aapl
fire starter
Posts: 186
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Post by aapl on Mar 4, 2024 8:13:30 GMT -8
Looks like a good day to gift some shares to the Grandkids and do some more Roth Conversions as AAPL is down a ton due to EU imposing a $1.9B fine. Apple will surely appeal but it looks like the market needed a reason to do more selling: 174.60 -$5.06 (-2.82%)
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,186
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Post by JDSoCal on Mar 4, 2024 8:20:26 GMT -8
Obviously a protectionist shakedown by Europe, an envious innovation graveyard. Well they will have a protectionist US administration to deal with in about 10 months. Help is on the way!
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aapl
fire starter
Posts: 186
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Post by aapl on Mar 4, 2024 8:41:44 GMT -8
New M3 MacBook Air's announced by press release. Many AI references in it. I expect more AI tidbits to be dropped from now till WWDC in June. Press release here: link
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Ted
fire starter
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Post by Ted on Mar 4, 2024 8:56:03 GMT -8
Obviously a protectionist shakedown by Europe, an envious innovation graveyard. Well they will have a protectionist US administration to deal with in about 10 months. Help is on the way! Um, no. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.htmlExcerpts: "A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap “holds almost regardless of how you define success,” two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as “startlingly large.” The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since. One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves. Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch. But if the causes are not fully clear, the pattern is. The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century. And as Ms. Wanamaker said, “Administrations do certainly have the ability to affect economic outcomes.”"
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chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,432
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Post by chinacat on Mar 4, 2024 9:45:46 GMT -8
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Post by Luckychoices on Mar 4, 2024 10:26:30 GMT -8
Obviously a protectionist shakedown by Europe, an envious innovation graveyard. Well they will have a protectionist US administration to deal with in about 10 months. Help is on the way! Um, no. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.htmlExcerpts: "A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap “holds almost regardless of how you define success,” two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as “startlingly large.” The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since. One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves. Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch. But if the causes are not fully clear, the pattern is. The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century. And as Ms. Wanamaker said, “Administrations do certainly have the ability to affect economic outcomes.”" Now, Ted...don't be unreasonable. Having a person at the top of the administration, who's admires both Putin AND Kim Jong Un,...and has actually *negotiated* with Kim Jong Un, may be a good thing in the long run for both the U.S. and Apple. Maybe the U.S. needs someone unhampered by laws...someone who has friends in high courts places. Besides, I think it's always best to not respond to trolls.
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Post by Lstream on Mar 4, 2024 11:03:56 GMT -8
My practical question on all of this, is how a protectionist administration is going to help Apple anyway?
I’m not seeing it. What would the response be? Get tough on Nokia?
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Post by hledgard on Mar 4, 2024 11:48:21 GMT -8
There is a missing piece of data here, related to "lead time".
It is possible the Republican administrations set in action changes that encouraged future growth. The subsequent years, with Democratic administrations, may have thus benefitted.
I am not stating the above as a fact. But the argument above, as stated about administrations, is just not at all necessarily true !
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Ted
fire starter
Posts: 882
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Post by Ted on Mar 4, 2024 12:20:42 GMT -8
There is a missing piece of data here, related to "lead time". It is possible the Republican administrations set in action changes that encouraged future growth. The subsequent years, with Democratic administrations, may have thus benefitted. I am not stating the above as a fact. But the argument above about administrations is just not at all necessarily true ! Really ! From that article: "It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office." So you're saying that any boost to the economy that may have happened under trump is attributable to Obama? Or that the COVID economic stimulus that trump started benefited the Biden economy, despite the GOP's blaming rampant inflation on the stimulus package that Biden continued?
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Post by hledgard on Mar 4, 2024 13:23:41 GMT -8
The observation may well be true. The real cause of the observation may relate to a number of factors.
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Post by macster on Mar 4, 2024 14:02:22 GMT -8
Obviously a protectionist shakedown by Europe, an envious innovation graveyard. Well they will have a protectionist US administration to deal with in about 10 months. Help is on the way! Um, no. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.htmlExcerpts: "A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap “holds almost regardless of how you define success,” two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as “startlingly large.” The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since. One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves. Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch. But if the causes are not fully clear, the pattern is. The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century. And as Ms. Wanamaker said, “Administrations do certainly have the ability to affect economic outcomes.”" New York Times lost its cred long ago. Nothing in that article is sourced. Besides beyond legit sources one must consider the geo political economic situations 1. Under Obama the average growth to the GDP was 1.5%. Under Trump in average was 2.6. President Obama is the only president since Herbert Hoover to not have guided the US economy to 3 percent growth in any year he was in office. Steady anemic growth you can give him that. The US economy grew 1.6 percent in 2016 from the previous years, according to the Commerce Department, which tracks GDP. Obama’s best year, as far as growing the economy, was 2015 when it grew 2.6 percent from 2014 — after growing 2.4 percent that year from 2013. 2. The unemployment was the result of Pandemic in Trumps last year 2020. Facts are the economy was booming pre covid because of his economic policies and was pivotal in boosting the economy post covid, the old jobs lost to lockdowns, new manufacturing jobs (Trump initiatives) and new jobs during 2021 and 2022. Biden didn’t build that. 3. Trump administration spent billions in the first & 2nd quarter 2020. It was called Warp Speed. Supplies such as Iron lungs, masks and other medical equipment were manufactured as a war setting initiative here at home and sent all over the world. It wasn’t Trump that sent Covid infected people into old age homes, it was Democrat governors. Not to mention how democrats were against cutting travel from China. Not to mention billions given the Pharmaceutical industry that brought us vaccines that were fast tracked worldwide but only came online in the spring of 2021, Biden was president. Brought the world back from the brink and Biden did not build that. 4. The deficit did increase but remember the defense budget increased, the result of 8 years of neglect where military readiness was at its worst in 2016. Add that to the trillion spent on Covid and the trade wars expenses, the result of 30 years of unfair trade wars. Nevertheless brought about having Mexico pay for the wall through increases Mexico encountered by the Trade agreements between North American partners. Sources? Observable facts
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,657
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Post by 4aapl on Mar 4, 2024 14:28:23 GMT -8
I guess we have to get this out of our system? Better now than in 6 months.
If we assume the economy mostly just does it's thing, and it doesn't much matter what party is "in power", you could see the slight political party preference (most times the race is not a landslide) to be a trailing indicator. When things have already been going well for a while there could be a slight shift based around people wanting to keep more of their increased money, while if things are bad for a while a few more people want more programs to help them out a bit more. But the lag in that system, if it is at all right, would not be months but years and years. Probably 3-4 years for things to push far enough one way or another, but with a 4 years presidential cycle that would add an average of 2 years, not including any extra for the preference of keeping a president for 8 straight years.
Maybe that shifts things? Or maybe that's too much noise and delay. Either way, I always find it funny when someone is in the office for a year, but tries to take credit for huge cycles that are happening in most countries around the world. Or the opposite, blaming someone for a huge global problem.
Oh well, most complex systems are not easy.
You guys do your thing, and get it out of your system so we can get back on track. I skipped the market and played in the new snow for a bit, but now need to deal with more of it.
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Post by Luckychoices on Mar 4, 2024 15:17:34 GMT -8
Um, no. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.htmlExcerpts: "A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap “holds almost regardless of how you define success,” two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as “startlingly large.” The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since. One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves. Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch. But if the causes are not fully clear, the pattern is. The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century. And as Ms. Wanamaker said, “Administrations do certainly have the ability to affect economic outcomes.”" New York Times lost its cred long ago. Nothing in that article is sourced. Besides beyond legit sources one must consider the geo political economic situations 1. Under Obama the average growth to the GDP was 1.5%. Under Trump in average was 2.6. President Obama is the only president since Herbert Hoover to not have guided the US economy to 3 percent growth in any year he was in office. Steady anemic growth you can give him that. The US economy grew 1.6 percent in 2016 from the previous years, according to the Commerce Department, which tracks GDP. Obama’s best year, as far as growing the economy, was 2015 when it grew 2.6 percent from 2014 — after growing 2.4 percent that year from 2013. 2. The unemployment was the result of Pandemic in Trumps last year 2020. Facts are the economy was booming pre covid because of his economic policies and was pivotal in boosting the economy post covid, the old jobs lost to lockdowns, new manufacturing jobs (Trump initiatives) and new jobs during 2021 and 2022. Biden didn’t build that. 3. Trump administration spent billions in the first & 2nd quarter 2020. It was called Warp Speed. Supplies such as Iron lungs, masks and other medical equipment were manufactured as a war setting initiative here at home and sent all over the world. It wasn’t Trump that sent Covid infected people into old age homes, it was Democrat governors. Not to mention how democrats were against cutting travel from China. Not to mention billions given the Pharmaceutical industry that brought us vaccines that were fast tracked worldwide but only came online in the spring of 2021, Biden was president. Brought the world back from the brink and Biden did not build that. 4. The deficit did increase but remember the defense budget increased, the result of 8 years of neglect where military readiness was at its worst in 2016. Add that to the trillion spent on Covid and the trade wars expenses, the result of 30 years of unfair trade wars. Nevertheless brought about having Mexico pay for the wall through increases Mexico encountered by the Trade agreements between North American partners. Sources? Observable facts Well, thanks goodness someone is speaking up about Trump's insight into COVID and the pandemic...he *knew* it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. Sure, he missed out on the extent of COVID-related deaths...but, *damn* was that a strong economy from 2017-2020.
And after all, a strong economy is much more important to one's way of live than something like taxes, amirite? Trump’s tax cuts helped billionaires pay less than the working class for first timeEconomists calculate richest 400 families in US paid an average tax rate of 23% while the bottom half of households paid a rate of 24.2%
Thanks to the controversial tax package the top 0.1% of US households were granted a 2.5% tax cut that pushed their rate below that of the lower 50% of US earners.========================= 'It's going to disappear': A timeline of Trump's claims that Covid-19 will vanishTrump’s Statements About the Coronavirus“This is a pandemic,” President Donald Trump said at a March 17 press conference. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
While it’s not possible to know what Trump “felt,” there’s no doubt that Trump had minimized the threat of the new coronavirus for weeks in statement after statement.
Here’s what the president said in public remarks, interviews and tweets from Jan. 22 to March 10 -– one day before the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak a pandemic.
Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” — Trump in a CNBC interview.
Jan. 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five — and those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us … that I can assure you.” — Trump in a speech in Michigan.
Feb. 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” — Trump at the White House. (See our item “Will the New Coronavirus ‘Go Away’ in April?“)
Feb. 14: “There’s a theory that, in April, when it gets warm — historically, that has been able to kill the virus. So we don’t know yet; we’re not sure yet. But that’s around the corner.” — Trump in speaking to National Border Patrol Council members.
Feb. 23: “We have it very much under control in this country.” — Trump in speaking to reporters.
Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” — Trump in a tweet.
Feb. 26: “So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.” — Trump at a White House briefing.
Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” — Trump at a press conference.
Feb. 26: “I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” — Trump at a press conference, when asked if “U.S. schools should be preparing for a coronavirus spreading.”
Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” — Trump at a White House meeting with African American leaders.
Feb. 29: “And I’ve gotten to know these professionals. They’re incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control.” — Trump in a speech at the CPAC conference outside Washington, D.C.
March 4: “[W]e have a very small number of people in this country [infected]. We have a big country. The biggest impact we had was when we took the 40-plus people [from a cruise ship]. … We brought them back. We immediately quarantined them. But you add that to the numbers. But if you don’t add that to the numbers, we’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” — Trump at a White House meeting with airline CEOs.
March 4: “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” — Trump in an interview on Fox News, referring to the percentage of diagnosed COVID-19 patients worldwide who had died, as reported by the World Health Organization. (See our item “Trump and the Coronavirus Death Rate.”)
March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.” — Trump, when asked by reporters if he was concerned about the arrival of the coronavirus in the Washington, D.C., area.
March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” — Trump in a tweet.
March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” — Trump after meeting with Republican senators.
A day later, on March 11, the WHO declared the global outbreak a pandemic.
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Ted
fire starter
Posts: 882
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Post by Ted on Mar 4, 2024 16:25:52 GMT -8
Um, no. www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.htmlExcerpts: "A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap “holds almost regardless of how you define success,” two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as “startlingly large.” The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since. One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves. Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch. But if the causes are not fully clear, the pattern is. The American economy has performed much better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, over both the last few decades and the last century. And as Ms. Wanamaker said, “Administrations do certainly have the ability to affect economic outcomes.”" New York Times lost its cred long ago. Nothing in that article is sourced. Besides beyond legit sources one must consider the geo political economic situations 1. Under Obama the average growth to the GDP was 1.5%. Under Trump in average was 2.6. President Obama is the only president since Herbert Hoover to not have guided the US economy to 3 percent growth in any year he was in office. Steady anemic growth you can give him that. The US economy grew 1.6 percent in 2016 from the previous years, according to the Commerce Department, which tracks GDP. Obama’s best year, as far as growing the economy, was 2015 when it grew 2.6 percent from 2014 — after growing 2.4 percent that year from 2013. 2. The unemployment was the result of Pandemic in Trumps last year 2020. Facts are the economy was booming pre covid because of his economic policies and was pivotal in boosting the economy post covid, the old jobs lost to lockdowns, new manufacturing jobs (Trump initiatives) and new jobs during 2021 and 2022. Biden didn’t build that. 3. Trump administration spent billions in the first & 2nd quarter 2020. It was called Warp Speed. Supplies such as Iron lungs, masks and other medical equipment were manufactured as a war setting initiative here at home and sent all over the world. It wasn’t Trump that sent Covid infected people into old age homes, it was Democrat governors. Not to mention how democrats were against cutting travel from China. Not to mention billions given the Pharmaceutical industry that brought us vaccines that were fast tracked worldwide but only came online in the spring of 2021, Biden was president. Brought the world back from the brink and Biden did not build that. 4. The deficit did increase but remember the defense budget increased, the result of 8 years of neglect where military readiness was at its worst in 2016. Add that to the trillion spent on Covid and the trade wars expenses, the result of 30 years of unfair trade wars. Nevertheless brought about having Mexico pay for the wall through increases Mexico encountered by the Trade agreements between North American partners. Sources? Observable facts For the record: I don't know where you get your numbers, but here's a chart of the economy during the Obama years. He inherited the 2008 recession and did just fine after he righted the ship. www.thebalancemoney.com/gdp-growth-by-president-highs-lows-averages-4801102I don't know if these charts will work, just in case, for Obama's GDP growth: 2009 and on, -2.6%, 2.7%, 1.5%, 2.3%, 1.8%, 2.3%, 2.7%, 1.7% for an average of 1.55% And here are the Trump years: From 2017, 2.3%, 2.9%, 2.3% and -3.4% for an average GDP growth of 1.025%... EDIT: The charts didn't work, but you can access them at that site, the first one that came up for me in a search.
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,657
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Post by 4aapl on Mar 4, 2024 18:09:34 GMT -8
So that article used a book as its reference. That's fine and dandy, but I'm not going to read a book to check the references and see how they came up with their numbers. It seems like there is a problem there, since most tax things talk about nearly 50% of families not paying anything in federal income tax. Based on that, one would assume (without reading their book) that they must be basing it on a wider system than just federal income taxes, while also finding it interesting that this article is from the Guardian, and the link for the book ends in .uk. (It says the authors are at UC Berkley) There are a few tricks that past articles have done that state that low income families pay more in taxes than high income people. The first is the ambiguity between a percentage and overall units (dollars, but this is coming from the UK, so use your units of choice). Maybe 15 years back I had a year where I wrote a mid six figure check to the IRS. Just in that one year my federal income taxes were more than 80 or even 90% of people pay in their lifetimes. And that's fine. That's how the system works. And it benefits all of us in the US. But trying to get people up in arms over things being unfair in the US, by a media company in a foreign country? How many steps different is that from some .ru people creating stuff on Facebook to try to push a presidential election? And so they try to look at the overall tax burden across all things, from your vehicle registration to your property taxes and your sales tax. And that makes sense, since this is all paying for something, whereas there is some limit to how many cars and houses someone owns. There are exceptions, like Jay Leno and his fleet of cars. But if you don't worry about those edge cases, someone making 10x or 100x the median of the lower 50% of income probably doesn't have 10x or 100x the cars or houses. But the widespread "study" did something tricky. They added in social security, and I think even added in the employeer half of social security. And that completely skewed the data for 2 reasons. The first is that social security stops taxing people at some level, and doesn't tax capital gains, so there is a significant overall percentage difference for low, moderate, or normal income levels, vs anyone making a lot. But the second is that they didn't take into account that people get back more than they put in, and lower income levels get an even higher return on what was "taxed". It's basically a forced savings plan, but the less you put in, the higher the percentage return that you get. But the "study" didn't take this into account. Instead it was just part of their "taxes", which lifted the level a bit. And instead of just saying "hey, the people making a lower income are having a lot taken out of their current paychecks", it instead was framed that "these low income folks are being screwed, and paying more in taxes than those billionaires and other well off people". A friend of ours, who made some great gains in the stock from a company she used to work with, said she can think of taxes in a positive light by thinking of all of the schools and roads her taxes must be paying for. I guess I'm just tired of so many people thinking that others aren't paying their "fair share", when really we are coming together as a whole and paying for all of these great things. And if we all realize we have skin in the game, maybe we all come together and see what greatness we can focus on, instead of thinking that someone else is screwing the system. (EDIT: I'll just add this here, in case anyone cares but also not having it ping as a new response. I got the book. Our library had it, even sitting on the shelf at our branch. Yes, this is the group that got everyone excited, where they add both sides of payroll taxes, but don't care that you get something back from it. I've only read the intro so far, but... In the fact checking of the State of the Union address, CNN mentions this study (because the 23% they found is a whole lot more than the 8.2% Biden stated), but then gave the findings of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/are-federal-taxes-progressive) Even with looking at the Effective Federal Tax rates, adding in a variety of things, they find that the top 1% or 0.1% pay the top rates, of about 30%. When breaking out the parts, they find that it is only with excise taxes (like alcohol and tobacco) and payroll taxes (SS and medicare) that the distribution is not progressive. www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/politics/fact-check-joe-biden-state-of-the-union/index.htmlFWIW they also include the payroll taxes, but only the employee's side. But they mention that some take issue with this, due to not including anything of the eventual distribution. From page 7, Personally, it doesn't matter much to me, except that I don't want people using fake or altered data to sway the public. If you want the people that make lots of money or have lots of money to pay more, fine. Say it and support it. But don't make up false data. And while this particular time my gripe is with Biden saying this about taxes, it's not just about any one person or one party. Incidentally, besides the payroll taxes, these 10 sections on the Tax Policy Center's page seem to do a decent job of giving thought out responses. The corporate tax part was interesting, with a 20/80 split of increases/reduced income hitting employees/investors, with thoughts about how that would play through the system and change investment preferences, and then how those investment preferences would affect things, including net taxes. Most of these things are complex. It's nice to see things that look more than one level deep, and that even consider employees being affected. Anyways, sorry about posting all of that, but I thought it should be here. I don't mind someone feeling and stating that some group should pay more or less taxes. But selling it to others based on false or misleading data just doesn't seem right, and the study by the 2 from UC Berkley seems to get cited often. I'll still at least flip through their book, since they also promise to offer a way to help even the playing field. But it's good to see the tax center at least mention that their figures don't take into account the associated benefits of the payroll taxes, even if they buried it in a footnote and didn't give reasoning. Just like I am trying to bury this in an edit, making the info available if someone really cares, but trying to not restart the potentially political conversation)
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,186
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Post by JDSoCal on Mar 5, 2024 9:00:49 GMT -8
My practical question on all of this, is how a protectionist administration is going to help Apple anyway? I’m not seeing it. What would the response be? Get tough on Nokia? Someone rambled about the president affecting economy, which he can of course, but which wasn’t my point. Of course a protectionist president looking out for domestic companies can make an impact on what the EU is doing, especially when he had a track record of tariffs and other powers. What the EU is trying with Apple is both protectionist and a money grab. Hit them in their pocket books if they want to try to mess with US investors. Also, another reason to make these eurotards pay their fair share of their own defense.
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