If you eliminate capital gains.

your problem is you do not even know what a bubble is....just because something goes up doesnt necessarily mean its a bubble, it depends on why it rises......case in point.......in alberta housing is booming, why? because of the oilsands.....this is a real and new asset that has been developed.....oh sure if oil falls then the housing may slow but not collapse because the boom was not from the printing press but rather from a new resource developed. Now had it risen from just low interest rates and nothing else then yes....thats a bubble!

 

Your very cite states that there weren’t 8M jobs created, 8M in 8 years is < Carter in 4, so the point was made by you that GWB created a lot of jobs when he failed. Your talking point is weak. You wanna brag 375k jobs per year, be my guest.

No citation, that’s a laugher, virtually all my posts have multiple citations, I think you have it reversed. Technically there was no Clinton recession, as there weren’t 2 consecutive Q’s of negative GDP growth. The NBER does cite a very short and shallow recessions regardless, however, but even with all that the GDP never went 2 consecutive Q’s of negative GDP growth and whatever slight recession there was mainly limited to the NASDAQ sector.

So for real debt data, not incomes as he’s eluding to. Remember, that was the argument, the debt increase over GWB’s terms?

You cite states:

The first would be on the theory that President Clinton should be charged for that year (just as Bush should be charged with 2009, the first year of the Obama administration). The second is on less solid ground, but let's consider it for the sake of argument.

OK, so we’ll start FY starting Oct 2001:

09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2009 11,909,829,003,511.75

That’s $6.1T, even worse than the 4.9T from Jan 01 to Jan 09. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Jan 01 to Jan 09, really a favor to GWB considering he inherited a balanced budget and stable debt picture vs. left a debt that increased >$1T in GWB’s last year alone, so that factor alone favors his position as far as debt increase:

01/19/2001 5,727,776,738,304.64

01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08

So there’s your 4.9T gain in DEBT. Your cite, which you carelessly googled and just posted talks of incomes and if their RW opinion is that these tax cuts helped, doesn’t address the gross debt as I was referring to.

Laughably, your own citation states:

The tax cuts did not spur investment.

- Job growth in the George W. Bush years was one-seventh that of the Clinton years. - - Nixon and Ford did better than Bush on jobs.

- Wages fell during the last administration. Average incomes fell.

- The number of Americans in poverty, as officially measured, hit a 16-year high last year of 43.6 million, though a National Academy of Sciences study says that the real poverty figure is closer to 51 million. Food banks are swamped.

- Foreclosure signs are everywhere.

- Americans and their governments are drowning in debt.

- And at the nexus of tax and healthcare, Republican ideas perpetuate a cruel and immoral system that rations healthcare -- while consuming every sixth dollar in the economy and making businesses, especially small businesses, less efficient and less profitable.

- The evidence is in, and it shows beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts failed to achieve the promised goals.

- Our government, the basis of our freedoms, is spewing red ink, and the Republican solution is to spill ever more.

The word, “debt” comes up once in this article, and it refers to state debt not the national debt, you just read 2.7 trillion and thought it was the national debt.

The inflation, actually stagflation was a product of the OPEC squeeeze, are you old enough to remember that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

A quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC coupled with high government spending because of the Vietnam War led to stagflation in the United States.[38] The period was also marked by the 1973 oil crisis and the 1973–1974 stock market crash. The period is remarkable for rising unemployment coinciding with rising inflation.[39]

The NBER considers a short recession to have occurred in 1980, followed by a short period of growth and then a deep recession. Unemployment remained relatively elevated in between recessions. The recession began as the Federal Reserve, under Paul Volcker, raised interest rates dramatically to fight the inflation of the 1970s. The early '80s are sometimes referred to as a "double-dip" or "W-shaped" recession.[30][40]

The Iranian Revolution sharply increased the price of oil around the world in 1979, causing the 1979 energy crisis. This was caused by the new regime in power in Iran, which exported oil at inconsistent intervals and at a lower volume, forcing prices up. Tight monetary policy in the United States to control inflation led to another recession. The changes were made largely because of inflation carried over from the previous decade because of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis.[41][42]
So the period from 1973 to into the early 80’s were mired with OPEC squeezing prices of pil, so there were no Carter policies or Nixon/Ford policies that caused the 70’s mess, we were really prisoners of our own oil greed and that’s what caused stagflation,not Carter’s policies.

It wasn’t Carter’s recession, it was the OPEC mess, not more attributable to Carter than it would be Nixon or Ford.

The Cold War started just after WWII and ended under GHWB’s term, yet fascist Ronnie gets credit for it; amazing. All he did was to deficit spend like no one else for 8 years under the guise of a war with the USSR who had no interest in that with us.

Let’s examine what our supposed enemy was:

- In WWII the USSR had a weak military so under the lend lease act of 1940 we gave them some military supplies as well as much of Western Europe to fight Germany, Italy and others.

- By FR’s term in 1981, the USSR had 2 aircraft carriers, very antique and pathetic, by then we had built, had sunk, decommissioned over 80 aircraft carriers, the first in 1922. If you want to attack someone in a conventional manner you need a navy with acft carriers and they had little of either.

- The USSR had a non-aggression pact with Japan going into WWII, as they saw us kicking Japan’s ass and the 3 days between Aug 6 -9, 1945 they declared war against Japan, as they saw us drop the first bomb. So the USSR has coat tailed us forever an were militarily a joke as compared to the US, esp in the sense of, “reach out and touch.”

- The USSR was so pathetic militarily in 1981 that they were embroiled in the Afghanistan mess, lost 20k troops and lost the war; they couldn’t even beat a weak opponent like the Afghanistan.

- In the 80’s, the Russian people were getting a good share of their grain from us, so why would they attack us? It makes no sense.

- If you think the USSR was a threat in the 80’s, then you give Communism credit as a fiscal policy. I don’t, I think Communism might be a more social approach to life, it’s a disaster in most economic settings. Apparently you think it’s viable, hence the need for a cold war.

So Cold War? Yea, it was a 1-sided thing, FR was so deluded that he fought an administrative war with a ghost enemy, the USSR had no interest in fighting a conventional war with a militarily superior adversary.

Neo-fascism, corporatism, it isn’t that hard. (BTW, quit talking of other people’s spelling)

 

So we have a bevy of excuses. You agree that Reagan’s job growth was dismal as compared to Clinton’s or even Carter’s. The real kicker is that the debt was still stable under Carter’s term even with OPEC squeezing the crap out of us all thru the 70’s. Reagan threw us into the highest unemp since the GD with his fiscal policies aimed at benefiting the rich, hard to dispute that.

As for worst attack in history, hope you’re not blaming that on Clinton considering GWB did nothing to enhance security in the 8 months he was in office before 911 and took off the month of August 2001 vacationing.

As for disasters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_disasters_by_death_toll

Not to undermine Katrina, but it was the 9th worth disaster, but it sounds good to defend your hero that it was the worst. Of course if we count GWB, that makes him the worst disaster in US history.

The Clinton recession was so short, brief and limited that it’s hardly worth mentioning. There were no 2 consecutive Q’s of negtaive GDP growth and absent 911, as the NBER states, there might have been no recession at all. Unemp as Clinton left was 4.2% http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

The 1990s were the longest period of growth in American history. The collapse of the speculative dot-com bubble, a fall in business outlays and investments, and the September 11th attacks,[46] brought the decade of growth to an end. Despite these major shocks, the recession was brief and shallow.[47] Without the September 11th attacks, the economy might have avoided recession altogether.[46]

So back to the point here: Carter and Clinton had high job growth rates, Reagan and GWB did not. Carter and Clinton left descent economic pictures, not having runaway debt, massive unemployment, etc. Reagan and GWB left the worst economic mess in history absent the 3 Republicans of the 1920’s.

The debt was stable, unemp was 7.5% and fairly stable, inflation was high. As compared to what Reagan left, GHWB left, GWB left it was a vacation. Actually Carter inherited 7.5% unemp too, he inherited stagflation and all the mess. Altho he was a do-nothing president, I don’t defend him, he didn’t make it better or worse, he didn’t throw into the crapper on radical policy as Reagan did. Reagan’s radical policy threw unemp to 10.8%. Stagflation was there long before Carter, it was from OPEC and even changed our automotive design to economical cars, look at the mustang and many small crappy cars that started manufacture long before Carter was president all due to OPEC.

Yes, he turned the debt around to be greatly huge, never have we spent like drunken sailors in a time of peace other than under Reagan.

 

I don't care to get into the semantics of a bubble or not, simply tell us WHEN THERE HAS BEEN A MAJOR FEDERAL TAX CUT THAT YOU CAN IMPROVED THE ECONOMY OVERALL.

I won't wait up late.

 

in the 1980's

 

why should wages be taxed on his "income" and gains not taxed as "income" ?

Does the money spend any differently ?

 

Someone finally bit, it's been years in the waiting.

So, you say:

- Tripling the debt

- Shifting the wealth at an inordinate rate not seen since the Great Republican Depression

- Add jobs at slower rate than even Carter all while stimulus spending for 8 straight years.

- Taking a stable debt picture at 940B, leaving 2.6T for GHWB, him adding 1T and even Clinton adding 1.5T in 8 years before he could finally tame it and bring it back to virtually balanced; A grand tally of going from 960B to 5.5T before subsequent presidents could tame it


So you say that was a beneficial era and set of tax cuts? You may have made money then, but I was looking for a tax cut(s) that were benefical to the nation. It doesn't take a genuis to see that this set the stage for dumber than rocks President 43 to follow in fascist Ronnies' footsteps and:

- Lower taxes
- Bust unions
- Add a dismal 375K jobs/yr over 8 years
- Shift wealth
- Add 4.9T to the debt in 8 years

No where, not even the Great Republican Depression have we ever spanked the debt like that, not even during WWII when we had a need, yet you say it was good.

See, now I'd like an explanation, but I will get 3 or 4 words and an emoticon, then you wonder why the kids think your party, your ideologies are a joke.

 

It's a break for investors. I mean, that shows what a corporatist nation we are, we give them one more break. I agree, it should all be taxed as income.

 

People respond to incentives. Capital investments are important component of the Economy. It's difficult to hide from income taxes (relatively speaking), its not hard to NOT invest your money in stocks because of taxes.

 

so tax my wages at 15%, and see how much I have left over invest.

Or is there something special about their money ? Does it invest better ?

 

OK, so if a person didn't invest in stocks, they would invest elsewhere or possibly spend it. Face the facts, lower taxes on investments are a way to give yet another advantage to the rich, who comprise most of the stock investors.

 

kind of funny how we incentivize those with wealth, and tax those without.
So clever, only a rich man could have invented our progressive income tax code.

 

I do not want to get rid of capital gains, but I think it should be inflation adjusted. If you buy a house, then sell it 5 years later after there has been 15% inflation, you should NOT have to pay capital gains tax on it if it did not actually increase in value.

 

Are you telling me that people are not investing overseas right now? If they want to bring their cash back into this country, they're going to have to pony up.

 

A house should be figured on real cost.

My math may be a little off but just off the top of my head I think it is pretty close.

If you buy a home at 100,000 dollars at 7.5 percent interest on a thirty year mortgage you pay about 300,000 for the house. So if you buy it at a hundred thousand and sell it at 200,000 thirty years later you should not be taxed on it because the deal has cost you 100,000 dollars.

If you make money on it you should pay the tax...but only on the money you actually make on the house.

 

It's not "their" money. It's all investors. I have most of my net worth invested in the stockmarket and I'm a student being supported by my Veteran's benefits. The difference is that investment is important to the economy. I could have taken my money and purchased a new car when I got back from Iraq, as most of my peers did. Instead, I invested it and have been earning a return. The money I invested has provided capital for companies (or helped build the market for capital in secondary transactions). In economics, savings are very important. The U.S. has a severe problem with debt, both government and personal. Increasing capital gains taxes DISCOURAGEs saving and infact promotes spending. Why shouldn't I just buy that car if my savings are going to be eroded by inflation in some crappy bond?

 

spending is very important to an economy

the money I purchase goods and services with provides capital for companies.

i don't advocate increasing capital gains, I advocate decreasing my income tax rate to the capital gains rate.

 

True, but it is their game and they do pay most of the taxes, thing is wealth disparity is still growing, so taxes aren't high enough.

 

Yea, esp for houses < 250k.

 

Well, you've already written off that interest. I think that's an area that is ok teh way it is, we need to pump corporate tax and income tax.

 

No it's not, stock market investments aren't as important as investments into the street, if you will. You investments might give you a return, but they don't translate to immediate jobs. You have capital investment vs job growth investment; don't fool yourself, your stock investments mean little to GDP growth.

 

if I have $100K and pay 35% while my neighbor has $1 million and pays 15%, cumulatively he pays the bulk of the taxes.

.........who got raped ?

.

 

establishing a cause and effect relation ship between a single variable, the tax rate, and anything that followed, in a complex multi variable system, ten years out from the abolition of Bretton Woods, is a tall order.