'punishing' the EU for building better planes isn't a natio…

> The only way these tariffs work is Trump pulling the "national security emergency" card

So it is the law then. Too bad, so sad, but the law allows this.

It sounds like you just disagree with the law. But that's the law!

> worth dismantling the WTO over.

And nothing is worth dismantling the free and open internet with oppressive copyright laws.

So, I can use that exact same argument against the EU's horrible laws.

Re: U.S. Readies $11B in Tariffs on E.U

#98

Post by olliej »

stunt wrote: post #89
olliej wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other countries are going to start ignoring FAA safety rulings now, so meaning that in exchange for a short term monetary gain a bunch of politicians and executives will probably cause significant long term costs - although the people who made those decisions and took those bribes won't have to pay for those consequences, they've already got there's :-/

How many time it has to happen until we learn it. Every time an industry is left unwatched crisis happens because there is always short term monetary gain for a bunch of executives. It was the same thing with SCC going blind about big banks before 2008. FAA - Boeing relationship is an example of SCC - BigBanks relationship before 2008.

this is (slightly) less of a problem in other countries than the US. The real problem in the US is that after they demonstrably screw everyone else over, politicians pass many questionably effective laws - and then immediately start rolling it all back because "regulation hurts Americans".

In the EU GDPR was a response to the abject failure of companies to actually self regulate - there was an actual consequence of a failure of self-regulation: the GDPR adding financial penalties for abusing consumers.

If the companies had actually self regulated, and actually self-limited their collection of data, and if only they hadn't sold off everyone's data to anyone and everyone, then they wouldn't have to deal with the GDPR.

So if the companies think it /is/ too aggressive, they've only got themselves to fault.

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